Star Citizen: $48,000 is only $334/month for 12 years

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Star Citizen: $48,000 is only $334/month for 12 years

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Parallelwoody: Apr 10, 2008

Inseaption

# ? Sep 28, 2019 13:18

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# ? May 29, 2024 03:38

Thom12255: Feb 23, 2013; WHERE THE FUCK IS MY MONEY

Does there exist an engine that would let them achieve all their design ambitions and work?

# ? Sep 28, 2019 13:40

CrazyLoon: Aug 10, 2015; "..."

Thom12255 posted:

Does there exist an engine that would let them achieve all their design ambitions and work?

To emphasize the problem with that phrase of the question, it doesn't lie with the 'an engine' part but with the 'them' part.

I wouldn't be surprised if there is an engine out there that actually could fulfill these kinds of design ambitions and also work. I mean...others have linked games with fewer staff members and less funding that are working and coming out that look terribly close to it, so with a bit more care, attention and funding...who knows, quite possibly!

But 'they' (as in CIG) are about the last studio on Earth qualified to tell you which it is. The fact they went for the Cryengine should've been the red flag to begin with.

# ? Sep 28, 2019 13:47

Thom12255: Feb 23, 2013; WHERE THE FUCK IS MY MONEY

And Chris went with CryEngine because back at the start of the decade because it was regarded as the HIGHEST fidelity engine and didn't think much more about how easy it would be to make his game with.

# ? Sep 28, 2019 14:32

Kikas: Oct 30, 2012

Thom12255 posted:

And Chris went with CryEngine because back at the start of the decade because it was regarded as the HIGHEST fidelity engine and didn't think much more about how easy it would be to make his game with.

No, he went with Cryengine because they've put together a demo for him in Cryengine.

# ? Sep 28, 2019 14:33

Thom12255: Feb 23, 2013; WHERE THE FUCK IS MY MONEY

Kikas posted:

No, he went with Cryengine because they've put together a demo for him in Cryengine.

How involved was he with that original demo?

# ? Sep 28, 2019 14:35

Kikas: Oct 30, 2012

Thom12255 posted:

How involved was he with that original demo?

My guess is he gave a descriptive vision of what he wanted to see and got the response in form of a .avi file.

# ? Sep 28, 2019 14:37

Malachite_Dragon: Mar 31, 2010; Weaving Merry Christmas magic

Kikas posted:

No, he went with Cryengine because they've put together a demo for him in Cryengine.

It can be both

# ? Sep 28, 2019 14:39

Dementropy: Aug 23, 2010

https://twitter.com/RobertsSpaceInd/status/1177804355635859456

# ? Sep 28, 2019 15:17

AlbieQuirky: Oct 9, 2012; Just me and my 🌊dragon🐉 hanging out

A rare sighting of the dude who�s always raising one eyebrow when he�s not raising the eyebrow. He looks 60% less annoying.

# ? Sep 28, 2019 15:38

AbstractNapper: Jun 5, 2011; I can help

Pixelate posted:

So is the water thing cropping up in new locations because they're placed inside the sea of the system map, or because the location's internal sea hasn't been bug smooshed yet? I guess what I'm asking is: Can you have a sea inside a sea?

Yes.
Just do it.

# ? Sep 28, 2019 15:44

Colostomy Bag: Jan 11, 2016; C-Bangin' it

Kikas posted:

My guess is he gave a descriptive vision of what he wanted to see and got the response in form of a .avi file.

It was probably sent to him on CD in Real video format.

# ? Sep 28, 2019 16:04

Zazz Razzamatazz: Apr 19, 2016; by sebmojo

K8.0 posted:

When are they going to announce flyable asteroids with random generated caves?

Only $1800 for a TRULY ONE OF A KIND ship? SOLD!

Chris obviously hasn't seen The Expanse yet...

[edit- I'm also looking forward to when he sees some Subnautica gameplay footage and we start getting undersea content]

Zazz Razzamatazz fucked around with this message at 16:14 on Sep 28, 2019

# ? Sep 28, 2019 16:12

MedicineHut: Feb 25, 2016

I-Novae devs (recently launched Infinity Battlescape) discuss in their Discord about Star Citizen:

Shots fired!

