Review of a tests session

Hi,

I did a tests session with some friends last week, the game worked fine and players were very exciting. I give here some review/comments and I propose some changes/enhancements (sorry for the length of this post ^^ (and for my bad english...)) :

Helms

Helm station works very fine, we saw no bug or mis-connection with the server (instead of Artemis...). The waypoints implementation was a very good idea. It is very helpful for the pilot. I know that color will be added, it will be very nice again.

There is one strange thing with the joystick : we could do a fast reverse gear. It's not a bad thing, but this reload the combat manoeuver bar.

Sometimes, when we wanted to travel huge distance, the jump drive was not enough. Could it be possible to choose the max distance in the ship template. Example : a ship designed to travel the space, without any weapons. Players could dock on it, change the ship, travel, and then back to their ship.

Weapons

Weapons station work very well too. The player worked everytime (where he was not in combat, he prepared the next one). The multiple missiles and beams directions is very fine. More generally, the personalisation of the ship armament is awesome !

Engineer

Engineer station is a little bit monotonous, but I think it is logical for this station. Removing the shield calibration is a good idea, he is occupied enough with the rest of his job.
Why do not add a button to activate auto repair ? I saw that it is currently only available for the GM to do that.
We thought that some rooms could be added in the ship, without any power or collant bars, but which affect all the ship. For example, a computer server room : if it damaged, one player screen could be shutted off or disrupted during few seconds. Engineer has to repair this room, otherwise all the players screens will gradually be damaged. The health statut of this room could be see below the top left information of the engineer screen.

Science

We thought that science station requires some enhancements. The fact that the difficulty of the mini-game is variable is a very good thing, and the mini-game is much easier with shortkeys than with mouse. But the mini game is always the same, and (mainly) database is not very user-friendly. Here is our proposals :

- To prepare the strategy, the scientific could be able to see beams of a ship or of a station (with the max zoom).

- In the database, a zoom to see the 3D model could be nice. We did not always see all the ship. Moreover, if the zoom value is indicated, players could realize the size difference between the ship and them. A other possibility : add a "ghost" with the 3D model of the players ship, to realize directly the size difference.

- Adding hypertext link in the radar view could enhance the database utility. When the scientist scan a ship, a side pannel shows the name of the faction and the template of the ship. It could be interesting that, if the scientist click on this information, that opens the database with the right entry.

- I re-ask for my old proposal : a dynamic database could be very interesting for the scientist, and for the GM. To illustrate : players discover a new alien race, and they cannot interact with them because languages are different. They have to go to a "diplomatic" space station, in order to get a dictionnary. Then, the dictionnary appear in the database and, with the help of the scientist, the relay can discuss with this new alien race.
To avoid server overloading, the entire database could be load with the script, and a function IsVisible (0 for hidden, 1 for visible [default]) could be applied for all entries during the game.

Relay

The relay station is much more interesting with the last waypoints changes. The mix between space view and communication is really good. Some little problems :

- Relay has to click two times to see the log ship. Only one button could be better.

- There is a problem when two commications come in the same time, relay can only read the last one.
And, there is two little proposals of amelioration

- Is it possible to change the color of the probe which is linked to the scientist ? It could help the communication between stations.

- Is it possible to add a feature to show a image during communications ? We think about seeing our speaker, like in the game Civilisation. It could make the game more immersive.


Script

We have two proposals for script writing :
- Add function button to a specific player station, in the same way as for the GM station. It could permit to rise up the personalisation of the scenario by adding some specific features (for example : allow weapons station to launch warp jammer of tractor beam). To not obstruct the visual of the player screen, all the new buttons could be group in a menu (like stations choice).
- Decide if a ship is ally of ennemy with a faction, regardless of its own race. It could change a ship alignment to make a traitor inside a faction.

DMX

Two remarks :
- The docking function is on when the ship is docking and when the ship is docked. That make conflits with the docked function. Is it possible to restrict the docking function ?
- The function TubeFiring does not work (there is no problem with the function TubeLoading and TubeUnloading).

Http server

http server works very well for the player ship. We tried a scenario with a bomb in the ship (URL) : a bomb was armed in the player ship, materialized by a web application on a smartphone ; players had to catch the traitor before he disapears, or had to go to a space station to get the diffuse code of the bomb. Players had 15 minutes to do this, and a log appeared every minute to stress them. This works well.
I have only one question : I cannot select a game object except the player ship (NPC ships, space stations, global script variables). Is it possible ?

Visual
- With linux, the hyper-space visual does not work with us (I don't test with windows)

Once again, thanks you for the work done on this game. I was a fan of Artemis, but EE is definilty more interesting !

Tito
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