[Megathread] Star Citizen

[Proskill]

i bought 2 of the same item (helm, chest and smth else). how can i actually sell stuff in this game????

[Val the Moofia Boss]

i bought 2 of the same item (helm, chest and smth else). how can i actually sell stuff in this game????

You can't sell armor and ship equipment right now, that feature hasn't been implemented yet (which is frustrating because if you have bought a lot of stuff it starts taking a while to scroll down through all of it). They're redoing the inventory system in patch 3.11 which is supposed to release later this month, but I don't remember if it will allow you to sell armor and ship equipment.

Right now, the only stuff you can sell are trading commodities, like ore you mine from caves and asteroids, or trade goods you buy from outposts and stations, like aluminium or drugs. You sell by going to a trading console inside the outpost/space station. At outposts, the trading console is usually going to be the front desk, so if there are multiple buildings you only need to look in the first room; no need to spend time looking through all of them for it. On space stations, the trading console is inside a room called the Admin office, but in big cities it's going to be in a different place, like the Trade building in Area 18.

[MrAnderson]

You can't sell armor and ship equipment right now, that feature hasn't been implemented yet (which is frustrating because if you have bought a lot of stuff it starts taking a while to scroll down through all of it). They're redoing the inventory system in patch 3.11 which is supposed to release later this month, but I don't remember if it will allow you to sell armor and ship equipment.

Right now, the only stuff you can sell are trading commodities, like ore you mine from caves and asteroids, or trade goods you buy from outposts and stations, like aluminium or drugs. You sell by going to a trading console inside the outpost/space station. At outposts, the trading console is usually going to be the front desk, so if there are multiple buildings you only need to look in the first room; no need to spend time looking through all of them for it. On space stations, the trading console is inside a room called the Admin office, but in big cities it's going to be in a different place, like the Trade building in Area 18.

You can also sell your services since they added the credit trading between players.
Picking up players from prison for example as depicted in this video:

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Looks like the next patch is taking the first step towards removing armistice zones, but only around rest stops. Still can't kill people around Grim Hex/cities/orbital stations/Port Olisar. Morphologis thinks that CIG won't lift armistice zones around those areas because the servers are so unstable that the AI wouldn't be able to intervene half the time, which makes sense.

Glaring server issues aside, there is one other problem I see. There is no insurance and no permadeath in yet. Insurance and permadeath is supposed to be a huge deterrent.

For those who don't know, the idea is that each time you die, your character will degrade a little bit, like losing a limb. Eventually, after enough deaths, your character will die for real, and you will create a new character who will inherit your prior character's assets, but not everything. For example, reputations might not carry over, and if they do they will carry over only a percentage, etc.

I don't know if they still plan on implementing that permadeath system; it's been seven years since that post and they haven't really talked about it since. But a sandbox game in which you can draw your weapons and theoretically kill anyone at any time doesn't work unless you have heavy consequences that will deter people from doing it most of the time. The way SC works right now, there are no real consequences for criminals. If you're caught, you're sent to prison, which means you just log off and come back the next day when you're sentence is over (or, if you're a part of a group playing on the same server, you can break out and get escorted to PO in about half an hour no problem).

Removing armistice zones around rest stops makes it very dangerous for traders. Criminals can follow traders to rest stops and blow them up, with all of the trader's and miner's hard work being lost, while criminals face a meager penalty. Well, Star Citizen already kinda has this problem, with trolls being able to ram their small ships at max speed into caterpillars that are landing at Grim or PO and one shot them, but it's going to get worse. Pad ramming is a level 1 fine IIRC, so that just means after you blew up a guy's million UEC investment in cargo, you only have to alt tab out of the game and watch youtube for 15 minutes while your prison sentence clocks down.

[Jastall]

Looks like the next patch is taking the first step towards removing armistice zones, but only around rest stops. Still can't kill people around Grim Hex/cities/orbital stations/Port Olisar. Morphologis thinks that CIG won't lift armistice zones around those areas because the servers are so unstable that the AI wouldn't be able to intervene half the time, which makes sense.

Glaring server issues aside, there is one other problem I see. There is no insurance and no permadeath in yet. Insurance and permadeath is supposed to be a huge deterrent.

For those who don't know, the idea is that each time you die, your character will degrade a little bit, like losing a limb. Eventually, after enough deaths, your character will die for real, and you will create a new character who will inherit your prior character's assets, but not everything. For example, reputations might not carry over, and if they do they will carry over only a percentage, etc.

