Sir CarcassI have been shown the end of my worldRound Rock, TXRegistered Userregular
Also, you don't need to pay real money at all for ships. Everything will be available for in-game currency. Buying ships now just lets you fly them early, start the game with them, and helps fund development.
Also, you don't need to pay real money at all for ships. Everything will be available for in-game currency. Buying ships now just lets you fly them early, start the game with them, and helps fund development.
Yeah - this is the important point.
You can preorder the game for $30 (it will retail for $60).
You can spend more if you want early beta access to things.
You can spend more if you want to throw more money at CR and crew to make a better game faster. If you do this, CR and crew, as a thank you, will give you more toys to play with out of the gate when the game releases.
But those last two parts are in no way required - anything you can buy now with real money you will be able to buy with in-game money in the persistent universe portion of the game (assuming you're even interested in playing it!).
AxenMy avatar is Excalibur.Yes, the sword.Registered Userregular
Yeah.
$45 gets you the pre-order and all the beta access.
Star Citizen is actually two games. You have the persistent universe Star Citizen (that even comes with private servers and mod support) and then you have the single player, story driven Squadron 42 which is effectively a spiritual successor to Wing Commander. $30 preorders you both of those, $45 gets you in early.
A Capellan's favorite sheath for any blade is your back.
OK guys I am gonna come in this thread and be stupid for a minute. I am aware that Star Citizen is a thing that a lot of people think is going to be pretty cool, and I am vaguely aware that a lot of people are pre-ordering/backing to get MOAR SPACESHIPS because they think spaceships are pretty cool, which is a thesis I endorse.
Now here's where it gets dumb, here's my question: what are you guys actually doing with this game right now that you talk about in the so many posts in the so many threads I have seen for months and months? Is there some kind of beta or partial-feature demo you guys are playing with? If I put some money down on this game today what does that get me today? Anything?
I'll answer this in a way that will seem incredibly cynical compared to most people in this thread, but I think that you will appreciate it considering my experience talking with you in the MWO thread, and also considering that you were asking about what you would get right now for putting money into the game.
For the most part, Star Citizen is still a game about dreams and collecting imaginary spaceships. While CIG has been busy showing us a lot of progress lately, buying into the game currently (with an additional $5 access pass on top of what ship you buy) will get you Arena Commander, which basically offers the ability to fight other people either in free-for-all or team matches, similar to MWO, as well as the ability to race other people, or kill AI bots by yourself or with a friend.
Despite all the ships that you can buy, currently the following are the only ships that you can actually play with in any of the Arena Commander modes:
Aurora - A starting ship, that is basically a flying coffin. It's actually kind of sturdy, but really weak on the weapons front. 300i - A space-BMW. Half the ship is a giant engine, which makes it incredibly fragile. 350r - A racing version of the space-BMW. It's quite fast but a bit hard to handle, and is otherwise similar to the 300i. 325 - The Interdiction version of the 300i. It's supposed to be a combat ship but it's poorly implemented currently, and will be fixed "soon." M50 - A racer/interdictor. This thing is hard to hit and is the only ship that can reliably kill a Hornet, which harvests great tears. Think of it as a light mech from MWO. Hornet - A military gunship (technically you buy the civilian version, but you get the military version for Arena Commander). This ship is way more powerful than anything else out there, except for the M50, which it has a hard time hitting. I guess it would be your heavy or assault mech to use MWO analogies.
Currently, unless you are a very good pilot, you only really have a change of winning in the battle modes of Arena Commander with either a military-style Hornet (especially if you bought a Hornet upgrade which gives you more hardpoints) or a M50, because practically nobody can hit you so you can whittle down your opponents with a steady stream of tiny weapon fire.
Currently, the racing mode of Arena Commander is either won by people flying a M50 or 350r, which makes sense since they are racers, but you can't actually buy these ships atm (people literally complained when CIG was going to make them available for people to purchase for racing, citing some kind of elitist "screw you got mine" thought process to justify their complaints).
Currently, the only thing that you can upgrade on your ships is weapons, and you can only do so by spending real money on weapons in the cash shop - there is no way to earn money in Arena Commander. Also, the weapons are poorly balanced, and some weapons are blatantly more powerful than others, or only halfway implemented This might change soon, however.
Basically, if we are talking about right now, Arena Commander (the only playable part of Star Citizen) is literally a P2W game, though calling it that makes some people pretty angry. When the full game launches years from now you will be able to earn things in-game, but right now real money is the only way to advance. This may change soon, but I'm just talking about things as of right now. Right now, if you didn't spend the money on the ships that are good at combat or racing, the respective game modes won't be that fun for you if you are playing random matches with puggies.
Right now, you can put money down on the cheapest package and have a little-coffin ship to play with, and you have basically preordered the game, but if you want to actually play what is available currently your enjoyment will likely be tied to whether or not you bought a better ship. This is probably quite a negative view of things compared to some people here, which is ironic since I've probably put more time into the game than anybody else here (going by time logged for PAI members at least on the current leaderboards), but I thought I would give you a different perspective on things. I'm not saying that things are necessarily bad because I actually play the crap out of this game, but I thought it would be nice to know what you are getting into - you're likely to come across similar problems to MWO.
Ok, thanks everybody, especially @imperialparadox for the straight dope. A deathmatch dogfighting mode with really only two ship types doesn't have much appeal, so I think I will let this game continue to bake and stick a toothpick in the middle again in another few months maybe (so to speak). Probably looking into Elite: Dangerous in the meantime (although Elite's ships seem to be be few and ugly compared to SC's selection, bleah).
On the flip side: you'd be preordering a game at a 50% discount. Granted, you'd be preordering a game that won't actually be released until next year...but at least you'd have already paid your entry fee.
| Origin/R*SC: Ein7919 | Battle.net: Erlkonig#1448 | XBL: Lexicanum | Steam: Der Erlkönig (the umlaut is important) |
On the flip side: you'd be preordering a game at a 50% discount. Granted, you'd be preordering a game that won't actually be released until next year...but at least you'd have already paid your entry fee.
