Your idea on changing the sleep thing is good, BUT it's often postulated that people in space would likely go to the Awake 2 or 4 hour model with a 30-minute or 1 hour sleep in-between (like people on submarines sometimes do). I've personally done the 2-Hr. version for weeks at a time when working on coding projects and there is a curious catch to the idea of only needing 5 hours of sleep a day -> IF YOU DON'T TAKE THAT NAP WHEN YOU SHOULD, you get so tired you can't keep going. You start making dumb mistakes, dozing off and the like. Having a sleep-power reserve like some watches do might be another good resource to manage. As you get too tired, you might mis-read what resources are on a world and waste a bunch of time when you realize it wasn't real (like a mirage). OR maybe your character just dozes off uncontrollable. This could be a fun, real-world management issue.
Framerate tends to drop on uninhabited planets. It's normally not a big problem, but it can make the hot-cold flashing on the Oniris devices harder to read. Also, after delivering crates to a planet, the crates will be back in the planet's loading bay next time I visit it. I tried taking them out and dumping them on an uninhabited planet; that got rid of them
Love the gameplay! Very chill and relaxing. Looking forward to when the hydroponics bay is functional; being less dependent on air cyclers seems like it would feel very rewarding. As another commenter noted, being able to rotate the crate stamper would be pretty cool; you could potentially set a bunch up around the landing platform to automatically stamp a lot of your crates as soon as you come aboard. In general, more variety in what needs to be maintained moment to moment would be pretty great (maybe some systems unique to the cargo bay, cockpit, and other areas? Could be a way to scale up how much maintenance needs to be done as your ship gets larger, in addition to requiring more air cyclers), and feels like it would be increase the impact of the crew once they're added in, as it would ensure they always have something useful to do (if you go the route of using them to automate tasks)
After exploring the entire galaxy the last time I played, I decided to dial it back. This time Jonas Starhawk is just a simple man trying to get a big spaceship as fast as possible. In doing so I found a nifty trick. By allowing stamping machines to be bought, I made a little auto-stamp system with four of them. I really like this emergent automation and I think it could make for interesting ship upgrades. I got money rolling quickly and was living the high life in only a few hours.
For fun I decided to try the varying prices mechanic that trading posts have. I found one planet that sold Pineapple Chunks for cheap, and another that bought them for more than double what I paid. You made a joke about someone filling their ship with Bananas for weird reasons. Well laugh it up, because I bought 126 Pineapple Chunks at $51, sold them at $136, and made a cool $10,710 profit.
Was it terribly inefficient? Yes. Can I make more in ¼ of the time by doing freight jobs? Yes. Did I accidentally by 126 Pineapples first, load them up, and then have to scramble to find a buyer? Yes. Do I want this feature to be built up more and improved still? Absolutely.
I think this way of making money ties into an idea you said a few videos back about a character's personality drifting depending on their actions. Helping ships slides you more altruistic, so then maybe normal freight jobs pull you towards apathy. Oniris surveys could move either more altruistic or egoism, depending on how they tie into the story. I think my experimental pineapple delivery could be a new delivery type that skews egoist. Say there’s a building you can buy crates from similar to Oniris. You can drop those crates on items like in the slimes mechanic. Except, now that crate is carrying the item. Make each crate be able to carry ~4 of the same item, increase price differences, and boom, now my method is more profitable than normal freight. The player has more personal choice in which material to specialize in. They live or die by their own actions, a very private egotism choice. Idk, just something I thought of.
Notes on Sleeping and Stamina:
I decided to run a test on if Stamina increases if you stay in the bed. At level 15, it took 1:40 to regenerate to full Stamina while standing around, and only 50 seconds if in bed. Despite that effectiveness, it only took 18 seconds to use all my Stamina cleaning just 4 Air Cyclers, not even accounting for other residues or package delivery. These findings lead me to one of two conclusions. A) Drastically increase the natural Stamina regeneration, add new ways to regenerate Stamina, and decrease the amount of ship breakdowns. Or B) Just get rid of Stamina for a patch or two.
No matter which path is chosen, I think ship degradation and breakdowns should be highly reduced as more content is added. I never felt at peace for more than a few minutes while on my maxed out ship. I’d always be running around fixing the air or residue or coolant. Air Cyclers are the most significant culprit here, as another commenter pointed out. I get there being a lot of breakdowns right now since there’s nothing else to do in the current build. But once new secondary loops get added in my ship needs to stop breaking after one minute of jotting down notes.
