To infinity and beyond! I'm not stopping till I get WAY out there... Loving the new update. It's cool how a small thing like varying launch tube lengths seem to make everything seem more "real"? Every once in a while I still get the bug where new planets or monoliths will not count as discoveries. It does look like a full shutdown of the app and iPad corrects this MOST of the time. Next postcard will be from 2000 LY out...
Reg vegetation, it would be great that there's a random amount of vegetation in each planet and random sections of a planet with/without vegetation. I also remember you added random wind noise to the planets. Maybe that random wind noise could be sync'ed with the vegetation movement, so that the more wind, the more the vegetation moves. Just ideas here. As for the fact of having stars with more than one planet and even with moons, I'm not sure it can be done easily. I think all the universe in the game is based around equations which give randomness to basic premises, and the basic premise is one star with one planet and one space station. It would be great to have multi-planet systems, and even twin-star systems and such, but I'm not sure if that would mean an entire new game...
Thanks a lot! Not for now... Thanks! You are entirely right. Adding multi-planets would require a huge update in my universe model, and in the travel mechanism as well... Not impossible, but really painful. I prefer adding other elements for the moment.
I understand. That's too bad though, since it would add a lot to the immersion and suspension of disbelief. It's hard for me to feel like I'm traversing a galaxy that in a fundamental way is completely dissimilar (one planet per star; no moons) to ours (multi planets and moons). One might even start to feel that since every star system is basically the same in terms of planetary bodies that one is simply traveling into the same system over and over again with a little cosmetic variation. Perhaps, a slightly exaggerated worry, but I think some truth to it--a concern that would be significantly addressed by multi planetary systems.
Oh MY GOD OH MY GOD!!!!!! YESYESYESYES! I can't wait!? I see there is grass! Is there any more life you will be adding? I have an Xbox so this could be my very own No Man's Sky. With all these updates, it could even be better!!!!
From what I've seen, the most similar thing to what you seem to be looking for is "Elite: Dangerous", but I think it's PC/Mac only an it's online too. Talking on iOS. Stellar Horizon seems nearer to the original Elite, but with many improvements over that one: seamless (or nearly seamless) travelling to planets and landing, a much bigger universe, planet exploration, etc. It has also got much more beautiful graphics and Marsaults is continuously improving the game and fixing the bugs that appear. It's a work of love what he's doing. Tintin888 compares Stellar Horizon to XBox's No Man's Sky. I don't know how that one is, but it sounds as space exploration with planet exploration too. This one does the trick for sure on iOS at a "simpler" level (which is getting more complex after each update). Other alternatives I know of: if you want a really complex space game, you should check Dangerous HD (Null Space). It has been several years since it was last updated, but it has a lite version for you to try and see if it fits your needs. For me it was way too complex: too many buttons and commands to learn, how to attack, defend, etc., but it might suit you better. I don't know if it has multi-planet systems or not though, and download size is over 500MB. Unknown - 3D Space Trader seems a clone of the original Elite in every sense. I couldn't get on well with the controls, and I finally ended giving it up. Also, travelling between planets and bases is less smooth: there are screen changes which make the immersion break, and when you trade, there's no mean-max-min price list (at least that I've seen) so trading becomes a pain. It's free atm, so you can give it a try. On Steam you can find Drifter on a beta release, which should eventually come to iOS (there's an upcoming thread for it), although it's been on development for more than 4 years now. From what I've seen & read of it, it looks exactly like Stellar Horizon, but in 2.5D instead of 3D. You can see your ship and the trace it leaves behind, etc. I remember a video of this one in which the dev wrote a script to show in a few minutes (12-13, I think) every single planet that could be found in the game universe. I think this one is also a 1-star, 1-planet universe, which makes sense with a game that wants to offer billions of planets without having to keep archives of every single rendered planet. That would mean tons of GB of data vs the current 32MB of Stellar Horizon, and remember we are talking about 4 billion planets here.
Just picked this up, first impressions? Disappointment A: the screen doesn't rotate for some stupid reason so I have to take my iPad out of its stand. Ughhh B: no tutorial? The game loaded for the first time and I'm staring at a blank screen, not knowing what the hell is going on.
Did you try to hit "SYST"=>"SETTINGS" (allows you to change orientation) and "SYST"=>"GUIDE" (explains how to play) ? I should consider featuring these 2 buttons in the main menu too.
Shields not recharging? Enemy strength increase in the last update is great. Thanks! I am in danger again. Are the shields supposed to recharge? Ship info shows shields are fully charged but the bar graph in the cockpit view shows them at half strength.
As for the missions in the space stations, I was thinking that aside from "go to planet X, Y, Z", maybe there could be other missions such as "Hunt spaceship X in planet Y". It would be similar to the current ones, just that you'd have to kill a spaceship in that sector. Is it viable (easily implemented) from a developer's point of view?
Something that will be not too hard to implement will be something like : "kill all rebels" or "kill all pirates in system Y " (something harder would be : "kill ship X in system Y" because it requires to differentiate ships, i don't know if i'm very understandable). So yes, something like that may be possible.
Kill all rebels or kill all pirates would be great, but the benefits would need to compensate the fee for killing them EDIT: I have a better idea: why not have "imperial missions", "rebel missions" and "trader missions" submenus in the job screen? The "trader missions" would be the current missions of just visiting planets, the"imperial missions" would be the "kill all rebels in X planet" and the "rebel missions" would be the "kill all imperials in X planet". That way, the relationship bars of imperials and rebels would make more sense, plus there would be three kind of missions available. Sounds okay? I'd love something like that, to give more variety to the mission part of the game.
@VirtualBoy: i will seriously think about this kind of missions. Congrats Drh! I'll try to make sure that this universe continues to please you!
