I had originally written most of this post after having taken a stab at the ASD Onyx facilities in Star Citizen with @CakedCrusader. In the original post, I bemoaned how much we sucked at the mission because we both ended up dying, but also falling through the world when we respawned, in classic Star Citizen fashion.

But we have since completed a successful recon of the research wing and I can say with certainty that if CIG could just polish the engine and focus on making more content like this, the extended wait for the release of Star Citizen would actually be worth it.

The Regen Crisis

CIG insists on pre-loading Star Citizen with living lore meted out during the alpha, and have crafted the “Regen Crisis” arc as an excuse to release the first “dungeon” designed for the game.

In Star Citizen, people who can afford it (natch) can have their “imprints” made so when they die a horrible death, those imprints can be used to spin up a new clone. Not original by any stretch, but there’s actually more to it than just “living forever”, as detailed in Chris Roberts “Death of a Spaceman” manifesto that you can read here.

Kicking off the story arc, the regeneration technology begins to fail. People who counted on coming back to life after misadventure suddenly…weren’t. Naturally, everyone is panicking and it’s up to the players to help find a solution and mount an investigation. There were several previous narrative steps to this story, most of which I didn’t do in part because the game was running crappy during that patch, or the particular chapter was very PvP focused, or I was off doing something else, or some other excuse.

Though technically the story-line has more or less run it’s course (I think), players can still catch up and go through the content for the last phase that contains the Big Reveal. @CakedCrusader and I have been getting started with the first phase of content.

ASD Onyx Facilities

There are over 100 Onyx facilities in the Stanton system which is CIG’s way of trying to ensure that people can run these for the story and theoretically not have to worry about them turning into PvP war-zones (spoiler alert: it happens). Players start the mission arc by investigating one of the facilities to retrieve some files, which leads to more investigations which send the players deeper into two different wings of the facility: engineering and research.

The first mission is pretty easy, as we only had to hit up a facility and stick to the first levels; the first step didn’t even let us get into the facility proper. Unfortunately, the next time we went in, things didn’t go so well.

Where’s MapQuest When We Need It?

We got lost in the engineering wing. This turned out to be a real pain in the ass because there are juvenile valakkar everywhere and they spit radioactive goo to attack from a distance. There are also NPC raiders popping out of spawn closets throughout the facility. Because these facilities are abandoned and, truthfully, destroyed from within, traversal is massively confusing. Even though we managed to secure the objective, we couldn’t figure out how to get back to the damn lobby and ended up falling into a pit where we died from radiation. Thankfully, the system let us keep our win, so that was another step complete. This drove me to do something I hate to do: watch a video on how to accomplish the task. Know that I kicked myself in the ass because I found out that we had walked right past the exit at least once.

Second Verse, Same as the First, But Different

Next we had to go back, but this time we needed to get to the research wing. This turned out to be a much longer session. I accidentally fell down a stairwell. @CakedCrusader got stuck in a wall because Star Citizen; I had to kill him, and before I could get my medigun in hand he respawned six stories up and had to find a way to get back down to where I was. The good news is that we managed to find the exit to the lobby this time, so we regrouped there before heading back down a second time to achieve the goal and, knowing roughly where we were going this time, return home safely.

If This is the Future of Star Citizen, I’m All In

I’ve been increasingly critical (read: cranky) of Star Citizen as time goes on; my lead-up has been longer that some/many/most, but the long-tail view of this project has lead me to believe that it would ultimately end in disaster. Only through the application of intense levels of willpower would I remember that CIG’s focus is on Squadron 42 right now, and when that is done, it’ll be all in on the multiplayer version. Yes, I believe them when they say that because I have no proof to the contrary, and because despite my own shit-flinging, I want to believe that.

I also believe that the Onyx facility runs showcase what CIG can really do when they put their backs into Star Citizen. There are bugs, of course, but there’s a few reasons why I think that if CIG can get more content like these facilities out into the game, then the quality of content is going to improve.

First, the Onyx facilities are massive. Each floor of the research wing is riddled with labs, storage areas, medical bays, and hallways, and there’s a metric crap-ton of loot boxes in each (most of the loot is kind of meh, but there are some special armor sets to be had). Either I’m not good at directions (which is possible) or CIG has done a really good job creating a veritable maze designed to slow players and even confound them as NPCs keep spawning from all sides. It’s not constant combat, but we found ourselves fighting through the same hallways more than once. The good news is that it’s not just human NPCs we get to fight, so that kept things interesting. This all amounts to session-based gameplay for people who aren’t min-max goblins who need to rush through everything just to complain about the content when they emerge on the other side. Granted, we took our time because we were lost as fuck and have no sense of direction, but we enjoyed the hell out of our time despite the run taking way longer than it probably should have.

The second is that this isn’t just some throw-away content used as a contrived reason for sending players into a glorified basement lab. I will admit that it was hard to parse the minute to minute situation; CIG has coded in some voice acting to provide exposition, and there are voice recorders throughout the facility that add nuance and layers to this chapter of the story, but when I’m in the middle of watching my back, counting my ammo, and healing my injuries I find it hard to focus on narrative threads. But the fact that it is an ongoing, multi-step investigation, with pieces hidden throughout the facility and requiring tasks to be done both inside and outside of the facility makes this in-depth content feel worthwhile beyond just a “this is a step in a quest chain I must do”.

As we were decompressing back in my hangar at Area 18, both @CakedCrusader and I agreed that this was probably the most coherent fun we’ve ever had in Star Citizen. Yes, there were weird desync issues where NPCs would often spawn right in front of us, or would ignore us until we were doing jumping-jacks right in front of them, and yes we fell through the world once, and yes, I got stuck in between a wall and a railing in a stairwell, and yes, @CakedCrusader got stuck in a wall after I hip-checked him trying to run away from an enemy, but the experience was suitably tense and stressful as we tried to navigate through the facility. We brought extra ammo because the first time we didn’t, and paid the price for not having done so. We got some loot, but not everything we could have taken, meaning we’re willing to back and do it all over again in a heartbeat.

The good news is that we have a few more missions to do in the Onyx facilities before we get to “the end” of the story arc. And CIG is readying a third wing of the facility, complete with a new enemy called the Yormandi that sounds like a real bitch to take on. We also have to get @Mindstrike started on the story track, so we’ll be able to revisit what we’ve already done at least once more, though I do have an alt account that might also need to run through it as well.

This all makes me feel good — but no, not entirely great — about the immediate state of Star Citizen. This year of improvement has been working, although people whose pet peeves have yet to be addressed will tell you otherwise. Aside from some wonkiness, we certainly had far fewer issues than we would have had a year ago in this content had it existed. It’s truly a “forest for the trees” situation, a changing-up of perspective and a willingness to give credit where and when it’s due. I give CIG credit for fixing things that they can, because it seems to be working. It also make me optimistic about Squadron 42, which is where CIG supposedly has the bulk of it’s manpower right now. If these facilities are the kinds of experiences we can expect from the single player SQ42, then it’s going to be one hell of a game and once that project is out the door, I’m hoping that Star Citizen can coalesce into more experiences like the one we had in the Onyx facilities.