Cosmonautica

[h1][i]«Почему мы посылаем в космос самых высоких и красивых, а инопланетяне к нам одних уродов с зелёными ушами?»[/i][/h1] Эй, привет, земляне! У вас есть минутка? Я тут застрял в игре Cosmonautica, и это как будто я на шатле, который намеренно летит не туда, куда надо! Знаете, в общем, моя жизнь как космонавта - это и есть полный трэш! Я всегда мечтал о космосе: взлёт, звезды, бла-бла-бла, но, честно говоря, не ожидал, что мне придётся управлять космическим кораблем, который выглядит так, будто его собрали студенты на спор. Приключения начинаются с того, что мне, значит, дают этот потрёпанный дымный шаттл, с сомнительными гудками и дырами в обшивке. Так я решаюся отправиться в путешествие, где мне предстоит исследовать галактики, торговать с инопланетянами и сражаться с врагами. О, поверьте, это не ровная дорожка! Моя команда — это просто отряды мечты, если бы эти мечты выглядели, как выходцы из комиксов! Мы здесь сражаемся, торгуем и иногда даже устраиваем вечеринки на борту, когда вдруг нечего делать! Становится весело, когда начинаешь со своими посланниками выяснять, у кого лучше бургеры — у марсиан или у венериан. А графика? Скажу так: это больше напоминает космическую версию «Картинок для детей», чем Новую Зеландию на обложках журналов. Но это прикол — тут такая яркая палитра, что даже мои старые треннинговые штанишки выглядели бы лучше! А управление кораблем — о, этоная древняя эзотерика! Я сначала думал, что по мне серьёзно кто-то подшутил, когда надо всё это осваивать! Стремится в одну сторону, а я-то, значит, рулю, как будто поворачиваю ведёрко с песком! И всё это напоминает мне, что надо быть настоящим космическим капитаном, с какими-то серьезными скиллами! Так или иначе, я — мэтр драмы по имени «Космонавтика», готовый к погоням за инопланетным сыром на продажу! В общем, если вам хочется немного поразвлекаться и забыть о реальности, кидайте в свою консоль Cosmonautica! Вы не только увидите космос, но и испытаете кучу эмоций – от смеха до легкого недоумения, когда ваш корабль снова кружит вокруг одной планеты. Так что, вперёд, к звёздам, только не забудьте одеть шлем, чтобы не забыть, как правильно дышать в космосе! 6 космофарцовщиков из 10

This game can be a lot of fun. The story is amusing and the gameplay is not horrible. The trading is middle of the road, but ok. The combat could be a bit more intuitive, but ok. The big reason for the negative review is that the game has turned into a crashfest. It also appears that the dev team abandoned ship on the game, and there have been no updated in years. Unless you get this for < 5.00, I'd probably avoid this due to the crashing. I'm lucky to get in an hour of play before it crashes, but I've been doggedly trying to get through the main storyline regardless.

You know, i never really got over the fact they abandoned this game. Its just not done. The sandbox is only half there. Eat my cheese devs. This game is NOT worth buying under any circumstances.

Every once in a while I glance through the backlog to see if I picked out a "hidden gem" on a steam sale I forgot about. Also every once in a while I feel a hankerin' for a merchant trader game that can top the now ancient best in class OG that was Sid Meier's Pirates! (and some of its various successors). Unfortunately, Cosmonautica, while scratching the genre itch (but in SPACE), is not the droid I was looking for, and can't be recommended for most for three key reasons even though it has a lot of the fundamentals for a good casual space trader game down pat. 1) This game was apparently in early access for a while before a very quick shove out the door by the devs once the minimum viable product launch was ready. Then they totally abandoned it. As a result, this game has a ton of bugs, balance issues, half finished features, and limited scope that might have been ironed out in a post-launch year or so never did, so it's literally always kind of janky. 2) Jank could be forgiveable, and to no small degree is, but what's unforgivable are the crashes. It cannot be under-emphasized: This game crashes. A LOT. It never stops being annoying, even if it autosaves enough so you don't lose much progress. Especially since its default resolution is non-HD windowed mode and the gameplay is extremely "fire and forget" as you launch from spaceport to spaceport, this game [i]would[/i] make excellent 2nd Screen entertainment - perfect to put on while you listen to a podcast or work on a spreadsheet or something - and to no small extent will work that way, but because of either a memory leak or a gradual build-up in timing errors as your crew perform activities on your ship, something always overloads within a couple hours and the game WILL crash after a bit. Meaning that "leave it on in the background" value is drained immensely. 3) Ultimately, there just isn't much depth or scope here. Every system of the game that you would want in a more "up close" ship management/trading sim is here: crew needs, variable ship layout, research based tech trees, a ship to ship combat system, different kinds of jobs including passenger transport and smuggling illegal goods. But they're all either surface level or missing the [i]next idea[/i] that naturally follows. You can get into ship to ship combat, but you can't board ships or be boarded. You can smuggle illegal goods, but you can't run a blockade to do so, only pass one of two auto-checks on port entry. You can run into random events for asteroid mining or salvage but there aren't actual systems for these things. Once you've mastered the 2.5 core looping systems (market based goods shipping/passenger transport and space combat) and solved the crew needs loop while upgrading to the tier 3 ships, which you'll have to do in order to beat the campaign, you'll have done it all. If the campaign were shorter, you'd be able to do this within a couple hours, tops, but it's dragged out enough that you won't be able to return this within Steam's no questions asked refund window. So in the end, you're looking at a game with some good vibes and atmosphere, mostly pulled off by a cheery artstyle and groovy background music that seems primed for a good casual experience, but which never reaches any of the heights it could, while becoming annoyingly buggy and crashy the more you play it. While it doesn't represent a horrid stain of ruined potential like Spacebase DF-9 or other more truly abandoned games have, Cosmonautica nevertheless doesn't rise above the absolute minimums of effort or care. And in a crowded market . . . that's just not enough. Shame, really. See you, Space Cowboys.

