Fractal Softworks Forum
Starsector => Announcements => Topic started by: Alex on May 05, 2011, 04:31:01 PM
-
Edit: 0.34a is out! You can download it from a link on this (http://fractalsoftworks.com/preorder) page.
This list contains everything that's been changed since the previous release. I'll be updating it continuously as work progresses, so stay tuned!
To accomodate the growing size of the patch notes, I've updated the format - you can easily see the latest round of updates in the first section.
Full list of changes, broken out by category, below:
Content
- Added new mission: "The Wolf Pack" - medium difficulty, the attack on an escaping convoy
- Added new mission: "Coral Nebula" - hard difficulty
- Added new mission: "Nothing Personal" - impossible difficulty
- Modified "The Last Hurrah" - player fleet has some new ships (Brawler and Vigilance class), increased difficulty overall (enemy Onslaughts are much better fitted).
- New set of backgrounds (4 more!) Specified per mission, existing missions updated to use different backgrounds.
- Added Brawler-class Gunship & Vigilance-class frigate (screenshot (http://www.fractalsoftworks.com/public/brawler_vigilance.jpg))
- Added new medium (for real this time!) mission, "For the Greater Lud" (features both the Brawler and the Vigilance)
Gameplay & Balance Changes
- Balance changes to the Conquest:
- Changed large turret type to Energy
- Changed loadout used in "The Last Hurrah" - put Autopulse Laser turrets in large turrets, added dual flak cannons to broadsides giving some situational point defense
- Overall, more tactical possibilities and interesting loadouts
- Balance changes to the Onslaught
- Greatly increased max flux (dissipation rate remains about the same)
- Expanded two medium turret arcs to give better coverage behind the ship
- Increased armor and hull values
- Reduced maneuverability of the Atropos torpedo - faster destroyers can sometimes avoid it by maneuvering
- Improved Mjolnir cannon - does more damage, costs more flux per shot
- Adjusted shield damage absorption values:
- Shields improved overall
- Higher-tech ships tend to expend less flux per point of damage absorbed, but even lower-tech ships are more efficient than before
- Fixed frontal shields tend to be more efficient, but have a higher upkeep cost
- Increased the range of fire support beam weapons slightly
- Flux generated due to absorbing beam damage with shields can now be dissipated without bringing shields down. This applies to non-energy beams (such as the Graviton Beam) and does NOT apply to non-beam energy weapons (such as the Pulse Laser).
- Related AI change - it now recognizes when a beam weapon is harmless (due to being fully dissipatable) and will not be afraid of one
- AI improvement - does a better job of directly pursuing the enemy vs angling off during an approach, depending on whether they're threatened
- AI improvement - does a better job of committing to temporary attack or retreat instead of waffling, in some cases
- AI improvement - ship behavior varies between more cautious/daring, within a range defined by their personality
- Friendly dumbfire projectiles (such as bombs) can't hit each other anymore. Up til this change, attack runs by several bomber wings were a bit more explosive than intended.
Modding-related
- Moved saves/screenshots/mods dirs up one level for windows, to the top level of the bundle for Mac, left in same place for Linux.
- Mods can be packaged up and installed by unzipping in a "mods" directory. More details on that, as well as some sample mods,
soon here (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=63.0). - Added interface (to the launcher) that allows you to select which mods to enable. Multiple mods can be enabled at the same time. If there are conflicts (say, two mods change the stats of the same ship), the first mod on the list takes precedence.
- A mod can add new missions
- A mod can also add new ships and weapons - not officially supported because file formats are likely to change a bit, but it works. New ships/weapons can be used inside missions defined in the same mod.
