Endless space
WhiteWeasel
Join Date: 2012-11-25 Member: 173197Members
Join Date: 2012-11-25 Member: 173197Members
I've decided to see if people will give this game another look. Before you say anything, I tried nercroing the old one, the editing did NOT like it.
4X game (explore, expand, exploit, exterminate).
Gamespot video review:
Game site here: http://www.amplitude-studios.com/
Game add-on progress: http://endless-space.amplitude-studios.com/Progress
[EDIT] See dev blog for new details.
-(virtual awakening) Ship design contest finals, G2G for fighter designs, more Exp events/anomalies, heros, new faction, and possibly more
-Battle revamp
-Ship competition finalists
Endless space is about exploring the galaxy, finding good systems and colonizing them. Building improvements to give your systems better;
Food (how fast your pop goes up)
Industry (how quickly you build ships/improvements)
Dust (Money)
Science (more sci means you can research more advanced tech)
And meeting other empires and though war or diplomacy to become the strongest faction.
The video gives a decent summery of the game. (although the guy could have sounded more enthusiastic)
Also anything you could possibly click on has a tool tip that tells you what it does, so I found it user friendly. However I will say the game takes a long time to play, it may not appeal to the fast-paced fps crowd.
EDIT: I'd also like to say that this game does not require much to operate; if you can run ns2 at all, you can run this at the highest settings.
Here is a more detailed video of the battle system:
(Which people either love or hate).
Also note in the battles the %tiles are additive
The 3 phases of battle go like this for weapon accuracy:
Long range: Missiles 90% Beams 50% Kinetics 20%
Medium range: Missiles 70% Beams 90% Kinetics 40%
Melee range: Missiles 40% Beams 70% Kinetics 90%
And you have various cards to play that buff your ships, debuffs the enemy, and possibly cancel his card. And blocking a card will yield larger effect to the one that countered it.
[Edit] This game has had three free add-ons (now a fourth one planned) at the time of this post:
Rise of the automatons: Currently doing a ship design contest
In ES there are 9 different stock factions with a unique appearance and countless custom ones to be played:
Evil factions:
United Empire: unlike most sci-fi games the base human race of the game is evil. The U.E. is a imperialistic empire that that wins though Economic / Military and gets an industry bonus at high taxes.
Cravers: Are a race of insectoid life forms that no concept of peace or sustainability, and therefor must continually expand or they will consume them selves to death. Their planets get a bonus to FIDS when recently colonized then normal for awhile then have a depleted status, forcing expansion.
Hissho: Avian klingons if you will. Their weapons deal 36% more damage and 15% more likely to hit (additively) making them good warmongers. However they do have a malice to science making them more easy to out tech (and gun).
Neutral factions:
Horatio: His entire race is nothing but a clone of himself and his goal is to beautifie the stars by filling them with horatios. The biggest narcissist you will EVER see. They have special food/influence bonuses and the ability to clone heros.
Sowers: Wall-E comes to mind. They are robots that have been created by the endless to "prepare" for their eventual return. They can colonize planets before getting the tech for them, with a reduced FIDS until it is researched
Good factions:
Pilgrims: A splinter cell of the UE, they are the faction showed in the beginning of the video. They have the ability to create a "fleet errant" that can take all (but one) of the populace and improvements and migrate them to another more suitable planet.
Amoeba: A very open race that specializes in diplomacy: "Though the Amoeba do not feel that their nature is to dominate and conquer, they can be viewed as warriors whose weapons are diplomacy and trade." They start with the whole galaxy mapped out, get approval (happiness) and damage bonuses for being at peace/allied with other factions.
Sophons: The science race. They are not as strong as other races but make up for it by being able to research more advanced tech (and guns) before anyone else. They get a bonus to science with low taxes.
Automatons: A fan-made faction that won a contest. They are robots who were the leftovers of their masters who since died of ecological damage to the planet. They have the ability to stack industry.
Games2gether: This is a good example of interaction of the devs.
Simply when your a member of the forums you acquire G2G points by posting and putting in a unique code if you have a copy of the game. This allows all the forum members to vote on the features that will be implemented into the game. Also the devs will more often than most consult their members about additions of the game before adding anything to see what the fans come up with.
