How is Void Crew for Solo Play? Is it Worth it Alone?

[OwOGamewGiwlOwO]

I'm considering buying Void Crew, but I’ll mostly be playing solo. I know it's designed for co-op, but I’d love to hear from players who have tried it solo. How manageable is it alone? Are there any features that support single-player gameplay, like AI crew or auto-turrets?

Also, is the solo experience fun, or does it get tedious without a full crew? I'd appreciate any tips or thoughts on the single-player experience. Thanks!

[Zaidah]

There is a ship, the "Lone sentry", that is designed for solo play. It comes with 2 B.R.A.I.N turrets (shoot on there own on alerted enemies, and shoot/prioritize targets that you ping) and a relic that lower the energy requirement for B.R.A.I.N module (only when solo), allowing you to keep every module online without energy overdraw.

You will be piloting for the vast majority of the time, dodging enemies and giving angle for your turrets, and occasionnaly get out of the helm when it's calm to retrieve items, repair, charge boosters or go outside the ship to get some loot from a structure.

The enemy spawn is adjusted with the number of player in the game (lesser and less difficult enemies with fewer player).

I would say it's okay if you enjoy piloting, but it has it's limits. For instance, there are different types of mission, and some of them need you to get out of the ship to do the objective : doing so is very dangerous as you might get attacked by enemies that spawn/patrol nearby, or damaged by some environnmental hazard. Since you would be outside the ship, you can't move the ship to avoid/dodge these threats when they come. In the end, you will mostly select missions that don't need you to get out of the ship (or for a short time).

It also requires more skill that having a full crew, since some situations are harder to resolve alone as you need to leave the helm to fix them. You won't be able to go as far alone than with a (semi-competent) crew. It's a game that's definitely more enjoyable with other players or friends, both for being able to keep going further, and enjoying the "feel" of the ship handling threats thanks to the common efforts of your crew.

A good thing is coming with the next update regarding solo, which is a B.R.A.I.N engineer that help in several ways (like repairing the ship or recharging booster), although it can only do one function at a time until you change it.

[Varitus]

Atm very iffy for solo. When you go into a mission some weird timer pops up and by the end of it - huge ship reclaimer will show up and you're as good as dead. If u're new and no idea what's going on what to do - u're out of luck. Hopefully when 1.0 comes out there will be a modifier to turn off that crap and just let me do damn mission. Recommend to wait with buying if u want to experience this solo.

[DarthDan]

Yes, unfortunately the game isn't really playable solo in its current state. Several mission types are just not feasible to complete solo. In particular, 2 of the 3 bosses are close to impossible to beat solo. The fire boss, for instance- you *must* dodge the bosses' attacks or you die, but you also *must* repeatedly overcharge the life support or you die. This requires a minimum of 2 players, and I don't see how a solo player could beat the fight.

[[HUTLIHUT] Tomasz]

Originally posted by DarthDan:

Yes, unfortunately the game isn't really playable solo in its current state. Several mission types are just not feasible to complete solo. In particular, 2 of the 3 bosses are close to impossible to beat solo. The fire boss, for instance- you *must* dodge the bosses' attacks or you die, but you also *must* repeatedly overcharge the life support or you die. This requires a minimum of 2 players, and I don't see how a solo player could beat the fight.

You can approach the Fire encounter solo in many ways.
Eg. Installing the Life Support module and chilling the ship when needed (especially with enhancing the module), pre-chilling the ship before you start the encounter (either with Life Support module or by venting your ship), using Helm Cruise so the ship moves around the boss and dodges the attacks (while you do the ship maintenance or even help BRAINS in providing more damage output).
The encounter doesn't start until you the boss is aggroed - which happens only after you move close to it or attack it first (like, with some high range weapon).
You could also spawn in reinforcements.
Additionally, in 1.0 there's another BRAIN helping you with the engineering tasks.

Originally posted by Varitus:

Atm very iffy for solo. When you go into a mission some weird timer pops up and by the end of it - huge ship reclaimer will show up and you're as good as dead. If u're new and no idea what's going on what to do - u're out of luck. Hopefully when 1.0 comes out there will be a modifier to turn off that crap and just let me do damn mission. Recommend to wait with buying if u want to experience this solo.

The Reclaimer is alerted when you attack the enemies. If you need more time to do the ship maintenance, explore or loot the neutral bases/wrecks, it's best to do it before you engage in combat.

[Icesmasher11]

TLDR; I enjoy the solo play, there are some limitations, but they all appear to be addressed with the 1.0 release and having a unique character build in the game (there's four classes and you can mix and match upgrades to create a hybrid class). The game is more challenging solo, although after playing a few matches solo, I still find it to be at a relaxing and non-stressful level once I adjusted to it. Below is a more in depth description, some of my personal strategies, and the build I find most reliable in solo play.

