Janster
1904
Been playing a bit more, its getting better, but I’ve tried to speed up colonizing, but even at 100% focus on bio tech + civillian stations, it just too expensive and lenghty
They need to avoid planets taking so long imho.
What hazard rating are you colonizing? Anything over 250 is going to be tough.
MikeJ
1906
My impression was that you could get colonies stood up in about the same number of turns as in SotS1, maybe even a bit faster considering you can drop off a lot of infrastructure. At the point you can build ships and defenses and survive an attack fairly well.
On the other hand, it will be a while before you are making much income of the planet, since income seems to depend a lot more on civilian population than in SotS1, and the civ population is relatively slow to develop. You really don’t want someone wiping out your civilians on a planet, because it will take forever to recover from the income hit.
If there aren’t any good worlds around for the taking I’ll keep my colony fleet on support until the infrastructure builds up to 30% or so.
Janster
1908
I usually have 3 colony fleets, the starter one plus 2 biome fleets, they do colonize quicker, but after about 70 + turns or so, I still don’t have much in terms of planets, and I can’t just colonize choice stuff because range issues will stop that.
Hot fix for the latest update:
r20241c
Critical Fixes:
- Fixed a handful of known multiplayer sync issues that could lead to crashes.
- Fixed crashes when doing Zuul intercept mission
- Fixed a crash caused by AI players attempting to ally with indy players.
- Fixed an issue that was preventing certain technologies from being unlocked.
- Fixed an issue that was causing premature ending of combat in
certain single-player and networked games.
Other Fixes:
- Fixed some overlapping text issues in the mission screens.
- Survey complete and planet colonized dialogs now show interactive
system and star map, respectively.
(Click the right/left buttons on the viewports to cycle.)
- Fixed the drawing of intercept mission waypoints.
- Fixed return trips for intercepts when a target fleet goes out of range.
- Prevented Zuul ships from boring temporary node lines back from a
deep space encounter.
- Fixed the issue where Radiant Bore ships could not create node lines.
- Gate Lab upgrade requirements can now be met.
- Hiver gates now display Gate Lab module options.
- Ships no longer flee so far from an incoming comet in combat.
- The sensor view icon has been centered correctly on the comet in combat.
- Fixed a function that allowed a non-player owned system to request a
check for an enclave permission before colonizing a planet.
- Fixed the provincial capital visual effect.
- Fixed an issue where combat UI was allowing freighter speeds to be set.
- Combat zones no longer appear in deep space combat.
- The battle manager is no longer available for deep space encounter locations.
- Fixed an issue where infrastructure was resetting to zero each time
a planet was recolonized.
- Zuul trade now unlocks correctly.
- Barren planets now have some resources.
- Fixed issues where inappropriate battle riders were being used to
aid in surveys.
Other changes:
- Reduced overthrust in combat.
- Ships with drones now survey faster.
Demorve
1911
I tend to agree, they need to release a patch to fix a patch? This game has been out for what, 6 months or so and they are still releasing rather large patches to fix things in the game. I’m beginning to think this game was released a year or two early or the people in charge don’t know what they are doing or both.
Grifman
1912
I think at least the former if not the latter have been pretty well established by now.
KevinC
1913
The reason there’s a patch to the patch is that the game is still in active development - by that I mean they’re still adding in missing features, and when big feature sets go in, bugs crop up. Their cycle has been to release a major content patch every two weeks followed by a hotfix (or two) to address critical issues.
The fact the game released before it was finished is very obvious. We’re sitting at 5 months now and they’re only now nearing the end of the feature list, so I would say probably around 6 months too early at least.
Indeed, Grifman.
For those not terribly familiar with the situation, this is the standard pattern until the “all clear” patch, and they’ve discussed it as such. This is unofficially a beta period (it certainly should have been official from the get-go) so you get patch, hotfix, patch, hotfix, etc., until they’re done. Patches typically come out every two weeks with the hotfixes in between. It’s also getting much closer to all clear from what I’ve experienced, though obviously still not there yet.
edit - or what KevinC said.
Lorini
1915
The pattern is to release a major patch, wait a couple of days for feedback and then release hot fixes for the major patch.
If they are getting close to the “all clear” state then hows the game stacking up? I’m guessing all the heartburn is taking up or coloring most of the posts (not here specifically).
Does it improve on the first game? Does it live up to the pre-release hype?
It has some significant differences from the first game in terms of dynamics. Mostly, after I decipher what things mean, I find them to be improvements and occasionally of the major variety. Of course a lot of that has my own personal taste behind it, as I prefer things like the new approach to technology (feasibility studies and what not) while some prefer the old model. That said, I honestly think that if they’d been able to magically delay the release for 6 months then you’d easily be seeing a mid- to high-80’s metacritic score with what’s shaping up. I will mention that reading the manual or taking significant time with a completed wiki during a walk through is going to be a valuable step in playing the game, as there are a LOT of changes that someone expecting more of SoTS1 with prettier graphics will be in the dark about. Once that initial learning curve is covered, however, it seems like an overall superior game flow.
