Anyone seen this?

[drillerman]

http://starruler.blind-mind.com/

Looks interesting!

Maybe Matrix could offer to publish??????

[Bartje]

It sounds very interesting!

Seems like people have realised DW has hit a novel concept with a big market! (DW is like Sim City in Space + it has War!!)

Or were they simply living the dream like the rest of us?



The screenshots and trailer look nice; though a bit .. angular??

I doubt it will be able to match DW in sense of scale and potential because DW simply requires less resources and offers more potential.

It will have better graphics though.


It also remains to be seen how well the Universe will be brought to life.

I somehow doubt it will truly realise its ambitions; most game designers don't unfortunately.


Lets hope DW gets some competition;

Drive the development cycle!


Onwards steadfast dev's!


That game looks neat, you're a beta tester?

Have you tested it yet?

[ASHBERY76]

The forum looks kinda dead,and from reading the devs post they are unlikely to finish the game.

[drillerman]

I somehow doubt it will truly realise its ambitions; most game designers don't unfortunately.

I hope you're wrong!

[Bartje]

Me too!

[drillerman]

The forum looks kinda dead,and from reading the devs post they are unlikely to finish the game.

Not so sure about that, go here:


http://www.moddb.com/games/star-ruler

they say release date is 21st August 2010

[Xkill]

It looks awesome!!!But its a shame that my PC can't test it when it arrives...[:(]

[Bartje]

Does it have an AI?

It seems like an AI programmer's nightmare that game!


It sort of reminds me of the Space Empires series.

Truly horrendous to program an AI for all the possibilities in that game!

I hope these people fare better, but they have the odds stacked against them.

[drillerman]

Here read this:

Star Ruler is our answer to the common 4X and RTS. Some of it's features include:
•A fully customizable and new experience each time you play:
◦A fully dynamic, procedurally-generated galaxy, generated by the player, which may be altered over time (create stars, planets, and other interstellar phenomena; turn planets into roving space stations, stars into powerful defensive and offensive stations, asteroids into moving colonies, etc.);
◦Fully customizable ships (Choose the components, their sizes, and the AI that governs a ship's behavior) whose scale can range from the size of a boat to the size of the entire galaxy;
◦Players may create their own race from scratch or choose from a set of diverse races which ship with the game, making major choices which impact their play-style tremendously (from starting alliances, to starting resources, to the ability to research multiple paths of technology at the same time)
◦Research systems which provide different benefits for every playthrough, AI which adapts to the player's actions, and complex diplomatic interactions between corporations and other races/empires/players, providing nearly limitless replayability.
◦Rich, diverse, planets which vary themselves in atmospheric composition, ground composition, size, number of moons, and other characteristics such as irradiation, a magnetic crust, and primarily gaseous planets;
•Extensive mod support (nearly 80% of the game is easily modable by an editor as simple as Notepad);
◦Built in tools for the ease of the modder such as a Particle System editor and a Scenario editor
◦Example mods and scripts ship with the game to provide scripters and modders an easy transition to the internals of Star Ruler
◦A fully implemented scripting language (AngelScript) allows users to create entirely new gamemodes, gameplay, and online experiences easily and rapidly.
•Intense, massive (potentially thousands versus thousands of ships) ship battles fought in realtime using user-made ships with particle effects, physics-enhanced shockwaves, and location-based damage;
◦Newtonian physics
◦A robust, flexible, engine which can be scaled to match the hardware the player is using to provide a smooth framerate on their platform;
◦Ships whose individual systems can be compromised, destroyed, disabled, repaired, and renovated in combat
◦Systems which, when damaged, can cause catastrophic failure to internal components (a fuel tank's explosion setting off a volatile cache of munitions which damages the main power supply and control system of the ship, leading to life support failure and imminent crew death if the crew is not rescued in time or can't repair the damage done to the ship, for instance)
◦Subsystems such as Bulkheads and Coolant Systems which modify internal components, adding that extra 'oomph' or extra bit of armor to protect a potentially fatal flaw in the player's designs.
•Support for co-operative play, team/objective based play, competitive play, and single play (skirmish and scenario alike)
◦Mutliplayer: up to 10 players simultaneously, with drop-in-drop-out compatibility), supporting both internet and LAN play
◦Server controls: servers can easily set whether to allow or disallow technologies, custom races, and support the kicking and banning of players
◦Seamless online/offline transitioning. Players can save their games in multiplayer and see how the game might have changed if they chose another route by playing simulating it through Singleplayer; saved games can be booted up at any time with other players joining in, allowing games to be generational.
•An easy to use interface to a complex simulation:
◦Planetary governors which take care of planets intelligently using a simple, easy-to-use, language which may be modified on-the-fly by the player to quickly and efficiently manage their entire Empire without much of the micromanagement typically involved; allowing the player to set their assets up and step in to directly control them as necessary without getting in the way of the rest of their game.
◦Ships have their own fuel stores, power supplies, and et cetera.; all of this represented in a very visible, easy-to-read, format along with visual cues to keep the focus on the battles, not the numbers
◦Numerous easy-to-use interfaces to provide quick solutions to specific problems, all of them modifiable and scriptable by the end-user for maximum comfort.

