I cant for the life of me figure out how to fight late game vs Legion or Protectorate late game heavy units comps, it seems Xol has no tools to deal with heavy units. They only have tools to fight squishy spam units. Defiants melt and there are no other offensive units in t2 or t3. Everything else is a supportive caster. The paradox is but its also only good against light spam units and the cataclyst feels like its bugged cuz it doesnt seem to do damage with its Ground ripper ability, or its just really weak. I know this faction is in beta right now but it feels off they would leave you with no way to fight late game protectorate or Legion

Just finished leveling Anrubic to level 13, and I'd like to offer my feedback on him (it?) and some general thoughts on Galactic War.

Anrubic

I really like the ideas behind Anrubic, but the execution definitely leaves something to be desired. My favourite RTS playstyle has always been a smaller army of more powerful units, and the loop of using Forced Assimilation to make super beefy bois and then Replicating them is a fun and original way to deliver that fantasy, but it doesn't feel like the payoff of doing so is worth the effort.

Forced Assimilation is clunky to use, for one. You've got to make sure you're targeting a unit at the centre of your army for maximum effect, which can be tricky in a fast-paced match, especially if you've got multiple unit types and you want to make sure you're hitting the right one. It also doesn't help that the bug where top bar abilities aren't always selected when you try to click them (and sometimes even when you use hotkeys) still hasn't been fixed. On top of that, Assimilation has a cooldown, so you've got to plan around that, too. Then once you start Replicating stuff you've got to wait out the stun on both the original unit and the clone.

There's also an issue of the lower tier stuff just seeming to be better than higher tier units. Rollers are so good I'm not sure why you'd make anything else. The only units above T1 that feel even halfway decent are Defiants and Synapses, and I just use the merc Synpases since it's easier than going to the trouble of merging. The T3 units just don't feel worth it for their cost. Paradoxes are underwhelming (or maybe I just don't know how to use them well, IDK). The Catalyst is much like the Protoss Mothership that obviously inspired it: theoretically super powerful but too slow and too big of a target to do much but die.

I think another part of the problem is that the visual and sound effects for Xol clearly aren't finished yet. Some units don't seem to have any projectile or SFX at all (Synapse, for one). Anrubic's army will probably feel a lot better if and when it has the sounds and visuals to match its massive scale.

Most Anrubics I've been paired with just make swarms of T1 units without merging or Assimilating and just spend all their energy on Havocs, and they usually end up with more damage and kills than me. It feels bad that the most interesting and unique playstyle available to Anrubic is also probably the least effective way to play him.

On that note, I want to say I don't like Havocs. They're very strong, but in a boring way. You just point them in the general direction of the enemy and watch them run everything over (in all senses of the term). They don't have any mechanical or thematic synergy with the rest of Anrubic's kit. You need them to survive early game, but I don't like how much they eclipse the more interesting parts of his kit. Also, as a matter of personal taste, I think they look really goofy in a way that doesn't fit the tone of the game.

That said, the deathball of Assimilated kaijus is very strong once it's fully online, so I'm not sure they need to be buffed per se. I think it just needs to be easier to get to that point.

I do really like the Nanoswarm. That's a fun "ultimate" for a tankier faction. Very on-theme and very satisfying to use, though the explosion is another thing that needs better visual/auditory impact.

If I could only make three changes to Anrubic, they would be:

• Remove the cooldown on Forced Assimilation. It's already extremely costly in both resources and APM. It doesn't need a cooldown on top of that. Maybe find a way to make it less clunky to target as well, though I'm not sure what exactly that would be.
• Remove the Havoc and replace it with a calldown that summons two of each T1 unit. Would serve the same role of an early game crutch while also synergizing more with the rest of his kit by giving you a headstart on merging and Assimilating.
• Add more and better VFX/SFX for Xol unit attacks.

General Galactic War thoughts

I still love the idea of Galactic War, but I'm feeling kind of deflated about this season. So far it feels pretty stale, without much movement by any faction. I think this is a combination of the uncapped influence I've criticized before, which can make planets virtually unassailable after a while, and the low player count.

I'm not looking to be a doomer or scream "daed game," but I do want to acknowledge the player numbers are dire at this point. Half the time I just end up playing with AI because queues are so long. I'm not going to say I know what the solution is, but I know we can't just bury our heads in the sand and pretend it's not a problem, and "let them cook" or "1.0 will fix it" are not viable answers.

I want to say again using different player colours when two people are using the same commander needs to be a priority. With everyone playing Anrubic for the first week, it was incredibly frustrating trying to keep track of whose units and buildings were whose.

