New version .852 now out! (Bugfixes Galore, Start of Quests)

[x4000]

Release notes: http://arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=The_Last_Federation_Alpha_Release_Notes#Alpha_Version_.852

Restart steam to force a quicker update if you like.

This one is freaking massive.  If you don't wind up reading the entire release notes, I'll forgive you.   Some highlights:

1. A metric ton of bugs fixed.

2. The balance on combat is a lot... more intense now.  Particularly at the start of the game.

3. Lots of visual and audio polish all over the place.

4. A new quests system, which mostly works, but has some GUI glitches that I know about and a case where the ships don't always seed right in one of the quests.  And there are only two quests thus far.  In other words, this one isn't really testing-ready yet, but I didn't want to hold up the release of everything else, so here you go.

5. The first mission has two different ways to win now, which makes it so that it's actually a meaningful mission even on higher difficulties, not just a tiny thing to blitz through.

6. I am PARTWAY through some improvements to the solar map in terms of the tooltips there, and so again there are some things that are suboptimal compared to what I wanted to do.  Again this was just work-in-progress stuff that wound up getting pushed out with everything else because there is so much else here that you need to have.

7. There is a new (and not mentioned in the release notes) screen that tells you a summary of how you can get races into the federation at the current time.  Yes it is ugly, and yes it does not fit properly onto screens at the smallest vertical resolution.  It is also pretty hard to read.  Sorry about that; it is functional, and that is kind of what we do for our first pass.  Again, I would have liked to make it pretty for you prior to a release... but well, if I try for that with every new thing, it's going to be big gaps between releases, and meanwhile there is other unrelated stuff that does need plenty of testing.

A Note About Further Ships/Abilities:
I've decided that the current number of ships, techs, and abilities/weapons are sufficient for this version of the game.  There were more that I wanted to add, but right now that really isn't the most important thing.  Really refining what we already have, in particular the solar map (largely via greatly expanding the number and variety of quests, but also just general polish) is a much better use of time, I think.  Ultimately that has the biggest impact for you, the player.  I'm already working 13-15 hour days, 7 days a week, and there's just not time to do "all of the above."

And frankly, I've not heard anyone going "gee if only there were more ships or weapons."  Maybe you've been thinking it but not saying it?  I don't know.  Let me know if that's the case, I guess.  But the biggest issue with combat tended to be when you didn't have enough enemies to make it interesting.  And frankly some of the existing abilities could be edited to be more interesting/useful.  There is already a progression in power of ships as you go through the game thanks to the tech tree stuff.

Anyway, so that's that.  "Further content" for the game pre-1.0 is expected to basically be limited to lots of quests, and then a few new interfaces for visualizing existing things, and then everything else is fixes and polish.  The two biggest complaints I've heard lately -- and correct me if I'm wrong -- have been that early combat is too simplistic/boring (and THAT should be fixed as of this release), and that there is too little direction on the solar map (and THAT should largely be fixed via quests as I get those together better, but also the new Federation Progress screen will also help with that, as will new bits of tutorials that you guys have been suggesting).

If anyone has any thoughts or issues with that, do let me know.  I'd rather know your thoughts than not, although I'm not sure there's much I can do if you think we need Moar at this point.

Enjoy!

[x4000]

New testers:

ScrObot
wyvern83
SameOldStars
topper
Conir
rallythelegions
AlgaeNymph
nat_401
FallenZephon
mllange
Phlarr
Panzeh

[Professor Paul1290]

I'm not sure if it changed in this version specifically, but did something happen to the damage values of enemy projectiles?

Missiles seem to be the only thing doing significant damage to the player ship's shields and most other projectiles seem to do almost nothing.

[doctorfrog]

Ooh, I really like the little ship zippy animation on the main map.

edit: seeing all my power bars blacked out has the appearance of a bug. Even though it's not (it's a babywall tutorial locked).

[PokerChen]

So how do you start these quests once given them?
 = = =
EDIT: Had another quick continuation. Reminds me:

- Those power bars before the tutorials allow you to modify them, should still be present, or completely absent.  Having a black hole there isn't good.

- Weapon balance pass still needs to be done.
- - Energy blaster vs. pirates and structures. Still mandatory pick against shields (i.e. every fight).
- - Gravity lances more reliable than anything with bullets at max weapon power (below). No dodging by fighters is possible => faster takedown. Is this the correct role? Gravity lance also more reliable than armor-piercing in every way, except with resists (BURLUSTS).
- - That's two mandatory picks from the list of available weapons.

- Power manage balance. Literally a power-creep issue. Which direction do you want: buff everything else, or reduce the effect of power management?
- - Max weapon power outshines all offensive abilities, IMO. Currently more impressive than equivalent hull-damaging ability, although I can see if players need an extra oomph.
- - Max engine power is often better than defensive abilities.
- - Above two means that you dodge to the other side of the map, fire at will, repeat. It's a lot of clicks (I would want to have energy presets, although a click-to-maximise-output wold suffice).
- - Max shield power not relevant in combat, does not obsolete divert power to shields.

