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Finch
26-01-2005, 05:00 PM
Hi there!
I'm currently working on space-rally game (based on idea of Star Trek: Voayger's epizode "Drive") and I have recently released an alfaversion.
You can download it from here: http://sfseries.scifiworld.cz/lightspeed.exe

Control is simple:
arrows - drive of your shuttle
space and left alt - fire primary and secondary weapons
tabulator - select target
Alt + F4 - quit

Suggestions are welcome. If you will try the game and write me at least your FPS and your CPU and graphics card (for testing compatibility and hardware requirements), I will be very pleased.

Huehnerschaender
26-01-2005, 05:25 PM
High Finch.

I tried the game on my Centrino 1.7 Ghz ATI Radeon 9000 Mobility and got 60 FPS without any change during game.

But sometimes (especially when turning into curves) the screen seems to move unsmooth (it seemed that is got worser when flying more and more far away from the start point).

And now a little bug/problem:

I drove a little "off road" so that the arrow pointed me back to the path. When all 3 opponents were already in goal, I fired at them until they blow off (is this ok? Why can I kill opponents which already finished the course). Ok, while firing at the last of the opponents my computer crashed (bluescreen->reboot). Hmmm... not so nice, isn't it?

Nevertheless, nice little game... finish and release it :wink:

Finch
26-01-2005, 06:08 PM
But sometimes (especially when turning into curves) the screen seems to move unsmooth (it seemed that is got worser when flying more and more far away from the start point).
It is possible, I haven't implemented all of optimalizations. I will check it out.


I drove a little "off road" so that the arrow pointed me back to the path. When all 3 opponents were already in goal, I fired at them until they blow off (is this ok? Why can I kill opponents which already finished the course). Ok, while firing at the last of the opponents my computer crashed (bluescreen->reboot). Hmmm... not so nice, isn't it?
It strange, because if all of your opponents finish the race, game ends with you at 4th place.

{MSX}
26-01-2005, 06:28 PM
http://sfseries.scifiworld.cz/lightspeed.exe


What about a linux version ? :P

Finch
26-01-2005, 06:38 PM
http://sfseries.scifiworld.cz/lightspeed.exe

What about a linux version ? :P
Sorry, there will be no linux version ;)

Huehnerschaender
26-01-2005, 08:51 PM
I drove a little "off road" so that the arrow pointed me back to the path. When all 3 opponents were already in goal, I fired at them until they blow off (is this ok? Why can I kill opponents which already finished the course). Ok, while firing at the last of the opponents my computer crashed (bluescreen->reboot). Hmmm... not so nice, isn't it?


It strange, because if all of your opponents finish the race, game ends with you at 4th place.


I can only tell you what I have seen :wink:
As I mentioned before, I had this triangle on my ship, showing me that I missed the road. Maybe there is a little bug which prevents the end of race when the player is in that mode?....

Traveler
26-01-2005, 08:56 PM
I've tried your game. Its already quite good!

Some things I noticed.
At first I thought shooting wasn't working for me, because nothing seem to happen. It was only after pressing Tab (and after racing 3 games) that I could. For me as a player this seemed very unclear. I understand I have to lock on to a ship first, but you could somehow make it a bit more clear? Also I would make a primary fire modus, which always shoots straight ahead (and doesn't need a lock) and a secondary that does.

About the secondary (or primary, I'm not sure) the one with the torpedos, is it heat seeking or something? Cause I missed my second shot, but saw it fly by several times, its either that or it's somehow influenced by the controls. In any case, its a bit odd.

Your check for cheating is a bit incorrect. I understand you need to punish a player when he's taking a shortcut. However, what does surprise me is that I'm also getting punished for crossing the line on the outside of the turn.

Personally I like Startrek a lot, so I don't mind seeing Startrek themed games. However, I think I'm not too far off when I say that not everyone is going to think the same about that. Perhaps you'd be saver with a bit less 'famous' shipdesigns, which btw are very nicely done!

Thats all for now.

Looking forward to future versions!

Finch
27-01-2005, 12:50 PM
I can only tell you what I have seen :wink:
As I mentioned before, I had this triangle on my ship, showing me that I missed the road. Maybe there is a little bug which prevents the end of race when the player is in that mode?....
I will do some testing. Anyway, thanks for warning :)


At first I thought shooting wasn't working for me, because nothing seem to happen. It was only after pressing Tab (and after racing 3 games) that I could. For me as a player this seemed very unclear. I understand I have to lock on to a ship first, but you could somehow make it a bit more clear? Also I would make a primary fire modus, which always shoots straight ahead (and doesn't need a lock) and a secondary that does.
In final version, there will be a lot of upgrades, including several types of weapons (pulse, beams, etc.), so player will have options to choose his favourite sort of weapon. But it will always be necessary to target opponent's ship first, beacuse of weapons' auto-aiming.


