KickStarter Crying Suns - FTL-like tactical space roguelite set in Dune-inspired universe

[ArchAngel]

The infinite supply of Kalibans did trouble me.

I'm about to finish the first Chapter. I'm not sure I'll go much farther. At this point I've gotten reasonably good at the game, but it just doesn't seem much fun.

First, something is really off on the combat. It's hard to put my finger on it, but I think the problem is that the difficulty is generally too low. 90% of the fights I've had, I win without suffering any losses at all; that is true even for anomaly combat. When I do suffer a loss, it's usually a squad getting wrecked. And that often happens because something occurs that I can't react to. It's not that my forces got ground down, or I was being too bold (maybe?). More just like, their capital ship happened to shoot one of my squads just before I won the fight and blew it up. Or reinforcements randomly teleported in and they were all rocks to my scissor and I couldn't get my scissor back to the ship in time. But then, occasionally, you get into a fight where suddenly you are overwhelmed and either lose outright or suffer massive damage; and there's no way to repair that damage without happenstantially hitting a base where you can repair. In other words, what doesn't happen in combat is a sense of increasing despair (as your ship is slowly worn out by attrition) or increasing power (as you level up). It's more just like a game of Russian roulette.

Second, unlike in FTL -- a game I liked but didn't love -- the upgrades feel super lame. My recollection of FTL was that everything was absurdly awesome in a System Shock 2 like way -- you wanted to be able to get every upgrade because they'd let you do something really cool, but you can't afford every upgrade. You get some great item, but you can't use it because you don't have the prerequisites. The chance to use those items, unlock those skills, is really exciting. By contrast, in Crying Suns, only two upgrades are actually fun -- adding more squad bays and, to a lesser extent, adding more guns. And they aren't that fun. The other things are all extremely boring (more HP bars! more HP points in your HP bars! very slight chance of getting more fuel from suns!). It's all very unthrilling. And the weapons all seem eccentric and kind of lame. I guess a weapon that hits everything in an X shape would be useful in rare instances, but it's not something I'm that excited to get. All of the area-effect weapons, while situationally useful when your squads are overwhelmed, nevertheless feel like losers' weapons, not like they are giving you a fun tactical edge in dominating your foe. Some of the special-effect weapons are, like the Grease spell in AD&D, perfectly valid tactically, but again aren't remotely as fun as the special effect weapons in FTL.

Third, the events retain the "if you have the relevant key, you win" aspect of FTL, which I did not care for, and largely boil down to "guess which door is better" without any particular clues. The events don't offer much chance to make cost-benefit decisions like "trade 4 commandos for 50 scrap" or "trade a squad for weapon" or whatnot. They aren't even gambling options, usually -- instead, once you've done an event, you know that Door 1 is bad, Door 2 is good, every time.

I finished the demo, but I am unsure about getting the whole game.
To me, the combat feels too much like: fight X waves of opponents, then grind down the enemy ship.
You don't have any way to alter the enemy capacities (unlike in FTL, where you could focus on disabling their defenses or offence, or whatever else you neeed).
I ended up parking my squad near my ship so that it would be faster to retrieve and deploy a new one, and wait until there is no enemy wave left to get to their ship (it also makes it much easier to use corvettes as you only need to block 2 tiles).

I wholeheartedly agree about the events (Mechanicus did the same, but even worse, as the best door is picked randomly each time you choose...).
Which games do you think had good COYA events?
The ones I can think of are usually non RPG (Crusader Kings and Field of Glory Empires have events where you mostly choose on which area to focus, or on tradeoffs to make, even if there can be some randomness in the outcome, it never feels like guessing what the designer thought should be the best option).
Maybe King Arthur the RPG wargame had good ones too but I played it so long ago that I cannot remember.

Not true, you can deal critical hits to enemy systems that will start fires or disable them for a while. You just need to focus on specific enemy part (hull, squadrons or weapons) to accomplish that.

 

[Galdred]

Not true, you can deal critical hits to enemy systems that will start fires or disable them for a while. You just need to focus on specific enemy part (hull, squadrons or weapons) to accomplish that.

