Roberts Space Industries is the official go-to website for all news about Star Citizen and Squadron 42. It also hosts the online store for game items and merch, as well as all the community tools used by our fans.
Zero footage for more than a year, almost no info beyond “we’re still working on features for this feature complete game” in monthly reports and a 6 month+ delay but “it’s totally because of GTA you guys!” Sounds legit.
Not that I expected anything else. I’d be more surprised if they actually hit their deadline for once.
That said, I’m way more worried about another thing:
(…) Towards the end of 2024 we decided that couldn’t continue so we shifted the balance back. In these final months on Squadron 42 that split is now 55% to 45% in Squadron’s favour, to ensure we get Squadron 42 bug free, polished and optimized.
For the last few months (possibly up to 2 years) 45% of the development teams has been actively working on SC - 45%! Seeing the state both PU and their internal builds are in, I find it rather troubling. It’s baffling how despite this number of devs the game still feels like it’s run by a skeleton crew.
I think the thing about this is: if SQ42 has even 10% of the jank and nonsense of the PU, everyone but the hardcore players are going to absolutely destroy it because the PU can be borderline unplayable at times. As in, NPCs can barely move, the inventory is often nonfunctional, you can just explode for no reason etc. And if SQ42 is somehow flawless, why is the PU in such a state?
I get that they’re different projects with different needs, but surely there must be some crossover with things like “You can get in your ship” and “NPCs are attached to the ground”?
The usual excuse is “we have it working in Squadron but porting it to PU requires additional work because networking”, which isn’t necessarily wrong. You’d think they’d design things in a way that’s easy to port to the multiplayer environment (something many games with single- and multiplayer have been doing for decades) but it’s CIG and they HAVE to reinvent the wheel with everything they work on (except things that could actually use a different approach).
That said, I don’t really care about Squadron. It’s a bonus to my SC pledge, which I may or may not play eventually. My issue comes down specifically to the disconnect between the number of devs working on PU and what they’re able to deliver after being brought back to this side of the project. I don’t know if them including these numbers in the letter was suppose to be a flex/an attempt to calm the part of the player base focused on SC or not but to me it was yet another warning sign added to the “something went really wrong with both this project and the company” pile.
Zero footage for more than a year, almost no info beyond “we’re still working on features for this feature complete game” in monthly reports and a 6 month+ delay but “it’s totally because of GTA you guys!” Sounds legit.
Not that I expected anything else. I’d be more surprised if they actually hit their deadline for once.
That said, I’m way more worried about another thing:
For the last few months (possibly up to 2 years) 45% of the development teams has been actively working on SC - 45%! Seeing the state both PU and their internal builds are in, I find it rather troubling. It’s baffling how despite this number of devs the game still feels like it’s run by a skeleton crew.
This does not inspire confidence.
I think the thing about this is: if SQ42 has even 10% of the jank and nonsense of the PU, everyone but the hardcore players are going to absolutely destroy it because the PU can be borderline unplayable at times. As in, NPCs can barely move, the inventory is often nonfunctional, you can just explode for no reason etc. And if SQ42 is somehow flawless, why is the PU in such a state?
I get that they’re different projects with different needs, but surely there must be some crossover with things like “You can get in your ship” and “NPCs are attached to the ground”?
The usual excuse is “we have it working in Squadron but porting it to PU requires additional work because networking”, which isn’t necessarily wrong. You’d think they’d design things in a way that’s easy to port to the multiplayer environment (something many games with single- and multiplayer have been doing for decades) but it’s CIG and they HAVE to reinvent the wheel with everything they work on (except things that could actually use a different approach).
That said, I don’t really care about Squadron. It’s a bonus to my SC pledge, which I may or may not play eventually. My issue comes down specifically to the disconnect between the number of devs working on PU and what they’re able to deliver after being brought back to this side of the project. I don’t know if them including these numbers in the letter was suppose to be a flex/an attempt to calm the part of the player base focused on SC or not but to me it was yet another warning sign added to the “something went really wrong with both this project and the company” pile.