10 for the Chairman: Episode 51 (2015.01.26)

I think this is something that I've talked about before. I like that we have functions in ships like that which make them seem real, and I do want to give the player a bonus for using those things to a certain extent, because it makes it not just completely cosmetic. That said, you don't want to make it like real life where you have to use the toilet, or eat 3 square meals a day or whatever. I was in favour of the light immersion factor which is something like, say, if you didn't shower for a week, someone might make a face at you due to the smell or look, and thus might be -1 to your reputation/conversation with that person. Sleeping is what we're using as a save mechanic too, but perhaps occasionally if you rest in the PU or eat it might affect your stamina or something. I do think things like drinking too much alcohol should make your vision blurry, but perhaps if you never ate anything ever you might get weaker. It should be fun, but just a light RPG immersion factor, like you could walk up to the Constellation dinner table and press a button, have a meal appear and your character might have a little bit of a bonus from eating it. It shouldn't feel like you have to do it all the time like a chore, but that it'd be good to do every now again. It'll be like refuelling your ship, just resource management.

Starfarer I'd say yes, I don't know about the Carrack, I'd have to check our ship schedule. The SF is definitely a yes as it's one of the ships that is being worked on now and has a place in SQ42, which is out this year, so it obviously has to be finished for hangars and flight before that. Our biggest challenge with other ships like the Carrack is the sheer amount of work that has to go into making them and getting them ready for Hangars and flight. We're hiring, any great 3D hard modellers out there get us a yell, we're ramping up our UK branch with those positions too. We had a ship summit very recently, where we sorted out not only the plan for which ships go where and how to build them, but we have a whole technique now for building the bigger ships with the retaliator as a prototype. We're sorting out ways to make them look like pre-rendered assets while being rendered real-time. The retaliator is a prototype for not only multi-crew functionality but for much more stuff we look for in the bigger ships. We have a total of 12 vehicle modelling specialists at the moment, but we're looking for more to hire, you guys want space-ships and we want to build them!

Yes. That's 100% the design. Everything we tend to do in SC is based on what would physically fit. Various things have an inventory, so a hangar has an inventory, a ship has an inventory etc. I could have a pair of pants, that might have 2 small slots for items (the pockets), but I might have a backpack on that could hold 10 items of size 2 or less (throwing that out there), then if you're using those inventory items, they'd all be aggregated into your personal inventory. So yes, it works like a traditional RPG, but with the difference being that everything is visible, perhaps not if you have something in a pocket or backpack, but things strapped on will be. Perhaps if you're wearing a backpack you'd not run as fast as if you weren't however, so there is a trade-off for those decisions, like perhaps if you're wearing a backpack you'd also not be able to sit in a fighter pilot's seat or something like that.

That aspect of how players trade is something we've been discussing. Longer term the goal would be to allow players to start or to buy their own store-front, so there might be "Chris' Store of Curiosities" where other players can come to buy stuff. So we definitely want to include that sort of stuff in-game, it's also one of the biggest ideas for the Banu MM, so you could fly around buying and collecting things, then sell them in your greeting/trading room on-ship. There will probably be some version of a local-system based version of Craig's list, where you post things for sale, then people can browse them then contact you, before arranging a meeting place, then while you're both there you'd transfer the goods. Typically, depending on what you're selling, things might need to be regulated just like things in the real world, say, ship sales and the like. This is one of the things we're trying to go for realism with in the PU.