Space Pirates and Zombies

[Harkonis]

This is being released today in beta form to pre-orders.

Impulse link is here though the ability to buy is a few hours off.

http://www.impulsedriven.com/products/ESD-IMP-W5018

some videos are here on the main site.

http://spacepiratesandzombies.com/index.html

game looks exceptional and will be $15 pre-order, $20 on launch.

[Aganazer]

The newest trailer is really cool looking.

I can't wait to try the demo tonight.

[siege]

Maybe the best game (demo) I've played so far this year. I only wish it was on Steam instead of Impulse.

[CeeKay]

just grabbed the demo, figure it'll be a nice diversion.

[KC]

Looks interesting, but I'll wait for the reviews before jumping in.

[Caine]

ok, tried the demo and have a pretty good feel for it.  i will be buying this one soon.  like others, i would want it on steam first but if they don't go that route, impulse it is. 

on to the early impressions after almost using the full 90 minutes with the demo. 
the VO are basic and not going to stand up next to the big guys but they are not too bad.  the graphics engine is very nice and pretty and in light of the two person team, impressive.  no slow downs even with large battles and all the effects going on.  sound effects are good too so far. 

on to the meat of the game.  the demo starts you with a small section of space to explore and some of the usual tutorial sections.  you find out about missions, harvesting, construction and ship control and everything is pretty self explanatory.  you have a decent craft selection from the get go and get up to three ship fleets quickly, which comes into play in the first big encounter.  it pays to watch the enemy ship and plan your loadout accordingly.  early on, its more about attrition as you have nothing in its class to match, just basic fighters.  you can get around its firing arcs though if you are quick and one of the ships is designed for this directly.  the few upgrades you get access to early on help this and it also helps to stock on the in-game currency as you will need to keep bringing in more ships to keep the heat on.  this is one area which isn't that great as you end up watching your ships warp into a rats nest and get picked apart pretty quickly by the swarms.  i was able to take out his escorts and then dance around with my fighter while my allies hit him.  it was a tough fight and i needed to resort to easy mining options afterwards.  luckily, the game is pretty forgiving of lost ships as you only really lose extra crew picked up from destroyed enemies. 

with the way the game is designed, you have a lot of options to build out ships, so hopefully you can get something like the freedom in GSB and the fleet size to support it.  lots of tech, lots of random events in systems and missions to undertake.  a big game from the looks of it, so i hope these guys built enough to keep it interesting. 

simply put, the demo did its job.  i went from mild interest to buying this soon. 

[Aganazer]

simply put, the demo did its job.  i went from mild interest to buying this soon. 

Agreed! The demo convinced me. I need to buy the game. Now I am deciding if I should play it as is, or wait for a patch or two.

[CeeKay]

tried the demo, and it looks like it's a bit more in depth than what I'm looking for right now, so I can safely wait for it to come to Steam.

[Caine]

after mulling it over on whether to wait or get it on impulse, i found that i really wanted to go back and get further in the game.  bought it and installing now. 

[Misguided]

The demo is awesome so far, I think I'll order it tonight. While I know that every game is procedurally generated, I wonder if each time through will really be very different from the last. Anyone heard anything about the randomness factor?

[Cortilian]

Is there co-op or PvP?

[Harkonis]

Is there co-op or PvP?

nope, if so the game would be too awesome to exist in this reality.

The game is good enough that even I'm playing it! (and you know I hate non-MP stuff)

[Misguided]

So if there's a blueprint you want, but can't get it at a a location because they don't like you and you can't overpower them yet, is it possible to get the same blueprint somewhere else? Do you generally buy every blueprint you can get your hands on, even if you're not sure you need it?

[Jarrodhk]

I tend to pick up all the blue prints. Of course I don't necessarily pay for them all. Pirate you know.

I have seen blue prints in more than one location, but not one that I've already bought. Can be worth the time wandering around systems that you out leveled for that reason.