I also just realized food was a useful thing this update from a comment. I tried it out, and it is kind of fun to fill a whole landing bay with apples and sprint through eating them. I’ll definitely experiment with this feature more in future updates. I do think it suffers from the same problems plaguing Stamina overall, mainly diminishing returns. I needed to fill that landing bay up twice with food to regen my full Stamina at level 15. The cost was negligible but I don’t think rapid overeating is the tone this game is going for.
Bugs/visual glitches:
*BIG GLITCH* Random storage containers will be at ports I’ve never visited before or taken a quest to pick up from. They can also appear after revisiting already discovered planets. The ghost boxes luckily only messed up one of my missions, because new storage crates for the quest didn’t replace the ghost boxes and didn’t show up when new landing space was available.
Contacting Galactic Freight from your ship's computer crashes the game.
The repainting menu still doesn’t fit with every room added. You can also open the menu and scroll up to get what I could best call a “phantom” tab. Nothing is selected and pushing enter doesn’t do anything, but it doesn’t sync up like all the other menus.
Still some lag on Uncivilized planets, can’t tell if that’s on my end or not.
More than my last run through I had the issue of my character colliding with an item I’d just put down. This resulted in countless times where I would be halfway in a crate and couldn’t walk up or down to get out. Maybe placing items could “bounce” you to the tile where you were placing from so this collision wouldn’t happen
If you stop holding space while buying the hull repainting, the card stays and doesn’t reset like other repainting stations.
I’m glad Fuel Injectors and Warp Rings are getting dirty, they both now have the issue of never getting fully aligned. Injectors can only sometimes get to 100% and Rings still can be a very small (yet infuriating) amount of pixels off.
Freight Jobs still have no description in the Menu.
Gameplay Ideas:
After playing through basically the same delivery and job board missions a dozen times, I’d like to throw some ideas into the ring.
Pet Delivery: pick up cages, put them on your landing dock. Once back on your ship the animal escapes and has similar AI to the slimes, except faster. To deliver them you need to recapture them in a cage. Maybe get rid of doors crushing them, maybe not.
Heating and Cooling: Highly specialized delivery missions where you have to keep packages around a heating/cooling device.
Being able to rotate the crate stamper with the wrench for more customization.
I had the idea of getting a push cart/dolly after a few freight deliveries. It could hold two crates and go faster than walking speed. Transporting full docks of cargo can get tedious and that could really move it along.
I’m liking these new features and I’m excited to see how NPC’s will interact with them. Good demo as always!
Only found one big issue. There is an upgrade unit that the rumor says can be bought from the trading post but in that sector there is only one uninhabited planet. I don't know if I am missing something or not.
My 2 cents: Some kind of pause would be nice. Not everyone can play uninterrupted.
Something in the tutorial about eating. I only noticed it when looking at the key bindings.
Not a big deal now but when running out of air does damage it is going to be difficult to find crashed ships in time. I don't know if that is how you want it but perhaps a way to refill O2 at the platform.
Looking great, absolutely adore the game though I did run into one game-ending issue when unloading waste on a planet. Since I can't pick up the barrels once I've set them down and I accidentally blocked myself in.
So I put a good few hours into this game last night so here is the problems I had:
-I felt that the Air Cyclers broke far to quickly as I couldn‘t go more than a minute without having to go fix them.
-A ship I was paid for fixing would not let me leave due to an invisible block at the platform.
Suggestions; Make the warp engines break a little faster, especially the coils, and I feel an anti-asteroid laser of some sort might be a good mid to late game upgrade (Tied to story?).
Just gave 0.1.3 a try. The only issues I ran into so far were: -Unable to sleep. -A bit of a stuttering framerate on the first planet, possibly from all of the rock sprites.
I don't know if you saw the patch notes, but sleeping was specifically removed. I did see the computer still mentions sleeping in the tutorial, but that's probably an oversight. I am going to check if staying in bed boosts stamina regeneration, but it seems to me it's only placebo levels. Hope that clears things up!
I got the results from my test. At level 15 I could regenerate full stamina in 1 minute 40 seconds by standing around. By "sleeping" in bed (just moving into it) I could fill it in 50 seconds. So technically sleeping is still a usable feature.
It still only took 18 seconds for me to use all my Stamina on some Air Cyclers though lol. Definitely needs to be balanced or have a patch testing no Stamina.
This game is a masterpiece, which is to be expected by someone on the caliber of Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw. Even though I have yet to play it, I can just tell that it's gonna be great!
Playing on alpha 0.1.3 (haven't played any earlier builds).
