SE V Demo OUT!

MKSheppard · Post by **MKSheppard** » 2006-09-15 08:31pm

Get it here now now now now 128 MB

OMFG< it's slow

Linka to torrent of demo

GuppyShark · Post by **GuppyShark** » 2006-09-15 08:35pm

Thanks Shep!

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2006-09-15 08:38pm

Woo, thanks Shep.

Trogdor · Post by **Trogdor** » 2006-09-15 09:01pm

Thanks, Shep. I shall utilize the Shep solution against the first space empire which looks at my cockeyed in tribute.

Hotfoot · Post by **Hotfoot** » 2006-09-15 09:35pm

yippee, a nonfunctional demo....

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2006-09-15 09:36pm

You tell me that now my slowass download is finished?!?!?!?!?

EDIT - Holy ass-balls, the configurations options are fantastic.

Hotfoot · Post by **Hotfoot** » 2006-09-15 09:39pm

Hey, maybe your hate engine will make it work, because I can't.

MKSheppard · Post by **MKSheppard** » 2006-09-15 09:40pm

It works for me. Loads up and all that

Peecture

I did use the torrent though.

Peecture 2

Linka to 3

You may commence hating me.

MKSheppard · Post by **MKSheppard** » 2006-09-15 09:49pm

Design screen for Hewman Frigate

Linka

Hmm, new type of "Supply" for your ships, aka ordnance:

Linka

Hotfoot · Post by **Hotfoot** » 2006-09-15 09:52pm

I used the torrent too, and I got as far as the pre-game loading menu, and then black screen of shit, no matter the settings. Fuck that noise.

Chris OFarrell · Post by **Chris OFarrell** » 2006-09-15 09:55pm

DOWNLOAD FASTER GOD DAMNIT

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2006-09-15 09:57pm

I used the torrent, it installed and ran fine. I officially Want This Game.

InnocentBystander · Post by **InnocentBystander** » 2006-09-15 10:03pm

Whoa, this came out of nowhere.

Trogdor · Post by **Trogdor** » 2006-09-15 10:07pm

Chris OFarrell wrote:DOWNLOAD FASTER GOD DAMNIT

I feel your pain, Chris.

So, for those of you who have already played it, am I right to assume that this is a standard SE demo? Limited tech and 100 turns before it cuts you off?

MKSheppard · Post by **MKSheppard** » 2006-09-15 10:09pm

Yes, I think so

New Planetary Facility System

MKSheppard · Post by **MKSheppard** » 2006-09-15 11:19pm

Apparently you can customize your race even more, in regards to technology; so you can now create a race which starts with severely atrophied tech, but waaaay a head of everyone else in guns and shit.

InnocentBystander · Post by **InnocentBystander** » 2006-09-16 12:00am

Okay.... so how do you get the space construction yard component..?

Trogdor · Post by **Trogdor** » 2006-09-16 01:38am

Well, that download took forever.

I like how you can select what type of government you want to add a bit more customization to your race, as well as being able to spend racial points on starting out with a head start in some tech areas.

The graphics are kind of fucked up in a lot of places for me, but since Shep's not having a problem I guess I need to update my drivers or something.

The fact that you have to actually have a ship go around a system to see anything it in besides stars makes sense but it'll a bitch to do. Hopefully you can get good sensors that will minimize the need for this.

The new 3-D look to the systems is cool but it can make it hard to see stuff. I'm going to try the top down view later, see if that's much better.

Being pretty seems to have trumped convience in some areas. For example, rather than a simple chart to compare pros and cons of the different racial personalities you could pick like SEIV had, this one lists them under each type, so comparison takes longer. Also, not having slide bars for the research and intelligence point allocation is annoying.

I think once I get used to the new interface I'll enjoy it more, so I'll reserve overall judgement until then.

Graeme Dice · Post by **Graeme Dice** » 2006-09-16 02:05am

My only complaint about the interface so far is that I can't seem to find a good way to upgrade from a level 1 colony ship to a level 2 colony ship without having to replace all of the components. I do really like how the component values have been set up for modding. Now I can make a crew compartment with a capacity of several hundred million for my death star, instead of clicking four thousand times on a normal sized crew quarters.

Sharpshooter · Post by **Sharpshooter** » 2006-09-16 02:06am

Sweet, I'd totally forgotten about this. And it looks like you can finally pick and choose your shipsets without effects on your race, the one thing that annoyed the fuck out of me from 4.

I just hope they updated the sound effects as well...

Trogdor wrote:Also, not having slide bars for the research and intelligence point allocation is annoying.

Er? Wasn't that one of the big things promised for the game? At the least they could give us a number box so we can doll them out exactly as we felt like (preferably, actually).

Graeme Dice · Post by **Graeme Dice** » 2006-09-16 02:25am

Sharpshooter wrote:Sweet, I'd totally forgotten about this. And it looks like you can finally pick and choose your shipsets without effects on your race, the one thing that annoyed the fuck out of me from 4.

