I wonder if these people who buy the huge ships will find problems trying to crew them. They all say 'I bought it for my org' but realistically, having all the players on at the same time to do an as yet unconfirmed gameplay loop seems highly unlikely.
These ship are flagship baits for whales at the moment, urging on their desire to show off. In the (far) future an economy for very large ships might emerge, and Krakens and BMM may ideally fill the nomadic life to sell to medium outposts too far away to be able to access standard marketplace and lacking infrastructures to fast loans and unload transports. I can imagine luxury liners loops for the 890j, large scale NPC transport for the Starliner, supply routes across planetary systems for the larger Hulls, exploration to the far reaches for all the Carracks and Odysseys, planetary security for big combat ships, but, to be honest, with the current game engine, I don't see it possible. Even with server meshing, the 50 players limit will be almost impossible to cope with with such large ships even partially crewed with AIs I bought a CCU for the BMM, from an M2 that I don't even own, because it was dirty cheap and because I know the current price for the BMM will skyrocket when it's released but I don't see myself ever pushing it.
I think without at least some AI crew some of the ships might be too big, even in big orgs gamers are too selfish, myself included. Say for example you join an org and they assign you to a certain ship, that ship ends up being the worst ship in the fleet, the captain is sub par, the crew is unorganized/cant aim worth a crap. Not many gamers are going to stick it out and stay, most will just find a new org if they can't be assigned to a new ship.
Thats why they collapse and suck at their jobs. I'm in one of the Planetside 2 retirement homes, and even 5 of us using basic team work (and not even trying hard) can roll over the disorganized pugs. This isn't a boast.... just understanding how force multipliers work is enough to outplay the average zerg. It really doesn't take much to succeed in a modern coop video game; and SC isn't that much different in that regard. Clash of egos are what cause most groups to implode. But when your group knows a little bit of everything, and can do whatever's needed on short notice, everyone wins. Its like Captialism.... except it works.
@@freelancerthe2561 thats exactly what i'm saying though, most gamers don't have a mid sized group that works well together and won't put up with shitty teammates that an org assigned them to. I'm just being realistic, having an idris with 5 people in it won't be viable when all the systems of large ship gameplay are implemented, so having AI crew mates running around fixing things or manning a gun while a player does that just makes more sense IMO.
@@freelancerthe2561 and lets not forget that pvp is not at the core of star citizen like it is in a game like planetside, its there but a player can get by just fine completely avoiding it.
@@freelancerthe2561 its not a challenge, its a fact. You will lose to smaller ships made for 5 people if you try to under staff a capital ship and fight them, even with a competent crew. I'm not saying this as a solo player either, i have a group of friends and we all play really well together. Also i'd put money on my crew in a carrack or hammerhead against an 890 with tanks on it, not to mention that that is a gimmick that will more than likely not be possible in the future.
ah the issue with that it cant land in hangar and thats something banu was going to be able to do. 890 is 210 , i belive to keep it inside planet landing it cant be bigger then 220 max
@@ascelot the size increase is true, its been talked about by cig. Also sizes are not always reflected in price. The Banu Merchantman is an older concept, and started of smaller and underpriced at $250, and has jumped in price and size at many sales since. It is expected to continue to increase in price until release. The misc odyssey is a newer concept and has more up to date pricing. Many expect the Merchantman to be closer to 1k usd on release, going up incrimentally a few times more until then.
@@Dybs_ I do get that oddysey is new concept, but 700 now feels much more overpriced considering atm with banu merch nearing completion and still 100 under the odyssey
The main difference between the Merchantman and other cargo ships is that its main purpose is to bring wares into deep space where trade posts are rare/missing and where you need good defense over of max cargo capacity. People are willing to pay up to 50% ontop or sell cheaper if it saves them long travels. It can also be used to offer equipment or ressources in places where they are needed, for example landing next to player settlements that are running low on fuel or materials for their ground laboratories, selling cave exploration gear right next to a giant cave entrance while setting up buy orders for ore there might be inside or in a mining area ect.
It's not that the ships are too big, their current way of using them is too small. I'd love to see NPCs decorate the inside of larger ships. Maybe a crew you can hire to help run things, almost like an investment. But there are some places that make having a big ship hard, where hangars, meant for small ships, are the only place for your capital ship. A few feet of clearance on each side lol
@@sheg9629 yes but it's a half baked feature rn the form of empty ships. it's a hard sell on an incomplete game already, why have incomplete features 😐
I did find that cool in star field that you can hire a crew and see them populate your ship. It would be cooler if each NPC had stats and abilities associated with them for either game The star citizen ai would need to be far better tho because having a dozen smooth brained NPC just exist on the ship is just as bad
Is it too big for a single player to effectively use? Yes. But I have lots of friends in SC. It's not hard to find friends. Big ships having a little edge, will entice players to work together. I took the inclusion of the BMM to reflect CIGs intention to add the necessary gameplay in a similar timeframe. Since the BMM may still be over a year out, this doesn't seem unreasonable. We will need bigger, longer range ships like this in Pyro.
Well i have an RSI Orion.....so being realistic when do we see that in game, fully functional and crewed by NPC's.....10 yrs at least?. Ships are mostly released as eunuchs, components and gameplay functionality missing, sold as a cash grab, you are just buying a dream, that won't come to fruition for many years, hence the ''Reclaimer'', 8 yrs and counting. I understand this, and to me its just what it is, a concept. I myself have enough in-store credit, to buy mostly anything, then toss it into Buy back, also it helps have to a s understanding of the of CCU's/Warbond/Concepts and sales, its not rocket science, yet needs a clear understanding of CIG's sales mechanics.. All clean fun
@@CapnSnackbeard Some people don't want to play with others though. There has been an entire video presentation from game devs about solo players in online games somewhere on YT explaining why.
As I understand it the gameplay loop for the Banu Merchantman looks something like this. Buy goods in an area where they are cheap because they are produced there (aka Stanton). You could also attain these goods by looting bunkers, outposts, ships, etc. You load all this stuff in your Merchantman and fly it in a backwater system, where they don't even have shops to buy essential equipment (aka Pyro). So you park your Merchantman there and be like: I am the only one in this system who actually offers any equipment and supplies at all. So you have to pay me a lot of money for it or travel to Stanton by yourself. Also keep in mind, that your shopping center is completely mobile. So you can travel to any place, where the action is. Imagine a big FPS event with loads of players and you are sitting right next to it to resupply them with weapons, ammo, utilities, food, and drinks.
And hopefully you brought a good security team so said players don't decide to help themselves to your weapons, ammo, utilities, food and drinks :P Which leads to more gameplay as you now need to think about that and hire the proper teams as well as making sure you don't get any moles who are working for other organizations looking to steal your ship... I predict much crying on the forums in the first week of actual release...
Not to mention the thing carries nearly 3000 SCU and can land on a planet, unlike the Hull series (B and up) when laden. This alone makes it a decent straight up cargo ship.
We'll only know if ships aren't too big if: • NPC's can navigate them (Some demo's look good, but we've only really seen free roaming NPC's on the Idris, for the SQ42 vertical slice). • NPC's can play out their roles (again, some demo's of opening and inspecting ship modules looked good, but it's all we've seen). • Dynamic server meshing can account for high populations aboard ships. (We know the theory, it looks promising, but we've not even put static server meshing to practice yet). • Dynamic server meshing can handle people outside a ship looking inside a ship that has a server spun up for it due to high population. (There's a headscratcher XD) • The Quantum economy makes bulk cargo transport viable (seems easy enough, but they need to make more systems, or more complexity of supply/demand/production in Stanton to be sure). So basically, Quantum needs to work, AI need to not be dumb, and the servers need to handle it all on big busy ships. At least we'll be getting a few of these answers within the next 6-9 months.
Have you seen the game PULSAR: Lost Colony? It has gameplay that plays to that fantasy of being a ship commander/captain or a crew member. Could potentially be something you’re into
I mean...the Banu Merchantman is big yes but it's not the largest ship that CIG have sold either, players can own and crew an Aegis Javelin destroyer. I think of these things as player owned locations in the universe, rather than ships.
@@ObsidianAnt That has been a problem for a very long time. So that is clearly on them and not on you. Thanks for all your amazing videos by the way. I guess i watched 90% of them. :)
I was just on their website looking at the new update. Honestly just like Elite I think most of the fun will happen in "medium" spaceships. If they blow up, not a big deal to replace. Big ships will be more for players in a group.
There is no such thing as to big in my opinion, indeed if the function of the ship requires that it must be large then it should be. The Merchantman in my opinion is indeed one of the ships that demands to be large and I am glade that the Dev's have recognized that fact. If it were smaller then we would be complaining as to why would the Dev's make the Banu flag ship so small? Therefore as I said in my opinion there is no such thing as to big when it comes to the Merchantman.
Well given the current weapon loadout of the Merchantman, it is safe to say that being under-gunned as you say, will not be the case. Also given what the Merchantman is meant to be it is also safe to say that its large size is indeed justified.
But what about on a technical server level. Can the CIG servers handle a dozen player controlled capital ships? Then again as of now, how many capital ships can 50 players man is more the question.
This is what they are working on now with server linking, they will be able to.. We need to stop limiting the game by it's current capabilities, in the future it will not be a problem.
The stability of servers,connections,and gameplay has to be solved first and formost before the rest of the questions can be answered as more capital ships are developed and released. This is quite literally launching ships under construction onto still forming primordial seas on which the planet they're on is still cooling.
I love SC I'm just so tired of all the bugs and glitches destroying what fun you can have, I know it's an alpha fellas I'm just longing for a day when SC works as intented, a man can dream.
@@GrimAbstract If you run it on an SSD, then 90%+ bugs are not game breaking. The other 10% take 15 minutes to fix and you don't lose anything. I'm not saying it's bug free, I'm saying it's mostly not game breaking anymore.
@@GrimAbstract Look I'm not trying to bash our mighty space sim I would just like to see SC run in a more glitch free experiance, you have to agree with me on that?
@@johnnypatterson77 Hey bro i dont know if you meant to reply to me, as i was the one stating there is still a lof of bugs, so i certainly agree with you and wish it was fixed as it would be a great experience haha.
They're certainly too big for what the game has now. However, when NPCs are working as intended, and the game is far more fleshed out, the size will be important
In all honesty, i dont think there is such a thing as too big of a ship. What i'd like to see come to things like Elite dangerous, are trade ships, and even trade stations. Where users can add their own resource trail and trade routes across the galaxy. My end intent for ships like this would be for NPCs to start using them, trading on them, and supplying them. Maybe the person/group that owns these ships can trade their own goods at higher prices, and get a small discount on the 'auto generated' goods, but i dont want these player owned stations to be isolated silos, locked off from everyone else.
Fwiw, of all the large ships you mentioned, the BMM has the strongest current supporting loop - Cargo. Were it to be flyable tomorrow, BMM owners would make bank... so long as they can avoid being targeted. The need for crew is a far more key concern. CIG has mentioned several *possible* solutions, but confirmed none. I remain optimistic, but watchful
You'd be surprised how little time it takes to buy a ship like the Carrack in game if you're playing optimally. It's not an insignficant amount of time, but it fits along with games like Elite's time to get a ship like the Vette.
