I wonder why space simulators and games always end up being so problematic. Elite Dangerous just seems to be going nowhere. Star Citizen is apparently a perpetual beta. Even KSP2 turned out to be a disappointment. Sigh.
Feature creep.
Everyone wants a space simulator.... then it must have atmospheric behaviour, and cities.... and well, we should be able to walk around on the ground... and shoot things.... make it a first person shooter, oh, and lots of aliens, make it a diplomacy simulator too.
And on it goes.
Solution: Never let such a designer run a project themselves, and instead pair them with a practical and empowered project manager.
I think there's a case to be made for galaxy-wide sandbox gameplay. The truth is that space is empty and it's up to us humans to make it not so. The Subnautica-like basebuilding found No Man's Sky is a major source of fun in that game. It's what makes the galaxy feel alive and dynamic. Elite Dangerous lets you land on planets but there's nothing to do but admire the scenery and take screenshots when you do.
Kerbal Space Program is a single player game which also has mostly empty worlds but it's also a sandbox game. I can build and launch a space station piece by piece. I can later use that space station as an orbital refueling station to reach more difficult planets. I can land on nearby planets and set up a mining operation to refuel the station for the benefit of future space missions. It goes on and on... KSP2 was disappointing not because it didn't have FPS or diplomacy gameplay but because it launched without these features of the original as well as massive peformance regressions.
There's a functionally infinite galaxy to explore but no player run economy that lets us colonize far away systems with player or squadron built space stations. Our reward for exploration is sweet screenshots and our names on the discovery. That's awesome and I spent a lot of time doing it but it could have been so much more. I used to play with one of the biggest squadrons in the game and at the end of the day it was nothing but grinding resources or little tasks to increase numbers so the economy simulator didn't decide we lost territory or something. Would've been a lot more fun if groups could build strongholds deep in the galaxy and you had to literally attack them to take them out instead of grinding missions.
I've listened in on discussions of relative merits of ship builds for the current anti-xeno initiative and they are deep and far-ranging.
I've watched combat streams from players who've practiced for literally a year to master the intricacies of no-flight-assist piloting.
There's a lot more to the game than "space trucking". After immersing myself over a couple of weeks in the various aspects and sub-communities it's amazing to me that people fall for the facile "mile-wide-inch-deep" truism. It's that critique that's shallow and uninformed, to my mind.
> I've watched combat streams from players who've practiced for literally a year to master the intricacies of no-flight-assist piloting.
We agree on these points. The ships and the piloting are the game's strongest qualities. They're what I miss most.
> After immersing myself over a couple of weeks in the various aspects and sub-communities it's amazing to me that people fall for the facile "mile-wide-inch-deep" truism.
The community of players is indeed awesome. Playing with others nearly makes up for all the deficiencies of the game. It makes everything that much more fun and more emergent. The sheer existence of groups like the fuel rats is something this game deserves praise for.
Doesn't make the game itself any less problematic. The problems still exist, they just don't seem so big because you're playing with friends.
> I've listened in on planning sessions for the "rather basic" "tally of points" (BGS) system, and it's far from basic, there's plenty of strategy and tactics involved and political thinking and negotiations with other player groupings are part of it - it's more like 3D Risk than what you describe.
Nah. I've played games like Risk too and they were far more interesting than this grind. Maybe it's "interesting" to the top squadron guys but I don't see how. They're essentially maintaining territory: have everyone in the squadron do a ton of little tasks so everything will stay more or less the same. Pretty much no impact on anything but which factions control which stations which doesn't mean anything anyway. It might sound fun to sign up for the empire princess faction and imagine you're gonna help her take over the galaxy but that quickly goes away when you join a community and discover they're in maintenance mode, only occasionally gobbling up territory when some other faction gets sick of the game and stops playing or something.
Compare that to eve online and its actual player run world and it's like night and day.
> There's a lot more to the game than "space trucking".
Maybe if you've already done everything else and have meta ships you can battle other players or thargoids with. Until then it's an endless grind. Buy at station, sell at another, repeat until number is big enough to buy new ship and modules. Land on planet, shoot and pick up rocks containing common elements until their quantity is big enough to upgrade existing ships and modules.
Space trucking is the most polite way I can describe this menial busy work.