A couple of questions for you...
Early game... It appears that the planet grab at the beginning is a bad idea and a real drawn on your funds, correct? What has been your strategy early game? I am the humans and I have only colonized one planet in my own control system... and just researching and adding to my space station.... not sure what to expect later on.
Thanks
PE
Pardon my interuption, but I can make a recomendation here....I have been playing SotS 2 now off and on for a year. It is ok to grab real estate right off the bat if you follow two rules:
1. Only colonize planets that have low colonization costs...maybe 25,000 or lower. That way, you can get then terraformed quick enough that they can produce a profit .
2. Make sure to not over extend youself. That resource rich planet with a 500 credit ccolonization cost 4 stars away might look nice now, buy can you move fleets to it fast enough to protect it. Nothing worse than seeing an enemy fleet attacking your colony while you wait for your fleet to get tbere.
Later on as you get more tech and cash,you can build enough plantary defensesthat 2 doesn't matter.
Thanks for the reply. I am usually a slow mover as I like to tech up with a slow push out. I did not know if SOTS2 was a planet grab early on, I was hoping not. I am use to the original so I am still trying to find strategies and tips from other players.
PE
Quote from: mikeck on November 05, 2012, 08:30:28 PM
Pardon my interuption, but I can make a recomendation here....I have been playing SotS 2 now off and on for a year. It is ok to grab real estate right off the bat if you follow two rules:
1. Only colonize planets that have low colonization costs...maybe 25,000 or lower. That way, you can get then terraformed quick enough that they can produce a profit .
2. Make sure to not over extend youself. That resource rich planet with a 500 credit ccolonization cost 4 stars away might look nice now, buy can you move fleets to it fast enough to protect it. Nothing worse than seeing an enemy fleet attacking your colony while you wait for your fleet to get tbere.
Later on as you get more tech and cash,you can build enough plantary defensesthat 2 doesn't matter.
+1. Development cost, development cost, development cost! Look at those numbers...even planets that are not listed as "prohibitive" can still be prohibitively costly. SOTS II is definitely not a planet grab game, such as Armada 2556, or SOSE. The measured strategic approach to expansion works best here.
Mikeck makes a good point on defense. I usually wait to expand too far out until I have the tech and economy to field enough fleets to be within easy reach of all corners of my empire.
Just got this from Amazon for £6. Looking forward to getting into it and giving it a try.
Nothing like spending turns on a project that failed to research, then being raided in a system where one of my fleets was absent to have my station blown up... ahhh, the joys of being a commander. Revenge is a dish best served cold.....
Cry Havoc! And let slip the Dogs of War!
PE
I thought slow expansion was similar in the original SotS, no? I thought I remember bankrupting my economy when I colonized too many planets too quickly.
Quote from: Scotten on November 06, 2012, 04:10:49 PM
I thought slow expansion was similar in the original SotS, no? I thought I remember bankrupting my economy when I colonized too many planets too quickly.
Yes, but again, it really depends on the cost of colonization. Some planets are very affordable to settle. Others can definitely put your economy in the red.
Now that I have larger ship sizes to build, I'm quickly learning that laying down too many hulls at once can also jeopardize the stability of your economy. I like the balancing act here. Still though, I'm not too sure of how a negative bankroll effects you in game. I know there are interest payments on debt, and I assume there is a morale penalty, but I am yet to determine whether a failing economy can impact your navies readiness or combat ability, etc.
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/content.php?1173-Sword-of-the-Stars-II-Expanded-into-New-Enhanced-Edition
Sword of the Stars 2 "Enhanced Edition" -- free download to existing owners. Expansion is called "End of Flesh" and includes new race, new tech tree, weapons, etc.
^KICK-A$$!!!! :D
Nice :)
Excellent news
A new race? This sounds very interesting! :)
I believe that it's time for me to fire it up. It's only sat unplayed on my computer since it's launch. Glad they finally made a game out of it.
Is the diplomacy model any better in SotSII? I got pretty turned off in the first one, playing the humans and getting continual friendly messages from the dolphin race while they kept attacking me over and over. NO diplomacy and a simple free for all would be preferable to that nonsense.
I'm wondering about the learning curve for SOTS2 -- it looks steep.
Would folks say you can learn it 'on the fly' by playing and fiddling around, and still have fun while doing it? Or is it more a 'you better read the manual and know what the hell you're doing, or you're in for a short, frustrating experience' type situation?
I played SOTS some and enjoyed it, although that was a while ago, and I only have a vague recollection of the game mechanics...
I know I should just RTFM and watch the video tutorials... but feeling soooo lazy....
EDIT - also, is there a reference list of hotkeys anywhere? I've looked in the obvious places and googled around, but can't locate anything... basically, any suggested shortcuts to getting up and running with this would be cool to know -
Dive right in...its mostly intuitive. Then use the manual just to fill in the blanks.
Sounds good -- dive in I will -- thanks
Quote from: sandman2575 on November 16, 2012, 08:58:23 PM
Sounds good -- dive in I will -- thanks
Let me know if you run into any roadblocks and have any questions...
I feel like the developer has been working harder than ever on SOTSII now. We just got another pretty beefy patch yesterday, and on the 30th we get that update with the new race! Its a good time to be a SOTS II fan.
^I appreciate how they did not just leave SotSII as it was. They cared enough to get it right, even if it took awhile. In my book, they have gone a long way towards making up for the disastrous launch.
Yeah -- one hopes good word of mouth will start to spread. I wonder about the economics of a game like this -- whether a bad initial launch, which presumably leads to disappointing sales revenues, can be recouped by the dev's, by patching the game up to where it lives up to initial promise.
