Recent reviews by Clem

I don't write reviews often, but I figured I would for this game since I've been enjoying it thus far.

First: Some tips for newer players about things that aren't told to you.

You can easily get lumber for storage containers by using power to collect from trees in the field. When the tree is destroyed, it drops lumber for you to pick up. With the materials provided by the trees, you can convert it to power within your base. The small generator will turn 150 materials into 15 power, or you can use the core tower to turn 300 into 30. Wrecks actually provide more energy than what they cost to harvest, so you can keep going if you find them.

Don't write off Command Mode (the RTS mode) while playing. I did at first, and kept running all the way back to base to convert materials into power or ammo boxes. By turning on command mode for a brief moment, you can do this anywhere on the map by clicking on the specific part (such as the small generator) and converting materials to power that way, as an example.

When modifying your Outpost at base, you can select the turrets and modify them to select/prioritize specific targets, and increase/decrease their attack range. This can save you a lot of ammo for certain weapons, such as 30mm cannons, to keep them from attacking small/medium targets, and having them focus units like the tanks. This can also be done in the field through command mode, and is useful when setting up defensive lines on Recovery Day.

It's good to boost your field with more generators in your base. It makes passively collecting resources easier when out in the field, because your base will harvest whatever is inside the field over time so you can focus on gathering loot and converting materials when needed through command mode.

With those tips out of the way:

I really enjoy the game overall. I've only played solo. I haven't had any crashes, and few bugs. The biggest bug that happened to me was returning to base after a recovery day, and being unable to exit/teleport in the base map. After exiting to main menu and reloading, everything was working again.

Pros for me:
I enjoy relaxing and gathering loot. Even with a lot of enemies on the map, I've rarely had to engage directly with them. Sometimes I've done so just to build up damage stacks from certain buffs.

I enjoy building my outpost and modifying it. It really feels like a safe point when I need it to be, and I'm glad there's a lot of options for modification later on.

The tower defense portion is fun. I lost several times in it during the snow stages, and it somewhat hurt losing many of the resources I collected, but I bounced back and now it's become much easier after learning how to deal with the enemies.

Neutral for me:
The story isn't anything great, but also not bad. This also goes for the voice acting. I've treated it much like Earth Defense Forces stuff when it comes to this, so it doesn't really bother me either way.

Cons for me:
I wish there were more options for interacting with characters in the base. Much could be done to vastly improve how the various characters feel, so they don't feel as lifeless standing in one spot after their introduction.

It would be nice if you could take some of your recruited troops with you into the field, rather than have them only take part in off screen missions or boosting tech research, etc. Aside from basic orders like what guardians are capable of, perhaps they could also be ordered to search areas for loot and so forth.

All in all, with the updates the devs have been providing, I am looking forward to what the future holds for this game.

I've played the gamer on and off since early on. It's been decent, and at first I thought that the tail rewards made it largely pay to win, but having gotten farther along, I noticed that the rewards from the tails are pretty insignificant when compared to rewind rewards.

Their expansion just dropped, and am still learning about the new stuff, but I've been enjoying the game enough with minimal spending. They have added more things though, like battle pass that so many games have been going for these days, that I'm unsure about just yet.

They also finally added up merc quality upgrading, which is great, along with skill upgrading. I'm wondering how that might change things up. Hopefully heroes that weren't very good or used much before will have some amount of chance now.

We'll see how it turns out for now, but if you do enjoy idle games, then you may as well give this one a try.

Already much better than the En Masse version. Most of the stuff you can buy in cash shop can be farmed for end game, whether through the colored orbs you can use to buy the things from NPCs with, or with gold from other players. (Including costumes.)

PvP is also NOT gear dependent. Players stats are normalized for it, so you don't need to worry about someone having way higher gear than you dominating you. Although there certainly are classes that are better in PvP than others.

I first bought this game when it became available. I played around 41 hours then. Recently came back and have put in about 44 hours now.

Back when the game first came out, it involved many of the survival aspects that other games had. Such as hunger, being too hot/cold, certain creatures coming out at night, and so forth. To progress, you would mine down into the ground of the planet, gather materials you needed to craft a certain object, and summon a boss with said object which would give you an item to progress to the next "tier". The next tier would provide you with better crafting options in armor and weapons, which would require higher tiered ore, which in turn would usually require going to a more dangerous planet. All of this involved the survival mechanics as well. Dig too far down into a planet, and it would become so cold that it'd begin to affect you, so you may need heat to survive. If you died, you lose all your items... I think. It's been so lnog since I played back then.

Now things have changed. Currently there are three difficulty levels. Casual, you lose 30% of your currency when you die, called pixels. That's it. The next up in difficulty makes you drop all your items when death comes for you. Then the last, Hardcore, makes it so that once you die... your character stays dead. Keep in mind, that many of the survival aspects were removed. You no longer get hungry, food slowly regens hp when eaten. There is no longer a hot/cold gauge when mining down into the depths. Day/Night doesn't matter creature wise, aside from being harder to see without sufficient light sources.

Keep in mind, that the Devs have stated that the survival aspects will be returning in a "Survival" difficulty mode.

Progression is now different. I hear they are going to change it further, but for now I prefer it this way instead of the old way. Instead of building an item to summon a boss. (And cheese the boss, by simply placing dirt in a way that makes you untouchable while being able to kill it), you are now given a mission in some form. These missions will bring you to a dungeon that's preset, and you aren't able to simply mine and tunnel your way through them. At the end of the mission, you fight a boss, and are usually given knowledge of some kind. Usually to reach the next tier of technology. Before any of this happens, of course, you have to repair your ship using the resources from the first planet you are stranded on. This serves as a way to ease someone who may have never played into the game, as it explains some of the mechanics through quests.

Ther are some other things you can currently do. Like creating your own village/city and populating it with tenants, who will pay you with rent in some fashion. They also provide randomly generated quests, which at least gives something to do once you hit the final tier level... aside from ransacking outposts for materials and objects you want in order to expand your colony. Which reminds me, the "mini-dungeons" can't be ransacked and mined apart until you fight through their guards/puzzles and destroy the shield generator that's protecting it. This can add some variety when jumping around planets and searching for things you may want.

In closing, I've read about the planned changes coming up in the release of Starbound with version 1.0. I'm honestly excited for it. Since the full story is going to be available, I'm probably going to delete my older character and start fresh. I hope you have as much fun in the stars as I have! Remember, the adventure is what you make of it.