Privateer: Ascii Sector v0.3 released

At long last, version 0.3!


www.asciisector.net/download.html


The most important change in this release is the character combat system. You can now attack characters on bases, and you have an inventory and health.

The full list of changes:

- Fixed bug that sometimes caused the program to crash when entering the movie player.
- Fixed a couple of pricing bugs when selling and buying a ship. This means that the jump drive is no longer included when buying a new ship.
- Ships will now try to avoid friendly fire, when shooting. If it is slowing down the game too much, switch Friendly Fire back to Yes in the options menu.
- Ships will now keep a greater distance to each other in order to avoid crashes between friendly ships.
- Repair Droid will now also repair while the autopilot is engaged.
- Holding down 'M' and pressing a directon key will now move the viewable area on a base without moving the player.
- Changed the load game menu slightly so that there is no more need for the SAVES.TXT file in the SAVES folder.
- Changed the icon for an ejected pilot to the dot that is also used for characters on the ground.
- Added 5 new systems.
- Added 6 new bases.
- Added character combat.
- Added new fixer mission: kill a person on a base or planet.
- Added new Mercenaries' Guild mission: bounty hunting capture alive.
- Added a player inventory/equipment screen.
- Added a shooting range on Manurhin in the Vichy system.
- Added equipment shops to most bases.
- Added AutoDoc booths to most bases.
- Added an in-game help screen (press F10 or 'H').
- Added military rank to names of some characters on confederation bases.
- New player's manual in PDF format with more detailed instructions and screenshots.


There are probably some bugs left and the character combat probably needs to be balanced a bit more, but it seems to work pretty well. Let me know what you think and be sure to report bugs and crashes!

Following this release, I'll be working on two different things. For version 0.4 I'll be adding the ability to walk around on your ship, both while flying in space and when landed on a planet. This will be extended for version 0.4.1, where you will be able to board other ships and engage in combat on board ships (other ships will also be able to disable your ship and board you). Besides working on these future versions, I'm currently moving away from programming in Borland Pascal 7.0. Instead, I'll be programming in FreePascal and use SDL for all video, keyboard and mouse functions. FreePascal and SDL is platform independent, which means that I will be able to compile the game for Windows, Linux and (theoretically) Mac. I'll also be able to add sound effects and music.

this is a really neat surprise!! I'm looking forward to testing it out!

awesome sauce!

I pulled down the previous version and played it for quite a while with no problems...now I want to experiment with your latest features!

Great stuff! Front page worthy!

woot! i was waiting and hoping for this for a while! loved your previous release, cant wait to tr this one out!

Thanks everybody! Hope you enjoy the new features!

It's important for me to point out, though, that the most important new feature (character combat) hasn't got all that much use yet. You can get character assassination missions, but that's about it. Character combat will become a lot more interesting in v0.4, where you'll be able to disable an enemy ship, board it, kill the crew and make off with the cargo (doing this will reward you with a lot more cargo than simply blowing it up).

On another note, a new member at the www.asciisector.net forums asked me why I didn't advertise my forums here at the WC CIC. So, here goes... For progress updates and discussions about the game, you can go to:

www.asciisector.net/forum

...or just say whatever you want to say right here!

Privateer: Ascii Sector v0.3.1 released!

www.asciisector.net/download.html

- Fixed bug with missions to Trou in the Bastille system.
- Fixed bug with the commodity market of Daedalus in the Icarus system.
- Added a new system and a new base.

Privateer: Ascii Sector v0.3.2 for Win32 released!

www.asciisector.net/download.html

- First Win32 release.
- Fixed bug in the shooting range, where you would be able to fire infinite shots after you had fired the first 10 shots and reset the target.
- Fixed bug that allowed you to target and shoot at characters outside your field of view when blinded.
- Fixed bug where all missions involving the Halfway system paid 0 credits.
- Decreased the production of gems on refineries.
- Attacks on characters and killing a character will now get fined and added to your criminal record.
- Added music and sound effects.


I'm not sure what the minimum system requirements are, as the Win32 version uses SDL for screen drawing, which is pretty slow. Let me know how it runs on your system!

This is looking insanely good; exactly what all is planned for 1.0, if you're already this far in?

Well, my somewhat loose plan at the moment is to program ship boarding and on-ship character combat for 0.4. Following that I might add planetary combat missions for 0.5, where you'll engage in combat against a horde of Kilrathi, Retros or pirates alongside confed forces in randomly generated cities. These will probably be a new type of mission for the Mercenaries' Guild. I'll also start work on the scripting part, where players will be able to script 'quests' or 'stories' that other players can load into their game. Parallel to all this, I'll continue to expand the gaming univers with new systems, and add small new features and fixes here and there. I think I'll call it version 1.0 when the gaming univers is complete (all four quadrants have been established). I can then continue to add new features for the scripting language based on player/user feedback. I'll also be working on Linux and Mac versions.

Does anybody have or know where I can download the sound effect of the 'jump whiteout' -- the explosion of energy or whatever it is at the end of the jumping animation? I've been completely unable to find it.

Do you mean the versions from WC3/4 (and possibly Prophecy)? At least I don't think there's such a sound in the original 2. You might be able to rip it from Privateer: Gemini Gold; I think they have one in there, though I'm not sure if it's the right one.

Yeah, I meant the one from Privateer. Neither Gemini Gold nor Remake has it. I guess I'll have to somehow record it from the game manually -- I tried using the built-in audio recorder that comes with Windows, but that didn't record it properly, maybe because it's a DOS game...? I guess one solution is to just stick my MP3 player close to the speakers and record with that, if the quality is good enough.

If you can take the jack your speakers come out of and plug it into the Line In or microphone jack of something else, all the sound should record perfectly. From there it's just a matter of cutting out the excess.

I seem to remember having a line-in cable for my mp3 player somewhere. I'll give it a go when I get home.

I tried using the line-in cable to my mp3 player, but that couldn't record the sound for some reason. Instead, I played the game in DOSBox and recorded a movie with CTRL+ALT+F5. I then loaded this movie in VirtualDub and saved a WAV file. Then I opened this WAV file in a WAV editor and isolated the jump sound and converted it to the correct Hz. There's now a jump sound effect in Ascii Sector.

There's a pretty serious bug with the asteroid fields in v0.3.2. I'm trying to figure out what's going on and fix it, but in the meantime I'll recommend staying out of asteroid fields.

v0.3.3 released!


www.asciisector.net/download.html


- Fixed bug with asteroid fields.
- Fixed a couple of bugs with movie recording.
- Fixed bug with options being reset when entering the Movie Player menu.
- Added a sound effect when jumping.
- ALT+ENTER will now also switch between fullscreen and window mode.
- The player's health (and equipment in the left and right hands) will now be shown all the time. Combat Mode is instead indicated by red borders.

You sir, are a genius.