Prospector 0.1.5

[magellan]

Here we go again.

Several bugs fixed, some new features added, and minor cosmetics applied.
In case some of you don't remember: Prospector is my little space exploration roguelike. Grab your scoutship, hunt spacepirates, gather ressources and avoid getting eaten by aliens. And try to get rich while you are at it.

It is availiable here:
http://code.google.com/p/rlprospector/downloads/list

Enjoy! Bugreports and feedback is of course highly appreciated!

Changes in 0.1.5
+ added 15 shiptypes, with scout/explorers being the most general purpose, merchants and fighters specializing in cargo and space combat respectively and troop carriers who are best for transporting big awayteams
+ Fuel and Crewquater module to add to your ship
+ Added more pirates! (Because more is always better, at least as  far as pirates are concerned)
+ And destroying their bases now counts towards pirate kills!
+ Also they really really come after you when you got high price cargo. For real this time. I hope.
+ Docking on first turn doesn'cost money anymore
+ Added a new command for your ship
+ descriptions for shiptypes and items in shops added
+ "That's a weapon too" Ship engines leave a trail. flying into it hurts.
+ Fleets meet when they are adjacent to each other, used to be when they hit the same square
+ planets above 100ø surface temperature don't have open water anymore and planets below 0ø as well
+ 2 new monster types
+ 1 new unique planet
+ intercepting radio messages happens less often
+ warning for earthquakes
+ station shops are better stocked
+ Kills with grenades and shipweapons now yield biodata
+ Fixed a bug in fleeing space combat
+ Fixed a bug with special tiles on planet surface (Couldnt enter shops unless you were dead)
+ Fixed a bug that could cause tiles to be come blocked/unblocked that shouldn't
+ Fixed a bug that could cause starsystems to sit on top of each other
+ Fixed bug: unidentified alien artifacts dissapear again
+ Fixed bug: Teleportation device doesnt dissapear on next landing anymore
+ Fixed a typo, here and ther
+ Tiles changing outside your visual range no longer show up immediately
+ Menu bars remember their former position
+ Config.txt now works with on/off too
+ Unique planet descriptions don't get mangled anymore
+ Added soundeffects

[PaulBlay]

+ Fixed a typo, here and ther

Nice sense of humour ther. ;-)

[Vanguard]

That's what I'm talking about!

The new version seems to be an enormous improvement.  The balance is much better from what I've seen so far, and I like the new stuff.  The different ship types are cool, it looks like there's a lot more underground action this time around, alien communication finally gets you somewhere, and I just met another team of space adventurers!  Good work, Magellan.

I like how liquids freeze or evaporate depending on the temperatures now.  I don't think I ever remembered to say this before, but I always thought that your the worlds your game generated were cool.  Things like planets being colder at the north and south poles is a nice detail.

[magellan]

Thanks cursman. The less vanilla ships were pretty much the last big thing that should have been different all along in my mind (for now)
Guess from here on out its mainly bug fixing and maybe a little content here and there.

(speaking of which: it can happen that the shop contents don't correspond with what you see. I thought i had nailed that one down but i obviously just didn't run into it for a few consecutive tests. It should be fixed now, i hope and pray)

http://code.google.com/p/rlprospector/downloads/list

*leafs through GURPS Space ... wow 20 pages of tables to generate solar systems*

[Vanguard]

While on the topic of bug fixing, I noticed that if you go underground, the game still draws the initial aboveground entrance you came down through underground.

Sometimes a scan says that there's a 0% chance of lifeforms, but I still run into them.  Is that another one, or is it just my science officer being a moron?  I always try to save money by hiring the cheap ones.

[magellan]

Hmm... it didn't do that before. thanks, gonna have to look into that then... oh that was it. fixed.

As for chance of life: There is some corellation between it and the amount of critters, but, agreed, it could be better.

[magellan]

Another minor bugfix, though one of those was pretty bad: You couldnt repair ships past 10 points. Also 2 new options for config: Autosave on entering a station and the option to generate starmaps with a minimum safe distance between stations and pirate bases.

[magellan]

And another bugfix since we didn't have any since ... yesterday. 

[magellan]

0.1.6 is availiable as of now.
http://code.google.com/p/rlprospector/downloads/list
Is as usual where you find it.

Nothing big, mainly some tweaks in balance and some bugs here and there and over there as well fixed, though the changelog got pretty long again :

Changes in 0.1.6
+ some balancing in the upper grade ship tier
+ some trade balancing: maximum possible price is lower and minimum higher
+ More variation & some random equipment at game start
+ some balancing in ship weapons & new weapons: as a rule missiles have a better range than energy weapons
+ Systems in gasclouds have better resources
+ System types follow the harvard classification (except for F because there have to be green stars!) have an effect on resources found
+ Officers can die on planets and need bunks to sleep in.
+ New (hidden) feature in space stations
+ Tactics command added affecting ground combat
+ close combat weapons (Only effective against monsters, others stuff you still have to shoot)
+ "done" special planets give another description on scanning after they have been "done"
+ one new special planet
+ 2 new quests
+ Unlocked houses stay unlocked
+ New way to generate gasclouds
+ you can't buy the same hull like you already have anymore
+ speed is dependant on max armor of ship instead of current (as it used to be since 0.1.0)
+ Added description to communication sattelite, to better represent it's new features
+ Monsters can have some new stuff, affecting their stats
+ They also have a higher tendency to come in groups with allied members
+ Monsters can attack monsters now
+ Herbivours eat grass, Scavengers eat corpses, predators eat herbivours & scavengers
+ Monsters don't talk in coordinates anymore
+ Monsters build huts like they were supposed to
+ Inspected corpses don't show up anymore
+ Some more cosmetics to planet maps in relation to temperature
+ Keybindings may be altered by editing keybindings.txt
+ abandoned the silly everything is uppercase concept
+ 2 new map types
+ there is a way to mark already examined plants now
+ fixed a bug in shiphull upgrading (engine, sensors and shields above max didnt get reduced)
+ fixed about a gazillion typos
+ fixed a bug that could cause the game to freeze on scanning
+ fixed a bug that caused shops to only get triggered if you moved sideways into them
+ fixed bug: Gifts recieved from aliens are worth money now
+ fixed bug: Double items in shops are gone
+ fixed bug: in item scanning
+ fixed bug: that could lose items
+ fixed bug: fleeing from a fleet doesn't count as a kill anymore
+ that cave was *not* supposed to be green
+ blue and redcaps were supposed to yield biodata, and drop gaussguns instead of rifles
+ fixed a bug in cave generation on the redcap and bluecap planet
+ fixed a bug in cargo selling

[Vanguard]

Nothing big

You're being way too humble.  This looks like a pretty solid improvement.

It definitely seems more stable than before, and I think that the presentation is better as well.

Including officers when you travel on the world is an interesting change, what prompted that?  I'm not sure yet what the implications of having, say, the pilot around are, but I definitely like that the captain is now able to get involved in combat personally.

So far the bugs I've seen are that trying to load a save file where there is none lets you load the word "empty" which then promptly kills you off.  Nothing major, but I thought I'd mention it.  The other two things were that I was not able to scroll down in the help file with the arrow keys to refresh my memory of all the commands, and I was not able to select the configure option on the main menu for whatever reason, but I made do by editing the config file itself.

I don't see any mention of this in the list of changes, to anyone interested, tiles are now in the game, as well as the old option for ascii.  Be sure to run the game fullscreen if you use tiles, because in a small window it's hard to tell what's what.

[magellan]

A discussion over at bay12games on the topic "where are the officers" They had a slight quantum mechanical quality before and having them have beds and tag along makes them feel a little more real. It's an incentive to buy medpacks too. though the pilot isn't exactly helping much more than a standard redshirt, that's true.

huh... indeed no scrolling with arrow keys... +/- works though. thanks, looking into it.

Other things that i am already aware off:
Funkyness when trying to land on an asteroid belt (just some output wierdness though)
Vibro Swords have the wrong damage in the description
display funkyness when changing tactics while in config or doing something similiar.
And i have had 1 report of crashing while opening config in space, but i haven't been able to reproduce that.

as for the humble: I'd say its been more debugging & balancing than adding cool new stuff.  *shrugs* it moves forward, but it feels a lot less leaping to me. And the debugging has been quite a few facepalm moments:

for a= to
for b= to
for a= to
next
next
next
.... nope, that doesn't work.

[Vanguard]

Have you ever considered letting the player loop around from one side of a world to another if they go over the edge?  I don't know how much that would mess up npc pathfinding and everything, but it'd make life easier when your pilot decides to land on the edge of a no-oxygen world.

[magellan]

There is actually another way to solve that problem already implemented.
Haven't considered it yet, and yup. would mess up quite a few things. hummm...

[PaulBlay]

There is actually another way to solve that problem already implemented.
Haven't considered it yet, and yup. would mess up quite a few things. hummm...

How about just connecting west / east edge?  That would reduce the topological implausibility. Just say that strong magnetic fields at the pole disrupt electronics ;-)

[magellan]

I think that is what curseman meant. N/S would be wierd: you would transfer from north to south pole

It would of course make sense.

It would also mess quite a bit with my pathfinding and i would have to make sure to a certain degree that E/W edges match up. Not to mention that if I did that you could get shot at from the other side of the planet, which might seem wierd.
Scrolling being the obvious answer to that, but i don't like scrolling in my roguelikes, it makes me dizzy.

Though by some strange coincidence pathfinding/monster AI is a part that starts yelling "rewrite" at me any time i come near it.

So the answer at this point is a definite "Hmmmm..."