Suggestions and errors of varying urgency

[OlympusMons 10]

Hey! I love the game!

Here is a list of thing I'd like to bring up, some are really important (to me), some not at all. I'm sure many are already a WIP. My apologies if some of this gets pedantic... these are of course polite suggestions.

Possible Errors:

- I can't seem to land a small rover with High-Capacity Chemical Batteries. Every time I try, I end up on the surface with a low capacity battery. This happens if I launch after SPECIFICALLY clicking a designed rover with high capacity batteries. Even happens when I launch directly from the clean room after building it.

- Sometimes when I take a picture of a target nothing happens. I had a few missions I had to start over from scratch because no matter how many photos I took of a target, it did not "register".

- The game has been freezing up on me recently. This has happened three times thus far. Once when I accidentally hit F1 and started the tutorial, once when I launched a probe, and once when I started the scenario editor. I'm not sure If I have any more useful information. This is not a big deal though, it has not been very problematic.

- On the Large Lander: Both the Mast and the High-Gain Antennae seem to prevent me from placing adjacent objects. Perhaps this is intentional?

- I occasionally find a "point" I want to visit is like 3m off the ground and I cannot possibly reach it with rover. These ones are NOT part of a mission I am required to finish. Are these bugs or are they supposed to be for other missions that land there?

Important Suggestions:

- Command-Line needs a CANCEL function! A number of times I have entered "Forward 100 M", and then the rover slowly banks left due to a slight slope in the terrain and suddenly I am way off course and then I get jammed on a rock and loose a wheel. Not fun.

- Re-organize Tech Tree - Having a series of tabs for each research category would be a much easier and faster interface then scrolling all the way across.

- Parachutes never deflate after landing. This is cool when there are high winds... but looks really stupid in absence of wind.

- Why are there are stars out during the day? I know Mars' atmosphere is thinner and the sun is further away... but I'm pretty darn sure you cannot see stars during the day.

- When a rover/lander has a spot that is not being used, instead of making it a "blank panel", how about remove the panel all together. This is particularly true for "hole" left by NOT having a Radioisotope battery... it looks pretty silly. Perhaps it could have a "cover" that fits in the place if there is no battery? For all instruments - perhaps just leave it with a texture that looks totally uninteresting and does not look there is supposed to be something attached. It would add a bit of variety from one rover to the next, and would take away from the "Lego-like" feel of each rover being the same thing with different parts attached (even though they are).

Not-so-Important Suggestions:

- A "Clear All Notifications" button would be terrific

- When you click on a location, you should be able to see the current weather there. As it is, you have to check notifications (that may have been deleted), or visit the surface.

- New 3D map model is a bit too over-saturated (better than it was last update... but still a bit over-saturated)

- What happened to the Quality setting on different parts? I admit I never noticed any difference in quality, so if that is why you removed it, no quarrels. I liked the idea though. Make a cheap rover that has a decent chance of failure or a expensive one that is super reliable.

- Perhaps I am imagining it, or perhaps I am wrong, but I think storms on Mars are a lot less frequent then in this game, and I find them annoyingly frequent in-game. Perhaps you can tone it down a bit? Unless you have good reason for the current storm rate.

- In the map in the control room the slight bobbing up and down prevents you from reading the mouse-over text for map locations.

Quick Q's:

- Are making Larger Maps something that could be left to the modding community? I'd like to see them, but I know that this is (and should) not be a big concern of yours.

- I have NO idea what the debug triangle things do when I hit "B".

Edited January 24, 2014 by OlympusMons

[slickbet 10]

I have decided to try this again after a time away and I love the game too...a lot has changed since I played last. Here is what I have noticed so far...For what it is worth. As well....polite suggestions.

Being able to take screenshots in steam would go far to help get some of my friends to step up and make a purchase....may not be a high priority, but I'm just saying....

Weather is awesome, but 2 things. Parachutes do need to deflate at some point. My issue is that with a moderate wind, they stay inflated and into the wind...this cancels the illusion the game is trying to achieve and looks silly.

I have a cam on a mast and even in conditions of no wind....the camera is very shaky. I know this may be planed...but sitting still and no wind still has movement. Is this normal?

So far....I have had no fail indicators from any of my wheels on my rover...although I can not maintain a straight path over even a short distance. I have watched the indicators and I get nothing ever. I did break a wheel off and it showed that...but that is it. Are the wheel fault indicators still working correctly?

