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Star Citizen Alpha 2.0 | The 'Verse Awakens

hahaha you guys are a bit grumpy today? ;)

I'm an OLD backer. I may download the new patch soon. I'm still a bit dissapointed from what I see and hear about the flight model thought.

I hope they give ship more weight and inertia. Is this still in the plan?

Not really grumpy but for someone who's a backer you showed a real low understanding of what the alpha actually is. The game has been subject to drive by's from trolls for so long that it this point, personally I'm completely sick of the FUD. In case you haven't noticed we can't even have a page of discussion without some poor ass drive by. That first post of yours there looked a whole lot like just another drive by.

Now that second part of your post is something worth discussing. The inertia definitely has been improved or at least it feels it when I fly my Connie. The ship CAN turn pretty fast, but it carries its weight into that turn for quite a long time, there's been a few occasions where I hadn't noticed I was still drifting until coming closer to a point of reference. The light ships still feel very nimble, perhaps even a little too much so, but it's hard to really judge since we only have the tiny/small ships in the game right now. Even a Connie isn't actually very big, so as of now it's still kind of hard to get a feel for exactly how nimble each craft should actually be.

Since it sounds like you haven't played for a while I'd suggest downloading it and trying it out. The flight model has undergone quite a large number of changes, additions and tweaks in the past year.
 

Irobot82

Member
The last time I played the PU a few days ago after I EVA's to fix a comm link my ship bugged out and would push me into space after I entered it. I went back to AC to hone my skills since I hadn't played in forever. It was still an amazing experience and I look forward to helping my friend on his Connie.
 

Pomerlaw

Member
Not really grumpy but for someone who's a backer you showed a real low understanding of what the alpha actually is. The game has been subject to drive by's from trolls for so long that it this point, personally I'm completely sick of the FUD. In case you haven't noticed we can't even have a page of discussion without some poor ass drive by. That first post of yours there looked a whole lot like just another drive by.

Now that second part of your post is something worth discussing. The inertia definitely has been improved or at least it feels it when I fly my Connie. The ship CAN turn pretty fast, but it carries its weight into that turn for quite a long time, there's been a few occasions where I hadn't noticed I was still drifting until coming closer to a point of reference. The light ships still feel very nimble, perhaps even a little too much so, but it's hard to really judge since we only have the tiny/small ships in the game right now. Even a Connie isn't actually very big, so as of now it's still kind of hard to get a feel for exactly how nimble each craft should actually be.

Since it sounds like you haven't played for a while I'd suggest downloading it and trying it out. The flight model has undergone quite a large number of changes, additions and tweaks in the past year.

Yeah but it's a pretty big download and I think my PC won't be able to handle it even at the lowest graphical level :(
 

smisk

Member
I run the game on a single 970 and get pretty decent framerates in arena commander/free flight. Universe is a different story but I'm hoping that's just the server side issue.
 
I run the game on a single 970 and get pretty decent framerates in arena commander/free flight. Universe is a different story but I'm hoping that's just the server side issue.

It is. I'm wondering if perhaps the EU and US aren't sharing servers right now since I get about a 50/50 split of awful server fps issues and fine performance whereas it seems others cannot escape the lag. I have a 970 too and have had the game running closer to 60 than 30 a number of times when testing the PU. As long as you get into a server that isn't already chugging it can actually be very smooth, though there are still hiccups due to occlusion culling etc but they're actually less frequent than the early days of Arena Commander for me when it's going well.

To be honest even when you get into a server that's having FPS issues they can be lessened quite a lot by just using the Quantum Drive to go anywhere but the port since we're all spawning in at one spot and hammering the server with ship requests.
 
hahaha you guys are a bit grumpy today? ;)

I'm an OLD backer. I may download the new patch soon. I'm still a bit dissapointed from what I see and hear about the flight model thought.

I hope they give ship more weight and inertia. Is this still in the plan?

