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- Publisher: Iceberg Interactive
- Release Date: Apr 26, 2013
User Score
Mixed or average reviews- based on 398 Ratings
User score distribution:
Positive: 271 out of 398
Mixed: 34 out of 398
Negative: 93 out of 398
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Apr 26, 2013Ever since Master of Orion 2 was released, there hasn't really been a worthy successor. MoO3 was garbage, and several imitators have come along trying to capture the magic of the franchise. StarDrive manages to reinvigorate the 4x genre and is a hell of a lot of fun.
I would give it a 10, but there are still some bugs that need to be ironed out. This game is definitely an indie gem that fans of 4x strategy games need to check out ASAP!… Expand
Apr 28, 2013The amazing numbers of positive reviews have forced me to write a review of this game.
This game is priced like a game coming from a decent studio, and sadly it was released like a game coming from a major studio. What I mean is that the game is still in a beta stage, and it appears to be an early beta at that.
I understand the game is being designed by a really small team (maybe 1 guy) but that doesn't excuse charging $30 for a game that can not be played. I have tried putting in roughly 6 hours since the "launch" about 18 hours ago. The "launch" consisted of an updated from 1.07 to 1.07b I'm honestly not sure what the update did. The game crashes for me on startup, at race selection, when I zoom out to fast, when I try to colonize a planet the list continues.
I have started about 10 games, the longest game I have been able to play was roughly 2 hours. This game has done what every major studio has done that has caused me to despise them. It made a promise of a great game, and delivered a beta. If I had been offered a demo I would have tried it and known not to buy this game.
Wait 6 months then go check the forums to figure out if this game has been fixed yet. Or better yet, send the developer an email and let him know you want a demo before you buy it given how this release has been.
Given this was an indie title I would have been willing to overlook so many things, but if the bug forum is still bursting at the seams with people unable to play then clearly your game is not ready it is likely not even out of alpha tbh...
Zero (the developer) releasing this game in this state screams of a cash grab to me. I would not be surprised if in 6 months this game is still unfinished and patches have become few and far between ...
Ok, so all that being said, what's good? The ship building is really cool all the other stuff you expect from a 4x game has been simplified to make the game "real time". Basically each turn takes 5 real time seconds, but you can pause the game at any time to issue orders or do whatever else. This makes the game feel conflicted to me. Sure, it might trim down the amount of time it takes to finish a game compared to GalCiv or Master of Orion, but the experience is equally diminished. I expect that if this game is ever finished serious 4x fans might get maybe 10-20 hours out of the game before getting bored and returning to the classics. RTS fans may do the same thing, but will eventually return to Sins of a Solar Empire.
If this game had been released complete I would have rated it in the 5-7 range, but if a game is released as a finished product when it is, in fact, still in beta I have to give the game a 0. That is clearly false advertising and a cash grab by the developer & publisher...… Expand
Apr 26, 2013There is no way around clichéd "this game has potential but..."
Because this game clearly has potential: artwork is superb, graphics are decent, music is fine, gameplay can be both challenging and engaging at times but unfortunately there many issues and drawbacks (due to the fact that the game is budgeted on 17000$ and made by two people) that drag this game into mediocrity.
There are no proper sorting options for ships, bases and parts. This results in cluttered, slow, glitchy and unresponsive UI.
You can't delete or upgrade stock ship designs like construction and colonization. In Distant Worlds, for example, AI automatically upgraded those ships with best available parts and here you can't even do it manually.
You can't save unfinished designs because you have to fill out every single square on a ship. Designing a ship/station becomes a chore, especially at late stages when ships get huge. In fact you'll spend most of your time just designing and re-designing ships... unless you just fill them out randomly. What's even worse they won't automatically upgrade with latest parts so you will have to revisit your designs over and over again to do it manually. Ships are also asymmetrical and there are no "clone" or "mirror" buttons which makes it even more frustrating.
There are crashes and notable slowdowns in late game but this is common among all 4X strategy games.
Its not as deep as Distant Worlds. Its not as polished as Endless Space and you can't compare it to Sins or GalCiv because they are in completely different leagues.
Overall this game lacks polish, proper UI, better ship designing options and even in-game tutorial but it can be fun, especially when spiced up with mods of which there are plenty.… Expand
Apr 27, 2013I had to create a profile so I could review this game amidst the obvious rating bombing this game is getting for positive reviews it doesnt deserve.
The game suffers from FAR too much micromangagement, bad user interface to make it happen, bad pacing, and the problem of attempting a realistic space sim but losing playability in the process.
I have played all the classics, I am the target audience, and I found this game terrible. For reference I have completed games of Space empires, and that is about as hardcore as it gets for 4x games. One of the biggest problems of this game is the scale, and the scroll speed, the fact you constantly have to bounce between system and 'galaxy' view but at a slow rate. To explain, consider a game like master of orion, it took place in a galaxy view, you saw all your stars, and it was clear, you could click on a star and it went INSTANTLY to system view, you saw planets, and could click on it. This game is nightmarish, it it almost a literal size ration of a system to a small section of a galaxy, meaning you have to zoom out...zoom out...oh theres one planet...zoom out...30 seconds later you FINALLY can see the stars. It is literally this bad.
I understand the game was going for this cool thing where your ships are flying around the system from different sides, dropping in from warp...but it is just so hard to control meaningfully. Systems are HUGE and ships are nearly life size...meaning invisible. No big icons at all. Multiple times I clicked on the ships icon and could not find my ship despite being in the middle of the screen. The stars that are part of the background are not obviously different from system stars, so it was annoying trying to find actual systems.
So beyond the massive scaling problem (and terrible scroll speed) the pacing is bad. It is real time, but basically the only way to really play is a 'turn based' style of pausing, issuing orders, playing at 4x speed until new orders...pause...repeat. What I hate is how slow your ships move in a system, again it was as if he was going for a realistic sim, at the heavy cost of gameplay.
The user interface for ships and colonies is terrible. You can have a list of colonies (good) but not actually click on them to go to them (very bad) I mean how obvious of a feature was this to include? Every space game I've played from the 90s on let you click from a list to actually GO TO the planet.
Last...ship design. It is not good. You have a whole bunch of squares, and you throw stuff in it (imagine space empires if you played it) but the problem is you have a LOT of stuff to throw in, and very little difference. You have a gun that does 15 damage and cost 500 or a gun that does 14 damage and cost 460 and does the exact same effect, woah such depth. You have the annoyance of placing power plants and then connecting wiring to all your stuff. If I wanted to be WIRING my ships I would have gone into engineering. There is no auto complete, and whats worse is there are certain areas that you cant place stuff in. Ship design in normally fun, or at least not a chore, it is very very annoying in this game. There is not a good info screen or anything either to decide if your ship is even good or has good stats.
In closing there are some things that need improving like scroll speed, but that is a little thing that could get patched, but real things like the far too complex ship design, VERY bad pacing, very bad scaling of ships to systems to stars, and generally not fun because it isnt clear what is even happening makes this a game not recommendable, and this is from someone thats played a lot of them.… Expand
Apr 27, 2013I have no idea why so many people rate the game so high. It does look shady when an indie title get more reviews than top AAA titles by huge companies that spend millions of dollars for promotion. Just by reading the comments one can easily see that those reviews are written by the long time game followers and beta participants and it is the fanboy's zeal and not the high quality of the product that causes all those prises. To be honest there is not much to prise. By reading those comments I learned that the game was made by one or two guys and it is really impressive...but they charge for their product like it was made by a professional studio so there is no reason why this game should not be reviewed in line with other 4x games out there. But sadly it does not stand a chance in comparison to contemporary rulers of space 4X genre like Sins of Solar Empire or Endless Space. I do have a problem to understand who is this game actually for? It is not aimed on the hardcore 4x fans, because for those it will be waaaaay oversimplified in every single of its 4X aspects. It does no come close to the "epicness" of SoSE space battles, it does not give you any actual control over the fleet during combat, the resources management is shallow like a puddle after morning drizzle limiting the game to 3 sliders..., the colony building aspect is a lackluster copy-paste of GalCiv approach. Tech tree is short and uninspiring. On top of that the game get some random fps-slowdowns and is prone to crashes. Veterans of 4X space games will be bored after 15 minutes with this game. The only innovative thing here is the approach to the race's diversity which is really solidly done and does not end at the different perks sets for every race but seems to expand to the different AI algorithms. All others 4X concepts are really poorly executed and the game itself is in the best case a younger brother of MoO serie and them alike titles, suitable rather for my kid than for me. Assuming that it will be patched and stops crashing that is.… Expand
Apr 27, 2013I have been playing this game since it was in beta and it is STILL in beta. Some aspects are a lot of fun. Designing your ship is cool and the combat can be interesting to watch. Despite that, the game is absolutely not complete. If you venture over to the forums you will see the devs asking people to review this game on Metacritic. That isn't necessarily a bad thing in of itself, but there is a reason this has so many reviews and so many of them are positive. There is an active and engaged community on the forums.
Seriously do not buy this game yet. It has tons of potential, but right now it is an absolute waste of money.… Expand
Apr 26, 2013This game has all the micromanaging of a classic 4x game, but none of the depth. I felt like the authors mainly wanted to make a starship combat simulator and just happened to put it in a 4x wrapper in order to try and sell it. The ship building is pretty fleshed out. It reminds me a lot of galactic civ II in that half the game seems to be about building ships with your new tech, not going out and stomping heads. Everything else is just weak. If it were a $10-15 game it would be forgivable, but they're asking $30 for it.… Expand
Apr 26, 2013I beta tested this game for almost 2 months, from early march until the official release, I've Played nearly 300 hours so far, and I do not regret it one bit. The game has a very dedicated single developer, he has worked very hard to iron out this game for release, but could have used more time. Most of the bugs, and performance issues have been wiped out, but the game still needs work. It's missing some features, and the UI is still a bit clunky. There is no multiplayer yet, but it has been promised for the future.
All in all this game is very fun, and worth the purchase price. The game-play is fun, especially designing ships, and letting them loose on your enemies. You constantly learn, and upgrade your designs to optimize their effectiveness, and you get rewarded for it. The graphics are pretty, and the artwork has made some fans request merchandise.
I registered on here just today to rate this game. I rate it 8/10, it would be worthy of a 9 or 10, but truthfully the beta could have lasted a month or two longer, it's just not polished enough to be worthy of a 9 or 10.… Expand
Apr 26, 2013This game is awesome. This game will also be much more awesome once it is Ironed out and more feature complete.
The one man dev team in Zero is very good and talented, but couldn't deliver a finished product in time for release. Even then the what has been completed shows how much passion went into this game, and even at this form it is a must buy.
Aside from a few crashes and bugs, the worst thing in this game is the late game slowdown, that happens when the galaxy is fully populated with a couple thousand fighters.
The good things are the Races, which are pretty funny. The Shipyard, that lets you build your own ships, which is awesome. And the freedom to manage your colonies and your fleets.