I love it. The primary gameplay loop is tight, and I can't wait for more story.
Here's my notes from playing:
In the beginning I took much more than 4 miriculum/mundanium (because I thought it would be useful -- loved that twist hehe!) but the computer and looters acted like I only got 4.
It would be nice if I could use the mouse scroll wheel to cycle through tools instead of using Q and E.
A guy asked me to repair his ship and then immediately thanked me even though I didn't fix anything.
How long is a "cycle"? I tried looking through the menus but couldn't figure it out. Is it a minute? An hour? is there a way of keeping track of how many cycles have passed?
Maybe this is intentional but when fixing the air filter alignment or cleaning the coolant, it usually can't go all the way to 100% and stays at around 95% to 98%. This is pretty unsatisfying, especially since sometimes seemingly at random it does go to 100%.
At one point the arrow was blocking some text. Here's a screenshot:
I've played as far as getting the warp drive and jumping to my next system.
I like what I see so far, but there are a couple of concerns:
It's easy to exploit manual piloting. Because the layout of "space" resets every time you go into manual, you can spam backing out of it and going back in until you get solar wind that goes right down the middle of the screen. Or if you cba to dodge an asteroid you can just back out of the screen just before it hits you.
And with infinite planets, I came across an inconsistency where I wanted to ransack the ship that had crashed on the surface, but after I took the upgrade box back onto my ship and had a snooze because I was running out of stamina, I went back down onto the planet to find the layout was completely different and the crashed ship was gone. I wanted to rip its walls apart for cash. Once I figured out that's how it worked, it becomes easy to abuse this as well, because you can keep backing in and out of planets until you get the good stuff spawning near the docking bay. I think the layout of an infinite planet should be generated once when you arrive near it, and it regenerates either when you leave (to simulate that the planet has turned while you've been gone) or you ask the computer to change the spot, which should take a long enough time that it's not worth spamming to abuse the procedural generation engine.
Also, unless the ladder or computer are going to be able to break in future updates, having to cycle back to your hands to operate them feels like busy work.
I just started playing the new demo. While I'll have more to say later, there's an immediate bug I found that crashes the game.
You can't contact the Galactic Freight while on a ship. Here's the crash message if it'll help.
___________________________________________ ############################################################################################ ERROR in action number 1 of Draw Event for object obj_console:
Variable obj_console.bigjob(102097, -2147483648) not set before reading it. at gml_Object_obj_console_Draw_0 ############################################################################################ gml_Object_obj_console_Draw_0 (line -1)
You can contact the Oniris though weirdly. I am liking the no sleep addition. The natural stamina regeneration is working well so far, but I'll say more later. Just thought this should be reported soon.
Small suggestion for crew vs. cargo; have the cargo slow them down, pathfinding will prioritise unobstructed paths but won't trap NPCs if there is no option.
Might also complement FTL like features so if you've got crap loads of unorganised cargo they will take longer to get to their posts. Encourage a tidy ship while not punishing messy players too much.
Love the game so far. One issue I discovered is that when I'm on a planet the framerate drops like a stone. It could be my old ass laptop I'm playing on though. Not sure. Keep up the good work. Can't wait to play the finished version!
Maybe it's just me, but I started a second run-through with the smaller base ship to see what changed and if it's actually moving any faster I can't tell the difference.
Also; after reading a few other people's comments I gave the autopilot a second chance and I think I may have just hit a run of bad luck with it, but now I have a different observation. It seems odd for the ship to travel faster with the autopilot; the mini-game punishes me for engaging with it when it should be rewarding me with getting where I want to go faster.
(Although in fairness I can't say that the ship taking longer to cross the system map while playing the mini-game isn't just a bug. Or possibly an illusion based on the time cycle counting differently while you're playing it, I did notice that the ship visually moves even faster under auto-pilot while you're sleeping.)
So this was a fun one, I logged out and the next time I logged in my stamper was gone. Then I combined that with the bug that lets you accidentally accept a job several times and had 30 crates to deliver and no way to finish the mission.
___________________________________________ ############################################################################################ 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)
Got a weird error while traveling towards a planet
- Pretty much made it there
- Got a message saying there was a ship in distress so I rerouted
- Nothing happened so i went to the command seat
- It said I was at the planet, so I took the lift down
- Game crashed and gave me this message:
___________________________________________ ############################################################################################ 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)
Just a bit of a continuity The scanners in the intro detected Mundanium on the planet. It would have made more sense to detect Miriculum at that point. The joke that it had changed was sort of spoiled because of that. Otherwise, enjoying everything.
