Arcen Games

General Category => Starward Rogue => : x4000 November 11, 2016, 02:33:41 PM

: Starward Rogue BETA 1.502 (Plus upcoming kickstarter expansion!)
: x4000 November 11, 2016, 02:33:41 PM
Original: http://arcengames.com/starward-rogue-beta-1-502-plus-upcoming-kickstarter-expansion/

New beta build for you!  To get this one, you'll need to right-click the game in Steam and hit Properties, then go to Betas and opt into the beta for this game.  Right now the guys are basically looking for feedback, because this is a huge number of changes!

There's just an incredible, incredible amount of stuff in there.  The biggest single group of changes is in the perk overhaul, though; that's a really exciting one.

Expansion Kickstarter?

Yep!  Details on this are scarce right now, but basically the volunteers behind all these awesome free updates over the last year are putting together a paid expansion pack with even more new features.  We'll have more on that coming up, and a link to the kickstarter and all that when it's going live, of course.  For now I just wanted to mention that that's a thing on the horizon!

It's completely separate from anything Keith and I are doing on the AI War 2 kickstarter, as an aside.  So no worries about negative overlap there in either direction.
: Re: Starward Rogue BETA 1.502 (Plus upcoming kickstarter expansion!)
: Pepisolo November 11, 2016, 02:55:38 PM
Yeah, guys, we could do with testers for this to check out all the new changes. Save games should still work, but you might want to back those up just in case. The new perk icons are not yet final, although feedback on which ones look fine and which don't might be useful. The icons were created using repurposed art without Blue's expertise, so there might be a few dodgy ones. Blue will be taking a look nearer the proper Steam release.

There are fixes in place for that dreaded R6025 virtual crash thingy, so hopefully that problem is fixed, but maybe not as it's been pretty tricky to pin down why that crash happens. We're mostly just looking for general feedback, difficulty feedback etc. Whatever you've got. Cheers!
: Re: Starward Rogue BETA 1.502 (Plus upcoming kickstarter expansion!)
: ElOhTeeBee November 11, 2016, 03:36:19 PM
Probably not the best time to announce a kickstarter, regardless of whether or not anyone on AI War 2 would be working on it.
: Re: Starward Rogue BETA 1.502 (Plus upcoming kickstarter expansion!)
: x4000 November 11, 2016, 04:03:46 PM
Probably not the best time to announce a kickstarter, regardless of whether or not anyone on AI War 2 would be working on it.

It's absolutely the time to announce it -- waiting until after the fact to mention it is much much worse.  Given we have full intent of this (though it won't even be under Arcen's account on kickstarter -- this is separate folks working on it, etc), it's much better if we let people have all the information now.

I imagine that your argument is probably that people may avoid backing one of them for fear we're doing something shady?  There might be other reasons, but that's my top one, anyway.  In those cases, I'd rather have people not back us based on having info in advance instead of back us and find out an unpleasant (to them) surprise.

I've talked about this a fair bit on the later updates of the first AI War 2 kickstarter -- and while I'm not intending to make it some sort of in-your-face "look at this other thing!" issue, I do want to be clear in terms of "hey, full disclosure, here's what's up and why it's not what some other dirtbag developers have done."

That's the rationale, anyway.  :)
: Re: Starward Rogue BETA 1.502 (Plus upcoming kickstarter expansion!)
: x4000 November 11, 2016, 04:04:46 PM
There are fixes in place for that dreaded R6025 virtual crash thingy, so hopefully that problem is fixed, but maybe not as it's been pretty tricky to pin down why that crash happens.

Ooh, I didn't hear about that fix.  What was it, in the end?
: Re: Starward Rogue BETA 1.502 (Plus upcoming kickstarter expansion!)
: Pepisolo November 11, 2016, 04:13:48 PM
There are fixes in place for that dreaded R6025 virtual crash thingy, so hopefully that problem is fixed, but maybe not as it's been pretty tricky to pin down why that crash happens.

Ooh, I didn't hear about that fix.  What was it, in the end?

Actually, I was referring to that fix you put in way back. Something to do with enabling virtualization at all times rather than switching it on or off......? Something like that. I'm hoping that fixed it. So, yeah, that thing that you put in which you might've forgotton about, heh.
: Re: Starward Rogue BETA 1.502 (Plus upcoming kickstarter expansion!)
: x4000 November 11, 2016, 04:26:20 PM
OH.  Right, I totally forgot about that.  Wow, back in September.  Derp!
: Re: Starward Rogue BETA 1.502 (Plus upcoming kickstarter expansion!)
: ptarth November 11, 2016, 04:26:53 PM
Chris did it. Might have just been the impact of using updated version of Unity.
: Re: Starward Rogue BETA 1.502 (Plus upcoming kickstarter expansion!)
: x4000 November 11, 2016, 04:28:44 PM
Chris did it. Might have just been the impact of using updated version of Unity.

