Hazeron Starship - A seamless space sandbox universe

[GaelicVigil]

Formerly called, "Shores of Hazeron" when it was playable online as a MMO, Hazeron Starship is a massive open-world space sandbox survival/civilization management game. This is my favorite space game of all time, easily, and I've played quite a few. Here are a few unique features:

• Fully seamless universe spanning multiple galaxies (21 galaxies last I checked). When I say seamless, I mean it - there are no loading screens within each galaxy. You can move around planets, fly up through the atmosphere, land on moons, and fly to other solar systems in real time. FTL travel like Warp Drive simply speeds up your ship to a great degree, it does not give you a loading animation then "teleport" you to your destination like most other space games.
• All planetary bodies are in realistic orbits. Moons orbit planets, planets orbit their sun (or suns in binary systems). There are asteroids, ring worlds, and more to discover. This game makes Todd Howard's seamless worlds look like pre-school toys. "If you can see it you can (really) go there" in Hazeron. Yes, you can even mine rings on planets, and land on gas giants if you have the tech to get through the immense gravity.
• You can build massive starships with fully rendered interiors, put a crew on them and order them to fly anywhere you want with or without your presence. You can space walk, land on planets, and, yes, you can even walk on your ship while it is moving through space. There are no barriers here at all.
• You can land any kind of vehicle on your ship, including fighters and transport shuttles, or even smaller ships of your own creation. There is no limit. You can build a motorcycle racing arena on your ship to pass the time while your crew takes you to another solar system.
• All alien life-forms are generated randomly using many body parts, behaviors, diets, and sizes. You can find carnivores, herbivores and anything in between. You can hunt and kill them and even mount their heads in your captain's quarters on your ship. You can also tame these creatures, breed and ride them, or take them on your ship as pets. You can collect plants or seeds from worlds you discover.
• Character creation allows you to create a species of any desire. Create a humanoid, or create an alien abomination, or even a flying creature.

This game is, at its heart, not just a single-player survival experience, but a civilization building game. You are managing your own race of people that look like you. You begin in a near cave-man state. From there you gain new technologies and build cars. You can set up multiple cities on your planet and connect them with roads or shipping lanes to share resources. Build rockets and fly to your moon and create a moon base. Then build space ships to traverse your own star system, then other star systems far away. Create trade depots on new planets to send resources back home. You can automate your crews similar to X4 to go and get resources for you using a script.

Game is amazing and I've been playing it for many years. The developer needs all the encouragement he can get. If he sees enough interest, he has stated he has plans for much more, like local coop and local server functionality.

http://www.hazeron.com/tour.php

 

[GaelicVigil]

Here is a planet I started on once (You spawn on a random habitable world). It was orbiting a gas giant along with another moon. Sunsets were absolutely gorgeous. The interesting thing is that for this game, asteroids were heading to my world to destroy it. I was unable to build an escape ship for my people in time. However, on the night the asteroids were supposed to hit my planet and destroy it, the gas giant's intense gravity well pulled them inside instead. My civilization was saved from annihiliation! Gravity is a real thing in Hazeron. And every star you see in the sky is real and you can travel to them in real time. Stars vary in size, some being super-giant that you need to be careful around. Many have their own exotic systems of planets and moons.

 

[Vic]

you should probably mention that Hazeron Starship is the singleplayer version of Shores of Hazeron MMO, which was shut down in 2021. Seems like the game never really attracted a large audience.

edit: seems like the servers had been off and on, since the initial shut down they came back again throughout most of 2022 but shut down again for good by the end of the year.

 

[Crispy]

As I said in the other thread, this game looks, from a design standpoint, amazing. I have to admit, sadly, because of its very rudimentary appearance, that I doubt I'll play it, but it's certainly worthy of attention and discussion.

Is that a Dyson Ring?!?

 

[Crispy]

you should probably mention that Hazeron Starship is the singleplayer version of Shores of Hazeron MMO

He does mention that. Look at the original post again.

