Hello Adrian__W and the dV: Rings of Saturn development team!

Thank you for taking the initiative in communicating with your customers here in the GOG.com's subforum for the game!

For better future readability and reference within the context I moved my feedback, which I already had given in the other thread, here:

Your straight-up information about the general "feature complete" state of your game and intention for further enhancements made me buy the game, already, even before the end of the "in Development" phase!

I bought the "dV: Rings of Saturn - Tungsten Edition", because it is currently cheaper than the game plus soundtrack individually (despite the discount only for those two) here on GOG.com.
And I am very pleased with the gameplay and its focus on the challenge of actual navigation or maneuvering within the asteroid belt (rings of Saturn) and managing your ships ressources (propellant fuel, system's energy, thermal and mass balance).


Usually, space simulation games put their emphasis either on combat or on trade. The newtonian flight mechanics known from games such as "Thrust" or the "Independence War" series together with the indepth subsystem simulation focused on piloting among environmental hazards is a fresh breath of air in the genre!
My experience with other "similar" top-down view space games (e.g. "Escape Velocity Nova", "Endless Sky", "NAEV" or "Transcendence") suffered from their usual tendency to "feature-creep" and subsequent loss of motivation to go on.


Here is my current feedback regarding my initial experience with the game in the "inDev" version 0.385.7 (maybe some of those things mentioned are/were already addressed in the recent update to version 0.385.20, posted by you earlier today):


First, great positives for me (game version 0.385.7):

+ the game's atmosphere
+ the apparent simplicity of "left" back to the station versus "right" deeper into the rings of Saturn and the (potential) secret hidden towards the innermost ones (very focused approach!)
+ reconfigurable key assignments
+ the ship and thruster designs & handling
+ instant switch between autopilot and manual control (back and forth)
+ the debris collection mechanic with manually opening and closing the hatch, and even the need to balance with your thrust in order to not accidentally loose your cargo again (can be mitigated to a degree with dividing walls in your freight room)!
+ the semi-authentic HUD and representation of status information (alternative HUDs as upgrade path)
+ interesting upgrade options with both desirable and easy to recognize gameplay effects ingame
+ fine tuning of various parameters even for the autopilot function(s)
+ overall small installer & installation size (approximately 500 MB)
+ ingame option for vertical synchronization
+ ingame option for frequency (frames-per-second) of the physics simulation
+ ingame option for resizing the HUD elements (unfortunately, only all elements together)


Some suggestions for improving or adding game features (game version 0.385.7):

* I would like to have a graphics option for changing the ingame resolution separately for both fullscreen and windowed mode (preferably not only ingame but also accessible before starting the game).
(The option for "Pixel Doubling" besides being very "thematic" somewhat serves for lowering the strain on my computer's system, but the standard HUD already turns not readable anymore on the second step of "Pixel Doubling", due to its overall very tiny text font. Increasing the HUD elements is possible, but the total of those HUD elements quickly fill up the screen space, especially in windowed mode!)
** If a change to maybe a couple of preset resolutions is not feasible, an indication (at least on the store page and in the game's readme file) on the necessary (minimum) resolution is recommendable.

* A resizing option with defined or fixed aspect ratio for the windowed mode would be desirable.

* Please, split the single bar for "graphics details" into individual selectable options for the various graphics and special effects, thus allowing for better fine tuning opportunities on somewhat weaker systems.
(I, for instance, would like to tick on/off certain effects separately, such as thruster flame/flare effects, shadows, projected lights on asteroids' surfaces, particle effects, depth of field or motion blur, etc. Currently, I am running the game almost on the middle setting, but am loosing out on the thrusters visible light effects. While the light projection / reflection on asteroids' surfaces can not be turned off even on the lowest setting.)
** Maybe, allow for setting different ranges (depending on distance to the ships) for the light projection / reflection effects on the asteroids' surfaces, in case they can not or shall not be disabled entirely.

* I could think of an enhanced HUD customization option, which allows to resize and move various individual HUD elements separately or in smaller groups. (E.g. the standard LIDAR overview almost becomes a flickering mess of multiple colors when "Pixel Doubling" is enabled on higher than step two or three. Increasing its size might help in my case.)
Of course the customizability of HUD elements depend on the chosen ingame HUD (ship upgrade options).


