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Dear Mr. Shatner, I always thought TNG was the better series because I was too young to understand why people liked TOS. Anyway, you are my hero now. (you also did some awesome paintball events) Dear Mr. Stewart, please take back the position as my favourite Star Trek captain by asking Derek Smart about decimal points. thank you both tax: 
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Jun 9, 2018 16:37
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XK posted:Why the gently caress did they choose shale for one of their first mining resources? How quickly you have forgotten... 
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Jun 9, 2018 16:41
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 Beautiful.
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Jun 9, 2018 16:41
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G0RF posted:
Gorf types and was typing at his was typing keyboard. He found a new thing to type that was so volatile that it didn't have a half life but a quarterlife instead.
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Jun 9, 2018 16:52
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Remember, guys, the backers think we are all part of Derek's Goon Militia, and not a bunch of people waking up today and facepalming at finding out he got blocked by William Shatner on Twitter.
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Jun 9, 2018 16:52
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Tortolia posted:Remember, guys, the backers think we are all part of Derek's Goon Militia, and not a bunch of people waking up today and facepalming at finding out he got blocked by William Shatner on Twitter. Derek doxxed Capt Kirk now?
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Jun 9, 2018 16:57
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derek, if you are reading this, i dug up some info on that twitter jerk https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000638/?ref_=nv_sr_1
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Jun 9, 2018 16:58
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Colostomy Bag posted:Appears Kirk won another no-win scenario.
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Jun 9, 2018 17:03
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https://i.imgur.com/OKaJp7X.gifv
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Jun 9, 2018 17:10
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Golli posted:Derek doxxed Capt Kirk now? Yeah,  he's from Iowa
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Jun 9, 2018 17:11
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Frank_Leroux posted:Ya know, every time I think "That Derek Smart is actually not all that outrageous of a fella. Sure, he can be a little excitable, but..." This is one of the better warlord descriptions I've read, bravo
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Jun 9, 2018 17:21
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Zaphod42 posted:Okay I thought I knew what bind culling and object streaming and all that referred to but I've seen people interpret it different ways and something was bothering me so I went and looked up more or less wtf CIG is even talking about... A thousand pages too late, but just to add to this, I'll copypaste an old effort post of mine answering a related but slightly different question: Cmdr-Wotherspoon posted:Oh. Pretty much… time to effort post.  Level of Detail (LoD): The method of using different art assets depending on the distance between the viewer and the object they're looking at. Be it sprites or 3D models or textures, lower-detailed ones are used at larger distances because any more detail will just be squished together to a size smaller than a pixel, and be lost. This method has been around for the last 30 years. Serialised variables: Serialisation is the method of turning a complex data structure into a much more simplified series of data points. Instead of dumping an entire block of memory onto the client, you compact it into something much mor terse and relevant. You may have a ship (partially) stored in memory as: code:…where the different parts are things like ship ID, name, type, x/y/z coordinates, memory coordinates for fitted equipment and so on. That's a whole bunch of ugly junk to send, and those last bits won't even be accurate because they depend on how the equipment is stored in the server's RAM — the client will be completely differently set up. You have to turn it into something that's not just light-weight enough for transmission, but also actually useful for the client. So you “serialise” it — turn it into a data series that the client can use — along the lines of: code:The client knows which parts are which, and stores them into memory in a way that's suitable to it, and life goes on. This is simply a different way of saying that the way data is stored internally is not how it is (or should be) transmitted — it's an idea that is as old as computers, and I'd be surprised if this was news even to Ada Lovelace. Incidentally, formats like XML or JSON, that you may have heard of in relation to this, are serialisations of variables — they let you express complex objects in a very structured way. The problem is that their focus is on being easy to read for humans and on being interoperable between different software, not on being efficient. So for a controlled and fast-paced environment, you really want something else. Hence why Cryengine's internal XML-based structures make for a very poor basis for syncing objects over a network, and why you had this guffaw a few years back where each ship in SC required megabytes worth of data to be sent to the client — they were dumping the entire inefficient XML structure on the poor users. Serialised variable culling: That's all nice and well, but do you really need all that data to be sent, even in a serialised format? After all, the equipment won't really change that often, and even positions may be static. So to reduce traffic even further, you devise a way to inform