 

[Vic]

you should probably mention that Hazeron Starship is the singleplayer version of Shores of Hazeron MMO

He does mention that. Look at the original post again.

that's true, he just said that development has been ongoing for 20 years and is now about to be released, which got me looking into the project's history a bit. It has been running as an alpha stage MMO for that time period, with "crappy 2001 placeholder graphics" as somebody said in 2013, which seems never got replaced.

Anyway, seems like it did have a cult following, there a couple of let's plays of the MMO on youtube. Question is how fun it would be to play an MMO in single player mode. I'm mentioning this because if it was designed with multiplayer in mind, all these cool things that the OP mentioned might end up going nowhere in the end, much like it felt with Starfield actually.

 

[GaelicVigil]

you should probably mention that Hazeron Starship is the singleplayer version of Shores of Hazeron MMO

He does mention that. Look at the original post again.

that's true, he just said that development has been ongoing for 20 years and is now about to be released, which got me looking into the project's history a bit. It has been running as an alpha stage MMO for that time period, with "crappy 2001 placeholder graphics" as somebody said in 2013, which seems never got replaced.

Anyway, seems like it did have a cult following, there a couple of let's plays of the MMO on youtube. Question is how fun it would be to play an MMO in single player mode. I'm mentioning this because if it was designed with multiplayer in mind, all these cool things that the OP mentioned might end up going nowhere in the end, much like it felt with Starfield actually.

Multiplayer was certainly the goal for the game. Empire vs empire. And it was actually really fun, but the servers were always laggy and the costs were prohibitive with the amount of donation money the dev (Haxus) was pulling in.

That said, my point in spreading the word is to try to get a lot more support so the developer can hire a couple more hands to help him out and get a multiplayer component back in. I think private local servers would work better anyway honestly. The game is brilliant from a mechanics perspective, there is NOTHING else like it and I really want to see it succeed in the long term.

 

[Vic]

do you think it's fun to play in single player? I've watched this let's play a bit and it seems quite exhaustive tho I fail to see what the goal might be playing it solo. Maybe battle against AI empires? If the AI is good that might be cool.

 

[Mortmal]

As I said in the other thread, this game looks, from a design standpoint, amazing. I have to admit, sadly, because of its very rudimentary appearance, that I doubt I'll play it, but it's certainly worthy of attention and discussion.

Is that a Dyson Ring?!?

It's a ringworld, not a Dyson sphere. I spent hundreds of hours on Hazeron; it was rough, with terrible graphics, but had really deep gameplay and a lot of freedom. I actually built my capital on such a rare ringworld. It was loaded with so many defenses that anyone trying to invade me either crashed to the desktop or, for the luckiest, were able to see a blinding flash and their ships disintegrated. There's really a lot to say about that game—the huge freedom, the top-notch ship editor, the ecosystems, and I will likely get the solo version too. That's something I always advised him to do; the space was huge and realistic, and travel, even in warp, was taking a huge amount of time—both a boon and a curse, as it was very hard to interact with other players , you were spending most of your time solo. And anyway, the engine wasn't able to handle fleet nor mass ground combat. There are probably some ship designs I made in this game still present, as one of the features was NPC pirates using player-made designs.

 

[GaelicVigil]

do you think it's fun to play in single player? I've watched this let's play a bit and it seems quite exhaustive tho I fail to see what the goal might be playing it solo. Maybe battle against AI empires? If the AI is good that might be cool.

Even when I played it in MMO format I never even found another empire. I know other players did, but they would often share coordinates so they could meet up. The galaxies in the game are absolutely massive. You could play for 1000 hours and never run into any other players. So, yes, the game is still very very fun playing alone.

One downside, however, is the fact that while your game is shut down in single-player nothing is happening. For example, as your civ's ruler, you place buildings down, but your citizens do most of the work of moving resources and building it. So in the MMO, the server would still be on and your citizens would still be building stuff and transferring resources, etc. I'm not sure how Haxus plans to address this long term for single-player, but for now I'd recommend you leave your game running in the background sometimes so your civ can catch up.

The good news about single-player, however, is that there will be no network lag. The game will run far better than it used to and there will be no server wipes to worry about.

The enemy AI is not great at the moment. There are pirate outposts (which I have yet to run into), but they are pretty barebones. This is another area I'm hoping Haxus develops further. It is still great fun just building your civ, and fighting off and taming wild aliens though.

