Doc Savage NDMF

I'd not want to be able to use the crew in the pods unless we get Med Bay blocks to enable removal of the crew from stasis in the pods. That's a whole nother layer on top of what I'd like to see, and that depends on how deep down the rabbit hole the developer wants to go. My suggestion is a way to handle it without a lot of complexity using already in game components. It appears to me we're going to have boarding and ship defense. There's already pieces of it in the game, the mechanic just isn't in yet. That's going to have POW implications, unless it's mandated every contest be a fight to the death so no survivors for the losing side; which is what I'm asking be addressed for the sailors on ships that get blown up now. They all just get dead and salvaged. Taking over a boarded ship successfully brings about a ton of new challenges and decisions concerning crew and hiring and I look forward to it. But it still won't address all those ships that just get blown up... Cheers..!

I could see where an empty sector time elimination could be a game play thing. I definitely like the idea of the computer blocks enabling faster computation/shorter jump plotting times. I don't want the times to go away though TBH. Why..? Well, why are you jumping to empty sectors..? By the time I get to jumping around I have cards that show me yellow dots and green dots and far(ther) away dots and system gate dots. There's maybe a handful of times I'm jumping to a sector with nothing in it on my way to somewhere. And only because it's one of the few times there's nothing between me and whatever it is I'm trying to get to. Getting through the systems, plotting routes, using any and all cards I can... It's a layer of the game I like. Sure I get the time waiting for that dang bar to fill up and waiting for a plot. To me, that means hitting the map and planning the next jump as soon as I hit space and getting aggressive with having cards that enable me to plot better jumps. That and simply avoiding empty sectors so I always have something to do. Worst case Pirates or Aliens aren't far away, and there's always a bladder run that needs doing... At the end of the day, I control whether I jump into empty space. If I decide to do so, I do so knowing full well I'm going to have to wait for the next jump plot and the (hopefully card boosted) warp bar to fill back up before I can move on. To me that's a good thing, not a bad one. It adds a dimension of work smarter not harder and rewards good card choices and acquisition. Definitely want that computer block help though. But only a % helper with a cap. Computers gotta compute, it should never be instant. If the empty sector thing is ever implemented, I hope there's an off switch. As always, YMMV. Cheers..!!

How do I manage..? Short answer: I don't. I don't "try" to have fun. I accept the fact some other people will always build better than I, play better than I and finish the game faster than I. For me, the fun goes away when I start worrying or comparing myself to other players, so I don't do that. If you really want pretty ships, there are many available to download and place in your game. If you want to learn how they do it, grab a small one. Take it apart in the builder and see what they used and how. From there, picture anything you think looks cool. An old car, a ship, a plane, an animal, your mom... Take what you learned from the ship you downloaded and go for it. For the record, I build bricks too. Big, flying fortress bricks that knock ships out of the sky. No one in my universe likes seeing my brick with it's angled snout and '59 Caddy fins coming at them at full speed with every gun blazing. As I get used to the builder, I'll work into bigger, better and badder things. One or two might even look OK. (ish) In my view of the galaxy, bricks and boxes and utilitarian containers would likely rule the skies. Science may have gotten us there, but commerce will keep us there. Businesses aren't about building pretty trailers for semis, beautiful containers for ship and rail or warehouses that look like mansions. As I see the future of things, my bricks fit right in. If we start hauling passengers, well that's a whole nother story... Even I will learn pretty for that. There's no shame in learning. Grab a couple ships, some ideas and play around in the sandbox galaxy. You'll get there. Cheers..!

