Starstruck Vagabond

(post edit) TLDR:
If you Upgrade to the 4x4 Cargo Platform, you will lose any items or modules such as crate stampers and air cyclers stored at the bottom of the Crew Quarters, if you have that room installed.

So I've encountered a sort-of softlock (for taking shipping jobs at least).

I placed the crate stamper in a small corner of the crew bay (I think that's what it's called). It's the room that gets placed just above the room with the cargo platform. The stamper was placed in the lower-left corner of that room.
The room was packed to the brim with miscellaneous goods.
On the way to a place I was going to drop off some waste barrels I was going to pass by a planet with a shipyard and I had a pair of upgrade modules with me, so I decided to take a stop and get an upgrade, notably,  to the delivery platform.
SO.
I purchased the upgrade and returned to my ship where I found that all of the goods in the upper room had shifted down a space and my label stamper disappeared.
I was hoping that taking a shipping job from the company would give me another stamper. It did not, and now I can no longer take shipping jobs because I can no longer stamp the shipping containers.

The ability to purchase new stampers would be appreciated in the case of little mishaps like this.
Otherwise, I've been enjoying the game immensely and can't wait to see what comes next!

EDIT:
The compactness of cargo is not a relevant factor as I have just discovered.
I started a new file and lost 2 air cyclers to the exact same bug.

Another small bug. Accepted a Comms mission when on an uninhabited planet. It allowed me to, but didn’t tell me where the pickup was, only where to deliver to. I have the timers ticking down in the bottom left corner, but no idea where to go for pickup.

Game is amazing though. I loved Stardew Valley and am loving this as well 

Playing the newest build (0.1.2). Doing a few of the package quests which were picked up at the same place and the drop off is Boukhe 4. When the platform touched down, one of the people did the smiley face straight away (because they got their parcel) but both parcels vanished off my platform. So I guess the second person will be waiting there forever. Which is a shame really.

I'm really enjoying this so far, but the Oniris devices should definitely indicate how close you are getting to their optimal location while you are holding them. Or maybe some other system for tracking their position.

One more bug report:

I accepted a shipping job from my console and it didn't show up in my quest log.  I went back to the Comms menu to see if it would pop up that way and I got this error:

___________________________________________
############################################################################################
ERROR in
action number 1
of Draw Event
for object obj_console:

Variable obj_console.bigjob(102080, -2147483648) not set before reading it.
at gml_Object_obj_console_Draw_0
############################################################################################
gml_Object_obj_console_Draw_0 (line -1)

A few minor observations:

During the travel minigame it seems odd that the same screen-shake happens for both banking and hitting a rock.  One is something I'm supposed to do and the other is not.  Relatedly there's an increased sound effect for catching a speed-up lane but there's no UI effect for hitting a dust cloud , when a lower "I don't like this" grumble from the engines would be appropriate going through the dust.   Neither is an actual problem but they break my immersion somewhat.

It really feels like the air scrubbers get out of alignment a little too fast.  I get them sorted, sleep, and then spend half my stamina sorting them back out again sometimes.

I noticed that if you put several raw fuel rocks in the warp engines you will get residue buildup, but if you only add them one at a time as you need to make jumps then you won't.   I doubt that's intentional.

I deliberately left my package stamper on a planet to see how the game would handle it, and the next shipment job I took gave me a new stamper for each planet on the quest.  Getting three stampers instead of one seems like a bug, losing the stamper feels like an opportunity for the shipping rep to get snarky on top of docking me some cash for my carelessness.  

Taking a 12+ crate shipping job goes from a storage nightmare to trivial after you buy your first cargo-pod upgrade.  The increases in maintenance help make up for it somewhat but it still does odd things to the difficulty curve.  (Although maybe I wasn't supposed to take that job before I had the cargo pod, but then why did the game let me have it?) 

The level-up overlay hogs most of interface.  I had it pop up in the middle of trying to repair my ship after an asteroid impact and it reminded me of one of your other game reviews: "Congratulations, you have died a total of 100 times while inches from safety because you can't interact with the game while I'm telling you about all the achievements you're earning."  

Still loving the heck out of the beta though.

