Steam Community :: Solar Expanse

Guide

Gravity Assist Contract Completion

Use this guide to assist with the completion of the gravity assist contract.

40 ratings

10

USMC

7 people found this review helpful

Not Recommended

16.1 hrs on record

Posted: October 3

Early Access Review

The underlying mechanics of this game are really good. It looks and runs great, orbital mechanics are taken seriously, and the separation between surface layers and orbital layers of planets leaves room for a lot of interesting mechanics. As far as I'm concerned this is 90% of the way to being a great game.

Unfortunately there are two main issues that just make it not very fun to play.

1) The tutorial (the entire game)

The game has a tutorial that shows you how to get started. Stuff like launch a telescope, send a rover to the moon, do the first crewed lunar landing. Each mission has a checklist you need to complete and gives you a small cash reward when you're done, and then the next one unlocks.

The problem is that this isn't just the tutorial. It is, essentially, the entire game. You keep getting told exactly what to do and exactly how to do it way past the point where you need a guide.

At one point I was getting ready to send the first humans to Mars. I had built up a lunar base that was working as a fuel depot. Then I unlock the Mars mission and whoops, the game says I have to use the big ion driven ship to get there. I don't care if that happens to be the best way to get to Mars, that's not how I wanted to do it. Now to progress I have to research and build a ship I didn't want just to complete the mission and move on.

This issue is compounded by the fact that in the early game there is no good way to make money except doing the tutorial missions. So even if I just closed the tutorial tab and played it like a sandbox, I'd just run out of money. You have to obey the tutorial to make progress.

2) Lack of automation

There's barely anything in the game that lets you automate stuff. If your colony can't be made self sufficient you have to keep track of it and manually launch resupply missions every time they're about to run out of something. You can sort of automate one way supply lines if you just want to ship a bunch of stuff from A to B, but every ship needs fuel, so that just turns the logistics problem into you constantly having to ensure that the colonies have available fuel.

So in the end instead of building a grand solar system spanning industrial chain, I would rather just keep my operation as small as possible to avoid all the hassle of having to babysit every colony. And that is a shame because it seems like the sort of thing the game could be great at. I wish I could recommend the game, but it just isn't fun to play in this state.

A developer has responded to this review

the_xarum

0

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21

0

Asteroid Ship Solar Expanse / For All Mankind

isilorente

Guide

Lift Cost Guide 1.0 (v0.26.4.x)

This Solar Expanse guide compares lift vehicles and infrastructure using extracted game data and live-tested assumptions. It shows which options are cheapest upfront, cheapest per ton, and best long-term, then explains how gravity, atmosphere, and launch i...

7

roboczar

3 people found this review helpful

Not Recommended

6.0 hrs on record

Posted: October 3

Early Access Review

Expansion to the Solar System, that's a concept easy to understand and people who are in to sci-fi, would love it.

I need, perhaps, a little background to understand where do i came from with this sadly negative review.
I love space. There isn't comunism there, there is only void and nothing. I played a lot of KSP, i've played Juno, enjoyed close to 200h of Space Engineers, X4 Foundations, i'm into warhammer, star wars and star trek. Sci-fi ou just Science is something that i'm familiar with.

What does that matter? Well, Solar Expanse is probably a game where i AM the targeted audience, and still i can't find a reason to give a thumbs up. I cannot in good conscience give a recomendation to a game where i wasn't having fun.

Why? Let me explain you.

I know, as i said, that i have a very fake understanding on how sci-fi or science stuff should work, i'm no expert or scholar, i'm just into it, and even playing in hard i couldn't find the challenge.

Don't get me wrong, the game is well though out, with intricate systems and a feeling of seriousness that only a simulation could have. It's not a strategy game, it's a simulation. But it kinda stays in an uncany valley, it tries to be complex, but not too much to stray away people, try to be detailed but not too much, and you will spend most of your time managing stuff than launching rockets. Suply chains, set alarms to launch the rocket at the right time, etc.

What is the problem? There is no difficulty, there is no challenge. A game with similar concept but with a diferent aproach is Mars Horizon, that game is a race you have your competitors, you have decisions that impacts your long run, you can suffer from bad decisions, you have... something to put up a fight.

KSP does the same thing, but the fight is against the difficulty of trying to launch a rocket.

Here? You will perhaps, if you are not paying attetion, starve for some resource, but money is a joke, you can just buy a ton, literally a ton. I played on hard difficulty, after perhaps 40min-1h, i was so resource rich and so money rich that i dind't have any competition. The game couldn't handle the good decisions that you will make.

I'm not a guy who likes to min-max games, i don't, i avoid that type of game because is boring, but here, i felt like i was breaking the game. Like in a simulation/logistics game, what is the first thing that you set up? Your resources, i did that and boom, no challenge.

I have the feeling Solar Expanse EXPECTS that you don't think or you don't know how to play and make bad decisions and suffers from some resources, but, what about the player who can and will make a good decision? Heck, not even good ones, neutral ones.

