10 for the Chairman: Episode 41 (2014.10.13)

So the answer is yes, we're actually-... the balancing of the ships is part of the pipeline. And we're also putting processes in place, so like one of the checklists for the QA department (who obviously do the most playing with all the stuff) is that we also have sort of a balancing pass now that's part of the sign-off of our big releases. So that, you know, we can say "okay, well this is how the Hornet compares to the Aurora, compares to the 300i," and have that sort of part of an instituted process. Because there's so many things going on, and we always... and we've actually had this in a couple of cases where, someone changes something down in some other area and it actually has an effect on a ship that we didn't even know it would, but we don't really catch it 'cause everyone was focusing on testing other areas of the game. So we're trying to make sure that that side is sort of... has check-listed, and then we're also specifically having a focus internally on the design and technical side to do that.So, I don't know whether that's gonna be full in for 13.2, because there's a lot of stuff to be done, but going forward, definitely for release 1.0 of Arena Commander that'll be there. It's something that we're focusing on because the balancing is obviously something that's really important, and it's the opportunity we get right now with Arena Commander, 'cause you know, the beauty of it is we have these builds out there and you guys give us feedback, and yes sometimes things get broken, and sometimes things aren't as much fun or whatever, but that's the whole point of sort of honing in what will be the best balance of, you know, the different comparison between the ships, because of course every ship can't be equal. I mean, we've got a huge universe out there and there's gonna be a lot of progression, and plus there's gonna be different sizes of ships. So, you know, yes the Aurora shouldn't be able to go 1-on... same pilot, 1-on-1 a Hornet should beat an Aurora... but a better pilot in an Aurora than a sort of bad pilot in a Hornet - the Aurora should win, right? So we sort of need to balance these things and keep on top of that as we add new systems and features in, and so it just requires a lot of process to get that.So that's definitely something we are focusing on, but I really do believe by the time the game actually is "done" (not that it will ever be "done" but, you know, is in the sort of state where the base features are all there and everyone can blend around the Persistent Universe) it will actually be a really good experience. I mean, we'll certainly have gotten a lot of the network and connection kinks, and graphical issues and performance issues, and all that out the way... and the balancing issues. So I think you're all helping make a much better, polished game. It's one of the reasons why I'm pretty confident it will be a really good game, 'cause I think the overall promise of it, the overall concept, the base gameplay mechanics of travelling between worlds and performing missions, or buying and selling goods, and upgrading your ship, we all know would work. Because we've loved that from Privateer and even the very early days of Elite - a long, long time ago - and Freelancer, and all this kind of stuff. So what we're adding to it is the sort of level of polish, and immersion, and detail, and all these extra things you always wished and dreamed you could do, that you couldn't do in the past, and you know, now we have sort of the ability to do it, and thanks to you guys we have the resources to do it. So all the balancing feedback that goes on it really useful.

So on the fuel side, definitely the plan is fuel in terms of boost, in terms of your maneuvering jets - that is a finite thing that you have, that you have to either stock up, or you could could get a scoop and go into a gas giant and process into fuel. Haven't 100% decided whether there is another level of just general propellant fuel for your normal engines, and if you don't have that then, perhaps you can just drift at, you know, whatever, 10% of your, 5% of your top velocity. And that would just be based on, I dunno, small hydrogen atoms you can pick up that are very sparsely spread around space, or something like that. But the idea would really be that there should be some resource management in terms of fuel. So there definitely will be on sort of the overdrive, whatever you want to call it, the "nitrous" that we currently use for boost, which I think is a good gameplay mechanic because you want to make sure that you manage that in your dogfight and don't blow through it all. But there may also sort of general, overall fuel tanks for jumps - you know, so you have to have a certain amount of fuel to run your jump engine, and if you don't you'd have to go and collect it or harvest it from a gas giant - and generally travelling at warp speeds and normal speeds. And then if you were out of all the fuel, I don't think we would have you run completely out of gas, but you would probably inch along or maybe you have to do a distress call or something like that.But that's kind of currently where our thoughts are on that, but we haven't refined anything really beyond the base concept of the boost fuel. I mean we can have multiple styles of fuel - that's the whole pipe system we have, because we can determine any kind of resource and have it go between any kind of pipe, and have tanks to hold it. So the system already supports all that, so it's just whether we want to bifurcate the boost fuel from the general engine fuel, and do you wanna have a wrap drive fuel versus a normal engine fuel? So we haven't fully decided that, but that's all stuff that we're working on, and will be part of like, what we think is fun and challenging when you're flying around, and what would give good resource management, and you know... you should have advantages, right? You have a big exploration ship, drop tanks, and then you should be able to go further, so it probably will factor in.