MedicineHut fucked around with this message at 16:19 on Sep 28, 2019

# ? Sep 28, 2019 16:14

trucutru: Jul 9, 2003; by Fluffdaddy

Thom12255 posted:

Does there exist an engine that would let them achieve all their design ambitions and work?

No, because Roberts would scope creep it immediately. The problem is not truly the engine.

# ? Sep 28, 2019 16:32

Mirificus: Oct 29, 2004; Kings need not raise their voices to be heard

r/starcitizen: "Parasite Helmet" - Newsletter / Jump Point Sneak Peek of October Sub Flair?

# ? Sep 28, 2019 16:51

trucutru: Jul 9, 2003; by Fluffdaddy

MedicineHut posted:

I-Novae devs (recently launched Infinity Battlescape) discuss in their Discord about Star Citizen:

Shots fired!

That's pretty great.

In case somebody doesn't know, their implementation of physics grids (their biggest achievement to date) is as follows:

1) Players and objects use the physics of the map they are located in (a ship, a planet, a station, etc)
2) A map can be inside another map, and it can move around. A map can also attach itself to another map and inherit its properties.
3) A map is an object itself and therefore is affected by the physics of the map it's located in (a ship flying in a planet does this as soon as it runs out of fuel, because while it has fuel it doesn't give a gently caress about gravity) so a shop can fly upside down but the players inside will still be bound to the ship artificial gravity, not the planet one.
4) All maps have a simple cryengine gravity vector that points to where "down" is.
5) If a character or object is supposed to be in zero gravity it simple ignores the gravity vector, this happens when a character goes into a space walk, where it enters a custom ragdoll mode. Ships always fly in zero gravity, any force they experience in helicopter mode or whatever is just hacked in to make it seem like it doesn't.
6) Objects can move between maps

It's an ok solution with some issues, one is that the maps always have a down vector so you can only walk on them in the "proper" orientation. No walking on the underside of port Olisar, for example, this is hand-waved by their gravity goo explanation but they'll have trouble implementing magnetic boots.

# ? Sep 28, 2019 16:53

colonelwest: Jun 30, 2018

Sarsapariller posted:

<triggered>

Culinary spaceship coming soon. Got to feed all of those hungry commandos after that 1000 player battle. Only $750, pledge now!

# ? Sep 28, 2019 17:02

Scruffpuff: Dec 23, 2015; Fidelity. Wait, was I'm working on again?

trucutru posted:

That's pretty great.

In case somebody doesn't know, their implementation of physics grids (their biggest achievement to date) is as follows:

1) Players and objects use the physics of the map they are located in (a ship, a planet, a station, etc)
2) A map can be inside another map, and it can move around. A map can also attach itself to another map and inherit its properties.
3) A map is an object itself and therefore is affected by the physics of the map it's located in (a ship flying in a planet does this as soon as it runs out of fuel, because while it has fuel it doesn't give a gently caress about gravity) so a shop can fly upside down but the players inside will still be bound to the ship artificial gravity, not the planet one.
4) All maps have a simple cryengine gravity vector that points to where "down" is.
5) If a character or object is supposed to be in zero gravity it simple ignores the gravity vector, this happens when a character goes into a space walk, where it enters a custom ragdoll mode. Ships always fly in zero gravity, any force they experience in helicopter mode or whatever is just hacked in to make it seem like it doesn't.
6) Objects can move between maps

It's an ok solution with some issues, one is that the maps always have a down vector so you can only walk on them in the "proper" orientation. No walking on the underside of port Olisar, for example, this is hand-waved by their gravity goo explanation but they'll have trouble implementing magnetic boots.

So here's my question about all this. Taking into account that Chris thinks the inside of the PC is just a digital recreation of reality like Tron, and doesn't actually understand what an "engine" is, he just told his devs "make it all real and don't cheat. FIDELITY." He then wandered off into traffic or something.

