my first impressions

[JKeefe]

The good:
- lack of docking clamps when not required by difficulty
- ejected pilots much weaker (I like to blow away those pesky guys if I don't have a tractor beam)
- non-rotating explosion debris
- new shield impact animation
- wireframe HUD images (toot toot)
- Talons seem easier to kill with guns, even lasers
- "scanning..." MFD message
- "transmission interupted" MFD message

The bad:
- the NAV cross on the MFD is squished vertically. It doesn't seem as if any of the other images are distorting. I can draw a new NAV cross that does not have square dimension if you want.
- When I took off from Achilles the first time, I felt all lonely because my radar showed nada. Shouldn't all of the nav points and bases show regardless of range?
- ejected pilots much weaker (could be impossible to complete a rescue mission if the pod is under attack, although that is just speculation at this point. It takes a mere 6 laser blasts to destroy a pod. )
- I flew to within 70m of an agricultural planet before a forced landing. Shouldn't that happen a little farther out?
- "request docking clearance" comm message is pointless without docking clamps
- I think the NAV cross on the HUD looks weird most of the time. If you are staring through a corona or something else that's not black, it works well, but on a dark background is seems uneccessarily large. I think it could use thicker lines.

The worse:
Asteroids. What did you guys do? Sure, they look better, but IMO they are much worse. This is the one thing that dissapointed me while flying around, as opposed to the "oh, cool" reaction I got from everything else. They move at insane speeds, were pounding me from behind and tossing me all over the place, and there was nothing I could do to get out of the way. My overall impression is that they are just as not-deadly as they were in 1.1, but the annoyance of passing through a field has at least doubled. Also, I thought asteroids were going to be destroyable.

The ugly:
I took a mission in Troy to patrol 8 nav points. Some of the points scanned just fine as I approached them. However, this occured 10,000m from the nav point, which seems way too far away. Other points wouldn't san at all, even when I flew very close to or through them. I had to abort the mission.


Combat experience:
Errgg... scanner cone limitations... you bastards (:)).

My initial combat experience did not go well. "h" did not act like I expected it to because it would only lock hostiles in the cone. So, I wound up rippling off some missiles at an undeserving merchant. Targetting wish number 1: If you press "h" and there are no hostiles in the cone, the scanner should not stay targetted on a non-hostile.

After realizing/learning I needed to turn and then target and lock, I set about doing that, only to realize I had no idea what faction I was shooting at. In a militia versus pirate battle, this is not a good thing. I suppose this puts a colored scanner much higher up on my upgrade list...

Overall, I think I like the new limited cone. Be aware however, that the majority reaction will most likely be "hey, what the hell happened to my scanner!" Removing faction ID and severely reducing the scanner's capabilities in one fell swoop has the rather strong effect of making combat seriously confusing. I will fight some more and see if/how my impressions change.

[MamiyaOtaru]

- the NAV cross on the MFD is squished vertically. It doesn't seem as if any of the other images are distorting. I can draw a new NAV cross that does not have square dimension if you want.

Do what you need to to make it look right I guess.

- When I took off from Achilles the first time, I felt all lonely because my radar showed nada. Shouldn't all of the nav points and bases show regardless of range?

Space is big We liked not having them there.. I'll be tracking the consensus on this, though you're the first to mention it.

- I flew to within 70m of an agricultural planet before a forced landing. Shouldn't that happen a little farther out?

No. It took a long while for me to be happy having automatic landing period. Nothing I hate more than being forced to land in the middle of a dogfight because I strayed too close to something. Auto landing was only put in because bouncing off the planet, exploding or flying through it all sucked or looked dumb. Once that was added, it had to be done for bases too for consistency (people couldn't figure out 'd'). Anyway, the planet's atmosphere is a nice visible boundary.. no surprises when you hit that automatic landing zone.

Asteroids. What did you guys do?

They seem by general consensus to be moving too fast. Easily fixed. And yes, they are destroyable (unless you ge the old style roids, which will happen in systems with more than 1 field, for speed reasons). Might just be a bit hard to hit if they are moving too fast.

Other points wouldn't san at all, even when I flew very close to or through them. I had to abort the mission.

can't confirm that at all, I'll certainly watch for it, and others have said similar stuff. Here, everything scans as intended. Note that the scanning animation is purely cosmetic (I personally think it just confuses things). Check your objectives screen to be sure, they should all turn green as expected when you get in range.

[JKeefe]

Here, everything scans as intended. Note that the scanning animation is purely cosmetic (I personally think it just confuses things). Check your objectives screen to be sure, they should all turn green as expected when you get in range.

I like the animation and support keeping it, but I was using my objectives screen.

I'm out of town through Monday; I'll get another report up after that.