1. I loaded the Scryve wreckage on board and it does not appear in my inventory

You can load the Scryve wreckage on board?  I thought it was converted to RU.

I feel that I did not clarify my point about the story...

You meet and save the Taiwom.
You learn that they are hiding us for a while from the Scryve.

Why are they doing it? What is their motivation? Why take the risk?
Why will the Scryve be looking for young races and actively destroy them?

This is a missed story telling opportunity.
It can give depth to both Taiwom culture and the Scryve's.

Not sure if the resources below planets are persistent for each playthrough or if it's randomly generated. Here is the list of ones I found so far in case it proves helpful in squishing that pesky bug:

Andrasta - Iron compounds

Oberon - Calcium compounds, Strontium

The second playthrough I recorded these:

Moon - Calcium

Oberon - Calcium compounds, Strontium

Adrasta - Iron compounds, Zircanium Oxide

Hope this helps.

The game is supposed to appear in my steam account right ? Can't find it .. am i missing something ?

Star Control

About me and my system

Name: Martijn van der Kooij

Steam/fornite and other places: Gabberkooij

Job: Software developer for 22 years

Never played Star Control before, heard nice things about it.

Favorite games: Fortnite (both BR and STW), Minecraft, Mass Effect series, Civilization, DemiGod, Galciv, Supreme Commander, Total Annihilation,  Elite (original and on my MSX and Dangerous on PC)

• Current computer (shameless copy from DxDiag):
•  Operating System: Windows 10 Pro 64-bit (10.0, Build 17134) (17134.rs4_release.180410-1804)
•  Language: Dutch (Regional Setting: Dutch)
• Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6700K CPU @ 4.00GHz (8 CPUs), ~4.0GHz
• Memory: 24576MB RAM
• Card name: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070
• Driver File Version: 24.21.0013.9764 (English)
• Main monitor: 2560 x 1440 (32 bit) (59Hz)
• 2^nd monitor: 1920 x 1200 (32 bit) (59Hz)

Expectations

Story, exploration and some fighting in space ships. No earlier experience with Star Control, so I will enjoy this game with a fresh start. I’m curious if the game will make me wanting more…

Start

Long loading screens…

First flight, just pressed up, and returned immediately to earth, she is not happy. Ok, I’m expected to fly to Triton, but what keys can be used? How do I navigate?

No scroll wheel to zoom out for a better look at my position…

Oh, I see an arrow, lets go in that direction…

Found Triton, landing? Oh oh do I need to stay in those rectangles when landing?

Landed, looking around, see those symbols and flying to them. Ok resource mining. Now why does it stop after a while? Am I full? How do I see this?

Meeting the alien, first talking to earth. How? Do I need to fly back to my ship to contact earth? Do I need to fly back?

How do I leave the planet??? Oh with ESC? Would be nice if told…

OK, will help them without contacting earth, looking around.

Hmm, where to go now? Lets fly around, I see Venus and start exploring. Bummer, get a message after landing that the lander is not going to last long there, a few seconds later the lander is dead. Hmm, some earlier feedback/warning about that would have been nice.

Lets fly around, Ganymede temp is 24c that would be no problem. Lots of resources. Missing a indication how many resources I can store on my lander.

Visited more planets and found the hyperdrives and other parts of the ship.

Also visited the moon and later mined some uranium for the lasers

Biggest issue I have with the current state is that you do not know which controls are available (looking in options helps, but it is better to add some tips when starting, maybe add a academy to the game where you can learn the controls and test some fleet battles?) Put this in front of the main story and you have the possibility to tell more about the history so far.

I did have fun with it, and I hope to see more.

Remarks

• Change the color of earlier selected choices in the dialogs
• Initial dialog, some speech was missing for the 3th choice, this happens with more dialogs
• Some indication where I have to fly for the current mission would be nice. Where do I need to fly to find earth when leaving triton? Or a map or more zooming options (maybe something like free zoom option?)
• Some help (which controls and what to do/where to go) is missing.
• Remember if you just have left earth before entering earth again. It is too easy to make a mistake after you leave earth and then enter it again. If you just have left a planet/moon then do not return the first 10 seconds and ask if you want to return there if this return is within 30 seconds

Win 10 Education Edition, 1803.
i7-4770
Geforce 1080 (not Ti)
16GB
SCO is installed on a secondary spinning disk, not primary SSD.

First run of the game crashed, second run succeeded.

Second others' requests for an in-system mini-map. Not even knowing what direction the other planets, or not being able to zoom out to see more of the system, seems like an odd limitation.

