The Tragic State Of Ground Vehicles In Star Citizen
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- čas přidán 27. 08. 2024
- In this #starcitizen video, I break down my beef with Star Citizen's ground vehicles, showing you why they suck and what can be done to make them suck less! Couldn't have done it without my orgmates, particularly Aristaan and Kybern, who helped provide extra data and talking points for the video!
As a lover of the "ground game" in Star Citizen, my goal for this video is to raise awareness of ground vehicle's longstanding issues and awkward design choices. Ideally, this video would end up in front of the devs at CIG and help spur some improvements to ground vehicles now and in the future.
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As a lover of the "ground game" in Star Citizen and with an ORG all about acting on the potential of its combined arms, my goal for this video is to raise awareness of ground vehicle's longstanding issues and awkward design choices. There's still so many issues with GV's that i had to leave out, else this would start entering Documentary territory, but i think i covered the main things. Ideally, this video would end up in front of the devs at CIG and help spur some improvements to ground vehicles now and in the future. What do you think? Thanks for watching!
Could not agree more and being part of an Org that also takes part in combined arms this encapsulates all the frustrations we feel so well. We used to consider everything within 1.2km of the Ballista the 'instant-kill zone' however to make things worse I think they've changed the speed of the missiles at the start 2023 to add some kind of acceleration so that the 0.1 second reaction time is now about 2 seconds which is more than enough to pop the required amount of flares...
I've listed the issues with vehicles being weak, too big when the only reliable ttansport is the Hercules, how much drop ships are also garbage. Essentially just got told I was wrong by the devs.
CIG needs mass simulation in the game right now, the only the player has maths. They really need to change that at least basic physics because they don't have it. That's why physics are so bad because everything's like a leaf. Like flies in the wind.
Gv need atleast 2 size 0 shields or 3 .
Ground clearance needs to be higher.
Missles need a huge rework. They're basically useless and cig knows it
I really hope CIG pays close attention to this video. Dtox you are correct on all points. The sorry state of ground vehicles is the reason I never purchased any except for LTI tokens. After playing mechwarrior for years I can't stand more than a few seconds inside of SC tanks. They are just that awful at everything. Also, I wish that hover bikes would be classified as vehicles or at least treated like vehicles while on the ground since they can't get higher than a few meters. Right now they are detected by turrets making them virtually useless for approaching bunkers.
I know your pain friend. Let's keep this in our minds moving forward and hold CIG accountable on this. It serves everyone better to do so.
I rather think that the turrets should finally fire on wheeled and tracked vehicles. Why shouldn't the bunkers use the towers to fend off ground targets?
@@siruck19xx right now turrets are insanely powerful and even a short burst from them can cripple the largest ships in-game.
it forces you to land further away and take ground vehicles. I'd rather not have my stupidly fragile tank obliterated in a single shot and instead be made to walk 2 kilometers possibly multiple times over to ferry stuff.
I'd say keep the AA guns as they are and add automated turrets and machine guns that will fire on you instead if you're in a vehicle. It won't insta-kill you certainly and any combat vehicle with a gun can easily destroy them but it makes it easier than just waltzing up to a base.
Star Citizens ground vehicles are also so oversized. While this is also true for ships often, it isn't as much of a problem there as space is big. Like that transport vehicle is huge for the few people it can take with it. It has so much empty space within it, you could probably make a vehicle half the size, that can take as many people.
You can carry almost the same amount of people in the Spartan as you can carry in a Bradley, and the Bradley can fit around 6-7 people sitting very closely together WITH equipment. That's not counting the crew either. And the Spartan fits around 8, + standing. The space being wasted is insane, and I wish the vehicles were armored just as much as they were big, to make up for the clunky and oversized look.
@@exnems Well...if there was a very big power armor, with equally oversized weapon, then it would make some sense.
MUCH needed video. I will say that having higher HP pool wont help ground vehicles if they cant outright mitigate some damage sources with the HEAVY armour they should have being 900 years in the future. Even if these vehicles had 10x the HP they have right now it wouldnt make any difference to the outcome they have, it would just increase the time it takes.
Yogi has stated that he wanted armour in the game to work in a way that will make weapon sizes important, while he was saying this about the hammerhead I think it matters to ground vehicles even more. I think he was saying that he wanted certain armour levels to be invulnerable to certain size weapons so that in the example given, the hammerhead can not be solo killed by a arrow because the arrow does not have weapons that can deal damage to it.
ALSO my all Ground vehicles should be 100% immune to shutdown by Distortion damage because it should be impossible to build up a charge on an object that is grounded. Distortion weapons on ground vehicles should be used to temporarily increase a vehicles EM signature to the point other vehicles can see it on scanner
Cent & Ballista should need S2 missiles, S2 projectile / Laser cannon or S3 Gatling / Laser repeater to damage at all, and 1 size up per category to deal effective damage levels.
Storm & especially the Spartan should need S3 missiles, S3 projectile / Laser cannon or S4 Gatling / Laser repeater to damage at all. (you CANNOT put 8 men in a vehicle like the spartan if it can not mitigate even the most basic weaponry carried by every single ship in the game.
The Nova Tank is supposed to be the most heavily armoured ground vehicle ever devised, it should need something BIG to take it out, S4 projectiles / laser canon or missiles, S5 Gatling or Laser repeater weapons. but preferably bombs should be its Achilles heel.
The sheer time investment of these platforms should demand that their operators have at least a cursory feeling that they arent going to be dead 1 minute after they are detected on the battlefield.
Great video!
And, yes, the ROC is now broken. What should be a relatively low speed, high torque, highly mobile vehicle capable of climbing its way up a canyon wall, can now barely make its way up the ramp of a Cutlass Black, and good luck climbing the walls of even a small crater after you've just hit the Motherlode! At this point in time, I've given up on ROC mining, which is a shame, given that it is one of the best ways to experience the oft times beautiful and awe inspiring enviroments of the Verse's planetary surfaces.