Well I think the biggest difference on the 890 is there's a focus on sort of communal areas, and being able to fly around with other players, and not necessarily have to be performing a role. So you could just sort of hang out. I mean I'm actually kind of big on the idea of providing a sort of virtual space or area, whether it's in your hangar or on say, a big ship like the 890, where you can wander round and you can go from a destination. Because you're not going to be able to just instantly transport to a different planet - you're gonna have to travel there - and so I actually long-term like the idea of even having, like, passenger ships! And, you know, "okay, I've got to go pick up my ship and it's on Terra, but I'm on Earth," and you don't have a ship to fly there or don't wanna fly there, perhaps you'd board a passenger ship and take that journey. Or perhaps some other player takes that mission on to take you to another place, and you play as a passenger.I just think there's so much more possibility and depth with us having all these different roles you could do. And that's kind of what I thought the 890 would fun for, is sort of like a ship for you and your friends, maybe your organization, and, I dunno... it could be the pimped out version of the organization headship if you don't have destroyer or an Idris frigate. And it's definitely cruising in style! And we definitely want to have some stuff where it can be about sightseeing or, like, pulling up in your big yacht and watching a Murray Cup race. I dunno, just for me personally I like the idea of sort of doing different roles, different things that simulate various aspects that you actually would see in real life, and you get to live a bit of a fantasy, 'cause you know, who wouldn't want to be Paul Allen or Larry Ellison pulling up in their massive yachts to the harbor of Monaco, watching the Monaco Grand Prix - it's pretty cool!So that's kind of the idea. I mean of course the 890 will do other things - it will be able to carry some cargo if you want, you can ship around your M50, or your X85, or another ship down in that hold... and it's pretty well armed so you can certainly defend yourself. So anyway, there you are. I don't know if that fully answered the question on the 890, but that's kind of where our thoughts are on that.

Yeah, I think we have... I may be incorrect, but I'm pretty sure we have a company that makes models for your hangar. I think it's "Takansku" or whatever - I forget the name of it [Note: It's Takuetsu]. But, uhh, yeah we're definitely-... we have a huge corporation list. I mean, there's probably... we haven't probably fully shared it with you guys, but internally on our... umm... we have a piece of software called "Confluence", which is sort of a business or an enterprise version of a wiki. And we use it, we have all our sort of... well it's where we put our in-universe fiction, development stuff, design documents, technical design documents. And so we have a whole section on the various companies that are throughout the United Empire of Earth universe. So we've spec'ed out loads of them - much more than you guys have seen - and we also have a team of-... we actually have 2 graphics artists that their job is literally to come up with the logos and designs for all these companies, very much like you would on a movie (and they are actually movie graphics design guys). And it's fun, because that's part of building out the universe. I mean that's one of the biggest things that I really love about Star Citizen, is that it's a universe that is going to be real. We're fleshing out every little detail, and I can't say enough good things about the work David Haddock, and Will, and also David Ladyman, and Ben Lesnick do on building out our universe. (So and it's Will Weisbaum by the way, who's our secondary writer - so Dave and Will are the two writers. Because we also have William Lewis who's a moderator - so just not to get confused there). But yeah, we're really fleshing out a huge universe and it's fun! I mean... it's universe crafting!So, having companies that specialize in various stuff, we will always have in-fiction ones. I don't know if we have "vintage vehicles" like prop planes and sports cars, but... perhaps. I mean maybe it's the same company that's doing the models that you would have of Constellation or the Idris sitting in your hangar.

