[karajorma]

Beta testing sounds interesting. How do I go about this?

It's pretty easy. Download the latest build from the SCP subforum and play through some campaigns. If you spot problems, get on the SCP IRC channel and report them to figure out if they are code or mod issues.

Basically your job is to just play the game and look for anything that is broken. Keep an eye out for people asking for mission testers for their campaigns too. It's a good way to get to play something before anyone else does.

[Spoon]

Keep an eye out for people asking for mission testers for their campaigns too. It's a good way to get to play something before anyone else does.

Yeah, well if that is your motivation to beta test. Please don't ****ing bother.

[karajorma]

It shouldn't be your only motivation. Consider it a perk.

[Shivan Hunter]

I'm with Spoon on this one. Beta testing isn't "playing" the campaigns really- it's coming up with crazy stuff that no sane player would ever do, going to extreme boundaries of pretty much any range of events in the mission to see if there's a missing constraint, playing over and over again to see if things happen consistently when they're supposed to and randomly when they're not... having fun is, I'd almost say, counterproductive to beta testing.

And even if you allow yourself one playthrough before getting into the testing phase- it's still a WIP campaign. Some designers are going to want beta testing done in the pre-alpha phase, so they can test along with the contracted testers. Which means there may be some glaring, even game-stopping bugs in the campaign. You're only playing through and catching these so other people can have more fun with it than you will.

Not to mention that you have to catch EVERYTHING. If you let a bunch of bugs slip through, people WILL notice. If enough bugs slip through it can tarnish the campaign's reputation, and in the worst cases lead to a Relentless scenario.

This isn't to say that testing can't be fun, I mean, you do get to play something before anyone else does! I really envy the WiH testers, for instance. But I doubt it's as fun as it's cracked up to be, and it's definitely NOT as easy as it seems. It's a big part of campaign development/game development and can be up there with FREDding and modeling on the difficulty scale. Read some of the WiH bug reports written with gratuitous awesome by Battuta: they're definitely not all as simple as "ship X comes in several seconds late and it screws up messages".

[Cobaltred]

Hey folks!  I first posted on this forum about 8 months ago but then I started grad school and well, life got in the way.  I'm finally getting to play through Freespace (via FSPort) right now and I'm loving it!  I recently noticed the suggested changes to the custom flags and my eyeballs are still scorched from how beautiful it looks!

Just wanted to say thanks to everyone that has kept this awesome game going and made it play and look so damn great!

Quick question: I typically dogfight at only about 40% of the Valkyrie's top speed and use the burners when I need to move faster... I find if I go any faster I overshoot the Shivans whenever I'm on their 6.  Is this normal?  Am I doing it wrong?  I've been playing on medium, but as I'm getting used to joystick control I'm going to push it up to hard as the game has been getting a little easy (I think the last mission I did was "The Big Bang").

[The E]

Let me introduce you to my friend, the automatic speed matching. When targeting something, press "m" to automatically match speed with your target. If you press "alt-m", speed matching will always be active.

[Dilmah G]

Yeah, that's helpful at the start. Do you have a throttle slider on your joystick? I personally prefer to do throttle manually so I can execute a few more interesting maneuvers. Although the Valk is a bit of a pain, because of the fact the afterburner is so beastly.

You could attempt to punch the afterburner in bursts rather than engage it to full. You know, the Valk is a good craft to trial Thaeris' afterburner stage thing...

[Cobaltred]

Yeah, that's helpful at the start. Do you have a throttle slider on your joystick? I personally prefer to do throttle manually so I can execute a few more interesting maneuvers. Although the Valk is a bit of a pain, because of the fact the afterburner is so beastly.

You could attempt to punch the afterburner in bursts rather than engage it to full. You know, the Valk is a good craft to trial Thaeris' afterburner stage thing...

Yeah I have an analog throttle switch which I'm using quite a bit.  Just checking that it's not weird that I'm generally at ~40% of max speed or so.  Last space sim I played was Super Wing Commander for my mac Performa back in like 1994, so yeah...

I really like the Valk though, I feel like it's so manueverable I can pretty much do whatever I want.

I have no idea what this trial AB thing is, but I'm probably best off playing plain FSO until I at least get used to that... thanks guys!

[Dilmah G]

Oh, I was referring to a proposal by a forum member (Thaeris), which meant modeling afterburners a bit more like how they function in real aircraft.

And yeah, Valk + Smooth joystick = Real control. You can also manipulate the energy transfer system to divert more energy to engines and thus have a higher normal speed at the expense of shields and guns.

[Mort]

I think this is the right place to do this



Hi.

[Dilmah G]

oh hai.

[S-99]

That's two pancakes on it's head, not just one.

Looks like one of my old screenshots. Might not be, but the lighting settings i used to use are reminiscent of what i used to use years ago. Lighting settings i need to retrieve.

[Minuit]

Hi people.

I've been a lurker for a while, only bothered to register now.

[headdie]

welcome to the madhouse

[General Battuta]

Hi people.

I've been a lurker for a while, only bothered to register now.

are you a bot

[Minuit]

I'm not sure whether that was supposed to be sarcasm or not, but no, I am certainly not a bot. Did I really look that much like one? 

[General Battuta]

I'm not sure whether that was supposed to be sarcasm or not, but no, I am certainly not a bot. Did I really look that much like one? 

CONSTANT VIGILANCE!

Welcome aboard, hoo-man.

[Jeff Vader]

I'm not sure whether that was supposed to be sarcasm or not, but no, I am certainly not a bot. Did I really look that much like one? 

Yes. As in, yes, I've seen bots that have begun their forum careers with almost exactly the same words you used. But glad to know we were mistaken this time.

[Canna_Bis]

Hi, been there 4 some years... Finally registered. Can do any audio. THX 4 keeping a great game alive. Any fan-made campaign suggestions  (WiH lacks only VA... True successor 2 Freespace games...)

Merry Christmas to all HLP's and sorry 4 my English... I'm just a Pole...


BTW - can any1 tell a noob how 2 change an avatar?

[Rodo]

There are no avatars on HLP, only a few users are allowed to have those.

And welcome to HLP!