At 1h mark, where it lost me i was with a colony in the moon, setting up a colony in mars and in an asteroid. I had a mining outpost in one of the moons of jupiter, and had 3-4 vessels travelling from one asteroid to another gathering specialized resources. Besides almost 10-15 rockets travelling around, setting up network arrays and bringing resources. I had what i felt was infinte money because i could just buy anything that i needed, doesn't matter the price. My research, i let some things behind because they would became obsolet very fast, and just played normally.

You don't need strategy, you don't need to be perfect, you just play and will be rewarded.

For me this type of filosofy in a game is a cozy game, not a "sandbox" "do whaetever you want" type of game, because you don't have a challenge.

I loved the concept, i swear thats the only thing that is forcing me to give a NO, because the rest is just amazing, and i can't in good conscience lead other people who expects a challenge, who expects a game, not a visual simulation, to buy this game.

I will return in the future, i know that they are still implementing a lot of stuff and the game is in early access, But i strongly ask, revise your challenge curve, as right know seems like the game is taking a piss with me.

My review - do whatever you want, you will succed / 10

A developer has responded to this review

Makushisu

1

Guide

Как терраформировать Марс и не сойти с ума

Самый полный мануал по превращению красной пустыни в обитаемый рай.

9

Achi

Video

CONQUISTANDO MARTE, EL SUEÑO DE ELON MUSK Solar Expanse Steam

Cerberus814

Repeatable missions—very unfinished.

I want to set up a carbon supply run between Mars and Phobos, as described in the tutorial. I’ve built chemical plants and am producing enough fuel for round trips, and I’ve even calculated exactly how much fuel is required for the journey there and back. However, I can't simply tell the ship, "Take N amount of fuel to Phobos"—an amount that would be precisely enough for the return trip. I’m forced to choose between taking whatever is currently available or filling the tank completely. That seems ...

4

ZoNeSRuS

2 hours ago

General Discussions

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5

0

Moon North Pole

Big_Dave110

Video

Solar Expanse Early Access - Maximum Review - Minimum Spoilers

Kenetor

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5

4

Earth destroyed by mercurian death-ray

NeverMore

1 person found this review helpful

Recommended

81.5 hrs on record

Posted: October 2

Early Access Review

There's design choices here that I find perplexing, mostly with simplification - You have metal and you have alloys rather than a lot of sub categories for example.

Habitability parameters cause a big effect on how much supplies your people on a world consume and one of them is "19,5% oxygen mix" which you can mostly fullfill on a lot of worlds just by bringing 1 oxygen and 4 of some other gas" - This fart in a jar by itself will by itself boost most habitability calculations up above 60%

You can also fool around with building inside the orbit of the sun where really no material science we are aware of should permit anything to go without melting, so yeah, it's a gamey experience rather than a proper simulator - But it's still pretty decent fun.

There is not really any challenge to be had outside of pushing yourself to do things as fast as possible, the only risk of game over is pretty early in the game if you spend to eagerly and almost all later buildings require a LOT of resources.

Tons is a standard measurement and most buildings require a couple of hundred at most while the high-tech stuff jumps all the way up to 40-50.000 tons , which mostly takes time due to logistical limitations.

So mainly the current game is about risk managment for the first few years, completing contracts and pushing ahead - which is not really hard, the game game actually becomes harder without competing corperations since they are mostly there to pay you a lot of money for resources that they desire to build frivilous stuff, like how in 2070 I have over 1000 buildings and over 10,000 inhabitants on Mars while the other 4 corps have 5-10 people there and some 20 solar panels for space stations that they have yet to build a station for.

So if you enjoy logistics and expanding where man can set foot in implausible ways, the game is currently for you. Not sure if it will change to become more realistic in time, but it's decently fun as is.

Inforiel

0

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4

0

"Only dream I ever have is the surface of the Sun, every time I shut my eyes it's always the same"

therrio2002

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4

5

NIKE — First-Generation Nuclear Fusion Spacecraft

light7788

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3

0

First offworld market deals - just look on thouse metal prices!

Nanaki01

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3

1

Мир где роскосмос впереди всех

Iron

Guide

You're not NASA, You're a space trucking company

Most players start Solar Expanse trying to build a space empire — and go bankrupt. This guide breaks down what the game actually rewards right now: logistics. You’re not NASA. You’re a space trucking company. Learn how to: • Turn Earth into a production fe

62 ratings

19

Sajuuk's Wrath

Video

Solar Expanse #014 | Hoarding more and more metal [NO COMMENTARY]

The Curly Coder

Video

Conquer the Galaxy. Run A Space Exploration Company. Solar Expanse - Full Gameplay (Early Access)

RonEmpire

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2

SIRIUS — Second-Generation Fusion Spacecraft

light7788

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1

0

.Grem

Video

How to casually fly to Pluto? | Solar Expanse - Space Exploration Manager Gameplay | No Commentary

ferret