Ostranauts

I bought this game a long time ago because I saw the vision the developer was wanting to build and I wanted to invest in it. I played for the first time since announcing the 1.0 release. Unfortunately, I can't recommend people get this game if this is what the developers consider a full release. The game is supposed to be a gritty "life simulator" game where you're a poor nobody living in local space who finally gets a chance to escape the drudgery so that you can, finally, start to make a business for yourself. The game advertises scavenging derelict ships and finding rare and valuable components--there's no diversity in components. A thruster is a thruster, an antenna is an antenna, etc., there's only one variation of each ship component. There are systems in the game that are completely unused. I cannot tell you why I need to have a social life, it doesn't seem to affect anything in the game. Not that it matters because you can't customize your ship into a unique space to call home or anything. Combat is terrible. I've found it much easier to exploit a bug and take the CO2 scrubbers from enemy EVA suits. They'll pass out from CO2 poisoning soon enough. There doesn't seem to be anything to actually *do* in the game besides repeat the same repetitive docking mini-game, uninstall components, drag them across space (you literally drag them as if you're in gravity). There's no piracy or policing or station/colony development. There's nothing to this sandbox of a game. If this is what the devs consider 1.0 then I recommend people keep their money until a lot more content has been released.

[h1]A game that tries to become something it will never be.[/h1] [b]WARNING[/b]: [i]Everything said below is a part of my subjective opinion; I may OverEstimate the game idea in some parts of my review or even imply devs are having some 4D-super-strategy-moves mumbo-jumbo; it's okay. That's the part of my impressions I received from the game after I actually started to play it DEEP.[/i] I've seen various games... Haven't touched some of them, but definitely seen. Some of them specialised on LSS maintaining like Stationeers. Some - on how you build, fly and fight on your ships like Space Engineers or Empyrion. Some - on the travel and (fast)looting aspect, like Pulsar:LC, Duskers or Scavenger SV-4 Some - on the paranormal/thrilling stuff like VotV or Isolated Inhale... I also enjoyed the Sunless Sea as well as it's sequel Sunless skies... And there was also an specimen of those so-called "Perfect sims" in the face of Shadow of Doubt... So, the reason why I named all of those games here is because sometimes it's hard to implement even ONE of those aspects, even if you know what you're doing, yet the Devs of this game, without much of appropriate experience, still decided to try and Combine all of those things in a one... [i]Blue. Bottle.[/i] Honestly, I've been writing this review for more than two weeks for sure, but I'm still not sure I'll be able to fully convey my dissapointment with... Ugh... let's say - EVERYTHING. And the most tragic about that is the fact it's not a fault of bad code (maybe?), questionable choices (perhaps?), or attitude towards the project itself (not at... all? I guess). Everything bad comes from the game itself... literally because of how it's imagined by design; let me explain... Do you know what the Ouroboros is? Yeah, the self-eating snake, which can't actually eat itself yada-yada, well... This game is literally It. Except it DOES devour itself very vell... And first, let me tell how you will pass your gameplay time in this game: First 30 minutes would be good, everything will be fast and easy as a light... Then comes second 30 munites... And you'll start to notice slight issues - microlags, few seconds "to think", stuttering while accelerated... Then comes the rubicon - At one with a half hours game will be hard to play... slow, sometimes freezing... And eventually it grinds down to a halt. You find yourself staring at the game that spends ten minutes in "not responding" state for each minute of "responding"... And eventually you just kill the process, wait ten seconds, restart the game(Probably along with restarting half of your apps, because as Game keeps devouring your Ram way past the 12 out of 16Gb, your PC WILL begin to freak out and try to lighten the load by putting everything "not used" into the "halted" state, Steam Included.) and the cycle begins anew. "Why it's like that? How can we fix it? Why Devs won't fix it?" - You probably asked those questions, and looking into the resmon won't help your curious mind, not unless you read the logs. Yep, the "Perfect-Sim" ambitions they sacrificed everything else for came back to bite their ass off. So... Do you remember how you created a character? Unless you instantly hit "seek ship", picked The Retrofit and got out of CharGen (Towards your death, if that's your second char. Or Glory - if you're Professional.) - Game usually spits out a pack of an NPCs related to your aging-up shenanigas... Snobs, Cops, Thugs, Nitwits... Friends or Foes, an "Full deck" if short. And guess what? Each spawned NPC somewhat DO pass through the same procedure! No, they're not autistically look into the mirror (that has last time seen the janitor probably the moment it got manufactured) like you... Yet they do get "rolled" life... And a Buckshot of sidekicks as well! And they also get their own... and again an again an again, until they hit some kind of a limiter, But (Yes there's a persky "But"! Probably an whole gang of "But"s!) it seems this "limiter" works... let's say sometimes (s)he(?) takes a [strike]day off[/strike] full maternity leave - NPCs occasionally multiply like a rabbits, which devoured a whole crate of "Adult chems"... you know (And if you don't... Why the f*ck are you reading this? This game isn't for kids FFS). If your save had 300-320 NPCs on start - after a few days it would be a 370. Week later = 400... And a two-three weeks later = >500 (And DO thank god for not OVER9000!) And guess what? Sometimes they spawn with a Ship! Or, if unlucky - on a derelict (I'm serous... I've seen like 5 of those dead ships with "Crew:1" stat. And no, It wasn't a corpses)! And with "Fire in the hold" They even get some Tin Cans with a guns! And even fight each-other! Does it somehow impacts your gameplay? Only if you're near Ceres WITH your ship but let's be honest - Unless using a PASS there isn't any good way to get to Ceres Quickly and Safely. And so there's a whole cacophony of "Creations" is happening like... Everywhere! Ships get created, destroyed, wrecked. Rooms appear and disappear. NPCs appear, travel, choke on the "acceptable algae" and get dragged into the local Valhalla. Sometimes a Pirate or just someone "not from the hood" spawns in and Whole Royal Cavalry of Seasoned OG's runs toward It to ROYALLY Wreck his mug (Watch out for trigger-happy cops!)! Oh! And every NPC also Eats, Sleeps, Sh*ts, each and everything you know, except maybe like.... Doing Work? Because in space everyone only Brags about their 12/12(both AM)/7, but keeps watching Drama reruns [i](Except Techies, though... They got two additional madskillz: "FIX-ZE-ZTUFF" and "IDGAF ABT UR SHIP GIMME UR TRENCHIES!"... I mean really... I had to put a Code on my pantry AND Galley doors to stop those "Elements" from ransacking my food/water reserves)[/i] for days and Getting Pissed off by a chair, why? Because he's an uncomfortable plastic b*tch, disallowing anyone reliably relax their ass more that two times in a row! It's even more funny as Game's wiki has a reference on the Rimworld's table behaviour... Uhhh... how do they say it? People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones? And guess what? Your PC has to emulate [Sseth Tzeenach Voice] "ALL OF THIS SH*T", constantly and Simultneously! No mercy! No exceptions! "Be there or be Square, because you're not around!" - That's the motto of this game's simworks! Oh and rest assure - 90% of that "content" WILL happen OUTSIDE of your reach(Without debug magic) and you know... I think all those quests that many Steam/Reddit players will suggest you not even touch aren't actually bugged... Or at least they wasn't in the first place. Let me cite the classics: [b]"Truth is... the game was rigged from the start."[/b] It's just the Simulation itself has screwed you up before you could even realize that. How? Killing(Figuratively or literally... or sometimes - Both ways at once) an Quest-related NPC and Erasing it from existence ofc! [i](P.s. THere is a rumor about the Corpse-room... and I'm prettty sure it's the K-Leg's OKLG-UNC... at least when I did a purge there was like... 70 or 90 Dead NPCs on that loc! So yeah... They did it. They did the meme - "Yes, 'Delete' him, and from the Trash bin too".)[/i] And this is the Main fun-killer of the whole game! Other systems are simply UNDER-developed to present any issues at all or simply stuck in their primitive implementations, without any further development! It's just the fact that your Game tries to Simulate the WHOLE F**KING solar system of various'level deadbeats! And unlike "Shadows of Doubt" which has a finite number of NPCs the Ostranauts decided to have an different approach... (And I even suspect the Devs do actually aspire to reach the same numbers of ~1000 fully simulated active NPCs, with a few hundreds of a "Frozen spares", ready to substitute I'm afraid) Unfortunately there's a limit of how much you can write, so check comments for the remaining part...

