Star Citizen Megathread - Fly FREE thru Dec 14th! Link in OP - Games

[QUOTE=Why485;47409047]Wow. [t]http://i.imgur.com/qZt9svD.jpg[/t][/QUOTE] Shiny as fuck, but worth £210? Hell no. I mean, I could melt my Herald and Starfarer towards it but... for a two seater fighter?

That thing's only half a meter shorter than the redeemer, too. I was expecting something more hornet-sized, honestly. Might get one when the PU goes live, but I'm not sure I see myself paying $250 for it.

[QUOTE=Vanguard]LENGTH 37m BEAM 39m (25m folded) HEIGHT 8.8m (8.5m Gear down, 6.3m folded)[/QUOTE] [QUOTE=Published Redeemer stats]LENGTH 37.50m BEAM 19.50m HEIGHT 11.0m[/QUOTE] [QUOTE=Published Freelancer stats]LENGTH 32.0m BEAM 15.0m HEIGHT 8.0m[/QUOTE] [QUOTE=Published Cutlass Black stats]LENGTH 29.0m BEAM 25.0m HEIGHT 7.0m[/QUOTE] [QUOTE=Published F7C stats]LENGTH 22.50m BEAM 21.75m HEIGHT 5.3m[/QUOTE] The Redeemer is the closest size to the Vanguard. $250's about right, in terms of pricing according to how much ship you're getting for the sticker price. Buying the ship itself on the pledge store may or may not be worth it to people. According to Ben in the forums, the stats give it as having two power plants and two shield generators as a redundancy in case one pair get taken out.

[QUOTE=Useful Dave;47409128]Shiny as fuck, but worth £210? Hell no. I mean, I could melt my Herald and Starfarer towards it but... for a two seater fighter?[/QUOTE] You could say the same about a 4 door Volvo versus a 2015 6 series BMW [editline]27th March 2015[/editline] you guys are fuckin silly

uh, considering you could get a constellation for that price it's a little high

The Connie is also a generalist ship, as is usual for RSI, while the Vanguard is purpose-built. Don't get me wrong, I'm not buying one, but it's not an awful ripoff IMO.

[QUOTE=krail9;47409443]uh, considering you could get a constellation for that price it's a little high[/QUOTE] my point stands. size=everything is the only thing happening in your guys' conversation

[QUOTE=Mbbird;47409476]my point stands. size=everything is the only thing happening in your guys' conversation[/QUOTE] what, no. it's the fact that the constellation has 2 turrets, massive missile racks, and a fucking snub fighter(!!!), I mean if that stuff isn't a good indicator of cost then what is?

[QUOTE=krail9;47409670]what, no. it's the fact that the constellation has 2 turrets, massive missile racks, and a fucking snub fighter(!!!), I mean if that stuff isn't a good indicator of cost then what is?[/QUOTE] Not to mention a decent sized cargo hold and interior space.

[QUOTE=krail9;47409670]what, no. it's the fact that the constellation has 2 turrets, massive missile racks, and a fucking snub fighter(!!!), I mean if that stuff isn't a good indicator of cost then what is?[/QUOTE] because the aegis vanguard is a top of the line military grade heavy-fighter/interceptor and the constellation is a civilian trucker it's also a new ship~ and that makes it exotic, so RSI can milk it for more than others [editline]27th March 2015[/editline] i like how you can tell the ship was designed by an artist and then, some time after, a 3rd party told them it needed a size 4 chaingun [t]http://puu.sh/gSyH3.jpg[/t]

Landed in a gladius, but the getting out animation glitched. So I figured I would try walking forward instead. I shot forward in the jet, losing the hatch holding me in and managed to launch myself infinitely backwards.

I really like the look of the Vanguard. Might be the last ship I shall ever buy then.

[QUOTE=jonoPorter;47410405]Might be the last ship I shall ever buy then.[/QUOTE] lol

[QUOTE=jonoPorter;47410405]I really like the look of the Vanguard. Might be the last ship I shall ever buy then.[/QUOTE] wish it could fit in a carrak, then it would be on my wish list.

[t]http://i.imgur.com/OUupSB2.jpg[/t] Jono had a little incident where he drifted his Gladius right into an asteroid. This little Gladius took one hit to kill.

Meanwhile on the official RSI forums the hotas purist crowd is still demanding the entire game be stripped down just to make their control scheme the best. "remove manuvering thrusters to make aiming easier" "remove gimbals" etc etc. I wouldnt mention it but it's getting to the point where there's a number of people just making stuff up and then other people repeating it over and over again. Like, read this quote: [QUOTE]The issue isn't that the mouse needs to be nerfed per se. The problem is that it gets a giant buff via auto steering. Pay attention while you pilot your ship with a mouse, notice you are literally just aiming your gimballed guns with the mouse, then the AI in the automatically steers your ships nose towards your cursor. It automatically adjusts and prevents over and under steer, it greatly reduce drift, with a stick you literally have to back down on your turn preemptively to allow for the delays of the retro thrusters, this is all handled for yoh with a mouse.[/QUOTE] When in reality a joystick can use the same aiming system as unlocked mouse if they want. And mouse users on relative mode are just as out of their depth as the other way around. And then you get a bunch of people yelling about how mice are all at the top of the leaderboard without taking into account ownership numbers. Nor the fact that the new gimbal nerf hasnt even been allowed to take effect due to the sledge being a size 1. Like, CIG is trying to make fixed weapons balanced with gimbals as they should be irrelevent of control schemes (has to be a reason to ever use fixed after all) but no, people dont even want gimbals to exist. And i say this as a mouse user who has flown fixed weapon ships for ages now. I really hope RSI doesn't cave to the legions of whining idiots more than they already have with ESP. We finally get a game with sufficient complexity in flight and gunnery to really challenge people and they just want the game to be elite dangerous with no maneuvering and auto aim gimbals. Goddamn.

I've seen the devs wade into the "mice are dominant on the leaderboard, nerf mice" debate and go, "Hey, we can't actually release our internal numbers, but our internal numbers show HOTAS and K+M at about equal performance, your data showing a massive mouse dominance is flawed" (because it only uses a simplistic sampling of the AC leaderboards). They listen to backers, but they also have their own stats collection to make decisions. If backers were the only decision point SC would be a godforsaken mess by now. CR and CIG collectively are smart enough to make reasoned game-developer decisions, not just raw backer obedience. Doesn't mean they can't fuck up with decisions now and then, but they're using a number of resources. There have definitely been times when they've spoken out and said, "Hey,the impressions you have are based on overexaggeration of the minority; our internal data shows the complete picture, and X-thing-you're-worrying-about is [B]far more minor[/B] than the public discussion makes it seem". TL;DR the backer community falls victim to confirmation bias over and over and over again. Also, I play K+M in relative mode and, generally speaking, I kick ass (in VS at least). I actually find unlocked gimbals harder to fly with if I have fixed and gimbaled guns unless I'm flying slow and strafing a target bigger than me. [t]https://i.imgur.com/LAvVHac.jpg[/t] Close enough

I hope so. Looking at the forums is depressing, through, there's a 300 page thread of people bitching and people keep putting up new threads which constantly get merged into the big one. The one that i quoted from in the last post had a poll and it was like 70% in favor of removing mice or what the fuck ever. And yeah, i fly relative mode as well for the same reason. I still think joystick and mouse will be the best setup but i dont have one and theres some bugginess with esp off and decoupled right now and theres no lefty joystick that has enough buttons for the control scheme i want so ehhh. [editline]28th March 2015[/editline] just saw someone ask for the reticule options to be removed, because "trailing reticle is harder for mouse users" i assume.

[QUOTE=Mattk50;47413580]I hope so. Looking at the forums is depressing, through, there's a 300 page thread of people bitching and people keep putting up new threads which constantly get merged into the big one. The one that i quoted from in the last post had a poll and it was like 70% in favor of removing mice or what the fuck ever. And yeah, i fly relative mode as well for the same reason. I still think joystick and mouse will be the best setup but i dont have one and theres some bugginess with esp off and decoupled right now and theres no lefty joystick that has enough buttons for the control scheme i want so ehhh.[/QUOTE] Hate to say it, but auto-aiming gimbals in a similar manner to Elite may be the best solution. Or even what they were doing right at the start, where aiming your crosshairs at an enemy makes your gimballed weapons automatically compensate, even if that is more arcade-like. Not that I don't like the current lag pip/lead pip system, either...

