Star Citizen, Roberts Space Industries - Chris Roberts' life support and retirement fund [2012-]

[Albuquerque]

I couldn't care less about the drama, related to this game, related to gaming in general, related to technology overall, and mostly I have nothing but hate for drama in real life. If you're here to make it dramatic, I hope you get raped by a painfully square cardboard game box which has somehow become both sentient and mobile.

Back to actually talking about the game; I had a chance to watch the many-minutes-long YouTube video on procedural planets. Really wish No Mans Sky would've taken some of these ideas; specifically with scaling of planet orbit and size, and the planetary atmospheric / cloud / weather / fog visibility at various altitudes. It seems all planets are roughly (exactly?) the same size in NMS, except moons which also appear to be roughly the same size, and all planets are roughly equidistant from their star and similarly in the same approximate point in their solar orbit (ie grouped together on the same side of the star.) Further, it really breaks immersion when NMS has you weathering a severe storm on the surface, only to hop in your craft and move ~20 feet vertically and visibiilty goes from 50 feet to 500 miles instantly, along with all the "noise" of a storm vanishing.

From these perspectives, the technology being showcased is fantastic and well thought out. Maybe it will never make it to a cohesive game, but I'm tired of reading manchildren bickering about their e-penis in relation to their ability to guess if a game goes into production. If any of the bickering is from AAA-title game devs, then I'm ready to listen. The armchair critics can surely say their peace, and can then proceed to shut the fuck up.

 

[swaaye]

I don't see how this project can't attract a load of criticism. A lot of people have invested into it and it's a feature creep mess.

But I'm sure the thread will return to a monologue soon enough. The recent event has just stirred up feelings. It's cyclical.

 

[Lefungus]

The armchair critics can surely say their peace, and can then proceed to shut the fuck up.

For someone who dislike drama you sure know how to pour oil on the fire...

How much money did they raise at citizen con ?
This money is not going to a next generation Freespace and I reserve the right to post my annoyance about it

 

[Albuquerque]

For someone who dislike drama you sure know how to pour oil on the fire...

Only if you're here for the drama.

How much money did they raise at citizen con ?

I have no clue; I also couldn't possibly care less.

This money is not going to a next generation Freespace and I reserve the right to post my annoyance about it

Who has the problem here? Want a hint? It's not me. If you do not want want money spent on this project, I have a solution: don't spend money on it. You may now feel free to shut up about it.

 

[Jupiter]

I don't know if Star Citizens funding hurts other space games. But in my opinion an uninished Star Citizen would hurt the industry much more. Jean-Christophe Baillie from Dual Universe said that No Mans Sky had a bad impact on his game.

"This is a post-No Man's Sky era. People cannot do the same thing. There's a huge amount of distrust in the community. As you know we're doing a Kickstarter, and half of the comments are like this is just No Man's Sky all over again. We're struggling. We're not quite there yet because of that. Our statement is we totally understand what's going on, and our policy is to be totally transparent.
[...]
"The game's not yet here, so there's a risk - there's the risk that we can't deliver, there are all sorts of risks - but there's the risk that it's this great game that is innovating and bringing something new. What we want to say to the community is don't throw everything into the No Man's Sky thing. You have to increase your level of demand, on which you're be able to base your decision to back the game. If you say no all the time, we won't be able to innovate. There's an age of maturity that is approaching, people are realising they have to be careful about what they support, they shouldn't take words for granted. We're okay with that, and we want to be transparent and open."

"

Source: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2016-10-07-building-a-space-sim-in-a-post-no-mans-sky-world


On the other hand, Star Citizen and Elite Dangerous got a lot more backers/supporters shortly after the release of NMS. It may depend on case by case. But it is wrong to say that the money CIG got from the backers would have flowed directly into other games. There are many who have spent more than $100. Probably hundreds of thousands.

Back to actually talking about the game; I had a chance to watch the many-minutes-long YouTube video on procedural planets. Really wish No Mans Sky would've taken some of these ideas; specifically with scaling of planet orbit and size, and the planetary atmospheric / cloud / weather / fog visibility at various altitudes. It seems all planets are roughly (exactly?) the same size in NMS, except moons which also appear to be roughly the same size, and all planets are roughly equidistant from their star and similarly in the same approximate point in their solar orbit (ie grouped together on the same side of the star.) Further, it really breaks immersion when NMS has you weathering a severe storm on the surface, only to hop in your craft and move ~20 feet vertically and visibiilty goes from 50 feet to 500 miles instantly, along with all the "noise" of a storm vanishing.