Also would like a mission log. The log doesn't need to tell me how to do things, just something that lets me look up what I have yet to do or have done in the past. I'm not going to be playing the game 24-7, and if I take a break for like a week or something because of RL demands, I shouldn't end up completely lost when I come back because I've forgotten what quests I might have been in the middle of.

The opening movie also brushes past the word Triton too quickly, and it's very soft relative to all the other sounds at that moment. For a few seconds afterward I was still trying to parse what was actually said in response, whether it was Triton or Titan or etc.

Fog effects on planets consistently cause framerates to dip upon encountering them. The rates stabilize after a few moments.

Also would like an in-game encyclopedia. And does the base commander have a name? I literally can't remember if she actually introduced herself or not.

Windows 10 64-bit

AMD FX8370E 3.3GHz

GeForce GTX 1050Ti

16GB RAM

Overall a good first swim. I'll just jump right into feedback mode:

INTERFACE

1) My controller didn't work at all. I was a bit confused because I saw something that it hasn't been implemented, but seemed that at least one other person was using theirs. In any case, I'm using a Dualshock 4 control pad and it was functional at the time (tested to be sure) with other steam games.

2) The Space Bar is mapped to the primary fire of the ship. I did unlock the lander gun but was never able to fire with it. When I went to check if it was a different button I had to leave orbit because ESC makes the lander leave orbit. I think it should be possible to access the settings without leaving orbit.

When checking the default key assignments I discovered that my lander could jump and boost, but those features weren't mapped by default. I mapped them to R (boost) and F (jump) and they worked fine.  Would have preferred to map jump to Space since it didn't seem to work for firing the lander's gun, but the ship controls aren't independent of the lander controls. Perhaps they should be?

3) ESC to leave orbit wasn't a natural keypress for me. With no instructions and no access to my keybinds on the planet I had to figure it out by trial and error. Not a huge chore, but I did press ESC a couple times with no effect. Could be a bug, or perhaps ESC needed to be depressed longer to lift off?

DIALOGUE

1) As with other testers, I had spotty voice-over.

2) I tried returning to base immediately upon the initial departure, and while there was entertaining dialogue awaiting me it wasn't reactive to the instantaneous return. Perhaps there should be a special message for a captain that runs home without even going so far as the moon?

3) As with other testers, if the game literally begins the way it does in this beta then I think it's way too thin.  There's no lead-in, no background, no setting exposition.. you don't need much, but you need more than you've given. I'm hopeful this is just something for the beta and you have plans for something more in the full game. It's the first minute of the game and right now it's too jarring.

4) The dialogue is good to great, I'm genuinely pleased with the direction you've taken and I have great hopes for what's to come.  You've captured the feeling of Star Control 2, and that's a major win in my opinion. I genuinely want to explore the dialogue trees to see what people have to say.  It's entertaining and moves the story at the same time.  Good job, guys.

5) Speaking of exploring dialogue trees, consider adding a colour variant for text that's already been explored fully.  Lots of RPGs do this nowadays, and it's really helpful, especially if you're meeting captains from a species with overlapping dialogue trees but you don't remember what you've already discussed.

GAME PERFORMANCE

1) Game ran smoothly. The load screens were brief, but noticeable. I hope in the game proper the load screens will be variable.

2) Lander activity was smooth except in gas clouds, where I experienced substantial (verging on unplayable) slowdown (graphics turned up all the way, haven't tried again with lower settings)

3) Had a glitch wherein, upon leaving battle with the probe, the navigation screen was not centred on my ship. For a few moments I thought the game hadn't loaded, but once I started thrusting the camera found its way back to my ship.

EXPLORATION

1) I concur with other testers that navigating the solar system is far too challenging due to camera issues. A mini-map is a good idea here, or let me zoom out to a distance that I can work with.

2) I concur with other testers that more momentum in the solar system would feel more natural. Barring that, I would appreciate an "auto thrust" button so I can point in a direction and not have to hold the button down the whole way there. Most significant application would be when leaving a solar system.

3) Consider having a command to auto-depart solar system (i.e. press this button and ship sets most direct course to the edge of the system)

4) The lander phase is good. I like the icons rather than a mini-map, though I may be in the minority given the other testers' comments. When controlling the lander I expected to be able to swing the camera around, but couldn't figure out how to do so (perhaps you can't?). It took me a while to realize I could change the camera angles, and I found one that I liked far better than the initial one. I like the lander game. I am completely fine with the approach you've taken. I enjoy the music changes for different planet types.

STARBASE/MENUS

1) I couldn't find a dialogue chain. This can be useful, but it's not necessary.  The log covers important stuff, but at one point my first officer said something that I missed and once it was gone from the screen I couldn't get it back.

