Game Impressions Luckily, we were both wrong Time for privileged, two-days old impressions : Presentation Much like many game sin this genre, regardless of platform, graphics are simple and serviceable, never unattractive or off-putting, but never close to spectacular. Race artwork is simply nice, but none of it smashingly, stunningly sexy. Best way to illustrate the graphics is to simply not comment on them any more The UI is similarly simplistic but serviceable. It works well, is reasonably cleverly arranged and practically designed, and apart from some slight slowdowns and sluggishness (such as when dragging workers, or clicking some UI elements), and from the fact that some buttons might be just a bit too small for comfort, makes controlling the game and accessing sub-menus quick and simple. The music is good, but a tad monotonous. Sound effects are kept at a bare minimum, usually only used for ship combat, and selecting UI elements. Auxiliary systems are done well. You can have any amount of save games/games running, and each save game is designated not only with a chosen name, but with both in-game time and real-world date and time. The help system is constantly available, and while it is a bit... rigid and plain, it gets the job done by explaining all mechanics and elements thoroughly. Gameplay This is where all possible concerns regarding presentation are forgotten, forevah and evah. Starbase Orion is a true 4X game, far more advanced than possibly any strategy title for this platform, or at least up there at the rather lonely and desolated top. All the trappings of the genre are present: espionage, smuggler runs, research of new techs, conquest of new star systems, customizing each individual planet in a system with different buildings, work priorities, research and troops, and plenty of ship-to-ship battles (see Mentionables, below). It IS still somehow byte-sized, pocket-friendly, but just barely so. A comparably large step towards computer-class game experiences on our iPhones, but with quite some way to go. Civ IV it ain't. But it leaves Civ Rev for iOS down on the ground, wistfully gazing towards the distant stars. Mentionables Ship combat deserves a special entry. It is a bit more interactive than the common mechanics for this genre (which is click to attack, watch units' STATS do battle without any further player input). First of all, the player designs the mechanics of ships herself. This is a great feature, and brings a tear to the eye to those of us who can never quite get over Alpha Centauri. She places weapon and auxiliary units in empty slots, and saves her designs. Then, before battle takes place, she directs individual ships or his whole fleet to follow different attack priorities, such as weakest enemy, closest enemy, etc, and to maintain a particular distance to opponents. The result is battles that are reminiscent of Gratuitous Space Battles, far less advanced, but with similar interactivity just before combat begins. EDIT: As pointed out by the devs themselves, SO's combat mechanics are even more advanced than this: To my mind, it is a near-perfect hybrid. I love twitch-based combat models (and never play MMOs nor action games with auto-targeting, combat with automatic elements, etc), but in a 4X title, combat reliant on player skill means strategic and tactical choices might be nullified by the quicker mind, eye and hand. In Starbase Orion, the notably stronger fleet will probably always win the day, but at least the loosing player can inflict some extra casualties thanks to clever choices. In the case of evenly matched fleets, the better strategist will probably win most of the time. This gives us a combat system that is still wholly reliant on tactical and strategic choices, but with added interactivity. Turn compression is a strong point, since it is done well in SO. When you click the end turn button, time is accelerated until something actually happens that affects your empire, or until you stop time manually. Since the game is good at judging what events are important enough, the system feels natural, and has, so far, not cost me any lost ground thanks to inattentiveness. Custom races is another feature that promises to expand the appeal of SO. Instead of choosing from the five existing races, all with strengths and occasional drawbacks, you can choose to build a race by picking from different advantages and flaws. The player has 10 initial points to spend on advantageous racial traits, but can gain more if drawbacks are chosen. Down among the earthbound Except for the limited presentational values (plus the presence of a recurring typo, "\n\n", in the racial