Picked this up today; some first impression thoughts

[nmykita]

I was intrigued by this game when I looked at the screencaps and saw several reviews describe it as "Oregon Trail in Space". I like the monochrome green graphics harkening back to the early computer days, and the 8-bit sounds complement the feeling nicely. In terms of gameplay, I like the concept, but I feel there's a bit more polish needed to really make this great.

For one thing, something needs to be done about all the "dead space" the game has. There can be long stretches where literally nothing of consequence is happening. I understand that the Starbase Mars minigame can alleviate that, but it still doesn't do enough to counter the bouts of boredom I get waiting for things to happen. I would either like events to be more frequent, or for travel time to move faster. It feels like it takes 30 minutes just to get halfway to Mars, let alone cover the whole distance.

Speaking of which, and I think others have mentioned this, there needs to be some sort of save feature. I appreciate the checkpoint when you get halfway, but it still forces me to complete the run in one sitting, which I won't always have time for. I'd like to be able to walk away and pick things up at a later time if necessary.

Also, it feels like there is little to no in-game feedback on anything. If I'm not dodging asteroids, I'm basically watching the ship odometer tell me how far away from Earth I am, and nothing else. There's nothing to show me the health of my crew, just how many are still alive. When I have choices to make, either affecting crew members or ship repairs, I'd like to know more about the cost involved. If I want to repair something, the game should say how many resources are needed or used, without me having to click over to the supply menu and remind myself how many I started with versus what I now have. If a crew member is sick and I just tell them to lie down, will that be better than sending them to sickbay? For instance, I had a crew member irradiated by solar flares once, and I sent them to sickbay for treatment. It turns out they ended up dying, but the game never told me that. I only realized it 20 minutes later when it said I had 3 members left out of 4. In the Oregon Trail, you got feedback for your choices. Here, you get almost none of that.

I don't want this to sound like I'm trashing the game, because I do like the concept and there's a TON of potential here. It has the elements of a fun simulation going for it, but it needs a little bit of a push to really be great.

[GM-X]

Thank you for the feedback.

Crew status is the next big feature for the game. We are still working out how detailed this feature will become. While "Fog of War" is not something we want to entirely dispense with, crew death from radiation currently provides no notification.

We also agree that the "crafting" elements to repairs could be more up front. The number of parts required varies based on skill checks but this could definitely be more concise.

To be clear, we plan to update and expand Mars 2030 regularly throughout 2016 and beyond.

[JamieTheD]

Sorry, but this is seeming an increasingly empty promise, considering what it entails, and when it was first raised. Two months ago: http://steamcommunity.com/app/416070/discussions/0/458606248639843612/

It's... Really not that hard to implement, and I honestly don't know *why* it wasn't implemented, because it's:-

1) Define keypress or mouse-loc for crew info (Possibly a "4" on the ship status screen?)
2) Show dem variables, using the same UI code as the ship info screen (Which is why I mentioned a 4 on the ship screen... Same area of code, too!)
3) ????
4) Profit!

It's... Genuinely baffling, because the variables are already there, and being called. As it is, you've called release, and... I've not seen that much improvement. Nmykita is quite correct in that there's very little feedback (What, precisely does an auto-nav virus do? It had no immediately visible effect. And no, don't tell me, because the *issue* is that the crew [game] knows, and I [the commander] don't), and that's a *big* issue in a game which is basically Oregon Trail (Risk management over a long journey.)

[GM-X]

Hi JamieTheD,

Since we pinned your post there have been 4 updates to Mars 2030. These were each critical to making the game run smoothly under every condition. Also an important step in rendering crew status accurately.

As it stands now, we seem to have eliminated all game breaking bugs. That is a big deal.

While we could add a basic crew status window pretty quickly, a better idea has come up that will take longer to implement. We think it will be worth the wait.

The lack of documentation, like what Auto-Nav viruses do and why failed repairs are un-fixable, is another important issue we will address.

For the record, a blinking light on your Auto-Nav means you are gradually going off course. It will also cause you to fail to enter the orbit of Mars if you happen to be close to the planet when it strikes.

GM-X