Cargo Commander

[LaughingThesaurus]

Yeah, that'd be my guess as well. Emphasis on 'guess' because I don't really know much about programming...but I have a hard time believing that seeds actually even COULD be words, without some kind of transformation into numbers.
I should stop talking.

[keith.lamothe]

Yea, I'm sure there's some conversion of string to numeric seed.  It's not hard, I just don't see it done a lot.

[Castruccio]

Well the Arcen level is now up and running so you if you happen to get the game and a sector pass, you can go there.  I ran through it quickly last night and it looked to be a perfectly good level.  I'll try to get some highscores up soon.

[keith.lamothe]

Arcen's causing more player corpses and I didn't even have to do anything!

[doctorfrog]

The name seed is a really great idea, yea.  I keep thinking I've seen it before but I don't recall where.

I vaguely recall being able to use seed words in Imperialism.

[LaughingThesaurus]

Yea, I'm sure there's some conversion of string to numeric seed.  It's not hard, I just don't see it done a lot.

What I want to know is, how does a seed help in generating a world? And, is it possible for a non-numerical seed to go through that same process, or will the program not know how to handle those?

[keith.lamothe]

Yea, I'm sure there's some conversion of string to numeric seed.  It's not hard, I just don't see it done a lot.

What I want to know is, how does a seed help in generating a world? And, is it possible for a non-numerical seed to go through that same process, or will the program not know how to handle those?

The seed just initializes the psuedorandom generator (we use a Mersenne Twister; wouldn't surprise me if this game does too).  That's all it needs to do, if mapgen then uses the numbers from said generator.

And there's no fundamental reason why you can't use a non-numeric data type as a seed for some kind of alternate random generator, there's just no need to.  Just convert it into a number via some means that doesn't "clump up" too unevenly (like every string that ends in "ing" getting the same number, etc) and go

[Castruccio]

Well the latest update appears to be crashing the game, so...that's unfortunate. 

[madcow]

Yeah I went ahead and got this and it's been really buggy so far. I've had none of the buttons on gamepad working (only the analog stick), it crashing whenever I hit anything during the opening scene, and now it not starting at all.

Not really impressed so far.

Any idea if they have a forum/tech support spot?

[Castruccio]

I have been posting error reports on the steam forum.  The dev just logged on to Steam and said they are working on a patch to fix the crashes caused by the patch they sent out last night. 

As far as I know, the game is only working with 360 controllers (or mouse + Keyboard).  Are you using a 360 controller?

Forum link:  http://steamcommunity.com/app/220460/discussions/

[madcow]

Yeah, I'm using a wired 360 controller. It might be that I have a mac though.

[Castruccio]

Could be.  I am using one on a PC and it works fine.  Looks like there have been some Mac problems with the game, which one hopes they will get sorted out.  The good news is they have released 3 patches and the game has only been out a few days, so they appear to be dedicated.  That said, one of the patches broke the game so we'll see what happens in the long haul.

When it works it is a lot of fun, and it was working great up until last night.

[Castruccio]

New note from the dev:

"The crashes on death (and when starting a sector and when using the navigator) have to do with server issues, which we're trying to find a solution for.. Sorry for the annoyances and lost cargo, people!

Crashes at other moments are a different issue. It helps a lot if you could send me the log after such a crash (like after the intro and in the midst of the game) - it can be found in Steam\steamapps\common\cargo commander\CargoCommander_Data\output_log.txt. To avoid cluttering the forums, please send them to [email protected] . Thanks!"



The game seems to be a bit more stable today now that some of the server issues are fixed.

[LaughingThesaurus]

So I guess I've been playing the demo (I really can't tell since I couldn't find the demo on steam). I can't play online and I'm only allowed to go to a sector Origo I or something. Thing is I get to the neighborhood of 6000 points and just get overwhelmed. I can't get weapons beyond the nailgun, I don't gain ranks or anything. Is there some progression that I'm just missing in the demo, or is the game actually this hard? Oooor... did I accidentally download a terrible version? I really can't tell. All I know is, if there is a sense of progression such that I don't feel like the enemies are cheating, then I'm happy and want the game. But, what I demoed of it doesn't make it clear to me.

[Castruccio]

So I guess I've been playing the demo (I really can't tell since I couldn't find the demo on steam). I can't play online and I'm only allowed to go to a sector Origo I or something. Thing is I get to the neighborhood of 6000 points and just get overwhelmed. I can't get weapons beyond the nailgun, I don't gain ranks or anything. Is there some progression that I'm just missing in the demo, or is the game actually this hard? Oooor... did I accidentally download a terrible version? I really can't tell. All I know is, if there is a sense of progression such that I don't feel like the enemies are cheating, then I'm happy and want the game. But, what I demoed of it doesn't make it clear to me.

I was not aware that there was a demo but I guess there is.  There are a number of weapons in addition to the nail gun in the full version of the game.   There are also upgrades for all your guns, your health, your suit, your run speed, your drill etc.  The game does get hard once you start pushing 6000 points in any sector, but these upgrades make it easier to press onward for a little while.  In the full version of the game the enemies drop a currency which allows you to upgrade your stuff at an upgrade terminal (which itself must be unlocked by collecting a certain amount of cargo).  The upgrades you make to your character are on a per-sector basis, meaning once you die the upgrades go with you and you start over with an un-upgraded character when you attempt your next sector.  This gives you incentive to try out a number of different upgrade builds since you aren't likely to earn enough currency to get them all in a single sector attempt.   The upgrades you get for your ship (such as access to the upgrade terminal itself ) are permanent.

One warning: the mac version is slightly buggy right now and the highscore servers are a bit overloaded sometimes so this can result in crashes.  They are working on it.  There is also an offline mode but in order to make any real progress you have to be online while you are playing so that the game can record your score on the leaderboard.  At least for now.