Sunrider: First Arrival [Free][Mecha][BxG][Steam]

[Mad Harlequin]

Also I think "to and fro" is a correct term too.

It is indeed an expression that exists. When something goes "to and fro," it's moving back and forth constantly. I lack context because I've not read/played this, but if Cera is a place, Jes would be right in wondering why this is used.

[Monochromatic]

I downloaded Sunrider off Steam, and after the battle with the pirate nest and Cosette it gave me an error log? I'm not sure if this is exactly where I'm to post this or the infomation I'm supposed to give, but I hope this is enough? I'm loving the game so far though, the art and the writing is amazing. I might change my difficulty selection though, as jesus is the battles hard.

I'm sorry, but an uncaught exception occurred.

While running game code:
File "game/script.rpy", line 3156, in script
$BM.battle() #continue the battle
File "game/script.rpy", line 3156, in <module>
$BM.battle() #continue the battle
File "game/classes.rpy", line 417, in battle
if ship.location[1] == sunrider.location[1]:
TypeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute '__getitem__'

-- Full Traceback ------------------------------------------------------------

Full traceback:
File "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Sunrider\renpy\bootstrap.py", line 285, in bootstrap
renpy.main.main()
File "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Sunrider\renpy\main.py", line 349, in main
run(restart)
File "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Sunrider\renpy\main.py", line 77, in run
renpy.execution.run_context(True)
File "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Sunrider\renpy\execution.py", line 515, in run_context
context.run()
File "game/script.rpy", line 3156, in script
$BM.battle() #continue the battle
File "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Sunrider\renpy\ast.py", line 756, in execute
renpy.python.py_exec_bytecode(self.code.bytecode, self.hide, store=self.store)
File "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Sunrider\renpy\python.py", line 1382, in py_exec_bytecode
exec bytecode in globals, locals
File "game/script.rpy", line 3156, in <module>
$BM.battle() #continue the battle
File "game/classes.rpy", line 417, in battle
if ship.location[1] == sunrider.location[1]:
TypeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute '__getitem__'

Windows-7-6.1.7601-SP1
Ren'Py 6.17.6.512
Sunrider First Arrival Beta 4.1

[jesusalva]

@hachiko
It's not only Icari that recived aff points. There is also Ava.
Plus, Asaga gets also aff points, so it is much better for the player accepting it, and when you get the option to decline, decline.

@Monochromatic
If the battles are hard, try setting the difficulty to Easy or Novel Mode. (As previously mentioned...)
About the bug, I see no reason why it happened. It could only happen if you don't have the sunrider, or if there is no selected ship and the game is getting crazy in calling this. :/
But if I'm correct, this error can be safely ignorated and you can resume the game normally.

[Monochromatic]

@jesusalve
Yeah, I had it at Normal mode and was struggling a lot, so I switched to easy and my god was that a relief. And yeah, just restarting the game worked.
The bug didn't repeat itself, and I'm not totally sure why it happened either. I finished the battle and had sunrider.....

[Asceai]

Seems to me like the battle finished so the sunrider was removed, but the game felt it was still going for some reason.

The fact that it didn't happen again just means it's going to be a huge pain to reproduce and fix =P

[jesusalva]

So, part 2 of my review and "study".
Sorry for beign so long. I'll try to provide a smaller version...later.

=====================================================
script.rpy:4526
Please remove the extra white space between "goals. Now".
And, why not remove 'my' from it? It really confused me out. :S
So, I suggest:
"I hate PACT and everything they stand for. That includes killing innocents to accomplish goals. Now get back to the brig where you belong.":

I also suggest you explaing better the target boxes.
I figured out what 'fk' means, but I have no idea of what you mean by SD, SH, AR...
That get specially hard considering that I'm not from a english-spoking country.

...And i think that i use Beta 4.2, I see the file on my package.
Why not just keep a changelog and retrieve the last version from it?
or if you think that too hard, just sort out the files and see which ones start by 'Patch ' and finishes with '.zip'. And print what is between them as the version number.
The script is not hard to do, in fact, it can be done in five minutes depending in how you print version number. Copy-paste mostly, the same script can be re-used to automatize image loading and so on...

