"Shadows of Starlight" scenario

Discussion in 'Scenarios' started by amurayiwestgate, Jul 9, 2017.

  1. FarmerMark

    FarmerMark Ensign

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    Just finished this scenario and had a fantastic time with it. Unfortunately because of the way the last POI is defended my CV with plasma and laser cannons made an easy entry almost direct to the control room and if I had been a little unlucky would have destroyed the core. The final two steps are a little easy which felt a little anti-climatic but other than that it was a truly excellent experience which I shall need a little cool-down time to de-stress before repeating it! Perhaps a survival on Omicron would be restful by comparison.
    Keep up the good work.
     
    #41
  2. D00MBUNNY

    D00MBUNNY Ensign

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    Really liking the scenario, but wondering if you plan on updating the starting planet with some trees (I would suggest stumps or something)
    Because with the recent changes to the ammo blueprints it's difficult to make enough 15mm and 30 mm ammo for decent starter CV.
     
    #42
  3. VikingPSG

    VikingPSG Ensign

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    This scenario cannot be completed if choosing to start on the orbital station. Since the recipe for ammunition was changed it is impossible to craft any 15mm bullets as there is no way to make Nitrocellulose powder.
     
    #43
  4. DarkDragon

    DarkDragon Ensign

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    ok ive hit a snag with this scenario. Ive gotten to chapter 7 and found the crashed ship...

    I take out the turret on the top of the ship and a large chunk of the ship explodes like there is nothing supporting it thought nothing of it at the time and continued on digging to find the emitter. dug out 99% of the ship and found nothing.... after spending a good hour going over it again and again thinking i missed something (even tried placing a core of my own to try to use the ship console screen to find where it might be placing a core destroyed most of the ship in the same way as the turret destruction did),
    even triggering gm to see if i missed anywhere, nope not that i can see with whats on my map anyway, i went to the lets plays on YouTube to see how they did it.

    Turns out there is a massive chunk of the ship missing from mine. I'm thinking it has something to do with the turret i shot out while approaching the ship. Before anyone says rockets nope didn't use them just used the Gatling turrets that are on the Prefab SV 1 ship so the only explosion would have been from the turret being destroyed. I dont know if this is a new bug with the scenario since the last update i only started playing this scenario today so its not an old save from a previous update, and to my knowledge i dont know any way of skipping this part of the mission to progress to the next stage. a previous save i had before this happend seems to be gone as well.

    Thought i would post this here.

    DD
     
    #44
  5. Brimstone

    Brimstone Rear Admiral

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    I don't think the "extra" scenarios have been updated in a while- I had a similar experience in DoG where shooting one spawner took out 80% of a POI... including parts that were necessary to advance to the next chapter. Going into godmode after, looks like the entire POI is hovering a block or so in the air- so no structural integrity. Probably something similar, although partially buried POI's have always been a bit temperamental to disassembly of any kind.

    I think you're playing Dawn of Galaxy- but your point is still valid for that scenario
     
    #45
  6. Blank

    Blank Ensign

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    The scenario is certainly showing its age as the base game updates (stole a cv with massive rad hot spots and made of 300hp hull blocks lol) but it's an interesting look at some of the possibilities the game can do when it comes out of early access. To anyone not familiar with older versions, CVs and SVs used to use the same blocks which can be exchanged between them. Might help you out at a certain point.
     
    #46
  7. Uncle Fubar

    Uncle Fubar Ensign

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    Same problem here... taking out the defense turret on the Lost Zirax POI causes huge chunks of the ship to 'explode' and go flying everywhere. Same with the smaller wall turrets inside. Then I tried to just avoid damaging anything and complete the objective, but even if you eat the damage from turrets you'll eventually want to shoot your way through a door or take out a walkway panel... and WHEEEE there goes most of the ship. It might still be possible to get the thingy you need to progress but I gave up on it after a few hours of trying.

    I'm sorry to say the scenario is probably too broken to be completed in its current state. It's still fun up to that point (chapter 7) though.

    Needs to be updated or removed.

    Edit: Yeah it certainly is showing its age. Resource deposits on most of the later planets are entirely missing and don't match the system map descriptions/summaries. NPC traders won't buy anything. Existing plants give 1 each instead of 4. Due to the recipe changes, you can't make more gun ammo on the first 2 planets you encounter due to no trees or fiber plants to harvest. You can make missiles from iron and mag, though. Having played through this a long time ago it was kinda fun to have the difficulty increased by the unintended game changes, but I feel sorry for anyone trying to slog through it for the first time now :)
     
    #47
    Last edited: Feb 12, 2018
  8. WolfEyes

    WolfEyes Captain

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    Wish I had read this before I started. lol

    I'm currently trying to get back to Veldis but the transporter on the shuttle isn't working. I managed to get the one before that to work by going into godmode and setting it, but that isn't working on the one on the shuttle. It being upside down isn't helping me, I don't think.

