The Star Citizen Thread v8

[VidarSnipes]

Nevertheless, I think SC will have at least basic implementations of careers in the next 12 months. After all there was once a bug where shooting a part of the station gave you money. Modifying that behaviour to spawning you some items/giving you cash when you shoot a wreck (salvaging), or an asteroid (mining), or a hostile ship (hull mini... bounty hunting, that is). While there's probably some depth to ED's mechanics (mission generation/USS spawning/mineral locations), but the data isn't available in an easily digestible form to the players, so it could as well not be there. When you look at it this way, current SC with no bugs (hahahaha), basic careers and few more star systems wouldn't be too far from ED in complexity.

Of course this has nothing to do with lofty goals announced by CIG/RSI/other company and would make SC just another space sim with walking simulator attached and packaged in great graphics, but I don't think anyone thinks CIG's promises are actually achievable.

 

[MTBFritz]

Nevertheless, I think SC will have at least basic implementations of careers in the next 12 months. After all there was once a bug where shooting a part of the station gave you money. Modifying that behaviour to spawning you some items/giving you cash when you shoot a wreck (salvaging), or an asteroid (mining), or a hostile ship (hull mini... bounty hunting, that is). While there's probably some depth to ED's mechanics (mission generation/USS spawning/mineral locations), but the data isn't available in an easily digestible form to the players, so it could as well not be there. When you look at it this way, current SC with no bugs (hahahaha), basic careers and few more star systems wouldn't be too far from ED in complexity.

Of course this has nothing to do with lofty goals announced by CIG/RSI/other company and would make SC just another space sim with walking simulator attached and packaged in great graphics, but I don't think anyone thinks CIG's promises are actually achievable.

Its kind of hard to consider this when you have arguments on the table saying "you can fly around boxes of stuff so naturally Trader class is already implemented" or "you can kill other players so Pirate, Navy Pilot are already implemented". Here again the fact that even the most mundane things are lifted to godlike status is making a realistic assessment very difficult.

I would like to know how "basic" you expect classes to be for CiG to manage them in the next 12 months. I mean when it comes to Star Citizen a single year goes by in the blink of an eye, they are still busy trying to increase performance of 3.0 and thats almost a year in the past (june 2017). And how many classes will there be? We still dont know apart from the most rudimentary information given (Trader, Pilot, Bounty Hunter). trust me I d love to discuss classes and more indepth mechanics in SC but the project currently struggles to get basic functionality in...I feel that we are very far away from class design (sigh

 

[ZeeWolf]

What about closure of the ship store and availability of those assets in-game? That which the fans promote the game with so often, "all will be available in game"

when?

 

[VidarSnipes]

Its kind of hard to consider this when you have arguments on the table saying "you can fly around boxes of stuff so naturally Trader class is already implemented" or "you can kill other players so Pirate, Navy Pilot are already implemented". Here again the fact that even the most mundane things are lifted to godlike status is making a realistic assessment very difficult.

I would like to know how "basic" you expect classes to be for CiG to manage them in the next 12 months.

As I said in the post you have quoted, by "basic" I mean shooting/using a scanner thingy (a technical term) on a wreck/asteroid to get components/minerals. As far as I know commodity prices in the current pre-alpha are different between terminals, so trading is in in the basic way. Elite's trading isn't that much more complicated.

 

[BlackSpaceCowboy]

I would like to know how "basic" you expect classes to be for CiG to manage them in the next 12 months.

They don't need classes. They can just have a mission board with trading and bounty hunting missions. That would be be a good start.

I saw a gameplay video where the player created a mission and offered reward for someone to pick him up. So players can create their own missions for other players.

 

[McGlashan]

The main reason that there will never be a "finished" version is because they can no longer afford to draw the line which separates SC as an achievable, tangible product from the cloud of wild and mutually-exclusive dreams that fans have built up around it, flagrantly encouraged by CIG, over the last half a decade. There's no way they can ever reconcile those two things, so the only way forward is to lash together whatever vaguely-functioning tech they can with sticky tape and prayers (to hell with the frame rate or game play as long as it makes for some pretty marketing screenshots) while continuing to prop up the dreams with more and more debt, because that's what keeps the whales buying.

