Review Archives - Citizens of Interest

September 5, 2024September 5, 2024

Censored by Spectrum

Today a post on Spectrum complained about the lack of persistence for the weapon groupings of your spaceship. Those of us using dual stage triggers know the problem well. Depending on your weapon loadout you may want weapon group 2 as your first stage trigger with weapon group 1 as your second stage trigger. And of course, this assignment differs between the various ships.

As part of the reply, out of the blue Yogi stated that “they were quite satisfied with MM”. As you might expect, that drew howls of laughter from many of us including me.

Which Citizens?

The comment has backers asking exactly who is this group of citizens? Seemed that the comment singularly included the MM devs. I of course, took the opportunity to make a few suggestions which immediately drew a couple of likes. But when I went back to review the thread my comment was no where to be seen and I was only able to view my post by clicking on the notifications icon.

Fortunately I only use Spectrum from time to time as it often goes on and on with citizens talking past each other. From time to time citizens are castigated by self appointed white knights. We all know who they are. Similar to many social media platforms, it/they are generally useless cesspools.

The Post

Yogi walked right into this.

As I said before we’re pretty happy with the MM changes.
Yogi

My reply

Seems like a singular point of view considering how obtuse MM is to use. Some suggestions for 4.0:

Engaging NAV mode should be made more user friendly by the following:

a] Engaging NAV mode should not engage the QD as the drive is not needed to go Mach 3.
b] Shields, weapons, and counter measures should remain active in NAV mode but should not recharge in the case of both weapons and shields.
c] When you activate QD THEN AND ONLY THEN weapons, shields, and counter measures should be disabled. You absolutely do not need the QD HUD overlay just to go Mach3.
d] The time to switch in and out of NAV mode from/to SCM should be greatly increased.

The other annoying issue is boost should not engage if already at max velocity/acceleration, it feels like a 1st year engineering student designed the system as your boost is drained for no reason. And for the life of me can you get rid of space drag????

The deceleration that occurs when engaging the landing gear is cartoonish at best.

I have not and do not enjoy MM in its current state and my views are shared by a great number of citizens I have had the pleasure of flying with.

So please, go back to the drawing board and make MM something that is more realistic and does not smack of a 90’s era nintendo game.

And while I am still playing I am trying my best to avoid any of this so called WWII dog fighting in space. It feels like it belongs in a cartoon and is not realism dialed back to fun. It is not fun at all and it is just annoying.

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April 21, 2024May 23, 2024

Master Modes is not Space Flight

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.

Master Modes: The Only Right Answer by Leschath

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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March 20, 2024April 4, 2024

Feeling Lucky in an Avenger

Feeling Lucky Avenger Titan with Gemini Snip-er rifle

It’s not often, if at all, that I get into the business of recommending a starter ship. There are probably tons of utube and tictok vids all vying to be your influencer when it comes to recommending your best cash outlay to get started.

And certainly, there are a large variety of starter ships to choose from. By far and away the easiest path to early success in Star Citizen is the vaunted role of a transporter. Here you can start out small running box missions to earn aUEC and stock your inventory with loot. In fact, the creds you earn selling excess loot gathered on these missions far exceeds the payments you will receive.

Once you’ve mastered the role of a transporter you can easily step into mercenary work. Tackle those underground bunker missions to collect “modified” armor and an array of more advanced weaponry.

The ship that best fits this game play is hands down the Avenger Titan.

With a size 4 nose weapon along with a size 3 weapon under each wing you will command enough fire power to take down the majority of the resistance you will meet, including medium sized ships like the Drake Cutlass. The cargo area is easily accessed and is ideal to load up all the road kill from the bunker missions for easy looting. It is one of the few ships that has two hatches. Upgrade the components and you can also use the ship for beginner bounty missions.

FEELING LUCKY? AVENGER TITAN STARTER PACK

For a limited time CIG is offering a feeling lucky 25% discount on the Avenger Titan making it one of least expensive options and by far the most versatile starter ship available. CIG is also adding a Gemini Sniper rifle plus a generous 20,00 starting UEC.

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March 7, 2024March 16, 2024

Please Sir Richard, may I have more

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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February 25, 2024April 22, 2024

Star Citizen’s Non-Combat patch

The reviews of Master Modes(MM) are in. CIG is introducing a base line FM that eliminates the need for dog fighting skills similar to EVE Online. Some of Star Citizen’s newest citizens are delighted.

Frustration is directly palpable in the PVP community. As well as with those of us that take pride, having learned the basics so that we may enjoy the occasional thrill of PVP to break up reputation and other grinds. Basic piloting skills rule PVE.

The alarming consequences of MM, as is currently playable in Arena Commander is the elimination of the need for its citizens to acquire a piloting skill set. This is deliberate. When MM was introduced CIG very publicly committed to a company wide sign off. No game play was to be broken.

