Cult Citizen

[icycalm]

Twas the night before Xmas... at Grim Hex.
https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/co ... t_grim_hex



A poem full of in-jokes about the latest development news of the Whitest game ever. Doesn't get Whiter than this. It's not ChatGPT garbage either, it's actually good. You need galaxy brain to grasp even half of what he's saying.

[icycalm]

Star Citizen: 2023 Year in Review
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxlci1YJCDA



What a game. What a world. What a team.

[icycalm]

Got to be following development very closely to get all the references: https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/co ... mas_to_all

Merry Christmas to all!

'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the Verse,

The servers' framerates were far from the worst.

Most citizens were floating around quietly dreaming,

Of the days when Dynamic Meshing would combine with Entity Streaming,

And 3.22, surprisingly, allowed them to build bases,

Though no ship munching postponed most salvage use cases.

And I in my 'Claimer, and Mama in her Vulture,

Enjoyed ship disintegration as spacefolk of culture.

When outside my fuselage there came such a roar,

That my fingers quickly twitched towards Alt and F4.

Away to the helm, I flew towards the sound,

Afraid that some bounty hunter might be coming round.

The glow of Microtech, covered in terrafail snow,

Gave the luster of mid-day to New Babbage below;

When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,

But a cherry red Cyclone, led by eight Tumbril Rangeers,

With a little old rider, and I realized with a grin,

Chris Roberts was ending the year with another ship skin.

More rapid than Spirits his coursers they came,

And he whistled, and shouted, and call'd them by name:

"Now JLee! Now Coons! Now Brewer and Herman,

"On! Disco! On Zurovec! On Witkin and Nolan!

"Squadron 42 is feature complete, so let's polish to a shine!

"When they ask what you did, tell them 'I HELD THE LINE!'"

As Talons and Hawks out of atmosphere fly,

When they meet with an Idris, or flee San'tok.yāi;

So down from Port Tressler, the coursers they flew,

With the hold full of toys‍—‌and ol' Christopher too:

And then in a twinkling, I heard 'bove the keel.

The revving and spinning of each motorbikes' wheel.

The audio team had not implemented the sound,

Of ol' Chris leaping down the turret with a bound:

He was dress'd all in black, from his head to his foot,

As though his clothes were tarnish'd by ashes and soot;

A bundle of toys was flung on his back,

And he look'd like a peddler just opening his pack:

His eyes‍—‌how they twinkled, to some unheard melody,

His cheeks were like roses, of the highest FIDELITY;

His droll little mouth was drawn up in a smirk,

And his hands were a'flying like they did all the work;

The stump of a pipe he held tight in his lips,

The smoke shrouded his head... and my head... and my ship's.

A wink of his eye and a swish of his hair

Soon gave me to know I had no need to be scared.

He spoke not a word. To his work he went, swift,

Depositing a Roadmap Roundup, as a last parting gift

And stretching his arms in a dramatic T-pose,

And giving a nod, up the turret he rose.

He sprung to the Cyclone, ready to keep going,

He punched in coordinates, quantum drive glowing:

And the Comms crackled to life, ere he flew out of sight‍—‌

"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night."

Merry Christmas to all gamers! And especially the smart ones, who play Insomnia-approved games like Star Citizen.

I am going to play some now, if my Shadow stops acting up. I managed to log in from the bar at St Christopher's Inn in Barcelona, but the damn cursor won't show up, so I can't really play. Trying to reinstall USB drivers to resolve this. Had this issue on Saturday too but I managed to fix it.

[icycalm]

ATMO esports Community Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfZJP9LLn-A



Presenter: "From all over the world."

Video: Only White countries (not even Russia lol).

[icycalm]

This game is just euphoria. Does anyone else play just to get lost in the visuals?
https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/co ... _else_play



This guy gets it.

[icycalm]

Inside Star Citizen: Tactical Capital
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kiu4c2F9HQE



They explain that with the Idris you can recreate scenes from the best sci-fi movies such as Alien or RoboCop.

So yes, it is $1,000+, but when you look at what your money is buying you, it's a damn bargain. Indeed, the only better deal in gaming is... a castle in my game.

In both cases though you can't just play with this stuff if you're the typical loner gamer. You need a full crew of humans who will heed your commands to fly the Idris, and you need to be a master strategy player to administer the castles and kingdoms in my game.

For everyone else there's $50 Steam Boy Color programmer games loaded with Artificial Stupidity algorithms and invisible walls every way you turn.

[icycalm]

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm ... ruary-2024

Looking further forward, progress continued on future story missions. These will be more involved than typical missions, featuring things like bespoke dialog and custom logic. The hope is that these types of missions will serve to build out the story of the wider universe and work alongside the more traditional systemic missions.

Very important development. People have been asking for this for a while.

[icycalm]

Evo Server Meshing 200-player and 400-player tests incoming (MOTD)
https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/co ... ayer_tests



itshappening.gif

Losing my shit over here.

I was legit thinking of banning everyone (well, except Rory) for not buying any of my PF heroes, but then I wouldn't have anyone to play SC with. So maybe I won't ban everyone. For now.

200 to 400 player count test?! 2024 is shaping up to be absolutely mega.

Definitely, going to be some good chaos if the servers can handle it.

I don't think these guys understand what's going on. There's no way the current servers can handle 200 let alone 400 players. I think CIG is renting STRONGER SERVERS merely for this test. That's the only logical explanation, because the server meshing they have now still assigns an entire solar system to a single server (the meshing is only for the gate jump). I suspect Chris is weighing the pros and cons of renting stronger servers.

