Quality Assurance Version 1.0
- Thread starter John Cordell
- Start date
BachManiac
Rear Admiral
why has this centurion such a low quality and this centurion such a high quality????
is the second pic only a rendered pic or is it a screen from ingame?
is the second pic only a rendered pic or is it a screen from ingame?
MamiyaOtaru
Spaceman
Those are both in game shots. The "lower quality" one was taken with reflections turned on.BachManiac said:
Speaking of which, John, we don't need to do anything about the reflections. ./vegastrike/config.exe should fix you up
Turn them off. Since people tend to ignore options screens and are then unhappy with what they get, we could change that default.Can't make the complete screens flicker. There are no screens, that's just a *picture* in the background. The only thing that is really there is the instruments, they are what flicker.
Direction the ship is facing on targetting screen: been discussed many times. Hellcat feels it makes the engine look better with more dynamic shots. I prefer the original way, but not enough to really care. So far no one has cared enough to take some shots of all the ships from above, people have only cared enough to request changes. In the end I just don't find it that confusing that up is front. (though admittedly it is backwards from the original hehe)
Docking boxes: You do need to fly to them (on higher difficulty settings). The default difficulty setting sacrifices some realism to be true to the original, but those boxes server a purpose. And after all, no one is forcing you to press the "request docking clearance" button (which makes them appear). That's only necessary on the before mentioned higher difficulty settings
Well, they do appear when you press D too soon, but I would hardly say they look bad enough to remove them some of the time.I really like the explosion debris. Not going anywhere.
lol why would anyone mean that seriously? It was a sarcastic comment directed at my assertion that the game is meant for 1024x768 and above
Kilo hasn't really gone nuts heheJohn, you bring up a lot of points, some of which can and should be fixed, but frankly I really wish you hadn't disappeared for a month. It would have been a lot better to be making these suggestions as we went along until waiting for the week we plan on releasing 1.0 to pop up with a freighter full of change requests.
Better late than never though, and we are delayed waiting for some new stuff so some things can be fixed. Some may be changed post 1.0, and some of it simply won't be.
John Cordell
Spaceman
Reflections: "Since people tend to ignore options screens and are then unhappy with what they get, we could change that default."
Please change the default setting.
"Can't make the complete screens flicker."
It looks odd, maybe someone can come up with a suggestion how to fix it?
"So far no one has cared enough to take some shots of all the ships from above, people have only cared enough to request changes."
I really do care about about it and would make these changes, but i'm now away for ~2 weeks. I could fix it up when i'm back in one day? Maybe someone can help here sooner? I would appreciate it.
Green Boxes: "You do need to fly to them (on higher difficulty settings)"
Wasn't aware of it Maybe you can deactivate them on lower diff settings since they are not needed.
"John, you bring up a lot of points, some of which can and should be fixed, but frankly I really wish you hadn't disappeared for a month. It would have been a lot better to be making these suggestions as we went along until waiting for the week we plan on releasing 1.0 to pop up with a freighter full of change requests. Release Candidate Time is for bugfixes and not much else."
I simply was too busy with other important things, i'm sorry. But since the playtesting goes well bugs and other problems were fixed it seemed to be the right time for a final review for version 1.0 - the QA. I only can make recommendations and suggestions at this point and hope you delay the release a few more days, since new cockpits are in the work i hope i've also time to fix the ship-target images in two weeks. See you then
Please change the default setting.
"Can't make the complete screens flicker."
It looks odd, maybe someone can come up with a suggestion how to fix it?
"So far no one has cared enough to take some shots of all the ships from above, people have only cared enough to request changes."
I really do care about about it and would make these changes, but i'm now away for ~2 weeks. I could fix it up when i'm back in one day? Maybe someone can help here sooner? I would appreciate it.
Green Boxes: "You do need to fly to them (on higher difficulty settings)"
Wasn't aware of it
Maybe you can deactivate them on lower diff settings since they are not needed."John, you bring up a lot of points, some of which can and should be fixed, but frankly I really wish you hadn't disappeared for a month. It would have been a lot better to be making these suggestions as we went along until waiting for the week we plan on releasing 1.0 to pop up with a freighter full of change requests. Release Candidate Time is for bugfixes and not much else."
I simply was too busy with other important things, i'm sorry. But since the playtesting goes well bugs and other problems were fixed it seemed to be the right time for a final review for version 1.0 - the QA. I only can make recommendations and suggestions at this point and hope you delay the release a few more days, since new cockpits are in the work i hope i've also time to fix the ship-target images in two weeks. See you then
Hi!
First of all, I'm glad to see this project running, and would like to congratulate for this job! I have found some things worth to mention, but it's gonna be a long-long list of more or less important things, and I still have to translate them and put them in a suitable form (currently they are hungarian notes), after that they should also be categorized, so I would say, they will be ready for post until the end of the week. How long are you going to wait for the comments of players?
First of all, I'm glad to see this project running, and would like to congratulate for this job! I have found some things worth to mention, but it's gonna be a long-long list of more or less important things, and I still have to translate them and put them in a suitable form (currently they are hungarian notes), after that they should also be categorized, so I would say, they will be ready for post until the end of the week. How long are you going to wait for the comments of players?
Well, I started to write them down, and there are about 5 pages... Smaller or greater things. Can they come in one post, or better separated?
I don't know, theoretically I tried 0.9 Beta, but there are some things mentioned here in the forum that I haven't met... E.g. Software Booth doesn't work for me at all, and John Cordell was writing about it above...
I don't know, theoretically I tried 0.9 Beta, but there are some things mentioned here in the forum that I haven't met... E.g. Software Booth doesn't work for me at all, and John Cordell was writing about it above...
MamiyaOtaru
Spaceman
Hey, everyone gets busy. And yeah, we are waiting ona couple things anyway. See you in a couple weeks then!John Cordell said:
OK, here it comes, in 3 pieces The list contains a lot of smaller or bigger things, but I must add that I played v0.9 so maybe some of these are already fixed. I tried to make an order according to relevance in each category, and today I found a few other things that are not mentioned here.
