Other Projects > Play With Your Buddies
Let's Play Solar War
Hanzoku:
Hi everyone, I'm Hanzoku and this is my first Let's Play, so it'll probably be a little rough. This probably won't be the most interactive Let's Play out there, as I'm presenting this more in a tutorial-like format. However, I'm happy to field any questions or comments that come my way!
So, what is Solar War? Currently, it's an alpha of a 2-D space strategy game that plays out in the Solar System between the humans and an invading alien race. The gameplay is mostly at the strategic level as you send your fleets from planet to planet, defending your territory and retaking planets and moons that the alien invaders currently infest.
Combat is handled in a top-down 2-D grid, and consists of one side moving its ships and then the other moving theirs. The Defender is given the advantage of moving first, and this can be a very big advantage in the early stages of the game.
How'd I hear about this game? Through Bay 12, in fact. Right now, the game is very obscure - it's not on the first page when searching Google for 'Solar War game' - you get a pile of online games of a similar name, and videos for Sins of a Solar Empire.
Useful links:
http://www.indiedb.com/games/solar-war
http://solarwar.net/
Bay 12 Forums - Solar War: X-Com in Space
Now, a lot of people have called this X-Com in space, and others are calling it Aurora light. I tend to agree more with the later, as X-Com to me was more about the management of your soldiers in the field and dealing with ambushes, cover and ethereals psi-controlling the guy holding the blaster bomb launcher in the middle of the squad...
What it more properly is is something like Aurora-Light with an X-Com flavored story. Given I like both these games, this only sounds like a good thing. So with that said, let's get started with the game!
Spoiler: Getting Started (click to show/hide)Getting Started
This is the starts screen. Fairly basic, but for an alpha it's well done - I poked around a bit and couldn't break anything, which is something of an achievement at this stage in a software's life. :)
The game comes in two flavors - a full campaign where you take the role as the commander of Earth's space fleet against the alien incursion, and specific scenarios where you are tasked to complete a goal. As of Version 0.29, there's only one scenario, which according to the release notes, it's not complete yet. It's worth taking a look at after you've played the campaign a bit to get some ideas of how to build some of the larger ships.
The next option is simple - Load Game, it does what it says on the box. Exit game does the same thing. Happily, there's no 'are you sure?' dialogue - the makers must have figured you did in fact want to quit when you pressed this button.
Options is the last button to be discussed - the menu that pops up gives you the option to Load game again (it's the same menu that appears everywhere else in the game, thus the redundency), save (not allowed), and change your graphics and gameplay options.
It's a fairly complete set of options. I like playing the game at 1024x768, and the 'default' grimdark theme fits the whole 'outer space and aliens attacking' thing, so I've left those alone. I'm not sure if the fullscreen options go any higher then 1280x1024 - that's the highest thie monitor I'm playing this one can go to, not having a 24" widescreen to see if it wants to do 1900x1200.
The gameplay options are mostly about convenience -the settings on the left are how quickly the game moves friendly, AI-controlled ships (more on this later), hostile ships, missiles, or handles auto-resolve.
The options on the right are about how the game reports events to you - I like the popups as they're a good reminder of what's going on, while I'm changing Friendly ships to 'Instant', Hostile ships to 'Fast' and missiles to 'Fast'. I'm also setting Autoresolve to 'Instant' - if I'm pressing that button and letting the AI handle everything, I just want the results.
Everything looked at, let's start with the campaign!
Into the Void
Clicking the New game (Campaign) button brings you to this next screen, where you get to choose the name of the protagonist, and what difficulty you want to play at.
Difficulty in this game can be set in a number of places, depending on the choices you make. This first choice (I think) handles how the computer runs the aliens - the higher the setting, the more aggressive and more numerous they'll be.
The three options are:
Beginner: This is the difficulty level that you should use for your first one or two games. The game will give you a little bit of slack to learn the ropes. Don't worry, you will still have plenty to worry about. How... comforting.
