Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Zarcon]

Come on man, you must have something new you can add to the change list to keep us busy until the big update. 

Alright, I'll update it this weekend You're right, enough big features are actually done to make a reasonable list.

Awesome!    Big features are getting done!  This is news of the very good variety.

[Alex]

Updated the patch notes.

What's left until the release, you say? I think that'll make for a good blog post in the near future, but in short, combining all these features into something that's actually fun to play, along with adding a couple of more key features (save games and hopefully character skills/advancement).

[brownbread]

I'm so excited by these patch notes! This is easily the most promising game that I can remember.
Some interest was drummed up on reddit too, so I hope you got a few more purchases that will help with development. 

Will there also be map/game modes that don't have the control points?  It might also be because I am just terrible with the fleet control system, but it's very difficult to manage the capture and defence of the control points when you don't have absolute control over each ship. Often the battles end up with the AI constantly sending single ships to capture a point, but when I defend it often sends half my fleet to do the job etc.

[Alex]

Thank you! Yeah, reddit gave a nice boost - certainly brightened up my day

Will there also be map/game modes that don't have the control points?  It might also be because I am just terrible with the fleet control system, but it's very difficult to manage the capture and defence of the control points when you don't have absolute control over each ship. Often the battles end up with the AI constantly sending single ships to capture a point, but when I defend it often sends half my fleet to do the job etc.

I'm thinking about that - if both sides pick the attack strategy, the battle could become a slugfest, with fleets spawning close to each other, and no objectives coming into play. No promises, though - need to think that through.

I do want to mention that the command system has been improved some since the last release, and will also get some tooltips. I think that'll help a lot with what you're experiencing, and you'll be able to pick the right assignments more easily. It does offer the flexibility to do what you need to do - it's just that in the current tooltip-free state, you have to experiment a lot to figure it out.

[Zarcon]

Renaming what was 0.35a to 0.5a to reflect the amount of stuff being added.

Latest changes (as of 12/11/2011)

Campaign mode:

• Single star system with several planets, moons
• Can engage an enemy fleet, with both sides picking a strategy prior to battle (attack/defend/escape)
• Use marines to board enemy ships after battle
• Salvage disabled ships and cargo after battle
• Cargo management - a single UI to manage fuel, crew, supplies, weapons, marines, and other cargo
• Fleet management - control how ships get assigned crews
• Refit ships using the weapons that are available
• Ships require sufficient crew to be deployed for battle (crew experience not tracked/used quite yet)
• Persistent ship damage after battles, including locational armor damage
• Combat autoresolve - let your second in command fight the battle, or exit a battle midway through to autoresolve the rest

Wow, some great changes there, I'm particularly excited about these two, Persistent ship damage, locational Armor damage and being able to auto-resolve the end of a battle after the major victory is won, etc.    Awesome!

I really enjoy having a little battle damage to take care of at the end of a battle, even better if my enemy retains some damage even after getting away.  (Though it isn't clear if opponents also have persistent ship damage currently, no worries if they don't, but that would be pretty cool.  )

[SeaBee]

Oh man oh man oh man ...

0.5a looks amazing. I'm so excited, think I need to go jogging early.

[Alex]

I really enjoy having a little battle damage to take care of at the end of a battle, even better if my enemy retains some damage even after getting away.

It's persistent for enemy ships, too.

Oh man oh man oh man ...

0.5a looks amazing. I'm so excited, think I need to go jogging early.

[Blips]

0.5 sounds pretty exciting so far. Can't wait to get my fingers on it

[Thana]

0.5 sounds pretty exciting so far. Can't wait to get my fingers on it

You're speaking for all of us.

[Avan]

:O New info!

[Avan]

Ok, while there is a lot of cool stuff, I must express a bit of concern over the "never autofire" setting for missiles: does this mean any standard approach to implementing a missile-type weapon (data-file-wise, as oppose to balance-wise) will create a non-autofiring weapon? I have a pair of missile racks that are designed to output a lot of small missiles or rockets over a large period of time.

[Psycho Society]

Ok, while there is a lot of cool stuff, I must express a bit of concern over the "never autofire" setting for missiles: does this mean any standard approach to implementing a missile-type weapon (data-file-wise, as oppose to balance-wise) will create a non-autofiring weapon? I have a pair of missile racks that are designed to output a lot of small missiles or rockets over a large period of time.

What I took from it is that missiles only stop autofiring if the ship is low on ammo. So for instance if you set a small missile rack on autofire it will keep shooting until it has only 10 missiles in the rack.

Which brings me to a question, are there any differences between an AI's fire routine and setting a weapon group on your ship to autofire?

[Alex]

Missiles with limited ammo (10 for small, 20 medium, 30 large) never autofire - it's pretty much never a good thing when it happens

It's only "never autofire" for missiles with a low maximum ammo. Basically, I got a bit frustrated after a few times of accidentally turning it on for for those 3-missile racks, and made it not happen anymore. Missile weapons with a higher maximum ammo will still autofire - even when the actual ammo count runs down.

Which brings me to a question, are there any differences between an AI's fire routine and setting a weapon group on your ship to autofire?

Yeah - autofire mode is just a tool that both you and the AI have access to. The AI will use it for certain types of weapons, at certain times - for example, it prefers to use it for weapon groups that have a lot of turrets, and turns it off when flux levels are get high.

For other weapons (such as most missiles, or strike weapons), the AI will fire them manually and with a lot more care.

[Avan]

Ah, ok, thanks 

So my PD missiles will still function fine then.

[Avan]

Ok, new question:

So if I put a 3 missile missile rack in a group with say, some PD guns, if I set it to autofire, what will happen?