The game is actually very playable with the currently implemented touch controls. Works out really well. More pressing concerns are the lack of sync support and the very limited flyable space in each system. Maybe two new features for SN3?
This game has been drawing me in and keeping me up late at night. Despite the tedium of flying across several systems to deliver the right goods to systems in crisis, its fun. More warp connections would help I understand limiting them between quadrants, but surely travel should be easier within one factions territory? Just a couple of UI issues or minor bugs 1. When putting a ship into storage, couldnt the game uninstall all of the modules for us? I lost a ton of money after my first death: I respawned on my home planet, saw the hangar button and assumed that when I came back to life I had to get my ship out of storage. Theres no way to tell whether your ship is in storage or out of it, so I tap-held it, which put it into storage and threw away all my weapons and modules. That was frustrating. 2. When someone on a planet offers to sell you a small module for 50,000 credits, you can tap accept multiple times and spend 50k each time! 3. When you try to hire a mercenary but already have one, there should probably be some sort of message telling you why nothings happening. 4. Destroyed ships appear to drop something besides a lifepod. From the Steam forums it sounds like theyre cargo. How do you pick them up? 5. Does a high faction rating in the Merchants Guild (or Hunter/Pirate equivalents) help you in any way, like purchasing ships or modules? 6. Does dropping off lifepod survivors do anything besides earn you a tiny amount of cash? The stories behind the factions and your squadmates are great, Im looking forward to seeing them unfold. Eventually Ill have to try a playthrough without taking sides (remaining a Free Union loyalist). Is there anything to do? I suppose that means youre voting for the status quo, politically speaking I guess youd be playing for the Zerker and squadmate stories?
It's always a fine balance when it comes to travel times, particularly in a trading game such as this one. If travel was very quick, it would de-value the Merchant playstyle. I could be wrong, but I feel that the small victories of a Merchant's life is actually experience that tedium of travel to land that huge profit, in this case, resolving a trade crisis for exp/fame/glory. I tried to make travel less tedious with the random encounters to keep things fresh.. It also provides a meaningful upgrade path for modules & pilot skills: faster travel by equipping modules & getting skills that boost engine & hyperdrive speed. Because traveling faster results in higher profit per time, it's a good investment. Note, there's some hidden jump points for you to fast-travel between quandrants. 1. The Hangar was added due to player's request, after the game was completed and released and my earlier code conflicted with this feature so it ended up as it is. The best I could do, without re-writing the entire module/equip code (it's huge and cumbersome, lessons for the next project!), is have a text warning players to de-equip modules first before putting ships into the Hangar Storage. 2 & 3. Thanks I'll check them out. 4. Cargo yes! Just fly close to it, tap on the Cargo pod to open up the loot menu. Tap + Hold to loot all of that stack or use the sliders for a specific quantity. 5. Merchant Guild rep is required for some late-game prototype ships. 6. Just Credits. If you play to keep the status quo, you have to make enemies of all the major faction as you fight the strong one to prevent them from expanding. It's a stalemate, endless war. But if you join a major faction and conquer the others, you can bring about peace... at a great cost. Go Roguelike mode and help your squad-mates with their missions. That could be considered a "win" already if you manage to beat those missions on Roguelike difficulty.
Thanks, those are all good points. And I've started picking up cargo left behind after ships get destroyed. For the Hangar I just wish it was more clear if a ship was in or out. But I get it now. It's been useful. Right now I'm just hoping that Grace's story still functions now that the Federation has been defeated. Fairly grim ending for them, but it doesn't sound like that great a society. None of them do - I love it!
Just a heads up, I am in the process of putting an update that improves compatibility with iOS 10.0.1+ to resolve startup and resume crash issues. If you get a crash on the first start, force exit and re-launch. The first time the game is launched, it compiles to optimize the code and in recent iOS, there's some changes that can cause stalls. For crashes from resume, please force exit after each play session in the meantime. My game engine & compiler has been updated for better iOS 10.0.1+ compatibility and I am testing it currently. If all goes well an update will be available asap. Apologies for the inconvenience!
Lost my save game Hi Anh Very nice game which I bought - and then haven't played for some time. Now, after watching and reading The Expanse, I want to play again, this time more seriously! But - I think I lost my saved game! When I start the game, it doesn't show me a "Continue" option, just "New game", "Options" and "Credits". Any hints as to how I can restore?
Sorry about that! Did you play a long while ago, back in iOS9? I think this is due to iOS 9 -> 10 transition. With iOS10, Apple changed a lot of code for gamedevs and I had to fix quite a few things to make it compatible with 10+. The Expanse is awesome, a realistic sci-fi with interesting characters and a good plot! Everytime you land and launch, it saves.
Thanks for the reply. Yes, it was some time ago. Is there some kind of close proximity defence system against missiles in SN2? Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
I just want to say thank you for making this game it's fantastic. Damn zerkers how are they so tough!
Same for me I lost everything and right now as much as I love this game I'm finding it hard being forced to start a new game and find the motivation to start again.
You can be a privateer, a pirate that's sponsored by a major faction, allowing you to be on "friendly" terms with one of them as you attack their enemy factions. They will reward such pirate activities handsomely. No, thank you guys for buying it. Really, the income I get from iOS especially, helps me pay the bills and so allows me to keep on being a gamedev. Yes, in the future. After my current big project (post apocalypse turn based tactical squad RP with a very dynamic world sandbox.. what a mouthful!) is completed I will decide what genre to tackle next. It should actually. My dev device is the iPad Mini 2 which is pretty old nowadays. This happened from saves prior on iOS9. The iOS10 update broke my game, I had to patch it up for 10+ compatibility. It sucks for us devs, but Apple does what Apple wants.
My game engine is really a PC focused engine so it lacks a lot of the mobile addons. Hopefully they will improve the compatibility and add more features over time but currently I am very limited on iOS in what I can achieve.
It's been awhile where I had a problem with my compiler service (Intel XDK) I was unable to update the game, but recently I learned how to do it manually myself and so I just released an update for Star Nomad 2. It fixes all the issues with iOS 12+ including fullscreen bugs and audio bugs. I also made a change to the UI flight controls to make it easier to use, and made the main control buttons 50% larger to improve QoL on iPhones. If some of you guys haven't played it in awhile, it's a good time to boot it up again and give it a fly.
