Star Citizen's New Tedium Feature or Sea of Thieves in Space? (Ft. Farrister) | Launch Sequence Pod

[@fnunez]

Wow, the two chillest SC youtubers in one podcast. I can feel my shoulders relaxing just looking at the thumbnail.

[@SpaceTomatoToo]

There's nothing more relaxing than a beautiful mustache with a more beautiful narrating voice.

[@Farrister]

​@@SpaceTomatoToomaybe the soothing vibes of a space 🍅

[@Farrister]

Farrister engineering nerd confirmed

[@SpaceTomatoToo]

Mustaches and fuses, find me a better combination.

[@aguspuig6615]

@@SpaceTomatoToo Dunno bro hair burns pretty easy

[@auburn8833]

I noticed your worries about player damage from bullets zipping through, from my experimental modes research you cant be shot out of, at the very least, the crew critical seats. A S3 gatling for example does about 10-20 damage depending on the armour the player is wearing, if youre out of a seat walking around, the only thing that can incapacitate you outright are S4 Ballistics and S3 Laser Cannons, and evem then you are just downed. Only guns that do 200+ effective damage, so after all the reductions from FPS armour etc. can instantly send you to a respawn

[@aguspuig6615]

@@auburn8833 those numbers sound too low. S3 is pretty big, sniper sized for sure.

[@auburn8833]

@@aguspuig6615 it does sound low, I know, but the only S3 Weapons that will positively down you in one Shot are the Quarreler and Omniskys, the M5As will respawn you and so will the scatterguns if you hit multiple pellets, which is unlikely to happen. That's just the game stats, not saying it makes a lot of sense. FL-33s and Lightstrike 3s won't even down you and leave you at about half HP on hit

[@anthonystrickland7049]

Just thought of another biggie. We need to be able to keep a ship moving with nobody at the helm. As a solo pilot, it would be nice to not come to a dead stop every time I leave the pilot seat.

[@MarkHarpur]

Cruise control used to work this way

[@pancake9690]

its still possible you just need bind a certain engine keybind

[@blackmamba___]

Decoupled.

[@SpaceTomatoToo]

Cruise used to do that, it'd be nice if it came back.

[@BobWobbles]

What about going into QT?

[@AlexanderCurtis]

New player here: I tried to do a mercenary mission on a moon yesterday. I spent 30 minutes getting my gear together and travelling to the mission, then I forgot to put my helmet back on after drinking some water, stepped out of my spaceship, and died with almost no on screen warning. I spent another 30 minutes re-gearing, travelling back to where I died and trying to loot my body. But the inventory slots are so minimal, I couldn't actually pick up almost anything, so I couldn't get the nice armor I bought off my body. I do the mission, which took 5 minutes, then flew back to Area 18, hailed ATC, and my ship turned off for some reason and I crashed and died. That's was 1.5 hours of effort for one tiny 5 minute mission where I was actually doing what I set out to do. And I lost a ton of gear and spent way more credits just to get my ship back than I earned from the mission. It was an absolutely infuriating experience, filled with tedium and killed my enthusiasm to play more.

[@Ben_Chillin]

As someone with a couple thousand hours in the game, I can't agree more. You've hit the nail on the head. A bit of tedium is good, as it adds the necessary penalty for taking a risk and failing. Space is supposed to be dangerous, after all. But in the current state of the game, it's just way, waaaay too much tedium, to the point where it saps the fun out of playing at a casual level. Of course the hardcore players know all the ins and outs, such as "no more than 4 people on an elevator and everyone stand in a seperate corner, first person in selects the next floor" etc etc but it's just too unfriendly to casual players

[@AlexanderCurtis]

@@Ben_Chillin Please tell me the elevator thing is not true... My friend and I got stuck in an elevator trying to go to his hanger and we both had to exit....which put us back in our beds so more running, waiting for the tram.... running through the terminal. Respawning is SO punishing, I honestly don't know if I can enjoy the game, which is a huge bummer for someone who backed in 2012, but has been waiting to play this whole time.

[@graegoles8382]

​​@@AlexanderCurtisIm a relatively new player, and had a lot of your frustrations as well. It gets better tho, heres some tips that really helped me. The respawns become a lot less tedious if you set your respawn points to space stations ASAP. The planet surfaces are too damn big, so if ur at microtech, set it at port tressler. This will make it much easier to get back if something goes wrong. Space stations have three layers: cargo deck, galleria and hangers&habs. All orbital space stations are pretty much the same, so if you know one u know all of them. Never leave without a backpack, and at the cargo deck you can buy a mutlitool with tractor beam attachment and containers. You can call the container up in your cargo elevator, and put it in your ship with the tractor beam. This way you have a way to haul big amounts of stuff around in the container, and unload it back at the station (just put the full container back in the cargo elevator). Containers are a bit janky though, so i take containers out of ships before i store the ship. SC can be so annoying, but also great. Remember, playing now is basically playtesting, no matter how stuff seems on youtube. Good luck out there!! If you want to fly with someone let me know,y username is Graegole. o7!

[@SpaceTomatoToo]

Is this a criticism of incoming engineering gameplay or just the game in general?

[@Alopen-xb1rb]

@@SpaceTomatoToothe game in general suffers from this. There is a reason many of us are not looking forward to engineering because the track record on everything else being implemented poorly is uninspiring. Adding engineering is just more tedium that won’t work correctly.

[@Hamisback]

You can add depth without making it overly complex. The problem CIG runs into frequently is they add a system with a lot of possible complexity but not enough depth or interaction with other existing systems. Features keep getting developed in silos, instead of developing features that would integrate into the current systems. Engineering and armor should've been a step long ago. So we could point out issues like farrister mentioned. Get gunner or pilot sniped in warthunder is no Bueno.

[@LucidStrike]

During the CitCon presentation on Resource Management, the dev explicitly said they held back on complexity in engineering gameplay because the complexity in each of the gameplay systems can compound at times. At any rate, you can't please all gamers. Some want NMS-style arcadiness, some want DCS-style sim. CIG should focus on the original vision folks backed, which is pretty complex but approachable.

