Essence_of_Meh

I've been mostly focused on visual novels, job hunting and personal projects recently so I didn't have much time to read anything beyond what I usually post. What I want to say however is: I'm really happy that The Guy She Was Interested in Wasn't a Guy at All didn't end the moment our MCs got together. Not only that, there doesn't seem to be any signs of an upcoming finale (or at least I don't see many of those).

It's nice when a romance series realises there's more to romance than just becoming a couple. Now here's hoping for another few volumes.

Seems to be going nicely so far. One thing I can suggest is to make sure not to expand too quickly. It's tempting but can lead to serious issues down the line (just in general, not that you're doing so).

Other than that, keep an eye on your public transport and change/improve as necessary - doing so will save you a lot of rebuilding. Traffic wise, a large central road with smaller streets branching out to various districts is usually the way to go. Also put your commercial and office zones near the bigger streets, housing on the smaller ones (can't really see how it works in your map so this is just a general suggestion).

Oh! I haven't played in a while and don't remember if this is a thing but see if there's an option to hide district policies before taking screenshots - all those icons add a lot of noise and make it harder to see the layout of certain spots.

Make sure to post again once that happens, either here or on one of the communities linked in this post. It'd be fun to see how it turned out.

This guide on transit is a really comprehensive resource about anything traffic related. It contains info about everything from basics to all types of public transport and pathways. Also lots of screenshots and diagrams to make things easily digestible.

Glad you're having fun. Things really do feel better when they actually work, don't they?

The key bind thing is weird. I checked a few different sources and everywhere Left Alt + K is mentioned as a "ship transform" key so it does seem like something is bugging out. I did a brief Issue Council search but couldn't find anything like this - might be worth opening a new report about it.

Ooof, sounds way worse than anything I've experienced since my return.

The med bay, ship retrieval, ship spawning in the ground are known issues I believe. Don't know if they're all confirmed on the issue council so feel free to check and bump them if needed. It's always good to let CIG know which bugs are the most common.

Could your boost issue be related to the sticky keys functionality in Windows? Just a random idea.

I'm not sure about being glued to landing pads. I THINK I read something about it around 4.0 (?) release but I have no idea what was the workaround. The one thing I could suggest is to check if you have the "proximity assist" setting enabled - it limits thrust when your ship is close to surfaces so maybe that might have something to do with it? It would most likely be a regular issue if that was the case but might be worth a try.

Which Alt + K did you press? If I recall correctly there are two key binds, Left Alt + K (extend wings/Hull-A cargo area?) and Right Alt + K (unlock physical component access). I can't check right now to confirm so I'll update this part if it turns out I was wrong.

Available missions are a bit limited at the moment unfortunately. They're actively working on rewriting the old mission types for server meshing so we should have more to do (and with less issues) when 4.1.1 drops. Until then, one can only hope for a decent server.

Edit: Ah, I see QuadratureSurfer came up with the same solutions. Guess I wasn't wrong after all.

I'm not gonna critique it based on efficiency and min-maxing as that's something I couldn't care less about. Design wise however, I like it. It's has some more organic and interesting shapes than a basic "American city" that's so easy to default to. Split between suburbs and the more urban centre is a nice touch (tough I would try to add some transition in the empty space between the two to make it look more natural).

You have a clear separation between residential and industrial areas which will prevent issues with health and happiness (as long as you keep it in check). You also remembered to dump the sewers downriver which is good.

I'm sure some CS pro could give you a bunch of pointers but it looks like a good start to me. Are you planning to share your progress in the future? I'd actually like to see what you'll do with it.

I understand what you're saying but we're talking about a multi billion dollar company. At this point there is no excuse you can give for not fixing simple and easily identifiable issues with user experience - especially since all of this has been criticised for years. As much as I appreciate some of the recent additions, fixing this mess should be priority number one.

Just posted, hope it's readable.

