The Star Citizen Thread v5

[frostypaw]

Sorry, but i think you got it completely wrong, and it seems you are twisting my words quite a lot. I never said "i think what they mean", that's something you just made up. What i said is "As i understood by the transcript" as an explanation to one of you guys who started giving opinions and writing epicly wrong statements about a video you didn't even see, and therefore you didn't even get what they were talking about. So quite the usual stuff on this thread, people getting misinformed and shouting "alarm alarm!" based on stuff a guy heard from another guy who read it from a blog in which a guy claimed that he read on a forum that someone told a guy... which usually ranges from terribly inaccurate to false.

The video was crystal clear. Even they show images of the desert and the crashed javelin at night, and a searchlight there and that stuff at the same time that they talk about the "lights" stuff. I saw the video and i got it instantly. And you guys would have got it instantly too, if you watched the videos instead of not watching them. I don't think CIG has any kind of problem explaining stuff, i think the problem lies on the people who don't bother to watch the videos and instead trust whatever other people say and comment, which is usually inaccurate. A clear example is the big difference from what i said to what you claim that i said.
You should take a look at the videos instead of getting your information sources from partial transcripts and opinions of other people. Mostly because by the latest comments it looks like some of you haven't really understood it yet. He talked about a way to make artificial lights to be switched on when it is dark enough. Period. Not about a way to make the stars light the planets. Not about setting timezones on the planets. Not about the maths of a sun dial. What i talked about on my previous post were possible approaches they might consider to take when trying to do this, i was explaining that they can't just rely on a general timer like you do on a small 8x8km map. I think i made it quite clear, but i think no one understood it, either unintentionally or on purpose.

TLDR: Watch the video and you will instantly get it.

Is this transcript wrong?

ND: So the day-night cycle, in the previous version of the engine it was quite easy to do. You could link glows to a certain time of day, so the previous system had a 24 hour day-night cycle, and you could tell the glow in a shader to go, “Oh you know what, at six o’clock at night switch on, and at six o’clock in the morning switch off”. We don’t know how far we are from the closest star right now which would be the sun, so we actually don’t know how long a day will last a certain point on a planet so there’s a lot of kind of things that we need to work out with that, so we have those challenges to think about as well.

then I went back and watched the video - here's the time reference right? https://youtu.be/keV14u8sGaE?t=1256

Yeah that just made it worse watching him move the sun as an object around the sky. That's not how that works if it's being modelled properly. He'd be moving time back and forth instead. The video is exactly as clear as the transcript.

So the path is developer -> me -> my wta* cortex, not what has been imagined. There's a possibility the explanation might be much simpler than such convoluted and conspiracy laden reasoning and simply that it's just obviously dumb of the developers.

I put 5 minutes into it and the equation is easily found here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunrise_equation - this stuff is elementary applied mathematics. Planet spins on axis, tips at certain angle to sun, sun strikes at certain angle for any particular point - sunset easily calculated - or we can faff about with on/off timetables set per light ....

 

[Asp Explorer]

Conspiring to farm rep is as repugnant as farming your own accounts in a MMO, or guildies farming each other for rank in CQC.

 

[hiciacit]

At a guess I'd say certain users may have been indulging in a rep-a-go-round.

Hahaha! Anyone wanna make a bet who the other members of the carousel are?

 

[Stigbob]

A Repathon? Oh my - the mind truly boggles, and lulzbuckets gurgle eagerly.

It's endlessly amusing that people who believe there is actually a conspiracy against CIG, actually urm, conspire

Buy a Polaris!

Asp I hovered my mouse over rep for you after that made me laugh, but then I thought the mods might get suspicious.

 

[Stigbob]

Conspiring to farm rep is as repugnant as farming your own accounts in a MMO, or guildies farming each other for rank in CQC.

It's OK you can buy rep directly from the online store.

 

[hiciacit]

Some employees of the reputation management company took their jobs a bit too literal, I guess.

 

[marx]

Anyone know what rep abuse is??? https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/299338-Cant-post-in-a-thread-where-I-could-before

Hm, looks like that's something new. Back when the forum still had an option to "give" negative rep, that was simply swamping someone with that. When that abuse became rampant, probably started by this thread, FD disabled that functionality.
Now it would appear that a group of users decided to continuously rep each other and thereby inflate their accounts' reputations. I haven't thought about it before, but if you can get enough users in on such a scheme, it's entirely possible to do this quickly. Bear in mind that after a relatively recent change (see here), you need to have a certain amount of rep before you can post in the Off-topic section. So I assume the intent of this new rep abuse was to get some new accounts quick access to post in this section too. Probably for this thread, because it has pretty much always had a history of attracting accounts that only post here.

However, the moderators appear to have removed the fraudulent rep given not just from their recipients, but also the givers as well. As such, it would be possible to lose enough rep that one could lose their off-topic access.

Edit: oops, looks like plenty of others have posted the above while I was writing the post.

Some employees of the reputation management company took their jobs a bit too literal, I guess.

