Had a look at 3.15 patch, just for a simple game loop test (hauling bulk commodities in a Hercules C2).
Notes from that session, in no particular order:
That's it for this patch. Will test 3.15.1 for the Ares Inferno but not really holding my breath for any interesting fix to the major issues plaguing this "alpha".
Notes from that session, in no particular order:
- We get to chose one of the "big cities" as a base spawn location, where our whole inventory (ships and equipment) is located. Alright. First issue, it's only one of the planetside cities, tough luck if you wanted your stuff stashed on one of the big orbital stations. Second issue, some of these cannot spawn vehicles, so if you chose any other than New Babbage, these vehicles are now stuck there (of course insurance claims can and will solve everything.. cough). Also, since the game has no NPC taxi service (so you can get back planetside to take another ship), you can get only one ship out of that planet, and that's it since other people cannot park your ships (they are considered as "stolen" then and despawned).
- Your starting inventory is "somewhere" in that big city, didnt find where physically. It's magically available anywhere in that city, but unlike physical storage locations on ships, it's magic storage.
- Other than that once you get used to it, it's somewhat serviceable, the huge list on the right can be a mess but considering the usual horrendous UI in this game, it's above par. Of course it's bugged and you will lose items forever. Fun times.
- Hercules C2 flight model still feels way too light and swift (it's supposed to be a huge cargo hauler..), taking off like a small rocket and going mach 1+ in mere seconds, braking without any effort and hovering in any position with or without VTOL engaged (doesnt seem to make any difference). Oh and filling it with thousands of tons of cargo doesnt make the slightest difference. I get they want the lowest common denominator in flying ships as apparently it's not a space game anymore, but that's always irritating to me. Atmo flight model is still "we limit your max speed to something" and that's it. That's still one of my main gripes about SC in general.
- Found some commodities i can trade, filling the C2 to max capacity, and getting a decent profit. Only place to sell bulk commodities though is planetside cities, I foresee a huge problem there with those Hull-series mega-haulers that can only dock to space stations.
- Area18 ATC is completely broken. They will spam random messages, unrelated to your current status.
- Once landed at the assigned landing pad, ATC will call and tell I'm occupying a reserved pad and should go away immediately. Broken, too...
- and then going to the spaceport terminal and trying to store the ship, will end up having that ship misplaced somehow to an "Unknown" location. Oops.
- still could sell the commodities after some tense moments.
- Had to claim the ship though. Good thing I kinda foresaw issues with the so-called "persistence" and didnt store anything on it.
- Restricted area above city spaceports (Lorville and Area18) is now invisible (used to be shown as a red wireframe). It's still there though.
- That "landing tunnel" you had to precisely navigate in and out of these city spaceports is now gone. Backer money well spent, again.
- The "TVI" (or flight vector indicator) is now an option in the menu that you have to turn on. Should be always on by default IMHO. They FINALLY listened and added a black shadow to it so we can see it on white backgrounds (like on Microtech for instance). About time..
- Hercules' lift is held by magic, and goes through a closed hatch that wont open when going through it. Terrifying the first time around (as this kind of thing usually means insta-death in SC). It's irritatingly slow to accelerate too, in weird contrast with the ludicrous ship accelerations seen throughout SC.
- Servers are even more flaky than ever. Had several instances of assets just not loading at all (staring at an empty lift shaft in a city for instance, and of course the button was missing too), and things going sideways for just about everything. Even my very simple test loop was met with a lot of bugs and show stoppers.
- New show stopper bug appeared where from the orbit of Arccorp you jump to Area18 and frame rate will slow down to a complete stop, freezing the game. Then when it unfreezes either you're dead (in the mean time the ship crashed into the planet..) or disconnected or both. Of course waking up from that with everything lost (ship, inventory, cargo) is not my own definition of fun, also i'll point out that if you happen to be without any money left at that moment, and not on your started planet/city, you are stuck there until some charitable soul accepts to transport you.
- Framerates with the 3090 are still below what could be defined as acceptable, around cities. Asset loading produces a longer freeze than before, too.
- (edit) forgot to talk about eating/drinking. This is now non-functional. RIP. Oh you'll still starve etc. but drinking or eating is now not working at all, only way is to log on another server.
That's it for this patch. Will test 3.15.1 for the Ares Inferno but not really holding my breath for any interesting fix to the major issues plaguing this "alpha".
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