
Star Citizen's ARK Starmap - voidreaper
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/starmap
======
DanAndersen
Well, it reminds me of Star Citizen for sure -- in that it's a pretty-looking
interface but overburdened with unacceptably long loading times, laggy and
unresponsive feedback in the UI, and _motion blur_ on all the things to the
point of being unusable. Every few months I look into where SC is at, and am
not surprised to see more flash and surface-level polish, more extra features
no one was asking for, and yet core gameplay/interactions that make me cringe
when trying to interact with them. Why is SC this way?

~~~
ehnto
In the actual game, the FPS kills their otherwise really fun UI. I finally got
to play it at 40 FPS or more recently and it makes an insane difference to how
it all feels. It doesn't feel clunky or broken when it's running properly. You
also start to understand some of their choices when you play for a while and
feel the built in pacing of the game. It's not a flashy fast paced space call
of duty. Every interaction is more drawn out, and forces you to be a bit more
patient and thoughtful.

I also have to point out that it runs smoothly for me and many others, but it
is an alpha game that's supposed to be cutting edge in a few years time when
it releases. Expecting it to run well everywhere has been one of the huge
drawbacks of open development as they have ended up doing a few performance
passes that really didn't need to be done yet. It's not meant to be a released
game. It also loads in less than 40 seconds for me now as they implemented
level streaming.

~~~
sandworm101
Ah, the "it's still alpha" defense. The KSP player's lament. (Or subnautica,
or any other popular alpha in nrecent years.)

Problems that persist in alphas tend to never get fixed. Improvements are only
ever incremental. If you arent happy with the alpha, you wont be happy with
the final product.

~~~
LoSboccacc
never saw ksp eva issues fixed and at this point I just lost hope. doesn't
help that the whole mvp team quit by now.

~~~
sandworm101
New bugs in latest version make it unplayable for me. Faint hope that they
will be fixed. Gave up on longstanding bugs ever being fixed mamy years ago.

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vinchuco
Amazing. That took a while to load.

Screenshots:

[https://i.imgur.com/XCNTHex.png](https://i.imgur.com/XCNTHex.png)

[https://i.imgur.com/lhqSEch.png](https://i.imgur.com/lhqSEch.png)

[https://i.imgur.com/XHsiXQv.png](https://i.imgur.com/XHsiXQv.png)

[https://i.imgur.com/frGqWAP.png](https://i.imgur.com/frGqWAP.png)

~~~
flattone
Couldnt even get a response my n5x power button after trying to open on phone
lte

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deklerk
Very very cool. One of the most neatest use of javascript/browsers I've seen,
but then again I'm a huge sucker for sci-fi space stuff. :)

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hliyan
Perhaps coincidentally, I discovered this Spaceship generator yesterday (looks
best with the orange wireframe setting):
[http://ship.shapewright.com/](http://ship.shapewright.com/)

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bhouston
Very nice. I see my code it in. :)

The Three.JS version is 71 which is +3 years old:
[https://github.com/mrdoob/three.js/releases?after=r72](https://github.com/mrdoob/three.js/releases?after=r72)

I guess this UI was released ~3 years ago?

~~~
benjaminsuch
Yes the ARK Map is pretty "old". Really nice work tho.

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windlep
Lovely site, I'm guessing this is still an early draft so there hasn't been
much optimization. I'm on gigabit fiber and it took awhile to load.

FF Network panel shows:

\- 131 requests

\- 32.74 MB

Many of the graphics requests could likely be wrapped up, sprites, etc.
Looking forward to a more optimized version.

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simonebrunozzi
Wow. The map is really, really impressive.

It reminds me how much I miss Master of Orion 2, one of the (if not THE) best
strategy games I've ever played.

~~~
imtringued
Master of orion 1 is better because it doesn't have the stupid fleet size
limit.

~~~
extrapickles
I loved to be able to attack with 32k ships as it felt more realistic than
current games where you have a very limited number.

Master of Orion 1 also got me to reverse enough of its save format to move
planets around so I could make a crude scenario editor, leading to my current
career in infosec.

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mathnode
On Edge and Safari it's just an interface over a black screen. For a video
game to reach a wider audience, should this not be a little more compatible
with us boring old vanilla users?

~~~
mathnode
I just now tried again and it works. Maybe it was just bandwidth or they fixed
something. Both?

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jaytaylor
Note: Does not seem to work on Android chrome. 3rd try caused my Nexus 6P to
lock up for a full minute.

Still curious what it is. Was hoping it was Star Citizen for Ark, i.e. space
meets dinosaurs.

~~~
zlynx
I don't think it's meant to be run on a phone. It uses 580 MB of RAM in a
Chrome tab and quite a lot of CPU when rotating, zooming or moving around. I
just tried it and on this Linux laptop, in Chrome, on an Intel iGPU, it
performed well enough.

What it is, is the star map for the PC game Star Citizen. This will be in game
eventually.

The Star Citizen web site also does some neat ship models and wireframes using
WebGL.

~~~
MR4D
Runs on my iPhone 6s. A bit clunky, but usable.

Will try my iPad Pro later.

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pier25
Loads fast and runs fine for me.

It's pretty amazing what can be done on a browser these days.

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Camillo
Looks good and loads fast. Kind of annoying in terms of usability, though. If
you click on a planet it just zooms in and you can't do anything. You have to
go back to the system view, then hover (but not click) on a planet, then click
on the "control disk" label that appears.

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jvanderbot
Very cool! Where can I get a playlist for work that sounds like this spacey
atmospheric music so I don't have to leave this tab open?

Does anyone else work to this type of sound?

I sometimes listen to the original diablo soundtrack, homeworld and homeworld
2, and sometimes even starcraft.

Also the voyager radiosounds are pretty good too!

[https://soundcloud.com/josh-v-17/sets/working/s-ALPrL](https://soundcloud.com/josh-v-17/sets/working/s-ALPrL)

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drivingmenuts
Gave up after about 2 minutes of loading screen.

~~~
Matthias247
I gave up after 30s. I thought loading screens for more than 3s without
progress bars where a thing of the past.

~~~
ehnto
It's more of a tech demo than a usable website. Cool none the less but
definitely not intended to be accessible to all.

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keymone
minutes of loading time and then black screen. oh well, back to doing useful
things.

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tutuca
Incredibly it blocks my phone. It's really invasive. It started playing sound
even on background. Had a hard time until I got to close the tab on the phone
browser...

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wsloth514
Pluto is a planet? I guess in the future they change their mind.

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timvdalen
Wow, that loaded extremely fast and runs very smoothly. It feels very un-
browser-y, really impressive.

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stephengillie
Any concern about name confusion with ARK: Survival Evolved?

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slater
How's the 3D engine lawsuit going?

~~~
ehnto
Still underway and seems to be quiet. Crytek demanded an outrageous discovery
reach and got dismissed. I believe cryteks intentions are nefarious and
vindictive and I suspect this will all be quite drawn out, I doubt it will
affect Star Citizens development though.

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rmuratov
Impressive.

