Thanks for the heads up. I'll try to restart my iPhone to see if it works. I force closed the app, but didn't restart the phone. EDIT: didn't work. Anyway, I'm afraid that reactivating the counter has nothing to do with rebooting the phone/iPad, but with moving to another sector. Your distance from the original planet suggests that you travel always trying to go as far as possible. I tend to do most of the missions with unknown planets in a zone before moving farther away, because I've travelled more than 5000LY but I'm only 650LY away from the original planet (let's call it "home", hehe). Since the bug has to do with the planet id generation, I think all the planets in my current sector are bugged. I'll move out to another sector ASAP and see if that works.
This is a different bug here: only 512 planets are kept in history, and 512 is the max vaiue for discovered planets... Looks like i have to raise this value! By the way, i'm working on your "orientation" issue. I consider the possibility to "lock" a distant star (and display it on the radar as it is done for a mission, this means there would be another direction vector in the radar). I wonder if it would be satisfying.
Locking a star and displaying it on the radar would be fantastic. As for the 512 maximum planets, I guess you have to raise the maximum number, since it's the only way to achieve the next rating in planet discovery Seeing the numbers, I guess you have to raise it to 2000 minimum. Would it be possible to increase it to a huge number that allows us to explore forever? I'm pretty sure I won't get to 4 billion planets discovered in this life, but I hope to get to... 100,000?
Being able to tap on any star in the navigation screen and then have it display on radar would be fantastic. Agree with VBF on raising the max value for discovered planets really high! Also the sector thing you mention makes a lot of sense. Next time I get this bug, I won't restart and just travel farther away and pay attention to the sector I'm in. It will be interesting to see if traveling to a new sector resolves it without a restart.
Update submitted! It will feature: - finally: planets may have vegetation! - mission display fix - seed generation fix: a new universe has been entirely re-generated! (but player stats remain) - manual docking procedure with roll commands! - station doors open when you dock - infrared vision mode on planets - stations have variable rolling speeds - guide can be accessed from main menu - planets history extended from 512 to 16384 - trajectory to follow to the next planet of your contract is better displayed in the radar - you can lock a distant star and have its direction displayed in the radar - discover the new "big bang explorer" ship model! - bug fixes
Yes, yes, yes! I love it! Will be checking the App Store daily to see if it is available. When I get to 16384 planets discovered I'll come here to request more planet history Marsaults, out of curiosity: why don't you just set planet history to the amount of planets in the universe? I know it's impossible to discover all in this life, but why has that counter got to have a limit? Also, has the amount of ships destroyed also got a limit? I guess it's because of the KB/MB assigned to this value (16384 is a multiple of two), but I don't know the secondary effects of increasing this value (maybe the savegame becomes heavier?). In any case, my objective is to fill all the colours in all the bars of the game: spaceships killed, planets discovered, etc.
Can't wait for this! 16384 planet counter? Challenge accepted! This will keep us busy for a while! Curious to see how you tie in our existing distance from start into the new universe. Will we all start on the same planet again or will our start location be the position we were in in this original universe? I guess what I'm asking is when we switch over to the new universe will we be at the same coordinates as we were in the one we are in right now? VirtualBoyFreak. We won't truly be finished until we fill all the bars and get the rebellion and empire ranks down to zero and then back up to 100%
Update is live! That sure was fast! # EDIT: played a bit, it's amazing. The only "but" is that the new ship is not new in itself, but substitutes the Hawk Mk. II (the most expensive ship available before, for nearly 5m credits). Since I had that one, now I have the new one. Not much of a problem though. It costs 15m new, btw This game deserves a lot more coverage than what it's getting... From how it began to what it is now there's a whole difference. And IMO it's an amazing underrated space trader.
AWESOME! I just started up with the new update. I saved a screenshot of the nav screen last night. I'm at the exact same coordinates in the new update and have all of my progress. I see the new ship is available, The new ship is EXACTLY what I'm looking for! Glad to see it have the most powerful laser. You need that when you are 3000 LY out. I'm seeing a lot of ambushes by outlaws, 3-5 ships jumping me at once. Good times for sure! Now I just need to fined a planet that sells the new ship. Money is not a problem, I have 29 million in the bank already. Have any mobile gaming sites given this a review yet? They should...
No reviews that I know of. Metacritic doesn't show them, but I really believe that this game should be reviewed. 35.5MB installed, a full universe to explore with 4 billion stars, empire, rebels, outlaws, civilians, space battles, trading, automatic or manual landing in space stations, planet exploration... It has everything a space trading/exploration gamer loves, plus it's improved in each update.
Now with the update it's even more. Honestly, landing in the space stations is GORGEOUS! Match your roll to that of the space station, align correctly to the entrance, get the red light turn green and in you go. It's simply amazing!
Lock function The lock function is pretty cool and very useful. The only problem is the button location. It is VERY easy to hit the button and unlock the star while in ship battles. A better location may be where the launch button is in stations and on planets. I would like to see which direction to go on the star map also. Can a yellow line be put in the star map going from your current location to the locked star? This would show your path to take. It would be basically the same as the red line showing where you came from. I am always going basically "down" as shown in the star map. I would like to be able to lock a star and then go to the star map and see if the star is actually in the direction I want to go. Is this even possible with your build. If it is too complicated, don't worry about it. One can always ask!
The lock function is great. You can even lock a distant star while doing a mission and keep it locked until you finish the missions. I do that when I see a distant star. With the new ship it's amazing how fast you can travel away from the original planet you began in. I think this update is one of the best that has been done. It should be featured in Shaun's "update Mondays" section of TA.
I'm so close to hitting buy on this one, been quietly watching the developments from the forum wings. I was a massive fan of Frontier and my brother and I ploughed hours and hours in to it - loved the whole progression mechanics of buying, selling, upgrading, rinse and repeat with a few bounty hunter/protector missions thrown in for good measure. Just a couple of things if someone could clarify for me please - Are there hardpoints on the ships for changing weapon load outs, swapping engines/shields/scanners etc? Is there an autopilot feature and can you look around at space and the outside the ship whilst you silently track your way to your destination? Can you install passenger cabins and run a 'taxi' service? Is there any risk/reward mechanic or awareness by the space station authorities about running illegal cargo? ie Will they scan your ship on entry and you may/may not get caught for smuggling contraband etc? Is the star map 3D and rotatable/zoomable a la Frontier? Can you interrogate planets to find out their current economic position and is territory split between factions with your reputation affecting how your presence is received? I guess I'm really hoping for that truly authentic Frontier vibe - there was nothing better than buying a behemoth of a tank cargo ship, loading out the hardpoints with lasers missiles and torpedoes, setting it to autopilot and then switching between your gun emplacements to take out swarms of pirates trying to raid your cargo whilst you silently forge your way through deepest space! Truly magnificent game and one I've yet to find equal for with regard to the sense of immersion and freedom within the universe (not to mention the eerie solitude at times!) and the scope and flexibility of your path through various careers and moral choices.....always struggled with people smuggling but had no problem with narcotics....what can I say, slightly wonky moral compass! I've read the whole of this thread and whilst I understand the mechanics in play and the unfolding discussions give me a general view, I'm just wondering how deep, or rather, immersive this is? Is there really anything to the commerce and trading or is it just buy and sell. Is there anything to the tactics of load outs and cargo vs battle cruiser? Is there any 'character' to the game that helps build that feeling of immersion? I already know it's not going to be 'Braben-esque' levels of depth and that it is still very much a work in progress - and that whilst I really can't knock Marsault's commitment and passion for his creation, I am left wondering what direction he will take this in and will it continue to be a labour of love that he'll see through to the end or will it fizzle out before he gets there? ......and now that all that is said.....sod it - it's less than a cappuccino ffs and the guy has a baby to feed....I think he's shown enough commitment already.....I'm hitting 'buy' now and based on his dedication alone, I'm doing the 5 star app rating just to show support! #
Yeah, I'm still looking for a system that sells the new ship. Unfortunately I had the second best ship when the update hit, you lucked out big time! Agree the lock on function is great except for the button location on screen. Tonight I played for about an hour, got into about 8 different ship battles, and in 6 out of those 8 battles I brushed against the lock button while dogfighting and lost the lock on the star. The button really needs to be moved
Not that I'm aware of. You can look around at space while travelling, there's a button to change the view to left, right, back and front again, but nothing else. The only view of the spaceship is the one in the buy/sell spaceship screen. Nope. No, trading in this game is a basic buy/sell process. I guess implementing a risk % for carrying contraband would me more or less easy, but it should be more profitable than what it is now. The most profitable things I've seen in this game is gold and other things which aren't contraband. The map can be rotated and there's a +/- button and 2 zoom positions. Near planets to your location show prices compared to mean price of those goods that are worth exporting/importing from there. What you describe is a quite more complex game than this one, even though Stellar Horizon gets improved after each update. From what I've read since the beginning of this thread, since its release, the game got improved in the following (let's hope I don't forget anything): - Asteroids. - Planet exploration (at the beginning it