From these perspectives, the technology being showcased is fantastic and well thought out. Maybe it will never make it to a cohesive game, but I'm tired of reading manchildren bickering about their e-penis in relation to their ability to guess if a game goes into production. If any of the bickering is from AAA-title game devs, then I'm ready to listen. The armchair critics can surely say their peace, and can then proceed to shut the fuck up.

There are still placeholders in the demo. According to programmers clouds, water and GI will be much better.
Because of the displacement mapping the rover floats sometimes over the ground. Marco Corbetta (one of the lead programmers) has this on his todo list when the time allows it.


Tony Zurovec said that: "the environment should affect the players on their health. This includes sandstorms, volcanic vents, etc. Weather effects will be more systemic that impede flying, landing and present health concerns to the players.

The point is to make a need for specific suit types, vehicle types, etc. when landing on a planet and venturing out."


Missions:
CIGs goal is to automate as much as they can and then to do create something with a maximum impact by hand with the help of tools. I assume that many missions will be handmade but highly parameterized.

When they build a quest library with hundreds of finished quest tiles the designer then only has to drag the blocks to the map and parameterize where he for example links to objects.

When mission a) can be a rescue capsule mission b) can be a Black Box etc. The patterns remain the same and when the building blocks are prepared, a fast designer can create multiple quests per day if they are prepared by the writers. Because of the procedural tech this will not be boring, since the environments are extremely different and this also affects the gameplay like a) sometimes you can only go with the ship, rover, or on foot or b) time is on a planet, weather, zero G. Perhaps they will be mission which have only certain time windows. At night, because otherwise you will be burned.

____________________________________________

EDIT:

They released a video which shows why they did not wanted to share the Squadron 42 gameplay at CitizenCon

They invested a lot of resources and effort but at the end they could not polish two demos the same time. After I've seen the video I can totally understand their decisionn.

The Squadron 42 demo was supposed to be one hour long!

_____
This week’s sneak peek is the Kastak Arms Ravager

Spoiler

 

[eastmen]

Well the game is set to release this year but they couldn't polish a demo ? They should be way past the point of needing demos made just for trade shows. They should be giving hands on to reviewers and players.

 

[Kyyla]

The development seems like a total mess and the funding model is taking advantage of ordinary people. Being asked to not criticise this just because you dislike reading criticism seems unreaaonable.

 

[Jupiter]

I think its more a general component of the game industry itself. Look what Amy Hennig just said. She had to work constantly 80 hours per week even in such a studio like Naughty Dog. You only don't see it from the outside because publisher games are not as transparent and they would never show such behind the scenes video.

as I said before this game is not easy to make. The demo alone was over one hour long with more than 70 characters inside one ship which have 24 hours cycles. CIG could go the easy way with a much less ambitious game. Hopefully CIG will show the mission during the yearly November or December-Livestream.

 

[Malo]

The development seems like a total mess and the funding model is taking advantage of ordinary people. Being asked to not criticise this just because you dislike reading criticism seems unreaaonable.

No one is asking the game to not be criticized, but when the same people repeat the same things over and over again after each update, it gets a tad annoying. Now I'm being asked to visit other sites to get information on the game so this thread can be dedicated to complaints.

 

[eastmen]

No one is asking the game to not be criticized, but when the same people repeat the same things over and over again after each update, it gets a tad annoying. Now I'm being asked to visit other sites to get information on the game so this thread can be dedicated to complaints.

I agree its annoying when people keep hyping the game and ignoring the missed deadlines and out right lies made by CIG.

The fact that people are acting like they are showing the holly grail and forgetting that we are 2 months away from them missing yet another release date they promised is laughable . Go back and read through this thread from the start and other threads. I was a huge fan until their lies started piling up.

 

[swaaye]

I wonder of the flight model is still terrible.

I really think there's a fundamental problem there anyway. Freelancer fans probably don't want an Independence War Newtonian flight model and flight sim / Freespace fans don't want to play with a mouse.

 

[tuna]

I do not think CIG has lied. What has happened with SC is really standard case of software development and feature creep (which I think will benefit the final game). When you start a software project you always think it will go faster than it ultimately goes. I have been there, done that far to many times (although not on big projects like SC).

 

[Jupiter]

I wonder of the flight model is still terrible.

The flight model is good and much more accurate than most of the space games. This is not the problem. Rather the speed and the stats. The balance will be much different with the next patch (2.6).

They will reduce the fight speed (SCM mode) by a half to bring the battle closer to the pilot. At the moment you are shooting at an icon because of the too highs speeds. You are too far away from your target. Roberts wants more a WW1/WW2 style of fighting. Set pieces like capital ships and space stations will look much more epic and detailed with lower speeds. Instead of 240m/s you will fly with 120m/s . When you use the limited afterburner you will be able to fly much faster for a short amount of time.

