@Essence_of_Meh - eviltoast

Don’t Think, Just Jam

I started a screenshot album for my virtual adventures. Check it out if you’d like.

  • 651 Posts
  • 970 Comments
Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: November 25th, 2023

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  • To be fair, a lot of complaining stems from the fact each time we’re told “this system isn’t finished but will be iterated upon quickly” only to for things to be left with minimal changes for months or years - see Master Modes, T0 of item recovery etc. That and designing features with a mistaken expectation that people in an online environment will play “properly” and not abuse them in ways anyone who played online games for a few years can point out immediately, only to be surprised when that exactly thing happens.

    It’s not all people complain about, obviously, but it certainly doesn’t help.


  • Keep in mind claim timers will be increased a lot in the future, especially for larger ships. In the past there were also talks about variable timers depending on the economy (some ships might take longer than usual for reason X) and other effects when claiming too often. No idea if/what will make it into the game but they’ll most likely tune it so dropping a few k UEC will be a faster option.

    Plus, we’ll hopefully be able to bully them enough to make the rate of wear reasonable enough not to be annoying.


  • Haven’t read it yet but I have to say one thing: they posted this in the stupidest way possible. Med gameplay changes? Proper article on the site. Engineering? Spread over multiple posts on Spectrum.

    Why?

    Edit: Well, I read through the whole thing. Sounds alright though I’m not a fan of some of the ideas (their approach to redundancy for example). It’s just text so I’m not going to cast my judgement until I try it out myself.

    Other than that, I hope this leads to finally having some proper money sinks - not huge ones considering tuning it for constant replacements would be extremely annoying but it’s a start. Also provides something to do with the ship beyond using it as a transport.

    Now if only they could do something about losing ships when the game crashes.



  • Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories

    Tried playing it on my Steam Deck but it doesn’t want to cooperate unfortunately. Despite multiple attempts over various versions of PPSSPP (emulator) and playing around with settings, game always crashes after 15-30 minutes of play.

    I might try setting it up on my desktop as a last ditch effort but that will have to wait as I don’t care enough to bother with it at the moment. I’ll finish it one day.

    Daggerfall Unity

    After my failure with GTA:LCS I wasn’t really sure what to play and decided to go back do Daggerfall instead. Not much new to say about it for now as I only updated the mods and did a few quests. Still haven’t touched the main story outside of reporting to Castle Wayrest since my character is not a fighter and was sent away to train before proceeding (not that I expected anything else, it’s just where I stopped with that for now).

    It’s time to play the game properly for a bit, I guess.

    Sam and Max Hit the Road

    I finished the game two or so weeks ago but I’ve been thinking about it again over the last few days so I might as well mention it here. Despite my initial reaction (I liked it well enough, just not to a huge degree) I’ve been slowly warming up to it, especially the writing.

    I think the main reason behind my previous opinion had to do with the fact I’m not having a good time in general at the moment so everything I do is tainted by my foul mood. I needed some time to let my brain catch up and understand what I just played.

    The more I think about it the more satisfied with the game I become - it’s an interesting reversal since I usually tend to lean towards being more critical as time goes one and I have the chance to look at things from a distance. I also started watching someone else’s playthrough which allowed me to look at things from a different perspective as well. All in all, it’s a lovely (and rare) surprise.









  • It is done. I’m free!

    Guests:

    • John Crewe, Lead Vehicle Director
    • Ben Curtis, Vehicle Art Director
    • Mark Gibbson, Lead Vehicle Content Designer

    TL;DW:

