Game Discussions Star Citizen Discussion Thread v12

Old Duck

Old Duck
Mole HD said:
Went on for a bit of SC earlier this morning...I might as well not have bothered. The server back end is so borked I couldn't recall a ship without getting an immediate parking violation with the ship being stored in the time it took me to get in the elevator to the hangar. On the one occasion I did manage to get to a ship, it kept randomly powering on and off and wouldn't let me escape the hangar.

Besides all that, the friends list isn't populating...even if it does, you can't jump in a server with friends or join up at the main menu and do a party launch.

I tried server after server, region after region and they're mostly the same with a variety of back end stuff completely broken or only randomly functional. Some folk theorising in global chat on the various servers I briefly visited were putting all those issues down to the Invictus free-fly...but I strongly suspect that 3.17's issues are more deeply rooted than a few newbies clogging the servers up. We'll soon find out when the free-fly ends later today 😐
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I don't like bugs.
 

Navigare Necesse Est

Navigare Necesse Est
Skizomeuh said:
Shooting for the moon, by shooting themselves in the foot.
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More like shooting in the head. There's not much there anyway given the fact they do all this useless guff and think it's any use.

Crobbers should go on with the game just like he markets his scamventure : Smoke and mirrors and blankets to pull across user's eyes.
 

Darkfyre99

Darkfyre99
A Skeptic Ignores Invictus Week
Part Five
The Ultimate Ignoring Invictus Week Quest

(part one)
(part two)
(part three)
(part four)

Let's see... what have I been up to since Thursday night?

Friday Night, thanks to Obi-Wan Kenobi nearly getting spoiled by the second shift, despite repeatedly being reminded about spoilers, I decided to watch the premier that night, rather than wait for Sunday where I have a lot of things to do at home that lets me catch up on my streaming.

Saturday Night, I’d originally intended to return to Area 18, in search of a multi-tool for hand mining, since there didn’t seem to be one sold at the L1 station. Instead, it turned out to be a “pause-able game” evening, which doesn’t describe SC in any way, especially if I want to explore a large volume of twisty passages, all alike.

Sunday Night our extended family got together for Memorial Day, where the menfolk practiced the ancient ritual of cooking meat over flames in remembrance of those who gave their lives in defense of this country, as well as all those who fought for hearth and home against totalitarianism.

Last Night I was going to make another attempt at exploring Area 18, but as my mouse cursor hovered over the RSI launcher, a quiet voice asked “What’s the point? You won’t be able to play tomorrow night, and any progress might be wiped before the next free fly. Wouldn’t you like to launch some rockets instead?” So I played a bit of KSP instead. ;)

This was the first free fly where I actually got to play the game. Once again, I can see the appeal… if you’re able to ignore the bugs, the undeveloped and underdeveloped features, the questionable design decisions, the predatory marketing, and the utterly unethical abuse of the crowd funding model. It says something about this game that a “starting ship” capable of doing the starting non-combat missions will cost you extra.

The biggest take away I had from this game is that what should be my favorite part of the game, space travel, I find to be utterly unappealing for the most part. And I never went further than the orbital space of one planet. I play space games to fly space ships, not to sit passively by as they fly themselves for me. Flying slowly in a straight line is acceptable if you accelerate time, but that isn’t possible in an online game. When you combine that with SCs current user interface, even No Man’s Sky space travel I find to be more fun… which is really saying something.

When most players say a game should “respect their time,” they inevitably mean a game should shower them with unearned rewards. For me, a game that “respects my time,” is one that doesn’t waste it with unnecessary and unskippable time sinks, allows me to engage with the game on my terms, and won’t penalize me if real life needs my attention more. That doesn’t describe this game much at the moment, and I doubt it ever will under Chris Roberts “leadership.”

But I must agree that their environmental artists did a good job. My first look at that refinery was awe inspiring. Pity it has no obvious function at the moment, and that Chris Roberts favors spectacle over sound game design…
 
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Mole HD

Mole HD
Darkfyre99 said:
A Skeptic Ignores Invictus Week
Part Five
The Ultimate Ignoring Invictus Week Quest

(part one)
(part two)
(part three)
(part four)

Let's see... what have I been up to since Thursday night?

Friday Night, thanks to Obi-Wan Kenobi nearly getting spoiled by the second shift, despite repeatedly being reminded about spoilers, I decided to watch the premier that night, rather than wait for Sunday where I have a lot of things to do at home that lets me catch up on my streaming.

Saturday Night, I’d originally intended to return to Area 18, in search of a multi-tool for hand mining, since there didn’t seem to be one sold at the L1 station. Instead, it turned out to be a “pause-able game” evening, which doesn’t describe SC in any way, especially if I want to explore a large volume of twisty passages, all alike.

