I'm hard at work responding to your feedback at the moment: I'm in the middle of reworking the conversation system to make it more intuitive and to give the player many more nuanced choices. That's not quite ready for you yet, but I've also managed to fix a ton of errors and add some smaller suggestions in, so here's a new build!
Resizable windows!
Added sliders for music and SFX volume
Sorted "who's here" people list in alphabetical order
Shaved yet more off the memory footprint - if you are having trouble on a 32-bit machine please try again
Put in workarounds for "Framebuffer" errors on low-spec machines - if you're getting this error please try this build - it won't look as good but should at least run
Stop Autopilot when launching ship
Stop pirates hungering after debris quite so much
Put in an audio compressor to stop speaker distortion at high volume levels.
Stop preschoolers receiving missions
Stop shops firing aimlessly after their target is killed
Enjoy! Any problems or questions so let me know on the forums.
Until next time,
Chris
New build (1.0.6): major chat and balance improvements
Hi all,
Here's another build to bust those Monday blues! :)
Highlights
Big revamp of sharing info during chat. Now there's a much clearer screen which can be sorted:
Edit: Here's a video from JohnnyO showing how it works:
Show your opinion of a character at top of their sheet
Now does not generate gossip/scandal mission unless there's something to find
Allow players to sleep in their passenger cabins, if there's space
People will now leave their jobs if 80% of people have a bad relationship with them - it's now possible to force someone out of an organisation rather than blowing up their ship
Other changes
Balance improvements to trading prices
Make supplying wanted goods when there's no demand display a helpful message rather than just vanish as an option
Reduced the number of guns on Cougar ships by two. Sorry :)
Don't allow the trade of ship components via hailing
Stop autopilot occasionally freezing ship in place next to a planet
Reduced memory footprint by 250MB
Reduced fire rate of high end guns
Make first names a little more random
Don't allow hailing unless you are both in a launched ship and are in the same local area
Added a planet graphics next to the character's "known for" information
As before, your old saves will still work, but some of the changes will require a new game to see the effect.
If you've been having trouble on 32-bit windows and/or 2GB RAM, do try this one again - I'd be grateful if you could let me know whether it's working for you!
Enjoy! Any questions please let me know.
Until next time,
Chris
New build (1.0.5): Saturday special
Just a couple of fixes for you this morning:
fix recently reported Relational.cpp:295 crash
stop missing strings switching to desktop with error
OSX/Linux: fix bug preventing load of two mission types
Enjoy!
Chris
New build (1.0.4): Friday fixes!
There's a stack of stuff in the new build all ready and waiting for you on Steam!
Better code to ensure that people are available for enquiries, and are less likely to put them in a position to get themselves killed
Stop more than one mission of each type being generated per character
Fix component debris pickup when no space for the component
Fix the component buy/sell returning to the wrong screen
Actually make peaceful mode work this time
Spotting a character in space by clicking on their ship and seeing them on board now completes the "locate character" mission
Remove reward collection - the mission now rewards as soon as the mission is completed
Allow players to always interact with mission givers, with a minimum amount of patience to allow small talk
Stop players being able to accept the same job more than once
Stop the AI orbiting endlessly around planets
Add a quorum of 3 for reputation to count in city or faction, which means you won't get spurious reputation reports anymore
Stop ships planning things like mining when they are already in space in a ship that isn't equipped for the task
More naval presence in cities
Your old saves will work, but some of the fixes will require you to start a new game to see the benefit.
Next, I'm adding the ability to sleep in your own passenger cabin, working on the memory issues on 32-bit windows, further tweaking the mining rates and improving the filtering and sorting on the sharing of information during chat.
There's likely to be a reduced frequency of builds over the weekend because I need to take a couple of days rest, but I'll be back to it on Monday!
Until next time,
Chris
New build (1.0.3): navigation aids, sleeping and hiring
I've fixed another slew of reported bugs with this build: changes below.
Important note: due to the increase of the number of opinions stored on players, I've had to invalidate all save games for this build. I'm really sorry about that and it's something I don't take lightly, but it's essential to help people complete certain missions when characters already know a lot about you. If you're desperate to stay on the old build for a bit to finish something, ask me for some pointers on how to do that.
