If Lovin' This Game is Wrong, I Don't Wanna Be Right...

~or “Bet Your Game Can't do This!”

Me, in my Prospy perched onna rock like a fly onna turd... =]
(Bet you can't do THAT in your game)

So, I play this gods awful scam of a game called Star Citizen. Actually I can only assume insanity runs rampant in my family because if you listen to just a fraction the nay-sayers out there, Star Citizen is nothing but a fancy fleecing machine, a huge scam, a reprehensible cheat, a fancy go-nowhere tech-demonstrator that has been running for over 10 years now.

A scam involving at the very least the 617 hard working employees (per CIG's LinkedIn page), ALL of whom have to be in-on-the-take with Chris Roberts as the Capo di Tutti i Capi of this Gang of Scammers.

And the ONLY reason they are working so very hard is... to separate us poor fools from our money by selling us a game that will never be finished and VERY expensive pixel spaceships.

The Aegis Dynamics Javelin-class Destroyer Pixel Ship
(standalone price, $3,000 US)

I call bull shit.

I have been actively playing this AMAZING game for nearly a year now. I even left EVE Online and Elite (not so) Dangerous after 10 years to focus solely on playing this game. Why? I'll fukkin tell you why...

Immersion, in depth in breadth in detail and in scope that's why. And to make my point, here is what happened to me just today.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Beeep... Beeep... Beeep... Beeep... Beeep...<smack!>
I wake in my new digs in Greencircle, Cloudview Center, Orison.

The view from my rack each morning...
(Bet you don't have THAT in your game)

The night before I'd been watching some bootleg after action reps from a para-military outfit called the Skunk Works Militia. Good group, solid and very strack. This one trooper, Kate, is quite focused with a good story telling quality to her field reports.

This led me to consider looking into similar contracts myself. I went to AcrCorp and accepted one from Tecia "Twitch" Pacheco, a mid level drug dealer out of Area18. It was a contract to take out all BlacJac Security personnel in a bunker on an ArcCorp moon as a diversion for other of her “activities”... Twitch has a chip on her shoulder for BlacJac too, so it'sa two birds, one stone kinda thing for her.

I decided to take out Huston's Comm Array ST1-61 first, that's just a trespassing charge. Then I'll go down and whack the rent-a-cops. The cops deal lightly with the trespass, but they really frown on multiple murders.

Comm Array ST1-61, the UEE Eye-in-the-Sky over Hurston

So, things of course went ass up almost immediately. Flew out in my Herald. Parked her in defilade from the array's auto-guns, powered down, went EVA and made it safely inside... only to find out I could not “use” the Tigerclaw cryptokey I had on my belt. Damn tech glitches... Just goes to show that even after hundreds of years of civilization and development, tech can still be buggy as hell and really screw up your day.

I was warping back to Area18 to acquire other crypkeys when Twitch messaged me that the contract was blown...  Fuckmerunnin. So now I'm depressed, made no credits, and have a Lev2 C-Stat to boot. Well Shit.

I drop out of warp, kill the engines, go in the back, get comfortable, mix a double shot Ruum & Kwafe then sit quietly at comms and contemplate my poor life choices and the never ending vagaries of tech.

Sittin' at comms sippin' tea in my underwear... out in th' black
(Bet you can't do THAT in your game)

Fuck it. With a CS-2 I can't legally land at any station or port of call. Well, you can land outside of the ATC's range at most ports and walk in, but that's damn tedious and I am not up for any tedium. So I decide to go to Grim Hex, anyone can land there... if you're lucky, and can make it past the dock jumpers.

I keep an old Prospector there. I'll go mining out in th' Belt and drown my chagrin with the monotonous sound of the mining laser... and, of course, a drop or two of that sweet Ruum.

So I headed out deep into the Aaron Halo asteroid belt. The belt, right now, is safe as houses. Deep scanning is still in development so no one can, at this moment, scan you down when you  are millions of klicks out. And th' Belt is HUGE... mindbogglingly huge in fact.