Another gripe is the way in which CIG seem to have implemented throttle/speed control. In SC, a small throttle input, via my pedal, results in the ROC wanting to accelerate to FULL speed, just taking a little longer to do so when compared to a large input. This is in complete contrast to driving in Elite Dangerous where it is possible to creep along at speeds slower than walking pace, which is more in line with what we, as drivers, experience in the real world.
If the ground is too uneven, it's easier and faster to just traktor beam it where needed. Also, it is WAY TOO LOUD.
@@sinner506 Agreed with it being too loud.
I only recently discovered my Cutty has a Tractor Beam (been away from the game for a while). I play solo, so the tractor beam is of limited utility (need to be in co-pilot's chair to use it?).
From a design point, it would seem (to me) to be a logical requirement that an ATV remote mining vehicle have sufficient torque/horsepower/ground clearance to navigate and traverse the sort of terrain such a vehicle might reasonably be expected to travel across whilst prospecting. Apparently CIG disagrees. 🤔🙃
@@Oinnelstan Yeah, all mining vehicles have absurd requirements for them (at least irl), and for a very good reason.
YES the ROC is totally broken since 3.20 patch. I have been complaining about the ROC problems since 3.20. I am a miner and loved the way the ROC handled and ran in 3.19 and before, now it just sucks, its like driving a rock, its really loud, it can't climb any hills or ramps let alone small rocks, let off the gas and its like it has brakes that lock up the wheels, no free rolling, it shakes like a cold wet dog, the list goes on and on, I have made many complaint tickets but nothing ever gets fixed, its like they just don't want us mining anymore! WE all need to make tickets about this and keep on making them and adding/voting to them till they fix these issues!!!
@@keyper555 Hi. I ended up melting my Cutty and ROC and bought the Vulture. As a result, after 3 weeks I now have a fleet of ships, including two Reclaimers, and a balance of tens of millions of aUEC.
I've no doubt that salvage will get a "balance" pass, but it is so much more rewarding than, in all ways that I can think of, ROC mining.
The Vulture is fast becoming my favourite ship.
Great job pointing out the problems and giving some potential solutions. Really hoping to see a world where we have to respect ground assets. I didnt know the Tonk was 6 years old. You used the right word. Tragic.
Rover*, but yes m'man! Rover been around a long time.
You forgot an important point: Just like ships with no QT drive, GROUND VEHICLES CAN'T NAVIGATE from A to B.
That's the idea though. You would need to transport them in a ship with a vehicle bay. Why would you expect or want it to be any other way?
@@B.D.E.
To set down your vehicle from a ship and drive to the destination? (without a misson marker)
To transport anything on the ground from one location to another?
If you aren't going to drive the vehicle to any destination, what would be the point of ever bringing it?
I remember some long time ago, when CIG wanted to have ground vehicle only planets to make use of the Ursa Rover. While that could make for a unique planet or moon in a system, I don't think forcing the players to use a system makes up for it being poor. I hope they can improve these vehicles before it comes to that, because I want to put down some money on a Ranger (and I hope it can still fit in a MPUV when it is added in).
It would be better if they 'soft forced' the use of ground vehicles through environmental design, instead of just hard coded locks.
@@B.D.E. Or maybe low/no fuel cost for ground vehicles relative to ships in certain star systems due to limited and inefficient supply.
Controversial take: improving ground vehicles also means improving the actual ground these vehicles are supposed to use.. roads, better poi, exclusive ground missions, actual good reasons to use planet side gameplay.
My biggest frustration is that all of the ground vehicles feel like they're made of cardboard, not metal. I really wish Star Citizen would take inspiration from games like Planetside 2 (game from 2012) where driving vehicles is so pleasant and enjoyable that you could spend the whole gaming session just driving around. The gravity feels just right and flipping the vehicle over is an actual challenge.
I think there should exist strong aa because i feel like that's an easy solution to force ground warfare. The attacking side would have to bring tanks to destroy the aa, so the defensive side would have to bring ground vehicles to defend, so the attacking side would have to bring supporting ground vehicles to help destroy the defenses and protect the air above them when entering aa surveilled territory with their own mobile aa systems, and that would sorta force ground warfare.
What’s needed is strategic level air defence with high kill chance % and some basic radar mechanics, like a sci fi patriot platform. That alone would change the balance between ’air’ assets and ground vehicles, and lead to cool gameplay such as the necessity to fly close to the ground, using the terrain to conceal an approach. Long-range AA is used in modern combat to deny air space access, and orgs in Star Citizen could use them to lock down an area to the extent that competitors would need to engage on the ground -> ground combat
Also a mobile ground shield generator platform would be cool
If you could somehow compress 2 hours of a rant into 15 minutes, I'm sure you would. I know first hand that this issue has long been past chronic, and it remains to be seen if it's terminal. One symptom has always been acute fits of rage for all involved. Excellent points, thanks for bringing this up.
Great video!
The multiple screen covering lists of issues succinctly show how very bad the situation is.
I really hope CIG start listening to the players that actually use ground vehicles in the game.
Thanks for your help providing extra data/research.
@@DTOXTV You're welcome! Honestly, the time spent testing with the "IMI Science & Research Division" was the best part of this ground vehicle saga!
The only way I can imagine ground game becoming plausible is to create some sort of scenario in which most ships simply can't operate. Like a large chunk of irradiated land that destabilizes quantum fuel so you are only able to explore it via snubs and ground vehicles. Put some rare loot, maybe a drug lab, inside it to give people a reason to go there and suddenly I think a lot of the less utualized vehicles will get a lot of use.
Also forest and dense jungles! Font forget some planets will also have heavy fog and extreem weather patterns that would make ships difficult
Bandaid solution
@@seskal8595 well there's obvious balancing issues, but ground vehicles won't feel worthwhile without meaningful ground combat. Tanks don't exist to shoot at planes.