I don't know if they still plan on implementing that permadeath system; it's been seven years since that post and they haven't really talked about it since. But a sandbox game in which you can draw your weapons and theoretically kill anyone at any time doesn't work unless you have heavy consequences that will deter people from doing it most of the time. The way SC works right now, there are no real consequences for criminals. If you're caught, you're sent to prison, which means you just log off and come back the next day when you're sentence is over (or, if you're a part of a group playing on the same server, you can break out and get escorted to PO in about half an hour no problem).

Removing armistice zones around rest stops makes it very dangerous for traders. Criminals can follow traders to rest stops and blow them up, with all of the trader's and miner's hard work being lost, while criminals face a meager penalty. Well, Star Citizen already kinda has this problem, with trolls being able to ram their small ships at max speed into caterpillars that are landing at Grim or PO and one shot them, but it's going to get worse. Pad ramming is a level 1 fine IIRC, so that just means after you blew up a guy's million UEC investment in cargo, you only have to alt tab out of the game and watch youtube for 15 minutes while your prison sentence clocks down.

Wow, this looks like a griefer's wet dream. And here I thought EVE Online was bad about it.

[CogsNCocks]

You can also sell your services since they added the credit trading between players.
Picking up players from prison for example as depicted in this video:

Haha I've watched that multiple times now, very entertaining with awesome editing, voice acting, and music use.

[Proskill]

3.11 is LIVE btw

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I'm tempted to melt my 325a and get a 125a or a 135c instead (and use the left over store credit for something else). The 300i series looks like a big fat bus in comparison, while the 100i looks like an actually sleak spaceship. To enter the 300i series, you have to wait 4 seconds for the ladder to unfold, and then you're locked into 5 second long animation climbing up the ladder and exposed to any incoming fire by hostiles. With the 100i series, you wait 3 seconds for the door to open and you just run straight in. Both the 300i and the 100i have beds, and both have amazing, unobstructed cockpit window views. The only real differences in performance is that the 100i has 1 size 1 shield, while the 300i has 2 size 1s. The 100i has 2 size 3 gun mounts and 2 size 2 gun mounts, while the 300i has 3 size 3 gun mounts.

At this point, I'm just waiting to hear if the 100i's maneuverability has been tweaked. From what I heard during PTU testing, the 100i flew like a brick. If it's been tweaked to be more agile like a racing ship or an arrow, I'd be very, very tempted to try it out. Having 1 shield generator isn't a problem if you can easily dodge incoming fire like an arrow or a racing ship.

[Majestic12]

Haven't checked in for a while, but here's an update. Chris Roberts the saint has graced the community with his presence and written a lengthy reply in the AMA thread regarding SQ42 and The Pledge.

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/s...ay-ama/3434612

This just goes to show how deep Chris has sunk into his delusions, he's now pretending that the Pledge was only for Star Citizen as a game(as opposed to project) and not for Squadron 42. He's essentially trying to justify them being radio silent on the SQ42 beta and failing spectacularly. It's laughable how he actually could type that and think it was a good idea to post. They haven't lived up to the pledge, period.

Some other juicy bits: People noticed a while back that the number in the pledge tracker was changed and money, simply put, vanished.

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/s...ly-showing-a-l

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/s...on-have-disapp

Why? Who knows, but it's obvious CIG are tampering with the figures which happened pretty near the time when they did the UK filings. Coincidence?

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Haven't checked in for a while, but here's an update. Chris Roberts the saint has graced the community with his presence and written a lengthy reply in the AMA thread regarding SQ42 and The Pledge.

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/s...ay-ama/3434612

Goodness gracious!

2019
CIG stops updating the SQ42 roadmap
CIG: "We don't think the roadmap reflects the true development of SQ42, so we have stopped updating it and are going to bring you guys a video."
skip to July 2020
still no video
CIG: "we could have spoken up at any time during this months long silence on the state of SQ42, but, hey, we are giving you a road map to a road map!"
October 2020

As usual, they go with the "we don't want to give away the experience and story away" excuse as their justification for why they haven't talked about SQ42 development for two years.

We also communicate way more than any other developer or publisher than I am aware of in terms of work and progress on Star Citizen, which is the game “The Pledge” was referring to; We have multiple video shows per week, lore updates, developers regularly engage in the forums, have a weekly newsletter and well as regular monthly reports.

