1.6 Beta 1

[george moromisato]

1.6 Beta 1 is ready for download at: https://kronosaur.com/downloads/TranscendenceNext.zip

Here is an article talking about the new changes: http://multiverse.kronosaur.com/news.hexm?id=1364

As always, thanks to everyone who reported bugs and suggested fixes!

[SolarGalaxy]

It looks so nice now! I'm especially impressed by the gating effects and loading of a new system. It makes it really feel like that I'm using a powerful alien device to achieve FTL.

[StealthX051]

Haven't played this yet, but it looks beautiful. But it seems that there are no shadows from the ships or stations from the screenshot. Looks awesome, though, I can't wait to try it out.

[YingJanshi]

Just downloaded it, and have to say, the graphical changes are superb! And also like the way the dialogue boxes with the various stations look now.
But got a bug right after accepting my first station mission (the one Benedict suggests you do):

[george moromisato]

But got a bug right after accepting my first station mission (the one Benedict suggests you do):

Thank you! Good find. I've filed a bug: http://ministry.kronosaur.com/record.hexm?id=1476

[StealthX051]

Disregard my earlier comments about shadows on stations and ships.

[AssumedPseudonym]

 Got a bug: Planets and asteroids don’t show up on the long range scanner upon gating into a system until you go into the map screen. This might just be with no3DSystemMap set to true, I haven’t tested it further. I’ll put this up over on the Ministry after I check that out.

[Song]

standard: This will turn off the most processor-intensive effects without degrading the visual quality too much. This setting is recommended for any machine with less than four processor cores.

Just to confirm what this sounds like, the new graphics system is multi-threaded?

[george moromisato]

standard: This will turn off the most processor-intensive effects without degrading the visual quality too much. This setting is recommended for any machine with less than four processor cores.

Just to confirm what this sounds like, the new graphics system is multi-threaded?

The 1.5 engine used two threads: one to paint everything on an off-screen buffer and a second thread to paint the off-screen buffer to the display (the second thread runs in parallel with the update code).

The 1.6 engine does the same thing, but also splits up painting the space background into threads. It divides the screen into regions and has one process paint the background for each region.

Technically we could use the same technique to paint everything else (and I probably should do that to paint nebulae). But painting ships/stations on multiple threads is probably not worth the cost-benefit (you'd have deal with painting the same ship twice if it straddled a boundary).

[JohnBWatson]

Just downloaded it, and have to say, the graphical changes are superb! And also like the way the dialogue boxes with the various stations look now.
But got a bug right after accepting my first station mission (the one Benedict suggests you do):

This also occurs with Corporate missions.

[george moromisato]

Just downloaded it, and have to say, the graphical changes are superb! And also like the way the dialogue boxes with the various stations look now.
But got a bug right after accepting my first station mission (the one Benedict suggests you do):

This also occurs with Corporate missions.

Cool--thanks. I should have a fix in a couple of days.

[JohnBWatson]

Just downloaded it, and have to say, the graphical changes are superb! And also like the way the dialogue boxes with the various stations look now.
But got a bug right after accepting my first station mission (the one Benedict suggests you do):

This also occurs with Corporate missions.

Cool--thanks. I should have a fix in a couple of days.

Excellent. I'm unfamiliar with how patches work - will we have to wait until the next major update, or will it be possible to download the fix once it's developed?

[Song]

standard: This will turn off the most processor-intensive effects without degrading the visual quality too much. This setting is recommended for any machine with less than four processor cores.

Just to confirm what this sounds like, the new graphics system is multi-threaded?

The 1.5 engine used two threads: one to paint everything on an off-screen buffer and a second thread to paint the off-screen buffer to the display (the second thread runs in parallel with the update code).

The 1.6 engine does the same thing, but also splits up painting the space background into threads. It divides the screen into regions and has one process paint the background for each region.

Technically we could use the same technique to paint everything else (and I probably should do that to paint nebulae). But painting ships/stations on multiple threads is probably not worth the cost-benefit (you'd have deal with painting the same ship twice if it straddled a boundary).

Interesting! It's great that the engine can make use of extra cores more effectively than before.....loads of early-access and alpha titles I play are running masses of physics stuff or using Unity 4.....both of which leads to horrible single-threaded evilness. The extra performance might also allow me to squeeze slightly more work out of the buggy old sound mixer before it breaks.

[AssumedPseudonym]

 Got another one. The mask for the Osaka is broken, though fortunately only in the ship selection screen. Wolfy said on IRC that it’s probably related to the 24-bit color.

[durbanator]

so think this is a bug of some sort. i got a mission to destroy some phantom station, supposed to get paid 0 yuan and also theres no indicator of the station.
i love the new graphics
the first time i went through the stargate it reminded me of mass effect so much
good work