Universal Dangerous (a.k.a Null Space)

I rarely play iPad games without headphones. Since the 60beat controller features a headphone cable splitter, this is not an issue for me.

Andrew

 

I don't get the entire controller thing, half the charm (and experience) playing on any Idevice is the control methods provided by the devs and the physical "limitations" of the device (a.k.a. the touch controls) the idea is: flexibility and the non-need for external gear!
Well that's my opinion anyway!

Btw binaryHelix:
The ship is still rolling a bit to the right when you pich the nose up and down! Makes the controls feel a bit unnatural and makes aiming a bit difficult, especially without a crosshair! And a touch of finess and detail would be the capabilities of rolling/banking the ship! Cockpit view is a great idea and a great way of showing off the games power and flexibility, and I'm all for that, but the. Boarding idea is simple brilliant! And really makes the game stand out more then it already does!
I think I said this before, but got unsure of wether I did or not, so I thought I would write it again just to sure
Other then that I think the space portion of the game is pretty close to perfect! In my opinion anyway!

Oh and I wrote appvee, asking them to review this game!

 

BinaryHelix:

Thank you for updating the game! The changes have made a world of a difference. I used to be unable to even see let alone play this game, and now I'm exploring, surviving, and falling fast in love with this game. I knew this would be something special thanks to the support it's receiving from you and your team. I will do my best to spread the word about this game and the updates definitely do not go without appreciation*

Shrinking the Contact icons and adding the "Hide" button was definitely the key to the clutter problem, though it could still use some form of prioritizing, though, as it shows either ALL Contacts or none at all...Maybe there can be a setting in the Options where you can choose what contacts you can see instead of just showing all of them by default? For example, I currently wanna toggle the Hide button to show me Quest Contacts (those that need Repairs and such) and Aggressive Contacts (those who want to kill me) only. I don't care for random passersby around the Hubs unless I specifically wanna be a pirate and prey on them, and when I do I wanna toggle the button to show All Contacts. This would add some form of middle ground instead of an All or Nothing contacts interface.

On the graphics front...The outer space backgrounds are pretty, but the skybox is very readily apparent still. I simply cannot unsee it and it breaks immersion a bit. Also, is there any way to add a sort of thruster graphic to the back of the ships? It's hard to tell if they're in motion because you don't really see debris flying by, or thruster fire coming out of the exhausts...

On the controls...Touch controls are still choppy. Those need smoothing out, as I'm sure many people have pointed out in detail. Definitely wouldn't mind a dedicated Dpad and smoother turning.

I had another point to make about the clutter of the screen (namely thanks to the white text Log during gameplay) but I have school to get to in the morning. I'll illustrate the issue with this tomorrow with screenshots, but suffice to say, excellent job BinaryHelix. There's a ways to go yet but one of the absolute worst offenders is almost completely out of the way.

*http://www.148apps.com/reviews/dangerous-review/ --- This review took into account 1.0.3 and raised its score thanks to the UI updates. Keep at it, Binary.

 

Small bug report: After the BioSapients warp in during the tutorial, and I select the "Slavery?" option for further explanation, I cannot complete the tutorial. I tested it on multiple saves, and that seemed to be the only thing that kept the tutorial from finishing.

I ended up completely removing the game and re-downloading, and just not selecting the option, and everything works just fine.

The completely white textures are still present when space lights are turned on for me as well.

I'm on an iPad2 16GB

Few other things I've noticed:

1.) Can the icons for what's effecting my ship be put next to the Shield/Armor/Energy bars? It gets lost in the Log Text, and with how fast the combat log scrolls, I can't tell what is actually effecting me.

2.) When docked, selected Quarters, Map, Local Map: Multiple items are off screen, both top and bottom, as well as in the buttions for the station. Can it be shrunk down to fit within the screen?

3.) Better descriptions for modules I saw you were working on it upthread, so I'm just typing it out, and will await the new update breathlessly.

4.) Scrolling text boxes for items, specifically ships. A lot of the descriptions are cut off when looking at the ships in the hanger, with no way to actually scroll to see the rest of the description.