After placing a couple blocks and 3 or 4 copy/paste actions I went to start placing the blocks in the corner under the red one: There are two invisible blocks under there. I immediately saved the ship design, exited the builder and the game. Hopefully there's something there... Log and 7-Zipped XML attached. Cheers..! clientlog_2017-04-04_12-52-14.txt ship4.zip

Reloaded today and ran into the Captain standing still and refusing to Salvage and got him to move the same way as yesterday. Issue in attached pics show the Ship gets too close to a piece of debris and the ship freezes because it can't get to the piece nor abort the process and move on. In pics 2 and 3, a secondary piece hiding also had to be removed after which the ship returned to working normally. In both cases removing the offending material caused the Captain to go back to work as normal. Cheers..! clientlog_2017-04-04_05-14-47.txt

One little bit of reality that bothers about this game is what happens to all the crews on the ships I blow up or salvage. What bothers me isn't the fact some of them end up deaded, what bothers me is no one even tries to get off the ships. We all (mostly) know this just isn't a game function, at least not yet. I have no idea if it's ever going to be, but some thoughts on an "easier" way to include it. The simplest way to do this IMHO is to usurp the cargo function when you're salvaging a freighter. When you do, it spits out cargo pods. It would seem logical and simple to have any "shot down" ships eject a number of life pods, which in reality could just be re-skinned cargo containers. Treat them as stasis pods, the crew inside are asleep. These would go into your cargo hold; meaning no cargo hold, no chance of rescue/reward. We get a pop up for no cargo space, we should be able to get a pop up for "do you want to pick up survivors" so players can role play evil grins and let them float. As for the pods: -First off: You can always drop anyone at any facility with the means to house/feed them for free; If you need the room, you need the room. No rewards are given for this. -Friendly/Places That Like You: Crew would need to be returned to a Shipyard or Repair facility. Reward given same as taking out Pirates as well as a faction boost for saving fellow sailors etc. -Pirates: Need to be taken to a Military Outpost for drinks...er...Interrogation. Reward for generic Pirates a small pence for each one. This also opens up the Electronic Bulletin Board to require picking up and returning __(insert name here)__ from the wipe out Pirates in sector missions to collect your bounty instead of never having to leave the sector afterwards and them taking your word for it. Both kinds of missions could be offered to spice up the game play and allow the simple missions to stay on board. -Aliens: They would drop very few pods, if any. Like all things Alien, finding the one or two that elevate over the collective "kill everything that moves that isn't us" mentality should be a somewhat rare occurrence. These should have to be turned over to a Research Facility and should pay handsomely... -Non Combatants should be always be picked up and can be dropped off at any facility. A Merchant should pay handsomely, however the reward can only be collected if they are returned to a facility that is run by their faction. We already get their home sector if we ask, this gives us an excuse to go there. Also, a Freight Company should pay nice as well if you return Crew/Cargo back to it's rightful owner; ie a facility run by the ship's home faction. Just some random thoughts on a pieces part of the game that would add a dimension by using as many assets as possible that are already in there. In addition to adding depth to the game play, this kind of stuff opens up a ton of room for story lines, role play and modding. As always, YMMV. Cheers..!

Nonsense... Who said they were allowed to sleep..? I've caught myself more than once wondering why no sector ships come out and salvage, pick up cargo floating around etc. Especially true in a faction war when a freighter captain tells the crew "nah, we'll be fine" the night before trying to traverse an enemy sector and getting all their collective buttockal regions blasted into the heavens. If twer my sector, a freighter would be hanging out poised and ready to collect any cargo spoils ASAP. And life boats/escape pods... What happened to all that crew my futuristic totally automated I'd actually just need like 5 people to fly but instead I have 50 dufusses hanging around the ship keeping me from getting to the galley and back..?? Do electron crewmen dream of electric Heaven/Valhalla/Space Dust Central when they die and are entombed on whatever craft they're on because there's no way out..? (There's no way out of here when you're in you're in for good... What a great battle cry that would make, eh..?) I'd so like to see life pods as a cargo drop from a ship that gets blown up... But, I digest... Cheers..!

The AI need a self preservation mode for sure, whether it's my captain happily whistling and mining away in oblivion (or more likely drunk off his gourd) while being pummeled by pirates/aliens or the herp a derp traveling explosion waiting to happen wanting me to stop the world(s) and come look at his/her/its stuff. They should be taught to stay still and let all that equipment I gave them do some work while we're at it... Cheers..!

