The developers cover ship customization (colors, decals), cockpit damage effects, chase cam limits and Oculus Rift support. They also discuss hangar and starting locations, Squadron 42 origins, ship training instead of leveling, the new website's credit system, the LA office and the star map.
Yeah, recoil is definitely modeled into all the weapons in our game. It's actually part of CryEngine, they have recoil. There's a lot of recoil functionality in the game, so recoil for ballistic weapons, recoil for things like the crossbow, which is a ballistic weapon, and potentially recoil for some of the energy weapons, depending on the kind of energy weapon it is.
Yes, so we're working on the customization aspects right now of ships, sort of working together some options. But the goal is to allow you to be able to choose some base colors for the ships that you have as well as also place some decals. And our big debate is on the decal side. We're going to definitely have some pre-done decals that we'll give you, and then the question is, are we going to let the players design some of their own decals, which could be cool, as long as they're not necessarily making decals that are questionable decals? So we've got to figure that out. And maybe we'll have a process where they have to go through us. We'll see how that goes.
So I don't know which one of you guys can't remember AB5647Z8 through dot Z asterisks. But if you can't, we'll let the computer remember it for you. So you'll sort of get it like a key and then it'll be part of your mobiGlas PDA. And you'll be able to deploy it around the place.
Yeah, it's kind of like a key. You're not going to have to write all the different passcodes. You have a list of passcodes. Maybe we'll hide the ways to sneak into networks that way. Who knows?
We are definitely going to have customization for your avatar in terms of the outfits and clothes that you're going to be wearing. So you can be a space trucker with a cowboy hat. That would be interesting to see, actually.
Okay so yes, when you're wearing the Oculus and you're looking around the cockpit, the whole cockpit is obviously rendered in 3D and will move and you'll get that wonderful immersion and stereoscopic space. The Oculus isn't particularly great on lateral motion, so if I go like this or like that, it doesn't really have the sensors to be able to detect that just yet. But whenever the version two does, then we'll support that. But essentially we track wherever you're looking, your headspace in 3D, and mapping the cockpit. So yeah, it'll be pretty immersive. It'll be pretty great.
And then in terms of damage, absolutely. If you remember the original Wing Commander, your ship had cracked monitors, sparks, all that kind of stuff inside your cockpit when you got damaged, and we're definitely doing that, but obviously with the fidelity we can do nowadays. So it would not be Star Citizen and Squadron 42 without doing that. So that's a big focus, to have that level of detail going on inside the cockpit, which is where you're going to spend a huge amount of your time. We're very focused on making all that entire environment be as detailed and nuanced as possible.
TL;DRChase cam flying will be possible, but full HUD and cockpit aids will be only available from the cockpit, because Chris Roberts wants immersion and finds external view more gamey.
So yeah, you will be able to fly from chase cam view, but it is definitely not going to be sort of arcadey or shooter or even like Freelancer, where you have the full HUD and all the features available to you when you're in an external view. You'll have to be in your cockpit to have proper access to your HUD and the different displays you have in the cockpit. I know it will probably be controversial with a portion of our community, because obviously we've got a lot of people that love Freelancer and then we have a lot of people that love Wing Commander. But for me, I really want to put you in the world. I want to put you in this cockpit. I want you to feel like you're flying it. So the immersion of it is very important for me. And I feel like if you are on the outside and watching your ship, it sort of becomes more gamey and less immersive. So you will be able to fly externally, but you won't have all the sort of, I guess, aids that you have inside the cockpit. So, hey, props to you if you can shoot someone down without having a...
But I really want you to feel like you're in the cockpit. So that's the design decision that I've made, and was actually something that I was pretty strong on for a long time. It's kind of the way I feel about it. Sorry to the Freelancer people that want to be having HUD and everything on the outside.
TL;DRThey probably won't make PAX Australia this year but are interested in coming next year, and are working on server solutions for good pings in the Australasian region.
So this year, I don't think we'll make it, but we're actually quite interested to come to Australia. So that actually could be a possibility next year. Our VP of Marketing likes to go to Australia. She's from there.
We have a large amount of people that have backed us that are part of the community from Australia. Australia is as strongly represented as Canada and pretty close to the UK, which is pretty impressive since the UK has got a much bigger population than Australia or Canada. So yes, that's definitely on our list, and we're also going to try our best to make sure on the server side that we have a solution that will let people in this sort of Australasia region play the game without really crappy pings. So we're working on that. That may mean that you play with people in Australia; [with] Austria the ping won't be so good, but in Australia the ping will be good. So yeah, that's one of our focuses on our sort of backend technology, to try and make the experience work pretty well around the world.
TL;DRSpending credits will work on the new site, which they expect to put into limited testing at the end of next month and roll out fully in June, with test access still undecided.
