Beta Galactic Artifact - Release B

[TrevorBradley]

I've been lurking on these boards for a longer time, but finally I decided to register just to post this comment

I've been a fan of Galactic Artifact since Release A and I guess it's time for me to share some ideas/remarks:
* Human colonies instead of alien races. I don't like the idea of alien creatures. I'm rather into the Elite series concept of human inhabited galaxy.
* Keeping the random generated player names. This feature is great and I like the anonymity it creates.
This way I can play the game without a feeling that someone already knows me as a good/bad player, or without feeling that I'm playing with someone, I have no chances competing with.
That would also prevent from spoiling the game's "atmosphere" with some stupid/vulgar players' names.

I'm glad you've enjoyed the game so far.

I'm also a fan of an Asimovian "human style" universe, and am also strongly leaning towards human Ancients, Industrialists, or Futurists. It makes the most sense, but I still need a realistic back story to explain what happened to the rest of the universe and why everyone's interested in archaeology now...

As for the player names, I'm torn. I really like the names I've come up with (even though many people probably don't know the awesome things many of these people have done... I'll give bonus points to anyone who can identify "Golumbek" without resorting to wikipedia), but I've started to see people start and restart the game until they get a name they like... which has me leaning towards presenting the player with a list of names and colours to choose from.

I also lean heavily towards an early radar strategy, though I usually have been going for two of Speed 3, Radar 3, Drive 3 or Cargo 3, whichever I can get first. (Though Radar/Speed/Tank/Drive/Cargo 2 makes more sense, doesn't it?)

Thanks for logging in here to give feedback. I do appreciate all the ideas and enthusiasm!

 

[zear_]

I'll give bonus points to anyone who can identify "Golumbek" without resorting to wikipedia

Well, a "gołąbek (golombek)" is polish for "little pidgeon", but I have no idea who that person was

 

[fusion_power]

I also might need Germans to test the new chat feature. I realized late last night that my keyboard buffer routine (using SDL_KEYDOWN events) might only work for English keyboards... I want to make sure that works correctly out of the box next week.

As far as the letters Ä, Ö, Ü, ß work, everything is OK.
For Multiplayer I also would vote for free name entry. If I play online against someone from the froums I want to know that.
Because this Game donesn't need a big storyline, nobody should care if we use "stupid names" or something. The prdefined names can stay for Single-Player.

Oh, my bst Single Player time was 17:59 so far, I had luck to start in a sector with many stars...and the main Sector also included the Artifact, I hadn't to travel that far... ^_^

 

[Klaus]

If some of the arch folks, or the 64-bit folks had an SDL dev environment, and would be willing to just compile the code rather than distributing it on me, I'd be happy to loan out the code for a bit so we could have a binary more people could use.

I should be able to compile an Arch build and provide an Arch-package for SPriG. Unfortunately I am very busy this week with work and studying for this semesters exams, I probably won't find time before the weekend.

 

[queryno4]

Greetings!

Trevor, I'm here today with what I think might be a clue to the issue regarding the server 'temporarily hanging'...

I've been playing this game in a relatively large portion of my spare time lately (despite my lack of such time... it's a great and original game, and I applaud that). Anyways, while playing multiplayer, just within the past half hour or so (at about 5:30pm US EST), sure enough, I found the artifact, however the game failed to do it's little 'countdown' to the next round. I had fun, visited other players as they came and left, collected well over M$10,000, and ended up following some guy through most of his quest to find the artifact because I was bored.

Point is, despite having traveled to the star that contained the desired artifact several times, partly in attempting to direct my new 'friend', the game continued 'till my 'friend' reached that same star. I had been sitting on the star next to it, and the moment they reached the Artifact, the usual message about another player willing came up, and the timer started ticking as it should have a while beforehand (20,15,10...). Perhaps this helps explain the 'temporary hanging' somehow...

Haha, this is why I avoid replying in forums... I talk too much and jumble things up. I can try to be of further assistance in any way with details from my 'experience' or whatever else if needed, though.

--q

 

[TrevorBradley]

CODE
2009/01/26 14:15:07 [ID# 1] (76.15.105.196) >> SHIP 21828.268 30612.715 22419.314 30663.203 10 10 10 9 10 9
2009/01/26 14:15:07 << SHIP 1 21828.268 30612.715 22419.314 30663.203 10 10 10 9 10 9
2009/01/26 14:15:09 [ID# 1] (76.15.105.196) >> SHIP 22419.314 30663.203 22427.654 30688.348 10 10 10 9 10 9
2009/01/26 14:15:09 << SHIP 1 22419.314 30663.203 22427.654 30688.348 10 10 10 9 10 9
2009/01/26 14:15:13 [ID# 2] (75.57.251.183) >> SHIP -25092.027 9722.979 -25132.084 9725.588 8 10 2 1 1 3
2009/01/26 14:15:13 << SHIP 2 -25092.027 9722.979 -25132.084 9725.588 8 10 2 1 1 3
2009/01/26 14:15:21 [ID# 1] (76.15.105.196) >> SHIP 22427.654 30688.348 22354.576 30735.717 10 10 10 9 10 9
2009/01/26 14:15:21 << SHIP 1 22427.654 30688.348 22354.576 30735.717 10 10 10 9 10 9
2009/01/26 14:15:24 [ID# 1] (76.15.105.196) >> SHIP 22354.576 30735.717 22347.930 30749.082 10 10 10 9 10 9
2009/01/26 14:15:24 << SHIP 1 22354.576 30735.717 22347.930 30749.082 10 10 10 9 10 9
2009/01/26 14:19:44 [ID# 0] (82.15.254.150) >> DEAD
2009/01/26 14:19:44 << PART 0
2009/01/26 14:19:44 [ID# 1] (76.15.105.196) >> PLUN 70492284
2009/01/26 14:19:44 << PLUN 70492284
2009/01/26 14:19:44 [ID# 2] (75.57.251.183) >> ,<9E>%! `<88><E0><DD>0 2 1 2 5
2009/01/26 14:19:44 [ID# 1] (76.15.105.196) >> P 10 10
2009/01/26 14:19:45 [ID# 2] (75.57.251.183) >> SHIP -25075.984 9574.103 -25051.689 9559.351 8 10 2 1 2 5
2009/01/26 14:19:45 << SHIP 2 -25075.984 9574.103 -25051.689 9559.351 8 10 2 1 2 5
2009/01/26 14:19:49 [ID# 2] (75.57.251.183) >> PLUN 52497396
2009/01/26 14:19:49 << PLUN 52497396
2009/01/26 14:19:54 [ID# 2] (75.57.251.183) >> SHIP -25051.689 9559.351 -25063.062 9541.292 8 10 2 1 2 5
2009/01/26 14:19:54 << SHIP 2 -25051.689 9559.351 -25063.062 9541.292 8 10 2 1 2 5
2009/01/26 14:19:56 [ID# 1] (76.15.105.196) >> SHIP 3706.710 -11095.402 3695.741 -11127.504 10 10 10 10 10 10
2009/01/26 14:19:56 << SHIP 1 3706.710 -11095.402 3695.741 -11127.504 10 10 10 10 10 10
2009/01/26 14:19:56 [ID# 2] (75.57.251.183) >> PLUN 52495209
2009/01/26 14:19:56 << PLUN 52495209
2009/01/26 14:19:56 [ID# 1] (76.15.105.196) >> PLUN 40075893
2009/01/26 14:19:56 << PLUN 40075893



The server was hung for about four minutes around 14;15 PST (GMT-8h), and came back with a dump of data and the two lines of garbage above:

CODE

2009/01/26 14:19:44 [ID# 2] (75.57.251.183) >> ,<9E>%! `<88><E0><DD>0 2 1 2 5
2009/01/26 14:19:44 [ID# 1] (76.15.105.196) >> P 10 10


The game would behave this way if you won the game in that 4 minute window... you'd keep playing and when things came back online 4 minutes later, people would start moving again and they'd be the one to win...

The question is, what the heck happened in those four minutes? Did the server hang of its own accord, or was there something a player did to cause it to seize up?

Lemme check my other server logs to ensure nothing weird was going on at that time. That's the server hang I'm looking for, but I need to catch it in the act, and I was out hunting the city for printer toner...

In the past, the hard crash came soon after the soft one.. I'll keep a close eye out.

 

[jook2oh]

why everyone's interested in archaeology now...

Ok, I got a suggestion, with the usually use-what-you-like-and-leave-what-you-don't-like disclaimer.

