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[Tiruin]

I really enjoyed the other Endless games, so I'm very excited to see what they've put together for this one.  Some of the preview and gameplay vids on steam were very interesting.

Mmm, I deeply enjoyed the Endless series after having been able to play them thanks to good friends on Steam ;~;
Just the price. :<

I'm so sick of RPS combat in general. I mean, it's fine for it to play a background/light role and is almost a basic aspect of combat design in that respect, but so many games abuse it.
Take Galactic Civilizations, for example. You have three types of weapons - Laser, Missiles, and Kinetics. You have three types of armor - Armor, Shields, Point Defense. All there is to combat is just having the ship with exactly the right type of armor and weapon then you auto-win. There's absolutely no aspect of strategy - you just have to micromanage your fleets and shipbuilding depending on who you're at war with.

It's just not fun. I want to have strategy and tactics in games, not "oh they have spearmen I guess I send axemen". It's fine to believe that you shouldn't have to focus too much on tactics/combat in games like Endless Space, but there has got to be a better compromise than yet another RPS system.

Isn't that because RPS is more of a simplified kind of system mechanic rather than a whole system in itself? :O Although I fully agree here--that cut into my enjoyment of Gal Civ 2 (it was really fun :< until I discovered the depth of the system...it was lacking because of this). I mean it would moderately seemingly be better if there was a basis for all weaponry systems and armor systems, and all do not have an advantage against the other--and you can specialize INTO the RPS system to have a bonus but also counter-bonus, but in general have better armor or weaponry. Though that's personally idealized; it sounded a lot better than having a rigid system that has counters/"You-can't-do-anything-better-than-this-counter!" as the foundation in the first place, AND as the only major factors in designing combat.

[Chiefwaffles]

Nonono, Galactic Civilizations 2 and 3 combat systems were entirely RPS.
If you didn't have the perfect weapons and armors against a specific fleet, you die.
If you do have the perfect weapon and armors against a specific fleet, you win.
If you have mixed fleet, the person with the most guns wins. (Note that a mixed fleet requires about twice as much research because you have to research each type of armor and type of weapon separately)

That's it. That's the GC2 + GC3 combat system.

[NullForceOmega]

I challenge the assertion that galciv 2s combat was purely RPS.  I field nothing but laser-equipped fleets, but I equip equal amounts of all armor types.  No enemy fleet ever survives contact with my forces.

[BurnedToast]

GalCiv2 is a bad example, it's combat was just as broken as endless space 1 (in a similar way, actually). Because of the way combat and research worked, unless you massively out-teched the enemy (in which case, you've already effectively won), armor was worthless garbage and you were better off stacking 100% weapons.

Spoiler: mildly offtopic galciv2 rant (click to show/hide)

Equal tech armor and weapons were roughly equally effective per mass, but you needed to research 3 types of armor + weapon(s), then either customize your ships vs the enemy you were facing (expensive to have multiple fleets everywhere or keep rebuilding them) or just make "general purpose" ships with all armor types.... obviously a waste of space on the ships.

Meanwhile "all weapons" could devote all that research to a single weapon, then all the ship space to the guns, and just "power through" any defense the enemy has due to superior tech + superior firepower. Any losses would easily be made up for with the cheaper cost of having a fleet that works against everyone.

There were also some quirks to the combat system that supported "all weapons" even more but I won't get into that

Never played galciv3, don't know if they improved it or not.

[Retropunch]

I think the main reason RPS combat systems are so rubbish in games like ES is because that's all there is - there's no other tactics at the foundation. Once you're in battle, you can't influence it yourself or pull out a surprising win - if they have weapons that you're weak against, that's pretty much it. ES tried to allow the player some influence with the phase cards, but they never seemed to do a whole lot really, and were a bit too abstract.

Whilst it doesn't need to go full Total War, even basic fleet positioning would allow the player some control over the odds.

[Sean Mirrsen]

I think the main reason RPS combat systems are so rubbish in games like ES is because that's all there is - there's no other tactics at the foundation. Once you're in battle, you can't influence it yourself or pull out a surprising win - if they have weapons that you're weak against, that's pretty much it. ES tried to allow the player some influence with the phase cards, but they never seemed to do a whole lot really, and were a bit too abstract.

Whilst it doesn't need to go full Total War, even basic fleet positioning would allow the player some control over the odds.

