Let me just say: very nice and shiny update! This widget technology especially is probably the best implementation of displaying a growing info source ever!

I do have a question though concerning the scanner (hoping the anti-polar people wont hate me):

Would it be possible to be able to choose between having the polar layout for both time and frequency space and the classic cartesian layout?

I just really liked the polar layout and the circular scanning-frame from the last update^^

sorry i didn't say so last month

I also totally called it.

Any chance of uploading a torrent of this video so we can watch it without Youtube's compression?

By a freak mishap I didn't eat last nights dinner because I was too full from lunch.

Therefore, tradition continues. It's development update time......

ThymineC wrote:I also totally called it.

Any chance of uploading a torrent of this video so we can watch it without Youtube's compression?

I'm still game to host it.

It was amazing. So much eye candy, so much potential, so much... wow!!! I love the new scanner, I really do, but I hope the "old" one can be there as an option. The new ship and station shapes are great. Just an example of how good the procedural generacion can be. Ice is marvelous. Maybe you can tweak it a little in the future, but if this would be the final version, must of us would be happy with it. Simply superb! I can say, right now, that mining is 100% my thing. Way to go, indeed.

You know something else I really loved about this update?

Vertical. Ships.

Indeed.

The ship design, still placeholder as it may be, was remarkably better than anything we've seen before.

Shiny!

Hey, are all the drones going to be like the prospecting drone? Missile-like balls of light latching on stuff? No balls flying around shooting lasers?

Awesomeness.

You know, the ship design reminded me a tiny bit of Boba Fett's Slave II ship. I bet BFett is twitching with excitement right now.

But on a different note:

That video looked sharp, it looked very good, the mining was something that won't force you to go read a book while you mine or anything like that. While you said it will be updated more, it looked very good. Especially to someone maybe interested in pirating at some point

I only have one complaint...one regret...I woke up an HOUR LATER than I wanted. and thanks for the desktop background!

Great update and another one i loved watching.

My opinions so far though, although only my opinions and i don't mind if they are not liked etc etc

(i know all of this is in development as well and i know it's going to be improved)

1: Ice is great but personally i think should be a bit more clear/transparent. At the moment until you get close they look like bright rocks but when you are close you then see the transparancy, maybe the other way round if anything? But dont get me wrong i do love the graphics in this game.

2: Again i know it's only a 1st stage but the boost (Kers in formula 1 ) shouldnt be a battery, looks a bit odd. I guess you only put that just to show it off anyway which is fair enough.

3: I know you love nebula and i do too, in games like eve it's one thing i loved to search space for to find exotic looking images, but unfortunately eve didnt provide that for me (although many updates have come out to improve that). I also love that blackness of space, in films like aliens when the ship is traveling through space and you have that black foreboding darkness behind, it would then make finding nebula and other images more impressive, especially with the range of nebula that will be in the game. I know what you have shown in the videos is just to show us what you have done and so this is more about when the game is released as then it would give even more reason for players to explore.

4: i love the probes and its a great idea compared to how other games have done mining. I think at the moment they look a bit fast though, maybe have some slower acceleration at the start of launch and a small flare and woosh of sound to give that impressive launch feel. At the moment it feels like shooting a weapon. Only a small thing but i do like the idea.

5: I love the new update on mesh tech when i first seen the ship i thought thats an improvement but when i seen the station i was very impressed. Can't wait to see what else you do with that tech especially with the construction options you are going to impliment.

6: You said it's not fun to mine yet but to me especially early on in the game mining shouldnt be that fun and should be harder to do (although i still find it fun in a way to mine like this, it's kind of stress relief in a way) although this goes for everything in the game really. Maybe early on in the game the mining beam will work slower than it is now and with tech upgrades and research they will speed up. the main change i guess for mining later in game would be when you control other ships as they would do the mining for you? if this is what you intend? A game i liked from the past was deuteros and early on you had to manually manage resources which was a pain but still fun but then later in game you got tech to automate that process.

Can't wait for next month and yes this month did fly past for me too

Cheers,
Kraydon.