Sunday Night our extended family got together for Memorial Day, where the menfolk practiced the ancient ritual of cooking meat over flames in remembrance of those who gave their lives in defense of this country, as well as all those who fought for hearth and home against totalitarianism.

Last Night I was going to make another attempt at exploring Area 18, but as my mouse cursor hovered over the RSI launcher, a quiet voice asked “What’s the point? You won’t be able to play tomorrow night, and any progress might be wiped before the next free fly. Wouldn’t you like to launch some rockets instead?” So I played a bit of KSP instead. ;)

This was the first free fly where I actually got to play the game. Once again, I can see the appeal… if you’re able to ignore the bugs, the undeveloped and underdeveloped features, the questionable design decisions, the predatory marketing, and the utterly unethical abuse of the crowd funding model. It says something about this game that a “starting ship” capable of doing the starting non-combat missions will cost you extra.

The biggest take away I had from this game is that what should be my favorite part of the game, space travel, I find to be utterly unappealing for the most part. And I never went further than the orbital space of one planet. I play space games to fly space ships, not to sit passively by as they fly themselves for me. Flying slowly in a straight line is acceptable if you accelerate time, but that isn’t possible in an online game. When you combine that with SCs current user interface, even No Man’s Sky space travel I find to be more fun… which is really saying something.

When most players say a game should “respect their time,” they inevitably mean a game should shower them with 7 earned rewards. For me, a game that “respects my time,” is one that doesn’t waste it with unnecessary and unskippable time sinks, allows me to engage with the game on my terms, and won’t penalize me if real life needs my attention more. That doesn’t describe this game much at the moment, and I doubt it ever will under Chris Roberts “leadership.”

But I must agree that their environmental artists did a good job. My first look at that refinery was awe inspiring. Pity it has no obvious function at the moment, and that Chris Roberts favors spectacle over sound game design…
Click to expand...
Great summary. I should mention that the refineries are fully functional from a player standpoint, the refinery terminals are upstairs from the refinery shop :)
 

thistle

T
VR Golgot said:
I truffled through the AI Q&A. Here are some highlights:

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKhBrT6fh7w


On the mess hall still being a mess: "You don't get the crockery that you want" [2m42s]





The mocap studio being is for pick-ups and SQ42 sequels... [12m14s]




They don't seem to know how the engineering modules will work yet [16m30s]



[19m+]

  • The NPCs are supposed to be able to do this too. But for now it's SQ42 focused.
  • 'Assignments' - Currently NPC just stays there doing all their inspection actions because it looks good.


On getting NPCs to work with the existing world and assets [31m+]




Lando managing NPC crew expectations... [34m23s]





- [2m42s] Andrew Davies? [He says 'Davis'] - Product Owner of the AI Feature Team [so Producer?], and 'chow line' developer. On the mess hall still being a mess:

"And I'm also a senior developer and I've been working on, uh, getting our, uh, chow line, um, AI up to scratch, and this is something I worked on before but it's kind of lapsed for a little bit, but we're, uh, we're kind of gonna get running again so I can pass it along to the content team and, the chow line is a, a system that, um, allows our, is a social bit of a social AI, that allows our guys to go and grab a tray from the mess hall, grab some crockery, and then go and use lots of different machines that each produce bits of food and drink. And then go and sit down at tables and eat them and drink them and do that to their hearts content. Um, and it's a system that was required lots of little different bits working in a way that not, if I if i'd worked on a previous game, you probably will have that all done in one canned animation. But because this is, uh, Star Citizen as soon as we like to make things as we like to go that extra level with lots of detail. Each of these machines is a separate thing, and that means there's lots of places where things can go wrong ,like you don't get the the crockery that you want, or something else, or let's say there's a, uh, whilst you're you're uh getting your food suddenly there's, uh, an alert over the tannoy and all of those characters have to drop what they're doing and leave their plates and trays and go off and and man their battle stations. So it's dealing with all of those things, like how do you come back to that, and, uh, deal with that. So that's, um, kind of taking lots of stuff that we've already worked on, and then putting it all together to create like a really complex system, and with all the complexities, all the bugs that come with that [laughs], um so, that's basically what I do.

Lando: And a lot of your focus these days is on Squadron 42 but most uh much of that work will make its way into the PU once it's proven out.


