Steam Link - a new game by the developer of Trine.
Early Access releases at the end of July but its been live in a closed alpha for over a year, maybe 2 with a fairly large audience.
I've been watching this one for a while and thought I'd make a thread since a GWJ crew would be great. Its like Space Engineers if the construction was 1-2 steps more detailed and more 'online'.
There's so much to it. I'll list some that I know about (having not played yet):
* Design ships block by block or from templates. Consider shape, stress, materials, functionality, etc
* 'code' with the in-game language
* Mine ore and gas
* Shoot stuff I guess?
Im not sure about the online features and Im not too sure what the options are there. My default stance is that I dont want to be online with strangers but I don't want to bag on that until I try it out. Maybe there are some privacy or personal server options I don't know about.
Designing and building new ships looks like the most fun to me.
Seems its for-real going to launch next week for $35US, 33 Euro, 28 GBP
The launch notes lay out the immediate road map, with 2 sizeable updates, August and September, adding lunar mining and building, capital ships and siege warfare (via capital ships)
Heh, I was just coming to make a thread about the game after seeing the email this morning about the release. Glad to see I'm not the only person watching it. I'll definitely be grabbing it next weekend when it goes on sale.
Yeah, been following it via Steam for a while, but I'm not in for an early-Early Access game as it stands. Way too many other things to play.
Will watch it and see what comes of it, will be interested to read the feedback of any of you that do buy in 
Oof, this looks like something that will suck me in. We'll see if I can resist another early access crafty/buildy game. I'm already in for Icarus next month.
Huh interesting
In for a GWJer group. I know eventually they are adding in clan/corp/whatever mechanics, would be awesome to build our own cap ship and city
Heck yeah.
I bought this morning and got to play about 30 minutes over lunch. I spent it in the tutorials, playing Shipbreaker-lite, then ship patcher, then rock-whacker. They took the server down for a patch so I had to stop there.
So far its great!
For the record this should belong in the MMO forum
For the record this should belong in the MMO forum
The whole point of that forum was so that threads used to schedule events in MMOs wouldn't clog up the games forum, but that hasn't been a normal thing in well over a decade at this point. It was functionally replaced with Discord. Looks like there's only been about 10 threads active in the past 60 days, and they're all generic catch-all threads like we do in this forum.
I bought Starbase this morning and used Teamviewer to install it on my home PC, so I'm hoping to hop in and go through the tutorial tonight.
Yeah Im not too interested in a semantic argument here. The devs call it an MMO but it has way more in common with Fortnite or Minecraft than WoW. The mods can move it if they feel strongly about it so lets just put that argument over there and not look too hard at it.
I think there have already been 2 or 3 patches today for urgent fixes, but in my hour so far it's been pretty polished. I got through all of the tutorials and started messing with easy-mode ship building. I guess that's connecting chunks of modules together rather than going plate by plate, wire by wire (though I do want to try out the very complex version of the building soon.)
Looks like there's only been about 10 threads active in the past 60 days, and they're all generic catch-all threads like we do in this forum.
Because there's been very few MMOs to talk about.
As for Discord there's very little discussion there either about this. The bulk of the talk is FFXIV with a smattering of stuff i toss in there, this being one of them.
Yeah Im not too interested in a semantic argument here. The devs call it an MMO but it has way more in common with Fortnite or Minecraft than WoW. The mods can move it if they feel strongly about it so lets just put that argument over there and not look too hard at it.
I think there have already been 2 or 3 patches today for urgent fixes, but in my hour so far it's been pretty polished. I got through all of the tutorials and started messing with easy-mode ship building. I guess that's connecting chunks of modules together rather than going plate by plate, wire by wire (though I do want to try out the very complex version of the building soon.)
Fair enough, but definitely disagree with the Fortnite comparison. Gun's and building doesn't mean it's not a MMO.
It needs patches... I keep crashing. Been only able to play in 30 minute chunks or so...
It needs patches... I keep crashing. Been only able to play in 30 minute chunks or so...
Same here. So far I've been in just long enough to get to the mining tutorial and I've already crashed once and locked up once. Overall it feels good, but I might have to wait until the game is more stable before playing so it doesn't distort my view of the game later on.
Edit: I get occasional lag spikes which I would imagine is just poor optimization (not a knock, being Early Access means dealing with this kind of stuff). It stabilized long enough for me to get through the tutorial, but I have a lot of textures for space ships that don't load properly. I think I'm going to give it a week or so before really diving in, but so far I like it.