Yes, you guys do talk a lot about the game. We watch the Youtube videos. But you're not making videos on the topics people want to know about. Nobody ever reads your email newsletters because they don't tell us anything concrete. A vague summary in a monthly email newsletter on "stuff that was worked on" isn't very reassuring. The Youtube videos where you sit down and show what you are working on and have devs explain the technical challenges is reassuring. It also doesn't help that you aren't doing videos on the stuff people are worried about. People want videos on SQ42. They want to know what's the hold up. People want videos on server meshing. They want to know that yes, it's actually being researched and you're trying out different implementations. Don't just say "oh yeah, we got a prototype of server meshing working in Spring 2019" and then literally never say anything about it again as server instability grows worse and it becomes more blatantly clear that the game can't be further developed until the server problems are fixed.

I don’t think the issue is whether we treat our community with respect

I think that’s the crux of the issue; it’s impossible to please all the people all the time

*facepalm*

It's really simple. Grab devs. Sit them down. Turn on video recorder. Talk.

• How far is SQ42, really? How did SQ42 jump from "beta is just around the corner, release for Christmas 2015/16/17/18" to half of the levels not even being greyboxed?

• What is going on with server meshing? Did you actually get a working prototype up in Spring 2019? How has its implementation towards release coming along? What challenges are you facing?

• Why did development on Star Citizen slow down to a crawl? Where those devs moved over the SQ42 project? Or are they working on stuff and it's just not able to be implemented due to the server problems? What stuff have they've been working on?

[Cyclone Jack]

As usual, they go with the "we don't want to give away the experience and story away" excuse as their justification for why they haven't talked about SQ42 development for two years.

It wouldn't surprise me if CR decided to make another change that required them to start over...again.

[Gorsameth]

It wouldn't surprise me if CR decided to make another change that required them to start over...again.

My guess is the systems needed to make even SQ42 work don't exist and they can't get them to work. Same issues as with SC itself (they are for a large part the same game after all). What they want to do isn't possible and hasn't been possible for probably years at this point. But Chris won't compromise on his vision so either he is milking the project for all its worth or he is hoping they can stay afloat long enough for someone to find a miracle solution. Meanwhile the wheels are spinning and fuel is being burned but the car ain't moving.

Lets be real, there never was a working prototype in spring 2019 and SQ42 has never been just around the corner. Chris simply lies, often and repeatedly.

[Dorfadin]

Has release date been giving yet? feel like I been waiting 10 yrs for this lol

[Val the Moofia Boss]

They just released two videos on SQ42 a couple hours ago.

The first was an intro video to the series. Brian and Elms repeated what had been said a few months ago: that they had recorded a podcast talking about SQ42 development, and then Chris wanted to redo everything and turn it into a more comprehensive thing. Then the rest of the video is Chris talking but not really saying anything of note.

The second video is the first episode in the series.

First segment was an art guy shows us how a stealth level was coming along. You're infiltrating a space station. Different entrances, not all are equal. Some entrances are guarded, others have ships going in and out, so if you try that you will probably be detected. Some shortcuts. You can either go in guns blazing or try to stealth your way through past the the NPCs and go to the objective. If you take time to look through the environment, look at computers and such, you can download the floorplan to your mobiglass. You can go to the powerplant room and try messing with controls, etc.

Second segment was an AI programmer showing off "interrupt tech". Basically, in between missions, you wander around your Squadron's Idris, which has about 80 NPCs. In between each mission, some NPCs will have conversations with each other. You can try listening on conversations, or if you walk up close they will acknowledge you and you will join it. Things can get awkward if you try to join a private conversation. You can back away, and then reenter the convo. If you back away again you will have left the convo for good. They showed different trigger zones for convos; like if you have your back turned and you are standing far away, you will exit the convo, but if you are close enough they will keep talking to you. Etc.

Cool stuff, but they didn't really talk about the overall state of the SQ42 project. How many levels are done? What is the progress on all of them? Etc.

This series is supposed to be quarterly, so we won't get another video for 3 months.

- - - Updated - - -

Has release date been giving yet? feel like I been waiting 10 yrs for this lol

Star Citizen the MMO's development is indefinite. Too many features, too much content promised. It will remain in definite for another decade unless the funding runs out. They might "release" Star Citizen, but it won't have all of the features and content promised and it will only be a "release" in name only, probably a desperation attempt to sell copies to recoup some money.

Chris Roberts said at Citizencon 2014 that SQ42 was coming 2015. Then the next year he said 2016. Then the next year he said 2017. And then he stopped throwing out dates.

IIRC, the story goes that SQ42 was actually somewhat completed and it was foreseeable that it would have released soon, but then they apparently scrapped it and started from scratch, explaining why the project suddenly jumped from "all levels have been greyboxed" in 2015 to "barely half of the levels have been greyboxed" as of 2019.

