- Joined
- May 8, 2020
- Messages
- 21
So, after spending a hundred hours in starbase closed alpha and doing, pretty much everything there is to do, I feel like i can leave some feedback that can be actually helpful for the devs. About how the alpha feels, what are the definite strengths and what are some of the glaring weaknesses. So, without further adieu, here is my review, of Starbase CA after 100 hours of testing.
1: First impressions.
Punching a screen trying to progress the storyline for DOOM, swelling music and an inspiring montage of CIV series, The legendary horse carriage in Skyrim, The realisation that refunds are not accepted for Fallout 76. First impression, is at times more important than the game itself, and i am glad to say that starbase has an amazing first 10-15 minutes in-game. The menu music, although a bit too loud (stop making loud menu music gamedevs! Is there a conspiracy against our ears?!) is very well done, props to the composer for doing an amazing job! Once you open the menu, you see the station, see it's huge size from a side, only to log in and witness it enormous size first hand. Eos looks stunning, the music swells, you see even bigger stations out in the distance, spaceships whizzing by, even for CA, i am already getting what is promised, a station full of colors, activity and a sense of cosmic scale we all so dearly love. Starbase has one of the best first login impressions i had from a game in aloooong time, so a solid 10 there.
2: Beginner experience
Oof. Big oof. Once you are done gawking at the size of the station and wondered about for half an hour checking it out, it is time for you to discover the horror, that is box thruster grind. Yeah, yeah, i know, mining has already been buffed, but that does not fix the issue, the beginner job experience is so bad, that it literally, hurt me. I am not exaggerating. After the FIRST three hours of grinding, i had to stop, because my wrist hurt from repetitive motions. The situation is not helped that the first practical ship (tugger) is just a massive noob trap. Without batteries recharging at stations, this ship can pull off 1 mining trip, 2 if it does not go too far. After that, for a beginner - it's gone. You would need to manually replace batteries for new ones, and for someone who just started the game and has no clue what a wiring tool is? Impossible. So after getting the pointless beginner ship, you go to the store and see the price for the cheapest, actually good ship - 900.000. WHAT?! I will need to spend how much more time grinding?! four HOURS?! This would be an instant turn off from the game for me. There needs to be either a functioning cheaper ship for beginners, or a massive buff to the payouts of beginner jobs, I would much rather prefer the cheap ship option. I am not too concerned about this issue, as i know that the devs are already working on Demolitions job, and some others, to bring the desperately needed variety to the beginning stages of the game. Which is very good to know. However, as the CA is right now, it gets 1/10 for beginner experience. Space IKEA is more fitting as a punishment at Saltberia than a game tutorial that it was intended as. I personally recommend some devs to disable their infinite money and actually go through the grind to get a hauler, mostly as a revenge for my wrist
3: First spaceship.
With beginner experience so horrid, even the moment of buying your first ship (which is hopefully not a tugger) feels not like an earned reward, but more of a "Oh thank God i am out of that F******* place! Finally!". Once you take off in your ship, Starbase becomes a new game. It feels like discovering fire. After hours of bolting pointless things together, flying a ship feels heavenly. And even though the payout from your first few mining trips is FAR less then from grinding box thrusters, it is infinitely more fun and rewarding. For me, i was already part of a faction (The Empire) when starting out, which, i presume will not be the same for 99% of people starting out in EA, so my first trip to the asteroid belt was with a few friends. We took our hauler to the belt, got YEETED out couple of times, found some trash ore, marveled at the gorgeous sights of starbase, came back sold the whole thing for only like... 100.000 and were absolutely overjoyed at the experience. The experiences like that, even when alone, is where Starbase shines the most. You, even alone, going out there in the cosmos being a humble miner providing to the global economy and earning a few bucks in the process. With friends, the experience is ten times better. In any case, even though we earned much less than what we would have in space IKEA, we absolutely loved the experience, and i think that the best advise for devs from that - do not keep new players from getting hands on their first spaceship for long. As i said, first impressions matter, and the first flight is one of the very important aspects of that first impressions. First spaceship impression 9/10 (looking forward to the anti-YEET device)
4: Midgame?
