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[hobblygobbly]

I backed SC during its initial campaign on their own website but I haven't followed the game much since really. I saw the Gamescom demo and I'm wondering an anyone give me a rough idea when we'll have our hands on that sort of stuff?

 

[SmartBase]

They are really not giving up this whole gimballed weapon thing are they?

Trackballs on joysticks. So everyone who wanna fly with the ones they own are gonna be at a disadvantage still.

It doesn't look too good, at this rate TrackIR will be required just to remain competitive. At least they still have time to come to their senses.

 

[Tic174]

I just applied to the org aswell

 

[Pachimari]

I think it is time for me to jump in and become a star citizen with either one of the $45 ships. Have they just been on sale or was it only the expensive ships that went on sale?

 

[ASTROID2]

Aye, same. Always been a fan of the design but since it never really interested me as a bomber, I kinda ignored it tbh. The different module combos completely change that though. I've gone with both living quarters and cargo bays for now so I can switch between hauling cargo & passenger transport, or a mix of the two for exploration. The ultimate goal being to primarily use it as a medical support ship when those modules become available later. Incredibly versatile really, will be able to outfit it differently depending on the role I want it to fill. All of those will be different from my other 2 ships as well which is great.

and yeah, tis quite buggy atm. I had that too lol.


(I've just applied to the GAF org as well btw. Have been meaning to do that for a while.)

I added you to the org.

I just applied to the org aswell

What's your name on Star Citizen?

 

[Tic174]

What's your name on Star Citizen?

Its Sir Swish or Sir_Swish, thanks.

 

[ASTROID2]

Its Sir Swish or Sir_Swish, thanks.

I added you.

 

[Zabojnik]

Gimbalz 4 lyf3.

 

[Pachimari]

I'm gonna go with the Mustang Alpha as my first ship, but what does it mean, that it has a 3 month insurance? Is it only available for me during those 3 months? Like a rent?

 

[Dictator93]

I'm gonna go with the Mustang Alpha as my first ship, but what does it mean, that it has a 3 month insurance? Is it only available for me during those 3 months? Like a rent?

It means next to nothing. It just means when you start the game you will not have to pay insurance fees on your ship's hull for 3 months. Then afterward you will pay a small insurance upkeep.

Insurance is basically unimportant right now and is apparently not a huge deal according to the devs. I have the mustang beta (which is a wee bit different). You should definitely love your ship.

 

[Agremont]

I'm gonna go with the Mustang Alpha as my first ship, but what does it mean, that it has a 3 month insurance? Is it only available for me during those 3 months? Like a rent?

It means if you loose it in game you'll get it back. After the 3 months are up you'll need to buy insurance yourself, for ingame money.

 

[Pachimari]

Oh, but then it must be important for me to earn in-game money, if I am eventually gonna use them on an insurance after those 3 months?

 

[Agremont]

Oh, but then it must be important for me to earn in-game money, if I am eventually gonna use them on an insurance after those 3 months?

Well they've said it's not going to cost a significant amount of money. So I wouldn't worry.

 

[Dubbedinenglish]

They are really not giving up this whole gimballed weapon thing are they?

Trackballs on joysticks. So everyone who wanna fly with the ones they own are gonna be at a disadvantage still.

Yeah that's my biggest gripe. More over mouse interactive mode (aka axis stacking). The sad thing is even with a trackball you still have to deflect the stick and try to aim at the same time, unlike IM where you just aim and the ship follows the cursor.

That was the worst thing about the multi crew demo, there was no maneuvering. The ships just parked and shot at each other. Then CR is still spouts that "Mouse is not good for flying" which is complete BS. Mouse can fly just fine with a proper V-joy (which SC lacks). The only difference is the auto-center. Right now depending on the control method players are playing different games against each other.

The thing that worries and fustrates me is this will be their big answer to control balance. "Buy more shit."

 

[Zalusithix]

It doesn't look too good, at this rate TrackIR will be required just to remain competitive. At least they still have time to come to their senses.

Well, they'll have to fix TrackIR first. The infamous helmet cage is still a thing. (Looking around changes your viewpoint within the helmet, and not the viewpoint from the helmet itself as it would in free look. This means the helmet can obscure the view, and the HUD doesn't move with the view.) I must say though, TrackIR/VR should be advantageous. Flying in one direction while looking at another for gimbal aim is actually a form of multitasking that takes effort. Even flying in the direction that you're looking is still a multifaceted control scheme where you're concentrating on two things at once. It's not as convoluted as using a secondary stick/trackball/whatever for aiming, but compared to mouse flight? Night and day.

