Cosmonautica

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tgb
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Cosmonautica

Post by tgb »

I picked this up this morning because it looked interesting and $10 is pretty much my why not? threshold.

It's a lite take on Elite but with a major dose of FTL/Sims style crew management and a ship designer because they can.

Essentially you start off with a ship and have to hire a crew (captain, scientist, gunner, etc.0 plus purchase equipment to fulfill their needs (food dispensers, bathrooms, sick bay and the like). While traveling between worlds you get to watch your crew in a cutaway of the ship similar to the base in XCOM as they do whatever they do. Each day is split into quarters, and you assign 4 tasks/day for each crew member, making sure you leave some free time for eating, sleeping, and crapping (pro tip: do NOT place the head in one of the elevator shafts like I did). Crew members earn new skills as they level up, and once you work your way up to a larger ship and bigger crew, you have to balance schedules so there's always someone available to handle repairs, etc.

Once in space it's pretty much an open galaxy, and you can make a living through trade, piracy, or ferrying passengers from world to world. There is also a bulletin board to offer up assignments.

I really like the goofy art style (kind of like Invisible, Inc. but less serious), and the game has a wicked sense of humor.

No crashes so far (I'm still in the tutorial), and it seems pretty much feature complete other than missing some planet descriptions and tool tips, plus there are no hot keys. It's only $10 in EA, and is supposed to be "finished" the end of June.

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tgb
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Re: Cosmonautica

Post by tgb »

I neglected to mention the two things that are bugging me right now. The trading interface needs work, since the only way to see supply and demand is to click on each planet individually. Also, there is one save slot/game (autosaved on exit), which wouldn't be bad, except there's no way to name the game or add a description, so eventually you can end up with a reload menu full of saved files called "continue".

I expect the latter is just an EA issue that will be straightened out. I don't know if the developer is working on the trading at this point.
I spent 90% of the money I made on women, booze, and drugs. The other 10% I just pissed away.
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Grifman
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Re: Cosmonautica

Post by Grifman »

This looks pretty cool, I like the art style even though I usually prefer a more "realistic" look, I really like the overall look of the game. The only thing that bothers me, and I know, it's just me, but I wish the starship looked like something more than a flying brick. If the spaceship just looked as cool as everything else in the game.
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tgb
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Re: Cosmonautica

Post by tgb »

Grifman wrote:This looks pretty cool, I like the art style even though I usually prefer a more "realistic" look, I really like the overall look of the game. The only thing that bothers me, and I know, it's just me, but I wish the starship looked like something more than a flying brick. If the spaceship just looked as cool as everything else in the game.
It actually looks more like something out of Yellow Submarine. I don't mind since it fits in with the rest of the aesthetic.

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tgb
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Re: Cosmonautica

Post by tgb »

Playing a bit more yesterday and then starting over with the new build, I've decided the best way to describe Cosmonautica is as the bastard child of a three-way between Elite, Space Colony, and FTL.

In my current game the entire crew's performance is suffering because the captain is constipated and won't let anyone else use the bathroom (really).
I spent 90% of the money I made on women, booze, and drugs. The other 10% I just pissed away.
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tgb
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Re: Cosmonautica

Post by tgb »

It came out of Early Access today. $15 on Steam and a couple of dollars less on GOG, for some reason.

I just checked out the very beginning before heading off to bed, so I don't yet know if my issue with trade has been resolved.
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Re: Cosmonautica

Post by jztemple2 »

tgb wrote:I just checked out the very beginning before heading off to bed, so I don't yet know if my issue with trade has been resolved.
Looking forward to your impressions of the 1.0, I've had this on my wishlist but some of the reviews on the Steam store page have made me wary.
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tgb
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Re: Cosmonautica

Post by tgb »

I've been busy with The Viceroy, but plan to give this some attention this afternoon. Stay tuned.
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Daehawk
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Re: Cosmonautica

Post by Daehawk »

There was some bug my friend had where he could not change his course once it was set. It go stuck on some course and he never could do anything after that but shut down. That was the early build and I 'think' its been patched out but jus ta heads up.
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tgb
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Re: Cosmonautica

