I have updated the wiki page a little to include specific notes about space stations and added a known issue warning about spacecraft remaining stationary while under the Noncombatant protection.
See: hazeron.com/wiki/Asteroid
Yes, the current server issues and some specific bugs especially makes it hard to combat the asteroid. It is very hit-and-miss rather a new player can successfully handle the asteroid even without the server issues.
I am not entirely sure what the intended goal of the asteroid is, but I assume it was an attempt to create some urgency and also try to make players not feel too attached to their homeworld. I guess it is safe to assume that the asteroid fails in both of these goals. I think the story in the game might add something for it to make sense, but from a gameplay prospective it is still badly implemented.
The asteroid's attempt at urgency is broken simply by the fact that not everyone has the same amount of free time to play the game every day for that first week. For example, plenty of causual players only have time to play computer games on weekends. It is made worse by the fact that players have no idea how long it will take them to get ready for the asteroid if they have never played the game before, and therefore asking them to be ready within a week is a bad idea. The fact that we also can't go out and meet the asteroid as soon as we have a ship leads to this weird forced scheduling for being online, which many new players won't know how they will need to plan for.
It would probably be better if the asteroid was completely optional, maybe as a challenge mode for veteran players. The impact date could be set to any date, even a month after starting. Would also be best if the player can engage the asteroid at any time before the impact date, if you have a ship ready on day 3 of starting than allow them to fly out and destroy it well ahead of schedule. But it might be better as a story mission triggered only after the player already has a ship capable of dealing with it.
As for attachment to the player's homeworld. This might be tricky as it depends a lot on the player and rather or not they even know their homeworld might be lost. A lot of new players might accept that their first city is built horribly and losing it might be fine motivation for them to make a new one, but this isn't true for all. For example I simply refused to play for the first week because I knew I didn't wanna attempt beating the asteroid, instead opting to just wait for it to get over rid so I could build slowly in peace.
After the homeworld is destroyed, new players still have plenty of weird issues that might not have obvious solutions. Such as if their only other cities are some small moon colonies, the best strategy is to just bulldoze them and recall to a new habitable world. Even if some players might enjoy the challenge of recovering from losing their homeworld, there are many cases where recovery is impossible but not apparent.
See: hazeron.com/wiki/Asteroid
Yes, the current server issues and some specific bugs especially makes it hard to combat the asteroid. It is very hit-and-miss rather a new player can successfully handle the asteroid even without the server issues.
I am not entirely sure what the intended goal of the asteroid is, but I assume it was an attempt to create some urgency and also try to make players not feel too attached to their homeworld. I guess it is safe to assume that the asteroid fails in both of these goals. I think the story in the game might add something for it to make sense, but from a gameplay prospective it is still badly implemented.
The asteroid's attempt at urgency is broken simply by the fact that not everyone has the same amount of free time to play the game every day for that first week. For example, plenty of causual players only have time to play computer games on weekends. It is made worse by the fact that players have no idea how long it will take them to get ready for the asteroid if they have never played the game before, and therefore asking them to be ready within a week is a bad idea. The fact that we also can't go out and meet the asteroid as soon as we have a ship leads to this weird forced scheduling for being online, which many new players won't know how they will need to plan for.
It would probably be better if the asteroid was completely optional, maybe as a challenge mode for veteran players. The impact date could be set to any date, even a month after starting. Would also be best if the player can engage the asteroid at any time before the impact date, if you have a ship ready on day 3 of starting than allow them to fly out and destroy it well ahead of schedule. But it might be better as a story mission triggered only after the player already has a ship capable of dealing with it.
As for attachment to the player's homeworld. This might be tricky as it depends a lot on the player and rather or not they even know their homeworld might be lost. A lot of new players might accept that their first city is built horribly and losing it might be fine motivation for them to make a new one, but this isn't true for all. For example I simply refused to play for the first week because I knew I didn't wanna attempt beating the asteroid, instead opting to just wait for it to get over rid so I could build slowly in peace.
After the homeworld is destroyed, new players still have plenty of weird issues that might not have obvious solutions. Such as if their only other cities are some small moon colonies, the best strategy is to just bulldoze them and recall to a new habitable world. Even if some players might enjoy the challenge of recovering from losing their homeworld, there are many cases where recovery is impossible but not apparent.