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16

General Discussion / Re: lack of feature posts

« on: May 02, 2012, 08:50:26 PM »

I've been busy playing. Fell in love with Starfarer all over again. I'm not sure what exactly it is that I love so much, probably a combination of lots of "little" things. The interface improvements are fantastic. The music is great. THE AI WILL GET FLOWERS IN THE MAIL.

17

General Discussion / Re: New AI is impressive.

« on: May 02, 2012, 04:22:07 PM »

I love the AI improvements so very, very much. It gives me the freedom to build my fleet the way I want, without having to worry about replacing constant losses from the fools that used to command my other ships. 

18

General Discussion / Re: Love the music

« on: May 02, 2012, 04:18:17 PM »

I'm liking it.

Music is always one of those things that, for me, is either irritating and repetitive or helps set an appropriate atmosphere. So far I think it's a great selection of tracks from a talented composer.

19

General Discussion / Re: Spelling & Grammar

« on: April 26, 2012, 11:27:43 PM »

I hate to do this, but before things get out of hand I'm going to lock this one. I just don't see what good can come of it.

Decent spelling and grammar are important for communication (and translation software), but this is an international forum, populated by people with all varieties of backgrounds and abilities.

Thanks for understanding. Sorry if I'm stepping on any toes here.

20

General Discussion / Re: Development time becoming worrisome.

« on: April 25, 2012, 05:34:16 PM »

New releases are spaced out for a few reasons. New features have to be mapped out carefully (since they interact with each other in so many ways), Alex likes to have as much polish as possible (meaning lots of test-fix-test-fix cycles even after a new feature is mechanically functional, then lots of tweaking to make it look and work well), and, well, he has a lot to do.

The forums are tremendously active now, and he has his hands full replying to e-mails, PMs, helping with purchase problems, discussing feedback -- you guys can imagine, I'm sure!

I definitely understand some of the fear, though. I own Cortex Command. Miner Wars. Project Zomboid. I've seen other promising projects grow, then die, before reaching their potential. Quite a few disappointments have marred the Indy gaming landscape in recent years. It isn't an unreasonable concern.

Alex does the best he can to keep everyone informed of what he's working on (and we all love those blog posts), but he has to divide his time between being a businessman, being a manager, being a programmer, being a game designer, being a PR fellow, and being a marketing exec. It's a tall order.

It's hard to be patient for a game like this. Believe me, I know about that, too.

The donation thing has come up before, and the best solution we have right now is the simplest one: buy another copy of the game, then give it away to a friend, or hold a little contest on a forum or blog and have Starfarer as the prize. Giveaways help the game reach more eyes AND adds some always-needed funding.

21

Announcements / Re: Welcome to the Forum

« on: April 25, 2012, 05:29:57 PM »

Hello there Seyfullah, and thanks for stopping in!

22

Announcements / Re: Starfarer 0.52a (In Development) - Live Patch Notes

« on: April 25, 2012, 05:28:15 PM »

Technically, the discussion should center on the live patch notes -- upcoming features and changes.

In reality, eh, as long as it's Starfarer related and Alex doesn't mind it ... well, discussions of this nature do tend to take some fairly divergent paths in short order.

Thanks for not letting the arguments get too out of hand. It's appreciated by everyone, especially when things get a bit heated. We're all civil ladies and gentlemen here. *adjusts monocle*

23

Discussions / Re: See ya.

« on: April 23, 2012, 08:18:16 PM »

Best of luck. Stay unnoticed until you get out of basic. 

24

General Discussion / Re: One year celebration for the forum :)

« on: April 21, 2012, 05:49:24 PM »

Hard to believe it's been a year already. Or nearly, at any rate. Wow.

25

General Discussion / Re: Forum Rank?

« on: April 17, 2012, 06:55:02 AM »

Unfortunately, this topic has drifted a bit too far away from Starfarer into something that has attracted a lot of senseless spam.

The forums are quite busy lately, so it's important that we keep discussion organized in a way that fans can easily find relevant information without needing to wade through too much "other" stuff.

In the future, it's likely that threads of this nature may be removed entirely (and post-counts modified accordingly). Thanks for understanding!

