Similarities to Pulsar: Lost Colony?

[Garick]

I know info is scarce, but Pulsar is a big hit among my friends. This looks like it carries a lot of that mechanical flavour but its hard to tell exactly where the similarities are expected to end.

- The store page mentions players having 'roles'. Are these completely distinct ship position and do these roles come with unique abilities/bonuses? Can crew members level up as individuals to gain more role specific benefits?
- Will ships only have weapons non-pilot positions can fire (only manned turrets)? Will there be a big 'main gun' or are all weapon emplacements expect to just be simple small turrets?
- Will there be different ships to start with or acquire?
- Will there be Boarding actions (offensive and defensive) and the ability to steal an enemy ship?
- Can all the ships systems be modified: different reactors, shield configurations, weapons, sensors etc?
- Will there be factions you can gain/lose rep with that provide missions and special gear?

Everything I've seen so far looks great, I'm especially happy to see the six degrees of freedom as any 'spaceship' game that misses this is an automatic failure for me. Will be keeping a close eye on this as it develops!

[Vale]

Pulsar is such a great game. I hope that this game takes a lot from it.

One thing needed is HOSAS / HOTAS support for the pilot role!

[VelxraTV]

This thread is the main interest/draw factor for me. If this is a true exploration game that will be supported for many years to come. Then Im on board for it.

[Cy]

After going through all available materials (which isn't much) it seems to be an attempt at remaking PULSAR: Lost Colony indeed, which I still find superior exactly due to simplistic graphics and focus on gameplay / lore (+the community came up with some pretty awesome mods). Simplifying game mechanics and improving graphics is not what this genre needs.

I loved sitting in VR with my HOTAS and talking smack with friends in PULSAR. Time to go see if they want to get back to the game, because I still have the main mission to finish.

[PovKetz]

Originally posted by Cy:

After going through all available materials (which isn't much) it seems to be an attempt at remaking PULSAR: Lost Colony indeed, which I still find superior exactly due to simplistic graphics and focus on gameplay / lore (+the community came up with some pretty awesome mods). Simplifying game mechanics and improving graphics is not what this genre needs.

I loved sitting in VR with my HOTAS and talking smack with friends in PULSAR. Time to go see if they want to get back to the game, because I still have the main mission to finish.

An excellent, and honestly probably the best place to find all the current known information on the game would be this Spreed Sheet! (Or joining the Discord) In particular the FAQ section which simply lists the devs answers to an assortment of questions.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1DJe9sg8MggeJV1EdYDtjcIcjz0JcqsaAG7m7G_Bkoas/edit?gid=1345340522#gid=1345340522

Now I had no idea what Pulsar: Lost Colony was (Though having watched the Steam Trailer, it actually looks bangin' and I'll probably check it out) but what I can say after briefly looking at some content for it, is no. Jump Ship is not going to be similar to Pulsar: Lost Colony. A better comparison to an already released game would be Void Crew, though Jump Ship does seem to be a step up with boots on the ground combat and more ship control, but otherwise it appears these two games will play out in very similar ways.

Here's just a few of the FAQ questions and Answers to give you an idea of how the game will play out, and maybe answer a few of the questions from your post!

Will there be different classes? - No. We believe that everyone should feel empowered to do flying, repairs, saving their friends etc, without limits. However, we are going to have different suits/gear that will give your character a slight boost doing certain tasks, such as perhaps carrying more ammo, handling radiation better or being able to collect more materia (resources). But these will not have a big impact on gameplay to the point where you need to spec your crew a certain way, it's more flavor.

How do you describe the complexity of the game ? - "We make a lot of effort making it easy to just pick up and play. It's should be easy for someone who's comfortable playing a first person shooter.
We want have very standard conventions (WASD / space / mouse), having the ship easy to control, have the goal ""what do you do"" rather than ""how do we do"".
He do have more complex stuff as Sea of Thieve but it's not a simulation as star citizen."

How the fly system work? Can u fly out of the planet ? - "You cannot fly out from the ""planet"". You are restricted to a ""gamplay bubble"" of about 5-10 km (no open world).
You jump in between bubbles using your Jumpdrive (TM)!
Each bubble of gameplay (Or ""destination"" as we call them internally) can be differerent to each other. In one location you land and fight on ground on a desert planet while the next destination can take you to an asteroid field in space for instance.
The destination could be in space (asteroid/structure) or near the surface of a planet. You will not be able to enter and exit the atmosphere.
(see screenshots)"

How the mission work ? - You have one overarching goal, but on your path to reaching the end challenge you will do a bunch of jumps. With each destination you will be presented a unique challenge to complete and rewards.

Can I board enemy ships ? - "You will be able to chase after ships, grapple onto them and take them down as well!
Some large ones have interiors. Most of them dont.
You can get on board them and destroy them. We put loot on some of the larger ones ^^"

TL;DR The game is aimed at a much wider audience than something like Pulsar: Lost Colony, with instance to instance gameplay and a mostly linear mission structure. With very little complex gameplay elements. Which on the one hand might be unfortunate for some, but on the other does mean the game will be more accessible

[Garick]

Originally posted by PovKetz:

Originally posted by Cy:

After going through all available materials (which isn't much) it seems to be an attempt at remaking PULSAR: Lost Colony indeed, which I still find superior exactly due to simplistic graphics and focus on gameplay / lore (+the community came up with some pretty awesome mods). Simplifying game mechanics and improving graphics is not what this genre needs.

