The Star Citizen Thread v 3.0

[Toumal]

Ok so on the gameplay side of things in the AC module (because that's the only actual "game" right now), we have three updates:


x) The groundwork for Interior physics grids has gone live!

What does that mean? I mean, is that even gameplay? Is there a physics puzzle that we can now play?

x) The Avenger, 300 series, Auroras (all Variants) and Non-Racer Mustangs will allow you to exit your seat while in flight as a result.

Cool. Again, that's gameplay?

x) However because the full mechanics are not yet in place, your character may clip out of your ship or be in zero-G while on the ship.

Excuse me? So basically, there's some internal physics stuff that's in the game now, but it's not fully working yet, and there's no actual gameplay associated with it.


Not gonna download, sorry. I'm waiting for the next update, which hopefully contains a bit more content.

 

[Neo-ST]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1mi-ZPxxpk

The game looks good, as long as the ships aren't moving.

 

[Toumal]

The game looks good, as long as the ships aren't moving.

They have some really good assets. I just hope they can make something with them that's fun to play.

 

[PhanttoM]

Ok so on the gameplay side of things in the AC module (because that's the only actual "game" right now), we have three updates:


x) The groundwork for Interior physics grids has gone live!

What does that mean? I mean, is that even gameplay? Is there a physics puzzle that we can now play?

x) The Avenger, 300 series, Auroras (all Variants) and Non-Racer Mustangs will allow you to exit your seat while in flight as a result.

Cool. Again, that's gameplay?

x) However because the full mechanics are not yet in place, your character may clip out of your ship or be in zero-G while on the ship.

Excuse me? So basically, there's some internal physics stuff that's in the game now, but it's not fully working yet, and there's no actual gameplay associated with it.


Not gonna download, sorry. I'm waiting for the next update, which hopefully contains a bit more content.

These kinds of updates are the reason why the overwhelming majority in my SC guild hasn't even bothered downloading the non-PTU versions.
I think the last time we got excited and actually played, was the update that brought the tutorial - And for most of us, the tutorial was irrelevant.

 

[Zetta]

Some nice changes and additions. Good to see that they are expanding the play area of ArcCorp, does anyone know what/how many other buildings are to be added?

 

[MaxLexandre]

Yeah the SQ42 demo 2 days ago i think the developer came on the forum explaining what they shown was the work of 2 Months of some employees after the capture shots finished on UK, even the admiral character is not finished yet. Things like Hair (that Austin is working on with 2 outsourced studios) are the ones that are just placeholders, but quite add more to the whole thing. So i'm hyped more is to see the level of detail they will take the characters as the time passes, if you remember Ryse, 1 character took around 1 year to fully complete, that's why it's nice to see where they took Bishop on just 2 months.

Ok so on the gameplay side of things in the AC module (because that's the only actual "game" right now), we have three updates:


x) The groundwork for Interior physics grids has gone live!

What does that mean? I mean, is that even gameplay? Is there a physics puzzle that we can now play?

x) The Avenger, 300 series, Auroras (all Variants) and Non-Racer Mustangs will allow you to exit your seat while in flight as a result.

Cool. Again, that's gameplay?

x) However because the full mechanics are not yet in place, your character may clip out of your ship or be in zero-G while on the ship.

Excuse me? So basically, there's some internal physics stuff that's in the game now, but it's not fully working yet, and there's no actual gameplay associated with it.


Not gonna download, sorry. I'm waiting for the next update, which hopefully contains a bit more content.

These are not gameplay, but they are essential to the game. It's like we're seeing the engine, the core tech of the game being finished at once. For example when they implemented the whole new ship destruction tech, it didn't add actual gameplay, but hell, it adds a lot to the whole game. The ship interior physics seem essential for Multi-Crew to happen.

One fundamental thing i think they haven't done yet, is deal with character physics to fix the movement, because the animations are fine but something is just off in the way you walk. :|

Even with AC 2.0 release, i don't think we will play Star Citizen yet, i feel we will play a "Sandbox" version of Star Citizen mostly for random happenings (like Buggies crashing simulator on Arcorp lol) and testing. Le waiting game. Also Le waiting game for Horizons. Also Le Waiting Game for Planet Coaster.

 

[Der Zeitgeist]

Even with AC 2.0 release, i don't think we will play Star Citizen yet, i feel we will play a "Sandbox" version of Star Citizen mostly for random happenings (like Buggies crashing simulator on Arcorp lol) and testing. Le waiting game. Also Le waiting game for Horizons. Also Le Waiting Game for Planet Coaster.

It's not "AC 2.0". I don't know why everyone keeps saying that. It's called "Star Citizen Alpha 2.0".

 

[MaxLexandre]

It's not "AC 2.0". I don't know why everyone keeps saying that. It's called "Star Citizen Alpha 2.0".

Yeah it's just first it was AC 2.0, but now they decided to get rid of AC and just put everything on the same build of Star Citizen Alpha.

