welsch

Yes he does... he was just making fun of Walker.

Quite a long list of improvements... I definitely need to visit my rover again, this programming business sounds very interesting :) So have a merry Christmas, guys&gals, and thanks for the update!

I was finally able to check out the new game version with the objectives and tech tree systems and would like to provide some quick feedback. - Tech tree: you absolutely need to make those left/right arrows clickable. It took me over an hour of confused research until I discovered I had to grab (at what actually?) and drag the screen to the left in order to see more tech tree options. Even more confusing is the fact that dragging seems not to work in the list on the left, there you need to interact with a scroll bar. Such inconsistent UI behavior is quite confusing and irritating. After I finally figured it out, I also discovered there are a lot more objectives then I initially thought ;-) - Probes: are pretty boring at the moment because of the lack of interaction necessary. Launch, sit there while they go down, collect payment, rinse, repeat. I would at least have expected to be required to snap a picture or two during the descent (I can already do that of course, but is neither necessary nor will it in any way influence the outcome of the mission). - Crash: I experienced a crash when visiting the "example add-on location" crater to the left on Mars and trying to zoom/pan the map. Those were the error messages I got before the game closed completely: After the crash, of course it turns out I did not save anything, so I will have to start from scratch again... at least I get to do the Mars-3 introductory mission again, I really liked that one :-)

Good news indeed :D

Well, they do not charge the chemical batteries, true, but they do charge an accumulator (I assume that is what you called a "solar battery"), represented by the power level bar on top. Imho the name "power level" does not make it very clear what this bar actually signifies, especially in the beginning... Regarding power consumption, I hope we will see a more complex system than we have so far. Right now, only movement of the rover, science platform, mast or robotic arm do consume energy. But of course cameras, instruments, lights, nightvision, analyses & computations, transmitting data and heating of the rover (especially at night) all should consume energy to varying degrees.

I noticed this, too. I think what he means is that when the thrusters work at high thrust (and high speed) at the beginning of the descent, the thruster flames do not originate from the thrusters themselves, but actually start a good way *above* them, extending through the thrusters and onwards below them (so it does look a bit like as if the thruster was firing in two directions simultaneously). And the slower the lander gets, the more the point of origin of the flames moves down towards the actual thruster nozzle, looking more and more realistic.

Enjoy the trip! :-)

Great to hear that - many thanks, Dram

It would be great if we could somehow identify on which patch level we are exactly - because so far the version number seems only to increment with a stable branch update and is therefore pretty useless on the development branch. Please put in a build number somewhere (or increment the version number with every patch) and reference it in the patch notes. That way it would be much easier to talk about specific patches and to check if oneself is on the same level as everybody else already (or needs to give the steam client a swift kick).

Are you using Dev or Stable branch? I am on Dev and it still shows .172 for me, but I had the impression there was at least one Dev patch deployed that did not increment the build number...

Oh, I almost forgot, but the question just popped up when I was going over my mission map of Victoria crater: why is it showing me already deployed landers as suitable vehicles for future missions? It works well for already deployed rovers, I just have to drive them to the next mission area - but how am I supposed to move an already settled down lander? Am I missing something here?

This is a mission for a T4 small lander. I was able to complete almost all of the scientific tasks, but with the last minor task I am stuck. It wants me to analyze a rock with my APXS. The rock is 91.4m away - and the APXS is mounted on the bottom of my (immobile) lander on a robotic arm that only allows me to lower it straight down. (I had no problem analyzing the required sand probe sample though - the target was all around and right underneath my lander) Question: how do I manage that APXS measurement? Even if I could move the lander (which I can't), I would not be able to put my APXS sideways against the rock (unless I was to drop the lander right on top of it... which is probably not a good idea). Is this a bug? PS: there are now even more missions without any assignable vehicles in Victory crater than before (in the beginning it was three, now there are six) at tech level 5. They popped up when some more minor and negligible missions where added there in one of the last patches. I thought we were not supposed to see missions that we lacked the necessary tech level for?

At least for the lander that I had put down Saturday, the problem seems to have been fixed with Monday's patch (12.08.13). I have not landed another lander since, so no idea how it will work in that case.

Exactly the same here.

I can't confirm this theory - the only location I have unlocked so far is Victoria Crater.