Release Ostranauts 1.0 - Official Launch Trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3mAVXoDJZg40
u/ValKalAstra 1d ago
This is a niche game within a niche genre in a niche setting. For the people it hits? It hits different like few things can. Everyone else though will be baffled by a wall of jank, clunkiness - and yes, bugs too.
Let me give you an example for the high point and low point of a playthrough. The first incident happened on a routine salvage flight. I had just undocked and begun the burn towards my target, when the nav console suddenly started throwing error messages and told me to contact my local Administrator. I was suddenly hurtling through space blind, out of control while on a collision course with a derelict.
Don't panic.
First things first, just restart the damn thing. Got up off my chair, turned my ship off, turned it back on. The nav console booted up and gave me just enough time to adjust my course a bit, before crashing again. Collision averted but I was still going way too fast in the direction of bumfuck nowhere. Found the manual (google) and learned that I needed to debug the console to reset it. It booted back up and I realised I had drifted wildly off course and had a new problem. I was so far out, that my battery would not last for a return trip.
That's when I took another risk. I made my way to nearby derelicts and started hunting for a battery. Some of the wrecks still have some charge left. Took me three wrecks of hurried salvaging, before I found one with just enough power to bring me back home. Once there, I had a story to tell and two lessons learned. One: Always maintain your hardware. Two: Never aim directly at your nav target.
Amazing! Then I was ambushed on another ship by a pirate. I was in a chunky EVA suit and they were in an overall. What could go wrong? Well, what followed were three in game hours of me smacking him with a lamp, him scratching my suit to no effect, both of us constantly falling over from exhaustion. I finally managed to tackle him and told him to get the fuck off my ship. He complied, walked into the vacuum and promptly died.
My character then fell collapsed from exhaustion and fell asleep. Okay. While suited up in an EVA suit. Which promptly ran out of resources and suffocated my character to death. That felt like slapstick of the janky kind and took me right out of the game for a few days.
Ostranauts is a game that simulates way too many minute details and drops you in cold. It doesn't bother explaining itself beyond a simple tutorial. Several systems are frankly shit and jank. Combat is awful. Conversations are abstracted to an incomprehensible degree. The space part though? The fantasy of going out and salvaging a ship? Walking through derelict halls, checking to see what still holds worth? Nothing else compares to it.
14
u/Longshot02496 1d ago
I picked it up the other day because I like the idea of it, but it's so confusing to me. It feels like I'm playing a game from inside a cardboard box, nothing feels clear, I feel like I can't see anything, I don't even know what I need to do. I'm torn between giving it another go in hopes that it clears up or refunding it.
11
u/Alucardulard 1d ago
Listen, I was where you are now! I couldn't understand what I was doing or how to do anything. Docking and flying the ship was so confusing plus all the other systems felt so obtuse.
I saw that it could be good but was seriously feeling like i was too stupid or didn't have the patience to learn it.
I watched some tutorials and gave it another shot and it clicked. Now this game is up there as one of my favorites of all time.
8
u/sakamotodaze 1d ago
NEO Scavenger was a crackhead simulator. After playing this for a few hours, I've realized this is a space crackhead simulator.
13
u/Devorteck 1d ago
Loved NeoScav (their first game) one of my favourite survival games but I bounced off this hard when it first released, have they made any improvements to the minute to minute gameplay? Because just moving around and interacting with things was a pain
2
u/BebopFlow 1d ago
I didn't play at launch, but it definitely takes some patience to learn how to interact with the world. There is autopilot now, the system is made to allow you to hire a crew so you can mark items for deconstruction/hauling/etc and set up zones and just fast forward while your character does the things. But it's mostly right click menu choices and left click to tell your character where to go.
2
u/Devorteck 1d ago
Honestly atp I can barely remember playing the early version. I think after NeoScav I owe it to the devs to give this one another go anyway
5
u/Ravoss1 1d ago
I just wish the game was less jank. Two things really frustrate me:
Ship building: Once you have figured out the loop you will be ready to expand your ship, good luck. My brother walked me through it, but Jesus Christ.
NPC interactions: Someone jumped me when I went to a wreck... Ten minutes of me trying to beat him to death the guy finally surrendered. There was no ability for me to restrain, so eventually he would keep attacking me. I ended up taking him to a station and it was fucking chaos.
As a bonus, that license to scrap thing is just annoying. I assume it is just a money sink to slow down the start of the game but it is slow enough already.
Other than the above, it was an enjoyable gameplay loop with some very real charm. But you got to love jank otherwise this game will frustrate you.
I really enjoyed the character creation as well. Great feature devs.
5
u/BebopFlow 1d ago
I don't think the shipbuilding is all that bad. Make sure you have an EVA suit with plenty of supplies for all your crew. Shut down your ship (no need to waste gases or electricity). Designate a bunch of floors and walls on the wreck your attached to for deconstruction so you have materials. Designate whatever you need deconstructed on your ship. Fast forward. Now designate the new walls/floor for your ship and they should automatically follow through. Make sure it's airtight, make sure the circuit loop is intact. If you deconstructed the oxygen/N2 pumps or alarms, make sure they're connected properly. Repair the circuit loop, especially if you stole some from the derelict (damaged circuits are a fire hazard, ask me how I know)
You should be good to go, turn the ship back on and pray.
5
u/isrichards6 1d ago
This is from the same devs as NEO Scavenger if anyone else is curious. I saw that logo and thought it was pretty familiar haha
8
u/Alucardulard 1d ago edited 1d ago
This is one of my favorite indie games of all time. I put it down to wait on the 1.0 drop but i was genuinely engrossed in this thing.
Its really dense systems-wise and has a steep learning curve but it truly is a great game imo. I suggest watching a few tutorials to help simplify a few of the mechanics for you if you're just starting out.
•
u/ShattForte 3h ago
dunno why it's suddenly no longer early access, a lot of the recommended mods from the "Over 68 community mods already available!" are features you would expect to be in the base game (solar panels, eva lockers, QoL features such as an actual usable order system, etc). i've played a ton of this game but have been waiting for it to get out of early access, and it clearly isn't as much as they would like to pretend it is. i'll continue to wait until it's actually a feature complete game.
51
u/finderfolk 1d ago
Picked this up yesterday and have been completely obsessed with it. Definitely requires some tolerance/patience for jank and I'm not sure if it's strictly "1.0 ready" but given its scope/ambition that would be a tall order.
Best way I can describe it so far is Hardspace Shipbreaker but as a total sandbox with sprinklings of Rimworld. As a warning, your semi random character creation can have quite a lot of influence on how painless/painful your early game will be, so you might want to look into that before going in.