Star Citizen 4.8 has been out for about 10 days now, and people have.. thoughts.
Look: I get it. It’s a game you’ve spent a lot of money on (maybe). You want it to be a great experience. 4.8? Yeah, it’s pretty much.. not.
Do you know what else it isn’t? A finished game. Star Citizen is an exceptionally complex game that does more than any other game that is currently out now as far as the technology goes.. And they’re doing it while also making it – in some form – fucking playable.
That is insane from my perspective. The fact that they have this exceedingly complex amalgamation of code functioning enough that I can go in and have a pretty goddamned good time in a gigantic sandbox is just incredible.. And I use that word because I know what it’s like to work on complex shit.
I write code for the web. I’ve worked on some pretty complex projects for some pretty complex clients; I’m not going to name-drop here, but I know with absolute certainty readers of this blog will recognize a few of the clients’ sites I’ve had a hand in maintaining/developing throughout the years.
Star Citizen puts all those clients to shame.
Hell, I have fucked around in operating system code for shits and giggles (that was back in college, when I had boundless energy and much less horrific physical pain). I absolutely know how hard working with long-term developed complex systems can get.
Coding is hard, especially now where shit is getting so complicated that we need abstraction layers on top of abstraction layers, practically have to explicitly trust external packages (man, fuck that – you had to drag me kicking and screaming into the worlds of Node/React, Composer, etc, and with Tanstack? Yeah, another I fucking told you so from me) to load safe dependencies, and that’s not even factoring in the shiny (herpes-riddled, in my opinion – don’t trust agents folks) object that is AI coding tools.
I say this to emphasize something: There are going to be bugs. There are going to be significant bugs. The developers are not bad at their jobs (broadly speaking, at least).
This is not something that can be cranked out quickly, and the fact that they are also developing it while maintaining a (mostly) playable game? That’s going to create extra challenges.
Now, of course, there is the scope creep.. And honestly, yeah, it’s not great. There are some aspects where I get why they do new things; New ships, for example, can be a great way to onboard new teams onto the systems for them (and thank you for the M80).. But otherwise, the scope of Star Citizen is – in my opinion – at the maximum of what can be managed reasonably before a 1.0 release.
Please feel free to spend some time refactoring the elevator – and hangar – code before implementing new shit 😀
Anyway, 4.8 itself is more buggy than usual. Absolutely.
It also, however, expanded multiple systems and mechanics that have been sitting to the side for some time now. Some of these systems – like ship to ship refueling – are absolutely awesome and a HUGE boon (even if it’s a little buggy) to gameplay in general.
Other systems may seem like a burden; Case in point, the updates to the insurance/ship claim system.
There are a lot of bugs that cause you to lose your ship.. Thankfully, if you’re running a stock loadout, you can claim your ship for free now instantly.
If you’ve customized your loadout, however, you now have to pay for that loadout to be returned to you.
Thankfully, the cost isn’t THAT much for your average player; My M80 fully kitted out with class A components only costs a bit over 30k to reclaim (minus missiles); That’s a lot in the early game, but honestly early on you’re probably running stock components regardless, and should for some time.
Here’s my general rule: Have 3-5 times your reclaim cost ready for you at all times (more if you run a missile boat, as restocking those gets expensive – but not as expensive as it used to be, thankfully).
The fact that you can now also use the cargo elevator console to re-claim – for free – pledged ship items? That’s fucking awesome; I won’t have to worry about losing my ship paints, which was a concern when 4.8 first came out.
Beyond that, I have been having a lot of fun starting from scratch; I’ve been running Intersec merc missions in Nyx with my M80, and it is fucking awesome. I’ve slowly kitted it out with top-tier hardware to give me maximum effectiveness until I can start crafting even better components.
Of course, that means I’ll also need to pick up a mining ship so I can get the materials; Thankfully, a Drake Golem is cheaply purchased in-game and is plenty for what I need as a solo miner.
Sure, I get frustrated with the bugs, but you know what?
I understand why they exist, and I know just how fucking hard the developers themselves are working.
No shade from me there one bit, and if any of y’all read this, feel free to reach out using your CIG e-mail to wfl – at – classicwfl – doooot – com and I’ll pick a few randomly to buy a coffee (or whatever beverage you like – will just need a Ko-Fi/PayPal/whatever so I can send you the money).
What you’ve been doing is awesome.