[Megathread] Star Citizen

[banmebaby]

holy shit, 10 min to boot up the game and another 10 to load into the server. 20 min to even start playing on HDD.
i knew its gonna be bad, but damn

Its still very under-optimized, you got to overcompensate with hardware. To be fair, "its still alpha", as far as I know, optimization focus usually comes later on, however SC is a very special case...

I still want to see how players are going to render “thousands” of players and their space ships in a zone =P

entertainment is relative I suppose. if you can get it for free why not.

Touché.

[Heathy]

Eve for the most part scratches my space game itch, I don't even pvp that often anymore, but I enjoy the player driven economy aspect, which is something I don't think SC plans to have. I like the cyclical nature of Eve and its economy, its a feedback loop, its highly replayable. I think SC hopefully offers something different to take the place of that, perhaps it'll be more multiplayer / multi crew, exploration or grinding for bigger and better ships. I think I'm always going to be some what disappointed that it won't have the same aspects that make Eve interesting. but it will have various things that Eve doesn't have. like more fidelity. as it currently stands I'd rather do courier contracts in Eve than do the repeatable delivery missions in SC because at least the former has some baring on the universe, while taking boxes from one void and dropping them into another void, didn't really do much for me. there is plenty to criticize about the game, I think those of us who did decide to buy a ship, just hope that one day a playable game comes out of it. there is only so much that can come out of beating a dead horse. its probably not going to make it reach a release candidate state any quicker.

I remember reading a youtube comment on an SC video that went something like 'isn't there a worry that SC will be outdated by the time it releases?' to which I simply said 'outdated compared to what?' the truth is, anyone who wants to make a game like this is likely going to be spending an equal amount of time making it. so unless there is a game like SC being created in the background. it doesn't really have any current competition. it is in a league of its own. there aren't many games like this currently in development. the largest ones are what ashes of creation? escape from tarkov? any others? these aren't even the same genre. frontier originally started with a 10 year plan for Elite, how far along with that are they? how long will it take them to do atmospheric flight and habitable planets. the game came out in 2014 so they have like 1-2 years left on their original 10 year plan. their last expansion was a first person shooter, that no one asked for, which looks like its been collectively shit on looking at the steam reviews that didn't go so well it seems.

[banmebaby]

I enjoy the player driven economy aspect, which is something I don't think SC plans to have.

If they do, they are going to have a problem considering that they are currently selling in-game credits without any sort of limitation.

'isn't there a worry that SC will be outdated by the time it releases?' to which I simply said 'outdated compared to what?'

...or more like, in regards to what? There is a reason why Chris Roberts went with this game engine even with it being far from the most suited for large multiplayer games, and we all know what games like Crysis and Far Cry are well known for… he has a huge hardon for looks and details, and you see those become less and less impressive by the year, next year or so you should start getting games made with Unreal Engine 5 raising the bar even higher.

Chris created himself so many technical hurdles that he is now struggling to just keep up with technology itself, just last page another user linked an announcement made in 2013 about mantle support, “mantle's public development was suspended and in 2019 completely discontinued, as DirectX 12 and the Mantle-derived Vulkan rose in popularity”, now they are trying to implement gen12 & vulkan, release date Soon TM, meanwhile how long till something new comes and replaces that as well?

[Amorac]

meanwhile how long till something new comes and replaces that as well?

There were 'rumors' for a DX13 by the end of 2022, but I guess it is safe to say that's not going to happen.

According to those rumors DX11 was released 5 years after DX10, and DX12 was released 6 years later.

Tho DX11 was released in 2009, about 3 years after DX10 (2006), guess the rumor was talking about DX11.1 (2012), and DX12 was released in 2015.

DX timeline;
DX9.0 2002
DX9.0a 2003
DX9.0b 2003
DX9.0c 2004
DX10.0 2006
DX10.1 2008
DX11.0 2009
DX11.1 2012
DX11.2 2013
DX12.0 2015

There have been several (~7) updates to DX12 but they don't seem to have gotten a minor version number. Maybe there will never be a DX13 and they will just keep updating DX12 with more features (like they kinda said they would do with Win10)

OpenGL went from 3.2 in 2009 to 4 in 2010, and pretty much gave a new minor version every year till 2018 (4.6) or so, when Mantle gave birth to Vulkan kinda and somewhat took OpenCL's place I guess. Vulkan seems to get ("minor") version updates about every 2 years.