As someone who bemoaned the previous flight model, it is worlds better now. In a word, nuance. Ships have a lot more personality like strong vs weak axis, main centric flight, weight governed inertia. Before it was nearly unplayable as a stick pilot but I'm having tons of fun just flying and maneuvering through asteroids and stuff. Movements now have consequence with the inertia so the hummingbird flight is dead. There is still work to be done with decoupled (still no access to main engines) and the MAVs still need tweaking to be more fluid in movement.

Still this model is a great foundation for the most important aspect of the game. Now about removing IM...that's another story.
 

Pomerlaw

Member
As someone who bemoaned the previous flight model, it is worlds better now. In a word, nuance. Ships have a lot more personality like strong vs weak axis, main centric flight, weight governed inertia. Before it was nearly unplayable as a stick pilot but I'm having tons of fun just flying and maneuvering through asteroids and stuff. Movements now have consequence with the inertia so the hummingbird flight is dead. There is still work to be done with decoupled (still no access to main engines) and the MAVs still need tweaking to be more fluid in movement.

Still this model is a great foundation for the most important aspect of the game. Now about removing IM...that's another story.

Well that's great news, let's hope they keep working on it.

Removing IM would probably upset a large mouse player base... :|
 

low-G

Member
Why DOES a Connie reduce the framerate by about half? Even if a Connie is around at all, I can be inside a station and a Connie is outside and I get ~20fps.
 

tuxfool

Banned
Why DOES a Connie reduce the framerate by about half? Even if a Connie is around at all, I can be inside a station and a Connie is outside and I get ~20fps.

It isn't the connie. It is just the server getting loaded up with events. Not much you can do about it ATM.

Well, other than joining a fresh server.
 

jaaz

Member
I increased my system ram from 8 gigs to 16 gigs DDR3 and had a marked increase in FPS in the 'verse. Not a placebo either, I've been measuring with both FRAPS and Riva Tuner since 2.0 went live. FPS went from ~20 to 30 and even higher, depending on server loads. This is on High or Very High settings, with Very High only costing one frame or so. FPS spikes are still common, sometimes dropping into single digits for a second or two.

Not sure how or why more ram helped with FPS in my case, but it did. I routinely get 80 FPS+ on Arena Commander but the 'verse had been almost unplayable. Running an i7-2600 @3.9 with a GTX 980. (I'm upgrading soon, but keeping this PC for my son. He's young, but I'm going to teach him to use his SH to escort my DUR!)
 
I figure that I will ask here rather than the Elite thread. So I am trying to figure out which one to spend my $45 on currently. I can buy Elite Horizons or buy SC (current and future states.) I am really only concerned with what I can get out of it now, I know they are both pretty barebones, but with my DK2, I am really on the fence here!
 
I figure that I will ask here rather than the Elite thread. So I am trying to figure out which one to spend my $45 on currently. I can buy Elite Horizons or buy SC (current and future states.) I am really only concerned with what I can get out of it now, I know they are both pretty barebones, but with my DK2, I am really on the fence here!

I will let others comment on which game you should perhaps buy (SC wont have dedicated VR support until next year at some point, and even then, the kind of rig that will need....).

But just as an FYI, SC and Squadron 42 (the single player campaign) are on sale atm for the last time before the items are split up: costing a total of 35 USD. There are only 600 of these packages left.
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/pledge/Packages/Star-Citizen-Starter
 

Steel

Banned
Should I feel bad that I spent about 15 minutes my first time in the sandbox knocking people's empty ships off the landing pads?
 

Zalusithix

Member
I figure that I will ask here rather than the Elite thread. So I am trying to figure out which one to spend my $45 on currently. I can buy Elite Horizons or buy SC (current and future states.) I am really only concerned with what I can get out of it now, I know they are both pretty barebones, but with my DK2, I am really on the fence here!

