9 replies to this topic

[IMG News]

Soldak Entertainment has announced that its upcoming starship action RPG, Drox Operative, is now available for pre-order. Those who pre-order the game now will receive full access to the latest beta build, a reduced pre-order price of $14.99, the opportunity to give feedback, and the final version when it becomes available.

Drox Operative is a starship action RPG with warring alien races, fierce space battles, a dynamic, evolving galaxy, and co-op multiplayer.

Eons ago the Drox ruled the galaxy through their mighty Operatives. These elite starship captains were trained to accomplish the impossible at whatever cost necessary. Whether employing stealth or brute force, they were always deadly. Using these Operatives, the Drox built a starlane system for quick travel amongst the stars, colonized and conquered millions of planets, and ruled the galaxy with an iron grip for over 100,000 years. Eventually realizing their Operatives were a threat, they attempted to assassinate all of them. They failed. The following Galactic Civil War was devastating.

Thousands of years later, the Drox are extinct, but the secretive Drox Operative guild lives on. They have learned their lesson though: loyalty to any one race is foolish. They now work for whoever can pay. And pay they do! Empires might span hundreds of planets and thousands of ships, but when a critical task arises, they still turn to an Operative.

In the new space race, the major races are scouting, colonizing, and expanding, trying to take over the galaxy by diplomacy, technology, war, or any other means their scheming minds can contemplate.

As a Drox Operative it's NOT your job to manage all of those annoying people, build thousands of buildings, play nice with your enemies, or balance the budget. It IS your job to pick the winning side and maybe even help them conquer the galaxy if you're being nice, more importantly though is to rake in as many credits as possible, well that and build the coolest, deadliest ship in the known universe. Not many screw with an Operative captaining a Dreadnaught!

Features:

• Explore a dynamic and evolving galaxy
  
• Explore a unique sector of the galaxy in every game, with different "monsters", ship components, quests, and even races
  
• Fight in the galactic war between the various alien races
  
• Battle hundreds of different enemy starships
  
• Build the coolest and deadliest starship in the galaxy
  
• Outfit your ship with thousands of components and crew
  
• Adventure with your friends with co-op multiplayer

Learn more about the game at the page below.

Return to Full Article - InsideMacGames News

[Wumpus]

Bought this and tried it out for a bit. Pretty fun. Its like Diablo in space. Ships drop color coded loot for you to upgrade, every level you get 5 points to assign in different areas, you can swap out all kinds of ship components, which is fun. Run around and do quests for people, explore and find random space junk (think treasure chests.) Its randomly generated in terms of the maps, and you pick from a bunch of different races to start which gives you certain bonuses.

Certainly not very Escape Velocity like, but that's not a bad thing. Its pretty unique and with a little time invested I think people could be hooked. I recommend checking it out. It also has multiplayer co-op, don't think there's any versus.

My only complaint was super slow ships starting out. Made exploring and getting around a bit of a chore. I imagine later on you get better ships/thrusters, but starting out its verrrry sloooooooow.

[Sargiel]

Definitely worth checking out the forums for hints and tips. For example it's well worth investing in Helm and better drives early on - my current Shadow ship can outrun some of the missiles at the moment I've played it for a few hours and had a good time. I like all the different races and now I'm getting the hang of the game I'm aiming to see if I can play them off against each other - don't really want anyone getting a monopoly on power.

And don't let the Beta status put you off - it's stable and fun.

[Tacohead]

What are the controls like for this game? Mouse-driven? Keyboard-driven?

-PN

[Sargiel]

After reading a tip on the forum I've got auto throttle set-up .. so hit W once and you start moving in the direction of the mouse pointer until you hit stop. The pointer is used to determine which ship you're locked onto and then hit the number keys to use lasers/mines etc. It might not sound great but actually it works better than the default and feels quite natural now.

[Wumpus]

Played for another hour or so, and got a nice thruster module So now I'm cruising around pretty speedily. Getting the hang of how all the travel works with jump gates, waypoints and wormholes.

The controls are both mouse and keyboard driven, though its possible to play entirely with the mouse. The keyboard is just handy for shortcuts like the map and inventory, or thruster toggle. You need the mouse to attack by clicking, it also works for movement. I believes you can use WASD to move too.

This game has a bit of a learning curve, but its actually really fun. I want to put more time into it now.

[Tacohead]

Wumpus, on 17 June 2012 - 12:47 PM, said:

Played for another hour or so, and got a nice thruster module So now I'm cruising around pretty speedily. Getting the hang of how all the travel works with jump gates, waypoints and wormholes.

The controls are both mouse and keyboard driven, though its possible to play entirely with the mouse. The keyboard is just handy for shortcuts like the map and inventory, or thruster toggle. You need the mouse to attack by clicking, it also works for movement. I believes you can use WASD to move too.

This game has a bit of a learning curve, but its actually really fun. I want to put more time into it now.

Entirely with a two-button mouse? No keyboard at all? That's surprising. Hopefully they release a demo then because this game just became alot more interesting to me!

-PN

[Thain Esh Kelch]

Wumpus, on 16 June 2012 - 12:44 PM, said:

Its like Diablo in space.

Certainly not very Escape Velocity like

What is it like then? I would like a lot of strategy, and not just a shooter...

[Wumpus]

Thain Esh Kelch, on 18 June 2012 - 05:47 AM, said:

What is it like then? I would like a lot of strategy, and not just a shooter...

Have you played any other Soldak games? Its got a lot of similarities to Depths of Peril. Every game starts with a bunch of races around who are trying to colonize planets, research more tech, etc. Sometimes they make alliances, or declare war. They dynamically go around and do stuff without any input from the player, buy, trade, sell, attack, colonize, sabotage each other. You're free to do any of that as well to help out or destroy a certain race. Its not deep strategy or overly light, i'd say its somewhere in-between. I ended up botching my first run and got the 2 remaining races to declare war on me. If this happens you only have 10 minutes to fix it before you "lose." I couldn't placate them however, and winded up starting a new universe with my same character. You are free to do this as much as you like. There's benefits to winning though, since you get a bunch of loot at the end.

You can mess with the variables a lot. Add more races, add a challenge like "crowded" which puts 6 races in a small system. Set the enemies higher etc.

Ideally you get hands on a demo, or if you are sure you could drop $15 on the pre-order. Maybe I can make a video demonstrating some of the elements. I'd say its more strategy than shooter myself, or at least 50/50.

[Sargiel]

Wumpus, on 17 June 2012 - 12:47 PM, said:

Played for another hour or so, and got a nice thruster module So now I'm cruising around pretty speedily. Getting the hang of how all the travel works with jump gates, waypoints and wormholes.

The controls are both mouse and keyboard driven, though its possible to play entirely with the mouse. The keyboard is just handy for shortcuts like the map and inventory, or thruster toggle. You need the mouse to attack by clicking, it also works for movement. I believes you can use WASD to move too.

This game has a bit of a learning curve, but its actually really fun. I want to put more time into it now.

You can just use the number keys to attack so the mouse is purely directional. The problem with left clicking to attack is you immediately slow down so combat starts to become stationary. So it's not really a need to have a mouse click-fest just to attack something