Which addons to play/buy ?

[ArchZerberus]

I bought the base game and all addon with possitv reviews, i really like the game so far after playing it the last 2 days strate. But are the other addons worth buy or will they destroy the games flow or balance ? I bought Supremacy (disabed it) and didnt buy Penubra and Awakening.

[CursedPanther]

The Vaulters is definitely a safe option. The rest I'll rank them like this: Supremacy > Awakening > Penumbra.

[Thalioden]

I agree with @CursedPanther. I have all the DLC. My play group does not enjoy Penumbra and we play with it disabled, though I have yet to try it in single player mode. The other three DLC are great.

[Bozobub]

I agree, EXCEPT I cannot agree Awakening — which currently is a hot mess — outrates Penumbra. That said, both DLCs can be...problematic.

Vaulters + all the smaller content packs is pretty much a guaranteed good buy. Supremacy isn't quite as good as Vaulters but is still quite good, nonetheless.

[StarFishon]

Got all dlc's..
Just disabled benumbra.. i dont like the hacking system..

[Bozobub]

I definitely recommend disabling Awakening, as well, at least at first. The Academy Fleet is going to be a real bear for newbies to deal with ^^' .

[StarFishon]

i think awakening is good addtion to the game, the academy faction and roles add more diversity to the game. unlike hacking that ruin your experience.

[CursedPanther]

Originally posted by StarFishon:

i think awakening is good addtion to the game, the academy faction and roles add more diversity to the game. unlike hacking that ruin your experience.

While I also think Awakening isn't as bad as Penumbra, the Academy fleet can be a pretty big problem in PvP with certain resource hoarders almost always being able to secure the 'bid' and the others won't come up with a response fleet of similar power in time.

[StarFishon]

Originally posted by CursedPanther:

Originally posted by StarFishon:

i think awakening is good addtion to the game, the academy faction and roles add more diversity to the game. unlike hacking that ruin your experience.

While I also think Awakening isn't as bad as Penumbra, the Academy fleet can be a pretty big problem in PvP with certain resource hoarders almost always being able to secure the 'bid' and the others won't come up with a response fleet of similar power in time.

i never played ES in MP... maybe its something i should consider.. but in single player i really liked the academy faction.

in general i think ES is a good game but its expansions are not in the same level of the vanilla version.

[CursedPanther]

Originally posted by StarFishon:

Originally posted by CursedPanther:

While I also think Awakening isn't as bad as Penumbra, the Academy fleet can be a pretty big problem in PvP with certain resource hoarders almost always being able to secure the 'bid' and the others won't come up with a response fleet of similar power in time.

i never played ES in MP... maybe its something i should consider.. but in single player i really liked the academy faction.

Yeah, Awakening is probably best played in singleplayer.

[Illaoi Bot]

Penumbra is cool in thoery but it wasnt in the end it was in my opinion the only missfire ampli studio ever did no es 1+2 or legend dlc was that bad a few are soso depending on you but yeah get everything except penumbra

[StarFishon]

I whish they gave the option to remove hacking only, because stealth mechanic is very nice.

[CursedPanther]

Originally posted by StarFishon:

I whish they gave the option to remove hacking only, because stealth mechanic is very nice.

Very true. Though having the DLC released for so long already and no modder seems to be able to(or willing to) isolate the elements, it kinda suggests that the whole package is bounded pretty tight.

[Federico]

I own all the DLCs, my recommendations would be thus:

1) Vaulters: Easy purchase, faction is fun and content is mostly opt-out.

2) Supremacy: Easy purchase, Hissho are fun to play with/against! Content isn't as opt-out, since you would be at a big disadvantage if you were *not* to use Behemoths, but they make for a nice addition to your Defense/Economy/Fleets.

3) Penumbra: Maybe? Playing as the Umbral Choir is very entertaining and the hacking system is pretty cool, though it's a rather slow and methodical aspect to the game which isn't really integrated as well as the other sub-systems.

4) Awakening: Maybe? But probably not... I haven't played with the Nakalim yet (which might change my opinion of this DLC) but the Academy faction is extremely underwhelming. My game group went from "We're really excited about the Academy as a faction!" to "We just take/raze every Academy system and ignore Isyander's requests" in the span of 3 games. For us, it's basically a supped up Pirate faction at this point*. Generally speaking, the role rewards aren't worth it in most scenarios given the investment you need to make, and you can take out Isyander's fleets by mid-game.

* A pirate faction that you can't really kill, and that will infinitely spawn annoying little fleets out of thin air, I should add.

[Bozobub]

Re: your 2nd point, I almost never build Behemoths; by the time they become common, I'm usually just about to win the game (or it's gone so badly I've already lost) ^^' .

I like Penumbra well enough but I almost never use it, except when I want to use the UC as an "endgame crisis". They're just too silly-OP for me to enjoy playing. And I have to agree about Awakening, although the Nakalim are a decent "gimp" faction, if you want a bit more challenge.

[mourioche]

I have all DLC.

Vaulters, Supremacy and Penumbra are good.

But i play with Awakening disabled, because IMO this DLC should be totally reworked.
In best cases, modifications on academy can be ignored... so why activate this DLC ?
And also several game modification like fleet size are not good - IMO -
I prefer to play without the DLC.
But i already tested the Nakalim in a complete game... This new race has a good gameplay and is a good idea for the game... it is too bad that we cannot activate this race without activate the academy modifications dues to this DLC.