Fractalus 0.9.0 alpha released!

trekkie22
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Joined: 2019-Oct-10 06:46

Re: Fractalus 0.9.0 alpha released!

Post by trekkie22 » 2019-Oct-27 23:01

I just played the original and did a comparison. I found the following things that are different in the remake - I list everything I found so far, even If it is already known. I list the behaviour of Rescue on Fractalus, because I think the behaviour of the remake is well known.
  • Boosters: As soon as the mothership is available, you can enable the boosters in every situation, even with open airlock and disabled systems.
  • Landing - you can only be too high, but not too fast. Even at max speed landing is no problem.
  • Speed - It seems that the ship in the remake is much, much faster at max speed than the original.
  • Pilots need to be in front of the ship and "SHIP OFF SCOPE" message - Pilots to rescue have to be in front of the ship or they won't start running towards you. If this is not the case, the message "SHIP OFF SCOPE" appears as soon as you turn off systems, to tell you that you have to re-enable systems and turn the ship until the pilot is in front of you.
  • Distance and time the pilot needs - I think the distance is not measured in kilometers, the manual only talks about undefined "units" and the pilot is normally at the ship within a few seconds. To add to the discussion about that: I suggest to drop the kilometers as unit and drastically reduce the distance for "2 units".
  • Key to take off - in Rescue on Fractalus you accellerate to take off.
  • Alien Pilots - starting with Level 7, Alien Pilots begin to appear. First they have green helmets, in higher levels they learn and look like normal pilots. They knock only once and if you don't open the airlock, they start attacking the ship. If let in, they start to attack the rescued pilots and the ship. An Alien in the ship can be killed if the mother ship is in range - start the boosters and it dies as soon as you leave the atmosphere
  • Ace Pilots - as far as I remember I never rescued one of them, but they exist according to the manual and have purple helmets. I don't know at which level they start to appear, but I assume it is beyond Level 16.
  • Night - There is no night in Levels 1-15.
  • "MOTHER SHIP" Message - The availability of the mothership is announced with the message "MOTHER SHIP".
  • Availability of the mothership - The mothership is available shortly after you rescued the penultimate pilot. I observed this carefully - it takes some time, but the message always appears before you rescue the last pilot.
I will continue playing the next days and add everything I find to this list.

I'm wondering if the Alien Pilots can appear at level 6. I rescued 15 pilots at level 6 without a single Alien, but It would make more sense as Alien Towers appear at 2 and Saucers at 4...

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Luke
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Re: Fractalus 0.9.0 alpha released!

