Dangerous (a.k.a Null Space) [Universal]

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That's awesome. Bloodily awesome.

[VirtualBoyFreak]

Originally Posted by binaryhelix

We hope to finish the radial menus & laser and submit the update by the end of next week if all goes to plan, but it's a fairly substantial change, so the date might slip.

We have the "save anywhere" on our gigantic To Do list, but it is actually a very involved change that requires breaking down all quests into different stages/states. At this point, I'd rather try to get either the boarding aspect or some form of multiplayer done first (after the radial menus). Most games in this genre seem to use the station as a natural save point (Galaxy on Fire 2, X3, Elite, etc), so it feels more like a luxury than a must have.

Thanks a lot for the heads-up. Loving the game & support it receives

[Bandimon]

I'm using the 1.0.8 on an iPhone 4s, And I've fondo that the trade ruote bug is still unsolved.
Some times the transport ship just cant't dock, but now it lost all my money 2 times.
Home : hekka/hub station
Buy luxury geom. Washabo/ying
(sorry for the spelling, I'm relaying on my bad memory)
After a couple of routes, the cargo after dock at home just disappear.
Since the game auto save each time i launch I've lost all ...

Another bug : if you have a cargo that can sell or upload in your ship,
If you undock before reading the sell/unload message, you're stuck in space
And can't dock or warp, since you're in space, but the game think you're
Docked.

Can i recover my 180.000.000 value of luxury ? Now I'm broke And frustated :-(

The game is really nice, but with that trade bug is too much frustating ...

Thanks

[Bandimon]

May I also suggest to have the auto save function
use a different slot from the system/save one ?

[Sheinfell]

First of all, Dangerous made me signup with TA to post here. First game I ever did that for, and only one of a handful I felt strong enough for to provide feedback. So, congratulations on an excellent game!
I bought it shortly after release, but put it aside after like 30 minutes of playing, being overwhelmed by all the options during tutorial already, and getting blasted by the first enemy I encountered outside the tutorial mission.
What brought me back was the game depth I could see in the various posts on this forum, and the dedication of the developers to improve it, fix bugs, etc.
Now I have ~15 hours on the clock, and wreck enemy battleships with a destroyer, without breaking a sweat.

Now, on to the feedback part...

1) As many others suggested here, change the name and the icon. For the name, my suggestion is "Nullspace: Dangerous(') Tales" . For the icon, something more fitting for a space game, like a picture of one of the stations, or of a Leviathan, for example.

2) Additional interface requests:
In the hangar, a button to move everything from/to stock.
When flying, a button to (de)activate all weapons at once. After a while, it gets tedious to repeatedly activate 7 turrets.
In hangar and store: Several people commented already on how tedious it is to push the transfer button alot of times to get a bigger amount of stock moved. I suggest to change these buttons so that they transfer stuff as long as you press it, with the speed picking up incrementally. E.g. the first 10 items get moved at normal speed, the next 50 at double, then the next 100 at triple speed, and so on. Exact speed open for testing what works best, of course.

3) Longer and better tutorial.
Writing on my iPad now, so I won't post a lengthy analysis for now. In general, I think the tutorial does not cover enough of the basics of the game. I got 28 years of gaming under my belt, and even I felt put off by the complexity and lack of helpfiles. I imagine it feels much worse for someone new to gaming, or the more casual gamer in general.

4) Game balance:
As I said above, I can blast apart battleships with a destroyer, without too much risk. It takes some time, depending on which wingmen (of the 3 I have now) I bring. When I play it save, I take Grace and Kali to make sure I get healed all the time. When I feel a bit more risky, I use Grace and Akio. Only when flying alone and geared without any repair equipment I get defeated so far. I ventured to most systems in the 2nd ring, and all of the first, so maybe this changes when I enter nullsec space. But still, taking apart a battleship plus support should not be that easily possible with a ship two size classes lower.

5) Additional information:
The faction overview should also list which skill/reward you got from wich faction for the loyalty quest, so you can look it up later.
The starmap should show the anomaly shortcuts. I saw this is already on your todo list, so I hope this makes it into the game.
An extra overview in your quarters, that shows what you have in storage on which station.

6) More saveslots:
I really broke a sweat when I thought that my savegame got corrupted. Turned out the game hung up even after restarting it. Rebooting the iPad resolved the issue. But I don't want to go through this again. Having more than one saveslot would help alot to reduce that fear. Plus it would allow to try out different things more easily.

7) A way to reset all skills and redistribute experience points. Not for free, that would make it too easy to change your skills to whatever you currently need. Maybe as reward for a loyalty quest?

