Sword of the Stars! I think I just cut myself.

[Nephtys]

If the Von Neumann thingies were playable, I know what I'd be using. That's all I'm saying.

The fragility of my ships was noticeable, as is my piss-poor aiming. I also swear half my death-rays didn't fire. Perhaps next time I'll go for the massively exposed drives GTA. Smooth, guys.

Arcs are noticible, but they do fire. Typically, Liir ships have good fields of fire forwards-ish, or broadsides though. Aiming with energy cannons or railguns is poor, yeah... but that is corrected if you use a fire control command module, or an AI command module.

[xammer99]

Thanks for the suggestion of playin the Hivers...good god are these guys bad ass. Just crank out sets of Tanker, Colonizer, and Gate and you can colonize the galaxy w/o tryin. Then concentrating 2-3 defense fleets and it's near impossible to invade ya.

I love it!

My biggest "ouch" came when the damn System killer showed up. Fortunately I stopped it after it destroyed 2 gate only systems, but wow could that thing take a damn beating! It shredded 10 top of the line dreadnoughts and 20+ cruisers.

[Nephtys]

Thanks for the suggestion of playin the Hivers...good god are these guys bad ass. Just crank out sets of Tanker, Colonizer, and Gate and you can colonize the galaxy w/o tryin. Then concentrating 2-3 defense fleets and it's near impossible to invade ya.

I love it!

My biggest "ouch" came when the damn System killer showed up. Fortunately I stopped it after it destroyed 2 gate only systems, but wow could that thing take a damn beating! It shredded 10 top of the line dreadnoughts and 20+ cruisers.

You know how to kill it right? Think of how it's inspiration ship was stopped.

[xammer99]

Thanks for the suggestion of playin the Hivers...good god are these guys bad ass. Just crank out sets of Tanker, Colonizer, and Gate and you can colonize the galaxy w/o tryin. Then concentrating 2-3 defense fleets and it's near impossible to invade ya.

I love it!

My biggest "ouch" came when the damn System killer showed up. Fortunately I stopped it after it destroyed 2 gate only systems, but wow could that thing take a damn beating! It shredded 10 top of the line dreadnoughts and 20+ cruisers.

You know how to kill it right? Think of how it's inspiration ship was stopped.

I didn't get the reference I'm afraid. How do ya?

[Nephtys]

Stuff something in it's mouth. Something explosive, and expensive.

[Vanas]

Now in human-o-vision!

What is it with those damned Von Neumann thingies?! Whenever I start, they seem to turn up, decide my earliest fleets were lunch and wipe out my entire navy.

And then my explorer fleet hit an alien derelict. Ouch. The return brought along 2 cruisers armed to the gills with missiles and missile-armed destroyers. it appears the 'Stand a long away away and bombard the fucker' rule is a useful one to have.

[HSRTG]

I've read the reviews I can find online, and they haven't answered two questions for me.

How is the ship design (if any) different from GalCiv II's? I'm guessing its closer to Space Empire series's, but I'd like a bit more certainty.

How does the tactical combat differ from MoO's?

[Nephtys]

I've read the reviews I can find online, and they haven't answered two questions for me.

How is the ship design (if any) different from GalCiv II's? I'm guessing its closer to Space Empire series's, but I'd like a bit more certainty.

How does the tactical combat differ from MoO's?

Ship combat works like this. For each ship, there's 3 main modules you add. The Command Section, Mission Module, and Engine.

So you mix and match different general hull shapes, then fit in weapons. So it's rather more complex than GalCiv2, simplier than SE4.

Example.
Admiral Me decides the Tarkans need a new destroyer class to fight the puny apes. I equip it with a hammerhead-maneuvering Command Section, which is a combat section designed for fast ships. It has two dual-gun turret mounts, of the small gun variety. I select X-Ray laser beams, a small gun. Each turret mounting on the specific hulls have their own arcs of fire, the positions shown, and you can equip them with varying types of weapons based on preference. This is really noticible with the bigger ships.

