******Official Star Citizen / Squadron 42 Thread******

[BlizzardX]

I think this is the big pass / fail for the project. If they get static server meshing working with acceptable latency and its scalable via manual balancing then it will work, if not then it will die as there is no way the current single server can do anything bar a single system badly.

 

[Curlyriff]

Actually thought was solid read, seems they basically naming 3.18 to 3.17.2 since it same code branch but still new stuff they can merge to said branch whilst 3.18 branch continues to be pushed 2-3 months later and considering what the tech is that is of no surprise and they did at least state months in advance of it and not when evo drops first time and before the big Invictus sale in terms of there is delays here but a push for content at X instead. So yeah hope for March next year to see PTU of Pyro would be just fine for myself.

Their office renders look good ha. Certainly looks like they taking care of all their staff with our monies lol.

 

[jonneymendoza]

Actually thought was solid read, seems they basically naming 3.18 to 3.17.2 since it same code branch but still new stuff they can merge to said branch whilst 3.18 branch continues to be pushed 2-3 months later and considering what the tech is that is of no surprise and they did at least state months in advance of it and not when evo drops first time and before the big Invictus sale in terms of there is delays here but a push for content at X instead. So yeah hope for March next year to see PTU of Pyro would be just fine for myself.

Their office renders look good ha. Certainly looks like they taking care of all their staff with our monies lol.

Ok that letter from the chairman was amazing. So 3.18 will be a q3 o patch but it looks like it will include both salvaging and cargo refactor!!

A new 3.17.2 patch coming with more missions and extra locations! I hope navmesh is in there or the landing of npc vehicles!! I love seeing more missions to do!!

O and my prediction of SM coming Q2 2023 is beginning to be correct!

I applaud CR for having the balls to finally admit why **** was delayed and it was mainly due to the icach being a dud tech and needed to be redone aka entity graph.

 

[Curlyriff]

Full persistence will provide over the coming years an experience in gaming that most other online games do not provide; a universe you can escape to, that is affected by your and other players’ actions, with the state being dynamic and persistent. Crash land on a planet, and your shipwreck will persist, while you forage for food and water to survive, and perhaps wood to make a fire to keep warm. log off and come back to what you built. Or, perhaps once you have been rescued, another player will stumble on the wreck of your old ship and the long-extinguished campfire. Find a corner of the galaxy to make your own, collect resources and import material to build your outpost, decorate or arrange your hangar or home how you like.

This bit is handy as it reinforces the idea of crash landing on a planet with the shipwreck that will be salvage the ship materials or use it otherwise. It provides ability for proper rescue missions, salvage, medical, story telling elements that are not possible currently. It does indeed seem like it will be a long time out till we get that level of persistence but it is the confirmation that entity graph works and works well to do such.

But at same time the discussion of wrecks from battles to salvage is being discussed as a 3.18 release with the physical cargo and salvage. We should note that it is still a delay and realistically 3.17.2 is 3.18 (but on same code branch hence the naming) and 3.18 is 3.19 but it does appear they are wanting to go to 4.0 from 3.18 and so 3.18 will likely be a 6 month patch at moment as they work towards 4.0 and assuming they are on target even with their stretched timeline. Of course there is possibly a 3.18.1 patch similar to the 3.17.2 patch to come for Q4 if they are pushing 4.0 back.

The optimism for server meshing and Pyro by Q1 2023 I think is too much still though and it really feels like it will be at least Q2 2023 I think though. What does also come with 3.18 is basically an almost complete Gen12 and it appears Vulkan will come along with 4.0.

 

[jonneymendoza]

This bit is handy as it reinforces the idea of crash landing on a planet with the shipwreck that will be salvage the ship materials or use it otherwise. It provides ability for proper rescue missions, salvage, medical, story telling elements that are not possible currently. It does indeed seem like it will be a long time out till we get that level of persistence but it is the confirmation that entity graph works and works well to do such.

But at same time the discussion of wrecks from battles to salvage is being discussed as a 3.18 release with the physical cargo and salvage. We should note that it is still a delay and realistically 3.17.2 is 3.18 (but on same code branch hence the naming) and 3.18 is 3.19 but it does appear they are wanting to go to 4.0 from 3.18 and so 3.18 will likely be a 6 month patch at moment as they work towards 4.0 and assuming they are on target even with their stretched timeline. Of course there is possibly a 3.18.1 patch similar to the 3.17.2 patch to come for Q4 if they are pushing 4.0 back.

The optimism for server meshing and Pyro by Q1 2023 I think is too much still though and it really feels like it will be at least Q2 2023 I think though. What does also come with 3.18 is basically an almost complete Gen12 and it appears Vulkan will come along with 4.0.

I don’t think CR was optimistic.

He sounded pessimistic tbh as he thinks that 3.18 will take ages in ptu in worse case.

Don’t forget, 3.18 goes into ptu in the next 2 months if not sooner and it all depends what bugs we encounter when we are testing all of these things.

If testing goes well? We could see 3.18 drop early September. If it goes bad? October ish time or later. This dictates when they can start SM evo testing and CR is predicting SM testing will begin Q4 so he is kind of expecting 3.18 to not be in LIVE by around nov ish time.

One of the key things CR also said was that there are THOUSANDS of players joining each month now and he said its vital that the game is playable and relatively bug free. This is why 3.18 ptu will take a while and so will the SM ptu.

So it makes sense for PTU to be open and available whilst LIVE is still on too

 

[Curlyriff]

I don’t think CR was optimistic.

He sounded pessimistic tbh as he thinks that 3.18 will take ages in ptu in worse case.

Don’t forget, 3.18 goes into ptu in the next 2 months if not sooner and it all depends what bugs we encounter when we are testing all of these things.

If testing goes well? We could see 3.18 drop early September. If it goes bad? October ish time or later. This dictates when they can start SM evo testing and CR is predicting SM testing will begin Q4 so he is kind of expecting 3.18 to not be in LIVE by around nov ish time.

One of the key things CR also said was that there are THOUSANDS of players joining each month now and he said its vital that the game is playable and relatively bug free. This is why 3.18 ptu will take a while and so will the SM ptu.

So it makes sense for PTU to be open and available whilst LIVE is still on too

As stated I think it is the Server Meshing as optimistic. I do feel that they are handling 3.18 and persistence right with the time frame, the idea of 3.17.2 etc. and that is why that is okay. But the move from that to the speed in rolling out server meshing and even the idea of it just being Q1 2023 for live. I can easily see that going back to Q2 2023 tbh. It is a huge undertaking still even as static server meshing. The dynamic side then will be at least another year before they start to get that nailed down so maybe Q2 2024 for proper dynamic server meshing where we will truly see a proper MMO side of things coming along. No problem just being realistic with what shown and discussed and what they have left on that roadmap in the report.

 

[humbug]

I'm quite pleased, impressed with how far they have got, ok its taken a long time to get here and we aren't quite there yet but it seems we are now at the stage where they have found a way to make it work, it looks like they have tried a couple of different ways over the last few years and they have failed.

That's literally R&D. Perhaps this is the turning point where Star Citizen starts to realise its potential.

Good times ahead.

 

[jonneymendoza]

I'm quite pleased, impressed with how far they have got, ok its taken a long time to get here and we aren't quite there yet but it seems we are now at the stage where they have found a way to make it work, it looks like they have tried a couple of different ways over the last few years and they have failed.

That's literally R&D. Perhaps this is the turning point where Star Citizen starts to realise its potential.

Good times ahead.

For all the people saying this game taking 100 years to make, I giggled when i found out that Arma 4 has been in the works for almost 10 years as well and the best they have done was to release a pre alpha demo version of it .

No doubt that game will be great but the point is, great things come to those who wait!

 

[Darujhistan]

CGI smashing it out the park with the lovely charts again!

 

[humbug]

We will know very soon, 3.18 testing starts in ~4 Weeks.

 

[jonneymendoza]

We will know very soon, 3.18 testing starts in ~4 Weeks.

Yup. Fingers crossed it only needs 2 months of testing

 

[humbug]

I'm expecting it to start like this.....

 

[humbug]

RSI Scorpius if anyone is interested, sorry about the low FPS of the recording, Shadowplay was being deerpy at the time, because nothing ever goes wrong with Nvidia software...

 

[MoNkeE]

For all the people saying this game taking 100 years to make, I giggled when i found out that Arma 4 has been in the works for almost 10 years as well and the best they have done was to release a pre alpha demo version of it .

No doubt that game will be great but the point is, great things come to those who wait!

Have they not also produced a huge amount of content for ArmA3 during those ten years?

 

[Calin Banc]

Have they not also produced a huge amount of content for ArmA3 during those ten years?

I wouldn't call it huge. They've said dx12 for ArmA 3 and Day Z which did not happen. Probably "huge content" was for Day Z.

 

[MoNkeE]

I count 14 - 16 DLCs, and significant engine improvements during development. Game was announced in 2011 and released in 2013.

I just realllllllllly don’t see how the development of SC can be compared to that of ARMA4. Clearly a company producing that much content for ARMA3 in the last 10 years has not been working on ARMA4 fully.

 

[hyperseven]

I count 14 - 16 DLCs, and significant engine improvements during development. Game was announced in 2011 and released in 2013.

I just realllllllllly don’t see how the development of SC can be compared to that of ARMA4. Clearly a company producing that much content for ARMA3 in the last 10 years has not been working on ARMA4 fully.

and Arma3 can handle more than 50 players per server.

 

[MoNkeE]

For what it’s worth, I’m intending to try the Free Fly event this month as a first time SC player. And I don’t play ArmA at all. I just thought comparing the twos development is clearly unfair

 

[Curlyriff]

Indeed almost all comparisons to any of game development is worthless in reality as there are so many things you can utilise to argue for or against.

- number of person hours compared to big companies like Ubisoft, Rockstar, CD Project etc have all been lower as a total sum, but way higher than many established studios but then ratifying that against the game produced makes it hard to really compare anything. Kinda can be done against stuff like RDR2 or GTA V or Cyberpunk but that really feels about it.
- Finances, well that hard. Figures people look at for 'development' when it comes to stuff like the above games does not include the running cost of the day to day office, rent etc. They are completely separate finances, yet when people use a headline figure for CIG they take everything included. That isn't how costs reported work. Cost reported are salary figures and marketing generally as a total for most studios. The overheads of office and similar would need to approximately double their reported figures. That isn't to say CIG and the game hasn't cost a huge amount etc. But the perception gets skewed so badly in most conversations.
- There are still two games in tandem being created, although they share code, assets and such there is an additional overhead to that compared to creating one game. The split financially and resources has to be considered. It would be like building The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and The Elder Scrolls Online at the same time. That is a big undertaking.
- It is hard to compare in fairness the differences because it is such a mix of so many things in one, that unfortunately is why it is a complete mess and why games generally focus in one or two directions, not encompass 10+ different game mechanics.

At the end of the day some people enjoy it and some don't. It is a hot buggy mess at times and works great other times. I would say that I personally find SC more enjoyable than most other games when it works but I do find need friends to play SC with and not something I can really play solo. However the new elements with regards to persistence, cargo refactor, salvage and navmesh side of things look like there will a solid amount of new content coming this way in the next 12 months where I could play solo with some interesting elements and not need the multiplayer crutch.

 

[jonneymendoza]

I count 14 - 16 DLCs, and significant engine improvements during development. Game was announced in 2011 and released in 2013.

I just realllllllllly don’t see how the development of SC can be compared to that of ARMA4. Clearly a company producing that much content for ARMA3 in the last 10 years has not been working on ARMA4 fully.

Well you can count the querter patches that CIG releases a DLC's too tbh hehe.

Each patch usually includes new locations/missions/ships/tweaks etc or a combination of some of those.

I wasnt bashing Arma by the way. Its up there along with this game as one of my fav games in the last decade.