freelancer to hornet still exists because they aren't limited ships so there's no reason to horde the CCUs
you can probably just ask support to reverse your freelancer upgrade though
caterpillar>pirate edition is $0 and they didn't include that option, little upsetting. I know you can melt and rebuy but my cat is $50 cheaper than current price
https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/107007/9209e4dd-8265-42ac-b1b5-077511af1e82/image.png
bragging rights aside, I wasn't too much a fan of its interior re-paint, very salmon reddish-pink instead of the standard greens
Disallowing $0 CCUs is annoying, should have had them $5 by now or limit them to once a week at least (and apply instantly and not able to horde them).
It's annoying but they made the CCU system too flexible and forgiving and watched the grey market go "hold my beer" and bend the inch they were given into a light-year of profiting personally off CIG's back. They plan on expiring existing $0 CCUs... eventually. It was supposed to come as the beginning of a rolling expiration with the release of 3.0 but they either chickened out or just forgot.
I think that if CIG were only just now rolling out a CCU system, after years of demand and shitbuckets of grey market activity speculating on price increases, they'd probably set it up such that any linear transfer, what'd normally be a $0 CCU in the real system, would be a $5 minimum. It'd be dumb but it'd limit abuse and allow for lateral transfers, and melting would get all cash spent back as normal. But they didn't, they came up with the CCU system as a bandaid solution that, they probably thought and hoped, would be short-term as they'd be going live within ~2-3 years as of the plans of the time. We all know what happened there, and CCUs became a much longer game.
If they tried to introduce $5-minimum CCUs now and re-enabled lateral transfers with that minimum, that'd just piss almost everyone off because the hoarders who stockpiled thousands at a time would be utterly validated. Unless they also nuked all $0 CCUs at the same time, which would piss off more or less everyone. CIG's walking a thin line in trying to reel in the upgrade system a bit at a time.
https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/210225/ac6605a8-5f80-434e-bef8-453990217c86/StarCitizen 2018-11-30 23-46-48-86.jpg
We Citizen Halo now
Gonna be honest with you, I desperately want SOMETHING otherworldly in the game SOMEWHERE.
Not necessarily a Halo ring, but maybe something akin to the Citadel from Mass Effect fully realized. An artificial city planet or habitable ecosystem that's floating through space.
With the tech they've made it would be entirely unique and fully fleshed out and explorable - and that would be fucking insane.
I too agree that it would be nice if the game had something that was at least interesting or unique in its universe.
They have the scale and the engine and the procedural tools to do something crazy like procgen a full-scale Death Star, albeit one filled with lots and lots of fairly samey rooms.
But when you consider the actual size of the Death Star, and the fact that a million people were on board (and died) when Luke blew up the completed one, it's a little less fun to actually see as an implemented in-game place. Mostly it'd be a place to get lost in.
Now obviously a Death Star is an extreme example of a megastructure, even at 1:10 scale, but my point is that once you go above a certain scale you're just asking for the Minecraft problem to smack you in the face from over-reliance on procgen unless you invest an ungodly amount of time building out thousands of props and set decor pieces and somehow get the procgen to use all of them in a way that keeps everything fresh and unique.
I mean, fuck, Archon station, the Shubin mining facility that plays a major role in SQ42 is now 16km wide and has its own internal tram as a fast-travel function because otherwise the player would have to spend far too much time just walking from point of interest to point of interest. CIG's struggling with this problem in under 16km as-is. Though to be fair you could cram hella cool shit in 16km cubed.
Having said all that, I think it'd be cool to have things of a reasonable scale to explore (an entire derelict Gold Horizon ring station, for example), and something in that size range that's of unidentified and definitely non-human in origin would be great. It's possible that the Artemis, the lost sub-FTL generation ship that left Earth before we discovered jump points, might actually appear in the PU as a big derelict wreck for players to board and finally solve one of the oldest mysteries in the game (older than the crowdfunding campaign).