Got an error while approaching a derelict in the KEAL sector. I'll see if it happens again.
Someting feels like it's missing for me. Could it be possible for us to get our sleeping done durring the warp flight? Contrast can help a lot in the form of a down-time section. Relaxing with crew before turning in after a long day's work in a sector can be rewarding. That would make the warp section night time and running errands your day. Primary loop = fly around to lift and drop. Secondary loop = night socialize and rest. Tertiary loop = respond to problems (faults, arguments, distress calls, the story, etc.) and plan long term to be ready for those so they don't catastrophically ruin your day like they used to. You gather a bottle of coolant for when the tank leaks, a filter or two, a replacement wrench... This would also reduce the number of cycles needed to do deliveries so we can more easily plan what we can get done. A hundred cycles seems like a lot but it's over in a flash right now. Our big limiter in each sector, or day, would be energy and health instead of time. Maybe time still passes in sectors but more slowly so you could visit three or four planets in a day before your energy starts to drop without you slurping caffeine... Errr... Go Juice? Awakenium? Wok-
Also... the manual says trade posts are in any city but they are only in commercial cities. Is that by design? I've got so many Shiamonds to sell at planets who "import" them but no trade post there to sell them.
Some quests appear broken; no bag on a planet or no inhabited planets in a system who's rumor says there is an upgrade at the trade post. Maybe some rumors could be bunk info but pirates waiting to steal your cargo aren't intended, right? There go my Shiamonds. Upgrades are limited so the pirates must have stolen it along with the shop.
We cannot control if the ship stops at a contravening point once we have changed course to intercept a derelict or distress. It stops when making contact with a planet I don't intend to stop at and when I get multiple derelicts I cannot stop at both. Perhaps stopping at a point requires low speed. We cruise to get close then bring her in slow. Maybe there could be a throttle upgrade which lets you modulate a fraction of impulse from the cockpit durring the piloting minigame. Is that grossly out of line with the intended controls? Those controls make me sad. The flight control minigame could be more interesting with a throttle letting us slow down to scoop up debris, turning it into pseudo-random cargo instead of credits, or slow down significantly to mine an asteroid for warp ore. You had said some poor planners or unlucky sods end up in sectors without planets so if this wouldn't be too hard you could slow down and cargo pad down to break some rocks. For debris, the random cargo might even be zubes! (I've spelled that wrong because google has no idea what I mean) Who knows what you are going to get. Unless you upgrade your scanner... one more thing to clean and align. Drat.
It seems that, when we repair a ship in distress, we get the reward + expensess. Does that mean later on we get filters to put in the air cyclers? The wrench pops them open and we need to replace the filter but if the filter isn't dirty we can pop the top back on because it just got knocked out of alignment? The starting and ending jump for warp seems pretty violent so maybe that's what messes up alignment while bad fuel makes stuff dirty...
We also lose all of our fuel when upgrading the ship... a safety measure to be sure. Could they do something about the valves? They are so small that I close them right after trying to open them. It's almost easier to just keep turning it until it's empty. That reminds me, one time my coolant expantion tank wasn't full and I tried filling it but there isn't an opening to be found! At least they topped it off after stealing my fuel. Been keeping my reserve fuel set to the side instead... sometimes four cans.
The KEAL sector has no planets, if it helps narrow down this bug. The derelict error: ___________________________________________ ############################################################################################ ERROR in action number 1 of Draw Event for object con_onboard:
Push :: Execution Error - Variable Index [-1] out of range [300] - -5.planetposy(100492,-1) at gml_Object_con_onboard_Draw_0 ############################################################################################ gml_Object_con_onboard_Draw_0 (line -1)
___________________________________________ ############################################################################################ ERROR in action number 1 of Draw Event for object con_onboard:
Push :: Execution Error - Variable Index [-1] out of range [300] - -5.planetposy(100492,-1) at gml_Object_con_onboard_Draw_0 ############################################################################################ gml_Object_con_onboard_Draw_0 (line -1)
A good character to reference for upbeat altruism would be the doctor from dr who. Seeks to help others and is quite optimistic,Also has multiple incarnations of race and gender. hope this helps if not I hope it helps gives someone else an idea that is useful.
(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 played on the newest build (0.1.2) and got stuck at the tutorial.
Apparently I set course for the planet the wrong way, and the game didn't register I was already there (I think I was a little off to the side of it). Note: I could control the ship during the travel, but there was no point to the minigame, there were no asteroids to avoid or anything.
