Star Citizen Megathread - Star Marine isn't doomed after all! - Games

[QUOTE=elixwhitetail;49980822]The entire landing zone, since they're floating platforms in the habitable upper atmosphere of the gas giant. It's mainly for shipyards to take advantage of the tiny delta-v to get into space while still being in atmo during construction.[/QUOTE] But the gravity of a gas giant is such that the escape velocity is stupid high. Jupiter's escape velocity is five times greater than Earth's And the ships have infinite delta-V anyways :v:

[QUOTE=elixwhitetail;49980822]The entire landing zone, since they're floating platforms in the habitable upper atmosphere of the gas giant. It's mainly for shipyards to take advantage of the tiny delta-v to get into space while still being in atmo during construction.[/QUOTE] oh [I]that[/I] when people say crusader and landing pads I assumed you meant port olisar for some reason [editline]22nd March 2016[/editline] lets also ignore that there's nothing but a knee-high metal railing separating you relaxing in the park and a long fall into the abyss followed by a horrific pressure death

[QUOTE=krail9;49980970]oh [I]that[/I] when people say crusader and landing pads I assumed you meant port olisar for some reason [editline]22nd March 2016[/editline] lets also ignore that there's nothing but a knee-high metal railing separating you relaxing in the park and a long fall into the abyss followed by a horrific pressure death[/QUOTE] Oh, you didn't see the Release Waiver that scrolled by your Mobiglass when you accepted the landing request authorization? Well, Crusader Industries will just write it off!

Yeah, actually Crusader, not just the babyPU map. :v: PCGamer uploaded this today of the talk a few of the F42 guys gave at their event a couple weekends ago. [video=youtube;TNuC1CGVv44]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNuC1CGVv44[/video] Go ahead and skip the entire "what is SQ42" intro video when you start seeing the Bengal from the original reveal trailer -- because it actually is the original reveal trailer (recut/music-edited slightly, but no new footage). The talk continues at timecode 7:30. Tomorrow is the Vault update and a lorepost.

[QUOTE=Saber15;49979589]So how do these stay airborne? :mystery: There's a station in X: Rebirth that sits super low to a planet which is kept aloft with a fuckload of giant thrusters on the bottom. Looks really cool, though all the other non-special stations that are almost as low have no thrusters. :v: [t]https://i.ytimg.com/vi/lRwj_Vu80m0/maxresdefault.jpg[/t][/QUOTE] Man its such a pitty that game was so lackluster compared to the other ones. It could have been so good...

[QUOTE=krail9;49980970]lets also ignore that there's nothing but a knee-high metal railing separating you relaxing in the park and a long fall into the abyss followed by a horrific pressure death[/QUOTE] Compare that to the pit around the ArcCorp gearball. Fun fact, in the leaked build the railing around the gearball did not have collision boxes blocking off the whole space, just the fences themselves. I decided once to see if I could jump over the fence and what would happen. I could, and suicided under the gearball. Stanton ain't big on OSHA is what I'm saying.

[QUOTE=elixwhitetail;49981209] Stanton ain't big on OSHA is what I'm saying.[/QUOTE] [IMG]http://i.imgur.com/X4jipca.jpg[/IMG] Sounds like [I]progress[/I] to me!

via leddit: the Freelancer's internals got updated to match the SF [media]http://imgur.com/a/itoOV[/media]

[media]http://imgur.com/a/ow3qW[/media] Blade concept art is up, btw.

[video=youtube;au6mMl5A79Q]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=au6mMl5A79Q[/video] This is long but it's the last thing I'll post about Smart for a while I promise, because oh god, goons be hitting it out of the park. I guess this is what Derek gets for jerking them around for months, putting off recording his part for Goon de yadda, and then finally refusing after promising to and putting it off for like five fucking months. :v: I also don't have any SC news to post because the scheduled lorepost isn't up yet and the Blade gallery from the Vault's already been posted.

PTU 2.3.0a is up [URL="https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.com/discussion/323394/2-3-0a-published-to-ptu"](patch notes)[/URL]. It contains a bunch of fixes for the Xi'An Scout. And, uh, [URL="https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.com/discussion/323415/2-3-0a-crusader-performance-issue"]Zyloh posted this:[/URL] [QUOTE]We ran into an issue on the PTU this evening where Pirate AI is spawning in mass quantities(500+ - Wowzers!) which is causing a major performance hit. We are fully aware of the issue and looking into it! Arena Commander focus testing would be much appreciated while we investigate a potential fix.[/QUOTE] lmao, god I love alpha. Also, the lorepost went up: [URL="https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/spectrum-dispatch/15259-Clean-Shot-Cargolympics-Return"]The Cargolympics are [I]not[/I] canceled and are happening on March 25th, 2946; eat shit, Vanduul[/URL], even bombing the fuck out of Corvo can't stop the Great Games.

