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PurplePanda’s Space/Construction Game list This list is being created for anyone who or wants some DU-ish games to play between tests or until DU releases. All of these have been chosen by me through “extensive” research that I did an hour ago, as well as some personal favorite of mine. Hope you enjoy some of these games, I think some of them are definitely worth a look! (Note all reviews will be from there Steam pages) Out Now Avorion - Early Access A procedural co-op space sandbox where players can build their own space ships out of dynamically scalable blocks. Fight epic space battles, explore, mine, trade, wage wars and build your own empire to save your galaxy from being torn apart by an unknown enemy I’ve seen this game around for a little bit and although I’ve never played it myself, I find the aesthetics and mechanics look fantastic. For me it really puts into scope how big the universe is and how there is so much more out there, but less in an existential way, and more in an curious way. All Reviews: Very Positive Recent Reviews: Overwhelmingly Positive. $22.95 AU https://store.steampowered.com/app/445220/Avorion/ Astroneer - Fully Released Explore and reshape distant worlds! Astroneer is set during the 25th century Intergalactic Age of Discovery, where Astroneers explore the frontiers of outer space, risking their lives in harsh environments to unearth rare discoveries and unlock the mysteries of the universe. In this space sandbox adventure, players can work together to build custom bases above or below ground, create vehicles to explore a vast solar system, and use terrain to create anything they can imagine. A player’s creativity and ingenuity are the keys to thriving on exciting planetary adventures! Once again I haven’t actually played the game but I’ve seen it from time to time and the aesthetics are simply whimsical. I also watched a very interesting and entertaining documentary about it and the company’s creation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfUjl4owxTQ All Reviews: Very Positive Recent Reviews: Very Positive. $29.99 AU https://store.steampowered.com/app/361420/ASTRONEER/ Star Made - Early Access The ultimate space sandbox. Participate in epic fleet battles, form alliances, strive to dominate entire galaxies and harness the universe’s resources for your industrious empire or the destruction of others. Customize your experience, the universe is yours! A voxel-based 3D sandbox set in the never-ending darkness of space. Create your own ships, explore new galaxies, stars, and planets. Discover and salvage space stations, fight against pirates or opposing factions in multiplayer. Equip your ships with completely customizable weapons and conquer the galaxy. Trade and make a fortune, mass produce materials in gigantic factories. Design your very own space station. Create warp gates and network the universe at your front door. Star made is probably the game I have sunk the most hours into (although not that impressive), and I’ll admit I had a lot of fun doing it but the game has kind of stagnated. Personally, I think it is a good game but updates now rarely come out and the community is all but dead. If you enjoy playing by yourself and are able to see past some of its problems, I do believe you could have a genuinely enjoyable experience. At the very least it could be useful for prototyping ship ideas. All Reviews: Mixed Recent Reviews: Mostly Positive. $Free. Download the demo it’s the full game. https://www.star-made.org/ Interstellar Rift - Early Access Interstellar Rift is an open world Starship Simulator with an emphasis on ship construction and multi-player interaction. Players can explore and conquer the galaxy with their own custom designed and constructed a starship. Space is vast, but you won't have to face it alone, other players will be able to join your crew, and help out, or build their own rival fleet and fight you across the galaxy. I don’t own this game and have only recently learned about it but from what I’ve seen (and read) it incentivizes ship creation and allows for immense amounts of creative freedom. All Reviews: Mostly Positive Recent Reviews: Mixed. $26.95 AU https://store.steampowered.com/app/363360/Interstellar_Rift/ FTL: Faster Than Light - Fully Released In FTL you experience the atmosphere of running a spaceship trying to save the galaxy. It's a dangerous mission, with every encounter presenting a unique challenge with multiple solutions. What will you do if a heavy missile barrage shuts down your shields? Reroute all power to the engines in an attempt to escape, power up additional weapons to blow your enemy out of the sky, or take the fight to them with a boarding party? This "spaceship simulation roguelike-like" allows you to take your ship and crew on an adventure through a randomly generated galaxy filled with glory and bitter defeat. I don’t know much about this game and I have never played it, but I know it’s a classic and that it’s a classic for a reason. Definitely worth a try if you haven't yet. All Reviews: Overwhelmingly Positive Recent Reviews: Overwhelmingly Positive. $14.50 AU https://store.steampowered.com/app/212680/FTL_Faster_Than_Light/ Cosmoteer - Early Access Cosmoteer is a starship design, simulation, and battle game. Design a fleet of ships by placing individual modules including weapons, shields, engines, and hallways. Battle A.I. starships to earn bounties or test your design skills against other players. A dynamic crew and combat simulation make every design decision important and interesting. This game is one of my recent favorite, hands down. I find the way how the shipbuilding and 