Features and fixes

[607ch00]

Hi I'm running the newest version of elite and have been playing for a month or so now, emailed you before with the battle toasts suggestion. Game totally reminds me of Tradewars 2002 and I'm loving it.

Here's my wishlist for features and fixes (some probably related to my Intercept's WVGA resolution):

• I started the game as an Explorer on demanding, currently level 15. Maxed out Explorer, Pilot, Tactics, Stealth and Warrior skills. High Wisdom and Strength. Have a Scout as my first mate. I am still losing over 50% over the crew I send out, sometimes the crew protection ability even activates and I'll lose 30/35 of the crew I send out on a planet with a hazard rating of 3 and no rumors. Something is not right here. Also what is my Scout officer actually doing?
  
• When viewing a ship plan it shows that I will have an operating profit equal to my ship's trade in value, but I don't even have enough money to trade-in/purchase. ($22K ship + $27K in hand and the ship plan value is $115K)
  
• Sometimes I get contracts against factions that consider me a criminal and who won't let me enter the building I need to finish it.
  
• Message for "A new galactic alliance was born" appears after exploring/harvesting a planet as part of the results instead of as a toast.
  
• Toasts buffer up on a defined timer and become out of sync with the rest of the game. Maybe have new toasts clear out the previous toast immediately?
  
• Battle toasts appear over the ships on my screen making them unusable, as you cannot see the ship graphics and judge range.
  
• Add a take all option when gathering / harvesting.
  
• Have the buttons and sliders in the gather/harvest screens appear at the top so it's not necessary to scroll down.
  
• Add a re-gather / re-harvest option instead of needing to back out to the planet screen each time.
  
• Add an option for bookmarking waypoints
  
• The way the cargo transfer slider is setup is kinda backwards. Right now it's :
  
  [glow=red,2,300]Hold # <--------> Dock #[/glow]
  
  To move products to your hold you slide to the right. Opposite direction of where the hold and dock are visually displayed. Should be:
  
  [glow=red,2,300]Dock # <--------> Hold #[/glow]
  
  So that you physically slide your finger towards the place you want to move products to.
  
• Have an option to make the sector markers color coded in the regular space screen the same as they are in the zoomed out map.
  
• Sometimes when I run into an encounter, the flag that appears on the space map is different then the ship I'm actually encountering.
  
• When I decide to capture a ship seems like I always lose my cargo. Please enable the Take All and Cargo button after I switch ships so I can retrieve all my stuff.
  

I'll post back with more as I think of them but this is what comes to mind for me immediately. Thanks again for the great game!

Edit: Added more to list

[Cory Trese]

These posts are easier / faster for me to answer when posed in the form of a question. I am never sure if these posts are just people venting, asking for changes or trying to understand the game.

---

- The scout officer is increasing the Exploration score. If the planet is killing the Crew and not providing riches you have taken everything from the planet, it is exhausted. This is not the fault of the Smuggler, Crew or otherwise -- the Captain is chasing the wrong Rumors. Late in the game you must seek out Rich Rewards rumors or expect severe casualties.

- I will look into the bug with price display. Right now, it does not display different types of text based on the Credits available. It probably should.

- That is one the challenges of the game. The Contract description states who the Captain is working against and the Urban Zone to travel to. If the Captain is concerned, he can determine (via Rumors and Faction pages) if he can enter the remote location to complete the contract. I am going to add a few increased difficulty options (sneaking, blockading) to help offset the impact for Captains that are not planning enough to avoid this challenge.

- That's a bug, I will move it to a Toast.

- That's Android OS Toast system. I am not sure I can change until I replace that entire thing with a custom Toast manager.

- I moved the toasts to satisfy a huge number of e-mails. The toasts as currently positioned will remain the default, however, if I had more information about the issue (position, size, orientation, configuration, device, DPI, etc) I would be happy to add an option that supported the player's desired configuration.

- Take all has been suggested and is on the list of development features to add.

- Scrolling is dependent on the phone and I feel that the page is currently correctly ordered by importance and is correct, typographically. are you playing in landscape?

- A re-harvest / re-gather option would ensure that the player did not return to the main planet screen to review the data. This would be risky and would further encourage the problem the new player has with Exploration -- not looking at the stats. That said, there is probably a way to make this run faster.

- Bookmarking waypoints has been suggested on another thread and is on the development feature list.