The list contains a lot of smaller or bigger things, but I must add that I played v0.9 so maybe some of these are already fixed. I tried to make an order according to relevance in each category, and today I found a few other things that are not mentioned here.On Base:
- It is not clear how I can have my ship's systems repaired, and I don't know where I could check the condition of my ship - I don't know which part needs to be repaired, what is damaged beyond repair (OK, the parts that were there before but aren't there any more), and most important, on some bases I simply couldn't find my radar and some other parts on my ship in the Upgrade screen - I doubt having lost them, as before landing I think I saw coloured dots on the screens. (I didn't try to launch to see if there are still coloured dots though, I simply bought another one.)
- I don't know how I can view (or cancel) the missions I have already accepted when not in flight
- On the Missions screen there came a description like "A Orion starship..." - this could easily be avoided using a text like "A starship of the class Orion...", the full text could be like "A starship of the class Orion in the flight group Siemens" so that there are no sentences using the same expression ("of the class Orion of the FG Siemens")
- I saw a weird one among the missions on a pirate base: Defend Merchant against Merchant... Does that make sense? If a merchant attacks another merchant then the first merchant is already a pirate, isn't it?
- on the same pirate base I saw the following text in the news: "_This_time_ in a Centurion_.blank_ ship, _this_ mercenary group destroyed yet another pirate squadron, _this_time_ the ..." - too many this time. Also, there was "...less experienced groups of Talon _Blank_ ..." written in the news. Maybe you should search the "blank" expression through all the codes - or is this the problem of not having the default value changed in some place in the code?
- I bought Tungsten Hull. After being damaged, I decided to buy Tungsten Hull again - and I found I already (i.e. still) have one. In fact, I only noticed that after buying the fourth one, so I sold them all and bought one new instead, coming out with more money at the end (OK, I know I've already paid more for them at first). I don't know if I can buy multiple layers of Hull - sometimes I was able to do so, but later I wasn't. If not, I shouldn't see the damaged Hulls there, or I should be able to have it repaired. Am I? I couldn't find any Repair buttons...
- the positioning of the ships on the Launch Pad is not fully correct, they should be spinned a bit around their main axis so that they seem to be horizontal. And would it take too much time to have them being lit from above, or maybe with specific lighting directions for the specific bases? Also, for the Upgrade View, maybe there could be three 3D undercarriages "glued" to the bottom of the ship - I think the improvement of appearance would be well worth the plus work. The contours of the ships should be anti-aliased, but I guess that's much easier said than done
- when selling my old Tarsus, I was stunned to see that my ship with upgrades worth >200.000 credits was sold for ~5.000... I had to load my saved game to sell my upgrades separately. After loading, the Centurion cost 200.000 credits instead of the ~181.362 I bought it for right after saving (i.e. before selling my Tarsus). This bug cost me ~20.000
- The prices of upgrades are a bit messed up, I remember seling something for ~9.000, what was worth ~5.000 according to the screen
- when I select an upgrade and then deselect it (closing the category), the picture of the item stays there next to the now empty textfield
- the ship dealer shouldn't always say the text when just clicking on the ship name, it's very annoying. Text should be said when clicking the Buy button. OK, this goes for the case I don't have enough money, but after buying why would he ask me if I want one? Maybe the last few sentences with the sense "do you want it or not?" should be cut, thus making the text like an after-purchase "good-decision" confirmation... In any case, you should be able to check through the ships without having to turn off the sound
- when accepting missions of the same kind (i.e. 3 ones of pirate capital bounty), sometimes the description of the accepted mission appears in the place of the descr. of the other mission. This is annoying, especially when accepting a pirate bounty with 5 escorts for 4.000, instead of a single pirate for 20.000
- the same happened to me when accepting 3 missions placed in the same system. The mission descriptions were OK this time (i.e. they were different) but after taking off I saw that I had other missions (the first one was the same, the second paid 120 instead of 50, the third 22 instead of 35). It was placed in the same system, but I don't know if it was accidental or not - maybe I could have accepted a mission in another system. I think the mission list should be re-ordered and then made visible again (the description field should also be refreshed).
- also, I can accept more bounty missions on the same flight group. It's OK though, but it's a bit strange to see two bounties on two Draymans of the same FG. But once again, it can be realistic.
- every loading costs 50 credits When selecting the game to be loaded, you can see how many credits you have, and after loading you have 50 less. Saving and loading again makes it 50 less once more. Also, I don't think it would be too complicated to display the base name after the sector name, system name - it is missing
- In the My Fleet option, the "Buy" button should better have a label of "Switch", so that it won't be misunderstood.
- I don't think that the Bounty Hunter in the bar shouldn't give me a mission if I have active ones. After accepting the BH's mission, I can still accept 2 other ones of the Mission Computer - either this should also be impossible, or BH should give me missions if I don't have 3 already. I personally prefer the second version
- after accepting a mission, the Bounty Hunter says, "And as far as anyone knows-- ...". There, "-- ..." should be " - ..."
- it would be convenient to be able to use the cursor buttons to check through the available missions. Also, I think there shouldn't be 20 pirate bounties in the same system - usually many of them pays the same, so the only difference is FG name and maybe the number of protecting ships. And many times there are 3 or more bounties on the same FG, on the same kind of ship (Talon or Drayman, as I've written above).
- the cone on the Centurion's nose has different color in the Repair screen on the MFDs, but it doesn't have a different color in the Repair/Upgrade screen - it is also true for in-flight graphics
Less important:
- if the name of an upgrade is too long, I can't always read it (when there's a number in brackets after a long item name in a 2nd level submenu)
- Nuance: when moving the cursor over the bar tender, or the girl in Merc's Guild, they stopped their activities and looked at you waiting for what you want to do. That's also true for the Merchant's Guild man (clone?
- Nuance #2: in the Repair/Upgrade option, the over state of the buy/sell display graphics says Upgrade/Repair (actually, I don't know which is which, but the order is swapped). I guess it's so for prompting that it's a link, but I think a "Repair or Upgrade" note with the right order would be better
- the align of the menus isn't always the best... I think Quit should be up right where New, Load, Save and not under Save/Load. Also, After saving, the OK button should appear over the Save button so that you don't have to move the cursor, but that doesn't really matter. The save game name field shouldn't have that big height, it looks like a text field.
