There is unlikely to be a save system that preserves ships in progress. As soon as you start breaking stuff apart, it gets very hard to save all that information in a reasonable-size save file.
Serializing data structures to disk is comparatively trivial. Also, this game has a rather small number of objects and there's little additional data per object needed besides position, orientation, shape, and health. There's also no AI states, orders, pathing, etc that need to be preserved. It's not going to create large save files. As such, I am shocked the game didn't have a proper save system to start with.
SiliconStew on
Just remember that half the people you meet are below average intelligence.
There is unlikely to be a save system that preserves ships in progress. As soon as you start breaking stuff apart, it gets very hard to save all that information in a reasonable-size save file.
Serializing data structures to disk is comparatively trivial. Also, this game has a rather small number of objects and there's little additional data per object needed besides position, orientation, shape, and health. There's also no AI states, orders, pathing, etc that need to be preserved. It's not going to create large save files. As such, I am shocked the game didn't have a proper save system to start with.
This game has infinite, procedurally generated objects. When you slice a panel in half with the split saw, you’re making two or more objects. When you blow up the back end of a mackerel with a fuel can, you generate a bunch.
i wish the upgrades to the grapple gun made it a bit more useful without tethers.
on a gekko i feel like outside of some small panels nearly everything i move has to be with tethers because even the small body panels are too big for the f pulse to even move them a tiny bit.
There is unlikely to be a save system that preserves ships in progress. As soon as you start breaking stuff apart, it gets very hard to save all that information in a reasonable-size save file.
Serializing data structures to disk is comparatively trivial. Also, this game has a rather small number of objects and there's little additional data per object needed besides position, orientation, shape, and health. There's also no AI states, orders, pathing, etc that need to be preserved. It's not going to create large save files. As such, I am shocked the game didn't have a proper save system to start with.
This game has infinite, procedurally generated objects. When you slice a panel in half with the split saw, you’re making two or more objects. When you blow up the back end of a mackerel with a fuel can, you generate a bunch.
There are some shortcuts that could be done here. I'm thinking about using a tree to store objects based on the original parent object. If an object subdivides too many times, have some node that is just "and 300 pieces of of shrapnel clustered around this coordinate."
Another approach they might try would be to record and persist player inputs, not actual game state. When you load the save, generate the complete ship and replay everything the player did to it. The caveat is that it might take a while to load the save, and they'd need to have extremely deterministic physics to pull it off.
There is unlikely to be a save system that preserves ships in progress. As soon as you start breaking stuff apart, it gets very hard to save all that information in a reasonable-size save file.
Serializing data structures to disk is comparatively trivial. Also, this game has a rather small number of objects and there's little additional data per object needed besides position, orientation, shape, and health. There's also no AI states, orders, pathing, etc that need to be preserved. It's not going to create large save files. As such, I am shocked the game didn't have a proper save system to start with.
This game has infinite, procedurally generated objects. When you slice a panel in half with the split saw, you’re making two or more objects. When you blow up the back end of a mackerel with a fuel can, you generate a bunch.
Yet "a bunch" is not anywhere close to as many as pieces as you imagine there are. I'd guess there's never more than a few hundred pieces total even when you detonate a full ship, especially because the game will simply delete panels if they get blown up and replace them with a handful of scrap objects. You don't get the same total mass volume after an explosion as before. Nor can you infinitely subdivide a panel with the cutter. Some of the width is always consumed in the cutting. And if you try to slice a chunk down to any smaller than about baseball sized, it simply vaporizes entirely. So there will never be "infinite" objects to track in this game. Even a terminally bored person isn't going to be able to generate more than a few thousand shards of material at most.
And it really doesn't take a large amount of data to describe a random 3-dimensional object of polygon vertexes. A six-faced cube-like object, which on average most of the panel chunks are, needs around 100 bytes for example, not counting a bit of additional data to identify the textures to apply.
Just remember that half the people you meet are below average intelligence.
0
MrMonroepassed outon the floor nowRegistered Userregular
If the day-to-day overnight save is possible through memory, it's possible to commit to disk assuming you have at least as much disk space as you have memory. Saves could reach into the..... megabytes?
