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Star Citizen Pre-Alpha: 'Arena Commander' Dogfighting

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Zabojnik

Member
That said, I didn't see the other two posters there, and the vast majority of the stuff is 1080p. That resolution wouldn't work as a wallpaper for my monitor's resolution, let alone be useful for printing at poster size. Still, a nice collection of stuff in once place.

Yeah, my bad, that was a wallpaper collection.

It's actually quite easy to find most of SC's high res art, concept and otherwise, by simply googling something like 'star citizen artwork' or 'star citizen poster' and setting the picture size filter to 8 million pixels and more (you could get away with less for smaller prints, I suppose). You can find pretty much all the poster art you can see in the background on AtV and what they have hanging on the walls in the Frankfurt office, plus a ton more. It pays to download and compare images from different sites / sources, as some of them have been uploaded to imgur & co. and have received dat compression treatment. Not that some of the originals don't suffer from jpeg compression as well. I guess they're keeping the 'good stuff' for when they decide to sell prints themselves. Gotta fund fast.

I'll definitely get a couple printed in the coming weeks and report back, once I decide what to go for and how to frame and / or canvas the prints.
 
I don't mind either way as long as the HOTAS becomes a viable control method, but it's strange seeing them still ironing out the basics this late in the game.



That was surprisingly in-depth, good read.

This late? they barely introduced this method in 2014....and it was always going to be process. Like they said in the video.

Expect it to continue to be fleshed out and fine tuned.
 

SmartBase

Member
This late? they barely introduced this method in 2014....and it was always going to be process. Like they said in the video.

Expect it to continue to be fleshed out and fine tuned.

You'll have to excuse my lack of knowledge here but isn't the flight (or driving) model one of the very first things developers work on and define when making a simulator? It's just weird to me and that's all I can say about it, it's not a real critique.
 
You'll have to excuse my lack of knowledge here but isn't the flight (or driving) model one of the very first things developers work on and define when making a simulator? It's just weird to me and that's all I can say about it, it's not a real critique.

From a pure gameplay perspective I'd agree. However, my assumption would be since they are building a lot of things from scratch that require as much testing as possible, a smart move would be to have a basic flight model in place so stuff like connectivity and hit detection and other engine related testing can take place.

Following the development I get the impression that most of the engine framework has been put in place and I can see the proper game mechanics begin to be fleshed out. Star marine notwithstanding. Their primary goal I imagine to make things work, and then make it fun/challenging to the design of the actual game
 
You'll have to excuse my lack of knowledge here but isn't the flight (or driving) model one of the very first things developers work on and define when making a simulator? It's just weird to me and that's all I can say about it, it's not a real critique.

Yes. Considering that the flight model is #1 thing that players will interact with and how players will interact with each other online it is the most vital part of the "game." Sadly it's taken about 16 months for them to even start to talk about and even so the new proposals look like they will lead to redesigns of ships or parts of ships.

We have aesthetically designed ships in a system where they want to simulate thrust and mass to influence flight. I don't expect CIG to be aeronautical engineers so for the desired results for ship behavior they had to fudge values on the XML planes. Which is why we currently have insane stop and start, instant overpowered thrusters, and massless ships that result in turrets in space.
 

Burny

Member
From a pure gameplay perspective I'd agree. However, my assumption would be since they are building a lot of things from scratch that require as much testing as possible, a smart move would be to have a basic flight model in place so stuff like connectivity and hit detection and other engine related testing can take place.

I fail to see why any of that should prevent work on the flight model and general balancing concept in the meanwhile though. If it indeed has prevented that, the solution to put backer's mind at ease would've been even simpler: Why didn't CIG come out and state clearly, that the current flight model is a WIP/placeholder and that the model/balancing will be worked on when they get around to it (if they have ever done that, my apologies, I'll gladly take a link)? It can't have escaped them that the current model is rather divisive. The effect is that I don't think they're even half as transparent, open, maybe even honest about CS's develoment as they would like to appear to be.