Sound Effects:
- the effects of you or the enemy taking a hit were different in the original: when your shield was hit, the effect was the same as for the enemy, but much louder; and when the enemy shot was piercing through your hull, you heard an effect as disturbing as if there was someone smashing an iron helmet on your head with a sledgehammer... Made you quite aware the fact that now there's 100-200kg less armor between you and the void than there was a moment before. In addition, the whole screen got red for a brief moment. I am missing this. A lot Maybe there should also be a quick (~0,1 second) light-blue flash when your shield took some damage. When being hit, you must be pretty aware of it. I flew through 12 pirate Talons shooting like a maniac and I was quite satisfied with my performance until I realized that those steel-scraping effects were coming from my ship and not from the pirates'...
- The sound effect of Plasma Gun is not perfect; it sounds like if it was looped, but only for the first ~100ms. I mean, I heard the shot, and then the first ~100ms of the shot again. Maybe that 100ms is missing from the beginning of the sample?
- I don't always hear my guns barking. Either I can hear them shoot all through the flight as normally, or I cannot hear them at all, as if there was no sound effect for them, through the whole flight. I think this occurred after buying a new kind of weapon, but weirdly not in the first flight but the second flight. (I'm not sure of that, but I surely remember hearing them in my first flight after having them mounted.) This no-sound problem didn't occur in later flights.
- at first, when not having an afterburner, TAB still made it to be heard - and in the original, when energy level was too low for afterburner, the sound got scattered. Also, continous afterburning with low energy resulted in partial shield failure, i.e., shield level dropped for ~67%
- I pressed Alt-TAB to read the manual, I read it for ~30 minutes, and then Remake quit. Maybe there's a virus on my computer. But after restarting it, in-flight sound effects (not all, just shooting, communication, maybe hit effects) played looped until landing. Legal quitting and restarting solved the problem
- when dogfighting, music sometimes changes to the main theme (i.e. when not in dogfight). I absolutely like it this way, that's just a difference. Maybe it's in connection with what I've mentioned above about friendly communication with enemies we are trying to kill each other with.
- When loading a game from the Mission Computer's menu, I heard the in-space music for a moment
- switching of the musical themes (e.g. attack -> cruise) isn't always smooth - in-flight music change sometimes breaks the rhythm, and on the base Helen, when exiting the Ship Dealer, the music rewinded
- the shooting effects sound as if they had different graphical EQ applied on them - I don't know if it is intended or accidental, but it's definitely cool
Manual:
- the descriptions for the 3 hardest difficulty levels are the same
- "In the top right corner of the _Mission Computer_ are the [Save/Load] and [Done] buttons. The [Done] button
exits screen and returns you to the Upgrades Booth." I guess that should be Repair/Upgrade screen...
Misc:
- there's Vega Strike written on the System Tray when pressing Alt-TAB or after quitting.
- It is not clear how I can have my ship's systems repaired, and I don't know where I could check the condition of my ship - I don't know which part needs to be repaired, what is damaged beyond repair (OK, the parts that were there before but aren't there any more), and most important, on some bases I simply couldn't find my radar and some other parts on my ship in the Upgrade screen - I doubt having lost them, as before landing I think I saw coloured dots on the screens. (I didn't try to launch to see if there are still coloured dots though, I simply bought another one.)
- I don't know how I can view (or cancel) the missions I have already accepted when not in flight
- On the Missions screen there came a description like "A Orion starship..." - this could easily be avoided using a text like "A starship of the class Orion...", the full text could be like "A starship of the class Orion in the flight group Siemens" so that there are no sentences using the same expression ("of the class Orion of the FG Siemens")
- I saw a weird one among the missions on a pirate base: Defend Merchant against Merchant... Does that make sense? If a merchant attacks another merchant then the first merchant is already a pirate, isn't it?
- on the same pirate base I saw the following text in the news: "_This_time_ in a Centurion_.blank_ ship, _this_ mercenary group destroyed yet another pirate squadron, _this_time_ the ..." - too many this time. Also, there was "...less experienced groups of Talon _Blank_ ..." written in the news. Maybe you should search the "blank" expression through all the codes - or is this the problem of not having the default value changed in some place in the code?
- I bought Tungsten Hull. After being damaged, I decided to buy Tungsten Hull again - and I found I already (i.e. still) have one. In fact, I only noticed that after buying the fourth one, so I sold them all and bought one new instead, coming out with more money at the end (OK, I know I've already paid more for them at first). I don't know if I can buy multiple layers of Hull - sometimes I was able to do so, but later I wasn't. If not, I shouldn't see the damaged Hulls there, or I should be able to have it repaired. Am I? I couldn't find any Repair buttons...
- the positioning of the ships on the Launch Pad is not fully correct, they should be spinned a bit around their main axis so that they seem to be horizontal. And would it take too much time to have them being lit from above, or maybe with specific lighting directions for the specific bases? Also, for the Upgrade View, maybe there could be three 3D undercarriages "glued" to the bottom of the ship - I think the improvement of appearance would be well worth the plus work. The contours of the ships should be anti-aliased, but I guess that's much easier said than done
- when selling my old Tarsus, I was stunned to see that my ship with upgrades worth >200.000 credits was sold for ~5.000... I had to load my saved game to sell my upgrades separately. After loading, the Centurion cost 200.000 credits instead of the ~181.362 I bought it for right after saving (i.e. before selling my Tarsus). This bug cost me ~20.000
- The prices of upgrades are a bit messed up, I remember seling something for ~9.000, what was worth ~5.000 according to the screen
- when I select an upgrade and then deselect it (closing the category), the picture of the item stays there next to the now empty textfield
- the ship dealer shouldn't always say the text when just clicking on the ship name, it's very annoying. Text should be said when clicking the Buy button. OK, this goes for the case I don't have enough money, but after buying why would he ask me if I want one? Maybe the last few sentences with the sense "do you want it or not?" should be cut, thus making the text like an after-purchase "good-decision" confirmation... In any case, you should be able to check through the ships without having to turn off the sound
- when accepting missions of the same kind (i.e. 3 ones of pirate capital bounty), sometimes the description of the accepted mission appears in the place of the descr. of the other mission. This is annoying, especially when accepting a pirate bounty with 5 escorts for 4.000, instead of a single pirate for 20.000
- the same happened to me when accepting 3 missions placed in the same system. The mission descriptions were OK this time (i.e. they were different) but after taking off I saw that I had other missions (the first one was the same, the second paid 120 instead of 50, the third 22 instead of 35). It was placed in the same system, but I don't know if it was accidental or not - maybe I could have accepted a mission in another system. I think the mission list should be re-ordered and then made visible again (the description field should also be refreshed).
