Windows Star Citizen

and i kinda imagine JD fitting will be a little like this

 

My Hornet Tracker now looks remarkably like an LTI Vanguard.
(My first LTI ship!)

EDIT:- FYI - Using Paypal in Euros means the bill reads "Twin Bros GMBH".
(I would assume that refers to Chris & Erin)

 

Surely the jump drives are essentially auto-pilots to navigate through the jump-points, wormholes essentially. Otherwise if your ship didnt have a jump drive installed, and you were inside a system, you could never leave it, because technically each system is endless and you cant fly from one to another. Planets within a system, yes. system to system, no.
So if no JD = no JP, you'd be stuck there till you fitted one, which begs the question why on earth would any manufacturer bother releasing a ship which couldnt leave its own system.

I'd previously always thought of them as warp/FTL drives, close to instant travel from one location to another, but i believe that'd require light-speed+ and we're only hitting 0.2 max, and wormholes are the bridge that connects systems which would be otherwise inaccessible. Surely you'd be able to navigate a jump-point manually without one, and a jump-drive takes you through automatically? Otherwise, of the few ships which dont include a JD, they're essentially locked to a location till you've bought the upgrade. It just seems so pointless giving you something you cant possibly make do with, its selling a brand new car on a tiny island with no bridge etc off.

Ive played a little Freelancer, and thats my space gaming experience listed (FTL too i suppose), after that its Red Dwarf, Star Wars, Star-Trek reboot, Firefly and the first 7 or so eps of BSG (need to get back to that). So a lot of my understanding of a lot of this stuff is really only through 10FTC and stuff, its somewhat helpful because i dont really have conflicting info, all but Star Wars came after Star Citizen, but it doesnt help that a lot of that info still doesnt mean an awful lot to me.

 

It largely depends on how tied your ability to make money is to the ability to fly FTL. If you can make a steady early income without FTL [or at least enough to buy a Jumper], the fact you may need to buy a Jumper [or a ship with one] wouldn't be too big a deal [for me at least].

Also FWIW in the MISC Freelancer 'commercial' [iirc, it was one of the ship 'commercials'], FTL is depicted as instantaneous travel between systems. I know concept and reality are two separate things but it gives you an idea of what they had in mind.



the FTL jump is at 50s

 

Also you have 5 broad types of sci-fi FTL:

Teleport - Instantaneously jumps from a to b. This is what SC's appears to be, though 'interspace' is mentioned, as are jump points so it may be 'non-physical realm' FTL.

FU Einstein - Trek's Warp Drive, Mass Effect's 'Mass Effect' or anything else that side-steps the laws of physics, in trek's case folding/warping space and in Mass Effect's lowering the mass of the ship.

Non-physical Realm - Warhammer 40k's 'The Warp', and anything mentioning 'Hyperspace', and is essentially another dimension where conventional physics need not apply.

Gated - Jump gates and/or wormholes, gates often lead to the aforementioned Non-physical realm but are often stricter in you can only travel between gates rather than enter/exit the NPR at will.

'It just does, don't question it' - Doctor Who's TARDIS

 

Hmm, i thought the movement between locations was limited at 0.2LS or whatever the correct term is. So thats just the controllable speed your ship flies at, so its not blink and you'll miss it combat, or is the 0.2 the combat speed limit?

So is this form of jumping between systems too?
no-JD = Travel to jump-points where there are wormholes to get you from A to B, then you need to do the same for B to C.
JD = Point A to C, anywhere.

Im all rather confused about it, there seems to have been plenty about it, but nothing particularly distinctive, no design document which lays it all out in-depth, its just snippets of info from 10FTC covering questions with different angles of attack.

I'd completely forgot about the Freelancer doing that. I seem to recall the Constellation one starting similarly, but for all we (*I*) know it could be exiting a jump-point, rather than having plotted a jump to that location.
Cheers for bringing those up though, as mentioned my space knowledge is thin at best.

 

0.2c would be sublight [20% of light-speed], so probably top combat speed as imo .2 seems a little low for moving around a system quickly - it'd take you ~100 minutes to get from earth to mars at .2 c for example. [For reference officially 'Full Impulse' in Trek is .25c though that does blur slightly as plot demands].

What you described would be gated FTL, either you don't have a jump drive and therefore must find a 'gate', be it a jump point wormhole or whatever, or you do and you [essentially] make your own 'gate'.

There is some overlap in the examples I gave above but generally FTL boils down to one or two of those.

 

Some examples of FTL types based on my 5 broad categories -

BSG [modern] - Teleport, with a 'Red Line' distance limiting how far you can [accurately] jump.

