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Star Citizen Pre-Alpha: 'Arena Commander' Dogfighting

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KKRT00

Member
So how do You guys feel that S42 Vertical Slice mission is not first chapter from the campaign, but 11 and its already finished in 60%? :>
And that S42 Alpha will be ready around end of June? :>
 

tuxfool

Banned
So how do You guys feel that S42 Vertical Slice mission is not first chapter from the campaign, but 11 and its already finished in 60%? :>
And that S42 Alpha will be ready around end of June? :>

Vertical slices often aren't the beginning of the game. They need to demonstrate most if not all the mechanics employed throughout the game, which may exclude the introductory missions.

I'm sort of finding it hard to believe that the game will nearly be content complete for June, if their vertical slice is only currently at 60% (however it is true that an alpha can mean different things).
 
Gladuis has variable geometry wing tips.....Be strong, be strong

post-11442-Sheldon-breathing-in-a-paper-b-17Kp.gif
 

Danthrax

Batteries the CRISIS!
Leaked development issues roadmap from JIRA
http://imgur.com/vlNv96y,nJqB5RY,VptR6S9,XLGRbuS#0

Well. It's nice to get an honest picture of the game's development and release timeline. Their JIRA should always be publicly available considering we financed the game.

I'll bet those S42 dates were set a year ago and they just haven't bothered to push them back yet in JIRA. Judging by how much yellow and blue is in all those chapters' progress bars, they look fucked for a June 2015 release.

As for planetside locations, it looks like Terra Prime is completely finished considering it's nowhere in those screenshots. They're working on most of ArcCorp now and are just starting Nyx.
 

KKRT00

Member
As for planetside locations, it looks like Terra Prime is completely finished considering it's nowhere in those screenshots. They're working on most of ArcCorp now and are just starting Nyx.

Terra Prime is on this shot:
http://i.imgur.com/XLGRbuS.png

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June is for alpha of S42, so not content complete version. July is for content complete, which they probably wont hit and September is for beta, which seems probable.
 

Shy

Member
June is for alpha of S42, so not content complete version. July is for content complete, which they probably wont hit and September is for beta, which seems probable.
is that an internal alpha, or for the people with alpha slots. ?
 

KKRT00

Member
is that an internal alpha, or for the people with alpha slots. ?

Who knows really, i think it is internal, because Chris said that they want to give S42 as a polished product. So i dont think we will get alpha or beta, but full Episode 1 Squadron 42 at the end of the year and maybe vertical slice mission in few months.
 

Shy

Member
Who knows really, i think it is internal, because Chris said that they want to give S42 as polished product. So i dont we will get alpha or beta, but full Episode 1 Squadron 42 at the end of the year and maybe vertical slice mission in few months.
Ahhhh. cool. that makes sense
 

ASTROID2

Member
So I saw this in a stream yesterday. If you go eva and you go up to objects your character will touch them. Moving his hands across them while you move. He also damaged one of his legs somehow and the character limped after words. He was unable to replicate it later though.

Here's a screenshot I took of me touching an asteroid:
screenshot0038nspia.jpg
 

Zalusithix

Member
So I saw this in a stream yesterday. If you go eva and you go up to objects your character will touch them. Moving his hands across them while you move. He also damaged one of his legs somehow and the character limped after words. He was unable to replicate it later though.

Here's a screenshot I took of me touching an asteroid:
screenshot0038nspia.jpg

Yeah, this was shown during the last zero G arena footage. Animations for that sort of stuff are going to be needed for zero G combat, so they'll be in the PU as well. In any other game it'd just be a "well that's cool" sort of thing, but it's rather vital to what SC will become. We'll need the ability to maneuver around objects and use them for cover without the use of thrusters.
 

Geist-

Member
Dev Luke Hatton comments on why there is sound in space:

Hi all,

Random chime-in!

Some great points raised, this is an interesting topic for us. At this point in development we are wanting sound in space, but simulated (to a high quality) with non-realistic and cinematic flourishes here and there. We plan for the simulated sound to be affected by damage, that is, to cut out and introduce audio artifacts and corruption. This should help remind the player what they are hearing is simulated and a sensitive computer system at that.

A distinction between being comfortable in your ship, taking damage in-ship and on your last legs whilst EVA is important to us. We want to expose the silence of space and highlight the in-spacesuit foley occasionally (gravity style). That's the kind of detail that excites us, but it is implementation-heavy and so, we have held off on this on our current sound engine (fmod) whilst we transition to our new engine (wwise).

I have had a pre-visualisation task of how this might work on my 'to do' list for months and it's something I will be getting to in the coming weeks.

We can't wait to get this aspect fleshed out and see what you all think :)

edit: forgot to include the fact that as this is a ship computer system, you'll most likely be able to turn it off in-cockpit.

