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Star Citizen Pre-Alpha: 'Arena Commander' Dogfighting

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Effect

Member
Not sure what they did in the last few updates but the game runs a lot smoother for me. I had upgraded my system a few months ago to the following.

FX-8320 3.5GHZ
GTX 960 2GB
Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit (previously had)
8GB Ram (previously had)

Even after the upgrade Star Citizen felt choppy. Similar to when I had my GTX 560 1GB and my AMD Phenom II X4 925 2.8GB (or I had the 560 in with the FX-8320 because I got that before the new graphics card. One of the two but likely the later.). However what they did recently made the upgrade worthwhile because I'm now noticing a difference and the game defaulted my graphics setting to very high and only reason I noticed was because I checked the settings because the game was looking different.
 

Geist-

Member
Interesting. If demo is impressing randoms, it could be amazing.

It does make you wonder what people are still crunching on, if the game is already demoable.
Probably just waiting on FPS. FPS will probably be a major part of multicrew especially if we can board other ships, and they've mentioned before that if they have 2 modules ready to go at the same time, they would stagger the release over a few weeks.
 

Raticus79

Seek victory, not fairness
Oh, I didn't realize the demo stations were starting already - I'll get the thread posted for the stream details and the demo impressions. Should be up within half an hour or so.
 
that quote from CR is pretty cocky.. by the time they release all of the modules Elite Dangerous will most likely be feature complete.
 

Geist-

Member
that quote from CR is pretty cocky.. by the time they release all of the modules Elite Dangerous will most likely be feature complete.
I like what E:D tries to be, and think it's beyond awesome that they are releasing planetary landings soon. But Star Citizen is getting very close to launching 3 massive modules(FPS, Multicrew, and Planetside) this year, while E:D seems determined to do one expansion per year (so I very much doubt FPS or multicrew until at least December 2016).
If Chris Roberts manages release FPS, then a functional multicrew, then Planetside before the end of the year, before Horizon is set to release, then that would be an epic victory and if he thinks that can be done, then he deserves to be a bit cocky.

Not to knock on E:D though, after all SC has a much larger budget. I really respect the fact that they've managed to get their universe running at 1:1 scale, and Frontier's matching ambition to eventually expand to the same areas as SC(namely FPS and Multicrew).
 
But Star Citizen is getting very close to launching 3 massive modules(FPS, Multicrew, and Planetside) this year, while E:D seems determined to do one expansion per year (so I very much doubt FPS or multicrew until at least December 2016).

FPS with 1-2 maps, Social and the first few chapters of SQ42 might be released this year.. its going to be a bare bones version of what's to come (in months or possibly years) PU is sometime in 2016 with 4 planetside locations. I just want to know what the updated release schedule is but its probably going to be dodged in the live stream.
 

KKRT00

Member
Sure. It is nice to have options, even if they are too cost prohibitive to use in most situations. What I would dearly love is if CIG employed a TAA implementation that was as good as the one offered by UE4. The SMAA xTX solutions in cryengine just simply aren't as good.
So basically Ryse's TAA. Its about the same quality as one in UE4.

---
that quote from CR is pretty cocky.. by the time they release all of the modules Elite Dangerous will most likely be feature complete.

Yeah, thats not gonna happen. You have no idea how difficult it will be for Frontier to implement multi-crew. They will need to retrofit everything to handle it properly.
Thats why it takes so long for SC, because they're making it first and foremost the base functionality of the game.

Btw You know that Elite expansion doesnt cover atmospheric landing? It wont be in next, but one after that expansion, so basically end of next year or even further.
 

SmartBase

Member
I like what E:D tries to be, and think it's beyond awesome that they are releasing planetary landings soon. But Star Citizen is getting very close to launching 3 massive modules(FPS, Multicrew, and Planetside) this year, while E:D seems determined to do one expansion per year (so I very much doubt FPS or multicrew until at least December 2016).
If Chris Roberts manages release FPS, then a functional multicrew, then Planetside before the end of the year, before Horizon is set to release, then that would be an epic victory and if he thinks that can be done, then he deserves to be a bit cocky.

Not to knock on E:D though, after all SC has a much larger budget. I really respect the fact that they've managed to get their universe running at 1:1 scale, and Frontier's matching ambition to eventually expand to the same areas as SC(namely FPS and Multicrew).

I find both approaches lacking, especially how ED just seems to be adding more shallow gameplay instead of adding more complexity to the existing mechanics. I'm hoping for a bit more depth from Star Citizen once its more than just a few disjointed modules.
 

Burny

Member
that quote from CR is pretty cocky.. by the time they release all of the modules Elite Dangerous will most likely be feature complete.