And, err, as story is not actually voiced, I recommend renaming 'Voice:' on sound/prefs field to 'Battle:' and use it's channel instead of sound's channel.

=======================
Analizing space and license
=======================
Remeber also that PNG images allow compression. The more you comprime, lighter the files and slower their loading. The less that you comprime, bigger the files and faster loading. So, eh, it's possible to load all png images in mere seconds on a very slow machine.
But it have also it's down side! The files can get monstruous if you reduce the compression. My estimative says that your PNG compression is 9.
JPG images also allows you change quality. Sightly reducing them will make files lighter and may not be noticed at all. This can be useful on big files.

Your CG/ folder actually have almost the same length as Music/. So them togheter with sound are over 250 MiB.
All in all, your resources - whithout counting scripts - have 841 MiB. Character is the bigger with over 334 MiB of size.
The biggest on all characters is Asaga/ with almost 96 MiB. The average is 37 MiB per folder.

Sunrider patch 4.0 RC2.zip actually haves 2.1 MiB and is only taking space, and on my classification, 1 MiB is the limit of space for a useless file.
The two other patches have less than 150 KiB, so them can stay here for lots of time.

LICENSE file declares that you use GPL v2.0 for your game. Your credits section, however, says that the game license is CC.
Eh... LICENSE should be renamed/copied as COPYING, that is a special file for licenses. (like Makefile for make: There is no need of extension. Itself is already a special file.) Any file named as 'COPYING' is of mime type text/x-copying (License terms), any file named 'LICENSE' is plain text like 'something.txt'.

===================

So, eh, I think that it's enough for an inventary of space usage and license.
And yes, your game takes too much CPU. And renpy takes too much memory, I highly recommend another check on the code for MemoryLeaks.

Nice thing that you can add a weapon shop to the game.
As all weapons are stored in one array, we can always use .append() function.
This would be a nice expensive shop...

About the above: If you even think in implementating it, you should know that your game may not provide enough income.
So I recommend you adding to the map a location, called 'empty space'. It's just a piece of space where many ships usually travel.

There would be always the side mission 'Hit and Run', that is optional.
This would basically call Ren'Py random functions to add random ships to you attack.
So, you could make some profit, and continue playing the game after the credits.

Another idea would be adding a 'experience' field for the pilots. But it is not very useful as every aspect may be upgradable. It is mostly used to keep the player playing and leveling up.

Why in README.md:19 Sola's ship is called "Nephalim" instead of "Seraphim"? Correct it to "Seraphim", please? I've saw this on other places as well.


A few features should be more explained. By example, the "End Turn" button change of color: It's on README.md, but how many players will read it if there is absolutelly no need of reading it to start the game...


On README.md:123:
"* disabled saving/loading during the enemy turn. instead, a warning will appear."
What if the player just want to change the prefs? By example, if he find the sounds too loudy, wants to change between fullscreen/windowed, (found the game too hard and want change the difficult level: maybe this not), etc?

On README.md:114:
"* blind side attacks. any unit moving right next to another unit will get counter attacked by assault type weapons"
Not working properly? I've already made this move many times and nothing happened. Only a few times.

script.rpy:12026
This text definively should be affected by affection. As well Asaga's denial near the shower episode.

Arcadius doesn't seems intimitading. I attribute it to three factors and a suggestion:
1- The fake elven ears. He would look much more plastic without them.
2- Lack of shadows. Adding a few shadows on his mask would darken a part of it and make more creepy.
3- The laugh is 'hahahahaha!'. It's more intimitading with a consonant before. like 'mwhahahahaha!' or 'bwahahaha!' or 'wahahaha!'...
4- You could make the eyebrown on the mask slip a bit to the nose, giving an angry look. Suggestion.
Cullen looks more intimitading, but eh, small and fatter men with a angry face (almost) always look intimitading.

Adding a mark on Arcadius hand that is visible when he is laughting would give what think... Not sure if this would be a good idea.

