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Post by sfsdfd on May 4, 2013 23:59:29 GMT 10
Awesome. I encountered a few preliminary problems: 1) Audio circuit dampening (mute) mutes everything but voices. 2) Sound definitely needs a volume slider, rather than just on/off. 3) It's distinctly weird for voices to continue playing after the ship from which they're issuing is destroyed. The guardian SOS broadcast is particularly long, and on occasion it's barely started playing when I destroy the ship... (doesn't help that the scratchiness of that effect is also kind of grating.) 4) I encountered some weird keyboard unresponsiveness in fullscreen, leading to either your ship sitting there doing nothing during a keypress, or continuing to thrust or rotate out of control after releasing the key.
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Post by kapergame on Jul 13, 2013 8:20:36 GMT 10
Okay, I REALLY like this Great job! But I really like you to change some things: 1. make Auxiliary Oxygen Tanks and Chrono Gears less Rear! 2. make it so you can buy more stuff at one Factory (cancels the one above) 3. maybe make some sort of ship building program so we can upload our ships or even make enemy ships for our worlds (makes is very cool!) 4. maybe more shapes for building blocks like L shaped and / shaped 5 add a way to save your ship so you can maybe change ships ingame 6 this is VERY annoying make it so i can zomeout more I have a big ship and I cant see incoming ships also why can I zomein so far that I can count the pixels? 7i love the new docking way but i do want like some sort of way to know where my ship is on the Navigation and keep it up I cant w8 till the next update! -kaper
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Post by pgfish on Aug 22, 2013 2:06:46 GMT 10
Came back to check out the latest build, and I've been getting a real kick out of it! Mining is definitely coming into its own with this build- it's now a viable alternative to straight-up scrap hunting. I've only done a couple runs up to delta-echo or so, but I'm going slow and tweaking like crazy as I go. Spent a few hours last night doing nothing but mining. I'll hide this next bit, in case anyone wants to figure out mining without my comments. Tweet with image of my current mining ship: (image hosting doesn't seem to be working at the moment). The top view is the cargo area, currently holding ~4200 credits of iron ore. I normally don't have it this heavily gunned, but I opted to save the delta guns for a bit after I cleaned out the area around the asteroid field. Usually, I just swap all of my guns to one side when I'm mining, sometimes even building an extension so I can move the forward guns to face broadside as well. As Farbs pointed out, flank shields can be used as cargo bay doors- yank off a shield and reattach it, then maneuver your ship around the asteroid fragment while they're recharging. Works well. I added a second baffle inside the cargo bay (the three internal joists near the rear), to aid in loading up multiple fragments. First capture the fragments, then isolate them behind the baffle to hold them in place while you're going for the next. Move the baffle from midship to sternward as you get more cargo. You can attach them stepwise incrementally to compact the fragments as needed, after you've shoved them around inertially. Seems to work pretty well, save for tiny slivers of silicates, which somehow manage to squeeze through the joints every so often. +1 on previous comments about making silicates rounder and perhaps larger- maybe double their typical size and half their value for balance. The bottom view is the mining ship in normal flight mode. This is my normal-ish gun configuration, allowing for a powerful broadside barrage for guardians and a more precise forward array for harvesting scrap. Seems to work pretty well, and I'm not losing an unacceptable amount of speed from the extra joist mass at rear (lucked out and found a Mark II booster in a warehouse). I'll probably swap those exterior delta joists at rear for blurst shields when I get the chance. And I see I have an off-center booster at starboard sternward. My unbalanced ship repulses me! As an aside, bubble shields are also interesting for cargo bays. My ship ended up being sufficiently massive that it didn't matter much, but large rocks rattling around in small ships tended to make maneuvering awkward. Arrays of shield bubbles work nicely to hold cargo still. When they activate, they push the rocks to the intersections and void spaces, and hold them still if the rocks are bigger than the voids. Could be an interesting addition for handling hazardous cargo- maybe add high value fragments (radioactives?) from mining "hot" asteroids? The fragments would still damage your ship, so you'd need to handle them with forcefields. You'd need some kind of mechanic for making fragments that damage solid parts but not forcefields, I suppose, without changing the behavior of normal hot asteroids (forcefields shouldn't make you resistant to those). A couple comments, if I may be so bold: - On the scrapyards: is there any point in devaluing damaged scrap, now that repair tools are reasonably common? I'm sure that I'm not the only one that burns a few minutes each visit, cycling damaged pieces through a repair tool before dumping it. It's a fairly obvious thing to do, I'd think. Doesn't seem to add much in terms of enjoyment, though. From a narrative standpoint, it seems like scrapyards would have repair tools of their own, negating the need for pre-repair. Any chance of removing the damage devaluation, or significantly reducing it (to represent the scrapyard's lost time in schlepping parts to their repair modules) in order to speed up the scrap sale process?
