Developer dossier

Ben Lesnick

Director of Community Engagement, Online Strategy and Spaceships

All 927 answers
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2014–2016active
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2014 · 10
2015 · 356
2016 · 561
20142016

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What about the next concept sale, the Argo?

TL;DRThe next sale is the Argo, which they say isn't really a concept sale since it will be ready with the next release and two of its three variants will be offered.

Jared HuckabyHost, Community Manager

The next sale will be the Argo.

Ben LesnickDirector of Community Engagement, Online Strategy, and Spaceships

Not necessarily a concept sale, but since this is the first time we've sold it, it's all the sales at once, because it's going to be ready to go with 2.5. We're not seeing this as a big ship rollout, it's more of like, hey, here's something you guys might like to play around with. Certainly there will be roles for the Argo, we'll talk a whole lot about them in the coming weeks. We've asked in the past, and we get these petitions, and it's like, sell the Argo, sell the Argo. So the Argo is coming. I believe there are three different variants of the Argo. Two of them are going to be ready, and we will be offering those two.

Jared HuckabyHost, Community Manager

And folks have seen the Argo in the Morrow Tour. So if you haven't seen the Morrow Tour from CitizenCon 2015, you can check that out on our YouTube page.

Reverse the Verse›July 8th, 2016·
Published on this date.8 Jul 2016

What about the Carrack?

Ben LesnickDirector of Community Engagement, Online Strategy, and Spaceships

Somebody asks about the Carrack every single week. No change on the Carrack, I'm sorry. It's the next one they're going to be looking at after the Cat gets put to bed.

Reverse the Verse›July 8th, 2016·
Published on this date.8 Jul 2016
EpisodeShips

How's the Caterpillar doing?

Ben LesnickDirector of Community Engagement, Online Strategy, and Spaceships

Really, really well.

Jared HuckabyHost, Community Manager

It's looking very, very, very cool. Tour of the UK office yesterday, you saw Nathan Dearsley talk about the giant ship team they have over there right now. 21 artists, I think he said, working on ships.

Ben LesnickDirector of Community Engagement, Online Strategy, and Spaceships

And a lot of those artists are working on Squadron 42 specific ships, the Vanduul fleet, the Bengals you saw, the other capital ships, the military ships and so on. And the good news is that there will be a point when they are done with those and then we get them for Star Citizen.

Jared HuckabyHost, Community Manager

But I was comparing that to our much smaller ship art team that we have here, led by Elwin and Dan Kamensky and Justin Wentz.

Ben LesnickDirector of Community Engagement, Online Strategy, and Spaceships

They've got a couple ship guys in Austin, too. The peerless Chris Smith.

Jared HuckabyHost, Community Manager

Josh Coons. They'll be here in L.A. next week, too.

Reverse the Verse›July 8th, 2016·
Published on this date.8 Jul 2016

What's the status of the Reclaimer?

Ben LesnickDirector of Community Engagement, Online Strategy, and Spaceships

No change to the Reclaimer. Still waiting for all those Squadron artists to free up, essentially.

Reverse the Verse›July 8th, 2016·
Published on this date.8 Jul 2016
EpisodeShips

Do we have plans of reselling the baseball caps this summer?asked by Sparhawk

Ben LesnickDirector of Community Engagement, Online Strategy, and Spaceships

None that I'm aware of. I don't think we have a baseball cap for this summer. We have a couple shirts. Big Benny's shirt sample just came in for that. But no, unfortunately, Ally is not on the show today. We would ask her. But I don't think a baseball cap immediately. But we do have these cool lanyards. These lanyard samples just came for everybody. These are not a thing we're selling, but they're there for conventions. We're giving them away at CitizenCon, I believe, and Gamescom.

Reverse the Verse›July 8th, 2016·
Published on this date.8 Jul 2016
EpisodePledges & business

Does the Argo come with pod options?

Ben LesnickDirector of Community Engagement, Online Strategy, and Spaceships

Yes, three different pod options, of which I think we have two ready.

Reverse the Verse›July 8th, 2016·
Published on this date.8 Jul 2016
EpisodeShips

Is the Constellation Phoenix flyable?

Ben LesnickDirector of Community Engagement, Online Strategy, and Spaceships

Not yet. Once we have the updates to the base ships done, we've got a couple. We have the Aurora, 300 and Cutlass. Once we have those done, then we're going to move on to the variants. When Chris Smith rebuilt the Constellation, one of the reasons it took such a long time and there's so much detail is that we built it around the idea of easily switching to variants. So it's not another eight months for the Phoenix once we get there. It's a bigger job.

