Silica

Great idea and really solid execution. This game absolutely shows it is in early access and there are a few bugs and hiccups along the way as you play but the core system and gameplay is sound. I love the seamless transition from RTS to FPS as you play and it really helps since sometimes the AI and pathing of certain units (harvesters usually) is a little wonky from time to time so you can hop right in and move them to set them back on their way.

The sounds and visuals are pretty awesome and with a good machine and nice large monitors there's an awe when you watch a siege tank make a direct hit on a queen while you're in FPS as a rifleman fighting for his life.

Now allow me to bring some hopefully constructive criticism and express my issues and concerns.

Air units: The AI on air units is a little suicidal. I've watched a lot of my gunships nosedive in on an enemy in the hopes that booping it with its nose would just stop whatever threats I send it after. Turns out that doesn't work very well and usually ends with a big fireball while I watch the carnage from the commanders view.

Buildings: we need a way to cancel building construction and sell them to salvage a bad situation or save ourselves something if our harvesting operations get taken out, Building placement is also a little odd, i find myself trying to place a building to see i cannot do it, but when i rotate the building its fine despite the same footprint and clearance seems to be fine.

Diversity of armies. We have 3 armies. 2 human and one bug. The two human factions are the exact same thing. I could see if they were similar but right now they are exact copies. It would be nice to see two diverse human factions to really spice up the battlefield. Of course this is still in early access so I am confident we will see some awesome changes in the future,

Maps: I like the maps, I like the aesthetic. However, each map is just a slightly different flavor of desert. I understand the idea since the story is the battles on the same planet so it makes sense, but I would love to see tundra, tropical, urban and some more green environments (the green storm map doesn't count, its still a desert with a hue change and lightning, but awesome still)

Ability to add more AI commanders: I like the three commander free for all and it's my favorite way to play right now but imagine 4 to 8 commanders and armies on the field at the same time. I can only imagine what an undertaking that would be and the amount of work and resources needed to make it all work smoothly. The warzone would be spectacular if something like this could be done.

weapon recoil and feeling: When you take control of an infantry unit, the weapons feel a little light and feathery. You squeeze the trigger and you are shown a rather splendid display of lights and pews flying all over the place. This is awesome and makes it obvious where your units are shooting and where you are being attacked from. However, there doesn't seem to be a lot of Oompf from the weapons. The heavy and marksman are the closest to a really good feedback from the audio. That's just me nitpicking but I've played with friends and they are more of an FPS crowd and I'm always the commander since I've been playing RTS games since the original CnC games.

I know the developer has a roadmap (I should have probably looked at this before i put this review) and plans to tackle mod support after 1.0 release so I am really excited for this in the future. Maybe this game might be like many bethesda games were the modding community breathes some serious life into this game after full release. I would be so happy to see old CnC units on the field like the Mammoth Mk2 and nod Artillery just raining doom through the map. A tiberian sun setting would be perfect. We already have desert maps, a map that basically is enveloped in an ION storm and the futuristic aesthetic that matches with it. If any future modder or the dev reads this and wants an idea, Walker units would be so amazing to see on the field. I understand this would be really hard to do. I can only imagine the nightmare of keeping the units balanced and not falling over on the smallest obstacle.


I recommend this game, I look forward to the future and the progress to be made and I wish the best of luck and good health to the dev as he continues improving and adding more content.

Great game, play it with friends and I'll see you all on the battlefield.

Played Solo modes only (not too interested in Multiplyer myself).
Pros:
- It has a Solo Mode (I actually wasn't expecting one).
- Gorgeous visual.
- Punchy actions.
- Epic cinematic battle moments.
- Fun vehicles.
Cons (and hopefully devs can make some adjustments to these):
- Simple AI RTS player (run straight into their targets often or just wander around seemingly aimlessly, though this may not be relevant in Multiplayer).
- Terrible RTS unit pathfinding (often runs backward and get stuck in rocks, and positioning is so important in this game because they only shoot with their line of sights and explosive rounds could hurt them if not positioned well. Harvesters often get stuck in their Refinery buildings).
- No unit behavior control. (needs cease fire mode with the nuke trucks, formations, evasive combat behaviors, and "go straight" move options instead of trying to "pathfind". There is no reason why a flying unit should go the opposite direction from where I told it to go. Bug units also have their own behaviors during combat, making me lose control and the units because 1 is charging on its own while the other 4 are stuck in rocks).
- RTS UI units grouping automatically when camera is far away (Another element that makes player lose control of the situation and harder to read which units are in that cluster).
- Terribly balanced bug units (close range, bigger-than-human targets trying to hit ranged units that are smaller or faster or stronger targets, takes longer to turn than humans, bouncy physic and gravity, results in terrible early game experience with them and I decided I don't want to know what it's like in later stages. It needs larger melee attack arc and able to lunge towards attacking targets and stick firmer. I also can't order them to attack and charge at a specific enemy, which is a problem because their advantage is hoard melee combat).
- Map too big for individual bug players. Dies often and gotta run all the way back.
- Limited RTS map utility (I don't know where my units are in the little map, and no unit or camera control in the big map).
- Terrible story delivery (A really long info dump in the intro, meaning it's happening every time you turn on the game. Story's a mix of several popular sci-fi fictions so nothing original either, they're almost uncomfortably familiar. AI art slide show, and the narrator's voice electronically modified to sound like a sci-fi villain in the late 20th century's TV show for kids. There is a "story mode" game as well. It's one of those, "You are here, go there, it's important, well done, and repeat" type).
- Quitter AI player (I'm enjoying the cinematic siege and the game just ends in the middle of it, then the game restart timer ends before the victory music ends, overall making things feel finishing prematurely. I understand that this is the default multiplayer behavior for us gamers with addiction for perpetual dopamine stimulation. But I'd say this would feel nicer if it can be adjusted in the server setting.
- Poor FPS aiming sight visibility (Very bright and glaring yellow-white environment, targets are far away and are dots made of several wobbly pixels, and my guns shoot at a bright half-transparent blue dot. With so many well-made visual decisions, I'm willing to believe that this is intentional to impair players from aiming too well since AI units usually spray-and-pray. But this strains the eyes, and us FPS shooters don't blink for hours as it is. Not healthy. Options would be nice. Color and transparency slide bar. Maybe even shapes based on real-life scopes since these bullets have speed and drops).
Substantially more cons than pros, resulting in a mostly frustrating gaming experience at the current stage.
But when things do go well, there's nothing else that looks this epic.
Cons are understandable due to its mid-development stage of a very ambitious project.
It's also good to see my favorite dead genre coming back with revenant fury.
I hope this game reaches many of its potentials.