Which quote is that? Source?

Assuming they'll really keep up with their ten year plan, feature completeness for ED won't happen before SC releases. I hope. Because, at some point in the next two years, I would like to play Star Citizen with it's modules in an integrated form. As its PU is also aiming for an MMO-like service, SC itself may be extended significantly over its life span - post release - as well and I'm curious to see what they'll do.

Yeah, thats not gonna happen. You have no idea how difficult it will be for Frontier to implement multi-crew. They will need to retrofit everything to handle it properly.

These posts from you already stuck out to me in the other topic. Have you? I certainly don't. While it's been mentioned (I believe?), I don't even know, if we will ever get multicrew features in ED. Nor how difficult they will or won't be to implement for FDev.
 

KKRT00

Member
These posts from you already stuck out to me in the other topic. Have you? I certainly don't. While it's been mentioned (I believe?), I don't even know, if we will ever get multicrew features in ED. Nor how difficult they will or won't be to implement for FDev.
http://elite-dangerous.wikia.com/wi...und_the_ship.2C_planets_and_space_stations.3F

And how difficult it is, You can see from all development posts from CIG team. Retrofitting everything that was not build this way from the ground up seems like a development nightmare.
 

Burny

Member
http://elite-dangerous.wikia.com/wi...und_the_ship.2C_planets_and_space_stations.3F

And how difficult it is, You can see from all development posts from CIG team. Retrofitting everything that was not build this way from the ground up seems like a development nightmare.

Yet, even the info you're linking leads to this video, were DB claims the game is being build from ground up to support all those things later.

I don't think anyone outside of FDev can guarantee or promise, that they'll end up in similar development troubles as CIG (or not), when these features will eventually be tackled. Probably not even the devs themselves. Unless you're privy to more information than the rest of us and until they start to implement those things, the dev's word is the the best we have.
 

KKRT00

Member
Yet, even the info you're linking leads to this video, were DB claims the game is being build from ground up to support all those things later.

I don't think anyone outside of FDev can guarantee or promise, that they'll end up in similar development troubles as CIG (or not), when these features will eventually be tackled. Probably not even the devs themselves. Unless you're privy to more information than the rest of us and until they start to implement those things, the dev's word is the the best we have.

CIG put a lot of research and tried a lot of stuff before they came about with technology for that. Additionally they needed to research AI [they have whole outside company dedicated to it], new animation system to cover dynamic changes, multi-grid system to cover precision of physics for different environments, network handling to cover all the data and additionally they designed all ships with that in mind to have systems to support interior gameplay.
Non of this stuff is in Elite currently or even was shown in any showcase ive seen.
I dont say they wont do it, but they wont do it faster than CIG, because they dont have as much resources as CIG and they need to retrofit a lot of stuff all ships and stations or network management for example.
 

SmartBase

Member
CIG put a lot of research and tried a lot of stuff before they came about with technology for that. Additionally they needed to research AI [they have whole outside company dedicated to it], new animation system to cover dynamic changes, multi-grid system to cover precision of physics for different environments, network handling to cover all the data and additionally they designed all ships with that in mind to have systems to support interior gameplay.
Non of this stuff is in Elite currently or even was shown in any showcase ive seen.
I dont say they wont do it, but they wont do it faster than CIG, because they dont have as much resources as CIG and they need to retrofit a lot of stuff all ships and stations or network management for example.

What exactly in these ships or stations or network management do they need to retrofit? You keep using that term but not providing a single specific example.
 

KKRT00

Member
What exactly in these ships or stations or network management do they need to retrofit? You keep using that term but not providing a single specific example.

In terms of network? A lot, You need to have higher precision for characters and all its items. Ships directions change fluidly, so You can use prediction to smooth out packets, which reduce number of packets, where characters change rapidly based on the every player input.
Items on characters and inside ships also require packets to send to other clients, not Elite doesnt handle it at all.

Ships need to have interior physics separated, but still link to outside physics, same goes for all objects inside. You need rooms that are logically interconnected with subsystems that handles a lot of stuff like gravity, air management, electrics of objects inside. You have to handle vaults for getting inside the ship in space. Every ship has to have redesigned cockpit to handle characters models, so the player could sit down in the seat and have all meaningful panels in hand reaching distance and proper placement to view everything outside comfortably for combat.
Similar redesign would be required for space stations.

You move from dozen of meters to centimeters in terms of precision.
 
What exactly in these ships or stations or network management do they need to retrofit? You keep using that term but not providing a single specific example.

Networking? The whole instancing stuff needs to be networked and reworked. People in visually occluded areas etc...
 

tuxfool

Banned
So basically Ryse's TAA. Its about the same quality as one in UE4.

