Home Gaming Star Citizen’s impressive new damage modelling

Star Citizen’s impressive new damage modelling

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StarCitizen2

Star Citizen is the game with the accolade of being the highest funded game in the history of crowd-funding. It does mean, naturally, that there’s a great big deal of hope and anticipation attached to the project – especially by fans who’ve bought in to Cloud Imperium’s wild and ambitious promises.

I’m a little worried. While the game is shaping up to be an incredible experience for fans of Chris Roberts’ past games, there’s always the worry of feature creep. There’s always something new that’s being added to the monstrous game. The latest addition though, is an impressive damage model that tracks temperature, burn, thickness and deformation. It’s pretty darned impressive.

Here’s a look.

This is only the beginning though – and now that the base for the damage model is in place, they’ll be adding even more. Oh boy, even more feature creep!

But this isn’t the end of the road for this tech, there’s still several major features we’re working on. One of these is particle effects that are created, simulated and rendered entirely on the GPU, and this gives them two huge advantages. The first is performance, we can spawn 10-100 times more GPU particles than CPU particles for the same cost. The other benefit is that they tie in perfectly with the precise damage you’ve taken, so as the hull burns you’ll get glowing embers falling off, when it takes physical damage you’ll see shards of metal fly off, and when you blow out a large section of the hull you’ll see space littered with the debris. We’re also working on some major optimizations using to the damage system using DirectX .

“Several lighting and particle setups are being prototyped to take our ship interiors through Healthy, Damaged, Critical and Flatline states that will inform and immerse our players during battle,” Cloud Imperium wrote in a post on the fictional Roberts Space Industries’ website.  “Our new state machine being developed called GOST, will determine the healthy (or unhealthy) flow of energy around the ships systems and will have a big impact on our multi-crew interactions and the effect of ship damage on them.

“Given the complexity of our largest ships, that are really like floating levels, big questions remain about hull breaches and how to portray critical damage in the vacuum of space and how this will affect players inside. And optimizations in all areas will allow us to add more and more players simultaneously to create massive multiplayer battles.”

Star Citizen is easily one of the most ambitious and impressive video games ever created, but I think it’s starting to get to a point where there needs to be a little more of a concrete retail release. While those who have access to trhe game thanks to their part funding are revelling in each additional module, those who’re waiting for something closer to an actual, shippable product might have shifted their attention to something else, like Elite: Dangerous.

Last Updated: March 9, 2015

58 Comments

  1. Jaded_Reprobate

    March 9, 2015 at 15:03

    i’m worried about this game….

    All I ever wanted was a new Freelancer…. not this monstrosity of a hype machine…
    too much hype always equals dismal failure… and that is what has me worried

    Reply

    • Lothy

      March 10, 2015 at 08:48

      I wonder if they shop at the same place that duke nukem forever dev team do.

      Reply

  2. Umar

    March 9, 2015 at 15:06

    Youtube video is filled with “F***kn consoles holding gaming back” comments lol Ahh Mustard Race…
    http://gag.fm/uploads/posts/t/l-6773.jpg

    Reply

    • DecimationPro

      March 11, 2015 at 15:34

      It (Arena Commander) has got more in it then Elite, I own both!

      Reply

  3. Spathi

    March 9, 2015 at 15:07

    In all fairness, we never hear about a game or its systems this early in development. The game is slated for end 2016 release. Refining and changing game systems while still almost 2 years away from release is not feature creep, it’s called development 😉

    Reply

  4. Captain JJ the damned

    March 9, 2015 at 15:14

    Was playing a bit of Starpoint Gemini 2 this weekend. Great fun.
    Now it’s just gotten me more excited about this game. I’m quite positive about Star Citizen.

    Reply

  5. Pariah

    March 9, 2015 at 15:15

    That’s beautiful, but how much will be lost in optimisation?

    Reply

  6. Norm

    March 9, 2015 at 15:17

    I’m not quite on this hype freighter quite yet.

    Reply

  7. RinceThis

    March 9, 2015 at 15:19

    Is it ever going to get released though?

    Reply

    • Pariah

      March 9, 2015 at 15:21

      Right after HL3 does, yeah.

      Reply

      • Blood Emperor Trevor

        March 9, 2015 at 15:22

        But before TLG.

        Reply

        • RinceThis

          March 9, 2015 at 15:23

          #Staystrong!

          Reply

          • Umar

            March 9, 2015 at 15:23

            *kicks in the face*

          • Captain JJ the damned

            March 9, 2015 at 15:24

            lol
            Was not expecting that

          • Umar

            March 9, 2015 at 15:24

            Rince knows I love his ginger ass…I mean….errr

          • Captain JJ the damned

            March 9, 2015 at 15:25

            Tough love, I suppose.

          • Hammersteyn

            March 9, 2015 at 15:29

            Tough and hard love

          • Blood Emperor Trevor

            March 9, 2015 at 15:30

            I wonder if pink wigs are involved as well.