@@99Plastics It's not really copium my guy. I did this challenge and I've also got over 1k hours in Elite. I know from personal experience that the grind to get a Carrack is similar to the amount of time it takes to get a Vette. It might even be less now that commodity reselling exists because it didn't when I did the challenge.
Keep in mind that a Carrack should need a few people to properly operate when all is said and done, and if you split the cost with your three friends who're going to crew with you the most often, assuming each of you contribute equally the sticker price is effectively quartered as far as your personal grind is concerned. That's something ED doesn't let you do for obvious reasons.
I think initially many players will use the BMM as a cargo ship, wich isn;t surprising after you see its huge cargo hold and it's one of the few available gameplay loops in Star Citizen right now that you could use such a large ship for. I'm sure we'll also see her being used in large/capital ship bountyhunting. Personally I'm looking forward to making enough ingame credits to get my ships ingame. Yes it will take a long time, but that's the fun of it.
@@DundeeSteve Well, yes.. but it's also a flying bazaar and it's more like a trader then a hauler.. if there is a difference in star citizen between being a hauler and a trader. Having your own shops isnt in the game yet.
Never mind the game play, if the engine can't support these ships, because the servers can't cope with the complexity of the numerous subsystems, or the player cap is too low to fully crew them even if you can find enough willing minions to support your dreams of being the boss, and there is no AI tech to fill in the gaps if you can't, then the ship is too big, and everything else is irrelevant.
The AI tech is already most of the way ready for the AI blade system. AI ship gunners are working already and all that's needed for them to become AI blades is implementing a player-facing system for it. That system's not in the game yet so I'm not giving them credit for something players can't use yet, but it's only a matter of time.
Fun fact: The largest ships in sci-fi are often several miles long. A Borg Cube (Star Trek) is 3km wide & a Super Star Destroyer (Star Wars) is a massive 19km long. But they're both tiny compared to the largest ship ever. That title goes to the Harvester Mothership (Independence Day: Resurgence) which has a mind boggling diameter of over 4800km (3,000 miles) & harvests the thermal core of planets for fuel.
I'm pretty sure "largest ship ever" depends heavily on definiton, but also is not the Harvester Mothership. Now don't get me wrong - 4800km is absurdly massive. But for instance V'Ger, from Star Trek tos, is shielded by an energy hull 82 AU in diameter.
The Banu Merchantman is really just a capital size trade ship, for hauling massive amounts of goods and also selling your wares in the ship itself, as it has a mall in it. At the moment some players are already selling rare items they looted from their ships, and this is the endgame for this idea. Besides that it's also a solid ship for playing with a large group. While the exploration or touring mechanics for the Carrack and 890j aren't in yet, those ships are also a lot of fun to team up in. My org has done events where we all team up in an 890j and use it as a mothership to do all sorts of things, even if it is just a big luxury yacht. The tricky thing with the BMM however, is that it's old, and used to be "cheap". Initially it cost 250$, and for a very long time 350$, and when other capital ships are 4x the cost, a lot of people took this opportunity to get this supposedly rare and big ship for a "low" price, and since the original concept is kind of all over the place people's expectations are too. SC's funding model is really biting it in the ass here, these ships are supposed to be rare and primarily used by the Banu alien species, yet everyone and their mother has one, and they'll all need crew to man their ships. Too many people buy in thinking haha big ship to brrr, without thinking about if the niche of having a flying mall is appealing to them. I have no doubts however that *someday* this thing will fully live up to it's potential, and until then it'll still be solid to use as a mothership or very well protected bulk cargo hauler, just like how the carrack is useful despite it's intended exploration gameplay not really being a thing. The basics of scanning and finding things are there, and you can use it to find valuable minable rocks, but you can't map that data to sell of to miners for example.
I think the overall aesthetics of this ship would really work well for an alien species. That said - it works for human ships just fine, too. Lots of polys and surfaces for lighting to either make or break the setting.
Yeah, but that's a single player game... the big ships in Star Citizen NEED a player crew to successfully operate it and NPC stand-in crews will simply not cut the mustard. So it's a very different comparison to X3.
The Bengal is one kilometer long. Although, as just the chell, it has appeared in both this and last year's Invictus week. The vanduul king ship will be 3 kilometers long.
@@Nemoticon at least X3 actually works though and has been finished, unlike Star Citizen, which will never be finished or be optimized to a playable expectation, you guys be like "OMG i have 50 frames in space, that's nearly double being on loreville" 🤡🤦♂
I'm content with having my hangar queens. If a time comes where I need them, great but tbh I'll be just as happy strolling through them in the hangar lol.. The time will come when they are needed and just like Batmans cave, when that time comes it'll be glorious to pull the dust cover off of them and get out there. I am not alone in my way of thinking. I assure you. 😅
I've got one Idris and the rest I can handle with a small NPC crew or solo. When I get the chance to have org mates as my crew, there's only one ship to choose.
@@themanyouwanttobe I know the Feeling, I have a Perseus. Me and my friends cant wait to Go on Patrol or Protection for Hire with the Perseus and a Couple F8C's or Sabre's (Or Even maybe an Ares Ion) as Fighter Escorts!
The npcs would have to be industry defining, with ai that have day/night cycles that can dynamically change based on the activities they are doing and the environments they are in. You'd almost need thinking ai that can make decisions for itself. Just for the merchantman, you need ai that can: 1. Run security and possibly detain/guard people. 2. Run shops, including but not limited to keeping track of inventory and notifying the crew when a certain item is in low stock 3. Actually come on the ship at Port and participate in the ships' amenities and shops 4. Keep the systems on the ship running if human crew is unavailable. No game has done AI to this kind of level before. It would be unprecedented. I think its a bit too ambitious, but im happy to be wrong
i'm not sure if CIG plans to do all this, but i do know that the Quantum AI Simulation they're working on simulates 1000s of NPCs and basic activities, so pirates will pirate, traders will trade etc.
They've shown quite a bit of each of those during the past 2 years or so. With the next update AI will fly their own ships and drop reinforcements, which is at a smaller scale part of your 3rd point. I think CIG have the means to get most of it done. Which they are already working toward. Interesting times indeed.
how we would use the banu right now? i can answer as a player and the owner of one of such ships (bought early in concept when cost was significantly lower and the ship size itself was significantly smaller) the ship would for sure be used as a cargo hauler as a main role, otherwise it could be used for mothership role due to the hangar , smuggling ship due to the high survivability and the ability (rare for capital ships) to land on planets in most cases unassisted (not needing a tug boat) , a mobile market due to the ability of having npc sellers on board (not sure this feature is online already tho). Ppl in star citizen found a use for literally capital size yachts so i would not be too worried about it not having a use in game right now, i dont think ppl will run box missions with it but for sure some hauling and clan gameplay edit: It will most likely be the highest end cargo ship in game when it is finished, as ships like the hull E are gonna have to wait untill the economy system overhaul is done, also they wont truly shine untill more systems are added, plus they need the tractor beam tech to be finished
I got the Banu when it was $250 some years ago. I think it is a good investment knowing it is now around $600 and probably end up being around $900 when it becomes flyable.
He spent $250 on a virtual product that isn't actually physically real in a decade old scam posing as a video game under development, and he calls that a good investment? Could have spent $60 on a finished game, or $30 if you're good at waiting on Steam sales and gotten more bang for your buck. Sounds like a sucker who can't go without instant gratification. Sounds like a lonesome man desperate for clout. Don't get me wrong, I like sports cars as much as the next guy, but most of the time, the people who buy them do so because they're attention whores who are desperate to be noticed. This is no different.
@@jetnavigator When I say "good investment" when referring to a Star Citizen ship, what I really mean is relative to the prices of other Star Citizen ships. That doesn't mean I consider any of the prices to be good, but it is what it is. No video game purchase is an investment to me, I view that money as gone after I purchase and don't refund during the refund period. Can't speak for this person but I hope this is what they mean.
They're going to be an NPCs that will help run the ship and repair it also MPCs like Elaine dangerous you can have as a cold pilot for your turrets so the bigger the better because eventually they want you to take them out and don't come back to the starting area and they're doing it way more efficiently than a lean dangerous for other space games have
Too big? I’d love to see players jumping their space stations to different places, capital ships firing at each other. As long as there’s a use it will never be to big
Well said: for the Banu Merchantman to fully have a place in Star Citizen, requires the PU to have a fully functioning economy to support it. That is absolutely correct, and as per the way we see UEC flood the verse in an inflationary wave over time at present, so we need them to establish something much more realistic in terms of balance. I’ll give one glaring example: costs. We all have high expenses and costs of living in life, and we earn money that hopefully more than offsets. With looting now, I have zero expenses most of the time for anything, and worse via the insurance claim system almost always end up reclaiming a ship for convenience which meant I never even buy hydrogen fuel or quantum fuel. As such, with the well paying missions for fun or cargo for example, money just steadily, continuously accumulates and builds up until now, without really trying, I’m sitting on 20m UEC+ with all the ships I want bought in-game. Yet no costs of ownership of said ships either. All of that needs to eventually be taken into account. We don’t want an ED style grind to maintain your fleet taking away the fun, but we probably do want there to be cost benefit of ownership such that you opt not to necessarily own or run many ships, and instead opt to hitch a ride for longer journeys for example. This is aside from the completely broken cargo / trading side of the game, and no bartering or negotiation elements.
Insurance now is not what it's intended to be in the future, it's basically free right now and that's probably not going to last. Especially to stop people from just reclaiming their ship instead of paying maintenance costs. CR has also spoken of hangar fees, landing fees, cargo loading/unloading fees, tolls in the Aaron Halo gates, tons of small fees that are all _minor_ credit sips that keep the economy from inflating so fast. They haven't hooked most of the economy up to Quantum, either, so for the most part it doesn't take dynamic conditions into account. You can assume that, as long as the studios don't get hit with meteors and prematurely end the project, what you're playing now is alpha and not the finished design.
Selling items directly to other players is such a massive gameplay addition that it will be a primary career for many. Right now we get rare loot and can sell to players or shops but it's clunky because you need to drop it on a table or the floor and the buyer sends the money. With the BMM this process is streamlined. Some players will buy rare loot from others or really any commodity and set the price on the BMM's market to resell it to others, then travel the verse and announcing the shop being "Open for Business" at any location they wish, be it on land or in space. With 8 shops you can have one for toys, one for armor, one for raw or refined ores, one for food and drink, ect. With 2880 SCU you could supply an entire Org with whatever they need if you have the right stock.
As someone who stopped expecting a full release, I think the larger non-combat ships like 890J and Merchantman will most likely be "trophy ships", something that doesn't really have gameplay purpose but is cool to own and show off while large combat ships have specific uses here and there
The BMM's main feature is it's shops. That's not to hard to implement. - they already have the NPC vendors in game. So only a matter or allowing us to hire some. Could the very first version of NPC crew but very simple (they just stand in the shops and sell. Nothing more). - they already reworked the buy/sell UI and it can work of the BMM's shops. - the extremely large cargo should be used to ensure stocks on all the shops good. They would need to do a few things... like figure out a way to hire NPCs, and UI to manage store inventory and prices. But definitely easier to do than something like exploration or Salvage.
