Beta Testers Wanted
Realm of Prey has been completed and posted on the Addons page. Therefore, the beta testing period is now over. Many thanks to all of you who helped get this plugin out the door!
See this topic for more information.
ROP.gif (48.14K)This post has been edited by MacDevil : 07 August 2008 - 07:40 AM
I decided to take a break for awhile and test out this game.
1. All ships do not have final explosions boom resources.
2. In some of the rush deliveries, the mission info do not show green indicator of final destination, nor do the descs indicate exactly which system the delivery is supposed to go to. I don't know if this was deliberate but I'm having to accept it just to find out where the final destination is and that may not be convenient IMO.
3. The EMP gun behaves like a turret when it should be a gun.
4. Planets and station with big graphics are overlapping out of the box window.
That's all I can think of for now.
This post has been edited by Coraxus : 06 December 2007 - 01:01 PM
@coraxus, on Dec 6 2007, 12:43 PM, said in Realm Of Prey For Nova Public Beta:
I decided to take a break for awhile and test out this game.
1. All ships do not have final explosions boom resources.
2. In some of the rush deliveries, the mission info do not show green indicator of final destination, nor do the descs indicate exactly which system the delivery is supposed to go to. I don't know if this was deliberate but I'm having to accept it just to find out where the final destination is and that may not be convenient IMO.
3. The EMP gun behaves like a turret when it should be a gun.
4. Planets and station with big graphics are overlapping out of the box window.
That's all I can think of for now.
1. (edit) Taken care of. (/edit)
2. (edit) Taken care of. (/edit)
3. The EMP gun is a 45 degree swivel gun. It was that way in the original plug-in. I'm not 100% sure that was intentional so I will confirm it with Tim when next I speak to him.
4. (edit) Taken care of. An new planet comm dialog will be included with the final version. (/edit)
Thanks for the feedback.
This post has been edited by MacDevil : 07 December 2007 - 11:56 AM
I'll beta test this, looks good, downloading now 
OK, I played all day yesterday, and here's what I've come up with:
1. A number of the new ship sprites "bleed" through effects like cloaking and ionization in parts when oriented at certain angles. This problem is particularly prevalent with privateer refits, but also afflicts the new MSC ships. I believe this is an issue with bad sprite masks.
2. The Earth Confederacy outpost, Osiris Sentinel, in the Osiris system, is incorrectly referred to as a moon in its landing dësc, when both its sprites (both on the ground, and in flight) are that of a station.
3. The Faction facility, Deepstar Refinery, in the NGC1196 system, is incorrectly referenced as a DREC facility in the bar dësc. (to the author's credit, it does use the same sprite as a DREC mining facility).
4. The NPU orbital, Sentinel Station, in the Atava system, is incorrectly referred to as a Federation military outpost in its bar dësc, when its landing dësc clearly states it is not only owned by the NPU, but is a commercial hub.
5. Ionization values are screwy. Most capital ships can't turn it all when ionized, and, even with the dissipator outfit, the de-ionization count is so low it takes forever to return to fighting condition.
6. "Confederation & Mercenary Captain defeat aliens from Great War" string is still visible in the news-nets after certain missions are completed. If this öops got through, there may be others (like the Rebel alien mirror-string, or the Defidia II news-line).
7. The NPU-sanctioned "Bulk Delivery to <DSN>", worth 85,000 credits, is partially b0rked. It only lists one destination, but when you arrive, you pick up the cargo, instead of deliver it, wordlessly. It is up to the player, thereafter, to ascertain the correct delivery spöb on the map (thankfully, it is marked), where, on arrival, the text is displayed normally, the mission ends, and the player is payed.
8. The Krydanti Industries Inc. mission, "Dangerous Delivery to <DSN>", does not display the mission reward in the pre-acceptance mission computer briefing (unlike other such standard missions).
9. The hiring dëscs for the MSC Corvette and Blockade Runner are swapped.
More to come as I find more bugs to squish.
@-visitor-, on Dec 8 2007, 08:58 AM, said in Realm Of Prey For Nova Public Beta:
1. A number of the new ship sprites "bleed" through effects like cloaking and ionization in parts when oriented at certain angles. This problem is particularly prevalent with privateer refits, but also afflicts the new MSC ships. I believe this is an issue with bad sprite masks.