So in a sense, the outcome of the battle is determined way ahead of time, just by which technologies the opponent uses? That does make the combat feel rather pointless. Unless it's one of those systems where you can overcome a rock with a pair of scissors, i.e. a reasonable numerical superiority overcomes the RPS edge, so you could still win by being better strategically.

[forsaken1111]

So I've only played a few games beyond 100 turns and we haven't seen era 4/5 tech yet but so far it doesn't feel all that RPS to me. I use a mix of medium/short range weaponry and it has turned out pretty well. Energy shields still stop kinetic rounds, just at a reduced rate. Armor is better at stopping kinetics I suppose.

[Retropunch]

So in a sense, the outcome of the battle is determined way ahead of time, just by which technologies the opponent uses? That does make the combat feel rather pointless. Unless it's one of those systems where you can overcome a rock with a pair of scissors, i.e. a reasonable numerical superiority overcomes the RPS edge, so you could still win by being better strategically.

Exactly! There's obviously some deviation (a lot of scissors will beat an average rock), but the issue is that it's so simplistic and predetermined. All real world military endeavours do have an element of RPS (tanks beat trucks, planes beat tanks, AA beats planes etc.) but clever manoeuvring and strategy can shorten those advantages. In ES and similar, it's just 'lasers beat armour, missiles beat shields' or something similar - but on top of that, you can't hope to help alleviate that by clever tactics.

[Sean Mirrsen]

So in a sense, the outcome of the battle is determined way ahead of time, just by which technologies the opponent uses? That does make the combat feel rather pointless. Unless it's one of those systems where you can overcome a rock with a pair of scissors, i.e. a reasonable numerical superiority overcomes the RPS edge, so you could still win by being better strategically.

Exactly! There's obviously some deviation (a lot of scissors will beat an average rock), but the issue is that it's so simplistic and predetermined. All real world military endeavours do have an element of RPS (tanks beat trucks, planes beat tanks, AA beats planes etc.) but clever manoeuvring and strategy can shorten those advantages. In ES and similar, it's just 'lasers beat armour, missiles beat shields' or something similar - but on top of that, you can't hope to help alleviate that by clever tactics.

I remember Empire Earth, the first game where I found the RPS gameplay to feature prominently. Axes beat spears, spears beat swords, swords beat axes. Something like that. It's also that way in, say, Fire Emblem. In both cases you'll have an inordinate amount of trouble going "against the stream", but it's not insurmountable, and you still can defeat an enemy that has the RPS edge by strategizing. In Fire Emblem especially you have a case of specific weapons that go "in the other direction", allowing your sword-focused fighter to beat a spear-using enemy, by wielding a "spearbreaker" sword.

If the game allowed that, you could actually fight the enemy on an RPS level effectively. A laser-focused fleet armed with a mix of lasers and "shieldbreakers" will do less damage to an average enemy than a pure laser fleet, but will not fare so abysmally against an enemy with shields. Or something. I don't remember which tech counters which in this game.

[Girlinhat]

So I've been playing, and encounter some rough opposition.  I'm stuggling to build up colonies and by the time I'm working on my 3rd or 4th improvement, the AI is fielding a half dozen warships.  Is this another game with cheating AI?

[Majestic7]

It is alpha, so AI could have crutches that are removed later. Still, the merchant types are ironically (since they start Pacifist) rocking huge fleets and using them aggressively early on. This is because they don't need colony ships, so they can spend all that dough on warships instead.

[Rolepgeek]

Just got the game myself, trying to get it to work. Any advice? I have DirectX 11, but an Intel graphics card. Tried everything I could find, seems like, to try and get it to work on my laptop, but...I dunno. :/

[Teneb]

Just got the game myself, trying to get it to work. Any advice? I have DirectX 11, but an Intel graphics card. Tried everything I could find, seems like, to try and get it to work on my laptop, but...I dunno. :/

What OS? If it's Windows 7, try to do a widows update if there are any available. Had to do it recently to run newer games like Dishonored 2.

[Rolepgeek]

Windows 10. Uninstalled the manufacturer's graphics drivers, installed the latest ones straight from intel (at least, latest ones that weren't beta, maybe that's why? Honestly feel like I've exhausted the possibilities), Made sure I installed the stuff in the _CommonRedist folder...

[Mephansteras]

PTW. I enjoyed Endless Space well enough. Seems worth watching.