Take On Mars discussion (continued from off-topic)

[dram 14]

Thanks for the reply, post release as it is an early access title how many frequent updates can we expect, is it akin to arma 3? I only ask as any one modding may have to update their work for the latest versions every so often?

Cheers.

Yes, about the same intervals as ArmA 3, however there will also be a changelog detailing what has changed, so you'll know whether it needs updating or not.

[NovaSilisko 10]

I will look into this later on, but I am pretty sure the process requires the model to be exported to 3DS Max prior to being exported to the engine as a .txo file.

Sorry for the bit of a bump but I am quite curious about this. I have never ever heard of the .txo format. Is it native to the EnForce engine? If so, will we be able to get a standalone converter, or will it just be something for 3ds max?

[chortles 263]

Another question: is Olympus Mons explorable?

[Trase 10]

Can you tell us more about the planned 'program first, see results later' realistic driving system on higher difficulties, as opposite to the real-time driving we have now? Have you decided how this will work generally? What's planned and what is under question right now?

[dram 14]

Can you tell us more about the planned 'program first, see results later' realistic driving system on higher difficulties, as opposite to the real-time driving we have now? Have you decided how this will work generally? What's planned and what is under question right now?

The hardcore realistic setting will work in the same way as reality. That is, you observe the rover's surroundings via its cameras, make a plan for the day, input it into a console (things like FORWARD 50m, LEFT 20deg) send it, and wait before it starts to fulfill them. The plan with this in the final is to have it so you can give it instructions, save the game, turn off the pc, come back in the afternoon and see where it has gotten to. As an example, but this will take a lot of time to complete.

---------- Post added at 11:32 ---------- Previous post was at 11:28 ----------

Sorry for the bit of a bump but I am quite curious about this. I have never ever heard of the .txo format. Is it native to the EnForce engine? If so, will we be able to get a standalone converter, or will it just be something for 3ds max?

Yes it's a proprietary format. We will provide an exporter though at this point it is only for 3ds max 2009. Hopefully that will change.

Another question: is Olympus Mons explorable?

Not at the moment, remember we have it location based, so each location is 4x4km in size, hence we would need to create the location, but there are plans to do something of this sort, though do remember that Olympus Mons is gigantic, and most certainly would not fit in a single location, not even its top would, which is approximately 80x60km in size.

[NovaSilisko 10]

Yes it's a proprietary format. We will provide an exporter though at this point it is only for 3ds max 2009. Hopefully that will change.

Alright, cool. Hopefully a conversion utility can be made for those without 3ds max.

The hardcore realistic setting will work in the same way as reality. That is, you observe the rover's surroundings via its cameras, make a plan for the day, input it into a console (things like FORWARD 50m, LEFT 20deg) send it, and wait before it starts to fulfill them. The plan with this in the final is to have it so you can give it instructions, save the game, turn off the pc, come back in the afternoon and see where it has gotten to. As an example, but this will take a lot of time to complete.

Will this have any sort of error checking like the real rovers? Ex. if the wheel catches mid-drive, it would stop what it's doing and send out a blip, as opposed to continuing on in a slight arc and promptly smacking into a boulder.

[dram 14]

Will this have any sort of error checking like the real rovers? Ex. if the wheel catches mid-drive, it would stop what it's doing and send out a blip, as opposed to continuing on in a slight arc and promptly smacking into a boulder.

Definitely something of this sort needs to be in place, but it should be possible to force an override.

[s_lapking 0]

I have a small question, how you create a new Martian map, like Mont Olympus?

I know that you need to have all they various pictures from NASA, but how you insert it into the game as a new map?

[traeng 0]

I just starter playing, yes I ragequited and went here, because I cannot find the thing to patch your suit in the solo, so I die, and I die, and i ...

 

just, ARE THERE MULTIPLE ONES?

[oversoul619 2]

I bought this today, and I am starting to regret it after hitting this roadblock. I started playing a rover career, but when I get to the small rover, it always gets banged up during chute deployment, and freefalls a few hundred meters to certain doom. I have tried different constructions, including one camera and one battery, but wrecks every time. I have tried testing the small rover in the yard, and it slumps to the ground like a wet noodle. This all seems like some inherent physics blip. I have now spent two hours checking, and re-checking every combo I can think of. What a drag.