Veteran: This is the most b alanced level that the game is designed around. However, for a first time player it will be very hard to learn the basics and just survive at the same time. I've chosen this for my Let's Play, as it's my second time through.
Elite: This level is only for true experts who know the game inside and out and still want it to be hard. It will be tough. It will be unfair all of the time. But you don't care about such warnings, do you? Actually, I do, which is why I won't be jumping straight into Elite, thank you very much.
As stated in the italicized comments, This run will be done on Veteran.
So, protagonist named, difficulty set, we hit OK and get sent into the first (and only,in the demo) scripted combat sequence.
Welcome to the main strategic screen. You'll be seeing a lot of it in this game. I'll give a better runthrough when we have full control of it. At the moment, we're somewhat... preoccupied by the alien invasion fleet that just transited into Earth's orbit.
Currently, there's not a lot of backstory in the game. Maybe in a later release more information about what's going on will be presented, but at the moment, what's given is this:
You are the leader of a conspiracy that has known of the existence of aliens and has been preparing for their arrival. In secret, your group has built a number of small one-man fighters and three-man corvettes to launch the desperate defense of Earth against the aliens you knew were coming. As the aliens breach orbit, you order an information dump to the media explaining what's about to happen, and then step up to command the defense of Earth.
Any time you start a fight, you are given this sort of screen. Without a warp-drive equipped ship, you have only one choice - to stand and fight for Mother Earth. You were planning to do that anyway, right?
The other option does a quicksave in case the battle goes horribly and you want to make another attempt at it.
In the first fight, we have four corvettes and three fighters against two bombers (corvettes, actually) and two scouts (fighters.) This sort of lop-sided battle should go well for humanity.
Hanzoku:
Spoiler: Where a Pile of Technology is Discussed (click to show/hide)Where A Pile of Technology is Discussed
Welcome to the battle screen, the other half of the game. When you first open it, you're given a series of tutorials on how to play. Since that's what I'm busy doing, these will be disabled. I'll not be upstaged by the program! (Seriously though, read them if you're playing yourself.)
On the left are the alien invaders, highlighted in red. On the right, a swarm of fighters and corvettes have just escaped Earth's atmosphere and are standing ready to defend it. You notice the rings around each ship? The orange upper half is the ship's armor, which helps protect its structure (HP) and components from being destroyed. Armor isn't 100% effective, but it does go a long way to mitigating the damage taken.
The red half-ring under the ship represents the ship's structure. No structure and the ship breaks apart, generally killing everyone involved. The other leading cause of death is the ship's reactor being breached, which is what normally destroys the larger ships.
There's a third ring we'll see in the third battle, which is a blue ring that goes around the other two. This represents the ship's shields, another layer of interference between enemy weapons and sudden exposure to the void. Sadly, in the demo humanity never figures out how to build one. So it's just hull armor for us!
After clicking one of our ships and hovering the mouse over an enemy, most of the rest of the boxes fill in.
First, the red area represents the movement range of your ship. Depending on its engine size and type, it can move various distances. Turning also takes movement points, which is why the movement range is somewhat oval instead of being a perfect circle. Later ships have much smaller movement ranges and their range is more elongaged as they have trouble turning quite as fast.
The top-right box is information about the selected ship. In this case, it's a Gun Corvette, one of the initial designs given to you. You also have Auxillery Fighters (small, useless ships), Command Corvettes (larger, mostly useless ships) and Missile Corvettes (required. Spam them, even.)
The next box is information about the target under the mouse - name, shield status, armor and structure status, if it's generating more heat then it can shed (leading to shutdown if it gets too bad, leaving the ship crippled and defenseless), and scan cost.
What is scan cost? Initially around Earth, the ground-based systems allow you to scan anything you want, thus the scan budget of 25k. Clicking the Scan button and then clicking one of the aliens let's you see everything about the ship - who's in charge, how good they are in general at their jobs, how much crew there is, what their quality is, mass, power usage, heat rate, morale, and what equipment is used.
Mousing over the equipment provides information about what it is and what it does - mass, energy needs, heat dispersion needs, and so on.
