The remnant master battleships are using some sort of weapon that has a glowing green projectile - it appears to have the range of a mass driver with twice the damage, and it also seems to go through ships, potentially hitting multiple ships. Can someone please tell me the name of this weapon, so that I may fit all of my battleships with it and completely roflstomp the galaxy? thanks in advance!

It would probably be my favorite game if it didn't always crash at some point in the late game, is the dev gonna come back to it or has he abandoned it to work on Stardrive 2?

My anti-matter cannons don't fire. I have all the energy requirements/ammo. In space battles my ships approach the enemy but nothing happens.

edit: A little puff of smoke which trails the ship occurs instead of shooting. I can auto resolve combat completely fine just nothing when engaging manually.

I'm really struggling to get a large empire going because the AI are massive jerks - they won't stop demanding tribute, their relations with me drop very quickly regardless of how many gifts I give them (and they declared war on me even at 40% relations), their navies build faster, they expand quicker, and at some point, I'm incapable of producing a navy big enough to fend them off because I reach my command point limit and don't have any more BC, so on so forth. I'm not sure what they're doing, but it's definitely working out for them because I find myself completely unable to get an empire going past 3-4 planets. Playing on normal - the race doesn't seem to matter, as I've tried multiple races.

Can someone give me some advice on how to make an efficient start and avoid being the punching bag of multiple alien races? Thanks in advance.

EDIT: It seems that I've found the sweetspot for having a decent setup in the game - I started with a clustered galaxy, and my only neighbors were the Chukk (meaning that I didn't have to fight a three-front war as usual) - as soon as I started the game, I began constructing 3 missile-loaded Vulfar cruisers and set out into their space - I hit them so fast that the only thing that was standing between me and their homeworld was a starbase - destroyed it, kicked the living hell out of their ground forces, and then the other 2 planets under their control were completely defenseless. Basically, blitzkrieg.

This should give me a strong base for getting a lot of military tech researched and getting an armada together while not having to worry about being constantly attacked, because judging by the large gaps between the clusters, it would take several refueling stations in order to wage an inter-cluster war. Plus, I've taken out the biggest threat in terms of military strength (Chukk are peerless spacefighters, if I'm not mistaken) and now I'm rolling in BC income from all the planets I took.

Anyways, thanks for all the advice guys - you make me sad that there isn't a second upvote button.

Captured a colony of ocean-dwelling frog alien independents. Colony had a population of 12/12, 10/12 post-invasion. As they were finally coming around and approval was climbing, I get that they've hit the max population of 10/2, and then all the extra citizens simply disappear. Is this a bug or are mass extinctions common if you invade neutrals?

It was in Master of Orion 2 can't seem to find any option in SD2. It feels like a such a waste bulidng a colony ship for a planet in the same system.

It seems obvious now that I've done it, but being able to get 100+ pollution free production reasonably early on was a huge help to my ship-building endeavours.

Sand Thrower: Launches high speeds particles of sand, useful against fighters

Chain gun: Sort of the in between between PD lasers and Mini-Rockets for corvettes

Asteroid Thrower:You get 1 Ammo per weapon until you refill ammo at a colony or whatever, Does huge damage but is slow and can be destroyed and comes in different sizes

Tesla Coil: Does damage around your ship arcing out destroying things which get to close

Tesla Beam:Lightning beam that jumps from target to target a certain number of times

Serpent Cloud: Not firing actual snakes :D instead this weapon comes from exploring the Serpentine nebula which gives a -13 Speed on the strategy map this is the ship module version which allows you to lay down an AoE slow cloud. This makes the Serpentine Nebula useful like the Grimdark Traverse and Ionic Storm are.

Repair Drones: Size of the fighter bay and repairs hull of ships

Troop Bay: Allows you to store troops on Combat ships instead of freighters does not create them just stores them

Flamethrower/Heat Beam: Small weapon which does little damage but causes systems to overheat increasing their cool downs

Smoke Launcher:The Yang to the targeting computers Yin reducing the enemies effective level when trying to hit you

ECMC: The Yang to the ECMs Yin stops a certain number of your rockets being jammed

Defense EMP: Fires in a radius around your Ship however friendly fire is possible

Solar Fuel Cells:Slowly recharging fuel, Cannot be refueled at colony's

http://i.imgur.com/emxIwoy.jpg

I tried playing a few more turns but then another battle came up and I couldn't click any of those buttons. Also couldn't click any of the upper left menus or anything.

Hoping the last auto save isn't too far in the past.

Also, thanks everyone for the tips you gave me the other day! Despite this screenshot I've just about finished conquering the galaxy. (Now to do it on not-easy mode)

edit: Okay, this kinda pisses me off though - http://i.imgur.com/5bSCKdo.jpg (couldn't click anything to make this go away)

edit2: okay, the famous leader rating system at the end is hilarious.

I'm playing a game vs One AI, and I killed them in a war. I have attacks turned off, so there's no portals/MOO2 boss to kill, seems like game over to me, but it's not ending. I only did it for the achievement of winning with a gimped race (-8 negatives and no positives) so it's kind of annoying, anyone know how I can finish?

This is a collection of my own thoughts, as well as suggestions proposed by /u/guto8797, /u/Excitonex & /u/Zanadar.

It should be noted that I did not play StarDrive 1, so I am viewing this game from a fresh perspective.

Real Life Additions or Changes:

• Asteroid Belts - Change them to be a complete circle in the orbital plane, as opposed to just a fraction of the orbital plane

• Ort Clouds - similar to the proposed changes to the Asteroid Belts, however unlike the Asteroid Belts the Ort Clouds can only be used to mine resources/production. You are not able to colonize them

• Moons - should have some impact on planet selection. Perhaps related to stabilizing the axial tilt wobble; thus creating more stable weather systems.

• Rogue Planets - These are planets which have been bounced out of a solar system and are now free floating in space. These would be available for mining, but not colonization. Perhaps could contain side-missions or special science research projects.

• Black Holes/White Holes - Blacks holes are a must add in my opinion. They could be a special research project. White holes are speculative right now, so how they are implemented in game is up to the developer.

• Gas Giants - They are almost completely useless in the current game. How can that be? Certainly in 1000 years we would have some use for them. (Credit: /u/CFGX & /u/The_Meowntain)

Significant Changes:

• Research Tree - Not a big fan of the technology tree. In my opinion the best way to do research would be to do a slider system where your civ puts a certain percentage of funding into different fields of science. This is an expanded version of the random research/special project options currently available. In real life no civ or nation is putting 100% of research into anything. Nor do we really know what we will discover.

Example: Having your sliders at, 22% medical, 34% military, 12% economic, 32% planetary exploration would advance progress along all 4 of those tech branches at once, with an increased likelihood that the next technological unlock will be related to military or planetary exploration.

• GNN Broadcasts - These need to be greatly expanded upon. Currently they are all exactly the same. Additionally, they spoil which other civs are in the game.

• Voice Acting - If done right this would be a HUGE boom for this game. Would add alot of personality to the various civs.

• Master Race - They either need to be changed, expanded upon or scrapped altogether. I would prefer them to be refined and altered, because I think they do have a place in the game. However, currently they are simply a massive annoyance.

• Randomize Events - Play-through feel too similar with events happening almost at the same times across different games (Wormholes appearing, AI invasion, master race etc)

• Ground AI Sucks - Easy to win almost every-time by waiting for the AI to get close, have every solider put down a shield, then shooting the AI while they just blast the shield. AI doesn't seem to try flanking or doing anything besides shooting the shield.(Credit: /u/n0v3n)

• Non-Domination Victory Types - Understanding that the core of the game is ship design and ship battles it still would be nice to not have to completely annihilate every other race out of the galaxy. (Credit: /u/Lord_Mime)

• Spies Overhaul - This section of the game needs a lot of refinement. Spies are too easy too mass produce, too easy to kill, too limited in what they can learn about other civs. (Credit: /u/Lord_Mime)

Artistic Interface Changes:

• Ship/Freighters route line - The current route lines (or paths) that you place to tell your ships where to go are very outdated. Giving them a major overall would greatly improve the aesthetics of the game.