Thanks

TL;DR All sound we hear is simulated in-space, we won't hear sound while doing EVA, and we can turn it off.

cy3eVMi.jpg
 

Zalusithix

Member
They only do it for oddball press shots (deinftely not all of them). The game doesnt have CA on... for example.

Yeah, I know it's not in the game (thankfully). Those press shots generally speaking are supposed to be in universe photos though. Hence the comment about future cameras/software sucking.
 

tuxfool

Banned
Yeah, I know it's not in the game (thankfully). Those press shots generally speaking are supposed to be in universe photos though. Hence the comment about future cameras/software sucking.

You shouldn't go about complaining about realism in this game. That far into the future ships would pilot themselves instead of anachronistically relying on human pilots.

They make things an analogue to what we know or have currently, in this case lens' have CA. Otherwise it would just come across as a screenshot.
 

Daedardus

Member
You shouldn't go about complaining about realism in this game. That far into the future ships would pilot themselves instead of anachronistically relying on human pilots.

They make things an analogue to what we know or have currently, in this case lens' have CA. Otherwise it would just come across as a screenshot.

Current lenses do not experience CA anymore though.

Even then, it's not a reason to use such bad visual effects in screenshots.
 

Zalusithix

Member
You shouldn't go about complaining about realism in this game. That far into the future ships would pilot themselves instead of anachronistically relying on human pilots.

They make things an analogue to what we know or have currently, in this case lens' have CA. Otherwise it would just come across as a screenshot.

That'd make sense except for the fact that the vast majority of photos today don't exhibit CA. Good lenses don't suffer from it much and post processing the resulting images damn near all but eliminates it. Unlike bokeh, it's not an effect we find visually pleasing.
 

epmode

Member
They only do it for oddball press shots (deinftely not all of them). The game doesnt have CA on... for example.

Unless something changed from the earlier hangar releases, Arena Commander definitely has chromatic aberration enabled. It's pretty mild and you can disable it from the console, thankfully.

Chromatic Aberration is The Worst Thing.
 

tuxfool

Banned
Current lenses do not experience CA anymore though.

Even then, it's not a reason to use such bad visual effects in screenshots.

That'd make sense except for the fact that the vast majority of photos today don't exhibit CA. Good lenses don't suffer from it much and post processing the resulting images damn near all but eliminates it. Unlike bokeh, it's not an effect we find visually pleasing.

It isn't suposed to be a screenshot. It is cheap and fast way to make it look like somebody was taking a photograph. Also, yes, most lenses these days don't exhibit strong CA but it still can be seen from time to time and is something people still associate with photography.
Maybe they should have put a cheap instagram filter, then nobody would complain.

I should also point out that CA is a matter of taste, I don't particularly like it either (when used excessively, on rare occasions it can be positive addition). There are people that don't like Bokeh either...
 
Unless something changed from the earlier hangar releases, Arena Commander definitely has chromatic aberration enabled. It's pretty mild and you can disable it from the console, thankfully.

Chromatic Aberration is The Worst Thing.

Did you last play the game about a year ago? It does not have ca and hasnt had it since the AC release.
 

Zalusithix

Member
It isn't suposed to be a screenshot. It is cheap and fast way to make it look like somebody was taking a photograph. Also, yes, most lenses these days don't exhibit strong CA but it still can be seen from time to time and is something people still associate with photography.
Maybe they should have put a cheap instagram filter, then nobody would complain.

I should also point out that CA is a matter of taste, I don't particularly like it either (when used excessively, on rare occasions it can be positive addition). There are people that don't like Bokeh either...
We know it's not supposed to be a screenshot, else the topic of cameras wouldn't have been brought up. We just don't necessarily believe it should be implemented as a means to signify it being a photo. It's certainly no more believable as a photo than it would have been without it.

As for the instagram filter comment, I was actually going to joke that the CA was the SC equivalent of an such a filter. I mean hell, why not? We have people making their photos look like shit on purpose today. Why should the future change that trend? ;)

so.. is that feature out now on this pre-alpha? The muti-crew ships..?

This shit looks so fun.

Multi-crew ships aren't out yet. Anything you see people doing right now is just EVAing into another ship. They're not actually functional in a multi-crew sense.
 

tuxfool

Banned
I think it's more likely that people are against DOF effects in general, not Bokeh in particular. Like me! Keep it for cutscenes but stay out of gameplay pls.

Frankly DOF is better than attempting to draw into infinity and can complement AA. It just shouldn't be used excessively. The only place where it probably doesn't work well is in VR.
 
It's been a while, yeah. If it's gone for good, I'm glad. Screw CA.



I think it's more likely that people are against DOF effects in general, not Bokeh in particular. Like me! Keep it for cutscenes but stay out of gameplay pls.

Frankly DOF is better than attempting to draw into infinity and can complement AA. It just shouldn't be used excessively.

