Sword of the Stars 2: Trust ye not the space dolphin.

[Langy]

You mean Rebirth? Reunion was released a few years ago and doesn't include either of those things.

But yes, Rebirth does appear to have cool stuff like that, but you also only get a single ship. Ever. Which kind of sucks:/

[Jonny]

Yep, Rebirth is the one I was thinking about. Sorry about that. I don't mind the one ship deal, you get to upgrade it apparently and you can directly control fighter sized drones through a VR interface thingy.

[boolybooly]

Well with Resmurf, as Langy said, they have a cockpit but limit you to one ship, that's a very different kind of game to previous X games and sounds more like Evochron or Dark Star One with Freelancer highways. I think they made compromises again and for lack of a better explanation it appears to be in order to limit the number of cockpits they have to make.

What mystifies me is why, when they appear to be quite happy to make complex exteriors for dozens of ships. I may prod this with a very long stick once it is released, see if it twitches...

[Jonny]

There was only one ship in X-BTF and it was a naff one that could only be upgraded with the standard +cargo bay, + speed. If they can make the new one have character and an interesting upgrade system I'm not too fussed about the single ship, particularly as the drone system sounds exactly like flying a fighter in the previous few iterations anyway.

I suspect the capital ship control system will be the make or break for me, you can give them orders apparently, but whether it'll be like the recent games, an RPG style dialogue order system or a Homeworld-esque UI I don't know.

[boolybooly]

Well that explains it then Jonny, extrapolating from X3's absent immersive content and the creative meltdown it implies, it sounds a bit like they have lost touch with the gameplay, (mesmerised by planet shiney,) ran out of ideas and are going backwards, back to the place they started, trying to find their way.

That kind of retrospective approach smacks of desperation and doesn't bode well. Ship advancement is an important aspect of space trader gameplay, cutting it is expedient at best and a mistake if they had a choice. On the other hand maybe this was the only way they could reinvent the gameplay because to do that they had to let go of what X3 had become and start from fresh and fresh for them was X:BTF.

Only time will tell, as I say, I will be deploying the very long stick, which also applies to all future Kerberos productions.

[Cortlendt]

SotSII is now on sale on Steam.

[Paladin]

So Kerberos just sent out the "all clear" email, if anyone still cares.

[Locutus]

I bought it a while ago as part of a package, I think this'll get me to go and try it out when I get a chance.

[Cortlendt]

I've had this on Steam sale. Good to try out after I'm done with XCOM.

[Afoxi]

I've been telling people that the game has been complete for a long while.

Why i didn't make a fuss out of it was because after all is said and done, they seem to have lost the balance between complexity and fun that SotS 1 had.

It's very playable, but it seems extremely tedious now.

[boolybooly]

They also announced something else...

http://www.indiegogo.com/sots-thepit

It is a fishing expedition, an attempt to get into crowd funding. But at this juncture it makes me wonder about SotS2 because FYI all clear does not mean properly finished. SotS2 isnt properly finished, the UI is a disaster. If it stays like this I will remain very disappointed with them and I cannot endorse their product.

Mecron quote

(disclaimer: (cause folks like to go crazy) This announcement in NO way affects Sots/SotS2 and any future expansions and their happy home at Paradox. SotS 4x games continues to be members of the Paradox family of games...capiche?)


Ok now on to the news!

We have a new indy game project announcing on Indiegogo. Its a sots based rogue-style game called The Pit. It's retro, it's cute, it's cool. We would like folks to help bring it into existence, but more importantly since so many of you have been with us through thick and thin, I wanted to give you the lowdown on the how's and why's of this new path.

Welcome to the Future:

Like everything we do at Kerberos, this new game is part of a plan that is about both the short and the long term. The short term is easy. The Pit is a fun game we want to make and we hope you folks will love it. But the long term is about something a bit more serious; we have to find a better way of making things work.

