Avorion

[Cralis]

I hate to admit another game has caught my attention, especially while I've got so much I'm working on... but has anyone tried the game Avorion?

http://store.steampowered.com/app/445220/

There's just something about being able to dynamically build your own starship... unlike StarMade I don't have to use a million blocks (you can scale them) and unlike Space Engineers you are effectively the ship, changing the focus onto the ship and not the person piloting it. It's still in Early Access and has a ways to go, but it seems very promising.

Has anyone else tried it? What did you think?

[PracticalM]

Too busy paying Stellaris. Even though there are flaw, as the game gets patches and fixes, it has been lots of fun. And forcing races to all use hyperplanes gives it a starfire feel.

[Cralis]

Too busy paying Stellaris. Even though there are flaw, as the game gets patches and fixes, it has been lots of fun. And forcing races to all use hyperplanes gives it a starfire feel.

Stellaris is pretty fun. Every game has flaws, but the only one I really couldn't live with is that the wormhole and warp drive equipped races don't fight anywhere except at your homeworld. It really destroys the concept of defense in depth and there is little point to keeping a fleet anywhere but at your homeworld.

But forcing hyperlanes does fix all of that. Too bad the AI isn't very good at using them...

BUT Avorion is a completely different kind of game, so I play both. I'm currently working on mapping a KON FG to build into the game.

[Whitecold]

Too busy paying Stellaris. Even though there are flaw, as the game gets patches and fixes, it has been lots of fun. And forcing races to all use hyperplanes gives it a starfire feel.

Stellaris is pretty fun. Every game has flaws, but the only one I really couldn't live with is that the wormhole and warp drive equipped races don't fight anywhere except at your homeworld. It really destroys the concept of defense in depth and there is little point to keeping a fleet anywhere but at your homeworld.

But forcing hyperlanes does fix all of that. Too bad the AI isn't very good at using them...

BUT Avorion is a completely different kind of game, so I play both. I'm currently working on mapping a KON FG to build into the game.

Stellaris is wonderful on the eXplore and eXpand part. Combat is really one of the weaker points. I personally boosted defensive station HP and Shields, as well as decrease their exclusion radius, to make together with all hyperlanes fixed defenses somewhat viable.
Still, your ships aborting a jump at 98% to turn around and engage a superior enemy is incredibly annoying and makes raiding essentially impossible.
Still, I love the game.

[Xveers]

Stellaris is wonderful on the eXplore and eXpand part. Combat is really one of the weaker points. I personally boosted defensive station HP and Shields, as well as decrease their exclusion radius, to make together with all hyperlanes fixed defenses somewhat viable.
Still, your ships aborting a jump at 98% to turn around and engage a superior enemy is incredibly annoying and makes raiding essentially impossible.
Still, I love the game.

To a large degree this is understandable if you've played Paradox's other games. They're called grand strategy for a reason IE you rarely concern yourself with how the actual battles play out. While this works even for WW2 battles (where it's a matter of positioning and numbers as much as it is tech), Stellaris gives you far more control over your force composition, and so it really feels frustrating that you don't get more control.

The way I've found it best dealt with is using a couple mods, specifically the one that adds more ships (gives you frigates, light cruisers, battlecruisers, carriers and dreadnoughts) and a few that add additional combat computer settings. The former lets you better build tailor made fleet units, the latter lets you very precisely define how you want your ships to fight (specifically, the ones that let you tell specific classes to hold the range at certian distances, always try to keep the range as open as possible, and to hold formation with the rest of the fleet are all VERY useful. That lets you dictate long range bombardment ships and dedicated PD escorts as you see fit).

[Cralis]

To bring this back to Avorion, one interesting aspect is that you have your ship (like Eve, really), but you can also hire Captains to crew additional ships to build into a squadron that you command.