I'm not for teleporting stuff... Makes freight pointless if you can do that at all. Makes mail just another screen. Messages I can see, but even then I'd rather have the fun of a mission where I absolutely, positively have to be there in a fortnight running high value important communiques. I may be looking at things a little off, but I would want as much diversity in mission types and have more things depend on the player and the ships than have all of it done for me and just sit around and blow stuff up. Don't get me wrong, blowing stuff up is glorious fun... But it gets old if that's all there is to do... Apologies if I misunderstood something... Cheers..!

This happened to me today. Happened a number of times when using copy/paste with larger blocks or sections. The blocks get pasted but are invisible. You can actually center mouse select and delete them away, and they are present on the ship. Sometimes pasting blocks in another section will make them appear. Sometimes I have to exit out of the builder and re-enter. The blocks will still be invisible, but will appear as soon as I start attaching other things. It's not a case of nothing there, just no textures appearing on the placed blocks from what I can see. Or not see... Most noticeable after I've done three or four sections, acts like it runs out of memory or something similar as pasting/deleting slows down quite a bit and it all starts to lag. Once the blocks appear, it seems to work OK until it does it again. Once it starts again it's a case of having to exit/re-enter the build mode. I have not had any crashes due to this, it's an inconvenience but it is recoverable with a little finagling. I haven't lost a ship design or anything either. Logs attached. Will the XML matter if the problem has been corrected on my current ship..? If it happens again that I have to exit the builder, I will exit the game and find the XML and post it hopefully with the invisible sections intact. Cheers..! clientlog_2017-04-03_07-49-12.txt

Update: Verified the game files just in case and got a new twist on this behavior. In all cases when the captain froze when salvaging today there was a piece of the ship he was tearing up very close to his ship. If I went over and started evaporating the small chunks around him, invariably as soon as I hit the magic chunk he went back to work. I didn't have any issues with traveling merchants today... But then again I only had a handful in the whole session. Cheers..!! clientlog_2017-04-03_07-49-12.txt

The fact we can actually see everything in a sector let alone talk with it instantly is a bit off. IRL the battles you see over there..? They happened hours ago. They were done before the light you see them by reached you. I think you should *have* to use mail for anything outside the sector you are in. I can fathom game play wise being able to see all in a sector and communicate with it. Sector to sector should need a special station at the gates at the very least, though that's sorta boring. In fact, one of the bulletin board jobs could/would/should be hauling the (electronic) mail. Bonuses for speed gentlemen. Gentlewomen. Gentle Alien Folk. You get the idea... Cheers..!

Some kind of "er" for sure... Don't see trade routes as necessary, random is fine. I suppose as depth for an AI I'll rarely talk to it would be nice. Not like I'm going to sit down to drinks and listen to them regale me with tales of their sales adventures... Depends on time/effort to code TBH, if it's too much I'd rather see simple random and spend that coding time elsewhere. I do think the maps for sale would/could/should be a thing, though just showing me star systems is a meh sale to me. Get me a map with wormholes or treasure and I've got a nice diversion. Make a few of those maps pirate ruses to lure ships out and we've got a deal... Cheers..!

But... But... That loot is mine... And I will blow you out of the figurative sky to get it. Best be making like your other AI brethren and move along. Unless making me more loot is your thing. Then by all means, come on in, the space dust is fine... ;D Cheers..!

