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*** Vendetta 1.8.58
- Reworked Training Missions for new players.
- Three new PCC missions, branched from Orun Processor tree.
- Border Skirmish capship positional tweaks.
- Updated Voice Chat library.
- Reworked Training Missions for new players.
- Three new PCC missions, branched from Orun Processor tree.
- Border Skirmish capship positional tweaks.
- Updated Voice Chat library.
Thanks to Phaserlight for the new Dentek-core PCC missions.
New training missions are still offline right now, trying to get those finished up.
New training missions are still offline right now, trying to get those finished up.
Early reports indicate that the bug, causing a crash for some amd64 users when enabling voice chat, has been fixed by the new library. Please let us know if you experience it, or any voice chat problems you might think of as old news.
Ok, I had to do some last-minute mission-juggling, but the newbie-sector Training missions are now updated and improved (I think).
I welcome feedback on the new Training stuff. It isn't all finished yet.. we still have to do a bunch of other special-case crap, but I think it's an improvement. I tried to make the tutorials less "wordy", per prior criticism, and get people to the Action a lot faster.
I welcome feedback on the new Training stuff. It isn't all finished yet.. we still have to do a bunch of other special-case crap, but I think it's an improvement. I tried to make the tutorials less "wordy", per prior criticism, and get people to the Action a lot faster.
I created a trial alt and worked through the new training missions. They are generally very good, though perhaps a little long term work on the text is needed. For instance the distance meter is described as a "graph".
I did notice that training IV Station Interface stays visible as a mission after it is completed. This is probably a good thing, it contains a lot of text and lets newer players refer back to it.
One idea I did have for the longer term would be to have a "VO pilots Manual" printable from in game or the start screen. I know that someone in windowed mode could refer to the manual on the website, but a neat printable one with all the useful vo commands and the like in it might ease the steepness of the learning curve.
Anyway, good progress Devs.
I did notice that training IV Station Interface stays visible as a mission after it is completed. This is probably a good thing, it contains a lot of text and lets newer players refer back to it.
One idea I did have for the longer term would be to have a "VO pilots Manual" printable from in game or the start screen. I know that someone in windowed mode could refer to the manual on the website, but a neat printable one with all the useful vo commands and the like in it might ease the steepness of the learning curve.
Anyway, good progress Devs.
Border Skirmish
14 Feb 2009 1400
Had some trouble taking down shields; don't think all hits were registering. This usually happens when attacking Teradons now. Maybe a problem with missiles impacting too close together in time while all those turrets are firing? I hit one Teradon with a perfect stack of Chaos Swarms and Geminis (big blue blob on the radar) and its shields only went down to 70%. Only two PCs in the sector for most of the battle; one on each side.
Tridents slightly more frisky with the odd one going off solo to attack the opposing side's HAC group, usually to die uselessly. Would like to see strike groups forming near HAC and then attacking the opposing sides HAC at the same time.
Same problem with the reinforcement schedule favoring the Itani; Itani reinforcements always arrive before the Serco reinforcements. Perhaps alternating or randomizing the schedule? Or make it time-dependent based on when the last ship of a certain class is destroyed - more time for bigger ship and with a slight random time factor? As it is now, the reinforcement schedule is predictable and can be meta-gamed by selectively *not* destroying certain ships when you know the next wave is about to arrive and thus preventing the opposing side from getting a new, undamaged Connie or Teradon. (However, this isn't always the best strategy as the mission progresses since the objective is to cause as many casualties as possible and more enemy ships means more enemy casualties.)
Itani Teradon still jumping in on top of the Serco HAC. Usual scenario is: Itani Teradon jumps in and causes major damage to Serco ships; eventually Serco Teradon jumps in and kills Itani Teradon but takes significant damage to front-firing turrets; Serco Teradon attempts to attack Itani HAC and fails miserably without support from other ships. Or both Teradons destroy each other in a mutual blaze of glory. After five waves of reinforcements, I saw the first scenario four times and the second scenario, once.
With battles mostly being determined by the actions of Teradons and the usual scenario as described in the previous paragraphs, missions last longer and the Serco usually loose absent major PC intervention. The nearest Serco station being over twice as far as the Itani's doesn't help and makes recovering from the loss of the Serco HAC almost impossible.
