There is something simply addictive about designing your own spaceship and then mining asteroids for resources for hours on end. Starminer has recently entered early access. It scratches that itch for space mining and building things that other games don’t.
Starminer won’t be for everyone as it’s a bit more of a complex space game than many gamers are use to. While the game has an auto-pilot function that usually fails to get you anywhere. It really is all about flying around in a 3D environment and taking your time. One wrong move and you just smashed your mining laser clean off your ship into the cargo container at your station. That is, if you're lucky. When modules on ships and stations explode, they cause damage to anything around them. One wrong move and you'll lose everything. All because you were in a hurry.
In making things a little simpler, the game auto has arcade mode on over simulation for movement stabilization. Otherwise, just the simple act of flying around in a ship that is not well-balanced would be nearly impossible. Even in arcade mode, I've made some design choice mistakes in building a new ship. The entire thing starts to shake as parts hit each other. Nothing like hitting the gas to move forward in a spaceship, and the whole thing just explodes right before your eyes! Mistakes on my end have been made quite a few times. Thankfully, the game has quite a generous auto-saving feature that you can set for how frequently you want it to occur.
Starminer is one of those games where you should do the tutorials (training) before anything else. Lots of players just jump into the sandbox mode or campaign and then have no clue how to collect any resources from their ship mines. Let alone doing just the basics of moving around.
Starminer, while a lot of what you do is building yourself a space station, mining ships, defense ships, and anything else you can think of needing. You need to manage your resources and keep an eye out for enemies. Expand too quickly, and you suddenly find yourself without enough water or money to buy water from ally NPCs you might find. Your entire fleet dies, and you are left alone in the cold void of space.
As far as the building process itself. There are quite a few different objects to pick from. You can have cargo space for minerals, water, or parts. You can build officer quarters, refineries, and research labs. There are also building parts that expand the number of t1 slots a block has. Most things fit into a larger T2 area of a block or a smaller T1 area, depending on what type of structure you're trying to build.
All these things, however, require something to build them. You can have hangers with constructors in them or even construction towards on say a station. Early game, I had a ship with both. I then would load up some resources into it and just let it work on building the next part I'd set up on a ship or space station.
You can even save things you build as well. While I was in the tutorial. I ended up saving the hauler, miner, and some other ships. Then, later, while playing in the campaign, I just had to wait till I had all the required building blocks unlocked to drop the blueprint. Then it was simply a matter of getting all the resources to make the ship or whatever else I had a blueprint for.
There are also a lot of bonuses that go a long way. Your training research points to unlock new modules or boosts like 20% increased mining yield. You can even train up officers from tactical to science. That gives all kinds of different bonuses from the station or ship they are on, from increased mining yields to better refining efficiency. With limited officer slots, you have to pick and choose where your priorities lie.
While I've spent most of my time in the campaign, which feels far from ready. It really has not mattered much to me. I’ve spent most of my time in the starting solar system area. Trying to mine every asteroid I can find. Thankfully, it’s been quite peaceful there outside of some rather weak drones.
Most planets in each system in the game can have multiple places to visit. For doing that, you need to make and connect gates, have enough energy, or be in the right kind of ship, and use some rather expensive Eonite fuel to get around in a giant ship in the campaign known as Panonia II.
I had a feeling early on that I would want to be bringing things back to my main area. So I've put a lot of resources into building a single gate. That was not without consequences of using up a lot of Thorium, which is quite rare in the starting area. Along with cobalt, which is a bit more plentiful but needed for a lot of other things as well. Naturally, a single gate won’t get you anywhere. Even worse, I fear the thing will need power somehow as well.
It’s a good thing I've been building a couple of other ships to take with me to other areas of the solar system I'm in. As I've slowly mined out the ice for making water, and any class C asteroids I can find for things like Thorium.
While you do end up building out fleets. As it stands, each one has to be independently posited. While sometimes autopilot can help move, it’s still rather buggy. Thankfully, once you are in range of an asteroid or an enemy. As long as you have the right systems online. They will do the rest for you.
While you can be greedy and have a massive amount of mining lasers or weapons on a ship. They do require power and produce heat. Not enough power, and you will find yourself floating off into space. Make too much heat that you can't dissipate quickly enough, and everything shuts down for a short while. Finding proper balance is the way of being efficient.
Now, even when you solve all that. Have a giant asteroid-eating ship. That can eat even a massive asteroid in under a minute. You still need to collect those resources. As they get mined off the asteroid, they start drifting slowly away. They require you to have hangers and haulers to collect resources. These things require people to run. People consume water.
The only semi-good news, but it’s also a triple-edged negative. When you yourself are not in a system. That system is on pause. So, while that means the space station that is producing research is not doing so while you are off elsewhere in the galaxy. Thankfully, water is also not being consumed by ships that would be otherwise standing around doing nothing.
One massive thing that is missing is a bit more automation in Starminer. While I can’t just go command a ship to find asteroids and mine them. At least not for now, and I have no idea if that will be a feature in the future.
You can at least set up some auto trading. So, ships are offloading chunks of resources every so often. Your station is requesting water when it gets low if there is an ally station with some for sale in the same area.
While it’s quite clear Starminer is still in the early stages of early access. With a lot of bugs and feeling a bit void. For those of us who just enjoy mining for resources and building things. It’s going to keep us entertained for quite a long time. As long as the game's physics engine keeps out of our way.
Screenshots were taken, and content was written by @Enjar about Starminer.
Disclosure: This review is based on the game in early access.