But it sounds like I have plenty of time to pre-order at a 50% discount, so I can wait and get a better sense of how the full game is shaping up and how well it delivers on its promises.
+1
NEO|PhyteThey follow the stars, bound together.Strands in a braid till the end.Registered Userregular
On the flip side: you'd be preordering a game at a 50% discount. Granted, you'd be preordering a game that won't actually be released until next year...but at least you'd have already paid your entry fee.
But it sounds like I have plenty of time to pre-order at a 50% discount, so I can wait and get a better sense of how the full game is shaping up and how well it delivers on its promises.
Ooooor you could join the shamefleet.
It was that somehow, from within the derelict-horror, they had learned a way to see inside an ugly, broken thing... And take away its pain.
Warframe/Steam: NFyt
On the flip side: you'd be preordering a game at a 50% discount. Granted, you'd be preordering a game that won't actually be released until next year...but at least you'd have already paid your entry fee.
But it sounds like I have plenty of time to pre-order at a 50% discount, so I can wait and get a better sense of how the full game is shaping up and how well it delivers on its promises.
True but you can already get a pretty good sense of what they are trying to accomplish right now. Much of the stuff that's been described usually have video demos shortly before playable demos are released and you can find a ton of footage on youtube with any relevent permutation of keywords. This is one of star citizen's big strengths, in that their development process is very transparent and their whole team has to act very accountable in regards to the promisses they make.
One of the things that is in the works for the near future and that I'm super excited about is the multi-crew ship combat, which is where you and your homeslice can share a huge and powerful space coffin where everyone will have different roles like turret gunner or engineer in charge of distributing power to the shield in the direction you're about to take that missile from or space captain steering the ship into all those missiles... I imagine it there will be a ton of awesome moments and a ton of three-legged race moments but generally, it's a sort of interesting gameplay experience I've always wanted but never seen any game ambitious enough to deliver in a compelling fashion.
I don't feel the lack multi-crew ships in other games is really about ambition. There are plenty of games that let you manage power, shields and damage control while flying the ship and shooting the guns. I don't think it's easy to make meaningful full-time stations other than turret gunner or commander. For most everything else you're basically inventing minigames to occupy someone's time, or else installing purposely bad controls to justify having an extra player to help fly the ship. I feel Artemis Bridge Simulator, for example, is really about LARPing than about having a deeper game than, say, Independence War. Your weapons officer has to load the torpedos, but it doesn't actually produce more decision-making; your science officer has to read targets' shield frequencies, but only because it hides the information from the weapons officer.
Well, that's just my opinion anyways. How is Star Citizen going to handle it? You can have boarders and all kinds of SF shooter-type roles because of the whole FPS thing, but what jobs do they have for people to do on multi-crew ships?
On the flip side: you'd be preordering a game at a 50% discount. Granted, you'd be preordering a game that won't actually be released until next year...but at least you'd have already paid your entry fee.
But it sounds like I have plenty of time to pre-order at a 50% discount, so I can wait and get a better sense of how the full game is shaping up and how well it delivers on its promises.
True but you can already get a pretty good sense of what they are trying to accomplish right now. Much of the stuff that's been described usually have video demos shortly before playable demos are released and you can find a ton of footage on youtube with any relevent permutation of keywords. This is one of star citizen's big strengths, in that their development process is very transparent and their whole team has to act very accountable in regards to the promisses they make.
One of the things that is in the works for the near future and that I'm super excited about is the multi-crew ship combat, which is where you and your homeslice can share a huge and powerful space coffin where everyone will have different roles like turret gunner or engineer in charge of distributing power to the shield in the direction you're about to take that missile from or space captain steering the ship into all those missiles... I imagine it there will be a ton of awesome moments and a ton of three-legged race moments but generally, it's a sort of interesting gameplay experience I've always wanted but never seen any game ambitious enough to deliver in a compelling fashion.
The only game that springs to mind that allows for more than one ship occupant is Jane's Longbow 2. Offloading target prioritization to the CP/G position and letting the pilot focus on piloting is something I'm looking forward to in Star Citizen.
| Origin/R*SC: Ein7919 | Battle.net: Erlkonig#1448 | XBL: Lexicanum | Steam: Der Erlkönig (the umlaut is important) |
I don't feel the lack multi-crew ships in other games is really about ambition. There are plenty of games that let you manage power, shields and damage control while flying the ship and shooting the guns. I don't think it's easy to make meaningful full-time stations other than turret gunner or commander. For most everything else you're basically inventing minigames to occupy someone's time, or else installing purposely bad controls to justify having an extra player to help fly the ship. I feel Artemis Bridge Simulator, for example, is really about LARPing than about having a deeper game than, say, Independence War. Your weapons officer has to load the torpedos, but it doesn't actually produce more decision-making; your science officer has to read targets' shield frequencies, but only because it hides the information from the weapons officer.
Well, that's just my opinion anyways. How is Star Citizen going to handle it? You can have boarders and all kinds of SF shooter-type roles because of the whole FPS thing, but what jobs do they have for people to do on multi-crew ships?
RIO style positions seems to be the big one for the non-turret people. On larger crew ships, the RIO position is probably split up; one a smaller ship you probably have a single dude who does all the power, shields, radar, and missile control, where on the larger ships, that's probably 3 people(one for power and shields, one for Radar control, and one for missile control). Plus, the various non-combat positions(for example the Reclaimer's arm controller considered a crew spot).
The RIO spots probably have enough gameplay from what we've seen so far, through the biggest concern would be spreading them too thin. Which I want to say CIG understands that(along with the logistical issues), which is why they seem to be favoring smaller crew ships, with the ship crew maxing out at 10(Idris) so far, with most multi-crew ships being in the 3-5 range.
