I am loving this game. Yes, there are difficulties at times, and yes to enjoy it I am playing on a custom difficulty that reduces the wear and tear on the truck as well as the power consumption. But that's because i just want the enjoyment of trucking things around rather than playing spreadsheet planning survival simulator.

To everyone on the fence about this game, here is what I can tell you: This game is not ATS, nor is it like any other common transport sim. It has survival elements because space itself is intensely dangerous and just being there is a fight for survival. Do not pick this game up thinking it's just going to be a different take on a trucking game.

The good: The game has flavor and style. It oozes Americana and you can tell the developers took each common trope of space games and chose very carefully between realism and fun. Oxygen, power, and fuel? Yup. Worrying about Radiation and micro meteors? Nope. Damage and air leaks? Yup. Absolutely realistic minutiae in controls and flight? ♥♥♥♥ no. The truck even has a 'flight assist' button that explains why the thing doesn't control like you'd expect. It automatically compensates for motion, automatically slows you down or straightens you out, and yes you can turn all that off if you want the flight to be more realistic and incredibly more painful.

The truck in space doesn't make sense, nor does it control like a space ship. It controls like a big chunky truck put in space, and that's ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ amazing. You have to think like a trucker but at the same time you have to expand that train of thought to include a third dimension in movement. No, you can't just strafe the truck sideways to have easier hookups like you'd think you could in space. But you can drive up perpendicular to the trailer and rotate in the spot to get the perfect hookup.

The characters and the music are simply enchanting. I rarely play games without some kind of podcast or something playing on another screen. This game has made me repeatedly turn stuff off because the atmosphere it creates is so much fun that I can just sit and chill with whatever in-game radio station or whatever CB chatter is going on. The developers put their style in the game and I really hope they expand upon it because this game is a gem.

The Bad: The game is rough in its tutorial and there's lots of things that are explained pretty badly to you. Stuff in boxes doesn't take damage when dropped or knocked around from collisions. Your truck's power usage needs to be more finely controlled by turning off extra lights, turning off excess systems, and this is especially important on higher difficulties and really long hauls. The game has a shockingly well-fleshed out trade system that allows you to buy and sell merchandise for additional earnings, but the game doesn't do a lot to explain this. You just start the game with some merch on your shelf, but you can't tell if it's merch or stuff you actually need. Batteries and fuel? Yeah, you need those. Clothing, cleaning supplies, and food? No, you don't actually need that, it's just there for buying and selling.

On top of that, the game is in a pretty rough state right now with some of its bugs. Items sometimes yeet through reality and just vanish from your truck. Sometimes other truckers just blatantly ignore your existence and plow into you even when you're following a space-highway route. Sometimes weigh stations will just decide you littered like six hours ago three systems away when you picked up some scrap but decided you didn't need it because it would put you over weight, and you'll get dinged for a heap of cash. I just chalk that up to bureaucratic corruption and add it to the in-universe canon that the systems we deal with as star truckers are inherently corrupt, but in reality it is a bug that needs fixing.

Overall for a fairly cheap indie title, this game is an absolute banger. 7/10 at the current moment, but easily an 8/10 if they tidy up the bugs and make the game much more clear in its expectations and tutorials. And that's not a small praise from me because I fully subscribe to the fact that to be a 10 out of 10, a game needs to be legitimately perfect in everything it attempts which has only happened a half a dozen times in the entire history of gaming.

You like space? You like trucking and logistics? You like cheesy Americana? Get this game, you will absolutely enjoy your time with it.