itch.io

I need to be able to pet the wombat! :D

Demo is too short :(
Great game otherwise.

I feel like this could be more fun with a less linear progression, that you could bounce around in the level until you feel like you're strong enough to defeat the end guardian.
This would let us pursue different non-optimal upgrade paths, instead of ALWAYS have to consider exactly one question: "Which upgrade will make me most likely to survive the boss encounter at 5, 4, 3, 2, ... jumps?"
Instead we could CHOOSE to explore this <?>-nebula, because there are NOT just 1 jump left & the other option is the Trade Nexus & I have 500 coins... Instead I can go to both.
It would be nice if the POI was also detected by ACTUAL distance, so if you drive back to where you came from, you can find the same POI again, BUT this can cause the same problem as increasing the detection duration = saturate the area with POIs of no interest, like only lvl1 POIs when you're lvl 20.

I have 5 fuel & the nearest POI requires 6 fuel, It feels like I should be able to deploy a beacon now, if I want?
Apparently I DO have that tech available at the ship, because I will be able to deploy it in mid-space when I'm eventually guaranteed to be stranded.
Does it matter? probably not much, but it feels strange as it is now.

Reminds me of the "Shift" series (1 - 4+ ) of Flash games :D
(still available at Armor Games[1], BUT you need the "Ruffle"[2] browser plugin to emulate the games)

[1]
https://armorgames.com/play/751/shift

[2] - (preferably use YOUR browsers plugin-store, this site shows what browsers are supported)
https://ruffle.rs/downloads

The items drawbacks adds a bit of depth to the game, but I would also like an "easy mode" where I can turn that off?
Optionally with a way to turn that on again after a while, when I have collected a "survivable" set of gears & the game start to become too easy.

Bug, in Firefox 115.32.0esr (64-bit).
When taking a yellow hollow-rectangle, there appears a black box & I assume there is supposed to be text in that box?

But there is no text.

Bug? (not confirmed, hard to test for me)
I feel like the "counter surge"-bullet does zero damage? (maybe just lucky dodges?)
Also "counter surge"-laser does not appear to happen in the same system as you buy it at.

The "requirement" to gain the "Homing" upgrade is ridiculous!

Without it my ship feels like the Imperial Destroyer in this video.
The enemy back away to the edge & drifts slightly to the left & is impossible to hit.

(for future reference if the link breaks: YouTube: "Family Guy Ship Maneuvers" by channel: "silex tan")

"I think it would be better if the upgrades in the tree were more expensive but independently priced"
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I have been thinking of some kind of game, where EVERY upgrade starts at maybe 1 cost, BUT each time you buy something, that item becomes more expensive (+1?) in the next run, so over multiple runs the pricing sorts itself out (NOW, apply this to a networked game & compare EVERYONE purchases).

There also NEEDS some form of "price decay" too, or EVERYTHING will become too expensive. Maybe at some kind of "prestige"(?) everything becomes -1 cost, so the most bought things are still expensive, but the less bought things becomes cheaper.

Now, imagine what happens when this system is networked to ALL players, because people have different play-styles, they might keep the prices low for other play-styles.

What this system fails to model, (for networked: is the individual play-styles, maybe a good thing?) is the change in a players priories from low level to high level.
One way to model this could be either a price increase or decrease (not sure which) the more you have progressed.

Another problem with this system, is that at its worst implementation, it would eventually force players to play with only their least favorite (trash) builds, just to "grind down" the cost of the actually fun upgrades (it's NOT what I want).
At its BEST implementation, it would fairly price each upgrade, AND encourage (without forcing) the player to experiment with new build combinations, because the best upgrades are a BIT expensive (not ridiculously expensive).

NEW POI idea: "Tinker station"
This location lets you re-arrange the socket-items you have equipped.

Probably just 1 item (would fit the theme of the game), you can select 2 sockets to swap items between them.

Kind of, but the player can somehow set the limits for what they think is acceptable threat levels.
In the beginning, 1x lvl 3 enemy might be too hard & = red, but at late game like 10x lvl 15 might even be preferable (because of increased XP rewards), and with maxed out POI-researches it would be nice if it was possible to make a "filter" to highlight the interesting POI-locations.

I love the ALT overview :D
Maybe SHIFT + ALT (or CTRL) could be used to display the FULL (available) information about the system.
Alternatively, we can "mark" some stats to be displayed when pressing that button, for example "Threat level" and/or "enemy amount", the priorities change over the game, so it would be nice to let the display change too.



