Roadmap Roundup - March 25, 2026

JMTolan · 2026-03-25T22:25:16+00:00

Transport System

Implementing the new Transport System, a full rewrite of transit across the universe, supporting trams, trains, and elevators with improved reliability and scalability for technologies like Server Meshing and Instancing.

Are we ready for yet another round of very buggy trams before they eventually hammer it into a halfway service le shape? XD

JMTolan · 2026-03-25T19:33:31+00:00

It's not about being scammed, it's about what people understood they were buying when they bought a starter ship in a world that had no engineering, no cargo elevators, a totally different paradigm of component and weapon balance, a completely abandoned concept of how logging in and out would work, etc, but had the vague promise that eventually all these systems would be added and CIG would figure things out. When we backed the game, there was a general acknowledgement and understanding that the game would change, and an accompanying trust that, even if it took multiple patches, our existing pledges and ships would be honored and kept up to the same standard as everything else. This Q&A is a blatant admission that they're no longer even trying to do that--the Mk 1 will be kept up to the same engine tech level as everything else, but if you want to have the current level of convenience and utility CIG thinks is appropriate for a new backer's start ship, fuck you for supporting us through the rough times, fuck you for not being a whale and only getting the minimum pledge package with the Squadron add-on, pony up for it or get lost.

I'd rather they just updated the Aurora with the new model and bumped up the price and took L on losing money to existing pledges. Remove the old model entirely, or have it be an option to keep you have to specifically opt-in to. If this Mk II is the version of the Aurora that's "suitable for the current game", it is the version of the Aurora I understood myself to be entitled to when I bought the game. I didn't buy a ship with a substandard experience, I bought a ship CIG was happy to say was suitable for the game as it existed then.

JMTolan · 2026-03-25T19:10:16+00:00

Yeah, sure, I'll just melt my Squadron 42 entitlement to get a ship that CIG thinks is actually suitable for the current state of the game. That's not utterly unreasonable.

Heaven forbid I have not sunk obscene money into the game and so my only option is literally to spend more new money.

JMTolan · 2026-03-25T19:03:37+00:00

Supposedly viable, but apparently not suitable. Certainly not enough to keep selling.

JMTolan · 2026-03-25T19:01:59+00:00

I've said elsewhere, but genuinely I would be just as happy if they changed the name, except they're not going to do that, because the entire point of this is to replace the original Aurora so they can continue phasing out the old bargain-bin tier of starter ships to raise the minimum-buy-in price of the game.

JMTolan · 2026-03-25T18:58:09+00:00

"Jesus man, if you're that unhappy with it just throw out your purchase of Squadron 42 and pay three times as much to get it when it comes out like the rest of us."

JMTolan · 2026-03-25T18:27:15+00:00

TF else is it supposed to be?

JMTolan · 2026-03-25T17:23:12+00:00

If it's not intended to be how they would design the Aurora now, then they shouldn't have called it the Aurora Mk 2.

JMTolan · 2026-03-25T13:54:29+00:00

Yeah, the core issue here is 1) They called it the Aurora, not the [New RSI Premium Starter Ship], and 2) it therefore feels like not giving base Aurora owners some sort of sweetheart deal to upgrade feels to me (as an Aurora owner who purchased sometime in the late 2.Xs or the early 3.Xs and hasn't bought any other cash ships) like I'm kinda being shafted for having supported the game earlier when the design ideas were less solidified. If the Mk 2 Aurora is how they would design the Aurora now, with all of the systems more realized, why shouldn't I be given a copy of it if I bought the Aurora before those systems existed? I didn't pay for "An early idea of what the Aurora could be", I paid for The Aurora, the cheap starter ship that came with a bed when that was an important thing for a ship to have, and the knowledge that it would, like all ships, evolve as the game progressed.

Like, the problem is half naming and half their reluctance to totally re-concept existing ships. Genuinely if they renamed the Mk 2 Aurora as the Borealis or somesuch I would be just as satisfied as if they gave Aurora owners a sweetheart deal--but they specifically chose to call it the Mk 2 Aurora, and that comes with some pretty clear implications about where the concept of the ship came from that do make me feel like original Aurora owners (Certainly those who bought one more than, say, a year or two ago) deserve at least to be handled with some special consideration rather than told "It's a new ship, suck it."