No, this was further back.  What I did:

: me a long time ago
I made it so that it now always keeps the brightness/contrast shader active at all times, versus turning it on and off between those rooms.  The virtual method call issues can happen when certain things are disabled, so that might have been the issue.
: Re: Starward Rogue BETA 1.502 (Plus upcoming kickstarter expansion!)
: Logorouge November 11, 2016, 07:18:51 PM
That potential fix for the virtual crash will be most welcome. Not knowing when the game might crash was pretty nerve racking. :P
It will be exciting to be able to test out the game with all those fixes and additions.
: Re: Starward Rogue BETA 1.502 (Plus upcoming kickstarter expansion!)
: Misery November 11, 2016, 09:31:02 PM
Ah, so this is ready, then.

Here's hoping nothing bursts into flames.

Unless it's supposed to.
: Re: Starward Rogue BETA 1.502 (Plus upcoming kickstarter expansion!)
: Logorouge November 11, 2016, 10:17:27 PM
Ah, so this is ready, then.

Here's hoping nothing bursts into flames.

Unless it's supposed to.
For what it's worth, my existing save ran without any issue but my mech ended up bursting into said flames as I died...on Normal. Gotta pay more attention now that I can't just steamroll everything. :)
: Re: Starward Rogue BETA 1.502 (Plus upcoming kickstarter expansion!)
: Misery November 12, 2016, 10:25:34 AM
For what it's worth, my existing save ran without any issue but my mech ended up bursting into said flames as I died...on Normal. Gotta pay more attention now that I can't just steamroll everything. :)


(http://i.imgur.com/zxmYLW2.jpg)
: Re: Starward Rogue BETA 1.502 (Plus upcoming kickstarter expansion!)
: Logorouge November 12, 2016, 02:15:22 PM
Sorry to be the bringer of bad news:

(http://oi66.tinypic.com/9knlw0.jpg)

On the fifth floor, while teleporting rapidly from room to room with the Blue mech.
Attached are all the files I thought could be relevant. I'll wait to run the game, in case I forgot something.
: Re: Starward Rogue BETA 1.502 (Plus upcoming kickstarter expansion!)
: Pepisolo November 13, 2016, 09:18:53 AM
Sorry to be the bringer of bad news:

(http://oi66.tinypic.com/9knlw0.jpg)

On the fifth floor, while teleporting rapidly from room to room with the Blue mech.
Attached are all the files I thought could be relevant. I'll wait to run the game, in case I forgot something.

Drat! I feared that we hadn't fully dealt with the problem. Unfortunately, I'm not sure there's anything more we can do about this. It seems to be way too deep in the engine (or Unity) for us to be able to fix. :(
: Re: Starward Rogue BETA 1.502 (Plus upcoming kickstarter expansion!)
: Logorouge November 13, 2016, 08:55:18 PM
Drat! I feared that we hadn't fully dealt with the problem. Unfortunately, I'm not sure there's anything more we can do about this. It seems to be way too deep in the engine (or Unity) for us to be able to fix. :(
Drat indeed. That is one sneaky issue. In other news, I just realized you guys changed spikes to be considered hazard. That's amazing! Thank you so much for that.
: Re: Starward Rogue BETA 1.502 (Plus upcoming kickstarter expansion!)
: x4000 November 14, 2016, 09:57:34 AM
Can you post the output.log from a run where that happens?  Directly after the crash, I mean -- that's in StarwardRogue_Data, and gets reset every time you start the game.  Additionally, the logs from the RuntimeData folder would be helpful (those persist across runs).
: Re: Starward Rogue BETA 1.502 (Plus upcoming kickstarter expansion!)
: Logorouge November 14, 2016, 04:32:30 PM
Can you post the output.log from a run where that happens?  Directly after the crash, I mean -- that's in StarwardRogue_Data, and gets reset every time you start the game.  Additionally, the logs from the RuntimeData folder would be helpful (those persist across runs).
The output.log from my previous post on page 1 is from a run where it happened, along with a few other files.
I remembered some of the logs would reset if I ran the game again so I grabbed everything right after the crash.
: Re: Starward Rogue BETA 1.502 (Plus upcoming kickstarter expansion!)
: z99-_ November 15, 2016, 09:49:45 AM
Probably not the best time to announce a kickstarter, regardless of whether or not anyone on AI War 2 would be working on it.

It's absolutely the time to announce it -- waiting until after the fact to mention it is much much worse.  Given we have full intent of this (though it won't even be under Arcen's account on kickstarter -- this is separate folks working on it, etc), it's much better if we let people have all the information now.