    • 27 vehicles released this year.
    • Current content release cadence has partially to do with expansion of the vehicle team.
    • Some production processes have been changing but there are still things to work on.
    • Era of selling JPEGs is done, no more concept ships in the future (except for previously mentioned Battlecruiser).
    • Backlog of ships that can be produced right now, i.e. don’t require additional features that might block it from release right at the end of the process, is slim. That’s why we’re seeing more new vehicles (well, that and new stuff sells).
    • Preparing ships for engineering required different approach and amount of work depending on when the ship was released.
    • Content team is still reworking some of the engineering features planned for 4.5 based on what they’ve seen on the test channel.
    • The old pipe system has been replaced with resource network over the course of the last 2 years.
    • Initial release of engineering will be supported by all vehicles, just not to the same degree.
      • Single seaters with no physical access to components will have a single-use fix option through the MFD.
    • Armour wasn’t available in the tech preview but will be present in 4.5 and upcoming PTU. This isn’t the full Maelstorm implementation, just a temporary V1.
    • Next week ISC will touch more on the upcoming armour implementation.
    • There are working on a design doc explaining this system to release alongside 4.5.
    • Gold standard explanation - making sure all of the features available in the game today are supported by the new/reworked vehicle. Stuff like the relay system, correct metrics etc. It has nothing to do with style/visual changes but smaller changes (improved materials, changes to lighting) can happen to bring things up to the current standard.
    • Gold standard vs rework vs Mk. 2:
      • If the initial design no longer fits the current direction of the game and wouldn’t fit its original purpose (600i) it needs to be reworked.
      • If a vehicle works but needs stuff like addition of missing suit lockers, fixing weapon racks and other features that don’t require any fundamental changes - that’s gold standard update.
      • Mk. 2 is for ships that work fine but they have ideas on how to make them “bigger and better” without removing the original.
    • Gold standard ships planned for 2026:
      • RSI Aurora (weapon rack, more walking space, fire extinguisher, kickstarter paints).
      • RSI Aurora Mk. 2 (they don’t want to remove the existing iconic design but they want a version with upgraded visuals, possible but not confirmed Scorpius like extendable wings).
      • MISC Hull B (slightly reworked due to increased cargo capacity, can still land on planets while loaded thanks to change from + to X shape of the spindles).
      • Gatac Railen
      • Drake Ironclads
      • Kruger Stingray
      • RSI Galaxy
      • Unnamed Anvil ship(s?)
      • Unnamed Drake ship(s?)
      • Unnamed MISC ship(s?)
      • Unnamed Grays ship(s?)
      • Unnamed Origin ship(s?)
      • Unnamed Gatac ship(s?)
      • Unnamed Argo ship(s?)
    • Cargo capacity changes:
      • 32 SCU will be the largest containers available in the game.
      • Hull B: 384 SCU -> 512 SCU
      • Hull D: 20,736 SCU -> 6,912 SCU
      • Hull E: 98,304 SCU -> 12,288 SCU
      • Ironclad: 1,536 SCU -> 2,204 SCU
      • Ironclad Assault: 1,152 SCU -> 1,440 SCU
      • Railen: 320 SCU -> 640 SCU (will stick to the concept as close as possible but needs a rework of the cargo section to support the standarised approach)
    • No ship silhouettes this years. The missing ones from last years are:
      • Greycat MSC (small crafting ground vehicle).
      • Anvil Auxilia (Atlas platform based ground vehicle with crafting station and T2 medbed).
      • Consolidated Outland The Forge (small-medium crafting and refinery ship with ground extractors/miners, name might change).
    • No plans for grav plates for the exterior walkway of the Perseus. They are intended purely for planet-side use but this might change if they implement some new way of doing it.
    • Pilot control of torpedoes on Perseus vs Polaris:
      • In 4.5 one of the bridge consoles on the Polaris will have control of torpedoes but with some disadvantages (no 360 camera, shorter torpedo queue).
      • Why not the pilot? Balance reasons (Polaris torps are larger).
      • Why does Idris pilot get control of the gun then? Because it’s fixed and requiring to coordinate between two people to make it useful would be impossible. They still want to rebalance it in the future.