In all, most of the current GFX API's are rather young, tho DX should get a new major version if you look at its history, not sure about Metal (Apple), think it is on major version 3?

[MrAnderson]

Not really, no. If we follow that logic, and by the same token, we would have to also conclude that there does not exist incompetence or fraud in the industry, which is wrong.

It's not the same token at all because no one has that black or white view of things. Game development history has shown that all studios, multiple games, from all kinds of genres and different cultures having delays and changes of scope and overall hurdles. Doesn't mean those dev's and studios are incompetent or fraudulent. Those claims can only be made in retrospective and post-mortem.

CIG´s rate of progress after 10+ years, 700 employees and 500+ millions spent is abysmal

The continuous growth of their company and development of the game along with the increasing growth of their player base and consequently funding categorically proves otherwise.

Also, and quite an important difference with actual big studios, those studios use their own funds and resources. A company that uses its own funds has full prerogative to decide when, how and in what terms they release a product. If they do not do well they can indeed be accountable and liable to banks, shareholders and the opportunity cost of having done well in a different venture. But they do so on their own dime and risk.

Chris Roberts and CIG on the other hand are doing all that on ours. Given the (crowd)funds we are providing CIG with are supposed to be exclusively aimed towards the development of SC and SQ42, and there is no expressed delivery guarantees, we are the only party liable here if the product is misrepresented, turns out crap or, god forbid, is not even delivered.

Money is money. Doesn't matter if it's one gamer giving out $1Million dollars or 1 million individual gamers giving out $1 dollar each. As long as the terms of the arrangement when pledging are met it's Chris Roberts and CIG money to use as they see fit to develop their games as they want. Understanding Crowdfunding terms is the same as understanding investment terms and what you're entitled and not entitled to dictate.

Not really, no. You do not even need bad faith.

Just a pinch then.

I actually play quite a lot of space games in general: No Mans Sky, Stellaris and Space Engineers among other exemples in my case. All of those games are already well recognized as classics at the top the of the usual rankings for best space games (that includes Elite too).
SC and SQ42 on the other hand not only are not explicitly released after 10+ years and 500+ million spent, and therefore buyers lack the usual reviews and scores that can complement an informed spend decision, but CIG is also doing it all with backers money via crowdfund. A big chunk of it going to Roberts, his family and close friends pockets, and that with zero products released yet.

Yet none of those games provide the kind of gameplay Star Citizen provides, so different experiences for different players that may or may not interlap or complement each other. Players who've been able to watch and playtest Star Citizen Alpha builds since 2013 and decide for themselves if it's a game of their liking and pursue investing. Continuous player growth and funding show's player interest is growing not declining.

He never said he was going to do tiny scales either. What he has indeed sold all this time though is the Best Damned Space Sim Ever with the highest levels of fidelity in the genre. And an often stated vision to rival or best anything else out there. If he could do it, why wouldn´t he?

He never said it would though. Because it's not the focus of Chris Roberts idea of the Best Damned Space Sim Ever. Just like Kerbal doesn't need 1:1 planets or Eurotruck needs 1:1 countries or WoW needed a 1:1 sized desert to convey Tanaris. Curated player experience above scientific accuracy for the sake of well, nothing really.

Sadly, as it is, we have a single system not at scale after 10+ years

Not a problem when it's such a massively and detailed system. Plenty to do and have fun with.

That does not make much sense though.

It makes all the sense for a skillbased game with client-server architecture and with heavy loads of entities/calculations/physics.

You can also see 2D assets in most every actual game out there. That does not mean they are simply asset viewers. Games often have assets simply to be viewed like Space Engine, but Space Engine on the other hand does not have assets where gameplay features, loops or mechanics and related gameplay physics of any kind need to actually interact like games do.

In the context of the interesting and complex planets the gameplay is very much alike in Space Engine or Eliteangerous. After all those "1:1 planets" are just 2D skins wrapped around 1:1 planet sized balls that can only be observed from far away. Game engine limitations and all that.

Actually no, the close you can get to a planet in SC is very often this:

Now now, Let's not pretend Star Citizen is the only game one can glitch inside the planet shall we.

That is indeed one opinion.

