Moin.
I wouldn't say you're a beta tester, it's come out of closed alpha, I'd say this is open alpha - you're an alpha tester. The game isn't feature complete yet. None of this should really have been a surprise...
Beta testers, alpha testers, that's ultimately splitting hairs. Here with us, a person is called a beta tester, regardless of the exact stage of the software.
The whole point, however, is that the developer is making players pay a price for this early access to Alpha, on the order of magnitude that one would normally buy ready-made games. For this price, I get a game where most of the features already in it don't really work. And if something doesn't work, the developer expects me to use their feedback tool and tell them in detail what exactly doesn't work in which constellation. So, in effect, I am paying money so that I can search for and document errors for the developer.
The principle is not new (to me). I've bought and played numerous Early Access titles. Some in beta, most in alpha status. The biggest difference is that their price wasn't nearly as outrageous.
And the price of Starbase is outrageous, especially because it is already extremely lengthy in Alpha. You can stare at a milky blue screen for hours while just flying from the Origin to an asteroid field. You have 100 hours together without any problems before you have researched a new technology worth mentioning. And when you've finally researched a new device, you just look at the crafting screen for just as long, because the crafting is extremely lame and you can't even do anything else while doing it. Because if you go just a meter too far from the workbench, the crafting stops.
Testing, finding, documenting and reporting bugs in an Early Access Alpha: OK. But being deliberately slowed down like this: Absolutely not ok. Especially not for this price.
How should you build a laser cannon, for example? Researching the thing alone costs 80,000 yellow points, 80,000 blue points and 60,000 purple points, in total, through the entire research tree up to there, around half a million of each of these points. And parts that give you these points, you have to build in quantities of several hundred pieces in order to get these points. For the construction of these quantities you need resources, which alone cost you 50 or more hours to harvest, sometimes resources that you cannot get in the safe zone, which forces you to leave sz. And if you're unlucky, some crazy people shoot your ship from under your bum just for fun, which means you can spend even more resources and time getting a new ship first. And if you somehow managed to get the resources in the end, it takes another 10 hours to craft the parts until you finally have the scores to go only one step further in the research tree.
Effectively, you can spend 50+ hours in this bug-riddled alpha without making the slightest progress. The developer seriously expects you not only to deal with dozens of bugs, give feedback and write error messages for this comparatively outrageously high price, but also spend 200+ hours in the game. That is why I call myself abused here.
Other Early Access Alpha are significantly cheaper than the final version, because the developers appreciate that you give them feedback. And they don't artificially slow you down when testing. You can research cheaply in the Alpha, move faster and build faster. And when the game goes into release at some point, the servers are wiped and everyone starts from scratch in the final game.
The Starbase EA, on the other hand, is expensive, compared to others, slows you down wherever it can and a wipe should be avoided as far as possible at the end of the EA according to the FAQ. All those who only buy the game when it is released will have a lot of fun ...
