1.8 Beta 1 is ready!

New releases and announcements from George and the staff.
shanejfilomena
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Shrike wrote:
Wed Mar 07, 2018 3:26 am
I would point out that in terms of lore you've just retconned Pacific Defense from a ship company to a wider arms dealer, instead of just filling the gap in the NAMI matter weapons which would probably have been more elegant.
In a extension I once imagined Pacific Defense as an Arms / Armor Dealer as well, But in the latest image I had some months ago.....I imagined them as a Manufacturing Plant producing *dwa~s.

So I must have caught a tag or something along the way because I know I only made weapons for Kartal in that one.

But as a Ship Builder....like UAE & Earth Indusries...we really don't see those much, even in extensions.
Flying Irresponsibly In Eridani......

I don't like to kill pirates in cold blood ..I do it.. but I don't like it..
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WeedersDog97
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There's something wrong with this sprite, not sure what ship name is...
It's one of the warlords the corporate stations send you to kill.
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JohnBWatson
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Shrike wrote:
Wed Mar 07, 2018 3:26 am
if you're thrusting when you gate into a new system, the game jams the thruster on until you click/hit the button again to stop it.
I didn't notice this happening, but I mainly use the mouse. Are other people also getting that issue?
NMS
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WeedersDog97 wrote:
Wed Mar 07, 2018 4:54 am
There's something wrong with this sprite, not sure what ship name is...
It's one of the warlords the corporate stations send you to kill.
scAurochsW7

George updated the Aurochs image here, but didn't update the Image tags in the CC and EP ships that use it. I created PRs to fix it.

Maybe attributes like imageHeight, imageWidth, rotationCount, etc. should be stored in the Image type for images that will generally be used in full, like ships, rather than in each Image tag?

JohnBWatson wrote:
Wed Mar 07, 2018 7:20 am
Shrike wrote:
Wed Mar 07, 2018 3:26 am
if you're thrusting when you gate into a new system, the game jams the thruster on until you click/hit the button again to stop it.
I didn't notice this happening, but I mainly use the mouse. Are other people also getting that issue?
I've don't recall noticing before, but I can replicate if I release thrust during the fullscreen loading screen. It's been this way all along, although the timing was tighter in old versions.
PM
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I just finished a playthrough of 1.8 beta. This is my first honest no-mod playthrough since 1.5. Some comments.

* Trading is much better. I no longer need to hoard items. Selling things no longer get progressively worse, and you cannot cheat buying limits by bringing more than what they have.

* Without old-fashioned solar armor, there was no incentitive for me to sit and wait on stars for free fuel. I also upgraded armor as it was found instead of sticking with solar armor all game and relying solely on shields.

* Later in the game, I relied on armor much more than I used to in the past. (Note to self: I need to rethink external devices in my mods, because externals will break sooner or later if player allows hits on armor.)

* Molotok in Rigel may be overpowered. I had level 5 shield (Nephren) and armor (heavy plasteel). His Dragonfly cut through my shield and armor in about two or three hits/salvos, and there is no way to hide from them. I did not have targeting program, so in effect, he had better range than me. Also, since he is not an enemy, I had to aim my omni and tracking weapons directly at him. Eventually, I beat him by trading hits with my +75% dual turbolaser, but even then, my ship took a hard beating. Afterwards, Slicer was almost as hard... because he was very durable and rolled up the omni RK15. The Molotok is much, much stronger than all of the gladiators before the Slicer, and the Slicer is only comparable because of his armor and possibly loadout.

* Targeting program was obnoxiously rare in my game. I got my first targeting program as a reward for Korolov after Rigel. I found one more in St. K's (which eventually went to my Minotaur).

* I like the Ship Broker. It does not seem practical early in the game when ships are too expensive, if available at all (Eridani seems to have no ships for sale). By mid to late game, they are more useful. I traded my Wolfen for a Minotaur, and it was great. I also upgraded Jeena's Ronin to a Centurion, and she became a bit less fragile.

* One problem with Ship Broker: when you upgrade your ship, you lose all equipment upgrades. Since I loathe playing without targeting, I did not change ships until I got the Minotaur. If targeting was more easily accessible, I would have changed my Wolfen for another ship sooner.

* As a playership, the Minotaur may be significantly more powerful than the starter ships. That linked-fire omni weapon is a big deal, and it has as much capacity as a freighter. I do not think it is balanced with the other ships, but it is not so much stronger than them to be a major problem. It is definitely tame compared to what the player could get in Playership Drones. Minotaur is a noticeable upgrade, and powerful enough that I probably will beeline for it in most, if not every, game.

* I like the repeat drop option Teraton fabricators have. As for fabricators, I used them mostly to fabricate more M5 Nemesis missiles, although I also used it to craft a patch spider and a level 9 omni ion blaster. Speaking of NAMI Heavy Launcher, that weapon is more useful than it was before the weapon rebalance.