Star Trek - FU Enstein [though JJTrek depicts it more as Non-Physical Realm], not overly consistent as to actual speeds relative to c as it's mainly 'speed of plot'. Though NPR/Gates appear in the form of the Bajoran Wormhole [Gated/NPR], Iconian Gateways [Gates] and Borg Transwarp [NPR]

Mass Effect - FU Enstein/Gated. The 'Mass Effect' enables FTL by lowering the mass of the ship, there are also 'Relays' [gates] which are giant catapults that employ the Mass Effect to launch you over distance 'regular' FTL isn't practical for.

Stargate - Gated/NPR. The Stargates themselves are, as you'd expect, gates. However interstellar travel by starship uses 'hyperspace' [non-physical realm].

Babylon 5 - Gated/NPR. FTL is achieved though a NPR, but that NPR requires gates to enter/leave [iirc].

Star Wars - 'It just Does', it's never really explained in the films, so gets chalked up as 'It just does'., though it's probably a 'FU Einstein' type FTL.

Doctor Who - everything in the show, including the TARDIS ability to fly through space/time is 'It Just Does', though it's often depicted as an NPR.

Red Dwarf - 'It Just Does'

Freelancer [game] - Mix of FU Einstein/gated [those express lane things] and Gated/NPR [the bigger inter-system gates]

 

I'm sad, very sad today. Because no matter how much money I threw at the monitor I couldn't buy my Pisces Bessius.



They really should talk with Matt Groening and include it into the game.

 

AtV:-

 

RtV Notes

• Will Lewis is gone. They miss him, he did a great job. They’re adapting, right now.
  
• FPS module – Travis is there working on polish. The best indication of how it’s going is that they’re putting together a design post about it, and they’re getting screenshots ready for it in seconds.
  
• Sneak Peek for this week was the Starfarer.
  
• 1.1a is Very close. QA is looking at a build right now. It’s at the point where it’s on the PTU, but not yet public. More information hopefully later today.
  
• The increase in people playing has been great. Concurrency has doubled since PAX and SXSW, which is helping reveal lots of flaws. Guys in Austin are doing a great job trying to fix it. The increase in players has been invaluable. More people playing equals more people breaking it, which will equal a better game in the future.
  
• GamesCom – Expect news by the end of next week hopefully.
  
• Citizen Con news – In about a month. Working on cool stuff for this.
  
• They did a post-mortem on their last events, but they think, especially PAX East, there wasn’t enough to do. Weren’t enough staff or giveaways or anything. So they’re putting together more interesting stuff for Gamescom and Citizen Con.
  
• Expect to see more from Frankfurt soon – Ben just got a cut of the ‘inside Frankfurt’ video today, that has to be approved first, but we should be getting it…if not this week then next week.
  
• Was the Vanguard being fast tracked for SQ42? – Ben’s not sure if it’s set to appear in SQ42. It wasn’t really fast tracked, it came in at the same time as the Hull series, it’s the first of the Wave 4, Hull is last of Wave 3, and hull’s just taking longer cause they’re turning it into a whole series of ships. Vanguard just happened to nudge ahead.
  
• Apart from the Hull, what are the next two concepts? Ben can’t say yet, because he doesn’t know offhand, and it’s going to be a bit of a race. Concept going on Reliant, Endeavour, Crucible, etc… Four or five out for concept right now.
  
• The Community team gets frustrated with the community sometimes, but it’s still the best job in the world. They really believe in what they’re doing, and they believe that the work they do matters. They’re usually not very stressed.
  
• Corvette concept sale this year? – TBD
  
• Santa Monica and Turbulent don’t have their monthly updates in yet.
  
• Illfonic are a bit busy, that’s why their monthly update isn’t in yet.
  
• Update on the Merlin – soon-ish. It’s needed, so it’ll be coming soon.
  
• No updates on Carrack – Still waiting on technical designer.
  
• No known Herald variants.
  
• Endeavour is in the process of being concepted.
  
• No deliberate separation of module releases per se. Many things to take into consideration.
  
• Vanguard getting some changes based on feedback – something very minor though.
  
• Endeavour – wave 4 concept ship. It’s the hospital sized science platform. It’s a bigger ship – very modular, so it can take multiple roles. Science is a broad term. It can do research, help with mining, scan things, very modular so it can have a lot of different roles.
  
• The Trout concept sale has been pushed back indefinitely.
  
• There will be a “real” vault update today.
  
• We will learn more about Wave 4 ships as they come online.
  
• No idea of water hangars will happen or not.
  
• 1.1a is adding the Gladiator
  
• The Herald is looking good – it’s being put in engine now.
  
• No news on if the Idris will be locked so it can’t be gifted – something about federal gifting laws.
  
• Cutlass is being reworked in Foundry 42 – variants will be adapted after the Black is done.
  
• More Empire Reports are going to be filmed at the YouTube stage soon.
  
• James broke the aspect ration on this week’s RtV. [Will used to set up the stream.]
  
• Vanguard does not come with torpedoes ‘Torps’ by default.
  
• News on the Phoenix in the near future – Constellation’s being worked on right now.
  
