Sword of the Stars II (Or another 4X space game I will probably buy)

[Rorschach]

There’s a reference to Spaceward Ho as an easter egg today.

[BrianRubin]

There’s a reference to Spaceward Ho as an easter egg today.

Nice!! Love Spaceward Ho!

[Sarkus]

Fuck no, man, I can’t think of any other game Luke this. This is the worst release I can remember in my 25+ years gaming, and that says a lot.

It’s so bad, and coming from two industry veterans, that I feel like we’re missing something. Paradox had complete control over the release date, yet pulled the trigger. Kerberos had control of the project, yet it was in the shape it was in October. Why? Obviously there’s gross incompetence with both parties, but I can’t help but think we’re missing some background info. I don’t think Paradox or Kerberos are halfwits so I’d like to know the story of what happened. At this point I’d appreciate an explanation more than apologies or refunds. Reading between the lines of some of Arrin Dembo’s posts make it sound like outside financing dried up and they weren’t able to secure a new source, but I wish I knew the story.

My point about laziness is just that,though. They’ve been on a ridiculous crunch cycle for half a year now at least, so you can chalk it up to project mismanagement of epic proportions and shockingly poor oversight and/or decisions on the part of Paradox, but I don’t think they were just being lazy.

I don’t think they were being lazy, but I do think Kerberos blew the project management part of this game. My guess is that the game was already past the release date agreed upon originally by Kerberos and Paradox and Paradox decided they wouldn’t fund anything else. Kerberos couldn’t find another source of money, so the only thing left was to release and live with the consequences. I don’t blame Paradox for that. Instead I blame Kerberos for agreeing to a release date they couldn’t make, failing to manager the development to minimize how crappy the game would be at release, and failing to have a better business plan in place to handle the consequences of their publisher reaching their funding limit. In the long run we don’t remember the publishers, we remember the developers.

[Aeon221]

I didn’t know that there were months of crunch prior to release, but that’s sickening and pathetic. If you have unfinished shit, you cut features. You don’t work your people to the bone. They won’t produce anything of value in that state, and they sure as shit won’t want to stick around.

The best leaders are the ones who know when to say “fuck this shitty feature, tear it out”.

[MarinusWA]

The design screen comes to mind. The weapon test part might just as well be scrapped as it serves little purpose. And the whole 3D design thing could have been skipped for something 2D like in SotS1.

[kerzain]

The weapons test part has informed me that certain weapon mouths just won’t hit shit I thought they could. Who knew basic human combat ships couldn’t ever fire up?? Well, I didn’t. it’s also nice to see the speed and spread of certain weapons, rather than try to imagine based on numbers in a dialog box.

Now, is this a crucial feature? No, but sadly it’s the only thing I actually like about the iterations of II that I’ve played.

[Janster]

The design screen comes to mind. The weapon test part might just as well be scrapped as it serves little purpose. And the whole 3D design thing could have been skipped for something 2D like in SotS1.

3d design part is a bit tiresome I agree, but the weapons test part is vital to understand weapons spread. You really have to be careful, as you can’t hit shit with certain weapons at range.

Okay, played almost 200 rounds of this now, disc with 6 players, I’ve taken about 10+ systems, I got a war vs Hivers that isn’t amounting to much, however I have run into an issue that I don’t know is a bug or not.

My ships are constantly out of energy when the combat starts, thus they fire at most 1 weapon at a time, those fleets have supply vessels with them, and are stationed at Navy yards, yet I cannot bring their energy levels back up. Not sure whats going on …

[Rorschach]

My ships are constantly out of energy when the combat starts, thus they fire at most 1 weapon at a time, those fleets have supply vessels with them, and are stationed at Navy yards, yet I cannot bring their energy levels back up. Not sure whats going on …

What’s the energy levels of your designs? If you’re using all energy weapons you may not have enough reactor power to keep your rate of fire up. Energy can only be increased by the main and auxiliary reactors. Supply is ammo and only counts for weapons like ballistics and missiles.