Star citizen uses DOF extremely well so far. 2x

Using weapon iron sights, using visor zoom.
 

Daedardus

Member
The only reason why CA is in that screenshot is cheap way to hide the aliasing. If I blow it up to my native screen resolution, the front engine has a big thick purple and green border. Yuck. It's not even subtle.
 
Finally got into a multiplayer free flight game with another player, he had a Mustang Alpha I had a Hornet, we a had a good time buzzing each other on the landing pads and trying to run into each other in zero G.
 

tuxfool

Banned
The only reason why CA is in that screenshot is cheap way to hide the aliasing. If I blow it up to my native screen resolution, the front engine has a big thick purple and green border. Yuck. It's not even subtle.

They could have supersampled if they were that interested in removing aliasing.

On a similar note, I wonder why they disabled the native AA methods of the engine. Surely they could have left them as is, and worked on the resolve at a later date...
 

Keasar

Member
Either I am absolutely terrible and the worst fucking pilot ever or I am extremely outmatched by people who have fitted their ships with way more damaging weapons than the default ones that seem to instantly shred my Super Hornet to bits.

Think I know why I never touched Arena Commander after the first 1-2 tries long ago.
 

bathsalts

Member
Just found this on reddit.

ZL8HW7a.png


Looks like they're going all out for FPS customization. Awesome.

This looks really promising, going to be a formidable fps in its own right, really hoping the enemy AI is there. This one of the few unique opportunities where smart AI can find a way into a game.
 

KKRT00

Member
"a fat helghast" - Chris Roberts 2015
http://a.pomf.se/hofcnq.webm
Fixed

This looks really promising, going to be a formidable fps in its own right, really hoping the enemy AI is there. This one of the few unique opportunities where smart AI can find a way into a game.

They have whole contracted studio dedicated for AI research and creation.
http://kythera.ai/

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On a similar note, I wonder why they disabled the native AA methods of the engine. Surely they could have left them as is, and worked on the resolve at a later date...
I think newest rendering setup of CE [3.6] doesnt support MSAA, so they dont support it in options anymore.
They will be migrating to 3.7 soon and this will be last merge with full version of CryEngine for a long time.
 
My favorite part of the helmet, is that the material is worn on the edges. So that the metal becomes more glossy in the places where one would expect it to be.
 

MrBig

Member
Just found this on reddit.

ZL8HW7a.png


Looks like they're going all out for FPS customization. Awesome.

This design feels like a direct copy of the old Planetside 2 weapon UI - flaws and all. The biggest issues with this were the multitude of layers, making you click through a bunch of things to get what you want rather than laying it all out at once, and the lack of numeric stats (those relative stat bars are worthless!). The PS2 weapon UI evolved a whole lot over time with actual user testing that brought these issues to light, and I hope that CIG took the time to look at how SOE solved these issues instead of just copying the initial design, as it ended up working very well after a year or so of iteration.

Mainly, they need to give explicit information about everything, and expose all the information they can. Yes it can overwhelm new users, and they can give some simpler information, but once people know what they're doing all of the people that care about the information are going to compile it and post it to wikis, leaving out all the people that don't go outside the game to look up information. People are going to get this information anyway, either through extracting it from the game files or analyzing tests in game - so don't leave people out, expose any and all details about individual components in game. Qualitative, quantitative, statistical charts, whatever is needed.

For the UX, putting it all on the surface and being able to do simple things quickly was a fundamental change to the PS2 UI that made everything so much more pleasant. They ended up adding per weapon user configurable pre-sets, and quick swaps for everything, all while still retaining all of those layers to drill down in to when the time and desire to do so was there.
 

Pomerlaw

Member
Either I am absolutely terrible and the worst fucking pilot ever or I am extremely outmatched by people who have fitted their ships with way more damaging weapons than the default ones that seem to instantly shred my Super Hornet to bits.

Think I know why I never touched Arena Commander after the first 1-2 tries long ago.

They probably play with a mouse.

AC is really mouse friendly. Its sad...
 
They probably play with a mouse.

AC is really mouse friendly. Its sad...

I asked about this in another thread and someone assured me that HOTAS generally beats MKB in Arena Commander. Is this not the case?

Combat always looks extremely responsive in the vids I've seen, with little inertia/countering--again, just from what I can see. It's not really as simple as pointing and clicking, right?
 
"I asked about this in another thread and someone assured me that HOTAS generally beats MKB in Arena Commander. Is this not the case?

Combat always looks extremely responsive in the vids I've seen, with little inertia/countering--again, just from what I can see. It's not really as simple as pointing and clicking, right?"


They lied to you. The problem isn't with the handling, though, it's with gimballed weapons and being able to control them with the mouse cursor directly, making it as simple as pointing and clicking. CIG really should just ditch gimbals, sooner rather than later.
 
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