Got a crash, was heading onto the planet with the cargo elevator where you buy your warp drive

___________________________________________
############################################################################################
ERROR in
action number 1
of Draw Event
for object con_tutorial:

Push :: Execution Error - Variable Index [-1] out of range [300] - -5.planetname(100542,-1)
at gml_Object_con_tutorial_Draw_0
############################################################################################
gml_Object_con_tutorial_Draw_0 (line -1)

Hey yahtzee! Epic fix, but I tried to dock on an inhabited planet and got this error message when I tried to step onto the planet. This didn't happen anywhere else, on any other planet

___
############################################################################################
ERROR in
action number 1
of Draw Event
for object con_tutorial:

Push :: Execution Error - Variable Index [-1] out of range [300] - -5.planetname(100542,-1)
at gml_Object_con_tutorial_Draw_0
############################################################################################
gml_Object_con_tutorial_Draw_0 (line -1)

I tried putting raw freezium in the coolant tank after getting hit by an asteroid and loosing half the coolant. It didn't do anything, despite the item description.

I went to help a stranded ship. Before going inside I checked their solar panel to make sure it wasn't dirty. It showed clean. I went inside, power was out. I checked everything, nothing was wrong. I gave up and went back out to find the solar panel had become dirty after I went inside.

I see a lot of comments about the hot/cold scanner game. I like it. I think it would be too easy if the scanner beeped while you carry it. Every low O2 planet I've gone to I've solved the hot/cold game on the first try before the O2 runs out.

I suggest tagging some items as "important" (such as upgrade mods, quest cargo, and anything else with a finite quantity) and having the game remember the state of planets where an "important" item has dropped, or alternatively not letting you drop it with the same code that keeps you from littering in cities. Probably should also use that code to prevent littering on rescued ships.

Primary loop is fun.

I found a handful of technical issues:

1) Attempting to set a key preference is not working.  It will (very) briefly register the selected key and show the "Done" and "Reset to Defaults" buttons but then immediately blank out the selection.  The program has to be closed to get out of that state.

2) Clicking the "Reset to Default" button without any changes alters the default keys.  I'd guess that the default that it's restoring is from a different stage of development than the one that it pre-populates on loading the game. 

3) The overlay for confirming that you want to start a new game in a save slot is mostly transparent, which makes it hard to read when it overlays the save-slot screen.

4) Switching between Windowed and Full-Screen mode in either direction causes my monitor to blank out a couple of times in a row.  That might be a problem with my old desktop and not the build itself.

5) Quitting to the title never seems to save the game quite where I left off.  For example, I did it right after installing two new air recyclers after getting the warp drive and when I logged back into that save file the recyclers were back on my cargo pad.  It seems like there should be a Save Game option on the same menu with Quit to Title and Quit to Desktop. 

Leaving aside the technical issues, the Bank Left and Bank Right controls in the travel minigame remind me a bit of your own criticism of the gravity switching controls in Gravity Rush, in that they could be 100% more efficient.   Up or down to select which way to bank, and then a different key to actually bank.  I also learned really quickly not to trust the auto-pilot, I could never seem to get back to the controls fast enough when it warned me asteroids were in-bound.  

None of that stopped me from playing for several hours straight, so bravo on nailing the core gameplay loop.  

While I haven't played much of the new 0.1.2 version, one thing I did notice is in the "dispose waste barrel" missions, the only of disposing them is putting them in uninhabited planets. I found this out when I tried to dispose of them by putting them on top of a broken down ship and the mission didn't complete. First, this is kinda broken, cause I couldn't get the waste barrels back, so I softlocked myself out of the quest. Secondly, I thought this could be a really cool emergent gameplay sort of thing. Maybe the people whose ships you've covered with waste barrels would remember you and hate you or something like that. I don't know. I just thought it would be kinda cool. Either way, great job with the new version! I'm really enjoying this project and I can't wait to see it finished. Best of luck with it!

Just downloaded last night.  I'm honestly crazy impressed. About to put out my first alpha and I don't think it's anywhere near as polished as yours is.  Is there somewhere I can sign up for the full game?  

Create a steam page, man, lemme wishlist that thing.

I got stuck at the tutorial, even though I could see the air escaping, I couldn't "find" it for the tutorial to advance.

There was a floating white arrow, but I assume it was for the next objective, because it was behind a door I couldn't open yet.

edit: ok, I didn't realize that I could force open the other doors (duh), and opening the side door allowed me to get to the arrow and find the actual breach. The animation of the air escaping "up" from the central room was misleading. Maybe have it escaping left, indicating that it's leaking out the left hand side of the ship?