2D elements blend to be thoroughly enjoyable. There is a large amount of flexibility when it comes to the construction of your ships and I find it deeply satisfying when I pit two of my creation against each other, using there A.I to efficiently decimate the other party. I highly recommend this game, whether you're into pitting your creations against other peoples ships or your own (or the bounty hunter campaign). Plus there's nothing to lose, it’s free!!! (There's also a relatively large modding community). No Official Reviews. $Free (at least for now). https://cosmoteer.net/ Space Engineers - Fully Released Space Engineers is a sandbox game about engineering, construction, exploration, and survival in space and on planets. Players build space ships, space stations, planetary outposts of various sizes and use's, pilot ships and travel through space to explore planets and gather resources to survive. I don’t have much to say on this title as I have played it only on occasion, it’s a very well know game with a good single player mode. The multiplayer has been notorious for its issues but it does work to some extent (from what I’ve seen) and it was known for its insanely long alpha period, but in total it’s apparently a really good game. All Reviews: Very Positive Recent Reviews: Very. $28.95 AU https://store.steampowered.com/app/244850/Space_Engineers/ No Man’s Sky - Fully Released In No Man's Sky, every star is the light of a distant sun, each orbited by planets filled with life, and you can go to any of them you choose. Fly smoothly from deep space to planetary surfaces, with no loading screens, and no limits. In this infinite procedurally generated universe, you'll discover places and creatures that no other players have seen before - and perhaps never will again. If you know anything about this game, you know about its horrendously rough start and while I wouldn't say all the hate the company was just, after twenty hours of playing I got bored and stopped. But while some of the responses were justified, Hello Games were able to truly turn their disaster around. Although I myself have barely played it since release I intend to soon, that's because in the years No Man’s Sky has been online Hello Game has been constantly updated. If you bought this game and have never looked at it since I highly suggest you give it another chance, you may be pleasantly surprised. All Reviews: Mixed Recent Reviews: Very Positive. $84.95 AU https://store.steampowered.com/app/275850/No_Mans_Sky/ Kerbal Space Program - Fully Released In Kerbal Space Program, take charge of the space program for the alien race known as the Kerbals. You have access to an array of parts to assemble fully-functional spacecraft that flies (or doesn’t) based on realistic aerodynamic and orbital physics. Launch your Kerbal crew into orbit and beyond (while keeping them alive) to explore moons and planets in the Kerbol solar system, constructing bases and space stations to expand the reach of your expedition. K.S.P is another game I would have to list as a favorite game, simply because it is so difficult yet so fun, in all the 40 hours I’ve played I got nowhere, but I got nowhere with style. And I think that's what's so great about it, if you do dedicate time and effort you can go somewhere, you can go to many many where’s. Whether you're a casual player that just wants to play in sandbox mode or colonies the solar system through dedication, this game deserves a look. All Reviews: Very Positive Recent Reviews: Overwhelmingly Positive. $45.99 AU https://store.steampowered.com/app/220200/Kerbal_Space_Program/ PULSAR: Lost Colony - Early Access Team up to operate an advanced starship and explore a randomized galaxy falling into chaos. Each player assumes a role aboard the ship: Captain, Pilot, Scientist, Weapons Specialist and Engineer. Coordination between your crewmembers will be essential in order to survive the perils that await you. I’ve been seeing the game on multiple sites like youtube for the past few years and it always caught my attention. I love the idea of having specialized roles and love how they have been able to recreate that ship on the frontier feel, with only yourself and your crewmates to rely on. If you like playing in friend groups, or just want to feel like you actually are controlling a ship, this game is for you. All Reviews: Very Positive Recent Reviews: Overwhelmingly Positive. $35.95 AU https://store.steampowered.com/app/252870/PULSAR_Lost_Colony/ Planet Nomads - Fully Released Planet Nomads is a single player sci-fi sandbox game of survival on alien planets through block-style building. You are a lone astronaut scientist crash-landing on a strangely captivating planet. Keeping your wit together and securing your basic survival needs that include food, water, and building material is the best start towards figuring out a way out of this messy situation. This game started its development around the same time as the No Man’s Sky hype and sort of faded into the background, and although production continued the product today is quite controversial. Many of the players say that the game failed due to lag, mediocre updates, and eventual boredom while many others really like the game and still support it. If your willing to give this game a chance and aren't adverse to a bit of risk it might be something to check out. All Reviews: Mixed All Reviews Mixed. $28.95 AU https://store.steampowered.com/app/504050/Planet_Nomads/ Elite Dangerous - Fully Released Elite Dangerous is the definitive massively multiplayer space epic, bringing gaming’s original open-world adventure to the modern generation with a connected galaxy, evolving narrative and the entirety of