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

2014 was never a real release date. It was more like a roadmap. They only said 2016. Now it could be moved from 2016 to 2017. This is not tragic. Especially when Alpha 3.0 could be released at the end of this year.

I would not want the game from 2014 anyway. I prefer the much better experience/mechanics. The company had about 4 employees at the end of 2012. Which new studio developed a major AAA 20 hour campaign in two years?



Google auto translated text GameStar (I dont have time to translate this manually):

"Accordingly, it is convinced that it would take him another shift less evil than when Squadron 42 would publish unfinished.

Just imagine, we were Naughty Dog: They have also moved it back to polish it and to get ready properly Uncharted. I think a shift angry people less than if we would publish an unfinished game. All elements of Squadron 42 be finished this year, all missions, all content, all graphics and motion capture recordings and character models.


Squadron 42 is thus definitely completed later this year, but may not yet published. In addition to the so-called "polishing" the just completed subsumption AI namely to be integrated, so Roberts.

All that is currently assembled. I can not tell you how long it will take to polish all that and eradicate the bugs but. The AI and some types of mission about are quite fresh, coming in now only. We must ensure that the technology works.


Unlike originally planned the procedural planet technology will now also be used in single player portion. Chris Roberts: Chris Roberts:

For example, you will also land on planets and sneak into bases that we had not originally planned. And we have the battle in the end increased, which is absolutely epic! But we want to make it as Naughty Dog, Squadron 42, it should feel right and polished. Therefore, nothing new is added, all the features and content have been determined. We try to have everything ready by the end of the year. If not, it is the beginning of next year. We do not want, for example, that the interaction with the crew on the Idris and later other games feels natural and we don't want stuttering AI. One should nevertheless really feel as if a part of this world. And that includes a polished AI."


Source: http://www.gamestar.de/spiele/star-citizen/news/star_citizen,48820,3302127.html

____

CIG employee about ship destruction etc.

"Cool. Sean Ellis did a fantastic job on that pre visualization. I've been implementing the in-game destruction and we're working on new systems that will fix our physics issues. GOST was replaced by the Item 2.0 tech that allows modularity and communication of states between ship components. When we release PU 3.0 it will have Radial Damage when components explode, causing some chain-reaction events. Component damage and repair is being worked on. And debris and other ship systems are being reimplement on top of the Item 2.0 foundation. Energy overload and repair mechanics are being designed, but until we implement that we may delay explosions of large ships when they go critical to allow time to escape. Lots of fun stuff to do. :)"
Click to expand...

"What's interesting about our Systemic Damage is it will take into account all components onboard that relate to power. There is a Power Plant but cataclysmic destruction would not happen if only that was destroyed. It's the collective damage of all components that will destroy a ship. We may add virtual relays around the hull that connect the Components like wiring. Damaged components cause heat to build up and destroying a component will cause a radial damage and power surges that can affect other Components.

We're exploring fun mechanics that would be used to repair damaged components during battle. But, no jettisoning of the core (like in Star Trek) is planned right now."
Click to expand...

"Breaching will happen in specific places on ships that we define because we can't dynamically create holes to the interior everywhere. Places like turrets or airlocks are good candidates to put an explosive to breach. We have a physics based force we can apply that will pull on the player during a decompression, but my understanding is in reality decompression probably wouldn't suck an astronaut out like Hollywood portrays."
Click to expand...

"Hull integrity / health are important too. It will eventually be possible to split a ship without blowing it up if no critical components are destroyed. I always look to that scene in Starship Troopers where the ships are splitting in-half like the Titanic as my inspiration and goal. There are a few tech challenges to solve before this can be done though. Per Room local gravity is a big part of doing it the way I hope.

If enough component damage has occurred and enough heat built up (amongst other variables) then a well aimed hit would start a cataclysmic, chain-reaction of destruction.

So you might strategize how you want to take down a foe so you can better reclaim valuable items from it's debris."
Click to expand...

"The ship's skeleton is usually setup so that the nose/cockpit is the root and so it really represents the ship. Though, if you lose the back half it might not fly so well.

If a ship splits, the sections with a power source would maintain gravity and some lighting, and perhaps other sub-systems.

