Star Citizen: Calling All Devs - Stanton System

I'd say yes and no. So yes, in the sense that we're working towards an objective to kind of close out what we've previously discussed. And as Todd said, this could be to do with celestial bodies or it could be to do with landing zones. But on that side of things, it's fairly quantifiable. But on another side, we're also developing tech as we go. What I mean by that is, as new tech comes online, it's very important to not [only] showcase that in a new system coming down the pipe. I think it's very important that we showcase that in Stanton. An example would be as Planet Tech is developed, last quarter you saw us update the height maps and we've got quite a lot of content coming in the next quarter. So those kind of give a little example as to how we're looking to still focus on developing our original system, Stanton, but also we're looking to expand out into other systems. So in answer to your question, Jared, it's yes and no.

Quite a lot. And it's quite varied as well. So just to kind of give a little backstory. So you guys are just seeing how we've updated something like Grim Hex. So this is kind of a classic example of how we've taken one of our fairly old locations in our game and as we've developed the game we've kind of realized what that location needs. So obviously we've gone back through and we've updated it with the hangars so it supports the player ability to land and take off from there in all size ships. I think that was huge. That's something that we've wanted to do for quite some time. Also while we were in there we were doing other things, like there's the mission giver location. And although we've done that work, obviously the mission giver wasn't ready for that release and the racing, the gameplay elements there as well, weren't ready. But essentially what we're doing is we're almost making the movie set. We're building the sets ready for the actors to come, and that's kind of a nice analogy, a nice way to kind of look at things. So even though we're laying the foundations, it kind of gives the opportunity for other teams to put their content in a little bit later on. So that's one example. Also, as we've closed out New Babbage, we wanted to obviously validate that last release we did. But there's a few things that we couldn't quite get in there for that release. An example would be something like the Factory Line, the flagship store in New Babbage. And even something as small as the kiosk in the spaceport. We're constantly looking to go deeper or add further layers to the player experience. And it could be even something as small as the player noticing, oh, hey, that's changed. And for me, even as a player, I really like it when developers do that because the space feels alive, it gives you that reason to kind of go back to it. Alright, okay, what's new? And we don't always advertise every single change we do because as developers we want to make the experience as good as possible.

Okay, so just to focus on the modular side of things, we've been looking to go deeper into our space stations for some time. You've seen them go from these quite small locations to these much larger, much grander locations, and that was step one. And now step two and step three is to go deeper, literally go deeper in terms of the internal components to it. So right now we're working on spaces like the cargo deck and the refinery deck. So these are ways in which we can add further variety to these much larger locations. And we can have a little bit of fun as well in terms of one space station in one part of the system will be very different to another station in another part. So that's one example. Also, you guys have been seeing the gas cloud tech develop for some time now. And one of the things that was important for me is to find an initial platform to showcase that in Star Citizen. So one of the things we're doing now is we've done the preliminary spacescaping, we've defined all of our VDBs, we're doing the lighting. So we're really getting a good idea of the palette that we can do in our Lagrange points. And now it's about other disciplines coming online and them doing the bodies of work to support that.

So from a design side, as well as on our side, we're focusing on monster closets, which is just our goofy way of saying, hey, this is where our AI will spawn, kind of out of view, and then also despawn out of view. But it allows us to fill up the cities or space stations, or even, let's say an incident happens around a certain area, it allows us to actually despawn AI in a realistic manner. From there we've got basically prepping for hospital gameplay and the healing aspects. So Ian and I have already had early discussions with the team as far as what we need to do there, as well as Rich Tyrer and other directors, on kind of how we want to roll that system out as well as the environments associated with that system at the same time. And then we also are working on what we consider kind of space station exterior access points, and this will allow us to have different missions, whether that be a repair mission or whether that be a dead drop or infiltration or those types of things. So you can actually access different parts of the space station from EVA and then be able to enter into the space station and do things there. So that's really kind of just early investigation stuff.

Yeah, so obviously we're hard at work on Pyro. But outside of that, some new tech features are coming online. A first example would be that now we've got the ability to have displacement on a per-asset basis. As part of that process, we're going to do a sweep through the Stanton system and look at our geology packs and try and showcase that new feature where possible. And if you think about going back through many planets and moons and updating the geology features, it's fairly sweeping, right? But it's something we've been after for a while and it's a good example of how we can go deeper. Other things that you might not see specifically in the next release but that are fundamental to how we work: we got these new painting tools, so I'm sure we'll do a showcase and feature on this a little bit further down, which is the way in which we physically paint onto these planets now. Previously, you'd do a pass on the colors and a pass on objects, whereas now you can define all of that data into a single brush. So this is going to be a huge shift in terms of how quickly we can sketch in planets or sketch in moons. So, like I said, we might not necessarily be going back through and repainting each planet and moon in Stanton just now, but we're utilizing those tools for how we're doing Pyro right now.

Okay, so with regards to Crusader, this has been a question mark for us for some time, but in the same way that we approached something like ArcCorp, the idea is we'd look to validate the release of that location by utilizing the tech we have. So rather than going away and saying, hey, we need all of these tech features, and okay, that pushes it out, let's see how we can get creative with the tech we have. We're literally in this type of prototyping stage right now. Results are already fairly promising. Obviously, it doesn't include wonderful volumetric clouds and things like that, but as with everything in how we develop, we can always get better further down the line. But as part of this journey to bring you guys as the community along with us, hopefully you guys see these locations develop over time rather than us just putting it behind the wall and saying, hey, we'll release it when it's ready. So with regards to Crusader, that's where we're at right now. We've got some interesting prototypes with the tech we have. We might need to do some tweaks and shifts in terms of some of the shader code, but the idea is we do the best we can with the tech we have right now, so it doesn't block the location.

So we've been very eager to work on Orison for quite some time. It's always had a little special place in my heart. But it comes with its own unique challenges. So as we've been working our way through Stanton, we've had to adapt and overcome whichever visual challenge that location demanded. And I like to think that when we released New Babbage, we improved in many different areas. And what I want to do is keep that momentum and apply it to Orison and take it further. So obviously Orison is a very open landing zone. It's all about that vista. So there's kind of nowhere to hide. And what we want to do is really think about the restrictions we add to the player, to the point where those restrictions are very minimal. So literally we have a massive open vista landing zone where we want the player to explore. So lots of challenges, lots of creative challenges for us to solve. Also, as we've said previously, our idea of what a landing zone needs is a little bit different from when we originally thought about Orison. So as you saw in somewhere like New Babbage, we introduced new elements like food stores and more complexity with bars, things like this. And with Orison it's the same, but there's going to be more: there's going to be shipping locations, there's going to be personal storage locations. So what that landing zone needs is more intensive than before. So with all of these things considered, plus the work that we're already doing in Stanton, this is what's given us our preliminary release window. And we wanted more than anything for it to be this year. We tried really hard, but ultimately it came to the point where we looked at it and thought there would be too much of a sacrifice to quality. The sacrifice would be on the player. And for me and Todd, that's not really the route we want to go down. There's always a player-first approach that we should take. So then when we do release it, it's not a disappointment.

Todd, you got anything you want to add?

I think Ian's covered most of it. It's just taking what we've learned and really just expanding on it and trying to go through and fix a lot of the issues. We've been going through ArcCorp, we've been going through Levski and Lorville and looking at it from a player standpoint, a new player standpoint, and saying, okay, how are we visually leading the player around this? And these are all things that are going through Ian's and my and the team's minds, of how do we fix these things? And so when we're looking at Orison, we're trying to make sure that we're taking all of these things that we've learned and doing those adjustments now while it's easier to get it, versus going back and having to sweep through it again and make those changes there.