Finally got point defense and heavy armor last night. Now looking for some upgraded beams.

[CeeKay]

woohoo! SPAZ is finally coming to Steam in August.  even better:

We have confirmed that we will be able to move over people's keys to the Steam client upon release as well. So anyone who already has SPAZ will be able to import their key.

[jersoc]

yeah, thank you gamespot for buying impulse after all!

[CeeKay]

Steam page is up.  it lists August 15th for the release date.

[CeeKay]

grabbed it off of Steam today for $15, and it's the latest version (1.0).  it's clicking better than it did before with the demo, just spent an hour playing around and blowing shit up.  here's the 1.0 notes:

v0.9.007 -> v1.000


Added tutorial skipper
Added cloning system
Added update checker
Added in game upcoming feature list
Added respec
Added difficulty levels
Added specialists
Added stored designs for each hangar for easy switching
Added a reset design button to reset the design to the current ship
Added ships have a sense of self preservation (avoid exploding ships, if it will do major harm)
Added cloaking stealth damage 1.5x + specialist and research boosts.
Added Surplus cloaking device.
Added zombie killers have shields
Added zombie killers have armor
Added on killer conversion shields and armor gone but will repair
Added an extra set of 3 intro stars to make game start more sane
Added critters damage shields armor and hull over time, progressively
Added level down difficulty option (one way only)
Added option to turn off auto pause on lose focus
Added goon pods.
Changed doubled critter shield damage.
Changed higher critter health
Changed smoother critter spawning
Changed cull extra effects when frame rate is low.
Changed critter updates optimized
Changed self destructing ships cut their engines to drift into targets
Changed zombie ships cannot spawn eggs for 5 seconds after birth.
Changed ruptured eggs cause greater damage to the spawned ship.
Changed rammed zombie critters do double damage but go splat
Changed armor must be < 25% for critters to invade
Changed hull must be < 50% for critters to invade.
Changed zombie ship repair rate lowered
Changed doubled boarding combat speed
Changed zombies will not fire on infected ships.
Changed zombie tech level scales with the progress toward the final battle. instead of being locked at 90
Changed increased data cube lifetime
Changed mass bombs inherit ship velocity
Changed mass bombs now explode to drop a gravity well (does not effect allies)
Changed mass bomb flight time effects grav well radius.
Changed research damagestrength effects wisp damage too
Changed research damagestrength also effects strength of gravity well.
Changed mass bombs impact with high projectile damage
Changed hunter srms are do ion damage but can hunt cloakers too (ion damage trippled)
Changed lowered SRM count. spamming was overpowered. (also cpu pig)
Changed launcher boosters from 25% bonus to 20% bonus to reload speed.
Changed slight increase to missile reload times
Changed slight increase in power consume for missiles
Changed escorted ships get much less angry from friendly fire.
Changed mass bombs no longer player pilotable. fire like torps now
Changed upped mission counts in general and made metagame changers more common
Changed lowered spread on scatter and particle cannons
Changed drone bombers do high explosive damage
Changed increase to disruptor cannon damage and speed
Changed particle cannons, shoot 2x as fast as disruptors, do universal damage, shorter range than cannons, more power effieient shoot 6 shots at a time
Changed scatter cannons longer range and do ion damage.
Changed tractor beams work while cloaked
Changed Auto target and first press of prev or next target target closest to reticule
Changed targeting system will target the ship under the reticule on prev or next target pressed, always
Changed inertial engines upgraded. Better top speed and acceleration. Very nice engine now.
Changed removed inertial engines ambient damping
Changed ai avoids wisps dropped by mass bombs
Changed leech beams 40% weaker.
Changed +50% goons cap, 20% default goons
Changed more turns between zombie attacks
Changed leech beams effect zombie killers but not breeders
Changed ion damage effects zombie killers but not breeders
Changed dont allow zombie ships to shoot crew pods
Changed turret firing mode made global and saved
Changed collection mode made global and saved
Changed request crew hotkey added (M)
Changed lots of upgrades for mines. beware.
Changed AI better at deploying minefields.
Changed mine droppers cloak disrupts when they lay a mine
Fixed ai should not attack spaced goons anymore
Fixed Cloaking booster hooked up properly
Fixed repaired ships inheriting current design instead of just fixing current ship

[baelthazar]

I love how Impulse, the first people to sell SPAZ, seem to be the last people to offer the patch... GRRRRR!

