I mean, it would have been nice if the game had been finished when it came out…
But hey, they’ve fixed nearly every problem I had with the game on launch. Which is infinitely more than most of the companies who release shitty broken games.
Did they fix that bit where they forgot to put an actual game in there yet?
Yep! Unfortunately your parents forgot to put an actual brain in you, and it doesn’t seem like they’ll be getting around to it
So the gameplay loop has changed since launch? Or did they simply make the shallow puddle wider?
In the way a sandbox should, yes - better exploration, mechs, expedition stories, freighters, better base building, etc. It’s a sandbox game, it’s not feasible for a game to be as deep as a rpg and wide enough to do anything you want without adhering to a story or dev-induced goal. Dwarf fortress might come the closest to that, but that’s only because they have a super wide fortress mode and a super deep adventure mode and they are fully separate.
If you want a deep gameplay loop, play a game meant for it like a rpg. Those are meant to be deep but relatively narrow to keep you on the story. If you want a wide pool to do whatever you want, play a sandbox like NMS or Minecraft.
I just want a sandbox with meaningful town NPCs, not just a placeholder for a menu.
there are towns, though when I last played the only interactions were really the conflict event thing, and I don’t think it really did anything. I’m curious by what you’re thinking is meaningful for the NPCs to do. Something like DF where they build out their own skills/story?
Entity Urist was taken by a fey mood and locked themselves in the refiner room.
They said they require Gek bones.
I haven’t played DF, but I imagine it’s a bit like Rim World where your citizen gain traits, develop relationships with other citizens and have varied skills.
It doesn’t have to be deep. Palworld has a pretty basic system where Pals can have traits, they have skills and they move around the encampment somewhat organically. It isn’t complex, but at least it feels like my choices makes my camp different and I want to find the Pal that has the skills I require with good traits.
People build crazy things in Minecraft, but no matter what you do, buildings feel empty.
I kinda think they might be on the Minecraft problem chain of… decorating a bit too much without adding much to the core experience.
Yeah, they’re adding stuff, but as someone who’s played recently, the gameplay loop is still the same it’s always been.
they should improve the flight model and add hotas and hosas support.
then race course parts and the ability to build them in space. If both could be used together that would make for some really wild courses.
and the ability to have a drone or hired npc pilot your extra ships to haul stuff or pick you up if you get gunned down in space, and pilot ejection module to go with that.
maybe also a less clunky way to open the rng upgrade module in bulk and choose the top 3
I think there are exocraft (not spaceship) racing parts in the base elements. Never used them though. The only exocrafts I use are nautilon and minotaur (and that one more as AI than vehicle).
I should give this game a try.
Don’t expect in-depth gameplay, but in its current state there is a lot of random stuff to do.
Past the initial discovery, this is very much a sandbox “make your own fun” kind of game. If you can you’ll enjoy making things, going places, and finding occasional interesting procedural oddities.
Some people need more substance in their games and just find it boring when they start recognizing the patterns, and I can get that.
This was exactly my experience, really enjoyed a lot of elements and spent a good 100 hours in game fooling around. Finally it was the patterns that drove me off, like the sentinel experience really turns me off in particular.
One other thing that doesn’t get mentioned enough is its horrendous UI/UX, just a lot of little annoying interface and inventory management decisions.
Yeah, the UI definitely takes a while to get used to.
Nowadays I mostly play NMS in VR, and weirdly enough, the VR UI is often a lot better than the gamepad one. Which itself is better than the mouse+keyboard one, I have no idea what they were thinking with that.
Except for spaceship combat, this one is a mess in VR. Just flying around is OK, but dogfighting is horrendous.
Dogfights in VR Elite Dangerous is probably my best VR experience. It was just so fun even if the fights themselves weren’t that deep.
The launch of this games is a tragedy. Such a neat indie game that almost died due to hype and lies.
But you should have…
Didn’t they say this last year that they finished? Am I imagining that or did they backtrack?
They’ve always been quite clear that this is a passion project and that they’re nowhere near done with it. However, that doesn’t stop a chunk of the community from being absolutely convinced that the next update is the last, pointing to all kinds of obscure wording from old interviews or data mined files that are clearly incomplete as proof of this. It’s a really weird thing and I don’t get it at all. I remember last year a lot of people were spreading rumors that the summer update would be the last, based on kind of weird numerology. It’s baffling.
