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[Capntastic]

Will there be some optimization before the dogfight module, do you reckon?

[alway]

Not as much as there should be. Though I can honestly say that none of us here really knows what the dogfighting module will end up looking like. There's a variety of contingency plans for "if we can't get X in, we can at least release Y and Z" sort of things. Though one benefit of the dogfighting module will be the lighting. The hangars had a bunch of shadow-casting point and area lights, which basically cut performance in half from what I recall. Directional shadows from a star are cheap; shadows from a point source basically require you to re-render the scene around it another time, for each source. All in all, it's going to be really down to the wire for everyone.

Then there's also more effects which I'm working on that are pretty performance heavy at the moment. The tech behind the shields, for instance, is rather impressive, since it has to conform to the general shape of the ship no matter how it animates and changes in profile (recall the Constellation animation video early on, with those wing-things that rotated 90 out to the side). It needs to work for any size or shape of ship, because modding & related player-created ships, and needs to be more or less fully automatic. I'm really hoping that makes it in, but there's still a full month or so's work before that becomes an acceptable effect. But it's a problem which has now taken a good 6 months or so to work out and in general gives me insomnia. The tech pretty much has to be robust enough that you could put in a model of a Transformer, have them transform, and have the shield conform to their shape at all times during the process.

Also, we apparently made more in crowdfunding last month alone than the next highest crowdfunded game.

[Capntastic]

Hopefully the Dogfight module is spiffed up enough that it's playable on my pretty decent system.

And yeah, SC was already the World Record holder for crowdfunding last year at around 5.2million, I think.  Since then they've blasted off even further.

[Euld]

The hanger module is now available!  https://robertsspaceindustries.com/hangar-module  You get to see your ships in an actual hangar (I think) and you get a 5k reward of game money for downloading and trying out the module.

Trying it out now, will post results.

[Sergius]

The hanger module is now available!

We've only been talking about it since the past 4 or 5 pages

[Euld]

Oh :<  Well I'm sure out of the loop, ha.  Couldn't get it working, said my video card is unsupported, ouch.

[Sergius]

Oh :<  Well I'm sure out of the loop, ha.  Couldn't get it working, said my video card is unsupported, ouch.

So is mine. You have to get some files to make it work, and it'll be slow, and probably the full game won't work, but at least you can walk in the hangar.

Relevant like here: https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.com/discussion/50320/i-got-it-running-on-gtx295-directx-10-1-card-fix-for-black-screen-green-arrow/

[Capntastic]

http://themittani.com/features/star-citizen-anniversary-event

My coverage of the big event.

[Hanzoku]

I'm impressed by the funding of Star Citizen, but I wonder how many of the people who spent $1,250 for an in-game item are going to regret it tomorrow.

[forsaken1111]

I'm impressed by the funding of Star Citizen, but I wonder how many of the people who spent $1,250 for an in-game item are going to regret it tomorrow.

If you spend that much on a game you convince yourself that it was totally worth it and not at all the huge goddamn waste of money that it is.

[alway]

There's also the so-called "grey-market," which has been alluded to several times in this thread. In short a lot of the 'special offer' ships that are limited, either in number or time offered, are acquired with the intent of selling at a later date to other players, since you can 'gift' ships to other accounts. From what can be gleaned pretty easily, the going rate on the grey market is often a several hundred percent mark-up rate. Those $1250 ships are very limited (for gameplay reasons; you want to see some from the start, but not every other person), and from the rumors we've been hearing, their going rate is on the order of 3-5k. Which is nutters. There's also rampant speculation in there, which has certainly been taken advantage of by some individuals.

Currently, our stance is that we don't endorse it, but it is more or less ignored; with the general view being that people are doing so at their own risk. Both the buyers who can easily fall prey to scammers and the sellers, whose ships can suddenly be reduced in value both by additional sales or by information about how game mechanics undermine the value of their wares.


In related news, LTI IS DEAD, MAY ITS ZOMBIE CORPSE NEVER RISE AGAIN. Seriously, that was the silliest, most overhyped thing which in the end means nothing, since you basically wouldn't ever go outside without paying a paltry sum of in-game credits for insurance anyway. CMs and support staff were so happy to see that go, as it caused a ton of support tickets and p2w threads.

[forsaken1111]

so idiots buying fake ships to sell to other idiots for a game we don't even know will be good.

I give up. I'm really reluctant to even try this game when it comes out solely because of the ridiculousness they are encouraging

[alway]

so idiots buying fake ships to sell to other idiots for a game we don't even know will be good.

I give up. I'm really reluctant to even try this game when it comes out solely because of the ridiculousness they are encouraging

Yeah, the joke among the dev team is that this will either be the best game ever or we will all need to flee the country to avoid the pitchfork mobs.

In the past 7-8 days or so alone, assuming my estimate based on the site counter is accurate, we've raised as much money as the next highest crowdfunded video game to date. Our marketing is terrifyingly effective.

From an insider perspective, looking at the tech and resources put into this game, I will say one thing for certain: This will either be one of the greatest games of the decade, or it will be a massive flop; there isn't a chance in hell it will be merely mediocre.

[forsaken1111]

Eh, what do the devs care? Aren't they pretty well rich by now? They could just take the money and live out the rest of their lives in cancun.

[alway]

Eh, what do the devs care? Aren't they pretty well rich by now? They could just take the money and live out the rest of their lives in cancun.

The marketing bit about pouring all the money into additional game development resources is entirely accurate, so not really. We've got a dozen or so contractors out of house, adding more all the time, and an ever expanding dev team. 33M is a big number until you take a look at the scope of the game. Or, more accurately, games, since there will be two of them (s42 and sc) and numerous 'module' releases. So 33M isn't as big a number as it seems. Especially compared to other MMOs out there.