So excited for more blog posts might mean more Patch notes soon?! and maybe an update soon?
"revamped campaign fleet generation (both composition and spawning)"
Care to elaborate?
The deep hyperspace nebula and path concept sounds like it works perfect towards the goal of herding AI fleets on more predictable routes. Is the AI aware of those paths and the danger of storms? This all sounds very exciting :)
A spontaneous idea about the waves: the player could generate them himself by dropping a special device into a star. Could be used to travel or to wash unwelcome visitors away.
(It's shame that the hyperspace waves never worked out this update...)
Hopefully, "a complete overhaul of the 'food shortage' event" means that food gets treated like any other hot commodity in trade disruption, or least something less silly than a reputation trap for those who do not know how to game it.
You could put hyperspace waves and snaky paths together to get hyperspace currents/rivers/rapids/whatever - areas where you get pushed in a certain direction. Would achieve go faster and reliable while still being interesting. Like earth rivers they could shift position and change speeds, too.
IMO, the AI understanding terrain is pretty important. I remember there was some MMO space game where there was an area with a ton of stars that slowed you to a crawl. There were speed boost stations around the edge of the area that allowed you to go by in a few minutes, but the AI ships didn't know about them and plowed right through the center of the stars. I think it took at least half an hour that way. (I know this because I followed the AI my first time there. :-[)
Edit: If I'm reading this right, then if you are in open space you can spot people in deep space before they spot you. Interesting.
My first response upon reading the blog post (and about the hinted-at new feature), after the "YAY! NEW STUFF!" was "DAMMIT!!! The update is further off than I thought, UGGGGGGHHH!!!" But then I took the time to actually think about the situation and I've come to the conclusion that the new update, however far off it may be, is gonna be awesome. I don't think we've ever had an update this big.
I've always thought hyperspace is like Warhammer 40K's Warp minus the demons. Just have jet streams going across the map at random set points and allow it to deviate a little (like pouring down a thin stream of water down the shower wall). Add in warp storms etc and all the random factors would require players to pay attention during travel while not guarantee the same result every time.
You could put hyperspace waves and snaky paths together to get hyperspace currents/rivers/rapids/whatever - areas where you get pushed in a certain direction. Would achieve go faster and reliable while still being interesting. Like earth rivers they could shift position and change speeds, too.
Yeah. One issue with currents is how to visualize 'em. It's not straightforward at all, and any "obvious" solutions tend to involve an unreasonable number of particles to indicate movement.
Seems like it's not there, or it's been combined with something else. Could have been mashed into the Fleet or Crew/Cargo tab (since, well, the officers *are* crew).
However - I'm the kind of guy that sees things as better if you can incentivise a faster form of travel, instead of deincentivising going through certain areas.
People will more likely than not, just click a planet and travel there, regardless of the consequences, because we don't like thinking.
Actually, on that note: it seems that if you're trying to go somewhere, and the areas of 'open' hyperspace are maze-like, it would get really inconvenient to visit a planet. Clicking on it would let you go straight there, but what if you want to avoid the deep hyperspace?
There were always those complaints about having to open the map all the time. Could there be a feature to lock onto a fleet or planet, much like the in-combat lock on, so that you can see its position while it is off-screen?
One issue with currents is how to visualize 'em. It's not straightforward at all, and any "obvious" solutions tend to involve an unreasonable number of particles to indicate movement.
While that would be possible, albeit annoying to set up, in something like OpenGL 3.3, Starsector largely uses OpenGL 1.2.How big of a difference is that between GLs?
Why not just borrow some sci-fi stables.I find the idea of demons in hyperspace funny. Instead of a storm losing you time, you end up losing crew and combat readiness when you get caught in a demon storm. Might make traveling in hyperspace a little dark though.
I've always thought hyperspace is like Warhammer 40K's Warp minus the demons. Just have jet streams going across the map at random set points and allow it to deviate a little (like pouring down a thin stream of water down the shower wall). Add in warp storms etc and all the random factors would require players to pay attention during travel while not guarantee the same result every time.
