Author Topic: Game HELP  (Read 8137 times)

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Hyper

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Game HELP
« on: January 09, 2016, 10:49:15 AM »
Here is a link to extended help files for the game. As questions come up we will add more explanation to the content.

http://www.hyperkat.com/FrontierGame/mcfinfo.html

LostMartian

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Re: Game HELP
« Reply #1 on: January 09, 2016, 08:43:06 PM »
You might want to change the thread name to Game Help Guide, Frontier Help Guide, or something like that. At first glance, I thought this was recruiting players to test something.

Anyhoo. Do you need feedback on this or are you still writing it?

Also, could you fix the text shifting between green and black? It's annoying.

Hyper

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Re: Game HELP Guide
« Reply #2 on: January 09, 2016, 09:29:52 PM »
Yeah report here. Didn't know it did that with the text.

LostMartian

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Re: Game HELP
« Reply #3 on: January 10, 2016, 10:54:49 AM »
Some comments after a quick read through.

The text changing color problem is mostly resolved. Now the black text turns white when you left click and hold in a section. Much less annoying and easier to read than changing colors when having your cursor hovering over the text, or one of the colors being a bright green. The text near the top don't do this, so you might be able to compare the html code to figure out whats different. Actually, this problem seems to be affecting everything you can reach using the table of contents near the top. The exception is if you did a special color change of the text (the blue and orange text don't do this). The NPC guide near the bottom doesn't have any text left with default colors so it doesn't appear to be affected by this at all.

Some of your sections has the name of the object to the left of the image of the thing being named. I think this is quite useful as it removes a great deal of ambiguity. You know what a water pump is because the name and image is listed side-by-side. Helpful for identifying objects that don't have their names painted on them. I hope you make sure everything is named in that manner.

Not every item you can interact with is has an image in the guide. Such as the plant processing station you use after picking a plant. Not everything shown with an image has a name, such as the stuff in the kitchen.

« Last Edit: January 10, 2016, 11:06:11 AM by LostMartian »

Mars_In_Ten

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Re: Game HELP
« Reply #4 on: January 13, 2016, 08:22:03 PM »
EVA Gear: "Your EVA Gear allows you to breathe the low oxygen atmosphere on Mars".  Not really true.   Suggest "...allows you to breath in the thin, oxygen-less atmosphere of Mars"

Life Support: "When the Separator water holding tank gets above 1 gallon"  Suggest using either metric or english units throughout game and Help  -- or perhaps in some cases using numbers without units -- as you sometimes do.

Scrubber: " Mars is about 4% inert gas..."  Just for completeness, might want to add "(mostly nitrogen and argon)".  In game's Scrubber panels, you just say "nitrogen" .  Might want to add argon here too.

Start Mushrooms:   Don't think the game allows mushrooms to be used as fish food.

Extra Information (below Mushroom Bed): Bio Processor does not process Worms and Mushrooms for food.  They are used in kitchen directly to prepare food.

Geology:  Everything you wrote is accurate, but it seems complicated, and there are apparently shortcuts.  Perhaps good to let players find these for themselves (?).  For instance, the Soil Analyzer (in the white case) would seem to replace the portable LIBS tester for taking AND field testing surface soil samples.  Likewise the Soil Analyzer seems an adequate assayer of core samples to decide where/when to set Auger (unless, perhaps you need the more detailed Lab LIBS data if you want to get credit for the ore discovery itself).

Might want to make mention of the Low Density / High Density  info given when core samples taken.
will review more sections later

Mars_In_Ten

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Re: Game HELP
« Reply #5 on: January 13, 2016, 08:47:24 PM »
Fabrication:  Not sure what the "Research" Option is all about.  What does it gain you?
Equipment Service:  Between REMOVE and INSTALL paragraphs, suggest adding line: "Take broken unit to Fabrication shop for repair."

Competitive Gameplay:  After the third paragraph of the Startup section, might want to issue a disclaimer, something to the effect:  "What follows is one way to proceed.  You mght discover many other approaches."

Biology / Chemistry Module:  Might give some hint as to what Research is all about, and where the heck do you get the "Blood".  I tried pricking my finger, but the screen wouldn't accept it  : > )

LostMartian

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Re: Game HELP
« Reply #6 on: January 14, 2016, 12:10:41 AM »
Speaking of units of measurement, it should be in metric. Not even NASA uses the old English Imperial Standard. It is supposed to solve communications problems with other space agencies since only 3 countries still use Imperial Units. It makes it easier to request stuff or ask for help in crisis without having to translate between measurement systems.

1 gallon is 3.79 liters, and 1 mile is 1.6 km. What if an Imperial asked for 2 gallons of oxygen to a site that is 10 miles away? If they didn't translate between measurements before leaving, then you might get about 0.52 gallons of oxygen (2 /3.79) and they wouldn't get that far when tried to go home. The facility helping might not even have the resources to help you, and you just wasted their time and resources because wrong numbers were being used.

Mars_In_Ten

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Re: Game HELP
« Reply #7 on: January 14, 2016, 09:48:05 AM »
also on units -- and maybe I missed it someplace (seems I did see someplace, that the elevations were in meters -- and the GPR does report "No echoes within 550m") -- are the x, y, z map coordinates all in meters?  If so, a total side-to-side or top-to-bottom distance of 6 to 8 km doesn't seem like enuf for all that topology.  ya, I know, it is just a game, and I'm getting picky
Yes all in meters and the zone is 8km square
« Last Edit: January 16, 2016, 11:48:14 AM by Hyper »

Hyper

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Re: Game HELP
« Reply #8 on: January 17, 2016, 10:02:52 AM »
Files have been updated and more added. Please check and let me know....

Mars_In_Ten

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Re: Game HELP
« Reply #9 on: January 17, 2016, 11:08:26 AM »
Overall, a good improvement!  Still don't think my fish will eat mushrooms, but will offer them again.  I haven't yet tried the story mode, so answers to some of my earlier Research questions probably lie there.   Being picky, but wording on what the EVA gear does is still not quite accurate (is there any O2 at all in Mars atmosphere? -- I know a lot is tied up in mineral oxides).   cheers