Futurists; Their progress in future technology has left them in want of "humanity" (using the term loosely here, as its presently unconfirmed) and they are searching for "fun" things they, as a civilization, had forgotten.

Industrialists; Maybe their race had dreams "lost to time" (so to speak) and now they have the ability to make those dreams a reality... and profit off of them.

Ancients; They think they know about their past, and where they came from, but afraid of unscrupulous historians of yore, want to find out for themselves what actually happened. :huh:

My two cents, now for two more:

Great game, keep up the good work. And a few things that might be considered.

* I get 3 fps with maxed radar in the center of the galaxy.

* I can beat the game, when I'm actually trying, in 9 to 12 minutes consistently (without lucky starts).

** I tried searching for cheats on the money, level of upgrades, and usage of fuel. None work. Good security. (Haven't yet tried packet falsifying or using an assembler modifier on the executable.)

-------------------------------------------------
Some hints/tips that help me: (Keep in mind I get poor framerate, and can still get good winning times)

* The best choice for clues, In my opinion, is the Industrialist $$ and $$$ or the Futurist $$$. None of the other clues ever really help, unless you get really "lucky".

* Stat build that works for me: ('early game' is before the big search | 'end game' the big search)
- Radar higher than everything else, but don't max it, leave at 9
(Zooming out one sector and waiting for a full sweep is too time consuming, its quicker to just jump sectors.)
- Speed, for the early game 4 to 6, for the end game 9 or 10.
- Drive, 3 or 4 in the early game, then maxed at the end.
- Cargo, 2 or 3 as soon as possible, then later 7 or 8. (Do cargo runs, $$ or $$$, fill up inventory then sell for highest bidder, to make the most money the fastest.)
- Tank, 1 or 2 for the early game, never more. Then 9 or 10 at the end game.

* If there aren't very many $$ or $$$ where you are, you can 'migrate' to a more dense spiral arm, maybe buying more 'tank' for a quicker trip. (Never go to the core, unless you have a 'nice' computer, and prefer mouse control)
-------------------------------------------------

I only check this forum once a day, but I don't mind reading all the new posts, there sure are alot. Plus, if I annoy/irritate anyone, tell me to shudup... cause I can keep typing and typing and typing and typing... And sorry for my talkative nature. But this is a great game, one of the best I've seen in awhile.

How bout one more idea for the road: there needs to be something else to do with all that money, maybe if you have over $500 then pirates will pop-up randomly out of nowhere and steal most of it, also randomly downgrading a system or two by a level or two.

Oh and almost forgot:

...but I've been on disability for the past year and a half... ...between the hours of midnight and 3am when the pain is so bad I couldn't sleep anyways...

I'm glad you can do something for the pain. And I hope you get better someday. I'd send you a "Get Well Card"... but that would be creepy, and not help.

 

[TrevorBradley]

As far as the letters Ä, Ö, Ü, ß work, everything is OK.

Presently I'm trying to use SDL_KEYDOWN events for the keyboard. Deep down I know I'm doing something exceptionally dumb, and there has to be some other non-blocking way of taking in keyboard input.

I don't think the SDL_gfx primitives fonts come with German characters either, so I should likely not just worry about it until a later release.

 

[TrevorBradley]

Very quickly...

* The best choice for clues, In my opinion, is the Industrialist $$ and $$$ or the Futurist $$$. None of the other clues ever really help, unless you get really "lucky".

This screams out that the Ancient artifacts need to be tuned to be more useful. Though I've often found Ancient $$$ + Industrialist $$$ to be very useful.

I could also tune proportions. At the moment:

Every 11th star in the galaxy has an artifact.
Exactly one third have Ancient, one third Industrialist, one third Futurist.
70% of the artifacts are cheap ($), 20% are medium value ($$) and 10% are rare ($$$)

This is crucial information for tuning the game, and I appreciate those people who are grinding through the game and finding out what's overpowerful and what's too weak.

Now, back to the server hangs. The log data has provided some critical clues as to what's going on. Namely it's not some sort of encryption flaw or missing data transmitted over TCP. Each of these periods of inactivity is followed by a huge chunk of data, which universally starts with a DEAD log item, meaning a player has quit without saying "PART" (or a more polite "goodbye" to the other players).