Yeah that's my biggest gripe. More over mouse interactive mode (aka axis stacking). The sad thing is even with a trackball you still have to deflect the stick and try to aim at the same time, unlike IM where you just aim and the ship follows the cursor.

The ability to aim with the mouse for gimbals while simultaneously adjusting ship direction with the same action is undoubtedly where the problem lies. It's not as powerful as separated aim and fly, but it's far, far easier for what it does do. You only have to concentrate on aiming at the target - the ship will fly itself. All the artificial gimbal lag in the world isn't going to impact you when you're effectively a homing missile that'll compensate with ship movement.

Edit: I'm also not quite sure why they're going with trackballs on the sticks as opposed to using analog sticks like on a controller. Any speed advantage that trackballs give for movement in a given direction is nullified by the gimbal lag. I mean, in the Hornet I can look in a given direction far faster than the gimbals / turret can compensate.

Edit 2:

I just applied to the org aswell

Don't forget to add yourself into the roster sheet.

 

[Raticus79]

Apparently I managed to unlock the Glaive for purchase/rent somehow despite my groups never actually beating wave 18...? (unless it still shows up and it gives an error later on in the checkout process if you don't have that badge)
The store says there are 102 left out of the 1000.

Here's that roster sheet:

----------------------------------------------------------------------
To join the NeoGAF Star Citizen Org: [Sign up]
(please include your GAF name in the message)
Quote this to see the link to the roster spreadsheet and add your details.

 

[Agremont]

Just added my info.

 

[Zalusithix]

Apparently I managed to unlock the Glaive for purchase/rent somehow despite my groups never actually beating wave 18...? (unless it still shows up and it gives an error later on in the checkout process if you don't have that badge)
The store says there are 102 left out of the 1000.

Going to melt the Orion to fund a Glaive (reproduction)?

 

[Raticus79]

Going to melt the Orion to fund a Glaive (reproduction)?

Nah. I might check it out with REC later. Sticking with the Orion for that group exploration+mining concept. I imagine it would be more efficient to have multiple Orions in the group.

I put in about 8 hours in the new Vanduul swarm this weekend and made it to level 18 in public games about 5 times (but have't beat it yet). In the last attempt, both of my respawns put me in the middle of the pack and I was dead a few seconds after my display finished initializing, which was silly.

There's a fun little grind for REC there with Arena Commander which is pretty satisfying already. That hologram table is nearly unusable in its current state though, lol. Need to fish for pixels to put something on a gimbal vs replacing that gimbal. Weapon groups get assigned randomly, but I worked around that by just mapping all the fire groups to left click. Are there any good current tutorials out there? I might put one together.

 

[Shy]

I updated the spreadsheet with my Scout.

 

[Rex Griswold]

Man, that Retaliator with living quarters modifications looks like it'd be really useful. I wish they'd let us know if the Vanguard has living quarters, because if it doesn't I might just melt my Super Hornet and snag a Retaliator.

 

[Kabouter]

Man, that Retaliator with living quarters modifications looks like it'd be really useful. I wish they'd let us know if the Vanguard has living quarters, because if it doesn't I might just melt my Super Hornet and snag a Retaliator.

This might be a weird question, but...what is the usefulness of living quarters?

 

[Rex Griswold]

This might be a weird question, but...what is the usefulness of living quarters?

I imagine that this is a life simulator in space. Gotta sleep to live.

I could be mistaken though.. I'm curious now too.

 

[Daedardus]

This might be a weird question, but...what is the usefulness of living quarters?

Cook, eat, sleep, shower, go to toilet in-game. All those boring real life activities made fun by video games.

 

[Kabouter]

Cook, eat, sleep, shower, go to toilet in-game. All those boring real life activities made fun by video games.

That doesn't say whether or not those things are actually useful in terms of the game's mechanics though, or whether it's just there for people who want to roleplay more.

 

[Rex Griswold]

Cook, eat, sleep, shower, go to toilet in-game. All those boring real life activities made fun by video games.