If you read further in the thread, the more knowledgeable people are in disbelief, but no one is suggesting what I am suggesting because it seems no one has realized that CIG—like every developer ever—isn't renting the strongest servers that exist. I am very sensitive to this topic because Cult Games Studios Worldwide Corp. Inc. is the only developer that DOES rent the strongest servers for my games (Cosmic War and Uberust so far, and Battlegrounds soon). I believe the types of servers that programmers rent for their games are so cheap that they're easily leaving 2x or more performance gains on the table by being cheap cunts (which is easy for them to do because they don't play their games, so they don't care), in which case the 200- and maybe even the 400-player tests become understandable. After all, we've seen 150-player servers in the Live environment before running reasonably. 400 isn't that far off with a 2x performance increase.

400 players in one solar system will feel like a new game. The hotspots will be chaos, 24/7 war, it'll be almost PlanetSide lol. I don't think Chris knows what he's getting into, because he doesn't play these types of games (otherwise he would be talking about them, not "Dark Souls", in his articles and talks). But he'll figure it out, I am sure. He's a genius, after all; perfect taste, and indefatigable, like me.

[icycalm]

AVO: calling all hands on deck to reach 400 player
https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/co ... 400_player

Call to all AVO available right now, CIG need us to reach 400 and burn the server to the ground.

AVO is short for Avocado, which is a comic nickname for Evocati.

Evocati Server Meshing servers now at 400 player cap
https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/co ... 400_player

They 4x'd the player count on live, and supposedly it's WORKING so far.

One day sooner than expected? Weird. Good news?

I can only assume so. Either they messed up when setting the limits, or they are so confident after reviewing the last test that they think this is the better way to get the data they need.

Or they meant 200 - 400

as in 200 per server = 400 total and tomorrow 400 per server = 800 total.

400 per server is quite nuts to think about.

Maybe, but they said player cap, not players per server. I guess we'll see for sure though tomorrow (I'm not convinced there's that many more than 400-500 people in Evo though).

There's over 2000 currently.

Huh, well that's good to know. Hopefully that means it won't be too difficult to properly stress the servers then.

If you ever want to check, Evocati is an actual org on the RSI site that you can look up.

This seems to be it: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/orgs/avocado



Their org description is "Git gud."

More interesting is the issue of whether these caps are per server or per shard.

Unless they changed the display the feature should only display the server your friend is in and given the two star systems SHOULD be separate servers it should only be tracking one star system.

Incorrect, the replication layer currently handles player caps, and that is where this number would be extracted from.

It's the same shard, with 2 servers, of 200 players each, as far as I recall.

This makes a lot more sense. 200 per solar system is not so much higher than what we've seen already. It's a nice improvement for sure, but not radically different.

It would be very cool if they increased the cap to 200 with 3.23 next month.

Hmmm - this opens the question of whether CIG were talking about 'shard limit' or 'server limit' (2x servers per shard, so a 200-player server cap would be a 400-player shard cap)...

Given they've said this isn't a stress test, trialing it with increasing players per server (to try and confirm how much extra server capacity has been freed up by extracting the Replication Layer) makes the most sense.

After all, a 200-player shard cap would just be the same 100-player servers we currently have, and which the Evos have already tested a couple of times.

This is what I forgot in my earlier analysis. Now that the replication layer (basically the database with all the items in the server) has been spun off into its own server, that means the solar system servers have extra power available, and that might be enough to push the player cap from circa 140 to 200. So that's what it seems they're testing. And btw this would mean that with a cutting-edge server, they could do 400 players.

This is very good news.

Is that 200 in each system, or 400 in each system?

400 per shard not server, the servers don't have limits.

Remind me: in this lingo, the shard sits under both Stanton and Pyro?

The shard is a collection of servers and the replication layer tying them together.

What those servers hold authority over isn't set in stone. In this case, it's two servers, with one server per system.

How can the shard have a limit and not the servers?

The replication layer's limit, which is shared between all servers.

Surely that's backwards.

It's not, the shard covers both Stanton and Pyro with each having their own server. 400 players can connect to the shard and choose to go where they want.

Given each system has a DGS and this picture shows someone joining a friend, it's likely it's 400 per server, unless the shard itself has a max player count now?

FYI a shard is the whole game universe and the DGS is the area of that shard/universe.

Shrug I'm sure we'll find out soon, it's just the difference between a great improvement to population and an outstanding improvement to population.

Fingers crossed it's robust and stable.

We've seen this time and time before: thing works fine in testing, but shits the bed when it hits LIVE.

I'm reserving my champagne-popping until we see this fully working as intended on LIVE.

That's an important reminder. PES worked pretty well on test and then it was a 4-5-month nightmare on Live.

So now 4x the amount of murderhobos to watch out for... :)

But x10 the people to stop them!

Places that are more densely packed = less likely of someone going crazy since they will have 50 lockons to deal with instantly.

Rust in Space! Stealth n speed is key for the solo player, avoid the major crossroads and live on the edge of nowhere to survive. Cannot wait for base building!!!

This last guy gets it. And he has a -1 downvote lol because the PVE contingent hate Rust. I'd upvote him if I wasn't banned.

[icycalm]

lol only in Star Citizen.

Shamrock | Star Citizen Cinematic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_tFzswTLbo



You think you're watching a Battlefield-like staged video, and then it hits you with that ending.

[icycalm]

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm ... ruary-2024

Updates were also made to the gym, including punch bags that now align perfectly and animate smoothly. They also reworked gym hours to be more balanced, so players will see the correct number of NPCs whenever they choose to visit. Plans for busier times were created too to ensure NPCs can always find a place to work out.

Additional animations were added to the bridge, including 'hands-on-ears', to demonstrate cross-ship communication and add variety. Throughout the ship, NPCs will now carry a more diverse range of items too.

Trolley-pushing and cargo-handling animations were refined for added realism, while the security officer outside the bridge salutes players as they walk by.

Meanwhile, back on Steam, subhumans are dropping onto barren planets and shooting bugs for 20 minutes 21st-century game of the year experience!

