Hazeron Starship - A seamless space sandbox universe

[Vic]

Despite the gay fanboy here, hazeron is a quite interesting building game.

I agree with half of your post

 

[GaelicVigil]

You're playing it, robot...? Color me shocked.

And I'm very straight, BTW. Married over 20 years to a woman. But, yeah, I'm a fanboy of Hazeron, no doubt

 

[Mortmal]

shit thread for shit game, you'd think that after over 20 years it had gathered a bigger fanbase

I'm happy with those numbers and I hope this game never gets mass appeal. If that happens, it means that it will have been dumbed down for dumb people. I'm here to recruit people who have an appreciation for something that sits outside the usual fast-food offering of other space games that most here will slurp up.

Hazeron is in my top 5 favorite games of all time. Been playing it for more than a decade and I keep coming back to it. Truly a diamond in a sea of mediocrity in my opinion.

Yeah, I know the feeling of being one of the chosen few at the very top of the mountain of autism, worldwide.

 

[GaelicVigil]

If you're playing for the first time, make sure to grab some building blueprint designs from the Workshop. Take a look at the collections, they will more than double your option for planning your city.

 

[asfasdf]

I was probably playing before you were born

 

[GaelicVigil]

I was probably playing before you were born

 

[Vic]

original Commodore PET graphics were better than this

 

[GaelicVigil]

original Commodore PET graphics were better than this

I agree. Graphics have only gotten worse with time. My favorite MMOs to this day are MUDs.

 

[RobotSquirrel]

So I don't see graphics in terms of polygons or shaders or parallex or specular lighting or bloom. I see it on a sliding scale of viable interconnected simulation. Those modern games completely fail in this regard compared to Hazeron Starship. Those modern games are sitting insdie elaborate Hollywood sets or theme park fun houses, while Hazeron exists inside a holodeck simulation. Give me the latter any day.

I get what you're trying to say, but the low-poly workflows that have been established contradict your statement. We've seen low-poly work, be very good looking and very optimized.
But the game looks ambitious which I think is its main appeal. But don't discount the appeal of good performant visuals.

 

[GaelicVigil]

I finally touched down on the planet I was orbiting with my rocket. All I see at first is an endless ocean and I'm thinking this must be a water world. I continue flying my rocket over the water for maybe 10 minutes and finally find a continent on the other side of the world.

I touch down along the coast and it's pitch black dark outside. First thing I notice is that this planet has very frequent and violent storms. Good news is that it has breathable oxygens and mild temperatures.

I take my helmet off to get a better look at my surroundings. Other than the rich vegetation and deafening wind and rain, there is no animal life whatsoever. I wander around for a few minutes, still finding nothing.

Far off in the distance I can see these large trees, so I decide to hike over to them to see if there is anything else. I reload my rifle and set off south.

I end up walking for a very long time, the sun rises on more wind and rain, and I have yet to see a single animal life form. How odd, perhaps this world has no animal life? But that doesn't make sense since it has all the resource it needs for it, plenty of water and warm air. I'm getting a little creeped out by this time.

I begin walking deeper into the dense jungle of trees. To my left I notice movement along the horizon. Two, what look like, bipedal creatures are running up a hillside at incredible speed. I can't make out their features with all the trees. This freaks me out and I begin to head back to my rocket.

Suddenly, there are sounds all around me. Footsteps. Things begin to come out from the trees straight toward me. There must have been a dozen at least. Giant terrible beasts. I get a quick look at them before I begin firing my rifle like a mad-man.

Frogs. GIANT frogs. Various other amphibians along with them...some even with wings.

I'm firing my rifle like crazy at all the movement. My clips are emptying very fast and I'm reloading. I'm taking damage but I just keep firing. When I think I've killed most of them, I begin running as fast as I can. I take a couple screenshots of them.

They keep coming and coming at me. My ammo is running out. I must have hit their nest. They won't leave me alone.