3.1 still consists entirely of placeholders, refactoring, broken technology and the continued delusion that it will somehow all magically turn into a revolutionary gaming experience at some unspecified time in the future. They're constantly reworking superficial elements like how the moons look, or redesigning space ships, but that's not doing anything to move the game forwards. Roberts' idea of cutting edge game play is a golf-swing indicator. A dev lets slip that maybe piracy won't be the huge, profitable industry most fans imagined, and it immediately gets rowed back. They really can't afford to be seen to be setting anything in stone. It might be tempting to think that the end is within sight, but really they've barely scratched the surface of the gameplay features they've promised.

The difference between SC and every game that has released a version 1.0 is that those studios had the courage to define what their game is rather than continually peddling a fiction about what it will be.

 

[MTBFritz]

As I said in the post you have quoted, by "basic" I mean shooting/using a scanner thingy (a technical term) on a wreck/asteroid to get components/minerals.

They don't need classes. They can just have a mission board with trading and bounty hunting missions. That would be be a good start.

While these things are true wouldnt that be extremely underwhelming?

We certainly dont need to go a dedicated route like other games do offering distinct classes which have specific abilities and/or traits. If Star Citizen is going to walk the "Jack of all trades" path that would mean that your activities would determine your class. In order to fulfill the "I am a X" statement the game would need to have elaborate and supportive mechanics in place. A simple mission board wouldnt cut it. We are talking about a supposedly "next generation" game here. Basic stuff from 1990 isnt really anythjng you could possibly score points with.

Eve is doing a great job in that regard. Everybody can do everything but every activity is detailed enough to enable you to lose massive amounts of time in em in order to specialize yourself. I am sure EVE online isnt to everbodies taste but lets just take a step back and compare EVEs and SCs complexity in things.....its a world of differences.

 

[BlackSpaceCowboy]

I am sure EVE online isnt to everbodies taste but lets just take a step back and compare EVEs and SCs complexity in things.....its a world of differences.

Look at how long Eve's development cycle has been.

I think the main appeal of ED for me is the ships and the universe. That's why I and I suspect most people play the game. I think SC could be the same. I think people want a game that allows them to feel like they have a real spaceship.

 

[TenakaFurey]

Look at how long Eve's development cycle has been.

I think the main appeal of ED for me is the ships and the universe. That's why I and I suspect most people play the game. I think SC could be the same. I think people want a game that allows them to feel like they have a real spaceship.

And they aren't going to get that with SC unless the flight model is improved.

 

[BlackSpaceCowboy]

And they aren't going to get that with SC unless the flight model is improved.

I casually play flight sims. Those have flight models. Spaceships have no aerodynamics. You just have six degrees of freedom. Anything other than flight assist off is fake anyway.

Hmm...I just had an idea. I think I'll play ED with flight assist off always. It may add spice to the bland oatmeal missions.

 

[sovapid]

They don't need classes. They can just have a mission board with trading and bounty hunting missions. That would be be a good start.

I saw a gameplay video where the player created a mission and offered reward for someone to pick him up. So players can create their own missions for other players.

Star Citizen already has a basic "mission board" that sends you on combat, pick stuff up, deliver stuff etc type missions.

 

[milligna]

Looks suspiciously like bland oatmeal, doesn't it. Turns out Star Citizen is a few feet wide and an inch deep in the end. Ah well.

 

[metatheurgist]

They just need to add some NPCs portraits to that and it'll be perfect, they could even call them contacts! Hand drawn of course, because everyone knows procgen is pants.

 

[sovapid]

Can confirm, 10 or so Reclaimers flying around Port Olisar take my normal 40 - 50 fps in 3.1 PTU down to 7.


Got away from Port Olisar and got most of my frames back.

 

[Tippis]

Look at how long Eve's development cycle has been.

EVE's complexity was the result of a six-year development process — maybe two more if you include the bit where EVE wasn't being made and CCP was more dedicated to creating a boardgame and finding a publisher to ensure that they had enough of a base income stream to allow the team to expand beyond the original 14 drunken louts in a loft.

By 2005, all the component parts in what makes EVE a complex system of interconnected mechanics were in.

I casually play flight sims. Those have flight models. Spaceships have no aerodynamics. You just have six degrees of freedom. Anything other than flight assist off is fake anyway.

Eh, no. Having a flight model has nothing to do with aerodynamics and everything to do with how the physics of flight — in or out of air — are simulated. And flight assist on is no more fake than flight assist off since the exact same flight model is used, only with automated counter-thrust to cancel out acceleration when there's no longer any control input.

 

[Zetta]

Can confirm, 10 or so Reclaimers flying around Port Olisar take my normal 40 - 50 fps in 3.1 PTU down to 7.


Got away from Port Olisar and got most of my frames back.

