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



I'd been having second thoughts about the Palatino Necropolis for the Master Chief because all the pics I'd seen of it were uninspired, but this new one completely changes everything. It looks fantastic. Now we just have to find one...

https://x.com/cultvgnews/status/2076379712524292461



The End of Videogame (and Art) Theory reaches over a quarter million views on Twitter.

Look how few likes it got. It got even more retweets than likes. Hilarious. It may be the worst likes to views ratio in the history of social media. Why? Because practically everyone gets butthurt from it, even those who found it interesting enough to retweet.

157 comments practically none of which can grasp theory. Their brains just aren't made for it.

And here you can see the retweet comments: https://x.com/cultvgnews/status/2076379 ... 461/quotes

Same deal.

Now you would expect at least a few new subscribers, and maybe even a new Battlegrounds player or two after all this exposure.

Zero new subscribers.

Zero new players.

That's how you know how special you guys are. Without you to play with and write for, I would have quit years ago. Cheers.

I bought one.

I bought an MPUV Tractor with aUEC.

Something truly incredible.

ShinySkull666: https://mod.io/g/talespire/u/shinyskull ... -date_live

This guy has been recently uploading HUNDREDS of Dark Sun characters, animals and monsters to TaleSpire. He must be very close to having pretty much every miniature for the setting! Moreover, they're of EXCEPTIONAL quality! I have no idea how he's doing them, but they look exactly as in the illustrations!









I won't bother posting more examples, just look through the link and you'll see the exceptional breadth of characters and monsters, and insane quality.

So really "all" we really need to play Dark Sun in TaleSpire is the locations. There are already sufficient assets for all kinds of desert terrain, here's one from Baldrax (creator of the Houdini-powered procedural mapmaker) he calls "Dark Sun-style badlands desert":



Another one he calls "high desert":



You can make infinite permutations of these, which is what Dark Sun is all about. There are issues with some specialty terrain like the Sea of Silt, but you can produce close-looking alternatives by playing around with some niche tiles.

In short, the terrain and the minis are a solved problem. The remaining problem are the... buildings. We do have arabic-themed tiles for those, but not specific Dark Sun tiles. This means that the buildings are possible IF you have a VERY GOOD builder. And really the only one who is at that level currently is GM-Matt, the guy doing Planescape for us that I showcased before [ > ]. Planescape is WAY tougher to render in TaleSpire without specialty Planescape assets because it's so diverse, but this guy is doing it, and doing it stunningly, so he could easily do Dark Sun. But... he seems only interested in Planescape, so one way I could do it is ask him to mentor me, maybe do one or two examples for me to get me going, and I build the rest. If there's one project that could make me sit down and learn to build in TaleSpire, it is Dark Sun, and I will do it when the time comes if no one else has done it satisfactorily until then (a couple of people have already tried, but their stuff is crap).

In short, there is a super-high chance that by the time we're ready to play Dark Sun, we'll be playing in full 3D. And that's incredible. That makes me happy I didn't get to play a lot of it back in the '90s when the setting came out.

Watch this space for more news! And remember, Dark Sun only has a couple of campaigns. We can finish all of it in like a year if we play nothing else. We WILL do this at some point! Just hang in there and don't give up on me.

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/en/c ... undle-2026

Cloud Imperium Games wrote:
This month, embrace Alien Week with the new Xy'kara Bundle, featuring marbled metallic bronze over a black base. Includes the Syang Fabrications armor, UltiFlex Novian crossbow, and a paint for the Gatac Syulen.

Cloud Imperium Games wrote:
Embrace Alien Week with this Xi'an-inspired armor, weapon, and paint bundle, each featuring metallic bronze elements over black. Includes the Syang Fabrications Xy'kara armor, UltiFlex Novian crossbow, and Xy'kara paint for the Gatac Syulen.

The Xy'kara armor is the result of thousands of years of Xi'an combat expertise packaged for the Human body, while the Novian crossbow near-silently launches a heavy bolt that shatters on impact, causing devastating damage to close-range targets.

ABSOLUTE TABLETOP CINEMA
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/juf7wfZoSjM



New trailer. They've come a long way.

All this is fully playable in Cult Engine 2 btw and if you're wondering "when and how do I get to play it", all this content will be fully integrated in Master of Heroes so that, as you move your heroes around the overworld, you'll encounter and adventure in ALL these locations. Indeed you'll be competing with all the other players for them.

Return of Xenothreat 4.8.3 Event Guide | Star Citizen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsnPZuSLQnE

MrKraken wrote:
Return of Xenothreat event arrives with Star Citizen 4.8.3 and some time-limited blueprint rewards up for grabs. This quick rundown will give you all the information you need for what's arrived with this patch.

MrKraken wrote:
0:00 Return of Xenothreat
0:15 What is the XT event?
0:38 Event points split or shared
0:53 What event contracts are there
2:36 Are rewards hangar attributed?
3:31 What blueprints are awarded?
4:07 Event participation

Status effects are now in beta! Should be in live within days. For a detailed preview check my timestamp: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdEnbzGUZh0&t=12m59s



They look great and bode well for spell effects, but I wish they'd done spell effects first because they're way more important.