- I have mixed feelings about removing the telnet process for logging into stations. Definitely need a way to move the docking ports to an exterior surface- far too many are tucked in recesses or in corners that can't be reached without building a proboscis on the ship. Awkward and cumbersome. Maybe a docking arm that extends several unit lengths upon approach? Telnet would sure be more convenient for mining, anyway. Lots of lost time nudging rocks into the bay and carefully backing out to dock, when you could easily back your whole ship in, phone in the sale, and get on your way. But I can see the tradeoff for new users in intuitive use.
- Loving the new nav map system. Much more useful. Any chance of bringing back the X-Y coordinates on the main screen, or perhaps integrating them into the nav map display? Definitely like the new zone names with astronaut references and similar sci-fi names, but it's somewhat harder to find your way. Before, it was just a matter of scribbling down coordinates for landmarks. Now, you almost have to draw a map to remember where each zone is. You'd still have the chance of getting lost, but it'd reduce the frustration of finding places you've previously discovered.
- I'm getting the same controls sticking problem others have reported, especially when other web applications are running (most commonly streaming music). Seems to get worse as playtime progresses, as well as with more complex ships- probably a hint to stop making laser porcupines. Can get frustrating when maneuvering asteroid fragments, especially.
Anyway, I'm done rambling now. Thanks for making a great game, Farbs! Looking forward to seeing how things develop. Now I'm going back to blow up some more rocks.
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Post by pmingkr on Oct 2, 2013 13:18:58 GMT 10
Help!! I want to live!
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Post by pieman on Nov 27, 2013 8:41:32 GMT 10
OK, so let me begin at the beginning .. stellar work on this ! the playability is smooth for the most part .. but the zoom level tends to get to be too small above the G level at times .. not a bad thing .. i like the bosses and the layouts , but 1 thing pisses me off .. the lava levels ... spelunk is bad enough , please CUT THE INFERNO LEVELS OUT ALTOGETHER . spelunk is challenging enough , dont shit the punchbowl and make the fucking rocks hot and undestroyable with a pittance for air reserve . ALSO : please stop making factories spawn translocators and plank shields ... they occur enough during normal play that we dont need them being sold EVERYWHERE . Why not make some air tank factories ? make a few in each map and hide em around like easter eggs .. all else is really fookin good tho .. the balance is there . the ending ... why not make the whole thing recycle into another "universe" with extra air tanks . ;D
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Post by pieman on Nov 27, 2013 8:42:57 GMT 10
I'm greatly enjoying the new build, though the docking can be a little fiddly with some of the stations. I've only actually had one serious problem with that so far... I ended up having to build a sort of 'poker' out of girders to dock. the ones buried by hot rocks are worse ....
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Post by Farbs on Nov 30, 2013 22:06:20 GMT 10
I've been finding time to work on this on and off, but since the launch of Card Hunter in September I've really been flat out. Anyhow, 0.6 is looking pretty good I think. I've merged in a pile of performance improvements from another branch, changed the backgrounds around again, and modified the way that sectors link together so that if you pick something that it turns out you do not like, eg a spelunk or lava, then you're far less likely to be stuck with it for the rest of your game.
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Post by Admiral Kirana on Dec 4, 2013 10:33:13 GMT 10
Glad to see progress being made on 0.6 - the modifications to the linkage sounds nice (no more ALL INFERNO ALL THE TIME + my horrific piloting ability shenanigans, yay!)
