Blind Mind Studios has released a big new patch along with a follow-up hotfix for their space strategy title Star Ruler, now available for download for all owners of the game. The updates provide a ton of fixes for the game, along with a list of changes and additions players can familiarize themselves with below in the change log.

If you bought the game through Steam the update will trigger automatically when you start the game, while if you’re in need of the manual patches you can find both v1.024 and v1.026 files available to download via The Patches Scrolls.

Star Ruler is available through all major digital distributors, with the dev offering a demo version for both Steam users or anyone else to try.

From the patch notes:

Fixes

• Fixed a major bug in single threaded mode that prevented ships from leaving systems.
• Object icons were messing up in Medium & Low texture quality.
• Fixed some minor issues with the tutorial.
• Crash when selecting a shipset.
• Remnants no longer run out of fuel.
• Changed order for movement updates to prevent a one-frame delay in motion prediction.
• Clients in multiplayer were shown the victory message before joining an empire.
• Governors no longer build structures that are not unlocked yet.
• Layout scales are now rounded to 3 decimal places to prevent floating point errors from showing up.
• Pirates with money troubles weren’t buying pillagers because marauders were cheaper.
• Joining a multiplayer game after going back to the main menu from another game would not load the map correctly.
• The fighter hull had a 5% flat dodge chance instead of it being based on relative velocity.
• Changing the max number of selectable AIs in main_menu.xml did not work. The default still goes up to 10, but it’s moddable up to 200 AIs.*
• Fixed various issues with updating hulls (SubSystem modifiers not working when a hull is updated). Designs in previous saves should be able to benefit from being updated, depending on the type of modifier used.
• Fixed fleet icon not showing after load and not disappearing when docked.
• Ship owner was being set after effect activation, leading to certain effects (notably Research) crashing on ships.
• Structures with non-natural levels (farms) could not be renovated manually.
• Zoom to cursor checkbox was saving incorrectly.
• Planet orbits were sometimes stopping after loading a save.
• Undocking sometimes hurled ships across the vast expanses of space at insane speeds.
• Damage order based on sub system position wasn’t taking the size of the sub system into account. Now, a large sub system can protect little sub systems ‘inside’ it.
• The music now instantly stops playing upon exiting, rather than when the game finishes cleaning itself up.
• Treaties would randomly crash in multiplayer.
• Objects thought they had far higher acceleration than they really did (due to not taking mass into account). Should significantly improve movement patterns, especially when it comes to planets.
• Our custom GUI elements were not being properly deleted, causing a memory leak in the GUI.
• Goto object orders weren’t being saved/loaded.
• Order lists were being loaded in reverse.
• The dim2di for the blueprint window’s tab buttons was using 2 px less than it should have, resulting in part of the button being cut off in the window.
• Sending chat messages with the # character in them no longer causes weirdness.

Changes

• Various game data files (PlanetTypes.xml, build_queues.xml, …) can now be overwritten by mods.
• Script data loading now falls back to the default files (mods no longer have to copy the Script Data directory).
• Empire names and colors are now moddable the same way system names are.
• Changed the standard maps to use a single copy of object descriptors, rather than making a new one for each object. Significantly speeds up map generation for common map sizes.
• Removed unnecessary window generation and resource loading during script testing.
• The tutorial can now be localized.
• An auto-colonize order can now be removed by right-clicking on the planet and unticking it.
• The AI now periodically retrofits its obsolete ships.
• Slightly sped up locking in general, and reduced overhead related to creating those locks.
• AIs obsolete their old designs and retrofit their old designs to larger versions. (Cruisers go up to scale 24 over time).
• Planet orbits were much slower than intended. Planets now orbit at faster speeds, and their speed is based on the size of the star.
• Changed various memory allocations over to a pooled system. Slight gains when setting the game up, but far more dramatic gains when exiting.
• Objects now register themselves instantly during map creation, significantly improving map generation speeds.
• Empty strings no longer allocate themselves on the heap.
• Star Ruler’s icon has been replaced with a higher resolution version.
• Mods can now add their own Locales that are loaded after and can override the base game’s.
• Weapon effect graphics are now allocated in a pool, significantly improving performance when watching combat.
• Updated French, Russian and German translations.
• While updating the blueprint window to the planet window’s style, reduced the image size, saving a slight bit of memory.
• Objects are destroyed on-demand when the game exits, speeding up game exit times.
• Planetary rings now have ambient lighting.
• Planetary rings are now more common.
• Timed game effects are now allocated on a pool. Improves performance in combat.

