Star Citizen

[Bauer]

I had a fly around in free flight last night. Seemed pretty good. As Smith said, no mapping on the good ole X52 yet but for what it is, not needed yet.

Couldnt help but fly in to the flame when I was done

[petey]

It had downloaded by this morning. Will get to have a go this evening. Will be using a xb360 controller. Pretty keen to see how it feels.

Sent from my D5503 using Tapatalk

[DarrenM]

I have a 360 controller but in other games I found it horribly imprecise so I went and bought a logitech extreme 3d joystick. If I get into it or elite I'll look into a hotas.

I did a vanduul swarm last night and lasted about 30 mins before I had to stop. The AI doesn't seem all that challenging and I don't think my wingmen did anything but draw fire. Hopefully not too long before I can try MP, but I signed up pretty late.

The aurora doesn't seem very agile or responsive but I expected that given it's basically a space courier van with guns and I can't use my LN variant. I need to try some of the other flight control modes to see if they free it up a bit.

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I couldn't get it to work, deleted the user folder, nothing. bummer.

Dumb question, but your ship package definitely included alpha access?

[petey]

Am currently trying a repair download because the animations were so bugged I couldn't get into the cockpit.

Sent from my D5503 using Tapatalk

[Sarsippius]

Only had a brief fly but runs better than I thought it might on my 30" 2560x1600 with a hd7870.

Thanks for the link Darren, in my Aurora I noticed when banking as hard as I could left or right it wasn't smooth, like the turn rate was constantly up then down, could be one of these settings like g-safe or comstab.

Some of the animations where you sit in the cockpit or get in the crawlspace in the aurora are a bit off putting, your view jerks all over the place. I reckon with a rift on they could feel really disorientating.

[ysu]

I couldn't get it to work, deleted the user folder, nothing. bummer.

Dumb question, but your ship package definitely included alpha access?

Yes, I've tried the hangar module before.

[Sarsippius]

There definitely seems to be an issue with the Aurora, you can pitch up or down and it is smooth and even at the maximum rate it is constant. Yaw however the turning rate will constantly speed up and then slow, in a cycle making dogfighting quite difficult.

I also find the mouse control quite difficult and these two issues mean I'm constantly fighting the ship and I just have to give up out of sheer frustration after a while. I can feel the tension build in my hands and forearms lol. I think I'll have to buy a joystick to ever spend some serious time with this game. I suppose mouse would do the job for someone who doesn't do much dogfighting.

The funny thing though is on the official forums everyone is in uproar that mouse control is at a distinct advantage, boggles my mind.

[Bauer]

If there was a barn door in space, I wouldnt have hit that either.

[DarrenM]

Sounds like the AI will be more challenging with the fix to their constant shooting. Haven't had any difficulty in the aurora with the stick but I don't use yaw much. Only problem I've had is if I pitch the nose down combined with boost the ship wobbles around weirdly, even with an undamaged ship. Made me think I had a spiking pot in my stick.

Something I didn't realize is that the aim assistance on the gimballed guns only leads to compensate for enemy velocity. You still have to line them up properly when you get the green diamond.

I've also seen a few people suggesting to use ctrl+f or double press ctrl+tab to enable better flying modes but I don't know if that only applies to mouse flight. Haven't had time to try them yet but I didn't like the other modes in the reddit post I linked earlier. If I disable g-safe I just black out or red out all the time

[DarrenM]

The AI does seem harder now. I was getting hit a lot more.

Tried it with the rift and it works pretty well. The lasers aim where you look, bit like the 2nd stick on a gamepad, so it can make it a bit easier to hit a target if I get things coordinated properly. On the other hand I'm finding it harder to get the green diamond in order to shoot. NFI what I'm doing wrong but sometimes I can be 300m from an almost stationary target pointing straight at it and it won't lock on.

The movement from G forces isn't a problem as it just feels like the cockpit is moving away from you, but the constant wobbling instability in the aurora is a bit uncomfortable. The way they've tied the fps head movement to the character animation in the hangar is puke inducing.

Quote from the forum sums it up pretty well
"flying my Aurora with a joystick is like having 100 cats in the back running around spinning the ship and rocking it like crazy"

Most plausible theory
"Aurora thrusters are slow to move, so when you turn, first the main engine vectors its thrust, then you wait, then the thrusters kick in, causing a partial immediate turn followed by a sharp increase in turn velocity after the thrusters come into alignment and start firing"

So the thrusters are slow to rotate and they throw the ship around in the process if you're busy with the inputs. The inconsistent yaw speed needs fixing though.

Even the developer doesn't like the current state of ship control
https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.c ... nt_2722695" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[wobblysauce]

Few oddity's with the controls.. but looking good.