the Milky Way re-created at its full galactic proportions. I don’t actually know much about Elite, I know it’s big, it’s pretty and it’s quite hard to get into it and enjoy it but other than that it’s up to you to investigate and research. All Reviews: Mixed Recent Reviews: Very Positive. $42.95 AU https://store.steampowered.com/app/359320/Elite_Dangerous/ Infinfactory - Fully Released Infinifactory is a sandbox puzzle game by Zachtronics, the creators of SpaceChem and Infiniminer. Build factories that assemble products for your alien overlords, and try not to die in the process. This game is all about industry, so it would be perfect for anyone partaking in Alpha 2 to get some “practice” before or in between (I don’t know how much help it would be). Other than that, anyone who likes to create systems that work flawlessly or like to think logically might like this game. All Reviews: Very Positive Recent Reviews: Overwhelmingly Positive. $35.95 AU https://store.steampowered.com/app/300570/Infinifactory/ Empyrion Galactic Survival - Early Access Empyrion - Galactic Survival is a 3D open-world space sandbox survival adventure. Build powerful ships, mighty space stations and vast planetary settlements to explore, conquer or exploit a variety of different planets and discover the mysteries of Empyrion! As far as I can tell, Empyrion is a game similar to Space engineers with more customization ability for its creations. Of course, there are probably several key differences but I have not played the game and thus do not know. All Reviews: Very Positive Recent Reviews: Mostly Positive. $28.95 AU https://store.steampowered.com/app/383120/Empyrion__Galactic_Survival/ Nimbatus - Early Access Nimbatus - The Space Drone Constructor is an action-packed simulation game. Craft drones out of hundreds of different parts and explores a destructible, procedurally generated galaxy. Build autonomous drones to fight against other players' creations. Do you have what it takes to become a drone engineer? I’ve only played Nimbatus for a little bit, but from what I have played and have seen externally from the game, it is going to highly appeal to those who like using logic parts. While i is an extremely fun game without using them and I suggest you look into the game, either way, the logic parts are definitely one of its strong suites. All Reviews: Very Positive Recent Reviews: Very Positive $28.95 AU https://store.steampowered.com/app/383840/Nimbatus__The_Space_Drone_Constructor/ EVE Online - Fully Released EVE Online is a community-driven spaceship MMO where players can play free, choosing their own path from countless options. Experience space exploration, immense PvP and PvE battles, mining, industry and a thriving player economy in an ever-expanding sandbox. EVE truly is a virtual world, one that houses so many people and factions and wars it’s almost impossible to keep track of. If you're looking for a game with history and lore, legends and tales of war, and distances almost unimaginable to the human mind, then EVE is for you. Although you should note that it is extremely hard to get into and to fully immerse yourself in the culture and history, will take a lot of dedication. All Reviews: Mostly Positive Recent Reviews: Very Positive. $Free (With packs) https://store.steampowered.com/app/8500/EVE_Online/ Bonus I know we already have enough on our plate with DU, but these two are game projects that are definitely worth following in the future. I highly suggest you look into them. Starbase - https://store.steampowered.com/app/454120/Starbase/ Skywanderes - https://skywanderersgame.com/ If you have anymore good games that i missed or noticed any mistakes I've made, please notify me with a comment! ☺️

Hello. I've been around here now for quite some time (something like 4ish months), but it occurred to me recently that I have yet to properly introduce myself. So I thought I would finally take the time to do so. This is going to be long and probably sound self-congratulatory, so sorry in advance. I will start with a quick little summary for those who don't want to read the whole thing. My name is Lord_Void (or Lord Void, depending), but pretty much everyone just calls me Void. I came to this community during the kick starter, early in September of 2016. As I looked around the community I liked what I saw, and loved the potential for the game, so I introduced some of my friends to the game. This group became Evil Inc. Eventually, we decided to join Band of Outlaws and have been a member ever since. I have made friends with many members of BOO and am extremely proud to have been made one of the Pirate Lords tasked with managing the group and serving our members. I myself am a software developer by trade, with an avid interest in history and linguistics. I currently reside in Southern California, US. I have been gaming since I was a young child, with experience in WOW, EVE, COD, Battlefield, a number of MOBAs, the Civ series, EU4, Chess, Shogi, the elder scrolls, Total War, The Witcher, and Wargame (the list goes on, but you get the idea.) I look forward to being involved in the Politics of this game, as well as recording the history and playing in the markets. I consider myself pretty friendly and open, so feel free to message me whenever for whatever. I'm always open for playing some games, or having a good discussion. Also, I would like to add, while through the course of this game I have acquired, and will likely continue to acquire, a number of "rivals" whether they be in the form of people or organizations, I consider those rivalries as part of the game, nothing more. To the people behind the screens I say: if you are a member of this community, you