Ha ok. Effectively, they can revert back pretty far on what they had in the actual alpha.
Game Discussions Star Citizen Discussion Thread v12
- Thread starter Yaffle
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This is a bit silly. This isn't a magical buzzword promising something, it's an actually rendered planetary surface that is working in the current build. There are tons of things they talk about that don't exist, there's also a lot that is being talked about and is student-project grade (that physics model illustrated by the video above...), but here this is one of the few bits that 1) works and 2) is actually pretty. I neither know nor care how much of it is procedural, how much of it is handcrafted, how much of it is a procgen/brush mix, or how long it takes them to make one, but it's there and functional. Credit where it's due.
Yes, it will likely end up being useless for gameplay, but that's the curse of open worlds. I love it personally, and have spent way too much time flying over/driving on the similarly useless planetary surfaces in ED, just as I have spent too much time randomly walking across the Daggerfall procedural wilderness, but I can accept that it's going to be wasted on 99% of the player base in any game apart from "I've been in a random place, once, it was boring"). Still, that's a pretty good looking landscape, and one I wouldn't mind traversing/exploring in any game, even if there's nothing to actually find.
Yes, it will likely end up being useless for gameplay, but that's the curse of open worlds. I love it personally, and have spent way too much time flying over/driving on the similarly useless planetary surfaces in ED, just as I have spent too much time randomly walking across the Daggerfall procedural wilderness, but I can accept that it's going to be wasted on 99% of the player base in any game apart from "I've been in a random place, once, it was boring"). Still, that's a pretty good looking landscape, and one I wouldn't mind traversing/exploring in any game, even if there's nothing to actually find.
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Totally agree with your approach. Given that CI-G has unlimited time, money and resources at it's disposal, amount of those spent on useless stuff is totally not important.
I just hope it still will be working three patches later, unlike doors.
No pretty screenshots here, but an actual experience, as i went for a spin on the 3.10.1 patch.
Spawned on Microtech, because why not, and heard A18 and Lorville spaceports had a lot of issues. Bad idea: the lifts you have to take to get on the metro loop leading to the spaceport are glitched depending on the server health (read: they go dead pretty quickly). Had to re-log a few times so i could find working lifts and reach the space port, where i could spawn a ship, and escape that hell hole.
Landed at the station above for setting my spawn point there (in case of 30K errors). Tried to refuel, the hover trick doesnt work anymore. Of course once landed, it's all over as that bug is still there, too. So, no refuel, no repair: this is going to be rough.
Went to Port Olisar using a cargo with a full load to get a feel for heavy ships in the new FM. They do feel heavy now indeed, there are small glitches still, like when i was hovering just above the landing platform at PO the gravity suddenly "turned on" and "grabbed" my ship down and landed it at once. Very weird.
Sold my stuff then went back out for a diamond load run from one of the Crusader moons. Landed near the site, ground physics is still a complete mess. The heavy ship was standing askew due to the ground being uneven. Thought, no problem, it's landed, it wont move. Well it didnt, but going off the lift, i noticed the lift didnt quite reach the ground level... and couldnt get back on it !!! The completely crap collision detection wouldnt let me on it again no matter what, and "climbing" is still not a thing in SC despite the demo from quite a while ago. So my character was entirely stuck outside, due to a lift being roughly at his waist level. Had to suicide and respawn... That was it for that session.
Next session: this time i made sure the lift was touching the ground before leaving. Bought my load of diamond, went off to Arccorp in order to sell it. No 30K, yay for CiG i guess. Went down to the airport, which is indeed not marked by the waypoint (it's the city center), good thing i know how it looks. Called the ATC, which prompted me with a new looking nav marker to a hangar, alright, i tried to proceed down to it, then suddenly remembered the thing about these "landing splines"... full reverse, tried to find the 3D path, took me a while to see it (of course it was in the opposite way i was coming in..). Whew, bullet avoided, what happens if you miss these is not pretty. Went through it, the time it took me to do it the hangar doors were closing again (remember, heavy ship: you kinda "suggest" where you want to go, and after a while it kinda does). Called ATC, of course they told me "but you have an ongoing request !". After spamming them i noticed the hangar doors were opening again... old reliable CiG, they reliably break even the simplest things. Again for the weird landing where i would come into a slow hover then gravity suddenly takes over for the last few meters. Oh and no refuel again, this means it's over for the cargo runs.
Went across the airport with NPCs standing still all around, took the Shrödinger tram (there's one, and there's one over it, they are in superposition, dont ask) and sold my diamond load, i suppose it's over for 3.10.1.
Side note about the new HUD: it's unreadable. It's clear blue / white, with zero outline, which means it fades entirely on a clear background, like on Microtech. The scale ladder is either crooked in completely useless ways (like on stations), or just disappears on its own, i supposed it's getting tired of its miserable existence. MFDs will stop working (menu button will not work) or just turn off entirely, again probably abandoning all hope.
I wont talk about the myriad of other bugs we know about and that were repeated around here, including the terrible physics, that is not getting any better.
Spawned on Microtech, because why not, and heard A18 and Lorville spaceports had a lot of issues. Bad idea: the lifts you have to take to get on the metro loop leading to the spaceport are glitched depending on the server health (read: they go dead pretty quickly). Had to re-log a few times so i could find working lifts and reach the space port, where i could spawn a ship, and escape that hell hole.
Landed at the station above for setting my spawn point there (in case of 30K errors). Tried to refuel, the hover trick doesnt work anymore. Of course once landed, it's all over as that bug is still there, too. So, no refuel, no repair: this is going to be rough.
Went to Port Olisar using a cargo with a full load to get a feel for heavy ships in the new FM. They do feel heavy now indeed, there are small glitches still, like when i was hovering just above the landing platform at PO the gravity suddenly "turned on" and "grabbed" my ship down and landed it at once. Very weird.