Unfortunately, you can’t take my words as gospel (like anyone ever does), as I haven’t played through a full game of it. I dabble, get into some scrapes, enjoy my time with the knowledge there’s more to come, and then let it go for a couple weeks. Balancing passes and various tweeks are yet to come, so while the concept seems great I can’t be sure the implementation will hold up as well as I hope. In short, it could still fall flat on its face but I seriously doubt it will. The game is legitimately fun at this point - not perfect by a long shot, but certainly fun.
And as an aside referencing something I brought up before, the ship models are just beautiful. I mean, we’re talking gorgeous. However even there I can find a minor nitpick: emblems are projected as holograms which hover just above the various marking places on ships (wings, typically) instead of being painted on. So once again: great, but not perfect.
PS - and for heaven’s sake, someone should allow black and white as base colors (for anyone who knows anyone over at Kerberos that cares to pass along such a minor request).
KevinC
1918
People have been asking for that for a while (especially black).
MikeJ
1919
I tend to share Dan’s take on the game features and overall prettiness of the ships and battles. However, I find it hard to evaluate the game because the AI (from player reports) still seems to be incapable of actually getting around to building advanced ships. So you end up with a situation where they just continually harass you with low-tech cruiser fleets. Assuming the remaining broken stuff like this gets fixed, SotS2 should surpass the first version. However, despite all the substantial and ongoing progress, there is some truth to the idea that a fully complete version always feels 4-6 weeks away.
Hey thanks for the replies. I know that question has got to be getting old.
New update uploaded to Steam. Should be downloaded next time you run the game.
r20461b
Critical Fixes:
- Fixed a game loading crash related to asteroid monitors.
- Fixed all known crashes related to deep space interception.
- Fixed a potential infinite loop in Hiver movement that could occur during turn processing.
- Fixed known multiplayer de-sync issues that were leading to crashes.
- Fixed a crash when returning from a demand or request with an indy.
- Made optimizations to turn processing times.
Other Fixes:
- Suul’ka can now be summoned again.
- Mining and defense stations no longer double-charge players for construction.
- Resolved conflicting broadside versus pursuit orders in combat.
- Rapid prototyping now applies proper bonus.
- Made changes to resolve minefield overlap and frame-rate issues.
- Made changes to resolve PD phaser frame-rate issues.
- Improperly configured requests and demands are no longer allowed to be committed.
- Trade income is now correctly reported when no trading is available.
- Fixed an issue where mining stations were not showing up in station construction options.
- Fixed mis-labelled Zuul station types in news events.
- Fixed an issue where colonization missions were not cancelling when critical ships were destroyed.
- Fixed a known issue related to incorrect movement speed on the starmap.
- Fixed issues that were preventing AI players from declaring war when they should.
- Fixed an issue where heavy and planet missiles were not re-targeting in combat.
- Fixed an issue where stations were reporting incorrect remaining and total structure.
- Fixed an issue where in-transit fleets could be incorrectly displayed in repair dialogs.
- Fixed issues where asteroid monitor encounters would cease to occur after destroying a command monitor.
- Fixed some combat stance issues related to planets.
- Fixed issues where alien habitation modules could take up standard habitation module slots.
- Fixed a couple issues where warhead damage was not being adjusted correctly for researched technology.
- Fixed an issue that was preventing government graph from updating.
- Fixed issues where missiles targeting spectres could damage a colony instead.
- Addressed network de-sync issues with certain weapons in combat.
- Addressed some turret arcs that weren’t firing or engaging correctly.
Additions:
- Node Cannon and Node Maw weapons have been re-introduced for Zuul players.
To use the Node Maw in combat, go to sensor view and click on the corresponding buttons above the desired Bore node points.
These will collapse the node points, to devastating effect for ships in the area.
- Updated combat screen GUI
- Added a multiple combat system.
- Added Morrigi tombs.
- Introduced the ghost ship random encounter.
- Turrets and modules now show up in the fleet manager.
- Quantum disassociation now adds the intended 20% bonus to production.
- Combat now occurs in multiple phases depending on the number of fleets present.
- Intelligence-gathering missions can now be executed from the diplomacy screen.
- Increased AI diplomacy reactions.
- Increased savings required for morale boost.
- Biosphere preservation now reduces consumption by 50%.
- Colonies now get an initial bonus on the turn they are established.
- Fleets that lose their command ships in combat will now disband and retreat.
- Increased battle rider mission times.
- Reduced the density of minefields.
- Added new drone attack behaviors.
Janster
1922
You know, the one thing I REALLY liked with SOTS 1, was its turn times, same with Moo 2 aswell. I really thought Space Empires V was interresting, but the turn times, they were impossible to live with, I can’t justify wasting time like that…
Sots 2 is stretching my patience, it takes several hours to run 200 eventless rounds.
This is just by pressing end turn.