- also, I can accept more bounty missions on the same flight group. It's OK though, but it's a bit strange to see two bounties on two Draymans of the same FG. But once again, it can be realistic.
- every loading costs 50 credits
When selecting the game to be loaded, you can see how many credits you have, and after loading you have 50 less. Saving and loading again makes it 50 less once more. Also, I don't think it would be too complicated to display the base name after the sector name, system name - it is missing - In the My Fleet option, the "Buy" button should better have a label of "Switch", so that it won't be misunderstood.
- I don't think that the Bounty Hunter in the bar shouldn't give me a mission if I have active ones. After accepting the BH's mission, I can still accept 2 other ones of the Mission Computer - either this should also be impossible, or BH should give me missions if I don't have 3 already. I personally prefer the second version
- after accepting a mission, the Bounty Hunter says, "And as far as anyone knows-- ...". There, "-- ..." should be " - ..."
- it would be convenient to be able to use the cursor buttons to check through the available missions. Also, I think there shouldn't be 20 pirate bounties in the same system - usually many of them pays the same, so the only difference is FG name and maybe the number of protecting ships. And many times there are 3 or more bounties on the same FG, on the same kind of ship (Talon or Drayman, as I've written above).
- the cone on the Centurion's nose has different color in the Repair screen on the MFDs, but it doesn't have a different color in the Repair/Upgrade screen - it is also true for in-flight graphics
Less important:
- if the name of an upgrade is too long, I can't always read it (when there's a number in brackets after a long item name in a 2nd level submenu)
- Nuance: when moving the cursor over the bar tender, or the girl in Merc's Guild, they stopped their activities and looked at you waiting for what you want to do. That's also true for the Merchant's Guild man (clone?
- Nuance #2: in the Repair/Upgrade option, the over state of the buy/sell display graphics says Upgrade/Repair (actually, I don't know which is which, but the order is swapped). I guess it's so for prompting that it's a link, but I think a "Repair or Upgrade" note with the right order would be better
- the align of the menus isn't always the best... I think Quit should be up right where New, Load, Save and not under Save/Load. Also, After saving, the OK button should appear over the Save button so that you don't have to move the cursor, but that doesn't really matter. The save game name field shouldn't have that big height, it looks like a text field.
Sound Effects:
- the effects of you or the enemy taking a hit were different in the original: when your shield was hit, the effect was the same as for the enemy, but much louder; and when the enemy shot was piercing through your hull, you heard an effect as disturbing as if there was someone smashing an iron helmet on your head with a sledgehammer... Made you quite aware the fact that now there's 100-200kg less armor between you and the void than there was a moment before. In addition, the whole screen got red for a brief moment. I am missing this. A lot
Maybe there should also be a quick (~0,1 second) light-blue flash when your shield took some damage. When being hit, you must be pretty aware of it. I flew through 12 pirate Talons shooting like a maniac and I was quite satisfied with my performance until I realized that those steel-scraping effects were coming from my ship and not from the pirates'... - The sound effect of Plasma Gun is not perfect; it sounds like if it was looped, but only for the first ~100ms. I mean, I heard the shot, and then the first ~100ms of the shot again. Maybe that 100ms is missing from the beginning of the sample?
- I don't always hear my guns barking. Either I can hear them shoot all through the flight as normally, or I cannot hear them at all, as if there was no sound effect for them, through the whole flight. I think this occurred after buying a new kind of weapon, but weirdly not in the first flight but the second flight. (I'm not sure of that, but I surely remember hearing them in my first flight after having them mounted.) This no-sound problem didn't occur in later flights.
- at first, when not having an afterburner, TAB still made it to be heard - and in the original, when energy level was too low for afterburner, the sound got scattered. Also, continous afterburning with low energy resulted in partial shield failure, i.e., shield level dropped for ~67%
- I pressed Alt-TAB to read the manual, I read it for ~30 minutes, and then Remake quit. Maybe there's a virus on my computer. But after restarting it, in-flight sound effects (not all, just shooting, communication, maybe hit effects) played looped until landing. Legal quitting and restarting solved the problem
- when dogfighting, music sometimes changes to the main theme (i.e. when not in dogfight). I absolutely like it this way, that's just a difference. Maybe it's in connection with what I've mentioned above about friendly communication with enemies we are trying to kill each other with.
- When loading a game from the Mission Computer's menu, I heard the in-space music for a moment
- switching of the musical themes (e.g. attack -> cruise) isn't always smooth - in-flight music change sometimes breaks the rhythm, and on the base Helen, when exiting the Ship Dealer, the music rewinded
- the shooting effects sound as if they had different graphical EQ applied on them - I don't know if it is intended or accidental, but it's definitely cool
Manual:
- the descriptions for the 3 hardest difficulty levels are the same
- "In the top right corner of the _Mission Computer_ are the [Save/Load] and [Done] buttons. The [Done] button
exits screen and returns you to the Upgrades Booth." I guess that should be Repair/Upgrade screen...
Misc:
- there's Vega Strike written on the System Tray when pressing Alt-TAB or after quitting.
In-Flight:
- MAJOR BUG: I jumped from Pollux to Sherwood, and i suddenly found myself in the middle of the asteroid field, at a distance of ~250.000 from the jump point I've arrived at. When this occurs, I also lose more fuel than necessary for the trip - I've had more than two circles on the display of my HUD, and then I couldn't jump out of the system. I also noticed that the same jump-sequence doesn't always take the same amount of fuel.