descriptions, and the annoying fact that the text boxes for racial traits, buildings and techs are often too small to fit all of the text), there are a few issues that could potentially drag us back down to earth again: It is possible that some occasional turns might take a tad too long in single player, with every AI sometimes using up 2-3 seconds to make their choices, but so far, it hasn't bothered me much. Thanks to the above-mentioned turn compression, you tend to space out and wait for something potentially apocalyptic to hit your empire. I do wish the game was even more epic in scope. That we could run games that went on for even longer, in an even larger galaxy, with even more to do, possibly with some scenarios and storylines. This is mostly a concern in single player, as SO's multiplayer games will probably be longer than any other asynchronous game for iOS, but yeah, even in online multiplayer, I would not mind an even greater scope. Thanks to the rather clinical nature of the game, no story or metaplot, but lots of numbers, strategic mechanics, and carefully deliberately planned actions, the game is light on immersion. Storyline scenarious, greater variation in music and sound effects, and more detailed and contextual graphics could probably amount to a lot in this area. In space, potentially lots of people can hear you scream And, yeah, you can enjoy all of this online, asynchronically, at your own leisure, with full iOS 5 Game Center asynchronous support. And this is awesome. Just awesome. If I can't guarantee for certain that Starbase Orion is the most advanced 4X title for iOS (though it certainly cannot be far behind the potentially best), or just the most advanced strategy title in general, I am absolutely convinced there is no asynchronous multiplayer title that can come close enough even to see the exhaust burst as Starbase Orion jumps on ahead by AUs and lightyears. My primary complaint concerning iOS gaming has been, even since my first phone-that-is-a-widescreen-touchscreen-capacitive-mp3-player-that-is-a-breakthrough-internet-communication-device-that-is-all-those-three-in-one, that I am not yet playing a full version of Civ IV with asynchronous support. Among me and my few gaming pals, this has become something of a mantra. As of the release of Starbase Orion, I am officially putting that slogan to rest. Not because Starbase Orion fills the ever-present void in my heart left by not playing Civ IV 24/7 (nothing could, and thus I am doomed to walk this earth in eternal torment), but because Starbase Orion proves that iOS (and Android, and other smartphone platforms) is capable of providing an strategic online experience beyond any desktop-bound platform (enabling, thanks to its portable but always connected qualities, an entirely new paradigm shift of asynchronous online play), and also proves that PC-class depth to our mobile 4X games is but half an AU away... Put yer hyperdrive engines into hyperbole overdrive, and set your controls for the heart of the sun Chimera Games have just released the, by lightyears, AUs and Han parsecs, most in-depth and sophisticated asynchronous multiplayer game yet, and the another powerful title I will now use to shove all those "casual platform" arguments down the throats and minds of any anti-smartphone gamers who might be unlucky enough to get in my way If asynchronous multigaming is indeed the paradigm shift I am eagerly and excitedly prophesying it to be, Starbase Orion is at the cutting, bleeding, by now rather gory edge of that spearhead of progress.
Is this more GalCiv or Moo3? I like a bit of 4x but prefer my games to not be overly complex or micromanage-y.
Downloaded and played first game. Very very much like Master of Orion. Not as in depth, but very enjoyable. No controlled battles tho... The computer calculates em and then just shows you the results. Here's hoping we get strategic land and space battles. And weapons capable of destroying the sun. (Of course that may be in there, I didn't get too far along the tech tree yet...)
Btw, what's the number down in the lower left corner? It looks like a framerate counter... If so, why would the devs leave that in there?
Welp im sold. Getting this as soon as my finger can tap the buy button. And Trev1 I would be up for some multiplayer battles once iOS 5 is out!
How hard would this be to someone who has never played one of these games before. I am strictly a FPS guy on the pc with a lot of casual/board/RPG thrown in my iOS gaming time. I suck at strategy games especially the tower defense and rts varieties, so I am thinking this would be beyond what I can comprehend gaming wise.