I'm very confused by the "it's not possible" argument. It was technically not trivial and the feature wasn't considered critical and the game's not done.
I think there's also some simplification already going on in the day-to-day save. If you end a shift right after blowing a reactor, when you come back it seems far less messy.
I was confused when I first opened the game up and noticed there was a campaign mode that was basically a free play mode that you progress through. I had gotten so used to opening the far left option that I nearly started a new game by accident.
The change to the look of the fuel pipe connections stood out on a medium Mackerel, I haven't tried a hard one yet.
I am currently at the 9th level and hadn't considered trying the zero clone mode since it wasn't unlocked for me until they changed when that mode unlocked with this update. I have now started a zero clone mode save and am wondering how far in I can get before I get careless and kill myself by pulling something into my facemask too quickly.
I think the change was to make the point that pipe connections serve as cut points. There's actually a design language in the game that will note what parts are functional cut points (basically, if you see a black and yellow striped label, it's either on or pointing to a cut point.)
Idk every time I blow up a ship proper the game starts using literally all the ram I have and running at about 3 fps so something about the way stuff works is certainly taxing from a memory perspective.
0
MrMonroepassed outon the floor nowRegistered Userregular
I was confused when I first opened the game up and noticed there was a campaign mode that was basically a free play mode that you progress through. I had gotten so used to opening the far left option that I nearly started a new game by accident.
The change to the look of the fuel pipe connections stood out on a medium Mackerel, I haven't tried a hard one yet.
I am currently at the 9th level and hadn't considered trying the zero clone mode since it wasn't unlocked for me until they changed when that mode unlocked with this update. I have now started a zero clone mode save and am wondering how far in I can get before I get careless and kill myself by pulling something into my facemask too quickly.
I think the change was to make the point that pipe connections serve as cut points. There's actually a design language in the game that will note what parts are functional cut points (basically, if you see a black and yellow striped label, it's either on or pointing to a cut point.)
with the kind of quasi-exception of those bars you see around airlocks and around the cockpit of the Gecko, which have big black and yellow indicators and serve as a convenient way to get the thing out but are marked as structural when you use the visor.
I was confused when I first opened the game up and noticed there was a campaign mode that was basically a free play mode that you progress through. I had gotten so used to opening the far left option that I nearly started a new game by accident.
The change to the look of the fuel pipe connections stood out on a medium Mackerel, I haven't tried a hard one yet.
I am currently at the 9th level and hadn't considered trying the zero clone mode since it wasn't unlocked for me until they changed when that mode unlocked with this update. I have now started a zero clone mode save and am wondering how far in I can get before I get careless and kill myself by pulling something into my facemask too quickly.
I think the change was to make the point that pipe connections serve as cut points. There's actually a design language in the game that will note what parts are functional cut points (basically, if you see a black and yellow striped label, it's either on or pointing to a cut point.)
with the kind of quasi-exception of those bars you see around airlocks and around the cockpit of the Gecko, which have big black and yellow indicators and serve as a convenient way to get the thing out but are marked as structural when you use the visor.
Right - while not listed as cut points, the markings are saying "these function as cut points."
CaptainPeacockBoard Game HoarderTop o' the LakeRegistered Userregular
Fire up this beauty over the last couple of days and I'm in heaven. Carving up ships with surgical precision.
Having a wierd issue with tethers though. They seemed to work fine at first - press and hold RMB to start tether, aim, release to complete circuit. But half the time now when I press and hold RMB to start the tether, it just lets go immediately, wasting a tether. In fact, when its happening and I continue to hold RMB down it will constantly start and end tethers like I was repeatedly clicking. Anyone else experience that?
Cluck cluck, gibber gibber, my old man's a mushroom, etc.
I haven't had that but I have been reeling something in a bit at a time with the grapple and it it loses the 'grab' I end up making a teeny tiny tether connecting the panel to itself. Which is annoying.
Your problem almost sounds like a mouse issue to be honest. With the caveat that I've only done a single shift since the last update so it may have introduced some oddities.
Related, I kind of love that "reel grapple in" and "place tether" are by default on the same button, like lynx knows you'll fuck it up and is ready to sell you more tethers.
Having interact and the grapple push on the same button is also a nice combo for accidents.
