Space Sims making a comeback (Chris Roberts)

[cimerians]

I didn't back the game for the PVP dogfighting though so I'll go back to waiting for the parts of the game I care about.

 

Same here.

[Reaperman]

My number finally came up for the Arena Commander multiplayer alpha yesterday so I went and died a couple of times with no warning and then quit.

 

 

With current levels of damage, it seems to be the one who hits first wins every time. The whole thing is over in under a couple seconds, well before the attacked ship really gets to turn around. But these are fairly small ships, and of them, the 300i can take almost no damage before it's engine comes right off and it's a disabled floating target.

 

This is pretty different than previous multi-player games from Chris Roberts (Freelancer and WC Arena) which had pretty forgiving damage models. In those, the 'big dog' tends to win every time because the battles are longer and more drawn out. I'm planning on going for ship speed and weapon range in full-SC because of what I'm seeing in the dogfight module. Catch them and knock them out at range, or use the engines to stay away. I'd really like to test out the avenger in the dogfight module (hopefully it gets in there soon), if it does well, I'll downgrade my ship to it (currently I've got a cutlass).

 

Personally, if I was designing this game to be a bit more fun, I'd up the shield strength a good bit. They're really easy to cut through, and upping them would give people at least a little more time to react. Also, nobody likes to spend all day every day flying around in a damaged space ship. But the shields might possibly have been temporarily dropped for the pre-alpha to balance the poor weaponry of the auroras.

Edited July 3, 2014 by Reaperman

[Reaperman]

The next big info drop hits tomorrow (countdown to live stream)

Hinted to be revealed from this (early interview)

• Racing heavily teased
• possibly other arena commander game modes (if it wasn't all racing teasing)
• the new room-system hangars (asteroid which has been teased a couple times, as well as the 3 others with new names)
• Constellation and variants

[Lost Dragon]

Fantastic to hear they are making a comeback, last decent 1 i had a crack on (console wise)was Starlancer and that was on Dreamcast, other than that it was Freelancer on PC.MS canned the Freelancer sequel on 360 (gutted).

I've just interviewed 1 of the guys behind Colony Wars on Playstation 1 and among his canned games, was an Elite-style game for PSP!.

Interview is up, HERE:

http://www.grumpyoldgamers.co.uk/index.php?/topic/2429-andy-satterwaite-interview/

[Reaperman]

 

I've just interviewed 1 of the guys behind Colony Wars on Playstation 1 and among his canned games, was an Elite-style game for PSP!.

 

 

Speaking of handhelds, I've always thought that the DS systems offered the potential to do a really good one with the UI options the touch screen provides. Odd that in the ~10 years of those things, to my knowledge there hasn't been a single one.

[Lost Dragon]

Each time Sony has launched a new piece of hardware (PS2, PSP, PS3, Vita etc) i hoped to see a new Colony Wars (and G-Police) game, yet nothing.There was talk of Sony looking into bringing Colony wars to PS2 to be a flagship game for the online side of PS2, but guess that never got beyond talk.

 

DS/3DS and now Vita would indeed seem to ideal platforms, but plublishers still i fear think the genre is firmly the domain of the PC.

[Reaperman]

 

DS/3DS and now Vita would indeed seem to ideal platforms, but plublishers still i fear think the genre is firmly the domain of the PC.

 

No I'm pretty sure publishers instead feel that the genre is just totally dead. Even with $51m+ in Star Citizen prepurchases, I'm pretty positive that they still believe it.

"well nobody wants to hotdog around space blasting things with freaking lasers--how lame is that? Have a million more shirtless-dude god of war clones...with zombies"

 

I really enjoyed colony wars. It came at a time right when the publishers were shutting the genre down. But Sony beat that series into the ground with samey sequels until even I stopped caring.

[Reaperman]

So it's possible to rebind keys by creating an xml file and calling it with pp_rebindkeys.

I previously hadn't done this because messing with XML files feels a lot like something I shouldn't be doing in my free time, however I've since become aware of this little beauty--a page that generates this xml fairly painlessly.

 

It's a little buggy--for example the button I bound to missile launch actually stops my ship and switches camera at the same time, but everything else worked as advertised. I'm enjoying the world of pitch/yaw flying once again.