[youtube] [/youtube]

[Sarsippius]

I've switched to using my xbox 360 controller and tried taking the dogfighting a bit easier and more methodically and it's a big improvement. I took out 10 waves in 52 minutes just now when I think 6 was the highest I reached with the mouse.
The main things I think are understanding the gimballed guns and how the auto-targeting works. The range is also very important, I normally afterburn in until I'm about 1k away and then line them up and start firing once they're about 500m away. Any further than that and it's hard to get a hit.

[wobblysauce]

Now if you use voice comms.. like with some other games, Voice Attack is quite handy in combat.

[youtube] [/youtube]

[Gizmo]

This game looks and sounds amazing. What's it like without a joystick? Can you fly with just a keyboard and mouse?

How do you acquire extra ships? Can you unlock them intake by doing missions or earning credits? You can buy them on the website however some are pretty expensive!

[Sarsippius]

You can fly with keyboard and mouse but I didn't like it too much and switched to my xbox 360 controller. There's still much to be improved controls wise so it will get much better but I think ultimately if you plan to play a lot then a joystick is a no brainer.

In regards to ships etc when the full game is released you'll be able to earn credits in game and purchase ships and progress that way (you'll still be able to buy credits or ships with real money). Buying ships now is largely a way to support the development of the game and I think in part they're priced so that you don't have huge numbers starting the game off in the best ships.

Just be aware though that if you buy a package and pay for alpha access all you can play at the moment is 'Arena Commander' which is like a video game inside a video game and only a portion of what Star Citizen will be. In the in-game universe Arena Commander is like sim software you install in your space ship to train against AI or real opponents 'online'. There will be different game modes like deathmatch, ctf etc with ladder rankings, that sort of thing.
It's fairly limited at the moment but will grow over time to almost be a proper game in and of itself but will only be a fairly small sub-set of the full game which is still likely to be a couple years away.

[Gizmo]

Is there any advantage to buying in at this early stage? It doesn't seem like there is a whole lot you can do atm.

[wobblysauce]

Bit of early play, and a higher craft then the standard starter.

[Gizmo]

What do you mean by higher craft level? Will your player and/or ship gain more xp by starting to play earlier? Or are the ships you get when you pledge money in this early stage better?

Do they know when the Single Player side of this is out?

[Sarsippius]

From what I've read once you complete the single player game you will end up with or have earned enough credits to buy a 'starter' ship like the Aurora. Starter ship as in the most basic/cheapest ship. You then have something to start the multi-player game with and you go on your way earning credits, presumably upgrading and buying better ships as you go.

If you buy a Hornet now say then you can 'start' the multi-player with a better ship from the get go and I think this is what wobbly means. Apparently the various ships now are also cheaper than what they will be once the full game is released so you're also getting a bit of a discount by pledging now and supporting the development.

The initial release of the single player game is expected at the beginning of 2015 but I wouldn't be surprised if it's still at least a year away.

As time goes on there will be more and more released to have a play with but the complete 'Star Citizen' with the fully envisaged persistent universe isn't expected until end of 2016.

I'd only buy a ship now if you want to support the development and/or have a play with each module of the game as it's released and goes through alpha and beta testing.

You're a touch late to the party in the sense that you'll have to spend minimum 40 USD for a ship, a digital download of the single and multi-player games when released, plus beta access to each module of the game. Plus 5 USD for alpha access to Arena Commander and it looks like another 5 USD for alpha access for each module as it comes out.

Gee it's bloody complicated and long winded trying to explain what this game is all about

[Bauer]

http://robertsspaceindustries.us5.list- ... ac803645b7" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Shonky]

If Top Gear reviewed space ships!

[youtube] [/youtube]

[smithcorp]

Got an email spruiking their Anniversary Sale. That's right. A one-year commemoration of a game that hasn't been released yet. Fark.

And you can celebrate by dropping $250 on a spaceship!

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm ... rsary-Sale" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[NeilPearson]

They have crowdfuned 62.8 Million USD. How the fuck

[smithcorp]

*Roberts shows video of figure walking up to a helmet and putting it on*
Crowd: Wooooo, Wooooo,WOOOOOOOOO, Wooooo, WOOOOOOOOO! (thinks: I'm excited because these other people are, so there must be something to be excited about and that bloke totally flipped that helmet! This must mean everything is awesome. My expensive investment in projecting my desires onto this product is totally validated) Wooooo! WOOOOOOOO, Woooo (reaches for wallet).

That's how...

[DarrenM]

Yep, they've got a large number of slavering fans and they're milking every cent they can out of them. It's getting pretty obscene in my opinion.

People are spending ridiculous amounts on virtual ships, merchandise and other crap when they don't have any way of knowing if those ships will be any good in the final game. Imagine the reaction if iracing/Kunos/ISI charged $1000 pre-order for a "limited edition" car with no fixed release date.