Hey all thought i'd make a post on my thoughts so far I've got about 300 hours currently and there is a ton of stuff I like about the game but there is some negative stuff as well. 90% of my time has been spent in the ship builder and learning basic YOLOL that part has been super fun and addicting even if the editor is a bit janky at times once you get used to it tho it's perfectly fine but could do with improvements. Anyway gonna list my likes and dislikes and add some context if needed.
The good
Ship building - It's awesome and I've not felt this creative in a game since APB (the early days beta and early release), I love the scope it adds to game how you could become a engineer or a coder in general the amount of fields it allows you specialise in and the fact that the limits are yourself is insane really enjoy this part of the game.
The concept/scope - Like I touched on with the ability to specialise in fields and a player run economy my mind instantly thinks a "playable" EvE which would be a dream game for me I know it's early days and while the potential for that is there it's not currently a reality.
The community - It's been pretty awesome and helped me a long my way especially with YOLOL the content creator guys seems plentiful for a game that isn't massive yet either it's really help new comers.
Devs - They seem to interact a lot and I wasn't in the closed alpha but have been keeping up to the date with the game and the updates seem to come fast good to see and keeps spirits high when stuff does go wrong.
The bad
Gameloop/Balance - Currently the things to do outside mining seem limited and makes the game feel a bit hollow I'm yet to see a player outside of the SZ after the first times going out I lost the thrill of it, at the start I'd be thinking got to look out don't wanna get pirated with all this rare ore in my ship now it's like someone pirate my ship i just want some interaction lol, it's kind of a big thing the random interaction be it good or bad, I imagine getting a distress call and someone needing a lil fuel or a known area of pirates etc and there's just none of it not any that I've fount or come across. But it's not only that after thinking about it, it probably takes me like 20-30 mins to get a ship full of SZ ore which nets me around 200k+ while if I want to go into the belt on a "big" adventure and get some rarer stuff it takes like 2ish hours of travel and I end up coming back with 800k-1m with all the "stress" that comes with it mainly just worrying my avoidance system has a blind spot and I hope to god it's not my unlucky day, but regardless it just makes the game feel a bit hollow and not very well balanced.
Flying model/controls - Everything just feels either a bit loose and flabby or super twitchy I know we're in space and things are meant to be weightless but it just feels a bit off to me and not very enjoyable to play at times.
Ship building bugs/
Outside the editor experience - For me at the start due the fact I'd built all my ships in the editor the switch to actually playing with them in the "real" world felt off at first and didn't translate well, stuff like not understand how blueprints worked and certain tools felt under explained not only that tho the blueprint system and repairing your ship back to "factory" settings feels super buggy and confusing it can feel like it makes it own mind up when it wants to even show up at points and sometimes completely vanishes and only allows you to repair certain parts (I think this is to do with changing or adding parts while out and then logging off which updates or removes the blueprints but i'm not sure, just a observation) it just feels super janky and it can make all those hours (days) feel a bit pointless when you can have something the way you had it because the snap system doesn't do that angle and the freeform is impossible to use with any accuracy.
General bugs - I know it's EA and it's expected but there is a lot of things that really frustrate me stuff like falling through objects and clipping into stuff when you're out in space flying low on fuel and stressing you're gonna hit a asteroid really is jarring when 95% of the time you're just chilling, same with trying to replace or edit YOLOL script while flying I've had it where I pull a YOLOL chip out not having pressed anything and it just goes flying off before I've even had the chance to put it into the chip reader, which depending on what the script does can really ruin a play session thankfully I've been able to solve most the issues that have arisen but I'd hate to lose my ISAN chip deep into the belt or something in general there just seems to be quite a few annoying mechanics/bugs that can really ruin your day quite quickly and it would improve the game a lot if it was smoothed out.
Tech tree - It feels really disconnected from the game and punishes people that want to build ships in the editor, like i said earlier in the post I've put 300 hours into the game and have barely touched it but know 70% fairly comprehensively, but stuff like crafting bench pipes aren't explained at all and are essential if you want to make any meaningful repairs while out in space. Not only that the whole currency system and needing to mass craft parts just isn't fun to me at all it doesn't feel like progression more of a arbitrary barrier I'm all for progression and needing to learn stuff but it just feels rough around the edges and not thought out while really punishing to newer players who prefer designing ships.
