New version .861 (Non-Spacefaring Quests, More Tutorials)

[x4000]

Release notes: http://arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=The_Last_Federation_Alpha_Release_Notes#Alpha_Version_.861

Restart steam to force a quicker update if you like.

Well, this one has two new quests, at least.  I was really expecting to get a lot more done in terms of quests than just those two, but they were a bit complicated and I really wanted the first options that you see in the solar system to be good ones that really made a lot of sense.  These first two will always be available at the start of every campaign in some form, and then will recur or not depending on how fast races become spacefaring in your game, and a couple other factors.  Anyway, the choice with these is a really interesting one.  To me it's honestly kind of an agonizing choice as to which to take, because I want BOTH, and that's always my favorite kind of choice.

Beyond that, I've been spending a bunch of time getting some more tutorial-y type stuff cleaned up and edited around.  A couple of tutorials got a pretty big rewrite, and the raw resources now have their own tutorial and are gated until well beyond everything else.  They are quite cool and powerful if you know how to use them, but otherwise they are just confusing when you are starting out.  They are definitely a "secondary economy" sort of thing, so deserve to be at the end.  That also pushes property development to that point as well, by necessity.

The thing that perhaps took me longest was getting all of the @#$@#% building descriptions into place.  They now all actually say what they specifically do, what their conditions are, and so forth, like the techs do.  I still have to do actions, events, and diseases, but those are by no means as bad.  A lot of those are fine, and some need some tuning, and that's about it with them.

I had really hoped to get my new Adviser thing out today, but I wasn't able to do anything beyond design work with that.  I should be able to wrap that up tomorrow, though, and then get back to adding more quests.

I was going to add more alpha testers tonight, but frankly I am just absolutely beat.  It's midnight, and I've been up since 5:30am.  Did that yesterday, too.  I need to go sleep a bit.   In the morning I will add more testers.

Enjoy!

[chemical_art]

OK, trying things out.

The wall of text after the first mission, describing techs, etc, is too long. Too much, too fast, not revelant to what I just did. It needs to be cut down and explained more over time. Start with one of the many concepts explained, go more in depth, and space out the others over time. How to do this I cannot say yet.  Not bad enough to stop the game. Bad enough that by page three I skipped the rest.

EDIT 1:
 Why destroy pirate bases? Why wouldn't this raise relations? Everyone hates pirates (at least the population on the planet would...right?)
Escape pods? What are they? Why should I care?
I learned by accident you can board ships? And steal extra loot? Is this just for freighters? Or do other ships do this as well?

I attacked and killed all (1) smugglers, and got no credits. Confusing from the tooltip of getting some.


EDIT 2:

Finally stopped playing after...holy snap a while.

Took a manufactory outpost, then a error came up. The log shows many, many entries, all the same:

4/14/2014 5:07:30 AM (0.861) Mem: 38,592,512 Mode: SinglePlayerOrMultiplayerHost Plat:WindowsPlayer
-----------
OnGUI: System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object
  at NodeSummaryWindow.<SubclassInit>b__0 (Boolean ) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at ArcenQueuedButtonClickDelegate.Execute () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at ArcenGUIManager.DrawGUI () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at MainCameraLogic.OnGUI () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
Stack Trace:   at NodeSummaryWindow.<SubclassInit>b__0 (Boolean ) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at ArcenQueuedButtonClickDelegate.Execute () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at ArcenGUIManager.DrawGUI () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at MainCameraLogic.OnGUI () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0

[nas1m]

As a related note, I have the impression that the individual tutorial steps now happen a bit too fast after another for a (presumed) smooth new player experience, especially if taking actions that are instantaneous (like gifting techs).

You do two quick things and - BAM - you got the next multi-page tutorial/mechanic in your face .

Maybe increasing the number of actions necessary to trigger the next tutorial step to 3 *and* making only dispatches and combat missions increase the counter would be a good idea? What do you guys think?
I made a point of always starting a new game with tutorials enabled, and I have to say the more relaxed pace we had earlier seemed more suited to new players for me (aside from the issue of them not triggering if you did no combat missions).

Also please not that I am referring mainly to the solar map related tutorials here. The in combat ones are fine (although the "shields are down" popup did not seem to appear in the first combat for me, but later on instead).

Mantised here.

[Misery]

 Why destroy pirate bases? Why wouldn't this raise relations? Everyone hates pirates (at least the population on the planet would...right?)
Escape pods? What are they? Why should I care?

I'd been wondering about the pirate bit as well, that it doesnt do anything to affect relations.  The main reason to knock these guys out though is just to stop them from causing chaos.  Bad things happen if pirates get out of control.  Decent sources of credit, too.

And those escape pods, you can rescue them and then do various things with them (give them back to the race they're from, sell them as slaves, and.... something else, I forget), but there's some problems with them.  They're not worth enough, and they're also damn near impossible to grab sometimes, as the slightest hit will instantly kill them.  In a chaotic battle, there's little you can do about it.  There needs to be some changes to these things.  They're a bit too rare, too.

[chemical_art]

I couldn't wait and reloaded. Everything seemed fine although when I quit my last game things were...weird.

I steamrolled 12 flagships from the CEO race just fine...then I immediately attacked by what seemed to be pirates. I played defensive, yet their interceptors wiped me out. Not a flagship, but a dozen very small fighters. I would say it upset me, but I was simply too confused at the power difference to care. It did settle my long playthrough though for the day.

[gonekrazy3000]

Is it weird that i Like the wall of text ? >,> It worked pretty well for a complete noob like me to
get up to speed pretty quickly....

Also.... just like chemical_art i ran into a bunch of the exact same error after grabbing two outposts.
i attached the full log in case there actually is a difference between the error messages and i just cannot notice the differences.

[chemical_art]

I will add that it feels like there are too many things that drop my shields. I find the time between "full shields" and "no shields" to be very small. This is a feeling, not a fact, but I will pay attention to it next time I play.

[Tridus]

 Why destroy pirate bases? Why wouldn't this raise relations? Everyone hates pirates (at least the population on the planet would...right?)
Escape pods? What are they? Why should I care?

I'd been wondering about the pirate bit as well, that it doesnt do anything to affect relations.  The main reason to knock these guys out though is just to stop them from causing chaos.  Bad things happen if pirates get out of control.  Decent sources of credit, too.

And those escape pods, you can rescue them and then do various things with them (give them back to the race they're from, sell them as slaves, and.... something else, I forget), but there's some problems with them.  They're not worth enough, and they're also damn near impossible to grab sometimes, as the slightest hit will instantly kill them.  In a chaotic battle, there's little you can do about it.  There needs to be some changes to these things.  They're a bit too rare, too.

I've usually killed escape pods before I even notice they're there, as they're hard to see and very easy to shoot by accident. Almost never successfully captured anybody.