Reverse the Verse: October 16th, 2015

No update right now. We're still working on them, guys. I promise we'll update you as soon as we do. I did talk to Behaviour yesterday about Concierge hangar flair, however, and that is something we are going to work into the schedule for 2016. So you can look forward to a very special Concierge flair coming soon.

And we all know the ones you want.

Yes, we know that the top hat and monocle was highly requested. So I believe that's high up there on our list.

That's an all-star question. We get that every week. No news yet. Basically, we don't sit on stuff like that. When there's news, you'll have it.

Well, the Sabre Q&A will be released a little bit later today. I would actually say probably within the hour after RTV ends, because we've already got the answers. I'm going to do a little bit of polishing to them, but the guys in the UK were fantastic. We got the stuff in on time. It'll be available shortly.

And big thanks to Tom Johnson and John Crewe for those answers with the Sabre Q&A. John Crewe being the lead designer over there?

Yes. So again, that should come shortly after. When we're done here, we'll get that out.

They're in the works. We changed the plan, we're not going to charge you for them, but it'll take a little bit of time to figure out how to do them. Yes.

Yeah, a couple plans.

Plans within plans.

Just a matter of which one works out.

Yeah, not like the Retaliator did, but when the new Constellation is ready to fly, I imagine we'll do a... Yeah, I mean, the Phoenix will be a little bit different because it's a limited number of them. I know a lot of those have been melted and we could probably sell a couple hundred Phoenixes. We will look at that when it's ready to be flown around. We reserve the right to have options.

We haven't forgotten about it, guys. There's a pipeline. There's things in a queue. There's only so many people that can work on so many ships at a time. So when it's ready, we'll have some new info for you. It's like you have a factory where you're making a bunch of cakes, and there's one part where you mix up the cakes, and then another part where you ice them, and you can only mix so many at a time, you can only ice so many at a time, and also we completely forgot about the Freelancer cake.

These things just take time, guys. The information will be there when it's ready to be there. There's really no more complicated answer than that.

Not before 2.0, but there will be changes to the holotable. Yes. By and by. Holotable is one we get a lot because people hate it. A lot of us here hate it as well, but it's also not something that's blocking the development of the rest of the game. So we focus on those building blocks right now, whereas the holotable is an end. And it's not the ideal interface, but it is the finished tech. So it's not the priority to go back and remake it right now. Whereas something that might be blocking everything else, like asteroid generation or some tech thing, gets the priority.

I was just talking to Turbulent yesterday. I don't think we did our second run for that, so I will make sure that happens today.

Not yet, but we're looking into it. It's a beefy, beefy website.

I think that the Star Map works on tablets now if you use it in a web browser. I think they actually have touch controls in there. It's a very robust Star Map.

Yes, yes. So there will be. It's not going to be that easy in the end.

I'm kind of guessing an error. You'll definitely be doing tuning on your workbench. It won't be the same potency of high-end overclocking that something like the Collider will give you, but you'll need a way to tune and adjust the basics of your gear on your own.

Yeah, I've seen this same question a couple times. I think it was just somebody at Turbulent cleaning up the SKUs a little bit, not a design decision to change what the workbench does.

Money-only items, but what does that mean?

Well, the Voyager Direct store is for using credits, right? So the items in the Voyager Direct store would be credits only. But you can use real money to buy credits. There are some new items coming to the VD store next week, or whenever we launch 1.3. I don't want to say next week, but probably next week.

I believe they have a different... There's one different thing, isn't there?

Well, one comes with a railgun, one doesn't. It's the M.

One has a hardpoint for a railgun and the other doesn't. So they are different base hulls. And that gun is going to be just terrifying when it's all built out. Probably the largest class of weapon that players will be able to really change out on their ships, just because, well, size 12s are ginormous and bigger than a lot of our current ships.

I don't believe the very first drop of it. That's one of the other little hurdles that we need to tackle, but it's definitely on the short list of things to get hooked up as soon as possible. Because that's going to be an awesome whole sequence when you're able to release a fighter, recover it.

For Connie variants, guys, they're just working on the Andromeda right now, getting that going. Once that's going, they'll turn their attention towards the variants. So it'll be a while after that. No time frame.

Well, I don't want to judge what is and isn't a normal missile. In today's society, all types of missiles are acceptable.

But yes, it probably will. It would most likely be something that will replace the ordnance in the bomb bays. Like any ship, you'll have options on a Retaliator, so having choices is always a good thing.

