Transcendence

I happy to announce that 1.6 RC 1 is ready for download!

I expect to release a stable 1.6 on July 23rd, so I appreciate any reports of last-minute critical bugs. I'm really happy with the state of 1.6, and I'm thankful for all the feedback over these last few month.

As you know, 1.6 will be concurrently released on Steam, and the marketing page is ready: http://store.steampowered.com/app/364510/

All we need now are final bits!

The game will automatically upgrade if you're on the beta builds. Otherwise, you can download directly at the usual place: https://kronosaur.com/downloads/TranscendenceNext.zip

The full set of changes is here: https://ministry.kronosaur.com/program. ... sed&tag=28

Thanks to everyone for your help!

Noticed the Tinkers appeared in the Star Castle Arcade adventure mod. Had to fix that by adding noExtraEncounters="true".

Source diving shows me that Tinkers gained minAppearing="1", and seem to be guaranteed to appear at least once in a game, if the topology features systems of appropriate levels.

What is the difference between noRandomEncounters and noExtraEncounters?

PM wrote:Noticed the Tinkers appeared in the Star Castle Arcade adventure mod. Had to fix that by adding noExtraEncounters="true".

Source diving shows me that Tinkers gained minAppearing="1", and seem to be guaranteed to appear at least once in a game, if the topology features systems of appropriate levels.

What is the difference between noRandomEncounters and noExtraEncounters?

Sorry about that.

noExtraEncounters="true" is the right way to fix this problem. It tells the engine not to put any "minimum required encounters" in the given system.

noRandomEncounters refers to the random patrols that sometimes appear in a system.

I have to think about a better way to control encounters (station spawning). Ultimately, I think we're going to need to control it at the system and adventure granularity. But I can't think of an easy way of generalizing it without having to specify every combination of station type and system type.

The LRS radar is much bigger than before, and much bigger than the rest of the other HUD elements in the other corners. It feels too big, and it is constantly distracting me. It is a big black hole in the upper-right corner of the screen that obscures what is underneath it, and it does not mesh well with the backgrounds. I guess it trades one problem of names clogging the radar for another problem of being too big on the screen.

Either the LRS should be smaller (maybe not as small as before, but definitely not as big as it is now), or it should be more transparent so that it is not as distracting.

PM wrote:The LRS radar is much bigger than before, and much bigger than the rest of the other HUD elements in the other corners. It feels too big, and it is constantly distracting me. It is a big black hole in the upper-right corner of the screen that obscures what is underneath it, and it does not mesh well with the backgrounds. I guess it trades one problem of names clogging the radar for another problem of being too big on the screen.

Either the LRS should be smaller (maybe not as small as before, but definitely not as big as it is now), or it should be more transparent so that it is not as distracting.

I didn't notice the new LRS. I actually had to measure to see if the size really had changed.

It's a clunky UI element, but the extra size does make it a lot more usable. I think keep it until some day in the future when the UI can get looked at in general (the HUD, while functional, does have a few issues). Ultimately this is something that could be useful to remember when/if we get an options menu. Personally I'd scale it down a little, but not to the same size as before. Unless you were seriously good, it was hard to see what was going on in the LRS, and for the Steam launch the UI needs to be easy to read, even if it's a bit clunky.

A very specific bug (technically 1.6b5): If the game is quite while an upgrade is being downloaded, the game won't actually close (it runs in the background, with music) and has to be killed with task-manager.

I saw this:

1.6 RC + all official extensions. There is also problem with 2 more ship models: superfrighter and centauri command ship.

I have played a bit now to check the new things in the release candidate.

I only play "normal", with the original game + Corporate Command, and with a curious, explore everything permadeath mindset, like a new player from Steam might do.

The game seems quite good overall! A couple of points that I dont know where to put, so I write them here:

-Mining with the new gadges is very inefficient and cumbersome for the cost, a standard approach of blasting rocks with the laser is much better. But this is already commented on by George in his video. I dont know what it is like after St. K, because of the next thing:

-When I enter St. K sometimes, the game slows to nothing. Technically not a freeze, as there is one frame ticking every 10-20 seconds, but one must restart. It is not something noce to have in a released version, if others are experienceing the same thing.

The images of superfreighters and gaian processors don't load. When you encounter them in-game, it makes it lag and then not respond.

Technically not a freeze, as there is one frame ticking every 10-20 seconds, but one must restart. It is not something noce to have in a released version, if others are experienceing the same thing.

This only happens to me when I encounter one of those two ships.


But otherwise, everything is looking good. I like the new textures on the Iocrym!

Bruno wrote:-Mining with the new gadges is very inefficient and cumbersome for the cost, a standard approach of blasting rocks with the laser is much better. But this is already commented on by George in his video. I dont know what it is like after St. K, because of the next thing:

I agree, it is most optimal to simply blast rocks while damage threshold is low in early systems. (I would not buy charges ever - too inefficient.) However, somewhere after St. K's, it gets worse. Escalating damage threshold in later systems make mining weapons (which are weak multi-hit shots) almost obsolete, and mining thermo charges extract only a few tons of ore per shockwave.

AdmiralZo wrote:The images of superfreighters and gaian processors don't load. When you encounter them in-game, it makes it lag and then not respond.

Technically not a freeze, as there is one frame ticking every 10-20 seconds, but one must restart. It is not something noce to have in a released version, if others are experienceing the same thing.

This only happens to me when I encounter one of those two ships

Aha, that seems like a reasonable explanation. I sometimes also experience severe lag, and then slowdown to freeze, in places like St.K Arcology area.
(edit: Mr. Moromisato will want to fix this before releasing 1.6 on Steam, as it is can be not even possible to fly around in St. K, will generate quite a few remarks from players.)

Btw, a question and observaion that might be an interface bug: What is the total effect of +enhancing your drive?
With a Sapphire & tritium drive, I checked the stats on the ship/dock screen before and after letting the University scientists get to work on it:

Before:
drive: tritium propulsion upgrade
max. speed: .20c
thrust/mass: 6.58
maneuverability: 30.0

After:
drive: enhanced tritium propulsion upgrade
max. speed: .20c
thrust/mass: 6.58
maneuverability: 30.0

So nothing has changed, a visual bug or something else?

Bruno wrote:Btw, a question and observaion that might be an interface bug: What is the total effect of +enhancing your drive?

I /think/ it improves drive efficiency, so it consumes less fuel per tick, but I may be wrong..

Enhancing your drive increases top speed by 10%, rounding up. It also increases thrust. Ship screen not showing enhanced stats is a bug.

PM wrote:The LRS radar is much bigger than before, and much bigger than the rest of the other HUD elements in the other corners. It feels too big, and it is constantly distracting me. It is a big black hole in the upper-right corner of the screen that obscures what is underneath it, and it does not mesh well with the backgrounds. I guess it trades one problem of names clogging the radar for another problem of being too big on the screen.

Either the LRS should be smaller (maybe not as small as before, but definitely not as big as it is now), or it should be more transparent so that it is not as distracting.

The old LRS was 200 pixels in diameter.

The new LRS is 27% of the height of the screen (but never smaller than 200 pixels). I generally run on a widescreen monitor (1920x1080), so the size of the LRS seems OK. But perhaps on a smaller monitor it is too big. I could tone it down (and/or ultimately make it an option).