A deal’s a deal! This afternoon three forums and a reddit subforum all came online. Please check them out, register for any you like, and join in the conversation. If you’re wondering what to talk about, why not start with the Captain Jameson Alpha? I’d love to hear about bugs, suggestions, and stories from the final frontier. All players should find themselves exploring the same map, so it might be helpful to start sharing route tips and mapping data. If you get stuck in the game it might also be a good place to ask for help.
Since Jameson is still in alpha I wasn’t comfortable posting it in the main site menu, but you can find it tucked away in the community page as CJALPHA.BAT.
Enjoy!
<3 Farbs
Thank you.
Wish I could play this for hours, but my grandma is a control freak and limits me to whenever she gets tired of me sitting there, not bothering anyone.
How do you generate the colonies? Do you start them from a point and grow them out?
How do you cluster asteroids?
Do you load the whole map before game-start or is it generated as you fly along?
I currently seed a few zones and grow the rest of the map around them. This may change however.
I generate the whole map when you first load the game and when you dock. This is why it hangs for a moment :/
We should have a vote in what you should add, :p
On, sorry
Vote on what you should add
I vote
Better oxy system – easyer refill, 5% chance of random spawn on enemy instead of 2
Mod banking- for Savin that scrapp when your scouting, and generally keeping it safe when off your ship
Limited radar- if within range of a nav station
And on another note dude, keep up the good work.
Thumbsupguyandsmile.jpg
Ha! No.
I might occasionally post a few features for people to vote between, but design-by-committee is usually catastrophic. Suggestions and bug reports are welcomed however.
Ok, well atleast your still working in an already epic game.
I just started playing this yesterday, and I’m having an incredible time! The addition of a persistent world is a huge plus in my book, and having the ability to bank money and buy upgrades helps alleviate a lot of the frustration of losing an awesome ship. Just the ability to save between sessions is awesome. I can’t wait to see what’s in store, thanks for releasing the alpha!
I jumped in with 0.2, and I had no problems with the current oxygen levels. I’m a relative newbie to the series, so I also had to relearn combat, and the learning curve felt right. I’d love the ability to store full ships or at least modules (a mod bank, as mentioned before), but that would take away some of the tension.
One thing, pretty minor – are the options settings supposed to persist between sessions? Each time I play, I have to reset my graphics preferences and the in game nav filters.
Gotta say, 5 min is still way way too little oxygen time, imo. One of the things I enjoyed most about Captain Forever and Successor was the free roaming spirit, you could drift through space for hours, killing ships and slowing building a powerhouse ship you could be proud of. Now I find myself either getting lost and suffocating, or staying within range of an oxy station and making repeated paranoid refill trips.
Oxygen is a great idea to give the game a more space-like feel, and the other stations are awesome. I particularly like taking on the role of a scrapper. One other thing though, maybe it’s just me, but I can make neither heads nor tails of the nav station. I think if the map was quite a bit bigger, it would be loads more helpful, and could help players locate oxygen stations when they are lost.
Story time yo.
I made it to delta class ship. prismatic delta lazors and grinders yo.
found some Charlie shit, and like 3 grids below it was purple level.
unlocked some stations with my epic ship.
Saw a merchant book jacker.
Challenge accepted.
had like 20 blue guns.
Didn’t die but not i am an command mod only.
D:
Awesome job Farbs, this new version is easily my favorite. Ive played at least 6 hours on one guy now, and i honestly have nothing to complain about. But some things ive been thinking about…
I was wondering- If i close my browser…. can i play on the same ship? Haha I saw somewhere that people were having trouble with this and i dont want to risk my 3 chrono gears.
In the in game FAQ, doesn’t it say that you dont have to use the function keys and can use others instead? Because the repair screen is not as easy to navigate with function keys as it would be with arrow keys.
