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Game Development Showcase
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| Ad Astra |
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| Developer | chapmast |
| Genre | Action |
| Platform | Windows |
| Downloads | 26730 |
About:
Ad Astra is an open-ended Space Exploration game inspired by games such as Elite or Privateer. Features : 110,000+ Real Stars - Fractal Planets - Procedural Flora and Fauna - Lots of Weapons - Lots of Spacecraft
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Please offer only constructive criticism. The intent of the GD Showcase is to help the developer create the best game they possibly can. Show them you support their efforts when posting.
 |   chapmast GDNet+
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Posted - 4/28/2010 5:53:19 PM | Reply to ShinseiTom,
Thanks for the feedback – I’m very pleased to hear that you like my game. I do intend to try to implement io8880 suggestions, but I have unfortunately not found the time … summer has finally arrived in Britain and I’d rather be working on my motorcycles than stuck in front of a computer screen.
You should be able to find the Keyboard remapping options from the main menu … assuming that you are executing version 1.3a.
Unfortunately the game does not seem to work correctly under 64bit Windows 7. In fact you seem to have been more successful than most. I have not been able investigate this issue in detail because I do not use this operating system, however I believe that the main reason for the problem is that Ad Astra still uses DirectX7 rather than DirectX9. I have built a DirectX9 compatible version which does seem to work OK under this OS however it is not fit for release as I have had to disable a number of important features. At some point in the future I will try to release this version when it is stabilised … I intend to still maintain the DirectX7 version because it seems to execute far more efficiently on less powerful machines.
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| ShinseiTom
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Posted - 4/29/2010 9:19:08 PM | Oh yes, I like it a lot. Once I got around the initial hump and learned a few of the things I could do in the game, it really started to shine.
I understand that, absolutely no rush to add more or even to work on it any at all. After all, it's your project and we didn't even have to pay for it. You owe us nothing.
I got the keyboard remapping, but there doesn't seem to be a way to remap, say, button 1 on my controller to be accelerate. Is that kind of remapping in the game?
When I play on my XP 32bit side it works fine, so I don't have any problem switching over to it when I want to play for a few hours.
Oh, one other thing that should be fairly simple. The way you have it saving games right now, every save seems to be exactly 16.2 MB large. With the number of times I save, pretty much after every time I make a fair bit of money, I had 56 saves. It had ballooned the AdAstra folder up to ~900 MB! However, when I compressed all the saves, the resulting file was only 3MB! Is there any way you could add in a quick compression scheme that would keep the save size lower?
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| ShinseiTom
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Posted - 6/14/2010 9:11:28 AM | Alright, unfortunately I've run into a problem with the DX9 version of the game. It immediately crashes without an error box when the loading screen comes up. The DX7 version of the game runs the same as before.
If you need me to, I can upload any of the logs created if they'll help.
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| chapmast GDNet+
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Posted - 6/14/2010 1:46:51 PM | Reply to ShinseiTom,
I have been informed of the DirectX9 problem by somebody else and I am currently investigating the fault. It seems to work fine on my 32bit Windows XP system and so it looks as though its another Windows7 64bit issue.
Thanks for offering to send me the logs but there is no need as I have already been sent the required information.
Unfortunately I've also accidentally disabled the joystick controls whilst adding the new control method and so will need to upload a fix for this too.
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| dantedarkstar
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Posted - 8/31/2010 7:58:05 PM | Hello
This looks like a very big game ! Unfortunately I was put off quite a bit just at the start:
1.When I tried to run normal version of the game, it crashed my video driver (just when it was supposed to display something, with loading Navy Ships being the last thing on the screen) :/
And by that I mean windows (after quite some time) finally came back, but in 640x480 16 colors, with a message saying that video driver stopped working normally and is not responding (igxprd32 in my case). I am using Lenovo laptop with integrated Mobile Intel 965 Express graphic chipset. The DirectX9 version actually ran, but it was somewhat slow (when approaching planet and city especially). From experience with Mount and Blade, the game was very slow/choppy and miscolored in DirectX9, while working fine in DirectX7 - maybe it would go faster if it ran at all ?
2.The spaceship speed. I don't know how much is 10 (the max on manual), but it feels more like a paraglider than a spaceship that's supposed to fly between stars. I understand your argument that you want more a game than a simulation, but it really felt weird. And tiresome, having to fly 60km or so with such a speed (autopilot left me 60km above the city and didn't want to move closer).