* With the weapon upgrades CSCs received, Antarctica can easily destroy the six Aquilas sent after it. (I wanted to kill Antarctica, but pressed the wrong key and sided with her by mistake.) The only way I could let the Aquilas kill her (so I can get my Lamplighter) was park my ship in front of Antarctica's line-of-fire, so that it could not shoot, but Aquilas can. Before 1.8, Aquilas were guaranteed to destroy the Antarctica if you did not interfere. Now, Antarctica is more than powerful enough to defend itself from all six Aquilas without your help.

* I noticed advanced Ares sentries will shoot at your ship even if hiding behind something. I hid behind two Teraton stations, and the Ares sentries destroyed them for me. Free loot!

That is it for now. I might try one more playthrough with mods, before resuming work on mods.
Download and Play in 1.9 beta 1...
Drake Technologies (Alpha): More hardware for combat in parts 1 and 2!
Star Castle Arcade: Play a classic arcade game adventure, with or without more features (like powerups)!
Playership Drones: Buy or restore exotic ships to command!

Other playable mods from 1.8 and 1.7, waiting to be updated...
Godmode v3 (WIP): Dev/cheat tool compatible with D&O parts 1 or 2.
JohnBWatson
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* Molotok in Rigel may be overpowered. I had level 5 shield (Nephren) and armor (heavy plasteel). His Dragonfly cut through my shield and armor in about two or three hits/salvos, and there is no way to hide from them. I did not have targeting program, so in effect, he had better range than me. Also, since he is not an enemy, I had to aim my omni and tracking weapons directly at him. Eventually, I beat him by trading hits with my +75% dual turbolaser, but even then, my ship took a hard beating. Afterwards, Slicer was almost as hard... because he was very durable and rolled up the omni RK15. The Molotok is much, much stronger than all of the gladiators before the Slicer, and the Slicer is only comparable because of his armor and possibly loadout.
Molotoks retreat on shields down, and that's the key here. Blitz it with all of your weaponry, then keep on it and kill it before it can recharge its shields. Their defenses are decent, but almost all of their combat ability comes from their offense. That's been my strategy ever since the early versions.
PM
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That was what I did eventually (with +75% dual turbolaser), but I still took a ton of damage. Its offense is overwhelming, more than the Slicer itself, though nowhere near as durable. I used close to the best that I could get without backtracking (since shops and loot are generally level appropriate these days). Slicer was only a threat in my game because it had the RK15 and I could not attack it from long range without targeting program.

In the early versions, Dragonfly did not track (or did not track as well if it did). When I first fought Molotok years ago, blitzing it got me killed, so I kited and wore it down. (Also, there could randomly be two back then) Today, I cannot do that without targeting.
Download and Play in 1.9 beta 1...
Drake Technologies (Alpha): More hardware for combat in parts 1 and 2!
Star Castle Arcade: Play a classic arcade game adventure, with or without more features (like powerups)!
Playership Drones: Buy or restore exotic ships to command!

Other playable mods from 1.8 and 1.7, waiting to be updated...
Godmode v3 (WIP): Dev/cheat tool compatible with D&O parts 1 or 2.
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Song
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Hmm. I may see if my own upgraded Aquila-class can deal with Antarctica. Might be a good baseline for trying to upgrade the stock ships.
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WeedersDog97
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I had a game where targeting roms were rare as well. With corporate command installed and going fairly thoroughly through all systems before St. Kats, I ended up with only one targeting rom. The fact that installed roms don't carry over to new ships means I had to waste a tradepost order on targeting roms. I would also like to note by the time I left the pre-St. Kats area I had 26 autopilot roms. George. Why.

I love every change I've noticed so far. Trading is so much better. I was amassing the largest army of zoanthropes as I could, given I didn't have brutally slaughter every one them thanks to the new friendly fire system. At least until a lumiere destroyer came along and with a single thera shell crushed all my hopes and dreams, crashing my game in the process.

Onto the minotaur, I love the ship, but it really brings nothing new given it focuses on turrets. I don't know about anyone else, but I always play through with turrets because they're just so effective and low risk. All that considered the EI500 is still the best ship because of all the flexibility the device slots give(fight me).

I have my own idea for the minotaur, if you'd like. Turn it into a total brawling ship.

Step one: tilt armor from this
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to this, which would make it a bit more survivable when bearing down on targets
Picture2.png
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Step two: give it a passive which make it so external devices don't get damaged. Then it can have horns without fear of breaking them!
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After that you can keep or get rid of the linked fire turret, but regardless, these changes combined with the massive armor would make it a bit more practical to go charging head on into that Ares shipyard like you always wanted to. I would also suggest making the standard (blue) minotaur a starter ship, but with lower base stats (beyond just gear) than the Minotaur M, and adding some low level side mounted weapons (laser, kinetic, particle, blast). It was kind of disappointing to find out the only stat advantage the M has over the standard is a cooler paint job.