All in all, this is the game I was looking for when I bought GoF2 once upon a time. You've done a fantastic job! Keep up the good work!

 

Also, I started a new game, checking out the Corporate Trading Skill, and I can see all of the scanned areas, at least in the Spynit system. On my first game, I took Explorer, since I tend to enjoy that aspect.


I'll continue testing to see if it's only in the systems I've scanned, or if it's everywhere.

EDIT: I can see the spots, but nothing is there.

 

Just picked this up a few hours ago (hopefully the sales will pick up a bit) and after going through the tutorial twice and spending some time to get a feel for the game; I'm very pleased I did. I've played some of the more "casual" space games like Freelancer and GoF2, so a game with this extra layer of depth is new to me.

Fantastic job getting all of this on the iphone! I havent done much more than run some kill missions, and mine asteroids to make a bit of cash. Learning the ropes a bit before I get into anything too advanced.

One thing I'd like to see is a customizable ui. Whats there now works quite well given the limited real estate. Moving, resizing icons, etc would be nice. Especially when you add in the directional pad option, since theres no real place to put it at the moment.

Someone else mentioned the map, and I agree that it needs to be easier to read than it is now.

Are there any plans to add in the ability to formally start your own Corporation? Like naming, putting together a fleet, planning trade routes, etc? Or is the focus more on Dangerous with the Corporate Ships kind of a side thing?

Lastly it would be nice to have easier Market navigation. Like breaking Module browsing into Light, Medium, and Heavy tabs so its easier to find certain things?

 

We're working on making the text boxes smart, so they will show scroll bars when the text won't fit.

I'll add that gamepad to the list to consider.

Yes, it's coming. It's working nicely now, just refining appearance and sensitivity options right now. By the way, we're going to skip version 1.0.4 (which is out now for PC/Mac), and submit version 1.0.5 which has more improvements.

We're going to keep updating, fixing bugs, and improving the experience.

We've improved the tilt and there is no longer a dead zone. It is very precise at aiming now especially if you have a fast ship. Thanks for spreading the word. I have to admit that we bungled the marketing of the game quite a bit and are still playing catch-up. So any chance you can spread the word of Dangerous to friends, family and colleagues is much appreciated.

That's great to hear! We're going to keep improving the controls and UI until it is near perfect.

You'll be happy to hear that the latest version also orders the contacts list so that ships appear in in order of importance (from the bottom up): enemies, wingmen, allies, and neutrals.

We have some graphical improvements we'd like to make once the important control and UI issues are done including the two you mentioned: improved skyboxes and adding thrust exhaust.

You'll be happy to learn that we've done the following and are working on polishing the UI:
- tilt controls are very precise now without a dead zone
- we added a dedicated d-pad like controller in the bottom left
- we modified the slide controls to now show you a d-pad when you touch on the screen, so it's easier to see what the limits are.

Hoping this 1.0.5 update will get submitted at the end of this week or early next week.

We're still brainstorming ways to improve the clutter, so let us know if you have ideas!

That's awesome!

 

We'll investigate this. What device are you using? How are you not able to complete the tutorial?

Unfortunately, there is a shader bug with the recent Unity development environment. This causes the blown-out textures when lights are enabled for iPhone 4S and iPad 2 with iOS 5.x. Until Unity fixes this bug, we're looking at finding other shaders that can be used. The downside to this is the iPad 2 and iPhone 4S with iOS 5.x versions don't have the latest shader or lights which sucks since those two devices are the ones with the most graphical horsepower. Rest assured we're looking at alternate shaders and other solutions (and maybe Unity 3.5 will have this bug fixed).

If you look at the Contacts UI, anytime you see a red bracket over a module listed, that means it is directed at your ship. It's an interesting idea to also put that up top, or perhaps in the Stats screen. It's something we can consider after the major control/UI/polish issues are done.

The latest update has more map fixes for smaller devices, but more can be done. Since we want to get the current update out sooner than later, we'll continue to work on map fixes.

Agreed, this is happening.

This is one of the big items we're trying to finish with the 1.0.5 update which is due to be submitted soon.

Thanks! Glad you're enjoying the extra deep combat mechanics.

