Shortest Trip to Earth

It comes across as a well made game for the most part. I didn't like it because it wasn't what I was looking for, but I don't think that means it is "bad". The level of detailed management required is very high. I picked it up based on the comparisons to FTL but FTL is fairly casual and easy to pick up and put down again. This was definitely not in my experience. This game has a much higher learning curve than FTL and although you are free to explore more it also feels much more punishing than FTL. There is a much higher level of complexity in the ship systems and resource management and many more things you need to pay attention to. Ultimately for me it became tedious and overwhelming, and the payoff was not worth it. The tediousness was not from boredom or repetitiveness. There is a lot going on and many fresh challenges. For me the tediousness was in finding the number of things to juggle and manage unrewarding. If you like deep management with layers of things of balance and find that intrinsically rewarding this is probably a good one to pick up. If you want something casual and easily rewarding this is not that in my opinion. It requires a high level of investment to get anywhere and you'll still die a lot. To me aspects of the UI could have been done better as well. So I think it's well made for what it tries to be, it's just whether you get something out of that or not.

I remember having lot of trouble with ftl, pressure of rebel fleet behind, never enough resources to survives or upgrade. Here, we have to micromanage resource and staff too, +more relaxed than ftl +there is a quick affectation UI widget for staff +fate point you get during a run to make the next run more easy +lots of option and a bit more numbers than FTL +the micro stories during exploration -i wish i could attribute a role to each staff (shield, sensor), that they remember after getting out of cryosleep (to avoid food consumption = music is forgettable from my point of view. FTL music is godlike :) Overall, i really enjoy this game !

Buy on sale. So much wasted potential. Fast firing low damage low energy guns are clearly superior in this game. You might fight 3 enemy ships but you cannot have 3 enemy ships. Story is not compelling it feels tacked on. Boarding enemy ships is pointless because they only self destruct with your crew on board, but it does offer a way to kill crew you don't like since you cannot get rid of them any other way. RNG makes no sense. You can never really improve yourself or disposition, just add more crew and hope RNG is your friend. If you need to rely on RNG this much to make the game difficult just put it on autoplay and let me just watch and have to do nothing. That would be more entertaining that having to micro manage things in the game to boredom. Crew assignments was interesting at first but quickly becomes needlessly tedious. Kudos for the peaceful and combat save crew position features but they still suck because crew will forget that they have fire suppression, security, and repair assignments so you have to check them at the start of each new combat. Annoying! This is not FTL, this is not even a rip off, maybe FTL inspired, but heavily modified and definitely not well balanced. Game could easily be 4 stars if the debs put in the effort to make the game that nice. I find that I just am not able to remain interested in the game long enough to play it for long.

So this is my first review ever. I decided to review this game because I truly believe it is on par with more traditionally styled rogue-likes when it comes to the necessity to "work yourself". This is something that you should definately want when playing STTE - or any rogue-like, for that matter. In my first runs, the game felt a bit like I was dependent on RNGesus, which kind of sucked a bit. Then, after my second or third run, I recognised its resemblance with other, "traditional" rogue-likes such as Tangledeep, Cogmind, Caves of Qud (modern, but traditional in design). By this, I mean that after every unsuccessful run, you start thinking about every small decision that you've made, and how any of those might have contributed to you losing. Obviously, there are runs which are "luckier" than others, but IN ANY CASE was there something you could've done better: wait longer with your repairs to save credits or metal, use more DIY nukes, optimise the ship layout so that the ways between "battle" and "normal" mode are shorter,.... you name it. I understand that you might feel pissed when you die and receive a sort of sarcastic "what you could've done better" note by the game. But this is truly what makes this game enjoyable for me - that your choices truly matter. Let me add that I don't consider this game a "FTL-clone". Sure, it is set out in space. Sure, you are the "meta-captain" and tell your units what to do. But FTL's mechanics are purified to a degree which actually lead me to prefer STTE over it. STTE introduces - resources system besides credits, possibility of your components being destroyed, limited inventory capacity - more layers of complexity, which translates, for me, to "more choice". Or, more opportunities to make mistakes and - hopefully - learn from them in future runs :) For Linux users, this game runs fine on wine, even though I believe that performance is worse and even though I WANT THIS GAME NATIVE ON LINUX!!!!!!1111

FTL is a game. STTE is work.