[mxlm]

Complex is over there with HoI3/Vicky2 which were also similar disasters at release.

No, by all accounts this release is a completely different sort of disaster. The options screen is disabled. I can't speak to HoI3, but V2's problems were largely of the "gameplay needed more fine-tuning because there's an inevitable depression in 1880" variety, not the "yeah, uh, the options don't work so we turned them off" variety.

[NGTM-1R]

I don't actually have either, I admit, but from what I've heard from people who do they were pretty awful on release day. They mentioned a number of rather bizarre AI problems.

Granted this is worse, but we've got a pattern of behavior either way.

[Hero_Swe]

When it works though. Hoooweeeeee. It's blamming awesome. http://steamcommunity.com/id/HeroSwe/screenshot/612715011122783702?

[Fury]

http://www.kerberos-productions.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=22033
Or if Kerberos forums are down again, then http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2212018

The most important bits:

This plan means that you folks can expect at least 2 or 3 updates a week over the next month or so that will gradually make this game into what it should have been when the switch was pulled on friday.

and

On the other hand, if a free copy of the orginal SotS will help tide you over while we get this game shined from turnip to jewel, then please write to "[email protected]" and we will set you up.

[TrashMan]

SOTS1 was completely fixed....

[Mikes]

So they handing out free copies of Sots1... but what about those of us who already bought it and therefore supported Kerberos with our hard earned money before!?!??! NOTHING!??! mhhhfp mhhhfffp!?? /RAGE :g:

[SypheDMar]

Do we need SOTS2 to have free SOTS1?

[G0atmaster]

Is the first. Installment any good? It was on Steam for $5.

[Fury]

Yep, SotS1 is great.

[NGTM-1R]

If you consider SOTS 1 great there is no hope for you as a human being.

[Fury]

And your opinion doesn't count because you live in your own reality just like your title says.

[NGTM-1R]

And your opinion doesn't count because you live in your own reality just like your title says.

When I first expressed that opinion I didn't have this title.

But more seriously it's a non-complex game of attritional combat at the strategic level. With continuous lines. (In space. Continuous lines in mother****ing space.) There's no room for brilliance or strategy in nearly every game. There's little room for even tactical skills.

[Ace]

Ermm... everything in that post is wrong, just absolutely wrong.

SotS1 has plenty of issues mind you, horrible... horrible voice acting and 2d art. But after the first expansion, it was a good game despite some glaringly weird design issues.

The species added in the expansions are trickier to play but it's not an attritional combat game except for the very largest maps and part of that is the economy is balanced for 12 systems per faction or so. Even then if you're facing swarms there's plenty of ways to win with a smaller, superior, force unless you've been utterly screwed tech tree wise.

But MOO2 becomes that way on very large endgame galaxies.

Also considering the entire focus is on tactical combat, and how you can use an inferior force well (disabling specific turrets, etc.) claiming there's no room for tactical skills makes no sense at all.

Now SotS2, when it does work (which is rare) seems to be good. But there's so many damn issues (diplomacy and sectors not working at all, AI mission types not executing right, fleets jumping into stars! STARS! and the endless crashes) that it is unplayable.

[Fury]

I never bothered to pick off turrets. Kill 'em with fire I say! With fire!

[Ace]

Well tonight I'll see if I can actually complete a game without it crashing and burning. I managed to make a pretty dreadnaught but can't seem to use it in fights because of the whole jumping into a star issue

[yuezhi]

wow. never seen this game before. it looks better than sins.

[TrashMan]

If you consider SOTS 1 great there is no hope for you as a human being.

And if you make a statement like that, then you can abandon all hope of anyone ever taking you seriously ever again.

[Flipside]

SoTS was pretty good, there were parts of the Engine I liked, the combat was more fun to watch than stuff like Masters of Orion, though there were advantages to turn-based combat, as my current play-through of the Battle Isle series is reminding me. The UI seemed to be designed around small games though, large empires were difficult to manage.

I liked the unique technologies for each race, and the game flowed quite well (with the 'in a small game' qualifier), but was it 'Masters of Orion Reborn'? No. This is not an Empire Management game, it was never designed to be and the manual pretty much states it outright. It provides functionality for that if it is what people want, but the mechanics don't really hold together for it, it's designed to be played as a small strategy game with almost instant contact between parties, not a large sprawling exploration game.

[Ace]

Sorry pet peeve:
MASTER not MASTERS
SINGULAR! I CONTROL ORION AND NO ONE ELSE! *ahum*

SotS II, when the game is finished in two months... *cough* does seem to have the markings of a good MOO replacement.

The stations now work like building construction in MOO2. The Admiral system plays a lot like Total War's generals and MOO's heroes.

It would be nice for Kerberos to have waited until January for release (tell Paradox that everyone's Christmas money would be spent on it) and given two more months to get things working.

Many of the bugs seem to be a case where the devs played with so long that there is a habitus of certain buttons and things being done right.

For instance, spawning in a star happens if the game tries to use default combat settings because it doesn't remember them. If you click the agression, attack, and select your fleet at the start of combat it'll actually properly deploy your forces.

The same with many other screens, where they only work properly if you click buttons in the exact order as intended by the devs.

So in other words, they didn't even know that everything was broken because they weren't mucking with their own interface much like with Elemental.

Anyway this digresses from the main point:
Overall tactical is better than the first game, the fleet system while a bit odd actually is somewhat clever and means that combat is centered around skirmishes, interdicting supply lines, and moving to take out starbases.

So when the UI is fixed, bugs fixed, etc. there is an interesting game under it all that reminds me a lot of MOO2.

At the same time there are some ass backwards dumb decisions like the current broken autoresolve system which means it takes a long time on large maps to get through turns despite it being 100% accurate.

I don't care if the damn enemy armor or shields aren't perfectly simulated in auto resolve if it only takes 5 seconds to go between turns! I'd only care if it consistently broke major things like mass driver damage never reported, etc.

[NGTM-1R]

The species added in the expansions are trickier to play but it's not an attritional combat game  except for the very largest maps and part of that is the economy is balanced for 12 systems per faction or so.

Ah, I see the problem.

You don't understand how combat at a strategic scale works. Too many RTS have left you thinking that strategy means tactics.

Every planet is a source of production. There is no strategic-scale target with intrinsically more value than any other unless you're playing against Terrans. There are no chokepoints, no battles of maneuver, no snapping links off the production or logistical chain.

Strategic combat is straight attritional. There is no way to neutralize an enemy short of conquering all his planets. There is no way to significantly dent his war production short of killing a significant number of his planets or destroying a significant number of his trade ships. There is no way to impact the performance of his fleets save to kill them or kill a huge number of his worlds.

So against one race, just one, is it possible to do something beyond straight kill **** that will impact his war effort. And only if the node lines work out in your favor. That's literally all the strategic non-attritional strategy that is applicable.