[@Hamisback]

@LucidStrike I would agree, but the "original vision that people backed" depends on when you backed and how much visionary scope creep that CR and lead devs at the time would literally conjure from their minds in the moment, and foolishly putting on paper or in a video as promised features that may have been completely unrealistic or feasible for a fun gameplay perspective that people to this day still think is coming. Not to mention that so much was said from 2014-2018,before they started to reign it in after CR was eating crow every single citizencon when the features he promised still never made it, that people have essentially started a pseudo telephone game of what will be in as most average people haven't sat through the thousands of hours of videos and dev blogs they have posted. Even some of the most informed people like Astropub and Spacetomato still can't keep track of everything. When I originally backed in 2014, planet tech was non-existent it was going to be a fade to black loading screen and you would load into a social hub for said planet. In 2016 planet tech was revealed after a dev took it upon himself to figure out how to make it work even though it wasn't what was in the original design. I'm happy for it, but the amount of extra features CR started to add to his promises afterwards was started more of the spiral we are slowly pulling out of and probably won't level off from till we get SQ42 and around 5 systems with dynamic server meshing.

[@CitizenScott]

Yeah hopefully Rich Tyrer really means it when he says we wants to bridge all these isolated systems and get everything working together. Sounds good but easier said than done.

[@Venhili]

@@Hamisback I'm so glad we're not getting the OG Kickstarter. That game would have been so lackluster.

[@kyelsavage6296]

Oh no my engineer fell through the floor and died. The other member of my crew is trapped in the 2SCU box because it flopped around and bumped up against her. LOL That's the type of thing CGI needs to take a serious look at if they really want to push the crew member thing.

[@exscalion1357]

12:40 ISC said that the power supply hitting 0 Hp has a chance of experiencing a critical failure where it will give the engineer time to stop it from going critical and blowing up the ship. I heard it as "soft death is going to be more common and a little more fun" This also means that there is an incentive to PvP pilots to learn where the power plant is on any ship they are planning to fight so they can target it with ballistics and focus down the craft. Very exciting

[@justicebrown1077]

Soft death as a state of the ship is also going away, but functionally still exist. Instead, the components will be dead. I really like this

[@justalex4214]

Complexity and tedium are two very different things. Just because something is complex doesn't mean it is tedious and vice versa. Whether something is tedious or not, at least in terms of engineering, comes down to balance. How quickly do your components wear down, how long does it take to repair them, how long does it take you to do power management and so on. And looking at CIG's track record when it comes to balancing it's safe to say that at engineering at launch will be tedious as f**k.

[@Meatpiesgaming]

This will be tedious as sh!t, very few people actually enjoy this kind of game play.

[@justalex4214]

@@Meatpiesgaming well it can be fun if done right. Like if you have the proper qol features like saving presets for power management and component tuning, also they would have to get rid of inertia ass landings and needlessly long get in and out of chair animations... but knowing CIG it's going to be a massive pain in the ass for a long while.

[@realitreeYT]

​@@MeatpiesgamingI really feel you and See where this is coming from. And I really think it comes down to the Implementation and balancing. If they implement it in a way that just gives you additional options to repair your ship then it would just 'buff' the multicrew benefits. But if they make it, like your ships components fail All the time during combat, for example if armor is too weak, they would make it just another burden and a necessity to have someone on Board to repair All the time, which would really be annoying. On the other side, it could also feel really fun and engaging. In sea of thieves for example you really feel the Stress and Chaos of Battle, but it feels good and introduces a cool depth of coop gameplay and rewards coordination and efficiency.

[@SpaceTomatoToo]

@@Meatpiesgaming This game was originally envisioned for a very select type of player, not gonna lie. Whether that succeeds or not is a conversation to have, but the crunchier parts of the game are definitely not going to be for a mass market.

[@Roboticus_Prime_RC]

Everyone is forgetting that the vast majority of players are solo players. And CIG has said repeatedly that you will be able to solo big ships. The only reason there will be backlash for engineering is that we wont have the AI blades and NPCs, that will be needed for the solo play, for an undetermined amount of time.

[@trashdoktor]

True, but the small screaming clic are chasing solo people away.

[@Roboticus_Prime_RC]

@@trashdoktor I agree. This distain for the solo players will kill the game.

[@josephhighfill4371]

I don't hate solo gameplay, but I do expect people to respect the intended gameplay of the ships they use and bought into. The gameplay you bought your ship at was never what your ship was going to be.

[@nuanil]

CIG could do themselves a HUGE favour by giving us hirable NPCs and AI Blades before hand.

[@victorvendetta9409]

This. I'm one of these people. I don't mind playing with others, I just don't like to deal with randos. Like a group play night once a week is about my limit. Most times I just like to do my own thing, not have to sit in chat and have to talk to someone lol

[@sleepfishl]

For Solo pilots the hit or miss of those mechanics will depend on how frequently modules fail if you don't work on them manually.

[@LuluGamingDK]

i feel like they will have a longer life based off grade and type. I think most player are just over thinking and are like if im just doing cargo i dont want to be fixing my shit every 30min.. i dont see that work like that.. i think it will be more like.. if you fighting or doing something that MAKE you take more damage then you fix it more. just "playing" the game doing pve (no fighting) will take days...if not weeks befor you need to fix/replace

[@TUROCK320]

@@LuluGamingDK yes, thanks... Everytime players are afraid like puppies.

[@sleepfishl]

@@LuluGamingDK I hope you're right. But we know CIG. There will be at least some time where stuff breaks every trip. 🤣 If I can maintain this stuff every now and then to keep it in working order it's fine. The real issue will show when you get involved into combat. But here we're just back at the good old "Risk vs. Reward" ... Do I run high profit stuff from unprotected outposts or will I take the safer route that takes a few more trips for the same profit.

[@gastiresoil9758]

The game should have both paths, a simple path to complete missions and an in depth experience. For example eating and drinking, should not be required however if you do keep up on it you get a little stamina bump and less wobble when ADS. Same for spawning, you should be able to sleep in hangers to jump in your ship and get a mission going. However if you sleep in a hotel you get a bump in running speed or something else. The point is you can have it both ways. Cargo proves that, load manually for the in depth cargo people or auto loading for the quick jump in and out people who are busy that day.

[@Chiron2187]

Just the idea of finding a hulk/dead ship in space as a part of the investigator lifestyle, powering it up to read the logs to learn what happened (malfunction, sabotage, etc) has always been a fantasy of mine in a space game.

[@HarperLylia]

Have you tried No Man's Sky? They have pretty much that in their Derelict Freighters

[@gardian1701]

Until someone comes to kill you before you have a chance.

