Reviews

• gamedeal user

  Feb 12, 2022

  Oye, Beltalowda. Listen up. This is your Captain, and this is your ship. This is your moment. You might think that you're scared, but you're not. That isn't fear. That's your sharpness. That's your power. We are Belters. Nothing in the void is foreign to us. The place we go is the place we belong. This is no different. No one has more right to this, none more prepared. Inyalowda go through the Ring, call it their own, but a Belter opened it. We are the Belt. We are strong, we are sharp, and we don't feel fear. This moment belong to us. For Beltalowda! Beltalowda! Beltalowda!
• gamedeal user

  Feb 15, 2022

  This "game" is a task force level space based naval simulation written by an actual Naval officer. Any person who has ever used actual military tech interfaces will see that immediately. realistic Newtonian physics, weapons loadouts and electronic warfare, plus, individual unit modular damage and damage control (!). No health bars here, and no guaranteed hits just because you clicked. It brings to mind the "Ansible" from Ender's Game, a gods eye view of an average of 5 ships against a similar sized opposing force. You have a points budget and an EXTREMELY capable fleet editor so you can design the task force of your dreams. Ship and formation navigation is quick-ish to learn, you need to grasp "plane then surface of sphere" to place your point. This has the best electronic warfare (EWAR) implementation I have ever seen. Jammer cones, separate fire control and sensor RADAR, Battle short ( As a Navy vet this really pleased me, all real military tech will let you run it until it burns up for emergency battle needs) and more. Plus, your EWAR emitters and controls can be hit and your unit is then reduced to visual targeting only. FAR from useless. Is your thing running silent and springing the trap? yep, you can do it. Hoards of missiles? yep. FIrin' yer LASER? that too. Like seeing tracer streams from point defense cannon? Perforate them with rail guns? it's in there. it's ALL THERE. Weapons act like they should. There is no magic tech here except for the ship drives and therin lies the magic. Ranges mean a lot and missiles have fuel limits. The damage control (DC) Teams aboard each ship are good at their jobs, but they are not magicians and systems degrade with damage. You can change their priorities if it gets desperate. NEBULOUS: Fleet Command is deep. supa-deep. It has great music, voice over, polished UI, and best of all it is still Early Access so it willl only get BETTER. This will train the newest fan of space combat as well as test the most experienced space sim grognard. You know that show that has the most realistic space combat yet seen? well this is the closest game you will get to that and probably always will be. A steal at $100 much less the measly $20 being asked. If this is even a little bit your thing GET IT NOW!
• gamedeal user

  Feb 15, 2022

  BELTALOWDA
• gamedeal user

  Feb 15, 2022

  Belta lik pashang!
• gamedeal user

  Feb 15, 2022

  TLDR version - I have good feeling about this. [h2]Longer review:[/h2] Ever since release of “Nexus - The Jupiter Incident” in 2004, which itself was born out of a failed RTS game project (Imperium Galactica 3), there have been few developers (and none backed by established publishers!) trying their hand at a game which have at front and center, fleet action in a semi-hard science fiction setting. Those that tried failed either due to lack of funding or due to lack of skill. So why do I think this attempt would be any better? Read on! So what is this game about? If you are veteran of the PC gaming who have played and liked “Nexus – The Jupiter Incident” and/or “Starshatter – The Gathering Storm” you are in for a treat. Also due to esthetics and focus on the fleet combat, many players that liked Homeworld series of games are reminded of that game. If you are a youngling who thinks that Snapchat or Facebook is something grandma used to seduce grandpa, you may like the strong “Expanse” vibe this game has. [h3] Game Mechanics [/h3] The core concept of this game is, as already mentioned, semi-realistic fleet combat in space – devs background from navy shines through with concepts like electronic warfare, outfitting of your assets, difference of sensor types and importance of positioning of your assets on the battlefield, which are typically glossed over in other games, are given proper/realistic importance in this game. GUI has also vibe from military designs from 70s or 80. Fair warning - if you are totally unfamiliar with concepts above, you may find the GUI strange. Also movement and targeting solutions will for some players be hard to get used too. There are no shields or cloaking devices in this game – if you want to reduce your sensor output, turn off you radar and communication devices. And reduce your radar cross section by orienting your craft. Or just turn on your jammer – just be aware that an anti-radiation missile may be coming your way… The ships in the game have no health bar – the damage is compartmentalized, meaning that components (placement determined by player during the design of the ship) take damage. Taking damage, depending on the component type, may result in damaged component (reducing its efficiency), killing of the crew or even a fire that damages the component over time. Catastrophic failure that disables the ship outright can also happen. Regardless, take enough damage and your ship is destroyed. All in all this is most complex and most “proper” fleet space action game currently in the market, only beaten in realism by “Children of the Dead Earth” (which you should not attempt to play if you don’t understand at least basics of orbital mechanics). What it has not, is a realistic movement of objects in space. At beast, it has semi-Newtonian representation of such movement which I think is good for this type of game. This means that ships have a max speed and no concerns regarding dV spent. [h3]Early Access stuff[/h3] Obligatory warning! Is Early Access these days often misused concept just to peddle half-finished products to naive customers? Yes, more often than not! But sometimes good indie games would never see light of the day without financing received from EA. That being said, buying EA games is not the smart thing to do from the perspective of a gamer. Currently, couple of days since release, the game has tutorial, skirmish vs AI and multiplayer option. You also can modify your fleets (by designing ships that fleet consists of) and there is decent number of components already present in the game. What is not in the game, but has been promised: a story campaign, carrier ships and carrier combat, boarding and number of QOL features (rebinding keys is not in-game yet). Roadmap can be found here: https://trello.com/b/ZNxJIGSQ/nebulous-public-roadmap The dev is listening to the players and has already released couple of patches with bugfixes or implementing changes based on the feedback from the players. At same time, the game has pretty clear goals that are not overly ambitious. In ten hours playing I have not encountered single bug. Discord channel is very active with dev presence. All in all, I see many signs of successful project being present and no red flags typical of steam EA games that never reach their end-goal. The value for the money is excellent if your are into multiplayer and just right if your are like me and prefer singleplayer.
• gamedeal user

