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Topics - BillyRueben

Pages: 1 2 [3] 4 5 6
31
Suggestions / Simple Phase Cloak Buff
« on: March 17, 2013, 09:30:09 AM »
A simple buff: have the crew level effect the amount of flux/second it takes to be in phase space. The crew level effects the shield efficiency, why not phase efficiency?

32
Bug Reports & Support / Minor Bug: Ghost Fleet
« on: March 15, 2013, 06:04:31 PM »
Both my fleet and an Independent fleet were attempting to engage the same pirate fleet. The Independent fleet must've got to them first, because when I engaged their fleet looked like this:

Spoiler


[close]

And the aftermath:
Spoiler

[close]

A minor bug, and an entertaining bug, but a bug nonetheless.

33
Suggestions / "Hero" Ships
« on: February 27, 2013, 11:02:41 AM »
So, after playing as much M&B: Warband as my free time allows (not as much as I'd like), I find that a function that works well in that game could be re-imagined for use in the StarSector universe: heroes.

In my mind, a hero could be a special ship + officer combination. A ship, be it any hull type, that had a corresponding officer that you could level up. The ship would have a different paint job than a normal ship and increased stats (think Jim Raynor in Starcraft). However, the ship/officer combo would have the drawback of a MUCH larger upkeep cost (supplies and/or credits), and once destroyed, they are gone (ship destroyed and officer dead).

Another cool addition this could add would be enemy heroes. Nothing quite like fighting a "boss" every now and then, be it at the end of a quest line or a random encounter in lawless space.

Without knowing how officers are going to work, this idea's value is hard to judge, but I thought I'd bring it up anyway.

Feel free to tweak the idea or dismiss it below.

34
General Discussion / Anyone Play with Low Zoom Levels?
« on: February 23, 2013, 07:26:43 AM »
Does anyone play with anything other than the maximum zoom level in combat or in the "overworld"? I never have personally, and I was curious to find out if anybody else does.

35
Discussions / Wildman
« on: February 03, 2013, 06:56:51 PM »
A combo RPG/RTS from Gas Powered Games. The actual gameplay is buried in the videos a bit. Something like an overworld where you fight enemies a la Diablo, then, once you approach an enemy encampment, it launches an RTS fight that resembles something like a MOBA. I want it to succeed if only to say "Hey, it's not the same *** publishers try to jam down our throats every five minutes (or another generic indie 2D plaformer)."

Wildman Kickstarter Page


36
Suggestions / No Elites/Vets Onboard Until Requirements Met
« on: February 03, 2013, 07:31:57 AM »
It can be difficult getting enough Elites to finally get your frigate to the Elite level. It can be even more difficult when your ship has a partial crew of elites and receives no bonuses for it, making it so that if that ship gets it's ass handed to it, your probably going to lose some.

My proposal would be that if you ship doesn't have enough crew to get to an upgraded level, leave the more advanced crew off of the ship until it does meet those requirements.

The obvious positive is that getting elites, veterans, and even regulars would be a little easier after you've taken a good beating in a fight.

The downside is that this breaks immersion somewhat and feels very "gamey".

37
Suggestions / Small Engagement Retreating
« on: January 19, 2013, 07:36:31 AM »
While the early game is still my favorite thing in the game (> level 10 and 1-2 hulls) and Starsector is at it's hardest, something has always bothered me: you can't effectively retreat from these engagements. Of course, the big advantage to being a small fleet is that you can outrun basically anything you can't fight, but every once in a while I'll screw up and there I am, fighting a carrier fleet with a Hound and a Talon wing. If that fleet happens to have a Vulture, my only option is to retreat, because I simply don't have the ammunition to bring all of their ships down.

So, how could this be fixed (or not fixed)?

1) Leave it as it is: The current system, while not perfect, is actually kind of fair. It does suck when you get caught by a larger fleet, but if you did 90% of the time you weren't paying attention. You can either fight or cross your fingers and hope the game is merciful and doesn't kill off your entire crew when you retreat.

2) The "Escape" option from larger engagements: Probably the easiest to implement. Giving us the option to attempt to outrun the enemy just like we would in a larger engagement. The only difference is that the enemy doesn't choose "Attack" or "Defend", and the engagement happens no matter what.

