Suggestions for game changes

[ptbptb]

I'm updating a local copy of the game code for my own use. Code changes from that in the Google code checkout available on request.

[edit] Unfortunately due to computer crash, local copy of changes is lost. [/edit]

I noticed that max pods is always 16 and doesn't depend on starting class (as implied by the values in Globals.lua). Design decision or ToDo list?

The skills seem to be pretty much useless (or have very little impact on game play). You might as well drop the whole hired crew and skill system.

The beginning quests could be cut down quite a bit, IMO. For example:
* ONE quest to visit each area in the space station.
* Drop 'shakedown flight' and combine it with the trip to scan Islay.

* Higher screen resolution (e.g. 1280 x 1024 )

Mostly done I coded a personalised version to do this myself. It's got a bunch of rough patches, but it's usable as it is.

* Movement in Combat Encounter screen is not consistent with other screens.

Mostly done I changed it to automatically slow down when thrust not applied. This makes it a lot easier to pick up the 'Power Ups' and dropped cargo.

* Hide/Show HUD
* Simpler trade screen

Partly done I've started working on this on my personalised version. At the least I want to be able to add all of an item to the Sell / Buy list by either right-clicking or double-clicking the list item. At present it's
+ Click Iron
+ Click 'Sell'
+ Click 'All'
+ Click 'OK'

Having to repeat that a dozen times is a pain in the butt.

I have changed that so simply
+ Right-click Iron

for the same effect - cutting down 'clicks' to 1/4 the present needed.

Other things that would be nice would be an "Sell All" button that adds your entire cargo list to the 'To Sell' list.
e.g.
+ Click 'Minerals' Filter
+ Click 'Sell All'
+ Click 'Confirm'

to sell all minerals from your cargo bay.

It would also be nice to be able to remove items from the Sell or Buy lists that are waiting confirmation.
e.g.
+ Click 'Minerals' Filter
+ Click 'Sell All'
+ Right-click 'Endurium' in sell list.
+ Click 'Confirm'

to sell all minerals apart from Endurium

* Clearer Save/Load screen
* Keyboard shortcuts
* Screenshot functionality (should be quite easy with Allegro)
* Record of completed missions
* Ability to have more than one mission in progress at once (and see what the current task is for each one in progress)

[ptbptb]

It would be nice if the Trade Depot kept items for sometime before trading them away. Maybe set it to lose one in ten entire item stacks PLUS 0 to 20% of item quantity per game day.

In the Dock it would be simpler if you could buy ship upgrades for the upgrade price without having to sell your old engine, etc. first. This would also stop accidents like selling a level 2 engine only to find that you can't quite afford a level 3 engine to replace it.

[Steve]

I love to get any "polished" improvements into the main code. As you can tell from the frequency of my posts, I don't have a lot of time to work on the project myself. Please PM me when you have a group of changes well tested on your side.

A couple of the skills do actually work, look at moduleengineer.cpp in the mid-200 to 300 line range. Skills are developed while using the skill, repair time and number of minerals required is based on the engineer's overall skill.

"max pods is always 16" - This was a complaint of early beta testers. It also was partially solved by making artifacts take up zero space, but allowing everyone to get the maximum number was done to get rid of player frustration.

Movement in combat encounter - tweaked a lot for game balance. Feel free to change this in any way you want as combat balance can easily be improved further. It's always safe to make things "a little bit easier" as opposed to "a little bit harder."

Quest #'s are dangerous to modify without a lot of testing because of the many hardcoded values in the encounter scripts. I slimmed a few of the later ones down in 1.02 and don't mind cutting a bit further.

[erlhantos]

I am playing the Beta 5 release, from what i remember in Starflight 1 & 2 it was recommended to have level 5 everything to stand a chance in an unfriendly encounter.
Well my beef is this not one of the available ships is capable of surviving and unfriendly encounter since the enemy always attacks in large numbers versus your lone ill equipped craft. Lets look at the various ships available in their best configuration.

