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[mauridadde]

I looked your old website, what is the "tempest class"

Was a low quality ship before i had a custom ship model

what happened between 11 06 2011 and 16 06 2013 were you didn't update the game it seems ? Maybe it's your personal life and I don't have to know, I just wonder if this could happen again. Kickstarter/indiegogo people would also like to be sure that this doesn't happen again

It could happen again until i receive money for the game. Once i have sold at least a copy i am committed to continue development.

Can you add a "borderless windowed" mode ?

I just released a new version.
For a borderless window add window_borders false to configuration.txt

[mauridadde]

From help.txt
Smaller is more penetrating but also less damaging. If it is too big most of the energy will be wasted as heat.
They can operate in 3 modes: Pulse (only this implemented), Blaster and Continuous
Pulse: A rapid series of pulses that have the effect of a drill
Blaster: A single big pulse that have the effect of a small explosion
Continuous: Usually only heat the target

"It is possible to set the dimension of the hit area on the target." "Smaller is more penetrating but also less damaging.", this is true for the hull but not the component right ? If set to the minimum it will do only a small hole in the hull but the component will be damaged as much as possible right ? "pulses left" have to be as high as possible to do the most damage to the component right ? If so, I'd like an option or something that by default all lasers have the minimum spot diameter. "pulses left" doesn't go higher than 99 because it's a percentage ?

Pulses left indicates how much pulses still have to arrive after the armor (or the component) have been pierced. Lasers are configured with 100 pulses so 90 pulses left means 10 pulse used.
Components use a simplified damage model respect to armors but works the same. If you set the area to the minimum the laser will make a small hole from side to side using a few pulses and the rest of the energy will be wasted in the infinity of space.
If you increase the area to have 1 pulse left you have a big hole from side to side. Increasing again the area will make the hole bigger but less deeper and also increase the fraction of energy converted to heat.

then I'd like to understand: let's say, 2000J with 50 pulses left does as much damage to the component than 10000J with 10 pulses left ?

If you mean total beam energy then each pulse have 1/100 of the energy. 20J*(100-50)=1000J and 100J*(100-10)=9000J. In the second case the laser "transfered" more energy on the target and probably did more damage.

Sometime some turrets "shake", you can see it slightly by looking at them and a lot by watching with their camera, does it use more energy or is it just a unimportant graphic bug ? Anyway it's not because of aiming adjustment, the target doesn't move and other turrets on the speeder don't shake.

I think it is a graphic bug but i have to see it to be sure.

[rex4]

Great update, thanks. Could you also add saving of difficulty and bonus of sandbox mode please ?

I never realized that some weapon slots could not rotate entirely, maybe make it more obvious or write it in the tutorial. Though, it shouldn't change anything for laser turrets since they can rotate upside down, but it's quite buggy: it doesn't try to rotate while it's possible to do it, by controlling manually it's possible despite the shaking it does if you try to move left/right while upside down, but then it doesn't shoot anyway. By disabling the 2 big rotation components it does go upside down and shoot like it should.

If you mean total beam energy then each pulse have 1/100 of the energy. 20J*(100-50)=1000J and 100J*(100-10)=9000J. In the second case the laser "transfered" more energy on the target and probably did more damage.

I think I understand now. What I meant was for the component behind the armor, not the armor itself, thus for the component it should be 1000J in both cases. I need to play more to make sure of that, but in the end it seems like someone willing to play perfectly would have to update the target area every single hit, using the armor simulator. Maybe later custom scripts would allow to do that.

What does armor color mean in the end ? Green is solid, grey is hole, but how do weapons react to yellow armors ?

If one isn't careful and right click on a weapon with no target selected, the game crashes.

"stop" function doesn't completely stop, it leaves 0.7 approach that I usually complete by pressing X and slowing down the game.

In refit screen what is "cruise warp" that always shows 0 ?

Another anormal gameplay thing I tried that I don't expect you to change, I'm just telling you: I had the idea of "disabling" a tower by preventing it from rotating by moving a missile just below it so it couldn't rotate as much anymore, like expected it didn't work because when 2 models are in each other one is teleported a bit further. Maybe by rotating very fast the weapon could explode the missile though but after all in normal gameplay the missile would have exploded simply by being fired here in first place.

[mauridadde]

Could you also add saving of difficulty and bonus of sandbox mode please ?

I think it is not necessary, the "new game" button is not used so frequently.

