Thundercraft

Judging by the Weapons page on the wiki, it looks like there is a decent variety. I looking forward to trying all of them. However, I noticed that every weapon in the game seems to be in the form of a turret. And I wondered: Why? Wouldn't it make gameplay a bit more strategic if there were at least one or two weapons in the game that were fixed - as in, not turrets? To compensate for not being able to aim such weapons, there would need to be an upside, of course. Such weapons should probably either do more damage, use less energy, or something along those lines. And to aim them at the enemy, of course, we'd need to steer our ship directly at them. Spinal mount is what I had in mind. But seeing any new weapon other than a turret would be welcomed, IMO.

Aside from the seed "Zerkov" I mentioned, haven't played any galaxy for any length of time. So, I don't have much to recommend. But that's one of the reasons why I started this thread. I hope others chime in with some recommendations. I will say, though, that ALL of the seeds I've tried (see my list) have a nice spread of asteroids in the starting sector. And all of them have some rich asteroids. In that respect, I think all seeds are going to be about the same. Though, I suspect that there is some variation. Further, I would discourage the use of a seed that has a thick fog in the starting sector. (My list mentions whether the start sector has either "fog" or "nebula". The ones with "fog" are the ones to avoid! A nebula means fair to good visibility.) As I mentioned, that could make it difficult to spot asteroids at a distance (like mineral-rich asteroids) or spot wreckages to salvage. I would also mention that the "Zerkov" seed I tried had the Equipment Dock way out on the edge of the system, which felt a bit inconvenient. Though, it's not like I have to visit it frequently.

Question: Is there an easy way to change a faction's name? Perhaps a chat command? I really disliked how "The Pirates of Tloeciiyi" was the name of the faction that I started out 100% relations with in my galaxy. So, I looked for a way to change it. Not finding anything, I looked in my game files. And I found a factions folder in my galaxy's folder: C:\Users\ [username] \AppData\Roaming\Avorion\galaxies\Zerkov\factions There were several .dat files and I opened each, one at a time, in a hex editor and I searched for "Pirates" and "Tloeciiyi". I found a file with both. So, I made a backup of the file. (This is important!) And I changed "Tloeciiyi" to "Tagolian" and I changed "The Pirates of %s" to "The %s Federation". I started Avorion and tried to load my game, which seemed to take forever, and... It gracefully gave up and returned to the menu. Copying over my failed attempt from my backup, I tried again. This time I changed "Tloeciiyi" to "Tagolia" and changed "The Pirates of %s" to "The Republic of %s". I tried to load it and... it failed. By this point I figured it would only work if I replaced each part with a name of identical length. So, I tried once more by replacing "Tloeciiyi" with "Zeitgeist" (both 9 letters long) and "The Pirates of %s" with "The Planets of %s" (both 17 characters long and nearly identical). I tried loading this and... SUCCESS! ;D Now, I know that I wasn't replacing any special characters or anything. Using a hex editor to edit something can be tricky because, for example, what appears to be a [space] could actually be a number of different ASCII characters. But I was careful and the original file used hex 20, which is identical to the keyboard's [space]. As such, my experience suggests that, when replacing the faction name, the length must be the same. But... why? Is the length of the faction name encoded somewhere in the file? Or, are these binary faction files of a fixed length? Would merely changing the file's length prevent the game from loading them?