Additions

• An optional toggle in the system window to display stored resources for planets in the list.
• Ships can now be scuttled at planets for resources. They provide 50% of their cost to the planet.
• Added support for ttf fonts and locale-specific fonts.
• Added basic per-system minimaps.
• Add Require:Tag to restrict subsystems to blueprints that have that tag.
• Script bindings for Irrlicht’s quaternion.
• Relative military strength bars for pinned systems/stars and systems in the system window’s system list.
• “Zoom to object” buttons in planet window, pinned list and the system window’s planet list.
• The clusters map now has separate options for flattening the overall map and the clusters themselves.

Removals

• Removed duplicate ship designs from the tutorial mod.

Indie sales at it again this weekend. Don’t forget about the aforementioned Zeno Clash, Frontiers Pack and Eschalon II discounts. Did you enjoy your extra hour today?

GetGamesGo

GetGamesGo has an excellent special offering Trine and VVVVVV together for just $9.50, a great deal for a couple of fantastic games.

Impulse

Stardock’s service has a few nice offers this week including 50% off Hacker Evolution – Untold (includes ‘Flight Zero’ expansion), 75% off Fort Zombie, $5 off Star Ruler and $3 off Tidalis.

GamersGate

Flotilla has been given a solid 60% discount, while Armada 2526 and Power of Defense are both half-off.

Blind Mind Studios has simultaneously released two new updates for their space strategy title Star Ruler, now available automatically for Steam and Impulse users and as manual files through ModDB.

The patches (1.0.2.0 and 1.0.2.2 respectively) add a bunch of new additions, changes and fixes to the large scale 4X/RTS hybrid. From the solid patch notes:

Fixes:

• Civil acts were not affecting labor rate.
• Use tool orders were ignoring the hull’s orbit targets setting.
• Floating point errors were accumulating into the ships damage stat, leading to repair tools continuously firing.
• Victory message is no longer displayed when you start a game with no AIs.
• Explosion effects would sometimes randomly appear in the system when you started a game.
• When selecting a color for your empire the window would sometimes get stuck dragging.
• Fixed crashes on saving/loading dock and retrofit orders.
• Map-specified tags in the new game menu were not being displayed in the scroll box.
• Fleet names are now saved and loaded.
• The Phased Energy Beam was too cheap, and did far too little damage.
• Combat effects were broken in the legacy 1014 mod.
• Fleets could add other fleets as members, causing various issues.
• The camera position is now saved and restored on load.
• Servers/clients could lose connections if they took too long during the loading stage.
• Planet ticks (which handled the economy) were not using a managed tick rate, causing slower production than intended.
• Planets will be correctly lost when population reaches 0.
• Stealth Hulls were applying their effects after armor.
• Homeworlds now hijack the orbits of existing planets if possible, fixing planets orbiting through each other in non-tiny galaxies.
• Minor script exception in multi-rack mounts.
• Autosave was triggering every 15 seconds instead of 15 minutes.
• AIs were not checking systems generated after their home system for expansion, leading to randomly stalled AIs.
• Targeting sensors that were smaller than the connected weapon could actually reduce range.

Changed:

• The windows in the top bar can now be toggled with F1-F6.
• The movement solution has been further optimized.
• Improved system locking to make the game perform more consistently, and faster overall.
• Updated French, Polish and German translations.
• New designs default to not orbiting targets now.
• Saving a design with the same name as an existing one now marks the new design as an updated version of the old one instead of displaying an error.
• Updated the tutorial.
• Beam weapons now also have a random component in their firing delay.
• Pirate raids now become less frequent at lower difficulties.
• Updated Russian translation.

Balance Changes:

• Reduced improvement rate of stealth hulls. Capped their effectiveness at 95%.
• Cargo bays and Ammo storage now scales to a higher storage.
• Fuel Cells now scale in the same way as cargo bays.

