The Star Citizen Thread v5

[LeSabre]

Something has been really annoying me for a long time now, the constant misuse of certain words, especially "scope".

Scope : The extent of the area or subject matter that something deals with or to which it is relevant, The opportunity or possibility to do or deal with something. (Both relate to existing conditions or items, not things that have not yet been brought into existance)

The "scope" of SC at the moment is as follows: Generic arena fps with one playable map and limited loadout/character options, and sim 'lite' space flight in a large open mostly empty area with simple variations of fetch quests and some basic EVA/walking around mechanics similar to any open world game where you can either be on foot or choose to use vehicle during gameplay. That, is currently the entirety of "scope" contained within SC.

Everytime I hear or see a citizen, a manager, a chairman or anyone else using the term "scope" to describe the current or hopeful events of the project, I laugh as they actually mean "ambitious" but cannot even comprehend that they are wrong both literally and figuratively.

 

[Tippis]

Something has been really annoying me for a long time now, the constant misuse of certain words, especially "scope".

So we'll add that to the list, along with things like “fidelity” and “refactor” and “unprecedented” and “game.”

The CIG dictionary will be pretty long by the end of it all…

 

[Rolan]

Star Citizen PTU Patch 2.6.0k

Spoiler

Welcome to Star Citizen Alpha Patch 2.6.0k, PTU Testers! For the complete 2.6.0 PTU patch notes for the very exciting launch, you can find them here: https://ptu.cloudimperiumgames.com/comm-link//15613-Star-Citizen-Alpha-260
Your launcher should show “2.6.0-489402” as the client version. It is strongly recommended that players delete their USER folder for the Live client after patching, particularly if you start encountering any odd character graphical issues or crash on loading. The USER folder can be found (in default installations) at C:\Program Files\Cloud Imperium Games\StarCitizen\Test.
Please do take full advantage of the PTU Issue Council to report any bugs you encounter, as well as contribute to other players submissions.
Important Issues

• Be advised that, in order to receive new lobby invites, you will need to restart the client after every match.
• Star Marine Leaderboards are not in-game this build.
• Our planned Electronic Access improvements for sequential map loading (“mega map”) are not in this build.
  • Scan is not complete, please refrain from using it (“Tab” key on default keybindings).
  • Missile rebalance is ongoing.
  • Flight Balance Changes to include Acceleration, Afterburner, Boost, Fuel Rates, and Jerk are ongoing.
• Workaround for Front End UI Issues: Either use the old UI (ui_frontend.startup_mode = 0) OR on the main menu hit the “Escape” key and then “Go To Hangar”. Once loaded into the Hangar, you can use the Elevator to connect to Crusader or ArcCorp

Updates

• Missiles have received some additional tweaks, so they should now inherit velocity.
• Some additional tweaks to the flight model have been made.
  
  • We have tweaked the acceleration rates/peaks to be more like previous releases, whilst maintaining the lower 2.6.0 SCM values.
    • Using strafe during normal flight, you should only get a change in velocity of +/- SCM max velocity, rather than +/- Afterburner max velocity.
    • Your strafe velocity range is no longer higher when using afterburner.
    • If you are flying over SCM max speed and switch into decoupled mode, strafe will allow you to decelerate, but not accelerate.
  • Fixed a number of issues with the new frontend UI.
    • These include a number of lobby crashes and numerous graphical issues.
  • Fixed a number of client and server crashes in Star Marine, Crusader and Arena Commander.

https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/5ja9bt/new_ptu_build_260k/

 

[MarcusReed]

That's not an opinion, those are facts. 1000 Javelins, 1300$ each = 1,300,000$. 250 Idrises-P, 2700$ each = 675,000$. 1000 890 Jumps, 890$ each = 890,000$. CIG has earned 2,865,000$ from at most 2250 players in one week, where the total earnings were 6,738,501$. 42.5 percent of sales in the anniversary sale 2016 were generated from 2250 ships. Almost half of the profit from that sale was generated from whales. That is a fact.

There's a few problems with your math. It doesn't show CCU sales toward these ships. A few streamers did CCUs to the 890 Jump by melting their Polaris packages for example. It also doesn't show these ships sold in packages. The total number for sales ONLY shows new cash injections and those are most likely not from previous owners of said ships.