Exactly!!! One need only look at why ground vehicles exist in the real world. There are also plenty of realistic scenarios, not just "lol you just can't fly your spaceship here because reasons" (although it would be simple, quick and effective) where ground combat is necessary, and thus ground vehicles are helpful. All air defences for example need to be much more powerful. IRL hovering your aircraft 200 m above an enemy base would be instant suicide. Don't tell me SAM tech 900 years in the future hasn't advanced beyond the 1960s. Or large complexes so heavily armoured that most ship weapons simply can't do damage to them, so you need to go inside on foot/with vehicles. Obviously none of this has to do with a space game, but CIG are the ones who went and added these vehicles, and it wouldn't be that hard to create scenarios where they're needed.
@@flixelgato1288 The video covers how much weaker ground vehicles are, even though component wise, they're far less complex than any ship in the game. It makes no sense for them to lack the armor to survive an air assault for somewhat longer periods, or why anti-air weapons cannot engage beyond 10km for missiles, or 2km for guns. CIWS today engage at a range of 5km at its maximum (publicly listed anyway), and missiles or anti-munitions missiles can lock on and fire at targets who are beyond 10km as a general bit of info.
Once you start buffing anti-air capabilities by increasing engagement range of the ground guns and missile lock ranges, nerfing effectiveness of noise and decoys just a hair to make staying in an AA's range costly, and you increase GV health, you'll start seeing combined arms a lot more. If you can't take the skies by air alone, you could probably do it with ground support, or the other way around. Consequently, this would make air-air combat more costly as well when missiles start getting used, and it'd just turn into a fight of who has the most missiles and decoys. Not sure how to solve that problem.
Bombers will see an increase in use, as they'll have far more of an effective impact against ground than any other air vehicle, and anti-air will be forced to switch from air superiority to bomber interception before they end up as the new paintjob for the crater that just opened shop on top of them.
Awesome Video! Agree with the opinion and points you got. Ground vehicles need a reason and love to be there.
Especially me as a Logistics guy, where is my Ground-Cargo-Truck? Where is my Flatbed? Where is my Rearm+Refuel Truck?
What use is a cargo truck with no nav marker for the destination of that cargo?
@@Suranfox sorry dude, but that’s quite one the line of #whatsboutism. 👍
@@KlausbergerYT
They all have to be solved to make ground cargo vehicles feasable.
Honestly ground to air vehicles just need to be flat out overpowered. Ballistas and centurions should be able to create an iron dome that is inaccessible from the air. This would make the logistics of moving ground vehicles worth it, and make ground combat relevant because the only way to uproot ADA would be to do it with tanks.
Since we are on the topic of the ground vehicule.
The fact that CIG never though of designing the storm to fit in Valkyrie, speaks volume of the rule of cool problem.
The entire benfit of this vehicle is that it's smaller and easier to carry.
Yet it's too big to fit in a Valkyrie (A drop ship with a vehicule hangar). But apparently it's all good because we can fit it in a carrack? (A exploration ship).
I mean.. WHAT!?
Everyday I wake up and feel sad about what they have done to the Ballista
The idea of hard to find, tough to kill and actually dangerous air defence sounds great honestly. It's really not a hard argument to make that ground vehicles SHOULD be better. I hope they get the love the deserve. There's a lot of interesting gameplay potential just sitting there, waiting to be made practical/viable. As a Crucible haver, better ground vehicle gameplay means the potential utility of the scarab as a mobile ground garage goes up!
There really is a whole world of gameplay just sitting there. Just one reason we want CIG to do better here.
You’re absolutely right on this. Fighters need to basically be useless in areas where AA systems are operating.
Couldn't agree more. Ground vehicle combat needs massive buffs in order to be viable. As with many of SC's gameplay, we often lack a reason to do or use certain things.
Tank/AA turrets need to be stabilized so it's not as difficult to hit your target while on the move. Also, why are futuristic tank crews not able to use Augmented Reality visors to see through the interior of the vehicle? This is tech we currently have in the f-35 and is coming in the near future to the next gen Abrams X tanks. They really do need to take a look at real world tech we already have in modern tanks and then expand on those capabilities.
Yup. It's beyond frustrating.
The actual driving physics is what bothers me the most. When a large rover, or tank, has about as much torque as a 50cc scooter when trying to navigate hills, then the fun's over before it even began. Not to mention the floaty physics. I hope they fix these issues and make them FUN to drive. It is a game after all.
Peeps will keep giving the "air beats ground deal with it" argument no matter what, even though how misguided that argument really is. In the past, present and most probably our distant future the scariest thing an air asset can face is a dedicated AA platform on the ground.
Yes, losing air superiority is bad, but as things are you shouldn't bring any ground assets at all ever for any reason.
Or even better, a proper suppression of air defence from air. It is entire art of its own, with so much possibilities, and its not based on "plane strong, missile weak".
Great video.
Aside from everything you mentioned, something I would love to see in the future are situations where ground vehicles are the only infantry support available. For example, large underground facilities with highway access or similar areas that would be all but impossible to access with an aircraft. I think something like that would go a long way.
I think this is what CIG wants to do with their new UGF compounds, which is a good start for GV incentives, but they will still need many more improvements to make them worth using.
@@DTOXTV Or at least make it safe to use a vehicle inside.
I noticed you mentioned awkward AA firing arks at the end. The Centurion cant shoot directly up so all a ship has to do is get directly above it and its useless, so bloody annoying.
Yes, i wanted to go into more detail about these but the video would have gotten so long. This is the biggest offender with bad AA firing arcs. Pathetic.
Thanks for the video! The problem of ground vehicles also relates to another problem: there is still almost no ground game-play at all, besides Jumptown or maybe Ghost Hollow. Ground vehicles are very useful when doing hostile bunkers, but that's it. I wish they had more PvE elements which would require approaching on ground from distance. Just as an example: imagine if there were some missions to penetrate the Klescher? Or smth similar, which can't be really approached from air, and would still require a lot of FPS-action. As a side note: they should finally add an in-game night-vision. It's 2900's, in the end.
As someone who loved to use ballista and nova during jumptown, it also just feels like the vehicles are underdeveloped.
Want to stay hidden? Well fck you, you can't turn your lights off, why? Idk, every time I had to park my ass on a rock otherwise my tail lights would give me away.
