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[Shades]

History and Tradition positive traits are Cybernetic, the big expensive trait that eliminates your dependence on food. Negative traits are Small and Polluted Homeworld, since you don't care about the fertility penalty and you're going to be a rapidly expansionistic empire. With the bonus point you have left you can get a nice prototype flagship to explore the galaxy with when you start.

I've not played it for a little while so it might have been rebalanced, but I found cybernetics was the same cost as polluted homeworld which meant you took both and basically got the first free.

At the time I avoid the tax traits as my tax rate was always 0% and any increase on that is kinda pointless. But I opted for efficiency to reduce maintenance cost that allowed me to do that. All my income was from trading and buildings really, coupled with the cybernetics expansion just meant you took almost every planet for extra profit.

[Nadaka]

I played again for the first time in the full release... And I found that the difficulty has been scaled back, humans are a playable race now, and I didn't get invaded before I could produce my first defense fighter.

[jocan2003]

I played again for the first time in the full release... And I found that the difficulty has been scaled back, humans are a playable race now, and I didn't get invaded before I could produce my first defense fighter.

Hmmm its the *stable* release, not the full release, still missing lots of features.

[alway]

Currently having more fun with this than any other space strategy game I've ever played. Diplomacy, for the first time in any space game I've played, is actually highly important. You can't win through tech alone; a strategy which turns just about any space game into a boring end-turn fest.

In this game, I've been playing as Opteris. Did a decent rapid expansion at the start, built up enough military to keep the neighboring cordrazine and ralyeh off my back, then played tech broker. Yeah. I was able to use tech trading and such to play my neighbors off against one another, all the while maintaining a lead in technology for the entire game, all by doing smart tech trades.

Kulrathi got wiped out by the united federation, who became my allies. Pollops also became my allies. I overfed the draylok with tech while attempting to have them handle some of the pressure from our mutual neighbor, the cordrazine; they ended up with a pretty decent empire across the map. So me and the allies went to war, taking them down a good bit. We also nearly wiped out the ralyeh, who were reduced to impoverished barren worlds scattered around the map.

So, currently late midgame, early endgame. This is where stuff got interesting with diplomacy. I was #1 in all but military, in which I was #3, with my allies at #2 and #1. I convinced ally in #2 to merge into a federation. For those who don't know what that does, it basically gives all their stuff over to you, and they cease to exist as an independent faction. The other ally I was also able to easily convince, as I was now #1 in everything. So I now could have easily destroyed all the other factions with one big steamroll...

Then things got interesting. The Draylok formed a federation with the Ralyeh. This prompted the Cordrazine to surrender to them, ceding their worlds. Then the Vulfen joined the federation.

So within about 2 turns of time, the game went from 7 factions, most of which were weak, to 2 massive factions which own empires stretching across the map. Shit just got real.

Time to begin building core mines on all the worlds. Capturing my worlds will only weaken them.

In summary, this game has had more intrigue than all the other space strategy games I've played put together.

[Svampapa]

So I've seen the ads for this plastered all over lately, didn't think it was my kind of game really... then I watched some of GetDaveds let's plays, and got a huge boner. I want this. (No, not Getdaved. The game!)

A bit confused and worried by the system requirements though.

My CPU and RAM is well above minimum, but I'm still running an olde 8600GTS.

Anyone running this successfully below minimum spec gfx card?

[Tres_Huevos]

I ran it successfully on a NVidia 9300m GS, though in large battles it would slowdown. However, I don't know if that was due to CPU or GPU, as it got slow in lategame anyway, and I haven't played since before the game started taking advantage of multiple cores.

[CognitiveDissonance]

I have been staring at it for a while, and finally caved in. And I couldn't be happier! This game is BEAUTIFUL and fun! Ship design feels complex and meaningful, and I feel like I'm just scratching the surface.

I used to play a lot of Space Empires back in the day, and this really scratches the same itch. Not quite the same complexity YET, but it can get there.

I also am a bit worried about random abandonment, but the forums look promising. I think they want to finish this game properly.

So hurray for indie rebirth of 4X and good gameplay!

[Mickey Blue]

StarDrive is not an indie game*.

That said it does look interesting, but the mixed reviews and (semi these days) high price makes me want to wait around and see what they do with it, or for the price to drop, or both.

*They have a publisher, Iceburg Interactive, so they are no longer an independent developer.  It's more of a peeve than anything else but I'd rather the word "Indie" not be turned into a marking ploy (like "Organic") that means nothing.

[elci]

So I've seen the ads for this plastered all over lately, didn't think it was my kind of game really... then I watched some of GetDaveds let's plays, and got a huge boner. I want this. (No, not Getdaved. The game!)

A bit confused and worried by the system requirements though.

My CPU and RAM is well above minimum, but I'm still running an olde 8600GTS.

Anyone running this successfully below minimum spec gfx card?

Hell I even ran it on 8400m GS, which is way worse than yours and it was playable

[CognitiveDissonance]

StarDrive is not an indie game*.

That said it does look interesting, but the mixed reviews and (semi these days) high price makes me want to wait around and see what they do with it, or for the price to drop, or both.

*They have a publisher, Iceburg Interactive, so they are no longer an independent developer.  It's more of a peeve than anything else but I'd rather the word "Indie" not be turned into a marking ploy (like "Organic") that means nothing.

That's fair, I wasn't aware that Iceberg Interactive had any other major titles in existence. Therefore, this would be a "new and small" developer

[Svampapa]

Hell I even ran it on 8400m GS, which is way worse than yours and it was playable

Thanks bro, all I needed. See you guys in SPEHSS!

[majikero]

I used the space robot bugs and somehow unified the entire galaxy via peaceful means. My federation is made up of the other 2 most powerful empires of small fuzzy things and the pacifist plants. The rest of the galaxy united under the banner of the space elves. Most of their federation consist of all the war-like races minus my race of space robot bugs.

[Chattox]

That's fair, I wasn't aware that Iceberg Interactive had any other major titles in existence. Therefore, this would be a "new and small" developer

They published Endless Space, also

[Mickey Blue]

That's fair, I wasn't aware that Iceberg Interactive had any other major titles in existence. Therefore, this would be a "new and small" developer

No problem, mostly a nitpick, but I have noticed that recently every single small studio seems to be called an indie-studio (or calling itself one) mostly, I suspect, for the street cred.

[jocan2003]

If i remember right he is still an indie, not because he has a decent name publishing him that he is not an indie anymore. In my book indie is when the studio starts with no funding, and they STAY indie untill they release their first game. Then they get quoted on their work/size of team and sorted into *still indie*, small company, etc. Thats what is in my book but again im no expert.