StarDrive

[Steelgrave]

Well, I bought it during the Steam sale, sounds like I need to fire it up!

[bbmike]

To date, only Birth of the Federation has had good alien races.

[Martok]

Gah.  I really do need to get back into this game.  With all the various patches/updates that have been released so far, it looks like it's much improved over the release version (which, while not bad, it obviously needed more love). 

And I was surprised that our fellow Grog Martok is in this game.  He plays a pirate who tries to extort 250 credits out of you during one of the random events in-game.

Wait, what?? 

Heh, haven't run into that one yet.  :D 

[Nefaro]

To date, only Birth of the Federation has had good alien races.

Wasn't there some freeware re-release of it?  Or was that just a mod?

I tried playing that again, within the last few years, but the damnable memory leaks just buggged the piss out of me.  I always got sick of having to restart all the time whenever the game started slowing down and responsive got sluggish.  Didn't seem to take very long each time I started playing, either.. just a couple minutes.   >:(  Ragequit! 

I think it was more pronounced with newer hardware and OSes than the older stuff, too.  It worked better on Win98 long ago in the far far away.  If some mod or rebuilt version of BotF has pretty much eliminated this issue, then it's on! 

I actually had a couple little 4-player LAN games of BotF back in '99.  They were a lot of fun.  The long string of nasty obscenities one of my buddies flung at me, after I annihilated his whole Ferengi war fleet, still makes me smile.  ;D  One of those LAN games froze up near the end, however.  The game was notoriously buggy in multiplayer, IIRC.  I really want to play this again if it works better than last time I tried.

[Kushan]

I know its a cliche question, but hows the AI? As Distant Worlds has shown you really need a robust AI to make these massive 4x game enjoyable when playing SP.

Re: Owl people etc.  -- this is so a pet peeve of mine about 4x games -- the lack of imagination when it comes to dreaming up alien species.  The "Take Earth Animal and Turn it into Alien Species" always bugs me as laziness on the game dev's part.  The Insect Aliens.  The Reptile Aliens.  The Avian Aliens.  It just bores me, although I can look beyond it to enjoy the game.  To my mind, the worst example is the "T-Rex" aliens of Distant Worlds.  How the hell do they build anything, much less starships, with those stubby arms??

Have you tried the Distant Worlds Extended Mod? Along with adding 38 more races it also redoes all of the vanilla race images and does away with most of the "insert earth animal here" race images. Some of them are still in the same vein as the vanilla images but the T-Rex's in space are gone, along with most of the other serious offenders.

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=3141149

[Nefaro]

The new Birth of the Federation.. is this the place you get it? >

http://www.armadafleetcommand.com/botf/

Sorry for going off-topic there.  Back to your normally scheduled program.  ;)

[Nefaro]

I know its a cliche question, but hows the AI? As Distant Worlds has shown you really need a robust AI to make these massive 4x game enjoyable when playing SP.

Re: Owl people etc.  -- this is so a pet peeve of mine about 4x games -- the lack of imagination when it comes to dreaming up alien species.  The "Take Earth Animal and Turn it into Alien Species" always bugs me as laziness on the game dev's part.  The Insect Aliens.  The Reptile Aliens.  The Avian Aliens.  It just bores me, although I can look beyond it to enjoy the game.  To my mind, the worst example is the "T-Rex" aliens of Distant Worlds.  How the hell do they build anything, much less starships, with those stubby arms??

Have you tried the Distant Worlds Extended Mod? Along with adding 38 more races it also redoes all of the vanilla race images and does away with most of the "insert earth animal here" race images. Some of them are still in the same vein as the vanilla images but the T-Rex's in space are gone, along with most of the other serious offenders.

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=3141149

That looks pretty cool.  Extra races are always welcome, especially when the artwork is done so well. 

Does this mod come with custom ship graphics?  I recall someone was redo'ing whole sets of them for each race, a few years ago (WoodMan maybe?).  He wasn't touching them up but making brand new ones that looked great, so it made me wonder if this mod already came with some new ship graphics too.

[Kushan]

That looks pretty cool.  Extra races are always welcome, especially when the artwork is done so well. 

Does this mod come with custom ship graphics?  I recall someone was redo'ing whole sets of them for each race, a few years ago (WoodMan maybe?).  He wasn't touching them up but making brand new ones that looked great, so it made me wonder if this mod already came with some new ship graphics too.

Ywa, it does come with new ship artwork.

I believe Woodmans work was incorporated into either DW ROTS or Legends. I don't recall what one specifically.

[Huw the Poo]

And I was surprised that our fellow Grog Martok is in this game.  He plays a pirate who tries to extort 250 credits out of you during one of the random events in-game.

