Turbulent developers discuss Spectrum's roadmap: nested threads, polls, org roles and public forums, custom emojis, VOIP lobbies, an in-game overlay, API plans and a mobile app. They also cover the delta patcher and launcher, Starmap's Galactapedia, the Issue Council, and fleet view.
To be able to launch Spectrum they had to make some tough choices at what will get put in the first iteration, but they have plans to do polls. However their goal isn't to copy everything forums have done, but iterate on them that makes them unique, but polls in some fashion will be on Spectrum.
The most short term thing that they're working on that is slated for 3.33 is nested threads. This allows people to make a "Reddit" style thread and to give people the option of what type of thread they'd like to do instead of just the classic one.
What Benjamin would like to see soon is having deeper integration of the things they already have for orgs such as being apart of multiple orgs and hiding which ones you're apart of for Spectrum, but feature wise it's mainly everything an Organisation would need. There isn't a specific feature that's slated first, but they want public forums within orgs so that orgs can have a recruitment thread or area for people not apart of an Org to communicate with them.
Roles within Spectrum are also something they're keen to get out as soon as possible which is needed to make those public forums for orgs possible. Invite links are something they want to have in there as well to streamline the invite process and make joining different roles or just recruitment easier.
It's nothing special, it's just for bugfixing and giving them more information on troubleshooting.
From Turbulent's standpoint the actual patching process is progressing very nicely. The engineers working on the project are patching the game with the new method, builds are being produced with the file system and they're ironing out the kinks. On Turbulent's end they've received the patching library and they're integrating it into the new patcher application which doesn't look any different, but underneath is completely different and allows them to bring Spectrum into the launcher, but the launcher will come first and then Spectrum integration into the launcher. So right now they're at the stage of internal testing and once they're happy with it then they'll release it to all the developers and once it's good from there, then it'll go to the Evocati. The timeline isn't distant anymore, but there's still some work to be done, but it's a lot closer than it was before.
It's still in holding because they're determining how to best implement it because some people may not want their ships being shared with the org or have only some shared with the org. It's something they have to get more feedback on, as well as let the game build a bit more before they can really dig into that.
TL;DRVOIP will use Opus, and Spectrum is meant to work as a deeper in-game overlay and backend service for some UI elements, but not appear inside the MobiGlas; security was not addressed.
Opus. The goal is to make it so you can access stuff in game, but not inside the game. It may break immersion a little bit, but they need Spectrum to be an overlay in the game because it would be tedious to go into MobiGlas and then go into a separate window and then so on and so forth. Think of it like a Steam overlay or a better example is the Curse overlay, but deeper.
The advantage they have with Spectrum and Star Citizen is that they are the game and instead of slapping an overlay on top of the game they can go deeper. Some elements of Spectrum will be used as backend services from within the game, but don't expect you'll be able to pop your MobiGlas and you'll see Spectrum in it, that's not where they're going, but you will be able to pop certain UI elements that use Spectrum behind the scenes. So for example the ability to use channels that are shared in game and out of the game.
The idea is for players to create voice lobbies, switch between them and be able to do that quickly. This is stage one which is within Spectrum.
The next stage is if Spectrum is on and the game is on, you'll hear what people say based off where they are in the game from you that are in that lobby with you.
For Orgs they do want to have a nesting feature to allow for command structure VOIP like Teamspeak has.
Currently the resources for making the mobile app are tied up at the moment, but the way they've built Spectrum will allow them to create it fairly quickly when they are able to work on it. Currently the priority of on VOIP and players would rather have that than the mobile app first.
VOIP for the mobile app is unknown. Their focus is on the desktop VOIP for now and if they can do VOIP for mobile they will, but it's unknown.
They've talked about it, but want to go about it differently from the way the old forum had it integrated and use the role functionality to allow players to see a dev reply to a specific thread or have a notification feed on when a role has posted. They want the functionality of something like that be applicable for orgs which is their goal with all features is have them work not just for one thing, but other areas in Spectrum and the community.
Their goal next is the Galactapedia which is a much more indepth wiki that allows you to search for things based on a phrase or specific word that will pull up info and also have that integrated with MobiGlas.
It's a place for players to submit their bugs, and have others try to reproduce the bugs and give feedback by replying directly, or upvoting or downvoting.
What's next is having deeper integration within Spectrum and enabling more ways for people to share their reports with each other.
The ship stats on the website were made a long time ago and their stats are there to reflect what the design goal of the ship is. The issue isn't tools as they have the tools to change them, but that there are lots of changes that happen that may or may not be permanent and they don't want the stats page constantly changing because of a bug or testing.
API stands for Application Program Interface and is a way for people to write their own program, but use the services provided by the API. They plan to have an API for Spectrum, but a dedicated machine API so you can write your own APIs that aren't using your credentials.
They have to be careful though as there's a game involved and Spectrum will be integrated into the game and they don't want to allow people to gain an advantage by creating APIs that give them an advantage.
Maybe. They have a couple ideas that they'll try to pursue.
It's one thing they're wanting to have as soon as possible. 0.35 is a possibility for when you might see it. 0.33 is subreddits and thread types, 0.34 is more than likely Org quality of life improvements.
They're working on expanding the current states, but that will come in time as the game grows so you'll eventually be able to see where a person is or what they're doing.
Friends list as well is something they're working on expanding, but they're building it in a way that allows them to use it in a variety of ways such as friending someone without needing their permission, but then maybe you can't see certain details such as where they are or what they're doing until they add you as well. Or having multiple characters and having isolated friends lists where one character may have a different list of friends to another.