
Many of these new techs have opened up some new strategic choices in combat. The trees have been reorganized and new techs have been added. Research options have been expanded a bit and include a lot more choices then before.

This was one of the common features StarDrive lacked for awhile, but it is now present and works great for those who like to plan ahead. As far as UI changes go, the biggest enhancement has been the addition of a queue that allows you to schedule your research choices in advance.

While a fair amount of the techs are still the same, or very similar, the way this information is displayed looks much better than it once did. The research UI has been rebuilt completely since the August preview. This particular trait allows a race to consider using many smaller ships and carrier class ships, even when faced with the huge capital class ships of their enemies. This is a trait the Vulfen, a race of space wolves, have by default, though you can of course add it to any race you choose during game setup. Pack Mentality is a trait which provides a bonus, or reduction, in damage based on how many friendly ships are nearby. One of the more recent additions is a trait called Pack Mentality.

Several of the original traits have been re-defined or re-imagined since the time of my original preview. Using a positive/negative trait point system, you can design your empire with whichever strengths you choose as long as you offset these points with weaknesses to balance your points out. You can still modify and tweak whichever of these 8 base races you choose to play as, including the capability to change your flag design, color, faction name, race name, and most importantly, trait selection. Each of these races has a unique racial portrait/diplomatic video, diplomatic dialog, personality, unique hull designs across all ship sizes and types, unique animated ground troops models, and preset trait choices that uniquely identify that races background and playstyle. All 8 races are now present and accounted for. Race design was already present and well defined, but has since been updated and improved upon even further. On a related note, the quick battle mode I mentioned in my initial preview is no longer present in the game as of this time. I cant comment too much on this mode as Ive not spent much time with it yet, but I will definitely be spending some time with it by the time our review of the finished game comes out. This mode is an alternative to the sandbox mode, selected prior to starting a game, and involves working your way towards a centrally located planet and defeating its guardians, the remnant, before any other races can. The game setup window now includes many of the options youd expect to see in a 4X game, including setting the number of players, game difficulty, and game pacing.Īnother new option that you can select during game setup is a game mode called Ascension. Thankfully, this is not the case anymore. A galaxy size setting was present, but that was about it. The game setup screen, aside from the race design portion, was rather bare-bones. In this preview, Ill be focusing primarily on what items have changed or been added since my original preview, as the vast majority of the gameplay elements described in my original preview still hold true today.Īt the time of my last preview, StarDrive was missing a lot of the options weve come to expect out of our 4X games.
#Stardrive 2 opteris update
Ive now spent about 33 hours with StarDrive since the start of this year (and many more prior to), and with open beta now upon us, it seems like an ideal time to provide you with a brief update to our original preview.

StarDrive has now entered open beta status on Steam, opening access up to anyone who purchases the game. Since then, the gameplay has evolved numerous times, as many of the concepts and design elements have been implemented, tested, and then tweaked. Quite a few months have passed since then, and Ive been monitoring the game throughout its continued development. At that time, I was really impressed with the games vision and the passion of its developer.
#Stardrive 2 opteris Pc
Back in August of 2012, I wrote a preview of StarDrive, a (pausable) real-time 4X space strategy game for the PC being developed by Zero Sum Games.
