are you thinking about buying Drox Operative?

[Kordanor]

With your first "party" you mean playthrough I guess?
Is there any way to make the game longer (bigger universe, slower progress or similar)?

To answer the thread-question whether I'd buy the game or not:

It depends on whether it looks great or not (my current opinion is, that it does), it depends on the price (as a rule of thumb I go for 1€ per hour of playing a game having fun, so e.g. I'd never pay 50€ for a 5h campaign in a AAA title) and whether it's on steam or not. I want all my games together on Steam and not on various different internet platforms. I might make an exception if a game costs below 10€.

[PixelLord]

Originally Posted by Kordanor

With your first "party" you mean playthrough I guess?
Is there any way to make the game longer (bigger universe, slower progress or similar)?

You can choose sector size settings when you start a new ship (or any sector) from tiny to huge (and I DO mean HUGE!). You also have game pace settings that range form Very Slow Pace (which should give a reasonably long game) to Very Fast Pace. But please keep in mind that playing a Huge Sector on Very Slow Pace might take many days to complete, but I've not personally tried these settings with all the win conditions, so don't hold me to that. Also, on some machines a huge sector might result in slowdowns as the game progresses, and different alien races might be harder to discover since they will be spread out over such a large area. Personally I play only tiny or small sectors which I can usually win in several hours. I can always start a new sector and play on.

Originally Posted by Kordanor

To answer the thread-question whether I'd buy the game or not:

It depends on whether it looks great or not (my current opinion is, that it does), it depends on the price (as a rule of thumb I go for 1€ per hour of playing a game having fun, so e.g. I'd never pay 50€ for a 5h campaign in a AAA title) and whether it's on steam or not. I want all my games together on Steam and not on various different internet platforms. I might make an exception if a game costs below 10€.

The game has great replay value. So even if you play tiny sectors and win a sector in a few hours, the next sector will be different. Every sector will be different each time. As your ship advances to higher levels, the equipment you can use will also be different as well.

The plan is to eventually get Drox Operative on Steam. Hopefully it won't take as long to get it on Steam as Din's Curse did.

[franck1813]

hi
i played with default setings
and it was very very fun . i am now level 20 on my second univers .
There is a nice video made from the owner of spacegame junky web site,may be it can help you to decide if you can like it or not.
it have a great replay like all soldak's game ,its a great sandbox sci-fi game.

[Gir]

As an owner of all the other Soldak games, I just picked it up on Friday.

I LIKE IT! I have to admit that the aspects brought forward from the other games (civ management especially) make perfect sense here, probably even more so than elsewhere. Sometimes getting my ship to actually move (don't just sit there and take that!) is a little wonky, but w/e.

I'm still a lowbie, so there's really nothing more terrifying than trying to outrun a stack of missiles. My current savegame has me allied with the stronger of the two remaining civs, while the other civ (three jumps away) has significantly more advanced tech -- so it's slow-going.

Very cool, though. You guys have outdone yourselves again!

[abomination5]

Just got the game on Friday as well. I got a ton of hours out of Din's Curse, but for some reason I was initially skeptical about Drox. After spending some time with the demo, my original skepticism quickly faded. It carries over most of the things that Din's did right but with the added complexity of faction relationships. I'm sure I'll be playing this one for a while.

[Mad_Irishman]

I myself just bought the game on Tuesday the 14th of November and I'm blown away. I would have never thought a top down space game would be so much fun. I posted about this earlier, but a mod has not approved it, is there mining in game? If not would it be something that could be added or would it ruin the feel.

Anyway, great game, keep up the good work developers.

-Ian

[eidolad]

wrote the below then saw that you double-posted same ? in another thread and this was answered by shadow

I've seen some rare mine-able rocks but they are a very minor part of the game. I think the more significant rocks are those pesky planet-sized comets that decide they would like to cozy up to an inhabited planet (quest).

Could mining be added? Sure, but look at all the "goody huts" and loot already in the game. Would be just another "space derelict" but rock shaped to me.

Perhaps something along the lines of Space Pirates and Zombies "incoming comet" missions that you can blow into pieces of comet (to avoid/shoot) and data (loot to pick up)?

I also liked the Space Rangers 2 asteroid mechanic where they gravity-swooped around the system and you could blast them, dodge them, ignore them etc. And even be rewarded (or ridiculed) for cleaning up "space garbage".

[Foxwarrior]

This seems like a good place to put a review about the game from the perspective of having only played the demo:

The interaction between action RPG and 4X game is positively fascinating. However, the action RPG part itself has a way to go before it becomes impressive: playing a thrusters/gun(s)/shields ship is less tactically stimulating than playing a character with only passives in Diablo 2 (it seems like a good comparison, given the nature of demos). Playing a mines-only ship is actually rather exciting, but combat should be interesting even without a gimmicky build.

There are a couple of elements you could explore in order to make combats much more fun:

• Terrain: Yeah, sure, it's in space, but aside from dodging the occasional mysterious mine, or retreating to a friendly planet, there's not much that thinking about which way to run at full speed does for you. Asteroid fields with actually painful asteroids, slingshotting with gravity, short-distance wormholes, and more could really give you a reason to do something other than run in a straight line, run in a circle, or stay still.
• Enemy Types: Most enemies chase you at or slightly below the speed limit, and shoot you constantly with ranged weapons. Simply having the enemies use the same wide range of builds that players can design would go a long way, although letting some of the smaller ships fly faster than 200 would keep maximum speed player builds from being so simple to use. A couple of different AI patterns, like flanking or sometimes running away, would be great.

It would be nice if the empires didn't offer fetch quests that didn't cross through enemy territory; all quests matter strategically so not taking them is sometimes a bad idea, but they don't have much in the way of excitement value, and the empires should be able to trust their unarmed transports for some things.

The final quest reward for getting four empires to ally together was not worth the amount of money I spent on positive rumors for the last pair; a quest reward-only slot could help with that.

[CautiousChaos]

Originally Posted by eidolad

After a weekend bouncing between Drox Operative and Torchlight II (yes, what a great year for pc gaming) I can say that Drox Operative is must less stressful on the ol' index finger.

That's the funny thing with me - I'm getting major index finger strain. I keep pressing down harder and harder to get my ship to magically move faster. Maybe after engine upgrades I'll be a bit more nimble and this won't be a problem...


-cc

[PixelLord]

Originally Posted by CautiousChaos

That's the funny thing with me - I'm getting major index finger strain. I keep pressing down harder and harder to get my ship to magically move faster. Maybe after engine upgrades I'll be a bit more nimble and this won't be a problem...

CautiosChaos, you really need to try using another way to fly around. Try the "Method 1" on this help page:

http://www.stephenhornback.com/id98.html

Your index finger will thank you!