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

[Sheinfell]

@Binaryhelix: Nice, I really appreciate your attitude, that you listen and go into dialogue with your players. Keep up the excellent work!

Right off the bat, I miss helpfiles that explain the differences between the weapon systems, and for what combat scenarios following/orbiting/distance-keeping work best.
I think in one mission briefing there was a brief mention that a high-velocity orbit helps avoiding turret fire. Things like that should be in an easily accessible in-game helpfile.

Next, the available weapons, systems and ships:
Yes, it is fun to find out yourself that there are several tiers of weapons/systems.
But in-universe, Mr.Dangerous would just ask someone before he spends a few thousand bucks on a missile launcher that does not fit on his ship.
Or someone might point it out to him, a ship-techie in the hanger for example ("nice big gun you got there, fella. Bit too big for that tiny frigate of yours, if you ask me.") .
It does not have to be a full-blown interactive tutorial, a helpfile would be good enough.
You could even make this a book (well, file on a datapad) in-game that you can buy ("Weapon modules for dummies, 3rd edition" , "Ship systems explained in twelve easy steps", "Royal Navy Document RNY17289-ghda/4, appendix 7-12: Active conflict resolution components - configuration guidelines for line officers commanding combat vessels of the D-MM5 <"Missile-based Destroyer"> class).

For ships, the "Assemble, Package, Use" thing is not exactly obvious.
When I first assembled a ship, then forgot about it cause I quit the game and continued later, I thought I lost the ship cause I did not see it at the next station when I checked my ship inventory.

Ammunition:
Just a short entry which system needs how much ammo when firing continuously for one minute. I ask this cause the description of the laser ammo ("these crystals last for months..." or something similar") made me wonder if I actually need more than 1 or 2 (as opposed to the few thousand shots of missile ammo I fly around with).
This could be part of the ammo and/or of the weapon description.

Corporate pilots:
How to use them definitely needs a tutorial/helpfile of its own.
By the way, is this intentional or a bug, that I cannot tell a piloted ship to "return home" when I am not in its actual home system? I can push the button in the details, but nothing happens. It only worked when I flew back to the homesystem, and did it there.

General things:
Helpfiles/tutorial that explain some general game mechanics.
For example, will the things I left in storage at one station stay there, or do they get cleaned up at some point?
Also, a brief mention of how to use the Quest interface, mainly covering dynamic quests (took me a while to find this feature, as I never had a reason to call up the Quest menu inflight).

Will let you know when I encounter more things.

[Sheinfell]

I also noticed that some menus do not have a "back" button.
For example the quest view you get when you "view" a company agent that currently does not offer a loyalty quest.
Or in your quarters, when you go to "Factions -> Details": Neither the detail overview, nor the ship details I can access with the "?" next to the ship entry in the details have a back button.
Say, I want to view the flightroute of 2 of my ships.
Once I viewed the first, I cannot go straight back to the ship detail overview of my faction to pick the next ship I want to see. Instead I have to do the whole walk of "hit Factions, scroll down, hit Details" again.

And I sometimes encounter a bug where most to all of the weapons on my active ship switch their ammunition.
Unfortunately it is not consistent enough (happens maybe 2-3 times in 5-6 hours of playing) that I can reproduce it. I experimented a bit (with things like restarting the game, switching ships, switching weapons, etc.) but could not find a trigger condition for this behaviour. So far it seems completely random.

[Sheinfell]

Ship outfits:
I think that the Hades capital ship is a bit underwhelming. 5 weapon slots only?
Unless I miss something here, the battleships are way superior in terms of raw firepower, which is hard to replace with anything else.
The Hades is supposed to be the biggest and most dangerous ship around, and its outfit possibilities should reflect that. 10 weapon bays with 10 hardpoints for each weapontype, so you can mount whatever you want. Plus 7 or even 8 of mid and low slots.
If I get my hands on the most expensive warship available, I expect that I get a chance to play around with all those nifty toys - e.g. energy drainers - that I could never fit on the other ships.
The boni you get for it being a capital ship fit more for a support ship.
If you don't want to add even more firepower, a bonus to sensor/lock range etc. always comes in handy.