Now with that foundation, the developers came up with the nested maps you describe above. Now when you get down to brass tacks, the nested maps and physics grids approach IS cheating, at least from a purely Crobertsian perspective. Physics grids and maps don't exist in real life, the laws of physics apply across the board. From a physics perspective there's no such thing as a ship, or a planet, or a room, or a station - there are just different amounts, positions, densities, etc. of different states of matter and movement and energy play out the only way it can. So nested physics grids is cheating.

If that's the case, however difficult or technically impressive it might be, since they were cheating anyway, is this really the best possible way to produce the illusion they're going for? Why is one abstraction considered more committed to fidelity than another? Isn't what the player feels is fidelitious more important than what some pedantic rear end in a top hat thinks about what's going on under the hood? "Yeah it feels like raw poo poo but that's cause it's real." Cornered Rat Software has been running on that mantra for a long time now, and has had the problem that the more real they make it, the more fake it feels.

# ? Sep 28, 2019 17:03

trucutru: Jul 9, 2003; by Fluffdaddy

Scruffpuff posted:

So nested physics grids is cheating.

If that's the case, however difficult or technically impressive it might be, since they were cheating anyway, is this really the best possible way to produce the illusion they're going for? Why is one abstraction considered more committed to fidelity than another? Isn't what the player feels is fidelitious more important than what some pedantic rear end in a top hat thinks about what's going on under the hood? "Yeah it feels like raw poo poo but that's cause it's real." Cornered Rat Software has been running on that mantra for a long time now, and has had the problem that the more real they make it, the more fake it feels.

First, any solution will always be a sort of cheat, because you're not actually recreating (not like we could) reality in a game. So, taking that into account, their solution is a good compromise between cheating/fidelity.

Normally games do what warframe does and just have separate maps for inside/outside a ship and the windows in the ship simply show you a projection of what is happening outside the ship at the place it is supposed to be at. With SC's approach your ship and the things inside are actually at the position they are supposed to be at and, technically, you could snipe a player from outside the ship if they actually programmed a proper way for the bullets to cross boundaries without the need to teleport the bullet to another map (which is what warframe would do if they wanted to have this feature, which they don't). This approach, of course, requires a shitload more computational resources to work, which is why most other games "cheat" more: as long as you can do what your game design demands, then go with the solution that requires less effort, resources, or both. SC has gone in the opposite direction and chosen a complex solution that requires lots of effort and resources.

So, in theory, it is a good enough approach, but their implementation is complete dogshit so it doesn't really matter.

# ? Sep 28, 2019 17:19

ryde: Sep 9, 2011; God I love young girls

Do the Infinity Battlescape devs talk about how they do their physics?

# ? Sep 28, 2019 17:19

Mirificus: Oct 29, 2004; Kings need not raise their voices to be heard

# ? Sep 28, 2019 17:50

SPERMCUBE.ORG: Nov 3, 2011; Space commies are th' biggest threat t' red-blooded American Freedom we got in th' future. So me and my boys got to talking over a few hot dogs the other day and this is what we came up with...

Sarsapariller posted:

Chris Roberts looks at this and thinks "Fools! You could have made at least seven million dollars worth of ships with all those mechanics."

Chris Roberts is gazing at the horizon from a yacht off the coast of Italy while dabbing away tears of pure satisfaction from his eyes with real money. He will never look at or think about that video.

# ? Sep 28, 2019 18:01

SPERMCUBE.ORG: Nov 3, 2011; Space commies are th' biggest threat t' red-blooded American Freedom we got in th' future. So me and my boys got to talking over a few hot dogs the other day and this is what we came up with...

K8.0 posted:

When are they going to announce flyable asteroids with random generated caves?

Only $1800 for a TRULY ONE OF A KIND ship? SOLD!

Not such a bad idea actually. MOMA if you're reading this tell your boss to sell a ship with holographic projectors or some bullshit on the hull so it can disguise itself as asteroids or other jpegs. Call it a pirate ship. Then a month later sell a AWACS ship which uses its powerful space hydrophone to see through the illusion. Wring those rubes for all they're worth, please.