About the secondary (or primary, I'm not sure) the one with the torpedos, is it heat seeking or something? Cause I missed my second shot, but saw it fly by several times, its either that or it's somehow influenced by the controls. In any case, its a bit odd.
Yes, I know about this bug, I'll correct it in future version :)


Your check for cheating is a bit incorrect. I understand you need to punish a player when he's taking a shortcut. However, what does surprise me is that I'm also getting punished for crossing the line on the outside of the turn.
You are getting punished because you cannot leave the raceway. If you do so, you have to return back to the point from where you left the raceway.


Personally I like Startrek a lot, so I don't mind seeing Startrek themed games. However, I think I'm not too far off when I say that not everyone is going to think the same about that. Perhaps you'd be saver with a bit less 'famous' shipdesigns, which btw are very nicely done!
In fact, this game is primarily being made for czech "star trek games" community, and of course they want to see Trek in the game :)

BTW thanks for your opinion, it will help to make Lightspeed better ;)

Traveler
27-01-2005, 08:13 PM
In final version, there will be a lot of upgrades, including several types of weapons (pulse, beams, etc.), so player will have options to choose his favourite sort of weapon. But it will always be necessary to target opponent's ship first, beacuse of weapons' auto-aiming.


Ok, very good. But what I was trying to say is it possible to make it more visible to the player that a ship has been targetted. Because now, especially at the start, it is very unclear which ship is going to get hit.


You are getting punished because you cannot leave the raceway. If you do so, you have to return back to the point from where you left the raceway.

No offence but this sounds very unreasonable. By taking the turn too wide, a player is already in a disadvantage (be it his own fault), because in order to get the best lap time, or in order to gain time on his opponents, he should take the turn as short as possible. You are basically punishing him a second time.

Also, the means of punishment is IMO incorrect. I realize taking a shortcut is not allowed, but by making the player go back all the way to the point of his 'mistake' on his own, does not stand in relation with the 'crime'. The time it takes to correct his error simply takes far too long.

Normally in racing games you see an error corrected, by taking the offender instantly back to the point or place of error. This way the player does realize that his attempts to take shortcuts aren't tolerated, but he's still given a reasonable change to finish the race in time.

Finch
27-01-2005, 09:08 PM
Ok, very good. But what I was trying to say is it possible to make it more visible to the player that a ship has been targetted. Because now, especially at the start, it is very unclear which ship is going to get hit.
Oh, yes, targeted ship will be marked with some sort of "graphic sight" :)


No offence but this sounds very unreasonable. By taking the turn too wide, a player is already in a disadvantage (be it his own fault), because in order to get the best lap time, or in order to gain time on his opponents, he should take the turn as short as possible. You are basically punishing him a second time.

Also, the means of punishment is IMO incorrect. I realize taking a shortcut is not allowed, but by making the player go back all the way to the point of his 'mistake' on his own, does not stand in relation with the 'crime'. The time it takes to correct his error simply takes far too long.

Normally in racing games you see an error corrected, by taking the offender instantly back to the point or place of error. This way the player does realize that his attempts to take shortcuts aren't tolerated, but he's still given a reasonable change to finish the race in time.
I think it is really pointless. Player is simply not allowed to leave the raceway. If he violate this rule, he is punished for it. Some function to take him automaticaly back on way sounds good, but IMO it is just pampering of player.

Crisp_N_Dry
28-01-2005, 11:25 AM
I think it is really pointless. Player is simply not allowed to leave the raceway. If he violate this rule, he is punished for it. Some function to take him automaticaly back on way sounds good, but IMO it is just pampering of player.


Like Traveler said, this is too harsh. The current method you have employed effectively ruins any chance of coming first just for one mistake. There's nothing wrong with "pampering" the player. The method whereby the computer automatically returns the player to the point where they left the track is ideal. They would lose a second or two in the time it takes to respawn but they still have a chance at catching up. Remember, this is a game and gamers have little patience for flaws like this. Though in the end it's your game and you can do with it as you please but design issues like these can make or break a game. Just be sure you've made the right choice.

Huehnerschaender
28-01-2005, 08:26 PM
Hi Finch,

if you want to hear one more opinion, I am totally with the others. I played a few times and cursed the game everytime I lost track of the course, because if you realize too late that you were off, it is also hard to find the point where you left the track. Respawning and losing some time would be way better in my opinion...

Greetings,
Dirk

Finch
29-01-2005, 11:37 AM
Ok, I'll do it for those players who aren't able to keep shuttle on raceway. Maybe I can implement this "return-on-way-device" as some kind of upgrade for player's shuttle.

But I'm very surprised, beacause you are the first people who complain ;)

Chesso
29-01-2005, 01:28 PM
Ive seen tons of racing games that returned a player to where they left the track and no one complained?

