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To all SSC Station occupants

Thank you for the donations over the past year (2024), it is much appreciated. I am still trying to figure out how to migrate the forums to another community software (probably phpbb) but in the meantime I have updated the forum software to the latest version. SSC has been around a while so their is some very long time members here still using the site, thanks for making SSC home and sorry I haven't been as vocal as I should be in the forums I will try to improve my posting frequency.

Thank you again to all of the members that do take the time to donate a little, it helps keep this station functioning on the outer reaches of space.

-D1-

Ad Astra

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DarkOne
(@sscadmin)
Illustrious Member Admin

Thanks for the great update on Ad Astra munitio.

I have yet had the time to sit down with the previous 1.3 but hope to soon and noticed some possible fixes with Win7 x64 and that is welcomed because that is what I run right now.

ReplyQuote
Posted : June 14, 2010 10:54
(@potsmoke66)
Noble Member

looks impressive yes, even if i found certain things annoying, like relations between distance and speed in space, inconsistence of the size of the mountains compared to planets size and city buildings, but in all the graphics are "zucker" (sweet). work of retro steering thrusters (or acceleration dampers) compared to main thrusters much to effective (ok, i'm a frontierhead excuse me), if the're so strong, having this much effect i would use them to accelerate instead of main πŸ˜‰

but man, that gives me a real kick, i guess i have a lot of work with my pioneer models up 😯

ok, soon texture implementation (allready), will change a lot and "competition is good for the business" i stated once myself πŸ˜†

ReplyQuote
Posted : June 14, 2010 12:30
(@munitio)
Active Member
Darkone wrote:
Thanks for the great update on Ad Astra munitio.

I have yet had the time to sit down with the previous 1.3 but hope to soon and noticed some possible fixes with Win7 x64 and that is welcomed because that is what I run right now.

I run Win7 x64 too, unfortunately this new release do not work as expected on my pc.

It crash after few seconds in the loading screen. But you can force this to work with the D3DWindower application.

Just google to get information.

Steve is working hard to find the error, so hopefully soon everything will work fine.

ReplyQuote
Posted : June 15, 2010 10:12
(@potsmoke66)
Noble Member

kannst du Koreanisch? ich nicht!

do speak korean? i don't do so!

redsch du koreanisch? ich nÃÆҀ™ΓƒΖ’Γ’β‚¬Ε‘Γƒβ€šΓ‚ΒΆd!

πŸ˜† πŸ˜† πŸ˜† πŸ˜† πŸ˜† πŸ˜† πŸ˜† πŸ˜† πŸ˜† πŸ˜† πŸ˜† πŸ˜† πŸ˜† πŸ˜† πŸ˜† πŸ˜† πŸ˜†

i don't know but some people should start to write their progs in english, i mean would you or them understand a single word in swiss german?

and a latin lettered language ok, that might work (french, italian or such) but chinese korean kyrillian letters no way! imho

oh i forgot, most people on earth speak chinese, in china for shure!

at this point i have to declare, and you can hang me up for it, there is no lettering in the whole world like latin.

clear constructed, each letter in original latin alphabet is unique and easy to separate from the others, it is planned that good that you can have a very bad written, eroded, halfaways hidden phrase it's still readable, no other lettering can offer that!

it's because it's a constructed lettering by certain rules they made, very clever those greeks back then.

they had the knowledge about the capeability of our brain that it can complete lines that have been started in a certain direction.

as a example, look at my avatar close, even closer, more close.... ahh you see there is something written,

you can read it if you really take a close look. and you can read the words only in one way, there is no doubt.

you can't do such things with languages whom letters are made from symbols, alter one dot in arabic on a word it could mean something complete different, the same goes to many languages.

let's make a experiment to prove it.

write down any phrase or sentence you got in mind, leave all out all vowels, then send that to me.

ReplyQuote
Posted : June 15, 2010 16:34
(@potsmoke66)
Noble Member

ok i tell you what is written their so you don't have to strain your eyes to much.

"ALLWAYS BE KIND TO YOUR NEIGHBOUR"

it's somewhat inversed and you have to "read" the bright orange.

