[Megathread] Star Citizen

[KyrtF]

You are so wrong it hurts...but what else is new.

And yet again...not one word to say how or why I am wrong. Just a straight assertion. CIG and Chris Roberts has described the instancing process and their description of how it works in Star Citizen doesn't match your assertion.

Right now...the limit is 24 and CIG instance technology doesn't bypass that limit through load balancing.

CIG should be able to improve on those numbers...but with the best will in tne world, they are going to have to accept limits. Even if they could implement an instance with thousands of ships, few players would own PCs capable of rendering them. Bandwidth limitations alone not to mention server costs and capabilities are likely to be huge bottlenecks in this vision...more so since there can't really be a ship limit as you jave to assume x number of players regardless. 5 players on one ship are potentially going to generate as much information as 5 players with 5 ships.

[Tradewind]

And yet again...not one word to say how or why I am wrong. Just a straight assertion. CIG and Chris Roberts has described the instancing process and their description of how it works in Star Citizen doesn't match your assertion.

Right now...the limit is 24 and CIG instance technology doesn't bypass that limit through load balancing.

CIG should be able to improve on those numbers...but with the best will in tne world, they are going to have to accept limits. Even if they could implement an instance with thousands of ships, few players would own PCs capable of rendering them. Bandwidth limitations alone not to mention server costs and capabilities are likely to be huge bottlenecks in this vision...more so since there can't really be a ship limit as you jave to assume x number of players regardless. 5 players on one ship are potentially going to generate as much information as 5 players with 5 ships.

I've already explained it to you once (probably twice tbh), this thread is full of explanations on how it works. There is videos from users, developers and so on about how it works. Just because you didn't understand it doesn't mean it didn't match my assertions either.

You are just being disingenuous and fucking obtuse at this point. I see no reason to explain it to you again. Especially since you've proven time and time again how poorly educated you are on the whole issue and server management in general.

Come back when you've learned something.

[KyrtF]

I've already explained it to you once (probably twice tbh), this thread is full of explanations on how it works. There is videos from users, developers and so on about how it works. Just because you didn't understand it doesn't mean it didn't match my assertions either.

And they don't agree with your assertions. I can go onto discussion on the RSI forums about instances and they are still discussing the 24 man limit on instances and the effect on ships where the crew size is larger than the instance limits. Your understanding is flawed and at odds with what just about everyone else is saying and talking about. I can't recall anyone else ever describing instances as being load balanced as a way to get around the current limit in the way you describe.

CIG are designing and hoping instances to be created which allow many more players to be involved. They want instances with a couple of hundred players...but their current aim is for between 50 and 100 as a realistic target given everything else an instance will be required to support. That figure is doable.

But currently? Currently the limit is 24. The system is meant to be dynamic which means that when you have an instance, slots of that 24 are reserved for your friends, enemies and POIs and they are slotted in as necessary. The game also keeps track of who is where and adds them into existing instances IF there is room or IF they have a reserved slot. But the limit - currently - is still 24. And this system isn't new or innovative.

And there really isn't any benefit to the load balancing aspect you suggest either...one of the bottlenecks of instancing CIG has to deal with is the resources available to the player. There is no point developing a system which allows for hundreds of players in an instance if your average players system can only handle 50.

All being said - if CIG get their instances to allow for 50 players or 100 or even 200...that's great. Looking forward to it. But it isn't being innovative. It isn't cutting edge. At best, it is refining an existing technology but even 200 players in an instance won't be unprecedented. It'll be hard to do for CIG given everything else that'll be going on, but I don't think it impossible.

[masterhorus8]

And they don't agree with your assertions. I can go onto discussion on the RSI forums about instances and they are still discussing the 24 man limit on instances and the effect on ships where the crew size is larger than the instance limits. Your understanding is flawed and at odds with what just about everyone else is saying and talking about. I can't recall anyone else ever describing instances as being load balanced as a way to get around the current limit in the way you describe.

CIG are designing and hoping instances to be created which allow many more players to be involved. They want instances with a couple of hundred players...but their current aim is for between 50 and 100 as a realistic target given everything else an instance will be required to support. That figure is doable.

But currently? Currently the limit is 24. The system is meant to be dynamic which means that when you have an instance, slots of that 24 are reserved for your friends, enemies and POIs and they are slotted in as necessary. The game also keeps track of who is where and adds them into existing instances IF there is room or IF they have a reserved slot. But the limit - currently - is still 24. And this system isn't new or innovative.

