Star Citizen Central

[Blackcompany]

This has been proposed over and over again. Time and again on the forums, people have asked for faster Acceleration and Deceleration. They have asked for planets not to create drag in SC. For actual optimal routes through a system, slingshotting to increase speed and a dozen other things to make travel faster. Or even just less boring and tedious.

And every time, its shot down by white knight forum dads (I hate that term, but its applicable here) who cannot bear the thought of changing their precious Netflix in Space simulator.

I’m going to laugh my ass off when the realization sets in that it took a small team at Double Damage to actually make a FUN, engaging game in space while these scam artist nostalgia peddlers collections millions selling hopes and dreams they never intended to deliver on. And its going to get better from there once players realize Elite is most likely in Maintenance Mode and the only thing you are going to hear about real, meaningful content is that its been delayed again.

[Chaz]

I’m going to laugh my ass off when the realization sets in that it took a small team at Double Damage to actually make a FUN, engaging game in space while these scam artist nostalgia peddlers collections millions selling hopes and dreams they never intended to deliver on.

Nah! You’ll probably slag that off too when it fail to live up to all your expectations.

[Chaz]

I think the problem is that supercruise is also dependent on a gravity simulator, it’s already easy enough to overshoot stations and planets that are close now if you get distracted and don’t cut the throttle in time imagine if they just scaled the game to go faster, they’d probably have to invent a different physics system for the longer stretches but where would it start to kick in?

If I remember rightly, the original Elite had an in system jump drive that jumped you closer to your goal in steps, only stopping when you were travelling past other ships. They could do with something like that again, but with a few caveats or trade offs. Perhaps it uses materials for the jump like the FSD boost, or maybe it uses a large chunk of fuel etc.

It’s a tough one, as you kind of need something like SC to be able to fly around the planets at any reasonable speed. It’s only on the longer journeys over about 30K ly when the system starts to feel like it’s taking overly long to get you anywhere.

[Blackcompany]

Big difference between not meeting my expectations and Braben blatantly conning his backers with a slew of features he never intended to work on, more less implement.

[Det.Bullock]

I don’t remember any of that when I tried it, there was just an in-sector jump drive and a long range one, you were always using the thing only when jumping system to system, there wasn’t even a “supercruise” it was either normal space or jumpdrive because space wasn’t really to scale in that game a thing you could do only ina single player game.

[Shadoko]

On the seamlessness topic : I get the “wow” factor offered by being able to wander seamlessly in the world, including from a space legs perspective, but - as it has already been discussed before in this thread - nothing interesting happens in space most of the time. Going around in supercruise in Elite is mostly boring. Going around in quantum jump in Space Citizen is boring. In a regular space sim, activity - interesting activity - will always get concentrated around points of interest : space stations, planets, a few well-frequented lanes. If I can trade seamlessness for better developed planets, stations and the like, with more options and - gasp - story, I will very happily accept loading screens and cutscene landings.

[TheDreamlord]

nothing interesting happens in space most of the time.

That is not true. As a small example, in the very recent X4 I am able to find a stranded ship or a massive derelict ship, scan it, get out of my ship in EVAC and try to recover artefacts or even get inside and claim the ship. And it is a lot of fun.

Walking on stations can potentially be interesting as well, depending on how fleshed out the system is. I really don’t see anything wrong in trying to achieve this goal of (this badly named) “space legs”. If they also manage to incorporate a decent FPS there as well (boarding hostile ships for example), this would make for a hell of fun gameplay and one I would most certainly love to play.

[Shadoko]

Oh I see the appeal of these concepts, I just don’t think seamlessness is the be all and end all that all space sims should try to attain.

[TheDreamlord]

No one said that though, surely?

[Shadoko]

Star Citizen certainly followed this route. I might be misremembering, but originally it didn’t pitch seamless planetary landings and the like ?

[TheDreamlord]

Oh sorry, I was referring to Elite!

[BillButNotBen]

So does X4 achieve the dream that Elite and SC are still aiming for?

[TheDreamlord]

Nah, quite different games.

[TheDreamlord]

Are we there yet?
Are we there yet?
Are we there yet?

ahem … I was bored. Another half year has gone by…

[Kiril]

No we are not there yet. Still a few years away but the last patch did introduce the first city landing area and a new and better flight model and the next one promises ship buying and renting in the universe and its actually in a playable state.

Squadron 42 is pencilled in for beta next summer, I am hopeful that it will make it.