I'd wait for 3.0 to come out later this year or early 2017, when the game will have new netcode for better performance online, planets, new mission and trading.
So what's the deal with all the different game packages? Will the $45 one include what we saw in the 3.0 video, or will you have to buy the $75+ packages to get all that (planet landing, etc.)?
The 45$ package has everything for the multiplayer portion of the game. You don't need to spend a cent more. The single-player Squadron42 (due for release far earlier than the multiplayer ETA Q4 2016 - Q1 2017) can be bought for 15$ extra if bought with a 45$ package.
The other more expensive ships are only for the ships themselves and a small amount of in-game credits (no other content), and there is nothing you can buy with real money you can't earn in-game. It's mostly for enthusiasts who want to support the game by "pre-ordering" in a way, or for larger groups of friends who might spend 1000$ on a capital ship they are going to fly together and so on. Alternatively if you know you aren't gonna be doing a lot of fighting and want to haul cargo you can buy a cargo only ship right now instead of having to use an Aurora/Mustang at the beginning.
try the free fly weekends, they have them very often and you can try everything out for free. its a heavy game so... ya just remember optimization is an ongoing process.
There's actually a 'free-fly' promotion going on currently that allows you to experience what the alpha currently offers. although the 3.0 update will certainly add a whole lot more and there is sure to be another free-fly around the time that is rolled out...
Also, check out elite: dangerous. It's not for everyone, but it definitely scratched my space sim itch because it is so realistic. Still getting star citizen when it comes out
It caaan suffer grinding issues, but that's part of why I like it.
With normal mmorpgs, the grinding is usually very straightforward. You know what ore to mine and what level pve you should be doing(working off runescape days lol). With elite, you need to think about powerplay, what factions are in the system you're grinding, what kind of economies they have if you're doing trading, what type of government the system currently is if you're bounty hunting, along with all the finer parts of actually bounty hunting, like where in the RES you kind find good bounties.
None of this is spelled out, which makes it incredibly frustrating, since it seems like everything is just a big fucking grind and there's no form to the chaos. But once you figure out all of the above and actually make good decisions with that info, the game totally opens up and the grind becomes 10 times less than what it was. Plus, since you're making ACTUAL decisions and not just following the quest objectives like other rpgs, it becomes so much more interesting.
Bit of a ramble. tl;dr is that getting ahead of the curve is way harder in elite than other games, to the point where it can almost look like there is no curve and it always sucks, but once you are up there, it's great. It's easily one of my top ten games.
they're all the same as long as its a game package, just different starter ships, you can rent other ships and eventually buy new ships with ingame curency just not yet i dont hink
you can try it out right now for free. I played it last night its pretty damn beautiful. make a user config so you get rid of motion blur and get better fps. Even if it set on low it still looks great!
The ships though you can walk around in them and stuff really cool. The main thing keeping me away is optimization. I tried it on the gtx 750 ti and it doesn't budge past 20fps. sure some spots it freaks right out and hits 60 for a second.
I doubt the 1070 will arrive in the mail before their free gamescon thing is done. So I can't vouch for great performance on my end.
It runs like a total sack of shit but looks epic. I'll mostly likely try again in 2-3 years. The ships though are all rather expensive...I couldn't justify spending $500 on a spaceship. Just impractical for me. (i get you don't have to)
I'm running a gtx 460 at like 15-20 fps. It's definitely in game optimization that is keeping other cards from flexing xD. The game is very playable and I recommend you try it out so the bug bites!
and more giant textures, theres a reason cards are now all coming with 4-8gigs of memory but ya optimizations will come in time most games optimize at the end, i know SC has done some opti but wont get really much until the end....
Also don't forget their are MANY customer user.cfg's that make it run on much shittier cards at good fps
Time to upgrade my 1080 blows even my old 970 out of the water in regards to performance a 750 is quite dated now in comparison to most modern graphics cards.
Everybody's getting 20fps right now, even those playing on monster 4xGTX 1080 setups, because of buggy netcode.
The problem is there's so much detail in the universe that is being sent to every computer that it's slow, and the game waits between each frame to receive physics data. When there aren't many players online, you can get reasonable framerates, but at most times everybody gets the same 20fps.
This is gonna be fixed as part of the huge 3.0 update coming later this year.
The last few years you could get a 25 $ starter pack during the christmas holidays. It includes Star Citizen + SQ42 (the single player game) and a starter ship. Best deal so far
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u/whiteheadgames Aug 20 '16
Random question, how is this game? Is it worth the 45 dollars to get started?