And there really isn't any benefit to the load balancing aspect you suggest either...one of the bottlenecks of instancing CIG has to deal with is the resources available to the player. There is no point developing a system which allows for hundreds of players in an instance if your average players system can only handle 50.

Instancing in and of itself is load balancing. What they are doing is having these dynamic instances all moving around within another instance which is being handled like a single unit within the sub instances. The parent instances don't have to process any of the physics of the sub instances, only moving them around and having them interact with each other (such as if a bullet passes through from one to the other). That last part is already being done when you shoot from outside of a space station to inside of it.

And they've already said how they're handling the big ships. It'll be broken up into multiple instances, just like I already told you but you conveniently ignored so you could keep complaining. It'll be no different then going from outside a station to inside. It's all seamless, so having it into multiple instances doesn't matter. If anything, it makes it easier to deal with stuff like hull breaches and airlocks.

But it isn't being innovative. It isn't cutting edge.

I am getting really sick and tired of you saying this. Every single time, you're picking a single part of the game. As we've told you time and time again, NOT A SINGLE INDIVIDUAL FEATURE IS INNOVATIVE. IT'S HAVING ALL OF IT THAT IS. And you have yet to give an example of another game that has everything that this does/will.

[Tackhisis]

ArenaNet has been running GW2 without a subscription model

Right, and you need to pay money just to be able to create a character of the each class in the game. Or to play the Living Story missions. Basically everything cool in GW2 is beyond paywall.

[Shanden]

Right, and you need to pay money just to be able to create a character of the each class in the game. Or to play the Living Story missions. Basically everything cool in GW2 is beyond paywall.

If nothing changed in the last year, you are completely wrong. After buying the game, I managed to get every basic class (except the addon one) that is in the game without ever buying anything with real money. You can easily buy the ingame currency and pay for the character slots. I never did end content or played excessively much in order to achieve that. You even got the living story for free if you logged in during a specific timeframe.
When I played they mainly made money with cosmetic items.

[Tradewind]

And they don't agree with your assertions. I can go onto discussion on the RSI forums about instances and they are still discussing the 24 man limit on instances and the effect on ships where the crew size is larger than the instance limits. Your understanding is flawed and at odds with what just about everyone else is saying and talking about. I can't recall anyone else ever describing instances as being load balanced as a way to get around the current limit in the way you describe.

Who is "they" exactly? Pretty sure horus posted an interview where a dev explains instancing and it is 100% exactly what I described to you.

CIG are designing and hoping instances to be created which allow many more players to be involved. They want instances with a couple of hundred players...but their current aim is for between 50 and 100 as a realistic target given everything else an instance will be required to support. That figure is doable.

But currently? Currently the limit is 24. The system is meant to be dynamic which means that when you have an instance, slots of that 24 are reserved for your friends, enemies and POIs and they are slotted in as necessary. The game also keeps track of who is where and adds them into existing instances IF there is room or IF they have a reserved slot. But the limit - currently - is still 24. And this system isn't new or innovative.

Because the cost of spinning up additional servers right now is pointless.

And there really isn't any benefit to the load balancing aspect you suggest either...one of the bottlenecks of instancing CIG has to deal with is the resources available to the player. There is no point developing a system which allows for hundreds of players in an instance if your average players system can only handle 50.

It's called dynamic LODs. Again, go read.

[kenn9530]

And yet again...not one word to say how or why I am wrong. Just a straight assertion. CIG and Chris Roberts has described the instancing process and their description of how it works in Star Citizen doesn't match your assertion.

Right now...the limit is 24 and CIG instance technology doesn't bypass that limit through load balancing.

CIG should be able to improve on those numbers...but with the best will in tne world, they are going to have to accept limits. Even if they could implement an instance with thousands of ships, few players would own PCs capable of rendering them. Bandwidth limitations alone not to mention server costs and capabilities are likely to be huge bottlenecks in this vision...more so since there can't really be a ship limit as you jave to assume x number of players regardless. 5 players on one ship are potentially going to generate as much information as 5 players with 5 ships.