0
CaptainPeacockBoard Game HoarderTop o' the LakeRegistered Userregular
Well I've unplugged my HOTAS to see if maybe it was registering as a game pad, which I've had problems with in the past. Didnt get a chance to try it tonight, but maybe tomorrow.
Cluck cluck, gibber gibber, my old man's a mushroom, etc.
Having interact and the grapple push on the same button is also a nice combo for accidents.
Have you seen that the latest update lets you edit a text file to change the controls?
Lynx does not support and will not be responsible for any damages incurred thereby. Including our repair technicians restoring your tool to it's factory working order when other repairs are requested.
I'm holding off on anymore big ships until they fix a few more crashes. Nothing ends my desire to play more than spending a shift or two preparing to loot the expensive stuff and then the game crashes and the ship is gone forever.
There's no plan, there's no race to be run
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
0
CaptainPeacockBoard Game HoarderTop o' the LakeRegistered Userregular
Well I disconnected my HOTAS and that wasn't the trouble with tethers. Buggers keep rapid firing off so I burn through 6 on one piece of equipment before I can secure a good line. Amy mouse drivers are up to date and I have no issues with my mouse outside this one function in this one program. Bewildering. Whats aggravating is that it works sometimes! First time I played the game tethers worked perfectly. But every time since then, they are screwed up.
Cluck cluck, gibber gibber, my old man's a mushroom, etc.
Most recent patch does seem to have greatly boosted the chance that a fuel can or refrigerant can will wig out when you pull it. Lost a couple gecko-class reactors and drives to that now.
Is it just me or since the patch (not todays hotfix) are the fuel lines in mid-level Mackerels a bit different? They have these cube parts I don't recall before.
MuddBudd on
There's no plan, there's no race to be run
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
Not sure if patch related but was taking apart a Gecko and the entire back quarter of the ship couldn't be moved. Like it was glued in place. Made sure everything was cut, it was also severed from the rest of the ship. Tried to tether the pieces to both the reclaimer and anchor points and nothing. First time i've ever had that type of thing happen.
Not sure if patch related but was taking apart a Gecko and the entire back quarter of the ship couldn't be moved. Like it was glued in place. Made sure everything was cut, it was also severed from the rest of the ship. Tried to tether the pieces to both the reclaimer and anchor points and nothing. First time i've ever had that type of thing happen.
I've noticed that too. I think it might be a glitch with some (all?) cargo geckos. I just tether it back and out of the way and leave it behind.
There's no plan, there's no race to be run
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
Not sure if patch related but was taking apart a Gecko and the entire back quarter of the ship couldn't be moved. Like it was glued in place. Made sure everything was cut, it was also severed from the rest of the ship. Tried to tether the pieces to both the reclaimer and anchor points and nothing. First time i've ever had that type of thing happen.
I've noticed that too. I think it might be a glitch with some (all?) cargo geckos. I just tether it back and out of the way and leave it behind.
Was a cargo Gecko, so yeah must just be a thing with them.
Not sure if patch related but was taking apart a Gecko and the entire back quarter of the ship couldn't be moved. Like it was glued in place. Made sure everything was cut, it was also severed from the rest of the ship. Tried to tether the pieces to both the reclaimer and anchor points and nothing. First time i've ever had that type of thing happen.
I've noticed that too. I think it might be a glitch with some (all?) cargo geckos. I just tether it back and out of the way and leave it behind.
Was a cargo Gecko, so yeah must just be a thing with them.
They definitely used to come apart correctly before the last patch.
There's no plan, there's no race to be run
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
I had something like that happen before the update and noticed rudders on the back between the thruster caps. Pulling those helped me separate the back section. Might be a different issue though.
There is unlikely to be a save system that preserves ships in progress. As soon as you start breaking stuff apart, it gets very hard to save all that information in a reasonable-size save file.
Serializing data structures to disk is comparatively trivial. Also, this game has a rather small number of objects and there's little additional data per object needed besides position, orientation, shape, and health. There's also no AI states, orders, pathing, etc that need to be preserved. It's not going to create large save files. As such, I am shocked the game didn't have a proper save system to start with.