I don't really know how to name this part, you have got your first ship, you mined a bunch and made your first million. You can now afford better ships and leave the safezone without the risk of going back to space IKEA. This is where the game actually starts. Now, the universe is yours. To an extent. Because for now, the only thing you can do, is mine. Which is fine, it's CA after all, but after 10-20 hours of mining, even with friends, you are going to get bored of endless "lootbox opening" that is asteroid mining. I can not WAIT for the asteroid collection lots to start working, so that we can have some variety in ship design and gameplay. For now, there is only 2 kinds of ships in starbase. Big box of boxes, for making money, and pew-pew yarr-harr i'm Bobo the pirate ship. Damn you bobo! And with piracy not being profitable at all, mining ships are practically all there is. So, as you can see, there is not really much to rate, or advise upon from here on now. You have hit the content wall. Which is, again, fine, this is Closed Alpha for a reason. Still though, there is plenty of fun to be had in the asteroid belt with friends, the mining is fun, the ships in the store are pretty pointless, but overall, the gameloop is entertaining, and you find yourself wanting to play more and that is just what you need at this stage, so yet again, good job guys! 7/10.
5: Lategame
The ship designer is the lategame. No, really. What else am i going to do with 75 million credits? Buy 153 billion gauss rifles? No, i am going to build the biggest! baddest ship money can buy! Yeah! Wooo! Ship designer! Here i come!... oh no... what are all of these buttons....
The ship designer is... at its early stages... i hope. It really needs a lot of quality of life improvements. A lot of people out right say they do not even want to touch it because of how complex it is. BUT! For me, being too complex, is good. I like having more options. What i do not like, is the designer being blender with bolts, wires, pipes and a part menu. Do not get me wrong, i can clearly see the ridiculous amount of work that went into it. The durability tool is amazing, whoever coded it - i love you, ask lauri for a raise, it looks like months of work. That being said. Ship designer needs love, a lot of love. The fact that autobolt does not autobolt is the prime example. manually adding a second bolt to every beam plate doubles, or sometimes triples the structural integrity! Why does autobolt not just put 4 bolt on every plate instead of 2? and WHY?! Why for the love of god! Does it not bolt ithe internals of the box thruster?! IT'S INFURIATING! (heavy breathing) But yeah, i do not see the point in rating the ship designer at this point, it is clearly still in the works and needs a lot of improvements, mainly - symmetry. OR. If symmetry is too hard to code, or perhaps not wanted for some reason - MIRROR TOOL. Please, devs.... please... i beg you.... A button that mirrors selection.... that is all i am asking for!
1: First impressions.
Punching a screen trying to progress the storyline for DOOM, swelling music and an inspiring montage of CIV series, The legendary horse carriage in Skyrim, The realisation that refunds are not accepted for Fallout 76. First impression, is at times more important than the game itself, and i am glad to say that starbase has an amazing first 10-15 minutes in-game. The menu music, although a bit too loud (stop making loud menu music gamedevs! Is there a conspiracy against our ears?!) is very well done, props to the composer for doing an amazing job! Once you open the menu, you see the station, see it's huge size from a side, only to log in and witness it enormous size first hand. Eos looks stunning, the music swells, you see even bigger stations out in the distance, spaceships whizzing by, even for CA, i am already getting what is promised, a station full of colors, activity and a sense of cosmic scale we all so dearly love. Starbase has one of the best first login impressions i had from a game in aloooong time, so a solid 10 there.
2: Beginner experience
Oof. Big oof. Once you are done gawking at the size of the station and wondered about for half an hour checking it out, it is time for you to discover the horror, that is box thruster grind. Yeah, yeah, i know, mining has already been buffed, but that does not fix the issue, the beginner job experience is so bad, that it literally, hurt me. I am not exaggerating. After the FIRST three hours of grinding, i had to stop, because my wrist hurt from repetitive motions. The situation is not helped that the first practical ship (tugger) is just a massive noob trap. Without batteries recharging at stations, this ship can pull off 1 mining trip, 2 if it does not go too far. After that, for a beginner - it's gone. You would need to manually replace batteries for new ones, and for someone who just started the game and has no clue what a wiring tool is? Impossible. So after getting the pointless beginner ship, you go to the store and see the price for the cheapest, actually good ship - 900.000. WHAT?! I will need to spend how much more time grinding?! four HOURS?! This would be an instant turn off from the game for me. There needs to be either a functioning cheaper ship for beginners, or a massive buff to the payouts of beginner jobs, I would much rather prefer the cheap ship option. I am not too concerned about this issue, as i know that the devs are already working on Demolitions job, and some others, to bring the desperately needed variety to the beginning stages of the game. Which is very good to know. However, as the CA is right now, it gets 1/10 for beginner experience. Space IKEA is more fitting as a punishment at Saltberia than a game tutorial that it was intended as. I personally recommend some devs to disable their infinite money and actually go through the grind to get a hauler, mostly as a revenge for my wrist
3: First spaceship.