This is overkill, but it is the ultimate system I can think of:
Maybe even be able to set some limits, and have that reflect on the icon border-color? like:
"(Enemy_amount > 5) = red"
Or go full math on it, like:

Boolean version:
"(enemy_amount >= 5) && (enemy_level > 3) = red, else: green"

Integer version:
"[from: (0="green") to: (max="red")] = (enemy_amount + enemy_level)"

This one was really hard to find a way to define in some form of code formula, the problem is that I do not know how high the number can go, so while the lowest state (zero) can easily be defined as green, it is an unknown number "max" that will be defined as red, maybe that's just a variable that stores whatever the highest calculated number has been?
The integer version is a bit strange, but could be useful.

I STILL do not understand how to dock with the space station.
I STILL can not refuel, to continue the game :(

Do NOT upgrade POI Range!
It increases de-spawn time of the POI's & you get stuck with only tier 1 enemies for the duration of the entire sector, even in EVERY sector even 10+ & 20+...
They are completely harmless & very boring.

Also, most of the 1x lvl 1 enemies comes from the initial entrance into the system (jump 0), and their long expiry time (6-12 jumps*) just clogs up the system & prevents other POI's form being detected.

(*12 jumps! I'm not even in the system by then, the jump-limit is 10 jumps)

I think this problem is caused by the long "detection time", it takes 6+ jumps for me to loose detection of some POIs, and because I always want to go to the (new) one with highest thereat, then the low stuff gets accumulated, and I can only visit 1 system per jump, that means I can't jump to all of them just to clear out the POI from the detection, so they expire just before (or after) I must leave the zone.

Apparently it needs some way to increase the detection range (see more POI) without increasing the detection duration (amount of jumps before expiring.

Maybe some kind of "gauntlet" with increasingly more & harder enemies, could be used to select a suitable threat level?

So after entering a sector, or respawning, there is a POI like Elite enemies, and after defeating that you can proceed to a higher Elites, but defeat does not equals death, just a return to normal levels.

Alternatively some kind of "background- / Idle- -fighting", where the ship is matched up against enemies to find it's limit? 

Something is strange with the sector level & threat scaling.
I'm at sector 13 jump 3, with max gear, I can probably survive a wave of 20x lvl 20 enemies, but all I find is like 1x lvl 2, or if I'm lucky, an elite with: 8x lvl 8.

Sector 13 jump 7, max enemies: 5x lvl 2... pathetic.
jump 9, max: 8x lvl 5, still 1 volley is enough to destroy all of them, zero danger.
Jump 10, the end-boss was defeated before first reinforcement.

I have a Tier 5 Sensor array & 10/10 "POI Range" upgrade.

Also, buying weapons is SUPER RARE, in 13 sectors I have found it 2 times.

Bug with upgrade "Harvest targeting".
As I understand the description, it should allow me to designate several scraps to be harvested at the same time?
But even at level 3 it still only allows 1 harvesting beam.

AHA! NOT a Bug?
The new modules does not "upgrade", they "replace".
So THAT is why you are allowed to buy multiple of the same thing, because it COULD be better than your current one.
IMPROVEMENT:
Some kind of color or other marking on eg. the item border, to show that it is better or worse than your current one, and if you do buy it, maybe add a pop-up warning, just to confirm that the player indeed intends to buy a worse item.

I found a bug (2.5 bugs),
* some "respawn event" let me choose a starting module, I choose "Homing", then when I visited the POI system, then I got a choice to select "Homing" again (I GOT to see what that would do), and the result was that nothing happened, I didn't get any upgrade that time (as expected).
* Same with "Ricochet" upgrade, but this time it was both times selected from the POI selection. It also shows up in the "Trade station" as a selectable option.

Good, but it might be good to add a "fail safe", when respawning in the current sector, there is an option to jump back -1 level.

So if the player decides it's impossible, there is an option to go -1 level, die there too, and again get an option to go back -1 level (total -2 levels now).

I stayed a bit, & clicked asteroids until I got full fuel, then I pressed the "Escape" button, I noticed the gear was gone when I loaded into the next map, not sure if that happened before then, but I don't think so.

I assume that's what we are supposed to do?
It's not something like if we stay long enough something happens or we get to leave automatically (like, we drive out from the debris field or so?)