We'll look into this. It may be that the locations are accidentally uncovered, but nothing will happen when you warp there till you use the scan probe to actually find them.

Thanks! It took us a long time not only because of the deep combat mechanics, but the living universe concept was tough to do for mobile. I'm not joking when I say this is probably the closest you'll get to single-player EVE Online on a mobile device. And the enemies in our game are closer to what you'd find as human PVP opponents.

We would like to see a user-configurable drag-and-drop UI placement scheme down the road.

You already are a corporation ("DGR"). I think there's a lot of room for the game to grow in this direction. Closer to the X3 line of games. Some ideas we have for the future involve taking over stations, destroying them, and building new ones. Also defending your miners and trade routes against other corporations and pirates.

Actually, the current code already has a smart market filter button that hides module sizes that are different from your ship's size. It also does not display weapons that your ship can't equip. We have some other ideas on tying the display of some modules to the skills they need (like ECM modules only displayed if you have at least a point of skill in ECM).

 

Thanks!

Hey there, just wanted to add my voice of support to the devs... I just found the game through reading the forum here and it looks fantastic. Thanks for creating truly a unique and expanded experience.

I wish there were more devs that took chances like this and hope you get some recognition for ongoing your hard work.

 

binaryhelix, after trying the Mac demo, I can feel a large difference in how ships handle. In the desktop version, turning and banking is done smoothly and with regularity. In the iOS version, however, manual ship movement is erratic and choppy (most noticeable when you turn in one direction for a few seconds, as the ship does not thrust in that direction with maintained speed, but actually wavers, and seems to shudder ocassionally, even though I keep the d-pad depressed and steady), and does a lot to make the physics model/ship handling feel less exact and responsive.

Is this on the list of upcoming fixes?

There is a lot that could be done for the UI (and I will go into more detail in in my upcoming review of Dangerous ), but a small and good start would be to combine the "?" and "M" menus into one (through tabs and nestled menus), and have us access them by pressing the shield/armor/energy bars, thus removing two whole buttons from the main gameplay screen.

There is simply nearly never a need to have on-screen buttons when you have UI elements with no button function assigned, and it seems to me that pressing your ship HUD element to go into a menu with everything from warp destinations to ammo to ship status to game options is at least logical enough to make reasonable sense to most players Hiding functions behind informative UI elements has become a staple of iOS development and UI optimization, and, together with moveable and resizeable UIs, makes a control method few believed would work well for gaming into a competent replacement for physical buttons.

All this said, thank you for giving us our Oblivion/Skyrim (not to mention our Elite/Frontier/X-Universe/Terminus/EVE offline/Freelancer) Aralon might have tried, but Dangerous is the first game to truly provide that kind of depth, and evidently that sophistication still reaches players, even if hidden behind layers of confusion Give us a few more updates, and I'll start lobbying TA to do a front-page review...

EDIT: Oh, for some good inspiration for the action-aligned aspects of Dangerous (and for inspiration for other auxiliary mechanics), do take a look at Vendetta Online, a small, indie space MMO, with full reflex- and precision-based combat (completely reliant on player skill, helluva fast), a dynamic universe (AIs that seize territory and expand), and a host of other uncommon mechanics and features. I've noticed many space sim fans seem to be unaware of Vendetta Online, and t'is a shame...

 

Do what you can Ayjona, this does deserve a bit of attention.

That said, I have a few gripes.
I've said before, controls are yuck. Would definitely have me coming back if they could get it as smooth as galaxy on fire. Right now it's just not. (this has already been covered).

Also, I just don't get the feel of flying in this one.. The planets are so big you just don't feel like your moving at all because your moving next to them. The only thing that makes me feel like I'm moving is other ships flying by. Again GoF gives me the flying feeling. Hate these comments you may, just saying what I'm getting.

Docking to space stations and getting ready to travel etc just seems to be cumbersome and take ages. Also the cut scene for docking at the stations has u mostly tucking up and then nose diving into the station....um....huh?

That's it from me for now.

 

Thanks for your support! It's great when space sim players finally realize the depth of the gameplay being offered.

