=TLDR: WARNING: DEAD GAME, AND NOT JUST IN PLAYER COUNT=
Back when this was on the various Flash game sites, it was fairly popular due to it's uniqueness, I'll start with the pros.
Pros:
*top down space flight game, with leveling and monster hunting and boss fights = very unique game.
*an artifact-based equipment system, allowing you to customize your capabilities
*every ship has unique strengths and capabilities, some with unique weapons entirely
*interesting crew leveling system: no effect on your space capabilities, but leveling their skills will help them complete groundside missions that give you bonus coin, materials, and sometimes artifacts.
Now the cons. Hoo boy.
Cons
*literally everything is monetized. This omnipresent in-game currency is available to either buy in decent amounts, get in minor amounts from daily login rewards, or get in microscopic amounts from story missions. Have to wait for a crafting or crew mission timer? There will be a prompt to spend currency to complete it instantly. Want to buy a ship? You'll need weeks of daily logins to even consider the cheapest upgrades. Want leveling boosts, item collection aides, or a keep-inventory-on-death ability? Yep, there's a cash shop for those too.
*Player base: Yeah. Everyone's gone. In my couple hours of playing, I only ever saw two players, and they were just passing through the starting system. No active chat, no guilds or anything like that. Community is dead, and with it is any reliable multiplayer. Which isn't fatal to the game, since the format *could* make for a recoverable singleplayer experience, but...
And finally, the death knell...
*Server uptime. Did you see the part where I mentioned daily login streaks granting currency? You won't get those anymore. Over the past month, the servers have been active for what I think amounted to less than five days, combined. This alone overrules any of my other complaints, because this is evidence the developers have abandoned the game in addition to the players.
You cannot play this game while the servers are down. You cannot accrue currency in any meaningful amount if the server outages are constantly resetting your login streaks. You cannot buy better ships without currency. And you cannot advance through the game without better ships. Rest In Peace, Astroflux, from an old Armor Games player.