What does armor color mean in the end ? Green is solid, grey is hole, but how do weapons react to yellow armors ?

When armor is damaged there is an increasing chance that bullets ignore armor completely. And the armor ability to completely stop bullets undamaged is reduced.

In refit screen what is "cruise warp" that always shows 0 ?

If cruise speed is 0 it means that powerplants and/or radiators are not enough to warp at minimum speed.

[rex4]

I did a quick comparison of damage between 8 lasers firing at the same time and not, in first case with enough capacitors for all lasers, in the second case with only enough capacity for the most powerful laser. The result seems to be the same, is it like it should ? Maybe by firing at the same time it should be slightly more powerful in the same way that the not implemented yet continuous laser mode is less powerful than pulses.

Laser UV 1300 KW shows "Beam P used: 13MW" yet on stats on the right of refit screen I see "Weapons Power: 12.5MW".

I saw a powerplant life changing only by steps of 10k every few laser hits, that's quite odd. I'd also like to be able to see exact current like by selecting the component.

Life is component is green for 100%, yellow even at 99,9%, red when it's too damaged to work and grey at 0%, but what is orange exactly ?

What does happen when power demanded is higher than available ? Mainly when the capacitor is not fully charged, are radiators etc powered off to recharge it as fast as possible or only power left is used for it ? Maybe somehow it could be useful to choose. And the max is reached without capacitors being charged, like with a gyroscope half powered, a way to know current demanded power may be useful.

In the case of "Cruise warp: 0" the Minimum speed is above Cruise speed.

Only difference between green and yellow alerts are shields and capacitors, but since shields don't use capacitors and PD weapons are disabled I don't understand about the capacitors, even to have them ready so you can immediately fire with lasers seems exaggerated since missiles take a long time to reach the ship.

"You can trade one time only each wave." is not true.

[rex4]

"You can trade one time only each wave." is not true.

Nevermind it was because of dev_mode true. By the way without this I can't access "select battle" which now works.

[rex4]

How can I know the minimum warp modules I have to take to be able to warp ?

[mauridadde]

I did a quick comparison of damage between 8 lasers firing at the same time and not, in first case with enough capacitors for all lasers, in the second case with only enough capacity for the most powerful laser. The result seems to be the same, is it like it should ? Maybe by firing at the same time it should be slightly more powerful in the same way that the not implemented yet continuous laser mode is less powerful than pulses.

Each laser hit is independent and it is applied separately. Each laser beam has a duration of only 100 microseconds so it can be assumed that they does not hit all at the same time even if they are in the same physic step.

Laser UV 1300 KW shows "Beam P used: 13MW" yet on stats on the right of refit screen I see "Weapons Power: 12.5MW".

Different number rounding.

I saw a powerplant life changing only by steps of 10k every few laser hits, that's quite odd. I'd also like to be able to see exact current like by selecting the component.

Components window is refreshed every 0.1 seconds and/or rounding.

Life is component is green for 100%, yellow even at 99,9%, red when it's too damaged to work and grey at 0%, but what is orange exactly ?

Nothing special, orange means yellow but "near" red.

What does happen when power demanded is higher than available ? Mainly when the capacitor is not fully charged, are radiators etc powered off to recharge it as fast as possible or only power left is used for it ? Maybe somehow it could be useful to choose. And the max is reached without capacitors being charged, like with a gyroscope half powered, a way to know current demanded power may be useful.

Power is distributed by static priority, from first to last:
fuel tanks (tanks use zero power but in the future there will be anti matter containment)
cameras and bridge
radiators
engines (no extra power for gyroscopes)
warp engines (only power to stay online)
sensors
weapons (no extra power for gauss or lasers)
turret engines (only power to stay online)
ammo storage
shield generators (only power to stay online)
warp disruptors
cargo bays
crew quarters and life support
armors
turret engines (power to rotate)
gyroscopes (power to rotate)
warp engines (power to warp)
then remaing power is split 50/50 for capacitors and shields

Only difference between green and yellow alerts are shields and capacitors, but since shields don't use capacitors and PD weapons are disabled I don't understand about the capacitors, even to have them ready so you can immediately fire with lasers seems exaggerated since missiles take a long time to reach the ship.

Yes capacitors recharge quickly i will remove them from yellow alert.

How can I know the minimum warp modules I have to take to be able to warp ?

When "max warp" stat is higher than zero.