3) Timer: This option is a little more involved. Give the player a 4 minute counter at the top of the screen. Any ship that lasts through the entire time duration can retreat without penalty. To increase the fleeing player's odds, for every ship that they disable, the counter drops a certain amount. For example, if the timer was at 3:00 and the fleeing player destroys an enemy frigate, have the timer drop 40 seconds to 2:20. The lower the timer at the time of retreat, the less the penalty for retreating. If the timer is at 1 minute, have only 25% of the normal damage happen to the ship that retreats at that mark.

Thoughts? Questions? Concerns? Random comment that totally derails things?

38
Discussions / Fat Guy vs. Xbox
« on: January 12, 2013, 09:46:08 AM »
Not sure if anyone has seen this video, but I laughed so hard I cried.



Pac Man Snuggie ftw.

WARNING: This video does contain a lot of harsh language.

39
Discussions / Freespace 2
« on: December 31, 2012, 06:49:46 AM »
I was looking through the older titles on GOG.com looking for something to pop out at me, and something did: Freespace 2.

A lot of people seemed to really enjoy the game, I was just wondering if anyone here might let me know if the game still would be worth $5. The graphics are dated, there would probably be a multitude of problems trying to get a joystick working properly, and I imagine there would be a few more issues getting it to run properly on a modern system.

40
Discussions / I like the idea, but...
« on: December 30, 2012, 05:27:04 PM »
...this just seems insane.

The Limit Theory dev was quite true to his word about transparent development.
Limit Theory Forums

I don't think I'd like the idea of 5,000 entitled Kickstarter backers keeping track of everything I was doing for the week.

41
Suggestions / Beam Buff & More Hull Mods
« on: December 27, 2012, 08:40:17 PM »
Two suggestions:

A) A good buff to beams would be to allow them to fire through (over/under) friendly ships. This would make them much more viable on escort ships, as well as allow them more time on target, which is sorely needed when weapons only do "temporary" damage.

B) Now that we have to actually unlock hullmods, I think we have room for a lot more of them. There should be a few more low-to-moderate hull mods out there, as well as a few more niche ones. Following the beam discussion, maybe a new hullmod that increases beam range by 100, but lowers flux capacity/dissipation.

42
General Discussion / A Few Starfarer Dev Questions...
« on: December 24, 2012, 07:46:58 PM »
...that have really been nagging at me.

Note: This thread is for questions about the development process surrounding Starsector only, not for questions directly related to the game.

1. Is the order in which you make additions to the game (ship systems, character development, ect.) planned out ahead of time, or are you just winging it?

2. I assume coding is just like everything else: you never stop learning how to do things better. Do you often go back in to code you considered "final" and rewrite it more efficiently? Bugs don't count. Or they might. I don't know.

PS: Any chance of getting a blog post before the end of the month?

43
Discussions / Microcontroller Program
« on: December 22, 2012, 07:40:34 PM »
My EE Capstone is coming up, and I'd like a few opinions on the readability of this code. It works, I'd just like to know if the flow and commenting is good enough for someone with a small amount of coding experience.

This program is designed for use with a ping pong ball scoreboard. A launcher shoots ping pong balls to a target, and if a player manages to hit the target, the sensors send a pulse to the appropriate input pin in the micro-controller, which then sends a predetermined amount of pulses to two decade counters. These decade counters connect to two 7-segment displays which display a player's score.

NOTE: This isn't straight C.

Code
//Scoreboard_Program

/*****************************************************************
Input Pins are:
Reset Input     = Analog 5
2 Points Input  = 3 & 12
5 Points Input  = 5 & 10
10 Points Input = 8

Output Pins are:
Score Output    = 13
Reset Output    = 11
******************************************************************/

//----------------------------------------------------------------
//                    Setup Variables
//----------------------------------------------------------------
  int reset_in = A5;      //Input pins
  int points2 = 3;         
  int points2_2 = 12;
  int points5 = 5;
  int points5_2 = 10;
  int points10 = 8;
 
  int score_out = 13;    //Output pins
  int reset_out = 11;
 
  int loop_val = 0;
 
  int reset_in_val = 0;  //Variables to store input pin H/L value
  int points2_val = 0;   //Preset to LOW
  int points2_2_val = 0;
  int points5_val = 0;
  int points5_2_val = 0;
  int points10_val = 0;
//----------------------------------------------------------------