Not sure however, is if we will actually need to go to Arena Commander once that update hits, or, if things will start being done differently.

 

[Stormprooter]

An excellent technical but easy to understand explanation of flight model problem with SC ships, from user DEEDEE-101: https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.com/discussion/comment/5749877/#Comment_5749877

These are the kinds of people who invest their time and effort on correcting CIG's mistakes and incompetence.

I'd always thought that gimballed thrusters were a bit of an odd choice (apart from 'looking cool') - this article explains why. Really well written. I wonder if CIG will make any changes based on this good sense?

- - - Updated - - -

SHips weigh nothing in space.

They do if they are accellerating (and that means slowing down and changing direction as well).

 

[jcrg99]

Is that Mr Bean?

Anyway, I thought they apologised before the vid about the quality (can't remember details) so those comments seem a little odd.

The problem is what they show for years of work with an entire studio that was supposedly built to make Squadron 42, exclusively, and then, we started to get reports that they were all been used to other stuff, like a lot time spent to make a "Capture the Core" map for Arena Commander (because its soooo priority right), or Squadron mode (check the leaderboards and see how many people play that, since it was created) or helping in a demo for the next trade show and other similar .

Since when the backers, in its majority care with "Racing" module ahead of anything else? Not appealing to the masses, right? Not for marketing, right? Ok.

They told that had missions done, etc, and well... look to this... it seems anything "done"? Did they shown anything that could be considered anything near of done?

And the reports are that SQ42 its 15 monhts away from release. So, yeah... they have been telling a lot of stories in reports, monthly/weekly/daily, while are selling $900 ships. But then, when it's time to show anything with just a little resemblance of "finished", that's what they shown.

So, it's the same story. It get approved, then get unapproved, then approved, then unapproved again... meanwhile, they have more time to sell more ships. Just a few buying so, you can't simply start to offer all them at the same time. Let the pockets of the whales and a few others fill again, otherwise, the sale will be worthless... and then, after they adding so many fluff to justify anything to take longer, the whole game is jeopardized because can't handle in any acceptable fashion the level of that they went. Who cares? The whole business is about selling ships for "ship collectors" anyway.

 

[ghcannon]

if you remember Ryse, 1 character took around 1 year to fully complete, that's why it's nice to see where they took Bishop on just 2 months.

It may very well take 3 years if they have a bad pipeline or invest 10 man-hours per week on it.

For example when they implemented the whole new ship destruction tech

They didn't say they did.
In fact, they were rather mindful of the tense they were speaking in in that reveal.

One fundamental thing i think they haven't done yet, is deal with character physics to fix the movement, because the animations are fine but something is just off in the way you walk. :|

True, they seem to move the root with practically no accumulation of momentum and their animation blending is way too fast. It's a really tough one to crack in a multiplayer game.

But it is progressing - definitely. In the right direction - most likely!
But man they should really pick up the pace ..

 

[MaxLexandre]

The problem is not these apologizes. The problem is what they show for years of work with an entire studio that was supposedly built to make Squadron 42, and then, we started to get reports that they were all been used to other stuff, like a lot time spent to make a "Capture the Core" map for Arena Commander or helping in a demo for the next trade show and other similar bull.

They told that had missions done, etc, and well... look to this... it sounds anything "done"? Did they shown anything that could be considered anything near of done?

And the reports are that SQ42 its 15 monhts away from release. So, yeah... they have been telling a lot of stories in reports, monthly/weekly/daily, while are selling $900 ships. But then, when it's time to show anything with just a little resemblance of "finished", that's what they shown.

A lot time? The Capture Shots were made 2 months ago, and lasted equality 2 months. This only means the big focus on Squadron 42 happened this year.
So what we seen and what they wanted to show is what they did in 2 months with the characters, that is a WIP, the way they captured everything is pretty much half of the work done. Also be aware that the Demo of you touring the ship is not about "oh they only have this to show", yet to show the actual Idris Capital ship in a more finished state.

I don't think, by no possible way, they would play their Big Cards of Squadron 42 on the conference. Does it means they only have a ship tour on the whole game done so far? No way!

Also Squadron 42 depends so much on the actual gameplay mechanics, FPS, Flight Model/Combat, Planetside, AI... And as we can see, the gameplay what it's taking most time, i don't think the UK studio would stay quiet and wait for the gameplay to be finished before do the rest, neither that they would show actual gameplay set on those unfinished mechanics, it is exactly those gameplay mechanics (Not the PU) that CIG has to finish during the next year, otherwise that will be the thing that can push SQ42 out of 2016.

 

[Zyll Goliat]

Hey by the way Mr. Nowak how's the SC netcode team doing these days can you be so kind and gives us some new info about it?
I remember when I mention 0 improvement back in 2014 compared with the original CE netcode Mr. Nowak claim that this is going to be a easy fix and that CIG will do that in few month at top... here is some of his greatest quotes...