Ideally you'd get both games, but if it's a binary choice then with the two bolded statements, it's a fairly easy decision. Get Elite. You don't buy into SC for what you get out of it now, but what you'll (hopefully) get out of it in the future. Right now you'll get a buggy hint at the potential, and not a polished game experience. In a similar sense, Elite supports VR now and does it well (if TrackIR support is anything to go by). SC by comparison doesn't support it currently. Nor will it for quite some time, and will require a beast of a rig to do it at any decent framerate anyhow.

Should I feel bad that I spent about 15 minutes my first time in the sandbox knocking people's empty ships off the landing pads?

Yes, now go stand in the corner as punishment! ;)

Edit: Actually I like tuxfool's idea below better. True atonement for the sin.
 

tuxfool

Banned
Should I feel bad that I spent about 15 minutes my first time in the sandbox knocking people's empty ships off the landing pads?

I think so. As penance, your next session should be spent ferrying around unfortunates that get stranded by people of your ilk.
 

Pomerlaw

Member
David Braben (Elite Dangerous) had some words for SC in his latest post.

We had a great year leading up to the release of Elite: Dangerous from the first Alpha release in December 2013 up to the full release of Elite Dangerous in December 2014, and have now completed another great year with the release of Elite Dangerous: Horizons.

It is incredible to think how far we have come since last year, and the huge amount of work our excellent team have done in that time. This year really is a year of outer space. Not only is our space genre back in games, but we have excellent films like The Martian (truly great and well worth watching if you haven’t seen it), and I so hope the new Star Wars: The Force Awakens film is great. I think it will be. It has to be! I am seeing it tonight, and I’m sure it will be a blast of incredible nostalgia for me.

If that weren’t enough, we have the British astronaut Tim Peake launching from Kazakhstan to the ISS – he launched on the same day as Horizons. We also had Raspberry ‘Astro’ Pis launched to the ISS a few weeks ago, with Tim Peake’s experiments with them to come. A great year.

It is good to have the first part of Horizons finally out, and the team have done a truly great job, with much more to come in 2016. Even in this first Planetary Landings expansion we just launched, we have had to move forward with our minimum machine specs to accommodate this otherwise we would be held back by what we could do. Requiring DX11 and 64 bit OS has enabled us to do truly stunning things on the planets. Elite Dangerous has always been 64 bit internally, but we couldn’t continue to support older 32 bit OS tech. This has meant we needed a new minimum spec, so it needs to be a new game, and as a new game we can set a new minimum spec. We do understand some of the issues players have mentioned with Steam because it is a separate game – for example wanting recorded play hours to be combined across the seasons. We know this is frustrating for some people, and so it is something we plan to address shortly.

There has also been some discussion about pricing; if you buy the game as soon as it comes out, we expect it to cost $60/€50/£40 for your first season, then $45/€37.5/£30 for each subsequent season, including all expansions, ships, vehicles, and features through the season in that price, with just vanity items and clothing etc sold on top of that. It is much less than other multiplayer annually-updated AAA games, and works better than subscriptions, paying for each expansion separately, because these would be more expensive overall, and would not keep the player base together in the same way. The season model also enables us to discount the original game over time, to bring more players to the world. What we are doing is unique in having forwards and backwards compatibility, and our model enables us to do that while moving the game forwards in terms of hardware spec, and keeping the central servers running. I am strongly against pay-to-win by charging for ships or in-game money, so this seems to be a good solution.

Landing on planets seems to be ‘the new black’ as they might say in marketing circles… You can do it now anywhere on the surface of countless 1:1 scale simulated planetary surfaces in Elite Dangerous: Horizons and landing is coming in the future in No Man’s Sky, Star Citizen (as I heard just now – a major new future feature they announced last night), Infinity: Battlescape and many others. This is a great thing, as open world space games have now truly come back with a bang, and I look forwards to playing them – and also huge congratulations to Chris and the team for raising $100M for Star Citizen!

