Posted on: September 21, 2023
JJack
Verified ownerGames: 481 Reviews: 21
Relaxing, Boring or sth else entirely?
This game is now free, so that would mean another * - but... It's actually more of a simple business sim than a space sim. It starts like (very simplified) X2 or X3: You'll do some trading, take trucking contracts and slowly build up a fleet. Don't expect ANY fighting, till second half of the game - unless you want to lose the game. For when you attack someone, they'll keep coming at you, until everything you have is blown to smithereens. (Though you can bribe them off.) The only way to experience any meaningful fighting is to use skirmish mode. Which gets old very soon. Anyway, to build each ship you need considerable resources (esp. steel, which is always short) and cash. OTOH: to build a station, you just need 100 steel, 100 plastic, 100 tools and 40k cash. And it gets built in a day. Magic! Just double that for a shipyard(?). But don't think you'll build a shipyard any time soon, because you need to research it first (looong time) + you'll need 1200 Electronics - which NOBODY produces. So you need an electronics factory first, which is also in the top research level + LOTS of time. So, however you go about it, most of the time you'll spend looking at spreadsheets of materials and move'em around with your ships. Which can be interesting - if you're an accountant - or love business sims. Otherwise... Until you get to campaign mission to destroy the pirates! Uh-huh! So NOW we're cooking with gas, aren't we? Uh, no... That means you need a large war fleet - meaning way more sheet-gazing first. And because there is no saving but autosave, every wrong click can be costly - but usually it's "only" money so you'll recover soon. Unless you get really "lucky" - as I did, when a computer crash out of nowhere corrupted the one-and-only save file there is - and your 30+ hours or more of gameplay ... POOF! - gone forever. At that point I've decided to quit permanently and docked the star, which the game would get for being free. So, all in all: rather a disappointment.
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