[Rushy]

Alright then. I think we've identified the major difference in design philosophy between E:D and SC.

Well, yeah. I'm pretty sure the cheese wedge ships in E:D versus the crazy "needs more stuff sticking out of it" ships in SC gave that away. E:D is trying to get close to full space simluation (except the artificial constraints on ship maneuverability, I'm still mad about that) and SC is an expansive Wing Commander/Freelancer game.

[Rushy]

Make sure you post your handle so I can bother you in-game. Unlike E:D, SC already has a friend system.


Nevermind, I lied.

[Particle Person]

It's also Alexandyr, but my monicker is Alexandur and my login ID is Alexandir so any hackers who try to hack my account will be so confused that they'll give up.

[Saddam Hussein]

Whoa, that's like seven proxies or some shit.

[Rushy]

I'm sure you're downloading away right now (or not, idk). Make sure you pick up the helmet on the pedestal before entering the ship and after you're in the ship you can use the tab key to free the mouse and select options. Should be fairly straight forward from there.

[Ghost of V]

Can you do a barrel roll in either game?

[Particle Person]

I'm sure you're downloading away right now (or not, idk). Make sure you pick up the helmet on the pedestal before entering the ship and after you're in the ship you can use the tab key to free the mouse and select options. Should be fairly straight forward from there.

It will take another eight hours or so. What happens if I don't use a helmet?

Can you do a barrel roll in either game?

Yes.

[Rushy]

I'm sure you're downloading away right now (or not, idk). Make sure you pick up the helmet on the pedestal before entering the ship and after you're in the ship you can use the tab key to free the mouse and select options. Should be fairly straight forward from there.

It will take another eight hours or so. What happens if I don't use a helmet?

Nothing. By that I mean literally nothing. You'll get in the ship and nothing will happen, you'll just sit there. The lore is that the ship hooks up to the helmet and the simulation is just a VR for your character. I'm sure you'll ask "why don't I just spawn with the helmet on?" and that is because the helmet is shoehorned in after the original hangar module released. Also, some people want to sit in the ship and admire the cockpit without the menu in their face.

The ship the game gives you will be an Aurora and I won't lie, Auroras suck balls. They'll be a lot of other Auroras since you and the other freebies will be playing, but I'm sure a Hornet will eventually come by and push your shit in for giggles. For a good comparison imagine playing E:D in an arena mode where you're in a Sidewinder and other players have Vipers. Auroras have no port or starboard shields. Shields in SC are not bubbles, there is port, starboard, aft, and forward shields. Ignore the shield power section of the HUD, even if it shows full power to forward shields, it is just lying to you, nothing happens.

Also, keep in mind the three flight computer options (similar to E:D's flight assist). You'll have "Coupled", "G-Safe" and "Comstab" enabled by default. "Coupled" means the engine will direct thrust in the direction the nose is pointing (disabling it results in the engine attempting to keep your heading regardless of nose direction). "Comstab" automatically steadies the ship, useful to keep on, but sometimes you'll want it off, especially if some of your thrusters are damaged. "G-safe" limits your ship's rotational speed and forward thrust to human-safe levels. If you turn it off it is possible to red out and then black out from g-forces, but you can also maneuver more quickly.

[Particle Person]

I'm sure you're downloading away right now (or not, idk). Make sure you pick up the helmet on the pedestal before entering the ship and after you're in the ship you can use the tab key to free the mouse and select options. Should be fairly straight forward from there.

It will take another eight hours or so. What happens if I don't use a helmet?

Nothing. By that I mean literally nothing. You'll get in the ship and nothing will happen, you'll just sit there. The lore is that the ship hooks up to the helmet and the simulation is just a VR for your character. I'm sure you'll ask "why don't I just spawn with the helmet on?" and that is because the helmet is shoehorned in after the original hangar module released. Also, some people want to sit in the ship and admire the cockpit without the menu in their face.

I like that you're given the choice to not wear it. You don't have to be so insecure about your worthless garbage game.

The ship the game gives you will be an Aurora and I won't lie, Auroras suck balls. They'll be a lot of other Auroras since you and the other freebies will be playing, but I'm sure a Hornet will eventually come by and push your shit in for giggles. For a good comparison imagine playing E:D in an arena mode where you're in a Sidewinder and other players have Vipers. Auroras have no port or starboard shields. Shields in SC are not bubbles, there is port, starboard, aft, and forward shields. Ignore the shield power section of the HUD, even if it shows full power to forward shields, it is just lying to you, nothing happens.