I liked he idea of hyper space waves and the hyperspace terrain in general.
Perhaps with the hyperspace waves you could have them as intermittent wave events that spread out radially from stars, this allows a player to ride the wave in any direction they like. Radial textures increasing in size can be difficult to do though...
But you would be able to make waves visible inside and outside of hyperspace by having the wave generation events from suns effect the luminosity/colour of the sun. So in the 30 seconds to a minute or whatever leading up to the event there is predictable and easily observable changes giving the player some warning to if they want to jump on the next hyperspace wave.
By having the waves generated from stars and having them on a regular or predictable basis it would be easier to program Fleet AI to take advantage of these events as you could check the star's 'hyperspace wave generation' timer and determine when best to move through a jump point and exploit the wave.
Just a question about hyperspace storm (it may be already asked - sorry if it's the case) : would it be possible to exit from hyperspace like in any other games & films ? because hyperspace take a lot of fuel to maintain but if you are stuck in a storm you should be able to get out and prevent lack of fuel ? (by the way once you no longer have fuel to substain hyperspace, ships should "fall" into normal space... then being in the deep space with nothing around and then after a while try to activate once again hyperspace...
SpoilerThere is one gentleman's way of visualizing a current mechanic with only one sprite: giant space turtles that you can hike a ride on. Like this:(You are the cat.)Spoiler(http://orig15.deviantart.net/ee85/f/2010/340/8/7/cat_on_turtle_in_space_by_stapledslut-d34dk0r.png)[close]
I'm not even (purely) kidding here. It could maybe visibly charge up (you have to reach it in time) and then move a huge distance with a single stroke. One might find this silly, but I think it would be rad and something really new.
Do you wanna ride a turtle?
Come on lets go and play
I never see you as of late
Come out the gate
And we can fly awaaaay-
We used to see new places
And now we're not
I wish you would tell me whyyyy!-
Do you wanna ride a turtle?
It doesn't have to be a turtle.
Go away, Gothars
Okay, byyye...[close]
What a great idea Alex. Hyperspace terrain; can't wait to play with this!
:) Always wanted to do this. I mean, storms in hyperspace? Sign me up!
Even that i dont play starsector these days (get bored in hunt for Astral after xx hours) i love your updates and your honesty in all of them. <3 Keep it up!
The one thing I'm curious about, since the update seems all about the troubles traveling from A to B, is will the events be still broadcasted universe-wide???
Events could be an extra incentive to put your beacon on, because then you receive the local broadcast of the sector news that got reported. If you want to stay anonymous, you have to put a bug on the local relay to get the news. And those news only cover what all the fleets in the system know, so messengers have to be sent from the source to spread the info. That would allow for missions about either spreading an info, or on the contrary preventing it's transmission elsewhere.
I liked he idea of hyper space waves and the hyperspace terrain in general.
Perhaps with the hyperspace waves you could have them as intermittent wave events that spread out radially from stars, this allows a player to ride the wave in any direction they like. Radial textures increasing in size can be difficult to do though...
But you would be able to make waves visible inside and outside of hyperspace by having the wave generation events from suns effect the luminosity/colour of the sun. So in the 30 seconds to a minute or whatever leading up to the event there is predictable and easily observable changes giving the player some warning to if they want to jump on the next hyperspace wave.
By having the waves generated from stars and having them on a regular or predictable basis it would be easier to program Fleet AI to take advantage of these events as you could check the star's 'hyperspace wave generation' timer and determine when best to move through a jump point and exploit the wave.
Had a similar idea, actually, with a slight twist - basing wavefronts on solar flare activity. The issue here is, why wait for a wave? If you just go, you'll catch it whenever it catches up to you, if it does. On the flip side, you might have trouble approaching a star if you keep being pushed away by 360 degree waves. It's a neat idea, but it doesn't seem to do the job by itself.