- Renamed some columns in ship_data.csv (sorry! :))
- energy regen -> flux dissipation
- max energy -> max flux
- Changed "shield upkeep" value in ship_data.csv to be expressed as a fraction of the "flux dissipation" value for easier adjustment
- Error in MissionDefinition no longer crashes the game and gives you an error message instead of the mission description
- Improved spreadsheet loading code - should be able to handle CSV files saved with OpenOffice etc
- Converted mission list to CSV format (now mission_list.csv)
- Source code for the modding API now comes with the install (starfarer.api.zip)
- Added alphabetic render order sorting based on the weapon slot id
Misc Features & Improvements
- Added "colorblindMode" config setting (in data/config/settings.json)
- Added missile/bomb indicators to radar ribbon
- Made flux bar flash when over 90%
- Improved admiral AI - better about keeping carriers out of direct combat
- Admiral AI is now aware when its mission goal is to escape, acts accordingly
- Retreating ships can be ordered to cancel the retreat order and do something else
- Added customizable control mappings (screenshot (http://www.fractalsoftworks.com/public/controls.jpg))
- Increased maximum amount of zooming that can be done using the mousewheel (up to 2x in each direction)
- After exiting the mission, the game goes back to the mission selection screen instead of the main menu. So that you can try again more quickly after suffering a crushing defeat.
- Changed omni shields to be toggled on/off with the RMB instead of requiring the RMB to be held. In related news, frigates are fun to fly again.
- Clicking on a ship in the fleet lists in the upper right now selects that ship in the warroom
- Game now remembers launcher settings (resolution, fullscreen, sound on/off)
- Shows an error message if the game fails to start - mostly useful for debugging while modding
- Added feedback to warroom order buttons - they flash and make a sound when activated with the keyboard shortcut, same as when they're clicked
- Improved display of current orders in the warroom - fighters returning to refit, battlegroup set to Search & Destroy
- Autopilot button flashes when it's on
- Added "shield upkeep" value to ship tooltip
- Made mission list scrollable (mousewheel, or click and drag - same as ship list post-battle)
- Added credits screen
Bug Fixes
- Fixed bug where ship AI would crash into friendly ships while trying to move away from the map border
- Fixed bug where weapon burst would finish firing after the ship was destroyed or finished being overloaded
- Tutorial section w/ fighters now ends if it takes too long (if the fighters run away, for example)
- Fixed AI bug where it would fire a missile salvo with an unnecessarily long delay between firing successive turrets
- Fixed bug where the game would play in fast-forward if video card vsync was forced off. In related news, sales of hillbilly chase music on iTunes plummeted today.
- Fixed bug where "deploy reserves" button would be disabled if your forces control all objectices (the 'G' shortcut still worked, though)
- Fixed bug where on-screen target reticle would stay up for ships that were no longer visible through fog of war
- Fixed the "invisible fighter" bug (sometimes, a fighter would remain in the playing field, invisible and unhittable, but still targetable by the AI)
- Most likely fixed this (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=36.0) (hard to describe) bug. Likely Intel driver bug, coded around it.
- Fixed bug with fighters being forced to auto-retreat after flying too far off-map
- Cleaned up alpha values in custom mouse cursors - hopefully fixing "white square cursor" bug on ATI cards on Linux
- Fixed victory music bug (would finish playing at the start of next mission)
- Fixed bug where the quit dialog could show up multiple times if the Escape key was pressed really, really fast
- Improved code that detects available display resolutions (previously, would detect none in some cases, leading to a crash on startup). Also added "resolutionOverride"/"forceAspectRatio" settings to config for some odd cases where no valid resolution is reported.
- Fixed duplicate shuttle pod icon bug
- Fixed cursor bug - changes red/green state more reliably
- Fixed bug where transferring command can disable the AI of the ship being abandoned
- Fixed bug where AI would still follow a group leader when the group leader was assigned to another group
-
*thumbs up*
-
Its always nice to get a better view (regarding the zoom changes) of the battlefield.
-
I could swear that omni-directional shields already toggle. I seem to recall right-clicking turning mine off on several occasions with the Apogee.
