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31

Suggestions / Re: Terrain avoidance

« on: November 27, 2017, 08:57:41 PM »

Let the fleet movement autopilot avoid storms, coronas and other damaging terrain. Needn't be excessively smart pathfinding, just don't ever fly through damaging terrain unless it's on manual.

That's already excessively smart: Dijkstra search and its son, A* pathfinding.

In this case I'm pretty sure Java is "fast enough".  However, it likely would be too slow (look at the total market re-implementation for .9 ... that kind of too slow).

32

Bug Reports & Support (modded) / Windows 10 vs. fullscreen StarSector .81

« on: November 26, 2017, 05:48:03 PM »

(This positively did not work with earlier versions of StarSector; the switch to 64 bit Java by default helped considerably)

I *finally* got Windows to show me that message that made a large section of the shop icon displays black-screen, minimize, maximize and usually nothing happened.

It was complaining that 1280x1024 was not an efficient resolution to fullscreen at (larger menu resolutions RAM-fail on startup).  It wanted ... 1980x1024.  (edit: and trying to send the mouse click to both its message popup, and StarSector.)

Code

"resolutionOverride":"1920x1024"

in settings.json worked flawlessly.

EDIT Current modlist:

Code

DynaSector (because this fixes a game-breaking bug in .81 that looks like won't-fix before .9)
Combat Chatter
Console Commands
LazyLib
Leading Pip
Nexerelin
Version Checker

Current test game series is a Sindrian Diktat start in Corvus mode.

33

Suggestions / Re: Claim victory/ End Game Button placement

« on: November 26, 2017, 05:25:10 PM »

I wasn't suggesting the removal of explicit saves, they'd just be achieved slightly differently; as a snapshot of the mapped file, rather than a reserialization of the entire scene graph.

That would be *much* easier in a close-to-the-machine language like C or C++.

I'm simply talking about improving efficiency and protecting against state loss if/when the game crashes.
It might even be helpful for resolving aforementioned crashes, as the saved game state would be far closer to recording the exact circumstances that precipitated the crash.

The recent rewrite of the NetHack save format comes to mind.  And its pre-release testing failure modes.

34

Bug Reports & Support (modded) / Re: Save takes forever and then crashes

« on: November 26, 2017, 05:19:03 PM »

More precisely: a range for the ram allocation is unstable (it can fail after program launch to expand).  A single value can only fail at launch.

35

General Discussion / Re: Fleet size disenagge limit

« on: November 24, 2017, 10:56:14 PM »

But don't we actually have this info, just not as single easy to see value? Sum up your deploy costs and check if it is below 40% battlesize. More than that is risky.

That almost constructively demonstrates why omitting it as a single easy to see value, is a UI defect.

36

General Discussion / Re: Is it me? or am I always sucking down supplies and fuel?

« on: November 24, 2017, 07:22:33 AM »

A quick note here: bounties don't even scale with level until you're above level 10, and at that point it's still quite low. To me it feels like that effect is being more than a bit overestimated.

If you shoot yourself in the foot by skipping the tutorial, then you get that breathing room.

Clvl 10 happens immediately if you take up either the Galatia or Corvus anti-pirate bounties after the tutorial.

37

Bug Reports & Support / Re: Website Bug/Outdated: Unable to purchase the game

« on: November 22, 2017, 07:35:31 PM »

All I'm saying is, 2FA *cannot* reduce security. At worst, it's the same as without it, but in many situations it increases security.

I will assume you have not bothered to read the counterexample just posted.  (There are only two ways I can roleplay writing the above quotation.  That is the least personally insulting one.)

This particular choice of second factor requires giving up security.  (The database containing the mobile phone #, etc. will be compromised eventually.  That's a calculated risk in its own right.)

The problem, is that this second factor (phone) is highly correlated to the first (credit card): it is indeed almost no better than 1FA.  So this particular 2FA is a net security reduction (the new database compromise risk overwhelms the second factor).

38

Discussions / Re: I want to learn drawing... and I'm bad at it.

« on: November 22, 2017, 07:44:24 AM »

I have slotted this on my "bucket list".  I won't push the online "course" I plan to use to self-instruct here; said course did say to expect to spend about 160 hours in homework (practice, etc.) before I could know my natural talent level.

39

Bug Reports & Support (modded) / Re: Memory leak: Final value who become null?

« on: November 21, 2017, 03:33:46 PM »

One thing that's a remote possibility is if the game is saved, the savefile is edited to remove the lootersplanet list, and the game is reloaded. The constructor is only called when the object is first created, not when it's extracted from a savefile, so it's a possible way in which this "final" variable might get set to null.

I've seen similar issues in Microsoft's C#'s serialization library support (usually where an undocumented language restriction activates).  Given what's pinning StarSector to Java 7 (the build process for Java itself), it's not unthinkable that an x-factor breaks down and the array simply doesn't get saved in a readable fashion.

And yes, the C# analog gives a garbage location on the error about one time in three.  This location was good enough to give a workaround, at least.

40

General Discussion / Re: Fleet size disenagge limit

« on: November 15, 2017, 07:34:58 AM »

The information needs to be in the UI to prevent save-scumming.  (I normally experience two motives for save-scumming: powergaming, and working around UI defects [as understood by a wargaming grognard].  This is a UI defect: I'm pretty sure that in-game the fleet captain would know the disengagement capabilities of the fleet, so there is no valid rationale for hiding this from the player.])

41

Blog Posts / Re: Economy & Outposts

« on: November 13, 2017, 09:02:42 AM »

I can't help but offer a critique:

....

These things all add extra flavor, and they might intersect with a deeper level of gameplay, but I'm rather skeptical I need to see all of those states at a glance while just looking to do basic buy high/sell low trading ....

That is close to the minimum level of detail needed to provide enough information to trade without a contract.  If the UI doesn't provide at least that much, a savefile parser is needed.

42

Bug Reports & Support (modded) / Re: Mods issues

« on: November 12, 2017, 06:44:23 PM »

Aside from the memory issues involved with enabling all of those mods ... it might be simpler to ensure they're all current and compatible by downloading them individually.

In particular, that would have advised you that StarSectorPlus (the mod that is hard-erroring) is intentionally abandoned and is not intended to work on .81 .  I would not rely on any of the other mods in that archive being current.

43

Suggestions / Re: Black market idea

« on: September 16, 2017, 01:40:21 PM »

Also I think that only 1 commission is too limiting.

It would help if merely having high reputation with one faction, didn't blow away your reputation with all other factions.  (I find this effect reasonable, but it does strictly imply at most one commission.)

Doesn't that only apply if the factions are hostile to each other?

Most factions (notable exception: independents) have an investigation that nukes your reputation even if they aren't hostile with the other faction you are 100-chummy with.

44

Suggestions / Re: Black market idea

« on: September 14, 2017, 03:26:36 PM »

Also I think that only 1 commission is too limiting.

It would help if merely having high reputation with one faction, didn't blow away your reputation with all other factions.  (I find this effect reasonable, but it does strictly imply at most one commission.)

45

General Discussion / Re: Any way to quickly drop all weapons into storage with 1 click?

« on: September 11, 2017, 08:09:46 AM »

Starting to fail to use basic game UI, e.g. inventory filters, is always an excellent rationale for me to park my game for later.