Not quite sure how to recommend this game. Overall i feel it's a mediocre game. It feels kinda flat to me. Once i got the best ship/gear that i could and still found myself overmatched and ineffectual at overall game progression (conquering the sector) the game lost its allure.
I'll try to review the game by going down the bullet list of key features from the store page.
>Squad RPG progression via skills & perks, upgrades & modules.
Yes, to a VERY basic extent. your squad has 10 levels, 2 options per level. If there are gear upgrades, they've not been implemented yet, or are somehow so hidden that i've not found them in my hours of playing.
>Deep trade system with dynamic supply & demand, affected by events, piracy & conflict.
I dont know that i'd characterize the trading system as "deep" however its not bad. General supply and demand is spelled out for planets. "random events" consist of something happening on a planet. Diseases require medicine, civil unrest requires worker placation, starvation requires food, etc. That's how you can get exp as a merchant, by fulfilling needs of planets. However, its drastically slower and more difficult to xp up as a merchant than it is as a fighter. I found it particularly frustrating that you only get xp for "completing" the task. "We're sorry captain, you only hauled us 90 units of food and we needed 95, we will reward you with nothing and give all the recognition to the guy who hauls that last 5 units in." It's the same way for kills in combat, but at least there you can see the enemy ship's health bar and try to manage accordingly. There are no numbers for planetary demands, so its 100% black box. I did feel that trading in a certain area would lose profitability over time, so that was a nice mechanic.
>Fluid real-time combat with tactical pause & a wide variety of weapons.
Combat is fluid, pause is necessary/nice. There are a variety of weapons, but i dont really feel that they distinguish themselves greatly from one another. Most function very similarly to each other IMO, while a few are novel, but i cant see how they can be utilized effectively (plasma cannon is very energy efficient, but travels so slow that unless you're ONLY hunting capital ships, its never gonna hit, and that hamstrings its potential so much that i never touched one.) Missiles are missiles. The bigger ones cost way more than the tiny ones. Maybe i'm a cheapskate, but i always used the starting ones (cheapest) and spammed them when appropriate (almost dead stuff to get the kill) and docked frequently to reload. There wasn't very much differentiation between missiles, they just all kinda did the same thing. There's one to shut down a ships engines, but to what effect? Moving out of range to snipe him? The shut down isnt long enough for that tactic to be meaningful. Retreat option? Not really, the only time i had to retreat was when there was a SWARM of ♥♥♥♥ after me, so one or two missiles stopping one or two ships was gonna be pointless.
>Resource gathering to upgrade to higher tier modules and looting of combat kills.
In addition to universal currency (credits) there are two resources (ores) that must be spent on higher tier equipment. They are available from various sources, mining, conquest and mining worlds. Availability used to be poor, but has been changed and is much improved. I find the concept annoying as ♥♥♥♥. I can sell excess ore to SOMEONE for money, why the hell cant i buy ore from that same SOMEONE if i have excess credits? It's just dumb.
>Factions will conquer & defend systems with fleet movements. Your actions, big or small, have a major effect on the tide of conquest!
Factions do conquer and defend systems. The AI seems to have a good ebb and flow where the 3 major factions seem to keep each other in check. If one gets a few extra systems, the other two seem to leave each other alone and gang up on the one who appears to be "winning". According to the forums, factions down to 1 planet go into overdrive, spitting out a nigh-endless stream of ships. Stupid.
As for my actions having major effect on the tide of war? I have not felt that way in the slightest. Even with a pretty dominant ship and crew, i do not dominate system battles between two factions. Not saying i should, but it would be a very concrete way of seeing my effect on the "tide of conquest". I suppose the mechanism is that my hours of pirate purging in my chosen faction's space has allowed their economy to flow much better, leading to faster ship production and therefore larger fleets that can conquer systems better. However, i get ZERO feedback that this is taking place, so the reward for my actions is very nebulous, and can easily feel nonexistant.
>Random events offer opportunities and also ensure no two game plays out the same.
The random ship events feel very much tacked on and dont have any large meaningful effect on gameplay. There's only one significant beneficial one i've found, and many that are utterly worthless, ie a delivery mission deep into enemy territory for paltry reward.
>Random encounters offer interesting side-quests or tough choices with major consequences.
I guess they somehow felt the need to differentiate this from the previous bullet. Its the same thing i guess? I never felt any major consequences from these encounters.
>Many classes of ships offer different tactical possibilities, including Carriers!
There is some meaningful differentiation among ships. Turrets, missiles or drones. Some ships favor one over the other. I'm a turret man myself, i passionately hate running out of ammo when you've almost downed that big enemy for a fat reward, so i haven't played some of the other possibilities. However, i'll admit that when i bought the bigass capital ship that came with 3 large drone bays, they were a pretty sweet addition.
>Clever enemies that fly their vessels to abuse their strengths. Fast & agile ships will flank and out-speed your big guns, large ships will broadside tank with their strong directional shields.
They make it sound fancier than it is. Small ships fly around somewhat wildly, making targeting difficult, while larger ships.....dont. The only strength that clever AI's will "abuse" is their ability to go OFF THE EDGE OF THE ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ MAP, or hide behind the minimap or squad portraits where you cant click. They will SIT there and shoot back at you. Its not a HUGE deal, but its beyond infuriating sometimes and I dont understand how the dev thought that it was acceptable to have the game operate in that fashion. It could be easily rectified by having enemy ships hit the edge of the map the same way a player ship does.
>Take part in epic fleet battles with Capital Ships duking it out among support ships and hordes of combat drones!
In order to buy a capital ship, i had to play on roguelike, so death was a deal. Now, a huge battle like that is a great opportunity to have a bunch of enemy ships spontaneously decide to WASTE you in very short fashion, so while these epic fights sound great on paper, when you're actually in the middle of one its utter chaos. Additionally, its a nightmare to manually shoot in the melee, since the computer gets very pissy with friendly fire.
>Tweak-able Squad AI, never be caught flying with stupid, ever.
Squad AI seems decent. I've never seen a squadmate randomly take off after a whole damn fleet by himself and get blown to ♥♥♥♥, so thats a plus.
>Challenging, but fair Rogue-like-esque gameplay.
99% true. "Bounty hunters" have ships that have inflated stats.
I recently decided i wouldn't waste more hours beating my head against the wall trying to beat a game that was inherently designed to not be won. The factions will backstab each other, and ones with fewer systems will build ships faster (which makes lots of sense, right?) to preserve the status quo. Not much fun once you start figuring that out.
