That is always one of the downsides of how incredibly unique/weird their engine works. They definitely have to deal with wacky bugs after each big release.
If you watch Sean’s gdc talk the other year about how complicated just putting a hud marker on something is simply because of how the whole thing functions, that’s another reason why I’m still impressed when they can still find ways to make the whole thing better. I can only imagine how painful it is to track some of these interactions down in such a weird system.
Well, then maybe the game shouldn’t be out. And that’s 2 years later.
I’m a software developer. I understand the development cycle and trying to ensure quality. I also understand having to build on top of what they first released. But they have had time and major updates since. Save game destroying bug after save game destroying bug is not ok. It’s not a cute quirk that shows off how incredibly unique/weird their engine is. It certainly doesn’t want to make me risk my very limited gaming time. If I lost 20 hours of play, it would be a disaster for me. I’d probably never go back to it.
Guess I’ll do something else this weekend.
I’m not saying it’s great, especially when it impacts the players. I’m just saying that there’s no other games that function the way this does, so I understood when stuff breaks and they’ve been very good about fixing it when it does.
Timex
3274
I’m not sure I see what is so fundamentally different about this game than other games which would result in these kinds of catastrophic bugs.
That should help you understand in a general way. I find it quite interesting.
But the tldr is that they generated the universe and the game engine itself is basically decoding it on the fly using multiple layers of rules. So even something as simple as a hud marker on a building is kind of crazy to calculate because if it’s not in view it literally doesn’t exist yet to your game client. This is a consequence of procedural generation being the foundation of the game, but also why it could be made by approximately 6 nerds in a room and not require terabytes of space.
Timex
3276
Heh, yeah, I understand how procedural generation works. However, that’s not really a reason why you have these catastrophic bugs, because even in the absolute worst case, you can simply check for stuff like crap not existing and… not explode. It might be more complex to just fix everything up, but simply not totally destroying a save file when stuff is missing isn’t some kind of impossible task.
Given the complexity and their (still) small team size, I just enjoy checking out new features and then wait a bit while they squash the bugs. It sucks, but they always pump out fixes and all things considered I feel like they do a good job of it.
I can think of reams of supposedly AAA games with more persistent issues with ten times the personnel and using completely traditional engines that are far less effective at fixing things in a timely manner.
Timex
3278
I give the guy credit for doing something cool, and doing his own thing. We need more of that. But at some point you gotta put on the big boy pants and not push out a patch that corrupts everyone’s save game. There’s a point where you need to start doing the boring work on just managing your releases and testing stuff out.
I mean, he sold a bunch of copies of this game, right? They have some money, presumably. They don’t have to be 6 guys working in a garage at this point.
That being said, of course big companies do this shit too. I seem to recall CCP pushing out an update to EvE which was bricking peoples’ computers.
DeepT
3279
How do you repair frigats? One of mine is damaged. I googled this and it said to fly out to the frigate and you get an option to repair it or something. When leaving my freighter, I do not see any frigates around to repair.
Did you send any of them on a mission?
Had a similar thing happen to me. I just went to another planet, summoned my freighter and it was there.
Well, in bug news, I have the Overseer’s sightseeing quest twice in my log. I wonder if it’ll work itself out? He asked for a picture of a desert planet which I thought means hot and it doesn’t work. Maybe he means a desert-“ed” planet, i.e. a lifeless one? Well that’s what one of the quests wants anyway, the other one wants a tropical planet, that should be more obvious.
I think it’s the ‘barren’ type planet. Generally they have cactuses!
DeepT
3284
I figured out the whole extreme environment progression thing. Basically you need to be on a planet where the normal reading for something like temperature is reading as extreme. This is without any storms going on.
Then you can just hang out in a cave and level up extreme survival.
When they are ‘extreme’ it is in red text when you exit your ship. It could be either the weather or sentinels to qualify as extreme.
A question about moons: do you have to spot them with the old Mark 1 eyeball or does the HUD show them as undiscovered or whatever till you scan them (if they’re in your line of sight)?
Grifman
3288
I just discovered a creepy system. The space station was abandoned, all black and red inside. One planet was pretty barren except for my first emeril, but the second was full of gravatino balls and sentinels that were immediately hostile. And there were more of them in space trying to attack me. I left that dead system and moved on. Very eerie.
milspec
3289
This game is popular with my friends on Steam. Anything that hits 500 hours total played in two weeks is popular. This is up to 650 hours.
When I glance at my Steam friends list during “normal” gaming times I see a half-dozen or more people playing.
Is there any way to get rid of a base? Also, any way to rename a base so I can remember which ones are which?
