What I said is that it's more like diablo-in-space than like giant-space-fleet-battles. Not that it is diablo-in-space. If you try to play it like diablo in space you'll probably lose because the game doesn't give you the "step a, step b, step c, etc. step z and everyone lives happily ever after (or whatever it is they do in blizzard games, usually not that)". If you just do every quest you see and/or spend tons of time searching for and killing every monster you can for xp/loot you'll probably wind up with a race that's relatively happy with you but gets crushed by its adversaries who hate you, and you can't stand up to NPC fleets alone (at least I haven't been able to take them head-on in the first 5 sectors).
That's not to say y'all will definitely like it, just wanting to avoid giving the wrong impression. It's not giant-space-fleet-battles, but that is
not the only possible space game that can be good
There's something genuinely new here, and I find it incredibly fun, even in its early beta form (not that there aren't things that would bother me if they never changed in future releases).
To give another concrete example, which may or may not interest you:
In my fourth sector, I started in the home system of the Blunt. Who may as well be called the Dense, because they couldn't research their way out of a paper bag (constantly have setbacks that reset their tech research). But they fight well. I had a decision to make: try to make them my puppet to win the sector with (almost certainly via conquest instead of diplomacy due to their lack of... manners), or search further afield and hope I find another race or relatively stable group of races to work with instead. I could try to exploit all of them and rake in a lot more xp from doing that many more quests, but that's more risky (perhaps overly so in the current beta) than I wanted.
I decided to back the Blunt. First thing I did was fly around the first system and scan uninhabited worlds. Each time I would call up the Blunt on the diplomacy screen and gift them the info on the planet (I could have sold it for credits, but I got more +relation with them this way). Imagine how you'd feel as a 4X-space-game player if in the first few turns some hero unit shows up and gives/sells you data on nearby planets. I'd go for that like a shot
The NPCs will scout stuff on their own pretty quick but giving them a headstart is a signifcant boost on the way to getting them to the #1 spot on the power charts (kind of like a 4X, again).
They also had a few quests for killing some specific space-monsters/raiders/etc in the system. That can be "uprisings" of a type of monster that if left to themselves will cause bad events on inhabited planets or start other uprisings or just directly attack the NPCs; probably other bad stufff too, I don't sit around and find out. It can also be named bosses that are quite dangerous (particularly when they form a fleet with other bosses) and who can do all kinds of nasty things if left alone (start uprisings, build nasty devices, send scout or assassin units/bosses to other systems, attack in person, etc). Anyway, I made a point to kill what they wanted dead and in general I swept the area near the planets to allow breathing room for colonized worlds.
Speaking of, about that time they asked me to colonize a world for them. They can and do build colony ships and send them out themselves, but it's apparently a lot less costly for them to build the colony
module and put it in your ship (displacing either a heavy or medium component, somewhat reducing your combat ability) and have you run it over for them. Anyway, same-system colony runs aren't too hard, so took care of that for them. And proceeded to defend the new colony as the nearby monsters took an interest, then swept a bit wider area around it of any monsters so it would have time to build its own defense ships (which are generally quite capable unless bosses or
big monster swarms get involved). I've had some really tense fights desperately trying to keep a new colony alive; that's one of the things that really sets it apart from any diablo-like: you really can lose the planet, the game engine
does not care if you get the result you wanted, it just leaves you to deal with the consequences. Anyway, I win this time and get some major +relations with the NPC race from killing monsters attacking their planet (as well as +relations for the colony quest).
At this point I'm actively sweeping the outer zone of the system for starlanes to other systems so I can make sure my warrior puppets expand enough to be capable of what I need them to do (namely, exterminate all other sentient life). Once I find one I pop through, run quickly for the central part of the new system to find and scan planets (and send the data back to the NPC dudes), while fighting off the local fauna. Then I search for starlanes there and keep an ear out for quests. One quest type which usually pops up by then is the "help our research" one where you have to gather some material (either from monsters or naturally occurring) and completing it gives the NPC race a new tech (say, Fusion Beam III, which will then be eligible to show up in the shops on that race's planets). You can also find technology files directly and choose which (if any races) you want to give/sell it to. Another common quest in this phase is the "terraform" ones which are generally multi-part: buy a device from some planet and sell/give it to the target planet, then gather some resources, and maybe another step. Early in the game, upgrading a planet can make a big difference for the NPC race's power.
