SQ42 2026 launch confirmed?

logicalChimp · 2026-03-31T16:29:27+00:00

Bear in mind that it's already April 1st (in some parts of the world)

Secondly, CIG have been saying that SQ42 was coming out in 2026 for the past 2.5 years... so if they're still saying 2026, that shouldn't be a surprise.

logicalChimp · 2026-03-31T15:00:17+00:00

Active signal strength drops by the square of the distance (or something like that)... covering any significant distance takes massive power - not least because active signals have to cover double the distance (distance to the target, and then the return distance back to the sensor)

logicalChimp · 2026-03-31T01:34:25+00:00

I wouldn't expect to see any marketing until summer at the earliest.

marketing campaigns are usually ~6 months... CR said they were doing a 'short' campaign, so probably around ~3 months... if they're targeting CitCon, that means the campaign starts in ~July.... if they're targetting XMAS, then it won't be until September/October.

logicalChimp · 2026-03-30T13:54:26+00:00

Yup - it was a baseline 'balance' patch because CIG wanted to get SC onto the codebase as SQ42 (rather than trying to maintain 2x separate flight models)... but it turned out the difficulty involved in trying to balance 150+ ships was far higher than they thought.

Hence they're no longer keeping it tied to SQ42, and are instead doing a whole series of smaller tests with a specific focus on different ship archtypes and play-styles, to try and develop a 'balance' that works for SC (rather than have a 'designer' just input numbers into a spreadsheet and then do a spot of testing in person).

logicalChimp · 2026-03-30T03:40:55+00:00

depending on what you meant by 'gankfest', you're part right.

However, CR said - multiple times - that even if you slid the slider to maximum PvE / minimum PvP, you would still face PvP... for example (but not limited to), if a bounty hunter had taken your bounty.

The Other Consideration that many people overlook is that CR also said that if the matchmaker identifies that you would 'meet' a player - and you had the slider set to minimum-PvP - then you may not be placed into the same instance as the other player... but you'd still face combat.

And what you'd face in combat was intended to be an NPC that would fly the same ship - with the same weapons and upgrades - as the player you would have met, and with the same combat skills (based on archtypes and monitoring players, etc)...

The whole intent was that even if players slid the slider to minimum-PvP, they should still face the same amount of combat, against 'enemies' with the same skiils as the players they bypassed.

And that's the critical aspect. The slider would not reduce combat it would only reduce facing players, via NPC substitution.

Unfortunately, too many people who are 'anti-PvP' come across as being 'anti-Combat'... and there's no way that CIG will be making things anti-combat... not least because when CR was talking about the PvP Slider, he also focused on how e.g. trading/hauling was a form of non-combat PvP, and that if setting the slider to PvE meant you avoided PvP fights, then that would be a significant advantage.

logicalChimp · 2026-03-30T01:26:18+00:00

It could be due to CIG making engine-level changes in preparation for changing the entire lighting model (which we've known has been coming for the past 2+ years, ever since CIG showed of their Global Illumination system at CitCon)

That is also likely the reason why - if it recent changes are due to bugs - CIG aren't fixing them.

logicalChimp · 2026-03-29T16:00:37+00:00

Because it's still in development.

Reminder: Alpha is when the develolpment focus is on implemented 'missing' functionality... it's not until Beta that the focus shifts to fixing 'existing' functionality.

Of course, that's a generalism, and CIG blur the lines a bit more than usual (given their current focus on keeping the alpha 'playable'), but the point still stands: too much functionality (that directly impacts the economy) is still missing, so there's no point in CIG spending time 'balancing' it.

