Nebula Online is an independent space MMORPG available in Early Access on Steam since January 5, 2016 and officially released most recently on November 3. The game is the result of the work of four developers since 2014. Their primary goal is to recreate an old school game, with high difficulty: free market economy (players set the prices), full PvP with almost no limits ( it is possible to attack everyone in neutral space), conquest of territory and complex crafts.
Character creation
There are three completely different races playable in Nebula Online: Humans, Borguzands, and Kriptizids. They do, however, have access to the same class styles, a tank, an engineer (healer), a sniper (ranged DPS) and a tropper (melee DPS).
- Human vessels
- Borguzands vessels
- Kriptizids vessels
Character creation is limited to the choice of a race, with gender (but which only changes the portrait for humans), class and a nickname. Then straight into the game! In order to have a balanced ship for my first foray into the Nebula Online universe, I opted for a tropper, a fairly balanced ship, having good survival and dealing decent damage.
First steps
A small tutorial explains the basics of handling the ship. Unlike most space games, here the ship is steered with the mouse. A left click allows you to direct it in the selected direction. To move the camera, just keep the click pressed. It is also possible to use the right click which will rotate the ship in the direction of the camera. It is not necessarily the most obvious to integrate at the beginning, habits die hard and I definitely want to use my arrow keys.
On the motor side, I can activate the movement, then the acceleration. Knowing that the movement makes the ship move very slowly, while the acceleration makes it go fast, directly to the maximum possible thrust of its engines. By cutting all movement, it immediately stops the acceleration without any management of inertia, the ship comes to a stop in full space without having to use retro-rockets or go through a deceleration phase. There is also no collision management. Asteroids, planetoids, space stations, anything can be passed through without any damage.
Otherwise, the graphics are correct, each galaxy being generated with its batch of detectable objects thanks to the scanner which is accessible at any time if one is looking for something interesting in the area. By clicking on a target, the ship automatically turns in its direction, you just have to accelerate to get there.
The starting galaxy is a safe area where there is no danger, enemies are not aggressive (in yellow), perfect targets for shooting practice. Being only level 1, I only have one damage spell, a kind of ray that requires me to be very close to my target in order to fire. Each shot costs energy, symbolized in yellow at the top left next to my life in green. Well, overall, the time to be within range, to shoot, to wait the 2 seconds for the spell to be available again, then to come back within range, there is never time to be out of range. energy.
Once the enemy ship is destroyed, it most of the time gives as a reward a chest including loot for crafting, items to improve the ship or even blueprints to create items (including ship parts).
The most important resources are to be collected on asteroids, small elements that appear all over the galaxy, generally protected by an aggressive vessel and a few non-aggressive vessels (at least in the galaxy for beginners where I still hang out).
Crafting and Quests
The game integrates most of the features expected in an MMO: guilds (coalitions), groups with friends, resale of items, hangar, bank, companion inventory (mini-ship that follows our big ship) ... Some features are not accessible only from the ship station, such as access to auctions, the hangar or even crafts. To create an object, just click on the diagram in the inventory, this opens a window that summarizes what will be created and the components that will be used. After creation, the recipe disappears.
Suddenly, a little lost, I went to explore the galaxy. Then I teleported to another system in order to have more asteroids. There, I spent a good hour shooting down all the aggressive ships that were preventing me from recovering the resources of the asteroids. Thanks to the resources collected, I was able to create better parts for my ship.
Well, on the other hand, the levels don't go up very quickly that way. Fortunately, there are quests, based on a system of contracts organized by different styles (contracts that can only be collected from a station). Wanting to discover new systems, I accepted an Exploration contract which took me to the Oor system. Thanks to the map and scanner system, I was able to find the place I was looking for. I just had to stay close for a whole minute and presto, 200 experience points in my pocket.
Impossible on the other hand to take a contract outside a station, suddenly, it is strongly advised to take contracts of several types to avoid making an idiotic round trip at the end of each mission.
These contracts, as well as the achievements related to the actions performed in the game add a welcome sense of accomplishment, this does not prevent in any way from continuing to exploit asteroids to improve his ship and to kill all aggressive ships.
Conclusion
Concretely, Nebula Online is a promising MMORPG which suffers from a few shortcomings and in particular from a difficult handling. It is at the same time in the original description: the game is aimed at experienced players who want real difficulty, a "hardcore" MMORPG. The levels promise to be incredibly long to climb, in a gigantic galaxy which is sorely lacking in realism on many points. If the game was still in early access, I would have been more lenient but for a title that claims to be available, there are still big gaps that I can hardly excuse (collisions and inertia seem to me to be the main ones).
Another problem: I did not meet many people during my test on this Sunday afternoon. Are all players on more advanced systems? Or are there not many people online right now? Knowing that according to the discussions launched on the Steam forums, the majority of players are Russian, so I am very concerned about the existence of an active English speaking community with which to interact. Playing alone is fine for a while ...
Finally, note that other features are announced in the description that I have not tested, probably because of my low level, such as the creation of its own station or the occupation of enemy territories, PvP tri- faction the size of solar systems ... I take a step back, and I remember the price, only € 4,99 (€ 3,99 at the moment). And that's where I tell myself that, for this amount, it would be a shame to stop at the current problems if you like this style of play, and that we should rather see it as an investment in a game. which can only improve on bases already well in place.
If you want to make up your own mind, it's happening here, with the game available for Windows, Mac, and Linux, with players all sharing the same server:
