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One small step for man..


silencer_pl

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Hi.

 

I just wanted to show you a quick game of current Sword of stars 2 gameplay. I don't know how long it will take me to win/lose/forfeit the game but I have chosen small map to do it. Since there is no map generator I am using a pre-rendered map - the only thing that is random is solar systems and planets (and of course random encounters).

 

This is what I have chosen

 

mars%202012-01-26%2021-13-30-46.jpg

 

4 players. I will be playing SolForce immersion, and I will be pitted against, tarkas, morigi and Suulka. AI settings are on Easy because this game ain't perfect yet and I want to show you how current state of game looks like. I realy don't like human avatars in this game, maybe few - so I picked this chick - because we will be all dirty quick :clapping: Color of my empire blue with addition of white to the ships

 

mars%202012-01-26%2021-15-15-45.jpg

 

Ok.. We establish our homeworld. Just like standard Sots game - planet size 10, resources 5000 and new type of planet bonus - biosphere. It is opposite of resources and the higher the biosphere the more people can live (if I read right) also biosphere is being reduced by terraforming - some techs reduce the penalty.

 

mars%202012-01-26%2021-15-35-98.jpg

 

mars%202012-01-26%2021-16-04-16.jpg

 

We don't have luck with our main system - only 1 planet, 1 gas gigant (it will serve for mining stations later on if I am not mistaken) and 2 non

habitat planets.

 

Our second planet looks pretty good and we can have another colony in that system

 

mars%202012-01-26%2021-16-14-45.jpg

 

The second planet in that system is ok and is in the queue line for colonization

 

mars%202012-01-26%2021-16-19-14.jpg

 

Our third system is also looking extremely well and it is a good candidate for being a trade oriented world

 

mars%202012-01-26%2021-16-30-92.jpg

 

This planet looks awesome and is the first to be colonized - since we are starting with 3 fleets (survey, colonization and construction) we start colonizing this pretty planet and send survey team to the nearest system to check out what new worlds can be used.

 

mars%202012-01-26%2021-16-30-92.jpg

 

mars%202012-01-26%2021-16-32-42.jpg

 

I then manage my imperial coffers. First we need money - and the best way to get money is to rise taxes - default value is 5 and I increase to 7. Increasing taxes lowers slowly morale on all planets - but before morale drops to certain point we will have enough money to reduce the tax.

 

Next I cut the expenses on mining stimulus as we don't have mining operations yet. Stimulus part encourages civilians to invest in something - mining = mining station, colonization = better colonies(?). Actually I didn't found out what exactly all things do. But I've know enough that in trade department there is a chance that civilians will build their own trade centre and trade ships and you will not have pay the upkeep but then again you will not have control over it - but the money will be flowing.

 

Security is a unknown thing - all I know that security helps decrease corruption (black part in pie). I probably assume that opperations helps in survey, intelligence helps with detecting enemy fleets and counter helps conceal yours (but that is my guess).

 

Trism is your type of goverment - all civs start with centrism - the point will move to other trism when you do certain actions represented by given trism - more info you can find on sots2 wiki.

 

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For research I check the feasibility of expert systems to improve my industrial output - it looks great on paper so I go for it.

 

mars%202012-01-26%2021-19-06-11.jpg

 

After that I went for orbital dry docks, heavy industry (or whatever it is called), heavy frigates for cruiser type frigates (+ modular thingis to increase trade output) and FTL Economics to start the trade.

 

We establish the new colony

 

mars%202012-01-26%2021-19-30-43.jpg

 

Because it didn't need long to be self-sufficient I moved my colonizing team to other system. A bit of info - colonizers aren't one use in this game. After establishing colony - colonizers either can switch to something else or keep supplying the colony - every fleet has to do certain action and every fleet has it's own supplies and fleets are assigned to systems so after completing a mission fleet returns to its designated system.

 

Time flies and we discover new worlds some are good that I can settle right away - some will wait till more bio-tech I will have or I can have bio-colonizers.

 

mars%202012-01-26%2021-24-09-16.jpg

 

mars%202012-01-26%2021-24-10-74.jpg

 

This is nicely planet it has top priority in colonizing.

 

mars%202012-01-26%2021-28-28-23.jpg

 

And another one

 

mars%202012-01-26%2021-32-20-08.jpg

 

Also at our home world I have build science station - it will help me with research - mainly energy weapons as soon I will be upgrading my ships with better equipment.

 

After FTL economics are researched - I establish civilian center at my trade system. The only nuisance is that a frigate must be build in the system that it will be used, so I guess I will leave one planet with highest output to be the forging one untill all trade routes will be taken.