    I would like to at least make it back to Veldis before calling it quits on the scenario so I would appreciate any suggestions. I've tried pretty much everything I know to do from experiences with other games and virtual worlds.

    It really does need to be updated or removed. It's deteriorating rather rapidly from the first time I started it less than two weeks ago on my laptop. The issue I am having is on my desktop. I have not tried playing up to the same point on the laptop yet. I got as far as getting to the location of the weapon on it. I wanted to wait and see what advice there might be before seeing if the same thing happens on the laptop.
     
    #48
  9. WolfEyes

    WolfEyes Captain

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    Well, I managed to find that tiny point on the teleport to click thanks to one of the videos. >.<

    But now I'm getting this message in the admin command window:

    PDA: Playfield POI 'Bro1_Kayam_JeraColony' not found.

    So apparently I won't be able to finish the scenario. That is rather disappointing after the nine kinds of hell I went through to get this far. :p

    I'm not giving up yet though. If nothing else I'll get back to Veldis and just go exploring. And maybe take a tour around the solar system. ;)
     
    #49
  10. Sparrowhawk65

    Sparrowhawk65 Captain

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    Is "Shadows of Starlight" in your scenario folder? If it is, then check the Prefabs folder and see if that file is showing up there.
     
    #50
  11. WolfEyes

    WolfEyes Captain

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    Thanks but as it turned out I managed to find it once I could find the planet on the map so the file is there.

    I did complete the scenario so it is still doable if you don't mind having to "cheat" a bit and use godmode to fix things.

    Somewhere either in this thread or another, I saw where someone had encountered an issue with the terrain on Veldis. I ran into the same thing when I went back to Veldis. It's really bad on seed 3. As you fly over the terrain you can watch it completely change. It's like it loaded one seed but as you move across the terrain it loads a completely different one.

    I wouldn't park a ship on the landing pad on Veldis either. I've lost three ships to that build. The last one is still stuck on the landing pad and after shutting down last night and launching the game this morning, it's missing blocks. Even changing the admin core out to a player core didn't help. I still can't take off. I was able to recover everything I'd left behind (hoping to return either via the scenario or on my own) on my first two ships (CV with an SV that was docked on the CV when I landed the CV) and take over the landing pad in order to reduce its size because it lags badly. This is the only build I've ever encountered in Empyrion that lags. I'm hoping that by reducing the size of it, I'll be able to get my SV unstuck but I don't expect it to work.

    The scenario is a good one and I did enjoy it for the most part. It just needs to be gone over with a fine toothed comb. Time consuming I know so I wouldn't blame the creators if they don't want to put the time and effort into fixing all the issues. If that is the case then it really should be removed from the game. While the issues aren't game stoppers they do detract a great deal from the ambiance and enjoyment.
     
    #51
  12. WolfEyes

    WolfEyes Captain

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    Is it normal for every other post to be approved by mods?
     
    #52
  13. WolfEyes

    WolfEyes Captain

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    Ha! I found the problem with landing ships on the pad. Two of the three docking pads on the SV somehow were just a bit sunken into the blocks they were supposed to be resting on top of. Deleting those 2 blocks (not the landing gear!) freed the SV and I was able to move it off the landing pad. I'm going to continue with my build up a mining/shipping retirement business. That last mission was a doozy and I'm getting too old for this! ;)
     
    #53
  14. Sparrowhawk65

    Sparrowhawk65 Captain

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    Cool. Yeah I enjoyed it. There were a few parts I recall that I couldn't deal with, like rocket launcher Zirax in one of the space stations. I was too slow. Had to cheat my way past them. And that Zirax shipwreck you had to explore. Was stumped on that too. I spent ages digging around it trying to the way in. Someday I'll give it another go.
     
    #54
  15. WolfEyes

    WolfEyes Captain

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    I was fortunate on the ship wreck. Only about half of it blew away. Luckily it was the back half and I'd already raided the cargo boxes. It actually made it easier for me to get where I needed to go without having to drill.

    When it blew after firing ONE shot I was all "oh F!" because I thought the blast had removed (I forget what it was) and that was going to be the end of it for me. I was so relieved when I used gm to check and saw it was still listed under Devices in the control panel.

