In the Starship Simulator on Steam, you can explore space together with your friends, and all of this while the game is still funded on Kickstarter.
What kind of game is this? The Starship Simulator is a spaceship simulation that values realism greatly. Together with your friends or alone, you are to assume the role of a crew member aboard the first spaceship built by humans with the ability to travel at faster-than-light speeds.
Depending on your role, you and your friends have different tasks aboard the ship. As a security officer, for example, you are responsible for fighting, while as a technician, you dive into the eternal cable tunnels of the ship. And yes, these really exist.
In contrast to competitors like Star Citizen, the Starship Simulator places a lot of emphasis on realism or at least “plausible realism.” So a spaceship where the buttons are actually connected by cables to the modules.
While there is also a lot of realism in Star Citizen, it mainly relates to things like ammunition capacity for NPCs and not that there is actually a cable running from the onboard cannon to the weapons officer’s seat, which can indeed be cut when under fire. Just recently, we reported that Star Citizen is not entirely scientific in some aspects.
This is how good the competitor Star Citizen looks in the trailer for Alpha 3.22.
The Kickstarter project promises a lot – too much?
What does Starship Simulator want to offer? In addition to realism and the eight different roles for the crew in multiplayer, there is supposed to be a fully explorable Milky Way, at a scale of 1:1. The galaxy is to be procedurally generated, creating various star systems and their associated planets.
Thanks to the targets reached on Kickstarter, players will also be able to set foot on the planets. There will also be aliens, with whom diplomatic contact must be established, and if necessary, the crew must defend the ship.
On Kickstarter, there are additional ambitious goals to unlock:
- A VR mode for immersive gameplay
- Shuttles and alien structures
- The ability to land on planets and explore every inch of them
- A standalone “ship vs. ship” mode
- A dedicated content team to ensure a livelier universe
- A full campaign with contact to alien civilizations
- A new spaceship from an existing sci-fi universe as DLC in the game
You can see the game in an early state on YouTube here:
How is the Kickstarter campaign going? The campaign is going very well. Within 21 days, over €350,000 was raised, while only a little over €75,000 was sought.
The game is reminiscent of Star Citizen and includes a playable demo version that allows everyone to get a feel for the game before spending a cent on it.
Who is behind the project? The project is developed by Fleetyard Studios, led by the couple Dan and Claire Govier. The two have mostly developed the game on their own so far, relying on external help and AI tools only for audio issues.
The money from the Kickstarter funding is also intended to expand the team to create more and better content.
On the other hand, many developers are working on the competition Star Citizen, and there are already initial results. For example, the character editor was recently introduced: The MMORPG Star Citizen presents the new character editor for 15 minutes