I imagine that your argument is probably that people may avoid backing one of them for fear we're doing something shady?  There might be other reasons, but that's my top one, anyway.  In those cases, I'd rather have people not back us based on having info in advance instead of back us and find out an unpleasant (to them) surprise.

I've talked about this a fair bit on the later updates of the first AI War 2 kickstarter -- and while I'm not intending to make it some sort of in-your-face "look at this other thing!" issue, I do want to be clear in terms of "hey, full disclosure, here's what's up and why it's not what some other dirtbag developers have done."

That's the rationale, anyway.  :)

My problem is, my income doesn't scale with the number of kickstarters I want to fund (I think that benefit is just for salaried people, but I'll check with HR to be sure :P). I don't know the time frame of this, but if it's going to be this year, the money I would put forward for a SR kickstarter would come out of the money I would put forward for the AIWII kickstarter. As Arcenites (is that the correct term?) make up a significant proportion of the SR playerbase as well as the AIWII superbackers, an SR kickstarter could really cannibalize AIWII's funds.

Of course, that's all assuming that you were planning on doing the SR kickstarter in the very near future, which you haven't said. But without info to contradict that thought either, the mind always goes to the worst case scenario. :)
: Re: Starward Rogue BETA 1.502 (Plus upcoming kickstarter expansion!)
: x4000 November 15, 2016, 10:18:41 AM
@Logorouge:

Okay, this just got incredibly strange.  It's giving the error "Trying to reload asset from disk that is not stored on disk"

Googling around for that, the primary thing I find is this: https://forum.unity3d.com/threads/trying-to-reload-asset-from-disk-that-is-not-stored-on-disk.49298/

Which has been an ongoing discussion with folks at unity since 2010, evidently.  We've never run into it previously, so I'm not sure what is up now.  I will have to investigate more, but it will need to be later into the week or early next because of the kickstarter launch timing requirements -- sorry about that. :/
: Re: Starward Rogue BETA 1.502 (Plus upcoming kickstarter expansion!)
: x4000 November 15, 2016, 10:22:40 AM
My problem is, my income doesn't scale with the number of kickstarters I want to fund (I think that benefit is just for salaried people, but I'll check with HR to be sure :P). I don't know the time frame of this, but if it's going to be this year, the money I would put forward for a SR kickstarter would come out of the money I would put forward for the AIWII kickstarter. As Arcenites (is that the correct term?) make up a significant proportion of the SR playerbase as well as the AIWII superbackers, an SR kickstarter could really cannibalize AIWII's funds.

Of course, that's all assuming that you were planning on doing the SR kickstarter in the very near future, which you haven't said. But without info to contradict that thought either, the mind always goes to the worst case scenario. :)

Right, this makes good sense.  My main reasoning here has been:

1. Most people who just want to "support Arcen" in a generalized sense will probably pick sides, which should be fine.

2. I have no intention of launching this prior to the AI War 2 KS hitting its goal, because that's more important.

3. Overall I figure that for people who actually want whichever game for the sake of itself (versus just "supporting Arcen"), there is not a huge amount of overlap between who wants which thing.  There are two fairly distinct audiences that we have: the action vs the strategy folks.

4. Overall there's also a lot of support that comes out of the kickstarter site itself, between 15% and 25%, and those folks are pretty company-agnostic and just back ideas based on their specific merits.

That said, in terms of what you're saying, I can't argue with that at all.  In an ideal world I wouldn't even consider this.  So I just don't know.  Aiming for January might be the best in terms of timing of the SR kickstarter.
: Re: Starward Rogue BETA 1.502 (Plus upcoming kickstarter expansion!)
: TheVampire100 November 15, 2016, 03:20:02 PM
About the upcoming Expansion and the Kickstarter. I want to remind you that you said soem time ago that the story will be implemented in the game evntually, most likely with an expansion. Since you NOW do this, NOW is the perfect chance to put the story into the game.
I'm still not very fond of the idea to buy a dlc to get the full experience (story) of a game but anyway, if you want to do it ever, do it now. This may be your last chance to do it.
: Re: Starward Rogue BETA 1.502 (Plus upcoming kickstarter expansion!)
: Draco18s November 15, 2016, 04:14:35 PM
Funding the story via expansion is fine, because that content can still show up in the base game without someone having to buy the expansion.  Arcen does this sort of thing all the time; that is: new content that gets added to the base game that is related to the expansion.  Youngling Fireflies, I believe, show up in the AI's arsenel despite not owning Children of the Neinzul, etc.
: Re: Starward Rogue BETA 1.502 (Plus upcoming kickstarter expansion!)
: TheVampire100 November 15, 2016, 04:57:23 PM
It doesn't matter for me if it is in the expansion or in the base game, what I want that it IS there. I will buy the expansion anyway (when it comes out, not on Kickstarter) but I really want this story.
: Re: Starward Rogue BETA 1.502 (Plus upcoming kickstarter expansion!)
: Logorouge November 19, 2016, 10:46:54 PM
Took me a while, but I finally did a steamroll run under the new update. It was quite the unusual setup for me: Redshift, using the Frag Cannon and no shield from beginning to end. But somewhere along the way, Redshift turned into an immortal crit king.