This is actually a problem with EnRLE. To avoid it you'll need to use orca's utility.
@-visitor-, on Dec 7 2007, 02:58 PM, said in Realm Of Prey For Nova Public Beta:
OK, I played all day yesterday, and here's what I've come up with:
1. A number of the new ship sprites "bleed" through effects like cloaking and ionization in parts when oriented at certain angles. This problem is particularly prevalent with privateer refits, but also afflicts the new MSC ships. I believe this is an issue with bad sprite masks.
2. The Earth Confederacy outpost, Osiris Sentinel, in the Osiris system, is incorrectly referred to as a moon in its landing dësc, when both its sprites (both on the ground, and in flight) are that of a station.
3. The Faction facility, Deepstar Refinery, in the NGC1196 system, is incorrectly referenced as a DREC facility in the bar dësc. (to the author's credit, it does use the same sprite as a DREC mining facility).
4. The NPU orbital, Sentinel Station, in the Atava system, is incorrectly referred to as a Federation military outpost in its bar dësc, when its landing dësc clearly states it is not only owned by the NPU, but is a commercial hub.
5. Ionization values are screwy. Most capital ships can't turn it all when ionized, and, even with the dissipator outfit, the de-ionization count is so low it takes forever to return to fighting condition.
6. "Confederation & Mercenary Captain defeat aliens from Great War" string is still visible in the news-nets after certain missions are completed. If this öops got through, there may be others (like the Rebel alien mirror-string, or the Defidia II news-line).
7. The NPU-sanctioned "Bulk Delivery to <DSN>", worth 85,000 credits, is partially b0rked. It only lists one destination, but when you arrive, you pick up the cargo, instead of deliver it, wordlessly. It is up to the player, thereafter, to ascertain the correct delivery spöb on the map (thankfully, it is marked), where, on arrival, the text is displayed normally, the mission ends, and the player is payed.
8. The Krydanti Industries Inc. mission, "Dangerous Delivery to <DSN>", does not display the mission reward in the pre-acceptance mission computer briefing (unlike other such standard missions).
9. The hiring dëscs for the MSC Corvette and Blockade Runner are swapped.
More to come as I find more bugs to squish.
Wow! Thanks for all the feedback. Here's what I've got so far:
1. (edit) Fixed. Thanks to Guy for the link. (/edit)
2. Taken care of. It was a holdover from the fact that Osiris II has a moon rather than a station in the stock EV scenario.
3. Taken care of.
4. Taken care of.
5. Yeah I need to mess with these a bit more. It's hard to know what a reasonable value is until you play (especially since very few ships use ionizing weapons).
6. Haha I hadn't noticed that. Taken care of, though.
7. Fixed.
8. Taken care of.
9. Also fixed.
Thanks for the report. Keep em coming.
This post has been edited by MacDevil : 08 December 2007 - 11:36 PM
Just finished the Confederacy sting, and I found more bugs to squish!
1. Mass Expansions have the same dëscs as Cargo Expansions.
2. The dëscs of P-404 (in the UK404 system) and P-189 (in the UK189 system) are swapped.
3. Even after ConEx gets it, their missions are still available in the Mission Computer, and their përs transports and random fleets still appear.
4. The CDX Argosy transport is surprisingly rare to find 'in the wild' outside of fleets. It appears in the systems in and around Aurora (the CDX HQ system), but very seldom elsewhere.
5. Even after the Faction is defeated, their ships still appear in some of the fringe systems, and so do some of their përs. Be sure to set the visibility bits properly, so that they cease to appear entirely one conditions are met.
6. Can not upgrade Pirate ships to their more powerful 'B' variants. (Bug or Feature?)
7. Can not upgrade Faction ships to their Legion of Honor variants. (Bug or Feature?)
8. Can not upgrade standard craft to 'Pirate Modifications Detected' variants. (Again, Bug or Feature?)
9. Minor text errors in missions too numerous to list. Usually its minor stuff that a spell-checker would miss. Use of the wrong tenses, omission of a comma, one-letter misspelling in a word, etc. Some proof-reading should help catch this.
