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[Gabeux]

Just a heads-up. I bumped into a game called Planet Nomads.
It looks a lot like Empyrion to me (maybe better), and somehow it reminds me of No Man's Sky (colourful fauna and flora). Shipbuilding seem to be a bit less restrictive.
It also has a team of 10 people.
I think an announcement video will be released soon, and maybe it'll be worth having on the watchlist just in case.

[Paul]

That looks like another interesting addition to the sandbox survival genre, but it doesn't really compare to Empyrion from what I read from their page.

Main thing is: It's all limited to one planet. Probably a big planet bigger than the Empyrion ones, but it doesn't mention other planets anywhere. Empyrion has the whole endless procedural galaxy thing as one of the main features, even calling itself a "galactic survival" game.

[Gabeux]

"– Explore mesmerizing planets with changing biomes
– Build a spaceship capable of interplanetary travel"

Stop fanboying Paul. I'm watching you. 

Still, it will probably take like 2 years to be playable (read: interesting to play) anyways.

[Paul]

Ah, alright. I guess I just missed that part. Most everywhere else, like in the faq, it keeps referencing "the planet" and the faq lists building a ship to leave the planet under "End Game" so I thought it was some kind of win scenario.

That sounds better then. Another game to watch out for.

I'm certainly not against more games like this. I love this genre. This is a golden age of gaming, these sandbox survival games are popping up everywhere. And so far most of them don't suck.

[Gabeux]

There was a decently sized update, the first decent one after release IMO.
Procedurally generated planets are in. But from what I understand, you create them when starting a new game, and the rest of the system might be the same as before.
The next step, they mention, is the solar system. Then I guess they'll make the galaxy.

Since they seem to be making gameplay stuff low-priority, for most people Empyrion will only be interesting to look at in a year or so.

[Paul]

Wait, gameplay stuff is low priority? Since when is procedurally generated planets (and then the solar system and potentially galaxy) not classified as gameplay stuff? The community voted for what they wanted and they responded by doing it. Seems pretty legit to me.

I for one like the update. The new planet type is nice. Being able to open your helmet is a nice addition, it opens the door for sealed ships and bases with atmosphere inside and such in future updates - and makes you able to roam around on foot if you want, or make GVs(sorry, HVs, lol) without o2 stuff. The new o2 canisters let you do the same on other planets as well. The door for SV is nice, lets me build a little interior in my SV and have all my stuff inside that (cargo, assembler, fuel, o2, etc). And they fixed the mining issues and other stuff that was annoying.

Procedural gen applies to all the planets, but not the orbital stuff. And it's pretty nice. I flew to the ice planet and found an alien base (the one usually on lava world) surrounded by 4 towers, 3 of which were different towers (v1, two v2s, and v3) and a bunch of drones. I got blown up since my SV only had gatling guns and I got onto the planet right over the compound and was immediately receiving fire from 5 directions. And since I didn't bring an extra core with me I couldn't capture anything to build a new ship. Oops.

It was a poorly designed SV anyway though. I just slapped it together quick to go see the other planets and see if random gen was affecting the asteroids and such (nope, not until random system update I guess) and it had a fuel tank exposed on the side. And of course that's where I got hit, which exploded my side and bottom thruster, which did enough damage to go ahead and take out my RCS, which made my other side thruster go, which was the last bit of damage needed to take out the core. Kablooey, whole ship blown apart. The SV I made that I spent time on was much better armored, with the parts spread apart enough to prevent this sort of thing.

I found out you can gen o2 on the volcano planet as well. You just have to put the o2 gens on the green patches of ground. Not sure if that's new or if I just didn't notice it before now.

[Gabeux]

PLANETS ARE NOT GAMEPLAY PAUL.
DON'T ARGUE WITH ME.


But honestly, they made a good push. Still, even if the procedural galaxy was already implemented, I wouldn't play it. Space-flight is broken, crafting is a chore, etc.
They are gonna get it all right. I just don't understand why people would want more planets to do nothing in.
Then again, meanwhile people complained Space Engineers didn't have planets, and here I am wanting to see more meaty and polished gameplay stuff in Empyrion instead of a procedural galaxy.

[Paul]

I guess I just don't see the game as so empty like you do. There is stuff to do already.

Space flight steering was improved a lot with this update. I can easily shoot down space drones. Haven't tried CV steering yet, I probably won't bother building one until they make the solar system.