- after takeoff, when I press F1 for the first time, the game freezes for a few seconds, and nothing happens after that - I have to press F1 again to switch to HUD View
- at the first takeoff after loading there is a "Welcome to Vega Strike" message on the screen
- the 3D view of maps is great, but I find the icons of In-System Nav View too big - I think smaller ones would look better. And it isn't clear for me where I am and where my targeted destination is (OK maybe I simply didn't play long enough, but more important, e.g. on a patrol mission, I missed the red marks on the navpoint icons I still have to visit. The Mission button doesn't work, and there is "Vega Strike" written in some places, e.g. on the Help screen.
- I like the 3D look of Nav View, but I think the shading effect is inverted - when facing the sun, Nav View is shiny, and it is dark when heading in the opposing direction. Also, maybe a simple groove-border around the Nav-board screen and buttons would make it look more like a part of the instrument panel, maybe with studs or screws in the corners. I think the edges of the Nav Pad and the buttons shouldn't be made so rounded. And shouldn't it take over the whole screen? It would also make it look more like an instrument panel. Or if it simply isn't big enough to look good on its own as graphics, then it should be aligned bottom middle in the HUD View, so that it feels a bit like the instrument panels of a helicopter: displays in front of you, with panorama around...
- the hull condition was stored separately for the 4 parts of ships (OK I guess it's not accidental that this is missing). As enemy ships (as well as player's ship) took damage, the performance of certain systems fell back, like generators, thrusters, and shields - I can clearly remember hitting Talons several times in the back, and seeing their front and side shields fall back to 1/3...
- when fighting e.g. pirates, I receive friendly messages from them like "Catch you on the next run" - well, it doesn't sound too friendly, but in the original it was said when not being enemies. (OK maybe they just take it easy in Remake) And I also have friendly options for comm., like "Watch out for Insys, man".
- when damaging the enemy's hull, the "This crate's about to explode"-type messages come too early - I think it shouldn't come until there's a >50% damage. Same applies for "Drop your cargo...", when I'm hit (though I don't know how much damage my ship takes before hearing it).
- after destroying a ship, the debris looks like as if it is inside a big solid transparent glass-box - the parts are rolling around their common centre of mass, not around their own individual ones.
- the messages disappear too quickly - that's not a big problem as there's PgUp-PgDn. But when using PgDn, you can scroll down to infinity - not just until there's text to display like with PgUp. You scroll down, and scroll, and scroll... And then you have to scroll up the same amount to see the messages again.
- it would be nice to have a %-display for the four shields (for both player's and enemy ships), maybe also for the 4 parts of the hull, if that is planned to be realized
- I read it somewhere else in an other thread, and I agree: the ships in status display should be displayed from above, maybe with contours. Above view screenshot from the 3D models would also be great, but then they should be anti-aliased and rendered at high quality to look as cool as the Centurion looks on the Repair display. Shields could then be displayed on the correct place (front/rear). It would be great to have the hull damaged separately on the four parts of the ships, and I also have an other suggestion: I see there's a red overlay effect over the ship-model indicating the hull damage. I suggest the following: let's also have a green one. Let's say the ship's got X % damage. Then the red and green parts of the overlay should be divided as follows: Red - X%, Green: (100-X)%. For a healthy ship this would display green, for a middle-damaged ship ~orange, and around destruction it would almost be red. I haven't tried it yet how it would look, but I think it would be cool. Ships wouldn't get pink then
- the match speed option made my ship go faster than it is capable of - my first idea would be to simply check the speed of the targeted ship (but which one, the "set" or the "physical"? first one wouldn't be too realistic as how can your computer know that, second one would be less practical if the target is in turn), then compare it to the max speed of player's ship without AB, and set up the smaller one of them, leaving alone the current (i.e. the physical, not the "set") velocity. I guess the main idea was much like this, I don't know how this problem could occur - maybe the unit of measurement for the speed of the player's and enemy's ships aren't the same?
- the main idea of hiding the background-switch when jumping is very, very tricky but after seeing the white flash, you can still see the old background for a second sometimes
- I accepted two rescue missions, and the two pilots wanted to go to two separate bases. I landed one of them (the one that paid more, and then I couldn't finish the other mission. The mission was still active, but when landing on the required base, I didn't get paid, and after another launch, the mission was still active. I had to load to get rid of it.
- I saw a Tarsus fly through a mining base. I was approaching for land, and she was right in front of me, flying towards the base, and disappearing in it.
- collision with a Capital ship should cause more punishment. It would make approaching closely a turning Drayman much more, hmm, interesting Also, sometimes I can see through the ship I'm colliding with. Maybe collision should occur at a greater distance, and make the two ships lose speed in each other's direction so that they surely don't get that close to each other. I guess collision detection is based on distance, so the collide function should also make sure that the ships' distance gets bigger somehow.
- I took an escort mission of a Galaxy class merchant. I didn't know the wingman-orders so I simply autopiloted to the jumppoint (I don't know if that matters), and she followed me, but after coming to a full stop to wait for her, I saw her flying turned in the wrong direction, i.e. she was flying ~towards me, but with her back facing me, and slightly spinning back and forth. She should have been simply flying in a straight lane towards the JP, but she started to orbit me. I jumped to Troy (destination), she followed, I autopiloted to Helen, she came after me. Then I came to a full stop again, and she approached with her back towards me, she started to fly around me again, until she collided with me... Then I flew away and finally managed to have the mission ended. This weird behaviour of non-player ships should be corrected in any case.
- when in HUD View, AUTO appears as "SPEC" written with inverted characters. That should be changed, and in a Jump Point, the note "JUMP" should be placed a bit more under "SPEC"/"AUTO", right now they are "touching" each other. The two vertical lines bordering these words don't have the same look - color difference is OK but they are not exactly under each other. Also, OVERLOAD should be placed on the window when in Cockpit View, not over the cockpit graphics.