Stuff is floating everywhere. Wrecks, pieces parts, life pods..? No, not yet... (pick them up, store in cargo hold, return to the nearest Military base or Shipyard for Faction niceness and a small reward...) Ships projectile vomiting, spitting lightning and laser fire everywhere you look. It's full on Faction brawl block war with a side of Pirates, and the large group of Aliens just showed up because that's what they do. And into this mess comes Dilbert T Yiojhgdbopudhfnpsvchgpmsrghepwrhgewpurhgp... "Hi everybody..! I here to sell stuff..! Come take a look..!" I wait patiently for the "dur hur" or something similar in whatever dialect of space speak they use... First off, if I'm living in my ship plying my wares sector by sector like poor Dilbert here, the absolute LAST thing I'm going to do is fly my Space-a-bego into a mess such as this. I don't care what you need. I don't care what my quotas are. I am not deading myself or risking a serious case of air deprivation by flying into the middle of hell off Earth. No... I'm turning right around and flying the hot place back to wherever I came from and going around. Secondly, I have to say I really dislike that they show up like clock work. Some things it's nice to be regular. This isn't one of them... When I can (almost) set my watch by them showing up that's too regular, too formulaic, too "gamey"... I realize this may be a down the road kind of thing, that there are priorities etc... But eventually this game will reach a point where how it does certain things will either set it apart or keep it as just another space opera light show with a side of explosion noises. This was one of the things Rebel Galaxy got both right and wrong. In the end, the game was the same over and over, and no matter how good that is it gets old. In the case of RG, that was pretty quick as there just wasn't any more to it. So how do we combat that..? One way is to make these seemingly innocuous chance meetings more diverse. Anytime you can make the mundane more interesting you add a little life cycle to the game's air scrubbers. (at least in my world...) How do we do that..? With some "simple" randomization to the encounters. For starters, pick a number between 1 and 10, multiply it by 3 and that's when they show up. Somewhere between 3 minutes and 30 minutes isn't an earth shattering wait for something that's more a bonus than a necessity. This kind of spawn shouldn't tax the system at an exorbitant rate, isn't hard to code compared to all the other complex sub routines yet makes a big difference in removing the stale same old same old from a galaxy play through. In addition it would be nice to have a couple different greetings as well. This is a place we can make a difference. I'd write a few. I'm sure others here would too. It's not like you need a metric ton. Five would work, ten would be better. Twenty would make it so it would take a long while before you realize they're repeating. We have enough people here that can string a few words together that can be copy pasted and plugged in. This too isn't a big coding deal, I did these in BASIC in high school back when the mainframe took up a room next to the library. Randomize a text string, jumble the timing a little and *spoof*; instant galaxy that feels that little bit more alive instead of obviously on a train schedule. Once you have something like this in place, it's not a stretch to work it into events for Pirates and Aliens as well. Times, number of ships and the lines they speak. Simple stuff, but so much more alive than 3 ships, 5 ships, small group, big group, mix and match. Them is my thoughts. As always YMMV. What do you think about it...? Cheers..!

In all honesty I prefer it overwrite everything. It may be a pain putting mods back in, but I always want some time in the base game for bugs and such. Mods enable some basic changes for awhile, and sometimes (such as the case of ordering a captain to salvage) make it in the base game proper; but too many put my focus on trying to play it as a finished game instead of looking at it objectively and trying to help the developer... And yah... The AI need some work, lol. They need to understand how to stay still and get work done and how to recognize and path around solid objects for starters. I took a screen of an AI freighter lodged in a station to the point it couldn't get out. Stayed there the whole time I was in the sector. Looked like it was using it as a garage. ;D Cheers..!

I don't think you have to possess "Kirk" level intelligence to realize you shouldn't just haul butt region through space towards the really big rocks or stations. I also don't think the game should be changed because people don't consider the following: WARNING: OBJECTS AHEAD OF YOU MAY BE MORE SOLID THAN THEY APPEAR Even though we're in space, these concepts aren't rocket science. Pob put it well. Boosting for too long, boosting without clear line of sight; it just isn't a good idea. That and accidental deaths can be reduced with slower speed around solid objects. Armor. Seriously, armor is your friend. When I get collision damage, 9 out of 10 times I'm replacing armor plate, not my whole ship. Also, 0.25 damage when creating your galaxy is a nice compromise. You get to feel a little pain repairing damage but you don't instantly go poof when the AI use your ship as an emergency brake (break) to dock at a station. What really needs to change is the documentation so players know they can actually change the values and what the values mean. I don't think this is even an issue if players know they don't have to suffer through this kind of game play if they don't want to by changing a setting or editing a single file. Cheers..!

