Star Citizen Live: Q&A Contested Zones and Asteroid Bases

16 August 202401:06:021,872 linesWatch on YouTube ↗

Transcript — every row opens the video at that moment

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Hi everybody, welcome to another episode of Star Citizen Live. I'm your host Jared Huckaby. What do we call this week's show? Q&A, Contested Zones, and Asteroid Bases. Q&A, Contested Zones, and Asteroid Zones No, Contested Zones and Asteroid Bases. I let David do the typing on this week, so I didn't do it myself. I didn't know. If you've never seen Star Citizen Live before, it's an absolute train wreck at the end of our week where where we take a couple of handful of our developers. We ask them to stay late, especially if they're in Germany, and take a little bit of their time to answer questions from you, the Star Citizen player. As usual, we put up a thread up on Spectrum earlier in the week where we collected your questions. You got to vote on which ones you wanted to see answered most. And then our guests this week went through the questions, picked
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the ones that were appropriate for their for their their their areas of expertise and work, and we're here to talk about them now. Before we get to that, let's go ahead and introduce our esteemed group of Frankfurt level designs level level designs you're all level design level designers. I thought you were the train wreck. Let's start with Khan. Hey Khan, tell everybody who you are and what you do for Star Citizen. I guess I'm Khan, lead level designer And what What does a lead level designer do? A lead level designer manages a lead uh Not a lead. Um a team of level designers. And work through new initiatives like the Contested Zones and Asteroid Stations. Do Do you
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How often is there an annoying American in the office that just does the William Shatner bit with your your name? Uh quite often, but I think the last name is a bit more difficult. Yeah, I'm not I've already used up my swear, so I'm not even going to take a try at the second name. John, tell everybody who you are and what you do for Star Citizen. Hi, I'm John. My I'm a level designer, too. And I tend to do whatever Khan tells me cuz he's my boss. What makes it a level designer, too? I did a good enough job as level designer one. Is that quantifiable? Is that Is that on paper somewhere? I mean, obviously there are criteria for promotions. And yeah, I was level
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designer one for a couple of years and gained enough experience to earn that promotion. So, I'm a level designer, too, now. Okay. And last, Manuel, tell everybody who you are and what you do for Star Citizen. Hey, I'm Manuel. I'm a senior level designer. And uh Yeah, last I did the implementation for the personal hangars or the player hangars. But you might also know me from Area 18 prison and some other things. And soon, Asteroid Bases. People might know you from prison? Sounds like a story. Right, maybe. Maybe you've seen me there. I mean, pleasure. Yes. Oh, okay. Um senior level designer level designer, too. Where where where where where where
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where where where where which ones where? Yeah. I'm two steps below John. Okay. Just kidding. The other way around. I don't know. I don't know. Not that it Not that it matters. You guys you guys are I was in the Frankfurt office to film for your for this episode a few weeks ago, and you guys have a very collaborative and and and work work environment here where you are always over at one person's desk or another person's desk helping each other out. Even during the interviews. Even during the interviews, some of you sat sat next to the each other at during the interviews and helped each other out with the answers and stuff. So, you know, I make a joke about level and everything, but you guys are you guys are clearly a very tight-knit team. Team. Plus, we did that neat ISC even earlier in the season where we got to meet the team here while you were visiting and talk more about your work and stuff. So, just you guys have shown, I think, that you guys are all pretty
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like this. Maybe I'm mangling it. And unlike John, I only do what sometimes what Khan wants me to do. Yeah. That's the benefit of climbing those ranks. You can start to do your own thing. Fair enough. Fair enough. All right, so Exactly. We've collected some questions from the backers. Let's go ahead and jump right in. These are in no particular order. We're just going to bounce Our two main topics for this week's show are the new Asteroid Bases and the encounters within that are that are scheduled to come for the upcoming Alpha 4.0 and the new Contested Zones, which are the PvPvE kind of almost We hesitate to use the word dungeon experience. It's kind of It's the closest analog analogous term to other games, but it's not quite accurate for us that are within the pirate space stations. And then we'll jump into some generic level
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design stuff. First question off the bat says, "What's the plan for for all the new locations so that they do not end up being, quote unquote, boring bunkers with the same missions on a loop over and over and over again?" Who wants to do the honors? I I I guess I I do it and starting with the Asteroid Base bit. Um I mean, Asteroid Bases are a bit like bunkers 2.0 more or less like a development. It's uh in the sense of it's a more condensed space. Um but we try to segment them a bit more like in different uh categories in in this regard. Um like also encounter design like encounter Asteroid
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Bases that we have or that we plan for. Um covering more like sandbox missiony designs. Um then we want to have more explorative ones and then also Contested Zones that tie more into the Contested Zone experience that Khan and John are working on. Um but yeah, we try to cover more different gameplay types, more different player player interests or player player interests in certain game mechanics or types. So, yeah. Can you give us an example of of something I don't I don't want to go through every aspect of the experience. We have just did an ISC on it. But you give give me an example of something that players will do in Asteroid Bases specifically. I mean, if you go over to one of the encounter Asteroid Bases, you can find bodies. You can kill X amount of guys. Um
