Game Playability (Am I doing something wrong?)

[mitchellA]

It should be noted that I am using a laptop and am missing some of the keys desktop users have available. This shouldn't make a difference to the ascii codes, but upon occassion I have noticed a difference.

1. I am having serious problems with my mouse... a movement of 2cm on my desk results in the mouse curser travelling over half the distance of my screen and even a 1mm movement is enough to send the curser too far in any direction to target an opponent, so I cannot be involved in any kind of combat (like defending myself). Any helpful suggestions?
2. The manual says to use the HOME key to set my speed relative to my target and the BACKSPACE key to set my velocity to zero in relation to my target. About once in every 2000 keypresses, the HOME key will work as described and the BACKSPACE key always sets my velocity to zero in relation to myself, so I can watch my target leave my area. I have never spent less than 7 minutes trying to get close enough to a target to SCAN a target and two to three times that amount of time manouvering into a position that I can dock from. The most frustrating part of this is missing the target and getting smeared, or watching it pull away from me as my speed relative to the target diminishes at 2km/sec from 312km to 0km (over 2 1/2 minutes to wait for my speed to go to zero) and then back up to 312km (another 2 1/2 minutes) as I reapproach the target (to speed up the process I've tried using the TAB key, but it works about as often as the HOME key).
3. AUTO... Whenever I press "a", my ship will turn between 90 and 180 degrees away from my target. It will slowly accelerate until it is doing over 100,000kps and then it will turn approximately half way towards my target and reduce speed to as low as 112kps; then it will reaccelerate to over 100,000kps and then finish turning towards my target (again losing almost all its speed). Then about 10% of the time, when it is half way to the target it will instantly drop to a speed of 312kps and do that speed for up to 5 minutes before reaccelerating to 97C and reaching the target. Repeatedly pressing the "a" key does not help. Any suggestions?
4. Coming out of warp... when I reach a target, I may be as close as 12km away from scanning distance or as far away as 72km from scanning distance (at 312kps that puts me 20 minutes away if I am lucky enough to guess the right approach vector). Is there any way to consistantly get out of warp 12km away?

It is really frustrating to spend 3 minutes buying/selling and upgrading, then spending over an hour patrolling 6 Nav Points (for $5000) because I cannot engage in combat, and then spending another 10 to 20 minutes trying to dock at a station to sell my goods (praying I do not have to dodge an enemy attack or get smeared). If there isn't a fix for these problems (I can live without doing combat, but at $5000 per hour of successful gameplay means I'll have to spend 60 hours earning enough for a medium class merchant ship and most games take less than 60 hours to finish).
PS: I'm not a programmer, so I may need my hand held if the solution is complex.
Thanks

[mitchellA]

I was so frustrated at being shot up while trying to manouver towards a target object that I decided to start a new game. Lo and behold, everything works as promised in the manual (I just scanned 6 Nav Points, matched velocity with a base, and docked in a period of about 8-10 minutes). So now the only issue I have is the mouse sensitivity issue. Any suggestions?
Thanks for looking.

[TBeholder]

1. I am having serious problems with my mouse... a movement of 2cm on my desk results in the mouse curser travelling over half the distance of my screen and even a 1mm movement is enough to send the curser too far in any direction to target an opponent, so I cannot be involved in any kind of combat (like defending myself). Any helpful suggestions?

Assuming that out of VS sensitivity is okay and you use "warp mouse", try to set mouse_sensitivity = 1 and warp_mouse_zone = <slightly less than the screen't height> in config. Works for me (xubuntu).
2 devs: any reason not to set warpzone along with resolution?

2. The manual says to use the HOME key to set my speed relative to my target and the BACKSPACE key to set my velocity to zero in relation to my target. About once in every 2000 keypresses, the HOME key will work as described and the BACKSPACE key always sets my velocity to zero in relation to myself, so I can watch my target leave my area.

Your speed is always zero in relation to yourself.
Setting speed relative to the target works with delay - while your ship tries to match their previous velocity, their thrusters add new differences.
So it sets exactly only relatively to a cargo container you accidentally slinged with heavy tractorbeam, but with accelerating ships it works approximately. And if the target accelerates better, trying to catch up is obviously hopeless.
BTW, there's also one-off MatchSpeedKey, though you probably have conttrols cluttered enough as it is.

I have never spent less than 7 minutes trying to get close enough to a target to SCAN a target and two to three times that amount of time manouvering into a position that I can dock from.

Uh, scan requires only a close fly-by, not docking. With proper mouse controls aiming for a close miss is easy.

(to speed up the process I've tried using the TAB key, but it works about as often as the HOME key).

