Spore - the thread

[NayusDante]

You can only have one ship from each allied race. You can't have two fleet ships from the same race. You also can't get a fleet ship from your own race.

Where I am, I only use the fleet for cover fire while I bomb the hell out of cities. The bombs are VERY useful, so get them right away if you plan on destroying/quickly capturing cities. I ignore ships, just capture the planet and they go away. If they don't go away, my auto turrets take care of them for me. I only run into trouble when I'm well outnumbered. Just bomb faster and move more. ^_^

[SegaAges]

You can only have one ship from each allied race. You can't have two fleet ships from the same race. You also can't get a fleet ship from your own race.

Where I am, I only use the fleet for cover fire while I bomb the hell out of cities. The bombs are VERY useful, so get them right away if you plan on destroying/quickly capturing cities. I ignore ships, just capture the planet and they go away. If they don't go away, my auto turrets take care of them for me. I only run into trouble when I'm well outnumbered. Just bomb faster and move more. ^_^

I tried to get another fleet ship from my second ally, but it does not give me the option when I go to diplomacy :(

[mezrabad]

Questions:

I don't have this game. My computer just hasn't got the juice for it.

But I've wanted to ask these questions for a while.

1. Is it possible to evolve an intelligent underwater species?

2. Can that species colonize the land in huge water bubble cities?

3. Is it possible to evolve group intelligences with "hive" minds? Like swarms of termites or something?

4. Are there any lethal "germs"? For instance if you invade another planet do you have to develop resistances to the local bacteria/viruses? (a la "War of the Worlds")?

5. Can you evolve a species that is essentially a parasite race? Like Starcrafts Zerg or the Dreel in a series who's title escapes me at the moment?

6. Are all the life forms carbon based? Any silicon or chlorine based life?

7. The fact that spice harvesting exists gets the Dune geek in me very, very excited. Are there giant sandworms anywhere?

8. Do the planets have different gravity levels requiring species to have different gravitational tolerances? For instance are species from high-gravity worlds large and squat while low gravity worlds might produce thinner and taller?

9. Can there be blind species, perhaps on planets with suns very dim in "visible" light? Do the wavelengths of light come into play at all? Or can blind species "see" via their other senses?

10. What about flight? Is it possible to develop an intelligent species that can fly?

11. Do higher level technologies involve phasing or cloaking? What about genetic manipulation of less advanced world? i.e. directed evolution (screw the prime directive!)

I've been playing Spore Origins on my iPod Touch and so far it's just an arcade game. Not un-fun, very accessible, but not as meaty as I'm hoping the PC game is. Please let me know how meaty this game is. I had great expectations initially...

[NayusDante]

If they won't send a ship, make sure they like you. If not, ally another race and try them.


Questions:

I don't have this game. My computer just hasn't got the juice for it.

But I've wanted to ask these questions for a while.

1. Is it possible to evolve an intelligent underwater species?

2. Can that species colonize the land in huge water bubble cities?

3. Is it possible to evolve group intelligences with "hive" minds? Like swarms of termites or something?

4. Are there any lethal "germs"? For instance if you invade another planet do you have to develop resistances to the local bacteria/viruses? (a la "War of the Worlds")?

5. Can you evolve a species that is essentially a parasite race? Like Starcrafts Zerg or the Dreel in a series who's title escapes me at the moment?

6. Are all the life forms carbon based? Any silicon or chlorine based life?

7. The fact that spice harvesting exists gets the Dune geek in me very, very excited. Are there giant sandworms anywhere?

8. Do the planets have different gravity levels requiring species to have different gravitational tolerances? For instance are species from high-gravity worlds large and squat while low gravity worlds might produce thinner and taller?

9. Can there be blind species, perhaps on planets with suns very dim in "visible" light? Do the wavelengths of light come into play at all? Or can blind species "see" via their other senses?

10. What about flight? Is it possible to develop an intelligent species that can fly?

11. Do higher level technologies involve phasing or cloaking? What about genetic manipulation of less advanced world? i.e. directed evolution (screw the prime directive!)

I've been playing Spore Origins on my iPod Touch and so far it's just an arcade game. Not un-fun, very accessible, but not as meaty as I'm hoping the PC game is. Please let me know how meaty this game is. I had great expectations initially...

1-6 - No, maybe in expansions.

7 - Only if the "epic" creatures that your game picks happen to be sandworms. Also, the spice itself is more food-related, as the item descriptions say. I don't think any of them have mental enhancements >_<. It would be cool to build the Dune star system, though.

8 - No, you design your race manually and everything else is randomly selected.

9 - Well, you can have no eyes I believe.