I really don't want to see auto-aiming gimbals, because that's a ticket to a low skill ceiling, whiny stick users or no. ESP is about as close as I want the game to come to autoaim, and it's not perfect either. Keep in mind that Ben recently said that the majority of backers trying AC play single-player VS or free-flight and never go online. Only like 25% of people who've played AC go online at all. That alone makes basing global control scheme arguments arguments on the AC leaderboard rankings more or less worthless. However, it's the only data backers have public access to that isn't a forum poll or opinions. Confirmation bias. I've seen it before. There was loud bitching about the $20 Aurora anni packs, with people complaining that they couldn't get one while others were hoarding like 20 copies for NPC slots. Ben outright came out and said that two thirds of the Aurora packs had already been new backers signing up and backing a pack, or existing non-backer accounts jumping in and backing, or existing backers gifting them to new players, and that the hoarding was actually minimal. Everyone who was butthurt about missing it seemed to reach for "CIG isn't doing anything to stop hoarders" argument, despite direct statements to the contrary from CIG, and the fact that it took 90 minutes for the 5,000 (the first run, during the Javelin sale) to run out. [t]https://i.imgur.com/lgpyaB9.jpg[/t] Best warning label (315p)

On the other hand, Ben Lesnick says whatever shit he can come up with.

[QUOTE=archangel125;47413622]Hate to say it, but auto-aiming gimbals in a similar manner to Elite may be the best solution. Or even what they were doing right at the start, where aiming your crosshairs at an enemy makes your gimballed weapons automatically compensate, even if that is more arcade-like. Not that I don't like the current lag pip/lead pip system, either...[/QUOTE] This really isn't a good solution for a number of reasons, which ill explain. It will further imbalance gimbals, seeing as fixed weapons wouldn't have auto aim but gimbals would, then requiring further nerfs. Second is it removes an entire facet of game play, aim is a skill and more than just "click on the target", someone who is skilled enough at aim in star citizen can predict the acceleration of the target and compensate. This is something a lot of people don't seem to realize about how much an auto aim system would take away from the game play, it not only removes a degree of skill but also limits the performance of the ship arbitrarily. in .8, where auto aim was a thing, it was very easy to simple to learn how the auto aim worked and dodge it forever, for this reason. also there's the issue that elite dangerous ships move and dodge far slower, and gimbals have a cone of fire/spread. In elite, gimbals are a range tradeoff for tight maneuvering (fixed for long, gimbal for close), while in star citizen they are currently a tradeoff between weapon size/damage and straight up aim flexibility. thats why the solution really strikes me as terrible. everyone should just go HOMAS with head-tracking then this issue can be gone :(

It would be better if CIG outline what they plan to do and stop leaving us to guess work and suggest ideas all the time.

[QUOTE=Mattk50;47413335]I really hope RSI doesn't cave to the legions of whining idiots more than they already have with ESP. We finally get a game with sufficient complexity in flight and gunnery to really challenge people and they just want the game to be elite dangerous with no maneuvering and auto aim gimbals. Goddamn.[/QUOTE] The issue is a lot more nuanced than you're giving it credit. I don't read the forums, but the simple fact that flying with a joystick is so different than flying with a mouse, because of the direct control over aiming the gimbals, makes me very uncomfortable. Star Citizen is not controller agnostic. Your options and capabilities in the game depend on your input method of choice. I've talked about this to extreme lengths in the past as it's one of those subjects that I feel very strongly about and am very interested in, but honestly. I don't care to find those posts or re-write it again. The current situation where larger and (theoretically) more powerful guns can be used on fixed mounts versus smaller and (theoretically) weaker guns on gimbals is good enough for now, but I'm still super happy with it. [editline]28th March 2015[/editline] [QUOTE=elixwhitetail;47413544]Also, I play K+M in relative mode and, generally speaking, I kick ass (in VS at least). I actually find unlocked gimbals harder to fly with if I have fixed and gimbaled guns unless I'm flying slow and strafing a target bigger than me.[/QUOTE] This is because the default mode has an absolutely mind bogglingly stupid arbitrary dead zone that completely ruins that mode. It drives me insane. I hate it. It has no reason to exist whatsoever and needs to be removed. What makes it especially frustrating, is if you press Ctrl and lock the gimbals you get an [I]identical[/I] control scheme but without the idiotic deadzone. Except, the gimbals are locked. I understand that pressing Ctrl is to lock the gimbals, but why in the world does only that mode have no deadzone while the default one does? What the hell were they thinking? Seriously. There is no excuse for this shit. It drives me up a wall and makes the default mode feel horrible to fly in. [vid]http://a.pomf.se/febzax.webm[/vid]