10. Mission: Visions of Despair , pre-acceptance briefing is expanded, as if displaying a picture, but no picture is loaded.
11. Cargo/Mass expansion can be sold. This may be intentional, but the likelihood for abuse (read: mass-trick) means this is a (i)bad idea(/b).
12. Impact force of Faction plasma weaponry is ridiculous.
13. One Faction përs, the FSS Spittal, is, seemingly, always able to appear. This is odd, because it both gives away a rather critical plot-point, but makes no sense at all once the Syndicate sides with the Earth Confederacy.
14. After DREC is overthrown and the FMG inherits their territory, the NGC1325 system still appears as hostile on the map, despite being (apparently) owned by the FMG, and the only land-able stellar in the system, P-1325, being perfectly happy with the player. I believe this is caused by the system itself being owned by DREC, despite their having no holdings in the system.
15. The dëscs of certain stellar (the FMG outposts, or Proteus II, for instance) do not change, despite radical geopolitical changes during the course of the story-line. Remember, even if you don't change the stellar itself, you can alter the dësc through use of bit-conditionals. Consult the EV Nova Bible if you don't know what I'm talking about.
As was before; more as I find them.
@-visitor-, on Dec 11 2007, 06:30 PM, said in Realm Of Prey For Nova Public Beta:
<Snip>
Whew! That's another great list! Here's what I've got:
1. Corrected.
2. Fixed.
3. Yeah I only recently realized that pers ship appear bits have to be set separately from the ship appear bits. I'll take care of this one after finals are over this week.
4. This would be a carry-over from the original plug-in. I will look into making it appear in a few more systems though.
5. GRRR...I thought I had gotten this one (aside from the pers ships of course)! Where have you been seeing them?
6. Done on purpose. The idea was that the three variants were all roughly equivalent modifications to the same ship. I have been considering letting the player buy these other variants (with some random probability). Thoughts?
7. Also done on purpose. The idea was that the LoH variants were custom built, rather than upgrades. I could easily change this though, if you think makes more sense to have them as upgrades.
8. Feature.
9. I'm in the process of going through these now. I have already caught several.
10. Somehow that mission desc got set to show a non-existent movie. Don't know how that happened. Taken care of though.
11. Fixed, though it doesn't really matter since the player can reverse a mass expansion with a cargo addition (it is a 1 to 1 conversion for both).
12. Unchanged from the original plug-in that I don't see any reason to change. The impact is a drawback of the weapon.
13. (edit)Changed the name of the ship(/edit)
14. Bah I thought I'd caught all these as well. This is actually due to a bug in the Nova engine. The fix is to offset the "changed" system by a pixel. Then it reflects the players true legal status there (so it shows up as blue rather than red). (edit) Fixed. (/edit)
15. (edit) Done. (/edit)
Thanks for all the hard work. Let me know what you find in the Faction string.
This post has been edited by MacDevil : 23 December 2007 - 05:59 PM
@macdevil, on Dec 12 2007, 02:18 AM, said in Realm Of Prey For Nova Public Beta:
5. GRRR...I thought I had gotten this one (aside from the pers ships of course)! Where have you been seeing them?
Well, you squished them fairly well in the core systems, but I still see them occasionally around the fringe systems. My most recent encounter with a non-përs/fleet Faction ship post-story-line was in Atropos.
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6. Done on purpose. The idea was that the three variants were all roughly equivalent modifications to the same ship. I have been considering letting the player buy these other variants (with some random probability). Thoughts?
That'd be nice.
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7. Also done on purpose. The idea was that the LoH variants were custom built, rather than upgrades. I could easily change this though, if you think makes more sense to have them as upgrades.
If thats the way it was intended, it seems reasonable. Its just a pain to capture LoH Faction Heavy Cruisers, is all. 
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11. Fixed, though it doesn't really matter since the player can reverse a mass expansion with a cargo addition (it is a 1 to 1 conversion for both).
The problem arises when they use both to get 100 mass expansions, then they sell the Cargo expansions. They end up with negative cargo, but with loads of weapons space. In this regard, the 1-to-1 conversion actually makes it easier to pull off, so its a good thing that you fixed this. Its far too easy to exploit.
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12. Unchanged from the original plug-in that I don't see any reason to change. The impact is a drawback of the weapon.
