Now available for pre-order and inclusion into the beta.
http://www.soldak.com/Drox-Operative/Buy.html
Thanks for the heads up, I will check it out!
This is actually a pretty neat little game. Quite like some Din's Curse only in space.
And no classes :P
It's very polished. Not had any problems yet.
Enjoyable, exploring and finding out what the components do. Similar to his other faction based RPG's, but now with frickin laser beams!
I'm interested, but would like more impressions before I jump...what makes this different from Stardrive, Starfarer, Space Pirates and Zombies, etc. etc.
Quote from: Jarhead0331 on June 14, 2012, 07:27:00 PM
I'm interested, but would like more impressions before I jump...what makes this different from Stardrive, Starfarer, Space Pirates and Zombies, etc. etc.
They guy who made Din's Curse and Depths of Peril made it - 'Nuff said! ;)
Quote from: son_of_montfort on June 14, 2012, 07:31:01 PM
Quote from: Jarhead0331 on June 14, 2012, 07:27:00 PM
I'm interested, but would like more impressions before I jump...what makes this different from Stardrive, Starfarer, Space Pirates and Zombies, etc. etc.
They guy who made Din's Curse and Depths of Peril made it - 'Nuff said! ;)
Actually, that all means nothing to me. Never even heard of those games.
Quote from: Jarhead0331 on June 14, 2012, 08:16:54 PM
Quote from: son_of_montfort on June 14, 2012, 07:31:01 PM
Quote from: Jarhead0331 on June 14, 2012, 07:27:00 PM
I'm interested, but would like more impressions before I jump...what makes this different from Stardrive, Starfarer, Space Pirates and Zombies, etc. etc.
They guy who made Din's Curse and Depths of Peril made it - 'Nuff said! ;)
Actually, that all means nothing to me. Never even heard of those games.
They
are action RPGs like diablo and are good fun
Quote from: Bison on June 14, 2012, 09:36:52 PM
Quote from: Jarhead0331 on June 14, 2012, 08:16:54 PM
Quote from: son_of_montfort on June 14, 2012, 07:31:01 PM
Quote from: Jarhead0331 on June 14, 2012, 07:27:00 PM
I'm interested, but would like more impressions before I jump...what makes this different from Stardrive, Starfarer, Space Pirates and Zombies, etc. etc.
They guy who made Din's Curse and Depths of Peril made it - 'Nuff said! ;)
Actually, that all means nothing to me. Never even heard of those games.
They
are action RPGs like diablo and are good fun
Bison, even if you and I disagree on most everything politically, we play the exact same games.
The beta is a bit weird, but looks to have some potential. I'm a tad lost as to what I can/should be doing in the game. But it falls somewhere between the clan battles of Depths of Peril and Space Rangers.
I'll eventually pick it up I'm sure. What are the loot drops? Ship components?
Quote from: Bison on June 14, 2012, 11:41:46 PM
I'll eventually pick it up I'm sure. What are the loot drops? Ship components?
Yes. Ship components with the usual wide assortment of stat bonuses along with their main categorical use. Much of your character customization is from slotting various combinations of the ship components to help focus on a selection of Stat-supported styles.
There are no skills to be purchased at level-up and I kinda miss having some kind of specialization tree so that I can still have a few different routes to take even with the same Race (class). But you evidentally get your active skills (the useable ones) from certain ship components. The weapons are some obvious ones, but it sounds like there are others too - I'm sure a Cloak will be the stealth skill and so on...
The game very much reminds me of
Space Rangers 2 with a heavy
Din's Curse flavor what with the familiar interface (and engine obviously). It was slow going at first, and I wasn't sure what to think, but as I levelled some (and got better Thruster modules to go faster!) it got better. It seemed mostly like Din's Curse with a space background at first, until I got a bit further. I stumbled upon the realization that the AI Factions in the game are actively playing their own 4X style strategy game on a grand scale. So you'll see them declaring peace/war and such things. It looks as if you're able to choose sides and manipulate things from your single little ship, along with all your normal hack & slash..err.. I mean LazaGuNPewpew gameplay.
Hmm interesting. It seems odd that they wouldn't have some sort of skill tree. This is definitely on my to buy list.
Quote from: Bison on June 15, 2012, 02:05:47 AM
Hmm interesting. It seems odd that they wouldn't have some sort of skill tree. This is definitely on my to buy list.
That's what I thought. Especially considering the huge masses of class & skill options in their previous title. I suggested maybe shoehorning some spec trees in that just give some small extra bonuses to specific things, but this is actually quite far along and looks fairly complete so I dunno if there's gonna be much more added.
I think one of the biggest draws for Dins Curse was the huge range of character customization available. Another was the very random dungeons, drops, and such. At least the latter is there pretty much unchanged other than the flavor of the content.
Do you know if you can buy new-bigger-better ships? Or is it just about adding more stuff to your existing ship?
Quote from: son_of_montfort on June 15, 2012, 11:10:45 AM
Do you know if you can buy new-bigger-better ships? Or is it just about adding more stuff to your existing ship?
According to folks on the Quarter to Three thread, you increase your command skill and can get bigger (but slower) ships, however once you upgrade you can't go back!
*sigh*
Another one to add to The List. I never got around to buying Din's Curse, but Depths of Peril was absolutely brilliant, and this one is set in space! \o/
I'm massively tempted to buy into the beta this weekend but I really shouldn't be spending money right now.
How does it actually play? I assume it's real time, but how do you move - point and click, or press buttons to thrust, or what? What's combat like and how twitchy is it? Etc.