[QUOTE=Why485;47413739]The issue is a lot more nuanced than you're giving it credit. I don't read the forums, but the simple fact that flying with a joystick is so different than flying with a mouse, because of the direct control over aiming the gimbals, makes me very uncomfortable. Star Citizen is not controller agnostic. Your options and capabilities in the game depend on your input method of choice. I've talked about this to extreme lengths in the past as it's one of those subjects that I feel very strongly about and am very interested in, but honestly. I don't care to find those posts or re-write it again. The current situation where larger and (theoretically) more powerful guns can be used on fixed mounts versus smaller and (theoretically) weaker guns on gimbals is good enough for now, but I'm still super happy with it.[/QUOTE] Your right, joystick/hotas/mouse/homas input methods are very different to eachother. In any game as complex as star citizen, input methods this varied can never truly be made completely identical in performance. Thats why so many people ask for the complexity to be reduced, gimbals removed, manuvering thrusters removed, remove all the things which different input devices take advantage of differently. In my opinion this is something that cannot be simply equalized without defeating the game itself. But the question of controller agnosticism isnt about making all input devices equal for every possible application. The point is that you can use your input device of choice well inside the game, the game supports it well and there are ways for you to use it well. What this means, is that you shouldnt balance for mouse vs joystick, but you should balance the types of play they are good at. That means, balanced fixed weapons vs gimballed weapons, which CIG is doing. Part of this is a perception problem, right now there are only small fighters in the game so people dont really understand the variety of it all, but eventually when your bengal or even constellation's pilot wont be worrying about gunnery himself, then a hotas is perfect for the situation, Homas seems perfect for small gimballed fighters. joystick and keyboard is perfect for small fixed fighters(throttles too slow and not enough buttons). The point is, every control scheme has it's own inherent benefits and drawbacks translated directly into the game for various applications, thats how to do controller agnostic properly. Not auto aim. And i dont see people complaining that gamepads are and will always be inferior to everything. So whatever. edit: and yeah the dead zone is super shit. ED has it by default too but they let you modify it down to nothing, at least.

@Why485 Even with the deadzone removed, it is still very hard to aim a fixed weapon in Vjoy mode because you have to re-centre the mouse cursor and is easy to lose track off. [QUOTE=Mattk50;47413802] What this means, is that you shouldnt balance for mouse vs joystick, but you should balance the types of play they are good at. That means, [b]balanced fixed weapons vs gimballed weapons, which CIG is doing.[/b][/QUOTE] But if you do that you are blocking people accessing game content and locking them out. Ideally both controllers should have access to the same gameplay features and not locking them out/making them unviable just because you have a different controller. I'm not saying all controllers should be balance this way, but since the Majority are Mouse and Joystick they should have the same gameplay.

