I came into Terran Conflict warned by veterans that the UI has a long learning curve. To my surprise: I got used to it pretty fast but the problem is, however: the things that the UI cannot do regardless of how well you understand it.

Want to look at your ship's health and be able to alter its control-group from the same screen? Literally impossible. Good luck finding them on another screen with the same 4 repeated names!

Want to order a ship to repair itself? That command doesn't exist.

Want to switch to the damaged ship so you can heal it manually without needing to get within 10 meters of it in a game where distances are measured in tens of kilometers for every-thing else? Can't do!

If you follow my reasoning: management becomes any-thing but fun if you have more than a single ship.

On top of UI, the AI is also a disaster. It's very understandable for a game of this scale built for 2008 hard-ware, really but it doesn't change the fact that your squadron will bug out-and run in circles, never completing their orders; or out-right kill you by ramming into your ship at full speed (in a game featuring an official iron-man mode)!

I want to like this game so much for several reasons but I'm now regretting getting it even at $1. It's probably more than worth the price if you just want to fly a single ship but the story-line itself will give you half a dozen in the first bunch of missions and they're 100% required to play the campaign!

Worse yet: I'm left with no alternatives for similarly chill; low-end; immersive; sand-box games. Avorion is pretty much a procedurally-generated love-letter to this game and series but due to a memory-leak that has been left unresolved for years while developers release more poorly-rated DLC, even players with 100-plus gigabytes complain about it.