1.7 Beta 4 and Part II Alpha Test

General discussion about anything related to Transcendence.
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Xephyr
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NMS wrote:Well, I stand by my suggestion, but you're right, that's odd. Maybe they're coming from modded part 1 games or mod adventures?
Yeah definitely possible.

I don't think that minimum encounters should be done at the adventure level though. It's much more versatile to have it in the station type, especially when you consider things like missions based on a station etc.
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JohnBWatson
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My vote is for basing it on adventures, at least based on what we've seen thus far. Not every adventure using the human space library is going to want a mandatory Tinker.
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TheLoneWolf
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Xephyr wrote:
NMS wrote:
relanat wrote:Not sure if this is important but I'm seeing a lot of "Warning: Ran out of tries in FillLocations" notes and a "Warning: Not enough appropriate systems to create 1 Tinker gathering [08040080]" note in the Debug logs.
Ha! Didn't I say the minimum encounter numbers should be part of the adventure, not the station type? Or, at least they should apply only to specified adventures.
It shouldn't be occurring in part 2 - Tinkers should be in the Human Space Library. Means there's a bug somewhere.

I'm not seeing it in my debug output though.
Taikon's stuff is also appearing at times.
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digdug
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I've seen octocarbide as a loot. (possibly because octocarbide is in Part II because the starting playership has it ?)
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Xephyr
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digdug wrote:I've seen octocarbide as a loot. (possibly because octocarbide is in Part II because the starting playership has it ?)
Yeah, they should be notRandom. We also see stuff like tetramite ore because they appear in the galaxy library.

Still have no idea why people are seeing tinkers in their debug log, could someone post their debug output for that?
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relanat
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Can't remember about the tinker warning, but the "Ran out of tries in FillLocations" warning only comes up in debug mode with debug selected. Will post a debug log next time I'm online.
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Xephyr
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relanat wrote:Can't remember about the tinker warning, but the "Ran out of tries in FillLocations" warning only comes up in debug mode with debug selected. Will post a debug log next time I'm online.
Clarification on FillLocations

It's probably not a major issue at this point - There's just not enough content to fill all the systems. Stations have exclusion radii that prevent stations spawning next to stations they're hostile toward (or vice versa).

In human space these areas can be filled with debris, which is neutral, but there's no galactic debris tables yet.
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relanat
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It appears that the "Not enough appropriate systems to create 1 Tinker gathering [08040080]" warning only comes up if a mod containing <Library UNID="&unidHumanSpaceLibrary;"/> is present in the Extensions folder and is selected.
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Derakon
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I don't think this is specific to the 1.7 beta because I'm pretty sure it happened to me in 1.6, but I'm on 1.7 now and the lamplighter prototype disappeared on me. Like, I retrieved it, identified it, went through a couple of gates to find a Ringer shipyard, and it wasn't in my hold any more. No mods, but I have Eternity Port, Corporate Command, and the soundtrack (standard Steam purchase as far as I'm aware).

I say I'm only "pretty sure" it happened in 1.6 because it's also remotely possible in that playthrough that I tried to stash it on a ship or station somewhere and then forgot where I put it. On this playthrough though there was no opportunity for that to happen.

EDIT: okay, Xephyr on IRC clarified to me that you don't get to keep the prototype after returning to Port Juno. That wasn't clear to me from the mission text. Never mind then!
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I was very pleased to get in on the alpha - it's really quite something and I'm looking forwards to more.

My thoughts on the three technologies:
- Mechanist is a nice progression from the Part I gameplay. I have a few quibbles - the Eridan-class is a bit lacking in cargo space, the weapon names are hard to remember, and the lack of WMD at the beginning makes taking on stations harder than with the Lamplighter. Otherwise, it's already very playable and satisfying.
- Biotech was a bit more of a challenge. Initially the weak defences and very low thrust made it difficult, so I grew the ship a few stages and the occulor as much as possible. Unfortunately by Adult stage fuel is expensive and relatively rare... but by that point I was a combat monster. *shrugs*
- Archaeotech was interesting and seemed very puzzle-like. Quite a few artefacts had stats too high to subdue - I'm wondering how easy it will be to change and add daimons in future, as that seems vital for getting the good weapons. Another peculiarity was that by the time I found a weapon that could fire effulgent pods I was at the opposite end of the stargate chain from the stations selling pods.