That is correct, you can focus on a specific "system", but this is much less fine grained than in FTL, where you could disable one particular weapon or subsystem (here you usually inflict "percentage efficiency damage" to something after having chipped at it for a while).
Also, I have found that repairing my squadrons for next wave while the opposing squadrons were out of order was usually more efficient that trying to damage the enemy ship (not with the guns obviously).

 

[ArchAngel]

Not true, you can deal critical hits to enemy systems that will start fires or disable them for a while. You just need to focus on specific enemy part (hull, squadrons or weapons) to accomplish that.

That is correct, you can focus on a specific "system", but this is much less fine grained than in FTL, where you could disable one particular weapon or subsystem (here you usually inflict "percentage efficiency damage" to something after having chipped at it for a while).
Also, I have found that repairing my squadrons for next wave while the opposing squadrons were out of order was usually more efficient that trying to damage the enemy ship (not with the guns obviously).

Efficient at what? Not efficient at killing enemy faster :D

Yes you can play defense and come out of battles with less damaged squadrons but battles take much longer. Many don't bother as you cannot lose any squadrons permanently, they are just at half health all the time.

 

[Galdred]

Not true, you can deal critical hits to enemy systems that will start fires or disable them for a while. You just need to focus on specific enemy part (hull, squadrons or weapons) to accomplish that.

That is correct, you can focus on a specific "system", but this is much less fine grained than in FTL, where you could disable one particular weapon or subsystem (here you usually inflict "percentage efficiency damage" to something after having chipped at it for a while).
Also, I have found that repairing my squadrons for next wave while the opposing squadrons were out of order was usually more efficient that trying to damage the enemy ship (not with the guns obviously).

Efficient at what? Not efficient at killing enemy faster :D

Yes you can play defense and come out of battles with less damaged squadrons but battles take much longer. Many don't bother as you cannot lose any squadrons permanently, they are just at half health all the time.

Indeed! It takes forever, but having the squadrons at full strength each battle makes it much less likely to lose them (and I have severe OCD when it comes to optimize at the cost of time...).

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.pcgamer.com/crying-suns-review/

CRYING SUNS REVIEW
Though it fails to recreate some of what's great about FTL, Crying Suns is still fun.

Crying Suns is both a great strategy game and a shit roguelike. It walks and talks like FTL, the 2012 hit that directly inspired it, but ultimately fails to mimic the endless replayability and daunting challenge that made FTL enchanting. Don't get me wrong, though, Crying Suns isn't a bad game—thanks largely to its surprisingly human story and frantic space combat. It just isn't the spiritual successor to FTL that it wants to be.

The good news is that Crying Suns' little identity crisis ultimately doesn't get in the way of what is still a great game full of cool ideas. Like FTL, I captain a spaceship through a randomly generated gauntlet of solar systems trying to keep my crew alive while navigating increasingly difficult encounters with the local populous. But where FTL gives these decisions a thin narrative dressing, Crying Suns creates a grim and vivid world that tees up an ambitious story.

I play a clone of an intergalactic admiral, Ellys Idaho, who wakes in a mysterious cloning facility decades after the empire he once helped rule collapsed into chaos. Idaho's rebirth is part of a grand plan to save the empire, and it's my mission to set out in a battleship and discover what happened, why, and (hopefully) reverse everything. It's a story that leans heavily on sci-fi tropes, especially if you're a fan of Isaac Asimov or Frank Herbert, but Crying Suns' setting is fun to discover because it's so meticulously thought out and grandiose. Transcendent robo-gods and 800-year-old emperors juxtaposed with an intimate story of friendship and betrayal make for genuine science fiction.

Like FTL, though, layers of the world are revealed through random encounters. Each of these beats involves a decision that will either reward resources to upgrade my ship or leave me significantly worse for wear. Early on, I encountered a group of religious child refugees who I agreed to shelter on the Odysseus. They turned out to be kamikaze terrorists. When I encountered the same kids on a different playthrough, though, they turned out to just be regular, non-exploding children looking for a ride.

There's dozens of these scenarios brought to life by vivid writing and Crying Suns' crisp pseudo-pixel art, but it's annoying how repetitive these events become over the course of the campaign. By the time I saw the credits roll, I must've encountered those exploding kids dozens of times. And it seems that some events do have a single, predetermined outcome. Every time I was extorted by pirates, threatening them always caused them to acquiesce. It sucks a lot of the tension out of these situations when I know the optimal decision to make.