Nah. A competent reputation management company would take care to make accounts that also post in the entire forums at least somewhat, so they'd appear to be genuine.
I'd say it's more likely that none have been hired, and it's simply just fans trying to do PR, marketing and such of their own volition. After all, there are even players who arguably have a solid financial stake in this: grey market traders.

 

[spacebum]

Hahaha! Anyone wanna make a bet who the other members of the carousel are?

How can this be. I thought all these star citizen fans were just regular people here of their own volition to discuss games and have good times. Now they're indulging in rep-swapping? Why, if I were the paranoid sort this could look like an organised effort to make themselves seem reputable and less like desperate shills.

 

[ZeeWolf]

Hm, looks like that's something new. Back when the forum still had an option to "give" negative rep, that was simply swamping someone with that. When that abuse became rampant, probably started by this thread, FD disabled that functionality.
Now it would appear that a group of users decided to continuously rep each other and thereby inflate their accounts' reputations. I haven't thought about it before, but if you can get enough users in on such a scheme, it's entirely possible to do this quickly. Bear in mind that after a relatively recent change (see here), you need to have a certain amount of rep before you can post in the Off-topic section. So I assume the intent of this new rep abuse was to get some new accounts quick access to post in this section too. Probably for this thread, because it has pretty much always had a history of attracting accounts that only post here.

However, the moderators appear to have removed the fraudulent rep given not just from their recipients, but also the givers as well. As such, it would be possible to lose enough rep that one could lose their off-topic access.

Edit: oops, looks like plenty of others have posted this while I was writing the post.

It isn't exactly hard to create multiple accounts on this forum is it? You just need unique email addresses for each one.

I can (almost) understand why CIG have ensured it's one game account per forum account - if people are going to do it, at least fleece them for some cash first. Like Steam reviews

If anyone reading this has more than one account on this forum for whatever reason. Take a moment to look at what your life has become, take a step back, lordy, life is too short. Let the games companies be the ones responsible for the marketing, not you.

 

[spacebum]

Let the games companies be the ones responsible for the marketing, not you.

In fairness I'd happily talk nonsense on forums in return for money. I already do it for free.

Marketing firms: I will shill for you, and I'll do a better job than the clowns you're currently employing.

 

[Asp Explorer]

If someone really is dumb (naive?) enough to believe that disposable emails are going to let them rep-farm, then they'll spend the rest of eternity filling lulzbuckets.

Buy a Polaris!

 

[Hi-Ban]

Is this transcript wrong?

then I went back and watched the video - here's the time reference right? https://youtu.be/keV14u8sGaE?t=1256

Yeah that just made it worse watching him move the sun as an object around the sky. That's not how that works if it's being modelled properly. He'd be moving time back and forth instead. The video is exactly as clear as the transcript.

So the path is developer -> me -> my wta* cortex, not what has been imagined. There's a possibility the explanation might be much simpler than such convoluted and conspiracy laden reasoning and simply that it's just obviously dumb of the developers.

I put 5 minutes into it and the equation is easily found here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunrise_equation - this stuff is elementary applied mathematics. Planet spins on axis, tips at certain angle to sun, sun strikes at certain angle for any particular point - sunset easily calculated - or we can faff about with on/off timetables set per light ....

ND: So the day-night cycle, in the previous version of the engine it was quite easy to do. You could link glows to a certain time of day, so the previous system had a 24 hour day-night cycle, and you could tell the glow in a shader to go, “Oh you know what, at six o’clock at night switch on, and at six o’clock in the morning switch off”. We don’t know how far we are from the closest star right now which would be the sun, so we actually don’t know how long a day will last a certain point on a planet so there’s a lot of kind of things that we need to work out with that, so we have those challenges to think about as well.

I highlighted the important stuff in bold for you. You can clearly see he is referring to switching on lights at night. And in the video (yes, that's the correct time reference) you can clearly see he is referring to the artificial lights which are switched on at night, like the searchlight shown on the video. Can't understand how you still don't get it.

And just an explanation to why the distance to the star has to be taken into account: If a planet is too far from the star, it can happen that most of the day it is too dark anyway. Some planets may be far enough from their star so the light the planet recieves at noon would be similar to the moonlight we got here on earth. So even if it's daytime, it would still be dark, and artificial lights are needed to be switched on. Again, i can't believe that some people still don't understand this.
A nice example of this is what is called "Pluto Time": http://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-lets-you-experience-pluto-time-with-new-custom-tool

 

[ZeeWolf]

In fairness I'd happily talk nonsense on forums in return for money. I already do it for free.

Marketing firms: I will shill for you, and I'll do a better job than the clowns you're currently employing.

I don't even think CIG need to give cash to anyone. It's just happening organically. It's layer upon layer of people wanting to proved justified in their support. Like supporting a football team.

I'm not saying anyone on this thread is up to dirty tricks (like creating multiple accounts) but it's certainly true that every game has it's "fan-boys" that take things too far and Star Citizen certainly has it's fair share (like people demanding a news article not use the word "indefinitely" because they found it offensive to Star Citizen - please)

 

[ianw]

I don't even think CIG need to give cash to anyone. It's just happening organically. It's layer upon layer of people wanting to proved justified in their support. Like supporting a football team.