[@Volitantmule8games]

@@HarperLylia AHHHH i mean yes when YOU ACTUALLY read the text in No Mans Sky, but doing so genuinely changed the entire game for me. Dont play it like a game entirely, that was game changing

[@barryhoggle2354]

If you keep adding salt to the recipe there becomes a point to where it's ruined

[@natewagstaff2516]

Yea luckily the recipe has needed a ton more salt.

[@tomificated]

A little salt. A little pepper. Some spices. A little broth… Who wants to eat dry chicken (1 dimensional arcade game)

[@josephhighfill4371]

It's not adding anything to the recipe, the recipe is not done and people like eating the batter.

[@ElroyJinkinsIV]

@@natewagstaff2516 this game needs meat, and ship sales isnt meat.

[@barryhoggle2354]

@@josephhighfill4371 maybe if they make more ships ....that will do it

[@ronelicabandi9706]

If they want to make things more tedious they need to drastically increase the rewards to make things worth it. If you do stuff for hours and in the end you'll only small profits then its waste of time.

[@Hav0k]

With the amount of work I've done lately collecting a ton of info on engineering, it would have been AMAZING to be part of this live discussion! I think engineering gameplay will finally make multi-crew gameplay more meaningful. And I personally love it! Especially with armor being finally implemented. Great video, ST and Farrister!

[@Farrister]

I would have enjoyed that!

[@mayoluck]

Yes but in realization it's not comming in any meaningful form anytime soon.

[@Hav0k]

@@mayoluck I would say that it is. This first implementation aimed for 4.0 seems pretty meaningful to many of us talking about.

[@Deceaser]

youre supposed to invite yourself before the pod not after

[@Hav0k]

@@Deceaser 🤣😅

[@1R3TR0]

For me, being a solo player I don't mind being forced into multiplayer for my bigger ships. The only reason I haven't joined an org is I have ended up leaving the game for a year or 4 (came back in July) after 4 year absence and don't want to commit yet!

[@CalamityStarForce]

I had a play session a few weeks ago where i was killed in the pilot seat by a missile, even with full shields, then later that night I was killed by a missile while standing in the middle of a Redeemer that also had full shields. That wasn't a great feeling. I wouldn't mind penetration, but losing your pilot when you have full shields and not being able to get him out of the seat doesn't feel fun. Granted, the guy on the other end of those missiles had a blast lol

[@Sathure]

Just a note on Drake, Drake ships have actually in lore been known to boast high armor strength. Just a misconception by the community that their cheaply made of cardboard. They're just barebones and lacking creature comforts found in other ships. Drake is function over form. In lore Drake is as much of a military manufacturer as Aegis or Anvil. Just the UEE Navy has skipped over them for various projects that they've gone fully to the private militia side. Hence Defensecon. Can't exactly be a trustworthy defense contractor if your products are flimsy and frail.

[@rwilliamm]

I like the Drake Caterpillar how one of the MFD's isn't mounted anywhere. It just sits on the floor of the cockpit.

[@3go3versor]

I pledged in 2013. I have every year or so I jumped back on to see whats up. I have a group of people that I usually try it out with. about a week ago we started up again. We have not been able to do anything. Can't mine with ROCs cause non of the nodes are minable. Tried bunker missions but get crime stats and fail because guards and hostiles spawn inside each other. So far only mining with a Mole has worked but that is still bugged cause doors wont open. This is outside of just jank bugs. Cant dock cause stations wont respond to hails. Power on ship not working, QT just not jumping, elevators not working, doors not working, SCU pods vanishing. I really want to play and enjoy the game, but 90% of the time spent is just dealing with bugs.

[@mitch6651]

I feel like there’s all these people out there who purchased capital ships who think people are going to want to sit in their engineering bay and role play/ replace tedious things. I just don’t see it, sure there’s a small group of people out there who will love it, but I don’t think there’s many. Engineering needs to be something that isn’t a full time job on ships otherwise no one will want to fly. Maybe every so often you need to replace a component or use a fire extinguisher on it during a fight to get you fully operational. But it’s going to become a job faster than a game if it’s too tedious. EDIT: I also don’t think star citizen can choose to be niche at this stage. The scope of the game and what will be needed to maintain it is just too big, they need a decent player base to support it.

[@michaelweaver4439]

Tedium is not the same thing as complexity Riding a train or travelling between planets or speaking boxes for hours on end is not complex

[@LucidStrike]

Time management is. Also, knowing CR and Tony, there will be gameplay opportunities DURING commutes.

[@Deceaser]

consciously navigating manually through the physical game world isnt complex? ok.

[@charliemcawesome5012]

Engineering and all the “tedium” simply takes this checkers game and turns it into Chess. Just like MM did. It’s not a dumb reflex game for 13 years olds. If you can’t cooperate and can’t think of better ways to operate than the other team….. maybe you should play COD.

[@Viktoria_Thaelin]

I want engineering gameplay but I just know CIG is doing it in the most tedious way they can since they're only interested in making everything as tedious as possible. Don't conflate complexity with tedium. Complexity is good, tedium is bad. 27:30 more affordable doesn't mean it's garbage.

[@BernhardMarchhart]

I think the best way to handle engeneering is like the A2 handles solo pilots, us still can flight the ship but you can't reach the full potential of it. Nothing should break or set on fire on a normal flight maybe a little wear and tear but nothing major only a few bucks to spend at the next R&R. Combat on the other hand there is the place to shine so that multicrew ships have an advantage if they have an engineer.

[@walawala-fo7ds]

Solo Idris players thinking their npc crew will work at 5 fps servers 😂😂😂

[@k0mm4nd3r_k3n]

People demanding ai crew before dynamic server meshing really are special little cherubs 😅

[@charliemcawesome5012]

Shouldn’t be NPC crews. A few blades for turrets and that’s it.

[@bperras]

Imagine a space battle with a few ships versus a few ships. The team that loses has all their ships disabled. The winning team can then call in support ships. Board and take out the crews, then remove all the components to sell, then send in salvage ships to hull-strip the remnants, or pull out an SRV to tow the wreckage of a more valuable ship to a place where you can get it repaired and title-swapped to you. It brings a new dimension to piracy and bounty hunting game play. As a bounty hunter, you capture not just the player who has a bounty, but you get to trophy their ship too, stripping the components and weapons and hull-stripping the remnants if you can't legally just take it.

