(My system is Win98SE running on Athlon 2000+, with Radeon 9000.)
Donno if I understand the save-game features; but it's happened to me several times that I've lost a lot of play time because of what seems like a corruption of the save file. Often I Save when in a planet, at the computer, but when I reload last saved game I'm in space in some system far away. Recovering from auto-save doesn't always seem to work either: I just accidentally collided with a confed ship, so I quit and tried to reload from the auto-saved file but the game would start in a different system, at some much earlier (days of play) time. Generally, the save game feature is rather inscrutable, with all these copy and rename functions. It should be either a slot system, with a dozen or two save slots, or a save file system like in Privateer. Auto-save should have, say 4 fixed slots that are used in succession; and the game should never auto-save soon after loading from an auto-save. In fact, it might as well only auto-save at particular times, such as before leaving a planet, before encountering hostiles, etc. Save-files and Auto-Save-files should not be mixed.
When on a planet, the computer should name the planet and system, rather than just say "Agricultural"; otherwise there's no way to know for sure one has loaded from the correct saved game.
Some of the missions require jumping to systems that don't exist or are no longer connected.
Hidden Asteroid in some Arlaan system, should have some goodies.. What's the point of flying through asteroids, finding a cave in it, steering the ship dangerously, to be told that one is not within the docking clamps even at the exact center of gravity of the thing; and within the only green diamond there is?
The map is incomprehensible: Strange, unexplained symbols, I can't tell if it's a map of planets in a system or a map of systems. I wanted to go see the Sol system but I just spent 12 hours flying clue-less.
Waiting for the energy to charge before jumping is NOT a good feature. It adds nothing to the game, just makes it more cumbersome to have to put the speed to zero then use time compression, then take out time compression and put the speed back to maximum... what for?
The game needs finer control of difficulty. Now with Pleasure Cruising difficulty, or whatever it's called, I can finally get around. Anything harder than that and I get destroyed in milliseconds. This is a complaint I have about most games nowadays: I never buy any because I know I won't be able to finish them. (I'm getting older, I guess, I finished Privateer 7 times years ago, but nowadays I can't get through the Exploratory Services missions if I try.)
The game needs more hints. I've played it on and off for a month, but not a clue yet where the story begins.
I know this is a lot of work, but I'll say it anyhow: More art is needed for buying and selling: Pictures of the items, etc., like in Privateer. Text is work, not play. That's why I don't like MOO3: might as well be working with dBase II, and get paid for it. Same goes for ship repairs and upgrades.
Great work over-all, though. Congratulations. And if you need some help with MMX/3DNow! assembly let me know.
A few bugs and comments...
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A few bugs and comments...
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