Looking for new upcoming titles, you always see that multi-platform stuff with the nowadays common free to play concept, mainly grabbing your wallet after 5 minutes of gameplay and spoiling PC players with the limitations of the consoles.

 

Now I came across this because they've promoted their latest tech video. http://www.robertssp...m/star-citizen/ And I first thought it was a fake because.. PC only?, latest (Cry)engine?, old Wing Commander style space sim? Must be kidding!

 

No, it looks really good and I've watched the cinematic trailer more than once. I didn't know Mr. Roberts (the guy behind Wing Commander) was on such a project and he seems to have quite some tasks ahead, but it already looks very promising and the concept of the crowd-funding isn't that bad.

 

So, if you are not only into flying more or less realistic planes but also enjoy being a space hero, maybe it's worth watching. Since I'm not only flying the sim but also felt that e.g. Mass Effect or games alike have set a mark, I felt like posting in the Hangar chat. Guess I like that space (hero whatever) theme. :blush:

 

I mean, it's flying, right?

Nice find! This sort of "sim" has always fascinated me, but most are aged or over complicated and/or ugly. I loved the little details like the "catapault crewman" stuck out to me. Neat.

Wow... Wing Commander brings back good 'ole memories.

Nice seeing some folks enjoying those game setups. From the website, the big publishers don't believe in PC only space sims, hence his move to do it on his own. Quite a (financial) challenge when it comes to that sort of 'AAA' aiming point then.

 

We may wish him luck. If he keeps that detail level (asymmetric ships, yeah!), I'm in. By the way, I'll grab my old Battlestar Galactica DVDs later. :wub:

I can only say, . . WOW! I am impressed. Thanks for the link to the video. I really hope this project is finished before the powers that be make the PC go the way of the dinosaurs just so they can sell new tech toys. You know, . . . that HD tv isn't good for you anymore, you really really need a 3d set up. Make today obsolete and sell a better tomorrow.

 

Me a Luddite, nah not me!!!!!! :Big Grin:

 

Mel

My first real flight simulator, the first one that I really got into, was Chris Roberts' Strike Commander, which was basically Wing Commander in F16s. I loved that game, played the hell out of it. I was even able to feed the music MIDI output to my music synth for a full orchestral score, back in the days when 16 bit Soundblaster FM synths were standard.

 

I've no idea how the flight modelling would hold up by today's standards, but it certainly felt realistic enough to count as a "sim" rather than an "game". Never cared that much for the "flight" model in the Wing Commander games - it never quite felt like a proper 3D environment - though I did play them a lot. But where Roberts really scored was with the storyline and the supporting characters, which were great in both SC and WC.

 

Be very interesting to see what he can do with modern game technology.

 

Dr V

I have seen peeks of this here and there from the first rumors that Chris Roberts was back and "Up to something"

 

Nice to see some solid information, but I wonder if he can make his financial goal. With his name and track record, if he cant do it, nobody can. (Shame about the horrible movie, though)

(Shame about the horrible movie, though)

No good movie? :( One has to scroll down for the cinematic trailer, without the author's text, just some gameplay and 'story'. :Peace:

 

No good movie? :( One has to scroll down for the cinematic trailer, without the author's text, just some gameplay and 'story'. :Peace:

 

I meant his wing commander movie. :-)

Ouch. Now I get it. Sorry, Devon. :blush2: And, on that movie, agreed.

 

Look, the last few days gave them 100.000+ bucks of funding. As I've posted the thread, they were under a million. Go Space Sim, go! :dance:

I notice they're using the unreal engine. I've wondered for the longest when some sim would finally do that and finally move sims into the 21st century graphically. It seems appropriate that it would be a space sim.

 

On a side note, I see he still favors the design asymmetry he introduced in the Kilrathi ships for Wing Commander. I also chuckled at the wingtip vapor trails in space. :-)

 

Looks like fun!

I notice they're using the unreal engine.

