Star Citizen in a must watch 13 minute nutshell

[MonoAccipiter]

I don't really see how a game would be able to implent time dilation, and even if they did, how it would be anything remotely close to a feature (not just an annoyance of the game). As for FTL, well it is technically impossible based on how our physics work (tho science actually pertains more to "allowing" nature within a logical system than "explaining" it, given natures infinity and so on (yay for nietzchian views), hence what is impossible might only be so because we haven't found the method to make it possible yet) so I guess they must have some alternative system like most sci-fis do?

As for the computers controlling ships thing, there's generally an assumption that civilization is always roughly moving forward even though cultures/civilization quite often tend to regress because of catastrophes and the like, eventually causing them to partially revert to older technology. This kind of destabilizing event is the basis for many futuristic exploits, such as Warhammer 40K (dark age of technology) and Firefly off the top of my head. :P

Edited August 16, 2015 by MonoAccipiter

[redirishlord]

@ Nomad; you're welcome, just trying to share the love with the STEP community, wouldn't want y'all to miss out.

@ EssArrBee: they have thrust driven flight for combat/exploration, "quantum drive" flight for in system rapid transit (I believe that's supposed to be 0.2c) and "jump holes" for flight between star systems. So not "real" but playable, data transmission is forced to follow the same jump mechanic so data courier/pirate is an anticipated career opportunity.

Edited August 15, 2015 by redirishlord

[Aiyen]

What I really hope to see someday is a space game where you actually have capital ships... with a C, that does not just fly with fighter like controls, but where it is a bit more simulator like. 

 

I got to admit that I have grown bored with space fighter sims, and games where you get what would be a corvette size ship, or even destroyers etc... they all handle like slow fighters. 

 

I guess I just want a game where battles feel like certain sci fy series n movies... with enough depth that it just not all just become... who can focus fire the other team down first. Used to love the idea of EVE´s battles.. until i was actually in them. Smaller battles where fun and engaging... large battles.. just so freaking boring because 3/2 the time people just run away and the last it is just point n click and no depth at all. 

[rootsrat]

https://xkcd.com/1356/

 

One thing that always gets me is that in the future there we be no ships that humans pilot. You just tell it what to do and it will do it.

 

Does either game use time dilation or do the ships travel faster than light so how?

In Elite you travel faster than light with Frame Shift Drive - it bends time and space around the ship, kind of shrinking it around you, at least that's the lore. 

 

As for AI - any advanced AI is forbidden in Elite universe due to some tragic accidents in the past where AI got out of control. Since then it was banned and is illegal in the game. Hence all the ships have human crew :)

[TechAngel85]

Actually, I was talking about about relativistic time dilation. I get most games have to scale time or it would be soooooo boring to actually sit through two weeks journey to the moon.

It would be boring so why would you want it? The way space travel actually works with real life physics is time is relative to your speed. You might travel for five months to the nearest star at just short of the speed of light (because in reality it is currently known that you can't travel at the speed of light), spend one month doing research, and then travel another five months back to Earth. For you, time would have remained the same. For Earth, though, several hundred years have past. The ONLY way around this in reality is theorized to be wormholes. On that note, I've been watching way too many space shows on Netflix...

 

As for the computers controlling ships thing, there's generally an assumption that civilization is always roughly moving forward even though cultures/civilization quite often tend to regress because of catastrophes and the like, eventually causing them to partially revert to older technology. This kind of destabilizing event is the basis for many futuristic exploits, such as Warhammer 40K (dark age of technology) and Firefly of the top of my head. :P

 

In Elite you travel faster than light with Frame Shift Drive - it bends time and space around the ship, kind of shrinking it around you, at least that's the lore. 

 

As for AI - any advanced AI is forbidden in Elite universe due to some tragic accidents in the past where AI got out of control. Since then it was banned and is illegal in the game. Hence all the ships have human crew :)

Remember the dark ages due to the Church? That was 100 years of the Church stifling growth of our knowledge of science and technology. Just think if the dark age hadn't happened, where we'd be today...100 years more advanced than we are now! If you can't imagine that then think of everything that's happened from the year 1900 to 2000...cars, planes, computers, technology, medical advances, walked on the moon, space station...just where would we be if the dark ages never happened?!