What's done is done though. Next time I'll give SC a try is when the baby PU/2.0/whatever releases. I'm not downloading tens of GBs of updates, just to see minimal improvements to Arena Commander anymore. And I sincerely hope that they'll be able to iterate and expand that quicker than Arena Commander...



In the meanwhile though...

Has any of the SC backers here had a look at Infinity: Battlescape? What do you think of it? Promising looking engine imo, far more limited scope (PvP battle arena in a solar system) compared to SC and ED, but still a potentially pretty good space game.
 

SmartBase

Member
Yes. Considering that the flight model is #1 thing that players will interact with and how players will interact with each other online it is the most vital part of the "game." Sadly it's taken about 16 months for them to even start to talk about and even so the new proposals look like they will lead to redesigns of ships or parts of ships.

We have aesthetically designed ships in a system where they want to simulate thrust and mass to influence flight. I don't expect CIG to be aeronautical engineers so for the desired results for ship behavior they had to fudge values on the XML planes. Which is why we currently have insane stop and start, instant overpowered thrusters, and massless ships that result in turrets in space.

From a pure gameplay perspective I'd agree. However, my assumption would be since they are building a lot of things from scratch that require as much testing as possible, a smart move would be to have a basic flight model in place so stuff like connectivity and hit detection and other engine related testing can take place.

Following the development I get the impression that most of the engine framework has been put in place and I can see the proper game mechanics begin to be fleshed out. Star marine notwithstanding. Their primary goal I imagine to make things work, and then make it fun/challenging to the design of the actual game

Let's take it a step back and reduce it to theoreticals. Why do we have fairly detailed design documents for all sorts of minutia of the game (healing, cargo, FPS stances, etc.), but not for the flight model (until now)? There's this but it lacks the crucial information on velocity and acceleration rates.
 
Let's take it a step back and reduce it to theoreticals. Why do we have fairly detailed design documents for all sorts of minutia of the game (healing, cargo, FPS stances, etc.), but not for the flight model (until now)? There's this but it lacks the crucial information on velocity and acceleration rates.

The 80 million dollar question.

Honestly I think they thought it could work as it is now. The current flight model is designed around IM with having to fly your ship as secondary to aiming the guns. However it is one mode on one controller that "works" with all other forms being incompetent. Then they started ramping up assists like ESP to make it feasible to use joysticks and pads (which is terrible). It didn't work. There are ~200 or so regular AC players out of nearly a million backers. I think they finally realized the current model and how they were going about getting ships to behave wasn't working and harming the game.

They new stuff is very promising and I can't wait to try it but hopefully CIG is more open when it comes to the core gameplay of the game.
 
They new stuff is very promising and I can't wait to try it but hopefully CIG is more open when it comes to the core gameplay of the game.

Yeah.,

One thing I do not want them to change is their design brief and ideas for FPS. I really want to play a slow, tactical, and deadly FPS game... with long animation times and a lot of weight.

I get the feeling a number of pc players see those things as anti-thetical to typical pc fps... but I absolutely adore the R6 games and I want to have something like that again.
 

tuxfool

Banned
Let's take it a step back and reduce it to theoreticals. Why do we have fairly detailed design documents for all sorts of minutia of the game (healing, cargo, FPS stances, etc.), but not for the flight model (until now)? There's this but it lacks the crucial information on velocity and acceleration rates.

It is explained in the video. They thought the previous model would have been sufficient.

It probably would have been, given the original scope of the game. They decided to improve on it to better fit with their current design goals and because people weren't happy with the old model.

Also regarding design documents, I think that as the project has started to move along they have gotten better at documenting publicly their intent. Earlier in the in the cycle they were a lot more "it could be this that or the other" but now the things that they put down are typically more concrete.
 

tuxfool

Banned
Yeah.,

One thing I do not want them to change is their design brief and ideas for FPS. I really want to play a slow, tactical, and deadly FPS game... with long animation times and a lot of weight.