With only the Teradon being of any consequence and the other cap ships either not attacking or going kamikaze to no effect, its hard to feel part of a real battle. Before, the ships might be scattered all over the sector but they would try to reinforce each other and attack the enemy HAC en mass when there were no other enemy cap ships left. I like how the cap ships now group near their HAC but more aggression is needed once the group is formed.
I know some of the above is old news but I'm just putting all my thoughts about the last BS down in one place. Overall, an improvement but more tweaking needed, I'd say. Cheers!
P.S. Maybe putting the docking port of the HAC at the centroid of the ship was not such a good idea.
EDIT: More on reinforcement schedule. Last BS had Serco ahead by a HAC after third wave but then four Itani cap ships showed up as scheduled and almost killed the Serco HAC (it was the only target at that time); eventually the Serco reinforcements trickled in one-by-one - often getting severely damaged from the concentrated fire of the Itani forces as they engaged.
14 Feb 2009 1400
Had some trouble taking down shields; don't think all hits were registering. This usually happens when attacking Teradons now. Maybe a problem with missiles impacting too close together in time while all those turrets are firing? I hit one Teradon with a perfect stack of Chaos Swarms and Geminis (big blue blob on the radar) and its shields only went down to 70%. Only two PCs in the sector for most of the battle; one on each side.
Tridents slightly more frisky with the odd one going off solo to attack the opposing side's HAC group, usually to die uselessly. Would like to see strike groups forming near HAC and then attacking the opposing sides HAC at the same time.
Same problem with the reinforcement schedule favoring the Itani; Itani reinforcements always arrive before the Serco reinforcements. Perhaps alternating or randomizing the schedule? Or make it time-dependent based on when the last ship of a certain class is destroyed - more time for bigger ship and with a slight random time factor? As it is now, the reinforcement schedule is predictable and can be meta-gamed by selectively *not* destroying certain ships when you know the next wave is about to arrive and thus preventing the opposing side from getting a new, undamaged Connie or Teradon. (However, this isn't always the best strategy as the mission progresses since the objective is to cause as many casualties as possible and more enemy ships means more enemy casualties.)
Itani Teradon still jumping in on top of the Serco HAC. Usual scenario is: Itani Teradon jumps in and causes major damage to Serco ships; eventually Serco Teradon jumps in and kills Itani Teradon but takes significant damage to front-firing turrets; Serco Teradon attempts to attack Itani HAC and fails miserably without support from other ships. Or both Teradons destroy each other in a mutual blaze of glory. After five waves of reinforcements, I saw the first scenario four times and the second scenario, once.
With battles mostly being determined by the actions of Teradons and the usual scenario as described in the previous paragraphs, missions last longer and the Serco usually loose absent major PC intervention. The nearest Serco station being over twice as far as the Itani's doesn't help and makes recovering from the loss of the Serco HAC almost impossible.
With only the Teradon being of any consequence and the other cap ships either not attacking or going kamikaze to no effect, its hard to feel part of a real battle. Before, the ships might be scattered all over the sector but they would try to reinforce each other and attack the enemy HAC en mass when there were no other enemy cap ships left. I like how the cap ships now group near their HAC but more aggression is needed once the group is formed.
I know some of the above is old news but I'm just putting all my thoughts about the last BS down in one place. Overall, an improvement but more tweaking needed, I'd say. Cheers!
P.S. Maybe putting the docking port of the HAC at the centroid of the ship was not such a good idea.
EDIT: More on reinforcement schedule. Last BS had Serco ahead by a HAC after third wave but then four Itani cap ships showed up as scheduled and almost killed the Serco HAC (it was the only target at that time); eventually the Serco reinforcements trickled in one-by-one - often getting severely damaged from the concentrated fire of the Itani forces as they engaged.
sounds like some fuzzy logic needs to be used on the hac vessal logic...IE multiple attack patterns chosen semi randomly.
When I tried enabling voice chat on 64bit Fedora 10 I got an error message saying "Unable to enable Voice Chat. Voice Chat initialization failed."
errors.log contained the following details:
Voice Chat loaded.