What I'd love to see is an option for a second control scheme for movable directional shields, or possibly even an in-game toggle/option between the two settings:
1. Right-click to toggle on.
2. Hold Ctrl (or some other key) to move them. Otherwise they stay still. Ideally they'd keep moving to where the mouse was when Ctrl is released.
Sometimes I want to fire on something, but turn my shield toward a different threat--shooting at a carrier and protecting myself from the bombers coming in from astern, say.
-
omnidirectional shields are shields that can swivel, like the one on the conquest: the apogee actually has a frontal shield, its just a full 360 degrees of coverage.
-
Love this! I'm glad you've decided to try out live patch notes, this really gets the hype going (not that it wasn't already going strong for me).
-
omnidirectional shields are shields that can swivel, like the one on the conquest: the apogee actually has a frontal shield, its just a full 360 degrees of coverage.
My mistake, then; consider the body of my previous post a request for more options for omnidirectional shield control.
-
omnidirectional shields are shields that can swivel, like the one on the conquest: the apogee actually has a frontal shield, its just a full 360 degrees of coverage.
My mistake, then; consider the body of my previous post a request for more options for omnidirectional shield control.
I hear you - ideally, you'd have perfect control over both. The question is, do the scenarios in which you actually want to have this control occur often enough to justify making it more cumbersome all around? Having an extra button for this type of shield control... I'm just not sold on that yet. Let's see how this new scheme plays out first - it's already tons better than it was.
Also, it seems like you could get by in that scenario by setting the group on autofire for a few seconds while you shield off in a different direction. Autofire is set up to prefer targets that are closest to the current aim, so turning it on just as you stop firing makes it carry on just what you were doing, most of the time.
-
Yay live patch notes!
Sweet :)
-
I hear you - ideally, you'd have perfect control over both. The question is, do the scenarios in which you actually want to have this control occur often enough to justify making it more cumbersome all around? Having an extra button for this type of shield control... I'm just not sold on that yet.
How about something simpler than my original idea: a shield lock button, which toggles shield movement on and off? Doesn't add any cumbersome-ness; without using it, the shield behavior is exactly as it is now (with the toggle, anyway). I'm growing more and more convinced of the need for this the more I play with my high-intensity-laser broadside Conquest--things I'm hitting with the broadsides are generally a long way off, and in most cases the threats I'm having to deal with are from a different angle.
I can also see it coming up with a frigate with omnidirectional shields fighting a bigger ship, a la Sinking the Bis'mar. Missiles tend to come at you from the sides in that mission, simply because they have to chase you, and the same situation might come up elsewhere. Being able to lock shields to face missiles while you make a strafing firing pass with bigger weapons seems like a pretty good motivation for lockable shields, too.
-
I hear you - ideally, you'd have perfect control over both. The question is, do the scenarios in which you actually want to have this control occur often enough to justify making it more cumbersome all around? Having an extra button for this type of shield control... I'm just not sold on that yet.
How about something simpler than my original idea: a shield lock button, which toggles shield movement on and off? Doesn't add any cumbersome-ness; without using it, the shield behavior is exactly as it is now (with the toggle, anyway). I'm growing more and more convinced of the need for this the more I play with my high-intensity-laser broadside Conquest--things I'm hitting with the broadsides are generally a long way off, and in most cases the threats I'm having to deal with are from a different angle.
I can also see it coming up with a frigate with omnidirectional shields fighting a bigger ship, a la Sinking the Bis'mar. Missiles tend to come at you from the sides in that mission, simply because they have to chase you, and the same situation might come up elsewhere. Being able to lock shields to face missiles while you make a strafing firing pass with bigger weapons seems like a pretty good motivation for lockable shields, too.
What about an auto-targeting option for omni shields?
-
Just thought that I would post something that was posted in another forum by one of the devs:
What's already done:
- Basic bug fixes, UI tweaks, AI fixes
What's coming soon:
- Better mod support for custom missions and ships. People have already made seven custom ships or so and one custom mission. And then another fan went and rebalanced all the weapons to create greater distinction between Capital ships and smaller ships.
