I saw that SC was having another free trial period so thought I would give it a go. It was … buggy … but there is definitely potential there for a great game. So I pulled the trigger on a starter pack with a Drake Cutter and have been tooling around the 'verse for a few hours. I thought I’d post a few thoughts and screenies in case anyone is interested.
I chose beautiful Orison as a starting location:
Just to highlight the depth of the simulation - it was a windy day and I was watching the blossom falling off the trees by the transit station. Each petal appeared to be moving along it’s own path and there was no pattern or cyclical behaviour that I could see. It seemed like the wind was being calculated for each petal individually and the result was very convincing and immersive. I really like these little touches.
I finally figured out how to get rid of the global chat so I could enjoy the view of Crusader:
My little Cutter - Winnie. She reminds me of Eagle 1, the Winnebago in Spaceballs. I’ve obviously already pranged her against something as the little winglets at the back are missing, however she flies just as well without them:
Making my first delivery down on Yela:
Caught in a storm:
Out of the storm, I took a moment to appreciate Yela’s rings and the shiny spark of Grimm Hex in the sky:
A few more deliveries and a new moon (Daymar):
I thought I’d head in to Hurston and explore a bit. Loreville was an interesting change of scene but the framerate was abysmal. I’m running a 12700K and RTX3070 and in Loreville I get regular drops to sub 15 fps.
After 20 minutes of that my eyes were screaming for mercy so I headed up to orbit. I mistakenly hit pad 01 in the elevator instead of hanger 01 and experienced a little bit of vertigo when I first walked out on to the pad and saw Hurston below.
There were a couple of interesting delivery contracts with pick-ups at the Sakura Sun Magnolia Workcenter so I decided to try to stack them. In theory Winnie should be ideal for that as she has plenty of space in the back for boxes. However, I didn’t account for SC being an alpha. It became almost impossible to keep track of three contracts at once when the ID’s on the packages became corrupted, and although I was careful to stack them on the cargo pads the boxes had a habit of jittering about and moving in flight:
Sunset at one of the delivery locations:
And rising again as I took off:
I eventually gave up for the day and logged out using Winnie’s bed, not realising that this would abandon the contracts and leave me with no reward at all for a frustrating day’s work. Oh well.
I think that’s enough for now. Thank you to those who read this far and if anyone is interested I will post more.
My first impressions as a new player in SC: It’s still very buggy, the framerate tanks whenever I go near Loreville or when a storm comes on, and it’s very easy to win a Darwin Award if you’re not very careful (helmet!). However, it is fun to play and there is a lot of potential! I’m looking forward to seeing how SC develops.