Great concept, the initial and core loop is kind of satisfying and interesting enough. It really did scratch that itch of being trapped inside a worn out spaceship controlling oxygen levels, pressure, etc but after a few runs where you have to dismantle derelict ships for parts to sell, it quickly turns into a chore. Also, everything else feels half-done, the combat UI is horrible with a barebones combat log with no proper feedback to what is actually happening. The NPC interaction mini-game is one of the most unfun systems I have ever saw in a game. I would recommend buying it only as tech demo, as the game is clearly unfinished and was pushed out the door with a 1.0 tag on it so the dev can call it quits and move on to other projects.

this game could be cool but it needs time to cook the good - flying is fun - fixing a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ to be something good is fun - taking a ship apart is fun - learning what's worth selling, keeping, or selling is fun - the gig system is fun - the pda has stuff like an in game timer and notepad the bad - the build planer feels bad to use - the pda takes up the left half of the screen - the AI has a stroke when following the build planer (will often go outside of the ship when it can be done on the inside) - when building a ship the whole the AI will take one lose item at a time even if it stacks (pick up one floor, drop off the floor, pick up one new floor, repeat) - most items that can stack will not do so if the durability is not the same (a 80% floor doesn't stack with an 81% floor) - stolen ships have a 10 second delay when you enter the pilot seat - barter zones don't work on stolen ships - for a stolen ship to be "yours" you need to buy it - you cannot own NPC ships

It's a cool game, but it's nowhere near ready for 1.0. might revisit the review down the road.

Solid do not buy. The vibe is great but when I have to fight the menus this hard to get into a game I'm not recommending it to anyone with something better to do.

Memory leaks, very laggy AI, the pda tasks are dumb (they grab items one by one back and forth). Feels like the game really likes wasting your time with how little quality of life or little things that are just annoying to do. This game has potential and I'm still playing it, but it's exhausting. Will change review if this game gets more stable and gets more QOL

6 years of wait, bought almost at instant when saw it in store waited and prayed it wont be like with Neo Scavenger Its Neo Scavenger all over again guys... 6 ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ years and we still dont have passanger missions, we have broken as ♥♥♥♥ AI, game breaking bugs that can delete saves or softlock it, 1 questline that ends game when we finish it and big empty world sparkling with possobilites and words of developers "we planning 1 major update and will continue add fixes, QoL etc and if sales of 1.0 will be good we will continue developing game for 2-3 more years" Buying or not is up to you but for me its Neo Scavenger all over again. I love the game but i can no longer tolerate devs - You guys had already a huge black stain on your reputation with Neo Scavenger, but made a look like nothing ever happened, wont work again! Create social interactions, create full working police force, create illegal things, create licenses for scrapping and other stuff - make ship to ship battles before making all 3 main good mechanics touch each other like taxi quests or anything related to social play - fivehead move. i love this game like i loved space rangers in childhood, i love starsector i love space games like Space Station 13/14 where you play as yourself and game ends when you die and you must work, fight idno be whoever you are in space and yet almost all of thouse games eather died or have bad things happened to them is a huge shame