- Ability balance pass needs to be completed.
- - Gigacannon vs. Gravity Missiles. Gigacannon could have a large hitbox, better damage and more impressive animation for its 5 shots. Missiles still at 30 activations? That needs to come down a little because you get 30 free blasts. Possibly fire several missiles at different flagships if possible (same flagship if not), so to keep the total ammo the same.
- - Deploy Orbital Bombers need some actual use. There's no way to see their effects. Remove or repurpose? I tried the assist planetary bombing contract before it was removed, and could never finish in any case.
- - Has anyone ever used mercenary hotline? Would using it against AFA and assassins still net you minus influence? Can it be exploited for more credit and does it block mission completion in some cases?
- - Various miscellaneous abilities. No time to test them at the moment.

- Other notes
- - The planetary ion cannon could be present in battles above said planet. If you participate in an ongoing war, it would be nice for them to be present and firing on the attacking armadas. Or at least, in the background?
- - Vis-a-vis other planetary defenses. Being graphically present in some form on the solar map / battle map.

 = = =
 Probably bug. Friendly Act: defending against a pirate armada affects your influence as if they were an normal attacking fleet. At war with the Acutians, and some Acutian pirates went to Peltians to attack them. No save today - too far back this morning & at work.

 Hopefully these quests of yours would be worth the time. There's a lot of polishing to be done, that also needs re-testing from the remaining pool.

[GenScorpius]

I haven't checked out the new version yet but my impression so far was that the gravity lances are considerably better at taking out the tons of small but fast ships while the minigun seems to be rather useless except for bigger ships that can't dodge e.g. the burlust duels. Hull damage in that case is quite similar but minigun has better range and the flagship can't dodge the minigun fire leading to safe kiting. 

I used merc hotline against AFA insurgents and my take is that if there are no other races present, it's only you and them, then safe to use as a distraction to escape the AFA encirclement. However, the mercs are not strong enough to actually take out couple flagships but weaken their shields considerably.
I'm very underwhelmed by the damage output of the gigacannon. It could use some damage buff to make it worthwile beyond the missile neutralization.

[PokerChen]

 Once you find the armor-piercing weapon itself, that takes over the role of missile neutralisation and burlust duels, with infinite ammo and extendable range. Miniguns were designed to be anti-small ships as it receives the ballistic type that most flagships are resistant to, this it cannot do because it misses things like interceptors.
 In general shot-speeds are Touhou territory, being slower than ships - but lifting them will resume the bug where they skip over the hit-box of their targets and never collide...?

[nas1m]

- Other notes
- - The planetary ion cannon could be present in battles above said planet. If you participate in an ongoing war, it would be nice for them to be present and firing on the attacking armadas. Or at least, in the background?
- - Vis-a-vis other planetary defenses. Being graphically present in some form on the solar map / battle map.

Oh, how I would love to see this .

[Mick]

I was only able to test this briefly before work.

I smuggled space flight to the Skylaxians and did many months worth of dispatch missions just to see what happened. The Acutians build an outpost so I decided to stroll over and take that from them. I had to do the kill perimeter guards action twice for some reason, and capturing it seemed pretty trivial once that was done.

After I took it, I gave it over to the Skylaxians to see how the Acutians would feel about that. It looked like they soon had two armadas attacking the outpost, and I looked into the friendly actions to see if there was anything I could do to help defend it.. there was not, and that felt odd to me. Does such an action not exist, or was it not triggered as available for some reason. I could definitely see something like "armadas attacking: 2" in the tooltip when I hovered over it.

[x4000]

@zharmad: Those are great notes, can you get those in mantis?

@doctorfrog: Can you put the thing about the power bars in mantis?  That is a good thing for polish, I will do that.

@Professor Paul1290: To my knowledge, no.  Unless Keith or I made a typo (entirely possible, and likely me if so), then no.  Your shields don't recharge now if they got hit during a turn is the only shift that has been made.  For me, I'm getting absolutely killed a lot faster.

- Other notes
- - The planetary ion cannon could be present in battles above said planet. If you participate in an ongoing war, it would be nice for them to be present and firing on the attacking armadas. Or at least, in the background?
- - Vis-a-vis other planetary defenses. Being graphically present in some form on the solar map / battle map.

Oh, how I would love to see this .

That is already there in this version.  The big blue bolts from the planet surface.

[nas1m]

That is already there in this version.  The big blue bolts from the planet surface.

Cool! I will keep my eyes peeled the next time .

[PokerChen]

That is already there in this version.  The big blue bolts from the planet surface.

Cool! I will keep my eyes peeled the next time .

Please remember not to observe the sun directly with exposed eyeballs.

[nas1m]

Please remember not to observe the sun directly with exposed eyeballs.

You bet !

[Breach]

More intense! I'll say! Started game on normal combat and got blasted out of the sky.  Trapped by taser turrets for a number of turns, thought I was getting stuck on debris, but the enemy ships certainly took the opportunity to let fly.

I think it'd be great if you had some sort of prompts that tell you if you've been affected by some kind of 'debuff'.  Something like Immobilised! or Tasered! appearing above your ship then fading a few seconds later.  Might put that in Mantis actually...

[Hyfrydle]

I got caught out by these as well I thought my ship not moving was a bug until I realised I was tasered.