 

And a side not - after designing ship you must build prototype. Time and money for prototype are greater than later mass produced ones - so this will minimize the incoming of new planned ships - also Mecron on Kerberos forums said that retro fitting will arrive soon (probably with next patch).

 

The example of prototype cost is 500k for cruiser type ship and 3 turns to build while the normal version can cost 100-150k and 1 turn

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1. Check the pictures again. Those are planets - in planets details you have label - 'Moons' . Moons can also be colonized If I read right - some planets cannot be colonized but their moons can.

 

2. Planet type normal = you can colonize it without penalties - there are other planet types like volcanic, primeordeal (or something like that). When I read at Kerberos (I think) it makes colonization bit harder and requires additional tech - but I don't think it is working.

 

The wiki is so lacking in information.

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Silencer - SotS II Frontierman. :clapping:

 

Very brave of you to take the plunge given the current state of the game. By your descriptions it seems to have even more of a requisite planning to your actions, and added complexities.

 

::

 

By the way, are you ready for some System Killers or do you feel luckier this time around? :P

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I hope not. In this map it would be very bad luck to have system killer targeting my planets - I am in a corner so I guess if such thing will happen probably sulka or Tarka will eat it. Right now my path of expansion lie through Tarka and Suul territory. I am slowly preparing invasion force - though I am trying to increase my trade output.

 

This game made so many changes that I guess they will not be as intended for another half year. Some things are not working - some things are still broken. For example I have tech that reduces time and cost of prototype units but after I ordered a prototype I took same time to build it and same amount of cash. Also ships can have special Point Defence modules - I didn't see theme working. What is more - my engines are producing total 85 power - ships uses 67 for example but in battle my cruisers states that they have 0% energy - something ain't right then. Yes they shoot but I don't know if they shoot at 100% of their reload time. The battle UI must be changed hard - in Sots1 I could see how much time given weapon has to reload here I don't know and of course to hear them firing I must have like maximum zoom.

 

Also there is a bug with population - in default settings 50% planets suppose to have enough people not to use planets resources - but here if I have default 50% for example in my homeworld people tend to overpopulate then in few turns population drops down and rises - this way I am loosing planetary resources. I don't know if it is intended but clearly it is frustrating.

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So I continue to play. I develop my planets,, build trade ships, do some research etc etc. After having enough weapon research I design new ships.

 

Please welcome Thorondor type battle cruiser.

 

mars%202012-01-27%2020-08-59-45.jpg

 

And Space Voyager type Command Ship.

 

mars%202012-01-27%2020-10-34-97.jpg

 

This will be our primary ships for now until I will bring Dreadnoughts which isn't far in the research tree.

 

As in Sots 1 - these encounters were EXTREMELY RARE - only got once through my all gaming time in Sots 2 they are pretty regular and boy they are mean. Spectres are sucking life from anything - ships, stations, planets - they are medium fast (faster at normal fusion engine speed) but not that fast if you can go 3x speed or probably with anti matter drive - which I will have at the end of this entry.

 

mars%202012-01-27%2020-15-08-20.jpg

 

This is trade view of one of our systems. My thoughts on trade are - that someone want good but made it so complicated that I want to murder that person. So here is a description of trade.

 

1. Planets make goods.

2. In order to export goods I must create a civilian station and a freighter. There are 2 types of theme - normal and mega - because Mega freighter are just close to get. After I have a civilian station I must add docks to theme. A fresh civilian station adds 1 triangle (which is dock). Light freighter takes 1 dock, large 2. Now I don't know if the freighter has any cargo limit. Ah and freighters export goods only from planet they are built. So if freighter is built it is added to freighter navy and that is the last place you've seen it.

3. Once that all things are met from point 2 I now must move slider from construction to trade. In order to export ALL goods from system trade must be set to max.

 

So in short that is how trade works now. If you want better description go here.

 

mars%202012-01-27%2021-05-54-96.jpg

 

After building 2 invasion fleet and 1 defender fleet I set out to kill alien swines.

 

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The interface of battle is horrible for my taste. I have point defence at my ships but it is useless !!!! Come on in Sots 1 PD always hit the missiles - but here ???? Every single missile hit from what I saw. And stupid me forgot to bring Repair and Salvage crew.

 

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I try to assault their planets more times but I guess here you can't just bomb theme to kingdom kong - I lose few ships and I pull back and wait for new ships (PD and Assault shuttle).

 

So a new ship type is made - NKF Assault cruiser.

 

mars%202012-01-28%2012-23-55-77.jpg

 

A Full Auto - Point defence cruiser. A side note - PD sucks huge balls in this game - 90% of rockets hits the target when using laser PD. Don't know if phaser PD (if I get it) will work good. Just watch the movies I am posting you will see PD in action.

