Developers cover the in-progress insurance system, the delayed 2.4 patch and its first limited PTU, and upcoming ships: Caterpillar concepting, the Buccaneer reveal, the Polaris corvette shape, and the 890 Jump. Also discussed are Alpha UEC versus REC, the Orion contest, and the Arena Commander soundtrack.
Actually, I'm curious. I want to see how that's all going to work.
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Ben LesnickDirector of Community Engagement, Online Strategy and Spaceships
Yeah, it was interesting seeing all of our designers trying to figure out stuff like how you punish people for insurance fraud and how the game will actually track that. It's cool seeing these vague ideas we had two or three years ago turn real.
TL;DRPatch 2.4 is a very big update, mostly persistence work plus new earning and spending, and will almost certainly not reach live in April; blockers are still being tracked.
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Ben LesnickDirector of Community Engagement, Online Strategy and Spaceships
Yes, it is April 29th. 2.4 is not. Actually, did they go out for the Evocati PTU yet? We'll see. I don't know. We're very close to the first limited PTU test. If it has not already happened, it will be very soon. That's all being run by Will Leverett in Austin. I know they got their patch notes. I don't know if the actual patch hit yet. But 2.4 is coming along. It's a big, big, big deal. The biggest jump since the jump to 2.0. We're probably, almost certainly not going to hit live in April. But it will be worth a little bit of a wait. And we'll keep you guys updated as we start getting lists of exactly what the blockers and the bugs are.
When we talk about the biggest patch, a lot of that is under the hood stuff. There's a lot of work being done to make persistence a thing, to move everything up into our new database. It's not as flashy as 2.0.
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Ben LesnickDirector of Community Engagement, Online Strategy and Spaceships
That's massively huge, but there's also a lot of user-end content. The game changes very much with the idea of earning money and spending money. It's going to feel like a big change. Port Olisar is very different, just getting rid of the holotable. In fact, we were all celebrating in this thread about that, and Chris was like, no, no, it's coming back. So, it is coming back, but it's going to be better. And you'll be using your mobiGlas for now.
TL;DRCaterpillar concepting is wrapping up, the Buccaneer reveal is on track for late May if all goes well, and the F7A Hornet is being designed to look distinct from the existing Hornet.
Ben LesnickDirector of Community Engagement, Online Strategy and Spaceships
Yeah, so we are getting ready for the Buccaneer, which will be late May, assuming everything comes together as we're hoping. Game development can go very quickly, but we're on track for the Buccaneer as our next big ship reveal. That's kind of exciting. I saw they were doing the work on the F7A Hornet for Squadron. I know for years now people have been like, but what does the F7A look like? Is it just like the C? The answer is no, it is not just like the C.
It's simultaneously very different but very similar. Chris Smith is doing a very good job at updating the design while still making it easily identifiable as a Hornet.
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Ben LesnickDirector of Community Engagement, Online Strategy and Spaceships
So you'll be seeing more of that as we get closer to Squadron. We want a very different hero vehicle, something that stands out from the one folks own. What other ship stuff is happening this week? We were supposed to have a kickoff for two new tiny ships, but that got pushed a couple weeks for the usual scheduling stuff. It's at the point where we're looking at what ship concepts we want to start well after the game is out. So it's a good place to be in.
That was done on purpose. I left our mics up on purpose because we're pushing out a soundtrack. And we'll be selling the soundtrack to folks who don't already have it. So that will be where you get your clean, pristine version of the orchestrated Arena Commander thing.
Ben LesnickDirector of Community Engagement, Online Strategy and Spaceships
There are no new pictures of the 890 Jump right now. It's just waiting for its turn in the putting-into-the-game stage. We did sit down to talk about the 85X, which would be the first bit of the 890 Jump you guys get. So that's being put together in the not-too-distant future. I think you literally have every single image we've ever generated of the 890 right now.
Yeah, we can share. It's going to be another one of the space plants, and it will be the space cactus. In fact, I got an email from Emmanuel at Behaviour this morning, he sent me new concept art for it because there was a change to it to make it more exotic. So you guys are getting a more exotic space cactus.
Yeah, if it's up and running, it's one of those things that we could theoretically put in.
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Ben LesnickDirector of Community Engagement, Online Strategy and Spaceships
We're confident talking about the persistence and the shopping and everything because we know that no matter what, it's all or nothing there. I mean, they were scheduled to. I have not seen if they actually work yet or not. But if you're out there, Matt Sherman or somebody else, let us know.
Ben LesnickDirector of Community Engagement, Online Strategy and Spaceships
So we're going to close that on Monday, Monday noon Pacific. Have your write-up done by then, and we're going to close them all. We have had over 35,000 entries, so it's going to take a little bit of time for us to read everyone's files.
All right, so Tyler will be reading your entries next week.
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Ben LesnickDirector of Community Engagement, Online Strategy and Spaceships
No, we're going to go through all those. We're going to find our favorites. Another thing I neglected to mention last time is that we're going to use them as a source for lore when it strikes our fancy. So we're going to provide all these great entries to our lore people, and if they want them for NPCs or backstory or anything, they're going to be able to work that into the verse. So it's kind of cool all around.
TL;DRA video office tour is close, but the lobby is still being finished and they want Chris Roberts to give it, so it likely waits until he returns in early June.
Ben LesnickDirector of Community Engagement, Online Strategy and Spaceships
Yeah, two things stopping that. They're just putting together the lobby right now. In fact, they put up the subscriber thing with everybody's names and Chris wanted to add a plaque to the bottom of that explaining what those names were, so that's coming. But we're very, very close. I think the big thing we really are waiting on now is Chris Roberts. Chris is off for Squadron in the UK for the next four weeks. We really want him to be the one to do the tour.
Yeah, we could do it but this is Chris's baby. It just seems right to have him be the guy who gives you the tour.
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Ben LesnickDirector of Community Engagement, Online Strategy and Spaceships
Knowing how excited he was about that Willy Wonka idea, the golden ticket at the very start of the game, I think he wants to be the guy who shows off the Chocolate Factory.
Ben LesnickDirector of Community Engagement, Online Strategy and Spaceships
So the current status of the Polaris corvette, we have selected the shape. Our concept artist sent us five or eight different possible directions. We said this one, everybody agreed, this is the one we want it to look like, and now he is off fleshing that out. You'll be seeing it in the next couple months.
TL;DRConverting REC to Alpha UEC is something to entertain but not now, since Alpha UEC is meant to be freely given or removed for testing, though later rewards for large REC amounts are possible.
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Ben LesnickDirector of Community Engagement, Online Strategy and Spaceships
It's something to entertain. It wouldn't be as much of a benefit for testing, because we want to see how, we were going to go into it with our thinking, here's how we were going to play, here's what the appropriate amount to earn is, here's how long we want it to take to earn. We need to get that data first. Certainly, we can look down the road. I don't even know if it would be Alpha UEC, but maybe once we get to UEC, we can look at people who have astonishing amounts of REC and say, okay, here's your reward for that.
Yeah, the real purpose of Alpha UEC at this point is because we want to be able to nuke it entirely, give it out, take it away, and change it as we experiment with the value of things. So it's not supposed to be something that you earn, it's supposed to be something that we can give and take away.
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Ben LesnickDirector of Community Engagement, Online Strategy and Spaceships
They do earn, they will earn, and so on, in Crusader, which is other information we desperately need to track. The other big, big thing about Alpha UEC is, as he says, we can say, hey, everybody's a billionaire today, and see how the game reacts to that, or hey, nobody has any money today, see how people play. It's testing.
Yeah, and then once it gets built out, that's the thing. It's all guesses until we get it built out. So they build it out, and then that's when you get to walk around in things, and you realize, okay, we need to make this bigger, we need to make this. So it's all guesswork until it's built.
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Ben LesnickDirector of Community Engagement, Online Strategy and Spaceships
For updates on VR, you're going to want to check Brian Chambers' news segment from ATV about three weeks ago. Basically, he says we've got some guys in the Frankfurt office. They have a plan for it, but it's not in active development right now because they have to prioritize for things that affect this many people versus things that affect this many people. So they have a plan. They know how to do it. It's just prioritization right now.
Ben LesnickDirector of Community Engagement, Online Strategy and Spaceships
Roughly the same price. We'll spec it out based on the exact specifications. Last we did a preliminary look, it was like $10 cheaper, but loadouts and stuff may change.