- When checking through the keys' functionality, I accidentally ejected... :/ There should be a big red "ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO EJECT?" message with a note, "Press Ctrl-Alt-Shift-Tab-E-F1-NumLock to eject" or whatever
- before this accidental ejection, I was on 3 missions for the same Drayman wing. After ejecting, I respawned (I don't remember if it was due to a self-destruct or after being shot), and I still had 2 active missions (maybe I finished one before ejecting). I flew back there and saw the Drayman damaged as I've left it there, I finished the two missions, landed, and haven't get paid. Afterwards, I still had 1 active mission.
- when autopiloting, especially near an asteroid field, you can clearly see in the external view that your ship changes its position (moves 100.000 km) in no time. Looks as if you were travelling with 1.000.000 KPS for a moment. In the original, the animation when autopiloting showed your ship for 2 or 3 seconds travelling in the position you pressed "A", and then you found yourself near your destination. I.e., the re-positioning of your ship was hidden.
- I haven't checked it out in Remake yet, but in the original, when autopiloting to a distant navpoint with reloading (i.e. dropped) shields, the shields didn't regenerate at all through the trip, despite that normally it would take 10 minutes to get there manually. I hope it is corrected in Remake, maybe by calculating the time needed to get there with full speed, and the amount the shields regenerate in that time. (distance/speed = time needed for trip; regeneration rate*triptime = amount; new shield state = min ( maxshield, currentshield+amount ) ) - ... Meanwhile I've checked it and it also occurs in Remake...
- I couldn't launch any missiles with my default Tarsus - and I couldn't buy a missile or torpedo launcher either. Is there a special key for missile launch that I may have not found?
- less important, but disturbing: In-Flight instructions said "Procede to Regallis" instead of "Proceed..."
- I saw shipName.blank in some places, Nav map, and on the HUD - it can also be found in the Nav screen's Ship option, e.g. my ship was Centurion.blank.
- MAJOR BUG: I jumped from Pollux to Sherwood, and i suddenly found myself in the middle of the asteroid field, at a distance of ~250.000 from the jump point I've arrived at. When this occurs, I also lose more fuel than necessary for the trip - I've had more than two circles on the display of my HUD, and then I couldn't jump out of the system. I also noticed that the same jump-sequence doesn't always take the same amount of fuel.
- after takeoff, when I press F1 for the first time, the game freezes for a few seconds, and nothing happens after that - I have to press F1 again to switch to HUD View
- at the first takeoff after loading there is a "Welcome to Vega Strike" message on the screen
- the 3D view of maps is great, but I find the icons of In-System Nav View too big - I think smaller ones would look better. And it isn't clear for me where I am and where my targeted destination is (OK maybe I simply didn't play long enough
, but more important, e.g. on a patrol mission, I missed the red marks on the navpoint icons I still have to visit. The Mission button doesn't work, and there is "Vega Strike" written in some places, e.g. on the Help screen. - I like the 3D look of Nav View, but I think the shading effect is inverted - when facing the sun, Nav View is shiny, and it is dark when heading in the opposing direction. Also, maybe a simple groove-border around the Nav-board screen and buttons would make it look more like a part of the instrument panel, maybe with studs or screws in the corners. I think the edges of the Nav Pad and the buttons shouldn't be made so rounded. And shouldn't it take over the whole screen? It would also make it look more like an instrument panel. Or if it simply isn't big enough to look good on its own as graphics, then it should be aligned bottom middle in the HUD View, so that it feels a bit like the instrument panels of a helicopter: displays in front of you, with panorama around...
- the hull condition was stored separately for the 4 parts of ships (OK I guess it's not accidental that this is missing). As enemy ships (as well as player's ship) took damage, the performance of certain systems fell back, like generators, thrusters, and shields - I can clearly remember hitting Talons several times in the back, and seeing their front and side shields fall back to 1/3...
- when fighting e.g. pirates, I receive friendly messages from them like "Catch you on the next run" - well, it doesn't sound too friendly, but in the original it was said when not being enemies. (OK maybe they just take it easy in Remake
) And I also have friendly options for comm., like "Watch out for Insys, man". - when damaging the enemy's hull, the "This crate's about to explode"-type messages come too early - I think it shouldn't come until there's a >50% damage. Same applies for "Drop your cargo...", when I'm hit (though I don't know how much damage my ship takes before hearing it).
- after destroying a ship, the debris looks like as if it is inside a big solid transparent glass-box - the parts are rolling around their common centre of mass, not around their own individual ones.
- the messages disappear too quickly - that's not a big problem as there's PgUp-PgDn. But when using PgDn, you can scroll down to infinity - not just until there's text to display like with PgUp. You scroll down, and scroll, and scroll... And then you have to scroll up the same amount to see the messages again.
- it would be nice to have a %-display for the four shields (for both player's and enemy ships), maybe also for the 4 parts of the hull, if that is planned to be realized
- I read it somewhere else in an other thread, and I agree: the ships in status display should be displayed from above, maybe with contours. Above view screenshot from the 3D models would also be great, but then they should be anti-aliased and rendered at high quality to look as cool as the Centurion looks on the Repair display. Shields could then be displayed on the correct place (front/rear). It would be great to have the hull damaged separately on the four parts of the ships, and I also have an other suggestion: I see there's a red overlay effect over the ship-model indicating the hull damage. I suggest the following: let's also have a green one. Let's say the ship's got X % damage. Then the red and green parts of the overlay should be divided as follows: Red - X%, Green: (100-X)%. For a healthy ship this would display green, for a middle-damaged ship ~orange, and around destruction it would almost be red. I haven't tried it yet how it would look, but I think it would be cool. Ships wouldn't get pink then
- the match speed option made my ship go faster than it is capable of - my first idea would be to simply check the speed of the targeted ship (but which one, the "set" or the "physical"? first one wouldn't be too realistic as how can your computer know that, second one would be less practical if the target is in turn), then compare it to the max speed of player's ship without AB, and set up the smaller one of them, leaving alone the current (i.e. the physical, not the "set") velocity. I guess the main idea was much like this, I don't know how this problem could occur - maybe the unit of measurement for the speed of the player's and enemy's ships aren't the same?
