Polaris Sector - another new space 4x

[solops]

I thought you were penalized for building balanced planets.  I also thought that some planet types, like Ocean worlds, were best suited for food production.  Isn't there a 25% bonus for having a specialized planet?

I do not recall anything about a 25% bonus. If there is, someone point me to it. As far as planet specialization goes, it just makes sense. Why farm on a ball of rock made of iron? Why mine minerals on a rich, fertile planet? I always have some "generalized" planets, especially in to early going. And I MM everything. After a planet is developed, it requires no further management, so MM is no great burden. If you are lazy, then the governors do an OK job.

[GeneralHawk]

Couldn't resist, took the plunge!

[FarAway Sooner]

Planet types drive a lot of specialization.  That's customized somewhat for each planet, but it's also a function of which buildings you can build on which planets.

It takes so dang long to build a ship, you really want your industrial planets to be HEAVY industry.  Telling 5 balanced planets to start building frigates means you'll have 5 frigates... in about 50 years.  Much better off getting a frigate every 10 or 12 years from a single planet and let the other 4 planets worry about research, food, etc.  It just gives you a much quicker response time to shifting production needs.

Smaller planets can build fighters, which is sometimes very useful (especially for a lightly colonized planet somewhere near a contested frontier), as fighters can't move on their own and it's nice to keep your CV and CVL fighter complements full.

Food production and research are fungible, so it just makes sense to do them on the planets that produce the most food.

[mikeck]

Plus, you can really change the purpose of the planet back-and-forth.  Plus, you can really change the purpose of the planet back-and-forth.  Example, at the beginning of the game I have my tear and planets producing a lot of style. After I get my ocean platforms and ocean farms going on ocean planets to produce food Vons on my tan plants with mines in industrial capacity.

I don't think they should be striving to realism in this case I think they should be striving for gameplay and strategy there's no strategy team just able to build everything on every planet

[OJsDad]

Thanks guys.  I had totally misunderstood how to use/manage planets in this game. 

[mikeck]

Just remember though, your right that it's not entirely realistic to say a planet doesn't have enough room for a farm because it has too many mines. It's a game play element to make the game more fun and represents a generalization that a particular planet may be better suited for one thing or another.

So it's easier to accept that it exists to make the game interesting

[OJsDad]

I'm fine with that Mike, just not a mechanism I'm fond of. 

[solops]

The beta patch got another update. This game is easily my favorite 4x. I wander over to Stellaris and Stars in Shadow from time to time, but this one is just awesomer and awesomer.

Version updated to 1.06 Beta 5:

Changes:

1. Fixed various crashes and freezes (including the one in tactical combat)
2. AI made more adaptive to the composition of fleets used by the player
3. Fixed the configuration window centring issue

This is version 1.06 Beta 4a and has these new features!

1.   New Configuration options for galaxy generation
2.   Ability to select which races the AI can pick from
3.   Improved AI for the hard difficulty settings
4.   Fleet Designer
5.   New fleets management screen
6.   Automatic fleet build and repair/refit
7.   Automatic replenishment of fighters for carriers
8.   Ship role assignment
9.   Ability to have your transports automatically transport satellites and fighters between systems
10.   Automated ship upgrading
11.   Automated ship repairing
12.   Rally points and automatic rally points
13.   Build a fleet at a rally point
14.   Enhancements in the tactical combat behaviour
15.   Updated pace of the resource depletion
16.   Updated Resource deposit UI – now shows also the resources reserved for queued builds
17.   Compare ship technologies on the Science screen or in the Ship Designer

To opt into the Beta:

- Right Click on Polaris Sector in your Steam Library and select Properties
- Select the Betas tab in the popup box
- Select "Open Beta" from the drop-down menu
- Steam should immediately begin to sync your files to the new branch.
(If you can't see the option, or Steam doesn't download the files, please try Exitting Steam completely and reloading)

[bbmike]

I need to dust this one off and try it again.

[HoodedHorseJoe]

I've been binging it myself recently. It easily has one of my favourite tactical battle engines, tech system and ship design (although it needs more information as to inform those designs).

The rest of it is kind of naff though - I'm already kind of over the whole "viral" need to just spread everywhere, because you know if you don't the AI is going to do it and then you'll be surrounded and swallowed up. The exploration and colonisation elements are also kind of lack-lustre.

But it's definitely worth it for the ship design, tech & tactical battle systems though.

[ghostryder]

The game's good- but as others have said it needs expanding a whole lot--as it looses it's luster rather quickly because there's not a lot of depth in the expand, build research part. You can run the research tree rather quickly- and you reach endgame before you realize it-

[Jarhead0331]

The game's good- but as others have said it needs expanding a whole lot--as it looses it's luster rather quickly because there's not a lot of depth in the expand, build research part. You can run the research tree rather quickly- and you reach endgame before you realize it-

I completely disagree with this. One of the things that distinguish Polaris Sector from other 4x games is the large tech tree that continues to grant the player unique and useful technologies throughout a game. We're talking about thousands and thousands of game years. These technologies are not just like "laser version 1" and "laser version 2" for the most part, but rather new technologies that open doors to new tactics and strategies. I also find the ship building system to be one of the best in this crowded genre.

Really, there is so little to criticize with this game. It's fantastic.

[Steelgrave]

I completely disagree with this. One of the things that distinguish Polaris Sector from other 4x games is the large tech tree that continues to grant the player unique and useful technologies throughout a game. We're talking about thousands and thousands of game years. These technologies are not just like "laser version 1" and "laser version 2" for the most part, but rather new technologies that open doors to new tactics and strategies. I also find the ship building system to be one of the best in this crowded genre.

Really, there is so little to criticize with this game. It's fantastic.

Ditto. I started a new game last week and I've been playing it every free moment since. Polaris Sector is one of those fabled "just one more turn" games where once you start it up you have a hard time putting it away again. It's been one of my most played games since it debuted and it gets better every patch. Climbing the tech tree is far from automatic....if you choose to pursue tech that allows you to colonize new world types but by doing so you antagonize your neighbors, you might be on the short end of the stick in weaponry or defense if a shooting war starts. If you pursue weaponry early, which tree? What countermeasures do you prepare for? Are your people starving because you didn't invest in Marine Farms? There are real choices to be made. Without reservation I regard Polaris Sector to be one of the best 4X games I've ever played.

[solops]

The game's good- but as others have said it needs expanding a whole lot--as it looses it's luster rather quickly because there's not a lot of depth in the expand, build research part. You can run the research tree rather quickly- and you reach endgame before you realize it-

You can adjust the research speed. My current game has been a marathon. I have played over three THOUSAND years and my most advanced ships are cruisers. BBs are a dream. I expect to win soon, but the tech tree will only be 70% researched.
Also, my empire would collapse without foreign trade. Rumblings in that area have me extremely concerned and may undo all my ambitions.

[solops]

I just won a battle against 16500 fighters and 29 DDs with 5 CAs, 12 DDs and 700 fighters. Epic. My I7-4770 and Nvidea GTX 1070 gagged. I have been fighting against superior numbers for a long time, so my ship designs and tactics are all carefully designed to work together. It was, to channel Wellington, a damn close-run thing. I am playing where my fleet comes out of hyper in dis-array, which can often lead to suspense and disaster. He had too many interceptors and not enough heavy ftrs, which made my boson guns relevant. When the opposition is all heavies and gunboats the bosons work poorly.