PLANETBASE is a cool game. I'm on my second base, although I have dropped back to earlier saves three times when a strategy didn't work and everyone died.

I'm up to 160 colonists, 500 meat and 600 veg in stockpile, everyone has a bed, and I built two gyms and a movie theater built, just built my monolith.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Saturday, June 06, 2020 - 03:36 am: Edit

Things I will go paste on the STEAM forum later but who knows, maybe one of you can answer.

RECYLED DOMES: This is very annoying. I want to replace power capacitor with a storage pod as part of overhauling the base. (Out of buildable interior space, I am slowly eating my way through my exterior power field (basically, moving the power stuff to the far edge of the buildable crater and replacing it with interior domes. THE PROBLEM is that the idiot AI/bot/crew ignore the boxes of recycled steel for 7-10 days while blocking me from building a new structure because there are recycled boxes there. I want some day to tell the bots 'go pick that stuff up and take it to storage and do that NOW.

SUGGESTION: I would really like to be able to add water fountains to barracks, cabins, factory, processor, lab, storage, and other structures.

CONNECTIONS: I want to be able to pick for myself between wide, narrow, and cable. Sometimes I just want a redundant power connection not a walkway. I need to be able to add power cable connectors to dorms, sick bays, airlocks, and any other T item.

GAME SPEED: I would really like that menu bar on the bottom to have a spot that says the game speed with 1x in green, 2x in yellow, and 4x in red.

ASK THE CREW: I would really love to be able to ask the crew what they want me to build next.

ANTI-ASTEROID LASERS: I have six of these which have never shot down a meteor and over 50 colonists have been killed by meteors. I built plenty of telescopes and added plenty of telescope control panels in the control rooms but I still get 0% chance of detection/firing.

FOUNDARIES AND PROCESSORS: why do these thing sit idle when plenty of unemployed crewmen walk past them constantly.

and finally

TWO WORDS: bulldozer bot.

By Gregory S Flusche (Vandar) on Saturday, June 06, 2020 - 07:26 pm: Edit

OK and why do my Citizens in Civ City Rome. Always run out of Olive oil. I swear they bath in the stuff. Also why do they not go get stuff that is right there near there home? No they wait until there house drops a level.. sigh.. But really it is the Olive Oil that is the worst

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Sunday, November 01, 2020 - 04:57 pm: Edit

I just signed up for a STEAM account so that I could download Flight Sim FSX. My new Saitek yoke and peddles arrived two days early.

Garth L. Getgen

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Thursday, December 24, 2020 - 03:09 pm: Edit

i just received an email from STEAM, one of their advertisement spams: Star Trek: Starfleet Command Gold Edition is on sale for $3.39


Garth L. Getgen

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, December 24, 2020 - 03:24 pm: Edit

It would be nice if they paid ADB the royalties they haven't paid in a very very long time. They owe me enough to buy a new car.

By Lawrence Bergen (Lar) on Thursday, December 24, 2020 - 08:33 pm: Edit

Garth: Just saw the notice at the the bottom of the Steam window.

"Notice: This game is only compatible with Windows XP, Vista, 7 and 8."

Glad I did before I purchased it.

By MarkSHoyle (Bolo) on Thursday, December 24, 2020 - 08:53 pm: Edit

Not computer literate enough to play with emulators,
so with the CD version, barely got it to run with XP.....Not well enough to really enjoy...
Loaded on OS 7, but wouldn't run (just got a black/blank screen)....

Microsoft has done their best to prevent CD games from running on newer OS' since the X-Box came out...

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Thursday, December 24, 2020 - 09:05 pm: Edit

Thanks, Lar. I'm still running Win-7/32-bit. I wonder, tho, if it would run on a Win-10 box inside a VM w/Win-7.


Garth L. Getgen

By Ryan Opel (Ryan) on Thursday, December 24, 2020 - 10:04 pm: Edit

I've got a couple of games made way before Win 10 that run fine.

By Garth L. Getgen (Sgt_G) on Thursday, December 24, 2020 - 10:13 pm: Edit

I have a program, Floor Plan Plus version 2, which was made for Win-95, will NOT run on Win-7/64 bit but does run on Win-XP and Win-7/32-bit. Someone suggest that if/when I upgrade to Win-10, I might be able to run it in a Win-XP/VM. I do wonder if it'll run on Win-10/32-bit, but I don't know anyone running that.