Some of the lag spikes might be when the game moves you from server to server. I'm not 100% sure how it works but there appears to be one universe and the game (mostly) seamlessly moves you amongst them. It's sort of like Eve that way but the transitions aren't hidden behind warps.
It's definitely a bit buggy on day 1 but it looks like they are fast on the fixes. The worst one outside of stability seems like Easy Build Mode being broken. You can't connect new cargo modules etc to your ship, so the kind of core system where you go mine, build onto your ship so you can mine more is busted. Supposedly they have a fix ready for tomorrow. Still I got a few loads of ore and even sold some on the auction house, am sitting on 31k credits which I'm sure is nothing but it feels good!
The worst one outside of stability seems like Easy Build Mode being broken. You can't connect new cargo modules etc to your ship, so the kind of core system where you go mine, build onto your ship so you can mine more is busted. Supposedly they have a fix ready for tomorrow.
Oh man, I thought I was doing something wrong. I kind of bailed when that didn't work, but really wanted to come back to that and figure it out tonight.
I think it's awesome how quick they're jumping on things. I was a little bummed when they delayed early access, but it seems it was definitely the right move. With the amount of work they're putting in, I'm really looking forward to how this game plays once it's closer to a release version.
So, mine was one of the characters that was wiped last night. I decided to just go through the tutorial again, rather than submit a ticket for a new ship, etc. I saw folks talking about easy build being broken, but it worked fine for me while working through the tutorial. Maybe something with the character data, as mine was a freshly wiped account.
Also, I've never had a game completely crash steam before. Something to note, I didn't crash with my new character, but that could also have been due to the cleaned server and fewer people on due to the later hour.
Wow crashing even Steam is a new one I haven't heard or seen. That's horrible. From reading up on this it has it's bugs but the devs are very engaged and actively patching. Hopefully it gets stable sooner than later for you folks.
The more I try to modify my ship the more annoyed I get. I'd recommend slapping say 8-12 more cargo boxes on your starter ship and call it a day, should be stable enough. Going overboard and trying to modify it heavily is running up against a lot of different bugs or confusing mechanics, hidden required button presses, etc.
The tech tree is also really annoying. They require you to just craft a billion useless parts (which are ridiculously hard to use, see above) to get points to pick the next (probably wrong) thing to research, just so you can make your own thrusters or refill your own fuel cells.
Today is going MUCH better. If you created your Laborer ship on Day 1, you should take it over to the 'red' dealership that's very close to the Easy Build Mode building. You can sell it from the screen there by the landing pad.
Then restart the Ship Repair tutorial. Complete it and you're given a new ship. This new ship doesn't have the same issues as the day 1 ship.
I've been able to add any module I want today.4 of the 4xCargo modules and an extra thruster. Going great so far, up to 155k too after selling the old ship and a bunch of junk parts I grinded to get tech points. Though you do get a discount on new ships for any parts you have in storage so they can be worth keeping.
I just tried logging in, but the station I'm at is basically a noob-ship graveyard with thousands of ships and parts of ships floating around. If I had to guess, I'd say some people are ramming ship after ship into the easy build station to cause a DoS for everyone in the area. I can't stay connected, and even when I'm on I'm getting about... 0.1 FPS. 
I just tried logging in, but the station I'm at is basically a noob-ship graveyard with thousands of ships and parts of ships floating around. If I had to guess, I'd say some people are ramming ship after ship into the easy build station to cause a DoS for everyone in the area. I can't stay connected, and even when I'm on I'm getting about... 0.1 FPS.
Well, now we know... It's an MMO.
Someone mentioned in chat that they were doing it to exploit the game by collecting tons of thrusters from the wreckage for some reason. Less sinister, but still kind of sucks.
If you get a chance to fly to another station maybe do that. Apparently Station 01 is just plain offline because it can't handle the traffic. 27 where I started was fairly peaceful but I travelled to 11 to join a company and its much busier.
Also apparently if you buy a prefab ship you should not try to modify it in the Easy Builder, because it'll break. I think that's what happened to my first Laborer II. My 2nd one im attempting to modify in the full fledged ship editor. I want to get comfortable with that anyway.
Yeah, that's the issue. Started on station 01. 11 sounds good, I'll head on over to there.
Station 13 checking in. Out for a few days, which allowed things to marinate a bit. Two crashes while at station(full steam crashes again), but I was able to sneak out and do some mining without any crashes after.
So, uh, what's after Origin? My assumption is I get comfortable with crafting, creating a bit bigger and better, then a warp gate of sorts?
What's the consensus? I've been seeing some mixed reviews for it. It looks fun, but I'm not sure I want to drop $40 on it.