Additions:

• Maps can now define options for an advanced window in their xml files, they can control the size and columns of their advanced window.
• Option to turn off galaxy gas display.
• The Options and new game windows can now be localized.
• Ships without engines (i.e. stations) now orbit the planets that created them.
• Added basic interface to choose empire settings when a game starts.
• Added range rings – hold alt to show the range of the selected and/or hovered object.
• Arrrr! Pirates will now periodically raid systems with lots of resources but no defenses.
• The names of the default, AI and pirate ships can now be localized.
• Autosaves and quicksaves are now rotated, you can specify how many saves to keep. The ones with the higher numbers will be older.
• The planet window’s queue tab now displays the total cost of the current queue.
• Added proper ship set support.
• “Defend Position” stance, ships will engage targets but return to their original position afterwards.
• “Update All” button in blueprints list that immediately updates all designs to the latest tech level.
• Remnants now roam uncolonized systems and attack all ships within them. Their amount and frequency depends on the difficulty.
• A basic victory condition (destroy every planet owned by another player).
• Subsystems in the damage report window now display their current level.
• Entry in the right-click menu to select all ships in a system with the same blueprint as the one you clicked on.
• Stations can now be retrofitted at the planet they are orbiting. It will cost 20% more than usual (up to 60% of the cost of building a new one) to represent the cost of moving it down and launching it back up again.
• Added localized versions of various graphical buttons for French and German.

Those interested in trying out the game can download the demo file on ModDB (also available to Steam users.)

[Blind Mind Studios]

Star Ruler, the indie darling 4X space strategy game, continues its evolution today as developer Blind Mind Studios release another large update that fixes a bunch of bugs, changes some odder design decisions, and adds a slew of new features like ship hulls and technologies. Kudos on the update guys, it’s most welcome!

Fixed:

• Fixed an error in the stellar-pedia (Research World description)
• Docking now works in multiplayer
• Fixed research issues in multiplayer
• Re-ordering items in a planet queue now drags the last item of the group.
• Quantum Compressors had no effect on economic storage and ship bays.
• Stealth Hulls now execute their miss logic before their damage absorption.
• Fixed an issue with unicode localizations.
• Ringworlds were boosting both the size and level of structures, leading to epic strangeness.
• Small objects will no longer be cut off so drastically.
• Bussard Ramjets were ignoring the thrust multiplier in settings.txt
• The structure list was behaving weirdly (erratically reordering, removing the wrong level) when removing structures.
• The research queue was failing to save.
• Systems were being sync’d to a slightly different position on the client, which lead to some strangeness.

Changed:

• Object ownership changes are managed differently now, reducing overall bandwidth usage.
• AIs now make liberal use of fighters.
• The default fighter design now uses the Fighter Hull, and has a longer flight time.
• AIs now intelligently queue up designs, leading to less wasted production capacity in games with many systems.
• Redid a significant portion of Sub System base code. Modders will need to redo any modifiers they have created, see the game’s existing modifiers for examples.
• Updated German, Russian, French and Polish translations.
• AIs will be more intelligent about their research.

Added:

• Player names are now matched to their empire in the empire screen in multiplayer.
• A message is now displayed if you fail to connect to a server.
• Added the Fighter Hull, a hull for small ships (scale 1 or smaller) that has the ability to dodge attacks while moving. It is also light, slightly cheaper than normal, but very weak.
• Added an option to enable/disable Vertical Sync.
• Added console command zplane (default 140000) to control the near clipping plane.
• Large ships become rapidly more expensive to build as difficulties in construction lead to massive losses of resources.
• Added a new technology: Mega Construction. Advancing this technology will unlock the Ringworld (with two other techs researched), and reduce the cost of building massive ships.
• Fleet formations (wall, box, escort, wedge).
• Ship stances / engagement orders (“Engage at will”, “Hold position”, “Hold fire”).
• Added new system window with more information, more controls, and multi-system support.
• Added new AI ship designs.
• Owned planets and ships can now be renamed through a button on the info panel. (Not fully supported in multiplayer)

Quite impressive. For those that remember, I recently reviewed Star Ruler and, while I certainly saw the game had its flaws, I could also see the game’s true potential as it evolves through patches over time. Since my review, three significant patches have been released all of which make the game far better than my earlier review. If you haven’t already I strongly urge you to download the demo and give the game a try.

[Blind Mind Studios, Demo]

Blind Mind has announced the release of a large, new update for their space strategy game Star Ruler, adding a laundry list of bug fixes, gameplay tweaks and other additions to the title.

Highlights include the addition a basic in-game manual that will continued to be improved upon, retrofitting of ships, a Legacy Mode for hanging on to old saves and using them in newer versions in the game, and much more.

The file is available for download automatically via Impulse (coming soon for Steam) and available as a manual patch via the developer. From the lengthy change log:

[Fixed] Fixed a crash on save after manually obsoleting a hull.

