Arcen Games
General Category => Stars Beyond Reach... This World Is Mine => Topic started by: x4000 on September 23, 2015, 09:50:22 pm
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Release notes are ridiculous, and honestly don't include everything because good grief: https://arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=Stars_Beyond_Reach_Beta_Phase_2_Release_Notes#Version_0.909
To some extent it's almost not even worth it to bother reading them and just assume it's a different game. You might think I'm joking, but not really.
It is late and I'm absolutely exhausted. A few things I want to point out:
1. I am not starting the new beta with new players tonight, because it is just too late and I figure folks that aren't in Australia or serious night owls won't be able to play it right now anyway. Or the west coast, actually -- I'm too tired, I didn't realize it's only 6:46 for you guys. Well, sorry, anyway. :P I would love to get the next wave of beta players in, but it takes 40+ minutes and I'm just not up for that until the morning. Give me about 12 hours and I'll have you guys set up!
2. For existing testers, here you go, it's out. :) The updates are going to be fast and furious from here on out.
3. That said, the funeral for my grandfather is on Friday, so I'll be out that day. And Keith has things going on half of Friday and then all this weekend, too. So that is one disruption in the very short term.
4. The game itself has these notes on the main menu now, but here:
Development Status:
* The game will presently stop you from playing after Act I.
* Various buildings are missing descriptions; sorry about that.
* Various buildings are missing international abilities.
* Various buildings are missing periodic events on them.
* All subscreens except the tech tree are very unpolished. Apologies.
* Aspects of the main hud (objectives mainly) are unpolished.
* Many overlays are visually psychedelically nuts right now. Will fix soon.
* The intro story is not there yet.
* Underground monsters don't yet come after you when you attack other races during Act I, but they will soon.
* The international relations screen at the bottom is brought up by three icons right now. It will be three separate windows soon.
* You can (intentionally) get some Act-II-or-later buildings by choosing certain territories at game start. These have not had a balance pass.
* Beyond those things, please let us know what you find!
I'll be back tomorrow with more info and more energy. Night all! :D
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And there it goes. Get some sleep Chris! 8)
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Off I go, to do just that. :)
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Woot! Been waiting for this one. Thanks Chris! Get some sleep. Time to dig in :)
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If you added a couple more words to that you'd match the amusingly huge title extension Half-minute hero gained after it transferred from the psp. :)
An actual post I'll make tomorrow, since I'm not on the west coast either.
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Having just played for a brief session, I have to say that this version is a huge improvement. The addition of the Act 1 goal, the clear presentation of the problems facing the city... This is actually starting to feel like a game with progress to it rather than a sim city type sandbox. You've renewed my interest in the project, and I'm eager to see the rapid evolution to come. If possible, what I most want to see ASAP is a way to click on a shortage indicator and be informed what buildings or tech will help me to fill that shortage.
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Have a good night!
Hehe, I am in New Zealand right now.... :P
Really looking forward to this game, hope I make it into the beta- have all weekend to do some testing! ;D
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First impressions... Yay ! the end turn button went bottom right =).
The addition of acts seems like a good idea.
About the "you should choose that territory because" pop-up that appears when you click to place the lander, I think it would be better if it appeared as a pop-up when hovering the lander over a territory or at the start. It's confusing to choose something and then be told that whatever you choose, there was hidden reason for it that you didn't know.
I'm very confused at the moment at what commercial items are and do. And why I need "20" of them. I don't hink I have in the starting selection any building that does, but either way, whether I missed it or not, it should be a tad more obvious what it is. Also, there is a need to have a buidling that starts producing those items from the start, otherwise people will feel they need to rush whatever tech does produce those items, ruining the point of having a tech tree with choices.
What does XP ? It's not explained (more or less figured it out, but should be shown somewhere, like in the line where you show, the xp, showing what you'll gain at next level, or what was already gained). For example, the city park shows :
Level 2 (15 XP / turn, 2 to next)"
Provides 117 Basic entertainment
I'd rather have something in the lines of this:
Level 2 30/60 XP (2 to level up)
Provides 117 Basic entertainment (100+17 from XP)
About the "status & ressource bars" I think it's currently a huge improvement over the previous ones.
