Game Discussions Star Citizen Discussion Thread v12

Well they have Tony Z working on it, he's pretty much even crazier in concepting things and making things complex than Chris is, so i'm not worried about the complexity of Quanta
Its not so much the complexity, its the flexibility and utility of things. For all EDs flaws FD are very close to getting it 'just so'- hopefully CiG are taking notes and seeing what works / does not work. Maybe CiG need to look at iNovae and Infinity Battlescape and conceptualize conflict on a per system level and dial back the 100 systems thing for now.
 
Looks deeply immersive. Curious cause I'm sure that I've read someone in this thread guarantee that SC would never be viable in VR because of forced animations and performance. Yet that looks more than alright, dare to say actually awesome, specially considering that those corridors and doors makes it like the CMDR is walking in the Millennium Falcon.

Nah, having tried comparable hacks, it’s likely pretty shonky in the headset. (He’s using this new technique, since the last one broke. It uses the archaic side-by-side mode, lacks even decent faked depth, and spanks performance - as he notes).

It’s interesting that he’s only in Arena mode by the looks. Any low performance areas of the main game would doubtless have him reprojecting like mad in the headset. (Sub 45 FPS, where software tricks kick in to compensate, and everything gets juddery/ melty).

Frankly, it’s not a great VR experience as a rule. And a lot of hassle to use. But the image on the 2D mirror screen normally looks fine ;)

Couldn't help notice the saltiness of that video title so looked up some more videos of him, and we it looks like it's another ex-CMDR turned refugee.

Explains why he’d go through so much pain for such dubious gain for sure.

EDVR ‘refugees' are the funniest ;)
 
What I mean- take for example a Powerplay skirmish I had:

My teammembers for a week instigated a coup and secretly weakened several governments in about five systems- we did this via smuggling, murder, trading, all sorts- but we had to do it quietly.

Meanwhile others created a noisy diversion on the other side of the enemy.

Once the above was done it allowed the Powerplay gameplay in, where we all fought hard while being messed with by Imperials.

Whats going on in SC is pretty much a mission in ED, and half a CZ / POI. It has no ongoing value and thus (for me) reason to do it more than once. SC needs this higher level stuff going on to make it 'gel'- otherwise its (to me) a very pretty tech demo.
That sounds like depth in gameplay :eek:
 
Nah, having tried comparable hacks, it’s likely pretty shonky in the headset. (He’s using this new technique, since the last one broke. It uses the archaic side-by-side mode, lacks even decent faked depth, and spanks performance - as he notes).

It’s interesting that he’s only in Arena mode by the looks. Any low performance areas of the main game would doubtless have him reprojecting like mad in the headset. (Sub 45 FPS, where software tricks kick in to compensate, and everything gets juddery/ melty).

Frankly, it’s not a great VR experience as a rule. And a lot of hassle to use. But the image on the 2D mirror screen normally looks fine ;)



Explains why he’d go through so much pain for such dubious gain for sure.

EDVR ‘refugees' are the funniest ;)
Damn he attempt to play Star Citizen on VR! Stop enjoying the experience! Now!!!
 
The issue for me is not the fidelity, but whats going on behind why these things are happening. If SC had ED BGS and Powerplay like driving forces joining stuff up it would be great.

For me there is only so many times I can walk out a door before I think "what the hell am I doing this for?".
This, I mostly play solo mode in Elite, once I had my base system somewhere where not many players did not be. Perhaps BGS rng gods or what ever started to throw problems for powers that be in system. Some kind of election campaign, I started to get missions to ship weapons to system....Of course being obliging trade agent I did just that, seemed to me that every weapon shipment I shipped added internal temperature, sooner or later they had little civil war :D
 
Quite above everything else available in the spaceship dogfighting market I'd say.

Looks very pretty. Sounds like a total pain though:

If we’re talking personal preferences, ED’s CQC mode in VR is hands down the best space dogfighting I’ve experienced ;)

(I’m not saying that to get into a tribal spat. It just happens to be the case for me. VR owns ;))
 
That sounds like depth in gameplay :eek:
It was great, because that experience gathered the entire breadth of ED and it felt really engaging- it was all player driven, planned and executed- its what SC alludes to and has to replicate to really 'work'.

The other factor is synergy of lore, story and gameplay that SC need to double down on. ED has got this going pretty well, giving reasons and high level outcomes- SC needs this otherwise its all short term Sunday driving.