I wanted to start a thread to share seeds for galaxies, particularly any that seem different or interesting. My second single player galaxy was generated with the seed "Zerkov" (as in the professor in the Flash Gordon stories). I haven't gotten very far, yet. But I found myself disliking the name "The Pirates of Tloeciiyi", which is the name of the faction in my home sector. I tried generating new galaxies. However, I found myself either disliking the faction name or the environment of the starting sector. In particular, I dislike having a thick fog as that can make mining asteroids and salvaging wrecks a lot more difficult. In the end, I tried dozens of different seeds. Mostly, though, I was curious to see the faction names that the game's procedural name generation comes up with. Anyway, here are the seeds I've tried, the name of the starting sector faction, and how the sector looks: Zerkov "The Pirates of Tloeciiyi" (green nebula) zerkov "The Uosuooet" (thick yellowish fog) 1qsLq9oooF "The Afl" (blue nebula + planet) 999999999999 "The Rivev'fea Conglomerate" (rose nebula) ; {Station design is forked, like a comb} zzzzzzzzzzzz "The Ahoosoo Collective" (rose nebula) ; {Station design is lots of square rings} ZZZZZZZZZZZZ "The Jjaojtbeaea" (green nebula + planet dark side) ; {Station design is chaotic} Thundercraft "The Oiuoloib" (pea green fog + planet dark side + lava planet) thundercraft "The Ruvru" (orange-ish nebula) Glitteringdawn "The lambiaun" (dark red or rose nebula) glitteringdawn "The Empire of Ulbufiodl" (blue nebula + huge dark planet) GlitteringDawn "The Yeybo" (rose nebula + huge ringed planet) IAmLegend "The Aoddsadslools" (yellowish nebula) iamlegend "The Ilau" (blue-gray nebula) PsychicGibbon "The United Xiewbauj Followers" (thick yellowish fog + planet) psychicgibbon "The Pirates of Oucou" (thick orange fog) Tagolian "The Veaq'muilmaa" (rose nebula + cloudy planet) tagolian "The Eltrae Conglomerate" (thick yellowish fog + ringed planet) Gaia "The Church of Jeaciu" (blue fog) gaia "The U'woiy" (blue fog) Rhea "The Followers of Aoraogcih" (yellow-green fog + big planet) rhea "The Universal Oo Republic" (white nebula + dark side of a planet) Lovelock "The Oejriuf" (orange nebula) lovelock "The Jzetbeeyee" (blue nebula + small gaseous planet) Seraphine "The Uugqoujlhiin' Conglomerate" (blue nebula + small lava planet) seraphine "The United Easpbaakaiv Organisation" (dark red nebula) Threa "The Fihefcuh Empire" (yellowish fog + planet) threa "The Ziou States" (bright blue nebula) ; {Station design is soothing blue & white} Lenocia "The Ooqpispi Emirate" (green nebula) lenocia "The Woumuluz" (orange-yellow nebula + huge barren planet) Albion "The Veiqu'" (blue-gray nebula) albion "The Empire of Xav'ogo'" (yellow nebula + HUGE ringed planet) Lovocea "The Church of Iji (yellow nebula) ; {Station design is CRAZY LONG!} lovocea "The Euijtuif" (dark blue nebula + dark side of a planet) Vocea "The Wouagaos" (blue nebula) vocea "The Emirate of Deezola" (pink rose nebula + pitch black dark planet) Locea "The Eiiur" (yellowish fog + habitable planet) ; {Stations are comb-like} locea "The Coaao" (orange fog + ringed lava planet) ; {Stations are crazy long!} Lova "The Zpeu'osq" (red nebula + huge ringed, barren planet) lova "The Planets of Peaduirjdli" (yellowish nebula + huge lava planet) Myla "The Uifmuibot" (blue nebula + barren planet) myla "The Oismsoaklaod" (bright blue nebula) Morita "The Aowoukou" (gray-green nebula) morita "The Raakiehhi Empire" (greenish nebula + barren world) Anthuan "The Kingdom of Puadcia" (yellowish + rotating, inhabited planet) anthuan "The Universal Ciivuinl Planets" (greenish nebula) Ziame "The Organisation of Auvaaaam" (yellowish fog + huge inhabited planet) aiame "The Democratic Planets of Aaar'um'" (orangish nebula) Carinae "The Conglomerate of Oeoix'" (yellow-green nebula) carinae "The Universal Alliance of Uafbah" (blue fog) Euecana "The Vouon Emirate" (reddish-orange fog) euecana "The Pirates of Cuaa" (greenish-yellow nebula) Mensae "The Oaosus Empire" (red nebula + dark side of inhabited planet) mensae "The Biui Oragisation" (dark red nebula + blue habitable world) Zerza "The Fuokoo" (yellowish nebula + dark side of a planet) zerza "The Galactic Louwiucoug Planets" (bright blue nebula) Ventau "The Oie'beovz Conglomerate" (thick yellowish fog + huge ringed planet) ventau "The Empire of Buequapzea" (reddish-orange nebula) Thalia "The Odoo Kingdom" (green nebula + gree planet + wispy green clouds) thalia "The Democratic States of Aad'dip" (yellow-white fog + planet) Cacia "The Corporation of Urwu" (green fog) cacia "The Mookiede" (bluish nebula + rotating planet) Theia "The Planets of Ua'hiuqucs" (blue nebula) theia "The Corporation of Aayi" (greenish nebula + lava planet) Cora "The Republic of Aosvo" (orangish nebula) cora "The Iozljafdbo Organization" (yellow nebula) Pannotia "The Universal Uhu'oa Commonwealth" (yellow nebula + rotating planet) pannotia "The Clan of Oayuu'qo" (rose nebula + small gray, barren planet) Nabia "The Ehahen Dominion" (grayish nebula + gas planet + small lava planet) nabia "The Uey" (yellowish fog) Nikara "The Church of Osiee" (sparse blue nebula + florescent blue barren planet) nikara "The States of Ieu" (blue nebula + dark, ringed inhabited planet)

