Hold your breath and Count to Ten...I try to be a pretty open, and brave, guy. I let Sean sit around in the Beta channel while we worked even though he wasn't a beta tester, see a stream of the game, live, while we're still in-between late alpha and early beta, with an informal,
spoken, NDA, before we really hit our big phase of advertisement (something most developers would be scared half-to-death to do), and talked openly with him about the game and its challenges and goals -- all before we even accepted him as a beta tester (which he still isn't).
Sean: Asking me what I thought about you posting up what you saw of the game wouldn't have been a big deal. We would've talked, I would clarify stuff, you might have posted it, but now I have to make all this hooplah, do all this typing, and I haven't even had breakfast yet -- I don't relish having to call you on the carpet like this either. You knew you were effectively under an informal NDA (Which may have been too trusting of me but I said that you were under one before I streamed the game ) and I'm very dissapointed that you broke it.
Your posts put me in a very uncomfortable and awkward position both with my boss and my desire to try to not do 'closed-window development' as some studios tend to. I and ThyReaper do not mind information about Star Ruler being put out there for people to see (with our prior, expressed, permission, of course); we mind
incorrect, misleading, or incomplete information about Star Ruler going out for people to see (and then copy-pasted to friends, and then being mass circulated in such a way that we can't possibly correct the misinformation if the person, and those who the person copy-pasted to, no longer care about the title and so don't see our corrections).
So, with all that said, let's clear the air on this whole messy business and I'll grab a bowl of cereal.
DiplomacyYou didn't see Diplomacy or any of the other systems because though they are functional, if a little barebones at this exact moment, we're still doing framework coding before we implement an user interface to them and, though we are very close to opening up that system to our testers, treaties you make with other Empires are complicated and inter-relational. Before we put that out we must provide a streamlined means to interact with those portions of the game while ensuring that they aren't: overpowered, overcomplicated, cumbersome, and so on.
Much Ado about Ship DesignThere's not even a meaningful outline or anything
In essence, we currently do not provide an outline because we do not presume what a player wishes to build when they go into the ship layout editor. This is not to say that we haven't discussed some sort of auto-fill system button that allows rapid prototyping; just that said feature is not available at this time to testers. There will be an in-game tutorial which covers ship construction through the layout editor at the very least.
All that is necessary to build a ship in Star Ruler without having played it before is a basic understanding of how the parts interrelate (engines need a fuel and something to control them, fuel needs something to be put in, control systems need power and/or crew, crew need air to breathe and a space to stow their gear and sleep, power systems need a fuel of some kind and a control system of some kind, and so on), the knowledge that ships can be scaled and what scaling up a ship does to the parts in it, how to generically interact with the game, maybe five to ten minutes of patience and investigation, an idea for a ship, and a willingness to try out new things.
We also have other tools which are available:
There is a ship image in the background of the currently functional, un-streamlined, and non-graphically 'robust' ship design interface to indicate the direction of the ship relative to the parts you are adding. Further, the warning/error/guidance system lets you do your work but reminds you if you are missing things that you may want or need (engines, fuel, power, control systems, etc.). As the design I made was completed it had none of these errors/warnings/guidance displayed as the ship was 'good enough' to the W/E/G system as it could move about without issue, which may be why you don't believe we have 'guidance' systems in play.
arbitrarily-sized circles
Subsystems are created with a default scale of 1.0 and are scaled up or down, individually, by the player. What you saw was a completed design which I loaded from my profile directory - their systems had already been scaled but their size is not 'hardcoded' by any means as some people may infer from that specific comment.
and you'd hardly understand what does what.
Each subsystem has its own unique graphic tied to it and similar subsystems have a similar background; weapons have red backgrounds and shields have purple backgrounds, for instance. Further, when a subsystem is moused over a window is displayed which indicates both what you're pointing at and what it adds to the ship; when the + or - handles on a subsystem are pointed at we show a delta screen which shows what impact increasing or decreasing the scale of the subsystem would have. We also will have a way to rotate the subsystem, display its firing arc, specify whether it is spinal or turreted, and other such things. In addition to these features, the list to the left of the design interface has a categorized parts list split into sections such as 'Support Systems, Engines, Weapons, Defense Systems, Hulls' and so forth. The SubSystems available to you are stored there and may be grabbed with ease. When any subsystem in the parts list is moused over we show a screen showing the subsystem, its level, its description, the advantages and disadvantages it brings to your ship, sometimes a tip regarding its optimal usage, and then the stats the subsystem has at default size (as distinct to when they are a part of the design, where we show how much they currently are providing at the scale the user has put them at).
Somehow the component selection was in a separate screen... I didn't get that part.
Again, the ship design system is not fully implemented and is still prone to change before the final build. There are two modes to the ship design system at this time, their current functionality detailed further up. The components do not 'go away', the subsystems you saw in the Design mode of the ship designer were the same subsystems in the Layout mode. The parts list remains visible at all times so that subsystems may be added with ease. The Design section lets you rapidly design and your ship and immediately see any ship-wide design faults and the Layout section lets you place, scale, rotate, and link your components (the Design section does allow you to scale up/down and remove subsystems as well, to be clear).
Beta Tester Waves, and YouSo do you get a beta testing denied email? i sent a application long time ago.
Though we have not yet accepted anyone new into the beta yet we will review those applications and keep them in our database and select from them every time a new wave is about to hit until we reach our final beta wave. Which means, essentially, that if you did not get a rejection e-mail and if you do not get into the next beta wave (if you are getting into the next beta wave, you will be informed the moment that that wave goes live) that we are considering putting you into a later beta wave.
TrustYou can trust us not to laugh at you.
Yeah, I know. I just believe the rest of the internet who may directly link to information in this thread without warning may not be as accepting of our non-final-build status or as patient as the DF community might.
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Topic: Star Ruler: Thats no Moon! (Read 175036 times)