Don't you agree though? Star Citizen features much better detail and fidelity in it's planets than Elite or NMS? I've yet to find a player who thinks otherwise.

I presume that by "detail and fidelity" you are perhaps referring to... graphics? But that would be a very narrow and limited view of what makes a game great though. Planets are not just "the trees" you can see on them, it is primarily about the gameplay and features players can actually reliably and stably engage with on them.

Detail and Fidelity encompasses all. From graphics to gameplay elements. NMS has no attempts of being presented on a realistic setting neither in visuals or gameplay. So simplistic and procedural generation or voxel is perfect for their cartoony / casual gameplay style. Still, it suffers from the same problems of Eliteangerous, the procedural seed can only go so far until the repetition starts to kick in. The variety of biomes along with the limited lobby-game nature makes it as mundane as inconsequential in the end of things. It can make up with being able to provide very chill gaming experiences though.

[QUOTE=Cloverfield;53952303]But above all in all those other games you can have, by and large consistently stable sessions with working physics and reasonable AI. None of these is really possible in SC´s "high detail and fidelity".

The core issue with your exemples is that while you think you can claim that SC "has trees" the thing just does not have an actual gameplay feature set and loops that work with a minimum of consistency, stability and reliability. It is still by and large, very much both shallow and broken, and progress has been stalling almost to a crawl.

Well if it wasn't possible Star Citizen player base wouldn't keep playing and continuously grow every year while other similar space games player count goes down. In case you haven't noticed Star Citizen player base saw a exponential rise at the time Eliteangerous DLC released and has had it's best player engagement year. Can't be all bad when so many players are preferring to play Star Citizen Alpha instead of "finished" games. Maybe they've got tired of the 2D skin planet balls.

It is a shame that such a well written post that highlights many of the flaws in SC will basically get ignored by the person you're replying to.

Such a high take from someone who has yet to contribute anything constructive in this thread.

I don't get why there are some people in this thread, that has been here for like 700 pages, still just harping on the game? ^^
At least the ones liking it are posting videos about updates etc.
Like, if you don't like the game, just leave the thread instead of being combative .

Well the gist is, some here have bought into the idea that something is wrong with the game and that it will fail and since it doesn't they have to keep digging deep.

Having players posting news and overall enjoyment for the game clashes with their beliefs so they get rattled and feel the need to harm-twist those who aren't up in harms like them into joining them in their beliefs so they can feel comfort. All that is easier than just accepting that some people might understand or deal with the complex nature of the development of such games and that many gamers are and have been playing and enjoy playing the Star Citizen Alpha for what it is while supporting it's development.

Instant toxicity from you. You clearly need to get out of this thread mate :P.
Like I said - If you hate the game that much, just erase it from your brain, leave the thread, and let the people who enjoy it, enjoy it . It's not really hard!

Oh it is hard. They can't let go because doing that would be accepting they were wrong in the first place and they can't accept that.

The difference is that I have 5 posts in this thread, while you have 329 .
It's ok, I get it, you enjoy conflict. Stay in the thread, harp more on the game.
If this gives you pleasure, then who am I to object?
How about this - I check back again in this thread in a year, to see if you are still here being combative? Just as a personal experiment to us both!

Hopefully CIG will have Server Meshing implemented and we'll see them crying about something else by then.

- that if you're trying to help convince someone to your point of view

You got it all wrong. the objective is to keep negative and disgruntled folks out, not invite them.

What's the difference between Retaliator and Eclipse? Both have size 9 torpedoes, right?
Wondering which one is better for chain ERTs.
Oneshotting Hammerhead seems like a cool idea

For solo play. Eclipse all the way! Much more nimble and just as deadly plus at 3.4 million credits it's cheaper to get than the Ret.

So what tech do they have?

I suggest watching/reading the Digital Foundry articles about Star Citizen tech:

https://www.eurogamer.net/digitalfou...lpha-3-point-8





There's more stuff now but that's a nice start.

yeah it basically requires an SSD, not many games do, but this one does, probably because of the texture streaming, regular hdds are too slow, the last time I played off a hdd, things just didn't render at all, I would go into an elevator and just fall forever. large portions of the scenery were just invisible.

Indeed it's unplayable with a HDD as most future big open world games will be. Hopefully in the future all open world games will be able to avoid loading screen as we get speeds to stream content in and out at the needed speeds to maintain seamless gameplay even in online settings.

