Transcendence

@ Wolfy: http://transcendence.kronosaur.com/guid ... =transData

One quick comment: Iocrym Fracture cannon looks like a little dual flamethrower now. It needs some stock flamethrower game sounds.

Ship explosions may be too powerful in low level ships - I took out a whole swarm of centauri ships just by killing one (which caused them to blow up, and so on...). This is also an issue with Korolov escorts, since Vikings seem to like getting close to the ship - killing them means seriously damaging the freighter.

Wolfy wrote:Anyone got the transdata link?

Same old place. https://kronosaur.com/downloads/TransData.zip

...Late game explosions might be a bit much, too.

Domino-effect explosions are not a good idea if you don't like lag x_x

Try lighting up an Ares shipyard with radius weapons, you should see what I mean.

Got another crash, but I'm not directly sure what caused it, no hints in the debug log.

I'm pretty sure it had something to do with spawning a bunch of bombers vs. dreadnoughts in the menu screen, and then all of the ensuing explosions.

Huzzah!

I'll give it a go as soon as my cold clears up enough that I have reflexes again. The screenshots look absolutely magnificent, and the changes sound pretty great too.

98r high flux mag and swarms don't get along very well

screenshot

An explosion is generated on every ship within the fragmentation radius (efThermoFragmentHit) which is a bit excessive - this dropped me down to about 1fps

EDIT: On the topic of MAGs, I think the old ZG24 effect was way better than the new one.

Just tried mining Heretic with the rebalanced plasma torch. It can mine... one or two tons at a time. Not great, but at least it is possible. It is probably more efficient than even a +225% mining laser.

Ferian Cannon, despite higher DPS, is tougher to mine with, probably due to reduced mining rating.

In case you thought I was picking 1.7 apart, it looks awesome

the initial window : I call it the "Battle Screen" went Full Screen like a Screen Saver !!!!!!

I love this.

no matter what else you do - keep THAT feature, I wanted to update my screen saver anyway

Couldn't really get to sleep because of the cold, so I decided to have a go at it anyways. New gunship AI is better. The effects are looking great too.

Found a very minor issue with the new fullscreen intro: text indicating active downloads stays in the middle of the screen rather than moving towards the bottom.

 I’m really diggin’ the new effects and the fullscreen intro. If I was going to suggest anything on the intro screen, it would be to toggle between fullscreen by clicking on the combat area, and needing to click rather than just detecting mouse movement to come out of fullscreen.

AssumedPseudonym wrote: I’m really diggin’ the new effects and the fullscreen intro. If I was going to suggest anything on the intro screen, it would be to toggle between fullscreen by clicking on the combat area, and needing to click rather than just detecting mouse movement to come out of fullscreen.

That might be a bit unintuitive for people new to the game(I myself wouldn't have got it, though I may be an outlier here).

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Anyways, I'm now partway through the New Beyond. I love the new force mix, it's miles better than the previous version. You definitely hit your goal of making that region more fun. The new WMD balance also feels pretty good; missiles are a lot more useful and my fast fire laser no longer cuts through stations so easily. The explosion effects are also fantastic, and make fighting the Centauri a lot better(they're more dangerous, but aren't tedious to kill anymore), though they do exacerbate the issue of the first few Korolov missions not requiring any player intervention.

Edit: Alas, I died. The new Slicer's definitely an improvement. Thought I could handle him with just my Turbolaser and missiles, but I could not. On the other Arena enemies, the omni turbolaser is definitely on the powerful side, though.

Also, the lone Molotok guarding the BM station shouldn't retreat on shields down. Long term, I can see the AI detecting on its own when retreating is or is not a good idea, but that's something for another day.

JohnBWatson wrote:Couldn't really get to sleep because of the cold, so I decided to have a go at it anyways. New gunship AI is better. The effects are looking great too.

Found a very minor issue with the new fullscreen intro: text indicating active downloads stays in the middle of the screen rather than moving towards the bottom.

I do believe that WAS the bottom, sir the screen edges moved away but the words remained put - when I hit the windows key the edges returned to formation and the floating words were again
" at the bottom" ..but after all the fantastic work I have seen tonight, Lasers look like Lasers,
The over priced Mining Laser turned out to be a far better looking item that I am used to..

Finally I was mining in Style

I do agree about the "Vampire Stakes" I saw in another post...looks very menacing but they aren't much of a hit ..the Plasma looks..well, it will take getting used to, but it's pretty close to the real thing ( almost too close )
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However, I did find ONE ISSUE that has annoyed me to no end

the dock services / dry dock : it's a screen dance to go from get a reactor ( etc ) to get out of the screen and go back in to get fuel ( etc )..

I KNOW it was supposed to be easier so you can continue with your upgrades, but if you get a Reactor ( which does not come with a full tank even at those prices ) you can die while you upgrade ( basically )

Wow - this is great! The visual effects, especially the explosions, make the game much more fun to play. The explosions probably do too much damage, but it IS cool to watch a group of ships explode at the same time.

There are a lot of small changes that make the game more interesting to play. For example, I can repair armor if it's at less than 25% damage now, and the Wolfen looks like it turns faster than the Sapphire, which makes it seem like a more viable choice other than for just the first third of the game.

The weapons feel much more balanced now. Rapid-fire weapons are no longer a no-brainer choice, so I either have to pick between using an extra slot for a WMD weapon or choose to keep more missiles on hand.

Reducing missile mass and buffing their WMD was really helpful, as I feel that I can carry more now and not have to be so picky about where to use them. In particular, making Longbows and Stilettos the same mass no longer makes it a no-brainer choice to sell the Longbows, as they sold for the same price per missile in 1.6. Stilettos and Longbows feel about the same against gunships as they did before, but they're more effective against compartments. I normally try to damage a Charon frigate to 95% and let something else kill it so I can keep doing Korolov missions, but the Longbows I was using were so powerful that I outright destroyed the the first frigate I ran into.

The reduced spread on the laser cannon array makes it a very cool weapon. It's very effective against gunships now, but it barely scratches stations, so it's an interesting choice without making the WMD weapons less interesting. This is what I personally was hoping to see: weapons with low WMD that are really good against swarms vs. WMD weapons that are good for hitting slower-moving capital ships.

I stopped at the second system in the New Beyond, but I can't wait to see if the rest of the game is as balanced and visually appealing as the first two systems.

Thanks for listening to your users and being willing to work so hard at implementation!