The entire combat lineup is also not thought out well, it feels more like an employee at CIG thinks, "this would look cool in the game" and it gets added.
What I'd like to see is a logistics vehicle for rearming vehicles, light AA you can bring down quick and a heavy AA system composed of multiple components (early warning radar, target radar and launchers) for if you really want to shut down airspace. A vehicle with small guns against infantry, maybe some missiles and capacity to transport them. And for heavy vehicles tank is fine but it needs proper range detection
"The entire combat lineup is also not thought out well, it feels more like an employee at CIG thinks, "this would look cool in the game" and it gets added. "
Yup, that is exactly what is happening. They are concepted, developed and added without a single thought towards systemic gameplay.
Great watch, great points! The ballista used to be a bit of a headache and not so much anymore. I think having to deploy ground teams to take them out is a wonderful gameplay loop. The centurion is a joke and is supposed to be AA. I know the Nova used to be a beast and hard to take out from the air however you are 100% correct everything is to weak specially personal carriers. Now even all the speeds are totally messed up...
I couldn’t agree more.
I just started escaping from Klescher and driving the ursa over aberdine and it’s borderline unplayable and incredibly frustrating. Even the smallest pebble causes it to stop, at best, and spin around and/or flip over, at worst. I hate it. I hate it so much that I’ve walked the 4km to complete the quest, to avoid it. Furthermore, why TF do we not have markers or, at the very least, a compass so that we know what direction we’re driving? It’s just depressingly bad and it’s such a shame because there is so much opportunity for it to be amazing.
We all feel your pain friend. Haha!
You knocked it out the park with this video man. Fully captured my frustrations with vehicles, and it was funny and well edited too. keep it up.
I fully agree with you that Ground Vehicles are in a tragic state. I wasn't aware that the visibility of the storm was so limited, and you're so right about having Radar and System UI in the remote turret. I think many in the ground racing community would agree that the current state of ground vehicles is nothing short of a disappointment. Most of the vehicles bar the URSA Rover, Spartan, Ballista, Centurion, STV etc have always felt very squishy, PTVs, Cyclones, Dragonflys, Noxs, and Hoverquads blowing up from the smallest amount of contact with anything at any speed and thus making them less appealing to the overall player base IMO.
I will admit that the Cyclone saw an HP buff post 2021, but in recent patches the RC had it's boost disabled and the overall speed of the Buggy is now slower than ever, and it's a shame to see.
The Ursa Rovers cooler still dies after like 6 hours which is a big challenge for Truck Division contestants of the Daymar Rally which can take longer than that time.
With regards to Grav Lev however, I believe that my lack of decent hardware [GTX 1080, i7-7700k, 16GB DDR 4 RAM on an Intel Optane 900p 2560x1440p on a 165 hz Gsync Asus Gaming Monitor] which results in lower frames, and Server side lag/desync ultimately culminate in a bad experience for me at any speeds over 90 m/s, but it would be nice to see the Grav Levs HP changed or their spring stiffness altered to increase their survivability, which is interesting as the EPTU recently had a change to Grav Lev Spring Stiffness and I watched my friend SanjiSama do a Shubin to Eager practice run, and he still blew up just as much as he normally would do, which made me question the change had even been implemented properly at all.
Overall it's sad to see the combat ground vehicles and racing ground vehicles in the state they're in, and I hope CIG have plans to address all of these concerns raised by us backers.
Awesome video as always dude.
Peace. o7
As a Daymar Rally champion, thanks for providing your input Downfall!
Let's not forget that when your Nova's turret gets shot, it breaks almost immediately and becomes impossible to move around. Even if you could move the turret around in a fight though, it wouldn't matter because you can't aim up more than 30 degrees in a game dominated by spaceships...
Yup. So frustrating to use.
As you pointed out, the only reason to justify the existence of ground vehicles is marketing tokens, not gameplay. The other elephant in the room is the lack of physics to build on.
Another issue is the flight model. Every ship is able to fly stationnary. This shouldn't be the case, especially for light fighters and bombers which should be limited to flyby in atmosphere. As long as this aburd choice persist, ground vehicles will remain preys. Only a few VTOL capable and selected but clumsier ships should remain stationnary while in mid-air, and at a cost. Don't by ground vehicles with real money, only buy in game.
oh, and don't forget how the tumbril storms would get flung when bombed
So what we really need is a massively OP surface to air missile defence system,this would then force ground combat to enable air assets to follow up. This should actually be pretty simple to achieve
I mean, we already have traces of that with bunker turrets. ballista and cent should atleast be a threat.
In basic terms, yes. You need GV's that are capable of actually shutting down air space to begin with. There's more to it than that, but actual anti-air capable GV's instantly promotes the necessity for ground to ground combat to open up airspace and a whole world of gameplay for everyone.
If they weren't targetable by aircraft until a super close range, but able to target aircraft from a long range they would be useful. That would give any attacking aircraft incentive to deploy their own on foot team to scout for these vehicles
I appreciate this video. I really want ground vehicles to be more of a thing, but as of right now there seems to be little point to having one. I hope that someone at CIG watches this and circulates it around the office!
Thank you!
It makes me so upset that they don't make the radar signatures of ground vehicles non-existent. They are already so disadvantaged.
Some very Valid points and good ideas they could use to make the whole ground vehicle Exp better.
Amazing video, and I completely agree with everything. I know things are not finished, but they are not even heading in the right direction with their updates!? Please hear us CIG, we (you and us) all want better, lets do it together! I vowed to stop driving Daymar Rally because of the state of ground vehicles, and I know that I am not the only one. That alone is such a shame.
Agreed on all points, though I want to add emphasis to the travesty of the logistics train. The fact there is only one series of ships that can realistically drop anything bigger than an Ursa (The Hercules) is insanity to me. They keep making new ground vehicles seemingly without factoring in any other potential candidates as a dropship like perhaps the Connie or, amazingly, the Valkyrie (which was marketed as a HEAVY dropship). Anvils premier dropship can't drop their own line of combat vehicles or even a light tank. Ridiculous.