The picture I posted showed total amount of CIG funds and also a break down form INN from the anniversary sale that are ALL new money injections not CCU. New backers or new money spent from current backer to buy ships they don't have. That's the point of the anniversary sale. Not every backer purchases from every sales the number shows new money to CIG, that's why the war bond sales are present now. It gives backers a incentive to put new money in the game which most backer who already have a lot of money in the game don't buy war bond packages.

You are trying to make my examples fit your narrative it won't. It shows consumer confidence and new money coming in even with the current limited play scale of the game.

 

[Tippis]

You are trying to make my examples fit your narrative it won't. It shows consumer confidence and new money coming in even with the current limited play scale of the game.

That goes both ways: you are trying to make your examples fit your narrative, and they don't. The whole point is that it doesn't take that many people to generate those sales numbers, especially not in the kind of whale-based funding that CIG has relied on.

So at the end of the day, we're back to square one. They made some money, but that alone does not tell us anything about the consumers involved. Not their number, not their motivation, not the perception of the game. All it tells us is that they made that money… and based on how the tracker doesn't actually track their cash, we need to attach a small caveat even to that.

 

[LeSabre]

So we'll add that to the list, along with things like “fidelity” and “refactor” and “unprecedented” and “game.”

The CIG dictionary will be pretty long by the end of it all…

Ha! Fair play, for some reason everytime I hear one of those buzzwords I roll my eyes and imagine a citizen doing the "in the verse (derp)" wave similar to Mr Hankey's "howdy ho" wave but with more dribbling. Maybe even GTA5's Lifeinvader "dock" emote, with the same creepy underlying connotations.

"Immersion" is the other one that really bugs me, for a "game" that makes every attempt to break the suspension of disbelief using various gaffer taped, wonky, juddery and out of place mechanics, that one also gets a fair bit of misuse.

On another note, at least they managed to get the web browser thing working now, not really sure what the point of it is though other than a really basic "hey look, we made a thing and it sorta works a bit sometimes" for more advertising space.

 

[Tippis]

On another note, at least they managed to get the web browser thing working now, not really sure what the point of it is though other than a really basic "hey look, we made a thing and it sorta works a bit sometimes" for more advertising space.

The Spectrum (which is probably the most unintentionally hilarious name they could have picked), you mean? It should work since it pretty much just looks like it's a reskinnned Rocket Chat.

 

[LeSabre]

There's a few problems with your math. It doesn't show CCU sales toward these ships. A few streamers did CCUs to the 890 Jump by melting their Polaris packages for example. It also doesn't show these ships sold in packages. The total number for sales ONLY shows new cash injections and those are most likely not from previous owners of said ships.

The picture I posted showed total amount of CIG funds and also a break down form INN from the anniversary sale that are ALL new money injections not CCU. New backers or new money spent from current backer to buy ships they don't have. That's the point of the anniversary sale. Not every backer purchases from every sales the number shows new money to CIG, that's why the war bond sales are present now. It gives backers a incentive to put new money in the game which most backer who already have a lot of money in the game don't buy war bond packages.

You are trying to make my examples fit your narrative it won't. It shows consumer confidence and new money coming in even with the current limited play scale of the game.

INN seem to have a history of not being entirely up front and honest with the things said, but if you want to keep taking them as the gospel truth because they are of the same mindset as you then allow me to giggle loudly at you for a bit.

The only incentive for "new" money should be measurable progress with the project, not half baked trinkets which bear little to no relation to a software project and are obviously and quite blatantly shown as "hey, so we want (note, not need) more of you money so here's something completely out of context for you to throw fresh money at us with".

I'm almost positive the backers really don't want incentives to throw money at them as much as they want a playable and featureful game to play. Why would CIG even be worried about consumer confidence when they've had over 2x the amount of money they needed given to them with no accountability? Try to understand as it's not exactly difficult to spot, they don't care a jot about consumer confidence, they care about money, lots of it.

 

[DLewth]

So we'll add that to the list, along with things like “fidelity” and “refactor” and “unprecedented” and “game.”