Here's a piece from one of the devs relating Star Ruler to DW:

We're a little more straight-forward than Distant Worlds. We do have automation and so forth but not so much as to 'disconnect you' from the affairs of your Empire.

We focus more on giving the player power to manage events more than managing individual assets (though we do have a full suite of management tools for individual ship control). Here are two common situations in the game and how the player may approach them:

You see a system you'd like to be colonized so you right click on it's star/system and say 'Auto Colonize', for instance; the game will find Colony Ships to colonize each planet in the system.

Or if you'd like a group of 64 ships to explore all the nearby systems simply select them all and give them an Explore order (each one will pick a system not picked by another of the ships); if you'd like them to all explore as a singular unit you turn them into a fleet and give the same order and they'll pick the nearest system and go there as a fleet, if you have a specific system in mind you just keep them selected, right click on the system you want them to explore, and give a Move to System order. If you'd like to them to keep exploring indefinitely, just put them on Repeat mode and pin them to your Pinned Object List so you can keep track of where they are and what they're doing no matter where they go with just a glance.

Ships with the ability to repair other ships automatically do so, ships with the ability to haul cargo from place to place do so, and so forth. These are prioritized for your convenience (and for their security, in the case of armed transports who will defend themselves from aggressors instead of ignoring them and trying to shrug off the attack all the way to their target and other such scenarios) and may be overriden both while you are building the ship in the blueprint editor and on ships that are already constructed.

[Bartje]

Ahaaaaaa


It seems that they have forgotten about the "living" part of the galaxy though.


Which is what people seem to like most about DW [:)]


Star Ruler is going to be a 4x Game.


DW is a Galactic Simulation that includes 4x gameplay [:'(]

I really hope the Distant Worlds team includes more galactic life and variety; its the gist and promise of my ideal game. (potentially DW!)

It would be neat if they could do this in star ruler as well but I think that it would **EAT** loads of CPU / GPU. (3d environment and all)

Just turning off tradeships in a big Sins of a Solar Empire game gives a noticable boost for example.

But here's to hope! [:)]


Come to think of it;


DW is sort of like SimCity 2400 in Space with the 4X's (or 5X's since Moo3?) implemented as well.

It is the ultimate strategy game; given that strategy exists not only in war [8D]

[jscott991]

Your opinion of DW doesn't seem based on the actual game at all.

[Bartje]

It is part game part potential.

I will admit I am somewhat in love with the potential this game has.

Non the less I still feel DW is one of the better games in years with potential to far surpass the best.

That is no small admission coming from someone with an extensive experience in many games; both on the player's perspective as well as modder / designer.


Might I ask your opinion? Is it in line with mine? Are you less positive? Why?