[QUOTE=Mattk50;47413802]Your right, joystick/hotas/mouse/homas input methods are very different to eachother. In any game as complex as star citizen, input methods this varied can never truly be made completely identical in performance. Thats why so many people ask for the complexity to be reduced, gimbals removed, manuvering thrusters removed, remove all the things which different input devices take advantage of differently. In my opinion this is something that cannot be simply equalized without defeating the game itself.[/QUOTE] My problem with gimbals is that joysticks effectively can't use them. It's a whole avenue of the game that, because of your control scheme, you can't really explore. No, head tracking is not a substitute for mouse aim. It simply isn't precise enough to be on remotely the same level of accuracy as a mouse. I think there should be some kind of auto-aim for gimballed weapons as an option for joysticks. It should [B]not[/B] be as accurate as manually aiming, but it should exist as option. Adding a computer assisted aim for gimballed weapons [B]does not[/B] necessarily mean that you have to get rid of manual mouse aim. If, as you say, auto-aimed weapons are so exploitable in the sense that they are easily spoofed by flying in circles, then what's the concern? It'll never be as good as a manually aimed gimbal and skill will still be the determining factor. The way I see it, auto-aimed gimbals opens several doors that are simply closed right now. - Joystick users can now effectively use gimbal weapons. - Mixing gimballed weapon mounts with fixed weapon mounts is now an effective option for [B]both[/B] control schemes. - New avenues of electronic warfare are now open as you could jam a ship's automatic gimbals, crippling it if they are heavily reliant on them. - New avenues of ship tuning are now open as you could buy better targeting computers with tradeoffs. - How a gimbal tracks and what kind of weapon it can load gives you more choices in how to outfit and use your weapons. For example, a gimbal that is more accurate, but slow, or a gimbal that has a very wide range of motion, but subpar tracking. What do you lose? You can still aim manually with pixel perfect accuracy. In fact there are probably situations where it's better to take manual control and do it yourself versus having a computer do it. At worse, you get some shitters who can scratch you by looking in your general direction and spraying bullets before you outfly and outgun them. [editline]28th March 2015[/editline] [QUOTE=Toyokunari;47413842]@Why485 Even with the deadzone removed, it is still very hard to aim a fixed weapon in Vjoy mode because you have to re-centre the mouse cursor and is easy to lose track off.[/QUOTE] Virtual joystick isn't a good mode to aim fixed weapons with. It's designed with gimballed weapons in mind and allows you to both fly and aim at the same time. Virtual joystick for fixed weapons is especially useless when the ships are so twitchy and maneuverable that you can use relative mode to basically fly like a first person shooter.

