Found the NFT fan. :)
Heh. I loathe those things, but I do find them hilarious. In that people will pay money for them. But I guess it takes all kinds. I doubt I would have the gall to get into that particular grift market though.
Wendelius, I should have put a winky emoticon or something after that to indicate I was joking. I’ve been watching too many documentaries on money laundering lately.
I’m glad Star Citizen continues to treat you well! I honestly hope it turns out well in the end.
No worries. That post was deadpan and I missed that it wasn’t an actual question.
As for SC, I have finally joined an org and will be earning in-game money and testing the new loops with them in the coming days. I’m hoping it will lead to less lone wolf, interesting stories and screenshots I can post in this thread.
With the in-game wipe of assets, everybody is playing together to earn credits and buy ship upgrades.
I think that the over 100 number is not really indicative of how many actually different ship models there are. For example it requires counting things like the Razor, Razor EX, and Razor LX as different ships.
The normal one is a little fighter, the EX is a “stealth” version but there’s no stealth mechanics to make it a different experience, and the LX is a “race” version so it is slightly faster but turns slightly worse:
There’s 6 versions of the Hornet, 6 of the Mustang, etc.
Not to say that there aren’t a lot of ships in the game, there are a lot of them:
https://www.citizen-logbook.com/ship-list.html
Beyond just the numbers which I think are inflated but not a huge deal, when they label something as flyable it does just mean that the 3D model is in the game and you can fly it around. It doesn’t mean anything about the actual functionality of the ships that are supposed to differentiate them above.
Like above, the stealth version of that fighter is flyable, but it doesn’t do anything stealth related. There’s some “science” variants of ships flyable but there’s no science to make them different than the non-science versions.
If you’re tracking the progress of Diablo 4 and they are like “We have 12 heroes playable! The Fighter, Wizard, Ranger, Paladin, Witch Doctor, etc etc.” Then you have a certain feeling about where the game is. It sounds like it’s far along. But then you went to play and you can select anyone of them and they look awesome and different but then you jump into the game and they all just play exactly like a fighter and there’s no spells, no ranged attacks, no pets, etc etc.
So how many “reasonably unique” ships are there to fly with and how many are still in development phase (or as qt3 likes to say, jpeg phase) ?
10
1,987,934,698,369,869,826,986,498,696
OK, that’s a can of worms to answer. Because even variations on a model will have functional differences and flight characteristics. But the best answer I can give you would be this recent chart posted on the SC subreddit:
Source: Reddit - Dive into anything
If you consider all Constellations to be one ship, the Origin 100 variations to be another, the Freelancers to be a third (but the MAX to be different as it’s twice the size and very different from the base model) and so on, I guess you would get to roughly 45-ish distinct ship manufacturer / general hull model configs. And add half a dozen or so ground vehicles from hover bikes to buggies to tanks.
That view is actually becoming more and more outdated, which you would know if you played.
There are actual differences between ships from weapon hardpoints to armour to storage capabilities.
The new medical gameplay in 3.15 introduces differences in which type of medical aid different ships can provide (Cutlass Raid is only tier 3 injuries vs the Carrack or 890j which can treat tier 2 injuries).
There are also interdiction ships carrying a QED (Quantum Enforcement Device) which affects the ability of other ships to jump away through Quantum Travel.
Some ships can carry ground vehicles around, some can’t.
Then there are single and multi crew mining ships.
The multi crew gameplay has generally come leaps and bounds since 3.13 as well. This includes a whole balance pass on ships, the addition of dedicated missile and bomb operator modes. This means a major ship operations efficiency increase when its turrets are fully manned vs several single turret ships. So you are no longer flying big ships solo and getting the most out of them.
That said, it’s true that there more things missing than implemented in SC. The salvage functionality is not there. The ability to capture wanted fugitives and put them in a cell in a Cutlass Blue isn’t there. The ability to refuel from a Starfarer is not implemented (coming soon though). And the ability for an engineer to access components like shield generators in their housing and perform repairs on them doesn’t exist. So don’t take this as me telling you all functionality is there.
Lots of things are definitely still for show! But saying that those ships with different purposes do not operate differently and feel distinct feels less and less true as time goes by.
I’m pretty sure that my comments are accurate that there’s no stealth or science mechanics. Happy to issue a correction if I missed them adding that.
Farming, land claiming, salvage, drink mixing, scientific research, data running, telescope arrays, news production, mine laying, refinery ships, exploration, procuring in flight video entertainment for your luxury passenger liner, jump point usage, the command and control system where you can control your fleet like an RTS game, capital ships, the ships with modular configurations, particle colliders, npc run shipboard markets, player run shipboard markets, refueling, assault docking (cutting holes into ships to board), ships with their own internal trams on board, ship prisons, replacing in flight entertainment server blades.
Honestly that’s just off the top of my head on missing ship specific functionality. I’m sure there’s some more. It’s nice that they are starting to add the start of the medical stuff that they had targeted for 2016, but I don’t think that I am being unfair when I note that a large amount of ships are missing a large amount of functionality. Nothing on that list is a joke, it is all promised and sold ship specializations. I’m happy to dig up links if anyone doesn’t believe me.