[Rorschach]

The design screen comes to mind. The weapon test part might just as well be scrapped as it serves little purpose. And the whole 3D design thing could have been skipped for something 2D like in SotS1.

Well since 3d combat rendering is a critical part of the game do you think using that as a basis for the design screen or building a new 2d schematic for each ship section would take up more time? :)

[Janster]

What’s the energy levels of your designs? If you’re using all energy weapons you may not have enough reactor power to keep your rate of fire up. Energy can only be increased by the main and auxiliary reactors. Supply is ammo and only counts for weapons like ballistics and missiles.

Yeah, I redesigned my ships somewhat, they still come up as 0% on energy, but I think thats normal now, they are just very hesitant at firing on anything.

In one battle, they just stood there against the gate ship and fired on incoming missiles, I’m used to them opening up on hostiles without me telling them what to shoot at…

I was at war with the buggers too.

[MikeJ]

Yeah the energy icon always seems to show much lower than it should. I’ve also noticed delays sometimes in firing. I think it might be related to the engine speed settings. Like it I order the fleet a fleet to maximum speed to catch up to someone, once they catch up, it seems like they only started the weapon recharge cycle once I dropped by to normal speed.

[Jackthelantern]

So it’s still unplayable ?

[Demorve]

Yup and in my opinion it will be until the arrogant sob’s at Kerberos realize that they may eventually have a good game inside a big steaming pile of shit UI.

[KevinC]

So it’s still unplayable ?

From what I hear it sounds like it’s playable but buggy and unpolished.

[Aeon221]

Is the researh screen still a butthole?

And talk about the weapon systems, what’s out there and what is interesting? Did they go with the ‘more is more’ school for em, or the ‘few but distinct’ school?

And do you have to redesign every other tech for laser beams 2 through 20?

[Riztro]

Yes but at least they added quicklinks to the tech categories at the bottom of the screen and moved the points of interest to better locations.

Lot’s of em. The weapons are mostly Sots 1 stuff with upgrades thrown in. At least the missiles that shoot beams are cool.

Yep. Supposedly there’s a refit function coming at some point but I doubt that’ll be soon.

As for playable at the moment, not really. It’ll run, mostly, but there’s a nasty slowdown that’ll force you to restart the game after a bunch of turns, enemy planets retain civilian population after I bombard them wich prevents me from colonizing them and my ships are apparently dogs as they spin like tops any time I order them to move unless I also tell them to roll over.

Oh yeah, the mission screen can’t keep track of where fleets are stationed, nine out of ten defensive fights the defending fleet starts in a worse position than the attacking fleet and my admirals traits get scrambled every so often.

[Janster]

After about 270 rounds, I got a few thing noted down that I want improved.

Tech-tree, its hard to use.
Prototypes - this is just pointless.
Provinces - no clue what these are for.

I didn’t get much of an idea of the AI ability, but it does attack.

[Sepiche]

Prototypes - this is just pointless.

The point is to keep players from redesigning their entire fleet after every tech advance… whether you think the point is a good idea or not is another question.

[Rorschach]

Provinces will eventually be the “units” for governance actions. Eventually provinces will pool production and morale etc. so you manage five provinces instead of twenty individual colonies.

[Aeon221]

Yes but at least they added quicklinks to the tech categories at the bottom of the screen and moved the points of interest to better locations.

Still tarded, gotcha. Why do devs find this so hard? Don’t try to be cute, make something that is fucking functional.

Lot’s of em. The weapons are mostly Sots 1 stuff with upgrades thrown in. At least the missiles that shoot beams are cool.

Missiles that shoot beams. Activate brain? Nawww.

Yep. Supposedly there’s a refit function coming at some point but I doubt that’ll be soon.

Ugh terrible design strikes again. Why is there this constant urge to make the cool tedious?

my ships are apparently dogs as they spin like tops any time I order them to move unless I also tell them to roll over.

DO A BARREL ROLL!