Understandable. Its just I've gotten tired of my big-bad, very big battleship getting knocked around like a fighter by a pair of Faction Gunships. Never-mind the Fusion Torpedoes, the Plasma weaponry has a high enough rate of fire that only a very minor amount of impact is needed for some very noticeable results. But, if you think its fine as-is I'm not going to argue.
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Thanks for all the hard work. Let me know what you find in the Faction string.
No problem, I'm actually working on that right now.
Oh, and I few other things I forgot:
1. Derelict Ships seem to disappear after awhile. I'm unsure of the reason of this. Check the përs to see if it uses an escape pod, or doesn't but acts as if it did. If neither is set, then once the derelict blows, its gone for good.
2. The "Medicine to <DSN>" mission sometimes (rather humorously) has the destination set in Faction territory, despite the fact that the Faction is trying to stop the shipment, and the mission being sanctioned by the Earth Confederacy Supply Bureau besides.
@-visitor-, on Dec 11 2007, 11:39 PM, said in Realm Of Prey For Nova Public Beta:
Well, you squished them fairly well in the core systems, but I still see them occasionally around the fringe systems. My most recent encounter with a non-përs/fleet Faction ship post-story-line was in Atropos.
But it shouldn't matter where they are. If each faction ship is set to not appear once a certain bit is set, then shouldn't they disappear everywhere except for pers and flets (which are controlled by a separate appear on field)? I'll have to look into this further.
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That'd be nice.
Ok, I'll take care of it. I think it is a good idea too, as it better fits with the idea of the pirate ships being modifications to the kestrel or the MSC destroyer.
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If thats the way it was intended, it seems reasonable. Its just a pain to capture LoH Faction Heavy Cruisers, is all.
Yeah sorry about that. They do make nice escorts, though the Pirate Modified MegaKestrel is just as good, and much easier to find if you know where to look...
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The problem arises when they use both to get 100 mass expansions, then they sell the Cargo expansions. They end up with negative cargo, but with loads of weapons space. In this regard, the 1-to-1 conversion actually makes it easier to pull off, so its a good thing that you fixed this. Its far too easy to exploit.
Wow I didn't know you could do that. Taken care of in any case.
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Understandable. Its just I've gotten tired of my big-bad, very big battleship getting knocked around like a fighter by a pair of Faction Gunships. Never-mind the Fusion Torpedoes, the Plasma weaponry has a high enough rate of fire that only a very minor amount of impact is needed for some very noticeable results. But, if you think its fine as-is I'm not going to argue.
Yes some of the ships do seem rather light for their class. Though again, a holdover from the original plug-in.
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1. Derelict Ships seem to disappear after awhile. I'm unsure of the reason of this. Check the përs to see if it uses an escape pod, or doesn't but acts as if it did. If neither is set, then once the derelict blows, its gone for good.
Hadn't noticed that. But then again, I haven't been destroying every derelict I see either. I'll look into this.
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2. The "Medicine to <DSN>" mission sometimes (rather humorously) has the destination set in Faction territory, despite the fact that the Faction is trying to stop the shipment, and the mission being sanctioned by the Earth Confederacy Supply Bureau besides.
Fixed.
@phlogios, on Dec 12 2007, 10:44 AM, said in Realm Of Prey For Nova Public Beta:
I can't unarchive the plugin's .zip
It stops at .DS_Store
Hmm...Since I have a Mac, I don't exactly know why this would happen (or even exactly what it means). Can someone who is more familiar with Windows shed some light on what might be going on here?
The plug-in was compressed using Plugin Archiver 2. I have not received any other reports of problems decompressing it. Have you tried using a different decompression program, such as stuffit expander?
@phlogios, on Dec 12 2007, 03:48 PM, said in Realm Of Prey For Nova Public Beta:
I'm USING my mac
I'm not an idiot ;D I tried to unstuff it with good ol' Stuffit Expander on OSX.
EDIT: Ah, BOM Archive Helper seemed to work.
puts foot in mouth 
'Bout a third of the way through the Faction string, I think. Here's some more bugs for your collection:
1. Swivel Lasers and Rear Pulse Cannons do not take up a gun or turret slot, as would be expected. The only prerequisite is available room.
