Posted: Wed Aug 05, 2009 10:19 pm Post subject: Stars! v/s SE5??
Hi guys...
Im opening this topic to discuss about Stars and SE5, and of course, whos best. For the people that doesnt know, Stars! is a legendary space game, very realistic, and probably the father of SE5 and many other similar games.
The main reason of this topic, is what I felt after playing a while SE5; and I think Stars! is far superior in playability, despite his primitive graphics and time created.
Space empires begat, space empires 2(which was the stars! era space empires in 1995) begat space empires 3, begat space empires 4, begat starfury, begat space empires 5.
You'd do better comparing SE2 to Stars! they're about as advanced as eachother, one just offers tactical combat one strategic, one floating point vector based movement, the other grid based.
SE4>SE5>Stars, just because of the advances made in the 15 years, even in it's flawed interface, it's still easier to manage an empire in se5 and there's more you can do. Stars! is like playing minesweeper by comparison.
Thouh a new stars like game would be cool, I always liked the vector based movement. Maybe upgrade it to full 3D space with real systems with planets instead of dots you colonize, make the ship design slightly more flexible, deepen the tech tree slightly, and add more diplomacy and you got a game. Back to top
Yeah im agree with you, but are some things of SE5 that i didnt liked.
First of all, the game is terribly slow... turns past slowly, and the level of micromanagement its tedious... technology grows slows, the "good" planets are hard to find (and that nearly useless "tiny" planets).
Second, the battles are awful. the "manual" mode requires too much management, and the other mode its ugly; looking squares shoting squares.
The "ship design" its rudicolously complex, the population in the planet its a dead number, and so on.
On the other hand, stars its much faster, the micro is also fast, and his simplicity is a delight. Back to top
Well... I havn't played Stars! but...
I have played Many older games, and yes, they are usually faster. Simplier engine, and (usually) simplier graphics.
In fact, some of them, I Can't play anymore Because they are too fast. You just can't play them anymore; like a race game where everything is x20 faster, it's not playable at those speeds.
But with everything it doesn't have...
Quote:
Maybe upgrade it to full 3D space with real systems with planets instead of dots you colonize, make the ship design slightly more flexible, deepen the tech tree slightly, and add more diplomacy and you got a game.
It does get speed.
However...
Try using Balance Mod if you find the tech growth too slow, although you can also set the tech cost to low to speed that up.
Micromanagement is also much better with Balance mod (and some others), because of the work put in the AI scripts.
Much of the micromanagement is taken care of for you with the ministers.
Yes, tiny planets (non-breathable) are usually useless. Put a space yard on them. Back to top
Space yards? That would have been such a waste of space...
estoyenelcerro, as far as micromanagement goes you haven't probably learnt yet how to play SE5 time-efficiently. My turns in Stars! were not shorter than my turns in SE5.
Tactic mode battles (and generally sequential mode) seems to be a mistake, I agree, but in simultaneous mode you can zoom as much as you like reviewing battles.
Your other concerns are not SE5-related but mod-related (stock is just an example of mod). Back to top
Posted: Tue Aug 11, 2009 10:06 am Post subject: Stars vs. SEV
"Second, the battles are awful. the "manual" mode requires too much management"
I have to disagree with you there. In the Tactical battles the ships can move and choose their targets automatically. I think that the tactical battles have awesome graphics and this is one of the best things about SEV.
I agree with you that the turn length is very long; it starts quickly but later in the game slows down to several minutes. Of course it depends on the galaxy size and number of opponents but this is for say 5-7 opponents.
You say that the ship design is overly complicated; I say it offers more depth than other games. If it's too hard you can get the computer to design ships for you under ministers: ship design.
As for the level of micromanagement, if your empire grows too large for you to manage each individual colony you can get the ministers to control it for you. They work well, too. Back to top
Joined: Aug 04, 2003 Location: Cincinnati, OH, USA
Posted: Tue Aug 11, 2009 7:58 pm Post subject:
"Squares shooting squares"? Clearly you've never used the combat replays "Figuring out the UI is half the fun!" - Xintis, fan of both SE5 and WarioWare Back to top
Seriously, it is still IMO one of the best spacestrategy games.
I'd still rather play SE5. why? Stars! has almost zero modability. It takes specialized tools to modify the base game code, which isn't guaranteed to work right. After a while it gets BORING...
I'd love to see a more modable updated version, like one with actual solar systems. Back to top
Stars! had it's fine points, but I'm old-school, I liked VGA Planets. Yes, it was fundamentally flawed in a dozen ways, but it was fun!
MOO, the original, with the sliders instead of micromanagement, remains the high point in the art of 4x conquer the galaxy games in my book. I really wish there were a modern compromise with streamlined management (that does not involve ministers who invariably make choices I would not) like the old games and depth of design and combat that the more modern games have.
Basically, I want to play conquer the galaxy, not sim city on every planet. Back to top
I havn't played Moo3, but I really enjoyed Moo2.
More so than Moo1, (the silicoids from 1 got shafted in 2).
Quote:
MOO, the original,
Which one was that?
I still remember Moo Zero. It went by the name Armada 2525.
And you could mod the stats for most things (not that there were lots OF things, very simple game), and the edits were seperate for each player.
The map never changed, rectangular galaxy, four races in the corners, and two on the centre edges.