What both Star Citizen and Elite Dangerous are trying to do is very hard indeed. Both games are incredibly ambitious. I am proud and excited about what we are doing, but what they are doing is ambitious too, and I am looking forward to playing Star Citizen when it is finished. What we are both doing is new; we are trailblazing. The scope of both is vast and quite different, and neither have been done before, so there is no right answer for either of the approaches. It is frustrating to see some of the criticism of Star Citizen online. We should applaud when someone tries something that is hard, that hasn’t been done, not discourage them.

Game development is hard, with a great many independent components to get right. The very best development looks easy, but this is because of a great deal of careful planning by very experienced people behind the scenes working hard to make it happen. Like a swan, there may be frantic paddling of feet underwater, out of sight, but the view on the surface is one of serene beauty with barely a ripple. We are very proud of what we do, we have an incredible community supporting the game, and we have an amazing future.
 
Ideally you'd get both games, but if it's a binary choice then with the two bolded statements, it's a fairly easy decision. Get Elite. You don't buy into SC for what you get out of it now, but what you'll (hopefully) get out of it in the future. Right now you'll get a buggy hint at the potential, and not a polished game experience. In a similar sense, Elite supports VR now and does it well (if TrackIR support is anything to go by). SC by comparison doesn't support it currently. Nor will it for quite some time, and will require a beast of a rig to do it at any decent framerate anyhow.



Yes, now go stand in the corner as punishment! ;)

Edit: Actually I like tuxfool's idea below better. True atonement for the sin.

Thanks for the reply. I do plan on buying both, eventually. They just seemed very similar at this point. I'll go with Horizons right now and maybe if my Holiday spending isn't too bad I'll go and get a big SC package too.
 

Haribi

Why isn't there a Star Wars RPG? And wouldn't James Bond make for a pretty good FPS?
I'm getting 20-25 fps on everything low with my i5 4460 - r9 380.
What will I have to upgrade first when the game comes out to get better performance?

I only get like 10 fps less on very high.
 
im pretty sure planet side landing was known way before the reveal last night for Star Citizen.

But not on a procedural and integrated way as shown. That was a pipe dream. Originally, it was going to be like Elite: You enter the atmosphere, loading/grid shifting, and then you are flying in the city/planet. Sort of like what Freelancer did, way back when.
Now, the door is blown open for us to just approach and land on cities by ourselves with no loading screens or instance swap (although I hope that for gameplay reasons, Cities demand an auto-land sequence to prevent griefers when landing).
 
David Braben (Elite Dangerous) had some words for SC in his latest post.

Aww, that's awesome!

im pretty sure planet side landing was known way before the reveal last night for Star Citizen.

It was a stretch goal that was reached, but SC GAF says it wasn't expected until 2018. I think it's fair to call it a new feature if it's 2 years ahead of schedule :p

It would be like Elite announcing FPS gameplay today--it's already known that it's on their roadmap and it will be added, but not for another year at least.
 

Zalusithix

Member
im pretty sure planet side landing was known way before the reveal last night for Star Citizen.

It certainly was, but cut him some slack, as he has enough on his plate with his own game. Keeping up on every last detail of SC takes enough effort for us fans invested in the game. His priorities are elsewhere.

Also, playful digs from both sides aside, Braben and Roberts have been quite positive about the other's existence. If only the community as a whole was as accepting.
 

Pomerlaw

Member
But not on a procedural and integrated way as shown. That was a pipe dream. Originally, it was going to be like Elite: You enter the atmosphere, loading/grid shifting, and then you are flying in the city/planet. Sort of like what Freelancer did, way back when.
Now, the door is blown open for us to just approach and land on cities by ourselves with no loading screens or instance swap (although I hope that for gameplay reasons, Cities demand an auto-land sequence to prevent griefers when landing).

They still have to make it work in a network environnement too.
 

tuxfool

Banned
They still have to make it work in a network environnement too.

I'd argue that this method should work even better in a network environment, at least for smaller locations. It is seamlessly integrated into the zone system. The other method would involve loading into a different map.

