Ok, in true Star Citizen style I'm going to do some theory-crafting based on my dreams as a lotus-eater.
We know that the focus of development at CIG is basically Squander 42, and SC is dead in the water, only existing as a whale milk repository.
There has been a big dearth of progress on the roadmaps for both games over the last few weeks, many of the backers are blaming this on SSOCS or Server Side Object Container Streaming, CIG's name for loading only what is needed into memory at a given time on the server.
Others are sceptical but hold on to your hat but here is why I think the backers may be right:
1. There was a video recently (IIRC) where a dev blamed SSOCS for breaking everything such as the missions (in an already extremely broken game)
2. I can't find the source, but I think that Squander 42 is still running as a client/server setup, but the server is running locally on your machine. Therefore the benefits of OCS are inconsequential when the entire world is loaded into memory anyway in the "server".
- Given the timelines of when Squander 42 was actually started, this will be when a lot of custom work had been done to the engine and it was probably deemed easier to just run it in this client/server setup as it would reduce the amount of rewriting earlier on in development of the single player game. This is inevitably kicking the tech-debt can down the road, but that is basically CIG's textbook move.
3. Coming out with a working SSOCS will give renewed faith to the backers as it will seem that SC has not been completely forgotten, even though its main purpose will be to make the single player game possible.
4. They want to get this running on consoles, and no way they can do that with their current setup.
So my questions are:
1. Is it possible that CIG can get this working in their buggy mess of a game, how many more weeks/months years will it take.
2. What the hell have I been smoking.
3. Am I completely incorrect about the single player game having this architecture, any links to prove/disprove would be appreciated.