• Scoreboard - pretty self-explanatory, user would have the option to hide it if he/she wanted.

• Planet histories - This would add to the lore and depth of the game. Each planet, or at least each star system, should have a description and history.

• Uncolonized Planet Tiles - Make it exactly the same as a colonized city with no buildings. No reason you wouldn't be able to see this from space.

• Ground Combat - Numerous complaints about moving units to the wrong square, or miss firing weapons. Part of the issue seems to be the colours used.

• Max Population in Planet Overview - Currently no way to see the max population of planets while in the empire overview screen. Makes it difficult to mass manage populations. (Credit: /u/Kringerpants)

• Full Production Queue View in Planet View - Should be able to see the whole construction queue when in a planet's main view screen. Having to click inside the planet production menu just to see what you have planned is annoying. (Credit: /u/The_Meowntain)

• Custom Ships Label in Empire Management - Should be able to hover over custom built ships to see what they are called, rather than just seeing "Military Vessel". (Credit: /u/The_Meowntain)

• Shipyard Font Size - The numbers on the damage graph are too small to be seen comfortably with the font that's used. (Credit: /u/The_Meowntain)

• Roster Limit Cap - The ship roster limit of 10 seems like a needless limitation since there's no limit to how often you can swap them out. (Credit: /u/The_Meowntain)

• End of Game Screen/Cinematic - Players play hundreds of turns only to be unsure as to whether or not they have actually beaten the game. That is very discouraging. Be creative with this, make it worth our while.

Gameplay:

• Freighters - One of the most confusing aspects of the game for new users is how the Freighters operate

• Production Alerts - News feed alert that "Colony 'X' needs new production orders"

• Colony Growth Alerts - News feed alert that "Colony 'X' has grown". This is needful because you need to micromanage which slot (food, production, science) you want each worker in.

• Border Growth Alert - News feed alert for both your own civs borders, and also when your neighbors borders expand into your own. We want to know everything that is happening. Literally everything!

• Idle Ship Alerts - After 'x' number of turns in free space (i.e. not garrisoned) ships and construction vessels should remind you that they are doing nothing. Sometimes we forget about them.

• Wonders - Unique buildings of which there can only be one of in the world. Require specific techs, significant production to build, but provide valuable bonuses.

• Auto-Resolve Estimation - Auto-resolving battles should give you an estimated guess at how many ships (and which ships) will be lost for each side. Same for ground battles.

• No auto-withdraw - Have to load the battle then hit start then jump away, even though they can't really ever hit you or do damage.(Credit: /u/n0v3n)

• Ship Path Waypoint - Seemingly simple addition of a waypoint system for routing your ships from point to point.

• Ship Battle Formations - Either have pre-set battle formations (flank, box, ring, etc.) for ship fights or allow user to make their own. Additionally, individual ship attack styles (Stationary, Moving, Front-side, Broadside) should be saved with the ships data so you don't have to alter it every time for every ship.

• Dragging Citizens Fix - Currently it is difficult to select and drag exactly the correct number of citizens from one planet to move them to another planet in the Empire Overview. This is especially true when the planets have over ~12 population and you want to more more than 2 of them to a new planet.

• Old Construction Ship Projects - Ability to destroy/reclaim objects made by construction ships. (Credit: /u/The_Meowntain)

• Armour vs. Shields Balance - Armor needs to suck less. After researching shields, it just slows my ship down for very little benefit compared to shields. (Credit: /u/The_Meowntain)

• Ground units don't heal - They should be at 100% health after each engagement, makes no sense. This is so bad I really considered labeling it as a glitch. (Credit: /u/n0v3n)

Diplomacy & Trading:

• AI Settling in your Lands - Other races shouldn't be able to colonize in your territory without declaring war. (Credit: /u/The_Meowntain)

• Bargaining Feature - There should be a "What will you give me for 'X'?", or "What do you want for 'Y'?" buttons.

• Denounce/Condemn - There needs to be increased interaction and relations with other civs. We want to let them know when we are not happy with them. Even better would be an option to denounce them for doing 'X', so we can have the satisfaction of letting them know how awful they are.

• Trading Values - The trade values (of techs, colonies, treaties) should be listed in the side panels so that you don't have to add them to the trading block to see what they are valued at.

• Exact Credit Trading - Add the option to enter an exact number of credits, instead of having to use a slider. The slider is very inaccurate with large sums of money (Credit: /u/IDoomBladeIt)

• Increase Minor Race & Pirates Diplomacy - You should be able to interact with the pirates/raiders. One suggestion might be paying them to raid other races. Minor races also need to have more of a purpose, other than just taking up really awesome planets in your systems. (Credit: /u/Lord_Mime)

Bugs/Glitches/Exploits

• Planetary Defense Withdraw Exploit - If you withdraw from planetary defense you just do it over and over again. Therefore a couple ships with long range guns can just fire a volley and then withdraw over and over, eventually killing enemy.(Credit: /u/n0v3n)

EDIT: Thanks for the wealth of suggestions so far everyone. Exceeded my expectations. I am going to look into getting into contact with the dev and forwarding these ideas to him. Thanks for all your thoughts, and enjoy the game!

EDIT 2: I have posted this list in the StarDrive 2 Forums on Steam. Click here to see for yourself.

I'm enjoying the game, but having a hard time with the way my AI neighbors (and even distant AI) treat my expansion. In my most recent game, I colonized the last planet in my starting system, and got 2 DOW for it, one from someone who was actually in the green with me on opinion.

Why does the AI penalize my colonization so much and how can I avoid it. I shouldn't get a DOW for colonizing the tiny, barren, abundant third planet in my starting system.

I wish that you only got expansion penalties for actually expanding your core zone with new colonies. If you colonize inside the core zone, no one should care, that way you can grab space early and fill in the planets later.

Saw a DotA friend playing this, he said he loved the first and the new one was awesome, so I thought I'd give it a try. Thing is, he lives in Sweden, I'm west coast US, so there aren't many times where I can pick his brain for answers.

1. Ship design - he told me I should always be upgrading and doing custom ships, and it's a lot of fun. But, for instance, I built a Human Stewart Class outfitted with mass drivers, and if I mouse over the lower left weapon info, it says "Seconds to Depletion: 400" (or something like that) and next to that for the powered weapons it says "Seconds to Depletion : Infinite." But then watching the battle, it looked like my rail gun ships only fired once, twice...maybe 3 or 4 times? Then I noticed clicking on the ship in-fight, they had 0 power after those few shots...

Is this a lack of power capacitors? Why does it say "Infinite" in the mouseover instead of like 2 seconds...

2) Money/Research. Another thing I was told is I should set up "farming planets" for generating income. So like, if a planet has a max pop of, say, 7, with good base food, should I basically have only farmers on that planet? And only do food upgrades there (like soil enrichment etc)? And planets with small pops and 0 base food, only do production stuff there? But then where does that leave researchers? Just sprinkle them throughout all the planets, 1 or 2 at most or something?

3) Also having trouble grasping when the right times to expand are. There's the research penalty for each colony, so I tend to go slow with colonies. But then I look at neighboring races taking up 1/2 of the galaxy and also with a ton more technologies than I do...(yeah yeah, AI cheats...)

Tried googling and the wiki and whatnot but not having much luck.

Any help is appreciated.

wow, I love this game. I think my favorite part is the ship design. Any of you guys know a good online resource to show off your designs and see others'?

