My first impressions

[kokubokan25]

Hello, i spent 2 hours playing and those are my questions/coments/points/etc

Good points
-Easy learning interface.
-Very close polish of the mithic BARIS

However...

Bad points

-The animations are...mmm, maybe a little limited. IMHO.I understand is not possible full 3D but..
-It's necessary in extended missions reassingned again and again the same control team every season?
-The absence of the museum or historic register, IMHO, make very difficult start a decent AAR.In my last career in sandbox launch two Explorer I missions and both are the same name: "Explorer I". Is not possible the engine assign new numbers to missions; Explorer I, Explorer II, Explorer III, etc..???
-When fail a step in a early stage of a mission, only get a "failure" message, but no the reason of the failure, some like "overheating in boosters" or "mechanical problem" etc...

Wish points

I would prefer R&d of rockets enterily independent of the probes/capsules/spaceships.

Two plays and go fired to spent the entire budget!! ...

I had no doubt the SPM will be a great game when finish the testing stage.[:)]

[Nacho84]

Hello fremen,

Thanks for the feedback.

ORIGINAL: fremen
-Easy learning interface.

Well, that's a relief [:)]! Since SPM departs from BARIS by introducing this idea of program categories, programs and mission configurations, I was a little bit concerned that new players would experience some difficulty wrapping their heads around it. It's good to hear that you find the UI easy to learn.

ORIGINAL: fremen
-Very close polish of the mithic BARIS

Thanks.

ORIGINAL: fremen
-The animations are...mmm, maybe a little limited. IMHO.I understand is not possible full 3D but..

Can you expand on this a little bit more? Is it the image quality? Is it the amount of clips? The audio? Let me know, so that I can pass the comments along to the rest of the team.

ORIGINAL: fremen
-It's necessary in extended missions reassingned again and again the same control team every season?

No, you're right. I'll change the code so that you maintain the flight controllers from the previous season while also giving you the option to make changes before resuming a season. I'll add that to the list of tasks.

ORIGINAL: fremen
-The absence of the museum or historic register, IMHO, make very difficult start a decent AAR.In my last career in sandbox launch two Explorer I missions and both are the same name: "Explorer I". Is not possible the engine assign new numbers to missions; Explorer I, Explorer II, Explorer III, etc..???

No problem, I'll add that to the list.

ORIGINAL: fremen
-When fail a step in a early stage of a mission, only get a "failure" message, but no the reason of the failure, some like "overheating in boosters" or "mechanical problem" etc...

The scripts already have tons of failures, but I had to remove all that before the EAP and replace it with a generic "failure" message as I didn't have time to check their correctness. It's low in the priority list, but at some point I'll put them back.

ORIGINAL: fremen
I would prefer R&d of rockets enterily independent of the probes/capsules/spaceships.

You lost me on this one. At the moment, if you open a program that features a rocket you already own (because you inherited it from another program), its reliability stays the same irrespective of the payload. What am I missing?

ORIGINAL: fremen
I had no doubt the SPM will be a great game when finish the testing stage.[:)]

Thanks. We'll be pushing updates very often, so stay tuned!

Cheers,

[histgamer]

Is there no way for more combinations of rockets? I'm researching the Saturn I for example for a space satellite and while also simultaneously researching Mercury I wondered why it wouldn't be possible for the Mercury capsule to be launched by any man rated rocket from later programs? One thing I found interesting about BARIS was the ability to basically use any rocket you wanted so long as it had the ability to launch the required weight. Maybe I'm missing this but it seems the missions rockets are somewhat hard coded in that you can't mix and match.

Just my two cents.

Otherwise I really enjoy the game so far, I would like more detail on the failure reasons though as previously mentioned and if possible some additional art demonstrating why the mission failed as well. That might not be possible at this late stage but it would add some variety to the animations and also I think increase your involvement and attachment to you're program. That's one thing BARIS did really well was having a clip of what went wrong. Some sort of failure animation would be nice.

Those are really my only criticisms so far, otherwise I love it.

[Nacho84]

ORIGINAL: flanyboy

Is there no way for more combinations of rockets? I'm researching the Saturn I for example for a space satellite and while also simultaneously researching Mercury I wondered why it wouldn't be possible for the Mercury capsule to be launched by any man rated rocket from later programs? One thing I found interesting about BARIS was the ability to basically use any rocket you wanted so long as it had the ability to launch the required weight. Maybe I'm missing this but it seems the missions rockets are somewhat hard coded in that you can't mix and match.

At the moment yes, it's like you say, a certain program kind of "forces" you to use a group of mission components, there's no mix and match. We can work around it though by adding more programs with more combinations of rockets. So, for example, instead of having a single program under the "One crew ballistic capsules" category, we can add more programs that use the same capsule but different rockets. The only problem would be the animations. Let me give it some more thought...

ORIGINAL: flanyboy
Otherwise I really enjoy the game so far, I would like more detail on the failure reasons though as previously mentioned and if possible some additional art demonstrating why the mission failed as well. That might not be possible at this late stage but it would add some variety to the animations and also I think increase your involvement and attachment to you're program. That's one thing BARIS did really well was having a clip of what went wrong. Some sort of failure animation would be nice.