Personally I really enjoy the solo play, but there definitely are a lot of limitations. I feel like in 1.0 a lot of these concerns will be addressed, as one of the main concerns is the inability to craft the ship system upgrader without a max level engineer and another being the Frost Mother being a really frustrating boss, which I believe they said they are actively working on improving that boss for solo play. I've tested out a build that makes solo play feel really nice, but it misses the ability to craft a ship system upgrader. However, after 1.0's release on November 25th, all classes will be able to craft that, fixing the one limitation I feel that build currently has. The introduction of the engineering automatic module as well from what I have heard will vastly improve solo play as well and make it a lot more enjoyable.

The build is: One level into Scavenger to get the Grappling Hook (for the missions where you have to leave the ship, leaving it unable to dodge although it can still shoot due to auto turrets, and to move around the ship faster for repairs and other stuff), enough levels into Gunner to unlock the ability to craft Mark 2 and Mark 3 weapon upgrades, and then the remaining ~15 points into movement speeds buffs on the Pilot class. This build makes the missions where you have to leave the ship feel doable, and reliably gives you access to enough damage and upgrades to complete all missions. Otherwise, you're at the mercy of RNG drops for weapon upgrades which before making this build, I would only consistently get about 1/3 of the time.

In response to the other post about the fire boss, the Flame Matriarch, being frustrating solo I've also made a decent strategy for it where it lets me get out of the boss fight with only 3-7% damage. Summon a single escort ship (or two escort ships, more is useless on this boss from my experience). This is because the boss will spawn turret nodes that can do a decent bit of damage, but if you have escorts they will target the escorts instead of you ~40% of the time. Kill the turrets during this time, while also doing damage to the boss. Always move as close to perpendicular to the boss as possible, it allows you to dodge the flame attack a lot more consistently. Once you hit the third boss phase (it goes purple and has an invulnerability window), always use a thruster boost charge on each laser shot, and drift your ship to face the Flame Matriarch once your front half is out (so your back half gets out faster). Make sure you do not use any thruster booster charges until the last phase as you will consistently need at least three of the four charges, often all four. Leaving the pilots seat in this boss fight is often a death sentence unfortunately. The developer also has an interesting point about cooling the ship by venting it out, but with this strategy I rarely get hit by the fire attack and often only need to cool down the ship after the second time being hit. Still have your life support on just in case though, although I recommend just the regular one that comes with the ship and not the full on module.

As the Developer said as well, the Reclaimer comes in the moment you engage a single enemy, however you can actually get away with engaging if you kill the enemy really quickly and that timer doesn't start. Make use of the grace period when you enter a mission to do repairs outside the ship, go for secondary objectives that may have spawned, and things like that.

[Varitus]

Originally posted by HUTLIHUT Tomasz:

Originally posted by Varitus:

Atm very iffy for solo. When you go into a mission some weird timer pops up and by the end of it - huge ship reclaimer will show up and you're as good as dead. If u're new and no idea what's going on what to do - u're out of luck. Hopefully when 1.0 comes out there will be a modifier to turn off that crap and just let me do damn mission. Recommend to wait with buying if u want to experience this solo.

The Reclaimer is alerted when you attack the enemies. If you need more time to do the ship maintenance, explore or loot the neutral bases/wrecks, it's best to do it before you engage in combat.

I didn't even know there are neutral bases or wrecks. I tried solo missions cpl of times and in one that timer popped up and essentially it was over before I get the idea of what to do and in another there was nearly constant spawn of enemies and I had to get out of objective base where I need to repair stuff and turn on stuff and come back to ship to align it more with where enemies are coming so my auto turrets can do the work. I hope with 1.0 or sometimes sooner there will be some modifiers to turn some stuff off or add extra time to timers. Because as xcom 2 showed us - players sure as heck love those doom timers. Also an issue is that I don't get any exp or literally anything when I die so I can't even overlevel myself with perks and stuff through banging my head against those walls. For when u have a party it might be a stellar game, but when u're solo - it's not a very fun balanced game. Fingers crossed for 1.0 improvements!

[SeeGeeArtist]

When I tried it at launch there were no brain turrets. Tried three missions and failed em all. I'll try again, maybe they patched it.

[Sasha Mason]

Originally posted by SeeGeeArtist:

When I tried it at launch there were no brain turrets. Tried three missions and failed em all. I'll try again, maybe they patched it.

You need to specifically pick the "Lone-Sentry" loadout.
No other ship has BRAIN turrets, only Lone-Sentry does.

[Magniankh]

The brain engineer is not that good. Solo is extremely hard -- if you get bad starting missions your run will end early. As solo the brain turrets are okay, but they need to be upgraded ASAP, and the starting scoop is awful so again, it's very mission dependent in the beginning to see if your run will go well.