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Call for Alpha Testers / Developers

Posted: Wed May 22, 2019 1:22 pm
by Steve
The latest release of The Lost Colony ver 2.0 is the first major version posted in the last five years. The source code is now available via Github. (links at the top of this forum) Quite a lot of development and code cleanup occurred in 2015 and again in 2017 to update the game engine in a number of ways. This unfortunately created a significant number of new bugs and minor issues that are being addressed.

I am hoping that a few fans will be willing to go through the game again and report on the issues that they run into. A new issue tracker has been set up with short-term bugs and long-term goals and I have the time to personally address these in the next few weeks.

Please post any bug reports here, and if you are developer interested in obtaining access to the github site, please send me a note.

Download information here:
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=908

Vote on improvements here:
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=2375

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Re: Call for Alpha Testers / Developers

Posted: Wed May 22, 2019 6:03 pm
by Steve
If anyone wants to run through the quests with detailed spoilers and infinite money, please PM me.

Re: Call for Alpha Testers / Developers

Posted: Fri May 24, 2019 12:34 am
by Blake00
Initial issues found:

1. No music playing anywhere! Gotta have that music heh.

2. I miss the old main menu with the spinning 3D planet. I remember Jon saying it would be a chunk of work to get working in the new display though sadly.

3. Save game text is outside of box. I was running in 1080P.
Bug1.jpg

4. Few issues with the 'you can't enter this department' box in that the middle line is slighly cropped.. and the ok button is sort of inside the box and under lapping the text instead of below it. I was running in 1080P.
Bug2.jpg

5. Ship name is overlapping. I was running in 1080P.
Bug3.jpg

Re: Call for Alpha Testers / Developers

Posted: Sun Jun 02, 2019 11:57 am
by Steve
Music is data\config.lua: AUDIO_MUSIC = set to true

I'll change this for 2.01

Fonts are a mess, sometimes fine, sometimes overlapping at different resolutions.

Re: Call for Alpha Testers / Developers

Posted: Sat Jun 29, 2019 10:34 am
by Branic
Setting resolution to 1920x1080 and NOT checking "FULLSCREEN" caused game to crash at load.

Win10 v1809 | 16GB RAM - DDR4 3000| AMD Ryzen 5 2600 | AMD Radeon RX 580 8GB - Driver: Adrenalin 2019 v19.6.1

Contents of Allegro.log:
Validating Lua scripts...
Loading startup script...
Initializing game...
Starflight-The Lost Colony v2.0
Firing up Allegro...
Firing up Alfont...
Firing up graphics system...
Desktop resolution: 1920 x 1080
Desktop color depth: 32
Settings resolution: 1920,1080
Modifying config.lua to

Code: Select all

FULLSCREEN = true
got game to load again. I went ahead and enabled audio while there. :)

Re: Call for Alpha Testers / Developers

Posted: Fri Jul 19, 2019 4:26 pm
by Steve
Very strange. Did a number of tests on my system and I was unable to cause the system to crash. Testing a number of invalid screen resolutions always successfully made the system fall back properly to lower resolutions in windowed mode over here:
Desktop resolution: 1600 x 1200
Desktop color depth: 32
Settings resolution: 1680,1050
al-gfx INFO: Called set_gfx_mode(-1, 0, 0, 0, 0).
al-gfx INFO: First call, remembering console state.
al-gfx INFO: Closing, restoring original console state.
al-gfx INFO: Graphic mode closed.
al-gfx INFO: Called set_gfx_mode(1146640206, 1680, 1050, 0, 0).
al-gfx ERROR: Failed setting graphic driver 1146640206.
Video mode failed (˜ú), attempting default mode...
al-gfx INFO: Called set_gfx_mode(1146640206, 1024, 768, 0, 0).
al-gfx INFO: The driver will wait for vsync.
al-gfx INFO: set_gfx_card success for 1024x768x32.
Refresh rate: 60
Creating back buffer (1024,768)...
For right now, I'm going to change the default screen resolution for the next release to a decently safe 1280 x 960 / windowed mode and come back to work on this problem after solving some of the others.

Re: Call for Alpha Testers / Developers

Posted: Tue Aug 27, 2019 7:39 am
by toyotaed
Please count My daughter Sophia and I in on this. We would love to get back into SFTLC!!! Great to see this active again (just saw these pages today.

Re: Call for Alpha Testers / Developers

Posted: Mon Sep 16, 2019 10:56 pm
by Blake00
Feedback posted over on the IndieDB page:
https://www.indiedb.com/games/starfligh ... ost-colony

Bazlik_Commander Jul 20 2019
"Can you make quick start with complete ship and crew in next version?"



toyotaed wrote: Tue Aug 27, 2019 7:39 am Please count My daughter Sophia and I in on this. We would love to get back into SFTLC!!! Great to see this active again (just saw these pages today.
Thanks for coming back and offering your help Toyotaed! :)

Feel free to download the alpha (links in first thread post) and post your feedback in here. :)

Re: Call for Alpha Testers / Developers

Posted: Sun Feb 16, 2020 1:41 pm
by BlackTriad
I am sorry to see that I've learned of the new TLC a bit late. Perhaps it's due to my old registered email. That is now fixed.

I have experienced all of the issues above with one addition. In 1900x1200 full screen, at least, the mouse cursor gets "lost" and erratic when moved to the edge of the screen. You can get the cursor back by trying to move it back away from the edge.

The cargo capacity is very small compared to the original games. Each pod is only 10cm when in SF1 & 2 it was 50cm per pod. The TV in 1 & 2 was an additional 50cm and if I remember correctly the ship had 50cm of storage with zero pods attached. The configurable globals.lua is nice but I would suggest adding the cargo capacity of the cargo pods to it.

I plan to play through the entire game and I will post problems I find in here. So far it's looking much better. Great job !

EDIT 1
  • The scroll bars and scrolling does not work on the message window, at least on planets.
  • The "W,S,A,D" keys do not work in system space or on planet surfaces.
  • While both missiles and lasers are equipped (tested with both class 6) only the first weapon you fire will function for the rest of the battle. The other weapon is essentially disabled.
  • The page up and page down keys do not work for raising/lowering shields and arming/disarming weapons. Yes, within the space combat screen.

EDIT 2

On further testing of the weapon disablement problem it seems the behavior is a bit more complicated. Repeated pressing of all four fire keys in differing orders after combat is completed (to make testing easier) can re-enable the "disabled" weapon. I cannot pin down any exact combination that "fires" every time but this should be enough information to find the problem.

Re: Call for Alpha Testers / Developers

Posted: Fri Mar 20, 2020 7:34 am
by Blake00
BlackTriad wrote: Sun Feb 16, 2020 1:41 pm I am sorry to see that I've learned of the new TLC a bit late. Perhaps it's due to my old registered email. That is now fixed.
Welcome back mate. :)

I'll let steve know some more feedback has come.