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

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Author Topic: Starsector 0.7a (Released) Patch Notes  (Read 574357 times)

Alex

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Re: Starsector 0.7a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #525 on: November 07, 2015, 10:00:55 AM »

It seems pretty stable to me; hasn't crashed on me during playtesting, memory usage looks good, etc. I mean, I'd expect a fair amount of bugs to slip through due to the scope of the update (hence the all-but-inevitable post-release hotfix), but I feel good about where it's at. Is that what you're asking?
Have to admit this has been something I've always been impressed with.
Every build I've played has been perfectly stable.

Thanks! I try to do my best. (But, it's just too big a project to test comprehensively, and being careful while coding, while helpful, still isn't a guarantee... so I just have to ask for your understanding for the things that do inevitably slip through.)
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Sy

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Re: Starsector 0.7a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #526 on: November 07, 2015, 10:22:45 AM »

so I just have to ask for your understanding for the things that do inevitably slip through.
no! how dare you release alpha versions that aren't 100% perfect?! *shakes fist*

seriously though, i've spent so much time in this game already, and i can't recall ever encountering any (not mod-related) crashes or serious bugs. if i have noticed bugs, they were either hotfixed right away, or weren't significant enough in the first place for me to remember them now. and i usually do get annoyed pretty easily by little glitches, oversights, inconsistencies, etc in other games.
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Toxcity

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Re: Starsector 0.7a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #527 on: November 07, 2015, 10:28:57 AM »

Like everyone else said, I've never had any game breaking bugs happen when playing this game. Its even more stable than some full releases.
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Megas

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Re: Starsector 0.7a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #528 on: November 07, 2015, 10:37:48 AM »

The version before 0.6, I think it was 0.54, had memory leaks.  Sooner or later, the game would freeze.  Increasing memory only delayed the inevitable.  Memory leak was the main reason I did not downgrade back to 0.54 when I was displeased with the gameplay changes of 0.6 (and made worse by 0.62).  0.65 fixed most of the gameplay killjoys of early 0.6x.
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Ratheden

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Re: Starsector 0.7a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #529 on: November 07, 2015, 10:44:33 AM »

It seems pretty stable to me; hasn't crashed on me during playtesting, memory usage looks good, etc. I mean, I'd expect a fair amount of bugs to slip through due to the scope of the update (hence the all-but-inevitable post-release hotfix), but I feel good about where it's at. Is that what you're asking?
Have to admit this has been something I've always been impressed with.
Every build I've played has been perfectly stable.

Thanks! I try to do my best. (But, it's just too big a project to test comprehensively, and being careful while coding, while helpful, still isn't a guarantee... so I just have to ask for your understanding for the things that do inevitably slip through.)

While these fine people tip toe around the subject, Alex would you consider letting us test it for you?
We can help find bug, and helpfully report them:) 
And then sing praises of Alex and his programming skills and imagination? oh... wait, is this last part laying it on too thick? Well anyway, You need testers, and we good sir are here to help you Free of charge even.   


Setting aside that bad joke and my bad humor,  Keep at it Alex!. 

I have an old question that may have been answered already,
>Friendly fire incidents will cause a reputation drop depending on the severity
>Very serious incidents will drop reputation all the way to hostile

?Will computer controlled ships on my side be cause'n much friendly fire, or is this only based on my own dumb errors?
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Alex

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Re: Starsector 0.7a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #530 on: November 07, 2015, 11:09:16 AM »

While these fine people tip toe around the subject, Alex would you consider letting us test it for you?
We can help find bug, and helpfully report them:) 

Thank you, I appreciate the thought!

One issue there is that to get useful gameplay feedback, the gameplay has to be tuned to the point where that's possible, and that's usually the last steps before a release. And you know there'd be gameplay feedback regardless :) Likewise with already-known-but-not-yet-fixed bugs.

Development is kind of a rolling process where work on one feature overlaps with another, and most often there isn't a good point to cut a build and say the things in it are mostly done, never mind fun to play. Instead, feature X is halfway finished, feature Y is starting to be worked on, and there are still a few bugs to iron out from feature Z which was "finished" before X but was broken by it. And none of them are balanced in a "makes for fun gameplay" way.

Which is a long-winded way of saying that cutting a build at some random point is extremely unlikely to produce anything I'd dare call a game.

That aside, I'd say the period after a release and before a hotfix is exactly that, and it's really the first point where I feel comfortable making a release public. (I have thought about asking a few people to give it a whirl a bit early - probably modders, since that seems like it'd be a mutually beneficial arrangement - but haven't leaned strongly one way or another.)


I have an old question that may have been answered already,
>Friendly fire incidents will cause a reputation drop depending on the severity
>Very serious incidents will drop reputation all the way to hostile

?Will computer controlled ships on my side be cause'n much friendly fire, or is this only based on my own dumb errors?