Mr. Nowak"That would be a slight issue if AC would be the only game section being developed. Which is not the case. Also as many many times said before go watch the DFM footage from 2013 and compare it to the one now the Level they have gotten to the amount of netcode work and build work they did was nothing like they planned last year. Initial release of AC was on cryengine mp code. They now have their own netcode running all across the globe and Hosting 450k People."

That was back in 29.08.2014 and we can't see even today any significant impact in their moddified netcode so far.......I just wonder what's the news there?

 

[Mr.Nowak]

Hey by the way Mr. Nowak how's the SC netcode team doing these days can you be so kind and gives us some new info about it?
I remember when I mention 0 improvement back in 2014 compared with the original CE netcode Mr. Nowak claim that this is going to be a easy fix and that CIG will do that in few month at top... here is some of his greatest quotes...

Mr. Nowak"That would be a slight issue if AC would be the only game section being developed. Which is not the case. Also as many many times said before go watch the DFM footage from 2013 and compare it to the one now the Level they have gotten to the amount of netcode work and build work they did was nothing like they planned last year. Initial release of AC was on cryengine mp code. They now have their own netcode running all across the globe and Hosting 450k People."

That was back in 29.08.2014 and we can't see even today any significant impact in their moddified netcode so far.......I just wonder what's the news there?

Hop in on a multiplayer match. It's pretty smooth now. I had 0 network issues in my recent games. Arccorp can have 38 people walking around now too. That being said I expect to see minor issues creeping up with the SC 2.0 Alpha since it has a lot of new features.

 

[MaxLexandre]

It may very well take 3 years if they have a bad pipeline or invest 10 man-hours per week on it.



They didn't say they did.
In fact, they were rather mindful of the tense they were speaking in in that reveal.



True, they seem to move the root with practically no accumulation of momentum and their animation blending is way too fast. It's a really tough one to crack in a multiplayer game.

But it is progressing - definitely. In the right direction - most likely!
But man they should really pick up the pace ..

They actually have people who worked on the actual Ryse characters, it was that developer who made that comparative and revealed how much time they took. But let's see, Admiral Bishop already looks pretty cool and it's 2 months of work, also as they are not pre-rendering what they shown. They already have more 15 characters than what Ryse originally shipped with, what they are doing is taking them all to the same level of detail of what we seen on Bishop. Being Bishop himself not finished, that's why Austin on the last month report mentioned they're now working on Hair & Character Models/Creation stuff, so they had to show that with placeholders.

And they already did implemented that tech on the game, i mean before it was "shoot ship > explosion", now it's more you actually loose parts of your ship, the ship pretty much breaks piece by piece until it finally explodes.

 

[ghcannon]

So an underdeveloped space game has 15 more characters than a regular action game ?
Nothing wrong here, moving along ...

Is the ship 'dismantling' thing going to be in SC a2.0 ?
I'm not sure if you're concluding that it's implemented because they showed a silly physics impulse tool that shoots away modules or because they said something I didn't hear of. Based only on that video - no, they don't have it in the game.

 

[Leper Messiah]

Gah!! Is there some way of editting a controller config file in this game. I'd set up the axis to match Elite yesterday, but today the were back to SC defaults and I can't use those controls after playing Elite solid for 6-7 months! Thing is I have an old Saitek x35/36 combo and the axis'..er "slip" quite a bit. So when I select the control mappings in game to change it's really difficult to select the right axis (hard to explain) I'm pressing the control I want but another overrides it as my stick is too loose, basically I can't change it "in game" anymore. Wondering if there is a config file I can manually edit

 

[Barking_Mad]

Kate and Derek have been having a chat apparently...

http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1snlibp

 

[jcrg99]

Hop in on a multiplayer match. It's pretty smooth now. I had 0 network issues in my recent games. Arccorp can have 38 people walking around now too. That being said I expect to see minor issues creeping up with the SC 2.0 Alpha since it has a lot of new features.

Yeah. It's pretty smooth:

[video=youtube;wPvPQcU_Z6c]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPvPQcU_Z6c[/video]

lol

 

[MaxLexandre]

So an underdeveloped space game has 15 more characters than a regular action game ?
Nothing wrong here, moving along ...

Is the ship 'dismantling' thing going to be in SC a2.0 ?
I'm not sure if you're concluding that it's implemented because they showed a silly physics impulse tool that shoots away modules or because they said something I didn't hear of. Based only on that video - no, they don't have it in the game.

What? We're talking about the SP Campaign, as you can also check on examples as Mass Effect it seems it will be pretty much around same amount of characters.

No, i'm talking about this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkAaLd0FdK0 that's already in the game, i was meaning about the systems they already had to revamp and improve from what it was originally. On 1.3 PTU update of yesterday we already started to see the new lighting improvements on the engine, one big improvement than before, was rather dull. It's like they are not rushing the game to meet a X Date, they are willing to go back on their code, re-write whole systems to do it right. One of the most requested ones (as discussed on this thread) is them to go back and do changes to the flight model.