" Anvils premier dropship can't drop their own line of combat vehicles or even a light tank. Ridiculous."
Yeah when you put it like that, just pain...
So long as the vehicle gameplay team doesn't communicate to the vehicle art/design team, (and vice versa) and the marketing team remains king, this problem will persist.
The Greycat buggy was added to SC Hangar Module way back in the day as an afterthought, "oh cool people would totally pay us to bomb around their hangar in a little car". I feel like both CIG's philosophy to ground vehicles and the driving experience of ground vehicles are literally unchanged since then.
The state and design of ground vehicles is a testament of the entire SC development philosophy
That's what I dont get...the M1A Abrams, Challenger, and Leopard II are cool tanks. There's enough cool tank designs that they could have gone with and at the same time made them practical.
Armor buff is definitely needed, a hitbox redesign would also help as well. A design of shields specific to ground vehicles is a a must to make ground vehicles viable. The heavy Tank should be equiped with a Size 2 Ground Vehicle Shield that's contour forming. With the top being the thicker part of the shielding.
Honestly the Spartan should get at least a S1 turret that can hold repeaters. its a troop transport/troop support vehicle.
The other vehicles that need to be produced to help in ground combat.
A Mobile Field Base that is deployable that can refit and reload ground vehicles. If that's too much a Ship that can act as a MFB to be deployable on the ground to act as a command and control for ground operations would be the 2nd option. You'd just need to buy base materials so it can manufacture and repair from.
A actual Main Battle Tank. Talking 65 tons with a Size 8 cannon, and a S1 anti-personnel.
Honestly...the best outcome is just hire ex-FPS developers and give them full reign to build the FPS side of Star Citizen. what we have now is sloppy
6:20 I have asked this question about just about every single new ship or vehicle. Cutter releases with 6000 quantum fuels. That stat only required about 5 seconds on ERKUL to determine was ridiculous. How does a Dev put that number into the XML, then send it through PTU, and then put it into live without fixing it? Sure, just 1 ship, not a big deal right? Nope, then they release the Syulen with ~3000 quantum fuels AFTER they reduced the quantum fuel on the similar sized cutter to 1900. Would also like to know where those 3000 quantum fuels fit inside of the Gatac. Cutter is almost believable since it is a literal box, the syulen is a cockpit with hab space directly below it, and then 3 arms that hold the 3 main thrusters, and 3 other arms that hold cargo and missiles. Where is any of the quantum fuel fitting? Do not even think about the hydrogen fuel tanks. The syulen has 50% more capacity than a freelancer, more capacity than Cutlass, and 6 times the capacity of most similar sized starter ships. Where does all that hydrogen fit along with the ridiculous amount of quantum fuel? Then the Argo Raft still holds 28,000 quantum fuels. Half the size ship as a Taurus with similar cargo capacity yet ~10x the quantum fuel. Any other game will usually check stats on similar items to see if the new asset makes sense and can be balanced. The fuel capacity is a literal 5 minute fix by just updating the XML data file.
As for ground vehicles. I just wish CIG would stop artificially bloating them so they do not fit in smaller ships. "Scout" Storm is as wide as the MBT Nova. On purpose so it does not fit into something like a freelancer. If they removed the hubs sticking out and made it flush with the track like a normal tank has, it would be practically the same width as an Ursa. The central cab of the storm is about the same size as the Ursa, but the ursa then has an interior and the storm has just a pilot seat. When you look at the Mule which is basically an F150, the Nova is 8m longer and 6m larger than the Mule. In real life an M1 Abrams MBT is only 2m wider and 2m longer than an F150. I understand it is a game but most ground vehicles are grossly oversized.
I second the size issue SO goddamn much. It is 100% a transportation issue for them (they don't want "normal" ships to be able to transport vehicles, making dedicated dropships obsolete). There are some ways to get around that in the future in my opinion (weight, VTOL and atmos flight changes, selective loading-ramp dissenshittification).
IMO the single-best balance change that CIG could implement is making ground combat vehicles uninsurable. Cause really, what company in their right minds would insure a tank? The thing that is DESIGNED to be shot at? That would give ground vehicles an inherent risk to use, allowing them to be made actually good enough to be worthwhile. They could make (and sell) a wider variety of vehicles without running into balancing problems. New tank is OP? Jack up the price in-game. New tank is kinda shit? Price it accordingly. The devs would essentially get a newer, much more tactful lever to pull while balancing the game. Ground combat vehicles would be, essentially, a semi-consumable item (like in real life), so players wouldn't be able to infinitely shit them out and oversaturate the battlefield. It would change how players think of them, and would have a generally positive effect in-game imo.
All vehicles in this game feel like helium balloons!
Thousands years into future since gyro stabilisation technology was lost. Ever since every single bump or rock mess up turret aim, making the shooter barf in the cabin. Truly a grimdark future.
Haha actually gyro stabilization IS in as of 3.20 i believe, a few times i had forgotten to turn it on but it really doesn't make up for the hundred shortcomings of tanks and ground vehicles.
Hear, hear! This is a very comprehensive review of things. Thanks for putting this together 👍🏻
Ground vehicle play needs to take ships out of the equation, either by heavily enforced no fly zones (ie: accurate NPC surface to air guns & missiles), dense urban areas where on foot FPS can be supported by ground vehicles for troop transport and tanks or by underground scenarios (ie: caves or larger bunkers) where aircraft cannot fly.
I have seen 10 vs 10 player tank battles completely obliterated by a giggling griefer with an A2 who saw it streaming on Twitch.
A dragonfly is great for getting to a UGF that is hostile without landing too close and the ROC can be fun (as much fun as MINING gets, which isn’t much), but that’s about it.
Havent watched the video yet but I feel like allowing ground vehicles to not be detectable by ship radars in 99% of circumstances would solve this immediately.
