[Megathread] Star Citizen

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I honestly believe, due to the scope of this thing, it doesn't matter which development team is making it, it could have been bethesda, or blizzard or any big triple A developer. they'd all end up having to go through the same iterative process. it doesn't matter who is making this, its going to take the same amount of time no matter who is it. what is the most time consuming aspect of this game, the programming, the art and design? making these ships can't be a fast process.

My personal take is that the idea that Chris now envisions was conceptually doomed.

• Planets with a surface area of 12,560,000 kilometers squared.

• Each square kilometer is packed with harvestable nodes such as ore or plants. Additional stuff like animals to come later.

• Additionally, each planet has at least one city populated by hundreds of NPCs, and other complex scripted objects that servers have to keep track of like the dynamic elevators that move around in 3D.

• Planets have dozens of small trading outposts, also populated by NPCs.

• Planets also have dozens of bandit outposts, populated by NPCs, and crates filled with autogenerated loot, and quest items.

• There are half a dozen planets per star system.

• There are supposed to be at least 40+ star systems.

That is just the planets, not counting the several dozen of moons and space stations per star system that have same density in nodes and NPCs and elevators and loot that the servers have to keep track of. And bear in mind, that the servers have to keep track of all of this stuff in a star system that is millions of kilometers across. You start running into precision issues with the game engine with stuff jittering around because the coordinate numbers are too big.

And this doesn't even get into this being an MMO where the are supposed to be tens of thousands of players spawning ships with lots of scripted interactable like turrets or engineering stations, and then loading hundreds or thousands of crates of cargo onto those ships, with each crate having physics and being able to store more crap inside it, and so on. The sheer amount of stuff the servers have to keep track of and calculate is mindboggling insane.

The humble Freelancer clone we were initially promised wasn't going to be stupidly complex to program like this. You weren't going to have physicalized cargo. You weren't going to have walking on planets with high object density or countless NPCs.

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making these ships can't be a fast process.

The devs churn out new small to medium sized large ships in droves. The problem is that core gameplay loops like science, exploration, salvage, colonization, etc, haven't been designed and implemented yet, so when those ships are made they are released in an incomplete and sometimes nonfunctional state. When those gameplay loops are finally implemented, the devs are going to have to go back and rework all of those ships so they are now capable of salvage or colonization or whatever. Then there is the problem that the devs are unwilling to get around to implementing capital ships, even though players backed them almost a decade ago, because those ships were pitched under the presumption that you would be able to crew them with hundreds of other people in your guild and fight huge fleet battles involving thousands of players. Such huge ships with so many complex scripted objects like turrets, elevators, physicalized cargo and components, etc, would not be able to function in the current game. Players were crashing servers by simply spawning too many small ships at once.

There is simply too much crap for the servers to compute. It has led to gameplay loops like racing and content like entire planets being removed from the game. This has always been the struggle of the project and is the reason why the game has remained practically the same since 2019.

[Gorsameth]

the cost of innovation. or you can just be happy with the same recycled shit over and over again.

feel free to point to any alternative that is doing it better. I can wait.

Literally every game with something new in that ever released.

If you think there has been 0 innovation in the entire video gaming industry without CIG burning money on a project that is impossible then you are beyond delusional.

[Heathy]

I play all the games, I have a tarkov EoD, I play eve online (have done since 2008, I dual box the game, my two characters have 80m sp each), I have elite horizons (didn't buy the newest expansion haven't played it for a while, I did make a trip to the centre of the galaxy at one point many years ago in an asp, it took ages at 30yl per jump it was well over 1000 jumps after that trip I kinda lost interest I tagged a couple black holes and some earth likes here and there I think the last time I played it I had the vulture I did start to play around with the engineers but just burnt myself out from a lack of goals or overall interest)

I have no mans sky, I did play a bit during one of the recent events but I also haven't really logged into it for a while, Eve is my go to space game. its the game i've got the most progression in.

i'm subbed to wow, I've been pugging in wrath, I probably will pick up dragon isles I haven't played my priest in retail since early BFA.

I play black desert on occasion I think my maewha's gear score was somewhere around 284/320, I was working on tet blackstar armor but I tend to play for a couple weeks then give it a rest for a while, usually log in during events. make a bit of progress and stop again.

