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[burningpet]

Lots of promising features, nice looking art, what do we need more??

Link to its Steam store page:
http://store.steampowered.com/app/220660/?snr=1_7_15__13

From its Kickstart page:

Features of StarDrive:

- Customize your Race by selecting from a large list of physical traits, socioeconomic traits, and traits relating to your history and tradition
- Deep, module-based ship design as described above
- Lead your forces into battle with your own flagship that you control like an arcade shooter; command your fleets like you would in a real time strategy game with simple mouse commands-
- Tactical ground combat to take over enemy planets
- A deep research tree with many dozens of technologies
- Alien Artifacts to find and collect, which give bonuses to your empire
- Rich diplomacy options, allowing you to make and break treaties with alien races; trade technologies and artifacts, sell ships, declare wars, and design joint operations with your allies.
- Finally, MULTIPLAYER.  Do this all with your friends online.

[KatalDT]

I wish I had $250 to drop on this so they could design the USS Phalligina, a ship design I've had in my head ever since puberty.


Although in all seriousness, I may plop $45 down on this. I love the concept, especially the module-based ship design.

[Dakk]

Oh crap, this sounds pretty awesome. Lots of cool projects comming up in the indie field lately, and most are space related too.

[LostCosmonaut]

Dear god... This has the potential to be Aurora with graphics and multiplayer.

[Girlinhat]

Debatably.  I'm tempted to say that it'll be a mainly mothership combat.  If you look at the video, there's no other big ships.  There's little fighters and the mothership, and it almost looks like that's all there is.  Your "fleet" might be a swarm of fighters that flank your capital ship, which would be terribly depressing for a game with so much potential!

Now, if you can design ships, and each ship is a full sized complete ship, not just a little plinky fighter, THEN it'll be something badass.  I'd be all over that!

[LostCosmonaut]

I also doubt it will have the full amount of customization that aurora does, although I will be watching. Definite potential here.

[Girlinhat]

The main thing about Aurora is that you can design components - make a shield with high recharge rate but low cap, or a laser with a slow recharge and high size for packing a lightweight gun that can punch holes in armor.  This is something I haven't seen many - or really any - undertake with any success.  If Drive managed to let you design components based on your tech, then it'd be all over, it just wins, but I doubt that'll happen...

I'm also concerned that the creator is already talking about Drive 2 and an RPG version.  He's getting money for the first one and already planning beyond it.  While this sounds good, too many devs end up "eh, I'll include this in the sequel" and then the game sucks because all the stuff is planned for the next game.  Planning ahead is great, but losing sight of what you're doing right now is a real concern.

[Sirus]

So many interesting space games, so little time. I'm a sucker for 4X titles

[Dansmithers]

Sorry i gots no money
 

[Criptfeind]

I'm tempted to say that it'll be a mainly mothership combat.

This. It would be hugely disappointing but there was so much concentration on the "mothership" in there I am very afraid that will pretty much be all there is. Also on ship making: When they talked about needing differing ships for the alium races and the 250 reward I have to seriously wonder if this making of ships is just going to be for your mothership.

Also, any good 4x game needs some interaction with the planets, of which the video demonstrated very little. There was a space station around one, but that is basicly all I saw. I worry that planets will pretty much be treated as resource node.

[Girlinhat]

There's an "ask the dev" part there but the real comments seem to be for contributors only, which is rather disappointing.  I'll be trying to throw a big question list over this evening asking about mothership-centric gameplay and how planets act.  While the teaser showed a very intriguing arcade style combat, that's currently all that it showed, and if it's going to claim 4X then we might need a bit more supporting this claim.  So if anyone has questions/concerns for me to lump in then I'll file them all as "Bay12 at large".

[Poltifar]

Honestly, I think I'd love that design system more in a space RPG than a space 4X.

Still might be worth plopping a dozen bucks on this, though.

[Flare]

Honestly, I think I'd love that design system more in a space RPG than a space 4X.

Starfury had something along the lines of the customization seen in this video and image, although admittedly you can only control your own ship.

Edit: Also, I think there are some indications in the article that you can customize your other ships as well as your flagship in the game. If it comes down to balancing issues wherein the flagship simply pounds everything else be they customized or not, I'm sure a little tweaking of the values can fix it.

[Girlinhat]

Flagship superiority is purely dependent upon how the dev wants it to run.  If they want a "Call of Duty" style where two men can destroy an entire US Marine bunker, then they up the flagship armor and weapons, if they want something more realistic, then it's simply a matter of using even weapon stats across the board.  More likely though, the issue will be with crew exp.  If crews do gain exp, then your flagship will no doubt gain immense exp, allowing an identical ship to all the rest somehow get 3x fire rate and 500% armor.

Granted, that would make a fun RPG game, but if that's the direction then it needs to market as an RPG, not a 4X.

[Flare]

Or maybe the flagship being bigger than the other ships can mount more efficient and larger modules than the rest of the fleet, thereby even with the same technological level as the rest of the fleet, its systems are going to be better than your average battleship.