From inception, Kerberos was meant to be a hybrid development house, working with Publishers but building up and controlling our own ip’s and setting our own level of support. Unfortunately, the realities of the changing computer game business have been making that more and more difficult despite the level of support from the fan base. The bottom line is that long term commitment and dynamic development of games requires dedicated resources and in the standard work for hire model there is just no budget to do that sort of thing. So the choice up to this point is either to ask more and more of a small number of people AFTER their regular work day developing contracted games while at the same time getting involved in more contracted projects in order to pay for the work being done supporting the last one. Sadly this is just no longer viable in this economic climate. While we have always been deeply indebted to the people out there who have shown us endless support and bought copies, even multiple copies, of all our games, the hard truth is that not a penny of that support has EVER reached us directly. And so in order to keep doing what we love to do and still survive, that means we have to start doing things in new ways.

And that “new” way is for Kerberos to go full indy.

While we fully intend to continue our partnership with Paradox with SotS2 and any expansions, Kerberos plans to diversify, carefully, into the realm of crowd sourced indy projects that will allow fan purchase to DIRECTLY enable the kind of support and development people seem to want. Now the temptation here is to go immediately for the big projects that need doing but we are just not comfortable with that. Truth be told, crowdsourcing is a new world for us and we are looking for a sustained development system, not just a one shot grab all you can and pray it scores kind of thing. We need to establish a viable and reliable pipeline for the creation of games in this way and you all need to see the results of those things without going full in on some mega project.

So what this boils down to is we are starting with The Pit; something fun, low risk, and most importantly, deep. (I know, he who puns may have other nasty habits) A game that will allow you to cast your vote for this plan and our commitment to support and still play before the sun goes cold. Assuming there is an audience for this, then you can safely expect 2 or 3 crowdsourced titles (not counting expansions) of increasing size and budget over the course of next year and this will hopefully establish a stable of self-published titles that will keep dedicated support programmers, artists and designers in the office. These games will appeal to both fans of our IP’s and fans of the game types themselves. While we want you folks to see new and different corners of our worlds, we also want to bring new people into the fold by putting some new twists on classic forms and by supporting these projects, you folks will also be able to help vote for what titles get developed next. Assuming all goes well with our ramping up approach, from there we will go on to bigger projects like Fort Zombie 2 and Northstar.

And there you have it. We are looking for your vote of confidence not only in the production of a great lil game, but also in our way of making living, breathing games where support doesn’t end after a bug fix or two. We love creating, maintaining and expanding our games but it can’t be done any longer within the traditional publisher/developer model. If these things are important or attractive to you then we humbly ask for you to come with us. Help show that this model for long term support means something to gamers. Help support the creation of new and enjoyable games for the right price. And help vote on which games will see the light of day.
This will be a great adventure, hope to see you there with us.


http://www.indiegogo.com/sots-thepit

And thank you for all your support in the past,
--Martin Cirulis
CEO/Creative Director
Kerberos Productions

[Aesaar]

That (The Pit) actually looks like crap. It's like they forgot that one of the weakest parts of SotS1 was that the art was complete shit.

For that matter, so were the ship designs. Fortunately, there's ACM.

[mlai]

Meh, don't care at all about SOTS2. If you guys say it's not as good as SOTS1 (for what sounds like valid reasons I'd agree with), then it's not as good as SOTS1. I'm still having fun with SOTS1 when I feel like a "fast-paced" 4X. I just finished a Solforce game, and now I'm playing a Tarka game.
SOTS1's loading art is indeed complete shit; I could (and I do) draw 10x better than that. Ofc it doesn't affect the fun factor of the game at all.

Human campaign in the Real Sky galaxy, summary:

Spoiler

150 stars, Human x2, Zuul x2, everyone else x1, total 8 civilizations.
I forgot that ppl had told me that Humans aren't suited for the Real Sky galaxy, and now I experienced it firsthand. There were a few stars which I could not explore except by slowboating a fleet over.
The first 2/3 of my campaign was pretty relaxing, due to me striking up an alliance with the Liir and a NAP with the other human faction (Solforce) early on. Solforce also NAP'ed with the Liir. Together we had a cozy little triumvirate going on. The Liir concentrated on containing the Hivers. Solforce faffed about. I concentrated on exterminating the 2 Zuul. The Tarka and the Morrigi were minor and never amounted to much.
The Grand Menace of this campaign turned out to be the Peacekeeper. It was a 300+ turns campaign; he appeared twice, and always seemed to pick on me and the Liir. I took my losses and didn't bother him; all my best weapons this campaign were short range (heavy lancers, phasers, beamers, projectors) so I couldn't mess with him.
The real menace this game was the Von Neumann homeworld. The highlight of this campaign. This game is the first time I've seen the VN Construct dreadnought; it effortlessly busted 2 of my planets. I have no idea how to deal with it with my short-ranged weapons, but it did triangulate the homeworld to me by allowing me to track its flight path with my sensor stations scattered all over the galaxy. So instead of fighting it, I decided to exterminate the source. The homeworld itself was gawk-worthy; my first time seeing it. But it was surprisingly light on defense. Or maybe my weapons were simply the best things for dealing with the swarms of VN saucers. I got curious with the moonbase, lost a fleet there to its imba missiles, and then decided to ignore it and just glass the planet itself.
The last 1/3 of the game was a political nightmare. I got the bright idea of manufacturing a 3-nation alliance. I figured we all got along for 200 turns, surely it would stick? It stuck for about 3 turns. The Liir didn't like Solforce enough to be allies, and asked to be NAP'ed. I agreed. Solforce decided to go to war. I never liked Solforce that much in this game; he felt opportunistic, self-serving, egocentric, and trigger-happy. A lot like humans. I tried to talk reason into him and got rebuffed squarely. He prolly thought he could use me to help him conquer the dolphins. He was wrong; I hate human politicians. I threw up my hands and let the 2 fight it out. In the end, the Zuul were wiped out/ surrendered, the Hivers capitulated to the Liir even though it had like 15 planets (the Liir must have some incredible anti-bug diplomatic strats researched), and Solforce begged for asylum after being reduced to 3 planets by the avenging Liir. I annexed the remains of Solforce. Proposed a new alliance with the Liir. Treaty signed. Game won.

[Misiok]

Uh, I actually like Sots 1 art and voice overs. It's enough cheesy to be enjoyable. Sides, the world is pretty well written at any rates, with different races and their gameplay mechanics changing. It's pretty sad to see it all cramped into some shitty indie iPad-like game.

[overmind2000]

I seem to recall reading that the "all clear" wasn't an end to project development - however it was a Mecron quote so its got a bit of salt along with it .

That said the new crowedsource game sounds like something they might be trying to throw together to get some much needed income into the company. I don't begrudge them that, I just hope that they continue to communicate and actively work upon polishing SotS2 - although at this stage I would not consider it out of the question for them to develop toward an expansion/standalone expansion for the game.

[[Vertigo]]

I doubt they can get a publishing contract after what they did with Sots2 so they HAVE to go with the alternative: Crowd Sourcing. Honestly, I don't know why Kerberos is in business after the train wreck that was Sots2.

[overmind2000]

I think Paradox invested a lot into them - enough that continuing to fund them after the failed launch was considered worthwhile. Plus they have somewhat redeemed themselves in working solid on the title to fix it - whereas the model for almost all other companies would have been to bury their head in the sand - deny everything and then close up shop/get bought out a month or two later.

[Kushan_Pilot]

I put a full day into it in July. About the only good thing I could say of it at the time was the game didn't crash on me. But the AI didn't do anything. Well...to be fair, of the two of them, one made it to DN hulls but neglected to do any other upgrades (crows). The other (Zuul) didn't leave their home system. Consequently it was all an exercise in exploring my tech tree as SolForce.

It's been almost 3 months since then. If it's got an AI now, I'd be tempted to try it this weekend. But it'll be with a scowl on my face.

[Goobers]

So I'm enjoying this almost crash free version of the game, like building a little fort out of chess pieces, I don't understand it but I like the colours. Desperately needs a tutorial though, and better economy tool tips since it seems like 90% of what you do is manage economy.

The game is VERY bloody slow though, 8 turns to clear a system so I could spend 6 turns surveying it, followed by 8-12 turns colonizing it, with another 7 turns supporting the colony so it started making me money, and then another 12 turns of doing nothing to get me out of the really big debt I had made for myself.



As for the AI, I had a Tarka AI stomping out a few of it's rebel colonies so it's obviously doing something, how much of a something I don't know but I got a couple of player defeated reports from that.