[icycalm]

CONTENTS
Prologue
The Insomnia Best Game of All Time Award: Star Citizen
Thank you God
"There has never been anything like it"
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Wipe
The Chow Hall Drama
Too Good to be True
The Most Released Game of All Time
The Year of Chris Roberts
The Coolest Thing You'll Ever Own
Star Race, or The Whitest Game Ever
Go On, Play Some More Steam
Citizen Annihilation
The Birth of Quantum Gaming
The Project Game In Your Garage
The Greatest Screenshot Ever
The Sum of All Genres


Go On, Play Some More Steam



























































From https://www.flickr.com/photos/irmdall

[icycalm]

Inside Star Citizen: To and Fro with Cargo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IlcWUKV8hs



TL;DR You'll be able to buy real-estate in the verse for the first time ever with 3.23 in a couple of weeks, and it'll be a hangar scaled to the size of your largest ship, meaning that the largest hangar will cost you $350 Warbond or $400 with store credit (the Reclaimer's price). Unclear as of now if you'll also be able to buy hangars in-game with aUEC.


The persistent hangars arriving in about 2-3 weeks have finally been revealed, and they are stunning. As you will read in the comments below, tons of new possibilities open up in the verse with their arrival, but the ones I am most interested in are of course the strategic ones. There is already a lot of strategy in SC, the entire org-building loop is all-strategy and orgs already dominate all major events and locations, and with the upcoming capital ships they will dominate even the space between them. But the persistent hangars are the first piece of player-owned real-estate in the verse, so with their arrival, and that of the first base-building elements reportedly before the end of the year, we're on the verge of the game turning into a full-blown FP4X. So there will be strategic decisions to be made right from the first day of 3.23. Up to now, we've all been setting ArcCorp as our home planet, but now that we'll be able to own persistent hangars in all planets (some of which even look different than the others), we'll have to rethink that policy. Wouldn't it be better to maintain a presence in all planets? And if so, how should we divide ourselves between them?

I'll have answers to these questions soon in the Cult Hierarchy & Specs because I will be tying our expansion across planets—and, in the summer, across systems—to the CULT rank and loadout systems, and even to the paint systems. It will be an elaborate and extremely interesting, fun, challenging system, so look forward to it.

In the meantime I will only remark that CIG just gave players yet another reason to spend money on the game, since your hangar size will be determined by the biggest ship you own. They haven't yet made it clear if by "own" they mean cas$money, or if aUEC-purchased ships will count too for the purposes of hangar size. But even if aUEC will do the trick, what are the players who want the biggest hangars going to do? Grind out an 890J or Reclaimer every wipe? It can be done (though big ship prices are going UP with 3.23, so maybe it CAN'T be done), but it means that they'll be playing most of the wipe from a smaller hangar. And if you want the largest hangar in EVERY planet... of EVERY system... as I do... either whip out your wallet or forget about it. (And how do you get a persistent hangar on multiple planets? With clones of course. Or with your org mates, as we'll do, and if a bunch of them own big ships, you can have the largest hangar in every planet.)

In fact... even those of us who've ca$hbought a lot of ships may not get the largest hangar (Capital (S6/XL)). The only ships currently in-game that get it are the Reclaimer and 890J. None of us has the latter, and if I am not mistaken only ysignal and Adjudicator have the former. Even the next size down (Large (S5/L)) is owned only be me I think. I don't think shubn has a ship in that range (Correction: I think he has a 600i, which qualifies), and recoil and Chev certainly don't. So we're quite behind the rich people in the hangar game and need to step it up, especially if it only goes by ca$hmoney. And keep in mind the 890J and the Reclaimer aren't available to buy all the time. Neither of them are in the store right now. Unless someone wants to go the grey market route, they probably won't get a chance to buy one of the two before 3.23 goes live. That said, this WILL be the cargo update, so I am sure they'll offer all the cargo ships including the Reclaimer on launch. That's what I'll try to get at $350 Warbond, because the 890J's $1k is too rich for my blood right now. If I had that kind of money I would throw it in an Idris. The Reclaimer is quite attainable though, and I could upgrade from something else to spend even less. Could even melt something and use it for credits, so that I'd end up spending little, or even nothing, we will see.

Of course no one else has to follow my example, and you can all live off tiny Aurora hangars if you like, no worries. But I have to have the biggest thing... and so do the upcoming Planetary Commanders, more on which, as aforesaid, in the spec thread.

I'll close these initial comments with the suspicion that CIG will start selling a LOT MORE and NEW things VERY SOON. Stuff like the couch shown in the video, fridges, shelves; the possibilities are endless. And in fact there are already tons of things in the game to put in your hangars, and here are some examples (most of them from the store): https://robertsspaceindustries.com/spec ... ga/6693764

Lol way back when, I purchased hangar flair, a fish tank, some fish and a few other bits and pieces. I haven't checked the store to see if that stuff is still for sale, but I would expect it to return along with some new hangar flair. It's been a long time but I think I remember buying a Benny's machine or something similar I haven't checked that far back in my account so I might be imagining it.

Edit. Ok so I looked. Fish tank, fish, plants, drinks cabinet, physical ship models, holographic ship models, figurines, posters, paintings, snow globes, two Benny's machines, and some other random junk. Don't know if this was purchased or subscriber flair now, it was too long ago, but I would expect to see it all on sale again, if it isn't on sale now.

If anyone at CIG reads this, it would be cool if the ship models were not updated to reflect the current versions of those ships, but the original versions at the time of purchase. True collector's items then.

There are tons of edge cases that CIG will have to clarify over the next couple of weeks, all the way to launch, and there's a ton of theorycrafting to be done on how to best utilize the hangars to enhance the various professions. Here are some initial thoughts from Reddit, to get our brains warmed-up and ready to explore the possibilities: https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/co ... with_cargo

Super informative, really showed a lot of functionality that felt very far away 6 months ago.