[Lost Dragon]

I loved the 1st 2 Colony wars games, but Red Sun just left me cold.Sony had the Colony wars engine re-used for Blast radius i think and that was far too arcadey for what i wanted.

 

After that, i tried Mace Griffon:Bounty Hunter (Xbox)-awful and had high hopes for Falcone: Into The Maelstrom (http://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3Df-RBUPOmuyM&sa=U&ei=IyT2U4KNLYKd0QXcjIHoCg&ved=0CBwQtwIwAQ&usg=AFQjCNHQhCHGhx45lGDYVgLnSeqK-am6GA)

 

But that was canned, as was Freelancer sequel, so yep, think your spot-on, publishers think genre is dead. :-(

[HammR25]

Wow, the nerd rage is super strong with the release of the Arena Commander V0.9 patch and latest racing ship sales. I'm probably getting way too much pleasure from reading all of the complaints and whinging.

 

 

I love the latest video they released.

 

[Reaperman]

Wow, the nerd rage is super strong with the release of the Arena Commander V0.9 patch and latest racing ship sales. I'm probably getting way too much pleasure from reading all of the complaints and whinging.

 

 

Yeah, I had to take a break from there. So much unnecessary drama. About the time I started thinking that the only fun I could ever possibly have with the game was blowing SC fans out of the sky because their tears amuse me, I started thinking that it wasn't a healthy environment for me to hang around in... The ticker will probably thank me for that some day.

 

I'm downloading the patch now, but I'm not really all that excited about the racing--and I'm pretty sure that's the first time I've ever said that specific line. If the new hangars are in, I'd like to see them, and I wonder if they put the wheels back on my Avenger in this patch.

Edited September 12, 2014 by Reaperman

[HammR25]

I've got the Cutlass and love the asteroid hangar. Looks like racing only shows up if you've forked over money for one of their race ships. I'm not going to fork over another $110 just to be a pre-alpha racing tester.

[Reaperman]

I dunno, I got the racing to work okay without buying a 350r or m50. It just plopped my in an origin 3xx ship like it does arena commander. Only tried it offline to get to know the track...which was wise. I must have died half a dozen times in my first lap. With my pilot nearly always at various states of red/blacked out, I really wonder how much harder an m50 pilot could fly while still being able to see.

 

What joy there is in the racing doesn't really come from control of the ship itself. I think it should, but it doesn't--it's the same old disconnected alpha handling atmosphere or no. Very little sense of speed or scale, etc. Instead the joy comes from mapping out a tight racing line, but not so tight that the fog of unconsciousness keeps anything from being visible.

 

Anyway, I had my hour of fun with the patch. Now I'll wait for the next one.

Edited September 14, 2014 by Reaperman

[HammR25]

I finally figured out how to get to the race track. I won't be doing any racing at all. I like car racing too much.

 

Apparently right now the racing is all about learning the shortcuts. Oh and this video has a little bit of language at the 1:10 mark.

 

[Reaperman]

I don't know if everybody's heard, but the 5 flyable ships are open to all backers for the week in celebration of Citizencon.

I'm not sure why they wouldn't always be open to all backers during alpha testing, but people seem willing to pay.

 

I took a lap around the track in an M50. It was decent, but I didn't really a second lap in me.

[HammR25]

I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and say the main reason they haven't opened up all ships to all backers all the time is so they don't end up with everyone wanting to only fly one ship. That doesn't help them create proper balancing. I'm saying this even though at this point the ships seem to have turned into an ATM for CIG.

[Flojomojo]

I think the whole genre is coming back ... if for no other reason than because it was dead for so long, there was probably a perception that there would be less competition. Check out this Space Game Junkie wiki for a big list. It's probably oversaturated now.

 

Speaking of handhelds, I've always thought that the DS systems offered the potential to do a really good one with the UI options the touch screen provides. Odd that in the ~10 years of those things, to my knowledge there hasn't been a single one.

I felt the same way, and had high hopes for Starlight Inception, which launched on the Vita. It's okay. I think it should use the touch screen elements more.

 

Speaking of which, what's the key mapping app you're using on your Android tablet? I was thinking of doing something like that to play TIE Fighter on the big screen.

 

I'm mostly looking forward to No Man's Sky and Wings of St. Nazaire. Elite and Star Citizen are going to be too rules-heavy for casual little me. Chris Roberts' contempt for console and mobile really turns me off, and the whole forward-funding model reminds me of something Derek Smart would have done.