Just going to say I think the current economy and in game ship prices feel fair. Most expensive in game ship is the 890j at around 32 million aUEC. I can make around 500 thousand aUEC an hour mining quantanium currently. New players can currently rent a stock Prospector and buy handheld mining gadgets with a few thousand credits so it's fairly accessible to start making a lot of money through mining. Most of the ships I have I've bought in game. Namely the Prospector I use was purchased in game for 2 Million credits. Before that I did a mix of space and fps combat missions and ROC surface mining for Hadanite. How long did it take to grind up to a Anaconda from a Sidewinder in Vanilla release Elite? I remember it took me months to get up to an Anaconda at launch. Grind and repetition are important to keep players engaged with progression goals. Just you don't want it to be so long and arduous that it becomes a detractor. On the other hand, making things too easy will also spoil the engagement.
@@Nopointasking your not far off, it would take ONE TEAM 28 years to make fight ready/build the 14 big concept ships . that's from John Crewe INVICTUS ALL-ships Q&A,
I think the issue isn't that big ships exist, it's going to be that too many of them will exist. It seems that there's a lot of power fantasy types that want the biggest, baddest ship available. If too many people want to captain their own capital size ship, there won't be many people wanting to crew such large ships and it'll just be a whale wars situation. Two or more massive capital ships incapable of doing anything interesting just barking at each other. The only hope for them would be those of us that truly appreciate the fighter crafts and smaller ships, armed escorts or guns for hire.
Less whale wars, more whales having their capships stolen out from under them because they have lots of money and no friends. Having a huge ship is meaningless if you don't have enough hands to operate it correctly and defend yourself.
@@elixwhitetail But if everybody is just a captain of a capital ship with no friends, they won't be able to board and steal ships. They'll be too busy having a pissing match with the other whales.
@@BlackMagicBliss Spending any amount of time in the game makes it abundantly clear that bigger ships are completely impractical for a single player experience. There is a reason why you don't see 12 Hammerheads or Carracks parked outside Grim Hex doing nothing. You're worried about a scenario that doesn't even happen in the current game.
@@BlackMagicBliss I assure you, the number of people who own capital ships is far from "everybody". Me and my friends will have a capital ship when we take it from a crying whale after leaving his corpse on the bridge floor.
Someone was surprised the other day, when I said it's bigger than a Kraken in width and height, and almost as long. Many of the ships have gotten bigger since concept, mostly because on the old ships, they designed the exteriors before they knew the size of the interiors.
A few things to mention: 1. The BMM is 600 USD now, 720$ was likely including a Tax. (Still, I do not recommend spending this much.) 2. The 160m figure is on the ship Matrix, which to my knowledge has not once been accurate. The current model we've been shown is about 240m long. 3. Personally, I think people might be better off disconnecting "owning a ship" from "having access to a ship/gameplay". A lot of people own big ships and need crew for them, while at the same time they might own most if not all the things they want. Someone who only starts with a basic Game Package might actually enjoy the Gameplay more "naturally", as they could just play with others depending on the type of ship they like, without having to worry about their own fleet. And some day, they could just buy the ships they had the most fun on as a crew member.
You know if you look at the stats, most Elite Dangerous ships are bigger. The only plus is in Star Citizen you can actually feel and see how large your ship really is. And I love that.
No engine on the market was designed to do what Star Citizen wants to do. That's why SC is taking so long to make, they're having to retool the engine to do what they want.
Star Engine is able to manage a 8 billion kilometers cube with pixel precision, all the current restrictions are servers related. Actually they will never use it to its full potential, because it will be far too big to make people enjoy it.
@@davidhonnay1540 To be specific, it's 8 billion km per side at mm precision. And, you're correct, that's larger than they need so they have room for everything they want.
Seeing how different (and often busy) the game now feels with even 100 players in Stanton, I'd say yes, the game definitely has space for very large ships crewed by dozens of players.
I really hope this game turns out to be most everything we want from it. But there are so many things that don't feel right about Star Citizens development.
Everyone hopes, but hardly anyone seems to want to actually help. From top to bottom they were told it wasn't worth the time or effort to try..... yet here they are, still eeking away progress, slow as it may be. Where were you when the EA Exec said microtransactions were the wave of the future? Playing those popular games, and reinforcing market trends I bet. :P
@@freelancerthe2561 You're unbelievably delusional if you think CIG aren't the exact same as companies like EA. You realize Star Citizen has made more money than almost any other game on the planet right? Primarily selling hopes and dreams of what concept ships could one day be? It's sickening how deluded some of the player base including yourself is into the narrative behind it. I've also given over a thousand dollars into Star Citizen, yet I sit here and can at least accept that the development is flawed, and I very well may have put my money into a black hole.
@@Skycoder13 "You realize Star Citizen has made more money than almost any other game on the planet right?" I suggest you research how much FIFA Ultimate Team makes EA every year. The key word is billions. That's with a b, and it's plural. Genshin Impact makes Mihoyo around two billion dollars a year. GTA V/GTAO made its development budget back in like the first weekend. SC isn't even CLOSE to the top in terms of total income. If we ballpark it and assume they crest $500mil by the end of October, they'll have been making $50mil a year which is a very healthy income but it's _nothing_ compared to what EA rakes in.
Kind of hard to judge about gameplay when the gameplay is (allegedly) a limited preview of just some of the intended possibilities. Plus, in a lot of ways, the Intended Gameplay (tm) (r) (c) seems to be at least 50% focused on walking in the ship and fantasizing about how it would/will work in 20 years when the game is actually finished (or abandoned). Edit: Don't get me wrong, the ship models are beautiful. But I firmly think the core driver for most/all SC ships is not "what our gameplay ideas need", but rather "what can we sell to people NOW based on eyecandy and promises".
@DMV 420 What?....😂😂😂😂 It adds what?..... NPCs. .....?...... Will they keep standing on the chairs or stand still looking the vast emptiness of space and planets of SC? 😂😂😂😂😂
@@hariszark7396 You haven't actually watched any recent gameplay, have you? It's okay, you're allowed to keep repeating outdated stale memes if that's what you wanna do with your life.
@@elixwhitetail can you direct me to a video with gameplay that I can see properly functioning NPCs and actual gameplay other than PvP or basic PvE that we have for years? I will be happy to see it.
@@hariszark7396 The fact is that it all depends on the server. Freshly-started servers are responsive and the AI is lethally clever in combat. Overloaded servers that're at max capacity and have been running for hours barely let the AI have a chance to 'think' so they stand still. I don't have a single specific video in mind that shows off a fresh server because I don't bookmark videos for the sake of winning dumb Internet arguments, but there's plenty of footage of both well-running and poorly-running servers out there. Server meshing _should_ take a huge step forward on this because the server runs poorly thanks to having to simulate the entire Stanton system and everything in it, while meshing should split the load across multiple server instances.
@DMV 420 correct, like i did. But ppl who have to have the biggest best ships will plunk big bucks for it. No shade from me because it's a funding model that helps the game come closer to my dream game. Let others be the whales, while I have a good time with what I got.
@@JoseJimenez-fc6pu Bigger isn't automatically better in SC. This is a common notion because in games like EVE Online and Elite Dangerous, where any ship is meant to be fully controlled by only one player, bigger is objectively better because it means bigger guns for the one player. In SC, if you drop your paycheck on the most expensive ship players can buy with cash, congratulations, you've just acquired a ship with a minimum functioning crew count of 15 and a max of _80_ and, oh by the way, all of the military toys have been stripped off of it because the ship sale is lore-themed as military surplus, so it doesn't even come with guns on it. Bigger isn't better, it's just bigger.
@@alandab Ahh yeah, i checked after your message and its $600 USD during Alien Week. Still a huge price increase (a long with the planned size, added capabilities, etc, etc). It's still a little crazy to me that a ship i pledged for years ago is now selling for 2.25x the price!
I strongly suspect these ships are a dead-end for the game. Above a certain size, you NEED a crew to run ships and therein lies the problem - people want to have their own ship, not operate a mining laser on someone else's ship for a tiny portion of the profits. Assuming the game ever actually releases, I think an awful lot of people are going to have ships like this that they can't do anything with.
These ships will be stuffed full of NPC's and AI blades is my prediction. And CIG will have a serious challenge trying to balance the game given that fact. How expensive should NPC's be to recruit? How good/bad should AI Blades be at their various jobs? I agree with you though, very very very few of the bigger ships will ever see a full crew of players. Edit: I've got an Idris. Doubt I'll be able to gather more than 5 people in it at once, and at least 2 of those will quickly loose interest in being crew and will head off in their own ships.
@DMV 420 "And not this silly little can opener salvage gameplay Odyssey thinks is fun. No bullet sponge NPC’s to fight with super soaker guns. Looking at you Odyssey." I don't know, I like Odyssey for what it is, why this much hate? - Ok, so npcs to loot, fight and whatever, right. Nothing about exploration yet?
One of the main design principals Chris Roberts had for the game was that AI would outnumber humans in the game 10:1 doing all the same roles and functions of a human player. AI will crew ships, pick up the same missions, create missions for other player and AI etc. This has started to come to realization through Quanta and the associated systems. For ships owned by players, we have choices to crew with AI computer blades or AI NPC crew members. Due to all of these reasons, there is no such thing as "too big" of a ship. The game can play itself even if the player doesn't bother logging in to show up.
YES! They recently put in 100 player servers. They have numbers as high as 150. I've personally seen 114 players in a single ship all partying at the ship's bar. Not 114 people spread across an entire galaxy. 114 people in a single room of a 1 ship. I've seen 100 ships all battling too. All WITHOUT fixed or dynamic server meshing. With dynamic server meshing, a server could manage every ship. Meaning you could have a hundred ships fighting each other each carrying a hundred crew. 100 x100. That's 10,000 people fighting. The practicality of having 9,900 players not want to be the captain and taking orders? That I don't know. That isn't a technical issue but human nature.
So here's the thing, right? I want to meme and be like, MOAR BIG, but there IS a limit to how big player owned assets should be, and how big they can get before they become problematic. BUT, and this is a big but here, Star Citizen has nailed it. Ships like the Carrack, Hammerhead, and Reclaimer all work well enough right now. They've proved the concept and that things aren't even close to being problematic yet, at least until you talk about PVP fleet combat. That's just it though. I don't even care if they succeed at fleet combat. I just want to see the professions and economy expand. The game already, technically at least, supports everything I want out of ships like the Kraken, Orion, and Polaris.
@@Fx_Explains Flyable meeting place and mobile base of operations for my small org. Once PES comes in and gets ironed out, all that's left is the economy to be built out. That's just adding features though. The ships already work, and they'll get even better when engineering starts coming online.
I am not a game dev by any means, but the only way to have these larger ships be sustainable, meaning being able to fill every seat that has a function as a baseline, server meshing has to happen. We can't do this with 50 people servers, and I'm not even sure we can do that with 100 people. And like a snowball effect, the events will have to be a bit larger in scale because imagine at least 30-40 people showing up to something like Xenothreat. If they are somewhat competent in skill, the ai could be easily swatted away. And that's with consideration of how the ai got a little nastier in the recent update.
I haven't played star citizen, but the way id use the merchantman is to rent it and buy or transport a large amount of products. In the sense of high risk/high rewards, or leverage trading.
To answer the question of what players can do with the merchantman in the current game just look to how the 890 and carrack are currently used by players; role play, cargo running, mobile respawn point, fps level, pocket carrier, battleship, and more. The ship is less limited by its design and supported gameplay than it is by the the players imagination.