Sold my stuff then went back out for a diamond load run from one of the Crusader moons. Landed near the site, ground physics is still a complete mess. The heavy ship was standing askew due to the ground being uneven. Thought, no problem, it's landed, it wont move. Well it didnt, but going off the lift, i noticed the lift didnt quite reach the ground level... and couldnt get back on it !!! The completely crap collision detection wouldnt let me on it again no matter what, and "climbing" is still not a thing in SC despite the demo from quite a while ago. So my character was entirely stuck outside, due to a lift being roughly at his waist level. Had to suicide and respawn... That was it for that session.
Next session: this time i made sure the lift was touching the ground before leaving. Bought my load of diamond, went off to Arccorp in order to sell it. No 30K, yay for CiG i guess. Went down to the airport, which is indeed not marked by the waypoint (it's the city center), good thing i know how it looks. Called the ATC, which prompted me with a new looking nav marker to a hangar, alright, i tried to proceed down to it, then suddenly remembered the thing about these "landing splines"... full reverse, tried to find the 3D path, took me a while to see it (of course it was in the opposite way i was coming in..). Whew, bullet avoided, what happens if you miss these is not pretty. Went through it, the time it took me to do it the hangar doors were closing again (remember, heavy ship: you kinda "suggest" where you want to go, and after a while it kinda does). Called ATC, of course they told me "but you have an ongoing request !". After spamming them i noticed the hangar doors were opening again... old reliable CiG, they reliably break even the simplest things. Again for the weird landing where i would come into a slow hover then gravity suddenly takes over for the last few meters. Oh and no refuel again, this means it's over for the cargo runs.
Went across the airport with NPCs standing still all around, took the Shrödinger tram (there's one, and there's one over it, they are in superposition, dont ask) and sold my diamond load, i suppose it's over for 3.10.1.
Side note about the new HUD: it's unreadable. It's clear blue / white, with zero outline, which means it fades entirely on a clear background, like on Microtech. The scale ladder is either crooked in completely useless ways (like on stations), or just disappears on its own, i supposed it's getting tired of its miserable existence. MFDs will stop working (menu button will not work) or just turn off entirely, again probably abandoning all hope.
I wont talk about the myriad of other bugs we know about and that were repeated around here, including the terrible physics, that is not getting any better.
That looks awesome. Which planet is that, I'll go check it out tonight ? Haven't loaded up Elite in a while.
Are you flying decoupled? I 3.10 decoupled no longer adjusts for gravity and once you get over the pad the pad's gravity kicks in. I fly (or used to fly) decoupled all the time and it is pretty annoying.
And the horrible character animation. Seriously, we all know the planets look good (in still screenshots). They always have done. It's the other 99% of the game that's the problem.
It's not working if the servers can't stay up. Does Hellion's docking mechanic exist?
Not sure what point you're trying to make. Are you saying that all features in the current build are guaranteed to be in the final build? That regressions and feature removals don't happen?
Because obviously there are loads of historical examples of these very things happening in other games during production. And we can of course see them happen in SC, what with it being so open
Plenty of features have been walked back in the PU, and we're not even hitting the critical mass of features that launch implies
I'm sure there's plenty more lost in the mists of time. (And if we were to add features that have just degraded in performance over time we'd be here all day)
- The 'lootapillar' caterpillar NPCs that caused 30ks
- The repair drone system that got removed outright
- A bunch of Rest Stops got taken out until SSOCs freed up some headroom again.
- Interactible props like the turtle either removed or no-longer interactible. (anecdotally)
I'm sure there's plenty more lost in the mists of time. (And if we were to add features that have just degraded in performance over time we'd be here all day
)Who's to say that adding NPC flight paths over planetary surfaces, or random encounters, or a new form of lighting under a different sun, or a combination of such additions, won't require headroom to be freed up (and lead to the planetary pretty having to be dialled down). It wouldn't be that unusual.
Oh yeah, I'll definitely give them credit for their planets looking great at points, for large open world surfaces etc. And for being one of the most functional aspects of the game. (Although there are still some significant issues regarding functionality
)But deliberate regression of features is still a thing. I don't see why it's an issue to point that out. (Everyone remembers the silly fan furore about Witcher 3 losing some pretty from first sneak peeks to launch etc).
Game 'pretty' isn't nailed on until its operating alongside the full feature set etc. That's all
Progress in that other game really riles up the backers. Wait a few months. Commander Buur compared the same planets in the current engine.
I do turn the assists off (including that broken proximity assist), but on that cargo run i was not flying entirely decoupled - yet that effect was quite strong.
Could the broken lifts in New Babbage the result of their "lift panel rework" ?
I'll offer you 2 possibilities
1) OCD is a pain
2) Just wanted to poke fun at what could easily have been someone rotating the camera to make it look like they had parked a ship on the hill without it a) clipping through the ground or b) sliding down the hill. In fact, the more i look at it, the more i become convinced that is exactly what someone did.
The moutains themselves are nice though
I'm not sure what you are showing with the ED mountains.
From long range, the SC mountains look like this (It's from Microtech only)
Pretty nice. Almost current gen quality right there.
Just kidding.
Top one does look like Skyrim though.
I look forward to the day... erm... decade... erm... century, when this all becomes playable.
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Well, they already reverted back from having an almost working SQ42 to scrapping everything and starting over, so i'd believe it could happen.
meh, its playable enough right now. i look forward to the day when there is a reason to go there. like, game play reasons.
is there hadanite on microtech?
They had a tutorial too
@3:20 "Your body temperature is too high and you are taking damage from hypothermia"
I don't think that's how biology works....
Yes...played it last night...first time in ages. Servers are still up and a few fanboys are talking about finishing it off
Oh yea, same here