Privateer: Ascii Sector v0.6.6.1 released!

Chris Knudsen said:
Well, you don't have to press the key 9-10 times. You just hold down the rotation key.
Click to expand...

Yeah I'm holding down the key but I think the rotation is lower than before because of the 4 extra angles... or does a complete 360 degree turn take as long as before?

Concerning the asteroid field: I noticed the gun "wobble" in the earlier versions... I liked that feature. But when flying thorugh an asteroid field diagonally (in version 0.5.3) I was not hit as often by asteroids (with 1/2 shield and always firing laser) as I get hit now. It could really be the fact that I'm still not used to the new controls. I hope time will help me here ;)

I just got killed again by a single pirate... ouch boy that really hurts.
 
Chris Knudsen said:
But using ASCII graphics has certainly sped up development immensely...
Click to expand...
Interesting perspective on game development. I sometimes wish there was more focus on actual game-play and less on trying to pump out the bestest-awesomest graphics in large, commercial game releases.
 
The thing with using ASCII graphics is that whenever I want to add a new feature, I don't have to wait for graphics to be made/make them myself, or implement new code for drawing the new graphics - I already have all the "graphics" available to me that I need, i.e. the fontmap. If I want to add a new ship, I just choose which character should represent that ship and that's it. Of course, such an approach only really works for 2D games, as it would probably be more of a hindrance than a help to start work on an FPS using ASCII graphics!

I guess in a sense, you could say that the "graphics" I'm using are really low-resolution. You can think of the screen as being 80x50 pixels in size (with each "pixel" being a character from the fontmap). That means I don't have to decide on the look of that many "pixels" for making the display to the nav computer or Quine or whatever. Instead of spending time making an interface with a resolution of 1024x800 pixels in a trillion different colors, it's just 80x50 in 16 different colors.

That's not to say that I wouldn't want to work with real graphics at some point. I've been playing around with making ship sprites in 3D Studio Max and having parallax scrolling starfields and stuff. It looks really cool and I would love to make a 2D top-down space game like that at some point.
 
Personally, I like the style that the ASCII graphics bring--it's quite enjoyable for a 2-D game, and I have been having plenty of fun playing this game.
 
v0.5.4.1 released!

www.asciisector.net/download

- Fixed bug with hand grenade killings resulting in excessive counts of murder.
- Fixed bug with cargo space left on your ship.
- Fixed bug with NPCs yelling for help even if you didn't attack them but just targeted them.
- Fixed bug with Bellamy not showing up as a Pirate Base in the Quine.
- Fixed bug with the current system name on the nav computer during autopilot.
- Fixed bug (I hope) with characters whose path has been blocked sometimes becoming completely immobile.
- Removed debugging info when targeting a ship when flying a capital ship.
 
Thanks for the new version... I tried to spend some time again with the game... and then while I got attacked by a few pirates the following message showed up and the game quit:

error_0541.jpg


Did I something wrong? I was attacked by three pirates and killed one. The second one was half dead and one another attacked me from behind...

I got some screens like that a few times ago so I wanted to ask now what this could be?

Thanks and have a nice weekend

Rylex
 
You didn't do anything wrong. That crash is due to an error with the library I'm using for music playback. I believed I'd fixed it before, but obviously not. For the next version I'll have the music playback procedure write to a log .txt file, which should help in figuring out exactly where the error is.
 
v0.5.4.2 released!

www.asciisector.net/download

- Fixed decimal bug when scooping cargo.
- Fixed bug with NPCs freezing and becoming immobile (again!).
- Fixed inconsistency when calculating the value of your current ship and extras when buying a new ship.
- Added music playback log file (mlog.txt) to help in finding cause of music playback crash.
- The upper right display now automatically switches to the destination view when your target is destroyed or goes outside range of your radar.
- Added Disabler Missiles, EMP Torpedoes and energy/power readings for targets and the player (the light blue square in the center). Disabling ships will be used for boarding in v0.6.
 
v0.5.4.3 released!

www.asciisector.net/download

- Fixed bug with time left on your wingman not being decreased while sleeping.
- Fixed bug with EMP Torpedoes not being selected when launching.
- Fixed bug with the ads in the equipment shop.
- Fixed bug that in some instances could have you fly into a missile you'd just fired.
- Fixed bug with marked nav points being carried over from one quest to another.
- Fixed bug with no message box when a quest mission is completed or failed.
- Fixed bug with random placement of quest template ships.
- Added separate slots for mission cargo.

Unless I discover some major bugs, I likely won't release again for awhile, as I'm now going to begin work on ship boarding, which will require ripping some of the code totally apart.
 
Thank you very much for these new versions...

Are you planning to implement the mentioned gun re-balance in 0.6 we talked about some time ago?

Keep up the good work and take your time! :D
 
Oops it happened again:

It happened again. The game crashed... this time I was on a base after successfully completing the mission. I left the bar and wanted to go to my ship and then "boom" ... I pressed the "s" key and TAB to go fast to my ship and not to talk to anybody:

Here is the screen:
ascii_error2.jpg


I don't understand the path in the error message. The path C:\my dropbox does not exist. I installed the game on "D:\Spiele\Ascii Sector\"

And here what's inside the log files:

mlog.txt:
==
Step 1
Step 2
Step 3
Step 4
Step 5
Step 6
Step 7
Done
==


log.txt:
==
SDL video initialized.
SDL timer initialized.
SDL audio initialized.
Opening audio...
Loading sounds...
Setting video mode...
==

If you need some other information please tell me. The error is really a bit annoying. It did not occur to me that often in older versions :( I don't want to know how much time and ingame money I already lost because of this error :D

Have a nice day and weekend!

Rylex
 
Rylex said:
It happened again. The game crashed... this time I was on a base after successfully completing the mission. I left the bar and wanted to go to my ship and then "boom" ... I pressed the "s" key and TAB to go fast to my ship and not to talk to anybody:
Click to expand...
I've had this crash one time myself, but haven't yet found the bug in the code. I believe it has to do with the NPC pathfinding when you use the 'S' key to switch positions with an NPC, so it's different from your last crash in not having to do with music playback. I hope to have this bug fixed for the next release.

Rylex said:
I don't understand the path in the error message. The path C:\my dropbox does not exist. I installed the game on "D:\Spiele\Ascii Sector\"
Click to expand...
That path is where the source file was when the game was compiled (i.e. on my computer).

Rylex said:
I don't want to know how much time and ingame money I already lost because of this error :D
Click to expand...
You should really save the game often, as this is still alpha software.
 
Thanks for the explanation :D
Don't take this :D with the money serious. I like the game but I'm still far away from my Centurion because I don't have too much time to play :D
 
My laptop runs Linux but I have absolutely NO idea how to install Ascii sector to run on it. Anywhere I can get instructions? For some reason when I try to make the file executable using "chmod +x asciisec" from within the asciisec directory, it still fails to add the execute permission to the file, even though I do not get any error messages from the command.
 
Hmm... I'm not much of an Linux expert, but do you have the correct privileges to chmod the file? There's a thread here with another Linux user that had problems with it. He just chmod'ed it, though.
 
Yeah, what I don't understand is why my use of the "chmod" command is not working even though I am logged in as root.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top