I just wanted to point out that even though ground vehicles had their detection range increased, air vehicles received a nerf to their ability to detect them. this makes it so ground vehicles can more easily see other ground vehicles
Yes which my orgmates speculate was a shrot sighted decision to simply improve the 'Tank Royale' game mode that no-one plays.
Absolutely agree with all of this, great work DTOX bringing attention to it!
You don't need self-status in ground vehicles because you have no shield, nor armor to speak off.
So the status is either dead or alive :)
IMO the core problem is the in game price. Buying a vehicle with $ is the silliest thing you can do because they all cost chump change in aUEC. Thus almost no one buys them for cash, and thus CIG does not put many resources into improving them.
Also, why use a tonk if you have the same or better firepower and armament in a much more mobile platform?
Giving vehicals smooth throttle and steering imput instead of binary all or nothing would already be a big step.
Last night a couple of my buddies and I filled a C2 with a Centurion and some cyclones and decided to take over Ghost Hollow. We air dropped the vehicles successfully and used the C2 as bait to take out their heavy fighters with the ground vehicles. Probably one of the best sessions we've had.
In addition to a round of buffs accross the board for ground vehicles (including hull/impact resistance for hoverbikes) i think the game really lacks much reason to use them.
Personally i would say that somewhere in pyro or stanton there should be missions that feature ground vehicle gameplay like convoys that need to be protected from local bandit gangs while also going under the radar to avoid broader detection. These could be on rails where the win condition is just getting the convoy to its intended location.
I feel that it could be solved with a vehicle that can project a large holographic shield that protects against such brutal aerial threats
Yeah this is one of those major copium ideas, but a gungan shield generator sorta thing, at least around bases, would be amazing.
This is a more than fair assessment
Just some way to navigate in ground vehicles would be huge
On the positive side, I think CIG is well aware that ground vehicles right now are not in a good spot. On the bad side, I also think that right now, fixing ground vehicles just isn't a very high priority for them.
They are working on and testing stuff, see the changes to the Ursa and Atlas driving behavior for example. But I doubt that it is more than just 1-2 devs occasionally tinkering with it when they have the time. I really hope that it will become more of a priority once more of the core game systems are in place and more devs from SQ42 come over to work on SC.
This is a really good video btw. One thing I would like to add is that I think the effectiveness of ground-based anti-air platforms should be increased if we really want to get combined arms gameplay. Right now it is not difficult to just supress or destroy a Ballista using ships for a lower investment than setting up an entire ground-based operation to take it out would be. There is no real incentive at all for ground-based operation beyond rule of cool. If we want to see real combined arms gameplay, ground-based AA needs to be able to set up effective no-fly zones where hostile ships can't really operate at all. That neccessitates having to airlift in a ground team in order to take the AA out so that bombers and gunships can come in to clear the enemy out after which the ground team can then secure whatever site you are trying to seize.
Without more effective AA, even if ground vehicles get buffed in other ways (more health, better situational awareness etc.), it will always be more effective to secure a site by just sending in an A2 or Redeemer to clear everything out. Because as you mentioned, using ground vehicles involves a lot of logistics and additional crew requirements over just using ships. Ground vehicles need to be able to effectively fight back against heavy bombers and heavily armored gunships like the A2 and the Deemer if we want to see combined arms gameplay. Currently there is no way for ground vehicles to fight back against ships like that. The A2 just drops a bomb and kills you from massive range before you can do anything and the Redeemer just laughs about your puny torpedoes and then proceeds to shred you in seconds with its big guns. And it is not just the Redeemer. Pretty much any ship that has enough shields and/or health to tank some impacts and enough turrets to reliably intercept missiles is impervious to ground-based AA. Ground vehicles just need more bite if they ever want to be a competitive option when ships like that are around.
Agreed on all points. AA needs to be SCARY on the ground, as I said in the video, a combined arms problem should require a combined arms solution! I hope 2024 brings us some good news on this front. Thanks for watching!
One idea i hope is floating around is having vehicle retrieval in ur ship like the carrack u could just spawn ur rover instead of wasting so much time to go and retrieve it along with all the stuff that happens along the way. This could apply for fighters within ships too.
Agree with this D, and you are far kinder with your words than I would have been. Problem 1: Ground vehicle mass/weight! Where is it? TBF none of the vehicles feel like they weigh anything esp. when you see these ships and vehicles move around in atmos/gravity. If we can get this sorted then at least we are no longer driving big massive helium filled blobs. Problem 2: why are the defensive components of a ship different from a ground vehicle when the components are exactly the same! All the other stuff mentioned can be address quicker by increasing locking range on AA giving armoured vehicles better hp pools as they are actually armoured compared to a ship, that needs to be lighter to allow breaking gravity pulls. I could keep bi**ing about this. Instead share the video peeps and get it fixed and you wont have to hear me bleet :)
Hope CIG sees this cause it highlights SO many of the issues... i want to use ground vehicles so bad.. but they are utter garbage.. Planetside 2 did vehicles right... maybe CIG should take notes from them
Im not so sure about increasing toughness of the balista after the invisible balista debacle ;).
Good vid and feedback dtox, hope it arrives on the desks at CIG!
Just give the ballista and centurion enough range and damage that you can't just ignore them. And you shouldn't be able to kill them in a single strafe. Only the best pilots should be able to barely evade AA and get close enough for a gun run and anything with enough firepower to one shot or single strafe should be EXTREMELY vulnerable in atmosphere.
the 1st hurdle with ground vehicals is they have the wrong people working on them, the research is done for them, with games like world of tanks and mechwarrior, and somehow they push out the strangest vehicals, tanks that can hardly look up in the air, or 3rd person mini tanks. ineffective Tumbril AA vehicals. the only ground vehical they got right was the grey cat buggy.... because it had the word BUGGY in its name!
Even some cheeky no fly zones here and there would be a start to get some dynamic ground based gameplay
Keep in mind, ships are going to be much, much slower with the new flight model. And when armor gets implemented, it's likely that a ship like the A1 Spirit will be knocked out of the sky before they can even get a bomb off by a single well placed missile.
