Star Nomad 2

Extremely unbalanced game.
- Pirates literally in every sector you go
- Most pirates are too OP to fight
- Cannot dock while in combat even though I'm not actually fighting anyone
- Certain ships require ores to buy

Tedious: The Game

Endless grinding followed by an end game scenario that's impossible to win. It's basically a flash game, with a lack of features that you would expect from such.

The beginning portions of the game are actually a lot of fun. Typical 2D space shooter fare, you'll fly around trading or fighting to gain credits and XP. You'll buy new weapons/ships/upgrades, the gameplay loop is satisfying. However, you'll notice one of the biggest flaws right up front: the fighting is almost non-stop and accomplishes nothing.

The moment you clear one pirate invasion, a zerker invasion shows up before you can land, clear that (if you can) and it's followed by yet another pirate invasion in the same system, followed by a faction fleet battle. All within a few minutes. You cannot complete this game as a merchant, at a certain point you can no longer even advance within a faction by solving trade missions.

The finale is when you've maxed out your rep with your chosen faction, you have the ship/weapons/modules you want, you have your teammates, everyone is max level, etc. Now your job is to conquer the galaxy for your faction. This is the part of the game that is clearly unfinished and almost impossible. You can win every fight, but in the time it take you to win 2 other ally systems have been attacked. Sometimes before you can even leave a system you just conquered/defended, ANOTHER enemy faction fleet shows up. You also cannot conquer enemy systems yourself, you must wait for ally faction members to attack and then help them. However, when and where ally factions members attack is completely random and impossible to control. The final 3 systems of an enemy faction cannot be manually triggered for invasion, the ally AI needs to decide to do this. They never do. This means you will endlessly grind without ever making progress or beating the game. How this made it to release is beyond me, it's one of the rare games where I've had fun and made it to the end game but gave up. I can't see a way forward, even following what limited advice there is in the forums (drug trafficking to weaken syustems, etc. Pointless, it doesn't work).

If it's on sale for $3, go for it. You'll get some fun from it during the early and mid game. That's all you can expect from this unfinished flash game though.

I enjoyed my time with Star Nomad 2, but it got old really fast. As a long-time fan of this genre, this game checks all the boxes, but none of the systems have much depth.

Star Nomad 2 isn't a bad game, it's just shallow compared to others in this genre.

I would recommend this game if you're into these types of games and can purchase this on a steep discount. For all others, give it a pass. There are better alternatives out there such as Space Pirates and Zombies, Starsector and Endless Sky.

If you want a nice 2d space sim where your can spend the odd hour shooting up pirates, this is a fine game. I actually like the combat, it reminds me of Beat Hazard. The problem comes when you hit late game. I'm 45 hours into a playthrough, level 55 of 60, and NOTHING I DO MATTERS!
This game is so well balanced that winning is all but impossible. Conquest is carried out one system at a time, in fleet battles. When you fight in a fleet battle, you're allies have a handicap because you showed up. Instead of your elite squad tipping the scales and sweeping through your enemies, your allies are turned to cannon fodder while you desperately try to wittle down the enemy to a managable size before you and your squad are the last ones on the map. Even this would be tolerable if the game would let you defend a system that way, BUT NO if your allies all die, the system is lost, YOU DON'T COUNT! And suppose you do manage to defend a system? Say hello a second enemy fleet before you can even reload your missle bays.
So the solution is to stay on the offensive, right? WRONG, your allies are too busy to reinforce you when you assult a system. Oh, sometimes they show up, but don't count on it. If you've reduced an enemy to only a couple systems, THEY GET A BONUS! And yes, they will manage to push you back time and time again.
This game is so balanced that the player is reduced to an ineffectual cog, at the mercy of the RNG. As powerful as you are, your enemy will be just as powerful. As much as you help your allies, the two front wars will screw you over every time. You don't have the information or the tools to turn the tide, and while you may get your money's worth of enjoyment, a fun beginning will lead to a frustrated end.

This game is basically the spritual successor to Escape Velocity, and it does it's job well.

Pros:
Highly immersive universe
Space combat is fun and varied
Multiple paths and factions to victory
Lots of customization for your ships, weapons, and companions
Game has a small learning curve and it's easy to make money after that

Cons:
Some of the sieging mechanics can be non-intuitive
First few hours dealing with the learning curve can be difficult

Overall I'd give it a 9/10, well worth the money!

