Info for people thinking of playing this game

[ian26uk]

OK so I was looking into this game and as a good practice I look at the discussions thread of a game to see what people are moaning about etc. I saw two threads about this being P2W and commented on those but since I have not played the game I thought just to be fair I would go and play it.
Not even got past past the 2nd sector (After the first 10 minutes or so) Why? Because I need to spend the premium currency to get some credits to buy a battleship. Yes I did all the shipments and NO I shouldn't have to use the premium currency to get credits.So basically unless I want to waste premium currency to make into credits I HAVE to wait 36 minutes until there are some new shipments to try and get the credits I need to continue with the tutorial.
People are calling this a game and telling people this is not P2W and while I might argue what classifies as P2W I can tell you this is NOT A GAME. I can not do anything for another 36 minutes unless I spend the currency that costs money. Before you fanboys say"You can use it and it will give you more for playing as rewards" That does not remove the fact I HAVE TO SPEND IT to continue to play.
No product calling itself a computer game should force you to wait 36 minutes in order to be able to do something and this is 10 minutes after starting the ♥♥♥♥♥♥ thing. Watch the fanboys reply by stating what I already said "Just use the currency it give you more later" or "Just wait and you will have enough credits in 4 hours" and not address the part where the game is FORCING and action(spending their premium currency) .
I am well aware if I just use a bit of it to get past this object I will be able to claim the tutorial reward which will replace what I use but again my point is there is NO gameplay available until I either wait hours OR I spend something that I dont want too.We all know that they give you some premium currency at the start to make it look like you are going to receive plenty and its ok to waste it but the truth is after a little while you get less and less and less until you finally hit the wall and the only way you can get more is to put your hand in your wallet.
They know all too well that by the time you get near that wall you are so used to being able to spend that currency you will convince yourself it's ok to spend a bit of money.

*Edit 4 days later after playing the game on and off due to having to wait hours for things to get done and the only thing to do while you wait is red stars which gets rather boring since its the same thing over and over.
I have played this now for 36 hours and this is the game loop:
Log in have full fuel and almost full shipments so you can do some of those until you get to about 500 fuel.
If you have enough credits buy an upgrade either research/shipyard etc.
You only have 500 fuel now so either mine some fuel in your system but I would save those for when you log out so you HAVE TO do some red stars.
SOOOOOO thats it, you either spend 15 minute in a red star mining for fuel and selling the artifacts or just wait/log off and do something else.
You do not make much credits or fuel per 15 minutes so you might have to spend 4 hours to afford the next upgrade and also since you need to upgrade planets in order to hold more fuel and credits it will take ages to get anywhere so I again would not classify this as a GAME but a time sink, something to do if you have nothing else to play.

[Steelpoint]

The main way I find to earn credits is via running red stars and salvaging the artifacts once the research station if full. Conducting shipments is more something I personally do (currently) to pass the time or when I don't have enough hydrogen to run red stars.

I was able to buy my first battleship easily without the need to spent the free premium currency I started the game with, perhaps you spent too much credits elsewhere? I can't tell.

[Chaindrop]

This is Farmville in space, a mostly idle game aside from Red, Blue, and White Star missions. I understand that some people are disappointed after playing this game, since the description in the store page fails to mention something along those lines. Devs should probably revise it a bit so that people aren't misled into thinking it's something else and leave negative reviews.

I rarely play idle clickers, but I think Hade's Star is pretty good for a game of that genre.

Another thing: There really is no sense to rush progression since mobile players already have approximately 1 year of a headstart. You'll probably have to spend thousands to get to the level of the top players, then you'll get matchmaked to players with 1 year of experience doing PVP. You probably will just get rekt if you rush things.

[ian26uk]

Yes I spent to much before the battleship but my point for people thinking of trying the game was that this is a make a move and wait game rather like playing chess via post(snail mail).
Also on all of the threads the people who love this game make the false claim that you can not just research new tech or anything like that because you need to get the materials first.....well what they dont tell you is you CAN buy the materials you need with real money and thus can buy research orbs to get blueprints.
So yes if you want to speed through the game you can spend cash and you do not need to wait for anything and you can buy research and then buy the modules all with cash.
Here are some examples of times you will need to wait :
36 minutes for shipments to refresh (They give you credits)
1 hour to research an orb (gives blueprints/exp/mats)
40 minutes for your first battleship to repair

So if you do not mind playing a game for 20 minutes then waiting an hour or 2 then yes play this game otherwise you will need to spend cash to bypass the wait time.

@Chaindrop If the devs change the description I think you are correct people will not leave a bad review. The game is alright but not many people like these type of part time games and they should make it clear that this is a P2R game.

