Chris Roberts namedropping ED

[Gédéon_Lecanard]

I fail to understand why there is such a huge divide in the communities of these games. I back both, can't wait for both to be released and will inevitably play both. Braben and Roberts are both titans in this genre and rightly so. The fact SC is promoting something ED hasn't now got is just smart business practice. for those that blindly ridicule the 'other' game, get your heads out of your backsides really. This genre has been starved of quality for years, back them both, if not financially, then just vocally get behind both games. I hope they BOTH make the grade!

Can't agree more. I'm not backing SC for many reasons, but I'm glad that both games exist (well, technically only ED does right now ) and I will definitely try SC when the milking madness has been toned down a bit.

The genre has suffered a lot, those years, so having two games of this caliber on the market is great. Also, let's not forget about the X series. X-Rebirth may have been a failure, but X2, X3 and its iterations were brillants.

 

[Witzo]

if your product has a feature your competition doesn't have, it's just natural to use that feature to promote your stuff. i don't think that's low.

These are both Kickstarter projects, labour of love for a paying group limited in number by the specificity of their wishes. Profit by competition is a secondary goal.

 

[Maruun]

Well SC doesnt have a "offline mode" as far i know...atleast no offline PU. The only thing offline you could play is their linear single player campaign.

 

[Alric]

The procedural generation is E : D is great so far as it goes.. which is essentially Stellar Forge. Asteroid fields close to a star.. the sun rising on the far side of a planet, leaving space stations with gas giants looming.. there are tons of great views in the game. It's true that the 400 billionth wouldn't look so impressive as the 4th. But it's also true that the 200th hand crafted world won't leave you agog at its hand-crafted brilliance. In the end it's a planet orbiting around a star. They won't all look amazingly different no matter how you create them. Most games are hand crafted and most of the content looks pretty consistent with the rest.

What people do is compare hand-crafted gameplay content with procedurally generated background content. Elite Dangerous does use (any significant) procedural generation to produce bland conent - it uses procedural generation to produce an impressive galaxy, and then pretty crude random generation to produce bland content, similar to how any number of games throw random kill x baddies at you and then spawn random baddies. We can see from the interdictions happening thousands of light years from anywhere that there is no substantial procedural generation behind that sort of stuff - it's just random.

So TL;DR the proper PG stuff looks good. The "bland and nothing to do" feeling is because the stuff to do side of things isn't really procedurally generated in anything but the most simplistic of senses - it's just random like in most games.

 

[veger]

Well SC doesnt have a "offline mode" as far i know...atleast no offline PU. The only thing offline you could play is their linear single player campaign.

It will have offline server capability/Private server ( But watered down of course ) He explains this in the most recent 10 FTC that the OP is refering too in this thread.

 

[Maruun]

It will have offline server capability/Private server ( But watered down of course ) He explains this in the most recent 10 FTC that the OP is refering too in this thread.

Would still not be offline in a technical sense but i understand so more in the direction of Freelancer.

 

[zuadao]

im only newby here but, pls try to explain why thrusters that stabilize a 25T ship is going to let firing projectiles push the ship backwards...

this game is passed in the future right?? couse im starting to doubt it...

 

[bummer6]

I guess most people don't have a problem with Chris explicitly naming Elite Dangerous and advertising a feature simply because ED doesn't have it. I guess the reason I thought it was weird was because it's illegal in my country to advertise that way. You're not allowed to market your brand as being better than another specific brand. Sure, you can say it's better than "it's competitor" as long as you don't NAME that competitor.

I'd also like to clarify that I'm not hating on Star Citizen. I've got a Constellation and a Starfarer, so I've backed it quite a bit, but I'm not a blind fanboy who will defend either ED or SC no matter what they do. If someone says some bull then he/she should be called on it. (of course, what is considered to be bull isn't the same for everyone)

im only newby here but, pls try to explain why thrusters that stabilize a 25T ship is going to let firing projectiles push the ship backwards...

this game is passed in the future right?? couse im starting to doubt it...

I already explained he was talking about the FPS module

 

[OxKing]

Science fiction can't negate newton's third law.

Yes it can. Maybe we havn't discovered all the mechanics and laws of physics yet?
Maybe in future we can mess around with Higgs Bosons and influence objects mass?
And also its not possible to travel FTL, there are no shield generators and to generate a wormhole you never be able to get the energy. But you playing games all this is possible. So where is the point?

And a recoilless firearm isn't impossible at all.
You just have to have an second mass fired in the opposite direction to negate the force. And not neccissarily a second bullet. I think if we devolop wepons to be used in zero g for 100 years or more we would not move one cm from fireing it.

 

[zuadao]

I already explained he was talking about the FPS module

my point stands, is the game passed in the future? couse even today there are sistems that reduce recoil.

 

[JeffRyan]

And a recoilless firearm isn't impossible at all.
You just have to have an second mass fired in the opposite direction to negate the force. And not neccissarily a second bullet. I think if we devolop wepons to be used in zero g for 100 years or more we would not move one cm from fireing it.

I'll concede that.

 

[Dogmeat]

Its not just the mass but the mass times the change in velocity. Thats why even though a gun's cartridge shot or round doesn't weigh much, it has a high velocity change (or acceleration), hence the kickback. And as we all know, every action has an equal and opposite reaction.

In the case of a stationary Cobra (weighing say 400,000kg) firing a canon with a projectile mass of say 500kg with a muzzle velocity of 5000 m/s, then your ship will now have a new velocity of 0.8 m/s in the opposite direction. I assumed that the muzzle charge can accelerate the projectile from 0 to 5000 m/s in 10 milliseconds. As you can see, its a very small effect, but does exist.

0.5x500kg x (5000x5000)m/s = errr.... enough force to push a 400t Cobra backwards @176.776695m/s. I think. Sure you weren't thinking of a 500GRAM bullet? Only a few guns ever built could throw a half tonne projectile, and certainly not at 5000m/s. And the guns themselves weighed more than a Type9, let alone a Cobra.

 

[Iskariot]

So I was watching the latest 10 For The Chairman when a guy asked if SC was gonna stay commited to their offline mode after ED cancelled theirs. So basically CIG is using the fact that FD cancelled offline mode to promote SC, which is kinda low in my opinion.

In another part of the episode CR talked about recoil in zero-G and stated that regular ballistic weapons wouldn't be able to push you backwards in zero-G because the bullet's mass is too low, but a weapon like a bazooka would potentially push you backwards... This makes no sense since a bazooka has no recoil, which you know if you know even the first thing about weapons. Also, I've fired a shotgun myself, and I have a hard time believing that it wouldn't be able to push you backwards in zero-G, even if it's just a little.

Even though I seriously deplore the demise of offline in ED I hardly believe SC will therefore gain significantly more customers. Many, if not most ED players were already interested in SC too and those that do not like it it for all kinds of reasons (limited sector based universe, design style, no real planetary landings etc) will not suddenly like it because it does have an offline mode.

As far as the weapons are concerned... I expect that in the future there will be weapons specifically designed for zero-G combat.

 

[klinky]

I guess most people don't have a problem with Chris explicitly naming Elite Dangerous and advertising a feature simply because ED doesn't have it. I guess the reason I thought it was weird was because it's illegal in my country to advertise that way. You're not allowed to market your brand as being better than another specific brand. Sure, you can say it's better than "it's competitor" as long as you don't NAME that competitor.

Is it also illegal in your country to offer a feature, take money for said feature and remove said feature before release?

 

[Toumal]

So I was watching the latest 10 For The Chairman when a guy asked if SC was gonna stay commited to their offline mode after ED cancelled theirs. So basically CIG is using the fact that FD cancelled offline mode to promote SC, which is kinda low in my opinion.

Not at all. If SC has a true offline mode, and ED does not, then that's just how it is. It's like saying Elite's advertisement of 400 billion stars is low because SC only has about 100 (without the billion) in total. If FD doesn't want him to take advantage of the offline thing, then there's something they can do about that...