This game has infinite, procedurally generated objects. When you slice a panel in half with the split saw, you’re making two or more objects. When you blow up the back end of a mackerel with a fuel can, you generate a bunch.
There are some shortcuts that could be done here. I'm thinking about using a tree to store objects based on the original parent object. If an object subdivides too many times, have some node that is just "and 300 pieces of of shrapnel clustered around this coordinate."
Another approach they might try would be to record and persist player inputs, not actual game state. When you load the save, generate the complete ship and replay everything the player did to it. The caveat is that it might take a while to load the save, and they'd need to have extremely deterministic physics to pull it off.
From a development perspective I just couldn't imagine wanting to do any of this if the engine didn't already do most of it out of the box. It's not so much the issue that it can't be done, but that the complexity of the issue relative to the amount it brings to the game-play just doesn't add up.
Physics quirk lets you basically push the entire back of a gecko off in one piece, making it easier to clear out fuel canisters, engines, access the reactor, etc...
There's no plan, there's no race to be run
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
Well, that makes dealing with Geckos sixty-three times less annoying, especially if you safely detach the fuel canisters first. Someday I'll completely eat one of those things in a reasonable number of shifts!
Upcoming stuff for August hopefully:
Stargazer 'science' variant of Gecko class with solar arrays and explosive research pods
Second player voiceover option (did we have any voice at all before?)
In-game control config
There's no plan, there's no race to be run
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
I was trying to grab a few bits off a ship just before a shift ended, grabbed at the wrong bit of a fuel line and had just enough time to go "Ooh fire that's probably not good" as the shift ended. Wasn't sure at first how the game would handle a reaction being interrupted by that, until I checked the little end of shift report and it had a loong list of destroyed aluminum and nanocarbon bits. Start up the next shift and sure enough, the ship was missing a big ol' chunk off the side of it and there were shards of hull panel floating around half the yard.
Is it just me or since the patch (not todays hotfix) are the fuel lines in mid-level Mackerels a bit different? They have these cube parts I don't recall before.
The cubes have a new texture to indicate that they function more like cut points for pipes than like pipes themselves, but they have always been there, and I think their behavior is unchanged.
If those are the pipe junctions, they're in starter Mackerels as well, just without any pipes - fuel tank to junction to wall. Tried grabbing one of those instead of the tank, do not recommend.
Upcoming stuff for August hopefully:
Stargazer 'science' variant of Gecko class with solar arrays and explosive research pods
Second player voiceover option (did we have any voice at all before?)
In-game control config
There's grunts and breathing noises, I assume that's what they're talking about.
Now that this game has updated a couple times and stabilized for me a bit I can say that it does indeed rule.
It kept crashing on me after the first or second tutorial, but now I'm like level 5 or whatever, stripping [strike]Geckos[/strike]...err Mackerals to the bones with ease.
Playing on the new mode so I can just leisurely take one all the way down to nothing in 50 minutes to an hour. Very satisfying. Cant wait to get to the next tier and see some more complex stuff.
Haven't blown myself up or anything yet either. A few minor shocks here and there, but that's it.
Posts
Serializing data structures to disk is comparatively trivial. Also, this game has a rather small number of objects and there's little additional data per object needed besides position, orientation, shape, and health. There's also no AI states, orders, pathing, etc that need to be preserved. It's not going to create large save files. As such, I am shocked the game didn't have a proper save system to start with.
This game has infinite, procedurally generated objects. When you slice a panel in half with the split saw, you’re making two or more objects. When you blow up the back end of a mackerel with a fuel can, you generate a bunch.
on a gekko i feel like outside of some small panels nearly everything i move has to be with tethers because even the small body panels are too big for the f pulse to even move them a tiny bit.
There are some shortcuts that could be done here. I'm thinking about using a tree to store objects based on the original parent object. If an object subdivides too many times, have some node that is just "and 300 pieces of of shrapnel clustered around this coordinate."
Another approach they might try would be to record and persist player inputs, not actual game state. When you load the save, generate the complete ship and replay everything the player did to it. The caveat is that it might take a while to load the save, and they'd need to have extremely deterministic physics to pull it off.