I had a good look at the server networking code (especially the bit that says the client is DEAD), and the SDLNet documentation, and I could have sworn I read that that SDLNet_TCP_Send and SDLNet_TCP_Recv were non-blocking, which appears to be a viscous viscous lie. I'm going to both re-write this code to be properly multi-threaded, and also to watch for when this might be blocking so I can get a better sense as to what's going on.

This might also explain why the game hangs when the server is hung as well... it's waiting for a reply which never comes...

I'm still not sure why the log data is corrupted like that though. It looks like some sort of buffer overrun or near segmentation fault, but I can't be sure. (Damn C++ for not just crashing outright when memory leaks like this).

I've got a good chunk of tasks for Release C now. I'll see if I can get it this weekend, if not next weekend...

 

[jook2oh]

...I've often found Ancient $$$ + Industrialist $$$ to be very useful...

True, very true. But for a $$$ artifact, its not refined enough for my taste. Its way too random to be consistently trustworthy. But if you got a few, its a fun lottery to try.

From a math standpoint, the I-$$ cuts the possible zone to 1/4, the I-$$$ to 1/8, and the F-$$$ to 1/9th respectively. So if you would modify its usefulness, maybe some simple circle math so that it cuts the possible zone to 1/7 its original size. The F-$$$'s 1/9 is still the best, imagine a Futurist $$$ + Industrialist $$$... you see how that would cut down the possibilities to 1/56 if used properly.

Full math, from my understanding anyway: (smaller fraction is better. As you can see some are more useful than others.)
I-$ 3/4 | I-$$ 1/4 | I-$$$ 1/8
F-$ 80/81 | F-$$ 8/9 | F-$$$ 1/9
A-$ 3/4? | A-$$ 3/4? | A-$$$ 1/2? (fluctuates too much to be sure)

Also:

Presently I'm trying to use SDL_KEYDOWN events for the keyboard.

Have you tried WM_KEYDOWN? Or would that confuse things for the Pandora release that primarily uses SDL functions?

I use:

CODE
switch (message)
{
case WM_KEYDOWN:
switch (wParam)
{
case VK_PLUS:x+=20;return 0;
}
return 0;
}

 

[TrevorBradley]

I'll get back to the artifact tuning in great detail in a minute. I agree it's way too rough at the moment for ancient stuff.

I'm working on tuning ship speed, with an eye to not really affect the early game, but slow things down in the late game.

The old formula for ship speed was:

Distance traveled/30ms = 0.04*2.5^(speed upgrade)

Which is the distance you'd move every 30ms frame... (multiply this linearly if your frame rate is lower).

I've changed this to 0.04*2.0^(speed upgrade)

and I'm now getting the following requirements to travel 50,000 ly at Speed10, Drive 10:

500L Fuel (same as before)
36 seconds

That's slow, but not unreasonable. It's 9.3 times slower at max speed than before. No change at level 1. In the early game, you're moving linear distances, so any exponential speed upgrade will still be pretty good. I can also tweak that linear factor 0.04 to increase/decrease all speeds at all levels.

Fuel Efficiency (Drive) is linear... You use half as much fuel at level 2, a third as much at level 3, until at max drive you're using only a tenth the fuel you were at Level 1. I think this has worked OK for now, except for a few newbies running out of fuel early on... but the threat of running out of fuel needs to be there.

I'm going to keep that single change in speed for now, as it's closer to where I want it to be, and I don't like changing multiple variables at once.

 

[TrevorBradley]

True, very true. But for a $$$ artifact, its not refined enough for my taste. Its way too random to be consistently trustworthy. But if you got a few, its a fun lottery to try.

From a math standpoint, the I-$$ cuts the possible zone to 1/4, the I-$$$ to 1/8, and the F-$$$ to 1/9th respectively. So if you would modify its usefulness, maybe some simple circle math so that it cuts the possible zone to 1/7 its original size. The F-$$$'s 1/9 is still the best, imagine a Futurist $$$ + Industrialist $$$... you see how that would cut down the possibilities to 1/56 if used properly.

Full math, from my understanding anyway: (smaller fraction is better. As you can see some are more useful than others.)
I-$ 3/4 | I-$$ 1/4 | I-$$$ 1/8
F-$ 80/81 | F-$$ 8/9 | F-$$$ 1/9
A-$ 3/4? | A-$$ 3/4? | A-$$$ 1/2? (fluctuates too much to be sure)

OK, time for a big old math breakdown.

