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[lemon10]

(Disclamer: It's been a year since I last played a proper game of star ruler 1, and there have probably been some pretty large mechanics changes since then (most notably pirates I think))

You don't want to focus only on research. You really want to split your focus between colonization/infrastructure (primary), research and pirate defense.

Even if you focus entirely on research, and your opponent has twice as many planets as you, not only will he research just as fast as you, but he will also be able to expand, soon having many more planets still, eventually outpacing you in research as well.

Because of this, the primary focus should be on colonization, and everything else should come after.

Also make sure you understand how all the resources work, and make sure that you are getting resources in the right proportions for the time.

Finally, make sure the cheating AI option is off, otherwise the AI will cheat for resources (but not research).

Cheating AI complaint

I just ran a 2 hour 30 minute 1 system game with 5 AI's ranking form easy to hardest. By the end (and at every point in between), I had the highest research score of anyone by a pretty clear margin, even when I turned all my research facilities into resource buildings to build a size 600 ship (since I set the ship limit at only one to prevent me actually having to defend myself earlier on, and to allow myself to focus on research) over a hour.

Its honestly a crazy complex game, and the number of things you can do better are massive. While I consider myself good (no problem beating multiple allied hardest AI), I know that I can get far better.

E:  Make sure that you have a governor on to auto-renovate all your buildings.

[Firgof Umbra]

So that said, is there any hope for me in SR2? Is the game still balanced effectively the same? Or will I finally be able to start a game without the certainty of defeat.

It's certainly much easier to grasp this time.  In lieu of trying to find the sweet-spot for metals/elec/adv. parts/goods/labor production, you're instead influencing mainly your money versus your other critical resources.

Check out our first dev diary if you haven't already, it goes over how the game plays out with expansion (it's since gotten even clearer and easier to understand and control).

I believe Firgof here mentioned the SR2 would be significantly easier to handle!

It is certainly more immediately understandable so, yes, we do believe it'll be much easier to understand than SR1.

SR1 was kind of a predictive/strategic economic balance game.  SR2 is more of a reactive/tactical economic balance game.

"These are all these planets I could colonize. They have nice resources that do things -- but I have to keep in mind I only have so much money and so can expand only so fast.  So which ones should I colonize first, and to what planet am I going to ship those resources?  I need a Level One resource to make this world level up, and there are eight that I know of and each of those do a cool, unique, thing."

versus

"Uh... well.  I guess I should build more electronics factories?  Oh, but that's now draining my metals supply too much, so I'll need to build more metal mines... but I have to keep in mind that when these planets run out of Ore, they'll only run at 20% -- so optimally I should be making the metal mining planets the ones with the most Ore and slots to free up my slots on other worlds.  Then there's my population -- I need to maximize that with Goods and Luxuries, but have to balance for mood -- but I don't have the resources to balance those, so I guess I'll need to use Civil Acts for now.  Need to remember to turn Forced Labor off later or I won't get any benefit from luxuries...", etc.

What I'm getting at is if one were to say SR1 was opaque, you could by the same weighting say SR2 is transparent.  We tell you what your decisions will do in advance and how to proceed versus you kind of having to figure it in your head and remember how things work.

[Firgof Umbra]

So... lots of things have been going on behinds the scenes since my last post.
There are new influence cards and actions which make being a total bastard (Influence Empire) fun, we're playing with Energy powers now,  and we're currently sitting on I think 40 unique resources now (with hopes to add even more).  The framework for the random events system is also being prototyped.   All in all: We're full steam ahead and things are looking great.

Speaking of looking great.  Did I mention the planets are going to be prettier than SR's?  Because they will be (courtesy Jon Micheelsen).
From beautiful glowing crystal planets...
...to the more humble beauty of terra-likes.

We also got around to putting sound effects in; that prompted immediate celebration on my part.

We won't be meeting our target of launching Early Access before the year is out, I'm sad to report, but our media should start picking up and more dev diaries should start showing up more reliably.

Lucas and I want to produce some video footage for y'all, too, so hopefully there'll also be that to look forward to.  And, of course, the streamed multiplayer (at this point also a grudge match) session we asked if y'all were interested in.

[Morrigi]

Hmmm. I might buy this. Videos please!

[Firgof Umbra]

So tomorrow we're doing a live stream of the game as well as a Q&A at 6 PM EST (it is at the time of this post 5:30 EST); that's roughly 25 hours from now.

Link to the stream: http://twitch.tv/BlindMindStudios

Further information will be edited into this post and posted directly preceding the livestream.  We hope to see y'all there!

[Orb]

Would this be the multiplayer  "grudge" match you're streaming?

[Sinistar]

*mind-BLOWN*

Dammit, how did THIS get past my radar??

Ok, I'll admit, I didn't check Blind Mind's page for a while now. I did in the past even though I haven't touched Star Ruler in quite some time.
But I'm happy you guys are still making game(s).

Now I'm off reading all the stuff about Star Ruler 2 I've missed, bye.

edit:
I might have had an orgasm just now.

Huge GIF with bullets and oh dear me that looks like a rather SMALL and ONE-SIDED battle, can you imagine head-on clash between two massive fleets oh crapHNGHGNGHGNGNNNDGGNNNGFGFGHHHHHHH

And you sir just made my day

Threads here don't get locked for inactivity, they just slumber eternally.

Ia Ia forum ftaghn.

[Dohon]

So tomorrow we're doing a live stream of the game as well as a Q&A at 6 PM EST (it is at the time of this post 5:30 EST); that's roughly 25 hours from now.

Link to the stream: http://twitch.tv/BlindMindStudios

Further information will be edited into this post and posted directly preceding the livestream.  We hope to see y'all there!

Looking forward to it!

[Firgof Umbra]

Would this be the multiplayer  "grudge" match you're streaming?

Indeed it is!  All three of us will be playing (and I'll be doing my best to play and moderate/Q&A!).

Dammit, how did THIS get past my radar??

The Marketing Machine is at a nice low hum right now; I'm kind of flying a little under the radar.  This Livestream is likely to be the start of the revving up of said machine to full volume.  Once we're really going, I'll be posting video footage, abusing our Twitter, creating entries for the game on various sites, and gearing up for the weekly VLOGs (if we determine we can go for them).

[Lukeinator]

Will there be mac.

[Firgof Umbra]

Don't know yet; hopefully.
We're pretty sure it already works -- but we don't test it on a regular basis.

[Sinistar]

Stream is up! 

[etgfrog]

The stream was interesting...although the game seemed a bit...childish?

One main thing I'm a bit sad about is the removal of the infinite amount of research but with how the game is set up I could see right now is research being done is through a procedural generation of tech branches that would allow a player to continue to be focused in an area. Hm...maybe an option to set if research is procedural or static...

[Firgof Umbra]

Archive of the stream is now available on Twitch:  http://www.twitch.tv/blindmindstudios/c/3638578
It is also available on YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0_q78Qwlgk

One main thing I'm a bit sad about is the removal of the infinite amount of research but with how the game is set up I could see right now is research being done is through a procedural generation of tech branches that would allow a player to continue to be focused in an area. Hm...maybe an option to set if research is procedural or static...

It should be a pretty darn big web by the time we're done with it.  It's very small at the moment compared to what we want.

[Sinistar]

Liked the stream very much, thanks again! I might have some more questions soon, but right now, I'm REALLY warming up for this game, even more so than before.