I really like the core of this game. The combat is fun, the base building is shallow but fun. The missions are fun, the first 50 times....

The problem I have is that there just isn't enough of anything. Not enough variety in ships, missions, zero story, diplomacy is almost non existent. After a few hours you will start to notice so many quality of life things that are missing that you have in other games. Such as:

- No minimap (the only way to see enemy fleets approaching is to open the map screen which prevents you from doing anything else)
- You can only control one fleet and one flagship. You can't swap between multiple ones. so if you're off attacking someone and your home gets attacked you have to go all the way back.
- The AI just grows at an insane rate. Faster than I could possibly keep up.
- The missions become a grind. Flying around collecting things, fighting pirates, over and over.

This game needs more before I can recommend it. I hope the devs stay on it though because at its core it has a lot of potential.

Edited 7/4 - Happy 4th Americans!

Pretty good so far. Almost 8h gameplay I can tell it's worth the $16.

First Actions
- Spent 30m getting out of debt. (I suggest salvaging, you get lucky with a merchent ship and you're good to startout)
- Dropped my city, started getting small flow of income.
- Starting particpating in battles with other cities vs. Pirates (don't want to choose sides yet b,c I dont want an enemy city to wreck me)
- Got a small city and 4 sectors to my name.

Money Tip I've learned
- I use my income/min as an upkeep. I make my real money from mining planets and selling them at my local market + friendly AI market. Doing this I get +5 relation from the ai I trade with while keeping my local market prices high. If I'm lucky I'll find a very cheap resource at an AI market and sell it at my market if I can sell it for more.

Developers have stated that they will be doing WEEKLY updates, so looking forward to that.

In it's current state you will get $16+ worth of enjoyment. Once more and more content gets added every week you'll enjoy it anymore in addition you're giving the devs more financial fuel to make the development better.

Game CLEARLY has a lot of potential to be simplistic but at the same time complex. If devs come out with frequent updates I'll be playing this game for a while.

(Note: If you pick up this game, when you buy a ship, don't click it unless you want to buy it for sure.)

For all those looking for their Space Pirates and Zombies 2 fix.

This is what you want.

Ever wished you could play SPAZ multiplayer on the world map?
Co-op with friends and form alliances with random strangers?
Build cities?


This is basically what that is, a Multiplayer sandbox version of Spaz.
Also, it's ready to play, currently fun and worth the $17 USD.


The AI is responsive and intelligent.
They /Will/ react to what you do and build, what you attack and where, which resources you have taken on the map.


Combat is much like a MOBA in the idea that you have "Skill shots" and "AoE" to fully customize your ships.
There is no "Best Weapon" each weapon is good against a specific target but all weapons /Can/ be used against any enemy type.

Small ships can beat larger ships if they're outfitted right and the enemy ship is outfitted wrong.
A bigger ship will not grant you an easy victory, but it will allow you more options and tactics.



All and all
Is it worth it right now at this very moment in time?

Yes, buy it.

ESPECIALLY if you're a fan of SPAZ and wanting Spaz 2 but still want that co-op sandbox experience that the Spaz 2 devs are not likely going to add to their game.

I got in because of all the comparisons to SPAZ. I knew SPAZ. Senator, you're no SPAZ.

My main issue is the combat. Unlike SPAZ, which is a fast dodge and shoot affair with responsive strafing and real time projectiles, Beyond Sol is basically an MMO. Tab target, activate your spells (laser guns) then wait for the cooldown. Even the 'fast' ship is miserably slow and can only stop or go forward, no dodging here.

The city building feels a few 'quality of life' patches behind the curve. You'll be opening one menu to build a structure, then opening another menu to check your inventory of building material, then manually purchasing any material you're short of on the market, then finally building the structure which costs material and credits. You initially purchased the material with credits. Why make that a separate step?

I appreciate Beyond Sol's ambition, but I feel like the team spread themselves too thin. The city building is shallow, grindy, and not fun. The combat feels like the mobile game version. Maybe pick this one up if it's really discounted.

Early access so I'm thumbs up'ing it, but I do have some issues with the game at its current state. After about 5 hours, it seems like I've experienced most of the game. I can continue to grind up my city size and expand my borders some more, but it seems pointless to do that since, as far as I can tell, there is no way to kill your enemies. I had an AI city pop up a few sectors outside my borders early on, so of course I had to show him who's boss of my little area and beat him up. So, I destroyed all of his fleets, took over a couple of sectors and he surrenders, giving me a bit of cash (note: Its a forced accept surrender, you cannot decline him). I've done this now on about 4 seprate occasions, except instead of taking over his sectors, I just beat on his city because he is completely surrounded by me. He has 3 sectors left that are spread out, disconected from his city (shouldn't be recieving the tax from those then right?) but everytime I get his city pretty well destroyed, he surrenders again.

