22 June

Huge "Community" patch; new DLC & Gold Pack!

Today's update, which will soon go live, marks the launch of a huge array of changes for StarDrive 2, including a massive community patch, a new content pack, and the release of a Gold Pack for first-time players who want to get all of the StarDrive 2 content at a discounted bundle rate.

First up, the version 1.4 “Community” Patch provides a massively rebalanced StarDrive 2 experience that provides upgraded AI behaviors, rebalanced weapon statistics, new weapons and ship modules, and an upgraded tech tree. This sweeping set of changes began its life as a Mod created by the following community members, to whom we are grateful for their passion and dedication:

- Icemania
- Mezmorki
- Crunchy Gremlin
- Marcos
- CblHoK
- Gut

But be warned! This patch makes the AI far more deadly than they once were, and I guarantee that you will be facing never-before-seen challenges after this patch. The full set of changes that are integrated from this modification can be found on the forum thread here:
http://steamcommunity.com/app/252450/discussions/0/385428458177062745/?ctp=71

Second, this patch introduces a number of new features and bug fixes. The coolest new feature is that you now have the ability to Recolor your ships in the shipyard. When you visit the shipyard you will now see a new UI element that you can use to change the various colorings and glows of your ships. I hope you will enjoy customizing your ships with this new feature.

I have also tracked down some more persistent bugs and fixed them, including:
-Fixed Ordnance transporters not working correctly
-Fixed Retreat behavior. If you retreat a fleet from a combat, then it will retreat to the nearest friendly planet that is at least 15 AU away - this will prevent fleets from having nowhere to run following a retreat
-Increased the turn rate for all ships by 25%
-Fixed issue with paradise lost event not cleaning up properly
-Fixed issue where Drop Pods technology was not unlocking
-Fixed issue where trade treaties weren’t being cleaned up properly after expiration
-Fixed issue where GNN could report on defeated races more than once
-Fixed an issue where the timer for producing new infantry and mechs would be reset each time you entered a tactical battle or loaded a saved game

Third, we are soon launching the Shipyards Content Pack, which will add 13 new customizable ship hulls to the game plus a new fighter and heavy fighter model. These hulls are bristling with weapon turrets that correspond to the design of the ship; designs with a few huge cannons or a multitude of small ones will have different turret layouts as a result. Furthermore, each of these ship hulls now has a new special passive ability to solidify its role on the battlefield. This content pack is offered at $4.99 and I hope that you will enjoy it and support ongoing development with a purchase.

I hope you enjoy the patch. If you run into any problems, come to the Steam forums and we’ll sort you out.

37 comments Read more

18 April

Patch Notes 4/18

Hi guys, patching today. Still working at it. There's a big change in here so look out...

1. Fixed issue with the space station cantina upgrade causing incorrect income calculations

2. Changed the way fleet maintenance is calculated when over your CP cap. It is now a non-linear curve as you exceed your cap, which should help keep AI and player fleet sizes much closer to the proper size, rather than having these monstrous fleets supported by a big economic base. There's more to running a fleet than just having money, and I want this change to underscore that fact.

3. AI Corvettes wil now refit

4. Starbases will now become much tougher as you unlock better armor. Every module will be equipped with what amounts to one 3x3 plate of your best armor.

5. For modders: Added a list of string values to the AI strategy files that will allow you to limit which races can use an AI. You would add lines like so:

<LimitToRaces>
<string>Race_Pollops</string>
<string>Race_Kulrathi</string>
</LimitToRaces>

Valid values are: Race_ + the name of the race, which will be Pollops, Kulrathi, Draylok, Opteris, Cordrazine, Human, Vulfar, Ralyeh, Chukk

6. I tweaked some values so that Aggressive/Evil AIs will be more aggressive if you've got poor relations with them.

7. Fixed an issue with the Mega Fauna event, where you wouldn't get the special project if the Mega Fauna world spawned in a home system of a race

8. Fixed an issue with the constructor CP removal tech that was still lingering; won't be a retroactive fix, sorry

9. Made some adjustments to the AI to ensure that they won't exceed their command point limit following the new changes.

10. Fixed an issue where the various statistics for your empire were not being properly computed at the end of a turn, which could see odd things happening with your CP count, among other issues

11. Added some more feedback in the Command Point UI element so you'd know when you're over your limit with yellow or red warnings. Added the amount spent on fleet maintenance to the tooltip.

