NEBULOUS: Fleet Command Reviews

I've spent more time building and optimising missile behaviour than playing the game 10/10

In theory this is one of the greatest games ever thought of, build your own space ship and fight against other real people. In reality this is a game where you pay to play a game only to have to download an app to figure out how to play it, and if you truly want the full game experience don't expect it from the game, join an app and hopes you find people to play with, and experience a game with some sense of team play, because you won't experience it in the game.

The very best space fleet command sim. Very nice Community, very detailed game

I've had this one from day 1, watched it for some time before it released, and have played it on and off since then. But as it stands now currently, I can't really recommend this game to newcomers. It has some QOL issues and such a steep learning curve that it's personally really depressing trying to figure out this game on my own. Matches often are 10 minutes of floating aimlessly trying to find the enemy, and then 3 minutes of my ships getting plastered and then the match ends displaying the enemy fleet being entirely unscratched. The editor is probably the best part of the game but still suffers from some issues. Every component throws a lot of numbers at you explaining its stats, however the biggest annoyance is what any of it means. Each number lacks any kind of tooltip explaining what it does, and while I can imagine some of it doesn't really matter to know it would still help understanding why or why not to choose a particular component. There's also an issue of cost where many of the components are weapons that are any decent to use are so mindbogglingly expensive to install they aren't any worth. Also, and this is mentioned with other reviews, certain weapons like railguns are considered 'bad' but you wouldn't have any clue why unless you dug through every single change in the game to see why. Again, an issue caused by the lack of any tooltips explaining the weapons. Missiles are also something I take a lot of issue with, though that might be because I'm a 'noob.' They have a good amount of customization, but again there's not much help available to explain what any of it means. And actually using them in combat is an exercise in not gaining another reason why. Either they were designed 'badly' and either whiff the target altogether or get shredded, or they're so amazing they shred your fleet cause your PD can't do squat against them. The new update with spacecraft only makes this worse too. They're either absolutely godly (usually against you), or they are so garbage that one run against the enemy ends in half your craft being deleted and a mildly irritated swarm coming after you. All in all there's such a lack of feedback during and after matches that it's incredibly hard to 'git gud' if you get clapped in 2 minutes after 10 minutes of flailing around aimlessly. Not all of us have the time to invest in a game like this just to be able to enjoy it. I'm not saying dumb it down, not at all, but give us more to work with so we aren't sitting around wondering what the hell just happened. And there's such a critical lack of singleplayer content to practice on that I think will turn a good portion of the playerbase away. I didn't care much for the Conquest mode seeing how it seemed to dip heavily into PvP content, but having only skirmish and no campaigns I think will hurt this game heavily. I know for some they appreciate the multiplayer aspect of the game, however I feel those kinds of players and often the devs too forget that not all of us can enjoy that. Not all of us have friends we can play with or wish to play with the super-sweats that often dominate these multiplater focused games. I think the game currently would really lend itself to a kind of 'Highfleet in space' kind of gameplay. So yeah, if you see this review, give the game A LOT more time to cook. Cause at this point right now, there's not enough for someone like me to latch onto. Rant over

This game bring back memories of a time when games where fun. A time when games had a lot of thinking about how systems would work together and would rewards the player with agency over thier own playstyle. Like the old Homeworld series, Myth: Soulblighter or Dark Reign. I dont actually have anything negative to say. I guess there could be more ship hulls and weapons? If you are looking for a relaxing thinking mans game this is it. 3d naval strategy at its finest!

