Review 1
Purchased!
Buyer Beware game is ABANDONED!!!
Your structures constantly decay, so you must have lots of mechanics to keep
everything repaired. However the biggest issue for me was pathing. The mechanics
kept getting stuck, so my structures didn't get repaired and were destroyed.
Reading the forums, this has been an issue since summer 2016. You can eventually
make miners, scientists and utility vehicles, but what's the point, since
they're all going ot get stuck anyway, making the game even more unplayable.
I spent most of my game time building the items needed to train mechanics, you
never have enough. Having to have 2 mechanics per structure is ridiculous,
they're slow and take forever to get anywhere (providing you don't have a
traffic jam somewhere (pathing!!!!)).
Oddly the habitats all connect, but the mechanics can't pass thru them, but
rather have to go around them, causing more delays. They tend to lock in place,
so you must build them all over the place instead.
This game needs a grid so you don't place buildings too close together causing
even more pathing issues.
Seems to me the most useless building is the launch pad, you don't make any
money, so then why would you want to sell anything??
Until atleast the pathing is fixed I highly recommend for you to stay away from
this game unless you want a lesson in frustration and a lot of wasted gameplay.
Update 6/16/2017:
Last update was in Sept 2016 adding an overhead view and 3 languages, but no
real update since it 's release from EA in July 2016.
Review 2
Purchased!
This is a shame. I had high hopes for this one. The issue isn't it's early stage
in development, it's the glaring lack of design work. The main thrust of the
game is producing saleable products to fund your colony's growth. There is no
support in the UI for this, however.
Each building is seperate, so you have to click on each building to view its
status. Then for each unit of raw materials you want to produce, you have to
click once per unit to add it to the production queue. There's no way to say "I
want to produce these until I say otherwise"; you just have to click hundreds of
times. And if it finishes, then you don't get a notification, so make sure you
click more times than you need, or resign yourself to checking back
periodically. Then, you have to click each manufacturing building to view its
status, and if it's not currently manufacturing, you can tell it to produce one
manufactured item. No queue there, so just remember to check each factory
periodically to see if it's finished with its one item. Then to sell the items,
you go into that building and click once for each item you want to sell. If you
want to sell fifty units, that's fifty clicks. If you think all that sounds
pretty tedious, you'd be right.
That the game has reached a playable state with no thought given to how it's
going to be played makes me very doubtful that the game will ever fully mature.
I'd love to be proven wrong. I am not going to hold my breath, however.
Review 3
Purchased!
I'm super bummed. This game has a lot of potential, but it's not a finished
product at this point. Many basic game concepts have not implemented yet, and
the players time quickly devolves into an unsustainable amount of
micro-management. There's a strong imbalance between what the player must do
manually and what is automated behind the scenes. For example:
- When building habitation structures, new colonists instantaneously fill the
structures regardless of whether or not the colony even has the ability to
accept deliveries (extreme and illogical automation)
- To construct a new building or object - of which there are many - each unit of
material required for construction has to be manually produced by the player
(extreme and illogical micromanagement).
I hope development continues on this project. It has the foundation to go far.
Review 4
Purchased!
Spoilers below.
This game wasn't half bad, until the defense missions started. With no direction
other than "place some turrets" I spread them evenly around the map. Then enemy
drop ships landed, and my turrets shot at them. The turrets completely missed
their target, but they had no problem mowing down my entire colony with friendly
fire (which I was given no warning to watch out for). It took hours to build,
and only seconds to destroy. By the time I realized what was happening and
thought to take control of my turrets, it was too late - I had too many turrets,
and the whole colony is made of tissue paper.
It was a real grind to build everything up to the point I'd gotten to. Even if I
reloaded my last save, I'd have to figure out how to place turrets to avoid
crossfire and also manually control them for every attack. It's just too
tedious. I'm honestly not sure how anyone could get through this poor design
without saintly patience.
Do I recommend this game? Solid No.
Review 5
Purchased!
For those of you who enjoy resource games like Banished or Planet Base this is
the game for you. It posseses many of the same features but taken to the next
level. The layers of crafting are farily intricate. In addition you have the
added dimension of a research tree and the problem of managing 3 colonies at a
time where each colony is interdependant on the others. Throw that together with
the threat of robbers and aliens and you have a game that will keep you
entertained for hours. At the beginning of the game you have "advisors" they do
a great job at stepping you through some of the beginning phases but the
mechanics are designed where you need to be increasingly more creative. This
system allows you to jump right into playing the game with a very easy learning
curve. If you don't want to be constrained by the story they also have a sandbox
mode. All in all I think this is the best resource game I have played. I think
it better even then banished or planet base. One last thing the price point on
this game is well worth it. Buy it you'll love it.