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[JobLeonard]

Woo! An update!

Update v0.77
Self destruct sequence activated

• Your ship now requires petroop to travel between star systems

• Petroop is shown on the bridge and in engineering where it can be converted from fuel held in the cargo bay. Petroop storage can also be upgraded from engineering.

• Petroop stations will now generate in the unused corners of planets to be used for refuelling (this is applied backwards to old saves as well )

• Added a prompt to advise you on petroop usage the first time you try to use the cosmos overview

• Added a self destruct sequence as it is now possible to become absolutely stranded if you don't plan your journeys properlyI may make this more showy later

• Fixed the new game button showing as available while saving is still taking place on slower systems

• Fixed mismatches between UK English and US English

• Fixed the transmission prompt at the top of the screen not actually being in the centre

Nice, the risk of getting lost in space feels like an appropriate threat. How does it play in practice?

[Rogod]

It hopefully means one spends more time considering their local systems or making use of wormholes. But it also ensures there is a second, riskier, way to play which mandates finding petroop stations or space stations to buy fuel for conversion while exploring. The addition of petroop should also mean that factory colonies producing fuel around the cosmos become more of a priority. On top of this, the requirement for hard plating, which is expensive (even from a pirate shop), adds an additional lingering requirement to consider while playing.

[Rogod]

While writing some rudimentary compression for the save files (shaving 240kb of repeated strings off the nearly 2mb cosmos file) I came across this annoying situation:

I can't do this in C#:


But I can do this in Java:


Remind me not to make a game in C# ever again...

Like, why is this even a problem for it? I just ....  

[JobLeonard]

Blarg, I'll never understand how we managed to create multiple big mainstream languages where const is not really const

[Rogod]

Aye same

It's not the first of this kind of needless restriction I've faced using C# either.

Not too long ago, I wanted to have some switch-case statements run into eachother for muuuch more readable tile processing code. You can do it in Java, so I saw no problem.

It turns out in C# you have to escape the case with a goto which points at the other - which just seems absurd.

[a-k-]

I can't do this in C#:


[...]
Remind me not to make a game in C# ever again...

Like, why is this even a problem for it? I just ....  

It's never too late to switch to C++ - code like this should compile and run flawlessly.
(You did want an empty string didn't you?)

[Rogod]

Lol, no I was after HAM = "11" in that example.

I never felt happy with C++; the language and associated paradigms are a bit too loose for my tastes. (I prefer the next generation of languages.)

Also, let's face it, if I was about to rewrite Startron, I'm just going to choose Java now for compatibility reasons

[JobLeonard]

At that point you might as well switch to any of the even newer JVM languages, no?

[Rogod]

Bleh, this (new-to-me) concept does not appeal I'm afraid

I'd be after an easier time, not a harder one (I'm already fluent in Java - C# was enough of a departure from my comfort area for one lifetime)

[JobLeonard]

Aaah, I didn't realize you jumped from Java to C#. Yeah nvm then

[Rogod]

Aye if it doesn't appear on this page there's no chance I'm going to learn it now (too old xD)

I dabbled in C++ back in the day, but there just didn't seem to be any justification for using it in my career or for hobbies.

[Gunroar:Cannon()]

Wow, this looks great! I always love me some good ASCII graphics, especially when used so well (another one is Brogue) and for non-conventional roguelikes (also like dwarf fotress).
To bad I won't play it since I only have times to play things on android .

I haven't watched the videos, problems on my side, so I may not understand this but don't the planets seem to small, for like, planets,mor are the continents(?) scaled. And what is controlled, a spaceship or colony or...?

[Rogod]

Thanks, yea an Android version is something I'd like too, but it's a little more complicated to port from Windows than Linux was given the lack of a terminal (especially given that most phones don't have keyboards either so none of the gameplay would work without a significant redesign of the interface).

The planets are deliberately small by comparison to other games so you have to build a little more strategically. I found that games like Starbound, where each planet was the size of the world in Terraria, just diluted the core gameplay too much. (Why have many planets when one is enough?) So in an effort to make a space-themed building game that didn't seem too gigantic to be fun, I made sure the planets and moons (and the quantities of each) were sufficiently restricted such that a single person could wrangle them all in much the same way a space faring civilisation might. I had no doubt I could make a massive endless infinite universe with gigantic worlds to explore but from my experiences with No Man's Sky, Elite Dangerous & Spore, this did not necessarily mean the game was any more fun. (Who wants "endless" if all endless means is more emptyness )

As far as what you're controlling, you're controlling a ship for the most-part (although I do want this to extend to the crew within it at some point too) and with this ship you are free to set up any infrastructure you see fit, so I guess that's all indirectly under your control as well.

While I'd suggest watching at least the short demonstration video for a better grasp, it is also highly unlikely Startron will receive an Android port in the near future.

[Gunroar:Cannon()]

The planets are deliberately small by comparison to other games so you have to build a little more strategically. I found that games like Starbound, where each planet was the size of the world in Terraria, just diluted the core gameplay too much. (Why have many planets when one is enough?) So in an effort to make a space-themed building game that didn't seem too gigantic to be fun, I made sure the planets and moons (and the quantities of each) were sufficiently restricted such that a single person could wrangle them all in much the same way a space faring civilisation might. I had no doubt I could make a massive endless infinite universe with gigantic worlds to explore but from my experiences with No Man's Sky, Elite Dangerous & Spore, this did not necessarily mean the game was any more fun. (Who wants "endless" if all endless means is more emptyness )

Now that...that, my friend, makes sense.

it is also highly unlikely Startron will receive an Android port in the near future.

Yeah, I figured. Anyway, ascii, amazing,  keep up the werrk! 

[Rogod]

Update v0.78
Cover your PIN around pirates

• Overhauled the cargo bay, so it actually looks like a cargo bay now:(One downside is that I've had to reduce all inventories (player + entities) from 32 slots to 30 so the numbers play nicely )

• Added a bank to space stations (necessary now it is possible to destroy your ship after becoming stranded)

• Cut down the save file size with some selective compression (from ~2mb to nearer 1.5mb, so around a 25% reduction in size and write-time)

• Made leaving the options menu more clear - everywhere else had a "Leave" prompt, not sure why I didn't put one in there

• Fixed some typos in the readme & on the support page

[JobLeonard]

Yay, the project lives!

That cargo bay looks sweeeeet!

[Rogod]

Yea I had intended to be back sooner than this, but that cargobay overhaul was sat in the ol' to-do list and I figured I needed to redraw a load of graphics to make it work which didn't sound fun. So I ended up flapping about and doing some other development in my spare time but finally Startron's back on the menu.

Got some more cool things lined up so maybe v0.79 soon!

[Rogod]

Update v0.79
What's more colourful than Technicolor?

• Added the option to configure a couple of common interface colours:Set them both to black for that text-based game feel:

• Added random meteors that land on various planets & moons. If you find one, you can sell it to the scrap store for a high price. Meteors can damage infrastructure just like the real thing, but thankfully they're fairly rare and the odds of one hitting your base are astronomical, just like the real thing (Pay attention to the news playing in space bars if you want to go hunting for them.)

• Moved using the grabber into the bridge actions where it belongs

• Added a short cutscene for the self-destruct sequence

• Fixed being able to gain 1000 chits repeatedly by just blowing your free ship up over and over (a slow exploit, but an exploit nonetheless)

• Fixed a typo on the bridge

• Fixed showing a pan prompt on the cosmos screen when you're out of petroop

• Fixed being able to spam the petroop warning transmission by pressing O multiple times during the transition sequence

[JobLeonard]

Fixed being able to gain 1000 chits repeatedly by just blowing your free ship up over and over (a slow exploit, but an exploit nonetheless)

[vdapps]

Yuhuu, congrats to new updates! Glad to see project lives!