Ostranauts - spaceship management sim set in NEO Scavenger universe - now available on Early Access

[Harthwain]

Remember time when 1.0 was a content complete game with future versions reflecting only bug fixes and not just a arbitrary number in cycle of early access followed by several years long roadmap.

That's because back then patching was difficult. You had to put out as complete game as possible. It started to change once patches became easier to administer (mainly via the internet), allowing for Early Access to appear.

 

[thesecret1]

Playing it for the first time, about 10 hours in. The tutorials are SHIT and need to be redone, I had to look up virtually everything on some wiki somewhere just to figure out the main gameloop.

That said, the game's pretty fun. It's very good at making you strive for something - I spent my first couple runs on acquiring new tools and a suit since the first one was shit, now I'm saving money to buy a better ship since I wanna install so many things, but the starter one is just too tiny for them. Wish there was a way to take a second mortgage or a loan.

Not a big fan of the procedural missions from NPCs, right now they seem rather pointless.

 

[thesecret1]

 

[Hellraiser]

Very deep simulation, even simulates NPCs being schizos with personality split paranoid about their other personalities plotting against them.

 

[Parsimonious cook]

Nah bro, it is obvious that Dong Travis Stone wants to test Jack Boyd´s stealth abilities by having him plant the tracking device - a highly difficult feat given that D. T. Stone knows what Jack Boyd looks like. Only a true stealth master could pull that shit off.

 

[thesecret1]

I "accidentally" bumped into him 5 seconds later, planted the device, and apparently even had some solemn thoughts about what terrible fate D. T. Stone may have in mind for D. T. Stone.

Honestly, the procedural NPC missions all seem like terrible shit with no payoff and no fun. I started ignoring them. They all seem to follow the exact same pattern too: NPC #1 suddenly messages you outta nowhere to come talk to it. Once you do, it directs you to speak to NPC #2 (even if it's shit like planting a device, it's still literally just a dialogue option). Once you do, you go report back to NPC #1. Mission accomplished. No reward unless you asked for one at the beginning, but even if you did, it's miniscule. It might be the shittiest, most braindead quest design I've seen to date. "Kill 10 wolves" or "Bring me 50 boar butts" is peak questing compared to this shit.

 

[thesecret1]

Alright, put 22h into it and I think it's time to put it away and wait for full release. Impressions:
1. The game's presentation of its mechanics is awful. It's really not a complicated game, but it sure does its best to seem that way, while the tutorial is extremely unhelpful. I fully expect large amounts of people to boot it up, go through the tutorial, think "wow, this is some autistic shit for sweaty grognards that you need to put 100+ hours in just to get the basic mechanics down" and go ask for a refund. It's really not, the game is, in some aspects, perhaps even too simple.
2. The game loop is fairly solid, but suffers from excessive repetitiveness. Fly out, dock, strip everything valuable from the wreck, repair, fly back, sell, repeat. There ought to be more variety to break up the monotony, ideally by making the wrecks less same-y. It's also quite grindy, at least at the beginning.
3. Procedural NPCs and the whole dialogue system is terrible. It just is, no matter how many different conditions you slap on it – at the end of the day, you just spam whatever it is you need raised and are done with it.
4. Ship systems and everything connected to it are super fun. So is all the stuff related to equipment, etc. – it's the good kind of autism.
5. Stations and non-salvage aspects of the game in general are very barebones and could use significant expanding upon. There's basically nothing to the OKLG other than a trade and recruitment hub, which is like the bare minimum.
6. Bugs. Usually not gamebreaking ones, but they are there and they're numerous.
7. Despite the game frequently advertising itself as super hardcore etc., I actually haven't died once. You aren't really in any danger if you know what you're doing.

Even though most my points are complaints, the game overall was pretty fun, just feels like it needs more time in the oven. And hopefully some meaty content expansion to break up the grind. Looking forward to 1.0

 

[Monkeyfinger]

The "hardcore" part is probably sweaty grognarding your way through the process of figuring out the basic mechanics in a true blind manner, instead of using the wiki.

 

[thesecret1]

The "hardcore" part is probably sweaty grognarding your way through the process of figuring out the basic mechanics in a true blind manner, instead of using the wiki.

There's nothing to sweaty grognard through – as I said, the game is super simple. What the wiki does for the most part is tell you shit like "oh, you can create zones in your ship and sell from there instead of hauling every piece of scrap to the store" and "Oh there's a kiosk you can buy fuel from at OKLG" and similar, since the tutorial doesn't.