Can you destroy asteroids if you get the highest level guns? that would be fun for late game when you have a massive ship and cant go through the asteroid fields anymore. Or it might be cool to be able to movie or bounce small asteroids with lasers or what not and try to hit enemies with them, i dont know..
Sometimes i really wish that i was near a certain station or that a certain station was near other stations so i dont have to go all over the place all the time. Being able to build stations for a huge sum of money, or killing old stations and taking their parts and putting them elsewhere (or just upgrading old stations by adding more solar panels etc on them) COULD BE REALLY COOOOL.
All the these things aside, i love the game as is and will be playing it daily, perfectly content.
DOUBLE POST
comment 36 by Captain P has some good insight: a repair all possible button would be super, and being able to transfer credits from bank to bank would be nice.
A couple of people has pointed out that sometimes going through the process of getting oxygen is annoying. It does only take a couple seconds but… why have to go through it at all? I could say that going through telnet for all station is the reason, and that if you could bypass that for oxy stations, there would be no point in telnet. I cant see an obvious solution for this but I have to admit its annoying when you want to get some oxy, so u press f2 as fast as u can near it… AND THEN U GET SENT TO THE NAV SCREEN FOR SOME REASON LOL so yeah. Not a big deal though, definitely a minor issue.
I also want to echo the will of one commenter who think we should be able to set vector or arrow or something to show us where we want to go. It would be cool to be able to go to the nav screen, mark a coordinate, and have an arrow show you where that is in relationship to you as you fly. Being able to mark a spot on the map and go there on auto pilot would also be very nice.
Also not having a lot of oxygen is fun. One time i barely made it back to a station with only one unit of oxy, it was awesome.
Flying out of NAV station range is scary. Flying out of range with a marker to ensure that you don’t miss would be less scary.
Got delta ship back, loaded with 7 prismatic delta guns.
Come at me bro
Post pics of your ships!
The small NAV system installed on your ship would be great. You can have a mini radar on your side and easily see what happens around (in a small scale, like ships moving or finding certain station when you’re already in the station area).
Is a widescreen version of Jameson something that you would consider making? Right now the game feels ever so slightly cramped on my monitor, even when it’s expanded all the way.
Golf scrapyard get!!!
I like the new build. One suggestion: The base at 0, 0 (currently “Tereshkova’s”) should be Juliet- or Kilo-class. Since it could repair or scrap anything, it gives you a reason to keep coming “home.” Plus, plot-wise, it gives you a raison d’être — find another Kilo/Juliet-class station.
I have a fully decked Juliet shit. What do I do now, I went -800 into the abyss and found nothing
Nice! I’m still building the endgame, so for now your goal is to destroy a Juliet guardian. If you’ve done that, you’ve won!
When 0.3 arrives you’ll have a new universe to explore & a couple of new toys to play with.
OCMC – That’s a v clever suggestion. I’ll think on it.
The game plays much better with the changes to oxygen, thanks for that Farbs!
I was having a great time unlocking stations and tweaking my Juliet ship when the game crashed. The crash happened when a guardian ship got stuck in a station. I would have made a screen shot, but the screen went fuzzy before I had a chance to do so. I started that ship when you released .2, so that was a lot of time invested lost. This caused me to contemplate alternative save schemes.
I understand and agree with the position that when your command module dies you need to rebuild your ship from scratch, however, requiring docking as the save mechanism doesn’t work very well when the game crashes or some other unforeseen event borks things up. What if ships were saved whenever some common task is performed, such as whenever oxygen is refilled? Then if your command module is destroyed, the saved ship is deleted.
I’d also like to add my voice to the list of those who would like to be able to destroy asteroids, even if it requires end-game weapons. The nostalgia factor alone should make the effort worth it.
One more idea, how about an option to lock your ship configuration so you can’t accidentally pull it apart? This happened to me not long before the game crashed. What followed was a mad dash to stick as much of what I had lost back on my ship so that I could get to an oxygen station before dying of asphyxiation. I’ve had this happen in other iterations of the game as well, and though it sucked then too, it’s even worse when you factor oxygen into the equation.