Perhaps you could give us a little sneak peek of the new backgrounds for us curious folks? This computer doesn't like Java so I can't really tell if any of what you've said has been implemented in the prerelease (was that updated by the way?)
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Post by inglonias on Dec 31, 2013 5:00:02 GMT 10
Finally started up on it.
Major, major improvements to this build. The ships handle nicely, and I love the new wormhole system.
Now for the criticisms.
With the one exception of the audio voice synth. The voices used to be at least partially recognizeable, but now they're just gibberish. Utter gibberish.
Nav stations aren't nearly common enough.
Still not enough air (though that's probably more my fault, as I never found any O2 tanks.)
I wish when I died, I didn't lose 5 - 6 hours of gameplay. It would be neat if we started at the last sector we visited with a few appropriate parts. I realize that might make the game too easy though.
Love the game, and I'm going back for more!
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Post by captaintomorrow on Jan 17, 2014 1:52:51 GMT 10
This is my first forum post, though I've been playing Captain Forever and then captain Jameson off and on since, wow, 2010 probably.
Love the new build. The wormholes are a very fun addition. Also I ran into an upgrade station in one sector, which I thought was a very nice element (maybe they've already existed in previous builds but I never ran into one before???)
Also, fullscreen is incredible.
A few critiques: Agreed that the com chatter from the enemy ships is way too loud, and the new synth voice is a little too garbled. I do love the pitch changes when an enemy broadcasts their dying message though -- especially the morse sos. That's a super great touch.
The new navigation is a little too tricky. I miss the coordinates on the screen, and also when you load the nav maps, you should be able to see your ship more clearly when you're not attached to a nav station. I nearly ran out of oxygen a few times looking for a station that I knew I should be near to, but was blind without coordinates and a little @ on my nav map.
I also routinely ran into that problem where a docking port on a station is sort of awkwardly placed and my ship can't fit in there. I go back and forth on whether or not this is a problem. I sort of liked building a little, uh, proboscis to dock sometimes.
But this is a big improvement on the old build, which I also liked a lot. I'll continue to play!
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Post by Admiral Kirana on Jan 29, 2014 0:45:58 GMT 10
I'm thinking that toning down certain sector combinations might be in order - my little Alpha/Bravo mix ship got sent through a brutal four-sector gauntlet of a sparse Inferno sector (had no choice), a tiny sector that was basically the lone wormhole and nothing else, and then a second tiny sector much like the first.
There wasn't much left of the ship that went in by the time the Echo guardian got killed, and then it promptly got annihilated in an inferno Foxtrot sector.
I mean seriously, gimme a break here.
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Post by Foohman on Jan 29, 2014 3:30:32 GMT 10
I've just come from an Inferno sector with one wormhole and no stations, I was very lucky to get through without asphyxiating - touching those asteroids at Delta-tier or below is a death sentence. So I completely agree with you there.
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Post by auburnattack21 on Feb 4, 2014 14:57:15 GMT 10
Farbs, I really think we need to tone down the difficulty a bit. Either that or I'm really bad at attacking ships with Foxtrot missile launchers.
First, we desperately need some sort of oxygen field going into a new sector. Isn't the whole point of wormhole stations that you teleport between sectors? If we can't go back to the old sector, at least have a receiver node with oxygen at the other end! The reason I was forced to attack that guardian above was because I couldn't get to the Echo guardian north - why? The stupid asteroids were in the way. There was, literally, no way through. Is that fun? I don't think so.
Second, I probably don't appreciate challenge for what it's worth. I realize this, but in this world it is somehow really hard to make challenge fun. Pretty much everyone fails at this...and Farbs, where you succeeded in 0.5, you failed here. I enjoyed being able to go all through Haynesport to gather the resources I needed for the next gauntlet of station guardians. You do the same thing in previous Captain Forever games, including the original - you don't attack a Foxtrot ship with only one Echo laser, do you? No - you beat up Deltas until your ship is ready. But here, in some sectors you can't even attack an enemy without getting set back. Captain Forever is about knowing how to get resources and having the skill to do so. That's our main line of focus...but when you start restricting players to, first, having to beat the first guardian within their oxygen limit, second, being forced to navigate through asteroids, and third, restricting their available resources to the point where it's impossible to win is way, way beyond what the Captain Forever series is about.
