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Star Citizen Pre-Alpha: 'Arena Commander' Dogfighting

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Geist-

Member
In case you guys didn't know, Star Citizen will actually be utilizing TressFX. I'm guessing they haven't implemented it yet and that's the reason this place-holder doesn't have any hair at all (besides paint-on eyebrows).
 

KKRT00

Member
In case you guys didn't know, Star Citizen will actually be utilizing TressFX. I'm guessing they haven't implemented it yet and that's the reason this place-holder doesn't have any hair at all (besides paint-on eyebrows).

Yeah, they are improving TressFX tech.
 

viveks86

Member
Eyes are practically identical across the board, so its element thats included in CryEngine SDK, its not really something You create seperately for every character.
Eye lashes etc are part of the model You want to create, so they depend on the artists. Star Citizen has placeholders models for characters, so they dont have everything they should, in the quality they should have :)

About Ryse, this is good shot for showing faces. Expect better from SC :)

ib0JBuZkhdi3ai.png

In case you guys didn't know, Star Citizen will actually be utilizing TressFX. I'm guessing they haven't implemented it yet and that's the reason this place-holder doesn't have any hair at all (besides paint-on eyebrows).


Oh nice! That makes sense then. Speaking of TressFX, does that make it AMD exclusive or would it still work with Nvidia? Noob question I know, but I haven't played PC games in a while!
 

inky

Member
YES INKY!

Mustang Beta? Oh my sweet summer child. Prepare your anus wallet, for you are now hooked.

Tell me about it. I've done my best to stay away under the excuse that it needs to be more of a full game before I act interested and drop money, but heck, I probably should've done that months ago.

I've certainly taken bigger "risks" with worst looking games before (I have few doubts this is going to be something special), but considering I'm checking the site every other day now instead of every other month I figure it's time.
 

Zabojnik

Member
Tell me about it. I've done my best to stay away under the excuse that it needs to be more of a full game before I act interested and drop money, but heck, I probably should've done that months ago.

I've certainly taken bigger "risks" with worst looking games before (I have few doubts this is going to be something special), but considering I'm checking the site every other day now instead of every other month I figure it's time.

Seriously speaking though, I've been here since day 1 and it's honestly not that hard to fight the urge to buy a new ship. It was harder in the beginning, when there were just a few of them. Now there's a fuckton and since you (probably) can't afford to own most of them, I find it pretty easy to step away and watch CIG do their thing from a safe distance. It helps that I'm mostly interested in Squadron 42 and don't want to spoil for myself the experience of playing the full game for the first time, which is why I've hardly touched Arena Commander. So, yeah, don't go crazy. :)
 

Zalusithix

Member
Seriously speaking though, I've been here since day 1 and it's honestly not that hard to fight the urge to buy a new ship. It was harder in the beginning, when there were just a few of them. Now there's a fuckton and since you (probably) can't afford to own most of them, I find it pretty easy to step away and watch CIG do their thing from a safe distance. It helps that I'm mostly interested in Squadron 42 and don't want to spoil for myself the experience of playing the full game for the first time, which is why I've hardly touched Arena Commander. So, yeah, don't go crazy. :)
I don't think AC will spoil S42. I mean, half the ships in AC right now aren't even military based, and shouldn't show up in S42 (at least as ones you'd be flying in). Outside of that, AC is just random system tests. Flying around, landing, shooting random other ships with no clear goal. Basically just screwing around with the base mechanics of the game.

S42 should have a story, clear mission objectives, scripted scenarios, etc that augment the gameplay. The only thing AC could spoil is the feeling of first getting in a ship and flying it around. That's pretty minor in the grand scheme of things, and considering everything is still in flux, there's no given that your experience now in AC will even mirror that of when S42 launches.

Outside of that, yeah it'd be easy to ignore buying ships if you wanted S42 more than the PU. I mean, it's not like those pledge ships will be of any use in S42. The people spending big bucks on ships are those that are interested in the PU and being able to do what they want to do right away without working up the in game money to get them there. Heck, get enough ships and packages, you can basically have your own AI escorts from day one.
 

Zabojnik

Member
S42 should have a story, clear mission objectives, scripted scenarios, etc that augment the gameplay. The only thing AC could spoil is the feeling of first getting in a ship and flying it around. That's pretty minor in the grand scheme of things, and considering everything is still in flux, there's no given that your experience now in AC will even mirror that of when S42 launches.