While typing this up I had a wild idea, and I'm calling this Chris Roberts' secret endgame goal as the final finishing touch on SC's legacy before he finally retires from the project and from major game development in general: A ringworld. A big one. Doing this would require shittons of work on the engine's already-homebuilt procgen terrain system to handle the sheer scale of the Ringworld and tuning the LOD detail levels so actually rendering the Ringworld is a reasonable task for computers built by mortals. Reminder that the original Ringworld in Niven's book was 1AU in diameter and 1.6 million kilometers wide, resulting in a total surface area 3 million times that of Earth. You wouldn't be able to even view more than a small segment of the Ringworld at a time when close enough for the terrain to be at more than simple LODs, so it's not crazy to imagine StarEngine attempting to do it.
The Ringworld alone would represent hundreds of thousands of times the amount of surface terrain available in the entire rest of the game. I'm just imagining that the final content update to SC is this, and then CIG keeps the servers open for as many years as they can while people colonize the ringworld and stake out territory.
Yes, it's absolutely insane and over the top, and this is why I believe that it's possible that somewhere in the back of his crazy mind, Roberts is holding onto this as a late-game surprise. We all know he wouldn't turn down the chance if someone even suggested it could be possible to do it.
he already did a dyson sphere in freelancer so I'm sure the idea will pop into his head eventually
the mega-structure idea is great though, something like the citadel is easily doable with current tech and would be the perfect set pieces for the alien solar systems
I think what you're describing is really towards the extreme of what I meant. I don't think a ringworld that's 1 AU in diameter is really what I meant. The Halo rings from the games aren't nearly that large. And, of course, we already have the huge city that just came out in PTU. Even that city isn't 100% explorable in terms of buildings and interiors, just very specific sections (plus the ability to fly over it all).
The presidium on the Citadel in Mass Effect was visibly curved, and probably didn't actually arc around more than a few miles. The arms had cities and districts on them, but nothing really larger than what we've seen already in tech demos presented by CIG for their procedural planets and cities.
I think we already have the Minecraft issue you're talking about. But it would be fun to have a location like the presidium or the citadel as a whole. Multiple cultures, using the freedom of space to create interesting and weird architecture that wouldn't work otherwise.
I think there was mention of a big cosmopolitan trading hub in the lore somewhere
Oh I know. The Ringworld stuff wasn't a direct response to you, it was a crazy idea I had while responding to you. I used the Death Star as my example and admitted that even that was an extreme in terms of size and scale. A ringworld goes beyond extreme because it's pretty much a gigastructure, and I know you weren't proposing anything that crazy. But it'd be an insane endgame stunt to pull from the dev team, late in SC's lifespan.
Shubin's mining station is 16km on its longest axis and it's above the scale that can be comfortably traversed by a player in a reasonable amount of time, thus the tram. Fast travel between major sections of a Citadel-like habitat would obviously not be too unreasonable lore-wise and relatively easy to implement on a technical level. My hesitations stem from the design challenges of making such a structure fun and useful for gameplay; the technical aspects are already covered by StarEngine.
Spider, lashed together from the steady accumulation of wreckages adapted into shelter, for one.
game sucks look cool simulator
https://i.imgur.com/3mLjQF7.jpg
https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/2304/fb117447-f8dc-43e3-a513-a5b780559afe/ScreenShot1236.jpg
Can't wait for Lorville to get optimization so I can get more than 30fps in it.
I guess you were right about getting computer parts for free off Amazon.
Crusader seems to be as edgy as you.
Patch 3.3.7 was released to PTU and then live. It's a minor update that primarily attempts to fix some bugs, including the negative UEC mobiglas bug(s). No actual new content.
Greycat PTVs purchased on the website Voyager Direct (before it was shut down) and Greycats obtained by the referral program will have LTI added "in the near future": https://robertsspaceindustries.com/spectrum/community/SC/forum/7/thread/vd-greycat-retro-insurance/1759207
According to Reddit the Retaliator got a silent update, with turrets being buffed to S2 and S3 and interior and exterior touch-ups and updating (including ship-component access panels).