2) The starbase menus were easy and looked great.  Good job.  Was lacking a "Sell All of Everything At Once" button. Also lacking the ability to not Sell All if I wanted to keep, say, 1 uranium?

3) feels a little weird to equip lander gear (e.g., better engine) in my mothership slots. I guess that's how you want it, but it doesn't seem right.

4) I was able to buy a seemingly endless number of first officer Kerry.  I couldn't get rid of them in any way that I could see.

OTHER COMMENTS

1) The scryve were clearly meant to be ominous and threatening but the two skirmishes we have with them are absurdly easy. If I put myself in the mind of my captain, I would leave these encounters imagining that I have absolutely nothing to be afraid of. The first encounter you can almost get away with because the probe comes across as ill-equipped, but if this is a race with "thousands of years" more advanced tech I'm not impressed.  Obviously the player can't have a doomsday battle in the first 15 minutes, but there are better ways to approach this.  I have ideas, but I don't want to draw this out here.  In short, it would be more impactful if the Scryve (at least the second encounter) come within inches of wiping the floor with the player before experiencing a system failure of some sort, thus disabling their weapons and letting the player finish them off. Obviously there are other approaches, but consider how the weakness of the first two encounters plays against the dialogue. I'm sure you have ideas of your own to improve this (or, perhaps we are way more powerful than anyone expected and that's part of the story? If so, then you're off in the right direction!)

2) The Scryve reminded me of the Star Trek species, the Sheliak, which are considerably more advanced than the federation and have virtually no respect for human life, to the point of considering conversation a waste of time ("you don't discuss, you gibber"). There's a similar feeling given. I was struck by the way the Scryve talked down to us.  It's a good start, and I look forward to seeing where it goes from there.

Thanks for the chance to test-run the first chapter. I'll write more if I find other things to mention.  Good job so far!!

Computer System: Acer Predator Helios 300 Laptop

Operating System: Windows 10 Home 64-bit (10.0 Build 17134)

CPU: Intel Core i7-7700HQ @2.80GHz

RAM: 16GB

Video: Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 6GB

Game Resolution: 3840 x 2160 (32bit @60Hz)

This is a continuation of my first post on this. I had stopped previously after I brought Wymdoo back to the Earth Starbase.

After Bringing Wymdoo to the Earth Starbase:

Your next mission is to fly to Wymdoo's homeworld and so there is really nothing else to do on the main quest line because Chapter 1 keeps you within Sol.

Other Things to Do after Bringing Wymdoo to the Earth Starbase:

Since I couldn't fly outside the solar system, it made sense to explore more of the planets / moons of Sol.

Exploring the Moon:

This is interesting as there is a structure erected on the Moon that was built by the Lexites. There is literally no information presented to the player in game about them and so this is all news to me when I visit this structure. In fact, I really had no idea who the Lexites were. There is a mention that you need to acquire some uranium and so you need to go find some in the solar system.

I'm actually a little perplexed by the fact that I can't just go to Earth and request some. The Earth is not slave shielded or anything like that, so not utilizing Earth's resources seems kind of silly to me. In fact, it would probably be my first choice for virtually every mineral, element, etc. that I might need. I'm sure this would probably make the game too easy if this was the case, but nonetheless it makes no sense that I can't use Earth's resources without some sort of reason. Maybe they can state that Earth has exhausted its resources (not likely in our next 100 years, though) or at least come up with some sort of reasonable explanation of why I cannot use Earth's / Mankind's resources on our home planet.

Acquiring the Uranium:

If memory serves, it was on one of Jupiter's moons (I thought it was Ganymede, but maybe it was Adrastea or Io). Acquiring it is easy enough to get done, but as someone else pointed out, if you sell your uranium by mistake, you'll have to find it in another solar system (this is where I think it would be nice to ask the Starbase if you could have some since they should have some as there should be plenty on Earth).

Getting the Lander Laser:

Once you acquire the uranium, just revisit the structure on the Moon and then it is automatically installed. This is mysterious, but I guess part of the story that we'll discover later.

Visiting Artemis / Elpis:

So as others have pointed out there is no Pluto (with its five moons!) presented in Sol. I can hear Neil deGrasse Tyson saying "get over it!".

I'm assuming that Artemis / Elpis is the theorized planet X that Mike Brown and others at CalTech theorize exists due to an approximately 10 Earth mass ice giant that would make up for the strange perturbations seen in various Kuiper Belt objects like Haumea, Makemake, etc. For those that have not heard about this, here's an interesting read: http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/01/astronomers-say-neptune-sized-planet-lurks-beyond-pluto

So on Elpis is where another Lexite structure exists. And here there are 8 (if memory serves) robots that you need to destroy with your acquired laser from the Lexite structure on the moon. I agree with the comments about needing a way to find where they are as they are hard to track down. You can easily spend 10 - 15 minutes here or more looking for them and I had one left and couldn't find it. So I returned to the ship and went back down and all eight were back! So I guess you can't pick them off a few at a time - you have to take them all out on a single planetfall.