There's a Martok in this game?  I must have him it now! :D

[Martok]

Gentlemen:  For further discussion of Birth of the Federation, may I suggest we reconvene here?  (If we're going to derail the current thread, it should at least be in the direction of food, beer, and/or womenz.)  8) 

To date, only Birth of the Federation has had good alien races.

Aside from the fact they're pretty much all the humanoid/hominid type ("rubber forehead" aliens), I concur.  It obviously doesn't hurt that the game got to draw upon the majority of Trek lore. 

I know its a cliche question, but hows the AI? As Distant Worlds has shown you really need a robust AI to make these massive 4x game enjoyable when playing SP.

How good the AI in StarDrive is seems to depend on who you ask, and/or which aspect of AI behavior you're referring to. 


My own impression -- which is based both on my own (still very limited) experience, combined with the aggregate opinion of the StarDrive forum community -- is that it's actually pretty decent overall, but with a major caveat:  While the AI is fairly "smart", it doesn't behave very "human-like". 

What I mean by that, is that the AI seems to almost "game the game", where it gleefully exploits loopholes and obscure rules/rule-sets in the game system that the human player is (generally) unaware of, as opposed to behaving how we'd expect a rational human player to behave.  The results are computer opponents who appear to have a somewhat "cutthroat" mentality, particularly among the more aggressive and military-minded races.  They actually remind me of "munchkins", those Dungeons & Dragons players who play, not to enjoy the shared social experience of engaging in a role-playing game, but to *win*. 

I'm not sure how to better explain that so it makes more sense.  (It would probably help if I went and got some sleep; I think I'm coming up on 30 hours straight here... ::) ) 

And I was surprised that our fellow Grog Martok is in this game.  He plays a pirate who tries to extort 250 credits out of you during one of the random events in-game.

There's a Martok in this game?  I must have him it now! :D

;D

[W8taminute]

(If we're going to derail the current thread, it should at least be in the direction of food, beer, and/or womenz.)

Heh heh.  Any thread at Grogheads can and will be derailed.  Par for the course.  Take this sexy lady for example:




Wrt the AI.  I'm only on my second game.  My first game saw me get trounced by the Owls who had bigger and better ships than me.  Now that I understand the tech tree and the need for a strong fleet early game I'm doing better.  Haven't got involved in a war yet so I'll comment on how the AI fights at a later time but overall I am happy at how the game plays out.  The official forums claim that the AI will use saved ship designs created by the player.  If you create an efficient ship design with heavy weapons and fast drive speed the next time you play a game the AI will use your design.  For example, say you improve on the colony ships speed and armor protection as the humans.  If you play another game as anyone other than the humans the AI human player will use your design. 

The official forums also has some good mods posted in it.  Take this one for example:

[mikeck]

AI is good enough to allow you to play the game if that makes sense. It will build stuff, attack you, make deals, etc. it won't beat you once you learn the mechanics. I give it a C. Where it does well is in ship design since it uses yours. I played all of the races and designed good ships. Now when those races are Ai controlled, they use my designs

[Tuna]

With all this yakking about Stardrive and my interest back in Beta time before buying DW. I broke down and grabbed it at GamersGate for 50% off.. Now to figure it out!  :o

[sandman2575]

Have you tried the Distant Worlds Extended Mod? Along with adding 38 more races it also redoes all of the vanilla race images and does away with most of the "insert earth animal here" race images. Some of them are still in the same vein as the vanilla images but the T-Rex's in space are gone, along with most of the other serious offenders.

Thanks for the heads-up.  I will have to check this out.  Although imma leave DW on the backburner for now while I figure out the apparently less demanding world of StarDrive

[Kushan]

AI is good enough to allow you to play the game if that makes sense. It will build stuff, attack you, make deals, etc. it won't beat you once you learn the mechanics. I give it a C. Where it does well is in ship design since it uses yours. I played all of the races and designed good ships. Now when those races are Ai controlled, they use my designs

Thanks, think I'm going to pass for now. But I'll keep watching it. Very few game AI's will beat a player after they learn the mechanics IMO. What I look for in a 4x is an AI that at least reacts "rationally". Does the AI design any of its own ships if you did a bad design or as a counter to a design you have? Not a good sign IMO when an AI can't design its own ships in a game.

One thing I think is overrated in a lot of games is the ability to design your own ships. I would rather have pre-deisgned ships. Mainly because I think its hard for the developer to get the AI to do it correctly and after awhile all it becomes for the player is to simply hit upgrade all once you find a weapons mix you like.