[rex4]

Turorial gives "UTF sequence" messages for when ship reach 45°. And unless the game bugged, the tutorial ends after the tips about battle, 1 month ago I felt a bit abandoned first once I beaten it, since I didn't notice the message about the money I gained I expected to have to get close to it in order to salvage it. Maybe add that now the enemy is defeated the player should either attack another enemy or refit with better weapons, and a message notifying that the tutorial is over.

For radiators, what does 3200KW in the title mean since even at 40° it uses only 238kw ?

On jupiter station I see on mouseover that meat of mars is cheaper but on mars I don't see a comparison with jupiter.

Once I wasn't able to detect a close enemy that was still close enough to be seen, my lasers kept shooting it.

Very weird behavior: I wanted to destroy weapons and PD then fire missiles as usual but I couldn't use missiles because the pod was damaged, so I destroyed his warp disruptor to go to a station to finish him: for some reason he followed me there (my guess is that despite he had no weapons left he tried to warp to me, instead of stopping warp, look at me and warp at me he tried to look at me without disabling warp, thus keeping doing circles around me, which became helix when I started to warp), I had to press the key to speed up the game many times because he kept switching it back to x1 then leave then come back etc. If it's not that hard to do, multiplayer could fix most AI problems since players themselves would play well and you wouldn't have to code a complex AI, the hardest part is to have good players though (or players at all ). And about time warp, like for orbiter 2010 multiplayer project there are ways to keep it anyway.

Somewhere I saw that the least damaged an enemy is when disabled, the more it values, so, when exactly is its value estimated, as soon as disabled or a few seconds later when the message appears ? This matters for when I launched too much missiles than needed, if it's of any use for me to destroy my own missiles once the enemy is disabled.

There should be a way to see current money when far from trade stations.

What means "Player [D]" ?

Found a serious exploit: start in sandbox, strip the ship, sell everything, buy a gladiator hull, load many times "gladiator combat nw": you gain 0.5M per load. I discovered this when trying to figure out the difference between "Load Class (no armor)" and "Load Class", there seem to be none yet.

I just discovered that maintaining right click in refit window allows smaller zooms, it's quite weird that it works there were it's not so useful while it doesn't otherwise.

[rex4]

So, I kinda played my first real game yesterday (without admin mode), I tried 2 times before but in first case I lost on second enemy and in second my fit was a mess so I was able to defeat only one enemy:

- Trade window is laggy, more than refit one, I can see it because my cursor become slow.

- I wanted to buy a lot of cheap items on Earth and sell them for more on Mars but comparing each item on mouse over, especially ammos, is annoying, maybe add another column with price comparison. I would also like if tooltips appeared without delay. In the end the best seems to move missiles from earth to mars for like 15M per go.

- Like expected more cargo require more warp power, so basically if I have 20M and want to take as much cargo as possible it's annoying to do: if I buy warp engines first they may be not enough once my cargo is full, if they are though they may be too powerful and thus I could have bough more cargo. There should be some ways to know exactly what engines I need, not trying them one by one by "dichotomia".

- I had 0.792 max warp and yet I couldn't warp.

- When the game is paused, disabling/reenabling shields/capacitors shouldn't deplete them. I happen to do this when what I want to able/disable is more close from an alert level than another.

- Once I had 3 warp disruptors enabled, yet a T5 could warp at 25km. The irony is that later I had a t9 and a mule that I couldn't finish so I just destroyed all their weapons and didn't activate disruptors: they didn't want to warp and used their thrusters instead, I have no idea why, maybe because I didn't fire missiles.

- Like for temperature a battery delta may be useful. Same with LH2/LOX and Shields. For all those and temperature, it would also be useful to have "time until full/empty:", in the case of temperature it would be 45°/as cool as currently possible.

- At the same moment nearly all ships went to a single point, the pirate station I guess, why that ? Nearly all ships have the same amount of LOX or something ?

- At one time I didn't pay attention and warped too close from Venus so I couldn't warp anymore, yet for some reason later while even closer I could warp, why ?

- Without right click to disable/enable components it would have been horrible to play, yet it can be improved, mainly I think that a right click on a radiator should enable/disable all radiators unless a double right click is done, same with warp disruptors, warp engines etc (probably not weapons).

- With one of the 2 LOX tanks damaged, Stat window showed "LOX: 197".