It needs a few upgrades but the dedication of the dev is impressive, and gives safety that issues will be ironed out.… Expand
Apr 26, 2013I've been keeping my eye on this game for very long time. Reading about it, everything sounded too good to be true, so when I started the game for the 1st time I had very big expectations. Despite my expectations the game managed to surprise me very pleasantly. I've been longing for this type of game for years (endless space and galciv and sins and sots aren't exactly my cup of tea) and I'm very excited it has arrived. Not only that but the game looks graphically stunning.
All of my friends who saw me playing it, bought it the next day.
A perfect heir to the crown of Master of Orion.… Expand
Apr 28, 2013I can't figure out how the heck to play this game, it just drops you in the middle with no tutorial. The game also doesn't work with Windows High DPI settings which I use so I can read text from my couch on my home theater PC. I turned down my DPI to normal and changed the game resolution to 720P, but I couldn't t figure out what on earth I was supposed to do. I understand this is an indie game but either mamke it intuitive or drop new games into a skippable tutorial. I can't believe I paid good money for such a horribly designed game.… Expand
Apr 26, 2013I'm giving this a 9 until some things are fixed. Let me be clear about this, the game has some problems. However, for all the 4x fans out there thinking about SOTS or legends of pegasus, STOP! The 4x curse is not going to get this one. All of the problems are actively being fixed. There is a patch a day most of the time and Zero (the dev) has said on the forums that he just hired another programmer to help out. Buy it now or buy it in a few weeks, but ALL 4x fans are going to want to pick this one up. The game is very playable at this point and new features are on the way. Oh and mods are actively supported by Zero (sometimes even helping out directly).… Expand
Apr 27, 2013This game is by no means a 10 (yet) or a 0. I have beta tested this game for a few weeks and it is somewhat incomplete for being released. I have not had the crash problems many users have had lucky. As of now, this game almost feels like a kit, mod to your own tastes.
Time will determine how this game ends up, for good or bad.
Apr 26, 2013Great game. If you enjoy 4X games then you are bound to love stardrive, the rumored performance issues are more or less fixed in the latest patches but some minor annoyances with UI,etc remain but since the dev is extremely talented and devoted i wouldn't be amazed if core game reaches near perfection in a week or two.. surely worth 25$
May 3, 2013According to Steam the game has been released. According to the official website, it has not. And it really hasn't. It's a beta. The UI is a clusterf***k. It doesn't scale up with resolution well. You can't even pick a planet from a planet list. Everything is tiny. It's very hard to pick ships, because you can barely see them if you zoom out. The tutorial consists of few videos and bunch of text. I have to say music and art design of alien races are the most memorable part of this game. Everything else is unpolished, forgettable or just meh, because it's unfinished game. However, that's a huge achievement for a single guy developing the game. But is it worth $29? No. Maybe 6 months down the road, when it gets patched.… Expand
Apr 26, 2013So I got this game on a whim because a preview on IGN, and I love it. Now with that said it is not perfect. The game has alot of really interesting ideas behind it, for example the ship creation is just plain fun you no longer have to worry about another race heaving better ships then you. you can load pre-designed ship and customize them how ever you want, or start one from nothing. but it's not perfect angling firing arc's is a pain, and acccidently removing stuff while trying to move the ship is all kinds of frustrating. and that's how I would explain this game to anyone "Fun but not perfect" The Dev is really active on the forums and responds to bugs and request alike and that was a big plus for me.
In short, If you love 4X games and you are looking for a new one there is alot of fun to be had with StarDrive. but this is not a game for someone who is looking to try 4X out.… Expand
Apr 26, 2013Awesome! This game is awesome!
I played the beta for ~100h and if there is still some minors bugs, in its actual state the game is good, very good! The most annoying problem for now is the frame rate problem in endgame, but the dev are aware and solving the issue (if not already solved).
Awesome game!
Apr 26, 2013It is truly unbelievable what one man can achieve. The game is addictive right from start, well presented and is a lot of fun to play. There are still a few glitches and some potential for improvement, but Zero is putting amazing effort into this project releasing improvments almost on a daily basis. If you like 4x games, you have to grab this one!
Apr 28, 2013I'm a big fan of 4x games. It's impressive there's only one person on the project. Sadly, you can tell. It needs more cooks in the kitchen. In it's current state, it's more of a fringe game. Most players will find the UI frustrating and incomplete. Many features like a scroll out button or hotkeys to take you to your home planet are just missing. I wasn't interested in building custom ships and there is a bad gap for included ship designs. If you research a new tech, you'll have to create a design to use it.He's doing an in service to his game and to those purchasing it, by keeping it all the work and inspiration in house. These games really need big teams. Hopefully not that it's gone retail, he can add some staff.… Expand
Apr 26, 2013I would recommend Stardrive to people who are new to the genre because the empire management is not too complicated and many areas can be automated.
And for 4X veterans there is plenty of depth still, and turning off the automation will allow you to optimize your worlds and your trade routes even more.
The empire management system will be very familiar to people who have played GCII and its not hard to grasp.
The research tree is not as big as those in other 4X games, BUT every tech is meaningful and important and effects the game strongly, it is well thought out and exciting.
Artifacts are fun, similar in many ways to anomalies etc in other 4X games, but they are more engaging because you will have to explore worlds to find them and sometimes fight monster, but once you have them they give you a variety of unique bonuses and treasures, even if your lucky alien ships and technology.
The Spy system is good, it is both simple and powerful.
Now onto the really GREAT parts of the game...
1. Alien races and diplomacy
Absolutely amazing, as good as MoOII, the races are interesting have their own character, and way of speaking, you will get to know them and get to like them or hate them, and even go on crusades to destroy them and vaporize their worlds and grind them to dus.. Ahem and want to make friends with them.
2. Trading
This might seem an odd one to include as a great feature, but I love the fact you can customise and build every freighter individually, you can automate this but its fun to design your own "Q" ship, or or a faster armoured freighter that needs to take food urgently to a blockaded world.
And every freight ship will remove goods from one planet and will place them at another planet when it arrives, and freighters are responsible for transporting colonists too.
3. Ship design
This is simply the best ship design system I've ever seen, some people have said they don't want to spend hours here designing ships, thats fine the default designs are reasonable, and if you want better its very quick simple to adjust current designs to your preference.
However I have easily spent the majority of my game time designing the ships because its just fun.
There are many different things you have to balance to get a great design, from mas to thrust and power generation and armour and shielding and ammo storage and weapons and warp speed etc etc, but best of all WHERE you place you components has a massive impact on how the ship performs.
Also the AI will use YOUR designs against you, if you win your first game, play as a different race next time and you will be facing some of your own ships.
4. Combat
Combat is brilliant! if you want an idea download "Battleships Forever" a free 2D space combat game that has a lot of similarities to Stardrive combat, one difference though is that the ships here are vastly more detailed and complex, but the combat is just as fun, more so when its your designs and you see them failing or succeeding. overall strategy is vital too, outmaneuvering the enemy makes a big difference and if your left with just one ship against hopeless odds, you can always take control of your last ship directly and give it a last stand to be proud of, even when your ship dies it can do some damage!
5. Mods and the future
This game was designed to be modded, and even now that are many great mods for it, with even more on the way, you name it is coming.. even Blake Seven !
And if you fancy having a go yourself its very straight forward to do and there are many tutorials and tools already available.… Expand
Apr 26, 2013Very cool indie 4X game. It's still got rough edges, but the core components, economic development, ship design, fleet deployment and combat are great and the AI is not too shabby.
Warmly recommended!
Apr 26, 2013This is the most wonderful and fun game I've ever not been able to play due to bugs. I've been playing the beta for a few weeks now.
Long story short: the developer is extremely hands-on and responsive to the community and has made an extremely ridiculously awesome game. It's basically like if Master of Orion II had made a love child with Jesus Christ.
Assuming you don't have launch/crash issues like me, then you'll have the time of your life.
The reason why I'm still giving it a 9 rating is that I expect the release version to be debugged shortly. Like I said, the developer is extremely hands-on and has been making serious progress throughout the beta.… Expand
May 2, 2013"this game has potential but..."
It's still in beta form, terrible user interface, very poor tutorial, micromanagment, no explanation of Hotkeys, etc. I have no idea why so many give it such a high score. Maybe it will be patched into a good game, but it still needs work.
Apr 27, 2013This game gets a 10/10 for letting me design a fleet of ships that will shred the enemy fleets to space debris... The problem is: THere is no documentation (everything is guessing and trial&error, AI uses your ship designs but has no clue what it is doing), and the game is terrible when you try to wipe out another civilization or conquer their planets becuase of the way ground combat is organized.
The idea of the game is absolutely great. But everything besides the ship design, ship combat part pretty much sucks.… Expand
Apr 28, 2013What is this games unique selling point? It's ship and fleet editor, far more powerful than any other similar game on the genre at the cost of high complexity, forgivable considering the niche that likes this is the games target audience. But where the let down comes is in the question- How is this unique selling point implemented? how does it reward me for skilled use of it? how does it punish me for poor use of it?
Respectively the answers are badly, no reward and no or next to no punishment.
Only total failure at ship design is punished by the game, insufficient powerlack of an engineNo shield etc these tend to leave your ship crippled or easily crippled, partial failure is easily overcome, build a second ship of the same class and outnumber your foes in battle.
Success in designing a ship that can go toe to toe with three ships gives you the reward of not clicking 2 more times on the build order. Your empires economy rides roughshod over any reward or punishment the design system when it ought to be the other way round, empire management is not this games key feature.
The ship and fleet design system rates an 8 on its own and I would have no qualms giving that if the system had a payback. The game is desperate for a mode featuring a simulated battle on a tactical level rather than strategic level akin to a Tabletop Warhammer match you and a friend or you against the AI with 1000 point fleets a pre-fight design period then the combat where design skill then ship deployment is rewarded with success.… Expand
Apr 28, 2013This game for the first hour of play, looks smooth and nice, you design ships, they fight, colonize worlds, everything you want. Then once you actually start playing the game you realize how important UI is. There are no good shortcuts to get to different areas. The ship building (and saving design) screen is insane. It makes you want to rip your face off. I want to update my ship with the latest tech and ...argh nevermind I don't want to play the game anymore.... I want to all all my planets and make sure they are about to be attacks, oh that's really hard too.. just so much going on... oh wait look all my production has been being dumped into space and wasted.
The ship combat is great to watch and fun, but the game won't let you watch it because if you stick around to watch a fleet combat, your entire empire will crumble around you. (one turn should be a lot longer than 5 seconds, as fleet combats don't matter when you can build 6 fleets of the same size over again by the time your first fleet combat has finished. (and that's just from your homeworld, wait til you try and manage an empire?… Expand
May 2, 2013I can not understand the 9's and 10's being thrown out here. This game is unfinished and being sold as if ti is a AA title for USD$30. Unacceptable. Developer asks fans to come to metacritic and game the system.
Professional reviewers are afraid to touch it in fear of angering the fans.
This game as the concept and potential to be the best 4x space game ever. Poorly implemented UI, idiotic AI and rampant bugs make the game very difficult to play. Even the planetary elements stolen from Galactic Civilizations (which were likely stolen from other games) were not implemented well.
Perhaps in 6 months this game will achieve greatness. I expect that bugfixes and updates will cease as the general public realizes the game will never be finished and people stop buying the game.
