Bugs and Crashes, Build 12042

[Tacitus]

So far not much to chime in with, UI improvements are great and walking animations hardly if ever glitch out. That being said, there are bees. (Win32 version)

*Equipped a redshirt with a flamethrower on the ship and went on away team. Flamethrower was unequipped automatically.
*No XP gain on away mission?
*Flamethrower effect caused enemy projectiles to hang on the map, not sure if the fire surrounded the orb and didn't let it reach its target or what. This resulted in a crash while trying to move away from it. (Last received transmission from the crew of the Shaitan can be found here: )
*Simply arriving on a planet results in a full token loadout. Not sure if this is intentional.
*Ridiculous maximum zoom level is ridiculous. Is this necessary?
*On a slightly unrelated note; the dog won't stop taking a dump on every square inch of the ship. I like pixelated poo piles as much as the next guy but they are piling up and causing image flicker.

I'll add to this if I find anything else. Great work! Improvements are definitely noticeable!

[stevetranby]

Lol, I thought I removed the dog, I've been testing for the last week or two without the dog roaming. We have a new android character we thought could clean up after the dog, haha. Good to hear your thoughts though and while I thought it was fun to let them pile up forever, maybe a max of 50 or so would be smart. We also thought/planned/whatever to allow you to "equip" the dog to a character, thus why it follows them around. The dog I think also needs to move around more randomly, and maybe needs a kennel

Free roam XP and Skill Levels are different, assuming we keep them as different game modes with different functionality. Skill Levels are manual where you get skill points as reward when you complete a mission or win a battle. XP levels are no longer a "thing" because kits/skills are equipped instead of earned, and skill level is no longer gained by XP. I suppose the titles are still there (ensign, jr officer, captain, etc) so we probably need to re-enable some concept of XP. It's also possible we'll never have an actual 2nd mode, and will just add free roam features slowly into the main game mode. It's a constant or continual discussion.

The zoom scale we'll prob leave for now, but we may look at restricting it even further for away teams (only 2 levels) and on ship maybe remove that most scaled that you screenshot, though that may also be just a resolution bug where high resolutions are being allowed to zoom to much since it is a factor of res.

I noticed strange unequip and re-equip on changing assignment from bridge to engine and back. I'll have to look at that system and make sure it's defined well when and why a kit is unequipped and why it doesn't stay with on away teams (again I was testing with flamethrower equipped and it seemed to always stay equipped onto away mission).

The joys of programming!

Thanks.

[Tacitus]

Well, for that why not make the dog its own kit? Yeah, a little placeable kennel or doghouse for him to call home wouldn't be so bad. I figured out the Skill Levels while clicking around; I like the new manual leveling but definitely some kind of on-screen notification would help...I ended up with like 6 of them piled up.

Apparently I can only replicate the full token chest on Mercury, which is usually where I go first in free mode (in keeping with tradition). I think because it is my first away mission it's filling the chest with all the freebie stuff from the beginning again...token count/variety was identical.

While trying to buy an upgrade (2 Science tokens) one got stuck on the token chest ui while dragging. Wouldn't unstick and wouldn't let me delete it either. It also laughed at my attempts to drag another Sci token in its palace. Have to exit menu and try again, a minor inconvenience that I vaguely remember from initial mobile release.

Also, I found the log for the crash I reported earlier in regards to the fire/projectile thingy. https://www.dropbox.com/s/loob2r1ziv99g ... 1.txt?dl=0

Is it normal for Pirates to board my ship with zombie cosmonauts? Do they have like a zombie pen? Either way, moving over to the Prologue mode on mobile now and searching for bees.

[Tacitus]

Quick list for Android build (LG G2)

*Torpedoes not working at all in prologue; no charging, no firing. This was during the battle with Antorian Battlecruiser at Venus, stuck Princess in Torpedo room..don't know if that matters. Torpedoes worked fine in free roam.

*Combat music resets every time Laser Cannon fires. I'm thinking this has something to with the firing minigame.

*Either FOW setting drops framerate to ridiculous lows. I'll fiddle with my ram settings, but still.

*Projectile getting stuck in air has nothing to do with fire, happened for no good apparent reason this time.

*ADDENDUM*

*I keep hearing doors open while in free roam, although no one is going thru them.

*Laser Cannon animation stutters occasionally in free roam.

*I don't know that it can be helped but there's slight image tearing while zooming in/out. Using an Aldrin class in this case.

[stevetranby]

Thanks, lots to test and debug for next build and on multiple devices internally this time.

I'll need to finally address the music reset, I was waiting as long as possible for the new cocos2d-x audio engine to work its bugs out, but release time fixes are now priority.

Bummer about the fog of war and tearing, time to load up the profiler. At least FoW won't affect our initial app store update release (prologe-only bug fixes w/couple features).

[Tacitus]

Anytime, I'm glad to help in any way I can (as long as it involves me playing SC). I'll continue to call em out as I find them.

The 3d explosion effects are growing on me.

[stevetranby]

I'm not sold yet for mobile on 3d explosions nor other 3d effects, as I kinda enjoy keeping hold of the pixel/retro look. But I have messed around with "3d" lighting on mobile, it's cool in a way, but not sure it's the right direction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbFSIfEAM5k

[Tacitus]

Just watched. It's slick, no doubt about that. I agree with keeping the retro look for mobile...the 3d would probably matter more to the Galaxies crowd. With that, a few more bugs:

*Grenade production bar floats around with the camera.

*Not entirely sure, but it definitely seemed like unspent skill points disappeared after saving/reloading.

General issues with Auto-return and it's functionality. Normally I keep it off for combat reasons, nothing worse than waiting for the next boarding party and half my redshirts bumble off. However, when coming back from an away mission they generally have to be told to return to their posts (otherwise they'll just stand there like zombies). Is there a happy medium between having to do it all the time or never doing it at all?

[stevetranby]

I'm making a list with priority. Ah, silly little bugs missed due to having cheat modes on.

Thanks for the input on 3d stuff, while some may want it even on mobile others won't and those that want it should wait for galaxies. A few things may be used where it makes sense or if we think it works while trying to keep it looking retro.

Ah yes, the new camera is so much easier for us to use and separates HUD from the game, but this is hopefully the last straggler of objects not attached to the game (default attachment is HUD due to limit of cocos2d-x's camera - being fixed in next version, but not the one we're using ).

I almost removed the option to auto-return/assign (at least the way we have it with the option toggles). I think it'll be best to remove them and then add in more smarts only where it makes sense, and allow user action to handle the rest like the group menu "return" button that returns all assigned crew to their assignments, or some version of Green/Red alert system.

[Tacitus]

I really feel (after years with this game) that the Alert Status button is the answer we've been waiting for. Between that and group settings (and that wonderful "all return" button) I feel that issue would be mostly solved.

Man, I gotta look into cocos2d-x.

I'm proud to say I haven't discovered any new bugs, but I'm still looking.