[QUOTE]We ran into an issue on the PTU this evening where Pirate AI is spawning in mass quantities(500+ - Wowzers!) which is causing a major performance hit. We are fully aware of the issue and looking into it! Arena Commander focus testing would be much appreciated while we investigate a potential fix.[/QUOTE] "Have a bandit on the scopes, looks like he's heading this way too. Moving into-, wait a minute...I've got additional readings. A [I]lot[/I] of additional readings... ...[I]dear [B]god[/B][/I]-"

[video=youtube;24ZCoiGNluQ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24ZCoiGNluQ[/video]

Well, if you wanted Pirate Swarm, you got Pirate Swarm.

[QUOTE=elixwhitetail;49989513][video=youtube;24ZCoiGNluQ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24ZCoiGNluQ[/video][/QUOTE] quote from a [url=http://glacier1701.tumblr.com/post/141542900838/star-citizen-pirate-swarm-latest-update-to-the]SC blog[/url] I follow on tumblr: [quote]Latest update to the PTU had a bug - 500+ pirate ships spawned in the Yela asteroid belt. So bad news is that the frame rates dropped and its a bug. The good news is that the game did NOT crash. Thats right despite all the stuff now being displayed the server remained stable and did not crash. The people playing in the PTU were able (albeit looking at a slideshow) were able to stay online and move around. So great news in that a bug has shown that it may be possible to have a lot more people in an instance than had thought possible. CIG had been aiming for 50-100 this could show us the way to that total being higher which would be absolute gold for everyone.[/quote] emergent bugplay turns out to be a proof of concept stress test, I think that's exciting

People should really ignore the Derek Smart part, and look only at what CIG does wrong, or what is worring, and act accordingly or don't care. I read everything that Derek Smart wrote, filtlered all the bullshit and personal stuff, and noticed all the facts that are actually correct. CIG missed many milestones, changed some ToS along the way, and makes expensive concept arts to buy, and game is still in "pre-alpha" or whatever. Thats probably it, there might be some minor stuff there, but this is it. That's not really something ground breaking for now, and until something happens to CIG, nobody will probably care. No idea if they should care, and if should people do anything about this beyond waiting for game, but thats up to them, its theirs money. I just look from outside and try all the free demos.

[QUOTE=Xanoxis;49991111]People should really ignore the Derek Smart part, and look only at what CIG does wrong, or what is worring, and act accordingly or don't care. I read everything that Derek Smart wrote, filtlered all the bullshit and personal stuff, and noticed all the facts that are actually correct. [B]CIG missed many milestones, changed some ToS along the way, and makes expensive concept arts to buy, and game is still in "pre-alpha" or whatever.[/B] Thats probably it, there might be some minor stuff there, but this is it. That's not really something ground breaking for now, and until something happens to CIG, nobody will probably care. No idea if they should care, and if should people do anything about this beyond waiting for game, but thats up to them, its theirs money. I just look from outside and try all the free demos.[/QUOTE] a. normally you wouldn't even be seeing them miss milestones if they were a real game developer? we wouldn't see this development this early b. they only changed the TOS because of derek smart abusing the fuck out of refunds to attempt to piss them off c. "expensive concepts art" that will be available in the game once it's out for real without spending any money d. related to a, the game wouldn't be public if this was a normal dev cycle

