Category: master modes

Nor is Star Citizen a space flight sim

The promise for and of the last decade has been to create a believable game play experience flying in a variety of futuristic spaceships. IN OUTER SPACE! Master Modes has turned this vision on its head.

With the release of MM, CIG is headed in an entirely different direction.

An Engineering Company

CIG has been and primarily is an engineering company. It is clear that internal forces are steering the company toward a sales and marketing slant. A clear sign that CIG is experiencing these internal forces is demonstrated with the advertising proclaiming their game “playable now”. Advertising that coincided with the release of patch 3.18. Of course, 3.18 was unplayable by most.

The introduction of PES in 3.18 fell flat on it’s face and introduced 6 months of delays in some important CIG time tables.

This generation’s Wing Commander

Chris Roberts expressed his hopes that SQ42 will become this generation’s Wing Commander. Granted, MM as a FM is head and shoulders above that found in Wing Commander. But it is a far cry from the advances in technology of the last 30 years and the FMs already found in a variety of currently available games.

When engineering companies reach a certain pinnacle they encounter forces determined to grow the company. These forces are not based on what got them there. They are based on a misguided notion that sales and marketing are the keys. In practice, those keys unlock the doors of death.

In practice, the easiest sale is for products not available, thus basing real life decisions on this erroneous sales data can have extreme derogatory consequences. When an engineering company stops being an engineering company and caters to every shred of promises of sales and riches, they shrivel and die. If sales and marketing are telling you how high to jump, then you know you have the disease.

Problems with Master Modes

1] With lower SCM velocities and near infinite jerk profiles, ships attain maximum velocity quickly and then lose further acceleration. This renders them as nearly stationary targets. This is the feeling of being “locked in” and makes the game feel like it is on rails while also limiting evasion.

I don’t need accurate PIPs to hit stationary targets

2] Dog fighting becomes DPS/Hull dependent because time on target generates the biggest advantage. The biggest ship with the biggest guns will win any dog fight. This is a strict FPS model that would NOT ring true in the depths of outer space.

3] Promotes intentional ship ramming by trying to limit unintended ramming.

4] Paints an inaccurate picture of space flight.

5] Rather than follow CIG’s ethos of solving a technology challenge with innovative engineering solutions, they have resorted to limiting game play.

With all the chatter about provisioning costs, Amazon may have CIG by the balls.

6] Weapon damage is RNG based.

7] Multi-crew dependencies are reduce to an almost meaningless level negating well honed strategies of the past. A big loss for the turret gunner role. And surely a damper on distinguishing various classes of ships from each other.

8] Hit and run tactics will no longer be viable rendering ships like the Ion and Inferno useless.

9] The boomerang effect. Many of the acclaimed benefits of MM have actually had the opposite effect compounded with additional unintended consequences. Certainly jousting, kiting, and increased ranges of engagements are all observed in AC.

10] Grandiose talk of lowering the skill ceiling for new players has not been realized for those new players buying starter packages. These single pilot ships don’t stand a chance in PVP engagements as experienced pilots will pair and group up.

MM will impact our solo playing citizens

11] MM eliminates all the really cool flight mechanics that a lot of us love and enjoy. That is, the absence of an arcady and a limiting flight model. The immersion of flying a futuristic spaceship amongst the stars is completely lost and with it, any realism that the verse might have for each of us.

12] It is clear that the DEVs at CIG have yet to learn the laws of unintended consequences. I tried to point this out as an evocati for the 3.0 release when they last tested reduced SCM velocities. Even if MM did solve the problems as advertised, it has created a shit storm of new issues which will indubitably consume much time and resources.

Where is the OFF switch?

“MM is unnatural and constantly reminds you that you are just playing a game”

The flight model(FM) is the game. MM offers nothing new over the competition and eliminates what has been the best feature of Star Citizen.

Telling folks they should go play some other game that does feature Newtonian flight is an insult to those of use that have invested thousands of dollars, for this game.

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CIG media is chock full of employee testimonials proclaiming pride in a work product that exceeds the expectations of the current AAA genre. Employees are proud to polish their work to increase the quality and efficiency of each workflow. Indeed, there are some extraordinary events unfolding as the code base from Squadron 42 finds it way into the verse.

Master Modes

Based on currently available MM tuning it is unmistakable that the speed caps have impacted the ability of pilots to generate sufficient rotational accelerations to enable pilots to increase or decrease the distance between each other at a rate that allows pilots to execute a number of common maneuvers.

So pilots be forwarned, Master Modes is a FM on rails.

So, this is the best you can do?

ya know, ya know, ya know, physics, ya know, ya know, ya know, mathematics, ya know, ya know, ya know, …

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