For some reason, I never noticed before how each spike of the Frag Cannon's attack can cause a critical hit. However, once the game gave me 30% crit chance on one floor, you can bet I noticed and went back running to get that Overcrit sac item I spotted on that very same floor. Since my firepower was pretty good, I started stacking resistance effects (Deftness) up to a borderline abusive 45%. Who needs shields when you can just dodge or resist everything?

Another thing I never noticed before: resist/deftness effects apply to your little orbiting friends. Doesn't matter for most of your drones, but does a tremendous difference if you have an Orbiting Battle-station in addition to a set of Scrap Shield. It was the equivalent of walking around with a bunch of Shield Drones (with limited health per room). Still had some of them, floors later, when I finally faced Terminus.

Speaking of which, Terminus still managed to give me a run for my money despite the circumstances. His helpers alone absorbed what I can only estimate as several thousands points of damage (no idea how, but they did), giving plenty of time for Terminus to really do his thing. I had to use the time manipulation to the best of my abilities to dodge increasingly threatening patterns as my orbiting protectors started dying, one after the other. It was alone that I fought the boss final form, using my few remaining missiles to escape the claws of his last deadly attacks. Victory

Needless to say, I had lots of fun. No suggestion or question from me this time around, I just wanted to share what was a very strange yet satisfying run. Thanks for reading!
: Re: Starward Rogue BETA 1.502 (Plus upcoming kickstarter expansion!)
: Draco18s November 19, 2016, 11:13:47 PM
Wow, nice.
: Re: Starward Rogue BETA 1.502 (Plus upcoming kickstarter expansion!)
: TheVampire100 November 19, 2016, 11:41:07 PM
Any news when the update will finally be released?
: Re: Starward Rogue BETA 1.502 (Plus upcoming kickstarter expansion!)
: Misery November 20, 2016, 12:44:40 AM
Took me a while, but I finally did a steamroll run under the new update. It was quite the unusual setup for me: Redshift, using the Frag Cannon and no shield from beginning to end. But somewhere along the way, Redshift turned into an immortal crit king.

For some reason, I never noticed before how each spike of the Frag Cannon's attack can cause a critical hit. However, once the game gave me 30% crit chance on one floor, you can bet I noticed and went back running to get that Overcrit sac item I spotted on that very same floor. Since my firepower was pretty good, I started stacking resistance effects (Deftness) up to a borderline abusive 45%. Who needs shields when you can just dodge or resist everything?

Another thing I never noticed before: resist/deftness effects apply to your little orbiting friends. Doesn't matter for most of your drones, but does a tremendous difference if you have an Orbiting Battle-station in addition to a set of Scrap Shield. It was the equivalent of walking around with a bunch of Shield Drones (with limited health per room). Still had some of them, floors later, when I finally faced Terminus.

Speaking of which, Terminus still managed to give me a run for my money despite the circumstances. His helpers alone absorbed what I can only estimate as several thousands points of damage (no idea how, but they did), giving plenty of time for Terminus to really do his thing. I had to use the time manipulation to the best of my abilities to dodge increasingly threatening patterns as my orbiting protectors started dying, one after the other. It was alone that I fought the boss final form, using my few remaining missiles to escape the claws of his last deadly attacks. Victory

Needless to say, I had lots of fun. No suggestion or question from me this time around, I just wanted to share what was a very strange yet satisfying run. Thanks for reading!

Hmm, Fragment Cannon sounds like it might be a bit broken... don't think it's supposed to work like that.  If I recall correctly only hitting with the main projectile is supposed to do big damage.

For the Terminus minions, yes, they're meant to be a bit tanky.  The smaller minions have around the level of HP as a Fearsome for each phase.  Sentinel and Palisade, the big guys, have about 3000 HP base.    Terminus itself though is the big one, with 5700 for it's 6th phase and 7600 for the final one.  If you have a good energy weapon it's a good idea to hold it until those last two phases.   The Terminus battle overall is almost a series of bosses rather than a single one; appropriate for a final battle, I think.


Any news when the update will finally be released?

No clue.   Things have been a bit slow for a couple of days here.   There's a few things I'd like to have a look at, too, before this goes out officially.  I'll probably do that tonight.  I haven't played normal mode in ages but it's about time I did a couple of proper runs at it to check for problems.

