Star Citizen Thread v6

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Asp Explorer

Asp Explorer
I can't wait to fly my Freelancer around the 'Verse engaging with some of those delightful individuals and maybe try discovering new jump points, finding lucrative trade routes, go off exploring all those uncharted systems, or laugh over great shared adventures in my custom Org palace while slaves from the last Org we crushed in a massive fleet battle have to mix our drinks and clean the coffee machine.
 

Asp Explorer

Asp Explorer
MTBFritz said:
Missing links and TL;DR

*grave voice* YOH ARE NO ROLAN!!!!
Click to expand...

Of course I'm not up to Rolan's standards - which is why I'm going to leave the linking and TL;DR to his expertise :D

Interesting tidbit though - their lead writer, has no idea at all "what perihelion, orbital patterns, inclination or declination are".

It's going to be a very interesting rich, deep and immersively realistic lore.

And of course, concept sale of another space-motorbike tomorrow. Surprising stuff. And it reminds me a little too much of Forsaken from 1998.

fskn.png
 
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bliss

bliss
From TheAgent on the SA forums:

so in a part of that huge dump I got the other day and who even knows or cares if its real but

hello

continued funding through Amazon and other partners (??) is contingent on several major milestone releases in the next 18 months

full commercial release of Star Citizen in 2018

"It's a promise we can't keep. We all know it."

sq42 prelude was supposed to hit early this year and is now listed internally as N/A

"We are going to focus on making the best MMO experience possible and that means integrating all our hard work and ideas [from SQ42] into it."

first half of the year, travel expenses over $400,000

"They are using backer funds like airline miles."

strains between upper management and employees "at a boiling point"

"I think things were all smiles until [our investors] started asking where the money was going."

(rehash) almost all the old mocap data is severely unusable, 10s of thousands more man hours to get it into a working state

expect a large trailer for new content for SQ42 now called Star Citizen: Squadron 42 / Star Citizen: First Strike

NPCs and questgivers will include full SQ42 cast

"That's our NPE (new player experience), that's it. You come in, you play [what was called SQ42], you're in our universe already, it's an easy transition. Credits roll and you're at your ship and suddenly with all these other players and it opens up and you say, 'Wow.'"

Turbulent taking large percentage of backer funds

Turbulent contract renegotiated to now include SC 2017 releases as "MVP" or "EA commercial release" as some monies are tied to that


First thing we are told is, "Shut the up about your job." Everything is treated like we're discussing troop locations. Make a tweet or share a picture? Gotta go through [one of the CS team members]. It's all very carefully coordinated.
Click to expand...


It's madness. We're kicking down the foundations of everything that's been built over the last two years. Coming in and seeing what [outside contractor] did with the AI was amazing. I thought, "Did they have no oversight? No direction?" It was a jumbled mess. We're the janitors trying to clean it up by burning the house down. I don't know if it's going to work.
Click to expand...


The new [Item 2.0] is a disaster [for the art and design teams]. We are rebuilding entire cockpits for ships that haven't been touched in years. Then someone new, it's always someone new, says, "Hey, this ship looks a bit dated, you think?" and we all immediately shut the up because the next thing you know the entire ship is being redesigned, again. Or maybe for the fourth time. Meanwhile we still have to design all the new elements directly into the cockpit. How can you do that when the entire ship comes back and everything is in a different place?
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Rolan

Rolan
MTBFritz said:
Missing links and TL;DR

*grave voice* YOH ARE NO ROLAN!!!!
Click to expand...
[zZzZz][zZzZz]:O

Was sleeping sorry [where is it]



Star Citizen: Around the Verse - Building Solar Systems & Nox Preview
[video=youtube;STwVI6_xWqc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STwVI6_xWqc[/video]
TLDR
Studio Update
Level Design

  • finished the main part of the work they needed to do for the surface outposts
  • had white boxes for both the modular hangars and garages approved
  • currently focusing on implementing the markup required for locations (room systems, interactions, etc.)
  • Levski will have a combination of hangars and garages to spawn ships and ground vehicles respectively
  • moving on to the remaining Stanton system landing zones: Area 18 and Lorville, then Orisin and New Babbage
Engine

  • worked on enabling seamlessly blending between global atmosphere and local cubemap based lighting
  • implemented an improved compression algorithm for the new pak file system to allow efficient data streaming
  • worked on PlanEd to unify the code for marking up areas on a planet making it easier to reuse and extend
AI

  • worked on “buddy AI” where NPCs will intelligently follow a designated leader.
  • made progress on ship AI, getting it one step closer to being fully controlled via Subsumption.
  • spent time refining behaviours for first reactions to enemies seen and events heard
  • did additional work on friendly fire so friendlies are identified correctly in combat situations
VFX

  • continued working on effects for various planet surface types including footsteps, weapon impacts, and vehicle tyre effects
  • experimented with rigid body simulations and destruction/deformation animations for Squadron 42 cinematics
Lighting

  • bringing all surface outposts to their final lighting: fixtures, temperature charts, and rules
  • Created a library of prefabs combining existing props with lighting elements
Tech Art