I had done this math in the prototyping, trying to balance the different types, but along the way the Ancient stuff got gimped up. I had intended to tune these at some point but hadn't gotten around to it.

Here's the actual math on the information types:

inner radius = radius * x (where 0.0<x<1.0) rounded DOWN to nearest 1000, or 100 if within 1000ly.
outer radius = radius * x (where 1.0<x<2.0) rounded UP to nearest 1000, or 100 if within 2000ly.

A$: not within inner radius
A$$: within outer radius
A$$$: Same as A$+A$$ (I know, this is totally imbalanced, intended to make A$$$ more accurate than either A$ or A$$. Earlier version had this before I rewrote the code completely.)

I$ is as you describe: 1/4, 3/4, 7/8.. but not exactly (more on this in a sec)

Futurists compare your current sector with the artifact sector:
F$$$ corrects most significant digit
F$$ verifies most significant digit
F$ verifies most significant digit, then goes two more digits in

The thing is for futurists, the implementation is a bit messed. If you trade in an F$$, and they say "It's not in sector 81", then you *know* it's in sector 8. Yet this isn't shown on the map, and it should be.

The fractions you've given aren't exact because you're not necessarily at the center of the galaxy... an A$ or I$ could eliminate almost all the galaxy in the right place (I had an A$ eliminate almost everything when I was taking my screenshots for Release B.. ruined my pretty pictures.

OK, enough detail... how do we fix this?

A$$$ obviously needs to be more accurate. The easy fix is to make sure that the range is a bit more fixed, perhaps 0.2 times radius (so if you were told between 10000 and 12000 ly it could be anywhere in there, not just 11000 ly.

It's unclear how A$ and A$$ should be tuned then. I could turn down the accuracy.. perhaps max 0.5 radius instead of max 1 for range. I'm not sure about this solution though.. it means for A$$ there's an implied exclusion zone.

Industrialist artifacts are great, I don't think I need to change them. This makes I$ still the best of the cheap artifacts in the early game, but the other artifacts can be worth more in the late game

Futurists are OK... I think I need to ensure F$$ properly displays that exclusion zone (i.e. not in 91 means 1-8+91 are redded out). Maybe F$ should only go one more digit in for greater accuracy.

It would be ideal if A$ artifacts were really great at the end of the game for excluding areas... accuracy should get really tight in close quarters (no more "not within 0ly")

One more thing.. and people will hate me for this. I think the availability of $$$ artifacts should be reduced. Perhaps from 10% chance to 5%. That could be killer, but worth playtesting. It will slow down late gameplay for sure.

Have you tried WM_KEYDOWN? Or would that confuse things for the Pandora release that primarily uses SDL functions?

Never heard of it.. *google google google*

I think WM_KEYDOWN is Windows specific... Not entirely sure though.

EDIT: That's MUCH better. I think F$, F$$, A$$$ and heck even A$$ and A$ will be much more appealing now.

And yes, at 5% rich artifacts are still possible to find. I think it works and going to try it for Release C.

 

[fusion_power]

As far as the letters Ä, Ö, Ü, ß work, everything is OK.

Presently I'm trying to use SDL_KEYDOWN events for the keyboard. Deep down I know I'm doing something exceptionally dumb, and there has to be some other non-blocking way of taking in keyboard input.

I don't think the SDL_gfx primitives fonts come with German characters either, so I should likely not just worry about it until a later release.


Wow, is this "SDL"really that limited, that it not support standard stuff like foreign letters "out of the Box" ? :huh:

Uh, there are Open Source Games...maybe there is some kind of Open Source Client-Server Netcode out there that works fine and just has to implemented in the Game? ^_^

 

[TrevorBradley]

Wow, is this "SDL"really that limited, that it not support standard stuff like foreign letters "out of the Box" ? :huh:

Uh, there are Open Source Games...maybe there is some kind of Open Source Client-Server Netcode out there that works fine and just has to implemented in the Game? ^_^

SDL is just fine. SDL actually checks for unicode characters, so I'd presume non-US 104 key keyboards would send unicode to the system.