Garth L. Getgen

By Patrick H. Dillman (Patrick) on Friday, December 25, 2020 - 12:36 pm: Edit

I have pinned a post in the SFC fan group on facebook that will take you to a walk thru to get SFC to run in Windoze X.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Sunday, July 18, 2021 - 08:28 am: Edit

Are there any thoughts here on the forthcoming Steam Deck system from Valve?

There are three iterations being offered at launch, primarily varying in terms of how much storage capacity is to be included.

It's set to launch in the US, Canada, the UK, and the EU this December, with more regions to be added thereafter.

IGN have posted a first-look preview on their YouTube channel.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Sunday, July 18, 2021 - 06:58 pm: Edit

Steam deck… no interest.

By Scott A Akers (Mjolnir3853) on Monday, July 26, 2021 - 02:07 am: Edit

I found my old Starfleet Command Gold Edition disc, I tried to install it on my new machine and it won't work. Wants me to register with Interplay, but when I tried to connect to Interplay, no luck. Is this still a viable product and does anyone know how to make it work?

By Mike Erickson (Mike_Erickson) on Monday, July 26, 2021 - 01:16 pm: Edit

My old SFC disks have long since been lost in the sands of time. It has been quite a few years since I last played it.

SFC Gold is currently available on Steam for $9.99, and I had toyed with the idea of buying it there and trying to play on a modern computer. The reviews seem to indicate some compatibility problems, but there are also some fixes posted in the Steam forums and there are players reporting success running it on Windows 10.

Not sure this really helps you with trying to get your disks running, but I thought I'd mention this other option. I remember it being a fun game.

--Mike

By Randy Green (Hollywood750) on Monday, July 26, 2021 - 07:26 pm: Edit

I got SFC Gold on sale a while back at GOG, for like, $5. On my older laptops, I had some issues. On my gaming desktop (Win10), I didn't have any issues at all running it, and didn't have to tweak anything.

By Kevin Howard (Jarawara) on Monday, July 26, 2021 - 08:25 pm: Edit

I don't know much about the SFC program - do I use it to play online with others, or can I play it solitare, against a computer A.I.?

By Mike Erickson (Mike_Erickson) on Monday, July 26, 2021 - 10:41 pm: Edit

I played it exclusively against the computer AI solitaire. I found it fun in that mode. I have read there are multi-player modes but I have never played them so I can't speak to how well they work or how fun they are.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/364820/Star_Trek_Starfleet_Command_Gold_Edition/

--Mike

By Randy Green (Hollywood750) on Tuesday, July 27, 2021 - 06:56 pm: Edit

I used to play it against a few friends online, in dedicated H2H matchups. I'm not sure if the Dynaverse servers are still up, which is where you went to play in a continuous universe campaign. The matchups against friends usually went quickly and depended on whether the anchors were... sssuccesssfull... Make sure you use top-down view. But SFB it isn't. Because it's so fast paced and you don't have granular control of shuttles and energy allocation, just a general level of control. Very fast-paced. And the Fed campaign is very tough, for solo players. It can be quite fun. SFC 2 and the Orion Private expansion were also great.. just do not get SFC 3. Shudder.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Sunday, February 27, 2022 - 03:21 pm: Edit

The Steam Deck has been officially launched.

Valve has shown the first images of what the official dock looks like, but no word just yet as to its price or launch date.

But then, given the pre-order backlog that needs to be cleared for the actual Steam Decks themselves, it might take a while for many of those who might have use for the dock to be able to actually use it in any event.

By Mike Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Monday, February 28, 2022 - 07:42 am: Edit

Gary, for those of us that are clueless, can you explain what that is?

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Monday, February 28, 2022 - 08:13 pm: Edit

The Steam Deck is a handheld PC, with a form factor which has been compared to that of a Nintendo Switch.

While primarily designed for gaming, the Steam Deck is still a PC: it has SteamOS (which is based on Linux, and which includes the Proton compatibility layer to support the playing of Windows games) as standard, though it can be dual-booted if someone wishes to install Windows on it.

Valve have a list of Steam Deck Verified games posted here; this list should continue to grow as more and more games from the Steam catalogue are fed through Valve's ongoing evaluation system.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Friday, November 10, 2023 - 10:58 am: Edit

A new iteration of the Steam Deck, with an OLED screen (among other improvements), is due out in the US and Canada next week.

How much of an improvement is it over the original version? This tech review - plus a few others over on YouTube - might help explain this.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Monday, December 11, 2023 - 01:49 pm: Edit

So what does the OLED model Steam Deck look like?

