Star Citizen 3.7.0 | The Mantis Is A Troll Ship!
Welcome to some more Star Citizen, I have been taking a look at some hot topics related to Alpha 3.7, from the Mantis being a Griefer Ship, Worries about Hover Mode/Proximity Assist, Delayed Release Dates & Even the context of Evocati Leaks.
This is some of my opinions and insight into these subjects & please share yours, I am not saying I am 100% correct in my thoughts and am happy to discuss them further in a civil manner.
The RSI Mantis Griefer Ship & Quantum Enforcement is a Trolling Mechanic:
The RSI Mantis and it’s Quantum Enforcement Mechanics are coming in 3.7.
I have seen a lot of people posting that this is the ultimate griefing ship as it’s mechanic is to prevent ships Quantum Jumping or Pull them out of Quantum.
Players can much more easily just spawn ships and ram you on landing pads if they really wanted to grief you. Quantum Snaring requires much more thought, you’d need to sit by a trade route or where you think players are going to come through and set the trap there.
It can’t be too close to a station or landing zone as they are green zones BUT also they will have players and security nearby.
If you do get Quantum Interdicted, well you might be able to fight your way out.
You can request assistance via a Service Beacon or Bring Escorts.
Players doing this are likely to get a very high criminal rating very quickly, which will mean they have security and bounty hunters after them.
Also it’s almost a certainty that any of the major issues with QE will be short term at least ones that allow for griefing or bugs.
As long as the system is supported in the Law System Appropriately.
If a single player QS’s you they aren’t going to be surviving too long, it needs to be an organized group and I suppose this just makes players hauling in larger ships solo less viable… and rightly so, you need escorts, players to man your guns or to choose your route carefully when you are in systems that have pirates be they player or NPC.
I saw some people opposed to the Long Reveal of the RSI Mantis, I think CIG are just trying different ways of marketing and we will see if it was effective when we have the sales data when the ship is actually on sale. Though I would of prefered the ship to already been on sale now. In the Roadmap Round up they said that the Mantis & QE would be ready during the 3.7 Patch Cycle… which I hope isn’t a way of them saying it’s not ready for the 3.7 initial LIVE build.
Star Citizen Hover Mode & IFCS Proximity Assist
Hover Mode was loved by some, hated by some and at least was acknowledged to have issues that required addressing by many.
Hover mode had your ship flying like a helicopter in atmosphere when you went below a certain speed BUT there were some bugs with it AND some parts that I very much disliked.
The major issue being when landing at ArcCorp Area 18 or Hurston Lorville. Landing in the hangars there was not simple and required a bit of learning.
Lining up your ship to then land in the hangar was difficult as you couldn’t look down without your ship pitching forward and it was extremely hard to correct your ship, especially the fine movements. That said you could press right shift to then have your ship not pitching erratically. Mine and many other peoples issue with this system though was that I wanted fine control when I was close to the ground or at landing pads and I didn’t want basic landing functions skill gated… there are many ways to solve that issue, give us a belly cam or indicator like we used to have for landing, make auto-landing available and a longer range, have some form of stabilization, the solution they have gone for on paper sounds great too, having accerations dynamically reduce as you get closer to objects at low speed.
There was a lot of worry about Ships Becoming Floating Turrets again in Atmosphere, (that is a nightmare scenario) that is not the intention of IFCS Proximity Assist… It is just to allow for finer controls.
If there are any bugs or issues then they should be solved through the Evocati & PTU phases HOWEVER it’s possible that this solution will not be appropriate from Atmospheric Flight and Landing either once it is fleshed out.
My issue is that we need a fully functional and great flight mode ASAP.
Evocati Leaks
This seways me onto another point, Evocati Leaks, they are not really representative of Gameplay you’ll have in a LIVE build. If you see them or get info on them then just be aware the reason that a patch is in Evocati is for hammering out bugs and more experimental testing, it might have only some parts of a mechanic, or something might be busted or not activated… looking at a mechanic at an evocati stage without CIG wanting feedback on it is kind of irrelevant. Especially if you are looking at a leak that you have no context for.
I would personally like evocati to not have an NDA and evocati members be able to fully talk about the patch BUT with everyone’s understanding that stuff is going to be mega broken and only some items might be looking for feedback as others are not even being properly tested or have had bits disabled to see if a problem is caused by something else.
Star Citizen Alpha 3.7 “Missing” Release Date
Star Citizen Alpha Appears to be planned to have it’s LIVE release on the 10th of October, which is 10 days later than the end of the 3Quater… however is actually the date that the 3Q patch is typically released, it was people like me that assumed that 3.7 would be at the end of September… but it appears that CIG wants to release the 3rd patch each year along with the Games Kickstarter Announcement Anniversary.
Will X,Y or Z be fixed in 3.7?
CIG have moved to their Staggered Development model where they work on the next 2 major patches effectively for 6 months each overlapped, so we still see a patch every 3 months and it should have more fleshed out polished elements, 3.7 is kinda part of this model but really it’s 3.8 that
If it’s a bug or QoL issue then expect CIG will of at least looked at it as long as it wasn’t an extreme edge case. They want to get the Alpha’s in a much more playable state. Some bugs and QoL Issues should be resolved and it should be leaving Star Citizen in a much more playable state than previous patches. Though there are still also very likely going to be random bugs and issues, hopefully they shouldn’t be game breaking.
Just as a little bonus opinion, I sometimes hear CIG Only Focus on Concept Ships & everything they do is to Make the Money.
So some things here, CIG’s monetization model basically have them creating a concept ship every couple of months. They are completing many more ships than they are concepting now. Only a small amount of CIG’s staff directly work on ships I think it was around 25-30 working dedicated on Concepts & Flyable Ships.
But yes these ships are marketed to aid in the funding of Star Citizen, that is not going to change as it’s a proven working model for the financial stability of CIG.
CIG are trying to get more ships straight to flyable rather than having a concept phase like the with Ballista, Arrow, Valkyrie & Mantis.
But most of the Devs at CIG work on various disciplines and both on Squadron 42, Star Citizen’s, it’s features, gameplay area, AI, assets and more.