Nothing to do with video games, everything to do with being in space.. and the future.

 

[Daedardus]

That doesn't say whether or not those things are actually useful in terms of the game's mechanics though, or whether it's just there for people who want to roleplay more.

On a more serious note, I recall CR saying that it won't be a 'hardcore' simulator in that you need to sleap/eat to survive. The intention for it now is as you said, more of a roleplay purpose or just the fact that you can do that stuff making the game seem more realistic.

 

[Kabouter]

On a more serious note, I recall CR saying that it won't be a 'hardcore' simulator in that you need to sleap/eat to survive. The intention for it now is as you said, more of a roleplay purpose or just the fact that you can do that stuff making the game seem more realistic.

Yeah, this seems the most sensible solution, it works for everyone pretty much.

 

[Dubbedinenglish]

On a more serious note, I recall CR saying that it won't be a 'hardcore' simulator in that you need to sleap/eat to survive. The intention for it now is as you said, more of a roleplay purpose or just the fact that you can do that stuff making the game seem more realistic.

If I'm not mistaken sleeping/beds will act as a save spot for players. So you can go further out into space. Otherwise your ship goes to the nearest station without one.

 

[Rex Griswold]

If I'm not mistaken sleeping/beds will act as a save spot for players. So you can go further out into space. Otherwise your ship goes to the nearest station without one.

Hopefully there's some clarification soon.

 

[Zalusithix]

If I'm not mistaken sleeping/beds will act as a save spot for players. So you can go further out into space. Otherwise your ship goes to the nearest station without one.

That was mentioned before, though who knows what the current plan is. Not that it matters with the Retaliator. The ship has bunks to sleep in even without the living quarters. The living quarters might have some purpose outside of RP/cosmetic, but they're not needed to sleep.

Edit: It also obviously has a toilet, shower, lockers, etc. All the basic needs for an extended flight. It even has a weapon rack for the traditional crew, so something like the dropship module is only needed for the actual extra people you're transporting. Strangely enough though, I don't think it has seats for anybody but the pilot - unless you count the turret seats as seating.

 

[Dictator93]

Hopefully there's some clarification soon.

They have mentioned beds will active as a save slot. Hence why explorer ships are relatively "self sufficient".

 

[Effect]

Is anyone having constantly loading when trying to access arena commander free flight? Going to try some other modes but can't get it past the loading screen.

 

[Xplatformer]

Was flying my ship today.

Took this picture. I'm really going to love this game.

Took one more.

 

[OrlanisWorks]

That's a really pretty shot of a really pretty ship ya got there.

Watching the mutli-crew demo from Gamescom got me all gitty for some flying. Downloaded the new launcher today and I've already had the latest patched release installed (came out two weeks ago), so I was hoping to just replace the launcher. Nope. Gotta download all 25gb of data again.

I'll probably download it later when I'm doing something else and don't care about it hogging all my bandwidth, but the extremely inefficient patching kills my enthusiasm.

 

[M.Steiner]

Think the Glaive's have all sold out now. Just beat wave 18 with another guy and I can REC one for 35k, but not able to buy as there's no button. Considering I just bought the Retaliator yesterday though, I'm kinda glad. Too easily tempted heh.

 

[Zalusithix]

Think the Glaive's have all sold out now. Just beat wave 18 with another guy and I can REC one for 35k, but not able to buy as there's no button. Considering I just bought the Retaliator yesterday though, I'm kinda glad. Too easily tempted heh.

Frankly, it wasn't a good value anyhow. That was a heck of a lot for a single seat ship that's not even a real Glaive.

 

[kutthoat5150]

Was flying my ship today.

Took this picture. I'm really going to love this game.

Took one more.

judging from the gamescom demo, the environments just like the newer ships have gotten a serious jump in quality in the last year or so. I can't wait to free roam the newer maps when they release

 

[Reishiki]

I am going to have an endless amount of fun buzzing smaller ships with the quantum drives on the bigger stuff I own.

 

[SmartBase]

Well, they'll have to fix TrackIR first. The infamous helmet cage is still a thing. (Looking around changes your viewpoint within the helmet, and not the viewpoint from the helmet itself as it would in free look. This means the helmet can obscure the view, and the HUD doesn't move with the view.) I must say though, TrackIR/VR should be advantageous. Flying in one direction while looking at another for gimbal aim is actually a form of multitasking that takes effort. Even flying in the direction that you're looking is still a multifaceted control scheme where you're concentrating on two things at once. It's not as convoluted as using a secondary stick/trackball/whatever for aiming, but compared to mouse flight? Night and day.