Kraydon wrote:Ice is great but personally i think should be a bit more clear/transparent. At the moment until you get close they look like bright rocks but when you are close you then see the transparancy, maybe the other way round if anything? But dont get me wrong i do love the graphics in this game.

I have to agree with Kraydon here. I'm not sure if it's realistic or not, but I would love for ice roids to be more transparent.

Kraydon wrote:Again i know it's only a 1st stage but the boost (Kers in formula 1 ) shouldnt be a battery, looks a bit odd. I guess you only put that just to show it off anyway which is fair enough.

Two for two. I don't think a battery is really a consistent fit with the general HUD style. Perhaps something stylistically simple like this instead? With your graphical magic applied to it, of course.

Kraydon wrote:i love the probes and its a great idea compared to how other games have done mining. I think at the moment they look a bit fast though, maybe have some slower acceleration at the start of launch and a small flare and woosh of sound to give that impressive launch feel. At the moment it feels like shooting a weapon. Only a small thing but i do like the idea.

I'm actually in favour of the way Josh had it implemented in the video, as I imagine probes as something that don't have their own propulsion mechanism and therefore need to be fired towards their targets.

Kraydon wrote:You said it's not fun to mine yet but to me especially early on in the game mining shouldnt be that fun and should be harder to do (although i still find it fun in a way to mine like this, it's kind of stress relief in a way) although this goes for everything in the game really. Maybe early on in the game the mining beam will work slower than it is now and with tech upgrades and research they will speed up. the main change i guess for mining later in game would be when you control other ships as they would do the mining for you? if this is what you intend? A game i liked from the past was deuteros and early on you had to manually manage resources which was a pain but still fun but then later in game you got tech to automate that process.

I would prefer that, for the final implementation, mining is a lot slower (think more like EVE Online) which allows for the possibility of implementing more exciting gameplay, as proposed in Mining Gameplay Ideas Refined. Since interesting mining mechanics have not been implemented, I find mining to be very satisfactory in this latest video.

The first video update where I felt really at home.

This looked more like Freelancer than Freelancer does. I haven't experienced this feeling in any of the other video updates Josh. They always screamed "he's working on it!" Even though I am aware that there are improvements to come I feel so much happier after watching this. Maybe I should just concentrate on the updates and ignore everything else because "show me" is so much more powerful than any words.

I am loving the update video, its truly breathtaking.

I believe that the scanner can be made (even more) interesting by having the bars also change colour in respect to the intensity of the signal, from its standard colour up to red (or orange or purple, whatever works) also, the bars could be a little thinner, which to me would be more aesthetically pleasing.

I really like the ice asteroids, I think that, as in above comments, some should be clear from a distance, however, having some as they are (or another iteration of similar) would be great for variety.

I disagree that sitting in front of a rock and using the transfer unit like this would be boring, however, maybe introduce a mechanic to 'chase the vein'. (apologies if this has been mentioned in the mining mechanics thread, but I have little to no time to read everything).

I am proud to be a backer of limit theory, and I have nothing but a deep respect for you and all that you have achieved Josh.
I really cannot wait for the march update.

Remember there is space dust and debris flying around, and from my experience of ice on Earth, when it gets dirty...you can't see anything through it really. BUT, at the size that they are...maybe a tiny bit more transparent.

EDIT - So what I am saying, is that the ice is dirty and covered in dust, so light could shine through...just not most of it.

This game is just getting better and better. I had to watch the video twice. First on my tablet, then in full HD glory on a big monitor.

The new ship and station generation looks fantastic; I can't wait to see how this develops.

I like the idea of drones being cheap to make, and firing off a whole bunch of them to doing different tasks. I imagine the drones to be like the little cubesats. Some sort of recall command for drones in range would be nice, but with some chance that drones would be lost (out of fuel, malfunction, eaten by space whale etc).

There was no mention of the tweak to the flight model, but I guess that would be hard to show.

Any chance of some nice hi-res images of the current game. My desktop background needs an update

Great work Josh