[jscott991]

I have enough experience with Matrix (Forge of Freedom, Crown of Glory I and II) to know that the game will never reach its potential. They are seduced by difficulty and challenge and in love with a small core of gamers that min/maxes and excuses any shortcut to making the game harder.

Corruption in DW is a classic Matrix trick; a thoughtless increase in challenge, completely unrelated to a player's skill or how the game is played.

I'm infatuated with DW, too, but they will never make it into even an average game for most gaming styles.

[ASHBERY76]

Dude do you have OCD? If the majority wanted it changed then the forums would be spammed by moaning about corruption.I only see you posting the same thing on every thread.

[Kruos]

I have enough experience with Matrix (Forge of Freedom, Crown of Glory I and II) to know that the game will never reach its potential. They are seduced by difficulty and challenge and in love with a small core of gamers that min/maxes and excuses any shortcut to making the game harder.

Corruption in DW is a classic Matrix trick; a thoughtless increase in challenge, completely unrelated to a player's skill or how the game is played.

I'm infatuated with DW, too, but they will never make it into even an average game for most gaming styles.

Corruption/inefficiency concept is very classic yes, it is in nearly every game where you have a to manage grow and expansion phase. You are false when you say that in DW players has no influence on it (race/government combo choice is the most obvious). Apparently you do not like it the way it has been integrated. Ok. But please, stop trolling and crying about it everywhere, thank you. Corruption is not the subject here.

Concerning the subject of the post, the game looks very interesting! But as mentionned previously, it looks like an IA nightmare to design. Anyway, it is very promising, and the way the dev take into reference DW is a mark of how DW has put a step forward the 4X genre! Thank for the link.

[ASHBERY76]

Fully customizable ships (Choose the components, their sizes, and the AI that governs a ship's behavior) whose scale can range from the size of a boat to the size of the entire galaxy;

Galaxy size ship! How would that work?

[jscott991]

ORIGINAL: ASHBERY76

Dude do you have OCD? If the majority wanted it changed then the forums would be spammed by moaning about corruption.I only see you posting the same thing on every thread.

You don't like it, don't read it. Bartje asked my opinion, I gave it.

[Journier]

ORIGINAL: Bartje

I doubt it will be able to match DW in sense of scale and potential.

Hi, I am a Star Ruler beta tester, I have been testing the game for 3 months. I can say that Star Ruler is capable of currently providing an amazing sense of scale. In DW Ships don't vary in size by much, however Star Ruler has no limit on size for ships or galaxies.

Here is a video showing some sense of scale in Star Ruler.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJJEMmzKzR4

Note that galaxy sized ships, would require more than a galaxies worth of resources to produce and also take many many hours to produce but just about anything is possible. The solar system sized ship capable of producing planetary sized ships is possible.

Thanks to modding, the game can have new content added from the AI, to new ship components, to research fields, to resources you want to be able to mine from planets, to galaxy generation, about 75% of the game is moddable!

Because DW simply requires less resources and offers more potential.

DW uses 25% of my quadcore currently. The zoom feels laggy etc without using the full potential of my system or any person with dual core. Here is an image of Star Ruler Core Usage on my rig. The game scales well to single core cpu's and multicore. Expect a high performance increase with dual core and quad core however.

Picture for reference, Star Ruler is using about 67% of the CPU here with a 3500 system galaxy. The UI is very responsive, and there is no lag in the zoom.

Lets hope DW gets some competition;

Drive the development cycle!

I am sure the dev's of Star Ruler are happy to get into the competition. They are working hard to get the game to be the finest example of 4x strategy to date, and competition only helps that process.

Goodluck, have fun.

[Bartje]

I note you haven't touched on the AI
 
In game like this I feel computer opponents are exceptionally important.
 
Is there anything revolutionary on this front?
 
Do you estimate that the AI will function well? or just reasonably?
 

[ASHBERY76]

I really hope the game works out and I will be looking forward to some AAR's.

Is there no yearly calender like DW? Just having the amount of time played in hours hurts game immersion.