Developer post:
Music sounds a bit like the KSP2 trailer from several years ago. 3 of the 7 members are engineers from Boeing who left to form this company.
$12.99 on Steam through Feb.
This is an impulse buy for me. I’m going to see Hamilton in 90 minutes and I’m terrified if I install it I’ll blow off the play and $140 ($50 to the ticketmaster SOBs).
I’ll try it tomorrow. I’m very excited.
LOLOLOL
Never heard of it, but looking at the Steam page I’m intrigued. Time to check out some game play videos to see what it’s actually like
I’m installing now. It looks intriguing. Juno used to be called Simple Rockets 2 and was in a Humble Bundle in Nov 2021.
I was gonna say… the reason you’d never heard of it was the name change from Simple Rockets 2. :) I went to check it out and realized I already owned it!
So I guess the real question is whether Simplerockets 2 is good, for anyone who has tried it? The reviews on steam make it sound good.
I decided to wait until it was out of early access to dive in, but my play like 2 years ago had a lot of the fun of early KSP experiences. I’m anxious to dive into the final release this weekend!
Another one to check out if you like real-life space history: Reentry - An Orbital Simulator on Steam
So I saw Hamilton (excellent!) and I got my first craft to orbit in Juno. A productive day.
My first impression is that Juno is both easier and deeper than Kerbal. It easier in that the designing process is less fidgeting that Kerbal, i.e. exact placement of parts is less important. Deeper in that pretty much every part from the size of your fuel tanks, to the length and diameter of the rocket engine nozzle can be tweaked. So you need to understand rocket science concepts like exhaust pressure, that were ignored in Kerbal. It is also easier to control than Kerbal, but you don’t fly the craft as much as set the “autopilot”
Like Kerbal, in career mode, you get contracts that earn dollars and tech points, which can be used to unlock new techniques and parts. A few contracts come with tutorial, so for instance the orbit mission was actually pretty easy.
I think if you like Kerbal, you’ll like Juno. I think for some folks who were frustrated with Kerbal, eventually Juno will be a more accessible game for you, but I am not sure that day is today. It still needs some polishing, and the normal assortment of wikis, tutorial videos, cause at the end of the day this is rocket science/college-level physics. However, most contracts don’t have tutorials and it is pretty hit miss what you should do.
For $15 a great deal
I feel like this is the most important antitrust case in the US. At least the monopoly I’ve paid the most towards. Usually 25% of my ticket sale for music!
Ah, that makes more sense. I was wondering how a game like this could be in EA for six years and be any good if I hadn’t heard of it.
I’m installing too. For me, it was 35% off, or about $13. The price is certainly right, and the Steam reviews are very positive. Look forward to trying it tonight.
Evidently, Live Nation/Ticketmaster got beat up badly by both Rs and Ds in the Senate this week.
Here’s the review I’ve been waiting for:
Thanks for posting that.
I think Scott’s comments about the career mode, “serviceable, but bland” are spot on. I spent almost my time in Kebal in career mode and I needed the goals and challenges to really motivate me.
I think I’ll wait another few months for them to enhance career mode before I really start playing it in earnest. That said, at the price, Junyo is an awfully good deal.
They said they were going to do that?
No not explicitly, but poking around their community Juno: New Origins | Forums, I think so.
Career Mode has the most comments and is at the top of their roadmap. I can’t tell if that was to get to the existing career mode or future enhancements. It is a small team, and they don’t appear to have hired a community manager.
I assume that anybody in the space sim biz would pay attention to Scott’s feedback.
It’s hard to commit to buying this when Kerbal 2 is in early access so soon. I would love to play a game like Kerbal but might wait to see how the Kerbal 2 release dust settles and then make a call which to pursue.
EDIT: Ah, I just noticed in my steam library that I bought this a few days ago and promptly forgot about it lol. Gaming disease!
I just played through the tutorial rocket mission, and I was pretty impressed. Smooth UI, pretty visuals, relaxed vibe. Looking forward to more this weekend.
I’ve spent a bit more time with this. It has a lot of potential, but it needs more time in the oven.
For example, the build screen is in some ways more powerful than KSP’s, with dynamic resizing, but it also can be frustrating. There’s no sense of scale at all; KSP had Kerbils and ground craft milling around. I have trouble stacking an engine on the tail – is there some simple way to line this up so that the UI doesn’t think I want to place radial engines on the side?
Also, I’m confused about what costs me money. If I design a rocket and it explodes, do I have to build a replacement for the same price? Or is there a discount for having already built a prototype?
The contracts are nice enough, but not really an improvement on KSP. I’ve only done the first five or six, though, so I’m not very far along.
Finally, I don’t ever get to see an actual explosion. Are they in the game? One of the joys of KSP is seeing things blow up, lol. Edit: Supposedly I’ll see them later, once I build bigger rockets? But even a teeny explosion would be nice now, especially as the early tutorials require one to explode the spacecraft.