Loading Screen Mechanics

[Khorius Irelius]

I only did a brief search, but couldn't find a definitive answer...

 

When you transition in to a new sector, it loads, and then says "Press Space Bar to Continue"... Is the game (single player mode) in a paused state until I hit space bar? Because I use this time to take bio/smoke breaks etc. And I often hear sound effects while this screen is displayed?

 

Thanks in advance for any info provided!

[Shrooblord]

No, as soon as the Sector is loaded, things are happening in the new Sector even if you're not seeing it because your vision is obscured. Your ship is reorienting, your automatic weapon systems are targeting, events are triggering and Traders are coming to your Factories in Sectors elsewhere in the galaxy. You can indeed be attacked while the loading screen is up, and you will hear the trigger of such an event in the change of music even though the screen is obscured by the loading screen.

[Khorius Irelius]

Well thank you Dr. Schroob! Much appreciated!

 

Follow up question; are the activities that you listed the ONLY activities that are going on in sectors that the player ship is NOT in? For example, I have been told that enemy fleets will not warp into sectors if the player is not currently in that sector, even if I have a fleet of mining ships there. Is that correct?

[Shrooblord]

WARNING. This post details some of the ways Avorion works on the technical side of things. If you do not want your gameplay experience spoiled by peeking behind the curtain, do not read on. No story events are detailed in this post, but perhaps the game becomes less "believable" and therefore enjoyable once you realise the things said here apply to the way the game works.

 

 

Correct: as of current game code, Sectors are only loaded in a specific way:

 

[*]Sectors without any player presence do not remain loaded when the player leaves.

 

 

[*]Sectors containing only player Factories and/or Stations will have those spacecraft's efforts simulated. The player will receive income from them passively while out-of-Sector, but not because Trader vessels are physically showing up and docking with them, but because some code is estimating how much such a spacecraft should be earning on average, and throws a little random in the mix there, while essentially spawning money from nowhere to give to the player for their efforts of setting those spacecraft up.

 

 

[*]Sectors containing player ships that are tasked for mining and salvaging are as far as I can tell "more properly" loaded into memory. That is to say, these Sectors are actually kept alive, and are active. The player's ships are physically moving through the Sector's space and are influencing it in some way. For example, they are salvaging wrecks or mining asteroids, which means these resources are depleted from the Sector as they work, and the player collects the spoils of their captained crafts' efforts. When the player warps in on these working ships, they will be at a different location in the Sector, as to be expected of ships flying around in physical space.

 

 

[*]However, only the Sector the player themselves are currently located in trigger attack events. Essentially, these events follow the player around the galaxy wherever they go. This means the player's craft in other Sectors are safe, as long as the player left those Sectors while there were no enemies around.

 

 

[*]As far as I can tell, enemies already present in Sectors with players' craft in them, but without players' presence, persist. That is to say, the players' craft will get attacked by enemies if these enemies were already in the Sector when the player warped out. A problem that compounds this issue is my suspicion that shields aren't working at optimal capacity whenever the player isn't present in a Sector, which means their ships are more vulnerable while they're not being watched. It could also be possible that enemy damage is amplified somehow while the player is out-of-Sector, but either way, shields appear to deplete / never have been charged a lot sooner when the player is OoS rather than when they are present: warping back into one of such offending Sectors will reveal shields almost depleted, whereas having stuck around to watch the fight might have shown not a scratch of damage penetrating the shields' durability.

 

It may well be that what is noted in point 3 also applies to point 2, but it's hard to check this, given that Stations don't move or change the Sector physically like the craft mentioned in point 3 do. I haven't checked the code to confirm nor deny this.

 

[DeathTech]

As a quick addendum.

You can disable the "press space to continue" part of the loading screen in the options.

Under the "game" tab.

 

This will prevent confusion and definitely prevent death when jumping into a hostile sector.

As you can still be shot and killed while this menu is up.

[Khorius Irelius]

As a quick addendum.

You can disable the "press space to continue" part of the loading screen in the options.

Under the "game" tab.

 

This will prevent confusion and definitely prevent death when jumping into a hostile sector.

As you can still be shot and killed while this menu is up.

 

I am aware of this, thank you, but it is a good note for players that are unaware.

 

As a side note, all hail King Schrooblord, God of all that is Avorion Information!

 

Thank you sir!

o7

[Shrooblord]

As a side note, all hail King Schrooblord, God of all that is Avorion Information!

Hahahaha I won't deny this made me smile.

 

Glad it helped!