BUG: 

___________________________________________
############################################################################################
ERROR in
action number 1
of Draw Event
for object con_tutorial:

Push :: Execution Error - Variable Index [-1] out of range [300] - -5.planetname(100542,-1)
at gml_Object_con_tutorial_Draw_0
############################################################################################
gml_Object_con_tutorial_Draw_0 (line -1)

Game Version: 0.1.2

I can only asume is because i got the upgrade unit before the game sends me the notification about its existance o a planet. I just happend to start a new save and when it send me to collect money from jobs i happend to stop on a planet to drop one of those Oniris radars. While trying to place it correctly i found the upgrade unit I was suposed to found later. Then again im not sure if this is the case, but it seems the more logical looking at the error log.

Update: so i tested if the problem was what i said, and i can confirm that it is , in fact, that specific problem. I created 2 new saves one where i did pick up the upgrade unit before they notify me of its location, and another where i first get notify and then i go to get the unit. In the first case the game crashed since the upgrade unit isnt where it is suposed to be (in a random planet). In the second case the game will just continue to play normally, as intended.

Played a first run, logged my experience in a notepad. I've got the cliff notes version for you here:

Observations:

Movement is solid and feels smooth. I know its a retro look, but maybe some more frames in the walk cycle? 

Mechanics generally work (crashed once trying to put down a barrel near a door, I've seen others report similar). Otherwise fixing stuff is natural feeling, and moving around the ship through doors and up/down the lift and ladder feels very smooth. 

Visuals are solid and straight forward - steam is bad, crud buildup is bad, scarred metal is bad, sparks are bad. Makes sense, works well visually without depending on a floating icon. Takes a minute to memorize what tool goes to what problem, but its nothing flow breaking. Consider changing the metal scar colour dynamically with backgrounds - you can barely see it if its on the battery.

Towns look pretty good, but they can be big. A map would help, or a run button. If eventually we're going to be having conversations and convincing people to be our crewmates the idea of having to search a map this big to find and talk to them is a little daunting.

My ship came without an oxygen system built in? Are humans in enough of a minority that breathable atmosphere is considered an optional extra?

Driving is unpleasant enough that I totally backed out of doing it. I think I get the concept - driving with a screen and buttons rather than a steering wheel - but I can't stand desperately cycling up and down through the list trying to dodge crap or hit crap. If I was physically standing in front of a console and found out I had to drive my new spaceship by pushing an up/down button to select an option and then push another button to activate it I would punch the salesperson. This could have been acceptable if I could use a mouse for it, but otherwise I would suggest looking into other driving systems.

Time limits make sense for shipping missions, but it means that waste disposal missions are way more attractive. Why worry about a time limit to ship 8 boxes of crap for 2000 when I can get paid 1000 each to move two shipments of waste without a time limit.

If you use COMM to accept a mission then you can just accept the mission over and over instead of hanging up. I ended up failing to deliver 24 boxes of carrots in time. Luckily, I was able to sell them all to the trading post for some reward, if not the full amount I would have gotten. That said, no penalty for failure means its farmable if you have a shipping option for something worth actual money to the scrapper.

Suggestions:

If you're gonna have time limits then we need a way to see time passing, plus a way to estimate travel time between planets so we can make a call about taking multiple missions at the same time. Throwing in a map would help too - some way to see and say "yes, YIGE Prime is on the way to YIGE II" so strategic route planning decisions can be made. The healthbars that pop up are something, but if there's no way for me to tell if there is enough time left to make it, then all they serve to do is tick down and give me anxiety that I might have to find a place to dump ten crates.

The ship layouts really feel like the in-universe designer intended them to be exclusively used for traveling rather than shipping. Like, my small sedan is not intended for shipping, but it still has a trunk that is located such that it makes sense for moving small amounts of material conveniently. I get that's part of the gameplay challenge, but it just kind of feels like I picked the absolute wrong tool for the job. Maybe a story reason to go into why we're using a ship absolutely not suited to moving cargo for moving cargo?

To my point earlier, truckers don't usually unload themselves, so maybe add some people to help? I suggest this mostly because it seems like an organic way to have a group of people you can talk to for rumours or tips during your normal routine. A long time ago I worked as a warehouser unloading semi's and we would have drivers that helped unload and drivers that didn't (no obligation to help, their job is shipping only). If they helped sometimes we would get along with them and trade favours - earlier delivery time for us, we save the trucker one of this years hot Christmas toy for his kid kind of thing.