10 - Yeah, you can have wings. Still, they don't use them as their main form of transportation. They'll fly a bit in the tribal stage to get from point A to point B, but after that, it's all vehicles. I'd like to see your species' abilities get more significance after that point, but it seems like that's all thrown away.

11 - Yes and Yes! Even a Vulcan would get angry at your level of freedom with developing races. As you explore non-sentient-inhabited planets, you'll see that they're all at different stages. Some are at the creature stage, so you can eliminate a particular species or beam down new species, or even use tools to evolve a species to the next stage. You can destroy tribes and sometimes get loot. This is an area where the game is pretty dynamic, and a species that reaches sentience might be more or less interested in forming alliances or starting a war.


A lot of what you mentioned is what the game SHOULD be to suit the hardcore crowd. Sadly, they went for mass-appeal, and kinda missed both marks. Still, great fun and lots of potential.

[Sonicwolf]

I bought this game just after launch and Im fairly dissapointed. For one, right when I installed, everything began getting slower and slower. Internet Explorer now hogs up 200 mb of ram. Go figure. Probably securom or some crap like that.

The game became quite boring and no im not someone new to Sim-like games, I have been playing these style games since 1996.

[Berserker]

Ok, questions time.

I restarted space after getting a handle on it, and I seem to be doing quite well (5 colonies and I make about 500k in less than 5 minutes, go pink spice!).

I am at the point where I can have 3 allies with me, but the problem is, I can only figure out how to get 1 ally to come along with me.

I have 2 different races that are allies with me, but how in the hell do I get more ships in my fleet for allies?

EDIT: Oh yeah, you guys do know the Grox trick, right? That species can only survive on a T0 planet. Put 2 and 2 together, and you can just give them a T1 planet, and poof, easy fix. Does it seem bad? Well, it is not an exploit seeing as how they made it so that the species can only survive on a T0 planet. I am not quite that far yet. I am waiting to take over more places until I get more ships in my fleet.

Please oh please, DPers, help me out. It is annoying, I got 3 or 4 planets completely built up not counting my homeworld, I have gotten passed the 6th box on the bottom, but still only have 1 dude in my fleet with me. Yes, I have 2 allied nations. I can always make another if need be.

Maybe this was just my experience, but I found the game's concept of "allied fleet" basically encompasses one or two ships that tag along quietly, and usually die off pretty quickly.

Their only practical purpose seems to be drawing away enemy fire, but if you keep up on health upgrades as they're available that's pretty inconsequential, as you end up with a massive store of health. You're not invulnerable, but for all intents and purposes on a planetary battle-to-battle basis where you can re-up on health and energy in between from nearby friendly planets, you're pretty much unstoppable, unless you do something stupid like park your ship in between two fully-turreted cities unpaused while you take the dog for a walk.

Learning how to "kite" enemies basically negates any useful purpose for an allied fleet, that I can see, since they don't follow your lead and mainly just fly around on their own account. With moderate upgrades to bombs, missiles, lasers and health, it's pretty easy to take out entire empires single-handedly.

As for the Grox thing, I wouldn't worry about it. They so grossly outnumber you, that any advantage you can leverage beyond a total genocide code or something should be considered fair game without spoiling the experience.

[SegaAges]

Yeah, I just got to the part where I am fighting the Grox now.

I am not at their home base yet, just taking out their colonies, but if this is like taking out the other homeworlds, then it shouldn't be too bad.

I upgraded to my mega bomb, and then will ignore the fighters, ignore the turrets, and get as low as possible and bomb the base. For small colonies, those go down with 2 bombs. As for the homeworld ones, well, I have already survived a homeworld base that had all of its turrets equipped shooting at me, and as long as I do not die, I am cool.

I started these guys way out on the outskirts of the galaxy, so it really sux to fly in to go after the Grox since it is such a long way.

So far I am doing quite well against them though. I should just fight them until I die, go back to my homeworld, make a quick buck, and buy the planet buster and use it on their homeworld to take it out like the death star (easier than fighting their home planet).

[NayusDante]

Here's a tip: There's no shame in dying. It's actually quicker than going back to repair.

Take a planet or two, die, return, repeat.

[SegaAges]

Bumping an old thread.

I started playing this again. This is my current race that I made:
http://ll-690.ea.com/spore/static/image/500/384/690/500384690763_lrg.png

This is my vehicle:
http://ll-776.ea.com/spore/static/image/500/384/776/500384776898_lrg.png

and this is my plane:
http://ll-716.ea.com/spore/static/image/500/387/716/500387716331_lrg.png

I couldn't get the Tails bi-plane perfect, so I had to make due a little.

Now I need to figure out what I am going to do for a spaceship.