What is the FPS module refer too. Is there an FPS in this game too? I've always been interested in a kind of super game where I can carve out my own niche, but still contribute to an overarching grand strategy. I think Eve online did something like this once, but I never heard how it went.
and I wonder about my neighbors even though I don't have them
but they're listening to every word I say
What is the FPS module refer too. Is there an FPS in this game too? I've always been interested in a kind of super game where I can carve out my own niche, but still contribute to an overarching grand strategy. I think Eve online did something like this once, but I never heard how it went.
FPS gameplay will be integrated into the rest of the game. So you'll have the option to seamlessly board ships and get in firefights with their crews as well as shooting mans in space stations and on planets.
The FPS module as being developed for alpha access will only involve self contained levels, probably taking place on a ship or space station.
RIO style positions seems to be the big one for the non-turret people. On larger crew ships, the RIO position is probably split up; one a smaller ship you probably have a single dude who does all the power, shields, radar, and missile control, where on the larger ships, that's probably 3 people(one for power and shields, one for Radar control, and one for missile control). Plus, the various non-combat positions(for example the Reclaimer's arm controller considered a crew spot).
The RIO spots probably have enough gameplay from what we've seen so far, through the biggest concern would be spreading them too thin. Which I want to say CIG understands that(along with the logistical issues), which is why they seem to be favoring smaller crew ships, with the ship crew maxing out at 10(Idris) so far, with most multi-crew ships being in the 3-5 range.
What is there for a radar officer to do that couldn't be offloaded to the pilot or gunner? In real life interpreting radar is pretty serious stuff, but unless this is the kind of game where most combat consists of weapons fired at targets far, far out of visual range it seems kind of overkill. Likewise an arm controller position; surely in a video game the pilot could just take control of the arm.
What's missile combat going to be like, and what does that job entail?
My biggest hope is that the next major update includes either more optimization or more graphical options.
My i3-3240 ant GTX560ti are rock solid 60FPS at 1280x720 but at 1920x1080 I'm still barely holding on to the 30s framerate wise in the hangar, so I can only imagine what it will be like in an FPS setting.
I'd also like to maybe turn down the crazy bloom that turns the bunk of my Legionnaire into a tanning bed.
RIO style positions seems to be the big one for the non-turret people. On larger crew ships, the RIO position is probably split up; one a smaller ship you probably have a single dude who does all the power, shields, radar, and missile control, where on the larger ships, that's probably 3 people(one for power and shields, one for Radar control, and one for missile control). Plus, the various non-combat positions(for example the Reclaimer's arm controller considered a crew spot).
The RIO spots probably have enough gameplay from what we've seen so far, through the biggest concern would be spreading them too thin. Which I want to say CIG understands that(along with the logistical issues), which is why they seem to be favoring smaller crew ships, with the ship crew maxing out at 10(Idris) so far, with most multi-crew ships being in the 3-5 range.
What is there for a radar officer to do that couldn't be offloaded to the pilot or gunner? In real life interpreting radar is pretty serious stuff, but unless this is the kind of game where most combat consists of weapons fired at targets far, far out of visual range it seems kind of overkill. Likewise an arm controller position; surely in a video game the pilot could just take control of the arm.
What's missile combat going to be like, and what does that job entail?
Radar in the (finished) game is supposed to include beam scanning, which means you can tighten the area being scanned by radar for more range and better "accuracy"(more details on the enemy ship, better and faster missile locks). That combined with ships capable of multiple locks in upwards of a near 360 sphere means that the radar/missile control position is a near full time, you're not manually tighting and aiming radar, and deciding which targets to lock on while controlling a ship with 6DoF. Hell, I'm pretty sure anyone who's played AC will tell you that as it stands, just piloting the ship is a handful and almost too much, between controlling the ship and aiming forward guns it feels like as a player that you don't have enough arms/hands to do everything, much less do RIO stuff on top of that. The offloading is very much needed.
I don't feel the lack multi-crew ships in other games is really about ambition. There are plenty of games that let you manage power, shields and damage control while flying the ship and shooting the guns. I don't think it's easy to make meaningful full-time stations other than turret gunner or commander. For most everything else you're basically inventing minigames to occupy someone's time, or else installing purposely bad controls to justify having an extra player to help fly the ship. I feel Artemis Bridge Simulator, for example, is really about LARPing than about having a deeper game than, say, Independence War. Your weapons officer has to load the torpedos, but it doesn't actually produce more decision-making; your science officer has to read targets' shield frequencies, but only because it hides the information from the weapons officer.
Well, that's just my opinion anyways. How is Star Citizen going to handle it? You can have boarders and all kinds of SF shooter-type roles because of the whole FPS thing, but what jobs do they have for people to do on multi-crew ships?
They do have red uniform roles. In fact a whole line of ships are being sold on their ability to latch on and forcibly accost disabled enemy vessels and have a higher crew number for the purpose of having the numerical advantage when taking over. The caterpillar class' stats had me baffled early on until I realized that it could literally be fitted into an assault clown car (although they've since changed the stats again and made it a transport ship).
In the instance of the constellation class, things are pretty cut out; you have a pilot, two gunners and one optional snub fighter pilot or scanner/tractor beam operator. I suppose that a gunner's role will be pretty boring in times when he doesn't need to be shooting but then again, I'm sure they'll find something useful for your passengers to do while you're on the space freeway.
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Just_Bri_ThanksSeething with ragefrom a handbasket.Registered User, ClubPAregular
It should be noted that inventing mini-games to occupy a crew member's time is not a bad game model, if the mini-games are sufficiently engaging.
I don't feel the lack multi-crew ships in other games is really about ambition. There are plenty of games that let you manage power, shields and damage control while flying the ship and shooting the guns. I don't think it's easy to make meaningful full-time stations other than turret gunner or commander. For most everything else you're basically inventing minigames to occupy someone's time, or else installing purposely bad controls to justify having an extra player to help fly the ship. I feel Artemis Bridge Simulator, for example, is really about LARPing than about having a deeper game than, say, Independence War. Your weapons officer has to load the torpedos, but it doesn't actually produce more decision-making; your science officer has to read targets' shield frequencies, but only because it hides the information from the weapons officer.
