A Fortnight in News

We now go to our Interstellar Space: Genesis beat reporter, Chris:

Hey guys, Chris here!

Praxis Games, the indie studio behind Interstellar Space: Genesis, recently released patch 1.08. Considering the game was released just a few months ago, it’s safe to say that these guys aren’t fooling around.

So what does 1.08 bring to the table? What’s changed? Let’s take a look.

Well, the much anticipated and sorely needed, (free) graphics update is not here yet, sorry folks but we’re going to have to wait just a little longer for that. But while the graphics have stayed the same there has been a lot of activity that influences gameplay.

The Team at Praxis continued their meticulous bug hunting and even managed to isolate and eliminate some of the most obscure bugs that a player can encounter. The attention to detail and the support that these guys are providing is quite frankly excellent, and it is nice to pick up a title these days that is as stable as ISG.

We also received some UI/Graphics enhancements, mostly in more concise descriptions of certain aspects of the game that could cause confusion for the player. With a game as complex and intricate as ISG, it’s most welcome.

The main essence of the patch though is centered around balance changes and gameplay, here I saw wildly divergent results, some good and some bad. Space Monsters and found Starships have received some much-needed missile defenses, this was a no-brainer and a plus. The AI was also adjusted to focus more on PD weapons and missile defense such as the use of ECM. This, unfortunately, had negative consequences as the AI now overcompensates and sacrifices too much space to these systems, resulting in consistently underpowered AI ships (if the player includes a few ships with MIRV missiles in their fleet).

At the same time, PD defenses were enhanced and made easier to obtain while missile damage was reduced by 25%. The hypothetical reason behind this change made sense, but the practical consequences of this move have further tilted the balance of the game towards defense and away from offense. This change, along with the existing evasion of small ships allowed me to destroy a technologically superior Battlestation by attacking it with two Frigates only… should this ever happen?

The effect on the early game was also poor. At this stage, missiles were the only viable weapon to use if you wanted to inflict damage or have a chance of taking out a small ship with high evasion. (Beam weapons and kinetics are pretty useless until you research some targeting algorithms or have a leader assigned to your ship, preferably both, but this takes time). By both reducing missile damage output and increasing missile defense, early combat consists mostly of misses until one side or the other withdraws. This seems like overkill, and a compensatory move is needed.

Since the inception of AI cheats via production/research bonuses,(in a previous patch), we have also been given the opportunity to set these parameters for both the AIs and ourselves at the start. If a player wants a faster-paced high tech game, it’s available, if another wants a slower-paced low tech game, that option is there as well. But these choices are not balanced or equally viable, and some of the changes found in patch 1.08 only exacerbated that situation. Sometimes you need to make sacrifices, I understand that, but this wasn’t the case here, other options were available that could have offered much better balance and results. But as is often the case, when you are too close to a thing, it’s hard to see the whole picture, perhaps this was the case here.

For fans of TBS 4X games, ISG has tremendous potential, but it still has a ways to go. I for one am looking very forward to patch 1.09

Now back to you guys!

Thanks, Chris!

This news post will now come every two weeks; we welcome your feedback. Did we miss anything this fortnight? Be sure to let us know in the comments below if we’ve missed an important news item!



Wanna become a beat reporter? Have a game or two that you love to keep tabs on? Let us know! eXplorminate@gmail.com