We are left to “draw the inference” that masters and blasters is CIG’s first attempt at establishing a non-flight combat based MMO.

Unrealized goals

The goals promised by MM have largely been unmet. Other than the new cone firing mechanic, the promise of reduced jousting and up close knife fighting and of an end to the light fighter meta are not to be found. Light fighter meta has been replace with interceptor meta. The FM has become more complicated and janky with the (re)introduction of an old concept, segmented flight modes(SCM/NAV): a net-loss. And for now, PVP has become a pure DPS battle with a terrible smell of RNG.

And we still have that nasty space drag. Seriously, space drag.

Of course we have seen game play shifts in the past. Sometimes with the goal of obtaining telemetry data. This could be a baseline non-combat patch. Despite the wrath of the PVP community, obtaining baseline telemetry should not turn into a smoke screen. We have seen that act before. Adding the flight combat back into the mix must come quickly.

This fork’s existence could be a baseline to address the console market which will need a radically different FM than found in PC realm.

Saving Master Mode

Critics believe, using sound engineering protocols that with a few changes MM can be saved. Aiming for the center is a neat trick, say wrt max SCM speeds? The throttle is the most effective speed mechanic, far surpassing the afterburner and boost mechanics. Truth be told, none of the cures for the ill(s) require MM but I suspect MM does provide a means to quickly re-balance the over 200 ships per their particular archetype. Some well thought out recommendations could very well save MM from itself.

Musings

Posits that speed is not nearly the burden that accelerations are have yet to be disproved. I was sorely chastised by others when I called out Sir Richard for the wholly absurd introduction to MM that claimed speed was the problem. So the gang nerfed the hell out of ship velocities and didn’t solve a damn thing. So much for sound engineering over marketing.

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September 28, 2023March 7, 2024

Star Wars vs Star Citizen

Of course, we are talking about the FM. Since the Star Citizen FM was converted to a wasd shooter style of play (face-to-face ToT contests) from the original most beloved WWII dog fighter model(based on the law of uniform circular motion (UCM)) the popularity of PVP has plummeted.

This difference is so stark that dedicated PVPers actually prefer the 3.5DOF FM of Star Wars to Star Citizen’s 6DOF FM. Of course, flying with a gamepad isn’t in the cards for me, but there are a few things to learn here.

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August 26, 2023March 7, 2024

Biting the Hands that feed you

My impression is that after 10 years, CIG expects its backers to log in and test the game rather than log in and have fun playing the game.

Today my daily grind with my new alt was interrupted by news that the 3.20 PTU was available for wave 1 and wave 2 backers. So I do the drill, I go to my settings page and low and behold I cannot copy my account to the PTU despite being a Wing Commander concierge member.

“[M]any players only log in once per PTU phase to briefly inspect the latest features or new ships before waiting for the live release. This led to very high player loads in the first hours of each wave release, combined with comparatively high server costs and download provisioning, but not the sustained play testing we would have preferred. As a consequence, towards the end of a PTU phase, we sometimes lacked the necessary numbers of testers to put the servers under pressure once the most significant bugs had been fixed.”

You have to love today’s politicians. Most have failed to come to grips with the fact that anything they said yesterday was immortalized in a vid for all of time. Yet, despite that, they feel free to deny and lie about what they said, sometimes on the very next day.

Precisely, what was said.

So it is sad that it has come to this. Years of promoting Evocati status. Years of providing a ruse that folks should make use of the Issue Council. Years of moderating Spectrum so as to make it nothing more than a sounding board for white knights.

Bottom line, all CIG needs from us is our hard earned cash.

Sharpening the Tools? Seriously? CIG believes that their preferred group of testers are those that play the most or subscribe for $10/month. Most folks qualified for testing have lives a bit more complicated than playing SC 12 hrs/day. Thus they(CIG) have granted this group higher testing rank that those of us that have invested thousands of dollars over the years to back the game.

One should expect the track record over the the past decade of delay after delay to continue on, well into the future.

CIG could start to address its testing requirements(failures) by weeding out the rot in their Evocati group, these folks couldn’t test a wet noodle. Time after time I experienced problems in wave 1 that should have been resolved by the Evocati. It has been that way since Alpha 3.0. Or how about fixing all those known issues before asking anyone to test, dealing with that is a supreme waste of time which discourages many.

I am sure that you and I have lots of thoughts on how to improve things, but we now know that CIG has already thought of everything and anything that we could offer.

So, unless CIG wants to pay for my time I will continue to play the game and try my best to ignore CIGs efforts to grab more than my cash. If they can’t handle the load, too fricken bad.

And oh yeah, go buy another ship!

