This is going to be a weird review. I find myself playing for hours, it's pretty relaxing and I dig the whole moon base thing as a fan of Output and Outpost 2 from when I was a kid (elder millenial here). When I stop playing I can't help but think "am I even having fun? if this game isn't fun, why am I playing it?". I like the concept, the game in general, but there's so much lacking at this stage. The contracts system is wild and a huge chore, the new auto-sell feature isn't intuitive to use and doesn't really help. The other factions are just AI generated puke and effectively cardboard cutouts. The NPCs arguing with each other is ok, but as a character I have extremely limited railroaded decision-making and no feeling of steering the story or having a say in my future outcomes.
The actual factory aspect of the game is complex, but not very. Basically you amass raw materials, research tech, and progress to manufacturing more and more complicated supply chains and advanced products.
There isn't any way to not make your base just a giant conveyer spaghetti monster, but it doesn't really hurt anything other than my sense of aesthetics. The biggest violator is the multi-regolith refinery. There is no way to lay them out side by side without the conveyers being a giant mess. It would be really useful if you could flip buildings as well as rotate or assign custom material exits and entrances instead of having them predefined.
The worst part is the zoom distance when underground, it's excrutiating. Also, go into your settings and change your gamma under display so you can actually see anything underground. It's very dissappointing that you can only have 1 level underground, even Outpost the spiritual predecessor of this game, which released in 1994, had multiple underground levels. The underground in this game doesn't even make any sense, what is holding up the cavern roof?!!?!!??!?
Anyways, I still play it and I'm still hoping for better missions, a finished campaign, and more music tracks. The soundtrack is good, but it's basically just 4-5 songs on repeat and it gets old.
I'd like to see
-being able to mine underground multiple levels
-bigger camera zoom out
-auto scouting modes for rovers to just set to do a geological survey and they just automatically scan in a giant outwards spiral
-maybe larger vehicles, like a mobile outpost that you can build modules on and then move to new locations
-contracting with less NPCs but better quality of story, meaningfulness of doing business with certain factions over others. not being able to gain favour with all factions as gaining in one you should lose in others or gain and gain with similarly aligned factions. Don't give me crazy contracts like 10,000 steel bars or 80k slag, it's not even financially worthwhile and the logistics are insane! how about a contract option for the faction to come pick up at your base!! why do I have to deliver everything? if you want your slag come get it yourself Handir!
-the investigation areas are all of a sudden and then you do them all and have nothing. then you have to manually search with rovers, which is a huge pain in the ass. how about having rovers auto-search for points of interest?
-have an option to just dump slag into giant piles on the surface or underground instead of having to store it or make thousands of bricks
-how the hell does slag turn into mushrooms which then feeds everyone and also turns into medicine?!
Anyways, maybe buy this game on sale or wait until it's out of early access. overall it's ok as long as you're not expecting a finished game and don't mind having no final win scenario or feeling of accomplishment.