4X game (explore, expand, exploit, exterminate).
Gamespot video review:
Game site here: http://www.amplitude-studios.com/
Game add-on progress: http://endless-space.amplitude-studios.com/Progress
[EDIT] See dev blog for new details.
-(virtual awakening) Ship design contest finals, G2G for fighter designs, more Exp events/anomalies, heros, new faction, and possibly more
-Battle revamp
-Ship competition finalists
Endless space is about exploring the galaxy, finding good systems and colonizing them. Building improvements to give your systems better;
Food (how fast your pop goes up)
Industry (how quickly you build ships/improvements)
Dust (Money)
Science (more sci means you can research more advanced tech)
And meeting other empires and though war or diplomacy to become the strongest faction.
The video gives a decent summery of the game. (although the guy could have sounded more enthusiastic)
Also anything you could possibly click on has a tool tip that tells you what it does, so I found it user friendly. However I will say the game takes a long time to play, it may not appeal to the fast-paced fps crowd.
EDIT: I'd also like to say that this game does not require much to operate; if you can run ns2 at all, you can run this at the highest settings.
Here is a more detailed video of the battle system:
(Which people either love or hate).
Also note in the battles the %tiles are additive
The 3 phases of battle go like this for weapon accuracy:
Long range: Missiles 90% Beams 50% Kinetics 20%
Medium range: Missiles 70% Beams 90% Kinetics 40%
Melee range: Missiles 40% Beams 70% Kinetics 90%
And you have various cards to play that buff your ships, debuffs the enemy, and possibly cancel his card. And blocking a card will yield larger effect to the one that countered it.
[Edit] This game has had three free add-ons (now a fourth one planned) at the time of this post:
Rise of the automatons: Currently doing a ship design contest
Echos of the endless:Added the Automatons faction with a specific gameplay affinity and properties for specific buildings, according to Panzer, the winner of the faction contest.
Automatons Affinity:
1. At the end of the turn, if there is an overproduction, it's stacked instead of being reported.
2. At the beginning of a turn, an interest is applied to the stacked industry, allowing it to increase a bit.
3. The stacked industry is capped at 5 * system's industry.
4. If the overproduction cannot be stacked, it's conserved for the next turn like the current mechanism.
5. When the automatons build improvements & ships, the industry is used in the following order:
a. system's industry
b. overproduction
c. stacked industry
6. When a system from the Automatons is invaded, the stacked industry is destroyed, reset to 0 even if the invader is an Automaton.
Polaris:Added exploration rewards: small random bonuses for the first player to explore a system.
Some exploration events are now interactive.
Added natural and endless wonders. The endless wonders can be restored.
Added more life to the galaxy with the random addition of comets, black holes, pulsars, ...
Added 4 heroes of new factions (Sheredyn and minor factions).
Added 5 new musics.
Virtual awakening: (planned) Currently open for bomber/fighter suggestionsNew balance of Factions traits (first pass).
Blockade breaker doesn't work with empire at war
Added abilities tree pictures for each hero class in "inspect" panel.
Added Steam cloud management system for saves.
New game introduction panel.
Added a new hero from minor faction.
Added a new natural Wonder with associated FX on planet.
Some additional texts translated in RUS/POL/ITA/GER.
We are hoping you are all enjoying the 1.0.60 update we recently released, as well as our first game design document on Fighters & Bombers for the expansion pack we revealed for the current G2G vote.
Fighters & Bombers are a new kind of armament which are treated as ships during a manual battle. They bring a new strategic dimension, and can be used to launch an instantaneous invasion on systems.
Bombers are meant to deal heavy damage to the opponent’s fleet, whereas Fighters are both the first defense against Bombers as well as their primary protection. Note: Fighters deal little damage ( Sub-note: Unless they get a direct hit on the exhaust port… ).
In ES there are 9 different stock factions with a unique appearance and countless custom ones to be played:
Evil factions:
United Empire: unlike most sci-fi games the base human race of the game is evil. The U.E. is a imperialistic empire that that wins though Economic / Military and gets an industry bonus at high taxes.
