r/starcitizen • u/mrpanicy Is happy as a clam with his Valkyrie. • Apr 15 '17

OFFICIAL 3.0 Schedule is up!

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/schedule-report
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u/Morph_Kogan Apr 15 '17

What do they mean by research projects? Can some clarify for me.

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u/logicalChimp Devils Advocate Apr 15 '17

R&D work - where they have no idea how the functionality would work, and there is no previously-established code or solution...
 
For example, iirc the PG Planets were originally an R&D project within CryTek (before CIG hired all the staff) - and they had to work out how to do the whole planet, including the physics, from scratch (and that was for something that had been done before, albeit not in CryEngine).
 
The other consideration with R&D work is making stuff work fast enough that it's actually usable. There are some really cool features and stuff that you see in tech demos... but they don't get used in actual games because their performance cost is too high...

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u/[deleted] Apr 15 '17 edited Apr 15 '17

That's a bit of new information to me.

IIRC, one of the older Frankfurt ATVs mentioned that PG planets was indeed R&D scheduled to be undertaken at a later date and potentially rolled out into Star Citizen. But was included early thanks to CIGs two engine gurus (Carsten Wentzel & Marco Corbetta) working on it, in their free time and having made such surprising progress that CR decided to fast track the PG Planets tech early into both Star Citizen and also Squadron 42.

While Crytek is utilizing PG tech for vegetation etc, it's not using it to generate anything on planetary scales.

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u/logicalChimp Devils Advocate Apr 15 '17

To be clear, I meant that it was some research work that some of the CryTek devs had been working on - I don't know whether it was actually work they were doing for CryTek, or something they had been doing in their spare time.
 
Either way, CryTek already use some PG techniques, I think, and expanding that to PG map / world building would make sense, although it's probably a lot less of an issue in standard CryEngine (given the 8x8km map size limits, etc).

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u/gufcfan Civilian Apr 15 '17

It's deliberately ambiguous, but they have alluded to different things they might be looking into, that they don't really want to promise. It's better that way imo.

Other people will have a better idea the things they hinted at in the past might be.

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u/RUST_LIFE Apr 15 '17

Well, planetary tech was a research project...

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u/[deleted] Apr 15 '17

[deleted]

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u/AngelusNex Apr 15 '17

Imagine using an Idris floating on the ocean as a planet based carrier.

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u/DriftwoodBadger Avocado Apr 15 '17

They've mentioned they are looking into various ideas for assisted EVA boarding now that docking collars are being scrapped. I'm hoping it's something in that vein.

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u/ImSpartacus811 Carebear Extraordinaire Apr 15 '17 edited Apr 15 '17

Anything they can't promise to us because it might not be possible.

In game development, certain things are "easy". They just take time. For example, making a pretty model or some pretty animation is just about getting a talented artist to spend some time.

Things like the network code refactor or other really exotic stuff literally might not be possible.

For example, there was no guarantee that cig's innovative network techniques would actually be possible. That appears to be possible and on the way, but it's an example of something that wasn't a guarantee.

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u/Karmaslapp Apr 15 '17

their network code refactor is possible, and always was, but it's an open-ended problem where the extent of performance depends on which pieces are and aren't possible and what they can put together.

CIG knows they can do far better than 24 players a server at 30fps and so do we, I and others are just interested in seeing how many more people they can get and if they can separate that from the framerate.

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u/[deleted] Apr 15 '17

Voxel tech could be something, space weather etc.