  Feb 16, 2022

  Oye Beltalowda! Inyalowda Bosmang Lansh Missiles At Mi Beratna....Kaka Felotas Hit The Fan!
• gamedeal user

  Feb 17, 2022

  - Positions Destroyers behind a asteroid - Fires a volley of missiles at a distant target from behind said asteroid -see a red dot come around the asteroid -its a corvette, shoot at it with secondaries -another ship comes around asteroid -its in visual range -its a heavy cruiser with railguns fixed on my lead destroyer -proceed to lose my shit and panic fire spinal guns, every missile loaded in my squadron, and every single gun at the heavy cruiser -heavy cruiser turns into a sun -my ships limp away from the battle low on ammo, supplies, and operating weapons -win the match after destroying the second enemy fleet with my crippled destroyers and a friendly crippled battleship I LOVE THIS GAME
• gamedeal user

  Feb 24, 2022

  Realistic electronic warfare (jamming, radar, scramblers, etc) reminiscent of what you might see with sensor bubbles and tracks in 'Command: Modern Operations' meets pseudo 3D space combat with fantastic visuals! What a fantastic treat! Stumbled on it and did an impulse buy. Glad I did! Pros: - EWAR and sensors are complex but realistic - Looks and runs great on my 7 year old laptop - Warfare on all 3 axes - No spam building units...you're stuck with the fleet you brought to the table and you have to make it work. - Various movement and formation options based around a chosen guide ship, just like in the navy - Various missile types are all based around realistic modern navy missiles - Point defense systems - Interior realistic ship damage to components - Damage control teams putting out fires, repairing components can bring seemingly dead ships, back to life for a last ditch effort - Deep complex tactical options involving varying ship types, terrain, feints, stealth, ambushes etc. - Fleet editor to try out ships you design - Good tutorial missions in game get you up to speed in the basics. But I also recommend this excellent tutorial series. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKAvV8sG4UE&list=PL8VCvOHfHA1L2o5ozHmF3vclqJkI-aoyP (Trust me, you'll be glad you did...) - Mod support looks very promising with some mods already available this early on - Ability to slow down the game by up to 50% in single-player mode is *very* handy when learning the game. Cons: - Ship speeds are way too slow and distances are way too short for real space combat, and that knocks off some of the realism. (Honestly, it feels more like you're all in different types of submarines more than in space. But even so still loads of fun and the other realistic navy-esque aspects make up for it.) - Very much alpha with limited single-player skirmish-only content. (But from an interview I listened to a single-player campaign will likely be coming.) - Limited maps (3 or so with actual asteroid terrain features) and multiplayer options (capture points of interest and annihilation) - Maps are in a somewhat claustrophobic enclosed 3D battle space (think large sphere). I understand the design decision for that as players would never encounter each other if it's too big, but after playing realistic navy military simulations like 'Command: Modern Operations' -- where the whole *world* is available to simulate battles in and missiles can go hundreds of miles--a sphere of about 10-15 kilometres in diameter or something just feels a little too tight. Hopefully the single-player campaign at least has larger maps and varying missions. - Visuals are awesome and fun to watch, but in a multiplayer game, you really don't have much time to enjoy them as you're constantly flitting about the tactical map trying to make sense of sensor contacts. What would make it even better: - I hope they add a turn-based WeGo option where you can plan out your movements, options, and attack plan, and then watch the mayhem unfold for a couple of minutes, re-watching it from different angles (Ala the fantastic Combat Mission games by Battlefront). - Would love to see a single player mission editor where missions could be uploaded on workshop and shared. That would be awesome. NEBULOUS: Fleet Command is a great game despite the 'cons', and is only going to get better. I'm excited to see where this goes!
• gamedeal user

