The Update Couldn't wait!

We've been working on many major game enhancements, and have them close to rolling out...

except for a couple of "what ifs" we had them in last week!

but the "what ifs" are proving problematic, and we won't have them in for another day or so..

so. .in the meantime, we're launching the update, with minor feature enhancements AND MAJOR PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENTS!

We've cut memory usage to 1/5th, and in some cases, frame rates are 10 times what they were before.

Want even faster framerates? go to options, and put ships in icon mode only.

To get your update, just start the game on your desktop, and it will automatically start the process. .If you want to download the latest manually, or retrive your user name and password, go here
http://www.thefarreachesofspace.com/index.aspx


Oh, and for those of you still tooling around in a Deocron 50, take a good look, it got a face lift.

questions or problems? as always you can drop me a line at this email address.


Dan S
aka Sideovs

Citizens! The Triarii Gaurd does not Love you anymore! and other news (FRS update 50)

While working towards the planet Economics, The Development team here at the Far Reaches of
space decided to toss in some small improvements, and also change some major aspects of game play, and of course, some bugs. mostly in combat, docking, and repairing

THE UNIVERSE HAS CHANGED

Setting up the map of the stars and planets is tricky business. you need the right balance between commodities, and more importantly distances

When people start FRS, their ship is relatively slow. Speed comes at a price. .Our concern was that Starting players needed to be able to get around, and Advanced players needed to spread out a bit. If you've logged on in the last couple of weeks, you'll notice that some of the star clusters were a bit bigger then others, the stars, more spread out. We have modified all but the center cluster to fit this formula

MOST CLUSTERS, WITH THE EXCEPTION OF THE STARTING CLUSTER, HAVE BEEN MOVED, OR
CHANGED. YOUR SHIPS.. MAY NOT BE TRADING BETWEEN PLANETS

So.. log in, and see if your ships were effected. if the instructions window for a ship says "go to planet" without naming a planet, then. they need to be reset. You may also find your fleet way out in the middle of nowhere.. and again, you'll have to move your ships.. hey. it' s Beta!

THE VIEW ANGLE CAMERA WORKS CORRECTLY!!!!
A Big Round of applause for Jaguar! (another words, give him a break, and don't take out his frigate) Making a camera that looks at a 3rd person point of view, in the wide scope and range required for FRS, is no easy task. Jaguar got the bottom of the gimbling issues. you can now use the arrow keys to rotate in any axis, without goofy angle flips! And if your camera angle gets ugly, the END key will snap you right back.

THE MENUS ARE IN TECHNICOLOR
We've actually added a few features to the menu. If you right click on a point, and more then one ship is present under your mouse, all ships will appear in the list. More importantly, the text is color coded, just like your ship icons. Green for yours, Red for Hostile, Blue for Friendly and the ever favorite off-white for unknown

ABANDONED SHIPS: THEIR OWN ICON
Ever blow up a ship, and wonder which one of the grey icons it is? Well, they're still grey, but a different shape.

LAST AND NOT LEAST.. .THE GAURD MAY NOT SAVE YOU
Another issue that effects Game play in a big, big way. The Triarii Gaurd were introduced to protect the defenseless, to give the Noobs, a place to learn, and not get blown up every time they logon. There were a few players, that found
"guard space" had a couple of other distinct advantage. Go buy a battle ship, venture out, wreak some havoc, and then head back to the safety of the land protected by the guard.

Not anymore.

The guard Now only protects the little guy, any ship tech level 10 or above.. are on their own.ANYWHERE If you're in a ship above tech 10, and getting attacked, the guard won't do a thing to intervene. you're on your own.

Well, back to
making planets own able. Pictured here is the Xaki Dreadnaught. coming soon to a base near you

Dan S

aka Sideovs

Xakian Ship Plans Stolen

GNN News Flash!!

Xakian Ship Plans Stolen Buy Hacks!!

Xakian high command executed 6 Xervian spies today who the Xakians claimed were responsible for stealing the ship design plans for all their major vessels and placing the plans on a xtranet web site.

Xakian high command did not respond to our request for an interview.

Several major ship building companies have already announced plans to produce the ships.

Many planetary leaders are concerned that the materials need to produce these ships might cause major shortages in building supplies thoughout the Universe.

GNN will continue to keep you up to date on these issues!!!

Space Just Got a whole lot bigger

That's right. we've expanded the universe!

http://www.thefarreachesofspace.com/index.aspx

To see how, start the game on your desktop, get an update and play!

This is a feature, we've always had ready to go: the ability to add more clusters of stars on demand. What's demand? Well, the clusters we have so far, are meant to be a training ground, close enough together that beginning players can explore, get around and trade with slower ships. from here on out, the stars will be further apart, allowing players room to stake out territory, without bumping into each other.

In other news.. combat improvements.. If you look at news on the site from today, you'll see there was more then one set of battles going on. A couple, appear to be instigated, with the looser having found a bug.. It's been corrected, and when correct a few people that had ships sent to some form of aggression, well that aggression kicked in big time. .and a few more people lost ships..

We've also add a number of small improvements to the user controls, and continue to ramp up to the big ownership of planets..

Last, and not least, we've gotten the shipeditor online, and are currently working out a few hiccups.. in a short time, you'll be able to design ships (and use them after approval), and ship models.. Look for new warships, and freighters in the near future.

Pictured here, is the new Xakian Repair Station, design Courtesy of monofuel

enjoy.

Dan

aka Sideovs

beta update 30

Well, it’s been a hectic week around here, plenty of things keeping us busy, and not all of them related to Far Reaches!

However, on the enhancement and debug front we’ve been quite busy!

Thanks again for all of your input. If it wasn’t for the reports, we would not have been able to correct and improve the game.

WebSite:
The website now has a login page, allowing you to change your password, and view other basic details of your account

BUGS
Many of the items we’ve corrected in the last week have to do with docking and repairing ships: the ease of use, and glitches. We believe we’ve corrected most of them. You find one.. Let Us Know!

Improvements to Instructions.
Many new players have had issues making instructions work correctly. Who buys and sells what. We’ve added a check to instructions, showing you if the planet will buy your last load of cargo, or your load of mined commodities.

Stations, and Ship Repair:
Stations have had their cargo areas increased dramatically. They need them to spend materials, repairing and building ships. Although new ship construction was held out of this update, it’s testing out quite well, and should be in soon.

When repairing a ship at a station, the station will consume Metals and organics in the repair of the ship. You run out of either, and construction stops. You will receive a note that the station needs to be re-supplied, and you can either move a station into orbit, buy supplies or transfer supplies from another ship.

Well, back to new ship construction.. if you lost the link to the game.. go here

http://www.thefarreachesofspace.com/


Dan S
aka Sideovs