1.7 Beta 4 and Part II Alpha Test

[george moromisato]

The alpha test for Part II is ready! Remember that this is a very early test with lots of bugs, missing content, and horrible balance problems. If that's not your particular brand of salmon, then feel free to ignore this post. Otherwise, please read on:

Please follow these steps to participate in the test:

1. Update your game to the latest version: http://kronosaur.com/downloads/TranscendenceNext.zip.

2. Go to the Multiverse and sign in.

3. Go to this page to redeem a code: https://multiverse.kronosaur.com/unlock.hexm

4. Use the following code: KGR52R8J

5. [There are a limited number of redemptions in the code above. Please don't spread it around too much. If we run out of codes, let me know.]

6. Run Transcendence and let Part II download.

7. This page has some more info on Part II: https://multiverse.kronosaur.com/transE ... &release=1

8. Enjoy!

I'm always happy for feedback. The most useful feedback for Part II is general comments on the mechanics. Feel free to post entries in Ministry (for Transcendence). Or post comments here in the forums.

[Blitz]

Well, it unlocked on the web just fine. Did it on my phone. Seems like I picked the right time to check on Transcendence.

I'll check stuff out later today

[Xephyr]

Quick note to players: You'll probably run out of fuel before you can afford to buy a new ship. Because of this, you should run in debug mode so you can either give yourself fuel or RUs.

George: The ship should probably start with some fuel, or Exsillium should have compatible fuel. I think this is the most important thing for playability right now (though there was fair warning about playability).

[E.I.G.]

Well, Erebien Foundries might need better health.
Just had the first one I found blown up rather easily by the Grome Heavy Gunships in the same system.

Didn't get a chance to try the crafting system there, but it looks interesting. Could have some issues of the items having descriptions that make them sound like fuel items when they are not.

[PM]

Lamplighter in Part 2 has pre-buff stats and description. Does 39 damage instead of 65.

Attempting to import mods with Human Space defined into Part 2 includes late-game factions like Ares and Teratons. I have much work to do to make some of my mods usable in part 2 without the unwanted part 1 guests, assuming they are appropriate in part 2.

[Xephyr]

Here's my thoughts on the upgrade mechanics.

It feels like you're shoehorned into the mechanist path at first, because the only guaranteed station to show up is Exsillium Station, which only sells the Eridan. If you're lucky and find Olam Haz you have the benefit of choice, but that's not guaranteed.

Switching after some time isn't viable because you'll undoubtedly have upgraded somewhat, making switching to start from nothing really unappealing. Granted, this will be better when there are more ships at higher levels available.

My only other complaint is that the artifact awakening screen is dependent on the mouse (unless I'm just missing something). I almost never move my hands from my keyboard while playing (and a ten year habit is hard to break) so it would be nice if that could be helped.

Beyond all that, this is all looking super promising and I'm looking forward to seeing how this evolves over the years. Great work!

[JohnBWatson]

== SPOILERS ==

Some of the things we can see here are really impressive. I recall that one of my deaths involved a stray Jaxii shell hitting a friendly station and setting a fleet of bioships upon me. I ran to the nearest planet to try and figure out a way to stop the inevitable, waiting there until a herd of Hadrotheums showed up and was drawn into the fight. I thought I was saved, but after killing two or three of my attackers, the herd decided its desire for vengeance was sated and moved on, leaving me to my death. I tried to kill the remaining Swifts with my tracking weapon, which I had considered much more useful than the default gun for the ship, but I was unable to get any shells through their fire screen - the weapon I was using belonged to a faction they had adapted over the years to fight against. It was definitely good storytelling for the relationship between the factions to be reflected by the weapon mechanics rather than a flat buff to one side's armor resistance against the damage type used by their enemies.

[PM]

Something changed with Effects and/or Overlays in 1.7 beta 4.

Before, Overlays that are visible only by a Ray effect rotated with the object the overlay was bound to. For example, an overlay with a Ray effect with xformRotation="90" draws a ray to the left of the ship the overlay is attached to. Now, in 1.7 beta 4, the ray with xformRotation of 90 always draws upward regardless of the attached object's angle.

