Star Citizen: Lightyears beyond EPIC!

A new word needs to be invented. I have never felt so many strong emotions of "YES!" on seeing a game trailer, ever.

This game is going to redefine gaming. It's going to be... absolutely smashing any and all previous experiences by comparison!

This guy, Chris Roberts, creator of Wing Commander and Freelancer among others, takes his vision and tries to make it a reality.
That's already brave and commendable, but he has an AWESOME EPIC vision as well.

The game? Star Citizen? It is Freelancer and Wing Commander and X3 and EVE Online and an FPS all rolled into one seemless experience (as far as I understand it now).

I have just watched the trailer twice and I can safely I have never been so stoked, ever.



Check it! Pledge here: http://www.robertsspaceindustries.com/

 

I am a bit skeptical, partly because it seems so ambitious, and partly because of the part where he's talking about what happens if you damage a thruster. In reality, if he's trying to so realistically depict spaceflight, he's going to be very disappointed when he realizes that getting your ship trapped in an irreversible spin because your thruster was damaged, is not going to be fun for the average player.

 

I'm pretty sure he's not a newbie in the business who makes that kind of mistake. I wondered the same thing when I heard about it, but only for a fraction of a second. As he specifically mentions fly-by-wire, which has automatic stability systems in real life, I assume damaging a thruster will turn it off, aka, you can't fire that thruster anymore (so getting into an uncontrollable spin is impossible (assuming an automtic 'drag' or 'slowing effect' here, for ease-of-flight)). With your main engine serving as a kind of directional thruster (see vid to know what I mean: the main exhaust can move it's exhaust direction), you will always have *some* way of turning, even if it is pretty slow compared to when you have thrusters.

Anyway, I also must admit the following thought: "Is this true? Is this a big scam?" went through my head a few times, just because of the really groundbreaking ambition.. it's hard to believe!

I am positive though, so I pledged. Worst thing that can happen is that it never happens and I lose my pledge amount. That's not too bad. I hope no one ever pledges with money they really need. Even if somehow the game fails because it's too big and too highly ambitious I wouldn't call that lost money. The world has tried out a thing, and it failed, but probably the industry learned a great deal from it

 

What automatic drag? If a ship is spinning, turning off the engine will not stop it from spinning. If the spin was caused by the disabling of an engine, the best you could hope for is to change your moment of inertia (if you can shift the mass of the spinning body outward, it will slow a bit). I guess if you could bring it into an atmosphere, you could slow it down much faster.

I'm not claiming that its a scam, I'm just wondering if the guy is making promises he can't keep. Ambition is a good thing -- you should always strive beyond your limits. The problem comes when you make promises based on that. If he pulls it off, I'll be pleased as punch. I'm just saying that you need to keep your hopes a bit more realistic.

 

Indeed, this is what I meant: I assume that the ship will 'automagically' slow down as if in atmosphere when not having a force acting upon it. Like that, a ship would stop spinning after a few barrel rolls (because, again, you can only remove a thruster, not make it fire unendingly).

 

Damn. I need to sell myself into slavery or something. Too many great games, too little money.

 

This crowdfunding campaign is coming to an end, if you haven't pledged yet: the time is NOW!

It is really going to be epic!
http://www.robertsspaceindustries.com/star-citizen/?rid=35367
(using this link will list me as referrer, something that doesn't really interest me, but.. well.. why not?)

About the spaceflight questions earlier:

What can we expect the physics of ships and flight to handle like ingame?

