So finally was able to start a game, mouse and keyboard only as I still can't bind hotas controls,but I can already get some first impressions of gameplay... First thing I did as soon as I left the dock where I spawned was to immediately dive to a planet just below. It was a volcanic wasteland called "Cinder".
The things I liked so far:
Loved the fact that flying from space to planet was completely seamless, true seamless, not the loading pause "seamless" from ED. Diving from space directly to a planet with atmosphere felt awesome, arrived at some huge base which was under attack, flew through some narrow valleys with lava rivers at the bottom and over rugged mountains.
Second thing I loved was how the speed caps were relative to altitude, and how high they were. If you're very close to ground, the speed caps are similar to ED's, but as soon as you start to get higher speed caps increase by huge levels. At 1 km high you can already go 2500m/s, and at 10km high the speed cap goes to almost 5000 m/s. This makes flying large distances over planet surfaces so much more enjoyable. I wish ED had this system, not just seamless transitions from space to planets, but also these higher speed caps that increased with your altitude that allowed you to fly over planets without having to go back to orbit and then descend again on the new destination (or fly 10 hours at 400m/s).
Third thing I loved, was planetary geometry. Lots deep and narrow cracks, valleys, very rugged mountains, frequent ground height variations, overall topography in general felt very satisfying. Liked it much more than the soft rolling hills of ED's planets separated by thousand mile plains with an occasional mountain range or ultra wide valley that we ended up since the big topography nerf that accompanied "The Beigening".
Another positive thing, is that combat has "purpose". There is a war between 2 factions, you can choose which, and there are battles for controlling specific assets and infrastructure across the entire star system. That infrastructure is important, controlling it is how each faction generates "points" that are divided across members and allow them to spawn with more expensive ships. No random dogfighting in the void, no "football match" type battles, you fight for control of things, said things are valuable and destroyable, battles are actually won or lost and that is reflected visually in the game.
The things I didn't like so far:
Planetary textures seemed very low quality. I know this is early access, but for now textures overall seem quite poor (at least on planet Cinder). ED's planet textures are miles ahead, although IB is miles ahead on topography. Even though IB's planetary topography is much more enjoyable, ED's textures are at the moment so superior that, as a whole, ED's planets still look better despite IB's planets being much, much more varied than ED's bland dustballs.
The flight model. I personally didn't liked it as much as ED. Even though being newtonian might make it feel more realistic, but it feels too much "follow the mouse cursor" for my taste, doesn't feel like a "sim". Perhaps when I can actually use my hotas it might improve a bit. The ships do feel like they have a bit of weight (unlike Star Citizen for instance where all vehicles feel like you're flying a debug camera), but not much, I honestly didn't enjoy the flight model much. Feels closer to something like Everspace or some other arcade space shooter than a space sim. ED's flight model may not be realistic, but in ED's ships, even the small ones, I still feel like I'm operating a large, powerful vehicle, in IB I don't get the same sensation. Still, IB's flight model is still better than most others, I would place it beneath ED and Evochron, but over all the rest.
It's a pure multiplayer combat game. It never said it would be anything other than a pure combat game, so it's like I was expecting any different, in fact I have the feeling it will quickly become (with due merit) the "de facto" top dog of space combat. But flying over awesome atmospheric planets on a 1:1 scale, with seamless travel without ridiculously low speed caps, left me a certain "I wish I could also other things as well" taste in my mouth.
The things I liked so far:
Loved the fact that flying from space to planet was completely seamless, true seamless, not the loading pause "seamless" from ED. Diving from space directly to a planet with atmosphere felt awesome, arrived at some huge base which was under attack, flew through some narrow valleys with lava rivers at the bottom and over rugged mountains.
Second thing I loved was how the speed caps were relative to altitude, and how high they were. If you're very close to ground, the speed caps are similar to ED's, but as soon as you start to get higher speed caps increase by huge levels. At 1 km high you can already go 2500m/s, and at 10km high the speed cap goes to almost 5000 m/s. This makes flying large distances over planet surfaces so much more enjoyable. I wish ED had this system, not just seamless transitions from space to planets, but also these higher speed caps that increased with your altitude that allowed you to fly over planets without having to go back to orbit and then descend again on the new destination (or fly 10 hours at 400m/s).
Third thing I loved, was planetary geometry. Lots deep and narrow cracks, valleys, very rugged mountains, frequent ground height variations, overall topography in general felt very satisfying. Liked it much more than the soft rolling hills of ED's planets separated by thousand mile plains with an occasional mountain range or ultra wide valley that we ended up since the big topography nerf that accompanied "The Beigening".
Another positive thing, is that combat has "purpose". There is a war between 2 factions, you can choose which, and there are battles for controlling specific assets and infrastructure across the entire star system. That infrastructure is important, controlling it is how each faction generates "points" that are divided across members and allow them to spawn with more expensive ships. No random dogfighting in the void, no "football match" type battles, you fight for control of things, said things are valuable and destroyable, battles are actually won or lost and that is reflected visually in the game.
The things I didn't like so far:
Planetary textures seemed very low quality. I know this is early access, but for now textures overall seem quite poor (at least on planet Cinder). ED's planet textures are miles ahead, although IB is miles ahead on topography. Even though IB's planetary topography is much more enjoyable, ED's textures are at the moment so superior that, as a whole, ED's planets still look better despite IB's planets being much, much more varied than ED's bland dustballs.
The flight model. I personally didn't liked it as much as ED. Even though being newtonian might make it feel more realistic, but it feels too much "follow the mouse cursor" for my taste, doesn't feel like a "sim". Perhaps when I can actually use my hotas it might improve a bit. The ships do feel like they have a bit of weight (unlike Star Citizen for instance where all vehicles feel like you're flying a debug camera), but not much, I honestly didn't enjoy the flight model much. Feels closer to something like Everspace or some other arcade space shooter than a space sim. ED's flight model may not be realistic, but in ED's ships, even the small ones, I still feel like I'm operating a large, powerful vehicle, in IB I don't get the same sensation. Still, IB's flight model is still better than most others, I would place it beneath ED and Evochron, but over all the rest.
It's a pure multiplayer combat game. It never said it would be anything other than a pure combat game, so it's like I was expecting any different, in fact I have the feeling it will quickly become (with due merit) the "de facto" top dog of space combat. But flying over awesome atmospheric planets on a 1:1 scale, with seamless travel without ridiculously low speed caps, left me a certain "I wish I could also other things as well" taste in my mouth.
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