Well, that's just my opinion anyways. How is Star Citizen going to handle it? You can have boarders and all kinds of SF shooter-type roles because of the whole FPS thing, but what jobs do they have for people to do on multi-crew ships?
They do have red uniform roles. In fact a whole line of ships are being sold on their ability to latch on and forcibly accost disabled enemy vessels and have a higher crew number for the purpose of having the numerical advantage when taking over. The caterpillar class' stats had me baffled early on until I realized that it could literally be fitted into an assault clown car (although they've since changed the stats again and made it a transport ship).
In the instance of the constellation class, things are pretty cut out; you have a pilot, two gunners and one optional snub fighter pilot or scanner/tractor beam operator. I suppose that a gunner's role will be pretty boring in times when he doesn't need to be shooting but then again, I'm sure they'll find something useful for your passengers to do while you're on the space freeway.
The Constellation is about the best example of where multi-crew starts to become important. It's the biggest crewed ship that CIG has said could likely be run solo. It's also pretty heavily armed in most configurations. So, while the pilot can feasibly manage all the shield, power, and weapons, it's definitely not the most effective operation of such a large ship. First, a solo operated Connie loses the ability to have the snub fighter out, so a good, quick attacker could potentially stay out6 of the line of fire of many of the weapons. Then there's the loss of full range of motion on the two turrets... unless they implement some sort of virtual targeting system that the pilot can target outside their direct line of sight, which then splits their concentration further. Then there's the fact that other players will know how well Connie's are armed and the potential crew size, so unless someone knows for sure they are attacking an under-crewed ship they'll probably bring a friend or two... making the disadvantages of running under-crewed increase exponentially. The instant more than one attacker comes in on a Connie, a solo pilot is going to wish they had at least one gunner.
Similarly with the Reclaimer, which is a massive salvage ship with it's massive claw. It has a max crew of 5: pilot, claw operator, and the remaining three as gunners/other equipment operators (it also has a pocket mini-salvage cutter ship and some detail/high value component salvage may be available via EVA ops). Effective minimum crew is two since the claw isn't remote operated. It has a local cupola like a construction crane, because it's not just a claw, it's multiple claws, plasma cutters, tractor beams, search lights. That makes the claw something you can't really effectively operate in detail from a cockpit several stories away and you certainly don't want to try to get from the claw to the cockpit in a rush if some pirates, a claim jumper, or Vanduul suddenly decide they want to be vultures.
Also with salvage and mining ops... You'll be able to effectively operate with fewer than max crew, but you certainly won't be operating most efficiently. the longer it takes to scrap a wreck or mine a rock, the greater the chance of someone (player or NPC) trying to kill you and take your stuff.
In addition, larger multi-crew ships will allow for crew members to fight fires (literally), attempt repairs to systems, act as medics, and not just repel boarders, but counter-board... and other such fun stuff. Multiple crew also means more efficient ops in other ways: Tracking a bounty or 'acquisition' target, or trying to chart a new jump point is much more efficient and effective if you've got someone concentrating on scans while someone else pilots.
I just skipped ahead to the violence, but what?! So now you can use VR/TrackIR, this voice program, and a stick to become a super space person? I wonder how the voice attack program would work with the other crew positions that we've been talking about here. (Half of my commands would be "engage")
Next concept sale is the Herald and it's going for $85! Info running sounds kinda cool and is going to be an important part of the economy. It would be awesome if there were high risk missions where dudes try to ambush you en route. Instead of fighting you would have to run. Could be lots of fun.
Next concept sale is the Herald and it's going for $85! Info running sounds kinda cool and is going to be an important part of the economy. It would be awesome if there were high risk missions where dudes try to ambush you en route. Instead of fighting you would have to run. Could be lots of fun.
Also someone on the official forums has confirmed that it would be possible to get older models in LTI using the cross-chassis upgrades if you get one and apply it to one of the newer LTI ships. For instance, buy a Herald LTI, then buy a herald to constellation or herald to retaliator (which apparently is going to be a thing when they redo the retaliator) and you have a LTI retaliator that's unbound to your account and giftable. This loophole won't affect limited sale models like the scythe or the mm or the phoenix because they won't sell a ccu for those ones.
Those who were planning on making a profit on the grey market are going to flip out so hard we could strap them to dynamos and power north america. That said, as someone who was exactly one week too late to pick up anything in LTI flavor, I'm planning on getting into this exclusive club of theirs and acting like the obnoxious smug asshole they all suspected me to be. =P
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Just_Bri_ThanksSeething with ragefrom a handbasket.Registered User, ClubPAregular
I’m not sure how much more bluntly I can put this, but… if you are angry because you have heard that Star Citizen won’t have modular ships, or won’t have an upgrade system, or that we’ve totally changed the upgrade system we promised, then you are a victim of an especially odd hoax.
As best I can tell, the people who insist on maintaining these claims are angry because they didn’t like the Cutlass variants; instead of an ambulance or a paddy wagon, they wanted some sort of ‘Super Cutlass’ (along the lines of the Super Hornet) and were disappointed when that didn’t happen. Our opinion is that offering one clear ‘best one’ as a variant isn’t a great practice… it feels more marketing-driven (pay more for the good one!) than design, and that’s not the goal here.
Despite what has been repeated ad nauseam in this thread, the Cutlass is fully customizeable. You can remove, update and change the guns, the engines, the turrets, the engine, the powerplant, the thrusters, the computer system, the seat leather, paint the hull, decorate the nose, tint the glass, etc. You can decorate the interior. You can build out your Cutlass for the role you want, focusing on any of a dozen different paths in different degrees (stealth, armor, speed, maneuverability, firepower, etc.)
You can decorate the interior, you can use the cargo space for other modular parts (work bench, fuel tanks, interior defense systems, etc.) In the case of the Cutlass Blue and the Cutlass Red, you can remove the internal equipment and use it for cargo space. The single thing you can’t do upon launch (with the current schedule) is reposition the internals of the Blue and the Red into another ships; either they have the autodoc/prison or they don’t. If that’s the end of the world for you, then I am terribly sorry… but also happy to point out that WE want to do this too, it’s just not something we can put in the schedule today.
