So there is this new Early Access game, ASTRONEER, being touted as a NMS-killer. I have not played No Man's Sky so I can be totally unbiased in that regard!
I grabbed ASTRONEER because what the heck, $20 and it looks cute.
I died a bunch of times right off the bat because I didn't realize the significance of the light blue tether and the air hissing sound it makes when you reconnect to it. In other words: I kept suffocating because I didn't realize how my oxygen supply worked. Don't be dumb like me: your oxygen only lasts a couple minutes when you're off-tether. Build tethers to extend your exploratory range (imagine them kinda like Minecraft's torches), and you can eventually build oxygen tanks to carry more with you, and vehicles that you can hook up to for oxygen and power later.
That brings me to the other main resource: power. The way power works is actually fairly intuitive. Your astronaut's main use for power is your Former (I forget its actual name, but it's like a vacuum that works in both directions). You suck up materials and deform the landscape, and doing so draws quite a bit of power. Fortunately, you can recharge with solar panels, wind vanes, and generators which consume fuel.
The game feels a lot like pre-alpha Minecraft, in a good way. There's a lot of potential. What bugs exist are more hilarious than frustrating, although having items lying around which I can't pick up or destroy gets to be a bit annoying--my base is going to turn into an unintentional junk heap if I'm not careful.
Much like Minecraft, there is a lot of "bootstrapping" involved. You need to find Compound and Resin in order to build basic facilities. Then, you need to build a Smelter so you can process ores to get Aluminum, Titanium, Copper, and the like. You also want a Research unit so you can research the various debris and life forms you find on the planet. These reward you with the ability to construct new types of buildings, or they give you random resource units.
I've gotten as far as building a rover, which is pretty fun to drive around in. Exploring is a lot more entertaining with the rover. I'm currently trying to outfit a shuttle so I can fly to another planet/moon. I have no idea how that plays out, yet. We shall see.
I mentioned before that you can suffocate. This is not the only way you can die. Falling from a great height will also kill you. There are also plants which expel noxious gases. Perhaps the most unexpected way I killed myself was when I accidentally used my Former to uplift the ground I was standing on, which trapped me inside it and caused me to start clipping through the terrain, at which point I suffocated. Finally, there are dust storms which fling around box-shaped debris which is pretty much a one-hit kill if it smacks into you. The best thing to do during such a storm is to get inside your habitat (or maybe a vehicle?) and wait it out.
Death is not terribly costly, though. Whatever you're carrying gets dropped--and you can only carry a handful of things anyway. The point where you died is denoted with a temporary beacon, so you can return to that spot and get your stuff back. If you die again, that beacon is replaced with the location of your latest death, however I've found that you can still recover your items if you make it to the spot where you perished earlier. (The items just end up being very small because they are backpack-scaled. This is probably a bug. There are a lot of bugs right now.)
Another feature I haven't tried is the 4-player drop-in/drop-out co-op. I am looking forward to giving that a shot soon.
I cannot give this game a firm recommendation right now because, duh, it's unfinished and full of bugs. What exists right now is entertaining and looks to have a lot of potential, so if you don't mind gambling $20 on what might end up being an unfinished game, give it a shot. Or go watch people die hilariously in videos. That's fun, too.
I grabbed ASTRONEER because what the heck, $20 and it looks cute.
I died a bunch of times right off the bat because I didn't realize the significance of the light blue tether and the air hissing sound it makes when you reconnect to it. In other words: I kept suffocating because I didn't realize how my oxygen supply worked. Don't be dumb like me: your oxygen only lasts a couple minutes when you're off-tether. Build tethers to extend your exploratory range (imagine them kinda like Minecraft's torches), and you can eventually build oxygen tanks to carry more with you, and vehicles that you can hook up to for oxygen and power later.
That brings me to the other main resource: power. The way power works is actually fairly intuitive. Your astronaut's main use for power is your Former (I forget its actual name, but it's like a vacuum that works in both directions). You suck up materials and deform the landscape, and doing so draws quite a bit of power. Fortunately, you can recharge with solar panels, wind vanes, and generators which consume fuel.
The game feels a lot like pre-alpha Minecraft, in a good way. There's a lot of potential. What bugs exist are more hilarious than frustrating, although having items lying around which I can't pick up or destroy gets to be a bit annoying--my base is going to turn into an unintentional junk heap if I'm not careful.
Much like Minecraft, there is a lot of "bootstrapping" involved. You need to find Compound and Resin in order to build basic facilities. Then, you need to build a Smelter so you can process ores to get Aluminum, Titanium, Copper, and the like. You also want a Research unit so you can research the various debris and life forms you find on the planet. These reward you with the ability to construct new types of buildings, or they give you random resource units.
I've gotten as far as building a rover, which is pretty fun to drive around in. Exploring is a lot more entertaining with the rover. I'm currently trying to outfit a shuttle so I can fly to another planet/moon. I have no idea how that plays out, yet. We shall see.
I mentioned before that you can suffocate. This is not the only way you can die. Falling from a great height will also kill you. There are also plants which expel noxious gases. Perhaps the most unexpected way I killed myself was when I accidentally used my Former to uplift the ground I was standing on, which trapped me inside it and caused me to start clipping through the terrain, at which point I suffocated. Finally, there are dust storms which fling around box-shaped debris which is pretty much a one-hit kill if it smacks into you. The best thing to do during such a storm is to get inside your habitat (or maybe a vehicle?) and wait it out.
Death is not terribly costly, though. Whatever you're carrying gets dropped--and you can only carry a handful of things anyway. The point where you died is denoted with a temporary beacon, so you can return to that spot and get your stuff back. If you die again, that beacon is replaced with the location of your latest death, however I've found that you can still recover your items if you make it to the spot where you perished earlier. (The items just end up being very small because they are backpack-scaled. This is probably a bug. There are a lot of bugs right now.)
Another feature I haven't tried is the 4-player drop-in/drop-out co-op. I am looking forward to giving that a shot soon.
I cannot give this game a firm recommendation right now because, duh, it's unfinished and full of bugs. What exists right now is entertaining and looks to have a lot of potential, so if you don't mind gambling $20 on what might end up being an unfinished game, give it a shot. Or go watch people die hilariously in videos. That's fun, too.