Going dark generally means you turn off your transmitter, not your receiver.Yes but I doubt the transmissions would be omni-directional either! Given the value of information, the transmission could certainly be laser based (or tachyon beam based?) and only sent to the ships with a positive relationship that are transmitting their ID.
Going dark generally means you turn off your transmitter, not your receiver.Yes but I doubt the transmissions would be omni-directional either! Given the value of information, the transmission could certainly be laser based (or tachyon beam based?) and only sent to the ships with a positive relationship that are transmitting their ID.
Hmmmmm.... I'm gonna take a shot in the dark and say that this new "extra" involves multi-fleet battles? That's my answer. Locking it in.
(In seriousness: that's basically the wavefront thing. As opposed to a "stream" thing.)
I was originally going to guess outposts for the next campaign feature, but Gothars already guessed that.Mining/Industry is a whole major update just in itself (0.8a?), I doubt Alex would duck-tape that on the back of a Sensor/navigation/officers/missions update...
So, I put my rampant speculation on either mining /industry, or GIANT SPACE WORMS! ;DSpoiler(http://i.imgur.com/NiprzTK.gif)[close]
Say hyperspace storms reduce your speed to 1, would Emergency Burn still increase your speed or would the storm's speed reduction cancel it out too?
Get well soon man!Say hyperspace storms reduce your speed to 1, would Emergency Burn still increase your speed or would the storm's speed reduction cancel it out too?
They multiply your speed by 0.25, which comes after the EB bonus, so it's only minimally helpful.
(Apologies for the short response here, feeling rather under the weather.)
I speculate that, if it is a "base" mechanic, then it'll be fleet-to-fleet interactions. In a somewhat-recent screenshot (https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CGW-9NIWwAIDZr0.png:large)on Alex's twitter (at least, recent in Starsector terms with it's long development cycles), it shows the "Recon" command from combat map,
Get well soon man!
gah, im always late to find out about new things, regardless this looks impressive, i'm so glad hyperspace is getting special terrain, although im curious just how bad does a storm impact CR? like, will it start destroying ships in a large storm or would any given ship survive any given storm and just be slightly in danger of malfunctioning if it got in a fight?
Oh that's another thing, if we get in a fight IN a storm does the combat arena reflect that? fighting an enemy who wants to kill you, in an arena that wants to kill both of you, would be pretty awesome.
How about keeping the wavefront, making it narrower and slower(to the point they are slightly slower than most fleet), and make them cancel out the effects of hyperspace storm? You'll occasionally get faster and safer travel route.
Keep in mind, however, that I don't know the overall shape, frequency, and location of waves. I assumed that they are linear, not reliably frequent, and occuring randomly.
So hyperspace storm will also hide fleets...?Quite the opposite - it'll make your fleet stick out like a sore thumb in the middle of hyperspace.
Rampant speculation?We've been asking for that for a long time now, and I think Alex has effecitvely said "never." It'd just take too much time and effort for something that's not guaranteed to even work. let alone work well.
Multi-player.
Co-op: One person plays the game per-normal, the other gets to join in for battles by controlling a friendly ship using the associated ship captain's skills. Under the hood this is done by setting some AI type to "remote", the host relaying game state and the remote client just rendering it.
Vs: Pretty obvious, either fixed symmetrical fleets or "build a fleet from points"
They have something like this for M&B as a mod, my friends and I can't get enough of it. Multi-player is a great way to leverage a social aspect and get a lot more sales IMO.
Probably too much of a reworking of the game but I think gravitational physics would add alot to the flight terrain feel. Like slingshotting around planets or stars and being pulled in towards objects based upon their mass.
Probably too much of a reworking of the game but I think gravitational physics would add alot to the flight terrain feel. Like slingshotting around planets or stars and being pulled in towards objects based upon their mass.It semi use to be in the game during the 54 era (alot like how in deep hyperspace you go faster only it was like that with celestial bodies)
... If I told you, I'd be in deep trouble with my boss. Might even get fired.