So...
I bought it cheap on Steam.
Short, TL:DNR review: has great ideas, lacks polish everywhere, but is totally worth it for cheap.
Long version:
Deathwar 3030 is definitely more of a direct-lineal descendant of Escape Velocity than Starsector is.
Generally speaking, you don't have fleets, you don't have help, you're in one lowly ship tooling around space; the loop's straightforward- do stuff, make money, upgrade ship, repeat.
Combat's simple, maybe too simplistic- jousting passes and kiting. The AI's not smart, the few times you fight multiple foes, you'll find you can string them easily, etc. So, if you're a hardcore SS player, the combat's not hard at all, unless you go into areas that you're massively under-leveled for.
But there's a lot more to the game than just the spaceships and pew-pew.
It has great
ambiance, with adventure-game sections and space stations that, while being exactly the same structurally, feel different-enough to be fun (and are always full of offbeat, cute characters to talk to) and a lot of things I honestly wish were in Starsector:
- Fedex quests to give you ways to earn money that range from straightforward ("blow up some space junk around here, we'll pay you") to fairly complex ("go to A, take photos of X, then go to B, hand over photos to Y, you only have Z minutes to get this done").
- A core storyline that takes the player to just about all of the inhabited worlds and grows in complexity / danger as the player's capabilities evolve.
- A cute, if under-developed, boarding mini-game, where players get to go in and plunder wrecked ships for cash, prizes, and the occasional vaguely-racy magazine. Sooooo much more fun than dice-rolls.
- Trading that's pretty straightforward, once you know how it works; trade time for money, try not to get killed by pirates, the end.
- A really interesting approach to Travel in an RPG that makes it somewhat interesting (although, honestly, I really prefer Alex's "just click a button to get there" approach and spend a lot of time wishing I didn't even have to watch my fleet move around, but could get to the action, I like how they managed to make Travel feel somewhat exciting visually).
Anyhow, if you can catch it on sale, I definitely recommend it, while you're waiting for 0.9's grand-scale features to get completed