[CeeKay]

I love how Impulse, the first people to sell SPAZ, seem to be the last people to offer the patch... GRRRRR!

it looks like you can't even buy the game through them right now.

[Caine]

Did they come through on their word about registering the serial key  from impulse on steam?


I'll need to go back once the patch is live for impulse. Do wish they would change the hangar system though. Having only three ships against larger groups is not as much fun and makes having smaller ships than you can support futile.

[Caine]

RE importing key into steam from other sites:  official word is "soon"
it will help as I'll be able to get the patch that way and go after the achievements.

shame that you will have to restart to get the extra mission types in the game.  oh well.  time to respec the old fashioned way.

[USMC Kato]

I bought mine from Impulse, and apparently our 1.0 version will not be available until tomorrow 

[jersoc]

I love how Impulse, the first people to sell SPAZ, seem to be the last people to offer the patch... GRRRRR!

it looks like you can't even buy the game through them right now.

the devs didnt want to deal with gamespot. so we win because now i get the game! actually I had no beef with impulse prior to gamestop. time to buy this bitch.

[Destructor]

Well, the demo was a ton of fun and I've seen this highly recommended on other sites, so... *runs off to Steam and buys*

Stupid fun indie games taking all my free time.

[baelthazar]

Yeah, Impulse is still not patching the game. I'll port my serial number over as soon as this is available. Apparently, on the Impulse forum, the slow update had something to do with transferring Impulse beta keys into Steam compatible full-version keys. Both Min-Max (developers) and Impulse dropped the ball on this (both took the blame).

It is irritating that the location with first access to beta as an "exclusive," got the short end of the stick with the release. I don't think this had anything to do with Gamestop, according to what people are saying, but I'm not pleased at the treatment.

[Caine]

Impulse codes are good now.  you need to tell impulse to check for updates from the main menu, then get the serial key from the game. if it updated, you will see the Beta tag gone and a new 25 digit code instead.

[baelthazar]

I'l decided to switch my install over to Steam (the Impulse code works for this). I figure they will update faster and better and I'm done with Impulse's customer service. Also, achievements are useless, but fun.

[CeeKay]

apparently there is a Halloween patch out right now.

[edit] meh, so far it just turns asteroids into pumpkins, ore into candy and puts cobwebs on the mothership.

[baelthazar]

I'll bet your mothership has cobwebs on her. 

[CeeKay]

looks like it just got a new update today:

Space Pirates and Zombies had just been updated with the Free Bounty Hunters Expansion. This expansion includes:

10 highly tunable Bounty Hunter ships to battle, research, and pilot.
New global Bounty/Respect system that tracks your actions and triggers Bounty Hunter retaliation/assistance appropriately.
New Extortion mechanic when leaving Bounty Hunter space.
150 Arena challenges available at the new Bounty Hunter stronghold starbases. Win Respect and Rez!

[CeeKay]

finally got around to trying out the game with the latest update, and I have to say the Bounty Hunters are a bit annoying.  they've got some nasty ships, and tend to show up when I'm trying to destroy a warp gate blockade.

kinda wish the devs had made the BH content optional; I was having more fun without having to worry about them.

[Caine]

same.  while the arena missions were a fun distraction and a way to try out weapon paths you aren't specced for, it's annoying that you are basically stuck with doing a bunch of them to build up rep just so you don't get mashed by their ships every time you take out a jump point.

[Hrothgar]

Anyone want a copy of this?  I have a spare steam code.  Drop me a PM.