First, make a Mods folder in the game directory and keep in mind it works as an override. Next, you have to tell the sots.ini what to do with it by adjusting the Modules section
[Modules]
Mount1=Mods\Bastard Sword of the Stars 4.02
Mount2=sots_local_en.gob
Mount3=sots.gob
(Mount1 takes priority over Mount2 and Mount3)
Finally, unzip your BSOTS into its own folder (make sure it’s not a folder-in-a-folder, something we’ve all done when unzipping before) and drop it into your Mods folder.
Welp, tried the BSotS mod and it just didn’t do much for me. Got part way into the campaign and just ran out of gas and turned to other things.
But I’ve resurrected the thread because I’ve decided to start up a new vanilla campaign, guess I was just feeling nostalgic for going cross eyed navigating around in a 3D map. ;)
The race I’ve decided to play are the Tarkas, the galaxy is real space (which in this case just means it’s a randomly apportioned large blob of 101 stars).
Here are our guests of honor for the campaign:
First up is Commander Komodo (me):
Then we have the Hiver with an appropriately designed bug badge:
Then we’ve got the Liir, our aquatic dolphin friends (or at least I’d hope we might be):
The neighborhood bullies in this region of the galaxy are the Zuul:
Our fowl weather friends are the last race, The Morrigi:
You know it’s interesting you mention this because I almost mentioned it myself. I’m playing the Tarkas primarily because I love hearing every single thing they say.
Yeah not sure why I don’t have trouble with any of that. I mean of course the galactic map being 3D means enemies can come at you from all directions, but then that’s part of the charm for me.
Not trying to push you into it, but many complain about the tech tree. I recommend thinking of yourself as standing inside a VR cylinder, and you’re scrolling left and right, up and down until you find what you need (columns are thankfully labelled). The 3D approach is certainly unique and not as easy as the standard 2D approach, but it works for me with that mindset. Even then, I’d prefer top-down growth instead of bottom-up.
Yeah, I know how it works. It’s shit and it sucks balls. Prevents me from wanting to ever play this weird ass UI nightmare game. Because the entire game is a UI nightmare.
I say this having played a lot of this game already. UI disaster nightmare from your worst dreams…
The UI didn’t bother me. The micromanaging, especially tankers or my neglecting to build and assign them and having ships get stranded was annoying. Brings out the “Do I have to do everything” guy I would prefer not to be. I’d rather be fixed on higher level decision making but I understand why other folks feel differently.
Other than that I liked SotS and especially the randomness of the tech tree.
@easytarget You’re playing the original SotS? Or SotS2?
I have the original SoTS collection (including 3 expansions) in my Steam library. But with all of 3 hours played, I guess I bounced off it. Maybe your AAR will persuade me to reinstall and give it another chance.
I’ve got the 2nd one but never gave it a go because the talk around it was so negative from everywhere you looked I was pretty sure if I spun it up I’d just spend most of my time comparing it unfavorably to the first.
Gonna dive in and begin the journey shortly, but first the Miami GP.
I adore SotS, love the UI, love the 3D map (and continue to rage that no one else uses them anymore), love just about every little thing about it. Alongside AI War it’s one of my two top strategy games of all time, bar none. It’s a shame SotS 2 is such a steaming broken turd of a game, despite being gorgeous.
Personally I always preferred Hivers, because I love planning out a gate network and that whole Enders-Game-ish early game where by the time anything gets to a new system it’s 3 generations out of date. And then finally working your way up to farcasters and being able to project power in an unprecedented way because the gate network is such a powerful defensive tool.
Early game, I recommend spamming destroyer tankers as lone scouts. I like to think of them as drone scouts to deflect any sense of guilt I’d otherwise incur by sending my troops out to their inevitable doom. I also typically name them the “Canary” (". . . in a coal mine") class. This strategy will inform you what planets are useful, which suck, where hazards are located, and also create a sensor network to spot other ships passing by. If you’re Hiver, send gate ships along with your scouts.
I heard that SoTS2 eventually became a pretty good game after patches or whatnot. Not that anyone says it’s as good as the first game, just that it got a lot better after the disasterous release. I haven’t played it, but am curious to hear whether that seems accurate, if anyone can chime in.
It did get better, but it still suffered from some design decisions which were never properly workshopped let alone tested (I’m looking at you, mission system). So bugs got fixed, but other complaints went unaddressed. It’s quite pretty compared to many other games of its ilk, but… I would still strongly suggest playing SotS1 Complete over it.