 

[Vic]

That's something I always advised him to do; the space was huge and realistic, and travel, even in warp, was taking a huge amount of time

how long approx.? was it designed to plot a course and then go offline for a few hours until your ship arrives? that kind of thing?

 

[GaelicVigil]

Hazeron's aesthetic reminds me a lot of those old 50s sci-fi films. When people criticize the graphics, I personally think they are charming in an old-school, janky sort of way.

 

[GaelicVigil]

That's something I always advised him to do; the space was huge and realistic, and travel, even in warp, was taking a huge amount of time

how long approx.? was it designed to plot a course and then go offline for a few hours until your ship arrives? that kind of thing?

Yes, absolutely. There are different levels of space travel in the game. You start with a rocket, then progress to a rocket drive "spaceship" which has no gravity and uses rocket fuel. Then you get a grav drive "star ship" which has internal gravity and better speed/thrusters. Finally you get to Warp Drives which scale in levels (warp 1,2,3,4,etc) just like Star Trek (although I think Haxus changed this a bit recently). Your early ships will take a long time to get to another star. If you pick the closest star, you're still looking at real life 15 - 30 minutes of travel. There are also worm holes as well. The better tech you have, the faster travel times are.

This is super cool though, imo, because it simulates the feeling of being stuck in space for a long time a la "Alien". You can even have aliens board your ship during travel and need your marines aboard to kill them off.

When I was playing using one of the bigger starships, I turned one of the atriums (big yellow dome) into a biker ring. I put motorcycles in there and had races around while traveling. Hanging out on ship is incredibly immersive in this game while you're in-flight.

 

[Vic]

thanks for clearing this up, hard pass for me personally but I understand the appeal, tho this game design makes more sense for MMOs and mobile games.

 

[GaelicVigil]

A warp FTL drive allows a spacecraft to accelerate past lightspeed instantly, allowing the spacecraft to travel directly between solar systems, at a fraction of the time it would take to deadhead. The speed of warp depends on the warp factor, 5x the speed of light per warp factor. I.e., warp 1 is 5x the speed of light, warp 2 is 10x the speed of light, and so on, until warp 9 at 45x the speed of light.

Warp FTL drives require antiflux particles, which can be harvested with particle collector bays. It can also be refined from a refinery on a planetoid.

Warp drives can be set to warp factors 1 through 9. This is however limited by the capacitor installed on the spacecraft. Each warp factor requires more capacitor energy than the last, so extra large capacitor and power plant is required for higher warp factors.

When engaged, the warp drive goes through a 6 second warm up phase, then provides warp drive speed for 50 seconds, then goes through a 6 second cool down phase. Warp drive is engaged at the currently selected warp factor. The warp factor cannot be changed once the FTL drive is engaged.

The capacitor power consumed at warp factor 1 is the same as the capacitor power consumed by engaging a wormhole FTL drive. That way a spacecraft's FTL drive and capacitor are adequate no matter what FTL drive type is installed later.

Helm station shows a warp factor indicator when the warp drive is hot.

Engineer crewman will operate the warp drive at an appropriate warp factor when the destination is farther than .9 parsecs (?) away. Issue a Travel Direct order and the crew will do the rest, it doesn't matter how many parsecs away it is. The engineer will engage the warp drive repeatedly if necessary to get there.

Engineer crewman will operate the warp drive to follow another vessel. If the spacecraft being followed engages its warp drive, the engineer crewman will set the warp factor of his own spacecraft to match that of the spacecraft being followed and engage his own warp drive.

Design analysis shows the maximum warp factor achievable based on max capacitor power.

http://hazeron.com/wiki/index.php/FTL_Drive#Warp_Drive

 

[Vic]

from the steam forums:

Since it's now a single player focused game, I would hope that Haxus strongly considers adding NPC empires and faction commodity trading for the sake of longevity.

The game currently has pirate factions, but I'm talking much bigger empires of RNG aliens with varying levels of tech and hostility toward the player.