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Posted : June 15, 2010 17:56
DarkOne
(@sscadmin)
Illustrious Member Admin

VERSION 1.3c : Released 28th June 2010

ENHANCEMENTS

Updated German translation courtesy of Mathias Merboth

Update to DirectX9 Version which should now fix the outstanding Windows7 64bit incompatibility issues that some users have been experiencing. I would like to thank Mathias Merboth and Wallace McGee for helping me test this version of the game.

BUG FIXES

Fixed disabled Joystick which was a bug introduced in Version 1.3b.

Fixed Salvage release for 3rd party spacecraft.

SAVE GAMES

Partially compatible with previous revisions - the 'Jump' button should be used instead of the 'Load' option.

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Posted : July 29, 2010 19:08
(@madtoaster55)
Eminent Member

I know that I may be "necroposting", but if you have had some troubles with ships distorting after transit to a new star system this may fix it, it did for me.

ReplyQuote
Posted : October 19, 2010 05:56
 Vorg
(@vorg)
Active Member

Have a problem with the cops. They don't know when to back off. I pick a pirate and go after it. They always make a run at a station before you get there and then while on the way as you get close cops go flying past you to get there first. And they shoot at anything in the area including me. They shot me trying to shoot the pirate. When I did manage to disable a ship, the cops kept shooting and blew it up before I could get the tractor on it. Twice they blew it up while I was towing. On the second time I had moved out to a more lawless area and I managed to get there before the cops. Got it disabled and under tow, they started shooting as I warped off. Again they chased the ship all the way to the station and blew it up before I could dock damaging my ship also. I even got one under tow and jumped to another system before the cops got there and while in dock mode, cops showed up and started shooting the ship I was towing. Wasn't much left by the time I docked.

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Posted : December 15, 2010 21:38
(@s2odan)
Noble Member
Quote:
The thing I much dislike but suppose is design philosophy is the lack of newtonian physics.

Same here. I tried this game but just gave up on it due to a lack of interest. Space games without a newtonian feel just don't sit right with me.

I seem to remember having the same problem with the cops shooting/stealing my kills which was bloody annoying and that was probably a year or two ago.

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Posted : January 13, 2011 12:16
(@pinback)
99 Star General

Been a while since AD Astra had an update is still being worked on or is it complete now.

ReplyQuote
Posted : April 19, 2011 08:55
DarkOne
(@sscadmin)
Illustrious Member Admin

Not sure how up-to-date this is: http://www.a-astra.com/development/futu ... opment.htm

But if the release trend is on track we should expect a release shortly because it looks like one comes out about once per year.

ReplyQuote
Posted : April 19, 2011 18:41
(@Anonymous)
New Member

I know I played around with it one night, that the flight is very difficult, but I think I set my control what's wrong. So many games so little time:) I do my best to try all ...

ReplyQuote
Posted : June 28, 2011 21:11
(@arrakkh)
Trusted Member

I'm playing Ad-Astra every day. It's amazing

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Posted : December 2, 2012 08:27
(@pinback)
99 Star General

I see on the site they say they have solved the problem of it not working under Windows 7 64 bit.

ReplyQuote
Posted : December 2, 2012 10:14
(@mv2000)
Estimable Member

Looks good but I'm not big fan of those dragon/lizard-like ship designs.

 

Seems out of place IMHO.

ReplyQuote
Posted : December 3, 2012 03:20
(@pinback)
99 Star General

Same here they do look a bit out of place.

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Posted : December 3, 2012 08:50
(@xenons)
Reputable Member

I like this game. Using F6 to fine-tune the acceleration of some ships or you go crazy when accelerating and afterburner is useless.

 

Is there any way to start with a specific ship, I mean without hacking the savegame πŸ™‚  ?

With your little ship at the start you're no match againt any attack.

 

 

You can start with any ship:

 

- You go in the folder ship_temps and you make a backup outside this directory of the sdsh_taipan.temp and the file sdsh_xxxxxx.temp, which is the name of the ship you want to start.