Note that modders had added status effects years earlier, and many more of them, and they looked pretty cool too with for example medical crosses hovering above your character to denote healing etc., so I believe the modders will rework them in the new system and we'll soon have a huge variety of them.

Return of XenoThreat #1 with ysignal and The Cult
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yz81jH1iwrE

Return of XenoThreat #1 with shubn and The Cult
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJQfMvs57rw


ysignal gearing up as Pilot Master Chief


ysignal with helmet in the M80


icycalm looking at posters in shubn's hangar


Cult Pilots flight-ready: shubn as Captain and ysignal as Master Chief in the front, and in the back as Inqusitors, left to right: Some guy, icycalm, Adjudicator

icycalm wrote:
Going in for rearming after finishing the first mission against XenoThreat.
We have an almost fully-crewed Perseus, 5/7 people.
But we think the extra 2 are for loading/firing torpedoes and the engineer.

icycalm wrote:
Rearming again after 3-4 successful missions.

We got the 15% BPs.

icycalm wrote:
It looks pretty awesome to be in a fully-crewed Perseus bridge.
You look to your left and both of the other seats are taken, 3 in total, everyone working together.

Still TBA 2026.

https://x.com/RealMrKraken/status/2073365983922675947



UNDERCOVER SPEC
Oni Half-mask [N/A]
Bellator Jacket/Shirt/Pants [N/A]
All other equipment Individual Choice

This was scheduled for 4.9 this month but it looks like it'll slip to 4.10 next month to coincide with the (hopeful) introduction of suit lockers. Either way when I saw MrKraken's video and pic I had to add it to the Spec for the Assassin, I just couldn't hold myself. And since it looks like I'll be giving him the Wolf too, it'll be a smashing combo. Now we just need to find the kind of missions and loops that can be used with it.

The "John Wick" suit might be a bit too soon... | Star Citizen 4.9 PTU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HccBxuQsCDY

MrKraken wrote:
How to get the new "John Wick" Bellator combat clothing coming in Star Citizen 4.9. Putting it to the test for how much protection it provides & everything you need to know about getting the blueprints and crafting the armored clothing.

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/en/c ... -Week-2026

Alien Week is about to end and I'd like to post a note about the offerings. The alien ship lines have been expanding recently, as well as the range of paints for them which are excellent, so what's their place in the Cult Spec?

It all revolves around the Aves armor, which is super-cool and alien-themed, and which I've given to Commanders as their standard medium armor: the one they're supposed to be wearing most of them time. And since this armor goes very well with many of the alien ships and paints, I am giving all those to Commanders as a kind of alternate, luxury ships, kind of like how I give Pirate Commanders the Vanduul ships. So regular commanders get Banu, Tevarin and Xi'an ships, and the Pirates get Vanduul, and the paints that match best each type of Commander (so, leave the purplish ones for me since there is also a purple Aves). I'll be adding all this in detail in the Spec eventually, but here's a heads-up for you.


The super-cool Insularis paints introduced this year

Quick paints guide:

Insularis (silverish): Pirate Commanders
Luminary (greenish): ysignal
Ocellus (reddish): Adjudicator
Harmony (blueish): shubn
Wanderer (purpleish): icycalm

There is currently a massive sale on Steam for the original Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus from 2018. The Complete Collection is -75% at €10,21.

Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus
https://store.steampowered.com/app/6738 ... Mechanicus







Why am I making a big fuss about it? Because it's about to be unlocked in Battlegrounds. It's already been semi-unlocked by Recover the STC Fragment, and will be fully unlocked at the end of its upcoming sequel, "Transport the STC Fragment" which we're playing either next weekend or the one after it at the latest.

Why do these missions unlock Mechanicus? It's true that Mechanicus features Necrons, like these two missions. But they aren't playable, they're the antagonist. The protagonist is the Adeptus Mechanicus.

Seen that way, the unlock makes no sense. But it begins to make sense once you realize that the Space Marines and Mechanicus are part of the same mega-faction: the Imperium of Man. In fact Mechanicus makes the Marines' gear and vehicles. So instead of focusing on the Marines, focus on the Imperium. In the "STC Fragment" missions, the Imperium is shown to face the Necrons in a kind of mini/side mission like the opening of a Bond movie. So it makes sense that, after this introduction to the Necrons, the camera would pull back and zoom out and pan across the galaxy to a hotspot where a MAJOR plotline takes place between the Imperium and the Necrons. And that hotspot is... the planet of Silva Tenebris.

Battlegrounds wrote:
Take control of one of the most technologically advanced factions in the Imperium: the Adeptus Mechanicus. As Magos Dominus Faustinius, you'll lead operations on the newly rediscovered planet of Silva Tenebris. Customize your force, manage resources, discover long-forgotten tech, and fight to prevent the Necron awakening across 50 hand-crafted missions.

Not needing to move the large or capital ship with hangar facilities has even more implications than merely helping stranded fighters.

Firstly, a Starlite inside the Idris gives it the capability to refuel OTHER large ships using the Idris' own on-cargo-grid hydrogen/quantum fuel stores—use the Starlite as the "Intermediary"/"Buddy Fuel Pump" to get the fuel from the Idris' hangar cargo consumables, to the Starlite via the Idris' hangar services. The Starlite full of fuel can then fly out and relay the fuel to the stranded large ship.

The other use case is if stealth fighters or small surveillance ships are detached on extreme range patrols/surveillance missions deep into hostile territory, and the nature of their mission requires that they cannot stray too far from their objective.

Bringing the Idris towards the fighters that are keeping eyes on target is risky as its inherently large signature will reveal its presence if it gets close. As of the current patch, no stealth capital components are available for the Idris, and even then, it is safer to send a stealth-kitted Starlite close enough to a fallback position/rally point where the surveying stealth craft can take turns refueling their tanks.

Even better, since the Starlite has an interior, interior-less small craft pilots may also EVA into the Starlite to stretch their legs, open helmets and use the Starlite's kitchenette, dining table and shower/toilet to refresh themselves before re-boarding their small craft to return to station to resume surveillance of the objective.

Yes, one might bring up the Drake Herald surveillance ship, which does have an interior, but as of the current patch it has no shower (only a rudimentary toilet), and no cooking facility or meal table.

A Drake Herald supported by a stealth-configured Starlite can have its two-man crew take turns EVAing to the Starlite for a shower and freshly-cooked hot food. I also foresee the Starlite being used to rotate active crew members out from an extreme duration survey mission back into the Idris or other ship and rotate in fresh, well-rested pilots to man the small craft that never need to leave the assigned surveillance zone.

I believe the Starlite could be eventually replaced with the Aegis Vulcan which can not only refuel, but also do simple repairs and basic maintenance. This assumes the Vulcan stays at its current dimensions and doesn't get bloated up in size until it can no longer fit into the Idris hangar.

Obtaining the Starlite is a contingency against this worst-case scenario, as its a straight-to-flyable ship, and its size is already set in stone.

Great thinking on the Starlite. That functionality hadn't occurred to me. It massively extends the scope of fleet operations since it can be sent to bring back stranded fighters and small ships without having to move the entire Idris (or, next year, the Kraken).

Right at the end of Drake DefenseCon 2956 Concierge extended sales, I pledged for the following:

Main Account: Tiburon, M80. The M80 is likely not going to stay in my fleet for long.

CULTCLONE-2: Starlite. Decided that this ship makes a great addition as it fits inside an Idris hangar.

GM Note: This is where the battlefield would be linked in the overworld so players could check it out in advance and discuss it, etc. Due to shortness of time, however, we'll do this at the start of the session, and I will later update this post with the link, and bump the thread to notify. -icy

We're tackling Return of XenoThreat starting today, Saturday, July 4 @ 3 PM UTC and continuing through the weekend. We have no tactics briefing because these are just reskinned normal missions, so we can try them as many times as we want via different approaches. When we figure out optimal methods, we'll post them in the thread.

Let's get this done, soldiers O7.


P.S. You can join in anytime after 3 PM UTC, that's just our official start time, and the leaders will all be there at that time on the dot. In fact some of us might be on earlier to prepare, and you're welcome to join us for the prep and ask for help with anything.

Here is the trailer with audio and subtitles, only up to 720p unfortunately: https://x.com/RobertsSpaceInd/status/20 ... 7022401629



Everyone in the comments wants to join them.

There are no web hangar rewards, just as there weren't for the 4.8.1 Defend Location missions. So what's the point of limiting it until July 15? And what about the blueprints? They won't be acquirable after the 15th, until they rerun the event? And btw, those Defend Location BPs can't be acquired anymore? Let me know if anyone knows.

This can't be popular, and they'll be seeing it in their stats.

The best thing about the event is the XT-branded Calva helmet. We should try to grab a bunch of those.

I've seen a YouTube guide, but won't be looking at it or posting it until after this weekend, so we can try figuring out everything ourselves.

THE RETURN OF XENOTHREAT
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/en/c ... -Alpha-483

Quick heads-up that Return of XenoThreat starts tomorrow. Everyone is free to start making progress on it, or you can wait until Saturday after the 40K mission Recover the STC Fragment to play it together. Approximate start time is 3 PM UTC. I'll make all the relevant announcements posts well before Saturday.

But why can't the bad GMs run the game at all without cheating? Saying they're bad at it doesn't suffice and it's little more than an insult: to acquire a full picture of what's happening and arrive at a real theory, we must specify their deficiencies, and ideally provide techniques for improvement.

It didn't use to be this way—by which I mean so difficult to run the game—because in the old days the game was much simpler. The early D&D adventures were all dungeon crawls with minimal plot. Groups were simply thrust into dungeons to face foes, acquire loot and level up, then return to town to heal and upgrade, and head out again. With such a simplistic setup, cheating wasn't needed. When players got wiped, it was just another doomed group to add to the dungeon's death toll and mystique, and the players quickly rolled a new group, and tried again, until victorious.

However, this primive design, while fun, grossly underdeveloped the game's immense potential, so gradually more elements were added, both in terms of mechanics and narrative. Adventures appeared that featured increasingly elaborate backstories, characters, and plot beats, and sophisticated mechanics were devised to simulate them. And that's when bad GMs started cheating. They couldn't figure out what to do when events didn't go 100% as laid out in the book, so they started cheating on the rolls and even on narrative beats in order to "railroad" the players into essentially stage-acting the "canon" outcome of the adventure.

But adventures don't have canonical outcomes. Alternative outcomes are often discussed or at least hinted at throughout the books, and Paizo's campaigns often end with a page or two of advice on how to deal with all sorts of failed or alternative conclusions, many of which sound even more fun than the default one! Of course any deviation from the simplest, most direct line through the adventure requires extra work from the GM, and of course bad GMs don't want to do that.

Which makes it extremely ironic when you realize that bad GMs are the same ones who never tire of extolling the virtues of "homebrewing"! Why don't you "hombrew" an alternative path through the professional adventure then, fuckwits, instead of cheating on every other roll to railroad your players through it!

And the answer is of course that improvising random stupid shit on game day is a lot less work than figuring out how an entire world essentially will react to every unexpected player action and then building out characters, locations and plot beats to facilitate those interactions. And that's what I call Ultimate Fudging. Which of course isn't fudging at all but merely running the game as written.


To be continued....

Krafty Matt: Facing the Dark Lord, I knew my PC would die. I knew my men would die. I dove headlong into battle to save my friends, and save the kingdom. The GM fudged the dice, completely destroying the moment because he didn't want to kill a PC, taking that heroic moment from me.

Alexander Macris: When you fudge, you steal from your players the chance for real glory.


What is fudging? It's the GM changing dice results without telling players. In other words, it's cheating: Fudging is the euphemism bad GMs have invented to camouflage their cheating. Roleplaying is a tough genre, and toughest of all on the GM, so few can do it properly. And those who can't, cheat—same as in any other game.

Now you will find countless pages of discussion on this subject across the internet, with the bad GMs trying their best to justify their cheating against the arguments of the good GMs. But in print, you will find nothing—let alone in GM guides. There is no book—not even GM-specific book—that says "but you can change the results whenever you feel like it". This alone tells the whole story: that the math and rolls are in the game for a reason, and that arbitrary modulation of the results isn't a game mechanic, and is thus cheating.

But the bad GMs persist nonetheless, and now and again even get a designer to side with them. In some cases, even legendary designers like Sandy Petersen. But if Petersen believes that arbitrary result modulation is part of the game or should be part of the game, why doesn't he put it in print? Why hide it in random Twitter posts? And it's supposed to be an important rule! Why then hide it from the GMs? Why hide it from the players?

Of course the answer is because it would destroy the game, and designers know this on a gut level. But gut level isn't theory, theory requires something much higher than the gut: it requires the brain. And designers simply suck at theory almost as much as the bad GMs whose bad GMing they feel obliged to defend, since they comprise at least 50% of their customers. Not to mention that designers themselves are often bad GMs, since designing and GMing are two distinct disciplines which therefore require distinct competencies. Even fewer are therefore good at both than those few who are good at either. Practically no one, then (except me, of course).

The final nail in fudging's coffin is that it can only work in the short- and medium-term. In the long run, players will figure out the GM is cheating, and stop playing. Alexander Macris (who's half-Greek btw, and that's why he's good at both design and theory), explains:


Around 1876, wargames were divided by a disagreement into two camps, "rules kriegspiel" and "free kriegspiel". The division has never healed. Most of today's RPG debates are just reiterations of that classical rules vs. free kriegspiel debate.

Imagine a Prussian staff officer who runs free kriegspiels in 1880. He is asked by the King of Prussia to run a wargame that will "inspire the young prince to take up the profession of arms". "Make sure he wins gloriously", the king adds. Our officer therefore makes sure that the outcome of the wargame is exciting and dramatic. Having the prince get killed by a sniper in the first 15 minutes is off the table, even if it's "what really would have happened". He's running a sort of narrativist game.

Later, he is asked by his army commander to run a wargame designed to test how his corps's leadership fares under adversity. When he runs the game, he uses his power as game judge to make sure events always go wrong, every decision leading to bad, stressful outcomes. The goal is not realism or fairness, it's inflicting stress through unfairness to see how people respond. He's running a reverse gamist wargame (unfun is the goal).

Finally, he is asked by the Prussian general staff to run a wargame designed to evaluate their plans to invade Estonia. When he runs that game, he uses all of his knowledge to make the game as realistic as possible, so that the officers can evaluate their strategy as plausibly as possible. He's running a simulation.

Free kriegspiel is thus a method that can be applied towards any goal. Whether it achieves that goal consistently and reliably is a different question. The Prussians ultimately decided free kriegspiel was *better* than rules kriegspiel for training officers for war, and the free kriegspiel tradition continues to be widely used by DOD today in the form of "matrix games" and similar rules-lite judge-ajudicated games.

So why do I not personally use free kriegspiel? I believe that free kriegspiel, when used outside of simulation, gradually undermines its own basis; and when used inside a simulation, requires such a level of objectivity and experience that it's a hard ask of the judge.

For instance, the Prussian prince enjoys the wargame where he is a heroic military commander precisely because it's being run by a senior staff officer who normally runs kriegspiel simulations. The officer's experience as a judge of simulations validates the reality of the experience for the prince, making it "feel real". The same game run by the prince's nanny wouldn't inspire him at all; and if the prince knew the judge had been instructed to let him win, the game would lose its value. If the prince plays once, he'll be fooled. If he plays a hundred games, he'll realize it's a sham. Note that this is simply the same debate as "should you fudge?" Fudging only works if the players believe you don't fudge. Eventually they figure it out.

Likewise, if the officers undergoing the test of adversity realize they are undergoing a test of adversity, the kriegspiel fails. It is only the pretense that it's a simulation that makes it seem fair and plausible. And they will eventually realize it's a forced test, because without dice or probability, it will eventually become evident that the judge is just against them. At that point future effort becomes worthless; and the player develops an ironic distance to the game that robs it of some of its value. Note that this is just the railroad problem in D&D, applied to a wargame. In a D&D railroad, no matter what you do it advances the GM's plot. In the free kriegspiel, no matter what you do, it causes more friction of war. Same thing, and equally damaging in the long-term.

So for free kriegspiel to work long-term, it has to be grounded on judges who are actually interested in simulating what would really happen. Unfortunately, that requires an enormous amount of experience from the judges, as well as a deep commitment to objectivity and fairness, and a willingness to let things sometimes be "unfun" in the short-term. This is the complete opposite of the advice given to judges (GMs) today about when to fudge, when to override the dice, and so on.


In sum, the fudgers have no leg to stand on at this point, and nothing proves this more than the fact that they have to constantly hide their cheating from their players to avoid their game collapsing, even though they know that, in the long run, the players will find out and collapse is inevitable. But they struggle so much with running the game that even a short-term cheating-based game is preferable to not being able to run the game at all.

Bought the Redline bundle because the base Tailwind suit's hands and feet are bugged for the moment. Forgot I also have the Twitch drop suit, but whatever. I wanted this bundle eventually anyway, so I am keeping it.

Rustafied wrote:
Apartments & Rent System

The apartment complex monument is shaping up to be much more than just a location, with a full rent and upkeep system continuing to take form. Apartments calculate upkeep based on stored items, with players able to deposit scrap into dedicated upkeep terminals to maintain their space. A new "Rent Due" HUD indicator warns players when upkeep runs out, and the entire system now persists properly across restarts.

There's also been a strong push toward making apartments feel safe and livable. The monument is now fully integrated with safezone rules, and players who disconnect inside won't be killed anymore—instead, they'll be teleported back into their room when possible. Alongside all this, the monument itself continues to receive heavy polish, including new materials, trims, and ongoing work on higher-end apartment variants like penthouses. Not merged into staging yet, it's unclear which update this will go live.

Built Different | Launch Trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_D9HEFk ... XVyolQO3wj

Facepunch wrote:
This month's update brings Rust's biggest player overhaul in years, featuring new player models and animations, a new armour set, and the M16A2 rifle. It also includes QoL improvements, bug fixes, performance enhancements, and much more!

https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/co ... nt/opl1byi

_Husker81_ wrote:
This won't have any EVA thrusters, IIRC.

Sherool wrote:
Also can't self-heal and probably use most tools, just walk and shoot for the most part. It's for very particular use and preferably need allies to cover your flanks and top up your health.

Chad_illuminati wrote:
I would love to wear this and have a combat ATLS suit on top. Just march through areas with super heavy armor in an ATLS.

Nomarnas wrote:
I doubt you'll be able to get into a pilot seat at all in that thing, which maybe makes the rumored drop of suit lockers in 4.9 make more sense.

rucentuariofficial wrote:
Drop from orbit in this and CIG would finally have a justification for us going through planets.

Fell-Hand wrote:
Well played, John Crewe. The Emperor protects.

Inevitable_Reward823 wrote:
Super Palatino Super Heavy Super Armor

levios3114 wrote:
Kinda looks like an upgraded version of Palatino armor. I hope the chin guard thingy actually blocks part of your view.

Xasf wrote:
ADP-mk4 already blocks your view if you try to look straight down as armor is also a real physical object, I'm sure this will be suitably worse in that regard.

So we recently got a credible breakdown of what's coming for the second half of the year. Take a look at it, and then check my analysis below: https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/co ... n_qa_notes

WarmRecord6045 wrote:
Rotterdam Bar Citizen Q&A Notes
Nyx 1 teased for September

No Squadron 42 at Summer Game Fest

New enemy faction in 4.9

Base-building "2027"

Ironclad to get piloting from the bridge

Second GATAC ship releasing alongside the Railen for Alien Week is an industrial ship "inspired by a scene from A Space Odyssey"

Suit lockers teased for 4.9/4.10

Siege of Orison + Instancing for 4.9

4.8.3 to have alien ship-defense missions

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/spec ... une-3-2026

Cloud Imperium Games wrote:
Super Heavy Combat Armor
Implementing the Super Heavy armor class, enabling players to equip and operate a new category of powerful super heavy weapons.

Cloud Imperium Games wrote:
Apocalypse Arms "Vendetta" HMG
Implementing a brand new weapon type: the Heavy Machine Gun, with the Apocalypse Arms "Vendetta" HMG. Belt-fed and usable with the new Super Heavy Armor and its dedicated ammunition backpack, it delivers sustained high-rate fire from a large rotating barrel while carrying up to four magazines of ammunition.

Adventurous_Log7634 wrote:
Now I can black out for the entire flight!

Adventurous_Log7634 wrote:
Probably would be bad to even ride on a ship wearing this, eventually. Once the G-force effects apply to passengers too.

https://x.com/echovectorbravo/status/20 ... 2897367187

Dillon Murray @cmdr_murr wrote:
Nice shot! How do you hold the helmet like that?

EchoVectorBravo @echovectorbravo wrote:
I did a rebind of my keys, but the defaults are H and Alt+H. One hooks it to your back, the other lets you hold it like this.

https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/co ... ow_spent_5

Hot-Panda3884 wrote:
Bought Star Citizen yesterday and somehow spent 5 hours accomplishing absolutely nothing

Started in New Babbage, made the trip from the city to the spaceport about five times while figuring things out. Learned how to take off, flew to another planet for a wildlife hunting contract, fell through the ground, died, restarted.

Flew all the way back, realized my inventory was gone after death, bought new weapons and ammo, returned to the planet again. Then discovered my ship's radar wasn't working and spent almost an hour trying to figure out why. Relogged, radar magically fixed itself.

At that point the sun was already coming up outside.

The weird thing is... I loved it.

The game is unbelievably buggy. In 5 hours I basically achieved nothing. Yet half a day later I'm sitting here thinking about when I can get back into the game.

How does that make any sense? What kind of space wizardry is this?

I wrote:
You are playing a metaverse game. Just being in this world is fun, even if you accomplish nothing. Like sitting on the beach irl. I can give you books to read to understand this new artistic genre.

The Siege of Death Mire – #New40k Global Battle Announcement | Warhammer 40,000
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxaNJcI ... XVyolQO3wj



One battle per week for three weeks. You can play at home or at a Warhammer store. Results submitted online and summed over. Winning faction every week gets new models. Winner at the end determines a substantial new lore development.

They've done stuff like this before, but very rarely and only at stores, and without the bonus model unlocks. Now they're going harder on the design and grabbing ideas from competitive RPG events like Pathfinder Society. Similar stuff to what Star Citizen is trying to do (SC calls it "Global Event", 40K calls it "Global Battle"... it's a tactics game after all).

Everyone's moving in the same general direction because they're making metaverses and that is the correct direction to move towards.

Pathfinder is doing it better than anyone else by far because they have the tools to do it. Of course my Battlegrounds will be doing it far better, because Ultimate Edition gives me even more and better tools.

So regarding this bundle, it's great, and perfect for Adjudicator's faction. I'll try to grab it at the end of the year when they all go on sale again.

It's only really he who needs one. Anyone else who gets it will only get to use it rarely, as Adjudicator's bodyguards.

Gear - Redline - Bundle $20
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/en/p ... le-Warbond







I bought three.

I applied my ATLS to Ironclad Assault, Pulse LX to Ironclad, Pulse LX to M80, and ATLS GEO to Prowler Utility CCU chains.

The Kraken also now gives me an Ironclad Assault loaner instead of a C2.

I was going to wait until the Kraken comes out to apply my Ironclad Assault chain, but realistically I'm not going to get a lot more savings on it, so I thought screw it, might as well lock it in now. So I have two until next year when they Release The Kraken™.

I melted the Meteor, Shiv, Buccaneer, Carrack and Hammerhead kits with Nightbreak paints.

Someone took a pic of three Nightbreak ships: https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/co ... _the_verse



Obviously they go well together, but what you can't see and should imagine is that our black Inquisitors will look even better matched with these ships.

https://x.com/QuattroBaje3na/status/2060468568311976200

CMDR Quattro @QuattroBaje3na wrote:
This week's Star Citizen Sneak Peek appears to be a weapon repair/upgrade bench!

It never ceases to amaze me that the same person whose games dominated my life in 1990 at the age of 12, Chris Roberts, still does in 2026 at the age of 48. But, after all, this was inevitable. We are talking about a man who has been at the top of the videogame food chain, on and off, for nearly half a century. How could anyone beat him when everyone else quits after a mere 10 or 20 years? Take the BioWare founders. They released their first game in 1998, and a mere 14 years later they quit to make beer. How can you beat someone with 40 years' experience when you only have 14? You'd have to be a monster of talent compared to him, but the mere fact that you're quitting so quickly is because you have piss-poor passion, and that PROVES that your talent is far inferior, because talented people enjoy nothing in life as much as developing that talent! So not only is Chris Roberts far more talented than anyone else who ever made videogames, but ON TOP OF THAT he has worked on it for double, triple, quadruple the time compared to anyone else. How can you NOT win and dominate under these circumstances? It is inevitable. Everything seems to fit perfectly, in hindsight, within such a long life of developing your talent. When Roberts took a break from the game industry in the early 2000s to make and produce movies, everyone including me wrote him off as a has-been. We completely forgot about him. But the man had been burned out by a quarter century of cutting-edge game development by that point (more than both BioWare founders combined and he wasn't even at the halfpoint of his career lmao), so he followed his passion for cinema that had served him so well in his early career that had introduced cinema to 3D action games, and he just started to straight-up make movies. A decade later he returned to videogames and BOOM: his Squadron 42 boasted the most star-studded cast not only in all of games, but in all of movies too, and its cinematics look better than most movies. How would he have acquired the skills and know-how and contacts to pull that off without his decade in movie production? And which game director can now compete at it with him when they are all a bunch of brainless programmers whose idea of cinematic gaming is inviting Al Pacino to speak at the Game Awards despite his not being in any game? When you truly and fully consider the sheer amount of multidisciplinary experience that Chris Roberts has worked all his life to develop, it is a given that he'll end up at the top of the heap when no one else even tries half as much as him.