By now relations were high enough to form a non-aggression pact, which gives me some extra assurance that they're not going to turn around and declaration-of-war me midgame (which would really, really stink). I could have pushed for a mutual-defense-pact or even an alliance (if you and all surviving races are all allied with each other, you win the sector), but I didn't want to commit myself to getting drawn into any of my puppet's hostilities... yet. Anyway, I've got them data on planets on a few nearby systems and have in general got them off to a pretty good start power-wise. If I'd been playing them in a 4X game, I'd be
really, really happy about how much that NPC hero had just helped me.
Then there was a wrinkle.
While trying to hunt something for a quest in one of the not-yet-colonized systems, I hit an unstable wormhole and got warped clear across the sector. The higher level monsters were a bit disconcerting (about now I was running into the guys that could jam my missiles and send them back at me, iirc; that led to me discovering that beam weapons really are pretty nice in moderation). I scanned a few worlds and sent in the data, but probably my allies had no earthly clue how to get anything out there. I could have used a jump-gate for a one-way trip back to my starting area but wanted to poke around and see what I could see.
Next system over I found... all 5 of the other races in the game. Not outlying colonies. Their homeworlds. The RNG has no concept of a "balanced start"
Needless to say, it was an interesting situation. Relations were degenerating but it was still early enough that no hostilities had started. I had before me a
ton of quests I could do for quite a lot of xp. Bosses and uprisings and whatnot were really running rampant, and the races had been starting lots of unrest on each others worlds via propaganda and sabotage (which you can do also for money and risk of relations damage), which opens up still more quests to get non-lethal (or lethal, particuarly for actual rebellions) ground weapons to the target planets (and sometimes quests from an opponent race to rush guerrila weapons
to the rebels). Ripe for mercenary pickings, you could say. I got started, carefully picking quests that wouldn't help any of them
too much since they would almost certainly be enemies to me or my main ally at some point. It was going pretty well.
The another wrinkle: declarations of war started flying between the races in that system, and then the Lithosoids declared war on me. Annoying rocks. Anyway, I was sailing into port at the Cortex's homeworld to sell them some weapons to calm down some unrest (or was it terraforming gear, I forget), and just as I'm about to establish contact
they declare war on me. My shield indicators promptly change from a nicely full bar to the message "Not Cool!" (not really, but you get the idea).
I get away with my skin and consider my options. Not all the races in that system had declared war on me so I could probably still squeeze some opportunity out, but I didn't think that was going to last long. Also, even helping a friendly race would often help all the races there if it was a kill-boss or whatever quest. But I also didn't know how to get home from where I was. Again, I could have one-way-jumped back but then it could take a while to find a way to get my friends out there to clean house. And if any one of the races there took out the others they might build up enough power to defeat my intellectually-challenged buddies. So time was kind of of-the-essence.
So I scouted my way through a few uninhabited systems but hit a deadend and found I was in a branch not connected to my starting area (except through the hornet's nest). Not so great. So I took a one-way jump back home. A little concerned about the time but it turned out to be a
good thing that I hadn't been able to "harvest" more of the quests in the 5-race system: all those bosses and nasty guys were doing a
number on that system. Uprisings and assassins all the time. To their credit those races held off the monsters effectively, but it was taking a lot of their time and resources to do so.
That's another thing that made the game feel really new to me: I've seen games where monsters can "attack the town". I've seen games where the monsters can actually destroy the town. But I've never seen a game where it was a critical advantage (and delight) that the monsters attack (and preferably destroy) the town.
Anyway, from there on it was relatively smooth sailing: eventually I scouted a path from my allies to the 5-race system, and helped my allies (now truly in Alliance with me) expand in that direction, and between the infighting among those races killing off some, and my allies attacking, and a little discrete "orbital nuclear-missile bombardment of a densely inhabited planet" of my own, victory was mine.
None of that gets into how cool the gear system is (a really satisfyingly complex set of interlocking requirements for using better stuff, possibly the part I most like about the game actually), but I think it covers why I say it's not really diablo-in-space (just closer to that end of the spectrum than as if you were a hero in the middle of a big fleet fight in AIW or whatever).
Um, so, kind of a long post there
For numerous reasons this will probably be my last in-depth attempt to explain what it feels like. Still not interested? Wait for the demo.