They may, but it's pretty unlikely - no more so than friendly fire already is between your own ships - and seems just about impossible to get to the "hostile" level. I mean, I can imagine a modded weapon one-shotting an allied Onslaught by accident, but aside from things like that? I'd say it's functionally limited to your own mistakes.
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Tartiflette

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Re: Starsector 0.7a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #531 on: November 07, 2015, 11:57:23 AM »

[...](I have thought about asking a few people to give it a whirl a bit early - probably modders, since that seems like it'd be a mutually beneficial arrangement - but haven't leaned strongly one way or another.)[...]
You know we would love that! ;)
Though I can see the argument against that: if the mods released their updated version just after your release, you would get much less feedback on the "vanilla" gameplay (and whatever we like to think, it's still the standard way to play the game), and much more mod related bug reports...
« Last Edit: November 07, 2015, 11:59:25 AM by Tartiflette »
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kruqnut

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Re: Starsector 0.7a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #532 on: November 07, 2015, 01:52:03 PM »

stop talking to alex and let them get this release ready!
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Ratheden

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Re: Starsector 0.7a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #533 on: November 07, 2015, 03:58:41 PM »

stop talking to alex and let them get this release ready!
Probably a wize call... but is it the call the public will make?
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Clockwork Owl

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Re: Starsector 0.7a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #534 on: November 07, 2015, 04:27:17 PM »

Definately no. ;D

The only crash I've ever encountered in SS was the result of a translation mod I was working on, due to me messing up with the tokens inside a string...
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kazi

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Re: Starsector 0.7a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #535 on: November 07, 2015, 11:13:01 PM »

@Alex - Speaking of testing, I was wondering how you go about doing the testing on your end. I've been doing a bunch of work on an Android game lately, and it never seems very clear on where/when/if to start using unit tests and whatnot. Admittedly, I'm still building the core bits of the game engine, but I'm having trouble finding any clear places to insert tests and QC stuff (especially for classes that handle user input and whatnot). What have you been doing in that regards? Figured I'd ask since your stuff has generally been pretty bug-free in my experience.
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nomadic_leader

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Re: Starsector 0.7a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #536 on: November 08, 2015, 09:52:07 AM »

Quote
Maintaining positive reputation with more than one major faction is not possible for very long; will eventually become hostile to all but one

This just seems like a bizarre design choice in someways, but perhaps I'm not really understanding. Now the only way to play the game is by becoming a partisan for one faction, whereas before one could become a partisan of one faction, play the middle, etc. How is this an improvement?  Shouldn't there be different ways to play starsector?

Anyway, our world is full of shady go-between characters and I imagine in a setting like StarSector the whole system would kind of rely on them to keep going. It's also silly to imagine that every faction is so ideologically similar that they all in identical fashion object to ties with the other factions.

And it's also an odd design that every faction is hostile equally to every other faction. It's like they're just five different colors of pegs on a Chinese Checkers board. Maybe I'm misreading it but these changes just seem to be moving the game into a less flexible, less open world playstyle, and it's another instance of every faction being the same.

« Last Edit: November 08, 2015, 09:54:03 AM by nomadic_leader »
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Gothars

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Re: Starsector 0.7a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #537 on: November 08, 2015, 10:30:37 AM »

Now the only way to play the game is by becoming a partisan for one faction, whereas before one could become a partisan of one faction, play the middle, etc.

As I understand this you can still "play the middle", you just can't become everybody's darling anymore. I think it's a good change, since the current optimal playstile is to only fight pirates for a very long time in each playthrough, just so you don't lose the access to each faction's military market. That becomes repetitive after some time. Now the game has many more desirable playthrough options, one for each major faction and some middle ground.

I also hope that the faction will differ in more than text, ships and color, like their long term goals and fleet strategies, but this seems like a fundamental gameplay mechanism they should share. Besides, all the not-major factions(Pathers, Pirates ,Indis so far) already differ here.
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Midnight Kitsune

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Re: Starsector 0.7a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #538 on: November 08, 2015, 10:40:46 AM »

Now the only way to play the game is by becoming a partisan for one faction, whereas before one could become a partisan of one faction, play the middle, etc.

As I understand this you can still "play the middle", you just can't become everybody's darling anymore. I think it's a good change, since the current optimal playstile is to only fight pirates for a very long time in each playthrough, just so you don't lose the access to each faction's military market. That becomes repetitive after some time. Now the game has many more desirable playthrough options, one for each major faction and some middle ground.

I also hope that the faction will differ in more than text, ships and color, like their long term goals and fleet strategies, but this seems like a fundamental gameplay mechanism they should share. Besides, all the not-major factions(Pathers, Pirates ,Indis so far) already differ here.

I'm hoping the TTachs got some better markets...
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Megas

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Re: Starsector 0.7a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #539 on: November 08, 2015, 10:43:46 AM »

I hope one day, one of the major factions is the one I build from the ground up.

I also hope that the faction will differ in more than text, ships and color, like their long term goals and fleet strategies, but this seems like a fundamental gameplay mechanism they should share. Besides, all the not-major factions(Pathers, Pirates ,Indis so far) already differ here.
So far, the factions feel like Tri-Tachyon or Hegemony, with the rest of the majors being Hegemony #2 and #3.  Also, all military markets stocking multiple Hammerheads is really annoying.
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