Cravers: Are a race of insectoid life forms that no concept of peace or sustainability, and therefor must continually expand or they will consume them selves to death. Their planets get a bonus to FIDS when recently colonized then normal for awhile then have a depleted status, forcing expansion.
Hissho: Avian klingons if you will. Their weapons deal 36% more damage and 15% more likely to hit (additively) making them good warmongers. However they do have a malice to science making them more easy to out tech (and gun).
Neutral factions:
Horatio: His entire race is nothing but a clone of himself and his goal is to beautifie the stars by filling them with horatios. The biggest narcissist you will EVER see. They have special food/influence bonuses and the ability to clone heros.
Sowers: Wall-E comes to mind. They are robots that have been created by the endless to "prepare" for their eventual return. They can colonize planets before getting the tech for them, with a reduced FIDS until it is researched
Good factions:
Pilgrims: A splinter cell of the UE, they are the faction showed in the beginning of the video. They have the ability to create a "fleet errant" that can take all (but one) of the populace and improvements and migrate them to another more suitable planet.
Amoeba: A very open race that specializes in diplomacy: "Though the Amoeba do not feel that their nature is to dominate and conquer, they can be viewed as warriors whose weapons are diplomacy and trade." They start with the whole galaxy mapped out, get approval (happiness) and damage bonuses for being at peace/allied with other factions.
Sophons: The science race. They are not as strong as other races but make up for it by being able to research more advanced tech (and guns) before anyone else. They get a bonus to science with low taxes.
Automatons: A fan-made faction that won a contest. They are robots who were the leftovers of their masters who since died of ecological damage to the planet. They have the ability to stack industry.
Games2gether: This is a good example of interaction of the devs.
Simply when your a member of the forums you acquire G2G points by posting and putting in a unique code if you have a copy of the game. This allows all the forum members to vote on the features that will be implemented into the game. Also the devs will more often than most consult their members about additions of the game before adding anything to see what the fans come up with.
Comments
Actually missiles are pretty hard countered by flak, Beams are your go-to weapon. Unlike deflectors or flak, (assuming of the same tier) shields are the only defense that doesn't entirely negate damage when it successfully defends. (Missiles are destroyed, kinetics are harmlessly knocked away) but all defenses are only about ~90% counter to weapons they protect against (I.E a deflector blocks 9 projectiles while the same tier weapon fires 10) Also if you add up the percentages, beams have the highest overall accuracy:
Missiles: 200%
Beams: 210%
Kinetics: 150% (has the highest potential damage, just can't hit for s**t).
As for damage, lets assume top tier, 100% accuracy, no crits
Missile 500-620 Once a phase or 4 rounds (1 to fire, 1 for launched to travel, 1 to detonate, 1 to wait for all to impact)
Beam 4 rounds, 175-220
Kinetic 4 rounds, 6-8 X 42 = 252-336
What difficulty are you playing?
Right now my go to 4x for when the mood arises is Distant Worlds, seriously amazing stuff.
I like the format (e.g. choosing action cards), but I dislike how it goes in stages and that you have to unlock further action cards. Also, I'd prefer to see the combat last until one side is destroyed or retreats, rather than till the stages are done.
Hmm, I believe there is a mod out there that changes the battle duration, (or at least the rounds fired, making battles more damaging and less likley to stalemate)
Long range is unchaged 4 round
Medium is 6 rounds
Melee is 8 rounds.
I can't find that mod, but I think you would like this one (note that it is WIP, might be a little buggy)
http://forums.amplitude-studios.com/showthread.php?15816-WIP-quot-Fair-Fight-quot-combat-re-balance-mod.
Two sides kinda just passing each other? No strategy? No tactics? Ok we've got rock paper scissors cards. Why does neither side pursue?
It was made purely for the cinematic fights, which even the dev stated. What happens when you have too many cinematic events during game play? It gets quite boring. I see the battles and think, I could be playing Homeworld right now.
I approach the game from a, Civilizations in space, sort of view which it does quite well so far.