- [9m20s] Stuart Charlton [3D Animator]: On the flow graph of using a usable. "By doing that we maintain a sense of realism, of performance, and just adding more to that expanding universe". References bartender ;). He's in charge "So i'm in charge of making sure that performance is authentic and that's why animation is such an important aspect of of the AI work.". [9m20s:
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKhBrT6fh7w&t=560s
]


- Talks about pick up mocap shoots for things like AI on trains looking bored etc

- [12m14s] - Lando on the mocap studio being for pick-ups and SQ42 sequels... "...where we'll be able to do pickups, like, we just did, like stewart just showed you, for, for, uh just any time we need to add more NPCs into into places and make the place feel more alive, uh, to do pickups for Squadron 42. Things that we, you know, realize oh, we need a bridge for this or that or whatever. Or even when it comes time to it production for you know additional you know sequels and stuff for Squadron 42 and stuff like that..."
[
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKhBrT6fh7w&t=12m12s
]

[16m30s] - They don't know how the engineering modules will work yet, but they have an animation: Dan Baker [Senior Designer]: "Things like, uh, shield generators, quantum drives, relays, whatever it ends up being. And inside there you're going to have things like fuses, or whatever, other kinds of sub-components that might be relative to that that component. And they're going to affect the statistics of the the component in some way, most likely just like, you know, if certain fuses, um, were broken you would probably expect the thing to not work as well as if it had three fully functioning fuses."
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKhBrT6fh7w&t=16m30s


[19m+] - The NPCs are supposed to be able to do this too. But for now it's SQ42 focused.
'Assignments' - Currently NPC just stays there doing all their inspection actions because it looks good. (Warbles on about 'usables' and heirarchies of the same. Will use torch if it has one etc).

[24m15s+] - Hireable NPCs, what's needed?...

[26m30s+] - Maybe engineers will get low morale if you assign them as a janitor. Claims they have the backend in place for this type of stuff. Just needs the usables to be usable etc...
- Persistence is in place he thinks [?]

[30m30s] Andrew Davies on mess halls again: "like I was thinking about in the chow line, and the, the mess hall. If there's loads of people having to go off, um, or the player leaving loads of trays behind, then there's going to have to be a janitor character who comes in and picks up those trays and takes them, takes them back, so we don't get a mess hall that's just full with, with trays."


[31m+] On getting NPCs to work with the existing world: Lando on ship variety being a difficulty for NPC transit / animations. Designer worried about dependencies. (IE where to get tool from). Designer is working on deck crew - NPCs repairing Gladius etc (cosmetically). So realises 'this ship isn't to metric' / get ship designers to change their baby. Sometimes has to invent the metric. Get animations and/or tech for them to use trolley, to move ladder, to climb up to bit that needs repair etc....

"Say you have something on top of the Gladius. The NPC needs to be able to get up there, you know, which means that they need to understand that, in order to get up there, I need to grab the ladders move them over to the Gladius. [Francesco Roccucci: And then the ladders are trolleys {IE you need AI to be able to use trollies}]. And then when they get up there you need to make sure that they've got the animations to enter, and it's all the correct metrics, which isn't always the case, you know. So then you've got to go back to the artist and say this isn't to metric, and usually you have to design a metric first, and then get them to change their, their baby into something that you've you've written down, months or sometimes years later."
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKhBrT6fh7w&t=32m22s


- [34m23s] - Lando managing expectations...
"To properly manage, uh, expectations we are shooting for the moon with this thing. And, and, and, when, when it is complete, and when it is, uh, fully developed, it'll be a thing unlike any other."
- "NPC multicrew is not a 'soon' thing"

[35m54s] - Static Nav Mesh - "When that's in, later this year"
  • Only for certain POIs to start
  • Hopes you can kite NPC wherever, in theory
  • Working in internal build now

[39m30s] - AI reinforcements / drop ships:
  • 'In theory' can unload vehicles etc as well as people
  • They can't support ships that use elevators or ladders yet. Only the backdoor / ramps by the sound.

[43m50s] - Traits system
  • Gung ho character vs cowardly one etc. Will affect how they will target others he reckons. (Sounds like this might be aspirational though). [It's chow line AI guy]
  • Factions who are amateurs vs pros. Animations to that effect. [SQ42 related]

[46m] - AI using healing on themselves etc
  • Planned for SQ42
  • Non-lethal takedowns planned. (And revival of same by NPCs)

[47m] - Allowing AI to loot dead players?
- More unknown. Just talks about plans for distributing loot. (Although suggests AI might know where to loot?)

[49m30s] - The illusion of AI not knowing
- Want them to check stuff they already know, re ammo drop, or vending machine, or whatever. (Or having a 'dynamic' conv while waiting in queue for vending machine...)

[51m] - Performance issues
- They have a lot of tasks to try and improve performance for the 'dedicated server'. Client isn't such a big deal as it's only streaming in what's local. If you have 50 players in heavy locations (Lorville etc), the server is going to be down at 5-7FPS.
-Try to talk with directors/designers and get them to limit the number of entities in the game.
  • 'Usable Idle' will play instead if NPC waiting on server / deciding what to do next.
  • 1,500 characters acting at the same time is a lot for one server.
  • "AI itself is definitely not that expensive, but it's everything that comes with the character, right. That is animation, updated animation, the rendering, uh, you know all the calculation for, I don't know, if they're piloting a ship with all the items."
  • They fixed an issue where combat AI wasn't turning to shoot not because the server command hadn't arrived, but because of a bug preventing them turning.
  • Trying to optimise the ray casts / queries they do every frame.
  • SM will help. Live now you can feel the difference when the server is 'fresh' etc. The experience is then 'closer to what regular games do right now'.
  • Not unusual to see stuff work on single player and test servers but fail in PU etc.