This game is bad.
It is clearly trying to copy Star Sector and has obviuosly failed.
UI is bad and unclear. While this game has factions, it is unclear on how to increase favor with different factions.
And since there is no clear indication on how to increase favor , there is no way to buy better ships/weapon/equipments
Since they all require certain amount of favor to buy it.

Pic,ing up stuff is a pain, why do I have to stop and click ? This is especially annoy with mining. And stuff you mined if not picked up quickly will disappear..

Seriously...don't waste money on this game...buy Star Sector insetead...maybe Star Sector is still in development, but is already way better than this...game...

The game feels very incomplete and lacks a fulfilling gameplay progression. The big problem with the game is that you cant get anywhere without upping "Reputation" stat, that can only be reliably upped though last shotting pirates. If you want to play as a trader you can get money pretty quickly but you are still locked out of most ships due to the reputation problem. That basically means that the only way to really progress is to fly around in a ship that has 2 missile slots and use high Alpha missiles to finish off enemy pirates. This isn't super hard once you get the hang of it but you have to do it way too many times to get anywhere and its just a grind. The loot you get from kills isnt every very exciting, so that adds to the boringness of the grind. All the loot is just pods 200-300 credits or some limited commodity items, never rare interesting or powerful items.

There is a decent shell of a game here, it could be fun but it lacks content and any content that is here is locked behind the grindy reputation system. It could be better with more content and relaxing the reputation system but right now id say its probably not/barely worth the $6 I paid for it. Check out some of the let's plays, you will see that most of people are still flying one of the newbie or 1st tier ships at the 4 hour mark.

If you are into this kind of game I would recommend Endless sky, its way more complete and fun (Its also free). Starsector is also a good choice but not as complete.

I'm not a masochist, but I think being whipped for hours while strapped on a cross will be funnier than playing this game.

You start as a nobody with a crappy ship while everyone else will outclass you massively. It wouldn't be a problem if you were able to level up by trading, mining, exploring or doing quest like every kind of similar game. But here the only way to gain xp is by fighting. Which you can't do from the start because of how powerfull everything else is. The only way to gain xp early on ( and in most of the game it seems ) is to give the killing blow to a ship attacked by another NPC. No matter how hard you hit the ship before, only the killing blow will give you xp. BUT NPC will become pissy at you if you steal their kill. Do it one time too much and they will attack you, funny ...
Another thing, there is no gun safety, so you need to fire carefully, because if you hit someone you will damage them. And usually a second hit will take a huge chunk of reputation from you and turn them hostile. A third hit? The whole faction is at war against you. And gaining reputation is SLOW. And mostly combat based. Oh and NPC can fire at you by mistake and you just have to shut up, doesn't work both way. Ah a last thing, avoiding friendly fire while dealing the killing blow is really hard when most battles are done by mutliples ships at once, with beams and missiles flying everywhere right from the start of the game.

Can't really comment about customizing ships and items, because I was unable to level up and I think most items are hiddens behind a level requisite. And a faction reputation requisite. It's the only explanation I have as to why every station is empty of items and why capital planet only got base weapons and items to sell. But it wouldn't really matter because you also need rare material to BUY weapons and items. Yes, you need to provide money AND materials to buy more stuff. Because you have to provide bricks, cement and money to have workers build your house I suppose. It's another ridiculous mechanic here to gate and slow your progress because these materials are priceys OR mostly mined in system full of pirates.

The game isn't fun at all because the only way to progress is to hide far away from the action then have to be lucky enough to find a mostly dead ship you can blow from afar. It's really not my conception of fun at all but it's the main mechanic of this game, you suck and need to kill-steal to progress.

If you're like me and enjoy dogfights in space, smuggling pirated wares or just transporting trade goods to make the most profit available, this game is for you. This top-down space combat/trade scenario gives you everything it promises. It's a similar feel to an old favorite of mine, Freelancer. While (obviously) the game play is different given the 2d environment the combat is no less engaging, exciting and challenging. Star Nomad 2 has a fairly robust trading system that keeps you interested throughout. This game is definately worth the price of admission.

edit: How could I forget?! The music is great!

