nweismuller wrote:Speaking of timeframes, I hope work on DLC2 has been going fairly well? I remain excited to see what you have in store for us, and am eager to test new content out.

100%. SiS is one of the best MoO-like games in the past decade. I'd love to see more of it. I'm just concerned about how long it all takes. I imagine that this isn't even the third or fourth thing that they're working on right now...

Pretty sure it will be the case but hope that the new terraforming options come with new art for the planet tranformation icons and showing the target planet type (also visible in the tech description of the research screen) instead of only the existing example planets as reference

Just tried out Stellaris again after 2 years and no matter how many new features they put into that admittedly massive game it all feels hollow as the whole presentation has no personality. Each time I start up this game I wish the initial loading screens would be the art used in the game itself as the later has all the personality of a CSV file

Just be happy it's still being worked on.The sales were small.Hopefully one day it will get the credit it deserves.

I've been stucjk away from home and my Paypal account, but I'm seriously considering dropping an extra hundred dollars on Arioch and Sven once the movement restrictions here in California get eased up. SiS deserves more development, and Arioch and Sven deserve to be rewarded for what they've done.

Ashbery76 wrote:The sales were small.Hopefully one day it will get the credit it deserves.

Do you have some stats on this? I only found steam charts and the review graphs to be helpfull in this matter but the game is also sold over GoG and directly as well if I am not mistaken + there is a publisher, royalties and whatnot makes it impossible to tell the sales and income levels

Based on he above two sources I would hazard a guess of around 500-600 units sold intially over Steam and an additional 200 sold during the first DLC. Monthly sales might be hovering around 30-50 units a month with notable increase in the last 5 months (or people just have more time to write reviews during work). Lets say around 2000-2500 units altogether?

Monthly ratio of poitive to negative reviews has been improving constantly over the years which is understandable given the improvemetns to the areas that were lacking udring launch: What I find strange is that the overall game review score is only at 7/10 given the above
The top most helpfull reviews are negative - which might explain that: one is before the time of the most important patches, so some of the issues mentioned have been resolved already the other one is more recent but is complex in its criticism: some I dont agree with and some are valid but wouldnt warrant an overall negative

Given the considerably improving pisitive reviews ration, the game does seem to be getting a good rep and some other the points covered in the two top ones would actually be adressed with the abov DLC roadmap

That was just what one the devs said.I think it was 15k sales but that was a while ago pre dlc.

Ashbery76 wrote:That was just what one the devs said.I think it was 15k sales but that was a while ago pre dlc.

Was that in units and only for Steam?

I would assume that GoG and evne direct sale had a higher sales volume as the game was available there sooner and the community supporting the development likely pre-ordered it there

zolobolo wrote:I would assume that GoG and evne direct sale had a higher sales volume as the game was available there sooner and the community supporting the development likely pre-ordered it there

Steam generally represents over 90% of PC sales for video games. Why do you think so many developers don't bother putting their stuff on GOG? And, looking at the news feed on the main page:

• 26 Decemember 2015 edited by sven: : We've just launched the Stars in Shadow Steam Greenlight submission!
• edited by sven: 04 January 2016 edited by sven: : Stars in Shadow has been Greenlit! Thank you all for your enthusiasm and support!
• edited by sven: edited by sven: 23 May 2016 [Arioch]: The Coming Soon page on the Steam Store for Stars in Shadow is now live, along with Steam community hub.
• edited by sven: edited by sven: 15 September 2016 edited by sven: : Stars in Shadow is now available in Early Access on Steam! The promotional price of USD $19.99 is good until September 22.
• edited by sven: edited by sven: edited by sven: 19 January 2017 [Arioch]: Stars in Shadow is now officially released! [on Steam]
• edited by sven: edited by sven: edited by sven: 11 July 2017 edited by sven: : Stars in Shadow is now available for purchase on GoG.com!

edited by sven: edited by sven: edited by sven: edited by sven:
So the game was available on Steam before it was available on GOG. No early presence bonus to be expected here.

