It has been ages since I've checked into Astrox Imperium. For those not in the know Astrox Imperium is inspired by Eve Online but as a single-player space game. There are some things I wish would get added or at least changed. It was, however, fun to return to this one and see how things are.

Since it had been so long since I last played my old save file was not going to be worth continuing onward with. This game is an early access game, so you have to kind of expect that. I also welcomed starting over fresh and relearning the game anyway.

The hardest part is always trying to work out which starting faction and professions in a game like this you want to join and start as. While the starting factions give you different small bonuses for things like mission pay. While the profession starts you off with certain kinds of skills and a starting ship to match. Combat can be a bit rough early on in this game.

I was quite tempted to start with the pirates. That however can leave you can quite a nasty hard place and death quite early on once if you start taking some massive faction hits with the other factions. The pirates are instead something I'll be wanting to hunt down for some loot.

Early on I’ll be doing quite a lot of mission running. I wish combat missions were like they are in Eve Online. I enjoy going into a complex and just clearing out massive amounts of ships going deeper into different pockets. That is, however, not how combat missions work in this game. You are just sent off to eliminate a target or a couple and then return for a reward.

It can also be quite easy to take on a combat mission you are just not ready for and get destroyed. The only thing worse than death is taking a mission you have to abandon and take money and standing hits for doing so for being unable to finish the mission.

Before heading off into all that mess, however. I first needed to do the in-game tutorial. It takes you through some rather basic stuff from mining to combat.

My early goal to build up some money for a ship that would be much better suited for combat was just going to be mining. At the time I was also just looking for something mostly relaxing to do in this game. The last thing I wanted to do was spend hours jumping around to dozens of different systems for missions.

It can also be a bit challenging to find your way around this game early on. Before you have discovered and gone through all the different systems. While there are some online maps to try and help you out. That sort of takes the fun out of exploring itself.

I sat around for a while zapping away at some Adamyte ore in the starting system of Void Starcross. You can’t mine much before having to head in and dock to drop stuff off to sell. It also pays quite poorly. I, however, wanted to avoid running into pirates you would find in the better ore spots.

After a while, I depleted the ores around me. It was then time to head off and find some further ones to get. What I should have checked a bit sooner was just how little I would be getting from my mining efforts off these lower-level rocks.

At the very least this game has quite a few different achievements for mining different ores among many other activities. These grant you some money and most importantly skill points. I would also be earning some skill points by just being in space mining.

After a while, I decided to try remaining some ores and check out to see what the best way of offloading what I had mined was. Since I have quite a small cargo hold transporting what I mined to another region looking for better returns would be out of the question.

I quickly discovered with my current skills refining was not the way to go. There is a small upfront cost to refine. I was also at a station where many of the materials yielded from mining were selling way below market value.

It turns out I'd just be better off selling raw ores. The pay sucked, and I started to question just how much longer I would even attempt to mine before taking on small transportation or recon missions for quick and much bigger payouts.

I ended up deciding at least in the short term I would focus my early money on getting some mining upgrades. There was also a deep consideration of investing in a better ship for mining as well.

The biggest challenge was regardless of if I was going to go deeper into mining or switch over to combat after getting some further money. I needed to find stations that sold ships I would consider worth training for. Along with what stations have skills I need to train.

Since Astrox Imperium is a single-player game. I can’t just go into a large hub such as Jita that you would find in Eve Online and get all my shopping done in a large trading hub. Instead, I'd need to wander around looking and keeping track of certain things I might be interested in getting when I can.

Often when I got bored of mining and the low returns, I was getting with it. I’d take on an easy escort mission so I could go out exploring and start learning more about what was around me. Missions also give you a bonus if it’s your first time needing to go somewhere. Making it better to have missions while out exploring than just exploring everything and missing out on some extra rewards.

I always find it surprising just how many systems a space game like this can have in it. Sure, it’s nothing like Eve Online in scale. This game, if I’m not mistaken, is also being created by a single developer and what they have accomplished over the years has been quite interesting to see.

Final Thoughts

After a while, it became clear to me that going mining early game for perhaps a couple of weeks was just not going to be for me. The returns were not even peanuts when compared to a couple of quick missions that were that far away from each other.

I was also looking for something with a bit more thrill. While I did attempt to go mining in a different system for some better ores. That did not last long before running into some pirates that I knew my starting ship would not stand any chance of defeating. At least I was able to escape alive.

Information

Screenshots were taken and content was written by @Enjar about Astrox Imperium.