I remember when the MOD decided that the best way of building the newest helicopter carrier was to build it in 3 separate pieces in 3 separate ship yards. When the day came to put the pieces together they didn't match and they had to hurriedly build 2 bodged unsuitable joining pieces to get it out of the shipyard. Massively over budget and significant legacy issues with its operational role due to the "bodge"
This is the same feeling I'm getting with SC for the last 2 years. It's screaming BODGE to me. The project seems very reactive and rudderless.
Wish it didnt but there it is.
Well if your building big ships and aren't precise in engineering make measurement mistakes. But that building ships.
But in large scale software engineering. You split everything into smaller problems which are easier to handle.
In this case there are several modules in production where there is a lot of non shared similar place holder parts to make iets module playable and test able. And thus several version across modules.
But that leads of course to merge conflict need to be resolved. Which is what is expected.
It is means to handle and manage complexity.
They are in fase of merging in this fase there isn't much to show for. But when done they got single code base to work on. And now key features are combine implemented. And working together.
So AC isn't AC any more but SC ALFA on way to become feature complete after several public iteration and become one day BETA state. That what backers pledge for not AC 1.x.
Do you honestly believe that people would put so much energy into this thread if they didn't really believe what they are saying? This isn't some teen forum, it's largely old farts with responsibilities and time pressures

.
Well this thread get occasional closed, so apparently these old fart act like teens a lot of times.
Ok first of all, I can't fathom how anyone can claim that the SC forums are "relaxed". Have you not been there while the whole ESP thing was going on? It's a freaking hornet's nest. ESP was a huge debacle and the discussions over there were anything but relaxed.
Well youy mis read my post. Holigans are in any camp so nit SC forums not ED forums.
But any regular game forums like the dutch game magazine forums I encounter SC treads in. The are relaxed. Don't get close because of absent of those fan hooligan sqauds.
I don't think FD is the holy grail of space combat, and I miss the old stealth mechanics, but Frontier has built a solid combat experience first, and everything else on top of that solid base.
Yah so what, that true about ED. But you comparing a short production half featured game. With fix fund and hard deadlines. To a multy module production Where they stay very long in alfa stage before the merge the modules.
You would compare Angry birds to Fallout 4 to. Production Scope and scale has lot influence on funds needed and time.
There are much more factors but that big one is ignored it al stops.
Star Citizen did not. They're still pouring in more concrete in the hope that eventually the foundation will set, while others are busy constructing the roof of the building.
Well how wrong you are I bet you expect they build the Dubai sky scr before some veteran house builders, build a small house
Also, how do you have to wait for ALL MODULES to be there to balance them individually? That doesn't make a lick of sense.
I expect that every module is working and test able branch and have everything it need to run and be tested. So place holder components. Which are iterated to.
If each module is in playable state after each iteration then there is some local balance state We experience only the AC type. After merge any balance isn't valid. Als several features come to gether and balance setting related to some feature sets in isolation. After the big merge and all features in place they can start with final balance refining iteration
And finally, Cryengine was a bad choice. We have licences in house. I know what I'm talking about. It's not geared for space games, it's an FPS engine first and foremost. Yes you can hack anything in there if you have the source, but then you end up with an FPS engine that has the whole spaceflight thing hacked in. Which is exactly what we're getting there.
For what you say I rather think you don't know.
High profile Licensable engines are result of decades of work. Most of them are very data driven. And have full implemented and supported content pipeline which make large team productive.
That fit a large production as SC is best.
Also If you program on render backend level instead up to the front where script programmer are. You aren't aware how refactor engine and content pipeline to extend them to fit a specific project better.
If you build a game from scratch. It take a large time to get the engine up and running. Much longer to get a productive asset pipeline on rails to get the most out those 100++ Art team.
Any market leading licensable engine is a flying start for fresh studio with limited code base.
Now, I might be wrong about this, but I do fear that Cobra isn't particularly geared towards FPS. I worry that once Frontier starts with the whole FPS expansion, it could end up feeling clunky. Then again, people love Arma despite it being a clunky mess so I guess it doesn't matter...
But I might be wrong. I hope I am
ARMA is clunky because by FPS NPC animation this game object are complex. And if the scene is large with many animated char it heavy on hardware.
Games who are specialized in extreme animation are EA sport games and the have the in-house develop middle ware to power that. euphoria ? engine.
I also have read that DB choose for space game when He started with Elite because it the easiest genre to start with from a technical programming point.
The mistake that people make is FPS engine is made for genre that has terrain and animated objects. For space game you cut these heavy features out.
From technical point of view. A very basic spacecraft is simple static object. So if you got a teapot in a FPS. And have cut out terrain and any animated chars. Replace the teapot asset by a space craft and up the scale.
Sky box get instead clouds stars.
Frontier has made many games for also concole where there are animated object npc. players. So they got it in there studio code base to. So could be that Cobra inherited it when the worked on The outsider.