Christopher Roberts:
“First post on the forums! I finally have a few spare minutes.
As someone that was taking Physics at Manchester University before I dropped out to make games full time I can assure everyone that the physics model is COMPLETELY accurate and its a full rigid body simulation. I know because I wrote the code.
Maybe I should have done a better job in the demo, but if you are flying at speed and you set your desired velocity to zero you WILL see the top front thrusters articulating and firing to slow your velocity. If you watch my demo you will notice there is some momentum with the Hornet when I slow down close to the bridge. It may not have been apparent on the screen, but I can assure the Hornet does not stop on a dime. if you load it up with more mass (like extra weapons) you feel the effect of this.
There is no drag modeled – everything is done as it would be in space.
Additionally there is actually counter thrust being applied inside the physics and if you had your hands on the controller you would feel it. If you look closely you will see the inertia of this – the ship doesn’t stop rolling or pitching on a dime. There is however a very good reason why you don’t actually see the thrusters fire entirely accurately.
The problem with visually depicting the proper thrust is that it would actually look pretty horrible (trust me this is how I first did it, and is still pretty easy to switch back to as I’m actually doing some extra work to make the visuals looks nicer).
The reason is because there is no drag in space, so even a micro amount of thrust starts the Hornet (or any spaceship) rotating until you apply counter thrust. So what is really happening is that the flight control system is always applying micro thrust and counter thrust to achieve the pilot’s inputs. This results in the thrusters flickering off and on in micro amounts and you actually not getting a good feel of the general application of thrust. I think you know I like things to look cool (come on, we all know you probably wouldn’t be engaging in space dogfights at WW2 speeds, but its so much more fun than what the reality would probably be), so what happens is that the system is still modeled accurately, but I use the angular /linear velocity delta to drive the visual representation of thrust. Here’s my code comment
//Note the thrust Goal is actually the linear velocity delta (desired vel – current vel of
//the vehicle & rotational vel rather than the actual linear & angular acceleration / thrust.
//This is because, while inaccurate its cooler to see more constant thrust that gives
//you a visual clue as to what correctional movement / velocity vectors the vehicle is using.
//If we just used the acceleration as opposed to the desired velocity correction, the thruster flames
//would flicker on and off – especially in the Wing Commander use case of Space, where
//there is no atmosphere to provide drag.
//Of course if you pass the actual accelerations to SetThrustGoal, then you’ll get an accurate
//visual representation of what a thruster would really do

I hope that clears up any confusion!
I will admit that the ship doesn’t need to have wings or fans on the front, but the idea behind that is for possible atmospheric flight (this is not a promise of planetary action for the early build but allows for expansions in this direction), and as a RAM scoop. Plus it just looks / feels cool.”

“Star Citizen will feature gameplay similar to the original Wing Commander and Privateer, with a more realistic physics system. This means that it is NOT a ‘click to kill’ interface like most modern MMOs; your success in combat is going to depend as much on your skill with a space fighter as it will with your ship upgrades and your pocketbook.”

It is REALLY going to be awesome. There are ships to fly with 4-5 people, with a 1 person fighter you can launch, turrets that can be manned, boarding operations leading to FPS gameplay (melee weapons included), etc etc etc

 

While I want to pay for it, I have lingering problems that I cannot play this game because of. (My ISP is dropping packets like crazy. And the money I could save to buy this is the same money I need to save to buy a new Hard Drive and replacement motherboard.)

Luckily this looks like it will still be available later if I ever have the money. I like the ideas of the game.

 

So play the offline mode. Either Squadron 42 missions, or host the entire universe for you alone.

 

I read up on that. They will not give an absolute "Yes" to the question "Can it be played without Internet access?"

Having an offline mode is useless if it will not start until it has validated you are authorized to play.

 

Is Star Citizen an MMO?

No! Star Citizen will take the best of all possible worlds, ranging from a permanent, persistent world similar to those found in MMOs to an offline, single player campaign like those found in the Wing Commander series. The game will include the option for private servers, like Freelancer, and will offer plenty of opportunities for players who are interested in modding the content. Unlike many games, none of these aspects is an afterthought: they all combine to form the core of the Star Citizen experience.

This is from the official FAQ.
Don't you think it's a tad bit weird if a DRM-free game would require you to log in if they offer a full singleplayer offline playable experience?
I mean, yeah, I cannot 100% guarantee anything I guess, but I wouldn't worry about it

 

That one is a bit more open to interpretation. Many games these days claim no DRM and then require Internet access just to start the game engine. That is doublespeak to me. But I will hope that your interpretation proves to be correct and the game is truly playable offline.

In reality, looking over my posts it occurs to me that pretty much every single player will be pissed off from the start if it does not work as they claim it does, or if it makes them jump through hoops for no reason.

 

Well, technically speaking, if the game does require you to either join or create a server because it creates a persistent world, then it depends. If there is an option to expand your single-player "server" to a private multi-player one at a moment's notice, then indeed it is justified because data migration is pain (just ask Mojang guys if you want to know). But if single-player worlds can't be converted like that and really are "offline", then any internet connection being required is a truck full of fertilizer.