This is an excellent game. No clue why Chasing Carrots abandon this game, especially when looking at some the other trash they've decided to try and develop. If they would return to this game and clean up some bugs, give it a final direction or end game goal... this game could have made them millions of dollars.

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I bought this game a long time ago, probably in a bundle from some place like HumbleBundle. For it sitting in my library for years (essentially a free game at this point for me), it provided a fun few hours of diversion. I did not experience any crashing running the game through Steam's Proton on Linux. As long as you ignore the "main mission" for a few hours and just accumulate money and scientific discoveries for room unlocks, it's a good time. I didn't ignore the main mission and got stuck with cargo I couldn't sell or store (there is no such thing as cargo storage off-ship) which locked me out of a ship upgrade until I completed the part of the main mission that required the special cargo. I also encountered a glitch during that questline where the other half of the required cargo disappeared because I had already filled the rest of my cargo space with goods to actually sell. I could still complete the quest, but it was funny to see that I clearly did not deliver the other special cargo, the game just conveniently forgot I didn't have it. That's the main problem with this game, as many other reviews probably illustrate well. A lot of frustrating, questionable design choices that make for poor quality of life. The core gameplay of trading, micromanaging your crew, and being captain of a space vessel is worthwhile and engaging. However, there's a long grind to get even basic facilities for your crew beyond literally a vending machine for a source of food, a single toilet, and a small bunk room. Once you get to the point where you think you can actually accommodate your crew properly and start taking on passengers, you realize your starter ship is about half the size it should be to house amenities for six crew plus passengers. I'm at this point right now. I just upgraded my ship, bought a bunch of rooms, and installed a cleaning bot so I can start using my Cleaner person's cooking skills in the brand new kitchen. It took me 7 hours to get to this point according to Steam. I had a little help from the game wiki (I couldn't figure out if I needed to make space for weapons on my cargo ship that I didn't intend to send into combat). I haven't touched the combat part of the game yet. Overall, I would say this game is fun for about 10 or 15 hours and then it will probably get stale. Reading other reviews, it sounds like the game has trouble running on the latest Windows 10/11 with updates. It would probably work well on Steam Deck or other SteamOS handhelds, but the UI doesn't look like it will scale down that well to a small screen. Not to mention, this game is not designed for a controller at all. TL;DR Buy it on sale if you're not sure (multi hour grind to get the dopamine fix), less crashing on Linux with Proton.

changed the resolution and now its broken cant change it back (even with steam commands) + the devs abandoned it, so there goes my money

The first impression was good, but the game is very poorly balanced. Easy tasks offer high rewards, while difficult tasks give low rewards and come with too many conditions. You can easily farm money on certain missions, but it quickly becomes boring, and there’s no real incentive to take on complex ones. There are many small, unintuitive UI decisions—for example, the dialogue button used for social interactions. The game also lacks a pause option. During system-to-system travel, you can’t do anything: you can’t manage research, promote crew members, or handle social interactions. Even with a ship fully equipped for combat, you often struggle. While you can install up to eight weapons, you can operate only half of them at the same time. You still need at least one pilot and can easily be crushed by a specialized enemy build. Trying to maintain a balanced combat/trade ship usually isn’t worth it either. You have very limited cargo space and often spend more on hull repairs and ammunition after fights than you earn from the mission reward—sometimes up to three times more. In my experience, the most effective setup is: 2 shield operators, 2 hackers, 1 pilot, and 1–3 turrets. This setup lets you take almost no damage and slowly destroy enemy ships by hacking their shields and navigation while using cheap turret ammo. Give the crew all the necessary recreation rooms and keep only 2–3 vaults for quest items or valuable goods—then simply wear enemies down. You can make good money from low-level missions like Unwanted Guest, not from the bounty itself, but by not killing the target and negotiating for as much money as possible. These missions are easy, repeatable, and far more profitable than many “hard” contracts. This build and strategy works throughout the entire mid and late game.

Buggy, unfinished, abandoned.