Star Ruler

[zebramatt]

I just stumbled across this game on Steam and it looks intriguing.

I imagine some of you have played it - what's it like? Any good?

[eRe4s3r]

Read the blindmind forums to get an idea - theres a demo too ,) And theres even a demo on Steam!

It will take about 6 months before its really good though (ongoing development kind of deal, like with AI War ;p)

[CogDissident]

AVOID! AVOID!
DANGER WILL ROBINSON!

This game is an awful mess. Half the bullet points on the product page are lies, the other half are just half/truths. There is even a discussion on their own forums about how the game is an unfinished mess that has no gameplay, no balance, no AI, and their own forum moderators agree with them.

Please, do yourself a favor and buy any other game than this.

[RooksBailey]

Yeah, you're best advised to wait at least 6 months to a year as the game is really a WiP.  It could be something enjoyable with a lot of love and a lot of time, but by then everyone will probably be playing SotS II anyway.  

[eRe4s3r]

Highly doubt Sots 2 is going to be out within the next 12 months. Even so Star Ruler is fully moddable, and like all Indy Games this one had to be out way before it was done. It has far more potential than any other 4x game but needs lots of love to realize it.

And yes, its unfortunate the bullet points are still there as a claim rather than a "what does the future hold" kinda deal.  The game does get new features with each patch and 6 months is a good time scale. Unfortunately this is a typical to 3D Games made by Indies - as 3d games are a lot more expensive

Then again, i only did the subsystem art and models in Star Ruler so it is not like i feel bad about my part in the creation of this game ;P

How i see it, a kind of "pay for beta access" kind of thing would have been better - but theres one catch.. Impulse GG and Steam do NOT carry you when you are not released, and money was direly needed to continue development

[CogDissident]

The art was definatly one of the better things about the game, shame ships kind of slide-sideways instead of facing the direction they're going, and how guns kind of sprout weapons fire in unlikely directions. None of which is your fault, since you just made the models. And I do like how the subsystem art reminds me a lot of Space Empires' subsystem art.

But isn't it fundamentally dishonest to release a game as "finished" and yet have the game be clearly unfinished. I really don't think "it is modable, so you can finish the game for us" is a good excuse. The game is so unfinished, and literally has no balance whatsoever, that you'd have to mod out the entire base gameplay and start from scratch simply having it as a graphics-engine for it to be any good.

I'm not just coming from nowhere on this, I did purchase this game, and gave it a good 6+ hours of gameplay before discarding the game.

If you really want a strategy game with the same theme, sword of the stars 2 is really your best bet. It isn't perfect, but it has lots of uniqueness which makes up for some of its worst flaws.

[eRe4s3r]

Yes i agree - I would have handled the Release differently but in this case i neither could be especially vocally before release (NDA) nor after it Alas the influence of a simple paid freelancer over the development is tiny (as you can imagine).

Also technically i only made the textures and optimized the models after they were given to me (in a very raw form). One of the many really messed up things was that the dude who was supposed to provide concept art had to model the basic models for the ships himself because the ORIGINAL modeler disappeared without a trace. I was busy with textures and subsystem art (originally i wasn't even hired to touch models at all)

If you bought this blind then you have my pity as indeed the game is nowhere near finished. Although you literally paid my bills 

The best thing is imo to simply have it in the archives for a year and then check back. Your purchase is not lost after all but i can understand what you mean.

[getter77]

I bought into it as a pre-order on Gamersgate knowing full well it was Minecraft and such level situation---patches have been on the numerous, brisk, and meaty side of things so I'll spot them a bit of slack and a sackfull of time.   

Art wise, they are apparently soon going to enter into trying to get more hopping in terms of variety, people doing things in an official capacity, and so on while continuing to knock everything else into shape.

[Ozymandiaz]

I got Star Ruler myself, can be interesting to try it. Hopw it will give an interesting muliplayer thats better then what Sins offerd me

[eRe4s3r]

Once its stable and balanced i would love to try (own it as well, on steam ;p) I made a little mod too but that was obsolete by 1.0.1.0 and i don't feel like catching up with a moving target anymore.

That said new features are added each patch (upcoming is dodge chance and massive subsystem function overhaul) - at some point we hopefully get scriptable events, as the GUI is freely moddable, technically a space rpg is possible to do just like a trading sim or different 4x game.

One thing thats never gonna come though is localized damage and turrets. That would just grind any cpu to a halt at 500+ ships.

[getter77]

One thing thats never gonna come though is localized damage and turrets. That would just grind any cpu to a halt at 500+ ships.

I bet it could with some doing though....perhaps as part of a custom campaign or some such involving a starkly limited number of ships so as to sidestep that problem so long as the art assets and other such things were there.   They could position it as an IronMan Tactical Mode, something of a spacey RPG as mentioned(One-a few ships versus various Turretless space monsters whilst adventuring and such) or something.

[Mánagarmr]

Is it just me or are some of the models taken directly out of homeworld? :S

[eRe4s3r]

Beats me but as i gathered the concept artist who made the base models is big-time homeworld fan so inspiration was sought there i assume, but the texturing was definitely influenced by it (although i was forbidden from doing bright orange sections ,p)

You prolly do not know that but homeworld also produced GREAT concept art which is used as inspiration universally nowadays, they just had really cool ship designs, and the triple battleship and battleship model i made from scratch and can tell you i was still under the impression from the vaygr cruisers. ;P

[BobTheJanitor]

Ancient thread bump, go!

I just saw this game was posted as the daily deal on steam, and I'm curious if it's worth buying now since it's had several months to mature. Most of the feedback in this thread seems pretty negative, but maybe that's changed? Any opinions?

[zebramatt]

I guess the question is: is it worth £3.25?