Wait a second. So the TAA implementation in Ryse isn't the same as SMAA 1TX?

I haven't seen any presentations or any media comparing it. Many places outright call it SMAA 1TX (they may well be wrong).

I mean, the most recent demo I tried (the voxel based lighting demo) and even that didn't include TAA.
 
Wait a second. So the TAA implementation in Ryse isn't the same as SMAA 1TX?

I haven't seen any presentations or any media comparing it. Many places outright call it SMAA 1TX (they may well be wrong).

I mean, the most recent demo I tried (the voxel based lighting demo) and even that didn't include TAA.
There are different SMAA 1Tx's in cryengine. Yep. Totally odd.
 

Burny

Member
In terms of network? A lot, You need to have higher precision for characters and all its items. Ships directions change fluidly, so You can use prediction to smooth out packets, which reduce number of packets, where characters change rapidly based on the every player input.
Items on characters and inside ships also require packets to send to other clients, not Elite doesnt handle it at all.

Ships need to have interior physics separated, but still link to outside physics, same goes for all objects inside. You need rooms that are logically interconnected with subsystems that handles a lot of stuff like gravity, air management, electrics of objects inside. You have to handle vaults for getting inside the ship in space. Every ship has to have redesigned cockpit to handle characters models, so the player could sit down in the seat and have all meaningful panels in hand reaching distance and proper placement to view everything outside comfortably for combat.
Similar redesign would be required for space stations.

You move from dozen of meters to centimeters in terms of precision.

You're listing all kinds of things that Star Citizen had to tackle and project from there to ED, assuming that they'll run into all the same troubles as CIG.

We only know that they claim the game to be designed to support certain features in the future. Yet, we have no idea how any of these things will be handled by Elite. Maybe they'll just avoid many of the issues Star Citizen had due to its seamless nature by separating in ship gameplay from space travel through instancing? Maybe they'll never implement separate objects that can be moved around within or outside of the ship at all times and have inventory management solely through a separate inventory gui (if there'll even be a personal inventory)?

No one's arguing that it won't be a lot of work to implement all the features they have planned or won't require a lot of time. You're treating your assumptions like certainties though and are acting like they'll have to rewrite half of the game. Maybe they'll have to, maybe they won't. Star Citizen is a different game with a different underlying engine though and isn't much of an indication for which troubles an entirely different studio using an entirely different engine will or won't run into.

Edit: As an example of the way ED tackles issues differently: all HUDs across all ships in ED are the same. While I find that a bit strange in terms of immersion myself, it's for example one aspect where they don't have to rework a whole lot of things when adding ships.
 

SmartBase

Member
In terms of network? A lot, You need to have higher precision for characters and all its items. Ships directions change fluidly, so You can use prediction to smooth out packets, which reduce number of packets, where characters change rapidly based on the every player input.
Items on characters and inside ships also require packets to send to other clients, not Elite doesnt handle it at all.

Ships need to have interior physics separated, but still link to outside physics, same goes for all objects inside. You need rooms that are logically interconnected with subsystems that handles a lot of stuff like gravity, air management, electrics of objects inside. You have to handle vaults for getting inside the ship in space. Every ship has to have redesigned cockpit to handle characters models, so the player could sit down in the seat and have all meaningful panels in hand reaching distance and proper placement to view everything outside comfortably for combat.
Similar redesign would be required for space stations.

You move from dozen of meters to centimeters in terms of precision.

The bolded is nonsense, you obviously haven't even seen the game and its cockpits/UI and noticed that two character models already exist and sit in a chair with all UI elements placed correctly. The rest of that paragraph for whatever reason assumes they're going for the same complexity and detail as Star Citizen, which considering their budget they're probably not. I would've added more but I think Burny rounded it out quite succinctly.

edit: I'm bowing out of this, have fun.
 

Daedardus

Member
There are so many AA acronyms that are way too similar to each other but different in application, you get confused to more you talk about it. Star Citizen should just implement SGSMSTXSSAA and be done with it.
 

tuxfool

Banned
Edit: As an example of the way ED tackles issues differently: all HUDs across all ships in ED are the same. While I find that a bit strange in terms of immersion myself, it's for example one aspect where they don't have to rework a whole lot of things when adding ships.

Here is the thing. The ships in E:D don't seem to be designed to be traversed by a human model. It could be that their multi-crew ships will have these considerations but it isn't the case currently. Or another way they may do it is just extend the current implementation and have everybody sit directly in their separate seats without using character models thus allowing them to not require localized physics grids etc.
 
