The Star Citizen Thread V10

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Shipping goods light-years away is shorter than my 21st century morning commute, yet people somehow starve if I don't do a round to the grocery planet in the next system.
Well, it's a game. Elite is clearly almost a post-scarcity society (you can mine anything, you can build anything fast, shortages shouldn't exist, ...), but tbh, a post-scarcity gameplay wouldn't be fun - everything is fine, there are no conflicts (why would there be conflicts when you can have anything?), etc. Even Star Trek (which is a true post-scarcity society because of replicators) doesn't have in-society conflicts and as such they need outer conflicts - with scarcity societies, with aliens, getting lost in universe, etc. There are basically no Elite-like conflicts within Star Trek, exactly because they wouldn't really be there, but on the other hand that would mean a Star Trek-like MMO would be purely about the outer conflicts with aliens (i.e. PvP), because the others need too much effort to create. And it actually is - there are no Star Trek-like encounters otherwise.

tl;dr It's tough to make a gameplay when the society is (should be) perfect.
 
everything is fine, there are no conflicts (why would there be conflicts when you can have anything?)

Easy, People create tension and friction by all sort of means. Its not dependant on money or items in general. A simple difference in view is sufficient to trigger an escalation and violence. And people cannot have "anything". You might meet someones needs in all things in life but you cannot prevent envy or simple inequalities which again is enough to trigger a conflict.

Just wanted to add this, have nothing further to say :)
 
that time gate is 1) stupidly short in-universe (how the galaxy is only settled in two locations when random Joe can fly to the galactic centre in a few hours remains a mystery)
I would also like to point out that Commanders aren't "random Joes". Commanders are supposed to be the top of the top already, even Harmless ones are something like top 1 % of the top 1 % of the population (yes, even NPCs, even if their dialogues are weird and stupid). And even then, it takes coordination of few thousand of such commanders (see DW2) to make a single station, because it simply needs huge amount of resources.

The point, eventually, also comes to "Why would you settle in different location?" Yes, people could make a station anywhere, but... why, when you can build it faster, cheaper and better strategically located on the outskirts of the Bubble? Making a station elsewhere needs to be motivated - by Thargoid research, by random accidents like Jaques, by rare materials, etc, otherwise there's basically no motivation to build there (not explore, though, that's something different).
 
Easy, People create tension and friction by all sort of means. Its not dependant on money or items in general. A simple difference in view is sufficient to trigger an escalation and violence. And people cannot have "anything". You might meet someones needs in all things in life but you cannot prevent envy or simple inequalities which again is enough to trigger a conflict.

Just wanted to add this, have nothing further to say :)
Of course, you always have stuff like jealousy for a woman or such, I agree with that :) But majority of human conflicts aren't about that. You could also argue about views (see also: religion), but what issue is with that when you can collect your stuff and go make a separated cult on a goddamn planet or a system?

In the end the only conflict might be some big schism and/or politics, but that wouldn't require you to go and do fetch quests for few tons of biowaste, would it? ww
 
I would also like to point out that Commanders aren't "random Joes". Commanders are supposed to be the top of the top already, even Harmless ones are something like top 1 % of the top 1 % of the population (yes, even NPCs, even if their dialogues are weird and stupid). And even then, it takes coordination of few thousand of such commanders (see DW2) to make a single station, because it simply needs huge amount of resources.

The point, eventually, also comes to "Why would you settle in different location?" Yes, people could make a station anywhere, but... why, when you can build it faster, cheaper and better strategically located on the outskirts of the Bubble? Making a station elsewhere needs to be motivated - by Thargoid research, by random accidents like Jaques, by rare materials, etc, otherwise there's basically no motivation to build there (not explore, though, that's something different).

