Stardrive 1 + Blackbox + Combined Arms vs Stardrive 2 + Sector Zero

[roland.johansen]

I presently own Stardrive 2 plus its expansion pack. A game with a lot of unrealised potential that will likely never be fullfilled as Zero stopped supporting this game a while ago. Stardrive 2 now suffers due to the many bugs and some unpolished game features. Stardrive 1 suffers from similar issues. It was, as I understand, supported even less and even less polished. However, it now benefits from a talented group of mod-markers who can change the core of the game (Blackbox) and mod-makers who can polish the game and game balance (Combined Arms). That's an ideal combination of mod-makers.

I presently don't own Stardrive 1 and am considering to buy it during the discount period. Not because its such a great and polished game, but because it has potential and is benefitting from great mod-makers. The core of Stardrive 2 was never made available to modders and thus its core will remain rotten. (I've changed the core a very little myself but can't really fix the bugs.)

I'm more of a fan of turnbased gameplay, however I have played quite some real-time games and Stardrive 1 is pausable real-time, so I guess I can play it as slow/relaxed or fast as I want to.

In Stardrive 2 I liked:
- Designing ships
- Pausable realtime combat
- Variety in weaponry and defensive systems
- MooII type planet build-up
- Free movement in the galaxy

I disliked
- All kinds of weird bugs with strange calculation errors, displayed features not working, ships not moving after end of turn, etc.
- Enemy spies which could be constructed at arbitrarily fast speed (depending on resources invested) and only be killed 1 per turn, meaning that all your technologies would get stolen, at some point in the game even quickly stolen. (I stopped that one myself in the code in an ugly manner.)
- Unbalanced weapon and defence systems
- If a battle occurs (or some other types of events occur) during a turn change, then no start of turn popups are shown.
- Not very challenging AI

Could any of you make an educated guess if I would like Stardrive 1 + Blackbox + Combined Arms? Especially those who own both Stardrive 1 and 2.

Thanks in advance.

[Crunchy]

personally i think any system that isnt done like stardive/distant worlds is inferior.
If you havent tried distant worlds it might be worth it. Its RTS though.
but... in stardrive 1 we had a guy that had an idea for a concept we call... Pause on Notification.
I really like it.
It allows a weird mesh of turn based and real time. I guess it could be called Event Based.
something happens in game a notification comes and the game auto pauses.
It creates these natural "turns" based on the game state.
Keep in mind that real time 4x does not play like standard RTS. its a lot slower on default speeds. It generally does not give that click fest fleeling. RTS games seem to thrive on click effciency but 4x RTS generally just dont do that. It is more than just being able to pause.
The default speed of the game is just very slow. As you get more comfortable the speed can be increased so that rts pressure can be controlled.

personally i would never tell someone to get SD1 because of blackbox or CA. Its just not fair. But... If you can find sd1 on sale for 5 bucks or so... I think the base game is totally worth that and if you do then yes. Serisouly use blackbox.

we have a few more bugs to squash and then i think we will create a new RC and i think... very close to an official release.

[Fizban1978]

Hello there,
I bought SD1 when it was still in beta development, with full price and i dont regret it. Even with its unfinished state i had more that 200 gaming hours on that game.
I also bought SD2 and was disappointed since in my opinion it didnt have the magic that SD1 had.

I am not objective anymore, since i am one of the programmers working on the source code and also on the Combined Arms mod.
SD1 is looking better than even when Black Box is installed over it. For 5 bucks on sale now it seems like a bargain to me. Dont forget you can get a refund from Steam if you request it 14 days from your purchase and if you played 2 hours or less. At least it worked for me for several games.

Again, i am not objective (but note that we dont get any profits from this game, We do this because we love the game and want to make it better). Maybe i would be more careful if it was 30 bucks. But for 5 bucks and a refund option, it worth a try.
You can always reach us on Discord and ask for help, if you encounter issues.
Good Luck.

[roland.johansen]

I would like to thanks you both for the feedback. I've been watching a let's play showcasing the blackbox mod which was enlightening. This game is more different from stardrive 2 than I had expected. I noticed that the building choices and thus the choices between developing the economy or the military seemed fairly limited in the base game. Although next to the military expansions, the combined arms mod should also have expanded on that. I've not yet checked it out yet myself.

I've purchased the game although I'm not quite sure whether it's really the perfect game for me. It was only 5 euro's. I however don't really believe in checking out the game in two hours and then maybe returning it. Testing a 4X game in two hours is in my opinion not feasible. However, my favourite games are conceptually great games with even better mods. So, whether you like it or not, I believe in you mod-creators. Going to play a bit now.