Anyway, I hope this was helpful and not just annoying. It amazes me that even after playing this game for like... what... 15 years, I still have fun each time. You truly have something special here George. Keep up the good work!
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PM
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I think targeting program is rarer because we now have trading program added to the item pool and diluting it. My last game only had a single ROM at St. K's. I was lucky to get targeting program as a Korolov reward. Otherwise, I would need to burn a trading post order for it (when I upgraded to Minotaur).

Suggestion: Barring equipment services or transfer, at least add a higher level cube that installs all equipment - visual, targeting, and trading.

The Minotaur can easily brawl (it has two guns instead of one), and I like it the way it is.
Download and Play in 1.9 beta 1...
Drake Technologies (Alpha): More hardware for combat in parts 1 and 2!
Star Castle Arcade: Play a classic arcade game adventure, with or without more features (like powerups)!
Playership Drones: Buy or restore exotic ships to command!

Other playable mods from 1.8 and 1.7, waiting to be updated...
Godmode v3 (WIP): Dev/cheat tool compatible with D&O parts 1 or 2.
Derakon
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Given that they are just ROMs, i.e. programs, you could just make it so that targeting, enhanced vision, defective vision, autopilot, etc. ROMs aren't used up when activated. You just copy the program into your ship's computer. The map ROMs can be glossed as "this ROM has data on it that just happens to be relevant to the system you used it in", and of course the cash card ROMs initiate a one-time bank transaction, so it makes sense for them to be used up.
PM
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ROMs, cubes, crystals, and other similar consumables are clearly scrolls IN SPACE! Although unlike similar games, items of a given level do not appear more than a few levels outside their depth. If you have an item that would be useful throughout the game, but it is low level, you will not see it in mid or high level. Modern Transcendence is such that you need multiple items of varying levels, like armor repair kits and the like, for that feature to be available for the entire game.

If ship equipment becomes transferrable from ship to ship, I would like to see all ID become ship equipment. Hauling military and black market id that can be lost through careless item management is a pain.
Download and Play in 1.9 beta 1...
Drake Technologies (Alpha): More hardware for combat in parts 1 and 2!
Star Castle Arcade: Play a classic arcade game adventure, with or without more features (like powerups)!
Playership Drones: Buy or restore exotic ships to command!

Other playable mods from 1.8 and 1.7, waiting to be updated...
Godmode v3 (WIP): Dev/cheat tool compatible with D&O parts 1 or 2.
Derakon
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PM wrote:
Thu Mar 08, 2018 3:28 pm
ROMs, cubes, crystals, and other similar consumables are clearly scrolls IN SPACE!
And when they provide a one-off effect, like an enchantment, detection, or cash, that's fine. It's when they bestow a permanent modification to the player that they become problematic.

Imagine a hypothetical roguelike where there was an early-game scroll that permanently increased your sight radius. Every player would expect to play the bulk of the game with the increased sight radius, and be irritated if they couldn't, right? Whether that be because they just got unlucky and the scroll never spawned, or if after many years, the game added a polymorph-race effect that, as a side effect, removed all such enhancements.

Except it's a lot easier to imagine transferring your computer's upgraded sensor suite into a new ship, than it is to imagine transferring your elf's eyeballs into a titan. :)
PM
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Not saying that it is not frustrating. I wish targeting was on by default like autopilot. It would be like if Endless Sky required an item upgrade before player could use targeting.

Consumables providing permanent upgrades, like eating various corpses in Nethack? (e.g., eat black dragon for disintegrate-immune).

Not sure about the eyeballs thing, given LEGO body parts of various popular shows, with transplants required for upgrades.
Download and Play in 1.9 beta 1...
Drake Technologies (Alpha): More hardware for combat in parts 1 and 2!
Star Castle Arcade: Play a classic arcade game adventure, with or without more features (like powerups)!
Playership Drones: Buy or restore exotic ships to command!

Other playable mods from 1.8 and 1.7, waiting to be updated...
Godmode v3 (WIP): Dev/cheat tool compatible with D&O parts 1 or 2.
Derakon
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PM wrote:
Thu Mar 08, 2018 5:49 pm
Consumables providing permanent upgrades, like eating various corpses in Nethack? (e.g., eat black dragon for disintegrate-immune).
Okay, now I'm curious, do permanent passive effects that you gain over the course of a game of NetHack transfer when you polymorph? I guess the most obvious case would be, if you've eaten a quantum mechanic (for the permanent speed boost) and polymorph, do you keep the speed boost?
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