I have had the ccu upgrade for this ship for a long time surprisingly its way cheaper than other ships it's size n all. Sir we do it gor virtual vanity and being a space nut , what better experience can their be than flying an alien Capitalust wet dream ship.
There is a lot in the art design of the game that is being done because that's what it would be in the real world (meeting rooms, kitchens etc)... but nothing done in that regard seems to be a mechanically supported function. A Meeting Room should have a contracts terminal or a Corp voting system that can only be used there etc. So its all just roleplay until we know any gameplay loops/mechanics that use all that space... which will suffer if we are all thrown into the same universe.
currently the Carrack is the favorite in the org i am part of (i do not own a carrack and the 890j is secondary), we hold a event every sunday and we mostly do not have enoph turrets to give everybody a station in the ship, result we mostly flying a second ship aswel. so despite the carrack its size it is often used as its medbed acts as spawning point wich we use when doing the fps missions, its hangar and garage are usefull aswel. so its the merchantman currently usefull? i think its to early to tell, depends on what CIG does with it, layout and everything.
The negotiations room will most likely have some relevant interface (maybe a like the money app on the mobi with more functions and allow more participants?)
When the ship comes out it will be used for missions as it has big guns and a place to respawn with a fighter bay. This should make it a capable combat ship against NPCs. The Hammerhead today is crazy at doing missions in groups almost to a fault. It makes a mockery of even the hardest missions. The Carrack is a big awesome ship that has respawn, guns, large bay for a vehicles and cargo, fighter hanger, and room for fun RP. BMM will be no different. Even the 890 Jump is useful in some cases but mostly as a place to RP and screw around with. Not sure where the BMM will fit but either way it will be fun when it releases. As for size, we have no idea what too big will be. It ultimately depends on what the player limit will be. How many people will actually be able to directly interact with each other at any one moment? The Jav has a crew capacity of 80 i think. If you have 2 of these fighting with proper support fleets will this even be possible? Will you be able to have anywhere from 500 to 1000 people fighting each other in one spot? If not then Jav might be too big as you said it goes beyond the technical capabilities of the game. But yeah time will tell. Hopefully they figure it out. I remain confident they will do it
Thanks for being honest about the addendum. It's currently pointless to grind for that currency considering you'll end up getting burned out after grinding so long for said currency and then seeing it all just disappear on the next wipe.
I just recently bought the Carrack, purely for my self and the friends that never play xD. The size is just perfect for me as a casual player as I like to explore in bigger ships.
Unknown of what it is for? Same as the Kraken Privateer. It will be a marketplace where you can sell to players and npc's. That is what the whole ship is about. Sure, you can do trading since it can land, but its primary role has always been to be a flying marketplace. Also, no release date? As said right now, it is scheduled for release early next year, of course, CIG loves to delay things, so wouldn't be shocked if it is delayed some. I am honestly fine with it being delayed a little if they need to since ships like this need to have all their mechanics flushed out otherwise they won't work. So, before saying they never said what it's for, read up some info. That has been the design for it to be a marketplace since the day it got announced like, 7 years ago? That is basically like saying they never said what the Orion is going to be used for. Oh, and btw. GIB ORION GDI!
I love the concept of these larger ships. But it reminds me of Wings of Icarus. Ever since its launch, it was hard to gather enough players to crew 4-player ships. Most games I played, I had to pilot the ship and command NPCs to fight as I needed them to. Star Citizen promisesships so large they need to be crewed by dozens or hundreds of players. I doubt they'll ever get the necessary playerbase. Much less have everyone logged in at the same time and interested in sharing the same ship.
it's a temporary cap while they mesh the servers. They've said it all along: building these ships will take years which is why they have to have them all ready by the time the mesh is in. Otherwise they will have a mesh, with no ships. That's not an acceptable outcome. If anything, they waited too long to build this one IMO.
My main goal is to have a merchant guild/org that faocusses on trading. a BMM would be a really nice base of operations where we hop from system to system to buy and sell.
These large ships are all about showing off: "look at me, I can afford to spent money on these massive space ships!". It's to pose, they're primarily designed for snobs. Anybody who says they bought this or similarly sized ships because "CIG will add the gameplay that fits these ships, eventually" is just trying to justify why they really spent all this money on these ships: To show off their wealth to their "friends". CIG knows this and is counting on that to keep the money flowing in their direction. This is one of the reasons why the development of game play elements and other features that would expand the game play experience is going so slowly: they bring in no bundles of cash. Only ships do that.
I disagree with your point that the meeting room serves only Roleplay purpose. Everything in an open world game is for roleplay purpose. Reentering a planet's atmosphere serves no gameplay purpose, it just looks cool and serves the roleplay purpose. All games are made this way to make is more immersive and with immersion comes roleplay.
Entering a planet's atmosphere serves a gameplay purpose: Going after atmospheric bounties. And, eventually, AI will be able to make ground-space transitions so you may need to chase mission targets into space/down to a planet to finish them off. That's hardly _roleplay_
@@legatusnavium7060 I mean, maybe, but my point was that Ant was not wrong to say the BMM costs $720 when you take into account a 20% VAT. Future price increases are a different topic.
I would allow bounty hunters to lodge there, same with regular folk and pirates trading in the black market. Good portable base of operations that doesn't stay in place for long for those high class clients.
This is a little unrelated but... when fauna start getting added, I would LOVE to hear you do David Attenborough style videos. Your voice is PERFECT. Okay now I'll watch the rest of the video. .
good example of scale SW galaxies, subnautica (big sub one crew, deliberately harder to use) dark age of camelot and it's simlar games. you build it, you maintain it, you defend it, EVERYONE benefits (except your enemies) bad example most MMO with guild houses (pretty but mostly useless spaces at best used for dev-restricted trading systems or centralised NPC vendoring) neutral example i'd go with eve here, because while big ships have benefits, it's one person one ship so player numbers win through. zerg/goon hard and you can hit bloody almost anyone around.
What's $600 plus 20% sales tax? Yup, that's right. And sales tax displays on the website so it's what OA sees even if your tax level is different/CIG doesn't collect sales tax from your area.
Background research...from OA? LMAO! That guy is too busy to find out the truth. If old news will serve his lies, then that's what he goes with. OA has no time for your facts.
$720 for BMM??? I see a $600 price for alien week. BMM re-concept you show here is more than 200m long. What game play do you imagine it requires? As far as I can tell, it can do many things in Stanton that can infact support an unlimited number of them accross multiple servers.. BMM primary game play will indeed require mechanics to support it not yet in game. It's still going to be the king Jack of all Trades without its Bazaar game play.
I wonder if these people who buy the huge ships will find problems trying to crew them. They all say 'I bought it for my org' but realistically, having all the players on at the same time to do an as yet unconfirmed gameplay loop seems highly unlikely.
True but at the same time there will be AI crew and even now the HH is a 7 man ship and I see them often crewed in the verse
Who wants to be a crewman in a capship without any windows, sitting in a room all day without seeing anything of the verse?
@@Casey093 I mean, the BMM is gonna be lucrative so I'll do it for a week. We'll all end the week with like 100 million uec...
These ship are flagship baits for whales at the moment, urging on their desire to show off.
In the (far) future an economy for very large ships might emerge, and Krakens and BMM may ideally fill the nomadic life to sell to medium outposts too far away to be able to access standard marketplace and lacking infrastructures to fast loans and unload transports.
I can imagine luxury liners loops for the 890j, large scale NPC transport for the Starliner, supply routes across planetary systems for the larger Hulls, exploration to the far reaches for all the Carracks and Odysseys, planetary security for big combat ships, but, to be honest, with the current game engine, I don't see it possible. Even with server meshing, the 50 players limit will be almost impossible to cope with with such large ships even partially crewed with AIs
I bought a CCU for the BMM, from an M2 that I don't even own, because it was dirty cheap and because I know the current price for the BMM will skyrocket when it's released but I don't see myself ever pushing it.
Guilds.
I think without at least some AI crew some of the ships might be too big, even in big orgs gamers are too selfish, myself included. Say for example you join an org and they assign you to a certain ship, that ship ends up being the worst ship in the fleet, the captain is sub par, the crew is unorganized/cant aim worth a crap. Not many gamers are going to stick it out and stay, most will just find a new org if they can't be assigned to a new ship.
Thats why they collapse and suck at their jobs. I'm in one of the Planetside 2 retirement homes, and even 5 of us using basic team work (and not even trying hard) can roll over the disorganized pugs. This isn't a boast.... just understanding how force multipliers work is enough to outplay the average zerg.
It really doesn't take much to succeed in a modern coop video game; and SC isn't that much different in that regard. Clash of egos are what cause most groups to implode. But when your group knows a little bit of everything, and can do whatever's needed on short notice, everyone wins. Its like Captialism.... except it works.
@@freelancerthe2561 thats exactly what i'm saying though, most gamers don't have a mid sized group that works well together and won't put up with shitty teammates that an org assigned them to. I'm just being realistic, having an idris with 5 people in it won't be viable when all the systems of large ship gameplay are implemented, so having AI crew mates running around fixing things or manning a gun while a player does that just makes more sense IMO.
@@freelancerthe2561 and lets not forget that pvp is not at the core of star citizen like it is in a game like planetside, its there but a player can get by just fine completely avoiding it.
@@methatguy5996 Challenge accepted. Wait.... we were all thinking 2 Tanks on an 890 Jump, right?
@@freelancerthe2561 its not a challenge, its a fact. You will lose to smaller ships made for 5 people if you try to under staff a capital ship and fight them, even with a competent crew. I'm not saying this as a solo player either, i have a group of friends and we all play really well together.
Also i'd put money on my crew in a carrack or hammerhead against an 890 with tanks on it, not to mention that that is a gimmick that will more than likely not be possible in the future.
From what I have seen, the Banu Merchantman has gone up in size from 160m to 232m.
Just a railgun shorter than the Idris.
ah the issue with that it cant land in hangar and thats something banu was going to be able to do. 890 is 210 , i belive to keep it inside planet landing it cant be bigger then 220 max
@@fn8382 The Idris fits in 890 Jump hangars, so the BMM will fit as well.
@@PatEagle787 If the size increase is true, then why is Misc Odyssey smaller, but costs more?
@@ascelot the size increase is true, its been talked about by cig. Also sizes are not always reflected in price. The Banu Merchantman is an older concept, and started of smaller and underpriced at $250, and has jumped in price and size at many sales since. It is expected to continue to increase in price until release. The misc odyssey is a newer concept and has more up to date pricing. Many expect the Merchantman to be closer to 1k usd on release, going up incrimentally a few times more until then.
@@Dybs_ I do get that oddysey is new concept, but 700 now feels much more overpriced considering atm with banu merch nearing completion and still 100 under the odyssey
The main difference between the Merchantman and other cargo ships is that its main purpose is to bring wares into deep space where trade posts are rare/missing and where you need good defense over of max cargo capacity. People are willing to pay up to 50% ontop or sell cheaper if it saves them long travels. It can also be used to offer equipment or ressources in places where they are needed, for example landing next to player settlements that are running low on fuel or materials for their ground laboratories, selling cave exploration gear right next to a giant cave entrance while setting up buy orders for ore there might be inside or in a mining area ect.
It's not that the ships are too big, their current way of using them is too small.
I'd love to see NPCs decorate the inside of larger ships. Maybe a crew you can hire to help run things, almost like an investment.