[@smallgiant6064]

A redeemer bumping into a cutlass causes instant death still. An npc arrow can still kamakazi a heavy fight or larger

[@piejack2]

Great interview! Luv for Farrister, bruh! I’ve seen every one of your ship reviews. Great guy for a ship interview. 👍

[@Darkfieros]

As long as the game doesn't have proper basic functionality this is just more feature creep. It is time to put forth a live model with new patches being more polished and FUNCTIONAL. CIG has skirted by for too long. This game isn't new player friendly because very few gameplay models work above a 60% functionality.

[@Mr1FTW]

I understand the ambition and need for having players group up for big events (and ships). But it would be really nice to know if the ambition reflects how the players want to play the game. It would be nice to know the statistics on how many percent of the players that regularly group with other citizens - both for total players and active players. Does it reflect CIG:s ambitions. Because if i.e. is just 20% of the players that that really want mandatory group-play, it will be hard to coerse all into it. Just look at the latest release of WoW - where (to keep and make players come back) - have made it significantly easier to play solo. I just think that the maturing player-audience (with families?) are just having a hard time to plan and dedicate hours of play-sessions. "Know thy market"...

[@tgjaedan]

My biggest worry isn't the individual ideas for all of the different engineering ideas but rather how they all fit together. I'm afraid that some of the good ideas, when viewed all together and in the game, don't mesh well. SC wants to be a game where death will be punished and much of the game will be non-combat related which would need things like repair or replacement of components and maintenance to be a time consuming worthwhile gameplay loop to actually give people that want to do engineering and such as a job. If things like tuning or repair are just a quick deal than they won't provide a real loop and people will just identify the best sub components and toss them and and get on with it. But, on the flip side, if these things are that costly and provide a legitimate gameplay loop it will end up being prohibitive to people that want to play more dangerous or combat related loops.

[@davotradingni7335]

The day they sell NPC packs for peoples ships, their funding goes over 1 billion.

[@asambi69]

I think people will have a rude awakening when NPCs suck.

[@RelentlessZen]

on the topic of "adding too much complexity" I think it's more the case of: all these systems need to operate at the same time, how much script load on the games engine does that take to run / calculate all of that for every individual, seamlessly without any bugs / issues. if you end up having to micro manage 20+ different things that require attention constantly, it might not just be tedium but unrealistic for the games engine. As for air in ships, I'm not a game dev but I would assume you would just set nav mesh on the interior of ships to flag as an "air zone" and then apply mechanics to it.

[@LucidStrike]

The dev explicitly said they held back on engineering complexity to accommodate the TOTAL complexity from compounding gameplay systems. Not so much regarding simulation demands as to keep it manageable for players - and devs.

[@RelentlessZen]

@@LucidStrike Yeah my points were more to manage the expectations of people with "big ideas" of complexity with the systems mentioned in this video. it absolutely makes sense that they want to keep things fairly simple.

[@AccidentalFriendlyFire]

On ballistics penetrating and snping pilots, I think it was back when they first discussed 64-bit precision, one of the reasons given for needing to be that accurate was so that IT WAS possible for crew to be hit by ballistics that had penetrated the hull. I think the example specifically discussed was "if you're walking around", so maybe people in seats will be miraculously missed just like they're immune to G-forces. Maybe you'll see the shots fly by next to or in front of you: "there is no feeling so great as that of being shot at and missed." Everyone is passionate about their favorite ship. I don't have one yet, I'm trying to find it still. :-)

[@jsullivan649]

The fact that ballistics will penetrate the hull is cool visually and very “The Expanse”-esque for combat visually… my issue is as you guys said… those are some squishy bodies that run the risk of being peppered without even reacting. An interesting weapon change could be tying all weapons to power plant sizes so a light fighter carrying a size 4 is just gone. So a size 1 carry’s size 1’s but can damage size 2 armor at a reduced rate, size 2 has size 2 guns but can damage armor at a reduced rate, so on and so forth.

[@valorunkommon799]

I kind of like the idea of armor whittling down as long as they don't go overboard with it. Consider this: how many 9mm rounds do you think it would take to penetrate the armor of an M1A3 Abrams? How about a CAT excavator? Armor is great as long as they consider that there will be some ships with armor so thick and sloped that small caliber rounds (read: small fighter sized) will not penetrate. Give the bombers a reason to exist ~@26:15 Farrister absolutely nails it

[@99mserna]

Why is no one talking more about NPC or AI blade crew options. That would go a long way to help solo players with large ships. I’d full acknowledge they would not be as proficient as player crew, but it would be a great option.

[@SpaceTomatoToo]

We don't have enough details to give accurate information on it. I want to wait to see what they say.

[@BC-kx2gx]

I do not agree that complexity and tedium are the same thing infact they are opposed to one another.

[@AydenDevonny]

This all sounds nice and extremely exciting, but yesterday, in my 600i, I was in QT from NB to Crusader. I left the pilot seat to go to the lower deck area of the ship to fix something in my cargo bay. However, when I got on my elevator and selected the lower deck, I somehow ended up in the middle of space, with my ship long gone. Someone in the comments said it really well: they’re building this game’s features in silos. Fix the problems first, then add more features, or in the end, we’re just going to have a game full of buggy features.

[@tk0rahl327]

Tedium is the death of most games. Very few do it correctly, and for some reason, CIG wants to add that up front...

[@PeterM.22]

To comment on Space Tomato about force reactions a board a ship. Where I see it going for combat or high maneuvering scenarios, you simply would be prevented from being able to walk around when the ship is moving too quickly. The force reactions on a ship(right now) don't kick in until around 3.5 g's. They could probably tune it a bit to be more forgiving. As for the idea of turning off the gravity in a ship, there is a large problem they will have to address. If a ships gravity generator is off and starts to fly around, will a floating passenger be slammed around by the ship simply changing direction? If they will want us to be able to move around mid-combat with a broken gravity generator (and not bouncing around like a bean in a maraca), they will have to make up a separate 'inertial dampener' component that would end up being indestructible to maintain that play design.