They were older games but meh.

Finch
29-01-2005, 01:35 PM
I have one reason - maybe Czech players are more skilled :P :D

FusionWolf
31-01-2005, 07:56 PM
Hi,

I tried to run the game, but all I got was black command-prompt screen which closes immediately.

Then I tried to run lightspeed.exe from command-prompt and I got program too big to fit in memory error.

I Have:
AMD AthlonXP ~2.26GHz
Radeon 9600XT 128MB
512MB DDR-SDRAM
Windows XP Pro.

JSoftware
31-01-2005, 08:07 PM
Hi,

I tried to run the game, but all I got was black command-prompt screen which closes immediately.

Then I tried to run lightspeed.exe from command-prompt and I got program too big to fit in memory error.

I Have:
AMD AthlonXP ~2.26GHz
Radeon 9600XT 128MB
512MB DDR-SDRAM
Windows XP Pro.

Same here except for i have windows 2000 pro

Regards
Jeppe

Finch
31-01-2005, 08:31 PM
I have no idea what could cause this problem. Was error.log file generated?

JSoftware
31-01-2005, 08:42 PM
Weird.. now after i've unplugged my usb card reader it works.. :? i think it might have been an irq conflict with between my usb root hub and the gfx..

Finch
31-01-2005, 08:48 PM
Yes, it's really strange.

FusionWolf
02-02-2005, 11:42 AM
I haven't managed to get it work. There's no .log generated during error. Altough Half-life 2 and many other game works perfectly on my machine. So, I don't think it's my machine which causes this.

http://personal.inet.fi/koti/fusionwolf/misc/promptscreen.jpg

Finch
02-02-2005, 12:12 PM
I haven't managed to get it work. There's no .log generated during error. Altough Half-life 2 and many other game works perfectly on my machine. So, I don't think it's my machine which causes this.
Logically, problem *lies* in your machine, beacuse in most of cases Lightspeed runs properly. "Half-life 2 runs perfectly"-like argumentation is irrelevant.
But this is not substantial. Truly, I really have no idea what caused your problem. My game needs barely half of memory which Half-life needs (approximately, of course ;)). Maybe you should try to run game in some compatibility mode.

Traveler
02-02-2005, 09:09 PM
That phrase results in 759 results in google. I've yet to find page with a working solution though. Some sites mention it could be a virus, but I don't think that's the case here. Others see the problem resolved simply by renstalling the software. Checking available diskspace, and that used by the swapfile may be of some help.

Other than that, I really don't know.

FYI I've checked the mem usage, it's about 30mb, which is really not that much.

EDIT: Nevermind the mem usage check, I realized that it wasn't the game that caused the problem but the installer.
However, adding this info to Google, resulted in quite a few pages with similar reports of bad installers. It might be worth checking out, if this installer is causing these problems as well.

Finch
03-02-2005, 05:52 AM
FYI I've checked the mem usage, it's about 30mb, which is really not that much.
Task Manager shows that game uses cca 60 MB of memory.


Nevermind the mem usage check, I realized that it wasn't the game that caused the problem but the installer.
However, adding this info to Google, resulted in quite a few pages with similar reports of bad installers. It might be worth checking out, if this installer is causing these problems as well.
I have never had a problem with NSIS, but FusionWolf should download this exe file (http://sfseries.scifiworld.cz/startrek.exe), replace the original one and try to run the game again.

Lightning
03-02-2005, 10:15 AM
That error is caused by a corrupted executable (or infected) i'm 95% sure :))

Finch
06-02-2005, 07:50 PM
That error is caused by a corrupted executable (or infected) i'm 95% sure :))
So, did you try to download a new exe file?

User137
07-02-2005, 08:15 AM
Nice game :)
It runs smoothly around 100fps at game time and way over 200 at menus. P900, Radeon 9200, 384 SDRAM.

Make there tighter turns... It was currently competition of who has better driving line and top speed, the only speed during drive...

FusionWolf
07-02-2005, 12:55 PM
FYI I've checked the mem usage, it's about 30mb, which is really not that much.
Task Manager shows that game uses cca 60 MB of memory.


Nevermind the mem usage check, I realized that it wasn't the game that caused the problem but the installer.
However, adding this info to Google, resulted in quite a few pages with similar reports of bad installers. It might be worth checking out, if this installer is causing these problems as well.
I have never had a problem with NSIS, but FusionWolf should download this exe file (http://sfseries.scifiworld.cz/startrek.exe), replace the original one and try to run the game again.

What the heck I'm doing with the .exe file coz' I don't get it unpack from the first place (or is that 4MB lightspeed.exe your game executable?!?)?

edit: I think that this problem origins to some sort of run out of enviromental variable space in Windows. Like DOS had that c:\command.com /e:512.

edit2: And no infection. That's for sure.