The Star Citizen Thread

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I've played it for a bit now.

Need to play it much more to be fair in comparison to Elite's combat.

Graphics do scale better than I expected and I get a decent frame rate on my GTX 560 Ti. I do believe the hangar module has a lower FPS.

It recognises my Force Feedback 2 joystick and has bindings for it (even if you can't change them) which was impressive.

It's not horrible, but the map feels small. "You are leaving the combat zone", turn around fly a bit "You are leaving the combat zone".

The ship control isn't as intuitive as Elite's, by this length of time playing I'd have got control of Elite enough to know how fast I was moving and be able to shoot at the enemy with some confidence and understand the HUD. In this I'm still shunting around not knowing what's going on, it has lots of toggle options and I keep finding I'm no longer in roll mode or my ship is working differently. It feels quite jarring if your used to Elite's weighty ship movements and wonderful boosty sound effects.

I crashed into one of the enemy. The enemy ship stuck to my ship. I couldn't shake the enemy ship off and both ship started to shake violently. I went to an external view, the camera zoomed in on my pilots face, his eyes were popping out and his teeth were fully exposed inside his mouth. He looked petrified.

I had to quit.

I wish I had known how to take a screenshot.

It's too early to compare to Elite still. Feels more like a graphics demo. It is a little worrying that it's taking this long just to build an arena shooter out of Chris Robert's vision.

I do like it though.
 
My first impressions on flight model

Decoupled mode sucks, G-safe/COMSTAB off is pretty cool.
Decoupled mode is supposed to give you freedom of movement, but with no ability to roll + limiting and locking your forwards/backwards throttle, I can only say that I don't like it at the moment.

On a positive note: For comparison Elite: Dangerous heavily prioritizes roll/pitch (because yaw is slower), and it is my first impression that Star Citizen is the opposite and focuses roll/yaw - This means that rolling is a must in order to align for a yaw turn.

The reason I say this, is that you pull almost no G-forces when you do a hard yaw turn (G-safe/COMSTAB off), whereas if you try to turn towards an enemy with pitch you start blacking out.
 

psyron

Banned
They've done the right thing there, to be honest. The public are a fickle bunch and if they'd seen nothing but marketing videos for over a year's worth of development, there'd be massive unrest (even more so than there has been already). The work they've done isn't for naught either, as they're all things that would have to be done *at some point* so doing them early on in development is sensible. The only thing I don't really understand is the fish tank.

As a software developer i do not agree on this. I don't think that spending so much time on details was a good decision by RSI, because only after testing the general gameplay can you really decide on the details.

For example i don't like the big struts of the cockpits. Makes gameplay awful. But now it's too late to change the ship design because it would be a lot of work.
If you see what i mean.

Same for all other details:
- weapons
- ship thrusters
- ...
 
I'll copy the text from my thread on the SC forum:

Arcadey Commander:
--------------------

Do you guys remember all those threads on how Star Citizen will be a true space sim. Complex physics modelling, full support for HOTAS & pedals setups, etc etc. Oh yes, and people pooh-pooing Elite for being "simple and arcadey" in comparison.

Well, now we have the first look at how flying and core space-ship gameplay is shaping up in SC, and I'm looking at a very depressing picture. 3rd person perspective for situational awareness, and ships that chase the mouse and guns that track the mouse pointer. Fans of the ultra casual style of War Thunder, World of Warplanes and Freelancer will be right at home, but those who bought into the hype and got a HOTAS setup are shafted severely.

Just like in War Thunder it doesn't matter at all if the game technically supports joysticks. With a flight model where the ship chases the cursor and guns can be pointed at the same time, joysticks are pointeless and a mouse is the only real way to fly. If somebody wants to be really high-fi, I suppose a mouse and throttle may be the way to go.

Remember the discussions about the bad placement of the fixed class 1 mounts on the 300i? Looks like it turns out they aren't class 1 afterall. Instead they track the mouse cursor just like everything else.

gg, sim fans lose, casuals win

lol, I can imagine that went down quite well :p
 
On a positive note: For comparison Elite: Dangerous heavily prioritizes roll/pitch (because yaw is slower), and it is my first impression that Star Citizen is the opposite and focuses roll/yaw - This means that rolling is a must in order to align for a yaw turn.

Which is ultimatly the more arcady way to fly... Wing Commander did it the same way, as did all other of CRs games. Rolling was always sluggish and optional.
 

psyron

Banned
My impression is, in order to fix AC RSI would have to change a lot ... and finally copy a lot of good things already in ED:
- thruster sound
- cockpit movement when accelerating/decelerating
- forcing people to roll -> better gameplay
- limited speed of rolling -> better dogfighting
- nice cockpit design + light reflections
- nice 3D holograhpic cockpit instruments
- better laser effects
- ...

Of course i hope they will not do this. This would be a shame. And afterall I want ED to be the better game because DB, FD and ED-Fans deserve it. ;)
 

Boomotang

Banned
For example i don't like the big struts of the cockpits. Makes gameplay awful. But now it's too late to change the ship design because it would be a lot of work.

