Warships can turn off their transponder for sure. The player's frigate has 3 modes:
- Off,
- Alliance Identification System = with military encryption but accepted only in Alliance space,
- Galactic Navigation Organization = the standard valid everywhere,
plus a "Fire Solution Denial System" sub-mode that adds noise to the broadcasted vectors to "be polite but not stupid" during diplomatic missions for instance 🙂
I would expect actual navies to have a whole range of "non verbal messages" to communicate their state of mind to one another. So for instance in the game beam-forming one's beacon to send it with a lot of directed power could be quite meaningful, an IFF ping would be the next level of warning, and "taking a friendly range measurement with the main laser" the last step on that scale... So I don't know if that will materialize into actual gameplay but I'd really like to make use of this if I can. I think that could be much more fun than only have the option to poke holes through the target!

About traveling times, without the jump capability the ships in the game are just very efficient rockets, so maybe one order of magnitude faster than what we have IRL. That would still keep interplanetary trips in the multiple months / years range, and other stellar systems definitely out of reach (hundreds of thousands of years away).

And yes my mental health may have taken a few dents on that one, I even started to learn Korean! 🙃 안녕하세요 !

Hello captain @cody!

Posted by: @d-c-elington

plus a "Fire Solution Denial System" sub-mode that adds noise to the broadcasted vectors to "be polite but not stupid" during diplomatic missions for instance

Like it!

Good to see you back DC, look forward to seeing some more updates about the game.

Eagerly looking forward to hearing more about this simulator, and then sink all my free time in it when it's available. I'm a Linux player so whenever a first build is available to the public, I'll also immediately test it under Wine/Proton.

Hello SSC,

Here's the latest update about the NPCs. Nothing really new except that after a loooong fight with galactic bugs they are now really operational. That is as previously discussed they are fully persistent and continue with their operations even when outside of the player's range.

The next planned round of features is the completion of the ship's civilian systems before starting to implement the gamification layer (missions and career).

Heading back to the docks! 👨‍🔧🙂

Nice one DC. 😎 

As a suggestion would it not be better to have the arriving and departing triangle  a different colour or shape, so the player could tell at a glance what the ships were doing.

<looks up> Hey DC - cool!

Posted by: @pinback

Nice one DC. 😎 

As a suggestion would it not be better to have the arriving and departing triangle  a different colour or shape, so the player could tell at a glance what the ships were doing.

Hi Pinback 🙂 These symbols are temporary and correspond to a dev mode cheat with no fog of war actually. Eventually these should be replaced by tactical markers only relaying the effectively available information (either from the ship's sensors or from external data feeds).
Also interpreting the current activity & threat level of the different contacts will certainly be left to the player: in fact I'm expecting that this identification and classification work should be a very important part of the gameplay!

(... and the starting location will have to be less busy to avoid overloading new players!!)

Hello captain @Cody! 👋:)

Hello SSC,

Sorry for the radio silence between these dev reports, the days are a little too short! 😬
This one is quite nerdy about the ship's systems again, and that were just fitted with diagnostic tools, alarms and protections. That should hopefully greatly reduce the number of blown-up reactors up there 😄

The next task will consist in implementing the repairs at stations, and then I'll move to the front section and work on the life support systems primarily.

Generally speaking maintenance is expected to play a rather important role in the gameplay. The components wear out depending on their usage, and the less repair downtime and cost the better. And of course in-flight failures should spice things up from time to time, knowing that the ship's redundancy should be able to keep it operational without too much loss of performance (if managed correctly).

Fly safe!

Excellent update DC.

Will their will be some automation of the maintenance systems as in the setting of the option menu, otherwise you could end up overloading new player to the game.

Hi @pinback 🙂
Yes the system will create bills of maintenance "in one click", to be transmitted to stations. The intent is that this should be more about strategic decisions, for instance deciding whether to go for one more mission or not (less downtime but higher probability of failure), or planning trips so as to stay in range of a high-tech shipyard... that kind of things.
Also since the ship will be brand new at the beginning of a game, that should leave time for cadets to learn the ropes before facing maintenance issues... or deciding to go play something else! 😂

Posted by: @d-c-elington

Yes the system will create bills of maintenance "in one click", to be transmitted to stations.

