[Megathread] Star Citizen

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Video game development is a pretty sucky career field. If you're working for a big company, you're a slave who is overworked and underpaid, and you could be making much more money with better benefits doing CGI work for television advertisements or programming websites. The indie landscape is bleak and chances are you will never deliver a hit, so you will be constantly trying to push out tiny games that don't have the production values you wish they had just to keep your head above water.

That being said, QA testers are at the bottom of the totem pole. They're treated as second class citizens and are considered to be the most replaceable job. "There are lots of people willing to be paid to play videogames!". Plus, companies are tending to treat their customers as unpaid testers anyway. Buggy launches are normal now. QA tester is probably one of the worst career choices you can make. Very few manage to stick around.

[Gorsameth]

yeah, if you want to make money as someone interested in coding/computer stuff, video game development is the last place you want to be.

[MrAnderson]

New ISC showcasing some of the new derelict ships:


And a bit of a mission on said derelict that leaked from Evocati Test Group:
https://streamable.com/ordjkm

In addition to the redesign of the Merchantman, there has been an artstyle shift in the way SC is portrayed in concept art. The early concept art had a more stylized, slight comic book feel to the art. Then starting around 2015/2016, all of the concept art became generic, sterile, plastic artstation stuff. This has affected the ingame look of SC as well, just compare the old ArcCorp that felt lively and open compared to the cramped and shallow one we have today.

CIG has employed dozens of concept artists and since different concept artists have different styles we see different styles in Star Citizen concept art.

The first picture that you showed of some of the very first concept arts of ArcCorp was actually the reference for one of the first 3D studies of that landing location:


Back when the scope was much closer to what Freelancer with small areas and landing locations tied by loading screens.

The next city concept art's you posted as ArcCorp (the destroyed city surrounded by clouds) are actually from other system/planet/location.

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/c...ge-Concept-Art

As for ArcCorp evolution from concept art to reality there's a Star Citizen content creator that makes videos comparing concept vs reality of several locations/ships in Star Citizen, ArcCorp is one of them:


Full playlist here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWcr...qqd0h3YAI48ZyC

[ldev]

All this scope creep, and no ray tracing? Pathetic. I'm playing Metro Exodus - enchanced edition - and it looks amazing. Lightmaps in star citizen just scream 2004 game. It's 2022 now. It's so hilariously outdated kek.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I imagine ray tracing will be added eventually. It takes a long time for CIG to implement new graphics and performance stuff.

[Gorsameth]

Sunk cost fallacies and epic levels of Copium sustain the SC community.

They know '9 years of alpha is normal' is bullshit but they have to lie themselves because the only other option is to admit the project is abject failure.

[Aliven]

Sunk cost fallacies and epic levels of Copium sustain the SC community.

They know '9 years of alpha is normal' is bullshit but they have to lie themselves because the only other option is to admit the project is abject failure.

Actually that is problem with tying yourself, your image, your identity into some product. If somebody do that then any critique of said product (fun fact: it can be ideology too!) is automatically perceived as attack on that somebody, on his or her core identity. Because those two things are now tangled together. And we dont like to think of ourselfs as people who make mistakes. Oh no, we dont. We are great, we dont make mistakes, basically, as Homer said "everyone is stupid except me hehe".

The moment of changing opinion or stance when presented with objective evidence should be celebrated, because this is the moment of growth, understanding.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Genuine question; does this kind of fundamental lack of development knowledge really run the gamut of the SC fanbase?

Remember, most dissenters have been purged off of Spectrum, especially by the time of the 2020 road-map-to-the-roadmap fiasco. Most people still left there are bootlickers, and the dissenters who are left have to walk on eggshells to avoid getting whacked. Most genuine discussion of SC has moved offsite, either to other forums (such as the Elite Dangerous forums), or into discords.

[MrAnderson]

3.17.2 patch testing still ongoing on the PTU but the main features are out there:

There's also a free-fly ongoing with a good bunch of available ships to fly.

[banmebaby]

Soon™

[MrAnderson]

The ongoing JumpTown Event (fighting for drug outpost control) makes for some fierce fights both on the ground and on the air:

[Yelmurc]

There is a FreeFlight going on right now until the 15th if anyone was thinking on trying out the game.

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/p...-Free-Fly-2022

If you need a referral code, there is a randomizer that you can use that will give you someone's random code.

https://gorefer.me/randomizer/STAR

- - - Updated - - -

Soon™

While they have mapped out 100 systems in lore, I don't think it's fair to say they've failed if they don't deliver 100 systems. That goal was before they decided move the game from a map and loading screens between space and planets to a full 3D solar system in space.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Free flight this week huh... that's it?

Feels like the only interesting thing on the horizon is the cargo revamp, where you will be able to move cargo boxes on and off your ship and it will show up in the inventory UI. Might change how player piracy works. Right now you can't remove cargo from another player's ship, so when pirates shut down your ship they can't rob you, so they ask for a ransom in a credit transfer. After the cargo revamp, I suppose pirates might just move the cargo off of their victim's ship. For big haulers like the Caterpillar this might take too long so I'm guessing they will either stick with asking for credit ransom or try hijacking the ship.