Also, keep in mind the three flight computer options (similar to E:D's flight assist). You'll have "Coupled", "G-Safe" and "Comstab" enabled by default. "Coupled" means the engine will direct thrust in the direction the nose is pointing (disabling it results in the engine attempting to keep your heading regardless of nose direction). "Comstab" automatically steadies the ship, useful to keep on, but sometimes you'll want it off, especially if some of your thrusters are damaged. "G-safe" limits your ship's rotational speed and forward thrust to human-safe levels. If you turn it off it is possible to red out and then black out from g-forces, but you can also maneuver more quickly.

I'm going to immediately disable all of those flight assist options and pwn everyone with my superior piloting

[Rushy]

I like that you're given the choice to not wear it. You don't have to be so insecure about your worthless garbage game.

I'm just trying to head off your tiny complaints before they happen. You didn't even get through the sign-up process without bawwing.

I'm going to immediately disable all of those flight assist options and pwn everyone with my superior piloting

Well, just keep in mind the flight model is entirely different. In E:D you really feel more like you're flying a jet plane in space, but in SC you feel like you're in a spaceship. The result is that before you get used to it, the flying feels awkward and foreign. Also your shields don't stop physical impacts (bullets, asteroids, etc.) so don't run into any of those things.

[Particle Person]

Some more information about exploration from the latest newsletter:

Exploration is something many people are excited about, but we haven’t yet discussed it here. There is exploration for the sake of it, but it is also possible to make money from exploring too. There is a lot out there – which will be covered more in future newsletters – many surprising things like the many planets with neon atmospheres – things not yet seen in astronomy.

The great thing about exploration is it is many-layered; one person might be the first to visit a system – but this is an easy thing to do, and one person can visit a great many systems in a short period of time, so rapidly the ‘frontier’ of unvisited systems will quickly recede.

Visiting a system is not really exploring it except on an extremely superficial level, so our plan is, we will not count the system as explored at that point. Let’s face it, if an alien visited our solar system, staying in the immediate proximity of the sun for a few seconds while their drives recharged or cooled down, they will not see very much, and we on Earth would be unlikely to see them. If our alien explorer claimed our system to be “explored” and didn’t find Earth, they wouldn’t really be an explorer!

So, true system exploration is a bigger deal than just visiting that system. Players must scan it to determine what number and sizes of planets are present, and to get the next level of data they must travel to at least the vicinity of each body to investigate. A system will only be ‘partially explored’ until all major bodies (planets and moons within a certain distance of the central star(s)) have been scanned by someone and the data returned home. There are different levels of scanning, both passive and active, that can be done from orbit, to determine basic planet types, their chemical composition, mineral deposits, surface liquids, interesting anomalies, and even indications of the presence of indigenous life.

Active scanning is needed for any detail of value, especially if the planet has an atmosphere, using a powerful ground-penetrating radar beam and as much of the surface should be scanned as possible. The wary player should perhaps first check for other ships in the system… This is because an active scan consumes a vast amount of power – nothing even a Sidewinder’s drives can’t manage – but it is an incredibly bright beacon of emitted energy, visible across most of the stellar system they are in and easily tracked, and depending on the expertise of the player, it can take quite a while to get a full scan - easily long enough for most ships to super-cruise to the location. Even the basic scanner fitted to all ships since about the year 3000 is an incredibly sensitive instrument, and so they will find it easy to find such a player. And that player will most likely be very hot with their shields down… best hope they are friendly, and that they are not worried about being the first back with the data!

The reason to do this, to do the scanning and return the data, is the big prize. Getting such information back to a civilised planet with a data claim registration facility (most Federal or Imperial worlds with a high enough population will have one) and logging the data earns money for the explorer – more or less depending on the value of the planet and its location. Discovering a world with indigenous life is incredibly valuable, but even scanning seemingly worthless moons has value – both for completeness of maps (verifying there isn’t something there is still useful), but very rarely, something interesting may be there after all – maybe even a strange artefact. A wise explorer will buy the latest such data before leaving – to see which systems have been explored first, so as not to duplicate the efforts of others.

Perversely, The Federation and Empire do not share this data with each other – indeed they are competitive about it. Taking such information to the Federation earns the player a good reputation with them, but the parallel is true of the Empire. Unscrupulous players have taken the information to both, but woe betides the player who is discovered doing this – which can happen if both mega-powers send a research team to investigate!

