New version .804 now out!

[x4000]

http://arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=The_Last_Federation_Alpha_Release_Notes#Alpha_Version_.804

Restart steam to force a redownload if you like.

This one is really significant in terms of the bugs that it fixes in particular.  There were some really substantial bugs that were impacting the ability of some people to play it at all (seasickness), but which were really localized to only a few people.  Still not sure what was up with that.  There were also a few missions that were really hosed, and a couple that were outright missing from the interface.

A TON of stuff is now better explained all throughout the solar map portion of the game; whew, I've been at that all day long, feels like.  The biggest changes/improvements have been to the bribes and to the political screens.  Previously the political stuff was messy as heck, and a lot of important information was either obscured or missing.  That was just one of those things we hadn't gotten to yet (it was on our public list of things from the start).  The bribes themselves were downright indecipherable in terms of their function before, though.  I can't imagine anyone in the tester pool was using those!  But now they should be extremely clear (and they are very useful, too).

The popup bar that is mentioned as being new at the top of the screen in combat is actually disabled for the moment, as I need to go through and laboriously fill out the logic that actually gives the objectives.  But the bar itself works.

There have also been a number of improvements to the feel and balance of battle, including making the minimap slightly more useful (it was already really useful, but this catches some edge cases).

More tomorrow.  Have a good night, all!

[Cyborg]

Seasickness solved. Thanks.

[x4000]

Whew!!

Very glad to hear it -- thanks again for the help in reporting it and finding it, etc.

[Misery]

Control issues fixed, much better now.

Many things easier to understand as well, though there's plenty that are still unclear.

Also, some influence costs/increases are way too low to actually change much.... plus or minus 1 point means little overall.

On top of that, alot of BP costs seem wonky... usually this means they dont appear to cost enough.  When the player can get 20000+ BP from a single battle, costs of 400 mean next to nothing.  Granted, some of that might just be me;  I decided to do the first playthrough on Hard to see how the balance of it was in the full game as opposed to the practice thing, but I definitely should have just picked the Misery one, as hard is much too easy for me.

Also the "power" rating for armadas is unclear as to exactly how it works and what it means.  Most of the spacefaring races in my current game have 100+ for theirs, one of them has about 12, but I dont really know what effects exactly this has.


Also, there's a number of things mentioned in various places that I dont know how to get.  Outposts for example, or planetary technologies.  No idea how to get either of them.

The importance/effects of all of the goods/materials/whatever in the planetory inventories is very unclear as well.

Finally it's a bit too easy to keep the race that utterly loathes you from doing anything.  It's the Thoraxians in my game, but I caused them to get quickly stomped... they're spacefaring but have no armadas (they're not exactly getting attacked much either, and I've taken no hostile actions since) and their overall situation is terrible, awful economy and medical and everything.  They just dont seem to be able to recover, which also means they're not much of a threat at all.


Many things submitted to mantis today also.  Most are bugs.

[x4000]

All good notes, thanks -- there's a lot still to be balanced, for sure.  In terms of the BP, gaining 20k+ from one battle is definitely not intended!  That's likely from the new "gains from hostile actions" thing, I bet.  I have an idea on how to fix that.

For the questions you have (and anyone else, really), overall I'd rather not answer them.  Rather, I'd like to continue working on updating the game so that IT tells you.  If that makes sense.

[Aquohn]

The politics screen overhaul was a godsend. That thing was such a confusing eyesore before XD

I completely agree with Misery, though, wrt things like the different trade goods and planetary technologies. And what of the possible infrastructure that can be built on each planet? What of the resources? So, so much left unexplained.

The BP, too, is way out of whack. I just had a battle where I earned 40k+ BP (granted, I had to kill two of those Burlust warlord ships, but still). Everything seemed like small fry after that.

One particular part where the BP needs balancing is the Skylaxian Senate. It costs about 5000 BP to force an election, but each policy only costs about 100. Basically, it is never worth your while to force an election.

And Misery is spot on about the 1 and 2 influence point increments. It just makes the game feel slow, grindy and draggy. There's nothing to stop you from repeatedly raiding the trade convoys of the starting race and using the stolen goods as gifts to raise your influence, aside from the fact that that'd be an incredibly boring way to do things.

EDIT: Oh, and, also, cloaking is broken. I managed to escape an army a few dozen Burlust flagships by activating cloaking, sitting still, and holding down the 2x FF key for about a minute or two (though curiously some of the smaller ships still clung to me...). Cloaking + regenerating shields is even more broken.