Heathen Engineering's Terran Reviews

Wow! I'm not sure what to say about this even v. Star Citizen... nothing there as far as game play goes...

I like it, flying around in space is always fun, hopefully the game grows to its full potential, maybe not alot to do right now because it is an EAG. Definately not the worst thing ive spent 40$ on!

This is one of the worst games I've ever played. Complete waste of money. It should be withdrawn from the market until it is more than a shell of a game. The tech tree is extremely thin. Only 3 branches, and a depth of 5-10 in each of the sub elements. Dull. The ability to customise fleets is poor, limited to the balance of 6 standard ship classes from corvette to dread. No ability to customise ships, just general upgrades to attack/defence/speed/cost as one of the 3 tech tree branches. It's very buggy. Frequently, the game hangs and sometimes you can recover by restarting, but not always.

DON’T MAKE EYE CONTACT! TL;DR: $40 for this? You make me laugh! REFUNDED! (Or at least tried, but I am over time limit of course) A little more detail: + micromanaging for planets. No such thing! + Gar “flagship” adds interesting dynamic. +/- System defense mechanic marred by micromanagement. ---- (yes that is 4 minuses) AI is dumb. - Limited tutorial. --/+ Not a true 4x, but maybe that is a good way to shake up the usual formula. - Plenty more shown below. I love to read a wall of text!: It is hard not to look at a game and make other comparisons to other experiences you have had with past games. I am going to try to give an opinion from my own perspective. You may like what I do not and you may not like what I do. I myself have a long history of strategy gaming (both board and computer) and very much enjoy 4x games. Sci-Fi has always been my absolute love for these games and Spaceward Ho! was the first I played in this genre that led to playing other games such as the Master of Orion series, the Space Empires series, Emperor of the Fading Sun, Stars!, Ascendancy, Sins of a Solar Empire, Galactic Civilizatons series, Endless Space, StarDrive and Stellaris. So yes, I do have high expectations. I will start with what I consider the Pros: - I immediately liked how little micromanagement there was at least for planet/resource management. I am not saying there is not some micromanaging going on in this game, but not needing to micromanage this can be refreshing (read on in Cons about other micromanaging). - Your Gar “flagship” is a creative and interesting component to the game. You now suddenly have another goal other than preventing your empire from being crushed via invasion, you also have to make sure this ship (which is very powerful in comparison to other ships) does not get killed and you can eliminate another empire by killing that empires Gar. - There is a system defense mechanic that exists for stations. Interesting idea to have that ties in to your stations, but, see Cons. … Ya that is about it for the pros… Here come the Cons (better have the damage control teams on standby): - The AI is dumb as a brick. Period. I have the game beat on my first playthrough against 30 AIs, all I would need to do is clean up. I feel like I clubbed a baby seal that was already mauled and clubbed by a polar bear. - Tutorial is very… limited… - The emphasis placed to the Xs of Expand and Exterminate is not bad in itself, but the execution is cumbersome. o Expand? In fact, the best strategy to Expand is simply to off another empire and the empire’s remaining systems are now yours. After the first early phase of the game, taking the time to grow into your systems on your own is silly. Kill Gar/Citadel and win! Wait, that is exterminate... o Exterminate? Boom, build your huge ass fleet and troll every other empire’s Gar or Citadel system to beat them. Game, set, match. Easily reproducible… Each… And… Every… Time… o Explore? There is no fog of war for stars. You may not be able to see the planets in a system past a certain range, but you know the stars are there. Oh and you can see where every other empire is and which is their Citadel, so… Take your monster fleet, fly directly to their super far away Gar/Citadel and slaughter it! o Exploit? Well, don’t mind if I do with my huge troll fleet! Nom Nom Nom. Oh wait, that would be Exterminate… Once I started gobbling up other empires, managing resources was unnecessary. - Diplomacy is completely non-existent. Some will say that this is refreshing and I can even agree that it is a creative choice that can add something new, but not one that I will favor given the rest of the mechanics for this game. - The micromanagement of your fleets is awkward both in movement and reinforcing. System defense uses ships, but seems very nebulous. - The interface is at best mediocre and often clunky. - The tech tree is VERY limited. A tech is present for each planet type, each Gar ability and each ship type. Once you research a tech, you can upgrade it 5 times I believe. Some may like this as it streamlines the process, but not me. - Ability to drop in to a battle and FPS with a ship, but… Kind of feels like a bad attempt to micromanage at a very VERY low level. I am an empire leader not a ship captain, why would I want to manage a single ship? But I can still say creative idea and maybe a good chance to change up the 4x thought process. - The influence feature for owning a system is wonky! Conclusion: While I see some interesting ideas and find the possibility some may like the game mechanics, for me this is a very low entry into the 4x genre. The Cons far outweigh the Pros as they are game breaking and while the Pros are creative, they don’t hold enough interest to counter the Cons. PS: $40 for this? You make me laugh! REFUNDED! (Or at least tried, but I am over time limit of course)

Do. Not. Buy. This. I bought this game a few years back based on the promise it would get better. Fast forward several years and it's still essentially just a ship designer and a single starter mission, and not even a good one. I recommend you look into the "X" games (aside from XRebirth) to get your fix of this sort of game. The newer ones aren't much more expensive than this effing mess and the older ones are still much better, complete, and cheaper than said mess.