Fire station and police seem mandatory, yet they cost a lot. Starting income and prices probably need refining somehow. Currently I gain 2.6k, so I have to pass 4-5 turns to build one. The pace of the game is strange to me, it looks like I can just pass turn when I need money and don't care much how time passes. Yet this is a 4X, so I suppose that other advance during the time I don't do stuff. It makes me feel like I waste my time.
Maybe having "basic" buildings cost around 3k/turn and having a starting income around 3k could be a better idea, so the player builds one building / turn at start ("noob" buildings, but still). So basically a "small police station", a "small firestation", "small research station", "small hospital" and so on. Maybe those "low price" buildings could be "upgradable" (for a somewhat reduced cost, keeping XP bonus) to the "next" version.
About research, I think it would be a good idea if research indicated what it does better. I have in mind something similar to the icons from Civ5 for the advisors, but adapted to the game, like a "population" icon for research that boost population, "food" icon when a research provides food buildings, "money"... I think you get the idea.
The "problems" mini-bar I love. Seriously that's a great addition.
-Otherwise, waiting for most time to test, more, I had only 15 minutes with my kids around shouting...)
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Well, I've started (though my time might be pretty limited today), and my current thoughts are summed up by:
(http://i.imgur.com/C28DW3i.jpg)
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Well, I've started (though my time might be pretty limited today), and my current thoughts are summed up by:
[awesome meme I have never seen before]
Oh my, that one is lovely :D.
I will hopefully be able to get my hands dirty with the new version this afternoon.
I am curious how much "confusion fallout" from playing most of the previous versions I will encounter ;).
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Otherwise, yes, more or less the same as misery. However maybe it'll be alleviated by the time we have a tutorial in =).
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I am intrigued, I will try this out tonight.
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Just let me say this: You really have a whole new game here! I love it :D.
Only got my lunch break with the game so far, but this is just so much better - and I feel like I am just scratching the surface.
Sure, there is a bucketload of confusing stuff (like meals still being referenced all over the place, out of data or missing descriptions etc.) - but that's what we are here for right :)?
As a sidenote: Did somebody also encounter pollution (cleaning) being totally off right now? Like, I am only able to build Hazmats, but one does not even clean half of the pollution created by an single Construction Crew?! Earlier I needed one or two of these guys at most - now it looks like I will have to build a whole ring of them for each single polluter.
Or is this what EXP is all about?!
Anyway - Exciting Times!
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Awesome!! This is definitely a relief, I have to say. :)
Lots of things coming up to deal with some of these specific things. I will probably aim to fix up some of this stuff this morning before pulling in the next batch of beta testers, since Keith and I can get a lot done before it is the evening hours in Europe yet, and that will likely help a lot with the new folks.
I'm glad that other folks have been feeling the same way I have about this being a huge improvement, though -- that's definitely good, whew. :)
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As a sidenote: Did somebody also encounter pollution (cleaning) being totally off right now? Like, I am only able to build Hazmats, but one does not even clean half of the pollution created by an single Construction Crew?! Earlier I needed one or two of these guys at most - now it looks like I will have to build a whole ring of them for each single polluter.
I had this issue, but I had some of the nainzul "upwind", so I figured they were throwing their pollution on me.
Being polluted seems to reduce the XP gains too.
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As a sidenote: Did somebody also encounter pollution (cleaning) being totally off right now? Like, I am only able to build Hazmats, but one does not even clean half of the pollution created by an single Construction Crew?! Earlier I needed one or two of these guys at most - now it looks like I will have to build a whole ring of them for each single polluter.
I had this issue, but I had some of the nainzul "upwind", so I figured they were throwing their pollution on me.
Being polluted seems to reduce the XP gains too.
Yep. The pollution emission amounts are all fine, but the reduction strengths seem really bad. I'm not sure why this is different suddenly.