- A small start on the RPG aspects with customized ship loadouts before entering missions
Soonish?:
- More ships with specialized ship roles (repair, munitions, stealth, scan, etc)
- Ship special abilities (afterburners, flux discharge, barrage, etc.)
- RPG-like characters/profiles, or something, which affect your ship/fleet performance in various ways.
Upcoming:
- RPG/strategic meta-layer sandbox gameplay taking place in one solar system as a start on the higher level game
I'm not really sure on the timeline for any of this, and details of everything are certainly open to change. I just know what I'm doing artwork for and what the dev team is discussing internally. What's caught Alex by surprise in particular is the strong demand for modding tools, and how much enthusiasm people have for modding. Further, I think the demand for RPG aspects is strong enough that he feels the need to push that up sooner.
And I daresay, feel quite free to tell us what you'd like to see next - we do read this forum :)
-
Yeah, that was me. Promising things. Sorry Alex!
(I figure fans would like to know something about upcoming features, some rough idea of the coming expansion of the Starfarer game-world.)
I'm also going to start posting more teasers of upcoming stuff I'm working on to the blog in any effort drive everyone crazy. It'll be fun!
-
Hey David, what do you mean by politics? How deep are the plans for the faction / relation / etc system?
Any option to create your own empire and mingle with the others?
-
Hey David, what do you mean by politics? How deep are the plans for the faction / relation / etc system?
Any option to create your own empire and mingle with the others?
I don't think we're ready to answer detailed questions about that. Sorry! :) I can, however, say that you will have relationships with various factions in the game - alliances, enmities, etc.
About shields and a shield lock button: I can actually see that as a ship system, that'd both lock it in place and improve its efficiency. That just might work nicely.
-
Any option to mod in your own empire that will mingle with the others? ;)
(Even if not I'd probably figure out a way how) :D
[pretty sure I know the answer to this one already though X3]
-
Any option to mod in your own empire that will mingle with the others? ;)
(Even if not I'd probably figure out a way how) :D
[pretty sure I know the answer to this one already though X3]
I don't see why not - the ones in the core game will probably be handled the same way mods are anyway. Any custom AI for the faction might be tricky, though. But we'll see - certainly aiming for it.
-
So long as the factional AI is modular, it shouldn't be overly difficult to modify an existing one, no?
However I'm assuming that it hasn't even been close to implemented yet. ;)
-
So long as the factional AI is modular, it shouldn't be overly difficult to modify an existing one, no?
So long as it is, should be quite doable :)
However I'm assuming that it hasn't even been close to implemented yet. ;)
Indeed.
-
Just did a large update of this list (a couple of days worth of changes).
What do you guys think of the format? Is it easy enough to follow? Any suggestions on how to improve it or what you'd like to see?
-
Just did a large update of this list (a couple of days worth of changes).
What do you guys think of the format? Is it easy enough to follow? Any suggestions on how to improve it or what you'd like to see?
I can't see anything wrong with the format. The new changes should be very interesting to test out.
-
New changes look good, and the format is quite readable I find ^^
-
Cool! Was concerned that as the list is getting longer, it would be harder to tell what's new. I guess with entire sections being new and at the top for this update, that's not much of an issue :)
-
Looking awesome so far. Keep up the good work, and can't wait to see how the empires and RPG side of the game work!
-
Cool! Was concerned that as the list is getting longer, it would be harder to tell what's new. I guess with entire sections being new and at the top for this update, that's not much of an issue :)
Down the line you might consider getting a bug tracking system, but for the moment the current setup is fine given the relatively low volume.
-
So what is your guys' philosophy regarding updated builds. Do you like to accomplish a large number of changes before releasing an update or do you like to release frequent updates with smaller amounts of changes?
-
I'm a supporter of the latter philosophy: it really helps maintain community interest and fosters the development of a strong community: I have empirical evidence with my experience of the transcendence community to back up this claim.
