Blind Mind Studios is developing a sequel to Star Ruler, that we already knew. However, hardly anything was known about their new real-time space 4X strategy game. Well, that was up until now because the devs have just hosted a livestream showing off Star Ruler 2 Alpha footage (1h 46m long).
Here’s some nice pointers for you. Starmap interaction and colonization (at 1:15m and 1:30:20h); nice FTL travel effect (5:50m); construction (17:38m); diplomacy (21:27m, 35:55m); space combat (24:09m, 41:35m); research (30:15m, 1:34:36h); ship design (45:50m, 1:11:20h), modding (1:35:15h), features wrap up (1:34:25h).
In the sessions’ Q&A at the end, the devs confirmed that Star Ruler 2 will be released for Windows and Linux “sometime late 2014” (Mac only being a possibility at this point). They also confirmed that the game will be highly moddable, that planets have a limit of things that you can build on them (tile-based system dependent on planet size) and that you can increase or decrease the game speed, which is nice to know since after all this is a real-time game.
Here’s some screenshots for each of the major features as shown in the video.
Subscribe RSS
27 Comments
Related Articles:
- Star Ruler 2 Giveaway Contest – 15 Steam Keys! [RESULTS]
- Star Ruler – New Demo (v1.0.8.0) and Box Release Date Set
- Indie Gala June – Star Ruler and Sword of the Stars Complete
- Star Ruler: New Patch (v1.0.1.0) and Trailer
- Star Ruler 2 Giveaway Contest – 15 Steam Keys! [CLOSED]
Loading ...
Looks better then the first game, but still doesn’t interest me. Blowing up planets gets dull when it happens every 2 min because each individual ship doesn’t matter.
Meh… very cartoonish looking. I realize it is in Alpha, but I doubt the look will change much at this stage. The early rush to colonize appears critical and as such it is very similar (same) as any another host of 4x products out there. Have to say I am less than enthused about this one so far
Wow, looks really good. I’ve never played the first one, and now I’m tempted to try it. I think the graphics look good. I like that cartoonish look, it gives it a unique feel, and differs from other 4x games. I will for sure keep this on my radar.
Good work guys, keep it up Firgolf and crew
Looks very interesting with many innovations.I am in favour of devs trying new diplomatic methods.The Civ style is getting very stale.I like new the resource system with even FTL taking a resource.That should slow spamming a great deal.
I am more interested in this than pretty graphics GalCiv 2.5 at this stage.
It looks very promising. Looking forward for it.
It seems a lot more interesting than I had initially assumed. I do get the feeling that they’re sticking to the “more is better and bigger is better” mentality of the first game though, which is a shame.
Ohoh “Luckily it’s a 64 bit game”…I see the 32bit users coming again. ^^
They mentioned that there is multiplayer. If there are decent speed settings and not too much fiddling with units (the ship designs seemed quite detailed) it could be a very cool multiplayer game.
Not to worry. There will be a 32-bit version available for those who haven’t yet made the jump to 64-bit yet.
Looks like it addresses some of the issues I had with Star Ruler 1. Wasn’t really a fan of that game, but looking forward to seeing how SR2 comes out.
I love how the main screens are in browser tab style similar to Firefox/Chrome. I believe it will be quite a bit easier and more efficient to navigate between them then other 4x games.
I watch the whole video and the developers said virtually everything in the game will be modifiable.
I am curious if SR2 will have race trait and unique races) and planetary bonuses on planet tiles (like in Galciv2 ) that can give a boost to certain buildings.
Another curiosity is if similar to Missile Storm, we can have special abilities on Flagships similar to Sins Rebellion Titans and Capital Ships.
SR2 I believe can be one of those games with some really strong and expansive mods.
I agree with some of the comments about the UI – too cartoonish. Part of what I need as a sci-fi/space sim gamer is immersion and the goofy graphics are enough to put me off.
So far the one guy putting together Limit Theory has my vote for best UI. But, the year is still young.
Nice to see they’ve changed the research system. The ship design reminds me a bit of Star Drive, though, with putting all the little modules on a layout of the hull.
Looks better than the first game.
I like the planet leveling mechanics.
A surgical strike on one of the border planets and the whole economy crumbles down.
Their take on diplomacy is interesting.
At least it is refreshing.
But I’m still not sold on the realtime stuff.
So sometimes I’ll have nothing to do and sometimes I’ll do stupid mistakes due to zeitnot.