- When the game is paused and minimized, why is the game using 2% cpu from time to time ? It's very low and your game being well coded (not using unity3d help a LOT) it doesn't use gpu either when minimized so I don't even have to pause the game with cheat engine to pause the game like I said earlier (I just need a way to postpone windows update reboot demand for days), yet I wonder why it's not 0%.

- Since I had to wait a very long time for the 2 enemies slowly leaving in order to be able to time warp to recharge batteries and cool down, I let the game unpaused while doing something else. Somehow I was destroyed when I came back, I even had only 6% structure left, but since I let myself close from a trade station and stopped I could repair anyway, for around 35M on my 100M though. Maybe it's not intended that while completely destroyed you can repair anyway if luckily close enough from a station, if it is though I guess that the moment to do it is random: it's not possible to only repair some components, so just to know if enemies are bellow 50g require a full repair, and if without luck the pirate cruiser was here it will require another full repair soon, warping wouldn't help since he warp faster.

In my case, after repairing I could see a gladiator at 48g, for some reason despite my repair he didn't came back, maybe I was too cold to be detected (5°). Also it's quite weird that by repairing my batteries they went back to 100% because in that case I may want to destroy my own batteries somehow just to be able to instantly recharge them sometime.

- What is the distance that prevent time warp ? The t9 is now at 39.7M and yet I can't time warp.

- Earlier you said to prevent overheat "try to stay outside the orbit of Venus" why ? Is it more gasier than other planets and this gas is highly heated by the sun or something ?

[mauridadde]

For radiators, what does 3200KW in the title mean since even at 40° it uses only 238kw ?

3200KW is the max thermal energy transfer from ship to coolant, the electrical power required to transfer this energy is much smaller.
For that radiator the base power use is 4500W, then you have to add the power for heat transfer and the power to pump the coolant.
Note that the max radiated power from coolant to space may be higher or lower than 3200KW depending on the radiator surface.

On jupiter station I see on mouseover that meat of mars is cheaper but on mars I don't see a comparison with jupiter.

Probably while you traveled from jupiter to mars the price changed, became too similar and no longer profitable. If you traded meat that also influenced price.
To teleport from station to station use .ship.goto mars station

Once I wasn't able to detect a close enemy that was still close enough to be seen, my lasers kept shooting it.

In my test as soon as the square over the target disappears the lasers stop shooting.

Very weird behavior: I wanted to destroy weapons and PD then fire missiles as usual but I couldn't use missiles because the pod was damaged, so I destroyed his warp disruptor to go to a station to finish him: for some reason he followed me there (my guess is that despite he had no weapons left he tried to warp to me, instead of stopping warp, look at me and warp at me he tried to look at me without disabling warp, thus keeping doing circles around me, which became helix when I started to warp), I had to press the key to speed up the game many times because he kept switching it back to x1 then leave then come back etc.

Is weird, without weapons he shouldn't chase you.

If it's not that hard to do, multiplayer could fix most AI problems since players themselves would play well and you wouldn't have to code a complex AI, the hardest part is to have good players though (or players at all ). And about time warp, like for orbiter 2010 multiplayer project there are ways to keep it anyway.

Multiplayer is not trivial to implement and, unless there are as much players as "eve online", AI is still needed.

Somewhere I saw that the least damaged an enemy is when disabled, the more it values, so, when exactly is its value estimated, as soon as disabled or a few seconds later when the message appears ? This matters for when I launched too much missiles than needed, if it's of any use for me to destroy my own missiles once the enemy is disabled.

As soon as disabled, but i'm going to change it to make missile spam more risky.

What means "Player [D]" ?

[D] means warp disruptors are active.

Found a serious exploit: start in sandbox, strip the ship, sell everything, buy a gladiator hull, load many times "gladiator combat nw": you gain 0.5M per load. I discovered this when trying to figure out the difference between "Load Class (no armor)" and "Load Class", there seem to be none yet.

Bug confirmed.
"Load Class" try to change also hull armor. If you change your mind you can't undo the change of armor and get refunded, instead "Load Class (no armor)" can be completely reverted.

I just discovered that maintaining right click in refit window allows smaller zooms, it's quite weird that it works there were it's not so useful while it doesn't otherwise.

You are not zooming, you are moving forward the center of view, like dragging right button.

[mauridadde]

- Trade window is laggy, more than refit one, I can see it because my cursor become slow.

Has always been laggy or only sometimes?

- I had 0.792 max warp and yet I couldn't warp.

