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Post by Fayde on Aug 30, 2009 13:12:10 GMT -8
Yes you heard me correctly "Coolest game ever made"... Just as it says in the title. It's a space opera naval RTS in the style of Supreme Commander, as you can zoom in and out of the battles to look at entire solar systems and galaxies. There are massive battles between ships as well, and I mean huge. I just got done getting owned by the computer on my first game, and I had only explored 1 out of the 4 systems on the map, and the game took half an hour. The battle alone took 5 minutes for a hand full of light cruisers and one Capital ship each! The battles needless to say are epic, seriously. I barely taped into the game at all, and already I am overwhelmed with the amount of things to do. The controls are a bit funky to get used to, but simple enough, and there is no mini map, which I thought would be awful, but it's actually pretty nice. The games scale is meant to take a long time to finish a mission/game, so it's not one of those "lets play a 45-60 minute game" kinds of experiences. A small DEMO game just took me half an hour, TO LOOSE. Anyway, with a few more tries of the game, I may end up buying it. I'm a bit surprised I could play it at all, but it runs very smoothly on my computer at high settings (not VERY high mind you). It'd be nice if everyone could try it out as well. It is a very complex and deep game, but very worth it. It's kind of nice to see ships I build not get taken out within 5 seconds as well... My scout ships lasted a good minute under pretty good fire before they gave in. Here's a couple vids for it: A cool 5 minute battle (red is good) www.youtube.com/watch?v=0DCv4Hq0mlMMASSIVE EPIC: www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqAjowhfcn4Enjoy |
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Post by Fayde on Aug 30, 2009 20:52:03 GMT -8
DEMO TIME EXPIRED!!!!!!! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! I was just getting the hang of it too..... Epic Fail...
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Post by Fayde on Aug 31, 2009 16:36:45 GMT -8
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Post by Fayde on Sept 2, 2009 20:18:36 GMT -8
I was doing some reading on the SoaSE WIKI and found the Fleet upgrade area.. Found out you can get up to 2000 fleet...  The average fighter/frigate will cost you around 4-6 each, where Capital Ships cost 50 each... You grab a couple Capital ships and a few hundred basic frigates and you're freaking ready to go.... jez. |
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Post by Waspman on Sept 6, 2009 17:23:13 GMT -8
The game runs smooth on my PC. I'm surprised.
Still working on the tutorials, though but the game's been easy to comprehend so far.
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Post by Fayde on Sept 6, 2009 21:19:48 GMT -8
Yeah, I never found it difficult, just different and I actually needed to learn from the tuts. I still am trying to find loop holes in our budget in order to buy it. It's at Walmart for 20 bucks and it comes with a audio CD.... hmm.... Bonus gifts of bonusness.
I'm glad to hear it runs well though.
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Post by Fayde on Sept 22, 2009 19:10:29 GMT -8
Finally grabbed it at Walmart yesterday! I ended up playing into the wee depths of the morning last night, then finished my 4 hour game this morning. It's a lot harder than I remember the demo being, as far as resources go. However it's a lot of fun and is a great game. While I still found it to be a typical RTS game underneath what seems more like a cosmetic appearance, it is still very solid, and very well designed. I'll tell more about it later. Here's a couple screens from a game I'm currently in the middle of right now. Normally I'm not one to sit and admire graphics, but this is just pretty.  And one of my frigates getting blown up at the same time a pirate cruiser is. Fun.  |
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Post by Fayde on Sept 25, 2009 8:04:27 GMT -8
Ok, I've played a few games now, so I want to do a quick review deal.
Gameplay is fun, but slow paced. While there is ALWAYS something you should be doing, and there is rarely any actual down time (aside from long Jumps between planets). There is not a whole lot of battling like one would expect from a RTS. While there are the nice sized battles, I have found it rare that AGAINST THE AI, there are not many huge battles. However, the few battles there are, are long and hard. Unlike most RTS (Blizzard) games, your units can take a huge amount of damage before being destroyed. Where in many games, the average unit does 8-12 damage, and only has about 4-600 health. Not here. Damage is between 8-16 average, but then you have about 400 shield points, and about 800 hull points. Capital ships have around 600 shields and 1200 hull, while doing a bit more damage on average. So you can bet that a good sized fleet will last a while, but so will your enemy.
Second, the aspect of having to bombard and colonize enemy planets also keeps the game long. Not only do you have to destroy the orbital structures, but you must bombard the planet it's self as well. As you may have guessed, you cannot have simple fleet ships do this. You have to have special units to bombard planets.
