Author Topic: Beta 0.811-0.813 now out. (First version for Orangeshirts!)  (Read 5426 times)

Offline x4000

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Release notes: http://arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=Stars_Beyond_Reach_Beta_Release_Notes#Version_0.811

All righty, I don't feel bad at all at making the orangeshirts wait for this one, now.  I'm sorry that we missed the weekend, but it was definitely for the best in terms of what you're getting.  There is some bleeding-edge new stuff in here, so there may be some unfortunate crash or other bugs you run into, and I apologize if you do run into that; I'll fix them ASAP tomorrow.  But in terms of the actual game itself, this is way better and this is definitely the first experience I want you to have with it.

Anyhow -- enjoy!

As for the Orangeshirts themselves, I'll be sending you your steam keys momentarily. :)  Thanks everyone!


UPDATE: http://arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=Stars_Beyond_Reach_Beta_Release_Notes#Version_0.812

This one has some visual updates from Blue that just didn't make it into .811 in time, but then also it actually compresses the textures properly, which was not happening in the prior version.  Sorry about that!

UPDATE: http://arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=Stars_Beyond_Reach_Beta_Release_Notes#Version_0.813

This one has a variety of bugfixes and balance fixes.  Very useful, I think.  The most dire of these was the lockup issue that MaskityMask was seeing, so that's been the main inspiration for pushing this out so quick.
« Last Edit: May 05, 2015, 04:52:06 pm by x4000 »
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Offline TheVampire100

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Re: Beta 0.811 now out. (First version for Orangeshirts!)
« Reply #1 on: May 04, 2015, 10:56:33 pm »
Those patch notes read so damn good.

Quote
When you have unspent social skill points in a category, the text at the top of that category on the social progress screen now shows up highlighted so it's much easier to tell which tree to look in. Later other changes will be made to the nodes themselves in the relevant tree to help players see their options more clearly, but right now that screen is still in kind of a "rough graphics" stage to say the least (actual icons themselves aside).

This bugged me as well, always closing the skill tree and then realizing that I still have points to apply.

Quote
A number of the AI buildings now have lore-based explanations for their functions, providing some insight into their races. It's only something like 15 buildings out of 300+ alien buildings, but it's a start!

Thats the stuff I like. Just reading a little lore int he game to entertain yourself. I really missed this on the AIs side. It also makes stats reading easier because you look at the text and think "Oh, so that's its purpose."

Quote
There are now some auto-terraforming advantages for a few races when in the hands of the AI, making them more thematically fitting in their areas as well as providing some interesting challenges specific to them:

    The following all applies only to land that is not already terraformed, land that is not mountains, natural wonders, water, ice, or rocky.
    Thoraxians: anything adjacent to or under their buildings is auto-terraformed.
    Burlusts: anything adjacent to or under their buildings that is not desert is automatically turned to desert.
    Acutians: anything adjacent to or under their buildings that is not desert is auto-terraformed.
    Andors: anything adjacent to or under their buildings that is not some sort of forest appropriate to their latitude automatically becomes forest appropriate for their latitude.
    Boarines: anything adjacent to or under their buildings that is not desert is auto-terraformed.
    Fenyn: anything adjacent to or under their buildings that is not jungle becomes jungle.

That's a really interesting change and makes me wonder about two things:
First, will the Ai get unstoppable terraforming and two, will we get also some kind of semi-automated terraforming for ourselves?

Offline MaskityMask

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Re: Beta 0.811 now out. (First version for Orangeshirts!)
« Reply #2 on: May 05, 2015, 12:56:50 am »
Awesome to be part of beta :D

Aaand my first game ever is going "great" because skylaxians are being jerks and shooting down all my buildings I'm trying to build with their fancy planes :'D I've wasted so much power and only thing I built was farm... I guess I have to build everything on south side

What do natural wonders do btw? I built my lander on top of Yvenge or whatever it was called ^^;

Offline ptarth

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Re: Beta 0.811 now out. (First version for Orangeshirts!)
« Reply #3 on: May 05, 2015, 12:59:58 am »
What do natural wonders do btw?

Natural Wonders should provide adjacency bonuses, but they were removed in .810 to be balanced.

I built my lander on top of Yvenge or whatever it was called ^^;
You should probably log that if you mean literally on top of as a bug.
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Offline MaskityMask

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Re: Beta 0.811 now out. (First version for Orangeshirts!)
« Reply #4 on: May 05, 2015, 02:04:39 am »
Wait, I'm not supposed to be able to land my spacecraft on top of Stonehenge?  :P

Anyway, I've noticed little bit annoying thing about anti airguns: The enemy planes will avoid them, but they can still from out of reach shoot building right next to anti air guns...

Skylaxians are so jerks :P "Water source? Clearly a dishonorable action*shoots it before its consructed*" I'm gonna give them taste of lobster power once I manage to get enough coverage from anti air guns so that I can build to north instead of just south

Note: Skylaxians are so close to me that they are able to shoot down building north east from my landing space. As in, they shoot down second ever building I built that was next to surrounding landing area you can't build on, are they supposed to be able to be that close to me?

