Hey guys, we don’t have a thread for this one, but they just announced a publishing deal with Iceberg Interactive, so I figured I’d make one.
StarDrive is a 4X game that also has an action element, as you personally control your flagship in top-down combat. It got funded a while back on Kickstarter, and is looking awesome. I toyed with it a while back, and it was FUN.
To the point of the thread: That planetary display reminds me of a game, but it’s been too long and the Alzheimer’s is probably kicking in today. I think there was some sort of online 4x asteroid-based turn by turn that used almost exactly the same interface, IIRC. Not that I’m saying it’s bad, or anything.
There are a few impressions in the space game all genre discussy thingy thread.
tldr: I don’t want to get too excited, as I haven’t played a long game yet, but so far it’s got all the makings of a great game. Plus it’s got owlwoks. All games should have owlwoks.
I played the beta a while back and wrote a preview on my site based on very positive feelings of the game, but haven’t had time to revisit it since. This gives me the perfect opportunity to do so. :)
Does anyone with playtime have any thoughts on the combat?
I’ve been thinking that Endless space has a (theoretically) good approach to tactical battles because the simplicity and loss of detailed player control means that the AI can (in theory) provide a credible challenge simply by playing a good strategic game and bringing more/bigger/better guns to the fight (plus the AI could rely on a fairly randomized set of basic ‘tactics’ just to keep the battle simulator interesting). This obviously comes at the cost of having neat tactical options, but I’ve decided that I prefer this approach if it lets the developers focus on a better strat game without the need to provide a stellar tactical combat AI.
I only mention this because the basic premise here sounds like it could achieve a similar end by going in a totally different direction.
If the player has only limited control over their fleet, and if their command carrier flagship isn’t wildly overpowered, then it seems like the battles can be a fun way to visualize and experience combat that still depends mostly on the strategic-level decisions…
Looking at their website, it sounds like they intend for the battles to be very arcadey, which doesn’t sound like grand strategy… but maybe they can provide meaningful challenge by making the game very asymmetric. It honestly sounds less like a 4x and more like a sandbox-ish SPAZ.
StarDrive seems pretty good to me. Nice combination of MOO and Distant Worlds in an accessible package. Of course it still has beta -problems, but it is pretty damn polished already.