This ship uses the following:
--- Code: ---Xenoplating - Armor
HP 24, Mass: 8.0 tons (this is adjustable)
Power consumed: 0.0 MW
Heat generated: 0.0 MMBTU/h
350% effective as the same amount of steel.
--- End code ---
--- Code: ---Structure - Structure
HP 40, Mass 80 (this isn't adjustable.)
Power consumed: 0.0 MW
Heat dissipated: 52 MMBTU/h (due to a modification to the structure)
Modifications:
Thermal venting (Reduces heat buildup, (Structure reduced by 50%. All modifications to structure cause some reduction, making many of them useless.)
Represents assorted internal elements and systems.
--- End code ---
--- Code: ---Phase ray small
Weapon - F 60 degree arc
HP 1.2, Mass 12.0 tons
Power consumed: 4.8 MW
Heat generated: 19.2 MMBTU/h
Point-blank damage: 117.3
Base accuracy: -15.0%
Damage falloff at range: Medium (**)
Accuracy at range: Excellent (****)
Can not be stopped by shields
Shots per turn: 1
--- End code ---
--- Code: ---Antimatter thrusters - Drive
HP 2.60, Mass 26.0 tons
Power c onsumed: 0.7 MW
Heat generated: 2.8 MMBTU/h
--- End code ---
--- Code: ---Antimatter-A Reactor
HP: 8.00 (per), Mass 80.0 tons
Power generated: 8.0 MW
Heat generated: 48.0 MMBTU/h
--- End code ---
--- Code: ---External radiator panels - Radiator
HP 18.6, Mass 0.0 tons
Power consumed: 0.0 MW
Heat dissipated: 186 MMBTU/h
--- End code ---
Luckily, it's not designed very well. For one, it has no bombs or missiles of any form. Second, it's got too many reactors. It can safely remove one and save 80 tons of mass while still generating more the enough power. This and the available space could be put towards its engines (faster) or armor and structure (tougher.)
Oh well, lucky us!
Let's take a look at one of the scouts:
As you can see, it's a third of the size of the bombers, and has about a quarter of the armor and structure. It's used all the mass available to it just to carry one small weapon.
Truly, the poor things are doomed. After the disaster that is the coming battle, the aliens never again use either scouts or bombers.
You can also scan your ships for free, which means another information dump of human technology!
--- Code: ---Steel plating - Armor
2.00 HP, Mass 1.00 tons
Power consumed: 0.0 MW
Heat generated: 0.0 MMBTU/h
100% as damage resistant as steel
--- End code ---
--- Code: ---Chemical Laser - Weapon
HP 0.40, Mass 4.0 tons
Power consumed: 0.1 MW
Heat generated: 0.7 MMBTU/h
Point-blank damage 9.3
Base Accuracy: 0.0%
Damage falloff at range: Medium (**)
Accuracy at range: Excellent (****)
Can not be stopped by shields
Shots per turn: 1
Ammo capacity: 10
--- End code ---
--- Code: ---30mm autocannon - Weapon
HP 0.20, Mass: 2.0 tons
Power consumed: 0.0 MW
Heat generated: 0.0 MMBTU/h
Point-blank damage: 1.8
Base accuracy: 0.0%
Damage falloff at range: None (****)
Accuracy at range: Very low (*)
Base chance to be stopped by shields: 55%
Shots per turn: 1
Ammo capacity: 30
--- End code ---
--- Code: ---Chemical thrusters - Engine
HP: 0.80, Mass: 8.0 tons
Power consumed: 0.0 MW
Heat generated: 1.6 MMBTU/h
--- End code ---
--- Code: ---Fuel cell power unit - Reactor
HP 1.20, Mass: 12.0 tons
Power generated: 0.2 MW
Heat generated: 3.6 MMBTU/h
--- End code ---
--- Code: ---Titanium Plate - Armor
HP 60, Mass: 30 tons
Power consumed: 0.0 MW
Heat generated: 0.0 MMBTU/h
150% as damage resistant as steel
--- End code ---
--- Code: ---Fusion plasma blaster
HP 0.80, Mass: 8.0 tons
Power consumed: 0.8 MW
Heat generated: 3.2 MMBTU/h
Point-blank damage: 45.9
Base accuracy: 12.5%
Damage falloff at range: Severe (*)
Accuracy at range: Low (**)
Base chance to be stopped by shields: 15.0%
Shots per turn: 1
--- End code ---
--- Code: ---Fusion thrusters - Engine
HP 4.50, Mass: 45 tons
Power consumed: 0.9 MW
Heat generated: 3.2 MMBTU/h
--- End code ---
--- Code: ---Fusion-A reactor
HP 5.00, Mass 50.0 tons