Reverse the Verse›July 8th, 2016·
Published on this date.8 Jul 2016
EpisodeShips

Do we know how much the Argo will be on sale for?

Ben LesnickDirector of Community Engagement, Online Strategy, and Spaceships

I do not have a price yet, but we will have that for you shortly. We try to do it exactly one week out. With it being attached to 2.5, one of the good things about our regular concepts that we do with our brochure and everything is we can pick an exact date when we know what's going to be out. With something that's going to be with 2.5, it's a little floaty.

Reverse the Verse›July 8th, 2016·
Published on this date.8 Jul 2016

Does the Argo fit in the Carrack?

Jared HuckabyHost, Community Manager

Fit questions are hard until both ships are built. I don't know the answer to that question. When we size these things out in concept, it's the most educated guess you can make and whatnot, but until you're building it and you have to put people in it and walk around, you have to see how everything feels, things get bigger, like the Idris and the Starfarer. So hard to say until we build both of them.

Ben LesnickDirector of Community Engagement, Online Strategy, and Spaceships

Although I will say we get a lot better about it. You look at the early ships, and it's 50 concept passes to get it right, and now it's like three or four. We've learned a lot, but there's always unknowns.

Reverse the Verse›July 8th, 2016·
Published on this date.8 Jul 2016
EpisodeShips

Any update on what the Caterpillar's weaponry might be?

Ben LesnickDirector of Community Engagement, Online Strategy, and Spaceships

I would suggest once the hangar sale comes, I'll have a much better idea. That'll be an update for you shortly. I don't know what I'll have, though.

Reverse the Verse›July 8th, 2016·
Published on this date.8 Jul 2016
EpisodeShips

Any updates to Grabby Hands?

Ben LesnickDirector of Community Engagement, Online Strategy, and Spaceships

No updates to report, not because no work has been done or anything like that, just because it's not my bailiwick.

Jared HuckabyHost, Community Manager

The Grabby Hands was a concept. It was a concept that Calix Reneau put together to deal with cargo stuff, but it wasn't the only concept. It just was the concept that we showed.

Ben LesnickDirector of Community Engagement, Online Strategy, and Spaceships

They've got some exciting stuff they're working on in that ballpark, but I can't give it away, I'm sorry.

Reverse the Verse›July 8th, 2016·
Published on this date.8 Jul 2016
EpisodeTrading & cargo

Is RTV in the fan cave not coming back?

Jared HuckabyHost, Community Manager

I think it'll probably come back. We're experimenting.

Ben LesnickDirector of Community Engagement, Online Strategy, and Spaceships

We're also down one Hennessy today, which is why we're using this computer Jared built himself for live streaming for this week.

Jared HuckabyHost, Community Manager

The station that we're on is what we use for Loremaker's Guide to the Galaxy, and it's a replica of the station that we're using for our Gamescom show floor booth live streaming.

Reverse the Verse›July 8th, 2016·
Published on this date.8 Jul 2016
EpisodeCommunity & events

Congratulations on the improved ATV. Will future episodes continue to focus on one studio, or will you go back to a news section that features all studios?

TL;DRThey say future format is still up in the air, but they like the rotating studio focus because it gives teams more time to prepare footage, and they'll probably keep it.

Jared HuckabyHost, Community Manager

Things are still up in the air. We're trying a lot of new things. Right now, I think we're really happy with the rotating kind of thing.

Ben LesnickDirector of Community Engagement, Online Strategy, and Spaceships

I like it a lot. I think that's a good way to do it because then each studio has some pride in it. They're going to show the coolest stuff. I think it helps everybody.

Jared HuckabyHost, Community Manager

It's ultimately the same amount. Actually, it's still more. Instead of getting four weeks of two minutes of talking about some random stuff, now you're getting like a full eight minutes dedicated. So it's still the same amount of stuff, but now with a rotating thing, they have weeks to pull together footage and stuff and make it look cooler. So we really like everything that that's doing for us. It gives everybody more time to add visuals to what they're talking about so they're not under that weekly crunch. And I think it's just an overall better presentation. So I think we'll probably keep that. But everything's on the table right now.

Reverse the Verse›July 8th, 2016·
Published on this date.8 Jul 2016
EpisodeCommunity & events

In ATV, Zane talked about the in-game starmap, but what about the in-game sector map? Right now, you basically have to point at an entire cluster of points and hope you've hit the right one when quantum jumping.

