[GAME] EmptyEpsilon

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  • edited October 2015
    Recently saw EmptyEpsilon on the net and on the Artemis forums.
    I must say good job!!
    I love it!  My 4 year old son, loves these ships games and can pilot with a joystick fairly well.

    I have a few questions and suggestions/ideas:
    Unless I don't see it, is there anyway to decrease the angle the camera follows?  So I can see more ahead of the ship during 3rd person view?

    Can I add my own music?

    Also, any way to enable joystick for single person crew?  say for the player ship fighter??  I don't see it working.


    A suggestion, is there any thoughts/possibility of making a portion of the game to have you control your person (as a fps) inside the ship? So you can walk to the bridge, engineering, etc etc.  For example like Silent hunter V? 
    I know it would mean more programming and I honestly have no background in any programming whatsoever, so I am leaving it as a question/suggestion.

    An idea I would love to see happen for some games, or any game for that matter. 

    I've been playing with just two or three computers lately and have yet to bring my crew in to play a few hours or more.  We usually play Artemis, and have been since 1.5 ish version. 

    Keep it up ! I will be donating soon for such a great game!!
  • The camera angle is currently hard coded into the game, same for the music filenames.
    As for the camera, you should be able to see more then 60km ahead of you with this view, that is more then the radar allows you to see.
    For the music, you could replace the files that are there. There are 2 sets of music files, one for combat, one for ambient (out of combat) music:
    I'll change that to be 2 different directories, and that the music is just selected from all files in the directory.

    The joystick code was contributed by someone, I'll have to check why it does not work for the single-pilot mode.

    As for FP "walking in ships", I'm not going to make that, first off, it's a lot of work. Secondly, it does not fit my goals. As we play that you are the crew, not that you are controlling the crew.

    You could look at a few other games, RogueSystem for example does do in-ship-fp:
    KerbalSpaceProgram has IVA mode, which is a bit limited, but people are working on a mod to allow you to move around in ships:
    (I also know there is a more Artemis like game with FP view, but I forgot the name)

    Updates have been a bit slow, lots of stress at work, buying a house, selling an apartment and a family death has drained my energy for a while.
  • Added the setting for the scanning (as suggested in the other thread)

    Changed that the music files are loaded from 2 different locations, allows for custom music sets. Game looks for all .ogg files in resources/music/ambient for "out of combat" music, and resources/music/combat for "combat"  music.

    Added a delay to the self-destruct. Allowing you to abandon the ship, I guess, if there are still escape pods... (force your players to run out of the room like maniacs)

    Fixed some issues reported on the warpdrive behavior, should be less energy hungry now, and no longer acts odd when the impulse engines are "down".


    On my bug list there is still the issue with Fog Of War being gone when warp effects are in place, waypoints not being selectable (to make it possible to get a heading to them), making it more clear which is "you" on the relay station. And checking why joystick does not work in single-pilot view.


    On my "long list" there is still: allow partial hull repair by sending repair crew outside your ship to fix part of the hull damage. Risking your repair crew. But still need to note down what happens in certain conditions (like, what happens to them if you are being fired at, engines could fry them? are shields allowed to be up?)
  • Thanks for adding the scanning settings. Works great.
  • Pulsar: Lost Colony is an FPS bridge Sim still in development. I believe it's in Steam Early Access.
  • Daid,
    Thanks for the fast response!  Sorry my delay, work calls.
     
    Thank you for looking to those items and I see that I accidentally had a window messed up, which forced a low view or something.  But it's not an issue now.

    Thanks for pointing me to Rogue Systems (i'm a big freelancer/x universe player as well).  And understand keeping the game the way it is, which is good!

    Do I download the latest file on the webpage to get the latest updates correct?

    Kwadroke - I will check it out! Thank you!
  • Oh, I mean, the changes are in the code, new release hasn't been made yet. Changes will be in the next build, but I have a few things I want to tick of my list before I build it.
    (kwadroke went to a lot of effort to be able to build from source. Which he now uses to run and test my latest code)
  • Daid -
    Oh that would explain why it didn't change when I re downloaded it! haha.


    I did add about 5 new music files to the game and they play.  Not very often, I added Kenny Loggin's Danger Zone, thought it fit somewhat :)
  • "DANGER ZONE!" - Sterling Archer
  • Am I correct, that the port forwarding for EE is 8080?  I see this in the options file, but it is labeled as http server?

    Thank you,
  • That's the http API access, you shouldn't forward that (could put you at risk)

    You need to forward port 35666 (tcp)
  • Thanks Man!
    I will try it tomorrow , got plans to bring the guys over for a game of Epsilon!
  • I'll do a quick new build then, to give you the above new options ;-)
  • Awesome, Yeah, we are planning to play Friday evening.  So if you get something done by then we will give it a whirl!