-
Prefer the latter as well, cause the patch notes make me EXCITED to play! :D
-
I vote for latter one too!
Also: new format is awesome! :)
-
I strongly prefer the latter as well. Though that brings up th question, how often is "frequent"? I'm aiming for end of this month for the current set of changes - there are a few bigger things I want to try to add. More often than that might be impractical due to some extra work around releases (testing, etc).
Also, as there's no auto-updater right now, getting the new version involves downloading it and re-installing. I'd like to simplify that process at some point, but getting it to work right across all 3 platforms is tricky.
Some features simply take longer to implement, though - I suspect that the first version to introduce layer 2 (open world, travel, etc) gameplay would have a bit of a longer lead-up to it.
Down the line you might consider getting a bug tracking system, but for the moment the current setup is fine given the relatively low volume.
Yep, but I do hope to put this off for as long as possible :) Not for any technical reasons, but for the annoying overhead that a bug tracking system brings to fixing small bugs.
Looking awesome so far. Keep up the good work, and can't wait to see how the empires and RPG side of the game work!
Thanks! I'm looking forward to getting all that working, myself :)
-
A month is a fairly long release cycle, but then again, maybe I'm used to thinking of it in terms of full-time work. Any previews on what bigger things you're planning to add?
-
I don't think you need any artificial rule on how often should patches get released.
Let it be an organic process, add stuff you guys wish to add, and when it achieves critical mass, release it.
Obviously, big things need more time, but when you see things are getting slow, or need some "you guys are awesome" from the community, you can throw us some smaller bugfixing ones :)
-
Looks like you're keeping yourself busy Alex!
That's a lot of changes considering your release wasn't all that long ago!
Do you have any sort of timeline planned for what you're doing with the game?
-
Any previews on what bigger things you're planning to add?
Do you have any sort of timeline planned for what you're doing with the game?
Well, no specific timelines, but in the near-to-mid term the plan is:
1. Release 0.34a - main features are improved modding support and general usability (AI, UI, etc)
2. Flagship refit screen for 0.35a. Possibly with some kind of simple metagame around it to unlock stuff to equip, but don't hold me to that. The idea is not to spend much time on it as it's really tangential to the game proper (where the refit screen itself is absolutely core).
3. First implementation of "layer 2" (meta layer, travel layer, whatever you want to call it) for 0.36a. It will be very constrained and used as a base to continue adding layer 2 features on to in subsequent versions.
I don't think you need any artificial rule on how often should patches get released.
Let it be an organic process, add stuff you guys wish to add, and when it achieves critical mass, release it.
Yeah, for sure. Just in some cases, its possible to plan things out so that releases are more frequent than if things were done in a different order. So I'll try to aim for that :)
-
;D
I'm quite excited!
-
Any previews on what bigger things you're planning to add?
Do you have any sort of timeline planned for what you're doing with the game?
Well, no specific timelines, but in the near-to-mid term the plan is:
1. Release 0.34a - main features are improved modding support and general usability (AI, UI, etc)
2. Flagship refit screen for 0.35a. Possibly with some kind of simple metagame around it to unlock stuff to equip, but don't hold me to that. The idea is not to spend much time on it as it's really tangential to the game proper (where the refit screen itself is absolutely core).
3. First implementation of "layer 2" (meta layer, travel layer, whatever you want to call it) for 0.36a. It will be very constrained and used as a base to continue adding layer 2 features on to in subsequent versions.
I don't think you need any artificial rule on how often should patches get released.
Let it be an organic process, add stuff you guys wish to add, and when it achieves critical mass, release it.
Yeah, for sure. Just in some cases, its possible to plan things out so that releases are more frequent than if things were done in a different order. So I'll try to aim for that :)
You're very driven, i'm impressed.
You're not exactly Notch ;)
Also, the 0.34a patch notes, are those things you've already changed or are they what you plan to do? If you have done that much in such a short time then I am very, very impressed.