It sure is. This is already in our current 1.0.5 build. The controls are very smooth now on the iPad 2 and iPhone 4S and we even show a "joystick" nub when you're using it. We're trying to track down why it's occasionally stuttering on older devices.

There is definitely some merit to combining the ? and M buttons together since they bring up controls at the top and right respectively. Currently, the ? button does not pause the game while M does. I suppose if we merged them, we could add an option for people to control whether they want the game paused or not.

A bigger issue is that the ? button mode stays on until it's dismissed whereas the M button closes after you've chosen an option. There's probably a way to rectify this with some thought maybe.

I'm not sure I like making the user touch the health bars to bring up this mode since the bars don't look like buttons.

One possibility we've considered is how Mass Effect uses the radial menu to bring up tons of powers and abilities without cluttering up the screen. It means two presses, but it does declutter the screen. We could do something similar for the active weapon buttons and autopilot modes.

You're welcome! We are trying to provide a PC-quality game for mobile. I think mobile is maturing enough for this, and once the control and polish issues are out of the way, I'm hoping more players will get to experience the game. I'm also holding off contacting media for reviews till the next update is in with the control fixes.

I tried Vendetta awhile back. It looks like they've improved their graphics(?), so I might have to give them another try.

We are improving the controls for the next update including a d-pad (well, more like thumbsticks like GoF2). I actually like our "slide" control method where a d-pad pops up on the screen wherever you touch. We also have the standard d-pad in the lower left as an option.

Hey, we love feedback good or bad. It's interesting that you say our planets are too big. One of my biggest pet peeves are the tiny planets you find with mobile games. Planets are supposed to be huge and we spent a fair amount of time making ours big (but sadly, still not 100% planetsized). The planets look gorgeous in GoF2, but they're flat paintings. In recent updates, they've made the images grow and shrink. In ours, you can get very close and very far away from the planets, and when you warp, you really get a sense of their immense size. Also, our planets rotate.

We do have some texture problems that we're sorting out, and I think on the more recent devices, we could improve the polygon count of the planet to make them even smoother.

The thing that makes you feel like you're moving through space in Dangerous are the space dust particles. I think we were a bit too conservative and need to make lots more of them especially for the newer devices. GoF2 gives you a nice feeling of movement by using the space clouds, but sometimes those irk me since they obscure vision. GoF2 can get away with those clouds more easily because your ships are actually quite slow in that game. In ours, your ships start at 100-200 m/s, but with the right modules, you can go well over 1 km/s. When you're going fast, it's hard to see the particles. We've thought about adding particle streaks or clouds to improve the feeling of movement.

We have plans to add a way to disable the docking sequence by touching on the screen to skip it. Also, I think our version of docking is perhaps a bit more realistic. Docking at the poles makes more sense since you don't have to deal with the station's rotation. While undocking at the station's equator lets you space out departing traffic due to its rotation. We would like to improve the station models to actually show the polar entrances in a future update.

Also, if you pick the Rocketeer perk, you can start warp at any time. You'll arrive 10 km away which is similar to how GoF2 works. The warp sequence can take tens of seconds. We are actually simulating warp travel through the solar system. But it is "downtime" of sorts even if it is meant for realism, so maybe we could speed up warp travel time to be under 10 seconds as a compromise. What do people think?

 

Great to hear, but are we talking about the same thing? My issue is not with the controls, but with the actual ship handling, how the ship stutters and wavers when turning. I figured this was an issue of some kind of rare lag that only affects the player ship, or a physics bug. Is it actually a control bug?

I do like the idea of a menu that does not pause the game, for that hardcore feel Perhaps bring up the options from the "?" menu first, without pausing the game, and pause once the user goes deeper into the stuff from the "M" menu? (The "?" symbol should probably not be used at all in the future for accessing factions, wings, quests, status, etc, as it commonly indicates a help menu with a manual/tutorial/buton explanations, etc.)

Also, of you keep a non-paused menu section (again, I LIKE it! It adds to immersion to know that I have to access that info while still flying, in potential danger), I think warp destinations should be added to the non-paused menus. Perhaps ammo and map as well. Currently, there is no clear explanation as to why some in-game menus (stuff the pilot would have to check in real life as well) pauses the game, while other similar information do not, just like there is no clear distinction between the "?" and "M" menus, since both contain ship info and world information.

