I hadn’t heard of this but was just on Simhq and now I’m quite excited for it.
The video is nice as well. The developer’s main site is Shovsoft .
This already exists.
I kinda get the feeling this isn’t going to be nearly as realistic as the people who would be interested in this sort of thing will demand.
OooooOOOOoooo
Shovsoft. Hah.
pfft.
If you’re gonna go to the moon, ya gotta do it with little green men.
Bonus points for managing to get that lander upright and flying them home :)
How did you get that lander? I have the newest version of KSP with all the moon stuff now but I don’t see any new parts that would actually facilitate a moon landing :(
Modded in.
I donated about a month ago, and got an email today with a link to the just-released beta.
It’s pretty much the whole game, with a few bugs.
Overall, I love it. Super hard, plays like a dream on a 360 pad (unfortunately the UI isn’t integrated into 360 support, so you still have to mouse click a few things).
Great physics, great graphics, great music and great sound. Solid package overall.
I definitely recommend this one.
Got that email too, can’t wait to try it.
So after about 15 lander explosions I have finally gotten the hang of it and can now land safely on any of the starting crater’s 4 bases. I am having a lot of fun now.
My main issue with the game at present is that all my capsule deaths have resulted in a -$18,000 account, and it looks like its going to be a long slog doing missions that my un-upgraded lander are capable of until I can afford to upgrade and tackle the more difficult, and lucrative missions.
Beta 3 of this is out for prepaid subscribers. Mostly bugfixes and achievement tweaks in this one.
Beta 2 was the interesting one, where he added consumables and a fullblown system of upgrades. If you rank up high enough, you can also “purchase” new maps to fly in. Oh yes, and more spectacular destruction FX, very vital. :)
Been playing this a lot over the last few days. It’s a great game for picking up and playing in 10 minute increments. The atmosphere with the graphics, music, and background comms chatter is great.
It’s also pretty challenging. I’ve got 14 crashes and 7 completes in my current profile. I did 4 in a row without crashing this morning, so I’m feeling pretty proud of myself.
For a beta, this is an amazingly complete and fun game that nicely straddles a line between complex sim and casual pick-up-and-play. There’s definitely a learning curve with the controls, but it’s worth getting over the hump.
The best 5AUD that I’ve ever spent? At least, I wish I’d paid more attention in school so I could grow up to become a lunar cargo hauler.
The lander can be quite unforgiving to fly, but in general I didn’t find piloting to be so problematic. I haven’t attempted the third, hardest crater yet: maybe there are a lot of challenges there. My piloting method is rotate the lander after launch to face the direction of travel and then use the “wasd” lateral thrusters to keep the velocity pointed towards the destination while using the main thruster as necessary to maintain altitude. There is no need to hurry, so just keep a relaxed pace and enjoy beautifully rendered lunar view.
The game is not particularly deep. There are currently only three types of missions, cargo hauling, data gathering and lost cargo recovery. The cargo recovery are most interesting as you have to hunt around, listening to the transponder echo to determine if you are getting close. The landing site is probably not flat, so the lander will not be level on the way back, making manoeuvring trickier. Some bit more variety of missions would be welcome - perhaps timed urgent timed deliveries or rescues/recoveries of other crashed/out-of-fuel landers.
The craft can be upgraded, which adds some long term goals. However, a full set of upgrades can be bought pretty quickly since the missions pay well and you get a nice cash bonus for various achievements. Fortunately, when you crash, your lander the replacement comes with the previous upgrades.
Flying around extra-terrestrial craters in a hovercraft gives me some slight nostalgia for Hard War. On one hand, it’s a pity there isn’t a more fully fleshed out world for Lunar Lander, at the very least with other traffic to avoid and events to respond to. On the other hand I respect this remake’s simplicity and decision not to deviate far from being a 3D version of those old lunar lander games, which it does admirably.
By the way, the game is now on Desura, and has apparently been submitted to Steam.
You just go straight up and use the lateral thrusters to scoot around?
Bah. I hit the main thruster, get some altitude, then turn my lander so it’s perpendicular to the ground and thrust to go forward. Saves a ton of fuel, and is the true manly way to fly it.
I agree with everything you wrote. The game is really good, and super cheap.
That’s right, I use the lateral thrusters, via the keyboard. Then I can ignore the rotational controls on the arrow keys, which keeps things simple. Normally, I don’t use more than half a tank, and fuel is cheap anyway. Will give your macho method a try, but I suspect any fuel savings will be offset by repair bills!
Another new mission type I’d like to see would be Lunar prospecting. First plant a charge, then move a good distance away for the detonation and return after to collect samples. This comes from the school of thought that says there is nothing that can’t be improved through the addition of high explosives.
What video settings are you guys playing this on? Whenever I tried playing on graphics level above “fast,” the game just CRAWLS (on 1280x800 resolution). No matter what, it takes forever to load up. Same for y’all?
I recognize it’s a beta and that optimization may come later; also that my Dell gaming laptop isn’t top of the line anymore. I guess I was just a little surprised at HOW miserable it played.
Secondly, I can do the missions that want me to go to the various bases, but when they want me to go somewhere “northwest of Alpha”… uh, where do I go? Should there be some waypoint somewhere? Are there any instructions that I’m missing?
It is surprisingly demanding, esp. on older hardware; I tried it on an older laptop that plays things like L4D or Borderlands (on low details) and yeah, it crawled. Not sure if it’s an optimization thing.
Desktop machine fullscreen 1680x1050 at high details, no problems.
The “northwest of …” will be for a pickup, I think. Turn your transponder on, head in the specified direction, and the transponder beeps will get more and more frequent. At some point you’ll see the cargo bins, as long as you follow the beeps.