Lightspeed Frontier

classic sandbox game with nothing to do and having scaled challenges instead of building a compelling universe. at this point it's mostly interesting as a block builder but you can get plenty better than what's on the table.

Basic Information Title: Lightspeed Frontier Status: Early Access Developer: Crowdwork Studios Publisher: Riveted Games Genre: 3D Space Simulation Release Date: 7th of March, 2017 Type: Singleplayer [h1]Introduction[/h1] This is going to be my first (out of many, I hope) preview for a Steam title, instead of a review. What does it mean? Well, that “P” is an important distinction. You wouldn’t mistake Prussia for Russia and in the same manner, my previews shall differentiate from reviews, by not containing a final rating. The games in question have been provided by the developers for a more informative role than my usual constructive criticism. Anyway, I’d like to think that I was never too harsh in my writings and that you will enjoy reading even my occasional previews. I shall not skimp on the details, no matter how often I have to adapt my style to the needs of my sponsors, so you, as my readers can always expect an in-depth analysis from me. Lightspeed Frontier is a 3D Space Sim that wishes to offer an open-ended experience for its players, within a singleplayer mode designed to accept both randomly generated assets and complex customization options for the spacecraft itself. An ambitious project from a debutante dev team, but so far they haven’t given me any reason to doubt their potential to actually come through with their first Steam game. If you know me by now, you probably noticed that I rarely care for the multiplayer component and even if there are many space sims on Steam or otherwise, few of them come close to the liberty and exploration found in 2003’s Freelancer. That was singleplayer experience that combined trade, combat, intuitive control scheme and an intriguing cast of character & storyline, with the sheer vastness of space. And no, Freelancer is not available on Steam or any other digital distribution platform. [h1]Story [/h1] It’s an obvious Early Access stage in which the developer wanted to focus on the core gameplay mechanics, before adding a proper story. Lightspeed Frontier has some mission elements implemented already, but they aren’t yet consolidated enough to form narrative coherence. Disparate assignments that have you warp jumping from one solar system to another and reaching some coordinates that frequently prove to be elaborate traps involving space pirates. It gets old fast but I’m certain the fully released version of the game shall offer a campaign worthy of Lightspeed Frontier’s potential. [h1]Graphics[/h1] Judging from the title’s launcher, I presume it’s running on Unity Engine 5 assets so eye candy is more or less present along with enough customization options to satisfy even the most creative digital spacecraft designer/player. The ship components act like near-literal building blocks that can be manipulated to such an extent, to which you can recreate famous space ships found in Sci-Fi films or TV series. And there are already a handful of skillfully crafted examples, ready to be downloaded from Lightspeed Frontier’ Workshop page. Performance-wise, the game is running maxed out and at 4K resolution without so much as a frame-rate dip if you use anything other than a huge ship design (which would still require copious amounts of in-game currency). I can imagine that running the game at only 1080p or 2K resolutions, ensures buttery smooth performance no matter what gets shown or blown to bits, on your monitor. So the lack of glitches or frame rate instability proves that Lightspeed Frontier is not your typical Early Access indie game on Steam. This dev team isn’t beta testing its game on your own expense and spare time. [h1]Audio[/h1] Sounds might need an overhaul and perhaps even the soundtrack would benefit from a few added songs. The ones already present tend to repeat themselves way too often. Also there’s no voice acting whatsoever. Not for the tutorial or even the chat of sorts, being simulated. It’s all a much too silent playthrough and so far, a missed opportunity for some really epic tracks. Space sims deserve them almost as much as games belonging to the fantasy genre. [h1]Gameplay[/h1] As soon as you start the game, you can pick beween Campaign and Endless modes. True, no unified story is present yet and the collection of slightly repetitive missions may not seem like much, but exploration is encouraged regardless. Space stations represent crucial hubs for any activities you undertake in Lightspeed Frontier. These massive orbiting structures feature everything you need. A marketplace is the perfect spot to unload the minerals you mine and components you capture after a space battle. It is here, where you can buy new “modules” which act as spare parts that help upgrade your ship by your heart’s desire. When you’re not trading in the classical term, you can try your “luck” with the in-game stock market, which features a simplified version of what real life brokers have to deal with. It’s still a nice addition and shows that the developer wants to add personality to the game with the inclusion of stock prices for their faux brands (that are also highlighted through billboards on the space stations themselves). Stations feature refueling docks and resupplying your ship, costs Wex (the game’s currency) but repairing the vessel seems to be free of charge. I’m not complaining since earning enough cash in Lightspeed Frontier isn’t an easy task, when you constantly have to replace the destroyed bits and pieces you lose after most battles. For all their extra armor you may install, the ships still seem fragile and the weaponry present already is divided in three categories from lowest damage output to the highest: gatling gun (bullets), laser beam and plasma shot. Three is apparently the magic number for current ship style/template, with themes such as rusty brown metal plates with yellow lights, modern white/aluminum look with shades of blue and my favorite, the darker design which features lots of red to go with those black plates. Nothing spells “friendly trader” more than recreating Star Wars' Slave I or a Star Trek Borg Cube (if only green lights were available). As I mentioned above, when you’re not blasting randomly spawned foes (there aren’t any neutral or allied vessels yet), you can earn Wex by mining the asteroid belts around certain planets you find in most of the solar systems you visit. The game’s map is huge to say the least so I do hope it may get filled with activities and special locations and characters eventually. As with most other controls, travelling from one system to another is as easy as opening the map and clicking on the warp command. Going from one planet to another is also as easy as engaging the warp mode and pointing your mouse cursor towards your intended destination. Even players that aren’t accustomed to space simulations, can simply pick this title up and Lightspeed Frontier’s tutorial shall prepare them for any challenge ahead. [h1]Verdict[/h1] Final rating or not, I still recommend you purchase Lightspeed Frontier even in its current Early Access stage. Its lack of a storyline or campaign is vehemently offset by the presence of a stable and diversified gameplay which won’t bore you. On the contrary, should you wish to craft a space ship worthy of your dreams, you can even do so with the safety and unlimited budget present in the Endless mode. As you will find out, nothing’s gonna stop you from exploring the ever shifting universe of Lightspeed Frontier and no, the sky was never the limit! [quote]This preview was submitted for [url=http://steamcommunity.com/groups/ImperialReviews]Imperial Reviews[/url] and [url=https://www.ticgn.com] The Inner Circle Games Network[/url]through the generous contribution of [url=http://steamcommunity.com/id/robilar5500]Peter Faden[/url].[/quote]

