Around the Verse

Starfarer sits six? Interesting.

 

Star Citizen - The thirtieth episode features an interview with Rob Irving! We'll also spotlight the latest news from Cloud Imperium and the amazing work the fan community is doing!
___________

This is an initial pre-visualization of a ship going into quantum travel. It was done by Chris Olivia who also did the pre-visualization for the jump point navigation (which you can see HERE and HERE).


Notes:

Intro:

• 72 Million
  
  • incredible. Ben always gives a speech about how awesome it is, he’s skipping it this time, but he’s still very excited.
• New international store
  
  • Local currencies all throughout Europe now
  • Check out the interview from last week for why this is good news
• Pax East and SXSW tickets are on sale
  
  • SXSW tickets are actually free
  • Join them Sunday, there’s an awards demonstration on the Saturday, and Friday they have a gaming geek panel
  • Also they’ll have a booth. Stop by the booth for a little coupon, for possibly a free-fly weekend, maybe some in-game flair, something cool.
• PAX East
  
  • Ben hopes to go, if schedule allows
  • Booth this year they’re sharing with Logitech, party on the Saturday with a presentation, and some prize giveaways.
• PAX South Townhall videos are now available. Watch through all the videos (or read the transcripts)
• Kotaku featured a video of an Aurora pilot flying with a HOTAS setup and kicking ass, which the dev team is really happy about. Goes to show that you don’t need to buy the most expensive ship, or use a mouse, to win.

News from Around the Verse:

Arena Commander:

• New ship skins are almost completed
  
  • How almost? So almost that we’ll see them tomorrow (Friday)
  • Two kickstarter skins (Pirate and UEE)
  • and a third in honour of Project Pitchfork
  • They’ll all be available on the pledge store.
  • At this point, the skins are only for Auroras, but if you have an existing one, it’ll be on your account, and they’ll be expanding to other ship typesas they go forward
• Tutorial map is being prototyped
  
  • Big priority for future editions of AC
  • may be in 1.1 or it may slip a little, bu thtey want to bring new players in and teach them to play.
• Power throttle in the Aurora HUD has been implemented
  
  • continuing to expand various ship subsystems.
  • Slowly bringing in systems like shields, armour, scanners, etc…

SQ 42 News:

• Skydock going through its second iteration of the concept phase
  
  • big set piece for the first chapter
• Ship stretching warp-in effect has begun visual effects.
  
  • Saw at the Town Hall the pre-vis for the jump effect by Chris Olivia
    • he’s also working on the quantum travel effect, needed for both SQ42 and the PU

PU News:

• Foot and Headwear options are being explored
  
  • whole pages of boots and pants and hats being designed
  • no cargo pants though : )
• Repair drone models have been completed
  
  • used for many ships that do repairs during flight will use these
  • so will ships that survey mine fields and such
  • also ties into research system that’s being developped
• Marine model has received concept and revisions
  
  • first place we’ll see him is in the FPS module, due later this year.

Ships

• Avenger thruster malfunction is being adressed
  
  • they keep breaking AC, but they’ll keep fixing it, till it’s perfect
• 350r indestructible issue is being invvestigated
• Constellation Turret, Neck, and Cargo areas are receiving additional work
  
  • kicking off a big revision of the Constellation. Preparing it for 2.0, where it’ll be flight ready.
  • Have to lock down how to walk around in flight and such.

FPS

• Animations added for 0g crumpling
  
  • 0g will be awesome, it’ll be the big selling point of the FPS module
• tracers and impacts for combustion pistol have been cleaned up
  
  • interesting to note that just like the ship weapons, there’ll be different types of ammunition.
  • lasers, combustion weapons, ballistic
  • Sky’s the limit for coming up with new weapons.

Tour of the Austin Office:

• Mark Skelton and Jenny?
  
  • They’re standing in a prop from the WingCommander 4 set
• artwork on the walls
  
  • concept art on the walls
• They have a cool kitchen
  
  • Old Timers Guild gave them a popcorn machine
• Boardroom (coasters made by me are visible (barely) on the table)
• more people, more places, stuff like that. Showing where everyone dwells in their caves.
  
  • showing concept art for boots, shoes, and lots of PU stuff.
  • views of arc corp and such
• More artists, tech artists and the like
  
  • some…water animations>?
  • someone working on stuff from the medbay
• Animation place
• some ship guys…
• QA corner
  
  • they get to play the game all day
  • they’re fixing bugs and testing missiles and such.
• And that’s it.

James Pugh talking with Richard Garriott and Paul Nerath? and…Star Long?

• talking about new Underworld kickstarter project
• They wanted to do a new Underworld, continue the franchise, so that’s going to be on Kickstarter.
• Under development for 4 months, they launched their kickstarter yesterday.
• They want to keep community working and talking like CIG does.
  
  • full version of James’ interview will be on CIG’s youtube.

MVP

• Anti-Squeaker
  
  • in fiction post about Drake Interplanetary suing Origin Jumpworks

Sandi goes to Flight School

• Video – shows Sandi losing to Ben in an AC match
  
  • Sandi asks to be taught how to fly
  • ‘a man who can catch a dart with chopsticks can accomplish anything.’
• Lesson 1: Basic Flight Controls
  
  • default layout for logitech joystick
• Video shows…how to fly, basically.
  
