Star Citizen: Calling All Devs - Org Tools & Mag Boots

Well, when is a little bit of a loaded question. I'm sure you guys hear. But what I can talk about is what we've been working on over the last couple of weeks and some details about our plans to bring it into Spectrum a little bit more.

So one of the biggest things, obviously, we want to bring the orgs into Spectrum right now. So our UX department has been working closely with the design team and with the devs to try and figure out a way to make this a little bit more seamless. Right now, obviously, with the orgs in Spectrum, the org forums and chat system, all the communication is already happening there. So when we revisit orgs, it only naturally makes sense to bring it into Spectrum. So we started with the first question our UX designer asked, which is: what does it mean to discover a new org in Spectrum? And of course that brings up multiple different ideas of interfaces that we have to introduce into Spectrum. So the first thing, obviously, if we're allowing users to discover a new org in Spectrum, we have to create the possibility for an org public page, so that you can actually search and see this information about the orgs. And then we're also playing with the idea of an org public forum, which we think would be a really cool opportunity for potential recruits to interact with the org members and admins. So that's one part, introducing a new public page, public forum. And then along with this, of course, is how do you search for a new org? How do you search the org database? Right now all of that is happening in the org section on the RSI site, but we would want to bring that into Spectrum. So what filters and functions do users currently use? To explore that a little bit more, we're looking back in terms of what worked for people in the past. How are our filters functioning currently today? Do we need to be adding new filters? Are some of the filters totally useless? What do we need to introduce? Is the search function the most important feature? How do people search and find new orgs that they want to join? So that's something that we're looking into, and then of course bringing that functionality into Spectrum. And then the other part that comes with this whole discovering a new org through Spectrum is of course we have to create the ability to apply, and for admins to manage recruits. So there's going to have to be a new interface to introduce applications and admins receiving those applications and managing them, and of course being able to manage blocked users and all of that functionality. Of course with that comes notifications. How do those notifications happen? How do they look different? So all of this kind of functionality is encompassed by: how do I discover a new org through Spectrum? That was kind of our main question that we asked, and it's kind of channeled out into these new features that we would like to add. So the design work for that is already done in terms of asking the questions. We want to reach out to the community, so you guys might see us starting to engage with you in terms of questions specifically around orgs in Spectrum, asking you guys what information do you think is important? What things, especially in terms of searching the org database and managing, do we need to make sure that we give functionality for? And then one thing that I can say that's super exciting that you guys are going to see very soon with the next release of Spectrum is custom roles. And I know that the full section of org settings is still going to be controlled through the RSI site in your accounts. However, the ability to add a new custom role and control all of the permissions within the forum is going to be right there in Spectrum. So that's pretty cool.

That'll be a big step to making our org forums fully usable.

Absolutely. It's going to give you so much more functionality to be able to section out people, recruits, and the members of your org into the sections that you guys need.

No. So, yeah, there's your one-word answer. So, no, but also yes. Mag boots as they were were not really versatile enough for what we wanted to do. So, obviously, mag boots require a surface that you could magnetize yourself to, and you'd expect you would get near enough to a metal surface, you would connect and you would plod along very, very slowly. Whereas this new system we've got is called Align to Surface, and this would allow you to align yourself to any solid surface. And as you lower yourself, your EVA thruster pack would know that you want to lower yourself to the surface and attach to it. It would then keep you pushed down on that surface and you would get, within reason, your standard FPS behaviors of running around, being able to mantle and all sorts of things like that. So it's a lot more versatile. You'd be able to do this on asteroids. You'd be able to do this in all sorts of places rather than being limited to gantries, walkways, sides of spaceships and stuff like that.

Okay, so we are going to get the type of gameplay that's associated with mag boots. It just won't have that cool sound effect that I know the audio guys could really make, because it's going to allow us to have this gameplay on all kinds of surfaces, not just magnetic ones.

Yeah, it essentially makes mag boots far more versatile, and it's going to work for us and for everyone else a lot better, we think.

What's the system called again?

Align to Surface, is what we're calling it internally. So essentially, it does what it says on the tin. You hover above your chosen surface, as long as you're within reason, within a little cone of variation. If you lower yourself to that surface, your thruster pack will know what's below you, and it will allow you to land perfectly, stably on that surface and stay that way, providing your EVA pack is working. If your EVA pack is not working, then why are you in zero G anyway?

It kind of sounds like an IFCS for FPS.

Yeah, that's a good way of thinking about it. It's going to figure out your orientation and do a little to keep you all right.

Interesting question. There's definitely a lot of layers to that, especially considering the technical developments that are going on and planned. Currently, there is not any kind of penalty. In the future, we want to start adding things like maybe a fee whenever you die and respawn, and then also have some other effects tied to respawning. So things like aging of the character, wear and tear, things that give the character a sense of a lifetime and meaning. And also another thing to take into account is that in order for this to be really meaningful, we need to have multiple characters in the game, and this is something that we actually don't support currently in the game, both on the dedicated game server side and in the back end as far as your persistence data. And so I think ultimately we want to have it to where you can have multiple characters and some of your characters age and get worse over time. If you want to know more about the ultimate vision of that, you should check out the article Death of a Spaceman from several years back, which lays out CR's ultimate vision for what we want this to be like.

I'm glad you brought that up. One of the difficulties in answering questions about development while you're in development is always speaking about the immediate, what we're working on now, speaking on the near future, what we expect to have in the coming months, and then, of course, the long-term goal. So I think we pretty much covered it there. We'll put a link up to the old Death of a Spaceman article in the video description, everybody. You should check that out if you haven't already. It's still the ultimate plan.