Only outstanding questions for me is if I can buy/lease personal hangars on other places than my starting city. I would love to have hangars in multiple cities if I can afford the upkeep.

And then some corner cases like what if I have a small ship when I start the patch, but buy a larger ship? Does my personal hangar upgrade? Can I choose to upsize it or move it?

All minor questions, the core foundation here looks stellar.

Yep, same questions from me. As a mining/salvage player primarily right now, I'd love the ability to have a personal hanger on a station instead of a planet.

Man I would to be able to customize what "modules" my personal hangar has based on my playstyle. If i'm industrial maybe I can have an extra large cargo lift. If I'm a mercenary maybe I can have built in suit lockers/firing range.

Lots of theory crafting you can do here about making it your own space, tailored to your playstyle.

That would be awesome. It would also work if things like that were partially tied to location, so refinery stations have bigger lifts, for example. Honestly, I'm just excited that I might be able to offload and store salvage from my vulture at a station, and then eventually load it all in a bigger cargo ship to take it planetside.

Consolidation and arbitrage are instantly enabled by this.

Once the economy becomes more dynamic and prices are fluctuating, you'll be storing goods until the profit maxes out and you sell em all at once.

So excited for this update.

Also helps out a lot with scavenging where you pick up multiple types of goods. If I'm doing salvage missions (or piracy) or just looking around for scrap, I might end up with like 5 types of materials, Beryl, Gold, Laranite, etc. These all fetch best prices at different TDDs, so I can temp store them in a handy station, and then when I have enough to make a cargo haul worth it, load all the Beryl, for example, and take it to Orison.

I would also LOVE to see a player to player commodity trading function. If I have 800 SCUs of Beryl stored at Baijini, I can write a contract to send it to you for X amount of aUEC per box.

ANOTHER question:

Suppose I'm in a hangar with a friend. They have X commodity stored in the local inventory of the station. Can they pull that inventory from the freight elevators and put it on my ship?

Suppose for a friend that does mining and has no bulk hauler, for example. Or does the cargo elevator only pull goods associated with the owner of the ship in the hangar?

Speaking of modules, I would love a small hab unit in the hangar so I can just start there rather than spending the first ten minutes of game play walking and riding trains to a hangar.

Edit: Heck, I'd settle for a dirty couch to crash on.

The 100i-series are small and have a bed. First thing I'm testing is whether I can move them off the elevator and then bedlog out in it. If so, we're in business. It would be killer if there's enough room for me to do the same with my RAFT, because that thing's already basically an apartment.

I imagine in the future that these hangars will be getting repair/restock/refueling bays. It would be really cool to see restocking become similar to cargo loading too!

This has been my hope for the Vulture for a while. It fills up so fast that most of my time is spent getting to or from a TDD.

If I can stockpile cargo in a station before loading it onto a cargo ship, that would go a long way to break up the loop in a more satisfying way.

Edit: I'm also still unclear how TDDs will function after this change. Can I unload my cargo first? Do I need to go to the TDD first? If so, why shouldn't I just select auto unloading to at least get some of that done while I'm on the train?

This is the dream. It will also hopefully help with the "all or nothing" aspect of loading refined minerals into a cargo ship.

Looks like timers for auto unloading.

Meaning there could be player crews who can unload you instantly for a cut...

That's a good one for the QnA next week! How does "moving" work, do you auto downgrade if you melt? Can I be specific about which hangar I want numerically?

From what I saw it looks like you have a personal hangar based on your pledge ships for now, and if you buy a new bigger pledge ship in the future your personal hangar will be updated, but only when patches happen. I assume there's a script that they're using to update that instead of anything actually built into the game (at the time of this writing).

If you buy a ship with UEC that's bigger, you'll get a generic hangar like you're landing somewhere other than your home planet.

I don't think the buy/lease functionality will be in this patch but I don't doubt its planned for the future.

And a thread exploring the NEGATIVES of having a large hangar (they aren't negative for me, but they will be for others, I am sure): https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/co ... the_hangar

Instanced Hangars - You get given the hangar equivalent to your biggest ship

RIP all Reclaimer and 890J owners - you're stuck with a HUGE instanced personal hangar to move/tractor/walk around, regardless of what ship you spawn...

Oh boy, I can't wait for the corresponding thread bitching about how small ship owners won't have any space for shit in their hangars.

Not an issue, finally some use for my PTV.

o good point I'mma keep one by the door.

Thankfully have two, always one parked in the 890J and one spare xD

Brings me back to the ol' days of the hangar module where the only thing a PTV was for was to get from one end to the other.

There used to be personalizable hangars in the game years ago with the so-called "Hangar Module", before you could even fly the ships I think it was. But I think back then the hangar grew as you bought more ships, so you could have ALL of them arrayed at the same time. This guy confirms it:

Except the growing hangar is gone. Now we will have multiple hangars.

And I'll close the update with this comment:

Joke's on you, I can collect more space junk and live my life out as a space hoarder :)

This guy understands.

