Star Citizen - Arena Commander HAS LAUNCHED!!!

Sadly for me, I didn't find this out until about 2:45AM my time and even on my 50+mbit pipe it'll take 40 minutes to download so I'll likely have to let this one sit for the night. 5 days late isn't too bad in the grand scheme of things. I'm still technically on my vacation so at least I'll get some time in this week for sure.

I'll post back with impressions tomorrow.

-Byshop

Prepare yourselves for comments about stability, low download speed and bugs !!!

Damn them!

Just had the past 2 days off and now it releases about 1 hour after I get to work!! :p

High minimum requirements. 8GB and a quad core.

8GB's of RAM and a quad core are high minimum requirements in 2014?

I know this game is a big deal for a lot of people hopefully it turns out great.

Ummm, yes. The key word here being minimum.

Heck yeah! Thanks for the heads up, thankfully I have Teamviewer on my desktop so I can get the download started, should be ready well before I get home from work! :D

I'm pumped. Soon as I get home I'll be playing.

Game's full 1.0 launch is probably early 2016. Even on low the game looks better than the vast majority of games on high settings today. It's really pushing the boundaries.

It's not uncommon for early releases to have higher requirements than final releases due to a lack of optimization.

-Byshop

Okay, first impressions:

1) It's pretty cool how it seamlessly integrates with the existing Hanger module. You start the game in your Hangar, and then you board your ship to begin the simulation.

2) The graphics are awesome. While both games are technically competent, I like the art style of Star Citizen better.

3) The controls are not remappable in this version (at least not in the UI). Yaw is attached to stick rotation and roll is attached to the X axis. It's very touchy right now, so piloting and dogfighting is tricky.

4) The ships are -very- maneuverable and turn very quickly. Elite has a much heavier feel to it, so the inertia has real weight to it. This feels more like X-Wing vs Tie Fighter (at least for the ship I was flying). Very fast paced action, but still with a cool physics engine.

5) Damage on ships is modeled pretty well. I blew a wing off of a ship I was fighting and it kept going, while the wing continued on its own in another direction.

6) I took damage in a dog fight and lost engines, which resulted in my ship continuing in the direction it was already moving while all I could control were attitude thrusters. I could spin, but I couldn't stop myself from slamming into the space station I was heading towards and exploding. That was pretty awesome.

7) It's a very early build and could use some polish, but it's also very functional and most of what it's missing are features. Right now it's just free flight and dog fighting waves of enemies with a couple wingmen.

-Byshop

@Byshop What are your specifications?... and what sort of performance are you getting from it along with settings?...

I'm at work now and I am really anxious to know how it performs, I know its alpha but still I'm curious.

So keyboard and mouse controllers are alright for anyone who is wondering. I get my HOTAS set up in about an hour (out on truck atm) and I will add another post to review that. Flight is pretty decent all things considered. Runs pretty good on my r9 290, i5-4670k 8gb DDR3 1600. Stock clocks on my r9 290 gets like 45-50fps some dips into lower 40's, I need to update afterburner then ill try it with my overclock settings. My in game settings are 1080p, very high, and fullscreen. I feel like with the HOTAS setup i will want to be able to customize the button config though.

@Wasdie: by that time the specs wont be so high amymore

i7 3770k @4.5 with an AMD Sapphire 7990 6GB running at 2560x1440. I haven't gotten any hard data on it but at a glance it looks like it's running at around 45-55 FPS.

-Byshop

Good to know. That was my main worry.

I wasn't too concerned about this. In the last 6 or so years, pretty much every space combat sim for PC has worked well with mouse/kb (mouse leads weapons and position of the cursor on the screen turns ship) even to the point of excluding decent controls for joystick owners.

I haven't found a way to remap controls so far but it might be possible in config files.

-Byshop

I think just spotting a 360 controller in PC dev videos make people abit concerned.

It was the same story for Witcher 2

I was not disputing that fact....I was disputing the notion that this was not considered high for min requirements.