I liken this game to a pyramid scheme. The early adopters are pumping it with their 9 and 10 ratings in the hopes more people will purchase it, keeping the development going as long a they can. I admit I was a sucker and fell for it.… Expand
Apr 26, 2013I've enjoyed the game a lot during the beta phase with all the bugs and everything. The final release version is up in about 2 hours according to Steam, so I'm still playing with beta 1.70A. If you loved Master of Orion or any game like that, this one is for you. I don't know if I believe one guy made this game, it has way too much detail for me to buy this is a one man operation.
As for Youngblood-52, here we have yet another person, blowing off a game because of beta issues. It's called beta for a reason, so people in beta can try to get rid of the bugs. And I don't know what beta version he was playing with but nearly everything he mentions I personally did not experience with the last beta version.
Is the game perfect? Show me a perfect game and I'll show you a game that's in someones fantasy world and not this world. And I forgot, you can mod the hell out of this game, it's part of the design. I don't know anything about modding, but I can't wait for someone to do a Babylon 5 mod or Star Trek mod. If this is the work of one man, I bow before his dedication because this would have to be a crazy project for just one man to pull off.… Expand
Apr 26, 2013This game is a lot of fun, regardless of any problems it may have. A few weeks ago, the rumors about performance issues were actually true, but i still managed to sink 30 hours into the game and had fun every minute of it despite them. But that was a few weeks ago, the developer has since put a lot of time into ironing out those issues (where performance would dip drastically once you got 4-5 hours into a game with lots of ships on the screen) and it shows.
Now that we have that behind us, let's talk about the actual game. It's your basic 4x game setup. You start in your home planet, research technology to improve your agricultural and industrial capabilities, and eventually reach out to colonize a new world. Worlds are rated on three aspects, how many people they can support, how much food per person they can produce, and how much production per person they can produce. You need food to feed people and you need people to produce starships, buildings, research for new technology, and more food.
At the start of the game your options are limited. You might be fielding some junky, tiny armored fighters and not even be able to kill off some pirates that will threaten your empire unless you pay them off. But soon enough, you will find yourself terraforming barren worlds and building starships with a dozen laser beam batteries or maybe missiles or railguns or energy cannons depending on what route of research you have taken), hangars to launch fighters, high tech armor, and shields.
Ship building and combat is where the game truly shines. It's similar to Gratuitous Space battles in some ways. Incoming projectiles from enemies will hit precise spots of your ship. You need to have shields and armor protecting your power reactors because they may explode catastrophically if destroyed. You also need power from those reactors for all the weapons on your ship so you will have to run power cables to more remote parts of your ship. You can choose between different types of weapons, armor, engines, power sources, etc. You choose to have a fleet of ships that are very quick but lightly armored, behemoths that take forever to get anywhere but can take a beating, glass cannon ships armed with a million guns but barely any protection, or a mix between anything you want because you get to design these ships literally piece by piece.
The only weaknesses to the actual game mechanics are that diplomacy options are functional but a little limited. You also start to fly through tech trees rapidly once you reach the late game because you may have a dozen or more worlds all researching. If this was a stagnant, done game, I would score it a bit lower. However, the game is very much a "living" product in that the developer is not going to just drop it and start working on a sequel like it's an installment of Call of Duty, the same way Minecraft is a completely different game than it was when it was first "released". There are also modding tools that the developer has encouraged people to use and quite a few mods already to add more research, guns, and ships.
Overall, this game is really a bundle of fun. It has some problems in that there could be more weapon or research options, however the developer has not put the game away and there are ample modding tools to add on to it. The game is great as it is and only stands to be improved later on.… Expand
May 2, 2013Before you buy this ignore all the positive spam reviews made by fanboys and relatives of the developer, this is a beta, overpriced game full of bugs that wants to fool you that it was made by a professional studio.
Just for the record, at it's launch the game sells with 30 euro You can buy a 10x better game with half of that money (endless space or sins of a solar empire) It's like a lite, copied version of those games, but with less than half of the options and content.… Expand
Apr 26, 2013I have been playing the beta for a few weeks now, first thing I have to say is that I got my money's worth. I had a lot of fun (still do as a matter of fact). The art is very good and immersive, very nice diplomacy screens The gameplay elements are pretty solid, ship design is highly innovative, combat is fun (though not as tactical as say SotS2), I even tend to use spies which is something I rarely do in other 4x.
The game suffers from some problems, like troop rush, faulty freighter ai and performance issues (thought I have not experienced those myself).
I justify giving it such a high score, because the game is very fun for me and none of the issues was a deal breaker.. it is also worth mentioning that Stardrive is quite moddable (allows adding new tech, weapons etc). Zero is also actively supporting the modding section, which is quite awesome IMO.
This game has a nice MoO2 feel, can only recommend it … Expand
Apr 26, 2013Anyone who loves customization will love this game. It is well developed and has a developer that actually cares and actively responds to their forum. It is a great game overall, and some features are still being implemented, so it's getting even better!
May 6, 2013(Sorry for my English. I am not a native speaker).
!Metacritics deleting negative user reviews! Save your review!
An unfinished and extremely bugged game like Stardrive deserves so bad raiting! We can't play this game!!!
Don't buy Star Drive! This 1.07B release version is an early alpha version! After mid game: extreme fps drop and you can't finish a game, Game crashes and freezes. AI is dumb and cheating (on hard/brutal). UI is absolutely awful and confusing. You can't even change graphic settings (only resolution). At this stage this game is absolutely unfinished.
There are two games that are 100 times better than Star Drive and have the same prize!!!!
1) Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion (Release 2012) this is a real-time strategy (like Homeworld). This game has very nice 3D graphic (10x time better than Star Drive will ever have). It has no bugs and runs smooth.
2) Endless Space (Release 2012) buy this game if you like turned based strategy. It has no bugs and runs smooth.
These two games are 100 times better than Star Drive. Compare these games with Star Drive and wait for PC Game Reviews (PC Magazines)! Wait for AMAZON Reviews!… Expand
Apr 27, 2013The Good
This game is a ship designer's paradise! If you've ever dreamed of designing armadas of spaceships and carriers and disposable destroyers to protect them, and then command them in battle; or, if you've always wanted to build a flying fortress armed to the teeth just to see how long it will last, then this game is for you!
Some of the other reviewers have criticized the ship designing as a tedious task. And it's true that you can spend an hour or more in the middle of the game designing ships, but I love every minute of it! The big payoff of seeing your ship designs in action is by far the most fun aspect of this game, and this aspect leaves all previous ship-designing games in the dust.
The meh
The 4x gameplay isn't as involved or as interesting as, say, a civ game. But it hits on the basic blocking and tackling, and is fun enough to propel the game along between technology upgrades, and more importantly, new ship-designing opportunities.
The bad
The game lacks feature polish. While all of the core elements are in place, some features are head-scratchingly absent. For example, the autosave occurs every 30 minutes, and there is no mechanism to adjust this interval. There is no ctrl-s or quicksave option. There are some keyboard shortcuts, but nobody knows what they are because they aren't published.
On play control, there is no way to deselect a unit from your group. Ctrl-dragging to add a group of units to your group accidentally picks up freighters and shipyards. And my favorite is when I force-move my in-combat group a planet, sometimes they don't go, sometimes they go, and sometimes they go and then come right back into battle.
Additionally, the game is riddled with crashes and freezes. I can expect my game to crash or freeze at least twice during a play session, which means I have to save often, and the aforementioned lack of features to help save quickly or effortlessly, makes this a tedious chore. To their credit, the developers appear to be addressing the crashes as fast as possible, but that just means they have little time left over to add the much-needed polish to the game.
Bottom Line
Very fun game, but comes with a bit of suffering.… Expand
Apr 26, 2013Fantastic vision of a new developing 4x! Done practically by one man lets hope he has some cash for a small team now.
Having played around 28 hours during various beta builds, what gripped me was the potential, after various jaded experiences with other recent 4x/turn based games of its kind.
Not a perfect game has quite a few things to expand upon namely its progression, random encounters, planetary troops, ship templates, and A.i. All show signs of improving.
This is not your Sins of the Solar Empire (as much as I loved Sins Fleets system) Stardrives should be even better with time.… Expand
May 5, 2013The game has potential, and is quite enjoyable, but I'm giving this a bad rating because the game has been 'released' in an unfinished state. A lot of the issues I thought would be ironed out by 'release' are still in the game, including quests that don't actually work, strange AI that gives up after a while, the game juddering in lategame, and a clunky UI.
I know it's coded by one guy and I'm impressed but you can't just release an unfinished game.… Expand
Apr 26, 2013After playing the beta for a good bit now I can say that this game is very worth the money. The dev is constantly working to fix any grievances that users have, and the game has stolen dozens of hours of my time.
On the downside, there are still many bugs that can occur and there can be some performance issues, though they are mainly solved.
Apr 27, 2013Quick to get into, Graphically good for the genre. Good atmosphere, Great soundtrack, Fast to play for a 4x and lots of potential...( its a sandbox game and you get from sandbox titles what you choose as a rule).
This is an Indie title so it does have a way to go but the developers are very dedicated. Expect it to get a lot better.
'Stardrive' may ruffle some feathers because its a breath of fresh air in the 4x genre.
Customer support is excellent contrary to some previous reviews.
Go to the Stardrive website and drop the developer a PM or post a problem or bug report and you are likely to get a personal reply....extremely rare these days… Expand
Apr 27, 2013Been playing the beta of this game for the last month, and in that time i've seen the dev Zero push out test branch beta patches almost daily at times. This game is certainly not finished, however the gameplay feels very good, and has that promise of more waiting. Zero seems to have a good grasp of how it should feel to set up distant colonies, and once the basics of the systems he has in place work better (freighter scheduling/zoning) nothing will feel more satisfying then having a well regulated intergalactic trade/economy set up. Ship combat feels very nice so far, the fleet system is quite innovative and lets you stop micromanaging every colony to assemble a fleet, go in and drop in your designed ships onto a grid, you can save the fleet design for the future, and then just click the "order fleet" button, and it gets split among your best colonies to build it all at once. making a true "fleet" also feels very satisfying (big battlship with many forward facing beams, being screened by anti-fighter support frigates, possibly some missile cruisers, dont forget point defences!
It is one of those games like kerbal space center it promises endless fun, and the promise of so much more.… Expand
May 1, 2013Pros: • Combat is good. • Designing a ship is fun initially. • AI uses your own designs against you. • Actively involved developer. • Lots of potential down the road. • Graphics and sound are good. Cons: • Exploration is uninspired. • Buggy/late game frame rate issues. • Not polished. • Major notifications are lacking. (ie: when planets are idle, ships reaching destination, etc)
• No rally point for ship building.
• Needs more research.
• Ship design becomes tedious.
• Low replayability.
Rather bland 4X game but has lots of potential especially from modders. Although the developer is active it's still a small team. There is some concern that significant needed improvements might take a while to be released. Hold off for now but keep an eye on this one. Time will tell.… Expand
Apr 29, 2013This game isn't really perfect. at least not in its current "beta" form.