It'd also be nice if we can get in the change to the boss locator thing as well as possible defensive shop alterations before sending out this update.   I don't think those will actually take all that long.


For those that have been playing this update already:  Have you met up with a boss named Valor yet?   It's a floor 6 boss though, so if you're having trouble getting there, then probably not...  but that's okay.
: Re: Starward Rogue BETA 1.502 (Plus upcoming kickstarter expansion!)
: Logorouge November 20, 2016, 08:49:05 AM
Hmm, Fragment Cannon sounds like it might be a bit broken... don't think it's supposed to work like that.  If I recall correctly only hitting with the main projectile is supposed to do big damage.
Don't worry, that's pretty much how it went. With a direct hit, I got pretty big damages (with a bunch of crit notices) but an indirect hit only did minor damages (still useful thanks to overcrit).

For those that have been playing this update already:  Have you met up with a boss named Valor yet?   It's a floor 6 boss though, so if you're having trouble getting there, then probably not...  but that's okay.
Now that you mention it, I didn't encounter the new bosses in any of my runs. But I think there's quite a few 6th floor only bosses at this point, so it's not all that surprising.

Edit: Curiosity killed the cat but I just had to check out Valor. Very different style of boss, but three seconds in I knew what I had to do (which is good imo). The first phase pace was a bit more intense than the second phase, surprisingly. Reminded me of that old Dragon Smog (spelling?) game I used to play when I was a kid. Just that you're not the dragon but the dot he wants to eat instead. Pretty fun boss overall, I like it. Still took me a 2nd try on Normal to beat it in the practice room though.
: Re: Starward Rogue BETA 1.502 (Plus upcoming kickstarter expansion!)
: Draco18s November 20, 2016, 01:13:13 PM
Hmm, Fragment Cannon sounds like it might be a bit broken... don't think it's supposed to work like that.  If I recall correctly only hitting with the main projectile is supposed to do big damage.

Is that the one that shoots out a projectile that then pops into a radial burst?  There isn't actually a "main" projectile. Its actually just all the sub projectiles stacked up together.
: Re: Starward Rogue BETA 1.502 (Plus upcoming kickstarter expansion!)
: ptarth November 20, 2016, 07:16:26 PM
That's  not what I'm seeing.
PlayerMain_FragmentCannon launches FragmentCannonPattern. FragmentCannonPattern launches a HexishellEmblazonedYellow shot for 0.375 seconds which then erupts into a radial pattern with shots separated by 15 degrees.
: Re: Starward Rogue BETA 1.502 (Plus upcoming kickstarter expansion!)
: Draco18s November 20, 2016, 07:37:22 PM
Maybe I was remembering a different pattern/setup.
: Re: Starward Rogue BETA 1.502 (Plus upcoming kickstarter expansion!)
: Logorouge December 04, 2016, 05:50:29 PM
Bah! Why can't I crash on the first floor instead of the sixth yet again? Grumble, grumble.

Anyway, looking at the attached screenshot, does anyone know which are the 2 mystery enemies remaining on that list? I'd like to find them and annihilate them after all this time.
: Re: Starward Rogue BETA 1.502 (Plus upcoming kickstarter expansion!)
: Pepisolo December 04, 2016, 07:23:07 PM
Bah! Why can't I crash on the first floor instead of the sixth yet again? Grumble, grumble.

Anyway, looking at the attached screenshot, does anyone know which are the 2 mystery enemies remaining on that list? I'd like to find them and annihilate them after all this time.

I'm actually not sure, maybe if I look into the code I can spot what's going. I'll have a look tomorrow, probably.

Here's something I need help with. It seems that the tier of perks that contains all the location revealers, All In the Wrist, Key Apprentice, and Movement Speed is a bit...not good, heh. So, I'm thinking of redoing it as something like this (working titles):

Second Wind -- Gain full health at the start of a new floor.

Full Missile Ammo (good name, huh!) -- Gain full missiles at the start of a new floor.

Savings Interest -- Move this from level 2 to here (it's still quite early in the game, though).

Full Map Reveal -- Condense all the separate map reveal stuff back into one perk.


Then I'm not sure. Key Apprentice isn't really the most desirable perk. Movement speed boost is also very hard to fit into a tier since most people just would never take it. All In The Wrist became a bit bad once I removed the destroying missile blocks behaviour. I could re-add this behaviour and move the perk somewhere else. Anybody got any thoughts? Or ideas for new perks for this tier? A theme of "something you get at the start of the next floor" might be good.