Crafting really isn't a chore imo. Yes, it could be more streamlined, and this latest UI update helped that a lot - but it's not too bad. I always make a remove/repair tool first then I can get my initial base built very quickly and then set it up producing thrusters for my escape pod, all the while I gut the escape pod to be designed the way I want it. I have a minute to run around collecting some food and then have all the parts ready to design the ship. Then I'm off to explore the planet. Once you get the hang of it it's easy to quickly set it up producing the parts you need to make the final products you're aiming for. Then again I can do the math in my head on the fly, so folks who can't multiply and add up things in their head quickly might find it frustrating.

Game gets stale single player after a while (random planets helped a lot with this, since new games have different terrain and different points of interest) but playing with buddies is already fun. I was playing with a random guy I met on the steam forum the other day and we had a blast for hours. At first we repaired the escape pod and added a passenger seat. Then we made some guns and flew around assaulting alien bases on foot with assault rifles and rocket launchers and stuff. Then we made enough parts to assemble a couple of small agile fighter craft, and flew into space with our pod. At that point it was getting late so we stopped playing. The next day we played we assembled our ships (two totally different designs, we each made our own) and went off to kill the space drones and take the asteroid base. The two of us made short work of all the space drones. Then we went after the other big base with tons of guns. We managed to take out all the guns from one side of it and get aboard, then explored the station - shooting the turrets with our personal guns. Soon we had captured it and collected all the stuff from it, and using parts from the base modified our fighters a bit. Then we armed up to the teeth and had a war. I had the advantage since I was hosting (my ship was better too imo, but he insisted it was all because I was hosting lol) and I managed to wreck his. But when I flew up to pick him up he shot out my fuel tank with his handheld rocket launcher. So then we were both stranded way out in space, and decided to call it a day again.


-edit- I just thought: it's kind of funny to compare Space Engineers with this one. Space Engineers started in space, and after nearly two years early access are going to be adding planets. This game started in planets, and is planning to add more space (currently only the one small asteroid belt, and all the planets are super close together). It will be interesting to see where this game goes in 2 years. I'm hoping they take a page from Space Engineers and add more engineering stuff - conveyors that draw fuel from storage into the fuel tanks would be awesome, for instance.

[Paul]

They added some nice stuff in the last few months. Highlights:

NPC enemies that shoot back at you.

Lots of new points of interest to explore.

Better drone AI, drone bases that send drones, and drone attacks on player bases.

A new constructor that crafts automatically (crafts the missing parts to make the desired end product).

A tech tree with leveling and experience.

New starting scenario - you drop in a disposable escape pod, and have a survival constructor instead of a ship.

Dedicated servers. No more limitation on play area - can explore the moon while someone else is on Akua and another guy is on Omicron.

[Gabeux]

Interesting, steps in the right direction!
Guess in 6 months it'll be amazing to play it in multiplayer.

[LoSboccacc]

got this game on the sale after looking at a couple let's play.

have to say, this game is amazing if you have a friend to play it with. not as marvelous as space engineers, but it has stuff to do and discover, instead of being mostly pointless.

building is simple enough, fauna is amazing, crafting is annoying because dependencies aren't automated but so far I'm having a blast. Spent countless hours roaming in star made just trolling pirates but here the challenges scale way better as you explore further.

[LoSboccacc]

Interesting, steps in the right direction!
Guess in 6 months it'll be amazing to play it in multiplayer.

now that turrets have been fixed, it's awesomely amazing to play in multiplayer

I'm running a full PvE server if anyone's interested. be warned tho: spawn is on Omicron

[Gabeux]

Yeah they are moving at a very good pace. I really like how there's enemy transport that goes after you and drops infantry if you get too close to certain Points of Interest, or that you can destroy a drone base and stop random drone attacks on that planet.
This alone is already more involved than other sandbox games that have been in development for years.

There's still a long way to go, but so far so good. I just wish they don't keep the Advanced Constructor (the one that queues components for you) as an end-game item, because that seems pretty silly.
If they do, once they make the game moddable I can just tweak that.. but I just don't see the point.

With the PVE features, it'll be really awesome when they get enemy CVs flying around. Maybe even bases/CVs that launch fighters.
This would make multiplayer fun for a very long time, especially if the designs were to be procedural or player-made.

It's also interesting how they seemed to quietly nerf Flux Coils (or Power Coils?). You used to be able to salvage that from POIs, which would imediatelly bring you to end-game status.
Now you can't salvage that anymore, and have to deal with mining in very scary places - even if for a few minutes - without end-game gear.
Makes it more rewarding and multiplayer less griefy, I guess.

[evilnancyreagan]

I'm running a full PvE server if anyone's interested. be warned tho: spawn is on Omicron

is that the one wot has the Popplers?

[LoSboccacc]

> Popplers

hehe yeah they look like that. I've a base and a hv, just started yesterday, so base is literally a reactor with a cannon on top.