Game Discussions Star Citizen Discussion Thread v12

Ultimately it's gotta be 'game first' right? But I think both SC & ED could pursue something leaning towards the Battlefield format ...
Nice post and good points.
For me the model to follow is Planetside 1 (PS2 is less fun for me). It's a goal that can be achieved in a less extent by CIG.
The balance air-air, ground-ground and air-ground was pretty effective and the game was fun for lone warriors, small squads and huge battles. I've never found in any game the feeling of the bridge battles of PS1 (or PS2) where you start the battle at 2vs2 to finish at hundreds.
When you are part of operations like this ones, it's a great feeling
 
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The balance air-air, ground-ground and air-ground was pretty effective and the game was fun for lone warriors, small squads and huge battle.
But why ? Why seek "balance" when this is NOT a Battlefield or Planetside clone ? It's not a warfare sim, but the supposed "BDSSE" where you can be a trader, miner, explorer, etc. in a SPACE SHIP (according to the gospel of CRoberts).
Why do people insist that should be another FPS or combined armed warfare clone ? Why dont they go and play Arma, for example, which is far superior in many regards for that category of games,and a complete game to boot, or the above mentioned Battelfield series ?
This irks me to no end. Yes, spaceships as seen in SC should be able to completely obliterate exposed, static ground troops. Just as an A-10 today will rip through anything ground based that is also exposed in a similar manner. There is no balance here and no need for it.
I'd rather have CiG focus on bigger spaceship engagements, with actual mixed fleets of small fighters and big dreadnoughts, and see how that goes, remember, "BDSSE", that's the goal. And then if they have time after that release maybe add in mixed arms combat but that's not part of what we were promised.
 
but that's not part of what we were promised.

you might have a hard time proving that, a lot of different people were told a lot of things at different times....best you can do is demand it be done in chronological order, Space Sim first then the FPS shooter :)

I agree with you btw. So glad ED has done it the way it has, game first, improvements constant and new gameplay added asap through DLCs or whatever Odyssey actually is or is called and paid for on completion.
 
But why ? Why seek "balance" when this is NOT a Battlefield or Planetside clone ? It's not a warfare sim, but the supposed "BDSSE" where you can be a trader, miner, explorer, etc. in a SPACE SHIP (according to the gospel of CRoberts).
Why do people insist that should be another FPS or combined armed warfare clone ? Why dont they go and play Arma, for example, which is far superior in many regards for that category of games,and a complete game to boot, or the above mentioned Battelfield series ?
This irks me to no end. Yes, spaceships as seen in SC should be able to completely obliterate exposed, static ground troops. Just as an A-10 today will rip through anything ground based that is also exposed in a similar manner. There is no balance here and no need for it.
I'd rather have CiG focus on bigger spaceship engagements, with actual mixed fleets of small fighters and big dreadnoughts, and see how that goes, remember, "BDSSE", that's the goal. And then if they have time after that release maybe add in mixed arms combat but that's not part of what we were promised.
SC is the game of games that can do it all. That's why.
 
Is Derek Smart the Etruscans, Pyrrhus of Epirus, the Vandals, Macedonia or Carthage in this metaphor
I always thought Derek was Brutus...
Wait, maybe Brutus is Derek?
And all those guys are Dereks too?
That would be quite cunning of him! Or them? Or me?
 
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But why ? Why seek "balance" when this is NOT a Battlefield or Planetside clone ?

Because that's what the majority of the gamers want and they're the ones who fork out the money. That's why we're still fighting ww2 in tar-like space and sims like CoaDE or Rogue System are so niche (RogueSys is even pretty much dead now, so the current features are the extent of it).
 
I'd rather have CiG focus on bigger spaceship engagements, with actual mixed fleets of small fighters and big dreadnoughts, and see how that goes, remember, "BDSSE", that's the goal. And then if they have time after that release maybe add in mixed arms combat but that's not part of what we were promised.
We were specifically talking about ground battles (because of the news about the Nova tank) but I don't think it's a priority for CIG. The first attempt at real big battle in the PU was indeed with an Idris mission in space and the only ground vehicle to get some real attention from CIG now is the Rock (mining vehicle).
Side note, a long time ago they said the bigger ship to be able to land on planet will be the Idris. All others big ships can only dock in spacestation. An easy way to not have to handle big ships on planets should simply to forbidden them on planets (because gravity). I don't know if that's what CIG is planning but if I was in charge, that's what I'll do.
 
Do you have actual figures, especially in the context of SC backers ? who forked out money for the "BDSSE" ?

No, I'm only speaking from what I perceive, so I might be completely wrong and am more than happy to stand corrected. But my impression is that the popularity of games speaks for itself. As popular as ARMA is in its niche, it is nothing compared to yearly reskinned versions of Medal of Duty. Same for WW2-in-space design which absolutely dwarfs whatever is attempted in realistic space flight. I haven't done a survey so I might be very wrong again, but I'd bet a lot of money on the fact that out of all the posters on these forums, there's an order of magnitude between the regular XWing Squadron players and the ones who launched Rogue System even just once in their life. Looking at our very own ED, there's a reason why it went down the road of space-is-like-goo after having tried full newtonian in FE2/FFE. Heck, you can still find people today who never understood the concept of "engine off" in FE2/FFE and still think that combat in those games only ever consisted in relativistic jousting.