I realigned myself and sailed towards it, and then the message of "Course to planet ZAG set" popped up, even though I was pretty much there already.
Then I got the calls on the Comms, and got the message that I was in orbit... and after listening to both messages, I tried to go down only to find out I was not able to. The ship sailed past the planet, and was still sailing towards the emptiness of space.
I tried to realign once again, but this time, since I had already gotten the "in orbit" message, the game wouldn't allow me to use the System Map... Nor could I get down through the cargo lift... So that was the end of my beta testing for now.
I really enjoyed what little I saw, and enjoy pretty much all of the weekly content you make, especially the dev diaries, there's some really good and ingenious insight in those. Happy holidays and new year!
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.
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)
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."
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.
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.
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in every version of the game I played it wouldn't let me change the last name of my character. Is it just me, or is it an actual issue?
Your idea on changing the sleep thing is good, BUT it's often postulated that people in space would likely go to the Awake 2 or 4 hour model with a 30-minute or 1 hour sleep in-between (like people on submarines sometimes do). I've personally done the 2-Hr. version for weeks at a time when working on coding projects and there is a curious catch to the idea of only needing 5 hours of sleep a day -> IF YOU DON'T TAKE THAT NAP WHEN YOU SHOULD, you get so tired you can't keep going. You start making dumb mistakes, dozing off and the like. Having a sleep-power reserve like some watches do might be another good resource to manage. As you get too tired, you might mis-read what resources are on a world and waste a bunch of time when you realize it wasn't real (like a mirage). OR maybe your character just dozes off uncontrollable. This could be a fun, real-world management issue.
Excellently written. Looking forward to more. Also,
Version 0.1.3:
Framerate tends to drop on uninhabited planets. It's normally not a big problem, but it can make the hot-cold flashing on the Oniris devices harder to read. Also, after delivering crates to a planet, the crates will be back in the planet's loading bay next time I visit it. I tried taking them out and dumping them on an uninhabited planet; that got rid of them
Love the gameplay! Very chill and relaxing. Looking forward to when the hydroponics bay is functional; being less dependent on air cyclers seems like it would feel very rewarding. As another commenter noted, being able to rotate the crate stamper would be pretty cool; you could potentially set a bunch up around the landing platform to automatically stamp a lot of your crates as soon as you come aboard. In general, more variety in what needs to be maintained moment to moment would be pretty great (maybe some systems unique to the cargo bay, cockpit, and other areas? Could be a way to scale up how much maintenance needs to be done as your ship gets larger, in addition to requiring more air cyclers), and feels like it would be increase the impact of the crew once they're added in, as it would ensure they always have something useful to do (if you go the route of using them to automate tasks)
Alright, version 0.1.3!
Continued Gameplay Adventure:
After exploring the entire galaxy the last time I played, I decided to dial it back. This time Jonas Starhawk is just a simple man trying to get a big spaceship as fast as possible. In doing so I found a nifty trick. By allowing stamping machines to be bought, I made a little auto-stamp system with four of them. I really like this emergent automation and I think it could make for interesting ship upgrades. I got money rolling quickly and was living the high life in only a few hours.
For fun I decided to try the varying prices mechanic that trading posts have. I found one planet that sold Pineapple Chunks for cheap, and another that bought them for more than double what I paid. You made a joke about someone filling their ship with Bananas for weird reasons. Well laugh it up, because I bought 126 Pineapple Chunks at $51, sold them at $136, and made a cool $10,710 profit.
Was it terribly inefficient? Yes. Can I make more in ¼ of the time by doing freight jobs? Yes. Did I accidentally by 126 Pineapples first, load them up, and then have to scramble to find a buyer? Yes. Do I want this feature to be built up more and improved still? Absolutely.
I think this way of making money ties into an idea you said a few videos back about a character's personality drifting depending on their actions. Helping ships slides you more altruistic, so then maybe normal freight jobs pull you towards apathy. Oniris surveys could move either more altruistic or egoism, depending on how they tie into the story. I think my experimental pineapple delivery could be a new delivery type that skews egoist. Say there’s a building you can buy crates from similar to Oniris. You can drop those crates on items like in the slimes mechanic. Except, now that crate is carrying the item. Make each crate be able to carry ~4 of the same item, increase price differences, and boom, now my method is more profitable than normal freight. The player has more personal choice in which material to specialize in. They live or die by their own actions, a very private egotism choice. Idk, just something I thought of.
