Lest we forget: SPORE

[Ellatrue]

You put everything inside the mouth, didn't you?

[rohina]

If the mouth is big enough to contain a number of weapons, then technically, it is a giant maw.

[J. M. Pescado]

Okay, where's it hidden?

Y'all know me too well, I see. This is Fwoggie's stat card.


No, the weapons are not hiding in the back.

Now you can haz Fwoggie!

[Solowren]

It has to be the mouth. Look at the size of that thing!

[Faizah]

Actually, I've been hiding things myself. Case in point, Ockie:

All of his attack stats are 4 or 5. (I suspect they were all 5s in the pre-Spore creature creator) Also, it's not just things hidden under his hat, his hat is also a weapon. (A spitter, turned around)

Here's his deadlier cousin, Octagor:

Appearance-wise, he's just had a change of paint job. However, he now has 5s for the socials that don't require hands or feet, and has 5s for all styles of combat.
Right-click, save as to get an Octagor of your very own.

[Gus Smedstad]

I finished my first Space game on Normal, went to the Core after "winning," found Earth, etc.

I started a new game on Hard.  Cell stage wasn't a big deal.  Creature stage is smashing me flat.  I'm about midway through, and everything has more HP than me, and can kill me in a one-one-one fight unless I kite.  And it's never one-on-one, everyone brings at least one pal.  I can have 2 sidekicks... but the Charm game is complete failure every time I try.  I'm determined to be a Carnivore, but this sure would have been a lot easier with the Omnivore's "summon posse" ability.  "Scare stuff away" isn't that useful, because it scares my target away too.

I also ran into my first penis creature.  I'm quite grateful for the Ban command.

 - Gus

[Li'l Brudder]

On Normal I always get stuck next to the people who attack me because I don't believe in Sporn or whatever.  I tried to escape into a galaxy long ago and far away, but then the fuckers followed me.  Dunno how, I was hundreds of pcs away from them.  Their name?  The Troggs. 

I love the music.  It are win.

[Lorelei]

I tried to escape into a galaxy long ago and far away, but then the fuckers followed me.  Dunno how, I was hundreds of pcs away from them.  Their name?  The Troggs. 

I love the music.  It are win.

Did they play "Wild Thing"?

[lemmiwinks]

Did they play "Wild Thing"?

Yes. Oddly appropriate, innit?

[J. M. Pescado]

I started a new game on Hard.  Cell stage wasn't a big deal.  Creature stage is smashing me flat.  I'm about midway through, and everything has more HP than me, and can kill me in a one-one-one fight unless I kite.  And it's never one-on-one, everyone brings at least one pal.  I can have 2 sidekicks... but the Charm game is complete failure every time I try.  I'm determined to be a Carnivore, but this sure would have been a lot easier with the Omnivore's "summon posse" ability.  "Scare stuff away" isn't that useful, because it scares my target away too.

I also ran into my first penis creature.  I'm quite grateful for the Ban command.

Heh, that's what nukes are for. Banning, pssh. I've never played on anything *BUT* Hard. If it's anything like the Sims difficulties from Castaways, "Hard" is the "real game" with the settings played as-is instead of a hidden fudge factor that makes everything 16x easier.

If you want HARD, instead of evolving, devolve. Play as a limbless, eyeless, mustachioed slug, and make it to the Civ stage (where it ceases to matter that you are a blind, limbless slug). On HARD, of course.

[jsalemi]

I had tons of graphical glitches too, but I updated my graphics drivers and all the problems went away, so I guess that was what caused it. *Shrug* Never had the tribal leader issues though.

Yea, I just saw that ATI has new drivers up, so I'm downloading them now.  My bunch was in early Civ stage when it crashed Friday night, but when I went back in to play them last night, they were back in the middle of Tribal.  And I *know* I saved when they completed tribal before going to Civ, and then saved again right after their first city formed, but the game completely ignored those saves.  So I just said the hell with it, and deleted their planet (that'll show 'em ).  Did get a pic of the tribal leader floating in space first, though.