The CIG dictionary will be pretty long by the end of it all…

I think we can add another one:

• Be advised that, in order to receive new lobby invites, you will need to restart the client after every match.
• Star Marine Leaderboards are not in-game this build.
• Our planned Electronic Access improvements for sequential map loading (“mega map”) are not in this build.
• Scan is not complete, please refrain from using it (“Tab” key on default keybindings).
• Missile rebalance is ongoing.
• Flight Balance Changes to include Acceleration, Afterburner, Boost, Fuel Rates, and Jerk are ongoing.

Comment on this from Reddit:

Yep, this sounds perfect.

Perfect?
[wacky]

 

[Asp Explorer]

The Spectrum (which is probably the most unintentionally hilarious name they could have picked), you mean? It should work since it pretty much just looks like it's a reskinnned Rocket Chat.

Spectrum is quite a amusing name though. The good old ZX Speccy with Interface 1 allowed up to 64 on a network. SC can't match that

 

[LeSabre]

The Spectrum (which is probably the most unintentionally hilarious name they could have picked), you mean? It should work since it pretty much just looks like it's a reskinnned Rocket Chat.

So it does Makes you wonder how CIG were able to get something working, and relatively swiftly, it does come with quite easy to follow guides though lol.

https://rocket.chat/docs/

It even uses the Cloud (tm), just like CIG's imaginatory game server structure.

 

[VidarSnipes]

There's a few problems with your math. It doesn't show CCU sales toward these ships. A few streamers did CCUs to the 890 Jump by melting their Polaris packages for example. It also doesn't show these ships sold in packages. The total number for sales ONLY shows new cash injections and those are most likely not from previous owners of said ships.

The picture I posted showed total amount of CIG funds and also a break down form INN from the anniversary sale that are ALL new money injections not CCU. New backers or new money spent from current backer to buy ships they don't have. That's the point of the anniversary sale. Not every backer purchases from every sales the number shows new money to CIG, that's why the war bond sales are present now. It gives backers a incentive to put new money in the game which most backer who already have a lot of money in the game don't buy war bond packages.

So if we throw out 890 Jump and the last batch of Javelin and Idris, we get only confirmed cash-only sales, and you can't CCU those. That gives us 800 Javelins 1300$ each (1,040,000$ total) and 200 Idrises, 2700$ each (540,000$), for total of 1000 ships and 1,580,000$. Those are cash-only sales. With total earned during this sale being 6,738,501$, sales of cash-only Javelins and Idrises, confirmed whale-generated sales, equal 23.44% total. One fourth of income from that sale were from confirmed cash-only sales of 1000 ships. The rest of income was generated either by normal players, or whales who melted some of their ships and paid the rest with cash. One way or another they did have to pay 890$ 1500$ or 3000$ (non-discounted prices) in total, to convert their ships into those limited offers. So either they became whales by buying those ships, or became whales by buying enough ships to accumulate enough credits to buy those ships.

So, a correction - sales of expensive ships in this sale generated between 23.44% to 42.5% (upper limit if the last allowance of capital ships and all 890 Jumps were bought with cash) of income during that anniversary. How does that prove your claims? One thousand ships (2.88% of ships sold during that sale) - one fourth of income.

 

[LeSabre]

It's at this point I feel the urge to give one of my silly analogies, here goes but with a more story-like twist than usual. (means its long)

Picture the scene I paint with my words:

It is a school sports day, a very hot midsummers day not so much as a breeze in the air, the 100 metre sprint event participants are lining up, all raring to go and full of youthful energy and vigour, apart from one quite stout fellow who already lost his breath lumbering from the bench to the start line. "No matter" the proud youngling shouts, "I shall sprint past you all and be the first across the finish line" he bellows as he defiantly raises his clenched hamfist into the air, there is a polite and jolly smattering of applause and giggles from the onlooking parents and teachers. The teacher tasked with starting the race raises his cap pistol into the air, *CRACK* it goes, "And they're off!!" a loud speaker shouts.

Half a dozen or so children suddenly spring into a full sprint, straight ahead, their eyes fixated on the line of plastic tape at the other end of the field, marking the target that they aim relentlessly on. The stout young fellow has his eye drawn from the line as he thunders his way down the field, he notices that he can now see the heels of his rivals, quite some distance away actually. "HA! I shall be victorious, they'll see, they all know how great I am" he muses to himself, and at that very moment, parents rush to his side, arms filled with chocolate and pork scratchings, "here brave boy, you deserve more of this, we have faith in you". Face rapidly becoming quite bloated and filled with various treats and the effort of keeping his speed up even while gorging himself, he splutters "I'm the best, I'm going to win, no one is as good as me at this sport!".