Repair is a big feature that's still being iterated on. I can't say for sure what the requirements would be to rebuild a whole ship. Or if you could split a ship and make two. But, I do know if you've collected the raw materials you could rebuild a wing for example."
Click to expand...


Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitize..._mechanics_are_you_being_destroyed_by/d79mia2
 
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Right it was just a roadmap to get tens of millions of dollars off people who believed what cig told them.

If the AI and other basic systems aren't done then they wont be shipping anytime soon. It sounds like best case early next year but most likely second half of next year.
 
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No alpha, no episodes etc.

But they want to release the next singleplayer campaign (episode 2) "Behind Enemy Lines" two years later. CIG also said there will be a third episode. :D
 
Davros said:
No alpha, no episodes etc.

But they want to release the next singleplayer campaign (episode 2) "Behind Enemy Lines" two years later. CIG also said there will be a third episode. :D
Click to expand...
so the second one is free still correct ,we unlocked that at like 6m along with SQ 42 consisting of 50 missions .
 
eastmen said:
so the second one is free still correct ,we unlocked that at like 6m along with SQ 42 consisting of 50 missions .
Click to expand...
This assumes the second one ever comes out, but hell if they get the first one done the odds of a second are pretty high IMO. I just don't have much hope for the first one. That is to say, I don't think it will ever come out and I think you got played by The Chairman :(

Come and play some Diablo 3 with me it is a real game that actually exists :mrgreen:

BTW I'll suck many eggs if I'm wrong, actually I want to be wrong this shit looks awesome. In short I want to believe like Jupiter.
 
homerdog said:
This assumes the second one ever comes out, but hell if they get the first one done the odds of a second are pretty high IMO. I just don't have much hope for the first one. That is to say, I don't think it will ever come out and I think you got played by The Chairman :(

Come and play some Diablo 3 with me it is a real game that actually exists :mrgreen:
Click to expand...
I own that game. I didn't play much of it tho
 
eastmen said:
So as a kickstarter backer do I still get the two campaigns ?
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Original and Veteran backers should get Behind Enemy Lines for free. They said it a few times even last and this year.

Davros said:
No alpha, no episodes etc.

But they want to release the next singleplayer campaign (episode 2) "Behind Enemy Lines" two years later. CIG also said there will be a third episode. :D
Click to expand...

Its optimistic for shure but once the most systems/mechanics are in place it's much more easy to develop the next singleplayer game.


homerdog said:
This assumes the second one ever comes out, but hell if they get the first one done the odds of a second are pretty high IMO. I just don't have much hope for the first one. That is to say, I don't think it will ever come out and I think you got played by The Chairman :(

Come and play some Diablo 3 with me it is a real game that actually exists :mrgreen:

BTW I'll suck many eggs if I'm wrong, actually I want to be wrong this shit looks awesome. In short I want to believe like Jupiter.
Click to expand...

It would be stupid not to deliver. More than 250 people are working on the singleplayer alone. And they can share their assets and tech with the multiplayer teams.

Foundry 42 in the UK have build a giant 6km huge mining station with 100s of rooms which dwarfs every other high quality asset of any game. They will use assets like this in the multiplayer too.
 
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Vision Stabilization

Why are they not just deactivate the head bob?


I found an explanation on Eurogamer (I dont want to waste so much time to descripte it by my own when I saw the right answer in the comments):

"Star citizen is taking the arma route of making sure that what the player perceives in first person mode is what everyone else sees; often in multiplayer games the character model as shown to you and as shown to another player are different in some ways, which poses challenges when it comes to tactical gameplay; sometimes you could be shot even if according to your player model you were entirely hidden behind a wall or something. of course, making the first person model unified with what everyone else sees brings its own problems if you want movement to look realistic. one of those is head bob, and previous iterations of this system just ended up making a lot of people feel sick while playing the game. CIG's solution was to incorporate a technique to stabilize first person vision so that nauseating effect would be minimized. this means that while your head is bobbing in first person, it doesn't appear to bob so much because they've adjusted the first person camera to compensate for the extra movement a la regular video stabilization (e.g. if you've seen shaky cam adjusted to look smooth)

Here is a video showing how 99% of games on the market handle this stuff, with separate first and third person models:"


ArmA and Star Citizen are the only ones that I know of, that do this properly. Others do not attempt since it is much more complicated.