Economy is badly explained and for the new player it becomes near impossible to balance industry vs research as industry often gives more tax income then research(especially on richer planets) causing it to be very difficult to squeeze the best bit of research unless you have poor planets where research is profitable. it becomes a juggling mess
The worst part however is the dreadful A.I.
Initial behaviour is ok. it expands, it keeps to its nature (they get random "goals" like military,expansion and such), however once you get to the inevitable part of War the A.I's behave erratic and infuriating and im not talking about the one you are engaging with (their troop movement tends to get delayed reactions as the ai is apparently unable to cancel a earlier order, result is they failing at defence, but that's it), No its the factions surrounding the ones you are invading that gets annoying. The moment you clear a planet and it starts changing to your control EVERY single empire nearby IMMEDIATELY sends a Colony ship to that planet and if the planet's production isn't fast enough to build a colony before a colony ship arrives it gets stolen, worst is that when it does get "kill-stolen" and your forces are occupying that planet they declare war claiming "you are attacking our system". i didn't pay attention and i got declared war by half the galaxy cause they all are unnaturally greedy.... WTF?!? apparently i have to have a colony ship at my intended target and one at every planet in that system cause if i don't 5 colony ships appear and hang around like vultures.
The last problem is the huge list of Incomplete features, For example "Open borders" doesn't mean Squat. they are still gonna parade around your system anyway and happily steal one of your systems (while if you do the same they go "HOW DARE YOU" and continuously call dibs on everything). another broken feature is the interaction with the "pre-space civilization" which is apparently incomplete.
The game has potential. the graphics are awesome, the ship designing is a nice and challenging feature (fleet has little importance tough), but underneath the hood where it matters it comes over as buggy and mediocre. and although they may claim its still "BETA" it is NOT defined as such on steam so i feel lied too having played this game.
i hope they refine the AI greatly cause atm its only making me go "WTF" over and over and over...… Expand
May 6, 2013I absolutely loved this game. It's great fun, and is a real breath of fresh air. At the start.
As many other people have said here, it just doesn't feel like a finished game. I noticed today my playtime has hit almost 40 hours on this, and yet not once have I ever played past midgame. Everything all happens at the start, all the fun of customising your species, choosing a direction, getting the tech and building your own ships, it's really enjoyable at the start of a match, but by midway there's just nothing to do. The few tech options there are past midgame are really just rehashes of the starting stuff, the quest lines are broken and don't go anywhere, and even the AI just seems to give up; while at the start it fights tooth and nail for star systems, alliances are forged, distrust is sewn, but by midway it sort of just doesn't seem to care, and never grows or changes past it's initial few moves. So you're just left to grind away down all these star systems till you've won, with the excitement you felt at the start a thing of the past.
I'd really love to see this as a full game, but I'm getting sick and tired of all these full price releases marketed as a full game when they're clearly just not finished.… Expand
Jan 19, 2014I left a review when this game was in beta talking about what great promise it had and how, with polish, it could be fantastic. Around that time, for whatever reason, the developers decided it was a finished product and priced it accordingly. It's unfortunate that this game will never see it's full potential. Regardless, It's still pretty fun.
Some of the high points of this game include:
-The inclusion of real time pausing management, allowing it to be played as an RTS or turn-based game
-Ship design
-The race design, allowing you to pick custom perks and detriments to your civilization
-Large scale space battles
The last of these being the game's real strong suit.
If you are a fan of 4x strategy games, you will likely be disappointment by the lack of depth. The UI is poor, resource management the same, and ground combat is pathetic (and required). All these issues serve to detract from the overall game experience, which begins to feel like an RTS with some 4X elements tacked on.
The full price is steep considering the lack of depth compared to other, similar strategy games, but the assertion that there's nothing good to be found here is simply not true.… Expand
Apr 26, 2013Great game. Have spent a considerable amount of time playing it over the last few weeks. The game has a few bugs but the Dev releases patches almost daily. The game takes the best parts of similar games from this genre and meshes them together. It allows for modding and has many available on the forums.
Game has a lot of potential but it is somewhat incomplete. Looking forward to the content in future updates. Definitely worth the $30 price on steam.… Expand
Apr 26, 2013Amazing game. Everything you want in an empire builder. While the economic and diplomatic elements aren't as deep as say gal civ or civ5, you still have control over what kind of empire you want to create. Managing colonies is simple and easy, letting you focus on the RTS elements like fleet building and space battles. The only gripe I have with this game is that in the later stages the AI doesn't come close to competing with any decent player but im sure zero will tweak this in the future… Expand
Apr 26, 2013The game performs great and has lots of character not seen in most 4x games. I look forward to seeing what the developer has in store for this game in future expansion packs. Diplomacy and alliances could use some fleshing out along with random events and flavor added to the experience but other than that it's much better than most offerings in this genre. This game stands tall with awesome space strategy titles like GalCiv2 and Distant Worlds.… Expand
Apr 26, 2013Been beta-testing this game and I have to say, it's a good old-school style 4x with simple and extensive mod capability. I don't usually bother with modding (what can I say I'm lazy), but it was so simple I started before the game was even officially released.
Apr 26, 2013I grew up playing MOO and MOO2. Those games set the stage for my whole gaming life. What Zero has done here is the same for the next generation. Simple to learn, yet deep and fulfilling. The races really "feel" different from each other, and each random galaxy plays completely different from the last. The ship design is what we all drool over, and min/maxers really find their niche in this game. Before you delve in, the research trees can seem pretty minimal, but in practice, they do last till deep into the game. There are some late game frame rate issues, but with such an attentive game designer, and such a supportive and wowed community, I am sure these will work themselves out. One other fantastic selling point: Early beta mod accessibility. At game release, there were at least 15 working mods, and that just scratched the surface. This game is going to be playable and replayable for a very long time. Zero is the man, buy this game if you like happiness...… Expand
Apr 26, 2013I am generally not a fan of 4X games, however I found that Star Drive was more of a 4X/hybrid, solving many problems that plague 4X games, such as inability to control game speed and complete lack of any real diplomatic options. Star Drive does have an emphasis on its combat and modular ship building, while other areas such as Diplomacy or Tech are still Robust, but not quite as deep. The presentation and feel of the game are excellent, in particular the art assets for the Alien races. Like most 4X games, the game takes a bit of learning before you've got a grasp on whats really going on, but that just comes with this type of game.… Expand
Apr 27, 2013I played this game since the beta-access (over 80 hours) and I love it! Of course, it has its problems, bugs and so on... but have to give 10 points, because I spend so much time enjoying it.
This game is done by one developer and it is awesome! The feeling, the battle, the idea behind this game is so nice, you will love it. If you are not sure about buying this game, check some "lets plays" on youtube. There are good previews which can help you with your decision. … Expand
Apr 28, 2013To put it simply, the game is not done. I bought the beta version on steam and have enjoyed the product. I cannot tolerate that the game is being marketed as a "finished" product now that the release date has passed. Some races have yet to receive their full ship line ups and it is obvious that the game is just not done. While I have no problem pre-purchasing a game to get access to a beta I expect a released product to be finished. The release date should have been pushed back or some outside help brought in to finish the game up if the April 26th release date was really that important.
Overall the game has a nice concept but the execution seems a bit lacking. I would still recommend this game to any space or 4x fan but be warned, it is definitely not a finished product.… Expand
Apr 29, 2013I preordered the game two month ago and I was really surprised by it. However the longer I played the more flaws I have discovered.
Some people praise the ability to design own ships. Yes, it sounds cool. But how come noone mentiones that you have to fill in EVERY SINGLE space on your ship. I mean wtf? What if I do not want to? Why do I have to have more expensive and heavier ship? How come noone mentiones the total luck of an upgrade possibility? You have a new weapon researched? Cool. Now go to the ship design and replace EVERY SINGLE one manually. You must be kidding. I would accept this in beta, but not in a full version. But wait, full version is just a renamed beta. Oh, nevermind then.
Now we go to AI. First let me tell you that AI can not design its own ships. Yes, you hear right. It can use preset designs and designs you created, but it can not make it own ones. Quite a flaw in a space strategy, do not you agree? Diplomatic AI also needs to be tweaked more. It has the same flaw as most cheap AIs. Are you weak? To the hell with you, we declare war. And what if someone wants to play peacefully? I am rich, I am technologicaly advanced, but just because I do not build thousands of ships like a moron I am bad? And even if I manage not to angry anyone by my small military, I will definitely make them angry by travelling through their space. And I do nto mean their systems, but the game has a thing called subspace projector which allows your ships to travel faster. But by some strange logic a space around it is considered a race territory. And as the AI spams these projectors like crazy, later int the game you simply have to cross their space. The most funny thing is that I consider this a total useless technology and I have never build a single one projector.
Speaking of technologies, the technology tree is really and I mean really short. It does not take long and you have researched everything. I was hoping that in a full version it would be enlarged. But as I mentioned, full version is just the beta with a changed name.
As some others mentioned here, the game is on a good way, but richt now it simply lacks the depth. And it became really boring for me after a short time. There are no events in the galaxy (only really stupid subspace flux preventing all war travel and happening way too often). In the end it ends up with you spamming ships like crazy because it is what everyone else is doing. No way to win otherwise. Which is quite sad. Even in Master of Orion 2 you could win by wiping out Antarean homeworld and to do that you did not need the strongest military. So my recommendation is wait. Wait a few months to see if the game is improved. Right now you would be buying a beta version for a price of a full version.… Expand
Apr 26, 2013The best game i have played yet this year and its only 30 BUcks!!!! Stardrive will keep your brain imersed in galatic stratagy....This game has amazing gameplay/graphics/replayability...It is quite hard to imagine that only a single person wrote all the code for this...I will be playing this game all through the year before i get sick of it...
May 5, 2013I bought this game right after release. It has some very nice moments, but everything feels unbalanced and unfinished. I can't help feeling I was tricked into pre-ordering and getting a beta version, instead of buying a completed product. Don't get me wrong, as a beta it would be amazing, but that's not what I expected.
Apr 26, 2013TL;DR version first! This is easily the best 4x space game in years. It's not the most perfect 4x space game ever, yet, but by far the most pure fun. I could go on, and on, but to try and cut down what's good about it, I'll stick to the 4 standout parts. 1. It remembers when 4x's were FUN Do you remember when 4x games bothered with things like "fun", "charm" or "wit"? When you could assume that by "4x" they would try to make each of those "X"s was it's own fun thing to do rather than some set of chores? When there was any concept of "gameplay" beyond managing unending tedious lists of supplies, or fighting to understand some abstracted-far-too-far funsucking interpretation of space combat?
OK, well, Stardrive remembers what 4x games used to be like. It remembers Star Control 2, it remembers Master of Orion 2, it remembers Escape Velocity. Not simply that it's a game like them, in the same genre, but something like they were like. It's some relic from a time when people made strategy games that were any fun at all, only with gigantic 3d spaceships firing dozens upon dozens of multibarrel chainguns, torpedos and Freespace 2 style beams at each other in 3d, rather than little sprites. It even recalls a time when it might have been considered fun if the player could aim and shoot something occasionally! Everything you build can be controlled, either as a lone wolf, a squad or with literally every ship you have maintaining formation with you.