12. Fixed an issue where the Ai would think it is at war after aggressively annexing a minor race, which would prevent the Ai from starting new wars thereafter.

13. Beefed up my Interventionist logic. There has always been code for Good races to protect other Good races from the player's aggression. I have changed this to be Non-Evil races protecting other Non-evil races.

20 comments Read more

User reviews:

Recent:

Mostly Negative (22 reviews) - 31% of the 22 user reviews in the last 30 days are positive.

Overall:

Mixed (1,418 reviews) - 63% of the 1,418 user reviews for this game are positive.

Reviews

“So, shall I say it? I shall indeed: StarDrive 2 is the best thing since Master of Orion. Period.”
87 – Hooked Gamers

“Stardrive 2 is an extremely ambitious title which I’d strongly suggest for fans of compulsively intricate gameplay.”
80 – Gaming Trend

“StarDrive 2 feels like that game I used to sit around and dream about with my friends.”
PC Gamer

Customer reviews

Customer Review system updated! Learn more

Filter:

Summary

Most Helpful

Recent

Positive (898)

Negative (520)

Funny

Mostly Negative (22 reviews)

Mixed (1,418 reviews)

Recently Posted

Posted: 7 August

tl;dr:
Very disappointed sequel.
(Edit: I left the game running in background when I was elsewhere, that's why I got about 14 hours playing time so I couldn't refund it)

If you love SD1, there are some... downgrade... in SD2:

First you can't set the weapon's fire angle. The turrets, the point defence systems... everything is preset. You can only extend the coverage angle when in shipyard.
Then there's this 'new' engagement screen. In SD1, you fight on the strategy screen, you can choose where, when and how to approach your enemy, insert reinforcement whenever you can, let unimportant battles continue when you focus on other big things, basically you can do everything. In SD2, it's just downgraded to a engagement screen, you must fight the fight(or auto resolve), in an always similar screen(edit: very narrow and fixed battle space), you can't fight more than one battle at the same time, you fight with what you have when battle started, no reinforcement, no real maneuver(edit: you can't even synchronizing speeds of different ships), no positioning except head on assault, no reinforcement(well, I did say this twice lol), you can only finish this battle before you can do anything else. It's just like the Plants vs Zombies with starships.
And this 'new' command point/CP system is quite tricky. Your fleet can drain your money dry in just seconds when you exceeded the CP limit. But I didn't have no more interesting to learn how it works.
If you like SD1, just skip this one, even it goes in some huge sale off(like how I got it). The only thing you can get, is frustration.

Helpful? Yes No Funny

If you enjoyed Stardrive 1, do not purchase this game. While I will say honestly that I clearly do not have a long play time in the game and so can be accused of not giving it a chance, I will say that being a big fan of Stardrive 1 I was immediatly turned off by this title.

All of the unique features of the first game have been lost. We are back to a turn button in this game instead of the passage of time being constant like the first. The shipyard and ship design from the first game was intricate, and although time consuming, very fullfilling and rewarding when you put the effort into it. It has been simplified not enhanced. The tech tree is set up as choices in each catagory that restrict you to one tech at a time and exludes the tech you didn't choose and you can only do one at a time. the ability to order scouts to auto-explore, or setting up how you want the ship crew to engage in combat.... gone. The options to automate or micromanage your shipping.... gone. I loved that in the first game i could set up dedicated fleets of freighters to deliver specific materials among a few systems... allowing for efficient exchange of food and production without having the AI sending shipping freighters to the other side of the galaxy to pick up food...

It's become a MOO clone. And while Masters of Orion was my first true love in the 4x genre, as it was for many of us... I'm sick of MOO clones. Stardrive 1 had so many new takes on the space 4x games... it felt new, while Stardrive 2 looks pretty but feels old and tired.

Posted: 6 August

I bought this game on release because I was a massive fan of Stardrive 1, i know that Zero abandoned that game for his reasons but it was still a solid game, made more so by mods :)

But this game I just cannot play anymore, I left it to be fixed as on release it was incomplete and buggy, but still kinda fun.