# ? Sep 28, 2019 18:02

Thom12255: Feb 23, 2013; WHERE THE FUCK IS MY MONEY

I'm going to get a $4.5 million Mansion, eventually.

# ? Sep 28, 2019 18:08

Mailer: Nov 4, 2009; Have you accepted The Void as your lord and savior?

I don't think the crobbler could handle The Expanse. It's space, but somehow doesn't map back to WW2 dogfighting. A truly impossible creation.

Dementropy posted:

https://twitter.com/RobertsSpaceInd/status/1177804355635859456

Why is Agony Aunt out drinking with cultists?

# ? Sep 28, 2019 18:10

Bofast: Feb 21, 2011; Grimey Drawer

Mirificus posted:

r/starcitizen: "Parasite Helmet" - Newsletter / Jump Point Sneak Peek of October Sub Flair?

# ? Sep 28, 2019 18:11

Jonny Shiloh: Mar 7, 2019; You 'orrible little man

Thom12255 posted:

I'm going to get a $4.5 million Mansion, eventually.

Get milking those whale teats son.

# ? Sep 28, 2019 18:15

happyhippy: Feb 21, 2005; Playing games, watching movies, owning goons. 'sup; Pillbug

Remember, Star Citizens 'space' is originally CryEngine's water physics code.

# ? Sep 28, 2019 18:32

Beexoffel: Oct 4, 2015; Herald of the Stimpire

Beet Wagon posted:

"What's a three month delay for never?" holy gently caress

Thread title AF.

# ? Sep 28, 2019 18:45

Dementropy: Aug 23, 2010

Cave Spider - 3.7 leaked bug

# ? Sep 28, 2019 18:46

Mirificus: Oct 29, 2004; Kings need not raise their voices to be heard

# ? Sep 28, 2019 18:47

rePool: Apr 18, 2019; Undercover Goon.

So long and thanks for all the fish

Mailer posted:

I don't think the crobbler could handle The Expanse. It's space, but somehow doesn't map back to WW2 dogfighting. A truly impossible creation.

Why is Agony Aunt out drinking with cultists?

I was going to point that out, but I didn't want to make Aunt uncomfortable that we saw him chilling with the likes of rex as well.

# ? Sep 28, 2019 18:49

Mirificus: Oct 29, 2004; Kings need not raise their voices to be heard

S1rmunchalot @S1rmunchalot September 26th at 11:37 pm posted:

I think he is not talking about the 'Uh Oh' dialogue box.. he's talking about the whole text entry field that goes red when you have reached the maximum character limit for a post. He did say a "detailed reply".

This can be buggy because trying to edit when it is already 'full' can cause Spectrum to get a little unhappy. I know, it has happened to me too. The answer is to compose the 'threat'(sic) in a Notepad file and copy/paste it rather than type into the text box window. I'm guilty.. I start typing and don't realise I'm composing a novel until I've done it. Train of thought typing. When the text box goes red, I copy paste into a Notepad file and edit down the word count. Now add to this that Chrome is memory hungry and when you type large amounts of text that is unsaved into Chrome it gets sluggish - This is not a a Spectrum issue it happens on Reddit and Youtube as well, I can't count how many times I have typed up a huge post for Reddit and then it all gets deleted because I accidentally hit the wrong key. The answer is to save frequently but of course this constant editing can cause it's own problems.

Live browser text box entry windows are not designed for typing up long 'Detailed' replies.

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/spectrum/community/SC/forum/3/thread/did-my-account-got-hacked/2408895

S1rmunchalot @S1rmunchalot September 26th at 9:40 pm posted:

I have a Hull E with a melt value of $400 and a CCU value of $650. I have patience, I'm sure by the time it goes flight ready it will be valued at around $800. 2/3rds of ships in my hangar are not flight ready, but they increase in value year after year.
I have a Banu Merchantman in a pack, and a buy back list entry for a Banu Merchantman with LTI for $250 pre-tax.
I have many more of such things on my account which would have the average 'Johnny-come-lately' absolutely drooling at the prospect.

