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When you have to think about how these things, like trains or the props in a hab, must evolve a millennium from now, how does that work with the need to keep things grounded in what we know today so that we can relate to them?

TL;DRThey aim for designs that are the most advanced yet still relatable, and keep the current look utilitarian to leave room for later art styles; some transit ideas are being tried internally.

Ian LeylandArt Director, Star Citizen

Very, very good question. So I studied industrial design, and part of that training to be an industrial designer is to design products and spaces understanding what came before. With trying to design something 900 years in the future, there's this concept called 'most advanced yet relatable.' So Jared, I could design you a train that looks like a space whale, butterflies kind of come out of it when it flies, and I say, that's a train 900 years in the future. It would be too advanced for you to relate to it. It would be so far gone. They use similar techniques in other sci-fi genres and games and things like that. There's only so far you can actually go. So that's one part of it. The second part is we're trying to describe some of the older parts of our universe. The whole timeline of Star Citizen has been mapped out. And throughout that time period, we define different art styles. So what we're seeing right now is all pretty much utilitarianism. And if we go too advanced too early, we haven't really got any kind of wiggle room. So what we're showing is like the oldest thing in the universe. So for us, having quite a relatable train design right now, it felt right for Lorville, felt right for the time period. But that's not to say in the future... we've already got some interesting ideas for transit networks that we're working on internally.

Jared HuckabyHost, Community

I was going to say, I have to imagine microTech stirs the imagination a little bit.

Ian LeylandArt Director, Star Citizen

No, I'm talking about ArcCorp, but we're just trying some ideas. But anyway, we'll just leave it there.

Reverse the Verse›LIVE - Building Lorville·
Published on this date.9 Nov 2018
EpisodeLoreArt & graphics