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Author Topic: Starsector - The Manual  (Read 66523 times)

Gothars

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Starsector - The Manual
« on: October 22, 2012, 08:17:57 AM »



This is a fan made manual! And work in progress!


You can download it here:

PDF (recommended)  Version: V 0.54.1a M0.61
Mirror!


Word (for editing only)

For a quick reference keymap see here.


Its mainly for new  players, but I think it can be helpful as a reference book for everybody :)

I am looking for any kind of help with this project! Everything you can do is appreciated, from pointing out a spelling error over suggestions for changes/additions to writing a new section :)
Just post here or send me a PM.
 

Note: There is also an official (but outdated) manual here.  
« Last Edit: June 30, 2013, 03:21:15 PM by Gothars »
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The game was completed 8 years ago and we get a free expansion every year.

Arranging holidays in an embrace with the Starsector is priceless.

hadesian

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Re: Starfarer - The Manual
« Reply #1 on: October 22, 2012, 09:03:27 AM »

Woah

I'm lookin forward to helping out with this
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Thaago

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Re: Starfarer - The Manual
« Reply #2 on: October 22, 2012, 09:36:27 AM »

Wow, this is fantastic! Look visually fantastic and is so far pretty comprehensive (I'm not done reading it). I have noticed a few typos/grammar things and would be happy to do copy editing!
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Faiter119

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Re: Starfarer - The Manual
« Reply #3 on: October 22, 2012, 10:11:48 AM »

Damn that looks great! Il be sure to read all of it, but it seems great so far.
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Chancellor Meatsteak

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Re: Starfarer - The Manual
« Reply #4 on: October 22, 2012, 11:33:00 AM »

Looks good. Some notes:


Strafing: Put a hint that its helpful to almost always use mouse-strafing when using a ship with mostly forward fixed weapons and shields.

Hard vs Soft flux: Ship systems may also generate flux, which type and how much depends on the system in question.

Ballistic Weapons: Worth mentioning that ballistic weapons tend to be either kinetic, explosive, or fragmentation.

Energy Weapons: Worth mentioning that energy weapons almost always have the energy damage type.

Universal: Universal mounts actually can only mount the same sized weapons, e.g. the Mule cannot mount tactical lasers.

Linked vs. Alternating Groups: Worth mentioning that linked weapons will only fire if they can fire in the direction you are aiming at, alternating weapons will always fire if it is their turn to fire.

Autofire: Except for the Pilum and I think the Hurricane MIRV, missiles will never autofire. Add hint that rebinding the 'toggle autofire' keys may be recommended as the default keys make it harder to change weapons while mouse-strafing since they both use shift. I recommend rebinding from Shift# to Control# as Control is close and isn't used for anything else.

Low-Tech Ships: "Unmatched forward facing firepower" doesn't seem like it is necessary to mention, as forward-focused firepower seems to be a common to most ships rather than low tech ones specifically.

High-Tech Ships: Also worth mention that High-Tech ships are often more powerful and correspondingly more expensive compared to other ships in their size class; most notably the Hyperion, a frigate with cruiser-level cost and battlefield utility.

Giving Orders: It seems you are mixing how the current system works with how it will work in the next update, which will create confusion; you should probably leave a note about it or something. 'Capture' will automatically become 'Control' when completed, when point is lost 'Control' converts back into 'Capture'. 'Assault' is not applied to enemy ships, 'Engage' is. 'Intercept' is missing. If a 'Rally Strike Force' waypoint is present bombers and support fighters will go to it on the way to their target. Add hint that assigning escorts is a good way of keeping fighters from running off on their own and doing something suicidal, like trying to solo an Onslaught.

Battle Objectives: You put both 25% speed bonus and flat 25 speed bonus for Nav Buoys, only the latter is correct. It also gives a 25% maneuverability (acceleration and turn speed) bonus. Sensor arrays also grants 25% sight range bonus when captured and also has a very long sight range itself.

Fleet Goals: Mention that if one fleet tries to escape and the other tries to defend the escaping fleet will automatically get away without going into battle.



PART III

Shields: Some ships have armor that is too weak to be able to safely turn off shields when faced with kinetic weapons fire, e.g. the Omen. Shields on these ships should only be dropped when the ship is safe.