Offline ptarth

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Re: Beta 0.811 now out. (First version for Orangeshirts!)
« Reply #5 on: May 05, 2015, 02:19:17 am »
What size of map? I've noticed in .810 that the AI started pretty close as well.
AA has a chance of failing to intercept. Having extra helps. Shooting the Skylaxians first is my preference.
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Offline MaskityMask

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Re: Beta 0.811 now out. (First version for Orangeshirts!)
« Reply #6 on: May 05, 2015, 02:30:49 am »
Well my antiair has failed everytime so far then :p To me only difference is that skylaxians switched place plane goes to before they shoot, so seems like they are just shooting from outside the range

My settings are default quick start settings, didn't chance anything

Offline x4000

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Re: Beta 0.811 now out. (First version for Orangeshirts!)
« Reply #7 on: May 05, 2015, 09:17:53 am »
Those patch notes read so damn good.

:)

Quote
When you have unspent social skill points in a category, the text at the top of that category on the social progress screen now shows up highlighted so it's much easier to tell which tree to look in. Later other changes will be made to the nodes themselves in the relevant tree to help players see their options more clearly, but right now that screen is still in kind of a "rough graphics" stage to say the least (actual icons themselves aside).

This bugged me as well, always closing the skill tree and then realizing that I still have points to apply.

I can't remember who suggested it, but that's been bugging me since before the beta even started, too.  I just never had time to clean it up until now!

Quote
A number of the AI buildings now have lore-based explanations for their functions, providing some insight into their races. It's only something like 15 buildings out of 300+ alien buildings, but it's a start!

Thats the stuff I like. Just reading a little lore int he game to entertain yourself. I really missed this on the AIs side. It also makes stats reading easier because you look at the text and think "Oh, so that's its purpose."

I wrote so much of this sort of thing already when I was describing the tiles to Marcin, the artist who drew the underground buildings.  I was a lot more dry with the surface buildings for Cath and Blue and Gen and Charity, but I still have a lot of things to note about them.  I really have a long way to go with that, and I view it as more of a later-beta thing to do overall, but I feel like it's so important to the feel of the game.  And having that bit of humor throughout, versus being super-serious boring lists of backstory is something that I really value.

Quote
There are now some auto-terraforming advantages for a few races when in the hands of the AI, making them more thematically fitting in their areas as well as providing some interesting challenges specific to them:

    The following all applies only to land that is not already terraformed, land that is not mountains, natural wonders, water, ice, or rocky.
    Thoraxians: anything adjacent to or under their buildings is auto-terraformed.
    Burlusts: anything adjacent to or under their buildings that is not desert is automatically turned to desert.
    Acutians: anything adjacent to or under their buildings that is not desert is auto-terraformed.
    Andors: anything adjacent to or under their buildings that is not some sort of forest appropriate to their latitude automatically becomes forest appropriate for their latitude.
    Boarines: anything adjacent to or under their buildings that is not desert is auto-terraformed.
    Fenyn: anything adjacent to or under their buildings that is not jungle becomes jungle.

That's a really interesting change and makes me wonder about two things:
First, will the Ai get unstoppable terraforming and two, will we get also some kind of semi-automated terraforming for ourselves?

One thing that is coming is the ability to bomb the AI's terraforming, which someone (ptarth?) requested and I thought was a great idea.  Cath has been working on the art for the bombed-out racial terrains, and then on the other side of that it's a matter of us having time to code that in once she's done.

In terms of unstoppable terraforming... I don't know about that.  For some of the races, them being ablsolutely nasty with their terraforming and being semi-unstoppable is definitely a thing.  But if you keep them physically restrained to a small surface (as opposed to underground) area, you implicitly limit their auto-terraforming.  There might also be some political deals in the future.

I thought about auto-terraforming for the player, but at least as it stands right now the players just build so much larger than the AIs in terms of surface area of their cities that it would quickly overwhelm all the other races, so I'm not too sure about that.

Awesome to be part of beta :D

Aaand my first game ever is going "great" because skylaxians are being jerks and shooting down all my buildings I'm trying to build with their fancy planes :'D I've wasted so much power and only thing I built was farm... I guess I have to build everything on south side

What do natural wonders do btw? I built my lander on top of Yvenge or whatever it was called ^^;

Awesome to have you!  And yep, the AI is a little overly aggressive right now... that's one thing that needs to be worked on with the military in general.  The way the military fighting works is great in my opinion, but it's the lead-up to fighting that is all kinds of borked.  Aka, you need a reason -- and the AIs do -- NOT to bust out the guns and start shooting immediately.  I have what I think are some excellent plans on this front, but it's going to take the next couple of weeks to see those to fruition. 

I always keep coming back to the idea of Risk, where you get these awesome buildups of troops but neither side attacks because there is then a weakness where you spread yourself more thin after doing so.  But then some critical line gets crossed, and all hades breaks loose.