    My brother played the scenario (didn't have time to finish) with the EOS scope, he really enjoyed it so far.
  • Well, two people in my group had obligations tonight, one had a report for college the other work, so we didnt get a the bridge crew together.  However I did play the with the new fixes you did.
    The advance scanning is pretty nice!
    The delay works well. 
    I had three computers setup and my son tagged along.  Did the wave scenario and big battle.  Added about 6 more songs, between the combat and ambient directories, lot of good exciting battles.  I can't wait to get a 6 person crew.   Very challenging,  so far on many levels.

    A question from my brother, do I need both clients and server to have the modified ship files?  He wants me to build a script mission , with the player being able to pilot that big battle cruiser with all the turrets. 

    The delay in self destruct adds a lot realism to it, well as much as a fictional ship can be! 

    I would like to inquire on if you thought about  a way to increase the combat maneuvers, is the limit based on heat in engineering or is it always a set limit?  I did see regardless of coolant I had the same limit.  Any way of maybe increasing it in the future? 
    Thank you.
  • If you modify ships, it's best to have the same files on the client and server. You can modify some parts (like shield/beam stats) on just the server. But if you modify models or sizes, you need to put that also on the client.

    Mission scripts can be just on the server.

    As for combat maneuvers, they are intentionally quite low in use. My crews where abusing the hell out of them when they had more change and less heat generation.
  • Sounds good, I will see what I can do.

    Understandable, it's a really fun feature, and I am enjoying it a lot playing the fighter.

    I'll be sure to keep you updated, this will most likely be our game for a while and see what we can find far as bugs, I know my friends had ideas for artemis, so I will probe them for it.

    Also, I noticed, sometime the radar (in various stations, I think I noticed it in weapons) will show the object outside of the radar on the black side of the screen, are you aware of this?  I will try and get a screen shot today.

    Thanks
  • I think your target will still show up when it's outside of the range.

    I know there are also some problems with the radars and the visual effects from warp/jump. And there could be some issues with the single-pilot view and radars.
  • edited October 2015
    Single player findings:
    I played the surround scenario, with a player cruiser, I saw 100% shields, but when I was attacked it seemed my hull was damaged only, by various enemies.  Lost impulse and warp, then was destroyed. 
    Once I did re enter the same scenario without quitting the server, and it usually does load but sometimes it crashes to desktop. 

    Granted a single player wont have access to everything but I'm
    concerned that the shields are off? with no way to turn them on?  unless
    it requires keybinding, which I have yet to do.

    Thanks, lots of posts, sorry, not much else doing today but playing computer games, which is good I suppose.

    edit: also getting parameters of "camera_position" not found in shader, along with input size and illuminationMap, but the ship seems to look like the pictures in the website.

    Another Edit
    My brother an I were playing the basic scenario (the new build, 10-23), and stations were not sending supply or reinforcements.  I put a waypoint, then ask the station to send reinforcements and I get a "?" in return. I played the 10/19 version and the stations did send reinforcements or supply.  But the new build (10-23) they do not.  I played the same ship, in the basic scenario.  Don't know what else I can do to see why or how ti doesn't work, but check it out when you can.

    -Flea

  • Fixed a bug that caused the reinforcement request to display "?"

    Also added the shield activation button to the single pilot view (that was an oversight of mine)

    The shader warning messages are fine. Do not worry about those.

    I do still see a random crash. Haven't tracked it down yet. It can happen when starting a server, or when connecting to a server.
  • On the other note, thanks for all the donations!

    I think I'll be buying these transport models:
    Cargo transports would be good for missions. And these transports (5 of them) come in 5 different lengths, with different container amounts. Allowing for large and small transport convoys.

    And with a bit of luck, I can cut out the containers, and have floating containers in space as well.
  • edited October 2015
    Those look good!
    Protect the convoy mission!

    Can't wait to see them, in action!

    Thank you

    Edit
    Daid - I have some thoughts on engineering and damage control -
    I am usually either Engineering station or captain so here are a few ideas

    -Back up Auxiliary power supplies (e.g. batteries that are non recharging until at station), that can be used when reactor is damage/destroyed or for repairs, but minimal power available for use

    -Loss of power due to damage from reactor and/or "power conduit" damage, needing repairs, so the component but cut off so to speak. (say empty rooms in between or such)  which leads to

    -Rerouting power to a damage system , but loses original  component's ability to work due to power rerouting.  various examples from star trek, star wars, etc come to mind.  

    Most of this is somewhat done already in engineering.

