Space Rangers HD next week on Steam!

Thanks for making my day! I’ve been looking forward to this since it was announced almost a year-and-a-half ago.

The original English releases for SR2 and the expansion had fewer text based missions than the Russian versions. I hope, with all time time the took for the translation, this time around we’ll have all the missing missions.

What?! I don’t even see it in Steam yet. I’m jealous!

Yeah, same here. Brian may have early access denied to lesser mortals.

As you should be. :)

I bought an import copy as well, way back when, but I got a lot out of it. Even though the game was a lot more difficult without the advanced Search dialog that came with Reboot. Back then, I wrote down a list of what hull names meant in terms of armor, and I had a printed chart showing what models had decent slot combinations. Without that you could show up to look at a promising hull and discover it was a model that didn’t have a repair droid slot, which meant the ship was effectively unusable in combat.

Impression would be appreciated. Adding an entirely new faction seems ambitious though perusing the Google Translated Russian game forums suggests that faction isn’t nearly as well fleshed out as the main one.

I thought this wasn’t releasing until the 17th of October?

Won’t be able to play it until tomorrow.

so why can’t i see this game on steam?

i can actually see it on my phone’s steam, but when i try to open it, it says it is not available in my region.

Is there some region locking bullshit going on here?

Probably - it won’t let me see the trailer because of region lock.

I also found it a bit difficult to get into at first. Among other things, the early game combat can be pretty unforgiving (and thus tedious) if you don’t have a missile launcher or enough speed to outrun the pirates.

I found that restarting my game a few times (and reading some basic gameplay guide info) helped a lot. I can’t remember exactly how the difficulty is controlled during universe generation, but I think you can get stuck in an unlucky corner if there are too many pirates and the dominators are encroaching too quickly/heavily on your starting area. That makes it tough because you have limited trade route options and too few missions. Once you get a bit more practice and some slightly upgraded equipment (allowing you to jump to slightly more distant systems), the game really opens up as far as missions, trade, and profitably are concerned. The game has some weird balance too, such as the RTS missions that can be really disproportionately profitable. Unfortunately, the RTS gameplay is pretty weak imo, so I only wanted to grind through the first few easier missions before the odds just get ridiculous.

The Space Rangers 2 HD trailer gives me the Region Lock message. Does this mean the game proper won’t be available in the US, or is it that we just can’t see the Russian version?

I didn’t find that a problem. The tutorial makes it pretty clear that you’re primarily concerned with making money to get better stuff, and it spells out that there are two primary ways of making money: trades, which you can identify through the Search function looking around at markets, and doing missions. There’s also asteroid mining, but that’s hard to figure out and not that profitable.

I’ve done asteroid mining on Impossible, but only because you get boxed into just a couple of systems by the Dominators, and you quickly exhaust the trading opportunities with so few planets. The tricky bit about the asteroids is that they move slowly in the outer system, and incredibly fast as the approach the sun. Since it’s difficult to be in the right spot in the outer system, it’s mostly about looking at the asteroid plot and intercepting where it will be in a few turns.

I think that’s deliberate, because the time commitment for the RTS missions is very high. So while it doesn’t take any game time, it takes a lot of player time, and the rewards are large for that reason.

I have started this game repeatedly and then die in the tutorial as I recall and give up. Then I read about the game when it is mentioned try again, die again and rinse and repeat.

Yeah, I bought this game as well back in the day, and tried it, and closed it after 5 minutes or so. I just didn’t understand it, nor like most of the gameplay.

Basically, you should start doing the planetary quests (which imply transport, some light combat, RTS missions or text missions) and while you go to point A to B, try to do some light trading. With the rewards, you try to improve your ship and from there it’s easy to get hooked and dynamic stuff start to happen.

Yeah, I absolutely hated the text adventures. I felt that without them, I would have had a much better version of Pirates! in space.

With them, I felt like I was stopping every once in awhile to solve an LSAT puzzle clumsily translated from another language.

I, too, abandoned SR2 fairly soon after the tutorial. I think I did a few missions, upgraded a few components, and it just didn’t grab me.

It’s funny, I had the same problem with SR2. Would roll a new character, do the tutorial, get frustrated with the lack of direction, then stop.

I think Skyrim has reminded me of the rewards of a exploring and just doing whatever, because this game has now clicked with me more than ever before, and it’s mainly down to a couple of reasons:

  1. I found the combination of race (fei) and character type (merchant) I really liked.
  2. I began to use the search function.

Oh that amazing search function. With it you can find anything. ANYTHING. I didn’t even realize this until one of the government folks mentioned it. Then I searched for nearby planets and OMG IT HAS ALL THEIR COMMODITY PRICES, so I can compare what I just bought to local planets and find the best place to sell.

OMG I’ve been having a blast. Got a new ship, have done some missions, skipped the annoying RTS missions, got thrown in jail (I kinda like the text adventures) and so on. For the first time, this game has its hooks in me, and I finally, FINALLY fully get all the hub bub. I mean I got it before because I saw the potential, and I read the stories of other people’s adventures, but I never had the patience to have my own. I think Skyrim has reminded me of that patience that I once had with games like Starflight, and it’s made games like I-War 2 and this click wherein they never had before.

So…yeah, I’m digging it.

Good to hear, but I wish you had dug it the first time around so that those of us who grooved on it originally could hear your impressions of the differences between the new and old versions. Guess we’ll just have to wait another 5-6 days. Grumble.