Your shipset has never had any effect whatsoever on your race in any Space Empires game.

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2006-09-16 02:58am

I think what he means is how the shipset was tied to the race portrait.

Sharpshooter · Post by **Sharpshooter** » 2006-09-16 03:24am

Uraniun235 wrote:I think what he means is how the shipset was tied to the race portrait.

Bingo. Love the design, hate the designer, that sort of thing. Anyway...

The following is a stream-of-consciousness sort of thing for the benifit of those who don't yet have the demo (and just for the hell of it).

Ooh, the introduction is nice. Really bold, full, flavorful - aw, shit, they cut it badly.

Like the new layout, a bit more glam and shine than the other one. But why the hell does Escape close the window BEHIND the window you're looking at when selecting from names and shit? I lost my first empire's layout that way.

Hey, distinguishment between empire and race names! Spiffy! And they even give you more detailed portraits and let you define your physical type! And the sidebar pictures in some of the later areas are nice compared to the last game's.

Hmm, I'm not too sure I like this government system. Yeah, it's nice to have. I'd rather have a point-buy style system rather than a total binding thing. Society doesn't seem as bad on this, but again I'd rather have a point-buy for that. Racial traits, too - and for that matter, I'm kind of dissipointed with the balancing on those. Those weaknesses seem like a slap on the wrist compared to what you can get for taking a few hits for the points, and the lower-level pros seem kind of weak, especially compared to the heavy-hitters. Weak. And I still can't understand why Emotionless is still so high up, even if it did get knocked down by two grand from the last game.

Why do they have a plasma missile picture for Drones?

Oh, Trogdor, don't worry about sight - there's an option to have SEIV-style system omniscience as well as shortened sight requiring sensors.

Tabbed ship and unit numbers? Aw, hell. Can't we just have a number box so we can configure it EXACTLY as we want, especially for those of us with a love of odd numbers?

Uh-oh, more tabbed stuff in the victory conditions page. I really don't like these static numbers.

WHAT. THE. HELL. Empire data file error?

OK, starting up the game now. The system layout is nice and purty. Oh, and you can change between 2 and 3-D view styles too.

Dicking around with Empire Options. Races in Empire? Nifty. Asides from that, though, it seems to be a lot of the same stuff from SEIV. Moving on.

Neat, the Intelligene window now keeps track of your success-failure rates for operations. It also looks like they'll let you control the percent of points used for stuff with arrows instead, so I guess they kept their word, sort of.

Research - wait, what the hell were you talking about, Trogdor? They've got sliders up the wazoo, and even arrows with percents for precision divying. I already stated my preference, but it's still sort of nice. Hmm. The arrows won't auto-repeat when held, so you have to click again and again. The expected results bar is interesting, though. And the way the window is set up, you'd think you could click the various headers like Cost and Name to have them ordered in different ways, but can't.

Ooooh! It looks like you can level up your colonizing tech to beyond the initial level! Maybe you'll be able to create colony modules with some facilities and such pre-packaged within!

How does Chemestry somehow equate to plasma warhead weapons? That's more of a physics sorta thing, inn'it?

Wierd. Some of the special techs (like crystalurgy and biotech) give you whole new ship hull types. This could get mighty interesting.

Hmm. There's some fluff material on planets now, stuff like gravity, temperature, even a little portrait of the surface. And there's a new entry, Radiation Level, measured in MRads per year. Maybe radiation effects and weapons got tweaked to something more useful. As far as planet reports go now, they're broken into different tabs and the like, including population make-up by race, abilities, cargo, and the like. And speaking of race, there's a new factor - migration.

And Sweet Zombie Jesus, what has happened to my display? I tabbed over to this notebook window to jot this down, and when I bring the game back up the upper window is all borky in the pictures, and gets worse once I do a right-click.

Neat-o! You can bring up a whole system report to give you the low-down on all the stuff inside there like anomalies and the like!

Hmm. They relegated view controls to the function keys and shifted functions like the game menu, research, intelligence, and the like over to Shift+ combis. It'll take a bit of retraining to get used to.

More video cock-ups. I don't even know if I'll be able to save given the way this has gone. The main window and menu seems fine, but go into any of the listed items and it's totally borked.

HELL. EVERYTHING is gone at this point. Designs, research, planet report, construction - it's gone, gone, gone. I'm going to have to give it another shot later, since I have to get some sleep.

Nephtys · Post by **Nephtys** » 2006-09-16 04:15am

Alright! SEV! About time it's had a demo released.

So. Are we still sticking with the SEIV games, or are we gonna throw up an SEV about three weeks after it comes out to ensure it's good?

*hungrilly downloads*

GuppyShark · Post by **GuppyShark** » 2006-09-16 05:28am

Don't see a reason we can't do both, at least until the SEIV game ends.