 

To counter the auto pilot bit...people in the early 1900s thought that we'd have flying cars and wouldn't need soap or water anymore. I certainly do not have a flying car parked in my parking space. Do you?

 

Now to be fair, flying cars are actually a thing now...a long ways off from being in your driveway, but still a real thing.

[redirishlord]

What I really hope to see someday is a space game where you actually have capital ships... with a C, that does not just fly with fighter like controls, but where it is a bit more simulator like. 

 

I got to admit that I have grown bored with space fighter sims, and games where you get what would be a corvette size ship, or even destroyers etc... they all handle like slow fighters. 

 

I guess I just want a game where battles feel like certain sci fy series n movies... with enough depth that it just not all just become... who can focus fire the other team down first. Used to love the idea of EVE´s battles.. until i was actually in them. Smaller battles where fun and engaging... large battles.. just so freaking boring because 3/2 the time people just run away and the last it is just point n click and no depth at all. 

You did watch the video, right ;-) ? Two groups fighting in an asteroid field as EVA salvagers reapir and rescue a derelict.

MultiCrew uses separate duty stations for crew (my 4 person Constellation class cargo hauler has a weps & engineering station on either side of my captain's chair and a manned turret), at the end of the video an Idris class Corvette (smallest of the capital ships that range up to the Bengal class carrier) flys over the Retaliator bomber that we saw repaired by the salvage team and then operated from cockpit, engineering & turret duty stations.

I'm thinking there's enough depth to the simulation to keep you interested, and remember it's dogfighting plus fps plus a deep economic simulation like the 2003 Freelancer game but done right with current tech & informed by the MMO trend and of course no publisher so Chris Roberts & company can make the game they intended instead of whatever can be managed by an arbitrary publish date.

 

Idris Corvette briefing room:

Idris Corvette corridor:

 

Bengal Carrier bridge:

Bengal carrier hangar:

Bengal carrier flight deck:

Edited August 15, 2015 by redirishlord

[Neovalen]

Man, trying to read/sort through the rsi web page is crazy as a newcomer. There is just so many ships, etc to try and sort through.

[Aiyen]

I guess I should have elaborated on what the C was... what SC have is what I described as corvettes and destroyers... small ships, I want the capitals.. the super capitals, the things with so many guns that you would need a small planet to crew the damn thing! :P 

 

I am not really interested in the little guy and fps and dog fights.. I am really interested in giant slug fests and laser shows that will make you weep from the beauty of it. 

 

I know that SC wont be that game, but that is what I hope to see before I get so old that I wont be able to play games anymore! :) 

 

I will probably end up trying SC if and when it eventually become a game and not just a series of tech demos... But for now I will just have to dream on. (Yes I know of the game gratuitous space battles.. and I do have that but somehow that game just failed to take itself serious and as a whole lacked depth... partly because it was only in 2d. But still quite pretty.)

[redirishlord]

@ Neovalen: I suggest watching the Around the Verse videos & especially the 10 for the Chairman videos as they cover a lot of ground. You are correct, there is no getting around the sheer amount of content, with ships they actually have an internal design guide for each ship manufacturer, for planetside environments in the 100 or so planned star systems they have an internal guide based on their future historical timeline that covers architectural styles by chronology & colonial expansion during that period. TL;DR research into the back story should be a lot easier once the open their Galactapedia tab on the website. Oh, the Star Marine weekly updates are quite interesting reading (especially for you with the attention to their skeleton rig & animations, thanks again for your Dual Sheath Redux) as are the Monthly Reports (makes me feel like a game publishing executive, but less evil).

 

@ Aiyen: You want the Bengal carrier, and yes those will be rare & player/organization control of them will be rarer still. Last game I played that reminded me of what you want was the X series (I don't count EVE since that's a level based RPG rather than a sim).