  • continued to create numerous Mannequin animation fragments for the Cinematic team
  • implemented the game entity for the new KSAR Custodian SMG energy weapon
  • added features to our internal Playblast tool to make it easier to create clips for review
  • made great progress with the new weapon dynamics and secondary motions using both ingame physics and simulation
Build Engineering

  • grew by 1 employee to a total of 2
Environment Art

  • the ecosystem ground materials have been improved on all three moons
  • close to wrapping up work on the landing pads that will go with the surface outposts
  • Delamar: surface is getting a final polish with geometry and materials updated and an effects pass
  • Levski: final touches for the customs area, garages are close to done, and elevators models updated to fit the modular building set
Game Programming

  • finishing up the remaining weapon features for 3.0
  • completed the first iteration of the doors and airlocks
  • technical design new weapons system's network code is being fleshed out; research phase is coming to an end
Cinematics

  • testing first pass of the brand new holographic projection volume entity tech
  • made great progress across multiple chapters for Squadron 42
QA

  • continued testing the new CIG DataPatcher (started testing in May)
  • CopyBuild 3 has also been rolled out to QA and is in its QA testing phase
  • Subsumption Editor testing continues to be a regular part of the weekly tasks
  • testing multiplayer gameplay in the Stanton system Persistent Universe
System Design

  • continued to expand the library of useables to be used for both the PU and Squadron 42
  • Air Traffic Control is also making headway
  • started work on the FPS companion/buddy AI, including all orders and the behaviours needed affect them
  • Actor Status system is being internally tested right and getting final tweaking and balancing
  • put some finishing touches to the conversation system to assist the cinematics team
Weapons

  • blocked out numerous universal grip and optics attachments
  • converting the older blocked out attachments to work with our new Attachments Rail system
  • completed initial blockout for the Klaus and Werner Demico laser light machinegun
  • finished Preacher Armaments Distortion (S4-6)
  • initial blockout for Klaus and Werner Laser Repeater (S1-3), Neutron Repeater (S1-3), and Apocalypse Arms Ballistic Scattergun (S1-3)Level Design
Ship Shape


  • Nox is more geared towards racing or combat versus exploring and scouting for the Dragonfly
  • Concept was provided from England and they started with a 2D concept instead of their usual 3D
  • Tried to infuse Xi'An technology and use a mix of heavy metals and exotic materials
  • Nathan Dearsley and Gary Sanchez assisted in concepting
  • Skin of the bike is going to be a more armoured type and it has these shells that come up above the rider’s back to protect a little more from behind
  • Nox will have more of a forward leaning stance like a racer
  • Going to use a holographic HUD system
Behind the Scenes: Building Solar Systems


  • An unsung hero of Star Citizen tech is the Solar System Ed or SolEd tool that simplifies all facets of solar system creation
  • The old system for solar system creation in 2.0 was all based upon individual placement around a point of origin that didn't allow for scalability or later changes without basically redoing the whole piece of work
  • Actual astronomers and astrophysicists were consulted to push the envelope on variety with feasibility in mind as well as gamer enjoyment in the creation of these different solar systems
  • The final result was extremely detailed and realistic with a huge amount of data collected and used
  • One concession was that a one-tenth scale was adopted for playability and feasibility purposes
  • The SolEd will also allow the time dilation that is decided upon to be implemented easily
  • Over the course of a year the numbers given from the consulted scientists were double checked against the lore provided for consistency
  • Asteroids in the game will be much closer to one another in game than in reality as they would pose no gameplay challenge for players otherwise
  • Many times the scientists offered many creative avenues for feasible and realistic differentiation within the solar systems to be created
  • “Space be crazy”
  • SolEd is being used for procedural planets, but not Crusader as it's a gas giant, and the tech for it is not fully developed yet
  • Even at one-tenth scale the distances at quantum speed take a very long time to travel
  • Quantum travel is always in a straight line as an antigrav bubble protects the players, but turning would negate this, and so is not possible
  • It takes 15 hours to drive around a moon of Crusader
  • They hope that the players realize the vast numbers and care taken into the creation of these systems along with the balancing of realism vs gameplay and of massive scale vs the crafted experience

Source: https://relay.sc/transcript/around-the-verse-building-solar-systems-and-nox-preview
 
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Cotic

Cotic
In the latest ATV they say that Stanton is 800 million km wide, approx 3.5 hours to travel from one side to the other at 0.2C
If the station is roughly half way into the system from your jump point that's 1.5 hours to get there, won't that get a bit boring?
 

Tuub t Tute

T
Cotic said:
In the latest ATV they say that Stanton is 800 million km wide, approx 3.5 hours to travel from one side to the other at 0.2C
If the station is roughly half way into the system from your jump point that's 1.5 hours to get there, won't that get a bit boring?
Click to expand...


"For the Mug!"... Oh, hang on, someone already has that catchphrase :/
 

Knightshark

Knightshark
Cotic said:
In the latest ATV they say that Stanton is 800 million km wide, approx 3.5 hours to travel from one side to the other at 0.2C
If the station is roughly half way into the system from your jump point that's 1.5 hours to get there, won't that get a bit boring?
Click to expand...