2. Personality -
Easily the best and most inventive collection of frenemy races in a 4x game since Alpha Centauri. Every race gets assigned Civ4/5 style behavioural traits per-game on top of their race characteristics. Every one can be interrogated about the other, and have a dozen or so responses to questions and proposals based on how they feel and how things have historically gone down. They're also absolutely beautiful to look at, and their animated "portraits" ooze personality. It's a 4x game where someone would bother to write lines and lines of detailed, in-character flavour text: how much of a throwback is that? I know right?! But it adds so much and it's so great they did it.
3. Ship building and COMBAT -
This part is awesome. It's not the usual mess of, "oh, I upgraded my tech to lasers 4, so now I'll put 3 laser 4s on rather than 5 laser 3s", etc, etc, zzz, zzz. Nothing like that. Combat is realtime pausable and RTS-like, with configurable AI formations, and configurable behaviours down to a point where you can specify what any one ship in a fleet of hundreds should be doing on 6 different behaviour sliders. Ship design is an epic balancing act, every component has a different physical size in the ship, power draw, health, facing, range, etc. Loads of different and specific weapon types too: ion guns to drain power from unshielded ships (and it's not that ships are "shielded" or not individual shields can be knocked out and you can zap anything exposed!). Chainguns. Huge long lance torpedos. Point defence guns. EMP lasers. Boarding parties on shuttles and counter-boarding barracks. Ships that have onboard factories to make loads of little escort combat ships. There's just so much sheer STUFF, and the Lego-like ship builder is very easy to use. The game hits this part so far out of the park it's not funny. And of course you actually get to fly anything you build around, and blow stuff up with it. Simply awesome, awesome, awesome.
4. Developer "gets it" -
This guy has a lot of the right answers to things modding? "of course you can mod it, I made it pitifully easy and everything sits in xml". Or "I saw you guys wanted feature X this morning so I spent the afternoon putting it in the game". In the couple of weeks I've had the beta, performance and stability has massively increased from where it was to begin with, and the dude was throwing out multiple updates per day. So, so good to see a developer care whether you are enjoying the game, let alone enough to do something about it immediately!
I mentioned it's not the perfect game, and it's unfortunately true that it could really use a large rebalance and annoyance-cleanup in things like the UI, AI, and other elements. It's not showstoppingly horrible by any means, or some new SOTS2/Pegasus style disaster. But, fact is, when you have a lot of elements of the game that are outstanding, it really makes the few parts that are ordinary look a lot worse.
All up though I played the crashiest, worst performing, inexplicably weird version of the game, for a couple of weeks, and spend around 90 hours on it. For the most part, having an absolute blast. When the core game is actually fun to play, the other stuff fades into the background. Even in mutant beta form this has been one of the best games I've played all year.… Expand
Apr 26, 2013Awesome Space RTS game with a lot of (working!) great ideas and concepts. It's the first game since SoasE, which fascinated me enough, to play it more than 80 hours. But it has to be mentioned, that Stardrive is updated every few days and has reached release status just today(!) Moreover the communication and feedback between programers and community is extremely good! :)
What I liked the most about Stardrive, besides the typical game play things like RTS and 4X elements, are the innovative new concepts for ship designing and fleet battles. It is possible to build all kind of ships, with a loadout, that I know from SciFi movies, games and books. (But not the look I'm sure, there will be graphic mods soon)
- ST Federation Ships: Strong Shields, 360°Phasors and Torpedos
- ST Klingon Ships: Fast Birds of Prey with strong forward disruptors
- Star Wars: Star Destroyers with strong 360° slow firing plasma weapons (relying on fighter crafts to engange small crafts)
- BSG: Carrier Ships with many fighter crafts (loadout can be individual, too), strong armor and close range point defense guns
- Stargate: Atlantis style star bases with shield/armor ignoring projectiles.
- Freelancer: Galaxy wide warp-enhancing "autobahn" network buildable similar to the jump gates routes in the game.
Other cool features:
- Ships need a lot of power generators or power cells to fly with FTL speed. (My first designed ship could only warp 3 seconds and fell out of FTL! ^_^)
- Boarding parties can caputure/defend ships
- EMP and energy depleting weapons
- Repair and resupply modules to assist other ships
- Warp Speed inside of Solar Systems can be limited/disabled in the game options, making planetary and orbital defenses more effective
- Weapon angles can be adjusted manually, which makes broadside attacks possible
- "TAB"-key shows volatile subsytems and weaknesses of all ships, making precision attacks with fighters possible.
- cute Owlwoks :)
Negative points, that prevented me from giving 10 points :
- Language localization is not available at the moment.
- Cloaking devices are missing. :(
- It is possible to conquer well defended planets with 10-15 ground troops. Planetary shields, orbital defense stations or fleets don't prevent invasion troops from landing.
- Ships can fly around in the whole galaxy from the beginning. No outposts, supply bases or technologies are needed, to extend the ship range.
Stardrive is definetly one of the few gems in my huge collection of mostly average Space RTS and 4X games. Ad unlike some other games in the last years, Stardrive didn't let me down. (Yes, I'm directly looking at you, Legend of P...!)… Expand
Apr 27, 2013129 hours clocked since beta and a good 10 hours since official steam release. Havent regretted one minute i've spent with it.
Level of polish in audiovisual terms is amazing, good in gameplay terms. One of the most active developers i have seen in my two full decades of gaming history with devotion to his product rarely seen.
Minor amount of bugs, much less than you'd expect from indies in general and stellarly better than most major publishers with a turnaround time for fixes to issues being measured in days not weeks or months.
While it might sound a bit corny to some i'll take the risk regardless, this could very well shape to be the second coming of jesus (spiritual successor to MoO2).
Easy enough to learn basics, yet decent amount of depth and expanding all the time. Recommended for scifi buffs of all stripes, strategy gamers usually but not for faint of heart looking for a quick casual fling.… Expand
Apr 28, 2013truly sad, i had high hopes for that game but during the end of aplha and the transition to beta and finally to the actua release version there isn't as much progress as someone might hoped. the game has the following problems: - lackluster AI and overall stability performance - the game has broken or unfinished content as the state being - very light dimplomacy mechanics - a tiny tech tree and therefor very little to actually design ships for or to build on the planets
-jraces have besides their different ship layouts and some minor trait tweaks little differentiation besides the nonetheless good looking arts.
- galaxy feels very empty ...there is very little to do besides waiting for the next possible planet for colonization
- poor and unintuitive user interface… Expand
May 16, 2013The game as it exists currently, and for the forseeable future, is a scam on the level of Legends of Pegasus and Sword of the Stars 2.
There is a framework for a great game in StarDrive, but that framework has lingered for over a year of development and testing that has gone nowhere. Content is barebones three weeks after release there is ONE boring victory condition, an AI that struggles to provide any meaningful challenge, and multiplayer is nowhere on the horizon. The project lead and primary programmer spends his time on the internet emulating Derek Smart, attacking reviewers who mention the horrendous stability and low content of the game, rather than fixing it. It has been over a year since he has talked publically about his intentions for the game questions about the multiplayer go unanswered, and old brain-storming ideas are ambiguously repeated as potentials.
I am not scoring this game 0 in some effort to lower the grossly inflated user score I am scoring it 0 because the game is simply not worth the price of admission. I have never seen a game with worse stability than this one. Three weeks after release, the game has memory leaks and unoptimized code that make 'normal' matches almost impossible to finish on my eight-core processor. The developer hassled with Steam for months about putting the 'finished' game up for a release date, and he has missed that date by years. Please do not reward this developer for trying to pull a wool over your eyes.… Expand
Apr 26, 2013Already have more than 40+ hours logged into my game.Quite the amazing game ;-). I joined the beta testing back in January, dying to play some good 4x games. Now, onto the finer details: what does this game have? 1. beautiful diplomacy screens you are entranced by them and sometimes don't want to close them, don't be deluded by the certain woman sitting on the chair...(you will know once you play the game)
2. amazing races, each is distinct,diplomacy screen makes them even seem more real
3. fantastic ship customization, you literally can make a ship loaded with weaponry that might be destroyed in a few missile hits, or a shielded beast that can withstand punishment, perhaps you want to have a frigate with marine teams to take over the enemy ships-the choice is yours
4.planetary combat deploy your battalions from your core planets to invade the enemy planets,
gives you the armchair general feeling of successfully distracting the enemy at certain points while taking over their planet
5. mods lots and lots of mods enhance its play-ability, I'm sure many of you have seen how Arma II, and Skyrim have become popular thanks to mods,-well Stardrive as well!- it already has a few mods from the beta version.
6.combat you build your ship, now, for most games that would result in hit-points and so being counted up, but not in Stardrive, in Stardrive where you place your armour, weaponry, power station,and shielding is important. If you have weak shielding or armour to your aft, the enemy could easily puncture the hull there and destroy your power station. If you have no shields for your weaponry, they could disable all your weaponry. If your ship is facing quick enemies, you need to be sure your ships are equipped with combat thrusters.
7.events still in the early stages, however, there are lots of events in this game, such as warp being disabled momentarily, or getting into contact with an early pre-space race
8. music Stardrive has its unique style of music, just check out the diplomacy screens!
9.planet development you can develop every planet you own, or set an governor to handle the 'economic' issues while you go far onto the front-lines to battle the enemies
Like many games out there, there is room for improvement!
However,if you are a 4x fan, or like to customize every ship, this is the game to get.… Expand
Apr 27, 2013This game is going to be a cult hit. Zero has said that he will keep updating the game to smooth out the technical issues and add depth. Serious modding is a given. The game is instantly familiar and enjoyable, right out of the box, to a 4X strategy veteran. The highlights of the game for me are the intricate shipyard (ship designer screen) with a ridiculous amount of replayability, and the diverse ways that the different AI opponents act towards you. Combat itself is interesting and varied due to the uniqueness of every ship design.… Expand
Apr 27, 2013I got this game one day before it came out of beta, because I have been looking for a game like this for a while, and did not find anything that I really liked. This game has hit the spot. I have sunk 12 hours in, and can't wait to lose another 100. There is still some bugs in this game, some performance issues and some problems with the ordering of ships refusing to go where you want. This frustrated me a little, but it did not break the game, nor take away from my enjoyment of it too much.
If you are looking for a solid 4x space game, with nice graphics, good audio, then this is it. The modular design is what you will be spending a lot of your time on, so if you think that this would annoy you, be forewarned. Have not looked at any mods yet, but if there is a solid set of tools, hopefully some great mods will appear soon too.… Expand
Apr 27, 2013An really satisfactory 4x game. Tho it still has a few bug (just give it few weeks). it is impressive that this game is created by one guy.
All in all is a wonderful 4x experience
Apr 26, 2013This is an amazing game. I got the pre-order beta 4 days ago and have already played 28 hours. The only reason I did not put a 10 is because of a couple small bugs (half of which were fixed with yesterday's update). I really suggest that you try this game out, it is definitely worth it.