As of r7857... -Using the ' to enter debug is not showing any failures of any kind. -Leaving for 5 minutes works most times, but not always. I noticed today that when the captain freezes/stops taking orders I'm getting a spawn merchant loop and I don't get a merchant ship. It's happened a few times now, always the same. Captained ship is ordered to salvage, he's frozen, I hit debug and see there's a spawn merchant event supposedly happening and he won't take commands. Happened a couple times to the point I'm actively looking for it anytime time the captain goes awry. A couple times I went after a loot drop that the captain was after. He doesn't like that either, if I get to it first he just gets confused. This one I haven't been able to 100% yet though as I always go to check the debug and nothing is there. Salvaging on the same ship can also loosen his grip on reality if I evaporate a block he wanted to process. I've taken to just staying away to see if it'll cut down on his mind wandering. As for the pirates and aliens, any shot of any weapon of any kind kicks the Aliens to Red. So, if I want to sit there and just watch and not do anything with any ship in the sector for awhile it's ok... I don't like to just sit around so it's inevitable the aliens just have to go. Tangendental Meditation: When the game updates, does it overwrite mods/modded files..? Curious as to official does/doesn'ts. Cheers..! clientlog_2017-04-02_07-23-42.txt

The "m" part in your equation... You're saying that your ship hurling (or crawling) into a cubic metric whale ton of mass should bounce off. At low speeds, Force wouldn't be high enough to buckle high strength shields, but anything over parking lot speeds likely would collapse, crush or otherwise collapse your barriers in a ship of moderate size. (of course depending on how much shield you're running) Damage 0.25 is indeed your friend. It's enough to pay for your mistakes but lose the constant threat of starting over every time you get close to something. On a tangent... I think the collisions in the game are a bit too bouncy. It's almost comical how fast things with large mass get sent flying. I'm wondering if there's an inertia component in how they start moving. If there is I'd like to up it so objects behave a little more like my large ship when starting that acceleration from being hit. May not be 100% real, but it would feel more so than the pinball feeling I get now when something gets whacked and spazzes instantaneously. Cheers..!

...and that's where I get in over my head with all the coding stuff. The 5 minute rule is good info, I'll make sure to allow that to pass before re-attempting any commands... However how does one leave the sector if the ship won't follow me out..? Is it a case where only I have to leave for the appointed 5 or so minutes..? (leaving the captain behind) There's always something else I can go do for a bit when I reach the point of heading onwards, upwards and ho to greener pastures and better metals. I can waste 5 minutes EZ... As for the rest, I don't build in systems where I'm not universally revered as a savior of the people and bestest buddies with all things I pass by in the system. I also ignore Aliens when they're purple (lavender???) when I'm doing other things. It bugs me that any stray shot will turn them instantly red, which is what kept happening today. I'd let the Xeno warrior princesses be for awhile and then Pirates would show up again. I'd build a bit while being fired upon, but eventually you just have to shut them up and then the Aliens suddenly perk up and feel the sudden need to come over and introduce themselves, show off their big guns and whatnot... I'd really like to have some of the more populated and patrolled home systems free from the endless cycle of wave after wave of cannon fodder. I'd also like to see bigger waves hit the outlying sectors harder... Part of the "terror" of a game like this is mixing things up a little instead of a constant grind. I'd like to have to actually pack up and run once in awhile as much as I'd like the chance to set a spell and build a little. Takes both to make it interesting IMHO. Anyway, approaching TMI limitations... Thanks for the help. :) Cheers..!

You're so fired. My Captain refuses to follow orders. At first he was OK, but then I told him to attack enemies when there were both Pirates and Aliens. He got all confussed and flustered and just sat there. After I killed off the pirates, he decided the Aliens were the enemy. He attacked and did OK. I told him to salvage. He did that. Then he got jumped by more pirates. He just danced around between two ships. I told him to attack. He did. Then he stopped doing anything. I ordered him to salvage, he just sat there again. After going through every command he finally accepted the order to patrol the sector. Boy he sure likes that, because that was ALL he would do. I went through all the commands again. He patrolled. I took over the ship. I gave it back. He took off like a scald rabbit back to patrolling. I quit the game, exited the load screen. Restarted the game, reloaded the galaxy. He was patrolling still, but this time accepted the command to escort me. That would have been fine except then he decided gates are big scary things and refused to go through. I went in and came out the other side, no ship. I came back through and there he was sitting by the gate. I re-commanded him to escort me and went through. Nope. I went back and there he was by the gate. Between this and the endless monotonous cycle of pirates/aliens/bigger pirates/bigger aliens/more pirates/more aliens/oh look pirates AND aliens over and over while trying to get a ship built I had to call it a day. Logs posted for both sessions. Cheers..! clientlog_2017-03-31_11-45-53.txt clientlog_2017-03-31_14-30-44.txt

Got a ship started, perfectly centered. Pirates come. Have to go back to the old ship, fight them off. Re-enter the build mode and now my ship is no longer centered. No matter where I was in a build before, the ship would always center the X axis just fine. Be nice if we had a ship designer to do this in without all the drama. In game I could feed the design to a ship builder I had good relations with, pay a fee and provide/pay for materials in an appropriate sector and have my ship without getting shot at every 12 minutes because pirates and aliens have a schedule to keep... Cheers..! clientlog_2017-03-31_04-40-36.txt

I would love to be "in stasis" while at the press space bar screen... I gotta pee..!!

First off, solid build. 4 and a half hours of sectors filled with poor man's salvage, faction wars and general mayhem with a few hiccups is quite impressive. There aren't many games in my library that can boast such rock solid baseline behavior. The continuing saga of Lag: When we last met our intrepid hero he was causing all manner of hallucinations and time wasting... -Large Asteroids and Large Salvages are *much* improved. Momentary pops are the norm and nothing to write home about. -Small ships and asteroids are fine, no issues except the ones listed below which are global in nature IMO. There are some specific cases of stutter and lag that can cause some hold the desk please don't CTD anxiety: -In sectors with a lot of pieces parts, ships, ammo flying etc. messages on the right and pirate/alien ships warping in can cause some big stutter/FPS drops. -It strikes me that when I have the Left mouse button held down (mining, salvaging, firing etc) this stuttering becomes much more pronounced. -I did not notice the game performance degrading over time. Stutter/Stumble/Lag felt entirely tied to amount of stuff flying, whether I was actively pressing buttons, especially the Left mouse button and what the game was trying to with regard to messages, rewards or enemies arriving. I run the game with fog as low as it'll go but with 2x sampling. I like the detail but trying to see through pea soup is not for me. There are some game play issues I want to address, is there one place better than others where that stuff should go..? An example would be the traveling merchants and how they pop in at the silliest times. Cheers...!!! clientlog_2017-03-30_05-01-30.txt

New beta helps with smaller ships and asteroids and is less glitchy. Large Asteroids and large Salvage stations/ships still suffer from parts not disappearing. Auto target doesn't suffer as much as Manuel holding the button down. Holding the button for too long exacerbates the issue. On a small ship Manuel can make parts disappear no problem, but on the big stuff he's still mining air and salvaging dust much of the time until he notices the circles are blue and the beams are causing as much work to be done as shining a flashlight at it. I went nuts and made as much debris as possible in many a sector before leaving trying to duplicate the previous CTD. I could not. The game stumbled at times, but recovered. After a light sector or two it was fine. Aliens tend to lag on arrival more than pirates, at least that was the perception after many, many hours. Some of the Alien entries really ground the FPS to a veritable halt. At least I knew who was coming to dinner without having to look... Ship building is still quite laggy. I had to slow way down and do things in small chunks while upgrading my weaponized brick today. No crashes or lost parts though. The space bar lagged after heavy sector action, but was better most times after a quick breeze through with out interacting with the locals much. Most times... I really wish this was consistent. At times it was one touch, others were 3 or 4 and then the "you don't have a sector selected" on screen once I popped in the new place. You can hear the sounds kick in, and it used to be you were good to go once you did. Now, that's just a sign that stuff is happening behind the curtain but you can't go in and see it yet. Overall 7851 was a nice build, quite stable. Attaching both logs from today just in case. Cheers..! clientlog_2017-03-28_10-21-14r7847.txt clientlog_2017-03-28_05-31-39r7851.txt