Well, like this!

-----

The Steam Deck - LCD or OLED - defaults to gaming mode, which uses the Steam client to install and play games.

Beyond gaming mode, SteamOS has a desktop mode which enables the Steam Deck to be used as a desktop Linux PC.

Although, it would be advised to do this while using a few added peripherals: an external monitor (portable or otherwise); a keyboard and a mouse (wired or wireless); and a dock (the official dock from Valve has three USB ports, an HDMI port, a DisplayPort, and an Ethernet port - and comes with an extra AC adaptor).

Said peripherals are also recommended for playing games designed to be played on a larger screen with a keyboard and mouse. Although, using the OLED screen while docked is not an altogether bad alternative.

SteamOS has Mozilla Firefox installed as standard, though other apps - such as Google Chrome, LibreOffice, and so forth - can be installed from the Discover Software Centre (an "app store" for Flatpaks).

Note, however, that SteamOS sets the system memory to read-only by default. While it is possible to alter this, Valve only suggest that option for someone who knows what they are doing - not least since any edits made are liable to be wiped in the next OS update.

So there are two main ways to get new things running on the Steam Deck: to download (or transfer) and install them in the Steam client itself, or to use Flatpaks from the Discover Software Centre.

Not sure just yet how - or if - the SFBOL or FCOL client can be run on it, however... (Well, it is possible to dual-boot Windows on the device, if one so wished.)

By Jeff Guthridge (Jeff_Guthridge) on Wednesday, December 13, 2023 - 10:34 am: Edit

Gary, I have a Steam deck (original) and I do not recommend it for use with SFBOL. The video system is 720p even on external monitors, this lack of resolution will impact the viability of reading all of the text that is present in any SFBOL game. That being said, I have been trying to use my Steam deck with WSJTX and it’s a text heavy system as well. (It’s the software for a popular HAM Radio Digital mode)

Though you have me wondering ‘how bad’ it would be.

When I have the chance I’ll see if I can wrangle it onto mine and see. I’ll report back.

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Wednesday, December 13, 2023 - 11:23 am: Edit

---

Quote:

The video system is 720p even on external monitors, this lack of resolution will impact the viability of reading all of the text that is present in any SFBOL game.

---

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Wednesday, February 07, 2024 - 11:17 am: Edit

Ironically, to this point most of the game-related use I have had for the Steam Deck OLED has been to play games that are best played with a keyboard and mouse.

For example: Total War: Three Kingdoms is listed as Unsupported on Steam, yet it (mostly) runs well enough - though it's best to play on an external monitor with mouse and keyboard.

More recently, however, I installed my first Deck Verified game: Spider-Man Remastered. But of course, while you can play it in handheld mode, you also have the option to play it in docked mode with a separate controller.

And what might be a good choice of controller for that particular game?

Perhaps this one!

That is the Midnight Black colour DualSense.

Notably, when you connect this controller to the Steam Deck (which can be done either via type-C USB or via Bluetooth), SteamOS replaces with A, B, X, and Y buttons on the interface with the four PlayStation buttons!

Also, on both the Steam Deck's own controls and on the external controller, it is possible to swap the button configurations to the Nintendo standard input: B swaps with A, while X swaps with Y.

Plus, the trackpad on the DualSense works as a trackpad in desktop mode, if you wanted to use it for that.

And you can manually adjust whether or not desktop mode activates the controller's built-in microphone and/or speakers. (At least when connected via type-C USB; I gather that not all of the DualSense features work on Deck via Bluetooth.)

Do any of you have an external controller for use in docked mode - and, if so, which one do you prefer?

By Gary Carney (Nerroth) on Thursday, January 09, 2025 - 02:06 pm: Edit

Earlier this week, a pair of SteamOS-related announcements were made at this year's CES.

The first official SteamOS-supported device from a company other than Valve was announced by Lenovo at this year's CES; it's reportedly due out in May.

Before then, the first public beta of SteamOS for other handheld PCs, such as the ASUS ROG Ally X, should be made available by Valve. In the long run, my understanding is that Valve intend to make SteamOS available as a general-use Linux distribution, for desktops and laptops also.

Although, there are a number of Linux distributions which presently incorporate SteamOS-like features, such as Bazzite, which can be installed as an alternative to waiting for Valve's "official" expansion of SteamOS beyond the Steam Deck ecosystem.