The Star Citizen Thread v5

[MarktJones]

I'm 22 minutes into the demo and so far it's been flying along rails and walking about. Does something ever happen? Ooh, hold on, cliche voice guy!

Edit: Something about him makes me think he's a wrong un.

Edit: What is wrong with his body?!

Excellent, more walking.

Edit: Best god damn elevator simulator ever!

Edit: And another elevator...

AM I watching the right thing? I thought there would be combat of some kind...

Edit: It's taken so long to get back to the ship everyone has forgotten the mission.

Hurrah! Some flying! The atmosphere is roughly 200 metres thick?

Okay, so the space combat took all of 3 minutes?

Edit: The EVA bit was great until the bad guy showed us. Hilarious!

 

[lysan]

I must admit that this Gamescom demo looked pretty awesome. Sure it was directed and played in controlled environment but nonetheless they seem to be making noticeable progress in all fields.

Yup, just as they were in 2014....

 

[AlPilg]

I'm 22 minutes into the demo and so far it's been flying along rails and walking about. Does something ever happen? Ooh, hold on, cliche voice guy!

Something about him makes me think he's a wrong un.

What is wrong with his body?!


Excellent, more walking.

Best god damn elevator simulator ever!

Edit: And another elevator...

AM I watching the right thing? I thought there would be combat of some kind...

Edit: It's taken so long to get back to the ship everyone has forgotten the mission.

Hurrah! Some flying! The atmosphere is roughly 200 metres thick?

Okay, so the space combat took all of 3 minutes?

Edit: The EVA bit was great until the bad guy showed us. Hilarious!

They have procedural generated conversation dont you know. Chris R. did have this in mind for Freelancer in 1998, pretty sure he did?

Well it's all pie in the sky and the SC crowd really have no idea what they are talking about.

 

[Osmanthus]

There were a few noticeable jump cuts, I'm curious as to how that fitted in with the guy playing it live? Genuine question

He also moved very slowly and deliberately, though that's excusable for immerzhun's sake

 

[Rolan]

There were a few noticeable jump cuts, I'm curious as to how that fitted in with the guy playing it live? Genuine question

He also moved very slowly and deliberately, though that's excusable for immerzhun's sake

Jump Cuts? When?

 

[CMDR_Orlando]

Doing some research provides a nice comeback video [up]:
[video=youtube;aQ7Frkwi8JY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQ7Frkwi8JY[/video]

 

[frostypaw]

I must admit that this Gamescom demo looked pretty awesome. Sure it was directed and played in controlled environment but nonetheless they seem to be making noticeable progress in all fields.

I preferred this one - the progress since the current buggy 2.4 PU is amazing
[video=youtube;OJkAwDXgKEs]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJkAwDXgKEs[/video]

 

[Osmanthus]

Jump Cuts? When?

theres a really strong one at 2:20, or at least it looks that way. I'm mobile atm so don't have more but that was one that struck me as odd

 

[AJW]

I think that the 'jump cuts' are more a result of wonky physics and/or networking than anything else. Both the ship and the player figures seemed to snap from one place to another on occasion. There was also the occasional obvious disconnect between the direction the player moved and the animation of his feet, but that seems to be an endemic problem with third-person views in FPS games.

 

[Ben Parry]

It's true, changing the exponent shouldn't affect relative precision. I would have though issues with downscaling would introduce problems only because the underlying engine isn't designed to run at such length scales, not explicitly because of precision. But I say this only from a computational science point of view, I have no experience with game programming.

Oh, no doubt something somewhere would get unhappy if you downscaled everything. What's more important though is that you wouldn't gain anything by doing it in the first place.

 

[CTCParadox]

Oh, no doubt something somewhere would get unhappy if you downscaled everything. What's more important though is that you wouldn't gain anything by doing it in the first place.

I gather this is not really your area but you seem to know. If CryEngine has default max level size of 8.0 x 8.0 x 0.5 km (that's the number I've heard anyway) is it relatively easy to simply make the default map size bigger? I gather that's what CIG would have had to do to make a space game in CE.

I'm sure this is an old topic but it's quite interesting to hear the programming/engine challenges encountered when making stuff like ED, SC or KSP.

CMDR CTCParadox

 

[frostypaw]

Oh, no doubt something somewhere would get unhappy if you downscaled everything. What's more important though is that you wouldn't gain anything by doing it in the first place.

But with the jump to double precision floating point couldn't one, in theory, make all the game objects and camera etc much smaller and maintain the same apparent level of precision while seemingly increasing the map size?
The scale is after all entirely arbitrary

 

[Ben Parry]

I gather this is not really your area but you seem to know. If CryEngine has default max level size of 8.0 x 8.0 x 0.5 km (that's the number I've heard anyway) is it relatively easy to simply make the default map size bigger? I gather that's what CIG would have had to do to make a space game in CE.

I'm sure this is an old topic but it's quite interesting to hear the programming/engine challenges encountered when making stuff like ED, SC or KSP.

CMDR CTCParadox

I think just unclamping the size limits would be a pretty trivial task, not sure there's any code that actually requires things to be smaller than that. I could imagine physics maybe having some data structure with a fixed size I guess. The problems come when you travel a little further out, then game elements, and even bits of GUI, start getting bent out of shape. That's the point where you need to convert to 64 bit, or use origin recentering, or whatever.