[@Sparky_007]

Engineering Gameplay (being like a healer per Farrister). Sorry bro. I believe MOST people playing a game are doing it to get something out of it. More than just replacing fuses and putting out fires. To accomplish anything in this game where there's some type of credit/loot payout with a multi-player ship will take quite possibly a long time. Currently there's really no gameplay right now in the game to support multi-crew ships with game loops to produce risk vs reward scenarios where there's fun involved, yet some payout/advancement as well. I do not believe most players will want to sit on a multi-crew ship unless there's such game play to support it. PvE, there's not much there right not to support any of the type of gameplay. PvP.. Well, so what, you in a multi-crew ship fend off multiple fighters trying to take out your ship. You survive waves of attacks and put a total of 1-2 hours into that activity. Besides surviving, what else is there in that scenario? In order to make multi-crew ships (with engineering, component and general repair, upkeep, putting out fires and the like) viable, there needs to be fun game play loops with rewards and encounters to make it really worth the time and effort to fill those ROLES. If they don't put out enough of that type of gameplay when they bring in Engineering, etc. The game will continue to flop hard IMO.

[@LucidStrike]

So what? I'm so tired of normies coming into a niche game's community trying to get it watered down. There are a billion mediocre mainstream games. Go play those and leave our universe sim alone. 🤷🏿‍♂️

[@Sparky_007]

​@@LucidStrike I don't want it watered down. I want it to be fun and rewarding with a sense of progression(to achieve one's goals etc..). My OPINION is that at the moment, with the upcoming multi-crew game play, I'm not seeing it being fun for a majority. OPINION. Personally, if I had 24/7 to predominantly sit at an engineering station, I wouldn't/couldn't do it. If they introduce compelling gameplay where there's a RoI Risk vs Reward somewhat baked into the gameplay, I could get more on board with doing more multi-crew gameplay. As it stands now, they don't have really anything in the game to me that compels me to want to sink hours of my time doing multi-crew gameplay. Honestly, I think there's likely plenty of people who also gravitate towards this. In PvE scenarios, they can bring in gameplay and balance to make encounters fun and rewarding for all players in that encounter in a multi-crew ship. They really need to bring this content quite a lot IMO to get people to want to sit at Engineering stations and play more mundane multi-crew roles for potentially hours on end. For PvP scenarios, the fun is limited to what you make of it (and that's FINE), however I do not see that being a common scenario for most players, as you don't know when/if you'll encounter things to do during the multi-crew ship's activities. If one is in an ORG in an active area of space where it's most common to be interdicted and attacked, and there are fleet to fleet ORG battles, then I can see that being fun. Especially if there's some kind of 'return' achieved from doing well in the engagement (besides just ego boasting...). As it stands right now, to me the concept is cool, it's the execution and how it'll all fit into the game that I'm not clearly seeing.

[@mhmm4840]

​@Sparky_007 hey dude. The games not done yet and this is literally what I've been waiting for. This is the exact stuff a lot of people and myself want to do in the game. Currently many people like me DONT play the game because there isn't the gameplay we wanted. I'm excited to be a "support" and in every game that's the least played role anyways. The game currently caters to single seat craft because there's no advantage to having a multicrew ship.

[@natewagstaff2516]

@@Sparky_007yea the gameplay that might make multicrew more viable is coming. It’s just gonna take time to incorporate that into the game. I highly doubt there will be a ton of support for it on launch but it’ll happen. This has been part of the plan since the very beginning so this is what star citizen is going to be.

[@k0mm4nd3r_k3n]

You do understand this is an alpha test right? Like, what you're saying is completely valid, it just won't be relevant untill later in development.

[@SwedishLatino]

Good stuff guys like always. You two have always kept it real

[@HarperLylia]

Tuning and Aging to components is exactly what I've wanted for years. I want my skill as an engineer to provide extra benefits that the average person can't achieve. And I would LOVE the example of having a sputtering QT Drive because of degradation and having to replace (as long as it takes a reasonable amount of time). I really hope we see that eventually.

[@magvad6472]

Sea of Thieves in space would kill this game so fast. Sea of Thieves already has issues of the map being too small and being unable to really do core questing. Not to mention the over prevelance of pvp means actual deep pve questing is impossible so its always bite sized content where you dont go much of anywhere or do much of anything because you have to be back on your ship before the next rando comes to sink you. Overall, my issue with Star Citizen isn't the volume of tedium, it's the volume of timesinks. I would be fine if I was spending 90% of my session stacking boxes, moving boxes, and making profit. I'd be fine if I spent a lot more time in transit also tweaking parts or topping off their healthbars, maybe powering down parts for maintenance mid QT and working on them between events. Hell, I'd love for the game just to be a relaxing "tedium simulator" like powerwash or where I'm just going from outpost to outpost fixing grids. But that's not really on offer, instead I'm constantly at an Aesop storing or pulling out my vehicle, I'm constantly in QT or atmo'ing, I'm always between two points but not really doing much. At least box stacking is a task. I spend 90% of my sessions getting back to where I was in a previous session before I'm already over it, and then stop playing. I was mining, I logged off, I come back, servers reset, Im back in a hab, all that stuff I had is gone, Im using the train again because there was a hotfix, my ship blew up at end of session on nothing so Im spending another 30 minutes claiming and getting back from my hab, trying to get to where a quest is by always having to get my ship out, starting a quest, getting to it again, etc. Like, if I could just land somewhere and quest a bit? I'd really enjoy that. Instead I pretty much always have to travel half way around a planet to get a next quest. Almost never is the next quest I grab within the area I am already in. I have to go into atmo, QT over to the next quest, and then go back down into atmo, and then THEN I can START the next quest. Other mmos you get quests all near each other, can compile them up, and go turn in at once. In this game you spend more than half your session in transit. Star Citizen DESPERATELY needs quest hubs and activities that don't require you to atmo in your ship or QT at all. Just flying between nearby POIs and helping out clustered in an area. Instead everything is 10000km away.

[@bradthebreadstick]

Think the biggest problem with multicrew is what the hell you're supposed to do while your not using a turret. Engineering could help, regular maintenance or maybe some sort of active engineering you could do while there's nothing else to slightly boost performance

[@elementsk8r1717]

I’d like to throw an idea why multi crew ships would have an advantage over single seater/cockpit style ships like the arrow, f8c, etc which would be to have single seater ship components outside the ship and have them more exposed and can only be fixed from the exterior, go to an outpost or someone drop off an extra component and with multi crew ships your components are in the interior with more armor before they’re damaged and have the capability to fix or swap out and even carry backups with you.

[@SgtHack802]

Original backer, I probably won’t be playing this game. Too many time sinks.