I loved sitting in VR with my HOTAS and talking smack with friends in PULSAR. Time to go see if they want to get back to the game, because I still have the main mission to finish.

An excellent, and honestly probably the best place to find all the current known information on the game would be this Spreed Sheet! (Or joining the Discord) In particular the FAQ section which simply lists the devs answers to an assortment of questions.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1DJe9sg8MggeJV1EdYDtjcIcjz0JcqsaAG7m7G_Bkoas/edit?gid=1345340522#gid=1345340522

Now I had no idea what Pulsar: Lost Colony was (Though having watched the Steam Trailer, it actually looks bangin' and I'll probably check it out) but what I can say after briefly looking at some content for it, is no. Jump Ship is not going to be similar to Pulsar: Lost Colony. A better comparison to an already released game would be Void Crew, though Jump Ship does seem to be a step up with boots on the ground combat and more ship control, but otherwise it appears these two games will play out in very similar ways.

Here's just a few of the FAQ questions and Answers to give you an idea of how the game will play out, and maybe answer a few of the questions from your post!

Will there be different classes? - No. We believe that everyone should feel empowered to do flying, repairs, saving their friends etc, without limits. However, we are going to have different suits/gear that will give your character a slight boost doing certain tasks, such as perhaps carrying more ammo, handling radiation better or being able to collect more materia (resources). But these will not have a big impact on gameplay to the point where you need to spec your crew a certain way, it's more flavor.

How do you describe the complexity of the game ? - "We make a lot of effort making it easy to just pick up and play. It's should be easy for someone who's comfortable playing a first person shooter.
We want have very standard conventions (WASD / space / mouse), having the ship easy to control, have the goal ""what do you do"" rather than ""how do we do"".
He do have more complex stuff as Sea of Thieve but it's not a simulation as star citizen."

How the fly system work? Can u fly out of the planet ? - "You cannot fly out from the ""planet"". You are restricted to a ""gamplay bubble"" of about 5-10 km (no open world).
You jump in between bubbles using your Jumpdrive (TM)!
Each bubble of gameplay (Or ""destination"" as we call them internally) can be differerent to each other. In one location you land and fight on ground on a desert planet while the next destination can take you to an asteroid field in space for instance.
The destination could be in space (asteroid/structure) or near the surface of a planet. You will not be able to enter and exit the atmosphere.
(see screenshots)"

How the mission work ? - You have one overarching goal, but on your path to reaching the end challenge you will do a bunch of jumps. With each destination you will be presented a unique challenge to complete and rewards.

Can I board enemy ships ? - "You will be able to chase after ships, grapple onto them and take them down as well!
Some large ones have interiors. Most of them dont.
You can get on board them and destroy them. We put loot on some of the larger ones ^^"

TL;DR The game is aimed at a much wider audience than something like Pulsar: Lost Colony, with instance to instance gameplay and a mostly linear mission structure. With very little complex gameplay elements. Which on the one hand might be unfortunate for some, but on the other does mean the game will be more accessible

I'd really recommend you give Pulsar Lost Colony a go, it's a really fun game and earnestly it only becomes complicated if every player tries to do everything. If you stick to your primary role on the ship you only have to manage a few things and communicate with each other. Game even has tutorials to teach you the specifics of a particular roles job. You can easily WASD + mouse your way through every role, though engineers and scientists will find some additional tricks if they dig into the ship terminals a bit. I'd recommend playing with at least 2 other humans, the bots can do a decent job of covering their roles but crew communication and the shared experience is the best part.

Overall the spreadsheet seems to say yes to a lot of what I asked - there are offensive and defensive boarding actions, there's no 'skill point' system but it sounds like gear is how crew members form role specialisations, the ships weapons and components can be swapped and there are various ship types you can get access to (though sounds like you can't pirate ships from the enemy - one of the cooler things Pulsar lets you do). The overall gameplay loop (many submissions as you progress to a larger goal - sounds close to Pulsar's design, though it sounds like you have a lot less autonomy in plotting the path from start to finish.

I'm excited to see how this develops!

[The Spoon God]

Judging from the answers posted, this will be nothing like pulsar and the linear element of the game turns me off heavily. Unfortunate, but I do wish the game and developers the best. Maybe I'll keep an eye on it, but I was praying this would be a far more open-ended experience akin to Pulsar.. shame.

[ULTRA]

PULSAR is a good-bad/bad-good game. Some of those planets are gd ridiculous (does anyone enjoy exploring Cornelia Station for quest NPCs?), the AI frequently goes braindead even if you script it flawlessly and the ground combat is just embarrassing. Overall after a bajillion years it feels like a decent prototype of this "crew game" awaiting proper development which we can only pray is what Jump Ship will add.

[The Spoon God]

I dunno. The biggest part about Pulsar was the absolute freedom you had, as well the randomly generated bits of it such as re-exploring sectors for combat or getting new loot.

For me, personally, if Jump Ship doesn't have that random-ish sandbox factor in it, it isn't what I'm looking for.