 

mars%202012-01-28%2012-23-22-13.jpg

 

The AI tries sneak attack - but I say no.

 

mars%202012-01-28%2012-43-33-19.jpg

 

 

First round ended a draw, second round I destroyed everything. After the battle I have learned that pause key was switched to P instead of PAUSE function key. So probably next battles I will be playing with pause since without it, it is very hard to micro your ships specially without that close contact stance. Also by the end of battle you might experience some slowdown - that is the bad optimization I guess - had like 20 fps there - might probably disable some gfx - I already disabled Ambient Occlusion.

 

mars%202012-01-28%2013-06-47-23.jpg

 

After the defence I had 2 strike fleets ready for return to action.

 

mars%202012-01-28%2013-23-52-87.jpg

 

That lost ship was an assault shuttle - also strange that after the battle I seem not to be able use salvage and repair ship to repair the lost shuttle... Maybe it is auto thing I don't know. Already send colonizing team to that system.

 

Also I have started dreadnoughts construction project so I guess bigger ships will come soon.

 

One more thing that I discovered. There was an AI bug that made AI research unreachable goal, so what Kerberos did for now is that after failed project went to 100% over budget - the scientists send you a message that this task will not be achieved and it disapperas on the research tree - but after a load it is there again. What I read is that it is temporal hack until they decide how to solve it other way.

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Watched the vid. While it looks very pretty I do miss the feel of... fleet actions? In naval warfare it would very rarely get to furball like this. Sure it is space and 3D but still. I wish there was more to fleet composition.

 

I do think Kerberos has much more planned than we see today. And it has individuals stubborn enough to carry it out at least to a level they can not go below in their mind. More will follow in the expansions I'm sure.

 

All in all the game holds huge potential.

 

PD is a much discussed matter at their forums as well. Fine things like accuracy settings will be tuned later.

 

How do you find the whole fleet mission system? Do you miss more control over the fleet after it is sent on a mission?

 

On the battle; I never doubted you would win. How could you lose with CnC like that?! :clapping:

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God this game gives me such a headache. So many things not working or broken, UI has tendency to go CTD... I don't know how they could even imagine to let this game out on the market - this is the biggest failure of games - bigger than DNF and Fallout 2 put together.

 

Answering your questions - I think the mission system is crap. Fleets now have unlimited range provided they have enough supplies to go on - maybe it is good but you will later see why it is not. Secondly If I have a mission I want to change it on the fly and not wait for ship to return to his homeworld. Also the number the planets on the system the number the fleets can 'garrison' there - others must just patrol it.

 

Thanks to all that bullcrap the game has to offer my progress haven't moved far in case of expansion. So here is what I have achieved so far.

 

I had few more successful battles against Tarkas.

 

mars%202012-01-29%2010-18-23-73.jpg

 

mars%202012-01-29%2010-23-43-80.jpg

 

But assaulting their planets without assault shuttles is suicide without working point defence. So I back off and do some research... but the AI will soon show me some of his 'bright' ideas and some sillyness of game mechanics.

 

At first I thought that he will just do some silly stuff. He attacks one of my colony 1 turn away from my Homeworld - I have a defending fleet so no problem.

 

mars%202012-01-29%2010-33-28-55.jpg

 

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But few turn later with bigger fleet same colony:

 

mars%202012-01-29%2010-41-44-77.jpg

 

mars%202012-01-29%2010-46-11-83.jpg

 

I think something is wrong here - Tarkas cruiser are sooo durable... come on - in Sots 1 so early in game 4 direct HC shots annihilated ships but here ? They can survive 12 shots and still go. Something ain't right - even if they had the best armor - after destroying a section is should be just a few shots to destroy them - but no.... furthermore I have learned that auxiliary power supplies that you can mount on engines ARE NOT WORKING... they are just for show.... For christ sake - is something here working as it should be ?

 

He tries to send colonizer into region that I have - I guess that if AI dosen't know the planet is occupied it just goes there. So here is the first beginning of fubared mission design. Fleets are smaller so if you want full scale invasion you would have to bring 3-4 fleets first - 1 against enemy fleets, 1 against enemy planets, 1 for repairs - but wait - you can't repair not in your own territory - at least the button is disabled maybe S&R do it automaticaly but I don't know. In Sots1 S&R had plenty of repair points here it is just shadow of former glory - where as in sots 1 it had 15000 points or so - here it has only 500. And that is not enough to repair 1 cruiser. So with standard cruiser fleet you would have 5 of those then maybe 1 ship per turn would be enough to repair.

