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Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Simulator Enhancements (03/13/24)

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Messages - TJJ

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1
Me: "What's the word for crosshair deviation when repeatedly firing in computer games?"

ChatGPT:

In computer games, particularly first-person shooters, the term commonly used to describe the crosshair deviation when repeatedly firing is "spread" or "bullet spread." Spread refers to the randomization or dispersion of bullets or projectiles from the center of the crosshair when firing continuously. This spread is typically used to simulate the inherent inaccuracy of firearms and adds an element of skill and strategy for players to manage their aim and control the weapon's spread pattern.

Can't argue with the Alpha Core ;)

"Recoil Spread" seems the best of the suggestions to my lowly meatbag brain.

2
Someone should probably investigate precisely what vector the virus uses to propagate, as the pseudo-sandbox Starsector runs its mods inside may very well prevent infected jars from successfully propagating.

This sort of thing could be avoided if modders signed their code with a certificate issued by the game developer. (and the game required said certification in order to run precompiled mods)
You'd have the certificate on the computer with the virus anyway. Also that would mean every modder would have to apply for a cert before releasing any mods or people would get an option to skip certificate checks and then you lose the protection anyway.

As soon as a signed archive gets infected it'd become unrunnable.
Sure, a mod author could (either accidentally or maliciously) release a signed mod containing a virus, but you'd immediately know where the virus originated.

The need for certificates to be issued by the developer certainly introduces a small barrier to entry, but it would only be needed for publishing a mod; for private development of mods you'd obviously provide a developer=true bypass of the certification check.

3
Someone should probably investigate precisely what vector the virus uses to propagate, as the pseudo-sandbox Starsector runs its mods inside may very well prevent infected jars from successfully propagating.

This sort of thing could be avoided if modders signed their code with a certificate issued by the game developer. (and the game required said certification in order to run precompiled mods)

4
General Discussion / Re: Why isn't this game on steam early access?
« on: December 19, 2022, 11:11:19 AM »
Epic exclusivity deal incoming  ;)

5
The Cohh stream is a gold mine to find UI quirks.

... and then consider his PoV is of someone who plays games for a living, and (something I didn't know) studied game design at university!

6
Discussions / Re: More "Sim" like Sci Fi space fleet games?
« on: November 10, 2022, 12:34:13 PM »
Not sure if it's the kind of 'sim' aspect that you're looking for, but I've been having fun with Cosmoteer.

Designing ships is interesting enough, though there isn't yet a great deal of strategy to the combat, and the campaign layer is about where Starsector was ~10 years ago.

There's a (feature limited) demo on Steam, and a much older feature complete 'classic' version that can be downloaded from the website.

7
General Discussion / Re: No autosave? Seriously?
« on: October 09, 2022, 01:49:21 AM »
This has been gone over before many times, and I still don't think there's a magic bullet that gets you performant autosaves.

The best I can think of that'd be practicable, would be for every large but seldomly touched mutable object containing persistent state, to record the frame time at which it was last updated.
When auto-saving you record the frame time, then serialize these large objects in the state graph *live* while the game is running. Once this is complete, you'd check the current frame time to see if any of these objects changed since the auto-save began, and if so, repeat until they didn't.
Only now do you do the 'stop the world' portion of the save, and serialize the small, frequently touched portions of the state graph.

Anyone familiar with Java's Garbage Collector will recognize this solution, as it's kinda how the GC's generational memory compaction model works.

It would be a significant amount of work to retrofit to the game's existing state graph & save process, but not impossibly so.

Beyond that, optimization of the serialization process in general (i.e. not using an xml serializer) could improve saving performance across the board.

Honestly though, I'd rather see the effort spent on developing the game, not addressing a relatively minor QoL feature.

8
General Discussion / Re: anyone else despise the buoy mechanics?
« on: October 02, 2022, 02:42:28 PM »
Perhaps the buoys need to offer something more than just DP.
Mini-stations might be interesting; arm them with LRM batteries, fighters etc, so they can project combat power a reasonable distance from their location.