The mission section... I choose Spinal Mount, a section which arms the ship with a fixed-axis cruiser gun. I equip the huge cannon with a big railgun or a heavy beam, and go on my way. I could have instead also used say, an energy torpedo section to build it around, or an armored block to put lots of small turrets, or a small turret section with a large shield generator, or Point defense-oriented section.

Lastly, my engine, I select from three techs (Fission, fusion, antimatter) and abotu 3 variants of each kind of engine, which have different maneuvering and range charicteristics.

The list of ship parts are pretty wide, so it's not as confining as I had originally thought. There's about 20 different head modules for all three size classes, 30 body modules and 8 engines. Different races may have different parts.

Tactical combat is real time, like Homeworld pretty much. You can however, target individual polygons on enemy ships to disable engines, or knock off specific turrets. It is 2D to make combats faster. There's inertia, so some maneuvering foresight can come in handy too.

..

Oh, and Vanas.. those Von Neumanns are a random encounter. They are most annoying early on, because they're virtually immune to missiles. Best way to stop 'em is with ships with guns, or cruiser-sized defense sats with guns.

[HSRTG]

*snip*

Alright, that settles it; I must have this game. I'll get this alongside Lego Star Wars II in a couple weeks.

Homeworld combat w/Inertia + very customizable ships + multiplayer = Me very happy.

[Stark]

Holy shit, the critics were right: late-game micromanagement is a nightmare. Is there any way to find out what's going on where (like a colony screen)?

[Nephtys]

Holy shit, the critics were right: late-game micromanagement is a nightmare. Is there any way to find out what's going on where (like a colony screen)?

There's a colony screen in the pie-chart screen. It's one of the tabs.

[Vanas]

Oh, and Vanas.. those Von Neumanns are a random encounter. They are most annoying early on, because they're virtually immune to missiles. Best way to stop 'em is with ships with guns, or cruiser-sized defense sats with guns.

I'm fully aware they're random. Thay're also capable of one-hitting my 'ships with guns' and do so. Regulary. Ah well. For variety, I had a colony stolen by Slavers last night.

[White Haven]

Once you have fusion warheads, Von Neumanns aren't much of a threat. A single plantary missile will thrash a drone, and if you have some ship-launched missiles to confuse their PD...well, that's that. Just steer clear of the mothership until you've got some real firepower at your disposal. Slavers likewise, I've had utterly undefended planets fend them off with solely missile batteries before. Fusion warheads are a big thing though, as are micro-fusion drives, as they both increase the effectiveness of your planetary defenses right away.

[xammer99]

Fusion warheads & microfusion drives cure many of the universes ills I've noticed. Beam weapons are pretty and all but they don't hold a candle to anti-matter warhead missiles fired enmasse. Of late I've purposefully gone heavy into missile tech and I've not been disappointed in the results, even against high tech opponents. The range is impossible to beat and the volley of 2 well outfitted cruisers can easily destroy another cruiser, more because the game seems to shy away from, I can get off 2-3 missile volleys before they get into beam range. I won't even go into what a dreadnought volley does to the enemy but watching that track and then zooming in on the impacts is truly a thing of beauty.

Also, wth are Assault shuttles for?

[Nephtys]

Fusion warheads & microfusion drives cure many of the universes ills I've noticed. Beam weapons are pretty and all but they don't hold a candle to anti-matter warhead missiles fired enmasse. Of late I've purposefully gone heavy into missile tech and I've not been disappointed in the results, even against high tech opponents. The range is impossible to beat and the volley of 2 well outfitted cruisers can easily destroy another cruiser, more because the game seems to shy away from, I can get off 2-3 missile volleys before they get into beam range. I won't even go into what a dreadnought volley does to the enemy but watching that track and then zooming in on the impacts is truly a thing of beauty.

Also, wth are Assault shuttles for?

You've obviously never seen the horror that is Meson beam. A cruiser mounting those can probably cut apart a lesser cruiser in one volley. Never mind the Graviton Beam, which is the evil bizzaro twin of a Tractor beam turned to destructive purposes.