-
All that stuff's already done - hence, "live" patch notes. Probably looks like more than it is, a lot of the items are relatively minor.
You're not exactly Notch ;)
Aww, no love for notch? Personally, I'm amazed he has time to get any coding done at all, with all the other running-a-company-and-doing-PR stuff he now has to do. It's a lot easier to get stuff done when a few million people aren't watching your every move, you know ;)
-
I think I'm going to love the content section the most... :D
-
You were asking about the live-patch format earlier. It just occurred to me that when updating larger patch notes (like the one that is currently growing), it may be a nice touch to prefix each line with the date that the update was added so that people can more easily check out the new additions.
-
You were asking about the live-patch format earlier. It just occurred to me that when updating larger patch notes (like the one that is currently growing), it may be a nice touch to prefix each line with the date that the update was added so that people can more easily check out the new additions.
Good idea! I'll try that, and see if having to prepend a date to every new entry will sap my will to live. That does seem necessary though. Either that, or I have to make a release and start with a fresh list :)
-
That screenshot is HOT. Loving the new additions.
-
Screenshot? O_O
Must see!
-
Medium-level mission! :D
-
Yay! we can use open/libre office with the cvs files!
-
New ships are looking good ;D
Who's doing the graphics programming? I really like the overblown bloom-ish quality of the effects.
-
Who's doing the graphics programming? I really like the overblown bloom-ish quality of the effects.
Thanks - that'd be me. But David tells me what to do to make it look good ;) Then I take the idea and use it absolutely everywhere until he tells me that I'm going way overboard. So that's pretty much the official process.
Glad you guys like the new stuff!
-
Like the new stuff? Love the new stuff!
I really enjoyed the roadmap update. It's interesting to read about the process you guys go through to arrive at an action plan, and (as a player) very nice to see the new content / features that are in the near-future pipeline.
The thing that excites me most right now is the strategic / RPG layer. Visiting regions of space within a starsystem to do battle, gather salvage, and grow my character / fleet is just fantastic to imagine.
Starfarer's future is definitely shaping up to be amazing. Thanks for the updates and community interaction, I know you've all got other things to do beyond Starfarer. It's appreciated, believe me.
-
http://fractalsoftworks.com/2011/05/17/starfarer-roadmap-whats-next <--- awesome blog post :D
I'm quite excited! ^^
-
So--you did rename it from 'heat' to 'flux' entirely so you could call them flux capacitors, right?
-
you mean in the data files?
It was being called 'energy' before (in .33a)
-
The thing that excites me most right now is the strategic / RPG layer. Visiting regions of space within a starsystem to do battle, gather salvage, and grow my character / fleet is just fantastic to imagine.
Yeah, we really need to have the campaign layer (I guess we're calling it that now? I don't know. I've used everything from "travel" to "meta" to "layer 2" to "strategic"... it's starting to confuse ME) to give meaning to the battles. That's the main reason to push it up instead of focusing on polishing up combat - I think the game will be a lot more fun and replayable with both, rather than a more polished combat on its own.
esides, I just can't wait to really bite into that part :)
I'm quite excited! ^^
Glad you like!
So--you did rename it from 'heat' to 'flux' entirely so you could call them flux capacitors, right?
you mean in the data files?
It was being called 'energy' before (in .33a)
Just had to call me out on that, eh? :) Close enough, but it was more that renaming energy to heat would necessitate naming flux capacitors "heat sinks" and I wasn't comfortable with that level of Mech Warrior ripoff. Besides, "flux" is a lot more vague and thus makes sense for more things.
-
Shoot. We've been found out. Doc, get to the DeLorean and let's get the hell out of here!
So--you did rename it from 'heat' to 'flux' entirely so you could call them flux capacitors, right?
-
But your onslaught can't get up to 80 m/s! :D
-
DOH!
You mean 88 m/s right? :)
-
DOH!
