Neptune's pride 2 is a sequal to what was already a pretty awesome browser based RTS.
Now, before all of you purists get in a huff at the concept of a browser based game being good, hear me out here
At it's core, its a pretty simple RTS game, just played out in realtime. A game 'tick' happens every 60 minutes, at which point planets produce, fleets move and research happens. And all the parts which happen are simple as well, but not really in a toned down way, it just all works.
Have a youtube video covering the extreme basics. You can buy buildings on your planets, the cost depends on the planets quality, and the number of that type of building you already have there (Build more, and future ones get more expensive). Economy buildings get you $10 at the beginning of each turn (which happens every 24 hours), industrial buildings produce 0.33 ships per hour, and research stations produce 1 research point per hour.
Combat is interesting, in that there is no random luck involved, you can work everything out in advance, and the game even has a calculator to tell you what the outcome of a fight will be. Every round of combat, if there are any defending ships, they destroy ships equal to the researched weapon strength +1. Then if there are any attacking units remaining, they destroy ships equal to their weapon strength. It's a fight to the death since it all happens instantly, and creates the interesting tactic that you can just leave one ship defending a planet and it will still deal lots of damage if you have lots of weapons tech.
There's a heavy emphasis on diplomacy, you can send technologies to each other (It costs to send a tech, $15 per level) and there is no direct trade system, you need to trust! And the only way to win (right now) is to capture half the stars on the map, so things will always be changing, and you have to expand.
The game is, and will always be, free to play. It uses an openid signin system by linking through a google, facebook or yahoo account, so no remembering extra passwords, since the ticks take so long there is no real benefit to checking the game every single hour. Of course, it can help if someone launches a fleet at you at midnight just after you go to bed, and you can't react to it for 6 hours, but there's no real way to balance that, plus it is an option open to everyone. And finally, for those that do want to check while at work, the game is built using html5 so should work fine in any mobile web browser, how handy!
Anyway, if anyone is interested, I've set up an OcUK only game, available to join here:
http://triton.ironhelmet.com/game/6465759630852096
The password is OcUK so feel free to join in and we'll see how it goes!
And if you enjoy reading, the folks over at RPS did a mega huge play through of the original game which you can find here.
Now, before all of you purists get in a huff at the concept of a browser based game being good, hear me out here
At it's core, its a pretty simple RTS game, just played out in realtime. A game 'tick' happens every 60 minutes, at which point planets produce, fleets move and research happens. And all the parts which happen are simple as well, but not really in a toned down way, it just all works.
Have a youtube video covering the extreme basics. You can buy buildings on your planets, the cost depends on the planets quality, and the number of that type of building you already have there (Build more, and future ones get more expensive). Economy buildings get you $10 at the beginning of each turn (which happens every 24 hours), industrial buildings produce 0.33 ships per hour, and research stations produce 1 research point per hour.
Combat is interesting, in that there is no random luck involved, you can work everything out in advance, and the game even has a calculator to tell you what the outcome of a fight will be. Every round of combat, if there are any defending ships, they destroy ships equal to the researched weapon strength +1. Then if there are any attacking units remaining, they destroy ships equal to their weapon strength. It's a fight to the death since it all happens instantly, and creates the interesting tactic that you can just leave one ship defending a planet and it will still deal lots of damage if you have lots of weapons tech.
There's a heavy emphasis on diplomacy, you can send technologies to each other (It costs to send a tech, $15 per level) and there is no direct trade system, you need to trust! And the only way to win (right now) is to capture half the stars on the map, so things will always be changing, and you have to expand.
The game is, and will always be, free to play. It uses an openid signin system by linking through a google, facebook or yahoo account, so no remembering extra passwords, since the ticks take so long there is no real benefit to checking the game every single hour. Of course, it can help if someone launches a fleet at you at midnight just after you go to bed, and you can't react to it for 6 hours, but there's no real way to balance that, plus it is an option open to everyone. And finally, for those that do want to check while at work, the game is built using html5 so should work fine in any mobile web browser, how handy!
Anyway, if anyone is interested, I've set up an OcUK only game, available to join here:
http://triton.ironhelmet.com/game/6465759630852096
The password is OcUK so feel free to join in and we'll see how it goes!
And if you enjoy reading, the folks over at RPS did a mega huge play through of the original game which you can find here.