  • shows some pretty shots of the Hornet flying, thrusters moving and such.
• This would be a good video for new pilots to watch, to see how to fly.

Bugsmashers

• Loos like no bugsmashers this week

Customer Service

• Looks like no customer service this week either

Interview with Rob Irving

• • James likes the Austin studio
  • ‘What have you been up to?’
    
    • working
    • since the focus of the studio shifted to the PU specifically, Rob has started watching all the parts of what all the different studios are doing, making sure they all fit in what’s going to be going into the PU.
      • making sure all the parts of the game will fit together for the PU
  • How many emails do you have?
    
    • lots
  • Since the focus of the studio in Austin has changed, how has that affected your job?
    
    • it’s changed a little, less involved with local design team, now more globally focused on design.
    • He has to know what everyone’s up to, in LA and Illfonic and the UK guys etc…
    • different teams take different features, based on what they need done, and they just keep track of what’s being done by all the studios to make sure it’s all fitting together.
      • most complex dev process he’s ever been involved in
  • How has the feel of the office changed?
    
    • settled down a little bit. Year 1 was crazy garage band, now it’s more ‘part of the whole’.
  • Rob and Tony feed off each other.
    
    • Tony’s very good at tunnel focus, taking one thing and running with it, where Rob keeps track of everything else.
    • Knowing who exactly is working on what, right now.
  • How has the community changed around you?
    
    • doesn’t get to spend as much time with the community
    • fiction-wise, all the lore comes across his desk. Makes sure the writers don’t say anything too extreme. Writers want to make the story stand out, they’ll come up with something dramatic that doesn’t fit in-universe.
      • ‘little robots that take over people and make them into aliens’
      • Sounds awesome, but not for CIG.
  • what’s something in MMO’s that you don’t like, that you don’t want in SC
    
    • biggest pet peeve is the whole ‘I want to offline earn money’ thing. makes it more difficult for CIG to keep the economy stable.
    • Crafting’s the other one.
      • So far departed from other MMO’s, so, can’t think of SC as an MMO like others. Very far from EVE and such.
    • You can always be more skilled than the next guy, but it’s skill, not something else
  • Star Map. Can you give me something about it?
    
    • perfect example of how the game’s evolved and changed
    • Different sized jump-points weren’t planned when they first built the star map.
    • Given the needs for the PU, they ‘shook up’ the star map. Got new organic gameplay out of it
    • Will unveil at some point, but it feels a lot better.

Outro

• Tomorrow will have the Monthly Report, and a design update on Shields
  
  • There’ll also be a cool sale this weekend, adding some items to Voyager Direct (8 new shield generators), a new Ballistic gun, and 3 Aurora skins
• Art sneak-peek
  
  • Looks like the ship warp visual that was discussed earlier. Very pretty.

 

Star Citizen - The thirty-first episode features an interview with Ken Fairclough & a revamped News segment! We'll also spotlight the latest news from Cloud Imperium and the amazing work the fan community is doing!

0:54 - Intro/News
3:54 - News from Around the Verse
15:13 - Bugsmashers
21:15 - MVP
22:06 - Interview with Ken Fairclough
29:05 - Customer Service
30:05 - Top 10 Bugs
31:21 - Sneak Peek
32:05 - Outro
______________

Around the Verse 31 Notes:

Intro:

-OH GOD EVERYTHING IS NEW!
-Anyway, there’s an interesting little Empire Report intro. Check it out.
-Valentines Day Weekend
– Will’s valentine’s card is awesome
-New items in the store
– Sheilds and a gun
– the gun is the Tarantula
– Shield Generators deep dive document is up
– tells us how shields work, and how they’ll work in the long-term
– Monthly report for January is up
– everything CIG did in January
– PAX East and SXSW tickets are still available
– tickets are free for SXSW, it’ll be good, there’ll be a reveal or two.
– Winner of the Terra Wrap post
– Zorumkopf?
– Devs from Santa Monica and Austin as well as CR will have a fly day soon
– US Dev vs. community. Febuary 16th, 4pm PST
– QA wants to get as many people in to SC at one time as possible.
– in the future there will be Europe and Rest of World centric fly days as well.
– RSI museum will return.
– It’ll start with a one-hour interview with the folks creating Underworld, the new Ultima-based game that’s being kickstarted.
– New way of doing the news.
– When the show started, a main objective was to share lots of SC’s development with the community.
– They’re now going to throw the news to studios around the world, they’re reporting in on what they’ve been working on.

News from Around the Verse / The Spectrum Dispatch:

Ship News with Darian and Marcus – Santa MonicaShip Information
– Bottom turret of the Constellation is being reworked for visibility issues. Being done in Austin by Josh and Chris. Entire thing is being redone.
– the Bulldong Vanguard is being concepted.
– whitebox is done, going through shape passes and iterations for Chris to approve, they hope to have something to share very soon
– Orion
– also in the works. Very first mining ship, out for concepting with George Holl? From Jupiter Ascending
– Whitebox done by Dan Tracy, going to be a very cool ship.
– P52 Merlin
– also getting some love. 20% done modelling, adding surface details. A few more weeks at least before there’s something even testable, but it’s coming.
– Character Rig and Model have been updated, so old ships have to be updated so characters fit and sit in the ships properly.
– long awkward silence.