[Neovalen]

The problem with multi-person and capital ships is getting the real life crew online at the same time to actually use them. For example, in my group of real life friends I'm the only gamer. Therefore, I could not ever do a 3 or 4 man ship unless I joined a guild/corp/merc unit or what not and even then schedule would be limiting. That is really my only big hesitation in a game like this, being solo is going to limit the fun and what I can earn/do.

 

On the other hand, if I was an early teen or retiree I could see having a ton of fun with an almost VR like experience. Nightly playing for 2-4 hours is all I can muster these days. Is being a "nobody" going to be fun? That is the real question. Yes, I've read about NPCs for mutli-crew ships but you know they won't be able to compete with players.

[redirishlord]

I don't know about you, but I kept going back to the Freelancer well for a full decade :-) 

There's a ton of career options & associated mission types, a wide range of single seat fighters and non-combat ships. Once the full persistent universe opens (and that's after the first 20+ hour chapter of the single player campaign) you should be able to find plenty of PvE single person missions scaled to your current ship &/or flight/fps skill level. It should play more like an open world RPG in the sense that you can define your own play type & definition if success (of course it's a sim so no leveling or perk acquisition, but lot's of mini-games to learn - see the mining career document on the comm link tab for an example of just one option).

Pledge packages are as cheap as $40 usd, you can earn credits in game for any equipment or ship upgrades you want, so not much risk now or in the future. No reason you shouldn't take time researching the available website content & enjoying that end of things (lots of back story & such in there, can't wait for the darn Galactepedia to make it easier to plow through).

I'm loving it so far, and it just keeps getting better as they update it, sounds like they plan to gamemaster & add content for the next decade. Since the retiree end of the community can't stop throwing money at them it doesn't seem like pay to win will be an issue & Chris Roberts really seems to want the enterprise to succeed for his fans.

[Aiyen]

Carrier.... nah those are not for me! I love the big gun kinda ships. Also like Neo points out... I would not have the time to enjoy anything that requires lots of people working together. In an ideal world I just want to hit a button, and get thrown into the action and relax for the few hours I can play a day. 

 

Overall I just think I am not that interested in the whole pilot part of the it.. I would like a good mix of strategy with large spaceships, and have the spectacle be breathtaking. 

I had high hopes for fractured space.. but the MOBA formula kinda ruins it a bit too much. It does come close though, and perhaps when it is more polished I will return to it again. 

[SynthetikHD]

Just a heads up to anyone.

 

I was just browsing reddit and saw that you can play Star Citizen for free until the 19th.

 

Or at least the dogfighting it seems, is this only a part of the game? Either way I know this thread has been getting a lot of replies lately so I thought I'd post it here and try the game myself. Any tips I should know when I start playing? :P

[redirishlord]

@ SynthetikHD: Awesome find, I thought the Gamescom coupon was for attendees, that's great that it's for everyone.

Arena Commander is the dogfighting alpha that's currently available, there's a tutorial so you should be good to go if you've got access. I'm not sure what ships the coupon will unlock for you, normally you would have access to your pledge ship. The Merlin snub fighter is free this week, fun but tiny & short range, it normally docks on the Constellation class ships (4 person mid size craft).

The first version of the social module should open end of the month, so citizens can walk around ArcCorp (a planetside environment) for a taste of the MMO side of things.

The long awaited FPS module Star Marine goes live for us end of September, check out the weekly updates on the RSI website for more on that.

Edited August 15, 2015 by redirishlord

[Neovalen]

Just a heads up to anyone.

 

I was just browsing reddit and saw that you can play Star Citizen for free until the 19th.

 

Or at least the dogfighting it seems, is this only a part of the game? Either way I know this thread has been getting a lot of replies lately so I thought I'd post it here and try the game myself. Any tips I should know when I start playing? [emoji14]

Sweet gonna give it a free whirl tonight.