Or, @Gorsameth is correct and SQ42 was never anywhere near as complete as Chris said and development didn't actually begin until the last few years.

[Verdugo]

Place your bets, who is going to reach release first, Chris Roberts or Yandere dev.

[Proskill]

Place your bets, who is going to reach release first, Chris Roberts or Yandere dev.

i just watched a 40 min document about this yandere dev guy as i didnt know him before. holy shit

- - - Updated - - -

https://youtu.be/wzCdis3FiwM

[Easo]

Place your bets, who is going to reach release first, Chris Roberts or Yandere dev.

Hmm, probably still Yandere dev. Did not follow for 2 years and thus missed the great controvery but he at least pushes out some updates and talks (probably too much, work more on the game...), unlike CIG.

[Cyclone Jack]

My guess is the systems needed to make even SQ42 work don't exist and they can't get them to work. Same issues as with SC itself (they are for a large part the same game after all).

You're probably on to something there, since all of the updates are showing off fancy graphics, but no actual gameplay. I'm sure a large part of that is because the director keeps shifting focus. Instead of drilling down on one thing and getting it right, they throw out some prototype, then move on to something else. We're 8 years in and they still haven't nailed down the flight model, because they still aren't done with all of the features required for it, because they're off refining planets, biomes, and adding survival mechanics, or adding in an extremely basic mining prototype (then leaving it to rot), or adding a basic cave prototype, or creating a prison system (which I'm sure will be left to rot as they shift focus again), etc.

The sad part is, the actual developers are doing good work, but the directors can't pick a direction, so nothing substantial is getting accomplished.

[Aliven]

You're probably on to something there, since all of the updates are showing off fancy graphics, but no actual gameplay. I'm sure a large part of that is because the director keeps shifting focus. Instead of drilling down on one thing and getting it right, they throw out some prototype, then move on to something else. We're 8 years in and they still haven't nailed down the flight model, because they still aren't done with all of the features required for it, because they're off refining planets, biomes, and adding survival mechanics, or adding in an extremely basic mining prototype (then leaving it to rot), or adding a basic cave prototype, or creating a prison system (which I'm sure will be left to rot as they shift focus again), etc.

The sad part is, the actual developers are doing good work, but the directors can't pick a direction, so nothing substantial is getting accomplished.

The devs are payed for their job.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

In more fun news

Lore wars

Anyone who owns Star Citizen can vote for who will be the Empire's next Imperator for the next 10 years.

The TL;DR of the candidates is:

• Laylani Addison: Young professor at a university. She wants to research AI (READ: invent Skynet). Increase government spending on education.

• Titus Constigan: Libertarian gentlemen CEO who wants to deregulate inter-system trade and use tax revenue generated by the upswing in the economy to bolster defense spending.

• Paul Lesalle: Wants to lift the Prime Directive that bans touching worlds with bacteria that might evolve into a sentient being in a few billion years and just start colonizing and extracting resources from those planets. Also wants criminals to be fined instead of going to jail.

• Mira NGO: Radical who wants to move capital to Terra. Outlaw terraforming. Wants to induce mandatory hiring quotas for Tevarin (alien minority in the Empire, they got annexed after attacking the Empire).

• Illyana Sharrad: Old hag wants to dump more money down the drain making an artificial planet that has been stuck in development hell for 150 years.

Obviously Constigan is the only sane choice. Also, unlike the other candidates, he's actually pretty honest, and recognizes that corporations are more powerful in impacting a nation and society than being President/Imperator. Also, in the face of the Vanduul Invasion, he's really the only guy who's going to get the job done.

Interviewer: Why do you want to become Imperator?

TITUS COSTIGAN: I don’t think this question gets asked enough because it’s easy to dodge by simply saying that you want to help people.

Interviewer: And that’s not your thing?

TITUS COSTIGAN: Don’t get me wrong, it absolutely is, but I’m already helping people each and every day.

...

If that’s your main goal, then becoming Imperator probably isn’t the most effective way to achieve it.

Whereas the other candidates give the typical "I am an ideal citizen, I'm going to magically make the things better, and you should vote for me if you are patriotic" crap.

Vote here

Some people think that the vote will determine what new content or systems will be prioritized next (lol). I personally just want to see more of this fluff ingame. Would be cool if Star Citizen had an ingame news broadcast agency like that news agency in EVE Online (I forgot the name of it, and apparently Evelopedia shut down in 2016. There like ingame advertisements and news broadcasts you could watch).