Power generated: 2.5 MW
Heat generated: 30 MMBTU/h
--- End code ---
--- Code: ---Missile launcher - Weapon
HP 4.00, Mass: 70.0 tons
Power consumed: 0.8 MW
Heat generated: 2.4 MMBTU/h
Modifications: nuclear warhead
Missile speed 3.0
Missile evasion chance: 80.0%
Shots per turn: 1
--- End code ---
--- Code: ---Multilayer plating
HP 60.0, Mass 30.0 tons
Power consumed: 0.0 MW
Heat generated: 0.0 MMBTU/h
190% as damage resistant as steel
--- End code ---
--- Code: ---Passive sensors
HP 5.20, Mass: 52 tons
Power consumed: 1.0 MW
Heat generated: 3.1 MMBTU/h
--- End code ---
Alright, now now all the tech is laid out, here's my viewpoints on the vessels.
Auxillery Fighter:
Terrible. Absolutely terrible. They have a maximum mass of 30 tons versus the alien 130t fighters (Which we never see again after this battle), are equipped with the worst armor, and are slower than the gun corvettes without carrying particularly effective weapons. As a player, you should never build one as the game currently stands.
Gun Corvette:
Necessary and fairly fun. They're fast enough to get into range, where the twin plasma blasters pump out some nice damage. They go toe to toe well with the alien ships we're currently facing but can't handle cruisers, where they'll take horrific casualties.
Missile Corvette:
A necessity in the early game, the missiles these vessels pump out are the only thing that can stop cruisers until you develop better tech and larger ships. The design is equipped with a short-range backup weapon, which I don't understand - my own designs will make use of longer-range weapons so they can snipe from the back for (minimal) damge.
Command Corvette:
Not needed at this stage, it fills the role of 'fleet scout'. Each ship can equip only one sensor - whether a fire control computer or a passive sensor. Once you're not fighting over Earth, you'll need one or more scouts in the fleet to be able to do any scans of hostile ships.
Now, I've been talking a lot about the ships, what about tactics? Well, if you dig out the information on the human weapons above, they all share similiar problems - no accuracy at long ranges, and in the case of the plasma blasters, no damage at long ranges either. So right now, human tactics involve rushing the aliens with fighters and gun corvettes while the missile corvettes hang back and lob missiles. One thing to note is missiles won't redirect in combat (at least not at this tech level), so fire missiles and then focus your attack on another enemy if you want your missiles to be at all effective.
After the first round, things aren't going great - both forces rushed each other, but the aliens knocked out one of our fighters while we've only damaged one of theirs. You can see the corvette's missile in flight, heading for the lower of the two alien bombers.
I popped open the messages window to display what happened - our nearest gun corvette and another fighter perished, but took the two alien scouts with them, along with damaging one of their bombers.
The next turn went better - they missed their shots on my remaining gun corvette, and we destroyed the damaged bomber. With one bomber left, all fire is focused on it at point-blank range, and it disintegrates in a satisfying explosion.
After a battle is won (or lost), the results are given in this window. Most officers die with their ship, but sometimes one or more can be rescued. In this case, there were no survivors from the corvette or two fighters that were destroyed, but there is a satisfying list of dead alien officers.
With the northern attack group defeated, North America and Europe are safe, however the second alien task force is heading for orbit over India and China, and also needs to be stopped. This fight is much the same as the last one, pitting 3 human corvettes and 5 fighters versus 2 alien corvettes and 3 fighters.