Post by tgb »

jztemple2 wrote:
tgb wrote:I just checked out the very beginning before heading off to bed, so I don't yet know if my issue with trade has been resolved.
Looking forward to your impressions of the 1.0, I've had this on my wishlist but some of the reviews on the Steam store page have made me wary.
I've only played a little bit of the tutorial campaign before screwing up (my fault - I misunderstood what it wanted me to trade) so I'm going to restart. So far my impression is pretty much the same as it was a couple of months ago. They did adjust the file naming issue, but you still can't see supply and demand without jumping from planet to planet on the galaxy map. Not a problem in the small area I'm in at the moment, but I can see it becoming an issue when the game opens up.
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tgb
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Re: Cosmonautica

Post by tgb »

Well, I was enjoying this until I ran into a big that give me 2 units of ammo instead of the weapon and ammo I wanted to equip on my ship. After I found out abut it the hard way, I thought it might have been something I accidentally did.

No such luck. It happened again, and this time I made certain I was placing the correct order.
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baelthazar
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Re: Cosmonautica

Post by baelthazar »

I have read that the combat is extremely boring. Is this accurate?
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tgb
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Re: Cosmonautica

Post by tgb »

baelthazar wrote:I have read that the combat is extremely boring. Is this accurate?
It is when you have two cabins full of ammo and nothing to fire it with :lol: .

Yeah, it seems kind of slow. Essentially you have a selection of maneuvers your ship can make based on the captain's ability, and a fire button that charges when your weapon (assuming you have one) is reloaded.

Another funny bug is after I was getting repeatedly hammered because I had no weapon, the captain of the other ship phoned (yes, phoned) and offered to let me go if I paid a bounty of........0. I did, he did, and here we are.
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AWS260
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Re: Cosmonautica

Post by AWS260 »

Picked it up and played a bit this evening. It's surprisingly crash-prone for a game that's supposedly no longer "early access." I'd suggest waiting until the technical bugs are ironed out before picking it up.
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Re: Cosmonautica

Post by AWS260 »

AWS260 wrote:Picked it up and played a bit this evening. It's surprisingly crash-prone for a game that's supposedly no longer "early access." I'd suggest waiting until the technical bugs are ironed out before picking it up.
I haven't had any crashes since that first evening with the game, so maybe things have stabilized. I'm still in the middle of the campaign, and plan to complete it, but my overall impression is that this is a decent time-killer -- nothing more or less.

The visual and audio design is really nice, the interface does a good job of organizing a large amount of information, and outfitting your own spaceship is always fun. The campaign, while basic, is well-written and presented.

But it turns into a grind pretty quickly -- running repetitive missions over and over again, slowly accumulating the money you need for that next ship upgrade. And combat (which is a relatively small facet of the game, and relatively easy to avoid) is dull as hell, at least at my relatively low level.
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Sepiche
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Re: Cosmonautica

Post by Sepiche »

AWS260 wrote:But it turns into a grind pretty quickly -- running repetitive missions over and over again, slowly accumulating the money you need for that next ship upgrade. And combat (which is a relatively small facet of the game, and relatively easy to avoid) is dull as hell, at least at my relatively low level.
Yeah, that's unfortunately kind of my take on it. Granted I'm pretty distracted by work this week, but I had a real hard time getting into the game and I didn't even get out of the first system before it started feeling like a slow grind.

I'll probably give it another shot when I'm in a better mood, but so far it's charm and potential are undermined a bit by the shallow mechanics.
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GreenGoo
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Re: Cosmonautica

Post by GreenGoo »

On sale.

Glad I returned to this thread, as I thought opinions were more positive.
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Daehawk
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Re: Cosmonautica

Post by Daehawk »

I cant decide on campaign or sandbox.

CP - I like them because they are structured and I know what Im supposed to be doing. I dislike them because they hurry me past my fun point.

SB - I like it because theres no rush and I can d o what I want. I dislike them because I get lost as to what to do next.

Any opinion on which mode to start with? Im thinking CP.
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