[Fixed] After updating, hulls ignored the Update Every X Levels setting.

[Fixed] Players were not cleared from the server upon exiting, causing crashes when starting a game.

[Fixed] Many sounds would play if the player loaded a game with contested systems.

[Fixed] AIs will no longer spam their systems with colony ships if there are already plenty of idle ones around.

[Fixed] The event notification sound will now play only once every 6 frames.

[Fixed] The attack warning (sound & message) will only play once every 6 frames.

[Fixed] Fixed two crashes that could occur in long-running games.

[Fixed] The To and From clauses when reviewing a treaty were reversed, if you did not create the treaty.

[Fixed] The GuiExtText was improperly allocating many little strings that were immediately destroyed. This should speed up GUI initialization somewhat.

[Fixed] Fixed a crash related to objects entering systems.

[Fixed] Mods with periods in their name would not load.

[Fixed] Fixed some missing Charge hints on generators.

[Fixed] Fixed a line that was cut off in the tutorial.

[Fixed] Clearing orders will also clear gun targets.

[Fixed] Pressing escape now cancels key changing (as rebinding escape would prevent menu access).

[Fixed] Fixed a crash related to beam effects playing against a dying object in multiplayer.

[Fixed] Fixed a race condition in nested read/write blocks. Fixes early-game crashes, and some other potential crashes.

[Changed] Updated German and French translations.

[Changed] Multiplayer Servers that get delisted should relist themselves periodically.

[Changed] Reduced packet fragmentation for object updates.

[Changed] Further reduced the amount of data sent in multiplayer object updates. Estimated savings at 33 KB/s per player per 500 objects.

[Changed] Systems that contain no clients in multiplayer will not send updates to the client, saving bandwidth.

[Changed] AIs now designate shipyard and research worlds, their fleets will get larger and stronger much more quickly now.

[Changed] Holding shift while dragging in the planet queue now drags the entire group instead of just one item.

[Changed] To reduce the need to spam armor plates, armor now scales differently. Note that the special utility of the armors remains at the previous behavior. Also note that you can scale armors, rather than place more on a design.

[Changed] Auto-colonize now sends colonizers to the closest systems first.

[Changed] “Join Fleet” and “Auto-colonize system” from the right click menu now act on all selected ships/systems.

[Changed] Single-resource governors now build space ports more often. Economic governors now build spaceports.

[Changed] AIs will set specific resource governors on planets when they are low on a particular resource.

[Changed] Cheating AIs build nothing but luxuries, research and shipyard worlds. *Evil Laugh*

[Changed] Space damage now deals 50% more base damage, and significantly more damage for bigger ships.

[Changed] Slightly reduced peak bandwidth load.

[Changed] Bussard Ramscoops now have some fuel storage.

[Changed] The research window has been restyled to match the Planet Window’s overall appearance. Other windows will follow the same style.

[Changed] The system icon (three multi-colored planets) has been replaced with a more fitting and aesthetically pleasing image.

[Changed] The default Hauler is now larger, and has a ~30 minute flight time (as opposed to 10), at the cost of some acceleration.

[Added] Added Russian translation.

[Added] Added new civil acts: Options to focus labor production vs economic production. Options to focus a specific economic production. (+50% of one, -35% of the other two; +100% of one, -90% of the other two)

[Added] Ships can now be retrofitted (select the ships, right click on the planet to retrofit them at). Ships will remove 50% of their original build cost from the price of the retrofitted design.

[Added] Hovering over a technology now displays what it improves and what it will unlock next in the tooltip.

[Added] Added lines showing connections between technologies.

[Added] Added a basic in-game manual. Will be improved over time.

[Added] Added multi-font support along with some variations on the game’s font, and the font used for the game’s logo.

[Added] Added removeRand logic for governors. All governors except Balanced and Renovate-Only will now steadily remove unrelated structures when it makes sense.

[Added] Added legacy mode. When we change data file in a way that old saves will no longer load, the game will ask if you want to run in legacy mode. This moves the save to the correct legacy mod folder and runs as normal.

[Added] Added a message when an empire declares war on you.

The game is available now through all major digital distributors for $25 (currently $5 off on Steam.)

[Star Ruler]

Blind Mind Studios has released the latest update for their space RTS Star Ruler, now available to download for owners of the game.

The patch brings a big list of bug fixes, balance tweaks and some minor additions, bringing the title up to version 1.012.

