So, to those of you who admit defeat by the game's installer.
I played a bit of this shit so you don't have to.
I started off by doing a bit of pew pewing in space and it wasn't entirely unenjoyable. Managed to get me some OK money, test out a few cheap ships, check out the weapons and modules.
Might give you a more detailed account on if I'm feeling like it later.
To my surprise, elevators were working as intended, and I only had one incident of falling through the hangar floor on landing and one incident when the train station didn't load
leaving me trapped in space. This is what progress looks like, baby!
I also tried mining. People say it's the most feature complete of the "gameplay loops" (damn I hate this term) and a decent way to earn credits.
So, here's how it went:
Started by buying meself a wheeled craft for surface mining, it comes equipped with a fixed mining laser.
Hauled ass to the game's main mining hub at planet Hurston and parked on a mining outpost on one of the moons. Turns out the mining buggy does not have a properly insulated cabin,
so I also need to get a suit to protect me from the conditions on the moon (the space suit protecting me from the vacuum of space apparently cannot handle -40 degrees, because fuck physics).
I spawn the ROC miner craft in the mining outpost and take it for a spin. Gravity seems low and it bounces around like a motherfucker. All the riding is fun, but I can't find anything mineable within
a few kilometers from the outpost. Guess it has been picked clean. Note to self: I need a ship to carry the buggy around and scan for minerals.
Which ship can carry the ROC? Tough luck finding out in game (other than trying each ship manually), so I need to fuck off to youtube to actually get that kind of info.
I have a Pisces, which is something like a space minivan with a ramp and quite a bit of storage room, but turns out this is not it. Cutlass seems to be a popular choice for this.
Now, this one is outside my current financial range, but thankfully I can just rent it out at a refinery station for a fraction of the cost.
The only downside being, I cannot mess with the ship's setup.
The game gives me a few options, I can rent it for a day, three days, a week or a month. Of course, due to a bug, only the 1-day rental works. All others
charge me for the full month. Subscription services never change.
It's time to call it a day, so I log out of the game. My new rental has a bed, so I can park it next to the mining site of my choice, logout, then hop back into the game at the same location.
Let's see how it goes.
Next day, I log in to find that my spacesuit is gone and I'm lying butt naked in the ship. Bug or feature? Did they also take my character's virginity in my sleep? I cannot say.
Something always goes fucky when I use the bed logout, but this one's a first. This complicates things, cause I cannot go outside without a spacesuit.
Somewhat desperately, I make a run for the nearest infrastructure, holding my breath. Sometimes you can find random gear in the buildings.
There's a chance the game will rubberband or I slip and fall over, which means death by asphyxiation.
I get lucky this time and manage to find a helmet and a jacket. No pants, unfortunately.
This isn't ideal, but perhaps I can at least do some mining this time? I go to the terminal for spawning vehicles and my ROC materializes after a few seconds.
Now, for whatever reason, the Cutlass I wanted to park it in is nowhere to be seen. Gone. Space negroes stealing spacesuits AND ships? I have a feeling this hood is kind of bad for a fool to stick around.
I try re-spawning the Cutlass from the terminal, but it says the ship's too big for the pad. Oh for fuck's sake.
Suicide is often the best option in SC, and I do so. All this Star Citizening was rather tiresome, so I decide to just log out for the day.
Third day of my mining and perhaps third time's the charm. I reclaim the ship from the console. Since I suicided, I need to file an insurance claim to get it back.
This puts me on a six minute timer which I could expedite this by spending a handful of credits and since I was supposed to earn some fucking cash on this
whole endeavor, I decide to wait it out.
Okay, let's try this shit again. I punch the route for one of the moons around Hurston and alt tab to watch some pron, cause the warp travel takes a few minutes.
(this depends on the equipped drive, but since it's a rental, can't do anything here.)
Upon arrival, I pick a random mining outpost to land. Turns out this one doesn't have the vehicle spawn panel. Balls.
I fly to the next one, arrive at the marker and am greeted by an empty patch of land. No flight control signal, no nothing.
Seems like the whole location didn't load. Durr. I spool up the warp drive and hop to the next moon. Turns out the bug persists and no locations spawn here either.
Point taken. The game doesn't want me to mine shit. I Alt+F4-off and go do something else with my day.
So, to sum it up, the game is fucked in ways which one has to see to actually believe and you need to have the patience of a saint to actually make things work.
There are days when shit mostly works and can be considered playable, not sure if it's related to the additional stress due to the free fly, but a lot of the time
it feels like you're learning to navigate the intricate web of bugs and find out what's actually "safe" to do.
Until you get to this point, the game likes to punish you by wasting your time - all those minutes spent reclaiming ships, rebuying gear, traveling in space add up rather quickly.
So what do you get for all this trouble? Having tried it, I can see where's the appeal. It has the scope and it promises a lot.
The veneer quickly flakes off once the first bugs hit and you start noticing that a lot of things is just for show and don't really do anything.
But they might. Sometime in the future. If you've ever listened to a SC youtuber, you'll find this popping out quite frequently: yeah once XXX is actually implemented...
It's a great game to fantasize about (especially when you're not playing), particularly susceptible individuals might be tempted to throw more and more time and money at it,
thinking shit will totally get better in the next update that's just round the corner. Totally. You only need a few more credits/$$$ to get that cool ship which will totally change everything...
Until you realize it's been like this for years and the bugs that are biting you in the ass have already been reported pre-2020.
//Some minor edits here and there//
