State of the Empire, #3

It was a fairly calm week with regards to Star Citizen news this week (maybe everyone started their Christmas vacations early?).

We started off with an overview of the Centauri system on Monday…Centauri was originally revealed to subscribers in October’s Jump Point magazine.  Here’s the highlight:

Saisei, the third planet, is the reason to visit Centauri. A beautifully terraformed world, Saisei has been planned nd cultivated for Human habitation since the initial survey. Saisei is one of the only worlds in explored space where the Governor’s Council has imposed a population cap, limiting the number of inhabitants to preserve the environment. Despite their similarly limited populations, Saisei stands in sharp contrast to Yar as a jewel of Human development.

Centauri was first surveyed in 2365 and bids for Centauri III went on the market almost immediately. The winning group, ADJUST Colonial, consisted largely of Earthen Japanese expatriates who carried over design foundations and other cultural memes from their homeland to the landfall location at Fujin City. Saisei’s own culture has veered in unique directions since this time, influenced by earthly tradition but having become something completely unique. In addition to natural beauty, organic construction and a limited population, Centauri is also known as the headquarters of MISC, the ship concern responsible for much of the UEE’s heavy vehicle traffic.

On Wednesday, we got some clarification regarding the Organization information announced last week, and some new information regarding the upgrades for the Aurora:

Aurora LN Upgrades

We’ve heard from a number of users who purchased Aurora LN upgrades during the Anniversary Sale who would like to apply them to Aurora LX packages. We hear you! We’ve updated the upgrade system accordingly, and as of this afternoon you can now purchase an Aurora LN upgrade to convert any Aurora LX spacecraft. If you already have a standard upgrade you would like to use, please reclaim it for store credit (you should save $5 overall.)

Multiple Organizations

There has also been a great deal of feedback about Friday’s All About Organizations post. We would like to clear up one point of confusion: while you will only be able to join a single Organization with the first iteration of the system coming in January, this limit will be eliminated in future versions. Being a member of multiple organization is absolutely necessary for the finished game, and has been in the specifications from day one: players need to be able to join multiple NPC organizations (like the Mercenary’s Guild or Merchant’s Guild) in addition to player created groups.

There will be a reputation system that tracks how organizations stack up against one another and individual orgs can specify their exclusivity level: the Mavericks might require that you join only allied groups, or they might prevent their members from signing on with anyone else at all. All of this is coming in future versions of the Org system; we aim to get you started with a single group now and then expand as the played-created portion of universe comes together!

Hopefully that will address some of the concerns that arose on the forums regarding being “stuck” in only one Organization.  I’m guessing people assumed that “Organization” = Guild, and didn’t think about also being a member of other organizations like a Merchant’s guild.

The big news for the week, was Hangar Patch 9 getting released on Thursday.

Patch 9 didn’t add any new ships, but it did contain client side persistence (and, a trophy case!).  So, now when you reconfigure your ship’s load out..that change will stay between logouts.  Which, also means that when you get your buggy stuck in some weird location in the Hangar…. it’ll probably be stuck there too.  Follow the link above to read the full patch notes (and, see the new tank decorations!).  As always, submit those Hangar related bugs here.

F-F-F-F-Friday brought us our regularly scheduled dose of Eric Peterson and crew… Wingman’s Hangar!

Here’s the notes I took for WH #49:

Hangar patch 9
— big addition was addition of client side persistence
— lots of code cleanup
— big hangar patch next week

Studio report from Mexican studio
— Redacted shot of the Idris’ exterior!! Stinking redaction!

Overview of new forum rules with Ben
— Good reaction from community so far

The Next Great Starship update-
Mark Skelton — short discussion about his art history
— Comic Books helped him learn to draw (perspective, etc..)
Chris Olivia showed up also.. few jokes about which will be the softie (good cop/bad cop)
— Benefit of multiple judges is additional eyes/opinions on the submissions

This video is also available separately here, in case you want to watch it, but not all of WH for some reason.

Chat with Jason about client side persistence
— first step towards overall persistence
— same code will be reused to help power server side persistence later

Forum Feedback, had quite a few good questions/answers.. I didn’t catch them all (it’s not like they’re Pokemon or something!).  Here’s the Q&As I did grab as more noteworthy (Qs/As are paraphrased, they talk faster than I type).

Q: why are some guns located so far from plane of symmetry
A: convergence (plus, it looks cool!)

Q: Joker sucker punch distortion cannon?
A: Distortion cannons target ‘pipes’ of ship (reduce energy flow, increase heat). These are energy reduction.

Q: Player warning before cataclysmic events (starts going super nova)
A: Yes, there will be warning

Q: Great artwork in the letters from the chairman posts, wallpaper please?
A: Yup, look for it later  (note.  This artwork is now available here).

Q: Star Citizen trying to be as realistic as possible (while still focusing on good gameplay), why all aliens humanoid?
A: Piloting ships, need to be able to reach the controls after you capture it.

This week’s MVP section has to be seen… really, you HAVE to watch it..any summary I tried to do, just won’t do it justice.  MVP starts about 18:00 into the WH episode.  It’s only a few minutes long, so if you watch nothing else..watch it.  I’ll wait.

 

Okay, done?  See? totally worth going to watch wasn’t it.  You’ll also never be able to unsee that.

The new segment “10 for the Chairman” was up next, I didn’t like all the questions they picked this week, as much as I did the ones they picked last week.. but, there is still a lot of good information in this segment.  Here’s the paraphrased Qs and As from today:

Q: DFM released, do you need to own ship, or can you test all the ones already made?
A: Ships you have in your hangar..generally. Not all ships will be ready for initial stages. Very beginning everyone may get the same ship

Q: Transfer subscreens (radar, huds) to second screens?
A: Want to be able to support, long term goal.. not for DFM

Q: NPCs fly on their own while you’re still online?
A: IF you’re online they’re doing what you told them to. If you’re offline, they’re not doing it.

Q: Final decision regarding DFM? (MMO backend and go a little later, or do it now, and redo later)
A: Leaning towards MMO Backend, which means it will probably be longer before it gets in people’s hands

Q: Difference between TR1, TR2, TR3 (thruster ratings)
A: Power band..varies by mfg inside that band. Higher rating = more power!

Q: How close is DFM going to be to final product?
A: Point of DFM is to get it out to test all the systems/balance. Expect lots of changes/refinement

Q: Why get Cat/Tali, since the Connie looks like the ‘best’ to have
A: Different pros/cons, being designed so no best ship. Pros/Cons of each type

Q: How will you enter the DFM?
A: You’ll start in your hangar, adjust your loadout, start the ship, hangar dissolves holodeck style

Q: How detailed will armor pen be?
A: Very detailed

Q: Challenges optimizing netcode for 3D space?
A: Latency, packet loss, lots of data being transferred

 

Eric closed out the show, with a few things to look forward to next week:

Another Hangar patch.. they’ve hinted that this one will have something ‘big’ in it (I’m assuming it’s the firing range we saw demoed during the last live stream).

Office move planning (while, not super exciting for us, this is good for the Austin staff… they won’t be sitting on top of each other after everything gets moved at the end of the month).

Based on the current rate, it looks like we’ll also it $35 Million next week, so we’ve got that to look forward to (who knows, maybe CIG will give us all some extra goodies for Christmas if we break $35 Million next week!).