Popete posted:

Buckle in folks we've got an expert!

colonelwest posted:

But yeah PES is a glorious mess that anyone could predict would just break the game in new ways, while adding nothing of any real gameplay value if you’re not a hardcore space janitor at heart. They’ll be screwing around with it and trying to dig out of the mounds of technical debt they added, just to in the end introduce some bog standard culling feature that’s been in game’s for 30 years.

If they ever add a second star system to their big 100+ star system game, I’d love to see what happens when you start dumping trash into one of the jump gates.

Popete posted:

Buckle in folks we've got an expert!



You heard that right, databases not stored in "volatile" RAM! This is it, the singularity is upon us. CIG has somehow, someway thru sheer force of will and determination figured out how to store data in such a way that it can be recovered even in the event of a power failure. I don't know how they did it but this heralds a new era of mankind. What next? Perhaps this can even be applied to regular ol' AAA games and they'll be able to "save" your game state, perhaps even to a local file not requiring a constant internet connection to the database??

Randalor posted:

It's a sci-fi setting, right? Just make small flying drones who zip around and zap away any item left unattended for... I unno, 5 minutes in a public area. Where's my $50,000 for this revolutionary idea, Chris?

lobsterminator posted:

I'm pretty sure SC players would hate that. They want to see actual humans cleaning up so that they can feel wealthy and powerful.

Popete posted:

Which really begs the question, what is the point of PES anyways if nothing is guaranteed to actually be persistent? It's only real purpose now seems to be leaving piles of garbage and corpses around.

dr_rat posted:

Just make it "lore" that the cleaning robots actually have human brains and are slave who are in robot bodies so they can work forever and don't need sleep.

The fact that this is incredibly stupid will be overlooked due to it being appropriately grimdark.

CommissarMega posted:

Dunno if you've heard about them, but 40K servitors have been a thing for a while. Have some original ideas, man! What could be more original than having a flesh and blood human being do the drudgework for you?

Popete posted:

How they implement culling doesn't really matter, supposedly it already exists (I think?) but they're obviously going to have to increase it because it's contributing to Star Citizens already poor performance. They sold this whole idea that objects will persist forever, you can drop a cup in the woods and come back months later to find it. Which obviously isn't actually go to work in a multiplayer game but now we are in real time watching CIG figure this out over the period of 10+ years.

Which really begs the question, what is the point of PES anyways if nothing is guaranteed to actually be persistent? It's only real purpose now seems to be leaving piles of garbage and corpses around.

dr_rat posted:

So the point of the feature as it seems to at it's heart being allowing the player to make some sort of mark on the world. Like I get that. Often games can feel like the world barely notices the player going through it. But yeah I feel like this is just a terrible way go about it even ignoring the massive technical problem.

toiletbrush posted:

there's loads of things I just don't get about this, but one of them is...players play in different shards, right? do these shards share entities with each other? Like, if a mate is in a different shard and we both put a bottle down in a similar place, do we both see each other's bottles? Cos either way it's broken. Either it's shared and you end up with bajillions of poo poo everywhere and massive server strain (which is what seems to be happening), or you end up with a consistency/conflict problem if you join someone else's shard or they join yours.

Gort posted:

just add Can-Quest from Yakuza 7

colonelwest posted:

Having the world react to the player is something that open world single player games TESVI: Skryrim II desperately need. But CIG’s PES and Quanta dreams.txt is incredibly stupid in an MMO.

quote:

Ahoy There:

Dont worry there is an easy Solution to losing your items in game. Go to the Pledge store and buy another one. These items are intended to be one time use. Remember 1$ = 1 UEC in game as you can currently buy 25,000 UEC for 25$.

When you buy it again, you will feel better knowing you are supporting Star Citizen development. Every $$ helps CR and CIG.

quote:

Well frankly this statement is completely disingenuous because it ignores the known facts.

1. Until February of 2016 there was no choice but to buy both Squadron 42 and Star Citizen at the same time, they were not offered as separate packages until 14th February 2016.

2. Squadron 42 is a one-off payment, given that it comes heavily discounted if you buy a Star Citizen package it's likely the majority still choose to buy both, even after the package split.

What few are aware of is the very good reason to buy more than one Squadron 42 game package, because you aren't just buying a game, you're buying the right to create a unique character in the whole Squadron 42 / Star citizen universe, that character progresses through episode 1, 2 and 3 and then to the PU. You will not be able to create more than one character for each Squadron 42 purchase. When you buy a Star Citizen package you only get one character, whether it comes from Squadron 42 or not. Why do people think Squadron 42 would be any different? Probably because people can't stop thinking of Squadron 42 as 'any other typical AAA game'... which it isn't.

You can replay Squadron 42 with the same character, but only the combat sections in the military simulator - Arena Commander - where you can improve your combat scores. (Chris Roberts has done this in the past with his Wing Commander games, you can't replay Wing Commander Prophecy making different choices, you have to start each character you create from the very beginning again otherwise you only (re)play the simulator). People say how will they make money from selling SQ42 alone and no ship sales, one way (they have many in consideration) is by doing something few others have tried, by monetising replays. You can't have multiple playthrough's taking different choices at each playthrough, and you will be asked to make choices, moral choices and those choices will directly affect your character in the PU afterward. Once you've made your choices for your character those choices are fixed in that characters history log and timeline, who then retires to the PU with that specific history - that's why you can't play all choices with one Squadron 42 purchase. They have discussed offering 'extra character slots' to existing owners of Squadron 42.

As others have pointed out, the only real activity that backers can see happening is with the PU, the majority do not visit these forums so we have no idea what the majority think of Squadron 42 Episode One. People spending time and regurgitating each other's echo-chamber ignorance is no proof at all.