The website also advertises Steam much more than GOG:

• edited by sven: edited by sven: edited by sven: edited by sven: There's a prominent "Steam" link on the navbar
• edited by sven: edited by sven: edited by sven: edited by sven: On the sidebar there's a "Get SIS" section with a link for Steam and one for GOG, but...
• edited by sven: edited by sven: edited by sven: edited by sven: ... just below that, the icon is another link to Steam
• edited by sven: edited by sven: edited by sven: edited by sven: The "News" section advertises a list of (past) sale events where SIS was discounted... on Steam only (well, there's one for Humble Bundle, too). GOG sales events are never mentioned.
• edited by sven: edited by sven: edited by sven: edited by sven: In the navbar, the "Community" drop-down has a link to the Steam hub, but not one to the GOG forum.

gaerzi wrote:

zolobolo wrote:I would assume that GoG and evne direct sale had a higher sales volume as the game was available there sooner and the community supporting the development likely pre-ordered it there

Steam generally represents over 90% of PC sales for video games. Why do you think so many developers don't bother putting their stuff on GOG?

Yes, I heard that Steam (still) has quite a monopoly over online game purchases - thanks for the stats: yes it seems clear that Steam was first.
To be clear: the above estimate shows very low numbers, and if GoG did not fair better that would suggest that sales were very meager (again not counting possible publisher support) especially since steam has a rather high royalty on top of things: 30% it seems but didnt investigate thoroughly

I thought Steam was last as I came to the game shortly after it was released there and when I wrote the first time, there seemed to have been a large community already with much older topics and discussing various configuration issues that did not seem steam related (maybe direct purchase through publisher/own website)

Sometimes if you publish something on such a dominant platform they demand exclusivity, usualyl not per default but ot be member of some special propomomional program: hence I was not surprised that other online markets of this kind did not take off. GoG I only heard of when playing the white-haired one series and then in regards to SiS

nweismuller wrote:I've been stucjk away from home and my Paypal account, but I'm seriously considering dropping an extra hundred dollars on Arioch and Sven once the movement restrictions here in California get eased up. SiS deserves more development, and Arioch and Sven deserve to be rewarded for what they've done.

Well, I pulled the trigger on that. Good luck to Arioch and Sven!

nweismuller wrote:

nweismuller wrote:I've been stucjk away from home and my Paypal account, but I'm seriously considering dropping an extra hundred dollars on Arioch and Sven once the movement restrictions here in California get eased up. SiS deserves more development, and Arioch and Sven deserve to be rewarded for what they've done.

Well, I pulled the trigger on that. Good luck to Arioch and Sven!

Thanks!

Oh, yeah. That's something I wanted to know! When you get around to DLC 4, is it intended that we be able to see some of what's going on in the culture/institutions of factions we're in contact with? Having some idea what the public institutions of your rivals are, in my experience, really helps make it easier to get into the fiction of the game.

nweismuller wrote:Oh, yeah. That's something I wanted to know! When you get around to DLC 4, is it intended that we be able to see some of what's going on in the culture/institutions of factions we're in contact with? Having some idea what the public institutions of your rivals are, in my experience, really helps make it easier to get into the fiction of the game.

Ideally the mechanisms of culture should interact to some degree with those of other factions; there are some good opportunities there to expose story.

1. Ability to add/use our own music on different screens
2. Defensive fire only / Cease fire button
3. Defensive/offensive Fleet formations
4. Planetary defensive platforms (in front of space bases and star bases
5. Base auto rotate during combat (If not manual works too.)
6. Tractor beams
7. Ramming
8. interactive ground combat
9. More aggressive Harpies (they attack your colonizes)
10 Fully powered /repaired ancient ship on brutal mode.
11: Spiral galaxies, (2-4-6 arm)
12: Random space monsters (Hybrid harpies?)
13 : Capital structure (for only some races)

Thank you for a great game by the way!

Captainspire wrote:2. Defensive fire only / Cease fire button

You can do this by right-clicking on the name of a weapon in the weapons info pane. The weapon group turns red and is disabled until you right-click on it again.

Captainspire wrote:13 : Capital structure (for only some races)

I think a Capital building would make a good part of the civics/culture system, but right now I don't really see a purpose for it that would make it worth sacrificing a building slot for.