Endless Space 2

I’ll give that a shot, thanks!

More Vaulters News:

The DLC will include options for ship to ship boarding, as well as ion weapons.

They have 1 colony ship, the Argosy, that recharges over time. It teleports if it is about to be destroyed.

Teleportation will be an important mechanic for them, from one stronghold to another.

They will make use of sacred resources in a way similar to Endless Legend.

They are good at negotiating with pirates.

They call themselves the Aurigans*.

*Mark sheds a single tear for Auriga.

That’s interesting about the pirates. They’re annoying to me, but they’re also the only aggression I ever see, even when I’m next to the Cravers. Granted I’m not playing on the hardest difficulty level but I’ve won on Normal, Hard, and Serious now with different races each time and no game has been close since I figured out how the game works. I’ll try turning them off.

I do like the game but agree with the above opinion that the other races in the galaxy are almost entirely irrelevant. I hope this helps.

Hmmm. So it seems after I paid for the DLC it unlocked, presumably by accident?

So I’ve been playing the Vaulters for the last couple hours. System-to-system teleport is good! Good good good.

I like ES2 a lot. It’s possibly my favorite space 4X. Time to dive back in!

Heads-up, they patched the early access Vaulters out, so if you update you gotta wait til the 25th.

You can still continue any Vaulters games you started though - probably a good decision from the good will standpoint!

Is there a beta signup for it? I saw in their own Games2gether thing you can get points for doing a beta.

I don’t know of one, I gotta sign up for the G2G thing myself.

There was a closed beta (I think I’m allowed to say I was in it!) requiring an NDA etc. But that’s over now… (and I’ve been told I can talk!)

The Vaulters are fun and distinctive. I really like them as a new faction.

[1.2.4] Patch Notes

[FIXES]
“Random tech” rewards from quests and events can no longer grant weapons using strategic resources
Fixed an issue where The Core Cracker module was displayed as “available” in the Ship Design screen for level 1 and 2 Arks
The Coordination Request panel in the end turn window now automatically shows when joining an alliance
Fixed heroes gaining too many levels when received too much experience at once
Fixed an issue where Military Stage IV unlock notification only shows 4 of its 6 unlocks
Fixed an issue where the Ark image in the System Management screen control banner and fleet unit image does not display the upgraded hulls
Fixed an issue where the fleet Action Point icon was not properly displayed
Removed Counter-Offer button in the Diplomatic Interaction Notification when against AI
Fixed an issue where Ark Improvements in the Constructed Improvement Panel were not displaying correct images
Fixed heroes surviving a battle although they’ve been defeated if they were with a Vodyani Ark which was destroyed as well
Fixed a situation where a fleet with 0 ships could appear on AI players
Fixed a rare crash when exiting the game
Fixed AI sometimes spamming other empires with Contextual diplomacy exchanges
Fixed Chroma restrictions to be available and working only with recent Razer SDK versions: 2.7.5 and up. This fixed blocking errors about Message Box
Fixed an issue where the Start Negotiation button in the Minor Faction notification was available even if the minor had been assimilated/killed
Locus of swarm no longer bugs out if the player destroys the fleet and if the battle is considered a draw
Fixed Civilians being able to turn into Privateers
Fixed an issue with the value the Mysterious plague ship quest required for its first objectives
[BALANCE]
Manpower production is now impacted by game speed

So I’ve started a new game with the Vaulters. This DLC is a good excuse to play some more ES2!

I had two things I couldn’t figure out:

Can the Vaulters’ portals be used for trade routes? As I understand it, isolated systems not connected by “space lanes” can’t normally participate in trade routes, and it would be interesting if the Vaulters got around that. I should be able to figure this out on my own pretty soon.

Also, there was a tier 3 or 4 Science and Exploration technology which said that it upgrades the Argosy to Mk. 2, but I couldn’t figure out whether that happened automatically or not, and I didn’t notice any difference in the ship otherwise.

I think it automatically upgrades it to the version that lets it act as a remote portal.

Nope! Trade has to go via normal lanes. This is probably for the best, given trade value is determined by distance and every planet along the way gets a tiny benefit.

I think you should get more slots on the ship. There might be a bug here.

DO you all suggest the game still be played with pirates disabled with the new DLC or should they be OK now?

I’d say it’s all good now! They’ve made a bunch of pirate-centric improvements.

I think pirates are much more interesting and pose a fair challenge now. I used to hate the randomness of pirates, especially just a few turns into a game which usually ended with the loss of my scout. In my 1 game experience with the new pirates mechanic, I’ve been much more satisfied with the interaction.

First of all, they don’t just pop up out of nowhere. Instead, they are established in an unoccupied system where they spawn ships every few turns. You can see at a glance how strong the next fleet will be and when it will show up. These systems usually don’t spawn until I’ve explored a bunch of systems already. This means no more random fleets showing up out of nowhere. Eventually you can form a fleet to go and take out their lair which will remove them from the game, albeit temporarily. More lairs will spawn in unoccupied systems but you can deal with them the same way. You can also deal with them in other ways as well.

You can interact with pirates now. You can support them, making them stronger and less likely to attack you. You can buy a mark (not spelled marque if I remember correctly), encouraging them to attack another faction. You can even form a non-aggression pact (using influence) which will keep them off of your back for about 10 turns.

The AI factions have used pirates to harass me, putting marks on my systems. You can deal with this by “buying out” the mark for dust, or by using influence for NA pacts. I’ve tried using marks on the AI but they were smart enough to have NA pacts of their own with the pirates.

So, if anything, they have made pirates much more interesting and much less of a hassle. I would say try a game with them on, and if they still bother you, turn them off again.

Having played a bunch of games this week before the patch dropped and a couple in the last day, I feel pretty confident in saying that the AI has improved. I don’t know if I’d believe me either, but that is my experience. My opposition has genuinely launched attacks aimed at taking my worlds, and I have had to fight hard to make gains when fighting two of them at once. I think the Cravers have burned themselves out fighting me (and maybe the Vodyani?), so I was able to shift attention and seize a planet from the Lumeris, compelling them to sue for peace. Now, granted this is 1. only on Hard difficulty and 2. there ARE two of them, but it’s still worlds better than it was before.

Just letting you know.

Addendum to the above: part of the War saw the Lumeris launch a massive invasion fleet- with various invasion equips and everything- at my homeworld. I was positively shaken until I remembered we were the Vaulters, and saw my army give at least as good as it got as my reserve fleet came trumpeting through our portal. Not today, frog face! Not today.

I played this during a free weekend and really disliked it. I subsequently forgot I did that and just purchased it for 50% off and loaded it up and remembered all over again how much I didn’t like this game. Back to waiting for GalCiv3: Intrigue and Stellaris 2.0.

This game is just somehow less than the sum of its parts for me. I have no idea why.