We're getting sidetracked way too much into ED's design which wasn't my original intent (was just using it as the closest thing we have in terms of design, and as an example to discuss travel times) so I'll leave it at that, but to answer your "why?", the answer is all too human: because it's there. ;)
 
To be fair, Chris Roberts and CIG was pretty clear on the part that SC would NOT be a mainstream game that would hold your hand.
To be even more fair, CRobber has said “yes” to every characterisation of the game that has ever been offered, which is how they got stuck in this mess of not having any clear goal to aim for, and which also explains the schizophrenic backer narrative.

It's supposed to be a hardcore high-fidelity super-realistic space sim because The Man™ wants to deprive the (minutely tiny niche of) True Space Sim Players® from that experience. It will also run on “rule of [borrowed] cool” because the ultimate goal of any True Space Sim is to let players relive their Star Wars fantasies, or Dune fantasies, or [whatever] fantasies, and that's a must to be the best damn space sim ever.

It won't be a niche game (because if it were, it would already have saturated its market and have no future) but rather see millions in year-on-year sales until it competes with CoD — it will be that good and popular and attractive to all audiences — and will get there by leveraging the kind of multiple-thousands-of-dollars hardware that only high-end PCs will sport (said $x000 rigs have since become obsolete three times over). Because that's how you attract the broad PC market.

It will be a skill-based game, which is why there are so many system automations to file off all edges and remove differences, and also why everything punches above its weight and you can buy the bigger, betterer, awesomererer ship and equipment to really outclass those low-skill scrubs.

So obviously, it will also have an unprecedentedly realistic depiction of foreshortened and scaled-down space where these cut-down distances (for gameplay reasons) take ages to traverse (for realism reasons).
 
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To be fair, Chris Roberts and CIG was pretty clear on the part that SC would NOT be a mainstream game that would hold your hand.

It will be more akin to EVE online in what people are drawn to it with grouping up in fleets during an hour, travel to another location for an hour and wait two hours while getting drunk and waiting for an enemy and HOPEFULLY get a 10 minute fight.

As Tippis has said, Chris Roberts has said a lot of different things.

Is there interstellar flight in SC yet?
 
Well, it's a game. Elite is clearly almost a post-scarcity society (you can mine anything, you can build anything fast, shortages shouldn't exist, ...), but tbh, a post-scarcity gameplay wouldn't be fun - everything is fine, there are no conflicts (why would there be conflicts when you can have anything?), etc. Even Star Trek (which is a true post-scarcity society because of replicators) doesn't have in-society conflicts and as such they need outer conflicts - with scarcity societies, with aliens, getting lost in universe, etc. There are basically no Elite-like conflicts within Star Trek, exactly because they wouldn't really be there, but on the other hand that would mean a Star Trek-like MMO would be purely about the outer conflicts with aliens (i.e. PvP), because the others need too much effort to create. And it actually is - there are no Star Trek-like encounters otherwise.

tl;dr It's tough to make a gameplay when the society is (should be) perfect.

I've found that it helps to think of the Elite Universe as what you get when a cyberpunk setting discovers easy space travel. It has extremely powerful corporations who have replaced governments, supposed democracies that are puppets of the same, wealthy individuals who have become "Space Romans," warlords and pirate captains who rule over multiple star systems, and a shadowy criminal cabal that manipulates everyone in Human space for the sake of power, wealth, or merely their own amusement: the Pilots Federation.

Yes, society would be better if everyone cooperated, but instead the powers-that-be are way too invested in not only retaining what power they have, but also getting a lot more.
 
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What SC could do with is provide some sort of teleport system for players to get to their friends ships to meet up... although i can imagine the reaction from the hardcore people to that suggestion.

As things stand, CIG seem to be taking some of the worst aspects of ED and making them (subjectively) worse.

That's the problem when you're trying to make a game that's all things to all men. I guess it's better to keep the game the dream which it is in each individual backer's mind

I fear Skizomeuh may be right. Chris Roberts is proud of his creation and he'll make sure you see every damn inch of it, no matter how long that takes. If Squadron 42 comes with unskippable cut scenes then that will be me out
 
I guess it's better to keep the game the dream which it is in each individual backer's mind

Unfortuantely, that is impossible for CIG to deliver, since they have promised so many things to so many backers, a lot of which are not really compatible with each other, and some of which are simply not likely to ever happen.
 