This game is like Avorion, except that there's barely any content, the gameplay is frustrating, and its generally terrible. Some examples: - The first two hours of the game consists solely of warping to "?" markers in space, dragging modules from their wreck to your ship (one by one! ), then warping to a station to reset your ship and thereby sell the modules for money ("wex"). Early combat is impossible as you can't afford any decent ship and don't have any good weapons unlocked. - Even after you get a few weapons, you can't use 90% of the ship designs as you have to wander the galaxy unlocking every single part they use before you can use them. Finding the parts is random. So you're stuck on low-tier designs. I had 20 Wex but couldn't pilot anything larger than a destroyer (that costs ~2 Wex) as I was not having any luck getting modules to drop. Why on earth would stations refuse to sell you their merchandise until you already have one? The entire point of a shop is to sell you what you DON'T have. The game does not seem to understand this. - Combat in this game is not fun. The first ship I encountered was called 'Knife' and its strategy was to ram me with its armored hull. Seriously? In a game with all kinds of weapons, your best strategy, and the one NPCs use, is ramming you with an armored hull? That's really dumb. It doesn't say much for the weapons in your game when the first NPC players see thinks ramming you is a better strategy than using any weapon. - The game has almost no content. Compared to avorion (which has quests, many tiers of ship components, trading, etc)... this game has none of that. The wiki talks about 'quests' but they're disabled. There are only three areas in the galaxy and three basic materials for ships (junk, industrial and alliance). There is no friendly AI to play with. There is no trading system beyond stocks. I haven't seen any multiplayer support and almost nothing in terms of community features. The best resource for the game is the wiki, but even that is often disappointing. Basic, basic questions, like "how do I quickly loot all modules from a derelict ship?" aren't answered. Instead, it seems to be a catalogue of ship modules, which is rather useless information as you can't actually USE any of these modules until you manually hunt them down yourself, and good luck getting them. - The dialogue in the game is a waste of time. Sometimes, when warping to an "?" in space you will encounter neutral ships. This is a waste of time, as you can't get anything from them except poorly-written dialogue. Some of them say inane things like quoting sentences you can read both forward and backwards. Really? There's nothing interesting enough in this game for the NPCs to comment on? That's what it seems like. I could go on and on, but suffice it to say: this game is not worth your money. If you want to play a game like this, but that is actually good, I suggest Endless Sky, or Avorion. Endless Sky is free. Avorion is $15 to $20, but its miles better than this.

Good Graphics! Very fun to Play. A bit of a learning curve. I recomend it just for the Eye Candy, if nothing else.

Construct your ship, fly around, defeat random hostiles, rebuild your ship from their carcasses, and repeat, while enjoying the stellar/planetary scenery. After each battle, you'll have some time to collect the fragments of destroyed ships. Return to the in-system station for repairs and reconstruction, or rebuild your ship away from the station and get jumped while doing so. There is a learning curve: It takes some time to get used to the controls. You also need remember in what mode you are currently in -- constructing or flying. Because LF is still in early access, there are still some bugs, but the devs are open/responsive and have been rolling out fixes. Note that the game as it stands now (19 Mar 2017) is great for casual play, but lacks a compelling reason to play for an extended period of time. Each system is different on the surface (different star, different number of planets, etc), but the number of unique and interesting things to do in each system is limited. However I expect this to change as more content is added.

Lego's in space... With guns... what more could you ask for? Your childhood dreams become a reality with this game. The gameplay is very well made and will only improve. The camera mechanic's are great for dogfighting/brodsiding other ships and enemies. This game keeps you entertained by trying to constantly make your ship better, faster, and stronger. You go from a small trade/fighter vessel to a dreadnought and you can feel the power flowing through it And that's not the end if it. You can be a trader,merc,transport you decide. Go from being a small freighter to the deathstar... the choice is yours. Just don't die. Also, the dev's are extremely active with this games small community helping people out and just being awesome. They take idea's and make them into a reality. Fixing bugs as fast as they can. Even adding your creations to the game as AI. And yes... lots of memes... 10/10 IGN

very boring game, the npcs in starter areas are overpowered and do too much damage to your ship waaaayyy too fast to have even a chance. the stock market system takes even more fun out of the game as one can go from 0.0025 wex to hundreds of thousands in just a few minutes of starting a new game. all in all the whole game needs some major re-balancing.

I'm sorry, but there isnt anything interesting and no multiplayer.

Very good and addicting, there's plenty of stuff to do, it's very simple yet very fun! The devs are constantly working to build this game, and they answer very quickly when you report a bug or a suggestion!

Cool game in the future, what prevents it from being a black game at the moment are its controls, the controls are horrible, the camera is very bad, as a player I should not worry about turning my ship, just going to the sides up And down and shoot, the game is too expensive to have these confusing controls, and descontroled ship on space, and the bad camera, I waiting developer fix it.