In the ship building area, you’ll still be able to design ships as you could in the first. However the results of those designs won’t become readily
apparent until you’ve taken them into combat several times and analyzed the information. You might find that the ship doesn’t exactly perform in speed and manuevering how you expected. Or perhaps a certain combination of elements will work far better than you had planned and the ship will be more powerful. There’s still going to be a good deal of trial and error. However, you will never manage to create a ship so strong or weak that it throws off the game’s balance or is totally useless. So it’s always worth doing the research and experimentation.
There wasn’t a lot to see except for some shots of the new ships and a couple solar system shots to get an idea of how things will look. But from what I did see and what Chris told me it certainly looks like it’s going to be highly engrossing and well worth the wait.
For those that haven’t played the first, you needn’t to jump into the second. But if you want to be fully prepared, you can pick up the Sword of the Stars Complete collection at GamersGate for about 30 Euro/Dollars which is a great price considering you get the game, three expansions and some extra content (see next page).
Features of SotS2
- All new MARS 2 graphics engine!
- Evolves beyond SotS1 into 6 playable factions, using the races familiar to gamers from the first series of the game, and introducing The Suul ‘ka as a new player for Galactic dominance!
- Detailed star-systems with planetary orbits, moons, asteroid belts, and other space terrain!
- Leviathan class of giant ships, new Battlerider-class ships that carry SotS1 Destroyer sized ships, new levels of ship details including ship sub-systems, allowing for new fleet strategy and tactics!
- Exciting continuation of the SotS technology tree, with the game starting in the Fusion era and moving beyond the Anti-matter era that capped SotS1.
Sword of the Stars 2 is the full, stand-alone follow-up to the hit 4X franchise, Sword of the Stars. SotS2 will feature the six races from SotS1 and its expansions, as well as revealing the dark, running secret of the original series, the Suul’ka – an ancient race that is responsible for tampering with the Liir, Zuul, and other races in the SotS universe!
Not limited to another entire new race and their unique drive technology, SotS2 will be a major step forward in the SotS approach to 4X gameplay, taking the easy-to-learn-hard-to-master philosophy set out in SotS1 and following that path to a new standard in space strategy games.