Thanks for being one of the few developers left who knows how to make a game with depth Farbs!
Dammit farbs.
Have you done an update? Because my ship got deleted and idk why.
I dock right, idk why this happened.
Had a golf ship and over 9000 (for real) credits.
Now im an command mod with no moneys.
WHYYYYYY
Ditto for having the game put you back at your last dock point your ship intact if, say, your girlfriend gets annoyed by the modem sounds and pulls the plug on your PC (or, more likely, you hit the stupid Mac key that closes the browser window). Unless, of course, your command module is destroyed.
Also, asteroid collisions should do SOME damage at high speeds (unless you have shields).
Also, can we get a stellar speedometer?
Its Friday!
Version update should come out today
Farbs, I think I may have found a bug with sprint boosters in CJ 0.2. I have 2 of them and they do work, but pressing A or D to turn doesn’t activate them. I’m hoping this can be fixed in 0.3.
My impressions so far…
1. oxy level hurts gameplay (disrupts fights) as you level up…the max should increase with the highest level part you have on your ship OR each command mod you blow up drops a +x upgrade to your oxygen max.
2. Guardians should drop their pieces instead of it all getting blown away. SUCKS to kill a huge ship and then #poof# no goodies. Or guardians should drop levelups that increase the size of your command module. (then you can get a huge one like they have eventually)…i would like to see more command module effects/stats/something…(especially since the basic gun is so weak and slow)
3. I like that the grid actually tells you something about the area you are going in, by color and height. very useful, but can’t we have a map overlay or minimap so we don’t have to keep using the telnet?
4. We should be able to save/buy basic ships or have insurance at the bank or something…otherwise it can become tedious to lose a ship and start from scratch since advancement is much more difficult and strategic, and restricted by oxy time. Insurance would be nice…you can recall your last docked ship if you die, or choose a “new” basic ship at the level of dock you have “liberated”.
5. I would like to see the factories carry all possible weapons/blocks/shields for each level instead of just one per factory. Or make certain factories produce all weapons, all engines, etc…
6. Asteroids should have levels and hp so they can be destroyed and moved.
7. “Smarter” enemies would be great, but i don’t know anything about AI, so… it’s just strange to see an unbalanced ship spinning around like an idiot.
8. MMO? XD
9. sometimes when the guardians come out, the “glitchy effect” slows down the game.
10. HYPERSPACE JUMP POINTS!!!
11. Idea…after you have gotten highest ship/reached limit of game, you can begin collecting station modules and fight other “motherships” that both move as ships and produce parts (factory), oxygen, etc… would be pretty cool to have a level of complexity above this one so that your “ship” would also be a station. perhaps an idea for the next iteration of the game
ok thats all for now…really fun game! keep up the good work!
Honestly, I liked the original oxygen level. If it were raised anymore it may as well just be removed. I feel the same way about the asteroids; why have them there at all if they’re just going to be destroyed?
Show Farbs a little love for making an amazing game (that is unique, challenging and incredibly fun and super cheap!) and learn to overcome the challenging mechanics instead of asking for changes, IMO.
Loved both builds! Keep up the good work, Farbs!
Cheers for the feedback all! Of course no one implementation of the game will satisfy everyone so there’ll be conflicting opinions, but it’s very very helpful to hear them.
@Refractionof – That was actually an intentional change. Now you can better use sprint boosters for their intended purpose, which is for translation rather than rotation. Beforehand they’d often fire half full and send you spinning, which I found really annoying.
Farbs, what happened? its Tuesday and it was supposed to be out by “before the weekends”
Hope you get it finished before Friday.
Also, my ship keeps getting deleted. WHYYY
So i’ve played through 0.2 and got my Juliet class ship all lights and whistles, and i’d like to start by saying that the game is AMAZING. But I did notice a couple of bugs during my playthrough.