The primitive bit here is SDL_gfx, which has onboard monospaced fonts. I'm uncertain if it has foreign language characters. I'd need to check. The other primitive bit here is me, for not having a German keyboard, and for implementing my keyboard buffer in this twisted, primitive way... There's got to be a better way to do it than essentially checking individual characters.. Lemme go ask on the dev board.

Fusion Power, If I whipped up a quick program tomorrow, could you poke away at those critical German characters and let me know what the magic numbers were for each one? Are you using Windows or Linux?

Actually, let's just try the real thing... Windows only for now (sorry Linux folks)...

That's a patch to your existing files... be sure to keep the old ones to go back to later...

http://games.randomlynx.net/GalacticArtifa...ct0252-TEST.rar

T is the command to chat.

I think I just made TheMonkey happy...

EDIT: I'd bet a Euro the German keys match up to the extended ASCII characters here:

http://www.nationalfinder.com/html/char-asc.htm

For instance, ß should be 223.

*stares at that page some more*. Is ß never capitalized? What happens if you hit Shift-ß on a keyboard?

EDIT2: I presume this is your keyboard?

http://carbon.cudenver.edu/~tphillip/german-keyboard-a.jpg

You hold down the Alt-Gr button get the alternate third keystroke (e.g. ß, ?, ). Alt-Gr should be code 313 (SDLK_MODE)

Ugh, this could be a mess. Let me go ask in the dev forum...

 

[TrevorBradley]

* I get 3 fps with maxed radar in the center of the galaxy.

I had a close look at FPS with max radar in the center of the galaxy and it's atrocious for me too, perhaps 7fps when using super radar zoomed out at the center. On my super fast machine it's taking 50ms to render *just* the radar with each frame.

The rest of it looks tolerable, even for zooming now with SpriG (which used to be the big issue).

I'll have a look at the Radar tomorrow and see if there's anything I can do to improve that fps.

TheMonkey, if you do download that SVN update, can you do me a favour and hit F10 while doing some different activities. Look in the stdout.txt file. It's a dump of how long various steps in each frame render take. It would help to know which things take too long to render. (This will slow down your game though).

All cheats are enabled on that last SVN, so don't expect a fair game on it.

 

[jook2oh]

I think I just made TheMonkey happy...

The intermediate release? Yes, very. Sadly I can't spend much time on it right now.

can you do me a favour and hit F10 while doing some different activities. Look in the stdout.txt file. It's a dump of how long various steps in each frame render take. It would help to know which things take too long to render.

With glee. Just not really right now... Ok, maybe a peek...

Hmm, the cheats are not working, oh well... anyway, here are a few logs:

At 525-3255:
CODE

Begining Loop 0 Basic Surfaces 1 Galaxy Surface 1 Radar Surface 40 Information Surface 35 Flip Begining Loop 1 Basic Surfaces 1 Galaxy Surface 0 Radar Surface 23 Information Surface 3 Flip Screen 0 Before Delay 0
Begining Loop 0 Basic Surfaces 2 Galaxy Surface 0 Radar Surface 85 Information Surface 4 Flip Screen 0 Before Delay 0
Begining Loop 0 Basic Surfaces 1 Galaxy Surface 1 Radar Surface 52 Information Surface 3 Flip Screen 0 Before Delay 0



At 555-5555:
CODE

Begining Loop 0 Basic Surfaces 1 Galaxy Surface 1 Radar Surface 216 Information Surface 4 Flip Screen 2 Before Delay 0
Begining Loop 0 Basic Surfaces 1 Galaxy Surface 1 Radar Surface 305 Information Surface 4 Flip Screen 2 Before Delay 0
Begining Loop 0 Basic Surfaces 1 Galaxy Surface 1 Radar Surface 206 Information Surface 3 Flip Screen 3 Before Delay 0
Begining Loop 0 Basic Surfaces 1 Galaxy Surface 2 Radar Surface 201 Information Surface 4 Flip Screen 2 Before Delay 0



At 555-5555: (Zoomed out one, with 10 radar)
CODE

Begining Loop 0 Basic Surfaces 2 Galaxy Surface 1 Radar Surface 338 Information Surface 3 Flip Screen 4 Before Delay 0
Begining Loop 0 Basic Surfaces 1 Galaxy Surface 2 Radar Surface 406 Information Surface 4 Flip Screen 2 Before Delay 1
Begining Loop 0 Basic Surfaces 2 Galaxy Surface 2 Radar Surface 432 Information Surface 4 Flip Screen 2 Before Delay 0
Begining Loop 0 Basic Surfaces 2 Galaxy Surface 1 Radar Surface 522 Information Surface 14 Flip Screen 2 Before Delay 0



Hmm, yup, its the scan... can I have a mini-release of your scan code?? Pweeze?