Thinking about it some more, and editing this post accordingly, I'd prefer if the game paused ONLY for meta menus (options, calibrate, help), or skills (since a person knows his own skills intrinsically).

This is only an issue if there is no proper tutorial or clear explanation of on-screen controls Once learned, after taking a few seconds to memorize the position of these menus, it means two less button on an already cluttered UI, with the same functionality.

Perhaps as an option for those of us who can manage to remember where to press? (The UI dream would be to add complete custom assignation of functions, once the moveable and resizeable UI update becomes a reality, so that we can basically assign any menu item(s) or functions to ANY HUD element. This might sound bizarrely over-ambitious, but for the most advanced game for iOS, it could be a true power-user tool...)

Very nice idea. Properly designed, radial menus would probably also add to the complex, deep EVE-feel...

Aha, clever! I believe that with some more polish, Dangerous could make one damn big impact on iOS gaming.

Oh, graphics were never the appeal of Vendetta Online, and never will be. They are hopelessly outdated, and always will be, as long as there are only four guys working on the game The game should be played for what might be the fastest first-person combat engine ever implemented in an online game (which, together with amazing netcode means the game almost NEVER lags, on any modern connection, and thus nearly never gets in the way of the player's aim and evasion, in spite of the extreme demands on precision and reflexes), together with the new Tribes: Ascend, the dynamic universe (AI that seizes territory and must be held back by players, dynamic economy (yep, blockading WILL increase prises but spawn military patrols ), dynamically spawned NPCs that work to fullfill demands of goods or transport surplus of materials, ripe for the taking, military protection that increases as players hit particular trade lanes, war over special metals that lead to lasting advantages for the winning side, plus many other ways for players to affect the universe in ways normal MMOs have yet to touch upon), and the complete focus on player skill over character skill.

Yes, players often forget that in a (comparably) realistic space game, virtually nothing moves but ships, stations, space debris and asteroids, thanks to the vast distances involved, unless the player is jumping in hyperspace (which is how Dangerous so delightfully works).

So Talbs, while I get what yer saying regarding the feeling of flying, this is how a space game based on newtonian physics and realistic conditions should look and feel.

But yeah, some more dust particles, and perhaps more space debris and rocks, would probably do much good for that flyin' feel.

That I will, once the devs themselves feel the game should be advertised After having waited and hoped for long for a real Elite-style space sim for iOS (and having had lots of fun with GoF2, less so with Warpgate), not to mention a true open world game of depth and variation and possibilities, I can hardly wait to see what Dangerous might grow into...

 

I think that the Cockpit view is a must have which will do a lot for the immersion. You can then integrate all controls into the Cockpit which feels and looks more "natural" and would give you the impression sitting in a spaceship.

Would be nice if this would come in a future update.

PS: What about trading goods and "loot" with other players in the future? I am thinking of some kind of auctionhouse and direct player2player trading. Then you will get a player driven economy In my opinion that would be interesting

 

Any chance for a mode so that where you point the iphone/ipad2 is the direction you look (like a 360 degree panorama)? With newtonian physics in the game you could then turn your body (or swivel in a chair is what I like to do with games that support this) around 180 degrees to look behind you and shoot while the ship is still going the opposite direction. The joypad would control acceleration in the perspective that you are looking. Picture a thruster on your ship that can rotate 360 degrees on the horizontal plane. By this I mean if you are going direction X and looking direction Y you would still go direction X at the same speed if you are not accelerating. When you apply thrust with the virtual joypad you would apply thrust in reference to where you are looking. For example Going direction X and looking direction Y which is 180 degrees the opposite direction of X that you are going and tilt the joypad to the right you would apply thrust sideways to direction X and Y. Tilting it forward would apply thrust in the Y direction slowing yourself down from direction X. It would be elite like but with head tracking like feature. I think the immersion in the game would be awesome with a mode like that. This would only work with the iPhone 4, 4th gen. iPod touch, and iPad 2 which have the gyroscope feature though. Just using the accelerometer would not work for a full 360 degree movement needed.