The most common one that I had was when picking up a module within the area of my bubble shield. Or it may have been picking up a module just next to it, and moving it into the area of my sheild, not sure which. But either way, what would happen is that the part i had picked up would ‘push’ the ship around in a circle, until i moved the module out of the shield’s area. After that i can attach it as usual.
The other bug I saw only occurred once throughout my playthrough, and it was when i captured one of the larger scrap stations in the game, a Hotel class one I believe. The guardian would spawn partially within the scrap ‘yard’, and have the other half of its modules outside of the area like normal. The result was that the guardian became trapped and unable to move, as it’s not possible to push stations. Maybe you should tamper with the spawning distance of guardians on scrap stations.
My only suggestion for the game would be to allow the use of arrow keys when using repair stations. Even after getting used to the controls it was a pretty painful excersize.
On a semi-relevant note: I’ve yet to see an oxy module.
so Far so good Farbs. I find myself having to base my operations and skirmishes around my latest captured Oxy Station, retreating earnestly when I get the half way warning. cut it close a few times. The docking system works well so far, not lost any ship configs. Station guardians are for the most part a challenge and I always come away with half the mods I went into the fight with, can be very painful.
AI isn’t Terrible but It can be amusing/frustrating to see ships that no matter how fast you whip round their side to take out their thrusters/side mods so you can steal their guns they turn on you and you end up destroying the weaponary.
Just finished the game (i.e, activated a Juliet station) after about eight hours of gameplay. Thoughts:
-I couldn’t work out whether to treat pilots as expendable or not. I have found that one of the better exploration techniques was sending modless command modules on one-way journeys into space and seeing if they find any stations, but I gave it up because it felt creepy (and because after I found the next few stations, blind exploration became avoidable again).
-For reasons I can neither evaluate nor articulate, I think having some types of modules only be available from stations would make the game better.
-I didn’t see an oxy module at any point in the entire game. Similarly, until halfway through I was convinced that factories could not produce weapons.
-I find it weird that alpha-level guardians will choose to ambush you even if they can see you have golf-level weapons.
-I think that the high-level ships should be smaller than they are, to keep the rewards commensurate with the difficulty of beating them.
-Despite all the little annoyances, it was still awesome.
I just experienced what several other people have noted can occur; I lost all my progress. For me this was caused by my trying to squeeze through a small game in an asteroid, and my juliet class shield module was too big to get through. As i hit the moment of ‘squeeze’ Firefox (4) crashed, and upon restart my progress was lost.
I like the idea of what was suggested somewhere already in this post: that your progress is saved at every oxy station, but destroyed when you die. It’s a nice little safety net for when anomalous crashes occur.
Farbs, whats going on! You said about a week ago, it’d be out before the weekends.
I don’t know what scripting a game like this is like, but i made some simple mods using a code for my game. Tell us whats hanging you up, and we may be able to help.
Yep, sorry about that. I got a little burnt out after the first two releases, and lost some time to holidays. 0.3 is very close now.
Its ok. Now we know! Verrryyyyyy close.
An onscreen warning for air would be nice as well as the sound, I was just plodding along outfitting my purple machine with some blue stuff and poof I died, I forgot to breathe… watching telly at the same time
even if it only came on with like 10 units to go. Cheers for the game though, best game I’ve played in a long time, as a gamer the game I dreamed of as a kid was similar to this, except multiplayer/mmo, steal other people’s bits, get unique bits, 3d on ground as well I kind imagined it as mech monster fights or something, but essential part of it being that you could build it how you wanted and level up.
Cheers bear!
There should be a number of visual indicators -> The oxy meter turns red then later starts flashing, and two distinct warning messages pop up near the middle of the screen. I figured this’d be enough, but it’s worrying that you’re still missing it.
I think I had these all in place from v0.1 onwards, but I might be incorrect. Do you recall which build you were playing?