Explorers began as a civilised and cooperative bunch of people. After all, travelling vast distances out into the unknown and back is quite an achievement, with many a “Dr Livingstone I presume” moment far out in the stars, but from time to time there have been cases of explorers racing each other back to log their data once they see each other – or even attacking each other when they realise both have just scanned the same systems. There is even a class of pirate that await intrepid explorers returning from afar, threatening them with destruction if they don’t hand over their data. However, unlike cargo, handing over a bit of low value data is often enough. A pirate can scan for cargo, but fortunately data does not show on a scan  so they do not know how much (or how little) you really have.

Exploration is not just at huge distances. Even within human space, there is the odd undiscovered planet or asteroid belt – usually in the far, cold outer reaches of a system, where no-one has bothered looking. So get ready to get exploring!

[Rushy]

Elite Dangerous and Star Citizen centrally plan to offer the same features. The difference being that Star Citizen plans to release its features one at a time for one price (for those patient enough that price is only $30), whereas E:D plans to release the base game ($50) and then paid-for expansions ($??) after that.

[Particle Person]

Elite Dangerous and Star Citizen centrally plan to offer the same features.

To an extent, but definitely not to the extent that the only major difference is in the pricing model.

[Rushy]

To an extent, but definitely not to the extent that the only major difference is in the pricing model.

Well, I'd certainly like to hear more major differences.

[Particle Person]

The two game universes are structured completely differently. Star Citizen's will be scaled down, and Elite's is to scale. Star Citizen will include a single-player story driven campaign, whereas Elite will focus more on background simulation and emergence. Planetary interaction will involve a scripted landing sequence transitioning into an instanced hub area in Star Citizen. In Elite, atmospheric entry will be seamless and the entire surface of every planet will be explorable. Star Citizen's unrestricted yaw makes the combat completely different from Elite's. I'm sure more big differences will make themselves apparent as the development of both games continues.

As you said, Star Citizen is a successor to Wing Commander/Freelancer, and those two games are very different from any entry in the Elite series.

[Rushy]

The two game universes are structured completely differently. Star Citizen's will be scaled down, and Elite's is to scale.

Both games are to scale, they simply use different ratios. Since each game is scaled based on how fast you can fly, you won't notice the difference. Star Citizen scaled the universe down and capped the highest speed at 0.2c. E:D simply made the ships go faster.

Star Citizen will include a single-player story driven campaign, whereas Elite will focus more on background simulation and emergence.

I'm not sure what you mean by "focus more" since Star Citizen has separate teams for each module. The team working on the simulated universe is not working with the single player campaign team, in fact, they're not even in the same country. The team creating Squadron 42 (the SP campaign) is in the UK while the team creating the MMO universe is in Texas.

Planetary interaction will involve a scripted landing sequence transitioning into an instanced hub area in Star Citizen. In Elite, atmospheric entry will be seamless and the entire surface of every planet will be explorable.

This is only initially. Star Citizen does plan to introduce procedural generation of planets and proper atmospheric entry. The prime difference between E:D and SC will be that SC is polishing the hell out of everything. The E:D beta has a lot of content, but honestly feels empty and rushed. Stations, ships, and each system feels pretty much the same  with little or no other player interaction. It feels more like an alpha.

Star Citizen's unrestricted yaw makes the combat completely different from Elite's. I'm sure more big differences will make themselves apparent as the development of both games continues.

You mean it makes Star Citizen more a space combat simulator than the game that is supposedly focused more on simulation. Apparently real space combat is too real for E:D.

As you said, Star Citizen is a successor to Wing Commander/Freelancer, and those two games are very different from any entry in the Elite series.

It is a successor but they plan to offer much more than either of those games had combined.

[Particle Person]

The two game universes are structured completely differently. Star Citizen's will be scaled down, and Elite's is to scale.

Both games are to scale, they simply use different ratios. Since each game is scaled based on how fast you can fly, you won't notice the difference. Star Citizen scaled the universe down and capped the highest speed at 0.2c. E:D simply made the ships go faster.

Assuming we both mean 1:1 with reality when we say "to scale", then no, Star Citizen is not to scale. Time and space are both scaled down. The developers have explicitly stated this.

Star Citizen will include a single-player story driven campaign, whereas Elite will focus more on background simulation and emergence.

I'm not sure what you mean by "focus more" since Star Citizen has separate teams for each module. The team working on the simulated universe is not working with the single player campaign team, in fact, they're not even in the same country. The team creating Squadron 42 (the SP campaign) is in the UK while the team creating the MMO universe is in Texas.

