The interstellar trucker simulation from developer Monster and Monster and publisher Raw Fury, in which you transport freight, search for salvage or interact with travelling truckers between the stars, was released on 3 September 2024. I'll tell you more about the simulation in my review.
Can be very tricky
You won't find a story in Star Trucker, because apart from the tutorial and some predetermined quests, you're completely on your own. You can choose the difficulty level at the beginning of the game, Star Trucker offers you four of them, although you should choose the recommended one at the beginning, because even this difficulty level turns out to be quite challenging until you really master the game. You rise through the ranks by completing missions tailored to your experience and the time you want to invest to get the attention of the Department of Intergalactic Vehicles (DIV) so you can go to new, exciting and more profitable places. In the first few hours, you will interact with many basic systems. You'll need to keep an eye on energy and fuel at all times and know when your energy cells are running low and need to be replaced. Your petrol tank shows the distance you can travel in miles, while all light speed travel shows the distance in light years, for which you don't need to manage fuel. The systems can be very tricky at first, but as you improve your skills and buy better equipment, they become less of a hassle to use. Star Trucker's more advanced systems are some of the more exciting to interact with. For example, cold thrusters are one thing. If you use the thrusters too little, they'll get cold and wobbly until they're properly warmed up again. If you're looking for an extra challenge, try deactivating the propulsion assistance. In this case, all movement relies on Newtonian physics to carry you, and although this takes some getting used to, it uses less fuel. If you run out of oxygen, you'll pass out, but you won't die, and you'll be taken to the next station to recover. If your truck has a warranty, the repairs and fuel are free. There will be a small charge, but you'll have to pay it back to the bank. This is easy to do with a few simple orders.
So many levers and buttons
When you look around your cockpit, you'll see plenty of screens, dials, switches and a full dashboard for you to look at. There's a CB radio that you can use to interact with other truckers and confirm your dialogue choices. There are shutters that you can close (like the ship in Independence Day), and you can control whether or not the thrusters are switched on. The instrument cluster displays the speed, fuel level and oxygen level in the cabin. For long-distance journeys, you can activate cruise control and adjust the speed as required. You also have full control over all the lights: headlights, auxiliary lights, roof lights, cab lights, rear cab lights and mezzanine lights. There's even a radio that lets you listen to music and adverts, although there's only one radio station, which gets monotonous pretty quickly, which is a shame. You can also operate the lorry horn, for which there is a separate lever. In addition, depending on the temperature of the system you get into, you have to set the heating to cold, cool, medium, warm and high temperatures to feel comfortable. And as if that wasn't enough, there is a separate control for the fan: off, low, medium, high and maximum. There are levers to attach the unit to a trailer and a large handle at the top to make jumps to other systems. On the left and right are two monitors that can display everything from the docking camera to the imitation left and right mirrors to the power percentages. Finally, there is a lever for the emergency air brake. You can use it to stop almost immediately, but it uses air that you might not have in the cab of the truck. With all these interactive objects, you think that's enough, and then you realise that you can get out of the seat and there's so much more to discover and, if necessary, repair.Docking is tedious, but practice makes perfect
Using the magnetic catch, you can align the rear of your truck cab to visit shops or pick up and drop off cargo. This is a task you will need to do frequently and you can do it in two ways. Use the external camera to align yourself or use the docking camera in the cockpit. I struggled with docking at first and also found it quite tedious that you have to dock everywhere, but this also ensures that you practice it over and over again until you're ready to master it even at full speed without damaging the truck and it feels so satisfying, especially with the zero gravity simulated very well. You'll spend a lot of your time using the map to navigate your jump points and get from system to system quickly and efficiently. You are always travelling in the direction of the next jump gate and can either fly directly to it or use the stellar highway lanes. The latter can be ignored, but they're great for keeping you aligned with the jump gates and making sure you don't hit space debris or end up in the path of an oncoming vehicle, which could damage you or the valuable cargo you're transporting to your destination. There are so many things to crash into in Star Trucker. If something unfortunate happens, you can take your truck to a repair station or have it repaired while you're driving. Once you have stopped, you can get into your spacesuit, leave the airlock and seal all the cracks manually, then you can drive again.