Having played this game continuously for a couple of days now I can safely say it has checked all my boxes. I'll list out some outstanding features it has that you might want to consider when thinking of buying this game. Scroll down if you don't wish to read for tid-bits.

1) It is a top-down space-shooter-simulation. It has 30+ systems, 3 factions, pirates, bounty hunters (crazy guys) and zerkers (mechanoid aliens). Trade is vital in this game, as it affects more than just your wallet, but the faction strength you're trading in.

2) You control where you want to shoot, or, let the AI decide for you. I decided to control myself as the game provides a nice bonus to energy saved if you do it manually (Energy is used in firing weapons, engaging engine thrust, hyperdrive etc) It could be challenging at the beginning, but the controls can be easily mastered within a couple of hours.

3) Death is especially agonizing in "Roguelike" mode where you lose your ship and cargo. Just you and your bank account is left, with an empty new small corvette that you start with. If you like a challenge this is for you. It all depends on your piloting skill and Common sense. E.g. Not a good idea to fly right into a fleet of ships guns blazing.

4) Dev is active and helpful. He engages with the community members and rolls out their ideas. Fixes are frequent too, definitely a + for me.

5) This game reminds me of one of my fav space games, Space Rangers with Manual controls. If you like that one you would like this.

6) There are no "Bases" to build or purchase however. And the pirate faction is just being...piraty. I believe the Dev will be working on them soon.

7) Once you begin to upgrade the different modules of your ship (and perhaps buy a bigger one) you can finally throw yourself into some Faction vs Faction action. A screen full of beams, plasma, kinetic shots and missiles is definitely breath-taking. Press Space to pause to catch your breath.

I recommend anyone playing this game to have fun dying. It is all part of the learning curve, and the normal difficulty have no penalties at all.

Short-list of features

Top-down
Self-controlled navigation
30+ systems with wormholes acting as portals
Fly Spaceships From Corvettes to the latest elusive Dreadnought (found only in Roguelike diffculty)
Skill tree
Squadmates
Has Beams, Plasma, Railgun(Kinectic)
Trading (or sabotaging with drugs) affects the system, which in turns affect faction strength

This is actually a pretty nice game. It's got a classic arcade feel to it; add to that a ton of variety in ships, systems, wares and guns, and it's also seriously replayable.

I like the way you can just *exit* and come back to it later; no messing around with save game files and churning through menu screen after menu screen to actually get into the game or exit it.

There are one or two minor things I'd love to see changed/added, but it was definitely worth buying.

Things I'd like to see:

1. When docking, changing the tick and cross icons to have an opaque background. Certain planets make it difficult to see the small tick box due to their textures and palette.

2. Some customisation of ship colour schemes; a simple *two colour* thing would do, like Homeworld.

3. Greater variety of additional ship systems; the pool seems to be somewhat small compared to the weapon pool.

4. Greater variety of weapons, especially missiles. What abour rockets? Something that trades guidance for extra damage?

Anyway, still worth it.

When I picked Star Nomad 2 up, I was immedietly reminded of Space Pirates and Zombies, and I expected as much. $10 for a fun little top-down space shooter with a lackluster setting and solid, fun gameplay? Hell yeah. I got so much more out of it. The whole universe really feels like its shifting around you, right from the begining. The Conquest AI features are fun, challenging, and rewarding. Smuggling is risky, thrilling, and rewarding. Combat is fast-paced, fluid, action-packed, and loads of fun. Even playing as a Merchant, trading resources, abusing the market to make bank, and even solving Planetary crisis' like food shortages and rampaging xenos! The fact that this game is developed by one guy (who is very, very active with his players!) blew my mind when I learned. You like space games? HARD space games? Must buy. Get it now. Do it.

Word to the wise: This game is HARD. As diamonds. On Jupiter.

As an indie gamer and fan of space games, this title delivers!

There are many aspects you will find familiar from titles like Space Rangers 2, Gratuitous Space Battles, and SPAZ, but it brings its own unique take on space and combat to classify it as a game of its own. I’ll break down this review into two categories to fit the meta.

