The most ambitious space-strategy project to date
21 January 2014 | By Joe Robinson
A long time ago, in a country far, far on the other side of France, Nick Nieuwoudt from Zug, Switzerland realised that if he was going to get the chance to play the space-strategy game of his dreams, he’d have to actually go and make it himself. Thus, a team of like-minded individuals was formed, and Novus Aeterno was born. I’m usually suspicious of passion projects, or anything that generally takes longer than around five years to be brought to market. There are many very high-profile cases of both scenarios separately turning out badly, and here I am confronted with a game that’s both a passion project AND one that’s been seven years in the making. But they seem to have handled it well.
“The Largest Strategy Game Ever”, as they call it, this is a MMO4XRTS space-strategy game, or something like that. It’s got so many tags it probably defies definition and expectation, and the only thing that I can think of that comes close to what this game wants to be is this old-school browser based space empire management game that I used to play as a teenager (which is still going – Hyperiums, look it up). At its core though, Novus Aeterno combines Empire Management with RTS-style space combat, in a persistent online universe. More importantly though, it aims to have the openness, flexibility and tools to let the players forge their own path, similar to EVE Online. In short – it’s wonderfully ambitious, simple in design, and it’s almost too good to be true.
And yet, it’s close to being a reality: Nick and his company, Taitale Studios, have been designing and funding the game on their own all this time. Now, for the final push (and lacking a Publisher brave enough to back them), they’ve gone to Kickstarter. They’ve raised $187,000 out of a goal of $75,000, and possibly might go to Steam Early Access after that. Novus Aeterno is happening, it doesn’t need your help, but I’m here to tell you why it’s worth getting excited about. Plus, the more money they raise now, the sooner they can work on the more advanced features of the game, which I’ll explain about later.
With a project like this, it’s important to manage expectations – something Nick has being doing almost aggressively in all of the PR and communication that has gone out about this game. Looking at the Kickstarter page, there’s almost too much information to digest, and it all sounds incredibly wonderful and, like, the best game ever. Obviously, what I’ve played is only the alpha, so incredibly early days, but I’d like to think the basics are there, and I can share them with you now. Everyone starts out with one planet, in a randomly generated solar system in a galaxy teeming with randomly generated solar systems. This planet is yours, and it will always be yours - protected by an invincibility shield which cannot be taken down. The management interface is simple, stylistic 2D, using a grid system that helps represent the finite living space that you have.
From this humblest of origins, the stars are yours. In your solar system you’ll have planets – some unoccupied, some inhabited. If these other planets are also the starting/capital planet (you can actually change which planet is your ‘home’ planet, by simply building the fortress shield somewhere else), then you’re not going to be able to do anything about it, so I suggest you make nice. The other planets you can colonise, develop, and you can travel to other solar systems - either through normal propulsion or instantaneous FTL – and again, you can colonise, develop... it’s all about building up your empire, your resources and your fleets. Now, given that you are in a persistent online universe (there is no offline/single-player mode), there will be other players doing exactly the same thing. Up to fifteen of you can band together to form an Alliance. Alliances can also band together to form ‘Coalitions’, although alliances within the same coalition can still attack each other.
In EVE Online, there are corporations who like to mine, corporations who like to trade, make money, and bankroll everyone else, and there are corps who just like to fight and blow shit up, and sell their skills for money. In Novus Aeterno, you have (more or less) the same options open to you and your alliance/coalition. I mentioned flexibility before – this is as flexible as you can get and still be a game. Granted, because Novus is rooted in empire management and the fact that players HAVE to own and run at least one or two planets, you are bound by the logistical realities of the game. Your ships will need supplies and repair, possibly even replacing, which requires resources, shipyards, technology... if you don’t want to engage in the management side, it does cripple your ability to be self-sustaining. But then games like this really allow players like you to shine – can’t build your own ships? Then make agreements with players who can. Ask for a moon, or a supply base, and some ships in lieu of hard currency. Who needs an empire when all you need is a place to relax, and a patron who can supply you with the things you need.
Plus, you can always just steal what you need. All of the resources and components in the game that fuel the economy ‘exist’ somewhere. As Nick puts it, there is no ‘emailing’ resources to players, they have to be physically moved from A to B, and everything always exists at an A. This allows players to raid each other, although you’ll want to be careful who you steal from. Combat in Novus, at the moment, is very reminiscent of Sins of a Solar Empire. Everything is on a flat 2D terrain, and ships by and large remain stationary as they bludgeon each other with weapons. Novus goes a bit further and introduces different facings, and armour values and things like that. There is also currently three types of weapon – bean, projectile and missile.