Reducing the fight speed is the right choice in my opinion. Many players avoided to fight near big set pieces because they didn't wanted to collide. It also makes fighting easier and more spectacular looking. Perhaps even the turrets will be useful. Let's see how accelerate and slow down will be.

However, the travel speed (CRU and Quantum Jump) should remain the same. As far as I have heard, large spaceships will be even faster at travel speed (CRU mode) than small fighters.

 

[tabs]

Being asked to not criticise

That's not what people are asking for.

because you dislike reading criticism

... and that's not the reason they're asking.

 

[eastmen]

I wonder of the flight model is still terrible.

I really think there's a fundamental problem there anyway. Freelancer fans probably don't want an Independence War Newtonian flight model and flight sim / Freespace fans don't want to play with a mouse.

its still terrible unless you plan on just using a keyboard and mouse.

 

[Jupiter]

Yesterday was the Anniversary Livestream. There will be another large livestream in December.

CIG is now sharing internal development timelies:
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/schedule-report
http://us5.campaign-archive2.com/?u=32d8ef31243db6075c45571bd&id=b0a27d5ee1&e=4d4082e4a1

They will update those every week. You cannot be much more open than this.

Patch 2.6
Evocati PTU ~ 21.11.2016
Normal PTU ~ 28.11.2016
Live-Version ~ 08.12.2016


CAPITAL SHIPS

"Every kind of (interior) square ich is used".

I think these capital ships are the most elaborate set pieces i in the gaming industry

CAPITAL SHIPS Trailer

STAR MARINE Gameplay

A lot the animations etc. are still WIP and
"Jlee-CIG
This is the first iteration of the official Star Marine and alot of things will be addressed/tweaked to make this module a more "tactical" experience for our player base. The map we played on was designed for more than 5v5 players, so in order to cap all 4 points we had to sprint pretty much the entire time AND all the players were SUPER excited to just go balls to the wall (I'm not gonna lie, I was just running and spraying bullets at everyone I saw because I was SUPER pumped and hyper). We are aware of the too much sprinting being an issue and has been talked over, We are also working towards encouraging players to go into cover, vault over objects, and stick together. So we will make adjustments to make Star Marine thrilling, exciting, and tactical as pitched

We'll get it!"


The Ships of 2.6

Caterpillar, Herald and the 85X can be seen in this video. They are also reworkig the Cutlass (https://clips.twitch.tv/starcitizen/CrowdedAnteaterWTRuck). It looks much more like the initial concept art.

 

[Malo]

"haha still no squadron 42 this year"
"still no release date for the game??"
"they're going to run out of money before they even get to those goals!"
"how dare they still sell ships!"

Are we done until the next update now guys? Or did I miss one?

 

[swaaye]

Gosh at least Space Counterstrike is making progress.

 

[eastmen]

"haha still no squadron 42 this year"
"still no release date for the game??"
"they're going to run out of money before they even get to those goals!"
"how dare they still sell ships!"

Are we done until the next update now guys? Or did I miss one?

why are they still offering LTI to non vet backers ?

 

[jlippo]

Yesterday was the Anniversary Livestream. There will be another large livestream in December.

CIG is now sharing internal development timelies:
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/schedule-report
http://us5.campaign-archive2.com/?u=32d8ef31243db6075c45571bd&id=b0a27d5ee1&e=4d4082e4a1

They will update those every week. You cannot be much more open than this.

Patch 2.6
Evocati PTU ~ 21.11.2016
Normal PTU ~ 28.11.2016
Live-Version ~ 08.12.2016


CAPITAL SHIPS

"Every kind of (interior) square ich is used".

I think these capital ships are the most elaborate set pieces i in the gaming industry

CAPITAL SHIPS Trailer

STAR MARINE Gameplay

A lot the animations etc. are still WIP and
"Jlee-CIG
This is the first iteration of the official Star Marine and alot of things will be addressed/tweaked to make this module a more "tactical" experience for our player base. The map we played on was designed for more than 5v5 players, so in order to cap all 4 points we had to sprint pretty much the entire time AND all the players were SUPER excited to just go balls to the wall (I'm not gonna lie, I was just running and spraying bullets at everyone I saw because I was SUPER pumped and hyper). We are aware of the too much sprinting being an issue and has been talked over, We are also working towards encouraging players to go into cover, vault over objects, and stick together. So we will make adjustments to make Star Marine thrilling, exciting, and tactical as pitched

We'll get it!"


The Ships of 2.6

Caterpillar, Herald and the 85X can be seen in this video. They are also reworkig the Cutlass (https://clips.twitch.tv/starcitizen/CrowdedAnteaterWTRuck). It looks much more like the initial concept art.

Thanks for recap.
Didn't have time to look the stream.