I still suspect they'll constrain landing site approaches so that they can make that look good and leave the procedural stuff for higher altitudes.
 

tuxfool

Banned
Also, playful digs from both sides aside, Braben and Roberts have been quite positive about the other's existence. If only the community as a whole was as accepting.

Chris Roberts will easily state that Elite was one of his inspirations when growing up.

I'm getting 20-25 fps on everything low with my i5 4460 - r9 380.
What will I have to upgrade first when the game comes out to get better performance?

I only get like 10 fps less on very high.

I'd say wait until the game gets into a more optimized state. You should be pretty OK for the time being.
 

Zalusithix

Member
I'd argue that this method should work even better in a network environment, at least for smaller locations. It is seamlessly integrated into the zone system. The other method would involve loading into a different map.

Well other than the whole keeping track of more people in an instance since the people on the planet would be part of the space around it. Of course it's that very thing that got me thinking "orbital bombardment" the entire time I was watching the demo. Theoretically would be possible to launch a projectile or energy beam from space and hit somebody on the surface of a planet.

Edit:
B-but.... It was so fun!
Don't worry, the first thing I'll do when the Idris is flyable (after walking around it of course) is a full speed ram of a station just to see the pretty explosion. Then I'll try to have a jousting run with Rephin. Gotta get these things out of the system while there's no repercussion for the actions. ;)
 
I figure that I will ask here rather than the Elite thread. So I am trying to figure out which one to spend my $45 on currently. I can buy Elite Horizons or buy SC (current and future states.) I am really only concerned with what I can get out of it now, I know they are both pretty barebones, but with my DK2, I am really on the fence here!

If you're looking for a game to use your DK2 with then go with Elite. Elite has the best VR experience around I feel (in terms of games in development, EVE: Valkyrie is, got the chance to experience it).

SC will support VR eventually but it's not officially supported yet, so I don't recommend you buy SC for the intended purpose of getting use out of your DK2.
 
B-but.... It was so fun!


Don't worry, the first thing I'll do when the Idris is flyable (after walking around it of course) is a full speed ram of a station just to see the pretty explosion. Then I'll try to have a jousting run with Rephin. Gotta get these things out of the system while there's no repercussion for the actions. ;)

Indeed. I spent a bit of time trying to do various things because of the fact that there is no negative effects. I tried to fly a gladius as close to Yela before gravity destroyed ship. Went to security post in a mustang and tried to see how many clips I could empty into the ship before it blows up. Took a connie and did the most exploration, fixed one satellite array, went to Kareah to grab gun, then ran outside to kill the person that tried to steal connie, then flew to Cry-Astro repair station and blew up while trying to get it repaired.

Fun stuff and totally not how I would play the game but it was stable (for most part) the client never crashed on me. I only ended up dropping through geometry of some ships. The mustang I somehow ended up flying despite dropping through ship several times. And the connie had some odd issues when exposed to vacuum of space to eva. I will try some other ships at a later time.
 

tuxfool

Banned
Well other than the whole keeping track of more people in an instance since the people on the planet would be part of the space around it.

This is what I meant with smaller locations. More populated/popular regions will have to manage more people. Seeing as they're looking to get 40 people in an Arc Corp landing site, they're going have to work something out with that.
 

Rephin

Member
Don't worry, the first thing I'll do when the Idris is flyable (after walking around it of course) is a full speed ram of a station just to see the pretty explosion. Then I'll try to have a jousting run with Rephin. Gotta get these things out of the system while there's no repercussion for the actions. ;)
Dohohohohoho, you're on. :3
 
Ok..i'm eventually going to own both a Freelancer MAX and a 315p, but right now i only own the MAX.

Now that 2.0 has released i'm unhappy. The ship that the game is allowing me to fly in the Universe is the Merlin. Hate it.

So, i temporarily want to go back to owning the 315p instead of my Freelancer so i can fly it in the 2.0 universe.

Is the most economical way go back to the 315p simply to sell my MAX for store credit then purchase a 315p package?
 