Is there interstellar flight in SC yet?

Not yet. They haven't got around to stars yet.
But don't worry. They have a Universe, although they call it the 'Verse, probably because it's not finished.
They'll be creating a stellar pipeline. It's planned for a future roadmap.
The first star will be tricky, but once Chris's stellar pipeline starts spewing out all that nice hot gas, he'll be able to lay 10 stars a minute.
Oh and the planets rotate, but they don't orbit yet.. y'know, the no stars issue I just mentioned.
And the planets are 1/6 or 1/10 size, but again, don't worry because the current content is more than the number of atoms in the entire known Universe (not the 'Verse... I'm talking about the real Universe).

I hope that makes it clear.

Addendum: Gravity is currently a very convenient 1.00000G everywhere, which really helps with the flight model and physics, apparently.
 
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Imho, long travel times should be a feature of space games that style themselves as "sims". Because if you take that away, you might as well be playing War Thunder with an extra button to teleport to a different map. And because from a universe-building perspective, the second your universe has people traveling to the next star system in less time than it takes me to commute to work in the morning, goods distribution concerns and economic believability are gone.

The caveat, of course, is that there needs to be a point to the long travel and/or a way to skip/mitigate it.. The latter has been thrown out the window by the premise of multiplayer, meaning that the core tool in simulators to alleviate uninteresting travel time, namely time compression, is gone. So your only option then is to only have it vaguely-longish-but-not-really and giving it a point, and here imho is where ED fails and SC should pay attention. You want to provide a navigation challenge, some degree of mechanical requirements, systems to operate, maintenance to take care of, stuff to do that means flight isn't reduced to point-and-stare. But when the game premise is gravity-defying supercruise and ww2 combat, well, it's tough to give a point to smart navigation in the absence of long-range heat source scanning, hiding behind bodies or by going cold, drifting, trajectory calculation, ECM systems, and long-range weapons. Also, fuel not being a concern.

tl;dr: long-ish travel times could (should) be done well, but ED and potentially SC just don't care much about it and are trapped in arcade navigation/combat models anyhow.

I get your point and I understand it.

Personally I tend to go a bit the other way. I like to listen to music, enjoy VR scenery, check out podcasts or even listen to the in-game news when I travel...so I appreciate more automation.

I think perhaps one could have a bit of both. By using the module system, the lazy players like me, could use some precious slots to automate some aspects of the journey (but keeping enough constraints so you can't just leave the game and drop immersion), while people who want a more engaging process like you could reduce the amount of automation (or remove it all-together) and get some more in-depth challenges. Their reward would be ships that performed slightly better (by gaining more module space, having less drain).

A multiplayer solution could be to allow crew to prepare automation for upcoming travel tasks (and perhaps even other tasks), this way a crewed ship could get the best performance while also travelling more elegantly and efficiently. Perhaps even gaining small bonuses in various aspects of the game if the crew handles their preparations well.
 
Well, according to their development plan and the ships currently in the game there will be multiple ways to get around that will cut down on travel time.

  • Olisar to ArcCorp 15 minutes for a small ship / 4 minutes for a large ship / most likely less than 2 minutes for a capital ship
newbies are getting shafted right at the start of the game, lol.
 
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newbies are getting shafted right at the start of the game, lol.
Well, it's not like newbies are not supposed to stretch their legs in starter areas and not gallivant across the universe in a short range vessel.

And it makes sense - you would not take a little dingy across the ocean, you take a larger boat for that.
 
Well, it's not like newbies are not supposed to stretch their legs in starter areas and not gallivant across the universe in a short range vessel.

And it makes sense - you would not take a little dingy across the ocean, you take a larger boat for that.

They need to start their careers mopping floors on a whale's big ship before they can graduate to real ships.
 
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