Just a couple of quick ones from Arena Commander module

Bloody hell. Nice!

Holy mother of Jesus they actually released something playable!

Are the planets procedural?

BTW, I hear the Moon is a beautiful planet.

Looking nice! How's performance? That was one of the things that caused me to pull out as I feared my PC would struggle (runs Elite nicely though). Any recommended specs for it yet?

Just installed fraps to check.

Free flight - broken moon: 60fps
Free flight - dying star: 55-60fps (55 when looking straight at the dying star)
Drones - broken moon: 45-50fps, down to 35 if I get a big explosion in my face.


ATI Radeon 290
Intel i5@4.4ghz
16gb RAM

Ummmmm.............wow.

What resolution are you getting those framerates MadDog? I have similar spec to you with an i7 driving a 1440p screen so wondering how performance will compare. It's certainly a 'looker'.

It wouldn't surprise me if performance takes a few months to improve while they gather user data.

What has your investment in this been, so far? If you don't mind me asking, of course. It's a bit cheaper to get into than Elite, I understand.

Duh, forogt to mention that. 1920x1080.

Øystein

I backed it at $60, Bounty Hunter with the 300i I haven't bought any extra ships or anything after that.

I'm in for $275 which in retrospect, was a bit silly :P

45$.

Aurora with LN upgrade.

How it looks like with LOW setting:



Lost my right weapon mount due to a collision:


Got around 20 FPS in Vanduul Swarm mode on Moon map.

Hmmm....45 and 60 dollars are very doable. And then you have the game? When it's released you get it complete for that price? And for that you guys get one ship, correct? Later I assume, you can buy more, I you like. Like they're doing with flight sims, now.

I just took a look at the Aurora and that's not a bad price if you get that beautiful ship and the upgrade for 45 dollars. What if I want that neat little fighter that's in the screenshots, too. Damn you guys! Now you've got me thinking about spending money.

Yeah, for 45 $ I have alpha/beta access and later get the full game.

Once the game is released you can buy all ships with ingame currency, no need to buy ships with $.

The ships bought by the backers with real money come with a lifetime insurance. Meaning you'll get the basic ship back whenever your ship is destroyed. You will be able to buy an insurance with ingame credits for a modest fee, too. And stuff like upgrades and cargo as well as visits to highly dangerous systems will need insurance upgrades for everyone, LTI or not.

Wait. For the love of god wait! Prices will still be the same down the road and right now, there's not much to do and this arena commander module is ... crap, to be honest. Controls are horrible and it feels like an alpha for a console game.

So wait until they get everything fixed and sorted, add some basic features to make it feel like a PC sim.

Okay, Seth. Thanks for that advise and I'm going to take it. It does look as though they have something really nice going on there, though. It appeals to me a bit more than Elite because of the freedom to roam the ship and that it might even have some first person shooter capabilities. You can land on other planets, correct? Walk around. Explore. Or at least that's planned, I believe. I like that.
Watching this closely and will be waiting to jump in.

Same thing is planned for Elite

They're both similar games doing similar things, with enough individual flair to keep them unique. I'm looking forward to both.

Elite will also feature planet landings and the ability to work around down the road, just like Star Citizen. Right now, SC doesn't have it and probably won't for a foreseeable future. Right now, Elite is far ahead of what SC is offering and it shows amazing potential already now.

Star Citizen as of now is all show and very little go. This arena commander module lacks of a lot of basic features to really get a feel for it. Doesn't even have newtonian flight at this point. Everything will change of course but right now it's hard to recommend as an actual experience.

Actually, newtonian flight is in the game, but slightly bugged with regards to thrust. You have to give yourself speed using "guided" (default) flight, and then turn off the caged controls, and you get to fly newtonian:

That's some nice lighting there

I hope they work it all out because that it really a beautiful game.

Howdy All,
I know absolutely nothing about this sim but love the graphics. Para's reply is somehow confusing me.
Are you suggesting if your ship is destroyed you need a new purchase ?
I'm totally misreading this, am I not?

Cheers,
Slug

Incorrect MadDog there is NO Newtonian flight.

E.G. i can set full forward thrust. Uncouple all autopilot modes (3 in total including G protection) spin in the opposite direction and now I am showing a full reverse vector, which is what you expect.

As you can't get main engine thrust in decoupled mode (wtf!) all you can use is manoeuvring thrusters.

As we are travelling backwards, I will use full manoeuvring thruster forward. This decreases my reverse velocity by about 50 units and that's it. If I take my finger off the button I will accelerate back to my original full reverse velocity.(WTF!)

With Newtonian flight you would expect forward thrust to reduce my reverse velocity eventually to zero then achieve forward velocity. This is not the case.

Again side staffing (with all autopilot modes decoupled) will see a set velocity change. Stop staffing and you return to you original velocity vector.

So decoupled mode only lets you rotate or pitch around your axis whilst some magic force keeps a continuous vector no matter what thrust you put into it.

That is not not Newtonian flight. Its hawx in space and does not live up to the stupid claim by CR that this will be "the best damned space sim ever"

Here is my post about it

https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.co...ng-wrong#latest

This thing at the moment is a true travesty

I'll try to explain:

Right now all there is of SC is the so-called "dogfight module". It's an early peek of the game that consists of either free flight or deathmatch against NPCs on two small maps. It's kind of a in-game "simulator". You die, you simply restart.

The full game will be something akin to Elite/Privateer/Freelancer, a spacesim where you trade/fight/explore in a galaxy of hundreds of systems. If you lose an uninsured ship you will need to buy a new one. With ingame credits. If you have insured your ship you will get it replaced for free.

Oh really? I didn`t know that. Cool!

Yes, right now you have unlimited access to your ship. All ships bought come with at least a few months worth of in game insurance. The game does not start tracking insurance until the persistent universe version of the game starts. So until them your ship basically has unlimited insurance (until the full game launches).

In the full game you will still have your starter insurance and once that runs out you can buy in game insurance for a small fee. If you decide to let your insurance lapse or you can not pay for the insurance and your ship gets blown up (in the full game release (persistent universe)) you will be out a ship and have to buy a whole new one.

But we wont have to worry about that for 1-3 years when they launch the PU. Until then you basically have unlimited ship lives.

They are talking about populated cities, forests and even the ability to hunt big game.

Get outta here! Really? Does that sound cool or what? Are they anywhere near to implementing that? They should show some of that because I was under the impression that you were stuck to that cockpit view and that was pretty much what the game was. It's why I was leaning more toward Star Citizen. I may not be the only one who thought that. But then, of course, I just may be!

Both games have extremely lofty goals. The first thing you'll see is space flight itself I'm sure. The rest would probably come down the road after release.

No, it's one of those "down the road" things, in future expansions. Here's a video where he explains some of those things https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EM0Gcl7iUM8&t=101

Frontier, developers of ED, also owns the technology used in this game, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcYwUEgsA4k so they got a solid groundwork for any sort of animal hunting etc.

@Pooch:

Words from the Man himself

http://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=20371

Don't think I'll ever buy a game where you can permanently lose the ship you purchased. What happens then, do you just float around in your space suit? Buying the game and then not be able to play because you lost your ship doesn't sound like a very good deal. I don't want to have to pay insurance, what next do you pay for fuel and taxes?

The above was a little tongue in cheek but their business model leaves me cold I'm afraid.

100% agree Prangster. Getting really sick of the "milk em' dry" creo of developers these days. The more tolerant we are of garbage like this the more they escalate. You may laugh now…but imagine a future where you have to pay for every bullet in games like Arma…we are the frogs being slowly boiled. It's a shame cause it looks like a cool game…just a bad business model.

I can already hear the trust fund babies with lots of disposable cash "But…but…if we don't support the devs…there won't be anymore games"…that's fine with me…getting sick and tired of the way the gaming industry is going with their model based only towards gamers that have perpetual funds to continually dump into a game they already payed full price for.

Disgusting.

I thought the exact same, but fortunately as I understand it it's a completely in-game type of thing (no real money involved). I guess it'd be similar to MechWarrior only instead of getting your ruined hulk of a mech horribly needing repairs, you just insure your ship against destruction. Elite has a similar concept, and it makes sense considering your ship could be stolen, blown up, lost forever, etc.

Think of it like X3, only there's no loading save games to backtrack. As I understand it everyone (at least backers) will always at least have a basic ship, or worst case scenario can play as additional crew or marines for other players.

But then again, I think buying fuel would be pretty neat too assuming it lasted for a looong time. Taxes be damned, I'll go to hell and die before I pay them in real life AND a game

Elite saw the players buying fuel since 1984.
In game currency of course...

OK…if that's the case…then apologies for my previous rant. I would still get the feeling that in-game currency could still be purchased with real cash and that would give folks with more income an advantage over those without.

Hope that's not the case…but the way the industry is now…it seems on par with what were seeing already.

As far as I know you actually can buy real currency in small bits per day as in-game currency as a means to "skip the grind" to a degree, but I'm completely in your boat. I hate being reminded to keep my wallet handy, and a game that even hints at me being able to pay my way ahead is generally an instant uninstall for me. I'm not a huge fan of MMO and F2P games

I'm cautiously optimistic. I was initially turned off of SC due to what I saw as a ridiculous amount of preorder items available, but if they can keep it strictly in the realm of an actual space sim and not an online store I'll be happy.

At least until SC starts flourishing we have Elite

Well there are a few things you need to understand about the system before you write it off. (but yes it is kind of dumb you could lose a ship you spent real money on.)

1) Most of the ships sold sofar have LTI (life time insurance which means these ships will NEVER be lost.) but as the preorder stuff continues the number on non-lti ships will outnumber lti ships.

2) The non-LTI ships come with 2-12 months of insurance depending on when they were bought. That 2 months represents two months of IN GAME time. So those 60 days only count down during days you logged in and played.

3) You can buy in game insurance for cheap and will probably be warned / prompted about it before you take off if your insurance lapses. They have stated time and time again that the basic insurance (hull insurance) will be extremely affordable.

4) There will be certain sectors in the game that will be un insurable. This means that if you take your ship there and lose it they game wont replace it no matter what insurance you have on it. (though there is talk that LTI ships will be replaced after a certain penalty time limit)

If you lose your ship you have a few options. You can just buy another ship if you have the money. You can rent a ship if you have the money. You can take out a loan and buy/rent a ship. You can borrow a ship from a friend. You can hire on and fly as part of a crew for a larger ship until you can afford to rent/buy a ship. Finally you can do in system/planet missions to earn money. (helping people load cargo or some other minor things on planets.)

The idea is that they want there to be operational cost for your ships and buildings you own. If you cant afford to pay the upkeep / insurance then you shouldnt be owning those things anyways. They also want to instill fear of loss for certain game sectors to keep people from abusing the game's insurance.

The LTI is an exception to this and they have stated time and time again that they regret offering it as it breaks their planned game mechanic.

When you buy the game you are really buying the game and being given a starter ship for free. So you should not feel a huge loss if you lose that starter aurora. I would NEVER buy a non-LTI ship in addition to the starter aurora. If you have LTI ships then that is fine because you can never lose them but it is stupid in my opinion to buy a ship with real money that you could potentially lose.

Except you are paying IN GAME money for in game items. The crowd funding "pay real money for ships" will end before the game launches. Once it ends you can only have the starter aurora when you buy the game and all other ships etc have to be bought with in game money.

Plenty of games make you pay for in game bullets and etc with in game money...

But let me guess…there will be an excruciatingly long grind to earn enough in game money to buy another ship…so there will be an option to "Buy a ship now" with real money. Right?

No. But I'm sure you'll find other reasons to not like the game.

Um... no you wont be able to buy ships with real money. You can buy in game UEC with real money but it is extremely limited in the amount you can buy per month.

We wont know about the grinding for money until the full game launches but if there is a huge grind or they make things extremely expensive then buying UEC with real money wont help because the amount you can buy is already pretty limited...