Construction Simulator Spaceport Expansion DLC review — Rockets, rebar, and really big buildings

Laura and I have put in a ton of hours building and excavating in Construction Simulator. Now we’ll face our toughest challenge. In this latest expansion we’ll take on helping an island peninsula nation to build an entire spaceport from scratch. These are big projects, so let’s throw on our hard hats and get to work.

So the story goes, the previous construction company just up and quit the building of six major sites that will comprise this mystery island’s budding scientific program. Investors are still on board with it, in concept, but it’s up to you to get the job across the finish line.

In total, there are seven new stages – a warehouse for the launch site, a production facility, a research center for a massive radio telescope, a GeoDome to simulate the conditions of space for training, and two roads to connect everything together. Once you’ve got all that done, it’s time to close things out with the launch pad. We’ve got around 50 hours of construction fun ahead of us – glad I’ve got friends.

This new DLC is all about scale. The radio telescope, the Geo Dome, the multi-stage rocket assembly bay, and even the warehouse are all very big items to build. There are a handful of two-stage drilling sections and foundation stripping and concrete pours, so you’ll need to know your gear pretty well to succeed here. To level the playing field, you’ll also be making a new business. You’ll bring over your character, skills, and all of your knowledge, but none of your cash or equipment. While the campaign certainly gave you room to run, financially this DLC is going to be more of a challenge.

Since you’re starting over, you’ll only have a few hundred thousand dollars to start. That sounds like a lot, but even the road to the launch site is somewhere around $100k in materials to build. Renting vehicles, transport of goods, and buying materials eats into profits, making things like the nine stage production hall launch site build out of reach until you’ve banked some cash. Just like the main game, you’ll be able to qualify for larger loans based on unlocking the small and medium sites – just mind those repayment terms.

Given that this is a nice tropical island, the team worked in some lovely music that reminds me of the band Cusco. If you’ve not heard them before, it’s something you’ll need to remedy immediately – their music is absolutely magical. Enjoy!

We ran into a number of bugs during our time with the Spaceport Expansion. Just like in the main game, you can skip any section, but it’s frustrating when that’s your only option. One time we had a camera that wouldn’t dislodge from ground level, and more than one pillar fell on the ground after a bad placement attempt and couldn’t be picked up again. A pack of steel beams couldn’t be found or delivered after purchase. They thankfully aren’t major problems, and the game accounts for it with a mechanism to remedy it, but the bugs are there and it tends to break immersion a bit.

I didn’t expect much remedy, but the game still has extended periods in multiplayer where one person (or more if you are playing with more than two people) is standing around with nothing to do. The career path doesn’t allow you to split into multiple construction crews, so prepare for some downtime if you aren’t actively working on the objective. You can, of course, spend your time finding the 20 new collectables (they take the form of little rockets this time instead of hammers).

Ultimately, the Spaceport Expansion isn’t pushing the envelope with new equipment, techniques, tools, or challenges. It’s more of what you’ve come to expect of Construction Simulator, albeit at a far grander scale. That said, It feels good to build something tangible. Sure, the main game offered that, but this expansion does that in a more cohesive way. I do wish the team would have pushed the envelope a bit, but if more Construction Simulator but at a grand scale was your objective, this is what you’re looking for.

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