It has really good Ship Designer and allows for tons of customization and specialization. The fleet mechanics are great too, one of my favorite features of the game. The combination of managing your empire, it's research, and it's military is in the the top tier of 4X games. If you don't like managing everything in the game though you can automate governing, construction, scouting, and ground combat.
The developer is really quick with updates and fixes too, you can expect an update for the game every week. He is also active on the forums and plans to add even more features in the near future.… Expand
Apr 26, 2013This is the game that i have been waiting for, for a long long time and if you are a fan of space and want a slight challenge then i recommend this game. The default game unfortunately is extremely easy even on the hardest difficulty because of some exploits with marines and bombing but if you play it with gravity wells or even with 0 faster than light travel till you leave the hole system giving it a sins of the solar feel then in my opinion the game is amazing it still has a bit fleshing out to do and the creator Zero who is a one man team genius IMO is generally on most bugs when reported like a flash and i have no doubt that he will flesh out the research tree and add a bit more life to the game but for what it is atm i am extremely happy with it. For thoughts with worrying thoughts with the the highly negative reports coming in all i would say is look at the forum or even you tube videos out there and decide from what you see from that i think people are to quick once they see one or two negative things with the recent 4x failures out that to just say well nice try yet another failure and i think that is a very unfair judging to this game dose it have flaws yes but i highly believe with my over 200 hours of play that it has amazing potential and if you don't like to wait for it to get better than give the game maybe 2 more month and look at more videos and give it a second look then. In closing Zero has done an amazing job with giving a space rts game a new feel with strategy with its non lane warp system and amazing ship modifications and the fact this game was designed with modding in mind makes me looking forward into the future with this title.… Expand
Apr 27, 2013StarDrive is an interesting game indeed. SD is a real-time space 4X nodding back to the good old days of Master of Orion 2. The game features exploration, exploitation, diplomacy, design, construction & finally destruction.
At the beginning of each game you must choose a race, this will decide what hulls you get to use during play (more on that later). It will also allocate some preset traits for you. Traits give you both bonuses and deficiencies. You are given so many points to spend on traits and it is up to the player to balance them accordingly with negative and positive modifiers. Once you have decided on the race and traits you get the standard options of galaxy size, opponents & AI difficulty. Launching the match is as simple as pressing "Engage!" Once ingame things may appear a little daunting. You are occupying a little planet with no more than a small handful of ships. But in time, you will slowly explore and locate newer and better planets expanding your empire as the game progresses. During play you will come across both friendly and less-friendly forces, as well as anomalies you will need to investigate with troops. Eventually you will end up in a war, and then you will find yourself engaged in this games' spectacular combat. It is the main draw of StarDrive. This may be a negative thing for some players. For as much of a diplomatic game it can be, it often ends in war. It *is* possible to win by assimilating other races into your Federation, but war is often outright unavoidable. So this means combat is at the end of the day, StarDrive's main focus. Thankfully it does it amazingly! You will need to research technology such as missiles, cannons, lasers, new hulls and so on. You will then need to open the Shipyard and actually design the ships yourself (the game does have some pre-designed ships that become available as tech progresses, but where is the fun in that!). This is where StarDrive excels ship design! Placement matters. You need to put armor in the right places, bulkheads around reactors, set the arcs on your turrets and tell your ship what way to face when engaged. It is brilliant. Damage is directional and critical systems can easily be knocked out in combat. Essentially, when thinking about combat this game plays like an infinitely bigger and better version of Sins of a Solar Empire where you design your own fleet and pray it proves effective! We all knew the comparison had to come up eventually. Let's move onto the races and AI. The races themselves are astonishingly beautiful and are all animated. They loop naturally, but it is great! They also each have background music/noise. The haunting theme that plays in the background when dealing with the Draylocks always comes to mind when thinking of this game. Each race speaks to you uniquely and has their own personality. Diplomacy itself is certainly there and certainly important, it's just it isn't utilized as much as you might like. Once war breaks out (which it will), diplomacy matters little. Outside of war you can trade technology, make alliances, engage in trade treaties and more. After long enough, a race may be willing to join your federation meaning you get all of their planets and units. Some races require you to defeat a major enemy before joining, others may need you to show military dominance. Others simply just need time and trust. You can also partake in espionage to steal technology, sabotage planets and even incite rebellion. All up diplomacy could be worked on, but it is much better than what you get in a game like Civilization V. AI unfortunately can be rather aggressive even on easy. If you have a weak military, there is a good chance a race will declare war on you. This can occur even moments after you meet them (Opteris are often very aggressive). This could do with some adjustments particularly on the lower difficulty settings so as to avoid scaring newer and less confident players away. During war itself the AI can be quite dangerous sometimes. This is amplified by AI using your past ship designs from previous games... the designs that were effective! The soundtrack is nice but not "in-your-face" and does a good job of conveying atmosphere. The controls are logical and get the job done effectively. On smaller maps the game can be played as a large RTS able to be beaten in an evening of warfare, or it can be played on a huge map where longer term planning is needed and it becomes like a true 4X of old! Considering StarDrive was developed by a single man, this game is just unbelievable! He had help with art and sound assets, but the core game was coded by him alone. StarDrive has incredible polish, particularly when compared to recent installments in the genre. Think of this as a cross between Master of Orion 2 and Sins of a Solar Empire focused on ship design and combat and you will get an idea of what the game entails. This game is brilliant, and is worth both my time and yours!… Expand
Apr 27, 2013I've spent a great deal of time (wayyy more than I should have) both playing and modding this game. Space strategy games like Master of Orion and Sins of a Solar Empire are immensely enjoyable for me so this was right up my alley. For a one-man dev team on a tiny budget, the game is amazingly well-done.
Overall game difficulty 1 being Easy 10 being Hard 6 or 7 IMHO
Easily modded, even for low-knowledge users
Aggresive and interesting AI (with caveats)
Fun with lasting replayability
Wonderfully executed 4x hybrid concept
A worthy successor to the magic of the Master of Orion franchise
Lack of content. More importantly, amount of unmodifiable assets. That which is availible to be modded are easily modified but things that lack content (Ex: randomly generated events, sounds, Space hazards, unique planets, music, pirates, bonus modifiers, more interesting artifacts) are not open to user-created content.
No space-dangers: Fly into a sun or explore the galaxy without worry of a single negative outcome.
Performance/crash issues
Lack of music variety
Military strength calculations!!!
Unique resources
Racial differentiation or diversity
Lack of fluff nothing interesting to see or explore
Short-tech trees
No multiplayer
Low complexity AI ships
In conclusion: High potential but currently low content. Still loving the game.… Expand
This game is extremely entertaining, the colony management, diplomacy, and exploration is up there with civilization. The races/factions are diverse and entertaining. However, where this game pulls ahead like no other is ship design and combat. Every module on a ship is placed into a hull by you, and then in combat, the ship takes damage realistically. Place armor between incoming fire and your reactors if you want to live.… Collapse
Sep 26, 2013It was promising what had been promised, but what promises had been there, have been broken. The developer of this game admitted the engine in use is broken and so, it will never get finished. Any word on the forum, being even slightly critical about his decision to move on and start another project, is being deleted. The game is a blast to play, but sadly it is never going to be anything but an abandoned alpha version sold completly overprized.… Expand
Oct 9, 2013I had to give it a Zero. The game had great potential, but development has stopped completely now that ZeroSum has "made enough money to move onto other projects". The small development team has been the excuse for slow development, and empty promises were repeatedly made, but its officially been canned by the developer and he's even stated that a discount or free copy of the sequel for people who purchased the broken unfinished original will in no way be an option. Have a problem w/it? don't post on his forums, he'll just delete it and ban you but hey he warns you up front that he will and says you should just log out of his forum and never come back.
VaporWare that should be avoided, and previous ratings should be revisited and re evaluated. Poor game is dead.… Expand
Apr 28, 2013A bit buggy at present, but once those are fixed, this will be the best 4x space since Masters of Orion 2. The ship design and experimentation is engrossing game in itself.
Jun 27, 2013I really have mixed feelings about this. Ok, here we go. The good: 1. Building is made rather fun, with a steady pace of economics and nice system that can dispense wealth and resources to your worlds. 2. The graphics are quite nice. 3. The RTS part is done well enough, the pace is not too fast, not too slow. The bad: 1. Technologies aren't varied or imaginative. They're simple and there's too little of them for a proper 4x game.
2. Map controls are bad every time I zoom out or load the game the zoom focuses on some dust speck in space, and I have to click around to actually notice any star systems even when I click in the right place on the minimap. It's mildly annoying.
3. Ship design system is the worst I have seen in ANY 4x game. It's bad. It's awful. It's atrocious. It's positively tedious, feels like you're sitting in work in your cubicle and have to finish a project. You can't save a design which has even one field not filled. And later designs have HUNDREDS of them. You can't modify or upgrade designs? Actually, ANY 4x game had a better system. Master of Orion 1-2, Sword of the Stars, Endless Space, Gratuitous Space Battles, etc. etc. etc. This... thing... spoils a reasonably nice game immensely. If this was improved, I'd give the game a solid 8.
I mean, if a serious part of the game has less fun than counting finances in Excel, that's wrong, dude.… Expand
Aug 17, 2013I simply MUST respond to what is blatant rating bombing. Ive been watching this game since pre-release, and must admit there is ALOT of potential here, love the ship design feature and the diplomacy windows are very well done. However the game is still in beta. SO many bugs and issues that are yet to be resolved. I experience frequent crashes, and whenever i feel brave enough to start a new game, i end up giving up within 1-2 hours due to all the remaining frustrating bugs and issues IF I dont CTD first.
As I said, lotsa potential, but its an unfinished and I would argue UNPLAYABLE game.… Expand
Apr 26, 2013StarDrive is a great game, it doesn't waste time with the trivialities that some game companies waste millions of dollars on but focused on gameplay. performance, and features. I cant stress enough how good this game is nor how directly involved with the community the developer is with constant feedback and almost on-the-fly fixes and updates.
The game is still developing but I would buy this game today and everyday after because it is that good, it's been so long since I've truly been sucked into a game so completely and enjoyed myself on so many levels.… Expand
Apr 26, 2013StarDrive is breathing new life into the otherwise flagging 4X genre.
For me, this game is solid in almost all the right places. There are some things that need work, but updates are being pushed out with impressive speed.
First off, let's look at sight and sound. It has a terrific amount of visual polish for a game with a one-man development team. You read correctly it's one guy. Each race has a unique ship "look," with its own body plans and color palettes. The soundtrack sets the tone well with expansive and moody tracks, but it's a bit limited at the moment and can get repetitive over many hours of play. There are some minor graphical hitches, but I found these to be few and far between.
For most players, the real meat of this game will be found in the Shipyard. The game encourages you to design your own warships, scouts and freighters to suit your own tactical needs. When I first tried this game, I just knew I wouldn't enjoy designing my own ships... and then I DID. IMMENSELY. What's more, if you have played as one race and designed custom ships for it, the AI just might use those designs against you in future games. A note here as well: some ship designs aren't symmetrical, but this is being tackled in updates.
Where this game falls a bit short for me is in Diplomacy and ground combat. I'll address Diplomacy first.