You mean 88 m/s right? :)
Ouch, someone has been out-nerded. You can argue over who really wins in that case though :P
-
:D lol - well, didn't bother with the unit conversions ;)
-
Man, so many mouth-watering changes in 0.34a already. It's going to be stellar!
-
DOH!
You mean 88 m/s right? :)
You mean 39.3 m/s, right? That's 88 mi/h.
-
I'm happy I didn't win the nerd contest. Yes.
-
Yeah, we really need to have the campaign layer (I guess we're calling it that now? I don't know. I've used everything from "travel" to "meta" to "layer 2" to "strategic"... it's starting to confuse ME) to give meaning to the battles. That's the main reason to push it up instead of focusing on polishing up combat - I think the game will be a lot more fun and replayable with both, rather than a more polished combat on its own.
Having played a lot of Mount & Blade over the past few days, I'm really hardly able to wait for this stage. So many times have I been riding around the map thinking, "Man, if only I could play this game IN SPACE..."
-
I can't wait for .34a... because I'm all out of space on the mission list (current version does not scroll, just goes off the screen). :D
-
Nice changes!
Of particular interest on today's additions, was this line:
AI improvement - ship behavior varies between more cautious/daring, within a range defined by their personality
How is personality defined?
-
How is personality defined?
Right now, nowhere external. It's a set of values that governs threat tolerance and now, that can vary in a specified range. This will become external soon-ish. Probably not for 0.34a, though.
-
Ok, cool.
So I'm presuming right now its based on the loadout of the ship?
-
Actually, right now it's all in the same middling, not particularly cowardly or brave (suicidal?) range.
-
I presume suicidal == a frigate running off to take on a capship (or entire fleet) all on its own?
(and the other logical extreme is a capship running away from a half-dead frigate?)
-
Nothing quite so extreme :) A suicidal frigate commander would focus on attacking the enemy, regardless of how outgunned he was, where a more cautious one would run away from superior firepower (tactical), or if outnumbered (more strategic). How cautious the captain is determines exactly what constitutes "superior firepower" or "being outnumbered".
Either one can be effective depending on the tactical situation, though. You probably want someone with guts piloting an Onslaught. A Sunder might be more effective if the captain has more ... discretion.
-
So any updates on the next version? Will it be out soonish?
-
Should be between one and two weeks from now. I guess that's soonish? :) It's taking a little longer than anticipated.
-
Are the preview releases helping you with testing, or are we making things slower with all the bug reports to test & validate or invalidate? ;)
-
Well, not fixing bugs is clearly faster, but has some downsides :)
The preview flushed out quite a few bugs in unexpected places. Really appreciate all the reports!
-
i would suggest to stick with the current prereleases.
Its much faster if you have people finding bugs than to fix em all yourself and we get to play new versions much more early :)
How about splitting the Bug section in the forum up into: "public releases" and "prereleases"? this way you would have a much better overview
-
I actually like this release model quite a bit: its like transcendence, but with releases compressed vastly:
you have stable officially supported releases
and then unsupported preview (or in transcendence's case, 'beta') releases, for people who like to bugtest & aren't afraid of bugs: this means the 'stable' releases are well, must more polished, and so you cna focus those on as milestones of having features
while the previews are basically bug-finding releases to check for bugs in those new features before they go stable.
*has been betatesting for the last 8 years of his life, and thus is quite competent at finding bugs X3*
There is a reason that the bug reports forum has threads mostly started by me >.>
-
Sweet!
Added missile/bomb indicators to radar ribbon -> can we get a screenshot? Please? :)
-
Here (http://www.fractalsoftworks.com/public/missile_indicators.jpg) you go.
The Onslaught near the top of the screen just fired off some LRMs. The indicators only show up when the missiles are reasonably close - so you don't see every single missile on the battlefield. They also flash when they appear and make a pinging sound.
-
That looks great. Nice addition.