Edit: one extra idea, a perk that gives you your first shop item free on each new floor? Too strong?
: Re: Starward Rogue BETA 1.502 (Plus upcoming kickstarter expansion!)
: Draco18s December 04, 2016, 07:57:29 PM
Here's something I need help with. It seems that the tier of perks that contains all the location revealers, All In the Wrist, Key Apprentice, and Movement Speed is a bit...not good, heh.

Yeah, I saw that.  I had a choice of either of two revealers or Movement Speed.  Very disappointing level up.
: Re: Starward Rogue BETA 1.502 (Plus upcoming kickstarter expansion!)
: Logorouge December 04, 2016, 08:34:34 PM
Here's something I need help with. It seems that the tier of perks that contains all the location revealers, All In the Wrist, Key Apprentice, and Movement Speed is a bit...not good, heh.
I agree, it's not the most exciting level. I do think All in the Wrist is great...when it works (doesn't play nice with some weapons apparently) and Keyprentice is amazing (was gonna suggest a nerf for that one actually). But I'm afraid my beloved Haste perk and the separate location revealers are just too niche to be desirable in most cases.

For Haste, my suggestion would be to move it to a later level and double its effect, so it can be used to effectively counter accumulated speed debuffs from item choices and an unlucky mystery circuit. Early on, you usually don't need the extra speed. Or convert it to a minor shop item to free up the spot for a more exciting perk.

So, I'm thinking of redoing it as something like this (working titles):

Second Wind -- Gain full health at the start of a new floor.

Full Missile Ammo (good name, huh!) -- Gain full missiles at the start of a new floor.

Savings Interest -- Move this from level 2 to here (it's still quite early in the game, though).

Full Map Reveal -- Condense all the separate map reveal stuff back into one perk.

Edit: one extra idea, a perk that gives you your first shop item free on each new floor? Too strong?
I like the Second Wind a lot and I could think of a couple of builds that could use the Full Missile Ammo (Missile Factory?). Very nice.

Saving Interests doesn't have a lot of opportunities to do its thing at the moment and requires you to hold your purchases to benefit from it. If you get it even later now, its interest rate would need to be adjusted to really make it worthwhile in my opinion.

That shoplifter perk would be OP for sure but definitely a desirable pick for the player. Ah, that effect would have been perfect for my thief mech. Oh well. :P

Would a "random piece of equipment at the start of new floor" perk be too much? Or maybe a specific type only? (Weaponsmith or something)

Edit: Ah ah, I should make Weaponsmith and give it to my Arsenal mech. :D
: Re: Starward Rogue BETA 1.502 (Plus upcoming kickstarter expansion!)
: Pepisolo December 05, 2016, 12:44:26 PM
Thanks for the feedback, guys. So, at the moment I'm looking at this tier instead:

Map Master, Keymaster (I upped this to always giving double keys now that the tier choices are stronger), AllInTheWrist (on the fence with this one, but I left it in for now), Rally (restores health), Resupply (replenishes missiles). I left Savings Interest at level 2 for now, although I was thinking of swapping the positions of Savings Interest and Keymaster. Not sure. I've left the freebie/shoplift item for now as it might be a bit too strong. We could maybe work that idea into the game in some other way.

For Haste, I might just make that a cheap shop item perhaps, although I'd probably need a different name and art.

Would a "random piece of equipment at the start of new floor" perk be too much? Or maybe a specific type only? (Weaponsmith or something)

Sounds possible if we make the item spawn near the player. Mystery bag? Just spawns a random pickup. Maybe a bit too crazy. Limiting it to random consumable  might work.
: Re: Starward Rogue BETA 1.502 (Plus upcoming kickstarter expansion!)
: Draco18s December 05, 2016, 01:15:43 PM
I've left the freebie/shoplift item for now as it might be a bit too strong. We could maybe work that idea into the game in some other way.

Maybe make it a Five Head Discount (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Five%20finger%20discount) instead?
That is, make the first item you purchase on every floor X credits cheaper rather than free.
: Re: Starward Rogue BETA 1.502 (Plus upcoming kickstarter expansion!)
: z99-_ December 05, 2016, 01:32:36 PM
I just had a thought:

'Mystery Solved - all mysterious circuits have their functions shown'

For all your changes, they all sound good; though I definitely won't be getting All in the Wrist now that there are lots of good alternatives, I guess someone else might want it.
: Re: Starward Rogue BETA 1.502 (Plus upcoming kickstarter expansion!)
: Pepisolo December 05, 2016, 06:19:16 PM
Maybe make it a Five Head Discount instead?
That is, make the first item you purchase on every floor X credits cheaper rather than free.

We could do, it would require a bit of engine work, though, so maybe not worth it.

Mystery Solved - all mysterious circuits have their functions shown'

Good idea, but that would require engine work too. Also, I'm not really a fan of mysterious circuits at the moment. Something like this might be better after they get overhauled -- if they do, of course.

