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[lavenders2]

Starbase Orion

4x Strategy gaming in your pocket

So I mentioned this on a thread somewhere and it seems very few people have heard of this brilliant title. It is basically a MoO2 with better multiplayer. In the game, you build up your forces from spaceship parts that you research, using credits, time and population as resources. You will have to find a perfect balance between food, industry and research as you expand your empire. Others will be out to stop you dead in your tracks. Here are some features:
*Randomly generated universe: Play on a small, medium or large universe which is randomly generated every time for more !!FUN!! and variety.
*Fantastic AI: A rarity in 4x games, the AI in this game supposedly got recognition in a worldwide AI competition, and has a host of different difficulty levels, and you can play with up to 3 of these at once. Easy was a challenge for my first game, and people are reporting that the hardest difficulty (Impossible) requires a lot of skill and knowledge of the game to beat
*Variety of races: Choose from 5 races, or create your own. Similar to MoO, you can create your own race with good things and bad things about it. Bad things give you more points to spend, and you start with 10 to allocate. The other 5 races are varied and interesting
*Tech tree: Choose from certain technology to research in the game to aid in your conquest. Certain technologies will have to be picked over others (picking red techs in the tree will make other techs disappear) meaning you will have to pick what you need in any given situation.
*Ship designer: Choose from a variety of hulls and weapons, each with different ranges, damages and costs. You can build a quick scout ship with basic weapons, or a warship with a large variety of nuclear missiles. What you build will impact your strategies in battle
*Somewhat tactical battles: Works a bit different to other 4x games. In an attempt to bring this game to game center multiplayer, some things had to be sacrificed. What actually came out is a clever combat system that allows you to set up your fleet to counter the other fleet. You can set orders to what range you want your ships to try and fight at, you can set them to hold position, evade and you can set what ships you want to fight: weak ships, strong ships, closest ships etc. Choosing the right options will mean the difference between a defeat on turn 1 or a victory.
*MULTIPLAYER: This is what the developers wanted to have in the game, and almost all their decisions were focused around this. Basically, players are pitted against each other in certain setups, and are tasked with destroying the opponent. You take a turn whenever you want, and when someone else takes a turn in the same setup, you are matched up with said person. A recent update also allowed players to take a turn, which ended the turn, and then take their next turn as well, rather than having to wait for the next player. This effectively doubled the speed at which turns are played out. Of course, you can play against your player in a few sittings, or over the course of a few days or weeks, possible even months. A huge amount of work went into the multiplayer, and when you get a good worthy opponent, it shows.
*Auto management building system: Tedious empire management is solved with an empire screen that is efficient and fast at allowing you to pick what you want to build and where you want your population working. Some fantastic automation features have been added as well, allowing the AI to build things for you depending on what you want, and they tend to build what is best. It works, and you can still manually do everything if you so desire. With a new update, you can now tweak you build orders and make your own custom automated system that suits your playstyle, race and needs.

The good:
*Streamlined a little bit from MoO2, but done in a manner that makes sense for an iOS device.
*Constantly being updated with player requested features about once a week
*Game is fairly balanced towards multiplayer
*AI are a challenge
*Combat is different, but makes sense and works well for the iOS devices
*Very diverse choices in play options when it comes to strategies, and race selection and creation

The bad:
*No diplomacy - This doesn't bother me at all, but I can see why people want this option in. When you meet another race at the moment, they speak to you and talk about how much better things would be if they controlled your colonies. Developers are considering adding this, as it has been asked for a lot. The only form of diplomacy at this time is spying, which allows you to steal techs from other races. Useful, but not a huge thing.
*Small balance issues - They aren't very big or bad, but the options in the race design giving you bonus food are a tad too powerful. Also a racial disadvantage, repulsive, weakens spy operations, but they were not an important mechanic to begin with, and people often take it for free points to place elsewhere. Yet again, developers are looking into solutions
*A small little niggle that people don't seem to like is a scout discovering a hostile planet, usually means that scout will die because it can't retreat. It doesn't bother me, but it does bother others. As of update 1.1, scouts and other ships can retreat from battle as long as they have a certain amount of health remaining.
*Ground invasions - something that the developers would like to work on, there is a simple system surrounding ground invasion. In short, marines are the invaders, and whoever has more wins. It is very simple, and something that people have wanted to be more complex.
*Small tech trees - Like all the bad things in this list, the developers have acknowledged that the tech tree is quite small and doesn't take much to research as much as you can. Some techs are unique and useful, but it leaves a fair bit to be desired, but the developers do want to add more.
*Pricing - Finally, this issue is small. The price is 8USD, but many do not know whether this is what they are looking for or not, with no demo to speak of. It is 100 percent worth it, but I am almost guaranteeing it will put some off and stop some from purchasing what is otherwise a fantastic title

Definitely get this. It stays faithful to its big brother, MoO2, but does enough to not consider it a straight up port or clone, and is built with iOS devices in mind. It has a good multiplayer, strong AI, and good combat system all mixed in with that 4x goodness that people like.

NOTE: To play multiplayer, you need gamecenter plus iOS 5 or higher. The same for iCloud as well I think, which allows you to transfer saves from one device to another

Home page for Starbase Orion
http://www.chimerasw.com/starbaseorion/

Read this to get a vision of the game and what the devs want to do with the game
http://www.chimerasw.com/starbaseorion/?page_id=2

Here is the game on the appstore
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/starbase-orion/id438375580?mt=8

[Pnx]

Kudos to lavenders2 for the point by point good v bad thingemy. It's a well written, honest, and straightforward set of opinions.