Now engorged with a record breaking amount of treats, vision has become a problem, the track is but a distant memory as he ungracefully crashes face first into the sandpit, exactly 20 feet from the edge of the track and 10 feet from the start line where he began his epic race, pork scratchings have been flung asunder, a few almost made it to the finish line. With a face covered with sand and molten chocolate, the boy yells defiantly "I told you I was the best, I did it all and I beat you all!". The other children have long forgotten about the 100m sprint and are already halfway through the 200m hurdles, the stout boys family heave him out of the sandpit and welcome his victory with more chocolate and congratulations, "Well done CIG son, well done".

 

[Dementropy]

https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/5jaeo1/it_was_just_a_prank_bro/

Ostriching, plain and simple.

For those who don't want to go to reddit, let's take a journey back to PAX East 2015:

 

[Asp Explorer]

Tempus fugit

 

[Ian Skippy]

The Reddit thing or the exploding lulzbucket?

Both did

Oh boy, I didnt watch Wolf of Wall Street to let this go to waste:

Sir, I like to inform you of our lolzbucket-load options.



































ps. anyone interested in my lolzbucket-loan-insurance options, please drop a PM. They're about to explode like never before.

 

[DLewth]

It's at this point I feel the urge to give one of my silly analogies, here goes but with a more story-like twist than usual. (means its long)

Picture the scene I paint with my words:

It is a school sports day, a very hot midsummers day not so much as a breeze in the air, the 100 metre sprint event participants are lining up, all raring to go and full of youthful energy and vigour, apart from one quite stout fellow who already lost his breath lumbering from the bench to the start line. "No matter" the proud youngling shouts, "I shall sprint past you all and be the first across the finish line" he bellows as he defiantly raises his clenched hamfist into the air, there is a polite and jolly smattering of applause and giggles from the onlooking parents and teachers. The teacher tasked with starting the race raises his cap pistol into the air, *CRACK* it goes, "And they're off!!" a loud speaker shouts.

Half a dozen or so children suddenly spring into a full sprint, straight ahead, their eyes fixated on the line of plastic tape at the other end of the field, marking the target that they aim relentlessly on. The stout young fellow has his eye drawn from the line as he thunders his way down the field, he notices that he can now see the heels of his rivals, quite some distance away actually. "HA! I shall be victorious, they'll see, they all know how great I am" he muses to himself, and at that very moment, parents rush to his side, arms filled with chocolate and pork scratchings, "here brave boy, you deserve more of this, we have faith in you". Face rapidly becoming quite bloated and filled with various treats and the effort of keeping his speed up even while gorging himself, he splutters "I'm the best, I'm going to win, no one is as good as me at this sport!".

Now engorged with a record breaking amount of treats, vision has become a problem, the track is but a distant memory as he ungracefully crashes face first into the sandpit, exactly 20 feet from the edge of the track and 10 feet from the start line where he began his epic race, pork scratchings have been flung asunder, a few almost made it to the finish line. With a face covered with sand and molten chocolate, the boy yells defiantly "I told you I was the best, I did it all and I beat you all!". The other children have long forgotten about the 100m sprint and are already halfway through the 200m hurdles, the stout boys family heave him out of the sandpit and welcome his victory with more chocolate and congratulations, "Well done CIG son, well done".

Ouch... Virtual rep I'm afraid.

Tempus fugit

And with a more realistic flight model, too.

 

[metatheurgist]

“A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad.” Shigeru Miyamoto.

Corollary: "A never released game is permanently awesome." Some Smartass.

 

[Asp Explorer]

"Weeks, not months! We've just refactored awesome!"

Genuine Roberts - 2019

 

[DLewth]

“A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad.” Shigeru Miyamoto.

Corollary: "A never released game is permanently awesome." Some Smartass.

Anyone found quoting Miyamoto should be locked in a room with Daikatana, and not be allowed out until they've finished it.