First game notes

[generalist]

Some thoughts on my first game or two:

- The sandbox game, even on normal difficulty, feels very tightly balanced and it requires a couple of play-throughs not to go bankrupt in the first funding cycle.

- It is very easy to get overwhelmed with engineers, either because of hiring mistakes or because of changes in priorities, and this can drive a game downhill fast. It would be very useful to have the option to fire staff.

- After a few years, I'm not going to want to fly Sputnik or X-15 missions again. Can these be marked as historic in some way (or "closed" in comparison to "open"?) in order to stop the "Manage programs" list piling up?

- If I close a game and start a new one from the main menu, without quitting the program, I am immediately allowed to start any programs unlocked in the earlier game (which can mean, eg, starting Mercury in 1/1955)

- Flight controller assignments seem strange. If I have six and try to assign two 3-controller satellite missions, I get told that I do not have enough; even if this is intentional, the explanatory message is very confusing and doesn't really explain what's going on.

- A last-turn autosave would be nice

- Why is the X-15 astronaut skill "leadership" not "piloting"?

Andrew.

[Nacho84]

Hello generalist,

Welcome to the forums

- The sandbox game, even on normal difficulty, feels very tightly balanced and it requires a couple of play-throughs not to go bankrupt in the first funding cycle.

We will be changing the game quite heavily in the next few months, so don't worry about this for the moment, as it's all going to evolve.

- It is very easy to get overwhelmed with engineers, either because of hiring mistakes or because of changes in priorities, and this can drive a game downhill fast. It would be very useful to have the option to fire staff.

This feature is planned on the roadmap.

- After a few years, I'm not going to want to fly Sputnik or X-15 missions again. Can these be marked as historic in some way (or "closed" in comparison to "open"?) in order to stop the "Manage programs" list piling up?

This feature is planned on the roadmap.

- If I close a game and start a new one from the main menu, without quitting the program, I am immediately allowed to start any programs unlocked in the earlier game (which can mean, eg, starting Mercury in 1/1955)

That's a good one. Someone else has reported it already, so it's definitely a bug. I'll investigate into that.

- Flight controller assignments seem strange. If I have six and try to assign two 3-controller satellite missions, I get told that I do not have enough; even if this is intentional, the explanatory message is very confusing and doesn't really explain what's going on.

Do you have a savefile for this? (see my answer below).

- A last-turn autosave would be nice

The game already does that . Take a look at this thread.

- Why is the X-15 astronaut skill "leadership" not "piloting"?

I still need to go through the mission scripts and tweak the values so that the proper skill gets used.

Cheers,

[jgf1123]

- Why is the X-15 astronaut skill "leadership" not "piloting"?

I still need to go through the mission scripts and tweak the values so that the proper skill gets used.

The issue is that, I think, the job title is named "Pilot." But I just looked at Mercury, and the name seems dissociated from the actual job function. The icon used for the astronaut looks like a queen icon from chess, which seems like it's tied to the Leadership skill; I don't know because the game doesn't say this anywhere except highlighting one skill during astronaut selection and when flying the mission. Both the personnel selection page and the mission microview just use the icon and don't explain what skill it is.

[generalist]

- Flight controller assignments seem strange. If I have six and try to assign two 3-controller satellite missions, I get told that I do not have enough; even if this is intentional, the explanatory message is very confusing and doesn't really explain what's going on.

Do you have a savefile for this? (see my answer below).

- A last-turn autosave would be nice

The game already does that . Take a look at this thread.

Thanks both! I will try and run up some autosaves.

The message looked identical to the one at viewtopic.php?f=262&t=45914 but read "...in progress require 0 flight controllers, the scheduled ones require 3 and this mission requires 3". (or possibly 3, 0, 3).

Andrew.

[generalist]

- Flight controller assignments seem strange. If I have six and try to assign two 3-controller satellite missions, I get told that I do not have enough; even if this is intentional, the explanatory message is very confusing and doesn't really explain what's going on.

Do you have a savefile for this? (see my answer below).

Got it. There is a scheduled X-15 flight (4 FCs); if I try and schedule a long-duration Explorer mission as well (3 FCs) I get the error message. Attached...

Andrew.

not_enough_FCs.zip

(5.9 KiB) Downloaded 253 times

[Nacho84]

Many thanks for this one! I fixed it now, it will make it into the next patch (v 0.7.4).

Cheers,