[Afoxi]

I was told (so take this with a grain of salt) that feasibility research and admirals were put in as a measure to stop people from beating Mecron in his own game.

[mlai]

How can SOTS2 AI be so bad when SOTS1 AI is so good?
I love how an enemy civilization can promptly change its preferred weapons set on me, after watching me wipe out its initial defense fleet with technology specifically manufactured to counter it.
Oh, and during the human game I mentioned above, I also had my very first AI Rebellion. If I wasn't allied with the Liir and NAP'ed with Solforce, I would have been in trouble. As it was, I had never been attacked so hard and so fast in my life. Wheeee.

[[Vertigo]]

"How can SOTS2 be so bad when SOTS1 is so good?"

I fixed that for you.

[Aesaar]

SotS1 AI is good? News to me. I remember it building hordes of cruisers and being utterly incapable of designing a good ship.

[mlai]

Hordes of cruisers? Do you mean your AI never threw fleets of dreadnoughts at you? Maybe it just didn't have the resources.
I don't know about their ships' exact turret layouts, but the AI can definitely counter your ship designs specifically.

[Aesaar]

They threw fleets of dreadnoughts at me very rarely, and only a while after I'd acquired dreadnoughts of my own. And even then, I had fleets of 5 or 6 dreadnoughts butchering dozens of theirs. It's pretty much why I stopped playing. Game just got too easy.

[[Vertigo]]

Depends on the map, tech level, and the difficulty of the AI you selected. Sometimes the AI gets a bad start and really doesn't amount to much at any point in the game. Some races are programmed to be hippies when it comes to war. With Sots 1 I can say the AI can give you a run for your money. Although there are ways to abuse the AI if you know what you are doing.

Edit: One game of Sots1 doesn't really set a good example of how all games will play out. There is a considerable amount of randomness in each game that can effect the outcome.

[overmind2000]

It also depends what difficulty you set the AI to - for example the easy AI will never ever tech past cruisers (if it does it takes so long you'll likely never see it).

[mlai]

I always give the AI a head start (more starting money, more starting colonies) in the setup screen.

I was cruising around with my fleet of dreadnoughts decked out with front disruptor shields, because the rebel AI was pumping out heavy lancer dreadnoughts that I researched. I felt pretty smart until its dreadnought rammed nose-to-nose right into my disruptor shielded dreadnought, and somehow our polygon bits hooked onto each other so that my ship can't even move. Why did it do that? Because now its nose section is entirely past my shield, and it just started melting my face with everything point-blank. Scariest lancer slugfest of my campaign.

[Aesaar]

To be clear, I haven't just played 1 game. I've played over 400 hours of SotS1. Maybe the AI can't handle the ACM mod well (fuck vanilla), but it's never given me much difficulty after I teched to dreadnoughts. Maybe it's the Mauler Devices I always seem to get in the tech tree.

[Yankov]

in tactical battle... how do you tell what enemy ship is what? (aside from... look at their shapes) seems i can only have camera focus on my own ship, as opposed to free camera being able to zoom into empty space

[mlai]

@ Aesaar:
Well... ofc if you're using a mod which radically redesigns everything, the SOTS1 default AI won't be much of a challenge.

@ Yankov:
There's no free camera in SOTS1, but you can press 'E' to zoom onto a discovered enemy ship. Or you can hover your pointer over any solid object and press 'F' to focus onto that. Use the radar screen for precise 'F' manual focusing.

[overmind2000]

In SotS 1 you can also press the middle mouse button when hovering over any solid object and it will tie the camera to that object. If it becomes destroyed the camera hovers over the last known point before destruction. (in fact barring shift and ctrl for selecting groups of ships for moving them around SotS 1 is a great game you can control just with the mouse alone.

[Yankov]

(sots2)
ah... right... was wondering because i can't select enemy ships.. left click them mean attacking them. so didn't know how to focus on them, despite knowing what the hotkey is.

[Paladin]

1st expansion releases on the 30th, and will be free for all current owners of the game.

http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/...hanced-Edition

[Busby]

Suddenly I feel really bad for wiping out those AI rebellions in prime.

