Info about Star Trucker:

Official game description:
Wishlist another new title from Raw Fury!
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About the Game
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Hop into the driver's seat of your rocket-powered big rig as you haul cargo, scavenge for salvage and interact with an eclectic cast of star-hopping truckers in this Americana-infused journey on the ultimate open road - space!  
Cruise the hyper highways, taking on a variety of jobs such as fuel hungry long hauls and hazardous drop-offs to earn cash and unlock new content.  
And don't forget to monitor the CB radio for chatter from fellow truckers; it's a fantastic way to uncover side gigs and stay updated on galactic gossip.  
Keeping your rig runnin’ isn’t always easy. You’ll need to keep your core systems online, gravity compensator spinnin’ and hull patched to prevent your cab from leaking lung juice.  
Be sure to make pre-trip shop stops for replacement parts, and consider upgrading your truck at a local garage. These improvements are vital for safely navigating volatile sectors and ensuring timely deliveries.  
Use the galactic map to plan your journey and warp jumps, while keeping an eye on your fuel reserves and power levels.  
Once your route is set, kick back, crank up the cab hi-fi and cruise to a selection of original songs covering starburst blues, galactic rock and asteroid infused americana. The open road is waiting!  
Star Trucker is the passion project of a small team: Monster and Monster. A two-person indie studio with a love for all things sci-fi and sim.  
With the help of some talented friends they’ve developed an out of this world experience filled with emergent challenges and complex systems to master. So buckle up and join them for the long haul!

Release date: 3 Sep, 2024

Categories: Driving Simulation, Space Flight Simulation, Resource Management, Survival, Trading Simulation, Vehicle Customization, Single-player Story, Open-World Exploration


- Hardware Profile: No data
Feature extractions:
- Community Price: No data
- Playtime Metrics: No data
- Time-to-fun: No data
- Player Archetypes: No data


Below are summaries of things people say about the game per category.
Each point is assigned a weight that represents how often it is mentioned across all reviews.
What players like:
- Immersive, relaxing, and engaging gameplay (weight 0.96): The game offers a unique and immersive space trucking experience with a relaxing yet engaging atmosphere.  Players appreciate the detailed graphics, intuitive controls, and the balance between challenge and relaxation.  Many reviewers found the game surprisingly addictive and enjoyable, praising its core gameplay loop and overall design.
- Detailed and engaging truck simulation (weight 0.72): Reviewers highlight the engaging truck simulation mechanics, including maintenance, customization, and realistic physics. The ability to exit the truck for repairs and salvage adds depth.  The game successfully blends trucking elements with space exploration, creating a unique and satisfying experience.
- Stunning and diverse space environments (weight 0.57): The game features stunning and diverse space environments, with unique hazards and challenges in each sector.  The visuals create a strong sense of immersion and make exploration enjoyable.  The level design surpasses most space simulators.
- Excellent audio design and atmosphere (weight 0.17): The game features a well-executed audio design, including a great soundtrack, enjoyable radio stations, and quality voice acting. The music and sound effects enhance the atmosphere and create a relaxing experience. The radio banter and NPC interactions add depth to the game world.
- Customizable difficulty and controls (weight 0.13): The game offers customizable difficulty settings and intuitive controls, making it accessible to a wide range of players.  Reviewers appreciate the ability to tailor the experience to their preferences.  The controls are easy to learn and master, especially with a controller.
- Interactive truck and environment (weight 0.08): The game rewards players for interacting with the truck's interior and exploring the environment.  The ability to walk around the truck, perform repairs, and manage systems adds to the immersion.  The game encourages mindful awareness of the truck and surroundings.
- Space trucking: a fresh take (weight 0.07): The game is often compared to Euro Truck Simulator and American Truck Simulator, but with a unique space setting and additional mechanics.  Reviewers appreciate the fresh take on the trucking genre.  The game offers a relaxing alternative to realistic truck simulators.
- Compelling story and characters (weight 0.07): The game features a compelling story with well-developed characters and engaging side missions. The narrative provides a sense of purpose beyond simple hauling. The voice acting enhances the story and NPC interactions.
- Unique and well-executed concept (weight 0.06): The game's concept is fresh, funny, and well-executed, creating a unique and enjoyable experience. The art style is fun and the characters are charming. The game is a rare indie gem among simulators.
- Engaging economy and trading system (weight 0.06): The game includes an economy system that allows players to trade goods between locations for profit.  The economic aspects add depth to the gameplay and require strategic decision-making.  Players can engage in smuggling and manage their finances to succeed.
- Highly addictive gameplay loop (weight 0.03): The game is highly addictive, causing reviewers to play for hours longer than intended. The gameplay loop is satisfying and the game is enjoyable despite the lack of long drives. The reviewer was amazed by the game's quality considering it was made by only 3 people.