SQ 42 News with Michael Barkeley and Luke Presley – Foundry 42Landing Mechanics and tutorial stuff being worked on
– Finally going to get an AC tutorial.
– Also going to teach how to land, which si a brand new mechanic, which we’ll need help with.
– Multiplayer free-flight will be coming
– asteroid hanger will be introduced that we can land in with friends. Can use it to practice landing in.
– Landing’s been split up so there can be full hardcore manual landing, but some things that can help land the ship more easily will be in. ‘assisted’ level, halfway between hardcore.
– We’ll be landing on Shubin, which is coming along very well. Full interior greybox is going on.
– whitebox is done. Shubin features heavily in campaign levels.

PU News with Jake Ross – Austin
– concepting out mining gameplay mechanics. Tony has a big vision on it, lots of ideas about different player roles on the ship so it’s not boring for anyone
– in-house concept artists are concepting out that vision, so Tony can better explain what his plans are to programmers and CR>
– Re-design of the Nyx Delamar-levsky landing zone
– third landing zone from the first five.
– asteroid, abandoned mining facility
– they’re laying it out, making sure shops have homes, where NPC’s are going to be, etc…
– Starting concepts on clothing sets for NPC’s
– white-collar business clothing set is being concepted by Meghan Sheever?
– she’ll be doing clothing for the forseable future.
– lots of clothes to fill the PU with. they’ll go out to modelling after the Social module launches.

FPS with David Lengeliers and Rodney Huul – Illfoniclast week / month, they’ve been working on getting FPS in shape. Release is coming ‘real soon’.
– Working on new armour system
– light, medium, and heavy.
– depending on the gun hitting the armour, damage will get applied based on the weapon type and armour type etc…
– working on weapon sway
– all about how the weapon moves when the player moved. Not perfectly aimed after you’ve been sprinting
– comes into play with all weapons, an the player can calm down breathing to get a little less weapon sway, etc…
– Gun fires where it’s pointing, not always the center of the screen, so weapon sway is important.
– push-pull system
– in 0g you can have thrusters, but if you have none, there’s a push pull system that allowed you to grab onto nearby surfaces, done procedurally. You can grab, crumple, push off, etc…
– complex system, a lot of hand placement and such, but it’s very fun apparently.

Bugsmashers

Bugsmashers is back!

Mark was touring with Maroon 5 and couldn’t make it (obviously)

Apparently the Mustang has no physics. bug is recent, was discovered on the 1.1 branch which won’t be released for a while.

lots of complicated stuff creating physics meshes that wasn’t…working, I guess.

Sandi’s flight school will be back next week, it’ll switch on and off with Bugsmashers, one week each. Sandi’s doing weapons next week.

MVP

Fiendish Feather for Pieces of Eight. The video is fantastic if you haven’t seen it.

Customer Service
Still backlogged from the holidays / sales / etc…

about two weeks behind, about 1000 tickets per week. There’s a new position for CS opening in the UK, take a look at the job posting if you’re interested.

Subscriber updates – gladius model as flair this week.

Interview

Ken Faircloth – Environmental Concept artist

*i’ll add this in after*

Outro

Top 10…something. top 10 bugs.

10 – character walking backwards really jittery
9 – buggy flying around in the constellation hangar bay
8 – more character walking ridiculously while crouched
7 – character looks like he’s…dancing? in FPS
6 – Mustang is on its wings sideways
5 – umm…chaaracter model duplicated inside itself.
4 – a bunch of red ‘place me’ balls in place of a character. I think.
3 – character runs up stairs, slides all the way up them on his knees, then catapults into the air and through the world
2 – character having a conversation with his face, which is floating in midair across from him.
1 – AAAGH!

Art sneak peek
oooh, looks like a new hangar PC to change loadouts and such. Very very snazzy.

early concept art for what will replace the holotable.

PTU 1.0.3
if all goes as planned, should go live tomorrow.

PTU releases the week before the proper, hopefully.

Design dive on AC Credits

check that out tomorrow, should be good, they’ll be looking for our comments on it.

test week
entire 300 lineup is unlocked for the next week.

 

Published on Feb 19, 2015
Star Citizen - The thirty-second episode features an interview with the Austin Art team and a detailed look at the upcoming REC system. We'll also spotlight the latest news from Cloud Imperium and the amazing work the fan community is doing!

0:56 - Intro/News
5:13 - News from Around the Verse
21:44 - REC system discussion
28:50 - MVP
30:14 - Austin art team interview
35:25 - Sandi's Flight School
43:38 - Sneak Peek
44:40 - Outro


Around the ‘Verse Episode 32 Notes

Intro:

Empire Report

• Election Protests as non-citizens demand the right to vote.
  
  
• Do planets have the right to limit the number of children you have?
  
  
• Learn how Centauri’s solar expansion might mean a good beach season.
  

Tried the first dev vs community dogfight

• No-one could get in. CIG had some issues. QA has taken a look, it was a ‘malformed proto buff’ that caused the issues.
  
  
• fixed with 1.0.3 which should launch today
  
  
• trying the test again on Monday, at 1pm cst
  
  
• More devs this time.
  
  
• These tests are very useful, even if they break. Game improves because we all try to play it and break it.
  

lock in PAX East and SXSW event tickets.