I'm really sorry, but it's just not working like this. Only the best Captain Forever players are going to stand a chance at getting anywhere past Foxtrot in this game, and I guess one of them isn't me. I'm wondering if other supporters are thinking the same thing.
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Post by Farbs on Feb 5, 2014 10:47:05 GMT 10
I agree that there should be oxygen at the wormhole arrival point. I'm thinking of dropping a single live NAV station at the arrival point, with occasional variances like not having any NAV data.
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Post by Foohman on Feb 5, 2014 22:37:41 GMT 10
I suppose that would allow a single safepoint to begin with, but having sectors with no NAV points are both infuriating and exciting. There's a huge increase in the sense of danger - not knowing the safest routes around.
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gamemasterme
Bravo Rank
Christian. go on. judge me all you want. I don't mind.
Posts: 21
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Post by gamemasterme on Feb 6, 2014 1:16:29 GMT 10
Ok so I haven't played very far in, at most I've gotten to is a Delta sector (where my ship was destroyed) and so far I haven't found any upgrade stations, but am I just having bad luck, or are they supposed to be rare? Sorry if this is an idiot's question, I mean the best of curiosity.
Also auburnattack21, try using foxtrot level snipe launchers, that might work, but other than that I think that the difficulty could be toned down a little.
And foohman, I find sectors with no NAV points to be more annoying than exciting, mostly because its harder to depict station from the XXXs that are everywhere.
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Post by Foohman on Feb 6, 2014 1:25:22 GMT 10
Upgrade stations are the rarest you can find, just as specific modules are very hard. Having them dotted around everywhere would eliminate the challenge. Remember the game is supposed to be difficult, not a cake-walk.
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gamemasterme
Bravo Rank
Christian. go on. judge me all you want. I don't mind.
Posts: 21
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Post by gamemasterme on Feb 6, 2014 1:38:02 GMT 10
I'll keep that in mind, thanks.
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Post by auburnattack21 on Feb 7, 2014 1:06:59 GMT 10
Also auburnattack21, try using foxtrot level snipe launchers, that might work, but other than that I think that the difficulty could be toned down a little. While I like Snipe Launchers a lot, there's not much I can do when I only have 30 Oxygen to kill the first guardian in a sector. You can't really muck about when there are no safe zones. Even then, my chances of finding a Snipe Launcher would have been low anyway, considering the previous sectors had tons of them.
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Post by Perez on Feb 13, 2014 6:36:28 GMT 10
I reached the end of Captain Jameson, and even after I was warned by Foohman, I still got a little surprised when the info buoy appeared with the message " Revivor". I had this immediate thought the second my oxygen tank reached zero and my ship turned grey; What if you keep this ending due to the fact that it's kind of open and full of questions? Personally, I think the ending was very fascinating, surprisingly enough! What if there's some sort of limbo to it? Here's how I think it could be: Once you defeat the guardian of the wormhole, you're left with something like the same message you get at the wormhole. After traveling through, you're placed in the same place as you are in this version (0.6.1); dark void all around. After a couple of seconds a very slow pinging starts, which is sent out in a form of a circle, just like the hostiles transmit messages to you. Then you follow the pinging until you reach the " surprise". A derelict ship alongside a derelict buoy. The pinging is emitted by the buoy, and when you mouse-click it, you'll receive a message about, e.g., the story behind the derelict ship you can see in front of you. Or some message dedicated to the player works as well. Maybe it could be signed "- Farbs" underneath or something. That would be cool. Also, if you were to remove parts from the derelict ship, the modules vaporize into dust, making you unable to obtain any modules from this ship. You can simply tear it apart until there's only the command module left. Now, what would you do whilst waiting for the oxygen to run out? That I don't know, but something could happen while you wait; Maybe the screen would slowly start to blur out, or perhaps start to get the same effect Captain Impostor has? I was left with the info buoy in a very philosophic position, bringing back the memories I had with this ship the moment I ran out of oxygen. As said, that was when I got all these ideas. Perhaps a final message would appear in the transmitter, referencing the one and only game: (Unknown): Good bye, Captain ..._________________________... Forever._______________________________
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