Error opening playback device: 0x00000907Voice Chat failed to initialize: no scHandlerID
Initializing Voice Chat with default settings.
Error opening playback device: 0x00000907Voice Chat failed to initialize.
errors.log contained the following details:
Voice Chat loaded.
Error opening playback device: 0x00000907Voice Chat failed to initialize: no scHandlerID
Initializing Voice Chat with default settings.
Error opening playback device: 0x00000907Voice Chat failed to initialize.
I also went through all of the training missions on an alt, very good, as ecka stated some things are worded badly. Although i really like the structure of the new missions and the new player sector helps alot.
It may have been that i new what i was doing but i did all of the tutorials very quickly in the training sector, since most of it was reading, i guess the plan is for them to leave the new player sector rather quickly and go to the capitol
It may have been that i new what i was doing but i did all of the tutorials very quickly in the training sector, since most of it was reading, i guess the plan is for them to leave the new player sector rather quickly and go to the capitol
Something new in this version in windowed mode: When I command-tab into different applications, then start clicking around, I fire in VO. This is the first version of VO this has happened in for me.
Not a game-stopper, but it does make for some awkward sector-chatter.
Not a game-stopper, but it does make for some awkward sector-chatter.
Hurray! Voice-chat works! Nice job, devs!
This release also broke system notes.
good
As of the Dentek-core missions ... well, everyone want to see the wingman in action ... but a faction standing loss for it? Moreover, he got killed by the second Dentek he attacked.
OK, now I am going to take some procurements to get my PoS back.
OK, now I am going to take some procurements to get my PoS back.
The faction loss is minimal (numerical value edited out when the wingman dies), and is there to prevent the wingman from being abused. I found in tests that with neutral standing the faction gains from bots just about balance the faction loss from losing a wingman. If you want to keep your POS standing I'd advise against using the wingman. If you manage to keep the wingman alive for five minutes he will warp out on his own with no faction loss.
A lot of my missions will do things to your faction standing, some good some bad. I should also note that there is a large faction loss for losing the Trident in the final mission, and a larger reward for winning. In either case you get paid 20k credits.
Also keep in mind the game begins to scale rewards once you are admired so that it's easier to lose faction than to gain it.
A lot of my missions will do things to your faction standing, some good some bad. I should also note that there is a large faction loss for losing the Trident in the final mission, and a larger reward for winning. In either case you get paid 20k credits.
Also keep in mind the game begins to scale rewards once you are admired so that it's easier to lose faction than to gain it.
Well, you should put a bold warning there then.
Actually I lost 4 pts.
1) I have finished the mission, succeeded, and I ended up with minus on faction. What the hell?! You should give it back in the end.
2) You call it wingman. It is supposed to be able to fight and help me not get killed by second Dentek. It is rather a baby you have to take care about.
3) Yes, scaling ... I am working for second hour now to get back these "minimal" 4 points. Thank you very much for your mission. Taking next procurement ...
Actually I lost 4 pts.
1) I have finished the mission, succeeded, and I ended up with minus on faction. What the hell?! You should give it back in the end.
2) You call it wingman. It is supposed to be able to fight and help me not get killed by second Dentek. It is rather a baby you have to take care about.
3) Yes, scaling ... I am working for second hour now to get back these "minimal" 4 points. Thank you very much for your mission. Taking next procurement ...
"Well, you should put a bold warning there then."
Infinitis, this is the best I can do for now:
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/1/20448
The above is kind of my pet thread and would probably be the best place for further feedback.
Infinitis, this is the best I can do for now:
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/1/20448
The above is kind of my pet thread and would probably be the best place for further feedback.
Yes, please take the mission-specific discussion to that thread.
I have the same problem as Aticephyr.
EDIT: Scratch that, all keyboard/mouse hits are being registered in VO when it's not the active application! It's copying this text into the chatbox as I write it. O.o
EDIT: Scratch that, all keyboard/mouse hits are being registered in VO when it's not the active application! It's copying this text into the chatbox as I write it. O.o
We're looking into the Mac window-focus issue. Very strange. We didn't think we changed.. anything.