Space Pirates and Zombies 2

[Mánagarmr]

Most likely the "5 hour mark" is when you're decently leveled and have started building your own base and getting followers. That's where the "real gameplay" shows up. I'd assume anyway.

[Wingflier]

Am I correct in assuming that you're only given the ability to control your own mother ship for the rest of the game?.

If that's true I'm going to request a refund.

One of the things I liked so much about the first game was the way it handled the combat. You built your own combat ships on design chassis you had discovered. There was a lot of really neat customization involved. It was also really cool to have a group of AI wingmen assisting you in the other ships you had designed.

Now from everything I can tell it's just "I have one ship that fires everything for me weeeeeeeeeee", there's no way that wouldn't get boring after a few hours.

[Mánagarmr]

That's also something that I've been wondering about when I've read things and seen footage. I mean, sure the mothership is much more customizable here, but I'll really miss the wonky mini-craft you could have in SPAZ(1).

[Wingflier]

All playing SPAZ 2 has done (sadly) is make me want to play SPAZ 1.

I found a mod in still in development (which is pretty impressive given that most of the mods stopped development back in 2012) which seems to improve the game in every tangible way. I'll be testing it out for lulz and nostalgia purposes.

http://www.minmax-games.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=32&t=3261&sid=6d86529913850c9db450b4bcac89da77

[Mánagarmr]

Unfortunately, I don't remember SPAZ being very mod friendly. It had a tendency to break in the most spectacular and hilarious ways. But good luck! I'm sure it'll be !fun!

[Misery]

Am I correct in assuming that you're only given the ability to control your own mother ship for the rest of the game?.

If that's true I'm going to request a refund.

One of the things I liked so much about the first game was the way it handled the combat. You built your own combat ships on design chassis you had discovered. There was a lot of really neat customization involved. It was also really cool to have a group of AI wingmen assisting you in the other ships you had designed.

Now from everything I can tell it's just "I have one ship that fires everything for me weeeeeeeeeee", there's no way that wouldn't get boring after a few hours.

AI ships with you, at least early on, = "Strike Ships".

You don't build them, they're bought from shops.  You take them with you into battle using a queue that is, once again, a bit similar to how Mount & Blade dealt with excess troops, because there haven't been enough comparisons to that game already.  There is a limit to how many you can have at once which changes over the course of the game. 

Allies with actual motherships are always other captains, you can get them to join you in battles sometimes or (again like M&B) you can jump into battles in progress and assist them.

The game gets quite loopy when you've got a lot of ships on both sides.

You can give your allies orders but the way it's done is a little derpy right now.  Or I'm just picky and easily annoyed.


It's possible that there's more to it than this:  keep in mind all I've seen is early gameplay.  I've seen some hints that suggest that the stuff I HAVE seen will evolve over time.  But till I actually get there (or see someone on YouTube get there) I'm not sure.   I have heard SOMETHING about some other type of ships that you can slap your parts onto, but I'm unclear on the details.  In other words, something that isn't a major "mothership", but still modular and under your command.   Hopefully that'll be the case.   They absolutely do have the game's combat interface and such quite well set up for the idea of using more than one big ship (since you can switch to controlling a different ship of yours at any time, but why would you really need to control strike craft?).   I'm betting I'll learn some more about these things if I can just get to the damn "build a station / join a faction" bit.

[Wingflier]

In a lot of ways this game just seems like an inferior 'Starsector' to me. Starsector (in beta as well) also had it to where you basically begin with a Starship which you can continue to refit/upgrade, but in addition to that you're exponentially growing your fleet size as the game progresses. It has the "sector" type areas as well, that all have some unique event and circumstances going on, and the ability to gain favor with the different factions of the galaxy by completing missions and such.

However, where Starsector absolutely blows SPAZ 2 out of the water is in the combat portion. First of all, you can pilot any ship in your fleet (except the fighters, though you can for example pilot a carrier), and the combat itself is much more engaging because you have to manage your shields, your flux (energy), your ammunition, and your entire ARMY, in addition to the positioning of your own vessel. In SPAZ 2 it's just the positioning of your vessel that matters since everything else is done for you essentially.

Well anyway, I don't mean to hate on SPAZ 2, it's just that all that playing it has done is make me want to play Starsector and the original game haha.

[Aklyon]

However, where Starsector absolutely blows SPAZ 2 out of the water is in the combat portion. First of all, you can pilot any ship in your fleet (except the fighters, though you can for example pilot a carrier), and the combat itself is much more engaging because you have to manage your shields, your flux (energy), your ammunition, and your entire ARMY, in addition to the positioning of your own vessel. In SPAZ 2 it's just the positioning of your vessel that matters since everything else is done for you essentially.

Well anyway, I don't mean to hate on SPAZ 2, it's just that all that playing it has done is make me want to play Starsector and the original game haha.

Well, Starsector is just now getting around to significantly working on non-combat sections of the game, even if its just 'make the trading and economics work better'. Only a couple versions ago the game was a particularly good combat game with next to no way to do trading other than dump battle loot at stations.

Its no big surprise its superior at combat compared to SPAZ2, tbh.

[Misery]

I had a look at Starsector.... honestly that one looks like a bit of a mess to me.  It still seemed to mostly consist of "click on enemies" while the AI characters ran around doing who knows what (I cant even tell what's going on aside from the mouse cursor hovering over one enemy and going clickety-click, which.... doesn't even seem to be doing anything as his ship is still just firing at anything remotely nearby, so perhaps the clicking is doing something else?  I don't know...).  Interface looks like a headache.  But then interfaces in these games often do.

Looks like a bit too much micromanagement for this type of game.  I've got AI War for something that involves a lot of fleet management and tactics.

