Stellaris has been my vidya kick lately, and it got me thinkin: What systems work best for space opera? Exploration as well as action.
I've heard good things about Mongoose traveler. I'm aware of Eclipse phase, but I haven't heard as much positive about that.
You could try Stars without Number. There's a lot more material, but this gives you an idea.
Eclipse Phase is more of a cyberpunk/horror setting. It's got stuff that might work for exploration and galactic scale multi-species interactions, but generally it's probably not anywhere close to being a "space opera".
Traveler is what you want to go with, though I haven't played it myself.
Is it any good? I keep hearing that the combat isn't good and overall it's "okay" rather than "great".
It's fun, but the "second half" of the game is really stale, so it loses it's single player replay value after a few games.
It's simply okay. I wouldn't advise it at the current pricepoint. I think it's headed great places, it's got a good core to work from, but the current product isn't stellar.
It's decent and puts a lot of emphasis on exploration and SCIENCE which is cool. There are definitely areas that need to be filled in still like the ability to colonize and terraform more planet types. Also, the tech tree is fairly blah - at least for someone like me coming from Endless Space. I'm in the early phases of working on a redo personally.
Their little planned updates post seems to suggest things are headed in the right direction. Give it a half-dozen expansions like CK2 and it could be really great.
Thanks. Reading this now. The intro itself paints a decent picture, while also not hampering the creativity of the GM or party for setting or exploration.
I both love and hate the tech tree. I like the draw/randomness of it, but man is it hard to balance around.
Eclipse phase is what you go with if you wanna do "New Space Opera" in the vein of Alastair Reynold's Revelation Space books, Traveller is more old skool firefly/millenium falcon/Foundation type of Space Opera.
Speaking of Stellaris...
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I managed to succeed, and get a nice research boost to my spiritualist empire.
Diaspora is really good for generating systems and linking characters to them if you like FATE.
If you don't SWoN it pretty cool for setting up hex/sector crawls.
Ashen Stars might be cool, haven't had a chance to look at it much. It uses GUMSHOE so it depends on if you like investigation driven stuff.
>Eclipse Phase
Fucking operatic
>Reaper blows an insurgent infected civilians head apart
>Picks up the corpse to throw it
>Gets infected
>Mutates into a cyberdragon made of worms
>Kills everyone
that fucking game man
You'll find late game that you can't fight wars of any real consequence.
As always, first reply is best reply.
I guess I'll try to pick it up on sale.
How does the combat compare to Sins of a Solar Empire?
Are there enough diverse ship designs to make everyone look different?
It's simple combat, more akin to a 4X game than an RTS like SoaSE.
There isn't really combat. Two fleets engage each other and the game rolls damage, evasion and whatever while the ships swim about like retarded fish.
>Are there enough diverse ship designs to make everyone look different?
There is actually. You pick different parts to make up a single ship.
I think the designs are a bit wanting. You pick either the "mammal" design set, or "avian" design set, etc. and for each design there are a few visually different options with different hard points you can fill with weapons of your choice, so it's possible for your ships to look pretty different, but two reptile factions are going to look largely the same, especially by the end of the game.
Knowing Paradox they'll shove out twenty new design sets soon enough, though.
I guess I'll wait to pick it up on the Summer sale. I really do prefer space games with good combat, though...but I have enough faith in the developer.
At least they support their games, unlike some devs. Looking at you, Uber Entertainment.
It's a Paradox game.
Which means that you can only really have fun in it if you cheat, get immersed and genuinely care about your Empire, or play with friends, or have mods.
The combat is more loaded towards the strategy front, how you set up your fleets is where the meat is, rather than in the battles. Would be nice if they were a bit more visually impressive though.
I would go with Mindjammer, personally.
Do not use Eclipse Phase. The setting may be interesting but the system itself is a total clusterfuck, Anyways, I'd use Wild Talents 2e because even if it's a superhero rpg it isn't that hard use it for other genres.
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That's why Crusader Kings II is my favourite Paradox game. Not because I think it's the best game, but because it's the one where I most often find myself invested in my characters and my dynasty.
It's good but it'll only be great after 3 or 4 DLCs
It's also in dire need of a balance pass on the ship weapons.
You have issues like all kinetic weapons being totally missing bonuses to either armor or shield penetration/damage making them completely inferior to energy weapons and strike craft bays having their range erroneously set to 8, making them never actually do attack runs.
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>KHARAK IS BURNING
i cri evrytiem
Q______Q
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I think I got an elixir that either gave me a 5% bonus to happiness or +50 years to my leaders from that event. I was fanatic spiritualist/communist
Imagine if stellaris had stardrive's ship builder...
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