Is 0.2c the max speed?
 

Skizomeuh

Skizomeuh
  • An unsung hero of Star Citizen tech is the Solar System Ed or SolEd tool that simplifies all facets of solar system creation
  • The old system for solar system creation in 2.0 was all based upon individual placement around a point of origin that didn't allow for scalability or later changes without basically redoing the whole piece of work
Click to expand...
About time to develop a future-proof editor when few years ago they claimed they had a system that allowed to design a full planet in 3 hours or such.


  • Actual astronomers and astrophysicists were consulted to push the envelope on variety with feasibility in mind as well as gamer enjoyment in the creation of these different solar systems
  • The final result was extremely detailed and realistic with a huge amount of data collected and used
  • One concession was that a one-tenth scale was adopted for playability and feasibility purposes
Click to expand...
Wait, that no news... We know for years they're aiming at downsized scale of things. Or are they telling systems will be 1/10 of the initial 1/10 scale? :)


  • The SolEd will also allow the time dilation that is decided upon to be implemented easily
Click to expand...
What? What's this "time dilation" thing? Like Eve's? Like Frontier games? Anyways I don't understand how it could fit in a massively multiplayer first person real-time environment.


  • Even at one-tenth scale the distances at quantum speed take a very long time to travel
  • Quantum travel is always in a straight line as an antigrav bubble protects the players, but turning would negate this, and so is not possible
  • It takes 15 hours to drive around a moon of Crusader
Click to expand...
Ok, so no real interplanetary freedom of movement (unless one want to waste time in normal speed). Also; how the orbital and planet rotation mechanics claimed to come will be compatible with a straight line QT?


  • They hope that the players realize the vast numbers and care taken into the creation of these systems along with the balancing of realism vs gameplay and of massive scale vs the crafted experience
Click to expand...
In before damage control "it won't fit by large the fantasies we let you dream of so we can suck you wallets dry, but keep in mind we put a lot of effort nonetheless"?
 
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Skizomeuh

Skizomeuh
About the Nox. Concept looks nice but many things bug me:
- Looks like two graphic card backplates soldered together
- In the great CIG's tradition of cluttered and obstructed cockpits, you can't see anything in front of you, so it'd rely on screens, or 3rd person view? Quite hilarious given it's an "open canopy" space-motorcycle
- Where this thing comes from, and why are they wasting time/money on this kind of secondary props now (again)?
 

Cotic

Cotic
Knightshark said:
Is 0.2c the max speed?
Click to expand...

Yup, that is the maximum speed.


This was posted in the reddit ATV thread:

Quantum travel will vary from 0.05c to .2c, very few ships will hit the full 0.2c, empty ships like the Freelancer and Constellations will get up around 0.17c with possible increases due to tuning and equipment. Larger ships will be more in the 0.12-0.14c range. The 0.2c is a technological limit in lore for the fastest that the current drive technologies can reach - which means that its highly unlikely you'd be able to "tune" a drive above the system's ability to keep the field together. Heavily loaded Hulls D and E are unlikely to break 0.7c and there MAY be maximum overloading weight limits which exceeding will make it impossible to actually achieve quantum drive.

Remember that we're in Alpha and the 0.2c we've been moving at is a placeholder for quantum travel for game stability and predictability on the servers.
Click to expand...

So travel could take considerably longer.
 
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Sterlino

Sterlino
watching the last episode of ATV i had a chill.

the very last phrase of one of the guys that explained the building of a solar system:

''we never been able to complete a solar system with cryengine because that engine wasn't able to do it at all''.

so the shameful truth comes out at last.. 4 year wasted to try to build a entire universe when you cannot even complete a single
solar system ?

why in the hell they didn't realized that before ?

4 years totally probably totally wasted.
such a shame.
 

Tippis

Tippis
Rolan said:
  • Actual astronomers and astrophysicists were consulted to push the envelope on variety with feasibility in mind as well as gamer enjoyment in the creation of these different solar systems
  • The final result was extremely detailed and realistic with a huge amount of data collected and used
  • One concession was that a one-tenth scale was adopted for playability and feasibility purposes
  • The SolEd will also allow the time dilation that is decided upon to be implemented easily
  • Asteroids in the game will be much closer to one another in game than in reality as they would pose no gameplay challenge for players otherwise
Click to expand...

Riiiiight… which one is it? Extremely realistic or any of the things they mentioned? They need to make up their mind. Specifically, they really need to stop with this silly pretence of realism that they're clinging to, because it's not what they actually want to do or what would make their game any good.

Skizomeuh said:
What? What's this "time dilation" thing? Like Eve's? Like Frontier games? Anyways I don't understand how it could fit in a massively multiplayer first person real-time environment.
Click to expand...
Most likely, it's just that timeframes are scaled down just as much as space frames — all bodies in space move at 100× speed or some such, so players have any chance of actually noticing orbits.
 
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