Common complaints:
- Poor control scheme; customization lacking (weight 0.64): The game lacks sufficient control options and customization. Players express frustration with the inability to rebind keys, the absence of HOTAS/joystick support, and the lack of essential control features like strafing. This makes the game clunky and difficult to control, hindering the overall experience.
- Tedious resource management; high costs (weight 0.6): Resource management, particularly regarding batteries and air filters, is tedious and frustrating. These items are expensive, deplete quickly, and often cannot be recharged, forcing players into a constant cycle of grinding for money to replace them. This overshadows the core gameplay and makes progression difficult.
- Unbalanced economy; punishing difficulty (weight 0.6): The game suffers from unbalanced economy and difficulty, especially early on. High maintenance costs, scarce resources, and low payouts lead to a frustrating grind, often resulting in debt and the need to restart. The 'recommended' difficulty is often criticized for being too unforgiving and not beginner-friendly.
- Lacks guidance; poor navigation (weight 0.51): The game lacks clear guidance and navigation tools. Insufficient tutorials, a lack of in-game maps, and unclear mission objectives make it difficult for players to understand the mechanics and progress effectively. The docking process is also criticized for being tedious and repetitive.
- Numerous bugs; poor AI (weight 0.41): The game is plagued by bugs, glitches, and poor AI. Players report encountering game-breaking bugs, AI vehicles crashing into them, and cargo disappearing. These issues disrupt gameplay and contribute to a negative experience, making the game feel unfinished and unpolished.
- Fragile truck; frequent repairs (weight 0.32): The truck is fragile and requires frequent repairs due to collisions with space debris and other hazards. The truck's design and handling also contribute to the difficulty of avoiding damage, leading to frustration and hindering the relaxing trucking experience.
- Repetitive gameplay; lacks content (weight 0.31): The game suffers from a lack of content and variety. Players report that the missions become repetitive, the world feels empty, and there are limited options for truck customization and radio stations. This leads to boredom and a lack of long-term engagement.
- Unrealistic space environment (weight 0.06): The game's world feels unrealistic and lacks a sense of cosmic expanse. The presence of sound in space, illogical infrastructure, and excessive debris detract from the immersion.
- Lacks multiplayer and VR (weight 0.06): The game lacks multiplayer and VR support, which are significant omissions for players who enjoy playing with friends or immersing themselves in virtual reality.
- Flawed gravity system; unsecured cargo (weight 0.05): The gravity system is flawed, with the gravity generator consuming power rapidly and causing items to float around the cabin when batteries are changed. This creates a chaotic and tedious experience, especially since cargo isn't secured.
- Poor AI traffic behavior (weight 0.05): The AI traffic exhibits poor behavior, often crashing into the player and causing damage and fines. This is frustrating and makes it difficult to avoid collisions, especially in challenging areas.
- Inconvenient timed delivery missions (weight 0.05): Timed delivery missions are frustrating due to the lack of time-skipping mechanics. Players often arrive early and are forced to wait in real-time, which is inconvenient and disrupts the flow of gameplay.