  Mar 1, 2022

  This game is cool but it is waaaaaay too niche to recommend unless you like very complex slower paced sim type strategy games. I have been trying to play it and its just too complex for me to really get into. I would dig it more if things were simplified alot more. I thought this would be kinda like Homeworld but with more detail and no ship building. But this is more of a sim type game with tons of detailed systems which I found daunting to figure out. I honestly just don't have the time to invest in learning all its nuances. The way commands are issued and moving on the 3D plane can be very confusing and difficult. Trying to aim the ECM and make way points accurately is a nightmare. The way electronic warfare is implemented only exacerbates the difficulty in movement and clutters the already insanely cluttered UI even more. Also path finding is non existent as your ships and AI get stuck on asteroids/objects and can't navigate around them unless you manually give way points. IMO the biggest weakness for the game is the controls and I found them overly complex and difficult to figure out (partly because there are just too many systems to manage). This is a cool game, and I recommend it for patient strategists who like detailed sim elements. But realize its extremely detailed and not for everyone. I watched several game-play videos and thought it looked really cool, but the reality of using the controls is what holds the game back for me. Either way I don't mind supporting the devs because what is here is actually really cool and original even if its not my cup of tea.
• gamedeal user

  Mar 7, 2022

  Finally we get a game inspired by Homeworld 1 where there should have been many. This one focus's on large ship vs ship combat in simulation oriented format rather than standard RTS. This game is conceptually perfect, but needs some work. Here are 5 examples. It would be great to remove these after further development. 1. Artificial Horizon/Grid: a. There is a huge emphasis placed on the idea of 3-D space of full 6 degree movement, but the game often fights with itself on this concept. When in a proper space environment we should find ourselves getting lost when it comes to orientation. Thus we create an artificial horizon to use as reference. Casting a grid over an area that can be used to navigate. This game nicely implements a relative artificial plane connected to the ship you had last selected. Good this is much better than the static plane usually implemented in other games. Then we are thrust into using the sphere command system for various reasons. It seems to be designed to disorient and complicate things that should have been simple using a grid built on the already existing plane. When you consider that move orders are given in the Homeworld style. Why should plotting missile courses be any different?(same with the orbit command and the continuous move command) The sphere often results in you reorienting the camera in order to interpret the sphere rather then been given instantly usable feedback granted by the normal plane. The sphere is counterproductive and feels like an attempt to enforce disorientation where it shouldn't be. b. Ship behaviour conflicts with the idea of 6 degree movement. Ships always default to the invisible static plane. Rolling and pitching back into the default position when roll and pitch isn't required for the ships modules. This shouldn't happen unless the ships are conforming to a formation. It breaks the illusion of there not being a static plane. All the ships should be free to be in any rotation to promote the idea that it can be hard to orient without a relative action to form the artificial horizon. 2.Damage Control Based on its design there isn't a good reason for this to be semi-manual. The tutorial indicates that the devs are well aware of the priorities of repairs based on there own damage model. So why make it manual? It should be fully automated except for the limited repair from destroyed module command. With the available space on screen the damage display can be fully visible at all times and the components can be moused over for details instead of current damage control window. 3.Sound Generally sound effects are quiet and lack lustre. A decision needs to made as to whether sound should be relative to the selected ship so you can do a realistic attempt at sound or just do things traditionally. In the current state its completely inadequate. This game could really use a robust battle chatter feedback system. Being simulation oriented chatter would be great for feedback and immersion. 4. UI There should be a more streamlined approach to the overall UI. Many of the styles implemented aren't effectively delivering information. A prime example being the random shortening of words. It looks cool at a glance, but I've found myself often observing the element trying to know it means because its often not instantly apparent. Another example is that indicators aren't prioritized by importance. Many of the minor indicators switch are mostly for convenience are the same size and boldness as major indicators. Another example is in situations with any more than 8 ships. The main view becomes quickly flooded indicators. I understood they wanted a realistic feel to the electronic warfare, but the approach needs to be optimized. It should never be difficult to understand these elements of the UI. 5. Commands/Automation Simplified controls should be available for quick commands. Simple orders like attacking with cannons take way to many clicks. Basic automation for inactive equipment would be nice too. No automation should however replace manual controls.