    Yes, I do cheat a bit. I've been playing games (video, arcade, and PCs when they came into existence) for a few decades but I'm not a gamer. ;)
     
    #55
  16. Doomtrooper

    Doomtrooper Commander

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    You start the scenario with no armor and while reading the quest entry upon entering the game you suffocate. It was kind of funny actually.
    How did I get there without wearing armor in the first place?
     
    #56
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  17. Monolith

    Monolith Ensign

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    I really enjoyed this scenario. It wasn't terribly long, had good rewards, lots of different places to visit. It really was fun!

    Issues (I know some have been brought up)
    1) Chapter 3 The Agent: Contact the UFP agent (sensor disabled, already known);
    • A favor for another agent (insufficient raptors - this one is tricky because overall this planet does not have a lot of creatures. Maybe change it to harvest 10 plants or 10 wood?);

    2) Chapter 7 The phase emitter: The Kayam sands - Land at the Jera colony {I could not get this to trigger and it actually seems to be missing a sensor entirely - result = forced completion}
    • The lost ship - Find the lost Zirax ship {also could not get this to trigger - secondary point here is the ship likes to completely blow up. Something wrong with the blocks?}

    3) Chapter 8 Endgame - Find the Asteroid Buster cannon base {Could not get this to trigger}

    Things I tried: Deleting folder and downloading again, regenerating the locations, ultimately adding flag to bypass step.

    Great job guys! I'd be happy to help iron any of this out if I can be of assistance.
     
    #57
  18. Zoriah

    Zoriah Ensign

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    I'm enjoying this scenario so far. Love Brexxis as a planet to start on. I do have a question, though, is it intended that you have to grind levels to get capable of building a warping CV to get to the Veldis system? I stole the civilian CV from the orbiting trader station very early on, but it didn't have a warp drive tank (unless I missed something), which I believe doesn't unlock until level 10.
     
    #58
  19. Uncle Fubar

    Uncle Fubar Ensign

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    I did the same thing, and no it doesn't have a warp tank. It's a really old and buggy blueprint. The hull and window blocks are SV if you remove them, but still has to be a CV block to place. No structural support either, so if you want to mod it into a smaller (and vastly more fuel efficient) ship you have to remove each and every block you don't want, otherwise disconnected blocks will just stay there in midair as if the whole thing is still intact.

    Since the 8.0 update I'm not sure how grindy the scenario is supposed to be. Yes you'll still have to get to lvl 10 to get out of the system since the next jump is too far for an SV warp. I started on the hardest settings, but I don't think everything got updated. It's mostly playable and functional however there's still a bunch of old content problems such as:

    - Traders in the admin stations still won't buy anything, and some of the prices are really messed up.

    - Resource deposits on small/few (hardest) are completely non-existent on the map summary, but will pop up as one of each of the basics if you manage to find one of them. They are also medium/large deposits instead of small. Surface ore rocks are almost non-existent but you can find a few silicon in rocky biomes and copper ones on shorelines, none anywhere near the start point. This does make it a tough challenge having to scavenge parts instead of mining deposits or rocks, but again I don't know if that's intentional. When you get to lvl 5 or so, ice golems start spawning and you can kill those for ores.

    - The patrol fighter is a really old blueprint and frequently nosedives into the ground after warping to the orbit station and back. Also has buggy/invisible blocks and just freezes in midair if you manage to take out the generator with a ground turret. On hardest settings, it shows up near your starting base within a couple minutes of starting and is sometimes invulnerable to return fire. I constantly repaired my cannon turret while it was circling for several minutes and it couldn't do any damage. After a save/reload it just forgot about attacking and wandered off. Reloading the playfield (save, teleporter, orbit) causes it to do really weird things like teleporting to another location nearby or being half buried in the ground.

    I just got to Veldis so I havent gotten all the way through, and I haven't tried the other difficulty settings, but so far it's kinda rough and glitchy.
     
    #59
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  20. Zoriah

    Zoriah Ensign

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    Thanks for the heads up regarding dismantling the old CV. I decided to build a new one from BP and just scavenge materials as needed from it. I noticed the SV designation of the blocks which was pretty frustrating, oh well. So basically I am level 15 and still on Brexxis, farming mats from asteroids in a SV to make a better CV to warp out. Which is fine, but it does sort of change/slow down the flow of the storyline.

    I think the two initial trading places are glitchy because a couple of times they did buy items from me. I don't know if it was just because of some hotfix changes in the latest release. Last time I went to orbit, they were back to not selling to me, though.

    Looks like you can't make MREs because there are no bud plants anywhere, which is annoying. (at least in the Brexxis system).
     
    #60

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