Hellion—cross between Space Engineers, DayZ and Star Citizen

[Runciter]

https://www.playhellion.com/
Needs a thread. Mixed reviews but looks interesting. Anyone played it?

 

[Fedora Master]

If you wanna sell a game, don't compare it to Space Engineers, DayZ and Star Citizen in the same sentence. I mean, damn.

 

[Burning Bridges]

I actually purchased this today and quickly changed my opinion - this is right down my alley!

Now - I don't own Children of a Dying Earth yet - but I must say this is one of the hardest games I have come across in the last 15 years! It feels a bit like a hard sci fi version of System shock without monsters and shit, with real Newtonian physics and the player needs to figure out everything himself. The mere idea of a casul playing this for the first time with the learning curve hitting like a truck makes me chuckle .. Anyway, I really liked the first 6 hours in which I only died once, but that is certainly gonna change when I get cockier

At first I had to activate a lot of modules then learn how to transfer air between modules, depressurize, replace parts and so on. I had to learn how to move in zero gravity. Then my my energy supply broke down because my station had entered the shadow of the planet!

If you are not mighty careful when opening doors you get blown out by the pressure, of course this happened a few times which was hilarious, especially when I forgot to close my helmet. The game also requires to figure out how to dock modules.

I am very proud that I managed to dock the airlock module it in the first attempt! But it would not have been possible had I not read some tutorial how to control various "R" "K" "Shift" etc commands that have nothing in common with intuitivity.

But before that I tried to fly a spaceship closer to my station, this turned out not such a good idea .. it ended with me totally overwhelmed by the steering, stranded in space and eventually suffocating miserably

Anyway, from what I can say now: a great game with some interface problems.

 

[Zarniwoop]

Fun little game, 5/10 would get BTFO of an airlock at incredible speed again.

Performance is utter shit though, works fine and then becomes unplayable after a few minutes. Seems to be worse on some servers though.

 

[Burning Bridges]

Did you play recently? Because I had no performance problems so far in ~10 hours, but I play on mostly empty servers.

One thing that I don't think I like is that you need to plan your playtime even when not in the game. The first time I had docked the starter modules I came back the next day and was dead. Turned out I had not known you need to click on the cryopod somewhere at the botton and therefore never entered it. So I suffocated in front of it in my own spacesuit

Yesterday I made my first FTL jump to a higher orbit, but now it sticks out like a sore thumb and will probably be raided. It seems people do the same things over and over again because the game is basically set up to destroy your station within a few days. One way to play this would be to team up with some other people and one guy plays the odd hours and then the other take the other shifts. Which is kind of the problem .. this is definitely a game I would recommed for its seriousness but it has the makings of a second job.

But yeah so far I like dying and the EVAs feel like scenes from the 2010 movie. In fact I wished this was a bigger company and could set up a game like Star Citizen, because I have a feeling they really care for the hard scifi. As it is it will probably die and peter out some time in 2010 because they cannot get the funds and solve the problems.

 

[Burning Bridges]

Ok I see the problems now. Half the times during approach to a new module the game starts to act up and when I end a keypress I hear thrusters fire like they are still running. It seems the server and the client show different versions.

Still this is theoretically the best game ever. Yesterday I spend hours lifting a fabricator module from the asteroid zone, the repaired it and now I am at a loss where to dock it. If I dock at the airlock I will theoretically never be able to enter the station again, because all entrances will be blocked. I even went through an airshaft and opened the door there, hoping it would go outside .. but instead of a second exit to space I was badly injured from violent hiss. I had depressurized my module but did not expect that the shaft lead to another module that was still pressurized

 

[Lyric Suite]

What can I say about this game? It probably hates you. I mean willfully. The game wants you to cry. It sucker punches you in the gut, ties an achor chain around your ankles, and tosses you into the deep end. It gives zero explinations, and zero ♥♥♥♥s.

All that said and out of the way... it is freakin' amazing. I mean yeah it probably killed your dog while you weren't looking, but its still somehow compelling to play. It feels real. And by that I mean its a miserable, confusing slog from here to your next death, and you will somehow enjoy it anyways.

Seems pretty good, but i don't deal with early access and the game getting decimated on steam because of it's technical issues reinforces my decision. Will wait for release+ patches etc.

 

[Burning Bridges]

Well, all I can say is this game is fucking amazing!

For three days I have led a miserable existence on the brink of suffocation. I moved my battered station (for some reason it had been severely damaged from the very start) to higher and higher orbits, which became more and more impossible due to the fact that I had already cannibalized my entire Helium-3 store on the first day - this leaves me out of power almost all the time because the little bit of juice from the solarpanels ain't shit. Yet that is all I have for FTL jumps

My only pride is the fabricator module that I towed from the danger zone and completely repaired. Was it even worth it? I can barely use it to produce a couple of carbon filters and then I will be out of resources .. I probably will have to recycle everything on the ship at some point, and it will still not be enough.

Then, just when I had managed the final docking operation of the fabricator (which required me to discard the crew quarter module that is completely useless) and I could have relaxed a little, I lost nearly 2/3th of my entire air supply by pulling the wrong undock lever, nearly the entire ship depressurized. I could have cried. Even with everything from the refinery I now have not enough air left to pressurize my complete station, and I must depressurize and wear a suit every time I go to the cargo hold or the fabricator.

So this is how I spend my days and nights in near constant darkness, switching on the air filters at intervals. This is what the last hours on the Kursk must have been like.

I now towed the station to a final, very high orbit where no one should find me, and where I will almost certainly die. This cost me 1/2 of my last healthy warp cell. Maybe I can still have one last final shot, fly to an asteroid and mine some resources - but it's a very long chance. What a horrible, horrible place. At least I have a gun with ammo, so I can end it without suffocation whenever I want. 10/10 would die a miserable death again!!

 

[Burning Bridges]

The state of my energy production. The bottom is out of the tub ..

all for a can with nitrates and 3 ammo clips ..

inside of the fabricator when I discovered it

 

[Lyric Suite]

In space, nobody can see you do this

 

[Burning Bridges]

"Your ship has crashed" = anticlimatic

Ok so my life has finally ended. If I learned something new today: don't fly too close to the automated refinery, or in fact anything big .. the collision detection was programmed by prosper.

I am actually glad that I am now dead, my handguns and a little bit of precious stuff gone, this life had been too miserable .. maybe the next one will be better at least I know now how to manage even the most pityful station.

 

[Burning Bridges]

For a few days I am running a new station, and it has none of the deep desperation of the first. In fact since I learned to switch on systems only when I really need them I have an increasing supply of resources now, and am extremely healthy now. The only thing that is very scarce is Warp cells, they have become so precious that I take them with me into my cryopod

This is my station in which I think I am actually finding ways to extend much further than the developers planned. One ship is stationary and acts like a huge cargo space and provides a free reactor.

I have placed it in a careful selected orbit that is probably next to impossible to find, and secured a couple of modules. My first impression of the navigation was WTF now that I played ca 80 hours I must say the Warp jumps, orbit mechanics makes sense and you can plan orbits and launch windows. You also must be very quick when an opportunity arises because many contacts dissappear after a few minutes. This is especially the case when you spot another persons base on a higher orbit.

This game is also a cleptomaniacs dream - even though I did not plan to raid other people's station I couldn't resist once I saw a large base and though I could not get in I stole absolutely every nail from outside, like a gypsie. I literally took off every of catalysts, resource injector and even stole the high energy lasers from his engine bay I would love to see the guys face when he sees all that stuff has vanished ..

 

[Burning Bridges]

Yesterday I lost both ships during a FTL in a futile rescue attempt to save the other ship from being raided (it was parked 150m from the military base - so only a matter of hours before someone finds an empty ship with an open hatch, and full with ~10 15% warp cells ..). I had decided to throw good money after bad so to say and eventually I could have saved the warp cells, just should have scuttled the ship. Anyway, first I could have cried because I lost 3 days worth of stored loot (=mostly useless low tier crap). Today I decide to get it back asap by raiding the first ship that I find in a similar situation!

