Prospector public Beta-Beta

[magellan]

The AARP is drawing near. So I decided to go a similiar road like Frozen Depths:

Release a Beta of the current prospector version, and ask people if they might want to help me testing.
Also: it really has tiles now, and they look like this:


So if you want to lend a hand
http://code.google.com/p/rlprospector/downloads/list
is the place to go.
It would be most appreciated.

[jim]

Looks awesome, man.

[Drag]

Activated graphical tilesets, ran it and made a scout ship, got an error. Error log contained this:
0.1.14 Error #1 in  2179:DISPLAYSTAR D:/Prospector/src/Googlecode/ProsIO.bas

After trying again it works like a charm (11 tries so far)

Small things:
Also noticed that the input field for when you try to register a shipname already taken is misaligned when it prompts you again.

Sometimes I (with graphical tileset) don't see animals one x or y away from my team. No idea if they are supposed to be invisible but it happened with some aggressive arachnidae and some amphibians. In game terms they are there. The arachnidae had flying capability though. I think it was also nighttime, I think you should atleast see as far as 1 square in every direction to avoid confusion and weird enemy-popping up.

Had a bit of confusion with firing ranges, maybe display the firing range if you press f --> red * in the fiels you can target.

As for gameplay experience:
Died a lot while exploring strange things (was a bit careless though)
Skill 1 pilots are dipshits ;P

Managed to turn a profit on one trip so far, planet with fairly weak wildlife and a few resources. Mapped it completely, huzzah!
I like the exploration and prospecting aspect a lot. Still have to learn when to run and when to fight it seems, as I get killed by single lifeforms on some planets. (I suppose there is no colourcoding for tilesets or I'm not seing how it works yet)

There is a key to reveal the current planet map (to help testing?) I hit it by accident.

Good first impression, will probably try it again or do some testing if there is something in particular to be tested.

[magellan]

Thank you!
Some wierd things you are telling me there, and I will have to look into them.
(Got a suspicion what causes the invisible critters)
But no idea what that error was.
Did it crash right after generating the ship?
Did you afterwards make another game?
Did it manage to make a savegame, after the crash?
If yes: do you still have it, and could I take a look at it?

(matthias.mennel at gmail.com would be a good place to send it to if you still have it.)

Also: do you have a german keyboard?

Anyway I suspect a lot of bugs lurking in space combat.
Thanks for the help!

edit to add:
Ahhh...
Of course!
That caused the crash & error message
Thank you very much for your help!
Don't need the save game anymore, found an as good as fixed.

[Drag]

The crash with that error happened directly after ship generation.

I started the game again and made another game, I noticed that the name I picked this first time still was "taken" (thats when I saw the mentioned misalignment) So yes I made another game.

I don't think it managed to make a savegame after the crash (there is an "empty.sav" in the savegame folder though)

I have a german keyboard, yes.

I'll try some space combat then.

Good that its fixed, I have another one, in case this is not related:
Tried landing on planet in a relatively new game (I landed on planets in this game before) it crashed with:
0.1.14 Error #6 in  7660:ADAPTMAP D:/Prospector/src/Googlecode/planet.bas

In this case there is a savegame In case it is needed: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/534848/savegames.rar

[magellan]

... having a german keyboard makes it easier to hit that key accidently 

Thanks for the new crash.
I now see how that could happen, but its a rather rare event (And that explains why it didn't happen when I tested that part around 10 times)

Thanks again for lending a hand!

[Drag]

Played a bit more, another 10 dead exploring parties.

-Tried the pirate start, got shot to pieces by some elite pirates on their planet base. Guess I messed with the wrong guys  

-Had a few spacefights; oddities: I lose ship HP without getting a message about being hit (then I wondered why my pirate cruiser went from 20 to 6 in a battle that seemed to go well for me) The looting afterwards was odd as you have to "buy" the wares (at no cost, hahah)

-Nitpick: When repairing a ship you have to enter the sum in credits you want to spend on repairing. The text should thus ask you : Spend how many credits on repairs (1 point per 100cr)     At the moment it gives no indication that you should type in the credit amount (so typing in 5 [for 5 points of hull] doesn't work)

-Bug?: I did some exploring on a planet with constant asteroid bombardment in a game that went quite well so far. But then, oh god, not again a giant snake like thing chasing me around the planet, oxygen running low and I'm on the wrong side of the planet! Already thought about a new ship name when : KABOOM! An asteroid hit the snake and obliberated it into tiny bits. Now comes the odd thing. I get a message going something like this: "You bore a tunnel (2x)" O.o Seems to happen when you are near the impact of an asteroid and it hits a tunnelable tile. (In both instances an npc was killed by it too)


-I dig the many different equipment choices you have, like laser drills and jetpacks to traverse terrain, or the crew augmentation hehehe. In this run I'm doing pretty well, 1200 per exploration trip. Avoiding most wildlife which seems to be one of the worst dangers around (especially since half of them are invisible)

-Awesome/Spoiler:
Found a planet full of valuable minerals that is in the process of falling into a sun Pretty awesome, tons of asteroid impacts and the planet basically breaking apart under your feet. Quote of my science officer: "We shouldn't stay here much longer." On another occassion I got struck down by Apollo, you dear sir, are insane. But I really dig the individual death screens. Mind you, Apollo was invisible and I wasn't even able to find my ship, he must have vanished it too! http://dl.dropbox.com/u/534848/IarApollo.png

- Also just found out the beauty that is a navigational computer

- And a bug: On a corporate station (without a map to walk) when you try to refuel/rearm while having a full tank/ammo stores it says "You don't have any money" which was not the case. And then it prints that you are already full.

[magellan]

Hehe
Sounds like you are enjoying the game Drag You just gave me 100 MP, i used on debugging.
I hope I managed to fix the Bleeding Hullpoints and the unfriendly pirates bugs. (And some other smaller ones)
Any other bugs please do report, guys.