Sword of the Stars

[j5mello]

plus its expansion SOTS: Born of Blood

Its a turn-based 4x game set in space. The game forgoes the usual high level of options seen in games like Gal Civ or Space Empires and instead focuses more on combat with limited trade/diplomacy options. Solar systems are abstracted to a single planet from the system once it is explored. Multiple systems (between 8-350) make up a galaxy which can be one of 15+ different shapes like Ring, Sphere, Clusters, etc... Empire management happens on the strategic screen where you can build ships, direct research, engage in diplomacy, order your fleets and generally do all the things that you do when your the head of an empire (maniacal cackling is optional).

The game uses a randomized tech tree that is generated each time you start a game (certain techs are always available, with the rest being determined by a faction specific percent towards getting the tech). SOTS features the 3 ships sizes, Destroyer, Cruiser, and Dreadnought with Dreads being the biggest (as well as planetary defense satellites for each size) with each ship having three parts; Command, Mission, and Engine. Weapons are setup in banks of either Small, Medium, Large or Special size with each bank having 1-n turrets in it. each bank can have a unique weapon choice.

Combat is entirely simmed in real time (can be auto-resolved if you so choose), so if your mass driver round misses its intended target it can hit another enemy or one of your own ships depending on circumstances. Weapons range from mass drivers, missiles, and mines to Emitters (lightning guns) lasers and energy torpedoes. Ship movement is simmed as well so if you cruiser goes full speed towards the enemy planet and then loses it engine... it is most likely going to end up impacting on the surface. Some other systems that affect combat are shields, cloaking, Point Defense and Command and Control. Move orders are given on a single plane but ships will move in 3d to avoid collisions and in response to kinetic weapons imparting momentum. Targeting is done like any standard RTS though you have the ability to target a specific point on a ship allowing you to strip off its weapons or destroy its engines.

The game has 5 races with the expansion pack installed. Each race uses a different mode of transportation to move between systems (its FTL/Star drive):

-Base Races
Humans- Us lovable Space Monkies use a system of natural worm holes (called Node lines) to move between systems. We are the fastest through most of the game. However you are at the mercy of the nodes. Node lines can even not exist to planets meaning you have to travel at sublight speeds (think 60-70 turns at STL vs 2-3 at FTL for the same distance). Also once a ship/fleet goes down a node you can't recall it or otherwise interact with it until it reaches a junction point at a planet. Humans are decent researchers and their ships fair well in combat favoring broadsides though their engine section are particularly vulnerable.

Tarka- A long running empire of space faring lizards, the Tarks (or Crocs) use a FTL drive -working just like the ones in Star Wars/Star Trek- called the Warp Drive. You choose a destination and off you go, you can redirect you fleets any time during their travel but only after a specific research. The Tarks favor a head on attacks and as such their weapons arcs are forward focused but can lack solid point defense coverage. They have decent research and favor energy weapons like lasers.

Liir- Were a peaceful race of telepathic/kinetic dolphins. Stuff happened now they are angrier... They use the Stutterwarp which uses thousands of micro teleportation jumps to move to a target. On the strategic map it works similar to the Tarks; point click and go. The fault in this system is that the closer to a gravity well the slower you go. In combat your ships aren't affected by momentum and can literally fly circles around you enemies but your slow as COW PATTY when fighting near a planet in early techs. Also since they just really became militaristic their ships are made mainly of toilet paper and prayers but have solid all around coverage for their weapons arcs. They are the top researchers and are strong in biotech (plagues) with good all around chances to get the really fun stuff like cloaking, shields, and high powered weapons.

Hivers- Come on really... do i have to tell you what animal kingdom these guys are from???? Anyway... they aren't lulz HIVEMIND but their is a strong sense of duty/service to the matriarch (the highest level being the Queen) but it isn't enforced. The Hivers don't have a FTL drive in the standard sense. All exploration is done at STL speeds which means your spending 9-12 turns just watching your fleets going somewhere. However once you've arrived you can setup a Gateship that will allow instantaneous transportation between planets. each gate generate 3 "transit points" with each ship taking up x many point depending on size. This making defense as Hiver hilariously easy. In combat their ships are slow but pack a lot of punch with solid fire arcs and are the most heavily armored. They aren't the greatest researchers and favor plasma weapons.

-Expansion race

Zuul- The Zuul are a sentient engineered bioweapon that got out of control. They are large marsupials with the males having powerful telekinetic abilities in the field of coercion and control and the Females being big, vicious and subservient to a dominant male. The Zuul use a node lines much like the humans but instead of following natural ones they rip their own. These nodes are unstable and will degrade as ships pass thru them, eventually collapsing (any ships in the node at time of collapse are lost). Lines can be created and maintained by Boreships
and limited to x number of nodes off each planet. Combat wise their ships are only a small step up in terms of armor from the Liir and but mount a higher number of larger mount weapons.

They are low-mid scale researchers but can boost their overall economy (and therein their research) by enslaving other races. Finally they consume the natural resources on all their planets at 10 points per turn and as such must continually fight and move forward lest they have nothing left to build with...

flour that was an epic wall of text... Several FGJL guys are playing this using a mod thats been personalized for us by Fang. Anyway they just released the Collector's edition which contains SOTS and BOB as well as you standard special edition stuff like art, a book, some special ingame stuff like badges, and special maps.

They also released a new demo that allows 150 turns as either Humans, Tarka, or Liir up to a limited Cruiser/Fusion era, find it here or fileplanet:
Linky (at bottom)


If you want more info they have an extensive community wiki here: http://sots.rorschach.net/
and the forums are here: http://www.kerberos-productions.com/forum/

[BlackLiger]

I really should dig out my copy again. Been too long since I played.