So for anyone who missed the anniversary sale event, two new concept ships were unveiled, with one flyable immediately in 3.3.5/6.
https://media.robertsspaceindustries.com/wbowcyik07yey/source.jpg
The Anvil Arrow is flyable now, and it strongly indicates that CIG is going to make some changes to the current Gladius because it essentially outclasses it in every way. The Arrow is a permanent addition to the store, and there is also an Arrow starter package. There is also a Q&A post about it.
https://media.robertsspaceindustries.com/xq17t4qv4byia/source.jpg
The Aopoa San'tok.yāi is the Khartu-al's big brother and is a light-medium fighter with four S3 Xi'An laser repeaters and eight S2 missiles. It has a Q&A and it also appears to be a permanent store addition despite being in concept, not flyable.
Also, here's last week's roadmap update:
https://i.imgur.com/5yfSvg8.jpg
3.4 is in Evocati: Hurston and moons are now mission targets and Clovus Darneely now gives quests instead of just mumbling about shit. FPS AI bunker missions are now in, the Freelancer variants are in, Lorville Business District is in and connects to the rest of Lorville through Leavsden Station, and there've been some turret enhancements. Possibly the most useful change, air traffic control contacts will now appear at the top, not the bottom, of your comms contact list.
https://i.imgur.com/jh8ROUg.jpg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-omJQiSWf1I
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kF7GF4W12JE
Carrack confirmed back in production, and it is smaller than the last model we saw -- it's still larger than the original design but smaller than WIPs we've seen since.
So if I melt down a pledge that had LTI where I upgraded the ship, and then buy back the original pledge, I keep the LTI and the original perks I had right? My pledge is the Arbiter - LTI original backer pledge where I upgraded to a Hornet.
You will be buying back the original package with all of the original benefits, yes. You cannot melt packages with physical pledge rewards associated with them, but the Arbiter package doesn't include any so you should be good to go.
So I should be able to go back to my 325A without any issues then? Nice.
Can confirm, I've done it to remove an upgrade. but make sure you haven't spent your once (yearly?) 'buyback token' thing
oh so I could have done that to get the buccaneer....?
I don't think the free Cutty->Bucc CCU code is available for pre-Bucc-concept Cutlass owners anymore. If your package's ship's base value is $100, yes you can CCU to a Bucc if you reset your package by melt/repurchase, but you'll probably need to pay $10 for it unless you have another freebie Cutty->Bucc CCU on your account.
for everybody's reference:
the token is awarded quarterly, usually half a month into the start of each quarter.
the buyback token allows you to use store credit to re-purchase a pledge that you melted, but only the base item of that prior pledge. Example, dargon had a game package that came with a 325A, but upgraded it with a separate CCU purchase to a hornet in the past. Melting that gave the full value paid into it back, BUT the only item visible in their buyback page is the game package+325A combo, at its original price.
Buyback tokens DO NOT STACK, meaning you will only have one at any given time. If you plan on buying something back sooner than later, make sure to use it before the tokens are refreshed sometime mid-january
you can always use actual money to buy back items in your melt pile and it won't require/spend your token, but as always that better be money you want to give to the game. Better to wait for the next token refresh in most cases.
Well decided to "why the hell not" it and melted my pledge/bought it back and I now have a shiny new Anvil Hawk.
Was never much for trading etc so this is a much better fit, its also kicking rad in the visuals department like damn son
"Dead or alive, you're coming with me!"
So today has been a busy news day for CIG. At 10am, CR posted this Letter from the Chairman:
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/16912-Letter-From-The-Chairman
TL;DR:
The release roadmap for the single-player campaign, Squadron 42, is now online. Spoiler alert: Content-complete by end of 2019, late 2020 for release.
