System: Nyx

[icycalm]

Just wanted to put here the latest image we have of the Nyx system from last year's CitCon. And an introduction to it from the Galactapedia: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/gala ... nyx-system

Nyx is an unclaimed planetary system situated at the border of an unusually dense and dark stellar cloud. It consists of an F-type main sequence star orbited by three planets and an asteroid belt. Due to the cloud's interference with navigational equipment, travel through the system is difficult and hazardous. The system's main settlement, Levski, located on a moon-sized asteroid in the Glaciem ring, is considered a haven for Humans who wish to live beyond the reach of United Empire of Earth (UEE) law.

Follow the link for info on the planets, and even more info can be viewed in the Star Citizen Wiki page: https://starcitizen.tools/Nyx_system

The Nyx system is an unclaimed planetary system surrounding an F-type star located slightly south of the former Perry Line, directly on the border of a dark nebula. Discovered in 2582, the Nyx system was left unclaimed by the UEE after deciding its three planets were not terraforming candidates and attempts to mine the dense Nyx belt alpha - known as the Glaciem Ring - were deemed too dangerous. The bordering nebula has a significant influence on navigation equipment in the Nyx system, making travel difficult and hazardous.

In 2618 a group of political activists and refugees fleeing the Messer regime moved into a vacated mining facility located on the moon-sized asteroid known as Delamar, forming the largest settlement within the Glaciem Ring.

Delamar and its settlement Levski, controlled by the eponymous People's Alliance of Levski, are the most populous and most trafficked locations in Nyx. Smaller settlements exist in the system, including believed outlaw bases hidden deep within the Glaciem Ring and suspected criminal strongholds hidden out in the cold and distant Nyx belt beta - the Keeger Belt.

[icycalm]

Loremaker's Guide to the Galaxy - Nyx System
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7228YpyBKG4

In our 15th episode, Lead Writer Dave Haddock from the CIG Lore Team explores the Nyx System.

Again, as with the Castra video I just linked [ > ], this is an official CIG lore video from 2016 showing footage from the Ark Starmap while a lore dev talks for 16 minutes. Obviously it's very outdated stuff, but still contains current info.

The Ark Starmap is pretty wild btw, it's browser-based and won a web design award when it came out, check it out: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/en/starmap

You can explore the galaxy, jumping between systems with a cool warp effect. I look forward to it being put in the game.

[icycalm]

So this is my last "old Nyx" post of media released for Nyx before last year's CitCon blowout of Levski. This is a post about Nyx that I made in the main Star Citizen thread in January 2023, and I am just copy-pasting it here. Beyond these images I had also seen a VIDEO of the Nyx planets on YouTube, and I think it was an official video with Jared narrating, but I can't find it anymore. I have looked and looked and looked for months, but I just can't seem to find it, which bothers me to no end! If anyone finds it, please drop it here, even if it's after Saturday's reveal. I think the video was from circa 2019 at which point they had said that Nyx was practically finished but they were waiting for server meshing and Pyro to be added. Of course, the way CIG develops (and redevelops) stuff I expect the finished Nyx planets to look nothing like what was shown back then/below. But it's still cool to see the evolution, and this is the thread for the planets (for Levski it's the Levski thread, and for the asteroid that Levski is on, Delamar, we should make a Delamar thread at some point, though given how Levski is a borehole that goes all through the asteroid, they're almost the same thing).

My 2023 post: https://culture.vg/forum/topic?p=36541#p36541

Nyx II
https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/co ... 8qq/nyx_ii

Pics are from Subscriber Vault: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm ... ng-WIP-III









The great thing about SC's planets is that... they are what PA2's planets should look like. In fact they're the coolest planets in all of videogame AND movie history. Hell they look better than real planets, which is what art is all about.

But even cooler are the mechanics that all these systems and planets will make possible. Check out some early heated discussion about that, to get an idea of what's at play here.

The best thing about Nyx is that it's 2 jumps away from Stanton. I imagine I would feel really far from home there.

I bet the trip will take at least an hour of real time.

I'm excited to see how the light fighter meta copes with these extended ranges. Though people are absolutely tryhard enough to own and solo operate a Liberator just to carry their Arrow or Gladius beyond its quantum range. Still, I'd like to think that the inconvenience of that will eventually lead to more medium to large size ship fights and the Vanguard becoming the defacto long-range escort fighter.

I mean yeah, but the viability of a Liberator to go and hold its own in a lawless environment is nil. That's why I say a Kraken with a full complement.

That's why I say a "try hard". People are going to try and solo the Liberator with a fighter and just abandon it when they're going out to dogfight. People just see it as a range extender for their fighters.

Fair, and those are the people who will be getting picked off lol.

I'm sure there will be a wave of buyer's remorse and angry demands to make carrier gameplay viable for solo players. My hope is that range limitations will be the great equalizer of combat meta.

Space is big. Finding a solo carrier like a Liberator will not be simple.

Besides what you really want is a Starfarer buddy to escort you with top-ups.

Liberator is probably the easiest to do it in, but solo will still be sketchy.

Really depends how long-range scanning ends up working. I doubt detection range will be limited to the immediate radar surroundings forever. Eventually explorers will need to be able to scan deep space to find anomalies and such. If an explorer can find rocks thousands of kilometers away, a pirate should be able to find a powered down ship. The strategy of "I'll just leave it in deep space where no one can find it" is making a big assumption that scanning tools will never be more powerful than what's in game right now.

Why wouldn't people solo a Liberator? Its crew is 1-2? It will be perfect for moving a fighter or 3.

A bigger stretch will be the Crucible which will move a fighter and repair/rearm it simultaneously but it's supposed to be 3-8 crew.

Of course the Kraken will be able to move and repair as well but it's more for moving 8 ships at the same time so probably a little overkill to move a single fighter.

The issue is soloing the Liberator and leaving it unmanned while you go out on your light fighter. Since we don't know how effective long-range scanning will be, it's a big assumption that you'll be able to just leave a ship in deep space and expect it to not be discovered.

Right now scanners work to about 15 km.

I'm pretty sure if you park 3 million km away from anything you will be fine in the future.

Just short cruise out a bit and park in the dark. 3D space is absurdly huge. They still haven't found the wreck of the Malaysian airlines aircraft, on a 2D planet surface with only a few thousand miles range. Imagine the task of finding a Liberator in a 3D circle of 100k km or so? Impossible.

[icycalm]

https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/co ... nt/njcija7

Stanton: Crapitalism with a taste of fascism. Pyro: Mad Max. Nyx: The Belt in The Expanse.

I need to watch The Expanse. They keep referencing it.

[icycalm]

Looks like Nyx I is getting recently terraformed with experimental tech
https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/co ... erraformed

Well, that's one way to explain peoples' gripes I suppose.

Though it does feel like it was slapped on after CitCon purely to meet critiques, but ah well, fair enough.

Though it would be quite interesting if, as the Genesis tech evolves to handle harsher climates, we may see this terraforming attempt begin to deteriorate like previous such "quick jobs" have done in SC's lore.

I think it was already teased in 4.3.1.

No, that one sounded to be more directly focused on "fixing the terraforming mistakes of old", aka places where terraforming had actually failed, such as microTech.

I quite like it as an explanation, even if it's slapped on.

Yeah, it works, although i would've much rather that CIG made the planet look more directly hostile to humans, while still remaining nice and lush and all that.

But it does give CIG a lot of open room when it comes to "Oh no, the climate is collapsing!" storylines.

Now I'm just wondering why the hell this corp decided to choose a system full of raging Vanduul as their testbed, when there's surely better planets in similar systems out there.

Likely for the same reason they try risky, experimental medical techniques on terminal patients. Lowered liability.

It's a decent attempt. But where are the machines doing the terraforming? I suppose they could say that by the time they give players access, the machines are gone.

The problem is it gives the UEE a reason to put resources into trying to fuck over Nyx and the People's Alliance, as tarraformable planets are a pretty big deal.

Now this COULD be cool if CIG actually follows that thread.

If they don't, then their worldbuilding gets kinda fucked.

There are plot holes opening up everywhere by changing Nyx I from dead to lush planet. But I am sure their lore team will patch everything up in due course to at least a satisfactory level. It's clear they know the issue and are working on it.

I prefer they do all the necessary retcon now while we are still in alpha.

A lot of this lore was written years ago, so of course it must be adjusted.

I was more confused on why people thought they were going to retcon vs doing this. The lore was the UEE decided the Nyx system was not worth trying to terraform over 400 years ago. That's plenty of time for terraforming tech to advance to the point you may reconsider. And what better a place to try new experimental tech than one already deemed not worth it and in a place no one really cares if you fuck up.

So basically no retcon, according to this guy, they're just extending the lore a few years forward.

Great way to add good story to this. The years have been ticking by in-game.

Oh yeah it has, when's the next elections I wonder.

They've run in-game elections with the players voting:

2950 Imperator Election
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/en/c ... r-Election

Maybe Genesis in Star Trek was a Bible reference, and Genesis in SC is a Star Trek reference.

We know they have been working on this version of Nyx I as a testbed at least since mid-July, based on this video.

The company is calling itself Genesis, but the actual Genesis tech CIG is using is separate.

I think it is just a name chosen since it will be our first taste of CIG's Genesis tech.

It's a reference mate.

I kinda hope a big company takes it over and is constantly fighting with the People's Alliance.

Sorry to tell you People's Alliance but the Vanduul are going to eat that planet along with that space rock your people are hanging on to.

Just wait until everyone and their mother brings a Perseus and Idris. We gonna make the Battle of Vega look like a tea party. We gonna smoke their ass.

We know the Vanduul are not necessarily omnicidal (they trade with the Banu), so there is a chance it is just the UEE they hate; probably due to the Messers, like every other issue in the universe. If that is the case there is a slim chance Levski could survive (very little biomass), probably not, but we don't know enough to really say. That planet is definitely going to get wrecked though.

Now that's just lazy. Like the People's Alliance would just sit by and allow a corporation to come into their system, set up shop, and terraform a planet. That would suddenly make the UEE take massive interest in the system, which is exactly what they don't want to happen.

Pretty much.

The People's Alliance don't really have the manpower to fight off a major megacorp, one that could probably get a UEE squadron to swing by if push came to shove. Their relationship with the UEE is not great already, so if they somehow forced a megacorp out of the system (which would probably be spinned by media as a "brutal massacre of innocent UEE citizens by radical terrorist group"), then you can bet Levski would get destroyed.

Eh, I guess so.

I really hope "experimental" means "covered in mutated monsters".

Pretty much.

Bolted-on retcon that feels, weird. Let's just make a hospitable planet with Vanduul raiders lurking in the system/facepalm.

According to the rest of this paper this is only the second year of raids. Terraforming could have started before that and been too far along to be worth just giving up and moving somewhere else.