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Messages - RavenFellBlade

#1
Game discussion / Re: Wanting to sell you something
April 01, 2015, 10:31:19 PM
Obvious scammer is obvious. And REALLY lame at it.
#2
We'll just have to convince him to revisit the have the game. He wasn't overwhelmingly positive, but I don't recall him being negative, either. I suppose I was more sold on the gameplay footage. Regardless, I never would have found VoidExpanse  of not for his video. I'll see if he can be convinced to revisit for the Steam launch.
#3
Game discussion / Re: Missile Lock??
March 30, 2015, 10:19:27 PM
I still really want these equips and boosts, but I can also see how they could "break" the game.
I wonder if it would be possible to make these as mods?
#4
You're flying an Endeavor. And it's my favorite starter ship. Later, I tend to upgrade to the Stingray Mk2, which is a light cruiser with 6 device slots, 3 consumables, 650 cargo space, two tracking ballistic slots and one tracking missile battery. She's basically an upgraded Endeavor. It's an excellent mining/engineering vessel. However, you really need to pick a hull that matches your gameplay style. The Endeavor and thing Stingray are both pretty slow and unwieldy without substantial investment in piloting skills to offset their base stats, and those skill bonuses may be more fruitful with a ship already dedicated to fast-paced combat. Decide how you want to play, and pick a hull accordingly. Money is pretty easy to come by, so you should have ample opportunity to experiment with different handling and weapons configurations.
#5
How do I pull logs from the game? I was just playing 1.1.5, and experienced this same bug. I didn't experience it in any other recent builds, other than once randomly while playing 1.1.1f, which I couldn't duplicate at that time.
Now, it's back to pretty consistently locking the mining laser in the #4 equip slot if I simultaneously activate two mining lasers in the #4 and #5 slots. It will continue to run even after it has exhausted energy until I move the ship or fire a weapon.
Will send a log as soon as I can grab one.
#6
Shields, but only because there are so many different types that each have their own uses. Armor tends to just be... armor. Big, heavy metal plating that soaks up some damage. I'm sure that it is equally flexible, I just haven't been patient enough to really experiment with it. Though... Strmy makes an excellent point, being a dedicated asteroid miner myself: Armor has the bonus of not cutting into your power consumption, so that can make a difference in your other power-dependent equips. I may have to play around with it, see what happens.
#7
I came to VoidExpanse by way of Scott Manley, myself. I posted a poll asking who else did the same. Maybe I should update the question to include other 'Tubers/LetsPlayers?
#8
Game discussion / Re: This is one of my dream games!
March 30, 2015, 09:43:29 PM
Daehawk: If you are considering concentrating on mining, I recommend you start a game as a prospector, since you'll start with much of the mining tree already filled in for you. Once you've gotten a decent mining rig, you'll want to move on to a system with reasonably high tech level (50+ in my experience) to find one that sells an industrial mining laser. If you are using the Endeavour hull, you'll have two equip slots, so you can actually equip two mining lasers. I find this to be pretty useful, for quickly strip-mining asteroids, but it does require some pretty beefy generators to power for any length of time. Mining skills are found in the engineering tree of your skills page, on the far left. Also... you'll want to upgrade your hull license at lvl 15 so that you can pilot a Stingray Mk2, which is a frighteningly beefed-up Endeavor-like mining/engineering Light Cruiser with 650 cargo. She's a nice little beastie :)