//----------------------------------------------------------------
//                    Setup Pin I/O
//----------------------------------------------------------------
void setup()
{
  pinMode(reset_in, INPUT);    //Setup Inputs
  pinMode(points2, INPUT);
  pinMode(points2_2, INPUT);
  pinMode(points5, INPUT);
  pinMode(points5_2, INPUT);
  pinMode(points10, INPUT);
 
  pinMode(score_out, OUTPUT);  //Setup Outputs
  pinMode(reset_out, OUTPUT);
 
  //        Reset the score as soon as power is applied.
  digitalWrite(reset_out, HIGH);
  delay(50);
  digitalWrite(reset_out, LOW);
}
//---------------------------------------------------------------
void loop()
{
//---------------------------------------------------------------
//                    Read Digital Pin Input
//---------------------------------------------------------------
  reset_in_val = digitalRead(reset_in);
  points2_val = digitalRead(points2);
  points2_2_val = digitalRead(points2_2);
  points5_val = digitalRead(points5);
  points5_2_val = digitalRead(points5_2);
  points10_val = digitalRead(points10);
//---------------------------------------------------------------

//---------------------------------------------------------------
//                    Reset Pin Function
//--------------------------------------------------------------- 
  /*If the reset input pin is high, then the reset output pin
    goes high for 30 milliseconds, then goes back low.*/
  if(reset_in_val == HIGH)
  {
    digitalWrite(reset_out, HIGH);
    delay(50);
    digitalWrite(reset_out, LOW);
  }
//---------------------------------------------------------------

//---------------------------------------------------------------
//                    Set Score Value
//---------------------------------------------------------------
  /*If either 2pt pins goes high, go through the "Score Output
  Loop" twice.*/
  if(points2_val || points2_2_val == HIGH)
  {
    loop_val = 2;
  }
  /*If either 5pt pins goes high, go through the "Score Output
  Loop" five times.*/
  else if(points5_val || points5_2_val == HIGH)
  {
    loop_val = 5;
  }
  /*If the 10pt pin goes high, go through the "Score Output Loop"
  ten times.*/
  else if(points10_val == HIGH)
  {
    loop_val = 10;
  }
  /*If no pins are high, don't go through the "Score Output Loop"
    at all.*/
  else
  {
    loop_val = 0;
  }
//----------------------------------------------------------------

//----------------------------------------------------------------
//                    Input Read Delay
//----------------------------------------------------------------
  /* Delays the program so that when an input is read, it isn't
     read twice. */
  if(loop_val != 0)
  {
    delay(500);
  }
//----------------------------------------------------------------

//----------------------------------------------------------------
//                    Score Output Loop
//----------------------------------------------------------------
  while(loop_val > 0)
  /*Sends a number of pulses out through the score pin. The number
    of pulses depends on the input from the points pins.*/
  {
    digitalWrite(score_out, HIGH);
    delay(50);
    digitalWrite(score_out, LOW);
    delay(50);
    loop_val--;
  }
//----------------------------------------------------------------
}

44
Suggestions / Ships with Weapons/Hull Mods for Sale
« on: December 14, 2012, 09:18:52 PM »
Now that we can't slap any hull mod we want to on our ships, I was hoping we could go back to the way ships were sold before: ships already preloaded with weapons and hull mods. Not every ship would need to be sold this way, but it would be really cool to have some ships show up in the shop with your favorite hull mods ready to go, even though you haven't unlocked it yet.

Sub Suggestion: If a ship has a hull mod installed that you haven't unlocked, make the removal of that hull mod a little more difficult ("Are you sure you want remove hull mod?" text box would work).

45
Suggestions / Two Unrelated Suggestions
« on: December 06, 2012, 08:46:48 PM »
1. The ability to rotate the camera.

Simple. I like to fight from the bottom of the screen upward. I don't like to fight from the top of the screen downward. If I get flanked, I'd like the ability to pause the game, go in to the command screen, and hit a button to rotate the camera 90 degrees in either direction.

2. Experience bonus for personally destroying enemy ships.

It doesn't have to be huge, but I like getting that extra little something for being a good pilot/captain.

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