 

mars%202012-01-29%2010-48-14-82.jpg

 

But that is not the end of frustration - see that picture below?

 

mars%202012-01-29%2011-30-04-85.jpg

 

The AI was so obsessed that he threw I don't know 20 fleets or so on the same system ? At first I thought that If I will destroy something and lose nothing I would be perfectly safe right ? In sots 1 you could invade with 100 ships and those 100 ships had a chance to fight in 1 battle. But now it is 1 fleet per battle - so If you decide to fight with fleet that has 1 ship only 1 ship will be in that fight no matter that you have 100 in this system. But that is not all. After a while I got a message that a rebellion started on that system - wait what? They even didn't have propaganda unit. So now if system is invaded continuously the morale on that system drops - great - so I lost my free repairing - so I had to have 2 defending fleets and switching between turns for repair.

 

I wanted to wait for more better techs - but situation forced me to. Please meet my first Thorondor-II class dreadnought ship

 

mars%202012-01-29%2011-33-56-17.jpg

 

mars%202012-01-29%2012-37-53-42.jpg

 

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Also 1 problem with Dreadnoughts and HC lasers - the width of it makes shot so wide that they can't hit cruiser sized ship.

 

Turn after turn after turn I destroyed tarkas ships - because of that stupid rebelion I lost 1 colony there - lucky didn't lose trading station.

On the other side I assembled invasion fleet with proper techs. I have added disruptor shield to my assault shuttle cruiser, pd and repair cruiser.

 

mars%202012-01-29%2012-38-32-66.jpg

 

Also another problem found - after shuttles are done invading planet they don't want to return to the ship. Another not working function - also strangely enough 1 shuttle cruiser is enough to destroy whole planet - while in sots 1 I had to like use gazillion of times this thing.

 

Also I wanted to increase my fleet size so I went for armada cnc and then was created Space Voyager-II class dreadnought C&C.

 

mars%202012-01-29%2016-14-14-39.jpg

 

Finally after 50 turns I managed to defeat his invasion force and managed to take 1 system from him.

 

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I thought that I will have some piece for now but... ;(

 

mars%202012-01-29%2017-42-01-15.jpg

 

Again same thing - same system... In Sots1 he would have to use many tankers - but now this thing I don't is it fun ? 50 turns of invasion with 1 supply ship ? I think something is broken here.

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Also earlier I mentioned that I went for prototyping update - well I went on the forums and found a topic - another feature that I wanted to take advantage of is NOT WORKING.... seriously - what is working here right ?

 

And another thing - about the Tarka toughness - I have big planetary missilies and anit-matter warheads - in sots 1 any cruiser hit with couple of this would just go boom - yet here they:

 

1. Survived serious punishment from my guns

2. Survive 5-7 hits from such babies.

 

Come on wtf - another broken thing ? If Tarkas are so durable I fear to meet Hivers since their ships have best durrability.

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The new patch doesn't bring anything special in case of fixes but is surely brings new bugs as I read through Kerberos forums. Well I don't think I will continue this AAR since so many things are broken that it doesn't give fun. If by chance there will be patch that will suites my needs I might return to it or start a new one.
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The new patch doesn't bring anything special in case of fixes but is surely brings new bugs as I read through Kerberos forums. Well I don't think I will continue this AAR since so many things are broken that it doesn't give fun. If by chance there will be patch that will suites my needs I might return to it or start a new one.

Perfectly understandable. Looking forward to it, whenever it may come!

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I wanted to try battle raiders. Battle raiders are little ships Destroyer sized without node engine (humans) but in forums they say that anything with this just went to pieces. My predicted time of game accessibility remains the same - the game should be playable enough in mid summer. They simply put the development bar up too high.

I am only amazed that paradox funds kerberos and their patching mission.

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  • 2 months later...

Recorded 2 battles with current version.

 

Random battle with early tech - I have advantage of having torpedoes

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKliqp8pHVE

 

Mid game tech - assaulting planets. I thought they would have some defence. The game crashed for me during recording. I did a second attempt it took 3 flights of shuttles to clear the planet. Next time I won't be a noob and add shields to shuttles too :P

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxzbLpFhMPw

 

 

Also When (and If) I manage to finish my 3rd attempt of Morrigi in SotS1 I'll try SotS2. Might be more fixed :P

 

 

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No it was in technical forum and I posted it today in the morning. I guess one of Those mods had to read it and said - "this crap is in wrong forum" :P

 

 

I am beating myself to try and finish at least one playthrough but the constant attack on my system every 2nd 3rd turn by AI is very annoying - not to mention I had to fight myself because auto-resolve is piece of utter crap.

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