Yes, I'm working on an animation for mission failures. Our 2D artist sent me a test the other day featuring a special effect that looks very neat. I'll try to integrate that into the game as soon as I can.

ORIGINAL: flanyboy
Those are really my only criticisms so far, otherwise I love it.

Thanks!

[kokubokan25]

A little more observations before go to bed...[:D]

-In this moment is very hard to me manage the budget. Four plays to date and the three ones was fired because spent all my money before 1961. I try to polish the curve pay attention to $ numbers below in the screen but get some confusion between seasons. Many seasons my budget is in negative and others is possitive. I would prefer some kind of chart or screen to more detailed informations with the income and the expenses every season.

-The professionals. Many times when planning a mission receive a message like this: "this mission needs 11 controlers and you have only 8" or similary. Same as above, would be possible had a screen to see how many technicians need to main missions?

Thanks. More tomorrow..[>:]

[Nacho84]

ORIGINAL: fremen
A little more observations before go to bed...[:D]

That's fine, I'm going to bed soon as well! [:)]

ORIGINAL: fremen
-In this moment is very hard to me manage the budget. Four plays to date and the three ones was fired because spent all my money before 1961. I try to polish the curve pay attention to $ numbers below in the screen but get some confusion between seasons. Many seasons my budget is in negative and others is possitive. I would prefer some kind of chart or screen to more detailed informations with the income and the expenses every season.

We'll include those charts in the Public Affairs Office (PAO) in an update. One comment about the budget, though: your budget is always positive. The number shown after the funds can be either positive or negative because it's the difference between your current budget and your fixed costs (e.g., building maintenance, salaries, etc). So if you see a negative number in there it's because you're spending more money per season than your current budget.

Bare in mind that the numbers in the database are just a first pass. So if you guys find the game too difficult do let us know and we'll start tweaking the values in the spreadsheet. Also, if you can send me the CSV files which get automatically created at the end of each turn (look for them in the folder where save files are stored), that would really help me understand how you're playing the game.

ORIGINAL: fremen
-The professionals. Many times when planning a mission receive a message like this: "this mission needs 11 controlers and you have only 8" or similary. Same as above, would be possible had a screen to see how many technicians need to main missions?

Indeed. If you look at the lower bar that gets displayed on every screen, you'll see the number of available personnel/total number of personnel. So, for example, if you have an extended mission that requires 3 flight controllers and you have 8 in your agency, the lower bar will display 5/8, which means that you effectively have 8, but 3 of them are "reserved" for the next season of the extended mission. Thus, you won't be able to schedule a mission that required more than 5 flight controllers.

Cheers,

[Blind Sniper]

My comments so far:

of course I love this kind of game and last night I played it for several hours!
I'm a happy customer [:)]

- easy to understand
- nice interface
- not so happy with animations, for example X-15 flight is not good
- I want to know why my mission is failed

Bare in mind that the numbers in the database are just a first pass. So if you guys find the game too difficult do let us know and we'll start tweaking the values in the spreadsheet.

Please don't, I guess is too early to speak about balance.
Keep the budget positive is a game inside the game, i.e when I hired more personnel I avoid to take $40-50 salary men, not initially at least.

[kokubokan25]

About the budget, and keep in mind the game is in a early beta, IMHO is small. I need more money. With the adjustments of experience game you can reach the objetives, this is true, but for me at least, is impossible to flight all the missions with such short budget.
Only money to X-15 flights, Sputnik/Explorer and some Probe. No biosatellite, no micrometeroids...etc.

[Blind Sniper]

I need more money. With the adjustments of experience game you can reach the objetives, this is true, but for me at least, is impossible to flight all the missions with such short budget.

I don't know if is intented to flight all missions, in my game I won't research every components for budget constrain.
Anyhow more games will tell...[:)]

[histgamer]

I haven't found any budgeting problems. I got all the way to mercury with a health cash pile having done Pegasus and Explorer 1 and X-15, I would like a auto-save feature, not every season but periodically an auto save would be nice. I lost my most recent game trying the mercury test flight when the game froze on the countdown sequence and I was foolish enough not to have saved the game.

[IainMcNeil]

There is an autosave but no way to load it currently. You have to manually rename it in the appData\locallow\matrixGames\BASPM folder to one of the official save slots. Adding a way to load autosaves more easily is on the list!

[kokubokan25]

ORIGINAL: Iain McNeil

There is an autosave but no way to load it currently. You have to manually rename it in the appData\locallow\matrixGames\BASPM folder to one of the official save slots. Adding a way to load autosaves more easily is on the list!

I had Windows XP and cannot find this folder. Where is it?

[IainMcNeil]

I think it is Docs & settings\username\Application Data on XP but it is probably a hidden folder.

[Nacho84]

Just in case, please follow this instructions in order to enable the view for hidden folders.

Cheers,