I'd honestly be more concerned about what it means for crowdfunded games if this thing just one day vanished. I doubt there would be any faith left to back something of the same scope. so ppl should hope that this doesn't fail as it would have a profound affect on future crowd funding. if this fails, you won't see another game like this again.

That's the funny part of it. That most of those so invested in wanting it to fail don't realise what a golden opportunity it is that gamers have by being able to leverage the making of such ambitious games that otherwise wouldn't be possible. Specially with how traditional publishing methods have failed to provide a viable alternative after all these years.

I think those of us who did decide to buy a ship, just hope that one day a playable game comes out of it. there is only so much that can come out of beating a dead horse. its probably not going to make it reach a release candidate state any quicker.

I remember reading a youtube comment on an SC video that went something like 'isn't there a worry that SC will be outdated by the time it releases?' to which I simply said 'outdated compared to what?' the truth is, anyone who wants to make a game like this is likely going to be spending an equal amount of time making it. so unless there is a game like SC being created in the background. it doesn't really have any current competition. it is in a league of its own.

The thing is, despite Alpha. Star Citizen already is THE main Game for many gamers out there. And growing every year. That alone shows just how alone in a league of it's own it is and why so many people keep backing it.

If they do, they are going to have a problem considering that they are currently selling in-game credits without any sort of limitation.

...or more like, in regards to what? There is a reason why Chris Roberts went with this game engine even with it being far from the most suited for large multiplayer games, and we all know what games like Crysis and Far Cry are well known for… he has a huge hardon for looks and details, and you see those become less and less impressive by the year, next year or so you should start getting games made with Unreal Engine 5 raising the bar even higher.

Chris created himself so many technical hurdles that he is now struggling to just keep up with technology itself, just last page another user linked an announcement made in 2013 about mantle support, “mantle's public development was suspended and in 2019 completely discontinued, as DirectX 12 and the Mantle-derived Vulkan rose in popularity”, now they are trying to implement gen12 & vulkan, release date Soon TM, meanwhile how long till something new comes and replaces that as well?

The main game he wanted to make was the single-player Squadron 42 though, hence CryEngine as the perfect choice. Star Citizen was the means to get funding independently. Which funding allowed for an expanded scope along with the hiring of developers to enable it's development.

Even if he had choose another engine. He would've always need to heavily refactor the engine to allow for the features he wanted.
So, at the time, the Cryengine was the perfect choice because:

A) Allowed for early iteration of concepts while delivering a great visual fidelity demos which helped launch the kickstarter and release a playable module (hangar).
B) Enabled CIG to get access to highly specialized Engine programmers (directly and later by poaching directly from a decaying CryTek) which ultimately enabled the tech improvements/development (64bit conversion, Synchronized Local Physics Grids, Seamless planets etc).

As for performance upgrades and Gen12 in particular they've been integrating it since patch 3.14. That has been communicated by CIG programmers in the official channels multiple times:

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/s...ements-in-3-1/

Or in video here they answer lot's of questions, large battle fleets included: https://youtu.be/2tSoZJ0649s

Most here won't know or remember but the first release of the Persistent Universe only handled around 20 players per server, no npc's, only one planet and 4 moons that were just scenery and it run mostly at 20-25 fps max for everyone.

So compared with those times it's running arguably much much better now with much better graphics, much higher player count and more entities to deal with:


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Almost forgot. Latest ISC video about Cargo:


Plus October Monthly Report: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/c...-October-2022/

[1001]

Amazing that a game which has cost 8x another (so far) still has to use it as a bar to measure against.

The variety of biomes along with the limited lobby-game nature makes it as mundane as inconsequential in the end of things

Coming from a game that, for years, could barely manage 50 players per server without crapping itself all over the place.

[banmebaby]

the objective is to keep negative and disgruntled folks out

Yeah, we've noticed ;P

Cryengine was the perfect choice

I don't know about "perfect", but it doesn't sound such a bad choice for what was originally pitched, "Freelancer 2.0", a single player game with a relatively small-scale multiplayer option. Obviously plans changed, and now they are aiming for “thousands of players” sharing the same zones, and after about a decade of development, we finally got that small bump from 50 to 100 max players per server, barely enough to fill one single of the biggest space ships being currently sold, assuming ofc that the server doesn’t just commit seppuku as soon as those players gather up.