But there are some places that make having a big ship hard, where hangars, meant for small ships, are the only place for your capital ship. A few feet of clearance on each side lol
Ah yes... the SUV paradox
there is NPC crew coming
@@sheg9629 yes but it's a half baked feature rn the form of empty ships. it's a hard sell on an incomplete game already, why have incomplete features 😐
I did find that cool in star field that you can hire a crew and see them populate your ship. It would be cooler if each NPC had stats and abilities associated with them for either game
The star citizen ai would need to be far better tho because having a dozen smooth brained NPC just exist on the ship is just as bad
@@ryantyler8142 this. SC was advertised as being super heavy with NPC use and as of right now their team isn't up to the task...
Clearly.
Is it too big for a single player to effectively use? Yes. But I have lots of friends in SC. It's not hard to find friends. Big ships having a little edge, will entice players to work together.
I took the inclusion of the BMM to reflect CIGs intention to add the necessary gameplay in a similar timeframe. Since the BMM may still be over a year out, this doesn't seem unreasonable.
We will need bigger, longer range ships like this in Pyro.
You have friends ?
Thanks amazing
@@Phat_man not too big for people with social skills. I'm sure you'll be fine. 😆
Well i have an RSI Orion.....so being realistic when do we see that in game, fully functional and crewed by NPC's.....10 yrs at least?. Ships are mostly released as eunuchs, components and gameplay functionality missing, sold as a cash grab, you are just buying a dream, that won't come to fruition for many years, hence the ''Reclaimer'', 8 yrs and counting. I understand this, and to me its just what it is, a concept. I myself have enough in-store credit, to buy mostly anything, then toss it into Buy back, also it helps have to a s understanding of the of CCU's/Warbond/Concepts and sales, its not rocket science, yet needs a clear understanding of CIG's sales mechanics.. All clean fun
@@CapnSnackbeard Some people don't want to play with others though. There has been an entire video presentation from game devs about solo players in online games somewhere on YT explaining why.
Space ships can never be to big.
Signed! ;)
*too
The server probably begs to differ
The same philosophy can be applied to breasts!
Like literally; have you seen space? Its like REALLY big ;)
As I understand it the gameplay loop for the Banu Merchantman looks something like this. Buy goods in an area where they are cheap because they are produced there (aka Stanton). You could also attain these goods by looting bunkers, outposts, ships, etc. You load all this stuff in your Merchantman and fly it in a backwater system, where they don't even have shops to buy essential equipment (aka Pyro). So you park your Merchantman there and be like: I am the only one in this system who actually offers any equipment and supplies at all. So you have to pay me a lot of money for it or travel to Stanton by yourself.
Also keep in mind, that your shopping center is completely mobile. So you can travel to any place, where the action is. Imagine a big FPS event with loads of players and you are sitting right next to it to resupply them with weapons, ammo, utilities, food, and drinks.
And hopefully you brought a good security team so said players don't decide to help themselves to your weapons, ammo, utilities, food and drinks :P
Which leads to more gameplay as you now need to think about that and hire the proper teams as well as making sure you don't get any moles who are working for other organizations looking to steal your ship... I predict much crying on the forums in the first week of actual release...
Not to mention the thing carries nearly 3000 SCU and can land on a planet, unlike the Hull series (B and up) when laden. This alone makes it a decent straight up cargo ship.
We'll only know if ships aren't too big if:
• NPC's can navigate them (Some demo's look good, but we've only really seen free roaming NPC's on the Idris, for the SQ42 vertical slice).
• NPC's can play out their roles (again, some demo's of opening and inspecting ship modules looked good, but it's all we've seen).
• Dynamic server meshing can account for high populations aboard ships. (We know the theory, it looks promising, but we've not even put static server meshing to practice yet).
• Dynamic server meshing can handle people outside a ship looking inside a ship that has a server spun up for it due to high population. (There's a headscratcher XD)
• The Quantum economy makes bulk cargo transport viable (seems easy enough, but they need to make more systems, or more complexity of supply/demand/production in Stanton to be sure).
So basically, Quantum needs to work, AI need to not be dumb, and the servers need to handle it all on big busy ships.
At least we'll be getting a few of these answers within the next 6-9 months.
I’ve never really had a pilot fantasy, I’ve always had more of a ship commander/captain fantasy
x4 is for you then
Have you seen the game PULSAR: Lost Colony? It has gameplay that plays to that fantasy of being a ship commander/captain or a crew member. Could potentially be something you’re into
@@Solomon-ci8dk I love X4! I’m still trying to learn the base building mechanics, but I love having huge ships and fleets.
I wish you much luck in finding your "red shirt" crew. :)
@@acefp7547 I’ll definitely check that out!
I mean...the Banu Merchantman is big yes but it's not the largest ship that CIG have sold either, players can own and crew an Aegis Javelin destroyer.
I think of these things as player owned locations in the universe, rather than ships.
" player owned locations" - that sounds like a euphemism for useless.
Did you even watch the whole video? This is exactly what OA said.
The Javelin (480 meters) is two times the size of the Merchantman (237 meters), not three times. Just sayin' :)
Merchantman is 160m, Javelin is 480m, according to RSI website. :)
@@ObsidianAnt The merchant man has gotten larger than the original concept. Don't think they have updated the website information
Ok thanks. Shame they aren't keeping those details to to date though.
@@ObsidianAnt It really is unfortunately.
@@ObsidianAnt That has been a problem for a very long time. So that is clearly on them and not on you. Thanks for all your amazing videos by the way. I guess i watched 90% of them. :)
I was just on their website looking at the new update.
Honestly just like Elite I think most of the fun will happen in "medium" spaceships.
If they blow up, not a big deal to replace. Big ships will be more for players in a group.
@@heavybattle6650 Elite was fun when I played. Just got stale after a while.
Elite is fun I have over 6k hours just depends on your definition of fun. Mainly I only do PP stuff now and it's fun to me :)
@@WhiteGinger10000 I agree.
@@heavybattle6650 Same thing as Steve Will. I do find my fun in Elite, and on a coun terpart, I struggle finding it in SC.
"Captain" getting blamed for destruction will be a thing.
There is no such thing as to big in my opinion, indeed if the function of the ship requires that it must be large then it should be. The Merchantman in my opinion is indeed one of the ships that demands to be large and I am glade that the Dev's have recognized that fact. If it were smaller then we would be complaining as to why would the Dev's make the Banu flag ship so small? Therefore as I said in my opinion there is no such thing as to big when it comes to the Merchantman.
Yah but big for no reason is bad, it's fine if they upgrade the arms and guns on it to go with the scale but if it's big and undergunned
Well given the current weapon loadout of the Merchantman, it is safe to say that being under-gunned as you say, will not be the case. Also given what the Merchantman is meant to be it is also safe to say that its large size is indeed justified.
but the super huge church is meaningless.....
But what about on a technical server level. Can the CIG servers handle a dozen player controlled capital ships?
Then again as of now, how many capital ships can 50 players man is more the question.
This is what they are working on now with server linking, they will be able to.. We need to stop limiting the game by it's current capabilities, in the future it will not be a problem.
The stability of servers,connections,and gameplay has to be solved first and formost before the rest of the questions can be answered as more capital ships are developed and released.
This is quite literally launching ships under construction onto still forming primordial seas on which the planet they're on is still cooling.
So like Sea of Thieves? I love that game!!!!
A Ship can NEVER be too big :P
I love SC I'm just so tired of all the bugs and glitches destroying what fun you can have, I know it's an alpha fellas I'm just longing for a day when SC works as intented, a man can dream.
Honestly dude, unless you run the game from an HDD, you won't really see many bugs. And the ones you do see are easy worked around or quick fixed.
@@ravenna6543 I’m sorry bro I’m going to disagree with that. I run the game on a nvme ssd and still encounter many bugs.
@@GrimAbstract If you run it on an SSD, then 90%+ bugs are not game breaking. The other 10% take 15 minutes to fix and you don't lose anything.
I'm not saying it's bug free, I'm saying it's mostly not game breaking anymore.
@@GrimAbstract Look I'm not trying to bash our mighty space sim I would just like to see SC run in a more glitch free experiance, you have to agree with me on that?
@@johnnypatterson77 Hey bro i dont know if you meant to reply to me, as i was the one stating there is still a lof of bugs, so i certainly agree with you and wish it was fixed as it would be a great experience haha.
its so cool we are even able to talk about this game play today!
They're certainly too big for what the game has now. However, when NPCs are working as intended, and the game is far more fleshed out, the size will be important
In all honesty, i dont think there is such a thing as too big of a ship.
What i'd like to see come to things like Elite dangerous, are trade ships, and even trade stations.
Where users can add their own resource trail and trade routes across the galaxy.
My end intent for ships like this would be for NPCs to start using them, trading on them, and supplying them. Maybe the person/group that owns these ships can trade their own goods at higher prices, and get a small discount on the 'auto generated' goods, but i dont want these player owned stations to be isolated silos, locked off from everyone else.
Fwiw, of all the large ships you mentioned, the BMM has the strongest current supporting loop - Cargo. Were it to be flyable tomorrow, BMM owners would make bank... so long as they can avoid being targeted. The need for crew is a far more key concern. CIG has mentioned several *possible* solutions, but confirmed none. I remain optimistic, but watchful
What is fwiw
@@MICROKNIGHT3000 For what it's worth
@@MICROKNIGHT3000 'For What It's Worth' ^_^
You'd be surprised how little time it takes to buy a ship like the Carrack in game if you're playing optimally. It's not an insignficant amount of time, but it fits along with games like Elite's time to get a ship like the Vette.
keep the copium going
@@99Plastics It's not really copium my guy. I did this challenge and I've also got over 1k hours in Elite. I know from personal experience that the grind to get a Carrack is similar to the amount of time it takes to get a Vette. It might even be less now that commodity reselling exists because it didn't when I did the challenge.
Keep in mind that a Carrack should need a few people to properly operate when all is said and done, and if you split the cost with your three friends who're going to crew with you the most often, assuming each of you contribute equally the sticker price is effectively quartered as far as your personal grind is concerned. That's something ED doesn't let you do for obvious reasons.
@@99Plastics just you tube how to make money fast in SC with ER bounties. you'll be making a Carrack in no time. It is trivial.
"10/10 It's just as tedious as Elite"
Never. Never it's too big, especially with interiors.
Fuck yeah!!
*with a full wallet
I think initially many players will use the BMM as a cargo ship, wich isn;t surprising after you see its huge cargo hold and it's one of the few available gameplay loops in Star Citizen right now that you could use such a large ship for. I'm sure we'll also see her being used in large/capital ship bountyhunting.
Personally I'm looking forward to making enough ingame credits to get my ships ingame. Yes it will take a long time, but that's the fun of it.
It is a cargo ship..
@@DundeeSteve Well, yes.. but it's also a flying bazaar and it's more like a trader then a hauler.. if there is a difference in star citizen between being a hauler and a trader.
Having your own shops isnt in the game yet.
@@DundeeSteve People aren't cargo mate.
Never mind the game play, if the engine can't support these ships, because the servers can't cope with the complexity of the numerous subsystems, or the player cap is too low to fully crew them even if you can find enough willing minions to support your dreams of being the boss, and there is no AI tech to fill in the gaps if you can't, then the ship is too big, and everything else is irrelevant.