On gameplay in general:
- Gorgeous graphics. There is a real sense of atmosphere and, well, alien-ness.
- The space fauna and flora are beautiful and just the right amount of threatening. Crematen still make me deeply uneasy. I'll admit that I'm a little confused at the hexacoral appearing to hail my ship - perhaps the crystals close up or move to prevent landing/docking?
- Right now the game is divided into an early mechanist stage, a midgame biotech stage, and a lategame archaeotech stage. Is this going to change over time?
- Green vespids are absolutely bloody terrifying. Jax hardly less so. I didn't find the hadrotherium so bad, actually, because they're so slow, and made a lot of money off the garnets.
- The lack of Sustain or similar, combined with the many enemies that have high speed, high WMD and tracking weapons, means that it is easy to die suddenly compared to Part I.
- Part I items are still showing up as loot, which I assume is unintended.
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Hades
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I've been playing this a litte, still only done Mechanist stuff on the initial Patrol ship. Thoughts so far:
- The Nabul T1 is disgustingly good, too good even. You can use it to pummel from long range or when you're running away. It's straight up just better than the other weapon the ship comes with so there's little point in using much else. Ammo for it is incredibly plentiful too. I'd suggest nerfing its damage or fire rate and perhaps range, it's just overall too good.
- As a consequence, the Reenu are really oppressive early game and unless you draw them to an enemy station, completely unable to be fought until you enter a new ship in my experience and that was mainly because I got a Nabul T1 of my own.
- The Grome, on the other hand, are incredibly trivial early on, though they get a lot beefier in later systems.
- I think the Efreet Dual Blaster's fire rate gimmick wasn't working, seemed to only fire at the same speed on every setting.
- Range on the Efreet Dual Blaster is really, really bad and the damage isn't good enough to justify dropping the Saphire and the Lamplight's range for the Efreet Explorer.

I'm going to play a bit with the other ship types to really get a feel for them but for now I can't comment on them. So far though, I'm having fun and I do like that everything does look pretty alien, which was one of my big fears with how visually distinct everything in part 1 is. I think the sort of space alien/fauna do help a lot to this end, which is great.
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sun1404
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Hello! It's been a while since I last played or checked the forum, and I must say I'm very glad I came back in time to join this alpha test. I played quite a bit but haven't got to trying the biotech ship yet. Here's my thoughts:
  • I like the diversity of the three ship types, but the ability to retain a ship as you buy a new one would be great. The player might be able to swap between ships he own at some kind of station. Also, the ship broker screen could do to give more information about the ships they sell, like the starting equipment that comes with the ship. A warning that you're trading in the devices and armors installed on your old ship would be helpful too.
  • The Grome sentries have an interesting behavior, which I'm rather sure is intended, but does seem a weird quirk for an alien more advanced than human. They spin like a compass at the North Pole and stop shooting at the player if he's right on top of them.
  • The Nabul T1 is indeed overpowered. They're fast, track flawlessly, do very high damage, and have very long range. The Iocryms would stand no chance against a Reenu gathering. A way to fix this might be to make some kind of anti missile devices be available early in the game.
  • Hitscan symbiote seems to be overpowered. Not only is it highly destructive, it's also unblockable and unavoidable. The mechanic might need some rebalancing. Perhaps the damage given would be DPS, and the weapon actually does 1/30 of that every tick.
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JohnBWatson
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Hitscan symbiote? I thought the only two symbiotes were the Torquandis and Jaxii.
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Eastwood
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Part II looks very promissing ! Great job.
As a not very veteran player, I am having a hard time trying to get anywhere using normal play tho (as I was warned about.) I have tried several things, but cannot seem to get the better of these Reenu.

I order to get anywhere past the first few systems, I thought I would enable debug mode and help myself to a bit of money or something, but I can't get that to work either. When I start up the game with the debug command, I see a debug button in the main screen. But hitting F9 when in a game does nothing. What am I missing here ?

Any other suggestions on how to get ahead a bit more for more testing would be ok too :)
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Eastwood
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Ok, never mind on the debug panel. When I started a new game, F9 did work...
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