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Author Topic: Starfarer 0.53a (Released) Patch Notes  (Read 368076 times)

WarStalkeR

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Re: Starfarer 0.53a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #330 on: July 07, 2012, 04:34:19 AM »

My question to Alex was buried under great amount of posts in this topic and left unanswered, I will just repeat it :)

1) Will I be able to put more then one system per ship?
2) Will I be able to make hull mods to add another system on ship per installation?
3) Do you intend to add cloaking, stealth and other cover ops related stuff?
4) Do you intend to add drive, engines, teleportation inhibition stuff?
5) Do you intend to add weapon jamming and missile jammers/redirectors?
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Alex

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Re: Starfarer 0.53a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #331 on: July 07, 2012, 08:49:31 AM »

My question to Alex was buried under great amount of posts in this topic and left unanswered, I will just repeat it :)

Hey there - my apologies, I did indeed miss your questions.

1) Will I be able to put more then one system per ship?
2) Will I be able to make hull mods to add another system on ship per installation?
3) Do you intend to add cloaking, stealth and other cover ops related stuff?
4) Do you intend to add drive, engines, teleportation inhibition stuff?
5) Do you intend to add weapon jamming and missile jammers/redirectors?

1 & 2: no.

3: Cloaking, technically yes, but it might not be quite what you'd expect. As for non-combat stealth, that's TBD.

4: Not at this point - in general, I think you have to be careful about adding things that directly affect another ship. Remember, chances are the player will be on the receiving end of it at some point, too - so it has to be very clear visually and have ways to be countered. In some sense, this is already in the game - you shoot up another ship, and its weapons/engines can go offline. You overload it, its systems go offline. I'm not sold on the benefits of having a parallel system to do this, though don't take it as a 100% no.

5: Refer to #4 to a degree. Flares act like much like missile jammers, btw, and so does the EMP system - so that'll be in the game, though perhaps not quite like you were envisioning.
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Faiter119

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Re: Starfarer 0.53a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #332 on: July 07, 2012, 03:34:54 PM »

Alex, could you tell us how far the Skimmer teleports your ship? To the edge of your screen or what?
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Alex

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Re: Starfarer 0.53a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #333 on: July 07, 2012, 09:28:03 PM »

Alex, could you tell us how far the Skimmer teleports your ship? To the edge of your screen or what?

300 pixels (at default zoom) in the direction that the ship is going. Or, if it's not moving, in the direction that it's facing. It'll also come out of the skim facing the closest enemy ship (or the targeted enemy ship), if it's nearby.
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Vandala

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Re: Starfarer 0.53a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #334 on: July 07, 2012, 09:31:35 PM »

Alex, could you tell us how far the Skimmer teleports your ship? To the edge of your screen or what?

300 pixels (at default zoom) in the direction that the ship is going. Or, if it's not moving, in the direction that it's facing. It'll also come out of the skim facing the closest enemy ship (or the targeted enemy ship), if it's nearby.
Interesting, does the Phase Teleporter have a similar mechanic?

Alex

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Re: Starfarer 0.53a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #335 on: July 07, 2012, 09:32:15 PM »

Yep.
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Faiter119

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Re: Starfarer 0.53a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #336 on: July 08, 2012, 03:05:50 AM »

Ohh nice. Making it even easier to use it as a strike mechanic.
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WarStalkeR

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Re: Starfarer 0.53a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #337 on: July 08, 2012, 03:25:44 AM »

1) Will I be able to put more then one system per ship?
2) Will I be able to make hull mods to add another system on ship per installation?
3) Do you intend to add cloaking, stealth and other cover ops related stuff?
4) Do you intend to add drive, engines, teleportation inhibition stuff?
5) Do you intend to add weapon jamming and missile jammers/redirectors?

1 & 2: no.
This is bad news :(

3: Cloaking, technically yes, but it might not be quite what you'd expect. As for non-combat stealth, that's TBD.
Well, I spoke about combat one, like in SPAZ.