    • Lack of signage inside the Polaris was a design choice pushed by Ben, not a mistake. Feedback about this and other things was later used when creating the Perseus. They will go back and make changes to the Polaris - quality of life soon(ish), bigger ones at a later date.
    • Initial plan was for the Polaris to be a reference point for RSI’a military ships and Zeus for civilian ones. Perseus found more of a balance between the two.
    • Shark mouth skin for Perseus - maybe.
    • StarKitten skin for Perseus - “not right now”.
    • Ben doesn’t hate SK, just want assets related to it to be deliberate and “feel right”. He also wants to expand the brand with other characters.
    • Ammunition replenishment:
      • Short term - you’ll be able to rearm from few selected ships if they have ammo in their cargo hold. Same with refuelling.
      • Long term (for large ships) - dedicated space next to turrets to put ammo in.
    • Material boxes should keep auto-ejecting in the back of the RSI Salvation when toggled, might be a bug if that doesn’t happen. Question about possibility of adding a button at the back of the ship.
    • Salvation will fit inside the rear hangar of the Galaxy, material can be then transported to Galaxy’s refinery from there.
    • No option to swap salvage modules on the Salvation comes from them wanting it to be just an entry ship into the career. It’s suppose to be easy and forgiving but not something for people who want to stick with that gameplay. Same with the Drake Golem.
    • Drake Clipper is designed to craft FPS and small ship items.
    • Decision to give Clipper 2 S1 shields comes down to balancing. “Jack of all trades, master of none.” You’ll be able to craft them yourself at least.
    • Clipper speed capped at 999m/s because balancing.
    • Wolf weapon kits will be available in-game “eventually”. They are no different than Idris-K, Heartseeker turret and other kits which took a while to show up - means to finance the game.
    • “We never said things will go to UEC shops, they will be attainable in-game.” Expect more loot, Wikelo and crafting as the only (?) ways to get certain items.
    • More generalist ships coming, at least one of them coming in 2026.
    • Bug with category display in ASOP terminals led to them reworking and realigning vehicle categories in general.
    • Web store is undergoing audit to align it with the current game design, direction, terms etc.
    • More video content next year, probably not as much as in the past.
    • Caterpillar and Ironclad command modules are moving along. First playable version of the “parasite” functionality (controlling ship from other ship) will be coming online internally soon. Planned to be available with the release of Ironclad.
    • LAMP - light amplification for ship canopies is coming. Similar to already available scopes with that functionality. Currently in early, no release date.
    • Crafting stations will be coming to other ships (Carrack, not Aquilla unless someone has hard evidence to prove it was planned).
    • Ship naming:
      • Mechanically it’s already set up for all of the ships.
      • Art side of things needs work due to static size regardless of name length, doesn’t work well with paints, no lights illuminating the text.
      • On-site naming process needs to be reworked as it currently requires a lot of manual labour - setting up waves, manual approval of names etc.
    • Battlecruiser to be revealed during Invictus Launch Week (2026?).
    • No limit on when SC will have “enough ships”. There’s still plenty of possible addition to existing manufacturers, sizes and career paths.
    • They also want separation of docking and hangar requests, might talk to the team responsible for the command module work to look into it since the two are somewhat related.
      • Apollo’s back entrance isn’t set up as a docking collar at the moment because otherwise it would be sent to station docking instead of hangars. It will be activated once docking is properly implemented.
    • AI blades still intended (PDTs are functionally this already). Need more work before they can be properly implemented.
    • Even current flight blades aren’t exactly properly set up, more of a hack job using what’s available.
    • Scalable rewards pushing for use of multi-crew ships are dependant on Missions 2.0 system (should be out in 2026).
    • They scaled the shows back partially due to changes to Jared’s position in the company and partially to “not spoil the future content”.
    • “General quarters” alarm in ships will be a thing.
    • Different types of ballistic ammo are still planned.
    • They’re aware turrets still need more work.
    • There’s a strike team that has been working on freight elevator issues since “Race for Stanton”, still going hard on that.