 

[Eidolon]

Two things spring to mind with the recoil issue.
1. Bullets and Shells in several science-fiction settings are called "ram-Jet" rounds or something similar. A type of ammunition that uses a tiny cap to lauch the projectile at almost totally neglegible recoil to the firing platform. Be it a zero g human or a space going vessel. Upon clearing the weapon's barrel an internal charge in the shell fires and accelerates it to a more deadly velocity.
2. Railguns such as we have in ED and other settings are always recoiless. The ferrous slugs are inducted out of the weapon's barrel by electro magnets, not pushed out violently by a chemical charge as with conventional ammo. So there is no opposing force pushing the weapon platform backwards.

Hope this helps =)

 

[Tyr07]

I guess most people don't have a problem with Chris explicitly naming Elite Dangerous and advertising a feature simply because ED doesn't have it. I guess the reason I thought it was weird was because it's illegal in my country to advertise that way. You're not allowed to market your brand as being better than another specific brand. Sure, you can say it's better than "it's competitor" as long as you don't NAME that competitor.

I'd also like to clarify that I'm not hating on Star Citizen. I've got a Constellation and a Starfarer, so I've backed it quite a bit, but I'm not a blind fanboy who will defend either ED or SC no matter what they do. If someone says some bull then he/she should be called on it. (of course, what is considered to be bull isn't the same for everyone)



I already explained he was talking about the FPS module

Actually, you should check your laws closely. There are several countries including mine which have similar rules, except what the law specifically states is it cannot be false. So you couldn't make a generic statement that X brand is not as good as ours.

Like Mr X cleans 25% more than Super X.

As quantity, what was cleaned etc, is all subjective.

However, you can say, 'Mr X has xsuperadditive which Super X does not.'

In this case, it would be illegal in my country to advertise 'Star Citizen is better than Elite Dangerous because we have an offline or fps module'

What IS legal is 'Star Citizen has offline mode for players that are looking to enjoy offline play, Elite Dangerous does not.'

 

[Slawkenbergius]

I guess they should implement whatever is fun.

When I made a fully Newtonian asteroid clone, I found that adding some (faked) recoil to the ship made for better gameplay, because otherwise you'd tend to 'turret' in the middle of the screen, only using yaw. The recoil got the ship moving enough that you had to start controlling your other thrusters after a few seconds of firing.

Also, recoil is a fairly core differentiating and balancing mechanic in FPS weapon design, so it seems weird to totally ignore it through recoilless tech. That means no automatic weapons that are really powerful, but that drag your aim away from your target as you fire...

 

[dead_rock]

Off Topic: I'm quite curious for Star Citizen but the financing model is not my cup of tea. I'll wait for a full release on this one or a Beta similar to Eliteangerous.

On Topic: I think it would be great if the Zero G combat in SC would model the physics of kinetic weapons. This would give it another layer of strategic depth and maybe reward you for using energy weapons. I follow SC loosely and the FPS demo really picked my interest.

For the discussion regarding hand crafting VS procedural generating: Both have their merits. Procedural generation can lead to very strange and unrealistic scenes if done wrong but given a strict and consistent rule set can lead to really unique results. Hand crafting has the benefit of being a consistent artistic design - but as seen in nearly every AAA title will also result in pretty generic environments in most instances.

 

[eeimben]

0.5x500kg x (5000x5000)m/s = errr.... enough force to push a 400t Cobra backwards @176.776695m/s. I think. Sure you weren't thinking of a 500GRAM bullet? Only a few guns ever built could throw a half tonne projectile, and certainly not at 5000m/s. And the guns themselves weighed more than a Type9, let alone a Cobra.

Ha ha - well spotted. Yes I did mean a 500g. Damn those pesky SI prefixes. I was basing my calcs on a 100mm smoothbore canon that NASA is using to test with.
A half tonne projectile at 5000m/s would generate an impact of 250 MN - that should be enough to knock out most things. Mmmm, well we could only but hope for such exotica!