This is a game of a style (had I the time and the talent) I have always wanted to make. It's a very pleasant combination of genres. The closest game I can think of that would be similar is Starscape.

Shoot asteroids for resources, kill ships for xp and crew. Defeat a new type of ship and you get their blueprint. Get enough of that blueprint and you can build that ship. Blast your way through blockades, or trade and bribe your way past.

The loadout interface is surprisingly easy. It's fun experimenting with different components and weapons on different hardpoints of different hulls. Do I add a way stronger blaster and hope I don't run out of reactor power in the middle of a fight? Do I prefer speed or maneuverability? Cloak or shields? Bombs, drones, torpedoes or missiles? Tracking turrets or forward-facing sheer oomph?

The middle-end of the game gets a bit grindy, but the collector/completionist in me still has plenty to do. The developers are cool and keep adding stuff!

I bought this the day it came out. From an actual store, at full price -- I was that excited about it.

You know Theme Hospital or ...well any of the Theme or Tycoon or similar games where you build a park/zoo/airport/factory/prison or whatever? Take that, add a huge helping of James Bond (and any movie from that whole spy era) spoof, a lot of humor and plenty of developer love.

You are building an underground evil lair, and you gotta make sure your minions have facilities to work, relax, train, rest, and research. Of course you also need jails and interrogation machines for when you capture spies, and an elaborate trap system so agents and civilians don't get in, and don't forget room for a doomsday weapon.

There are a few frustrating times when unfortunate timing results in the minion that was bringing an important item back from the helipad gets attacked by Jet Chan (lol!), and then others run to get the item to be slaughtered one by one. But most of the time it is so awesome.

Starscape is a very pleasant combination of Asteroids with a plot and some other gameplay types: a bit of adventure, a bit of tactics, a lot of fun. You shoot asteroids to get resources (you need them to build parts or repair your fighter or base); all the while you're under attack by all sorts of enemy types. You can research new parts -- fighter hulls, engines, shields, weapons, batteries -- which you then need resources to build.

Time is paused while you are in your base station, so you can choose what manpower to allocate to research or building, and you can arrange parts onto fighter hulls to try new tactics. However, stuff doesn't progress until you get back out into the action. And don't take too much damage out there or you'll use up the resources you need for building new toys, and have to go get more. This is so fun!

I bought this (and Mr Robot, the other game by Moonpod) before it was available on Steam. I liked it enough that I bought it again on Steam. Nuff said.