I finally make it back to my rocket. Barely alive. I ponder my existence and how the cosmos could create such an abominable planet.

Then it dawns on me...

 

[ERYFKRAD]

. I continue flying my rocket over the water for maybe 10 minutes and finally find a continent on the other side of the world.

What'll it take to be able to scan them beforehand?

 

[Clockwork Knight]

*frog story*

How's the ground combat, something like this?

 

[GaelicVigil]

*frog story*

How's the ground combat, something like this?

No, the ground combat in Hazeron isn't going to have that much detail. No loot pickups. Shooting isn't fast-paced like a FPS. In Hazeron what will keep you alive on the ground is paying attention to your surroundings. Many creatures can easily one-shot you if you're unlucky. Some can move so fast you won't even know what killed you.

Hazeron's main focus isn't ground combat...there is a lot more to do so each part will not be as polished as another game that has just one of those single features. That said, I like having more breadth of gameplay in Hazeron.

It has FPS ground exploration, survival, and combat. It has ground vehicles like motorcycles. It has boats for sailing in sea. It has helicopters and fighter jets for air flight. It has rockets for space flight. It has top-down city building and city management. It has spaceship and crew management. It has a designer mode where you can make your own ships and buildings. Finally, it has empire management where you can give orders to ships to go explore or mine, etc, and setup trade between star systems.

A lot variety in Hazeron.

 

[GaelicVigil]

. I continue flying my rocket over the water for maybe 10 minutes and finally find a continent on the other side of the world.

What'll it take to be able to scan them beforehand?

Spaceships have scanners on them that will give you more detail about planets. I don't have spaceships yet. I'm just flying into planets blind right now...which is still a lot of fun. You never know what to expect.

 

[Vic]

how do you fly to other planets without a spaceship?

 

[GaelicVigil]

how do you fly to other planets without a spaceship?

You just need a basic Space Rocket to leave your homeworld, mainly to go to your moon if you have one. They don't have much fuel and are pretty fragile, but you can turn off your engines to just use momentum to reach more distant planets.

http://hazeron.com/wiki/index.php/Space_Rocket

It is technically possible to fly a rocket to another system, but would take a really long time and would be risky. If you didn't find a habitable world, it would be a death sentence.

 

[Mortmal]

Yes, the standard gameplay involves developing a city that can produce a 1960s-style rocket with limited maneuverability to reach the moon with a self-made crafted spacesuit, mine elurium, and return it to create your first starship engine. This would enable you to explore your own solar system and begin venturing into wormholes and all the weirdness. I recall discovering a tiny planet with significantly diminished gravity and colossal dragon like creatures soaring through the air. I invited Haxus to view the spectacle, and he was surprised by the outcome of his own game engine.

 

[darkpatriot]

my eyes! MY FUCKING EYES!

Getting off topic here, but I'm curious why some people get so bothered by bad graphics. Is it an age thing? My two Millenial younger brothers are the same way. I grew up on Ultima 1 and Elite and Wizardry 1 so none of that really bothers me at all. In fact, I think modern graphics look awful to me, they remove all imagination. I remember coming home from school every day and spending hours playing games on this machine and having great fun.

Hazeron looks pretty great to me graphically, and mechanically it blows all of the modern space games out of the water like Star Citizen, Elite Dangerous, X4, and No Man's Sky.

For me it is that I have much less time to play games than I did when I was younger. So I am much less likely to try games that seem like they are less accessible. I often don't feel I will have the time needed to invest the time to learn the game enough for it to be enjoyable.

When I see games with very bad graphics I immediately have the impression of that game being less accessible, not in small part because bad graphics in this day and age strongly correlate to bad UIs, but also just because the experience of playing them will be that much less pleasant.

Even though I very much enjoyed less accessible and complex games like Dwarf Fortress and Aurora 4x in the past, I don't know if I will ever get into another game like that in the future. Even new large mainstream games with 60+ hour lengths are a bit intimidating these days as I will probably have to commit many months to be able to get through them. I can generally play like 1 to 3 games like that a year.