The rays from multiple objects and overlays that used to form a polygon, such as a Star Castle style shield, no longer do so. Now that rays are all vertical lines. The affected mods (Star Castle Arcade) used to work fine in beta 3, so something in the Transcendence engine changed.

[SolarGalaxy]

I feel that its strange that we don't encounter the Iocyrm since they're the guardians of the ancient races, will they be added in a later
update?

edit:
I played as a sapphire until I got the Tor Quan swift, I skipped upgrading to the Eridan since the sapphire has the antimatter lamplighter weapon. The process of upgrading through age is really nice since I don't have to find armor, reactors and stuff. I have to say that the Jax are extremely powerful, they have a tracking plasma weapon that does extreme amounts of damage. I could only fight them when I was an adult with level 14 armor (vs their level 11 weapon), which still required me to run to allies for help. Luckily I looted an intact version of their weapon and after upgrading it, I can two shot most things. (766.5 damage per shot, 1533 dps).

The hadrotherium are nice sources of money.

I still haven't encountered the Olam Haz, it would be cool if it was a guaranteed spawn somewhere as it seems to be a major trading outpost.

[JohnBWatson]

I feel that its strange that we don't encounter the Iocyrm since they're the guardians of the ancient races, will they be added in a later update?

I noticed that too - you'd think there would be some trace of their infrastructure in the Mourner system, even if they weren't making use of it at the moment.

[Aury]

The ISS Deliverance (maybe should be RISS? or IRSS?) shows up each time you enter mourner it seems. It also doesn't appear in the next system after gating out (assuming you are following it closely)

[JohnBWatson]

The ISS Deliverance (maybe should be RISS? or IRSS?) shows up each time you enter mourner it seems. It also doesn't appear in the next system after gating out (assuming you are following it closely)

It should probably show up guarding the station it tells us about, given that that's the only human - controlled station out there.

[erwgd]

I've explored 7 systems so far, so I'm still early in the game. Pteravores forced me to buy an Eridan, and I'm hesitant to experiment with the biotech and archaeotech lines, as money has been very limited so far. Will there be more sources of money in the early-game, or am I mostly going to be selling stuff that isn't part of my tech line?

I'm doing well for myself with a Grome U21 howitzer, a Keren D4 turret and a Nabul T1 cannon. I've only touched the foundry to craft myself the Nabul.
If you're starting out and you buy the Eridan, I strongly recommend getting the Nabul T1! You need its WMD for stations, and you'll want its tracking and range to hit hard against the Grome heavy gunships.

Update: bought a Tor Quan Swift. At first I regretted exchanging my Eridan when I tried fighting Grome assembler guards with a fledgeling. You definitely want to just explore in the younger stages, smashing only the defenseless stations. It gets far stronger when you've grown both the symbiote and ship.

[digdug]

Managed to get an alien ship without cheating. Just disable the shield and kill some stations in 2-3 systems to get the money to buy one. I managed (maybe I got lucky) with just about 20% fuel left.
So far I love the new factions. I saw beautiful (and very large) stations.
The Keren D4 is serving me well. I unfortunately don't have the WMD to tackle stations, but since fuel is not a problem for now, I just sit there and spend 10% of it to kill 1 station.

[E.I.G.]

So have played some. Managed to find human fuel in stations long enough to buy a new ship.

Tried all three a little so far.
-Mechanistic is in theory a new system, but currently it is basically just an extension of the tinkerer and armor forge systems of the previous part. It does make sense to me for the human station to sell this as it matches human space ships closer than the other two. My one issue is that the initial one has too small a cargo bay to actually hang onto anything long enough to mess with the mechanic instead of just playing like part 1.
-Artifact ship was interesting to try, but I have more questions than opinions. Are the program things fully reusable? Is there a chance of different weapons with the same relic type eventually? I would think so, so maybe just a limited number available right now? The fuel mechanic is interesting, but also feels more random. I want to try this again when more options are available to test with it.
-Organic is interesting. Still experimenting with this one, but seems to be heavily using the upgrade mechanics that have been added recently. So far interesting, with the ability to upgrade overall stats and heal armor being a nice change from human space. Still need to look at this more.