More generally though, corner camping has plagued the game from almost the beginning; it needs to be addressed as it leads to combat becoming stale & repetitive.
Perhaps reshaping the combat zone into a circle would be enough; no corners, no corner camping!

9
Discussions / Re: Games for bookworms?
« on: September 23, 2022, 11:31:03 AM »
So do you want a game that's an excellent adaptation of a book (series) ?
Witcher 1/2/3.
Or an RPG with tonnes of unvoiced dialogue you have to read?
Tyranny/Pillars of Eternity/Pathfinder:Kingmaker
Or perhaps an RPG franchise with tonnes of actual books in it for you to find & read?
Elder Scrolls.

Or maybe you don't want an RPG at all?
I honestly don't know how the Venn diagram of bookworm + computer game genres intersects.

10
Discussions / The Captain; free on Epic Game Store atm
« on: September 15, 2022, 03:12:41 PM »
I've only played for 30 minutes or so, but it seems to be an interesting blend of narratively driven point & click, with branching decisions & multiple endings, interesting moral dilemmas, a generous helping of humour, and what I think is rogue-lite exploration/combat.

Anyhow it's free atm, and IMO worth a play.

11
General Discussion / Re: realism
« on: September 12, 2022, 01:31:23 AM »
This topic has me thinking of an idea for a fun little mod; track the life of each crew member on each ship in your fleet individually.
Whenever someone dies, randomly pick a crew member from the ship.

See how long you can maintain some element of the original crew, and generate stats such as mean life expectancy aboard each ship in your fleet.
that would be interesting, but it probably would make the game be a bit laggy having to calculate all the crew, imagine having 10k crew

Why?

The real-time aspect of the problem is O(1), and the intermittent components are O(n).
It'd be a trivial mod to both implement & compute.

12
General Discussion / Re: realism
« on: September 12, 2022, 01:04:51 AM »
This topic has me thinking of an idea for a fun little mod; track the life of each crew member on each ship in your fleet individually.
Whenever someone dies, randomly pick a crew member from the ship.

See how long you can maintain some element of the original crew, and generate stats such as mean life expectancy aboard each ship in your fleet.

13
Discussions / Galaxy Genome; 2D Elite Dangerous for Android
« on: August 30, 2022, 01:22:17 AM »
Title says it all really; its the same 'huge, but shallow' sandbox concept that E:D gives you, but in 2D & for mobile.
Many of the game's systems unapologetically steal straight from E:D, at times to the point of plagiarism.
Though it's hard to criticise when this familiarity helps with learning the game.

Mechanics-wise it has everything you'd expect; exploration, bounty hunting, piracy, couriering, trading, planetary landings, mining, some form of a narrative, achievements.

It makes heavy use of autopilot, which is a good fit for the constrained controls of mobile gaming, and allows it to be played without absolute concentration.

Not a bad little time sink for when you're traveling; I hope the dev continues to add to it.

14
Discussions / Re: Which game is suitable for vacation?
« on: July 13, 2022, 03:55:00 PM »
Crusader Kings 2.
You'll start playing on the flight there, and will still be playing on the flight back. Your holiday destination will be a mere distraction!
Then, after playing for several thousand more hours at home you'll boast to your friends that you've mastered the game. (but you'll be lying)

Life absorbing.

CK3 is nice too... but it's yet to receive the decade of DLC to really flesh it out

15
Discussions / The Last Starship; sign up for the Playtest!
« on: July 10, 2022, 03:18:23 AM »
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1857080/The_Last_Starship/

I'm a bit late to the party on this one, but the folks at Introversion (of Prison Architect fame) are showing off their latest project.

There's a couple of dev progress vlogs on their Youtube channel, a playtest you can volunteer for & various feedback channels.

Looks like a fun concept to me.

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