[QUOTE=Xanoxis;49991111]People should really ignore the Derek Smart part, and look only at what CIG does wrong, or what is worring, and act accordingly or don't care. I read everything that Derek Smart wrote, filtlered all the bullshit and personal stuff, and noticed all the facts that are actually correct. CIG missed many milestones, changed some ToS along the way, and makes expensive concept arts to buy, and game is still in "pre-alpha" or whatever. Thats probably it, there might be some minor stuff there, but this is it. That's not really something ground breaking for now, and until something happens to CIG, nobody will probably care. No idea if they should care, and if should people do anything about this beyond waiting for game, but thats up to them, its theirs money. I just look from outside and try all the free demos.[/QUOTE] "[I]technically[/I] not wrong" isn't a winning position. He grasps onto anything he can to discredit CIG and has been at Roberts' throat since the 90's doing this kind of shit because he sees him as a competitive threat in the space game field, and the way he approaches literally everything is pretty indicative that he's on the autistic spectrum and has trouble separating opinion from fact in his views. The basis for half of his ([I]technically [/I]legitimate) claims of CIG "not delivering the game as promised" is that CIG isn't going to be producing the $2m game they initially pitched, which is [i]totally correct[/i], but hilariously naive if you think it's RIGHT. "Hey I know we raised $100m but I think we should just go back and release the basic on-rails freelancer+ campaign and be done with it" probably wouldn't go over well. While there's a lot of snags with how things have changed over time, it's all for the best and given all the factors, they're handling it far better than I'd expect from most develepers, big or small. Last year around this time was horrible for milestones with the FPS debacle but the way they're handling it now is exactly what should have been happening then, they've got it sorted out and as always, refrain from actually setting milestone deadlines until they know something's just around the corner. [editline]e[/editline] "Selling JPGs of ships" as a criticism is getting harder and harder to sell itself, given recent concept sales have been blasted from sale>hangar>flight ready in just a few months. Maintaining sales is important, as the fabled $100m isn't just sitting in a pile in a warehouse, it's an accumulated total that has, over time, been constantly eaten away at by having to pay for international studios and the wages to keep decent employees working hard. Like, if you work minimum wage that's $15,000 annual (wow that's pathetic), so in 3 years you'd have made $45,000 but fuck if you'd have more than like $100 in your bank account just because you're always paying for gas and eating normally, let alone having to pay bills on anything. What I'm getting at here is that new concept sales means the dev team can continue to create more and more ships, game locations and underlying technologies to make the best game they can. And as stated above, the development cycle here is quite strange compared to what we're used to, explicitly because it's a kickstarter that was building from the ground up instead of being developed behind closed doors, to be determined if it was worth continuing or scrapping by investors or their publisher or whatever. It was sold on a rather basic pre-rendered cinematic and a dream, he had an auditorium of backers cheering him on before he even had a flying hornet (and summarily crashed it into a landing pad on its maiden voyage in front of another auditorium full of backers). Games under publishers and old style investment probably wouldn't even have an announcement til like, [I]right now [/I]in its cycle, then we'd have a year of silence with maybe a gameinformer article with a blurb about one of the systems like how space is actually huge. Maybe another 6 months to a year we'd get a "beta" which is really just a client and server stress test just a few weeks before launch, then it's out and then everybody finds all of the flaws and problems and it's a gigantic PR nightmare for a year or two, if they can survive that long (BF4 cough cough)

People should ignore Derek Smart, and many do, but he's an obsessed, driven FUDmaker. The problem is that Derek specifically targets people who don't know fuck all about game development and can be pursuaded that what is going on is not normal game development but terrifyingly disturbing signs of embezzlement and failure. It's how he scammed his way into control of Quest Online and proceeded to take the MMO they were developing and turn it into a hollow, failed WoW clone that doesn't even have enough active players (peak 9 this month) to have a functioning economy. I'm not going to repost it but a month or two back I posted a video a guy made about how he didn't really know much about SC, but kept hearing bad things about it, so he did some research... and found that [B]everything[/B] negative he was hearing from various sources about SC originated in FUD spread by Derek. It's all well and good to say "filter out Derek's bullshit and just examine the facts" but that only works if you actually know anything at all about gamedev and realize that games don't just appear every two years. Star Citizen has very real criticisms that can be made about it. You will find [B]none[/B] of them coming from Derek unless you perform a large amount of filtering to remove the propaganda and outright lies, and at that point you might as well just look elsewhere instead. The good news there is that Derek's pretty much blown any credibility he had left with the gaming media, as his predictions of collapse and failure have not only never come to pass, CIG has made leaps ahead in their game. Alpha 2.0 was the product of almost two years worth of engine work and proved that CIG was spending the money where it counted, not filling the cocaine-and-prostitute tip jar like DS would have everyone believe. [vid]https://zippy.gfycat.com/FeminineDeliciousCottonmouth.webm[/vid]