If your backing of Star Citizen was based on a desire to remove the medical equipment from one kind of Cutlass (which you can do) and then put it into another hull type (which we can’t promise at launch, but intend to do) then you should be outraged. If you define customization as pretty much any other thing, then you should be pretty happy with our system. (And here’s a pretty important distinction: that’s not to say you can’t use medical equipment in a Cutlass other than the Red… it’s to say you can’t have the built in autodoc specifically.)
The fact that the Cutlass variants work this way is not a broad change in design; we have been doing variants exactly this way since the 300 series’ 350R model. Now, for some reason you have also been told that the change from ‘upgrade slots’ is representative of this design change. Speaking as the person who wrote the original design document that introduced upgrade slots, I can tell you: it’s totally unrelated, and does not in any way signify that ships can’t be upgraded. (Similarly, I have seen people insisting that this means their favorite ship will be exactly the same way… in particular, the Retaliator. I’ll just go ahead and confirm that isn’t the case: the design behind the Retaliator remains that you swap out the bomb bay area with a section that suits your mission objective.)
In the initial design spec, “upgrade slots” represented a ship’s ability to mount upgrades beyond the standard plug-in points. I hate to always go back to Privateer, but the idea was that every ship had limits on weapons… and then a sort of ‘collected’ value to account for the mass of all other things like gun coolers, extra fuel tanks, jump drives, afterburners, etc. The initial thought was that these ‘things you don’t see’ would have a single value that would be subtracted from when you purchase an internal upgrade, and that this would give you an interesting limit that also allowed for a lot of creative freedom. (Ie, a ship might use all its slots on gun coolers and have an amazing refire rate… but be terrible at everything else.)
What “happened” to them is the fact that that doesn’t really make any realistic sense. I have space to stuff ten radiators in the back seat of my car, but they aren’t really going to do any radiating. So we turned those values into something that makes more sense: a ship might have space on the weapons tree for one weapons system upgrade and two fuel tank upgrades and to store a workbench that’s three freight units wide. (And of course we actually build every part now instead of just having them be internal imaginings.)
This does NOT make the ships “less customizable”; it just makes them customizable in a way that makes sense. Within that rule set, we can focus on creating all sorts of cool things for each point… and they’re cool things people will actually do instead of ways people will find to abuse a system that doesn’t show Its work. What it DOES, though, is prevent a significant amount of min/maxing at this stage in the game; spreadsheet pilots don’t get given a single, holy number that defines their ship’s total upgradeability (although as an average number, the old upgrade slot numbers still hold true.)
Let me quickly run through the ship development process, with an eye towards how customization works.
You’ve seen stage one in Arena Commander. You can use the holotable to configure your ships to an extent; not every subsystem is online (most aren’t!) but the bare bones of a configuration system are there. If you have several ships you can swap parts between them and play at building the best ship for your game style. Stage one is going to expand a great deal in the coming weeks, as we start to build more generic equipment that will be available for use in the holotable.
Stage 2 is more broad changes to the ship itself, and you’ll see the first of that very soon. We’ve got folks upstairs who have a paint system up and running… and then we have all sorts of other ship systems that will be added to the game: things like stealth parts, engine enhancements, cargo modifications and the like. (And as we introduce equipment for more specific roles, you’ll see generic versions of things like the Cutlass autodoc… and lots of other cool bits and bobs.)
There’s also internal modifications included in this. Ships like the Constellation have internal hardpoints for mounting equipment (like the C&C table.) These work just like the external hardpoints… they’re specific areas where you can make a change, and we have design control over what those changes might be. Put in a medical bed, put in a food dispenser, put in a space toilet, etc. The issue there is that, as the engine works today, it has to be pretty specific: you have to know exactly which parts a player can install where. So there’s a place on the Constellation where we can install a C&C table or a scanning bay or a repair panel… and then there’s a cargo area where you can leave free-floating items (there is also a decoration system, being developed.) That’s essentially why you can remove internal parts from the Cutlass but you can’t swap them out yet. When a ship is designed to be ‘modular’ internally, we accomplish that by building X number of optional modules.
That’s where we hope to be at launch. Down the road, we want to do even more – let people rearrange the internals of their ships like they’re playing The Sims. There are a lot of technical and design issues with that. Speaking to the former, it’s an issue with map streaming (which we will likely have down before launch)… and to the latter, it’s essentially introducing unlimited ways for players to break the game. Figuring out how to do it in a way that’s fun but not unbalanced is a challenge… it’s a challenge we’re willing to take up, but not one we can promise we’ll solve before the game leaves beta.
The biggest takeaway from that post, for me, is that ship interiors will be adjustable at launch. One of his prior posts said something which led me to believe that wasn't the case. Makes me happy I got a Cutlass Blue, even though I may still downgrade to a Black anyway.
Can't wait to see that Herald on Friday. Might even grab two and save one for a future LTI CCU.
All I want are more cat stickers to put on my Cutlass.
But really, changing generic "upgrade slots" into things that take up physical space and are arranged logically isn't taking anything away, it's fleshing out something that was vague to begin with because they hadn't gotten that far in the design process.
+3
Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
Yeah, I've got no idea at all how people conflated "can't initially swap core purpose of a ship" with "no customization". Heck, I'm surprised CGI is even going to be implementing pulling core features out of ships to put in other ships, even if it isn't a release feature.
I mean, I'm sure I could convert my Andromeda Connie into something that carries more cargo, but there's no reason it should be so customizable that it could match the cargo-specific hull type. It's just not built to be the big cargo variant, and making it do that would, in an in-game sense, require chopping up the whole ship. But of course I'll be able to customize buttloads of other stuff? That's been something major from the start, it was just a pretty general element before they had actual ship sizes and system designs to work with.
Yeah, I've got no idea at all how people conflated "can't initially swap core purpose of a ship" with "no customization". Heck, I'm surprised CGI is even going to be implementing pulling core features out of ships to put in other ships, even if it isn't a release feature.
