I saw that SC was having another free trial period so thought I would give it a go. It was … buggy … but there is definitely potential there for a great game. So I pulled the trigger on a starter pack with a Drake Cutter and have been tooling around the 'verse for a few hours. I thought I’d post a few thoughts and screenies in case anyone is interested.
Just to highlight the depth of the simulation - it was a windy day and I was watching the blossom falling off the trees by the transit station. Each petal appeared to be moving along it’s own path and there was no pattern or cyclical behaviour that I could see. It seemed like the wind was being calculated for each petal individually and the result was very convincing and immersive. I really like these little touches.
My little Cutter - Winnie. She reminds me of Eagle 1, the Winnebago in Spaceballs. I’ve obviously already pranged her against something as the little winglets at the back are missing, however she flies just as well without them:
I thought I’d head in to Hurston and explore a bit. Loreville was an interesting change of scene but the framerate was abysmal. I’m running a 12700K and RTX3070 and in Loreville I get regular drops to sub 15 fps.
After 20 minutes of that my eyes were screaming for mercy so I headed up to orbit. I mistakenly hit pad 01 in the elevator instead of hanger 01 and experienced a little bit of vertigo when I first walked out on to the pad and saw Hurston below.
There were a couple of interesting delivery contracts with pick-ups at the Sakura Sun Magnolia Workcenter so I decided to try to stack them. In theory Winnie should be ideal for that as she has plenty of space in the back for boxes. However, I didn’t account for SC being an alpha. It became almost impossible to keep track of three contracts at once when the ID’s on the packages became corrupted, and although I was careful to stack them on the cargo pads the boxes had a habit of jittering about and moving in flight:
I eventually gave up for the day and logged out using Winnie’s bed, not realising that this would abandon the contracts and leave me with no reward at all for a frustrating day’s work. Oh well.
I think that’s enough for now. Thank you to those who read this far and if anyone is interested I will post more.
My first impressions as a new player in SC: It’s still very buggy, the framerate tanks whenever I go near Loreville or when a storm comes on, and it’s very easy to win a Darwin Award if you’re not very careful (helmet!). However, it is fun to play and there is a lot of potential! I’m looking forward to seeing how SC develops.
Man, I haven’t tried the game in two years, I was just so busy. Every time I log in I have to learn everything from scratch.
No clue how many hours I already spent just walking or flying around.
And every time I see the huge potential it has, and each time I realize that it is probably never going to be finished. Which is a pity.
A friend over the weekend introduced me to the game for the first time outside of trailers. I gotta admit it has draw. But I wouldn’t mind it a little more complete before I dive in.
I’ve been messing around with patch 3.24 and although it has been a buggy mess I’ve actually had quite a bit of fun. My little cutter technically has only 4SCU of cargo space but I managed to complete a haulage mission of 11 SCU of Titanium to earn my Covalex stripes.
Heading up to Seraphim Station from my hanger in Orison:
Getting all 11SCU stuffed into “Winnie” was easy. Making a path through to the door proved somewhat more tricky. The door is too far to the right if you make a channel down the middle and too far to the left if you make a path along the right wall. If it were six inches over in either direction it wouldn’t be a problem. In the end I made a path along the right wall and shoved all the boxes back slightly to enable me to wiggle through whilst crouched.
I tried several more runs but only managed to complete one - transporting 8SCU of agricultural equipment. Unfortunately, there is just not enough room to place two 4 SCU boxes side by side and still get through the door, so in the end I balanced them on their ends in a kind of L shape. I think it would have been easier to stack them one on top of the other but at the time I was getting a bit frustrated and went with what worked first.
Of my other runs, three failed due to client crashes (one of which required a repair of the OS before I could boot back up), one failed because I spontaneously died before I could land in the hanger, and one failed when the server crashed. The server came up again quite quickly but from that point on the hanger floor lost its solidity and I couldn’t unload the cargo without falling through. Well, I guess it is in alpha.
I also received two fines of 20,000 credits each for apparently not stopping quickly enough and earned 33,000 credits, giving a grand total of -7,000 credits. That’s right, I actually LOST money hauling cargo - space trucker of the year here
I backed the kickstarter for Squadron 42 a dozen years ago, and I have no clue what mohttps://forums.mudspike.com/tagsst of what you were saying meant. I haven’t even installed the launcher in probably four years.
SCU = Standard Cargo Units. The 11 boxes I loaded in for my trial run were all 1 SCU in size. The recent patch has physicalised all the cargo and commodities etc and introduced haulage missions so I thought I’d have a go. And I was impressed at how much I could fit in my little cutter, Winnie
It looks pretty and all, but at this point I’m trending towards thinking that this is a fiasco, financially. Would another company have required a zillion dollars and 10 trillion years of work to achieve this?
I met him once and talked a bit (I am a HUGE Wing Commander fan so that was exciting for me as well) and I can only say that I was impressed by his enthusiasm. That guy loves what he is doing and follows his visions. But that is also the downside. If his vision clashes with reality them he picks his vision and ignores reality as much as he can.
Being skeptical is the right thing to do.
I got my fair amount of fun out of the game though. I backed it with 100 bucks or so in 2010 and played the Alpha for quite some hours (reminds me that I should hop in again, it has been a few months) so I guess it was money well spent.
The seamless transition and spaceflight physics is what still blows me away. It is so immersive (when it works) that I am kinda thankful that they keep milking some whales and putting work into it. I have rarely encountered a game in which space felt so much like space.
I still hope that SQ42 will be release one day. I am sure that I will enjoy it. About the rest: I still wish them the best, but I don’t have the time for MMOs anymore anyway…
I have come to SC quite late, only signing up for the alpha this year. However, I am blown away by the sheer amount of information that CIG let out about what they are doing, what they are trying to achieve, and where they are in the process. As someone used to dealing with FDev and Elite Dangerous I am really impressed by CIG’s vision and I like that they are sharing ideas and reacting to feedback. Also, the scope of the project is something that awes me.
Take base building, for example:
I am really excited to see how this developes. Base building is something that has been talked about in E:D circles for quite a while and I would love to be able to put down roots on a small moon out in the black. But it’s not going to happen because ‘there’s no need for base building as we have fleet carriers as mobile bases’. But just look at how expansive, complex, and rich it could be if CIG implement what is shown in that video. I for one will be looking forward to it with optimism.
I can appreciate that Chris Roberts has a huge passion for creating groundbreaking games, and that’s good- but some people should just not be put in charge of projects with massive budgets, and nobody having the ability to tell them “no.”
As a reminder, when I backed Squadron 42 in 2012, I was starting my 3rd semester at NC State University, after transferring from Community College. I’d moved to Raleigh from San Diego a year before that, and a month later I would go on a date with a woman I’d end up marrying two and a half years later.
Since buying that Space BMW package, I have finished that undergrad degree at NC State, worked at three different engineering firms, worked at one university research center, and now work for a nonprofit, started and finished a masters degree, moved four times, bought a house, married that first woman I mentioned, divorced her, met and dated my current wife, married her, and become a parent to two little ones. And like @Aginor I don’t have the time to game that I did when I first pledged what feels like a lifetime ago.
Oh, and I’ve built three complete PCs that were all theoretically within the system requirements of the game.
I’m not holding my breath. I’d really, really like to eventually play the Wing Commander spiritual sequel I backed, but at this point I pretty much count that $75 as being gone.
I would also really like to play it… and have since 2012.
Back then, when workplace ‘social forums’… basically Outlook folders, were tolerated on the DRN (our workplace WAN) all the talk in the Gaming Forum was Star Citizen Vs Elite Dangerous.
The concensus was if you wanted something that was playable now get ED. That’s what I did and said to myself I will consider Star Citizen later. I’m still waiting.
I know more than a few soldiers, sailors and airmen who were cashed up after returning from deployment and pledged more than a Grand for some shiny ship or other…
Yeah, that seems crazy to me. I had qualms just pledging for my Cutter. I rationalised that I’m not paying for a virtual ship but rather paying the cost of the base game. There is no way I could justify spending 4 figures on a ship!
I threw all of the princely sum of £35 in to the kickstarter back in 2010 and have been dipping in and out when big updates come out …will have to dust off my space transit van ( the aurora) and have a flight
And I would say that I’m glad the money went to maybe help employ a programmer or artist, except I know a few folks who worked at CIG, and they all had horrible experiences there.
It’s just… All this time and it’s still glitchy, hitchy, and unfinished tech-demo’y as heck.
And I really hate tha’ controls and the fact they seem to keep changing them, usually to something that seems to make little logical sense to me in the various times I stop in to check things out.
At this point, the only interest I have in the game is Squadron42, and some sporadic bursts of curiosity every year or so.
That hour-plus long playthrough video above floored me. There were some obvious glitches. But, wow. Great 1st chapter. Fine acting. Gorgeous visuals. I dabbled with SC for a couple of hours back in the early alpha days. It was fine. But soon after I bought the Oculus and Elite became the obvious choice. While it develops Squadron 42 will outlive more than a handful of its backers and probably a few of its actors. (I am NOT looking at you, Mark Hamill. You will live forever). But I think it release successfully.
