I prefer to spend a fair amount of time on just a couple of planets in a massive universe. As a result, I slide the resource settings up a fair amount. I wanted to set up massive planetary wide production lines and not needing to worry about hunting around for the next plant for resources only staying just ahead of things before a needed ore vein depletes.
For how complex and busy Dyson Sphere Program can get they do have tutorials and information popping up throughout your playthrough when you run into something new. While your thirty minutes can be quite an information-packed as you are trying to learn the ropes you tend to fall into a rhythm after some time.
You start as you do in quite a few base-building games out there where you have to manually gather the resources. This can be quite a slow process that has a heavy drain on you’re the mech you fly around in before getting any upgrades.
While the starting planet has quite a few resources on it that can keep you content for quite a while if you are not going tech-heavy. It does not take long for the game to lead you to a point where you need resources between other planets.
I had quite a massive amount of logistic stations and a swarm of flying vessels endlessly trying to meet the demand and supply of everything going on. It takes quite a lot of hours to get to this stage of the game. You first tend to have buildings being manufactured in your mech’s production which is quite a slow process.
Eventually, you can automate to this pure insanity. Many times I would just leave the game running on my send screen and watch the logistic fleets transport everything around for hours on end while I was doing other things. You do get to a point in this game where you start just leaving it on overnight producing needing items to progress even further.
One thing that was a constant struggle from early game to middle game was keeping up with energy consumption. While the game has all kinds of different options you get to unlock along the way from burning oil, wind, solar, and even the end game Dyson Sphere. It felt like I was always struggling to have enough power.
This is what one of my planets would look like long term. I had quite a massive setup of solar at the poles trying to get me as much energy as it could. Then just endless rows of production. I can’t tell you how many times I’d get lost trying to find an individual item I needed to manually create something or to address a shortage is as having.
While the game does allow you to blueprint your setups. I more times than not just opted to go through the slow manual process of placing everything down from the buildings, convey belts, and storage solutions. There are even modes players have for saving large builds so they can quickly populate a planet if they have the resources and items to do so. I wanted a pure experience of the game so I stayed away from modes.
For me, with over 100 hours into the game, the biggest letdown was the whole goal of the game itself. Building a Dyson Sphere to capture energy from the sun felt like this massive thing. Throughout different stages of the game, you unlock different technology to try and accomplish this achievement.
The issue is s Dyson Sphere is quite a resource-intensive thing to construct. Even more so when everything you launch into space to form around the sun has a limited life cycle before you lose it. Requiring a planet that is just dedicated to doing so. The amount of power you need to be gathering alone did not seem worthwhile.
Not to mention the far more privative method of getting energy did not require endless costs to maintain as the Dyson Sphere does. You could even find a plant that was close to the sun that had higher amounts of solar power opportunities for instance for collection. Then ship that power using a logistics system to a plant that needed the energy. While it was quite costly and time-consuming to get set up like that. Once you did the power needs would be set for quite some time before I found myself needing to expand it even further.
While throughout my playthrough I attempted to get different stages of a Dyson Sphere going. I just could not quantify those costs vs furthering along with my progress in the tech tree or increasing my production abilities. It seems like once you are at the stage to have one fully going you are done with the game.
While it was tempting for a while to want to keep playing to build a Dyson Sphere that I could maintain. I just got too bored of the game before that. Even more so since I started a second game wanting to make some major changes in how I first played my early hours.
It was still quite a fun game for a while that gave me a lot of enjoyment. Perhaps at some point, once this game developers further I’ll check back in. This game is in early access and it seems like some changes will need to be made.
Screenshots were taken and content was written by @Enjar. Screenshots are from Dyson Sphere Program.
Disclosure: This game is in early access.
Originally posted on Enjar Games. Hive blog powered by ENGRAVE.
