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[MrWiggles]

How do you know that's limited?

[lordcooper]

106 stars is pretty humongous dude.

[Lord Snow]

How do you know that's limited?

How i know that's limited?

I know that MoO2 had a huge galaxy setting of 72 stars. That's 34 less than Endless Space, 16 year ago. MoO3 has 250 or more systems, can't remember and google fails.
Sins of a Solar Empire has huge random maps with 142 planets. Star Ruler can have thousands of stars, with planets orbiting. AI War 120 planets. In real time 4x.
SotS1 features 350 planets, SotS 2 over a hundred stars currently and probably far more if they wouldn't have made such an incredible mess of the game.
Space Empires 4/5 runs 250 systems with 15 planets.
GalCiv 2 can throw up close to 500 sectors.
X3 supports at least 200 systems.


I fully admit that size, beyond a point, is not everything, and endgame/cleanup on huge maps can be tedious.
But from a game called ENDLESS Space, with Pick-Cards combat system, i would have expected the opton to have far more than 106 systems.
With the exception of GC2, all of the above have a real combat system too.

[umiman]

While I'd like to agree with that sentiment, I think the practical part of me just can't get along with it.

I can't even stand more than 50 planets / cities / stars / etc. in any 4x game. It's too boring to play on and all these games stagnate horribly at the end game where there's nothing left to research.

That's just me though.

[Nelia Hawk]

That's pretty... limited. Pity. Guess i'll wait out a few patches.

you should try the game "Lost Empire: Immortals" then... think it can have like 2000 starsystems big maps.

for me i didnt like it... was too simple and boreing gameplay. guess it had to be that simple/automated so people could "manage" the 200+ systems big empires and not micro manage each building on each system.


100 systems in endless space takes several days to win a game on that i guess... so its quite alot in this game.
i dont know if i i should like endless space or not... the games i played with endless space felt... kind of "slow"? (also i still cant figure out a good "colonization strategy" as my morale usually goes into the cellar and i need to rush supermarkets to keep it up a bit again to colonize as "often" as the ai manages to do it...) oh well...
looks like they patched it again, so probably try a few more games when i got time again later to see how it feels now.
endless space isnt a bad game, maybe i just expected it to be different (more like SotS?) and it doesnt "click" for me yet to realy like it compared to how i liked i.e. distant worlds or SotS.

think my most favorite 4x space games are still "distant worlds" and "sword of the stars 1 (+ addons)" (after them probably comes "galciv2" and "space empires 5" (think it was 5) and maybe "gratious space battles" for how good the battles look in there.).

distant worlds managed best to make the universe feel very "alive" for me, with all the "npc/automated" merchants, escorts and patrols flying around. fleets and combat was pretty good too, also distances felt quite big. had alot of resources too that somehow influenced the economy with supply/demands depending on technology/shipmodules. think designing "usefull" stations/ships i never realy managed to do and left that always on autodesign...

think in SotS i liked the ships, ship design, combat, individual turrets, the random techtree and the races with each haveing a different movement system the most.

for endless space, hmm think its the different races, colonisation, and system management/resources. combat looks kind of good with all the shooting, the cards are ok too... maybe it feels just to "static?" with the two fleets just flying next to eachother. (its kind of like in "galciv2", but combat wasnt what i liked in galciv2 either)
think i usually also have no clue about the damage amount in fights... usually just look at the top two summary bars and that "combined combat rateing thingy number".
kind of have a general feeling of "not many ships/fleets" too.
research is fine with the 4 trees... time it takes to research stuff feels ok too.
so ya.. dunno... have kind of mixed feelings with endless space... it has parts i like but some parts that feel too slow/static maybe... no idea.    cant make up my mind atm... should play it a bit more later though.

on a sidenote that "legends of pegasus" does look interesting too somehow... feels to be more like sword of the stars than endless space is, but who knows how that ends up gameplay wise.

[MrWiggles]

For a X4 game, the number of "Cities" maximum and the number of "city" optimum should determine how many potential "cities" sites there should be. So, I dont see how having more city sites means its better. It should have enough city sites to make it manageable, fun, and needed for what kinda of feel and gameplay their going for.

[BuriBuriZaemon]

Swords of the Star 1 (SoTS) is my benchmark for any 4x space games out there. I played Endless Space for 50 or so turns last night. Here's my impression so far.

Very beautiful GUI. Simple, non-intrusive, functional, and aesthetically pleasing. The best I have seen in any games in my 20 year life of gaming, really.

I really like the graphics and designs of the planets and ships too. Overall, this game is great looking.

Multiple planets in each system. This makes more sense than having a single planet for each system in Sword of the Stars. However, it does feel to throw out realism when I get to colonise lava/gas planet...

Ship customisations are very streamlined, which is good and bad. Good because upgrading individual components is a press of a button away. Bad because I feel so detached from individual designs, which was the contrary to what I felt when I played SoTS.

I still remember my Gladius-class cruisers that turned the tide of the war against the enemies of mankind and became the mainstay of my SolForce Fleet, succeeding the outtech'ed Claymore-class. In Endless Space, the ships feel like they're just replaceable units.

Overall, the game is still a great addition to the 4x genre.

[Aptus]

Been playing a bit of this now, it is a mixed bag.

The game is beautiful, has an excellent UI and the space battles look awesome in the beginning but it seems to lack punch when I upgrade my fleet, getting a new weapon doesn't really show on the battles other than maybe a new colour on your shots.