[Falathras]

Ian, I understand that you think this is one of those games, but as someone who has played more than a few terrible mobile cash-grabs it is still my opinion that Hades' Star is different from and better than the type of game that you think it's just another one of.
Anyway, you clearly would hate the rest of this game because 30m to an hour is laughably short in terms of the timers that exist later in the game, so maybe it's for the best that you made your judgement so quickly.

[Watcheroo]

I recommend reading this to anyone new, so there arent suprises later
http://www.hadesstar.com/faq.html

The game wasnt designed to spend hours on it. While you can (especially while your corp is in white star), it was made for players that can only enter for 15 min every 3-4 hours. If you expected something else, then I'm sorry that this game didnt met your expectations.

Expanding Falathras post, in late game mods/planet upgrades take literally weeks. And if you want to reach next rs level, you must literally grind planet upgrades for month to reach capacity for ugprade (eg. rs9 upgrade is 4 mill :D)

[Hikkichaos]

Originally posted by Johnny Ice Cream:

in late game mods/planet upgrades take literally weeks.

Uh um... is there maybe a similar star colony development game without those timers? Not mobile-port, offline game?

[Falathras]

There are many similar games, try looking for space 4X and strategy games in general.

[Hikkichaos]

Originally posted by Falathras:

There are many similar games, try looking for space 4X and strategy games in general.

Hmm... those games seem battle-heavy. I'm looking for development and exploration gameplay.
You can't lose your home star system here.

Kind of like Star Control - but it's centered around a single ship...

[Falathras]

Well you can't go wrong with the classic, if you haven't already played it, The Ur-Quan Masters[sc2.sourceforge.net] is an amazing open-source port of SC 2 that runs perfectly on modern machines and even has the alien dialogue voicovers.
Out There is a fun resource management based space adventure that involves literally no combat, just exploration, survival and ship upgrades.
Strange Adventures in Infinite Space[www.digital-eel.com] is another older game that's since been released for free by the developer, in which a full playthrough can last 20 minutes. It involves a exploring, collecting alien artefacts and recruiting alien ships to your cause.
Also has a more modern sequel which is on Steam, Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite Space, which is also pretty good and only costs around $5.
|If you haven't already played FTL You must have been living under a rock, this game's reputation speaks for itself. It has 96% positive overall reviews on Steam.
Transcendence, a top-down space shooting game which is actually available for free from the developers website, but the Steam version includes paid expansions.
Also Starsector[fractalsoftworks.com] looks promising, but I haven't tried it yet myself.

[Hikkichaos]

Wow, thanks for those.

The Ur-Quan Masters was nice, but the global time limit was not.
FTL is on my list, just wish i could try it first.

None of them are really a "star colony development" game...
Guess i'll play some more Hades Star for now.

[Watcheroo]

@Hikkichaos I wrote that because not everyone (similar to OP) may be aware of how long things takes. If waiting hours for new shipments is too long for him, then this game is really not for him.

[Hikkichaos]

Originally posted by Johnny Ice Cream:

@Hikkichaos I wrote that because not everyone (similar to OP) may be aware of how long things takes. If waiting hours for new shipments is too long for him, then this game is really not for him.

Yeah, so i was wondering - what game would be like Hades Star minus the timers - to play instead.

[Watcheroo]

Some kind of space rts, I don't know what titles there are, since I'm not playing them.

Hades Star is pretty unique with it's gameplay. I never met any other game with mod similar to white stars.

[Falathras]

Ah yes, I was listing games vaguely similar to Star Control (exploration and development centred), most space colony games that I know of do involve the distinct possibility that your home system can get destroyed by enemies. The vast majority of strategy games do.
Actually, if you're not adverse to mobile games (since Hades' Star is originally a mobile game), Exoplanets Online[play.google.com] is probably the most similar that I've played.
You have a home system that cannot be destroyed and there's no pressure to defend, but everywhere else in the galaxy is a full PVP area. It is a bit different from HS though, in that it's more complex in some ways and simpler in others. The combat involves less interaction, you only use activated abilities while your ships do auto-combat. However, the planetary development is very complex, involving a big resource tree with multiple buildings, resources, and different spots on the planets having different values of resources that you can gather at different rates.
It's a still a bit rougher around the edges than Hades' Star though, maybe a bit earlier in development and still has a very small player-base. There is waiting in Exoplanets, but the maximum offline progress time is 15 minutes, so you can pay it a lot more attention than Hades' Star requires for optimal progress.

[Hikkichaos]

Exoplanets looks interesting.
Would be nice to have it on steam - i don't have any decent android device and don't like playing on tiny screen anyway.

Sorry to have taken so much of your time.