I’m ok with being stupid, but my clicks per minute were never even decent.
I just spent the last few hours playing Star Ruler 1. I’m glad to hear that the pace is a little slower in SR2. Within 20 minutes of starting my game I had 3 colonies being attacked/blockaded by pirates and two races had declared war on me (because I didn’t have luxury resources to trade with them). Then some scouts found a 3rd race who declared war on me. I’d forgot how quickly you need to build up ships and defenses in this game.
The older I get the more I prefer turn based games. Distant Worlds and the Paradox games are real time but the games play out so slowly that it’s not an issue for me. Maybe SR2 will have a similar pace. I need a nap.
Still waiting for Ascendancy II. I know they’re working on it. Or at least they were.
Graphics and details look much more professionally done than the first game. I also like the new ship design and planet interfaces. However, I wonder if they will improve the play mechanics? The original Star Ruler (and frankly most every RTS game) can be beaten with a unit rush strategy. The original game was disappointing in that the best way to secure a victory was to research certain techs in a particular order, and produce masses of certain ships as soon as possible. That destroys both immersion and re-playability.
Ship design screen looks better than firt game.
The big problem with the first game was “the light”. it was a dark game. Sometimes you cant see the ships because of the shadows.
First one was “one man development team” game. I hope, now they can work hard on make up and characters, and may be a story?
I just hope there is room for those things:
-more character pics than just two (and they looked so … sad and depressed)
-a background (that makes the game a bit more fresh, happy, nicelooking) because the old was kind of depressing
-more than one level where you design the ships.
and the question: why is the system from part one not used anymore? you had circles with the components that were resizable. many thought about that this was one good invention! now you start with a different way that looks like space empires 4 or 5 but with only one ground level… thats a fall back.
a suggestion from me: take the principle from the star ruler 1 but make it 3D. that way a component is kind of a resizable bubble in a given 3D Hull.
and please, make also two things work:
– formations
– experienced units (gain experience)
– leaders for ships and planets
otherwise you could pimp up star ruler 1 with more characters and races and betetr music and you would be done.
the negative aspects of the SR1 were black universe, nice but annoying music, a bad UI (multiple select bars not opening/behaving well) and a sound that was not good (all shots sound the same..)
it shall not be more complicated, but more easy to use. from the user interface up to the maneuver and commanding system.
i do not want shiny graphics but more deepness
thanks for your attention. doing some of this will also improve your sales greatly :-)
Looks great!
Lots of potential here.
Meh, I’ll be waiting for a review on this before i even entertain a purchase. I only hope they throw out everything that was “questionable” in the first one…
I can’t watch the video atm as i’m at work and the firewall wont allow it so if anything below is covered in that, i will happily sdtand corrected;
1-Ship Scale: PLease make it ‘Normal’, no more Star sized ships (or worse…)
2-It looks like they’ve got rid of the wierd ship designer, a plus in my book.
3-COlony Management, from comments it looks like there is still a major rush to colonise everything asap which annoys me
4- Research: Is it too much to hope for a random tech tree?
Played and hated the first one, so not holding my breath on this but hope to be pleasantly surprised… (and hopefully my hopes aren’t dashed when i watch the video later!)
Well now. After watching the video and eating my words I now confirm I will almost certainly be buying this. Almost! It looks like a lot of my gripes may be getting sweapt away, ship design seems Normal now, I like the colonisation and trade system, importing/exporting goods and levelling up your planet… I can see so much potential in this game. I wont pre-order it though, i’ve given up on purchasing “potential” (after pledging on predestination and DSS – couldn’t help myself, but thats it! i swear!…) and seeing my investment shrivel up and die. Colour me impressed by what i’ve seen so far…
The one thing missing in that video is any kind of racial lore or identity.The whole blue vs green is not really why we play sci fi games.The first game also came across as very bland with races being nothing but a picture with a name.
Aye, I thought about that… I’m hoping its just not ready to be shown yet, and I fully agree that the last game didn’t give the player any feeling of identity, expecially after the 1.08 patch only bringing 2(?) design variants and a handful of avatars… To be honest, that will make or break the game imo, no matter how good the gameplay is. Still, I’ll reserve judgement until i see more.
Their take on Diplomacy seems interesting and I am curious how it will pan out. It seems you actions do not happen in vacuum anymore. They didn’t show much of it in the stream but they have a dev blog about what they are trying to pull off with it.
One thing is for sure, I am curious about it.