Star Citizen Online - The search for more money

Variise said:

Ok we got some new updates in today's ATV about some things we discussed and other things you guys might find interesting. I watched it and broke it down so you don't have to.

Key points:
1. How cargo handling is going to work for Merchants/Pirates/Salvage jobs. Some people were hung up on this being boring. CIG did their first pass implementation and it seems like common sense design decisions. Worth watching.
2. About the Ursa Rover as seen in the 3.0 Gamescom demo. This one is both ridiculous and awesome. You have to see it and make sure you watch all the way to the end.
3. About the Dragonfly as seen in the 3.0 Gamescom demo. Space Motorbike that can transition to a hover bike on the ground. There's a cool sequence where they drive it from first person and you get a much better sense of this thing than from the demo.
4. About how they took apart the Starfarer for the 3.0 Gamescom demo. How derelict ships will be handled in SC. Where they are now with this implementation (early days/first pass) and where it's going in the future. Worth seeing the wreck on the planet.

EDIT: Original video deleted by CIG due to an audio bug in the cargo handling part of the video which of course broke the links. Fixed now that video was re-upped.

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Very cool to see how far along the grabby hands system is coming. Looking forward to seeing the last of the "USE" prompt. I also like the idea of the cargo system being personal (you pick up the shit you want off the pirate base, etc.) or automated (you buy 400 units of whatever from a merchant and it gets loaded into your ship) - I'm glad I won't have to hand carry every unit if I don't want to.

Also, that Dragonfly - fuckin A, I can't wait to speed around a planet on one of those bad boys.

Looting cargo from a ship, planet side base or transferring it between ships (from looting ship to cargo ship) in space no. That's risk/reward.

There has to be an inherent risk to you doing Piracy either vs NPCs or Players beyond the simple shoot people, blow up ship and run. This is an FPS. Once it's all stored away and you putter off to the nearest pirate base I totally agree there should be no reason not to allow you to offload it via your mobiGlas instantly.

EVE lets you do that because they don't have deep mechanics involved because it's not an FPS. Plus in that game you can be insta poped by security something SC is not planning to do. They want Piracy to be a viable job for those that want to do it. That means you don't automatically get hounded instantly by NPC security forces. There should be significant time delay it's just planned to be shorter in patrolled space.

There is yet another gameplay element planned and that's smuggling. A high risk/reward type mission you can do either getting weapons/drugs/slaves past high security areas without getting caught. You will need to take your cargo, or at least some of them, to the shady people manually to complete a transaction.

So in cases where it makes sense to instantly let you buy/sell they are already planning to allow it. I'm not 100% sure about pirates as the video suggests no but I'm sure the community will push them to allow that too. I know I will.

Tuco said:

"Pirate players can pick up a box and walk to a merchant to sell. It will be a lengthy gameplay compared to traders, but should still be fun."

How about an option that sells all my bullshit as I drive by the trading station at 200km/s on my way to something fun?

It's like they're taking my least favorite part about RPGs, inventory management, and making it the most tedious and slow process ever.

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It's basically like packs in Archeage it sounds like, which means you can murder the fuck out of them and take it ;p

I had to read up on packs since I didn't play ArcheAge.

In ArcheAge packs would slow you down and It was not recommended that you even attempt to deliver one without escort as anyone with range could potentially take you out and if you dropped your pack to fight then another player might pick it up. At least that's how I read it.

In SC they want you to be slowed down by having to pick through what you want to take as a Pirate/Explorer/Salvager. You of course run the risk of being discovered by whoever or in case of deep space Exploring/Salvaging... whatever is guarding it. Hell a random player might pop in and inquire what you are doing and alert the authorities or you might have a run in with a Xenomorph. They specifically said they want that type of encounter to occur.

Even once you get it you might be scanned by the Advocacy (Police) if you attempt to take your cargo through patrolled space. In such case you need a smuggler hold if the cargo is LoJacked, only take non suspicious cargo (medical supplies/food) or simply blow everyone away and get back to a pirate base to fence it for a cut.

If you are really diabolical camp short cut jump points to war zones that small transports are likely to take to make quick jumps running medical supplies and simply deliver it yourself, if you aren't wanted yet, or hand it off to your "clean" buddy that sells it for huge profits at the war torn planet.

Well they want you to do other stuff besides run cargo.

They want you to get mugged for one. I'm not sure if players would be allowed to do this or just NPCs. So that's something to look forward to at port. =p

But on a more serious note they talked about you finding a mission to find/steal/rescue an NPC that might end up wanting to join your crew. These Core NPCs would be the most competent ones you could obtain in game and consequently the rarest and most expensive. Chris talked about an insurance system allowing you to insure them in case they die so you get them back. Something you wouldn't do for the typical NPC crew as they are mostly disposable.

Stuff like this would give you reason to visit ports as you would never know what you might find. It might be a boring run or you might get a super crazy hard mission you would need friends for or some crazy skills to complete and at the end you get a unique top level NPC you will want to keep for the rest of your adventures. Or you could do all that and do something the NPC hates and they tell you to go blow yourself. I guess we will see.

Naturally there will be people who do nothing but long haul trucking and couldn't give two shits about compelling missions. Those people will be the ones that land at a port then use their mobiGlas to buy cargo instantly without ever leaving the ship get to their destination and use the mobiGlas to instantly sell all cargo and keep doing runs like that all day every day. It's kind of like how mining was in EVE. Boring as fuck at least to me but some people found it compelling. I'm not even sure if hauling cargo in EVE was ever a thing. Not something I ever took part in.

Hey boys and girls have we talked about this?

(I bookmarked it near the relevant bits, but the whole interview is pretty good)



Specifically, I'm talking about how CR mentions that they've recently started development on new network tech that is cloud based that he thinks they'll be able to have instances with "thousands" of players. I've heard people talking about some kind of "honey combing" of servers, but I'm not exactly an expert on this.

Tuco said:

"Pirate players can pick up a box and walk to a merchant to sell. It will be a lengthy gameplay compared to traders, but should still be fun."

How about an option that sells all my bullshit as I drive by the trading station at 200km/s on my way to something fun?

It's like they're taking my least favorite part about RPGs, inventory management, and making it the most tedious and slow process ever.

Click to expand...

Every action you perform, no matter how fun or exciting, can become boring and tedious... even sex. If the only thing pirates do is blow shit up & take off even that will lose it's entertainment value after some time, so anything that adds depth to gameplay should be welcomed. Even if you think it's dumb.

Ultima Online had manual looting, and trying to loot shit off another player's corpse while being attacked was fun.

I can say that trying to salvage packs in the middle of massive PVP in Archeage was pretty exciting. Freedich runs to handin packs while trying to defend vs. pirates made for some good entertainment.

This game has missed its launch date with the promised features and is effectively a failure due to feature creep and mismanagement. Discuss.

Blackwulf FYI I linked that video on page 163 with the breakdown of each answer.

Also that video is out of date (Aug 5th). Within a week or two of that being filmed the German office got a break through in getting StarNetwork 1.0 running which is why it's slated to go in with 3.0 now. Back then 2.7/2.8 was still a thing. Things rapidly changed after he gave that interview.

I think my opinion is well known by now, but I have to ask:

Have they been able to AT LEAST make the patcher that Chris promised in march or something that do not force you to download the entire game when they patch it? Because if they have not been able to do that, they are in worse shape then I suspected.

They have had a patcher since the early Module days. It was moved over to the Launcher when that was released with 1.1.6 Aug 6th, 2015. They have been working on refining it further since but major changes could not be made to the patcher until this year due to the code merge from the various offices that took place near the end of 2015.

This year they actually did work on the patcher and got it to a point where every patch doesn't need to be most of the game assets anymore. In fact patches no longer download the assets/code that have a relationship to the asset/code being changed which is where the huge patches came from. Only the code/asset directly being changed must be downloaded but they couldn't get it refined enough to only download the exact change so that individual code/asset that was changed must still be downloaded.

The primary reason why a lot of patches continue to be big is simply because a lot of the assets/code in the game has been changed with most major releases so all assets/code it directly uses must be downloaded.

The reason why it worked this way is simply the nature of CryEngine. Physics were in-bedded into the netcode. Physics in turn were used in all assets especially in space. Even art assets associated with the physical assets (objects) were all in-bedded through relationships and none of these things could be separated. They had to come up with clever ways to handle patching without re-downloading the entire game and as I explained they did.

A lot of final engine R&D has completed or is slated for completion for 2016. Consequently patches 2.1 through 2.5 has been receiving various levels of engine changes the most obvious being partial item 2.0 implementation. That's where those selectable dots on ships came from. Had they not made those changes leading up to 3.0 huge downloads would not have been required as they already had a workaround with the existing CryEngine. It just wasn't refined to a point that you would see in a final game at release and they had no intention of completing it with the upcoming changes slated anyway as it would have been a waste so they stopped about half way through this year.

How CryEngine handles assets and code is now completely gone in 3.0. Item 2.0 and StarNetwork 1.0 has completely separated the code and how it related to assets/objects/art/physics. This requires a brand new way of handling patching. So it's logical to assume that a brand new patcher is coming with 3.0. We will have to wait and see how well it works but obviously it should end up working much better as it no longer has to worry about in-bedded relationships.

Consequently to these changes CIG can no longer import CryEngine patches from CryTek. All changes/additions must now be done custom by the ex CryTek guys in Germany.

So this is probably the most up to date interview with Chris Roberts. It's not on YouTube so I can't link to it directly and can't break it down by question. I hate in-bedded video.

Basically he answers a bunch of relevant questions including where they are with SQ42 and the release.

SWG had one of the better crafting/trading/auction setups than most games even now. Cant say much on the fighting but crafting it was awesome. After the city thing ended up being complete shit, ppl I knew left. All that hype for mounts then cities then Jedi then space, if I remember order. Jedi thing should have never happened, Genie out of the bottle on that one. Ppl just grinded out professions to unlock their epeen toon.

I made a ton of credits selling outfits to match movie uniforms, musical instruments and then later faction items. Faction thing near the end before I quit playing was macroing 2 boxed at a base, will be honest on that.
Most dont seem to care about crafting but they should honestly. It pulls in more players like myself to grind out the good stuff. That is if the game sets itself up for it and doesnt add it like an after thought which most games have been doing.
I miss SWG crafting along with the paired trading/auction system. Had the best setup in a large house/shop with visitors, no instanced crap!