- Your interpretation of the direction of the slider is interesting but is not the way that Star Traders RPG works. I have done a quick poll and all who responded agreed with the current slider layout.

- This option was deployed but caused performance issues on some devices. I will not probably attempt to add this feature until I re-write the map-draw code for good.

- The flag that appears on the space map SHOULD be different than the ship's flag if the Sector Faction and the Ship Faction do not match.

- You need to transfer your cargo (Drag to the left, down to 0) to the enemy ship before you Take Ship. After Take Ship, the old ship has been deleted and no cargo transfer can occur. This is an important delete for memory and saved game state maintenance and the messages are clear about cargo transference.


I tried to cover all the questions and clarify where possible.

Thanks for the post.

[ghrasp]

My thoughts on the planet screen. If I was the captain, I would indeed back out to the main screen but I would do it from the planet surface. Thus significantly, of not completely, avoiding conflict with passing ships.

[diablodestroyer]

One more thing that i find slightly hard to understand is about the crew members. Do i steal the ship along with the crew members or do i enslave first then take the ship?

[oldalchemist]

Taking ships is a bit counter-intuitive right now. It's almost like you ought to have to answer a series of questions when you take the ship.
Take Ship? Yes/No
Take Cargo? Yes/No
Enslave Crew? Yes/No
Destroy Old Ship? Yes/No

Taking ships doesn't happen too often once you've got one that you like, and even if it does, it's kind of a big event that you want to get right.

[ryan]

+1 oldalchemist
I like the idea of asking questions when taking a ship. As a pirate, I take ships ALL the time
As a question, you say it deletes your old ship, but does that mean you destroy it? or is it just deleted from memory? If taking a ship = destroying old ship + all crew.... that would be bad in my mind. I'd rather have the option of destroying it and all crew/hold, or letting enemies limp off after unrigging all the guns/torps and crippling the engines so they can't just chase me down.
Also, as an option, could there be a way to steal torps? I can see why guns/armor might not work, needing a space station in order to do that, but torps? Can't we just pick em up and move them? I am possibly thinking of torps in a different way then you are. I think of torpedoes along the lines of submarines... a physical, large missile that is launched.
Anyway, awesome job Cory! Love this game!

[darkmonk]

I always saw them as being like they are on subs like you said, in rather large racks. Pretty hard to get on board a ship and move a whole rack of torpedoes, but that's just me. I'd definitely not complain about the possibility of more phat lewt to pillage..er...righteously recover from pirate scum.

[Cory Trese]

When I say "Deleting a Ship" I'm talking about a database operation.

[ryan]

That's what I thought. So would it be possible to have the options I mentioned regarding "taking a ship"? Or is that beyond the database cleansing and already unrecoverable?

[neodaz]

How about introducing the concept of space debris?

This could consist of complete abandoned ships through to rotten hulls. Towing these to the nearest space port for salvage value might be an option, whilst towing speed and agility would be impacted as well as the likelihood of encounters. A tractor beam could be included as an upgrade option.

Daz

[oldalchemist]

I would love to run into derelict ships. Maybe even the hulk of one of my old vessels like a bones file in Nethack.

If a ship gets its engines disabled or its hull ruptured, there are going to be sections of the ship that have live crew and/or decent salvage. You ought to be presented with a rescue mission option. It would also be a way to get crew members (who should have a hella high morale since you saved their lives).

[Cory Trese]

rescue mission .... hmmmm

[ryan]

lol I keep having to do this...
+1 oldalchemist

Love the idea of ships floating in space. Could be a good mission to go rescue ships, crews, cargos
Also, possibility of ambush, where we think we are rescuing a ship, but turns out there's a pirate crew on board, and a pirate ship powered down nearby waiting to trap us!
Woohoo!! Whole new type of game play, sounds fun!!!

[ryan]

as a side note to rescue missions... Starport mission = tow back a ship or 'black box' type of item. Palace Mission = bring back the crew. Spice Hall mission = bring back the cargo haha
We know what they really care about

[Kelvin Zero]

If course not all derelicts will be good loot or crew drops. What if the ship went somewhere...wrong. It may harbor horrors humans were not meant to know about. Any surviving crew may be starved to insanity and look upon your crew as a tasty meal. Or the derelict itself may be cursed and try to pass its curse onto your ship. It may be a trap left by the Narvidians filled with killer droids.

Watch your step, Captain, it may be your last!