WHY YOU WILL PURCHASE THIS GAME:

The combat is extremely satisfying! This alone makes this title worth playing. Ship control doesn't feel like you are skating on ice, and you have the option to have your weapons auto target, or manual fire for reduced energy consumption. You can find NPCs on various planets to join you, and the AI and control options are simple and effective. Getting credit for kills means getting the last hit, which gives a sense of accomplishment for good timing.

The game is designed to be simple, so it isn’t overwhelming to get started, but there is enough depth in character development, knowledge of enemies, and ship design to keep it from getting stale.

There are three sizes of ships, with a fair many hull choices to suit different play styles including faction specific ships. Weapon selection is medium, but each weapon type has its own damage, range, rate of fire, shot speed, etc to differentiate it from the other types. There are slots for engine, shield, armor, and other mods on ships that further develop how well it performs. Ship progression happens fairly fast but leaves plenty of room for late game speccing.

Trade is as simple as buy and sell based on prices in different sectors, and delivering goods that are scarce to regions in need. How well a faction is doing is directly related to trade and piracy, so you can affect your allies and enemies by making the right deals.

The Game Developer is super active in patching bugs, fixing game data, and updating with new and improved content. This is a great thing because while this game is good as is, it will be AMAZING with more work.

WHAT IS BEING WORKED ON/COULD USE IMPROVEMENT:

Of the three character starts, being a pirate isn’t really a viable option. Pirates aren’t a true faction currently and I can’t see how they fit into the game from a progress standpoint. They are mostly just there to mess with factions and block trade/military.

Combat is what it’s all about. Being a trader and mining are great things to do, but ultimately lead to a life of killing.

The greatest untapped resource in this game is the RPG element through quests that begin on planets. The only quests I have encountered are through or related to the NPCs you can get in your squad. I would love to see a robust level of chat dialogue, quests, and other happenings that would add immersion to this universe. Cut scenes, NPCs, unique bosses, and challenges outside of the typical skirmishes. No planet should be a boring port with little more than a few generic commodities to trade for. Give me enemies and allies that I can love or hate. At the moment picking a faction is just a choice and I don’t feel the struggle between them.

Like the pirate faction, the Zerker faction needs developed. They don’t own any space, and while I love how they behave in combat, they are just a bit too mysterious and lack any influence on the map.

Star Systems are all the same layout. I would love to see varied sized systems, with multiple planets and varied locations for planets on the map.

That’s my $0.02 on this title. Come for the combat, stay for the continual development.

I've played about 40 hours in 4 days... yeah the game is that good and that much fun.

What you should know...

- The game is seriously fun and engaging. Active control use and not a casual point and click type of game.
- There are several creative twists and new mechanics to the game that stands it out from predecesors like SPAZ, SR2 and EV. BTW they are really well done and good changes.
- It's done by 1 independent dev, so doesn't have the big company polish of voice over by actors or a thousand micro options.
- The dev is highly engaging and proven he's willing to take community input by putting out around 6 patch and updates all community driven.
- serious RPG elements with 36 skill, multistacked. You need 119 skill points to master the whole tree and you only get 1 skill point per level. The tree goes through some level unlocks but by level 18 EVERY skill is open for you to pick and choose without restriction. No word on a level cap. So pretty expansive.
-There's also a galaxy map for conquest, 3 major factions, 4 minor factions and 1 ultimate kill everything alien faction.
-LOTS of potential and future plans. This is a game that in it's current state has replay value but with the future planned features will definitely me back for sure.

Worth the buy in spades.

This is one of the best games I've played in quite a long time and is definitely worth the price!

The basics are that it's a 2D top down space game where you start out as a merchant/bounty hunter/pirate and follow your role from there. You can choose to smuggle illegal goods, track down pirates for bounty, help out struggling planets by solving trade crisis for required goods, and eventually join one of the 3 factions that are always in a constant state of war!

Space Nomad 2 is a very difficult game to master and I can see myself putting tens of hours into it with multiple play throughs as each class/faction offers a wide variety of different weapons/ships to utilize.

The pirate faction is fascinating as you raid merchants/factions, avoid hunters, all while trying to smuggle in illicit trade goods to planets, causing them to become addicted to your sweet contraband and crippling their economies so your pirate friends can raid even further into faction territories.