For all your changes, they all sound good; though I definitely won't be getting All in the Wrist now that there are lots of good alternatives, I guess someone else might want it.

For the moment I've made it so that All In the Wrist also destroys missile blocks (which was the original concept of the idea). How does that sound? OP?
: Re: Starward Rogue BETA 1.502 (Plus upcoming kickstarter expansion!)
: z99-_ December 05, 2016, 06:28:17 PM
For the moment I've made it so that All In the Wrist also destroys missile blocks (which was the original concept of the idea). How does that sound? OP?

Relative to those other perks, I think it sounds good. It may mess up the balance of other items that involve that ability, though.
: Re: Starward Rogue BETA 1.502 (Plus upcoming kickstarter expansion!)
: Logorouge December 10, 2016, 08:49:02 PM
Expansion Kickstarter?

Yep!  Details on this are scarce right now, but basically the volunteers behind all these awesome free updates over the last year are putting together a paid expansion pack with even more new features.  We'll have more on that coming up, and a link to the kickstarter and all that when it's going live, of course.  For now I just wanted to mention that that's a thing on the horizon!
Can I ask some questions about this or is it too early for that?
I don't really mind if the answers have to be vague and subject to change, I'm just really curious.
: Re: Starward Rogue BETA 1.502 (Plus upcoming kickstarter expansion!)
: Misery December 10, 2016, 08:58:37 PM
You can of course ask all the questions you want... doesn't necessarily mean you'll get answers, of course, heh.

I'm actually not entirely clear on how much I can or cannot say about it.  Provided I actually know what the answers are.
: Re: Starward Rogue BETA 1.502 (Plus upcoming kickstarter expansion!)
: Logorouge December 11, 2016, 09:35:01 PM
Alright. Here's the first two:

-What range of budget is the kickstarter going to aim for?
-What kind of tier rewards might be offered?
: Re: Starward Rogue BETA 1.502 (Plus upcoming kickstarter expansion!)
: Misery December 11, 2016, 10:42:22 PM
Well, that's already beyond my range, with those particular questions.  Even if I knew wether I could answer that or not, I don't know what the answers are anyway.  It's all been discussed, I'm sure, all of which I likely forgot 10 minutes afterwards.
: Re: Starward Rogue BETA 1.502 (Plus upcoming kickstarter expansion!)
: Pepisolo December 12, 2016, 10:52:32 AM
Alright. Here's the first two:

-What range of budget is the kickstarter going to aim for?
-What kind of tier rewards might be offered?

Similar to Misery's answer, I don't really have much of a clue on that stuff. Dominus Arbitrationis is kind of leading all the Kickstarter stuff, and I don't think it's all been worked out properly, yet.
: Re: Starward Rogue BETA 1.502 (Plus upcoming kickstarter expansion!)
: ptarth December 12, 2016, 03:58:16 PM
The longer short version is that there haven't been definitive plans formed due to the complexity of the situation. Likewise, commentary is complicated.

However, if you'd like to think out-loud about what you might like to see, I'm sure there might be some other unofficial commentary.
: Re: Starward Rogue BETA 1.502 (Plus upcoming kickstarter expansion!)
: Logorouge December 12, 2016, 06:59:35 PM
Thanks for the replies, guys. Thinking it over, it might be troublesome for you guys to answer any of the questions I might come up with before the kickstarter is officially launched or pretty close to it. So I think I'll try to keep my curiosity in check until then and make myself a sort of wishlist that might be of use later. Cheers.
: Re: Starward Rogue BETA 1.502 (Plus upcoming kickstarter expansion!)
: Logorouge January 17, 2017, 09:11:41 PM
However, if you'd like to think out-loud about what you might like to see, I'm sure there might be some other unofficial commentary.
Well, here goes:

-Name in credits
-Forum badges (tiered)
-Digital Artbook
-Message log (pickup item) with backer's thematic message (appear on console). Subject to approval.
-Custom mech skin
-Custom bullet skin (Minigun only or favorite gun?)
-Make an item with devs: Regular, sac, secret.
-Make a weapon with devs: Main, secondary.
-Make a launcher with devs (Goldenwolf?)
-Make a drone with devs
-Make a mech with devs
-Design a regular enemy with devs
-Design a miniboss with devs
-Design a condemned challenge room with devs
-Design an early boss with Misery: 1-2 phases.
-Design a late boss with Misery: 2-3 phases.
-Playtime: Using Steam's spectator function (or equivalent), play the game while chatting with a dev (or the other way around, watch him play while bombarding him with questions :P) for 1h. (time extension addon?)
-Muse reward: Design music track with Pablo Vega.

