Starground deep dive review - early access 0.14.1.4

"Starground is a top-down automation and roguelite combo. All progression trees are completely independent from each other, so you can play through in a truly flexible way."

That is a part of the description on Starground developers official website. And it is a correct statement but does the automation and dungeoning part of the game work well together? That and other parts of the game is what I will discuss in this review on... Starground.

Prefix to review

Before I start this review I need to prefix it with some info. I played the game on the early access version 0.14.1.4. That means bugs are expected and I will cover them very briefly. I ran the game natively on Linux, which had no affect on the functionality of the game as far as I can tell. My PC setup had Intel i7 11th generation and Nvidia RTX 3070.

Automation

Map generation

In Starground you will start your journey by creating a world. You can change the seed, terrain scale, water level and world size. The world size is a specifically important setting because as the name says, the world in Starground is limited to the size you specify here and once you hit start you cannot adjust it any more. For that reason I would recommend to crank that setting to the max.

Now the default settings for world gen will give you a map that is pretty limited in the space you have to build on. Which may be a problem if you want to do a large or spaced out factory, as you don't have a way to transform the landscape for a pretty long time. But more on that later.

First hour

When you hit start your journey begins on a foreign Earth like planet named Veridian, with nothing but a mining laser and your fists. You will immediately get greeted by a friendly robot named Gearbert. He is your tutorial throughout the game. Your first objective is to mine 10 stones for you to be able to craft a furnace in which you can smelt iron and copper ores into ingots.

With these ingots you will be able to build collectors, a building that sends out bee drones to mine resources in its range, so that you don't have to mine them manually. But as most buildings in this game, collectors require power to function. To generate said power you will have to first build a treadmill, on which you have to run, or place down a burner, which generates power by burning fuel.

Once you got your power working and linked up to buildings by Tesla coils. You can transfer resources by conveyors to your furnaces. But to get items out of and in a buildings you'll need one more thing... the mover, an equivalent to Factorio's inserters.

To further progress in Starground you will need to process items by crafters into more advanced items. Which you can then feed into researchers, and they will consume them and unlock something for you in return.

This is the base of automation in Starground. Collect basic resource, process it, craft it into other items and use it for building or research and somehow power all of it. Not any different from other automation games.

Resource generation

Now, you will not find the raw resources in Starground as you might expect from other games, in the form of a large ore deposit. Instead individual resource nodes are spawning seemingly randomly on the whole map. Once you or your machines mine them the tile is on a cool down and if you don't build anything else on top of it, new resource of the same type will emerge from the ground.

This system in new and refreshing, it brings new challenge to the automation genre. Because the resources are spawning close together, you will probably not be able to separate each type from each other.

The devs thought about this and give you a few options to manage it. You have a filters that can be applied on the movers, a storage hub a big 3x3 building, in which you can temporarily store your resources and sort them out, as it cannot hold a big amount of items and a shredder which will shred almost everything you put in it so that your conveyors and consequentially storage hubs don't get bottlenecked by one resource.

And this system is a really interesting challenge of a balance you have to keep between mining enough resources and don't mining to much of them so that it doesn't block your whole factory. Although because the items you need for the research don't really build on top of each other. You will find that it is almost impossible to balance it out. With one research you will have too much of one kind of resource and with the other not enough.

I can't forget a major flaw this system has though. As I said previously, you can build buildings on top of a generating tile which will stop if from generating that resource. That means that you can filter out what the collectors collect which will allow you to completely skip this balance challenge with shredders.

Limited space

Starground contains another challenge with building that I mentioned earlier, limited space to build you factory on. As a Factorio player, this was something completely new to me. Not that in Factorio you don't have problems with limited space in the form of a water or cliff that you cannot deal with right from the start. But you have a seemingly infinite world with very large areas to build your factory. And very soon you will research land tiles to cover the water with.

That is not the case for Starground. On the default world gen you get really small area, that will force you to chunk your factory into small pieces connected together. And you don't even get the research for land tile in a reasonable time. It is unlocked after nuclear energy and after interplanetary logistics. That means, when you finally get to it your factory will probably be horrible mess of spaghetti. And it is also the reason why I started a new save. I wanted to make more space for my factory, looked at the research, how fast I can get to land tiles and found out that I will complete 80 percent of all the research by the time I get to it.

I would suggest moving research for the land tile way forward, somewhere before oil processing. Because by that time it really becomes more of a pain in the ass, than a fun puzzle challenge.

