Reviews - anon752

Sometimes a bit too much like chess, but definitely a wonderful games, especially the many different campains.

This game is for you if you want what bad game from the last century feels like. It might have some depth in what you can do, but the interface is so horrible that it will make it look like even more than it is because it is a hassle to get anywhere.

Every action triggers a new page load, which would not be a problem with a fast server and proper pages, but this game has neither: It is full of little pages with no content but just notifications that you have clicked something or done something, which means the next click will be another page load, which will again almost take a whole second, which means you need lots of patience to play it. As long as you do not know what to do yet that is no big problem, but once you are used to do something and want to repeat it a few times it gets hell.

The interface is also extremely inconsistent: There is a myriad of enter-cancel-question pages, some where enter is left and cancel is right and some where it is the other way around. There is some toolbar down, which is show almost everywhere and has all the very rarely needed stuff and sometimes some toolbar to the top, with place specific icons sometimes added to the left, sometimes to the right. It also shows icons for actions you miss equipment or levels to do. And sometimes things are not shown (like the cheap repair button is not show when in a station with expensive repair) or with some sub pages there are also some of those actions shown.

The enter-leave pages get really annoying with time: Every time you enter some building they are shown, showing only some useless lore about the kind of building it is and given how few different types of buildings there are they quite useless. Even where some message might make sense the first few times to inform about costs for entering (like entering places where you get missions costs money, likely to work around a missing persistance of job offers) the message does not talk about this, so is totally useless.

The pages seem to be quite stateless, even if you use some mere information page, it does not remember where you get from, but only which station you are in and if you are docked or not. But getting back to the main view of this specific location has no general way. Every page has the link to get back there at another place, if it has one at all (for some you need multiple clicks to get there). Annoying at it is, it gets even more annoying as most information pages need the context, as they miss information the page before had. Like a page with listings for systems or schematics show what level you need for them or which skills, but if you show details those information are no longer presented. To add insult to injury, the back button also does not work, but instead logs you off and displays a thread of banning you for working around game mechanics.

Presentation of information is a big problem with the interface in general: A page with information about schematics will have no information about skills needed (only if you match them or not, though the page getting there had them) nor will it tell you anything about the item produced except the name. To get the information you need to start with a totally different page and search for the name there. It would be less annoying if you could use browser tabs. But if you try you get logged, too and see again the warning that your account will be banned if you continue to work around game mechanics.

You also get this effect if you try to open one of the few things you are allowed to have open at the same time (like the star map): Those things open in a new window. For opening them in a new tab you need to open it in a new window, then move the content in a new tab (at least this is possible without getting threatened). The star map you also need because when traveling between star systems you only get names of the next hops, no image or information about which direction they are...

In-system navigation is not much better. First you have to click the location in question, using fuel and getting there, then after having waited for the page to load you need to select what to do there. Sometimes it is some symbol in a toolbar now showing up, or it is a Link at a location unlike any other page to dock there, after which you have to select where there to dock...

So things like unloading your cargo at a station is like 10 clicks (any of them needing about a second sometimes). And given how small your starting cargo space is, you need to do that like every 10 seconds...

But after you have collected all the information about what you can do in a day or two (which should have taken you like a quarter of an hour with a proper interface) you can see how long you will take to get there the normal way. Or you can of course always buy the stuff for real money to throw it out of the window like the already wasted time.... (Well except for real money, you can also pay with reviews and votes...)