I think i've played most of the popular games that exist. there aren't many games I haven't tried.

lately i've been playing a lot of magic the gathering. digitally and also collecting the cards and building decks.

ashes of creation did pique my curiosity but its barely an alpha currently, it sounds as ambitious as SC, might be released around the same time by the looks of it.

I got too many indy games, I was looking at mad world, but its not looking so hot, I played it during one of the early alphas and it was buggy as hell. the art style was kinda cool though. very diablo like. maybe ill play that if it ever gets released.

[Cloverfield]

If that is true then you should be fully aware that Chris Roberts, his wife, his brother or the rest of the CIG management team are hardly "saving PC gaming", never mind being "innovators". Not after 10+ years of sub par content or straight non delivery. They are just simply simply promising pie in the sky (which anyone can do), and then wasting folks hard earned money while getting rich in the process.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

the cost of innovation. or you can just be happy with the same recycled shit over and over again.

I do agree that a lot of what Star Citizen has done is innovative. Waking up in an apartment, walking downstairs and through the streets, boarding a train to the spaceport, boarding your ship in the hangar and turning it on, radioing traffic control so they will open the doors, flying over forests, flying out of atmosphere into orbit, quantum travelling to the other side of a star system and then landing at a space gas station and heading inside to eat at a pizza shop... it really is impressive. But that by itself isn't fun, not in the current format of a broken MMO where you hardly see other people and halfbaked gameplay loops. It might have been possible in a singleplayer sandbox game, where the computer doesn't have to keep track of literally everything in existence, only the stuff immediately around the player. The devs should have been realistic with what they could accomplish rather than aiming for the impossible with all of this stuff in an MMO environment.

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Think we're going off on a tangent here. Isn't the real issue being Chris Roberts being in charge with no oversight? Didn't the same thing happen with Freelancer until he stepped down as director and the game finally released?

Yes. The initial pitch was feasible. It was simply Freelancer 2.0 and could have been achieved for much cheaper than the cost to develop Freelancer given that many of the technical problems had been solved and there were many off the shelf packages and tools that could speed up development. After the kickstarter, he started tacking on idea after idea. "Seemlessly flying from orbit to planet" and everything being physicalized was the moment where the project jumped the shark and at that point people should have confronted and told him that what he was envisioning was becoming impossible to compute.

[Heathy]

this is what they want to achieve with server meshing, I know servers don't have to render anything so they are just computing raw code, they don't have to generate any visuals. I don't think they'll manage to get 1000s of ppl, at least not until technology improves again, eve online only functions because of Tidi and they've had to trim the data transfer as far as they can so that the massive battles actually function. I remember a while ago they decided to remove missiles as physical or target-able objects so that it would remove some of the load on the server. (I think they can still be fire walled) but they are no longer 'objects' when travelling to a target. when you're alone in a solar system in Eve the data transfer is like 20 bytes up and down its that lean.

I'm not a programmer its not my problem to worry about trying to make this work. my pc that i'm using atm is too shit to play SC properly I still have a 1060, and a 4th gen i5. I have a slightly better / more modern pc as parts but i'm too lazy to put it together. when I get around to it will be the next time I play SC, this pc only has a 120gb ssd that is my C drive, I just don't have the space until I get the m.2. most of my games are currently installed on a 4tb external hdd.

[Gorsameth]

this is what they want to achieve with server meshing, I know servers don't have to render anything so they are just computing raw code, they don't have to generate any visuals. I don't think they'll manage to get 1000s of ppl, at least not until technology improves again, eve online only functions because of Tidi and they've had to trim the data transfer as far as they can so that the massive battles actually function. I remember a while ago they decided to remove missiles as physical or target-able objects so that it would remove some of the load on the server. (I think they can still be fire walled) but they are no longer 'objects' when travelling to a target. when you're alone in a solar system in Eve the data transfer is like 20 bytes up and down its that lean.

I'm not a programmer its not my problem to worry about trying to make this work. my pc that i'm using atm is too shit to play SC properly I still have a 1060, and a 4th gen i5. I have a slightly better / more modern pc as parts but i'm too lazy to put it together. when I get around to it will be the next time I play SC, this pc only has a 120gb ssd that is my C drive, I just don't have the space until I get the m.2. most of my games are currently installed on a 4tb external hdd.

But that is exactly the problem. SC cannot exist with Server Meshing, its the most important bottleneck they have and after 10 years its still not here.

They are selling bathroom upgrades to condo's in a 100 story skyscraper while having no concept of how to build the foundation.

[Heathy]

or the ppl making the bathrooms aren't the same ppl programming the back end.

this has always been an issue with game development where you have one team waiting for another team to complete something so that it can be passed on. I guess the longer this goes on, the more assets they create and the easier it'll be to create new stuff when you already have the prefabs made.

I don't really have much desire to throw any more money at the game. I do know a couple ppl who already have a pledge, one friend has a cutlass black so between the 3 of us we already have a ship thats fit for 3.

[Gorsameth]

or the ppl making the bathrooms aren't the same ppl programming the back end.

this has always been an issue with game development where you have one team waiting for another team to complete something so that it can be passed on. I guess the longer this goes on, the more assets they create and the easier it'll be to create new stuff when you already have the prefabs made.

I don't really have much desire to throw any more money at the game. I do know a couple ppl who already have a pledge, one friend has a cutlass black so between the 3 of us we already have a ship thats fit for 3.

They are indeed not the same person, but your ignoring the point.

After 10 years a crucial foundational piece of tech that the entire game rests upon still does not exist.

[banmebaby]

I don't think they'll manage to get 1000s of ppl, at least not until technology improves again, eve online only functions because of Tidi and they've had to trim the data transfer as far as they can so that the massive battles actually function.

Well, according to Chris Roberts it will =P Jesus tech will somehow enable our PCs to render all that shit, true innovation right there...

[1001]

then sue them, its really that simple. Ill wait for the class action with bated breath.

if you believe that strongly that you're in the right, it should be a sure thing no?

??? Ok, this is reaching pure silliness levels now. People are allowed to call something what they think it is without having to go to court and prove it is what they think it is....

there was no misunderstanding, you compared a company making a computer game, to scammers in India, you made that comparison.

You don't get to decide how I meant something, I get to decide that. I know how I intended the comparison to be and I have tried to explain it in my previous response.

taking them to court over their mismanagement is the only way you'll get any satisfying resolution from this, other wise it'll just keep on getting made. lets face it while the game might be a fraction of what its supposed to be, they wouldn't have to try very hard to prove that they are in fact, still working on the game. so while there is a level of frustration over the time frame. you can't prove that they aren't doing anything. and that is the issue, so long as they are making the game, it'll be impossible to prove some ulterior motive.

Sure but we can point to a multitude of examples that have occurred over the years to support a conclusion. Just because they are working on something does not make these examples irrelevant. In August 2016 Chris knew full well he could not deliver 3.0 by the end of the year (it would take another 15 months for them to deliver it) but that didn't stop him claiming it and providing a nice shiny $750 ship people could buy on the back of that good news. Personally I think if you do things like that you are scamming people.

[Amorac]

at least not until technology improves again

I think what they want (need) is not software to improve, well not really, but mostly far more powerful hardware to be developed, maybe even specialized hardware.

But you would still be limited by how fast all servers can communicate with each other (with 'bottlenecks' like switches/cables) while keeping everything on all servers (and clients) in sync. And if the max of 1 server stays at 100 players, that's going to be a nightmare, imho.

[Kyanion]

this is what they want to achieve with server meshing

And I want to achieve world peace, I see I'm making as much progress on that front as CIG is with server meshing. Who cares what they 'want' to do. What do they have after 12 years and 500 million dollars? Not the server meshing they promised that's for damn sure.

[qwerty123456]

Anyone who thinks SC is a scam cant even think for themselves, you just need to look at what is available to know for a 100% fact its not a scam, the current version of the alpha is better than most games, a scam doesnt give you a game of this level let alone build a huge company to develop it even further beyond release. If you claim its a scam then its because you cant bring up anything reasonable to say about it.

What do you mean by better? Literally a thousand games have more gameplay features than Star Citizen. The only thing you could say is better is the graphics.

[kenn9530]

But that is exactly the problem. SC cannot exist with Server Meshing, its the most important bottleneck they have and after 10 years its still not here.

They are selling bathroom upgrades to condo's in a 100 story skyscraper while having no concept of how to build the foundation.

