Mystic Worlds

Star Citizen Alpha 3.3.5 - Hurston is Space Magic

I put up a quick post on my Star Citizen website about Alpha 3.3.5 which delivered the first planet to the persistent universe. It's nothing short of stunning, warts and all. The RP bug has hit many players now that we have the first planet with atmosphere - albeit polluted. It's common to see people walking instead of running. Many have ditched the default spacesuits for civilian clothing and I am surprisingly among them.

You can read the post and see a quick video here.

I hope to return to creating more SC content in the near future. Hurricane season wasn't kind in the south this year. In fact, Hurricane Michael tore through the first floor of my home. We're all safe but the first floor is gutted - everything had to be removed to prevent the possibility of mold. Floors. 3 foot up from all walls. All cabinetry. Gone - not habitable. Luckily, we're reaching the home stress on closing out insurance claims BS and should have funds soon to start reconstruction.

Hope you've had a blessed holiday.

 

Aly

NEW: Visual Star System Guides Prototype

Rather slammed at work these days so I haven't had time to post this since finishing the initial prototype. Continuing my love affair with Star Citizen lore and the planned physical universe, I'm automating visual star systems guides, and selected Helios, the 2nd largest star system, as the prototype.

Stanton always looms large because it's where we are now and what we hear the most about. But when it comes to size, it's a baby compared to other star systems.

I also never considered what a "year" - orbit around the sun might be for planets in other systems. Hadn't considered it. My mouth dropped open when I started seeing orbits that are hundreds of standard earth years. It made me wonder how citizens communicate the passing of time in the SC universe with such disparity? I notice that some of the RSI lore posts use Standard Earth Time as a notation.

If you're into the lore or seeing the star systems planned with what's know about them today, you can see the article and the first iteration of the visual I'm working on at Aly's World. With my preference for working with the lore and star system data in an automated fashion, I hope to produce these readily when I have time to return to it.

• Link to the article on Aly's World
• Direct link to the Helios Visual System Guide in PDF format

 

Step-by-Step Alpha 3.2 Mining Guide

I've pulled out the mining content from Casual Citizen 31 and enhanced the video into a Step-by-Step Mining Guide for Alpha 3.2.  I hope you enjoy.

• Alpha 3.2 Step-by-Step Mining Guide - Released to YouTube on Friday, June 29th.
• Casual Citizen EP 31 Video - Released to YouTube on Thursday, June 28th
• Casual Citizen EP 31 Audio Only - Released to SoundCloud on Wednesday, June 27th

 

Casual Citizen Episode 31 - Star Citizen Alpha 3.2 PTU

Excitement abounds for Star Citizen Alpha 3.2. In addition to new ships, such as the first luxury yacht to roll out of the showroom, the Origin 600i, we have the first iteration of the mining mechanics. Quality of life improvements is also addressed with updates to the party system and quantum travel. Things are really heating up in the development now, with many new game mechanics and professions slated to be introduced in 2018.

Casual Citizen EP 31 - Alpha 3.2 PTU

• The video version is available here on my YouTube channel
• An audio-only version can be found here on SoundCloud

Star Citizen: 600i Luxury Ship Arrives

With Cloud Imperium Games' intention of creating a living breathing universe, it should come as no surprise that options for pure luxury would exist. Alpha 3.2 delivers the first large-scale luxe version of a touring yacht and an exploration ship. The Origin Jumpworks 600i series has rolled out of the factory.

While I don't consider myself a must-have luxury kind of gal, I have been known to enjoy High Tea with BFFs. And wouldn't consider camping unless it was the glamping version. So yes, I rolled the dice for two luxury ships, one of them being the Origin 6ooi Explorer. 

When I'm not out doing the dirty working of mending the wounded aboard my floating hospital, clicking through whatever they devise for the Endeavor's farming mini-game or flying commercial flights across the galaxy, I want to orchestrate RP-themed tours aboard the Origin 600i and Murder Mysteries on the Origin 890 Jump. If this first presentation of the ship into the alpha is any indication, I will be very happy as an owner of both.

You can read my review of the Origin 600i here on Aly's World of Star Citizen. The 600i will be featured in Casual Citizen 31, which should be out later this week, along with lots of video footage from this gorgeous ship.

Star Citizen Alpha - Mining Arrives

The next episode of Casual Citizen will discuss my impressions of the changes introduced in the Star Citizen alpha. Based on the new quarterly update schedule, Alpha 3.2 is due to be released at the end of the month. So far, this new content strategy is working for CIG and provides backers with a consistent influx of new content. I'm currently play-testing 3.2J on the Private Test Universe.

3.2 includes new ships, one of which I own and was excited to fly. New weapons, armor, and missions are also available.  But the most anticipated inclusion is the first pass at the mining profession. I must say, it's impressive and engaging for the first iteration. There's definitely tweaks required - difficulty vs. reward which is impacted by on-going economy balancing, random bugs, a more concise interface and so on, but it's still very well done.

