Just picked this up. Several attempts - on easy at that - have led to simultaneous attacks from pirates and the opponent’s main fleet on my two systems fairly early into the game. It takes my capital ship and the bulk of the frigates to fend off either, which means my colony dies a horrible death. Mind you, the bounty on my opponent was higher than the one for me before the pirate alarm went off.
Did you get a message “The bounty on you has increased” Just before the pirate launch? That moment determines who gets attacked (the bar turns red the timer stops then about 2 mins later the raid actually launches that’s the critical point). Also if they pass through your system on the way to the enemy and you engage them they will defend themselves but if you pull back and let them through they’ll leave you alone.
Personally I love the pirates early game they’re my merceneries beating down my opponent late game when the bounties get insanely expensive (I’ve dropped 20k into the bounty slot before) my armies can beat them silly anyway so it’s no loss if they attack me. Heck they’re even free xp for my battleships.
Hmmm… what to buy… this or Supreme Commander…
Well I had someone give me SC I played it for about three hours got bored uninstalled it and never was tempted to play it again.
This game I must have put about 20 hours into it since I got it and right now I’m trying not to fire up a new game because I plan on going to bed 2 hours from now and I know if I start a new game I’ll end up staying up thinking “Well I’ll stop just as soon as I finish my research…ok I’ll stop when I finish building my defense on my new planet…ok I’ll stop when this next pirate raid is over” This game is Starcraft meets Civilization and is pure crack to me.
disclaimer: the game is far from perfect it really needs some cut scenes to play after winning a map, a general tightening of the gameplay, a better system than that ‘pinning’ nonsense and general polishing but I fear a well made sequel will destroy me utterly
Darkhold, you’re making me start to feel that I’m missing out on this.
Stoppit!
hmm ok how about this? The races are terrible tired cliches (seriously the Military race, the economic race the weak but tons of special abilities race. And how many returning exiles does a universe need? Both the Aliens and the Advent fall into that category) the pinning system designed to keep track of your sprawling empire is a mess that I’m sure if I mastered it’d be useful…but I can’t be bothered to master that cluttered POS. Battleships gain XP but leveling them is something you have to do manually and it can be hard to keep track of which one leveled up in a huge fleet. The tutorials are a joke that prepare you for a real game about as well if I started you in Civilization by saying “Build some cities and try to research good techs. Now go to it!” You usually know you’ve won a map long long long before you actually get there (I estimate 50% of my play time is glorified mop up) and it’s a real letdown to beat a map and only get a pop up basically saying “You won…how about that” and with all the backstory and set up you’d expect some sort of single player campaign instead of just a bunch of maps.
ps, does anyone know anything about the map creator? I have a few maps I’ll like to try to build but I’ll be damned if I can figure that thing out.
That didn’t work.
Theres a tutorial pinned in the user forums on the official game site.
Yeah, all that…and yet I’ve still played, oh, maybe 20-30 hours so far and will probably play another game tonight. Even with all the flaws this is still a pretty fun game to play.
-XT
Ah the Galaxy Forge on the download page looks like just what I want. Nevermind the in game creator this looks much better. Thanks for pointing me in that direction.
So guys, when will the great SDMB clash of the solar titans commence? Who’s for a game tonight?
If I don’t have to work tonight (one of my customers has been having network troubles since Friday) I’ll be up for a game. Just let me know what time.
-XT
I’m up for a game tonight also. Haven’t had any time to really practice this week due to school, but I’m done with my homework for now so I can play.
Just let me know the time and place, I’ll be there.
How about 8:30 pm EST? Sound good to everyone?
I can do an 8:30 game.
Ok, its almost 8:30 EST, I went ahead and started hosting a game, the game name is : Straight Dope, password: cecil
Come one, come all. Lurkers welcome, Lets play a nice friendly game.
Sweet, I’ll be there in a minute.
It looks a lot like Homeworld with a strategic element thrown in. Might be worth checking out. I’ve been looking for a game to occupy my time until Spore is released.
Hey Hirka That was an abrupt ending! they gotta do something about that pop up. Good gaming though, next time we’ll have to take on hard AI! 
Yea, that was a fast ending. Definably need to go against hard AI, and a larger map