CIG published their financial records for 2012 through 2017, including income, expenses breakdowns, and headcount, showing how much they've raised and where it's been spent.
CIG have made a deal with Clive Calder, co-founder of the Zomba Music Group, and his son Keith Calder, independent film producer and co-founder of Snoot Entertainment, to take $46 million in investment from them in exchange for ~10% of shares in the project. This partnership is intended to bring entertainment marketing expertise (and the additional funding, implied to be spent on marketing) on board ahead of the release of Squadron 42.
As part of the partnership and investment two new board members have been added: Dan Offner, a lawyer and entrepreneur and the Calders' nominee, and Eli Klein, an advisor to the company and apparently long-time friend of Chris Roberts. Roberts maintains majority control of the board and company.
The corporate blog posted this fact sheet regarding the partnership/investment.
3.4 is going live today or tomorrow because it has to, so the 3.4 flyable ships sale is up: Freelancer variants, Reliant Kore, 600i Luxury variant, and the Hawk. 3.4 is on open PTU right now, and pretty close but the instances keep crashing.
A holiday sales promotion is going on as well, with limited quantities of discounted Mustang/Aurora starter packs ($10 off as usual), as well as Greycats, and also discounted starters and (not-discounted) Greycats as giftable items for others -- all warbond. There are also a couple of contests with ships/packages to win - one for screenshots and one for SC-themed greeting cards.
https://i.redd.it/flzfm9qqfh521.png
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1yXxrdrfdM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOPAsg77PsI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1L7Pp7j2lg
And here's video catch-up:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xAJgRFc01c
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IIs0djWs9U
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOkoEEsRg2E
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxqaaXlGNCk
3.4 is live!
Patch notes are important this time around! Cliff notes:
NOTE: Although there are still several major issues to fix, we are pushing a prelimary LIVE release to test for stability.
Mission markers will sometimes fail to appear. W/A: On the mobiGlas, untrack and retrack the mission to generate a marker.
VOIP is off by default and will need to be activated manually by the player using the comms app of the mobiGlas.
The lifts for both 600 series ships are currently not functional.
All Freelancer variants shields are not functioning.
Added an early implementation of sub-system targetting. Players can cycle target to different ship components using “I/O” for cycling forward/backward (LALT-T/LALT-Y for keyboard advanced) and “P” (LALT+U) to reset back to core target.
Players can now hold “F” and use WASD in vehicle seats to quickly flick between MFDs.
Added power prioritization to power MFD.
Interaction mode now has a quick select option. Pressing “F” quickly will activate the default interaction option of the hightlighted objected. Disabled while in the pilot seat.
Powerplants now have a ramp-up and a ramp-down time before reaching full power or fully shutting down.
Increased the quantum fuel capacity of all exploration/pathfinder style ships by 20%.
Extended Reliant cargo hold to accomodate 6 SCU.
Ship EMPs now generate heat, make more use of power, and are able to be overclocked.
Ship quantum drives now produce heat and are capable of overheating.
Updated Behring Ballistic Repeater (Sawbuck) and created size 2 and 3 versions. The Ballistic Repeaters can be purchased at Port Olisar’s Dumper’s Depot.
Updated Joker suckerpunch cannon art and created size 1 and 3 variants. The Suckerpunch Cannons can be found at the Dumper’s Depot on GrimHex.
EMP devices are now default powered off and there is a UI alert to inform the player if they attempt to activate it while off.
So after splurging a little on new PC parts as an xmass gift for myself I can now play SS at a reasonable framerate without constant hitching or crashing.
Perfect timing for 3.4 to drop because god damn is the hawk a fine ass ship, that EMP coupled with disrupter guns is when fighting other people.
Look at this thing and tell me it is not the coolest damn ship, the way it folds when it lands is like a bird perching on something and I love it
https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/134138/9e999d8e-7362-4997-a118-4fadc84acccd/ScreenShot0000.jpg
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