[icycalm]

CONTENTS
Prologue
The Insomnia Best Game of All Time Award: Star Citizen
Thank you God
"There has never been anything like it"
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Wipe
The Chow Hall Drama
Too Good to be True
The Most Released Game of All Time
The Year of Chris Roberts
The Coolest Thing You'll Ever Own
Star Race, or The Whitest Game Ever
Go On, Play Some More Steam
Citizen Annihilation
The Birth of Quantum Gaming
The Project Game In Your Garage
The Greatest Screenshot Ever
The Sum of All Genres


Citizen Annihilation

Now that the first draft of the persistent hangar mechanics has been revealed [ > ], and the implementation is even upon us (2-3 weeks max!), it's time to delve in some depth into Star Citizen's strategic dimension. This dimension, due to the full-loot PVP MMO basis of the game, is already enormous. It wouldn't have been if this was a theme-park MMORPG type of game, since those limit player interaction so that clan size and alliances are meaningless. But full-loot PVP MMOs (which is really a convoluted way of saying that the game works like reality, with full interactivity between players instead of invisible walls everywhere so you can't even touch the other players, so that the only reason others are in your server is to populate a glorified chatroom) come with a massive strategic dimension right off the bat, because the players who want to reach the heights that only this type of game can offer must build entire armies from the ground up AND negotiate alliances with others. And since we're talking about actual human beings here and not artificial stupidity (AS) algorithms, the complexity of these endeavors is enormous. Not even full-strategy games like 4X games can boast this level of complexity, not even when you're playing those in multiplayer. Because in 4X all your soldiers and citizens are run by AS routines, so no true leadership qualities are required to build those: any spergy nerd who would have been laughed at in real life as a leader can build these armies up just fine. You won't find these nerds leading clans in survival-builders and FP4X games though, you'll hardly even see them playing them, since they can only play solo, and will of course be swept away by real leaders and their armies. And then on top of that, instead of a 4X's 15 or so human leaders in multiplayer, games like Rust, Atlas, Life is Feudal and Starbase boast thousands of leaders and their factions, for orders of magnitude more diplomatic complexity. And that's before we've added any combat, building and crafting mechanics into the mix.

The incredible thing about Star Citizen though is that, while games like Atlas and Life is Feudal are basically first-person Age of Empires, Star Citizen is so much more advanced than that that it could in all fairness be called first-person Planetary Annihilation, and even, if you will believe me, Planetary Annihilation 2. Let's try to understand this wild claim.

What are the main features that a Planetary Annihilation 2 should possess?

1. Real space battles, anywhere in space, not merely orbital ones

2. Larger and more complex planets

3. Deeper base-building

And that's it! Put those 3 key aspects in a PA sequel, and you'll have earned the right to call it a sequel (a spiritual sequel at any rate, because a full sequel would require also the same lore).

And that's precisely what Star Citizen is! Let's take them one by one:

1. What game has better and more complex space battles than SC lol? Have you SEEN the capital ship vids? You can recreate the entire boarding scene at the start of Halo 1, but for real.

2. What game has larger and more complex planets than SC lol? They're so large and so complex that people are asking for them to be SMALLER so they can manage them!

3. We're talking bases of such complexity that you're able to place potted plans on your desk for christsake. It trounces even dedicated building games in terms of the sheer number and variety of unique items that can be found, bought and crafted.

So not only does SC possess all the crucial features for a PA2, it possesses them to a degree that a PA2 never would have, so it'd be more accurate to call it PA3, if not PA4, or 5, or 6 or some shit. And since there's no plan to stop development basically ever, I'd call it PA Infinite if it was me, and here the infinite moniker WOULD have been apropos, unlike other games which have recently used it like Halo et al. where it's a cruel joke, since those games are not only pathetically finite, but worse than their predecessors.

It's very important here to note that PA's OFFICIAL successor, the upcoming Industrial Annihilation [ > ] won't offer space battles, won't even have space at all, not even planets, so it utterly fails in the top 2 criteria for a PA sequel. And though its base-building WILL be more complex than PA's, it of course won't be anywhere as complex as SC's. I mean it will be complex logistically in the Factorio direction, which is great, don't get me wrong, but not in the full-3D Satisfactory direction as SC, which is of course massively superior, prettier, more immersive, you name it. So it'll be a decade behind even in its base-building, which is the only new thing it brings to the table all the while neutering the very essence of its predecessor, which were the planets and space.

By this point you might have noted that, while SC does indeed offer absolutely everything a PA2 should offer, and in spades, it doesn't really offer what PA1 offered? Like massive battles with thousands of units for example? Or factories churning out thousands of robots, tanks and aircraft? How is a mere action game after all to compete with the king of real-time strategy that PA was, and still is?

But you see, clans have already fought 33v33v33v33 clan wars in SC... That's 100+ players in a game, whereas the most I was ever able to attain in my Cosmic War PA events without the server choking was about 30 players in all. Even today, several years and CPU architectures later, I doubt I could reach more than 40-50, all the while SC is about to raise its server limit to the 300-player range in the summer, and then beyond. 300 players fighting in a single war is like the early phases of a PA war where the players have built SOME stuff, and have expanded across a few moons and planets, and are lightly skirmishing on them, all the while scouting each other and trying to figure out strategies for massive hardware buildups and an eventual major push. So SC, as it stands right now, can perfectly reproduce the PA EARLYGAME, and we can see on the horizon the day when it'll reach the midgame. After all, Rust servers are running 1000 players right now! You can launch PA right now, and get yourself into random matches for hours and maybe even days WITHOUT any of these matches reaching 1000 units. Sure, in my Cosmic War we routinely reached 5000, 6000, and even 7000 units and beyond, but these were the apex events of the genre (icycalm legit ran for years the biggest wars in all of real-time stategy, a totally unrecognized achievement in the genre, but which some day will be recognized; the best players like Diskraip and Nosebreaker already recognize it, it's just a question of the legend filtering out to the masses). But to reach 1000 units in a random lobby game, let alone in the 1v1 ranked matches which tend to be played on single small planets, is quite unusual. So the tech more or less exists RIGHT NOW to play PA-level battles across SC's metaverse-level planets, it's just a question of waiting until CIG enables this tech in their game. And until then, we can still play earlygame-PA-level wars and battles, which is another way of saying PlanetSide-level wars and battles, which we HAVE been playing to a small extent in the Jumptown Global Event above all. And I say "to a small extent" because we only have about a dozen players in my org, not the dozens we would need to max out SC's current tactical and strategic possibilities. But I am working on it, I am actively recruiting and evaluating new recruits, and integrating them into my org policies all the while building up these policies, and that's a huge part of what strategy is about that PA and other traditional strategy games almost entirely lack.

