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[forsaken1111]

Very fun so far, and very challenging...I got wooped on the easy mission a few times before I finished it with a 91%

The others are being rather, hard on me...

How do I switch to another ship? How also can I give more detailed orders. Auto-fire is talked about in the tut, but I did not see it mention a key, what is it?

Thanks!

RTFM!

[alexm]

Very fun so far, and very challenging...I got wooped on the easy mission a few times before I finished it with a 91%

The others are being rather, hard on me...

Yeah, missions past the first one get rather tough.

How do I switch to another ship? How also can I give more detailed orders. Auto-fire is talked about in the tut, but I did not see it mention a key, what is it?

Tab to open warroom, left-click on ship, then press 'X' or the "Transfer Command" button to switch. Then watch the adorable command shuttle take you to the other ship. Ahem.

To toggle autofire, press Shift + <group number>.

Edit:

RTFM!

That works too There's a summary of controls right after the table of contents.

[Comp112]

Hm, alright thank you.

[ductape]

ok well, my order came in 1 hour and 30 minutes after payment, so thats not TOO bad but it will draw complaints from time to time.

I played it, heres my first impressions.

The graphics are AWESOME, its like Gratuitous Space Battle a bit but way cooler because your controlling stuff. And that the HARD part, theres a shit-ton of stuff going on and it takes some getting used to. Watching your flux and venting while trying to turn your fatty command ship to get your guns on some annoying frigate while being swarmed by fighters and trying to figure out where the hell your support ships are while switching back and forth between weapons as your targets use shields and vent flux. This is all good, it seems like its going to be a deep game and this is just the Alpha!

I dont know what Alex is gonna do with the meta game part since this is just the combat missions part (kinda like Transcendence on steroids), but with the War Room RTS bits and who knows what else, this game just might define a new genre. Nice innovation Alex and kudos to you guys for thinking outside the box a bit while at the same time doing something that is also solid and familiar.

One of my intital criticisms is that I often wish I could zoom out a bit more, sometimes theres just so many enemy ships on the wayfinder. Also, once ships are on screen, and things are getting crazy, I sometimes find it tough to discern who is an enemy and who is a friend; when they are on the wayfinder it is obvious.

Finally, theres a fair bit of polish for an alpha release, I say thumbs way up on this so far guys!

[muwahahaha]

Well, I downloaded it and played a few missions. Then went into my bedroom, got a pillow and screamed my excitement into it.

Then I decided to break the game.

I looked through the data files and, while it took me a little bit to understand how it works, I think I get the gist of it now. I opened weapon_data.csv in Open Office and then saved it again (open office doesn't save csv's properly for some reason) and tried to boot the game. As expected, it crashed. The log was saying that there was an illegal character (a semicolon), however the game just immediately crashed without any information. From this, I'd like to request that you add in a message or popup when the game fails to load properly, ideally with what the error is but at least saying to report it or check the log.

Other things: Probably just my computer but every now and then the game sound gets super choppy and repeats sounds (like when programs hang and the sound loops). This only goes for a few seconds before correcting.

Also, I've noticed that I'm unable to raise the shields on the Conquest and Enforcer class ships. It looks like the shields start to go up, I get the sound and the engine power drop as well as a tiny bar of shield appear in front of the ship, but almost immediately I get the 'shields down' sound and engine power goes back to full.

[alexm]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

ok well, my order came in 1 hour and 30 minutes after payment, so thats not TOO bad but it will draw complaints from time to time.

I played it, heres my first impressions.

The graphics are AWESOME, its like Gratuitous Space Battle a bit but way cooler because your controlling stuff. And that the HARD part, theres a shit-ton of stuff going on and it takes some getting used to. Watching your flux and venting while trying to turn your fatty command ship to get your guns on some annoying frigate while being swarmed by fighters and trying to figure out where the hell your support ships are while switching back and forth between weapons as your targets use shields and vent flux. This is all good, it seems like its going to be a deep game and this is just the Alpha!

I dont know what Alex is gonna do with the meta game part since this is just the combat missions part (kinda like Transcendence on steroids), but with the War Room RTS bits and who knows what else, this game just might define a new genre. Nice innovation Alex and kudos to you guys for thinking outside the box a bit while at the same time doing something that is also solid and familiar.

One of my intital criticisms is that I often wish I could zoom out a bit more, sometimes theres just so many enemy ships on the wayfinder. Also, once ships are on screen, and things are getting crazy, I sometimes find it tough to discern who is an enemy and who is a friend; when they are on the wayfinder it is obvious.

