Hello youtubers this is the noobifier. During our weekly org meeting, the conversation went much broader than normal, and we started to talk about our concerns for the future of star citizen. The org is made up of mostly original backers who track development with more detail, than average. We have a wide range of backer from those with a basic starter pack, to Legatus plus plus. We all want the same thing, which is why we back, follow and play. We want the dream that was pitched, but we gladly accept a little left or right of the original plan, as long as it becomes, the best damn space sim in the universe. I’m going to condense some of the things that were discussed, and the reason I am making the video is to try to put into words what some are thinking. My hope here is that you will hear what we have to say, and also post your thoughts in the comments. This type of video works better if you share with your orgmate or friends, it took some time to piece together. Let’s begin with the kickstarter which is where we first saw the start of our World War 2 simulator set in space. It’s early days and we had no idea what the end state would be. It's clear now that the developers probably also had cloudy idea on the end state, basically developing and designing on the fly. Between the video demo and the words presented by Chris Roberts, see some some Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica and a bit of Buck Rogers. It looked and sounded great and it was a simpler time before the marketing machine ramped up with stretch goals. Week after week, the project sounded better and better as more people theorycrafted about the possible future. I'm going to jump forward a bit and talk about IFCS, because its why I became a backer. IFCS is Independent Flight Control System, which is a 6 degree of freedom newtonian simulation created by John Pritchett. Center of Gravity and mass would be calculated based on the weight of all of the parts. The parts that made up the ship existed independently, meaning they would be able to take damage independently Not only would the missing part result in a change of center of gravity altering the flight, but, the parts and systems, would realistically react to damage. The hull would eventually be layered over other systems such as if the hull took a massive hit, it would impact lower systems just like punching body armour could compromise you. With the first releases of Arena Commander, these systems were simply and quietly added patch to patch. Patch notes were not really a thing and from the players perspective, some of these features needed to be discovered. The look, feel and gameplay improved quickly, Progress was clearly being made. The ships flew based on the thruster output translating your input. If the thrust pool was sufficient, your ship would do exactly as you asked. It wasn't faked, it was simulated. You needed to manage your boost fuel, your rate and attitude to ensure your weapons came to bear first. It was so skill based, that is became enjoyable and rewarding. After playing for a bit at a friends house, I bought into the project eager to practice and learn. I knew my time invested was not only fun, but would lead me to a better starting skill level. I could see myself being a dogfighter in game, running escort, offering protection or engaging head to head to settle a score. That classic chaos of dogfighting in space, but somehow I found it calming and methodical. These are the mechanics we had at the second patch of Arena Commander. The were polished and around patch 1.3, they worked perfect. I remembered that if a player was acquiring missile lock on me, I knew exactly how long to wait before popping a chaff and thus breaking the lock. I knew that if I moved a bit further away or reduced my systems output, my resulting signature would make me fall off of that players scanner. The combat was quick, the ships felt quick and I could time that chaff to give me time to get behind an asteroid. The asteroid was protection because at that time, you needed to see something to lock it in star citizen. You needed to see something to have a PIP and a firing solution. By reducing my power output and keeping an asteroid between myself and my foe, I gained an advantage. My knowledge of the gameplay allowed me to gain an advantage. It wasn’t cheating because it was an intended part of the simulation. This cat and mouse type gameply was ahead of its time and I fear its gone from Star Citizen Forever. For several patches, I purposefully ran without missiles. IFCS was able to translate this change of mass into a slightly better flight characteristics. The lower mass, allowed me to close the radius a bit tighter and sooner giving me better rate and position over my enemy. This is about the time that dual stick became more popular and when space combat became knife fighting. The Six Degree of freedom newtonian model coupled with independent control over all six degrees meant that you had options. You could kill a circle strafe before it started by rolling and pulling back, keeping weapons on the enemy and controlling your distance. You see, we still had sufficient lateral thrust that all of the negative behaviors weren’t really a thing. When racing was added it further pushed players skill and competitive gameplay. You got so used to the drift, the blackout limit, and fuel recovery, that it all became second nature. This skill translated directly, to dogfighting so we had a reason to be good at both. Some players like “WTF o sarus” had enough flight time in racing, that they he was able to post great lap times and read chat at the same time. It was humbling and humiliating to be paired up with one of these pilots in a race, because they showed you how much you needed to learn. It was never a waste of my time to fly, because, once again, we knew this was our flight model and they were going to build a universe upon it. At the time, I had never considered they would break it so badly in the future. AC wasn't perfect but it was really good. High frame rate, good hit registration and most of all, it rewarded skill and was fun. You felt like a god in your ship, it translated your thoughts and inputs. After CIG adjusted the weapons and hardpoints document, running fixed weapons gave you a slight advantage in DPS over gimballed. That made sense as gimbaled might have more time on target, but needed to hit more to kill. The PIP or Predicted impact point indicator made an assessment of where to aim. It never gave you the perfect solution because it didn't account for what the enemy would do between when you shot and when it hit. We had a visual attitude indicator as part of the HUD element that showed us were the ship was facing and we had a leader line to the PIP which showed us their changing velocity. The pilot needed to make these micro adjustments to their aim and could based on the information from the HUD elements. If the target sped up or changed direction, you would need to lead the lead pip. Trigger time and practice made this second nature. Weapons had better range and were relatively accurate allowing for longer range hits with reliability. Firing off into space would heat up the guns, but you could fire a couple shots at long range to tag the target if you knew where to aim. You basically looked at your distance and knew when to start firing. Skill was preserved up to this point despite a rocky year. Just before patch 2.5, Chris Roberts announced that he wanted to move combat closer because the assets were beautiful and detailed. To achieve this they would reduce thruster output, neuter weapon accuracy and tinkered with the top speed. They said they wanted to address jousting but what we got then is generally seen as the start of the end. What was worse was we lost so much progress and the changes didn’t fix the issues they were supposed to. 2.6 nerfed the accuracy even more by further reducing the range that a projectile travel plus some other changes. 3.0 felt busted and I noticed that most of the great positional dogfighting was ruined. It felt at that time, like the one thing that CIG had achieved was a working flight model, that that it was thrown out. Please understand that I am aware of fantastic improvements in other directions such as planets, living cities, mining, rentals, the start of Law and Bounty. For flight in general though, planets added atmosphere, gravity and GRAVLEV. Theses were never part of the original plan. It feels as if someone started pulling on the threads to fix what seemed wrong at the time. It feels like our once beautiful sweater has been reduced to not much more than a ball of yarn again. Most alarming to the group of friends discussing at the weekly meeting, we are currently just over one year away from the proposed release of Squadron 42. Many in the org consider combat in 3.7 to be a broken shell of what we had. You can still get from point A to B, but all of what I remember worked so well, isnt there anymore. 7 years into development, the sweater appears to be in pieces and people are still pulling on the strings looking for a solution.