I like the way the systems and planets are set up, makes colonizing intuitive and easy to manage.

Where it fails is variety and some mechanics. I am not a fan of the ship customization, I guess I am the only one from the people I have talked to but I LOVED the GalCiv2 ship editor, I could really make some unique stuff there. Here your dreadnaught mk crap will look exactly like your quantum deathray singularity technobabble deathray mk XXXIV. Yes it is easy to manage and quick but if I wanted that more than variety I would not play a 4X game.
The races also seem to lack variety, other than the portraits and ship designs they do not feel like different factions at all, they all behave in pretty much the exact same way.
The universe has too little variety, I would have liked more random stuff in the galaxy when exploring and colonizing, now it is just a numbers game, oh it has malus blahblahblah, ok get the tech and remove it, I would have liked more stuff that had both good and bad consequences on my planets and choices to deal with it. For example there is a planetary bonus you can get called Friendly Natives that gives some bonuses, when I encountered these I would have liked to get some choices like for example, Coexist, enslave, exterminate.
The diplomacy is lackluster at best and horrible at its worst, I would have liked more chances to play the races against eachother for example. The AI is also absolutely retarded in the diplomacy, oh you have an empire ten times the power of mine, let's make threatening demands!

Another thing that is lacking a big is the planetary invasions, other than just sitting around waiting I would have liked the ability to decide how I invaded more, like, do I use orbital bombartments to quicken the process at the cost of planetary improvements and the like.

Woah that was a lot of whining in one post, don't get me wrong I enjoyed the game, I just think it could have been a lot more, for now there are better alternatives out there.

[forsaken1111]

However, it does feel to throw out realism when I get to colonise lava/gas planet...

I don't get this. Its entirely possible to colonize a gas giant or lava planet with the right technology. Why does it seem unrealistic?

[BuriBuriZaemon]

However, it does feel to throw out realism when I get to colonise lava/gas planet...

I don't get this. Its entirely possible to colonize a gas giant or lava planet with the right technology. Why does it seem unrealistic?

How do you suppose we build a structure when the ground itself is not solid? I know it's science fiction, but in my personal view, it's taking it a bit too far. The planet should be terraformable, but not habitable.

Also slightly off topic but Legend of Pegasus looks really interesting. The combat is like sims and the ship customisation is deeper. The catch is they don't test the game at all as stated by the dev.

[forsaken1111]

However, it does feel to throw out realism when I get to colonise lava/gas planet...

I don't get this. Its entirely possible to colonize a gas giant or lava planet with the right technology. Why does it seem unrealistic?

How do you suppose we build a structure when the ground itself is not solid? I know it's science fiction, but in my personal view, it's taking it a bit too far. The planet should be terraformable, but not habitable.

Also slightly off topic but Legend of Pegasus looks really interesting. The combat is like sims and the ship customisation is deeper. The catch is they don't test the game at all as stated by the dev.

Why does the colony have to be on the ground? A structure which is buoyant in the atmosphere would suffice, or even an orbital station 'colony'. There are hundreds of ways to do this given sufficient technology and imagination. I mean Star Wars imagined a floating city way back in 1977 with bespin's cloud city. It balanced itself with repulsors iirc and had a long stabilizer pod which reached deep into the atmosphere.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Aptus]

The catch is they don't test the game at all as stated by the dev.

they don't test the game at all as stated by the dev.

don't test the game at all

at all

I think I will never touch that one, when I feel like debugging I'll just work on my own code :p

[Draco18s]

Where it fails is variety and some mechanics. I am not a fan of the ship customization, I guess I am the only one from the people I have talked to but I LOVED the GalCiv2 ship editor, I could really make some unique stuff there. Here your dreadnaught mk crap will look exactly like your quantum deathray singularity technobabble deathray mk XXXIV. Yes it is easy to manage and quick but if I wanted that more than variety I would not play a 4X game.

And some of us like it the way it is.  We don't have to build the whole ship from the ground up pointlessly.
The ship editor is the only thing I remember about GalCiv2, and I don't remember enjoying it.

[Aptus]

Where it fails is variety and some mechanics. I am not a fan of the ship customization, I guess I am the only one from the people I have talked to but I LOVED the GalCiv2 ship editor, I could really make some unique stuff there. Here your dreadnaught mk crap will look exactly like your quantum deathray singularity technobabble deathray mk XXXIV. Yes it is easy to manage and quick but if I wanted that more than variety I would not play a 4X game.

And some of us like it the way it is.  We don't have to build the whole ship from the ground up pointlessly.
The ship editor is the only thing I remember about GalCiv2, and I don't remember enjoying it.

To each their own I guess I thought it was the best part, but then again I am the kind of person that can spend several hours in a character creator getting my pc just the way I want it in an rpg. The thing keeping GalCiv2 back for me is the silliness, the humour gets to be a bit much some times when I wish it had been more serious.

[BuriBuriZaemon]

The catch is they don't test the game at all as stated by the dev.

they don't test the game at all as stated by the dev.

don't test the game at all

at all

I think I will never touch that one, when I feel like debugging I'll just work on my own code :p

Okay, there was another post in response to this. The game has been tested internally and by an external party that specialises in testing mass-produced products. It still seems that the testing is not as long as they would've liked and there are not a lot of gameplay materials released so far. I really hope it'd live up the expectations, but I haven't had enough incentive to pre-order, even with 15% discount and bonus mini DLC on Steam...