StarDrive vs Distant Worlds

[Hearteater]

Since I own StarDrive I thought I'd play around with that. It actually seems fairly similar to Distant Worlds. I'm assuming it is basically a less refined version of Distant Worlds. Has anyone played both?

[Toranth]

Sort of similar, as both are real-time-ish space 4x games, but entirely different in terms of quality.  My opinion to follow.

- StarDrive is incomplete, buggy, shallow economy and combat, weak AI, unbalanced, buggy, poor performing, overly-ambitious, unfinished, abandoned, but features cool looking Samurai Space Bears.  Did I mentioned it was buggy, unfinished, and abandoned?

- Distant Worlds has issues, especially with the AI, but it is a complete game and performs much better late game than StarDrive does midgame.  DW is also still supported by the devs and community.  The economy is more complex (sometimes too much so) and there is an impressive and daunting level of automation to be configured, but once you get the hang of it, the system is quite powerful.  The interface is awkward, as sometimes you can miss useful features by simply never seeing the display they are available on.
Any attempt to play Distant Worlds should be prefaced by extensive reading of their Forums, to learn about all the features and tricks available.  Saves a lot of time and potential frustration, letting you get into the fun faster.


If you have the money to purchase it, Distant Worlds is a far better product, hands down.  I would suggest skipping StarDrive entirely and going to something else instead.  The frustration that comes once you discover the performance issues and unfinished sections overwhelms the first few hours of exploration and learning fun.
I know with certainty that I will not be buying StarDrive 2, but further Distant Worlds expansions would receive serious consideration.

[Hearteater]

Thanks for the summary. I was just looking at StarDrive 2 videos and wonder how it would turn out. It looks promising. But if the studio has a history of under-delivering and not supporting their product, that certainly is something to consider. I'll get DW as soon as it goes on sale. Just craving a 4X and having trouble finding one to scratch the itch. Endless Space was so disappointing in their combat and ship design. Maybe Space Empires IV/V or MOO2 will have to do. Kinda sad I need to go back that far.

[Mánagarmr]

I would be extremely wary of giving any money to the StarDrive 2 developer. He basically gave his customers the finger and just abandoned Stardrive 1 without even implementing features that were promised when people started preordering. In addition, he left the game in a barely playable state with broken mechanics, vast imbalances and a horribly unoptimized lategame. It slows to a crawl even on the most powerful of rigs.


I wish I could get SEV to run on a modern system, because to me it's one of the better 4X games made in recent times. MoO2 is awesome, but a tad old and it shows in its UI and presentation. SEIV is quite good too, but lacks any good balance mods to smooth out the wierdness of a one man show.

[Mick]

StarDrive is basically in my top 5 "reasons I hate early access". What Mánagarmr said about it is exactly right.

Distant Worlds is kinda cool, but it's so automated, that it feels like it plays itself, and any type of non-automated stuff you do feels more like exploiting than strategizing.

[Misery]

Ah yes, I remember hearing about this one from a friend of mine.   Too bad, really, it seemed to have such potential.

Though, that's not really the bit that bugs me the most with this game, or a couple of other very specific examples.

Early access games, I've done LOTS of them.  Though back in my day, we called them betas, haha.  But yeah, lots of them.  I've nothing but free time and the resources to buy new games whenever I happen to feel like it, so I'm typically open to trying new things, even if it's kinda random.

And in all honesty, even having done so VERY many games in that state, be they very early on in the process, or at a point where they're nearing actual release, I've seen MAYBE two, possibly three, of the ones I grabbed go bad, in the way that this one did.  Probably the worst example by far that I can think of (and this one I've actually played for myself) is StarBound.

And it's a shame, because ALL of the others went just fine for me aside from those couple.  Quite a number of times, one of them would lead to a situation like this, where I end up hanging around the forums and doing lots of testing and bug-hunting and suggestion making in the same very involved (read: obsessive) way I do with Arcen here.

So those have all been very good experiences for the most part, and some have led me to games that have become some of my favorites.

But every now and then something like THIS comes along, that sorta poisons the waters, and completely pushes people away from the idea of this sort of thing.  And I cant blame them.  Spending hard-earned money on something, only to see it NOT live up to most promises, to the point where you basically paid for nothing?  Yeah, that's bound to leave a sour taste, definitely. 

It's irritating, really, that bad apples like this can cause that, but it sure does happen.

[Mánagarmr]

I was totally psyched about Stardrive when it was announced. I even made a post about it here on Arcen (you'll probably find it if you trawl the off topic forums). The multiplayer aspect was what interested me the most, as my group of gamers love that kind of game. Been a lot of Space Empires IV PBEM, SEV networked and even MoO2. So that he just ditched multiplayer entirely already rubbed me the wrong way. Then when the reports on how AWFUL the game was started leaking out, I just dropped it as a lost cause and never bought it.