Starflight Forums

In beta 4 flux nodes were hidden, randomized with every new save game, and far too few in number. Currently in beta 5 all flux entrances are visible on the star map the very first time your ship enters hyperspace (as small circles) but their destinations are not visible until you travel through them. When you travel through them, the pathways will be temporarily visible but then disappear again when you quit and load the game later. Saving and loading the list of visited fluxes into the save game file (to keep their pathways visible) is not something I want to try to fix at the moment.

I also modified all of the fluxes so that they are in fixed positions and no longer randomized. If someone wants to travel through all of them and screen capture the starmap, that map will be useful to anyone playing the game because everyone will see them at the same locations.

After playing beta 5 for a while, please make a recommendation.

Thanks to DBG719 for mapping them:

Regarding Fluxi:

In the original game, the fluxi, when discovered, were constant, and reliable to get from point A to point B.

That does not mean they need to be constant OR reliable in a sequel.

My reasoning follows:

Flux travel has always been a 'risk"; be it having a lower-skilled Navigator, or popping out in the middle of a locked and loaded hostile battle fleet.
Risk vs need to get someplace fast; one must weight the alternatives.

Currently, the fluxi were randomized with the release that I am moving forward with. The "luxury" of constant and reliable flux travel from one side of the galaxy to the other has merit. On the other hand, the risks involved (will I run out of fuel/Will I run into a huge battle fleet/will I end up going the other way/etc has merit also. There is always risk involved when exploring uncharted territory/landing on a heavy gravity planet/etc.

I like random fluxes, I like the "go where no-one has gone before" swashbuckling type of diving in; risks be dammed.

I also like the ability to rely on fluxes to get me back and forth.

I can't have static AND random fluxes without me writing a couple tons of code, for a very small gain. Hmmm.

The question is: What is the best solution? Random or static?
Will randomized fluxi 'turn off" the veteran SF players (not at all like the old game")?
Would constant fluxi turn off the veteran players (too much like the old game; give us something new, but stay within the box of the old game, etc)

Bottom line: Which will make the game better?

I'd like to see some more discussion on this; looks like it could be a very hot topic.

If I could carve out the time to mark the fluxes, how would I screen capture only the starmap and not the ship's instrumentation panel?

OK....I prefer a static flux when I can only go one way. If I had the ability to "go where no one has gone before" and I am transported in the wrong direction halfway across the galaxy, then I would like to get right back into the flux and return to the my starting point. If I cannot do that, then I like static where I know in advance where the flux will take me.

The original design called for random fluxes each time you play the game to make it more interesting, but we ran into a problem with generating the random numbers across different platforms (Linux, Mac), which in retrospect should have just been ignored since no one plays the game on those systems. I've only known of 1 person each which isn't worth the trouble. But anyway, we could have just stored them in the character save game file. That's why the flux system has been kind of weird.

To 'make the game more interesting', the ticket would have been a 'two level' flux system.

Level one would be static, as in the past games, and the level 2 fluxi would be randomized. Best of both worlds. Level one/static fluxes drawn as one colour, whilst level two could be shown in a different colour. Level two flux verbiage, regarding the need for a highly skilled navigator could be implemented, a lower-skill level could result in not knowing the ship's position when exiting, possible increased damage, higher fuel consumption, you-name-it, etc; the 'risks'.

Take this to a higher level...A 'level 3' flux where an ancient artifact was found, studied, understood and installed. This device could permit a max skill level navigator and his max skill engineer counterpart to 'dial in' a set of coords, enter the flux, and end up within 20-30 X/Y of the desired destination. Extreme fuel consumption/loss of skill level, etc, would be the risk/preventative measure to use such a device repeatedly, etc etc...

I think that adding some fluxes that are unidirectional and/or randomized ( changing location within a game instead of just at the start would be even neater ) adds some nice spice, but I still feel that the majority of them should be bidirectional and static.

Rather than have them visibly appear different, maybe instead they should look the same, but give them a stability factor that your science officer can estimate ( more accurate with skill ). The less stable the flux, the more likely ( affected by navigator skill ) you take damage or come out of the wormhole in the wrong place, and the more frequently the flux will relocate. Each end of the flux could even have different values, so you could have a stable side that doesn't move, and an unstable side that jumps around.

Developers are in high demand in this world. There our currently no professional developers actually working on this game, only one amateur putting in an hour or two occasionally in his spare time. I have some basic academic experience with quick hacks and fixes to the game code, such as what I described above:

- Modifying the number of fluxes in a galaxy
- breaking the randomization code so they are always generated with the same speed
- modifying the entrances so they are visible or not

Some developer may step up and do this, but what I cannot do is:

- create functional artifacts that provide extra features to the game
- create jump pods from Starflight II
- create fluxes that change destination within the game
- create multiple different types of fluxes
- create additional graphics for the game

...etc...

My time and effort is currently focused upon the area that I am experienced in, which is the Lua code that handles alien interactions / missions / ruins / etc.

This game is open source and people with additional skills have and may decide again to contribute at any time. I personally really like the ideas stated above as well and know that they would make the game more enjoyable if they were implemented. I just would rather place things in a more realistic perspective - so don't expect any drastic changes on a timetable.

- Steve