As far as cheating and modifying the game to our personal preferences, something which some players may be overlooking is the server.ini file inside the Galaxy folder. I named my galaxy "Zerkov" and this folder was located: C:\Users\ [username] \AppData\Roaming\Avorion\galaxies\Zerkov And here is my server.ini file: [Game] Seed=Zerkov Difficulity=-1 InfiniteResources=false CollisionDamage=0.25 LootDiminishingFactor=0.00499999989 ResourceDropChance=0.400000006 TurretDropChanceFromTurret=0.0250000004 TurretDropChanceFromCraft=0.25 TurretDropChanceFromBlock=0.00499999989 SystemDropChanceFromCraft=0.200000003 SystemDropChanceFromBlock=0.00499999989 ColorDropChanceFromCraft=0.0500000007 ColorDropChanceFromBlock=0.00249999994 sameStartSector=true startUpScript=data/scripts/server/server.lua startSectorScript=startsector [system] saveInterval=600 sectorUpdateTimeLimit=300 emptySectorUpdateInterval=0.5 workerThreads=3 weakUpdate=true [Networking] port=27000 broadcastInterval=5 isPublic=false isListed=false useSteam=true [Administration] maxPlayers=10 name=Thundercraft's Server description=An Avorion Server accessListMode=Blacklist Because I really want to see turrets drop from craft a lot more often, I've since modified TurretDropChanceFromCraft from 0.25 to 0.5, which should double the chance. I also set ColorDropChanceFromCraft and ColorDropChanceFromBlock both to "0.0", because I really hate how it does that. (I think it's kind of silly that damaged and wrecked ships drop paint. Also, it's frustrating because dropped paint gets my hopes up, yet paint seems worthless and distracts me from collecting good stuff like modules and resources.)

These look cool! 8) Thank you for sharing. :thumbsup: Most players only post screenshots.

I agree. These are wonderful ship designs. And that would be appreciated! So far, I've found exactly two Avorion ship files. Everyone seems to love showing screenshots, but hardly anybody wants to share?

Interesting. I might use this. However, I have two questions: (1) Do these hyperspace jammers have a very limited range, a rather long range, or do they seem to block hyperspace travel throughout the sector? (2) Could using this script potentially cause problems if the player decides to join a Multiplayer server?

What happened? While [Tab] (the 'Next target' button) works just fine, pressing "\" (the 'Prev target' function) fails to do anything. What did you do to make it happen? While in either a ship or mining drone, press "\", which is the default bound hotkey for 'Prev target'. Nothing happens. I also went into the Options menu to configure a custom key [F11] for the Secondary, since "\" didn't work for me. But pressing my custom secondary [F11] for 'Prev target' did not do anything, either. What did you expect to happen? I'm guessing that 'Prev target' should work exactly like 'Next target', only in reverse order. Your reasoning: If it was just the default "\", then I would suspect it my be something on my end, like my keyboard. But the fact that I could not assign it to a different key suggests that this is a bug.

Looks interesting. But, asking as a rather new player: How would we actually use this script? Where do we install it? (Also, I feel that I should point out that "L" is already bound by default to show the Mail window. Might be better to bind to an unused key like "B" or [F5].)

Another frustration / suggestion: Please, please give us an easy way to either find wreckages or a way to scroll through only ships. I beg you! AFAIK, if we want to find a wreckage somewhere in our system (i.e., to salvage) we have two options: [*]Find it with our own two eyes. And this is not necessarily easy considering how big and how crowded some systems are with ships, stations, and asteroids. [*]Keep pressing the [Tab] key for 'Next target' until a wreckage comes up. This isn't easy, either, considering how the "\" shortcut for 'Previous target' is broken - as in, this does not work. (Must be a bug!) Without 'Previous target' working, I'm constantly frustrated by pressing 'Next target' too fast and skipping over it. But even if it worked, this is a huge hassle for systems with literally hundreds or thousands of asteroids! Scrolling through to find a wreckage is like finding a needle in a haystack! Now that I think about it: Perhaps there's a 'System' I've yet to find to help locate wrecks? While I'm at it, I also want to point out that it would be super nice to have an easy way to locate dropped resources like minerals, cargo pods, or Systems. How about renaming "Systems" to something else like "Add-ons" or "Upgrades" (to avoid confusion) and adding a 'System Map' so we can actually have a picture of the star system we're in? Such a map would allow the game to show little dots representing enemy ships, neutral ships, friendly ships, cargo pods, "Add-ons", etc...