*Balancing and tweaking up to devs. Designs have to be within game current capacities. Batteries not included.*

I know many of those are expensive and/or time-consuming ideas, but these are the things I think would make good backer rewards for the kickstarter.
: Re: Starward Rogue BETA 1.502 (Plus upcoming kickstarter expansion!)
: Wingflier January 17, 2017, 10:16:23 PM
As always, the main thing I'd like to see in a Starward Rogue expansion is multiplayer, because I think this game would be an absolute blast with friends.

I know this is a bit pie in the sky (which saddens me), so you could make it something insane like a $100,000 stretch goal or something. Really, if it could be included in any capacity I would be ecstatic. I think that's the single greatest thing you could add to this game.
: Re: Starward Rogue BETA 1.502 (Plus upcoming kickstarter expansion!)
: Cuedon January 18, 2017, 02:05:17 AM
I'd like to see an endless mode, even if it wasn't balanced or made narrative sense; there's just something pleasant about being able to go forth and rampage in an armed-to-the-teeth unit. (As well as losing that unit to your own error, rather than having it just fade into black.)
: Re: Starward Rogue BETA 1.502 (Plus upcoming kickstarter expansion!)
: z99-_ January 18, 2017, 11:23:08 AM
I'm wondering how forum badges would work. Is there room to have multiple badges on the profile sidebar? While there's currently only the possibility of having two, what about future Arcen kickstarters that want to give away badges? If there isn't room, there would need to be a place where they could be switched out. Or perhaps future badges would be less like the banner badges Chris showed for AIWII, and more like the profile icons for steam and such?

The easiest way of handling it may be to use the AIWII badges as general 'Arcen kickstarter contributor' badges, where the total amount you've given to all Arcen kickstarters is what determines what badge you have. So if you give $30 on the AIWII kickstarter (getting you a Mk II badge) and then give another $40 on the SR kickstarter, you'd get a Mk IV badge just like if you had given that amount on the AIWII kickstarter. Some additional badge levels may have to be added on the higher end to give badge hunters something easier to reach for, but other than that, I think it could work nicely.

As for what I'd like to see, I've noticed that for a number of my (and others') suggestions, the response has been something like, 'cool idea, but we can't do that because it would require engine changes' or something like that. Assuming that wasn't just a nice polite way of saying the ideas were bad, it would be cool if we could get those engine changes. :) Even ifthe ideas that prompted the changes aren't good enough to implement, simply having those added abilities could allow the Freaking Volunteers to bring SR's coolness to a whole new level 8)
: Re: Starward Rogue BETA 1.502 (Plus upcoming kickstarter expansion!)
: z99-_ January 18, 2017, 11:31:33 AM
Also, +1 to adding story. That would be really cool :D
: Re: Starward Rogue BETA 1.502 (Plus upcoming kickstarter expansion!)
: Misery January 18, 2017, 07:44:56 PM
'cool idea, but we can't do that because it would require engine changes' or something like that. Assuming that wasn't just a nice polite way of saying the ideas were bad,

It is indeed a genuine reason.  Remember, we're volunteers, of varying degrees of skill when it comes to this sort of thing.   And we didn't make the game's core engine: Chris/Keith did.   For SOME changes, one of us (not me) is capable of doing things in the engine.   But for anything big, Chris or Keith has to do it, or it's impossible.   And they dont always have the time available... they've got more important work to do, after all.  It's unfortunate that it has to be this way, but... yeah, that's how it is.

In all honesty, if something is just plain a bad idea, one of us... probably me... is going to just say so.  Simpler that way.  I did that alot during the game's development.

-Design an early boss with Misery: 1-2 phases.
-Design a late boss with Misery: 2-3 phases.

This wouldnt end well.

: Re: Starward Rogue BETA 1.502 (Plus upcoming kickstarter expansion!)
: Draco18s January 19, 2017, 10:30:16 AM
-Design an early boss with Misery: 1-2 phases.
-Design a late boss with Misery: 2-3 phases.

This wouldnt end well.

Are you saying it would be a Miserable experience?
: Re: Starward Rogue BETA 1.502 (Plus upcoming kickstarter expansion!)
: Logorouge January 19, 2017, 03:15:44 PM
-Design an early boss with Misery: 1-2 phases.
-Design a late boss with Misery: 2-3 phases.

This wouldnt end well.
This and "playtime" are the ones I hesitated on including in the list, but decided to keep in since I still think they would be fantastic rewards.

But I can almost imagine how it would play out: Bosses design is set as a high tier reward, but someone forget to set a limit to that tier. Campaign ends and Misery receives a whole catalog of backers that will soon contact him about their "awesome boss". Misery explodes, causing a cataclysmic chain-reaction that ravages the Earth. The end.

So yeah, looking forward to the kickstarter. :P