Here is the tricky one. I built a rover and sent it to Victoria crater. I loaded it with about as many instruments I could. No sooner I land and a micro meteorite hit rover and destroyed my RAD instrument...I thought. I loaded my save and it happened again...and again. I thought "what's up with that"? I actually loaded 2 RAD's on the back of the thing and it still happened. AND, after it killed one, I still had another one, but I could not do any RAD test after that. I left the rover and returned to control and in the map I checked the rover statistics and it said everything was fine and OK. This cannot be right. One of my RAD instruments is laying on the mars surface and I cannot do a RAD test now....things are not OK. LOL Why does this dang RAD instrument keep wanting to just break for no apparent reason at all? One time I was actually just sitting there getting my cam's all set after landing and had not even moved yet...and bang...it broke. This is when I thought I was hit by a micro meteorite. I get this kind of stuff will happen....but like this?

I don't know if this is what you guys were looking for...but these are the things I have seen. MY impressions. I love the game...keep up the great work all.

[dram 14]

Hey guys, sorry for not replying earlier.

Possible Errors:

- I can't seem to land a small rover with High-Capacity Chemical Batteries. Every time I try, I end up on the surface with a low capacity battery. This happens if I launch after SPECIFICALLY clicking a designed rover with high capacity batteries. Even happens when I launch directly from the clean room after building it.

- Sometimes when I take a picture of a target nothing happens. I had a few missions I had to start over from scratch because no matter how many photos I took of a target, it did not "register".

- The game has been freezing up on me recently. This has happened three times thus far. Once when I accidentally hit F1 and started the tutorial, once when I launched a probe, and once when I started the scenario editor. I'm not sure If I have any more useful information. This is not a big deal though, it has not been very problematic.

- On the Large Lander: Both the Mast and the High-Gain Antennae seem to prevent me from placing adjacent objects. Perhaps this is intentional?

- I occasionally find a "point" I want to visit is like 3m off the ground and I cannot possibly reach it with rover. These ones are NOT part of a mission I am required to finish. Are these bugs or are they supposed to be for other missions that land there?

Regarding the chemical batteries, I tried it out and you are right. We'll try to deal with this soon, cheers for the heads up.

The photo targets should be working correctly, was there anything written in the frame? Such as COLOR (but in red) or FAR (in red)? This would mean you are not using a color cam where it requires one, or are too far or not zoomed in enough.

Not nice that it is freezing, I've not been able to reproduce this here at the studio, hopefully it's just a temporary issue.

Yes, each object has a radius where nothing else can be placed, also depending on size. This is so that you don't construct a rover which destroys itself on start.

Yeah that is a bug with the generated missions. You can ignore those if you wish, but they will be improved upon later on.

Important Suggestions:

- Command-Line needs a CANCEL function! A number of times I have entered "Forward 100 M", and then the rover slowly banks left due to a slight slope in the terrain and suddenly I am way off course and then I get jammed on a rock and loose a wheel. Not fun.

- Re-organize Tech Tree - Having a series of tabs for each research category would be a much easier and faster interface then scrolling all the way across.

- Parachutes never deflate after landing. This is cool when there are high winds... but looks really stupid in absence of wind.

- Why are there are stars out during the day? I know Mars' atmosphere is thinner and the sun is further away... but I'm pretty darn sure you cannot see stars during the day.

- When a rover/lander has a spot that is not being used, instead of making it a "blank panel", how about remove the panel all together. This is particularly true for "hole" left by NOT having a Radioisotope battery... it looks pretty silly. Perhaps it could have a "cover" that fits in the place if there is no battery? For all instruments - perhaps just leave it with a texture that looks totally uninteresting and does not look there is supposed to be something attached. It would add a bit of variety from one rover to the next, and would take away from the "Lego-like" feel of each rover being the same thing with different parts attached (even though they are).

There is a cancel command - "CLEAR".

Yes definitely - tabs are desired but will take some time to implement, so have been put off for now.

Parachutes are incomplete at the moment, and will be fixed in the future.

Stars are visible early morning and late afternoon but should not be visible during the day. It mostly depends on how high the sun is in the sky, so if it is low, stars will be visible.

The panels were created like that specifically for the aesthetic feel where we wanted it to be visible where instruments can be mounted.

