Gaming Bohemia Interactive Take On Mars

[Quick_Nick]

It may be because I swapped the position of the camera and spectrometer, thinking about it.

Was your camera on your butt?
You'll notice he has the same problem of the mission not ending the first few times.

 

[Unstung]

I haven't had any problems with the game for the past few missions, I'm considerably ahead of the two craters mission.

Despite Bohemia Interactive's efforts to make the game more accessible, roving still takes a very long time. Enough for me to capture many pictures over the last few days. The free camera moves way too fast which makes it impossible to set up compositions precisely. The developer should really slow camera movement when starting or near the ground.


After finishing a mission and driving down Victoria Crater the express route until I loaded the previous save:

Two craters, restarting the game and saving money by not using solar panels:

Sometimes it's difficult to get the APXS close enough, and the hitboxes can be smaller than the rocks:

There were times where the instrument was visibly "inside" the rock, but not this time:

The depth of field is ridiculously shallow, as can be seen in this landscape taken after imaging Victoria Crater's rim:

Who needs sunlight with an RTG:

Upon driving to a location, a heat shield was discovered off to the side:

A mission required the use of the more basic environmental monitoring station, so the RTG rover could not complete the objectives:

Enjoying Victoria Crater together on the final rendezvous, except one rover is looking away from the crater:

The old rover was driven 400 meters to the new site, which took ages, and explored. By the time the mission was complete, the battery powered rover could go maybe 100 meters before it was finally dead. What a champ. In the last image it can be seen that the position of the camera and APXS were swapped again. It may be impossible to analyze rocks with the RTG in the way.

Album: http://imgur.com/a/dINNK

 

[orb]

The developer should really slow camera movement when starting or near the ground.

That's what the Early Access is for, too, but only if people report their issues and write suggestions where developers will see them.

 

[MattBaker]

You can change the speed of the free camera with the mouse wheel.:thumbup:

 

[Unstung]

That's what the Early Access is for, too, but only if people report their issues and write suggestions where developers will see them.

That's true, but of course the solution to my issue turned out to be already in the game. I honestly don't think feedback from one person to a somewhat popular developer may make much of a difference. However, a time warp feature like Orbiter (and KSP?) would be pretty useful. The very shallow depth of field can be difficult to work with, while I'm at it. I will suggest those when it's not ridiculous o'clock over here.

(EDIT: What about the time? http://mars.takeonthegame.com/feedback/view.php?id=230)

You can change the speed of the free camera with the mouse wheel.:thumbup:

The feature does not appear to be mentioned in the controls menu (on the main menu), saying the mouse wheel is bounded to the zoom, but you're right. I accidentally discovered it today when I unintentionally used the scroll wheel while in the free camera mode.

I have 16 hours on the game now and am exploring the second location, Kaiser Crater. Unfortunately the number of hours I spend roving per day is probably increasing as time goes on.

 

[orb]

http://steamcommunity.com/games/244030/announcements/detail/1894051890548278499:

on October 3rd, Bohemia Interactive intends to release a major new update for Take On Mars. Titled as the Deimos content pack, this free update adds two brand new locations for you to explore, a new Zero-G Probe vehicle for zero-gravity environment, plus new features such as ‘Dynamic Mission Generation’, a revamped ‘Part Failure System’ and the expanded ‘Dynamic Weather System’.

The price of Take On Mars will also be increased to 13.99 EUR/ 17.99 USD/ 11.99 GBP on October 3rd.

 

[MaverickSawyer]

Glad I got it back in August, then!

 

[Shifty]

I played this for a couple weeks when it first came out and have been watching the updates as it gets bigger and bigger and more and more polished. Great that BI has allowed for continuous development of what is a pretty niche game. I think I need to fire this up this weekend. (Note that Deimos and the zero-G probe are already available and working in the dev channel.)

 

[orb]

Until version 0.8.0230 you could make rover going on its own if you had some larger distance to go, by pressing 'F' key while driving forward in the waypoint's direction (if there weren't any rocks on the way), and for example go make some food or something, but now there's weather and the wind is affecting rover's path, so going away for more than two minutes isn't recommended:



Also, I don't recommend landing a new lander when it's windy. The autopilot sometimes can't bring it to the target before the fuel will end.

 

[MattBaker]

Until version 0.8.0230 you could make rover going on its own if you had some larger distance to go, by pressing 'F' key while driving forward in the waypoint's direction
Also, I don't recommend landing a new lander when it's windy. The autopilot sometimes can't bring it to the target before the fuel will end.

You could also click the forward arrow on the secondary control panel and still use the primary controls on your keyboard for 'course corrections', which still works but is only semi-autonomous. But drinking tea is confirmed to be compatible with it.

Also to me it wasn't the fuel that caused the problem, it was that the autopilot corrected the landing site which ended up outside of the target zone. And let's just say relaunching during a storm is a rather tricky business.

 

[orb]

If you are using development update channel of the TKOM, be prepared for Space Program save game incompatibilities in upcoming builds:

FROM MONDAY UNTIL THE END OF THE MONTH (at latest) THERE WILL BE MAJOR CAMPAIGN CHANGES - THIS MEANS YOUR SAVE GAMES WILL BECOME INVALID!!!!

More information about the upcoming changes.

 

[orb]

For last few days a new Space Program starts the game on Dec. 2, 1971 (or at least on the splash screen):




And this is the probe and rover you control in your first mission :




The last development build also added R&D, and you don't need to take any missions linearly any longer to unlock new hardware, but instead you develop the hardware and do missions you want (except for the 1st mission), depending on the hardware you developed. I can't help but when I look at that screen I think about KSP :lol::




And if you don't make any research, you can send to Mars only this:

 

[Goth]

Sending messages to Mars takes minutes, it wouldn't be possible to control the rover in real time. I guess in real life you just send to it commands like "go there" or "do that", but you don't control it like in that game.

 

[orb]

The next major update will add manned mission to the game.

More info and some screenshots:

• http://steamcommunity.com/games/244030/announcements/detail/1586695810244218438
  
  
• http://steamcommunity.com/app/244030/discussions/0/558749191477177174/

 

[orb]

Manned mission updates have begun today in the development branch:

 

[Izack]

:lol:
What exactly is happening here? Just early development quirks, or have we sent levitating people to Mars?

 

[orb]

Early development quirks (that was from the first manned update; I couldn't even control that astronaut).

The following screenshots are from another update the next day, which fixed that.

 

[orb]

A couple of new manned Mars vehicles added in yesterday's update:

 

[orb]

Multiplayer mode added

The "development" branch received a multiplayer update for the manned mission today.

 

[orb]

The official full release (version 1.0) of the game is planned for June 2015.


http://www.bistudio.com/mailing/html/take-on-mars-presents-roadmap-to-release.html
http://mars.takeonthegame.com/news/roadmap-to-release-2015