Source: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...t-person-shooting-changes-coming-along-nicely

I can confirm this. All FPSs I have tested besides ARMA have this problem. In many games you can notice it easily. When in first person the player holds the pistol upwards while in third person (or other players) he holds it downwards. Star Citizen has unified animations/ character models.


Crytek wanted unified models too but they dont had the time/resources between the Crysis games. Therefore it looks like this in third person when using cover.

 
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Large GIF showing the details: http://orig08.deviantart.net/dfed/f/2016/265/3/d/tier0_gif2_small_by_dictator93-daijy1r.gif

The Video from above is a collection from the latest 10 for the Chairman Episode where they talked 30 minutes about their characters and tech.

Parts are still WIP. They admit that their hair right now is the weakest point and they want to improve the hair shaders to the best in realtime games. Eye shading and skin shading are also not done now. They have scanned 160 heads.


10f or the Chairman TLDR (Too Long; Didn't Read)

[1:23] Q: Will facial customisation be static and can only choose from a preset from heads or can we manipulate certain aspects using morphology.

A: You will be able to choose from a head that you like and from there you can change the skin colour, eye colour, hairstyle and some minor alterations to the physical shape.

[3:38] Q: How customisable will hairstyles be?

A: They will be fairly customisable, you can choose from an array of styles and change their colour, but you won’t be able to alter their shape specifically, but you can choose to have a hairstyle on any head you’d want.

[5:10] Q: Can I reproduce my likeness in the character creator?

A: You should be able to get pretty close.

[5:51] Q: How long does it take to model someone’s face in the game?

A: A long iterative process that includes up to two hours for just the basic scanning of the face plus all the post processing work dealing with the data and multiple maps and shaders.

[11:27] Q: Backers faces in the game, is it possible?

A: They’ve considered the idea, talked about it but to be determined. They would want all the characters to have the same level of fidelity as any of the top tier characters and any home photogrammetry might give them information/textures that might not be up to standard of the quality they need.

[14:11] Q: How soon will the new heads be implemented and how editable will they be?

A: Not in 2.5, but it will be iteratively implemented along the way afterwards. We’re very close now.

[16:30] Q: What quality of faces will we see on our characters, NPCs, other players?

A: What you saw in the Morrow tour, forget that quality existed as they’ve moved on and have improved the fidelity. They have tier 0,1,2,3 characters and the character you saw in the Pupil to Planet was a tier 2 character. A tier 2,3 character/head will hold up to a tier 0 character because it’s about the small details and animations in the tier 0,1 characters that makes them so detailed. The lowest tier (head) is 10,000 polygons and the highest is 40,000, but the higher quality tier’s allow the full range of the actors emotions such as Mark Hamill, Gary Oldman, Mark Strong to be displayed in the game which is why they’re a tier 0 and others are 1,2,3.

[21:07] Q: Will animations adapt to your character as they get older/recover from injuries?

A: They’re planning to do animations specific to injuries, want to have the impact of an injury reflect on the character’s animation. It’s a really cool idea to have older person locomotion and they have younger ones so it may not be that difficult to move you through those sets but they don’t have the inputs yet.

[22:31] Q: With character fidelity, how do you plan on keeping the resource cost down?

A: They’ve made huge strides so far. For example a character used to be 300 megabytes in memory, and now it’s down to 30 megabytes and the animation joints went from 1,000 to 183. There’s still more to be done, but they’re working on other ways to bring costs down further without losing fidelity.

[26:18] Q: Which character design approach is Star citizen using? Traditional where you choose from a number of presets or being able to edit vertex points within certain ranges or whole new approach?

A: Mix of both, start with a preset face and you choose face/hair colour/eye colour/etc and then mix and match from a combination of heads and you can move things around but not actually bringing in another mesh or other character information.
Click to expand...