Yo I exited the game during the tutorial and when I loaded my save I got this error

___________________________________________
############################################################################################
ERROR in
action number 1
of Draw Event
for object con_tutorial:

Variable con_tutorial.traveldist(103178, -2147483648) not set before reading it.
at gml_Object_con_tutorial_Draw_0
############################################################################################
gml_Object_con_tutorial_Draw_0 (line -1)

A couple more things: I picked up a job to dump four barrels of waste anywhere. I was on my way to an uninhabited planet when I picked up a distress signal to a derelict ship in space. I left a few barrels there but the game doesn’t count it unless I leave them on a planet so now there’s no way to complete the job.

Also, a couple of quality of life improvements that you might want to consider: it would be nice to have a sell all button when you try to sell off space junk. As it is now you have to sell item by item which is a little tedious. It would also be nice if when we are picking upgrades for my ship, there was a text box telling me what the upgrade actually does. Like, I understand what most of them do (they are mostly about having more room in the ship) but I don’t know what a warp coil functionally does from a gameplay perspective.

So, turns out if you just go back down to the planet where you pick up an upgrade unit, it will have spawned another one. I don't think this is intended, as it renders the rumors and tips you get from random clients moot. But I ended up with three upgrade units from the same planet as I kept going back to pick up stuff to sell.

Other than that, I can see myself getting pretty absorbed in the game once there is a story and characters to interact with. I haven't explored outside of the starting system yet (I only played about an hour and a half) but I hope other systems are more varied in terms of what the inhabited planets look like. So far it's three different urban planets, so my feedback would be to make the galaxy more varied so I would feel like I would find something new by exploring.

Still, it's early days, and so far the game has my interest. I am definitely going to keep up to date with the development. 

Really enjoying the loop and the feel of the busy work. The personality type mechanic is a good one I think.

One thing to suggest  - all of the descriptions for character role models (Hans Solo-type, Picard-type) are male characters! Can there be some role models for our characters who aren't just men? Thanks!

Feedback:

this might just be me/my monitor but I found the text hard to read. maybe change the text outline to pure black instead of a light grey?  In a similar vein I find it hard to read the text when choosing an text option due to the white highlighted box on white text. 

In the tutorial, the player is instructed to press buttons but when interacting you  need to hold, so changing instances of "press" to "hold". 

I find it odd that you complain about press to hold ui elements then require a hold to enter to access the ship console. 

pressing esc to go back a page on options/ in game menus should be added. 

when traveling via impusle drive we can align the engines to increase speed to a planet. this may change when I play more but currently, this is very easy to do and is done quickly for no lose to the player so im not sure why a player ever would not do this, which makes me wonder why it should be there at all.

I enjoy upkeeping the ship whilst travelling but find the air cyclers get dirty too fast.

the mist/cloud effects on certain planets such as fal prime look jarring and unrealistic as it moves in relation to you instead of being static. this may be personal but I think it looks terrible.

Sound effects are missing in the character creation menu and also when swapping gear. 

Received error message returning to vessel after completing a distress call in Wosask:

___________________________________________
############################################################################################
ERROR in
action number 1
of Draw Event
for object obj_smoke:

Variable Index [-1] out of range [60]
at gml_Object_obj_smoke_Draw_0
############################################################################################
gml_Object_obj_smoke_Draw_0 (line -1)

Suggestion: tint the dialog box depending on who's talking to more easily tell. Especially in FS mode on a large screen, the face icon is far away from the text.

I spent 80 min playing before encountering undesirable behavior.

Environment: win 10 amd64 Starstruck Vagabond v0.1.1. Config file

Given: arrived to the edge of the system by missing the planet: save file

Steps: enter engage mode from system map

Expected: obstacles to move toward ship, ship to move through system

Saw: obstacles pile on the right side, except the big asteroids, which move at 1/10? horizontal speed toward left. Video here 30 sec.

Otherwise, it seems like an okay time. I'm not a fan of the bank left/right requiring two button presses, but I understand that it reflects that it's a menu interaction, rather than a separate one, like turning the ship.