I still believe Chris would have done a huge favor to himself if he kept to the original plan, and kept the current one as a sequel for it, even if he had to do a brand new Kickstarter to help its funding.

[ldev]

Holy shit, the tech in 2022 is so old, and shit like raindrops affected by G forces was in Driveclub released in 20fucking14 ayyy lmao.

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When you dont even know the basics of star citizens development you dont have any credibility to begin with, you are the one talking complete nonsense as you dont have anything to back you up, just another poster that cant string any sort of argument together.

Oh wow bruh, you have constantly shown you dont know anything about the games development and talk complete nonsense.

[kenn9530]

Holy shit, the tech in 2022 is so old, and shit like raindrops affected by G forces was in Driveclub released in 20fucking14 ayyy lmao.

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Oh wow bruh, you have constantly shown you dont know anything about the games development and talk complete nonsense.

You have never once shown to be competent at anything to do with games design as is proven by your clear lack of any knowledge to do with everything about the subject, you dont even know the basic things about star citizens development or that vulkan was the successor to mantle, you are never going to be taken seriously when you get basic things wrong all the time.

[Kyanion]

You have never once shown to be competent at anything to do with games design

And you have been?

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you are never going to be taken seriously when you get basic things wrong all the time.

Yeah we know, people keep trying to correct you on it too man.

[Henako]

That's the funny part of it. That most of those so invested in wanting it to fail

Could you point out someone hoping for SC to fail?

[banmebaby]

Could you point out someone hoping for SC to fail?

I highly suspect of this little dude here…

[Henako]

I highly suspect of this little dude here…

We both know he's not going to answer me. Anderson doesn't answer simple questions.

[banmebaby]

We both know he's not going to answer me. Anderson doesn't answer simple questions.

The issue is not answering the questions, its admitting that his a big part of the problem that his supposedly against. Yeah, toxicity and derailing threads is bad and all, but maybe you shouldn't really be preaching at others about it when a huge chunk of your own posts consist on building strawmans to insult users you disagree with.

[ldev]

You have never once shown to be competent at anything to do with games design as is proven by your clear lack of any knowledge to do with everything about the subject, you dont even know the basic things about star citizens development or that vulkan was the successor to mantle, you are never going to be taken seriously when you get basic things wrong all the time.

Damn dude you have constantly shown you dont know anything about the games development and talk complete nonsense and you have never once shown to be competent at anything to do with games design as is proven by your clear lack of any knowledge to do with everything about the subject, you dont even know the basic things. When you hear "vulkan" you're probably thinking about this

[kenn9530]

Damn dude you have constantly shown you dont know anything about the games development and talk complete nonsense and you have never once shown to be competent at anything to do with games design as is proven by your clear lack of any knowledge to do with everything about the subject, you dont even know the basic things. When you hear "vulkan" you're probably thinking about this

You have already been proven wrong on multiple things you have said, while you have been unable to refute anything i have said, thats the very definition of someone who is incompetant at knowing even the most basics of games development, you didnt even know about mantle so noone is going to believe anything that comes out of your mouth, you have no idea about anything to do with star citizen when you cant even bring up basic correct information, you will never win an argument when you always present wrong information.

[Henako]

You have already been proven wrong on multiple things you have said

I think we're done here. This is nonsense, coming from you lol.

[Talilama]

You have already been proven wrong on multiple things you have said, while you have been unable to refute anything i have said, thats the very definition of someone who is incompetant at knowing even the most basics of games development, you didnt even know about mantle so noone is going to believe anything that comes out of your mouth, you have no idea about anything to do with star citizen when you cant even bring up basic correct information, you will never win an argument when you always present wrong information.

At this point, I genuinely think that this is a bot, caught in a loop.

[Koriani]

Has anyone ever successfully (in Kenn's opinion) refuted anything he's ever said on these forums - anywhere? About anything?

[Shakzor]

Has anyone ever successfully (in Kenn's opinion) refuted anything he's ever said on these forums - anywhere? About anything?

No. Everything he says is right, no one else knows anything (even the people clearly working in the field) and even if CiG Devs or Chris Roberts himself would say something, they'd also be wrong and have no idea if it says anything negatively about the game.
Not once anything that could even be interpreted as something negative or as an admittance of not knowing everything.