I'm not so sure. While there is quite a lot (for an iOS game) to keep in mind, most effects of your choices are illustrated clearly through changes in visible numbers (such as redistributing workers leading to a decrease in income but increase in food), the top bar gives you a very clear picture of what is going right and wrong with your empire, and the in-game help system is rather thorough. Also, unlike TD and RTS games, you have plenty (as in, infinite amounts) of time to consider your actions, and the flexible save game system means you can easily go back and try a different strategy. If you have some deeply hidden desire to get a break from all that first-person shooting (otherwise one of my favourite genres as well) and get into advanced strategy games, Starbase Orion could be a nice warm-up before you head over to your PC and fire up your number-crunching, micromanaging 4X game of choice.
Yeah, I was just noticing the same thing. I thought it was a sign of this being the beta accidently released instead of the finished product but I am known to be wrong soooo. Anyway, the game plays fine and I haven't experienced anything else that would lead me to believe this isn't the finished product. I imagine an update at some point will make these numbers disappear, so no big deal.
My only experience in 4X games is Civilization, but as far as I'm reading, this game rocks! Tomorrow I'm going to update to iOS5 and buying this game. I will post my impressions tomorrow!
Stargate Orion Strategies thread Once people get into this game, they'll probably want to swap tips, game-play suggestions and strategies. New thread for discussing Starbase Orion strategies: http://forums.toucharcade.com/showthread.php?p=1951377#post1951377 There's also a link at the very start of this thread.
Thanks Ayjona for sending the PM pointing me to this thread. As you can imagine, been busy! There are actually several different "modes" of iCloud. The first which you describe is the single-device back-up which you can turn on of any app. I believe this will go away when you manually delete an app. Thankfully, SO does not use this What SO uses is the harder-to-support portion of iCloud, were we manually sync our games to you cloud. This enabled them to be instantly available on all of your devices, without your needing to worry about it. I don't believe these get deleted unless you delete them manually, but I am not 100% positive on this. Yes; for iOS 5 users only. SO will run on iOS 4, but without multiplayer or iCloud support. Confirm, I detest those. In the words of SpaceSector.com 's editor, SO is "Master of Orion 2 with Better Multiplayer for iOS". I always thought that summed it up nicely. I'd like to make sure the automated game matching gets a mention here, because Apple did a fantastic job here. If you want to play a multiplayer game, simply go and play one of the standard games (1v1, 2v2, FFA). A game will be created RIGHT THEN and you will be able to play your first turn. Right then. No waiting. Now, once you've played and submitted your first turn, the next person to come along and play that standard game type will be automatically matched to your game. They'll play their turn, and off you go. That's right, there is no need for anyone to be online at the same time you are to get a game started. Yeah, we'll go with that! Its there to show you how fantastically optimized the game is when running on an iPad2. Its only available for a limited time though, it'll go away with v1.0.3. There is also a freshly minted official forums here, if you'd like to put your thoughts in a central place: http://www.chimerasw.com/starbaseorion/forums/
Just bought this to check out the overall aesthetics, but I have to beat Siegecraft before I fully commit to playing. Overall I'm looking forward to investing my time into this game. Also, I can't wait for tomorrow, so that I can update to iOS 5 and get some of that integrated asynchronous action! To Trev1, I'll be on tomorrow after update, hopefully! To anybody else, my gamecenter name is GoofyJmaster.
Overall I think Ayjona did an excellent summation. I wanted to add a few things about space combat that are not immediately apparent. Space combat is advanced a set number of combat turns each galactic turn. Larger space battles will roll over multiple galactic turns. This has a couple of immediate consequences: 1) You can adjust your ship battle orders every galactic turn. For larger battles, this means you can change tactics maybe 2-3 times before it is all said and done, if you choose to do so. 2) You can stream reinforcements into a battle that lasts multiple turns. Got a small fleet you need to distract a larger enemy force long enough for your main fleet to get there? Hop in and go evasive. 3) Space battles in SO are not limited to only two empires. If you have an ally (in the case of a standard 2v2 match), or additional enemies (in the case of a FFA) they could swoop drastically change the flow of the battle
Buying this on a whim, hoping it will be similar to civilization... Hopefully it will get me addicted like Civ did, but we'll see... Has rave reviews, so its got to be great.