SC, as ever, is a bit of a special case since it promises everything. But weren't QT times already drastically reduced due to gamer discontent?
 
(...) Same for WW2-in-space design which absolutely dwarfs whatever is attempted in realistic space flight. (...)
I stand to differ, sales for KSP were quite surprising.. It made a lot less money selling at $10 a pop or so. But still, it was so hugely popular for a quite hardcore space sim where you have no goal to speak of (just as many sandbox games like Minecraft, i'll give that).
Also beware of the "echo box" effect of forums, like that one or CiG's Spectrum. You'll hear a very vocal minority. My view on the subject as a developer is these people should be left alone in their echo box, and devs should deliver a coherent and strong vision, and this is what leads to success. "Design by committee" always leads to bland, awkward products. Not that SC is already awkward enough...
 
Brave, brave, brave Sir Robin

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KEK gravity fixed I see. Star Citizens basics finally coming together :)


Listening to some faithful it sounds like the game already exists and is perfect. So as of now all that remains is waiting for the rest of the world to come around to the correct perspective on it. Fat chance is all I can say :)


Why dont they go and play Arma, for example, which is far superior in many regards for that category of games,and a complete game to boot, or the above mentioned Battelfield series ?

Because...as LA has said himself.....its not in Star Citizen so its immediately worse or inferior. Its one of the common defense statements when bringing up better suited games and used to promote Star Citizen as superior. There is no other game that has everything Star Citizen has, to the last detail. SOMETHING is always missing so while Arma has far better qualities it certain areas it cannot compete with SC because SC has em all....all horribly buggy and broken, all horribly barebones or not even implemented yet but Star Citizen has it all. The community is waiting for Star Citizen to incorporate everyhting possible within this single game at which point Star Citizen makes every other game obsolete.

CIG is certainly promising exactly that while using "game development is hard" and "game development takes time" as a shield to keep this money train going. Their simple cop-out is the always present "we tried folks but the haters were too much / the funding wasnt enough / competition stole our ideas" excuse that glosses over the fact that its a pipe dream and this company is shamelessly exploiting its loyal community to a degree that reminds me of animal abuse (where people treat their dogs like crap and the dogs still love them).

I cant see Star Citizen ever achieving what the core fanbase hopes for (winning over the rest of the world) because in terms of industry-standards and pointing-the-way technologies CIG and Star Citizen are not even a BLIP on the radar. And for most people its not a matter of perspective but "haves" and "have nots" and Star Citizen simply "doesnt have". They had their time in the spotlight back in 2014-2015 but it was a losing battle back then and its faded memory today. Star Citizen rising out of the ashes to show all the haters is a simple denial of reality and clinging to hope, a "paradise" scenario...all of which is heavily moneticed by the very company that is supposed to make it a reality. I see no reason for CIG to change the formula. When your most loyal fans dont even expect you to deliver what you promised but just to keep the theorycrafting updated to allow dreaming.....SC will never become a reality.

As I said in the past. CIG cannot be clueless as to whats what by now. They have to know they cannot make what they promised and they have to know the gig is up the moment they admit to that. At this point in time Roberts running an intentional scam or not isnt even a question anymore. If SC proves to be a scam then Roberts knew it years ago already.. That just to deflect all the desperate "they gave it their best, they just failed" excuses i can see coming up. Either CIG knew years ago they cant do this yet decided to continue or SC becomes a miraculous success. If the second is the result I will gladly eat my hat for the chance to witness a miracle in my lifetime ^^


you might have a hard time proving that, a lot of different people were told a lot of things at different times....best you can do is demand it be done in chronological order, Space Sim first then the FPS shooter :)

I agree with you btw. So glad ED has done it the way it has, game first, improvements constant and new gameplay added asap through DLCs or whatever Odyssey actually is or is called and paid for on completion.

Frontier did it that way because it used to be the most risky way possible to do things. I dont think Braben would have thought doing it Chris Roberts style would ever be possible in the first place. So Roberts can dream big. And he is willing to take advantage of everybody around himself to make those dreams going (lack of integrity). Lots of people and companies have that desire or quality or willingness, make no mistake. Its not that Chris Roberts is the worst among all the wolves out there. But where the other companies doing equally bad things are immediately called out and punished accordingly (mainstream articles and crapstorms) Star Citizen sits sheltered and protected by its fanatical community who focuses on the worlds resistence and hate instead of the games development. SC criticism and ridicule is everywhere today. If you make it your job to "fight the good fight" I can easily see you doing nothing else so why would you even know what other games can already do? Hell, some people even admit they dont even play Star Citizen...just buying and dreaming makes it the BDSSE already...why spoil that (by....I dont know....INSTALLING THE GAME to check out how it runs?)