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As a sidenote: Did somebody also encounter pollution (cleaning) being totally off right now? Like, I am only able to build Hazmats, but one does not even clean half of the pollution created by an single Construction Crew?! Earlier I needed one or two of these guys at most - now it looks like I will have to build a whole ring of them for each single polluter.
I had this issue, but I had some of the nainzul "upwind", so I figured they were throwing their pollution on me.
Being polluted seems to reduce the XP gains too.
Yep. The pollution emission amounts are all fine, but the reduction strengths seem really bad. I'm not sure why this is different suddenly.
Is it possible that this is related to the recent changes of pollution no longer be tracked on a per tile basis? If I read the game correctly my Hazmat gives 100 reduction per tile while the pollution summary tooltip at the top lists my overall reduction as 100...
If a single contruction crew creates 240 pollution this can't work out without lots of Hazmats - in every territory
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Pollution is still per-tile, but the overall pollution is a summary of what has not been cleaned up. It may be due to the tapering of pollution cleanup or... something. I have to look at it. At any rate, there's a lot of stacking of pollution that happens if any pollution slips past your scrubbers.
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Pollution is still per-tile, but the overall pollution is a summary of what has not been cleaned up. It may be due to the tapering of pollution cleanup or... something. I have to look at it. At any rate, there's a lot of stacking of pollution that happens if any pollution slips past your scrubbers.
Care for a save ;)?
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Pollution is still per-tile, but the overall pollution is a summary of what has not been cleaned up. It may be due to the tapering of pollution cleanup or... something. I have to look at it. At any rate, there's a lot of stacking of pollution that happens if any pollution slips past your scrubbers.
Care for a save ;)?
Always! Thanks. :)
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By the way: What does "There must be none of these: Broadcast Station (current: 0, target: 1)" mean?
The objective said my little guys don't like television and that there thus must not be any Broadcast Station in the world for me to advance to Act 2.
Does this mean I have to eradicate all stations after one has been built at least once?
Or is simply meeting the population goal before the first station gets built sufficient?
This "current: 0, target: 1" business confuses the heck out of me ???...
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Yeah, the wording on those is pretty terrible in a lot of ways; we've got some things in the works to make that clearer (some icons, among other things), but it's terrible right now, heh. Do you have a savegame with that?
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Yeah, the wording on those is pretty terrible in a lot of ways; we've got some things in the works to make that clearer (some icons, among other things), but it's terrible right now, heh. Do you have a savegame with that?
It's the one you already got ;).
I am by no means far enough into the game in terms of population that this gets an issue, though :P.
PS: Looks like all central screen notices are gone? Never got one in my game, neither for techs nor races or stupidity events...
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Cool stuff, thanks -- that is fixed then.
And no worries on the other pieces. And yep, the central screen notices are gone, because I felt like those were getting in my way really constantly. I want to add something to really make the appearance of things on the right sidebar more noticeable, but not so obnoxious as the central screen messages were, heh.
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Yeah, the wording on those is pretty terrible in a lot of ways; we've got some things in the works to make that clearer (some icons, among other things), but it's terrible right now, heh. Do you have a savegame with that?
It#s the one you already got ;).
I am by no means far enough into the game in terms of population that this gets an issue, though :P.
PS: Looks like all central screen notices are gone? Never got one in my game, neither for techs nor races or stupidity events...
Also: Individual Scout Stations can cause 8k pollution?! Really? Save attached.
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the patch is finally here! whoop whoop! haven't actually tried it out yet since I literally just got here and I'm going to go stop wasting time and get into it already.
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Yeah, the wording on those is pretty terrible in a lot of ways; we've got some things in the works to make that clearer (some icons, among other things), but it's terrible right now, heh. Do you have a savegame with that?
It#s the one you already got ;).
I am by no means far enough into the game in terms of population that this gets an issue, though :P.
PS: Looks like all central screen notices are gone? Never got one in my game, neither for techs nor races or stupidity events...
Also: Individual Scout Stations can cause 8k pollution?! Really? Save attached.