Games quit fun get around to the seventh wave an than all hell breaks loose..Its a fun good game..Graphically awesome, design are awesome especially when you blow up an they blow up..The shields are incredible, missiles are a blast to fire...Plus its no longer vaporware..Im glad to ive been following this game for ever..Glad it worked out for them..So many people thought this game would suck..Cant wait for the other modulus to star rolling out..

Spot on Glade, this game is going to be pretty amazing at the rate it's going!

What?

-Byshop

Ok, I have to be missing something, because I can get as far as the cockpit of my ship, and thats it. I press a buch of buttons (playing on 360 pad) and nothing happens. Is there a manual somewhere that tells you how to the out of the flipping hangar?

Yeah, you have to put on your helmet. It's on a pedestal near where you spawn initially. Then get into your ship and into the pilot seat.

-Byshop

Ah, now that would've been good to know. Thanks.

Looks like a typo.

"Game is quite fun. Got around to the seventh wave and then all hell breaks loose"

:P

@rogueace127: It was on the FAQ of the download page, but it's easy to miss because it's inside of a scroll box:

HOW DO I ACCESS ARENA COMMANDER?

Here are the steps to follow :

- Launch Star Citizen

- Take the Helmet off the plinth, with the ‘Use’ key.

- Enter your ship.

- Once inside the ship, with the helmet on, the HUD will display the Arena Commander logo, followed by the ‘Arena Commander Main Menu’.

- Arena Commander will only initiate if you are wearing a helmet.

Additionally confusing the issue, there are two ships in my hangar. My purchased ship and another. Only my purchased ship brings up the simulation display.

-Byshop

Ah, I didn't go to the download page, I downloaded straight from the client. And yeah, getting into my pledged ship instead of the vanilla ship they give you was another problem, but I was able to figure it out. Its awesome so far!

Here's my first vid:

-Byshop

It is pre-alpha.

Typically, proper optimization doesn't happen until later.

So far I think it's awesome. My only issue is that I don't seem to have any rudder control while using M+KB. Usually Q or E controls rudder but with IFCS on they don't do anything.

Mouse is much better than it was at PAX though it will take some getting used to.

Awesome video! I REALLY need to get a better GPU haha I'm sure mine would struggle with this game.

@soolkiki: There was somebody mentioning that they were playing on medium over 30 fps on a 550ti ,even on medium the game still looks great,

@soolkiki:

Thanks. The video was recorded with Fraps at 30 FPS locked (by Fraps), Very High detail and 1920x1080. I had some stuttering issues if I tried for higher FPS while recording video, but the game plays close to 60FPS just fine.

-Byshop

@Byshop: Yeah, I noticed a slight lag in the pilot's hand motions, just a little stuttery. Still, that's completely playable.

@naz99: If that's the case, then that is nice to hear!

Great little vid there Byshop, how did you manage to rebind the buttons on that x52? I have the same stick and was hoping to change the bind for the repeater to the button that currently is set for missiles.

@jer_1: I found a console command that swapped Yaw and Roll. You can also create a "user.cfg" file with entries that contain control config, but I don't know how to specifically do what you're looking for. Here's the link I found:

https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.com/discussion/138862/to-switch-roll-and-yaw#latest

Here's another link that will probably have what you're looking for:

https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.com/discussion/110454/actionmap-and-controller-mapping

-Byshop

Thank you sir, I'll check it out!

I just finished a second Let's Play video that experiments around with the Newtonian Physics mode while dogfighting. I'll post that shortly.

-Byshop

My next video, which looks at the unassisted flight mode.

-Byshop

Shouldn't you be working?

Just found this and it looks pretty awesome

Voice commands in Star Citizen:

Program required - http://www.voiceattack.com/Default.aspx

Voice file for Star Citizen - https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/52144362/ArenaCommander%20V0.8%20v1.0-Profile.vap (right click and save as)

All backers should have the ships from TNGS int heir hanger too, they where patched in not that long ago. Cant go inside them though.