Lightyear Frontier

I really wanted to write a positive review for this game as it really is fun. However, there is a major problem in the progression system. After spending almost 90 hours of grinding away at this game, spending countless hours manually watering all the crops (it really does take a lot of effort), I discover that there is automation for water collection that allows for automated watering. The problem is that this doesn't get unlocked until phase 12, which is currently the second to last step of the game. Spending countless hours just watering millions of plants only to unlock automation at the very end is quite upsetting. The automated watering should be moved to somewhere around phase 9.

As someone who's put hundreds of hours into Satisfactory across PS5 and PC, this game was basically an auto-buy once I heard that it had automation. Unfortunately, after nearly 20 hours of playtime, I honestly couldn't tell you the first thing about automation because I haven't unlocked it at all yet. I'd guess I'm still a solid 10-15 hours out from that feature. Seriously? What's the point of automation if players are exhausted with your base mechanics by the time it gets unlocked? Not to mention, the core mechanic of crop rotation in this game is pretty mind-numbing, and aside from the initial tool unlocks I never felt like upgrading them made my life any easier. This game is sooooo close to being good, but I feel like they have some pretty basic tweaks that need to be done before I would recommend it to anyone.

I really want to like this game, but it made me uninstall it several times. The core game is a constant run towards failure unless you're a strategist and you know what's gonna happen and prepare for it. You want more powerful robot? You end up spending more and more fuel and capacity (capacity is needed to power up and mod the robot and you unlock it slowly for every mission you complete). Every crafter machinery in the game is ridiculously slow for the amount of materials you need in the game (up to 3 minutes for a SINGLE ingot). So you might want to put more machinery of the same type...BUT this requires energy for the most advanced ones. And what do you think energy is gained? With fuel consumption. The same fuel that makes your robot move. And the best fuel gives around 5 minutes of energy in a game where you want energy constantly and fuel of that type crafts in 1 to 2 minutes at a time. And, for some reason, machinery consumes fuel even when not in use...they only need to exist in the farm to consume more fuel. So yeah, if you like to take these kind of games EXTREMELY slowly, then no problem. Ah, wait...you have to water each field by hand up to the 8th milestone (that you achieve after a set number of successful missions) where you unlock the drones that do that for you. And what does drones consumes PER PATCH OF EARTH? Fuel and water. And when you do a patch of 10x5 to grow any resource you need to refuel the drones quite often...and what's the point of having a dog and barking yourself? Eventually you can automate the water intake...at the cost of more fuel and the second to last available milestone. On top of it all, this game seems to want to die on a pretty peculiar hill regarding these kind of games: You can carry only a set amount of weight on you that you can upgrade...that's normal. But why in the name of all motherboards do storage containers have a limit in weight too?! Storage containers, since the dawn of history that I remember, have a limit in spaces occupied, not weight. So, in this game, you end up with a whole patio with 10-20 or 30 identical containers that you want to upgrade as soon as you can. After 20 hours of game I had to cut half a forest to make a road and the wood I got from there was 2k units. Those units weighted me off so I was slowed and I arrived eventually at my farm...those 2k units became divided in 2 and a half different lockers because a single one could not hold the weight. These facts plus the slowness of the machines puts the clutter in any farm through the roof and it's a MESS that I no longer wish to think about, as an OCD with hoarding behaviour. As soon as the game is finished and maybe mods arise for the tasks I need, this game is a BIG nono and waste of potential.

Unfortunately this is no longer the game I started. The developers have taken the game in a completely different direction, which has created a game I no longer desire to play. If I wanted an automation game I would've gone and played Satisfactory. I wanted a peaceful farming and exploration sim, with the ability to build cute decorations and make a really pretty farm, I wanted my wooden mech, I wanted to explore the world and find the information about the people who came before me, I wanted the soul of the original concept. Now it's just another automation game, soulless and dull. That's really sad because they had something really special here...

I recently logged back into this game and it has gone in a completely direction. All of the skins I logged in for over development are gone. The simple, straightforward mech upgrade path has been overcomplicated now. The map is completely different and the progression has been entirely reworked, erasing the time that I played previously. Reading through the release notes, it appears that the devs caved to some FOMO and from all appearances, a small group of vocal players. That's really sad, because this game was a lot of fun in its former incarnation. I'm giving it another try and perhaps that will change my mind, but I'm not a fan of the new system, so far. The old game was a cute, relaxed gather and build scenario. Now it feels like it's trying to compete with Satisfactory. I already have that game...

I wanted this game to be good but sadly i cant recommend it to anyone yet. Though the concept looks cool - survival game where you have a mech what it actually boils down to is replanting the same 3 types of crop to insane levels. first delivery 5 crop, okay cool. next one 10, its fine we progressing and when it got 2500 crops request i uninstalled this game and wrote this review.

It's fun but the progression is really wonky. You don't get any of the automation till really late in the game and even then it gets to the point where you need to make like 20k berries for one planet. Hopefully there will be more into automation and sorting soon because current automation for creation and storage is very weird. I can't an oil press put things into a chest and then have the chest pump the oil into generators. Also the creator automation machine needs to have some ability to set what you want to make.

Was a good game. Now far too complicated and annoying. If you want Satisfactory, you know where it is.

6 hours i did the same stuff over and over and over i got crumbles for it, i was able to barely endure only because meanwhile i was listening to an audiobook. Now @ 6.9 hours is so boring i cannot do it anymore, i'll come back in 6 months or so maybe something will change. So far the numbers to reach the goals are REALLY overtuned for the available technologies. The rest of the game is good.

From the screenshot and video, it looks like you are building a lot of automation, but inreality it takes a very long time of manually farming to unlock them