The AI tech is already most of the way ready for the AI blade system. AI ship gunners are working already and all that's needed for them to become AI blades is implementing a player-facing system for it. That system's not in the game yet so I'm not giving them credit for something players can't use yet, but it's only a matter of time.
I guess you've never witnessed an Invictus event with the Bengal Carrier, Idris Frigate, and Javelin Destroyer all with AI turrets fighting players.
Fun fact: The largest ships in sci-fi are often several miles long. A Borg Cube (Star Trek) is 3km wide & a Super Star Destroyer (Star Wars) is a massive 19km long. But they're both tiny compared to the largest ship ever. That title goes to the Harvester Mothership (Independence Day: Resurgence) which has a mind boggling diameter of over 4800km (3,000 miles) & harvests the thermal core of planets for fuel.
I'm pretty sure "largest ship ever" depends heavily on definiton, but also is not the Harvester Mothership. Now don't get me wrong - 4800km is absurdly massive. But for instance V'Ger, from Star Trek tos, is shielded by an energy hull 82 AU in diameter.
The Banu Merchantman is really just a capital size trade ship, for hauling massive amounts of goods and also selling your wares in the ship itself, as it has a mall in it. At the moment some players are already selling rare items they looted from their ships, and this is the endgame for this idea. Besides that it's also a solid ship for playing with a large group. While the exploration or touring mechanics for the Carrack and 890j aren't in yet, those ships are also a lot of fun to team up in. My org has done events where we all team up in an 890j and use it as a mothership to do all sorts of things, even if it is just a big luxury yacht.
The tricky thing with the BMM however, is that it's old, and used to be "cheap". Initially it cost 250$, and for a very long time 350$, and when other capital ships are 4x the cost, a lot of people took this opportunity to get this supposedly rare and big ship for a "low" price, and since the original concept is kind of all over the place people's expectations are too. SC's funding model is really biting it in the ass here, these ships are supposed to be rare and primarily used by the Banu alien species, yet everyone and their mother has one, and they'll all need crew to man their ships. Too many people buy in thinking haha big ship to brrr, without thinking about if the niche of having a flying mall is appealing to them.
I have no doubts however that *someday* this thing will fully live up to it's potential, and until then it'll still be solid to use as a mothership or very well protected bulk cargo hauler, just like how the carrack is useful despite it's intended exploration gameplay not really being a thing. The basics of scanning and finding things are there, and you can use it to find valuable minable rocks, but you can't map that data to sell of to miners for example.
I think the overall aesthetics of this ship would really work well for an alien species.
That said - it works for human ships just fine, too. Lots of polys and surfaces for lighting to either make or break the setting.
I really enjoyed the Kilometers long sized ships in X3.
Yeah, but that's a single player game... the big ships in Star Citizen NEED a player crew to successfully operate it and NPC stand-in crews will simply not cut the mustard. So it's a very different comparison to X3.
The Bengal is one kilometer long. Although, as just the chell, it has appeared in both this and last year's Invictus week. The vanduul king ship will be 3 kilometers long.
@@Nemoticon at least X3 actually works though and has been finished, unlike Star Citizen, which will never be finished or be optimized to a playable expectation, you guys be like "OMG i have 50 frames in space, that's nearly double being on loreville" 🤡🤦♂
@@smoke6850 If only you knew what you were actually talking about, lol.
I'm content with having my hangar queens. If a time comes where I need them, great but tbh I'll be just as happy strolling through them in the hangar lol.. The time will come when they are needed and just like Batmans cave, when that time comes it'll be glorious to pull the dust cover off of them and get out there. I am not alone in my way of thinking. I assure you. 😅
I've got one Idris and the rest I can handle with a small NPC crew or solo. When I get the chance to have org mates as my crew, there's only one ship to choose.
@@themanyouwanttobe I know the Feeling, I have a Perseus.
Me and my friends cant wait to Go on Patrol or Protection for Hire with the Perseus and a Couple F8C's or Sabre's (Or Even maybe an Ares Ion) as Fighter Escorts!
The npcs would have to be industry defining, with ai that have day/night cycles that can dynamically change based on the activities they are doing and the environments they are in. You'd almost need thinking ai that can make decisions for itself. Just for the merchantman, you need ai that can:
1. Run security and possibly detain/guard people.
2. Run shops, including but not limited to keeping track of inventory and notifying the crew when a certain item is in low stock
3. Actually come on the ship at Port and participate in the ships' amenities and shops
4. Keep the systems on the ship running if human crew is unavailable.
No game has done AI to this kind of level before. It would be unprecedented. I think its a bit too ambitious, but im happy to be wrong
i'm not sure if CIG plans to do all this, but i do know that the Quantum AI Simulation they're working on simulates 1000s of NPCs and basic activities, so pirates will pirate, traders will trade etc.
I'm waiting until release before jumping in, the devs ambitious aims are admirable and I sincerely hope it comes together eventually.
Reminds me of the debate back then that planetscale cities are too ambitious and would never happen xD.
Sounds like something the X series would get done easily, but then I haven't played X4 in ages.
They've shown quite a bit of each of those during the past 2 years or so. With the next update AI will fly their own ships and drop reinforcements, which is at a smaller scale part of your 3rd point. I think CIG have the means to get most of it done. Which they are already working toward. Interesting times indeed.
So long as mugs are willing to buy them, they'll keep making them..
how we would use the banu right now? i can answer as a player and the owner of one of such ships (bought early in concept when cost was significantly lower and the ship size itself was significantly smaller) the ship would for sure be used as a cargo hauler as a main role, otherwise it could be used for mothership role due to the hangar , smuggling ship due to the high survivability and the ability (rare for capital ships) to land on planets in most cases unassisted (not needing a tug boat) , a mobile market due to the ability of having npc sellers on board (not sure this feature is online already tho). Ppl in star citizen found a use for literally capital size yachts so i would not be too worried about it not having a use in game right now, i dont think ppl will run box missions with it but for sure some hauling and clan gameplay
edit: It will most likely be the highest end cargo ship in game when it is finished, as ships like the hull E are gonna have to wait untill the economy system overhaul is done, also they wont truly shine untill more systems are added, plus they need the tractor beam tech to be finished
I got the Banu when it was $250 some years ago. I think it is a good investment knowing it is now around $600 and probably end up being around $900 when it becomes flyable.
Good investment? Wowsers...
@@jetnavigator Shhh, let them figure it out for themselves. It's more fun this way.
He spent $250 on a virtual product that isn't actually physically real in a decade old scam posing as a video game under development, and he calls that a good investment? Could have spent $60 on a finished game, or $30 if you're good at waiting on Steam sales and gotten more bang for your buck. Sounds like a sucker who can't go without instant gratification. Sounds like a lonesome man desperate for clout. Don't get me wrong, I like sports cars as much as the next guy, but most of the time, the people who buy them do so because they're attention whores who are desperate to be noticed. This is no different.
@@jetnavigator When I say "good investment" when referring to a Star Citizen ship, what I really mean is relative to the prices of other Star Citizen ships. That doesn't mean I consider any of the prices to be good, but it is what it is. No video game purchase is an investment to me, I view that money as gone after I purchase and don't refund during the refund period. Can't speak for this person but I hope this is what they mean.
@@jetnavigator these ppl been doing nft even before nft was a thing lel
They're going to be an NPCs that will help run the ship and repair it also MPCs like Elaine dangerous you can have as a cold pilot for your turrets so the bigger the better because eventually they want you to take them out and don't come back to the starting area and they're doing it way more efficiently than a lean dangerous for other space games have
Too big? I’d love to see players jumping their space stations to different places, capital ships firing at each other.
As long as there’s a use it will never be to big
Thanks for the video Mr ANT, have a good weekend
Well said: for the Banu Merchantman to fully have a place in Star Citizen, requires the PU to have a fully functioning economy to support it. That is absolutely correct, and as per the way we see UEC flood the verse in an inflationary wave over time at present, so we need them to establish something much more realistic in terms of balance.
I’ll give one glaring example: costs. We all have high expenses and costs of living in life, and we earn money that hopefully more than offsets. With looting now, I have zero expenses most of the time for anything, and worse via the insurance claim system almost always end up reclaiming a ship for convenience which meant I never even buy hydrogen fuel or quantum fuel.
As such, with the well paying missions for fun or cargo for example, money just steadily, continuously accumulates and builds up until now, without really trying, I’m sitting on 20m UEC+ with all the ships I want bought in-game. Yet no costs of ownership of said ships either.
All of that needs to eventually be taken into account. We don’t want an ED style grind to maintain your fleet taking away the fun, but we probably do want there to be cost benefit of ownership such that you opt not to necessarily own or run many ships, and instead opt to hitch a ride for longer journeys for example. This is aside from the completely broken cargo / trading side of the game, and no bartering or negotiation elements.
Hangar rents maybe? Insurance might be needed for components in the future.
Insurance now is not what it's intended to be in the future, it's basically free right now and that's probably not going to last. Especially to stop people from just reclaiming their ship instead of paying maintenance costs. CR has also spoken of hangar fees, landing fees, cargo loading/unloading fees, tolls in the Aaron Halo gates, tons of small fees that are all _minor_ credit sips that keep the economy from inflating so fast. They haven't hooked most of the economy up to Quantum, either, so for the most part it doesn't take dynamic conditions into account. You can assume that, as long as the studios don't get hit with meteors and prematurely end the project, what you're playing now is alpha and not the finished design.
Selling items directly to other players is such a massive gameplay addition that it will be a primary career for many. Right now we get rare loot and can sell to players or shops but it's clunky because you need to drop it on a table or the floor and the buyer sends the money. With the BMM this process is streamlined.
Some players will buy rare loot from others or really any commodity and set the price on the BMM's market to resell it to others, then travel the verse and announcing the shop being "Open for Business" at any location they wish, be it on land or in space.
With 8 shops you can have one for toys, one for armor, one for raw or refined ores, one for food and drink, ect. With 2880 SCU you could supply an entire Org with whatever they need if you have the right stock.
Congratulations for 290.000 subscribers :)
As someone who stopped expecting a full release, I think the larger non-combat ships like 890J and Merchantman will most likely be "trophy ships", something that doesn't really have gameplay purpose but is cool to own and show off while large combat ships have specific uses here and there
The BMM's main feature is it's shops.
That's not to hard to implement.
- they already have the NPC vendors in game. So only a matter or allowing us to hire some. Could the very first version of NPC crew but very simple (they just stand in the shops and sell. Nothing more).
- they already reworked the buy/sell UI and it can work of the BMM's shops.
- the extremely large cargo should be used to ensure stocks on all the shops good.
They would need to do a few things... like figure out a way to hire NPCs, and UI to manage store inventory and prices. But definitely easier to do than something like exploration or Salvage.
It sounds well..........dull?
Just going to say I think the current economy and in game ship prices feel fair.
Most expensive in game ship is the 890j at around 32 million aUEC. I can make around 500 thousand aUEC an hour mining quantanium currently. New players can currently rent a stock Prospector and buy handheld mining gadgets with a few thousand credits so it's fairly accessible to start making a lot of money through mining.
Most of the ships I have I've bought in game. Namely the Prospector I use was purchased in game for 2 Million credits. Before that I did a mix of space and fps combat missions and ROC surface mining for Hadanite.