Edit: Forgot these;

At 555-5555: (Zoomed out one, with 10 radar, and in the red-zone)
CODE

Begining Loop 1 Basic Surfaces 1 Galaxy Surface 1 Radar Surface 331 Information Surface 41 Flip Screen 5 Before Delay 0
Begining Loop 0 Basic Surfaces 1 Galaxy Surface 1 Radar Surface 534 Information Surface 77 Flip Screen 2 Before Delay 1
Begining Loop 0 Basic Surfaces 2 Galaxy Surface 1 Radar Surface 417 Information Surface 44 Flip Screen 2 Before Delay 0
Begining Loop 0 Basic Surfaces 2 Galaxy Surface 1 Radar Surface 345 Information Surface 70 Flip Screen 2 Before Delay 0



At 555-5555: (in the red-zone)
CODE

Begining Loop 0 Basic Surfaces 2 Galaxy Surface 1 Radar Surface 248 Information Surface 41 Flip Screen 2 Before Delay 1
Begining Loop 0 Basic Surfaces 2 Galaxy Surface 1 Radar Surface 206 Information Surface 44 Flip Screen 2 Before Delay 0
Begining Loop 0 Basic Surfaces 2 Galaxy Surface 1 Radar Surface 219 Information Surface 42 Flip Screen 3 Before Delay 0
Begining Loop 0 Basic Surfaces 2 Galaxy Surface 1 Radar Surface 275 Information Surface 42 Flip Screen 2 Before Delay 0
Begining Loop 0 Basic Surfaces 2 Galaxy Surface 1 Radar Surface 196 Information Surface 43 Flip Screen 2 Before Delay 0



Edit2:
Wow. Now the balance of power has been shifted to the A-$ or A-$$$... I think you need to mess with the math, remember that the F-$$$ takes out 8/9ths of the possible zone, now with one A-$$$ artifact, you can take out 99/100ths of the whole map... then a I-$$ or I-$$$ does most of the rest. Plus the A-$ is now more useful than a A-$$. Not good. But I like that it actually does something now. Still needs tweaking though.

 

[azmodean]

Just an idea or two:

addressing the issue of becoming disoriented when crossing sector boundaries:
The problem I run into is when I need to cross a boundary, I zoom way out, then when I zoom into the adjacent sector I lose track of which system I intend to zoom into, a simple fix may be to implement a pointer to your ship that appears when the ship is offscreen, this would allow you to easily zoom into the appropriate system and afaik it would be easy to impliment. As a side note it could be one of the early computer upgrades to enable this.

I second the idea of "neutral" items, they could even have different properties than the other artifacts, such as being worth more $$$ and/or more common, but of course they can't be traded for artifact data.

A thought about starting out in sparse areas is introducing some means to move toward dense areas cheaply, but without a specific destination (although this would probably be better addressed by just starting in a less sparse area to start with)

A thought I had triggered by you mentioning your thought of having everyone start in the same location (which I think would be a great idea as an option at least) was an idea of having the server determine the sparseness of the starting location on a per-game basis, and having everyone start not at the same location, but a location with the same degree of sparseness, so you'd have some slow-start games where everyone is working their way toward the nearest arm to bootstrap to some upgrading, and also some hectic games where everyone starts near (or in?) the core and it's an all-out race where upgrades and reveals happen at a frantic pace.

Use what you like

 

[fusion_power]

Fusion Power, If I whipped up a quick program tomorrow, could you poke away at those critical German characters and let me know what the magic numbers were for each one? Are you using Windows or Linux?

