If you were exploring a new- ... you've come through a jump point which is kinda what was happening in the Constellation commercial... you certainly would be able to name the jump point and the star system, and then if you came down to a planet, potentially you could be able to name the planet. You won't be able to decide the fate of pre-existing life - you should've read the small-print at the end of the commercial which said that it's a criminal act to break the Fair Chance Act, which is something that was put in place a few hundred years ago in the UEE to make sure that we, or Earth, or members of the UEE didn't interfere with evolving life forms. But I think there certainly will be the ability to claim something as a discovery. And stuff beyond that would be stuff that would be for versions of the game after 1.0.
I don't think we're going to have the jump point itself dynamically change, but we will definitely have jump points of different sizes - so one jump point is big enough to take capital ships as well as smaller ships, another jump point is only big enough for a small light ship. So think of it almost like a "mountain pass" on what you can fit through it. And so that will kinda make some interesting dynamics because maybe the bigger ship would have to jump around 2 or 3 hops, but the smaller ship can go there in 1 hop because this jump point is pretty unstable and can only take a small ship from the outside. So we're gonna use a little bit of that for some of the interest of the balancing, and obviously the jump points that allow the bigger ships to go through are probably the ones that become more common for trading lanes, so things like Starfarers and stuff and go through them.I think that'll make a kind of interesting dynamic in trading lanes and what happens out in space, but that's still early stages of the development of the Persistent Universe.
Well I don't think right now that will be happening, because we sort of treat the engines as one engine, whether there's two nozzles or just one nozzle. But longer-term I definitely could see that potentially happening, because we can have and will have the fidelity for that. So I guess we'll just sort of wait and see on that stuff.
So that's a good question. I don't know - I think there's a couple of systems that we plan to have binary stars or whatever. So we're definitely gonna have a bit of variety, and sort of go from there. I mean, the only one caveat with the sort of two-star systems is handling the lighting situation out in space, 'cause CryEngine is sort of built with the assumption of one sun, and so we'd have to have the second one as a separate sort of light, but that's definitely handle-able.
Yeah so, I mean I think we're talking about like, first of all on Arena Commander we're trying to figure out some ways to maybe make some the ramming a little less prevalent, and then outside of that - in the Persistent Universe - I think the more you crash into something, even if you have LTI the insurance company is just not going to get the ship replaced as quickly. And of course if you're doing it with a rare ship and there's not any of those ships in production nearby, then it takes you some time to get the new ship. So we're not- ... the idea is it shouldn't be really easy for you to do a lot of ramming in your ship. It should be a bit of a pain in the ass, and the more you do, maybe you have to wait a little longer, and if you do WAY too much of it, maybe there won't be any ships in that star system and you'll have to wait 'til one gets shipped in from another star system. So that's kinda the idea. We probably will want to have some other features there to stop people just being obnoxious, but we're still trying to think through all that sort of stuff, so we'll see what happens.
So yes, we definitely actually want to implement 3D voice chat. We're looking at several ways of doing it. We're going to be moving to a new sound system as well, in the engine - Wwise from FMOD. So that's kind of the goal - it's not working right now, but we kinda want to filter and process, like if I'm chatting to my friend and we're playing together, my voice is sort of filtered by my situation - I've got a helmet on, or I don't have a helmet on, whether I'm in an area that's echoey or not, or whether I'm behind them, or at the front or the side. So we are definitely planning to do that. I think it will be pretty cool and make the game more immersive, so stand by for that!
You'll be able to board and capture most ships and stations, but I wouldn't say all - like there'll definitely be some space stations in the Persistent Universe that are sort of more like a planet-side module where they're not really open for combat and they're not really open for people to capture them and own them. So that would definitely be an exception. I can't think of any ships that would be like that, but it would definitely be the non-persistent stations - the ones that would be instanced - you would not be able to capture. Same would be for, like, maybe an asteroid base that was, you know, not a solo one-off system one.
Right in front of me I don't have all the numbers, but definitely the Aurora is by far the biggest... you know, there's more Auroras than anything else by quite a lot. I would say Auroras probably make up something like 60 or 70 percent of the actual ships and pledges out there. Then beyond that, it's sort of, the next highest one is the 300i, then it's followed by the Hornet, then it's followed by the Freelancer, then it's followed by the Constellation. So, errr... I dunno... I would say there's probably... well, maybe 60 or 70 percent was high for the Aurora, but I would definitely say there was two, two-and-a-half times as many Auroras as there were 300is.But having said that, when you ask "will these numbers factor in with the economic model?" yes, they will because we're gonna be designing the economy in such a way that all ships have to be produced. And so the simplest ships - so the Auroras - will be produced in much more volume than, say, a much rarer ship - something like an Idris corvette. And so once you're flying around in the game, obviously the Auroras would probably be plentiful, in terms of being able to buy them in the same way that probably getting a Ford Fiesta is plentiful, or, you know, some sort of not particularly expensive or fancy car. And it will factor in... so therefore the numbers of them from our standpoint hopefully will correlate through, in terms of for what people have now and also kinda the frequency or rarity that they are in the game.
Well I don't know, I mean, I think we're trying to simulate a fairly realistic world, so that probably means there is a level of corruption in some places. We're certainly- ... we were thinking about some mechanics, you know, if you're a pirate and you get captured, and you get put into jail, basically the fiction for you going back out into the game versus literally being incarcerated and not being able to play the game - which wouldn't be that much fun - is that you essentially have to sort of bribe your way out of prison, or do something like that. So we're definitely gonna fictionally have some corruption that's happening, so I think that will just add an extra wrinkle. And I think there will be less of that the closer you are to the stronger, or the core UEE areas. So I guess I'm not sure whether it's going to be totally widespread, but there will definitely be a feature in some areas that there will be some level of corruption.
Okay, so the multi-crew ships are not going to be available in Arena Commander in the next few months because, first of all we've gotta get v0.9 out, and then v1.0. But hopefully by the end of the year we should have a drop with some multi-crew ships in, but we still have some technical stuff... So, we showed kind of the prototype at Gamescom but we have to get the double precision working, 'cause we really need bigger spaces and bigger areas when we get bigger ships. So that's kind of what we want to have working before we roll out the multi-crew ships to everyone, which hopefully will be by the end of this year, but we'll see.So, gift passes to invite non-backers to join us for a week or so... So that's kind of a cool idea. I mean at the moment we weren't necessarily planning on that because that's sort of extra functionality, like a guest pass or something like that. But I would assume that perhaps you could do something where someone would have to have a registered account, and as long as they installed and downloaded it, and then we could basically assign a badge, or you as a backer could assign a badge - like a "crew badge" - that would enable them to maybe join as a crew member. But we'd have to have the lobby system for the multi-crew ships going on. So I'll take that under consideration. It could actually be pretty cool. It'd certainly be fun to have a multi-crew ship and get some of your friends to join you and have some fun on it, and go from there. So thanks for the suggestion, Randi!