Yet "a bunch" is not anywhere close to as many as pieces as you imagine there are. I'd guess there's never more than a few hundred pieces total even when you detonate a full ship, especially because the game will simply delete panels if they get blown up and replace them with a handful of scrap objects. You don't get the same total mass volume after an explosion as before. Nor can you infinitely subdivide a panel with the cutter. Some of the width is always consumed in the cutting. And if you try to slice a chunk down to any smaller than about baseball sized, it simply vaporizes entirely. So there will never be "infinite" objects to track in this game. Even a terminally bored person isn't going to be able to generate more than a few thousand shards of material at most.
And it really doesn't take a large amount of data to describe a random 3-dimensional object of polygon vertexes. A six-faced cube-like object, which on average most of the panel chunks are, needs around 100 bytes for example, not counting a bit of additional data to identify the textures to apply.
I'm very confused by the "it's not possible" argument. It was technically not trivial and the feature wasn't considered critical and the game's not done.
I think there's also some simplification already going on in the day-to-day save. If you end a shift right after blowing a reactor, when you come back it seems far less messy.
I think the change was to make the point that pipe connections serve as cut points. There's actually a design language in the game that will note what parts are functional cut points (basically, if you see a black and yellow striped label, it's either on or pointing to a cut point.)
with the kind of quasi-exception of those bars you see around airlocks and around the cockpit of the Gecko, which have big black and yellow indicators and serve as a convenient way to get the thing out but are marked as structural when you use the visor.
Right - while not listed as cut points, the markings are saying "these function as cut points."
Having a wierd issue with tethers though. They seemed to work fine at first - press and hold RMB to start tether, aim, release to complete circuit. But half the time now when I press and hold RMB to start the tether, it just lets go immediately, wasting a tether. In fact, when its happening and I continue to hold RMB down it will constantly start and end tethers like I was repeatedly clicking. Anyone else experience that?
Your problem almost sounds like a mouse issue to be honest. With the caveat that I've only done a single shift since the last update so it may have introduced some oddities.
Have you seen that the latest update lets you edit a text file to change the controls?
Lynx does not support and will not be responsible for any damages incurred thereby. Including our repair technicians restoring your tool to it's factory working order when other repairs are requested.
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
I've noticed that too. I think it might be a glitch with some (all?) cargo geckos. I just tether it back and out of the way and leave it behind.
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
Was a cargo Gecko, so yeah must just be a thing with them.
They definitely used to come apart correctly before the last patch.
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
From a development perspective I just couldn't imagine wanting to do any of this if the engine didn't already do most of it out of the box. It's not so much the issue that it can't be done, but that the complexity of the issue relative to the amount it brings to the game-play just doesn't add up.
Physics quirk lets you basically push the entire back of a gecko off in one piece, making it easier to clear out fuel canisters, engines, access the reactor, etc...
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
Upcoming stuff for August hopefully:
Stargazer 'science' variant of Gecko class with solar arrays and explosive research pods
Second player voiceover option (did we have any voice at all before?)
In-game control config
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
I was trying to grab a few bits off a ship just before a shift ended, grabbed at the wrong bit of a fuel line and had just enough time to go "Ooh fire that's probably not good" as the shift ended. Wasn't sure at first how the game would handle a reaction being interrupted by that, until I checked the little end of shift report and it had a loong list of destroyed aluminum and nanocarbon bits. Start up the next shift and sure enough, the ship was missing a big ol' chunk off the side of it and there were shards of hull panel floating around half the yard.
The cubes have a new texture to indicate that they function more like cut points for pipes than like pipes themselves, but they have always been there, and I think their behavior is unchanged.
There's grunts and breathing noises, I assume that's what they're talking about.
It kept crashing on me after the first or second tutorial, but now I'm like level 5 or whatever, stripping [strike]Geckos[/strike]...err Mackerals to the bones with ease.
Playing on the new mode so I can just leisurely take one all the way down to nothing in 50 minutes to an hour. Very satisfying. Cant wait to get to the next tier and see some more complex stuff.
Haven't blown myself up or anything yet either. A few minor shocks here and there, but that's it.
Anyway yeah this shit's dope.
...then the entire back of the ship exploded.
A+ would explode again. That was cool as hell