Research

This brings me to talk about the research and progression. In this game research doesn't work like in other games in the form of a research tree. Instead you have a list with unlocked and locked researches In which the unlocked research most down the list unlocks next few entries when researched. The first problem with this is that you don't see what next research will each research unlock and I only figured out how it works at the time of writing this review. And the second thing is it doesn't really give you decision in what you want to unlock first. You must always research that one entry and only then you can choose.

The second big problem with the research is that it doesn't build on top of already automated parts of your factory. Don't get me wrong you will in some way use previous parts of your factory as you progress. But for example the first research requires you to supply it with gears made out of iron ingots. So you do a setup for it and since you looked a little bit ahead and saw that another research requires them also, you mass produce them. So now you have a line of gears ready to use for researches and you can expand them if the next researches will require more of them. But as it turns out, no other researches in the game will need them.

As soon as I figured this out, I was really confused. Since you cannot see what will locked researches require, you cannot plan ahead the structure of your factory. Should I mass produce an item and load it into researchers only dedicated to it? Or should I make a few of it load it into researchers used for everything and wait what the next researches need? And the game tries to push you more to the second thing as the researches always only require 10 or 20 of each type of item. Which means you don't need to mass produce it.

One option to solving this problem is using the system Factorio has. Make a dedicated item that will function only as an item to be consumed in researchers, which will be reused throughout the whole game. If the devs decide to do it this way, it would also solve another problem with the bottlenecked factory, because research usually consumes only a few types of raw resource.

I mentioned that the researches always require small amount of items. I think the devs decided on it, because of the limited space of the world. If you have a small research requirements you don't need to build a huge factory, thus the limited space doesn't become a problem. Although I find the current amount is too low. You can almost do everything by hand with few burnes and crafters.

I don't know if the devs want to go this way, but I find it strange. The 10 or 20 items researches require is so easy to achieve you don't have any incentive to build a big factory. So you are kinda missing out on a lot of the fun that comes with that. And I think that is a missed opportunity. I would force the player into building a bigger factory with higher requirements for items.

Oil

Ok so, you build you factory a bit got some basic automation set up and now you researched oil. I would expect to get a new challenge that comes with oil. Usually that means the introduction of pipes and fluids. In Starground, oil means getting an oil rig that mines resources in water the exact same way as the normal collectors do. And what do you do with oil from these oil rigs? You move them on conveyors because they are an item and put them into machines that work the exact same way as crafters. Which was pretty disappointing to me, I am not saying add pipes to the game. But I would expect something new from this new type of resource.

Nuclear energy

That brings me to another disappointing research, nuclear fission. I will repeat myself but nuclear fission in most games means change in gameplay. Nuclear fission was a huge scientific discovery, so it is expected to be more hard to build then your average crafting building. And again Starground doesn't deliver anything new with nuclear power. Normally you would have to somehow manage pipes either for delivering water to reactors or steam to turbines. But because there are no pipes, water and steam function as an item. And steam looks and feels especially goofy as an item, since it is literally a steam on a belt or in your inventory. Which means the player can hold the power of nuclear reactor and do other shenanigans with it. I will get into that in a bit. Alternatively the player could manage heat or nuclear fission.

Though there is a small change in gameplay in the form of nuclear waste, that you cannot shred with shredder. So you have to first process it to deal with it. And I think that is awesome way to enrich the gameplay. You actually need to process the nuclear waste into depleted uranium because it is a required item to progress with research. Which is a thing I am not a fan of cause that means you are forced to use nuclear reactors.

Tyria

Before you can build a nuclear reactor you must visit another planet named Tyria. To do that you need to build a starlauncher a building unlocked right from the start which will allow you to travel across the solar system. The challenge with Tyria is that the whole planet is covered with water, so most of your buildings don't work and you are supposed to build a pressurized rooms with air inside. I am saying supposed to, because there is a major loophole, which allows you to skip those pressurized rooms entirely.

The thing is, you are able to mine the resources you need from Tyria and deliver them to Veridian just by using the buildings that work underwater. That is solar panels for power, collectors for collection, conveyors and movers for transport and space elevator to send those items back home. It has its flaws, it doesn't work at night and it is not as effective as if you smelted the ores on Tyria.

But the game incentivises you to do it this way. Because for you to be able to build those pressurized buildings you first have to refine ores back on Veridian. So only when you got some setup going on Veridian, you are able to do it again on Tytria. And that was a thing I was not going to do, so I ended with only using Tyria for mining.

I can see this being an fun challenge, that I would love to experience. Unfortunately as the game is set up right now there is just no reason to indulge in it. One way of forcing the player to build a base on Tyria would be to nefr the space elevator so that it is not so effective at transporting the raw resource back on Veridian.