The answer to your question is not so straight-forward, Prior to 2016 i paid no sales tax so that everything was 20% cheaper.. which is good for me because that was when I was stockpiling buy back list entries and a pack of 24 ships. Chris has never hidden the fact that ships are cheapest at concept and their price will always go up so that any who buys ships at those lowest price will always benefit in the long run. There are those who can only think about the latest in-game shiny and that is absolutely fine.. but value for money comes at concept if you have the patience. Value for the player comes at flight ready. We used to study the Ship Shape releases, now it's the roadmap. Go look and ask yourself which ship is going to get a bump in price in the next few months. It's not hard.

There are those who think that we who were around pre-2016 were spoiled in a golden era and there is some truth in this - No Warbond limitations, freely available $0 CCU's coupled with the (open to serious abuse) 'buy to melt' mechanic etc, some definitely abused CIG's generosity and wish to be as accommodating as possible, however there are still ways to take advantage of that same Chris Roberts 'promise' that ships always increase in price from concept onward. If this matter to you.. as you seem to deem bang for buck important.. then a little patience and study will definitely yield positive results.

We always knew that eventually there would come a time when concept ships went straight to flyable and because of this they 'start' at a higher price compared to the old concepts we had to wait for. The Banu Merchantman, the Hull E, the Carrack were cheaper because there was a long wait penalty. You can have it later, and so cheaper.. or you can have it game ready today and so more expensive. There are still LTI tokens to be had relatively cheaply, the most recent was the Tumbril Ranger, what was closed down with Warbond was the 'buy to melt' stockpiling of buy back list entries. There were those who abused it and in so doing 'we can't have nice things'. Using it is not the same as abusing it. The majority were happy to just have a facility where they had a reason to keep supporting the project over the longer term with a little more freedom than we have now.

It is a fact of life.. if you arrive late to the party all the nicest food is gone, the best drinks are gone and most of the furniture has become virtually unusable or occupied, the host a lot more tired and irritable than their initial welcoming self. Should those who only arrived yesterday insist they get the same benefits as those who pledged significant amounts at a time when all we had was promises and jpegs? What price is patience and support with no immediate gratification? It's the same argument that some give for insisting they get access to the MMHC.. they may have given more in dollar value over the longer term than those who qualified for the perk.. but they arrived later and as such have had more benefit from their support, no matter how high. I think it was a mistake to give MMHC access to those who came later.. no matter how much they helped the project they should have been given an alternate reward.

The short answer is therefore.. the best bang for buck is whatever you deem the most valuable.. for me the most valuable thing is to see that the dev team have never had to work in a condition where they might not get paid next month, that they can create the dream for the community without worrying about the mortgage, the bills, the children being fed. My fondness for the project doesn't come from looking over the contents of my hangar, or my buy back list, it comes from knowing that when the world was telling us we would fail, we all puled together to make it work. It is my feeling that those who have come later.. don't seem to appreciate that so much.. they demand 'What about my game!' 'Why isn't it done!', '8 years!' Even though they have only been around for perhaps one of those years.

No-one HAS TO buy any ship. If all you want is a game, then just pay the price to pre-pay for that game and wait like you do for any other game. If I have a criticism of CIG currently it that they seem to have lost the ability to reach out and inspire the backers who have arrived in the last 2 - 3 years. They are relying on content and 'polished presentation' and that isn't enough yet. What does everyone think we were so enthusiastic about all those years ago when all we had was a hangar to walk around at best? Newcomers look at the game and they see 'half finished' we old timers look at the game and realise.. Yep.. it's going the way we always dreamed it would, we're nearly there, and Wow! aren't we proud of what our team has accomplished. It's bigger, fancier and more amazing than even we thought it was going to be back then. We did it, when everyone else was telling us it was impossible. How many times we heard: 'CIG are going to run out of funds in 3 months', 'They'll never get whole planets in, they'll never have planets you can land on'. 'You're all dreaming!' Forbes: Most kickstarters are over-hyped, over -promised and fail.

