Servicemen

Only a few quick things to make note of this past week. Until we actually get something new to play with I'm probably going to just gloss over most items we get, though I have a feeling a lot of others are in the same boat I am. Looking stuff over to see what's up briefly before other things catch our attention.

This one is going to be smaller than normal anyway, since there was no Reverse the Verse because of July 4th in the US.

Anyway...

There is a Genesis Starliner Q & A thread that might answer any of those burning questions you have, if you're interested in it at all.

We'll be getting weekly updates for the FPS now, like they did with Arena Commander back when we were waiting for it. I wonder how long we'll see the same issue reported week after week.

Also, the monthly report for June was posted (which I admittedly totally forgot we were getting). It looks like they are making a lot of progress with other parts of the game, at least on 'paper'.

10 For the Designers, June 29th​

​

Doing this one first since I already have it done, just need to copypasta. Full transcript here for the long version. I'm just making it much more succinct where I can.

When repairing, can you choose to leave certain parts damaged? For instance, say I prefer the handling of a ship with a mostly cosmetic part removed.
Directly from Calix: "Basically all repair actions require some impetus. You have to do a thing to make the repair happen at all so if you simply don’t do that thing, the repair doesn’t happen."

How will you make ship repair accessible to the new player, deep enough to support gameplay focused on repair,and rewarding of increasing player skill?
You're eventually going to have to learn how to diagnose all kinds of equipment on your ship to figure out what the problem is and how to fix it if you plan on doing the repairs yourself. You'll need to know what components do what in various pieces of equipment in order to fix it.

Are you gonna implement any real time waiting for crafting or building structures etc. Such as it may take 3 real life day to construct that new room on your hangar after you have acquired the materials. Or instead of having your ship repaired in the 3 minutes, it may take hrs or days depending on the amount of damage incurred.
Yep, there will be different types of repairs too, with things like temporary durability added to items when you do a quick fix. For the full health to return to an item it will sometimes actually need to be refurbished. The larger the part/ship, the longer repair is going to take. Not too long, because they still want the game to be fun, but it should be impactful.

I’ve been wondering, with all the fantastic work you guys are putting into updating all the damage states and the impact physics how will this affect long term game play? Say I’m a lousy shot but still want to help my friends by turning a wrench, could I help keep the ship floating in a tough spot?
The intent for pretty much everything in the game is for it to be hands-on in some manner, so there will be no sitting back and letting the game do things automatically. You can do that, or work on overclocking components to help him out, or maybe even more.

In older space combat sims ships would automatically repair certain sub-systems when given enough time after they were damaged and multiple repairs could be prioritized. Will ships in Star Citizen have this?
The repair bot will be capable of doing some on the fly repairs, but you'll still need to feed it materials and directions. It's not completely autonomous. Otherwise no, there is no automatic.

Not sure if this counts as a repair question, are we going to be able to take hull panels off of our ships and replace them with other panels using different materials, or composite materials?
It's not so much a repair question as it is an equipment question. Damaged or destroyed armor plating would likely be 'replaced' at a dealer/vendor and reinstalled instead of 'repaired' anyway.

Elite recently implemented the PowerPlay feature which allows players a means of enacting change within the galaxy. One of the controversies surrounding the new mechanics is that players can contribute to PowerPlay while in offline mode, allowing them to influence things without any real risk or other players having a way to stop them. Do you anticipate similar problems arising in SC with the PvP slider?
You won't be able to impact the PU if you're playing 'offline'. If it was something you set up, like a manufacturing job, before you logged off, that will continue until it completes or runs out of materials, but that's about as far as it goes. You'll have to either be online in game or via some interface (like Android/iPhone and mobiGlas) to do even the smallest things. As for the slider, even making it full PVE isn't a guarantee that you will not face a real player.

Will some missions ask players to transport perishable items like food in SC, and will there be a limit on the length of time it is possible to successfully deliver them? Will this require the use of specialized cargo containers that are pressurized and refrigerated?
Yes to all.