A note on inactive/away players – Taitale don’t want to turn this game into a time(zone) war, or force people into playing into unsociable hours because their nemesis happens to live in Australia. Players who log off will have their empire protected by the ‘Overwatch AI’. It won’t do anything offensive, but it’ll keep any internal trade routes going, keep your empire ticking, but more importantly it’ll use all military assets you have to defend your empire. Further to this, if you lose ships etc… whilst the Overwatch is in charge, the AI will respawn all lost units at a fraction of the price, so anyone thinking they can steal planets from someone whilst they are away will have to deal with waves upon waves of enemy fleets.
Even when someone is online though, taking a planet sounds like a lot of effort. You’ve got to beat any defending fleets and orbital installations. You then have to send troops down to the planet to fight the planets army and population, and then you have to send back for more troops because really you’re just sending a handful of guys against a whole planet, and when does that ever work? While you’re doing this you’ll have to defend the skies against all counter-attacks, and if you do manage to ‘capture’ the planet, the population are still going to hate you for a bit. If the player is online while you are attacking, the only difference is that you won’t have to deal with the constant wave of respawning ships and fleets. On the other hand though, that player may be able to call for help.
This only scratches the surface of Novus, although the basics are more or less covered. There’s plenty more I could tell you about – like the NPC factions, quests, special events, but I’ll leave it though, as not a lot of that is in the current build right now. As a final comment, ship design in this game isn’t amazing – it's very list focused and it’s hard to really gain a sense for what all the different components really MEAN for the ship you’re designing, but it was created with an eye so that you can build ships quickly, instead of using a fancy 3D designer or something. Different games have different priorities, and Nick’s reasoning is pretty sound. Regarding the Kickstarter stretch goals: everything on that list will be in the game, eventually, the stretch goals simply allow Taitale to begin work sooner. Nick and his team are building a universe, one that they want to persist and exist for years, perhaps decades – it’s a long game you’re in for, so you better get comfortable.
Novus Aeterno is playable in Alpha right now, provided you pledge at least $75 or more through Kickstarter. Steam Early Access is something that’s on the table, but the details are fuzzy. The only concrete thing I can really tell you is that the game is supposed to be in ‘beta’ in around six months. As for release, who knows? The boundaries between a finished and an in-development game are blurring – between DayZ and the fact that this is a persistent MMO, what really counts as a finished game these days? Personally, I’m a little bit excited about this game. I mentioned Hyperiums before – this is the game Hyperiums wanted to be when it grew up, and it could prove to be as flexible, and accessible, in a way games like EVE Online just can’t do. They are different games, obviously, but the parallels are there. Welcome to the new age.
Most Anticipated Feature: It’ll be interesting to see how the mid-late ‘game’ develops with Aeterno. A persistent problem with MMO’s is that, eventually, you run out of things to do. Novus has the added facet that you will always have to do a basic level of ‘maintenance’, which games like WoW etc… don’t have. At the moment, I’m still not 100% convinced that veteran players, or alliances that have done all of the cool things they can do, will be kept entertained.
“The Largest Strategy Game Ever”, as they call it, this is a MMO4XRTS space-strategy game, or something like that. It’s got so many tags it probably defies definition and expectation, and the only thing that I can think of that comes close to what this game wants to be is this old-school browser based space empire management game that I used to play as a teenager (which is still going – Hyperiums, look it up). At its core though, Novus Aeterno combines Empire Management with RTS-style space combat, in a persistent online universe. More importantly though, it aims to have the openness, flexibility and tools to let the players forge their own path, similar to EVE Online. In short – it’s wonderfully ambitious, simple in design, and it’s almost too good to be true.
 |
And yet, it’s close to being a reality: Nick and his company, Taitale Studios, have been designing and funding the game on their own all this time. Now, for the final push (and lacking a Publisher brave enough to back them), they’ve gone to Kickstarter. They’ve raised $187,000 out of a goal of $75,000, and possibly might go to Steam Early Access after that. Novus Aeterno is happening, it doesn’t need your help, but I’m here to tell you why it’s worth getting excited about. Plus, the more money they raise now, the sooner they can work on the more advanced features of the game, which I’ll explain about later.
With a project like this, it’s important to manage expectations – something Nick has being doing almost aggressively in all of the PR and communication that has gone out about this game. Looking at the Kickstarter page, there’s almost too much information to digest, and it all sounds incredibly wonderful and, like, the best game ever. Obviously, what I’ve played is only the alpha, so incredibly early days, but I’d like to think the basics are there, and I can share them with you now. Everyone starts out with one planet, in a randomly generated solar system in a galaxy teeming with randomly generated solar systems. This planet is yours, and it will always be yours - protected by an invincibility shield which cannot be taken down. The management interface is simple, stylistic 2D, using a grid system that helps represent the finite living space that you have.