Source: http://imperialnews.network/2016/09/10-for-the-chairman-special-edition/





Around the Verse TLDR (Too Long; Didn't Read)
Intro & Other Information

  • CitizenCon is only two and a half weeks away with developers working very hard for the presentation.
  • Evocati testers will be soon testing some flight balance changes for Arena Commander that will come with 2.6.
  • Preparations for performance capture shoot for 3.0 are well underway and will begin shortly after CitizenCon finishes with Chris flying out a few days after CitizenCon.
Studio Update

  • David Sibbe has been working on weapons in Foundry 42 Frankfurt.
  • All the weapons shown are works in progress and may change until Star Marine is out.
  • Working on complete rework of weapons for SQ42.
    • Goal to have uniform style for manufacturers.
    • Each manufacturer has similar materials and overall look.
    • Guns should be recognizable from a distance.
  • Benjamin Dare has been working on modular satellites.
    • Satellites serve a large number of purposes.
    • Built up of modular pieces that each serve a purpose.
    • A shield module provides shields; solar panel module provides power, etc.
    • Satellite modules are similar to ships but automated.
    • Should be easy to recognize modules.
    • Modules can get damaged and must be repaired through EVA.
    • Size and shape of satellite depends on location.
    • If satellite is close to sun it will require more cooling; or if owned by military, will have less vulnerable parts.
    • Each module has connection ports on all six sides - allowing for wide variety of shapes.
  • Tobias Johansson has been working on small modular planetary locations.
    • They can select an exterior then a variety of different interiors.
    • Can also add exterior assets to make it more recognizable.
    • Can be scaled up to larger buildings with more rooms.
    • Only aiming for small buildings with one to two rooms connected by corridors in initial 3.0.

Behind the Scenes: Vision Stabilisation

  • Ivo Herzeg is the Lead Animation Engineer at CIG
  • unlike most FPS games, first person mode in SC it is unified with and driven by the third person body
  • if you attached a camera to the head you get crazy camera shake and seemingly random bouncing
  • actual head motions are pretty extreme but your eyes and brain to a good job of compensating for it
  • eye stabilisation:
    • adds a counter-rotation to the camera in the direction of a focus point
    • eliminated about 80% of the camera noise
    • doesn't work close to walls, when strafing or when stop suddenly
  • researched how humans perform vision stabilisation but not practical way to implement it in the first person camera
  • birds provided an unexpected solution: they apply a counter-transaction to keep their heads stable
  • head stabilisation:
    • implemented a full body IK to control legs, hands and head independently
    • adds a counter-translation to the camera, or distributed across the body in extreme cases, to adjust for motion
  • unlike most FPS games, bullets in SC are spawned directly from from the gun barrel
    • sights and scopes don't point directly at the target so you have to aim higher
    • body motions have a direct impact on the gun barrel so running and gunning doesn't work
Source: http://imperialnews.network/2016/09/around-the-verse-episode-3-08/


The modular planetary locations were the most interesting part. It shows how they can fill planets with hundreds of buildings where the player can do something etc.

The explanation of their vision stabilisation was interesting too. Who could know that birds provided the solution.
Here you can see the tech CIG is using:

But in Star Citizen it will be adjusted with centimeters.
 
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http://www.kotaku.co.uk/2016/09/23/inside-the-troubled-development-of-star-citizen

A mostly objective article which portrayed the problems you will get when you build a 350-strong firm which has to work as a team. It's a huge task with blood and tears. It revealed the problem with Illfonic and Star Marine. Illfonic had build all assets in the wrong scale and CIG noticed it as they wanted to fit anything together. CIG had let them for too long unsupervised (what was somewhere suspected).

As Chris Roberts brother Erin took over the management they restructured the company. Some people had to go. But he was needed for CIG with his many years of experience with the LEGO Games where he had to manage hundreds of employees. Problems occur more or less in every major company. Especially when it's built in such a short time (Still people get upset that it takes longer than 4 years). But its clear that there is no "nice" way to lay of someone.

Cryteks crisis was a huge win for CIG. Without the many Crytek guys CIG would have much more problems today. But who can program realtime engines as good as Crytek veterans themself? I think only Epic and DICE employees.

Its good to see that the internal negative voices from ex employees, which claimed that the unified 1st / 3rd person, the 64bit coordinate conversion, the high fidelity characters and the inventory system are impossible, were taught a lesson.

How the work is there probably depends. Some people in Frankfurt, LA and Wilmslow said that it is the best work environment of their live. PCGH reported that employees were very enthusiastic in Frankfurt. As far as I know I have linked some of them here.
 
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