The real issue is that combat in Star Citizen, as you would expect from a universe where combat aircraft can fly out of atmosphere and back at will, you can't 'screen' a location with anti-air because ships can come from literally anywhere, even directly above the target location.
In a realistic combat scenario, there's an invisible line drawn. This line dictates what is enemy territory, and what is allied territory. That line would typically be covered in all kinds of detection equipment to alert either side long before an aircraft crosses the line, and defenses are in place such as anti-air to take down those targets that cross that line. On top of this, an aircraft carrying any sort of payload is very, VERY expensive.
In contrast, in Star Citizen, 'target locations' are typically an isolated, neutral location that is constantly changing who controls it. There is no battle line because it's just a single location, maybe even a single building in the middle of nowhere. Any faction can approach from any direction, there is no detection until a target is within like 10km which at that point, a bomber has pretty much already dropped its payload, and missiles don't even travel that far to begin with despite the fact that in real life, missiles are fired at aircraft from hundreds of miles away if necessary.
Personally I would like ground vehicles to lean more toward being overpowered, the kind of thing where, you can't take an aircraft near anti-air because it's that good at its job. So you have to send in ground vehicles to deal with it. This would need to be in the future though... not one person sitting in an AA at Brios completely locking it down from the entire server.
In the past we've had 5,6,7,10 man teams at locations 'screening' the perimeter with Ballista's and Centurions. It *can* work and you can detect things like A2's far enough out if you're not preoccupied to prepare for the bomb, You are still helpless for the most part, though, and heavily reliant on surprise hits. I've also been asking for a 'radar' truck with much higher detection range for ground to help pickup sigs much further out, which also incentivizes stealth ships even more.
"Personally I would like ground vehicles to lean more toward being overpowered, the kind of thing where, you can't take an aircraft near anti-air because it's that good at its job. So you have to send in ground vehicles to deal with it. This would need to be in the future though... not one person sitting in an AA at Brios completely locking it down from the entire server."
Agreed, but don't forget, that '1 man sitting at brios' has a logistical chain behind him and as soon as he's dead or shot by a tank/guy on foot, its over. 1 man won't hold anything for long without a group and/or teamwork. It should require that group/team to have longevity on the field but it also needs to be worth it.
Ground/floaty vehicles in SC are indeed dire, whether it be floaty, or bouncy, the physics vs terrain is immersion breaking. I must admit to playing more , or in fact daily since 3.19., and enjoying it immensely. Yet the rigors of either floaty/bouncy vehicles are testing to say the least. That being said, i'll definitely pass on the X1
The relation in armour is completely unrealistic. It makes sense that 0G spaceships could be more heavily armoured, but just like irl, no way should any atmospheric somewhat agile aircraft be more heavily armoured than any military ground vehicle. On the other hand, it also wouldn't make sense for a comparatively tiny APC to have shields as strong as a large spaceship, which has massive generators and power supply. A tank should also be far less expensive than a spaceship, but this will only become relevant once a vehicle loss in itself is a significant cost (and you can't just claim it back for free) and there are large battles with many casualties. The vehicles themselves need improvement, but I'm not sure balancing alone can make them worthwhile without making them more powerful than they realistically should be.
The most important thing to make ground vehicles relevant is to create worthwhile ground targets. Things that need boots on the ground, rather than just bombarding from the air, but on a scale where ground transport will be necessary or at least helpful. Missions involving large areas of heavily defended airspace for instance, or large complexes that need to be entered whose defences can't be eliminated by simple bombardment. Think sensitive data/items inside a large surface base with heavy AA. You can't just shoot at everything from the air, because you risk damaging what you want, or just because it's in bunkers, but the area of hostiles is so large that going on foot won't work, and the cannon and armour of an IFV would really help. They really just need to look at why ground combat is still a thing in the real world, and create those scenarios in game.
I expect some of what you're saying will come with the new large UGF compounds which is a good start.
They need to make it where they can't be targeted.... 1. It will make it where ships have to manually shoot them. 2. It will make bombers more useful because they will be necessary to kill ground vehicles... bringing usefulness to both . 3. Specialty weapons and features .... ECM, EMP, etc. etc. 4. Base vs Base missions with only small pads... so basically you spawn at base... get your ground vehicle and attack neighbor. We kinda can do this as is with carrack/890j ... the main requirement would be high anti air to require ground vehicle.
nah, just have them to be really close to pick up on their signature.
Ok, I would allow targeting but no PIP ... make up excuse that Tracking computer can't track/predict ground vehicle movement/create pip. Maybe allow missiles... The key is to allow ground v ground without air interfering too much except for bombers and ships who specialize in Air to ground. You can create mission areas with allot of AA but that's limiting where you can use them.
If you made them invulnerable to air attack, it will make them tempting to use by players. Then you can create ships that specialize in Air to Ground (like the bombers and dropships) ... you give bombers a reason to be. dropships a reason to be, Also others will need their own ground forces to counter yours...
Imagine a Ballista but you can only kill it by going to nearby pad and spawning a ground vehicle.... if its protected, then you need 2-3 people to spawn several nova or centurion or whatever... alternative is to go get a A1 or A2 to bomb the Ballista and his friends.
Like real life... most of time Jets don't attack ground targets... only attack air targets. Helicopters, warthogs attack ground targets.
There needs to be a paper rock scissors situation with our vehicles . Air to Air is scissors, Air to Ground is paper, Ground is Rock.
If you bring Air To Ground (Paper) , my air to air (scissor) will kill it... if you bring Air to air (scissor), my Ground to air (Rock) will kill it , if you bring Ground to Air (Rock) , my Air to ground(Paper) will kill it.
I'm not saying you have to have it where Rock cant attack paper... just give Paper a huge advantage against rock... and scissors a huge advantage against paper... finally give Rock a huge advantage against scissors.
@@SkyForceOne2
Also, why can't you just drop down vehicles from low orbit? People can para-drop tanks right now, surely in the sci-fi future people'll come up with more efficient way to deliver vehicles right into combat.