Weird. If you installed an afterburner and have fuel, and autopilot is not in control, it should always work. Do external views show jets going red when you press TAB?

3. AUTO... Whenever I press "a", my ship will turn between 90 and 180 degrees away from my target. It will slowly accelerate until it is doing over 100,000kps and then it will turn approximately half way towards my target and reduce speed to as low as 112kps; then it will reaccelerate to over 100,000kps and then finish turning towards my target (again losing almost all its speed).

Since you're launched from a base or planet, its mass kills warpdrive, so the autopilot moves out of big gravity wells ASAP. Once SPEC can engage, it walks around the slow zone, then you buzz toward the target, then it turns off along with autopilot and you're back to normal velocity.
In case of an overshot (currently autopilot is kind of lousy), the ship is turned back and until it accelerates to the proper direction with thrusters, SPEC is useless. Rinse, repeat. Turning autopilot off and on (to rampdown SPEC) a few times during approach usually prevents overshots.

It is really frustrating to spend 3 minutes buying/selling and upgrading, then spending over an hour patrolling 6 Nav Points (for $5000) because I cannot engage in combat, and then spending another 10 to 20 minutes trying to dock at a station to sell my goods (praying I do not have to dodge an enemy attack or get smeared). If there isn't a fix for these problems

Learn how the thrust works. Of course, Llama overloaded to 1100% of its base mass will be very unwieldy no matter what, and overshots while overloaded are swamps of pain, so it's not good for ferrying metals anywhere but a planet. Also, cheap patrols are tedious even on a fighter, they are good only for supplementary income - i.e. if you run A-B-C-A with goods, you'll scan A,B, and C when you dock there, so divert to D, E and F points on empties or lightweight goods (gases or music, but not metals) stage.

[mitchellA]

1. I am having serious problems with my mouse... a movement of 2cm on my desk results in the mouse curser travelling over half the distance of my screen and even a 1mm movement is enough to send the curser too far in any direction to target an opponent, so I cannot be involved in any kind of combat (like defending myself). Any helpful suggestions?

Assuming that out of VS sensitivity is okay and you use "warp mouse", try to set mouse_sensitivity = 1 and warp_mouse_zone = <slightly less than the screen't height> in config. Works for me (xubuntu).
2 devs: any reason not to set warpzone along with resolution?

Q: I haven't been able to find anything regarding mouse sensitivity in the vegastrike.config file. Could you tell me what file you are talking about?

2. The manual says to use the HOME key to set my speed relative to my target and the BACKSPACE key to set my velocity to zero in relation to my target. About once in every 2000 keypresses, the HOME key will work as described and the BACKSPACE key always sets my velocity to zero in relation to myself, so I can watch my target leave my area.

Your speed is always zero in relation to yourself.
Setting speed relative to the target works with delay - while your ship tries to match their previous velocity, their thrusters add new differences.
So it sets exactly only relatively to a cargo container you accidentally slinged with heavy tractorbeam, but with accelerating ships it works approximately. And if the target accelerates better, trying to catch up is obviously hopeless.
BTW, there's also one-off MatchSpeedKey, though you probably have conttrols cluttered enough as it is.

R: I started a brand new game and when I hit the HOME key followed by the BACKSPACE key, my speed (the right hand speed indicator) remaind at max but my speed relative to objects would immediately go to zero (the left hand speed). Unfortunately, when I reloaded my game I was told the universe was being generated and everything went terribly wrong again.

I have never spent less than 7 minutes trying to get close enough to a target to SCAN a target and two to three times that amount of time manouvering into a position that I can dock from.

Uh, scan requires only a close fly-by, not docking. With proper mouse controls aiming for a close miss is easy.

R: Proper mouse controls, and functioning velocity matching controls would indeed be a great help

(to speed up the process I've tried using the TAB key, but it works about as often as the HOME key).

Weird. If you installed an afterburner and have fuel, and autopilot is not in control, it should always work. Do external views show jets going red when you press TAB?

R: If you do not have an Overdrive, the TAB key super-accelerates you to your maximum speed (at least it is supposd to and does before a universe gets generated)

3. AUTO... Whenever I press "a", my ship will turn between 90 and 180 degrees away from my target. It will slowly accelerate until it is doing over 100,000kps and then it will turn approximately half way towards my target and reduce speed to as low as 112kps; then it will reaccelerate to over 100,000kps and then finish turning towards my target (again losing almost all its speed).