• first chance to play the Battle Arena in person with devs.
  
  
• other cool activities. Trying something new with social sites. There’s an image that, as ticket sales go up, the pictures blur will reduce.
  
  
• Help the Herald.
  
  
• the image is something we’ll want to see
  

300 series test drive is almost up

More physical merch talk. Mustang mousepad is shipping.

• putting together the box art for the game
  
  
• three promised boxes. Hornet, Freelancer, and Constellation. Fourth one has no ship art, so we get to vote on the fourth one.
  
  
• Mockups of the various ships, the boxes look good.
  

News from ATV - The Spectrum

Santa Monica, with Travis Day and Darian Vorlick

Vanguard

• passed the first tier. Finishing concept polish
  
  
• design is done, variant design is done, doing the final polish of the concept.
  

Constellation and Freelancer are getting a rework

• both are in whiteboxing.
  
  
• Freelancer at Santa Monica, internals and externals are being redesigned, making sure interior and exterior match.
  
  
• then it’ll go to Chris for review, then design, to be set up
  
  
• Constellation’s being done in Austin.
  
  
• they want to make sure it’s the iconic ship they feel it should be, cleaning up the variants, making the ship as epic as possible.
  
  
• Making sure both ships will incorporate modular structures.
  

Xi’An Scout is entering production.

• out of concept phase, moving it to 3d modelling and getting it into hangar.
  
  
• lots of technical logistics to work out on the ship, but should be fun.
  
  
• designed by aliens, but how does a human sit in it?
  

CIG UK with holy crap fast pronouncing of names. Drew Jones, project coordinator, couldn’t get the other one, sorry

• focusing on characters, getting a reproportioned skeleton. There’s a new base male character, made using camera scanning technology, to be as realistic as possible.
  
  
• Giant camera rig used to scan various models with 180 different cameras. All old characters are being repositioned to match with the new character form that’s been created
  
  
• love given for the FPS demo that’s coming soon.
  
  
• Facial animation rig as well
  
  
• figuring out how that’s performing in MAYA and in engine.
  
  
• 50 cameras in the rig, used to capture the facial detail of people really well. High quality and high realism.
  
  
• They’re capturing facial expressions as well, sending them to a company called 3Lateral who will be developing the facial animation system. Very promising results so far.
  
  
• Also taking a look at the FPS characters, pipeline issues in terms of texturing and materials and stuff
  
  
• get the assets looking as good as they can, and as industry leading as possible.
  
  
• trying to maintain the quality that Crytek did, and improve on that to be industry leading.
  
  
• endoo, deedoo, pixel suite? various software they’re using.
  
  
• Good few weeks till we get to see what they’re doing, but it’s looking very good.
  
  
• New attachment system
  
  
• the way characters are ‘made’ in the game is going through significant change. Any clothing or armour is attached in a new way.
  
  
• allows more fidelity with what is attached, and where it’s attached.
  
  
• Items used to always have to be in the exact same place. Trying to use the same kind of mount system as the ships.
  
  
• Interesting and powerful bit of kit that will really help character customization.
  
  
• Making sure they focus all the needs of the process, trying to think of the bigger picture when it comes to the pipeline. They’re making sure there’s enough versatility to support all the various modules.
  
  
• things from earrings to mobiGlas, outfits, armour, it’s going to be a good system.
  
  
• the character you have in FPS will be the same in all the modules. Consistency across the universe. This is still in development, but that’s the goal.
  
  
• Sounds like they’re doing a LOT of good work to make sure the character systems are coming along, and are awesome.
  

Illfonic

• progress on FPS
  
  
• at PAX we’ll see the grapple beam attachment to a pistol.
  
  
• anti-grav situations, they do’t require much force to propel you somewhere. The gun is built specifically for the battle arena right now, it essentially pulls you like a magnet towards areas. For use in 0g.
  
  
• Works like a linear hook, but with some swing. Not a rope though. Gets you from A to B.
  
  
• Ammo Crates and Recharge stations.
  
  
• weapons with bullets, you can get extra magazines from ammo crates, same with laser weapons and recharge
  
  
• That’s it for this week. Lots more to see at PAX.
  

Austin with Jake Ross, associate producer, and Rob Rancor? Technical designer.

• Working on items for the shops in the social module (one is the difribulator)
  
  
• Social module will have 3-4 shops to go in and browse. No purchasing or inventory management for initial release, but that’ll come soon after. Items will be viewable though.
  

NPC’s we’ll be seeing

• bar patrons are being concepted and modelled.
  
  
• medic character just got skinned.
  
  
• Getting to the point where they’ll transition to a new AI system, with the help of Moon Collider.
  setting up ‘smart objects’ that the AI can find and use. Bar booths, spot on the dance floor, serve drinks, etc…
  
  
• lot of set up, lot of tedious work, but it’s goin to help the world feel alive.
  
  
• living breathing universe.
  

Back to Ben and Sandi

• REC talk.
  
  
• A lot of feedback out there. Travis Day, its producer, and Calix Reneau its designer, will talk about it. The idea behind REC.
  
  
• REC comes because AC, with all this great stuff, was sort of locked to a lot of people. REC needs to be future-proof. They want it to exist now, and exist all the way to when SC comes out, always. It needs to be a functional system no matter what.
  
  
• System needs to be accessible.
  
