Reviews - Kaonicping

+++++

-Thoroughly enjoyable gameplay
-Can keep you entertained for hundreds or even thousands of hours (just look at how many hours me and some other reviewers have clocked)
-Hundreds of blocks to build with, from sails and harpoons to ion thrusters and particle cannons
-Huge variety of possible vehicles:
-Lots of different weapon types, many with incredible levels of customisability, for example the 'Advanced Custom Cannons' are built as a complex multiblock from ~15 different components, and then on top of that you can design the shells from scratch, with something like 30 different parts to choose from
-Plenty of different propulsion systems to suit your needs, whatever they may be
-Pretty much every major component from engines to AI controllers to weapon systems is a complex multiblock, giving you the power to adapt it to fit whatever requirements you may have; engines, for example can be built in infinitely many shapes and sizes and depending on which blocks you use (mainly carburettors vs fuel injectors) you can change its attributes, so it can be powerful, fuel-efficient or cool-running
-You can even program your vehicles and missiles with Lua
-There are lots of cosmetic options as well, with several different main building blocks, including wood, metal, lightweight alloy and heavy armour, and in addition you have 100000000 different colours to choose from
-There are many difficulty options so you can make it as easy or as challenging as you like
-The devs (although most of the work is done by one guy, known henceforth as 'Nick') are, friendly, helpful and hard-working, and most importantly perhaps, communicate very regularly with the community; Nick has made, at the time of writing this, 13,706 posts on the forums, with many of these being bugfixing-related
-The level of involvement with the community is demonstrated by most, if not all of the built-in designs (particularly Neter's factions' designs) being built by community members (although the distinction between devs and community is far from clear-cut)
-The community is also very friendly and helpful, much more so than any other gaming community I have seen
-The game is regularly updated, with many exciting changes planned for the near future
-It seems fairly well-optimised, although it's not hard to make it laggy if you try, due to intensive physics calculations among other things
-The sea and sky can look quite pretty, with realistic-looking waves, clouds and weather, and many different possible colours
-The particle effects now look beautiful
-There is a highly-functional map editor so that you can make 'custom campaigns', with a huge number of options and customisation, including custom weather systems
-The built in campaigns, along with the story missions and 'adventure mode' provide thousands of hours of quality content, ranging from missions where you play as a member of one of Neter's factions to a realistic WW2 campaign
-Very reasonably priced considering the amount of work that has gone into this
-Multiplayer! (although I've never actually tried it since the singleplayer aspect is plenty good enough for me)
-Long and detailed in-game tutorials, supplemented by helpful threads on the forum by community members
-Probably lots of other stuff I forgot

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-I hope you don't mind seagulls

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-The terrain looks pretty 'meh' up close, since it is just one of a handful of textures tiled across the map (that said, it is fairly subtle, so it doesn't really give you eye-cancer)
-The regular updates mean you will have to modify any vehicles you are particularly attached to every so often; I personally don't mind doing this, but very occasionally a big update may leave some designs unviable
-The game can feel a little buggy in the wake of big updates

-This game is HARD. It will take a long time to get past the steep learning curve, although there are plently of in-game tutorials and external guides to help you along the way. The main thing to be aware of is if you rush into the Neter campaign on higher difficulties the moment you have learned the controls, you will lose, most likely spectacularly. Take it slowly, and you will find it much more rewarding.
If you steer clear of games like Kerbal Space Program due to their high level of difficulty, or if you have very limited free time, this game may not be for you; it will take a long time to get good at this game, and you will suffer failure many times, but if you perservere it will be an experience like no other.

Overall Score:

10/10
My all-time favourite game and a shining example of how game development should be done.