I mean, I'm sure I could convert my Andromeda Connie into something that carries more cargo, but there's no reason it should be so customizable that it could match the cargo-specific hull type. It's just not built to be the big cargo variant, and making it do that would, in an in-game sense, require chopping up the whole ship. But of course I'll be able to customize buttloads of other stuff? That's been something major from the start, it was just a pretty general element before they had actual ship sizes and system designs to work with.
It's a great example of the reality of Star Citizen conflicting with the grandiose idea of Star Citizen that these people have built in their heads. They will be permanently disappointed and feeling betrayed every step of the way as long as they keep expecting the game they've built in their heads rather than the game Chris has built in his head.
+3
Just_Bri_ThanksSeething with ragefrom a handbasket.Registered User, ClubPAregular
Ben's response is great because he comes off as condescending and totally mischaracterizes the argument of most of the people that he disagrees with to make his point, and people lap that shit up and clap anyways.
The best part of it though, is that the way CIG is doing things is encouraging of min-maxing, not the other way around.
The majority of people that are unhappy with the way things are being done now simply want Star Citizen to feature the modularity that was originally talked about when this whole thing was started. They look at how variants were originally done, such as the 300i, the 315p, and 325a, and point to those ships as how they would like things done. Those variants are basically just showing you the possibilities that you have in ship customization - they have the same hard points, and nothing really stops you from changing your kit and making one of the three variants perform in a manner similar to one of the other variants.
Now, it seems that variants are hyper-specialized unique ships that you pay extra money for to do the role that you want. Even though Ben says that "Our opinion is that offering one clear ‘best one’ as a variant isn’t a great practice… it feels more marketing-driven (pay more for the good one!) than design, and that’s not the goal here" that is exactly what CIG is doing. If you want to have a combat-focused Cutlass, the $50 Blue upgrade is the way to go. It has better armor and a higher shield cap that is impossible to get on any other Cutlass, so it will be the superior Cutlass variant for combat. Sure you can change the loadout on the Cutlass Black, but it is a type of false choice, it will never be as good as the Blue at combat roles.
CIG's method of doing things even leads to the ability of making poor choices. When we get the ability to swap out specialized internal gear between variants sometime post-launch, the Red will become obsolete - basically a $20 skin. Why? Because the Red is missing hardpoints in order to "reflect it's role," but when the day comes that you can strip that medical equipment and put it in a Black or Blue, that choice becomes flat-out better than using the "SAR" chassis for SAR.
Basically CIG is offering everybody "options," but a lot of those "options" are now tied into buying better variants - it's actually less choice if you are at all concerned about being good at your role, because instead of being able to swap out gear to match your mission, you now have to maintain a fleet of variants to do what used to be possible with one ship.
Posts
Yeah - this is the important point.
You can preorder the game for $30 (it will retail for $60).
You can spend more if you want early beta access to things.
You can spend more if you want to throw more money at CR and crew to make a better game faster. If you do this, CR and crew, as a thank you, will give you more toys to play with out of the gate when the game releases.
But those last two parts are in no way required - anything you can buy now with real money you will be able to buy with in-game money in the persistent universe portion of the game (assuming you're even interested in playing it!).
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
$45 gets you the pre-order and all the beta access.
Star Citizen is actually two games. You have the persistent universe Star Citizen (that even comes with private servers and mod support) and then you have the single player, story driven Squadron 42 which is effectively a spiritual successor to Wing Commander. $30 preorders you both of those, $45 gets you in early.
I'll answer this in a way that will seem incredibly cynical compared to most people in this thread, but I think that you will appreciate it considering my experience talking with you in the MWO thread, and also considering that you were asking about what you would get right now for putting money into the game.
For the most part, Star Citizen is still a game about dreams and collecting imaginary spaceships. While CIG has been busy showing us a lot of progress lately, buying into the game currently (with an additional $5 access pass on top of what ship you buy) will get you Arena Commander, which basically offers the ability to fight other people either in free-for-all or team matches, similar to MWO, as well as the ability to race other people, or kill AI bots by yourself or with a friend.
Despite all the ships that you can buy, currently the following are the only ships that you can actually play with in any of the Arena Commander modes:
Aurora - A starting ship, that is basically a flying coffin. It's actually kind of sturdy, but really weak on the weapons front.
300i - A space-BMW. Half the ship is a giant engine, which makes it incredibly fragile.
350r - A racing version of the space-BMW. It's quite fast but a bit hard to handle, and is otherwise similar to the 300i.
325 - The Interdiction version of the 300i. It's supposed to be a combat ship but it's poorly implemented currently, and will be fixed "soon."
M50 - A racer/interdictor. This thing is hard to hit and is the only ship that can reliably kill a Hornet, which harvests great tears. Think of it as a light mech from MWO.
Hornet - A military gunship (technically you buy the civilian version, but you get the military version for Arena Commander). This ship is way more powerful than anything else out there, except for the M50, which it has a hard time hitting. I guess it would be your heavy or assault mech to use MWO analogies.
Currently, unless you are a very good pilot, you only really have a change of winning in the battle modes of Arena Commander with either a military-style Hornet (especially if you bought a Hornet upgrade which gives you more hardpoints) or a M50, because practically nobody can hit you so you can whittle down your opponents with a steady stream of tiny weapon fire.
Currently, the racing mode of Arena Commander is either won by people flying a M50 or 350r, which makes sense since they are racers, but you can't actually buy these ships atm (people literally complained when CIG was going to make them available for people to purchase for racing, citing some kind of elitist "screw you got mine" thought process to justify their complaints).
Currently, the only thing that you can upgrade on your ships is weapons, and you can only do so by spending real money on weapons in the cash shop - there is no way to earn money in Arena Commander. Also, the weapons are poorly balanced, and some weapons are blatantly more powerful than others, or only halfway implemented This might change soon, however.