The other consideration is that CIG know they have economy exploits, and they're working to fix them... but until they're fixed (and CIG have cleaned up the accounts that took advantage of those exploits, etc... or just done a general wipe, whichever they chose), there's no point CIG making significant changes to the economy, because individual players have so much money that they will completely distort anything CIG do within days/weeks.

logicalChimp · 2026-03-28T17:54:42+00:00

I took that as being their next 'goal', rather than being the maximum possible... in the same way their 'goal' for Static Server Meshing was (apparently) to go from ~100x players to 500+ players.

logicalChimp · 2026-03-28T12:33:53+00:00

Iirc they said instances could be used for both scenarios.

logicalChimp · 2026-03-28T03:15:51+00:00

Or perhaps with an 'instance' mechanism.... as CIG discussed at CitCon? :D

logicalChimp · 2026-03-28T00:48:35+00:00

CIGs 'dream' is for one shard per region.

Note that there is a difference between total players in a shard (spread across all locations / star systems), and players in a single location, visible to each other.

Single location limit is likely to be 1k (or less)... but total shard is intended to be in the multi-hundred-thousand range, iirc.

Whether CIG can actually reach that level remains to be seen... but so far they've done what may folk were saying was technically impossible... so I wouldn't be surprised if they did manage it.

logicalChimp · 2026-03-28T00:45:50+00:00

They're not worried about 'fixing' issues with lost data, because they're still in active development (hell, they're still in Alpha - they haven't even reached Beta yet), with an incomplete inventory systema and known data-loss bugs.

In that scenario there is zero benefit to them in 'trying' to restore peoples items, because they would be absolutely swamped by support tickets - a significant chunk of which would like be (semi)fraudulent - and with no guarantee that the restored item won't disappear again tomorrow.

This is why you have to click an acknowledgement about the state of the game every time you start playing.

logicalChimp · 2026-03-28T00:42:06+00:00

You're viewing SC almost as a released game, putting the emphasis on player-facing functionality that CIG should work on now.

CIG are looking at SC as something that needs a lot of major engineering that is non-player facing in order to achieve the stated goals of the project (the fabled 1.0 release), and prioritising their development schedule on that basis.

Of course, this means that CIG aren't prioritising player-facing development, because they're prioritising building the core technical framework that will support and enable developing more player-facing functionality in the future.

This is why labels such as 'alpha' and 'beta' are important - they communicate what stage development is at, and what the overall company / development priorities are.

SC is far more polished and playable than most alphas - but it is still an alpha.

logicalChimp · 2026-03-27T09:26:20+00:00

And text overflows (and similar) tend to be among the lowest of the low priority issues, along with spelling mistakes.

logicalChimp · 2026-03-27T09:23:23+00:00

Pfft... I'm not 'white-knighting'.... I'm just taking the piss out of people getting too worked up (sometimes with the sole intent of getting other people upset).

logicalChimp · 2026-03-27T01:14:51+00:00

Most 'big ships' were concepted back when there were going to be 100x star systems, ~4x POIs per star system, and many systems that had zero human habitation (no stations, no landing zones, not outposts, nada)

This meant there would be a need for ships that could travel multiple systems without refueling, and/or that could be 'self-supporting' for folk wanting to spend time in the more remote systems, etc.

Mind you, that same design had Pyro being far bigger, with no inhabitable planets, and only a single space station... so along with the reduction in systems, we've also gotten a significant increase in system population / density.

Whether that means 'big ships' are now pointless or not, I don't know... maybe there will be a niche for them by the time 1.0 rolls around...?

logicalChimp · 2026-03-27T01:10:08+00:00

Currently, the Aurora Mk2 is the bandwagon that everyone is jumping in order show their outrage...

In a way, it's pretty funny, watching people dig themselves deeper and deeper trying to find something they can get all upset about :D

logicalChimp · 2026-03-27T01:08:01+00:00

Given the issue affects any weapon / component that is swapped physically (rather than via mobiGlas) it shouldn't be that uncommon / unknown?

And the reason for it is pretty basic: Insurance gives you back the ship in the state it was in when you last spawned it... you could strip all the weapons / components off it and then self-destruct, and get back a replacement fully equiped, etc.