Each race has its own set of "personality" behaviors. Some will be ruthlessly aggressive, and this feels just like it should. However, it seems a bit too easy to dominate the game using Agents, and the AI is easily conned into giving away endless war concessions. These issues are, thankfully, known and being worked on.
Ground combat (planetary assault) feels a bit too shallow. Default game rules allow for brainless troop rushes by all sides, and the game misses a tactical element it might have added here. That said, there are currently several in-game options that let you mitigate this. The problem is that they create new irritations, and feel a bit tacked-on.
In closing, general thoughts. The art style is just what I was hoping to see, and the music is quite nice, if a bit repetitive. Ship designing really does shine, and watching your designs in action is just so satisfying. Empire management can get a bit tedious, but doesn't demand too much attention for very long. The game will feel too hard at first, and then a bit too easy once you find your feet. If you can overlook the small faults until they're buffed out, you just might find a new game to love. Multiplayer will one day be included, so there's that to look forward to as well.… Expand
Apr 27, 2013It's impossible to please everybody when making a game, but I am rather shocked that 6 people find the game to be so poor? I started playing StarDrive while it was in beta and it has been a lot of fun playing this game and watching it grow to become what i consider to be one of the best space strategy games of all time. I can't really think of any game which has been without its share of problems and yes there are problems with StarDrive which need to be sorted out and these will be fixed soon; the problems are fixed on almost a daily basis and at this stage the problems are minor and pose no real problems. What I like the most is that players are able to come forward on the forum to voice their ideas to make improvements and in turn some ideas are taken to make these improvements. It's nice to know that players have a voice and are able to make a difference and that there is full support to come out with patches often and not to simply abandon the game after release like so many other games have been.
Bottom line, is if you enjoy strategy gaming, then this game is well worth the money as you will be getting a great game and even if you must wait for the multiplayer option, then so be it as it will be well worth the wait. Don't dismiss this game on a few negative reviews and if in doubt, then at least look on Youtube for a review of the gameplay so that you will have a better idea of just what you will be getting.
Enjoy… Expand
Apr 27, 2013I'm playing this wonderful game since early march, and I'm still blasted away. It's been a long time since the last addictive 4X game (the last I played so excessive was Master of Orion 2). So, for all space faring conquerors, it's one of the most interesting titles out there. Different, customizable races, a full functioning ship yard with different unique ship designs for every race, nice to look space battles, ground battles and enough micromanagement for your colonies to feel a feedback. Sure, there a a few things that I still miss (otherwise it would be a 10 rating). First, I miss a bigger tech-tree. There is enough room for more. Second, it lacks a multiplayer part (but development is underway). So, when this two points are changed, it gets a 10 … Expand
Apr 28, 2013This game takes the cake when it comes to all of the indie sci-fi 4x games that have been coming out lately. Last year we saw Endless Space, which was phenomenal, but the game seemed to lose some luster at the end. This game, however, brings back the beauty of Sins of a Solar Empire's real time space battles, while giving us an even deeper customization option for ships than what Endless Space gave us. The technology tree is deep, the variety of ships you can build is vast, and the species are quite varied. The game runs very smoothly as well, only minimal lag in late game environments. With the development continuing to be on-going post release, this game is a must have for fans of the science fiction strategy genre.… Expand
Apr 28, 2013The game is not incomplete, it is not garbage, you do not need to sue the developer. Calm down, take a deep breath, it's just a game. Wow, folks get mighty testy over toys. Anyway, I am enjoying this new game very much. Some things I'd like to add, some I'd like to delete and a few bugs. That said, hard to remember a game that didn't have all that at release. Only near perfect games I ever purchased were from HPS, Matrix, and John Tiller. The rest took a bit of time with lots of CONSTRUCTIVE input being given and listened to by the developers. I gave it a ten 'cause it is to me and will become even better. Words like boring, not fun, DOA, etc are not helpful to folks looking to buy. Maybe plus and minus on what you EXPECTED. This is a significant effort, fun, RTS (I like turn based, actually) that THQ or EA would have charged $50 for (six months ago). Anybody, and there won't be many, who wants a recommendation; consider it done. AND yes, this is my first review mostly because I get sick of really nasty, child like comments in lieu of really well thought out critiques..… Expand
Apr 29, 2013So far, so good.
No, it doesn't quite have the depth of Galactic Civilizations 2 (with the Twilight of the Arnor expansion). But it is an addictive, fast-paced 4X space strategy game. It feels like a real-time Master of Orion 2 in many ways, but has some tweaks and changes, not least of which is the ship design and combat.
It's still getting fleshed out in places, but I've really enjoyed what I see (enough to buy the game on Steam). Looking forward to seeing where it goes next!… Expand
Apr 29, 2013StarDrive strikes me as a game with a lot of potential that at the same time doesn't quite get there. The artwork is superb and I love the fact that each race is given both a unique character as well as specific dialogue options to that race. The quirk of being able to use the diplomacy interface to actually just chat with the ambassador is nice and makes it feel a little like Star Control 2 and the like that its more than just business, but also exploration of the variety of a universe. The addition of the occasional dialogue event on discovery of a new planet adds to this as well, as does the Remnant subplot.
The ship designer is this game's most complex feature. When working with big hulls you have an incredible amount of customization that can be done. Furthermore, the AI learns from your designs, which is a very nice touch. Since damage happens per-module and is spatially accurate, there are subtleties of the system in placement of everything up to the ship's wiring. This is StarDrive's true contribution to the genre a feature that I don't think I've seen in any other such game.
My complaints with the game are more to do with the actual mechanics of play. Managing the economy and planets feels punishingly micro in a realtime game where you already have many things vying for limited attention. The fact that fleets have a tendency to not arrive at the same time also contributes to this problem, as well as the lack of ship pathing that is aware of system gravity wells (so ships sometimes just get slowed down on the way to a fight because they didn't take a slight detour). I don't really think the realtime adds anything to the game, but it costs it a lot.
The other problem is that the content that is there is like a preview of some bigger game that has yet to manifest itself. The dialogue option to find out about the various races is a neat touch, but there's really only one such option per race. The planetary discovery event is neat, but there's only the one (and its not completely implemented). The tech tree is very short and is kind of front-loaded (it takes a long time to the get the first few techs, then suddenly you're getting new techs every few minutes).… Expand
May 8, 2013Looking at all the previews, this was a highly anticipated game for me. The images looked awesome, the characters and ships had an awesome design and in general the customization options looked amazing.
It's amazing how every single point above could still be true on release and still the game is simply unplayable.
> You start the game and get immediately lost, there is no story and the tutorials suck. A couple of them have videos but the rest is running text.
> You eventually get past that and start you colony, the UI sucks. You can't control your ships effectively, it's hard to click them and you'll be lucky to even find your ships in the universe. Adding to that, there is no highlighting of your units or plants so good luck trying to understand what's going on.
> I'm one of the guys that likes to micromanage but it's practically impossible to do so in this game since you get overwhelmed I then found i had a couple of options to let the AI automatically build roads and send goods and population to my new colonies but that just simply turns off that part of the game, everything is created for you and you never need to look at it again. Your planets will build ships apparently randomly to fill some AI purpose which is an odd solution.
> Customizing your ship is nice but it has pointless components. Sometimes you build a great ship and then find you forgot to but enough power in it... or there is no ammo so it doesn't really fire...
> I also found some game mechanics were crap and should be removed, like you can control a single ship with WASD in a battle but it's so strange that you never will.
> Also in the middle of the game all my ships stopped moving suddenly, i thought there was a problem with the game, restarted and they were still all stopped... after a while i noticed a text on the screen saying Hyperspace Flux and came to the conclusion the developers added a random universe event that blocks the game for 5 minutes, how nice.
> You then start exploring and start your to want to fight. I had a perk with a better than average mega space ship, i gathered 5 more fighters and the first random neutral ship i find kills all my ships, because it has like a million shield points when i don't even know what shields are yet. These neutral guys exist randomly in a lot of systems and for some unknown reason are ultra hard to kill, they are not even players mind you, they are neutral ships roaming the universe randomly just to kill your game experience.
I got frustrated, created a fleet of 20 fighters and tried again, only to be decimated in under a minute by the same neutral ship.
At this point i decided the game wasn't polished and balanced enough to be playable and never picked it up again. What's sad is that with probably little effort and a couple of changed game mechanics this could be one of the years greatest hits in 4X strategy games.
Golgothar… Expand
May 9, 2013This game just doesn't work. It tries to marry RTS with 4X aspects, and comes off as too complicated in RTS micromanaging aspects, and yet too simple to enjoy the 4X aspects due to the need for a short tech tree and reliance on AI control in order to maintain output. Reminds me of MOO3, in how it tries to do something new, but that something just doesn't work.
Sep 23, 2013I really wanted to love this game. It had the potential to be a great game. However, my poor rating is based on the fact that it is beta software with significant bugs and missing features and the fact that these are now not likely to ever be fixed. If you read the game's forum, it appears the developer is working on a new version of the game which would have to be purchased again, and does not appear to believe completing the current version of the game is a priority.
Meanwhile, the game continues to available for sale, and at a significant price point. To me, the whole development process indicates that, at best, the developer lacks focus. I would avoid this game in its current state (check out the discussions on the forum to see the issues for yourself).… Expand
Apr 28, 2013Played this for almost 7 hours now and I think this Indie game comes closest to the addictive gameplay of Master of Orion 2 as any other 4X game ever did! There are still some rough edges around the interface/gameplay but other than that a new 4X game to play for a long time!
Aug 10, 2013This game had potential. I really do wish it worked out as it is so beautiful; but alas the game is so unintuitive and riddled with bugs that I regret wasting my money on it. When compared to a similar title, such as distant worlds it just doesn't hold up.
Apr 26, 2013This game is awesome. I've played the beta for four weeks. Not since MOO2 and Ascendancy have I been as excited for a 4X game. The ship building is brilliant. I eagerly await to see how this game evolves over time as the developer and modders continue. Don't worry about what others say about crashes and such, that's pretty much gone now. For the first time in a long time, I see a game with true potential to stay a permanent installation on my hard drive. Nothing Since the original Civ and Warlords 2 have been worthy. That guy Withering can just look me up on the forums to see if I'm real or not. All these guys are. That's because we're a passionate group of core gamers that know when something is fun.
Support this guy Zero. Buy the game. Now. It's a steal at the price point.… Expand
Apr 26, 2013I love this game, these are the kinds of fun games big developers never make because they don't appeal to everyone. It definantly has some flaws but more than makes up for them. If you like grand strategy, space fleets you'll like this game. The ship designer allows a huge amount of flexibility and has allowed me to recreate my favorite ships from various sci fi ip's. There are a couple flaws with the game I wish the ii was a little more polished it's hard to keep track of all your planets and what's going on with them. For example the game always floods you with information that's not pertinent for your empire. The game also has a steep learning curb for most people.… Expand
Apr 27, 2013This is a great, real-time 4X game. It is a bit like real time Master of Orion II. The game has several interesting and varied races. The main feature of this game is highly modular ship design with components and their placement affecting function. It is a lot like a 2D version of Galactic Civilisations ship editor, only with more of a focus on functional rather than aesthetic design.