[VirtualBoyFreak]

Was the update with the wheel menus submitted to Apple in the end?

[binaryhelix]

Some excellent feedback, Sheinfell. Will definitely address your points in a later reply.

Originally Posted by VirtualBoyFreak

Was the update with the wheel menus submitted to Apple in the end?

Not submitted yet. After some tests, we've determined that the autopilot radial menu works well and will be the default mode of operation, but the module radial menu won't. What happens is that you lose situational awareness when those modules are hidden. In the case of the autopilot radial, the button that triggers the menu now changes to tell you the current autopilot mode, and the new wingmen control make the autopilot radial effective.

After testing with the auto-locking feature, we determined that it took some of the fun away and caused performance issues. All the ships locking everything in sight ate up CPU cycles, and it also removed some situational awareness since prior to the change, it was just enemies that locked you. So auto-locking won't be in the update, but we did improve the locking with a small animation which helps you understand how long it will take to lock certain ships. Auto-locking may return as a module that you can install in future update though.

The graphics and sound effects are getting a boost. There's a new missile launch sound that is way cooler than the original "whoosh" sound. We're also adding beautiful ship explosions for the more powerful devices, and some other graphical improvements which I'll leave as a surprise.

Also, one of the big reasons this update is taking longer than usual is we're revamping the UI and adding a "fire all" button. This was prompted by feedback from quite a few fans, so thanks for prodding us in this direction.

Now, the buttons that affect the ships in the Contacts list are grouped below it. The fire all button is smart: if you have an enemy selected, it'll shoot all your offensive weapons. If you have an ally or neutral, it'll activate all your helpful modules like remote repair. It improves the flow of combat quite a bit. And for the times that you want to micromanage the modules against multiple threats, you can still do that.

Suffice it to say that I think people will be very pleased by this overhaul. And hopefully we can submit this update next week... Stay tuned.

[Cromwell]

Sorry, when this has been mentioned before.

I have problems with the steering. When I press Up or Down, the ship is going in circles. Why is this so? It makes steering very difficult and I see no advantage in it.

Then I think that the brightness is too bright for a game set in space. I would like to have it darker. More like in other space games. Would be nice if you add an option the set the brightness of the background individually
.

Ok, now for somethin else:

Maybe my idea seems a little bit odd, but I would suggest that ZARKSOFT Empire of the eclipse and BINARY HELIX should team up, mix their games somehow and make an MMO something like EVE with a little bit less complexity, multi OS and Devices support.
Ok, sounds ambitious and expensive.
That might be a kickstarter project which could need a big name...

So, if you need a universe which is well know by space rpg players, then you could take ingZ Inc into the boat, they made Traveller AR (the AR feature is nonsense in my opinion, sorry for that @ingZ, but that is the bitter truth), which sadly is on hold at the moment due to financial difficulties. So they need money

Ok, maybe call me crazy, but it is just an idea which came into my mind when I was thinking about and searching for a little bit less complex alternative to EVE.There is NONE right now!
Maybe Vendetta Online, but that is not complex enough for me.

[VirtualBoyFreak]

@BinaryHelix Thanks for the heads up. Sounds fantastic! Looking forward to updating the game as soon as the update goes live in a few weeks

[Yolkfolk]

I packed my ship somewhere in one of two systems, but I do not recall where. Is there a way to find out where I left it?

[Cromwell]

Could someone plz give me a hint on how to steer the ship up or down without rotating in a circle? I have absolutely no clue...
I really want to play the game, but this makes me crazy.

[Sheinfell]

@Yolkfolk : Unfortunately not. You need to go back to where you packed it, and assemble it again.

@Binaryhelix : That would be a nice addition for a future update, to see where you have what in store. Not only packaged ships, but also things you left in the hangar storage.

@Cromwell : Which control method do you use? I use the d-pad, and never had any problems so far. But then I am lazy and use the autopilot alot
Do you have Newtonian Flight activated?
What might help is to reduce the control sensitivity a notch or two, and see if things go better.