Scientific: Engine - 6; Shield - 6; Armor - 4; Missiles - 3; Lasers - 4. it's the lightest ship available with the fastest engine available best shields available in the armor and weapons it stinks, you could not fight your way out of a paper bag with those weapons. So your best option is to run like hell and hope their more powerful weapons don't blow you to bits while you are trying to escape. This ship does not inspire much confidence but at least it's better then the other two.

Freelance Engine - 5; Shield - 4; Armor - 4; Missiles - 3; Lasers - 6. It's the mid weight one the only good thing about it are the lasers the engine is not to bad, but the rest does not inspire any confidence at all after all what good are the top of the line lasers that you only use at close range when the enemy can blast to kingdom come due to your less the average shields and armor? The missiles are a joke it's like facing a squad using M60 machine guns while you pack a fantastic non-auto 22 rifle.

Military Engine - 4; Shield; 4; Armor - 4; Missiles - 6; Laser - 6. Here you have the heaviest of the three available ships with the slowest engine and average shields and armor, but to compensate for that you get the top of the line Missiles and Lasers. My question is What good is the superb fire power when your defenses leave you vulnerable and your engine would not beat a Ford Pinto in a drag race?
you are basically a sitting duck, you might take one or two of the enemy with your weapons, but you have no chance to outrun, outmaneuver or to protect yourself from enemy fire.

My humble suggestion is: If you are going to use professions to configure ones ship then why not add one more you can use the cantina for that one also the new profession would be Pirate who would also be able to recommend worlds for colonization. It would be profitable for them to have other colonized worlds to trade their ill begotten goods, or to build secret bases. Another thing provide them with a mid weight ship like the freelancer and allow at least one ship to achieve the max of everything meaning class 6 everything, now a ship like that would stand a chance of surviving an encounter with the other races. Otherwise you should change the name of the game from The Lost Colonies to Lost Hope because there is no hope to survive in the unfriendly space where your opponents either outgun, out maneuver, out run or are better protected then you.

I hope my observations do not incite ire in the developers and they have me dismembered or have all those nasty things done to me that they warn about if ones sells the game. Otherwise I love the game just as much as i did the two original ones which I used to play a lot on my old pc, i have copies of both them supposedly for windows but they refuse to work on my windows vista

Thank you for your patience.

Erlhantos El'Rhynn

[Steve]

Hey Erlhantos,

I made some changes in 1.03 (released today) to hopefully address some of your concerns. Instead of most races having huge unbeatable war fleets I basically redid the entire algorithm for fleet size generation to greatly reduce the number of ships in most encounters.

I also enabled an undocumented F11 key full-screen mode for combat - only works in encounters.

I made a number of smaller tweaks to alien ship specifications, but nothing major.

Huge fleets do still occur occasionally, but not all the time. By design they should be avoided by non-suicidal players. Since I don't have a lot of time to play through the game again myself, I'd appreciate any feedback on the changes.

[chuzan5]

Hmmm... Interesting. I do have some suggestions of my own to make. In SF I & 2 you had 50 units storage per cargo pod, you should go back to that figure. Because I have a hard time making any credits with anything lesser. The class 1 engines fuel efficency is very VERY poor and needs tweeking. ground combat is miserable to survive, the orgional SF had the ability to lock on a target without a lot of manuvering and you could hit them as a function of your skills .. ground combat needs a rework back to more origional concepts with some tweeking. perhaps a better and more improved TV as well as a TV sheild, to give it more survivability. Also, it might be a good idea to have a biult in speed control for the game itself to make encounters more survivable and the game slightly more playable. While I have a character with some credits in the bank, his ship has no weapons and a class 4 engine with 12 pods.... the ground combat was murder on my crew.. It might be also nice if there was more than one type of TV, say - an advanced TV for a few more credits that had more fuel... Otherwise, I am enjoying the lost colony program..