- the main idea of hiding the background-switch when jumping is very, very tricky
but after seeing the white flash, you can still see the old background for a second sometimes - I accepted two rescue missions, and the two pilots wanted to go to two separate bases. I landed one of them (the one that paid more
, and then I couldn't finish the other mission. The mission was still active, but when landing on the required base, I didn't get paid, and after another launch, the mission was still active. I had to load to get rid of it. - I saw a Tarsus fly through a mining base. I was approaching for land, and she was right in front of me, flying towards the base, and disappearing in it.
- collision with a Capital ship should cause more punishment. It would make approaching closely a turning Drayman much more, hmm, interesting
Also, sometimes I can see through the ship I'm colliding with. Maybe collision should occur at a greater distance, and make the two ships lose speed in each other's direction so that they surely don't get that close to each other. I guess collision detection is based on distance, so the collide function should also make sure that the ships' distance gets bigger somehow. - I took an escort mission of a Galaxy class merchant. I didn't know the wingman-orders so I simply autopiloted to the jumppoint (I don't know if that matters), and she followed me, but after coming to a full stop to wait for her, I saw her flying turned in the wrong direction, i.e. she was flying ~towards me, but with her back facing me, and slightly spinning back and forth. She should have been simply flying in a straight lane towards the JP, but she started to orbit me. I jumped to Troy (destination), she followed, I autopiloted to Helen, she came after me. Then I came to a full stop again, and she approached with her back towards me, she started to fly around me again, until she collided with me... Then I flew away and finally managed to have the mission ended. This weird behaviour of non-player ships should be corrected in any case.
- when in HUD View, AUTO appears as "SPEC" written with inverted characters. That should be changed, and in a Jump Point, the note "JUMP" should be placed a bit more under "SPEC"/"AUTO", right now they are "touching" each other. The two vertical lines bordering these words don't have the same look - color difference is OK but they are not exactly under each other. Also, OVERLOAD should be placed on the window when in Cockpit View, not over the cockpit graphics.
- When checking through the keys' functionality, I accidentally ejected... :/ There should be a big red "ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO EJECT?" message with a note, "Press Ctrl-Alt-Shift-Tab-E-F1-NumLock to eject" or whatever
- before this accidental ejection, I was on 3 missions for the same Drayman wing. After ejecting, I respawned (I don't remember if it was due to a self-destruct or after being shot), and I still had 2 active missions (maybe I finished one before ejecting). I flew back there and saw the Drayman damaged as I've left it there, I finished the two missions, landed, and haven't get paid. Afterwards, I still had 1 active mission.
- when autopiloting, especially near an asteroid field, you can clearly see in the external view that your ship changes its position (moves 100.000 km) in no time. Looks as if you were travelling with 1.000.000 KPS for a moment. In the original, the animation when autopiloting showed your ship for 2 or 3 seconds travelling in the position you pressed "A", and then you found yourself near your destination. I.e., the re-positioning of your ship was hidden.
- I haven't checked it out in Remake yet, but in the original, when autopiloting to a distant navpoint with reloading (i.e. dropped) shields, the shields didn't regenerate at all through the trip, despite that normally it would take 10 minutes to get there manually. I hope it is corrected in Remake, maybe by calculating the time needed to get there with full speed, and the amount the shields regenerate in that time. (distance/speed = time needed for trip; regeneration rate*triptime = amount; new shield state = min ( maxshield, currentshield+amount ) ) - ... Meanwhile I've checked it and it also occurs in Remake...
- I couldn't launch any missiles with my default Tarsus - and I couldn't buy a missile or torpedo launcher either. Is there a special key for missile launch that I may have not found?
- less important, but disturbing: In-Flight instructions said "Procede to Regallis" instead of "Proceed..."
- I saw shipName.blank in some places, Nav map, and on the HUD - it can also be found in the Nav screen's Ship option, e.g. my ship was Centurion.blank.
In-Flight: - Less important:
- it would be nice to have the navigation and melee targeting separated - I remember of a Destination MFD-option in the original, where you could see the distance of your dest. You didn't erase your destination when targeting enemy ships.
- when autopiloting to a destination I'm not facing, I don't always face it when arriving - and if I do, then sometimes, in the moment of arriving I also have a velocity-component not heading towards the destination, as if my ship was turning towards it right that moment.
- I think when setting the speed with the KP+, KP- keys, the counter should stop at zero so that if you just want to stop, you don't start to move in the opposite direction. This means you would have to press the key again to actually set up the speed in the opposing direction
- Autopilot sets speed for maximum, I think it should leave it alone (except if I am not moving when pressing "A"). And if I cannot use autopilot, "A" also sets maximum speed.
- after switching to HUD View, the communications display appears in the bottom right corner - if a default value for that "MFD" is essential, Enemy View would be better, but I don't think that inheriting the actual settings of the MFDs in Cockpit View would be too complicated, the only problem is with ships having only one MFD, but then let's say that this single MFD is ordered bottom right in HUD View, and the top left one has a default setting with Weapons View or whatever. I hope this sentence makes sense Also, I've read in an other post that the two MFDs can have the same function - in the original, they definitely couldn't. I remember switching through the functions of the MFDs (I can't remember what was the key for that, but you could switch through the functions one by one pressing the same key again and again) and you couldn't have the one that was active on the other.
- you sometimes have to press "A" twice when becoming able to autopilot out of an asteroid field, i.e. you see the animation of autopiloting, and then you are still as far away from your destination as you were before (not a problem though - and the original also had this thing)
- it made completely no sense, but in the original you could turn off the weapons. It made the game look so professional with having to turn on all these things and instruments after takeoff Maybe you were also able to use the buttons 1-4 for switching individual weapons on/off (it would make more sense), but I'm not sure about that
- not a big thing: in Pollux, I saw a discontinuity in the background, it was in a line about 100 pixel long (1024x768 resolution).
OK, I was warning you it was going to be much
- it would be nice to have the navigation and melee targeting separated - I remember of a Destination MFD-option in the original, where you could see the distance of your dest. You didn't erase your destination when targeting enemy ships.
