Starship Horizons: Bridge Simulator

This is a great game that has finally made it to Steam. The “Starship Bridge Simulation” category only contains a handful of entries and of those choices, I’ve chosen Starship Horizons as my go-to software for this category. One of the primary reasons is its unique architecture. One PC runs the 3D elements of the main screen, THEN you can hook up not only the 5 officer station monitors, but dozens of additional screens/displays to your bridge setup to understand and control the ship. In my bridge setup, I hooked up 20 monitors, in addition to the one from my PC and the 5 standard officer station monitors. Of the (25) total monitors, I have (16) touch-screens and the rest are mostly VGA monitors running off of a bunch of Raspberry Pi 3b+ units and a few Android TV sticks. Add a couple of cell phones to the mix and that’s my setup. Another primary reason is a feeling of “simulation” more than “arcade game” that some of the other entries in the category have. This software attempts to find the “sweet spot” between a hard-core simulation and an arcade game. Because it remains in ACTIVE DEVELOPMENT for the foreseeable future, from my understanding, and because almost everything is moddable & scriptable, I hope to be part of the community that adds a ton of additional depth to the software beyond what it ships with and further fine-tune where the sweet spot is between sim and arcade. Another word about the ACTIVE DEVELOPMENT. I’ve been following this project for many years. The speed that new releases including; new content, tools, features and other enhancements has been a great thing for my personal situation. The developer seems to be a very capable, friendly, responsive, nice guy with a great vision for this project that I share. Because the single purchase price covers the main ship (1 PC) and the rest of the connections to the software all happen within an HTML browser, the purchase price covers the 5+ officer stations and a captain so the per-person cost is really only 1/6th of the software cost. Lastly, out of all the extended functionality (DMX, Raspberry Pi, Arduino, Philips hue, Z-Wave) I’ve only really tapped into the computer/software controlled DMX lighting for my bridge setup. I’ve yet to add all the other hardware extendability that the software supports. This is my challenge over the coming months is to create more panels and interfaces that can react and interface with the software directly. This software is good stuff! Worth giving it a try with your bridge crew! (btw. my "hours on record" doesn't reflect the time spent in pre-alpha, alpha and beta gameplay)

Been playing this before it was released on steam and it is a great game. The time on my steam account does not account for using the pre-steam launcher. I do feel the need to note to everyone looking at the price that this is server that allows up to 6 people to play, you run the "game" and connect with a browser to each console. If you want a "demo" or to try the game then jump on discord and ask if anyone is hosting a game. Running the stations on a table through the browser also adds to the experience with the touch screen support. Normally I play with friends running the view screen on my television with a few cheap tablets as consoles, but it is also fun streaming the view on discord and running the consoles in browser windows. I have also been digging into the modding and this game is build around that thought, allowing scripting for most things and if needed C# code can be used for complete overhauls. Once workshop support is in then I can see custom missions and DnD style DM directed games running to allow for near unlimited dynamic games. I can not recommend jumping in discord enough, the community and the developers are VERY active. This game replaces Artemis spaceship bridge simulator for me, I can not see myself going back.

Starship Horizons Bridge Simulator, (First things first, I would like to give it a 40%+ / 60%- rating if that would be possible) Is as the name already says: A multi-station experience for people who (would) like to experience something like a navy vessel operation in space. The reason why I'm referring to a navy vessel and not Star Trek is due to the fact that, in order to create a Star Trek based experience you need something this simulator does not, yet, provide in an easy, dummy friendly, way. Social Dilemma; which is the driving force behind 98% of any Star Trek conflict. Starship Horizons does provide the framework to create such adventures, but not the proper in depth guides, workshop support and examples on a dummy friendly level. And this is, from my point of view, the general issue with this software: Lack of proper technical, dummy friendly, in depth modding support from the developer(s) side; resulting in close to zero community generated extra content. (I´m not talking about the handful of guides made by community members) For instance; I'm paying close to €50,- for a simulator that uses a spaceship model with an Imperial Star wars logo. That really makes me wonder about the actual expertise and seriousness of the developer(s) To me that feels a bit like a project that started out as a team and hobby project and after a while most of the team left, if not all, and those who're left try to make some money with the piece of software that's left. But, without really knowing all of the technical stuff that comes with it. But, that's just me being suspicious. Although it could answer the "Useful information lacking guides". If you're okay with that, then this simulator is okay. But, if you require a better modding option (regarding models, missions, dialogs, star systems), go with the older Artemis simulator, because it features more scenario diversity/content and dynamic gameplay than Starship Horizons has to offer at the time of writing.

I have owned this game since the beginning of the Pandemic. I bought it while it was in pre-steam alpha *but* the dev was awesome enough to provide all of us OGs with a Steam key. This game has evolved into something beautiful over the last few months leading up to the Steam release. We have been working with the dev every week to help improve the game. He is always accessible via Discord and very responsive. THERE ARE STILL BUGS AND THERE WILL BE! If you don't like that, give the game a while. We LOVE this game and we host an open bridge on Wednesdays at 8:30pm ET. Join us on Discord to team up! It is worth every penny and will continue to be over the next year as new features get rolled out. (Note that I am a beta tester and I have logged HUNDREDS more hours on this game than Steam registers.)

I really like the idea of games like this. There are a lot of good things in this game but I think they are overshadowed by the bad. When you load a new mission after finishing the first one the game does not put all stations onto the same ship. There are a lot of menus that do not fit onto the screen especially in the game masters screen. The mission editor is broken and refuses to save certain things, if you use notepad++ to script a mission that game wont load it. Most of the missions wont work correctly. The game has serious problems of staying connected to all the stations and is quite laggy for no reason. I understand that this game is early access, but €50 for this is quite frankly a rip-off. Don`t waste your money on this.

I am excited for the future of Starship Horizons, it offers a ton of potential with 6 different stations to issue commands from, plus lots of other status windows. It screams to be played with multiple displays. While not required, it just gets you more immersed into the game. The $60 price tag might seem steep, but since only the person hosting needs to own the game, it's very reasonable. Hosting game sessions is straight forward and works very well. Only the host needs a gaming machine, the other players only require a web browser capable machine. So bring on the chrome books / tablets and lower end rigs. Here is a short video displaying some game action. https://youtu.be/mt0TAs_eZQs [table] [tr] [th]If you enjoyed my review join our steam group. [url=https://steamcommunity.com/groups/MatureMindedGamers#curation][b][h1]Mature Minded Gamers [/h1] [/b][/url] [/th] [/tr] [/table]

Lots of fun! There's some bugs but that's to be expected in early development. Hit me up if you want to go multi-bridge

Starship Horizons : Bridge Simulator is a fantastic game to explore the galaxy with. It helps you and your crew to feel like you're on the Star Trek Enterprise. Rescue the derelict ship, escort the colony ships, fight off the invading Daichi invasion, or face off with the imperial forces. All of the missions are great and force you to really rely on your bridge crew to be successful.

i have never seen a more dysfunctional software product.

This game is simple put another failed Artemis clone. The development has stalled and there is no content to speak of. You would be better off getting a copy of Artemis for less money. Artemis has a more developed community that puts out additional missions and mods.