Gravity reduces warp engines performances and max warp is calculated in deep space, far from gravity wells. The planetary gravity near the station was enough to prevent the weak warp engines to enter warp.

- Once I had 3 warp disruptors enabled, yet a T5 could warp at 25km.

Was the disruptors active? activate and deactivate them with 'b'.

The irony is that later I had a t9 and a mule that I couldn't finish so I just destroyed all their weapons and didn't activate disruptors: they didn't want to warp and used their thrusters instead, I have no idea why, maybe because I didn't fire missiles.

Maybe damages prevented them from warping.

- At the same moment nearly all ships went to a single point, the pirate station I guess, why that ? Nearly all ships have the same amount of LOX or something ?

They all need a refuel about at the same time.

- At one time I didn't pay attention and warped too close from Venus so I couldn't warp anymore, yet for some reason later while even closer I could warp, why ?

More powerful warp engines or less mass.

- With one of the 2 LOX tanks damaged, Stat window showed "LOX: 197".

When a tank is damaged it does no longer contribute to the max fuel capacity stat but fuel is still inside so there can be a % higher than 100.

[mauridadde]

- When the game is paused and minimized, why is the game using 2% cpu from time to time ? It's very low and your game being well coded (not using unity3d help a LOT) it doesn't use gpu either when minimized so I don't even have to pause the game with cheat engine to pause the game like I said earlier (I just need a way to postpone windows update reboot demand for days), yet I wonder why it's not 0%.

It was setting up the scene for the rendering engine. I just improved it and now on my pc it stays at 0.20% paused and "unpaused just started a new game" at 1.9% 

Maybe it's not intended that while completely destroyed you can repair anyway if luckily close enough from a station,

Is intended.

it's not possible to only repair some components,

You can repair each component by right clicking on it in refit, if the component is damaged there is a repair button.

In my case, after repairing I could see a gladiator at 48g, for some reason despite my repair he didn't came back, maybe I was too cold to be detected (5°).

Probably too cold for thermal sensors.

Also it's quite weird that by repairing my batteries they went back to 100% because in that case I may want to destroy my own batteries somehow just to be able to instantly recharge them sometime.

Because before being damaged they were already at 100%.

- What is the distance that prevent time warp ? The t9 is now at 39.7M and yet I can't time warp.

You can't time warp when an enemy ship is not in warp AND is in red alert, even if it is very far.

- Earlier you said to prevent overheat "try to stay outside the orbit of Venus" why ? Is it more gasier than other planets and this gas is highly heated by the sun or something ?

Using other words: "try to stay farther from the sun than the radius of venus orbit".

[rex4]

Using other words: "try to stay farther from the sun than the radius of venus orbit".

Ok, I was starting to think that somehow it was hoter close from venus than mercury.

About the batteries, yes I didn't realize that they were full, afterall usually even with x125 it takes quite a long time to fill them.

[rex4]

"Was the disruptors active? activate and deactivate them with 'b'."
I never though I had to activate them, what could be the point to power them and not use them then ? Same with most components like thrusters, warp engines and probably others. For gyroscopes if I understand how they work I think they should not be usable at 100% as soon as powered, same could be done with thrusters and warp engines then.

"Maybe damages prevented them from warping."
No I damaged just their weapons. Given the amount of life of warp engines and how quickly I destroyed weapons, it's unlikely that lasers went through warp engines enough to damage them enough.

"More powerful warp engines or less mass."
I was just confused and for some reason I though that a positive approach meant I was getting closer.

"You can repair each component by right clicking on it in refit, if the component is damaged there is a repair button."
My bad, I even though about it before you replied.

"You can't time warp when an enemy ship is not in warp AND is in red alert, even if it is very far."
This can be a real problem in the case that one can't finish him yet, which incites to afk like I did to recharge batteries/cool/warp.
Yesterday I tried to finish this enemy (well I don't detect the mule anymore, I hope destroying the speeder only will allow me to time warp again anyway), your planet avoidance system once again caused me trouble and even if it didn't it would have been highly inefficient: basically, I was on the right of Venus, the speeder on top left so warping directly to it would have put me too close from Venus, so it warped me very very far bellow Venus, then quickly did probably 175°, to be way too close from Venus anyway.
Without LH2 or thrusters at all, one too close from a planet is stuck forever unless luckily the orbit is a good ellipse ? Or by buying first a station in order to come here to refit.