[@everythingpony]

May I have your ships then?

[@XMathiasxX]

depends on your role, a little maitnenance once a month or so doesnt seem too bad

[@Durion7]

The smaller the group that the game appeals to, the smaller the amount of money will be that they make. The game should have depth and complexity but when it becomes a chore and consumes a lot of time... time that is not a fun game play loop just tideous things... there is a reason why games make quality of life improvements. It's a game and the focus should be on fun, doing meaningful things that are fun not having 45 minutes out of 60 minutes that are just waiting to get somewhere or moving crap from a to be, doing the same time consuming chores that are not fun over and over...

[@anthonystrickland7049]

I think the swappable components idea is vastly over expected. It'snot going to happen. Nobody talks about actually acquiring and storing those spare components on the ship. For example, where am I going to stuff these spares in a vulture? For that matter, how am i going to get the components to their spots? The cargo hold isn't expansive and there's a ladder between it and most components.

[@AlexandreParchomenko]

good point, the storing components and moving them around ... most ships aren't designed for that, and with the ship inventory being removed, where to store the components ?

[@anthonystrickland7049]

@AlexandreParchomenko on top of that, there are ships that have no storage at all. Where are the spares going to fit on a mole?

[@Sparky_007]

The depth and complexity of Star Citizen means this game just won't be for everyone. The more they (CIG) try to make it so (and some may argue MMs is partially a step in that direction) there's less complexity/depth, there's a risk of diluting the gameplay and making it sub-par. I've seen many MMOs try to cater to everyone, only to screw up the game even more and the game dies. CIG need to stick to the vision of the game and hold true to that. If they go around chasing the $$, there's a higher risk that game will suffer on many fronts.

[@gam3rguy174]

right trim out the fat it is a crowd funded game but at which point does the person take responsibility and realize it cant cater to them and they are NOT and investor but a a donator to a project and THE GAME will be whatever it needs to be to fit the game engine and system to be as cohesive as possible as a mmo sandbox with a in game economy

[@PolBlanesCebrian]

Still, Star Citizen needs a large playerbase. Players are also the product since, no matter how "hardcore" you think you are, you don't want the game to be empty. That means CIG has to find the balance between making a deep and complex game, making level of entry low enough so that lots of people play and making mechanics hard enough to master so that people stay playing for a long time.

[@Sparky_007]

@@gam3rguy174 It needs to be fun. But I believe virtually no backer in this game came in to back the next Electronic Arts game studios to release other potentially non-related games in the future and to potentially lease out their engine and studios to other game makers for profit. In that case, we should be treated as more than just backers of one title(2 if you count SQ42), but rather investors in the creation of a company/game studio that may function one day more than just supporting Star Citizen.

[@tilemacro]

Interesting opinion. " I've seen many MMOs try to cater to everyone, only to screw up the game even more and the game dies. " Can you mention of few of those many games?

[@gam3rguy174]

@@tilemacro personally wild star was one of them

[@haloseventy8]

IIRC, component 'grade' speaks to how many subcomponents it will be able to have in the future, so 'grade' will be a meaningful stat in the future and just contributes to the way mr farrister wants components to be differentiated

[@john.flick.c4512]

If I’m spending more of my time fixing my ship then playing the game , it’s a problem. If I’m not then it’s fine

[@Rift_131]

Hopefully the power plant isn’t the only thing to cause the ship to explode. All that fuel in the ship? Hitting the tanks or fuel feed-lines should have consequences. 🔥🚀🔥

[@staybussin]

They need class specific buffs for clothes. You guys used the overalls example, aside from just speed, it should give a bonus to repair for example.

[@sizur]

Where's manufacturing ships, stations, and components? Their current monetization model of selling ships directly is going further in the opposite direction of creating a real player-driven economy...

[@piejack2]

Depends if you find a blueprint or can create a ship in the new creator box at your base built home station.

[@Gnarfendorf]

A good question is what they will do with s3 and larger components, it came up at the ATC podcast that afaik none of the ships ingame are set up with enough space to change out those components since they cant fit through doors. There is to my knowledge no information on how they will adress it.

[@dancingkirby3591]

I am honestly hoping for a lot of what Space Trucker does. I love that game. Managing the different components is satisfying. Especially flipping switches and sliding new batteries. Managing things like climate, gravity, and power is awesome gameplay for a solo player like myself. Dawning a space suite, and then going outside my space truck to weld holes... fantastic. I absolutely love the dashboard and even having to use the backup camera from inside my space truck. I am a cargo hauler and would love more of what space trucker brings to the table. There are some quality of life updates that Star Trucker should make, but it is overall a very solid game. If Star Citizen adds that gameplay, I will probably have to get a divorce because I will quit my job just to be a full-time cargo hauler or miner.

[@Count_Apostasy]

The complexity of the game is the reason I love Star Citizen. It's a space sim. Living and working in space, something I'd never see in my life time. If I needed instant gratification as a player I'd turn to less complex games. I don't want the game made for everyone. It takes a special mindset to be all about Star Citizen and those are my people in gaming.

[@KA317S]

CIG doesn't call it a sim anymore.

[@Venhili]

@@Count_Apostasy damn Skippy

[@Venhili]

@@KA317S Havoc, SC is advertised as being an immersive first person sim with space travel and combat. It's very much a sim, it's just not a space sim. It's more of a life sim

[@KA317S]

@Venhili They used to advertise it as that, but in the last year, they've moved away from calling it that.

[@Venhili]

@@KA317S no, they used to advertise it as the best damn space sim as well as the best damn MMO. It's 100% an immersive first person experience, and they still plan on adding things to the game that lean more that direction, like showering and pooping, getting dressed, aging, (death of a spaceman stuff) the way NPC's will react to you depending on factors like reputation, how you're dressed, and whether or not you stink. This is all life sim stuff they are still adding

[@jaws1628]

59:18 I see this as the equivalent of a job. The larger the company the more you are doing just one job with the occasional need to do something else. But in small companies you might be responsible for a lot of things.

[@michaelhubbard5013]

How many ships are in the current game / are expected at Release? I imagine balancing at a set amount of ships there would be significantly easier.

[@auburn8833]

I see Farristers concern with ballistics sniping crewmembers however S3 weapons and bellow tend to not one shot players, take a S3 gatling for example, that does about 20 points of damage, thats before the reduction from your FPS armour, plenty of chances to heal. Also to the pilot sniping, ship weapons cannot kill you in the Pilot seat, I've tried it in the engineering tests.

