St2 thoughts

[Crimson]

Not much time so far. Initial impressions so far.

Glad pc is being focused on first.
The initial captain setup screen should be an advanced feature. Pre-set styles should be available. Ie pirate trader rogue etc.

Atleast on android i did not see other planets on the map. And did not see a way to move the map.


for pc i would like controller support. I play pc games almost exclusively with a controller.

I will see if i can take alook further this weekend. The ship selection in the beginning seems strange. There is a cost of each ship that effects the starting cash?

Best Regards,
Crimson

[Cory Trese]

Thanks for the post. Probably most of phase 1 won't make sense till you spend some time with it.

Let us know when you're had a chance to play and we can try to answer any questions.

[grävling]

Feb 3, 2017 19:08:32 GMT -5 Crimson said:

Not much time so far. The ship selection in the beginning seems strange. There is a cost of each ship that effects the starting cash?

Best Regards,
Crimson

No. MintDragon thought that this was what was happening to him, but that turned out to be an error on his part.

[slayernz]

Since this was a first impressions type thread, I thought I might share my own.

My own first impressions has been a little mixed. I purposefully chose to skip the youtube vids because I wanted to see what it would be like for the new captain, fresh after downloading this great looking game from the store. Okay that's a little unrealistic, because this is only Alpha Phase 1 and there is so much juicy goodness that is going to go in.

One of the things I loved about ST1 was the layers. You, as a newbie, could get the game going, figure out the basics (after a bit of trial and error), and learn the intricacies as you progress. ST1 was that perfect onion with so many layers that you could peel back.

ST2 Alpha - is like being given all of those layers at once. Drinking from a fire hydrant would be very similar to this type of experience. There is so much going on - from the displaying of the dice roll results, to the micromanagement of the crew (yet lack of understanding of my own leveling). I know the numbers should be helping me but I'm daunted. The level of understanding can only grow so I'll keep on keeping on.

From a UI - beautiful graphics - and great connectivity with the other games in the stable. I'm using a Note 4, and finding the buttons and text on the screen really small. Some of the buttons (top-right hand side) also didn't always work for me - I resorted to using the back button on the phone which did work. When in urban environments, I didn't even see the palace - maybe I was missing something? Where do you find the missions and get the rumors?

I'm going back - I love the framework - I can definitely see where the game is heading and am confident I will figure out what I am doing. If I have to resort to the videos, so be it. The final game will have tutorials and guides and wise forumites who know what's going on so in the meantime, it's my privilege to be involved and if I can help improve the game even 1%, I will be stoked.

Oh, I had some screenshots and notes somewhere but will have to rummage and find them.

[xdesperado]

Feb 5, 2017 6:44:18 GMT -5 slayernz said:

Since this was a first impressions type thread, I thought I might share my own.

My own first impressions has been a little mixed. I purposefully chose to skip the youtube vids because I wanted to see what it would be like for the new captain, fresh after downloading this great looking game from the store. Okay that's a little unrealistic, because this is only Alpha Phase 1 and there is so much juicy goodness that is going to go in.

One of the things I loved about ST1 was the layers. You, as a newbie, could get the game going, figure out the basics (after a bit of trial and error), and learn the intricacies as you progress. ST1 was that perfect onion with so many layers that you could peel back.

ST2 Alpha - is like being given all of those layers at once. Drinking from a fire hydrant would be very similar to this type of experience. There is so much going on - from the displaying of the dice roll results, to the micromanagement of the crew (yet lack of understanding of my own leveling). I know the numbers should be helping me but I'm daunted. The level of understanding can only grow so I'll keep on keeping on.

From a UI - beautiful graphics - and great connectivity with the other games in the stable. I'm using a Note 4, and finding the buttons and text on the screen really small. Some of the buttons (top-right hand side) also didn't always work for me - I resorted to using the back button on the phone which did work. When in urban environments, I didn't even see the palace - maybe I was missing something? Where do you find the missions and get the rumors?

I'm going back - I love the framework - I can definitely see where the game is heading and am confident I will figure out what I am doing. If I have to resort to the videos, so be it. The final game will have tutorials and guides and wise forumites who know what's going on so in the meantime, it's my privilege to be involved and if I can help improve the game even 1%, I will be stoked.

Oh, I had some screenshots and notes somewhere but will have to rummage and find them.