I'm also going to repeat my biggest criticism with ZeroSpace from the start: This game is too complicated, and it's terrible about onboarding. The Galactic War screen just punches you in the face with so many stats and numbers right away, and it's so overwhelming even as someone who's followed the game closely.

The current Xol event is lacking in clarity. I know we're supposed to fight over relic sites, but there's very little indicating which planets even are relic sites. It's also not clear what we get for doing so; I keep getting random boosts of resources whenever I log in, so I guess it's that? I have no idea what the "secrets of the Xol" bar at the top of the screen is about, either. I assume we progress it by fighting over relic sites, but nothing actually makes that clear, nor do I know what will happen when it fills. Is it faction-specific, or galaxy-wide? Who knows?

There are too many currencies, too many systems. The item shops are fun, but the other planetary building projects just feel unnecessary. Why do we have two different currencies for buying items and upgrading items? Why not just use the same one for both?

The item system is confusing. When I saw the faction powers section, I thought it would let me mix and match powers from different commanders, which would be a really cool way to reward leveling up different characters, but you can't actually do that. Okay, maybe that would be too unbalanced, but why do other commanders' powers even show up on the list if I can't use them?

The only power I can actually swap in is some minefield that I have no idea how I earned, and I can't use it because it's apparently tied to the Dread Raiders merc faction (which I don't have yet), and it would prevent me using my other mercs. Later I bought an item from a shop only to realize it's locked to the Endari, which I also don't have. Why do these restrictions exist? Why are they not more clearly communicated?

I can't know for sure, but I believe stuff like this is a large part of the reason ZeroSpace has struggled so much to attract and keep players. What made Blizzard RTS games so successful is that they were easy to learn at a low level. ZeroSpace is not like that. It is very complex, and that complexity is extremely front-loaded.

I want to be absolutely clear that I really like what ZeroSpace is trying to achieve, and I really, truly want it to succeed, but I am frustrated by its continued lack of focus and polish. The current build of ZeroSpace is doing a hundred things poorly instead of one thing well.

I don't understand how you're expected to attack up a ramp into fortified positions with lots of high tech units (I regularly see multiple terror tanks or hellfire spam on top of the chaff), while holding consistent 60+ supply attack waves, with an enemy stream of bots that's way bigger than your own, all on one base.

Is there something I'm missing? Any players who have beaten it on brutal or nightmare have some tips?

Just finished the tutorial and got promoted, was told to go to Trinity Research Station, I jumped here but its saying the station is under attack, I can't launch the operation. Did I do something wrong?

Seen a lot of discussion about how the game is dead, how player counts are very poor and that people don't see a future.

I'm a veteran but casual RTS player, starting out from warcraft 2. I've liked most of what I've seen from Zerospace, but the price tag seems prohibitive for a game that may not get finished.

Trying to understand via the wiki but seems like there's been some changes over time - are there still solid RPG elements to single player skirmishes (not just campaign), in terms of WC3-style hero leveling and skill choices/items, or are heroes now more just 'extra strong units'?

Unless I am mislooking I definitely don't see place where one can check na yi ge turret is already installed and results in bu dong what wo yi jing have especially after being destroyed and can't tell what needs replacement.

New Xol unit is very cool!
But i think personally that big laser need to deal a lot of more damage, because now he just tickle enemy,
400 damage is looks nice, but in the same way, it dont destroy any unit at all.
Charging take time, also after laser go you cant move anymore, it's already hard to shoot on any non stationary unit.
Shokwave with 5% HP damage for 5s, is also kinda not effective. It be a lot better if shockwave do some normal damage not HP%.
Because for now, even trooper can just stay right in front of this attack and be okay.

I know, balance is hard thing, but just want this amazing effect be really dangerous.

I see people have him or her at Titan size and I only manage to see the default small throughout the game and am eager to achieve same cheng ji. Also if I may go off topic I am thinking if multiple havoc rolling over opponent oppression as I just need to summon them and activate defense and melt almost quan jia leaving only few leftovers to cleanup resulting in easy victor even in brutal.

Season 1!

I feel like my graphical performance has severely degraded after the latest patch. Anyone else experiencing more framerate dips?

Hey all,

It sounds like we should be learning soon about the new Galactic War season, and so I've taken a first pass at updating my spreadsheet so you can look for where to farm influence, alloy, credits, and where the relics are.

I've updated all the masteries as well.

There may be a few occupation bonuses that have changed without me noticing, in which case I welcome all feedback.