From this humblest of origins, the stars are yours. In your solar system you’ll have planets – some unoccupied, some inhabited. If these other planets are also the starting/capital planet (you can actually change which planet is your ‘home’ planet, by simply building the fortress shield somewhere else), then you’re not going to be able to do anything about it, so I suggest you make nice. The other planets you can colonise, develop, and you can travel to other solar systems - either through normal propulsion or instantaneous FTL – and again, you can colonise, develop... it’s all about building up your empire, your resources and your fleets. Now, given that you are in a persistent online universe (there is no offline/single-player mode), there will be other players doing exactly the same thing. Up to fifteen of you can band together to form an Alliance. Alliances can also band together to form ‘Coalitions’, although alliances within the same coalition can still attack each other.
 |
In EVE Online, there are corporations who like to mine, corporations who like to trade, make money, and bankroll everyone else, and there are corps who just like to fight and blow shit up, and sell their skills for money. In Novus Aeterno, you have (more or less) the same options open to you and your alliance/coalition. I mentioned flexibility before – this is as flexible as you can get and still be a game. Granted, because Novus is rooted in empire management and the fact that players HAVE to own and run at least one or two planets, you are bound by the logistical realities of the game. Your ships will need supplies and repair, possibly even replacing, which requires resources, shipyards, technology... if you don’t want to engage in the management side, it does cripple your ability to be self-sustaining. But then games like this really allow players like you to shine – can’t build your own ships? Then make agreements with players who can. Ask for a moon, or a supply base, and some ships in lieu of hard currency. Who needs an empire when all you need is a place to relax, and a patron who can supply you with the things you need.
Plus, you can always just steal what you need. All of the resources and components in the game that fuel the economy ‘exist’ somewhere. As Nick puts it, there is no ‘emailing’ resources to players, they have to be physically moved from A to B, and everything always exists at an A. This allows players to raid each other, although you’ll want to be careful who you steal from. Combat in Novus, at the moment, is very reminiscent of Sins of a Solar Empire. Everything is on a flat 2D terrain, and ships by and large remain stationary as they bludgeon each other with weapons. Novus goes a bit further and introduces different facings, and armour values and things like that. There is also currently three types of weapon – bean, projectile and missile.
A note on inactive/away players – Taitale don’t want to turn this game into a time(zone) war, or force people into playing into unsociable hours because their nemesis happens to live in Australia. Players who log off will have their empire protected by the ‘Overwatch AI’. It won’t do anything offensive, but it’ll keep any internal trade routes going, keep your empire ticking, but more importantly it’ll use all military assets you have to defend your empire. Further to this, if you lose ships etc… whilst the Overwatch is in charge, the AI will respawn all lost units at a fraction of the price, so anyone thinking they can steal planets from someone whilst they are away will have to deal with waves upon waves of enemy fleets.
Even when someone is online though, taking a planet sounds like a lot of effort. You’ve got to beat any defending fleets and orbital installations. You then have to send troops down to the planet to fight the planets army and population, and then you have to send back for more troops because really you’re just sending a handful of guys against a whole planet, and when does that ever work? While you’re doing this you’ll have to defend the skies against all counter-attacks, and if you do manage to ‘capture’ the planet, the population are still going to hate you for a bit. If the player is online while you are attacking, the only difference is that you won’t have to deal with the constant wave of respawning ships and fleets. On the other hand though, that player may be able to call for help.
 |
This only scratches the surface of Novus, although the basics are more or less covered. There’s plenty more I could tell you about – like the NPC factions, quests, special events, but I’ll leave it though, as not a lot of that is in the current build right now. As a final comment, ship design in this game isn’t amazing – it's very list focused and it’s hard to really gain a sense for what all the different components really MEAN for the ship you’re designing, but it was created with an eye so that you can build ships quickly, instead of using a fancy 3D designer or something. Different games have different priorities, and Nick’s reasoning is pretty sound. Regarding the Kickstarter stretch goals: everything on that list will be in the game, eventually, the stretch goals simply allow Taitale to begin work sooner. Nick and his team are building a universe, one that they want to persist and exist for years, perhaps decades – it’s a long game you’re in for, so you better get comfortable.
Novus Aeterno is playable in Alpha right now, provided you pledge at least $75 or more through Kickstarter. Steam Early Access is something that’s on the table, but the details are fuzzy. The only concrete thing I can really tell you is that the game is supposed to be in ‘beta’ in around six months. As for release, who knows? The boundaries between a finished and an in-development game are blurring – between DayZ and the fact that this is a persistent MMO, what really counts as a finished game these days? Personally, I’m a little bit excited about this game. I mentioned Hyperiums before – this is the game Hyperiums wanted to be when it grew up, and it could prove to be as flexible, and accessible, in a way games like EVE Online just can’t do. They are different games, obviously, but the parallels are there. Welcome to the new age.
Most Anticipated Feature: It’ll be interesting to see how the mid-late ‘game’ develops with Aeterno. A persistent problem with MMO’s is that, eventually, you run out of things to do. Novus has the added facet that you will always have to do a basic level of ‘maintenance’, which games like WoW etc… don’t have. At the moment, I’m still not 100% convinced that veteran players, or alliances that have done all of the cool things they can do, will be kept entertained.