And that's the point I've been laboring towards in the last few paragraphs: that though we only have PA's earlygame so far in SC, that earlygame has been zoomed in and blown up to VIRTUAL-REALITY-LEVEL FIDELITY. So it's true, we can only bring along a few ships and ground vehicles to the battles, as opposed to PA's hundreds or thousands, BUT HAVE YOU SEEN THESE SHIPS AND GROUND VEHICLES? They're so astonishingly detailed that PEOPLE WANT TO LIVE IN THEM. I even know one guy who's living in a tent and doesn't mind it because his head is in the verse most of the day anyway to the point where he barely notices his irl surroundings anymore. And that's BEFORE we've got official VR support in the game (unofficial has been available for some years).

So SC already trounces PA's earlygame (like for example the scouting phase, where I send out a Cult Ranger half an hour ahead of the main force to scout in first-person: no way PA can match this, it's utterly outclassed), and will eventually be trouncing its midgame too. As for the endgame... I don't think Chris will let us blow up his planets anytime soon, at least not outside his scripted singleplayer campaigns, but he's a fast learner, and just as he is learning about PlanetSide and Rust right now, I can see the day in the far future when he gets around to learning about PA, and then maybe he will whip up a few empty systems in the far reaches of his galaxy—or even in a galaxy beyond?—where he can let us loose to bring the destruction without messing with his metaplot. After all, he WAS on a panel with Chris Taylor at one point, he knows these games exist even if he doesn't play them. But he doesn't play PlanetSide or Rust either, yet his game is in the process of demolishing these two masterpieces and their entire genres, just simply because SC's scope BEGS for those mechanics, and sooner or later some employee or fan mentions them to Chris, and Chris cyborg-like scans the games and integrates them into his brain and then spits out commands to his staff to put them in the game. So I think he'll get to PA sooner or later, and maybe this essay will help speed up that process. I mean, he is a massive Star Wars fan, and the Death Star is the inspiration for PA's Annihilazer! You think Chris will never put a Death Star in his game? My guess is we'll see it in Squadron 44 (the last of the trilogy), and shortly after in the store for $9,999 Warbond with LTI. I'll take two.

[icycalm]

CONTENTS
Prologue
The Insomnia Best Game of All Time Award: Star Citizen
Thank you God
"There has never been anything like it"
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Wipe
The Chow Hall Drama
Too Good to be True
The Most Released Game of All Time
The Year of Chris Roberts
The Coolest Thing You'll Ever Own
Star Race, or The Whitest Game Ever
Go On, Play Some More Steam
Citizen Annihilation
The Birth of Quantum Gaming
The Project Game In Your Garage
The Greatest Screenshot Ever
The Sum of All Genres


The Birth of Quantum Gaming

Tech-Preview Stanton Server Mesh DGS Quantity - Current Speculated DGS No. and Configuration - Friday Test

From Group testing, speculated DGS Config for 400 player shard at the time of this post.

(Configs will change) as per notes and letter info we received while they continue to test!

ArcCorp + Hurston
microTech + Crusader
All moons
Space between any planetary body



Total DGS in this shard configuration: 4 (where n is the number of DGS nodes)

Player cap was around 200 to 220 (?) from my last observation, but it was late (8:00 pm Eastern Time) so hopefully a higher player count may be achieved during the scheduled playtests!

At this time, ArcCorp + Hurston's DGS node had a server FPS of 20 to 25.

Despite the DGS crashes, we waited for a very keen moment to jump between locations while observing the last numbers in the Authentication ID in Shard 20. We communicated our location and Authentication IDs as quickly as possible because Authentication IDs change as soon as the simulation gets handed over to another server following a DGS node crash.

Happy testing!!


#EVO&PTUPowerWorkingTogether

To think that we're here (referring to picture) and testing configurations like these is breathtaking. Thank you @Bault and team!!!!

Also, IYKYK, Auth ID B596 = Best DGS

-Kalrati

This is crazy for me, I've been following the project for 12 years, from the forum feverish discussion on a non-existing project, the DS drama, the slog dev, failed SQ42 projections. Server mesh was always one year away. The two next years are going to be the redemption of SC.

breathtaking

Relief is the word I would use.

It's mindblowing to finally see static server meshing come online and see the direct effects (higher server fps and less load on individual servers, larger players counts, server crash recovery, server redundancy, replication layer working to save and pass on information etc.) all come to fruition together to form the game we were always promised.

What an amazing thing to behold!

The future looks so very bright and CIG devs should be EXTREMELY proud of their work ("now get back to the dungeon and keep working!")

From what I have seen from different streamers it looks very promising.

It's crazy to think people will take this for granted a year from now.

I was very worried about this tech and it's soo good to see even the first tests go this well.

Going from one server to another is super smooth on tech-preview! (Server Meshing)
https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/co ... per_smooth

https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/co ... er_meshing

Cool thing with Server Meshing

So I jumped into the Tech-Preview with server meshing enabled and a very cool thing happened. I was in Crusader, and it was cooking along at 30 server FPS and while we were doing stuff in the Crusader area, microTech went down in that 30K state and between 1 to 2 minutes, it came back online and people in global said things like, "Hey we're back!" So it recovered and the whole time that was happening, us in Crusader had no idea it was going on. It didn't affect us at all. Sever Meshing Boys! It works!

New shard of 6 workers [DGS?] and 800 player cap is now active on Test Preview - Benoit
https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/co ... yer_cap_is

Is this a new record?
https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/co ... new_record



Tractor Beaming a Pico during Server change? No problemo!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rt2sJz54UIM



https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/co ... r_change_d

So the toy fell is when you changed servers?

No, it's the tiny stutter at 0:33.