That's endemic of a larger problem with Crying Suns and why it ultimately fails to be a good roguelike, even if it's still a fun game. There's just not enough variability or randomness to its various systems to promote the endless replayability that I love in games like Enter the Gungeon or Slay the Spire.

Starship shooters
Combat, for example, plays out like a pausable RTS on a grid flanked by my and the enemy battleship. Between volleys from our main weapon systems, squadrons of fighters take the field to battle one another in a constant ebb and flow that makes fights chaotic and tense. Managing cooldown timers is key, so if I throw everything I have at the enemy ship in an all-out assault and don't finish it off, I leave myself vulnerable to attack while my weapons and fighter squadrons recharge.

It's a great foundation with some surprising nuances that I really enjoy. Fighter squadrons each occupy their own tile, for example, but will still overlap temporarily when repositioning themselves. Those brief moments are a window of opportunity to kill two birds with one stone if I time a shot with my railgun just right.

I also enjoy the way that debris gives texture to the battlefield. Small asteroid clusters act like a temporary shield while bigger asteroids block sections of the map entirely. Sometimes neutral turrets will shoot anything that gets within range, or meteor showers will blanket the grid and destroy ships on both sides. Like I said, it's chaotic and really fun.

But Crying Suns fails to realize the full potential of this combat system. Unlike FTL and other roguelikes, where death constantly looms overhead waiting to punish a wrong move, Crying Suns is too forgiving. My ship has multiple health bars that will recharge after each fight so long as they're not depleted entirely, resources needed to repair my ship and buy upgrades are a little too plentiful, and enemies often lack firepower and frequently use the same tactics again and again.

Early on in a run, it's common to encounter ships that only have one or two offensive options while I'll often have three or four. It makes early fights a breeze, which in turn lets me farm resources to upgrade my ship further and snowball to a point where I feel unstoppable. By the time I beat the game on normal difficulty, I had only died a few times—not the kind of challenge I want from a good roguelike.

I miss that critical sense of uncertainty that makes most roguelikes so exciting, pushing myself further knowing the odds of survival are slim. Crying Suns doesn't inspire that same maddening desire to keep chasing that ever-elusive combination of luck and perfect loot.

But, damn, it sure looks good. I love the pixelated 3D graphics and the intimate perspective through which I explore the galaxy. It makes me feel like a member of the crew rather than a disembodied ghost. Little touches, like the way the bridge and its crew glow with the color of a nearby star, help create a forbidding, unsettling atmosphere. It makes Admiral Idaho's journey through the twisted remains of the empire he once helped rule captivating.

Together with the inventive combat and gauntlet of narrative choices to be made, Crying Suns is a good strategy game that's absolutely worth playing as long as you're okay with it not being much of a roguelike. Repetitive encounters and a general lack of challenge made my journey through this corpse of a galactic empire not nearly as hardfought as it should.

THE VERDICT
79

CRYING SUNS
It's too repetitive and easy, but Crying Suns story and frantic combat are worth experiencing anyway.

 

[Jimmious]

THE VERDICT
79

Man I love this arbitrary numbers... 79! EXACTLY. Not 80 or 75 but 79 after their algorithm was applied

 

[MRY]

Well, finished the first three chapters.

I think others summed it up well. The biggest thing that seems missing is the unexpectedness of a rogue-like (or even rogue-lite) -- the kind of mini-stories that emerge because of the rules and the unusual configurations of circumstances. Here, there's a kind of endless sameness. There is a little bit of variation in tactics, but nothing comparable to FTL. Occasionally I might lose because of maxed in the wrong direction for the particular fight I've fallen into, but except when that happens, the battles are pretty boring and easy. Others have said nice things about the story, but what I'm mostly struck by is that there are these long nominally interactive segments that consist of nothing other than picking every dialogue option. The game doesn't seem to have any way of deploying plot other than those segments -- random events (where you do have some choices) are used to convey mood but not plot, and then three times a chapter you go through an info-dump. Since the game has been well-received for its narrative, the choice is obviously the right one for its fans, but I'm not sure it works for me.

