At least we can tell CIG has finally identified something they are are actually excelling at...
youtube.com/watch?v=Xh35kuWo…
That said:
@RobertsSpaceInd you REALLY need to buckle down and work on the things that MATTER MOST every single session to every single
#StarCitizen .
You have proven that you CAN actually fix things. In 4.0 you recognized just how bad the Transit Lifts were. You did the right thing and cancelled the Red Event FF. In 4.0.1 you actually FIXED the Transit Lifts. I'm hoping that the (seemingly great) polish we see being tested at Grim Hex will be ready to go game-wide ASAP.
Please now do the same thing for:
1. Hangar/Pad Services (Including Store/Retrieve & Docking). This is a HUGE problem that has been under-developed for way too long. It has become especially critical now that you've added the Insurance system (which I do think was important to get added). We're still having to Claim ships because they randomly become "Unknown" even when you store them. Or, worse, you retrieve them and they are anywhere from 100m away to 100Gm away... nowhere near your location, let alone your hangar.
2. Inventory. Frankly, I only put this as #2 because you have recently worked on Inventory UIX. It is absolutely better than it was. Until it's not. The big problem right now is Inventory just suddenly failing from one use to another, and the only workaround seems to be killing the SC client and reconnecting. If you cannot resolve these issues in the immediate, you absolutely SHOULD give us a console command to reset the inventory connection. The best content in the game is instantly BORKED when your personal inventory goes MIA.
3. Navigation. Your StarMap facelift was pretty good. Though some of the functionality you added is now gone. Why can't we set routes on the map anymore? Was a nice feature that is now just gone. More importantly, however, is how terrible the routing system is. We are constantly put in a state where all the POIs are gone off the HUD. And/Or anywhere we try and set a route to just will not lock in. As in it clearly gives a route, but it won't stick. We are still getting routes that don't work... trying to send us through a planetary body and the like. IT. IS. TERRIBLE. This navigation system was fine in 2.x when all we had was a handful of POIs, but it's gotten progressively worse with every patch since. Please fix this barrier to enjoying literally everything in the verse!
4. Mission system. I know you're aware it's JANK. You've said work is ongoing. But it's really getting fatiguing to spend anywhere from 10 mins to AN HOUR (insert
@SaltEMike @Morphologis meme clip here... o7 Morph & Mike) traveling as far as another star system just to complete the objective(s) of a contract and get diddly squat... because the mission just does not register your completion. This could be because no Navgiation POI is given. It could be because no Cargo is present in the FE Warehouse to actually pick up. It could be because the NPC never spawns. It could be literally anything that is supposed to be there as s trigger just ISN'T. When it really comes down to it... this is the most important system in the game for it to BE a game, and it's been unreliable for over a decade now. It's really beyond time for this to be a MAJOR focus to move the project along.
5. Freight Elevators. These have been a problem since you added them. They FAIL often. You MUST have metrics on this. They have become core components of many kinds of Contracts. They are critical to the Wikelo loop. They are now used to CLAIM lost cash shop/flair items (please get FPS gear in there ASAP). They are INTEGRAL to Industrial game play overall. Despite how vital they have become... we constantly see FEs "Overloaded" when empty. We see them just fail to come up, kicking us out of the interface without any error. We some of them just do NOTHING. Seems pretty clear that the busier/more popular a location is, the quicker they die. This is another situation where... if you are not going to actually fix it in short order, you SHOULD have added some kind of reset/report button/console command to move things along. For there to consistently be no way to reset/restore these kinds of things has become a chronic problem. I think that we all understand that you don't want to waste dev hours on placeholder systems... because you have a fix in the works in some future Geezus build... but it's been years now that you have declared "PLAY NOW!" for this "LIVE SERVICE" and these kinds of hard stops to game play are happening more often, not less, and you really should respect our time more than you are.
IMO,, these 5 things should have been addressed before you even announced a launch date for Squadron 42. Because here's the deal (and I know you guys know this):
If S42 launches to critical acclaim and massive success... it's going to become an instant gateway drawing new players into the PU. And it is absolutely NOT ready for that exposure. Regular gamers are NOT going to just suck it up when the most basic of things knock them down and then curb stomp them. They just won't.
No matter how much "COOLER" Star Citizen may look.
(P.S. Props to the very talented artists working on the Railen. It looks great! Also, I don't actually want them to stop making new ships. It's fine if that's how CIG wants to fund the project, and the more variety the better. But it would be nice if CIG appeared to respect our time a bit more... and focused as much on the state of the verse those ships live in.)