[Paladin]

They're back for payback. It's all your fault Busby

[Rook]

A nice surprise, it seems rather interesting and best of all its free! maybe this will wash some of the bad taste out of my mouth.

[Paladin]

Well, I have to admit I'm a little impressed that they've been releasing patches all year, and developing an expansion, and making an indie roguelike...

[Rook]

ah i actually meant the bad taste left by legends of pegasus, I've had a lot of fun with sots2 trying it off and on since release. but the genre has been a little rocky lately.

[overmind2000]

I'd expected them to work on an expansion or standalone release -though I'm very glad that it seems that they've managed to do this alongside patching the game so extensively. Maybe Paradox can show that even a failed launch can be repaired to a quality title.

[Jonny]

I've not touched SotS2 for a long time. It's not just the state of the game, I was disgusted at mecron and Kerberos in general. Being right there on their forums around launch day and having no inkling from them that the full priced game I'd pre-ordered based on their previous work was a blatant alpha-build shambles really put me off them.

Giving away this expansion for free goes a small way towards repairing that. I'll still never buy another Kerberos game until I know damn sure that it's not a rip-off again, but at least I'll be able to try SotS2 in a reasonably objective fashion instead of being coloured by it's launch.

*edit*

Also, Kickstarter? With Kerberos? Are they nuts? I wouldn't promise Mecron a used rubber without seeing the finished product first.

[Iamme]

Cool. I too am impressed how much they've invested in SOTS2. I only hope they can improve the UI in the enhanced edition. It's really unintuitive from what little I've tried of the game. I want so much to like it.

[Mokino]

A lot of the UI/game seems to be complexity for complexity sake.

[Afoxi]

A lot of the UI/game seems to be complexity for complexity sake.

A lot of the UI/Game/Bureaucratic Nonsense/Complexity is in place to make players conform to Mecron's playstyle and stop them from beating him in his own game during multiplayer. ==;;

[overmind2000]

http://www.kerberos-productions.com/...p?f=37&t=36451

Just to confirm for people wondering, it seems that the way this will be rolled out is a straight product swap. Essentially the expansion/enhanced edition looks like it will be a product update (like a superpatch). As such I suspect that any hardcopy purchases made at any point of the original SOTS2 game will get the upgrade for free and that, of course, any SOTS2 purchase made online up to or after the point of the expansions release gets the expansion too.

[BalanceSheet]

Did some contract work for Kerberos, not sure if these assets will end up in the game or some other project with the Loa race.

[Jopax]

Sweet stuff Balance, glad to see you working with some big names

This seems like a great thing, and honestly I only played the first one with all the extra stuff and it was awesome, so I think 2 will be getting better with time. Might even nab this one if it goes on sale for Christmas

[Mokino]

Nice art Balance. They've come a long way since the SOTS1 screens (though I love the retro style of those still.)

EDIT: Considering how much the expansions changed SOTS 1, I have SOME hope that there's a salvageable game in the sequel.

[Paladin]

Yeah, they've confirmed that all copies of SotsII will be upgraded, and all new copies produced will be Enhanced Edition. The point is to reward everyone who bought SotSII and also make sure that they only have one version to maintain. So even if you buy a boxed copy of vanilla SotSII after the Enhanced Edition release, it will be patched to include the End Of Flesh expansion.

[Carl]

So i could go out and get SOTS2 now and it would auto update to the expanshion on release? Intresting.

Given the release state we never really did get a full discushion though on mechanics et al. How has the tech tree balance worked out this time round. Last time the list of non-viable weaponry amounted to 80% of the things in the tech tree. What with PD spam rendering all missiles, drones, torps, and pretty much anything else invalid, low power rendering every small weapon non-PD option bar pulse Phasers pretty bad, and only really Ap Gauss and Plasma/Fushion/Antimatter cannon, (+ heavy vaients), being really good. Pretty much everything else amounting to second best or tottally horribble depending.

ALso how have battle riders fared, cna you actually bring enough to get some true firepower out of them by comparision to a nmn-BR carring alternative ship, or are they pretty much SOTS1 DD's Mk2?

For that matter how have stations worked out, and all the other nice new features.