Guests:

• Dave Haddock, Narrative Director
• Will Weissbaum, Assistant Narrative Director

TL;DW:

• Cinematics team, facial capture, galactapedia and other features will be used for Star Citizen narrative in the future. Can't be used now as all of them require technical effort which is a no-go until work on Squadron 42 is complete.
• Regen Crisis storyline will continue to expand, with more in-game effects in the game (environmental ones, like NPCs reacting to those events).
• Regen Crisis doesn't affect players due to gameplay reasons. Doing otherwise when game is still in the state it is would be too punishing.
• Regen Crisis may or may not affect Death of the Spaceman whenever that comes online.
• UEE are still working on the Regen Crisis but it's mostly behind closed doors and focused on other systems. They're using civilians and corporations because narrative has to be a player centric experience.
• We will be able to go to research centers related to the regen crisis story in the future.
• Player role in regen crisis will be more focused on an unfolding narrative experience from the perspective of a small participant, there may be no concrete answers in regards to the cause of these failures.
• Current storylines (not singular events) won't repeat after 1.0 release. Most of the content is designed to always be there in the typical MMO fashion but the story itself will keep moving forward.
• The reason they're focusing on the story now instead of waiting for 1.0 is to give the team a chance to go through an alpha phase and work out any issues related to their content production approach. They also think giving narrative context to in-game activities makes them more engaging.
  Finally, it's a "thank you" to players who decided to stick with the game during development rather than jumping in after 1.0 release.
• The idea to implement Wikelo (the first alien in SC) came down to the fact they needed a merchant interested in barter rather than money based trade. "Basically it's tier -1 of crafting almost."
• Full-on Banu implementation isn't ready yet, that's why he's just a head and a torso contacting us through video calls. They do want him to walk around his station once that changes.
• The reason Wikelo wants what he wants for his trades (i.e. items not necessarily related to what you get in return) has to do with him being a fabricator and using them to produce other stuff. They also wanted to tie it to the Align and Mine.
• Items requested by Wikelo will change as patches add new things to do and collect.
• They wanted an ability to use stolen/found vehicles to trade with Wikelo but stumbled upon a technical issue and had to scrap the idea (for now).
• People helping Wikelo instead of providing resources to the regen crisis storyline won't affect the latter. They just wanted to give players a choice in case they don't want to work with one or the other.
• No comment whether T. Bannister kept in Wikelo's collection is Tessa (mission giver from pre 3.0 version).
• Fight for Pyro story (and more specifically Frontier Fighters being what they are) came out of the need for a storyline fitting a mission string created by one of the designers for the Pyro release rather than being a narrative driven event.
• Frontier Fighters being a forced enemy faction rather than a joinable one was always planned for this storyline. While they do want some reputation based gameplay, not every faction in future events will be joinable (it would require too much time, functionality and effort to include all possible routes in an ever expanding story).
• Another important part in terms of joinable factions is CIG's desired limits in terms of how far into depravity they want to let player go. Don't expect being able to help the worst of the worst.
• There will be local factions you'll be able to work with without it affecting your reputation with bigger entities.
• No confirmation if/when old Pyro gangs (Overlords, Fire Rats, Vipers) will show up in the game due to all the content work required for that (and focus on S42). They do still exist in lore.
• They feel for people who followed the game for years and are unhappy with lore changes but it's the nature of development and the result of changes due to technology, direction, quality etc.
• Gangs living in trash heaps is meant to indicate you're entering seedy and unwelcoming places. "There are more important things when fighting for your life than picking up your protein bar wrapper."
• Don't worry about gangs stealing so many huge ships, "some suspension of disbelief has to happen".
• They want to change Stanton corps into local factions instead of proper ones with major reputation as going into negatives could cause issues with accessing content. Foxwell Enforcement (new faction which took over as mission givers to some quests recently) is the first step in realigning their reputation approach for 1.0.
• "From a high level perspective regen crisis story is a non combat one." The hope is to have a proper balance so people can take part in events without having to fight (in the future, I assume).
• Tevarins are on a crossroads: part of them left UEE to create a new home world for themselves, others want to assimilate as proper UEE citizens.
• Data pads will always be a part of presenting the story. They want to progress into audio and video logs, other stuff in the future. Some comm calls are intended for 4.1.1. They'll do what they can with the resources they have for now.

One thing I'd like to comment on is what Jared said during the show: "while resources are tied with work on S42 we shouldn't stop adding things for SC".

I agree, sure, but why not focus on storylines that can actually be supported by currently available features? Why make a regen/medical/science related narrative and not tie it to those systems when they're added?
I dunno, there's probably no good answer to that since I know I'd be just as annoyed if all they focused on for the next year/two/whatever is needed to finish Squadron was combat stories. Not like they were interested in avoiding pew pew in a science storyline but whatever.

Anyway, pretty interesting episode for those interested in things beyond gameplay.

Official Youtube upload

I'll post my usual TL;DW once I'm done.

Ah, I see. I thought it was specifically related to TC2. Thanks for clarifying.

I haven't played or owned TC but game preservation is an important topic for me so I also signed and tried to popularise it as much as possible. I don't expect much but every attempt is important.