- You delete sdsh_taipan.temp and rename sdsh_xxxxxx.temp to sdsh_taipan.temp

- Start a new game, save with F12, quit

- Re-copy the backups in the folder and overwrite

- Reload your savegame

 

Once you have a savegame, you can with "Assets" in the Load Game menu transfer your cash in any new game you start. So you can buy the ship you want.

 

XenonS

ReplyQuote
Posted : December 26, 2012 08:45
(@link30224)
Active Member

Is it possible to get ahold of Steve Chapman nowadays? I emailed the email addresses from the website as well as an email Alexey gave me.I really want to talk to him.

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Posted : May 12, 2018 07:30
(@xenons)
Reputable Member

It's been a long time, more than 8 years, and I haven't posted here since, but I still play Ad-Astra, one of my favorite free space games. The UI is something to get used to, and once you have made the right 'Input' and 'Preferences' settings you can quickly get into this game. I'd like to give more insight and gameplay tips other than what has been discussed above.

1) Gamedev.net is gone, but you can still have info about the game and download it here (as for November 2020):

https://www.a-astra.com/

Download link:

https://www.heise.de/download/product/ad-astra-70091

Β 

Unfortunately the Gamedev.net webpage doesn't exist anymore, but it's in the Internet Archive; for Ad-Astra here is the link to follow the comments for this game (up to 2010):

http://archive.gamedev.net/archive/community/gds/viewentry3476.html?projectid=379449

Β 

2) Starting Ad Astra in Windows 10

It's best to start the game with AdAstraDX9.exe (version 1.3c) instead of the provided AdAstra.exe, the CPU and GPU load will be lower.

If you have a 16:9 resolution monitor, if you set the video resolution to 1920x1080 you will see small UI fonts. To make them bigger set to a resolution of 1600x1900x32 for best viewing, the video quality of the game will not suffer much anyway.

3) Game Input options:

It's best to put the control method to 'Mouse Scrolling' , this will be the easiest way to control your ship. Also tick the 'Invert Pitch' and 'Invert Yaw' on the right side.

4) Preference Menu

The game is focused on combat and has a high difficulty overall, especially if you start with a small ship. You can set the pirates and aliens to be passive in the Preference menu which will avoid you to be attacked unless you attack them first. Later, when you are more accustumed to the game you can deactivate it again and it will take effect when you change star system.

5) Additional playing tips

The in-game manual provided in the main game folder is very helpful and contains some basic playing tips. Here some additional ones:

a) At game start you have a 'paper' plane, so be careful...

You must soonest get a good ship that can take a lot of damage like a Phantasm. Other small fighter ships are fast but they are made of paper in regard to what damage you can take, you won't live long enough with them. At game start don't overestimate your fighting power, dock often to evade enemies, get the advanced short-range scanner immediately together with the debris analyzer and replace your plasma cannon with a debris collector, then concentrate on debris scavenging which will earn you a lot of money at game start. You get even more money if you succeed in salvaging a ship that has the same small size than your Taipan starter ship, but you need to be lucky to find one. Fire-up your Long Range Scanner and look for "Wreckage" ships, those are floating in space ready to be salvaged, but be sure that ship is not much larger than your Taipan otherwise you can't salvage it.

b) Once you have a decent unit (money) count:

If your ship is too small to salvage a wrecked ship floating in space, then simply buy a bigger ship for the salvage purpose, once done re-buy your previous ship which will be in the Shipyard.

Don't rely too much on your canons when fighting other ships, your missiles are your best friends. Also be aware that 1 enemy missile can end the game for you...Never forget to launch anti-missiles once you get the warning signal, you can change the range of your advanced radar so you can clearly see incomming missiles. Get a ship with 2 or more separate missile launchers as soon as you can.

Have fun!

XS

Β 

This post was modified 4 years ago by XenonS
ReplyQuote
Posted : November 7, 2020 12:08
(@pinback)
99 Star General

Nice one XenonS, good to see that the game still working on modern systems.

ReplyQuote
Posted : November 8, 2020 04:03
DarkOne
(@sscadmin)
Illustrious Member Admin

Agreed πŸ™‚

And also I have had Ad-Astra in the download area for years now too so it isn't lost to the world.

ReplyQuote
Posted : November 16, 2020 10:18
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