Re: First impressions
My first impressions...hhmm. First off I am excited about the game having played the earlier Space Empire games and the concept seems like a lot of fun. First thing I did in the game was of course ram Freeport Station. Nothing in the documentation warns you about collisions. On the next try I got 2 cargo missions done, though I found the planets very dark and hard to see. Would be great if you could target them on the main map. In real life planets usually shine pretty brightly when the sun shines on them. Even if just for gameplay reasons the objects you can interact with should be brighter than the background.
On the way back I got in a tangle with some pirates, and barely managed to destroy them all. Ships move too fast relative to their weapon ranges so you just fly by, get one volley off, then turn around and do it over again. Slowing down helps but it still feels a little too "toyish" and not like I am in a capital spaceship. I went to pick up the loot, and since apparently there is no way to tractorbeam loot, I just ran over it, which of course blew up my ship.
So I reloaded, won the battle again and made it to Freeport station, which also happened to be under pirate attack. I defended the station, then went to go pick up the loot. As soon as I did Freeport Station blew me into smitherines. From reading other Posts apparently I become a criminal if I pick up some loot. Of course without a tractorbeam I really can't distinguish between which of the 4 containers all clumped together I pick up. In fact objects are so large in this game relative to your massive starship that you could easily run into some contraband cargo by accident and be blown up by your own people as a traitor. Pretty severe frontier justice.
So the game looks like it could easily be a lot of fun, but these little things in the game that interrupt the immersion pretty often prevent it from being a good game at the moment. I think with just a little more work it could be a real winner. Hopefully these things can be patched after release.
|