[LoSboccacc]

Intersted but waiting for a demo.

[lavenders2]

Intersted but waiting for a demo.

Fair enough. If it persuades you though, it has been nominated for the best strategy game of 2011 by IGN. That is overall as well, so this game is playing against PC titles as well like frozen synapse. I don't think it will win, but the fact that it was even chosen to compete with games on PC, 360, PS3 etc. and not just games on iOS devices is a real honor. It was also nomiated in the running for the best of iOS strategy games, but lost to Mega Mall story.
http://au.ign.com/wikis/best-of-2011/Best_Mobile_Strategy_/_Simulation_Game
http://au.ign.com/wikis/best-of-2011/Best_Strategy_Game

[Croquantes]

No diplomacy? Are there economic victories? I'm just not interested in the eXterminate part of the 4x genre. I usually go the diplomatic/cultural/economic route.

[ibot66]

Would anyone be interested in multiplayer for this?

[thobal]

Exclusive to iPhone? That means I cant play it. Of course, I dont have any money so I couldnt play it anyways.

[Elfeater]

Exclusive to iPhone? That means I cant play it. Of course, I dont have any money so I couldnt play it anyways.

IT works fur ipad aswel

[thobal]

Normally I'd have something snarky to say.

[ductape]

Dude, wheres my car?

Anyway, I Dled this today and I will be giving it a run tonight while laying in bed between newborn diaper changes and such. I shall report back soon.

[thobal]

_{Edited as not relevent}

[LoSboccacc]

so, I've got it. the interface is absolutely too small for iphone, I guess it was developed with the ipad in mind.

having a fleet moving near a planet means you have no chance of selecting that planet in that turn.

mechanics are not that clear. most stuff is documented when you look at it, but I can't find a central reference in game.

I'm still lort at how population grows, for example. checking the FAQ didn't help, either:
"Yes, the planet population growth was modeled closely to how MoO2 handled it. In addition, base production values for workers/farmers/scientists are also similar, as well as planet modifiers and how they adjust said values. Starbase Orion does differ in a few small ways and some large ways. A small example is the introduction of binary star systems, in which farmable planets receive a bonus to farming production. A bigger example is the lack of production pollution."

so, just how?

however, it seems on the surface a pretty complex and enjoyable game.
I've not yet got that far as to comment on command and larger games.

[lavenders2]

so, I've got it. the interface is absolutely too small for iphone, I guess it was developed with the ipad in mind.

having a fleet moving near a planet means you have no chance of selecting that planet in that turn.

mechanics are not that clear. most stuff is documented when you look at it, but I can't find a central reference in game.

I'm still lort at how population grows, for example. checking the FAQ didn't help, either:
"Yes, the planet population growth was modeled closely to how MoO2 handled it. In addition, base production values for workers/farmers/scientists are also similar, as well as planet modifiers and how they adjust said values. Starbase Orion does differ in a few small ways and some large ways. A small example is the introduction of binary star systems, in which farmable planets receive a bonus to farming production. A bigger example is the lack of production pollution."

so, just how?

however, it seems on the surface a pretty complex and enjoyable game.
I've not yet got that far as to comment on command and larger games.

Really? I play on my iPod and haven't had any problems with the interface at all, the buttons are all just the right size, my only problem with it seems to be moving farmers over from my main planet to something else cause there are just so many of them. A small problem, but not really much they can do about it

As for the planet thing, I will have to try that but I don't think that sounds right. I moved a fleet to a planet and was able to view it fine. Unless you meant something else?

Yes, the mechanics are very unclear at the moment. The developer wants to release videos for a tutorial once the game gets further on. As for your population growth question, you quoted the FAQ, but the question mentioned how MoO2 handled pop growth, and then they explained the differences. Basically, the smaller the pop, the quicker it will grow.

I can't comment on larger games either (I am still working on owning the easy computer because I am still learning) but it does seem that the bigger battles could be fun.

Also, the next version will feature some kind of retreat option

[LoSboccacc]

for the ship over planet:

I mean when there are  three planet on the map, aligned: A -- B -- C

you move ships from C to A, and they come over B, shadowing it.

there is no problem in selecting a planet when the ship are at that planet (as they are put on the side)

[ductape]

so I have put in a number of hours to this, maybe 4 or 6 or so. Only reason I was even able to play it that long is because I was otherwise stuck somewhere.

So I think it has good potential, but it's a but shallow at this point. I played a combat oriented race and started building up my planets and fleet to head out and squash the enemy. At first it is kinda cool to research new technologies and design new ships, the use those ships in battle, but the battle tactics are a bit simple and I wish I could set up some kind of squadrons or something.

On to expansion, after a while, it seems to be the strategy part of the game gets pretty dull and tedious when you try to take over another races planets. All there is to do is build up, throw ships at them, build up, throw ship, etc.

With no diplomacy, no special events, and the planets all being so boring, this quickly becomes a tedious game of fleet grinding.

I will probably still play it form time to time since byt he time I am playing an iPhone game, I have no other options. I look forward to updates to this to increase the depth of the game.

I am also looking at a similar title called Ascendancy: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ascendancy/id412523782?mt=8