To get into the belt you jump from one warpable location to another, then in-flight you manually kill your warp at the right distance (you can't do THAT in EVE!) to drop you inside the belt.

The graphic above shows the distances between CRU-L1 and ARC-L5. So, warping from CRU-L1 to ARC-L5 you want to drop warp between 13.543 Mk and 11.158 Mk. That give you over 2,385,000 kilometers to drop out randomly and you will find yourself surrounded by an actual, fully realized asteroid belt. Nom Nom Nom Nom Nom safely for DAYS.

I usually mine only Quantanium as it is the highest priced ore available, at the time of this post, around 83.64cr per cSCU at Loreville. But it is DAMN dangerous to mine as it is somewhat explody and I am just not down for tedious or explody stuff right now. I need a nice relatively safe, easy way to generate some credits.

The mind numbing thrum of the mining lasers and tractor beam

I take my time and fill my ore bags with Borease @ 17.6cr/cSCU, Hephaestanite @ 7.92cr/cSCU and Titanium @ 4.4cr/cSCU. It was what I found and it was safe & easy mining compared to Quant, relaxing actually.

I powered down the engines, stretched and yawned... went in the back, ate, washed, did the necessaries. Then I changed into an old comfy pair of sweat pants and an old hole ridden, stained and beloved sweater and hit the rack. I slept like a baby in my ship out deep in the belt.

On waking many hours later I shit, showered, shaved, ate, dressed in my undersuit and armor and sat down to plan my day. I still had that buggered CS-2... what to do, what to do... I decided to take a shot at fixing that by, well, fighting my way into a SecDepo and hacking the Imperial Criminal Database. So, off to Security Depot Hurston-1 on Huston.

SecDepo Hurston-1

It's a bit easier to do this planetside as one, one, you can land three or so klicks out to avoid the AA turrets and two, you can breath the air and just walk in. The guards however, would be another thing. If you do this at Security Post Kareah, or any orbital station, well you can't breath in space and there is no way to avoid the AA guns on your way in. So meh.

I get to Hurston and fly down to about 2 klicks out and land. I did get shot at, but my shields held until I was down... I left the flood lights on, a mistake... I'll explain later.

I walked in easy peasy... took the elevator down and... and well, I killed all six of the guards ok? Of course this took me to a CS-5, wanted with a bounty and a beacon on my fukkin head but... I was in and I got to work. I was finally able to use the Tigerclaw crypkey and started the hack. As there were now six murder charges in addition to the two trespassing charges to discharge... it took a while.

Check screen, sweep 12 to 9... Check screen, sweep 12 to 9...
(Bet you can't do THAT in your game)

I was on pins and needles the whole damn time. You have to watch the progress and make sure the hack doesn't abort, then, once in, you have to dismiss each charge... and the whole time I had my head on a swivel, watching and waiting for the bullet... or plasma charge... or grenade from a local bounty hunter to spoil my day.

Please select reason for charge dismissal...

I DID IT!! Hack completed, criminal records cleared and done! Yessiree! I was in the clear. Just a humble old law abiding citizen me! I left the building in high spirits thinking on the credits I was gonna make off of that sweet load of ore. As I jogged back to my ship I noticed the red tracers... wait, what the fuck! red tracers?? Then I saw the explosion just over the next hill as my humble Prospy and all that ore was blown sky high...

I can only assume some bounty hunter got pissed when he saw my wanted beacon go dark, meaning I was no longer a bounty and now he was all depressed and made no credits for his effort so fuck my ship. And leaving the lights on, a nice beacon for him to aim at... boom.

Crap fuck damn shit piss. Now I am marooned on Hurston. I found a way to climb up on top of the SecDepo and I sat for a while scanning the horizon hoping that bounty hunter might come for me anyway. Then maybe I could whack him and take his ship.

Marooned, well armed and a little pissed...

No go. I clearly heard the far off and falling whine of his engines as he pulled up out of atmo. Crap. Well what now bright boy I asked myself. Let's see, I have two, no, make that one bottle of water and... huh, six food bars. Hurston has a breathable atmo, so I am looking at a long slow death from dehydration... great.