FYI, there's an article in today's Washington Post about the controversy and user reactions over EAxis' DRM. He mentioned that someone has already made a creature called "Ea's DRM Policy" that has its head stuck firmly up its ass.  You can find it quite easily over on the Spore site, and in case it disappears, here's the .png for your viewing and game-adding-to pleasure:

[J. M. Pescado]

I see your first creature looks similar in nature to mine. My new thing is trying to make them cute as opposed to monstrous, but no less deadly! See: Fwoggie.

[Hellyes]

FYI, there's an article in today's Washington Post about the controversy and user reactions over EAxis' DRM. He mentioned that someone has already made a creature called "Ea's DRM Policy" that has its head stuck firmly up its ass.  You can find it quite easily over on the Spore site, and in case it disappears, here's the .png for your viewing and game-adding-to pleasure:

LOL. That looks like a turkey without it's feathers. Sort of fitting don't you think?

[jsalemi]

I see your first creature looks similar in nature to mine.

Yea, The Horatio (innocuous name for a deadly killer ) kinda ended up looking like alligators on two legs -- not sure if I did that intentionally, but there you go.

I'm redownloading now, in case I got a corrupted copy the first time -- the torrents are running much faster, so it shouldn't take me a week to get it this time.

[Ryslin]

Bah I tend to delete the things I am not happy with. Should stop doing that.






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[Gus Smedstad]

I've never played on anything *BUT* Hard.

That being the case, have you played as a carnivore?  If so, how did you manage it?  Seriously, I'd love to see some tips.

I did finish Creature as a predator.  No choice really, because no matter what parts I equipped, I never managed more than 25% on the charm bar.  Or is that 50%, since half way is success?  In any case, even with perfect mimcry and +5 socials they weren't impressed.

I did not, however, feel like I did it well.  Past a certain point, I lured each target back to the nest where I was invulnerable, and incidentally had a bunch of back up.  That worked because you get a minimum of +10 DNA for each kill, even if you don't get credit for the final kill for the quest.  That only ended when I reached the end brain stage, where you're eligible to advance to Tribal.  At that point I suddenly had twice the hit points of anything around, so I went around slaughtering things so I could get the DNA and parts I wanted to get my creature to where I wanted it for aesthetic reasons.

Tribal and Civ weren't difficult.  Tribal was dead easy, though I discovered that if you're deep in the red zone, getting alliances with 4 out of 5 villages will still make you Industrious instead of Friendly.  Turns out that killing enemy raiders counts against you being friendly, hah.  Civ was mildly challenging, since I had to pay off my neighbors repeatdly before I could buy a military city.  I really wanted to buy a religious city to try that out, but they all got wiped out before I could buy one.

Anyway, I'd like to see some definite ideas on how to really be a predator in Tribal / Hard.  I do wonder if part of the problem is that so many creatures were built in the editor, rather than with the much more limited DNA budget of an evolved creature.

 - Gus

[Zazazu]

On Normal I always get stuck next to the people who attack me because I don't believe in Sporn or whatever. 

Spode. Damn, I wish it was Sporn. That would be hilarious.

I have three races in space right now, and each run is easier than the next not necessarily because of my learnings, but because of my neighbors. First run had to be abandoned because I was surrounded by militaristic Spode followers who wanted my blood before I'd gotten a single upgrade. Second run is still ongoing and decent...two Spode empires are now firmly ambivalent to me. I have a decent number of allies and am flitting about for giggles. Third run, even the Spode worshippers like me pretty easily. I even took a risk and started allying early. So far, so good...I have 20 allied empires and no issues.

I'm a little disappointed that you can't use terraforming tools on planets with saved games.

Had a couple planets not render on approach, but be fine once I was on the surface. Then I had my first crash. Boo.

[Faizah]

Woo, I just reached the center of the galaxy last night. That was hard. Ended up having to quickly jump from hostile system to hostile system to make it. Died twice. (Thankfully respawned at a nearby colony instead of my home colony, that would have been painful making that long trip again.)

If anyone has any tips on how to reach the next place (if you've hit the center you'll know what I mean), PM me. (I do have some idea regarding the general area, but it is a much larger area to search than 'the center of the galaxy', and with no helpful arrow...)