There is no Palace.
All contracts are handled by contacts so use your starting contact well and keep adding more contacts by whatever methods work for you.
Hint: having at least one officer with Merchant job and the Friendly Banter talent can help you gain a number of contacts fairly quickly.

[grävling]

There are no Palaces.

Some contacts are On the orbital station, some are in the settlements, and some are in the Wilderness. There will be a 'Contacts-Are-Here' oval-with-a-point on the bottom and a person shape pointed above the Planets where there are contacts in the Zoomed out View (where all you see of the location is a small round fingertip sized circle), and the Contacts-Are-Here Icon will again show up on the In Between Zoomed, 'I see a picture of the planet' View just below the green box that says the name of the Orbital/Settlement/Wilderness. Some places have one more than one Settlement, or a Settlement and a Wilderness and you can get Contacts in both places. In that case you will see more than one of those 'Contacts-Are-Here's.

Land.

On the LHS on the screen is a set of buttons -- one of them is Contacts. That's where your Prince and other Contacts are. I wish that this button was called missions, instead.
--------------

For Rumours:

At the top level of the map, zoomed out where your location is a fingertip sized circle, on the LHS is Navigate, Missions, Contacts, Rumours, and Galaxy. Rumours are there.

The button Contacts, is the way to find out where all the contacts you know live, rather than meet with any particular one.


---------------

For the Drinking at the Firehose experience -- the HUD is being rewritten as we speak. Things are about to change.

For the 'I want an experience that I can just fall into without all this fiddly bits' see: startradersrpg.proboards.com/post/177016/thread

[slayernz]

Thanks Grav!

[Crimson]

Feb 3, 2017 20:17:31 GMT -5 Cory Trese said:

Thanks for the post. Probably most of phase 1 won't make sense till you spend some time with it.

Let us know when you're had a chance to play and we can try to answer any questions.

Played a little bit more. I haven't watched the videos yet. I am playing on android because of little time available. Kids and work take up much of my time these days.

The buttons are really small and hard to hit. The buttons seem laggy. I think one thing that could make things better if we could see other ships moving as well.(similar to port royale). A way to avoid pirates?.

A lot of screens seem very laggy maybe this has to do with click vs. Double click.

The error log seems strange on the bottom right screen. I really can't read it the text is so small.

As a merchant i couldn't find a way to try to retreat from battle in the pre battle screen. Then during battle there did not seem to be a way to flee. Maybe i should have moved backwards..

The worm holes seem cool even taking damage from one. Once going through one it would be nice to have it "mapped".

I cannot find the map. In the original star traders rpg i almost exclusively used this for travel.

Over-all the screens seem a little static and this may turn off for some people.

Don't get me wrong, the graphics are an improvement over the original.

Somehow simplifying the commands and set-up would be good. As an option for advanced setup the current setup screen would be ok, but i rather pick a map from a library and also a character and ship.


I realize the game is still in rough form. So not trying to sound negative.

Hope all is well.
Crimson

[fallen]

Crimson - thanks for all the feedback!

We're definitely working on improving for android and small screens, but there will only be so much we can do. Can you share your device type so we can check the screen size and DPI? Most of the button issues probably have to do with them being hard to hit due to their size.

The list of options in the combat preamble is a table. You can scroll down, there may be options like "Retreat". If the enemy is already Hostile, then there is no Retreat option and you have to it from combat. To do that, you'd use the Escape button when you are at range 5.

You should hit the Galaxy button on the left hand side to see the big map.

[Crimson]

Feb 12, 2017 16:40:39 GMT -5 fallen said:

Crimson - thanks for all the feedback!

We're definitely working on improving for android and small screens, but there will only be so much we can do. Can you share your device type so we can check the screen size and DPI? Most of the button issues probably have to do with them being hard to hit due to their size.

The list of options in the combat preamble is a table. You can scroll down, there may be options like "Retreat". If the enemy is already Hostile, then there is no Retreat option and you have to it from combat. To do that, you'd use the Escape button when you are at range 5.

You should hit the Galaxy button on the left hand side to see the big map.

fallen

I have a Samsung Galaxy S5. The phone would be similar to s6 or s7 as they are both the same 5.5 amoled screen size.

Preferably once on Steam I would play the game with a steam controller on big play mode. Thanks for the tip on the map. I will see if I can navigate from it. I stream my games to a big 42" screen tv through the steam link from my laptop.

If there is a plan to test that mode I can help test there.

Thanks,
Crimson

[fallen]

Crimson - you can download and play the game on Windows right now, just not thru Steam.