I feel like that general idea is really important to seeing the importance of combined-arms warfare in this game, and it's the sort of remote-base-building I envisioned from the start of the design.  I just hadn't anticipated the current first-mover advantage for whatever reason, but there are definitely ways around that.

As far as building on top of Ylvinhenge with your lander, as ptarth says that's definitely one for mantis if you don't mind!  Also, I am a little surprised that nobody here has yet to get the references (or at least comment on them) with half the natural wonders.  Not all of them are a reference to anything, but that one is almost a double-reference (THIS is the finest henge I've ever seen), and there are a variety of others like Mount Takei and Nesmith Spores that are probably more obvious to this particular audience.

Anyway, I've noticed little bit annoying thing about anti airguns: The enemy planes will avoid them, but they can still from out of reach shoot building right next to anti air guns...

Wait, what?  Are we talking bombers or helicopters?  They're hitting targets right next to your AA?  That sounds like a bug if it's helicopters, and I don't recall any of the AI buildings providing them with bombers.

Note: Skylaxians are so close to me that they are able to shoot down building north east from my landing space. As in, they shoot down second ever building I built that was next to surrounding landing area you can't build on, are they supposed to be able to be that close to me?

To some extent that's an unlucky start that they are that close to you, but yes they are definitely supposed to sometimes start that close, particularly depending on the type of map.  That said, they shouldn't be just ripping you to shreds immediately... that's a "welcome to being an orangeshirt" thing, unfortunately.  Sorry about that.

What size of map? I've noticed in .810 that the AI started pretty close as well.
AA has a chance of failing to intercept. Having extra helps. Shooting the Skylaxians first is my preference.

Oh right, I forgot about the percent chance to fail to intercept.  I should really take that out on the player side, because it feels like a bug there.  I like it on the AI side, but this is one place where I feel like the player deserves a break. ;)
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Offline x4000

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Re: Beta 0.811-0.812 now out. (First version for Orangeshirts!)
« Reply #8 on: May 05, 2015, 10:11:00 am »
UPDATE: http://arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=Stars_Beyond_Reach_Beta_Release_Notes#Version_0.812

This one has some visual updates from Blue that just didn't make it into .811 in time, but then also it actually compresses the textures properly, which was not happening in the prior version.  Sorry about that!
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Offline MaskityMask

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Re: Beta 0.811-0.812 now out. (First version for Orangeshirts!)
« Reply #9 on: May 05, 2015, 11:54:49 am »
Well I don't know what "unit" skylaxians are using, it looks like like fighter plane and shoots from long distance <_<;

And I've found Mount Takei :D Its south from my start of city. I should get on mantising landing on Ylvinhenge though so I'll do that now

Offline x4000

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Re: Beta 0.811-0.812 now out. (First version for Orangeshirts!)
« Reply #10 on: May 05, 2015, 11:58:29 am »
It's definitely the helicopters, then.  Thanks!
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Offline x4000

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Re: Beta 0.811-0.812 now out. (First version for Orangeshirts!)
« Reply #11 on: May 05, 2015, 11:59:34 am »
Oh, also: mantising the air interception failure with a savegame would also be helpful, just in case.
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Offline crazyroosterman

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Re: Beta 0.811-0.812 now out. (First version for Orangeshirts!)
« Reply #12 on: May 05, 2015, 12:07:34 pm »

Awesome to have you!  And yep, the AI is a little overly aggressive right now... that's one thing that needs to be worked on with the military in general.  The way the military fighting works is great in my opinion, but it's the lead-up to fighting that is all kinds of borked.  Aka, you need a reason -- and the AIs do -- NOT to bust out the guns and start shooting immediately.  I have what I think are some excellent plans on this front, but it's going to take the next couple of weeks to see those to fruition. 

glad to see I'm not the only one noticing that its like (meets skylaxians) hi guys how's it going I'm so happy to meet you for the (first?) time and their (stairs intensely at me) SHOOT HIM! and I'm like wait? what? what did I do to upset you guys?.
c.r

Offline ptarth

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Re: Beta 0.811-0.812 now out. (First version for Orangeshirts!)
« Reply #13 on: May 05, 2015, 12:22:25 pm »
I actually like the AI's attitude combat. It is much more reasonable than peacefully coexisting. What would happen on Earth if a bunch of aliens landed and just started building and expanding their civilization outside of your house? Would you take it peacefully? Or start the air raids? (Moving out is not an option.)
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Offline MaskityMask

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Re: Beta 0.811-0.812 now out. (First version for Orangeshirts!)
« Reply #14 on: May 05, 2015, 12:27:11 pm »
Okay, mantising that once I find save file, I admit that maybe I'm just using anti air guns wrong since I haven't been paying attention to resources <_< But yeah, I just tested it and plane thing again shoot my building so... Yeah, mantising it in case I'm not misunderstanding anything

Edit: Mantised it, again I apologize if I'm just doing it wrong due to being lazy in the morning ^^;
« Last Edit: May 05, 2015, 12:30:26 pm by MaskityMask »

 

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