Please help me understand Star Citizen

[quasarrgames]

Does anyone on these forums play Star Citizen? I don't. I've read up on the game (hopefully i didn't miss anything), and there are some things about it that just confuse me, and i was hoping someone could explain them.

I'm not trying to be critical or bitter. I genuinely want to understand and enjoy the game, but there are a few things that i just do not understand about it:

1-Everyone seems fine with buying virtual ships with real money, sometimes for hundreds of dollars. I get that it supports the developers and is a nice bonus for dedicated players, but still, isn't it technically DLC? What's more, doesn't it kind of make the game pay-to-win? After all, i'd suspect that even someone with a fully upgraded aurora couldn't compete with someone who just bought the $1000 cruiser, or even an origin 300i.

2-Star Citizen seems to highly stress how realistic its space combat is. However, why is it still so prevalent that the game's space combat is based on air combat? It seems slow, inefficient, and stressful on pilots to turn like an airplane in space, instead of simply turning and burning in the opposite direction like we do in ksp. Also, what's the point of having forward facing guns on a spacecraft, anyway? Turrets, even on fighters, seem much more efficient and accurate. 

[Slam_Jones]

Personally, upon buying my GPU last year, I was "given" a copy of Star Citizen.  Now, it's been a while since I've hopped on, but I'll do my best to give some rough answers, at least.

1. Yeah, that absolutely sounds like pay-to-win to me.  However, without actually having seen what sort of advantages those ships have in-game (as opposed to on-paper-stats) it's hard to really say whether they truly provide a tangible advantage, or whether they just look pretty.  Personally, when I was "given" my copy, I was "given" a Racing-oriented ship.  Personally, the idea of spending 3- or 4-digits in real money on a ship is a little insane... but maybe that's just me.

2. From what I've seen, it is based on realistic physics.  If you are flying in a direction and then flip 90 degrees, you will still carry your previous momentum until it is countered by the automatic RCS.  Given that we don't really even have Space Fighters IRL, it's hard to say that how those ships behave (assuming they abide by all laws of physics) any differently than they should.  It does seem realistic in many manners - you can see the velocity change, and the puffs of (what I assume is) MonoPropellant coming from the ports.  Very cool looking.  Personally, I think the decision for Jet-Fighter-style forward-facing guns is mostly based off of what most people would have experience with, and is mostly intended to help with the X-Wing/TIE-Fighter-style combat that many people enjoy.  I imagine they aren't going to go into depth with delta-V, and ISP (which I imagine will be effectively infinite), and TWR and such, as that becomes a lot to manage for a Fly-Around-Shoot-Em-Up-style game.

 

Then again, I haven't played the game in a few months, so I could very well be wrong about some of this.

Edited September 13, 2016 by Slam_Jones

[pxi]

2 hours ago, Slam_Jones said:

However, without actually having seen what sort of advantages those ships have in-game (as opposed to on-paper-stats) it's hard to really say whether they truly provide a tangible advantage, or whether they just look pretty.

AFAIK the major advantage is that all bought ships come with lifetime insurance, so you're not out of pocket when you get blown up.

Considering there are reportedly people out there who've dropped upwards of $10K on virtual ships, one only hopes this is one game that lives up to the hype.

[KerbMav]

On 13.9.2016 at 11:26 PM, quasarrgames said:

1-Everyone seems fine with buying virtual ships with real money, sometimes for hundreds of dollars. I get that it supports the developers and is a nice bonus for dedicated players, but still, isn't it technically DLC? What's more, doesn't it kind of make the game pay-to-win? After all, i'd suspect that even someone with a fully upgraded aurora couldn't compete with someone who just bought the $1000 cruiser, or even an origin 300i.

2-Star Citizen seems to highly stress how realistic its space combat is. However, why is it still so prevalent that the game's space combat is based on air combat? It seems slow, inefficient, and stressful on pilots to turn like an airplane in space, instead of simply turning and burning in the opposite direction like we do in ksp. Also, what's the point of having forward facing guns on a spacecraft, anyway? Turrets, even on fighters, seem much more efficient and accurate. 

1. This has nothing to do with the game, but with the business model of crowdfunding. The players do not buy these ships - which will be available to all players later for ingame currency earned from missions, trading etc. like any other game - the ships are meant as a bonus for people who wish to support the game even more after the original "kickstarter" campaign ended.
So, it is not a DLC, as all ships will be available to everyone.
Regarding the "pay to win" aspect - kinda, but players do not have to compete against each other - as far as I am up to speed - as you can choose how much interaction you want to have in "your game". A bit like the instanced game play of Elite Dangerous you can choose to encounter players in PvP or almost noone at all.
 

2. The flight model has and does change over the time of the game's development. They always tried to combine realism with playability.
Depending on the maneuverability of a ship, it will do exactly that: turn around and burn the other way. To not kill the pilot instantly, you fly a curve and thereby change the flight vector over time. This also makes the ship harder to target, as it will keep moving around instead of slowing down first.
Regarding the forward facing gun turrets: Gameplay. Automation kills it. There are weapons (I think) that help the pilot to aim and hit by gimbling a bit, and larger vessels will most likely have auto-targeting turrets, but it is still meant to be a game to be played instead of watched by the player.