The fact that Thanksgiving was this week, didn’t stop it from being chock full of news on the Star Citizen front. It’s like CIG, and the Star Citizen Community wanted to see just how much they could cram into 3 or 4 days! Let’s jump right in and get that weekly recap done!
We started out on Monday crossing over the $31 Million mark, with the Starfarer closing out the last day of the Anniversary Sale. The $31 Million stretch goal we unlocked was the first of the ship roles that the Community voted on:
- RSI Orion – Roberts Space Industries’ goal has always been to make the stars available to individual Citizens. Now, with the RSI Orion mining platform, RSI is letting individuals take over a process formerly controlled by megacorporations. The Orion’s features include high-grade turret-mounted tractor beam arrays, durable exterior-accessible ‘saddlebags’ for mineral storage and a cabin designed by the team that brought you the Aurora and Constellation!
This dedicated mining ship, while it will probably need a few Hornets, Avengers, or 300s to escort it, and protect it while it’s mining…is a great addition. It shows that the Community wants more than just a “space shoot ’em up”, and is actually looking for some depth in the SC universe. It also shows that CIG is committed to providing that depth.
Not to be outdone, Tuesday, and it’s live stream, saw us pass not one, but two stretch goals! (yes, that’s right.. over a million dollars was raised in a single day!).
The $32 million, and $33 million stretch goals that were unlocked, were additional roles selected by the Community vote:
- Aegis Surveyor – The Surveyor, from noted military contractor Aegis, is an industrial-quality salvage ship. Equipped with a reinforced cargo bay, a long-range jump drive and launch pods for unmanned drones, the Surveyor is an ideal ship for taking advantage of deep space wrecks. Tractor beams, floodlights, scanner options and docking ports round out the tool chest on this capable, utilitarian spacecraft.
- Anvil Carrack – The Anvil Carrack has been the vanguard of every UEE exploration effort in recent years. Featuring reinforced fuel tanks for long-duration flight, a highly advanced jump drive array and a dedicated computer core room that allows it to put the maximum processing power into jump charting operations. Originally a military exclusive, the Carrack is now available for civilian use as a pathfinder spacecraft. Features on-board accommodations to allow for truly self-sufficient flight, including crew medical and repair facilities, and a mapping-oriented sensor suite capable of always charting a route home!
Tuesday also saw the first sales of the Banu Merchantman, and Xi’an scout (for the first, and last time, with LTI). Another 400 Idris-P corvettes were made available over the course of the day, selling out within minutes every time some were offered up. We also got our first look at Merchantman’s concept art:
Lots of updates so, the rest are after the break to keep the front page a reasonable size.
Of course, the main event for Tuesday, was the live stream itself! It’s not up on youtube yet, but it’s still available over on the twitch site here (it’s 4 hours, so keep that in mind before you start it):
Watch live video from Roberts_Space_Ind_Ch_1 on TwitchTV
I know everyone doesn’t have 4 hours, so.. I took notes! Here’s what I have scribbled down for highlights of the stream, a lot of these were based off questions asked during the stream:
- Banu MerchantMan concept is very early in the process. They still need to flesh it out, and work out things like… landing. Expect more changes.
- No console support, in fact, they’re using the XBox One, and PS4 as “we need to be better than that” type inspiration. Chris specifically used Ryse’s character appearance as something they were going to do even better.
- They are putting together plans to help ensure that a group of friends can’t take over a whole instance.
- Xi’an Scout will be totally new, not something we’ve seen in prior concept art or footage.
- The AI will have various profiles from timid, to very aggressive. They also talked about NPC crewmen potentially being able to “learn” how you want them to behave.
- There is a limit to how many NPCs you’ll be able to hire. You won’t be able to hire your own personal army. While the limit isn’t set yet, Chris did toss out the number 10.
- Damage sustained during combat will having lasting impact until repaired. If you get your landing gear shot off, it’s going to make landing a bit more…interesting.
- Dogfighting module may get pushed beyond the end of the year, they hinted at making sure we have a way to shoot things before the end of the year, even if DFM gets pushed out.
- Chat system may end up being XMPP based. Which means you’d be able to use 3rd party apps to chat in game with guildies, etc.. without being logged into the game. (Note from me: STO does this, it’s pretty sweet).
As part of the stream, we got the SQ42 “behind the scenes” video that was previously attached to the $29 Million stretch goal achievement announcement. Apparently, they’d intended to debut the video as part of the livestream, but gave it to us early since the $29 Million stretch goal was all about SQ42. Here’s the video again, in case you haven’t seen it yet:
- SQ42 is much deeper than just a tutorial. There will be 15 hours for the initial campaign.
- Just like you don’t keep your F-16, Battleship, or Tank when you must out of the armed forces now. You don’t get to keep your ship when mustering out at the end of SQ42. That’s what your starting ship is for. The relationships/reputation that you earn in SQ42 sticks with you though.
At this point, we got a “Behind the scenes” video about the Orchestral arrangements being planned for Star Citizen. Let me tell you… the teasing bits of the soundtrack that they gave us… were pretty damn good. I can’t wait to here more!
- Asked about why there is sound in space “It’s a game, we have to take some dramatic license.” They also talked about the sound being able to help keep track of what’s going on, since you can’t see everything.
- They talked about the music being “adaptive”, and reflecting the current situation. So, if you’re in the middle of a battle, if your ship is badly damaged – even if your side is winning – you’ll hear music that reflects the situation.
- There will be support for AMD TrueAudio
They’re redoing their workflow, and the existing models, to take advantage of PBR (physical based rendering). Ryse over on the XBOne uses this for the costumes. It makes materials being rendered look more realistic. To showcase it…. we got another Avenger video. This shows the PBR, as well as tweaks to the Avenger’s design (like the removal of the second seat).
I can’t wait for this version of the Avenger to show up in my hangar, it looks a lot better than the current rendering:
Just compare the look of the Pilot’s seat!
The PBR video, led to questions about the Hangar that were answered by the Austin team.
- Cutlass will hopefully be in people’s hangars by Christmas
- They’re planning on two patches between now and Christmas (Hopefully)
- Asteroid hangar is being redone, it’s going to be different than the current hangars. It’s going to build downwards, instead of sideways. Think of a pyramid getting built from the top down.
- They’re working on optimization/performance boosts.
- Client side customization (persisting through logouts) needs to be completed before a lot of what they want to do can be implemented
Sandi took center stage next, offering us some updates on a whole mess of things she’s been working on.
The big one from her, was about CitizenCon for 2014. Berlin won the Community interest poll, so they looked at booking CitizenCon there next October… and were unable to book any venues of appropriate size, for a reasonable price.
Instead, they’re going to try and attend more Cons around the world, and hold a small CitizenCon in LA. Here’s the list of Cons she gave us:
- PAX Australia (yeah, you read that right..they’re headed down under!) – 10/31 – 11/2. They’re going to set something up that won’t require a ticket, and they’re looking at possibly doing a panel.
- Dragon*Con 8/29 – 9/2Â (Ben, and Dave had a blast this year, so folks are heading back).
- GamesCOM 8/14 – 8/17
- PAX East – 4/11 – 4/13 – They’re currently on a waitlist for some venues for this one.
- LA – No venue chosen yet, will be bigger than 2013’s CitizenCon. They looked at LA for it, but, just like Berlin, they found it was “stupidly expensive” to do.
The final for the Next Great Starship competition will be June 8th. It’s a small venue, so probably won’t be a lot of Citizens there.
111 Teams currently entered in the competition:
- 26 from the US
- 8 from the UK
- 5 from Germany
- 4 from Australia
- 4 from Canada
- 2 from Spain
- 2 from Russia
- 1 from a whole lot of other countries
- 49 teams that didn’t specify a country.
The participants in the Starship competition have a hugely varied background. Folks in retail, the armed forces, inside the games industry, movie FX people. We should see some really great ships out of this!
- Polo shirts are shipping out starting the 28th (Thanksgiving).
- Hoodie sample arrived. Has the Drake Interplanetary logo on the front, says REDACTED on the back.
- They’re going to have a new T-Shirt design soon.
- 3 new mousepad designs are in. 1st one will be subscriber only at first.
- Testing coffee mugs!
- There have been talks with Saitek, we’ll possibly see a poll centering around what kind of branded peripheral the Community would be interested in.
- She’s sampling Dog Tags, but has concern over how the metal reacts with skin when wet.
- Citizen Card replacement run is taking longer than expected. Look for additional information in the first week of December. Please don’t email support about it, they won’t be able to provide any additional information.
After Sandi was done, we got another behind the scenes video, this one about the work going into the HUD.
I love the fact that they got someone who had worked on the HUD visuals in Iron Man 3. The HUD in Iron Man has always looked sleek, and functional…so that’s a good sign.
- They’re trying to solidify some HUD elements between manufacturers initially.
- As the HUD process streamlines, they’ll be able to add more variety.
- HUD Color groups will be customizable (good new for color blind folks), some sections will be minimizable to reduce their impact on field of view.
- First person will only have a HUD if you’re wearing a suit/armor that can generate one.
- Some Alien ships will have an Alien HUD (like the Vanduul Scythe).
- HUD elements will vary by seat location. For example, a seat in a turret doesn’t need flight control related HUD info.
Lastly, we got a teaser of the firing range module, that will ensure we’re able to blow stuff up this year, even if we don’t get the Dog Fighting Module:
There is nothing I can add that can expound on that video… it looks awesome.