Zalusithix

Member
I kinda regret not getting one of those starter packs now. :(

Yeah... I should have per chance just grabbed one for a friend :(

Slackers. ;P I actually have anniversary packages from last year to unmelt whenever the feature is implemented. They didn't include AC back then IIRC, but now they'll be full fledged game packages for less than $30. Not sure whether I'll revive them as NPC packages or give-aways.

Dohohohohoho, you're on. :3

After all, the only thing better than one big explosion, is two! Actually, make that three by doing a pincer attack on a third (smaller) ship. It'll be like space Mythbusters! ;) (And equally hard to actually do.)
 
Ok..i'm eventually going to own both a Freelancer MAX and a 315p, but right now i only own the MAX.

Now that 2.0 has released i'm unhappy. The ship that the game is allowing me to fly in the Universe is the Merlin. Hate it.

So, i temporarily want to go back to owning the 315p instead of my Freelancer so i can fly it in the 2.0 universe.

Is the most economical way go back to the 315p simply to sell my MAX for store credit then purchase a 315p package?

The ships you fly in the Alpha are not the ships you own. You can choose any of the ships from the list. This is off the top of my head so please don't get mad if I miss some.

merlin
Scythe
Hornet
Hornet M
Mustang
Gladius
Constellation
Retaliator

There might be a few others I just cannot recall exactly (maybe avenger, cutlass, and aurora?)

EDIT: I know this for a fact because I never have purchased a gladius and I have two constellations variants .... neither of them are available for me to use.
 

tuxfool

Banned
Ok..i'm eventually going to own both a Freelancer MAX and a 315p, but right now i only own the MAX.

Now that 2.0 has released i'm unhappy. The ship that the game is allowing me to fly in the Universe is the Merlin. Hate it.

So, i temporarily want to go back to owning the 315p instead of my Freelancer so i can fly it in the 2.0 universe.

Is the most economical way go back to the 315p simply to sell my MAX for store credit then purchase a 315p package?

You could wait for 2.1

Freelancers will show up then.
 
The ships you fly in the Alpha are not the ships you own. You can choose any of the ships from the list. This is off the top of my head so please don't get mad if I miss some.

merlin
Scythe
Hornet
Hornet M
Mustang
Gladius
Constellation
Retaliator

There might be a few others I just cannot recall exactly (maybe avenger, cutlass, and aurora?)

EDIT: I know this for a fact because I never have purchased a gladius and I have two constellations variants .... neither of them are available for me to use.

So what determines which ships show up on the terminal ship selection screen? The past two days i've only been given the Merlin and the Constellation as my only two selectable options. Previous to Monday i had more options (mustang, aurora)
 

Zalusithix

Member
The ships you fly in the Alpha are not the ships you own. You can choose any of the ships from the list. This is off the top of my head so please don't get mad if I miss some.

merlin
Scythe
Hornet
Hornet M
Mustang
Gladius
Constellation
Retaliator

There might be a few others I just cannot recall exactly (maybe avenger, cutlass, and aurora?)

EDIT: I know this for a fact because I never have purchased a gladius and I have two constellations variants .... neither of them are available for me to use.

The ships you get in 2.0 should reflect this matrix for ships that aren't flyable in the PU. If anything he should have an Andromeda going by that list, not a Merlin. Unless they changed something... Not like I'd be able to tell easily as I have too many ships to ever make clear sense of what is a loaner for what.
 

Geist-

Member
Ok..i'm eventually going to own both a Freelancer MAX and a 315p, but right now i only own the MAX.

Now that 2.0 has released i'm unhappy. The ship that the game is allowing me to fly in the Universe is the Merlin. Hate it.

So, i temporarily want to go back to owning the 315p instead of my Freelancer so i can fly it in the 2.0 universe.

Is the most economical way go back to the 315p simply to sell my MAX for store credit then purchase a 315p package?

You could always rent a ship with some REC.

AFAIK it still works in the large world portion, since i just rented an Avenger with it.
 
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