This game doesn't explain jack shit to you. You do the tutorial, and then you think you know something about how this game works, but you don't. You don't know about the different damage types, you barely know how to defeat point defenses or how armor works or any of these things. This game DOES NOT EXPLAIN A FUCKING THING TO YOU. If you're like me, you're going to love the depth of ship-building and tactical play But this game is a solid fucking wall of "NOPE YOU KNOW NOTHING" for new players. This game asks EVERYTHING from you as a player, and gives NOTHING. These devs haven't got the first fucking clue how to actually effectively communicate the actual important mechanics of this game to players. The tutorial covers maaayyyyybe a quarter of it. People bounce off of this game in a fit of anger and frustration because they feel cheated, because they feel they're being stomped somehow for reasons they can't understand, and because INFORMATION THEY NEED IS NOT AVAILABLE TO THEM. Newbies are not treated well, generally, by this community. Many of the players in this game who HAVE run the gauntlet to figure it out, are impatient with new players who aren't getting any help from anywhere. The. Barriers. To. Entry. Are. Too. Fucking. High. The developers MUST create an on-ramp that makes it possible for new players to experience this game without slamming their faces into a cliff of frustration. And y'all need to start helping newbies instead of kicking them out of your lobbies.

Incredible tech-demo but the dev has abandoned the idea of making it into a game. I let it simmer in my library for a long time but the dream is dead. It's like if the total war franchise only ever had skirmish mode. And it's also horribly balanced, I know it's early access but to some extent you should be able to get close to reasonable stats on a first pass, and then make minor adjustments to bring things in line. Remember to only use oceans of missiles forever!

I won't say it's a brutal learning curve, but, its within visual range. Once you get the hang of it, the space combat is usually fun, usually a bit stressful (in a chaotic in a good way), and occasionally frustrating. Juggling multiple ships isn’t as bad as it sounds. The single-player content is a bit lacking though, even for early access. Definitely worth grabbing on sale if you’re into this kind of thing!

I'll consider writing a more in-depth explanation later on but for now? This game has two factions for multiplayer: ANS and OSP. OSP's faction gets one or two buffs per major update, which then immediately gets sanded down or removed and continuously receives *additional* nerfs until the next major update. ANS repeatedly receives buffs, because the balance channel on its server is mained by ANS players. They complain the loudest. I had high hopes when the Carriers update finally released; sure, we weren't getting Conquest for additional strategic options, but at least OSP finally had *a single advantage in the entire game*. ANS has superior weapons, superior missiles, superior armor, superior point costs, superior hulls. The carriers update drops; OSP gets a win! The craft have an advantage but aren't too strong, torps can be delivered without risking OSP's **considerably** more fragile hulls, and ANS has to invest more points into hardkill rather than just rush into the open and spam jammers/chaff. It took just over a month to not just completely roll the changes back but give ANS craft *total superiority*. Now ANS craft aren't just better in dogfights; they're also the best point defense system in the game. None of your craft will make it through. You can shoot the special anti-craft missiles they added with the carriers update; ANS craft will shoot them down before they reach. Can containers at least counter the ANS carriers? Forget it, ANS craft tear containers apart in seconds, even accounting for This game doesn't catch on because the dev has a years-long pattern of adhering to a single group of complainers who can't handle the *slightest* disadvantage; they either need to stomp public servers or have excellent OSP players get *close* to victory before collapsing. Whether players stick to the game is a coin toss; do they get introduced via the default win faction? As I write this, I'm looking over the panicked balance announcements reassuring everyone that the ANS craft superiority wasn't *intended*, though it's absolutely not going away. It might just be slightly mitigated by improvements to OSP craft this coming Monday. That's the history of this game since the OSP update; OSP gets something nice, ANS complains, ANS gets to pubstomp, and you get to spend the next year *slowly* climbing back up to peer status as an OSP player. The ANS-favoring balance crew literally can't tolerate a remotely balanced game unless they're slowly fed greater challenges, like boiling a frog. It happened with OSP missiles, OSP point defense, OSP hulls, OSP mass drivers, and now OSP carriers. This will not change and I have 0 confidence the single-player campaign will be anything to write home about in comparison to this schlock.

This game is made for a certain type of person. Unfortunately, I am not that type of person. If you can make it around the learning curve, great. You'll still have to get a grasp of the meta, messy customization system, and having to contend with the long term veterans of the game. Unfortunately there is little to no single player content beyond AI skirmish and there don't seem to be any intentions of expanding in that direction. With the lack of any meaningful progression system in the multiplayer, it does genuinely feel like this game only exists for folks who like, very specifically, slow and drawn out tactical simulators.