Deployment: After deploying the necessary fighters and frigates it may be worth sending in the slow ships next, sending your slowest ships too late might mean they won't arrive in time to be useful.
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CrashToDesktop

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Re: Starfarer - The Manual
« Reply #5 on: October 22, 2012, 12:56:27 PM »

Excellent work, I looks great! :)
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Gothars

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Re: Starfarer - The Manual
« Reply #6 on: October 22, 2012, 02:51:36 PM »

Great that you like it, folks ;D

@ Xareh and Thaago
Glad that you want to help, it's very welcome:)

 Thaago, I'm making a few more changes and will have a new version some time later this week, depending on how much time I find. Please let me know when you have time to edit and how long it will approx take you. It doesn't really make sense  for more than one person at a time to copy edit, so it takes a bit planning ahead. Of course articles can still be written in between.

Xareh, do you have anything specific in mind that you would like to help with? Articles, lore hunting, fact checking or some other good idea you have could all be useful, you see the list...


@ Meatsteak: Thanks for your notes, I will consider some of that and add some things right away.

About mixing up versions: the Manual is actually supposed to concern the next SF release, as indicated by the version number. The part about commands will be optimized as soon as it is out, not much sense in polishing something that will be obsolete in a few days or weeks.
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The game was completed 8 years ago and we get a free expansion every year.

Arranging holidays in an embrace with the Starsector is priceless.

DelicateTask

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Re: Starfarer - The Manual
« Reply #7 on: October 23, 2012, 11:00:48 AM »

This is totally messed up viewing it on my Mac using Preview.

The text isn't viewable and appears smudged or blurred.
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Gothars

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Re: Starfarer - The Manual
« Reply #8 on: October 23, 2012, 12:26:01 PM »

This is totally messed up viewing it on my Mac using Preview.

The text isn't viewable and appears smudged or blurred.

Thanks for the report. I looked into it, does is look like this? It appears that MS Word makes a some kind of font rendering error when creating PDFs. Acrobat and  other PDF viewer (I use XChange) have no problem circumventing it, but Preview is not able to. It should run fine if you try another reader. I will look into other possibilities.
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The game was completed 8 years ago and we get a free expansion every year.

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hadesian

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Re: Starfarer - The Manual
« Reply #9 on: October 23, 2012, 01:24:10 PM »

Yeah, I noticed that. I had assumed merely that it was something you put in, IE unfinished areas. The lore boxes are perfectly readable.
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Gothars

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Re: Starfarer - The Manual
« Reply #10 on: October 23, 2012, 01:42:42 PM »

I assume you are using Preview, too? Does it look like in the link I posted?

Could you please try this version? http://www.2shared.com/document/sw1l8ETU/The_World_of_Starfarer_V_054a_.html

This version should def. work, but it has no hyperlinks: http://www.2shared.com/document/utng0aSm/The_World_of_Starfarer_no_hype.html?

Content wise they are somewhat cluttered, but for now I'm just trying to find out what works.

« Last Edit: January 29, 2013, 06:11:28 AM by Gothars »
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The game was completed 8 years ago and we get a free expansion every year.

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DelicateTask

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Re: Starfarer - The Manual
« Reply #11 on: October 23, 2012, 07:31:24 PM »

Yep, that's what it looks like. I'll try the new one.
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DelicateTask

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Re: Starfarer - The Manual
« Reply #12 on: October 24, 2012, 07:18:46 AM »

Are there rules about double-posting here? I suppose I should've checked that first, but I wanted this thread to update.

I tried both versions. The Mac compatible version was mostly fixed, but there were still several small places where the same problem occurred. The second, no-hyperlinks version had some other problems. Mostly content that was out of alignment and the picture quality was incredibly low.
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Gothars

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Re: Starfarer - The Manual
« Reply #13 on: October 24, 2012, 07:58:54 AM »

Thank you for testing that :)
 

Can you tell me  two or three places where the smudging in the mac version occurred? Maybe I can find something consistent there.

The alignment problems might just be because the version was not meant for publication and the formatting not yet optimized. But the bad pictures are strange, on my side they have lost a bit of quality, but mostly nothing you would notice without zoomed full screen reading.

Other than that, I'm out of ideas. I tried a few other things, but nothing worked out. I will upload that semi mac compatible version as the standard from now on, don't know if that's good enough . But if anyone has an idea how to fix it please tell me.

Btw, I had a friend with a mac test it, it works definitely fine on a mac with acrobat.


edit/ double posting is ok as long as you have something new to add, otherwise use edit

Could you test another one for me please? http://www.2shared.com/document/NLhb-Vk_/The_World_of_Starfarer_Arial_t.html?
I just changed the font globally to arial. The format is broken now but that's fixable, ignore it,  the text smearing is important.
« Last Edit: October 24, 2012, 08:01:56 AM by Gothars »
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hadesian

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Re: Starfarer - The Manual
« Reply #14 on: October 24, 2012, 09:17:36 AM »

That works fine in Preview.

*realises he has Acrobat X Pro*


DOH
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