Notes on Sleeping and Stamina:
I decided to run a test on if Stamina increases if you stay in the bed. At level 15, it took 1:40 to regenerate to full Stamina while standing around, and only 50 seconds if in bed. Despite that effectiveness, it only took 18 seconds to use all my Stamina cleaning just 4 Air Cyclers, not even accounting for other residues or package delivery. These findings lead me to one of two conclusions. A) Drastically increase the natural Stamina regeneration, add new ways to regenerate Stamina, and decrease the amount of ship breakdowns. Or B) Just get rid of Stamina for a patch or two.
No matter which path is chosen, I think ship degradation and breakdowns should be highly reduced as more content is added. I never felt at peace for more than a few minutes while on my maxed out ship. I’d always be running around fixing the air or residue or coolant. Air Cyclers are the most significant culprit here, as another commenter pointed out. I get there being a lot of breakdowns right now since there’s nothing else to do in the current build. But once new secondary loops get added in my ship needs to stop breaking after one minute of jotting down notes.
I also just realized food was a useful thing this update from a comment. I tried it out, and it is kind of fun to fill a whole landing bay with apples and sprint through eating them. I’ll definitely experiment with this feature more in future updates. I do think it suffers from the same problems plaguing Stamina overall, mainly diminishing returns. I needed to fill that landing bay up twice with food to regen my full Stamina at level 15. The cost was negligible but I don’t think rapid overeating is the tone this game is going for.
Bugs/visual glitches:
Gameplay Ideas:
After playing through basically the same delivery and job board missions a dozen times, I’d like to throw some ideas into the ring.
I’m liking these new features and I’m excited to see how NPC’s will interact with them. Good demo as always!
*tips trilby*
Great game. Can't wait for the story.
Only found one big issue. There is an upgrade unit that the rumor says can be bought from the trading post but in that sector there is only one uninhabited planet. I don't know if I am missing something or not.
My 2 cents:
Some kind of pause would be nice. Not everyone can play uninterrupted.
Something in the tutorial about eating. I only noticed it when looking at the key bindings.
Not a big deal now but when running out of air does damage it is going to be difficult to find crashed ships in time. I don't know if that is how you want it but perhaps a way to refill O2 at the platform.
Looking great, absolutely adore the game though I did run into one game-ending issue when unloading waste on a planet. Since I can't pick up the barrels once I've set them down and I accidentally blocked myself in.
So I put a good few hours into this game last night so here is the problems I had:
-I felt that the Air Cyclers broke far to quickly as I couldn‘t go more than a minute without having to go fix them.
-A ship I was paid for fixing would not let me leave due to an invisible block at the platform.
Suggestions; Make the warp engines break a little faster, especially the coils, and I feel an anti-asteroid laser of some sort might be a good mid to late game upgrade (Tied to story?).
Just gave 0.1.3 a try. The only issues I ran into so far were:
-Unable to sleep.
-A bit of a stuttering framerate on the first planet, possibly from all of the rock sprites.
I don't know if you saw the patch notes, but sleeping was specifically removed. I did see the computer still mentions sleeping in the tutorial, but that's probably an oversight. I am going to check if staying in bed boosts stamina regeneration, but it seems to me it's only placebo levels. Hope that clears things up!
Ah I totally missed that. I saw that mentioned in the video, but when the game still mentioned sleep I just assumed it was still a feature. Cheers!
It's not fun to stand in place while the Stamina slowly regens, though. Hm
I got the results from my test. At level 15 I could regenerate full stamina in 1 minute 40 seconds by standing around. By "sleeping" in bed (just moving into it) I could fill it in 50 seconds. So technically sleeping is still a usable feature.
It still only took 18 seconds for me to use all my Stamina on some Air Cyclers though lol. Definitely needs to be balanced or have a patch testing no Stamina.
This game is a masterpiece, which is to be expected by someone on the caliber of Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw. Even though I have yet to play it, I can just tell that it's gonna be great!
How do you sleep? I'm just standing in the bed...
I also couldn't figure this out.
If you're playing 0.1.3 or later the sleeping mechanic has been removed.
Stamina regenerates over time without sleeping now and the speed of the ship got buffed a bit to compensate for the lack of time acceleration.
Playing on alpha 0.1.3 (haven't played any earlier builds).
I love it. The primary gameplay loop is tight, and I can't wait for more story.
Here's my notes from playing:
I've played as far as getting the warp drive and jumping to my next system.