I'm looking forward to hundreds of ships on screen taking part in org vs org battles, I'm looking forward even more to seeing 30 people descend from each ship for free-for-all EVA action.

 

[Cobra1984]

Star Citizen already has a basic "mission board" that sends you on combat, pick stuff up, deliver stuff etc type missions.


https://i.imgur.com/eIDSzgw.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/i0t1xvl.jpg

None of the missions work at all, but it sure is hilarious watching Star Citizen streamers try to do them in front of an audience of 4 people, 2 of whom are CIG staff.

ED had basic working proc gen missions 4 years ago and has increased the complexity and variety of them since.

SC has a dozen static scripted missions and none of them work. The most recent streamer to even try was Batgirl, and it was a hilarious broken farce from start to finish.

CIG addressed the non working missions by getting a dev to say he was working on fixing them in one of their marketing videos, that was in early Feb. 3.1 is being released in a week, let's see if they'll work then...

 

[TenakaFurey]

I casually play flight sims. Those have flight models. Spaceships have no aerodynamics. You just have six degrees of freedom. Anything other than flight assist off is fake anyway.

I'm sorry.

I find this quote to be quite....well, funny.

You've just admitted you have absolutely no clue as to what I or indeed anyone else are saying. That you don't even know what a flight model is.

Star Citizen has a flight model.
Elite Dangerous has a flight model.

One of these is near universally decried as bad..as poor...as in serious need of improvement, even by Star Citizen diehards.

The other is held up as quite good and an example of what Star Citizen should be trying to aim for.

A flight model doesn't have to be "real" or model aerodynamics to be good.

But a good flight model is not only fun, but makes you feel like you are piloting a multi hundred ton mass of metal and makes that experience feel different depending on whether you are flying an agile fighter or a lumbering freighter.

A bad flight model makes you feel you are in a point and click arcade game, that you are piloting a turret and doesn't differentiate in feel between ship classes, role, size or mass.

That Star Citizens flight model is "poor" is something even most of its supporters can agree on....although they usually also state that the game is a WIP, that it will be fixed later, that there is an improved flight model already built into the game with everything simply turned off to aid testing.

Of course, they also miss the commentary from the devs....i.e. Chris Roberts...that the flight model is mostly done and in need of just minor tweaks but it's something.

Now, I'll be the first to admit that the current model has fans. And that it is even "fun" in an overly simplistic, arcady, turret mimicking, point and click action that encourages jousting kinda way.

But I wouldn't describe it as "good"....involved...or doing anything a flight model should do in a space game.

 

[Zetta]

From this week's ATV

With the 3.1 just released to a wider testing group in the ptu and a live release a week away our dev teams and designers are looking ahead to alpha 3.2 features and content, as part of this we evaluate where we set priorities and make adjustments while also looking at quality of life issues in the current gameplay. We thought it would be useful to get your input on what potential aspects are important to you as far as this goes so look for community poll tomorrow to help us with ourroadmap.

Interesting to see what the poll options will be.

 

[Cobra1984]

I think they'll just keep doing what they're doing and release a work in progress. I recently bought Aerofly fs 2. It's a flight sim but it's still missing many features and is actively being worked on. I have another sim called IL-2 and that was recently updated with a ton of new features. That game has been out for years. Of course, there is ED which is clearly a WIP. Still waiting on space legs and atmospheres.

I guess this how big games will be developed now.

(This is just my opinion. Everyone is entitled to their own. I'm a developer but not a game developer. I believe they'll come to their senses due to budget and focus on more realistic objective. Once they make that decision the game is not far from completion. It just won't be everything it was promised to be on the kickstarter. But it won't be the only game that didn't fulfill its kickstarter promises)

Now just wait one minute.

SC doesn't just have Kickstarter pitches and features to build, it has 6 years worth of marketing pitches and features upon which it has been raising funding.

The Kickstarter promises are a only small part of the promises that CIG have been actively promoting and selling.

You might still be waiting for Elite to get space legs but you *didn't pay for space legs*. A lot of people have paid for ships, tanks, plots of land, farming mechanics, drink mixing minigames, procedural birds, tactical fps gunplay, surface mining, ship boarding, 1,000 player instances, a Linux version, NPCs with real lives and on and on and on it goes...

All of those were marketed, all of those were sold, and the list gets bigger every month. On top of that they took pre-orders for Sq42.

There isn't another studio or publisher on the planet doing this, only CIG, and it's reprehensible imo.