Opis

The third and last planet in this early access version you get to experience is Opis. And Opis was really interesting for me. It is a gas planet, which means you have only a small floating platform when you arrive, that you can expand by crafting more floating platforms. They are not that expensive so you can expand rather quickly which kinda goes against the challenge of limited space.

There is also lightning striking your electric network and draining power from it. To prevent that from happening you need to build surge protectors which will tank one hit of lightning and then they need to recharge.

Your main goal on Opis is to collect hydrogen from the atmosphere and gold from floating asteroids. You do that with an asteroid collector. It has an effective range, so if you want to place more of them you need to space them out.

The same logic applies to wind turbines, they will be your main source of power on Opis. You don't have them unlocked right when you arrive, so you have to find another source of power, which has to have big enough output to power the new machinery requiring a lot of it. In my case, I found out that you can kinda cheese it with nuclear turbines. Since steam is an item, you can deliver it with space elevator to Opis and load it directly to steam turbines for a lot of power.

Farming

The last thing you can automate is farming. Which you will need to do if you want to keep your animals alive. And if you want to make food and potions that will help you with the other big part of this game... dungeoning.

Dungeoning

I already talked about how you can travel across the solar system with the starlauncher. And the other kind of planets you can visit with it are dungeons. There are currently 3 dungeons, with Encaladus containing two of them and one being on Tephra. You can choose right from the start which planet you visit first. I would actually make Tephra accessible only after you defeat the second boss on Encaladus as it is a considerably more difficult dungeon.

When you select a dungeon, let say on Encaladus you are dropped into a randomly generated set of rooms. Most of them containing enemies, some of them having loot, a few special ones and there is always a boss room and an exit room if you don't want to fight the boss.

At start you only have your fist for fighting which is not that good of a weapon. So there is a high probability that you don't even make it to the boss room. Maybe you decide to acquire a weapon first. You can do that by building a tool bench. Which brings us to Stargrounds weapon system.

Weapon system

In the tool bench you can create your own melee and ranged weapon by combining components together. For the melee weapon you can literally put any item at any slot, which means you can fight enemies with 3 processors on top of each other. That will of course not be as effective as if you use proper melee components as each item gives the weapon specific stats.

This system means that you can choose what strategy you want to be using when fighting enemies. Will you go for high damage weapon with two blades, but long cool down and reach? Or will you rather put knife on a stick for long reach and fast attacking with small damage? And I think that is an awesome system that let's the player play their own way.

With ranged weapons it functions similarly, only you cannot put any item as a component and have to use specific ranged components. Which allows you to build a variety of weapons. Like a classic sniper rifle or a gun that fires fire projectiles or acid clouds of death.

Combat system

Alright, so you got your weapon and you are ready to launch into the dungeon again. And this time you are ready, you've build a formidable weapon that almost one shots enemies and you figure out that when you hold down the attacking button the weapon attacks again even before the timer resets. Which may seem as a bug, but it is actually a "hidden" not explained combo system, as the devs call it. Which it is not, the only thing it does is attacking again before cool down.

Besides attacking with a weapon you can also evade enemies by using your roll move, that quickly fires you in one direction.

To me this combat system is not complex enough to be fun and engaging. And if I also count in that some of the enemies are pretty boring to fight against, I would appreciate an extension for the the full release.

Enemies

I mention that some of the enemies are boring to fight against, but why? Well, I am pretty much talking about the first dungeon on Encaladus. The melee enemies there, are just trying to get close to you in the most straight line they can take, so they can attack you and do it again. Which is pretty meh. You also got range enemies in the form of mushrooms. One type firing projectiles on cool down and the other is playing hide and attack with you. Which is a lot more interesting mechanic than a zombie that's trying to bonk you.

In the next dungeons you can also encounter a spider that's spawning spider lings slowing you down and emitting a poison cloud when you get to close. A ghost that only attacks you when you get to close to it. Or a snake/scorpion that attacks in charges and gets stunned when hitting a wall. And these enemies are a many levels above the previously mentioned ones in terms of fun to fight them.

Bosses

I talked about the enemies, I must also talk about the bosses. There are three as there are three dungeons. There is a Dreadcap, a big immobile mushrooms that will attack by spitting poison cloud at you, spawning mushroom minions for help or doing a smash attack when you stay close to long.

When you defeat him, you will be able to access a second dark dungeon on Encaladus which contains the Spore. Enemy that doesn't attack on it's own, instead spawns mushroom enemies when hit and in the second phase also emits a poison cloud. Small problem with it is that the poison cloud is able to kill the mushrooms making it much easier for you.

