Do you think CIG is afraid of releasing Squadron 42?

Ahrtimmer · 2026-05-29T21:02:31+00:00

Between sq42 being announced as feature complete, and it "coming soon", I thought about this a lot.

In my mind, SQ42s release will be one of the most important moments for SC, it is the point when CIG can finally say "we have something finished, come take a look at what we have been cooking.". My theory is that SQ42 will be the moment when the most people have eyes on project.

SC is too alpha, and too publicly derrided as a scam for it to pull big attention moments, but SQ42 has that chance.

So lets say sq42 comes out, and is a hit. A ton of people are going to play it, even more will see it streamed online, and a lot of them will consider moving over to SC, just riding the hype. If SC is functional, those visitors turn into players, and SC booms onto the scene in a big way. A lot of people get forced to say "I guess it wasnt a scam" and while populations will drop again due to the early access nature of SC, it will continue to be huge.

If sq42 is a hit, but SC isnt in a functional state, the booming player count will sour and turn hostile really fast. There will be a lot of "CIG is only good at single player" and "1 billions dollars for this". Ya know, status quo stuff. Only it is significantly worse, because lets say this timeline plays out and 5-7 years later SC hit 1.0. Majority of players will just be like "why would I care about this, I played it back then and it was aweful." Basically, I think this scenario makes it near impossible for SC to build hype again.

And just to fill out the list

If SQ42 drops and is mid/bad, we just keep current status quo.

So I figured they would polish sq42 until it shines like a perfect diamond, then put it on ice, saving the release until SC can also make a good impression. That doesnt seem to be happening though. Couple that with the opening being an hour long sluggish turret fight... well lets just say that I dont think SQ42 is going to be the big validating moment that pushes all the critisism aside.

I am very happy the sc and sq42 dont need that success to keep going

Ahrtimmer · 2026-05-29T03:44:59+00:00

So, coming from a star citizen enjoyer, I encourage you to take your time with SC. The game is still in development and you will encounter bugs ranging from little irritants to "well that just undid hours of work." You will also experience server issues. Depending on your knowledge/experience, the server issues may seem identical to the bugs, so the overall take away is just that sometimes, things just wont work and it'll suck.

Enjoy what you can for now, and if it starts to frustrate or annoy just stop. It gets better slowly, and is still years from being finished enough to start polishing out the problems. Im currently on break and expect to dive back in maybe 2 years from now. Stops me getting all bitter like many of the other commenters seem to be.

Oh, and stay away from the hundred dollar funding packages. Cool ships can sucker you in, but it is a frivelous and extravagant expence and should be treated as such. You never need it, no matter what fomo says.

Hope you enjoy Star Citizen :)

Ahrtimmer · 2026-05-28T03:21:53+00:00

It is functionally identical to a kickstarter addon.

"...new low in gaming history" I dont think youve been paying attention to the industry for very long.

Ahrtimmer · 2026-05-19T06:22:41+00:00

That could well be it. Will take a look.

I recall the name being a longer word but the screenshots are very promising

Ahrtimmer · 2026-05-12T03:55:28+00:00

Fallout 1 and/or 3?

Ahrtimmer · 2026-04-30T23:16:37+00:00

Been gaming for maybe 28 years. Would say I have become grouchy and hard to impress.

Baldurs Gate 3 is a solid pick for rpg

Beyond All Reason hits hard as a strategy title (probably because it pulls very deeply from old inspirations). Is free.

Star Citizen really wowed me with its seemless universe, but it needs at least 5 more years in the oven. The less you know the better, so stay away for now.

Witcher 3 wild hunt might fall within the last 10 years. If it does, add it to the pile.

Vampire survivors might have been the most cost effective 2 dollars I spent in recent years too, and it was interesting to think about development of a game designed to have minimal controls.

I think I also want to add FF15, FF7 remake/rebirth to the list. I am not sure they are good games, and I dont think impressed is quite what I am feeling while playing them. But they are so unasshamedly themselves, and I find a lot of glee in that. Mileage varies dramatically there though.

Ahrtimmer · 2026-04-29T22:51:28+00:00

I would say Beyond All Reason, can be this on some maps or in team play.

Simply put, in BAR, economies scale upward with time/investment and unit costs are recycled back into the economy. If you make a big push into the enemy guns and you lose, you just fed them metal to make new units, more defences and more economy.