Anyway, as one of the many out there who put SOTS2 into deep freeze and then kinda forgot about it -- folks really should give this another look now. I'm glad I dove in, per Jarhead's recommendation & am surprised at how fast it has hooked me, actually -- now that the game is fully fleshed out, there's a lot of fun to be had here, and a lot to admire -- just a lot of imaginative touches that continually have me thinking, "huh, now isn't that clever and cool" --
After all this talk, the next big STEAM sale and I'm all in.
Quote from: TheCommandTent on November 17, 2012, 03:52:01 PM
After all this talk, the next big STEAM sale and I'm all in.
Won't be long now.
Christmas is next month.
Quote from: TheCommandTent on November 17, 2012, 03:52:01 PM
After all this talk, the next big STEAM sale and I'm all in.
Not as cheap as it might be during the holiday sales, but $19 at Gamersgate on sale. I wonder if it will even be that cheap again (I bought for $8) since they are kind of in phase 2 and might be thinking they don't have to sale cheap anymore.
http://www.gamersgate.com/DD-SOTS2LW/sword-of-the-stars-ii-lords-of-winter
Bought it 4 days ago on GAmestop for $7.00 Australian. Good deal
Anyone have any advice on ship design and weapon combinations? Is it better to have one type of weapon on a ship or mix and match? Is there anyway to rename ships after they have been constructed?
well this is based on lots of SOTS1 play.
early game go for the best missiles you can while you research energy weapons.
It's not based on SotS 1 play.
SotS 2 features a thing called 'the armor matrix'. Each section of a ship has this 'matrix' on top, sides and bottom of the section.
It shows up as a matrix of tiny boxes, the armor. On the outside of this matrix you have a bright blue bar, sometimes even multiple, depending on ship size and or technology.
These bars function as an absorb layer for the armor.
Now, each weapon has certain characteristics, like armor penetration, damage, but also 'spread'.
For example, most lasers just pierce a straight line into the armor matrix, where each blue bar decreases the amount the laser pierces into the matrix. If you have a ship without any blue bars on the matrix would suffer three blocks of damage into the matrix, now it would only suffer two blocks of damage into the matrix with one blue bar.
Other weapons have other effects on the matrix; where the laser just pierces one straight line into the matrix, a mass driver does not pierce lines, but due to the impact chips 'balls' out of the matrix.
Other exploding shells pierce into the matrix and then explode, making a round hole in the matrix, but only after 'digging into' the matrix for a few layers with a straight line (like the laser) first.
The beauty of this system is that there is technology to counteract certain weapon types, making them fairly useless. And intel about your enemies becomes paramount to conducting effective attacks.
You can also target specific ship sections to quickly disable a certain ship ability or weapon. Stuff like this makes the combat very rewarding.
But back on the question; I had the same problem; not really knowing what to choose for weapons.
And I am still not completely sure yet, but one advice I can give you is that Purple lasers are great for starting out with. Missiles are potent as well and some can be used as point defense modules.
Also, make sure you have some weapons (with good coverage! Check this in the weapons tester!) with point defense capability. You will need to have them to minimize your incoming damage by shooting down incoming missiles.
Energy Beams are perfect for this. They are quick and can track even the quickest shells.
Thanks, gives me a place to start with. The damage model is similar to Auroras. I'm playing as the Tarkas. From what I've seen their ships have a good forward firing radius but poor firing arcs on the flanks. For my first design maybe I'll primarily go with missiles, since they can fire off bore and allow for a little bit more tactical flexibility, at least until I run into a couple of alien races and probably have to throw my whole fleet set up out the window.
Edit: One more question, if a ship is in a systems reserve fleet does it get to fight if that system is attacked?
Speaking of getting attacked.... (sorry Kushan, not sure about the answer to your question, although I'd like to know myself) --
I find the real time combat very hard to manage -- much harder than other games, for ex., Sins of a Solar Empire. I know that combat modelling is much deeper in SOTS than Sins, but I guess just as a point of comparison to show that, in general, I don't usually feel completely out of my depth with real time combat, space or otherwise. In SOTS, I'm just completely flummoxed.
Does anyone have any tips a la "Once I learned to do X, it completely changed my approach to combat" - ? Would love to hear it if so --
My combats usually unfold thusly:
1. It takes me several seconds to even figure out where the enemy ships are. A lot of panicked resorts to "pause" key
2. I give my fleet a general "move toward the enemy" order
3. Ships start shooting at each other....and, that's where I usually lose complete control of the situation.
...is it possible to have your fleets maintain formation as they move? I spend all this time in the Fleet Manager setting up nifty looking formations, only to find that one my ships are in combat, the formation dissolves immediately -- ?
Anybody try the new race yet? I saw that the enhanced edition released today, but I won't be able to try it until I get home next week... :'(
Not me! ;)
Havent touched any game in a week now. :o
Quote from: Jarhead0331 on November 30, 2012, 07:07:40 PM
Anybody try the new race yet? I saw that the enhanced edition released today, but I won't be able to try it until I get home next week... :'(
Nope, but I saw it downloaded the update last night. I really need to carve out some time to start up a game and learn how to play.
Quote from: Yskonyn on December 01, 2012, 01:55:41 AM
Not me! ;)
Havent touched any game in a week now. :o
You get a free pass, dude. Someday, Finn will be a groghead too!
Quote from: Jarhead0331 on December 01, 2012, 10:15:06 AM
Quote from: Yskonyn on December 01, 2012, 01:55:41 AM
Not me! ;)
Havent touched any game in a week now. :o
You get a free pass, dude. Someday, Finn will be a groghead too!
Oh yes! I let him browse the forum with me already. ;)
The new Enhanced version is crashing on my rig about every 20 - 30 turns... I can restart, but it really takes away the suspension of disbelief factor. Otherwise, having a good time with it.