I like what I see so far, but there are a couple of concerns:
It's easy to exploit manual piloting. Because the layout of "space" resets every time you go into manual, you can spam backing out of it and going back in until you get solar wind that goes right down the middle of the screen. Or if you cba to dodge an asteroid you can just back out of the screen just before it hits you.
And with infinite planets, I came across an inconsistency where I wanted to ransack the ship that had crashed on the surface, but after I took the upgrade box back onto my ship and had a snooze because I was running out of stamina, I went back down onto the planet to find the layout was completely different and the crashed ship was gone. I wanted to rip its walls apart for cash. Once I figured out that's how it worked, it becomes easy to abuse this as well, because you can keep backing in and out of planets until you get the good stuff spawning near the docking bay. I think the layout of an infinite planet should be generated once when you arrive near it, and it regenerates either when you leave (to simulate that the planet has turned while you've been gone) or you ask the computer to change the spot, which should take a long enough time that it's not worth spamming to abuse the procedural generation engine.
Also, unless the ladder or computer are going to be able to break in future updates, having to cycle back to your hands to operate them feels like busy work.
I just started playing the new demo. While I'll have more to say later, there's an immediate bug I found that crashes the game.
You can't contact the Galactic Freight while on a ship. Here's the crash message if it'll help.
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ERROR in
action number 1
of Draw Event
for object obj_console:
Variable obj_console.bigjob(102097, -2147483648) not set before reading it.
at gml_Object_obj_console_Draw_0
############################################################################################
gml_Object_obj_console_Draw_0 (line -1)
You can contact the Oniris though weirdly. I am liking the no sleep addition. The natural stamina regeneration is working well so far, but I'll say more later. Just thought this should be reported soon.
Small suggestion for crew vs. cargo; have the cargo slow them down, pathfinding will prioritise unobstructed paths but won't trap NPCs if there is no option.
Might also complement FTL like features so if you've got crap loads of unorganised cargo they will take longer to get to their posts. Encourage a tidy ship while not punishing messy players too much.
Love the game so far. One issue I discovered is that when I'm on a planet the framerate drops like a stone. It could be my old ass laptop I'm playing on though. Not sure. Keep up the good work. Can't wait to play the finished version!
Maybe it's just me, but I started a second run-through with the smaller base ship to see what changed and if it's actually moving any faster I can't tell the difference.
Also; after reading a few other people's comments I gave the autopilot a second chance and I think I may have just hit a run of bad luck with it, but now I have a different observation. It seems odd for the ship to travel faster with the autopilot; the mini-game punishes me for engaging with it when it should be rewarding me with getting where I want to go faster.
(Although in fairness I can't say that the ship taking longer to cross the system map while playing the mini-game isn't just a bug. Or possibly an illusion based on the time cycle counting differently while you're playing it, I did notice that the ship visually moves even faster under auto-pilot while you're sleeping.)
So this was a fun one, I logged out and the next time I logged in my stamper was gone. Then I combined that with the bug that lets you accidentally accept a job several times and had 30 crates to deliver and no way to finish the mission.
found bug/ glitch/ error while playtesting
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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)
GLaDos from Portal is the manifestation of Private Altruism
Will you be making a linux version as well?
Got a weird error while traveling towards a planet
- Pretty much made it there
- Got a message saying there was a ship in distress so I rerouted
- Nothing happened so i went to the command seat
- It said I was at the planet, so I took the lift down
- Game crashed and gave me this message:
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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)
Just a bit of a continuity
The scanners in the intro detected Mundanium on the planet. It would have made more sense to detect Miriculum at that point. The joke that it had changed was sort of spoiled because of that.
Otherwise, enjoying everything.
I also noticed this in a playthrough
Your requested female sci-fi/fantasy characters for the personality types:
Got an error while approaching a derelict in the KEAL sector. I'll see if it happens again.
Someting feels like it's missing for me. Could it be possible for us to get our sleeping done durring the warp flight? Contrast can help a lot in the form of a down-time section. Relaxing with crew before turning in after a long day's work in a sector can be rewarding. That would make the warp section night time and running errands your day. Primary loop = fly around to lift and drop. Secondary loop = night socialize and rest. Tertiary loop = respond to problems (faults, arguments, distress calls, the story, etc.) and plan long term to be ready for those so they don't catastrophically ruin your day like they used to. You gather a bottle of coolant for when the tank leaks, a filter or two, a replacement wrench... This would also reduce the number of cycles needed to do deliveries so we can more easily plan what we can get done. A hundred cycles seems like a lot but it's over in a flash right now. Our big limiter in each sector, or day, would be energy and health instead of time. Maybe time still passes in sectors but more slowly so you could visit three or four planets in a day before your energy starts to drop without you slurping caffeine... Errr... Go Juice? Awakenium? Wok-
Also... the manual says trade posts are in any city but they are only in commercial cities. Is that by design?