was a picture which you could scan, only that). - Alien monoliths on planets to find. - Merchant ships which you can destroy to obtain their goods. This gets nearby imperial ships angry and they attack you. - Manual landing into space stations greatly improved (before, you could try to land manually, but there were no roll buttons, so it was a pain). - Vegetation on planets. - New spaceship with a lot of fuel to go very far on a single run. - Loads of bug fixes. As for the "to do" list, Marsaults commented that he would try to include in the next big update the rebel/empire missions (destroy all R/E ships on a given planet, affecting your reputation with them). Marsaults is working very hard to improve his game, and he takes into account all the things we say. For example, the last spaceship was requested by one person here (drh1961 I think), and Marsaults thought it was a good idea, and did so. We also got an increase in the planet count from a suggestion here. So maybe some of the things you mention are taken into consideration. Marsaults doesn't always reply to everything, but he does read everything in this thread. For example, the bug that hit the iPhone 6+ in which the game crashed after loading wasn't discussed too much in the thread, but Marsaults worked on it "in the shadows" and was finally able to fix it. He's a dev dedicated wholeheartedly to his game (when his family allows him to do so ). The trading and battling aspects are simple in the sense of just buy/sell and destroy ships that attack you or outlaws for the bounty. The immersion comes from the fact that all the transits from space to the space station, to space to the planet surface and back to space are seamless. There's no mid-screen breaking the immersion. It all happens without you noticing the loading times. If you play on a modern device, you won't notice anything. If you play on an old device as my 4S, you notice the planet's surface in space take a few seconds to load, the star's surface too, and when you're going far away, you see that the sky "runs out" of stars and suddenly a bunch more "pop in" The game as it is now is a fantastic space trading experience. You could say it's a "work in progress" in the sense that great things are added in each update, but I'd define it as a great space trading game which gets improved after each update. I have been following Drifter (another space trading game which hasn't been released for iOS yet) for years because I wanted a good space trading game, and suddenly Stellar Horizon appeared out of nowhere to fulfill my needs. And it was good, but now it's turned great. Any update from now onwards can only make it greater. Well done, the more support it gets, the more chances it has to become greater what the game needs is reviews. Why hasn't it been reviewed by anyone yet, for good or for bad, is far from my understanding. The only thing I can think of is that when people see it only occupies 35.5MB installed they think "bah, impossible to have 4 billion planets in such a reduced install size" and get onto something else.
Yeap, I was very lucky! as for the button position, maybe it would fit better just under the "syst." Button (top left), but I haven't got into your problem yet, so it's just a suggestion based on your description. In any case, the lock option is greatly welcome.
@VirtualBoyFreak - Wow....and I thought my post was long! # I won't re-quote it as it'll just unnecessarily take up more thread space - but just to say, thanks very much for your in depth insight and opinions man, really appreciate the thoughts. And yes, I completely agree with everything you've said. I'm not sure how old you are but there was something I just wanted to mention - although in fairness it has already been brought up on this thread.... ....So far there's been a lot of comparisons to No Mans Land being thrown around but think it's unfair to compare the work of one developer against an entire Dev team. I'm old enough to remember playing Frontier Elite 2 (actually, I'm old enough to remember Elite but that doesn't stick in mind as much as E2 did for me).....and even back then in the depths of gaming infancy, when 8mb of ram, 16Mhz processing speed and 16colour EGA was cutting edge (Google it all and let your jaw drop in wonder at how we've managed to get where we are today!).....Frontier Elite 2 managed to accomplish everything you've mentioned above and more (all be it with slightly less impressive visuals) in less than 500kb of code! It managed to provide fully fledged commerce and faction systems, a variety of missions, procedurally generated star systems, multiple planets and space stations within each system, asteroid mining, deep ed tactical space combat, full Newtonian physics that just felt 'right' when flying and docking etc, etc.....the list goes on.....it was an incredible achievement considering the scale of other games being produced at that time. Granted, it took David Braben almost 10 years to write after the original Elite, but still - what an amazing game, completely blew our minds away in 1993. There was just nothing else around like it and there wouldn't be for many more years to come...../wipes away dewy eyed tear of nostalgia/..... I guess what I'm getting at is that times have changed and expectations of gamers are much higher these days because we've been spoiled for choice and scale of more modern games. That said, I've been looking for comparisons between this and 23 year old game and I'm still finding this falls short at the moment - but then factor in the time he's spent developing it so far compared to Elite and, whilst I'm hoping it won't take 10 years for Marsault to get there, I can really see the early roots and DNA of a true Elite 2 clone here. Marsault should definitely be praised for his work so far and I very much look forward to seeing how this develops over the coming months (and hopefully years!). Good work Marsault and thanks for your hard work.