Not-so-Important Suggestions:

- A "Clear All Notifications" button would be terrific

- When you click on a location, you should be able to see the current weather there. As it is, you have to check notifications (that may have been deleted), or visit the surface.

- New 3D map model is a bit too over-saturated (better than it was last update... but still a bit over-saturated)

- What happened to the Quality setting on different parts? I admit I never noticed any difference in quality, so if that is why you removed it, no quarrels. I liked the idea though. Make a cheap rover that has a decent chance of failure or a expensive one that is super reliable.

- Perhaps I am imagining it, or perhaps I am wrong, but I think storms on Mars are a lot less frequent then in this game, and I find them annoyingly frequent in-game. Perhaps you can tone it down a bit? Unless you have good reason for the current storm rate.

- In the map in the control room the slight bobbing up and down prevents you from reading the mouse-over text for map locations.

Yes, we're planning to add a clear notifications buttons.

Yes, weather forecasts and current weather will be visible for each location in the map, so this is also planned.

I expect the saturation should be better in the latest update, could you please try it out?

The quality setting was removed with random part failure, which turned out to be too unpredictable and unpleasant.

Yes, we will definitely tone them down. We adjust most things based on feedback from you guys.

Yeah the bobbing was reduced at some point but has returned it seems. This will be fixed.

Quick Q's:

- Are making Larger Maps something that could be left to the modding community? I'd like to see them, but I know that this is (and should) not be a big concern of yours.

- I have NO idea what the debug triangle things do when I hit "B".

8kmx8km terrains should pose no problem to create, though 16kmx16km will be too limited in texture size. The terrains used in Take On Mars thus far have been between 2kmx2km to 4kmx4km.

The debug triangle is for debugging maps, and has since been moved to only the developer mode :)

Being able to take screenshots in steam would go far to help get some of my friends to step up and make a purchase....may not be a high priority, but I'm just saying....

Weather is awesome, but 2 things. Parachutes do need to deflate at some point. My issue is that with a moderate wind, they stay inflated and into the wind...this cancels the illusion the game is trying to achieve and looks silly.

I have a cam on a mast and even in conditions of no wind....the camera is very shaky. I know this may be planed...but sitting still and no wind still has movement. Is this normal?

So far....I have had no fail indicators from any of my wheels on my rover...although I can not maintain a straight path over even a short distance. I have watched the indicators and I get nothing ever. I did break a wheel off and it showed that...but that is it. Are the wheel fault indicators still working correctly?

Here is the tricky one. I built a rover and sent it to Victoria crater. I loaded it with about as many instruments I could. No sooner I land and a micro meteorite hit rover and destroyed my RAD instrument...I thought. I loaded my save and it happened again...and again. I thought "what's up with that"? I actually loaded 2 RAD's on the back of the thing and it still happened. AND, after it killed one, I still had another one, but I could not do any RAD test after that. I left the rover and returned to control and in the map I checked the rover statistics and it said everything was fine and OK. This cannot be right. One of my RAD instruments is laying on the mars surface and I cannot do a RAD test now....things are not OK. LOL Why does this dang RAD instrument keep wanting to just break for no apparent reason at all? One time I was actually just sitting there getting my cam's all set after landing and had not even moved yet...and bang...it broke. This is when I thought I was hit by a micro meteorite. I get this kind of stuff will happen....but like this?

I don't know if this is what you guys were looking for...but these are the things I have seen. MY impressions. I love the game...keep up the great work all.

The issue with steam screenshots is strange and we've not been able to discover why it works for some and not for others. Here at the studio it works for everyone, so debugging it is very difficult.

Parachutes will deflate in the future. Work in progress at this point.

It shouldn't be moving, though if you zoom in a lot, you will likely notice a little jitter, this is due to the whole vehicle being made up of dynamic, physically-simulated parts.

The wheel fault indicators should be working correctly. I'd suggest to try and increase the physics setting in the options menu, maybe it will help. It may also be due to a large amount of instruments being only on one side of the vehicle, weighting it to one side.

The RAD has been causing issues lately we've noticed as well. It should have been fixed in the latest build, so please re-check it?

[OlympusMons 10]

Thanks!

My double-feedback

Regarding the chemical batteries, I tried it out and you are right. We'll try to deal with this soon, cheers for the heads up.

