I've been playing this for a while now. It's an indie 4X RTS with very active, close-to-the-community developers, excellent modding support and fun gameplay. It had a very rough start a few months ago because the devs ran out of money, and had to release way earlier than they wanted to or they'd go bankrupt, version 1.0.0.0 was filled with bugs and lacked a lot of features.
The current version is 1.0.5.2, almost all of the bugs have been squished and the game works well, with the devs still adding new stuff. Not to mention the awesome mods that are around that add loads of new stuff and features in the game.
Oh, and no DRM, devs don't like it.
Here's the feature list:
SPOILER
[*]A fully customizable and new experience each time you play:
- A dynamic, 5 to 700 (or beyond 4000, with powerful rigs) system, procedurally-generated galaxy, which may be altered over the course of the game (build ringworlds, destroy planets, turn planets into ships, and soon create and destroy other interstellar phenomena; turn stars into powerful platforms or annihilate them, etc.)
- Bring Your Own Ship (Choose their components, sizes, the AI which governs them, and their scale (from the size of a boat to the size of the whole galaxy, there are no limits))
- A research web which may shuffle every playthrough
- Diplomatic interaction between empires and races
- Planets whose size, number of moons, and other characteristics vary.
- Save and load your custom ships and settings to your profile for easy importation and exportation.
- Almost the entire game is modable by an editor as simple as Notepad
- Built in tools to ease mod creation including: Particle System editor, and Model configurator.
- Example mods and scripts which ship with the game to provide scripters and modders an easy way to see how modifying Star Ruler works
- Smart use of AngelScript allows users to create entirely new gamemodes, gameplay, and online experiences
- Massive ship battles fought in real-time with particle effects and location-based damage
- Ships whose individual components can be compromised, destroyed, disabled, and repaired.
- Catastrophic failure of critical systems (e.g. damaging the ship's power supply and control systems will lead to the failure of life support systems and imminent crew death if the ship isn't rescued or if the crew can't repair the systems in time)
- Subsystems such as Bulkheads and Coolant Systems which modify internal components, adding that extra 'oomph' or extra bit of armor to protect against the exploitation of critical systems in ship designs.
- Fully simulated newtonian physics
- Up to 4+ players playing simultaneously, with drop-in-drop-out compatibility
- Supports both internet and LAN play
- Standard server controls
- Seamless transitioning: Multiplayer games can be saved and then played in Singleplayer and then brought back up in Multiplayer.
- Planetary governors which intelligently govern planets using a simple, easy-to-use, language which may be modified on-the-fly by the player to quickly and efficiently manage their entire Empire without much of the micromanagement typically involved; allowing the player to set their assets up and step in to directly control them without them getting in the way.
- Ships have their own fuel stores, power supply, and et cetera.; all represented in a very visible, easy-to-read, format along with visual cues to keep the focus on the battles, not the numbers.
- Numerous easy-to-use interfaces which provide quick solutions to specific problems, all of them moddable by the player for maximum comfort.
- As time goes on, more and more features, graphics updates, and so on will be added to Star Ruler. We won't be satisfied until we're the best in the genre.
System Requirements
Minimum (lowest tested):
Operating System: Windows XP, Vista, 7
CPU: 2 Cores, 2.0 GHz (1 Core w/ Hyperthreading supported)
System Memory: 512 MB
Graphics Memory: 256 MB
Graphics Driver: OpenGL 2.1 or better
Screen Resolution: 1024x768 or Higher
Free Hard Drive Space: 500 MB
Recommended:
CPU: 4 Cores, 2.5 GHz
System Memory: 1024 MB
Graphics Memory: 512 MB
It can currently be bought from these locations:
Impulse
GamersGate
Direct2Drive
Steam
Screenshots:
Trailer:
You can come to visit the irc channel to have a chat with players or devs.
irc.slacker.org, #starruler
Anyone here happen to play this game?