are my friend. Period. That's the short version. If you're just perusing you can stop there, but if you'd like to read on and can forgive my prolixity, I'm going to go a bit more in-depth, with particular focus on the events and works which shaped my way of thinking. I was born and raised in Southern California, and at a young age I took to computers for both gaming and programming. By the time high school rolled around those two fields constituted almost the entirety of my interests. I was pretty well read for my age, having been raised on the works of Asimov, Frank Herbert, Tolkien, and Robert Heinlein, plus a number of other assorted titles. Upon entering high school, I encountered several developments which would (and still do) shape my life and thinking. First of all, I encountered and read several book series which would provide a foundation for future growth. The first of the foundational series was the (coincidentally named) Foundation series by Isaac Asimov which centered around a fictional science in the distant future that combined many different fields of study in order to predict the broad trends of the future. This series stoked an interest in using historical information and political/economic analysis in order to try and predict the future course of events, an interest which continues and I hope to apply to DU. The second series was the ever-funny "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" which aside from providing a wonderful read, imbued in me a slightly ridiculous sense of humor. The third was less a series, and more a collection of books: unabridged English translations of all of Jules Verne's books which imparted the vision of the old style gentleman scholar, and handy-man adventurer. In addition to these literary acquisitions (as well as many others not listed), I was begrudgingly pressed into studying Spanish by the requirements of my school system. Over time, after about 3 years of study, I began to appreciate the ability to communicate in another language and even picked up some Russian (admittedly minor, I hope to take a few years to truly learn it someday). I decided to continue studying Spanish past the requirements of the school system and upon graduation departed to study at the Universidad de Salamanca in Spain. While there, I came across the unabridged Spanish translations of the very same Jules Verne books I had previously read, so I again traversed his corpus. I completed my coursework there and headed back to the United States. I then studied at Montana State University, attracted by both the Computer Science Department's faculty as well as by the near total contrast to my southern Californian upbringing. It was here that I received a major challenge to my existing world view. While I had always considered myself staunchly liberal growing up, a left-wing democrat to the core, the liberal ideology I encountered at MSU seemed poisoned by cognitive isolationism and more interested in categorizing ideas as heretical than actually engaging with them. Thus, with my world view in tatters and seeking answers, I retreated into the school's library and began to assemble a new world view for myself. I read as much as I could of both classical texts and more modern works, searching for counter-points to every book and having many debates with people I encountered. I eventually settled on a set of ideas that seemed to be both internally and externally consistent and provided plenty of rooms to expand and change over time, which I shall continue to refine till the day I die. I now consider myself (to put it in general terms) economically/politically conservative and socially liberal, with a strong libertarian undertone. After finishing my time in Montana I decided to move back to southern California. It was some time after this that I was bedridden for about a month following a surgery, and came across the book "China: A History" by John Keay, which I devoured. It rekindled my interest in history in addition to the economic and political theory I was mostly reading and again modified my world view. Where I had previously looked at mostly European or Eurocentric history, I now began to see the value of studying other regions and then comparing them against other regions. I added to my library a number of histories on China as well as classical Chinese texts. I decided to take a course in East Asian History at the local community college and was not disappointed. I learned how to read Korean script (more for purposes of transliteration rather than direct comprehension) and added some classical Japanese literature to my repertoire. I resolved to study Mandarin as well, so as to gain a better insight into the culture, as well as increase my ability to communicate with people in varying parts of the world. I took a break from historical study to spend some time realizing my childhood dream of becoming the rugged gentleman-adventurer like in the Verne books. I took a wilderness survival course and took training in wilderness medicine, earning the certifications necessary to become a Wilderness First Responder, so that I might participate in a local search and rescue team, as well as lead my friends on backpacking trips. Returning from that, I began my Mandarin study (and French, because why not? I'm starting to peck away at Verne's books again, this time in original French) as well as taking another course on Middle Eastern History. I continued collecting and consuming histories of various regions, slowly filling in the blank spots. While I certainly do not know everything, nor even most things if one is to look at the sheer mass of knowledge available, I consider myself to be a sort of 