 

[Vic]

For me it is that I have much less time to play games than I did when I was younger.

who asked

 

[JarlFrank]

it must appeal to a certain kind of autist if it only has at most 30 people globally playing at any given time

must be truly the summit of prestigious space games

Obscure hidden gems are always more captivating than big popular titles.

 

[Vic]

it must appeal to a certain kind of autist if it only has at most 30 people globally playing at any given time

must be truly the summit of prestigious space games

Obscure hidden gems are always more captivating than big popular titles.

it sure is captivating for 15 people right now

 

[asfasdf]

Problem of this game is no goal, you just keep infinitely increasing production, and since logistic is non existent, you just increase forever and ever

 

[Vic]

game continues to get updates at a nice pace

https://steamcommunity.com/app/2239520/eventcomments/4042608198328265347/

Spacecraft Ops

Taking command of a spacecraft is a daunting task for a newbie. Several unobvious steps are needed.

When an avatar boards a new spacecraft a short tutorial lesson starts. It gives a brief set of instructions on how to take command of a spacecraft and how to command it.

Wormhole Name Unknown

Spacecraft can now go through unexplored wormholes with no human aboard. This results in wormholes called "Unknown".

These are the naming steps when a spacecraft goes through an unnamed wormhole.
1. If a human captain is found, the wormhole is named after them, using their wormhole sequence number.
2. If no captain is found, a human officer is found. The wormhole is named after them, using their wormhole sequence number.
3. If no human captain or officer is found, the wormhole is named after the ship, using the ship's wormhole sequence number.

Wormhole sequence number? What's that? That is the number of times an avatar or spacecraft has been credited with exploring an unexplored wormhole.

Fast Solar System Survey

NPCs take a huge amount of time to perform a solar system survey scan. Because of that there is an unobvious way for an avatar to make the survey happen instantly if they do it themself.

NPCs calculate the amount of time it might take to get every planet in sensor range and record the information. This time is reduced as rank increases. That might be somewhat realistic but it doesn't reconcile with the avatar's ability to perform the survey instantly.

NPCs were changed to calculate the amount of time differently. It is still based on their rank but the longest time at the lowest rank is only 12 seconds now.

A button was added to the sensor station that performs the solar system survey scan, without having to select anything on the screen.

Position Report Frequency

Spacecraft post position reports every 10 minutes. This is the information the star map uses to show the location and status of spacecraft. Can this time be reduced?

Spacecraft now post their position reports once per minute.

NPC Walks in Lava

During a story segment, an NPC departs the scene by walking off. This is always on an inferno world and the poor guy almost always ends up walking into a sea of lava, which is deadly.

NPCs now watch where they step. They will stop moving if they encounter lava or supercooled liquid.

Suffocating ParcX Guy

The Del Rey station said I had a ParcX package waiting. As soon as I got aboard, the ParcX guy showed up, dropped the package, and suffocated and died before I could get the station door closed. I tried this several times and it was a challenge to get the door closed fast enough to keep him alive. On one attempt, his body fell in the doorway and it was impossible to close the door without picking him up first.

ParcX guy now wears an EV suit if he is in an unbreathable atmosphere.

Comm Message Image

When I double-click a comm message with an attached image, the dialog that shows the image is pretty lame.

The image dialog now uses a different widget for displaying the image. It allows for pan and zoom. It also shows a caption under the picture when the story script calls for one.

Service Vehicle

Rocket training says I can press K to get my vehicle serviced. Most of the time this seems to do nothing.

Service request in a vehicle now provides a lot more feedback.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

I couldn't fogure out how to operate the bike in the stowaway scenario. As usual I might be too dumb for this game.

 

[Ranselknulf]

Steam lists Euro Truck Simulator and American Truck Simulator as "games similar" to Hazeron.