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Lurkily

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Everything posted by Lurkily

  1. I do love that profile pic. I love that it works so well, given that it's an oil painting of a kitten fused with a photograph of a tiger.
  2. Unless it's changed during the racing updates, it's always just outside that 100% range; my bomber satellites are set to that, and they always level off just under the Nimby. Previous to that, one or two versions ago, it was a lot more variable, where 100 might have been above it, or below it. I think at that time the Nimby was at a fixed distance, but altimeter settings varied by planet. I believe that now the Nimby's altitude is relative to the planet size just like the altimeter is.
  3. I believe -100 to zero is core to average surface, and the Nimbatus is positioned at just over 100 - its distance from the core, like the hopper's, is not consistent, after all. I use a drone with multiple subdrones, and the ore couriers that orbit at 100 altitude until my core is overhead, and drop down until they hit the bucket, always glide just a little below the Nimby's altitude. I was as surprised as anybody that they always seemed to keep the same distance relative to Nimby.
  4. Well . . . it wasn't on youtube, but on Reddit's lounge. First, some background: Reddit has this 'lounge'. It's a subreddit restricted to premium members. Either you bought premium, or a premium user spent some of their 'coins' to give you gold or platinum, which gives you premium access for a time. Someone posted a message there, after getting gold, asking what goes on there and what it's for. You know I had a response ready, right? "It's where us filthy stinking rich folks (I'm not rich) look down our noses at the disgusting peasantry (I'm actually remarkably understanding of most people) who don't have gold (especially those who don't have the advantages I do (of which wealth is not one)) while snorting cocaine (I don't even drink) off any available female surface. (Oh my god that's so sexist, I'm sorry.)" My favorite response to this was: "How is this one of the most wholesome comments I've ever read"
  5. Awwww! I have done some study of game design, though not on a professional level. Unfortunately, I have little coding skill, so my use as a developer is limited. Thanks for the kind words, though.
  6. I am not; I found them during their kickstarter, and have followed them with more or less attention since then, and have tried to use my voice to help shine some light on what might or might not be way forward. I do help in an official capacity as a moderator, but it's strictly a volunteer role.
  7. Give it a chance; as I said, sandbox will probably still exist, either as endgame content or as a separate game mode, and you might enjoy the cycle of challenge and reward that's implemented. Remember, one thing sandbox game struggle with is reward systems; they're hard to implement without structure. If you have ever been pleased to unlock an upgrade you know what I mean - progress involves rewarding a player, and we need more of that. If you stick with them and see what emerges, you might find yourself responding to a good progression system.
  8. What you're describing sounds like a very good sandbox game. I suspect that, given what the devs have said about their desire to implement progression, that game is just not Nimbatus.
  9. In the past, I think 100 altitude was set to always be just under the Nimbatus's altitude; not sure if that's still the case. For resources, my courier just orbited at 100 altitude until it detected the core overhead (which the main drone detached from, while the core plastered itself to the Nimbatus). A tracker could supplant the core's function here, though a detached core does give you some protection.
  10. Not exactly the same thing. This is more about bringing a sense of progress to the player's capabilities. The 'sweet spot' in gaming is usually about hitting a sacred balance between increasing skill, capability, and/or control, against an increasing challenge. If a player perceives their capability as high, perceives the challenge as high, lacks distractions, and feels they have control over events, that's where the magic happens. Progression is all about the increasing capability side of the equation. Right now, the player just gets every tool all at once, and can go over-the-top to dominate most missions from the start just by adding more of everything. What we want is to start the player off with limited capability and limited challenge. We want all of the giveaways to be rewarding unlocks, without subjecting the player to a crushing grind. That way rising challenge can be met by rising capability, and the current content (everything unlocked, unlimited drone size) can be more like endgame content, with matching challenges to face an endgame player.
  11. This is a kickstarter stretch goal, so it WILL be implemented at some point going forward.
  12. It would be interesting to be able to set up a competition between a bunch of select drones. In my use, I would be using it to test revisions of drones. Does it do better with the afterburners in the front? In the back? Does this logic change improve the design, bring it down? Should I use turning thrusters, or rely on smoother vectored guidance? With a tourney setup (successive runs of different drones) I could test all eight possible combinations of these revisions in sequence. For drone versus drone matchups, you might want different tournament structures, but tournament brackets are generally responsive to math, so basic things like a standard bracket and round robin shouldn't require a lot of structure to implement, even though the result is structured.
  13. MTM makes a good point; progression is planned but not implemented, not really, which will have a big impact on missions and how they scale.
  14. . . . . . on the forums, huh?
  15. Wasps are just gigantic raging jerks.
  16. I don't have a lot of time to game lately ( ) but I'll try to test it soon. If anybody wants to beat me to it, the drone I had trouble with is linked above; it's exceedingly simple, but it's also proven to have this issue, which makes it a good test case.
