Star Ruler

[Firgof]

For those interested, Artem Bank is putting up the Star Ruler soundtrack over at Bandcamp and will be streaming it all the way to the game's release (and adding tracks as they make it into the game). They're not all quite up yet (it's a work in progress) but they ought to be very soon. Feel free to drop by and give a listen. :)Link to the Bandcamp

[sscadmin]

Finally got around to listening to the soundtrack Firgof and you have some nice music for the game. I really liked this three songs:Star RulerA Sheet of Metal Between Flesh and NothingEnd of it All

[Firgof]

Thanks Darkone, Artem is glad you're enjoying them.

[Stardreamer]

With the 21st August release date fast approaching, and my Gamersgate 20% discount pre-order already safely ordered, it may be time to tear everyone away from Distant Worlds and start drumming up a bit of froth for the mighty Star Ruler, for me the most exciting 4X release since Galciv 2's last expansion.I think a last minute brace of questions fired at the devs might shake some interesting nuggets loose. I'll have a review of this thread and put my thinking cap on but by all means feel free to pile in!

[sscadmin]

Star Dreamer did you get a beta invite for the pre-order? You plan on doing a review of Star Ruler for the masses when you played it for a while?

[Stardreamer]

Darkone wrote:
Star Dreamer did you get a beta invite for the pre-order? You plan on doing a review of Star Ruler for the masses when you played it for a while?
Having never involved myself with the beta stages of commercial game development before I nevertheless seriously considered getting involved in this one. I'm not the biggest fan of bugs, crashes and incomplete features - although I do enjoy seeing something slowly coming together - but in the end it was actually the pressures of work (that darned Real Life again!) that kept me away. My current job makes some hefty demands on me so I couldn't commit to it.Which, incidentally, explains why I'm not around here as often as I'd like. :)A review, on the other hand, sounds like just the sort of thing I could happily devote some time of my life to. Something to really get my teeth into. I'd love to do a full-blown review of Star Ruler for this site - a Space Sim Central EXCLUSIVE! (followed by a post on my own blog shortly afterwards ) Pictures, words, some smileys...man, that's an itch I just gotta scratch! You're on, Darkone. One review coming up! *hearty handshake*

[Darkstare]

Stardreamer wrote:
...it may be time to tear everyone away from Distant Worlds and start drumming up a bit of froth for the mighty Star Ruler, for me the most exciting 4X release since Galciv 2's last expansion.
You couldn't have said it better Stardreamer. Firgof, a question from me, if you're around. What does the colony screen looks like? I've been telling (with scary accuracy) how good 4x games are by looking at the colony screen and battles. Just make the research.

[Madtoaster55]

Yeah, I am a... well... sorta kinda beta tester for this. I signed up and managed to get in, but other things got in the way, and I haven't been able to play the game AT ALL. I feel bad about it, but if I get some more time, Ill be sure to start testing it some more.Oh, and it is AWESOME.

[Pinback]

This is out today ,so has any one played it.

[Braindead]

Yeah I bought this one, I've got that 4X itch that hasn't been properly scratched since SE4 and Distant Worlds somehow didn't do it for me. This game is an unpolished gem if you ask me, and the good thing is that the developers have been listening to their community, as the latest patch shows. If they can continue to buff this up, and I really think they will try their hardest as there's already been 2 patches since release, then I think this might be a real winnerA large part of that comes from the gigantic modding potential, which is one of the things that made SE4 such a great game. If you're gonna play this game there's one mod I have to recommend right away, and that's the UI Mod. (just do a search on their forums for "uimod")This mod fixes part of the main problem with this game, which is the way everything is presented to the player. The latest patch also addresses part of the UI problem. There are some real thought-out UI parts, and others that are just plain non-existent.Still, even with the current state of this game I'll still give it a 7/10 with the potential to score much higher after some patching and UI tweaking.

[sscadmin]

That is a good rating since in the beginning of your post you said it was mainly unpolished. I did read in their forums that Blind Melon had to release Star Ruler a bit earlier than expected because they simply ran out of money and need people to buy the game to continue to develop against it. It is a shame indie devs run into this problem, but as long as Star Ruler really embraces the modding community it should grow and the modders can help fix the game to make it close to perfect :)There any other plans for distribution?

[Braindead]