They did mention that when it’s fully functional, we’ll be able to test various combinations of weapons, coolers, etc.. to really theory craft the loadouts.
You’d think this would be enough for one week, right? You’d be wrong.
Chris, and Sandi took to the forums on Wednesday, and even for part of Thanksgiving (when they were closed), to further clarify some points around the CitizenCon announcement portion of the stream:
Chris started it off with this post late Tuesday night:
So we thought it would be better to NOT organize a big convention in 2014 but instead invest time and money in setting up MULTIPLE events at select major game fan events around the world, which would allow a wider variety of our community to participate. So instead of one big CitizenCon it would be an events for approx 1,000-1,500 or so people at Gamescon (Germany), PAX East (East Coast North America), PAX Australia and then LA (West Coast North America – also convenient for a larger amount of the team to attend)
Sandi posted some more information, which included a generic ranking of Star Citizen’s by Country:
I mentioned in the Subscriber’s Den that if all backers voted in the poll for the city they live in, the clear winner would be the USA. USA holds the largest percentage of backers by a decent margin to the whole of Europe and these percentages have been fairly consistent since the start of SC. On a dollar basis per person the USA is also the clear winner followed by Germany and then Australia. When the T-shirts were shipped SC was represented by 99 countries!
All in all, there are some folks who mis-understood the purpose of the original location poll, and are now bent out of shape that something different is happening. In true internet troll fashion, these people have apparently been lashing out at Sandi personally:
I would like to believe the most important thing is to create the Best Damn Space Sim Ever and to give this game some legs, so I’m a little in shock that some fans are so attached to Berlin and that I received a slew of abusive emails from European fans. We intentionally chose Gamescom in Germany rather than anywhere else in Europe because of the results of the poll. Australia is the most active community in that part of the world so we chose Pax Australia and we are trying to lock down a venue at Pax East to cater for the East Coast of America/some Canada and then either something on the West Coast depending on Chris’ schedule or DragonCon. That would basically be a global SC Con trying to maximize the opportunity for fans within the limitations we have.
To these folks, I have one thing to say… Grow Up. They’re doing the right thing, and trying to make it as cheap, and convenient as possible (for Star Citizens, and CIG both), for as many people as possible to get the ‘Con experience. For you to personally attack someone like Sandi, is inexcusable. She’s doing a very good job, just because a decision doesn’t go your way, is no reason to attack her. Personally, I love that they’re doing it this way. If they had only attended one ‘Con next year (in Berlin)…I wouldn’t have been able to attend. Now that they’re breaking it up by attending multiples… I might be able to meet up with some of the CIG crew at either Dragon*Con, or the possible LA Anniversary/CitizenCon event.
Thursday brought us an additional post by Chris Roberts, appropriately enough, titled “Giving Thanks”. It’s a good read, if you have a couple of minutes, I’d suggest reading the whole thing. Here’s a quick highlight:
We are not building Star Citizen to turn a quick profit, or satisfy shareholders at some big Publisher, we’re building Star Citizen because we want to make this dream a reality. One that you are helping become a reality with your incredible support. People may say how can you do all this? How can you build such a wildly ambitious game?
We’re in this for the long run. Because of your incredible support, we are already the biggest budgeted Space Sim in history, giving us the freedom to hire the best of the best and to take the time to do things right. However I’m not foolish enough to think everything will always go perfectly on Star Citizen. We will occasionally stumble. Not everything will go according to plan. And we definitely won’t be able to build a game that matches everyone’s personal vision of the game. That’s impossible with so many people!
We also got a recap on the Veteran’s day sale results this week:
On November 11th, Veterans Day in the United States, we partnered with Black Widow Company’s Play to Give Back organization to support a pair of veterans’ charities by selling special F7A Hornet body upgrade backs.
We’re proud to announce that the event raised a grand total of $64,480 in donations for Operation Supply Drop and the Honor Flight Network. Operation Supply Drop sends video game care packages to soldiers in high combat areas as well as soldiers recovering in medical facilities. The Honor Flight Network transports veterans of past wars to Washington D.C. to visit and reflect at the memorials that were created for them.
Thank you to Citizens everywhere for your support of these great causes… and we hope you enjoy showing off your Hornet upgrades!
Friday closed out the week with no Wingman’s Hangar, but with a new issue of Jump point being made available to Subscribers. This issue covers the Cutlass, and piracy!
The first ‘subscriber only’ item is available in the store as well now, and it’s the first of the new art designs for the jumbo mouse pads – Aegis Dynamics’ ships grace this one!
While those mousepads are huge…. I gotta admit, this one looks really good.
And, with that… I think we’re done for the week. It may have been a short week, but it wasn’t short on news!