Jared HuckabyHost, Community Manager

Part of what they're working on is a new in-game interface and stuff. So yes, what you see in Crusader right now is temporary. It was a necessary thing to do to begin building Crusader and to begin getting it in your hands and to begin testing everything. But like many of the UIs, it is not the final.

Ben LesnickDirector of Community Engagement, Online Strategy, and Spaceships

We like to call that initial implementation. In your head, you imagine computer science to be like a factory. You know what the final thing is. You put it piece, piece, piece together, and then it's done. The reality is it's much more experimental. So we do an initial implementation that's minimum requirements. It's starting to connect systems together, and you build on top of that. So it's an essential part of the process to have that early version, but it's not what will be in the final product.

Reverse the Verse›July 8th, 2016·
Published on this date.8 Jul 2016

With more clothes coming soon, will we be getting our Han Solo-style UEE jacket that some purchased?

Ben LesnickDirector of Community Engagement, Online Strategy, and Spaceships

I think you mean the legally distinct from Han Solo UEE jacket.

Jared HuckabyHost, Community Manager

So the answer is yes, you'll be getting it. I just don't know when. Although we did just talk with Behaviour about fulfilling some things.

Ben LesnickDirector of Community Engagement, Online Strategy, and Spaceships

They've got a whole list of all the posters and ship models and so on that have to be finished.

Reverse the Verse›July 8th, 2016·
Published on this date.8 Jul 2016

One of the floors in the Foundry 42 Manchester tour seems to have decorations made for young children, like cartoon-style fishes. Was that in the place before you took it over?

TL;DRThe speakers joke about the cause, then admit they don't know why the decorations are there and think they are probably leftovers from before the studio expanded into the floor.

Jared HuckabyHost, Community Manager

No. That was requested by our own head of customer service, Ray Ruecroft. He really likes it.

Ben LesnickDirector of Community Engagement, Online Strategy, and Spaceships

That's not true, is it?

Jared HuckabyHost, Community Manager

I like that you can't be 100% sure. If you've interacted with Ray Ruecroft, you go, well, that might be... No, I actually don't know why those are there. I think they are left over.

Ben LesnickDirector of Community Engagement, Online Strategy, and Spaceships

We have Skype calls with Ray from time to time, and we see behind him, and I've always kind of wondered, was this just here or is this the current British decorating taste? Either one is possible, but the former is much more likely. Foundry 42 has been expanding leaps and bounds over the past two years, and they bought the floor under them and the floor above them. Like filling something with foam and it just edges out and you have to have more foam holding area.

Jared HuckabyHost, Community Manager

So those of you with social media, go tweet Ray Ruecroft and ask him. Maybe he can give us an answer.

Reverse the Verse›July 8th, 2016·
Published on this date.8 Jul 2016
EpisodeCommunity & events

Does releasing the Argo in 2.5 mean that cargo will be ready in 2.5 as well?

Jared HuckabyHost, Community Manager

No, no.

Ben LesnickDirector of Community Engagement, Online Strategy, and Spaceships

It's more tied to its completion for Squadron.

Reverse the Verse›July 8th, 2016·
Published on this date.8 Jul 2016

Procedural stuff in ATV from Frankfurt?

Jared HuckabyHost, Community Manager

Probably not in ATV.

Ben LesnickDirector of Community Engagement, Online Strategy, and Spaceships

I think you will be seeing that in the not too distant future, but probably not in ATV. In fact, I remember last month in the report, they were like, no, we don't want to talk too much about it because we want to wait. They're working on something cool.

Reverse the Verse›July 8th, 2016·
Published on this date.8 Jul 2016

Where is my sub flair?

Ben LesnickDirector of Community Engagement, Online Strategy, and Spaceships

Sub flair is next week. I guess, technically it would be today because the first was... I guess this is technically the second, right? But no, it will be next week. It's also in 2.5 rather than 2.4, so it's going to be one of those ones that does not appear until 2.5 hits. But we'll do the post and all that next week, and attributes and so on.

Reverse the Verse›July 8th, 2016·
Published on this date.8 Jul 2016

Will Idris owners get a loaner Argo when it comes online?

Ben LesnickDirector of Community Engagement, Online Strategy, and Spaceships

We absolutely should do that. I mean, not as a mean thing, but yes, and I pointed this out on Batgirl's show yesterday, if you were an Idris owner or a Javelin owner or one of those big ships, you do not need to buy an extra Argo. You've got one in your ship already.

Jared HuckabyHost, Community Manager

Talk to Turbulent, see what we can do. That's a fun idea.

Reverse the Verse›July 8th, 2016·
Published on this date.8 Jul 2016
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