  17. I suspect print time would be too slow (As you suspect) and you just wouldn't be able to get reliable data from something without pinpointing it's relative position and then you're talking complex logic and you're tripping on things like mass and part limits.
  18. With regards to the rangefinder, that would do it; it would be a departure from the simplicity of most parts, though, getting into more granular criteria in a single sensor. Is that a direction things might go? I know I've seen Micha talk about adding multiple criteria with their own input/output to single sensors (so a directional sensor could have many ranges, for instance), and the multiple criteria on offer for sensors also seem to be going this direction. I feel that a lot of the quality-of-life fixes tend to wait for grand upgrades where careful testing is done, even though a lot of them seem trivial, on the surface, to implement. I feel like the preview builds are a chance to try these out, get more widespread feedback, and they can be walked back for the public release if they don't help the way we wish they would, or if they are more complicated/bug prone than they appear. I wouldn't suggest an approach like that for big changes; those you should commit to before beginning, and pursue hard. Changes with widespread implications aren't the kind of thing you can walk back easily. You might end up redoing the whole build minus that one big feature, because it ties into so many things that you can't just remove it, and then when it comes time to really drill down on it, you can't just fall back on the work you did before, because it's an old version, with problems you don't want to re-fix and without improvements that you don't want to re-develop. As developers I'm sure you already know what I'm talking about; I'm being a bit explicit about the reasoning behind it for the sake of others who might read through the thread.
  19. I posted awhile ago about getting this thing; it's still too expensive for a PC accessory, but it can do amazing things for immersion, even if resolution isn't there yet. However, Pixmax has an 8K visor with a 200 degree field of vision out; too expensive, still, but the tech's advancing. Odin is supposed to have a consumer headset out at 4K this summer, Valve is getting into the game (Vive got into the game almost entirely using Valve patents and tech) and Samsung and Lenovo are said to be stepping up their efforts. Eye tracking is becoming a common spec for future headset plans, (Vive Pro Eye, Odin, a couple others) as well. We're about to see the second generation of VR tech. So I thought I'd sum up my experiences with a variety of games. Beat Saber Beat Saber is two parts heroin, one part cocaine, and seven parts black magic. It's simple; music plays. Blocks fly toward you to the beat. Cut with the right color saber, in the right direction, and suddenly you're a dual-wielding rhythm Jedi. It's got amazing mod support, auto-syncing custom songs, custom sabers, custom scoring, custom environs. This is possibly the single best introduction to VR. Gameplay keeps pulling you to the center of the play area, making it very intuitive to stay safely positioned. It keeps you engaged and active, and makes you think, plan, and struggle, without running afoul of most of VR's limitations. Apex Construct A bow-and-arrow game with a technical bent, this is one of a number of games that lets you manipulate both the bow and the arrow to fine-tune aim, and requires the development of a little skill; you can't aim as you would with a gun. The bow also has a shield you can activate on command. Since to avoid motion sickness, many games rely on a teleport-style movement, and the optional 'free movement' relies on thumbsticks, the shield lets you stand and fight, picking your moments to teleport or moving freely with more precision. The lore is incredibly rich, with a detailed story about a struggle between AI's in a broken world, with scattered clues strewn about to confuse you about who you can trust. Arizona Sunshine This one is a zombie shooter that focuses on trying to replicate real handling as much as possible. You can pick a clip up, and slide it into a gun. In order to reload, you have to eject the magazine. The process is somewhat streamlined (You only have to get the gun near your ammo belt to reload, and don't need to operate a slide, for instance) but holstering guns at your hip instead of in an inventory menu and storing clips on your belt and grenades at your chest, it is a distinctly different experience; and quite a lot of fun, too. The relatively slow movement of some of the zombies also lends itself to mitigating some of the issues of movement in VR. Blade & Sorcery It's early access, and content is thin, but hands-down the best melee combat simulation in VR. Weapons collide with EVERYTHING, meaning you can't just swing them around with your hands while you walk. Enemy weapons, of course, also deflect from yours. They'll hit something and knock out of your hands. Weapons have a maximum speed; even in bursts of slow-mo, you can't move super-fast. Piercing weapons can pierce wood and bodies, and weapons can be lodged in an enemy, something you can use to throw them around. You can zap enemies with magic, or electrify weapons to attack with. Enemies will target blocks at your weapons, requiring speed, dual wielding, clever movement, or good timing to get a hit through a cautious enemy. Weapons also have multiple grip points, letting you slide your grip up a spear haft if enemies get too close. With great physics, very diverse and dynamic options for weapon handling and throwing; it's a very promising foundation. Skyrim: VR. A lot of mods don't work in VR, but many do, and there are modlists out there to help you compile a good VR set. It's great for the immersion, but melee combat isn't very engaging. Magery, however, is; being able to cast different spells at once with each hand grants a real sense of dynamic power. And Skyrim has some gorgeous settings