Sword Of The Stars - Impressions?

[Suicides-by-Steve]

What do you think Mochan? I can think of a couple things I would like to see; have you played it yet?

[Suicides-by-Steve]

The 3D Starmap is a freaking headache. It's cool but ultimately gimmicky and definitely a headache.

BTW how do you scroll around in the map, can't seem to figure it out.

Eh, I don't have many problems with it. It took some getting used to but eventually you'll figure out how to access the history and then simple double click on the reports you've been given to centre your view on them. This focuses on the important things during a turn. In your Profile folder in the game directory, you'll find an Initialization file, you can see and change keybindings from there.

Tab and Tab+Shift allows you to jump from colony to colony. If you figure out how to get a free roaming camera, let me know. I would also like to know how to see the action from the opponents' perspective in combat. As far as I know, you can only right-click and spin the camera. Tab (+Shift) to cycle through colonies/ships. Have you built up a CnC ship to control fleets yet?

The strategy is pretty shallow, but like I said, give it another generation, it could be a highly entertaining game. I still enjoy it for what it is though, a customizable space combat simulator. Hopefully the modding community is hardcore.

[Mochan]

I figured out the Tab and Shift-Tab bit, that's actually my primary means of getting around. What's still really bothering me is the 3D map, I guess I'm a 2D kind of guy. :)

I haven't put in too many hours yet, only played for about 4 hours. I still don't understand how to do combat.

Anyway it's still very interesting, I just need to get over the 3D map. And map running out of fuel threw me for a loop at first. My colony ships got stranded in a star with no habitable planets for a while!

[Friend_Bear]

I've been playing it for around 5 or so hours now, its an ok game. I think Steve is right though, a few generations and upgrades it could be a really great game. For now, its just an ok game. My only real critisism with the game is that I just build ships, spread out my colonys and research and now and again, get a random event which gives me a challenge. However, those challenges can be pretty tough, my first time I played I get a meteor shower random event which destroyed my starting colony and resulted in game over since it happened within the first 5 turns and I didn't have anything to defend my colony from them since I sent them to the nearest star system..since then i've learned to just to spam build ship after ship..

I would like more colony control, like in Gal Civ 2 but less micro-management. The refueling issue can be annoying too, I think it might have a few bugs in it even though i've updated it to the current patch, during one route my ships would get stranded and I would send out some tankers and for some weird reason, they would take an in-direct route to them and would get stranded themselves even though the ships was actually very close to one of my colonys....most likely a bug or something.

[Suicides-by-Steve]

Yeah, I find the "strategy" to be a tad bit generic, boring even. The main dev quoted (verbatim) that it's a 4x game "in the vein of Civilization". Pfft. What, the original!? LOL

Mochan, don't sweat the small stuff, the core of the game is played on a 2D playing field (the space combat).

Weapon control is a bit off though... it takes practice, but you can eventually fire off salvos to individual starcraft.

The greatness is in designing those craft and then fighting with them. Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots!

[Friend_Bear]

I found something that really bugs me about the game now, i'm on around turn 500 and each time I end my turn its taking up to 2-5 minutes before its my turn again, I hate that....reminds me of old skool TBS.

[Suicides-by-Steve]

I found something that really bugs me about the game now, i'm on around turn 500 and each time I end my turn its taking up to 2-5 minutes before its my turn again, I hate that....reminds me of old skool TBS.

Damn, how many players? I know some of 100+ ship battles I'm getting in take a while to load, but not inbetween turns... Then again, I'm only playing 4 vs. 1. That sucks for you. Try getting some more RAM, that seems like an extraoridinarily long time to wait.

[E.T.]

I found something that really bugs me about the game now, i'm on around turn 500 and each time I end my turn its taking up to 2-5 minutes before its my turn again, I hate that....reminds me of old skool TBS.

As SbS mentioned; what about your ram- under/over 500mb?

Also, whats the patch do for SotS?

[Friend_Bear]

1.5GB DDR 400mhz ram, the ship battles so far haven't taken long to load but inbetween turns it was starting to really grind on me. I was playing a free-form type of game with max players and 350 stars in a spiral system. I'm guessing the game can't really handle the massive fleets moving around at once, thats maybe why the turns are taking along time once you get further in. The patch is mostly bug fixes I think.