All of this thrown in with LOTS of economic strategy, timing and management, as well as some light-weight civilization game aspects tossed in for good measure, gives you a lot to do.
Lastly, it's theme fits very well, and is actually used through-out the game. I've yet to play a good Space RTS (or space anything) that really fits it's theme as far as gameplay and so on. Normally you could throw any theme on a game and it would be the same game, only it's appearance would change. I was pleasantly surprised that the game could very likely not be modded (unless a completely over-hulled) into a ground based RTS game.
I seriously am addicted to it. Every chance I get, I'm playing it. I haven't been this into a RTS game since StarCraft honestly, and I was REALLY into StarCraft. Hope you guys can buy it sometime soon, but even then, I'm pretty happy playing on my own for now.
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Post by Fayde on Dec 10, 2009 13:35:58 GMT -8
I unleashed this game again this morning (after a month or so of not playing it), and boy is it beautiful. I got pretty burnt out on it after playing so much of it, but I'm getting back into it and craving multiplayer. This game seriously beats all other RTS games out there... Including Star Craft (we'll see about SCII). I need to get Justin his DVD drive when I send everything else down there so he can play it. YAJ needs to go a week without eating so he may play it as well.
Such a cool game... AND YOU CAN ZOOM OUT TOO!!!!
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Post by Waspman on Dec 10, 2009 16:01:08 GMT -8
That would be awesome.
Just playing Blizzard games every week gets boring after awhile.
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Post by Fayde on Dec 20, 2009 12:44:06 GMT -8
Indeed... I love'em, but it gets old...
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Post by Fayde on Dec 21, 2009 22:42:19 GMT -8
I finished a 3.5 hour mission today that I've been working on for a few days now. It was that long just because I wanted to push the games limits on my computer and to see just how many ships I could build and put on-screen at once.
Keep in mind, my computer is about 6 years old now. I have a 256mb 6200 G-force graphics card, 1 gig of RAM, and a 2.1 ghz processor.
The game requires AT LEAST that to run.
Anyway, by the end of the game, I had 86 fighter/bomber squads from my Carriers, and each squad contains 3 ships.
I had 172 individual ships including Light Frigates, LRM Frigates, Heavy Cruisers, and Carriers. That number is NOT the amount of supply used, that is the actual number of ships on screen at once.
2 Capital ships
80 Structures
Using 1377 fleet/supply points (in-game max is 2000).
And that is just how many ships that I had, not including the ships the AI had.
All the while I had my graphics turned up to all medium.
The game only got choppy when I ZOOOOOOOOOOOOOMED in pretty close when there was a lot of action going on. And I mean a LOT.
I am still amazed how cool and deep this game is. And amazed that it runs at all on my computer, let alone how nicely it's running with so much going on. I will be posting screen shots later.
I just thought I had to brag and state again that this is the BEST RTS EVAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!11111111111
BTW: unlike most RTS games, a single unit lasts a lot longer in SoaSE. Unlike StarCraft, where your 4 groups of Dragoons can be wiped off the map in literally 7.2 seconds, a hand full of ships can go a long way, even against double the opposing force (unless the opposing force has a Capital Ship or some special abilities). In most games, I rarely need to go beyond 50-80 ships at once, and even then, I can normally split those up and flank the enemy extremely effectively.
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Post by Fayde on Dec 22, 2009 1:33:47 GMT -8
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Post by Waspman on Jan 2, 2010 18:55:20 GMT -8
We need to play this online some day.
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Post by Fayde on Jan 2, 2010 23:15:20 GMT -8
Yes. Yes we do. ^^
Any luck getting it any time soon? Justin said it'll be a while, assuming the that DVD drive works.
My only worry is that a normal game takes a good 2-3 hours to beat on normal settings. I normally play against 1 easy computer, since I am still learning a lot of the different effective strategies, combos and tactics in it.
One thing that seems disappointing is the research. Not so much the kinds of research you can do, but the amount of improvements certain things provide. Upgrading ships lasers will only improve them by like, 5% of their original damage. Basically, making something that did 20 damage, now do 21 damage. In this game, where a ship only shoots about once every 2-3 seconds, and NORMAL ships having well over 500 HP, the extra 1 damage seems a bit redundant. Same with Hull upgrades.
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The average fighter/frigate will cost you around 4-6 each, where Capital Ships cost 50 each... You grab a couple Capital ships and a few hundred basic frigates and you're freaking ready to go.... 