8) 2nd round of loyalty quests:
For those, rewards could be special ships, or special equipment. E.g more of the elite level gear I found a few of already. On 2nd thought, ships would be a good reward for a 3rd round.
Oh, and change the loyalty measure to whole numbers. The "0.49" stuff struck me as way too nerdy Just "49" is perfectly fine.

More to follow for sure. And if I find the time, I will try and contribute to the wiki that another poster so kindly set up.

Best wishes, hope your sales pick up enough for you to make it worthwhile and keep you at improving the game. Which reminds me to mention that at least I am perfectly fine with paying for an additional content pack. Some of the things you mentioned (like the boarding and free walking on stations, or multiplayer) could easily be part of content packs, instead of free updates, so large is the scope of what you are trying to achieve here.

[xStatiCa]

Any chance to support the iControlPad (bluetooth controller)? I just found out that it has dual analog bluetooth controls when the developer uses 'special packet mode'. It does not require a jailbreak for the dual analog controls.

I want to get one because games are starting to support the special packet mode like VertexBlaster 2.0. I sure hope this device picks up more developers because it sure beats other controllers that either are not analog or require plugging into the headphone jack. The iControlPad is bluetooth.

[Sheinfell]

The "Master Trader" skill seems a bit oddly named. The description says "improves the yield of all your mining operations" . Does this only apply when I mine myself, or also include operations by hired pilots (I assume that corp. pilots you hire also can mine)?
The description should be more clear on this, and the name should the skill effect better, eg. call it "Oremaster" instead.

Master Trade should give a bonus to all trading operations done by your corp. pilots, say 2% per skill level, for a max of 10%. I don't yet know of enough of the game's economics to really suggest a meaningful percentage here.

[binaryhelix]

Originally Posted by Bandimon

I'm using the 1.0.8 on an iPhone 4s, And I've fondo that the trade ruote bug is still unsolved.
...
The game is really nice, but with that trade bug is too much frustating ...

Thanks

Sorry you're running into these bugs. We have some fixes related to routing in the current build. To help squash any remaining bugs, the lead developer, Andrew, might ask you some additional questions.

Originally Posted by Bandimon

May I also suggest to have the auto save function
use a different slot from the system/save one ?

This is not a bad idea. If implemented though, the problem would be training/educating current users that they now need to manually save. Or maybe add an option that controls how autosave works. Something we can look at after the priority and UI fixes.

Originally Posted by Sheinfell

First of all, Dangerous made me signup with TA to post here. First game I ever did that for, and only one of a handful I felt strong enough for to provide feedback. So, congratulations on an excellent game!
I bought it shortly after release, but put it aside after like 30 minutes of playing, being overwhelmed by all the options during tutorial already, and getting blasted by the first enemy I encountered outside the tutorial mission.
What brought me back was the game depth I could see in the various posts on this forum, and the dedication of the developers to improve it, fix bugs, etc.
Now I have ~15 hours on the clock, and wreck enemy battleships with a destroyer, without breaking a sweat.

Thanks for the feedback! What things do you think we should have added to the tutorial?

Now, on to the feedback part...

1) As many others suggested here, change the name and the icon. For the name, my suggestion is "Nullspace: Dangerous(') Tales" . For the icon, something more fitting for a space game, like a picture of one of the stations, or of a Leviathan, for example.

We're sort of in a holding pattern about the icon. If we're able to add the on-foot ship boarding portion, then the icon makes more sense. But I agree that a more spaceship oriented icon would work best for the current game.

As for the name, I agree that it does not describe the genre like "Freespace" does so well. But also consider other games like "Elite" and "Freelancer" don't exactly describe "space game" either. And I'm just a little tired of all the space games with "space" in their title. It just seems like following the flock, and we're shooting for a desktop class game on mobile. Also, the name seems arbitrary, but obviously plays a big part of the story right off the bat. So, your point is taken (and lots of others have given us this advice). I'm not sure it would do much for sales now (keywords seem to help people find the game and there we do have "space"), and I like vaguish names. It feels like honoring the "Elite" tradition by doing so. In fact, if you know your Elite ranks, you'll know that Dangerous was the rank before Deadly and then Elite.

2) Additional interface requests:
In the hangar, a button to move everything from/to stock.
When flying, a button to (de)activate all weapons at once. After a while, it gets tedious to repeatedly activate 7 turrets.
In hangar and store: Several people commented already on how tedious it is to push the transfer button alot of times to get a bigger amount of stock moved. I suggest to change these buttons so that they transfer stuff as long as you press it, with the speed picking up incrementally. E.g. the first 10 items get moved at normal speed, the next 50 at double, then the next 100 at triple speed, and so on. Exact speed open for testing what works best, of course.