And don’t forget to join me and sign all your crash reports with ¯_(ツ)_/¯

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June 30, 2023March 7, 2024

The GamePad

So I did it, after several decades I finally bricked a computer, my trusty i7-4790k. That beast always ran hot and I bricked it testing out the liquid cooling solution I had been using, pushed it past its thermal limits. Not much of a loss since it pretty much just burned juice since ETH mining ended.

With the disaster that was SC 3.18 it seemed like a good time to work on my first SC alt. The idea is simple, along with creating my alt I would add a second pc to run side by side my current pc so that I could use my alt to pilot my larger ships and then use my main to fly from the base ship. Seems that the mini carrier I’ve had on order, a Liberator, is due to be delivered along with the Pyro system so a second platform to run SC is in order. Until then I’ll try living off my Carrack once I get it stocked for extended service.

After replacing the MB and installing a refurbished i7-9700K along with a daring venture into Win11 I had a new PC ready to roll.

I would also later replace the 10yr old power supply and upgrade my GPU to a RTX 3060 gaming edition.

The question remained, how to incorporate the controllers. My desktop space leaves little room for a new HOTAS/HOSAS setup and I am none to hot on the MK combo. Let’s give the GamePad a whirl. As long as I am not engaging in PVP, racing or low flying the GamePad could be a viable option?

Naturally I turned to Google for some hot tips and low and behold the GamePad Elite came with glowing reports, that yes, you could run SC with it without touching your keyboard! Perfect for today’s thumb based device crowd. Several citizens offered up mappings, at least claimed to offer up mappings but I was not interested in shelling out $200 for one of those so called “elite” controllers which are nothing more than a mini-keyboard sandwiched between the mini-joy ports.

After all I had an XBOX ONE controller stashed around here somewhere…

On my first attempt I setup the GamePad using SC’s bindings editor, carefully weighing what to bind to what. It seemed clear up front that while using the left mini joy port for WASD works on the ground, it does not work well in flight. With only 10 buttons the use of the right(RB) and left(LB) modifiers were mandatory. Much to my dismay it turns out that the d-pad could not be modified using the RB so right away I was short bindings.

As pointed out by daddy Papy, SC uses ALL of the keyboard bindings.

So on my next attempt I added a slight of hand provided by JoyStick Gremlin. When configured with vJoy and HidHide you could in theory setup 9 separate profile modes (max allowed vjoys in SC) and extend those 10 buttons to something usable. So I thought. After a week with fighting with the Gremlin UI I finally had a prototype ready to go featuring a base template which mapped all the function keys, overlaid with a flight mode template and a ground mode template.

Well, OK, that worked! Maybe I am on to something. After all SC is rumored to be going big supporting the GamePad with the someday to be released Squadron 42. I see $$$.

Realizing my GamePad was an older model I ran off to BestBuy to pickup one of the new GamePads. That is when the shit hit the fan and I realized just how old my XBOX GamePad really was. Seems that somewhere along the way Microsoft changed the GampePad to use the XInput API and had tossed the older DirectX protocols. This introduced some problems.

The biggest problem is that up front, the GamePad only works in the currently open window. This works just fine for Window’s XBOX Gamebar, but Gremlin gets blocked. So you are forced to use SC’s limited keybinding tool. A quick DM with Gremlin’s author presented little to zero hope that Gremlin would be modified to support XInput. If it did, then there is a mode in XInput that would allow it to run in background albeit with only 4 templates. If that were not enough, it turns out that when your BlueTooth connection times out you lose your connection ID and Gremlin.

By now I had invested a couple of weeks into this experiment, the best I could do is hook my ancient XBOX GamePad and reconfigure all the software once again. Absent a viable product for the SC community perhaps I could still make use of all the work.

And I did. Gremlin was configured to call out “flight mode”, or “ground mode” when I switched to and fro. Indeed I had a nearly sufficient set of bindings that keyboard use was greatly reduced. By now the 3.18.1 patch had arrived so I set out in my alt flying my space truck starter package, the Nomad.

Progressing from simple takeoff and landings I refined my bindings until I had mastered fairly smooth takeoff and landings. So off to a few box missions. Even with a few tweeks use of the GamePad was janky and prone to errors. This would never be as precise as my trusty VPCs, not even with hundreds of hours of muscle memory training.

The biggest issue is of course the mini joy ports. Extremely course granularity due to the very limited throw inherent with a thumb port. Precise aiming is near impossible no matter how practiced or how damped. Certainly running 4DOF(5 axis total) in a 6DOF world hurts. This is definitely a controller that requires aim assist.

After a few successful box missions I thought well maybe, I could use this for flying larger ships, right? Then I ran into pirates. That was the end of the experiment.

Is the GamePad a better controller option than the standard mouse and keyboard. I’d give it a big fat NO. The lack of buttons and the lack of aiming precision squarely position the GamePad in the worthless category.