I see the exact same pattern in my development too. I must have outlasted four-plus generations of wannabe critics and theorists by now. There was one generation that held the field when I entered it in the mid-2000s, the independent bloggers, practically all of whom had quit a mere five-six years later. Then a new generation entered the field, no longer building their own sites but employed by publishing companies (Gamasutra/Kotaku/Forbes) or universities (Full Sail/DigiPen/Tisch). Then by the mid-2010s all of those had quit too, and been replaced by a brand-new generation of YouTubers, all of whom had quit by the early-2020s to be replaced by a new generation of Twitter/Patreon/Substack losers, and we are now on the SECOND generation of THEM. The only constant in game criticism and theory throughout these two decades has been... me. I have 20 years of experience thinking and writing about games on top of my 40 years of playing them, and my competition has... five? And they aren't even a hundredth as bright as me, so their five counts for... one month by my standard? So when you see me smashing the shit out of them with a mere sentence or two, what you are looking at is 40 years of experience smashing one mere month, that's why the carnage looks so horrific, the distance so cosmic. They picked up a game pad at 25 with their 120 IQs and they're going up against a 139 IQ that has been playing games for 40 years! (and this without even bringing T into it). Of course they'll be made to look like ants. Because they are.

What all this leads us to conclude is that, ultimately, we can deduce the quality of a work without reference to the work at all, merely by looking into its creators. Are the creators great talents that have been working for a long time? Then the work will be superior to that of lesser talents that have been working for less time; and for the ultimate work you need BOTH ultimate talent and MAXIMAL time, as in the case of Chris Roberts and me. Conversely, when you see a work pop up out of nowhere, without a long trail of effort behind it, you know automatically that it's crap, like all of those "indie" games or movies that pseudocriticism promotes as masterpieces every year, but which everyone completely forgets a few years later, and no one ends up building on because there's nothing to build on: it's dirt, and that's why it was able to appear so quickly. You can't build on dirt, you can only build on a solid base, and the base itself must be set deeper into the earth the taller the structure you're building. And this is where genetics and ultimately race come into it, this is the EARTH in the metaphor. Because genetics and race are precisely the foundations, the base, of all works. It's not an accident that Chris Roberts is Anglo-American and I am Greek. It is the very reason we're on top. Think for a moment: the most TECHNICALLY complex game in the world... who but an Anglo-American could make it? Then, the most CONCEPTUALLY complex game in the world... who but a Greek could make it? Conceptually, Star Citizen is very simple, even ridiculous in some aspects (for example when thousands of players play the same event over and over while the game pretends that the event only occurred once). Similarly, my game is so technically simple that much of it doesn't even require a computer, and can be played just fine on a table with some pen and paper. But conceptually my game is staggering, so complex that you need to read a whole book to even begin to grasp how it works. Hundreds of pages of theory, and that's only the grand outline, because each chapter of that book rests on top of dozens of other books for a total of tens of thousands of pages! You have a 4X with each POI in it being a full RPG campaign every event of which affects every event in every other across a metaplot that fuses together all the greatest fiction franchises ever! It's insane. And it could only have come from a Greek brain, just as Star Citizen's sheer technical scale and detail could only come from an Anglo-American brain: 64-Bit Worldspace, Object Container Streaming, Persistent Entity Streaming, Dynamic Server Meshing, immersive micro-mechanics, physicalized everything. It's ridiculous, so complex that journalists can't even report on it and have given up, and the industry pretends it doesn't exist because no one can grasp it. That's why they end up reporting on the only aspect of the project they can grasp: the funding (and even that not fully, which is why they're still wondering why people spend the money and what they get for it).

Comes the coup de grâce. Because you would think by this point that Chris and I are equal: operating at different frequencies, but at the same level. Yet the moment he turns his engine into a VTT, I can put it in my game instantly, with near-zero effort; whereas he will never be able to shove my design into his game, for very basic reasons that would never cross his Anglo-American mind (millions of protagonists mean story is impossible, for one, just Drama 101, which is Greek). So I win, and it's inevitable. The mind wins. The soul wins, if you prefer an older formula. Because it's older.


From Orgy of the Will §2036 Inevitable domination.

I encourage everyone who's interested in games to watch this one-hour video. What's the big deal, you will ask, isn't it just another Star Citizen ship? No, it's not just another ship. It's a whole new artform.

Star Citizen Live | DefenseCon Showcase: Odin Battlecruiser
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFoQp6w ... XVyolQO3wj



Do you know Star Trek?

Isn't the Enterprise the heart of Star Trek, without which one of the most famous and longest-running TV shows is impossible?

This new SC spaceship is the setting of a TV show. It has all the functions to be that setting. That's why people are so hyped about it.

The interior is the size of an open-world game.

The functionality of what can happen inside the ship and what can be accomplished outside it is staggering. The possibilities infinite. And only by watching that video you will get them.

Check out the main hangar:



It opens at the back of the ship, but it also connects at the top to three smaller hangars on each side. This entire space is continuous, and there's even a giant freight elevator at the back for bringing freight up or supplies down to resupply the vehicles. You need an entire crew just to manage everything, outside the pilots coming and going. The functionality is unprecedented, but the aesthetics too are completely next-level. There isn't even a movie that looks this cool, let alone a game.

And that's just one part of what's shown in the video. The bridge is another.



See how the commander is standing inside a circular floor section? This is what happens when he presses a button:



A glass sphere comes up and encases him so he can have private conversations with subordinates even in the middle of a chaotic battle.

The ship is full of this kind of crazy stuff ripped off of countless sources (novels, movies, TV, anime): there is a metro with six stops running around the entire ship, there is a hospital, there is a contemplation room with stunning views of whatever planet is in the background, there is a tactical room whose holospheres look like they were ripped out of an RTS, there is briefing room that looks like a parliament.



There is nothing like it in all of gaming. And yes, CIG isn't sure it can build it, and they even say that it's a new distant goal for them that they set up to challenge themselves. And you best believe that they have no idea what kind of content to make in order to fully utilize it. They haven't even started thinking about it.

Of course people will make movies in it ("machinima"), and it will also no doubt be used in Squadron 42 sequels, but who knows what kind of semi-scripted and semi-sandbox content they can build to incentivize SC players to use the private bridge bubble button, the contemplation room, the parliament.

So no, this is not just another Star Citizen ship. This is the future of gaming, and the smartest, most hardcore gamers in the world know it, which is why it raised 5 million in ten minutes [ > ], and you had to win an essay competition explaining what you plan to do with the ship before even being allowed the chance to buy it.



So let the midwits whine on Steam about microtransactions, while cutting-edge gaming runs on macrotransactions, exactly as art did in the Renaissance (see Renaissance Gaming and the Most Expensive Game Ever), and poor people aren't even aware of it to whine about it. And it is these macrotransactions that fuel greatness, and allow the developers to dream big without having to worry about bills and market conditions like midwit developers must.



Watch the video if you care about cutting-edge gaming at all.

And, by the way, it costs $5,000 and The Cult owns one [ > ].

@fmartingorb wrote:
This made the Idris look like a Gladius.

@mitchcyphers6344 wrote:
The Odin will win every engagement just by crashing the server.

@neo2264 wrote:
Walking through some of that thing in VR... or on it... any of the gantries... or under the turret... gonna be the experience of a lifetime.

@karmioya wrote:
Just the thought that the entire length of a Polaris might only be the size of the Odin's main gun mount is absolutely mind-blowing.

@sirberticus3815 wrote:
2003 Freelancer game had a few NPC battlecruiser trading posts. They never moved, but you could land and buy/sell or effect repairs.

CommanderAmaro wrote:
Good lord it's practically launching ICBMs.

I melted my Aurora Mk II and bought an M80, Starlite and another Pitbull.

The Odin is primarily inspired by classic battleships and modern naval stealth designs. But in addition, a number of details are lifted off various sources including movies and anime, and people have been pointing them out. Here's two I found.

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

Muinko wrote:
They really are hitting all the anime references in one ship





Love me some Legend of the Galactic Heroes, the multibarrel laser cannons and the VLS system of the Odin is sick reference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legend_of ... tic_Heroes

VerbalChains wrote:
LOTGH is legitimately great sci-fi.

Muinko wrote:
Criminally underwatched. Amazing show, it's a real space opera not the everyone is a high school student crap you get with most animes. If you like Star Citizen you should watch it.

Snuffalapapuss wrote:
Oh yeah. Legend of the Galactic Heroes.

Almost on par as Banner of the Stars for me at least.

That show was what got me into sci-fi anime as a kid.

Traece wrote:
Crest/Banner of the Stars is some amazing sci-fi, and one of the better depictions of fleet-scale spaceship warfare I've seen even though the anime adaptations came out about 25 years ago.

A lot of games would benefit from stealing ideas from that series. The FTL combat is very intriguing, and something the author put absurd amounts of thought into. Though having read through all the released novels last year, "the author put absurd amounts of thought" is an apt description of most of that series. Its heavier focus on BVR missile warfare in space is also quite interesting, since one wouldn't expect that to be a fleet's primary weapon in a world where classic sci-fi weapons also exist.

DwarfKingHack wrote:
Yeah, I wish I had the cash to drop on an all-the-anime battlecarrier. Looks like a real masterpiece if they can execute on the concept.

tdog_805 wrote:
"Hey, Capa... We're only stardust."





Solid inspiration CIG.

Bob_A_Feets wrote:
Sunshine was such a fucking amazing movie to watch in theaters, I still break out my VR headset every now and then just to watch it on a massive screen.

https://x.com/cultvgnews/status/2059706862216311117



He's a friend of a friend. He doesn't pay me anything. I wouldn't kick a subscriber over this fyi.

The game is a trainwreck and the Insomnia Twitter is full of posts about it, go check it out if you're curious.