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that's more like for the mission ones, but they will always be populated, so you don't need a mission to go there. You can just go there and check it out yourselves. But these are more like the playground for for missions. But you can also find other ones that are inhabited, and you can just explore and do puzzles in them. At least that's the plan going ahead. And certain kinds of puzzles and and treasures to be found. Yes. With Contested Zones, uh because these are these open areas, what's being done to avoid bottlenecks and other obvious camping spots that negatively impact the player experience? I guess I should go for that one, John, right? Um I guess so. We can go. We're looking for multiple entry points
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like establishing multiple entry points that can come from the interior, but also from the exterior of the station. So, that you know, we just don't have one bottleneck. I mean, I guess you kind of spread the options out a bit. We can't fully eliminate the possibility of this, but at least giving players the option and giving them some sense of uh opportunities in and around the station to enter this Contested Zone will definitely help it out. Right. Yeah, exactly. I think whenever you have an entrance into a place like this where PvP is possible, it naturally creates a bottleneck. Um you have to be able to enter the space there could be people camping uh that space waiting for you to enter. So, what we can do as designers is try and offer alternate paths in, as Khan said. Um you
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know, there are side elevators. Um there are ways in from the exterior of the station. Um so, we just trying to provide as many different opportunities to enter that space so that it's more difficult to um you know, use those bottlenecks if you are of a griefing mindset. Yeah. What's also important is that there's like exfiltration points inside these Contested Zones. So, if you hit a specific depth of the Contested Zone, you can get to a part that offers you one-way exit. It brings you to the social area. So, back to practical safety. Interesting. you're talking about things that we we can do to battle or defeat the the bottlenecks and stuff that the camping and stuff like this. But some aspect of that is
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intentional. Some aspect of that is not a bug, it's a feature. It's It's These are still intended to be PvP zones. There There There is Yeah. There It It They are intended to still have a certain level of friction. The The balance in all of this is in finding the right level of friction. Not eliminating all the friction altogether. Yeah, that's the tough part of designing a map like this. Um Definitely. Yeah, finding the right balance. Yeah, ultimately it is a PvP space, and griefing, unfortunately, you know, is something you try to design against. But uh This is a kind of a whole philosophical debate we could get into about griefing versus PvP, but griefing is just PvP ultimately at the end of the day.
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There's technically nothing wrong with someone finding a defensible position and using that as an advantage over another player. Um and that aspect of being on the defensive in the PvP kind of equation is you dealing with those kind of bottlenecks and those camping positions. You know, which cover um do you use? How do you approach a room? Do you breach the room? You know, do you use like grenades to flush out a room before you enter it? Um you know, scouting opportunities. And there are things we can do as designers to kind of aid that as well with like cover placement and um you know, lighting and things like that that can alleviate these issues, but ultimately you can't get rid of them and you probably shouldn't because ultimately this is Pyro and this is a PvP space as well as PvE. Yeah. So It's also a part of opting in, right? This is like you
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want to do PvP. Um and then I mean, that can also spark like new things. Imagine like back then in the days in in WoW Classic, right? When Crossroads was raided and then suddenly you try to ally with some friends or like um people and just like try to push back and own things and I think that can be really interesting. Yeah. Yeah, we we we we obviously we obviously do want to This is not the place to do a giant griefing versus PvP discussion. We've actually done that on SCL a number of times. Um it's but ultimately just because I can already see I can already see the chat now. Hi Twitch chat. And I can already imagine the YouTube comments later. Um at the end of the day I I I I I think a baseline here is is that
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there has to be an alternative. There has to be a solution available to the player who's being attacked in order to turn the tables. When there's not a solution, when there's not an any an option that's accessible to that player to continue to go on and have a good experience, to continue to do the things that they want to do, that's when PvP turns to griefing. When you when you when you when you take away the gameplay experience, not not just make it difficult, that's PvP. But it's it's a fine line. And I think every you you sit here we could we could march a parade of 500 developers in front of this camera and you'd probably hear a solid 400 different answers about what that is. So for those of you for those of you who are already
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working up your YouTube videos and stuff saying CIG says this or CIG says that, that's not what's happening now. We we're hearing a couple people express some individual opinions on what the difference is. And again, I promise if you brought 400 people in here, you'd get 300 different answers. So it's at the end of the day it's about our job here in this situation. When I And this is me where I'll put on the CIG hat and speak on behalf of CIG here. Our job in those situations is to find alternatives for the for for the players who are suffering at the hands of PvP. Find ways that they can counter it, uh provide ways that they can counter it, provide alternatives that still provide the same experience, other places where they can go, other other uh things like turrets and things like like factions that NPC factions that can come
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in and help defend. Define the things that can help. When when a player runs out of options and the only thing they can do is be killed over and over and over again, that's where there's a problem. So as I said, some friction is intended, but it's all about finding that point. we're talking about contested zones and How widely spread are these contested zones and asteroid bases around the Pyro system? Um the Pyro system is pretty darn big. So what what what what are we what are we talking about as far as how how far these are spread? So um currently we're planning for about five contested zones and these are
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in a select a few stations uh all pretty evenly spread along the Pyro system. But some of them um being in very specific places uh that are only be able to be accessed once you progress uh to a specific stage or once you have actually gained couple items, you can get to that location and unlock the interior basically. So multi contested zones might not be immediately accessible to the player. Um there's some that will require you to complete others to to then find the keys to others basically. Or to specific branches within these contested zones. So it's a mix and match a bit. I I Is there any sort of Is there anything intended or planned
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that would start you in one contested contested zone and make you go to another contested zone to finish or complete? Or are they Sorry. I said or are they just contained experiences within each one? Um so Drunken explain this a bit better after me, but the intention is is that we have contested zones or we give certain categorization to to certain branches or sections of a contested zone. So we have a short-term kind of branch, for example, we have a mid-term and a long-term one. And in the long-term, it is a requirement to find specific ingredients in other places to be able to access that long-term branch, right? And whilst short-term or mid-term ones
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are there to complete the dungeon itself or uh basically go in there and do some farm runs or loot runs. Got you. So there's not going to be too much advantage at just holing up in one. You're not going to be able to complete the the ultimate objectives of these contested zones by just staying put in one place and holding it forever. Okay. You will have to go to multiple of them and progress. Yeah, you you you you might do it to take away somebody else's enjoyment, but you won't gain anything as far as the progression of your character and stuff by doing so. okay. Uh with asteroid bases, will there be asteroid bases without enemy NPCs or non-violent gameplay as well? Uh for example, scavenging,
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environmental puzzles, rescue missions, finding missing people. Is there something to do in asteroid bases for players who just want to bring peace to the galaxy? I'm not so about peace um but but yeah, certainly. Um the current intention and goal we have uh developing these is like as previously touched on a bit before us, the encounter ones are solely the sandbox environment for the whole mission stuff. So people who want to engage in missions and want to engage in combat and do these things. but I also want to have this like more safer spaces. I mean, you can't um prevent PvP from happening obviously, but the exploration ones are more dedicated to um solving puzzles and finding like rewards by entering rooms that are not so
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obviously like um enterable, right? Like you have to do some things, hack it and not hack it or but um find means uh around the space and then get more like higher uh rewards in there. And so yes, that's like no no NPCs and uh anythings is planned in there. Manuel, can can you give me a a big like shrug pose, something like this real quick? There you go. Uh everybody screenshot that and with the with the turn with the words I don't know about peace underneath that. I'd like to see that on Reddit before the end of the show, please. are there plans or does the tool set allow for the creation of non-derelict asteroid bases, whether functional or productive? Like could they be could they be seen in a system like Stanton,
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but as abandoned but or inhabited the morning. Oh, oh dude, but they're going way into the lore there. The morning like NYX. So basically will there can we make asteroid bases that aren't just run-down, beat-up, abandoned places is what they're asking. Uh I mean, yes. Uh the whole concept of asteroid bases is quite expandable and it has lots of potential because it's a it's a very small small scale and doesn't need that much development time like a big flagship location. Um it's not for the initial release right now, so we are focusing more on the three archetypes that we are currently looking into. Um but there's certainly a lot of potential and stuff we would like to do going forward in the future and expanding on on social spaces as well. Okay. Yeah, one thing when I when we
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prototyped these, one aspect that we envisioned was for refueling. Like instead of needing a large station, um you could have these asteroid bases like strategically placed around um where you could for example refuel, rearm. Um so we definitely envision this as an expandable feature. Um but Yeah, it's something we want to do. In ISC just just yesterday you know, which was about the more social aspects, not the combat stuff, but we mentioned that, you know, the the Pyro system is so much bigger than Stanton that the the the the distances between planets are such that uh having to strategically figure out where you can stop and refuel along the way just to get to the outer outer ends of the solar system is is a important part. And that's what you just mentioned