The file can be downloaded automatically for owners of the game on Steam and Impulse, and can be picked up manually here. Check out Geoff’s review of the game.

From the patch notes:

[Fixed] Removing an item from a planet queue removes the last in that group, rather than the first.

[Fixed] Auto-colonization now works in multiplayer.

[Fixed] Hulls now auto-update in multiplayer.

[Fixed] AI Homeworlds now use the planet governor.

[Fixed] Planets that have more than one condition now work in multiplayer.

[Fixed] Unicode files had issues with lines that loaded across a barrier. (Fixes weirdness with unicode files)

[Fixed] Use Tool orders are now sent to the server, and save and load properly.

[Fixed] In the planet window, the structure hover info should no longer be stuck visible.

[Fixed] Dragging within a list box will no longer result in strange behavior.

[Fixed] Distant star icons had been removed by accident, leading to distant stars being black boxes.

[Fixed] Changed some packet behaviors to improve connection performance in high-lag situations.

[Fixed] Significantly reduced bandwidth usage in multiplayer by removing unnecessary data from object updates.

[Fixed] Offensive treaties (i.e. Declare War) should now function properly in multiplayer.

[Fixed] Unpausing the game by hotkey also remembers the previous game speed.

[Fixed] Researched links are now shown for clients in multiplayer, clients no longer get their display stuck at ETA 0 when a new link is discovered.

[Fixed] Some objects were being duplicated while downloading the map to clients, wasting bandwidth.

[Fixed] Map objects downloaded to the client were occasionally out of order, causing them to not be present on the client.

[Fixed] Galaxy gas is now sent to clients in multiplayer.

[Fixed] Save files were breaking the common strings list, leading to various issues (like broken Use Tool orders)

[Fixed] A bug in the mover was causing fleet members to behave very strangely.

[Fixed] Large flak effects were crashing servers.

[Fixed] Clients were not getting relation updates (e.g. enemy/ally/neutral).

[Fixed] Rally points now work in multiplayer.

[Fixed] Exploit that allowed viewing other empires’ constructions.

[Fixed] Auto-colonize was sending colonizers to planets that were taken over by another empire between the time the auto-colonize order was given and the colony ship was built.

[Changed] Holding shift while removing an item from the planet queue now removes all the items in that group.

[Changed] Joining a server hosted by a different version of a game will automatically disconnect if the versions are incompatible.

[Changed] Tweaked what techs the AI researches, and added a few.

[Balance] Goods production has been reduced to 25% of previous, and Luxuries to 12.5%.

[Added] Hulls now have a setting specifying how many level improvements before the hull automatically updates. 0 levels disables auto-updating.

[Added] Empire Window is now localized.

[Added] Added “profile_network” console command. Opens a window that shows various connection stats. May help us determine what’s causing some players’ issues in multiplayer games.

[Added] Saves will now show the empire you were playing as, and the time the game was saved.

[Star Ruler]

I’m not going to sugarcoat this, there are a lot of indie sales that popped up today resulting in an extended weekend of absolutely excellent discounts. With the amount we have to cover, I can’t really afford to chit-chat. Instead of continuing to write in this overwhelmed state, it’s best I just share all that I can:

Top Picks

Steam is back at it again with another one of its monster weekend deals, this time offering up huge savings on all things Serious Sam HD. The First Episode goes for $3.75 instead of $15, The Second for $5 instead of $20. Get them both in the double pack for $7.50 or get both plus their original episodes released 2001/02 in the recently released Gold Pack for just $10 instead of the $40 tag.

Not to be overlooked in the slightest, Gratuitous Space Battles and its DLC are all on sale in some form through a couple of distributors. First and foremost, Direct2Drive is offering the $23 title for just $6, read Geoff’s review if you’d like some persuasion, but I can tell you myself that its a top quality indie and a steal at that price. Impulse is offering a less tempting sale for the full game at $11.50, but also extends the discounts onto the game’s DLC and bundles. All four DLC packs are now $3 each instead of $5, and the GSB Complete bundle offers an even better deal, offering the full version of the game plus the first three expansions (The Order, The Swarm and The Tribes) for just $12.50. If you throw in the newly released ‘The Nomads’ add-on for $3, you can get the entirety of what’s available for the game for just $15.50. That’s $7.50 less than the base game costs standard. Better than if you go with the D2D $6 sale and all expansions for $3 each which puts you at $18. However you end up mixing and matching is up to you in the end, but don’t get yourself so confused that you forget to take part period.