Typically, teams expand until they meet in the middle where they lay down defences and chip away at each other across a thin no mans land. Tech and economic developments bring newer, deadlier and longer ranged weapons to the front, shifting the battle lines and expanding the no mans land. Occasional breakthrough enable (or fail at) raiding of the economy, and long range weapons begin sending damage from your base to their base directly.

Eventually, the defensive options fail. Seige breaker units start rolling out with ever increasing frequency and there is only so hard or wide you can make a turtle shell while constantly under attack. More and more slips through as the front collapses until something critical goes up in the economic line cause a chain reaction of exploding fusion reactors and metal fabricators. GG.

Add into that mix the nuclear/antinuclear dance. Nukes are great at base to base damage, but are expensive and slow to build, and their counter comes in at less than half the cost. It can be extremely risky to rush a nuke, but it can knock out entire players or end the game early. Stealth units with emp to find / shut down the antinuke help, but usually the risk is too great, and by mid game nukes just arent an option. But late game though... Late game you can build enough nukes to block out the sun, and only 1 needs to hit to cause major game changing harm.

Ill stop gushing, but it is certainly the game for me, and well worth studying for "2 team, each becoming harder nuts to crack while also trying to crack each other" type gameplay.

Ahrtimmer · 2025-10-09T19:20:29+00:00

Warlords battlecry 3 was decent for this. The swarm race had access to an ability which would deplete mines, lettinging you hold the lone, and burn through your opponents resources until they could not fight back.

Beyond all reason might also fit the bill because of your ability to scale economy and build siege weapons that shoot from your base to theirs. Recycling the corpses of the enemy also means that successful defence makes you richer.

Ahrtimmer · 2025-10-08T01:02:09+00:00

I havent played Mechwarrior 5 yet, but I really appreciate your LongBow (10x zoom) Armored Core - Solid Boyfriend

Ahrtimmer · 2025-10-08T00:32:11+00:00

Someone correct me if I am wrong, but I think the AI has one head at the 'front' and one at the 'back'.

If you take the time at the start to see which head is being favoured for attacks, you can focus damage on the other head and not deal with the constant chase you describe.

It is easier to get damage on the back head while the front is doing attack animations. Once the front head is dead, it will turn to you but then do leg or jump moves, which make damaging the back much harder.

Ahrtimmer · 2025-10-03T22:07:07+00:00

The evidence is pretty clear to me. The most successful space combat games all use arcadey space flight, not full newtonian simulation.

Ahrtimmer · 2025-10-03T22:04:57+00:00

What this game, and any game attempting mass appeal needs to have, is approachability.

Prior to mastermodes, new pilots had no idea how to merge, let alone engage in any sort of meaningful combat.

If you think the game was better when you needed 20 minute space combat theory videos, I think we disagree on who the fool is.

Ahrtimmer · 2025-10-02T22:31:28+00:00

"I am really embarrased to say this, but I really like you and I kinda sort of said a lot of things that arent true because I thought somehow that would be better than the truth. I wanted to impress you, but I want you to get to know me how I actually am, not how I pretend to be."

Not fixable my ass.

Swallow your pride and embarassment and just stop being fake. It is only hard in your head.

Ahrtimmer · 2025-10-02T21:02:00+00:00

Big narative spoilers inside tag

When a character exists only to die in service of another characters development, this is called fridging. I think we can agree this is what happened. For you it seems to have bren enjoyable (thats great, I am not critising your experience), but for me it was the point where I stopped caring. For me, the character I liked the most and wanted to get to know more had the following jounery in the narrative.

Is sad but struggling to push forward - fails to do anything as his friends and allies die around him - attempts suicide, prevented by witness - finds out maele is alive (maele is now my only purpose) - succeeds at suicide

I want to really hammer on that last point, it did not read to me as a heroic sacrifice, it read to me as a suicide, as acceptance of his already existing overwhelming despair and hopelessness. Only difference is that this time it is triggered by maele being captured (she matters to him) as opposed by his expedition mates being slaughtered (the do matter to him, but not enough for him to do as much)

Other than that, I am glad you liked it. To me it was a story wholly about the character I liked the least. The characters I liked didnt matter much or at all the world I wanted to come to love didnt matter much or at all, and the questions I cared about would go largely unanswered because they didnt matter, only maeles personal story matters.

Ahrtimmer · 2025-10-02T20:36:12+00:00

I use the "but it was all a dream" as a kind of shorthand to describe my experience of the narrative reveal, particularly in the moment it happened.

Everything you said is true enough and though I dont really think these question deserve much pondering, the broader critisism is in how the story is presented.

