Chapter 1 BETA 2A released

from StarControl Forums
 
 
Adventure Chapter 1 - Beta - 19th July A new update to the Chapter 1 beta build for founders has just gone live folks. Please read the changes below whislt we figure out where the Tywom oozed off to. Quests 
You do not get a free cruiser now when the intro quest is complete. You now get it post chapter.
First pass on economy. Spreading out upgrades and pricing appropriately. During intro quest, Earth only has very basic upgrades.
Smoothed over some of the dialog and mechanics for the Earth Hyperdrive quest.
Updated Tutorial briefing from the Commander.
Minor text tweaks for the Commander based on various people's feedback.
Added a "How To Captain A Spaceship" monologue for the Commander, accessible from most points in the early game.
Solar system / Planets 
Interacting with Ceres should now open the Training Facility.
Fix for being able to slightly offset the camera when it is slerping to the landing zone
Removed Lightning Triangles on Titan.
Added Russian Space Probe.
Updated Triton's surface.
Shadows look correct now from different camera positions (1, 2, 3, 4 keys).
Re-enabled sky transitions during landing sequence.
 
Components 
Assigned all components at least some value, if only to make them worth something when you sell them.
Adding rewards to Trials character for Combat and Advanced trials.
Lowered cost of Point Defense from 7500 to 1500.
You can now offer to hand in the Tywom Cuddle Drive, and get rejected.
Replaced starting weapons. Player now starts with a Basic Missile.
Adventure Fleet Battles 
Changed battle arena sizes.
Fixed ships disappearing in mid-fight.
Camera no longers starts zoomed in on the planet during battles.
AI behavior tweak (might solve twitchy issue).
Another pass on AI behavior to make them not jitter.
Fix for some AI being dumb.
Training AI tweaks.
Gave the training drones the human captain thumbnail (the little robot).
Fixed camera jitter in battles.
Fixed problems with incorrect projectile direction or position.
 
 
 
UI 
Updated planet scan UI.
Decreased Fade-In Time on Briefing Screen.
Added Objectives Screen .
Added controller support for the Galactic Map.
Added a quit confirmation dialog.
Updated remaining starbase screen assets to new UI Style.
Fixed a missing "close" button to the Leaderboard screen on the Main Menu.
More font and UI improvements.
Game now releases mouse buttons and keyboard keys when the application loses focus. This would cause bugs if you alt-tabbed while in battle.
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Reply #2 from StarControl Forums Top

Looks and feels better all the time! A couple of random thoughts, mostly from usability standpoint:

- When in the ship choosing before a battle, the surrender button is too prominent and in a place where you would actually think "enter battle" button is. Considering its a game ending button (and of no use in that sense), i think it would be better to be smaller and not located in the center of the screen. I've pushed it a couple of times accidentally.

- The new details in some planets are nice, but since they hinder free driving there, they tend to make the resource collecting more tedious and less fun. 

- Which brings me to the next thing: The jumping doesn't work anymore. I'm not sure if its on purpose, but normally the lander cannot jump at all and when i bought the boosters for that, it jumped just a tiny little bit. Jumping was fun. Fun is important.

- I find the ship equipping screen a bit baffling. So many different kind of equip-points, which are just marked with different colour of plus signs. You have to mouseover them to see what kinda slot they are and even then, if they have a thing in them already, it doesn't tell you what kind of a slot it is. Would be a lot more usable if the slots had headers and all the same kinda slots would be contained in a single outlying container. Its not very intuitive atm.

- Also, when you get the new upgrades from Ceres by doing the training fights, it doesn't tell you that you need to actually place them to your ship.

- It's not possible to enter save/options -menu while using the lander. Not a biggie, but its a bit confusing, when esc has multiple uses. I've left a planet a couple of times accidentally just because I hit escape and expecting it to pause the game and bring in the menu.

- Still waiting for the landing point to be automatically chosen even when you have visited the planet once by lander. I realize you can just push enter twice, but still, it would be more usable if you could just one-click yourself back to the planet.

- Numbers on the chat lines are great. I would still like to see used options greyed out tho.

- Russian space probe was fun, though i expected that i could have shot it. That was not the case unfortunately. (Why do we people have such a crave for breaking things even when they are nice?? :) )

- Not sure about the chat font change or the font changes overall, i thought the last ones were better, but maybe its just needs getting used to. The different fonts for the different species are nice tho.

Cheers!

Curtains - Customize Windows with additional styles
Reply #3 from StarControl Forums Top

When you do the Combat trial on Ceres you do get the Advanced Nuke, but when you do the Advanced trial on Ceres you don't get the point defense.  When I went back to Star Control I still had to pay 1500 RU for the point defense.  Also the Advanced trial is far too easy because its bullets are pea shooters taking <5 crew each shot, which means >20 shots to kill the Vindicator.  But I don't know how to fix that because if you make the Advanced trial too hard then human technology at the start of the game would be too good compared to the supposedly more advanced and scary Scryve technology.

 

My other comments are on the Google Doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/146tdd0nofrkaSGvLpGfX3WVjYabQHm8mg4iCwt7ZH38/edit

Reply #4 from StarControl Forums Top

Ok the July 27 update of the Chapter 1 Beta fixed the failing to get Point Defense from Ceres bug.  Also I like how modules are handled now (cargo on the Vindicator and you can sell them to get rid of obsolete ones). It seems that the modules in cargo don't take up any space, because when I sold a lander cannon that was not installed (it was in cargo) the cargo fill indicator did not change.  Modules not taking up any space might be more fun than them taking up space, I'm not sure.

I am not sure but the throw everything Ceres trial seems to be harder now and I think it's enough.

One thing I might want improved is when the First Officer talks to you you can hit Enter to go to the next line of dialogue but you cannot hit enter or escape to remove his dialogue box when he is done you have to click the X.  Maybe some people would prefer hitting Enter or Escape.