I'm looking for a less buggy alternative to Naev, after it crashed yet again and corrupted tens to hundreds of hours of saves. Is Naikari developed fully independently or does it still merge updates from Naev? How stable would you say Naikari is compared to Naev?
We don’t merge stuff from Naev anymore, no, and I would say it’s much less buggy than Naev. We try to test things pretty thoroughly before pushing out a release, and while some small bugs may of course slip thru the cracks, we’ve not so far had anything as extreme as save file corruption. (Of course, that’s assuming you don’t have faulty or fraudulent storage media, e.g. an SSD or SD card that lies about its capacity, but that would be a hardware issue if you did.)
If you do give it a try, I would appreciate it if you let us know what you think! 🙂 It’s actually quite different from Naev in many ways and we’ve been trying to develop it in a different, hopefully better direction than its former upstream project.
I haven't played yet, but I already wanted to express my appreciation for building an appimage and a flatpak, rather than simply providing a tarball with a bash script.
I also only just noticed that you are developing your own fork of spin on SuperTux as well. Very cool!
sooooo interesting and i intend to try it again later but the combat system is difficult for me at least. Could be that I just ran into strong pirates but I think maybe a few more rounds with practice drones would be good. Preferably ones that dodge....... and maybe have stun type weapons that do no hull damage but provide incentive not to get hit much.
/edit
sooooo having trouble figuring out how to reach the ash system which is apparently the authorized dumping ground for waste................... I bought a number of system maps and have explored a good chunk around the area but can't find a route leading to it..... the starmaps aren't randomly generated right...... can anyone give me a string of systems that connect to it and head south, east, or west from it? ran low on money buying map info thinking I was missing jump points. they just don't seem there on most maps.
That’s a good idea! It might also be a good idea to allow customized freeform combat practice of that nature whenever the player wants, could help not only with learning combat mechanics but also with testing ship builds. Will definitely have to look into that idea when I get back home. 🙂
So just to follow up, I just finished implementing a combat practice mission which will be included in version 0.4.0 when it comes out. It’ll also be available in the nightly soon.
Also, I just noticed your edit! Sorry about that. Ash is adjacent to Tuoladis, which is north of Doranthex. You not being able to find it raises an interesting point that there should probably be a map showing all the waste disposal locations, especially because two of them (including Ash) aren’t adjacent to inhabited systems. I’ll add such a map for version 0.4.0, probably a bit later today since it’s an easy thing to do.
Yep, indeed it is! We were one of Naev’s most active contributors for several years and started to have major disagreements with Naev’s lead developer over what direction the development should take, so Naikari is us taking the game’s development in the direction we want it to go. 🙂
Well there’s quite a lot to the point that listing the similarities would probably be easier than listing the differences. The version 0.1.0 release notes list a bunch of noteworthy differences compared to Naev ~0.8:
Of course, though, Naev 0.8 isn’t the latest Naev release, and if you compare Naikari to the latest Naev release, it’s pretty clear that Naev has moved in quite a different direction, in particular introducing more and more RPG-like elements, completely changing the balance of the game, and adding things that, to my mind, amount to feature creep (like the stealth system and the visual novel interface). Naikari is deliberately eschewing a lot of that, and developing from what was roughly Naev 0.8 (actually slightly before 0.8) in a different way.
Since the point of Naikari is really where we’re taking it, I think it’s more useful to describe how our approach differs to Naev’s approach than to enumerate exact differences. In particular:
Less focus on flashy new features, more focus on using what we already have effectively. For example, we continue to use simple text-based dialog boxes for story, rather than Naev’s visual novel interface; it’s simple and elegant, and we don’t think a miniature visual novel belongs in this kind of game.
Focusing on making a solid space trading and mercenary sandbox game, rather than trying to make an RPG and incorporating random elements from external genres. For example, we’ve put a lot of focus on generic missions over the years and actually created the modern bounty hunting and patrol missions (which were originally locked behind story parts years ago in Naev). For Naikari, we’ve also created a new generic mission already, the Love Train mission.
Carefully balancing and testing the game, working to ensure that all ships have a purpose and that traveling throughout the galaxy and earning credits isn’t a frustrating or tedious experience. For example, we changed the way ships jump in so that that getting ambushed and blown up by a new ship while you’re trying to jump out almost never happens.
Ensuring the interface is as smooth and easy to learn as possible. For example, we made improvements to the aiming lines and turned both those and “fire only in range” on by default, and we added indications showing exactly what services in a system are available and which are restricted.