- [56m30s] - AI priority 'LODs' [?]

Fran: "At the end of the last year some things that we changed is the way we give priority to some of the calculation. So we give calculation to the combat more than the social, and to some things at the social a bit above the combat, and, uh. You know I was finishing to experiment with some other ways of key priority with a lot of different LODs you know, and this is the stuff that we have. We have already two version LODs on behaviors and movement and stuff like this, but we don't have yet and like, for example, what they want to do is a nice way of balancing importance of the request based on LOD:

...if you switch LOD right, if the player moves around and fights with, uh, you know, let's say, uh, out with Andrew right? And, and Dan is super far, maybe he was close to me, but I left him right? So if now it takes a little bit of more time for him to find a new cover spot, I prefer that Andrew's cover spot is quicker to give to him. [IE - AI close to you get higher update priority?]

Lightning Round: [59m]
  • AI grenades need a 'refresh' currently
  • Animal NPCs? Every animator wants to work on them. Some SQ42 WIP / upcoming work for fauna.
  • AI turrets work for NPCs etc, but just needs ways to equip etc for players.
  • AI feelings? AI will express moods. Frustration is one emotion. And the mood should be consistent etc.

  • Biggest challenge right now? [1h1m30s]
  • 'Set up'. Making sure everyone's doing the same thing the same kind of way in a big studio. Frustrating when different approaches & trying to debug.
  • Getting Mocap time, but that's getting fixed...
  • 'Intertwined systems'. For example looking at the transit systems, need to have a full understanding of how it works, need dedicated time with the team etc. Then new systems have an impact and can impact the old systems etc. Loadouts and inventories, the lockers = example of trying to prepare something with least impact possible [?]
  • Performance. But a good challenge. Especially with limited resources.
Click to expand...
Early days.
 

Darkfyre99

Darkfyre99
VR Golgot said:
On the mess hall still being a mess: "You don't get the crockery that you want" [2m42s]
Click to expand...
The sad thing is, when I read about the challenges faced by the mess hall AI team, I can't help but compare to what a tiny team was able to accomplish with Stonehearth. Which is design an AI that is capable retrieving their favorite meals from containers in a dynamically changing environment, and then either group up with friends to eat with, and avoid eating with those they don't like.

Of course, when I designed my dining halls, I made sure to design them with the limitations of the Hearthling AI in mind. Makes me wonder if the SQ42 AI team would've had better luck getting the AI to work in an idealized environment first, iterating on that design until it reaches the limits of what the client computer can handle, and then designing the mess hall with that in mind. But then I don't understand game development. ;)
 

Old Duck

Old Duck
Darkfyre99 said:
A Skeptic Ignores Invictus Week
Click to expand...
This not-yet-a-skeptic also ended up ignoring free fly week.

But I did install X3 on my older non-gaming Linux laptop, and it runs surprisingly good! Now I'm actually looking forward to those long and otherwise boring flights this summer, LOL.

As for SC, maybe I'll try it this Fall. Or maybe not. 🤷‍♂️ In the meantime I'll keep watching other people play it, as I do enjoy that.
 

Navigare Necesse Est

Navigare Necesse Est
Darkfyre99 said:
The sad thing is, when I read about the challenges faced by the mess hall AI team, I can't help but compare to what a tiny team was able to accomplish with Stonehearth. Which is design an AI that is capable retrieving their favorite meals from containers in a dynamically changing environment, and then either group up with friends to eat with, and avoid eating with those they don't like.

Of course, when I designed my dining halls, I made sure to design them with the limitations of the Hearthling AI in mind. Makes me wonder if the SQ42 AI team would've had better luck getting the AI to work in an idealized environment first, iterating on that design until it reaches the limits of what the client computer can handle, and then designing the mess hall with that in mind. But then I don't understand game development. ;)
Click to expand...
In games like Dwarf Fortress the little characters are all protagonists with the odd chance to do something spectacular. NPCs in games like SC arent because the player is the protagonist. Why simulate the NPCs when players dont give a rack about it.
 

Mole HD

Mole HD
Someone in SC global chat this evening mentioned that you can store Picos and Flimleys (space penguin and space whale plushies) in the side carriers of the Mule and they stay attached even when recalling the vehicle from a terminal. I've now discovered my life's mission :)

cAw1ftD.jpg
 
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