Fun loadout:
Homing + Split + Piercing

A solution is that you respawn at (current_sector -1) (or -2 ?), so even though you die several times, EVENTUALLY you will reach a sector that is a suitable strength for your survival.
OR that we can just choose where to respawn in a respawn-menu.

I noticed a bug in the sound, it might just be my old computer, the sound starts cracking, especially the music is noticeable, it would be nice with a sound-option to turn off the music then.

Yeah, it's boring to wait for shields to recharge from 20 to 300+ without anything to do :(

I traveled to a "?" destination (fuel asteroids I believe?), after leaving the system ALL my gear got deleted.
That is unforgivable!
There should be a warning that this will/might happen (unless it's a bug?) so I can make an informed decision to jump there.
If like 1 or 2, or like up to 10% of the gears get deleted, yeah that sucks, but it is still playable (unless a critical component in the build gets deleted), but loosing EVERYTHING that just SUCKS.
This time it was not an instant game-over because I hadn't progressed far enough to get trapped, but it COULD be & that's no fun at all.

I'm stuck in a death-loop in sector 11, I could survive up to there wile I had all my gear, but after dying & respawning with no gear & 5-8 enemies at all travel points I'm stuck (I might be able to kill up to 3 enemies with the basic gun), I can't even reach enough nodes to rebuild my strength.
Why can't I retreat to earlier levels, or start at a lower level, where I can actually have a chance to survive?
This REALLY SUCKS! It's a fun game, but THIS is the opposite of fun.

Maybe some micro-gravity fields around (some?) asteroids could spice up the game a bit?
Maybe you could land on an asteroid and mine it manually?

I LOVE the movement system, you can make so much more complex moves, than compared to mouse controls or WASD controls.

I would appreciate a larger fuel tank, so I can go on really long missions (yes, you can glide & go almost infinite, but fine controls require more fuel), but an upgrade system can easily solve this.

I like the calmness of not having to shoot hostile aliens all the time, like almost all other space games.

How do I dock with the space station?
(add that to the game description)
I tried landing on the + mark, but just "bonked" into the station.

I also tried docking in the underside port on the left side of the station, but again just "bonked" it, even though I lined it up.

Scrolling doesn't work in Firefox.

Can we have an earlier tiny version of the "Big Slitter/merger"?
Just 3 studs.
Splitter: In > Out > Out
Merger: Out > In > In
................#1 > #2 > #3

(The #2 position has higher priority than the #3 position, just like the Big versions)

This would allow us to construct overflow systems MUCH more compactly, without having to stack a LOT of merger/splitters just to get a 1/64 chance (or whatever) to go into the desired machine instead of being destroyed.
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Alternatively (end-game item?), make the Splitter/merger block themselves be modular, so you can just "hook on" more "generic input" or "generic output" (1x1 blocks) to a "core block" and the splitters/mergers can then be both any size and any shape, with any amount of inputs & outputs (as long as they are added to the correct side of the "core block"), like:
In > In > in > (Core) > Out > Out > Out > Out
Maybe call it a "shift block" or something?

There is no delete... (for machines)

Right click to move items, BUT inventories gets deleted when you move it, so you need to send it to some kind of storage or consumer machine, if you want to keep the items.

If anyone have suggestions for other games with "multi frequency cables", 
please post those suggestions here, for inspiration.

Idea. (partially inspired by: PainBaller's comment)
To make it easier to move multiple connections at the same time

On the (left?) side of the screen, there cold be temporary connection points (like 10+ points? up-gradable?), like the Big Merger/Splitters, where you could hook up several connections to (with some kind of marker icon, or a hover-preview of the machine it is connected to?), then you can move to the other side of the map, or wherever, and un-hook those connections to grab the connection-thread so you can attach it to the actual destination.

In that way, you can bring over maybe 10+ connections in one go, instead of making 10(x2) trips (back & forth) to do the same work.

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Maybe some kind of "multi line" connection (similar to "Oxygen Not Included"s "Automation Ribbon" that can carry multiple signals in the same wire), just so it is easier to organize a "main buss" of resources across the map, without it looking like a drugged spider has been puking webs all over the place.

I consider that to be a bug.
There is no reason why an inventory should be deleted just because you moved it.
And it makes it annoying to move around storages with valuable items, because you need to drain them to another storage (that you need to buy an excess of) just to be able to safely move the original storage.
It is just super inconvenient.