Fucking A

Meanwhile: https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/co ... ent_events



The bulk of the gaming public has no idea what gaming's been doing for the last 15 years. They've been completely left behind, just as the bulk of the general public still thinks in terms of Newtonian physics (the White public that is, the non-White doesn't think at all, they don't even know who Newton is).


P.S. This is the birth of quantum gaming because it's the first game that would significantly benefit from quantum computing. No other design is ambitious enough for it. The popular genres today can all run on a smart watch.

[icycalm]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Citizen

In July 2018, a backer initiated a small claims court case against Cloud Imperium Games to refund US$4,496. It was reported that he had "grown disillusioned with the title's numerous delays, broken promises, and changes in scope". He argued that changes to the game would limit his ability to play due to disability. In court, Cloud Imperium Games argued that the backer's involvement in an early tester program called "Evocati" proved that they were actively providing a product to him. When an arbitration clause from the project's terms of service was brought up, the backer argued that he was covered under the original terms of service as he had backed the project prior to changes to the terms of service. Cloud Imperium Games provided evidence that a "vast majority" of the backer's purchases were made after the change and that he would have had to accept the revised terms of service when making any new purchase. The judge presiding the case sided with Cloud Imperium Games and ruled against the backer. In a Forbes magazine report from May 2019, it was alleged that the backer continued to purchase ships after the lawsuit was closed.

With detractors like this who needs supporters lmao.

The entire legal section is hilarious to read. In fact the entire Wikipedia page. So many critics and doubters proved 100% wrong. In fact even my OP in this thread has been btfo. I have never been so wrong about a game as I was about this one.

[icycalm]

Inside Star Citizen: Vision Revision
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGFfnqEii08



The various lens and visor HUDs customized per manufacturer take attention to detail and world-building to a whole new level. Other games don't even have distinct VEHICLE manufacturers, and here we get distinct CONTACT LENS MANUFACTURERS FFS!

[icycalm]

Official Page: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm ... re-Beckons

Patch Notes: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm ... Alpha-3230

Both the official page and the patch notes pages have been massively revamped with multimedia content and interactivity. They're now like an official site for a brand-new game every three months... There is even a header image that's styled to look like a brand-new game's cover featuring all the new features. You can also see it below as the trailer's thumbnail. Amazing.

Star Citizen Alpha 3.23 - Adventure Beckons
Embark on Your Next Great Adventure

Alpha 3.23 is one of our most expansive and game-changing releases to date that adds life, excitement, and usability improvements throughout the vast Persistent Universe. From the introduction of the very first wildlife across Stanton’s planets to the Master Modes feature that streamlines vehicle control and ship combat, Alpha 3.23 elevates the Star Citizen universe to its most immersive and engaging height yet.

This release also marks a significant milestone toward the upcoming Pyro system, laying the groundwork and adding many of the front and back-end necessities that will empower players to leap to the new star system in the next patch release.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMgmo8D ... XVyolQO3wj

The star citizen roadmap is training us as a society to accept the concept of generational colonist ships irl

Thank you CIG, Thank you RichT, Thank you CR. NEVER STOP PUSHING

I like that water freshly imported from the Caribbean

Yeah, if you look too closely at the planetary physics... Let's just say you don't want to look too closely. But that's true of everything in this game. Because everything is so detailed, the incongruities stand out, leading the players to ask for even more detail. Uncanny valley stuff. You basically have to know when to shut up and just accept the illusion. It's not real and it can't be real, and it will never please a planetary physicist. Same exact issues with Pathfinder, the players are asking about planetary physics, and Paizo just doesn't have planetary scientists on staff. But no one is asking this stuff of other games, because other games don't have planets, they just have a little square area bounded by black fog, so these questions don't even occur to anyone there. I need to write an essay about this. People are analyzing CIG's vehicles as if they're real vehicles because they LOOK like real vehicles. But they aren't real, so you can't expect them to be designed as if they're real. CIG doesn't have Tesla's engineering staff. No one is applying this level of scrutiny to any other game's vehicles because those all look like crap in comparison, so no one cares. In Pathfinder people are asking for real population migration history in a world with fantasy races lol.

How long do you want the patch notes? Yes.

It's still nothing compared to my game's patch notes. Just sayin'.

Just got done with a little session and man... that was the most butter smooth experience I've had in Star Citizen in a very long time, or maybe even ever. Let's keep this up! Loving this update!

This trailer doesn't begin to cover everything in 3.23, Really a major step forward! Still far yet to go. Great work CIG!

WELL DONE! This video is beginning to get at the idea that this game can be played on any level.

I’ve been following the development of this game since 2016. It’s insane how far it’s come. Yes, it’s taking awhile. But there’s no other game that does what Star Citizen is doing and setting out to become. This game just continues to grow and get better and better. Hats off to the devs. This update is huge.

I can’t wait for Server Meshing in 4.0. Once that happens... this game is going to blow up HUGE.

Having seen this game come from the first hangar module you could barely interact with to this... I'm literally in tears right now.

Coming from elite dangerous this feels incredible.

The persistent hangars aren't in yet, they're coming shortly in a smaller patch, probably 3.23.2. I have a lot to explain about how we'll use these hangars to play the game as a 4X, slowly expanding our reach across the galaxy, and this will tie in to the new Cult Promotion mechanics. I have a lot of things to type out, and will be doing so soon. Until then,

See you in the verse, soldiers. O7

[icycalm]

Star Citizen 3.23.1 + Rick Rubin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVl7ZQt2xnc



Join the verse.

[icycalm]

Morning Run (Teasa Spaceport Landing Zone)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STyctnh7dgo



Watch the whole thing from the start with no skipping, to get it.

https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/co ... nding_zone

Good way to get lung cancer... Great video though!