    Is there reactor overloading damage, such as may explode the ship?  I haven't gotten to that point but a reactor overload due to damage then having to eject said reactor (Which leads to the use of emergency/auxiliary power) to prevent the ship from destroying sounds pretty cool!

    Are you planning on adding numerical values to engineering? Temp, coolant flow, power supply, etc?

    I'm sure you have plenty on your plate, but for future reference I would like to get ideas out.
    Thank you!


  • Well, engineering is complex enough IMHO. In my experience the engineer is busy all the time anyhow, more features there won't really add to the experience.

    Overloading the reactor does explode your ship. It is has lead to the shortest games ever.

    Not sure if I want number values on the temp/cool/power. Right now the impreciseness adds some klunky and mystery. Which I like for gameplay reasons.
  • I agree with that, engineering can be busy.

    How far down the list is adding Z axis movement (up and down so to speak)?


  • 10-30-15
     4 players game

    Was able to get my friends together for a few games, here is what we found/had issues with:

    Overall my friends enjoyed the game and compliment on it's stability and beauty of the game.

    We had concerns that the energy use rate is really fast when shields are activated.  With or without an separate engineer console. We feel that sometimes it really limits are ability to maintain big battles or multiple combat encounters overall before having to refuel/reload.

    We had issues where the clients could not connect (the clients would CTD with a .exe crash warning) unless the server was on the server settings screen before going to the ship selection/console selection screen.

    I had a few times were I could not reconnect to a server waiting at ship selection or even back into the game once my game crashed on my computer.

    The game crashed once on a two ship game, the server crashed.

    A few times the clients would crash when trying to connect to an ip
    address, but after a few tries the client eventually got through and was
    fine, unless it was an issue regarding where the server was at (either
    at settings or ship/console selection).
    [some of this might have been do to the wireless connection, next time I planned to be wired like we usually are to help narrow this down].

    The science scanning sliders amazed a few and was highly praised.

    The combat maneuvers were enjoyed a lot. 


    Far as other issues while playing, there was none that we had.  Our wireless connection (my brother forgot our hub and cables) held on pretty good, only slowing during the big battle scenario.
     I set up to have the blockade runner, dreadnought, and an adv gunship mk II that I changed a bit extra to play as player ships.  Our last two ship game was the blockade runner and mk II gunship on a basic scenario.  Worked good and had a blast.

    Was a great 5 hours of gaming.  They all want to play again.  Some more feedback will probably trickle back to me over the week.

    Thank you!!
  • I still have no real clue where the sudden crashes while connecting are coming from. But I hope to investigate soon. Server crashes are the worst kind, do you know what was happening in the game at that time?

    Note that the battlefield scenario is made to stress the server. So slowdowns are not that odd. It is smart to have your best computer running as server, as the AI is ran on the server, which can take quite some CPU power with that many ships.

    Energy does needs some extra tuning. But, you can also request a supply drop to re-fill it. You need to plan ahead a bit for this, but it can really save your ass.
  • I do remember now that supply drops give energy, except use the current build we had the bug still, which is no worries.

    I noticed that when I adjust the ship template file, it will sometimes force a ctd or possibly a non connection error.  It needs to start the game a few times then it works, but this is mainly I think if I forgot to add something or screwed something up, but I have it all working now with a modified template file.  I didn't  consider this a big bug since I am toying with it so to speak.

    The most crashes happen in this scenario:
    I have the server loaded (generally our best or 2nd best computer) i select settings then go to ship selection.    Then start all client computers, select ip and crashes at that point before getting to console selection screen.  Though this happened mainly with my computer and a buddy of mine (my computer is vista os, about 8 years old) and I don't remember what my buddy was operating.

    We generally get the server started and select options, have all client log on to the ip then I select the server settings and go to ship selection, select ship and main screen.  The clients then all log their console selection  and we start the server.  It seemed to work the best that way.


    Once it did crash during two ships.  We had the client computers take multiple consoles  and it crashed once during the game play.  If I remember correctly we were not in combat.   But the second game worked perfectly.

    I don't know much else to explain as my programming experience is pretty small.

    Thank you.


  • Hi daid
    Wondered if there were any more thoughts on collecting space junk and letting weapons and science craft them in some way. Would give the whole team more to think about when playing a scenario. I always think that the more layers there are the more interesting it can be. I need to commit to a sim soon for a bridge i am planning on building and the crafting woukd mean that epsilon would be the front runner
  • edited November 2015
    @daid, Any chance of new Official Builds before the weekend?

    We're doing a Go/No-Go test this Sunday for the convention on Nov 14-15. We're trying to decide on running EmptyEpsilon or Artemis there.

    I still don't trust my Windows builds just yet.
  • I submitted a couple of bugs I'd like to see fixed from our previous testing. Hopefully those can be fixed before the convention.
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