Basically, if we are talking about right now, Arena Commander (the only playable part of Star Citizen) is literally a P2W game, though calling it that makes some people pretty angry. When the full game launches years from now you will be able to earn things in-game, but right now real money is the only way to advance. This may change soon, but I'm just talking about things as of right now. Right now, if you didn't spend the money on the ships that are good at combat or racing, the respective game modes won't be that fun for you if you are playing random matches with puggies.
Right now, you can put money down on the cheapest package and have a little-coffin ship to play with, and you have basically preordered the game, but if you want to actually play what is available currently your enjoyment will likely be tied to whether or not you bought a better ship. This is probably quite a negative view of things compared to some people here, which is ironic since I've probably put more time into the game than anybody else here (going by time logged for PAI members at least on the current leaderboards), but I thought I would give you a different perspective on things. I'm not saying that things are necessarily bad because I actually play the crap out of this game, but I thought it would be nice to know what you are getting into - you're likely to come across similar problems to MWO.
Nintendo Network ID: imperialparadox | 3DS FC: 2294-4029-6793
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But it sounds like I have plenty of time to pre-order at a 50% discount, so I can wait and get a better sense of how the full game is shaping up and how well it delivers on its promises.
Ooooor you could join the shamefleet.
Warframe/Steam: NFyt
True but you can already get a pretty good sense of what they are trying to accomplish right now. Much of the stuff that's been described usually have video demos shortly before playable demos are released and you can find a ton of footage on youtube with any relevent permutation of keywords. This is one of star citizen's big strengths, in that their development process is very transparent and their whole team has to act very accountable in regards to the promisses they make.
One of the things that is in the works for the near future and that I'm super excited about is the multi-crew ship combat, which is where you and your homeslice can share a huge and powerful space coffin where everyone will have different roles like turret gunner or engineer in charge of distributing power to the shield in the direction you're about to take that missile from or space captain steering the ship into all those missiles... I imagine it there will be a ton of awesome moments and a ton of three-legged race moments but generally, it's a sort of interesting gameplay experience I've always wanted but never seen any game ambitious enough to deliver in a compelling fashion.
Well, that's just my opinion anyways. How is Star Citizen going to handle it? You can have boarders and all kinds of SF shooter-type roles because of the whole FPS thing, but what jobs do they have for people to do on multi-crew ships?
The only game that springs to mind that allows for more than one ship occupant is Jane's Longbow 2. Offloading target prioritization to the CP/G position and letting the pilot focus on piloting is something I'm looking forward to in Star Citizen.
RIO style positions seems to be the big one for the non-turret people. On larger crew ships, the RIO position is probably split up; one a smaller ship you probably have a single dude who does all the power, shields, radar, and missile control, where on the larger ships, that's probably 3 people(one for power and shields, one for Radar control, and one for missile control). Plus, the various non-combat positions(for example the Reclaimer's arm controller considered a crew spot).
The RIO spots probably have enough gameplay from what we've seen so far, through the biggest concern would be spreading them too thin. Which I want to say CIG understands that(along with the logistical issues), which is why they seem to be favoring smaller crew ships, with the ship crew maxing out at 10(Idris) so far, with most multi-crew ships being in the 3-5 range.
This is a funny statement.
but they're listening to every word I say
FPS gameplay will be integrated into the rest of the game. So you'll have the option to seamlessly board ships and get in firefights with their crews as well as shooting mans in space stations and on planets.
The FPS module as being developed for alpha access will only involve self contained levels, probably taking place on a ship or space station.
What is there for a radar officer to do that couldn't be offloaded to the pilot or gunner? In real life interpreting radar is pretty serious stuff, but unless this is the kind of game where most combat consists of weapons fired at targets far, far out of visual range it seems kind of overkill. Likewise an arm controller position; surely in a video game the pilot could just take control of the arm.
What's missile combat going to be like, and what does that job entail?
My i3-3240 ant GTX560ti are rock solid 60FPS at 1280x720 but at 1920x1080 I'm still barely holding on to the 30s framerate wise in the hangar, so I can only imagine what it will be like in an FPS setting.
I'd also like to maybe turn down the crazy bloom that turns the bunk of my Legionnaire into a tanning bed.
Radar in the (finished) game is supposed to include beam scanning, which means you can tighten the area being scanned by radar for more range and better "accuracy"(more details on the enemy ship, better and faster missile locks). That combined with ships capable of multiple locks in upwards of a near 360 sphere means that the radar/missile control position is a near full time, you're not manually tighting and aiming radar, and deciding which targets to lock on while controlling a ship with 6DoF. Hell, I'm pretty sure anyone who's played AC will tell you that as it stands, just piloting the ship is a handful and almost too much, between controlling the ship and aiming forward guns it feels like as a player that you don't have enough arms/hands to do everything, much less do RIO stuff on top of that. The offloading is very much needed.
They do have red uniform roles. In fact a whole line of ships are being sold on their ability to latch on and forcibly accost disabled enemy vessels and have a higher crew number for the purpose of having the numerical advantage when taking over. The caterpillar class' stats had me baffled early on until I realized that it could literally be fitted into an assault clown car (although they've since changed the stats again and made it a transport ship).
In the instance of the constellation class, things are pretty cut out; you have a pilot, two gunners and one optional snub fighter pilot or scanner/tractor beam operator. I suppose that a gunner's role will be pretty boring in times when he doesn't need to be shooting but then again, I'm sure they'll find something useful for your passengers to do while you're on the space freeway.
http://www.puzzlepirates.com/
chair to Creation and then suplex the Void.
The Constellation is about the best example of where multi-crew starts to become important. It's the biggest crewed ship that CIG has said could likely be run solo. It's also pretty heavily armed in most configurations. So, while the pilot can feasibly manage all the shield, power, and weapons, it's definitely not the most effective operation of such a large ship. First, a solo operated Connie loses the ability to have the snub fighter out, so a good, quick attacker could potentially stay out6 of the line of fire of many of the weapons. Then there's the loss of full range of motion on the two turrets... unless they implement some sort of virtual targeting system that the pilot can target outside their direct line of sight, which then splits their concentration further. Then there's the fact that other players will know how well Connie's are armed and the potential crew size, so unless someone knows for sure they are attacking an under-crewed ship they'll probably bring a friend or two... making the disadvantages of running under-crewed increase exponentially. The instant more than one attacker comes in on a Connie, a solo pilot is going to wish they had at least one gunner.