I love all the support this game is getting. Well worth the money.

 

Radial buttons... YES!

Yes, please, yes. I find it EXTREMELY difficult to fly in my iphone 4. I tend to move my finger very quickly and ALWAYS end up hitting the "change camera" button. And getting back to the camera I was in is a real pain... Maybe I should play it a bit smoother.

 

the spirit of positive criticism

I love sci-fi, wing-commander/privateer style games. I think they are amazing.

I bought this game awhile back, just because I knew that it was a sci fi space shooter. Several times I have tried to get into it, but unfortunately, each time i get rebuffed by the interface. I appreciate that grand designs and hope for the game, and especially the developer feedback on this thread. Unfortunately, the gui just kinda rips the game for me.

First, I play on an ipod touch, so my screen size is relatively small. It's really hard to move around and not accidently hit buttons, as others have said.

Unfortunately, what really bugs me is the combat. Its really difficult to target enemies correctly in such a way as your missiles and turrets are willing to fire. I find myself mashing on the target button, thinking I have the opponent targetted correctly, but then when i press the buttons to activate missiles, they keep telling me the enemy is not targetted. I scroll through the target system a couple more times, and eventually, targetting the same enemy, eventually the missiles are willing to work. Frustrating.

Second, It's really hard to aim shots or see if my shots are having an impact on the enemy. Yes, I realize there is sometimes black smoke around the enemy to identify a successful hit, but i kinda feel its not enough. If I had a targetting system, ala wing commander 3/4, privateer, to help me lead shots, or something along those lines to help shoot enemies and identify if I'm doing any damage would be really helpful. If this is already in the game, than bravo, I just haven't found it.

Overall, I just feel if the interface could somehow be refined to facilitate easy access to the numerous options, while at the same time providing a clearer view of space, I feel like I could really get into this game. Even though the graphics are not the best, they seem good enough. I just cant get past the gui.

Regardless, I'm glad to provide funding for the developer, and I hope he keeps working on this project. There really does seem to be a great game in here somewhere, I just need a little help finding it.

 

How do I do Breakdown missions? I have a wingman (Akio) and whenever I try to get him to Aid my Target he doesn't do anything. I hit Attack my Target and he does that just fine...

 

Akio does not have any repair modules on he's ship, so he can't aid any damaged ships, if you whant to do those mission with akio as wingman, you need to equip Armor repair module on your ship and aid the damaged ship yourself!

 

Initial Impressions

Hey there, just wanted to post a couple of impressions/suggestions after the first hour or so [very mild spoilers].

Controls as stated are hopefully going to be improved a touch, but overall I actually didn't find them that onerous. The onscreen contact list I think could use a bit of cleaning up and explanation for each contact if selected.. in general the HUD artwork seems a little unpolished relative to high production titles like GOF2, etc. but that is certainly understandable. If there's room for improvement I would say make a clear distinction between indicators and buttons... And I still don't understand why we can't just select a target from the contact list rather than cycle through with the target button?

Also I may be an idiot, but some of the initial conversation/story text bubbles overran the box and I couldn't figure a way to scroll to read the rest of it? For example I still don't know what blue contacts are? While the writing so far has been pretty good, I found the introduction of the AI and the selection of the perks to be rather abrupt.. Further down the line I might suggest waiting to introduce this part of the story and the perk selection until you reach the station or complete a few missions, etc. as I found it jarring and disjointed while I was still trying to figure out the ship and everything else while working through the tutorial missions with Cali. I think that a short tutorial for basic combat tactics that explains in words what's you're going to be doing in those first few combat encounters would be useful.

I also wonder a bit whether the thrust/physics dynamics wouldn't have been better implemented in a way that allowed for you to point in whatever direction you want while moving in the direction that your momentum is carrying you... but that my just be my bias coming from games like Terminus and Evochron. The auto camera switching is really rough when you follow your target, etc. as well, I kind of wish if I am on a tail view camera that it stays at least focused on my ship, instead of switching to the target view.

Anyway, thanks again for a great start, I'm really looking forward to digging deeper into the experience.

Forrest