Gameplay feedback:
- Space trucking survival focus (weight 0.23): The core gameplay loop revolves around space trucking, resource management, and survival elements. Players must manage fuel, oxygen, batteries, and repair damage from space debris while transporting cargo. This blend of simulation and survival mechanics sets it apart from traditional trucking games.
- Truck management and upgrades (weight 0.15): Players manage various truck systems, maintain components, and upgrade their vehicle.  The game features a skill tree that unlocks new job types and cargo, adding depth to the gameplay loop of hauling cargo and earning money.
- Challenging, methodical gameplay (weight 0.09): The game requires a methodical approach, resource planning, and attention to detail.  Players must learn the mechanics through experimentation and reading the manual, as the game does not offer extensive hand-holding. Difficulty can be customized.
- Trading and salvage opportunities (weight 0.06): Beyond hauling cargo, players can engage in trading, buying low and selling high between systems with fluctuating prices.  Players can also find loot and salvage in space to sell for additional income, adding another layer to the economic gameplay.
- Unique, challenging truck handling (weight 0.04): The game features unique truck handling in space, with inertia and 3D movement adding complexity. Backing up trailers is particularly challenging, and the lack of strafing can make the truck feel unwieldy.
- Gated progression via missions (weight 0.03): The game features a progression system where new zones, features, and upgrades are unlocked through story missions and a skill tree. This gated progression encourages players to complete missions and develop their character to access more content.
- Limited multi-trailer support (weight 0.03): The game allows players to haul multiple trailers, but the implementation is limited and can be buggy. Players can only haul multiple trailers if they are presented as a single mission, and there are issues with detaching and re-attaching cargo.
- Real-time scale, long waits (weight 0.03): The game operates on a 1:1 real-time scale, meaning there is no time compression. This can lead to extended waiting times for deliveries, especially for 'just in time' missions, which can be frustrating for players.
- Arcade and simulation blend (weight 0.02): The game blends arcade and simulation elements, with a core gameplay loop involving driving, delivering goods, and managing resources. The management aspect is considered realistic, and the game offers different modes to focus on either driving or resource management.
- Unique space flying experience (weight 0.02): The game features a unique flying experience in space, with movement limited to a 2D plane and a semi-realistic Newtonian model. The core gameplay involves navigating between stations, transporting cargo, and avoiding obstacles.
- Mix of trucking and space sims (weight 0.02): The game is often compared to other trucking and space simulation games, such as American Truck Simulator, Euro Truck Simulator, Elite Dangerous, and No Man's Sky. It is described as a blend of these genres, with varying degrees of success.

Performance notes:
- Inconsistent performance, optimization needed (weight 0.11): Many players report inconsistent performance, with frame rate drops and stuttering occurring even on high-end systems. Some specific areas and effects, like electrical storms and Tanktown, are noted to cause performance dips. Low GPU utilization suggests optimization issues.
- Frame rate capping issues (weight 0.1): Some players are experiencing frame rate caps, either at 20, 30, or 60 FPS. This issue seems to occur regardless of graphics settings or hardware capabilities, suggesting a potential bug or configuration problem.
- Smooth performance, appealing graphics (weight 0.08): Many reviewers report that the game generally runs smoothly and looks visually appealing, even on lower-end hardware and the Steam Deck. Some minor bugs and slowdowns are reported, especially in areas with heavy traffic, but overall the game is considered stable and well-optimized.
- Good sound design and audio (weight 0.01): The game features well-done sound design, including realistic sound effects and a charming radio with a variety of music tracks. The audio quality is generally considered to be very good and adds to the atmosphere of the game.
- Trailer and debris-related bugs (weight 0.01): Players have reported bugs related to trailers detaching unexpectedly and debris spawning in blind spots. These issues can lead to frustrating collisions and make path planning difficult, especially when hauling multiple trailers.
- FPS drops during specific actions (weight 0.01): Several players have reported frame rate drops during specific actions, such as flying, docking, or when other trucks are visible. The use of cameras on small screens also seems to trigger performance dips.
- Poor anti-aliasing implementation (weight 0): The game's only anti-aliasing option, temporal AA, causes either heavy aliasing/shimmering or blurry details when moving. This can be distracting and negatively impact the visual experience.
- Detailed visual damage modeling (weight 0): The game features detailed visual damage modeling, with dents, scratches, and grime accumulating on the truck based on collisions and wear. This adds to the immersion and realism of the game.
- Alt+Tab issues in fullscreen (weight 0): The game's fullscreen exclusive mode has issues with Alt+Tab, which can be disruptive for players who frequently switch between applications.
- V-Sync causes stuttering (weight 0): Enabling V-Sync can cause stuttering, negatively impacting the smoothness of the gameplay experience.
- Randomly tabs out (weight 0): The game randomly tabs out, though it doesn't crash or quit. This can be disruptive and annoying for players.

