Iam sure some of you have heard or read about this game. Its a space sim mmo and it also has a singleplayer campaign. I think it is going to be awesome. Its purely funded by crowdfunding and they already managed to get a whopping 12 million. https://robertsspaceindustries.com/
This is one of those games that don't give you any idea what it is on the homepage and then have a really long about page that doesn't really tell you anything with a really long video that doesn't tell you anything other than "space sim" in the first half. Why is this special? I want someone who can tell me what the game is in less than an hour to answer. Obviously, there isn't someone like that on their team.
It's by the guy who made the Wing Commander series, which is widely regarded as one of the best of the combat space sim games out there. More specifically, it's expected to be similar to Wing Commander: Privateer, a space sim that accommodates the whole genre of exploration, trading, combat, etc. As an example, you start out with a ship that you use to fulfill missions like these and use the profits to upgrade your ship, buy stuff to trade, etc. The goal is to become Han Solo-epic. Examples of similar games are the X series, and Evochron Mercenary. However, Star Citizen probably won't go to the insane economic depths of X, nor have the complex Newtonian movement of Evochron. However, it probably has some other aspects up its sleeve to make it unique in its own way. I have not pledged because there still isn't any word on Linux support. (Though it's unlikely to come, as the game uses the Crytek engine.)
Star citizen is simulating every individual thruster. The code doesnt say you rotate at x degrees per sec no it calculates how fast you rotate based on how much thrust the thrusters can deliver. The position and the amount of force the thrusters can deliver all play a factor. They can also be destroyed and it will affect how the ship will handle. I think thats pretty advanced. Star citizen will focus also on immersion. Thats why the graphics are so nice some ppl think its all prerendered (its not its ingame!!)
I doubt they're going to be all that specific for simulating individual thrusters. They said that the game would only apply Newtonian physics to the steering thrusters of the ship. But combat will still be based on WWII style dogfights, and top speed will be limited. Compare that to a game like Evochron, where there is no top speed, you can fly your ships sideways, and it takes energy to change direction. This will not be in Star Citizen. I'm not saying that one way is better than the other, though. Freespace II uses the WWII style of fighting, and it remains my favorite space sim of all time. That said, I do appreciate the depth that's added to the combat of a game like Evochron Mercenary, although it is less accessible to the new player. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kIVSq3R6Jw
This few months I am hearing a lot about space games for some reason. Is it like new thing or something?
Yeah, I guess that would be the most accurate way to put it. Personally, I never understood why Freelancer gets so much love. The third person view and mouse control concessions really turned me off to it, and I feel that they really failed on the economic level. Still, a lot of people have been calling Star Citizen "Freelancer Done Right," so the comparison is apt.
Copied from their site: "No more Space Invaders: Star Citizen's physics are so real, you'll grit your teeth when you crash. Every ship in the game is subject to all the laws of real physics, accurately simulated. By default, they'll employ a fly-by-wire system to control maneuvering thrusters and primary engines. Each of these thrusters is able to traverse a finite amount and provide a maximum amount of thrust. When a player pulls back on the stick, the game calculates in real-time how quickly the maneuvering thrusters can traverse and apply the amount of thrust allowed by the weight of the ship and respond to the player's input as it pitches up. True hotshots can disable the fly-by-wire system for full control over the most realistic space combat ever simulated!" Sounds like pretty nice physics to me. Iam sure there will be gameplay reasons to not make it 100% realistic though.
"Realistic Physics" in videogames rarely is realistic at all, highlighting only specific subsets of physics that they bothered to simulate. In this case, they can make all the claims about realism that they want, yet have it only apply to pitch, yaw, and roll. I remember sending a question in during the Kickstarter asking about whether full Newtonian physics would be applied with regards to inertia, independent heading vs orientation, top speeds, etc, and the answer I got is that they were limiting the Newtonian physics to a specific subset in order to keep the game close to its roots and to keep it accessible to a wider audience. Posts on the Star Citizen forums seem to agree that the movement will be focused on the WWII style of dogfighting combat, much like in many of the classic combat space sims, such as the Wing Commander series, X-Wing series, Freespace series, etc. It will not be simulated to the extent that it was in Independence War or Evochron Mercenary. The Star Citizen wiki, which does a good job of collecting just about every bit of information on the game, is a bit more vague on the topic, pointing out that although it is unknown whether pilots will be able to fly their ships independently of its orientation, the system in place seems to imply that it is a possibility. http://starcitizen.gamepedia.com/Physics As you (and the wiki) point out, the fly-by-wire system can be disabled to allow "full control," which leads me to believe the system in place will be similar to that of Evochron Mercenary. When the flight computer is engaged, the ship flies similarly to those of Wing Commander, X-Wing, and Freespace. When disabled, the ship can move independently of orientation, etc. How much "full control" you get is not specified, so we don't know to what degree the simulation will go. Chris Roberts did confirm in a reddit AMA that there would be a speed limit in the game, though he did mention it was due to technical limitations with floating point numbers, so it's possible that the speed limit is high indeed. I wonder, however, if the technical limitations are due to the Crytek engine. If I recall correctly, EM breaks down space into sectors, subsectors, sub-subsectors, etc so that the high speeds in the game aren't limited by large floating point numbers. Star Citizen would be limited in this area by the Crytek capabilities, so unless they could implement a similar work-around, they would have to stick with those types of limitations. In any case, whether they support full Newtonian motion or not won't matter, as long as the game is good. Personally, I'm hoping they do, and that they are able to push Crytek to support Linux, as there aren't any combat space sims with Newtonian motion for Linux just yet. The Freespace SCP does have basic support, but it's not as detailed as it could be, and would require some large adjustments to the base code. And the developer for the Evochron games has no plans to bring the series to Linux, as he develops the game alone, and it would be too large a task for him with limited benefit.
Thats true physics in game arent fully realistic. But i also doubt a average pc would be able to run a game with 100% realistic physics (well in a few decades maybe). There is so many stuff it would have to simulate then and i doubt that will add that much to the gameplay. For games simplified systems work almost just as well and costs a ton less resources. The only thing i dont know if disabling the fly by wire will give you full access to the controls or not. I doubt the speed limitations in the cryengine are so low they will affect the gameplay. If its like the limit in the size of a minecraft world then ppl will never reach it without cheats. They better make it a good game. It would hurt the reputations of other crowdfunding projects if they didnt (no pressure Roberts :twisted: )
Hehe, I think there are a lot of people who hear something like full Newtonian physics and think: Yeah, like in Privateer! But really, who wants to play with realistic physics in a space sim where you can only accelerate by by 10*g for a short amount of time before you have to go back to 1 or 2.
I think a lot of people miss the point that too much realism just isn't that much fun XD There's a reason very few games have you going to the toilet every so often, even if it's a survival game where you have to eat and such.
This reminds me of dayz... when you are in very popular city or the airfield and you just have to go... either if you stay afk or log out both are terrible ideas. I was unlucky like this only once when I found sweet stash and had everything I need to survive in the woods, I did log out in the air tower and while loading back the game someone axed me a question...
That's more an issue with persistent world games. it doesn't matter how well you've set up in somewhere, eventually you have to log off. Back when I played Warhammer Online for a little (>.> yes I know), we spent a good 4-5 hours defending our castle from three opposing guilds and managed to keep them at bay. But we still had to leave at some point because you can't stay online forever. God damn Mandred's Hold...
Reminds me of The Ship. You've gotta go in that game. But yeah, that's why video game characters can always reload their guns at superhuman speeds.
Yeah or how the Support class can carry a light machine gun with 300 rounds, a RPG launcher, anti-tank mines, ammo packs and run with this at top speed all day. :lol:
