Hi everyone! I decided to make a review to the latest 4x space strategy game out there: Star Ruler.
Check out my Review at SpaceSector.com: http://www.spacesector.com/blog/2010/09/star-ruler-review/
What are your impressions about the game?
Cheers
Adam Solo
Is that Hugh Jass Galaxies?
Fixed
Man, I knew I forgot to send somebody 1.0.0.8. Sorry about making parts of your review inaccurate, adam.
I sent you 1.0.0.8 if you'd like to check it out later today.
I'll state that the review is accurate for 1.0.0.6, I forgot about that.
I haven't dug deeply into it yet but user control of the camera in the universe is smooth and intuitive. It runs nicely in a window. Graphics are nice so far. I'm still coming to grips with what planets are mine and how I will be able to keep track of them once I expand.
1.008 is now up on Impulse!
@BlindMindStudios
Seen the tooltips for buildings, nice! Keep up polishing the game guys, and please give more information on Research. Expand the current tutorial with a few more entries to explain how links work and Research in general. I have a feeling that SR Research is great, its just poorly explained to the player.
I'll see what I can do about getting the tutorial to be more explanatory. It's a bit difficult to describe how it interacts however as the main problem is that the interface should be solving the problem but has yet to be completed. For instance, I could describe in the Tutorial that Propulsion Sciences increases the efficiency and range of your spacecraft but then how do they know what Particle Physics does for them?
Really, the research window needs more information on it. It's a recognized problem and one I can't really solve by going over it in the tutorial as it's simply too complex to rudimentarily go over if I want people to be as informed as they would be if that part of the interface was complete like it was supposed to be in the first place.
We will not stop adding features and polishing the gameplay and so forth until we run out of funds or until we've run out of things to add or modify in Star Ruler. This game is just a hint of what it should be; we aim to make it what it was intended to be, not what it currently is.
A few months from now if someone played 1.0 and updated to the most recent, it might not even feel like the same game.
FYI Star Ruler is currently up to ver 1.0.1.2, is available on Steam http://store.steampowered.com/app/70900/,
and has a free demo available http://starruler.blind-mind.com/files/SR_DEMO_v1012.exe
So how is the game since the last update? I see that Impulse has it on sell for $14. Now I know this is going to sound stupid but is it like Sins or what?
thinks
They have very different design philosophies. Sins is greatly simplified (not necessarily in a bad way). Star ruler takes an 'everything and the kitchen sink' approach.
Ok thinks! I bought it it is very interesting...I kind of like it, it is not better then sins but not worse ether, but it is a good game for a 4X RTS.
I read some enthusiastic reviews regarding the great and ambitious work a small developer did with this game and I bought it. Did the same thing with Sins etc. about 1-2 years ago. Didn't really like that game (played about 2-3 hours and never again since). Same now... almost. I guess I just don't like space RTSs. I liked better Sword of the Stars and other several titles, and I'm still really enjoying, actually, Master of Orion II and Galactic Civilizations II (only). Oh, yes, and Homeworld, but this is an entirely different matter.
On the bright side, Star Ruler seems to be very complex (which I like) and it can be paused somewhat easily (I think this should be the default state, having a nice, bright 'go' button somewhere, to be pushed only when the real work is done; oh, wait! I think I just wish I had a space TBS instead ). I don't know yet how the governors do their jobs, but I'm quite sure that without them it would be impossible to play the game, given the size of the galaxy.
Regarding the interface - it isn't easy to figure it, and the sheer quantity of data and items is overwhelming. It's nice, but too small, which doesn't help at all, in such regard. On my 24" display, at native 1920x1200, I can barely see... something. Worked around it by lowering the resolution, but this way, even maximizing the specs for graphics, on a LCD display the game won't look that nice anymore. I think a honest black on white or grey would be a lot better than the nice but not really functional small white letters and symbols on black. Or.... Just make everything BIG.
