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[Nadaka]

I look at it as there being 4 M-tiers:

Mega-corp: Activision, EA, etc.
Major: capcom, konami, rockstar, etc
Minor: they have done a few games, and you might even know a few, but most of them won't be recognized right off the bat.
Man in his basement: Toady.

Indie covers the MihB, and probably half of the minors.\, but its subjective.

[jocan2003]

I look at it as there being 4 M-tiers:

Mega-corp: Activision, EA, etc.
Major: capcom, konami, rockstar, etc
Minor: they have done a few games, and you might even know a few, but most of them won't be recognized right off the bat.
Man in his basement: Toady.

Indie covers the MihB, and probably half of the minors.\, but its subjective.

Exactly my point of view.

[Anvilfolk]

Less labels, more people. He's a guy lone-developing this. Who cares if somebody helped him with the publishing part or whatever. He got kickstarter money and got a kickass game working by himself. Plus, he is super competent. All in all, a lot more than you can say about many more "hardcore indies". I used to think it was really endearing, but the quantity of mediocre or just plain bad games coming out and selling just because it's indie...

Anyways, again, the point is, less labelling, more evaluating the situation - and this guy is really nice, active, responsive and competent. Also, the game's really good as well, though it definitely needs a little more polishing off in the interface and certain gameplay aspects.

[CognitiveDissonance]

Less labels, more people. He's a guy lone-developing this. Who cares if somebody helped him with the publishing part or whatever. He got kickstarter money and got a kickass game working by himself. Plus, he is super competent. All in all, a lot more than you can say about many more "hardcore indies". I used to think it was really endearing, but the quantity of mediocre or just plain bad games coming out and selling just because it's indie...

Anyways, again, the point is, less labelling, more evaluating the situation - and this guy is really nice, active, responsive and competent. Also, the game's really good as well, though it definitely needs a little more polishing off in the interface and certain gameplay aspects.

If I read the forums correctly, he recently had a new coder join him!!

[Sean Mirrsen]

We've yet to see much of said coder, but technically yes, he's now hired some help. If nothing else, he'll be a second pair of eyes to look through the code in search for bugs. ^_^

[Zyxl]

Bumping for interests.

Just got it at 1.11b, no serious bugs I've noticed yet aside from a consistent CTD in the main menu's options window of all places.

Anyone have some strategy to share? Seems like there's a lot of luck involved in grabbing terran planets even if you rush from the start, mostly just placement. Not too hard to dump everything into missile research at the start for a few turns, then take all the nearby Remnant held planets ASAP.

Combat is interesting, and while the customization would seem to imply a lot of depth... eh you seem to end up falling on the same few consistent custom designs. Default AI behavior options for a ship design is pretty awesome though.

Having a lot of trouble getting colonies off the ground though, even on Terran planets. Autoshipping gets stuck in this cycle where no industry surplus to build the agriculture building actually gets delivered, gets stuck in a perpetual starving colonists -> food delivery wasting time -> starving before industry can be shipped... again-> time wasting food instead again -> ad infinitum. I guess the default freighters just suck for speed/capacity?

Also, how to designate ship type? So it's labelled as a freighter, or a fighter, or a corvette to the AI? Or will a freighter hull intentionally unable to be designated for combat? Not that I don't heavily armed shipping lanes, but being able to direct them without auto-shipping sending them off for other bullshit would be nice.

Loving me some missile spam. No other early weapon type seems so effective for how cheap and easy to deploy it is. Vulcans are just hard to wield effectively, railguns are just too big and slow, flak cannons are kind of meh... but Missile Scout swarms demolish ANYTHING and are dirt cheap.

[Nadaka]

I actually tend to use vulcans en-mass on my early ships. Then I switch to beam weapons once I need to have far roaming fleets.

[Zyxl]

I'm serious about needing help getting a single established colony. They always turn into a deathpit of starving colonists and the AI's solution is to dump more colonists to starve while to returns to get more colonists to dump to starve... etc and I cant transport enough food fast enough, and the aeroponics will never get built. It doesn't seem possible.
edit
eh screw it. No more auto-AI until I can build up the colonies. Stupid with supplying colonies. Tends to run the economy into the ground by building everything, even when I keep trying to stop it.

Also, colony-blocking the AI is insanely effective. Astronomy/exploration starting bonus lets you cripple 2-3 other players from the start.

[Tres_Huevos]

Some worlds are just terrible to colonize, from what I recall.
If it doesn't have appropriate food supplies, I would just not bother colonizing it at the start. You'll probably be able to find one or two good worlds, take them first then go for the barren ones when you have better technology and infrastructure to support them.

[Farce]

Between aeroponics and the rover bay, I usually go for the rover bay first.  The colony will require a few supply deliveries to get it built, but eventually it'll get finished and then they'll be able to build their own aeroponics.

Regarding weaponry, I build Macross-tier rocket spam ships.  Massed rockets pack a mean punch, especially at the start, where you need to blast through them remnants for their delicious tech.  It probably doesn't work so hot on regular fighters, but it's good enough on corvettes, and much better on a heavy corvette.  Munitions usually don't last long enough to rock through a second remnant encounter, though... gotta restock after every fight, which is a bit problematic.

Uh, it should probably be noted that I last played probably several versions ago, though.  My computer doesn't run the game well, so it's rather troublesome to actually get a game going.

[forsaken1111]

The only weapon you need to touch early game is the missile. Arm your tiny fighters with missiles and build them in groups. A group of base level scout with missile weapons and no other tech will destroy much higher tech ships without many losses. The only issue is ammo, but if you bring enough small fighters that isn't a big deal.

[Nadaka]

I have seriously never found the missiles to be all that effective compared to vulcans. Sure they do more damage per hit, and have longer range. but I don't need to add much ammo for vulcans, the guns themselves carry enough and are efficient enough that only 1 block of ammo is necessary to keep killing through several enemy encounters. They chew right through "superior" enemy fleets and even remnants with only a handful of losses.

[forsaken1111]

I have seriously never found the missiles to be all that effective compared to vulcans. Sure they do more damage per hit, and have longer range. but I don't need to add much ammo for vulcans, the guns themselves carry enough and are efficient enough that only 1 block of ammo is necessary to keep killing through several enemy encounters. They chew right through "superior" enemy fleets and even remnants with only a handful of losses.

Really? Because in the games I've played I could wipe out lots of better armed ships with the first level rocket tech. Maybe it was 'adjusted'?

[Euld]

I've found vulcan fighters to be moderately useless, I just avoid fighting until I get PD laser cannons at the least o_O

[Xantalos]

Hey, I saw an LP of this!

GUESS WHAT GAME I'M GETTING.
WELL, ALONG WITH SOTS 2.