- when autopiloting to a destination I'm not facing, I don't always face it when arriving - and if I do, then sometimes, in the moment of arriving I also have a velocity-component not heading towards the destination, as if my ship was turning towards it right that moment.
- I think when setting the speed with the KP+, KP- keys, the counter should stop at zero so that if you just want to stop, you don't start to move in the opposite direction. This means you would have to press the key again to actually set up the speed in the opposing direction
- Autopilot sets speed for maximum, I think it should leave it alone (except if I am not moving when pressing "A"). And if I cannot use autopilot, "A" also sets maximum speed.
- after switching to HUD View, the communications display appears in the bottom right corner - if a default value for that "MFD" is essential, Enemy View would be better, but I don't think that inheriting the actual settings of the MFDs in Cockpit View would be too complicated, the only problem is with ships having only one MFD, but then let's say that this single MFD is ordered bottom right in HUD View, and the top left one has a default setting with Weapons View or whatever. I hope this sentence makes sense
Also, I've read in an other post that the two MFDs can have the same function - in the original, they definitely couldn't. I remember switching through the functions of the MFDs (I can't remember what was the key for that, but you could switch through the functions one by one pressing the same key again and again) and you couldn't have the one that was active on the other. - you sometimes have to press "A" twice when becoming able to autopilot out of an asteroid field, i.e. you see the animation of autopiloting, and then you are still as far away from your destination as you were before (not a problem though - and the original also had this thing)
- it made completely no sense, but in the original you could turn off the weapons. It made the game look so professional with having to turn on all these things and instruments after takeoff
Maybe you were also able to use the buttons 1-4 for switching individual weapons on/off (it would make more sense), but I'm not sure about that - not a big thing: in Pollux, I saw a discontinuity in the background, it was in a line about 100 pixel long (1024x768 resolution).
OK, I was warning you it was going to be much
MamiyaOtaru
Spaceman
Jumps always use the same amount of fuel, unless you pound the j key more than once when you are in the jump sphere, though that has been fixed for later versions (which are you using?)
Fire missiles with enter. You don't buy missile launchers, just missiles. You can't fire guided missiles unless they are locked.
If you want your speed to be 0, press backspace.
Fire missiles with enter. You don't buy missile launchers, just missiles. You can't fire guided missiles unless they are locked.
If you want your speed to be 0, press backspace.
Diss--
Thank you so much for providing such a detailed report
i sounds like you were running version 0.9b and we note that a few of the bugs have been fixed...but there are a lot of sticklers in there...and we're going to have to fix many of them for the 1.0 release.
At any rate this will be a great guide to help us along when polishing the final release...
Your english is very good! I'm totally impressed.
Thank you again
Thank you so much for providing such a detailed report
i sounds like you were running version 0.9b and we note that a few of the bugs have been fixed...but there are a lot of sticklers in there...and we're going to have to fix many of them for the 1.0 release.
At any rate this will be a great guide to help us along when polishing the final release...
Your english is very good! I'm totally impressed.
Thank you again
M
Maniac23
Guest
Dogfighting / Autotracking
Biggest single Problem:
The dogifighting is no fun.
Possible explanation:
From my point of view the integration of autotracking systems seriously disturtbs the balance as the desigeners adjust their difficulty level mainly depending on a ship WITH autotracking. This in itself is not a problem but as the talon ships move very fast and have very extremly low inertia it is very difficult (medium difficulty) to hit them WITHOUT autotracking. So the usual formula is to avoid combat until you get autotracking and then it is just a matter of aiming in the general direction and hoping that the enemy explodes before you do. You might be able to evade the shots from the enemy in front of you but you cant do so with the enemies behind you.
From my point of view the Talons should have a lower turn-rating and higher inertia. both would make it possible to evade shots from the back easier with high speed maneuvers as they might not turn as fast as you fly an evasion maneouver or turn their weapons as fast in your direction.
I also think that some talons are armed to haevily. I never saw talons shooting with proton torpedos at me in the original game. Besides the small ships shouldn't have a large enough powerplant.
It takes the fun out of a game if it is a simple head-on slugfest instead of quick short atacks- and quick evasion maneuvers .
Also consider not to allow more than 4 atacking talons at a time.
I also want do add that the original privateer's difficulty was increasing over the time of the game (dependant on the number of kills?). I thinkt that this might be good idea too. (But hard to balance)
Also the original game had no autotracking (but you already knew that didnt you ?)
Yeah i should have criticized more politely hope you forgive me as i only criticitze to make it better
Biggest single Problem:
The dogifighting is no fun.
Possible explanation:
From my point of view the integration of autotracking systems seriously disturtbs the balance as the desigeners adjust their difficulty level mainly depending on a ship WITH autotracking. This in itself is not a problem but as the talon ships move very fast and have very extremly low inertia it is very difficult (medium difficulty) to hit them WITHOUT autotracking. So the usual formula is to avoid combat until you get autotracking and then it is just a matter of aiming in the general direction and hoping that the enemy explodes before you do. You might be able to evade the shots from the enemy in front of you but you cant do so with the enemies behind you.
From my point of view the Talons should have a lower turn-rating and higher inertia. both would make it possible to evade shots from the back easier with high speed maneuvers as they might not turn as fast as you fly an evasion maneouver or turn their weapons as fast in your direction.
I also think that some talons are armed to haevily. I never saw talons shooting with proton torpedos at me in the original game
. Besides the small ships shouldn't have a large enough powerplant.It takes the fun out of a game if it is a simple head-on slugfest instead of quick short atacks- and quick evasion maneuvers .
Also consider not to allow more than 4 atacking talons at a time.
I also want do add that the original privateer's difficulty was increasing over the time of the game (dependant on the number of kills?). I thinkt that this might be good idea too. (But hard to balance)
Also the original game had no autotracking (but you already knew that didnt you ?)
Yeah i should have criticized more politely hope you forgive me as i only criticitze to make it better
spiritplumber
Spaceman
A *very* simple fix for this is to up damage and bullet speed of all guns by about 50%. Try it.