The main problem is, even if bugs are fixed, this game will never take off. why? because Paradox released a game called Stellaris...

Forget this game, go check that one out. Also, im sorry Zero, you are certainly talented, but making your OWN games may not be the best thing for you

Posted: 5 August

I honestly believe this is the best 4x space game out there right now. A lot of the hate comes from people holding grudges against the single developer of the first game for making some bad choices, and I can agree with them on their distrust. However, if you play the game without any reservations about who made it, it's a great game that I can't recommend enough.

A lot of the complaints I see are that the game still has a few a bugs, ask yourself if you have ever played a game that has never had a bug, a glitch, an inbalance, anything that could be improved on.
There will never be a game released, or for that matter anything created, that can not be improved on in some way.

I'd say don't take my word for it and just try it to return it but steam's 2 hour policy does not really let you get started on these long empire building games. To be honest though the ship builder is worth the price alone to me, I wish he would release it as a multiplayer arena game with just ship designs and battles, if not the whole game.

Stardrive I was fun, sort of. I didn't have any of the issues others were complaining about. This one quite notably does not impress me in the slightest. I haven't played one game through to the end yet I'm bored beyond belief.

Posted: 3 August

I HAVE TO CALL BS ON THIS. Ive bought this game & have been following it for a long time. Waiting a looooooooooooooooooooooong time to see it in a finished state so I can actualy invest my time for a WORTHY game & enjoy it. It seems the Dev DID NOT put enough time into this game as he should have. Instead sitting back for a while & then starts working on DLC to make more $$$ for an unfinished game & letting the paying customers do all the rest of the work & then being kind enough to introduce a community patch to the game. All the while working on a different game...

This Dev seems to never finish what he starts. I was a supporteer of him in the begining...I chose to ignore the mountains of negative personal remarks about the dev along the way regarding Star Drive 1 & I decided to give him a chance & benefit of the doubt. It seems I was wrong to do so......

Posted: 31 July

This game is now officially broken.

The developer appears to be more interested in pumping out mindless DLC (C stands for Crap, not Content) than fixing the many, MANY game-breaking bugs & gameplay issues plauging this now mediocre title.

Save your money, save your sanity & give this one a miss.

Posted: 27 July

One of the worst games on steam, Not worth the money, Developers who made the game made the A.I. basically imposible to defeat, Not worth $32.99 better games on steam for less than $10, Do not purchase this game.

great game, yet it is buggy (alot of stuff that can crash your game), long loading times
and also the diplomacy system could use some improvements

Posted: 25 July

Brendan Frazier was my idol.. Now look at me;.

Most Helpful Reviews In the past 30 days

DariosOrvas

142 products in account

1 review

Posted: 20 July

I only bought Stardrive 2 after I saw a youtuber do videos of it and he explained Stardrive 1 was abandoned BUT it was abandoned because the Dev said he couldn't make the game as good as he wanted using the original game and had to make Stardrive 2. The youtuber explained he too was put off by this but the newer Stardrive 2 was actually pretty good considering it was really new and once bugs were fixed and it was balanced it could be really great.

So watching his videos and seeing the potentail I decided to give it a shot. I played for a bit and liked it and was thinking this game could be really awesome once some things are rebalanced and some bugs were fixed and the game was a little more polished and whatnot. Then I see a DLC released and I am like "Wtf?" you don't release DLC for games that barely qualify as released. Clearly this Dev is only about money and doesn't care about quality, he screwed everyone that bought Stardrive 1 and then he screwed everyone that bought Stardrive 2 and his game is still buggy, unbalanced, lacks polish, and is basicly barely finished - Don't support this kind of dishonest money grabbing from Devs, all that buying this game will do is encourage more and more developers to rip us off.

Was this review helpful? Yes No Funny

s.gaastra

19 products in account

2 reviews

Posted: 10 July

Up until today, I could deal with all the minor bugs I encountered. Some weird graphical glitches, screen lay-out that sticks around when you switch to a different screen, ship modules that seem to float around on their own in space ... all of that I can either ignore or "fix" ingame.

No big deal. I love the basic game, having fun playing it.