I saw that option. And this mirrors the behavior of other space games. However, my ship is really no match for them (yet). Regardless, I suspect skipping out on a fine isn't worth the drop in faction favor or making them an enemy.

I thought that I would start a thread as one place to share most of my feedback and suggestions. Mostly, this will be little things that I found frustrating and suggestions on how it could be improved. Pickup Behavior: Don't pick up stolen cargo What does that even mean? Whatever it does, this option did not prevent me from accidentally picking up illegal cargo. As such, that option felt misleading. I finally got a chance to salvage a wreck, which I what I've been desperate to try even before I bought the game. And all these cargo containers flew out... which I could not pick up. Alright, it's my own fault for not having cargo space on my ship. I add some and manage to collect some cargo. Great! So, I wander around the starting system to see where I can sell it... And I'm stopped by a warning from a nearby ship! Apparently, what I picked up was "guns", which I did not have a permit for. (There was no warning message about that when I picked them up. I didn't even know what my ship hauled in.) So, I got a big fat fine for my trouble instead of turning a profit. And it was about this time that my crew demanded to be paid... It felt surreal to be threatened and fined by the local faction... which are pirates! Why should pirates even care about the legalities of transporting guns without a permit? Why would they enforce that? They're pirates! You know, anarchist types who trade in black market items and illegal goods on a regular basis? Anyway, it would be very much appreciated if there was "Don't pick up illegal cargo" and "Don't pick up stolen or illegal cargo" options under Pickup Behavior. And please consider adding an exception to the check for illegal cargo if the ship or system in question belongs to a pirate faction. Otherwise... that seems silly and frustrating. Also, is there some way we can get an indication of the identity of the cargo pods we see floating in space? I'm sure that I'm not the only player who would greatly appreciate knowing what it is before trying to retrieve it. Knowing would go a long ways toward deciding if it's worth the trouble. Then again, we don't have a say so, do we? Merely flying by floating cargo pods of guns is enough for our ship to automatically haul them aboard, without our say so. For that matter, how about a hotkey to press to activate a tractor beam or scoop to gather floating cargo? I'd like some control over this. Even better: Can't we get some game mechanism which would allow players to selectively haul in only certain types of cargo?

I made the mistake of joining a multiplayer game before going through the tutorial or even trying single-player mode. But doing it that way made me acutely aware of this problem. Of course, the first thing I did when I got my mining drone was try to complete the tutorial. And the part that tripped me up was having to gather 1000 Iron before we could proceed to the actual ship building. Problem is, this server had been played a while and there were no mineral-rich asteroids left in the starting system - like... none! :'( Well, that's not 100% accurate. There was the one waaay out on the edge of the system that the tutorial had me mine. At the time, I assumed that the game spawned this one as part of the tutorial. As a consequence - because there were no other rich asteroids - I was forced to mine regular asteroids. And that would not be an issue for me, except... We have to gather a whopping 1000 iron before we can build our first ship! And each regular asteroid only contains about 26 iron! It's quite disheartening that each "chunk" of an asteroid only yields 1 iron, especially since it can take a long time to bust up some of the larger asteroids. How many asteroids would that take? You do the math. I honestly don't have an issue with having to mine for resources. Actually, resource gathering is one of the aspects of this game that sold me one it. But... come on. The worst part, in my opinion, is how large asteroids do not yield any more resources than tiny ones. They all produce the same. This, despite how large asteroids take a heck of a lot longer to mine. So, please make adjustments to this. Please have all asteroids yield more than 1 unit of material per chunk, even with the pathetic starting mining laser. And please have the yield respect the size of the asteroid. Mineral-rich asteroids are somewhat uncommon even in a newly spawned universe. And the longer player(s) play the universe, the rarer they're going to become, until they're completely gone. If they never respawn, then you're just forcing players to spawn a new universe on a regular basis. At the least, mineral-rich asteroids should respawn in the starting system. That, or you could increase the size of all asteroid fields and have the mining part of the tutorial trigger the game to respawn a few (more than one) of the rich asteroids in whatever system a player is currently in.