Hey DC - cool!

Hello Captain @cody! 👋🙂

Question: the inhabitants of the Quadrans pocket-galaxy - are they humanoid? Or perhaps octopoidal? What's the Lore?

Ah I think that for the sake of simplicity we'll go with strikingly human-like beings, as in "a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away"!
If only because I have to be realistic about my skills as a writer... not mentioning my English that gets more and more limited as I venture away from basic technical stuff 🐸😉 

Hello, this looking more a more like a really interesting game. But I have have a short question. Will this game be open for modification or plugins? I'm asking because I have some extensive experience with creating hard sci fi modding for KSP called KSPIE and would like to put my teeth into this game as well.

Posted by: @d-c-elington

I think that for the sake of simplicity we'll go with strikingly human-like beings

That is probably wise - lore can become complicated.

@freethinker Oh sorry I missed your post!
About modding the honest answer is that I'll look into this and other additional features after the initial release. For the anecdote I was just answering a comment on YouTube telling me I should publish the contraption "as is" in case I should unexpectedly die 🤨🙂 But as a matter of fact I'm trying to keep the scope in firm check and get the game out ASAP even if there's still quite some work in the todo list.

Hello SSC,

Here's the quarterly dev report. That one is about maintenance as parts can now be serviced and replaced. Keeping the ship in good shape and at reasonable cost should hopefully provide some persistent gameplay objectives, and to be factored in during missions. That could mean choosing specific routes to be able to stop at high-tech shipyards, or be prepared to deal with some failing parts if overextending the flight times etc...
Here's the vid:

Following this the next item in the todo list is the front section and life support. However I don't want to gratuitously add complex systems with no attached "gameplay sliders" to fiddle with. So that will certainly include some abstract model for the crew.

Safe stars!

Awesome stuff, DC!

@cody Thank you Sir!

The sexiness of your user interface never ceases to impress me.

 Great work as always DC 😎 

You mentioned in the video that a high tec component can be manufactured at a low tec station but will not work properly, will the crew on the ship be able to do the same thing or jury rig parts together in case the ship is long way out from any stations.    

Hello @pinback 🙂

Yes I think that the mechanism can be applied to a repair drone that would have a limited "tech-level" and "maintenance output". And so jury rigging in deep-space would take time but that's generally not a problem in the game with the long coasting legs. Also simple parts such as valves would be properly repaired. With high tech equipment the implemented mechanism supposes that the technical characteristics are restored (part working fully again) but that the life expectancy is severely reduced in the process, making the repairs in effect only temporary (the amount of degradation depends on the initial damage and tech-level differential). Such a drone would also carry a limited amount of repair material, so with a maximum number of "servicing hours" in reserve.

Beyond the new set of buttons to press in the right order 🙂 the expectation is that this maintenance system will provide some proper gameplay actually: taking a longer route to stop at a proper shipyard, choosing to delay some repairs to go for a time critical mission at the risk of in flight failures etc. In the same vein that jury-rigging option would cost one heavy-duty drone slot to begin with (out of 3), and as described would essentially destroy shiny parts just to make them last a few hours!

Hello SSC,

Sorry for the long radio silence, I've been working on the ship's front section and life support systems, and I had not anticipated this would be so complicated. Also as the dev goes each new part model needs to interface with more and more systems (controllers, diagnostic, maintenance...) and that does not help. So the work is still in progress but here's the dev log vid:

Regarding gameplay the feature adds another set of systems to properly configure and maintain. However that still felt a bit gratuitous compared to the main engine which shares the same level of detail... but produces the ship's motion. So more info when that's implemented but the idea is that properly managing the crew and the life support systems will maximize the career progression rewards, and also provide some kind of training points to unlock specific missions or equipment, and also to use in non-technical interactions (typically with NPCs).

Fly safe 🙂