the client what you're actually sending and what it should just retain based on old data. This may entail either skipping entire variable series, or skipping parts of a series. Either way, you can now use different update intervals for different variables, and the trick is more in figuring out what needs to be processed when — the rest is “culled”, that is, deemed not relevant for now and thus not processed. Where, before, you might send a compact data structure of the format Ship ID, name, X, Y, Z, equipment data, you can now just send something along the lines of [FONT=Courier New]ID=43794,X=12355[/FONT] …because all that happened between the old update and the new is that our Ugly Ducking ship changed its x-position, and we detected that and skipped all other variable processing and transmission. Again, a thoroughly ancient technique, but since the whole detection of what needs to be updated creates a bit of processing overhead, it may in some cases be easier and faster to not do it at all. It's a balancing question of, does the lowered transmission and (potentially) reduced processing rate warrant that extra book-keeping overhead? Bind culling: Even with that reduced and simplified traffic, the question remains: do we actually need to send anything at all to the client? For the vast majority of stuff going on in a space game, the answer is a resounding “no”. They're too far away to have any impact, or they're just in the wrong location, or of the wrong type. A ship that's half a parsec away is not relevant to you; a character that sits inside a different station than yours isn't relevant to you; the colour of Miles Eckhart's third jacket isn't relevant to you (because while he's close-by, he's a walking-around-mode character and you're current piloting a ship). So you decide that there needs to be no connection between some object the server knows about, and the client. You don't “bind” that object — i.e. you don't make it a part of the list of things you need to update the client on — and as objects move in and out of relevance, you constantly check and cull that list of objects and in many cases don't even get to the step where you have to bother with serialisation and culling of object variables. This is a concept that is, in gaming at least, 20+ years old. Any game that offers multiplayer and that supports some kind of division of the world into zones does this to some extent. Well… most of them. Cryengine is (in)famous for having particularly non-granular culling methods — all clients get the same updates on all the same objects, and screw their individual preferences… Object container: An easy way to figure out what's relevant and not to the client is to group objects together and have a rule that determines when the entire group as a whole becomes relevant. This means you no longer have to check each individual object — a relevance test that might previously have required thousands of checks now require only one. CIG has dubbed these groups “object containers”. To aid the process further, one group may in turn contain other groups, each with their own relevance rules. That big old station might be an object container, and the rule determines that you should be kept updated on it because you're close enough out in space. The station holds a mess hall that might be an object container, but its rule determines that you can ignore it, because it's inside the station container, and you're (still) out in space. The mess hall container might then have all kinds of chairs and plants and whatnots inside it, but none of that matters, because the mess hall itself is deemed irrelevant to you. So all the server keeps you updated on is the station and maybe the fact that it offers mess hall services — but the exact details of those lower-level distinctions are kept from you. The station object is bound; the mess hall object (and everything in it) is culled. This is a more complex version of that same old zoning technique that has been around for decades. Indeed, it is really just an extension of the notion of having “sublevels” — going in and out of a house in anything from Zelda to Far Cry. Object container streaming: The problem now is one of transition. How do you go from not knowing or caring about the contents of a container to actually doing so? The classical method would be a hard loading screen: everything outside is dumped and deemed irrelevant; everything inside is loaded instead, and there you are. If we want a smooth, seamless transition, things become trickier. As a container's content is suddenly deemed relevant to you, the poor client will already be shocked by the sudden mass of data dumped in its lap as all those new objects are suddenly bound to you, and as all their variables have to be set up before variable culling can kick in and start doing its job. On top of that, you also have to load all the art assets and draw the darn thing on screen. Loading screens hide all that, so what do you do if you want to avoid the appearance of loading, and also don't want to just have things pop into existence in a really ugly way? You need to figure out 1) how to set up and build the container in such a way that, by the time the player can actually see and interact with it, that part has already been loaded quietly in the background (the eponymous “streaming”), and 2) when the moment of transition is, so the loading can begin. Many games, in particular open-world ones, habitually do this these days. The Elder Scrolls games did it for the overworld; flight sims have had this kind of “patch-wise appearance” of the world since roughly forever, where entire neighbourhoods would suddenly increase detail; you see it in ED if you stay away from using FSD — the main change over the years is how well the game hides it, in particular in the face of increasing hardware that lets you see tiny details at long distances more clearly, which tends to reveal the tricks used. A trivial case might be the approach to a station, where the whole thing is built hierarchically from the outside in: as you approach, the game quickly gets more detailed updates on the location of the station, and it loads the outer hull model and textures. The previously mentioned LoD:s offer a logical stepping ladder of increased detail, and in between each such step, more and more details on the internal structure of that station is revealed, piecemeal, to the client. It may go something like this: 1. At a bajillion km, inform the player that there's a station nearby, hand over the coordinates and load a low-LoD model. 