Astronomics

I've been using Steam for 17 years and have tried a lot of Early Access games. Some EA games have been good, some of have been mediocre, and some have been failures. Astronomics is off to a very good start. It is not a run and gun game and the combat with pirates is not polished but manageable. The resource management and tech upgrades make you think, plan, and set priorities. If the devs made it easier it would be boring. Overall, I think the balance of the game play is reasonable and sufficiently challenging to be interesting w/o being frustrating. The devs are being responsive to problems and concerns raised by the players and that gives me hope that they will complete a polished game.

simple but fun

I can't stop mining asteroids for my Earth overlords, addictive gameplay loop

At the current stage its just funny to learn game's mechanics. Like "light" automation and you are not building huge factory, but do it every time an small scale, on asteroids. Good! But overvall, progression sucks, and too grindy. There are many useless steps that annoy very fast (like moving between stations to sell resourses on the right one).

it's great

This is a good roguelike exploration game with asteroids. [spoiler] I really enjoy the introduction of Fragile crystals to the automation genre[/spoiler]. The automation is basic but works well. There is room for the gameplay to grow and there are locked placeholders for future features within the game, so I'm looking forward to trying the game again in a year or so. In the meantime, I think the developer(s) should reduce the grind slightly; and I would prefer to unlock speed/automation improvements; avoid claim times longer than 20-30 minutes on asteroids; finally, maybe give us a reason to go back to the starter asteroids?

It is a very fun factory game.

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6.5/10 as of right now, so "recommended" for EA with the hope of improvement. * Exploration and mining mechanics are fun and satisfying. * Identical space stations feel like a missed opportunity to capitalize on the humor and writing style present in the opening sequence. * Progression could use some tuning and less grinding (maybe smaller sub-quests while grinding towards the main one?) * Some QoL improvements are needed for manufacturing and tracking of materials, it's a bit annoying to keep track of what needs what. * Combat is ... unnecessary? Piracy feels like an annoying distraction from the core gameplay more than anything else.

A slow grind for the name of the corapration but a good game play loop.