Warning: This game is missing EVERY SINGLE aspect of QoL you can imagine. Its also a very slow game. Fun, but not particularly action packed. Its quite the opposite of action packed. Most of the time is spent trying to get somewhere to do something.

Spawns are bad.
On FPS mode you cannot build vehicles so you're at the mercy of the commander IF he has any to build vehicles for you.
On RTS mode its near impossible to have a good experience: hard to control units, terrible menu navigation, zero intuitive design.
This is why passion is not enough to build a good game, because QoL is represented in professionalism, in this sense its the exact opposite of early access games like Mechabellum.

What could help?
1. deactivate the dumb heat wavy filter or whatever its supposed to be, it only detracts from the experience.
2. Reword the entire menu, navigation and map system for RTS mode. It needs to be unrecognizeable. Want a reference? Go look at Command & Conquer menus. Even Kane's wrath is heaven compared to this.
3. Performance issues in RTS mode.
4. There is basically zero FPS combat. Either you absolutely destroy an enemy, or it destroys you. TTK varies between zero and infinite unless you are dealing with superheavy units.
5. Balancing issues all through the board, scorpions need a total rework, you should not have a tanky unit be fast and have a strong AOE ranged attack.
6. The spawn - teleport - class choice needs to be a single, convenient integrated. With that I mean you should be within 2 steps of everything, if I wanted to run a mile I'd go for a jog.
7. Player characters are too slow for humans unless you're in a vehicle. A personal on-demand, anywhere on the map, spawnable vehicle (balance it by making it do no damage, and have a long startup time) needs to exist.
8. AI either instantly snipe you or cannot hit the broad side of a barn to save its life. This operates to the detriment of the commander and the FPS player.
9. Targetting enemies works more as a "attack suggestion" than a direct command. Rework needed.

It is a cool concept but its missing the basics so the player has a bad experience of a good game.

Game is fun time but only downside is the no tutorial for how to play the game really but you get used to that quick but other than that the game is quite fun. Definitely needs improvement cause the game is in a half-life state with the no players. Building and units along with the AI are needed to be improved if the game is to be progressed further.

ok now dont get me wrong this game is fantastic and ik its only in early access but here are some things i would like to be improved.
no.1 for some armored vehicles firing the main guns uses a rifleman muzzle flash for the cannon and i think it should be more explosion-y
no.2 MAKE INFANTRY MORE USEFUL AND ADD MORE INFANTRY TYPES
no.3 create a stealth mechanism, maybe infantry can go undetected for longer or maybe stealth infantry or maybe even a cnc red alert stealth tank type thing or a invisibility shield tank that cloaks other vehicles.
no.4 with aircraft give the fighter lock-on missiles and also give all aircraft flares
no.5 make prospecter so much better and longer
no.6 make a lean mechanic for infantry and just much more prospecter mechanics, eg grenades or a sidearm
no.7 MAKE THE AI BETTER
no.8 i think it would be good if the building destruction mechanics were better and had models for when the were destroyed, same for vehicles,
no.9 allow formations and squads
no.10 for sol and alpha centuri introduce different units for AC and also have the units function the same but have totally different models, or even just little perks, or weapons, like for instance you could have tracked tanks for one faction and keep the hover ones for another, and also ik that the armored cars and hover tank are models made by other people so change that up a bit
no.11 SIX WORDS, AIRSTRIKE, ORBITAL STRIKE, STARPORT, NUKES, SATELLITES

This game has great potential. If you play with a pre-made group of friends private matches can be really enjoyable and tough.
Commander View: (RTS) - Building placement is fine, the structures you build are massive so you do need to think strategically about placement but building, rotating and deploying buildings is simple enough.
Resources take a LONG time to harvest, but harvesters are mega vehicles capable of crushing enemies and blasting them with turrets. To counter the long time between the harvesters dropping of resources they can carry a meaningful amount.
Although in some ways this really slows the gameplay down, it also makes protecting your harvesters a real priority which adds a layer of strategy. (Its not cheap/easy to quickly replace harvesters)
vehicles feel balanced, and the aircraft and turrets are very fun to use.
FPS VIEW: The game looks graphically impressive. Walking around the huge megastructures and harvesters really gives you a feel for the scale of the game. vehicle combat is fun, particularly using aircraft like the bombers but the actual troop combat needs some work. For example having no sidearm feels a bit lame.
AI need a difficulty setting. Playing private matches or offline matches become very easy once you get the hang of things and there is no way to scale the AI up to test yourself more.
Overall, I think providing the devs keep up the work and keep pushing improvements out this game could be really special.

really, really good game it can almost be a movie if you choose to be infantry and i could even imagine how fun it would be to play with friends. The game is still in early devolopment but the game has huge potential and it is a very hard game lol i really enjoy this game. i would rate it now a 8/10 it would prob be a 10/10 if this game fully releases