Post by Luke » 2019-Oct-29 23:33

trekkie22 wrote:
2019-Oct-27 23:01
  • Boosters: As soon as the mothership is available, you can enable the boosters in every situation, even with open airlock and disabled systems.
Nice find, didn't know this one - I had always made sure to turn my systems back on and take off before returning to the mothership! I'll add this to my list.
trekkie22 wrote:
2019-Oct-27 23:01
  • Landing - you can only be too high, but not too fast. Even at max speed landing is no problem.
The reason that there is a maximum speed for landing in the remake is because the landing sequence is constant regardless of your speed, so if you're moving quickly the sequence can be quite jarring particularly if you're close to the ground. In the original game, it looks like the sequence varies based on how fast you're moving, so I will need to copy this in the remake.
trekkie22 wrote:
2019-Oct-27 23:01
  • Speed - It seems that the ship in the remake is much, much faster at max speed than the original.
Yes it is, mostly because the remake has the rendering power to better show what's going on with a higher framerate without confusing the player. Perhaps I should slow it down a bit, at least for the lower levels. This could also assist with the above issue with the maximum speed for landing. I'll look into it and see what works.
trekkie22 wrote:
2019-Oct-27 23:01
  • Pilots need to be in front of the ship and "SHIP OFF SCOPE" message - Pilots to rescue have to be in front of the ship or they won't start running towards you. If this is not the case, the message "SHIP OFF SCOPE" appears as soon as you turn off systems, to tell you that you have to re-enable systems and turn the ship until the pilot is in front of you.
  • Distance and time the pilot needs - I think the distance is not measured in kilometers, the manual only talks about undefined "units" and the pilot is normally at the ship within a few seconds. To add to the discussion about that: I suggest to drop the kilometers as unit and drastically reduce the distance for "2 units".
I have plans to make the scope directional like the original rather than the omnidirectional scope in the remake currently. The distance scale certainly needs work. I agree with dropping kilometers as the unit and reducing the distance, as it doesn't look like it was using that scale in the original.
trekkie22 wrote:
2019-Oct-27 23:01
  • Key to take off - in Rescue on Fractalus you accellerate to take off.
This is correct, I'll need to update mine to match. In the original, changing speed was done by tapping the buttons to increment/decrement the selected speed, which the ship would then slowly accelerate/decelerate to match, whereas in the remake currently you have to hold the buttons and it scales the speed as you hold the button. I was considering changing the throttle controls to work more like the original, but I'll need to test out how it works with a controller.
trekkie22 wrote:
2019-Oct-27 23:01
  • Alien Pilots - starting with Level 7, Alien Pilots begin to appear. First they have green helmets, in higher levels they learn and look like normal pilots. They knock only once and if you don't open the airlock, they start attacking the ship. If let in, they start to attack the rescued pilots and the ship. An Alien in the ship can be killed if the mother ship is in range - start the boosters and it dies as soon as you leave the atmosphere
The current build of the remake doesn't have the aliens implemented, but I am working on them for 1.0 and some of the logic you've mentioned I have already implemented.
trekkie22 wrote:
2019-Oct-27 23:01
  • Ace Pilots - as far as I remember I never rescued one of them, but they exist according to the manual and have purple helmets. I don't know at which level they start to appear, but I assume it is beyond Level 16.
I'm not sure I've ever seen an ace pilot in any of my playthroughs either, but I've seen them in someone else's playthrough at https://youtu.be/jGn8HJG9pkw?t=924 (at 15:24). Not sure what their spawn logic is or what levels they appear in, but in that video the ace appears in Level 12.
trekkie22 wrote:
2019-Oct-27 23:01
  • Night - There is no night in Levels 1-15.
Correct, in the original the day/night cycle only starts on level 16. I haven't yet worked out a good way to do this in the remake without locking the sun in position and freezing time, as that would be a bit strange. I'll continue thinking about the best way to do it.
trekkie22 wrote:
2019-Oct-27 23:01
  • "MOTHER SHIP" Message - The availability of the mothership is announced with the message "MOTHER SHIP".
  • Availability of the mothership - The mothership is available shortly after you rescued the penultimate pilot. I observed this carefully - it takes some time, but the message always appears before you rescue the last pilot.
The mothership availability isn't implemented in 0.9, but I have since implemented it for 1.0 so this will be in the next build. The logic I found from testing the original is that the mothership becomes available shortly after you rescue a pilot that puts you over (but not equal to) 50% of the required pilots. I'm not sure if this is the exact logic, but repeated testing on various levels matched up with it so that's what I have implemented currently.
trekkie22 wrote:
2019-Oct-27 23:01
I will continue playing the next days and add everything I find to this list.

I'm wondering if the Alien Pilots can appear at level 6. I rescued 15 pilots at level 6 without a single Alien, but It would make more sense as Alien Towers appear at 2 and Saucers at 4...
The aliens aren't implemented yet but will be coming in 1.0 :)

Thanks for testing it out and listing out your feedback! There's a few things in there that I need to add to my list to adjust!

Cheers,
Luke
Luke's Software and Design
http://www.lsdwa.com

Loafmeister
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Re: Fractalus 0.9.0 alpha released!

Post by Loafmeister » 2019-Nov-25 05:41

Great list trekkie22! It's comments that like that will ensure this remake matures to a special status.

day/night cycle: On that one, is it really worth matching the original game? It makes more sense for there to be a day/night cycle. The only way around that would be to add to the remake, maybe have it where day/night cycles are to a more realistic 24 hour clock (so the likely hood of going to a night mission on first few levels is not really probable). explanation for the quicker cycles later can be "blamed" on either Jaggie experiments to the planetary core (causing the planet to spin faster) OR crazy pseudo science, the planet is in a crazy orbit that affects it's rotational rate so as it orbits closer to its star, the day/night cycle is accelerated. You can even play with that by making the sunlight brighter as the game progress which also affects visibility/sensors, etc.

Ok I'll stop with the '50's movie scifi lol

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Luke
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Re: Fractalus 0.9.0 alpha released!

Post by Luke » 2019-Nov-30 15:21

Loafmeister wrote:
2019-Nov-25 05:41
day/night cycle: On that one, is it really worth matching the original game? It makes more sense for there to be a day/night cycle.
I haven't yet figured out a good way to have the lower levels always be during daylight hours without locking the sun in position, however the original manual says;
Levels 1 through 15 will take place near Fractalus' South Pole where it's summer during this time of the year. This will save you from the mindshattering short day ordeal since the sun never sets on that part of the planet.
To match that description, I would have to put the sun low in the sky and only have it dip below the horizon for the night time portion, but keep the sky in twilight. This would also mean that a lot of the terrain would be in shadow in the lower levels.

I could also just prevent the lower levels from going into full night time and always keep it in twilight without necessarily having the sun low to the horizon, though the sun would have to stay at a low-ish angle for it to make sense. Currently the sky colour blending is done based on the time of day, not the angle of the sun, so I'll need to adjust that first to try it out.
Luke's Software and Design
http://www.lsdwa.com

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