My luck quickly turned and I discovered a ship that was sending a distress call .. it helped that I knew it had not been there the day before. the ship it was full to the brim with tier 2 items, the guy had a full, very neatly stashed cargo bay even with mined resources so I decided I would pillage all of it -- Oh man .. this game is so hilarious and brings out a side in me that I didn't even know I had ... incredible how much I enjoyed dismantling someone else's ship, and how quickly and efficiently I am now able to take apart everything of the slightest value within mere minutes. I speedily grappled to the module was towing, effectively creating a tandem and first repaired all damage because I did not want to blow up with it and planned to steal it as well. Then I speedily looted every spare part (about 20 including lots of tier 2 containment generators), took every full canister from his cargo bay (apparently he had just come from a succesful mining operation) then I nicked everything else that could be of any use .. carbon filters, batteries etc in order to put that crap in the recycler and finally undocked the module he was towing and towed it to my ship. I essentially left a carcass of ship that now looks like a bunch of hobos had been through it.

Never had a game before where stealing is so much fun .. brilliant. (I feel sure one day someone will find my base and raid it)

 

[Burning Bridges]

As my time with this game is progressing I can say a couple of things.

First: stealing that low tier crap was essentially a waste of time. Both my own and the people who had to replace it.

Also this game can quickly become a logistical nightmare. As your station grows, you never want to shuffle your modules without a good plan, otherwise it could easily end up a whole day spent with unexpected problems that creep up, like a simple absence of RCS fuel in 1 module created a domino chain of events that nearly destroyed my entire station. Or at another time I locke myself out of my station because I forgot to open the carg bay door before I docked, I could only continue by dying and respawning inside the station (and then the problem of space suits came up, but I could rescue myself by making one in the fabricator).

At other times this becomes a ridiculous marathon of running back and forth to carry stuff that you carried before.

My plan is now not to do much more tidying up and I plan to use this current base more as the starting point for a more optimized base. This base has in the basic stage only 4 modules and allows me to dock two ships and store what I really need quickly.

Since there is Hellion Station planner I can show a screenshot, I could maybe add a solar module but basically there is everything in this station that I really need.

 

[Burning Bridges]

This is the station for real . I added a Solar Power module which is very useful and a useless straight corridor. Otherwise it's my projected basic station and so far it's been working great.

There is also not much else to do right now than kill new players, who don't know yet how to hide their base.

This guy for example had to learn the hard way.

I only wanted to steal his fresh warp cells.

P.S. in case you are getting killed .. there are ways to get out of this and it's NOT leaving your base in its low orbit around Bethyr. Other players see you the whole time and can kill you with ease. Apart from that the base will be destroyed by debris within a few days, so the other players are just helping you.

 

[AgentFransis]

Also this game can quickly become a logistical nightmare. As your station grows, you never want to shuffle your modules without a good plan, otherwise it could easily end up a whole day spent with unexpected problems that creep up, like a simple absence of RCS fuel in 1 module created a domino chain of events that nearly destroyed my entire station. Or at another time I locke myself out of my station because I forgot to open the carg bay door before I docked, I could only continue by dying and respawning inside the station (and then the problem of space suits came up, but I could rescue myself by making one in the fabricator).

At other times this becomes a ridiculous marathon of running back and forth to carry stuff that you carried before.

My plan is now not to do much more tidying up and I plan to use this current base more as the starting point for a more optimized base. This base has in the basic stage only 4 modules and allows me to dock two ships and store what I really need quickly.

Now this just sounds like my programming job.

 

[Burning Bridges]

There are many parallels. You basically make heroic efforts to find the most brilliant solution for problems you would not have without the game. Then when you can finally walk your station along the neatly ordered shelves and reach everything on the shortest way you immeditately get bored. You go out murdering some people over a few units of regolith and finally think WTF am I doing.

10/10 would waste my life again

 

[Burning Bridges]

This game is pure hooliganism.