  
• Started down the road to REC a long time ago. It’s been coming together as AC has been coming together. The context of watching people play the game has been instrumental in creating REC.
  
  
• People get drawn to certain build, drawn away from others.
  
  
• Missiles were unbalanced. People who wanted to play actively avoided using them, so they could play.
  
  
• Up to CIG to open things up so anyone can experience it.
  
  
• That’s what REC is about. Being able to have short term goals that you can go for.
  
  
• They’ve been following the community feedback very closely.
  
  
• It’s good to be able to get instant feedback.
  
  
• Lots of people had questions about duration based rentals.
  
  
• Right now, the duration system works that you rent something, and you have 7 days of use. When you log in, you’ve used up one day, and you’ve got a period of 24 hours of use before another day gets ‘used’.
  
  
• they don’t have second-to-second data, but they still need something that’s granular.
  
  
• Rent an m50, play one day, go away for three weeks, when you come back, you still have six days of rental.
  
  
• Ships have their default loadouts with them. Doesn’t start with empty hardpoints.
  
  
• It’s a first pass at the system, and it leaves a lot of room to do more. They’re listening to the feedback, and they’re evaluating constantly. It will continue to grow and evolve, just like the game itself.
  
  
• More of that interview is up on CIG’s youtube channel.
  

MVP

• MVP is changing up a bit. Bringing us an Organization.
  
  
• XPLOR does a really good job with keeping people up with news. Monthly magazine. In-fiction lore, etc…
  
  
• If you’re new to star citizen, you should check them out.
  
  
• MVP goes to Scorpy about Medicines.
  

Interview with Austin Art team - by Ryan Archer

• David Jenesen - lead character artist. Responsible for getting characters looking good, and working in the universe.
  
  
• Billy Lord - junior character artist responsible for translating concept to 3D
  
  
• Megan Cheever - character concept art. She makes the concepts for the people who do the 3D work.
  
  
• Austin’s now the PU studio, so they’re looking at the bigger picture now.
  

Character customization, how’s that coming along?

• working closely with UK studio
  
  
• having to meet lots of the same goals, but austin’s not as specialized as UK.
  
  
• Balance between variety and uniqueness of pieces.
  

SC is a very realistic game. Pushing for a better visualization, how does that affect character art?

• Fidelity. Pushing to be higher detail than most other games.
  
  
• Working on a lower fidelity game, you could cheat. Didn’t have to add as much detail. Like a photographer working on a close-up photograph vs far away. But it takes more time to do assets
  
  
• but it’s a much higher ‘bar’
  
  
• situation with customization across the board that all the character artists in Austin and the UK, things have to look like photographs. When you mix and match clothes, you have to be able to tell what it is, texture as well.
  
  
• Fidelity is an exciting challenge.
  

How does that affect the concept stage?

• Making sure everything makes sense. Seams, jackets can close, shoes buckle up like they should. Paying a lot attention to real clothes to make sure things work.
  
  
• the world is frightening when it comes to fashion.
  

And that’s it for the interview.
Sandi Training montage

• Sandi hitting a dinosaur pinata with a lightsaber. Well, missing it, but...details.
  
  
• ‘Remember, a true pilot can feel the HOTAS flowing through them’
  
  
• I think they’re quoting Star Trek or something.
  
  
• Sandi puts on an Oculus Rift to hit the pinata.
  

Weapon types

• Energy weapons or Ballistic weapons.
  
  
• Difference is how often you can be using them. Energy weapons have unlimited ammo, restricted by heat and power.
  
  
• Ballistic weapons have ammo, but can punch through shields.
  
  
• Both are equally powerful, but they have different situations to use them in.
  
  
• Both types are available on all ships.
  
  
• Those are the two types of guns. There are also missiles, neutron weapons, etc…
  
  
• Explanation of weapon groups and how to change keymaps.
  

Targeting systems next time.

Back to Ben and Sandi

• Orion Concept sale starts tomorrow.
  
  
• also has a minigame from Turbulent, similar to the Carrack? (I think Ben said Reclaimer. Bad Ben!)
  
  
• Design doc will be posted about mining by Tony Zurovec
  
  
• First scheduled LftC comes out tomorrow as well.
  
  
• Also there will be an inside CIG piece.
  

Art Sneak Peek

• ooh, perdy space station stuff (i think). Looks like the level for the FPS.
  
  
• Definitely FPS, the gravity generator from the demo is shown.
  
  
• Level design is looking pretty cool.
  

 

Published on Feb 26, 2015
Star Citizen - Our thirty-third episode goes in depth about the creation of the Orion and Matt Sherman discusses ship balance.
0:17 - Intro/News
5:41 - News from Around the Verse
20:12 - Bugsmashers
26:57 - MVP
29:26 - Ship balance discussion
31:57 - Orion process discussion
39:39 - Sneak peek
40:10 - Outro
41:38 - Empire Report


Intro

• Orion Mining Platform is now available.
• Orion mini game by Turbulent goes live today.
• Earn a badge and other surprises.
• New Orion art tomorrow.
• Offset Orion cockpit is being reworked in concept art after fan feedback. (BOOOOO. BOOOOOO!)
• Community, devs, and outside contractors working together to improve the Orion.
• QA stress test didn't go perfectly but still helped with some data. Another stress test coming soon.
• Deep dive for mining is up. Describes how mining in SC will be unique.
• Jump Point is available. Arc Corp planet fiction.
• PAX East and SXSW tickets still available.
• Help the Herald still at 50%.
• FPS module demo stations available at PAX East.
• Battle sphere level "doesn't play like any FPS you've tried before."
• SC Community show will be a monthly segment with Disco Lando.
• Shoutout to /u/years1hundred!
• Poll for 4th box art is running. Bengal Carrier is winning. Ben voted Retaliator.