That's what I'm talking about. Once I go in, I go in hard. <thatswhatshesaid> For me, playing AC on and off for months would certainly diminish the impact of first playing the 'full' SC, be it S42 or PU. Learning how to fly, getting to know the systems ... I'd rather experience it in a (somewhat) final product. I've been there before with some betas, so these days I tend to avoid it.
 
That's what I'm talking about. Once I go in, I go in hard. <thatswhatshesaid> For me, playing AC on and off for months would certainly diminish the impact of first playing the 'full' SC, be it S42 or PU. Learning how to fly, getting to know the systems ... I'd rather experience it in a (somewhat) final product. I've been there before with some betas, so these days I tend to avoid it.

Starlancer. That was the Roberts game that made me jump in on the Idea of S42. They nailed the whole being on a capital ship and launching thing. I always loved how it did that and how it controlled.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scRw6EyK1DI

EDIT: It has literally been 15 years since this game was released. Just..... wow.
 

Zalusithix

Member
That's what I'm talking about. Once I go in, I go in hard. <thatswhatshesaid> For me, playing AC on and off for months would certainly diminish the impact of first playing the 'full' SC, be it S42 or PU. Learning how to fly, getting to know the systems ... I'd rather experience it in a (somewhat) final product. I've been there before with some betas, so these days I tend to avoid it.

Fair enough. For me, the interesting part about S42 will basically be everything not related to the base flying experience. Being able to be on a Bengal, etc. I'll get enough flying around in the PU, so the S42 draw is all the stuff I won't be doing there.
 

Danthrax

Batteries the CRISIS!
I dunno. When your character begins S42, he's (presumably) already been through the Academy and isn't flying fighters for the first time. You can consider your time in Arena Commander to be like learning to fly and fight at the UEE Academy.
 

Zalusithix

Member
I dunno. When your character begins S42, he's (presumably) already been through the Academy and isn't flying fighters for the first time. You can consider your time in Arena Commander to be like learning to fly and fight at the UEE Academy.

AC is more or less a figure it out yourself mode. They're going at least need an introductory tutorial on how to fly the ship for those that haven't kept up on AC. A level that introduces the ship control basics, navigating the HUD, takeoff / landing, etc. Make it something of a flashback to your flight school days so as to not break immersion. Ideally they'll make it optional though so it can be skipped by those that have been participating in AC.
 
This week's comm-link schedule. April Fools will probably be FPS related I bet. Also, I think this monthly update should be the first time we see the Frankfurt office if my memory serves me correctly.
Ben Lesnick said:
Hey guys! Here’s the preliminary content schedule for this week. We’re also hoping to put out 1.1a later this week, if all things go according to plan… which will spawn a few more interesting additions to this schedule if it happens as intended. As always, we’ll keep you updated!

Monday, March 30th
- 10 for the Chairman

Tuesday, March 31st
- Meet the Devs: Gurmukh Bhasin, Vanguard concept artist

Wednesday, April 1st
- Vault Update
- April Fools Day Surprise

Thursday, April 2nd
- Around the Verse Episode 38
- Reverse the Verse

Friday, April 3rd
- Monthly Report

Saturday, April 4th
- Weekly Roundup

Fan Podcast Schedule

Monday -
• Star Signal - https://soundcloud.com/starsignal
• Innside the Verse - http://imperialnews.network/category/podcast/
Tuesday –
• Conversaciones en el Espectro (Chats in the Spectrum) http://www.ciudadanoestelar.com/j30/index.php/multimedia-mn/2013-09-23-11-49-56/podcast-mn-pag-3

Wednesday –
• Star Citizen Addicts Anonymous - http://youtube.com/StarCitizenAA
• Fortnightly Frontier - http://www.youtube.com/FortnightlyFrontier
• SCNR Stream - http://www.twitch.tv/scnr_onair
• [Redacted] - http://www.twitch.tv/wtfosaurus

Thursday -
• Weekly BadNewsGaming Multi-Stream - http://twitch.tv/badnewsbaron
• The Spacers Table - http://www.twitch.tv/grakees

Friday -
• The Base Friday Show - http://radio.starcitizenbase.com/
• Starcast - http://www.twitch.tv/geekdomo
• Galactic Inquiry - http://www.twitch.tv/galacticinquiry

Saturday
• Beyond the Horizon - http://www.beyondthehorizonradio.com/
• Star Citizen Report - http://www.twitch.tv/grievance (every other Saturday.)