How long did it take to grind up to a Anaconda from a Sidewinder in Vanilla release Elite? I remember it took me months to get up to an Anaconda at launch.
Grind and repetition are important to keep players engaged with progression goals. Just you don't want it to be so long and arduous that it becomes a detractor. On the other hand, making things too easy will also spoil the engagement.
You could have just flown to Hutton Orbital and got yourself a free Anaconda, you know.
grind = fail
2010: Can Star Citizen really be like this?
2022: Can Star Citizen really be like this?
2032: Can Star Citizen really be?
@@Nopointasking your not far off, it would take ONE TEAM 28 years to make fight ready/build the 14 big concept ships . that's from John Crewe INVICTUS ALL-ships Q&A,
@@ravennfall6034 By the time SC releases or even goes into "Beta" it will already be outdated by all then current standards of gaming
I think the issue isn't that big ships exist, it's going to be that too many of them will exist. It seems that there's a lot of power fantasy types that want the biggest, baddest ship available. If too many people want to captain their own capital size ship, there won't be many people wanting to crew such large ships and it'll just be a whale wars situation. Two or more massive capital ships incapable of doing anything interesting just barking at each other. The only hope for them would be those of us that truly appreciate the fighter crafts and smaller ships, armed escorts or guns for hire.
Less whale wars, more whales having their capships stolen out from under them because they have lots of money and no friends. Having a huge ship is meaningless if you don't have enough hands to operate it correctly and defend yourself.
@@elixwhitetail But if everybody is just a captain of a capital ship with no friends, they won't be able to board and steal ships. They'll be too busy having a pissing match with the other whales.
@@BlackMagicBliss Spending any amount of time in the game makes it abundantly clear that bigger ships are completely impractical for a single player experience. There is a reason why you don't see 12 Hammerheads or Carracks parked outside Grim Hex doing nothing. You're worried about a scenario that doesn't even happen in the current game.
@@BlackMagicBliss I assure you, the number of people who own capital ships is far from "everybody". Me and my friends will have a capital ship when we take it from a crying whale after leaving his corpse on the bridge floor.
@@elixwhitetail and I'm the guy with the Capital ship trying to lure more bait into the firing zone...
There will be alot of lonely players in massive ships, logistics and skills to maintain and run a big ship will scare off alot more players.
Which is why we must teach them the ropes. ..... by indentured servitude.... Its the Banu Way.
opposite; SO many massive SC orgs can't wait to get their hands on these baby's trust me.
Something tells me they are used to loneliness.
The merchantman is not 160 meters long. It's 237 meters long, as big as an idris.
Someone was surprised the other day, when I said it's bigger than a Kraken in width and height, and almost as long. Many of the ships have gotten bigger since concept, mostly because on the old ships, they designed the exteriors before they knew the size of the interiors.
Well, since the biggest ships of SC actually take the whole server capacity of 50 people to operate : i think that answer the question :o)
*current server capacity. The intention is to eventually not have individual servers, as a software construct, at all.
A few things to mention:
1. The BMM is 600 USD now, 720$ was likely including a Tax. (Still, I do not recommend spending this much.)
2. The 160m figure is on the ship Matrix, which to my knowledge has not once been accurate. The current model we've been shown is about 240m long.
3. Personally, I think people might be better off disconnecting "owning a ship" from "having access to a ship/gameplay". A lot of people own big ships and need crew for them, while at the same time they might own most if not all the things they want. Someone who only starts with a basic Game Package might actually enjoy the Gameplay more "naturally", as they could just play with others depending on the type of ship they like, without having to worry about their own fleet.
And some day, they could just buy the ships they had the most fun on as a crew member.
That ship is a mini game.
You know if you look at the stats, most Elite Dangerous ships are bigger. The only plus is in Star Citizen you can actually feel and see how large your ship really is. And I love that.
Bigger in theory, but much lower detail, and no meaningful interiors, so they are smaller in design and scale terms.
@@B.D.E. Agreed
Allways liking your cool vids man... Keep going ^^
I feel star citizen's engine was not designed to do what star citizen wants to do.
No engine on the market was designed to do what Star Citizen wants to do. That's why SC is taking so long to make, they're having to retool the engine to do what they want.
Star Engine is able to manage a 8 billion kilometers cube with pixel precision, all the current restrictions are servers related. Actually they will never use it to its full potential, because it will be far too big to make people enjoy it.
@@davidhonnay1540 To be specific, it's 8 billion km per side at mm precision. And, you're correct, that's larger than they need so they have room for everything they want.
@@elixwhitetail Yep, since english is not my first language I know realise my sentence is wrong ^^ thanks for the precision.
@@davidhonnay1540 You could have fooled me into thinking you were a native speaker, haha, it's a fairly easy mistake to make. Cheers!
CIG always releases ship who's game play loops are not in! Like the Mule it can't even pick up a cargo box.
Seeing how different (and often busy) the game now feels with even 100 players in Stanton, I'd say yes, the game definitely has space for very large ships crewed by dozens of players.
I really hope this game turns out to be most everything we want from it. But there are so many things that don't feel right about Star Citizens development.
Everyone hopes, but hardly anyone seems to want to actually help. From top to bottom they were told it wasn't worth the time or effort to try..... yet here they are, still eeking away progress, slow as it may be. Where were you when the EA Exec said microtransactions were the wave of the future? Playing those popular games, and reinforcing market trends I bet. :P
@@freelancerthe2561 You're unbelievably delusional if you think CIG aren't the exact same as companies like EA. You realize Star Citizen has made more money than almost any other game on the planet right? Primarily selling hopes and dreams of what concept ships could one day be? It's sickening how deluded some of the player base including yourself is into the narrative behind it. I've also given over a thousand dollars into Star Citizen, yet I sit here and can at least accept that the development is flawed, and I very well may have put my money into a black hole.
@@freelancerthe2561 Almost 4 million people have “helped” so I guess thats hardly anyone.
@@Skycoder13 "You realize Star Citizen has made more money than almost any other game on the planet right?"
I suggest you research how much FIFA Ultimate Team makes EA every year. The key word is billions. That's with a b, and it's plural. Genshin Impact makes Mihoyo around two billion dollars a year. GTA V/GTAO made its development budget back in like the first weekend. SC isn't even CLOSE to the top in terms of total income. If we ballpark it and assume they crest $500mil by the end of October, they'll have been making $50mil a year which is a very healthy income but it's _nothing_ compared to what EA rakes in.
Kind of hard to judge about gameplay when the gameplay is (allegedly) a limited preview of just some of the intended possibilities.
Plus, in a lot of ways, the Intended Gameplay (tm) (r) (c) seems to be at least 50% focused on walking in the ship and fantasizing about how it would/will work in 20 years when the game is actually finished (or abandoned).
Edit: Don't get me wrong, the ship models are beautiful. But I firmly think the core driver for most/all SC ships is not "what our gameplay ideas need", but rather "what can we sell to people NOW based on eyecandy and promises".
Agree! 👍👍
@DMV 420 What?....😂😂😂😂
It adds what?.....
NPCs. .....?......
Will they keep standing on the chairs or stand still looking the vast emptiness of space and planets of SC?
😂😂😂😂😂
@@hariszark7396 You haven't actually watched any recent gameplay, have you? It's okay, you're allowed to keep repeating outdated stale memes if that's what you wanna do with your life.
@@elixwhitetail can you direct me to a video with gameplay that I can see properly functioning NPCs and actual gameplay other than PvP or basic PvE that we have for years?
I will be happy to see it.
@@hariszark7396 The fact is that it all depends on the server. Freshly-started servers are responsive and the AI is lethally clever in combat. Overloaded servers that're at max capacity and have been running for hours barely let the AI have a chance to 'think' so they stand still. I don't have a single specific video in mind that shows off a fresh server because I don't bookmark videos for the sake of winning dumb Internet arguments, but there's plenty of footage of both well-running and poorly-running servers out there. Server meshing _should_ take a huge step forward on this because the server runs poorly thanks to having to simulate the entire Stanton system and everything in it, while meshing should split the load across multiple server instances.
In SC, too big is never big enough. The real question is how deep are your pockets.
@DMV 420 correct, like i did. But ppl who have to have the biggest best ships will plunk big bucks for it. No shade from me because it's a funding model that helps the game come closer to my dream game. Let others be the whales, while I have a good time with what I got.
@@JoseJimenez-fc6pu Bigger isn't automatically better in SC. This is a common notion because in games like EVE Online and Elite Dangerous, where any ship is meant to be fully controlled by only one player, bigger is objectively better because it means bigger guns for the one player. In SC, if you drop your paycheck on the most expensive ship players can buy with cash, congratulations, you've just acquired a ship with a minimum functioning crew count of 15 and a max of _80_ and, oh by the way, all of the military toys have been stripped off of it because the ship sale is lore-themed as military surplus, so it doesn't even come with guns on it. Bigger isn't better, it's just bigger.
$750 USD?! I remember pledging $250 when it was first sold as a concept. Glad I kept it gathering dust all these years
No. It's not $750 or $720 USD. OA is telling lies like he always does.
@@alandab Ahh yeah, i checked after your message and its $600 USD during Alien Week. Still a huge price increase (a long with the planned size, added capabilities, etc, etc). It's still a little crazy to me that a ship i pledged for years ago is now selling for 2.25x the price!
@@captainsmirk9218 Imagine if you'd spent money on Star Atlas' ships. LMAO! You'd be crying bloody murder, rn.
@@alandab OA is not lying. With 20% sales tax, the listed store price for the BMM is $720. This is a fact.
The Merchantman is 230+ meters, not 160.
I strongly suspect these ships are a dead-end for the game. Above a certain size, you NEED a crew to run ships and therein lies the problem - people want to have their own ship, not operate a mining laser on someone else's ship for a tiny portion of the profits. Assuming the game ever actually releases, I think an awful lot of people are going to have ships like this that they can't do anything with.
These ships will be stuffed full of NPC's and AI blades is my prediction. And CIG will have a serious challenge trying to balance the game given that fact. How expensive should NPC's be to recruit? How good/bad should AI Blades be at their various jobs?
I agree with you though, very very very few of the bigger ships will ever see a full crew of players. Edit: I've got an Idris. Doubt I'll be able to gather more than 5 people in it at once, and at least 2 of those will quickly loose interest in being crew and will head off in their own ships.
@DMV 420 "we have more planetary gameplay" d oyou have detailed exemples? I need motivation to get back to the game.
@DMV 420 "And not this silly little can opener salvage gameplay Odyssey thinks is fun. No bullet sponge NPC’s to fight with super soaker guns. Looking at you Odyssey."
I don't know, I like Odyssey for what it is, why this much hate?
-
Ok, so npcs to loot, fight and whatever, right. Nothing about exploration yet?
One of the main design principals Chris Roberts had for the game was that AI would outnumber humans in the game 10:1 doing all the same roles and functions of a human player. AI will crew ships, pick up the same missions, create missions for other player and AI etc. This has started to come to realization through Quanta and the associated systems. For ships owned by players, we have choices to crew with AI computer blades or AI NPC crew members. Due to all of these reasons, there is no such thing as "too big" of a ship. The game can play itself even if the player doesn't bother logging in to show up.
