Star Citizen in a must watch 13 minute nutshell

[redirishlord]

Star Citizen (Chris Roberts epic space sim) just rocked Gamescom with big reveals, check out their wrap up page here ... or just cut to the chase and watch the MultiCrew Demo.

 

The video showcases the range of what this game covers beautifully. Things to keep in mind; alpha "modules" are being released as progress permits (dogfighting currently available, fps should be released in September with the MultiCrew later this year), a 20-30 hour single player campaign will be included in the final release (release date 2016, it's chapter 1 of 3 with sequels intended to release 2017 & 2018) and a persisent MMO universe opens with the final release (game mastered & continually updated by CIG for ... hopefully the remainder of my life?).

 

Check out their website for answers to any other questions you might have, there are another 935,000 citizens on their forums so just ask if you don't see what you were looking for, some of those citizens play Fallout & Skyrim so link them back here so they can play those games the STEP way.

 

tl;dr

Watch the Star Citizen MultiCrew Demo, seriously, you won't regret the 13 minutes spent.

[Neovalen]

I spent 20 minutes and watched the "Live" version. Amazing, this is one game that keeps slipping below my radar... not sure why cause it's awesome.

 

Just wish buying in early was cheaper, seems like getting any of the cool stuff costs a lot of $. Hopefully not so expensive post launch.

 

This game is a perfect VR candidate.

[rootsrat]

Space Citizen is not a game. It's a pre-alpha feature creep demo. Don't get me wrong, I'm looking forward to it (I have a ship, the cheapest one that gives me the access to the full game), but at this rate we won't see it until I'll be too old to play it and my grandchildren will have to tell me where the hell I'm flying ;)

 

Elite Dangerous on the other is a game that you can play NOW. It has a real Milky Way galaxy procedurally generated (using amazing an in house developed software) based on scientific data from NASA and ESA (plus handcrafted stuff that we know of) and according to the current knowledge of how our galaxy was created. A mere 400 000 000 000 systems to explore... And there's also "Horizons" expansion Season (a full year of expansions) to be released in December with the lead feature of seamless (!) planetary landings on atmosphere-less bodies with a buggy that you can drive. 

[redirishlord]

@ Neovalen: Keep in mind all you need is that initial pledge ship, any thing else you want can be earned in game through playing, no additional $ need be spent.

 

@ Rootsrat: You can be, and I have been, playing SC now ;-) The Arena Commander dog fighting module is out & continually updated. The FPS module is going to be released end of September. I have Elite Dangerous in my Steam wishlist, just waiting for a sale.

[Octopuss]

Space Citizen is not a game. It's a pre-alpha feature creep demo. Don't get me wrong, I'm looking forward to it (I have a ship, the cheapest one that gives me the access to the full game), but at this rate we won't see it until I'll be too old to play it and my grandchildren will have to tell me where the hell I'm flying ;)

LOL those are exactly my thoughts. They are taking absolutely weird approach with the development, and I guess it kind of works, because people are crazy about it even though there's virtually nothing yet. A demo where you can fly around in some ships and walk in a hangar is, well, nothing but a demo of the rendering engine.

It's YEARS from being finished. And I am kind of doubtful whether it isn't one huge hype and even bigger fail in the end. It's nothing short of monstrous project, and I saw several times smaller games die a horrible death due to bugs, imbalance prolongued development and whatnot.

[Aiyen]

I will see it when it is eventually done (if ever)... I do think that the whole development of SC have shown what happens when you have way too much tech demo, and way too little actual gameplay. 

 

But here is hoping other people will keep throwing money after the development, so that perhaps when I am older I will be able to sit down and enjoy it. One have to wonder if one reason they wont hurry up is because they know they use so much tech that the current average computer just cant play it anyways.... 

Also if the beta versions that are going to sort out the worst of the real issues is going to be as long as these supposedly alpha versions... damn. 

[redirishlord]

@ Aiyen: The dog fighting is available & playable, really terrific physics sim with maneuverability limited by human g-tolerance (grey out / red out). As for throwing money at it, $87,199,763 raised so far by 957,756 citizens. You can see my PC's specs on my STEP profile, Arena Commander plays fine for me and the continual updates are patching the bugs as we find them & post to the forums. Check out their website for more detail on the tech involved. 