Otherwise, guess we gotta wait another year to get an ETA on the magic server fix.

[Yelmurc]

Free flight this week huh... that's it?

Feels like the only interesting thing on the horizon is the cargo revamp, where you will be able to move cargo boxes on and off your ship and it will show up in the inventory UI. Might change how player piracy works. Right now you can't remove cargo from another player's ship, so when pirates shut down your ship they can't rob you, so they ask for a ransom in a credit transfer. After the cargo revamp, I suppose pirates might just move the cargo off of their victim's ship. For big haulers like the Caterpillar this might take too long so I'm guessing they will either stick with asking for credit ransom or try hijacking the ship.

Otherwise, guess we gotta wait another year to get an ETA on the magic server fix.

Patch 3.17.2 which probably comes out right after the freeflight event will have the reclaimer derelicts, nav mesh on planetary surfaces for AI, derelict outposts, several new lagrange points, new mission types, the Siege of Orison event, AI dropships and after the PTU patch today there seems to be a new anti air variant of the Atlas Platform called the Centurion.

So the patch will have some stuff to get keep current players busy for a few weeks. 3.18 which includes the cargo refactor that you mentioned, and hull stripping aka salvage version 1 will probably not be released to live until September at the earliest.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

None of this really change how the game is fundamentally played. Same game for the past 7 years and I've long since had my fill of it. Waiting for something that really shakes things up.

At least with NPCs walking on planets, maybe we can finally get creatures? At least have farms with space cows on them? Or dogs running around derelicts? Bears and giant spiders in caves? Horse riding or something?

[Yelmurc]

None of this really change how the game is fundamentally played. Same game for the past 7 years and I've long since had my fill of it. Waiting for something that really shakes things up.

At least with NPCs walking on planets, maybe we can finally get creatures? At least have farms with space cows on them? Or dogs running around derelicts? Bears and giant spiders in caves? Horse riding or something?

They mentioned in the Squadron 42 monthly report for June they've started to work on the Ai for fauna. While it's for squadron it should make its way to the PU.

The way I see it is that 3.18 will bring in Persistent Entity Streaming which is what the cargo refactor needs. If that works. I'd expect static server meshing first half of next year. This will probably just bring in Pyro without a player cap release. Since the players are split into two systems, I wouldn't be surprised in AI start working better as a byproduct. After that they'll probably try to break the static server meshing between planets, so Hurston and Crusader could be on server 1 and ArcCorp and Microtech could be on server 2. This will probably come with a player cap increase. Once that is done, they will move onto dynamic server meshing which is the end goal for that tech which should allow them to have 1 server for a city if 500 players are in that city. When dynamic server meshing is complete who knows probably 2024 at the earliest.

As for features I expect the major gameplay feature of 2023 will be the Multicrew Engineering, Physicalized damage, maybe a updated flight model, the Pyro System, and maybe the Nyx system. Everything else will just be more points of interest, events, mission types, and maybe additional work on trading and cargo since the cargo refactor will be in.

As for what they work on after that I really don't have a clue, they still need to work on exploration gameplay, scanning, ship refining, crafting, base building, fauna, and probably another dozen other things I can't remember.

If you're looking for release for Star Citizen I wouldn't expect it for at least 4 more years, though if Squadron 42 Episode 1 gets finished, I could see them moving a lot of the team to the PU for a year or two to get the PU out quicker. I think it's like 70% of the company is currently working on Squadron at the moment.

Who knows though, Chris Roberts will probably play some new game and decide we need Chivalry 2 system sword combat and push release out another year.

Personally, it's like a TV show to me, I watch the Inside Star Citizen and sometimes Star Citizen Live videos if they an actual Q & A, and read though patch notes and comm links as they are posted to the discord I follow. I play maybe once a week or two and try out new content when it comes out but it's not worth investing a ton of time or money into it until either I can get more of my friends to play it, or the game is further along in development.

[banmebaby]

While they have mapped out 100 systems in lore, I don't think it's fair to say they've failed if they don't deliver 100 systems. That goal was before they decided move the game from a map and loading screens between space and planets to a full 3D solar system in space.

"Guys if you give us $6,000,000 we will deliver you 100 solar systems at launch!"

*gets $6,000,000*

"Ah ah, jk, shit changed, you might get a dozen of them if you are lucky."

Because you know, that's just how it works, with every decision they make on this project, every past promise seems to become irrelevant, damn convenient I would say.

[Xeenith]

as much as I don't like Bethesda and their bug filled games, do you people think that StarField will have a big impact on SC player base and funding ?

[DarkAmbient]

as much as I don't like Bethesda and their bug filled games, do you people think that StarField will have a big impact on SC player base and funding ?

Not really. The people thirsting for Star Citizen aren't going to be sated by Starfield, at least, not significantly or permanently. It'll take the edge off for a while but that's it.

[banmebaby]

as much as I don't like Bethesda and their bug filled games, do you people think that StarField will have a big impact on SC player base and funding ?

None whatsoever. No other video game company can really compete with Star Citizen.

As CiG business is selling dreams, and not video games.