Void Bastards

[6740284fd1849RoSoDude]

Mooncrash is way more hardcore than the base game just for the fact that you can't savescum (which is one of the absolute best things about it). The permanent character upgrades and broken meta-economy kinda ruin it though. While they have plenty of roguelite systems that attempt to keep pace with player knowledge/character power, it's not enough and the difficulty plateaus or even drops. I found my final 5-character escape run quite easy since they were all completely decked out. The shuttle and upload escape were completely free because you only need to find the Piloting connectome once and scan the Phantom data once. So stupid.

I'm super on the fence about buying Void Bastards. I love the Immersive Sim + roguelite combo in Mooncrash, and I appreciate the 25% coupon for SS2 owners on Steam, but... it really looks like it might be get easy and stale quick. The fact that you can retain all of your weapons and upgrades between character deaths means that unless the random hazards really force you to mix it up, there will likely be some obvious optimal setups for every ship. I hear they're going to put out some content updates down the line, which hopefully include balance patches if such situations arise. My preference for roguelites is to be pretty hardcore about forcing you to make tough risk/reward choices though, so it being "casual" is a turn off, depending on how you mean that.

[6740284fd1a3bicemann]

RPS put up a length review of it up today. Sounds interesting, though the reviewer was a bit mixed on it.

[6740284fd1bb4fox]

Btw: you can not board a station again, once you left it. Thought I'd try leaving an returning to get rid of a bunch of enemies gathering right behind a sealed door but the game wouldn't let me.

[6740284fd1e08NeilHoward17]

It's a mile wide but an inch deep. There are some good mechanics but it lacks any narrative focus or direction to make those mechanics a feature of the experience rather than the whole experience. You can hack turrets in SS2 and Void bastards, it's the same mechanic. SS2's more established contextual scenario elevates the mechanic above its component parts, the gameplay is complemented by the narrative and visual design, well the atmosphere to put it bluntly. Void Bastards doesn't have that. It's lacking in engaging elements like atmosphere, and tone really. I find myself engaged with the missions, enter ship, loot ship, shoot the scooby-doo villains from whatever the last iteration of scooby-doo was, leave. done. 5 minutes killed. Then i'll want to do something else. And I'll want to come back. It's System Shock minus the Shock, it's all systems. These systems are great, but make a good game alone they can't. So I'd say, yeah pick it up, it's good, but be fully aware this is a casual game, it's connections to the 451 lexicon aren't that strong and are mainly cosmetic. It's FTL, not mooncrash.

Edit: Okay maybe deeper than an inch, walking around in the dark was a nice touch and really helped mitigate my problems with the game. It's fun, quite addictive. I stand by my original claim that it's a casual game, but it's a casual game with immersive-sim and roguelike elements, and that's commendable at-least. It can be immersive, back it can lack in investment.

[6740284fd1f0cfox]

RPS: "Void Bastards challenges loons to conquer space with a foon"

[6740284fd218dvurt]

It's too bad they didn't seem to be willing to do this a little more deep, closer to something like SS2.. could have been a classic instead of something everyone will have forgotten about in a few years.

[6740284fd22d7Kolya]

It might be a bit too hardcore for the casual crowd and too casual for the rest of us.

[6740284fd245dicemann]

I beat the game last night. The game is VERY hardcore and requires either massive amounts of farming resources to make the items you need, or take big risks by going directly to the lower depths to get quickly.

I lost my best character due to such risk taking, and that set me back majorly. Game after that was a long slog, where before it was going by past. With the some good luck you'll get a good character or find good traits on the machines (I HIGHLY recommend the sticky fingers trait), and you'll speed through the game. Or you'll have the luck I did after that death and it will take a week.

Excellent game regardless, but the need for farming was very annoying and soured my opinion of the game somewhat.

[6740284fd2570fox]

I really didn't play it much but I guess I'll be picking it up again sometime and I'm not regretting buying it. For me it came pretty much out of the blue, so my expectations never went overboard. It's a well-spirited, nice little game to shorten the waiting time for the big releases coming next year.

[6740284fd287aedx]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQmhBICp00M

https://steamcommunity.com/games/857980/announcements/detail/1592501510461437433

Dear Client,

Thank you for cooperating with WCG administrative procedures to facilitate the return of the Void Ark. Your performance has been noted and we are pleased to inform you that additional workplace challenges are now being prepared. These challenges will test your occupational competencies as never before! Can you lift your KPIs and push your personal performance envelope to the limit?

Hey everyone! We know you’ve been hankering for some new content for Void Bastards. We heard you, and we’ll be rolling out some FREE challenge modes to completely change the way you navigate through the Sargasso Nebula. We're still ironing out the details but expect challenges like: stealthing your way past super tough enemies, being forced to rely on amped up authorisation skills to take over ship systems and managing a super fast but hard to control client. Did we mention this will all be FREE?

Have you noticed how dirty the Sargasso Nebula is? Tydy did and is standing by to deploy its fleet of cleaning vessels and automated cleaning units to really spruce things up. Warning: don’t stand too near a Tydy Bot as their dirt recognition units have been known to malfunction when exposed to nebula radiation.


Translation: we are also working on DLC with an entirely new organization, complete with a new opponent, new ships and never before seen rewards!

Stay tuned for more news next week about the NEW WEAPON in our upcoming DLC!

[6740284fd2a83lgs]

Great game, very addictive, but needs more ship variety and some UI refinements (item and parts screen could easily be merged together so you don't have to keep in memory which parts you need to craft for which item). I'd love to see some on-ship random encounters (like sometimes there are named enemies, but game doesn't go anywhere with this) and more options in general (ability to deal with hazards:  turning off generator disables electic hazards, or may be limited use fire extinguisher to put out some of the fires). I will definetely be buying the dlc when it drops.