Recommendations:
- Compared to trucking/space simulators (weight 0.64): The game is frequently compared to trucking simulators like Euro Truck Simulator and American Truck Simulator, with some reviewers finding it better and others worse. Many recommend it to fans of trucking or space sims, emphasizing its unique blend of genres. However, some feel it doesn't fully deliver on either the trucking or space simulation aspects.
- Enjoyable, but mixed recommendations (weight 0.54): Many reviewers find the game enjoyable and recommend it, citing its unique atmosphere and engaging gameplay loop. Some suggest waiting for a sale or further development before purchasing. Others praise the game's value, especially compared to AAA titles, while some consider it overpriced in its current state.
- Desire for more content (weight 0.43): Many reviewers express hope for future content updates, DLC, and expansions to add more depth, features, and explorable areas. Specific requests include more truck customization options, new missions, sectors, and story expansions. Some reviewers are already anticipating a sequel.
- Control issues; controller recommended (weight 0.42): Some reviewers report control issues, particularly with keyboard and mouse, and recommend using a controller or HOTAS setup for a better experience. Specific requests include key rebinding options, strafing, and improved camera controls. Some reviewers even refunded the game due to control problems.
- Try the demo first (weight 0.36): Several reviewers suggest trying the demo before purchasing the full game to see if it suits their tastes. This is because the core gameplay loop is consistent, making it easy to determine if the game is enjoyable within the refund window. Some reviewers feel that the game is basically an enhanced demo build.
- Overwhelmingly positive, lacks specifics (weight 0.33): Some reviewers give the game very high scores (9/10, 10/10, even 11/10) and consider it a Game of the Year contender. Others express strong satisfaction with their purchase and find the game to be amazing or fantastic. However, these points lack specific details about the gameplay or features that justify the high praise.
- Hope for continued development (weight 0.03): Reviewers express hope that the developers will continue to support the game, address player concerns, and add new features. They believe the game has the potential to grow into something great and are excited for future updates. Some reviewers specifically praise the developers for their hard work and dedication.
- More truck customization, upgrades (weight 0.02): Reviewers suggest adding more truck customization options, such as adjusting external cameras, turbine placement, and designing the truck's interior. They also recommend prioritizing upgrades like thermal insulation, collision damage reduction, and faster spacesuit charging. Some reviewers suggest the addition of mid-game difficulty adjustment in a future patch.
- Difficulty varies; not driving sim (weight 0.01): The game's difficulty varies greatly depending on the chosen settings, with some reviewers finding the default difficulty too challenging and others recommending easier or custom modes for a more relaxed experience. Some reviewers suggest that the game is not a driving sim, and those expecting that will be disappointed.
- Play Elite Dangerous instead (review bombing?) (weight 0.01): Some reviewers recommend playing Elite Dangerous instead of this game, citing its superior controls, features, and overall experience. They feel that this game is disappointing compared to other space games with better implementations. This point may indicate a review bombing trend from fans of other space simulation games.
- Resource management tips (weight 0.01): Reviewers suggest various strategies for managing resources and avoiding frustrating situations, such as keeping a "mid-way" save to avoid restarting from scratch. One reviewer recommends doing normal contracts and ignoring the story until you have enough resources to keep going. Another plans to restart the game and adjust the difficulty settings to minimize wear and maximize payouts.

Other player notes:
- Unique blend: Trucking in space (weight 0.06): The game uniquely blends truck simulation with space exploration, featuring retro-futuristic aesthetics inspired by films like 'Space Truckers.' Players manage resources, maintain their trucks, and engage in interstellar commerce, creating a distinctive experience that differentiates it from typical space or trucking sims. The game emphasizes a 'trucker in space' theme.
- Small development team, active support (weight 0.04): The game was developed by a very small team, often just two people. Reviewers are generally impressed by the level of content and polish achieved by such a small team, and the developers are actively working on the game with new content and quality of life updates.
- Early stage, awaiting updates (weight 0.03): The game is relatively new, and reviewers are looking forward to future updates and patches to address lacking areas. Some reviewers plan to revisit and update their reviews as the game evolves.
- Inconsistent world logic, poor execution (weight 0.02): Some reviewers find inconsistencies in the game's world logic and physics, leading to a sense of poor execution despite promising ideas. Some mechanics are not well explained, and the purpose of certain elements within the space setting is unclear.
- Retro-futuristic setting, polished art (weight 0.01): The game is set in a retro-futuristic world with a cool and visually polished art style. The game world consists of 32 star systems.
- Misleading tutorials, simple manual (weight 0.01): Tutorials are sometimes misleading or omit critical information, despite the presence of an in-game user manual. The story primarily serves as a tutorial to guide player progression.
- English audio only (weight 0.01): The game includes multiple written languages, but the audio is only in English. This doesn't significantly hinder the experience for players with a basic understanding of English.

Emotions:
No emotions}