I also think the "your princess is in another castle" chapter structure does a disservice to the plot. It probably would've worked better if the protagonist didn't keep expecting to find the real murderer at the end of each chapter, only to be disabused. At some point, it would've helped to have a line where he acknowledges that the lead is likely futile, but that there's nothing to be done but to follow the thread to the end. That kind of fatalism would work well in setting, better than the endless "this time it's real!" dramatic irony. We should weep for Ellys, not snicker.

Still, on balance I think it's a game worth checking out because it does so many things cleverly. Even though the fleet battles aren't spectacular, they're nicely executed IMO, and as I said before, the ground missions are slick. It's cool to see these puzzles solved.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

the ground missions are slick.

Is there anything else there than series of dice throws with game offering a couple prompts for quitting while you still haven't lost too much?

 

[MRY]

the ground missions are slick.

Is there anything else there than series of dice throws with game offering a couple prompts for quitting while you still haven't lost too much?

Absolutely. Even at a mechanical level, there's the officer selection, with the projected likelihood of squad loss, resource gain, and officer injury.

But more importantly, there's the packaging, which is, IMO, extremely clever. As I mentioned before, the only thing I might consider is having the officer send messages back for skill checks like, "Some angry looking natives here..." (Speech skill check) or whatever. But overall, I think the packaging is superb.

The reason why the ground missions in particular stand out to me is that since Starflight and Star Control, it's something that every space opera game has struggled with, and, IMO, none has done well with. The question is how to make them convey the core theme of a space opera, offer risk and reward, and yet remain a small and relatively unobtrusive part of the game, rather than becoming too consuming. Obvious, de gustibus applies here, but I think these are better than Star Control III, ME1, ME2 (haven't played later ones), The Long Journey Home, Star Control: Origins, and Space Rangers series. These often end up taking too long, not being fun, etc. IMO, Crying Suns manages to pull off something that is quick, thematic, and reasonably interactive (because of officer selection and blackjack-style stay/hit option to quit the mission). You've got redcoats dying, a sense of exploration, a sense of discovery, occasion "events," etc.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

false choice. since the selection of the officer you were fine with whatever the outcome, even if you were going to lose all 10 marines you already accepted that before beginning. taken into account it's all just chance, you're going to keep pressing anyway.

 

[MRY]

Very occasionally if you count the cards you can figure out that it’s better to pull out early and reduce marine loss.

 

[MRY]

Beat the game. It has a certain hypnotic rhythm to it, but I'm not sure I would recommend it. To be honest, I'm not sure what to make of the game's story. Like many rogue-lites, it is a backwards-looking story (i.e., you're uncovering Deep Lore about what happened in the past, rather than taking part in an interesting, on-going narrative). But that story isn't very mysterious. Each sector is about how a particular faction is awful, but also had Legitimate Grievances against the Empire. But neither of these things is remotely surprising. The hyper-militaristic feudal warlords (Kosh) are nasty bullies? Perish the thought! But they also disliked the high-handed, corrupt Empire? Who could have guessed! Wait, the Yakuza body-modifiers are nasty bullies? No way! But they also disliked the high-handed, corrupt Empire? Etc. Because each faction's stereotype is already villainous (they go: Mad Max Pirates, Church, Yakuza Body-Modifiers, Cruel Warlords, Corrupt Empire, Miscellany), it's not particularly interesting to watch the games color within the lines of a villain's trope. There are two other backwards-looking stories (involving a love triangle and the destruction of a world) but neither goes in any kind of unexpected direction. The game's story is mostly about watching the protagonist catch up to what the player guesses within 30 seconds. ("Your best friend was Vice Admiral Okonkwo. You, your wife, and he went to Academy together. You were inseparable." The player checks his watch, while the protagonist yearns to reconnect with Okonkwo. Spoiler alert: Things Fall Apart.)

The game's real appeal is in its mood, which is well done, and in the gameplay systems, which are a little bit shallow but do a good job of creating mechanics that fit within the narrative. I think with some rigorous editing, more of a random factor to events, and maybe a quadrupling of the number of events, the game would been a strong recommendation.