4: Not at this point - in general, I think you have to be careful about adding things that directly affect another ship. Remember, chances are the player will be on the receiving end of it at some point, too - so it has to be very clear visually and have ways to be countered. In some sense, this is already in the game - you shoot up another ship, and its weapons/engines can go offline. You overload it, its systems go offline. I'm not sold on the benefits of having a parallel system to do this, though don't take it as a 100% no.
You need to play an EVE Online for little bit to understand benefits of parallel systems, actually CCP done great job on Electronic Warfare section, it's really good example for all space games, who want to implement EWAR. The more possibilities you will give to ships, the more interesting and tactical Starfarer will be.

5: Refer to #4 to a degree. Flares act like much like missile jammers, btw, and so does the EMP system - so that'll be in the game, though perhaps not quite like you were envisioning.
Well there is great difference between flare, missile jammer/redirector. Flares just make missile follow them, Missile Jammer/Redirector alternates missile destination with beam/wave.
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BillyRueben

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Re: Starfarer 0.53a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #338 on: July 08, 2012, 06:58:14 AM »

I actually like that ship systems only have one per hull and that those systems are exclusive to the ships they are on. It adds diversity to the ships.

Cloaking I can take or leave. It annoyed me in SPAZ because the AI wasn't very good with it.

As for the EWAR, it would be cool, but it really isn't needed.
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James Sullivan

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Re: Starfarer 0.53a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #339 on: July 08, 2012, 07:50:25 AM »

I think it would be far too complicated to manage multiple systems on a ship. How would you swap between them and how the hell would you balance something like that?
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Alex

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Re: Starfarer 0.53a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #340 on: July 08, 2012, 08:52:30 AM »

You need to play an EVE Online for little bit to understand benefits of parallel systems, actually CCP done great job on Electronic Warfare section, it's really good example for all space games, who want to implement EWAR.

I don't think whether something works in EVE - a PVP focused game with very different combat mechanics and pacing - has much relevance to whether it will work in Starfarer.

The more possibilities you will give to ships, the more interesting and tactical Starfarer will be.

This actually isn't true. Since it's all vs the AI, there's no metagame going on, and if there's a combination of things you can do that games the AI very badly, it'll make the game less interesting and tactical. This kind of thing becomes more likely as the game becomes more complex.

Having a more robust AI operate within a smaller set of rules/mechanics is, imo, preferable to having a poorer AI and a larger set of mechanics. Since there's no magic, those really are the two options - "as robust an AI with a larger set of mechanics" isn't one of the choices :)

Heck, just adding *one* system per ship is challenging enough on that front.


Edit: the above could be read as saying that more features is always bad - clearly, that's not the case, or you wouldn't have any features at all, and a very robust AI that was great at doing nothing. As with everything, one has to balance the two. So, what I'm really saying is that "more features = better" isn't always true, rather than always untrue. Which, nonetheless, is enough to hamper its usefulness as an argument for adding features.
« Last Edit: July 08, 2012, 08:59:28 AM by Alex »
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Faiter119

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Re: Starfarer 0.53a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #341 on: July 08, 2012, 08:58:58 AM »

Hey Alex, since you are so kindly answering questions. Any ETA on the patch?

And "SoonTm is not a proper answer.
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sdmike1

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Re: Starfarer 0.53a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #342 on: July 08, 2012, 08:59:38 AM »

yes it is  ;) it  will be done when it is ready

Alex

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Re: Starfarer 0.53a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #343 on: July 08, 2012, 09:05:36 AM »

Hey Alex, since you are so kindly answering questions. Any ETA on the patch?

And "SoonTm is not a proper answer.

It's always Soon(tm) - because I don't want to be in the position of picking between 1) having to release something that's not ready and 2) not following through on what I promised.

Yeah, you might say it's just an ETA, but that's not how people tend to look at it. Before you know it, it gets reposted somewhere else (without any qualifiers I might attach to it, like "maybe", "if X goes well", etc), and there you go.
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theSONY

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Re: Starfarer 0.53a (In Development) Patch Notes
« Reply #344 on: July 08, 2012, 09:32:38 AM »

so Alex, whats the progress in % ?
common man , give us HOPE or something, don't run on bahamas or North Pole with our money :D
 
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