I get the feeling a number of pc players see those things as anti-thetical to typical pc fps... but I absolutely adore the R6 games and I want to have something like that again.

I don't see them changing that. For one thing it needs to remain compatible with zero-g which almost certainly requires a more slow methodical approach. Otherwise the FPS would end up being like ship combat but with people.
 

KKRT00

Member
Let's take it a step back and reduce it to theoreticals. Why do we have fairly detailed design documents for all sorts of minutia of the game (healing, cargo, FPS stances, etc.), but not for the flight model (until now)? There's this but it lacks the crucial information on velocity and acceleration rates.

Because You can fly ships for a year now, but You cant interact with cargo or shoot people yet.
 

Zabojnik

Member
Can anyone with access to the vault check if there's a high(er) resolution version of this artwork to be found in there?

dxjSQS4.png


Thanks.
 

Zalusithix

Member
Can anyone with access to the vault check if there's a high(er) resolution version of this artwork to be found in there?

dxjSQS4.png


Thanks.

This one bugs the heck out of me. It's the rover from the Constellation, and is obviously cropped by somebody to make it wallpaper friendly (can see part of the artist's signature near the bottom), but I can't seem to find the original. It looks like it's post-reveal, as the headlight area differs slightly from the original Constellation Aquila introduction. So some time between August '14 and August '15 lol...

Edit: Well, I found another upload of it here and it has the source in the description: "Screenshot of the Ursa rover (for the Aquila) from 10FTC." So it came from this 10FTC and there's no high quality version available yet.
 
Can anyone with access to the vault check if there's a high(er) resolution version of this artwork to be found in there?

dxjSQS4.png


Thanks.

This image is so good. Reminds me of that feeling I got when ME1 came out... only to have it dashed by reality and sequels.

Let's hope the Ursa gameplay is as awesome as it looks.
 

Zalusithix

Member
This image is so good. Reminds me of that feeling I got when ME1 came out... only to have it dashed by reality and sequels.

Let's hope the Ursa gameplay is as awesome as it looks.

If we have control of the rovers before 2018, I'll be surprised. To be of any practical use, they'll need massive areas to play in, which without procedural generation, would be a massive strain on the content creation. Perhaps we'll see them in a limited functionality for the FPS aspect, but for exploration? I don't see that any time soon.
 

tuxfool

Banned
If we have control of the rovers before 2018, I'll be surprised. To be of any practical use, they'll need massive areas to play in, which without procedural generation, would be a massive strain on the content creation. Perhaps we'll see them in a limited functionality for the FPS aspect, but for exploration? I don't see that any time soon.

Quite. I also saw the Elite gameplay, unless there is more to their rover than just driving over featureless surfaces I'd rather they not bother.
 

Zalusithix

Member
Quite. I also saw the Elite gameplay, unless there is more to their rover than just driving over featureless surfaces I'd rather they not bother.

To be fair to Elite, they're starting with the most boring (easiest) planet types. To be really captivating for exploration, they'll need planets with atmospheres, varying weather types, and interesting geological features. Bonus points for life (flora or fauna). Still, a start is a start, and unlike SC they already have the procedural generation of planet surfaces in a working state.

That said, I'm quite happy with SC and Elite going down different paths. Elite will give a million places nobody has ever stepped virtual foot on, but will be limited by what the procedural generation can create. SC will lack that breadth for the foreseeable future, but what locations it does have will be meticulously crafted.
 

Burny

Member
Elite will give a million places nobody has ever stepped virtual foot on, but will be limited by what the procedural generation can create. SC will lack that breadth for the foreseeable future, but what locations it does have will be meticulously crafted.

Which really makes me wonder how interesting exploration in SC will turn out to be in the end. We know it's a bit of a grind in Elite (not that there won't be also things to shoot at on their airless planets!), but that game hasn't sold 350$+ pledge packages focused around grand fantasies of exploration with the attached concept ships.

I'm happy to have resisted getting the Carrack LTI pledge last year. The combat ships to me seem like a safer bet in terms of finding a place and use in the meta once the PU is out.
 

tuxfool

Banned
To be fair to Elite, they're starting with the most boring (easiest) planet types. To be really captivating for exploration, they'll need planets with atmospheres, varying weather types, and interesting geological features. Bonus points for life (flora or fauna). Still, a start is a start, and unlike SC they already have the procedural generation of planet surfaces in a working state.

Sure. And it is pretty neat. The problem is that just by providing these sterile environments, they're really not adding much over sterile space. After people get their fun driving the buggy there isn't much left. You can raid bases (I think?), but how is it different from space?

There could be a lot more to it than they have shown, hopefully.
 

Burny

Member
Sure. And it is pretty neat. The problem is that just by providing these sterile environments, they're really not adding much over sterile space. After people get their fun driving the buggy there isn't much left. You can raid bases (I think?), but how is it different from space?

How are combined arms on a planet and base raids (recent two 20 second sneek peaks at Horizons) not different from space combat? The recent dev update goes a bit into the detail of what ED will offer on planet surfaces.

It promises to be similar to what on foot combat is to Star Citizen. Another dimension to the game mechanics.
 

Zalusithix

Member
I think there's a good chance they'll pull off a 2.0 release + anniversary sale combo and that'll probably do it.

Heck, if they really want to knock it out of the park, they'll do another unannounced concept ship sale at the same time. Wallets the world over would go on a diet.
 

lacinius

Member
94 million

Do you guys think 100 mill is possible by the end of the year?

Perhaps if SC Alpha 2.0 comes out...


It's got a good chance with the Anniversary sale coming up, and a whole bunch of new backers that have never experienced an anniversary sale before. Plus, I believe they mentioned some sort of holiday/Christmas sale... and they will probably sneak in the Crucible concept sale as well.
 
ship sales have really slowed down this year so I think January is more likely to hit 100 mil. Though if they can get both 2.0 and Star Marine they might have a chance with the anniversary sale but it's going to be close.
 
So I spent some time trying to land a merlin on gold horizon..and I finally got it.

All the area lights currently cast no shadows and some textures only load a really low mip for some reason... but god damn if it does not have really high quality assets and texturing all over the place.
starcitizen_2015_11_0h6sfn.png

starcitizen_2015_11_0wxspg.png

starcitizen_2015_11_06hs0p.png

starcitizen_2015_11_0ifsek.png

starcitizen_2015_11_0ucsm2.png

starcitizen_2015_11_0xcsze.png

starcitizen_2015_11_0igs9s.png

starcitizen_2015_11_0rxszz.png

starcitizen_2015_11_03usut.png

starcitizen_2015_11_0wcjii.png
 

Zalusithix

Member
Going by the "GRAV" name, I'm going to assume this has something to do with the artificial gravity and not general power. It would be interesting if you could disable gravity for the entire station. Theoretically it would make heavy weapons with a lot of kickback nearly useless. Equal and opposite reactions and all that. Without gravity and friction to keep you in place, the force would send you flying (and rolling) backwards. Could be an interesting tactic to change the flow of battle if faced with a bunch of heavies.
 

Starviper

Member
Going by the "GRAV" name, I'm going to assume this has something to do with the artificial gravity and not general power. It would be interesting if you could disable gravity for the entire station. Theoretically it would make heavy weapons with a lot of kickback nearly useless. Equal and opposite reactions and all that. Without gravity and friction to keep you in place, the force would send you flying (and rolling) backwards. Could be an interesting tactic to change the flow of battle if faced with a bunch of heavies.

In one of their Star Marine demos they do that exact thing actually, people are all over the room flying around lol
 

Danthrax

Batteries the CRISIS!
Going by the "GRAV" name, I'm going to assume this has something to do with the artificial gravity and not general power. It would be interesting if you could disable gravity for the entire station. Theoretically it would make heavy weapons with a lot of kickback nearly useless. Equal and opposite reactions and all that. Without gravity and friction to keep you in place, the force would send you flying (and rolling) backwards. Could be an interesting tactic to change the flow of battle if faced with a bunch of heavies.