I don't think that is really a good idea, as any progress towards eliminating them is reset and I can see this for other quests like this in other areas of the game that would make it extremely frustrating for players. If something is remaking them, then that is one thing, but just automatically replenishing them if you haven't destroyed all of them (especially after a player may have been looking for them / battling them for a dozen minutes or so like I had) when returning to the ship is going to be no fun.

Visiting Titan:

The Scryve ship (not sure if it was the Scout or Legate) that you destroyed somehow crashes on Titan. You can go get it there after this fight. I can't remember if it gets converted to RU or it should be in your inventory so I'll pay more attention to this when I play it again.

Comments / Opinions on Planets / Moons presented in Sol:

My comments here are highly opinionated, but I do think they would add to the flavor of the game.

About the four moons presented at Jupiter, I'm surprised we don't see all four Galilean moons presented (Callisto is missing) and instead we have the smallest inner moon Adrastea. I was a bit disappointed not to see the four Galilean moons as that is something you look for when viewing Jupiter from an amateur telescope. If you are lucky when looking at Jupiter you may see all 4 as tiny bright dots a short ways away from Jupiter. So because of that, I was disappointed that all four were not included.

I did not check, but:

• Since Triton is so prominent in the beginning story, its orbit should be retrograde if it's not already.
• Uranus' rotation axis is such that it is like a bowling ball rolling in its orbit.
• Venus's rotation is backwards and super slow.

I'd like to see inclusion of:

• Some dwarf planets (like Ceres, Pluto, and Eris would be nice)
• The asteroid belt
• The Kuiper Belt
• The Jupiter and Neptune Trojans
• Some more of the prominent moons of our solar system perhaps pick ones that are over a certain size or visiting Pluto with its five moons would be really neat and fun since it is so far away.
• Phobos and Deimos would be cool around Mars.
• I'd like to see the inclusion of Uranus', Neptune's, and Jupiter's partial rings as this would add a touch of realism to those planets and also be a cool factor for those playing the game that do not know that those planets indeed do have ring systems.

I understand a desire to get to the alien stuff quickly, but it kind of makes no sense to have humanity build its first ship and then all of a sudden (without exploring our solar system) there is an alien presence there already. I'd like to maybe see that show up as part of a "routine" exploration of our solar system within a few minutes of starting.

So imagine if there is mention of the Lexites, go explore the moon. Then let's see if we can detect life on Europa (Callisto and Ganymede are also thought to have subsurface oceans) and Enceladus and then as we are traveling to Europa / Enceladus there is an alien transmission detected and then something seems to crash on Triton. This would result in a return to the Starbase (or not really as there should be a way for you to talk to them without returning directly to the Starbase - it's not like the Earth is slave shielded and the Starbase has no message transmission capability) and then you would be told to find out what's going on at Triton like how the game starts now. This would seem like a more realistic start to me, and at least hint at some important things that space / astronomy buffs would go check out if they had their own spaceship.

I'd certainly like to see laced into the story a lot more about the knowledge of our solar system and nearby stars (such as ones that have exoplanets).

I realize that this may not be aligned with how you might want the game to proceed, but adding a touch of our real local astronomy would really add value to the game's play from an astronomy / space nerd's viewpoint.

There is really a lot of fascinating information about our solar system and local region of space that a lot of people do not know and I thought Star Control II did a fantastic job of including enough of the known astronomy of its day to make exploring the game feel like you were really out there exploring space. A bit more touch of this in Origins would further this idea.

Performance:

On my system I found the game's performance to be really good with respect to the animation, etc. when you are in the game.

As far as the initial starting screen when launching the game, as well as the new game screens, I find it does take a while to load and the music stops playing for a few seconds here and there while I'm awaiting its finish.

The only areas where I found that the framerate dropped significantly on my system were flying through the fog on Europa and Enceladus. I'm not sure why, but this dramatically slows down the framerates on my system.

I am running 4K with 8X anti-aliasing turned on (I actually probably don't need AA since I have a pretty high resolution).

Otherwise, I thought the game ran very well on my system.

Other Ruminations:

Since I could not leave Sol, I did a lot of exploring. If you fly around enough, you'll be able to talk to / fight the Drenkend. None of their dialogue is voiced yet.