Here is the thing. The ships in E:D don't seem to be designed to be traversed by a human model. It could be that their multi-crew ships will have these considerations but it isn't the case currently. Or another way they may do it is just extend the current implementation and have everybody sit directly in their separate seats without using character models thus allowing them to not require localized physics grids etc.

Yeah this is wrong

wHGbIo2.jpg


They had internals blocked out from the start.
 

HelloMeow

Member
Here is the thing. The ships in E:D don't seem to be designed to be traversed by a human model. It could be that their multi-crew ships will have these considerations but it isn't the case currently.

They are. Some of the bridges are huge. Some have multiple levels. All cockpits/bridges have doors.
 

tuxfool

Banned
Yeah this is wrong

wHGbIo2.jpg


They had internals blocked out from the start.

Ok, this I didn't know. Do we know if they are implemented in the ship models? If they intend to have freeform movement in the ships then they almost certainly have to employ local physics grids inside the ship, something they don't seem to need to worry about currently.
 
FD has been talking stuff like multi-crew since they began development, if I recall. As frustrating as it is that they don't share their roadmap, it doesn't mean that they don't have one.

I like what E:D tries to be, and think it's beyond awesome that they are releasing planetary landings soon. But Star Citizen is getting very close to launching 3 massive modules(FPS, Multicrew, and Planetside) this year, while E:D seems determined to do one expansion per year (so I very much doubt FPS or multicrew until at least December 2016).

Keep in mind that we don't really know what E:D's seasons really look like, because this past year/season had a lot of features released that, to many, should have been in the game from the start. This season (Horizons) is starting with planetary (airless) landings, but that's just one feature for the season; for example, they said in early 2016, the next release after landings will be crafting + loot.

I think next year will be amazing, in terms of competition between SC and E:D, as well as the wealth of other space sims/shooters that are coming out. Star Citizen is a game that I follow pretty regularly but am too hesitant to dip my toes into at the moment--E:D already fulfills my "not quite a complete game but tons of potential" itch :p
 

Zalusithix

Member
I'm finding all the Elite posts in this thread and the SC posts in the Elite OT amusing. Seems like the two communities are starting to merge a bit. All for the better given that there's misconceptions on both sides. If only FD wasn't so opaque so we could more easily compare and contrast the states of the two games and what the future holds. I mean, CIG holds a fair amount of stuff away from public view, but nothing like FD.
 

Zabojnik

Member
Can you feel it?

A war is brewing.

The empire (SC) has been too lenient lately and it has emboldened the rebels (ED).

Emperor Roberts is about to launch his offensive.
 

Effect

Member
Hadn't messed around with flying for a while now but have they changed things so that it's a LOT easier to black out while flying or get very close to it? I wasn't sure if it was just me being tired last night but I didn't think I was doing anything crazy out of the norm that I used to do in my Aurora. Yet here was the screen fading out on me very easily.
 

Zalusithix

Member
Can you feel it?

A war is brewing.

The empire (SC) has been too lenient lately and it has emboldened the rebels (ED).

Emperor Roberts is about to launch his offensive.
I've obviously been playing far too much ED, as I'd associate that game with the Empire. Both because it actually has an Empire within it, and because FD seems more like an like an empire holding onto their secrets. Occasionally letting the peasants know how it'll be changing their lives. SC in comparison seems a lot more corporate with constant reports and trying to please the shareholders.

Also, how cheap it is to get into SC.
SC is simultaneously cheaper to get into, and far more expensive than ED could ever hope to be if you wish it to be so.
 
I'm finding all the Elite posts in this thread and the SC posts in the Elite OT amusing. Seems like the two communities are starting to merge a bit. All for the better given that there's misconceptions on both sides. If only FD wasn't so opaque so we could more easily compare and contrast the states of the two games and what the future holds. I mean, CIG holds a fair amount of stuff away from public view, but nothing like FD.

I find this so funny because it seems as if the creators of both games have been nothing but supportive of each other and only the "fans" seem to be getting into a comparison war.
 

Zalusithix

Member
I find this so funny because it seems as if the creators of both games have been nothing but supportive of each other and only the "fans" seem to be getting into a comparison war.

Yeah, other than a few friendly jabs, they're never trying to shoot the other down. There's room for both games, and they both have their strengths. They also have their weaknesses and are deserving of criticism. It's just that the criticism should be in order to make the games better, not to dismiss the existence of one under the hope of having the other "win".
 

epmode

Member
I'm missing it. How do i go into 3rd person (trailing my ship) camera mode in AC?

On an XBox stick, it's some kind of key combination. Click in one of the sticks and press one of the shoulder buttons. I'd log in to check but I'm in the middle of redownloading the whole thing.
 
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