Unfinished: Hardspace: Shipbreaker

My zen place is watching Vinny find his zen place playing organization games.

This game looks super fun and I want to play it. A little bummed there aren't more ship hull varieties yet but I assume they'll get bigger as the game proceeds in development. The visual effects on the un-welding look super.

Hello,i have some tips/tricks i read/figured out:

the number of days written next to a ship when you are picking one is just a number to show how LONG that particular ship will stay in your list, you actually dont have any hard limits on how many days you can work on a particular ship, so don't stress (except the part where you are paying the company for using the equipment for every day) :D

Also, you have magnetic gloves, so you can "stick" your hand to a wall and that help with aiming the laser, on a controller its on the bumpers, not sure on a keyboard

Also :D the grapple can move/pull you towards items/ships, if you are lighter than the other thing, that's good when you need to quickly get somwhere

@rorie: Yeah, so the jump from Grade 3 to Grade 4 is pretty wild, suddenly you have a huge ship with multiple engines, tons of outer plating and amount of seats comparable to a plane :D

It is possible to end a shift by returning to the door indicated by the floating home icon.

I'm really enjoying the methodical deconstruction of the ships in this game, nothing like cutting things just so and watching them fly off into the processor.

Looking forward to more ships.

This definitely seems right up my alley. There's something very satisfying about sorting and breaking stuff down in games.

This is my chill game atm. Something relaxing and rewarding stripping a ship well.

Almost got my lvl 8 license.

Thanks Vinny and Matt.

The timer seems like a frustrating part of the experience. I get that it would probably just be more of a sandbox plaything without, but it seems limiting

The first few missions of this game made me feel like a moron. I didn't know that different types of salvage have different salvage points, as the game never tells you that there's a processor and furnace in addition to the barge. It does display the salvage point when you have an item grappled, but that isn't explicitly stated and the HUD is so busy that I didn't notice, much less parse that information.

Cut points can only be cut when the reticle turns red over them, but that's not stated. I spent several minutes trying to cut a point from just far enough away that the reticle didn't turn red, wondering what I was doing wrong. I tried cutting vertically, horizontally, letting the cutter get to the overheat point and then backing off multiple times, until I realized that no, I just wasn't close enough.

Then, being too close to a reactor seems to cause electrical interference that screws up your radio and causes godawful audio and visual feedback. I figured it out eventually, but there was never any real indication from the game that it was the cause. In the moment I had no idea whether it was a plot point or something I was doing wrong.

Last time I played, I either de-pressurized or re-pressurized the cabin (can't remember which) and a bunch of boxes caught on fire then I died. No idea what happened.

I can't tell if I'm overthinking it, underthinking it, or my brain just isn't built for this type of game.

@mattchops: i really doesnt matter that much, you can work as many days as you want on one ship, its just there to break up the pacing and to put you back in the upgrade menu

I often take 3 or 4 days carefully breaking the ships, maybe i lose some money on it, but damn, it feels good

@rorie: Can you imagine if you eventually have to deal with full cruiser style/half-USS Enterprise sized ships?

Spend 12 hours tearing it apart to find the single bathroom.

I would have to assume that someone will eventually mod it out, but I dunno, I'll give it a whirl as it is!

Takes me back to Red Faction: Guerilla, where I'd clear out a base and then spend an hour or two breaking every piece of it down for salvage. Scrapping stuff can be quite relaxing.

This seems like one of those cool games I wait for 5 years to finally get out of Early Access because I don't want to play it when it's not "complete"

This seems like a really good chill game, thanks a lot you two!

I'm probably gonna give it longer in the oven and I doubt my laptop would run it anyway but I look forward to playing this in the future.

I expect Cheat Engine could freeze the timer pretty easily but if you can effectively spend as much time as you like on each one without too much punishment I don't mind a "break" or two per ship...

(also, 0.01% interest on a 1B loan seems like a steal)

Gonna have to pass on this one because of the timers. Without that, and with a more fleshed out narrative, I could see myself giving this game a shot. Interested to see where they take it from here, though

Gotta say after listening to the podcasts I was fully expecting a Vinny - Brad team up here but a Vinny - Rorie one was an unexpected treat.

I'm probably Gonna wait until this is a bit further through it's early access cycle to pick the game up, but I'm impressed by the early stages.

