@ JarHead... SOTS 2 Questions

[sandman2575]

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 -

[Jarhead0331]

Dive right in...its mostly intuitive.  Then use the manual just to fill in the blanks.

[sandman2575]

Sounds good -- dive in I will -- thanks

[Jarhead0331]

Sounds good -- dive in I will -- thanks

Let me know if you run into any roadblocks and have any questions...

[Jarhead0331]

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.

[Steelgrave]

^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.

[sandman2575]

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" --

[TheCommandTent]

After all this talk, the next big STEAM sale and I'm all in.

[Tpek]

After all this talk, the next big STEAM sale and I'm all in.

Won't be long now.
Christmas is next month.

[Grim.Reaper]

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

[gocrows]

Bought it 4 days ago on GAmestop for $7.00 Australian. Good deal

[Kushan]

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?

[GDS_Starfury]

well this is based on lots of SOTS1 play.
early game go for the best missiles you can while you research energy weapons.

[Yskonyn]

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.

[Kushan]

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?