-
"Improved admiral AI - better about keeping carriers out of direct combat" yay!
Now my carrier v carrier mission should work right X3
-
Sweet!
-
Wow, those missile indicators are going to be very useful. Just noticed the screenshot of the keybindings screen, too. Looks great!
I love these patch notes.
-
An ETA timer would be really cool too, but maybe that's too much fancy pants coding. What do I know, I'm drunk.
-
An ETA timer presumes I know the actual ETA :P
Still, it should be within a week.I really want to try to get some basic formation and weapon control orders for groups ("close formation, hold missile fire"), and that could get tricky. So I'll have to try some stuff to see if I can fit it in, or if that will be deferred to 0.35a.
-
He meant an ETA for the missiles ;)
-
!!! Right, I knew that.
... you can tell the ETA for 0.34a has been on my mind :)
-
Yes, for the missiles! A nice countdown and some fancy sound effects, maybe the woman who did the monotonous voice for Command and Conquer voicing the timer. That would be genital-tingling!
-
Considering there might be 20+ of these coming at you at a time, I don't think it would work very well :D
-
Yeah... audio-based ETA probably wouldn't be such a good idea:
1) turn volume up
2) fly right into a bunch of piranhas on a bombing run
3) ?
4) profit insert tissues into bleeding ears.
-
Buncha wimps.
-
Buncha wimps.
;D
To be fair, it's probably possible to limit the voice so that it doesn't spam your ears. Maybe the first missile gives a voice-warning, the rest give visual only. After a few moments of relative quiet, the voice-warning could sound again if new missiles are fired. With a toggle to shut it off entirely.
Visual ETA would be pretty cool, too. But, limited dev resources.
-
Buncha wimps.
I'm with you on this, but in order to have a womanly voice, we need to find a woman. And that is, of course, completely impossible.
Good thought though!
-
My missus would do it for a bottle of whisky?
-
My missus would do it for a bottle of whisky?
I, uh, did say womanly voice.
-
Perhaps you could do it then? Heh heh.
-
You would have to find me and kick me in the groin.
Or send me a scary internet prank, while I record all I say.
It could work!
-
'Incoming missile! *shriek*' It would definitely add some dramatic tension.
-
maybe there could just be a beeping sound when any dangerous projectile comes near you, and the speed of the beep speeds up as the projectile gets closer.
-
Pfft. That's much too practical. The first warning you should hear is a whooshing sound as the air gets sucked from your lungs.
-
Vogon poetry before the airlock?
-
What about Will Smith from Independence Day, "oh no, you did not shoot that green sh7t at me!"
-
Yayness it's released!
Thank you guys :)
-
Hell yes
-
.34 is released huh?
Now release .35!
>:|
:D
-
Sweet! I arrive home to find .34a out!
-
Got a few hours of play in (Mac Version):
Everything works - key mapping, mods etc.
And it plays great! More feedback when I have had enough time to peruse it.
-
I love the new release, great job with the mission with random ships, i LOVE it ;D
-
Yes, I was planning on doing something like that, though I never got around to it.
With the basic framework though, I think I can make something similar... with a few additional things ^^
-
Hurray, where's my 'tactics' beer? Ah, it's here on my desk.
-
Congrats on the update! Also, congrats on diving into the game full time!
-
Congrats! Onwards to the next update! Woo!
-
Thanks guys :)
-
Just got the game, and I just love it so far. I just really want some of these campaign features!
So do we have an ETA on the next release?
-
So do we have an ETA on the next release?
Yes we do. The future. :P
-
Sometime between now and the release date. More specifically, sometime between now and the beta release date. Doesn't that ease your curiosity?
-
Time for a new patch notes thread!! 8)
-
Just as soon as there are some noteable things to report. It's a little slower going when working on bigger features - can't exactly knock out several line items per day :)
So do we have an ETA on the next release?
Not yet. I should have a better idea about the ETA in a couple of weeks, though.