Since 2.0 is about toget released, which fills a lot of the gaps that were present during release, I think it's time to make a thread for Fortresscraft evolved.
Does anyone know the game or have it?
The game is a typical voxel-based sandbox game (also known as "Minecraft-clone") with digging, building, crafting and mobs. However, the game takes this to the next level.
First, it has a more futuristic look to it with lasers and drills that replace the boring pickaxes, swords and other stuff. You play as a human pilot whose starship crashed on an inknown planet after it was hit by an asteroid. You manage to set up the central power hub from your ship which is the center of your base and all your technology. The goal of the game is to survive on the planet and find a way back to the space station you origin from.
Unlike minecraft there is no hunger that you have to fight, instead your suit provides everything you need, including all your basic equipment and a protection against the hazards of the planet (temperature, radiation etc.).
What the game makes so unique is the giant machine/energy system it features. Minecraft has is Redstone and this is totally fine. Some people build really awesome machines with it but Redstone is really hard to understand and you have to understand some basics of electric circuits to get really into it. Casual players don't have the time or endurance to learn what they can do with it.
Fortresscraft has a more accessible machine system that you can learn rather quickly.
Fortresscrafts machines are mostly about mining. The core of machines are the so called "hoppers", little storage crates that function also as small computer devices. They take resources from nearby sources and give them to other sources. Conveyor belts for example move all blocks of a hopper and transport it to another hopper or to an attached machine. Hoppers do take resources from other machines, for example automated drills give coninously ores away to attached hoppers they've mined. You can move that ores to another hopper that is attached to a smelter that makes bars fromt he ores. That way you can automate your mining process and focus on other tasks.
Fortresscraft Evolved emphasite the automation of processes. Conveyor belts for transportation of resources. Hoppers for autmating your storage. You can even automate your crafting. Just attach a hopper, give a automated crafting command and the crafting station will craft the item as long as it has resources (which you could literally do forever if you build an advanced machine system).
Another big part of the game is the base defense which is similiar to tower defense. The more you mine, smelt and progress, the more threat you generate in your base. Enemies are attracted by this and will attack in waves. You can build automated turrets to counter this or shoot with the gun from your high-tech suit. Your base can get destroyed whenyou don't pay attention, however on smaller difficulties this does not have any penalities except that you loose all your power until the base has rebooted.
Energy plays a big role in the game. Almost every machine needs energy, the more advanced more, the most simple none. Convenyor belts don't need any energy bu are a rather slow resource transporation (and painful to build after some time) but they can be replaced with better transporation methods. Energy can be stored in energy blocks. You can generate energy either with your base (which uses either solar or coal energy) or build other generators to expand the energy generation. Energy can be transfered either with your suit (which also acts as energy storage) or with energy beams that fire in a straight line.
There is a lot of other stuff to discover and the game is real fun to play. I really disliked the alpha. The game featured a lot of placeholders and stuff to show what the game could be but wasn't. It was a typical Early Access game with promises but no deliveries. The final release however gave the game a lot of content and a PURPOSE. All the stuff that was in there before was finally useful and you could feel how everythings works together. However, the game still feels in a lot of places unfinished and the developers said themself, the game is actually not finished and they released the game early only because of the backlash of the community at that time. The game is technically finished in a way that you can play from start to the beginning. But there are some gaps in the game where you have the feeling somethign is missing or that you progress to slowly. The upcoming patch will most of this as well as making some balnce chances to the game.
For 13$ hoever the game is worth to look at if you like Minecraft-like games.
tl,dr: Fortresscraft is an amazing game for people that like to build complex machines.