Finally, theres a fair bit of polish for an alpha release, I say thumbs way up on this so far guys!

Thank you for your kind words, really glad you like it!

Re: zooming
Have you tried pressing "Z" to toggle the (perhaps misnamed, since it has more to do with panning than zooming) zoom mode? It'll let you pan around a LOT more by moving the mouse.

[inteuniso]

At first, I was worried that this would be another few pages of discussion. BUT MY THIRST FOR GLORIOUS SPACE COMBAT SHALL BE QUENCHED THIS VERY NIGHT.

[alexm]

I looked through the data files and, while it took me a little bit to understand how it works, I think I get the gist of it now. I opened weapon_data.csv in Open Office and then saved it again (open office doesn't save csv's properly for some reason) and tried to boot the game. As expected, it crashed. The log was saying that there was an illegal character (a semicolon), however the game just immediately crashed without any information. From this, I'd like to request that you add in a message or popup when the game fails to load properly, ideally with what the error is but at least saying to report it or check the log.

Other things: Probably just my computer but every now and then the game sound gets super choppy and repeats sounds (like when programs hang and the sound loops). This only goes for a few seconds before correcting.

Whoa, I better watch out. At first I thought you were going to say "and then I edited <weapon X> to do 10 bazillion damage and owned everything", but this is much more refined And that's an excellent point. I hadn't really considered that "quietly dies" angle - this is going on my todo list right away.

Re: sound
Hmm, weird. Is the frame rate ok, or is it chugging?

If you're on windows, would you mind going to C:\WINDOWS\system32 and seeing if there's an OpenAL32.dll (or system\OpenAL64.dll, depending on your bitness)? Could be an old version there that gets picked up instead of the one that comes with the game and mucks things up. I've seen a few occasional issues w/ sound, but not quite like what you're describing.

[muwahahaha]

I looked through the data files and, while it took me a little bit to understand how it works, I think I get the gist of it now. I opened weapon_data.csv in Open Office and then saved it again (open office doesn't save csv's properly for some reason) and tried to boot the game. As expected, it crashed. The log was saying that there was an illegal character (a semicolon), however the game just immediately crashed without any information. From this, I'd like to request that you add in a message or popup when the game fails to load properly, ideally with what the error is but at least saying to report it or check the log.

Other things: Probably just my computer but every now and then the game sound gets super choppy and repeats sounds (like when programs hang and the sound loops). This only goes for a few seconds before correcting.

Whoa, I better watch out. At first I thought you were going to say "and then I edited <weapon X> to do 10 bazillion damage and owned everything", but this is much more refined And that's an excellent point. I hadn't really considered that "quietly dies" angle - this is going on my todo list right away.

Re: sound
Hmm, weird. Is the frame rate ok, or is it chugging?

If you're on windows, would you mind going to C:\WINDOWS\system32 and seeing if there's an OpenAL32.dll (or system\OpenAL64.dll, depending on your bitness)? Could be an old version there that gets picked up instead of the one that comes with the game and mucks things up. I've seen a few occasional issues w/ sound, but not quite like what you're describing.

My frame rate sits at a pretty constant 60 the whole way through the game, in fact, Starfarer doesn't really seem to use up that much of my system at all. The stuttering issue is a pretty rare one and doesn't seem to be linked to anything in particular, I had it happen twice in 5 minutes in a mission, then not once for the rest of the mission, I've had it happen on the main menu, in the briefing screen.

I have an OpenAL32.dll in both system32 and syswow64 (but oddly not 64 bit version despite using 64 bit windows). These versions are about 20 days older than the versions included with Starfarer.

[alexm]

My frame rate sits at a pretty constant 60 the whole way through the game, in fact, Starfarer doesn't really seem to use up that much of my system at all. The stuttering issue is a pretty rare one and doesn't seem to be linked to anything in particular, I had it happen twice in 5 minutes in a mission, then not once for the rest of the mission, I've had it happen on the main menu, in the briefing screen.

I have an OpenAL32.dll in both system32 and syswow64 (but oddly not 64 bit version despite using 64 bit windows). These versions are about 20 days older than the versions included with Starfarer.

Ok, thank you for checking - I'll keep an eye out for this happening. Good to hear it's running smoothly otherwise, though.