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But with the jump to double precision floating point couldn't one, in theory, make all the game objects and camera etc much smaller and maintain the same apparent level of precision while seemingly increasing the map size?
The scale is after all entirely arbitrary

OK, certainly you could, but you could also just actually increase the map size.

 

[Ozram]

Not as much as the Non Believers I would say!

Star Citizen: So Big it's Tiny

Non Believers? Really? Are we Heretics now? The Goy? Lol! That language is telling.

 

[frostypaw]

OK, certainly you could, but you could also just actually increase the map size.

Think that's the worry - as you say

The problems come when you travel a little further out, then game elements, and even bits of GUI, start getting bent out of shape. That's the point where you need to convert to 64 bit, or use origin recentering, or whatever.

and this trick lets you avoid at least a portion of that drama, perhaps a port olisar sized portion?

I'm not trying to mess about, it does just seem like a very appealing 'simple' solution that I can imagine people taking then realising it's knock on effects cascade without ever solving the original problem of patching maps together to get to a star system's scale

 

[CTCParadox]

I think just unclamping the size limits would be a pretty trivial task, not sure there's any code that actually requires things to be smaller than that. I could imagine physics maybe having some data structure with a fixed size I guess. The problems come when you travel a little further out, then game elements, and even bits of GUI, start getting bent out of shape. That's the point where you need to convert to 64 bit, or use origin recentering, or whatever.

Cheers. Is there anything to stop you using more than 64-bit for physics/map stuff? I heard KSP uses origin recentering but from what little I know I can't imagine that would play nicely in multiplayer.

CMDR CTCParadox

 

[Rolan]

theres a really strong one at 2:20, or at least it looks that way. I'm mobile atm so don't have more but that was one that struck me as odd

Are you talking about the official Gamescom video or which one?

 

[Hellhawk666]

I must admit that this Gamescom demo looked pretty awesome. Sure it was directed and played in controlled environment but nonetheless they seem to be making noticeable progress in all fields.

Agreed. It was an impressive demo. Several alpha glitches, but meh. I like the way the game is headed.

 

[Bobbydylan]

I watched the GC demo, and I have to say, it looks amazing. I love the idea of EVA'ing over to a derelict ship and seeing the assorted post-battle detritus floating around.

But I realised that most of the online gamplay wont be like that. For a start, I suspect the "AI" on the destroyed Starfarer were players, as the "pirates" on the planet. I doubt players are going to be sitting around in empty ships, waiting to troll someone who may or may no come along.
Then, that mission briefing was amazingly well motion captured, and voice acted. Will every mission be like that? For every mission giver, in all the stations and ports in all 100 sytems?
No, I doubt it. So I think this is deliberately misleading.

I also think the "Ermahgawd, double-cross" was absurd. If the Bald dude thinks he can overcome the players, then why could he not overcome the Pirates the player just ROFLstomped? He clearly has ships in the area, why spent the 6000cr on someone just to risk attacking them later, when you can do the job yourself? I know that's a minor complaint but the mission was fine up till that point. It's like CR thinks that the nonsensical drama should be added for the sake of adding it, no cos it makes sense. And after the eye-rolling Garry Oldman trailer, I don't have high hopes for story quality.

Also, the flight model looks like it continues to be dog    , from watching that Freelancer move about. The ships feel like they have no mass.

Still, on the hole the GC demo left me feeling slightly optimistic. The game might be a fun diversion when it eventually comes out.

 

[MarktJones]

I watched the GC demo, and I have to say, it looks amazing. I love the idea of EVA'ing over to a derelict ship and seeing the assorted post-battle detritus floating around.

But I realised that most of the online gamplay wont be like that. For a start, I suspect the "AI" on the destroyed Starfarer were players, as the "pirates" on the planet. I doubt players are going to be sitting around in empty ships, waiting to troll someone who may or may no come along.
Then, that mission briefing was amazingly well motion captured, and voice acted. Will every mission be like that? For every mission giver, in all the stations and ports in all 100 sytems?
No, I doubt it. So I think this is deliberately misleading.

I also think the "Ermahgawd, double-cross" was absurd. If the Bald dude thinks he can overcome the players, then why could he not overcome the Pirates the player just ROFLstomped? He clearly has ships in the area, why spent the 6000cr on someone just to risk attacking them later, when you can do the job yourself? I know that's a minor complaint but the mission was fine up till that point. It's like CR thinks that the nonsensical drama should be added for the sake of adding it, no cos it makes sense. And after the eye-rolling Garry Oldman trailer, I don't have high hopes for story quality.

Also, the flight model looks like it continues to be dog    , from watching that Freelancer move about. The ships feel like they have no mass.

Still, on the hole the GC demo left me feeling slightly optimistic. The game might be a fun diversion when it eventually comes out.

Eva was lovely though the floating living people were odd. (It's an alpha stupid!). It took roughly 10x the time to get the mission than actual action in the mission which is bonkers. And it all depends on the networking. The actual ship on ship fight was disappointing too.