SpaceSimCentral

New update for ESF. http://enemystarfighter.com/[/url] It's been a crazy few weeks, and my task list is getting smaller and smaller.CompletedCockpit training has gone through some more iterations and is ready for Early Access.More waves have been added to the wave clear mode and it is ready for Early Access.The campaign is rolling itself out to the player in much more understandable way thanks to feedback from some old coworkers.A navigation/combat toggle has been added to the cockpit mode. This will show/hide navigation or combat telemetry and cleans up the display considerably.Some upgrades that you earn in the campaign now persist across playthroughs, and certain things unlock after you complete a playthrough.Several crashes and memory leaks have been hunted down and eliminated.Each difficulty mode is feeling more distinct. PrioritiesGetting ready for launch, the overall priorities are now:Keyboard and Mouse Controls - I need to spend some time on this due to some great feedback I've gotten.Gamepad Controls - The 360 controller has always been a priority, but it's now time to shift focus to DualShock4 controls for a few days.Campaign Tutorial - There are a few things that still need to be done to make this better, and make it work in VR.Stability & Bugs - The reason for this should be obvious!VR Support - There are a million little ways to improve this experience, and it doesn't help that the tech is still very much a work in progress. Along with some VR UI, there are some sorting bugs that are screwing up the experience.Marketing - I still have to create a new trailer. Olivier has written some killer music that is just waiting for some new footage!Balancing - After this weekend, this work will mainly be relegated to ship and weapon stats, fleet roster changes, and terrain layouts.Thanks for hanging in there!

Looks like he may have been getting some grief about the choice of controllers. (ie the gamepad) http://enemystarfighter.com/[/url] Control StandardsAs Starfighter gets closer to alpha, I've been getting some emails and tweets like, "You've been working on gamepads and mouse controls, but what about <X>?" I think I've been pretty up front about Starfighter's focus and pseudo-sim nature, but to be absolutely clear, the only officially supported control schemes will be:Keyboard and MouseXInput Gamepad (XBOX360 controller or equivalent)DualShock4 (PS4 controller)You can still rebind your controls in menus and even tweak some crazier settings by hacking the config files. You can do all sorts of things with the config files like set custom dead zones or even change the strings the tutorials/menus display for your buttons. Many other sticks and controllers will work with a little bit of effort on your part, but they are not a focus.Why?Most of the other controllers are completely non-standard in their layout and button/axis configuration. This makes it really hard to troubleshoot what's wrong, and that eats up time that I would absolutely rather spend working on gameplay. This is also a logistics issue -- I don't have another programmer to whom I can assign these tasks.Starfighter was designed around gamepad controls. Everything from how the tactical mode unit selection works, to the radial menus, to the fighter input response curves and throttle controls were designed for a gamepad. If a mechanic could not be implemented because there was no room on the controller, it was cut or refactored.I have 10+ years of console game design experience, so I leaned heavily on that. The control scheme feeds heavily off of my experience with console tactical games (Full Spectrum Warrior 2) and console action games (Halo: Reach).Everyone has a keyboard and mouse, so a good chunk of time has been spent working on that control scheme too.A lot of people have gamepads. The Oculus Rift consumer model will even be shipping with an XInput gamepad.It makes porting to consoles easier if that ever happens.Starfighter is an action game first and foremost. It might have some simulation elements, but it's never been concerned with the mechanical aspect of actually flying a starship. It's concerned with more action-game (or abstract) elements like target prioritization, twitch skill, and allied unit control. Again, your non-standard controller will likely work if you're not afraid to hack some easy-to-read config files. Most of my testers that use these sticks say that this experience comes with the territory.Hopefully this clears things up!

New blog update. http://enemystarfighter.com/[/url] PAXA lot of people were up here in Seattle for PAX. This is great because even though I didn't end up showing Starfighter at the show, I was able to run many friends from out of town through the game. Many of them haven't played it yet, so it was great having fresh eyes on it.Feedback was positive, especially for the cockpit combat, but there was some consistent feedback about the campaign mode framework that I'd like to address. These fixes don't involve adding major new features, just rearranging some mechanics that are already present and streamlining other aspects of the mode.I'll talk more about this when the changes are ready.So (surprise!) I'll be taking a little more time and fixing these issues, but that will just make for a shorter and better alpha/beta experience for everyone. It'll be ready when it's ready, but no one wants this out more than me.Why not just open the game up into Early Access and get feedback that way? You basically get one shot at launch, Early Access or not, so it had better be good. Wave Clear is there and fun, but it's not enough to launch and then hold back the other mode.Another aspect is the scope of feedback you receive from a large pool of participants. Detail-oriented feedback on balance, UI, and whatnot is great from a large group of people because it gives you a really good sample to pull from. But I don't believe a large group is ideal for offering feedback about the issues above, especially when under the unique constraints present with ES. I'm much more comfortable looking to other devs for feedback on these things. If it were a pure PvP game, or sandbox-MP game (Rust, DayZ, etc), that would be a different story!Until next time!