Minor adjustments ingame (game version 0.385.7):

> In the ingame tutorial (upon initial start of a new save game) you are being told that you have been granted only a temporary one-time licence for mining in the rings, and that you would have to get in touch with someone back on the station to resolve this issue. It took me a while to realize, that there is no way to follow up on this, instead your licence seem to be upgraded automatically so that you can return to the rings immediately.
A clearer indication, maybe a message upon boarding the station or at least a corresponding logbook entry would be helpful to avoid confusion. (Especially, since a later encounter with authorities in the rings connecting to and scanning my ship seem to indicate the consideration of different licences or at least more than one licence status within the game.)

> I already found three so-called "anomalies"--one of which contained a sports car. ;-) But when I chose the "move to storage" option in the initial station boarding screen, only the minerals / materials appeared in the "market" for trade and the value for selling the anomaly was added automatically to my account, nonetheless.
It would be nice to have a direct acces to an overview of my storage at the station (without entering the market) where I could see the not yet sold anomalies, as well.
Strangely, each anomaly salvaged and returned to the station is counted as an additional "-1" in the logbook entries. Is there no other use for the anomalies than to sell them? Can we not keep those found anomalies for collection purposes in our possession?

> Similiarily to gogtrial34987, I did not find a way to dock at one of the AI mining stations within the rings. If docking on other stations or objects within the rings is an option (later) in the game, maybe include it with a test object in the game's tutorial.


Thank you again for engaging in communication with us, here!

Kind regards,
foxgog

Carrying over my feedback from the other thread as well:

I spent a couple of hours in the game now. Love the atmosphere and core game loop. Reminds me of Sunless Sea in many good ways. I've been getting good at mining, or so I think, with three of my crew members going up in experience already - and regularly stuffing my hull full and hauling €100k/run, so I've been upgrading my ship with better everything. Haven't taken on any pirates yet, but think I might actually not immediately die if I tried now?

Anyway, what I'm wondering about is what percentage of planned "story" and "quests" are in the game so far? I've seen a couple (speed-run thing with new upgrades unlocked, rewards for floating "anomalies", a moonlet, a class 2 AI mining station, crew members that provided dialog options when talking with pirates or that AI mining station) - but it all feels pretty sparse at the moment. So I'm wondering if that's more an effect of the intended scale (because of course the rings are huge), or an effect of the early "in development" status. Specifically, I haven't seen anything yet which felt to me like the promised main story "soon you find out that all is not as it appears". (Which is fine with me! Not complaining here; I'm having a grand time crashing into asteroids at the moment. :) Just wondering to help me calibrate my expectations.)

Some feedback on things which felt confusing to me:
* The moonlet seemed to have some "interior" showing up depending on the orientation of my ship - but there was no obvious way to enter / dock (didn't dare to bump into it at that point for fear of damage, and haven't returned yet). If it's intended to be clear what you can do with the moonlet, you might need to make it a bit more so, since for me at least it wasn't.
* Similarly the class 2 AI mining station offered me trade goods if I docked. But I had no idea whatsoever where to dock or how to dock; nor did I know if the offered trade goods were actually of any use to me, given my engine. Something to add to the tutorial? Or make super obvious with some kind of lightshow? (I liked the way X3 did it; that was still quite hard, but at least you knew what and where.)
* Similarly I found an abandoned ship floating around, but had again no idea how to make use of it / claim it / break it apart. Nowadays I have a grappling arm thing, so am hoping that might be the technology you'd need - but of course I have no idea how to ever find the ship again.

All of this might be completely intended, with figuring it all out part of the gameplay - but in case it isn't, and it also isn't simply a matter of stuff that's already on your roadmap, here's hoping this feedback will help you in some way.

Looking forward to seeing how the game will develop!

Chiming in with a similar/same bug. I've been getting crashes since the last GOG version update of DeltaV.

However, it seems to only crash on me if I top off any processed minerals. I did have one successful dive: I didn't cap any processed minerals in that dive. All others had at least one mineral capped at 7000kg. (I'm using a ship of the starting class.)