Missile cruisers really, really do not do well at all against even basic point defense. I've repelled 3 missile cruisers whole vollies using a pair of quality laser point defense destroyers. A point defense cruiser with the fire control or 'Cylon Module' also will stop missile attacks cold. Especially when teamed with a Wild Weasel destroyer to draw the missiles over.

Edit: Assault shuttles are the early game way to take down heavilly defended planets, once the defense is cleared. Think of them as landing craft. You fly the destroyer over to the planet, click the little shuttle icon in their weapons, and they'll deploy em. If they get through to the planet, 75 million of your enemy population dies per successful landing run.

They're quite handy and cause no infrastructure or environmental damage. A bit more of a hastle to use than mass driver or antimatter bombardment of course, but you get spoils.

[Stark]

I find in many cases you don't have to be anywhere near the planet: so long as there is stuff going on, the AI is too stupid to prioritise and players often miss the shuttle. I leave my assautships out by the edge, and it's absurdly easy to take a planet from hundreds of millions.

[White Haven]

That largely depends on the sat defenses of the world in question. Those are...a little harder to distract, particularly if you're dealing with fleet elements at the same time. I tend to blitz my AS destroyers into low orbit, so that they themselves can occupy the sats.

[Stark]

Hmm? I haven't found the sat defences to be particularly intelligent: so long as your assaultships are at the rear of your formation as you enter the battle, they waste their time blowing up your frontline ships. They're just as useless against meteors

[Nephtys]

Medium sat defenses aren't a pushover though even for cruisers. If your opponent has a few of them armed with guns in their medium slots, assault shuttles are going to have an insanely painful time trying to find a good window to penetrate. Or bio-missiles for that matter, particularly if said guns are beam phasers.

[White Haven]

Yeah. Fuck missiles, satellites carry GUNS, too, and lots of them, once you get beyond Stupid-level destroyer-sats. All their missiles are really for is chewing on stupid enemies who didn't bring PD/Emitters/Deflectors/Jammers or tying up hostile PD while your navy pounds missile salvos home.

Disclaimer: This does not apply to the DN-size platforms, because planetary-scale ICBM tubes are not to be trifled with.

[Rightous Fist Of Heaven]

Missile DN's for the win! My current fleet setup uses a single Command DN with heavy missile armaments, a single pure missile DN and a single mixed bag DN with aft fitted with missiles and fore with fusion cannons. Add in two cruisers for point defense. Its funny to watch My DN's launch ludicrous overkill salvoes on single cruisers, however its always disappointing to see that 2/3 of the salvo was completely wasted.

[Nephtys]

Yeah. Fuck missiles, satellites carry GUNS, too, and lots of them, once you get beyond Stupid-level destroyer-sats. All their missiles are really for is chewing on stupid enemies who didn't bring PD/Emitters/Deflectors/Jammers or tying up hostile PD while your navy pounds missile salvos home.

Disclaimer: This does not apply to the DN-size platforms, because planetary-scale ICBM tubes are not to be trifled with.

Beware of those damn battlestations! They're built brutally tough, and can carry a DN's worth of beam cannons. Enjoy fighting the equivilent of 2-4 DNs at a time plus mobile assets, if a planet has 10 large platforms orbitting em.

Edit: Oh. Command DNs probably will be more efficient shooting enemies. A command DN can sweep away anything smaller than a cruiser squadron or opposing DN without any worry.

[xammer99]

What is the "Advanced" drive for humans and the other races? Hiver's get the Farcaster which kicks all sorts of ass, but what about the others?

[pellaeons_scion]

Just out of curiosity is anyone else getting an 'out of sync' video error when trying to play this game? I patched up to ver 1.1.1, and it still blanks my screen with 'out of sync'. Is it because my video card or system isnt up to the challenge? (athlon 1800, 1gb ram, fx5200) I know its not a great one but I thought it would handle this. Sucks because it looks like a fun game to play

[Beowulf]

What that sounds like is that the game is putting the video card into a mode that the monitor doesn't support, most likely refresh rate related. Try opening display.cfg in notepad (from the game directory), and checking the values in there.