*** UPDATE ***

I backed out to "Scenarios," and ran the Sojourner mission. It deployed normally. I drove around a bit, then went back to my career. By the time I progressed to the small rover again, the first one deployed normally, without the collisions and balloon panels flying off and freefall death.

Edited January 8, 2017 by chedwiggins@gmail.com

[StokesMagee 35]

@dram Here is my input.

 

I got the game, and played it for a good 8 hours long, i like it, i didn't get very far due to a few bugs / glitches, and having to restart because we didn't know what we were doing then we realized that was a bad thing to do, here are the things I've noticed while playing for that 8 hour time span...

 

Pros: 

• I love that you're able to pick up objects and move them around, especially the heavier the object the slower it is.
• The PhysX system is almost perfect, i don't have any Cons about that, aside from things glitching into other things, and not being able to move it out and it makes a very obnoxious sound, and staying like that and the only way to fix it would be to start completely from scratch.
• I like the fact you're able to "climb" on-to surfaces, trip, faint etc..
• Gravity for me, is spot on.
• The training grounds are awesome, it's gets right to the point and is just enough for you to know how to play the game.
• The editor is awesome, some times can be a bit clunky
• The graphical GUI is perfect, being able to look at a button and push it, being able to look at a wall, and having  a cursor on it to click something is something that i have yet to see in ANY game.
• The Character GUI types are a very nice feature to have.
• A FOV slider, something that most games don't have, makes it easier to play for long hours with it.
• Driving, and the aspects required to drive, are a good touch.
• Allowing mods.
• Coop, and competitive game-mode.
• Allowing us to science the shit out of potato's, and not spend billions of dollars to go to Mars. 
• Killed 8 hours of my time, and was never bored the entire time span, It was time well spent.

 

Cons:

• If you put your graphics settings on low, you seem to run a LOT slower than on max graphics settings.
• Around a base, or habitat it can be very laggy, even with very few objects around.
• The temperature system seems to have no effect, if you're at -72c you don't freeze to death (from what i've noticed) it would be awesome if that was a thing. 
• When you flick around at a lower FPS the camera appears to "round" just past the point you were moving to and snap to the point you're looking at, essentially, it's not smooth, and it seems like it's trying to be smooth, but there is a "snap" back. (This is probably because i don't have "fluid camera movement" enabled.)
• There seems to be a few issues when saving a game. i was playing with 2 friends, I ran away from them (about 300m) and they voted to save, and it said i couldn't "vote" and any saves after that i made a vote to save, it never saved, even though it "said" it did, not sure if that's the cause, but it's the only thing i could think of.
• The "tripping" is cool, just slightly annoying, you walk over a cable and next thing you know you're blacked out on the ground.
• The object movement is awesome, no real problems with it yet, it some times can be pretty derpy, but it's not one of my biggest "complaints" 
• Multiplayer movement appears to be server-side, and thus causing "input-lag". i'd rather have a playable experience than a "safer" game. I know you guys completely wrote the multiplayer from scratch, but i feel that would be a very good selling point if you guys worked more on the multiplayer, especially a dedicated-server, now a days not many people play by themselves, many want to be able to play with their friends, and as it stands you're able to play with friends, it can some times be very difficult to do so. 

 

TL;DR: 

As it stands you can play with friends but currently it appears everyone other than the host has a very "non-fluid" experience, I and the 2 other friends mentioned, one has very low latency to me, the other has around 200ms and both were having a very hard time with input lag and general game movement providing undesired effects (rubber banding/desyncing into objects etc and getting stuck), the issues are replicable even if we swap who is hosting among the 3 of us.

 

If there is anything else that i notice (because i can't think of everything), i will put it under this comment:

[BCBasher 0]

Was this game not well received or do people just not know about this forum?

 

I enjoyed the the hell out of the manned mission campaign, the beginning was so engaging for me I had a few days off so I restarted and did most of it in a non stop twenty hour marathon.

 

Call me crazy but I think this game shines with the clunky BI UI and systems, between that and the lag from the ancient laptop I'm playing on I really felt a level of frustration just like trying to work in heavy cumbersome PPE and gloves.

 

I really hope this game gets a community going and some resources on how the script and editor works, I'm fumbling through and the editor is alright but the script seems pretty different from ArmA.