YES! They recently put in 100 player servers. They have numbers as high as 150. I've personally seen 114 players in a single ship all partying at the ship's bar. Not 114 people spread across an entire galaxy. 114 people in a single room of a 1 ship. I've seen 100 ships all battling too. All WITHOUT fixed or dynamic server meshing. With dynamic server meshing, a server could manage every ship. Meaning you could have a hundred ships fighting each other each carrying a hundred crew. 100 x100. That's 10,000 people fighting.
The practicality of having 9,900 players not want to be the captain and taking orders? That I don't know. That isn't a technical issue but human nature.
So here's the thing, right? I want to meme and be like, MOAR BIG, but there IS a limit to how big player owned assets should be, and how big they can get before they become problematic. BUT, and this is a big but here, Star Citizen has nailed it. Ships like the Carrack, Hammerhead, and Reclaimer all work well enough right now. They've proved the concept and that things aren't even close to being problematic yet, at least until you talk about PVP fleet combat. That's just it though. I don't even care if they succeed at fleet combat. I just want to see the professions and economy expand. The game already, technically at least, supports everything I want out of ships like the Kraken, Orion, and Polaris.
so what do you want out of ships that the ships achieved?
@@Fx_Explains Flyable meeting place and mobile base of operations for my small org. Once PES comes in and gets ironed out, all that's left is the economy to be built out. That's just adding features though. The ships already work, and they'll get even better when engineering starts coming online.
I am not a game dev by any means, but the only way to have these larger ships be sustainable, meaning being able to fill every seat that has a function as a baseline, server meshing has to happen.
We can't do this with 50 people servers, and I'm not even sure we can do that with 100 people. And like a snowball effect, the events will have to be a bit larger in scale because imagine at least 30-40 people showing up to something like Xenothreat. If they are somewhat competent in skill, the ai could be easily swatted away. And that's with consideration of how the ai got a little nastier in the recent update.
I haven't played star citizen, but the way id use the merchantman is to rent it and buy or transport a large amount of products. In the sense of high risk/high rewards, or leverage trading.
To answer the question of what players can do with the merchantman in the current game just look to how the 890 and carrack are currently used by players; role play, cargo running, mobile respawn point, fps level, pocket carrier, battleship, and more. The ship is less limited by its design and supported gameplay than it is by the the players imagination.
It's like the evolution of the loot box, instead of not knowing the item you get, you don't know what the item does.
I have had the ccu upgrade for this ship for a long time surprisingly its way cheaper than other ships it's size n all.
Sir we do it gor virtual vanity and being a space nut , what better experience can their be than flying an alien Capitalust wet dream ship.
There is a lot in the art design of the game that is being done because that's what it would be in the real world (meeting rooms, kitchens etc)... but nothing done in that regard seems to be a mechanically supported function. A Meeting Room should have a contracts terminal or a Corp voting system that can only be used there etc. So its all just roleplay until we know any gameplay loops/mechanics that use all that space... which will suffer if we are all thrown into the same universe.
I want to be able to buy a super star destroyer size ship.. keep going SC!!
I want to be able to play SC in it's 1.0 version while I'm still alive.... We all have illusions.
An 8 man crew is considered huge?
currently the Carrack is the favorite in the org i am part of (i do not own a carrack and the 890j is secondary), we hold a event every sunday and we mostly do not have enoph turrets to give everybody a station in the ship, result we mostly flying a second ship aswel. so despite the carrack its size it is often used as its medbed acts as spawning point wich we use when doing the fps missions, its hangar and garage are usefull aswel. so its the merchantman currently usefull? i think its to early to tell, depends on what CIG does with it, layout and everything.
It’s a space game, there’s plenty of well, space.
Currently I'm almost one year out of SC.
Thing is I still don't see a reason to come back yet.....😐
@DMV 420 let's see....
no reason to until 3.18 drops or maybe 4.0
Whilst the human ships are large, it's worth noting that currently the Vand'uul King ship will be the largest, and not available to the player.
The negotiations room will most likely have some relevant interface (maybe a like the money app on the mobi with more functions and allow more participants?)
When the ship comes out it will be used for missions as it has big guns and a place to respawn with a fighter bay. This should make it a capable combat ship against NPCs. The Hammerhead today is crazy at doing missions in groups almost to a fault. It makes a mockery of even the hardest missions. The Carrack is a big awesome ship that has respawn, guns, large bay for a vehicles and cargo, fighter hanger, and room for fun RP. BMM will be no different. Even the 890 Jump is useful in some cases but mostly as a place to RP and screw around with.
Not sure where the BMM will fit but either way it will be fun when it releases.
As for size, we have no idea what too big will be. It ultimately depends on what the player limit will be. How many people will actually be able to directly interact with each other at any one moment? The Jav has a crew capacity of 80 i think. If you have 2 of these fighting with proper support fleets will this even be possible? Will you be able to have anywhere from 500 to 1000 people fighting each other in one spot? If not then Jav might be too big as you said it goes beyond the technical capabilities of the game. But yeah time will tell. Hopefully they figure it out. I remain confident they will do it
You don't just rent the ships, you can buy them and you own them till the next wipe with in game currency
Thanks for being honest about the addendum. It's currently pointless to grind for that currency considering you'll end up getting burned out after grinding so long for said currency and then seeing it all just disappear on the next wipe.
Eventually it will be completely persistent so a wipe every year isnt too bad to be honest, doesn't take too long to get money either
I did not know David Attenborough also covered videogames. Good stuff sir!
I just recently bought the Carrack, purely for my self and the friends that never play xD. The size is just perfect for me as a casual player as I like to explore in bigger ships.
Unknown of what it is for? Same as the Kraken Privateer. It will be a marketplace where you can sell to players and npc's. That is what the whole ship is about. Sure, you can do trading since it can land, but its primary role has always been to be a flying marketplace. Also, no release date? As said right now, it is scheduled for release early next year, of course, CIG loves to delay things, so wouldn't be shocked if it is delayed some. I am honestly fine with it being delayed a little if they need to since ships like this need to have all their mechanics flushed out otherwise they won't work.
So, before saying they never said what it's for, read up some info. That has been the design for it to be a marketplace since the day it got announced like, 7 years ago? That is basically like saying they never said what the Orion is going to be used for.
Oh, and btw. GIB ORION GDI!
I love the concept of these larger ships.
But it reminds me of Wings of Icarus.
Ever since its launch, it was hard to gather enough players to crew 4-player ships. Most games I played, I had to pilot the ship and command NPCs to fight as I needed them to.
Star Citizen promisesships so large they need to be crewed by dozens or hundreds of players.
I doubt they'll ever get the necessary playerbase. Much less have everyone logged in at the same time and interested in sharing the same ship.
I'm just looking forward to building my own ships in Starfield, especially once modders start adding their own custom pieces/interiors
Ugh..
I can imagine SC allowing ship mods down the road if it works in Starfield. After all, it ain't done yet... And if the player wants to pay 🤷♂️
No, just. No
What's the point? It won't have multiplayer.
Haven fun with Bethesda's braindead AI I guess.
Who are these ships *for* on 50 player capped servers?
it's a temporary cap while they mesh the servers. They've said it all along: building these ships will take years which is why they have to have them all ready by the time the mesh is in. Otherwise they will have a mesh, with no ships. That's not an acceptable outcome. If anything, they waited too long to build this one IMO.
My main goal is to have a merchant guild/org that faocusses on trading. a BMM would be a really nice base of operations where we hop from system to system to buy and sell.
Star Trek had huge ships, I see no reason this wouldn't. In fact every space tv program has. There is no too big.
Me from the back of the class: FINISH THE GAME!!! 🤭🤭
correction. the BMM is around 230 metres long!x
These high crew ships will require a much higher max player count per server.
These large ships are all about showing off: "look at me, I can afford to spent money on these massive space ships!". It's to pose, they're primarily designed for snobs. Anybody who says they bought this or similarly sized ships because "CIG will add the gameplay that fits these ships, eventually" is just trying to justify why they really spent all this money on these ships: To show off their wealth to their "friends". CIG knows this and is counting on that to keep the money flowing in their direction. This is one of the reasons why the development of game play elements and other features that would expand the game play experience is going so slowly: they bring in no bundles of cash. Only ships do that.
What Kind of friends do you have??? xD
I disagree with your point that the meeting room serves only Roleplay purpose. Everything in an open world game is for roleplay purpose. Reentering a planet's atmosphere serves no gameplay purpose, it just looks cool and serves the roleplay purpose. All games are made this way to make is more immersive and with immersion comes roleplay.
Not all games are about roleplay. And your argument is severely flawed.
@@MagiofAsura Give some examples of games that do not have any roleplay elements
Entering a planet's atmosphere serves a gameplay purpose: Going after atmospheric bounties. And, eventually, AI will be able to make ground-space transitions so you may need to chase mission targets into space/down to a planet to finish them off. That's hardly _roleplay_
A very fair and balanced video. Ant has done his homework!
And has failed his homework. He got several things wrong about it. To point a few out, the BMM is not 720$. 2. Its not 160m long its 237 now.
@@Tactical-Ferret It's $720 if you include UK VAT onto the price.
@@elixwhitetail and will probably be 1000$ by the time its released. its as big as idris and kraken and those are 1250 and 1500 (approx) repectively
@@legatusnavium7060 I mean, maybe, but my point was that Ant was not wrong to say the BMM costs $720 when you take into account a 20% VAT. Future price increases are a different topic.
@@elixwhitetail I waa agreeing with the intent of your statement😀
Y'know what I'd like in Star Citizen? Less ships and more game.
I would allow bounty hunters to lodge there, same with regular folk and pirates trading in the black market. Good portable base of operations that doesn't stay in place for long for those high class clients.
This is a little unrelated but... when fauna start getting added, I would LOVE to hear you do David Attenborough style videos. Your voice is PERFECT. Okay now I'll watch the rest of the video. .
good example of scale
SW galaxies, subnautica (big sub one crew, deliberately harder to use)
dark age of camelot and it's simlar games. you build it, you maintain it, you defend it, EVERYONE benefits (except your enemies)
bad example
most MMO with guild houses (pretty but mostly useless spaces at best used for dev-restricted trading systems or centralised NPC vendoring)
neutral example
i'd go with eve here, because while big ships have benefits, it's one person one ship so player numbers win through. zerg/goon hard and you can hit bloody almost anyone around.
Not sure where you got the $720 figure from, but it was $600 as of the last Alien week sale.
What's $600 plus 20% sales tax? Yup, that's right. And sales tax displays on the website so it's what OA sees even if your tax level is different/CIG doesn't collect sales tax from your area.
uk tax is 20% 600 +20% = £720.00 so cost depends how much if any tax you pay on goods
The BMM is 230m~ long, not sure where you got 160m long? Unless you are using the official website which has never been updated and is worthless.
Background research...from OA? LMAO! That guy is too busy to find out the truth. If old news will serve his lies, then that's what he goes with. OA has no time for your facts.
$720 for BMM??? I see a $600 price for alien week. BMM re-concept you show here is more than 200m long. What game play do you imagine it requires? As far as I can tell, it can do many things in Stanton that can infact support an unlimited number of them accross multiple servers.. BMM primary game play will indeed require mechanics to support it not yet in game. It's still going to be the king Jack of all Trades without its Bazaar game play.
Dude, you know OA always has to lie and exaggerate the negatives in his SC videos. What would he be if he wasn't lying? He wouldn't be OA.
Your local tax authority wants to have a word with you.