Sales

Impulse is also offering some other great deals on top of the aforementioned sales. Din’s Curse is 50% off at $12.50 instead of $25–Geoff’s review and our coverage of the graphical update. Academagia – The Making of Mages is $10 off, Aztaka is $7.50 instead of $15.

GamersGate has a couple of good deals as well. Max & The Magic Marker is 75% off and goes for just $5 instead of $20 and air racing sim Ikaro is just $7.50 down from $30.

Garry’s Mod (which apparently is now available for Mac as well) is going for half-off on Steam, and is available for just $5 through the weekend.

Pre-Order/Launch Discounts

Star Ruler launched on digital distributors this week at $5 off its $25 tag on Steam, GamersGate and Impulse.

Subsoap’s Faerie Solitaire launched recently on Steam with a 30% off discount and is currently going for $3.50.

Other Offers

Joel Cappelletto, co-designer for ArchRobo: Robotic Annihilation, has informed us of a giveaway for LPS’s freshly released XBLIG title. Just email lps_inc[at]hotmail.com and make sure you enter ‘Contest’ in the subject line for your chance to win one of ten copies of the twin-stick shooter.

[Did we miss something? Comment below or email erik.johnson[at]diygamer.com so we can add to the list.]

Blind Mind has rolled out a big update for their RTS Star Ruler, now available to download for owners of the game on Impulse.

The patch brings the title to v1.008, adding a laundry list of bug fixes, changes, gameplay tweaks/improvments and several added features. Impulse has taken $5 off the game if you’re interested. Hurry though, the sale only goes through tonight.

Read up on Geoff’s review of the game, he had fun with an earlier build, but claimed it lacked polish. With the strong post-release support Blind Mind has demonstrated for the game since then, perhaps that issue is being addressed.

From the change log:

[Fixed] Constructions were building at 50% per second when out of a resource, rather than 5%. Should fix the “stuck at 97%/99%” issue for some things.

[Fixed] Ships’ auto-targeting (not defend order) was checking the galaxy’s objects, rather than the local system.

[Fixed] The AI was not developing its homeworld, putting it at a massive disadvantage early on.

[Fixed] The Balanced World had an incorrect setting for cities, which caused problems with the economy.

[Fixed] Pinned objects were broken when loaded from a save.

[Fixed] Jump Drives work.

[Fixed] The camera no longer removes objects from the view in small galaxies.

[Fixed] Pre-damage Order was not being loaded correctly, causing hulls to be hit before armor at times.

[Fixed] Docked objects weren’t being saved. Saves from older games will properly show 0 ship storage used.

[Fixed] BuildPerN and BuildN (when n was larger than 1) were not working.

[Fixed] A minor check against cheating caused AI worlds to not develop, putting them at an unbelievable disadvantage. Prepare yourselves.

[Changed] Updated French translation (has text for this version).

[Changed] Updated German translation (has text for this version).

[Changed] When selecting a governor from the right-click menu, automatically turn the governor on too.

[Changed] System Ring color/image is better managed now. (Coloration should match the true ‘owner’ better)

[Changed] Moved empire bank display to the left of the screen, between the research ticker and the pinned object list.

[Changed] Jump Drive range has been rebalanced. Larger ships, and larger jump drives, will have longer range.

[Changed] Improved starting effectiveness of the Targeting Sensors. Fixed their extreme modification factor for large sensors on a tiny gun.

[Added] Added button under empire bank display to toggle between displaying stored resources and income rates.

[Added] Added German translation thanks to the community.

[Added] Added basic Fleets window. (Unstable and unfinished. Press ‘U’ to access)

[Added] Integrated Planet and Research window upgrades from the UI Mod (Thanks Sajuukhar)

[Added] The bottom-right selection box now shows how many objects are selected in total at the bottom too.

[Added] Added an “AI Cheats” option. Cheating AIs generate resources from nothing, and can see all systems at all times.

[Added] Movement lines are now displayed when ships in motion are hovered over.

[Added] When multiple ships are selected, use tab to cycle the primary target between them (subselection). The primary target will display its movement line and will have its info shown in the object info panel.

[Added] Added default governor type for new planets setting to empire window.

[Added] Added Italian translation.

[Removed] Removed some unused data in objects that should reduce memory usage.