A grade of D- at best.

My current solution:

And in the if I had thought of this in the first place I could have saved myself some time, a simple USB switch. Of course, I did learn more than I expected about Joystick Gremlin and the GamePad controller including taking Window’s XBOX Gamebar for a spin. It’s kinda of cool, I was able to tune in Star Citizen radio!

And a big thank you to redlir for his vids on Gremlin!

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February 15, 2023March 7, 2024

You can’t go back

Didn’t matter what CIG added to the 3.17 PU to stir the pot, those of us fortunate to have fought our way through the 3.18 PTU, well 98% of us, never logged the PU again.

PES is a game changer!

Despite frequent wipes, with a little luck you could spin up some rep and spend hours running the bunker missions on Orison. Collecting enemy armor and guns is a popular hobby with citizens lugging large crates behind their operations to collect the stuff. And yeah, friendly fire is a CS3 offense where GrimHex will be your only shelter to ponder your life choices.

The security terminals at the newly renovated Security Post Kareah are heavy guarded by Crusader and a successful takeover of the station will grant you free and clear of your CS and if you work it, some easter eggs too.

SPK is now the only location where a Crime Stat(CS3+) can be hacked. CS1 and CS2 are resolved via fines.

The Transporter

This role is a nice blend of basic piloting skills and a progressively dicey mix of FPS. Getting started is a snap and can be a lot of fun with just the right amount of challenge for Citizens looking to round out their skills.

PES allows for some interesting emergent game play in the event of your death or loss of ship. You can, after all, go back and cleanup any mess you might inadvertently make.

Anything to save that rep.

Delivery: Loot your way to a supply surplus while you transport packages from protected POI to protected POI. Any starter ship with some accessible cargo space will work. Work your contracts quickly for the best chance to avoid needless entanglements. Contracts start at 4000 aUEC.
Derelict outposts: Liven up your deliveries by including derelict POIs where you will need to get past the local “bad mens” to grab the package. Shoot from the sky or land and pick off the guards from the ground. But work quickly as a support cutlass will inbound shortly to check out your incursion. Get caught with your pants down and you will lose your ship. That is when things get interesting. Contracts starting at 4000 aUEC. BONUS: npc loot, cutlass.
Recovery missions: None of that needless loot here save some npc armor. Get in, grab the package and get out. Enemy Cutlass support craft highly likely. Scenic roof top deliveries! Contracts starting at 4000 aUEC. BONUS: npc loot, cutlass.
Advanced weapons(protect sites): bolster your merc rep and your armory by signing up for the site protection missions. You’ll have but 15 mics after you clear the facility to collect your loot and run, assuming you avoid friendly fire – a CS3 offense.
Recommended ship: While any starter ship with cargo space can get you started, the preferred ride is the Avenger Titan. Upgrade to hard weapon mounts(Rhino/Panther), or mount an AD4B ballistic gatling if you want to toss some serious bullets around. The additional upgrades to mil spec shields/power/coolers and an Atlas QD to kit out will add another $110k aUEC.

These upgrades should give you a fighting chance against both PVE and PVP interdictions and allow you to easily quickly travel Stanton end to end with a bare minimum of fuel.

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January 15, 2023March 7, 2024

The Transporter

Get your Jason Statham on in Star Citizen’s 3.18 patch. Wave 1 has been in the wind for several weeks now and if you are lucky enough to get a higher frame rate server, things look good. New missions for the delivery profession have emerged into a new profession – The Transporter. Hiring yourself out as a mercenary transporter who moves goods from one place to another. No questions asked.

Dangerous complications ensue.

As a Jr. Runner you can choose between local delivery routes or retrieval ops. Complete 5 of them and you earn Runner status and access to higher paying missions and ops. In order to complete your Jr. level training you will need to settle on two issues. Which ship? Which weapons?

It’s tempting to call up the Cutter, Pisces, or the Mustang Alpha for the deliveries to protected space. It’s all fun and games popping baddies with your blasters from the comfort of your cockpit, that is, until reinforcements arrive – in a cutlass. You’ll want a bit more fire power!

*The Avenger is the Transporter’s ship of choice.*

The Cutlass is a solid choice but I found another look at the Avenger was in order. A GT-220 Mantis coupled with a pair of badgers bring it. The all varipuck mounting makes aiming a breeze. And the Avenger can easily pull 20Gs. Aegis’s radar is clearly superior to anything Drake can offer.

Runners can’t avoid FPS, so it helps to equip a gun that works for you. Find a gun that works at the ranges you are comfortable with. As a starter profession you are unlikely to have acquired more advanced weapons, so choose wisely. The P4 works for me. Note, the NPCs on high tick servers are deadly. And don’t forget the loot boxes!

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