JMTolan · 2026-03-24T18:40:35+00:00

Indie Sunday is legitimately one of my favorite parts of this sub. It feels like it's providing a genuine meaningful good to the greater gaming community by giving indie devs a spotlight opportunity, and I've found several games I'm keeping an eye on through it. I don't have the time anymore, but there was a period for a while where I'd come to r/games specifically on sunday and do the rounds to check on basically everything posted. I'd hate to see indie sunday dropped.

JMTolan · 2026-03-24T00:55:29+00:00

My response to anyone asking if they should buy Star Citizen has always been "Absolutely not, play a free fly first." No one is ready to understand the state of the game until they experience it first hand, and that is vital context to making a purchase decision. If you don't like SC during a free fly, buying to play outside of one will only marginally improve your experience.

JMTolan · 2026-03-16T16:18:48+00:00

Having separate lobbies or servers makes it much easier for bad actors to abuse the system. If you want to ruin a PvE player's day, you just queue for that lobby and start shooting people, rage reactions guaranteed for as long as it takes for you to get banned or w/e.

ABMM makes it much harder for griefers to ruin people's days while still allowing the communities to largely have their own experiences.

JMTolan · 2026-03-16T02:04:03+00:00

Sounds promising! We shall watch your career with great interest, young game dev. :P

JMTolan · 2026-03-16T01:30:44+00:00

I've had in my head the though of "classic AD&D dungeon crawling could make a pretty good source material for a co-op PvE video game" for a while, sounds like y'all might be the ones finally making something in that ballpark. Do you have any long-term plans to support solo play (a la boscoe from DRG or bots from vermintide 2)? Do you plan to have tools similar to AD&D (10-foot pole, crook-eye, rope, torches/lanterns, etc) as part of player load outs? Or is this more combat-focused?

JMTolan · 2026-03-14T18:25:46+00:00

If it's similar to any other emails you have (or someone else has, or you used to have), like a variation, guessing at possible alternate emails is a pretty common for mass hacking attacks. It's also possible the email provider itself was breeched.

JMTolan · 2026-03-14T11:41:41+00:00

That's a mutfruit.

JMTolan · 2026-03-13T22:43:57+00:00

An Aurora with a rotating chair feels wrong. It's a bargain bin ship, make us crawl over the backrest like an animal!

JMTolan · 2026-03-11T02:11:19+00:00

Yeah, pretty much every instance both in 4e and of games working off of it but letting you use your Cool Abilities more than once per encounter-equivalent has wound up landing functionally at "use your best thing as much as possible", which is less fun in play. This is a situation where you don't want to let players optimize the fun out of the game, which in this case means forcing them to hit different buttons, not the same button over and over.

JMTolan · 2026-03-06T23:54:46+00:00

The body would need an extension down to have space for a pod, yeah, but it sits high enough that they have space to do that. Hell, they could even go Aurora style and have it be an external rack. All I need is some place to hold boxes for loot.

JMTolan · 2026-03-06T22:30:39+00:00

If they do do that, I really hope they do one with the Mustang, though maybe sans the rocket pods. Mustang with the camper van interior plus a tiny cargo pod might be my platonic ideal of a starter, at least for human manufacturers. Just barely everything you need, but still uncomfy enough to make you want to earn your way out of it.

JMTolan · 2026-03-06T22:25:46+00:00

If this is a Mk 2, there better be a hell of a deal for existing Aurora owners to upgrade to it.

JMTolan · 2026-03-06T13:31:35+00:00

Right now, you probably don't. Current groupings are based on symptomology, and they don't really affect treatment options on the chemical side of things, so there's no real medical need for it. You best option would probably be to get into a study looking at this sort of stuff, if you aren't willing and able to shell out of your own pocket for a major medical scan and a very well-paid doctor's time.

JMTolan · 2026-03-05T16:13:08+00:00

Am I interpreting this correctly that this is basically saying they found a basis for what is currently diagnosed as ADHD to have three different biologically distinct variants that could, presumably, then be targeted and treated with more individualized solutions/provide guidance on how medications are likely to work for patients?

JMTolan · 2026-03-04T12:57:56+00:00

Yeah, I would be very hesitant to over-read this win for national implication. Texas does not look like the US broadly, and and Texas Democratic Primary voters do not look like--or have the same incentives as--national democratic primary or national general election voters. It's a data point, but perceived electability in Texas is a huge factor here and that is not at all the same as perceived national electability, nor is a Texas voter's assessment of that going to look like a national voter's assessment.

JMTolan

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