Solar Expanse - Space Exploration Manager

Its already a lot of fun in its current state and updates are coming fast. It plays like a version of Terra Invicta that focuses on building and logistics. Try the Demo

The thinking persons game for space exploration. Be Elon, explore and harvest the solar system!

Still full of bugs and errors, it is a game in beta phase. It is a fun game, but not worth of a full game price indeed.

it great really

Just finished my first campaign, and the game was really fun. Gameplay Review: - It has really good staged game progression with uniquely engaging challenges for each part. - Playing tight with limited budgets and fuel constraints in the early game makes you come up with clever solutions. - The midgame testing and exploration of mechanics, and realizing that you can actually terraform planets with enough effort was awesome. - The endgame, while clearly open-ended due to most the interstellar content not being out yet, allows you to really start colonizing at scale, sending measurable percentages of Earth's population out among the planets. That and finally finishing terraforming mars in the 2330s was quite satisfying. Contract System: - Awesome implementation, and really helps guide the player in the early game. - I would suggest a standard non-quest sandbox mode in the 2020 start year, just for variety's sake. - I would love for more smaller contracts to be issued, possibly even procedurally generated ones. - The rewards for the current quests seem to be completely random though. Some quests which takes decades of effort pay nothing, and others which take a few button presses and a single rocket can set you up financially for the rest of the game. UI Opinions: - It is a little clunky, but from seeing your improvements between the main release and beta branch, you are headed in a great direction. The click-and-drag features while un-paused could use some work though. - It does feel nice to use most of the time though, especially as of the beta build, with the new save-able missions. - Some kind of ship-finder/asset-finder is needed, as it is pretty easy to lose a ship entirely and not find it for decades. - Lots of places have bad units or incorrect percentage markers. NPC/AI Opinions: - The other space companies don't seem to serve a purpose. Occasionally they try to buy or sell something, but their colonies are lucky if they ever reach 100 people, regardless of how much time passes. They really need an overhaul. - The world economy faction, while a great idea, is currently broken, and doesn't function properly. It runs at a massive power deficit, which sends it into a production death spiral around the 10-year mark. Theoretically, I think that the player could fuel the industry by importing unreasonably large amounts of resources back to earth, but it is never economically worth it, since the quest rewards remove the need for money. Resource Systems: - I love the idea, and it feels really nice from a management sense. - I think it would benefit from some planning tools, like a building planner or space ship planner, to calculate total resource costs. - But I feel like balancing quantity instead of extraction rate is a bad move for immersion, even though it doesn't really affect game balance much. For example, one might expect planetary extraction to be slow but plentiful, like real mines, while asteroids have less resources, but can be extracted much more quickly. But the opposite is often true in-game, with the exception of gas giants. Current Features That I Find lacking: - There are a lot of core engine bugs that result in bad pathing logic, cumbersome camera movements and auto-zooming, physics miscalculations, mass conservation irregularities, ghost ships, and vanishing resources. - There are quite a few half-implemented mechanics that result in unintuitive results that break immersion, and sent me on a multi-hour quest to figure out what I was doing wrong. - It feels like the underlying code mechanics are functionally different for every single planet and moon, and as such you get bugs that affect one without the others. Like not being able to park asteroids around moons, properly send probes to gas giants without glitch-dropping them from orbit, or colonize an irradiated planet using underground habitats. - Cyclical missions need a complete relook. The core logic is voodoo, and sometimes it will work or fail based entirely on which end of a route you start on, they can't be used with most of the launch facilities, and they create ghost ships which clutter the UI until the end of the game. Summary: I really look forward to trying this again when it is finished, it looks like it will be amazing. But there is much work to be done.

就目前体验来说，总体上我还是推荐这个游戏的。 我认为这款游戏的题材非常不错。玩家可以探索太阳系，开采、投放小行星开展殖民，同时还要和各类太空机构展开竞争。游戏背景很有近未来的氛围，对于星际探索与文明向外发展的设计具备现实感，这套发展逻辑的设定让人觉得十分恰当。 游戏的玩法就建立在这套主题和机制之上。玩家需要依靠星际扩张，搭建星际殖民地，运转星际物流来一步步发展，完成自己的目标，既可以把部分星球改造成适合人类居住的类地球环境，也可以建造巨型飞船飞出太阳系。 本人非常喜爱这类搭建工业物流的玩法，也很享受探索殖民的乐趣。不过就算作为一款测试版游戏，我认为它在玩法与内容体验上依旧相当粗糙。 游戏目前暴露出来的问题不少。AI到了中后期会完全失灵，几乎失去所有行为能力。游玩到中期很容易陷入资源紧缺的困境，给发展带来不小阻碍。建造与规划的操作流程十分繁琐，整体可供体验的内容又比较空洞，很难让人产生持续向外扩张、深入探索的欲望。尤其AI的设计问题比较突出，它既不能给我提供发展上的帮助，也无法形成有威胁的竞争压力，这样的AI加入进来，实际游玩中意义不大。另外收税和金钱产出的相关机制，也没有体现出应有的实际作用，沦为了可有可无的数值。 游戏的核心玩法方向本身还算正确，但缺失大量实用的辅助类功能。生产和物流运输层面，很需要一套更加系统化清晰的UI来管理；物流自动化方面，也应当提供一些更容易落地的辅助手段，而不是只能依靠反复设置周期性航线来实现自动化物流。而且现有的周期性航线本身稳定性不足，时常会出现燃料不足、任务卡死的状况，就算设置完毕，也需要我定期手动检查。游戏每个发展阶段的物流需求都在不断变化，旧的航线配置很难适配新的局面，这就直接造成玩家的操作负担居高不下，游玩过程经常要处理大量重复琐碎的操作。 除此之外，游戏缺少必要的通知预警机制。殖民地物资告急、任务发射窗口临近、航线出现故障，都没有醒目的提醒，很多隐患需要我一个个点开天体面板去发掘，很容易错过关键时机。整体界面交互也不够顺手，大量关键信息埋藏在多层菜单之下，日常游玩需要频繁跳转菜单、反复点击，进一步放大了操作压力。同时市场的报价偶尔会出现不合理的情况，经济系统的打磨依旧有所欠缺。 殖民地玩法和宇宙探索内容也存在明显局限。远征航队前往其他星系之后没有对应的后续内容，虽然我们不会对测试版游戏苛责过多，但从现有体验来看，这部分内容依旧十分缺失、整体体验空洞单薄。同时游戏内的殖民地功能极度单一，除了挖矿、生产这类基础工业职能以外，没有任何拓展玩法与额外需求，殖民体系的可玩性不足。 本作目前存在的问题非常明显，仍需要官方进行大量的优化与改进。比如扩充完善科技树。现有的科技树分类名目不少，但整体深度不足，不少单项科技的研发速度也十分缓慢，可以引入同时开展多项科技研发的机制来改善。在物流系统上，游戏大部分物流相关操作过于复杂又枯燥，希望开发者能够提供更多便捷的操作手段。例如可以根据建设目标去调配运输物资，当我要在某地新建一座工厂时，可以一键把建厂所需的物资配送过去，搭建一套半自动化的物流系统，以此解放玩家的双手。也希望后续能够加入集中通知预警、全局总览面板，优化周期性航线的执行逻辑，打磨市场经济的平衡。 诸如此类需要优化的地方还有很多。游戏拥有很不错的核心底子，但大量机制仍有待打磨，期待后续更新可以补足短板，把这套有意思的题材真正发挥出全部潜力。

This is a great game to get lost in for hours and burn the time away, I'm excited to see how it develops. I'd love if multiplayer was introduced at some point in the future, as I think it would be even more fun with other players