The developers answer fan questions on NPC pilots and gunners, escape pods on larger ships, the dogfighting module's ladder ranking, Gladiator fit in the Idris, Scythe physics, Cutlass turrets, asteroid hangars, and Squadron 42's mining missions and 10-mission serial release.
Sure. We've talked about AI pilots and gunners a lot. So yeah, in the case that you would rather be the gunner than the pilot, then sure, get up and have your NPC. And we're not talking like an AI, we're talking about a person that sits down in your seat and goes flying around, right?
Yeah, right. So you put a pilot, and I guess you can put an AI NPC in there and he would be flying around trying to dodge things while you're trying to shoot things. That's kind of the fun of that, right?
I'm thinking about Star Wars here. The escape pods are an alternate way. It's like an ejection seat in the Hornet, right? It's the way to get out of your ship. And in bigger ships, that's where you need a system like that, where you can't just shoot the seat out of the cockpit, because it's a closed cockpit. The Aurora, for instance, doesn't have an ejection seat, so you'd have to bail out through the hatch. But on the bigger ships, the Constellation and the Idris certainly have them. And basically, you tuck yourself into little beds and they dump out the side. Or in the case of the Idris, they shoot out through holes in the side.
Ladder ranking. Yes, there is going to be some preliminary version of that. We are keeping stats as far as doing matchmaking and everything. So, in order to get the players together so you guys can fight each other, we'll have some stats stored. Now, it's going to be probably a pretty rudimentary ladder system at the beginning, on the first release. But as all of our other modules, it will continue to grow.
Yeah, and that's another thing, as you guys help us out, tell us what you want. When you start playing the dogfighting module, say, gosh, I'd really like to see this, or golly, how about that, and we'll follow that along.
Provisional answer is yes, I believe it fits. I think its dimensions are slightly smaller than the Hornet. So it should fit. Of course, that's really not the Idris' primary purpose. It's sort of a bonus add-on. But I believe it's going to fit. So all you people out there with Gladiators can celebrate.
So the neat thing about our physics system is we actually take that kind of thing into account. So basically the simplest answer to that is some of the engines, particularly the maneuvering jets, have to work harder than others. Because the physics system does compensate for things like missing thrusters if something gets shot and it's damaged. But it also then would be able to handle the off-center.
Exactly, so no is the answer to that. There might be some off-world missions or something like that, but for the most part, you're in the military. You don't see the guys in the aircraft carriers nowadays go flying around on joyrides, so it's pretty much the same in Squadron 42.
You've seen several of those ships already, like the Gladiator and the Retaliator are both military. So, yeah, you'll have those and other fighters as well. Troop transports?
All kinds of stuff. So it's not just locked into one type of fighter craft. I mean, the majority of them will probably be one fighter, but you'll be upgrading and playing along the way. We don't want to give too much away.
TL;DRThe Cutlass's second turret is the tractor beam, while the main turret is now a class five manned turret; published ship specs are in-progress and will change.
Okay, so without going into too much detail on the classes of weapons again, which is all of course available on our lovely website. Originally, the turrets were less defined than they are now as far as the different classes of guns, like a class two and a class four and a class five. There's now those degrees where we're actually specifying one's just a gun that can pivot in one or two directions, whereas one is more of a free turning gun. So really the second turret on the Cutlass is the tractor beam.
It is, yeah. So basically, as with everything we ever put on the website, game in progress, development in progress, things change. In this case, it just was some classifications.
That's a good point. And the thing you guys have to remember out there is that those things that are published, generally speaking in game development, those things get washed out over time while you're making the game. And by the time it gets finished or balanced or put out there to everybody once you start playing it, that would have been six months, a year, two years before, had already been figured out or slotted or changed, and you guys wouldn't have even seen that. But because we're doing this modular and we're doing open development, we're letting you in on the process. So there's going to be a lot that will change over time, and specifically in ship stats. So yeah, just be understanding that that's going to happen, and that's part of the fun of being involved.
Well, yes, that would be a starting point, certainly. I could have an asteroid hangar on a moon. Just a rogue asteroid just hanging out in the middle of nowhere. Yeah, we have identified those systems, and one of them is a lawless system. In fact, they might both be. But we're not ready to tell you that.
I think the short answer to that is that there will be some distinction. Certainly when we're identifying groups, like the UEE Navy, then if a Navy ship comes flying at you, it will be clear that they are a member of that group. As far as maybe the Xi'an ship, the human version of the scout versus their scout, well the human version will obviously look different, profile will be different, so your ship should be able to identify the differences.
So Wingman's Weight, we sort of went off track after the holidays. And we'll probably bring it back, but not as a main portion. We want less fluff, more stuff, and maybe a little puff if we ever get the hazy dots out there. But Wingman's Weight, I'm hemming and hawing here, and it's gone up a little bit, obviously. We're going to go back on it. We'll bring you up to date. We'll bring that segment back, but give me a couple weeks to work it out.
It plays a pretty big part in about the first 10 missions. You sit around a mining facility, so... The thing is, you guys are going to inherit it at some point, so we've just got to make sure it works.
Right, it's a pretty big component, and that's one of the beautiful things about this, distributed development. We've got teams owning different portions of the game all over the world, and then we integrate it all back together, so it's all pretty crucial.
First 10 missions for the end of this year, fingers crossed. So we're knuckling down with those. And then in the background, we'll have other teams working on the follow-up 10, segments of 10 missions every month after.
Just kind of doing the modular release kind of schedule, like the rest of us. It's a serial sort of release, kind of like the old Buck Rogers movies or something.
Yeah, that's the plan. Like cliffhangers at the end of Flash Gordon, like the old Flash Gordon serials, the big cliffhanger at the end of every 10-mission segment.