Good suggestions. We'll try to add these down the road.

3) Longer and better tutorial.
Writing on my iPad now, so I won't post a lengthy analysis for now. In general, I think the tutorial does not cover enough of the basics of the game. I got 28 years of gaming under my belt, and even I felt put off by the complexity and lack of helpfiles. I imagine it feels much worse for someone new to gaming, or the more casual gamer in general.

If there's anything specific you can tell us to add, it'll help.

4) Game balance:
As I said above, I can blast apart battleships with a destroyer, without too much risk. It takes some time, depending on which wingmen (of the 3 I have now) I bring. When I play it save, I take Grace and Kali to make sure I get healed all the time. When I feel a bit more risky, I use Grace and Akio. Only when flying alone and geared without any repair equipment I get defeated so far. I ventured to most systems in the 2nd ring, and all of the first, so maybe this changes when I enter nullsec space. But still, taking apart a battleship plus support should not be that easily possible with a ship two size classes lower.

We have two systems that can be improved here. The AI Outfitter creates ships that are challenging, so maybe the difficulty can be tweaked. Or maybe we can add more game difficulty settings, like: tough, and hardcore. The second system is the AI Director which analyzes various factors in space and works with the Outfitter to create challenging scenarios. So both can definitely be improved further.

5) Additional information:
The faction overview should also list which skill/reward you got from wich faction for the loyalty quest, so you can look it up later.
The starmap should show the anomaly shortcuts. I saw this is already on your todo list, so I hope this makes it into the game.
An extra overview in your quarters, that shows what you have in storage on which station.

Yup, definitely on our to do list.

6) More saveslots:
I really broke a sweat when I thought that my savegame got corrupted. Turned out the game hung up even after restarting it. Rebooting the iPad resolved the issue. But I don't want to go through this again. Having more than one saveslot would help alot to reduce that fear. Plus it would allow to try out different things more easily.

This is a fair suggestion, though we'd also like to add a cloud save feature. This would also let you share your save game between different devices.

7) A way to reset all skills and redistribute experience points. Not for free, that would make it too easy to change your skills to whatever you currently need. Maybe as reward for a loyalty quest?

This sounds reasonable, perhaps in a content update as a special quest.

8) 2nd round of loyalty quests:
For those, rewards could be special ships, or special equipment. E.g more of the elite level gear I found a few of already. On 2nd thought, ships would be a good reward for a 3rd round.
Oh, and change the loyalty measure to whole numbers. The "0.49" stuff struck me as way too nerdy Just "49" is perfectly fine.

Yup, the system was designed for a second round, but we ran out of time. I'd also like to make each loyalty quest even more unique to each faction and involve more story elements. So there's a lot that can happen here possibly as content updates or mission add on packs.

More to follow for sure. And if I find the time, I will try and contribute to the wiki that another poster so kindly set up.

Best wishes, hope your sales pick up enough for you to make it worthwhile and keep you at improving the game. Which reminds me to mention that at least I am perfectly fine with paying for an additional content pack. Some of the things you mentioned (like the boarding and free walking on stations, or multiplayer) could easily be part of content packs, instead of free updates, so large is the scope of what you are trying to achieve here.

Thanks for your feedback. Sales on iOS and especially the Mac App Store are weak, but strangely more consistent on Android. We're considering adding ads to the free version, some fun IAP (but we're not going free to play), and selling a "Space Bundle" among other ideas.

Originally Posted by xStatiCa

Any chance to support the iControlPad (bluetooth controller)? I just found out that it has dual analog bluetooth controls when the developer uses 'special packet mode'. It does not require a jailbreak for the dual analog controls.

I want to get one because games are starting to support the special packet mode like VertexBlaster 2.0. I sure hope this device picks up more developers because it sure beats other controllers that either are not analog or require plugging into the headphone jack. The iControlPad is bluetooth.

That sounds like a cool controller. Ultimately, we'd like to support them all, it's a matter of getting a device and finding time to add it. Unfortunately, it'd still be a low to medium priority. Since we use Unity, there's a chance someone else will offer a controller support package in the Asset Store sooner rather than later.

Originally Posted by Sheinfell

The "Master Trader" skill seems a bit oddly named. The description says "improves the yield of all your mining operations" . Does this only apply when I mine myself, or also include operations by hired pilots (I assume that corp. pilots you hire also can mine)?
The description should be more clear on this, and the name should the skill effect better, eg. call it "Oremaster" instead.