I see that you wanted to name "Claude" as "Bianca". It's all written over the code 'bianca' instead of 'Claude'.
If you renamed the player on the story, why not the script as well...?
(Although I won't discuss about Kryska also being called as tera. Kinda makes sense for me...)


classes.rpy:352
You zoom out for the warp but I didn't saw you zooming in again.
Just copy the old zoom to a variable, zoom out, and when the warp is complete, set the old zoom back.


classes.rpy:355
"BM.order_used = False #debug"? Then why it's still here uncommented? :S
Also, try adding a space after '#'. It helps while reading the code.




===============
My comments are long, but if you read it carefully you'll find bugs and suggestions.
I hope that this *somehow* was useful.

[Vaendryl]

Seems to me like the battle finished so the sunrider was removed, but the game felt it was still going for some reason.

The fact that it didn't happen again just means it's going to be a huge pain to reproduce and fix =P

I think you're completely right! if you end the battle with a vanguard cannon this is in fact fairly likely to happen, as the end of battle code does set the Sunrider's location to None after which the vanguard code could still try to continue
I didn't realize this until I read you comment. I can now fix it for next patch
(there already was a check for this but it was too far down the if-tree)

[Hachiko]

"3- The laugh is 'hahahahaha!'. It's more intimitading with a consonant before. like 'mwhahahahaha!' or 'bwahahaha!' or 'wahahaha!'..."

Ahahaha I'm sorry but this made my day xD (I don't think having a consonant or not is the problem here....xD)

[LVUER]

Sorry but can't resist... This is intimidating laugh

[Skarn]

Just finished it... And it was pretty cool.

It's more of a tactical RPG with VN elements than the opposite, not unlike Fire Emblem. But I do love tactical RPG and Fire Emblem, so that's not a problem for me.

Plot is classic, a little cliché, but the characters are fun. Art is great (except for V. mask, which is slightly ridiculous with its horns). For the music, I am a little frustrated that the cool song which plays in the middle of the second or third battle (don't remember which one exactly) is not used more often. In term of voices, I cracked a few smiles at some one-liners ("Looks like your luck is still holding commander."). Overall great.

Let's talk about the battles now. I played in normal... and well, it's not easy. Most of the difficulty comes from the fact that you need to carefully plan your upgrades. A wrong build means more difficult battles, more difficult battles means less money at the end (less kills + more expensive repairs), and less money means less upgrades... I actually got stuck at the wedding mission, and decided it will be more efficient to restart the game completely than to just use the debug feature.

Another reason I did start again from beginning was to put to use my acquired knowledge on how the game worked. A lot of things are not explained and must be discovered by trial and error: how the vanguard canon works, flaks' and shields' area of effects, armor decreasing with hits and recovering with heals... I am still unsure of a lot of things, like flaks' exact algorithm (despite upgraded flaks and careful coverage, warheads frequently hit the Sunrider), and I have no idea what half of pink girl weaponry is supposed to do (the gravity gun or the recover buff) or why riders sometimes counterattack and some other time they do not.

I liked mêlée, kinetic and missiles mechanisms, but I think the lasers are really weak. They can be reduced to almost nothing by two superposed shield, something both you and the enemy will quickly be able to do (increased shield range is a must have for Chigara and Claude). Chigara can of course disable shields, but this costs a lot of energy, and since lasers are costly, not that precise, and not that destructive, it's almost always better to use Aim up instead to improve kinetic accuracy.

I also think than the merchant is quite useless. Why would I want to pay a lot of money for a torpedo than I can only use once when I can instead upgrade my battleship to permanently fire its kinetic cannon twice per turn (120 energy + reduced kinetic cost)?

Despite these problems, the battles are quite well done. They are difficult, force you to carefully plan everything, stressful with powerful reinforcements appearing when you are already under heavy fire, but I do enjoy a challenge, and it was great fun overall.

My problem now is that I must wait for part 2.

Bug I did encounter: In the wedding mission, at the end, when the big final reinforcements appeared, Ava entered frenzy. She was blinking on the screen, repeating her warning again and again. It was still possible to play, even to win by touching the right edge of the screen, but really uncomfortable as she was appearing to say its line after each single input.