Lore in particular gives me concern in SC (well, S42) , because.....its really inconsistent and woolly with Roman Empire mixed with Wing Commander.
 
Damn he attempt to play Star Citizen on VR! Stop enjoying the experience! Now!!!

I’m merely saying what looks good on the desktop mirror (the stuff he’s edited in there), doesn’t necessarily look good in the headset. Nor is it usually a great VR experience, for the reasons mentioned.

Having tried various comparable things that looked good in YT videos, but didn’t in practice, I’m just sharing my experience. You can believe me or not ¯\(ツ)/¯
 
Whats going on in SC is pretty much a mission in ED, and half a CZ / POI. It has no ongoing value and thus (for me) reason to do it more than once. SC needs this higher level stuff going on to make it 'gel'- otherwise its (to me) a very pretty tech demo.
They're working on a system called "Quanta" which is kind of like ED BGS:
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2muGWtX8e7g&t


They did a 40 minute video on it

Yep, a 40 minute video on it in 2021.
And another 80 minute video on it at Citizencon.
And a 60 minute video on it in 2019 at Citizencon.

Want me to keep going? ;)

There have been soooooo many Tony Z presentations on 'Quanta'. And prior to that subsumption. And 9-to-1 NPC-to-player ratios etc. Dating back to the early years of the project.

And all there is to show for it currently is a bartender who occasionally acts like he's drunk.

(And nothing is going to meaningfully change on that front in 2022. Because this is the year of them starting the networking architecture implementation... Which is understandably a blocker to all the Quanta stuff even getting trialled seriously.)

I look forward to 2022's videos....
 
  • If SC hits its target of 30hz for the server tick, bandwidth requirements would be obscene as things stand.
  • Classic bandwidth reduction strategies (ignoring distant ships) not in evidence.
  • Xeno took them hard up to the 85kb-per-tick cap
  • Spawning items seems to be notably inefficient (see the box spawning for Destroy the Drugs missions).
All of this points to hugely inefficient, layered pile of spaghetti code that's usually produced by beginners. 85kb per tick is beyond crazy. That's about 20MBps + the network overhead, lets say about 25MBps, and constant with no latency, provided the lines can hold that amount, which is not a given for everyone.
A lot of telltale bugs in the game point to complete obliviousness to distributed state management, like lift buttons not responding in sync, ATC getting broken, doors getting stuck, etc. This is the result of completely inexperienced, or really incompetent developers coding something that's way above their skill level and understanding of distributed software architecture. Really not a good sign. Let's hope they hire someone really competent and senior in that domain, who'll "fix" that code (a friend of mine uses that word when he deletes whole files full of that kind of code and rewrites everything clean... I'm not that brutal but sometimes, what's to be done has to be done).

Ooof. As i understand it, the main FPS games run at 60 with some running even higher.
Yeah for twitch shooters. My point over the years is that a space game, and a massively multiplayer one at that, doesnt have to be a twitch shooter. This design decision is baffling and the fact that CiG are holding to it still today even tough it flies in the face of reality, and is obviously way beyond their programming skills, is even more puzzling, like they WANT to fail.

A tick every 2 seconds isn't great for PvP. Might be ok for PvE.
It's more than bad for PvP, as it creates a meta where small fighters that move like mosquitoes on crack, accelerate quicker than the server ticks can allow for proper interpolation, leading to them just teleporting around magically and being impossible to hit (as there's no hitscan weapon in SC, even lasers are really slow for some reason). Not what i would call "balanced" or "fun".

RE: the VR hack -> it's running in Arena Commander, not in Star Citizen (a.k.a. the PU). It's the small dogfight side game, that has decent FPS compared to the PU, which makes VR not immediately vomit-inducing. But that's just that small game mode. Also apparently it's fake VR (just a screen projection inside the headset, not real 3D). FWIW if you want head tracking when you walk around your ship you can use a regular TrackIR. As for the talk about canned animations, these happen on smaller ships, big ships like demonstrated have lifts and ramp with no player animation.
 
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Viajero

Volunteer Moderator
The issue for me is not the fidelity, but whats going on behind why these things are happening. If SC had ED BGS and Powerplay like driving forces joining stuff up it would be great.

For me there is only so many times I can walk out a door before I think "what the hell am I doing this for?".
I am also a firm believer in BGS/PP or similar player agency gameplay as a core tenet for long term mmo viability.