As far as I know there's only going to be digital distribution (D2D and Gamersgate), but don't hold it against me if they bring it out on discs.On another note, patch 3 is already in the making, and this ads planetary queue loading and saving, together with a couple of UI improvements. That's 3 patches in less hen 2 weeks, which is a good thing and a bad thing. As you said Darkone, they did bring it out before it was ready, but they are doing all they can to bring it up to par.EDIT: MODding is important:
Quote:
From the beginning, Star Ruler was designed to be accessible to modders. In this article, we'll explore the impact of that choice from two perspectives: impact of modability on development, and the advantages modability brings to the end users.It was an early choice to design Star Ruler with support for modifications, as that's how I personally got most interested in game design and development, and I wanted to give that opportunity to people that are just becoming exposed to game development. This choice has had significant impact on the rest of the design process, both positively and negatively, although the positives vastly outweigh the negatives.Starting with the negative side of mod support, everything in our engine will be exposed to circumstances far beyond what any of us can envision, requiring code which is resilient to all sorts of input errors as well as other strange things that modding may cause. We don't know that ships will always leave a system under their own power, or that planets always need people, or that stars will be stationary. Many of the shortcuts that could have become available without support for modding simply aren't options.Additionally, we have extra difficulty in designing the user interface as we try to balance design complexity on our end with support for things modders (or even we) may make use of, thereby saving time for modders whom won't have the same difficulty during their development.On the other hand, these design requirements have also benefited us as we got farther along in the development, because the engine already supports things we didn't even know we would eventually be adding, and allows us to very rapidly code things that had already been planned, as well as quickly and easily change many elements of the game.Looking back at the decision to support modification, I'd make the same choice. While supporting that decision has made development more difficult, the extra difficulty truly comes from programming the engine in a way that is far easier to maintain as time passes, and the design requirements limit the times where a quick solution wins out over a long term solution.Star Ruler from a Modder's PerspectiveStar Ruler's modding starts with its data files. These files are in a plain text format, so any text editor with the ability to export plain text works. Data files consist of Key:Value pairs as an attempt to maximize both human and machine readability. Each data file specifies base data, or a relationship between the base data and the mechanics of the game. Here's an example of a Sub System definition.System: MediumHull Name: "Standard Hull" Description: "Standard hulls provide the necessary support structure to equip components, and some moderate damage resistance. They provide a middle ground between strength and speed." Appearance: MediumHull Tags: IgnoresScale, Hull Available: Techs.ShipConstruction.Level > 0 Level: floor(Techs.ShipConstruction.Level) Size: Object.Size Durability: Size * progress(20,0.5,Level) Mass: Size * 20 Costs: Metals[100 + 50 * Size], Electronics[50 + 10 * Size], AdvParts[20 + 4 * Size] Provides: DestructsShipAll the blue text is the keys, and the remainder of a line is interpreted based on the key. All the mathematical expressions are evaluated via algebraic order of operations whenever an instance of the Sub System is created. The Provides line adds gameplay effects, specified elsewhere, to the Sub System, optionally with variables that define the effect's behavior. Also of importance is the costs, which can be named anything – adding a new resource is as simple as referencing one that doesn't already exist – which ties into the more general system of object states.For non-data files, we use the C++ style scripting language AngelScript. This language is used for the GUI, custom effects system, and AI, and it may be expanded elsewhere in the future. A great deal of the engine is exposed in this language, and very little is impossible to do. While learning this language gives a modder far more power to create his or her vision, plenty of modding can still take place in the data files, or by editing clearly described variables within the code files.To make mod creation as easy as possible, mods can make use of as much of the base game – or any mod – as they chose, overriding parts as the creator sees fit. We also plan to support meta-mods, which could function independent of the base mod (e.g. a new GUI window), or act as options or small modifications to larger mods.
^-- Found here

[Firgof]

Unfortunately, we didn't have much of a choice on when to release the game. If it was our choice, it wouldn't have released until everything was in, tested, and as bug-free as we could get it. As it was, it was either release the game or cancel the project. I was already calling favors in to pay the bills, Reaper had no more money saved up that he could give me; if either of us got a job it would've slowed progress on the project to, compared to our current speeds, effectively a halt.We are doing everything in our power to get the game up to where it should have been when it launched. We've recently brought on a member from the forums into our dev-team and that has accelerated our ability to work and we're not above paying modders for their content if the content jives well with what we wanted for the game. We're going to keep patching and adding features at about this pace for as long as we can sustain it. Hopefully, everyone's faith in us will be rewarded with a highly polished milestone in the 4X genre in due time. At the moment, we're looking at about 5~ months of continued development before the studio must shut down, but we haven't even reached the end of the month yet in sales.

[Braindead]

I have absolute faith in the fact that this will turn out to be a great 4x game. That's why I bought the game without thinking twice.If my monetary contribution will help but food in bellies then I'm glad to provide it. This is also the main reason why I favor putting my money in indie hands instead of the big evil MegaCorps. (well, Blizzard excepted, damn you SC2, and damn you D3 when you finally come out)

[bcasner]

For those of us new to 4x games like this a good tutorial is necessary, unfortunitly the one with Star Ruler leaves a lot to be desired. The game is overwhelming. If someone could suggest a 10 turn walkthrough it'd be really apprecitated.

[sscadmin]

The latest release trailer... this is better than the original.

[sscadmin]

Looks like Blind Melon Studios released a Star Ruler demo...! Make sure you post your thoughts.Go and try it out from here: http://starruler.blind-mind.com/files/SR_DEMO_v1012.exe

[Braindead]

For those of you doubting to buy this game, it's now 20% of at GamersGate, find it hereThey are also still steadily patching the game and adding new functions all the time. Patch 1.0.1.4 is in the works ATM.

[Braindead]

The creators of this game did a Q&A with the guys from the Manapool site hereedit: Review at the same site here

[s2odan]

The game is getting quite good now but its still a ways off. I would guess by early next year, providing it continues down its current course the game will be amazing.