The way instancing will work in SC is each ship will be a seperate instance of sorts, if you have a 20 man crew then it will be one instance but another 20 man crew will be able to interact with it and when you get close enough to look into the windows you can see what other people are doing, there may be some limit on how many ships and instances can be in one area before it impacts game performance and thats something that will get balanced around, no point in having 100 ships in one area if your only getting 2 fps, all these instances will get spread throughout multiple servers to handle everything. Limit will be more to do with what computer your playing the game on than what can actually be done ingame, would be good to have an option maybe to raise or lower the limit ingame depending on how good your computer is.

So even if the limit was 24 in an instance it doesn't matter since you able to interact with multiple instances, the limit will most likely be at least 50-100 per instance as the carrier is a massive ship and also if a few 20 crew ships are fighting each other the boarding actions will need to support a larger load.

So all this 24 instance limit is pointless as its not even a limit, its just a number currently set to test, but they are already testing 40 players instances in the current alpha and its likely to raise even further.

The game is innovative as its the only game that will give a complete gameplay experience with everything available, no other space game does that or will do that even in a year or two, plus each of these features that other games have in SC they have or will improve on those apects further.

[Onvious]

they said something about instance limit. with Netcode 2.0 they're aiming to 100 players instead of 24.

[KyrtF]

they said something about instance limit. with Netcode 2.0 they're aiming to 100 players instead of 24.

Aiming for. They conceivably can make that target. But for now, the limit is 24.

[Rennadrel]

Aiming for. They conceivably can make that target. But for now, the limit is 24.

No shit, welcome to being an alpha test...

[mindw0rk]

Whatever advantage in graphics SC had in 2012 is now gone. Look at the games released this year

SC now looks way better then how it looked in 2012. And while there are games that have better looking characters, I didnt see anything better then SC's ships and interiors.

SC is ambitious...not innovative.

It has some innovations. But yeah, its more ambitious then innovative which is fine by me.

[Rennadrel]

SC now looks way better then how it looked in 2012. And while there are games that have better looking characters, I didnt see anything better then SC's ships and interiors.



It has some innovations. But yeah, its more ambitious then innovative which is fine by me.

Really, it's both because it is trying to push multiple features and functions that no game has ever had combined before. The graphics look amazing, I am really amazed at the fidelity and the quality of both their character models as well as the actual designs of everything else that they are putting into the game. Aside from that, I am just waiting until we have substantial content to test out before I update it again.

[masterhorus8]

Any progress being made on this?

I wonder which game is gonna be released first, Identity RPG or Star Citizen

Yes, there is plenty of progress being made.
2.5 is what's currently available to everyone.
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/feature-list

2.6 is being tested by a group called the Evocati (aka Avocados) that are specifically chosen from the players because they are the most active in helping test things.
The patch should be pushed to the live servers for everyone in the next week.
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/schedule-report

After that, Patch 3.0 is the next to be pushed out, including planetary landing and planet related stuff.

[Majestic12]

Any progress being made on this?

I wonder which game is gonna be released first, Identity RPG or Star Citizen

Well. "Star Citizen" won't be released anytime soon. The closest thing is Squadron42 but that is singleplayer only. Star Citizen the persistent universe with multiplayer won't be out for years at best.

Sq42 was supposed to have co-op but it is one of those things that they backed down on. The netcode is still terrible.

On the "good" side, they are about to sell another concept ship.

[Malibutomi]

Well. "Star Citizen" won't be released anytime soon. The closest thing is Squadron42 but that is singleplayer only. Star Citizen the persistent universe with multiplayer won't be out for years at best.

Sq42 was supposed to have co-op but it is one of those things that they backed down on. The netcode is still terrible.

On the "good" side, they are about to sell another concept ship.

Netcode is still the default Cryengine one which is fine for testing. They will change it in 3.0 finally, so it will be much better hopefully.

[Majestic12]

Hands down the worst livestream I have ever seen. And still no SQ42 preview. I am interested in how you guys will defend this one, because it is completely abysmal.

[masterhorus8]

Hands down the worst livestream I have ever seen. And still no SQ42 preview. I am interested in how you guys will defend this one, because it is completely abysmal.

We aren't because it's shit. Good thing you don't have to be able to make a good stream to make a video game.

[Majestic12]

We aren't because it's shit. Good thing you don't have to be able to make a good stream to make a video game.

True. Still, I expected better since they've done it for years.

- - - Updated - - -

Just imagine if a potential backer saw any of this. My god, if it was me I'd run so fast and never look back.

[carnifex2005]

2.6 has been released to the PTU via rolling invite. Here's a quick start guide for Star Marine.