If you fly to the bottom of the solar system (essentially due south), it will zoom out enough that you can see all the happenings going on in Sol. There are at least two or three Tywom ships flying around here and there, I saw the Dan'nath show up (although they stayed beyond Artemis' orbit and so I couldn't go talk to them), and there were at least three other races with big ships that were flying around, but as soon as I tried to fly towards them, they'd run away. So I couldn't talk to any of them either, but I kept trying and then finally gave up.

Super Cool Stuff:

• I really enjoy seeing my spaceship in orbit when I am on a planetfall mission. It is really neat as you are driving around and all of a sudden you see your spaceship climbing over the horizon!
• Ditto for seeing the planet from the moon (for example when on Titan / Enceladus, Saturn's rings are very prominent in the background)!
• I really like the extra goodies on the combat map (as well as the wormholes), but would really like to know what picking up those goodies does.

Features / Ideas:

For my first playthrough, the following features / ideas have come to mind:

• I should be able to communicate to the Starbase and talk to the Commander without returning to it. We have the technology right now to do that with our current probes.
• When returning to the Starbase, I should be presented with the choice of outfitting the ship or talking to the Commander (just like with SC2). Right now, you have to talk to the Commander first and then you can outfit your ship and I was starting to get tired of being nagged to fly to the Tywom homeworld by the Commander when I just wanted to get some more stuff for my ship.
• Furthering the idea of communication, I think it would be nice if you could ping / talk to other races you've come in contact with, without having to return to their homeworld (basically like subspace communication in Star Trek). Perhaps, you can only have communications within the solar system at first, but a technology you acquire later would allow for longer and longer distance communication. You can even go Star Wars here and have them show up holographically.
• On the galaxy map, I found no way to pan the map once I started to zoom in with the mouse wheel. It would be nice if I could pan the map as right now I have to zoom back out and then in on a different region with my mouse wheel.
• When orbiting a planet, anything that is dangerous that you don't have technology to protect against should flash or blink. For example, if the weather is really harsh, it should blink if you don't have technology to protect you against it.
• As someone mentioned, landing on both Mercury and Venus causes your ship to be destroyed in a matter of seconds. There is no clue that this is going to happen when in orbit before you land. Your first officer mentions this upon landing, but why didn't he speak up before we landed?

Okay, I think that is all for now.

Once again, I want to thank the people at Stardock for bringing the game to its current state and allowing us to partake in this Chapter 1 beta!

Matt

Great work on this so far.  Here's my notes I took as I was playing today.  

1. Accidental quick return to Earth... When first leaving Earth space station, I wanted to see if I could land on Earth.  This took me right back to the earth space station, which was jarring.  The conversation from the station captain sounded like she expected I made it all the way to Triton and back.  I would recommend making it so her initial reaction is something more natural like "Back so soon?" or "You still haven't made it to Triton, what's the hold up?"  
2. Using the ESC key to launch from the surface of the planet up is weird.  I wanted to pause for a second and it made me launch back up to the atmosphere.  Might want to have it bring up a menu at least, or provide another way to launch
3. Map or Zoom Out - Looking for Neptune and Uranus is a little hard because you can't zoom out and see exactly where they are.  Would be nice to be able to see a map of the solar system or zoom out.  Leaving the orbit of a planet I have no idea which way to go...
4. Camera Issues - When in my first fight, as they got closer, the camera was zoomed in so much I couldn't see that we were headed straight for a planet.  I feel like I'm always fighting against the camera for more information... it wants to show me something in detail but I need to know more in order to navigate or not die.
5. Friction in Space? - When flying around, I feel like there's some friction or something that slows me down when I'm not thrusting.  In SC2 I remember just gunning it in a direction and letting inertia do it's thing.  That felt much better and more fun.  This feels sluggish and heavy. 

Lander Issues

1. Driving the lander - Driving the lander around (at least using the keyboard) is not a lot of fun.  The physics don't feel right and I feel like I'm bouncing around a lot and everything is made of rubber.  Jumps are SUPER high.  It's hard to be precise. 
2. Watery Grave - Whoa... I went into water on Europa and died... There's nothing warning you that water would kill you and nothing that really indicated water over just frozen ice.  The landing zone had ice that looked exactly like the ocean.  This was frustrating.  This thing floats over surfaces right?  Why am I sinking?
3. Lander Mini Map - We need a mini map maybe in the old SC2 style up top for locating resources.  It's kinda tedious to drive around looking for shapes to show up.
4. The lander isn't 'fun' yet - I love the idea of driving around on these planets... but I can't say it's fun yet, and I can certainly say it's something I don't want to do hundreds of times.  It's kinda a huge time sink, and nailing this experience and making it fun are going to be very important for anyone playing this game for more than a day.
5. Fragile Lander - Also, the lander is expensive and you can only hold a few.  Losing one is hard and could significantly cause you delays in having to return to Earth.  So there's a lot of risk driving around quickly (like going right into water you didn't notice).
6. Gathering Materials - Hard to tell when you're out of space on the lander for materials or if the current pickup is too big.  There's a little sound, but nothing else.  I didn't have the sound up high and couldn't tell what was wrong after jumping on a mineral for about a minute.  In another case, I only had 24 units out of 100 in the lander, but could not pick up an object because it was 80.  There was nothing obvious about that problem.   