The developer is amazing in that he responds to everys ingle forum post promptly, fixes bugs within days of them being reported, takes user feedback and suggestions on features and strives to implement things that seem like they will improve the game, and puts out his own updates/ideas frequently.

This game hasn't been out for very long, but if these trends continue, I know I'll be playing this game for the foreseeable future.

the short version: BUY THIS GAME!!!!!!!

amazing 2d space game, like elite:dangerous in 2d (and with better trade mechanics :) )
and for a ridiculous low price (yes, im looking at you elite:horizons :) )

what really stands out is how fast the developer reacts to the community, he answers nearly every forum post and implements the suggestions just some hours later.

support this crazy guy and his fantastic game.

You can't reconfigure controls, change any settings other then screen size, can't adjust the zoom to any actual reasonable levels, leaving you being attacked or attacking things that are offscreen for most of the game, and certain key combinations will literally make the game crash.

I'd definitely suggest not to buy a clearly unfinished game like this.

TL;DR This is a 2-D space game with upgradeable ships and NPC allies. Clever AI and general [Edit: lack of] tedium keeps the game interesting. There was 1 bug found in the first 48 hours by the community, instead of 1000. The way the AI flies leads to insanecrazy space battles! The maker could charge $20-25 and most people who have it would pay the price. Oh, and you die a lot at the beginning.

Long Version:

Graphics: It's 2-D, so don't expect Call of Duty graphics. But they're acceptable, similar to Gratuitous Space Battles. Turrets go on mounts and nothing looks clunky.

Sound: A bit repetitive. I just play music for myself instead, so I'm probably not the best judge.

AI: This is where the game shines. You do so much in this game that generally doesn't happen. You help NPC allies win battles, and I mean "help" because you are not a force of nature and the NPCs factions are fighting each other way more than piddly 'ole YOU. Compare that to most games where you're basically fighting the enemy solo and your allies only exist as meat shields or to make it harder so you have to defend them. The computer also flies in such a way that every battle is a dogfight and you don't know where they'll go, keeps you on your toes. This is way better than X3 (for those who played) where the AI flies at you, then flies away, turns around, and does it again.

Combat (AI2): Combat is structured such that you're rarely a one-ship army. There's huge strength in numbers, and luckily your allies are in many places for you to fight with! There is one problem with friendly fire reducing faction standing by a lot, though that might have already been taken care of. You do a lot of team fighting and kill stealing is a big mechanic in the early game.

Exploration: All the systems in the game are known, and the maps are fully explored when you're in system. The reason you explore is to find out what is sold at each station, where you can get that big gun, new ship or new crew member. You can dock on enemy stations, but not while in combat. So you have to be wily to land on a hostile station. This all makes the exploration aspect a lot more engaging.

Ships: There are about 30 or so in game, more to be added. They differ by speed, durability, and equippable weapons, essentially. There's enough overlap that each ship doesn't feel so unique as to be alien, but enough distinction to make you think about choosing your next ship, how it'll blend with your play style, and who you have to kiss up to, to get permission to buy the ship.

The Dev's name is Halfgeek, the other half is insomniac. He's probably up around 30 hours a day listening to feedback and making improvements. He replies to just about every message in the flood of messages. Pretty good.

Ultimately, as long as you're ok with 2-D graphics, and if you're into space games AT ALL, I'd say it's worth it. (If you do, it's got a steep learning curve, head to the discussions page to get some of the key tips!)

I'm a sucker for these kinds of space games, so it was inevitable that this would end up in my library after I saw it show up on Steam the other day. Been playing it and enjoying it immensely so far. It shares some gameplay similarities swith SPAZ, Void Expanse, and Endless Sky.

The skill and module systems really do make a significant difference in how a ship performs in a given role. Early on, I went the route of utility and speed, and my corvette (the lightest class of ship) was soon easily outmaneuvering even enemy corvettes. The choices are permanent, with no option to respec, so it forces you to consider all your options and plan it out, though I haven't encountered a "level cap" thus far, so it seems like eventually you'll be able to allocate points in most if not everything.