Edit: going to sleep. Will try to, anyway.

[Haschel]

Also, I've noticed that I'm unable to raise the shields on the Conquest and Enforcer class ships. It looks like the shields start to go up, I get the sound and the engine power drop as well as a tiny bar of shield appear in front of the ship, but almost immediately I get the 'shields down' sound and engine power goes back to full.

I didn't see a reply to this so I'll go ahead and fill it in, though I'm not entirely sure it's the right answer; There's two shield types, the regular omni-directional shield requires a single right click to activate/deactivate. The second shield type which seems to be for smaller ship classes is the frontal shield, hold down the right mouse button and it activates. Move the mouse around and the shield will move in that direction, and again you need to keep the button held down.

With that cleared up, I am a bit of a pansy. Any tips on ship deployment strategies? Is it generally best for the initial deployment to be your larger cruisers, then add smaller ships as reinforcements, or vice-versa?

[muwahahaha]

Also, I've noticed that I'm unable to raise the shields on the Conquest and Enforcer class ships. It looks like the shields start to go up, I get the sound and the engine power drop as well as a tiny bar of shield appear in front of the ship, but almost immediately I get the 'shields down' sound and engine power goes back to full.

I didn't see a reply to this so I'll go ahead and fill it in, though I'm not entirely sure it's the right answer; There's two shield types, the regular omni-directional shield requires a single right click to activate/deactivate. The second shield type which seems to be for smaller ship classes is the frontal shield, hold down the right mouse button and it activates. Move the mouse around and the shield will move in that direction, and again you need to keep the button held down.

With that cleared up, I am a bit of a pansy. Any tips on ship deployment strategies? Is it generally best for the initial deployment to be your larger cruisers, then add smaller ships as reinforcements, or vice-versa?

Derp to me, although I think you got the shield types backward. According to the data files, both the Enforcer and Conquest ships have omni directional shields, while something like the Apogee has a frontal (single click) shield.

Speaking of the data files, I decided to break the game some more, I set the Apogee to have -9000 health. When the mission loaded I was stuck outside the map unable to move but completely intact. I'm going to see if I can shoot the ship some and test how it responds.

[alexm]

Right and right. You guys got it figured out

With that cleared up, I am a bit of a pansy. Any tips on ship deployment strategies? Is it generally best for the initial deployment to be your larger cruisers, then add smaller ships as reinforcements, or vice-versa?

Usually good to deploy small (or rather, fast) ships early so they can cap some objectives quickly, and then you use the fleet points gained from capping to bring in your heavier ships as a 2nd wave.

Speaking of the data files, I decided to break the game some more, I set the Apogee to have -9000 health. When the mission loaded I was stuck outside the map unable to move but completely intact. I'm going to see if I can shoot the ship some and test how it responds.

Heheh, fun stuff. It'll probably blow up. Negative health would make it dead while bypassing the actual transition from alive to dead, but an extra hit should do that. Once it gets past the armor and damages the hull, anyway.

Ok, *really* going to sleep now

[Greiger]

Muahaha just beat the last mission on the list.  The sinking the Onslaught one.  For some reason I find flying around these little jerky and quick small ships a lot easier than the big guys.  Though that is likely by design.

As for beating that mission it seems to just be a matter of pounding the same spot on the rear end of it over and over first with the torpedoes then with your antimatter cannons until it goes down.  Keeping the shields up and trying to come in at an angle when attacking and then peeling off after you fired your shot dropping your shield once at a safe distance and letting your flux go away while having your PD on auto to protect yourself (and your buddies when you have the opportunity) from those killer missiles.

Also it helps to order your drones to repair and refit each time they make an attack run.  They really don't stand a chance against the sheer amount of danmaku sent their way for a second run without a refit.  Especially when yer not making your run at the same time and drawing some fire.  And for god's sake, stay the hell away from the front of the thing.

I actually found that mission to be easier than the second one.  I still can't beat that second one, though I do get really close.

[muwahahaha]

Well, I tried to transfer to another ship to hit my negative health flagship, but as soon as I did that the main ship simply disappeared off the map, making it unselectable and untargetable. However, it was still counted as deployed.

Also, it's worth noting that if you put an illegal weapon into the same slot as an existing, legal weapon in a variant, the game will ignore the illegal one, but will add the legal one to whatever group you were trying to put the illegal one into.

In addition, if you delete one of the default variants from the folder, the game seems to have it's own backup that it will load.