Physical exertion within Lorville city limits without approved breathing apparatus not recommended. The atmosphere of Hurston, after decades of vibrant industry, is now enhanced by a number of proprietary compounds and heavy metals. These proprietary compounds and heavy metals are provided to the public free of charge as a gift displaying the generosity of the Hurston Corporation. Breathing constitutes acceptance of this gift and releases the Hurston Corporation from all liability for any injury or death which may occur from directly breathing the atmosphere of Hurston.

This is great, first Hurston Marathon when?

Jeez in that atmosphere? Go to the commons at New Babbage.

The funny thing is they're going to add abilities and leveling, so at some point you'll have to add training to your (many) routines. From the YT comments:

This was really cool - with the running speeds and stamina/thirst/heartrate mechanics etc. We could hold legit marathons - would be really cool to see.

[icycalm]

CONTENTS
Prologue
The Insomnia Best Game of All Time Award: Star Citizen
Thank you God
"There has never been anything like it"
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Wipe
The Chow Hall Drama
Too Good to be True
The Most Released Game of All Time
The Year of Chris Roberts
The Coolest Thing You'll Ever Own
Star Race, or The Whitest Game Ever
Go On, Play Some More Steam
Citizen Annihilation
The Birth of Quantum Gaming
The Project Game In Your Garage
The Greatest Screenshot Ever
The Sum of All Genres


The Project Game In Your Garage

This game is such a buggy mess. It crashes a lot. It doesn't always work the way you want it to but when it does it's a thing of beauty. It reminds me of an old project car in the garage. She always needs a new part or to be driven a certain way. As you spend time tinkering you get to know her quirks and how to feather the throttle just right so she doesn't stall out. If there is a problem, you're patient and can sit back and rethink the build because after all, it is a project. And last but not least... you dump an obscene amount of money into her and nobody understands why. It's because you know that one day she will be on the road, running smooth, and it may not be today but it will be one day and everything will have paid off.

[icycalm]

https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/co ... lobal_chat

Global chat

I swear this game never ceases to amaze me when it comes to conversations in global good god

Is that the Drake experience

He'd have to rip out all the drywall for that too

I think a simple relay is useless without a proper circuit breaker and a ground fault circuit protector. Safety first, commander /s

Wham Bam 4D Gaming Meme
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s52ShGmBK-k

Jesus Christ that fits this so well

Has to be a joke because thats the dumbest thing ive ever seen in game chat, do do so would be absolute idiocy and dangerous.

I think it could work if you're very careful in-game and very good at the game so that your ship is only in danger say once or twice per session. And if you can restrict the setup to just your gaming room. Then I can see it working very well.

[icycalm]

I just realized that, since Star Engine is based on CryEngine, which had turkish founders, at least some of the DNA in my favorite real-time game is brown.

My worldview is collapsing. Hold me.

[icycalm]

Official Page: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm ... go-Empires

Patch Notes: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm ... Alpha-3240

STAR CITIZEN ALPHA 3.24 - CARGO EMPIRES

It takes a lot to keep the United Empire of Earth moving and behind every skilled fighter pilot, selfless medic, and titan of industry is a dedicated courier, hauling crucial supplies between the distant reaches of the galaxy.

Alpha 3.24: Cargo Empires introduces a wealth of updates that improve life in the 'verse for those vital cargo haulers and citizens of all walks of life, including freight elevators, persistent hangars, and all-new missions.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQ25Hrx ... XVyolQO3wj

finally a patch trailer in which not one shot is fired i like that

Jared's humor fingerprints are all over this video lmao

... is Jared singing? truly a man of many talents!!

Is that Jared singing?!? It's phenomenal!!

I'm thinking it's something like Udio AI

Dude the cinematics team is killing it. Loving the feeling that these are alive.

Never seen anyone so excited to go on a box mission. (But the video is amusing.)

The ones who wrote scenarios are just flexing at this point with all these references :)

Now I want to be a cargo hauler, fml!

And you wonder why everything takes so long to develop in SC... how much company energy, meeting time, planning and production went into this. It was very entertaining though.

Whoever came up with the outline of this trailer needs a pat on the back.

I need to be able to dance like that in game it's important.

You CAN dance in the game (and for how many games can you say this?) But yeah, not like that.

Trade, commerce, markets, stock exchange, illicit cargo, this is why I bought a Corsair. Running around, making a sale, becoming a #gazillionaire. IYKYK.

What's in the box!

That's a reference from the early Brad Pitt movie Seven. Good movie.

0:18
Each and every day
Boxes always pay
'Cos I'll take you
To where the sun shines
Loading you
Along with my crew
We'll head into space
And ship any place
That's our goal

Packed up nice and tight
Commerce feels so right
Transporting you
To where the stars shine
Moving you the way that I do
Will always see it through
[Inaudible]
My cargo and I will fly through

I see the delivery mission didn't work for him either had to leave it on the door step and not inside :) :) :)

Not a bad heel click. Not Fred Astaire but hey. Just a hauler.

All that work for 1k UEC...

trailer gives fallout vibes

Is this jared????????????????????????????? woweee the pipes

DiscoLando? More lika CroonerLando.

When CIG was showing the little fan vids from a subscriber called Disco Lando, I thought they were ok. Not great. But ... meh. Then they hired him and I remember thinking they were going to regret it. He used to be a pool cleaner and what not. Seemed like a really bad hire. Now, I feel like he has taken over the outward face of CIG, where Ben and Sandy left off, and he is crushing it. He has the full load on his shoulders and he carrying it just fine. I take back all the bad thoughts. I still have gripes about one thing and another with the company, but Jared has created his niche in the industry and blossomed. I recognized him singing here, and just wanted to say, 'Jared, if you are reading this... you are awesome.' Good job man.

See you in the verse, soldiers. O7

And remember, next stop... Pyro.

[icycalm]

In This Cosmos
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLckLnQ ... XVyolQO3wj



Good new trailer, and great music.