I mean focus more. E:D will have a more robust background simulation system.

Planetary interaction will involve a scripted landing sequence transitioning into an instanced hub area in Star Citizen. In Elite, atmospheric entry will be seamless and the entire surface of every planet will be explorable.

This is only initially. Star Citizen does plan to introduce procedural generation of planets and proper atmospheric entry. The prime difference between E:D and SC will be that SC is polishing the hell out of everything. The E:D beta has a lot of content, but honestly feels empty and rushed. Stations, ships, and each system feels pretty much the same  with little or no other player interaction. It feels more like an alpha.

I'm interested to see how they implement unrestricted planetary exploration on top of the existing hub system, and with such physically small planets.

Star Citizen's unrestricted yaw makes the combat completely different from Elite's. I'm sure more big differences will make themselves apparent as the development of both games continues.

You mean it makes Star Citizen more a space combat simulator than the game that is supposedly focused more on simulation. Apparently real space combat is too real for E:D.

Indeed. Why Frontier didn't make the space combat more like the space combat we see in real life is beyond me.

As you said, Star Citizen is a successor to Wing Commander/Freelancer, and those two games are very different from any entry in the Elite series.

It is a successor but they plan to offer much more than either of those games had combined.

I should hope so, since both games are over a decade old and were made with much, much less money. The point is that the general design philosophy has remained the same for both Roberts and Braben.

[Rushy]

Assuming we both mean 1:1 with reality when we say "to scale", then no, Star Citizen is not to scale. Time and space are both scaled down. The developers have explicitly stated this.

1:1 is a ratio of scale. "to scale" simply means something is an exact ratio of the original work. e.g when someone says their plastic car model is to scale, it means all the parts are the same size as the 1:1 car when compared relative to each other. If I make a scale model of the solar system by making each planet and the Sun 1:80000 of their actual size and distance then my solar system model is "to scale"

There is no difference between a solar system that is 1:1 scale and you go 2000c vs a solar system that is 1:10000 scale and you only go 0.2c. The SC universe is "smaller" than the E:D universe only if you literally place the SC universe inside the E:D universe. Relative to your frame of reference inside the SC universe, it is no bigger or smaller than the actual universe. The systems are scaled inside Cryengine, which is why the developers refer to the scaling in this manner. Honestly, E:D probably isn't a "real" 1:1 scale, either, it's just the developers refer to their game as the equivalent of 1:1 when in reference to itself.

Basically there would be absolutely no way inside the game to say "these things are smaller than they should be" because you are also smaller. If I shrunk everything in your room, including you, by 1/4 then relatively speaking nothing would appear to change size to you at all.

I mean focus more. E:D will have a more robust background simulation system.

I doubt it.

I'm interested to see how they implement unrestricted planetary exploration on top of the existing hub system, and with such physically small planets.

The planets aren't physically small, see above.

[Saddam Hussein]

I'm not sure what you mean by "focus more" since Star Citizen has separate teams for each module. The team working on the simulated universe is not working with the single player campaign team, in fact, they're not even in the same country. The team creating Squadron 42 (the SP campaign) is in the UK while the team creating the MMO universe is in Texas.

But nevertheless, the campaign is part of the game.  It will occupy - I don't know what you'd call it technically, but memory, space, resources, whatever.  It's like you were saying to Alexandyr earlier in the thread about the procedural systems.  You can't just add a huge feature like a campaign onto a game without sacrificing a different element of the game somewhere.

[Rushy]

But nevertheless, the campaign is part of the game.  It will occupy - I don't know what you'd call it technically, but memory, space, resources, whatever.  It's like you were saying to Alexandyr earlier in the thread about the procedural systems.  You can't just add a huge feature like a campaign onto a game without sacrificing a different element of the game somewhere.

The campaign doesn't take place in the same universe as the MMO. The only way the campaign connects to the MMO is at the end you are allowed to keep whatever items/credits you accumulated inside the campaign should you choose to play the MMO after you complete the campaign (you can also simply skip the campaign).

They aren't sacrificing resources because the game was originally only single player/open world. They've expanded the game as they receive more funding. E:D's goals have always been rather concrete and become easier as they receive more funding, but did not hinge on funding and thus they spread themselves thin unless they receive more. Procedural generation is not an easy task to complete, only to implement. This is why SC didn't offer it until they had well over $40 million, whereas E:D offered it from the start with much less production money.