 

[ArchAngel]

So in other words we should wait for more patches and DLCs with more content.. well that is just what I was planning to do

 

[MRY]

Yes. They say that there are actually lots of additional events that just aren't spawning. It's hard for me to believe that, but if it's right, then the next patch would be a significant improvement. I don't think they are likely to revise the writing, but I suppose anything's possible.

 

[Galdred]

Yes. They say that there are actually lots of additional events that just aren't spawning. It's hard for me to believe that, but if it's right, then the next patch would be a significant improvement. I don't think they are likely to revise the writing, but I suppose anything's possible.

Have you tried Shortest trip to earth?
It feels like FTL, but on which people would have cobbled various subsystems.
The story is not overly interesting (you mostly try to prevent non space faring civilizations from nuking themselves, or watch them doing so, while trying to fight increasingly strong space faring opponents), and it lacks the elegance of FTL, but it has a pretty similar feel, and a bit more complexity.

 

[MRY]

I haven't. I'm not a huge fan of the FTL-like genre. I like FTL a lot, but not enough to seek out clones.

 

[Theodora]

Crying Suns received a "major update", 'Advanced Tactics'.

tl;dr version:

• Each Battleship will have a specific technological modifier (that you can't sell) that will greatly impact the strategies and builds
  
• Reworked all enemy battleship setups to use a larger array of weapons/officers/squadrons/auxiliary system and offer more variety and challenges
  
• Player battleships have been reworked
  
• Some difficulty settings have changed
  
• A new type of POI where you can Upgrade you squadrons Marks: the OMNI forge
  
• 3 new categories of neutral units on the battlefield that can be "activated" during the fight.
  
• 8 new types of weapons with brand new effects
  
• 4 new auxiliary systems
  
• 5 new types of squadrons
  
• 3 new officers abilities

Full patch notes:

Spoiler

Gameplay / MAJOR

Battleship Core System

Each Player Battleship has now a specific core tech modifier called a "core system" (that you can't sell) that will greatly impact the strategies and builds:

- Excelsior: The Empire takes good care of its ships and has its squadrons regenerating twice as fast while in the hangar. A sturdy and balanced Battleship, good for mastering the game basics.
- Kaos: The scrappers always tinker and make the most out of what they have, they cannot have any "mint" (full life) squadrons as they always disassemble/reuse/sell anything not vital, all the squadrons they get are therefore patched. In exchange, they gain a small amount of scrap each time (represented as a price discount in shops)
- Jericho: Lots of weapons! They also are debuff specialists: when firing on a debuffed enemy, they gain a squadron and weapon damage bonus, but if the unit is not debuffed, they have a damage malus.
- Geno: Who needs life when they have stealth? All their squadrons have a life malus. But those with the stealth ability are directly deployed with stealth and, in addition, all stealthed squadrons gain a bonus sneack attack when getting out of stealth.
- Hammer: The definition of implacable. They sure do have a speed malus but, first, they are immune to their own weapons, witch makes the use of zone weapons a lot less troublesome but second, when one of their squadrons are hit by their own weapon they gain a tremendous damage bonus, making their slow advance sounds like a sure countdown to victory. Oh, and also, it starts with a "juggernaut", I'm sure you'll love this new unit.
- Void: Jack of all trade, shape it to your playstyle. Their access to the black market price and capturable pirating skills will surely help you to get the edge, and this new shiny weapon you'd like to try.

Battleship Starting setups

We reworked all enemy battleship setups to use a variant of the player core tech modifier and a larger array of weapons/officers/squadrons/auxiliary systems and offer more variety and challenges. Some particularities of each enemy faction:

- Empire battleships have the most mint troops, fighter/drone/frigates but a small quantity of total squadrons. In addition, their Core tech differs slightly from the player one, when they hit with a single target weapon they heal the adjacent units.
- Scrappers battleships have fighters and kamikaze drones with the brutal deployer auxiliary system. Endless quarter life kamikazes are their go to.
- Church battleships have one less squadron dock, but more weapons and always a hull breaker to break shamelessly your hull. They also have a defensive stance and will wait for you while raining metal and fire on your battleship.
- Akibara-Sung battleships use stealth and heat weapons, they will light your ship on fire if you're not vigilant, be careful of your heat gauge and those invisible (yet surely somewhere) stealthed squadrons.
- Kosh-Buendia battleships will sometime get their favorite unit out: The juggernaut! Be cautious of their extensive use of zone weapon, it can hurt.
- Pirate battleships have one less squadron dock but a lot of squadron reinforcements. The good news is that they are getting weaker one after the other, it's all about surviving the first waves.