I don’t follow SC very closely, so - is the particle collider so you can do in-universe physics experiments? Do experiments lead to new capabilities/bragging rights for discoverers of things?
As of 2015:
Is the Endeavor’s supercollider the only way to have equipment overclocked?
No! Chris outlined his plans for a robust overclocking system early in the game, in the hopes that players will eventually make careers out of being ‘overclocking’ experts capable of providing the best tuned weapons and other components.
Sounds like an accurate list of stuff mentioned before or in the pipeline. I haven’t heard all of them, but they all sound very SC. And some of those have nothing whatsoever to do with flying a ship and how different they are from each other (which was your point I was responding to). As for my list, I was just giving a few examples of missing gameplay loops, not trying to be exhaustive against a feature list. I did say “more things are missing than implemented in SC”.
While there is no science, stealth is actually a mechanic, with different components geared towards different levels of signature vs raw output. You can also manipulate your ship signature to remain mostly invisible to other players until you can surprise them. But it’s basic stealth, not to the degree of implementation promised I’m sure.
That’s what I was responding to. It means more than 3D models in game.
It’s also a buggy mess, especially today, right after a major patch release.
Sure. I’ve hard of most of those and I’m sure the others are accurate. No need for links unless some in the gallery want to be entertained with the grandiose, idiotic and/or weird ideas. You seem to spend a lot of time reading promised feature lists. Most SC players enjoy what’s there right now (at least for a little while every patch) and the regular additions. Half empty / half full. :)
Oooh, this thread is going places. Looking forward to hearing more, Wendelius!
-Tom
Yeah. About that… Everybody is trying to work out through the post patch oddities and find stuff that’s not bugged. That’s not an easy quest today. :)
Hoping to get some fun stuff going after the next point patch this week-end though.
To celebrate the release of 3.15, the org is organising a series of fun events to help members socialise and gather funds. There are mining convoys, trading activities and even drunk ground races, using various vehicles, to little know points of interest.
The org has various divisions (industry, science and security). Security provides ship escort / turret manning, as well as on the ground FPS cover.
In order to kickstart everyone’s funds and build a bit of reputation with a trading faction, tonight’s event was a delivery and trading route. Seemed like a good time to jump in and meet some org members. 4 traders and 2 armed security got together to run some box deliveries missions. On the way, we would also fill up the hold with cargo bought at an outpost to sell elsewhere for a shared profit.
SC being SC, the first 2 attempts ended with a server crash within minutes. But, after that, we played together for a few hours without any lag or disconnects.
Our pilot decided there was no reason not to trade in style, so he brought out his Constellation Phoenix, a deluxe touring version of the Constellation line (notice the panoramic windows on the sides for guests to enjoy the view).
We were soon seated in the guests area, complete with a well stocked bar.
The crew quarters and cockpit are a tad more spartan. Bunk beds and weapon racks instead of bedrooms and fish tanks. Folding tables instead of bars and plush seating areas. Much more in line with the Constellation model I knew.
I still love the feel of the planets and moons you can visit in Stanton. At night, watching your crewmates run off can feel like the start of Alien, when the crew leaves to investigate the derelict.
A fun addition in 3.15 are lootable boxes at outposts. The ship weapon racks were soon filled with spare guns, ours to keep for future adventures.
Deliveries were made, a full cargo of medical supplies was picked up and delivered. Fun was had by all. Chatting to people and not having to look behind your back for pirates while doing delivery missions is predictably a lot more fun than doing it alone.
I have to try and join that drunken race next. Sounds awesome.
Oh very nice. The next point patch (due in the next week or so) is expanding the use of volumetric clouds from the gas giant Crusader to a planet, Microtech.
And from that player made video, they don’t look half bad!
Indeed. The clouds do look nice.
But I’m wondering more about that music. Was that done specially for the game by someone, or is it just licensed music? I quite like it.
That tune is “Bring me the sky” by Scott Buckley:
Not made for the game. From what I can see, he is a composer:
The main composer for SC is Pedro Camacho. His in game music is pretty awesome. Each location has its own theme.
The main tune is well known:
But his recent theme for Orison, the city in the clouds is great too:
Around 2’30" in, the choir kicks in. Having that music playing while taking in the view from the floating platforms, or flying through them, feels pretty epic.
IAE 2951, the free flight event (and opportunity to try out a ton of ships for free) starts this Friday, on the 19th of November.
Every day of the event, ships from a different manufacturer will be available to rent out for free.
If anyone should decide they want to try the game (not likely, but you never know :) ), Morphologis has just published a comprehensive new player guide for 3.15.
Should give you a good idea of what the new player experience is, only a bit smoother and less buggy. :)
You can obviously ignore the part about purchasing a starter package, as you are flying for free. All you need is a free SC account to get access to the downloader and the game. If anyone is interested, I can repost instructions on how to do so, as well as my referral code / a random referral code picker if you want an additional 5K credits in-game.
Well it’s just a “five year plan” to fill it with “up to 700” people. We know how that goes. I mean, are they going to be around in 5 yrs, let alone grow up to 700 people? Who knows?