Sorry for being away a few days. I was on SCO so long that Stardock’s software business needed some love. I’ll be catching up and answering questions. Lots of cool stuff coming up!
The idea here was that these ships are supposed to be a finite resource. I suspect we will end up creating a separate HP vs. CREW display in the future to make this more clear. But the idea is you’re salvaging the ships but they’re kind of on their last legs.
Makes sense. I just don’t want to lose that battlecruiser ;)
Some of you saw that v1.01 has gone live. We will probably be doing a v1.02 to add more quality of life improvements based on feedback.
I mentioned to Tom that it would almost be worthwhile to have a QT3 “early access” group because some of the things mentioned here are things that are super-easy to address (<1 hour) but never came up during the Founders beta. Not their fault but rather because of the demographic of founders (a little bit more hard-core).
Even the “pin system” was added very late and we almost didn’t have an auto-fight module fearing it was “dumbing down” the game.
The 1.02 stuff is expected to include things like:
- More details on what weapons do before equipping
- More details on the role of a given ship that you’ve found so you have a better idea of whether it’s worth using in battle (depending on the enemy).
- Tons of little UI improvements. I’m not sure if @tomchick has had a chance to play much but this is the kind of stuff he tends to like too. But as the game expands into more of the “open universe” experience we need to add a lot more player UX features to make it not just easier but more fun.
I’ll be posting a lot more shortly on that as more players finish the initial adventure.
Case in point!
And mind you, these ships are all relatively small compared to the Dreadnought, Juggernaught, Motherships which you once in awhile run into. Eventually (in the future) you will have fleets of those that will require a different battle mode (i.e. Starfleet battles style) but right now, in 2088, only the Scryve can put out a >400 meter ship and you only see a couple of those.
Yeah, they have some painful ones. Luckily the biggest I’ve run into so far had a terrible turn rate. So it was a matter of getting behind it and doing as much damage as possible and repeat until it was down. The juggernaut though, if that is the one I think it is, is a bit more nimble so that doesn’t work as easily.
Just curious, does the GOG version ever get updated? My version is 1.005284 and I haven’t seen get any updates. In my opinion if you sell a game on multiple storefronts you need to update the game on all storefronts at the same time. Anyway back to the game. I use dual monitors and generally play using mouse and keyboard. The problem I’m having is the mouse cursor isn’t locked to the game and keeps moving to the other screen. When this happens I lose focus on the game and generally I die because I need to move the cursor back on to the game, push a button to refocus and by the time that happens I’m dead. This game needs a mouse lock. Another suggestion, it would be nice is the lander cannon could be aimed by using the mouse. Not sure how you would do that with a controller, but I’m pretty sure it could be done.
Realistically, why would a developer do that? You have much needed fixes/changes that you want to rush out to your customers ASAP, especially in the crucial few days after release. You’re not going to make 90%+ of your customers wait so that you can get packaging done on all the platforms your game is sold on.
I don’t think you would be making anybody wait. If my understanding is correct once the patch is finished the developer needs to make the patch steam compatible. Since they would still have the original patch code why not create the GOG patch at the same time using a different computer?
Stardock isn’t the only developer that has GOG patches lag behind Steam, so I don’t think it’s that simple. I’m not a game developer so I don’t have any experience with Steam, but I have done a fair amount of packaging work. It’s likely not an issue of utilizing extra hardware, but rather getting your new update packaged and formatted in a way that each vendor needs. Then you want to make sure your QA team has a chance to go through their battery of tests on each platform that the patch is available on. And it’s not just testing that your new fixes went in, but you need to do your regression tests to make sure you didn’t inadvertently break something unrelated that was working previously.
With Steam commanding such a large percentage of the userbase, I can imagine that Steam may be Stardock’s default workflow and that’s where things start. That update then needs to be packaged for GOG or other platforms, tests run, etc.
GOG version gets official updates but we don’t really have a “Branch” system as far as I know on GOG. v1.01 should be on GOG now.
By mouse lock you been as in capturing the mouse cursor onto a particular monitor?
This has gotten buffed further in v1.01 as farming ships should be a viable $ path. ;)
Nice. Really enjoying this.
The issue is GOG. They wrap patches in their own installers for those who choose not to use Galaxy. After GOG does this they do a battery of QA testing to ensure their patcher correctly applies the update. Takes a few extra days.
Thanks for the replies about patching. I was wondering why GOG didn’t get patched like steam. I prefer GOG over steam because it’s drm free and I don’t need GOG galaxy to play the game.
Brad, what I mean about mouse lock is when I play a game in fullscreen I need to alt-tab to get the mouse to interact with any other programs I’m using. Borderless window works just like your game. I can move the mouse where ever I want without alt-tabbing. Star Control works the same whether it’s in fullscreen or borderless window. Since I default to using a mouse and keyboard (actually mouse and Logitech G13) having the cursor move to my second screen during a hectic moment I end up clicking on something that I may not want to in addition to losing focus on the game and dying a horrible death. I hope I explained it so you can understand, maybe someone else with dual monitors can explain it better then me.
It’s something that modders can do but we don’t have official support of it due to some camera polish work that would be needed. We do plan to offer it as an option outside of the adventure game but not as part of the adventure.
Dear Brad:
The Epsilon Fatum breadcrumbs need a lot of work. The player is tricked (by the logs) into thinking they have met the requirements for the [redacted] to appear in that system, when they haven’t. In my case, why in the world should I have to go through another Drenk dialogue about the [redacted, above] when the Menk, the Scryve, and the Measured have straight-up told me what’s going on and where the [redacted] is going to be? There has to be a better way to gate this and make it clear the player needs to talk to all parties involved.
Found a dead space fish long before I – the player – even knew what a space fish was. “Captain, we’ve found another dead space fish here”. Oh, ok.
There is a save-corruption bug whose presence can be noted when the player’s ship disappears (goes invisible) in the inner system map. Reloading a save doesn’t fix it. You have to restart the game and load a good save to fix it. Not sure when this occurs, but it’s happened to me three or so times.
The “hey, this planet is useless” toast works… once.
Still having a great time so far, though.
Interesting! What was the thought process that led to ditching wrap around maps? Just simpler, faster? Or was there a game design element that demanded it?
I’ve met all the homeworlds and the new thing happened. I’m done at this point. The writing was great and had me laughing multiple times. The gameplay itself is pretty weak though. I somehow didn’t play the other Star Controls (Genesis version of Star Flight FTW) so I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect. I found that the three main game systems (arcade fighting, vacuuming shiny bits and flying around the solar system completing quests/upgrading your ship) were way too shallow for my tastes. I wanted something closer to Space Rangers with great writing.
I just started playing this and I have 3 ships in my fleet. I also bought the AI upgrade. However, whenever any battle starts, my main ship fights. How do I use my fleet ships?