Either way it makes no difference, the only reason people make the claim that they don't care about Squadron 42 is because they haven't done their research into the project and they don't realise that Squadron 42 takes place in exactly the same game universe. As Jared Huckaby described it "Squadron 42 is basically one huge dynamic mission in the Star Citizen universe." They are not separate games, they are intrinsically linked.

The test-bed PU we have now is a tip of the iceberg compared to the full 'Squadron 42 universe' to come - that the PU will eventually become. There's no UEE presence of substance in the current PU, we have no history logs and meaningful progression, and without all that underpins Squadron 42 there never would be.

quote:

They have discussed this and stated it was why they have to be very careful where they put the save points in the game. You'll find on a Squadron 42 Q&A with Chris on the SC Youtube channel. Not playing SQ42 won't halt your gameplay in the PU, it's just that any 'connected' gameplay experiences won't show for you until you do. Your gameplay log has timestamps as you unlock any PU connected features in SQ42. For example they said that gaining the F8C Lightning comes toward the end of Episode One and so if that achievement isn't yet on your characters history it won't unlock in the PU, but once you reach it - it will.

To be clear, you don't have to buy SQ42 again to replay the combat sections with your character, you only need a new character slot when begin with a new character which is also a new character available to transfer to the PU and Episode 2 and 3. Comparing to other games and how people will react to replay limitations is a bit misleading, this game is different. To be honest Chris wants it to feel more like you are involved in an interactive movie where you play a character part. If there weren't a series in the franchise perhaps some would decry not being able to endlessly replay new characters but the whole point of Squadron 42 is that you play your own hero through the whole saga. You don't get to replay a new character in Halo or COD the price of creating your own character and continuing it - has a price there are no do-overs in real life, no-one has issues with that. It's highly likely there will be other saga's set in the same game universe, it doesn't have to be only navy pilots. The next one could be Star Medic.

Comparing to other games and how people will react to replay limitations is a bit misleading, this game is different. To be honest Chris has said wants it to feel more like you are involved in an interactive movie where you play a characters part. If there is a series in the franchise (as is planned) perhaps some would decry not being able to endlessly replay new characters but the whole point of Squadron 42 is that you play your own hero through the whole saga. Any SC / SQ42 or beyond game can take the player character from any other game, how many games do that? Normally in the few instances where a character arc continues, like Halo or Mass Effect you are told your name before the start, you don't pick it yourself and you certainly don't take those into a wider sandbox multiplayer to continue their personal story until death. When doing roleplay games most skip through the story elements anyway to get to the action, it'll be the same in Squadron 42, you just replay the action parts. It's no different to Skyrim, you can't endlessly change you characters story without removing the old, if you go back in time to change your mind with a replay, you miss the future bits you already did, you either do them again or do something different so that in the end the character has only one story. It's highly likely there will be other saga's set in the same game universe, it doesn't have to be only navy pilots. The next one could be Star Medic.

If new character slots are as cheap or cheaper than ship paints I doubt anyone will complain, you get to live a very long storied life for each character you create across multiple games.

I agree, in my opinion they are too draconian in their attitude to spoilers, specifically Todd Howard can stand on a stage and tell everyone you'll be able to visit 100 star systems and 4 fully built cities in Starfield - it gives us an idea of the scope of the game but it doesn't give away one iota of the story / gameplay. There is no reason in my mind why Chris can't give details like that yet we know already some of the story elements like locations events and factions, and we know we'll have titan suits and fight alien animals. These details seem much more like 'spoilers' than anything related to metrics and scope. We know there are 30 main missions with side branches for example.

We can hazard guesses from what has been revealed, the first trailer saw Capt White talking to our character saying "I see you applied to flight academy again" - The naval flight academy is in the Kilian system. We know Old Man Colton talks to us like a rookie pilot in the vertical slice, and we know they made a cartoonified - 'Go join up' video for the very first Invictus Launch Week.

We know the Vanduul attack triggers the war and that attack is in the Vega system, there have been 3 videos of Squadron 42 featuring the Vega system.

The Speech by Admiral Bishop takes place in the Senate on Earth and while it isn't a slam dunk on that basis we do know that one of the very earliest stretch goals was for a 4th landing zone on Earth as well as New York, Moscow and Shanghai.

..and of course the Odin system

We also know (from the vertical slice mission and what they have said) there are no time jumps in the game, you can pause the time but you can't go back in time except to the nearest last save point, in order to go from system to system you have to go through intervening systems... taking all the above into account on that basis it suggests there is likely to be at least 12 star systems in Squadron 42. Terra and Magnus being two which they have said in their communications are also likely candidates for PU. Example when asked 'which systems are coming after Stanton Todd Papy said it could be one of four, Terra, Magnus, Pyro or Nyx - well now know we of course it's Pyro. This also fits because we know the next two systems planned for the PU are Pyro and Nyx - which are the systems that connect Stanton to Odin, and the rest of the other possible / probable star systems in Squadron 42 E1.

quote:

Do you have the source for any of this. Ive not read any thing about

quote:

because you aren't just buying a game, you're buying the right to create a unique character in the whole Squadron 42 / Star citizen universe, that character progresses through episode 1, 2 and 3 and then to the PU.

quote:

They used to talk about these things back in the past, some I got from talking to them in person. There is an interview with Chris called Squadron 42 Q&A from around 2018 on the Star Citizen Youtube channel.

quote:

You will not be able to create more than one character for each Squadron 42 purchase

CitizenKain posted:

Seems like someone just replying "no they won't" on any of wall of texts would send him off.

Mirificus posted:

Thoatse posted:

I know it's no StarEngine^TM but Unreal 5.2 is pretty neat

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lkEOEEKYD0