With beginner experience so horrid, even the moment of buying your first ship (which is hopefully not a tugger) feels not like an earned reward, but more of a "Oh thank God i am out of that F******* place! Finally!". Once you take off in your ship, Starbase becomes a new game. It feels like discovering fire. After hours of bolting pointless things together, flying a ship feels heavenly. And even though the payout from your first few mining trips is FAR less then from grinding box thrusters, it is infinitely more fun and rewarding. For me, i was already part of a faction (The Empire) when starting out, which, i presume will not be the same for 99% of people starting out in EA, so my first trip to the asteroid belt was with a few friends. We took our hauler to the belt, got YEETED out couple of times, found some trash ore, marveled at the gorgeous sights of starbase, came back sold the whole thing for only like... 100.000 and were absolutely overjoyed at the experience. The experiences like that, even when alone, is where Starbase shines the most. You, even alone, going out there in the cosmos being a humble miner providing to the global economy and earning a few bucks in the process. With friends, the experience is ten times better. In any case, even though we earned much less than what we would have in space IKEA, we absolutely loved the experience, and i think that the best advise for devs from that - do not keep new players from getting hands on their first spaceship for long. As i said, first impressions matter, and the first flight is one of the very important aspects of that first impressions. First spaceship impression 9/10 (looking forward to the anti-YEET device)
4: Midgame?
I don't really know how to name this part, you have got your first ship, you mined a bunch and made your first million. You can now afford better ships and leave the safezone without the risk of going back to space IKEA. This is where the game actually starts. Now, the universe is yours. To an extent. Because for now, the only thing you can do, is mine. Which is fine, it's CA after all, but after 10-20 hours of mining, even with friends, you are going to get bored of endless "lootbox opening" that is asteroid mining. I can not WAIT for the asteroid collection lots to start working, so that we can have some variety in ship design and gameplay. For now, there is only 2 kinds of ships in starbase. Big box of boxes, for making money, and pew-pew yarr-harr i'm Bobo the pirate ship. Damn you bobo! And with piracy not being profitable at all, mining ships are practically all there is. So, as you can see, there is not really much to rate, or advise upon from here on now. You have hit the content wall. Which is, again, fine, this is Closed Alpha for a reason. Still though, there is plenty of fun to be had in the asteroid belt with friends, the mining is fun, the ships in the store are pretty pointless, but overall, the gameloop is entertaining, and you find yourself wanting to play more and that is just what you need at this stage, so yet again, good job guys! 7/10.
5: Lategame
The ship designer is the lategame. No, really. What else am i going to do with 75 million credits? Buy 153 billion gauss rifles? No, i am going to build the biggest! baddest ship money can buy! Yeah! Wooo! Ship designer! Here i come!... oh no... what are all of these buttons....
The ship designer is... at its early stages... i hope. It really needs a lot of quality of life improvements. A lot of people out right say they do not even want to touch it because of how complex it is. BUT! For me, being too complex, is good. I like having more options. What i do not like, is the designer being blender with bolts, wires, pipes and a part menu. Do not get me wrong, i can clearly see the ridiculous amount of work that went into it. The durability tool is amazing, whoever coded it - i love you, ask lauri for a raise, it looks like months of work. That being said. Ship designer needs love, a lot of love. The fact that autobolt does not autobolt is the prime example. manually adding a second bolt to every beam plate doubles, or sometimes triples the structural integrity! Why does autobolt not just put 4 bolt on every plate instead of 2? and WHY?! Why for the love of god! Does it not bolt ithe internals of the box thruster?! IT'S INFURIATING! (heavy breathing) But yeah, i do not see the point in rating the ship designer at this point, it is clearly still in the works and needs a lot of improvements, mainly - symmetry. OR. If symmetry is too hard to code, or perhaps not wanted for some reason - MIRROR TOOL. Please, devs.... please... i beg you.... A button that mirrors selection.... that is all i am asking for!
Last edited:
![[QS] Combustible](/data/avatars/m/0/356.jpg?1599435891){kind=avatar}