New units

3 new categories of neutral units on the battlefield that can be "activated" during the fight:
- Anti-battleship Battery: Capture it and it will fire on the enemy battleship while you play with your squadrons
- Anti-Squadron Defense Battery: Do you feel a bit overwhelmed on the battlefield? This might give you the extra damage you need to take over.
- Nano-Bot Repair Field: Heal zone for your squadrons, pretty useful.

5 new types of squadrons
- Isolated Systems Prototype: No dock cooldown after death!
- Atemporal engine Prototype: Cannot be quickened or slowed down in any way.
- Decaying Field Prototype: Add some poison to their classic damages. Efficient against squadrons with lot of life.
- Parasite drone: See an enemy unit you like? Take control of it!
- Juggernaut: Blows the enemy battleship hull with an exploding drill the size of a building.

New weapons

8 new types of weapons with brand new effects
- High energy beam: Creates additionnal heat on the targeted system
- Debris catapult: Creates asteroids on the battlefield, quite nice to hide your units
- Repair Bot Injector: Heal + regen over time
- Engine Disruptor: Creates a big slow zone when you need more time to prepare for the party
- Matter Destabilizer: Inflict Damages Over Time, the frigates best friend (not)
- Core blaster: This one is peculiar, it litteraly makes one of your unit explode and inflict damages to everything next to it. Better be careful with this one.
- Force field Generator: Invincibility at the tip of your gun.
- Invisible field projector: Gives stealth to a unit, like magic but with less rabbit in a hat and more bullets in your enemies.

New Auxiliary Systems

4 new auxiliary systems for your battleship:
- Opportunist: Bonus on all timed squadron abilities when the enemy has critics
- Poisoned weapons: Add a DOT effect to all direct damage weapons
- Asteroid-field Holo-Mapper: Gives stealth to all your squadrons entering an asteroid field
- Gyges Field Generator: Gives a chance to avoid or sneak on enemies attacks, your choice

New Officers Abilities

5 new officers abilities
- Officer assist: No personnality. He does exactly what his friend next to him does. (Ex: if you have a 25% squadrons speed boost from the first officer, the assist officer doubles it to make a 50% boost).
- Weapon sabotage: When you dislike the enemy weapons, and you want it to stop firing.
- Advanced maneuvers: Boosts further the speed of your stealthed squadrons
- Battlefield auto-Krafter: When you're sad to lose a unit, but happy because it will be almost instantly replaced by a cute drone fleet mk1.
- Guerilla tactics: Choose it if mint squadrons are your nightmare.

