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

Somewhat torn on the whole NPC crew idea. It really comes down to how well implemented it is. Like Jonney I don't want to see ships like an Idris being effectively pilotted by a single player with a full crew of NPC minions that do everything they're told flawlessly, as mentioned it would come across quite pay-to-win. It could also lead to so many complaints around balance. Hopefully they'll manage the AI of an NPC crewmember to the point where they'll be able to fullfill a role, but not necessarily be as a effective as a player.
There will then be benefits to using both, or a mix of. For example flying about in a Redeemer, you fly the ship, get mates in the main 2 turrets. But have an AI person on the tail turret and another doing repairs for example. I know I'm looking forward to being able to slave a turret to a blade or NPC gunner in ships like the Vanguard or Scorpius.
 
PinkFloyd said:
Hopefully they'll manage the AI of an NPC crewmember to the point where they'll be able to fullfill a role, but not necessarily be as a effective as a player.
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This is where I hope it gets to.
I prefer to solo, however I want to be able to use these elaborate huge ships. I'm happy to pay UEC to crew my ship with AI if I so desire to buy a large multicrew ship. However I get that there needs to be balance and incentive to crew with human players. I certainly hope there dosnt become an AI meta
 
I recall reading that AI pilots would have traits and abilities and stats. This likely leads to a tiered system of pay vs. performance and I'd imagine top quality AI crew will be limited and random and costly so running a full AI crew on an indris will cost heaps and unless you've got the income stream to keep up on the salary payments it might actually be impossible to fully crew with AI to the point that they can hit a barn door... I hope this is the case anyway... I also hope that AI can suffer 'death of the spaceman' and therefore generate negative attributes / stats after too many deaths.

What would be really cool is if AI crew could 'apply' for new jobs based on salary, performance, safety, experience, role etc. of the captain... you could essentially keep the top pool in constant rotation based upon their market forces!
 
NPCs have always been said to effectively be a inferior solution to not having friends doing the job for/with you.
It works in terms of balance, because then they're never going to be equal to a crew of well trained players (might be better than a bunch of nit-wits messing about) and doesnt make them the go-to solution. You'd have to assume they're going to be somewhat limited for practical reasons too, as these are AI which will be running server-side, so the smarter they are the more it costs CIG to operate all of them.
I wouldnt be surprised if we were limited to having say 3 active per PC, so you couldnt solo anything huge (a bunch of you could though, maybe), i think the idea needs to be that it makes some ships accessible that otherwise wouldnt if it was friends-only, and doesnt force you to find people to play with to enjoy 75% of the ships in the game. I'd also be extremely surprised if anyone even wanted OP NPCs, its in nobodies best interest, we just want assistance without having to swap seats for every single task.

What we know about turrets and ship systems kinda shows their thought process for things like this. Im not sure whether things have changed since the first 4-5 years, but using an example of a T4 mount on a ship, you could mount:
- A fixed T4 weapon
- A T3 onto a gimble (3+1)
- A T2 on a gimble with AI aiming (2+1+1)
- Two T1s on a dual-mounted with a gimble (2x1 + 1 + 1)
etc
Lots of things can be done, but theres always pros & cons to it. Nothing is free.

Even something like a Cutlass Black with pilot, co-pilot, ... and then packing it with 6 people standing at the doors with railguns. Yeah that more OP than the ships meant to be, but you're all gonna die if you dont have a life support system to keep twice as many people breathing, which puts additional demands on the ship. More power = much easier to spot on scanning systems etc.
Same with the AI systems, they'll add compute demands, that'll draw more power, need better cooling, but maybe reduces life support requirements... so what starts off as a solution to needing a player doing the job, ends up having multiple negative factors to balance it, so it isnt the ideal solution for everyone.
 
In the ISC FPS Scraping is shown being done without any Armor / Backpack. Is everything going into the Gun or Magic Pockets?

Or can you only take a very small amount of Hull with each patch job?

```Hi
There is a cannister attached to the multitool that has a defined capacity. Once it is full you need to empty it (by using the material to repair) or replace the full with with an empty cannister from your inventory.
So not magic, but cannisters that behave like ammunition clips.```
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If I salvage a hull with my vulture, how can I fullfill one of these canister to use them in a hand repair like in the ISC ? Is it already available in 3.18 or will we have to buy them already full ? Have I to salvage a hull with my multitool to repair another one ?

```Hi,
You might have spotted it already in this weeks ISC when they tour the Vulture and Reclaimer. There is a station in the cargo hold we internally call "Filler Station". On that station you have a screen that lets you create a full RMC cannister you can use for your Multitool.
If you pause the video you might even be able to read it on the current UI. DISCLAIMER: This UI is still work in progress and already looks much nicer.```
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This is why for now at least i'm done with this.

Nothing that is critical to moving forward is ever a complete thing, so Persistent Entity Streaming is no longer just that, now its in bits and pieces that come over multiple itinerations over a period of time.

So 3.18 it turns out is not the PES patch, it will have part of it, more work is needed to get the next part of it, and then the next part of it and another part of it, of course they are too vague for anyone to get a measure of what all this means for time, but one thing seems apparent if you consider CIG's history, there will be no Pyro in Q1 2023, or even Q1 2024, it will take that long just to get what was supposed to be the 3.18 patch completed, after that they need Server Meshing, which will no doubt also come in bits and pieces over a long drawn-out period of time, 2025, 2026.
And with that its just another thing that was originally pitched in 2018, and again in 2019 for 2020 and then again for 2023 is actually another half decade away from already being a half decade late.

This is ###### insane.

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I've not been following this for a few years now considering i was an OG backer.

We any closer to Squadron 42 yet? As that was getting there years ago then they re-did everything for the 20th time? so where are we now?
What the state of the PU and any milestones coming up?
 
humbug said:
This is why for now at least i'm done with this.

Nothing that is critical to moving forward is ever a complete thing, so Persistent Entity Streaming is no longer just that, now its in bits and pieces that come over multiple itinerations over a period of time.

So 3.18 it turns out is not the PES patch, it will have part of it, more work is needed to get the next part of it, and then the next part of it and another part of it, of course they are too vague for anyone to get a measure of what all this means for time, but one thing seems apparent if you consider CIG's history, there will be no Pyro in Q1 2023, or even Q1 2024, it will take that long just to get what was supposed to be the 3.18 patch completed, after that they need Server Meshing, which will no doubt also come in bits and pieces over a long drawn-out period of time, 2025, 2026.
And with that its just another thing that was originally pitched in 2018, and again in 2019 for 2020 and then again for 2023 is actually another half decade away from already being a half decade late.

This is ###### insane.

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I don't get your point to this. It was always clear it would be multiple patches with lots to come but persistence starts with 3.18 and anything in inventory personal and ships. It also has persistence for anything dropped on that particular server you are on unless you try to drop 200 cans or whatever and they will be cleaned up.

This was always the stated goal for the last 12 months till server meshing works where you then have multiple servers linked to then have the replication do just that and it replicate between servers. Then dynamic meshing later. Of course it wasn't all going to come in one patch?

What it does also allow for is persistent ship wrecks for salvage and allows for the cargo refactor where you actually have physical cargo in ships shown and persisting including when ships are stored at space stations or you log off.

It also allows damage maps to persist so when you use the salvage mechanic to repair your hull that shows until you reclaim or similar.

So yeah there is a lot that doesn't work still of course such as the wear and tear system for characters, the MFD in ships with their settings, mining head and scanner settings. Those are where teams are just getting these tools and need to refactor their end to take PES into account which couldn't be done prior to it being built.

It funny cause I've not really played for like 12 months cause there been no big change but 3.18 will be where I finally start to jump in.

It also doesn't change the server side elements that were needed to start meshing design. That isn't the same as linking gameplay to PES, it is engineering side and why as stated they can move onto engineering server meshing and that was explained in last weeks ISC also.
 
Cantankerous said:
Not watched that one yet but all I've heard jumping through the main one is "The tools are ready now. Teams can start to use them"

Keyword. Start.

:/
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So single servers persist, when you are on that server, whatever you drop persists, a crashed space ship or one shot in combat persists but only on that single server.

Damage maps on ships persist and because its on your ship as long as you log out via bed or at station any cargo, damage and such will persist with you no matter which server you are on.

Cargo is physicalised and persists again as long as you log off properly so it saves the state of you and your ship.

The key parts of PES are certainly there. Things like MFD and scanner settings currently won't because they need linking up and that's why it says teams now have the tools to do so as they need to link that up. And so the teams can start to use them is further detail that was always going to be later and require the engineering tech to be done first. I don't think relative to what PES does that is critical though.

One element that hasn't been discussed but I believe it will also allow for properly is the ship components to be added properly ad they will persist and persist in state so if damaged and worn etc and that allows for the engeering gameplay and further salvage to be added.

Cwrgo refactor with it physicalled and now ships dont disappear after being damaged/blown up means that you could pirate said cargo using tractor beams and such which only works cause of PES.

What it means mostly is that the PES engineering is done to the state that server meshing can be linked and so you can get the multiple servers and replication layers linked up and those 4, 5, 6 or however many servers CIG want to Stanton and same for Pyro which is the aim for next patch. Of course they are 3 months behind what CR said on May so earliest 4.0 and Pyro with the first static meshing is end Q1 2023 rather than end of December and realistically more like Q2 2023.

So actually seems like a pretty huge solid and finally gives a reason to play after 9-12 months since last really playing.
 
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