The developers cover NPC skill leveling with per-character caps, why corrupt cops won't be playable, and whether the Idris frigate can land. They also discuss missile evasion, G-suit upgrades, reputation instead of licenses, and station-based org territory.
I actually looked at that question and I said, Chris, this is a question I would like the answer to. I'm very excited about your answer to this. So yeah, what he said is they will get better.
Essentially, kind of a behind-the-scenes leveling up thing. But they're differentiated. So not everybody can be a level 10, we'll call it that, a level 10 gunner, for instance. Different characters will have different caps for different skills.
So, while there will be some places where corruption is a possibility in the verse, it's not going to be something that the players jump in there and infiltrate. We need law enforcement. It's a tool for us and for our game masters to keep things under control in the universe to some extent. Keep problem players under wraps.
Well, the answer to that is, we're not sure yet. There was a time when we were pretty sure that it was going to land, but then something happened and the Idris sort of grew. It's grown and turned into a frigate. So, not sure yet.
So that's almost a TBD. Back to the old TBD days. But that's one of those things we'll find out as we do the planetside environments and we do the size of the ships and we'll see.
TL;DRPlayers won't be able to make and share their own HUDs in the Persistent Universe because it's technically difficult, though local-server tinkering and some screen rearranging may be possible, and a great fan creation might be considered.
The short answer to that is no. While there may be some opportunities for players to play with HUDs on their own local servers, it's a huge undertaking. And it's not necessarily something that's going to be easily customizable in the first place. I mean, there may be some ways to move screens around and everything as far as player configurations of their HUDs, but it's not going to be a "here's my new HUD, everyone can have it" sort of situation.
Right, but that's not to say, with our fans out there, the citizens out there, they may cook something up that's out of this world and you send it in. If somebody does something really cool, I can't imagine us saying no, so we'll see how that goes.
So yeah, actually it's already in the game in the sense that our missiles all have a lifespan, so they don't just fly around following you forever, so they do eventually detonate. If you're a good enough pilot, then in theory you could dodge a missile long enough for it to explode far away from you, or near somebody else, or whatever. But generally, countermeasures and intervening obstacles are the best way to go to scrape a missile off your tail in the shortest amount of time.
So that's not really a... I think if you're thinking of it in terms of badges, for instance, it's not like you get a merit badge and suddenly you can build a fire in the universe or whatever, but it's more of a reputation thing. We're not going to gate, based on the license, most of these things. If you want to do it, you can do it. You may not be as good at it as other people, but it's available. There may be some things that, based on your reputation with certain organizations, you get access to different missions or better missions or harder missions, but you'll still have access to do those things.
So yeah, actually we've already been talking about some upgrades to suits so that you can lessen the impact of blackouts and redouts because they can be a little challenging.
TL;DROlder ships might occasionally be added and could have different cockpits and HUDs, but players shouldn't expect to find random old ships lying around, since each ship takes huge effort and might need towing.
There's a whole lot of cascading assumptions in that question too. It's like there's just going to be random ships lying around from whenever. Just something random. It's like, oh, this one was mentioned in Jump Point number four. So starting with the first assumption and unraveling it a little bit: as we've told you all many times before, a ship in our universe is a huge, huge undertaking. It is a big, long timeline with a lot of things that have to be done to get that game-worthy. So it's not like we're going to be running into just random one-off ships all over the place. It can't be done easily. So things might be added over time, but we'd rather move forward than back probably. So if there are occasionally some of these older ships thrown in, then yes, maybe they would have different HUDs, I guess is the answer to the original question, different cockpits, yes. But don't expect to just be tripping over random ships all over the place when you're flying in.
Yeah, you would think that if you find something, even if there were something populated out there in the verse, then it wouldn't necessarily be something you just jump in and fly home. Maybe you'd have to tow it or tractor beam it, so to speak.
So we've answered questions like this before in the sense that Chris doesn't necessarily envision us doing whole planet ownership early on, that that might be a longer-term goal and we would have to have systems in place for that kind of event. Right now, if you're talking about organizations fighting over territory, it's more going to be space stations. And the answer to how you get it back is you invade the space station, board it, take out everybody who's on it.
Awesome. The two most epic moments of the livestream. That one and the running into the landing pad when you first launched were both just awesome. And of course, Chris just handled it. No problem.
Actually, I was up in the booth directing the livestream, so I was like camera two, camera three, camera four. And I had the headset on and I went, oh, I wonder if that went out into the universe. I wonder if that was loud enough for everybody to hear. And yeah, apparently so. So are we going to get a "This is BS" coffee mug for them?
Well, this is a special gift from Dave Haddock. Now, all those Comm-Links that you guys love to read, a lot of that comes from Dave. He's very prolific and he's very talented, but Parker Terrell is sort of our voice of the fans. When we publish some fiction and people take issue with that, like, oh, your physics are wrong or whatever they happen to be upset about, then sometimes Parker will jump in and take that side.
Takes the fan side. Yeah, and basically shouts down the previous post, and that's his job. He's kind of the voice of you people. And now he has his own show. Comm-Link last week. He got his own show. So now you get even more of him, and he is going to be bringing reason to the verse.