And, of course, as I am not shipboard, I have no access to mapping or location finding, course setting, or anything that could help me to find my way to the nearest post or station where I might find deliverance from my predicament. I could, of course wander blindly in the desert until I die miserably of lack of water... but that does not appeal to me at all.

So, I decide to create a Service Beacon, for 5000cr mind you, in the hope that  some kindhearted soul will come and save me... keeping in mind that not all who come to collect the offered payment are kindhearted or there to actually help you. Some come for the fun of shootzing you anyway. There are a LOT of asshats in Stanton.

About here will do

I make my way uphill from the SecDepo and select a location where I have some shelter and a defensible position to watch for whomsoever might come to my dubious ”rescue”. I create the beacon about 50 meters out and get back under cover to wait. The whole time mumbling the prayer for the lost just as my grandmum taught me.

“Oh god get me outta here... Oh god get me outta here... Oh god get me outta here...“

The beacon fails. Or, well I canceled it, nerves you know. The second one fails also... for the same reason. The third one I leave up, it works and is accepted.

Here we go.

I hear him on approach

I wait and eventually get his marker on my hud. He comes in and hovers at like three meters, of course right behind a huge panel of debris. Crap. I edge carefully around the panel and find my self facing a Origin 100i...

I have my trusty FS-9 LMG... of course, and he has two M4A laser cannons and two Strikeforce II missile racks... um, ok... I sling my LMG and wave... what else can I do?

A few seconds later he lands... well, he bumps along the ground until he comes to a stop as he didn't have his landing gear down... sigh.

He pops the door and I hop in... Whoosh! We take off burn hard and warp out. A few minutes later he lands at Everus Harbor Station, landing gear down this time. He pops the door and I exit the 100i out onto the landing pad. We take the elevator down to the main concourse and part ways.

I look around at the hubbub of the space port, people busily going about thier lives, working, traveling, meeting... all trying to get ahead and get along. I walk slowly over to the concourse windowall and gaze down on the planet Hurston.

As I contemplate the Central Tower in Loreville rising two and a half kilometers into the sky... I also contemplate my life, my ways of trying to get ahead and get along... and my future.

Safe and sound...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A side note here, with the upcoming release of Alpha 3.15.0 we will get the first iteration of the “Death of a Spaceman” mechanic, see links below for more detailed info. But, basically, eventually, you die, for good.

Yes, for good and forever. No more immortality. Your character, ie YOU, can only live for but so long, repaired, resuscitated even recreated through the miracle of modern medicine. So your one and only life can be lengthened, even greatly lengthened, but eventually one day you will perma-die and pass on your entire estate to your named heir.  No way around it, just like real life.

So, in the spirit of getting out ahead of the game, I have reset my “Bkspc” key to nothing. I can no longer backspace my way out of a sticky situation, well at least not with a single keypress. And I am playing the game as though suicide is not a viable option. Because one day soon... it won't be.

On a side side note, I have been Turamarth Elrandir in ALL of my gaming days since 1981 when I first created Tur as the namesake of my DOOM toon. I have been lucky to have created Turamarth Elrandir in EVE, Elite Dangerous, Star Citizen and a number of other games over the years, but those first three are by far the most important to me.

And now, now one day I will have to make a new toon in Star Citizen... and I really don't want to. I have been Turamarth Elrandir for FORTY godsdamned YEARS... that's only 21 years less than my whole real life FFS!

Chris Roberts.... This fukkin BETTER be worth it man.

02/05/2013 – Original DOAS post.
10/30/2020 - Calling All Devs - Death of a Spaceman Youtube

I think back on all of the things I saw, did, experienced and took part in during my TEN years in Anoikis and New Eden, in EVE Online... and Nothing, Not One Thing that happened in that game in all those amazing years comes anywhere near Depth, Breadth, Scale and sheer Personal First Person Immersion that I experience everyday in Star Citizen. Not One Damn Thing.

Fly it, ride it, walk it and shoot it like it's REAL
=/|)=