[Reaperman]

A first look at some early multiplayer FPS star citizen gameplay. Looks pretty darn good to me.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cir3w-wIx9U

 

 

 

Speaking of which, what's the key mapping app you're using on your Android tablet? I was thinking of doing something like that to play TIE Fighter on the big screen.

 

 

Dirtyhand.me is what I've been using, though Roccat Power-grid is an option I've been thinking of trying. dirtyhand seems to use a good bit of CPU and didn't work with SC for whatever reason--I should probably recheck that since controls have been revamped twice since I last checked.

Edited November 3, 2014 by Reaperman

[Reaperman]

If anybody's interested in a unique way into the game, or an inexpensive racing ship to add to a current account, AMD's 'Never Settle' Star Citizen pack is a neat option.

 

Basically there's a coupon included in the more expensive AMD graphics cards which offers the option of a Star Citizen package with:

• a Mustang Omega racer (in limited edition AMD R9 livery), w/ 2 months insurance
• Selfland Hanger
• Squadron 42 and Star Citizen game(s) w/ digital manual
• Arena Commander Alpha pass, and full Beta access
• 1000 credits

Two reasons this is interesting. None of the Mustangs are available for purchase yet outside this package, and racing ships tend not to be cheap. Secondly--this option is available (generally) for under $30 on ebay. When checking out, the Star Citizen site, indicates that the package is a $60 value (though it cannot be otherwise purchased). It's my understanding that the coupons have to be redeemed by january 2015. Coupons are used (here).

 

I'm not a fan of seeing the AMD R9 logo so far in the future, but compared to other ships/packages currently available, it is a pretty sweet price. Also, the ship is not flyable in game yet so a 'loaner' ship will be provided until that time.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqZ1YSSYjJY

Edited December 1, 2014 by Reaperman

[Reaperman]

Arena Commander 1.0 launched today, which is a pretty big upgrade. It adds in the missing variants of the aurora and hornet. The new Mustang's 5 variants, as well as the base cutlass and avenger. The number of flyable ships more than doubled today. Sound's clearly been beefed up, and this is the introduction of 'energy signature' mechanics which will form the basis for stealth.

 

As an owner of the Avenger, Mustang Omega, and as of today, Mustang Beta, I'm quite pleased today. So many ships to try out. Videos make the Avenger look like quite the dogfighter, and I can't wait to compare it to the Beta, which inside and out might be a better fit as far as starter ships go.

[Tickled_Pink]

Just taken another look at it. Looks like they've got many more packages available than a few weeks ago.

 

Tempted, even though I've just got ED.

[Reaperman]

If anybody's got an hour to kill, there's a nice WIP demo of planetside environments, persistent universe, the MobiGlas "AR" UI, inventory/cargo, avatar customization, etc.

This is where the game gets a bit exciting, IMO. Looks like there's definitely going to be some fun to be had here.

They've been a lot busier than ships and snow globes over the last few years. If even half of this works into release it will be a very impressive MMO, and I feel oddly tempted to send them some more money. They've recently crossed $71,000,000 in funding.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2GmLvwtnCk

Edited January 28, 2015 by Reaperman

[HammR25]

I accidentally clicked on the Star Citizen icon tonight and went ahead and let it run. It made me agree to a new EULA before I could enter. I found one of the sections of the EULA kinda interesting. I wonder how long it took to craft the Fundraising portion of the EULA. I went ahead and made it a "spoiler" in case anyone didn't want to scroll past a wall of text.

VII. Fundraising & Pledges
RSI is raising funds for the Game. You may select one or more of the pledges offered on the Website, or through RSI’s customer service, and pay the indicated amount(s) in accordance with the following terms agreed between you and RSI:

• Your payment (“Pledge”) is a deposit to be used for (a) the production and delivery cost for the relevant pledge items (“Pledge Item Cost”), and (b) the development and production cost of the Game, including the costs of operating and hosting the Game, the Website and the other RSIServices, and RSI’s corporate expenses associated with the foregoing (the “Game Cost”).
• The Pledge shall be earned by RSI and become non-refundable to the extent that it is used for the Pledge Item Cost and/or the Game Cost, with your Pledge being applied as follows: first to the Pledge Item Cost, and then on a pro rata pari passu basis with all other contributors whose deposits have been deducted by the relevant Pledge Item Cost, to the Game Cost.
• RSI agrees to use its good faith business efforts to deliver to you the pledge items and the Game on or before the estimated delivery date communicated to you on the Website. However, you acknowledge and agree that delivery as of such date is not a firm promise and may be extended by RSI since unforeseen events may extend the development and/or production time. Accordingly, you agree that any unearned portion of your Pledge shall not be refundable until and unless RSI has failed to deliver the relevant pledge items and/or the Game to you within eighteen (18) months after the estimated delivery date.
• For the avoidance of doubt, in consideration of RSI’s good faith efforts to develop, produce, and deliver the Game with the funds raised, you agree that any Pledge amounts applied against the Pledge Item Cost and the Game Cost shall be non-refundable regardless of whether or not RSI is able to complete and deliver the Game and/or the pledge items. In the unlikely event that RSI is not able to deliver the Game and/or the pledge items, RSI agrees to post an audited cost accounting on the Website to fully explain the use of the amounts paid for Pledge Item Cost and the Game Cost. In consideration of the promises by RSI hereunder, you agree that you shall irrevocably waive any claim for refund of any Pledge that has been used for the Game Cost and Pledge Item Cost in accordance with the above.
• Once RSI has delivered all pledge items to you and the Game has been commercially released to the public, all your payments for any RSI Services until such time shall become, and any payments thereafter shall be, non-refundable in whole or in part.
• You acknowledge and agree that the pledge items delivered to you may differ in certain aspects from the description of those pledge items that was available on the Website at the time of your Pledge.
• For the avoidance of doubt, all payments for items delivered immediately or soon after purchase, such as recurring website subscriptions, alpha passes, or Merchandise (as defined in Sec. 9 below) are not covered by this Section 7, but by Section 8 below.

 

 

[Reaperman]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbZLbb0_RBI

 

With the release of Star Citizen v1.1, they've introduced REC which is the earnable in-game currency used for 'digital' equipment rentals in the sim-pod (arena commander). It's starting to feel a lot less pay-to-win, which is a good thing. I like how they handle the rentals--seven 24-hour periods (which don't need to be consecutive) and a discount for renewing the rental before it expires. A shame the multiplayer is a bit bugged by the pure number of players involved--I haven't been able to get in to earn any yet, though I had fun spending some of the initial load of credits they gave everybody.

 

I will say that in arena commander in 1.1 I am having trouble adjusting to my ship's weapons. I have a gimbaled 'bfg' on the front, which is extremely easy to use but runs out of ammo in about 25 seconds, and wing guns that are very weak and fixed forward. Bringing the full loadout to bear on an enemy is very difficult when we're in tight. I have to switch my brain over between swinging the gimbaled gun and swinging the whole ship. In short, I don't think my Avenger is ever going to very good in arena commander, but in peaceful space, I may be a bit of a threat as the limited ammo may be much less of an issue.

 

Star Marine (the FPS module) is running a bit late, but is due out fairly soon. Zero-g arena looks a lot like ender's game--that has to be fun. Lots of character model improvements have been shown too.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mL9dh8Helw

Edited April 4, 2015 by Reaperman

[Reaperman]

It's been a few months, and gamescom was today.

Star citizen licensed hardware was announced. Looks like a fancy hotas, and a keyboard/hotas combo.

The big news was live gameplay of multicrew. Basically a small team set out to capture an abandoned retaliator--then they ran into another medium sized ship and had a bit of a battle. Lots of FPS and eva displayed.

 

Here's a non-live polished up version:

(I kind of like the live one from the stream better, but it's not on youtube yet)

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

 

I'm not sure I liked how fast 'fast travel' happened. Maybe it's not really the speed I didn't like, but the speed combined with 'anywhere you want.' Freelancer's fast travel only along well-known corridors seemed like the best of both worlds. It also served the game function of letting the pirates know where to be. Looking at how fast a ship can zip past--even if the pirate was magically in the right spot, they don't have much of a chance of stopping anybody.

 

Additionally the first interior modules were released today, allowing the retaliator's two torpedo bays to be turned into various things. (cargo, crew space, troop transport)

Edited August 8, 2015 by Reaperman