Quote from: spelk on June 15, 2012, 11:49:33 AM
Quote from: son_of_montfort on June 15, 2012, 11:10:45 AM
Do you know if you can buy new-bigger-better ships? Or is it just about adding more stuff to your existing ship?
According to folks on the Quarter to Three thread, you increase your command skill and can get bigger (but slower) ships, however once you upgrade you can't go back!
Yeah.. "Command" is one of the Stats you put points into. At certain points, you get a bigger ship along with a stack of your races given stat bonus set. In a few ways such as this,
Space Rangers 2 has more depth. That one has a variety of ships you can purchase, with varying strengths & weaknesses (&slots). It also has an economy of sorts so you can also do some trading on the side to make more creds. SR2 is just a deeper game in the RPG sense. Drox Op is more action-y, especially since SR2 is turn-based and DoxOp is real-time. Lots more loot drops in DO, too, so it's definitely more a Diablo-ish ARPG than a big space rogue sandbox. That's not to say it doesn't have some sandbox, though, as you get to help/hinder the various races while blowing stuff up.
Poo:
The controls took me some getting used to (and some option adjustments to find my sweet spot). I've made some suggestions for another option, too, as I'm still not quite comfortable with the two main options right now
The biggest option difference is turning "Thruster Toggle" on or off. The problem with the toggle is that it only works for the W key and you have to hit S to turn it off. So it's
not a traditional single key 'toggle'. By default your ship flies towards the mouse cursor (which I like) but that can be turned off too. Left mouse button is click & hold to thrust and click on target to fire slot 1 weapon. This control scheme tends to be easiest for me by using the mouse & left mouse button to fly and use my left hand to fire the hotkeys. The problem here is that the 'Thrust Toggle' option
does not turn the left mouse button (thrust command) into an On/Off toggle, so you end up having to either hold down the LMB for long periods or jockey the W & S keys. That might not be so bad, but when you have more than one weapon/system slotted, you gotta be constantly hitting the hotkeys to fire stuff in combat and it's more hotkey workload than necessary. As I said, a simple on/off toggle for the left mouse button would free up the keyboard for exclusively weapons firing.
As you can see, the controls are one of the things I think need further tweaking.
Nefaro, thanks for the explanation. I'll be watching this thread with great interest; the game looks fantastic.
I just found this gameplay video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAzbmnyLo_Y). The player is French but the game's in English.
It has some sound issues right now.
And the early part of the game is pretty boring. This still needs some content/feature additions, too, IMO. Right now, I'd rather play Space Rangers 2 Reboot even despite the lower fixed resolution not using my screen space.
I hope to see Drox get some additions, and it's fairly likely with Soldak developing it.
Patch available now
http://www.soldak.com/Drox-Operative/Patches.html
Quote from: spelk on June 17, 2012, 02:16:11 PM
Patch available now
http://www.soldak.com/Drox-Operative/Patches.html
Thanks!
Quote
0.901
-----
added Win7 to manual/website
fixed some anomaly text grammer (Roswitha)
fixed Planned Rumor text (Valgor)
fixed background shift on beta screen
now solving a quest at the planet doesn't close the window (Lyranaar)
increased BaseThrust from 40 to 50, will make player ships faster (just about everyone)
increased MaxSpeedTurnMult from 0.25 to 0.3, will make player ship a bit more manueverable
improve some goods wording and spacing (Lyranaar)
increased turn speed on new ship screen and shipyard (Mivo/Aganazer)
improved no active quests line to give hint of where to get quests (Mivo)
increased default miniMapAlpha from 0.5 to 0.9 (Steve/Eduardo X/Valgor)
added a quick tip about talking to races directly to get and solve quests (Castruccio)
fixed Prepare typo (Roswitha)
fixed thruster disengage option working even when thruster toggle option was off (NefariousKoel/kerzain)
added relations line to screens help topic and manual (Aganazer)
added a quick tip about starlanes and wormholes being along the edges of the star systems
now if thruster toggle is on, W will start and stop thrusters (NefariousKoel)
changed npcs to NPCs in one of the tool tips (Valgor)
removed reference to earthquakes in can shake screen tool tip (Valgor)
added an option to disable the intro movie (Valgor)
added a button to replay the intro movie on the main opening screen
fixed an Expansionist typo (DeathKnight1728)
fixed some Space Junk wording (Puce Moose)
added a player thrusters volume slider to options (Castruccio)
fixed lose time going negative (desophos)
fixed lose menu to fit everything correctly (desophos)
fixed technology being hidden when the hide crappy loot option was on (snow)
added wealth line to race rumor, propaganda, espionage, and sabotage screens (kerzain)
fixed If you're on the run typo (Roswitha)
fixed Stop by an ancient recharge station missing word (Roswitha)
fixed patience spelling (Roswitha)
fixed Space cradles great treasures typo (Roswitha)
fixed stranded crew sound
decreased SpawnChance of teleport anomaly from 10.0 to 5.0 (gornova)
doubled ballistic energy use to be comparable to beam weapons energy use over time
tripled missile, bomb, and mine energy use to be comparable to beam weapons energy use over time
decreased mine damage to 75% of missiles
decreased bomb damage to 50% of missiles
quests that start from delivery quests now use the correct planet (Valgor)
changed pay and sell price to 0 if crew has left
improved propaganda and sabotage complete failure text
decreased MaxShipGuards and MaxPlanetGuards by 1 each
increased MAX_ENTITIES from 3000 to 4000, should help running out of entities
relaxed entity purging rules, less likely to run out of entity slots (Krippakrull/Brian Rubin)
made text a little more clear can't use shared stash in semi-hardcore (transigent8)
Yay! Quick Progress!