This battle went far better, a combination of aliens focusing their fire on a distant fighter instead of the gun corvette in their faces, the pilot's remarkable dodging as everything opened up on him, and a general increase in accuracy, as many ships made nearly impossible long-ranged shots with autocannon and blaster to blast apart the alien scouts before the lead gun corvette dropped both alien corvettes in the same round.
However, the alien command ship has been hanging back with a few escorts, and we have to take it out. This will be a tough one...
Hanzoku:
Spoiler: Final Battle and the Power Politics that Follow (click to show/hide)
We're facing off against four fighters and a light cruiser. If you want a comparison, fighters and corvettes are Tier 1 and 2 ships. Light cruisers are Tier 5. This... is a bit lopsided in the alien's favor.
Why... are my ships so much smaller. Wait, zooming in... panning left...
good god, that's massive. Giving it a quick scan...
Well... the good news is that it's only 100x as big as my corvettes, no worries, right?
New (alien) tech observed:
--- Code: ---Gravity Shield - Shield
HP 60.0, Mass: 600.0 tons
Power consumed: 90.0 MW
Heat generated: 225.0 MMBTU/h
Maximum shield chance: 95.0%
Depletion per shot: 8.0%
Recharge per turn: 20.0%
--- End code ---
--- Code: ---Antimatter-B Reactor
HP 100, Mass: 1000.0 tons
Power generated: 125.0 MW
Heat generated: 750.0 MMBTU/h
--- End code ---
--- Code: ---Phase ray medium - Weapon
HP 7.40, Mass: 74.0 tons
Power consumed: 29.6 MW
Heat generated: 118.4 MMBTU/h
Point-blank damage: 910.9
Base accuracy: -15.0%
Damage falloff at range: Medium (**)
Accuracy at range: Excellent (****)
Can not be stopped by shields
Shots per turn: 1
--- End code ---
--- Code: ---Warp array (CL)
HP: 1500, Mass: 15000.0 tons
Power consumed: 0.0 MW (When online or in warmup)
Heat generated: 0.0 MMBTU/h
--- End code ---
Analysis of the Alien Light Cruiser:
Despite its size and shield, it's really not that dangerous (still plenty dangerous to corvettes, granted.) - for one, it's actual space for equipment is a tight 5,000 tons due to the size of the mandidtory warp array, and down to 3,000 tons due to the size of the (also mandatory) reactors. It could also carry more weapons then the single medium phase ray. Now, if you look at the damage of that thing, it means any connecting shot will vaporize one of the corvettes, so it really comes down to luck and planning.
And by planning, I mean lobbing all the nukes at this thing.
Mission plan:
The gun corvettes and command corvette will move forward, take out the scouts, and run for the hills. The three missile corvettes will lob their payloads (three missiles each) at the cruiser and do the same. Hopefully extreme range will prevent it from tagging them.
The first round went well - most of our shots missed, but one of their scouts is dead in the water with weapon and engine destroyed. They're aware after the first two battles about the danger of missiles (despite not having seen one connect, yet), and everything was focused on one of the missile corvettes, though luckily all shots missed.
The aliens shifted their focus and took on the gun corvettes after the lead one blew away one of the undamaged scouts. He suffered the price for his boldness, but that leaves half the aliens scouts out of the fight while the missile corvettes continue pumping out missiles at the light cruiser.
Success! All alien craft have been destroyed, and the gun corvettes dodged that big phase ray. This means that Operation Get the Hell Out of Dodge is in full effect, as the gun corvettes return to Earth and we wait with crossed fingers as the missile volley approaches its target.
OK, I'm going to admit... I've never had that happen before, despite repeating the starting fight a number of times. It ate all 9 missiles to the face and is still coming. At this point, the only remaining tactic is a suicide charge by all remaining corvettes. It's do or die, men.
