Squadron 42/Star Citizen (New Space Shooter from Chris "Wing Commander" Roberts)

[Frogacuda]

So they've come around to the KS thing. I guess they worked something out with KS where these pledges will show up on the Roberts Space Industries page and be added to the total, so that makes sense, I guess.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...zen?ref=search

[sedition]

So I watched the videos today and read through some of what they are shooting for in Star Citizen. I'm in. This looks amazing. Seems like EVE, but with flight sim combat and FPS on foot breaking into ships and wandering around on planets. Tons of really cool ideas floating around. Looks like another potentially awesome game for the PC. Maybe by the time this is out, I can play with the Oculus Rift and a flight stick.

[gameoverDude]

Shack News story

From the FAQ: "At the moment you will be able to play it on a 4GB dual core PC with a GTX 460 or greater, but not with full fidelity. If you're running an i7 2500, 2600, 2700 or better with a GTX 670 or greater you will get the full experience and we will only scale up from there."

This looks like it'll be what Doom 3 or Crysis 1 were on their respective release dates. I almost hear "But can it run Squadron 42/Star Citizen?" becoming the new meme. Hopefully the next-gen consoles can do something close to this.

Crowdfunding is about $1.203M right now. $2M in 19 more days should be no prob for Chris at this rate.

[epmode]

This is the kind of game that will get me to build a new computer.

Thanks for such a warm welcome! Can’t believe so many people stopped by to say hi while I was sleeping. I’m by no means able to answer all the questions, and I should be getting back to work but I guess I can give you all another good teaser…

I’m seeing a lot of questions about 2D vs. 3D displays, and about 3D HMDs vs. cockpit-projected HUDs. In fact, Chris made the decision to use all three types in Star Citizen from the beginning.

There’s a fixed holographic projection within the cockpit, which overlays things that don’t move with your head, e.g. velocity, acceleration, attitude, altitude, heading and targeting data. This projection has depth for greater effect (along the lines of what you see in that Scaleform promotional video), and also uses some (non-essential) stereoscopic depth cues to assist the pilot in reading certain situations more quickly. You don’t need an Oculus to get all the same info, but I’m not saying the depth cues won’t give you a slight edge.

In addition to that, there’s a separate projection on the inside of the pilot’s helmet which can be loaded up with with deeper data sets (e.g. ship status, weapons selection, power balancing, navigation maps, communications, etc). This HMD projection stays in your field of vision when you turn your head.

Finally, elements from both of these projections can be shunted to the flat LCD displays or brought back up to their respective projection, and have been designed to shift shape, color and opacity, and/or break into separate elements, depending on whether they’re being displayed on a flat screen or holographically. So yeah, there was definitely some inspiration from Minority Report and Iron Man, but at the same time these elements are very much in the CR space sim style, and my primary goal is to remain true to his original vision.

I should stress that these projection layers exist, and about 80% of the gizmos are fully functional; in tests, they have been added to the projections and screens and run successfully with dummy data. The part that’s not yet complete is the full integration that sends active environmental data to the components. The HUD is a platform in itself with 62 custom classes and a 20-page API manual so far. There are hundreds of data points that need to be connected up to the ship’s systems, so we’re still in the process of getting the cockpit fully “wired”.

And no, we’re not deviating from the classic polar-mapped radar screen! But we’ve added some nice touches like sector heat mapping, and ship-on-your-tail alerts.

Additionally, someone asked me about incorrect and/or damaged displays. Every element in our HUD responds to damage. As Chris built the fly-by-wire system to procedurally handle an infinite range of ship states based on damage to various components, that philosophy was extended to have damage also rendered procedurally in the HUD. Just as one example, text in the HUD is not pre-rendered or even generated on the fly as a block; it’s printed procedurally to the displays one character at a time, with a greater likelihood of transcription error (or garbled transmission) depending on specific damage to your avionics or communications systems. Response to damage is a bedrock feature of every element in the HUD and has a negative impact on boot times, data latency and accuracy. If this sounds like something not recommended in a Scaleform project, it isn’t – and they said it was crazy – but we’ve refactored, honed and optimized it to work.

So, I’ll end it here before I give away all my tricks, but I’ll drop back in from time to time. Meanwhile, stay tuned for the next vid!

[Frogacuda]

This looks like it'll be what Doom 3 or Crysis 1 were on their respective release dates. I almost hear "But can it run Squadron 42/Star Citizen?" becoming the new meme. Hopefully the next-gen consoles can do something close to this.

Sure, if it came out tomorrow. But two years is a long time and new consoles are coming.

This does sound like it could be a pretty amazing experience with an Occulus Rift and a flight stick. This kind of super ambitious project is just what the genre needs to really get people interested again.

[Frogacuda]

So, this managed to cross 2 million. Most of which was actually on their own site and not Kickstarter. Glad I was wrong about that.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012...sed-2-million/

[epmode]

This is a design document for the five initial ships: http://www.robertsspaceindustries.com/ships-plan/

It also includes an overview of engines and weapons systems.

Dream game.

[epmode]

So this is still going. $3.35M with 6 days remaining.

A short video about the AI was just released: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...0?ref=activity

There's a lot of placeholder art in there, features missing, etc, but the AI is actually flying and fighting now.

BONUS SUPER CHEESY MISSION BRIEFING: http://player.vimeo.com/video/53293424

[Frogacuda]

I was sort of irritated with this project when one of the stretch goals was Star Citizen. Like they let people pledge to this thing and then reveal they were actually pledging to a smaller single player game unless they hit 3 million.

But they hit it, so moot point now.

I do think this project could turn out pretty amazing. I don't have money to pledge but it's at the top of my anticipated list.

[epmode]

This project is kind of unique in how they're going to have a lot of third party financing. Stretch goals are reportedly about how fast the stuff gets done, not whether or not it will be in the game at all.

That said, I hope they hit $4M because good mod tools means that Freespace 2 will finally be replaced.