It has been mentioned that Bengal Carriers are available to civilians only for taking by force as wrecks for “fixing up”. Would the Crucible-based External Repair Structure by typically used in that process to the point where it can move itself to a place more suited for an overhaul than the presumably dangerous place it was found in?
Not exactly. Can it repair a Bengal faster than you could alone? Absolutely. But it couldn't repair the whole thing, as there are components on a Bengal that take up more space than the Crucible has cargo capacity for. It will take a LOT to fix up a Bengal that has been found.

In the PU, especially relating to PvP encounters, how will we know if an enemy player ship has hostile intent before getting fired upon? For example, if pirates are laying in wait within civilian traffic, setting up an ambush, and I’m escorting a convoy they want to raid, will it be possible to ID the pirates as hostile before or even after they open fire on my charge? Will there be an in-game process for this, or will the initiative advantage always lie in favor of the attacker? Further, in the example given above, would the presence of “AWACS” type ship like the Hornet Tracker help balance things in favor of the defender?
It will all depend on how good your scanners are and how good that pirate is about getting away with things unnoticed by jamming distress calls. If you don't have good enough scanning equipment and they are good about covering their tracks by jamming communications, you're going to have a tough fight ahead of you. If you're going through space that is a little 'wild', it's probably best if you have an escort or group up with others going the same way you are.

Images​

​

Final version of the Crusader Industries logo:


The Merlin looks absolutely vicious now:


The updated Herald:


Gah, even the images are lacking when we've already seen five million environment shots of Gold Horizon...

ATV, July 2nd​

​

Santa Monica
- No more Travis.
- Still soliciting AC feedback, even if it doesn't look like it. For example: Players say boost is being overused, and devs agree. Going to change it.
- Merlin HUD will be on the dashboard, not on the visor like other HUD's.
- Still doing continuous balance passes.

Denver
- Sean Tracy, Steve Bender, and Jason Hutchins from CIG are visiting helping out. Bender and Sean are helping solve animation edge-cases that come with the start-stop and juke systems. Sean solved an issue where there was a pause anytime there was a movement transition. With that one fix, it’s feeling much better.
- Also been making changes to the Gold Horizon level to balance. Before there was one central location to refill ammo and energy, a few more have now been added.
- Sight-line blockers have been added. There were some areas in the level with very long sight-lines, which is nice for snipers, but they were a little too much, so some blockers are being put in to angle those sight-lines.
- To make the levels look nice, there’s lots of ‘clutter’ around. Supplies, garbage bins, etc… There’s been some optimization on those kinds of objects to clear the way for gameplay space.

Austin
- Just wrapped up the SATABall character. David Jennison and Billy Lord worked on it. It's the first character to go all the way through the new pipeline.
- Also working on trying to nail down near-term animation requirements in a schedule. Lots coming back from Imaginarium. Social module animations, FPS animations, SQ42 animations, and more. All need to be mapped out to see when various animation teams can get to it.

Manchester
- Will has been working on the Vertical Slice for SQ42 which gives an idea of where they’re going, including animations and the like. We saw a 'slice of the slice' from CR’s E3 vid.
- Should be able to see more fairly soon.
- Simon is working on level design while the team waits for the Vertical Slice to sort out various mechanic things. Implementing objective flow, figuring out what they want levels to do; reviewing and iterating on that, and working on getting it right.
- Also going down to the mo-cap shoot to sort things out down there.

There is no Around the Verse this week due to a holiday in the US.

This Week in SUN...​

BinarySpirit has been transferred to LSG AM-22.

Have fun!


That's all for this week, which seems like it's absolutely tiny. There is a lot of reading to do elsewhere, like with the weekly FPS report and the SC monthly, but otherwise, yeah, not much going on. See you all next week.

Keep cool and game on,
- Jasticus