The latest event in Star Citizen is "Race For Stanton"; This event is an absolute bug-riddled mess, but.. It's also one of the few that's really captured me and pushed me to explore different gameplay loops.
In short, Race for Stanton sees the 4 corporations of Stanton clamoring for resources to alleviate the regen crisis, and you can support your favorite corp in their efforts to save us all and get some cool rewards (while Hurston instantly wins my a massive margin because - much like it is in the US currently - fascism is apparently popular for some fucked-up reason).
Excuse me while I sit down in a comfortable chair and cross my legs, slowly sipping a coffee.
Let's chat.
Seriously: When it launched, it was an absolute disaster. Insane crowds at the limited mission cargo pickup locations. Buggy elevators. combat missions pretty much 100% unavailable. Long queues at the drop-off locations. Griefers pad-ramming and stealing cargo in armistice zones just because they can.
As of publishing, this is still an issue.
The event has been running for over a week now, and we're finally seeing things smooth out a bit.
They expanded pick-up locations for cargo and added a round-robin selection system. Combat-focused missions are finally back, for those of you who don't like to haul. Elevators are still bugged, but they are bugged less. Finally, I haven't encountered a griefer in days.
Hotfix after hotfix have been applied, and it's actually impressive to see how quickly they fix things here.
So, I mentioned "tickling my 'tism".. Let's talk a bit about how I've been playing the Race for Stanton event.
When the event started, I tried to get a combat mission.. And couldn't. The limited availability meant you had to be quick on the draw to grab one, and I was not. After doing the required introductory hauling mission for both Hurston & Arccorp (although I stopped working for Hurston because fuck fascism, even though it means I won't get the cool end-of-event black armor and discount on Hurston products), I swore I'd not do hauling. Blowing shit up is my jam.
As a fix for combat missions kept failing to materialize, I decided.. You know what? Let's try hauling.
So, I started doing the medium cargo hauling missions in my Drake Corsair, and eventually realized..
Ok, holy shit, this is nice.
Developing a "process" for stacking my crates efficiently, recognizing the signs of a bugged pickup elevator before I land (if the door is closed, it's most likely bugged), and painting the delivery elevator's floor with an immaculate arrangement of cargo works for me.
A graceful C2 gently nudges the abandoned corpses of other ships out of the way so it can consume it's weight in freight.
Even when all the (working) elevators are occupied at a pick-up location, I still find some joy chilling out, waiting for my turn while I listen to a podcast or watch another episode of something on another device (right now it's Star Trek DS9).. And it's like watching a nature doc as other, bigger ships nudge the smaller abandoned ships out of the way so they can land (persistence in the universe has it's flaws exacerbated in this event).
Even after combat missions became reliable again, I only did a handful before deciding.. Nah, I'm gonna stick with cargo.
I now own an Argo Raft (bought with in-game money, not real money), which I never would've considered before, just because I'm enjoying the cargo loop that much.
Don't get me wrong: I'll always love combat gameplay, but right now? I'm enjoying the change.
Let's hope they fix more of the bugged elevators soon.. And, if you're gonna start Race for Stanton yourself, I encourage you to join up with Arccorp (because who doesn't love an underdog who's also not fascist)!
UPDATE: Over the weekend elevators became even more bugged, to the point that completing hauling pickup missions is next to impossible. This may be (in part) due to folks intentionally trying to break them to grief other players. With any luck further hotfixes will resolve this issue. The current running excuse for all the elevator issues is that CIG is using this event specifically to stress-test elevators.
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