2. At a jillion km, open up the object container and start building the outside of the station — receive data and load the models for docking pads, antennas, wild off-the-rails spinny things etc. Also, pick a higher-LoD model for the station. 3. At a thousand km, start setting up the decorative stuff since it'll be coming into view any second now — receive data and load models for lights, higher-resolution textures and shaders, and also (again) higher-LoD models for the previously loaded objects. 4. At ten km, it may seem reasonable to suspect that the player is actually going to this station, so open up lower-level containers. Receive data and start loading models for, say, the airlocks/docking bay and other areas the player might see and access. 5. When the player lands, fully open up the station object and start initialising and loading all the rooms inside, and maybe even pre-load some decorations that will appear a bit deeper into the structure. At every step, keep as short a list as possible on what art assets need to be loaded, and what object states need to be tracked. Anything that is too deeply nested into various object containers is culled; anything on a higher level is loaded based on some predefined priority list of what the player will see/interact with first. This ties together both the network processing and the graphics processing since the stepping-up of the level of detail on some objects (and stepping down for many others) will happen in lockstep. Even so, one actually has very little to do with the other. The streaming of art asset data into memory is separate from the streaming of object data to the client, but it will look really ugly if the two happen out of sync.
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Jun 9, 2018 17:23
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grimcreaper posted:Gorf types and was typing at his was typing keyboard. He found a new thing to type that was so volatile that it didn't have a half life but a quarterlife instead. You’re actually right about that Grimcreaper. I had a little block of text I pulled about Frontier doing a Starflight reboot (or similar) if Bethesda isn’t doing that with Starfield. But I’d frankly trust Bethesda to figure out how to do a passable space exploration facsimile while in a space RPG setting over Frontier figuring out how to make a fun Space RPG though in their inarguably great space exploration engine. Too many mathletes and astronomers, not enough funlovers and storytellers there. It still amazes me that Starflight came out only two years after Elite did. Decades later it still towers over Elite and Wing Commander and most else that came after for what it achieved in the constraints of its day. But when I recall how finding habitable planets or mining resources factored in to the original (boring though it looks in hindsight) and then I see images like the one I dropped in the thread, I think “that’s beautiful — it’d be great in a Starflight style game...”
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Jun 9, 2018 17:25
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Jun 9, 2018 17:43
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Xaerael posted:Montoya is a South African. We Brits worked out what a collective bunch of idiotic tossers they are a long time ago. I think there's a word for it when you decide a ethnicity/group/race of people are collectively tossers but my proximity to Star Citizens has purged me of these concepts along with the ability to self reflect so I got nuthin
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Jun 9, 2018 17:51
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https://twitter.com/StarBurgernl/status/1005051918765428736 https://twitter.com/TarkaRoshe/status/1005075310776410112 https://twitter.com/dawnofevil/status/1005408354133598209 https://twitter.com/dawnofevil/status/1005407531177512960
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Jun 9, 2018 17:54
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GoingPostal posted:No? I was just curious if Pocket Casts was missing episodes or something. VC was talking about other podcast episodes and I was wondering if there was a side podcast I missed. Content locust is just a dumb thread meme from yesteryear friend  First spotted on the RSI forums I believe
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Jun 9, 2018 17:57
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Welcome to the
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Jun 9, 2018 17:57
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this is a pretty good argument I didn't think of "One person sending threats doesn't say anything about our community" "BUT DEREK SMART MEANS ALL CRITICS ARE STALKING, HARASSING PSYCHOPATHS." "Oh and a ship designer and prominent early backer being a pedophile rapist doesn't say anything about our community" "BUT gently caress EVERY SINGLE CRITIC" "Oh and Ben Lesnick, a community manager, making repeated racist and pedophilia jokes for years doesn't say anything about our community" "BUT gently caress ALL CRITICS UNIVERSALLY" "Oh and a backer who was on several livestreams and worked at CitCon sexually harassing people doesn't say anything about our community" "BUT EVERY SINGLE PERSON CRITICAL OF THIS GAME IS EVIL" It's hilarious that the only thing they are concerned about here is the video game. A fan sending death threats makes the video game look bad so you either need to blame the victim for deserving it, say it was a conspiracy theory and not actually the fan, or act like it wasn't a big deal so that the video game doesn't look bad.
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Jun 9, 2018 17:58
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https://clips.twitch.tv/SmallWealthyBubbleteaMcaT
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Jun 9, 2018 17:58
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lmao
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Jun 9, 2018 18:00
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https://twitter.com/YongYea/status/1004493919890100226 https://twitter.com/CliffordakaMiku/status/1005153876394303488 https://twitter.com/CliffordakaMiku/status/1005153962167799808 https://twitter.com/CliffordakaMiku/status/1005154019420012544
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Jun 9, 2018 18:02
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"They don't charge $1000 to access that page, they just don't let you access that page until you've spent $1000" What a fuckin' idiot
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Jun 9, 2018 18:04
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Jun 9, 2018 18:05
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The mining technique they used in The Expanse would make for a cool and good spaceship mining mechanic. Basically you fly next to a rock, drill and attach a bunch of explosive charges at specific points, tie a huge net around the whole rock, and detonate.
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Jun 9, 2018 18:05
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“Hello, I’d like a studio tour please so I can put to rest my concerns about your moneygrubbing practices...” “Sure thing. That’ll be $350 please.”
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Jun 9, 2018 18:08
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"It's not a scam. Just go ask them if they are scamming you or not." Clifford must be a Rube Unicorn. Every snake oil/used car salesman is just wishing they could manipulate this guy into buying a 20 year old Miata for 10x the price because "it's a classic." "They swore it would only go up in value and had some very convincing charts and figures based on the value of classic cars appreciating in value. If you don't believe me maybe you should go see the presentation that convinced me."
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Jun 9, 2018 18:13
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G0RF posted:“Hello, I’d like a studio tour please so I can put to rest my concerns about your moneygrubbing practices...” This brings up something that has always bothered me about these people. We are talking about video games. That thing you do when you have some spare time to kill and want to have some fun right? You throw your $60 and call it a done deal. It either lives up to being as fun as you thought or not and you as the consumer get are allowed to have an opinion on it. At what point does one need to now perform a Masters Thesis and enlist the services of Private Investigators to do a thorough background check on not only CIG but all of the employees credentials as well before you are allowed to be informed enough to have an opinion provided its the correct one?
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Jun 9, 2018 18:15
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G0RF posted:
You seen the ice planets? I bet CR is currently scurrying to tell his devs to stop everything and get working on icy planet textures. Like in Elite, but with more fidelity!
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Jun 9, 2018 18:15
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Gamesguy posted:The mining technique they used in
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Jun 9, 2018 18:16
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Gamesguy posted:The mining technique they used in The Expanse would make for a cool and good spaceship mining mechanic. Basically you fly next to a rock, drill and attach a bunch of explosive charges at specific points, tie a huge net around the whole rock, and detonate. Can't help but feel there is a vital step missing from that technique. Oh yeah, move the ship away from the rock before detonating, because if anything gets through the net or the net breaks, then you have some high velocity kinetics heading your way.
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Jun 9, 2018 18:20
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Agony Aunt posted:Can't help but feel there is a vital step missing from that technique. That just makes it more exciting 
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Jun 9, 2018 18:22
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Gamesguy posted:That just makes it more exciting Much like pressing the RCTL+LMB+ESC for too long in Star Citizen mining will cause your GPU to explode.
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Jun 9, 2018 18:27
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Crobear is going to have a fit when he sees that.
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Jun 9, 2018 18:39
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G0RF posted:You’re actually right about that Grimcreaper. I do love to see some respect thrown in 'Starflight's' direction. I still remember the creeping dread as I uncovered the horrible secret behind star travel, and how it cast everything I'd done previously in a very dark light. To this day, the only other game that's given me a similar gut-punch is Knights of The Old Republic .
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Jun 9, 2018 18:41
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Dooguk posted:Crobear is going to have a fit when he sees that. I like to imagine that he sees all the new things that his team can never pull off and realizes each and every day that passes that his game is getting more and more dated to the point that he will never catch up.