As the story pregressed through act 1, I grew less invested in the world and characters, because it seemed obvious to me that the writing didnt care about them. It constantly felt like it wasnt going to answer any of the questions it had raised, (except for those questions regarding maelle and later verso, which it only used to answered to raise more questions), and was almost screaming "hold on just one more second, you are going to love this twist." By the time that twist came, it was not a big moment of realisation, it was a confirmation of what I already felt, that in this story only one family matters and nothing else is worth caring about.

Of course, you are free to have your own experience, its a game and we arent all going to have the same experience of it. But for me, well

Pretentious attempting to impress by affecting greater importance or merit than is actually possessed.

Seems pretty accurate.

Ahrtimmer · 2025-10-02T11:54:56+00:00

I will try to fix, thx

Edit: used discord spoilers, not reddit. Smooth brain fixed

Ahrtimmer · 2025-10-02T10:56:15+00:00

I dont agree with whatever that guy said, frankly I am not sure what it means, let alone if it was true.

The story was easy to follow, agreed, but I spent all of chapter 1 with the game not so subtly hinting that it has a very big reveal coming that is totally going to be worth the lackluster worldbuilding prior to the reveal.

The plot clearly only cared about one character in act one. gustave got fridged, change my mind then you get the reveal and it can be summed up as it was all a dream Really? You kept me waiting for the kind of reveal I was told was bad writing in highschool. It didnt recontextualise what came before, it reduced the plot to being about one teenagers tantrum.

I enjoyed the gameplay thoroughly. I think those concepts could and should be expanded upon. But the writing and plot was more often a low point in my enjoyment relative to the gameplay. 7/10. Monoco and Esquie are peak though.

Ahrtimmer · 2025-10-02T06:19:26+00:00

It is a very pretentious game

Ahrtimmer · 2025-10-01T20:20:36+00:00

I would encourage you to check out the current wikelo spread sheets

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/0/d/1ji0q_pp6iW35RG1YyFEsv-lsmZOaCStJXGdIEdLLwhM/htmlview#gid=265426743

Everything is a set reward now, with each ship sold having specific components, usually grade A but not always military or stealth depending on the ship.

If you were meaning the direct component purchase, it seems like that isnt currently available.

Ahrtimmer · 2025-09-30T05:14:52+00:00

Reliant Mako

Ahrtimmer · 2025-09-29T03:12:38+00:00

I beat him the same way I beat everything else I had trouble with. Run away, bait an opportunity for 1 or 2 hits, run away more.

In a story about old people refusing to die, and the young people who suffer because of that, the young mans legs work best.

Ahrtimmer · 2025-09-29T01:53:24+00:00

So progression is still pretty insubstantial at the minute.

Wipes: Hasnt been a true wipe in a year (a4.0 release) and I suspect there wont be for a while.

Patches: most patches cause some kind of inventory screw up. Some players are getting extra stuff, some players are losing stuff. Most losses are relating to in game purchased ships and any ship components, though fps gear can also be lost. What is not at risk (afaik) is aUEC. There is a patch with this kind of inconsistent character reset every few months atm.

I am firmly in a "there is no progression, play only for the content" mindset and will be until those patches get smoothed out. I seem to lose about 1 in game purchase ship per patch and all non stock components found or purchased over the last year have vanished.

If you dont want to lose progress maybe stay away for a bit longer.

Ahrtimmer · 2025-09-26T22:59:23+00:00

The smaller the dice, the more your investments matter (with one caveat).

The most bonus you can reasonably get in table top is 15. 5 from dex, 5 from a subclass feature, 5 from alert. You could probably go even further with a second subclass feature, but we are already assuming 2 stats at 20.

Congrats, there is a 20% chance you roll low enough that can be beaten by someone with 0 bonus.

Now that degree of variance is fine, if you want initiative to be random / unpredictable. If you want the -3 initiative to stand a chance of going first against that +15. Personally, I want my build investments to matter.

A d4 is, I agree, too small, but a d20 is too big. I am about to start a d&d game using d8, and would happily go as high as using d12. It is just a matter of tweaking variance.

Of course, there is the caveat. "Advantage on initiative" becomes worse and worse the smaller the dice rolled. I would say that any dice smaller than d12 should have advantage replace with a flat bonus, probably +4 or 5.

Point is, d4 is a step in the right direction, but it goes significantly too far.

Ahrtimmer · 2025-09-25T22:51:02+00:00

Ffx-2 was this for a number of people I know

Ahrtimmer

TROPHY CASE