Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[inteuniso]

Thank you Alex. You are a great developer for any modder. I'm currently learning Java, and you have no idea how great it is to have a game I love to work on. It's a great learning experience, especially with your code extremely well organized and commented.

You are a great developer Alex. If only all developers could be like you.

[alexm]

Thank you Alex. You are a great developer for any modder. I'm currently learning Java, and you have no idea how great it is to have a game I love to work on. It's a great learning experience, especially with your code extremely well organized and commented.

You are a great developer Alex. If only all developers could be like you.

Holy crap, thank you Just what I needed to hear, what with the order form debacle making me gray before my time and all.

I'm guessing you got the issue figured out?

[SeaBee]

The way you're handling that debacle, though, is as classy as it can be.

Thank you Alex. You are a great developer for any modder. I'm currently learning Java, and you have no idea how great it is to have a game I love to work on. It's a great learning experience, especially with your code extremely well organized and commented.

You are a great developer Alex. If only all developers could be like you.

You know, I'm trying to learn Java myself. I'm currently taking Stanford's free CS106A (Computer Science: Programming Methodologies) which uses Java, learning a great deal. The next few classes are in C/C++, but I'm enjoying Java a lot. And I agree with you -- Alex's code is just what the professor (who is awesome) tells the students to do to keep code organized and well-documented.

My personal plan is to take all the Computer Science stuff I can find for free, then focus on Java as a programming language. Having an amazing game to mod/tweak will make the entire experience all the better. I'm still thrilled that Starfarer has a moding API during the alpha!

To summarize: you are a great dev, and an inspiration to curious hobbyists like myself. It's a shame that BMT Micro has kind of dropped the ball here, but maybe it's a good thing, too ... get all the kinks out of the system early rather than on the official, full-version release day. Still, though, massive pain in the butt for you.

[alexm]

You know, I'm trying to learn Java myself. I'm currently taking Stanford's free CS106A (Computer Science: Programming Methodologies) which uses Java, learning a great deal. The next few classes are in C/C++, but I'm enjoying Java a lot. And I agree with you -- Alex's code is just what the professor (who is awesome) tells the students to do to keep code organized and well-documented.

My personal plan is to take all the Computer Science stuff I can find for free, then focus on Java as a programming language. Having an amazing game to mod/tweak will make the entire experience all the better. I'm still thrilled that Starfarer has a moding API during the alpha!

It's probably good to take some C/C++ along the way. That way you can appreciate (and not misuse!) what Java gives you, especially in terms of memory management. But yeah, code quality wise, let's just say the the modding API is putting up a brave front. You do not want to know what manner of vile things go on behind the curtain. But hey, that's why they have API's

It's a shame that BMT Micro has kind of dropped the ball here, but maybe it's a good thing, too ... get all the kinks out of the system early rather than on the official, full-version release day. Still, though, massive pain in the butt for you.

Yeah, much better now than the day after a review or some such.

[Flare]

I replaced the ship ID in the mission description file of turning the tables, and the game seems to crash on me whenever I try to start. Is this current version not supportive of modding the files, or am I doing something wrong?

Also, anyone have some tips and tactics? I can complete the missions, but for most cases it's usually due to bad luck on the AI part rather than my plans succeeding.

[alexm]

I replaced the ship ID in the mission description file of turning the tables, and the game seems to crash on me whenever I try to start. Is this current version not supportive of modding the files, or am I doing something wrong?

You're doing it wrong Post the changed parts?

[Qloos]

Albiet the game is still great fun.  I find, now, the most frustrating thing is trying to play the RTS and Action portions of the game at the same time.

>Turn a bit left
>fire
>vent flux
>PAUSE
>Observe tactical map
>Order units to new locations
>UNPAUSE
>Finish venting flux
>Hit the brakes
>Raise shields
>PAUSE
>Observe tactical map
>Order units to new locations
>UNPAUSE
>Repeat

The action is intruding on my calm calculating mind and the strategy is interupting the tense space battle action.

[SeaBee]

It's probably good to take some C/C++ along the way. That way you can appreciate (and not misuse!) what Java gives you, especially in terms of memory management. But yeah, code quality wise, let's just say the the modding API is putting up a brave front. You do not want to know what manner of vile things go on behind the curtain. But hey, that's why they have API's

Thanks for the feedback and interest -- that's what I'll do. Going to take all the computer science stuff I can before focusing on Java as a language, including the courses that cover C/C++. Can't hurt to get closer to the metal and see just what is happening under the magical hood. 

I replaced the ship ID in the mission description file of turning the tables, and the game seems to crash on me whenever I try to start. Is this current version not supportive of modding the files, or am I doing something wrong?

Maybe we Starfarer fans can put together a player-built tutorial or wiki for this kind of thing. Although the API is well documented, some folks would rather see a step-by-step "how to."