[QUOTE=Why485;47413930]My problem with gimbals is that joysticks effectively can't use them. It's a whole avenue of the game that, because of your control scheme, you can't really explore. No, head tracking is not a substitute for mouse aim. It simply isn't precise enough to be on remotely the same level of accuracy as a mouse. I think there should be some kind of auto-aim for gimballed weapons as an option for joysticks. It should [B]not[/B] be as accurate as manually aiming, but it should exist as option. Adding a computer assisted aim for gimballed weapons [B]does not[/B] necessarily mean that you have to get rid of manual mouse aim. If, as you say, auto-aimed weapons are so exploitable in the sense that they are easily spoofed by flying in circles, then what's the concern? It'll never be as good as a manually aimed gimbal and skill will still be the determining factor, and that's still assuming they are perfectly aimed at a lead point like they were in 0.8, which they absolutely should not be. The way I see it, auto-aimed gimbals opens several doors that are simply closed right now. - Joystick users can now effectively use gimbal weapons. - Mixing gimballed weapon mounts with fixed weapon mounts is now an effective option for [B]both[/B] control schemes. - New avenues of electronic warfare are now open as you could jam a ship's automatic gimbals, crippling it if they are heavily reliant on them. - New avenues of ship tuning are now open as you could buy better targeting computers with tradeoffs. - How a gimbal tracks and what kind of weapon it can load gives you more choices in how to outfit and use your weapons. For example, a gimbal that is more accurate, but slow, or a gimbal that has a very wide range of motion, but subpar tracking. What do you lose? You can still aim manually with pixel perfect accuracy. In fact there are probably situations where it's better to take manual control and do it yourself versus having a computer do it. At worse, you get some shitters who can scratch you by looking in your general direction and sprawing bullets before you outfly and outgun them.[/QUOTE] The problem with any level of auto aim is that then you get joystick users shitting allover new players because whatever arbitrary skill level you decided to give to the aimbot will always be higher than some tier of player on mouse. They get past that skill check for free, instantly, but then can never advance. plus, the users of the auto aim system will never stop asking for the bot to have increased skill to match whatever mouse user just killed them(but like i said there is a limit to the skill of any auto aim, it can never get to the level to predict acceleration). Head tracking is actually a pretty good substitute if your set on using a joystick with gimbals for some reason. i've seen some guys really wreck with trackir aiming. it seems unreliable from person to person though, due to environment, lighting, what tracking implement they use etc. Hopefully the upcoming tracking solutions will make this a better option for people. Also, voiceattack. There is nothing wrong with there being parts of the game limited to you because of your chosen control scheme, especially if the problem is inherent to the nature of the control scheme itself. People know what they are buying when they want a joystick, they want joystick controls and joystick gameplay, and it's there for them, and as long as fixed and gimbals have tradeoffs that's totally fine in my book.. All joystick players will need to have a mouse or gamepad on hand for the first person segments of the game anyways, or getting boarded will mean certain death. So, if it's the case that everyone has a mouse anyways, that makes hotas more of a specialist implement. And there is nothing wrong with that. And, joystick+mouse is a control scheme that allows you to fly your ship, aim fixed and aim gimbals all at the same time. Also there's freelook, it's another area of the game that doesnt really exist to people in a practical way if they dont have head tracking stuff. You said you didnt like it being a "whole avenue" of the game being locked off from hotas/joystick only users. Like i said, it's a perception problem, right now gimballed flying is essentially a third of the roles there are (one being fixed, one gimbal, one racing). In the final game, fighter pilots who need to gun, fly and control everything simultaneously will be a tiny part of the grand scheme of things, and not even all of fighters. Furthermore there are many mechanics in SC that limit based on your control scheme. often everything that isnt a keyboard doesnt have ability to control shields and power states. Many people use voice attack to supplement that. However. You are overlooking the fact that joystick users can actually use gimbals, they get the same free aiming mode that mouse users get as an option, yeah it wont be as good but the same goes for micers on relative. Gimbals add a lot of interesting movement and gameplay to SC, and i love the idea of the system, it definetly needs a lot of polish mainly in the jumpiness and deadzone changes but i feel rather strongly about not reverting the game to something i'd perceive as a wasted opportunity. Like, there really are a great many old space games with auto aim gimbals, plus elite dangerous nowadays. if someone is so set on it, there are plenty of games to serve one who wants that. there arent any games that let you do what star citizen does, though, and it would just be such a shame to see that degraded for the reasons i've argued. [QUOTE=Toyokunari;47413842]But if you do that you are blocking people accessing game content and locking them out. Ideally both controllers should have access to the same gameplay features and not locking them out/making them unviable just because you have a different controller. I'm not saying all controllers should be balance this way, but since the Majority are Mouse and Joystick they should have the same gameplay.[/QUOTE] (i put this in my postnaught above but: You arent locked out, you can use the same aim mode mouse users do, it won't be as good but the same goes for mouse people using relative mode, also once the deadzones are removable it will be a lot more practical for joystick users) [editline]28th March 2015[/editline] Uh, actually i just had a thought about how to take the mouse gimbal aim mode and adapt it better to joystick far better than it is now, to actually be viable and "allow joystick users to get in on the gimbals" easier. Obviously deadzones would need to be removed/modifyable, but after that you get normal joystick control, plus the amount you tilt your joystick would also move the gimbals towards that end of the screen a set amount. The player could modify the scaling of how far it should move for how hard of a turn, but it should work pretty well, pretty much identical to the mouse aim mode in quality actually. There would also be auto center for joystick users and mouse users alike as an option. I assume most joystick users would turn this on, or it should be on by default (your aiming and movement is still tied together. Mouse/joystick will always be the best for this) I mean, another problem with auto aim for joysticks would mean that joysticks could then pull off manuvers even mouse users couldnt, flying in one direction and aiming in another etc, because raw mouse control. I wouldnt mind that kind of bonus it if wasn't the result of something as cheaty as auto aim(mouse/joystick combo has this capability anyway). This solution would pretty much head off that problem too, though. Im not sure why this hasnt occurred to me before. Im sure someone else in that 400 page argument threads on RSI has thought of this but it probably got drowned out by the shitposting. What do you think about this possibility, Why485?

[QUOTE=ScottyWired;47396541]Remember the SH is designed to be as close as possible to a military vehicle [I]while still being civilian legal[/I]. I imagine in the final game there will be vehicles beyond even that, like, cutting edge milspec space equivalents of the F-35 which will be insanely hard to acquire[/QUOTE] [QUOTE]Though Aegis Dynamics does not officially offer a civilian variant of the Vanguard, working in conjunction with the UEE’s Frontier Protection Program they have made a number of the mil-spec Vanguard available to civilians.[/QUOTE] HA! [editline]29th March 2015[/editline] as cool as it is, that huge-ass gatling gun on the Vanguard's nose is kinda silly

So... is Aegis Dynamics and UEE / any other separate company in-game actual companies / modelling groups irl too, or is that just a game thing.