Well, so definitely there's going to be the sort of alarm, you know, "critical hull failure, hull at 10%" or whatever we decide that is that you'll have. So the red lights will go on and flash on the bigger ships, which will probably be a pretty good cue to get to the escape pods! And we're also kind of thinking, you know, we're designing this for Squadron 42, and on some of the bigger ships we'll sort of sequence destruction. So, I dunno, your reactor is going to go up, and it starts to go up and then there's explosions all along the length of it. So we're gonna have that, although I don't know if once it gets to that level you'd have to probably be pretty quick to get into the escape pod and escape, but you probably could if you were close enough and do the right thing. So I think that there'll definitely be an in-ship warning to abandon ship, and then we'll definitely have destruction sequences where it doesn't all just, the whole thing instantly blows up - it sort of blows up in bits and breaks apart.

Well I think so - I think there will definitely be some missions where you would be asked to, you know, "would you be able to ferry a VIP from one location to another location"... "someone wants to rent a yacht to cruise to this area of space." So they definitely will be used for certain kinds of missions that would require a certain kind of ship, just like here in the real world. Some certain VIP, you know, the President of the United States, is not flying on a turboprop - he's flying on Air Force One. Just like a billionaire isn't gonna be-... you know, he generally doesn't fly commercial - he flies private - and so maybe he would be chartering his own 890 to get him from somewhere. So I think there will definitely be missions that will be like that, that would probably pay higher, but then there would be some risk, because maybe if someone is well-off or a trading magnate then that would be a magnet for pirates that would maybe want to kidnap and ransom that person. So yes, there are going to be missions for luxury spaceships.

So I think what we're just going to do... I mean the mobiGlas is probably going to be bound to your bio-signature, and so you won't be able to specifically steal it, and then wear it and see all his stuff. But what would happen is if someone takes it from you, you don't have the mobiGlas on you, then you're essentially going to not have any of the access to that sort of function and interface until you've got another mobiGlas. And then it probably would sync back up with your biorhythm and download from the "cloud", which I'm sure we have some version of in the future since we have it now. And that all happens right now if my iPhone gets stolen - I can just turn it right off and have it all redone. So it would be very much I would say like a modern PDA, so what you would be deprived of is the functionality until you got a replacement.

So, yes - that is the intent. So the intention with the hospital ship is to have the functionality that you would get in a hospital, down on a planet-side (which is essentially where you would respawn, or you would go to fix up critical injuries) be able to be mobile, and be able to be maybe in a system that there wouldn't normally be a planet that has that. The ambulance is sort of the idea which is what we've got with the rescue on the Cutlass Red. The idea is that that's a place where you could go and pick someone up that's badly injured in space in a way that maybe they would "lose a life" per the "Death of a Spaceman" mechanic, but if you get them in the ambulance, get them on the bed, fix them up, patch them up, you can sort of save that life. Because the idea is that every one of your characters only has so many lives before the body totally gives out and you've gotta move onto the next of kin, and you know, the designated successor. And so the Cutlass Red - the ambulance basically - and the hospital ships are both ways of enhancing or increasing your survivability, and making it that you won't lose a life. So they'll fix you up, or it can be sort of a respawn point, so to speak.

Well I would say that we pretty much would have... our options are gonna be very similar to what you would have in a traditional MMO with a lot of customization. So we are definitely looking at changing the face up, having a combination of morph targets, and having different chins, and noses, and eyes, and foreheads and all that kind of stuff. We've been debating about how we can do a technique that can sort of prevent people from making, like obviously non-realistic-looking people. But in general I think it's gonna be inline with a lot of stuff that you would see in other MMOs, although we're hoping to try and do it in a more sort of in-fiction way that keeps you in the world. And then of course you can put all sorts of manner of different clothes on - so that's a huge amount of customization, in terms of just the clothes you wear, or the armor you're wearing, or the spacesuit you're wearing. Various different sort of eye-wear, 'cause we're gonna go with the augmented reality, so you can have the equivalent of Google Glass or even a contact lens, or sort of a monocle. Different hats, helmets, all the rest of the stuff. So I think there's a... you know... you will be able to be pretty customizable. We're even considering putting... sort of potentially allowing you to do some level of tattoos, although that's still not 100% been decided. But I would say that, I dunno whether you wanna say "near infinite" but definitely as many options as you would get on a traditional MMO. And we're gonna allow you to do some of this stuff obviously for your ships, which is gonna be pretty cool!