Sunday
• Tales of Citizens - http://www.twitch.tv/bridger15 (every other Sunday)
 

Geist-

Member
AC is more or less a figure it out yourself mode. They're going at least need an introductory tutorial on how to fly the ship for those that haven't kept up on AC. A level that introduces the ship control basics, navigating the HUD, takeoff / landing, etc. Make it something of a flashback to your flight school days so as to not break immersion. Ideally they'll make it optional though so it can be skipped by those that have been participating in AC.
It's funny you say that, because CIG actually put in the tutorial sound files into the game in the last patch. Here they are: http://3kv.in/~techbot/public/Star Citizen/

Which makes sense, since the tutorial is supposed to come out with 1.1a which is due put this week. Along with Multiseat lobby and a flight ready Gladiator. :)
 
It's funny you say that, because CIG actually put in the tutorial sound files into the game in the last patch. Here they are: http://3kv.in/~techbot/public/Star Citizen/

Which makes sense, since the tutorial is supposed to come out with 1.1a which is due put this week. Along with Multiseat lobby and a flight ready Gladiator. :)

0_0

EDIT: 104TC had some awesome questions this week. Ship styled damage shader for character models for limb, damage, bullet holes, and gore. uh oh.

Also, they are reworking some of the PBR for character shading purposes. I would imagine that means upping the fidelity... I wonder in which ways.
 

Zalusithix

Member
It's funny you say that, because CIG actually put in the tutorial sound files into the game in the last patch. Here they are: http://3kv.in/~techbot/public/Star Citizen/

Which makes sense, since the tutorial is supposed to come out with 1.1a which is due put this week. Along with Multiseat lobby and a flight ready Gladiator. :)

I see they cover the eject mechanism. I wonder how many people with ships like the Aurora are going to go from S42 to the PU and attempt an eject at the last moment only to find out they can't. =)
 

Geist-

Member
I see they cover the eject mechanism. I wonder how many people with ships like the Aurora are going to go from S42 to the PU and attempt an eject at the last moment only to find out they can't. =)

Hopefully the ejection seat will become an upgrade option for ships, that should make it more obvious what ship comes with it and what ship doesn't.
 
I see they cover the eject mechanism. I wonder how many people with ships like the Aurora are going to go from S42 to the PU and attempt an eject at the last moment only to find out they can't. =)
Hopefully they can get creative with the ejecting. Like having the Aurora's cockpit seperate from the main and then the seat fires.
 
A safe haven from what? Criticism? Skepticism? If so, no, it isn't supposed to be that. It's supposed to be a thread for discussing Star Citizen.

It is almost as if the people in the other thread..... are not aware that this thread exists. Even though I posted a link to this thread. And yet people say there is no information on Star Citizen and all the backers must be insane.

Why do people do that?
 

Pomerlaw

Member
If they can just nerf the mouse commander controls!

Its pretty much point and click.

Where's the flying CGI?! Ships need more weight, less acceleration, and mouse gimbals/flight has to go.

Then maybe combat will look a bit more like what they use in commercials... I'm still hoping for balancing in the multi-crew release.
 
A safe haven from what? Criticism? Skepticism? If so, no, it isn't supposed to be that. It's supposed to be a thread for discussing Star Citizen.

It is quite awesome that this thread exists in gaming and not community. Only problems is that perspective players or those who haven't backed rarely post in here.

I think the game has almost too much of a niche for people to actively post in its current OT. Instead, the comment in secondary topics about the game.
 

Zabojnik

Member
A safe haven from what? Criticism? Skepticism? If so, no, it isn't supposed to be that. It's supposed to be a thread for discussing Star Citizen.

I didn't mean it like that. Obviously everyone is free (and welcome!) to post whatever in whichever SC thread. It's just that we've somehow managed to keep this thread shielded & secure from the type of people who post in general 'Star Citizen news' threads only to shit on SC & crowdfunding and rile people up with their trolling / ignorance. I'm sure that's something most of us would like to avoid seeing happen in here, where we mostly discuss and comment actual SC news. That's all.

Just a wish.
 

inky

Member
A safe haven from what? Criticism? Skepticism? If so, no, it isn't supposed to be that. It's supposed to be a thread for discussing Star Citizen.

Skepticism is healthy, but that thread is a lot of drive by posts by people assuming the developers have taken the money and run, that nothing playable has been put out, that there is no one working on the game, etc. I'm assuming Zabo just means that. Those posts are tiresome because then you get a lot of responses correcting those mistakes for people who aren't actually interested in those answers and probably won't come back and discuss them again.