As for your question about "what the hell do people walk out the door for in SC"? Well if it serves, and as you can see in some of the cringiest Vanessa vs Sandra posts here, some do it just out of spite, some because the drama of SC brings in clicks, others simply for sunk cost. Some do it in search for the mythical Eldorado should some of the actual fully paid for promises by Chris Roberts ever come to pass, even after 10 years of a strikingly poor delivery track record. Or a combination of the above... But, to be fair, imo not a great number seem to actually do it for its current qualities. Just ask LittleAnt who scored it at a 6/10, and coming from him that must be quite bleak since he is likely being overly generous given how much of a fan he is...
 
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RE: the VR hack -> it's running in Arena Commander, not in Star Citizen (a.k.a. the PU). It's the small dogfight side game, that has decent FPS compared to the PU, which makes VR not immediately vomit-inducing. But that's just that small game mode. Also apparently it's fake VR (just a screen projection inside the headset, not real 3D).

I’m still not clear on that bit. If they’re using the old SBS trick then it’s possible to port it direct to the headset, not viewing it via a 2D screen. (But the guy doing the tutorial did mention adjusting the distance for a curved screen, so who knows).

The use of the Arena mode to get stable frames was noticeable though yeah. (Even though the new cloud tech hit frames there apparently). And no gameplay as such. Suspect performance would get pretty dicey in full PU action etc.
 
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Does he get it, though?

I get the impression he REALLY doesn't.
CR can do no wrong to some folks, I guess.

Looks deeply immersive. Curious cause I'm sure that I've read someone in this thread guarantee that SC would never be viable in VR because of forced animations and performance. Yet that looks more than alright, dare to say actually awesome, specially considering that those corridors and doors makes it like the CMDR is walking in the Millennium Falcon.

Couldn't help notice the saltiness of that video title so looked up some more videos of him, and we it looks like it's another ex-CMDR turned refugee.

It's not bad seeing these refugee types. SC is nice looking, it's online only, blows you up if make mistakes (no handholding) and has space legs and smooth transitions. Why I find that good is because there are so many folks who play ED who are like "I want a ship-only game, not legs" or "I dont like playing in open because I get blown up" or insert whatever ridiculous poll which used to be cast a few years ago. So with each person doing that move, hopefully it gets rid of those old silly debates.

The 2 games are solely different, but there are a few things that both can/should have. It's clear folks in ED want legs too, for example. But also, you want things to be unique. One thing about SC only concentrating on system allows is they dont need to duplicate anything yet. This is something ED should have too. I dont understand how they can be ok having 1 layout for concourses etc. One thing that takes you out of immersiveness is repetition. I often joke about when SC gets to its 3rd system, they'll be cut and pasting from the current one, but I actually hope that's not the case. But to be fair to ED, if it was in one system only, all those things would be unique to that one system and this wouldn't even be an issue. But since they have 450 billion systems, if I were them, I'd have used a digit or 3 in their seeder (is that how that works??) to have things like stations, layouts, buildings be more RNGd too. I remember there was an announcement for one of the patches stating concourse colours would be different. Wow...that's almost as big as ships aligning to the jump location. Mind blowing achievements. But, actually, the fact it was mentioned reminds me..
A) I have no idea about making games
B) Maybe that is not as easy as it sounds.

Another thing is designs being fully completed. A lot of stuff in ED is what I consider placeholders. Now, I dont feel like it should take as long as SC takes to flesh their stuff out, but you feel like you're in a ship, if you make it that far. ED has designs sort of 60% done. And I could see it being a "we'll get to that later" thing, but that "later" never comes.
 
Eh?

The planets rotate, yes, in a single large map. The planets do not move or orbit a star, moons do not orbit planets. It's an fps level, just big.

The dots in the skybox? Those dots are not stars, they don't represent star systems you can visit, they are an invented static skybox.

I've actually seen that system used in other games, you don't have a rotating planet, what you have is a static image skybox that rotates around the player pov. It makes calculations based on the player position far easier because you don't actually have players moving in relation to each other on a curved surface that's rotating. Even on a large spherical body (and SC planets aren't particularly large for planets) having it rotating adds an extra movement dimension to calculate in to the maths. For instance on ED planets they even calculate in coriolis forces.

Move away from the equator and try to follow one of the longitude or latitude lines by the compass, depending on your distance from the equator you will find that your path will slowly curve, not as much a problem on big planets but on small ones you need to constantly correct your course to remain on the correct course. These things need to be built into the base engine when you start making the game, I suspect implementing proper orbital dynamics in SC is going to be a major task.
 
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