The photo targets should be working correctly, was there anything written in the frame? Such as COLOR (but in red) or FAR (in red)? This would mean you are not using a color cam where it requires one, or are too far or not zoomed in enough.

Not nice that it is freezing, I've not been able to reproduce this here at the studio, hopefully it's just a temporary issue.

Yes, each object has a radius where nothing else can be placed, also depending on size. This is so that you don't construct a rover which destroys itself on start.

Yeah that is a bug with the generated missions. You can ignore those if you wish, but they will be improved upon later on.

Glad I could help find a new issue

I'm pretty sure all the photos were "good" (Not too far or needing to be in color). Next time it happens I will play closer attention and let you know. Possibly related question: There are rectangles that light up in the HUD around the camera. What do these mean? I thought they were for aligning the shot... but I'm not so sure about that.

The freezing problems were minor - Probably just a problem on my end. No worries!

Sounds good!

Sounds good!

There is a cancel command - "CLEAR".

Yes definitely - tabs are desired but will take some time to implement, so have been put off for now.

Parachutes are incomplete at the moment, and will be fixed in the future.

Stars are visible early morning and late afternoon but should not be visible during the day. It mostly depends on how high the sun is in the sky, so if it is low, stars will be visible.

The panels were created like that specifically for the aesthetic feel where we wanted it to be visible where instruments can be mounted.

Turns out I am an idiot. I tried using "Clear" but I never actually sent the command... only typed it. My Bad!

Tech Tree and Parachute updates sounds great!

Are stars really visible on Mars during the early morning or late evening?. Perhaps they are... but It seems like something I would have heard or seen a picture of before if it were true.

Just to be clear, I was saying that the "blank panels" should be present when building, but not after launch. At the very least fill in the hole in the rover from not having the Radioisotope Battery. This is more of a creative decision for you guys of course, and if you are happy as is, that is fine. I just find the "hole" in the small rover kinda awkward.

Yes, we're planning to add a clear notifications buttons.

Yes, weather forecasts and current weather will be visible for each location in the map, so this is also planned.

I expect the saturation should be better in the latest update, could you please try it out?

The quality setting was removed with random part failure, which turned out to be too unpredictable and unpleasant.

Yes, we will definitely tone them down. We adjust most things based on feedback from you guys.

Yeah the bobbing was reduced at some point but has returned it seems. This will be fixed.

All sounds good... and Yes, the new update made Mars look a lot better!

8kmx8km terrains should pose no problem to create, though 16kmx16km will be too limited in texture size. The terrains used in Take On Mars thus far have been between 2kmx2km to 4kmx4km.

The debug triangle is for debugging maps, and has since been moved to only the developer mode

I would love a full Gale Crater sized map - but I won't blame you for not wanting to support such a thing. My computer could probably not even run it.

Can one create non square maps? Will modding be able to create vehicles with no use of in-game parts? Say for example an exact replica of Viking, Sojourner, or Opportunity, made from scratch?

Thanks again. Great work!

P.S. I got Take on Helicopters from the Humble Bundle sale and it is pretty fun! Although I'll have you know that your "Virtual Seattle" has replaced my uncle's 3-story apartment with a 20-story office tower. haha!

Edited February 19, 2014 by OlympusMons

[Kagehiko 10]

I've also had problems with freezing, but it happened to me while saving the game. One time it just sat there making the save animation, all the other times the game has frozen.

I've also had a problem with a mission on Lyot crater, that mission was for small landers but it seems that I've already completed it with a rover :| Anyway, the lander makes no attemp to go to the correct landing site and fall through the ground. It was one of those missions from the bottom left, I'l mess around with the game a bit to see if I can find it.

Oh, and my rovers keep switching to the chem. batteries when they reach 25% power! This results in the batteries turning on and off contantly, because the batteries make the charge rate higher than the discharge rate, charging the rover to 26%, turning off the batteries, discharging again to 25%, turning the batteries on again[...] and filling the notifications with the 25% power warning. It happens with every rover and with every type of energy source.

[cowboy124aa 10]

Are stars really visible on Mars during the early morning or late evening?. Perhaps they are... but It seems like something I would have heard or seen a picture of before if it were true.

Just a picture of morning stars her on earth, and very beautiful to look at to be honest! Thought you might enjoy this.

http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2014/02/08/magical-morning-star-showers-valentines-day-lovers-silver-light-153437