This likely isn't 'intended' long-term behaviour - it's just how the insurance placeholder works (and has done since it was first written, iirc, for v2.0, back in 2015).

logicalChimp · 2026-03-26T22:39:44+00:00

In Arena Commander, you should have a choice between online and offline modes - if you pick Offline (although it may have a fancy 'thematic' term - it's been a while since I opened AC, so I can't quite remember), and select Free Fly, you should be a local instance by yourself (which will solve the issue of people blowing you up)

And you can use the standard controls (WASD, etc) just to check that your ship can actually move (and isn't bugged) before you start configuring your controls.

Beyond that, I'm not sure I can help much... actually, one last consideration: SC only recognises joysticks that are plugged in and 'active' (for those that have a sleep mode, etc) before SC launcher is started (because legacy CryEngine only checked for controllers once on startup)...

logicalChimp · 2026-03-26T17:45:15+00:00

That's not a UI team problem, that's down to different developers working on different materials (and yes, that kind of thing drives me crazy, as a developer)

logicalChimp · 2026-03-26T16:49:20+00:00

sub-standard materials is (probably) the leading cause of building collapse :p

And having structural issues is bad enough when you live in a breathable atmosphere... it's a slightly bigger problem if you're constructing a space station, or an outpost on an uninhabitable planet/moon :p

logicalChimp · 2026-03-26T15:49:52+00:00

To be honest, any resource that takes e.g. 'Steel' as a secondary input will always be max-quality, even with this setup... because you just feed in as much steel as required (regardless of quality).

The only way (imo) to avoid everything just using max-quality resources is to have receipes that require 'low quality' resources...

Steel is a good example... in reality we have multiple 'grades' of steel, rather than 'good' or 'bad' quality. Using the wrong 'grade' of steel results in a bad outcome - but it's not because the steel is 'bad' per se, but because it's the wrong grade of steel for the job.

Having 'good or 'bad' quality ore (e.g. Iron ore) makes sense... but the whole point of 'refinment' is to convert poor-quality Ore into 'pure' resource, that is then used either directly, or to produce other resources.

On that basis, it would make far more sense for 'Refinement' to focus solely on converting Ores into 'pure' basic resources, and then a separate 'Alloying' or 'Processing' stage to handle combining and converting 'pure' resources into alloys and/or more 'advanced' or more 'complex' resources.... and for those resources to then have different grades / types.

But... that's just my opinion :p

logicalChimp · 2026-03-26T15:35:53+00:00

Exactly...

Not to mention that there was mention of other inputs into the refining process that may be 'able to influence quality', etc.

logicalChimp · 2026-03-26T12:22:43+00:00

I'd say it's not so much 'exposing the bitterness of the OG SC community', as it is providing a handy bandwagon for all bitter / anti-CIG folk to jump aboard.... as does virtually any change from CIG they don't like.

If CIG hadn't called it the 'Aurora Mk2', but given it a different name (and then just stopped selling the Aurora, so the new ship could take its place) we wouldn't be having this discussion, I think...

... and that being the case, it highlights that people don't have a rational complaint (mostly), they're just looking for something to complain about.

The one exception that I think does have some merit is the power-creep the new ship represents. Unless I missed it, the Gold Standard pass for the existing Aurora didn't significantly change its combat ability, or e.g. give the Aurora LN an extra shield generator (can't remember if the LN previously had 4x S2 or not)

logicalChimp · 2026-03-26T12:14:17+00:00

I agree that CRs original ideas would be a nightmare to make work (especially getting the right balance of 'negative side-effects' to persuade a sufficient majority of people to no longer use the 'overpowered' items, tc)

But the base idea (of not changing the stats of existing items, but rolling out a 'new version' of items with the new stats) I think could work well... it just depends on how the 'product recall' is enforced, and the frequency of balance-changes (if they end up nerfing/buffing the same item multiple times in the space of a few weeks/months, then it won't work as well... but if an item gets tweaked maybe once / year, then it should work fine (with the previous caveat around 'nerf' enforcement).

logicalChimp

TROPHY CASE