[@vicsid9606]

Everyone knows Johnny and if they don't then they are probably Johnny. Great talk!

[@DahVoozel]

Yes, some of the most interesting and exciting moments in Wing Commander/Privateer were limping back home after a tense fight where I came out on top but was heavily damaged. But, in those games, repairbwas a click of a button. So. We'll see.

[@MontyDGrt]

My opinion is to hold on all new features as of to date and focus on stability and performance of the game. My thoughts are that introducing more features just introduces more instability on the game that delays the game more. Me and my friends are casual players that find the game difficult to play when servers and game performance are so buggy. It is already difficult to coordinate playtime among friends. Once all are stable, introducing new features will be a lot more appreciated by a lot of players.

[@gamingduology4757]

So a drake is cheap to repair but can not take damage how does that logic apply. Look at Toyota/ Honda they are tanks . But a bmw is costly and breaks more often

[@bones3915]

Edited* Tomato, great first question/topic. As a solo player in just gonna start ramming, come back in a cargo ship and hopefully pirate some booty. I'm not gonna risk a fire on my ship. Edit>>> I forgot that this is why i become a backer. But do many years passed by, that i became a solo player.

[@bones3915]

What sucks is I was looking forward to this function but I'm rarely partied up now. Star Citizen took too long and I changed my game play style.

[@Minishimirukaze]

@@bones3915don’t give up hope friend, it’s never too late to change back!

[@Dominus4776]

I don't mind most of the engineering. But I'm hoping we can have AI do some of it for a medium ship, zeus, Connie, ships like that

[@davewills6121]

If a ship requires 2 or more crew that should tell you all you need to know, with CIG's push for group play during recent events, and rebalancing weapons access away from the pilot, components, engineering and fire management will also need to be managed by a crew, possibly smaller if competent. If someone wants to enjoy solo gameplay, they need to now be realistic, or its going to be a miserable experience, you cant have it all unless you have an understanding of what's involved. What you've had in the past has been a stop-gap, now as the game develops they are being removed. The nonsense of the childish, living in denial mindset of: ''i want to fly my Polaris solo as my daily driver and make it my home base'' is low iQ. You can't just buy an Idris and expect to have on release day NPC's and AI Blades available like we did with the chairs/tables on release of 3.24.0. You might better like Starfield?

[@fate-aki]

In Real World scenario's a 'Tuner' would be called an 'Operator.' Operators are the people that are in a control room, or a bridge perhaps in this case, that manages a system.

[@smallgiant6064]

Depth being bake to repair a a ship is fine. But outside of very large ships it needs to just be optional with repairs for credits at stations. Ship tiers is just over the top.

[@q3aryoko]

With Life support, my idea is: On big ships, as a part of the engineering crew...you running around with combat armor, backpack, weapons,helmet should hinder you in many ways. As it would in real life. Dexterity of your actions of "engineering" should be more difficult. I don't know maybe make it take longer to repair or swap a component if your in full battle gear. This way players would be compelled to wear normal clothing with no helmet. Thus, making life support systems important on large multi crew ships. If we are looking for RL immersion (Which CIG loves to tout), sailors on large ships don't run around with battle gear because it doesn't make sense to if your a engine guy or something. They arent the SEALS lol. the jobs they do are very specific. and CIG needs to do the same with SC. two cents. I want scenarios on multi crew ships where im an engie in a large battle and we survive, my crew mates praise me "man, good job keeping the shields up!", that would be really gratifying gameplay for me.

[@Dr.Kryptanical]

As someone who has an unspoken amount of yrs in both Star Citizen & PlanetSide 2 I kind of see alot of comparatives in this support role ideology like in PS2 you can go around shooting at things as a solo player, then set out a beacon for when you need a repair/technician/engineer to come repair your ship I.E. your in pyro and the sun has EMP fried your systems you put out a call to some well known Org of players (for arguments sake lets call em the AA) who specifically do breakdown cover and send out an engineer to fix your fighter or whatever if your playing solo just like it does in real life so theoretically it will cost you some UEC but you wont have to do the engineering yourself... there was a guy mentioning in discord his group set up a player driven repair shop in pyro PTU tests and it worked they was making bank because they were too far from any of the stations it was much closer and the word spread fast! Bottom line is player repairs were working and it seems like a successful business avenue!

[@TreyBlythe]

The problem, as I see it, is that in almost every scenario, more ships is better than having one ship. So unless you have a massive Org, you and your two friends are almost always better off in their own ships than teaming up on one.

[@GlaucoBeltrame]

So we will have 4 players who will have to give up the best thing in the game, commanding a ship, to do maintenance for one person for 1 or 2 hours? In addition to the mission rewards, which get smaller every day, will they have to be divided between 4 players? Who wants to clean the kitchen for 40K? Ridiculous, we are going to lose a large player base, and therefore, this very objective of playing as a team will become increasingly difficult to achieve

[@SpaceTomatoToo]

No, you can just not take part in it. That's what we tried to communicate. This isn't necessary for folks flying reasonable sized ships. For those who are...well it's been laid out and often discussed for 10 years. This isn't the game for solo flying massive space ships effectively in combat.

[@Farrister]

Commanding a ship is the best thing in game? Feels like herding cats most of the time xD

[@SpaceTomatoToo]

But cats are great!

[@2panzur]

Feels like normal, there is ye ole Motor Stables in prepping and maintenance of your ship prior and post use. Normal operation won't have these emergencies. Its the dilemma generated in extreme issues, when things are going bang, that you will have to make these decisions on who goes to resolve, and what has to wait based on your main power.

[@Dr.Kryptanical]

I feel like inertial dampeners should present getting flung in extremely large ships unless it's an extreme cases like a crash or getting hit by something powerful like a capital weapon like the idris cannon it makes sense people will fly but not when the ships just making hard turns cause a hard turn in a ship that size shouldn't be that sharp of a turn that it flings people, but yeah star trek rules just have the inertial dampeners argument heck could be another component and as long as that one is in check it's easier to go round repairing the others if the inertial dampener gets hit it makes repairing the other components harder so it becomes somewhat of a first priority if the ship is committing to evasive manoeuvres!