3.A bit clunky interface. It was very Elite-like, which I must say isn't exactly a compliment nowadays ;)
Switching between different screens with some magic combinations isn't very friendly. I couldn't even find info about my own ship for quite a time.
4.Controls are ok, but putting weapon fire under left mouse button is a bit of an overkill. It's the most basic button to do anything, and yet it also fires weapons, something you don't really want to do by mistake when approaching the station or something. A key to disarm/arm weapons (or go between flight and combat modes) would be very good.
Of course aside from that, it seems pretty awesome. Still, playing different game at the moment, but this one is certainly something to look into more.
[Edit:]By the way, I would really love to fly around like the screenshot here on this page, but with the spaceship speed it feels more like a trudge than flying :(
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| chapmast GDNet+
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Posted - 9/15/2010 3:50:39 PM | Reply to DanteDarkstar
Thanks for your views and sorry for not replying sooner - I don't check this website very often. Please find responses to your specific questions below:
1. If you are using Windows7 or Vista operating systems then your graphics driver is probably a WDDM Driver. These tend not to support DirectX7 (although they should) and can cause some very odd behaviour. Hence if you are using these later operating systems then you must use the DirectX9 version of the game. Unfortunately the DirectX9 version can run very slowly on low end GPUs because their support for Pixel Shaders and Texture Blending is very poor. This is the main reason why I have continued to support DirectX7.
I'm afraid that I would consider the Intel Graphics Chipset that your laptop uses to be an extremely poor device and it is probably not the equivalent of the minimum GPU specification (ATI 9600 - a very ancient Hardware device). I've had plenty of experience with these GPUs over the years and I would not consider them suitable for 3D gaming.
The reason why the game slows down when approaching a planet or a city is because the GPU must process a huge number of vertices. Many games can use fogging or can cull large quantities of objects because they are obscured. Unfortunately for a space game such as Ad Astra this is not really an option since when you approach a city from above then very little of it is obscured.
2. The Space ship speed can be adjusted using the global speed multiplier found in the Preferences Menu. You can also temporarily boost your speed by fitting an After Burner and increasing the number of Shield units (refer to 11.8 of manual).
3. You need to be a bit more specific in describing which parts of the interface you find to be particularly poor.
4. The criticism of using the left mouse button to fire weapons is the first that I've ever received. Off the top of my head I cannot think of another game that does not use this button to fire weapons. However I will consider the option of adding a disarm/arm weapons button.
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| ivorcina
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Posted - 12/12/2010 3:34:41 PM | Hey!
Great game! I love old elite frontier... lost many hours...
I have the same problem that some people have when starting the game.
It only shows black screen, then crashes back to desktop, i have done the file swaping
Here is the log
START ERROR
FILE : C:\svgadx_dx9\utility.cpp Line 602
FUNCTION : ut_load_file ( 0)
Error loading File user/video.sav ( Items read 0 pos 64) : Error - No error
FILE : C:\svgadx_dx9\utility.cpp Line 582
FUNCTION : ut_load_file ( 0)
Unable to open File user/input.sav
FILE : C:\svgadx_dx9\utility.cpp Line 582
FUNCTION : ut_load_file ( 0)
Unable to open File user/keyboard.sav
FILE : C:\svgadx_dx9\utility.cpp Line 582
FUNCTION : ut_load_file ( 0)
Unable to open File user/window.sav
FILE : C:\svgadx_dx9\utility.cpp Line 582
FUNCTION : ut_load_file ( 0)
Unable to open File user/user.sav
FILE : C:\svgadx_dx9\di_lib.cpp Line 606
FUNCTION : di_init_joystick ( 0)
No Joysticks founds
FILE : C:\svgadx_dx9\bmp.cpp Line 220
FUNCTION : bm_load_bmp_file ( 0)
Unable to open BMP File : textures/planets/planet_detail1bw.bmp
FILE : C:\svgadx_dx9\bmp.cpp Line 1018
FUNCTION : bm_read_bmp_file ( 0)
Unable to Load BMP File : textures/planets/planet_detail1bw.bmp
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| chapmast GDNet+
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Posted - 12/19/2010 5:22:44 AM | Reply to Ivorcina,
Thanks for the comments. It looks as though the file 'planet_detail1bw.bmp' has been corrupted. I think your best bet is to try downloading the game again. If you still have problems then send me an Email to support@a-astra.com
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