'historical generalist', having a wide breadth of knowledge even if it proves shallow in some areas. I am realizing now that this is starting to read a lot more like a biography than an introduction, and I apologize for that, but I am getting to my point. All throughout the previous wall of text, I played EVE. I played under a variety of names and characters, stopping and starting over the years. In the most recent iteration of this cycle, I played as a director of an up and coming little indy corp. This was the origin of the Void persona. I flew with that group for several months, taking them through wars and adventures until we eventually joined up with an old alliance out in Solitude. That went well for a few months, until a war broke the back of that already withering alliance. All of us, all of my friends, scattered in various directions with some heading to lowsec and others back to the highsec mainland. I headed off into nullsec where I was picked up by my beloved TEST Alliance. During this time I marveled at the complexity of the world of EVE and its history. I read "Empires of EVE" by Andrew Groen and bemoaned the fact that I hadn't been there since the beginning. I wished that I could have been there in the beginning, to help shape the world or at least to see the pivotal changes as they occurred. It was like all of the real world history that I had read, and all of the politically and economic theory I had studied was embodied in the comparatively fast paced world of internet spaceships. It was a separate world that could be compared to our real one as the various regions can be compared against each other. I promised myself that if I ever had an opportunity to get in on the beginning of something great like that, I would. That I would throw myself into it. When I first saw Dual Universe I thought it looked stupid. I really did. I thought it looked like a cheap EVE knock-off and didn't give it a second glance. This must have been the first advertising campaign before the kick starter, or even before the forums existed, in those pre-historic times you occasionally hear some of the oldest members of our community speak of. In short, I ignored it and carried on in EVE. It was only when the kick starter came and I again saw the ads for the game that I realized my mistake. This was a chance to get in on the beginning, not to mention that upon closer inspection the game mechanics showed a lot of potential. This was a game I would enjoy playing. I quickly signed up. I showed a number of my friends and together we formed Evil Inc. We resolved to remain independent and build our own empire, handling everything from industry and trade to warfare and exploring, with me as the CEO (Chief Evil Officer), but over time we realized that this was not the best path to take, especially not this early in the game's life. We also realized that we had a bit of an image problem. Coming from the dark, sarcastic humor of TEST, and the dry ridiculousness of Hitchhiker's Guide, the somewhat over-serious tone that most organizations had (and still have) contrasted sharply with our experience in EVE. Surely, we figured, others must feel the same and will be drawn to a group that can provide the proper mix or sarcasm and intellect. So we decided to take the opposite approach that most groups in DU took: instead of declaring we are the good guys who are going to preserve order and peace, we advertised ourselves as the bad guys, the "evil" ones, and this image would contrast with our actual supportive and good natured reality. The sarcasm was supposed to be self-evident (there is even a tv trope listed as "Evil, inc.", look it up), but sadly I think many people missed that. In the end it doesn't really matter though. We decided that the best way to proceed would be to join up with one of the existing groups in Dual Universe. As the CEO I talked with many people from various groups: Cinderfall Syndicate, Terran Union, Band of Outlaws, The Empire, and several others. They were all very nice and made us feel very welcome. We were even leaning heavily towards joining the Terran Union. But in the end, Cybrex won us over with his personality and organizational vision, as well as his EVE background. We joined BOO and as previously stated I now have the honor of being one of the Pirate Lords, working to serve BOO. Evil Inc. is now mostly a group devoted to financial services and scholarship, and sits awaiting Alpha and Beta to kick off. As my time here as progressed, I have had the privilege of watching many changes occur in the community. Some might call these inconsequential, but even the slightest happenings here in this historical epoch, which I have personally taken to calling "The Great Debate", will have large ramifications later on post-release. This is why I went through the long-winded tail of my love affair with history and social sciences (somewhat literally as my lovely lady is a sociologist lol). I wanted to introduce myself to you all, and I believe the part of me that will be most manifest here is my interest in humanity, in the past and its relationship with the future. Plus, (all this other stuff aside) videogames are incredibly fun, which is the real reason we are all here. In this light, I have been working on compiling a history of the community and will be maintaining this record as time goes on. A number of people have already been kind enough to lend their perspectives to this work, and I thank them for it. Even this far from Alpha, I feel like this community has given me enough content to make my pledge worth it. So there we have, my overly long and far too detailed introduction. Thank you all and Happy Holidays! Fly Safe o7 -Lord_Void