[@mtnshooter6259]

I enjoy piloting a Retaliator in bounty missions and I'm a solo player, is engineering going to effect my game loop for the better or worse?

[@LucidStrike]

Better, as you'll have the opportunity to repair components yourself. Otherwise, no change really.

[@mtnshooter6259]

@LucidStrike thanks. I love flying my Tali and I'd hate to park it.

[@huntersmoonxgrim2493]

CIG must label ships as "single player" or "multiplayer." Otherwise single backers will find themselves abandoned.

[@Farrister]

That wouldn't hurt, especially since many of the capital ships are already advertised as requiring multiple players. Being clearer would be more helpful, I think

[@theg0z0n]

You said something to the effect of "it would be very beneficial to this game if people would not always expect to die when their ship gets shot." The problem I have with this is even if someone stops you and you pay them they can still profit from blowing up your ship and just salvaging it. Cig really has put themselves in a corner by allowing salvage, or in other words they've incentivized players to always blow up someone else's ship because they can profit from it. It's probably their very worst design decision.

[@jurasic.2402]

1:06:33 I agree on component diversity being a very fun and interesting mechanic that they can mess with. I really wish they would put something in game for us to compare components and what they will upgrade/downgrade on our ships instead of having to go to urkul

[@Kyle-sr6jm]

The problem isn't solely 'tedium' it is that we constantly see the skill cielling be lowered and basic QOL issues (inventory) get more tedious. Having to keep track of maintenance and logistics, sure. Having to manually load out every single damn thing is a PIA.

[@SpaceTomatoToo]

In a typical situation, what would "every single thing" be, though? Given the game persists and everything stays on your ship where you put it throughout all of your play sessions, I'm curious how much that would even affect the typical player.

[@GH05T18]

I like the idea of component mileage

[@LucidStrike]

People keep thinking the power management approach started with Starfield, but it was in FTL over a decade ago and many, many space games since. 🤷🏿‍♂️

[@Mindbulletz]

Didn't it start with Star Trek in, what, the 60s?

[@SpaceTomatoToo]

It's basically a standard feature of any space game with depth

[@Lampislife]

With engineering and repair coming, will we be seeing a vulkan or crucible in the more near future? I for certain will be out there waiting for some repair calls.

[@davewills6121]

You will not see a Crucible for at least 5 yrs, vulkan 2/3 at least

[@davidkerr7]

This game is a shopping list simulator with the number of annoying things you need to remember to buy just so can start playing the game. 90% of new player will quite the game in the 1st week if they don't start adding QoL

[@Bluewolf1118]

I'm really looking forward to these changes coming to my Carrack.

[@k0mm4nd3r_k3n]

I'm really looking forward to actually being useful on my mates Carrack.

[@davewills6121]

When do you expect the 600i rework to be finished?.....precisely, Carrack 2028 at the earliest, its called a ''REWORK'', go read up on the definition.

[@Bluewolf1118]

@@davewills6121 sir, this is a Wendy's... 🤣

[@jasoncatano3634]

If group A defeats group B's ships, they better have the option of just completely blowing up the ships (and easily if the ship is already down) to put an actual end to the threat. Needing to disable the same ship over and over, because it keeps getting repaired, would be a ridiculous situation. It would be no different than what contested zones are going to be. Die. Spam. Die again. Spam. Et cetera. Forcing players to board to put some finality to it would be even more ridiculous.

[@k0mm4nd3r_k3n]

It's called the power supply.

[@jasoncatano3634]

​@k0mm4nd3r_k3n Yes, a "chance" it fails to the point of an explosion, per their own words. Hoping constant damage or a size 9 torpedo isn't just a "chance".

[@barneystafford]

I completed a Bachelor's of Engineering. Can confirm - very tedious.

[@maddogs1989]

A Hammerhead max crew by bed size is 9. Fully optimized is about 11

[@Star6Future]

I mean i have plenty of friends that are waiting for this engineering gameplay to play, i imagine some people will leave the game and many others will pick it up. It might be a this game is dying to some. But a this game is finally getting there to others. I think there are plenty of games out there and this one should stick to its vision, whoever it is for. That is why i fund this game.

[@Maxxmentum]

How much of cargo is going to be spare parts? I mean is it '72 SEU cargo now I can be 50 because you need it for parts? Boarding might be about getting parts.

[@drake84tsoni67]

890 battle bridge & mag boots for engineers 💡

[@basedsketch4133]

Every red vegetable orb deserves a name

[@ELuciferC]

I am typically against the tedium and bloat CIG is guilty of. However if there is one gameplay loop that will interest me over PVP, it's engineering. I am actually looking forward to this one.

[@Alias_Reign]

Games are meant to simulate the exciting parts of reality-not the tedious ones. Muticrew flying restrictions, Increased reclaim timers, Forced engineering. These things are barriers to enjoyment, and that’s fine if the game is feature complete and has a lot of other interacting systems that justify the tedium, or supply you with other things to do while you wait for other systems to become available. Implementation of these things in alpha, in a state where the game is empty and in desperate need of content, is simply going to drive players (valuable paying testers) away. The time it takes for me to get from my bunk to my ship, to the active bounty I’m chasing is already way too long. When that’s compounded by the jank and server instability that causes my ship to blow up on the way, wait another 60 minutes for my ship to spawn, then have elevators at new Babbage that decide not to open for 4 hours and we have a real issue. People aren’t going to stick around while cig continue to put up more roadblocks to enjoyment, especially when 9/10 times my ship explodes it’s through no fault of my own. Experiment: The last 5 times your ship exploded how many of those times were your fault?

[@DarTame]

Friendship really is the best ship in the game

[@tomtato0815]

So I can finally use my Odyssey as a racing garage. All those racing ships without Quantum drive. Changing and tuning small components, before a race...

[@Black-Re4per]

Server Meshing should be #1 priority because without it, it won't be an MMO. Because right now it's just Star Citizen Multiplayer with only 50 People on one Server.

[@TruthIsKey369]

I think down the line you will get to have NPCs doing all this maintenance stuff, in Quanta style

[@acrosome99]

But is it really "tedium"? CIG said that things generally won't just break down at random- it'll just be able to take damage from combat. Or maybe at most from a HUGE amount of neglect. That doesn't sound like we'll be spending all of our time on maintenance.

[@thodempire5365]

I'm worried about that, what happens if ballistic shots can hit you in your pilot chair, combat is going to be over very quickly :/