Designing my own ships is one of the treats both MOO and GCiv offer (these are, in my opinion, the references for any space strategy). Great to have the option to mod the blueprints here! However, the blue disk with an arrow thing is rather a joke, really... It's more than other similar games offer, I like the concept of linking the subsystems and the 'failsafe' table is great, but overall I can't quite find the fun factor in it. Aside from the blue arrowed disk, mostly because everything is (again) just too small and painful to work with. Bringing up all (or some of) the management interfaces in full screen and automatically pausing the game when I call them would work for me a lot better. Yes, I know, this is not a TBS...
Not sure why, using ALT+RMB to roll the galaxy crashes the game. It's probably a conflict with Fences or some other program I'm using. However, the system where this game is installed: iE8400, ATI4850, 4GB RAM, Win7x64. Might help to report the issue...
Going back to give it another try. And I CAN'T say the same about other space RTSs. I might actually like it (and I want to - I actually paid for it), after getting used to the interface. It's not the next MOO though, as somebody said it might be. Although... All depends on which one are we referring to... MOO3 killed the series, for instance. I (and most people I know) don't work for any revenu agency and other than those accountants I can't think of anybody who would like to mostly fill in tables and read statistics for hours and hours. This is hard work, not play. But this is a game 'under construction' and I can see that the developers read the posts on forums.
So please, make the things bigger and put some fun in modding the blueprints! Some clear icons would help a lot, also, in identifying the items in tables (resources, buildings etc.). Having a photo of the little green tentacled aliens I'm talking to on the diplomacy screen would be nice too Organizing a bit the economic screens (I mean... FULL screens) would help a lot somebody who would actually want to take advantage of the full potential of the game, and so having to manage several hundreds of colonies. And so on... More FUN, please! I'd really like to play a third great space strategy, surpassing the two mentioned before!
My 2 cents review-ish-wise contribution...
Okay, I bought this on sale a while back and have been letting it marinate in patches while I play other things. Could someone let me know what its gimmick is?
I mean, GalCiv focuses on empire building, Sword of the Stars revolves around tactical combat, while Space Empires was content to toss in every cool thing about space it could think of about space and call it good. All I really know about Star Ruler is that it lets you build ships the size of galaxies. What else does it do?
Is there a way to delete save games from within the UI yet? I have the game and haven't figured it out yet.
It is a Empire building game like SoaSE. Except you can build your own ships. What I like about it is you can do what ever you want if you want to be an evil empire then so be it! The game is still not perfect but it is getting there...Just install it and mess around with it!
Huge-ass sandbox. You can do 100+ systems in a map, each with multiple planets. After that you can build ships at almost any imaginable scale. With enough research your empire can get as advanced as Iain M. Banks' Culture. Star Ruler's claim to uniqueness is its really friggin' huge scale.
Build a ship bigger than the galaxy... Overkill... maybe... worth it... YES!
Woa. I literally just finished reading The Player of Games. I didn't have much interest in Star Ruler before but now I may have to investigate it now...
Yep. In Star Ruler you can build ships that are over 100k in scale. Fighters are <=1 in scale. You'll also be able to eventually strip-mine planets bare of all useful metals, and even blow up planets and stars (no gridfire sadly, just Directed Spatial Manipulators that rip apart space-time). Keep in mind you will need to do a ton of research before your empire can threaten the Culture, but it will happen eventually.
http://forums.blind-mind.com/
Head there and check out the forums. To be honest, I don't really feel Star Ruler is much of a game. I see it as a giant scripting engine and sandbox with some included art assets. Anyone who is modding-inclined will be able to do wonderful things in Star Ruler.
I've played it off and on since it's release in attempt to find s game similar to sins - this game has a slightly higher learning curve - have they fixed the issue with ships becoming space husks after going beyond fuel range? I have not played in a while but will pick up the latest patch tonight
SR doesn't have range, just fuel. Engines and generators consume fuel when in use, so ships are always using fuel to provide power for life support and everything else. So yeah, they'll become husks when fuel runs out, their power generators shut down due to lack of fuel, and life support dies due to lack of power, and crew perishes due to lack of heating and oxygen.
Nice! Ask and you shall receive. This last patch installed the "delete" button.
Yep. The SR devs add a lot of new features just because people ask.
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