What's the consensus? I've been seeing some mixed reviews for it. It looks fun, but I'm not sure I want to drop $40 on it.
Do you enjoy any similar games like Space Engineers, Shipbreaker, or Stationeers? If so it's an easy recommendation. If you frustrate at bugs easily it's not ready for you.
I spent the weekend tinkering with my ship, putting more effort strapping a mining laser and ore collector to a ship WAY too primitive to support them than I ever did tinkering with a real life car. It was a real struggle to figure out the intricacies of poorly documented parts, trial and error, pleading for help on discord, strapping a silly amount of batteries to compensate for the massive power drain. Then after being able to run the laser for about 20 consecutive seconds, I called it good and took it for a spin.
Boy is it ever not optimal, and it looks nicer than the bodged scrap pile that it is, but getting good at the ship builder (the real one), and getting good at approaching asteroids in just such a way as the meager 20m reach of the laser is sufficient, wiggling my ship around and managing my screaming batteries all without touching the asteroid (practicing for mining outside the safe zone) all tickled every itch I've had for a game like this.
Never mind that I have to deal with bugs like the Easy Ship Builder wiping my ship computer's memory when I visit, and that that's the only place I can get new fuel rods. The bugs are rough, but there are workarounds for many and for me it has been worthwhile.
SpaceDog wrote:What's the consensus? I've been seeing some mixed reviews for it. It looks fun, but I'm not sure I want to drop $40 on it.
Do you enjoy any similar games like Space Engineers, Shipbreaker, or Stationeers? If so it's an easy recommendation. If you frustrate at bugs easily it's not ready for you.
I spent the weekend tinkering with my ship, putting more effort strapping a mining laser and ore collector to a ship WAY too primitive to support them than I ever did tinkering with a real life car. It was a real struggle to figure out the intricacies of poorly documented parts, trial and error, pleading for help on discord, strapping a silly amount of batteries to compensate for the massive power drain. Then after being able to run the laser for about 20 consecutive seconds, I called it good and took it for a spin.
Boy is it ever not optimal, and it looks nicer than the bodged scrap pile that it is, but getting good at the ship builder (the real one), and getting good at approaching asteroids in just such a way as the meager 20m reach of the laser is sufficient, wiggling my ship around and managing my screaming batteries all without touching the asteroid (practicing for mining outside the safe zone) all tickled every itch I've had for a game like this.
Never mind that I have to deal with bugs like the Easy Ship Builder wiping my ship computer's memory when I visit, and that that's the only place I can get new fuel rods. The bugs are rough, but there are workarounds for many and for me it has been worthwhile.
OK, that sounds like my jam, might grab a copy next pay day.
The bugs are rough
That's an understatement at the moment. Don't get me wrong, I also put quite a bit of time into the game this weekend, but eventually a couple got the better of me and I just logged out. At the moment I have two ships because I can't sell either of them as far as I know. I can sell pretty much anything else, but the ships tab at the market is empty. I can't refuel them... I can certainly dump money into refueling, but it never gives me the propellant. So I'm very close to having two ships that I can power, but I can't move. Oh, and I can't move anything from station inventory into my inventory unless it's a stack of something, so everything I craft has to be doubled, and a couple tools are completely unusable because I can't access them (pipe tool, cable tool, refills of each, etc).
And yet... I still want to hop on this morning after I get a few things done around the house.
Edit: Logged on, sold all the equipment I had in storage, and then rebought it all on the market place. That fixed the equipment, and my ships are able to be refueled, so something must have been fixed overnight with that. Heading back out to grab some more ore, there's a couple specific ones I'm looking for.
The 'ships' tab on the market is for the contents of your ship's inventory.
There is a place to sell your ships. It is... wait for it... a little buggy.
There's a building right near the Easy Build Mode building in the 'corner of the Sunny Ship Center and the not-easy ship build shop that says The Galaxy is Big, Buy a Space ship. If you spawn your ship to sell it its landing pad you get a Sell option after it appraises the ship for a few seconds. If it doesnt work, try despawning/respawning it.
Thanks, it worked, apparently I was just going to the wrong place. I ended up selling the Laborer I upgraded quite a bit because I really needed to redo the thrusters and put different cargo boxes on. Figured starting over would be easier (don't much care about the items, I'm building more to boost research anyway). So at least I'm down to just one noob ship now. I started to play around with the ship editor but... holy hell that looks complicated. I might just stick with buying pre-made ships and modifying them instead of starting from scratch.
The server is going down in 10 minutes for a hotfix. I don't see anything released yet on what it's addressing.
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