Also, a typo: XXX has lost it's curse to YYY -> It should be its, not it's.

EDIT: I don't know if money will be transfered from one game to another, but, just, in case, it's possible to get an almost infinite amount of it in the final battle. Just spare one of the carriers and, after cleaning up all the other enemies, you can farm the ryders popping each turn until you're tired of it. With Chigara heal, even if enemy is very lucky and all warheads hit, you can survive as long as you want.
A final reinforcement kicking your ass if you take too long could solve this, if need be.

[Hachiko]

When I've tried to download the music, this problem seemed to come up?

"The user hosting this content is out of bandwidth."

[Samu-kun]

Sorry due to extremely high demand on our web host, all our files are down for this month.

[Hachiko]

Aww just got my computer after repairings today and lost all of my files including the music I've downloaded >_<

[Longknight]

I just came across Sunrider last night on stream, this game takes me back to the Robotech days, then i realised it was using renpy and freaked out even more.

Loving the game

I am very much getting into the programming side of what renpy and python can do, so i hope i can learn from what you have made. I just finished recreating the tutorial that came with renpy and have understood most of it, but still learning.

The art work is amazing as is the sounds.
The blue print of the ship and it's deck is an awesome touch i think.

The animation is great and combat is simple and enjoyable.

Oh an i'm loving the story thus far.

I hope to be able to make my own vn one day, and look forward to learning from all of you

Excellent job everyone and please keep it up.

[LateWhiteRabbit]

Love it, Samu-kun! Got it on Steam a week ago.

Looks like you all addressed most of the concerns I brought up after playing the demo months ago. The battle interface is now really nice (though I occassionally have a massive pain selecting a specific unit when two or three are next to each other due to the fact that the sprites overlap into each other's hex spaces).

But maaannn is it HARD. I've beat Fire Emblem Awakening on Hard and Sunrider kicks me in the teeth. It reminds me a lot of the old Front Mission games (combat-wise). I think it's the Win Conditions for a lot of the battles. I like to turtle and snipe, and a lot of the win conditions force you to play fast, risky, and aggressive to avoid losing.

The escort mission made me want to pull my hair out. I cleared wave after wave after wave of enemies, and still lost, because you finally get a wave that is basically instanta-kill. Though I do feel it was odd that the enemies seemed to basically ignore the escort vessel. To win, I finally just sent it straight through the enemies and they all ignored it to focus on the Sunrider, when they could have killed the escort ship in one round of concentrated fire. (One enemy got wise to fire at it once it was one square from the edge of the board, but it had been sitting within two squares of multiple enemies for the last several turns.... ) It was the whole reason I was so diligent about clearing enemies on my first attempt before moving the escort ship much at all - I figured they'd mob it. The appropriate strategy for the enemy is to swarm the Sunrider's position in full force, preventing effective counter-measures and assuring destruction of their primary target at the cost of a few Ryders. I played expecting that, but I suppose you nerfed that AI approach? (Or story-wise, Porkchop is a moron tactician?)

Oh, and about Icari....

Why can I not space her out an airlock? I hate her so much. I would have really loved the opportunity to NOT have her join my crew after her THIRD(!!!) attempt to kill me failed. I don't need another Ryder pilot THAT badly. (When she is a space popsicle I can keep her Ryder anyway. Ava can learn to pilot that sucker.) And really, a sad childhood story does nothing for my forgiveness or empathy after she tries to kill me twice, attempts to kill hundreds of children, and during self-same atrocity attempt, tries to kill me for a third time. "All Ryders return to the Sunrider - that includes you, Icari." Hell, no, Captain Shields! I didn't spend Command Points to super-laser-BBQ her and her Ryder because I wanted her to live and have tea with me. Come on! She's violated the three strikes rule! She out, ump! Even the most valiant good guy is rule bound to withhold further forgiveness to her at that point. Boo. Hiss.

More tool tips in the game would be nice. In the store in the captain's quarters, the Quantum Warheads have no description or tool tip until you have enough money to buy them. But why would you save up that much to buy them if you don't know what they do? I only considered them because I read your advice about them on the boards here.