[Blind Mind Studios]

When I was first given my review copy for Star Ruler just over a week ago I knew that I was in for a big game. Like Victoria II before it, I understood that this was going to be a hugely epic strategy game that was going to take far more time than I had to accurately review the game in its entirety. That’s why, like with Victoria II, I’ll simply be going over the main concepts of the game and explaining what’s good and bad about each, as opposed to exploring every nook and cranny which would probably require a few months of playing.

For those that don’t know Star Ruler is the newest 4X strategy game from indie developers Blind Mind Studios. 4X translates into: explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate. Games like Civilization, Europa Universalis, Masters of Orion, and Galactic Civilizations are all prime examples of 4X games. The singular caveat with Star Ruler is that, unlike Civilization (the most popular 4X game), Star Ruler plays in real time, not turns. This is quite rare for the genre.

Beyond that, however, Star Ruler seems to play like a pretty standard 4X game. So, without further adieu, let’s hit the review.

Gameplay

Starting off playing Star Ruler is a daunting task. There’s no doubt about it. If you’ve never played a 4X game prior, Star Ruler probably isn’t a good one to start with. If you consider yourself a seasoned veteran, on the other hand, well then jump on in. Luckily for everybody, the developers did include a tutorial. One that will walk you through the basics as you start your game  as opposed to simply giving you a block of text to read.

Unfortunately, while the game does come with a tutorial, it’s far from a perfect one. While the game’s tutorial does go over the basics of what the game has to offer and how to manage your solar empire, beyond that it offers nothing. For example, while it will explain how to build your own ship and what the various components do, it doesn’t explain combat or how to manage a combat scenario. These are things that sent me to the game’s forums which, luckily enough, are filled with videos and helpful players who were able to explain some of the things the tutorial skimped out on.

Speaking of building your own ship, this is probably my favorite part about Star Ruler. The game has a very unique “ship builder” that allows for you to truly customize everything about your ship. You’re basically given a big bubble to put components in (power generator, hull, thrusters, weapons, etc.) from there you can make them bigger or smaller depending on your needs. You can also attach them to other components to add different affects. In the end, to the right of the ship making menu you’ll see a series of red and green numbers. All of these numbers — except for fuel usage — has to be green to ensure that you’ve got a structurally sound ship that can be built and flown. Supposedly, and I haven’t done this so keep that in mind, you can build a ship the size of a planet, a la Death Star. Just something to think about.

Additionally, the game’s combat is just about as epic as you’d expect. While it’s pretty much a simple numbers game, it’s really cool to see all your ships fly in, in real time, and mass attack another fleet. In my first combat experience, I had my capital ship,  a few cruisers, a few dreadnoughts, and about 20-30 fighters. Seeing them all swarm in to take out my enemy’s fleet was an awesome sight to behold.

Of course, what would a 4X game be without technology. Researching new technologies so you can make better things and create bigger ships is what space-based 4X games are all about and Star Ruler is no different. While the technology trees seem standard enough, what’s really important is how you go about acquiring them. In a game like Civilization, for example, you’d have to wait ‘x’ amount of turns before you could learn a new technology. However, seeing as how Star Ruler has no turns (real time, remember?) it instead takes a matter of minutes. At the top left of the screen, you’ll have a time indicator ticking down to your next development. It’s a simple and easy process that I actually prefer over waiting an ‘x’ amount of turns.

And then we have our diplomacy. Again, this is a staple of the 4X genre and I don’t believe any 4X game would be complete were there not some form of diplomacy. Unfortunately, this is the major area where I feel Star Ruler just doesn’t get it. While everything is intact — sign peace treaties, trade treaties, etc. — there are some oddities that don’t really make sense. For example, if you set up a peace treaty, but not set a time limit to that peace treaty you and that other civilization are now at peace forever. There’s no breaking this treaty and you can never go to war ever again. Additionally, and this may be more cosmetic than anything else, but no nation has any sort of avatar that speak for them, it’s all text. This makes it exceedingly difficult to remember whose who, which can be slightly annoying.

Now, while those may be the main components there is still one thing I have yet to go over, the colonizing of other planets. When you first begin your game in Star Ruler you’ll instantly realize the scope the game has to offer. This is a big galaxy with tons of planets to explore. Luckily, the computer makes it all pretty easy to handle. As you will start in your own solar system with numerous planets, all you will have to do is simply build a colony ship and the computer will take over the rest, immediately colonizing the most appropriate planet nearest you. If you want to pick your planet then it’s as simple as finding the plnet, right clicking it, and selecting “colonize” which will then place priority on that planet.

Managing a planet is equally as easy. Since this game is in real time, you’re going to thank god for the “planetary governor” option that each planet has. This means that the computer AI will take over a planet and build it up accordingly. While you can’t tell it to focus on one thing, or another — which is unfortunate — it does seem to be pretty smart. Also, should you start construction on a new ship from your menu (not a specific planet), the computer will automatically pick which planet would be most suitable for building that ship the fastest.

Style

I’m sure you’ve probably already gathered this based on my gameplay review, but it bears repeating: Star Ruler is a gorgeous game. Planets look fantastic and each rotate on their own axis around a star. Each star looks incredibly daunting as well, with enough realism that it’s breathtaking. Star Ruler is a beautiful game to behold and one that any amateur astronomy fan love to poke around in.

The music and side effects, however, aren’t nearly as good as the visuals. That’s not to say their bad. They’re just mostly nonexistent and what is there doesn’t really leave a solid memory.

Story

As with any 4X game the story is left up to you to create. That is to say, there really is no story line in Star Ruler. You start your own civilization and create what you will out of it. That’s it.

Other

Star Ruler is a hugely epic game, but one that is also largely unpolished. There are a few quirks with the game that can make it kind of tedious to play (like the inability to view things from an isometric camera). Still though, this is going to be a game that matures over time as the developers release patches and  updates to make the game more solid. You have to keep in mind that this game was developed by an indie studio and what they’ve created with their limited resources is absolutely astonishing.

Star Ruler is available right now from GamersGate, Impulse, and Direct2Drive for about $25. If you’re looking for that new space-based 4X game, then you could probably do worse than Star Ruler.

[Star Ruler]

Unfortunately, while 4X strategy games have always been a personal favorite genre of mine, I’d say that new releases in the genre are few and far between. Even then, when a new one does come out there’s really no guarentee its going to be any good. For about every great 4X out there, I can probably find at least another one that’s terrible.

For the past couple years I’ve largely gone without a space-oriented 4X. I mean, There was Galactic Civilizations II, which I played to death, and then Sins of a Solar Empire which, for me, wasn’t really 4X enough. I understood what the developers were attempting to convey, but I was expecting a bit more. So to say that I feel the “itch” for a new space oriented 4X is to put it mildly. I’m damn near desperate for one.

Star Ruler, a game I just learned about now thanks to our incredible forums, might just be the game to satisfy that itch. Perhaps I got a bit ahead of myself with my title, but I honestly believe that this game could be the next great one. And here’s why (straight from the developers mouth):

1. Huge, procedurally generated universe. I know this is standard affair for any 4X game, but Star Ruler seemingly takes it to a whole new level. You can have as few as 6 systems or as many as 2,000 systems populating your game. I don’t know about you, but the bigger the universe, the happier I am. In marathon sessions of Civilization IV I always crank my world up to “Huge.”

2. Crazy ass ship customization. My favorite part in Masters of Orion 2 was making my own ships, but those ships were rudimentary at best. With Star Ruler, you can cusomize your ship from weapons to even the crew quarters. In all honesty, if this thing is as great as it sounds I could see hours getting lost just making ships.

3. Non-spreadsheet technology research. Thank god, a developer is looking beyond the simple method of spread sheet technology research. There’s little information on this just now, but, suffice it to say, this makes things much more interesting for me.

4. Stronger diplomacy. Every 4X game boils diplomacy down to a give/take method, but, in reality, things are much more complicated than that. Star Ruler will hopefully smooth this over a bit more.

5. No DRM. This has nothing to do with gameplay, but the simple fact that it won’t have any is a plus for me.

Aside from that I don’t know too much more. The game will be completely customizeable, and offer a rich experience. Unfortunately, the game is currently only about 65% complete so the odds of getting to play this thing soon isn’t very high.

That said, if you want to join the beta they are currently accepting applications. It’s in alpha, but if you absolutely can’t wait, like me, then go ahead and check it out.

My biggest worry for Star Ruler is that it will end up like Masters of Orion 3, a game that was far too ambitious. The game had so much in it that it was too complicated. It took me 3 hours just to understand a few key components of the game.  I’m hoping Star Ruler can include some of the same features but with a more streamlined process for playing without the confusion Masters of Orion 3 brought on.

Want to know more? Head on over to our forums where the developer is answering any and all questions!

Trailer: