[Star Citizen free-fly from May 22-June 2] - See what almost $300mil in dev funding gets you

My semi-annual shameless plug since they suckered me in 2016. They have a free-fly this week where you can explore some of the ships in the game and check out without commitment what they've done with the $286+ million dollars they have raised as of May 25, 2020.

If you are creating a new account, you can use my referral code {STAR-FQ6B-B97S}, which will credit your account with 5,000 UEC (in game creds) if you spend money to retain access after the free-fly event. If you buy a game package, I get recruitment points towards in-game rewards.

There's a couple of modules you can play:
Star Marine: FPS shooter
Arena Commander: spaceship FPS
Murray Cup: spaceship racing
Persistent universe: the game proper, bugs {a LOT of bugs}, warts and all. There are quest givers, a rudimentary law/crime system, a basic trading game (this and bounty hunting are the way to accumulate credits in game to buy additional ships/gear), rudimentary mining (assuming you have the right ship/gear), weather, planets with different biomes, and emergent gameplay with other players on the server instance if you are so inclined.

Feel free to make fun of the game/me or ask questions about my experience in this thread.

Hint: don't play if you don't have an SSD. I guess most PoE players have one, but still. SC is basically unplayable on an HDD.

Could you tell more about the game? I can't check it now and I really liked Mythgard you recommended. :(

Why should one play this? Do you play all modules or have a favourite? I see it's an alpha. How close is it to be released, is it known?

The game, Star Citizen, is planned to be an emergent gameplay sandbox. Imagine Grand Theft Auto in space. What it is at the moment is a glorified tech demo of what you can create when you have way more money than brains without anyone holding you accountable to a deadline or even a time frame.

I've been following the game off and on ever since Chris Roberts made his announcement almost ten years ago. What I was (still am?) hoping for is something that will scratch my space simulator itch that has been festering since Freespace 2. I grew up playing stuff like the X-wing series and the Wing Commander series. I had hoped that Squadron 42 would have released by now...

Now I'm just a shill trying to sucker more people in so he doesn't run out of money before a product gets released.

Note I didn't back the Kickstarter when he announced it in 2013. I knew he was really bad at keeping deadlines and a budget. But what I do know is he has a vision of what he wants as the 'ultimate space game', and it seems to check off a lot of boxes on my own list. In 2016, I decided to install the client for a free-fly event, cynically assuming that I would be presented with a space combat simulator with rudimentary flight controls and limited interaction.

What I found instead was a virtual world with a high degree of interaction and 'seamless' transitions (no loading screens via the effective use of dynamic loading and the 'practical' nature of elevators and airlocks).

To be able to get out of bed,
throw on a jumpsuit,
order a ship,
enter the airlock (don't forget to put on your helmet!),
board a ship,
get departure clearance,
fly free of the space station,
plot a jump on the nav map,
initiate the jump and get out of the pilot's seat,
explore the ship and chat with other players on the comms,
enter planetary orbit,
enter atmosphere,
locate the city's landing zone,
request landing clearance, dock, deplane and go shopping,
without once seeing a loading screen or being taken out of the immersion of the game...

Yeah. I was hooked.

They've been back and forth with flight mechanics, and there is still some ambiguity in what feels like the 'right' amount of Time-To-Kill for a particular class of ship.

To be fair, I haven't spent much time dog fighting because I still haven't figured out an optimal way to set up my HOTAS without permanently affecting my ability to use my desk as an actual workspace, so I've been relegated to primarily keyboard/mouse while I run around and 'ooh and ahh' at all the pretty pixels in the game.

Because I don't have my HOTAS set up, I also haven't done too much racing lately, though this is probably what I will enjoy the most once I decide to dedicate more time to the game.

I have not actually participated in the FPS shooter, though I hear it's passable as a death match simulator on par with most of the modern FPS shooters on the market.

Be mindful that Xavderion is correct. Due to the alpha nature of the game and how the game client loads assets, it's pretty much mandatory to install the client on an SSD. It seems many of the 'bugs' experienced by newer players can be attributed to poor PC performance due to HD latency or low PC specs (slow processor; not enough memory; low spec graphics card).

I backed the game in 2013 because of the single player (SQ42). I thought even if SC takes ten years, at least they're gonna finish SQ42 fairly quickly, right? Wrong.

I'm not salty btw, I had a lot of fun in SC. And modded Freelancer still holds up very well imo.

"

Garr0t wrote:

Spoiler

My semi-annual shameless plug since they suckered me in 2016. They have a free-fly this week where you can explore some of the ships in the game and check out without commitment what they've done with the $286+ million dollars they have raised as of May 25, 2020.

If you are creating a new account, you can use my referral code {STAR-FQ6B-B97S}, which will credit your account with 5,000 UEC (in game creds) if you spend money to retain access after the free-fly event. If you buy a game package, I get recruitment points towards in-game rewards.

There's a couple of modules you can play:
Star Marine: FPS shooter
Arena Commander: spaceship FPS
Murray Cup: spaceship racing
Persistent universe: the game proper, bugs {a LOT of bugs}, warts and all. There are quest givers, a rudimentary law/crime system, a basic trading game (this and bounty hunting are the way to accumulate credits in game to buy additional ships/gear), rudimentary mining (assuming you have the right ship/gear), weather, planets with different biomes, and emergent gameplay with other players on the server instance if you are so inclined.

Feel free to make fun of the game/me or ask questions about my experience in this thread.

That title sounds almost like irony. For that amount theres very little to show besides graphics and an empty (gameplaywise) baby PU.

Star Marine : Bare Bones and left untended since december 2016/Q1 2017.
Arena Commander: Now has Borderlands like colorful armor pickups. Barebones as SM but suffers from the still broken flight model.
Murray Cup: Nobody really plays this game mode and for a reason.
Persistent universe: Not really persistent till i-cache and server mershing is in. Bed logout still non-functional in a lot of cases.

SC is currently a long dragged sight seeing simulator, with very simple game mechanics and missions and a neverending spiral of flight model tuning/reworks.

Elite Dangerous already exists. Star Citizen can go suck a lemon.

"

Iangyratu wrote:

[...]How close is it to be released, is it known?

Yes we know the release date now. It's approximately around the time when our milkyway gets absorbed by andromeda.

To be honest, I think I'd rather pay full price for it when it's finished than play it for free in an unfinished state.

How fun is it in comparison to Elite Dangerous?

"

gibbousmoon wrote:

How fun is it in comparison to Elite Dangerous?

Fun is subjective, but it does technically have more game modes than Elite. However, technically each of those game modes are also far shallower.