[QUOTE=Xanoxis;49991111]People should really ignore the Derek Smart part, and look only at what CIG does wrong, or what is worring, and act accordingly or don't care. I read everything that Derek Smart wrote, filtlered all the bullshit and personal stuff, and noticed all the facts that are actually correct. CIG missed many milestones, changed some ToS along the way, and makes expensive concept arts to buy, and game is still in "pre-alpha" or whatever. Thats probably it, there might be some minor stuff there, but this is it. That's not really something ground breaking for now, and until something happens to CIG, nobody will probably care. No idea if they should care, and if should people do anything about this beyond waiting for game, but thats up to them, its theirs money. I just look from outside and try all the free demos.[/QUOTE] Why are you mentioning missed milestones/delays as if they're an extremely bad thing that never happens at all with any other game? Games get delayed all the time, even late in development. XCOM 2 was delayed for about 4 months, Total warhammer has been delayed a month before release, Deus Ex Mankind divided had it's release date changed etc. Delayed features are even more likely early on and as someone else already mentioned, normally we don't even find out when things aren't out exactly on time this early in development. Besides, it's not as if they happened for no reason at all. Unexpected problems caused them. I don't fully remember the details on the ToS change, what did they do? As for the "expensive concept art" it has been mentioned many, many times that ships are available to buy to help fund development and once the game is out, that won't be a way to get them anymore. It's not just concept art, several of the ships that were once just "expensive concept art" have now been released or are have had significant progress made. I don't see how buying ships in the concept stage is a problem, you're not paying just for a piece of art. If you don't want to support the development and get earlier access to a ship to help test it, don't buy that ship. How is some of them at one stage being concept art a negative thing? It's not as if you're locked into that ship if it doesn't turn out how you wanted, you can use it to upgrade/downgrade into others if you aren't happy. Please explain how the game being in pre-alpha, when at no point have they said it won't be in pre-alpha at this stage and games usually take years to develop anyway, especially one of this scale, is in any way a bad thing. Were you expecting the entire game to be finished by now or something?

[media]https://imgur.com/a/eeXYX[/media] Where were you when the pirate nation attacked? Good to see NKato hasn't changed one bit.

This is a good stress test for something called a normal clan war aka Break every fucking server at the same time in this fucking game LeTS GO LOAD THE INSTANCE

[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/WMYwOPv.jpg[/IMG] [t]https://i.imgur.com/3P0t6t7.png[/t] R&Y lighting overhaul on PTU. [URL="https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/15263-Esperia-Vanduul-Blade-Q-A-Part-1"]Blade Q&A 1[/URL] [video=youtube;5YsSTtWi3kM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YsSTtWi3kM[/video] From Reddit: [URL="https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/4bo0t8/psa_rattler_cluster_missiles_have_become_much/"]"PSA: Rattler cluster missiles have become much more deadly in Arena Commander, for friends and foes alike (Sorry Warlord...)"[/URL] [t]https://i.imgur.com/36a5zpP.jpg[/t] [I][Arena Commander battle theme intensifies][/I]

[QUOTE=elixwhitetail;49992980][t]https://i.imgur.com/36a5zpP.jpg[/t] [I][Arena Commander battle theme intensifies][/I][/QUOTE] [media]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0r0aDfW2UM[/media]

[QUOTE=elixwhitetail;49992980] [t]https://i.imgur.com/3P0t6t7.png[/t] R&Y lighting overhaul on PTU. [/QUOTE] I really, really wish they would do away with the glaring reflections on the Hangar door. Not only does it not reflect the ships in the hangar, I feel like im looking into a seperate hangar bay because they're so strong. Otherwise, R&Y is looking damn fine indeed! Desk also looks wildly out of place. Needs another office like VIP Box off one of the platforms above for overseeing XL ship shenanigans.

[QUOTE=LordCrypto;49991331]a. normally you wouldn't even be seeing them miss milestones if they were a real game developer? we wouldn't see this development this early b. they only changed the TOS because of derek smart abusing the fuck out of refunds to attempt to piss them off c. "expensive concepts art" that will be available in the game once it's out for real without spending any money d. related to a, the game wouldn't be public if this was a normal dev cycle[/QUOTE] a. Then they should stop making promises and dates when something will be released, because so far, I think all of them have been missed (the big stuff). Thats it, this is the point, and its stupid of them to do so. b. They changed it twice, and before Derek said anything on his blog or anywhere else. Changes made it so you can't refund like they promised earlier at kickstarter, and date was pushed I think past release that is not specified. So there is that. It's just something they did, I'm not trying to be negative. c. It's just something people might not like, thats all, I get it that it is a form of dotation for the developer, and it works if people are willing to pay. I'm waiting until game is solid tho. d. Nowadays not many games have "normal dev cycle". Comparing SC to any other alpha game I tested, its pretty chaotic and buggy, even for alpha. It seems way earlier than other alphas. It's just something I don't enjoy much, but hey, you could! [QUOTE=dai;49991334]The basis for half of his ([I]technically [/I]legitimate) claims of CIG "not delivering the game as promised" is that CIG isn't going to be producing the $2m game they initially pitched, which is [i]totally correct[/i], but hilariously naive if you think it's RIGHT. "Hey I know we raised $100m but I think we should just go back and release the basic on-rails freelancer+ campaign and be done with it" probably wouldn't go over well.[/QUOTE] I think the point he was trying to make, besides all the bullshit etc, is that they "should" make solid game first, engine, performance, just basics of what they promised back at kickstarter, and then expand on that later on, with the money they got. Right now they promised way more, put all the eggs in one basket, and they go with it until either its done as they promised, or it fails and there is no more money. There is probably the fair point, that they do it with modules, so you can test it one by one more or less, but it is still buggy game, and optymalization is "eh" at best. At least in regular or populated situations. And there is no promise when it will get "release" quality performance. But they also now make Squadron 42, so they are trying to make one solid thing so far. I think Squadron 42 will be THE thing that shows how SC will work out. Either its what they promised and its great, or its half backed and not really polished, or its complete fail. We will see! End of 2016, here we come! Unless they will move the date.