Noooooooooo! Sorry, exaggerated no due to naming the primary competitor of the CryEngine3. That's they one they are running and those two (engine) devs often enough fight dirty wars about who is better and things. Hence my no.

 

Nevertheless, you are perfectly right, this may be a nice looking game. I just hope they leave some options for the mid-range system since running that engine with high specs in e.g. Crysis2 (hires textures and DX11 patch applied) pulls a lot on the system with my 570 card. And in an online multiplayer scenario, this may even get worse.

 

Very true on the more cinematic details like the vapor trails. Entertaining value. I like it.

 

Funny change. I could be seriously wrong, but I think they've just changed over to a partial Kickstarter fund raising. I recall a first statement where they actually tried to avoid it. The Kickstarter start date fits to that assumption. Well, if it helps, why not?

My bad. Cryengine and Unreal engine are pretty much twin brothers in my head. (With unreal engine slightly in the lead)

 

The kickstart seems to be raising money pretty quickly. I remember murmurs of a kickstart scheme for a flight sim, but I don't think it could have worked. Oh, well.

I've just read that the demo video was done on a i7 + GTX670 machine and there was a thread wondering about the 'planned' hardware requirements. To me, it looked like anything below that spec will be very outdated when the game arrives. Well, if it ever does. :mellow: Estimated delivery Nov 2014.

 

No doubts that the game engine and detail will stress even the very modern PCs of 2012 a lot, even more so when a few more ships are displayed. Could be a tough call when it comes to sales. All the folks with the weaker systems may not be attracted. Well, speculation.

 

But you can already suggest some spacecraft designs. http://www.robertssp...-the-community/ So make sure some more asymmetrical ones come in. :smile: Here's a nice (symmetric) one. http://www.robertssp...e/3/#post-28683

 

If they keep that open structure up, I would hope for something like in the sim. Means that a lot of freeware and small mods are made possible. In the Star Citizen case, they wouldn't get blocked by anybody else than the true devs themselves.

 

 

Oh, on the game engines. I often mix them up. Well, the Unreal3/3.5 engine is a bit older, so the numbers (CryEngine3 and Unreal Engine3) don't correlate well. I saw

of the coming Unreal4 engine and those blew my mind. Especially when seeing how they've improved the development tools.

 

One characteristic downside of the now old Unreal3 stuff is that lack of native antialiasing. One has to pull some tricks to force it through the card's driver and/or use post processing AA.

 

As said, the engine devs sorta play that fight like AMD and Nvidia sometimes do. You know, blaming the users of the other stuff to be stupid or 'missing a lot of details and performance'. Well, games with the amazing Unreal 4 engine are all to come, the ones with the (in regard) older CryEngine3 are already there and cause that rather serious need for GPU powers in my eyes.

 

A totally different behaviour than some of the flight sims show. Well, those old ones, not X-Plane which really uses the GPU.

 

The kickstart seems to be raising money pretty quickly.

Indeed. I guess that move was a good one, although they now have some losses due to the Kickstarter regulations. But I guess the sheer benefit from just being on that popular fund raising platform will help a lot.

 

I hope that people see that they are funding some experienced developer, no newbie who may not be aware of his spectrum in regards to dev time and money.

 

I wonder who went for that 10.000 Dollar ticket.

People will sign on just because of the Chris Roberts name! I'm going to, but can't decide at what level yet. As for antialiasing, I absolutely hate deferred rendering. I've hated it since it first came out, no matter what cool effects it gets you. What's the point of cool effects if your machine is crawling trying to control the jaggie's?

 

I guess I would go with CryEngine too, because of that; and I never had problems running CryEngine games even at max, so I am hopeful. After all, all the polygons that would normally be going towards creating thousands of objects in a regular game will probably be concentrated on maybe a few hundred objects max, in a space sim.

 

Though it looks like those will be some really really detailed objects......

 

This should be very cool. I remember his live action attempts with Wing Commander, and have wondered for years why somebody never tried that cinematic approach with the computer generated actors that are becoming so common now. The imagination runs wild when you think of the technological palette he has available to paint his new world with.