Vulcans, Xpectrada, CeePeeUu, Klurgu, don't remember the other two now... (it was 20 years ago).
A fun, if simple game. Perhaps I'll dig it out again. Then again, I've got SEV now Back to top
Tough call... Probably SE4 > Stars! > SE5. Stars! is simple by comparison to SE4 or SE5, but at least everything works. SE5 really dropped the ball there. It would have been better if SE5 had never been released because at least the community would not have split between 4 and 5. Back to top
Stars! is so pathetically simple you have to try hard to find a bug... But, there ARE bugs and a few balance issues.
It is possible for you to visit the Mystery trader and have it give you NOTHING! Sometimes it'll tell you it just can't give you anything.
It's simple to hack a multiplayer game to make the game think you have an absurb amount of resources on a planet. (The game was coded for Win3.1)
If you give a fleet drop population orders, and the fleet is able to obliterate the enemy garrison, you can annihilate a planet and capture it using minimal people in one turn. This is easiest if up against AR since bombing is unnecesary.
If an Alternate Reality race has the Genesis device they can use it endlessly without ever losing anything(other than surface minerals).
The 1% damage bug which makes every successful stack(ship group) to stack attack do at least 1% damage even if the target has 5000 armor(a conservative number for an entire battlegroup) and the attack only does 5 damage. (.1%)
Then there's less severe "issues".
Never build designs with more shields than armor. Torpedos will eat you alive.
Never build designs without shields. Missiles will eat you alive.
The faster the better, at least if you want to close range before getting blown up. If you already outrange your opponent it's less of an issue.
Hyperexpansion has double Pop growth to make up for their pitiful living space. It's not really a racial strength.
Alternate reality's main priority for new colonies is to upgrade armor and shielding. Otherwise your colony is a sitting duck. Even Death Stars with maxed defenses are hard to defend late game. Faster energy research is a top priority racial pick. Also don't send more than 1300 colonists on a colonizer unless it'll arrive next year. It seems to stop reducing their numbers at that point due to rounding. Also it's good to remember that a remote mining fleet's production will plateau. Even tually you will reach a point where you can't get more resources out of your HW. (yes you can stripmine the heck out of it with remote mining)
As Super Stealth, you don't really need to do research, especially in a game with lots of enemies. Oh and don't forget to steal everything you can from everyone you can. The theft oriented scanners rule! you can even give them automatic orders to jack people's stuff. I recommend using this with either Galleons or the special mini-Galleon that the SS get.
Interstellar travellers need to build stargates and lots of them. Infinite ship movement = WIN!
Claim adjusters are evil in an eco-friendly way. For CA, the improved terraforming racial trait is both great and bad. great because it makes your automatic terraforming much better, bad because any planet you control will evetually got to 100% habitability anyways. It's more great than bad though.
Inner strength, habitability who needs it? You can build massive orbital complexes to supercharge your planetary populations to absurd levels. This works everywhere, even if there is no chance of you ever making the planet habitable.
Warmongers have the best combat ship hulls in the game. USE THEM! they're really your main advantage. Oh and remember to look at enemy designs. You can analyze them in excruciating detail with ordinary sensor scans. Forewarned is forearmed!
Super Minelayers have awe inspiring mines. their true power is in being able to push a button and say "Die please!" to make the ship in the minefield take damage. (great for annihilating swarms of non-combat ships) Oh and this is the main purpose to the existence of heavy mines.
Jack of All Trades is the easiest to learn as a NooB. You get free scanners! These are actually some of the best in the game. You don't really need penetrating scanners with them. but that's all your race does.
Then there's a race type centered around mass packets. So what if your packets do less damage to planets. Without that they'd be a doomsday device. As-is they're "only" deadly. Oh, and feel free to blast minerals to planets you are planning to colonize later. If you get lucky you can improve the climate and/or wipe out the losers who are already living there.
Okay the race specific stuff was more advice than anything else... Feh, still demonstrates the point. Back to top
Nah your points are made, IIRC they call any race that can reach a certain production rate by a certain date a "monster" race, the first were claims adjuster or hyper expansion, and I think the next was the warmongers and jacks. But basically if you widen the habitability on HE or narrow the hab on CA you have a broken race(iirc last i played multiplayer those were banned), one being able to get several breeder worlds crammed with factories, the other able to tun any world into a paradise that only they can prosper on(while it's still occupied). None of the others are really competitive, except maybe war monger in smaller shorter game and maybe packet physics if it's a tiny universe. Back to top
In any case it's a shame Stars! is no longer being developed and its community seems to have dropped off completely. More development would probably have addressed the issues mentioned and more alternatives, especially in a genre that's gotten so little love from developers in the last decade or so, would definitely be a good thing. Back to top
In any case it's a shame Stars! is no longer being developed and its community seems to have dropped off completely. More development would probably have addressed the issues mentioned and more alternatives, especially in a genre that's gotten so little love from developers in the last decade or so, would definitely be a good thing.
More like 2 decades... Oh you meant the Genre...
YEah, that kinda sucks. I ws so hopeful when I heard about Supernova Genesis... but it never got released, or finished for that matter. Back to top
Stars Supernova Genesis was an interesting project and it looked as being rather progressed but it did not find a distributor and money. I think that was the reason why they gave up. Back to top
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