Windows only. ^^

Uh, here is really heavy action, I have to read so much, very nice.
Like in the PM I wrote, that currently the special letters not working. I'm sure you can set your Windows/Linux to german keyboard layout and with the picture of the "correct" Layout you have your stuff very quickly.
Yes, "ß" never is capitalized because it never stands at first position in a word. It is calles "ESZETT" or "Sharp S" if you like and after the big german grammer revolution end of the 90's, it is more and more replaced by two "s".
Shift + ß simply brings the question mark "?" onto the screen, thats the reason why the ß stands in the row with the Numbers there are no capitals, just other special signs. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ß

So, I think I test the game a little bit. Someone mentioned the wotd "Cheats" here... uh...tell me more! I would like to practise my very poor searching skills and artifact handling, so I could need a maxed out ship for testing reasons. ^_^

 

[TrevorBradley]

Fusion Power, If I whipped up a quick program tomorrow, could you poke away at those critical German characters and let me know what the magic numbers were for each one? Are you using Windows or Linux?

Windows only. ^^

Uh, here is really heavy action, I have to read so much, very nice.
Like in the PM I wrote, that currently the special letters not working. I'm sure you can set your Windows/Linux to german keyboard layout and with the picture of the "correct" Layout you have your stuff very quickly.
Yes, "ß" never is capitalized because it never stands at first position in a word. It is calles "ESZETT" or "Sharp S" if you like and after the big german grammer revolution end of the 90's, it is more and more replaced by two "s".
Shift + ß simply brings the question mark "?" onto the screen, thats the reason why the ß stands in the row with the Numbers there are no capitals, just other special signs. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ß

So, I think I test the game a little bit. Someone mentioned the wotd "Cheats" here... uh...tell me more! I would like to practise my very poor searching skills and artifact handling, so I could need a maxed out ship for testing reasons. ^_^


The relevant cheats you're looking for are SHIFT-B and F9.

I had a Korean keyboard a while back, maybe should have kept it for testing purposes.

 

[TrevorBradley]

With glee. Just not really right now... Ok, maybe a peek...

Hmm, the cheats are not working, oh well... anyway, here are a few logs:

*stuff about framerates*

Edit2:
Wow. Now the balance of power has been shifted to the A-$ or A-$$$... I think you need to mess with the math, remember that the F-$$$ takes out 8/9ths of the possible zone, now with one A-$$$ artifact, you can take out 99/100ths of the whole map... then a I-$$ or I-$$$ does most of the rest. Plus the A-$ is now more useful than a A-$$. Not good. But I like that it actually does something now. Still needs tweaking though.

Don't spend time on my game when you've got other stuff to do!

Cheats should be working... Shift-B, F9 are the big ones.

I obviously need to look at the radar. Could you (when you have time!) also test zooming in.. the frame rates DURING the zooming, Level 0,1,2 might be slower than farther in because of the galaxy.

I can still tune.. If we want A$$$ to cut out only 8/9ths approx. let's see.. assume you're at the center, artifact is half way out (radius 25000) width is x*radius (x presently 0.1. Area of that is circumference*width =

area = circumference*width = 2*PI*radius * x*radius = 2*PI*x*radius^2

which should be 1/9 of total area.

2*PI*x*(25000)^2 = 1/9 * (100000)^2
x = (4^2)/(9*2*PI) = .283

so a 28% variance is, on average about the same as a F$$$ 1/9th. It will be worse farther out, and better farther in, but that's close enough. I'll aim for this instead of my present 10% variance. (25% might be a bit fairer as you don't know which way to go).

I'm not sure why A$ is better than A$$ now, other than it's easier to find and gives practically the same data by deduction. The variance on these is much greater... 50%, but perhaps I should do the same math as above for them. I also don't like that you can deduce on from the other and I'm going to have to look into this for tuning.

A$ should exclude 1/81, A$$ should exclude 1/9th.... I'll look into this. Maybe they should be reversed so that A$ was inverse?!? Hmm....

I second the idea of "neutral" items, they could even have different properties than the other artifacts, such as being worth more $$$ and/or more common, but of course they can't be traded for artifact data.

A quick reply to this. I'm radically opposed to "neutral" artifacts... there's no such thing. Artifacts are always valuable to someone.

HOWEVER, a thought occurred this morning. This could all be solved by finding a certain random quantity of money with each object (sort of like Dungeons and Dragons... you kill a goblin, gain 5XP and 5 gold coins). Speeds up the early game, doesn't affect the late game at all. Pricer artifacts give more M$. I really like this idea and think I'll go with it.