I'm as skeptical as anyone about this game, which is why I still consider dropping a minimal amount like $50-$60 a AAA game risk, when I've dropped around $800+ in Dota 2, Path of Exile and Marvel Heroes combined.
 

Daedardus

Member
A safe haven from what? Criticism? Skepticism? If so, no, it isn't supposed to be that. It's supposed to be a thread for discussing Star Citizen.

I think there is a distinction between the fair and informed criticism this thread sees compared to the misguided complaints the other threads receive. It's something what every game has for its community and front page threads though, I believe.
 

Zalusithix

Member
I wish there were text transcripts of the videos they do. I can't watch them at work, and usually end up doing something else when I'm home. That and it's so much faster to cruise through text than watching video.
 
I wish there were text transcripts of the videos they do. I can't watch them at work, and usually end up doing something else when I'm home. That and it's so much faster to cruise through text than watching video.

There are text transcripts written by the german community. I think they are both in english and german even.

edit: In fact, people are writing english transcripts for all their video content:

Here
 

Geist-

Member
I wish there were text transcripts of the videos they do. I can't watch them at work, and usually end up doing something else when I'm home. That and it's so much faster to cruise through text than watching video.

Here's one from reddit:

Meet the Devs 19:
Gurmukh Bhasin

Why don&#8217;t you tell them what you do around here?

I do concept art. Ship, I work on the ship team, and we have a really cool ship team. A lot of cool guys doing some awesome stuff.
So, you started here because you met Hobbins, and you guys were bros, so you&#8217;ve been here how long?
Almost a year now. May 12th will be a year.

What&#8217;s changed since you got here?

Pretty much everything. Starting with where I sit in the office. We used to have our own little corner, now we&#8217;re in the back where the ship team is. It&#8217;s really cool to be in the same place with the other guys, from concept to 3D
Yeah, you&#8217;d think they&#8217;d have put you together, cause those things all play off each other, but before they were different elements. Now you&#8217;re all in the same room, there&#8217;s more of a freeflow, so you don&#8217;t have to update everything every now and then.
FOr sure, and it&#8217;s important to figure out a lot of stuff on the design side, but creating ships in full 3D really points out things they might have missed from the very beginning, so it&#8217;s a really natural back and forth between design and art, and I think that&#8217;s really unique and interesting, where not everything is figured out, but it&#8217;s a natural progression.

So what are the things fans would know you from recently?

Probably the Vanguard, and before that the Carrack

We put out questions for you guys, and one of the questions was &#8216;Oh, Gurmukh designed it? No more questions&#8217;, kinda goes with this whole ship thing you&#8217;ve got going on.

Well, to be honest it&#8217;s a huge team effort, which is also something that&#8217;s changed a lot. Before us concept guys were in the corner doing our own thing, but now it&#8217;s kind of spread out between a lot of people, where the 3D guys will get involved in the creation of the concept, and I&#8217;ll be able to have input when they start creating things in 3D, and we&#8217;re all starting to have our hands in multiple parts of the project instead of just focusing on our own thing, and I think in the end it makes a much stronger final product. In the concept phase, things are going to be a lot stronger because we have a lot of 3D input, and even times when people like Elwin are modelling things for the concept and saying, lets try this, lets do this, and not just waiting to take it over once I pass it along, and I think it shows with how each ship we do continually gets better and better.

So before you were here, you were doing architecture stuff right? How do you think that helps with the ships? Did you take any of that when you designed the Bulldog?

Yeah, you mean the Vanguard? Yeah, definitely, architecture and just design in general helps figure out these ships. we want them to be as realistic as possible, and where architecture plays into that, for over 7 years I designed for the real world, where dimensions for doors and chairs and counter-heights and all these things comes into play, and just space that you need to move around, move through something. The amount of detail that goes into designing something in the real world, where screws and joints go, how big a piece of glass can be manufactured before the price gets too high, all these sorts of things you have to think about that you wouldn&#8217;t necessarily have to consider when designing a video game, but knowing that stuff helps show and give the feeling of reality. Even though these ships are fictional, we want to make them feel real and be believable, and the architecture background, anything grounded in reality, will help create concepts on a more realistic level when it comes to movies and games.

You were given the Carrack. How scared were you?

