So I have been watching youtube videos on Start Citizen, I was aware of it years ago but never bothered trying it out. This seems to be the game that is in eternal alpha. It looks pretty amazing though in terms of detail and realism, my question is (if anyone here plays it) is it worth it and does it have enough content to keep you coming back for more? Or is it just amazing to go and explore for a short time and then it just loses interest because there is not enough to do, or not enough people on a server or the server is so large you can have a bunch of people but being spread out it is like you are on your own.
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Star Citizen anyone?
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garnerx
macrumors 6502a
I've been following this for ages, actually downloaded it for the first time about a month ago, when they had one of their regular free play weeks.
Unfortunately I didn't get very far at all. It took me a while to figure out how to get out of the bedroom where I started, then I wandered around the space station / hotel or whatever it was, until I fell through a railing and into a pit, where I died.
After that I respawned in hospital, and eventually found my way to the hangar where my ship was waiting. Then as soon as I stepped through the door, I suffocated and died because I was wearing a hspital gown rather than a spacesuit.
It could be an amazing game one day but it's nowhere near ready yet, and it's extremely unfriendly to play. Not just rough around the edges, it's rough all the way through. Performance is terrible on my PC. I didn't even get as far as flying around the galaxy, but the framerate in the starting area was unacceptably jerky and the animations looked pretty bad.
My PC specs are good, I have a R9 5900X, 32 GB RAM, RTX 3080Ti, and the game was installed on a gen 4 NVMe SSD. If that can't run it smoothly (only at 1440p too) then surely not much can. Anyway, my time with the free version was enough to persuade me to sit back and wait a while longer for this one.
Unfortunately I didn't get very far at all. It took me a while to figure out how to get out of the bedroom where I started, then I wandered around the space station / hotel or whatever it was, until I fell through a railing and into a pit, where I died.
After that I respawned in hospital, and eventually found my way to the hangar where my ship was waiting. Then as soon as I stepped through the door, I suffocated and died because I was wearing a hspital gown rather than a spacesuit.
It could be an amazing game one day but it's nowhere near ready yet, and it's extremely unfriendly to play. Not just rough around the edges, it's rough all the way through. Performance is terrible on my PC. I didn't even get as far as flying around the galaxy, but the framerate in the starting area was unacceptably jerky and the animations looked pretty bad.
My PC specs are good, I have a R9 5900X, 32 GB RAM, RTX 3080Ti, and the game was installed on a gen 4 NVMe SSD. If that can't run it smoothly (only at 1440p too) then surely not much can. Anyway, my time with the free version was enough to persuade me to sit back and wait a while longer for this one.
Huntn
macrumors Penryn
That performance lack of optimization seems retched. And i you have to figure out how to open a door. 🤔
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That is one of the things that does make me interested though, the realism and level of detail. I have an i7 with a 2070 and an M2 1 TB drive, so if yours does not run it well mine certainly won't. I think I will just wait till they have a free play and try it out then. Love the concept and idea behind it, just not the amount of time it is taking them and they are still in alpha.
garnerx
macrumors 6502a
The free play events seem to be quite frequent so you might as well give it a try. I didn't have the patience to mess around with the settings to get it running better, but's it's still installed and I'll probably have a look again some day, assuming I don't need the SSD space back (77 GB).
If you want a super detailed space sim to play right now, I think Elite Dangerous is much better. It doesn't do most of the things Star Citizen promises to do but at least it's actually finished and runs very smoothly. I'm not sure if Star Citizen will ever get there.
Huntn
macrumors Penryn
I’ll say ED is better, but I got bored with it. Hauling goods was a chore, and I could only fight pirates for so long before getting tired of the routine. I admit that features have been added since I stopped playing it.
diamond.g
macrumors G5
Yeah iirc the engine is a fork off CryEngine (Lumberyard) which wasn’t known for being light in the system requirements parts.
Huntn
macrumors Penryn
2023- I’ve been looking a it. An online friend says that about a year ago he tried it with a 3070 graphic card and it was really laggy. my impression is that he may have a relatively slow internet connection.
As far as I can tell there is no subscription, just buy a ship, ie starter package, your package might have a six month insurance for the destruction of your ship, but as long as the game is in pre-release, my impression is that ships are automatically covered with insurance. After that I suppose insurance could be an in-game or $$ expense.
The visuals look stunning, however the bottom line is, what is there to do in the game in 2023? 🤔
As far as I can tell there is no subscription, just buy a ship, ie starter package, your package might have a six month insurance for the destruction of your ship, but as long as the game is in pre-release, my impression is that ships are automatically covered with insurance. After that I suppose insurance could be an in-game or $$ expense.
The visuals look stunning, however the bottom line is, what is there to do in the game in 2023? 🤔
Huntn
macrumors Penryn
Huntn
macrumors Penryn
Great Start. 😌
- Long game start, long load in.
- Started at New Babbage, tech something city, in Apart on the 7th floor of the Aspire Grand Hotel.
- Took the evevator down to the Lobby, found the train and took it to the end of the line at New Babbage Space Port. Took elevator up to the NBIS Terminal Level.
- Had to log out. When I logged back in, I was back in my apartment, so would have to go all the way to the New Babbage Star port again. This would have been time consuming, but...
- When I was layng in my bunk which, apparently is a normal way to start, when I used the exit key (Y) to stand up, my head went through the cabinet over the bunk and I am stuck, 3 log-ins in a row. Enough for. tonight. 😳
Huntn
macrumors Penryn
2nd Attempt Star Citizen first flight- 29Apr23
- Game launch-6 min to get to sign in page, sign in to persistent universe 9 minutes, total 15 minutes.
- The Nest Apartments, in hallway, call elevator not working, 4 tries to get the doors to open. Serious lag while navigating the apartment building
- Tram to New Babbage Space Port- At apartments it says it arrived, no tram, says it is leaving, waiting on next tram. Finally apears. serious lag on tram heading to New Babbage Space port. It stops and there is nothing to get out onto, I stay on tram. Looks like tram is heading back to town, I get off at the commons waiting for tram back to the space port, multiple message train has arrived, etc, etc.
- Finally get to spaceport. elevator to NBIS terminal. Check it out, one side has spaceship rentals other side is hanger.
- I find the Fleet Manager terminal and ask that my Aegis Avenger Titan be delivered. It says it has been delivered to the following location and after a longish while the location appears as Hanger 3.
- All the 7 doors say Hanger 4...then I see a sign hovering in space about my vehicle, it's away from the elevator doors to the hanger, so I try to follow it but can't.
- All hanger doors are bugged, all say hanger 4, but if you go inside, there is a choice for all of the hangers.
- I turn on FPS display, ~, then type: r_displayinfo 1 (return) it appear in upper right corner, sitting in hanger with nothing goin on getting 20 fps. server FPS reported as 9fps...
- Following a tutorial, I plotted a course to another location Cru L1 Ambitious Dream Station , asked for permission to takeoff, no response, hanger doors remain closed, it took forever, mashing the button multiple times and doors finally opened, it is completely pitch black outside, ok so it is night.
- First Flight- Flew out slowly using WSAD for horizontal, space for up, Ctrl for down, the game set itself up for mouse steering. I might have to look at that- mouse for pitch and yaw and turn it off.. Pointed up, flew into stratisphere, hit B to start spooling and calibration of Quantum drive, when ready, pointed myself at the marker in space for the destination, held B untill a blue haze surrounded the ship.
- Message: fuel @ 75%. You burn through this quickly. I can see it possibly being an issue. FPS in space during quantum travels 30 fps. Quantum fuel at 50%, 25%. Am I going to make it? I started at 55m as in million km or so away. It took quite a while, I guess 5--10 minutes to fly there. Yes I made it just about on empty for quantum fuel, different than local fuel.
- Caution if you use C for Cruise Control, you need to hit C again to get out of it even after quantum travel.
- At destination station landing clearance- after repeatedly mashing my request permission to land button- I finally got the land authorization, a blue circle with a down arrow. , I flew into the hanger slowly but before I landed I wanted to turn around so I was facing out of the hanger, in hindsight, this was not needed, because you ship is fetched every time you fly it, and it turned into a big mistake. As I did this my ship cortrols went wonky, I drited forward as the doors were closing, I could no longer back up, the doors closed but I ended up near the ceiling rotated to 90 degrees of roll. a wingtip mashed against the celing, a wingtip broke off and at that point I logged out. Then logged back in and I was at the same station Cru L1, Dream station in a bunk on the station. This trip over costed me all of my quantum fuel, and I’m afraid to go look at my ship and see what the repairs are (if any) maybe as a newb, you get a break, won't hold my breath…😳
- In-game bitching- Note, the entire time I was on, a group of people where continuously bitching about the lag, and that nothing was working as it should. Other players were telling them to log off and come back later. 😬 More later!
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Suture
macrumors 65816
lol -- someone in India bought it. I eBayed that sucker a long time ago. I'm not even sure if the PC I have now would run it. I haven't even turned on my old Alienware Area-51 R2 in long time. It's an OLD overclocked Haswell 6-core CPU with a 3070. I don't even know why I updated the GPU since I haven't played anything. Have to admit I'm still always curious about SC, but my friend and I joke that our kids' kids will love it.
Huntn
macrumors Penryn
Star Citizen- The vision is a grand one. Waking up in your apartment, navigating to the lobby, tram (depending on the location, a tram is not required) to a spaceport, having a spaceship that you can actually walk around it is great for immersion. But my impression in the limited time I’ve played is they bit off more than they can chew. Load times are long, fps is low, at least on my hardware (sig).
Now I have a friend who who has several large ships that reportedly have significant interiors you can walk around in, hold more than one person, and he has volunteered to come pick me up and take me places. He wants me to help him mine, which could be interesting just to see it, but honestly, I much prefer an AI captain, who I can task with mining in his own ship (X4).
In X4 they let you into the ship, but you are a prisoner in the flight deck, as far as I can tell, the same with Elite Dangerous. When I look at one of these big purchased ships in X4, when I walk around them on the hanger deck I am wowed, but inside, it is just the flight deck. I get annoyed every time a crew member disappears into the back, a place, I can’t go. Then I am reminded of the ship in The Outer Worlds which was cool.
In X4, space stations have big hangers, but there are only a few places off the hanger deck you can navigate to via a teleporter type mechanism, and except for a few token characters to have limited interaction with, they are shallow dead spaces, not hubs teaming with life.
I have not played ED enough lately, but my impression which maybe wrong, is that you are in the same boat there.
I also recently was/am playing Soaceborne 2, and although crude in comparison to the other titles, the developer has spaces inside the space station you can walk around in, populated with people and aliens, other than just the landing area. My current ship in that game is small and only has a flight deck, more like a flight coffin, it’s just a cockpit with a seat in it, the equivalent of a modern fighter jet. 😉
Huntn
macrumors Penryn
Aug23- It was recommended to me to put the game on a solid state drive. It just so hapoened the motherboard of my PC had an unused PCIe m.2 slot, into which I threw a 2TB memory stick/drive and installed the game. The launch time of the game dropped from 15min (not a typo) to 6 minutes, a huge improvement, and I noticed the game, although still slow ran more smoothly. There are times when the frame rates in busy locations drop to 6fps, out in the middle,of nowhere, about 30fps.
I played with a father, adult son pair, where the Father has spent about, maybe more than $1k on this game through the purchase of ships, some large expensive ships.
The most impressive space ships I have ever seen from a functionality standpoint, there are actually interiors, galley, sleeping quarters, actual and remote turrets, you sit in a chair, some you’ll get a video screen others, the seat descends or ascends up a tube to an actual turret, think of the turrets in the Millennial Falcon. The salvager ship was huge, reminded me of the Nostromo, with large interior cargo spaces.
Salvaging in SC right now consists of buying a contract $20k to salvage a significant sized ship. Fly to the ships location, there are 2 salvage/laser tuffets where the metal is stripped off the ship, particalized, and sucked into storage containers. The ship also has giant arms designed to break apart the ship into pieces, and a shredding mechanism but that is not functional yet. There also drones planned that will bring the pieces of the ship to the salvager to be shredded and stored. The last run was worth about $2m credits, but according to the friend, mining is where the big money making is at. 🤔
Ok, so the environment is impressive, but I am not yet sold on this game. As long as it remains in alpha/beta status it’s free to play if you buy a ship. My understanding is that the insurance for ships that will eventually have to be purchased is free until the game hits retail. Over 10 years since available to the public and the game is still in alpha.
Great potential, but at this point, I can’t recommend it other than if you want to get in on the ground floor to see what it is all about.
Also note, there is piracy conducted by other players, ways to knock you out of hyper space, board your ship, steal it, kill you. While landed and the doors open, sneak on, steal your ship, and kill you. 🙂 Yes, there is a bounty system directed at player pirates, but I’m not sure how effective it is. I’m sure that there is a lot of attraction to being a pirate. With the insurance as it currently exists, you can reacquire a new ship, but I think you loose cargo and gear, not sure about that.
I played with a father, adult son pair, where the Father has spent about, maybe more than $1k on this game through the purchase of ships, some large expensive ships.
The most impressive space ships I have ever seen from a functionality standpoint, there are actually interiors, galley, sleeping quarters, actual and remote turrets, you sit in a chair, some you’ll get a video screen others, the seat descends or ascends up a tube to an actual turret, think of the turrets in the Millennial Falcon. The salvager ship was huge, reminded me of the Nostromo, with large interior cargo spaces.
Salvaging in SC right now consists of buying a contract $20k to salvage a significant sized ship. Fly to the ships location, there are 2 salvage/laser tuffets where the metal is stripped off the ship, particalized, and sucked into storage containers. The ship also has giant arms designed to break apart the ship into pieces, and a shredding mechanism but that is not functional yet. There also drones planned that will bring the pieces of the ship to the salvager to be shredded and stored. The last run was worth about $2m credits, but according to the friend, mining is where the big money making is at. 🤔
Ok, so the environment is impressive, but I am not yet sold on this game. As long as it remains in alpha/beta status it’s free to play if you buy a ship. My understanding is that the insurance for ships that will eventually have to be purchased is free until the game hits retail. Over 10 years since available to the public and the game is still in alpha.
Great potential, but at this point, I can’t recommend it other than if you want to get in on the ground floor to see what it is all about.
Also note, there is piracy conducted by other players, ways to knock you out of hyper space, board your ship, steal it, kill you. While landed and the doors open, sneak on, steal your ship, and kill you. 🙂 Yes, there is a bounty system directed at player pirates, but I’m not sure how effective it is. I’m sure that there is a lot of attraction to being a pirate. With the insurance as it currently exists, you can reacquire a new ship, but I think you loose cargo and gear, not sure about that.
Huntn
macrumors Penryn
After playing with some friends doing salvage, I woke up last night on Lorville, a corporate industrial settlement, a dirty place. I had some extra space suits looted from the corpses of bad guys, that after picking though, decided to sell the rest.
Most of the other stations, it not to hard to find the armor, gun, and food shops kiosks, but in Lorville, at the Space port I could not find them, plus I needed water. And there were trains running all over the place to different corporate behemoth Structures. I ended up following a video tour of Lorville and discovered these places are near the residences sector 19 tucked away in nooks and crannies.
After getting fed and watered, my plan is to break out my starter spaceship the Avenger Titan and give it another go and go somewhere. Need to determine the best way for a new guy to make credits in this simulation. No, I don’t have a $275 salvage ship which easily makes tons of credits. 😳
Most of the other stations, it not to hard to find the armor, gun, and food shops kiosks, but in Lorville, at the Space port I could not find them, plus I needed water. And there were trains running all over the place to different corporate behemoth Structures. I ended up following a video tour of Lorville and discovered these places are near the residences sector 19 tucked away in nooks and crannies.
After getting fed and watered, my plan is to break out my starter spaceship the Avenger Titan and give it another go and go somewhere. Need to determine the best way for a new guy to make credits in this simulation. No, I don’t have a $275 salvage ship which easily makes tons of credits. 😳
Huntn
macrumors Penryn
WHAT A PIECE OF %&$!! THIS GAME IS. 👎👎
Ok so that was a bit overblown, but I am so frustrated with his game in alpha status. I spent 90 minutes tonight, first getting healed at a medical station, then trying to figure out why my back pack would not go on, then I could not get my gear off and this is with a friend with experience helping me. Then we finally got to his ship, got in the seats, and he says "aw-oh, the server is dieing"... This game is just not ready for prime time. My hardware is not that shabby, I have a decent internet connection and it took me 15 minutes just to get logged into the server. I'm temped to tell my friend, "I'll check back on the game in 6 months." 🤬
Ok so that was a bit overblown, but I am so frustrated with his game in alpha status. I spent 90 minutes tonight, first getting healed at a medical station, then trying to figure out why my back pack would not go on, then I could not get my gear off and this is with a friend with experience helping me. Then we finally got to his ship, got in the seats, and he says "aw-oh, the server is dieing"... This game is just not ready for prime time. My hardware is not that shabby, I have a decent internet connection and it took me 15 minutes just to get logged into the server. I'm temped to tell my friend, "I'll check back on the game in 6 months." 🤬