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Jun 9, 2018 18:42
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are we all tuned in for EA's e3 stream where they announce a lovely destiny clone from the dead king of space games, bioware
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Jun 9, 2018 18:46
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Dooguk posted:Crobear is going to have a fit when he sees that. 
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Jun 9, 2018 18:47
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Gamesguy posted:The mining technique they used in The Expanse would make for a cool and good spaceship mining mechanic. Basically you fly next to a rock, drill and attach a bunch of explosive charges at specific points, tie a huge net around the whole rock, and detonate. It is a great idea, which is why he ignored it and someone suggesting it to him would ensure it would never be considered in a million years. Chris Roberts' ironic dichotomy of archering the dumb poo poo/not invented here syndrome'ing the good poo poo is one of his defining character features that help him excel as sucking.
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Jun 9, 2018 18:51
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DapperDon posted:This brings up something that has always bothered me about these people. We are talking about video games. That thing you do when you have some spare time to kill and want to have some fun right? You throw your $60 and call it a done deal. It either lives up to being as fun as you thought or not and you as the consumer get are allowed to have an opinion on it. At what point does one need to now perform a Masters Thesis and enlist the services of Private Investigators to do a thorough background check on not only CIG but all of the employees credentials as well before you are allowed to be informed enough to have an opinion provided its the correct one? All negatory information is ghettoized or ignored by the stalwarts. If it’s critical it’s by definition clickbait to them. They’ve been at this so long, totally oblivious to the fact that the general gaming population sees stuff like the Kotaku UK series or a video about $27k ship bundles and says “what the hell?” It’s been pretty interesting watching cynicism about the project slowly spreading far and wide over the last year and a half. The conventional wisdom about Chris and his game went from hero to zero during that time and now each new story (Crytek lawsuit, $27k packages, $350 dinners, disappointing updates, etc.) just further reinforces that narrative. People still totally inside the bubble life Cliff and many on the /SC subreddit have sensed the changes. I’ve seen so many people on Reddit or livestreams saying things like “I’m not mentioning the games to friends anymore - they just think it’s a buggy scam right now.” There’s a mix of alarm and anger but it’s directed outward because they can’t see the source of the deep skepticism and hostility towards the brand is Chris, the Marketing, the unplayable free flights or patches, etc. The community is so divided now whereas a couple of years back, it was far more united. One camp is made up of total Shills (like Montoya calling for subscriptions) and Zealots — who just see what they’ve always seen. There are some deluded Evangelists like Cliff in that group, too. The other camp is a lot more pragmatic. Guys like LittleBitOfMadness, HCVertigo, even Twerk, Saurus, and Astropub. Malogos seems to be getting belatedly tougher on CIG. They’re talking about real problems and not afraid to throw shade at CIG or to voice criticisms Goons may have been making for years. These sorts understand that the optics surrounding the game are absolutely garbage not because of Derek or a goon conspiracy but because CIG has done such a crap job of marketing, of hitting their marks, of delivering playable and engaging patches, etc. None of it matters of course. CIG isn’t listening and never has been and those too critical on official channels will still get the boot or the muffle, thereby feeding more and more Heretics into the population to do damage elsewhere. Then again, who doesn’t want to silence doubters? Agony Aunt posted:You seen the ice planets? I bet CR is currently scurrying to tell his devs to stop everything and get working on icy planet textures. Like in Elite, but with more fidelity! I did — they looked gorgeous. I hope in all their upcoming improvements they manage to steer this thing towards the Fun, too. I haven’t played in a while but I’m guessing I’ll be drawn back once again for the inspection test with all these cool additions. I rather think if Chris doesn’t get a 3.3 out that rocks some socks he may find a lot of Citizens doing the same by end of year. Frank_Leroux posted:I do love to see some respect thrown in 'Starflight's' direction. I still remember the creeping dread as I uncovered the horrible secret behind star travel, and how it cast everything I'd done previously in a very dark light. To this day, the only other game that's given me a similar gut-punch is Knights of The Old Republic . It’s a masterpiece. And according to Brian Fargo on Twitter last year somebody is doing a reboot. I’m holding out hope it’s Bethesda, though it just feels like too much to hope for...
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Jun 9, 2018 19:00
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