2. The beginning of the 'Unfinished Business' chapter can be started without the obligatory deadly rating needed to dominate the planet. (This might, similarly, be an issue with the Confederation's first domination mission as well, but I haven't checked).
3. The missions 'Deimos Rising' & 'Jailbreak I' erroneously refer to Port Diablo as a station--multiple times, and in context--when it is, in fact, a planet.
4. The mission 'Dark Places' erroneously refers to Antonida HQ as an 'orbital' (read: station) when it is, in fact, a moon.
5. The short-hand, in-flight briefing of the mission 'Mining For Death' confusingly refers to the FMG flagship as "The Mothership"
6. Certain government-specific upgrades, such as the FMG's Techurium Plate; the Confederacy's Hyper-Rockets, Turbolasers, and Hull-Reinforcements; and the Faction's Plasma weaponry is available at any time, even before the appropriate moment in a mission string where it would seem appropriate to grant access to such things. (Was this intentional?)
7. The Asteroid Lance seems to have trouble cracking asteroids. Are you sure it has the 10x mass damage to asteroids flag set?
8. Loot when boarding ships is sometimes inconsistent. Certain ships, like Faction Heavy Warships and ABD MegaKestrels, only have 1000 credits when boarded, where other ships in their line have close to a million.
@-visitor-, on Dec 13 2007, 09:37 PM, said in Realm Of Prey For Nova Public Beta:
'Bout a third of the way through the Faction string, I think. Here's some more bugs for your collection:
I don't collect them, I squash them
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1. Swivel Lasers and Rear Pulse Cannons do not take up a gun or turret slot, as would be expected. The only prerequisite is available room.
Fixed.
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2. The beginning of the 'Unfinished Business' chapter can be started without the obligatory deadly rating needed to dominate the planet. (This might, similarly, be an issue with the Confederation's first domination mission as well, but I haven't checked).
This has been brought to my attention. The problem is that it is very hard to force the player to actually dominate a stellar in another system under the Nova engine (it was impossible under the EVC engine). I think I have come up with a workaround though. I'll try to implement it this weekend once my finals are done.
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3. The missions 'Deimos Rising' & 'Jailbreak I' erroneously refer to Port Diablo as a station--multiple times, and in context--when it is, in fact, a planet.
Yes I've caught that one too. I think Tim must have changed it to a planet fairly late in the development process. Taken care of though. I wonder...would it be better to change it to a station instead?
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4. The mission 'Dark Places' erroneously refers to Antonida HQ as an 'orbital' (read: station) when it is, in fact, a moon.
Fixed. I actually think it might make more sense here to turn the moon into a station. Thoughts?
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5. The short-hand, in-flight briefing of the mission 'Mining For Death' confusingly refers to the FMG flagship as "The Mothership"
Also fixed.
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6. Certain government-specific upgrades, such as the FMG's Techurium Plate; the Confederacy's Hyper-Rockets, Turbolasers, and Hull-Reinforcements; and the Faction's Plasma weaponry is available at any time, even before the appropriate moment in a mission string where it would seem appropriate to grant access to such things. (Was this intentional?)
All of these were not mission bit controlled in the original plugin. The T-lasers and plasma weaponry come standard on ships available at the outset of the game. So, I think this makes sense. It might make sense to have the Confed Hull Upgrade be bit controlled, but not necessarily the Tucharium plate, since the FMG is pretty desperate for money.
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7. The Asteroid Lance seems to have trouble cracking asteroids. Are you sure it has the 10x mass damage to asteroids flag set?
Yep, it's set. I'll up the damage a bit to see if that helps, though I didn't find it that difficult.
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8. Loot when boarding ships is sometimes inconsistent. Certain ships, like Faction Heavy Warships and ABD MegaKestrels, only have 1000 credits when boarded, where other ships in their line have close to a million.
This is actually a bug in the Nova engine (and in all EV engines for that matter). The number of credits carried is some percentage of the ship's price. However, at some level of cost (I think it is when the ship costs around 40 million), the device that Nova uses to calculate the carried credits seems to get maxed out. When this happens, the ship only has 1000 credits when boarded. There is, unfortunately, no workaround that I know of.
