Shortest Trip to Earth

First of all this game is NOT an FTL clone or successor. The only similarities are that it's a rogue-like in space where you order your crew to man stations. FTL is a streamlined combat strategy game among all else with very light exploration elements. This game perhaps has more in common with games like Star Control 2 in that exploration and resource management is the main focus. The combat is a lot more slapdash and random and isn't really that fun or strategic. Most of your time will be spent staring at menus, swapping out modules and dawdling along trying to scrape together constantly diminishing pools of various resources. My main problem with this game is there's an immense amount of statistics and micromanagement and I don't even know what I'm looking at half the time. The UI is and gameplay is all exceptionally clunky. I could probably learn with time but the core gameplay isn't really satisfying enough for me to want to. The game throws so many numbers and modules and weapons and crafting options that you have to manage in your face without any real indication of what your most advantageous moves will be. There are ingame tutorials but they're bare bones and don't really succeed in pushing you in the right direction. I'm not saying I need every game to be simple to learn but I felt this one was information overload for its genre. If you're the kind of gamer who gets excited by intense micromanagement (nothing wrong with that) then this is the deep space exploration rogue-like you've been looking for. If you're a fan of FTL looking for a successor or at the very least another sleek and intuitive space combat strategy game, this unfortunately probably isn't what you're looking for. This isn't necessarily a bad game, the love from the developers is both obvious and definitely present in the product, I think it just maybe went a little too far in a few places. I haven't quite given up on it yet but I don't have high hopes it will win me over.

Most reviews compare this to FTL and it's understandable. I've enjoyed this game a lot and when I bought it, I stayed up almost all night playing the game. Which ended up bad for me, as I have a kid and he doesn't sleep late. But regarding the game. Some mechanics are somewhat similar, but there are large differences. While the game is more forgiving on random encounters, it's also more unforgiving as you have to take in consideration so more many things. With enemy vessels last breath, it fires a nuke and starts a huge fire which destroys your shield generator and your cryosleep module. You just sold all your resources for a stupid gun you don't need, so you can't build DIY modules. That sucks. You die. Wonderful game. 5/5 I'll surely spend many many fun hours with this game, failing and dying.

FTL is hard but doable once you mastered the mechanics. Even after tediously and super efficient grind through a sector grabing everything without wasting a lot. This game just instagibs you at any given spot, where and when it wants without leaving an option. And this is not because of RNG just no chance. An example would be: Battle is basically won and as deathrattle the enemy ship shoots 3 big missles, one can usually be shot down and the others hit you for sure. And if you have a good module at that position and it gets destroyed(yes ship improvements can be permanently destroyed) for example you ressource container that contains all ressources, they are all destroyed. And the best thing is if you still win that fight, and dont have anything to salvage to build a new basic container the loot from the fight is also lost. (Superbad game design in my opinion) In FTL which i played a lot it is possible to win with every ship, without the rediculous perk grind system, i highly doubt this is the case on this one. It is quite obvious, when you look at the statistics of the game, because only a lower 1 digit percentage managed to finish the game with certain ships. and obvioulsy only 33% of the people who bought it give it more than 2 try´s. i did 3 attempts overall 6h and got chanceless jammed and destroyed without a chance to evade the battle. That´s it for me For the Moment i give it 2 stars, till some balancing and gameplay changes take place. 29.12.2019

This game is smilar to FLT, but it has its own style, more relaxed (you are not being chased), more time for exploration. It has a lot of depth for a game of this size, looking forward to future development.