EDIT: I incorrectly identified the Stingray Mk2 as a "Scarab". I'm an idiot. Fixed my idiocy.
#9
So it occurs to me that Scott Manley is a hugely popular YouTube personality, and there tend to be spikes in the popularity of games that he reviews. I can also attest to the fact that I have bought nearly all of the games that he has reviewed favorably, including VoidExpanse. So, curiosity has led me to research the "Manley Effect", to see just how many of VoidExpanse's devotees found their way here by way of Scott Manley. Has Mr. Manley helped you discover this, or any other, amazing games that you may have never otherwise discovered? Share here!
#10
I had the issue occur regularly with an Industrial Mining Device in slot 4 and a Standard Mining Device in slot 5. Pressing the 4 and 5 keys simultaneously would cause both of the mining devices to fire at the same time, which is expected. However, slot 4 would continue to fire automatically after this, until I either moved my ship or ran out of energy. This wasn't just a graphical effect, either, as it would run through the entire mining cycle, with minerals and exp being collected. It seemed to be pretty easy to replicate for me, at least with these specific items. The ship was an Endeavour, I don't know if that really matters, but I figure I would mention it.
I tried it with a few different combinations of items, and only noticed it happening with the mining devices.
#11
Nice! I can't believe nobody thought to tow crates around as an additional cargo space when mining! You jettison your less valuable minerals, and then continue to pile the cheaper stuff into the crate as you mine, towing the crate around behind you from asteroid to asteroid. You do this until you run low on fuel, fill the container, or get bored. Tow the crate back to your base, and profit. It's a bit more time consuming, and requires you to watch your energy consumption and speed, but with a decently medium grappler, works nicely. The higher-end grabbers pull in too quickly to be useful for this purpose, but some of the mid-range ones almost seem to be explicitly designed with this in mind. I haven't seen a crate disappear on me yet in my two or three sessions on 15.3, so it does seem the glitch has been fixed.
#12
Game discussion / Re: Is VoidExpanse ready for gold?
December 27, 2014, 06:56:07 PM
I would really love to say that the game is ready for prime time. It isn't. As someone stated earlier, it may be "ready" by today's not-so-exacting standards, I think you guys seem to be a cut above the rest. I take what you say about wanting customers to have the best experience possible at face value. While I have had a blast playing the game, I have had a blast knowing that the game is in an unfinished state. I've been having as much fun hunting pirates as I have hunting (and reporting) bugs. I haven't really run into any critical, game-breaking bugs, yet, but there are still enough of them to be distinctly "beta"-flavored.
The long and short of it is this:
1) I would expect the game to be as bug-free as is reasonable to expect. Your team seems to be doing an excellent job working towards that end, so hopefully that will be very near-future.
2) I expect the game to be feature-complete. This is a bit of a muddy pond, though... What, by your collective (Atomic Torch's) definition is "feature complete"? Is this just the main story line in Singleplayer? How about multiplayer? Is that "feature complete" in its current state, or do you see it as a work-in-progress still? Are crafting, scavenging, planetary interactions, or further development of the skill tree considered a part of the "feature complete" picture, or are any or all of these "possible future developments, time and budget permiting"?
3) Provided you are clear about exactly what you see as a finished product, and are prepared to deliver that product, only then should you be considering going live with the game.
4) Be realistic about what is likely to make it into the game post-launch, and then be completely open with the community about it. If crafting isn't feasible, the earlier you can definitively inform your customers, the less likely you are to see significant backlash. Look no further than Elite: Dangerous and the "offline single player" fiasco for a perfect example of what NOT to do.
5) As far as I can tell, you guys seem to be pretty much living up to all of these expectations, so far. I thank you for that.

I can also say that I get the same "lifeless" feeling from the game, at times. It DOES feel like a gigantic Pirate shooting gallery, with the occasional NPC Merchant getting ganked by pirates. On the one hand, I would like to see that "fixed" by some small degrees...but on the other hand, I also see it as painting the VoidExpanse as "Mad Max in Space", where pretty much everyone has either become a pirate, or become a victim of pirates. The few legitimate merchants you see are still desperately clinging onto their lives and their common decency, but life so far away from the rest of galactic civilization, stuck right next door to alien bugs wanting to eat your babies... it's taken its toll. This is a region of space where goodwill has gone to die. The game is really, in a sense, a story about more than just the physical survival of humanity, but of humans struggling not to lose their humanity, and the game starts off with you on the losing side of the struggle. In that sense, VoidExpanse is doing a pretty good job depicting that sense of desolation, like you really are just about the last person who isn't actively cannibalizing what little is left of civilization. Or maybe... maybe you are. Depends on how you play the game.
Having said all of that, though, I really do wish there were just a tad more variety in deep-space NPC interaction. Miners and Merchants are there, sure, but you don't really see a lot in the way of law enforcement. I also really do want to see a crafting system of some sort in place, preferably one that offers the ability to make unique equipment, or perhaps modify hulls such as improving stats, upgrading weapon slots, or altering weapons slot types. The crafting tree, as I see it in my head, would basically look like a secondary skill tree to the main one, wherein crafting skills require a prerequisite in both the base crafting level, plus a prerequisite in the associated skill branch, such as requiring second tier crafting plus medium energy weapons to craft medium energy weapons, etc. But that's just me digressing. I don't really know just how difficult it would be to implement a crafting system, or the scavenging system, or the ability to interact with planets... or even what, exactly, interacting with planets would even entail. Maybe have the "faction relationship" system... I don't know how to really put this... "Do more"? I don't really see a tremendous effect from faction relations, at this point.
Knowing where you feel the game stands, and knowing what features are certain, possible, and just not feasible in the short-term, and post-launch, is a good starting point for this discussion. 
#13
Game discussion / Re: Missile Lock??
December 24, 2014, 12:25:30 AM
I would recommend making auto-tracking a Equipment feature. Make a couple of different tiers of Epuipment modules that have progressively better target acquisition and tracking, and make them progressively more expensive and with higher Engineering requirements. Initially, I thought doing these as Boost modules would be a pretty nifty idea, since I haven't really found many Boosts that spoke to me enough to buy them... but Boosts are passive. Making them an Equip means that you could activate the auto-acquisition and auto-tracking by activating the Equip slot. OH OH OH! How about this: TWO different items!

The first is an auto-target Boost in three tiers, each one increasing range and acquisition speed, but at higher prices and Eng reqs. Simply pressing the 'R' key while no target is under the cursor will automatically attempt to lock on to the nearest ship on the first or first/second tier, and the second/third would additionally specifically target the nearest HOSTILE ship.

The second is an auto-tracking Equip set, again in three tiers. Each one makes turreted mounts automatically track targeted ships faster, at better ranges, and with greater accuracy than the last, but at higher energy costs. If you activate the Equip, all of your non-fixed mounts will attempt to track any ship you have targeted. The highest level should be able to practically snipe ships from maximum effective range with Gauss weapons.

Of course, both sets are completely independent of one another, but together, they would basically allow for some pretty interesting and effective strategies, especially on a ship with mixed mounts. You could independently attack two or targets, if you throw mines into the mix. I would have to imagine that the NPC targeting AI could probably be implemented in the turret AI. I would also imagine that the effectiveness of either of these items would be dependent to some degree or other to your equipped radar/sensors.

Even better would be if the first two tiers of each item were purchasable, but the third of each were only craftable "upgrades" of the second tier, once crafting gets implemented. Just my two rubles.
#14
Bug reports / Re: Mining bugged
December 23, 2014, 09:51:24 PM
I filed a report on a mining-related bug, but I'll reiterate here that you can cause the mining device in slot 4 to cycle endlessly if you have two mining devices equipped, and use them simultaneously. I haven't really tried it with different combinations of devices, though. The combination I had was Industrial Mining Device in slot 4 and Standard Mining Device in slot 5.

EDIT: I can confirm that the bonuses are now applied exactly as they are supposed to be.
#15
Bug reports / Crates disappear randomly [v0.15.2] [SP]
December 23, 2014, 09:48:19 PM
Version: v0.15.2
Mode: Single Player
Bug: Storage crates seem to disappear under a few different circumstances. This has occurred while entering a base with a crate in "grappler tow", and after ditching a "grappler towed" crate during a fight against pirates. It seems to happen most often if you enter a base while the crate is still in motion, or if the crate WAS still in motion when it was last on screen after entering a base.
Reproduceable: Yes.
Screenshot: No. I may try to add a few later of a crate disappearing at the entrance to a base.

This one is kind of a draq for me, as I've found a pretty nifty tactic of towing a storage crate full of ore back to bases. It doesn't seem to happen as often, or even at all, if the crate is motionless when you enter a station, or if it is motionless at the time you scroll it off the screen.