Yes we did dream. So why not enjoy watching a game being made, an unprecedented behind the scenes look at the process. Enjoy the alpha test game knowing that one day you will be able to look back and see the hard won progress, swap war stories with fresh faced newbies. Enjoy the nuances of the meta-gaming ship shuffle game (Which was actually the first full game CIG produced!). Enjoy the fact that you can get any ship in a massive open universe simulator just by playing the game, with a promise that you will have lifetime access with no more cost to you. If that impresses you then consider supporting more than you would for an average game.

There are those who argue about LTI and it's benefits as little as they seem to be.. this irrelevant who cares about a few in game credit sinks years from now.. LTI is the badge that says "I was there man.. in the beginning. I helped to make it happen." and that to some is priceless.

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/spectrum/community/SC/forum/3/thread/what-are-the-value-proposition-ships-ccu-s-to-hold/2408740

# ? Sep 28, 2019 18:53

Dwesa: Jul 19, 2016; Maybe I'll go where I can see stars

Scruffpuff posted:

Taking into account that Chris thinks the inside of the PC is just a digital recreation of reality like Tron, and doesn't actually understand what an "engine" is, he just told his devs "make it all real and don't cheat. FIDELITY." He then wandered off into traffic or something.

It's not even recreation of reality. I don't see stupid rotating elevators in reality.

# ? Sep 28, 2019 18:59

Zaphod42: Sep 13, 2012; If there's anything more important than my ego around, I want it caught and shot now.

Thom12255 posted:

Does there exist an engine that would let them achieve all their design ambitions and work?

No off the shelf engine can make SC. But any competent developer could build SC with any competent engine, given enough time and resources.

CIG is not competent.

CrazyLoon posted:

To emphasize the problem with that phrase of the question, it doesn't lie with the 'an engine' part but with the 'them' part.

I wouldn't be surprised if there is an engine out there that actually could fulfill these kinds of design ambitions and also work. I mean...others have linked games with fewer staff members and less funding that are working and coming out that look terribly close to it, so with a bit more care, attention and funding...who knows, quite possibly!

But 'they' (as in CIG) are about the last studio on Earth qualified to tell you which it is. The fact they went for the Cryengine should've been the red flag to begin with.

Yep.

Thom12255 posted:

And Chris went with CryEngine because back at the start of the decade because it was regarded as the HIGHEST fidelity engine and didn't think much more about how easy it would be to make his game with.

Wrong, actually. The reality is Chris went with CryEngine because they built him a mock-up video that he could use for his kickstarter pitch to lie and imply the game was already half built, when in reality it was just a movie.

Kikas posted:

No, he went with Cryengine because they've put together a demo for him in Cryengine.

drat beaten

# ? Sep 28, 2019 19:03

BumbleOne: Jul 1, 2018; by Fluffdaddy

Mailer posted:

I don't think the crobbler could handle The Expanse. It's space, but somehow doesn't map back to WW2 dogfighting. A truly impossible creation.

Why is Agony Aunt out drinking with cultists?

haha he got spotted there.
he thought he could hide behind that beard ha

# ? Sep 28, 2019 19:17

Thom12255: Feb 23, 2013; WHERE THE FUCK IS MY MONEY

Zaphod42 posted:

Wrong, actually. The reality is Chris went with CryEngine because they built him a mock-up video that he could use for his kickstarter pitch to lie and imply the game was already half built, when in reality it was just a movie.

Is there an article/post somewhere that discusses the behind the scenes of the announcement of SC back in 2012?

# ? Sep 28, 2019 19:23

Tokyo Sexwale: Jul 30, 2003

Star Citizen is good, confirm/deny?

# ? Sep 28, 2019 19:31

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# ? May 29, 2024 03:38

Agony Aunt: Apr 17, 2018; by LITERALLY AN ADMIN

Thom12255 posted:

Does there exist an engine that would let them achieve all their design ambitions and work?

Deep Thought 2.

# ? Sep 28, 2019 19:48

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Star Citizen: $48,000 is only $334/month for 12 years

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