Focusing on accessibility. For example, we were originally the driving force behind colorblind accessibility in Naev, and we continue to do our best to ensure colorblind accessibility in Naikari. For Naikari, we also introduced a game speed slider, to more effectively assist those with disabilities affecting motor skills, or who otherwise have difficulty with the game’s speed, than the “slow mode” we had introduced into Naev previously. We’ve also been working to improve the early game experience for newcomers. (Side note, this isn’t something we’re doing per se – rather, something we’re not doing – but Naev is really hurting its accessibility with things like distracting animations above textboxes and that horrible damage effect that gives me a headache and I can only assume must be a photosensitive epilepsy trigger.)
Hopefully that gives an okay idea of what distinguishes Naikari from Naev. Feel free to ask if you have any further questions. 🙂
Thanks for the details. I haven't tried any of the two yet and could only judge by screenshots. I'm not a fan either of chatty characters but some sort of randomness (if this is what is taken from RPG genre is a good thing).
For now I installed both games via AUR on my Arch computer.
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I'm looking for a less buggy alternative to Naev, after it crashed yet again and corrupted tens to hundreds of hours of saves. Is Naikari developed fully independently or does it still merge updates from Naev? How stable would you say Naikari is compared to Naev?
We don’t merge stuff from Naev anymore, no, and I would say it’s much less buggy than Naev. We try to test things pretty thoroughly before pushing out a release, and while some small bugs may of course slip thru the cracks, we’ve not so far had anything as extreme as save file corruption. (Of course, that’s assuming you don’t have faulty or fraudulent storage media, e.g. an SSD or SD card that lies about its capacity, but that would be a hardware issue if you did.)
If you do give it a try, I would appreciate it if you let us know what you think! 🙂 It’s actually quite different from Naev in many ways and we’ve been trying to develop it in a different, hopefully better direction than its former upstream project.
Thank you for your reply!
I haven't played yet, but I already wanted to express my appreciation for building an appimage and a flatpak, rather than simply providing a tarball with a bash script.
I also only just noticed that you are developing your own
forkofspin on SuperTux as well. Very cool!sooooo interesting and i intend to try it again later but the combat system is difficult for me at least. Could be that I just ran into strong pirates but I think maybe a few more rounds with practice drones would be good. Preferably ones that dodge....... and maybe have stun type weapons that do no hull damage but provide incentive not to get hit much.
/edit
sooooo having trouble figuring out how to reach the ash system which is apparently the authorized dumping ground for waste................... I bought a number of system maps and have explored a good chunk around the area but can't find a route leading to it..... the starmaps aren't randomly generated right...... can anyone give me a string of systems that connect to it and head south, east, or west from it? ran low on money buying map info thinking I was missing jump points. they just don't seem there on most maps.
That’s a good idea! It might also be a good idea to allow customized freeform combat practice of that nature whenever the player wants, could help not only with learning combat mechanics but also with testing ship builds. Will definitely have to look into that idea when I get back home. 🙂
🦇
So just to follow up, I just finished implementing a combat practice mission which will be included in version 0.4.0 when it comes out. It’ll also be available in the nightly soon.
Also, I just noticed your edit! Sorry about that. Ash is adjacent to Tuoladis, which is north of Doranthex. You not being able to find it raises an interesting point that there should probably be a map showing all the waste disposal locations, especially because two of them (including Ash) aren’t adjacent to inhabited systems. I’ll add such a map for version 0.4.0, probably a bit later today since it’s an easy thing to do.
🦇
Nice! Is it a fork of Naev?
Yep, indeed it is! We were one of Naev’s most active contributors for several years and started to have major disagreements with Naev’s lead developer over what direction the development should take, so Naikari is us taking the game’s development in the direction we want it to go. 🙂
Interesting, but I can't tell what differences your fork has.
Could you list them? If they are more than just technological (as in code) change, if they are gameplay change.
Well there’s quite a lot to the point that listing the similarities would probably be easier than listing the differences. The version 0.1.0 release notes list a bunch of noteworthy differences compared to Naev ~0.8:
https://diligentcircle.itch.io/naikari/devlog/344951/naikari-010
Of course, though, Naev 0.8 isn’t the latest Naev release, and if you compare Naikari to the latest Naev release, it’s pretty clear that Naev has moved in quite a different direction, in particular introducing more and more RPG-like elements, completely changing the balance of the game, and adding things that, to my mind, amount to feature creep (like the stealth system and the visual novel interface). Naikari is deliberately eschewing a lot of that, and developing from what was roughly Naev 0.8 (actually slightly before 0.8) in a different way.
Since the point of Naikari is really where we’re taking it, I think it’s more useful to describe how our approach differs to Naev’s approach than to enumerate exact differences. In particular:
Hopefully that gives an okay idea of what distinguishes Naikari from Naev. Feel free to ask if you have any further questions. 🙂
Thanks for the details. I haven't tried any of the two yet and could only judge by screenshots.
I'm not a fan either of chatty characters but some sort of randomness (if this is what is taken from RPG genre is a good thing).
For now I installed both games via AUR on my Arch computer.