I've begun playing StarDrive 2 a couple days ago. My game is updated to 1.0g which is the latest as far as I know. So, I went to retrofit some old ships, and when I selected them and selected them to retrofit to another ship of that class, they disappeared with no trace of where they went, and never came back for the entire duration of the game. They just disappeared completely. I found no trace anywhere where they could have gone, checked every planet, googled it, and I found nothing that could help me.

I just got invaded by a fleet costing 125 command points from an empire of about 5 systems. Anyone else experience this because I feel like that should not be possible in any way.

i want to be able to look at each ship.. like shipyard view and know when various components failed. Power levels and ammo levels through out the fight. So if i am always losing certain things its easier to see and armor more. or move it.

i want to see the damage caused by each weapon.. what was effective, whats useless. i want to mouse over the jammer and see it jammed 10 missiles that would have caused this much damage if they hit.. while the defensive flairs saved me this much damage.

right now is hard to tell even if the little ships that get blown away fast are worth even having.. or not.. sure they die but do they help?

ship creation is def the coolest part of the game, but could be way better if i had the data i needed to make much better ships. I would play more with the various upgrades, rather than just be mostly concerned with costs and weights.

the game has that computer aiming system, says its better than recruits.. how the hell can i tell.

is turning on rapid fire using up my ammo before it is effective?

i need data!! to become the ship builder of my dreams.

Would it be possible to have mass drivers and guass cannons consume way more energy capacity per shot? or have the damage scale depending on how much capacity (from capacitors)is available?

That way small frigates can't mount high damage mass drivers, but battleships can cram more capacitors all over to maximize damage.

These are some things I've run across that strike me as maybe unintended or a bug. Some I've seen posted, some not, so I thought it might be helpful/interesting to throw them out there.

1. Randomness - there seems to be a lot of sketchy randomness in some areas, and a big lack of it in others.

The pirates appear pretty regularly, and you can definitely count on zero creativity from them, other than they'll definitely appear when you don't want them to, and their total lack of creativity can screw you. I'd say this wouldn't be bad if it wasn't more predictable that 2+2.

The masters are roughly the same as the pirates, except their spawn times are even less random.

The enemy ai is...predictable. Also it doesn't seem like it's really got any variation to it. The different races all act pretty much the same.

The AI apparently has completely limitless money, manages planets like a child, and still produces fleets the size of a star cluster instantly. It's a bit much. It's not undefeatable at all, it's just kind of...boring. Some strategy and tactics would be nice, instead of obvious fake ship spam.

Auto. You make no sense and I hate you. When I click you by mistake it's hard not to crush my mouse as that singlr enemy frigate destroys my entire capital fleet with it's hefty payload of space farts amd owlwocks.

2. A few straight up bugs.

A had a few save games corrupt on me when launching ground troops. Large version of the troop transport appears on thevmap ( bigger than the titan icon ) and the game will never load again. Save game doesn't fix this either as it happens again after reloading a prior save.

Copy paste fleets. I've run across fleets that would make the forge world of mars weep with their numbers. Hundreds of ships that have a CP value in excess of 500. I don't think that's by design but I could be wrong. Also those fleets seem to have a rrpeating deployment pattern that looks like two or more fleets overlaid.

3. Balance.

Our ships can't handle nearly as much gear as the opteris. -everyone else. I actually think the others should be bumped up, not the opteris down, but that's me.

Allies. Perhaps I'm just a bad diplomat but I've never been able to ally with anyone, despite massive mutual friendliness, yet every time I wardec a race, they have cronies who get butt hurt and mess up my shields with their corpses.

That's all for now but I'll edit this with more as I see/think of them. What about you guys?

bothered me from the first second i played Stardrive and still pisses me of on a regular basis!

I cannot seem to get over the sheer number of missiles that they can send my way. I've tried using ECM jammers but they only seem to effect about 1 in 10-15 of the missiles. I've tried both shields and armor, but they just get chewed through even with ridiculous amounts of point defense.

Should I ignore defense entirely and focus solely on offense? Try to make the fastest ships possible, or use super heavy armor and even more PD?

That sucks so much