It could survive actually without server meshing, the game is not reliant on having lots of ppl interacting in the same area, more player interaction just allows for a better experience, pyro is when they are implementing the first version of server meshing so claiming they dont have the foundation is wrong just like all your other posts claiming SQ42 doesnt exist, you dont have anything backing you up.

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this is what they want to achieve with server meshing, I know servers don't have to render anything so they are just computing raw code, they don't have to generate any visuals. I don't think they'll manage to get 1000s of ppl, at least not until technology improves again, eve online only functions because of Tidi and they've had to trim the data transfer as far as they can so that the massive battles actually function. I remember a while ago they decided to remove missiles as physical or target-able objects so that it would remove some of the load on the server. (I think they can still be fire walled) but they are no longer 'objects' when travelling to a target. when you're alone in a solar system in Eve the data transfer is like 20 bytes up and down its that lean.

I'm not a programmer its not my problem to worry about trying to make this work. my pc that i'm using atm is too shit to play SC properly I still have a 1060, and a 4th gen i5. I have a slightly better / more modern pc as parts but i'm too lazy to put it together. when I get around to it will be the next time I play SC, this pc only has a 120gb ssd that is my C drive, I just don't have the space until I get the m.2. most of my games are currently installed on a 4tb external hdd.

They dont need to get 1000s of ppl to all be able to see each other in the same area, they are just expanding things to allow as many players as possible to interact with each other, anyone expecting to see thousands of players and hundreds of ships all in the same instance is not in touch with reality, each instance should have no problems handing a few hundred players and ships since each instance will only handle a certain area instead of everything in the system.

Each solar system will be getting split into as many servers as needed for the amount of players playing.

[banmebaby]

But you would still be limited by how fast all servers can communicate with each other (with 'bottlenecks' like switches/cables) while keeping everything on all servers (and clients) in sync. And if the max of 1 server stays at 100 players, that's going to be a nightmare, imho.

… and this, is my biggest grip with CiG.

Server meshing is being sold as the solution to all these issues. It isn’t.
Server meshing won’t solve client’s hardware and internet speed limitations.
Thus even if this Jesus Tech comes to life, the problem will still remain.

Meanwhile Chris Roberts keeps talking about “thousands” of players sharing the same spaces and selling you thousands of dollars’ worth of spaceships with max player capacity of almost up to a hundred.

It could survive actually without server meshing, the game is not reliant on having lots of ppl interacting in the same area, more player interaction just allows for a better experience, pyro is when they are implementing the first version of server meshing so claiming they dont have the foundation is wrong just like all your other posts claiming SQ42 doesnt exist, you dont have anything backing you up.

... and so much for all those promised features that were just supposedly waiting on server meshing to work properly and get released =P

[ldev]

What do you mean by better? Literally a thousand games have more gameplay features than Star Citizen. The only thing you could say is better is the graphics.

no ray tracing? lmao PS4 era graphics

[Gorsameth]

It could survive actually without server meshing, the game is not reliant on having lots of ppl interacting in the same area, more player interaction just allows for a better experience, pyro is when they are implementing the first version of server meshing so claiming they dont have the foundation is wrong just like all your other posts claiming SQ42 doesnt exist, you dont have anything backing you up.

Every year that SQ42 is not releasing is another year proving me right. But sure, keep being you.

CIG's word has literal negative value, if they say something that makes it less likely to be true at this point. No one cares that they say its coming with Pyro. Tell me when its ingame and working, when thousands of players are flying around seamlessly switching between servers as they spread across hundreds of star systems.

Until then, it simply doesn't exist.

[kenn9530]

Every year that SQ42 is not releasing is another year proving me right. But sure, keep being you.

CIG's word has literal negative value, if they say something that makes it less likely to be true at this point. No one cares that they say its coming with Pyro. Tell me when its ingame and working, when thousands of players are flying around seamlessly switching between servers as they spread across hundreds of star systems.

Until then, it simply doesn't exist.

Your word has a negative value because you dont have information only available to CiG and its employees, if a company is working on something then it does exist, does GTA 6 not exist because you dont know anything about it, does starfield not exist because we cant play it yet, your logic is as usual completely incorrect, we currently have a game better than many games even in an alpha, its just going to continue to improve, all you provide is lies.

[banmebaby]

you dont have information only available to CiG and its employees

... and you do ? =P

if a company is working on something then it does exist

complete idiot end of story

:^)