Today, I'll be talking about Avorion- essentially, a game set in space in which you can build a ship, fight pirates (or be a pirate), mine for resources and explore.
I first found out about this game some time ago. It's quite reminiscent of Starmade, but with a much more simplified building system, and more of a story. At the time, I was really excited to play it, but didn't have the money. By the time I got around to buying it, I'd lost interest, and didn't touch it for a few months. I just played it today, and honestly it is quite fun. I've already played for around 5 hours, according to Steam.
The game, in theory, isn't too complicated- you mine asteroids for resources (starting with iron, then titanium, then later some fictional elements), and use them to build a ship. It's not super complex- you need thrusters, crew quarters, cargo containers, etc., but unlike Space Engineers, you don't need to connect them with any sort of pipes or anything. You gather guns as you kill pirates (or, should you choose, merchants and cargo ships), which all have different stats such as damage, fire rate, range and accuracy, not unlike items in certain RPGs.
There are some bits that take some learning though. The game has an upgrade system, of sorts- you need a certain size of ship in order to install upgrades, which can do anything from increasing the number of weapons you can use to increasing the range of the warp drive. That system didn't take too long to figure out, but it's only one of many. I still don't know entirely how trading works (I assume it's like Warband, though I've yet to try it), and I don't fully understand what half of the upgrades I have do yet.
I haven't gotten far in the game yet, honestly. I've reached the point where my ship is fully titanium, with around 7 guns and 4 mining lasers (which seems good enough to beat most pirates), but I did run into one big problem. While mining an asteroid, I pushed the spacebar in an attempt to move up (a Space Engineers habit, presumably). Unfortunately, Avorion's controls are different (Z is up, X is down) so pushing space causes the player to rapidly accelerate forwards- or in my case, directly into the asteroid I was mining, which quickly broke my ship. I did then rebuild it, and I should be able to recover without problems, but I checked the time and realised I have to write this post and get to bed, so I can't continue tonight.
Anyways, that's gonna be it for today- hopefully you enjoyed this post!
