>>2097162 (OP)
It's better than the first one was at 1-2 years in its life, but yeah at the moment, I think the first is still a bit better. Not by much though.

AI art was a big mistake
unit barks and voice direction noticeably worse

>>2097162 (OP)
first one made for decent games before titans and superweapons. are there superweapons and titans in this game yet? if not, it might still be fun

>>2097162 (OP)
Disagree. The runs infinitely better, pathfinding is better in most cases.

>>2097162 (OP)
Agreed. Its not doing that much to really stand as a true sequel game other than changing a lot of under the hood elements. Sure, ship hardpoints and shot blocking are cool mechanics, but they haven’t added depth. There is a strange lack of new units, buildings, or other content to really make it feel like a true sequel.

At best maybe a quality remake or at least a good foundation to build on. It sold well, and given how long the previous game had a development 'tail', I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re thinking more long-term.


>>2097340
I thought they said they would replace the art eventually?
Unit voices are passable but a step back in a few spots for sure.

>>2097340
>>2097473
The art director claims no AI was used and everything was drawn himself, which is laughable because he previously drew like this.

>>2097509
>he previously drew like this.
are you insinuating artists never "draw" differently or something?

>>2097162 (OP)
Its amazingly soulless looking compared to the original whether its AI art or what

>>2097162 (OP)
I don't know why they have to use art that has that same look that all AI slop does. AI can generate lots of different images based on lots of different styles and yet were stuck with the sloppiest AI images imaginable. They should re do them and stylize them a bit so they don't look so bad. Make them look like actual art.

>selling DLC before it's been released

>>2097686
It is literally and unequivocally AI art. The portraits are all riddled with errors characteristic of the AI models of 2-3 years ago. It would be one thing if the art director was genning AI portraits and then cleaning them up manually--soulless but at least they're doing more than just prompting. But there is no cleanup. They just used an old, free internet image generator to churn out a wall of sloppa to fill out their tech trees and as a result the game's entire art direction looks like an ad for AI porn you'd find on a red board.

And they lie through their teeth about it. Because they thought they found the golden goose and when they received backlash for being lazy and soulless they panicked and tried to cover their asses.

I'm starting to get bored with TEC and dabbling with other factions, mostly for the sake of achievements. How is the Advent supposed to work, economically? With TEC it's fairly straightforward, you expand to get more tradeposts so you can snowball harder. What's the incentive for Advent to expand? How do I turn more clay into more fleet? Am I really stuck with using orbital extractors for my econ expanding? I feel like an American experiencing hunger for the first time and being utterly confused by the sensation. wym there's no trade how do i print money if theres no trade

>>2099773
As advent your main resource are crystals. Most of your ships primarily cost crystals and crystals also gate your teching. Your main source of income are planets and asteroids rich in crystals (ice worlds in particular) and advancing the mining tracks on those worlds. You also get some fairly affordable earlygame techs that multiply crystal income.

You have secondary ships that don't cost crystals which you can use to dump metal/credits. Your eco will never match the TEC's, that's their gimmick. But generally your fleets are stronger in evenly matched fleet cap, so you want to avoid a war of attrition and leverage your tech advantage to win decisive battles. Expanding and taking non-crystal planets can still be valuable because you can use them to generate your unique faction resource or generate exotics.

Also while there are lots of ways to play them, fleet composition wise, the easiest way to do well is to just spam carriers. Once you have a critical mass of strike craft backed by a couple support ships you're basically unbeatable. Their carrier capital ship is also the best one.

Unironically agree with OP, to the point that it actually makes me mad. Sins 1 is one of my favorite games, even with all its flaws. When the second game was first announced, I looked like a fucking wojak out of sheer excitement.

Even disregarding the whole AI argument, the game's presentation looks messier. Not the models, which mostly look clean and high quality (Outside of some random changes to ships that didn't need to be changed), but the UI and especially the research screen are much worse. Everything was clean and concise in 1, but you get ugly chaotic images for half the dozens of research icons and it all just blurs together. Music is okay, but when the first game had some excellent tracks that I still listen to today it just doesn't hold up.

But gameplay, fucking gameplay, is where I get mad. Instead of building capital ships as a complement to your fleet, the entire fucking game revolves around them. Make sure you research and buy the right items for your ships like its a RPG! Make sure you use special limited resources to get your capitals in the first place, and if RNG screws you before you can get the 'rare resources factory' then tough luck! Oh, and don't forget to bow down like a poor peasant to the minor factions that CAN'T BE REMOVED because some smart guy at Ironclad decided that the markets and half the other systems all are run through the minor factions!

But hey, it gets balance patches cause some multiplayer tryhards discovered that the flak frigate is only knocking out 73% of the missiles that are fired within 200 hundred units of it, so we should definitely spend several patch cycles figuring out how the physics system handles every single missile and flak turret bullet. It doesn't matter than random system maps still aren't a thing, that half the new faction systems are just bland 'number goes slightly up' variables, and the promised single player campaign probably won't get here until December 2026, but oh well! I'll always be mad.

>>2099788
>Instead of building capital ships as a complement to your fleet, the entire fucking game revolves around them.
that's how star ruler 2 does it and it's better than having to manage hundreds of individual ships like you do in every other 4x

>>2098748
maybe they should just generate better AI art now that AI is better at making art than it was a couple of years ago

>>2100005
>and it's better than having to manage hundreds of individual ships
But you still have to manage individual ships. Unless I've missed it, you can't create a fleet template, of, for example, 5 heavy cruisers, 20 missile frigates and 2 repair ships and get them auto constructed/replenished, unlike in SR2
What's with recent Stardock titles taking elements from SR2, without fully committing. Leaving mechanics 1/2 baked. Here it's shifting focus to capital ships. In Gal Civ 4 it's having shit colonies supplying core area.