Great Game! Three problems so far...

[Phileosophos]

Overall I'm loving Evochron: Mercenary (EM) even more than I liked Evochron: Legends (EL), to which I was a latecomer. But I've run into three really annoying problems thus far. They are:

1. Other ships blocking races.
2. Instant death jumping to planet.
3. Frame rate stuttering.
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   Regarding (1), I can't win a race. In fact, I don't have any hope of winning a race. I've tried three times so far, and every time I get the same problem. I jump to the nav point, start the race, make some progress, and then some huge cruiser will exit a jump right in front of me, blocking me from the next ring. By the time the big cruiser is out of the way, I've already lost the race. What the heck is up with this?! I never saw that behavior in EL.
   
   Regarding (2), this may be a fluke but it caused me to lose my first 2.5 hours worth of progress--I know it was stupid of me not to save but I was having so much fun otherwise that it slipped my mind--when I tried a contract to return 25 units of oxygen to the starter station. I accepted the contract, hit F2 to jump to the waypoint, and emerged from the fulcrum drive only to smack into the planetary atmosphere and die instantly. Maybe that's my fault for using the jump drive to get to the waypoint, but it's never been a problem with any other mission I've tried.
   
   Finally, regarding (3), I find the frame rate stutters at times. For the most part EM is more beautiful than EL and just as smooth, but the frame rate glitches reliably when I do certain things. It happens the first time I descend into an atmosphere, it happens when I blow up stuff, it happens when I turn my head too quickly with my TrackIR, etc. And it's not like my machine is "weak". I have an EVGA GTX 260 video card that seems to be averaging 60+ FPS; the frame rate only takes a dive when certain things happen. Perhaps that's an optimization issue?
   
   Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.

[Vice]

1 - Interesting that it happened so often, they'll usually stay out of the way.

2 - If you can catch this contract again, snap a screenshot of the navmap showing where the waypoint is placed, then please send it to me via e-mail (starwraith.com > contact).

3 - http://www.starwraith.com/forum/viewtop ... 1#pid88509

[Phileosophos]

I thought I would update this old thread for sake of others. I can confirm that the new NVIDIA WHQL drivers recently released, v260.89, solve the frame rate stuttering I was seeing. Now the game is butter smooth for me at 1920 x 1200 with 4x AA and 8x AF enabled. It's amazing how well it runs on my EVGA GTX 260 with the new drivers.

[DennyMala]

I got the same problem as number 2 a couple of times... so half the times of that kind of contract for me.

The waypoint was too close to the planet, probably related to the starting point. Maybe if I was jumping from a different direction all could have ended fine.

[Aesir Rising]

Based on prior topics, I didn't realize #2 was something we were supposed to report. I blew up the first couple of water or air gathering missions I got, read the common wisdom about resetting the WP to point that "experience will show me" (paraphrasing the advice) and jumping there instead, to fly in to the actual location.

Truth is, I've never jumped to a collect air or water mission without blowing up.

I just stopped taking those missions unless I already needed to get something from that planet anyway.

[SeeJay]

It's NOT a good idea to jump in atmosphere.

[Maarschalk]

Originally posted by SeeJay
It's NOT a good idea to jump in atmosphere.

LOL....Or in water, even if you needed to wash your ship.....:P:P:P:P