Cambragol and I managed to get in several solid hours of bug hunting and the mod went from totally broken (you could not trade cargo or mine) back to working.
The behavior of the wingmen is markedly improved over Torn Stars. A large number of minor irritations caused by the prior design have been fixed. Things like unarmed transports rushing off to attack because they have the same escort order as the warships. Or transports being left behind because they don't formate correctly after loading/unloading cargo pods.
Cambragol and I have been really busy with Real Life and only have a little progress to report. Not to surprising, the wingman code changes have broken many things and lots of new bugs are being found.
I am working my way through the commands one by one fixing the broken text messages. Cambragol is testing the long duration play features. (Like what? you ask?) Well, mining rigs and science survey vessels dock to asteroids and operate for many days. They are happy to cut rock while the player is flying in other systems. But don't leave them unguarded for long, because they are pretty vulnerable.
Since we did major surgery on the wingman code, we are taking the time to add a few voice messages into the game. With a little luck, the middle states will soon be much less "empty" feeling. (0)
Well, I thought it was long overdue to give everyone a glimpse of something that has been ready and working for some time. Thanks to the work of Shane Maness, the drones and AMP's of Epitpah are now improving the atmosphere of the game with their unique style and flare (or should I say 'beams'). The Drones and their 'mother ships' the AMP were originally automated mining equipment that was refitted for battle during the War of Dissolution. Once the war finished there was noone left who knew how, or perhaps wanted to, shut down the now quite deadly 'equipment'. So it has been left to it's own devices, essentially, terminating anyone and anything that ventures into the Epitaph system. Only the outlaw pirate faction, known as the Gargoyles, has found a way to avoid the 'Machines' predations.
So I present a little video showing the fate of myself whilst trying to venture across the system. Forgive the quality of the video clip as most of my time is bogged down in bug-hunting and actually making the mod. As always, here is a direct link to a slightly larger, though much higher quailty avi. Or you can go with the flash player below.
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