to be immersed in; this might be one to watch when higher-resolution headsets come out, capable of doing it justice. In Death This game is basic, but well-made. It's another bow-shooter like Apex Construct, though more basic, with little story. Though it has the option for free movement, the teleport mechanics are worked into the environment. You can spawn a shard that you can throw, and you'll teleport to where it lands. This leads to interesting tactics, like blind throws as a dodge mechanic, and arching a toss so you can fire an arrow before the teleport takes effect. You can find special arrows that have interesting behaviors, too; it gets quite challenging, and I've only scraped the surface of it. Space Pirate Trainer This one is another entertaining one. You stand on a platform and have an array of weapons to play with, and you shoot up drones. It's simple, it keeps you inside your safe play area very handily, and gets pretty intense. time slows down when bullets are on-target to hit you, giving you the chance to counter. You also have a cutter that can tether an enemy and pull them in, and a shield that can project a field that repels projectiles. Power-ups are pretty common, with varied effects, and weaponry is quite varied. Some have a scope, some use laser targeting, others require a good aim, others have some scatter or can spray-and-pray; it's a lot of toys to keep things fun. Scraper: First Strike This puts you in the seat of a mech pilot. You have hands, and you point them like guns to aim weapons. Laser targeting from your hands in game helps your aim, but the interesting detail is that the weapons mounted on the sides of the pod mimic your movements to target the point of aim. A lot of the setting is in-game. Instead of fine-tuning movement mechanics, you have options like max speed and max rotation as settings on the interior of the cockpit. Functions like recharging your shield and special weapons are physical controls you have to manipulate, making this an interesting and unique take on working the unique limitations and capabilities of VR into gameplay and story. Serious Sam - all of them. All these games have been updated to VR. Unfortunately, like Skyrim, there are aspects to VR that are not well-addressed in ports like this. The solutions that this and Skyrim present are fairly standard and normal, and balance is affected somewhat. (VR weapons don't need to reload, for instance.) However, they are fully-featured games made by a capable studio, in an environment were purpose-built VR games are often still finding their way and learning how to do things. The depth and care that went into design isn't always adapted as ideally as it could be, but it still shows. Also, these games have an extremely comprehensive range of options to support and customize your control over the experience.
  20. Factories don't have to print a lot, though. A magnet with a bit of power is enough to lock onto an opponent and throw off their center of mass. If I would see a single race use that involved good sportsmanship, I would reconsider, (Has anybody seen effective use of factories in a race that's more' legit'?) but it looks like it's all magnet blocks and infinite fuel. I really think fuel and energy should build empty. Anything functional should be able to sustain itself; if you only manufacture storage, it can charge up before you release it. The current model really doesn't add much, and makes exploits available.
  21. Hey, guys. I was thinking that now that we have preview builds, what are the chances of trying more experimental tweaks in the preview builds? For instance, though it's unrelated to racing, trackers kind of beg for some kind of rangefinder, which the altimeter already kind of does. It would need non-percentage settings for targets other than altitude, though, but it's the kind of low-effort experiment we might be able to give feedback on in the preview builds. A lot of things that might also be tried out here, like consuming fuel or resources for factories, or anything else that might low-effort to test-run without the same level of exacting care you'd want for a public release. Any thoughts or feelings on that? It would be interesting to see and give feedback on more ideas, and those of us in the preview build are less concerned about a stable, evolving experience from upgrade to upgrade.
  22. Weapons are forbidden, so attack drones probably aren't an issue -- at least I haven't seen a successful attack drone in the top rankings - but I see a number of drones dropping things like banks of magnetic repulsors.
  23. Lurkily

    WWII?

    I would just tell people that the focus of your interest is on strategy and combat tactics; you don't have to say the holocaust is uninteresting, to say that your interests are elsewhere.
  24. 2 is definitely a bug; in the bug reports section there should be a report you can upvote for urgency. As for one, I'm thinking we might want to disallow factories on both racing and catch; their use seems to be mostly impeding other racers, and constantly manufacturing fuel to save weight. The first is debatable; it's a question of whether we want racing to be about good sportsmanship and running your best race. We may want to permit the more "mad-max" strategies. The second is something I consider a cheat. Fuel and energy, in my opinion, should manufacture empty and refuel from other tanks, or refuel themselves if they're that kind of tank. The one-fuel-factory-to-rule-them-all strategy should not have a place in racing.
  25. In order to enjoy foreign films, I've had to thicken my skin against attitudes towards the U.S., as well. It helps, though, that I understand most of those attitudes, though it is still a bit much when the caricatures are too ridiculous or cruel. But then, that would be a weak showing in a film regardless of the target. I think it helps to remember that imperialist England is a somewhat different country than Modern England.
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