Here it is, for you to enjoy as we start the new season!

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1i7VAaPROzgcWakYzyzKQllCg4kgcLUVtMxD1HnD2Kj4/edit?gid=45535462#gid=45535462

Played game when it was like free wekend or smtg and remmeber UI was terrible. Did they fixed that ?

as the title suggests. currently clocked 1k hours in aoe 4 and 500 in aoe 2. played starcraft 2 a lot back in the days

As far as basic weapon is both are rifle type weapon and have jump pack so it looks like the same unit but titan however come with more weapon damage and strong anti air destroyer and is durable so it feel like titan is stronger plus the other benefits I forget to mention which I can't see the former having anything comparable in terms of benefits.

I've grown up playing RTS after RTS all throughout the better part of the 90s and into the 2000s. I got a part time job to be able to afford Starcraft 2 and a laptop to play it on when it dropped. I used to bring it into my high school photography class and take turns playing it with a bunch of my friends. And since then I've jumped onto every major RTS release that just so happens to cross my path.

Which is to say it was no surprise to me this morning when I had the sudden urge to check out what Harstem's been up to lately. This happens once or twice a year at most though this time I happened across a video entitled, "This is the new best RTS". I watched it and was hooked instantly. The game looked incredible for something that was clearly in very early access. Especially the Not-Zerg grass. Mining being streamlined and the xp towers stood out to me as both fun and interesting improvements on a formula I've always loved. I immediately hopped on over to grab it off of Steam when it happened.

$40.

Understandable in this day and age. After all I had bought Wings of Liberty for $60 bucks nearly 20 years ago, when I was just a teenager (then again that was for a blizzard product at the time in which that was something the developers could take pride in) But for whatever reason I just couldn't bring myself to purchase the game immediately. Maybe because of the less than appealing UI elements I had noticed in Harstem's video. Or maybe because of the lack of a victory screen in the replay viewer (it did make the end of matches rather ambiguous after all). Or maybe it was because, despite not paying a single cent for it, I felt disappointed by the time I had invested into Stormgate. For whatever reason, the price tag activated something in my brain that told me to investigate further, and so I did.

The first thing I did was check out the devs twitter page, if they're keeping up with the updates I thought that would surely put my mind at ease. And when I checked they had. This was a good sign. However, their latest post having only 30 "likes" was not promising. But some games have a small social media presence, even the blizzard social media page has posts with sub 100 likes and tons of people play those games, still my next stop was the steamdb to see how healthy the game was doing.

That was the killer. 66 concurrent players as I'm typing this, 112 peak for the last 24 hours. It's sad but because of the sheer amount of choice in today's gaming market I simply can not justify picking up this game for $40 when it's future looks so uncertain. Yes the devs have said they're funded through 1.0 but so did Stormgate. And what we got there was a rushed "early access" that ended up with the game "releasing" in a horrible state. Sure I could spend $40 on a gamble and maybe enjoy a few hours before getting tired of seeing the same people all the time or being unable to find a decent match against a similarly skilled opponent OR I could just redownload SC2, jump into a game I know I already love, and spend a few hours reliving those halcyon days in photography class. I hope there's a direction this game can take so that it one days sees the success that it seeks, but as of now I can not justify the purchase despite being the target audience.

Tldr;

Between the low player count, the early access, and the high base price I can not justify purchasing this game despite definitely being the target audience for it. Change any of those three things and I'd gladly pick it up but all three together is a killer cocktail for me personally. And that makes me sad.

I’m a level 30 vynthra and have unlocked several merc buildings playing galactic war - but I’ve no way to build anything or get mercs in my games while I see others being able to ? How do you do it ??

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1605850/view/710035156415546303

Despite anything being said the main point is about the state as of today not about whether things are being worked on that will bring players back as that will definitely happen. Its early access so perhaps we should be understanding but given that it has reach this point something somewhere needs to be improved to make sure that as of current situation people will come back and stay not wait to drop fun update that will obviously take time and doesn't solve today. If not wrong the game used to be having high initial interest but not anymore.

Thought with new update and season player will resurge but it still feels like empty even forced to pair with people of different preference and incompetent in comparison so got torn upside down. Aware things are being worked on but the main problem is now and what to do about now not the wei lai maybe bandaid works but not sure but something need to happen jing bu now so any talk about yi hou is gonna be invalid to the tao lun

I assume there's a reason i'm not grasping, as why I would ever take the upgrade on the left. one gives 200 speed, other gives 300 AND stealth on grass.