So I've gone through the process of destroying his city center and as many population buildings as possible in a mad rush to try and finish him off before he surrenders and I have to wait another 20 minutes to try again. This really wouldn't be an issue if I could subjugate him or otherwise force his compliance, but since I can't I feel the need to keep trying to kill him since he is literally an enemy stronghold inside my borders.

Overall, game is incredably fun, definitely has a lot of potential. List of suggestions that IMO would greatly improve gameplay though:

- Ability to destroy your enemies cities or otherwise pacify them permanently!
- AI comanders for your fleets. Let those massive stock of reserve ships patrol your borders so you don't have to personally respond to *every* minor pirate/enemy incursion.
- Repair option for the ships in your fleet. Right now you can ghetto it by puting them into the reserve and taking them back out, but it doesn't seem like thats intended.
- Asteroid mining base! Lets put those asteroid sectors to work!
- Trade convoys, you can go to distress beacons and see the NPC convoys, why not have our own going around for us to protect? Maybe have them delivering the resources mined from planets instead of them auto arriving?
- Don't let players build their city center on a planet, or at least warn them! I thought I was being clever having my city on a planet I wanted to mine, but instead it made it un-mineable!

Overall, great game and well worth the money. Looking foreword to seeing the future content!

Holy crap is this game ever addicting.

Like to create your own space empire? Check.
Like to upgrade said empire? Check.
Like to tool around and create wicked fleets? Check.
Like to rule the galaxy by creating strategic outposts and alliances, and then betray them at the last minute to snatch power? Check.

This game is very, very good.

This is a very good space simulator that revolves around strategy, diplomacy, tactics, managing economies and upgrading in order to survive among different AIs.

The gist of the game:
You are given the options to rule the game via 3 different victories: diplomacy, economy or war. You can create a world based on different variables (size of map, number of AI, learning curve, handicap, etc) and then you are placed in a hex-based map with AI. You are able to create a city easily by following a set of arrows that point you in the right direction to build the city. Once established, you can expand the city via radar outposts, mining outposts or military outposts. The key is to create a good economy by mining nearby planets either by setting up mining outposts or running mining runs in nearby asteroid belts. By building outposts in adjoining hexes you are able to expand your overall territory and increase your economy by charing a tariff based on the territory you control.

The pros:
There is a very good learning curve with this game. The devs have incorporated a number of very clever responses by the AI. As you expand your territory you will likely ♥♥♥♥ off nearby AI who will declare themselves hostile to you and repeatedly try to destroy your outposts. Similarly, I've had AIs try to attack me and I've responded with my fleet and destroy them along with their outposts. The AI will then abdicate for a short time by offering you war reparations. If you repeatedly deny them then this incurs the wrath of other nearby players.

You can customize most likely ANYTHING in this game. Being extremely modular, you are able to tack on a variety of different components to your bases. Each individual component is upgradable if you have the cashs and the minerals. Similarly you can upgrade your ship, its weapons and system along with your fleet and fleet size by upgrading things like your hangar. Once you have a sizable fleet with sizable cargo bay you can advance pretty far.

The game balances itself out because neighbouring AI will fight each other, thereby preventing any one AI by leading and winning. You can easily play the same game for 5-6 hours with AI tied neck to neck.You can also lead early on and forget about neighbouring AI who suddenly declare themselves hostile and then proceed to blow your city to hell with a massive fleet.

The game's myriad upgrading possibilities force the gamer to balance creating an empire, defending it, expanding it, creating economic pathways, upgrading those outposts, creating and managing fleets and attacking, while managing alliances.

The graphics are decent and are created with the Unity engine. For most systems this game shouldn't be a problem.

The accompanying music is spacey and adds to the atmosphere of the game.

Cons:

Building components to your base isn't always easy and takes some manoeuvering around. It would be nice to have it easier.

If you annihilate someone from the game IMMEDIATELY all of the other races consider you a warmonger and still send their entire fleets after you in hopes of destroying you. This is one drawback because in war people will not necessarily fight against you if you kill off another AI. This communistic aspect of the game is a drawback and I hope it gets addressed later on by the devs.

Still playing it after purchasing it 40% off. I am excited to continue playing.

edit:

I am recently experiencing consistent fluctuating frame rates from 11 fps to 41 fps despite having a solid rig. It makes piloting ships across the map difficult given how laggy it becomes. Hopefully the devs will address this because it is starting to become a tad irritating.

This is one of those early access titles that are so much fun that you end up checking for new updates every time you open steam. I simply cannot wait for what the future holds for Beyond Sol!