A Brand New POI

- A new type of POI where you can Upgrade you squadrons Marks: the OMNI forge

Gameplay / Other

- Some difficulty settings have changed.
- Proximity defense officer no longer attacks lone asteroids and asteroids now protect squadrons from it
- Magneto Frigate now forbids neighbours to move away
- Squadron prototype with "Health Regen" now gains a regen over time
- Officer ability "Proximity Repair" now gives a regen over time to all allied squadrons in the deployment zone
- Resale prices change from 75% of original price to 50% of original price
- IA church now has a defensive stance
- Undeploying an unit with the Auxiliary system "Emergency retreat thrusters" is now impossible to cancel and unit is immune to all movements effects.
- Fights when the menace catches you up on the sector map are now harder
- Famous officer has now a resale price of x3.5 (x1.75 more than the previous version since resale price is now 50% instead of 75%)
- Enemy life has been decreased
- Hull breaker and Piercer Laser have been nerfed to match enemy life decrease
- Chapter 4 / Kosh-Buendia Boss: Improved special power
- Cruiser Basilisk has now a range of 3 and a decreased dps
- Squadron ability "Stealth" now applies a fixed "sneak attack" bonus: Damage against squadrons and heat against battleship
- Squadron Krafter will keep loading its ability while moving (it was reset prior to this version)
- Plasma reload time has been reduced (33s -> 28s)
- Akibara-Sung boss has been rerfed (less full life units)
- Easy mode is easier
- Improved tactical log auxiliary system: 80 scraps per total victory (previously 30), max 350 (previously none)
- Empire enemy bosses have less frigates
- Okwonko has now a healing gun instead of an invincible gun
- Squadron prototype with "Health Regen" now gains a regen over time
- Prototype squadron ability Regen Buff: 5s (previously 10s) cooldown when standing still and not fighting, instant +10% life and 10s (previously 5s) health regen
- Officer ability "Proximity Repair" now gives a regen over time to all allied squadrons in the deployment zone
- Auxiliary System "Armored Hull" makes your battleship resist 50% of the weapon damage instead of 100%, but applies now to the first hull bar instead of your last
- Empire enemy has less full life units, and lower mark
- Critic Repair Officer Buffed: No longer takes damage and can now repair when its support dock is recovering from critic
- Fire critic takes now longer to propagate
- Heat resistance (enemy and upgrades) and weapon heat amount rebalanced
- The weapon "Cannon" is buffed and is not the worst weapon anymore
- Tesla XL has been buffed (7dps x 8s -> 10dps x 8s)
- For the Church, at the start of a run, all possible weapon will be deployed (instead of only the first)
- Player Squadrons will not stop their movement if they are intercepted right after a user command

Interface, Graphics and Sounds

- New Tutorial in run custo for the new "core system" feature and the first new battleship
- New tutorial for the "core system" feature during fight
- A few slight redesigns in some screens
- Local ruler Events now have a negative text highlight

BugFix

- Special officers could drop repetitively in some case on the first run in sector 3 leading sometime to a duplicate officer drop
- Fixed an issue that were causing the player to be Stuck in the story introduction
- Fixed a Bug that was blocking the player on a splashscreen
- Fixed some lighting problems on the Kosh-Buendia battleship
- Fixed a lag on some conditions during the fight
- In some conditions, the battleship was able to be left with 0 pv displayed but still being alive
- In some conditions, a squadron could be left with 0pv but not dead
- In some locale (ex: turkey) the upper case "i" was not displayed
- Fix a refuel exploit
- Various translation fixes
- Expedition will not spawn on gazeous or magma planets
- Space Instability during fight were able to teleport other space instability

 

[Thac0]

30% off right now, but judging by the scathing reviews here I will wait for sub 10 dollars. The game is so pretty I might get it just for that alone.

 

[Theodora]

The game is so pretty I might get it just for that alone.

Yeah, the contrasting art styles work wonderfully. Stills don't do it justice, but:

Spoiler

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Tried this out due to Humble Bundle and even though I'd never even heard of it, seems kinda cool. Feels like it'll ultimately be worse than FTL mechanically (Story focus, longer time for each run, etc) but even so I'm digging it. Like Theodora mentioned it's even prettier in motion, really cool combination of pixel-art 3D models done up to look like sprites with nice lighting and reflections (The lighting shifting on the bridge as you fly around especially) is slick as snot. May mute the music and play the Endless Space 2 soundtrack just to make it even more relaxing even though it won't have those great ES2 UI sounds.

Thac0 I'll poke you since you were thinking about grabbing it for under $10. You should be able to get it dirt cheap from key resellers, or just buy this Humble Choice for $12 and get other games along with it. Not even going to try to scam you with referral link bullshit to get shekels out of you.
https://www.humblebundle.com/subscr...&hmb_medium=takeover&hmb_campaign=current_sub

 

[Thac0]

Tried this out due to Humble Bundle and even though I'd never even heard of it, seems kinda cool. Feels like it'll ultimately be worse than FTL mechanically (Story focus, longer time for each run, etc) but even so I'm digging it. Like Theodora mentioned it's even prettier in motion, really cool combination of pixel-art 3D models done up to look like sprites with nice lighting and reflections (The lighting shifting on the bridge as you fly around especially) is slick as snot. May mute the music and play the Endless Space 2 soundtrack just to make it even more relaxing even though it won't have those great ES2 UI sounds.

Thac0 I'll poke you since you were thinking about grabbing it for under $10. You should be able to get it dirt cheap from key resellers, or just buy this Humble Choice for $12 and get other games along with it. Not even going to try to scam you with referral link bullshit to get shekels out of you.
https://www.humblebundle.com/subscr...&hmb_medium=takeover&hmb_campaign=current_sub

Thanks for the thought.
I usually interested in humble deals, but this month Crying Suns was literally the only game in there that remotely interested me and which I did't own yet, so I paused another month.
Nice to hear more opinions on it being good. Maybe I will go back on that decision.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Thanks for the thought.
I usually interested in humble deals, but this month Crying Suns was literally the only game in there that remotely interested me and which I did't own yet, so I paused another month.
Nice to hear more opinions on it being good. Maybe I will go back on that decision.

If you're so inclined you can snag just Crying Suns for $2.50 on G2A, but it's understandable if you'd rather skip 'em.

After getting a bit more time in on it (And beating the first chapter) it's still in the "Fun but not as well made as FTL" territory. I'm kind of assuming the difficulty will ramp up as the chapters advance, if it has the same events/enemies/etc then that would feel a bit like a failure in how they structured the game. It has actual easy/normal/hard difficulty but it makes a relatively large deal about how each chapter is a unique region with a unique story and enemies, so I'll have to see. Got a better grasp on how combat works too, and it's kind of messy. Originally I was being too precious with my fighters because I thought once they reached damaged state they'd be completely destroyed if they were blown up again, but that's not the case. You just endlessly mash out units during combat and they have half health if they've been blown up previously, but that's it. The combat isn't really as satisfying as FTL which is odd given how simple FTL's combat is, but it's simple with a lot of room for things to go wrong and cause exciting panic. Crying Suns combat has things going wrong quickly but you turn things around just as fast. I could ramble about the economy and upgrades some too but I'm already getting rambly so I'll leave it at that, but "Not as good as FTL but still fun" sums it up.

 

[Thac0]

After getting a bit more time in on it (And beating the first chapter) it's still in the "Fun but not as well made as FTL" territory. I'm kind of assuming the difficulty will ramp up as the chapters advance, if it has the same events/enemies/etc then that would feel a bit like a failure in how they structured the game. It has actual easy/normal/hard difficulty but it makes a relatively large deal about how each chapter is a unique region with a unique story and enemies, so I'll have to see. Got a better grasp on how combat works too, and it's kind of messy. Originally I was being too precious with my fighters because I thought once they reached damaged state they'd be completely destroyed if they were blown up again, but that's not the case. You just endlessly mash out units during combat and they have half health if they've been blown up previously, but that's it. The combat isn't really as satisfying as FTL which is odd given how simple FTL's combat is, but it's simple with a lot of room for things to go wrong and cause exciting panic. Crying Suns combat has things going wrong quickly but you turn things around just as fast. I could ramble about the economy and upgrades some too but I'm already getting rambly so I'll leave it at that, but "Not as good as FTL but still fun" sums it up.

Hmm that certainly put's it into question wether it is even worth my time. FTL is good, but I havn't even finished that and had my fill after 13hours of it.
I wish this game was turn based, then I wouldn't have waited a second before buying it.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Hmm that certainly put's it into question wether it is even worth my time. FTL is good, but I havn't even finished that and had my fill after 13hours of it.
I wish this game was turn based, then I wouldn't have waited a second before buying it.

Probably a safe skip then. Combat in Crying Suns is actually faster than FTL even though they work on the same general idea, but since you're ordering squadrons of fighters around there's less waiting on cooldowns and more constant jiggling little ships. And the setting and look of Crying Suns is cool but probably not strong enough to warrant diving in if FTL didn't float your boat that much to begin with. There're probably a few people out there that like it more than FTL but I'd be a bit hard pressed to nail down why, and the most likely candidates would probably be the setting and graphics.

 

[Galdred]

I found battles in FTL more varied than in Crying Suns: It felt like I had to play differently depending on opponent loadout and my own, but in Crying Suns, I ended up just starting with different squadrons, and cycling them all regardless of the opponent (playing kamikaze drones or stealth fighters didn't feel so different to me).
Crying Suns has a nice atmosphere indeed, but it was one of the few tactical games in which I didn't really feel interested to play at higher difficulties (because it works much better with unlocks, and I couldn't really be bothered to make "unlock runs" on easy.