Master of Orion
- Thread starter Ichu
- Start date
Tarrant
<Prior Amod>
- 15,558
- 9,006
OneofOne
Silver Baronet of the Realm
- 6,640
- 8,134
Count me in as one of those people who wants a re-skinned, updated MOO2 /shrug I would pay $50 for that. Wasting money for voice acting hurts though, as I usually turn all sound off so I can listen to music/watch tv. Money better spent on an AI guy.
Dacianprick King In The North
Trakanon Raider
- 546
- 836
Vaclav
Bronze Baronet of the Realm
- 12,650
- 877
GOG.com had a -5% coupon in my mailbox this morning - DLing from them as we speak. Fluxing between 15-30 min to go, apparently their servers suck for stuff this large.
Vaclav
Bronze Baronet of the Realm
- 12,650
- 877
Immediate impression before starting a game proper (my machine's got an issue right now where it's spontaneously rebooting at times... and it did that as selecting race) - in the options menu there is a Turn Off GNN option - so no worries if they get too annoying, I suppose.
Update #1: Neat has "seeds" for generating a universe - so you could easily repeat a universe if you want. Nice option.
Update #2: Had first tactical combat - a) Still skippable if you want, b) It's not micromanagement heavy like RTS terming worried me of - paused it, set basic movement and target and it ran fine without micromanagement.
Update #3: "Spacelanes" do have limits to exploration due to different types of "wormholes" that make up the spacelanes that require higher tech to navigate, to emulate something similar to old range limits without quite as much frustration with a bad seed.
Update #1: Neat has "seeds" for generating a universe - so you could easily repeat a universe if you want. Nice option.
Update #2: Had first tactical combat - a) Still skippable if you want, b) It's not micromanagement heavy like RTS terming worried me of - paused it, set basic movement and target and it ran fine without micromanagement.
Update #3: "Spacelanes" do have limits to exploration due to different types of "wormholes" that make up the spacelanes that require higher tech to navigate, to emulate something similar to old range limits without quite as much frustration with a bad seed.
Dandain
Trakanon Raider
- 2,092
- 917
tad10
Elisha Dushku
- 5,518
- 583
It's very good and addicting for a game just out of alpha, but it needs work before it's ready for prime-time.
Issues in no particular order.
1. Current tech tree is mostly "all of the above" - MOO needs selective techs, it is the engine that drives diplomacy (or at least human diplomacy in MOO2), espionage and ship boarding. Not to mention it diminishes the value of each tech you get via research.
2. Tactical Battle needs work. A lot of work. A fuckton of work. That said there's a lot of potential there for WG, particularly for multiplayer, potentially could add more than two players to a combat which means alliances would potentially mean something; potentially.
3. Missing a lot of stuff right now (4 races, customized races, independent planets, espionage, no Tactical at all in MP, but that's coming).
But had a blast in an MP game earlier today and about to start an SP game.
Starlanes are cool and maps now have an impact on play. Was in a game (Seed is 35370 for MP Edit: Turns out SP/MP and Galaxy Size matter for seeds, Galaxy size is small and I was the second player, so you can't replicate this seed in single player currently.) as Humans where they were Australia in Risk. Exactly one warp lane leading out from Sol. However because of that, and because Psilons were very close to me I had to pump out a second colony ship to take Centauri before Psilons did or they could cut me off.
Anyway, here's the latest quote from WG on current development:
Yeah, I gotta say that first reveal trailer was ... meh. But the Steam Early Access and Voice Actor trailers have me pretty hyped. The art style is perfect.
IMO they need to shitcan the current real time combat and replace it with turn based combat on a hex grid.
tad10
Elisha Dushku
- 5,518
- 583
No they really don't. They need to fix the combat (which includes fixing ship design) so you have actual control and so your ship designs actually matter.
One big plus, even in its alpha state, is that lower level hulls (frigate, destroyer) matter late game unlike MOO2 where after a certain point you only build Doomstars. End-game missile frigates are nasty and a swarm can take out a Doomstar if you've got enough of them. Speaking of which, you only get one Doomstar per race in this game.
Obligatory -
A small one-manned fighter should be able to penetrate the outer defenses...
a c i d.f l y
ಠ_ಠ
- 20,060
- 99,460
The game feels just like MOO2, but with a *ton* of Quality of Life changes.