Since you're launched from a base or planet, its mass kills warpdrive, so the autopilot moves out of big gravity wells ASAP. Once SPEC can engage, it walks around the slow zone, then you buzz toward the target, then it turns off along with autopilot and you're back to normal velocity.
In case of an overshot (currently autopilot is kind of lousy), the ship is turned back and until it accelerates to the proper direction with thrusters, SPEC is useless. Rinse, repeat. Turning autopilot off and on (to rampdown SPEC) a few times during approach usually prevents overshots.

R: I have used the SPEC while aiming at my next target and even though I am doing over 100,000 kps I have had my ship go off at weird angles and decelerate to just a few hundred kps when I hit the "a" key. I've learned the fastest way to get where I want to go is to manually use the SPEC until I am doing 200,000kps before I hit the "a" key.

It is really frustrating to spend 3 minutes buying/selling and upgrading, then spending over an hour patrolling 6 Nav Points (for $5000) because I cannot engage in combat, and then spending another 10 to 20 minutes trying to dock at a station to sell my goods (praying I do not have to dodge an enemy attack or get smeared). If there isn't a fix for these problems

Learn how the thrust works. Of course, Llama overloaded to 1100% of its base mass will be very unwieldy no matter what, and overshots while overloaded are swamps of pain, so it's not good for ferrying metals anywhere but a planet. Also, cheap patrols are tedious even on a fighter, they are good only for supplementary income - i.e. if you run A-B-C-A with goods, you'll scan A,B, and C when you dock there, so divert to D, E and F points on empties or lightweight goods (gases or music, but not metals) stage.

R: I have played other games where thrust and inertia are factors to be considered. However, those games didn't take me out of auto-mode while I was still over two hundred k from my target and with no option except to chase it because it is receeding.

[TBeholder]

I haven't been able to find anything regarding mouse sensitivity in the vegastrike.config file. Could you tell me what file you are talking about?

Variables in bold letters above. These should be present in vegastrike.config - if not, the config is badwrong.
Warp mouse requires more tablespace, but it's easier to control.
So switch to warp, find in the uncommented section (glide and warp modes have different sensitivity settings) and edit to something like this:

Code: Select all

<!-- #warp_mouse inv_warp_mouse -->
			<var name="warp_mouse" value="true"/>
			<var name="mouse_sensitivity" value="1"/>
<!-- #end -->
			<var name="warp_mouse_zone" value="600"/>
			<var name="mouse_exponent" value="1.5"/>
			<var name="deadband" value="0.05"/>

Keyboard arrows are useless for precise maneuvers but complement mouse in that they do sharp turns, hard to do on a mouse set for precise aiming (once you figured out what sensitivity you really need).

R: I started a brand new game and when I hit the HOME key followed by the BACKSPACE key, my speed (the right hand speed indicator) remaind at max but my speed relative to objects would immediately go to zero (the left hand speed).

One is set speed, it changes instantly. Another is actual speed, changed by thrusters toward set speed if the flight computer is on.
Naturally, have to sync with ships you want to dock with, and then reset (END) to not be suddenly thrown around by your flight computer later.

If you do not have an Overdrive, the TAB key super-accelerates you to your maximum speed (at least it is supposd to and does before a universe gets generated)

Well, yes, it falls back to basic "full ahead" thrust. Without an actual afterburner, if your current speed is 112 and flight computer tries to match it to set speed of 312, you're already burning maximum thrust forward.
What else could it do?

I have used the SPEC while aiming at my next target and even though I am doing over 100,000 kps I have had my ship go off at weird angles and decelerate to just a few hundred kps when I hit the "a" key. I've learned the fastest way to get where I want to go is to manually use the SPEC until I am doing 200,000kps before I hit the "a" key.

It tries to avoid some or other mass. If the target is 100 meters behind a jump point, it doesn't make sense to turn away, go around and approach from the other side - but when it's far enough, it will be faster.
Other than such oddities, manual SPEC is mostly saves time on travel after autopilot disengages, but before SPEC rate is capped to 1.

I have played other games where thrust and inertia are factors to be considered. However, those games didn't take me out of auto-mode while I was still over two hundred k from my target and with no option except to chase it because it is receeding.

I already mentoned that autoopilot sucks?.. But this problem is caused mostly by overloading the ship. Llama have weak thrusters and with mass 300% or so flies like drunk, and it can be stuffed over 2000% without even trying.
Though on Cephid17, all metals go to Atlantis. In about 4 "metals for alcohol" hauls (assuming you sold useless starting weapons at the first port) you can afford jump drive, Dodo and still have some left.
If the next system (after the cargo mission from depleted Cephid warehouses) is even more ferrying-friendly, it may even be a good idea.

[mitchellA]

TBeholder, thank you for your help. (sorry if my frustration with the game influenced my response to your reply)