Good Video, just the balancing aspect needs a complete rework. The way it currently works makes it impossible to balance. If you make the Vehicles tanky then you have the problem that they're a impenetrable wall as as ground combat, making the players then stronger leads to the question: "Why can I make a spaceship explode with 9mm?". In my humble opinion, they need to add specific modifiers to weapons and specific ground items. For example: Imagine a ground effect shield, which is a lot stronger against large caliber weapons and basically negated them to that make energy type weapon be ineffective in atmosphere and give ballistics less range or more falloff. To that we now give the Vehicles Surface to Air missiles that are better at their job, a lot better, so that you either have to bomb them or flank them with small fighters, so they have a use. Or push them with a ground strike force. An Anti-Air installation should be a nogo zone for large ships, like in real life. The US Army probably wouldn't put a C17 close to an AA installation, that would be suicide.
This would accomplish three things: Make Ground Combat viable, give rockets a use, and gives small flaking craft a use
Add to that a Javelin, and give the vehicles flares or smoke and you have a three stage emergent gameplay that would give everything a use. Tanks counter Tanks and LAVs, LAVs counter AA, AA is for area control and Speeders and Quads are for perimeter defence. On foot gameplay can do everything badly, while being stealthy and low damage
We've been calling for modifiers for a while, modifiers based on chassis/turret/bespoke weapons is a good way to go in many situations. Gamify the game!
I think that the idea that ground vehicles could fight ships is impossible in this game, with how things are going, and my only hope is that they make them at least much more useful for certain game loops than ships. At least give players an actual good reason to use them, even if it's not possibly fighting ships.
no, not really. why would u think that. you just have to make them pack a punch and be hard to detect. and operated by 2 ppl max
Based, I don't but vehicles because they are cheap in game and more importantly they stuck
The light tank is the only full military vehicle I'd want, something to bring to any org operations should a bit of armor be needed. I would personally use rovers and scouts more, but sensor gameplay is bearly there so even they don't have much use still. Even if they're systems were working, they're going to still be lacking their stealthier capabilities and a ship would still be faster at getting readings. Guess we'll have to wait and see if vehicles will ever be that useful.
But you forgot one thing, it's not only the ben ground vehicles but also the spaceships are still too strong which will change with master modes etc. the ships won't be able to hover in the atmo for long unless they have Vtol but yes the ground vehicles have received too little attention so far.
Just like the FPS combat for air defense e.g. why is the railgun and the rocket launcher rare and not purchasable? In the Ptu 3.22 patch there are now NPCs with railguns that are quite dangerous when they work.
Great summery! It's truly tragic.
You sounds like a professional documentary narrator! Subbed!
Welcome aboard!
Maybe thats why they are changing the flight model. No more ships hovering in air aiming down and searching for target on ground.
This might begin to help the situation but there are still copious amounts of design problems though that need addressing.
I'm so glad someone is saying this
Its the tragic state of Star Citizen, its vehicles are just a symptom.
I wouldn't consider this tragic. I see CIG ranking this as a low priority for the PU.
Hang in there, they'll work it out. Cheers
the problem is that their base design is absolute hot garbage. you'd expect very functional and simple things in the current state, but no, its just designed in a broken and useless way
Great video and awesome editing. Thanks for making this video for all to see, CIG needs to change things for the better and make it more fun to play the ground game.
OMG! There are ground vehicles in Star Citizen? I have never seen one in the verse.
Absolutely correct on ALL points. Worst combat fighting vehicle design of any game I have ever played. Take the storm with front entry/exit, shit FOV, and fully exposed weapon rack so that if you do survive a hit on the front and then exit the vehicle into no cover and somehow manage to survive, then have to get your weapon out of a fully exposed locker... FFS CIG ... "rule of cool" doesn't work when "Dumb by design" is in play.... please get some design advisory staff that have actual military experience... and I don't mean 300 hours on call of duty lol... IRL military experience.
I rekon they'll want to fully simulate storms - so dynamic cloud systyems will be needed first
Excellent video , highlights everything that is wrong with the ground vehicles.
A lot of the issues with ground vehicles can probably be attributed to the lack of overall vision for them, checks and balances pass prior to release, a QA check and that CIG devs probably dont even use them to expose the issues. As someone who has worked on military armoured vehicles for 30 years I just laugh at their vehicles. The designers clearly have little idea of why AFVs are built the way they are.
Yes, absolutely. As I point out in the video, they're totally made for style over substance, whatever looks cool to sell a few jpegs.
I wonder if the Ballista nerf had something to do with light fighters, which would naturally be one shot by a ballista, and some of the less than savory people who might pilot them.
Cig Fails Every Time on ground vehicles. They don't even know WTF they are doing
Don't forget nothing has mass. Or mass simulation at all. After seeing cog progress for 12 yrs . Alot of sc is very neish. Guns don't depress.
Almost no suspension travel.
More arcady then most arcade games.
i'm still waiting for a throttle control, AKA mouse wheel
The problem is that ground vehicles are set up for a war we would fight today, while spacecraft move like hummingbirds. They can fly past at lightning speed and still shoot accurately, hover in the air without falling, and so on. We don't need stronger ground vehicles; we need weaker spacecraft. Things like the F8C or the Ares Starfighter shouldn't be in the game until they have opponents.
CIG is primarily interested in money, so the items for sale keep getting stronger. In 5 years, a ship with 10xS9 weapons will surely come because otherwise, it would be worse than something you bought in the last 16 years. And who buys downgrades? Everyone buys upgrades. And that's why everything has to get crazier, more weapons, more bombs, more torpedoes. And eventually, a Ballista will come that only shoots Size 15 torpedoes because otherwise, no more money will be flowing into the coffers.
I couldn't care less about combat vehicles. The only ground vehicle I would buy would be a civilian or science truck with a trailer that contains a hab, and maybe a small lab. I've been waiting for that since 3.0. But CIG still think in combat terns only.... and that very incompetently.
Hopefully ground vehicles will see their survivability be adjusted soon, just like how they recently fixed the Corsair.