Pros:
Being developed by, Praxia Entertainment, a Canadian team that used to work for Bioware; Beyond sol has all the elements of a great top down space shooter, combined with the hardcore strategy elements of a 4x empire building game. Throw in some massive fleet battles, tower defense and even some economic simulation, you will find this hard to put down.

You begin the game as a lone cruiser pilot in a small region of contested space and you goal is to quickly build a city where people in the region can live, shop, work etc. You will need to expand your territory by building radar and mining installations that will gather minerals tariffs for your growing empire. While your empire is growing you may also explore the universe freely and without restriction, mining, hunting, performing services for other cultures, salvaging, and even outright attacking your neighbors, if you so choose. There is no restriction on what you do.

Your ship can be upgraded and customized in a variety of ways depending on what corporations you have living in your city. You can buy new corporate ships to fly with you or to defend your cities and stations as well. All things considered, Beyond Sol is amazing already, and it's not even finished yet. I can't recommend it enough!

Cons:
This is an Early access title, so it, naturally has a few issues. I have found some bugs when starting new games where some of the previous game data will carry over, creating some confusing information, like incorrect research and ship levels, more money and minerals than normal etc. The game is also incomplete and there are simply many ship customizing option that are simply just not available yet. The procedurally generated area you begin in is different every time and always interesting, however, there are no options yet to customize it. None of these issues prevent a player from playing the game and enjoying it thoroughly.

great EA release and a little hidden gem.
you can compare the setup to games like SPAZ and co. top-down flyin through the galaxy and
encountering lots of random-generated events:
help diplomats, traders when they are attacked by pirates
hunt down pirates for bounties
mine asteroids
trade

on top of that a 4xgame is playin around you; other factions build/upgrade their stuff and engage in relations with each other and yourself,
also you can build an empire yourself, owning sectors, building a city, mining-bases, etc.

combat feels already very good, with a cool-down and ressource based skill system, complete freedom concerning your loadout and the ability to generate your own fleets.

all in all this game is already looking realy good and offeres alot of content for your money; if you like sci-fi-spacegames give it a shot. i can definitly recommend this pearl.

I don't even know what to say because I'm speechless. This is one hell of a hidden Gem and easily my top 10 games of all time with only 30+ Hours put into it because it's almost everything I wanted in a Space RTS Game.

What are some of the main features I love:

• Event System
  
• Open World
  
• Sandbox
  
• Base Building
  
• Territory System
  
• Upgrade System
  
• Your own personal Ship upgrade
  
• Fleet System / Military bases and their protection expansion via upgrades.
  
• Pirates even more so end game keeping on your toes forcing you to expand territory.

The entire game has almost everything I could dream of in a game like this.


Now to make it an honest review you always want to mix some opinions into a game. Here are things I love to see or wish that were in the game.

Things I like to see:

• Larger Universe, I find the universe quite small as I don't want 10 hour long games but I would like weeks worth. Clearly if they double the map they would need higher spec PC's and maybe even some other instability. That is why I wish there was a override feature for unsafe increase of the map. This way someone hardcore or crazy like me can have some real fun with of course the possibility of instability.
  
• In multiplayer games when you are allied I think you should be able to piggyback off your allied radars and I also think alerts from pirate raids to their stations should be slightly more noticeable and if they are attacked by any other players/npc's that it alerts you quite boldly. Their your allies you share everything security information wise.

If Larger Universe was a feature down the road I would love to also see another city expansion upgrade. To help keep the expansions more balanced.



Overall I give this game a 90/100 score. I don't think any game deserves a perfect score because there is always room for improvements of course but this one really hit the spot for being one my top fav games of all times. This game will have memories for myself and friends for years to come.

I'm also making a Let's Play Series because I love it a lot. It's going to be every other day though I release it one day early because I could not contain my excitement.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkqLnzpfvAI

Beyond sol is a interesting space building-strategy game with looting and taxes options, while pirates attacks your sweet but.

The game it self has a great interface and a good overview of what you have to work with. You can help other stations and get population, meanwhile you are hunting pirates and mining your needs for expanding your own city. When you have helped other citys, you can help or get helped by their forces, which is really nice, if you don't have a army your self.

The fighting and controls seems to be really good, and if you fire missiles it's not locked to "be 100% kill", every other weapon has a range aswell, so you need to know how to control the ship and think about the range, which gives a decent challenge.

When a city gets attack or declare war, they close some income, and some recourses will be cheaper. This will help you out, if you are on low resources, but high on money.

If your interested in what i experienced, you can see my stream: http://www.twitch.tv/theearlyaccess/v/6775008