Story Issues

1. The Starbase Commander is Weird - I just told the commander from star control about all this horrible stuff going on and she's just smiling and upbeat.  It feels like I'm talking to a sociopath.  It's a little weird.  Later on you tell her about the alien menace that wants to wipe us out (and likely will), and she says, "These Scryve sound terrifying" in the same tone of voice of someone talking to a toddler roaring like a dinosaur... same smile on her face, and her voice is just kinda not selling it.  
2. Early motivations feel poorly thought out - So is this the maiden voyage of this interplanetary ship?  Because I feel like it shouldn't be.  I mean, this is a huge momentous event, flying the first interplanetary ship out of orbit on it's first mission, and we suddenly get a message from an alien ship that we can't decode at all or even tell if it's an alien (but we have 0 issues talking once we're face to face, btw), and they want me to fly there and check it out as an afterthought.  What was the ship built to do originally?  Maybe if I was heading out to do that thing and got interrupted it would make more sense... or if they built the ship originally to check out this alien transmission (and the aliens were in stasis for years waiting for us to come) it would make more sense.  I don't know... it struck me as cobbled together.
3.  

Bugs

1. Planet Labels - The labels on only one planet/moon show up at a time and once one shows up the others don't.  No idea what that's about, but if you don't already know the names of the planets, and can only see a moon, you're going to be a little lost.
2. Camera Bug 1 - When I discovered the monument on Europa I was facing a different way.  So the entire conversation we're talking about this point of interest and I cannot see it.  Camera was locked straight ahead and no way to change it.
3. Camera Bug 2 -  Going up from Venus the camera did not zoom out, so my ship ended up being off screen.  The camera stayed locked with Venus still in frame for a long time.
4. Bouncing off of Gas Giants?  That's just because there's nothing in place yet, right?

Things I Loved

1. The music is very good
2. The Tywom script is pretty well written and voice acted, and has some funny lines that make me feel like I'm playing Star Control.  I love the feel of them.
3. The art style felt just right in a lot of places.  
4. The planets look really beautiful from above.  The sun is amazing looking and feels dangerous enough that I don't want to fly near it.

I completely agree with this.  I bet they were trying to pace things right and get straight to the action, but I feel like it would be more compelling to be asked to discover something about the Lexites first and then get interrupted.  Instead, I know nothing about the lander laser on the moon without thinking to check it out on my own.  Discovering more about the Lexites would be a great motivation for building this ship and setting us on our way, and could give us some mystery and backstory to discover first.

Yea, your machine should be fine.  I would bet that in settings.ini the terrain quality is set to 2 instead of 0.

System specs: i7-7700HQ, 32GB DDR4, 6GB GTX 1060 @ 1080p60, Windows 10 April update on an SSD. Running with VSYNC and 2XAA.

Slowdown: the clouds on Europa dragged me down to 15 fps or so every time. This was the only slowdown below 60fps I encountered using the above specs and VSYNC.

Bug: I saved the game immediately after delivering the Tywom parts and leaving Triton (right before engaging the Scryve). I had to reload this game, due to being obliterated by the Scryve, and the Scryve ship spawned directly on top of me / locked to my position and just followed me around without ever engaging. I re-entered orbit of Triton and left again, and the engagement happened correctly.

Bug: After the Scryve engagement with the Tywom in tow, the next conversation screen with the Tywom was totally black except for a small column on the left (where the dialog repeat button appears). I had to listen to what was being said and stumble my way blindly through the dialog to advance.

Bug: So. Many. First officers.

Complaint: planetary orbits in the solar system are huge and there's no way to see where you're going or to judge where a given planet will be in the system. I flew around the entire "southern" part of the system and wasted a lot of time before realizing the planets were mostly to the "north" of the Sun. Compare this to the earlier games' broad overview of the system and it seems like a wider default camera (or a controllable zoom) would be a big improvement.

Complaint: returning to space travel after leaving orbit should begin with your ship oriented away from the moon/planet you just left. There were a couple of moons that I kept leaving then immediately re-orbiting after hitting thrust.

Complaint: I'm already tired of the Tywom loading screen. I found myself longing for Skyrim's model-and-lore loading screens or, really, ANYTHING else.