The end-game of the original online Shores of Hazeron was player vs player interaction, but now that is missing. Adding discoverable NPC trading stations where you could buy/sell resources for profit would really take this game to another level, imo.

seems like there's no trading or diplomacy with other empires in the game (they are always hostile towards you)

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Is there any character creation and individual control or is this more in the vein of an RTS?

 

[Vic]

Is there any character creation and individual control or is this more in the vein of an RTS?

just watch the let's play I posted above. yes you create your character and play in first person gathering meterials etc.

 

[Tyranicon]

-reads game description-

If the graphics were better the guy making this would be a billionaire.

 

[GaelicVigil]

from the steam forums:

Since it's now a single player focused game, I would hope that Haxus strongly considers adding NPC empires and faction commodity trading for the sake of longevity.

The game currently has pirate factions, but I'm talking much bigger empires of RNG aliens with varying levels of tech and hostility toward the player.

The end-game of the original online Shores of Hazeron was player vs player interaction, but now that is missing. Adding discoverable NPC trading stations where you could buy/sell resources for profit would really take this game to another level, imo.

seems like there's no trading or diplomacy with other empires in the game (they are always hostile towards you)

That post is from me.

You are correct, the NPC interaction is extremely limited. This game is primarily a space exploration and civ builder experience, not a space trader (a la Elite). Adjust your expectations accordingly. That said, I'm hoping the NPC experience gets fleshed out more in the future.

 

[Vic]

That post is from me.

so how many people actually still care about this?

 

[GaelicVigil]

That post is from me.

so how many people actually still care about this?

It's a very small community, that's why I'm trying to grow it. This amazing game deserves better. Discord is probably the most active place.

 

[Mortmal]

That's something I always advised him to do; the space was huge and realistic, and travel, even in warp, was taking a huge amount of time

how long approx.? was it designed to plot a course and then go offline for a few hours until your ship arrives? that kind of thing?

Last time I played, with so many iterations, it's hard to know what will be included. There were different steps for space travel. You start like a caveman, then build a city, ground vehicles, and finally a rocket to go to the nearest moon to harvest some ore for space ships. Only then could you build something to visit your stellar system. You could scan and find wormholes, leading instantly to other systems. But with warp drives, you could set a ship on a course and have it spend the whole week crossing the galaxy to reach some friend or foe system.

 

[Mortmal]

from the steam forums:

Since it's now a single player focused game, I would hope that Haxus strongly considers adding NPC empires and faction commodity trading for the sake of longevity.

The game currently has pirate factions, but I'm talking much bigger empires of RNG aliens with varying levels of tech and hostility toward the player.

The end-game of the original online Shores of Hazeron was player vs player interaction, but now that is missing. Adding discoverable NPC trading stations where you could buy/sell resources for profit would really take this game to another level, imo.

seems like there's no trading or diplomacy with other empires in the game (they are always hostile towards you)

That post is from me.

You are correct, the NPC interaction is extremely limited. This game is primarily a space exploration and civ builder experience, not a space trader (a la Elite). Adjust your expectations accordingly. That said, I'm hoping the NPC experience gets fleshed out more in the future.

I don't think it's going to happen; it's more likely the MMO version but solo. He also never accepted help from anyone, and if he wanted to hire a team for this, he could have done so 20 years ago already. Without other players, it will certainly lose a lot of its interest, as it was fun to design a ship completely from scratch and land on other people's places to show them or level down their whole civilization. There was a certain old-school MMO feel with a lot of griefing. The first guy I met was a Brazilian who landed his warship; I chatted with him and became friends, but he confessed later that his first intentions were simply to raze everything as it was too close to his system. While some were building racing arenas on their ships, mine were min-maxed warships with a few inside turrets to prevent hijacking, as you could easily invade other player ships, bomb the hatch, and kill the crew inside. Without those player interactions and without AI empires, which I expect to be extremely unlikely to happen, it will lose a lot of its interest. It's already very niche because it's for gamers who go for stuff like Dwarf Fortress in ASCII or indie multiplayer games like Space Station 13. It's true gaming in its purest form and not for everyone.

 

[Vic]

yeah it definitely appeals to my autistic side but it seems like it's as I've feared, designed around multiplayer, and (I don't know the dev, so just guessing) a way to monetize his work without paying for servers.