They were basically like, okay, Carrack&#8217;s yours, go to town. I mean, at that point I was mostly working on the thing on my own. We brought Omar in, and he was helping on the bridge and the interior, but the whole process was sort of scary, and
You looked a little rough, a little worse for wear
Yeah, I definitely had panic moments, and eventually it worked out pretty well, and there are still plenty of things I'd love to change, and things that will change, before it gets in game, but the fans seem to like it, so&#8230;

We&#8217;re going to let you go, but we&#8217;ve got one more question, cause this is something I think about all the time. You look at the project and the fans and the community...what is your perspective on what we&#8217;re doing? Especially since you have such a different perspective than I would?

I think our game is crazy ambitious. All the things we need to figure out blow my mind on a daily basis. Every time we start to nail down weapon sizes and component sizes and all these things, we hit so many roadblocks and come across so many things that influence the actual design stage of that piece, your shield generators or whatever, there are so many parts that come into play , so many aspects to make this come together as a real thing, that just, trying to figure all of that stuff out is pretty mindblowing.

What&#8217;s it like when you figure one out though?

Well it&#8217;s not really me figuring it out, it&#8217;s the design, then it works on the art side, and there&#8217;s always a lot of back and forth. For example, the weapons, we get really close to figuring it out, then there&#8217;s another bump and we have to figure that out, so, you know, I don&#8217;t really know what it&#8217;s like to figure something out, cause I still feel like a lot of these things have potential to change down the line. So that and the other thing that&#8217;s really ambitious and crazy to me, if you take one of these ships, and you put them in any other game, that&#8217;s like the hero asset. We&#8217;re designing these ships so you can walk through the inside, look at every angle from the outside, have things that pop up, access different components, like, usually other games do that for one vehicle in their game, and they spend two years to take it from start to finish, and we&#8217;re going to have hundreds of these, and we do them in a matter of months, and our schedule is just...back to back to back. On to the next one. I mean, this hasn&#8217;t been done for any game or movie or anything before, the amount of content that we&#8217;re putting in our game and the amount of thought that&#8217;s being put into everything, it&#8217;s mindblowing. I think it&#8217;s fantastic as far as the game that it&#8217;s going to create is going to be awesome, no matter what. It&#8217;s going to be better than any other game in that way. If we don&#8217;t match up on the look, or the gameplay, or whatever, I mean I&#8217;m sure we will, but if we didn&#8217;t, just the fact that we&#8217;re going into this much detail in everything we do, it&#8217;s going to be better, because most of the time they don&#8217;t put this much effort into these kinds of things.

Best game ever thought of.

But yeah, I mean, it&#8217;s an amazing project to be a part of, and as I think we all are, we&#8217;re really excited to see how far it goes, and the final product, even though I don&#8217;t think there&#8217;ll ever be a final product, cuase this is a living thing that just kind of grows and goes on till we all pass away or something. I don&#8217;t know what the end is for this, I don&#8217;t think any of us do, but I think we&#8217;re all excited to see it develop and move forward, and definitely seeing my ships in the game, the ships I&#8217;ve put a lot of effort in, it&#8217;s pretty cool.

Beautiful.
Thanks for joining us on the new format for meet the devs.

The Star Citizen subreddit and INN almost always put up transcripts for videos as soon as they're up and often type up transcripts while a livestream is live.
 

Zalusithix

Member
There are text transcripts written by the german community. I think they are both in english and german even.
I should have figured that the community would step up where official sources fall flat. Thanks for pointing that out. Quite a bit of information I miss out on by not watching all the videos. Granted, a lot of the important stuff makes its way over here or gets into one of the summary updates / Jump Point, but things do fall through the cracks.

Here's one from reddit:

The Star Citizen subreddit and INN almost always put up transcripts for videos as soon as they're up and often type up transcripts while a livestream is live.
Also thanks to you. At least I know where I'm going whenever these things pop up now and I'm at work.
 

inky

Member
I'm assuming you'd be blown out when that kind of damage happens, correct?

Will there be a way to repair that damage and seal the ship again?
 

Zalusithix

Member
I'm assuming you'd be blown out when that kind of damage happens, correct?

Will there be a way to repair that damage and seal the ship again?

If you mean when the bottom hatch partially blew open, he was strapped into a seat, so he wouldn't have been sucked into the vacuum. As for fixing the ship, there should be ways to repair systems that are knocked offline, but I don't know about repairing actual hull breaches on the go.
 
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