-You know visually how many science/food/production you'll get per person working without doing the math yourself. Not being able to drag more than one colonist into another field is annoying. And I couldn't figure out how to transport units between planets (needs transport ships, not frigates, but I couldn't figure out how to get the transport loaded to move it).
-You can highlight skills on the tech tree to focus on a specific thing - production, food, pollution.
-I wish I could queue up skills like in Civ5. You can select a skill further down the chain and it will auto go through everything required to get there, however.
-Visual representation when hovering your mouse on planets shows their limits (bars to show pop, food, production).
I will say it also makes things like pollution, taxation, and a few other things feel like they're more of a concern. In MOO2 I just taxed the fuck out of my population, since happiness was hardly ever a concern, and pollution was only ever an issue when it started killing off population, which hardly ever happened unless you had 25+ pop planets which would regrow the population the next turn if you needed. Losing one worker to striking can hurt. The star lanes also offer an interesting aspect, since you can barricade fairly early - either to protect people from expanding into your area, or preventing them from expanding outside of their area. Just needs a colony ship and a space worker to build the warp point military base.
Anyone else annoyed that some or a lot of the music sounds like the music from fucking Prometheus?
I didn't play long enough to really get into the space combat, but the one time a pirate attacked my home base I just right clicked on him and boom, missiles went flying and they died. The "real time combat" is very slow paced. In MOO2 I only ever did automatic unless I was very late game and the game was stupid and didn't use appropriate weapons to nuke an enemy without taking damage. Auto would leave my units injured, even if I far out-powered my enemy.
-You know visually how many science/food/production you'll get per person working without doing the math yourself. Not being able to drag more than one colonist into another field is annoying. And I couldn't figure out how to transport units between planets (needs transport ships, not frigates, but I couldn't figure out how to get the transport loaded to move it).
-You can highlight skills on the tech tree to focus on a specific thing - production, food, pollution.
-I wish I could queue up skills like in Civ5. You can select a skill further down the chain and it will auto go through everything required to get there, however.
-Visual representation when hovering your mouse on planets shows their limits (bars to show pop, food, production).
I will say it also makes things like pollution, taxation, and a few other things feel like they're more of a concern. In MOO2 I just taxed the fuck out of my population, since happiness was hardly ever a concern, and pollution was only ever an issue when it started killing off population, which hardly ever happened unless you had 25+ pop planets which would regrow the population the next turn if you needed. Losing one worker to striking can hurt. The star lanes also offer an interesting aspect, since you can barricade fairly early - either to protect people from expanding into your area, or preventing them from expanding outside of their area. Just needs a colony ship and a space worker to build the warp point military base.
Anyone else annoyed that some or a lot of the music sounds like the music from fucking Prometheus?
I didn't play long enough to really get into the space combat, but the one time a pirate attacked my home base I just right clicked on him and boom, missiles went flying and they died. The "real time combat" is very slow paced. In MOO2 I only ever did automatic unless I was very late game and the game was stupid and didn't use appropriate weapons to nuke an enemy without taking damage. Auto would leave my units injured, even if I far out-powered my enemy.
a c i d.f l y
ಠ_ಠ
- 20,060
- 99,460
The part where you're not forced to upgrade your ship every time you discover a new tech was kinna nice. So you're not bogging down all of your ships with upgrades they don't need, in order to keep them affordable or appropriately tactical. e.g. "I only want my light ships to have heavier lasers, my heavy ships to have better missiles"...or the like. Being able to make fully customized ships like MOO2 will come around soon, I hope.
tad10
Elisha Dushku
- 5,518
- 583
Producer's letter on the Steam store page says customization and combat are top priorities for EA2. I'll note that right now there is a bug where the AI can screw its auto upgrades (specifically it seems to occasionally downgrade the computer), and never (AFAIK) does thing like add augmented engines to ships.
To anyone reading, I'll also note that GoG and (I'm pretty sure) Steam offer full return w/n 14-day refunds so if you don't like the game you can just return it. With respect to multiplayer, obviously you're better off buying from Steam because, as of right now, there is no way for Steam/GoG purchasers to play together.
Edit: @acidfly I've turned off the music
a c i d.f l y
ಠ_ಠ
- 20,060
- 99,460
