Had to remove the storms because they were screwing up my new training missions. Mission Chat information is still posted to the HUD, just in the green area under main chat where it fades out. The only thing that's certain to go to mission chat is the advancement log stuff (You got 123XP, yadda yadda).

For new missions, what info goes to mission chat is dependent on who writes the mission. For instance, we had to specifically make mission chat an optional thing (rather than simultaneous, the way it used to be.. going to both Mission Log and the HUD chat text) because my new missions have so much text. You'd see an entire screenfull of stuff flash onto the HUD and then disappear, which was very distracting and annoying. So.. now missions can update chat when they choose to via a special directive, and otherwise mission updates just go to the Log.

In the long run, the Log is what it's all about anyhow.. that's where we're going to be adding your active Objective list and stuff like that. I know it was convenient to just flip over to mission chat and see the text on the HUD.. but a lot of it is now formatted for the Log-panel, so it's way more text than would fit in HUD chat anyhow.

Make sense?

wow... I think all the tutorial missions are *very* much improved... I especially loved the overlay boxes on the mandatory one; I had no idea something like that was even possible in the current LUA system

one thing, though... after my flight test I still see the old "basic" training (I assume that's intentional), but I'm not seeing any of the advanced training missions that were discussed... (mining, trading, and I assume wormhole travel)... have those been written yet??

I worked throught the 5 tutorial missions and the test , and like thuisaz I was very impressed.

One minor point , I did the missions in Sol, The test mission ( during the nav tests) sent me to sector A12 , which has Apu 5 guardians.

Ecka the pretend noob

The Advanced Training missions haven't been written yet. I have part of one done, but I need more featured in the mission editor to make the Mining one, and so forth.

Thanks for the heads up on the aputech thing. I figured I would just send them to a random asteroid field to wait and fend for themselves, but some of the fields might be a bit over the top.

The new tutorials seemed really good to me. Had the same issue with Apu 5's in a Dau sector.

The changes to the UI have all taken me a bit to get used to, but they end up being comfortable eventually. I'm sure this version will be the same.

noticed i cant use the old hud guess ill have to learn how to make skins now

Just an idea for a future mission--what if there were missions where you had to serve as an instructor to "newbie" bots?

How long have we been asking for low/no-damage weapons? Well, now we've got 'em! Training Drone weaponse ftw!

Yeah, I swear, once we get player-controlled cappies, I'm going to take a Connie and have a contest where everyone has to kill it using training blasters. Last person to get bored and wander off wins!

Training drone weapons, while nice in the repeat rate (.15 s) and energy usage department (10/shot), suck when it comes to speed (110 m/s), and, most importantly, they have the spray of a gatling cannon. I'm unsure, but for training, this might not be the right thing...

I'm with toshiro on this. The training weapons should behave as close to real weapons as possible. How about making them the exact same as a hive blaster, except for the damage?

Other than that, awesome release!

Uhh, guys, I cloned the standard Orun Collector weapon and changed only the damage. So it is a "real" weapon. But I agree, the dispersion is a little nuts, I'll tweak that next week.

not sure how difficult it would be buit perhaps there should be a training version of every gun. from my limited perspective it seems that it shouldent be *too* hard just call it training neutron blaster or training gauss cannon etc

also is anybody fairley good at skinning thats interested in making a skin to resemble the old hud? The new hud is quite distracting to me

Only problem you'll have is that the distance bar will be up by the crosshairs and not down by the bottom.

I don't think there should be a training version of everything. One training gun, maybe a training version of a rocket or missile (dummy warhead), that's it. You've got to get rid of the training wheels sometime.

Well, that; and we don't want people not killing each other, now do we? ;)

"In the long run, the Log is what it's all about anyhow.. that's where we're going to be adding your active Objective list"
- It would be really nice to be able to keep some kind of active objective list (a shortened one if necessary) on the HUD.

"I figured I would just send them to a random asteroid field..."
- I think it would be good to send them to a specific Orun-only asteroid sector (newbies can have an easier time meeting other newbies) and the tutorial(s) should give additional information about the Hive (at least in general and details on a few early bots).

Seconded. If I were a newbie playing the tutorial for the first time, I would like to be sent to a sector where a couple other newbies are similarly figuring things out for the first time. It would help to learn the game, and to bring the community together.

Yes, I'd also like newbies to be sent to the exact same sector every time, would be much easier for people like myself to find them if they are annoying :P or people like Lecter to find when he;s on a tani baby eating spree, or when some bored guy wants to up his kill count, or a nice place for genka to hang!

It's true, that could be a problem. If it is an official training zone, though, it should definately be policed. If there are not enough mentors in the area to help defend the newbies, then an NPC strike force or two should make regular appearances, regulated by how many newbies are in the sector at a time. Lets say, if the sector has a population of <3, a small strike force is in the sector about half the time, to enforce no firing on players except by bots. Population is 3-5, the small strike force makes a permanent patrol (in shifts). If the population is >5, then a large strike force does the job. It might be more than the AI can handle, but it would also be cool if the strike force monitored damage levels of players and came to their aid when their armor got to less than 20%.