Guard Frequency Episode 053 | We’ve Got Crystal Balls
Greetings Citizens and Civilians, and welcome to the first episode of 2015, 053, of Guard Frequency, the universe’s premier Star Citizen podcast recorded on 3rd January 2015 and released for streaming and download on Tuesday 6th January 2015 at GuardFrequency.com [Download this episode]
Lennon decides it’s time he put in an appearance and so wanders into the hangar to sit down with Geoff and Tony as the crew bring you a fun-filled 45 minutes, chock full of Star Citizen. In this week’s Squawk Box, the guys decide to try something a little different as we cover the Science We Didn’t Use. In CIG News we bring you everything that’s happening around the UEE including our weekly Crowd Funding Update, the latest Letter From The Chairman, an interesting forum post on thrusters and the flight mechanic, and (as promised) a look back at our 2014 predictions to see how right (or wrong) we were before making some fresh ones for 2015. In Nuggets for Nuggets, Lennon goes to buy a new ship, and finally we tune into the Feedback Loop and let you join in on the conversation.
Topics Discussed
This Week’s Community Questions
- Are you a form or function fan? Are you happy with design trumping data?
Let us know your thoughts by commenting below!
View our post for the episode on the RSI forums.
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Bonus link
Tales From The Front – Contains a story by Chivalrybean
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Comments (5)
seannewboy
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I am all about the function over form, i would rather have a ship with a missing/glitched texture, than a ship that did not work.
Wonderful episode everyone.
As for ideas, there have been some wonderful new pictures from the hubble recently.
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Ostron
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Great show, welcome back Lennon; your melodious tenor was sorely missed.
I have no problem with form overriding function to a certain point. I’ve read a lot of hard-scifi books (i.e. books where the author injects as much real science as possible) and invariably all of spacecraft end up being various sizes of cylinders or ovoids due to the realities of physics and the best possible use of mass distribution. The crew, meanwhile, spends most of their time worrying about fuel, air, water, and whether the 5000 local gravitational forces are pulling them off course. Also Chris has pointed out; realistically space combat likely plays out as two remote controlled objects firing missiles at each other from distances measured in Astronomical Units. That game could theoretically be tactically challenging, but I don’t think it would be visually stimulating.
As long as the liberties taken with the physics don’t introduce game-breaking imbalance (like if we discover the maneuvering thrusters on an Idris allow it to pull a 180 in one second) I’m okay with some inconsistencies.
Anyone who’s taken college physics or actually flown an aircraft/spacecraft cringes when people ask for “realistic physics” the same way combat veterans do when people want a “realisitc shooter” game.
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Kinitsu
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For the thruster discussion I turn to Nebohtes’ reasoning he brought up in his Modularity series (part 2 to be exact) http://youtu.be/28sLBq6XnrE go to 6:25 or so when it switches to thrusters. That point being, thrusters need to be more powerful than a main engine but burn out much more rapidly (not just thruster’s fuel, but also durability). Not to mention the signature from a long full burn of thrusters.
As a side note, you guys should check out his Modularity series that he has so far as it would make a nice segment. As it is a deep analysis of a sample system based on the pipeline CiG is using (or should be using)
In regard to the question for the week, I am one who sees the fence and instead of choosing a side or straddle it, I take out bolt cutters and cut a hole so I may freely pass between the sides. I will fall in love with a ship by looks alone just as easily as by its functionality. Like I bought a Banu Merchantman and a Xi’an scout for their designs alone. To me they are beautiful. I also have an Aurora, which I find an ugly red headed stepchild for its durability and modularity. All the while I love it the same as the Xi’an and Banu. I would proudly park all three next to one another… But screw the Mustang. I CCUed my Omega from the Never settle to a 315p the moment I could.
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Spam
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I think the form following function argument was lost a long time ago with the artificial “top speed” mechanic. In space you should really be able to accelerate toward the speed of light with the size of your engines really only effecting the rate of acceleration. This was a real disappointment to me , and I’ve resigned myself to playing call of duty in space.
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Drachir
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My preference is function over form. CIG seems to be taking the approach that it is perfectly alright to do weeks of programming instead of hours of design, but remember that CR is old-school. He was programming games when a couple of folks could make a game that was considered “AAA” at the time (Wing Commander!).
SC design, with it’s focus on more realistic and component based ships (where ship actual performance is derived from components instead of the other way around) will almost always have issues with form trumping function.
I also get that the original iterations were for marketing and fund-raising purposes, and they may have made the very common decision to reuse proof-of-concept and prototype code in the production code. That almost always falls under “seemed like a good idea at the time”.
While I think they will resolve the immediate issues of form over function, I think it will continue to masticate their collective buttocks for years to come.
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