Okay, some of them are actually positive. Like in the original, StarDrive 2 lets you pick from a roster of pre-made races, or create your own by selecting from traits like Dumb, Lazy Workers, and Corrupt. Vessels are still fully-customizable with a shipload of different modules, and new to this iteration, all ships have multiple zones (weapons, propulsion, command) that can be damaged and destroyed independently. The typical skirmish involves using point defense ships to stop enemy long-range missiles in their tracks, while trying to get your own warheads to land and flanking with fighters and more agile frigates on targets of opportunity. Two fleets meet on the galaxy map, and are placed into a (so far featureless) pocket of space to duke it out. Space battles now take place in an instanced, real-time environment, not unlike in the Total War series. I feel more like I’m playing Civilization V in space than a really over-complicated version of Sins of a Solar Empire. DiCicco says this has allowed him to build a “deeper strategic experience.” At least so far, it seems to do its job well. Income and events tick on turn ends, instead of being constantly in flux. Movement ranges are in turns rather than time. Holding the spacebar can spam multiple turns in a row, creating a sort of facsimile of the smooth passage of time in the original. The biggest moment-to-moment change in how you manage your interstellar empire is that the game has switched from real-time with pause to turn-based. But especially for what is (from a design standpoint) still a one-man show, I’m pretty impressed. And there are still systems that don’t quite mesh together as well as I’d like. It has a lot of moving parts, many of which I don’t fully understand the inner workings of yet. It’s sleeker and more stable, running on Unity as opposed to the old Microsoft XNA of the original. Play StarDrive 2, for which DiCicco is still the sole developer, reminds me more of The Citadel from Mass Effect.
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