viral musk
I've been keeping a distant eye on Jump-Ship for a long while, and I've played a similar game, Void Crew, while I waited for this game to release. Since both these games seem to be aiming for similar gameplay, I will be comparing them as such, but I also recognize Jump Ship has practically JUST released into beta and has a lot of polish missing in it's current state; and also that this post is my personal opinion, and not objective fact. My vision of this game most likely doesn't align with that of the developer's.
(I played for exactly 1hr before I got motion sick but I'll elaborate on that later.)
The Good Stuff...
Movement
Boots-on-ground movement feels great. I like how snappy and responsive my movement is in gravity, and I appreciate the grapple as utility movement.
Zero-G movement on every axis is ESSENTIAL for every space game in my opinion, and I'm glad to see it here
Weapons
The guns do feel a bit rigid and don't carry the weight I'd like, but being so early in beta, I think they are fine as-is while other systems get more attention.
The Ship
Modules you insert into hardpoints across the ship is good, I like that, and I like the hands-on power management in the form of power modules you plug into the breaker board.
However...
I do feel that the magnetically attached zero-G movement you do on the hull of the ship is TOO responsive, and throws the camera around too harshly when walking over corners of the ship. It made me VERY motion sick navigating the exterior because of this.
Floating Zero-G movement also doesn't carry the feeling of flying in space, and more as if I were moving through molasses. There's no sense of momentum and inertia, and when you let go of your movement keys the player character snaps to a stand-still faster than the time it took to reach that speed. I expected that I'd have to manually slow down (or similar) before slamming my face into the side of a hull or wreck. I think total control over your momentum would be unintuitive for your average player so maybe at least soften the stopping effect to put a bit of attention on managing your speed.
Ship piloting also carries the same flaws as zero-G movement (and more), where it is VERY snappy and agile for being a 100-ton angry hunk of metal zooming through space. I expected more momentum and deliberate course-correction rather than the FPV-drone-level-mobility I experienced, and the changing FOV while inputting multiple directions was very misleading, fooling me into thinking I was slowing down while the velocity readings say my speed was still identical.
I also didn't like how fast the enemy projectile velocity was, since there is little value in using the extreme mobility to attempt evasive maneuvers when at best, it would only change where the projectiles impact on the hull. I wanted effective strafing and evasion to be rewarded with damage mitigation or dodging fire altogether.
I was also disappointed to find that the grapple hook is restricted to designated grapple points, instead of grappling anywhere I wanted, although I understand that it's probably this way to make players actually use their legs, or to limit unintentional navigation.
Suggestions
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Make the player feel heavier in zero-G to mimic movement in space.
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Smooth the player camera while navigating the exterior hull in zero-G.
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Make the Ship feel WAYY heavier to mimic a runaway train with jets instead of a racing drone.
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Reduce projectile velocity across the board to better reward proper movement. Even more-so after movement becomes more deliberate with a heavier ship
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An overclock system on the reactor would be neat, to temporarily use modules your power grid cannot support at the cost of damage/overheat/etc.
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Quick bug report. Swapping something on a shelf with an item will place the item in the object's orientation, and not it's own.
I'll definitely be playing more of this game when I'm feeling better, and I'll have more to report after the fact.