Not much activity in this thread. It looked like it might be promising.
It doesn’t bring enough to the table to separate it from many of the other 4X releases right now. Shame, it’s not a BAD game, if it came out when fewer 4X games were coming out, it might stick out more, alas…
So the DLC is out, along with a big patch.
Changelog
- New Configuration options for galaxy generation
- Ability to select which races the AI can pick from
- Fleet Designer
- New fleets management screen
- Automatic fleet build and repair/refit
- Automatic replenishment of fighters for carriers
- Ship role assignment
- Ability to have your transports automatically transport satellites and fighters between systems
- Automated ship upgrading
- Automated ship repairing
- Rally points and automatic rally points
- Build a fleet at a rally point
- Enhancements in the tactical combat behaviour
- Updated pace of the resource depletion
- Updated Resource deposit UI – now shows also the resources reserved for queued builds
I’ll tell you once I know myself. ;)
Available on GOG now.
was thinking about picking up the gold version of this from GoG during sale. Thoughts about the game? Aged well? Good mods to cover the shortcomings?
It’s very much a war game I thought. The focus is on 4X expansion to allow you to design, build and field more ships in the tactical battles.
I still always enjoy booting it up and building new ships!
My memory of it, from the limited amount I played was that I had to field fleets that traversed the star lanes and had fuel requirements, but ai ships would just pop into my system without coming in through the star lane. Been a while though, so my recollection is hazy. The ship design stuff seemed pretty neat though.
I bought this years ago, but lost track of it in the flood of space 4x around its release. For whatever reason, I had the urge to drop a few hours into it this weekend.
It’s a shame they didn’t add any/more events to this - I think a lot of the mechanics are quite good. Its perhaps the only tactical battle system I’ve found interesting in any 4x. The economy, in particular the planet management presets and AI, seem better than average at managing mid to late game planet spam without triggering player OCD over mismanagement. It’s fuel mechanics don’t have the fidelity of Distant Worlds 2, but they are functional and meaningful, so that’s better than nearly all of the competition. And, as often noted, the research system is exceedingly good - better than pretty much any other 4x besides Shadow Empire IMO.
The huge, fatal flaw is the design system. I hate having to design ships with any frequency. I hate having to design them constantly or feel like I’m using old tech. I hate having to fiddle with where this or that component will fit - especially when new components vary in multiple dimensions from the old, which creates a lot of edge cases that aren’t actually meaningful in the design itself. I dislike that part of Star Ruler 2, Stellaris, the list goes on and on. The recent blueprint system in Shadow Empire is about as much as I’ll tolerant, assuming I don’t need to redesign constantly (which that game does a decent job of discouraging). Ideally, I want a system where either I set a few vague preferences that are optimized around, or I define exact components and they are automatically upgraded as I finish new research. Unfortunately, the very fiddly design system in Polaris Sector is unforgiveable for me. Others may love it.
I partly played through a few games of this over the weekend. I haven’t played in years and I enjoyed it more than I remember.
I agree completely with you second paragraph, although I’ve never played Shadow Empire (its is in my giant pile of unplayed games though).
I kinda like the ship design part, although not being able to rotate parts is annoying. Its like a puzzle. And, I like how slow the game plays out, makes every tech feel important.
I do wish the combat feedback was better though, it is hard to tell why my fleets are successful or not. I do think the feedback on combat is better than SOTS, Stellaris, or DW2 though from what I remember.
My biggest complaint in this replay is the map, my current game I’m in the galaxy core and it is so busy with stars and ships everywhere, it is difficult to keep track of what’s important. If that was more clear, maybe like ISG, that would be a big improvement.
I assume development is long done on this, maybe they’ll do a better version someday.