Starbase Orion - Competitive 4X TBS for iOS

[KittyMac]

Starbase Orion is a 4X TBS game inspired by the likes of Master of Orion II and Galactic Civilizations. While Starbase Orion provides a robust AI and a gratifying single-player sandbox experience, the game design is heavily focused on asynchronous turn-based multiplayer gaming.

http://www.chimerasw.com/starbaseorion/

More on the vision behind the game
Descriptions of the races
Listen to the original music


YouTube Teaser Trailer


- Built for iOS 5: Asynchronous Games with GameCenter, Universal Binary, Retina Display, Multitasking.

- Glorious Space Battles: Watch your fleets duke it out each turn with a fully animated and controllable combat system.

- Customizable Races: Choose from one of five existing races to play, or make you own by picking and choosing from a variety of race attributes.

- Customizable Ships: Starbase Orion includes a complete ship designer which allows you to design your ship weapons and systems.

- Premiere Multiplayer Experience: Playing a competitive strategy game has never been this easy.
- Balanced random galaxy generation
- Hassle-free automated game matching

- Battle-hardened AI: We battle tested the fleet management AI for Starbase Orion in the Google AI Challenge 2010. Our AI ranked 698 among thousands of competing bots; it has played hundreds of matches and is ready to give Starbase Orion players a challenge.

[drdirt]

I bought Starbase Orion for the iPad. It looks like Orion II, but does not play nearly as well.

A big killer is that whole sections of the tech tree disappear for long periods of time, and unfortunately there is no rules explanation for what causes this. One game I bought an engine tech, and the range techs disappeared for the rest of the game, and I was stuck just limping to nearby planets with my starting range. The next game I made sure to buy the range tech, and the engine techs disappeared. So I hobbled around on my starting engines. And so on with various other techs.

Another is that the build screen you are directed to doesn't tell you important details related to building - do you have any lots left, is this a rich/poor planet, etc? I spent lots of money rushing production on a major fleet base, to find out later it was on a very poor planet! Even if you go to the planet screen instead, you have to decode from the production figures whether it is a rich or poor planet (hint 1prd/colonist=very poor, 3prd/colonist=average, 5prd/colonist=very rich, make sure to take into account any race bonuses). To get a definitive answer, you need to go to the galaxy screen, and hunt down the planet of interest.

These things are managable on small empires, but rapidly get tedious as you get bigger.

The battle system is shades of Orion III, you issue general orders to your ships before battle, and let them play it out. It has a nice zoom feature to see the graphics of the battle, but you can only see pieces of the battle, and have to frequently move the screen to stay on the action. I just keep it zoomed out and look at the triangles. Unfortunately, it is difficult to tell from watching the battle what you need to improve, which is particularly frustrating if you happen to be losing. It is neat to watch the battles.

The overall look of the game is nice, very polished. It has the familiar Orion II technologies and building queu. However, it needs some serious upgrading in it's user interface to be really playable.

[KittyMac]

A big killer is that whole sections of the tech tree disappear for long periods of time, and unfortunately there is no rules explanation for what causes this

This is explained (perhaps poorly) in the research section of the help menu.

For each tech category you have a number of research proposals. As the emperor you decide on one proposal to focus on at a time. When you successfully research one, the others in that category "age" due to your disinterest in the proposal. Green indicators mean that the tech will stay around for 2 or more times of you choosing something else to research. Yellow means it will stay 1 times. Red means that if you choose not to research it then it will go away and be replaced by a different proposal.

Proposals which are "lost" due to disinterest will come back after your have had a chance to research everything in that category.

To get a definitive answer, you need to go to the galaxy screen, and hunt down the planet of interest.

You can access these planet details directly from the planet screen, just tap on the name of the colony in the top bar.

Unfortunately, it is difficult to tell from watching the battle what you need to improve...

However, it needs some serious upgrading in it's user interface to be really playable.

If you need additional help on strategies and tactics, there is a community of help available on the Starbase Orion forums.

I am also taking constant feedback from all players, and many player requested features have been and are being added to the game. Simply post your comments on the SO forums.

http://www.chimerasw.com/starbaseorion/forums/index.php

[drdirt]

Thanks for the prompt and courteous reply. I tried out the clicking on the name to get the planet information. Not an obvious thing, but good to know.

Also appreciate the explanation of what those red,yellow, green symbols in the tech research mean. I had read all the manual pages before I started playing, but did not understand that section. Now I do.

I started a new game and looked at my 3 yellows in the drive section:
Drive 1, Fuel Cells 1, Trade Port 1. So I can only choose at best 2 out of 3 (assuming I don't choose any other techs in that section).

I can lose for all the important part of the game:
Drive 1 - Move like a sloth with my starting engines
Fuel Cells 1 - Be crippled by only moving between nearby systems
Trade Port 1 - Have constant financial problems

Since losing the 1 in the area means losing the following techs in that area as well, I forecast major frustration no matter which way I go.

Yes this and other missing techs reappear late in the game, and there is a possibility of stealing them via spies from other players, but the consequences just seem too severe.

I would hope that the "1" technologies would be made exempt from this system, or that the techs disappear for only 3 or 4 tech choices, or some other fix. Similiar problems occur with Efficient Factories 1 and so on.