Complaint: The floating elements feel more Mario than Star Control. The HUD indicators through the planet are fine, but I wish the actual deposits were portrayed as more realistic piles/pools/clouds.

Compliment: IT'S STAR CONTROL! IT'S REALLY STAR CONTROL!

Compliment: I genuinely enjoyed the Tywom and they scratched my years-old itch for Star Control dialog. Nailed it.

Compliment: The music. Oh, the music!

Observation: The base commander seems very perky and conversational compared to the lore and descriptions of her I've read here. Also rather chill in light of what's happening around the system. I don't dislike the way she's portrayed at all, though, but just think there's a disconnect somewhere in the backstory. If she's young because all the older generation died off, for example, great.

Opinion: In the earlier games there was no "inertial dampener" on the ship and you could just point in the right direction and cruise across the system. I'd use this little travel break to stretch my fingers, etc., but now have to hold down thrust to keep moving. I preferred coasting.

Opinion: I don't like going through a conversation tree with the commander every time I need to get to the shipyard to do some business. That's going to get old real quick. Maybe just a persistent "go to the shipyard" option (after it becomes available) on the opening screen would do the trick.

Question: Immediately after finishing the beta story, and reaching the point where the Tywom ship begins casually cruising around the system, I briefly caught sight of another ship blazing away from the center of the solar system out toward the "northeast." It was some sort of polygonal design that made me think of the Imperial Shuttle for the half second that I saw it. I couldn't burn fast enough to catch it before it left the system, though, and never saw it again. What did I see?

Looking forward to more!

OS: Windows 10

Memory: 16GB

Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070

Processor: I7-6700HQ @ 2.60Hz (8 CPUs)

Resolution: 2460x1440

Issues:

• So far one major issue is that flight is pretty choppy, every couple of seconds.
  • Note that my in-flight choppiness issue has been resolved by installing latest video drivers (looks like update has been released by Nvidia a week ago).
• Planetary clouds make everything VERY slow and choppy.

Observations:

• I found planets to be very hard to find, w/o some sort of zoom-out or mini-map feature. I don't know which way to fly, once I leave a planet.
• A quick-save (F5? ) feature would be very helpful
• Agreed that Tywom-ship static loading screen gets very old very fast. A loading screen where you could fiddle with something, like rotating a random 3D ship of a race you already encoutered, etc. would be nice.

How do you have an underpowered laptop CPU paired with a 1070? It seem slike overkeill sine the CPU is your bottleneck

Yes, this is a laptop, that has 8-core 2.6GHz CPU and GTX 1070 card.

This laptop has been able to run any game I've thrown at it so far like a champ - it runs Witcher 3 and Sniper Elite 4 with highest specs, w/o issues. I doubt Origins is 1/10's of CPU intensity compared to Witcher 3...

I guess I'm confused how you've got a 1070 in there. Given that the laptop CPu seems a tad old. Are you using some kind of external enclosure?

Computer System: Acer Predator Helios 300 Laptop

Operating System: Windows 10 Home 64-bit (10.0 Build 17134)

CPU: Intel Core i7-7700HQ @2.80GHz

RAM: 16GB

Video: Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 6GB

Game Resolution: 3840 x 2160 (32bit @60Hz)

I played the game for a second time (to getting Wymdoo back to the station) and have now discovered some bugs. Here is the bug list:

• When you are on Triton and you pick up any resources before you talk to Wymdoo they are returned to the planet after you finish the conversation. My lander's cargo shows that I have the same number of resources in my hold as before I started the conversation, but the resources are back on the planet. I did not check to see if my cargo actually increased when returning to my ship, but I had to go back down and pick them up again. So this may be an unlimited resources bug if your cargo is indeed increasing and the resources are being returned to the surface for you to pick them up again.
• When Wymdoo joins you, if you immediately return to Triton, the Scryve Legate will not be able to interact with you. I flew all the way back to Earth with the Scryve Legate on top of me, but it could not interact with me. I have this save in case it is needed. The only way I could get the Scryve Legate to interact with me was when I bumped into the sun (perhaps bumping into a gas giant would do the same thing).
• I was actually able to select Wymdoo's ship to fight the Scryve Legate in this instance (since he had already joined me when I got back to Earth).
• As soon as I had destroyed the Scryve Legate, Wymdoo's conversation automatically came up where it was somehow reset to where he needed me to find parts of his ship again.
• I could not leave this conversation and was stuck in an endless loop.
• For that matter, if you are conversing with an alien, there is no way to bring up a menu and exit the game. I have it running in the background as I type this (since I'm stuck in the Wymdoo conversation that I cannot end), but hopefully I can use Task Manager to end it. I could see, though, a need to be able to save and exit the game if for some reason something comes up (say you need to leave your computer for an emergency situation).
• As others have pointed out, some resources are below the surface and you cannot pick them up.
• I somehow broke the resource indicators while I was on Miranda for one of my planetfalls. After returning to the ship and coming back down, they reappeared.
• When conversing with Wymdoo (possibly other conversations as well), there is a horizontal line all the way across my screen about 1/3 of the way from the bottom. I am running at 4K, but did not try other resolutions.