I've got so many Shiamonds to sell at planets who "import" them but no trade post there to sell them.
Some quests appear broken; no bag on a planet or no inhabited planets in a system who's rumor says there is an upgrade at the trade post.
Maybe some rumors could be bunk info but pirates waiting to steal your cargo aren't intended, right?
There go my Shiamonds. Upgrades are limited so the pirates must have stolen it along with the shop.
We cannot control if the ship stops at a contravening point once we have changed course to intercept a derelict or distress. It stops when making contact with a planet I don't intend to stop at and when I get multiple derelicts I cannot stop at both. Perhaps stopping at a point requires low speed. We cruise to get close then bring her in slow. Maybe there could be a throttle upgrade which lets you modulate a fraction of impulse from the cockpit durring the piloting minigame. Is that grossly out of line with the intended controls? Those controls make me sad. The flight control minigame could be more interesting with a throttle letting us slow down to scoop up debris, turning it into pseudo-random cargo instead of credits, or slow down significantly to mine an asteroid for warp ore. You had said some poor planners or unlucky sods end up in sectors without planets so if this wouldn't be too hard you could slow down and cargo pad down to break some rocks. For debris, the random cargo might even be zubes! (I've spelled that wrong because google has no idea what I mean) Who knows what you are going to get. Unless you upgrade your scanner... one more thing to clean and align.
Drat.
It seems that, when we repair a ship in distress, we get the reward + expensess. Does that mean later on we get filters to put in the air cyclers? The wrench pops them open and we need to replace the filter but if the filter isn't dirty we can pop the top back on because it just got knocked out of alignment? The starting and ending jump for warp seems pretty violent so maybe that's what messes up alignment while bad fuel makes stuff dirty...
We also lose all of our fuel when upgrading the ship... a safety measure to be sure. Could they do something about the valves? They are so small that I close them right after trying to open them. It's almost easier to just keep turning it until it's empty. That reminds me, one time my coolant expantion tank wasn't full and I tried filling it but there isn't an opening to be found! At least they topped it off after stealing my fuel. Been keeping my reserve fuel set to the side instead... sometimes four cans.
The KEAL sector has no planets, if it helps narrow down this bug.
The derelict error:
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ERROR in
action number 1
of Draw Event
for object con_onboard:
Push :: Execution Error - Variable Index [-1] out of range [300] - -5.planetposy(100492,-1)
at gml_Object_con_onboard_Draw_0
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gml_Object_con_onboard_Draw_0 (line -1)
Yep, it happened again.
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ERROR in
action number 1
of Draw Event
for object con_onboard:
Push :: Execution Error - Variable Index [-1] out of range [300] - -5.planetposy(100492,-1)
at gml_Object_con_onboard_Draw_0
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gml_Object_con_onboard_Draw_0 (line -1)
so...I loaded my save game from last year, and now my ship looks like this.
I tried placing the air cycler on all the exposed wires in a desperate attempt to survive on my mutant colony ship, but to no avail.
A good character to reference for upbeat altruism would be the doctor from dr who. Seeks to help others and is quite optimistic,Also has multiple incarnations of race and gender. hope this helps if not I hope it helps gives someone else an idea that is useful.
Your requested female sci-fi/fantasy characters for the personality types:
(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 played on the newest build (0.1.2) and got stuck at the tutorial.
Apparently I set course for the planet the wrong way, and the game didn't register I was already there (I think I was a little off to the side of it). Note: I could control the ship during the travel, but there was no point to the minigame, there were no asteroids to avoid or anything.
I realigned myself and sailed towards it, and then the message of "Course to planet ZAG set" popped up, even though I was pretty much there already.
Then I got the calls on the Comms, and got the message that I was in orbit... and after listening to both messages, I tried to go down only to find out I was not able to. The ship sailed past the planet, and was still sailing towards the emptiness of space.
I tried to realign once again, but this time, since I had already gotten the "in orbit" message, the game wouldn't allow me to use the System Map... Nor could I get down through the cargo lift... So that was the end of my beta testing for now.
I really enjoyed what little I saw, and enjoy pretty much all of the weekly content you make, especially the dev diaries, there's some really good and ingenious insight in those. Happy holidays and new year!
I also had exactly this issue.
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:
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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
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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
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############################################################################################
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.