Yesterday I raided several empty starter bases (which people usually leave behind) then I found one that was apparently still in use and got inside with a hacking tool. found mostly warp cells and a shitton of scrap, and I took it all. I also broke into a ship with said hacking tools and stole Warp Cells.

Also it's a micromanagement nightmare. The only thing is that every time I have to shlep all this junk from my ship to my base and I can't muster the motivation right now. My first cargo module is already full and I hagve no space to store anything more. I'll probably have to find ways to park my ships somewhere else so I can call a new one every time .. just dont have the energy to unload every time. I mean how many tier 1 resource injectors is enough? I have 50 or so and even just taking them to the recycler would take an hour.

I have to carry this stuff into my base, every single time ..

I have about confiscated 50 warp cells and cannot even store them in the engine bay any more.

I could kick my own butt because yesterday I'd found 2 unclaimed ships and could have increased my fleet to 4 (!). As it is I just ransacked them gave them indecent sexual names and switched on the distress call, so that other people would go after the totally ransacked hulks.

 

[dbx]

So, is this basically Rust in space?

 

[Burning Bridges]

No it's a quasi-realistic simulation of space stations, exploration of a persistent solar system and has some PvP / coop potential. It's quite unique. A mixture of Hard Scif Fi (the style is reminiscent of Alien), Kerbal Space Project and Silent Hunter in FPS. It also has many problems but is imo one of the best games that nobody knows. I cannot sum it up in a forum post, if you're interested you should watch some videos - learning how to play can take up to 50 hours. Watching LPs, asking specific things in forums, googling etc..

 

[Burning Bridges]

By the way, I would be a bit wary with the community. I have been in contact with some players and there is one certain kind of psychologically ill person that gets attracted to this lonely game it's not surprising. One told me he had only 1 friend in his life, and he died 3 months ago. His dog

Another announced over the public chat that he demanded a certain Factory Module (that he had not even owned) and was going to attack and get it back. Although every one told him that there is a new FM spawned several times a day he went on to ask about the owner of a certain ship and then attacked a random station, probably not even the right one.

Others get into obsessive arguments about the most mundane crap and follow you around and make out individual lines to argue over. Creepy as fuck.

 

[Burning Bridges]

If someone kills you outside your station and you want to repsawn, you got to be very quick because I always throw out all your remaining space suits.

This guy had to find out.

And by the way I lost a lot of my stored stuff in stacked resource containers due to a bug, after 1 week they were all they EMPTY. But tbh I dont even need any of the stuff.

 

[Yaar Podshipnik]

Tried this yesterday, looked fun, but being on-line is really a deal breaker. I never know when I'll have to go and take care of my kid.

 

[Burning Bridges]

It's actually not that bad, provided you know how the game works there is no reason why you can't log out for a few days, and you dont have to dock at the end of every session.

1. If you are at your Outpost, you can simply go into the Cryopod (open the visor!) and you will survive for many days.

2. You can also survive in your ship. All you need is enough power to run the Air Filter while you're logged off. And this may require an orbit with clear view on the sun, and perhaps a few upgrades (Catalysts and Core Containment Generator).

3. you are also not supposed to stay in the debris field in Bethyr. There are evil men there who kill noobs just for fun It doesn't matter anyway because after ca 48 hours your station is destroyed by the debris anyway.

4. What you want is an orbit far out, that also does not interfere with one of the moons and that no one can guess.

5. there is no real security from the lock in your doors, but you can dock your ships airlock directly to another airlock, creating a completely sealed station (you can still leave this contraption through the cargo bay). Just keep in mind that you can lock yourself out this way, and that another player could theoretically ram your station in frustration. So maybe better to leave him some cookies and hide the real good stuff. I have actually locked myself out on purpose sometimes so the only way to get inside was by dying and respawning. This is risky though as you could accidently override your spawn point.

6. there is plenty of Oxygen etc, provided you never vent your stations and such. I always carry small resource containers to refill but normally don't need them because I find more than I need.

 

[fuzz]

Can you hire NPCs to do ship's maintenance for you? Given there's enough replacement parts in the cargo etc.