CIG Santa Montica

• Travis and Darien say REC is hooked up and being internally tested for 1.1 launch.
• Mostly back end work is ongoing.
• Hull series ships are coming. Everything from supertanker to personal transport.
• "Very cool shipping ship." More info coming later on.
• Cargo olympics leading to more reviews of "shipping ships"
• Working on Gladius and Retaliator damage states with UK team.
• Retaliator will be in-hangar for 1.1.0.
• Gladius will be flight-ready with new damage system in 1.1.0.
• "Squibs?" Modeling for explosions on surface of ship.
• Hidden fuel lines can blow up, etc.

Foundry 42

• Gordon, gameplay programmer, working on doors.
• Security, lockdown functions, obstacles being worked on for doors.
• Security network lets you control player security levels.
• Owner of ship can set security for crew/hostiles.
• Lockdown function lets you isolate fire, boarders, etc.
• You'll get pushed out of the way and damaged if door closes while you stand in it.
• Bill, sound team, working on audio for prototype of MobiGlass.
• MobiGlass is made by MicroTech.
• Audio being developed to fit combat, walking around stores, etc.
• Sound palette being developed.
• Glass sound samples being tried.

Illfonic

• Kedhrin and Rodney discussing controller support for FPS.
• Controller might not be as good as mouse, probably, but they're working on it.
• Getting energy-based sniper rifle in game for after PAX.
• Fixing FPS bugs for PAX.

CIG Austin

• Jake and Ken discussing working on improving quality of FPS characters for FPS module.
• Concept work on character clothing sets is ongoing.
• Ken worked closely with Tony on early UI/HUD concepts for mining.
• Emphasis on skill and challenge.
• Technical readouts should read easily from a glance.

Bugsmashers

• Mark didn't win an Academy Award this year. Maybe next year, Mark.
• Working to make rear hatch of Avenger close when you sit in the cockpit.
• Use key disappears after you sit in cockpit.

MVP

• INN staffer /u/years1hundred's Fighter Pilot video wins this week's MVP!
• Shoutout to Disco Lando for doing a great job on the new community video.

Matt Sherman on Balance

• "One of the most important things the team... is working on is Arena Commander balance."
• New segment about balancing mouse/HOTAS.
• Weapon changes to ballistic weapons.
• Update to the Sledge II Mass Driver.
• Tiegerstriek on the Avenger.
• Sledge has a new ammo type – 60mm rail. Faster moving, more damage per shot, should give the Sledge a bit more punch.
• Tigerstriek to get the Avenger feeling more in line with what it should be.
• 25mm round (40 dmg, vs 15 before), and a higher ammo box (1600 rounds total now).
• Especially on the 325a, the Sledge II feels unpowered, which motivated them to make the change.
• Same with the Avenger – Tigerstriek was a bit too weak, and as the signature gun on the avenger, it wasn’t living up to expectations.
• Many more balance changes to come in 1.1. Great updates coming, and another balance update will come once 1.1’s out.

Ben talking with the team that designed the Orion.

• Dan Tracy, lead technical designer
• Lance Powell, art director
• Travis Day
• First step to designing a ship starts with… pretty much these people.
• Identify the design need for the game – the roll that needs filling.
• Backtrack, discuss what it’ll look like, what behaviors it’ll have, how many people will fulfill the roll, etc…
• When they start looking at a new ship design, they look at what’s in the game already, and what other future gaps need to be filled.
• For mining, the biggest question was how does mining work across the game, and how will high-end mining work?
• Looked at PU for cargo management and how they’ll be taking on bigger asteroids.
• Needed to come up with a larger ship to fulfill the role.
• How will they take on large asteroids?
• Need a ship that can handle a large beam to blast asteroids apart, grab the pieces, and refine them.
  
  
• The Orion needed to: mine, have a tractor component, have a refining component, needs to be a level feel to the ship, so PC’s can walk around.
  
  
• Visual design comes after deciding what the needs are.
  
  
• Lots of reference pictures to make sure the interior works, make sure the ore flows through the ship to get deposited where it needs to and such.
  
  
• Individual tractor beams that pull in smaller sections of ore, churn through the front, deposit them in the back after they go through the ship. Sounds incredibly complex. And awesome.
  
  
• The ship is a level. Player needs to have things to see, things to engage with.
  
  
• Wanted it to feel like a refinery on the inside, dirty, mechanical, lots of heat.
  
  
• But the player needs the ability to watch the whole process.
  
  
• Kind of like a car-wash. You can walk along and watch while your car goes through.
  
  
• Heard it here first! Star Citizen. All the fun of a car wash.
  Next ships they can talk about:
  
  
• Hull Series
  
  
• Starliner
  
  
• Espera Prowler
  
  
• Endeavour
  
  
• Crucible
  
  
• Reliant
  

Art sneak peek!

