Empyrion: A game full of potential, but set back by its scope.

Empyrion is a voxel-based (to some extent, the terrain doesn't actually use voxels, but they use voxel-type rules to snap objects together) survival sandbox that allows you to travel to many different planets, mine for resources, and basically build any number of facilities, both mobile (spaceships) and immobile (bases).

The game prides itself in having a very large galaxy so as to practically not run out of planets. Though this was a rather recent feature, this was actually contested by the players, and with good reason:

If the game has multiplayer, and has virtually unlimited planets, you may as well not be playing with anyone by then due to the sheer improbability of meeting anyone else.

For the single player experience, having access to all of the planets is in practice just having access to one central base, and many other haphazard outposts everywhere else. Also, for a game this large in scale, the lack of any form of practical automation is a big malus against it; sure you can have miners, but they will eventually stop after a point with no automated delivery system to a central distribution center.

What this game feels like in practice, despite the number of interesting player-contributed locales and ships to at least try and spice up your life, is that everything feels the same. Planet #5 is probably just the same as #3, empty, hollow, filled with stock assets that don't contribute much to it, etc.

The trade system is there and could be worked with, but as there's no automation to do buy and sell for freighters, and even then, there's no actual economy system in place, there's not much to see there except maybe see your credits increase and buy prohibitively expensive goods to help create your new ship.

Your ships are limited by a system called CPU (which can be disabled at game start), which in theory tries to force ships to specialize. In practice, unless you're one of the expert builders in the scene, the CPU system penalizes you for trying to build creatively. And most importantly, this in essence means that any ships submitted to the workshop must comply to CPU rules to work in all cases.

There are so many flaws in this game that I cannot in good faith recommend this, however if construction of intricate 3d ships is your thing, and you don't want anything that melts your PC (space engineers, grr), then give it a go.

My final words are that Quantity isn't always Quality.

If you want fully fleshed out experiences:
survival-basebuilding-exploration - try Subnautica instead.
trade - try Avorion or Egosoft's X3 series (X4 exists but that is kind of questionably fun).

Empyrion: A game full of potential, but set back by its scope. Empyrion is a voxel-based (to some extent, the terrain doesn't actually use voxels, but they use voxel-type rules to snap objects together) survival sandbox that allows you to travel to many different planets, mine for resources, and basically build any number of facilities, both mobile (spaceships) and immobile (bases). The game prides itself in having a very large galaxy so as to practically not run out of planets. Though this was a rather recent feature, this was actually contested by the players, and with good reason: If the game has multiplayer, and has virtually unlimited planets, you may as well not be playing with anyone by then due to the sheer improbability of meeting anyone else. For the single player experience, having access to all of the planets is in practice just having access to one central base, and many other haphazard outposts everywhere else. Also, for a game this large in scale, the lack of any form of practical automation is a big malus against it; sure you can have miners, but they will eventually stop after a point with no automated delivery system to a central distribution center. What this game feels like in practice, despite the number of interesting player-contributed locales and ships to at least try and spice up your life, is that everything feels the same. Planet #5 is probably just the same as #3, empty, hollow, filled with stock assets that don't contribute much to it, etc. The trade system is there and could be worked with, but as there's no automation to do buy and sell for freighters, and even then, there's no actual economy system in place, there's not much to see there except maybe see your credits increase and buy prohibitively expensive goods to help create your new ship. Your ships are limited by a system called CPU (which can be disabled at game start), which in theory tries to force ships to specialize. In practice, unless you're one of the expert builders in the scene, the CPU system penalizes you for trying to build creatively. And most importantly, this in essence means that any ships submitted to the workshop must comply to CPU rules to work in all cases. There are so many flaws in this game that I cannot in good faith recommend this, however if construction of intricate 3d ships is your thing, and you don't want anything that melts your PC (space engineers, grr), then give it a go. My final words are that Quantity isn't always Quality. If you want fully fleshed out experiences: survival-basebuilding-exploration - try Subnautica instead. trade - try Avorion or Egosoft's X3 series (X4 exists but that is kind of questionably fun).