I realy liked the gameplay loop, and traveling in the space is realy cool.

bugs: 

when a upgrade the load room after upgrade the side room(where i  put my o2 filters), the o2 filter lose the texture, stoped working and kinda expand the room, i fixed changing the air filter of place.

when you put a item between a door the game crashes.

when you are leaving a planet and is loading crates in the same time, when you go back some of the crates still are there.

Ver 0.1.1

The "Rumors" page has a few small issues:

• It looks like the Rumors are selectable /highlightable by mouse, but only the last one. This is not a game-breaking problem at all but feels weird
• Once a rumor is completed (ie: it tells me there is an upgraded unit to buy at a place, and I buy it), the rumor hangs around. The ability to clear a rumor, or automatically marking it as being completed (once the item the rumor refers to is collected) would ensure this list doesn't bloat for every rumor. 

so... funny thing. when you go get the upgrade unit for getting the warp drive, if you go back down to the planet there'll be another. the item will continue to duplicate itself and to find out, each costs 700 credits, mainly meaning the player is gonna get rich quick. this glitch or whatever it is though makes the story stop, even if you do get the warp drive. you  might want to fix that.

Few bug reports and UX feedback:

 - Game froze and crashed during tutorial, when attempting to convert ore to fuel.

 - It is rather unintuitive and interruptive having to switch out of a tool to be able to use escape hatches and such -- I would suggest letting these be used either with any tool, or automatically switching to no tool without user input when trying to use these.

-It would be slightly nicer if menu screens rendered as soon as you navigate to them, instead of waiting for a confirmation - but that is a nice to have.

I have written on a few bugs and issues I have had here, and feel bad. When playing tonight though, I had a "cool" moment when some stuff started to click, and I feel I should share.

Transiting between planets, I took a few hits and had some damage to some ship components. This included the ship's thrusters, which I noted visually (the damaged section was visible in the cockpit, with the "gash" on the tile) and I repaired.

Later in my playthrough, I was in manual ship control and noticed I could no longer thrust right. 

My first instinct was that this was a bug or control issue (and went to make a note). Before I did, I went into ship diagnostic and notices that the right thruster was reading in the red, an error I hadn't encountered before and despite my repair. I then realised that the big fat "ears" on the head of the ship were the external portions of said thrusters. I went out, repaired the damage, and resumed my journey with ship control. 

At no point was I trained in their being a thruster issue, or was I explicitly told that thrusters were a component. However, all the information and skills required to deal with a new problem were passed to me in-game, in such a way that there was a heavy-handed tutorial.  I knew the thrusters existed (because I walk past the internal portions of them as I walk in the cockpit, and that sometimes triggered their info windows), and I knew I had diagnostic tools (form earlier repair jobs and ship exploration) so I can assess the problem before leaving the ship.

I felt I learnt lessons in a way that "felt" rather natural, and served me when a new problem emerged.

I can say this or that about interfaces, controls, issues, and such, and I feel like a nag. However,  that moment just had felt very strong, and I needed to share.

Version 0.1.1

Note: I may not be 100% correct o this bug. Trying again this morning, but placing the item directly in front of the NPC awaiting the bag resolved the issue.

I'll leave the report below, but I'm likely wrong (although the duplication of the item is still an issue)

Bug - Cannot complete a Job (possibly due to duplicated item)

• Received a Job from Job board to collect a bag on one planet (Kysil II) and return it to a person on another (Drist III)
• Got to Kysil II, landed, found the bag, and returned with the bag to the ship.
• Upon returning to the ship and stowing the item off the landing pad, I returned to the planet once again (I thought I was low on warp fuel and wanted to purchase some).
• Notice the white bag was still on the planet (possibly a duplicate).
• Returned to the ship, and confirmed the white bag i brought to the ship earlier was still there.
• Flew back to Drist III, and took the bag to the loading zone of the planet. The person standing in the zone did not acknowledge my return of their bag, and was unable to complete the job.
• Went to bed (real-life bed), so took no other action on my end to redress.

Possible other factors:

• I had two jobs for two white bags at the same time. I returned the white bag for the first job, but encountered the problem on the second. Both bags had in their descriptions clearly what their final destination was, and I returned the correct bag to the first job.

A question regarding the "more cargo" vs. "more speed" - is the intent that you should only be keeping cargo on that platform? Because I've been stashing stuff all over the place, and I have the sneaking suspicion that the "fast" ship has more nooks and crannies to stuff cargo into.