In the end, it was almost anti-climatic. It was like a pack of wolves hounding a bear; fierce swings of the phase ray slashing through space, and the nimble corvettes dodging away from it, turning again and again to hammer plasma blasts, lasers and cannon rounds into the alien vessel, finding the ragged gaps ripped in its armor. The alien shields proved little use, emitters damaged by the power of the near-hull contact nuclear blasts and the destruction of the shield generator itself was a herald of the end. Not one of the corvettes suffered damage in the final charge, leaving the casualties of the battle one corvette stacked against the alien mother ship and its four fighter escort.
At this point, we've completed the combat tutorial portion of the game, and now we get to choose how hard we want to make it in terms of resources. The next portion involves making diplomatic contact with the nations of Earth and choosing how our organization relates to them. These can be handled automatically, ending with the easiest option, or you can choose one of the paths yourself.
Right now, these options really only control what in resources you'll gain from Earth, but the diplomacy model is very bare bones in this build.
Offer <<country>> Unilateral Control: the majority of your funding comes from one country, and you can have several minor partners that provide personnel and officers. I imagine that when this is fleshed out, you'll receive demands from your controlling country that you must fulfill, or else. Everyone else in the world will dislike you (and your sponsor) intensely, since no one like the thought of one country having a worlds-ending space fleet. Only members of the UN Security Council can be offered this option - sorry, you're not allowed to make Bangladesh or Canada the world's foremost superpower. :(
Supervisory Council: You can invite countries to sit on a board of members that have oversight over your organization, or participate as minor members in the treaty. This is the easiest option, and most nations will sign on as a council member or sponsor. This will probably act like the council in the new X-Com: your sponsors provide most of your funding, but you have to undertake certain missions for one country or another.
Assert your independence: Some nations take this well, some nations will not. You'll generally end up with more resources then unilateral control, less then council. I imagine that it's more political, as you try to sign treaties with nations who refused the first time around and deal with demands from your allies and enemies.
One more thing in this build - you only get to ask once. If a nation refuses to sign the treaty, they never will. There's also the option to declare a nation your enemy, but it's greyed out in all cases saying that relations have not degraded that far.
Here's a quick list of results from trying each of the three:
Offer United States Unilateral Control...
well, that was unexpected. The text says everyone is angry, but they all signed on anyway.
Supervisory Council
Once again, surprised. I expected a few people to say no to being only a minor partner, however I was doing that wrong. You can have up to 7 members on the council itself, and they provide more resources and people to your organization then associated members. So, trying again with 7...
Once again, everyone on board. As you can see, the extra four council members ends up chipping in 100 more industial budget, and hopefully they'll spend so much time bickering that we can do our job with minimal interference.
Go it Alone
Finally! France, Germany and Russia got pissed and told my organization to stuff it, they'll defend themselves. I'm not sure how they plan to do this, but they do get to be part of a great plan: as they live on Earth and I don't want it destroyed, they'll be safe without having to provide any people or industrial wealth.
Of course, they won't get any shiny space toys when we're done with them either, after which Spain, Italy, the UK and the rest of the EU will probably clean house a bit...
So, as a quick overview:
Leading Nation: 447.19 Industry Base, 9.8 recruits per day with 20% recruiting focus
Council: 515.86 Industry Base, 26.7 recruits per day with 20% recruiting focus
Independent: 341.95 Industry Base, 12 recruits per day with 20% recruiting focus
The short summary from this is if you get most of the nations onboard with your control model, the Council is far and away the best choice, leading in Industry Base and recruits per day. Independence is poorest, but gives more recruits then having a single controlling nation, which falls in the middle on income, and last for recruits.
Now, once diplomacy is more expanded, there may be more ups and downs for each model, but until then...
Now, the question to you, the readers: What model should we pursue?
Frumple:
Independent sounds most amusing, I'd say (and, coincidentally, is one of the options I didn't take when I tried the demo :P), so that gets my vote. Dunno how much of a difference it'll make in the long run, though as long as you get a starbase up and running ASAP you'll probably have plenty of time to find out, heh.
Neonivek:
What terrible thing happened in 2016 that caused the USA to depopulate?
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