A fun idea, I love the truck, a lot of the mechanics and the fact that with a simple mod I can import my own music and vibe while flying through space. In practice, the main thing this game lacks, at least in the early game (I haven't played into the super late game), is the actual TRAVEL part of a TRUCKING SIMULATOR.

You go from Point A to Point B via fast travel portals, the only actually trucking/driving you're doing is through hubs. I want to feel like I'm going somewhere between these stations - all they'd have to do is drop you out into a randomly generated map or two between hubs, and that would alleviate all my concerns. You're never alone, flying through asteroid fields or around dying stars, you're always surrounded by a dozen other trucks and several floating stations with highways. It would be like if Trucking Simulator put a cutscene between every major city on the way to your destination. Let me wander the vastness of space on my way to my objective, make it feel like a journey, not a late night drive down the road.

This game simply isn't fun. Like many others, I truly tried to enjoy it, but the game is horribly unbalanced. Instead of a relaxing trucking experience, it feels like a constant struggle to survive, just like in real life (and real life isn't fun!).

The biggest issue is the overwhelming number of things to manage. Multiple batteries (which can't be charged), air filters (which degrade rapidly unless you run them four at a time for maximum efficiency, can't be repaired, and are incredibly expensive), UCC units, and of course fuel, all require constant attention. These components break down frequently, forcing you to visit shops for replacements every turn, eating into your already slim profits and making it impossible to upgrade your truck. This constant maintenance cycle stifles any sense of progression and is incredibly frustrating.

And all this is on the recommended difficulty. Of course there is an option to adjust these systems in a custom difficulty setting but if I have to manually tweak the game's balance to make it enjoyable, what's the point of the developers' intended design?

Secondly, there's very little actual trucking involved. Hauling cargo consists of picking it up, flying to the edge of the system, teleporting to the next, and repeating until you reach your destination. Long-haul trucking and the cozy, chill atmosphere of space travel are completely absent.

On a minor note, I was baffled by the lack of keyboard customization for dashboard controls. Having to aim at the screen and repeatedly click buttons to select the rearview mirror or activate the star jump lever instead of binding it to separate keys is tedious and immersion-breaking.

Oh and still no HOTAS support in a space flying game.

There are a lot of good elements to this game, and I respect the developers for tackling an ambitious concept. That said, the game is buggy to the point of unplayable, and some bad design decisions might not be fixable without completely rebuilding the game.

The good:
- The ambient and radio music slap. Excellent choices,
- The story is compelling and well acted. Inserting more random chats between missions would be welcome.
- The management of fuel, power and parts is engaging in principle (will address some mistakes below).

The easy fixes:
- When jumping gates, the truck or cargo can inexplicably collide with something in the transition, severely damaging both. Simple solution: turn off physics as soon as the jump lever is pulled.
- Mission cargo and salvage often spawn in ways that damage them before the player even gets close. Correct all spawn locations, and, again, turn off parts of the physics to keep things sensible.
- The player's horn, which becomes a core part of the gameplay, has an awful tone. Give players some customization options, and PLEASE don't make them all paid content.
- I am ignoring the fact that horns cannot work in space, since the radio could receive a simulated horn. The extreme doppler effect, however, sounds awful and is dumb.
- Having shops and job boards at separate docking ports is silly and wastes the player's time. Combine them.
- Because of the "time dilation" added since the demo, some jobs have impossible timers. Add a few hours to pickup before fining the player.
- Make the secret compartment have the same control as opening crates. It's mapping to object interaction is annoying and inconsistent.

The bad and difficult:
- The airlock and space walk mechanics are over-engineered and underused. A better use of them would be to have fueling, docking and hitching require the player to climb out and actually do those things, rather than having a cab lever or a cutscene.
- Having slots for multiple jobs is pointless in the game's current state. My guess is that players were initially supposed to be able to connect and haul multiple loads to different locations, but that the feature got scrapped. Again, removing the hitch lever and having a space walk might solve this problem, but the reversing physics are so unwieldy that an easier and better solution would be to have only one job at a time.
- While having things float around because of a gravity failure is initially funny, it gets tedious quickly. A simple strap would secure hardcases better than the power-and-part-hungry gravity system.
- Some of the other management systems are baffling in convolution. There should be an air tank for oxygen, not a power cell. Air filters should have health bar or filter value, NOT BOTH. Climate control should have a power cell, not a UCC that inexplicably fails. A powered signal that is constantly on/off should replace the annoying horn mechanic. I have no idea what "core" power is used for, but it's somehow not oxygen, or mags, or thruster fuel.
- The cab view and side screens are straight-up badly designed. The front of the rig takes up way too much of the field of view. If there is a flare , and I have debris warnings taking up the whole screen, I can't see what to avoid to get rid of the warning. Some of the cameras are useless, if only because they are buried under so many other screen tabs.
- Small pebbles and big crystal "anomalies" have unnecessarily complex physics, and are the primary reason AI trucks veer wildly without warning.
- The customization of the truck, especially the PAID customization, is grossly insulting because the player spends so little time outside of your truck that we never see it. Give us more spacewalks as a core mechanic, and maybe we can forgive it.

Overall, there is a good heart to be salvaged from bad mechanics. Make no mistake, however, that salvaging is necessary. What we have here is early access at best, and irredeemably messy at worst.