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[Ankmannen]

New version (0.10)

* Large scale zooming
* Removed the HUD for asteroids. Only visible if you hover them (just a test to clear the game area a bit).
* Added a zoom indicator (placeholder art)
* Performance fixes

http://spacealot.blob.core.windows.net/release/Launcher.exe

[Ankmannen]

Hi.
I launch the launcher, it quickly downloads 100%, and then crashes.

Do you have XNA redist installed?

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=20914

The launcher is kinda bare bone right now and doesn't check for dependencies yet. I'm going to use monogame later on.

[soryy708]

Yes I have that redistributable installed.

[Ankmannen]

Yes I have that redistributable installed.

I've created a new package so it should download version 0.10. Also the user that runs the launcher must have permissions to create a folder in the directory of the launcher.

Also, if the folder exists (actually called Paperspace). Run the BananaWinGame.exe directly from that folder. Check that it's not blocked.

Other than that I'd have to create better error handling. Earliest tonight.

Thanks for trying!

[soryy708]

There's a paperspace folder but it's empty.
There's also a ps.zip. I unzip the contents to paperspace, run BananaWinGame.exe, it goes to a fullscreen application, and moments later quits to desktop without any message.

[Ankmannen]

Do you have .net 4.5 installed? I was a little bit lazy when writing the launcher and used the built in compression tools from 4.5.

The folder with the game should contain

/Content (folder with a lot of xnb files)
/BananaWinGame.exe
/DebugViewXNA.dll
/FarseerPhysicsXNA.dll

Thanks for taking the time to report this. If it isn't the .net 4.5 issue, could you check the event log?

[Ankmannen]

Latest release here in zip format

http://spacealot.blob.core.windows.net/release/Paperspace0.10.zip

[soryy708]

The problem was indeed .NET framework 4.5.

My thoughts and impressions about the game:
+ The ship is moving too fast! It's hard to get myself exactly where I want to (near an asteroid).
+ I've read that I can move my control unit to an asteroid. How the hell do I do that?
+ I like how you can cut through asteroids and they become separate physics bodies.
+ Could be nice if the game would pause when I'm alt-tabbed out of it.
+ Space is square?
+ Oh I found another ship!
+ Oh, it's moving fast, too.
+ I see a turret. It's not shooting me?
+ I just destroyed an enemy ship but didn't salvage anything.
+ I've read that I can extend my ship. How do I do that?
+ Suddenly my turrets shoot at a faster rate.
+ I guess the ship is so fast because it's made to be plaid zoomed-out and in a huge space.
+ Interesting how turrets are both for mining and for destroying enemy ships.
+ Oh, another ship.
+ It just rushed forward and crashed into my ship.
+ Last one didn't shoot me.
+ OH GOD ITS SHOOTING ME.
+ It's not moving it's turret to trace me.
+ I pressed escape and quitted accidentally. Could be nice to have a prompt.
+ Could be nice to have a way to pause the game.
+ Oh, this scale on the lower-right is a zoom-o-meter!
+ A red circle, probably a planet. I should go there.
+ Oh, a star!
+ Turns out that when I navigate out of my current area in space, another asteroid field is generated in the sector I'm entering.
+ Space is literally littered with asteroids. It should be generally empty, no?
+ The planet is so far away! I wish my ship could go faster.
+ Perhaps an FTL drive that lets me blink somewhere else in a matter of moments but has a cooldown?
+ Generating new chunks is rough. This half-second freeze every couple of seconds is getting annoying. Smoother generation could be nice.
+ I wonder how far do I need to travel for the game to actually slow down due to huge amounts of gameobjects.
+ Why does my ship slow down when I release the throttle? I'm in space, and there shouldn't be any air resistance.
+ The radar is very nice for navigating when zoomed out and not crashing into things!
+ It's nice that the ship has no reverse (so I can't over-do the brakes)
+ After reading this topic, I've started pressing all keyboard buttons in order.
+ I stumbled upon the 'C' button. Nice!
+ OK I made some ship expansion and added laz0rs.
+ I still don't know how to move my command block to the asteroid.
+ I wonder where can I see a list of available crafting recipes.
+ I wonder what the 'M' key does. The game freezes for a moment when I press it, but nothing seems to change.
+ So I just accidentally crafted a processor.
+ Placing it on the ship doesn't create an input and output box.
+ Do I need to craft it? How?
+ Hey, I see a whiter-than-usual mineral on this asteroid.
+ What the hell, my lasers aren't firing!
+ Nevermind, I'll mine it with my hull!
+ That was fun. I destroyed my ship's nose though
+ OK. The processor just made raw oil. What the hell is that and how is it useful?
+ That extra-white minerals was Silica.
+ I can't process it.
+ I just processed the raw oil into plastic.
+ This game's crafting system has alot of potential.
+ It could be nice if you could process an item in more than one way. Then you'd have to program the processor to whatever item you want to get out of it.
+ I just accidentally crafted a container like the ones around my processor.
+ The crafting system just broke (I can't craft what I crafted before anymore)
+ I want to move my existing processor somewhere else so I could chain it with the one I crafted.
+ I'm restarting the game.
+ I just realized that the crafting system didn't break. I tried to use plates instead of iron in the recipe.
+ It could be nice to have a tooltip for items in the inventory (to identify what they are).
+ OK I just figured out that I move stuff by holding down the left mouse button over them and then dragging off their current position.
+ I just tried to move my power unit and the game crashed.
+ I restart
+ I manage to reproduce this crash
+ I restart
+ I stumble upon an enemy ship. It fires at me very quickly and destroys my command unit.
+ I can still control my ship O.o
+ I fly next to it and build an extension right through the enemy ship
+ Now the enemy ship is in symbiosis with mine. It's stuck in me! :D
+ The volume of the laser firing increases when I have more lasers. This is bad.
+ Oh, now I know why my cannons stopped working before. I was out of energy!
+ This game could have awesome survival-multiplayer.
+ When I have a processor processing iron ore, and I have iron ore in it's output because it's another processor's input, I seem to lose the iron produces by the first processor.
+ I got bored and quit.

