Gaming Moonbase Alpha - NASA's new on-line game

[Logifech]

Ok sammy sounds great.
Whe can play tomorrow?

 

[N_Molson]

Yeah we have to write some high-scores on the ladder ! :lol:

I'll use OrbiterForum too.

 

[fireballs619]

I want to see how the piloting of spacecraft works out in the MMO. That will make or break it for me.

 

[Unstung]

The graphics are nice, and not laggy on my upgraded computer (except the first time I ran it).
The game, though, needs to be expanded. There's only one mission type, which is fixing the base after an asteroid strike, right?
This game has a lot more potential than that.

 

[astrosammy]

---

 

[orb]

Steam: Moonbase Alpha Update Released.

Updates to Moonbase Alpha have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

• FIXED - Astronauts can "attach" next to the rover or command center when high latency is present.
• FIXED - Rover is sometimes invisible when remotely controlled when high latency is present.
• FIXED - Erratic behavior of rover when attached to hose.
• Multiple optimizations to program code for singleplayer and multiplayer gameplay.
• Modified information in log reports.

The update download size is 513.9 MB.

 

[Lucy]

That's a hefty patch, but it needed to be. Too many people have reported too many problems with it. Looks like the play test is serving its purpose nicely.

 

[Logifech]

Astrosammy i can't join your game, because you ping is too high.

 

[Bloodworth]

I am downloading now. Will give this thing a whirl

 

[astrosammy]

Astrosammy i can't join your game, because you ping is too high.

Looks like my connection is to slow. I'll stop playing until I get a new graphics card, maybe in two weeks or so.

 

[Logifech]

I can open the game then you can join on it

 

[Unstung]

I'd join an OF game, though I never found astrosammy's a few days ago.

 

[Orbinaut Pete]

Popular Mechanics: "Why NASA's New Video Game Completely Misses the Point".

 

[N_Molson]

...apparently, NASA doesn't plan on producing a moon-worthy toolbox by 2025...

:rofl:

 

[orb]

The next patch for the game is available on Steam:

• Fix for Player names with spaces not being able join password protected servers
• Fix for Crash when audio bitrates higher than 48khz
• Fix for Robot out of range static continues after level restart
• Fix for Players kicked while in the command center leaving pawn behind
• Fix for Blurred line at the bottom of the Main Menu Moon Cinematic
• Fix for Steam servers showing more players than slots available
• Fix for Servers getting stuck on "Cinematic in Progress"
• Updated credits

The size of download data for update (since the previous patch) is 532.1 MB.

 

[N_Molson]

lol... Again an heavy patch for a few fixes... :blink:

 

[Turbinator]

The reason the patches are so huge, even for tiny little fixes is do to "baking". In today's game engines, the game data is "baked" as in pre-processed and packaged in such a way that the only thing the computer needs to do is load the baked data straight in to memory, and run the program. This reduces load times and reduces other computationally intensive tasks, freeing the CPU to do more game performance critical processing.

Now when you change a tiny little bit of code, you have to bake that whole block all over again, and replace the old one.













.

 

[Dman1410]

okay everyone i have just downloaded and installed moonbase alpha wanna play?

 

[Mandella]

The reason the patches are so huge, even for tiny little fixes is do to "baking". In today's game engines, the game data is "baked" as in pre-processed and packaged in such a way that the only thing the computer needs to do is load the baked data straight in to memory, and run the program. This reduces load times and reduces other computationally intensive tasks, freeing the CPU to do more game performance critical processing.

Now when you change a tiny little bit of code, you have to bake that whole block all over again, and replace the old one.


.

Maybe so, but for one on limited bandwidth, I'll likely be uninstalling the program rather than be hit for over a gig of patchs a month.

I do play other games on Steam, including FPSes and thoroughly modern RPGs which don't seem to have this mega patch issue. I blame programmers who have little experience in the field, and are replacing entire files where someone with experience in the gaming industry might work out a method of packing the needed files into a much smaller 'box.'

 

[Turbinator]

That is true, the size of the paches in games that use the cooked data method relies heavily on the experience and in-depth knowledge of the game engine, by the game devs.

In this case the game uses the Unreal 3 engine, and the dev team that made this game is using the Unreal 3 engine under a licence, it's not their own engine, so that alone is a factor in the size of their patches. And on top of that, they are not a big development house, they just made a few discrete simulator games for private contractors. So it is a lot easier for them just to decide to replace a whole data block, instead of doing "fine surgery".