[Zazazu]

I went through a wormhole and now I'm nearly at the center, and probably too soon (I'm only at The Legendary). I decided my colonies can go fuck themselves, the whiny bastards. Go make another ship and fight off your own pirates.

[Faizah]

If there's a way to get to the center without ignoring your whiny colonies, I certainly haven't found it. (Ungrateful bastards. Do I have to do everything around here? Let the damned ecology collapse, I can repopulate it later. Spice raid? Let 'em have it, I won't be back before the storage space runs out, so I won't miss it.)

It's even worse when it's other colonies. Enemies calling to extort you, allies calling for help, or just to give you a random $10k (like you can even buy anything with that) etc.

I like cell stage. Two options: eat, and attack. Simple. Space is awesome, but occasionally annoying.

[J. M. Pescado]

If there's a way to get to the center without ignoring your whiny colonies, I certainly haven't found it. (Ungrateful bastards. Do I have to do everything around here? Let the damned ecology collapse, I can repopulate it later. Spice raid? Let 'em have it, I won't be back before the storage space runs out, so I won't miss it.)

The ecology collapses seem to be prevented entirely if you install the bioprotectors on them. Pirate raids are basically irrelevant because pirates don't destroy anything and besides, if you have the uberturrets on maxed out colonies, the only thing you'd see if you went there is bits of destroyed pirate raining from the sky as you arrive anyway.

Word on the street is that the center of the galaxy reward is really, really lame. You have been warned. If you thought discovering the Precursors had turned into cows was lame, this is both DESPERATELY LAME and EXTREMELY UNFUNNY.

[Zazazu]

Yeah. So.


Don't go to the center just because you think it's super-neat that a wormhole deposited you right outside of Grox territory. They killed me. Then they followed my ass home and killed me more, and wouldn't leave my homeworlds be for a moment. It was bloody, and horribly sad. I did hit 5 mil, though, just by buying up spice whenever I saw it priced under 3k and selling whenever I saw it above 10k.

[Gus Smedstad]

I've been to the center of the galaxy.  That's what I did with my Normal game after I'd "won" by getting the top title.  I'm glad I did it, because I now have the 42 achievement and I've seen the video, but no way would I do that again.  It's a huge hassle, particularly since there are dead ends that aren't really apparent.  Running from Grox over and over again in order to build resupply colonies just isn't fun.

The reward video is meant to be funny, but it's not.  It's not quite as bad as the end of Starflight 2, but it's just really weak writing.  The end reward is sort-of powerful, but by the time you get it, you don't care.  It doesn't do anything you can't do normally, it just does it with a little less effort.

I managed to figure out what I was doing wrong in Hard / Creature.

- Before you advance, it's actually pretty easy to kill stuff.
- You need flunkies in order to deal with combat once you advance.
- You can recruit flunkies from your own race.   I didnt' know that.
- When recruiting, any nearby creatures of the same species contribute to the opposing progress bar, just like your flunkies do.  So it's really important to recruit critters, either of your race or another, well away from the crowd.
- Since they rarely oblige, you can shove them until they're isolated.
- If you have 2-3 flunkies, you can tackle stuff that's hard, even small groups.  You'd think I'd know that from Normal, but it was pretty easy to breeze through on Normal.

On Normal, you can be completely half-assed about recruiting and succeed.  On Hard, you actually have to put some effort into it, which is while I failed so miserably the first time I tried Hard / Creature.  The other thing I did this time was say "screw trying push through the second nest."  The stuff around the first nest is a lot easier, and being able to evolve isn't that big an advantage.  I had a couple of nests of 60 HP always-hostiles between me and the second nest, and I was OK dying against them as long as I took one of them down.  It meant I was making progress.  By the time I managed to get to the second nest, I'd actually completed the stage entirely, and I had something like 700 unspent DNA.

One odd thing is that if you eat a lot of meat as a cell, and you pick up the Omnivore proboscis, you can be an omnivore as long as you don't throw away the proboscis.  The upgrade mouths are all carnivores, but surprisingly it was OK relying on stuff like Charge and Strike instead of the usual Bite.  I'm not sure what would have happened if I'd equipped two different mouths.