          • Hammersteyn

            March 9, 2015 at 15:30

            Or pink wands? O_o

          • Blood Emperor Trevor

            March 9, 2015 at 15:32

            lol – you haven’t seen the South Park screenshots I posted on Steam have you? Sort of appropriate to this conversation. :/

          • Captain JJ the damned

            March 9, 2015 at 15:33

            I have and I do not thank you for that image.

          • Blood Emperor Trevor

            March 9, 2015 at 15:33

            bwhahahahaha 😀

          • Captain JJ the damned

            March 9, 2015 at 15:31

            Too much!

          • Blood Emperor Trevor

            March 9, 2015 at 15:26

            What about the rest of him? He’s not a piece of meat Umar!

          • Captain JJ the damned

            March 9, 2015 at 15:27

            I’m kind of imagining him as a T-bone, he has the street cred for the name already.

          • RinceThis

            March 9, 2015 at 15:30

          • Captain JJ the damned

            March 9, 2015 at 15:31

            O_o

          • RinceThis

            March 9, 2015 at 15:32

            HAHA!

          • Hammersteyn

            March 9, 2015 at 15:31

            Matty will get flashbacks of Germany

          • RinceThis

            March 9, 2015 at 15:31

            lol

          • Blood Emperor Trevor

            March 9, 2015 at 15:33

            Offer Matty some green tea, then watch him run away screaming.

          • Umar

            March 9, 2015 at 15:31

            Can I hold the inside of your pocket???

          • Umar

            March 9, 2015 at 15:30

            He’s a piece of biltong!

          • Captain JJ the damned

            March 9, 2015 at 15:42

            Where is Avo to drop an inappropriate gif when he’s needed?

          • RinceThis

            March 9, 2015 at 15:28

            eish!

          • Blood Emperor Trevor

            March 9, 2015 at 15:29

            What? Not like it could do any damage. *run*

          • RinceThis

            March 9, 2015 at 15:30

            Whimper 🙁

        • Pariah

          March 9, 2015 at 15:23

          #StayStrongUmar

          Reply

          • Umar

            March 9, 2015 at 15:23

            *hugs*

    • Umar

      March 9, 2015 at 15:27

      Nope, mustard race will just keep blaming console gamers for it not coming out, not the fact that the developer used all the kickstarter money for tik.

      Reply

      • Hammersteyn

        March 9, 2015 at 15:30

        *Starts a kickstarter

        Reply

        • Captain JJ the damned

          March 9, 2015 at 15:30

          *throws money in to be able to say I sponsored something

          Reply

          • Hammersteyn

            March 9, 2015 at 15:31

            Yeah, my tik habbit

          • Norm

            March 9, 2015 at 15:38

            Crowbar research…

        • Umar

          March 9, 2015 at 15:31

          Don’t forget a steady flow of tech demos. As long as you have that, you’ll have an unlimited supply of meth.

          Reply

          • Hammersteyn

            March 9, 2015 at 15:32

            I’ll post a pic of a crowbar to get the ball rolling

          • Umar

            March 9, 2015 at 15:32

            LOOOOOOOOL Oh snap……..I can smell the tears of PC gamers.

    • L337J1MB0B

      March 9, 2015 at 15:29

      Watch what you say man, some backer will no doubt vloek you for that remark.

      Reply

      • Pariah

        March 9, 2015 at 15:30

        After which Rince will go and jump off a bridge because his life will be over.

        Reply

    • Spathi

      March 9, 2015 at 15:38

      Guess we’ll have to wait for its release date to find out? You know, end 2016, the date that has been given in 2013 for the release of SC 😉

      Star Citizen is the only game I know of that gets flack for not releasing 2 years in advance…

      Reply

    • Jim Lenoir (Banana Jim)

      March 9, 2015 at 19:54

      But when it does, will it resemble Duke Nukem Forever?

      Reply

  8. Sageville

    March 9, 2015 at 15:27

    Star Citizen: Chasing perfection, forever….

    Reply

  9. Kikmi

    March 9, 2015 at 15:28

    Holy fuck that is insane

    Reply

    • Captain JJ the damned

      March 9, 2015 at 15:28

      holy indeed

      Reply

      • Kikmi

        March 9, 2015 at 15:28

        lel

        Reply

    • Sageville

      March 9, 2015 at 15:40

      fuck indeed

      Reply

  10. Jim Lenoir (Banana Jim)

    March 9, 2015 at 19:53

    The hype for this game is over 9000. I know a few of you are going to hate me for saying this, but “I smell over-hyped, teeth-destroying, soul-destroying faceplant”

    Reply

  11. Xcalibersa

    March 10, 2015 at 06:55

    Reminds me of star trek BC. Used to take my phasors and slice up ships

    Reply

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