Similarly with the Reclaimer, which is a massive salvage ship with it's massive claw. It has a max crew of 5: pilot, claw operator, and the remaining three as gunners/other equipment operators (it also has a pocket mini-salvage cutter ship and some detail/high value component salvage may be available via EVA ops). Effective minimum crew is two since the claw isn't remote operated. It has a local cupola like a construction crane, because it's not just a claw, it's multiple claws, plasma cutters, tractor beams, search lights. That makes the claw something you can't really effectively operate in detail from a cockpit several stories away and you certainly don't want to try to get from the claw to the cockpit in a rush if some pirates, a claim jumper, or Vanduul suddenly decide they want to be vultures.
Also with salvage and mining ops... You'll be able to effectively operate with fewer than max crew, but you certainly won't be operating most efficiently. the longer it takes to scrap a wreck or mine a rock, the greater the chance of someone (player or NPC) trying to kill you and take your stuff.
In addition, larger multi-crew ships will allow for crew members to fight fires (literally), attempt repairs to systems, act as medics, and not just repel boarders, but counter-board... and other such fun stuff. Multiple crew also means more efficient ops in other ways: Tracking a bounty or 'acquisition' target, or trying to chart a new jump point is much more efficient and effective if you've got someone concentrating on scans while someone else pilots.
I just skipped ahead to the violence, but what?! So now you can use VR/TrackIR, this voice program, and a stick to become a super space person? I wonder how the voice attack program would work with the other crew positions that we've been talking about here. (Half of my commands would be "engage")
Nintendo Network ID: imperialparadox | 3DS FC: 2294-4029-6793
XBL Gamertag: Paradox3351 | PSN: imperialparadox
Next concept sale is the Herald and it's going for $85! Info running sounds kinda cool and is going to be an important part of the economy. It would be awesome if there were high risk missions where dudes try to ambush you en route. Instead of fighting you would have to run. Could be lots of fun.
Also someone on the official forums has confirmed that it would be possible to get older models in LTI using the cross-chassis upgrades if you get one and apply it to one of the newer LTI ships. For instance, buy a Herald LTI, then buy a herald to constellation or herald to retaliator (which apparently is going to be a thing when they redo the retaliator) and you have a LTI retaliator that's unbound to your account and giftable. This loophole won't affect limited sale models like the scythe or the mm or the phoenix because they won't sell a ccu for those ones.
Those who were planning on making a profit on the grey market are going to flip out so hard we could strap them to dynamos and power north america. That said, as someone who was exactly one week too late to pick up anything in LTI flavor, I'm planning on getting into this exclusive club of theirs and acting like the obnoxious smug asshole they all suspected me to be. =P
chair to Creation and then suplex the Void.
https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.com/discussion/comment/3685587/#Comment_3685587
Can't wait to see that Herald on Friday. Might even grab two and save one for a future LTI CCU.
But really, changing generic "upgrade slots" into things that take up physical space and are arranged logically isn't taking anything away, it's fleshing out something that was vague to begin with because they hadn't gotten that far in the design process.
I mean, I'm sure I could convert my Andromeda Connie into something that carries more cargo, but there's no reason it should be so customizable that it could match the cargo-specific hull type. It's just not built to be the big cargo variant, and making it do that would, in an in-game sense, require chopping up the whole ship. But of course I'll be able to customize buttloads of other stuff? That's been something major from the start, it was just a pretty general element before they had actual ship sizes and system designs to work with.
Personally the system they are going with sounds pretty good
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It's a great example of the reality of Star Citizen conflicting with the grandiose idea of Star Citizen that these people have built in their heads. They will be permanently disappointed and feeling betrayed every step of the way as long as they keep expecting the game they've built in their heads rather than the game Chris has built in his head.
chair to Creation and then suplex the Void.
The best part of it though, is that the way CIG is doing things is encouraging of min-maxing, not the other way around.
The majority of people that are unhappy with the way things are being done now simply want Star Citizen to feature the modularity that was originally talked about when this whole thing was started. They look at how variants were originally done, such as the 300i, the 315p, and 325a, and point to those ships as how they would like things done. Those variants are basically just showing you the possibilities that you have in ship customization - they have the same hard points, and nothing really stops you from changing your kit and making one of the three variants perform in a manner similar to one of the other variants.
Now, it seems that variants are hyper-specialized unique ships that you pay extra money for to do the role that you want. Even though Ben says that "Our opinion is that offering one clear ‘best one’ as a variant isn’t a great practice… it feels more marketing-driven (pay more for the good one!) than design, and that’s not the goal here" that is exactly what CIG is doing. If you want to have a combat-focused Cutlass, the $50 Blue upgrade is the way to go. It has better armor and a higher shield cap that is impossible to get on any other Cutlass, so it will be the superior Cutlass variant for combat. Sure you can change the loadout on the Cutlass Black, but it is a type of false choice, it will never be as good as the Blue at combat roles.
CIG's method of doing things even leads to the ability of making poor choices. When we get the ability to swap out specialized internal gear between variants sometime post-launch, the Red will become obsolete - basically a $20 skin. Why? Because the Red is missing hardpoints in order to "reflect it's role," but when the day comes that you can strip that medical equipment and put it in a Black or Blue, that choice becomes flat-out better than using the "SAR" chassis for SAR.
Basically CIG is offering everybody "options," but a lot of those "options" are now tied into buying better variants - it's actually less choice if you are at all concerned about being good at your role, because instead of being able to swap out gear to match your mission, you now have to maintain a fleet of variants to do what used to be possible with one ship.
Nintendo Network ID: imperialparadox | 3DS FC: 2294-4029-6793
XBL Gamertag: Paradox3351 | PSN: imperialparadox