Support

Difficulty running Startron?

Startron is designed to run on .Net Core 3.1 for maximum compatibility.
If you can't run Startron, you may not have .Net Core installed on your machine.

Please find the .Net Core 3.1 runtimes here.
(The correct one for your operating system will need to be downloaded and installed before Startron will launch properly)

Only download and install the runtime called .NET Runtime for console apps (usually the 3rd section down on the right); .NET Desktop Runtime and ASP.NET Core Runtime do not allow Startron to run so don't install either of these.

Note: Startron has only been tested to work with Windows 10 (x64), Ubuntu 20.04 (x64) & Raspberry Pi OS 2022-01-28 (x64)

Running Startron on Linux?

First, ensure you have the correct distribution (use Ubuntu x64 for Intel architecture and ARM x64 for anything else)

To play Startron in a terminal on Linux, make sure to set the terminal to a Monospaced font and resize it to fit 120 columns by 60 rows as shown below:
Linux terminal preferences
(If your terminal still can't fit on the screen at 120x60 you may wish to try the squished configuration detailed at the bottom of this page)
(You may also need to set your terminal's character set to UTF-8 if characters are rendering incorrectly)

After setting up your terminal, enter these red instructions to install Startron:

Switch to root (you'll need the root password for this)
   sudo su

Install NCurses (unless you already have it)
   apt-get install libncursesw5

Go to where the Startron files are (replace the bit after cd with the appropriate directory)
   cd /home/username/downloads/Startron

Claim ownership of all the Startron files (replace username with your username)
   chown -R username:username *
   chmod -R 777 *

Come out of root
   exit

Go to where the Startron files are (replace the bit after cd with the appropriate directory)
   cd /home/username/downloads/Startron

Run Startron
   ./Startron

If after attempting to run Startron you see an error like the one below or anything talking about double free detected in tcache 2, NCurses may not have installed correctly:
NCurses error
(At this point if you're stuck I can only advise checking what the apt-get install libncursesw5 command above said and having a Google :) )

Startron looks a bit squished?

Startron is designed to run on a screen resolution of 1280x1024 or greater.
However, if the screen is vertically shorter when Startron starts, it will reduce the height of the window automatically at the cost of some screen real-estate in game.
All features should still be accessible and work correctly if this proves necessary.

All the pictures and music are missing?

If you're running Startron straight from the .zip file, it will likely not be able to access the res/ folder correctly.
Please extract all the files and folders in the .zip to a new folder before playing Startron.

Contact me about an issue

For technical assistance, please either:
   - Post a detailed explanation of your problem on the Startron TIG Forums development thread
   - Send a message to me on the Neocities hub

Configure Startron

Startron will accept a number of launch parameters provided to it with a plaintext config file next to the application titled startron.cfg
(Some of these are configured using the options menu in-game, others must be set in the config file manually.)


Music can be toggled at launch with:
   music: on|off
(This won't do anything in Linux)
(Defaults to on if not set)

The screen can be squished to emulate a lower resolution with:
   squished: on|off
(Turn this on to set the screen to 120x50 characters, and off to set the screen to 120x60 characters)
(Defaults to off if not set)

Building restrictions can be toggled with:
   unlimited: on|off
(Defaults to off if not set)

Linux hard window refreshes can be toggled with:
   refreshLinuxWindowOnDraw: on|off
(Turn this off if your game appears to be running slowly in Linux (this may result in some screen stretching at the edges if your Linux console window is bigger than it needs to be))
(Defaults to on if not set)

Autosave interval (in milliseconds) can be set with:
   autosave: {milliseconds}
(Autosave occurs every 10 minutes by default and can be turned off completely with a millisecond value less than 10000)

Starting window position can be set with:
   windowX: {pixels}
   windowY: {pixels}
(You can put negative values or values greater than your primary monitor's resolution to have Startron start on another screen if you have more than one)
(This won't do anything in Linux)

Save file obfuscation can be turned on or off with:
   obfuscatePlayerData: on|off
(Defaults to on if not set)

Transition cinematics can be toggled with:
   transitionCinematics: on|off
(Defaults to on if not set)

PC speaker beeps can be toggled with:
   beeper: on|off
(The PC speaker will only work if supported by your operating system (emulated or otherwise))
(Defaults to on if not set)