[Ankmannen]

My thoughts and impressions about the game:

Hi! Thanks for the very entertaining transcript of your experience. It really gives me a lot of stuff to work on to lower the learning curve.

At the moment this game is just a Proof of Concept and there is so much more stuff to do. Most important on my list

* Hyperdrive (including the stuff needed to build one)
* Asteroid bands around planets and a smarter generation system
* Serialization of the world

Zooming is important and your ship will adapt speed to the current zoom level. This is just roughly cut at the moment.

Crafting recipies can be found at http://www.spacealot.net/crafting

I'll add tooltips and stuff like that to ease it a little bit.

You can't move your command unit just yet. I've just prioritized a little bit since writing that. There is no techical issue and at the moment I'm always working on the next potential game breaker.

Space is kinda square. The asteroid generator is also very rough. The reason for that is that I'm working on a solution to allow for faster generation of larger asteroids.

At the moment new objects are just generated on a block basis. There will be a fog of war and distinct asteroid bands around planets. Otherwise space will be almost empty. There will always be hidden stuff. The game will not freeze up when blocks are generated later on. I'm all about smooth game. Otherwise it would suck.

The M key is a debug thingy that moves all objects around {0,0} to avoid jittering issues with the physics engine. It is done automatically and hence it's a dead feature only used in debugging.

Again, very much thanks for the transcript!

// Johan

[Ankmannen]

New release (0.11)

http://spacealot.blob.core.windows.net/release/Launcher.exe

Changelist

* Only objects reachable by radar is visible when zoomed out. Not counting massive objects such as stars and so on.
* Minor performance improvement in block generation, still needs a lot more work. Tried to use thread by ended up in synchronization hell. Gotta think of something else.
* Added an indication of a asteroid field (programmer art still). The blue field around the planet.
* Reduced the number of asteroids and ships in each block. This is still a hack since it should generate based on fields

Not much, but a small step in the right direction I hope.

[soryy708]

Hey, this project interests me very much.
I know some C# and XNA. Do you want an extra hand in the programming department? 

[Ankmannen]

Hey, this project interests me very much.
I know some C# and XNA. Do you want an extra hand in the programming department? 

I'm very flattered that you like the project! At the moment I'm just playing around with the code and it is not ready for a second developer. I also don't have enough time to administrate the project as I'm only spending about 30 minutes a day on it.

But I will keep you in mind if I need help (and I probably will later on) and you're always welcome to comment on the game and pitch ideas and point out flaws! I'm currently using your transcript to improve the first experience and to get some in-game help available.

How did you like the latest changes?

[Ankmannen]

Version 0.12 available - HYPERDRIVE VERSION

* Hyperdrive proof of concept. Automatically activated when zoomed out. It will give another perspective of scale. There is still a bit of jittering in hyperspace mode. I know why.

The launcher (if you've already downloaded it, just start the old one and it will update automatically).

http://spacealot.blob.core.windows.net/release/Launcher.exe

[Ankmannen]

Ok, the object generation lag is getting annoying. Started to rewrite the generator using a procedural approach that generates one object per frame at the moment instead of all at once. Can't use threads because of the way Farseer works.

Also I'm gonna have to backport the DynamicTree fix in farseer 3.5 to farseer 3 in order to be able to generate larger objects than 200 blocks.¨

But first! 8 hours of work! Life is good!

[Ankmannen]

A generic serialization/deserialization is soon complete. My object model collapsed (good thing) into a more generic construct where an object is simply an object and you add behavior by putting blocks in the object. This opens up for a very "modable" game where you can drop your own dll's into the bin folder and get new blocks.

An example of this architecture is that there is no difference between your ship and an enemy ship except that you ship has the cockpit-unit and the enemy the AI-unit. In the upcoming version you can destory the AI unit of the enemy ship and basically steal the ship by moving your cockpit unit around.

I wish I had more time for this! I know it's a narrow game, but it's exactly the game I would like to play! :D

[soryy708]

Could be nice to be able to cannibalize enemy ships when your cut off their head (AI) instead of just switching ships.

[Ankmannen]

Could be nice to be able to cannibalize enemy ships when your cut off their head (AI) instead of just switching ships.

I'm aiming for that. Everything is just blocks arranged in one physical object controlled by something. I probably have to make a global rule that you only can pick up stuff that is a certain length away from your cockpit unit. That way you can pick stuff off a badly guarded structure even if it's still "alive".

[Maushu]

I'm aiming for that. Everything is just blocks arranged in one physical object controlled by something. I probably have to make a global rule that you only can pick up stuff that is a certain length away from your cockpit unit. That way you can pick stuff off a badly guarded structure even if it's still "alive".

Have you played Captain Forever? It might give you inspiration regarding part cannibalization.

[Ankmannen]

Have you played Captain Forever? It might give you inspiration regarding part cannibalization.

Oh, that looks cool! BRB, gotta play some games!

EDIT: That's a really cool game! More action than Spacealot but really inspiring. A main feature in spacealot will be to be able to recycle any material, including other ships. Some stuff will only be obtainable through battle since a lot of tech was lost in the not yet defined story of the game.

[Ankmannen]

Still working on serialization and performance opt. My goal is that the serialization (loading/unloading of blocks) will be invisible in the game. No dropped frames and so on. Not quite there yet since a hyperjump causes 9 blocks to save at once. Need to distribute that over time so they are spaced a couple of frames each.

All left to serialize now is large objects (stars) and your local storage and current ship. However, I'm thinking about not releasing this yet since it would put me in conversion hell if I decide to change the file format (and I will). It's in XML at the moment. Need a binary format in the end, but the object model is still changing a lot and it would be a waste of time to write a binary format at the moment.

Also loading saved worlds/blocks means that new stuff (resources) would not appear in those blocks since they are already created.

I could just make an update delete the old world. Would that make you angry?