• Doors and… modular designs for a Cutlass it looks like.
• Toilets, showers, weapon racks again, lots of images.
• First concept art from Foundry 42 for the Modular cutlass.
• Cutlass is available as a fry-flee ship this week. Cutlass Black can be flown.
• Cutlass blue can be picked up in the store too.
• Tarantula gun will be available for purchase.
• Team is hunkering down for 1.1, so send them happy thoughts.
• ‘Busy couple of weeks here.’
• It’s ‘on the horizon’. Next big AC release, and there’s a push to get it done.

 

Published on Mar 5, 2015
Star Citizen - Our thirty-fourth episode features an interview with QA Manager Justin Binford & Sandi's Flight School returns!

0:57 - Intro/News
1:47 - News from Around the Verse
15:08 - MVP
15:56 - Interview with Justin Binford
23:59 - Sandi's Flight School
30:36 - Outro
32:14 - Sneak Peek

MVP - https://forums.robertsspaceindustries...

Org - https://robertsspaceindustries.com/or...
____________

• EMPIRE REPORT:
  • Death tolls rise in Charon III Civil War.
    • Is it time for the navy to step in?
  • Should Consumer ships be allowed to carry military weapons?
  • Citizen Day celebrations start earlier every year.
• AROUND THE ‘VERSE 34:
• • Cutlass Free-Fly week is almost over
    • Cutlass black available through end of the day Friday
  • Orion mini-game
    • Can you earn the prospector badge?
    • The game broke Ben’s legs. He did not earn the badge.
  • Started a weekly rundown – Spectrum Dispatch Weekly Rundown
    • New comm-link every Saturday. 6 days a week of news, baby!
• NEWS FROM AROUND THE ‘VERSE!