I'm not saying anyone on this thread is up to dirty tricks (like creating multiple accounts) but it's certainly true that every game has it's "fan-boys" that take things too far and Star Citizen certainly has it's fair share (like people demanding a news article not use the word "indefinitely" because they found it offensive to Star Citizen - please)

Perhaps they should withdraw the word indefinitely and just say - the game has been delayed without fixed or specified limit.

Oh wait...

http://www.dictionary.com/browse/indefinitely

Guess some people just don't understand words!

 

[frostypaw]

I highlighted the important stuff in bold for you. You can clearly see he is referring to switching on lights at night. And in the video (yes, that's the correct time reference) you can clearly see he is referring to the artificial lights which are switched on at night, like the searchlight shown on the video. Can't understand how you still don't get it.

And just an explanation to why the distance to the star has to be taken into account: If a planet is too far from the star, it can happen that most of the day it is too dark anyway. Some planets may be far enough from their star so the light the planet recieves at noon would be similar to the moonlight we got here on earth. So even if it's daytime, it would still be dark, and artificial lights are needed to be switched on. Again, i can't believe that some people still don't understand this.
A nice example of this is what is called "Pluto Time": http://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-lets-you-experience-pluto-time-with-new-custom-tool

That's a factor of the brightness of the star too, that's not forgotten about at all - you'll note that sunset time calculation does not require knowledge of the brightness or distance of the sun. Just because he mentioned them together doesn't make it so.

Really you're not explaining anything to me, if you think I didn't understand that he was talking about that then you do me a massive discredit - I'm not stupid. Maybe - just maybe - I *have* gotten it and you aren't getting the reply; to whit that his whole discussion about setting their times and 24 hr days and distances from sun is just wrong wrong wrong.

 

[Asp Explorer]

If I ever write a Space game the "indefinite refactor drive" has to be a thing

Anyway - hopefully we'll get some more SC goodies today

 

[Stormprooter]

Conspiring to farm rep is as repugnant as farming your own accounts in a MMO, or guildies farming each other for rank in CQC.

The official term in PvP deathmatchy type games is "padding" or "stats padding" - such behaviour is contributing the demise of the group/guild/clan run server for online games.

 

[Hi-Ban]

That's a factor of the brightness of the star too, that's not forgotten about at all - you'll note that sunset time calculation does not require knowledge of the brightness or distance of the sun. Just because he mentioned them together doesn't make it so.

Really you're not explaining anything to me, if you think I didn't understand that he was talking about that then you do me a massive discredit - I'm not stupid. Maybe - just maybe - I *have* gotten it and you aren't getting the reply; to whit that his whole discussion about setting their times and 24 hr days and distances from sun is just wrong wrong wrong.

Well, if you clearly understood it, then why were you acting like if you didn't? By the way, the guy in the video just mentions the subject during 35 seconds, this "wrong wrong wrong" discussion was started by you guys acting like if you didn't understand it. If you don't want people to explain things to you, then don't go pretending to not having understood anything and people won't bother to explain you what you already understood. Sounds logical, doesn't it?

I perfectly understood what was said in the video and i'm not a native english speaker so if a guy like me who has no idea of speaking english already understood it the first time i saw the video, then i guess it should be clear enough for every english speaker.

 

[SkUnimatrix]

Conspiring to farm rep is as repugnant as farming your own accounts in a MMO, or guildies farming each other for rank in CQC.

Wait people play CQC? Which is a shame, but literally I played enough in the CQC beta that by the time it released I had had my fill. As others have said there needs to be in game reason to do it: aka launching from dock or going to these new POI stations.

 

[bitstorm]

Hm, looks like that's something new. Back when the forum still had an option to "give" negative rep, that was simply swamping someone with that. When that abuse became rampant, probably started by this thread, FD disabled that functionality.
Now it would appear that a group of users decided to continuously rep each other and thereby inflate their accounts' reputations. I haven't thought about it before, but if you can get enough users in on such a scheme, it's entirely possible to do this quickly. Bear in mind that after a relatively recent change (see here), you need to have a certain amount of rep before you can post in the Off-topic section. So I assume the intent of this new rep abuse was to get some new accounts quick access to post in this section too. Probably for this thread, because it has pretty much always had a history of attracting accounts that only post here.

However, the moderators appear to have removed the fraudulent rep given not just from their recipients, but also the givers as well. As such, it would be possible to lose enough rep that one could lose their off-topic access.

Edit: oops, looks like plenty of others have posted the above while I was writing the post.


Nah. A competent reputation management company would take care to make accounts that also post in the entire forums at least somewhat, so they'd appear to be genuine.
I'd say it's more likely that none have been hired, and it's simply just fans trying to do PR, marketing and such of their own volition. After all, there are even players who arguably have a solid financial stake in this: grey market traders.

That's interesting.

I didn't know that was the case for off-topic. Yeah, I'm thinking it's not just existing posters here giving each other rep, something a bit more nefarious going on? I'm sure it's more than that poster involved, just that person was silly enough to raise a complaint.

It's pretty sad to see. Oh well, agendas.