• They’re talking about how Star Citizen is a cake.
  
• Now it’s a burrito. AC is beef, FPS is cheese. Something something.
  
• The 100gb thing went ‘viral’. If you go back to the initial post, he’s saying it COULD be bigger than 30 gigs. There is NO guarantee that the game will be a 100 gig game. There’ll be many variables when it’s finished – how much is stored locally, how much is streamed, etc…
  
• 3 year sub perks going out today.
  
• Jenny is here! (in Santa Monica)
  
• The inside of the Cutlass is changing, they posted previews of that a few weeks back.
  
• SXSW skins will be put up in the store…as soon as Turbulent can put them up.
  
• Minimum age for Gamescom is probably 18, but they’ll check and let us know.
  
• Next Friday – details on GamesCom event.
  
• Sandi and Ben will dogfight in two weeks.
  
• The Caterpillar probably won’t be able to grow and shrink by adding/removing modules. Ben forgot the Caterpillar existed (this does not mean everyone did… just him briefly. He is going to check up on its progress.)
  
• Star Marine hoodie will available in the next month or two.
  
• Baseball hats will be available in the next few weeks.
  
• Star Map ETA – Chris is making it a priority.
  
• Jenny is in charge of social media. ‘Synergistic Synergy! Paradigm! Metrics!’
  
• No update on the Merchantman.
  
• Boarding – The FPS module… BUT IN YOUR SHIP! Latch on and get on board.
  
• No current plans for an event in Asia. Notoriously hard sell in Asia, so…yeah. Agitate for it, if you’re in the region. People have to tell CIG they want them there, for them to go somewhere.
  
• Avenger variants are not forgotten or lost.
  
• There is a little bit of space in the Vanguard for cargo… not much and not dedicated to cargo.
  
• October 10th is CitizenCon in Manchester, UK.
  
• They’re going to do something up in Montreal later this summer.
  
• Xi’An Volper bomber in concept.
  
• FPS will launch with Zero-G arena combat.
  
• They’re working on Esports modes for Arena Commander.
  
• Alexis is doing an interview with Behaviour next week.
  
• Next Deep Dive Design post is either tomorrow or next week -> FPS-related. Stance and Breathing stuff
  
• Systems will be in place to prevent insurance fraud.
  
• Any ship will be CCUable in the future. The system is in development with Behaviour. Direct paths from every ship to every other ship. (still needs to be flyable)
  
• Year 3 subscriber rewards will be going up today.
  
• Org 2.0 is still in development. Chris wants to make it more of a priority to get done. Org Logs and such. Some things might come earlier than other.
  
• More weapons in VD soon.
  
• Research and development on Planetary procedural generation underway.
  
• CIG have no plans for Pax Prime so far.
  
• More T-shirts coming but not soon.
  
• Chris Roberts leaving this Saturday for Manchester. He will be gone for a few months to direct the performance capture shoot for Squadron 42.
  
• Space Plant, GamesCom 2014 trophy, and much more are in the works.
  
• Cities will be fairly large on Planetside.
  
• In the early days at Santa Monica, Travis Day did everything… PC setup, payroll, everything.
  
• Is Star Citizen going to be awesome? It will be awesome.

 

Massively useful upgrade tool
http://kgsherman.github.io/ccg/

Identifies the cheapest way to go from ship x to ship y.

 

Good find

 

Great find - you'd have thought CIG would have made it a little easier by now.

 

Well My Omega has had a new lick of paint... [and is now a Gamma]

Looking at the Avenger even though I don't like how it looks, on paper at least the Gladius looks a bit rubbish upon closer inspection of its stats [certainly when you account for the €30 premium over the avenger]

 

Had my second ever actual AC game and Either my PC, My Ship or my aim sucks as I hit precisely nothing the entire match... that combined with the fact you 'grey out' at the merest touch of the controls and I can see me giving up on it very quickly.

 

Ha! I was like that when I first started.

If this is your first time playing a space combat game with true newtonian physics you need to throw out everything you've ever learned about flying. Imagine your ship as a movable turret instead of a plane in atmosphere and you'll start to improve.

 

It's not my first, which is partly what made my inability to hit anything more annoying...

I think some of my frustration is the feeling I'm being punished for not having deep pockets - either not having a 3-figure ship or a equally expensive stick setup [even if i could afford a stick, I haven't got the space for one]...

 

Right now, mouse and keyboard is actually the most "OP" setup, so no, you're not being punished for not having an expensive HOTAS setup...

The rest comes with practice. Don't throw yourself in to turns at full thrust, you need to dial down your throttle just before you go in to the manoeuvre to about 1/2. This helps cut down on the grey/blackouts from g-forces and actually helps your ship turn faster. Also, pitching causes a lot more blackout than yaw (and yaw actually works unlike ED where yaw is like watching paint dry).