The action is intruding on my calm calculating mind and the strategy is interupting the tense space battle action.

It's funny, I keep wanting to hit Space (Baldur's Gate et. al.) to pause and consider my options / review the war room data. I know what you mean, though, the combat is so fun and intense that it's hard to pull away from it to make sure my buddies are in good shape. At least I'm getting better at venting flux!

[alexm]

Albiet the game is still great fun.  I find, now, the most frustrating thing is trying to play the RTS and Action portions of the game at the same time.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

>Turn a bit left
>fire
>vent flux
>PAUSE
>Observe tactical map
>Order units to new locations
>UNPAUSE
>Finish venting flux
>Hit the brakes
>Raise shields
>PAUSE
>Observe tactical map
>Order units to new locations
>UNPAUSE
>Repeat

The action is intruding on my calm calculating mind and the strategy is interupting the tense space battle action.

That's a really good point. I think a couple of things will help with that as the game progresses.

If you're the one putting together your own fleet, you can pick ships that suit your inclinations more. For example, if you want to focus on action, you can pick ships that are more durable/versatile and need less babystitting. For a more strategic approach, specialized ships could work better. In fact, your fleet might have both types of ships - and you can employ whichever ones suit your mood.

Also, the number of orders you can give is likely to be limited by your character's Command skill. That was already in at one point, but ended up being cut out of this alpha release.

The other compoment of this is the AI. I think for certain ships right now, it's quite good at surviving and not needing much attention - for example, the Tempest-class Attack Frigates in "Hornet's Nest" can survive for a long time against superior firepower. For some other ships (say, the Sunder-class Fire Support Destroyers in "The Last Hurrah"), it's not so good at it. It's going to improve, and that should also help with not needing to switch to the warroom as often for optimal play.

Personally, I tend to give a relatively small number of orders, but actually enjoy the little breaks from the action. Are you using # keys to select battlegroups, and keyboard shortcuts for orders, btw? Without those, I can see how it would get tedious to click so much.

I replaced the ship ID in the mission description file of turning the tables, and the game seems to crash on me whenever I try to start. Is this current version not supportive of modding the files, or am I doing something wrong?

Maybe we Starfarer fans can put together a player-built tutorial or wiki for this kind of thing. Although the API is well documented, some folks would rather see a step-by-step "how to."

That would be just awesome. I can tell you that anyone involved in that would have my full support, not to mention gratitude.

[Qloos]

I am using fleet groupings and hotkeys, (I still need to check which button does what though.)  However, often I need to send a single ship in a group off on some errant run to target some single unit of interceptors and so forth.  This removes it from the fleet group.  It should complete that one action and then return to it's normal fleet group duties, or return to normal fleet duties when the fleet as a whole gets a new order.

Having to re-add it to the fleet after every sub order is tedius.

[Flare]

I replaced the ship ID in the mission description file of turning the tables, and the game seems to crash on me whenever I try to start. Is this current version not supportive of modding the files, or am I doing something wrong?

You're doing it wrong Post the changed parts?

Well I wanted to have a battleships only mission so cranked the fleet points up to 300 in settings.json. I then replaced the "hammerhead_Balanced" ID with the conquest Elite. I made this for the other ships as well, including the mining carrier and the mining drones, making sure I changed the fighter tags into ship tags.

I then did the same thing with the enemy fleet with the exception of using onslaught_Outdated instead of the conquest.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[ivaylo]

Did you add "buttsurprise" to mission_list.json?

I replaced the ship ID in the mission description file of turning the tables, and the game seems to crash on me whenever I try to start. Is this current version not supportive of modding the files, or am I doing something wrong?

You're doing it wrong Post the changed parts?

Well I wanted to have a battleships only mission so cranked the fleet points up to 300 in settings.json. I then replaced the "hammerhead_Balanced" ID with the conquest Elite. I made this for the other ships as well, including the mining carrier and the mining drones, making sure I changed the fighter tags into ship tags.

I then did the same thing with the enemy fleet with the exception of using onslaught_Outdated instead of the conquest.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Flare]

Yes, that was what initially caused it to crash. So later I just modified the turningthetables mission instead. Except this time, not only was it crashing, it was crashing even before any loading was done. When buttsurprise was added to the mission_list.json it crashed after all the loading was done.
Not putting buttsurprise on the mission_list.json and leaving turningthetables unmodified, simply rant eh game without the modifications in buttsurprise having any effect. In fact, I don't quite see why the game would crash at all if buttsurprise was omitted from the things the game needs to load .

[ivaylo]

Yeah that is interesting. Did you have a mission_text.txt and descriptor.json in the buttsurprise directory as well?

Edit: The mission name is god damned hilarious imo

[Flare]

Yes I did, I just made a copy of turningthetables, and simply modified the data inside of it. I don't think I'm missing anything.