Yeah, that's planned to be a gameplay mechanic in the game
 

Raticus79

Seek victory, not fairness
All right, got my CH pedals. Unfortunately I can't get them to work while the Steam controller is connected. From reading up on it, it looks like I'm over the 4 device limit somehow. Will see if I can work around that, or if not, I guess they're planning to fix it one of these days.

No problems controlling front/back strafe and roll this way. There's a nice solid spring lock feel for center rudder position so I'm not getting accidental roll like I feared.

It was only going half speed in the beginning, so I created a custom curve for the strafe axis in game which maxed out halfway and then it was fine. Apparently this can also be fixed by changing the axis to a throttle type, but I couldn't get that to work.
 

Zalusithix

Member
Yeah, that's planned to be a gameplay mechanic in the game

In one of their Star Marine demos they do that exact thing actually, people are all over the room flying around lol

I knew it was a mechanic for ship boarding and the zero G arena, but I wasn't sure if the major stations were supposed to have that aspect. I mean, there's a lot of crap strewn about on Gold Horizon compared to a ship. Kill the gravity and all of it will become potential space debris. Toss a grenade and everything in the room/hallway is going to start moving, and keep moving until it hits something else. That's a lot of crap that you'll have to keep in sync between the clients. Though I must say, the potential for being under a massive barrel or something as cover when gravity turns back on is amusing. Killed not by the other player, but by the very cover that was protecting you up until then.

Not that I plan on being in station firefights much if I can help it. The vast majority of my time will be spent tending to my fleet. The closest I want to be to those sorts of things is providing drop off and extraction in the PU. I'll let the FPS-centric players duke it out inside.
 
So I spent some time trying to land a merlin on gold horizon..and I finally got it.

All the area lights currently cast no shadows and some textures only load a really low mip for some reason... but god damn if it does not have really high quality assets and texturing all over the place.
starcitizen_2015_11_0h6sfn.png

starcitizen_2015_11_0wxspg.png

starcitizen_2015_11_06hs0p.png

starcitizen_2015_11_0ifsek.png

starcitizen_2015_11_0ucsm2.png

starcitizen_2015_11_0xcsze.png

starcitizen_2015_11_0igs9s.png

starcitizen_2015_11_0rxszz.png

starcitizen_2015_11_03usut.png

starcitizen_2015_11_0wcjii.png

Wow there is serious detail there, never seen that. This will take the graphics crown, I have not been impressed visually by anything since Crysis in 2007 and I think this will when it is released.
 

Zabojnik

Member
All right, got my CH pedals. Unfortunately I can't get them to work while the Steam controller is connected. From reading up on it, it looks like I'm over the 4 device limit somehow. Will see if I can work around that, or if not, I guess they're planning to fix it one of these days.

No problems controlling front/back strafe and roll this way. There's a nice solid spring lock feel for center rudder position so I'm not getting accidental roll like I feared.

It was only going half speed in the beginning, so I created a custom curve for the strafe axis in game which maxed out halfway and then it was fine. Apparently this can also be fixed by changing the axis to a throttle type, but I couldn't get that to work.
Godspeed, Raticus. A true pioneer.
 

fuzaco

Member
So I won in the monthly AMD Sweepstakes and selected the Star Citizen pack as one of the games because I thought it was the full game. It's apparently some kind of ship, and since I don't have the game, I'm giving the code away. Quote to see.

Edit: Oops, that was a fail on my part. Can't check because i went to work, but it's fine if somebody took it already.
 

KKRT00

Member
So I spent some time trying to land a merlin on gold horizon..and I finally got it.

All the area lights currently cast no shadows and some textures only load a really low mip for some reason... but god damn if it does not have really high quality assets and texturing all over the place.
[digital porn]

Look so pretty :)
Put them in PC screenshot thread!
 
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