Just my thoughts so far and it's meant as constructive more than anything and I'm fairly new to the game or at least it feels like it even tho I've put a fair few hours in, I'll probably add to it down the line when I've experienced more of the gameplay.
The good
Ship building - It's awesome and I've not felt this creative in a game since APB (the early days beta and early release), I love the scope it adds to game how you could become a engineer or a coder in general the amount of fields it allows you specialise in and the fact that the limits are yourself is insane really enjoy this part of the game.
The concept/scope - Like I touched on with the ability to specialise in fields and a player run economy my mind instantly thinks a "playable" EvE which would be a dream game for me I know it's early days and while the potential for that is there it's not currently a reality.
The community - It's been pretty awesome and helped me a long my way especially with YOLOL the content creator guys seems plentiful for a game that isn't massive yet either it's really help new comers.
Devs - They seem to interact a lot and I wasn't in the closed alpha but have been keeping up to the date with the game and the updates seem to come fast good to see and keeps spirits high when stuff does go wrong.
The bad
Gameloop/Balance - Currently the things to do outside mining seem limited and makes the game feel a bit hollow I'm yet to see a player outside of the SZ after the first times going out I lost the thrill of it, at the start I'd be thinking got to look out don't wanna get pirated with all this rare ore in my ship now it's like someone pirate my ship i just want some interaction lol, it's kind of a big thing the random interaction be it good or bad, I imagine getting a distress call and someone needing a lil fuel or a known area of pirates etc and there's just none of it not any that I've fount or come across. But it's not only that after thinking about it, it probably takes me like 20-30 mins to get a ship full of SZ ore which nets me around 200k+ while if I want to go into the belt on a "big" adventure and get some rarer stuff it takes like 2ish hours of travel and I end up coming back with 800k-1m with all the "stress" that comes with it mainly just worrying my avoidance system has a blind spot and I hope to god it's not my unlucky day, but regardless it just makes the game feel a bit hollow and not very well balanced.
Flying model/controls - Everything just feels either a bit loose and flabby or super twitchy I know we're in space and things are meant to be weightless but it just feels a bit off to me and not very enjoyable to play at times.
Ship building bugs/
Outside the editor experience - For me at the start due the fact I'd built all my ships in the editor the switch to actually playing with them in the "real" world felt off at first and didn't translate well, stuff like not understand how blueprints worked and certain tools felt under explained not only that tho the blueprint system and repairing your ship back to "factory" settings feels super buggy and confusing it can feel like it makes it own mind up when it wants to even show up at points and sometimes completely vanishes and only allows you to repair certain parts (I think this is to do with changing or adding parts while out and then logging off which updates or removes the blueprints but i'm not sure, just a observation) it just feels super janky and it can make all those hours (days) feel a bit pointless when you can have something the way you had it because the snap system doesn't do that angle and the freeform is impossible to use with any accuracy.
General bugs - I know it's EA and it's expected but there is a lot of things that really frustrate me stuff like falling through objects and clipping into stuff when you're out in space flying low on fuel and stressing you're gonna hit a asteroid really is jarring when 95% of the time you're just chilling, same with trying to replace or edit YOLOL script while flying I've had it where I pull a YOLOL chip out not having pressed anything and it just goes flying off before I've even had the chance to put it into the chip reader, which depending on what the script does can really ruin a play session thankfully I've been able to solve most the issues that have arisen but I'd hate to lose my ISAN chip deep into the belt or something in general there just seems to be quite a few annoying mechanics/bugs that can really ruin your day quite quickly and it would improve the game a lot if it was smoothed out.
Tech tree - It feels really disconnected from the game and punishes people that want to build ships in the editor, like i said earlier in the post I've put 300 hours into the game and have barely touched it but know 70% fairly comprehensively, but stuff like crafting bench pipes aren't explained at all and are essential if you want to make any meaningful repairs while out in space. Not only that the whole currency system and needing to mass craft parts just isn't fun to me at all it doesn't feel like progression more of a arbitrary barrier I'm all for progression and needing to learn stuff but it just feels rough around the edges and not thought out while really punishing to newer players who prefer designing ships.
Just my thoughts so far and it's meant as constructive more than anything and I'm fairly new to the game or at least it feels like it even tho I've put a fair few hours in, I'll probably add to it down the line when I've experienced more of the gameplay.
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