The last boss is on Tephra in the form of a big centipede, scorpion mutant. He slowly crawls to you doing a big damage on contact. But he can also enter a phase where he dashed across the arena in a fem bursts from all sides. There is another issue where if you stand in the middle he on the same place the whole time he will never hit you. And he can also spawn flying enemies.

The bosses are pretty fun to fight with the centipede being the most fun out of them. And they drop interesting items in the form of weapon components and artifacts as a reward.

Artifacts

Artifacts are special items that give you some ability when you have them in inventory. For example you can acquire a grabber that allows you to reach further when mining and building your factory. Or night vision goggles that will help you in the second dark dungeon on Encaladus.

They are an awesome addition to the game. But what I don't like about them is that you have to have them in inventory taking precious space and that you can loose them if you die as with any other item.

Rooms

Last thing I want to talk about the dungeons are the rooms you can find. There is your classic chest room with loot, a room that spawns raw resources that you can mine. But then there is also an arena room that gives you a reward if you kill some amount of enemy waves or a room with a big wheel that either blesses you with goodies or dooms you with enemies to fight.

And then there are two really special ones. The first is a room with a pretty interesting puzzle, that you can solve by exploring the dungeon to find out the right order of buttons you must press. And the second room is a speaking wise tree which gives you some advice about the game and about life. A pretty fun character if I do say myself.

Combination of automation and dungeoning

Now that I talked about both the automation and dungeoning part of the game, I need talk about how it works together. The game puts big emphasis on combining the two genres together. But as it is right now it is more so that you are playing two different games that share the same space. In fact you can finish the automation part completely without ever going into any dungeon. The only thing that incentivizes you to head out is to collect the artifacts that will make you life easier or collect seeds for your farm.

I think the developers need to connect these two parts more, maybe make progression dependent on each other. Because right now, I don't see why I shouldn't just play Factorio and switch it with Hades when I want to do some dungeoning. As both of those games do way better job at that part of the game.

Space hub

There is one last location you can visit on the space map, which is the space hub. A space station where you can trade goods either with machines or charming shopkeepers, with each specializing on specific thing. One will sell you weapon components, the next fishing license and various fishing gear and the last is all about farming, you can buy animals from him.

The husbandry isn't anything out of the ordinary you must supply the animals with food and they will produce ingredients for food and potions.

Fishing

But the fishing contains an interesting mini game where you first have to lure the fish and then you have to keep this green box on the fish by spinning your mouse around the fishing coil. A interesting and pretty hard mini game, that will help you make some money.

Music

Throughout all of this will accompany you a beautiful soundtrack. That can be both calm and relaxing when you are building your factory or shopping in the space hub. But it can also be energetic and aggressive when you are slaying enemies in dungeons or fighting bosses. This soundtrack is really something special that I will be saving for the chill vibes.

Art

Then there is also the art. As you can see Starground uses a very good pixel art, that is nice to look at. The only thing I am curious how it would look is, if the building would be made a pixel or two smaller, so that there are small gaps between them, so that it would help to give the factory more visual space to breathe as I sometimes felt the factory to be pretty visually incoherent.

Lore

Starground is also contains some small pieces of lore in the game. You can find a data log dropped from a lab equipment in the dark dungeon on Encaladus, which contains a charming conversation between two explorers. Which is hinting on some bigger lore of Starground. And I am keen on finding out more to the world of Starground.

Optimization and bugs

Last thing I need to mention are the bugs and optimization. The optimization is not great, but it only started to bother me when I dropped bellow 60 fps with my big almost complete factory. Normally it wouldn't me anything horrible but as you also fight in dungeons I think there is a lot of work that needs to be put into the optimization.

The game is early access and it show in how many bugs there are. Some of them pretty game breaking, but the devs are quick on fixing them, if you report them on their official discord server.

Community and devs

Which brings me to the community around Starground. The devs have their own discord you can join for reporting bugs or suggesting features. The chats are not that active. But the main dev does regular streams of development on Twitch, where you can ask him anything not only about Starground. It is a very welcoming and nice community I recommend joining the Discord.

Summary

To sum it up Starground is a cute little automation game with dungeons. The automation part is very chill and addicting. It brings new challenges to the automation genre. Although it could be though out more. I enjoyed the dungeoning part less, I am missing bigger complexity in it, but that doesn't mean it doesn't do a good job. The game has an amazing soundtrack, good visuals and an interesting world to explore. And I am really looking forward to the full release.

You can buy the game on Steam.