If the Star Citizens way of things would be easily adoptable I can see more companies doing the exact same thing. Dont do anything and get paid for it? Whats not to like? Two problems with that. CIG has yet to prove that what its doing is legally okay (it already does what every other scam in history did as well) and allows them to escape unharmed at the end so everybody else is probably watching betting on the outcome. And you need to cultivate a fanatical fanbase that is accepting everything you do while at the same time defendiing you from outside criticism. Every community today has these people but usually its not enough to make it a business model as these people are a tiny minority and ridiculed, belittled and thought of as "crazy" or "delusional" by the norm to begin with. SC has accumulated a core community of these people numerous enough to allow it runningt financially where the "norm" became the tiny minority. It simply happened, nobody would probably believe SCs development course today was planned from long hand. Roberts simply stumbled into this money pit by pure accident and dumb luck and he (rather, the big boy on his team did) recognized the opportunity and had (this one is a quality of roberts) no problems with taking other people on a ride and their money.

If you want to make a lot of money for less than equal results than Star Citizen certainly is something to aim for. But if your goal is to create an actual video game that people can buy AND play...its not feasable.
 
At the risk of going on a tangent, while I love the idea of combined arms, I have heavy doubts as to an implementation of it that doesn't completely break internal consistency.

Yes, as of today, ground troopers can shoot down airplanes. But first, this is because airplanes are incredibly fragile. And then, this isn't magical tech, the airplanes themselves carry similar versions of those missiles and have the same capacity. Take that into a futuristic context where for "balance" and "TTK" reasons, spaceships can endure multiple missile volleys from other ships, and are limited to only carry so many launchers under the pretense that the hull couldn't fit more or that they'd be too big/cumbersome. From there, either (a) your ground trooper carries a similar (smaller weapon class available to a ship) launcher, and ends up shooting mosquito bites at ships, or (b) you invent a magic tech that can actually do meaningful damage to ships (up to one-shotting them) and for some reason it doesn't work when fitted to a ship hull. (a) is internally consistent tech-wise, but means that there is no meaningful handheld G2A option. (b) does provide a gamey sense of "balance" but is ridiculously contrived.

Ground-based static emplacements are another option. Here you can justify heavier warheads (they don't need to be carried around), bigger power supplies for energy weapons, or better tracking (ground tracking array) that wouldn't be practical on a ship (although the more massive the ships, the least true this becomes). But obviously, that won't cover random troopers outside of an outpost. Imho, that's still the best way to go about it. It does provide a rationale for ground troops, while not making them "viable" at the cost of a completely crazy universe tech-wise. And well, the ground troops still benefit from being tiny targets, so unless specific A2G weapons get introduced, it shouldn't be a breeze for the ship to actually hit ground targets.

I can't comment on SC as I don't play it, but taking ED as an example, look at weapon sizes. Some ships have (S)mall-only weapon emplacements. These are massive multi-ton ships and they can't even fit a (M)edium weapon. I can't see any rationale for a ground trooper carrying anything beyond S-class weapons. And good luck taking down engineered ship with your ground-based single S gun. In fact, when was the last time you took down a ship with a single M class missile? I mean, possibly with a volley of 4 thermal cascade engineered torpedoes, but apart from that? So barring magitech, hell will freeze over before ground troops are a threat to ships. Even massed-fire would require a lot of S guns to effectively become a threat. And again, if magitech is introduced with handheld launchers that can one/two/three-shot ships, well, I'll be asking Core Dynamics why they won't fit these onto every single emplacement of my dropship. For another case where this time ground-based G2A weapons are lethal, take Planetside 2. A few troopers with anti-air launchers are enough to deter air presence. But the flip side here is that PS2 aircrafts can (logically) carry similar missiles and bring the same lethality against other aircrafts.

Unless SC actually has small-sized ship-based missiles that pack a massive punch, it's likely the same issues will arise.

tl;dr: because of TTK balance, spaceships are stupidly hard, to the point where it makes no sense that a handheld weapon from a ground trooper can have a tangible effect.
Spaceships in say ED or even maybe SC are more like warships in the ocean than aeroplanes. Can one damage say WW2 era heavy cruiser with modern man portable anti-tank weapon. Yes. Likely. But then what one smallish hole over the waterline means for ship. Very little. It would be extremely unlikely that one could score a hit to anything important inside ship.
 
@Agony_Aunt : weird sentence.
Perhaps the idea that even if the fight is lost by advance, the Tevarin go for it (where a human will preserve his ship and fly away) because they don't care about destruction of their ships, they can escape whenever they want with the pod.
 
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A cockpit as escape pod does make sense. Just like ejection seats in aircraft do.
In fact that idea is quite old in real life. First fully rocket powered plane made late 1930's in Germany had that idea. Plane had high pressure pneumatic system separating whole cockpit from plane hull, then parachute for whole cocpit assembly to slow it down to safe evacuation velocity. After which pilot evacuates himself and comes down with his individual parachute.
 
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