[rootsrat]

@ Aiyen: The dog fighting is available & playable, really terrific physics sim with maneuverability limited by human g-tolerance (grey out / red out). As for throwing money at it, $87,199,763 raised so far by 957,756 citizens. You can see my PC's specs on my STEP profile, Arena Commander plays fine for me and the continual updates are patching the bugs as we find them & post to the forums. Check out their website for more detail on the tech involved. 

I don't like the flight model, but maybe because I'm so used to Elite... Nevertheless, that's still only invisible walls arena battles :) Not really a game... Elite has PvP arena mode called Close Quarter Combat being released in September this year - an actual game *cough cough*

[Aiyen]

Yeah impressive amount of money... I just think they have a real problem explaining how that amount of money does not equal 1000 people working fulltime to get the game out! 

They have a set of tech and initital gameplay demo´s, but compared to their scope they still have.... next to nothing. 

 

Another concern for the whole thing is that the business model as a whole kinda hangs with this project.... considering the amount of crowd funded games that have actually been even remotely successful. Heck just the ones that have made it out of an alpha state. (which leads to the whole debate about how alpha beta etc. should be used in this day n age)

 

 

As for the tech... your specs are also well above average for what most people have... you have to consider that in by far most homes a current generation console would be the most powerful computing tool... and SC is definitely not going to be running on those. So from a development point of view... when you got more or less all the time you can use... why not wait for people to get better computers first. 

 

And finally... I do think it is awesome that you like the game so much that you talk about people who support it as citizens hehe! I do like the enthusiasm! :) 

[Neovalen]

The flight model in Star Citizen is Newtonian Physics (i.e. how a ship really would be flying in space) similar to the way ships in Babylon 5 were portrayed (you can pivot and rotate without changing movement direction). Therefore counter thrust is required to stop after you get moving, etc.

 

More on this:

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/engineering/13951-Flight-Model-And-Input-Controls

[rootsrat]

The flight model in Star Citizen is Newtonian Physics (i.e. how a ship really would be flying in space) similar to the way ships in Babylon 5 were portrayed (you can pivot and rotate without changing movement direction). Therefore counter thrust is required to stop after you get moving, etc.

 

More on this:

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/engineering/13951-Flight-Model-And-Input-Controls

Yeah, it's just implemented in a weird way that doesn't feel right. Elite has semi-Newtonian model (there is a speed cap, as otherwise the space fights would be just boring), but it feel much more natural and fluid than SC. 

[n0mad23]

Orbital mechanics doesn't really translate well into a game environment.  Believe me, as I spent a couple years going through countless pencils and notebooks wrapping my head around things.  If you think changing trajectories in a super-tanker is slow and tedious, it's actually laser paced compared to orbit transfers.

 

Orbiter Space Flight Simulator is a really cool freeware available to any who want to mess around with the simulation side of things.

 

 

Personally, I loved Wing Commander even though while I played it I knew I was using video game physics and it was painfully obvious that the idea for the game was ahead of the tech available to support it accurately.  I'm pretty jacked to have been alerted to Space Citizen's existence and will be tracking it now.  Thanks!

[EssArrBee]

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?

[n0mad23]

I haven't tried Kerbal, and most of what I know of it is second hand via the Orbiter Space Flight Simulator fans.  Orbiter does have time compression as well as a "slo-mo" feature accessible through an in-game pop up menu.  It's been a couple years since my last trip to the Moon, but if memory serves with time set to 10000:1 the 4 day trip takes about 5 or 10 minutes.  There are lots and lots of mods, too (you might even find 4 or 5 of mine still up somewhere) so there's nearly as much speculative/experimental mods as there are historic recreation ones.  Good stuff.  Definitely not a game but great fun if you enjoy a serious challenge.  It's one thing successfully flaming your way through an atmospheric deceleration, but it's another thing entirely actually doing so an landing on the same continent you intended - at least if you're doing so manually.  There are awesome navigation MFDs (multi-function displays) available for the truly hardcore to plot slingshot assists or even halo orbits to pretty much anywhere you want to go in the "local" neighborhood.  Keep in mind that even with 10000:1 time compression, it's a long long way out to Saturn from here.  Most people "skip" most of the trip and place themselves at a predicted intercept point at the right date and time/velocity.

 

I spent some time this afternoon looking at the Chris Roberts site.  I'd love to see this succeed, but must admit trepidation after seeing where things are at, and how they're being done.  Seems like he's going for the best of both worlds in terms of a business model, and while I wish everyone involved the best of luck, it really doesn't promote a lot of confidence that it's going to succeed in me. 

[EssArrBee]

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.