No need to change the ship designs too much. The 300i has no cockpit struts. The point of the PU is to have a wide range of different experiences.
 

Bains

Banned
I'll copy the text from my thread on the SC forum:

Arcadey Commander:
--------------------

Just like in War Thunder it doesn't matter at all if the game technically supports joysticks. With a flight model where the ship chases the cursor and guns can be pointed at the same time, joysticks are pointeless and a mouse is the only real way to fly. If somebody wants to be really high-fi, I suppose a mouse and throttle may be the way to go.

This is what killed war thunder for me, stopping it from even being enjoyable as a casual experience. Rather than there being parity, the fact you could do acrobatics more easily with a joystick was irrelevant, because when push comes to shove you will always be outgunned with people aiming with a mouse. While you're struggling to line up your nose and gun sights, they put the cross-hair on you and press fire - nothing more to it than that.

I thought SC would go the same way for a long time.
 
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psyron

Banned
No need to change the ship designs too much. The 300i has no cockpit struts. The point of the PU is to have a wide range of different experiences.

Yes, the 300i, but all the other ship's cockpits look awful. From what i have seen from ED till now, alle cockpits look great - very different, but great.

EDIT:
I am also getting tired of hearing the CR always had a clear vision how SC will be. Sure, he had a clear vision of the design of the ships (they are actually only talking about this mainly in the shows). But when it comes to gameplay and the feeling of flying it was DB who had a clearer vision afterall.
 
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Of course i hope they will not do this. This would be a shame. And afterall I want ED to be the better game because DB, FD and ED-Fans deserve it. ;)

...we could take the announcements for shield status AC has for ED, though... they are helpful. ;)
 

Bains

Banned
Surprisingly well actually. I think a lot of people are in a state of shock. A few days ago I would have been lynched as a heretic.

Now this is a good sign. But it could be the fanboys are still at school. Let's see what happens tonight when they've finished their homework and over the next few days.
 
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CR's clarity of vision extended as far as highly detailed ships, the rest was/is hazy and up for grabs - democratisation of game design and all that, which in turn means whatever the majority want.

This was fine at the sub 10million backing level because that was more a community of 'core' gamers, but at the 40 million level its just a case of more people play COD than arma, so the tastes of the COD gamer will be primary consideration.

I think you're on to something there. And I say this without implying that COD is a bad thing in itself. I very much enjoyed MW2 for example. But when it comes to how SC presented itself in the initial kickstarter, and the thing I see released now... even considering that it's the very first playable release that has anything flying in space, it's very much confirming what I took away from the PAX reveal in terms of what flight and combat are designed to feel like.

It is too soon to say much about the finished product for both ED and SC, but comparing the two right now I'd say: Both have glaring issues that can be attributed to the early development status, but I personally feel that the underlying core mechanics are well thought through in Elite, and not at all in SC.

That's my personal opinion of course and if someone says it's the other way around, while I don't think they can really substantiate it with factual evidence, not everyone has to like Elite's flight mechanics. And that's something that I imagine might be one of the major differentiators between the two projects.
 
I think you're on to something there. And I say this without implying that COD is a bad thing in itself. I very much enjoyed MW2 for example. But when it comes to how SC presented itself in the initial kickstarter, and the thing I see released now... even considering that it's the very first playable release that has anything flying in space, it's very much confirming what I took away from the PAX reveal in terms of what flight and combat are designed to feel like.

It is too soon to say much about the finished product for both ED and SC, but comparing the two right now I'd say: Both have glaring issues that can be attributed to the early development status, but I personally feel that the underlying core mechanics are well thought through in Elite, and not at all in SC.

That's my personal opinion of course and if someone says it's the other way around, while I don't think they can really substantiate it with factual evidence, not everyone has to like Elite's flight mechanics. And that's something that I imagine might be one of the major differentiators between the two projects.

That last paragraph is it for me.

At the moment - to me - it feels like turrets in space.

Some people will love that and that's fine - but just not doing it for me right now - have to see if it changes...
 
Considering that AC is supposed to represent the first fruits of the core mechanics of SC's gameplay, there's no reason to believe that the PU will be too much different; nor do I see how being in "pre" Alpha can be a justified defense. CIG would have to radically change the flight model and arcade-style controls to be considered anything close to a sim again, and throw away months of hard work while they're at it.

The glaring issues of SC at this point are embarrassingly absurd, and bugs are the least of our worries :(

Arcade Citizen - Turret Commander.
 
That last paragraph is it for me.

At the moment - to me - it feels like turrets in space.

Some people will love that and that's fine - but just not doing it for me right now - have to see if it changes...

Same for me. Though I have to say, I did see some posts on the forum here about ED from people who didn't like its core flight and combat mechanics. And while I vehemently disagree with the points they try to raise, in the end I feel like those people may just prefer the controls and flight handling in SC.

Just... don't tell me SC is "more detailed" and "deeper" please ;)
 
Just... don't tell me SC is "more detailed" and "deeper" please ;)

That's the thing, though, I always thought it would be, since the ships seamed to be, at least in the beginning, more detailed then EDs... same goes for the smaller, alegedly more detailed universe... I dread to think about what that will be like now.
 
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