Our Role as Players

Go write that on the Steam forums if you dare =) The opinions on this are a bit divided, although perhaps the space hazards themselves has been more in the focus. The hazards can be tweaked and won't necessarily be that hard,
but we'll see. They are already in the game customization menu too, so if some irritate too much they can be turned off.

Oh, wow, there are a bunch of people talking about this game.  I wouldn't know it looking through this forum.  Darn shame: I've never enjoyed the format there.  Very confined, using just barely over a third of my screen, and with people coming and going from all over Steam, it's hard to pick out recurring personalities.  Not that any gets shown with just a tiny portrait and name on display.

I have several more things to say. A little off topic, but I want to write more about the recent announcement.

The space hazards, in isolation, aren't a big deal.  They do their things, and with sufficient crew on watch the effects are fixed up.  It's when doing that along with other things like stripping down derelicts that they would have impact.  Some circumstances, like an ambush by two four-turret pirates while stopped in a nebula, are serious dilemmas no matter how prepared you are.  An end-game boss-battle scenario, if you will.  That's what I mean by them being levers for challenges, when combined with other functions and mechanics of the game.  And break up repetition.  The severity and frequency of these effects should be low at the start, but should be more than just an end-game thing, unless we encounter a compelling reason to not hyperjump straight through the last 6-10 star systems towards Eden.

What I find more compelling about the effects your blog mentions, is that they would do well as ship-to-ship weapon effects.  I find it weird that once hull stability hits zero, a ship's external systems blow up all at once.  I've aimed and fired cannons at a pirate ship I already defeated, but nothing comes of it.  I assumed the grid-based presentation would be ideal for locational damage: hull and facilities get damaged when shots impact the tile(s) they're in, pretty much like Micrometeoroids.  Mitigated by armor.  There must be some reason you guys haven't gone that route.  Yet.

Difficulty in a engine-building game such as this is a weird case, where you have an initial challenge of assembling the components of the engine and securing its fuel, generally within limited constraints.  Once that is done, the game must either spiral continuously upward like with city-builders, or move in a new direction.  Perhaps a wrench gets thrown into the engine and we have to solve it.  Maybe we have to put our engine to the test against an enemy boss.  Reaching Eden is not hard, so the bulk of the difficulty in this game is building the engine.  Whoever has mastered that will say the game is easy, no matter how much difficulty settings extend the time required to finish the engine.

As for mood mechanics, they permit such things as pressing prisoners into slave labor.  With regular disciplining, they won't rebel or sabotage the crew, but depending on how loyal they are to their previous faction, could act out should rescuers come to reclaim them.  I think that's more realistic than recruiting our enemies straight into the crew.

The more I think about the game and play some more hours of it, the further I realize this game can go.  A good writer with a lot of creative brainpower could get you some memorable chained events and quests, granting rewards ranging from very powerful artifacts to obscure knickknacks for bragging rights.  Factions could be more than a handful of wandering ships, they could have a garrison defending a domed colony on a barren planet!  Maybe somebody's already reached Eden and they're hostile!  Such events depend on other ships hailing us rather than the other way around.

But, you all have realistic constraints.  I bought into the game for what I saw at the time.  I'd say I've already got my money's worth.