New blog from E:S. http://enemystarfighter.com/blog/[/url] If you celebrate Thanksgiving, I hope you had a good one! I spent the long weekend taking a much needed break from the game, but I'm excited to get back to it tomorrow.ProgressLong story short, I'm still simplifying the game. ES is working with an extremely limited set of resources (me) on some very hard game design/UI/code problems. Now combine that with VR support and it's quite a bit of work.Early in September, the game was the equivalent of a film studio getting a 4 hour first edit of a film. There were a lot of good ideas mixed in with a lot bad ones, and mostly it wasn't cohesive and it lost a lot of my playtesters. So I'm trying to edit that meandering 4 hour cut into 80 minutes of focused awesome which is really tricky.You've all heard of the time/money/quality triangle? That absolutely applies here. I'm not sure when it will be ready, other than ASAP.Good NewsIn the meantime, here's some good news:Better joystick support. There's no need to worry about config files anymore, and I've gotten my hands on an X-52 to test. I personally don't like playing the game like this, and the it still feels like it's made for gamepads (because it was). But if you want to play with one of these beasts, you should be able to bind things easily enough in game.Instant Action is online again, letting you set up small skirmishes to your liking.Olivier has been tweaking the soundtrack and it's somehow getting even better.Until next time! Looks like he has changed his mind about the joystick.One thing I have noticed in the screen shots of the game is that "wave 2 round 3" in the top right hand corner and I'm starting to wonder if the finish game will be more of a on rails shoot em up.

One thing I have noticed in the screen shots of the game is that "wave 2 round 3" in the top right hand corner and I'm starting to wonder if the finish game will be more of a on rails shoot em up.Could be the "instant action" thing mentioned in the post. I don't see anything alarming to be paranoid about.

Could be but he not said much about the tactical part of the game.

A very small update from the bog http://enemystarfighter.com/blog/[/url] and a couple of new screen shots to ogle.

Is now officially named House of the Dying Sunhttp://houseofthedyingsun.com/blog/2016/5/25/house-of-the-dying-sun[/url]

Hitting Steams EA next month http://store.steampowered.com/app/283160/[/url]

It's out yesterday, anyone can provide first impression? From what I heard it's somewhat far too short (shallow?) but it's what to expect from an initially released early access product.

I won't be able to get until the weekend but slap head done a video on it.  Not watched it yet so I don't know what his conclusion is.

Got it the weekend but had no time to play it apart from a quick play through the tutorial and first mission. Just a few things I noticed about it, plays better with the joypad than keyboard/mouse, mission based, good sound effects, basic ship controls, no third person view and seems to have abandoned all the tactical elements.

But the game isn't done yet right, still in Beta? do you have hopes that the devs will fix some of your observations (ie: ship controls (key/mouse), 3rd person view, tactical gameplay) Pinback?

It's on Steams early access and it has had a couple of updates since I bought it but I have not been keeping up with what they are doing.

Look like a major update to the game http://steamcommunity.com/games/283160/announcements/detail/818913195667759421[/url] Hi!There are some big under-the-hood changes here along with some bug fixes and balance tweaks. These have been tested for a short while in the beta branch and all seems well, so they are going live:ENGINE UPGRADE -- This should solve the black screen soft crash that some people were seeing, especially on 970+ cards with 3gb of VRAM. The previous workaround was to use the DX9 launch option, but that should no longer be necessary. Please let us know if it helped!DRONE: Imperial drones cannot heal each otherWEAPONS: +RANGE for allied destroyer artilleryWEAPONS: +HULL DAMAGE for allied destroyer artilleryWEAPONS: -SHIELD DAMAGE for allied destroyer artilleryUNITS: -HULL for allied destroyerCHALLENGE MODE: Drones reinforce fasterLEADERBOARDS: Handled case where Steam is downCONTROLS: Only mouse movement will switch to KBAM mode, letting you use the keyboard & simple joystick in tandemAUDIO: Normalized all radio chatter, tweaked starting volumes in the options menuWEAPONS: Slowed down enemy supercapital artilleryImperial Destroy BalancingThe destroyers always had a muddy role in the combat encounters, so we're trying to fix that.Destroyers now act like your own set of archers instead of tanky brawlers. They can engage at +100% of the range, making them short-range snipers, but they do more damage to hull and less to shields. This makes it important for you in your fighters to move ahead and drop shielding on their targets, and also to protect them. Their increased range buys you more time.They start off somewhat inaccurate at low rank, but at max rank they should be excellent shots.Next UpdateThe next major update will be 1.0, and we're shooting for sometime near the middle of September. There will be some small extras in this update that we'll talk about as we get closer to the date.If fires pop up in the meantime, especially due to some unforeseen engine upgrade complication, they will be addressed.Thanks for your support!

That sounds like a hefty update to a game, will be interested to see what the 1.0 release brings.Hey Pinback, what you think of this guys thoughts on the game? He said you can beat this in like 3hrs ....omg that sucks if its true.

I seen this mentioned but I not been playing the game but will take a crack over the next few days and see what happens.

Out now on Steam:http://store.steampowered.com/app/283160/[/url]