https://store.steampowered.com/app/445220/Avorion/ First off... WHAT IS AVORION? Avorion takes us back to a time when games were good without annoying microtransactions or subscription fees to get in the way of your fun. It is an old school space empire simulation game where you start with a single mining craft and over time build up to carve out your own galactic empire. It's like the American Dream, but in space and with more lasers. For those familiar with the X-series of space games, its like that, but you can design your own ships to look and work however you want. No glitches, no "coming soon" desperately needed features, no mountain of tutorials. The game does everything you want it to right out of the box and then keeps giving you more! But what if you are bad at "space Legos"? Don't worry! Thanks to the power of the Steam Workshop, you can have other people build your toys for you and then you can focus all your time on smashing them together, painting them off-putting colors, or defacing them into hideous shadows of their former glory! Your options are nearly limitless! There is a goal to play towards (reaching the center) and this can be done however you want, no strings attached. Combat is required, but you don't have to pull the trigger yourself. You can be a trader who builds combat ships to fly with you if you don't want to fight, or you can go full defense and just ignore everything. Build an army and send them to war, or ignore the center and start manufacturing/trading to create an interstellar empire. The galaxy is massive. Don't forget to bring a towel. COMBAT All weapons are viable, each has a different application. Cannons/Railguns hit hard and far, but in different ways. Cannons destroy large areas around the impact where as railguns drive into the core and bypass defenses to hit internals. Wanna play defense? There's flak and anti-missile turrets that work great vs drones and torpedoes. Or, you could just go fast. Inversely, you could have so much tank you just don't care. Your call , no reason not to use something. Pirates in this game, aggressive as they may be, sometimes just want your cargo. So they're actually pirates and not "PLAYER CHARACTER DIE NOW" dudes. Oh, and yes, you can join them, you just have to earn their trust. War is never far from home. You can put AI commanders in charge of ANY ship you make. I mean any ship. They can do anything you can do and they can do it while you're not around. Wanna go blow stuff up but need ore, too? Build a mining ship with drones and make him do it. You can go have fun elsewhere until he runs out of asteroids. Just make sure someone's around to defend him, but you can build another ship for that as well. Bosses They exist and they're all unique and fun. Some will find you, others you will find. Eventually all of them will be required to reach the "Avorion", but I won't say more lest I ruin the story. Although you start with a single insignificant ship, the game can escalate to full blown Fleet Admiral RTS MODE. The game supports a real-time strategy mode. Build your army of ships and command them from an overview. Don't bother putting yourself in danger if you don't want to. LIVE THE LIFE OF 'ENDER'S GAME'! INDUSTRY Trading is a thing, as is supply and demand. Sectors in war may want robots. Industrial sectors may want food and cows, or even just toys. Build a ship with some large jump drives and make the trips shorter and funner. Go find that stuff and bring it, or make it yourself. Build your own space stations for fun, though you determine if it's for profit. Space stations are can be expensive, but if you have a mind for logistics you can make them very profitable. You decide if it's smarter to build a product or components for products. You can put them anywhere and build on them like any ship. Find a nice route that's missing a single ingredient? Build a space station for it and make the route perfect. Arrrgh, be a pirate! Seriously, raiding is extremely profitable and fun! It's also extremely dangerous. Eventually someone will send a raiding squad of 3-5 mercs to rip you apart and they will be designed to kill you. You can run or you can fight back, but in the end it's up to you. Winning that fight is quite worth it, but will test you. The only thing people care about is killing civilians, but if you're good enough can you just demand their stuff and they might just let you have it if you keep your word. Then again, if nobody sees it nobody knows... (yes, this is a game mechanic, there are no psychic guards) Live a asteroid miner's life... or don't! Salvaging is quite the blast... sometimes literally! Mining makes money in this game, but so does crafting materials. It may seem boring at first to manually shoot rocks, but that's only until you make a giant processing ship that has 120 drones and commands 5 other ships. Or you can just tell them all do the work while you go do literally anything else. Least you can do is clean up the corpses of your enemies after you kill them. Wrecked ships have more than just explody bits. WORLD GENERATION The universe is huge and UNIQUE, but it has organization. Factions occupy areas and actively patrol them. Traveling traders will tell you were they come from so you can find their sectors. You can make friends with everyone, but there is profit in war and raiding. Everything, although random, is believable and generated in meaningful ways. Thought was put into this and everything makes sense. This isn't some half-arsed implementation, a lot of thought went into the generation engine. Nothing is nailed down. Nothing in the game is anchored in place. Even the biggest asteroids and space stations can be moved if you have the force to do it. You follow the same rules as everyone else, and those rules are PHYSICS! Did someone say "force"? It's pretty. Beauty is of course in the eye of the beholder, but the space in this game is just the right amount of "fantastic" while still allowing for a massive number of independently moving objects and a large number of online players to play together. SO LET'S RECAP.... PRIMARY FEATURES: 100% procedural galaxy, factions, ships and stations, no new server is ever the same. Command single ships or giant fleets Build and customize your own ships or use those designed by others large scale space combat with huge, fully destructible ships, as well as massive Boss Fights Dozens of weapon types and upgrades; nearly endless loot to acquire Dynamic trade system as well as smuggling; become the intergallactic mogul you always wanted to be Enact diplomacy, offer alliances, make territorial claims... and go to war against anyone who opposes you. Near-unlimited Co-op Multiplayer! No bullshit!
Server host options so far: Nodecraft - https://nodecraft.com/ unlimited player slots 24/7 live chat and tech support with improved support features wide selection for server locations 4NetPlayers - https://www.4netplayers.com/ no frills, but cheap LogicServers - https://logicservers.com/ cheap 24/7 tech support through ticket system wide selection for server locations Server Expectations: Will start with a test server to iron out any issues that pop up at launch. Co-op with appropriate level of AI difficulty to keep things interesting. Open to friends and family; members can be whitelisted. Some amount of build limits will be in effect to reduce server lag. Weekly organized special events planned. Will remain active as long as there is sufficient interest to keep it open. Will end when we are ready to move on to Ark. ETA? No set date, but probably in March. I will start the test server as my last act before I pack up my computer for my move and will leave it in the care of someone responsible. By the time I get most of my stuff moved, I should be back online shortly after so we can begin the server in earnest.