You have in that save a massive shortage of trash space, and littered trash all over the place. There was a bug in the interface making it not look too bad, though. The effect of littered trash is now tons of pollution rather than an increase in crime. Because your issue is so severe, it's making the whole city go nuts. One or two trash dumps and then some turns and it will subside.
There are changes coming to the pollution stuff in general, though, and hazmat, to make it balanced better. Thanks!
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I finally managend to solve my 200k pollution (apparently).
To me it looks like the importance of levelling your hazmats is huge, i.e. everything that impeds their progress is a real showstopper (insufficient staffing, unfullfilled needs).
Now that I know this I feel better prepared to handle pollution before it escalates that much.
Taking this into account (and presuming the described impact is what you are after), the 6x buff to hazmat base cleaning strength might be a bit much, though?
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Yeah, the wording on those is pretty terrible in a lot of ways; we've got some things in the works to make that clearer (some icons, among other things), but it's terrible right now, heh. Do you have a savegame with that?
It#s the one you already got ;).
I am by no means far enough into the game in terms of population that this gets an issue, though :P.
PS: Looks like all central screen notices are gone? Never got one in my game, neither for techs nor races or stupidity events...
Also: Individual Scout Stations can cause 8k pollution?! Really? Save attached.
You have in that save a massive shortage of trash space, and littered trash all over the place. There was a bug in the interface making it not look too bad, though. The effect of littered trash is now tons of pollution rather than an increase in crime. Because your issue is so severe, it's making the whole city go nuts. One or two trash dumps and then some turns and it will subside.
There are changes coming to the pollution stuff in general, though, and hazmat, to make it balanced better. Thanks!
Ah, I see. Somehow this time the indicator escaped me ;).
Building two trash dumps indeed fixes the issue.
Maybe it would be good to promote the detailed pollution info to the top-level building details?
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hey so far I'm enjoying what I've come across but some of the inter faces on the bottom of the screen are missing their names when you right click them and the gold brick inter face is missing that and also just says missing localisation when I click into it.
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is it intentional the felyn don't have any buildings which provide planet worship? it seems strange that I don't have access to that straight away or very early?.
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I literally have 256k pollution in my 1 small territory :P after that I just decided to go ham and I started attacking everyone mostly because I could not expand cause the Thoraxians took all the nearby territories.
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I literally have 256k pollution in my 1 small territory :P after that I just decided to go ham and I started attacking everyone mostly because I could not expand cause the Thoraxians took all the nearby territories.
Sounds familiar ;). I also barely made an escape from the thoraxian surroundings...
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New people make it in yet or no? Have not seen anything yet. I'm creepin around here, lookin for a fix... *scratches*
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I'm adding the new people momentarily. :)
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New people make it in yet or no? Have not seen anything yet. I'm creepin around here, lookin for a fix... *scratches*
don't do it its a trap. and yeah I'll have some fun with it as well since it'll help me get an idea of what I'm writing :P.
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New people make it in yet or no? Have not seen anything yet. I'm creepin around here, lookin for a fix... *scratches*
don't do it its a trap. and yeah I'll have some fun with it as well since it'll help me get an idea of what I'm writing :P.
Are you even in the current beta wave? I don't see you! I need to get you a key if not. Also I had a question that was paypal-related. Make sure that you get back to me on that today if you can, so that I can pay you in a timely fashion. I'm out tomorrow for the funeral for my grandfather.
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Are you even in the current beta wave? I don't see you! I need to get you a key if not. Also I had a question that was paypal-related. Make sure that you get back to me on that today if you can, so that I can pay you in a timely fashion. I'm out tomorrow for the funeral for my grandfather.
As far as I know I'm not in the current beta wave. I also sent you a reply via email.
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Are you even in the current beta wave? I don't see you! I need to get you a key if not. Also I had a question that was paypal-related. Make sure that you get back to me on that today if you can, so that I can pay you in a timely fashion. I'm out tomorrow for the funeral for my grandfather.
As far as I know I'm not in the current beta wave. I also sent you a reply via email.
Got it -- just sent you a key!