• Santa Monica – Travis and Darian
  • P52 Merlin
    • Undergoing its model update. During the Constellation rework, one of the things for the Merlin, it was designed before any of the interior components were (powerplants, shield generators, etc…)
    • Rework to improve the looks of the ship, how it fits inside the Constellation, as well as how it docks with the constellation.
    • Should be a very cool ship.
  • Sizes and metrics for things! Same guy working on the Merlin is working on standardizing all the weapons and weapon mounts.
    • That means creating a standardized system that each class of weapon and mount can fit into.
    • If a size 2 gun can hypothetically fit on a 5×5 foot surface area on the ship wing, the concept artists will know that, when they’re designing these ships, if it’s going to have a size 2 weapon mount, to leave that much clearance.
    • That means some items already in size parameters may have to be remodeleled to fit the new standards
    • Makes it easier to create weapons for all 11 sizes.
      • Same thing with weapon mounts.
      • All weapon mounts will have particular sizes for their ranks. Standardization and uniformity for artists and developers and designers to create ships much more easily.
      • Also easier for players to recognize what will fit where.
    • Started with weapons, going to migrate these ideas to all areas of the ships.
    • These kinds of standards and guidelines are very important for the game.
      • If they had to redesign every weapon for every ship every time there was a new ship, it’d be ridiculous.
      • Think car tires. All car tires of a certain size will fit all cars that… need that size wheel.
  • Vanguard!
    • Formerly known as Bulldog, formerly known as P-Diddy.
    • Concept model phase. Gurmukh is doing the 3D model for the ship.
    • Fulfils a unique role that hasn’t existed before.
    • First to fight.
    • Variants revolve around ‘you’re the first to arrive at a battle scene’
      • Do you break the line, communicate back to your troops, etc…
    • Already benefiting from the new standards that are being developped.
  • There’s a lot more going on than just the 3 things they talk about every week, they’re limited in time about what they can mention.
• Austin
  • Jake Ross and Ryan Archer
    • Art team has been working on props again
      • Ted Beargeon is working on a giant radar prop for radars that you’ll encounter in the PU. Massive scale radars.
      • Bartender is off to skinning, looking ‘nice’. He’s got a vest.
      • Be seeing him serving drinks soon
    • Events!
      • PAX East & SXSW
        • All hands on deck in Austin and LA for that.
        • Lots of cool stuff going there, sponsoring a party if you’re in Austin for SXSW
    • Alien languages
      • David Ladyman – got a whole team of linguists working on different languages.
        • Ryan Archer has heard him speak ‘A’ alien language.
          • Sounded like he was choking on something.
• CIG UK
  • Ashley Canning – Gameplay/Tools Programmer.
    • Tool he’s working on right now is a big tool. ‘Data Forge’
    • Contains all the game’s data.
    • Everything in CryEngine is contained in an XML file. Presents some problems.
    • Complexity of vehicles increased 10 fold. Chris wants ships very detailed, so ship XML data quickly got out of hand.
      • They’ve been looking at ways to approach the complexity of the ships and how the data is stored.
    • There’ll be 100’s of thousands of XML files scattered everywhere.
      • Data Forge should help programmers artists and designers organize better.
      • Now you create a Schema, which describes how data is created in the game.
      • Want to be able to run the game outside the CryEngine Editor and modify data at runtime.
      • Could have 10 designers playing the game, while one designer says ‘can you increase the fire rate’, and that would just happen. It would automatically propagate.
      • Huge benefit for ship and item balance.
• Illfonic
  • David Langeliers and Rodney Houle
    • Started putting together the initial plan for FPS meta-game
      • Unlock armour and weapons and attachments and ammo types etc… as you play the FPS.
      • Planning leaderboards – track kills, deaths, KDR, matches won and lost, etc…
      • Running REC in FPS same way as in AC.
    • Killing a lot of bugs for PAX. Getting a good state for it, they think it’ll be good.
    • Zero-G focused environment will be shown at PAX.
• MVP
  • This week’s MVP goes to Crash for a thread and android app listing all the ships, screenshots, and stats for ships etc…
  • Another Org highlight.
    • ‘Musicians’
    • They’re doing a fan soundtrack.
• INTERVIEW: JAMES AND JUSTIN BINFORD – QA MANAGER
  • Directs QA operations, primarily in the Austin studio. Finds and smashes bugs and such.
  • You guys work really, hard, and we really respect the work you do, and want everyone to see more of what you do
    • Yeah, when we’re coming up on a release, we start crunching, because there’s a lot of quick turnaround with the builds, and we just have to check everything. Primarily when coming up on a release, we’ll be working some late nights.
  • Even over holidays for 1.0?
    • Yeah, that build came in really hot, and when we pushed it out at the last possible second, we inevitably had some issues we had to work through. But yeah, we had to keep working, but that comes with the territory.
  • You guys were machines. Constant emails the entire break.
    • Yeah, my team is just so amazing. Each individual person is a complete badass.
    • Some of them will transition into development eventually, but they’re really on top of everything. They’re great.
  • Another thing interesting about our QA specifically is how we take the Community’s help when looking into bugs. Does that make it easier for you or?
    • It definitely helps. As a whole, our QA team is relatively small, so we definitely leverage the community when we can, and it’s been extremely helpful. Right now they post issues on the forums, they tell us in chat, or through the customer service ticket system, but yeah, it’s definitely a huge help
    • And we plan on expanding on that with a custom bug-tracking solution that’ll be implemented into the website, which will help tremendously
    • We also have community helpers, ‘bug mods’, and they’ve been super helpful. Categorizing issues and such.
  • Yeah, it’s another special thing about this project, just, how much the community helps
    • Yeah, lots of community helpers, everyone’s just super excited about the game. We’re all fans, and we just want to make sure it’s the best game possible.
  • So how has the introduction of the PTU changed a little bit how you operate
    • I think it’ll be a lifesaver for us. We’re just in the beginning, but some of the things we’re not able to test because we just don’t have enough people, and when we do release a build, it’ll get hammered by the public, so using the PTU will help us iron out those issues and have a smoother ‘official’ release.
  • Is there anything about this project, there’re little tricks of the trade for QA, but is there anything that just makes it different for Star Citizen?
    • I think, primarily, with the engine we’re using, we’ve learned that if you make a change in one system, it can affect an entirely different system. We’ve learned that the hard way, so we basically need to check everything for every release. Our checklist has grown pretty huge.
    • Luckily we have the UK QA team, and they’ll start early, start a checklist, and then hand it over to us.
    • Also, with the way we’re doing development, with multiple studios around the world, sometimes some changes that happen at one studio can break things from another studio. But so far it’s going pretty good.
  • This is the first time I’ve seen your team, and it’s just, not the biggest team, and you guys are doing great.
    • Yeah, and they’re all just super excited. They’re so happy to work here, and every time we do crunch, I stress that it’s voluntary, but they’re so passionate, that, we’re the first and last line of defense, and everyone is definitely taking an ownership to it.
    • We want to make sure the game is good.
  • You’ve been here for a long time
    • Yeah, we were in a basement of a house down by UT campus, and there were like 30 of us. We all were so packed in there, later that year we had our christmas party and everyone was sick
    • We’ve got more space now though.
  • That’s why we moved to a new space, so we all wouldn’t be sick at the same time
  • I just want everyone to know, QA are the unsung heroes, and This is the man who’s working so hard to make sure the game’s not as broken as it could be
    • And we appreciate it. We get a lot of love from the community, and it only energizes us more.
• SANDI TRAINING SCHOOL
  • Starting with a … cooking montage?
    • Cutting up vegetables and crushing nuts and putting them in a… food processor?
    • ‘Always juice before you fly’
  • Flying a SuperHornet, teaching secrets to targeting.
    • Radar auto-scans all targets that you can see on the radar.
    • Includes friendly and hostile.
  • Crosshair shows where your nose is pointing, but the ‘hit predictors’ that come out of the crosshair predicts where your shots will actually be hitting.
    • So, get that pip over your target and shoot then, and you’ll hit it.
  • Much more, but… didn’t transcribe it all.
• BACK TO SANDI AND BEN!
  • Working hard on 1.1
    • Hoping to have something very soon, possibly as soon as later today.
    • Cool content once 1.1 launches including a brochure and new ships.
  • PAX East
    • Hopefully they’ll get going on time
      • They almost have this thing down.
    • Not livestreamed, but there will be video on Monday, and some content as Chris presents it will be available on Saturday, including a design piece on Damage
  • Monthly Report
    • And two design peices also drop this weekend – weapons mount revamp in 1.1
    • On Saturday a piece from the UK on the new damage system
  • Art Sneak Peek
    • Looks like the mobiGlas?
  • And that’s it!