So...finished the game.

[Ulfsark]

That was fun. The boss battles pissed me off LOL but not in a bad way. Guided missiles and ink-farts FTW.
But, like, now what?
What WOULD be awesome, in future expansions (or even regular updates to the game) is little missions, nothing major like the main game, but side quests that are given out the various allies and Star Control base itself. I see the entire field of unexplored stars that was the Scryve empire, and i have .... no desire to explore because its gonna largely be a find resources, collect, sell resources. And for what? No ememies to fight anymore, no reason to improve my ship, not that it CAN be improved anymore ....

[GlassDeviant]

There are still a few nice items to find amid all those stars, some in the former Scryve systems and some in the remaining Scryve systems. Many of them are useful against the Harvest Cruisers.

[evilauthor]

I'd like a random mission generator, but unless there's LOTS of options at every step, every random mission is going to sound the same but for a few items, like a Madlib.

[RACE] wants you to go to [STAR SYSTEM NAME] and do [MISSION TYPE].

[Chilkoot]

CAPTAIN BARF CHUNKS wants you to go to URANUS and do CLEAN THE TOILET MISSION.

sigh. Never give your kids a book of mad libs on a long road trip.

[neuralnetwork]

Originally posted by Ulfsark:

But, like, now what?

I'm afraid not much.

Once you beat the main storyline, the game ends. The ambitious vision of "Skyrim in space" doesn't hold up. There's no side quests, different builds or stuff like that to goof around. All you can do is to grind through the galaxy to find more ruins with RU and the odd crashed ship. Maybe find a small sidequest or two among the thousands of planets. Happy hunting, eh?

You could replay the story and play as mean and black hearted as you possibly can to make Tywom cry and probably let a few races get completely obliterated due to certain events but that's it.

The base game is cool and all but nowhere near as deep and filled with stuff as the aforementioned Bethesda's masterpiece. SCO simply lacks content. Future season pass and universe creation modding support will alleviate this to some extent but right now you can play Fleet Battles or check some other game.

The problem is the multi-faceted nature of SCO. It's basically three games in one. 1) It's an adventure game 2) it's an exploration game 3) it's a combat game.

The backbone is #1. The two other elements are tied to the first one - though you can focus on the others separately. Still, as the adventure portion is the actual meat of the game, devs need to enlarge that aspect. On paper, it's easy. Just add more quests, branching storylines, more secrets, plot twists - stuff in that vein.

In action, it's harder. More adventure content means time & money, and given the ~20-30h questing content (I took 40h, taking it easy) it's not all that certain they've the resources to add massive amounts of extra story content in the updates.
On the up side, devs are apparently planning on expanding the exploration game as well. More interesting galaxy scouting and planet fun. If that'll work out, the second element of the game might keep people busy after the main story.
Combat portion is solid. It could use with a bit more expanded and polished ship designer, more guns and stuff like that but as is, it's pretty good for my liking.

I'm hopeful about the periodical content updates but we can probably expect something like double base game worth of adventuring through a year or so.
That'll mean the active playerbase will devour each mini-update popping up every few months within days and are left craving for more.

Thus, the modding support might be our salvation.

[GlassDeviant]

It would be interested if someone modded in different ways to play the game, almost like character classes. A rogue would be quicker and stealthier, not able to take a lot of damage but hitting very hard. A tank would be slower and not hit as hard but able to absorb a ton of damage. A shaman/druid/bard-like class would be able to buff themselves and nerf/debuff their enemies. SCO is pretty basic that way, but then it was never really meant to be an RPG.

[[ELR] EZKarn]

I did find the ending a tad empty to say the least. This is also why I am not currently playing it as I am waiting for more content and some player made content to come out as well. I have my own ambitions to build a universe but due to real life pressures right now I do not have the time to put into it.

[MindlessMe]

We're happy to hear you had a good time playing the game. We also appreciate the feedback you gave. I'll be sure to pass it on to the team.

[Ulfsark]

Originally posted by MindlessMe:

We're happy to hear you had a good time playing the game. We also appreciate the feedback you gave. I'll be sure to pass it on to the team.

I have to admit I hoping I'd be able to build my own ships during the campaign like I do in Gal Civ LOL. Take this weapon from this race and that weapon that that race and this engine that culture and mix'em all together in some frankenstein ship

[Hrothgar]

Originally posted by ELR EZKarn:

I did find the ending a tad empty to say the least. This is also why I am not currently playing it as I am waiting for more content and some player made content to come out as well. I have my own ambitions to build a universe but due to real life pressures right now I do not have the time to put into it.

"A tad empty?" It was abrupt and anti-climactic! It was an insult to the time spent, alliances forged, and star systems explored! It was the singular worst part of the game.

Otherwise, the Galaxy is so vast, there's a lot of content I missed. I'm playing a second run with the v1.1 beta installed. It's coming along nicely.