Recycling in Space

Hardspace: Shipbreaker is a game I purchased when it first became available via early access on Steam.  I played it for a total of about five minutes (just to make sure it ran properly) before setting it aside.  I fully intended to come back to it soon after, but a lot happened between then and now...the good news is I finally got around to clicking on that LYNX corporation icon that has been sitting patiently on my desktop between "Google Chrome" and "Microsoft Edge" for the better part of a year.

At first glance one might think that Hardspace got its inspiration from the blue-collared work experiences found aboard a deep sea oil derrick or logging in some remote northern woodland.  In truth though, nautical shipbreaking is a real thing done mostly in places like India and Pakistan.  It's dangerous mostly due to inadequate safety precautions and gear.  Without going into reports of child labor law violations, it is easy to see why the developers have such cynical take on their sci-fi version of the concept.

Players take the roll of an indentured servant in low-Earth orbit, tasked with the job of dismantling old spaceships for scrap.  Early on, the vessel look similar to corvettes found in Homeworld.  This should come as no surprise given that a number of the developers who work on that series are also making this game.  Visually, it's all very beautiful and the audio complements the environments perfectly.  In addition, the main voice actor has a folksy vibe that goes with the overall theme.  Generally speaking, Hardspace starts off strong, but runs into some trouble pretty quickly down the line.

When it comes to the mechanics of shipbreaking, the game opts for a fairly bog-standard narrated tutorial.  A, W, S, D, shift and spacebar allow movement left, forward, right, down and up respectively.  Because the game takes places in a microgravity environment the player can move in any direction via a reaction control system built into their spacesuit.  Additionally, it is possible to rotate or roll using mouse inputs and the Q/E keys.  "R" brings up a selection wheel consisting primarily of two tools, a grapple and a cutter.  The grapple is basically an energy lasso while the cutter is used to slice up or melt away pieces of metal.  All this is well and good, but there is quite a bit of pertinent information displayed in the HUD and aiming reticle (in particular) that goes unexplained.  I guess players are expected to figure things out as they play, but sometimes it can feel like pertinent information gets left by the wayside.

A good example is the "tethers" subsystem.  They are a secondary function of the grapple tool, but pull like heavy duty wenches.  In other words, they pull things apart just as well as hold them together.  At no point does the game make a distinction between this two very different functions.  Another example is the three kinds of scrap:

• Complex components that go in a barge (green)
• Nanofiber stuff that goes in the processor (blue)
• Alloys that go in the furnace (red)

Sounds straight forward enough...except some objects that look like they go in the barge are actually meant for the player to keep for themselves (such as repair kits and oxygen canisters).  Additionally, the player must be somewhat careful when chucking things into the barge.  If objects collide they can become unsalvageable.  The blue and red recycling systems are less fussy, but also more deadly in that they have a suction effect that will devour anything (including the player character).  The real annoyance though, comes in the form of mixed and matched materials.  While the indicator tied to the reticle might earmark a chunk of spaceship for the processor or incinerator it could be a combination of both which means regardless of which system the object is places in unwanted material will simply be lost.  It's not well explained and, in fact, I learned a lot more from watching Youtube videos than I did from the tutorial.  What more can be said other than this is definitely an early access game? 

On the plus side Hardspace does provide some useful advice on how to avoid accidents such as rapid decompression.  Wrangling reactor cores is a bit weird though in that the countdown warning implies that they need to be moved expeditiously to some kind of overload containment system, but in actuality all the player does is drop them into the barge like any other piece of green salvage.

I have no doubt that the game will eventually iron out most, if not all, of these issues.  As of now though (version 0.3.1), I feel like the roughneck feel of the game is perhaps a bit too authentic.  Still, I'm excited to see what the story is going to be like and how our blue-collared astronaut is going to play off his billion dollar debt.