The gameplay itself is very fluid, especially in how the ships handle. With a bit of practice and well timed use of the hyperdrive boost, even a larger ship can manually dodge incoming fire. Starting out can be a bit rough for newcomers though, as the starter ship is very weak offensively, and the game employs a killing-blow system for awarding experience and money. One thing that bothered me early on was the lack of smaller-scale encounters. Most of the time, pirates enter a system in groups of 6 or more, which will easily make short work of you if you try to stand and fight them on your own. There were very few occasions where I got to fight a smaller skirmish like a 1v1 or 1v2 dogfight. The exception to this seems to be if you play as a pirate yourself (which I haven't tried yet) and attack merchants traveling the outskirts of systems, since they are usually alone, or in a pair occasionally.

One mechanic that I rather enjoy, though I could easily see it being a major source of frustration for others, is the friendly-fire system. Thankfully, you and your squadmates can't hit each other, and ALLIED(not merely non-hostile) faction's weapons will go through you harmlessly, but your shots (with the exception of missiles locked on a target) can and will still hit them. By default, your turret weapons are set to auto-fire on your selected target, or the nearest hostile if you don't have anything targeted. Most of the time, they are very accurate at leading their targets, but they don't take into account other ships that happen to be in the line of fire, causing things to get ugly quickly when there are multiple combatants involved. The solution to this is to either meticulously maneuver yourself constantly to keep a clear line of fire, or switch to manual aiming mode. Carefully picking and timing your shots to avoid FF is the obvious perk to this method, but there is also added incentive in the fact that weapons drain 25% less energy when fired manually. If specced and outfitted properly, this allows you maintain weapons-fire almost indefinitely while manuevering, and thus rewarding skillful gunners.

On the other hand, I just discovered that, while seemingly weak on paper, drones are very effective as both and offensive and defensive tool. They are very good at drawing fire away from you, and in large numbers can whittle targets down while avoiding most incoming damage. Their AI is surprisingly pretty good when left to their own devices. It seems the developer has taken great pains to ensure several different viable playstyles, which is refreshing to see.

I find the game's cyberpunk-esque artstyle rather quaint, and the visual effects are simple but pleasant. The music is also pretty good in general, with different themes ranging from techno-style combat music to get the blood pumping during pirate raids, epic themes for those massive interfaction sieges, brooding, ominous themes while exploring lawless territory, and so on. The UI has its quirks, especially in its "efficiency" approach. Sometimes, the lack of confirmation for actions can lead to costly mistakes in the store, or say, instantly quitting the game while trying to back out of a menu, and thus losing unsaved progress. This has already been addressed by others, and the developer was quick to respond. Speaking of which, the developer has been lightning-quick to respond to pretty much everything on the forums, which is nice to see, though I wonder if he will make any progress on the upcoming updates with as much time as he seems to spend answering posts :p

This is a game that grows on you, under the surface - which you will make experience of the first few hours of gameplay- lies something really deep and meaningful. The whole galaxy is responsive, factions (there are main factions and side factions) actually persecute their objectives and you are part of them with your actions, economy (this is one of the thing this game does good) is dynamic and have consequences.
If you like freedom, a real sandbox experience and having fun in the process look no further.

Note : -this is a positive feature to me- this game requires you to learn its mechanics before you can fully appreciate all its content, it will not hold your hand. Some people just played it casually for 1 hour and left a bad review : this is not the kind of flashy game (thx god) which you can master in 1 hour.

I've played all the space action rpgs out there and each one has it's own flavor and feel. This one seems a lot closer to the "choose your own story" kind instead of the "hold your hand until you're op and you save the universe".

Fun game, takes a bit of time to get into and has a few minor annoyances, but the dev is super responsive (literally took him 4 minutes to respond to and give me a fix for a bug)

My first hour in the game was basically spent dieing as a hunter. I did the trading thing for a while, and once I got the merchant guild access it got a lot easier... but I wanted to be a hunter.
So in learning the combat system I spend a lot of time running around dieing, until I get the feel for the combat system. Now that I'm able to hit ships without the auto aim my dps has risen and I'm starting to pull in cash. Hopefully now I can start exploring and finding out new things about the game.

A minor gripe is that the starter hunter ship has shotgun weapons... but not enough speed to keep close to pirate ships who have long range weapons. This means you have to do some fancy flying to keep pace.