Locking for now.

26

General Discussion / Re: So, what other games is everyone else playing?

« on: March 05, 2012, 03:19:27 AM »

They need to do a proper remake of Alpha Centauri. What a great game. I always preferred it to Civ.

I've been playing Starfarer (of course), Dwarf Fortress, and re-playing Mass Effect 2 in anticipation of ME3. Was playing Wargame: European Escalation.

Crusader Kings 2 is on my "need to play" list. I actually bought it, just haven't gotten around to a serious playthrough yet. Loving it so far (Paradox did a great job getting it relatively bug-free).

I tried Kenshi, and I agree with powerbonger: fantastic idea, just not very "fun" right now. But, it's early days. On my watch list.

Grendel: TIE Fighter and I-War 2 are probably my favorite space combat games, followed closely by FreeSpace 2. I sunk so many hours into those games.

27

General Discussion / Re: Development Process

« on: March 05, 2012, 03:12:30 AM »

The time between .35a and .50a was pretty long -- a lot of new systems had to be built, tested, and adjusted, which took awhile. The sandbox/campaign layer was a huge part of that, as it needed to powerful enough to handle the huge list of planned features, but easy enough to work with that creating those new features wouldn't take too long. You're quite right, getting started (or adding a major feature) takes the most time.

The next release will be available much, much sooner. And believe me, I'm as excited as you are to play it! Not too long ...

28

General Discussion / Re: The Fractal Softworks Website

« on: March 05, 2012, 02:58:17 AM »

The focus right now is on the next release, and keeping up with bug reports and game feedback; the website is a "casualty" of limited time. Believe me, if the day were longer (or if we could clone Alex ...) it would be updated more often! I think we can all agree that the website is a very important marketing and information tool, so it won't be completely neglected for too long.

Alex has his plate full of important tasks: coding, reading the forums, keeping up with bug reports, reading feedback, answering e-mail and private messages, dealing with the business side ... the website just happens to be a little below those things in priority, but definitely still on the Important List.

Really appreciate your feedback on this, though! Thanks!

29

Modding / Re: Master of Orion (Starfarer version)

« on: March 04, 2012, 04:24:57 AM »

I started with MOO2, loved it so much. They really nailed the feel of that game, and it looked spectacular for the time (and not bad at all today). I recently bought it again at GOG (along with MOO).

After playing MOO, I can agree that it's an excellent game. In some ways better than MOO2!

I also ... uh ... experienced some sort of interactive spreadsheet that billed itself as the next game in the series. My children will know of this time as a darkness never to be given voice.

SOTS 1 was pretty good. I had a lot of fun with it. SOTS 2 is quite depressing.

I played GalCiv 2 (complete pack) for a long time, but it never sucked me in the way that MOO/MOO2 did. It seemed technically great, but lacked ... soul? Not saying it was bad, just that it wasn't great for me.

I need to try Armada 2526. That's been on my "should look at" list for a long time.

Distant Worlds is a very interesting game that I've not spent enough time in yet. It has a cool automation system that you can toggle on and off for all sorts of gameplay decisions -- like diplomacy, construction, colonization, combat etc. In other words, you can pretend to be a Space Admiral and leave your empire's decision in the hands of the AI. Or do the reverse. It's a neat idea.

Definitely watching this thread!

30

Suggestions / Re: the ability to trade with/help blockaid run fleets heading to station.

« on: March 04, 2012, 04:09:27 AM »

You're right about the first part --the communications system is there, it just doesn't have much in the way of options yet. I could easily see things like trading with merchant convoys ... or, you know, forcibly requesting a little donation to your missile resupply fund. All of which could tie in well with faction reputation.

The escort idea sounds really cool. I suppose there would need to be a time limit on it, otherwise you could drag them way out of their travel plans to the other side of the galaxy (which would be rather funny) while going about your own business; or maybe they would slow your fleet's overall speed down enough that you wouldn't want them there for too long. Interesting to think about.

I'm looking forward to the various interactions we'll have with the other fleets and factions. That sort of thing can add a lot to the feel of a universe.