Star Citizen: Even the Pope won't invite me to dinner to discuss religion

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Star Citizen: Even the Pope won't invite me to dinner to discuss religion

Woolwich Bagnet: Apr 27, 2003

Played the dfm or ac or whatever the hell they want to call it now and Jesus is it loving awful. The ship handles like a van filled with water sloshing through space with terrible stuttering. Doesn't matter if I use mouse or joystick, both are poo poo. They should just strip out all of the dumb 'real thrusters' crap or whatever and use a simple physics model. I mean, seriously, I'm poo poo at programming and I think I could put together a better physics model than they did in an hour or two. It's literally just physics 101.

On top of that, the UI in the ships is absolute poo poo. It's filled with stupid useless information all over the place. It's the year whatever the hell and they still haven't figured out that you can use these things called cameras to give a non-obscured 360 degree field of view. You know, something even the F-35 can do today (well, maybe some day :v:

). If they want to model stuff inside the cockpit, they need to take a good look at modern fighters and the instruments/layouts of them and their functions. Also lol at important warnings having the world warning in them and a slow talking dumb voice.

It's obvious from this that they consider form above all and function is an afterthought.

At least it has given me hours of entertainment mocking people super invested in this poo poo show of incompetence.

# ¿ Jun 6, 2014 02:26

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# ¿ May 21, 2024 06:09

Woolwich Bagnet: Apr 27, 2003

Eldragon posted:

The flight model has its problems now, but there is a lot of time for the rough parts to be smoothed out. They are doing some unique things never been tried before, and it is going to take some experimentation.

Right now each thruster realistically adjusts your craft based on the thrust output and the position of the thruster on the craft. In the long run this is going to give each craft very different maneuvering characteristics, and create a lot of depth to combat. e.g. The Cutlass can pitch quickly, but is slow on the yaw, so you're better off getting into the habit of rolling before making a hard left/right turn. Its a level of depth not yet seen in space game.

I'm having a lot of fun with it, and I can see the potential here. I'm sure the devs can smooth out the controls a bit so long as they are willing fudge some numbers behind the scenes, and not get bogged down trying to balance every single ship so it handles well.

All of those 'details' can be modeled in minutes with a simple physics model. It's making things overly complicated for the sake of being overly complicated and the results are bad. Really bad. If you can't get something as simple as this right in how ever many months or years it has been so far, you're probably not going to do so well on other things.

Also yeah, I hope they don't spend the time to make sure all the ships are playable too.

# ¿ Jun 6, 2014 16:21

Woolwich Bagnet: Apr 27, 2003

Eldragon posted:

Its hyper-realistics but functional. It's obviously got some rough edges but there is a long time between now and release. Remember this is the advantage of releasing an early alpha. It gives the devs time to balance and adjust the game against a live customer environment early in the dev process; before its too late to go back and make big changes.

I'd much rather play the game they have planned where each ship handles differently; rather than every other space game out there where each ship handles exactly the same way and they just have different turn rates and top speed.

Obviously I want ships balanced. What I meant to say is that I'm concerned CIG will spend hundreds of hours remodeling the physical thruster placement on ships so its a perfect simulation; rather than just tweak a config file so the actual thrust comes from a different position than where it is drawn on the model.

What I'm trying to say is what they're doing isn't difficult. It really isn't . The physics they are implementing are extremely simple and well understood. I've said it before and I'll say it again. It's obvious what their priorities are: form over function. Also, I wouldn't call ships handling like a bathtub in space functional.

# ¿ Jun 6, 2014 17:10

Woolwich Bagnet: Apr 27, 2003

You guys should hop over to the pillars of eternity thread and read the latest kickstarter update. It describes what a real company that knows how to manage a product does. A year and a half to release a 'pre-alpha,' whatever the hell that means of one small part of a game that is supposed to be laughably large. This game, if it ever comes out, is probably on target to be released in 2020 or so. IF they decide to release it. They already know that they can make more models of ships to sell to people for huge amounts of money, and that every time they announce a delay they get EVEN MORE money.

Chris Roberts is a genius. I am not being ironic when I say that. He is probably the smartest game developer ever. He has made more money without releasing a product than maybe anyone ever. All he has to do is keep dumping a bit of money into texture artists and advertisers and the sky is the limit. A year and a half later he releases an awful small part of his planned game and people are still rushing to defend him and cram their money down his throat. I wouldn't be surprised if CIG launches a professional advertising division at some point.

# ¿ Jun 12, 2014 00:11

Woolwich Bagnet: Apr 27, 2003

imperialparadox posted:

That's pre-alpha game, thank you very much.

The best part is wikipedia's definition of what pre-alpha means:

quote:

Pre-alpha refers to all activities performed during the software project before testing.

Yep that seems about right.

# ¿ Jun 13, 2014 04:24

Woolwich Bagnet: Apr 27, 2003

Octopode posted:

Star Citizen is pay 2 win in the same way that the ability to boost a character to level 90 coming in Warlords is, if you had to pay a different cost depending on how many levels you were skipping. It allows you to skip the part of the gameplay where you are playing just to reach the point where you can play how you wish to. However, any player can reach the exact same place simply by playing the game--just perhaps not as quickly.

However, just as a character leveled properly in WoW would have the benefit of building out experience playing their class well, tradeskills, reputations, and the like as they level that a boosted character would not, someone starting out in a Constellation or an Idris won't have the same skills developed, and won't receive the benefits of things like reputation gains that someone who played the game to earn the credits would--so it probably breaks out to be about even, in the end.

How do you get lifetime insurance on ships in the game?

# ¿ Jun 21, 2014 01:07

Woolwich Bagnet: Apr 27, 2003

Ardlen posted:

You pay a small amount of UEC every few months.

Wait that enables lifetime insurance on the ship? Or does that just insure the ship as long as you keep paying?

# ¿ Jun 21, 2014 01:11

Woolwich Bagnet: Apr 27, 2003

Eldragon posted:

Lifetime insurance was something that was available to early backers. It's mostly meaningless.

Oh, did they get rid of it from new ship purchases? I honestly do not know.

# ¿ Jun 21, 2014 01:27

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# ¿ May 21, 2024 06:09

Woolwich Bagnet: Apr 27, 2003

DasKuend posted:

How do magnetic shields hold in air?

How do the ships have such poor forward visibility? Sometimes you just can't make everything as realistic as you'd like.

# ¿ Jul 6, 2014 01:42

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Star Citizen: Even the Pope won't invite me to dinner to discuss religion