We've talked about it. The discussion always ends up being why would people want to buy the Argo. So maybe. You guys go out there and demand it.

It's also gameplay considerations. We don't want a new person to come in who doesn't know anything about the game, see the Argo, go, oh, that's cool, buy the Argo, and then jump into Arena Commander with it. That's not a good gameplay experience, trying to dogfight or race in the Argo. So it's not a thing we can just jump into. There are other considerations.

But I think the Argo's really cool and I want one. We are going to be offering one of the breakout ships in the not too distant future. Gurmukh is finishing up his work on the Archimedes. Archimedes is going to be really cool. I think the Phoenix owners are really going to enjoy it.

I believe it is November 19th. I think it kicks off that way and goes through the 26th.

What day is Thanksgiving?

Thanksgiving is the 26th. I believe the original campaign ended on the 26th, and then Thanksgiving was later that year, 2012? Yeah, because last year I remember the anniversary sale started the day before Thanksgiving. It flips around a little bit.

We're playing around with it, but it's not a focus right now. We want to get that baby PU out first.

Things like balancing and team matching are also a lot more complicated to do well and to make sure that it's something that people are going to stay engaged with. Long term, yeah, I think we're going to need stuff like that, but in the near future, we've got a ton of other features, ships, and just core things that we need to get built in so we know what to balance and matchmake around.

Probably not before 2016, but Sandi and I have talked about it. We know you guys like the hoodies. We know you really like the fabric from the hoodies. So in the new year, we will get some hoodies for you guys. Our next thing, we're going to start doing pre-orders for new polo shirts. So they'll be ready for the springtime. And I believe we'll start selling those sometime in December.

I would love if we could do those. That would be amazing. Not any time in the near future, because those will be pricey. I know we've looked into it in the past. Hopefully that's something we can do down the line, though, because that would be amazing.

Now back on the old Wing Commander games, at the end of the project, you would always get a bomber jacket. Cross your fingers.

TBD, although we're working on a Q&A with Saitek, and they will hopefully answer that question then.

There are retros on other ships. Their physical size may not always line up, but that will also change the gameplay, where you'll be able to get up to speed faster than you'll be able to brake down to speed, so it's not just going to be one-to-one counterforce on either side.

The Idris comes with an Argo right now. But I imagine if you get the Argo, it should fit into anything with a similar size bay.

Yeah, it's not a giant ship. I'm trying to think of what it's close to size-wise, but it's barely small, a little bit bulkier than the Merlin, M50, just because it can carry up some utility gear with it.

In the Squadron 42 demo, it looked like a bulky Aurora, like less long, more wide.

Yeah. Thinking about maybe something in the same profile, like what a Hull A is going to probably look like when we get that built into the hangar, probably a little bit thinner than that, but it's still a really cool ship, especially with the pods. It looks utility, which is awesome.

Yeah, totally. I actually saw a few requests for the UEE patch set. I think that's going to be our next patch set, but manufacturer patches, yeah, that's definitely something we can look into for the future.

Remember we did those ship patches? I really want to do a second wave of those.

For the Cutlass questions, yes, John Crewe stated that it's currently transitioning to the LA office, but that handoff hasn't completed yet. So it's in a weird nether space right now. Once we've taken it over, I've got to give the guys some time to work on it. Then hopefully I can bother them for some answers. But getting the work on it is more important than me pestering them for the answers. So it'll be a little bit.

That is actually not really me. That was the other Matt we have in the LA office, Matthew Intrieri. He is badass with tech art and making ship explosions look awesome and not kill our computers at the same time. So he is doing most of that damage state stuff.

And the pierceability is coming.

Yeah, pierceability stuff is more a by-product of physically-based damage, still being looked at for how we'll be handling it overall, but lots of cool stuff with just components and weapons and all that down the pipe for the next couple months, so it'll be good stuff.

Maybe not the day it drops, because while Star Citizen is open to all our backers right now, we really should let backers try it first. As we have events and promotions following when it drops, we'll certainly have free fly codes and let everybody try it out. But let's give it to our supporters first.

No word on the Avenger variants yet.

We're moving on that, though. So I don't want to spoil any of that. You'll hear about the Avenger variants when the time comes.

No update. Well, when it happens, you'll know. But we're still...

You're still pursuing it, yeah.

No, you would be much better off melting the ship and then using the store credit to purchase a Sabre, because that has LTI.