The release day version is great. A lot of content in there.
Negatives are really bugs and the fact that the developer has not had time to flesh out some of the secrets. A few minor pieces of incidental events sidequests are incomplete and there are not many events secrets.
It is like a 4X Space Game equivalent of Vampire Bloodlines. It is great, innovative but could do with some polish and content. Even so, like Vampire is still deserves a solid 8/10.… Expand
Apr 27, 2013Note: this review is long, there is a TL;DR
Simpy said, this game is what I've been waiting for in a space 4x game. There are many positive things, and the few negatives are not overwhelming at all. I will quickly get out of the way that this game has great asthetics. The art is great, the UI overall is clean, and the races are well designed. All of this is done well in many other games, but barely has any bearing on the gameplay. It is done well in StarDrive, and that is all that needs to be said about aesthetics.
First, some positives. In terms of development, I noticed the developer (who goes by the moniker Zero) interacts with the community to a huge extent, squashing bugs, responding to feedback, and just plain joking around. While this is not directly related to the gameplay, it does mean that he is listening, he is working on the game, and that the game will get even better than it already is. This means that the game will be getting new content, new patches, new modes of play, new new new. It will continually evolve so I will always have a reason to come back and play.
As for the gameplay, there are many good things as well.
My favourite is the fleet and ship design. Designing a ship can take as much or as little time as you want, and ships can be specialized in many different ways. Stardrive takes this module system to a new level, but there are some temporary negatives which I will discuss later.
Fleets and designing fleets are fun too. There are many different parameters you can set on ships in your fleet, and you can give different ships different behaviours in combat allowing for very dynamic battles. Though the design screen could be more robust (and it will be in the coming months I'm sure) the way fleets are done in StarDrive are FAR better than any game I have played yet. Many have tried, but I always felt that the fleet systems left something to be desired, that they were not fun or missing something.
Expansion in StarDrive is easy, with colony ships being mostly automated, and an easy to use planets window and colonize button to select which planets you want colonize first. One thing I like about the way expansion in StarDrive works is that the AI does not consistently outpace you in colonization. In many 4X games, I found that the AI could somehow make a gigantic empire early on with no negative repercussions. This is not necessarily the case in StarDrive.
There are some minor negatives to take note of however.
Some UI windows could use some polish. That is not to say they don't work or are not complete, but they could be further optimized for clarity and ease of use. Fleets and the fleet window are simultaneously the best feature, and the worst UI interface of the game (although it is not terrible, it is simply not the best among even better windows in the same game).
There are numerous balance issues, but this is more because of the newness of the game rather than a core flaw. Most games upon release are unbalanced and take time to fine tune for a larger audience.
There are sadly, still some framerate drops that exist in the game, but this is due to the huge complexity of behaviours and effects that are occurring at the same time. Through the beta this has been vastly improved and is often only seen in scenarios involving massive fleets and battles that would not be the norm. Unfortunately, I am one of those people that likes to just build a thousand ships and watch them smash my enemies into smithereens, and then watch my ships obliterate those smithereens.
This leads me into my final point that I LOVE about StarDrive. The combat.
There may be purists out there who demand for combat to be like Masters of Orion 2, individual commanding and firing the weapons of ships. That combat was awesome, fun, tactical, and interesting. It was also tedious, time consuming, and a little bit silly at times. The combat in StarDrive is fantastic. Damage is applied to shields, modules, destruction of internal parts can cause chain reactions and rip a ship apart. If one side is less shielded concentrated fire will break through and begin hitting armor and components. If you have a large slow ship with only forward facing weapons, lighter faster ships can move around out of the firing arcs and pound away. The feeling of watching your fleet drop out of Warp, and open fire with volleys of missiles, cannon fire, and laser beams to begin shredding your enemies is amazing.
This game deserves your money, it deserves your attention, and it may very well dethrone the current (in my opinion) king of space 4X games Masters of Orion 2 (which was released in 1996 and I still go back to). This game is already amazing, and there are so many things planned for the future of it, that I expect to be playing this over and over in the next decade.
Developer interacts with Community,
4X's are solid in the game,
Combat is solid.
Still needs Polish
More content is coming.… Expand
Apr 27, 2013Great 4X. Spent 6 hours straight on it without even knowing it. This is the most enjoyable 4X I've played in a very long time. There's a bit of a learning curve but once you get that, it's uber. Game has a good community and support.
For me, it's everything I want in a 4X game and there are lots of lazers to go pewpew!
Apr 27, 2013Honestly one of the best space 4x games I've ever played. The mechanics are simple, the game is deep, and it doesn't require any annoying micromanagement (unless you want to micromanage). It could use some smoothing out of rough edges, but the quality of this game is astounding when you considered it's made by one man.
Apr 28, 2013This game has all of my support. I usually never buy games, in fact, it's been about a year since I put down money for a game. This game is different. I also usually never play games longer than a hour (I have really low-tolerance) but this game kept me in for days on in game play. Even in beta, this game is fantastic! You can't really ask for more from the developers except for 2 things, and that would either be a multiplier feature (All of my friends are in on this game) and maybe additional content! Of course, it just released so I can only praise the game and support the devs to hope for more! 26.99$, worth every penny.… Expand
May 10, 2013From a very small developer this title is great, I hope that this title grows in depth. I have spent much more on Legends of Pegasus and Endless Space and neither of those were are as fun as StarDrive in my opinion. Here are my thoughts from playing 16 hours of the released version. Including a completed large game. (+) Overall, this game does seem take MOO 2 as it's ancestry, and I like that. I don't thinks its a rip off as much as a homage to a great game that I love as one of my top games of all time.
(+) Race customization is like MOO 2.
(+++)The ship design is the best that I have ever seen in a 4X game, the larger ships will just blow you mind with the possibilities you get to manage everything right down to localized shields/armor to protect internal components.
(+) giving orders and layout of ground combat is possible.
(+) Tutorial was enough to get going.
(+) Real Management of colony, including building projects and defense.
(-) The tech trees are short but intact.
(--) No Campaign
(null) The game speed is tricky if you are used to turn based 4X games but the space bar pauses, use it when you need to:)… Expand
Apr 28, 2013Brought into the Beta about a month before release. Played a good 60+ hours. The game is very good, i was doubtful because it is RTS but the pacing is just right and pause means you can play it just like a turn based game. Pros The 4X aspects are all there and work nicely. But the real joy is ship building, which is just great. The game is stable and runs well. Cons Only real negative is that it could do with more events etc. But i feel confident that this will be added with time and even if no new content is added to the game the current build is worthy of 9/10. With more content i can well believe it would be worth 10/10.
If you like 4X space games buy it, it is the real deal.… Expand
Apr 28, 2013I played the Beta for the last month before release, and enjoyed it far more than many released big-studio games of the same Genre. Now that it is released I see the author managed to pack in several more features and upgrades in the final month, and continues to do so in direct relation to user feedback. That is just simply an awesome experience to be a part of, and it is great to see the recommendations that I have been making take shape before my very eyes.
NOW FOR THE GAME: It's another 4x space strategy game... with a huge difference. You can design every square inch of every ship you make, and customize every fleet you field which opens up a world of unlimited possibilities. 1 well-designed ship can take on fleets of lesser technology or poorly designed ships, and a well thought out fleet of ships filling special roles can be unstoppable. This is what breaks it out of the mold of 4x games and makes it something more.
If you like fine-tuning your research for maximum effectiveness and glorying in the mayhem as your elite fleet tears through hordes of cheap imitations, you will love this game and should buy it immediately.
If you normally put research and diplomacy on auto, rush with a constant stream of cheap units and spam chat with how you are "Pwning everyone" then you probably won't get much out of this game.
The only reason I didn't give it a 10 is it still has room for improvement in terms of varied and longer tech trees and overall polish. However because of the low price and truly original approach, it's really more like an 11.… Expand
Apr 29, 2013This game kicks ass. I played GalCiv2 a lot, so i was obviously hesitant when buying this game. They totally pulled it off. While it lacks sheer number of researchable techs, it still does fine. They did really well with the multiple ways to defend and capture planets. The manage planet feature is great. It is not as complex as gal civ, but still pretty close. Making ships is a little tough at first, but you can load existing templates to work off of. This is a tough game, but experience in gal civ etc will help out.… Expand
May 3, 2013This is not your typical 4x strategy game, but that is what makes it so unique and thrilling to play. A lot (and I do mean a lot) of emphasis was put on ship design and combat and it is in these categories that Stardrive achieves greatness:
Fighters will circle one another, trying to find the best firing arc, and engage in fast paced combat; Capital ships exchange powerful volleys of missiles, torpedoes, or lasers while trying to fend off smaller craft with point defense weaponry; Support ships send out repair drones or resupply your fleet with ammunition during longer, extended battles; The whole thing turns into a symphony of destruction the likes of which is usually reserved for big budget scifi movies.
Other than the combat, the ability to create ships of your own design (By design, I'm talking about the internal components and not the external "look" of the ship) is easily the most appealing aspect of the game. Design choices make a huge impact in battle too: Place a reactor core in your ship with no armor or shields around it for protection and your just asking for an enemy to land a lucky blow and send your brand new frigate to oblivion.
There is something just so satisfying about coming up with a well thought out layout for your ship and watching it excel in combat against your enemies.
It is certainly not perfect and like all 4x games there is a learning curve, but if you are fan of large scale space battles and deceptively deep starship design then there is nothing out there quite like StarDrive.… Expand
Jun 2, 2013Real time for "Master of Orion2" games bad idea. Tried to like it, but failed. User interface is not very convenient, science tree is small. "Endless space" liked more.
Jun 3, 2013Trite, shallow and derivative. On anything but the easiest settings the AI simply swarms you the moment you try to expand or colonize at all with massive rushes of ships boasting heavily researched weapons, while also managing lots of successful colonies. Any two of those may be somewhat possible, definitely not all three at once. I had expected quite a bit more perhaps something other than mindless pop-rushing of batches of ships. A bit of strategy and management would be nice. As far as I can tell, it's a 1x strategy game, not a 4x, unless you manage to trick the computer into letting you survive until late game, when management becomes something of an issue.… Expand
This game is extremely entertaining, the colony management, diplomacy, and exploration is up there with civilization. The races/factions are diverse and entertaining. However, where this game pulls ahead like no other is ship design and combat. Every module on a ship is placed into a hull by you, and then in combat, the ship takes damage realistically. Place armor between incoming fire and your reactors if you want to live.… Collapse
Feb 10, 2014If you like games in the vein of Stars! or Master of Orion, you can sink into Stardrive for long hours. [02/2014, p.73]
Dec 9, 2013Zero Sum Games has created a worthy addition to the 4X genre. What is more - modders are already creating more and more cool modifications for StarDrive. Ergonomics and gameplay rules should be more user-friendly, but the game itself is far from boring or tiresome. 4X fans will be pleased.
Sep 19, 2013For your first and second time, StarDrive brings a refreshing experience resembling Master of Orion. However, as soon as you understand its basic rules, the game is gone like through a Black Hole. [Issue#232]