That UI and the general aesthetic is pretty cool.

These are my two biggest gripes so far. I played just under an hour last night and ran into the exact same issues. I was actually planning on looking up which items go to which salvage points before I played again, then I watched this Quick Look. I can admit to missing the data on the HUD, but also glad I'm not the only one!

Other than that, it's a cool concept that I dig. The upgrades look fun and I hope a modding community springs up for this game.

After failing the tutorial 5+ times due to tossing the Antenna into the Furnace, I looked it up in their Steam Forums. Yes, the HUD tells you where to toss it. BUT IT IS NEVER CLEARLY EXPLAINED (All caps for emphasis. Not angry voice.) That HUD section is also a lighter color that easily blends into the sun-lit hull you're floating over. Gee, wonder why it was hard to notice? The materials/item HUD section is very important and with only 3 places to toss things, easy enough AFTER you know what you're doing.

They definitely will need another pass on the tutorial to better familiarize players with what is being presented.

Random aside: Don't forget the ships come per-pressurized! I was taking a Mackerel variant apart and I melted the cut points for the ceiling cargo doors. BHOOOOOOSH went all the air out into the lovely vacuum of space. Luckily I was to the side and had a good laugh over it.

Also, I do about 2 ships per session and call it done for the day. Very relaxing, but I don't want to zip through all the content super fast.

This is like House Flipper in space.

Just finished the tutorial and played an hour or so. I can't believe I missed that stuff on the HUD, it seems hilariously obvious now. This is gonna be a chill podcast game for me.

I'm loving this game, it's very cathartic and the danger makes a good run all the more rewarding. Just this evening I clipped a cooling line to a reactor initiating a melt down. I panicked and spammed the cutter around the casing which freed the reactor, but also blew the fuel behind the reactor and exploded the entire back third of the vessel.

I think they added some mechanics after making the tutorial and I suspect they'll make another pass. I found they made a recent tip video which really helped clear things up. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjPF9_k2Lxc

This is another one of those quick looks that instantaneously sells me on a game. Can't wait for it to finish downloading, thanks Vinny & Rorie.

VR already has some good space walk games so this could slot in, though the space games I played in VR never rotate the player by force, you can use the stick to rotate your view left and right but you will always remain upright which is definitely not the case in H:S. I guess full rotation would cause too much sickness.

I do kinda get reminded of the VR game Star Shelter every time I see Shipbreaker. It's very janky (especially the button bindings for the thrusters which you cannot change freely) but kinda interesting, doesn't let you rip ships apart but you enter derelicts and rummage through their cabinets for salvage and such. Walking Dead S&S does of course do rummaging better.

I am not into timers either but, I am gonna give it a try after finishing Tank Mechanic Simulator. I love this kind of games. I am not even certain why I is almost like what I do at work without having A writing work orders for the mechanics and writing a report afterwards. The only thing I like to see is a mystery mechanic. So you can figure out why the thing, a ship in this case, broke down and needs to be dismantled.

In any case thanks for the quick look.

Bought this game as soon as it appeared on Steam. Can't wait for them to add more since I've done everything there is to do in about 8 hours.

I just realized that this is made by Blackbird Interactive (home to former Relic devs who worked on the old Homeworld games and are currently making Homeworld 3). It would be really cool if they could lean into that and let you break down all sorts of iconic ships from the Homeworld series.

Although most of the ships would probably be so gigantic that it would take forever to salvage the good bits!

definitely gonna play this, it’s a matter of when not if!

@xealot42: oh right! I had to look this up because I forgot the lineage (and your comment sparked my memory). The title of this game has a surprisingly long history.

Originally Blackbird announce an RTS called Hardware: Shipbreakers. Then Gearbox buys the Homeworld licence from THQ’s liquidation, and grants Blackbird use of the licence. They rename the game Homeworld: Shipbreakers.

THEN, they rename the game again, to Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak. That game gets released and has nothing to do with this one.

THEN, they fish out the old name, re-re-rename it to Hardspace: Shipbreakers, and make this game, which is completely unrelated to the Homeworld universe (though visually and thematically quite similar).

Phew.

Game now has Open Shift career mode, no countdown timer, it actually counts up now and is purely for your info. Oh currently zero oxygen drain too, which may be an over-correction for some, but hey, if the timers were putting you off, you're now good to jump in.