Until Casual Citizen episode 31 arrives with video and audio, in the next few days, you can hop over to Aly's World for my introduction to the first mining ship and a guide to mining as it stands in the current implementation.

• MISC Prospector - Our 1st Mining Ship
• Alpha 3.2 Mining Guide

Enjoy!

Star Citizen Alpha 3.1 - My Soul is Ready.

It's been months since I've blogged or created any content for Star Citizen. Life has been very busy with freelance work, that came about from having created content for Star Citizen. I've had some grueling weeks working my day job and taking on freelance work but I also enjoyed it. If the Angels are listening, it would be great to break into a new career one of these days.

I'm slowing things down to consider options. All work and no play is extremely stressful. And while I'm considering options versus working myself to death, I've had time to turn my attention back to gaming. Back to playing a bit of Star Citizen. Alpha 3.1 is live for play-testing and I've been partaking of it the past couple of weeks. It's not perfect and there are few missions I'm interested in doing BUT we've turned a corner. And this little alpha that could, is starting to feel like a game. You can read my impressions of what I've experienced so far here on Alysianah's World of Star Citizen.

Available on SoundCloud

YouTube Version

 

Star Citizen Alpha - Trading Round 2

My newest article discussed the ups and downs of my second attempt at trading in Star Citizen's Alpha 3.0 Patch. My objective was to see how much I could earn doing trading for two hours using one of the smaller ships, the Cutlass Black. The Cutlass Black is a popular multi-purpose ship recently redesigned. It's manufactured by Drake, known for creating ships that are popular among pirates. I have one on loan while waiting for the Cutlass Red, the only ambulance ship sold to date, to be flyable in game.

The dynamic nature of the trade pricing caused my initial route plan to be unprofitable during this second attempt. At this point I could choose to take those losses or risk that and more, looking for alternatives. You can read the outcome of the adventure here.

Star Citizen Alpha - Let the Trading Begin

Star Citizen Alpha 3.0 has unveiled the first implementation of cargo hauling and trade. At first, I spent time doing a little of both. In the end, I decided to focus more on trading. It suits my preference for ad hoc free wielding gameplay scenarios versus checking off lists for NPCs. The newly introduced content still has its share of bugs. The server performance is less than stellar. Even so, with patience, there are enjoyable adventures to be had in these fledgling feature sets.

Before you jump in, let the buyer beware. There are posts on Reddit, the official forums and in-game, from people who've managed to lose all of their money. Yikes. It can be a slow road back into the black if only have one ship and it's a small one. Check out my post on Alysianah's World for my impressions of cargo hauling, trade and what NOT to do.

Star Citizen Alpha 3.0 PTU - Turned a Corner

Two Pesky Patches

I sat out two patches due to CPU spikes and what seemed like rampant RAM consumption. It's testing of Alpha on the Private Test Universe, so it's not entirely unexpected to run into memory issues and unoptimized code. Both of which have been addressed EXCEPT my technical problems persisted, as it has for others. Partly, because they seem to have introduced something that doesn't play as nicely as it once did with NVidia. And current indications are that game appears to need more RAM than it's 2.x predecessor. Unfortunately, for me, my gaming desktop with an i970 only supports a maximum of 12 GB of RAM which I have. Configuring a larger virtual memory pool on the SSD did little to improve the situation overall, due to constant disk utilization. Memory at 98%, CPU at 60+ and Disk at 60+ didn't make for a stable gaming experience. 

Laptop to the Rescue

With the unexpected CPU spiking resolved, I decided to take apart my gaming setup in the bedroom. I moved my gaming laptop and its peripherals into the living room. I'm a sad panda about the necessity of doing that since I enjoy playing The Sims to empty my mind before going to sleep. And no, this isn't the type of laptop you want on your lap. It's too heavy, and I keep it on a sturdy cooling pad that has four fans. Configured with an i6700 and 32 GB of RAM, the game played much smoother so that sealed the deal. Back into the breach of Alpha 3.0 PTU testing.

Having moved to playing on my laptop, I had the best 3.0 PTU sessions so far! I server-hopped four times to find one with 25+ FPS. Once I landed there, I played a few hours of uninterrupted magnificence. It made me very hungry for the days where 30+ FPS is the minimum. I can't imagine how enjoyable it will be for 60+FPS which is CIG's target by release.

Amazing - Tip of the Iceberg

The ability to freely explore anywhere and everywhere, in a game with such high fidelity is spectacular. It's seamless. Yadda...yadda. 100% under your control. Yadda...yadda. We all know the sales speak well enough. It's the doing it yourself that's exciting and unprecedented. When I look at the gorgeous photos and video I captured today; it's hard to believe they're not just beautiful pictures. No, they're things I did! In a single gaming session no less. It's all just the tip of the iceberg and why my support stays grounded even when it's storming outside.

I've started the arduous task of organizing and cataloging my images and video before they get out of control. You can look through what I've uploaded so far here. I'm looking for a WordPress media widget that will optimize them as they're uploaded. I don't have the time to deal with resizing hundreds of images individually. For now, they're going up full size so it's not a pretty sight on a mobile device.