[QUOTE=Xanoxis;49993195]a. Then they should stop making promises and dates when something will be released, because so far, I think all of them have been missed (the big stuff). Thats it, this is the point, and its stupid of them to do so. [/QUOTE] List some recent promises and dates they've missed. Go on. There is at least one that I can think of, so this isn't a trick question.

[QUOTE=Xanoxis;49993195]I think the point he was trying to make, besides all the bullshit etc, is that they "should" make solid game first, engine, performance, just basics of what they promised back at kickstarter, and then expand on that later on, with the money they got. Right now they promised way more, put all the eggs in one basket, and they go with it until either its done as they promised, or it fails and there is no more money. There is probably the fair point, that they do it with modules, so you can test it one by one more or less, but it is still buggy game, and optymalization is "eh" at best. At least in regular or populated situations. And there is no promise when it will get "release" quality performance. But they also now make Squadron 42, so they are trying to make one solid thing so far. I think Squadron 42 will be THE thing that shows how SC will work out. Either its what they promised and its great, or its half backed and not really polished, or its complete fail. We will see! End of 2016, here we come! Unless they will move the date.[/QUOTE] this is a beautiful mix of aggressively wishful pessimism and not knowing how development works like this isn't like a pet project in UE4, where you'd just make sure the guns shoot straight and the gamemode counts points before slapping some shiny game assets in and calling it an indie shooter

[QUOTE=Xanoxis;49993195]a. Then they should stop making promises and dates when something will be released, because so far, I think all of them have been missed (the big stuff). Thats it, this is the point, and its stupid of them to do so. b. They changed it twice, and before Derek said anything on his blog or anywhere else. Changes made it so you can't refund like they promised earlier at kickstarter, and date was pushed I think past release that is not specified. So there is that. It's just something they did, I'm not trying to be negative. c. It's just something people might not like, thats all, I get it that it is a form of dotation for the developer, and it works if people are willing to pay. I'm waiting until game is solid tho. d. Nowadays not many games have "normal dev cycle". Comparing SC to any other alpha game I tested, its pretty chaotic and buggy, even for alpha. It seems way earlier than other alphas. It's just something I don't enjoy much, but hey, you could! [/QUOTE] A. Where exactly are these "Promises" about dates? As far as i know, all they've provided in the past are estimates of release dates. Not guarantees. Estimates for when they hope to get something out by. You're basically saying "They should stop giving us any indication of they hope they'll be able to release something!" B. If the project had stayed the same as the initial kickstarter, then it could be seen as bad that the ToS was modified. The project has changed quite a bit since that though, it wouldn't make sense to leave everything exactly how it was. C. A lot of people clearly do like it based on Star Citizen being the highest crowdfunded game of all time. D. There is no 'standard' for stages of game development. "Alpha" does not mean anything specific and will vary greatly from game to game. All Alpha really means is: It isn't finished and is missing features. You can't compare this to other games without any indication of exactly how far along in development those were, their scope and final goal. What other games have you tested? Regardless, of course this is going to be a bit worse off than other alphas when it's far more complex and larger in scale.

[URL="https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.com/discussion/323518/2-3-0b-published-to-ptu"]2.3.0b is on PTU.[/URL] [QUOTE]Fixed an issue where the pirates were spawning en-masse in Yela.[/QUOTE] [video=youtube;FFIsxdk1mfs]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFIsxdk1mfs[/video]