I have a few more recommendations so far on this second playthrough:

• There needs to be a keystroke or button to click in the planet orbit screen to center the object's landing zone so that you can easily launch your ship. I found that once I rotate it and look around, that it would be nice to return it automatically to the landing zone being centered so that I can easily click the box and then the Ready to Launch button rather than having to do it manually. This would help streamline this part of the game and make planetfalls more efficient.
• The triangles and squares on the planet surface would be more useful if their size changed as you approached the object to give you an estimate of how far away they are if you don't implement a mini map. Also, if you do this, then I'd like all of them to be shown (ones really far away can just be dots and for closer ones the triangle / square would get bigger and bigger as you got nearer). This would help you find things quickly and aid in the efficiency of this part of the game.

And by the way...

These all seem to be implemented properly so outstanding job here!

Okay, that's it for now!

Thanks again to the Stardock crew for the game so far and letting us partake in this beta of Chapter 1!

Matt

No, the laptop is a baseline Asus ROG GL502-V. The CPU is more than fast enough to handle any modern game (we are not mining bitcoins here  )

At the time of running Origins, the CPU utilization is under 20%, according to Task Manager.

terrainHmapQuality(0,1,2) = 0

Note that my choppiness issue has been resolved by installing latest video drivers (looks like update has been released by Nvidia a week ago).

There is one, try Enter.

Very minor nitpick.  It's Caltech, not CalTech.  As an alumni and someone who has actually met Mike Brown, I should know.

If you do not have the game in your Steam library go to https://store.stardock.com/myaccount/products and there you will find your Steam key. Just activate it on Steam and the game will be added to your account.

Thanks Rhonin Wizard! That worked ! 

Hello everybody!

Been testing the game and it seem's I'm bit stuck. Basically, if you happen to destroy all your lander's and you don't have enough credits, your pretty much stuck from start. Not really a bug, but at the start of the game it might be a little frustrating if there's no more resources to collect and you've forgotten to save.

Well the problem is actually that I can't sell my extra fuel tank back to star control for new lander.

And it might be nice to get subtitles to cinematic's. Just in case.

Thanks.

There actually is a button for this. If you click on the one landing spot found button it recenters on the landing spot for you. Although personally, I think it would be more simplified and easier understood if you just clicked the launch button and it just recentered you and launched automatically.

1. What Operating System are you running: Windows 7 Pro 64 bit
2. How much memory your computer has: 16 Gigs Ram
3. What video card you have: AMD Radeon R9 200 series
4. What CPU your computer has: AMD FX 9590 

Ok so first off I wanted to address the people complaining about lack of information on the lander when you are on the planet. The information is there folks. Look top left you will see your crew(life) of the lander 5 for a full crew if you land well something less then that if you land bad or take dmg. 2nd bar is your boost bar, the 3rd bar is your lander's cargo hold. Also, you can hit tab to see your inventory, this is something indicated to you the first time you pick up something on your very first lander drop.

For my own impressions of the game after two playthroughs. I am guessing that there will be a prologue or tutorial mission in front of this, I am guessing that coupled with a complete cutscene, not the partial one we are shown now will hopefully explain things better to us as well as set the stage a bit better then what we are seeing currently. I agree with pretty much everyone here. Mini-map please in solar system and lander stages of the game. Also please allow us to zoom in the solar system, I see what you guys are trying to do here. Zoom in close near planets allowing us to navigate in close proximity and then zoom out automatically when travelling in system. The problem is we have no way of deciding where it is we want to go without the information a mini-map would provide us with. Losing landers is incredibly unforgiving given their cost to replace so we definitely need an alert on dangerous planets BEFORE we land not after we land. And I can also agree that the 2 combats with the evil scary race are too easy, I can allow the probe one to be easy. It's a probe after all not a combat vessel however the Legate should be a lot tougher opponent if not impossible to beat. I like the idea suggested here where the ship comes pretty close to annihilating you and then has a malfunction or something which either renders him unable to fire his weapons or just straight up blows the ship up. 

So far I am really enjoying the game, can't wait to see the completed product and I appreciate getting the opportunity to help test the game and shape it.