Christmas is near, so having a Chrismas break now. Merry Christmas to everyone!

Mars 2400 version 0.13b released.

Download link:
Mars 2400 0.13b

Changes:

NEW features:- Story arch building started, news can be read from solar news screen..Not real interaction yet
- In-game help (F12 key)
- special rewards for killing pirates
- more credits from scavenging
- number of missiles now visible also in main screen

FIXED BUGS: - Not possible to exit Solar news other than TAB
- Bug of ship factory go back selected being displayed in wrong place after screen size updates
- INCOMING alert is displayed continuously after missile locked to player ship but player escapes
- missionCount (number of completed missions in player statistics) was not updated for delivery missions
- delivery mission bug: if player gets fine for smuggling illegal items and after that mission times out, crash seems to occur. .=> crash fixed, STILL TODO mission status must be displayed as failed until it is purged from the list (once every 24hrs of game time)

testing & bug fixing

Tested delivery missions "exception cases", (etc. what happens if player tries to smuggle illegal goods, mission time elapses, etc..) found one fatal crash bug and fixed it.
Currently 4 major bugs fixed after rel 0.12b. So, rel 0.13b will be somewhat less bug free (hopefully :) ) There is still some annoying occasional crash bug related to projectile hitting the target at least in debug mode. Havent been able to detect it yet in release build, but that does not mean that it is not there...
Next release (as well as "several" others after that) will be intermediate steps to full storyline implemented.

dev update #2

Did accelerated time option while docking that I mentioned earlier.
Did also functionality for displaying "Ship manual" (i.e. Help) at anytime while in game (toggle with F12 key)

dev update

Implemented rewards for killing pirates. Rewards will be given if player takes down 3 or more in single flight.
About game time:currently time is relative to ship speed,i.e faster you go, the faster time elapses. Now planning to add feature so that you can accelerate time while docked in station.

Old Savegames won't be compatible in next vesion due to some (necessary) changes. Aim is to keep compatibility from next version onwards.

a snapshot of TODO and  current buglist...removed real names from reporters..

TODO: News that unfold some story over time, special missions related to stories (ONGOING)
TODO: special rewards given by EA for destroying pirates, say, 3 at one flight.
TODO: more variation for mission rewards...
TODO: special message delivery missions (for EA) with a risk of someone trying to intercept...with high rewards, of course

BUG LIST:
- reported by xx: ship gets jammed in the right border of Map sometimes
- reported by xx: crash after mission aquired and solar map displayed several times (in mars station)
- reported by xx: Not possible to exit Solar news other than TAB => fixed, will be delivered in next release
- reported by xx: Bug of ship factory go back selected being displayed in wrong place after screen size updates => fixed, will be delivered in next release
- reported by xx: in degug mode, projectile firing causes sometimes random crashes
- reported by me: new bug creeped in version 0.12b with npc messaging..if shooting ships in io factory, game is crashed. Already fixed and will be delivered in next version.

Here is a screenshot from Sol news service unveiling the story i was talking about..Can you spot the plot? Cannot reveal too much yet of course. Oh, and thanks for feedback / bug reports for all people who have given input so far.

Been building some "story-arch" for the game. Story is unfolded via Sol news Service, so it is good to read latest news every day :)

Planning now to do also Linux version of Mars2400. Date not set yet.

Mars 0.12b now available. Added projectile weapon type and basic NPC messaging. Also, "online" help menu implemented.

Mars2400 0.12b

Implemented Npc message framework. Did some testing with dummy messages, seems to work now. Idea is to display max. 4 messages at time, messages are displayed for a while and then removed from display.
Now need to implement messaging to actual game logic.

Implemented plasma projectile weapon. Now been testing and tweaking. Gotta get it somewhat possible to hit incoming missiles. Now seems promising.
Also thinking about a new feature for the game: messages from other ships. E.g. greet messages, hints about various things, e.g. "Meteor spotted in location x,y" (useful when seeking meteors for mining), messages related to combat etc..

27.11.2014
Added projectile sound.
TODO: add projectile-missile collision detection..
25.11
Implementing plasma projectile: projectile launching done. Every shot takes up plasma which ship has limited amount. plasma is regenerated to ship slowly.
Update: Collision detection to other ships implemented & some code refactoring done, moved "target destruction" handling from Missile to CPlayer class as this is common for all weapon types.
EDIT: screenshots showing Code::Blocks Project: