davejm

This is the first console game I've ordered for release day since my Gamecube days. I'm used to going digital on PC; so the anticipation of the postie coming with a physical disc is slightly nostalgic Can't wait to get stuck in, despite really enjoying Horizon at the moment.

Can any PC players with a GTX 1070 and modern CPU/memory configuration help me out with some benchmarking?...

I'm playing on medium; and it took me around 10 attempts. I nearly gave up on it. I thought it was shite and a very bad way to start the game.

Nice, time for me to get stuck in then!

Are all the BtS episodes out now?

Anyone else looking forward to Surviving Mars?

Can anyone summarise what's going on during and at the end of season 1? I'm watching the last episode of the season (to refresh my memory before I dive into season 2) but I don't know what the hell is going in, it's just not ringing bells. The director reset, the faction, the machine in the barn thingy. Dunno what's happening.

I'm tempted to go back to my final save and uncover all the question marks (I played the whole game with them hidden) to see how many there are, will be nice to revisit the world.

Good work. Are you finding a lot of pirate attacks from those unclaimed systems? Every little pocket I seem to leave unclaimed is proving to be a bit of a nuisance which I assume is the dev's way of ensuring that you colonise surrounding space and not just expand quickly in different directions. I'm loving the changes so far. I'll post up some info on my current game later

The core changes to things like fleet combat, travel and exploration etc are 2.0.

The 2.0 update mainly focuses on changes to FTL and expansion. They've ditched warp and wormhole travel in favour of a change to hyper-lanes only; with the idea it'll make war and expansion more strategic. Wormholes and stargates still exist but they're natural phenomena that you need to discover; resource and control before you use them. But the fly-anywhere travel system is gone. Expansion is different in that your border doesn't just grow over time or by colonising planets; and you don't just automatically control systems within your bubble. To expand you need to build a station around an unclaimed star (replacing frontier stations); so you directly control your border growth that way. This is all the free stuff; in the 2.0 patch. The Apocalypse 'paid for' expansion offers lots of late game war/combat enhancements. I'll be skipping that for now.

So today is the day! 2.0 Really can't wait to start a new game when the patch hits.

When 2.0 hits I'll be starting a new game and setting the number of AIs down and their aggressiveness to the lowest so I can try to sustain a long campaign. I've got the Utopia DLC but I can't say I know what the added features were. I'll be skipping Apocalypse for now; as the new features that are tied to the paid for DLC seem to be late game military focused (hence the name, I guess) or edits/policies that I can't see myself playing in the short term anyway. Most of the changes I like are tied in with the free 2.0 'Cherryh' update. I can't see how existing games will work as there are massive changes afoot. The biggest is to do with travel/exploration as they're doing away with warp and wormhole exploration in favour of a hyperlane only system. It makes sense, as hyperlane games are much more strategic (you can create choke points) and it allows them to make loads of other changes that they were being hindered by the free-for-all warp travel system. Wormholes still exist in the game; but they're now natural phenomena that you need to discover; and there are stargates also Another big change is to expansion. You don't expand by claiming planets and having your border grow in this update; instead you build starbases around stars to 'claim' them. It's a really nice new system. So I think with this change and the changes to make it hyperlanes only, I don't think your old save games will work.

I watched an hour of a stream and found it captivating, with far better acting and animation than I was expecting. The realistic setting and survival elements seem interesting.

Was reading the dev diaries last night. The changes to expansion; border mechanics; exploration and combat seem excellent to me. Will wait for the update then dive back in.