Master Trade should give a bonus to all trading operations done by your corp. pilots, say 2% per skill level, for a max of 10%. I don't yet know of enough of the game's economics to really suggest a meaningful percentage here.

Good suggestions. I think the skill name is definitely a bug.

[binaryhelix]

Some changes that we're probably adding to improve game flow. Let me know what you think:

- No more manual locking. Instead, all craft and enemies are automatically locked. The ones that are in front of the ship lock 3x faster than normal. Allies lock instantly since your computers coordinate and enhance locking. This lets us remove the Lock button from the UI. We'll also add locking-in-progress types of animations to ships on screen and in the Contacts list. It'll help you prioritize targets. This feature is not set in stone, so let us know if you think this would be good or detrimental to gameplay. Or you have a better idea...

- A cleaner UI with auto hiding of some elements when not in use. The speed and distance sliders could disappear a few seconds after you use them. And then reappear if you touch in the area.

- Radial control for modules. You'll press a button to bring up the radial control which arranges your modules into a circle with the hi-slot modules at the top. We'd like to add a "shoot all" button here so you can train all offensive modules at one target (this shoot all button might have to wait for a later update).

- Lasers will now be controlled by a big button in the lower right which is (mostly) always visible. Each laser or mass accelerator module you add makes the beams stronger. So you don't have to open the radial control to shoot your lasers, just press the big button or double-tap to engage auto-fire.

- Gravity Vortex Bombs will also work like the new lasers. Each gravity bomb module you add makes them stronger. The bombs will be launched with a button near the laser button.

- Radial control for Autopilots and Wingmen. You'll press a button on the left side which brings up the radial control that lets you pick an autopilot and/or control both wingmen.

- You'll be able to pause the game when either the Autopilot or Module radial controls are active. This is controlled by settable options.

[Sheinfell]

Originally Posted by binaryhelix

Some changes that we're probably adding to improve game flow. Let me know what you think:
- No more manual locking. Instead, all craft and enemies are automatically locked. The ones that are in front of the ship lock 3x faster than normal. Allies lock instantly since your computers coordinate and enhance locking. This lets us remove the Lock button from the UI. We'll also add locking-in-progress types of animations to ships on screen and in the Contacts list. It'll help you prioritize targets. This feature is not set in stone, so let us know if you think this would be good or detrimental to gameplay. Or you have a better idea...

Sounds good if you make this toggleable. By now I quite like the manual locking. Plus, I do not need to worry about accidentally firing at an ally or neutral ship. Yes, I know there is the safety feature, but still...maybe it's old habits dying hard, but something with a lock for me means something to fire upon. Plus, with alot of ships around (I have seen 20 or so) in busier systems you could run out of locks.
And I personally have the feeling that manual locking gives me more control, e.g. prioritising targets. Along the line of "Lock first, kill first".

Originally Posted by binaryhelix

- A cleaner UI with auto hiding of some elements when not in use. The speed and distance sliders could disappear a few seconds after you use them. And then reappear if you touch in the area.

Good feature, if the reappearing happens instantly. Don't want to wait for the slider to fade back in slowly when I need it immediately.

Originally Posted by binaryhelix

- Radial control for modules. You'll press a button to bring up the radial control which arranges your modules into a circle with the hi-slot modules at the top. We'd like to add a "shoot all" button here so you can train all offensive modules at one target (this shoot all button might have to wait for a later update).

I worked with radial menus in an application only once, but I liked it alot. Definitely worth a shot on a touch device, to see if it works out. Can I suggest that you make the menu freely placeable? I would not like to have the menu in such a spot on the screen that my hand covers half the screen when using it.

Originally Posted by binaryhelix

- Lasers will now be controlled by a big button in the lower right which is (mostly) always visible. Each laser or mass accelerator module you add makes the beams stronger. So you don't have to open the radial control to shoot your lasers, just press the big button or double-tap to engage auto-fire.

- Gravity Vortex Bombs will also work like the new lasers. Each gravity bomb module you add makes them stronger. The bombs will be launched with a button near the laser button.

Didn't dogfight yet, so I cannot say much here. Of course, a "fire all" button is always handy.

Originally Posted by binaryhelix

- Radial control for Autopilots and Wingmen. You'll press a button on the left side which brings up the radial control that lets you pick an autopilot and/or control both wingmen.
- You'll be able to pause the game when either the Autopilot or Module radial controls are active. This is controlled by settable options.

See above, radial menus sound like a good idea. If that is possible coding-wise, leave the old menu style in, and make it toggleable, with radial being the default?