The ability to aim with the mouse for gimbals while simultaneously adjusting ship direction with the same action is undoubtedly where the problem lies. It's not as powerful as separated aim and fly, but it's far, far easier for what it does do. You only have to concentrate on aiming at the target - the ship will fly itself. All the artificial gimbal lag in the world isn't going to impact you when you're effectively a homing missile that'll compensate with ship movement.

Edit: I'm also not quite sure why they're going with trackballs on the sticks as opposed to using analog sticks like on a controller. Any speed advantage that trackballs give for movement in a given direction is nullified by the gimbal lag. I mean, in the Hornet I can look in a given direction far faster than the gimbals / turret can compensate.

Edit 2:

Don't forget to add yourself into the roster sheet.

The helmet cage doesn't really factor into anything, TrackIR has worked fine before the last few updates and its current state will probably be fixed long before the more serious concerns are. I just want to see if a HOTAS player with it will be any match for a keyboard and mouse player.

 

[Zalusithix]

The helmet cage doesn't really factor into anything, TrackIR has worked fine before the last few updates and its current state will probably be fixed long before the more serious concerns are. I just want to see if a HOTAS player with it will be any match for a keyboard and mouse player.

TrackIR has been plagued by the helmet cage bug for as long as I can remember. Heck, if it was ever working properly, that's news to me.

It's one of the primary reasons in not overly concerned about control balance right now. If an input mechanism is broken like that, then they're obviously not finished setting things up, let alone tweaking them.

 

[Dictator93]

TrackIR has been plagued by the helmet cage bug for as long as I can remember. Heck, if it was ever working properly, that's news to me.

It's one of the primary reasons in not overly concerned about control balance right now. If an input mechanism is broken like that, then they're obviously not finished setting things up, let alone tweaking them.

It has basically always had the helmet cage problem. The only time it did not was when it was a fan implementation and there was no helmet in the game even.

 

[demolitio]

Finally played Arena Commander again after a very long break and the Aurora is completely different and a lot more depressing. That's one way to get people to spend more money.

I was already thinking about doing a cheap upgrade but don't know if the Mustang Beta or 300i would be better. I know the 300i went through its own roller-coaster ride in AC, but I'm eager to hear what you guys think.

 

[Blizzard]

Finally played Arena Commander again after a very long break and the Aurora is completely different and a lot more depressing. That's one way to get people to spend more money.

I was already thinking about doing a cheap upgrade but don't know if the Mustang Beta or 300i would be better. I know the 300i went through its own roller-coaster ride in AC, but I'm eager to hear what you guys think.

How is the Aurora more depressing? I haven't played in ages and I -think- I had a 300 something, but I'm not sure.

 

[demolitio]

How is the Aurora more depressing? I haven't played in ages and I -think- I had a 300 something, but I'm not sure.

A lot less agile, lost the wing-mounted hardpoints, and is now facing a lot better competition of course. It could take more shots than the 300 series at least.

 

[Agremont]

A lot less agile, lost the wing-mounted hardpoints, and is now facing a lot better competition of course. It could take more shots than the 300 series at least.

It's basically what it's meant to be from the start.

 

[KKRT00]

The geometry on those guns is just crazy. I wouldnt be surprised if it approached about 30k polys, so about the same as hero characters on past-gen games.

 

[Xplatformer]

Can't help but compare the Star Citizen social hub to Destiny's. I think Star Citizen being available only on PC will lead to some amazing planetary locations to explore.

 

[Dictator93]

The geometry on those guns is just crazy. I wouldnt be surprised if it approached about 30k polys, so about the same as hero characters on past-gen games.

Yeah, the texturing and design has imporved quite ait as well:

Original concept:

Newest:

So much less in the diffuse texture, makes it look soooo much better.

Also, the modelled screws on this are bonkers:

 

[tuxfool]

Yeah, the texturing and design has imporved quite ait as well:

Original concept:

Heh, I'm not sure if I approve of the retro-futuristic monochrome lcd on the gun. Surely in the future they would at least use a different display technology.