IMHO in the Civ stage, Economic attack > Military > Religious, now that I've done all of them.  Religion gives you the city with no damage, but the vehicles are really weak.  I do like the holographic preachers, though.

 - Gus

[J. M. Pescado]

That being the case, have you played as a carnivore?  If so, how did you manage it?  Seriously, I'd love to see some tips.

Yes. I pretty much always finish creature as a Predator. First, the perk is better. "Prime Specimen" is USEFUL as it makes your entire military force in the space stage (namely, YOU and YOU ALONE) about 25% more powerful. So are the bombs in the Tribal and Civ stages. It is much better than, say, the Green perks. as it is trivially easy to improve neighbor relations in Tribal and the "reduces likelyhood of colony revolt" in the space stage...well, let's just say I have NEVER, EVER, even HEARD of a colony revolt. Reducing a 0% chance event does not mean anything!

As for tips, it's simple. Kill it and eat it! FOR THE HORDE! It's easy to charm the first few creatures when you start since you can just sing at them and they don't try to be buttwipes and do things you can't, but pretty soon they start being really annoying about it.

I did finish Creature as a predator.  No choice really, because no matter what parts I equipped, I never managed more than 25% on the charm bar.  Or is that 50%, since half way is success?  In any case, even with perfect mimcry and +5 socials they weren't impressed.

Numbers improve things. Having more creatures in your pack and less in theirs helps. Babies are more easily impressed than adult and Alphas. They are also very tasty. Mmm. Babies.

Tribal and Civ weren't difficult.  Tribal was dead easy, though I discovered that if you're deep in the red zone, getting alliances with 4 out of 5 villages will still make you Industrious instead of Friendly.  Turns out that killing enemy raiders counts against you being friendly, hah.

If you want to switch to friendly while deep in the red zone, giving gifts (Regardless of final outcome) makes you friendlier. Allying a tribe does the same. To jump up your friendly meter, attack a tribe that you just gave a gift to. Then when they get mad at you again, give them another one. Rinse, repeat.

Civ was mildly challenging, since I had to pay off my neighbors repeatdly before I could buy a military city.  I really wanted to buy a religious city to try that out, but they all got wiped out before I could buy one.

As an economic civ, it is crucial that your first vehicle emphasize SPEED ABOVE ALL ELSE. Forget entirely about armor (you don't have weapons anyway, so who cares?), and go for SPEED, so you can raid those remaining tribal villages and claim the spice before they can. This will choke their expansion and allow you to buy out a military or religious civ, and thus have some means of defending yourself.

Anyway, I'd like to see some definite ideas on how to really be a predator in Tribal / Hard.  I do wonder if part of the problem is that so many creatures were built in the editor, rather than with the much more limited DNA budget of an evolved creature.

Predator is easy! Just look at Fwoggie. I exterminated literally every other creature I could find on the map and solo'ed an epic with Fwoggie (all the packmembers died instantly without doing any real damage, due to their poor tactics). Points to keep in mind: The parts you tend to get when you loot Alphas and Bones are dependent on what parts you have installed: The game tends to favor unlocking better versions of your existing parts as an apparent nod to the evolution thing.

Anyway, Hard is the ONLY way to play. Accept no Kewian-based substitutes! Your problem is that you were spoiled by playing anything other than Hard. When *I* first started playing, I picked Hard out of the gate, so I'm used to this.

[Gus Smedstad]

I appreciate the detailed reply, even if I did figure out a good bit on my own.

I totally agree about "Prime Specimen."  I feel the same way about Power Monger, which the game current says increases weapon damage, rather than energy capacity.  The Green and Blue perks are discounts, but I can always get money.

I'm curious about soloing an epic, even with level 5 attacks in all four categories.  The advice I've read is to kite it, since they tend to kill just about everything with one hit.  That might not be true if you're post-end phase, and have 100+ HP, but I have my doubts about spending any time toe-to-toe with one.

I agree about Hard.  Now that I've run through 4 of the 5 stages on Hard a couple of times, I can't see doing it again on Normal, ever.

 - Gus