Added 'nearby planets' to planet information, so you can easily see who is connected to who.
Fix profession bug where a job could not be taken despite having the requirements.
Fix 'sleeping' bug where people seemed to endlessly sleep all day and not be available for chatting
Order the small talk options by impact, so most impactful are at the top.
Increase number of types opinions that can be held on a character to 8.
Don't allow missions to preschoolers, as you cannot talk to them.
Prevent endlessly increasing patience through secret gift delivery.
If you note any further bugs, please do post them on the discussion forums.
I'm planning to release around one build a day until we get through the reported bugs and issues. Tomorrow, we'll have fixes to do with not being able to talk to mission targets, removal of reward collection requirements, and another go at memory footprint issues on 32-bit windows.
Until next time,
Chris
New build (1.0.2): huge bug fix bonanza!
Hi all,
I'm continuing to work as hard as possible to fix all the bugs as fast as I can. This new build contains the following fixes:
Getting a job no longer teleports your hire ship back to the starting point
You will no longer hit your 200k credits goal on hiring a ship
Remove 'turbo boost' bug
Vastly improved autopilot - no more 'orbiting' behaviour (hopefully)
Stop missions expiring at deadline even when they're completed
Made memory error messages less likely on 32-bit windows (fix #2)
Remove loud static jarring sound when heading back to the main menu
Allow repeat visa requests
When you start as a prisoner, start the game in the prison at the end of your sentence
Stop autopilot rotating ships the "long way round" round at certain angles
Made gate names consistent
Fix crash when unpinning character when at maximum number of pins
Made the large Tiger ships faster
Made minerals slightly harder to mine
Fix load game gui screen showing wrong message
If you've posted a negative review because of any of these bugs, can I encourage you to try again and see what you think? :-)
Until next time,
Chris
New build (1.0.1): launch fixes
Firstly, I'm overwhelmed by the level of support and love Sol Trader has got since launch yesterday - thank you all so much!
Sorry about the bugs some of you have experienced when playing the game. There's a new build now right now which fixes some of these issues:
Made memory errors less likely on 32-bit windows
Fixed NewHistory.cpp:1759 crash
Fixed Ai.cpp:201 crash
Added some missing people to credits
Stopped it being possible to become trapped in Frontier Space
Default the scroll speed to more than zero.
If you're upgrading to this version, you will need to set your scroll speed manually in the options menu*
Fixes for the other reported issues will come in the next day or two.
If you have been on the fence about the game thus far, then this is your chance to purchase Sol Trader today.
For the rest of you, I cannot thank you enough for helping me make it to launch. Time for us to share this news to the far reaches of the Sol System, and say nice things about the game to all we meet!
What's next?
I'm continuing to actively work on the game, sorting out any bugs that crop up and tweaking and polishing the gameplay. I'm also going to give some thought to add-ons and expansions over the next couple of months, and listen carefully to all the feedback I get.
Thanks again for getting me this far. I could not have done it without you.
Until next time,
Chris
New build: multiple load/save fixes
Now that the loading and saving is being properly road tested by a large number of people, I've found a few little inconsistencies which were causing crashes on load. I hope that I've ironed out all the major ones with this new build.
Unfortunately in order to flatten these bugs across the board, I've had to invalidate saved games for this build. I'm really sorry about that - the perils of early access to games! I promise to be much more careful about this when the game is fully released next week.
I've also been tweaking the GUI to remove some mouse clicking bugs, and removed some crashes surrounding missions.
Enjoy the new build! Any questions do post here on or http://forums.soltrader.net.
Until next time,
Chris
New build: ship component variation and text tweaks
Hi there,
Another day, another build :) This one is a small improvement to fix text issues and make ship components a little more varied and interesting.
Note: it's possible that with all these new builds coming out, I'm making changes that are invalidating saved games. I'll try and minimise this as much as possible, but the pre-launch polishing phase will contain a few "save breaking" changes. If your game crashes loading a saved game, this will be the reason. I'm working on preventing the crash and putting out a better message. Thanks for your patience!
