The later hours got better for me because I understood what I was supposed to be doing much better and everything started flowing much better. I could hold my own against a large group of pirates, protecting fleets of frieghters. I could tough out the extreme storms on crazy weather planets. I was customizing my ship and weapons like crazy and noticing a huge change in the games pace.
I could go towards the center if I want with the ability to make farther jumps after upgrading my warp drive. I keep on finding better and better ships and multi tools. The combination of weapon upgrades in both your ship and multi tool is actually a lot of fun to mess around with.
The inventory system was pissing me off at first but once I figured it out it actually became fun to mess around with. Lining up your upgrades with matching upgrades gives them an extra boost and actually takes some work to get a unique multi tool or ship thats totally personal.
I can go from atlas station to atlas station and get rewards and continue on that path ignoring the center all together. Or I can head for the center. Or I can just go try to find nice planet to snap screenshots at.
Im over 30 hours in and can easily see putting in at least 100 hours into this.
Some people like to play loot based games and get all exited when they get a new gun or a rare hat. I get the same sort of satisfaction I suppose, when I discover a new ship thats better than my old one and I have to put in time fix it up. It can actually be quite challenging if you find one you really like on a hostile and barren planet. There is a definite sense of reward after completing something like that.
Plus there is the sense of discovery and yes, for me at least, I still am in awe every once in a while after seeing like 40 or more planets. I still run into one every so often that is just so wildly different from the rest.
Sometimes finding a paradise like planet and just walking around looking at stuff is a nice break from the grind.
Spending hours mining and collecting rare items and trading to get lots of money to purchase new weapons and ships is also a satisfying payoff IMO, and a totally different way of reaching those same goals. So is taking out starships and collecting the loot they drop to make monies. Or you can mix it up and do a bit of all of it. It just takes a long time.
So yeah, its not a perfect game and it has flaws for sure. Sometimes planets can be samey (which I just leave right away), it can be glitchy as fuck sometimes, the crashing is frustrating. The begining was really slow moving. The fade in or pop in can be distracting. The monoliths are disappointing. Caves seem pointless to me outside of escaping the weather. Maybe I will find a goody in a cave one of these days.
So far I dont really know what the relationship between the races is or what their purpose is beyond, trader race, tech race and warrior race. It would be nice if that was a little more fleshed out but I do enjoy reading the bits of lore they sqeeze in there. Their civilizations could also be a lot more unique to one another visually.
All in all I think its a fantastic game and it has its hooks in me. It probably has a lot to do with the fact that I'm a huge space nerd and I feel a geeky satisfation every time I'm entering the atmosphere of a new planet or having to pulse drive for 4 minutes to reach a planet thats on the outskirts of the system.
Looking up at what we would call a skybox in other games and being able to actually jump in my ship and go there just isnt getting old for me.
Great base game here IMO and if the updates and added features bring enough to the table then I will most likely be in it for the long haul. Already got my $60 worth. GG HG.
I also dont have a PC right now so games of the like are not available to me although I am dying to give a lit of them a try.
Tldr: I liked the game a lot even though it is flawed.
But I did name one that I really loved exploring.