Today I surrendered to the never ending barrage of bugs and threw in the towel. I leave it up to you to decided if I'm overreacting or not:

- This campaign is going better than everything before. I understand better what is needed to survive this galactic battlefield! Not waiting to be attacked, I went agressive ASAP and managed to defeat the main fleet of those damned psychic slavers. Blockaded their homeplanet and invaded their second planet. First invasion of their homeplanet failed. No worries. Second wave of two full barracks is on the way.

- Bug 1 enters the batlefield. I can't invade the homeplanet ...

- Everytime I try, the game freezes during loading the combatscreen. Can only get out by ending the game by using taskmaster. After trying a few different infantry set-ups (maybe just 1 item is bugged?) with no succes, I stop trying. Having to get out of the game with taskmaster, starting again and reloading the campaign gets annoying after 10 times or so.

- I quickly build a fleet of Corvettes with Nuclear Bombs and kill all defending troops. No luck, still can't invide. I then kill all the population. Planet is now a nuclear wasteland instead of a very productive production facility. I colonize it anyway, no bug is going to stop me from domination!

- Struggle with a few of the usual minor bugs. Also a new one: apparently my hired special characters don't like flying through purple clouds en route to their assigned systems. They're stuck ... they also refuse to fly back and take a detour. I decide to leave them, maybe they'll decide to get unstuck after a while.

- Discovered what hides in the pink wormhole ... hint: it's big and it hurts.

- Having a lot of new shiny tech, I decide to do a big fleetwide upgrade. Bug 2 arrives. My planets refuse to build anything. What??? I can select the build, I can even pay the price so it's done in 1 turn, but it will always stay just 1 turn away from completing ... no matter how much turns I wait.

- Tried different combinations of ships and modules. Only thing my planets like is building the original explorer ships it seems. Try to scrap some fleets, still no luck.

- Bug 3 moves in for the killing blow. During all this testing and trying, two of my fleets happened to pass eachother on the galaxy-map at exactly the same time. Now their fleet-avatars are stuck together and they can't leave. They also can't merge and become one fleet .... they're just stuck.

I give up. Doesn't matter how good a game is if the bugs never let me enjoy a full game.
You decide if you can (or want to) deal with it, good luck.

zann1001

36 products in account

7 reviews

Posted: 23 July

*sigh* This game is so close to being the game of my dreams, the very first legitimate successor of MOO2, keeping all that was good in the old game and adding much of the depth and amount of content from CIV5. Actually, I already had posted a positive review.
BUT as it is, the game is just a bucket of bugs which render it pretty much unplayable. The population caps on the planets is broken, the food freighter system is broken, just have a look at the bug report thread before you consider buying this.
AND these bugs are not gonna be fixed. Zero (a one-man-company) sometimes promisses to get to them, but it hasn't happened in years, and he has recently started to make another game, technically abandoning this one. He's designing tons of content, good content, but when it comes to implementing it, he's just being lazy and disorderly. Probably he should start to employ professional programmers.

johnsmith8976

20 products in account

Langrisser

153 products in account

4 reviews

Posted: 18 July

While the game is still reasonaly fun the amount of game breaking bug like getting infinitely stuck loading the end of a turn or endless space battles makes this game a pass. Maybe the DLC that reworks the game fixes some of this but I'd rather not gamble more money on this game. The game also has lots of other inconsistencies that are annoying like enemy ships going from heavly damage in the world map to suddenly fully repaired when combat starts, auto combat acting horribly and ground combat that's just a slog.

[NC] theblazeone

169 products in account

F**ng broken AI cant'play, balance drops to -90000 in speed of -5000 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AI haeve no rules, they build 5 and 10 times faster ... you think that 5 ships is ok? Wrong! You ALWAYS need to pay tribute ... Otherwise it is a nice game, but AI destroys all ...

BadgerElite

24 products in account

prorobbi

82 products in account

I would have to say that this game feels empty, its buggy like my extra capital ship cost going up to 1,799,000 in 20 turns and everytime I attack someone I start losing hundreds of credits. I struggle with the money system and planet builidng in the game. The planets and income will be fine and then a turn later Im losing money in the hundreds. Im still keen to play around with it a bit more, not so sure about the DLC and the reviews below are quite mixed. Overall Im saying no as for the 75% off I bought it for its kept me entertained but its nothing like some of the greats and it feels like it needs more work.