Starship Corporation

Did not have time to play this a lot, but I think I may have discovered a little gem here.

http://www.starshipcorporation.com/

So you design spaceships and then sell them. I don't know, somehow I'm instantly hooked by the idea. A bit like Prison Architect or Automation in space.



Game is still Alpha and will be for some time. But very well done, and looks nice.

 

From what I gather it's basically a 1 man show, but that must not be a bad thing.

 

Sounds a lot like the Star Trek Starship Creator:

 

Don't I remember hearing about this years ago? If so, development must have been kinda slow.

 

Vapourware gonna vapourware

 

i hate all these paid alphas. either spit a demo out or i don't see why i should pay for an incomplete piece of software and the hope of it growing better.

 

With the exception of the odd kickstarter, I'm done buying into anything that hasn't gone gold. In principle I have nothing against people flogging their unfinished products, but in practice I have an abundance of reasons to think a significant percentage can't deliver. So really, fuck that way of doing business. If you want to flog your unfinished shit, come up with a system that doesn't let you burn your customers.

 

Guys, you're discussing a non-issue. There is no paid alpha, it's totally free.
All the guy wants is that we download and give feedback. Or wait until it releases.

 

Hmm so am I missing something or can you just design and test your ships in a few limited scenarios as of yet? I've just finished my first ship(gods it was hard to cram it all into two decks).

Can I sell the design and make $$$?

 

So it's like Master of Orion 2 or Stardrive, only without the actual game part.

 

No. The point in this game is to endlessly design better ships, test them and sell them.
I don't think comparing it to 4Xs is leading anywhere.
It is more like Automation ( another of my recommended games, where you can design engines and cars, and later put them on the market ).

 

Is that another game that isn't finished yet?

Ugh yep. You need to stop recommending shit that's still at prototype stage. Getting my hopes up for nothing.

Fuck it, designing engines and cars sounds fun. Downloading.

 

Automation also actually has a game part (although that's still being developed). It's an economic simulator like Railroad Tycoon or Transport Tycoon. The designer parts are just to design the engines and cars that you will be selling in the actual game.

So yes this is exactly like the ship designers in 4x games except you don't get to 4X with them afterwards.

BTW even in very early alpha, Automation is a brilliant game, I love the attention to detail. Now they just need to finish it.

 

I wouldn't call it "very early alpha". They completed the first two of their three modules (engine designer, car designer, tycoon part), so it's a 2/3 beta.

 

I also don't get a lot of the criticism. The advantage of public alphas is that parts can evolve through alpha, beta and release state while other parts are still being worked on. Also, such a game cannot be bad per se, because no one would have played it in the first place if parts of it were bad.

The fact that many developers have no discipline and no intention of finishing, is another story. It has more to do with people who have no work ethics: they start many things, but never finish them.

 

That's like saying an office building is 2/3 complete because the doors and windows are done. What they call the "tycoon part" is the vast majority of the actual game and we haven't seen anything from that yet.

That's what Automation is now. Some p. sweet doors to play with but we still need the actual building. And this game has no building from the looks of it.

 

It's alpha until it's feature complete. And I agree, if they're actually going for a game and not just an engine/car simulator, then it's still early alpha days, no matter how impressive the design feature(and it is impressive). Same with StarshipCorp.

That said, the developers might not see it the same way. To them this could be the majority of what they were trying to achieve, with the rest of the game being secondary/tack-on. Which would be sad. A lot of developers have had one or two specific, innovative and fun features with tons of potential, but then completely failed to realize that potential by largely ignoring the rest of the game. I'd bring up Portal, but though simple they did manage to turn it into fairly entertaining games in the end.

 

It's not really out of alpha until it's feature complete..

 

I think more of it like the International Space Station, which was also not lifted in one piece. If you want to say that you are only interested in the tycoon part, this may not be the game for you. Most people there are just as much interested in the car and engine design.

 

http://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/256658020/movie480.webm?t=1449583349

 

Early Access April 2016.

Early Access?

I thought the point of the Steam release was to finish the f****** game.

 

that role-playing...

 

Still interesting but the reviews don't sound good. They either recommend the game while mentioning that it's still early alpha, blatantly say the game didnt work at all or something more in depth like this
http://steamcommunity.com/id/mudder/recommended/292330/
(google translate)

Sounds like someone wants to develop a game but hasn't necessarily the best success. Lights had gone out before, and now Steam is the new anchor, if that fails it could develop into another EA disaster.
I was also surprised that people claim there has been no substantial improvement in the Steam build.

 

The game is a very interesting concept, the execution, sadly, is lacking. There are bugs aplenty, the whole thing is very slow (I think it's done in GameMaker or smth). The UI is incredibly inconsistent (you scroll with the rmb on some screens, in others you delete stuff with it), and completely not ready for high-res playing. Not to mention the whole things is really clunky. Don't spend any money on it.