The two games, that and SPAZ 2, don't even look like the same genre, almost.  I dunno.  Looking at it just makes me want to play AI War.  But I might try it anyway.  A lot of games recently that are giving me absolutely horrible first impressions but then turn out to be good later.  This fact is annoying, but I guess if the end result is finding something enjoyable, then... whatever.  I see it's not on Steam though, which is moderately irritating.  Steam can get a little weird, I notice, about games that you've "attached" to it from outside (I just run everything from Steam because it's less confusing to have the overall game list instead of Windows' own lunacy).   I'll give the game a try later, then, and see what happens.  But maybe watch a video or two first as it looks like this has a bit of a learning curve.


But anyway, SPAZ here isn't exactly meant to be that type of game though, is the impression I get from it; there's a reason why I keep comparing it to Mount & Blade over and over, heh.  That game also wasn't big on combat tactics (sure, you could order your army around, but rarely was there a need to do that and the interface for doing so was idiotic).  It was big on positioning (yourself), and running around lancing everyone and throwing really ineffective axes (really, I don't get why those do like no damage at all even if you hit some guy right in the forehead with one) while your guys crashed into other guys.  Also very, very heavy on the preparation and stuff on the map screen.

Whole thing absolutely does feel like M&B in space.  Seems I'm not the only one making that comparison, too.   Gonna bug some players, others will absolutely love it, original SPAZ fans are absolutely going to be divided about this one.

[Aklyon]

You can activate autofire on weapon groups in starsector (or set it to autofire by default). This is mainly used by PD. And aside from long-range shenanigans (tachyon lance, sometime other things in mods that require you to swap the camera to the enemy view to hit them at maximum range), you can't click on your enemy and hit them, you need to click in their direction with weapons that can actually point that way. Or fire missiles.

Alternately, you could set almost all the weapon groups to autofire and control some missiles (autofire works poorly with missiles) if you just want to manuever and control shields, and don't need to see the ranges of your weapons to stay inside them. Controlling allied ships is basically just 'defend x' or 'attack x' or 'capture this point and hold' in larger missions. Theres a few extra commands for more specific attacks (like 'harass this thing' or 'fighters prioritize this strike target'), but mostly you can just leave them be and they will (probably, more likely for bigger ships) survive without you spending all your limited orders on them. The game gets easier the more ships you can keep on your side, and harder if you need to restart and claw up from one frigate and an escort maybe again.

Also, we have a thread for it somewhere around here, although i think the mods i recommended might or might not be outdated.

[eRe4s3r]

Whenever Starsector comes up I remember I actually own this game and haven't checked it out recently, then I do and notice it's still in early developing and forget about it....

This game progresses extremely slowly, is what I am saying.

As for SPAZ2, is that the sequel nobody asked for? Or is it a good game?

[Wingflier]

Oh the first game definitely needed a sequel. The gameplay was extremely grindy. All of the dialogue was text based. The characters looked like they had been drawn by a 13 year old. It could have been improved upon in various ways. Even just adding co op would have improved the formula dramatically because the game's "wingman" design was already begging for it.

So here's the problem: The sequel didn't address any of the problems the first game had...

Instead they seem to have spent an inordinate amount of time making the battles look 3D even though it's just a gimmick. They expanded the complexity of the metamap which only seems to have led to more grinding. They added this new magnetic module system that nobody was even asking for.

Meanwhile all the problems of the first game still exist. The art looks drawn by amateurs, it's still single player, everything still takes forever to do. They didn't even hire voice actors to handle the dialogue (right now it's handled by the equivalent of Microsoft Sam, so I guess that's progress?).

Except it feels worse than the first game because the ship customization and wingman system was inexplicably removed and you're forced to fly the mothership.

The first game had such massive potential. If they had just expanded on what was already there it could have been a masterpiece. Instead it's a totally different game now.

If you want to play Spaz 2.0 just play Spaz 1 with mods.

If you want glorious and deep space combat play Starsector.

If you want to make meaningful choices in terms of dealing with rival space factions play Drox Operative.

If you want to experience a living breathing world with permanent kingdoms and characters with whom your relationships have far reaching consequences play M&B or Zombasite.

I don't see what this game does which isn't already done better by other games.

[Mánagarmr]

The art looks drawn by amateurs, it's still single player, everything still takes forever to do. They didn't even hire voice actors to handle the dialogue (right now it's handled by the equivalent of Microsoft Sam, so I guess that's progress?).

These two comments I find unfair. The art style was from the very beginning very particular both for SPAZ and it's sequel. The design is this blend of cyberpunk and 80s rad. I may not particularly like the style but it's bad for being a style. If that'd be the case, Hotline Miami is one of the ugliest games I've seen in a long time.

And the voice actor part is mentioned in the beginning of the demo, which you obviously skipped.

[Wingflier]

I didn't skip it. They said they were still getting around to hiring professional voice actors for the lines.

My point is that (by their own admission), they've been working on the game for 4 years, and they haven't even improved upon the problems of the first game yet. So what the hell were they doing with 4 years? Making a pointless 3D fighting mode whose only purpose is to be aesthetically pleasing and gimmicky?

The art style was from the very beginning very particular both for SPAZ and it's sequel. The design is this blend of cyberpunk and 80s rad. I may not particularly like the style but it's bad for being a style.

Well if we're calling it "a style", then I guess it's forgivable.

But if you want to be technical, anything can be "art".



This sold for over 2 million dollars.



This sold for 28 million dollars.

So yeah, "art".

[Mánagarmr]

I guess we simply disagree then, as I don't find the portraits bad in any way. I mean they're not to my personal taste but that doesn't mean they're bad
Nothing about them screams budget or shoddy artwork, imo.