I've lost about 500,000 funds and about 2 hours of gameplay due to this bug. I'll test my theory about the processed amounts some more. and report back.

EDIT: For anyone else having this crash on return-to-base bug, are you using a salvage arm? My arm spazes out like it's trying to grab something when the auto-pilot engages. Every time I've noticed this, the game has crashed. The last time I got back to base okay, the arm was holding something (a derelict in that case.)

This might be a clue. I did manage to carry a derelict ship back to the station with the arm. But each time I try to return to the station with nothing in my salvage arm, it crashes. I will have to try again while holding some ore or something.
I really appreciate the very quick turnaround by the devs though. I had an email exchange with one of them this morning and the client was updated today with some fixes.

EDIT:
OK just did some more testing on this. Had 2 crashes in a row. First time near one of the phage things, another near a moonlet. I managed to warp to the anomaly, but as soon as my salvage arm reached for a rock it crashed. Last couple of messages in the log mentioned the arm trying to switch to null object. Maybe this is something to look at. I did manage to dive again and steer clear of any anomalies, I filled my cargo mostly full and had something in my arm when trying to fly back to station. That last dive was successful.

OK so now I am having crashing while just collecting stuff with the salvage arm. Third time it has happened today. All three times were near some sort of anomaly. This last time I had found a derelict ship, and it started some quest thing with one of my crew. She boarded the ship and started it up. After some time, she said she would meet me back at station. During all of this, my salvage arm stopped working, as in would not grab anything. Once she left, I tried turning the arm off and on a few times to see if it would start grabbing again. as soon as I tried to grab a rock it crashed again. The log once again ends with message stating the same error I have seen every time about the arm switching from invalid to null target. Is this normal?

Maybe the arm thing is a red herring and it has to do with anomaly? I did a couple of dives just fine with the arm, while avoiding all anomalies. Although I did grab something with the arm prior to returning to station, just to be sure.

Hello koderski and Adrian__W!

Are those recent updates only available through the "experimental branch" (beta-channel) or were they also submitted to GOG.com team for regular release?

I am not using GOG.com's Galaxy-client, and unfortunately, none of the three game updates (neither 0.385.20, nor 0.385.21, nor 0.385.26) are available here as offline installer download, yet.

I guess that the GOG.com team is not going to build their offline installer files based on updates in the beta channel.

[Please, disregard this message, in case the delay is only on GOG.com's side to integrate the recent updates in their downloadable offline installers. Because I do not know, how GOG.com is treating corresponding updates in their "inDev" products.]

Kind regards,
foxgog

OK I am using the experimental update 0.386.0 and did a couple of rather successful dives. I ran into a few anomalies, met a few other ships, managed to blow one of them up and grabbed a shiny thing that turned out to be their reactor core, and managed to burn out my own ships computer. But it's all in a days work. On my second dive, I managed to find a lifepod and rescued it successfully. I tried to jam it into my cargo, but was having trouble with that so just flew back with it in my salvage arm. I had no crashes this time. Will continue to try and repeat the earlier crashing and let you know.

EDIT:
OK so I tried the same as before (item in cargo, nothing in arm), no crashes. So looks like that part is sorted. Glad I could help (if anything I did helped). I have been doing a few longer dives in attempt to repeat the crashes I saw while trying to grab a rock. So far no crashes in about 2 hours of game time. Awesome job with the patches (at least on the experimental channel).

I tried that, but my salvage arm kept losing its grip on it when I went to plot the course back home (this happened like six times), and then it went spinning off with me needing to chase after it. A most frustrating experience, as I was nearly out of fuel, and eventually had to give up.
(Of course, since I'm on Linux, and thus only have offline installers available, I'm still on 0.385.7.)
Without any spoilers: was the lifepod the start of something quest-like - or just an anomaly which you get paid for?

This one was just an anomaly that I got cash for. Same as the corpses I found at a dead station. There may be some quest about these depending on who you have as crew. It seems they each have some story associated with them.

As far as bugs go, I just spent a few hours flying around and managed to salvage 2 ships, made enough money to buy me a better mining ship. So far the 0.386.0 version has been bug free for me.