So the credit system is going to be functional on the new site. We were looking at building it for the old site, but since we're completely refactoring and building this site from the ground up, it didn't make sense to spend a significant amount of engineering on something that we're going to throw away. So the credit allocation program and a whole bunch of really great features are coming in the new site. The new site, I think we're going to probably go into a limited test at the end of next month and then probably roll it out fully in June. But we have to test it to some extent. So I think we'll probably invite some members of the community to help us test it. So we've still got to figure that out, because we don't want 100,000 people testing the site day one, because then you're not really testing it. You're just breaking it. So I don't know whether we'll do a lottery or people can say, hey, let me test the new site or something like that. But we'll figure that out in the coming weeks. But yes, the functionality to be able to spend your credits will be in the new site, as well as a lot of other things where you'll be able to sort of switch out something you have for something else in credits and move around and arrange the things that you've pledged for in Star Citizen.
TL;DRPlayers will probably get some choice of hangar location among several starting places, possibly tied to Squadron 42 choices or mixed with randomness, but this is still being worked out.
So on the hangar front, I think we're going to let the player potentially choose some of the options. We're still also figuring that out. There definitely will be more than one place that will let players start in the universe, because we can't have everyone start on the same planet. So we were sort of thinking if you go through Squadron 42 and you muster out, you may have a choice of some different places. Maybe that has something tied into what you do in the single player campaign. If you choose not to play Squadron 42, then maybe some of the places or choices you would start would be different. So we haven't fully decided whether it's a combination of some randomness and some choice. That may be one way to do it. But we'll definitely spread the player base out as far as sort of home planets. And I guess what we would focus on is the home planet that you would choose as the base would sort of be good for the kind of thing you want to do. So if you want to be a pirate, probably you don't want a home base like Earth. You probably want to be somewhere else. But we're still working that aspect out.
TL;DRThere is no leveling as in an RPG; progress comes from ship upgrades and player skill, and they are considering, but haven't decided, license-like training for some ship classes.
Okay, so we don't have leveling per se. We're not an RPG. It's not like you're going to be Strength 18 and Dexterity 17 and Level 30. So for us, there's a couple of factors. One, your ship and building it up, getting better components, tuning the components, and then also just you as a player: as you play more, hopefully you'll get better. We are considering, or we haven't decided 100%, that there will be some classes of ship that you may need to fly some missions or get some training for before you have it, just like in the real world. So in the real world, if I want to drive an 18-wheeler truck, with my normal driving license I'm not allowed to drive an 18-wheeler truck. I have to go and get a driver's license that says I am a commercial driver and I can drive a vehicle of this class. So we may do that, which isn't really leveling, but it's sort of a task or a mission that you would have to do at some point before you could buy or fly one of these ships. So we're still working that out. So I hope that answers your question.
TL;DRPlanet of origin is still being worked out; it may be shaped by early Squadron 42 choices and fiction, and may or may not be where a player bases their hangar.
I think it is [similar to the last one]. We've got some ideas: when you start on Squadron 42, it's built into the story and narrative, but by some of your early conversations, you sort of determine kind of what your adventure is going to unfold and kind of what you're into. Are you aggressive? Are you the guy that wants to save the world and all the rest of that stuff? And I think maybe that will also impact a little bit of where you are from and stuff. So we're going to try and figure out some of the origin stuff in fiction. But again, that's stuff that we're currently working out. But that's part of what I was talking about with the choices in the various places where your hangar would be. Because maybe you base yourself out of your planet of origin. Maybe you don't. Maybe it's a place you met on your tour of duty if you're playing Squadron 42. So we're still figuring that out, but it's a good question.
TL;DRThe new LA office in Santa Monica is about to open, with servers and fiber being set up, giving formerly remote LA staff a permanent office and video content to come.
Yeah, well, I'm actually flying back to LA and we're setting up the servers and the final stuff, the fiber's getting turned on. And Monday morning, we should be up and running in our new LA digs, which are going to be great. So we'll be having some video show and content that will come from there, which will be great once we've got everyone in and sort of up and running. Everyone in LA up to now has sort of been working from home and then occasionally coming down here to Austin or getting together ad hoc in LA. We haven't had a sort of big permanent office, and now we have one, so we can sort of gather everyone together, and we'll just feel more like a proper company. It's going to be good, so expect to see some content and updates coming from there, and we'll have some footage to show you the new LA offices. We got a great deal, and we're actually right next to OUYA's office. So if you remember the Kickstarter console, they're next door to us. We're down in Santa Monica. It's quite nice. And the landlord did a great deal for us. So we actually got something that looks like he actually redid it for us. He's the landlord of the OUYA people. His construction manager is the brother-in-law of Julie Uhrman, so he's kind of in the crowdfunding, so he kind of thought it was cool to get us, and so did more than he needed to do for the place, which is cool. So it's going to look really nice when you see it, but we actually financially didn't spend very much money on it, which is also good, because it needs to go in the game, not in fancy digs.
It's pretty good. We've got over 100 systems mapped out on it. We're figuring out the layout, how we're going to position everything, but it's coming along. It's looking really good.
And we'll show that at some point in the future. We'll give you guys a look at that, but not yet. We're going to chronicle as we go, so we kind of show bit by bit as we're hanging out there.