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is a great kind of follow-up thing. I mean, obviously we've been adding to the Stanton system for years and years and years. We'll continue to add to the Pyro system after the release of 4.0. And that's that's that's an easy consideration. You know, oh well, maybe there's an asteroid base gas station there and that'll help deal with a a stress point along that travel route and stuff. Yeah, I think that's more interesting as well cuz you know, we have these gigantic stations um but you know, when you travel down the motorway in the middle of nowhere, you hit a little gas station and I think there's there's some fun there, there's some different kind of style and aesthetic we could use, um a different experience than, you know, having to go into a station and everything that comes with that. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Um what else we got? Um let's go back to contested zones for
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a little bit. We talked a little bit about this with the sometimes you have the direct route out, but I bet one of it is more here. How will we be able to extract something from the contested zones if people spawn right next to it and are back in 1 to 2 minutes after we kill them? It sounds super annoying to deal with. So, we uh yeah, we obviously have considered that and um Have you? I'm just I hope so. So, the the way that the contested zones is, by design, the deeper you go, the better rewards there are to find. Um And if, for example, you encountered a PvP situation, or you yourself were killed by a PvE encounter, you know, getting back to where you were is not so straightforward. You It's not
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just a case of a 1 to 2 minute run in. Um if you were, you know, deep within the contested zone. Um not to mention that, you know, you'd have to rearm yourself. I mean, you could run in with your, you know, your suit and a pistol. but will you be able to successfully get back to your body if you don't equip yourself well? Um and similarly, if, you know, in a PvP situation, um if you kill someone, you know, you succeed in PvP, you you take their stuff. Are they going to pop up a minute later? I I doubt it. Um you know, in within the contested zone, not only are there, you know, traps, um you know, hazards, um lots of PvE enemies that will be respawning. So, even if you cleared out in a you know, your path behind you, they're going to be respawning in like you would see in a typical dungeon. Um You also have exfiltration routes
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available to you, as Khan said earlier. So, you know, you could decide that that person might be coming back for you again. They might turn up, you know, in 5 minutes and 10 minutes. They might bring friends. Now's my time to get out. I'm going to head for that exfiltration route, leave, get back to the social space, and you know, take my loot home. Um so, I This is something that we obviously want to see play out. We want to see how players, you know, in testing. And if any changes are required, you know, we'll we'll look to do that, but I think the design currently will hopefully avoid that. Uh someone in the chat uh asked if there was a Lightsmith asked if will there be multiple ways in and out. Yes, we mentioned that earlier in the show, Lightsmith. You can watch the replay up on YouTube uh if you missed uh
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that earlier information. You keep mentioning traps, and this was even during the old record uh old the filming for the last ISC. Every time you say traps, I keep imagining like a classic Dungeons and Dragons mimic, like a thing that looks like a looks like a treasure chest, looks like an item box, and then it explodes and and and and sprays gas at you and and and kills you. Like like I I I'm I'm I don't know if you got time to squeeze it in, but would you guys, for me, consider some some explosive item boxes that look like, oh look, there's loot in I think I can say speak for everyone when I say that we would love to develop a whole range of traps and hazards. Um you know, we are implementing ones that we have currently, like trip mines, explosive canisters, um you have hazard zones, radiation, fire. a mimic chest would be amazing.
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Yeah, it can't it can't just be it can't just be there's nothing you can do about it. Like you we got to be we got to be able to scan it. You got There's got to be a way to detect it and stuff and and and and and avoid it. You can't just be random, oh well, I did nothing and blew myself up. But, you know, for the people who are in it in too big a hurry and don't do the due diligence, those people deserve to have a box blow up in their face. That's what I'm saying. hey, maybe it's like a weird alien creature, right? And it's it's taking on the form of a chest. I was about to say like a monster stream. Yes. Yes, have a facehugger, right? Implement something new, and then you die in the next one trying to loot your body suddenly Do what do you what do you think the what do you think the over/under are that I can convince Damon DeVoe to create a mimic? Like a actual creature. I mean, all right.
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All right. Not going to say I'm not going to say it's going to happen, but it's now my new mission in life, and I don't care about the show, so I'm just going to go do that. Bye. Thank you. Um What group sizes are contested zones designed around? Uh yeah. We definitely like you can do it solo, but uh we wouldn't recommend that. Like John just said earlier, these are pretty PvP PvE centric spaces. Even if you're where there were no players uh in your vicinity, you'll still face quite the challenge. So, our recommendation is to at least go with one friend. Uh we are currently envisioning like a Or in our test at least, we are going in by four by five player groups uh with with the recent test also involving
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another group. So, but yeah, we're seeing it to be able to scale up up to 40 players per dungeon. Hm. Now, you you you you said this isn't the first time you said that they can be soloed. Has anybody ever actually Are you talking about like like technically, like the way that the inside of a ship can technically catch fire if that if the temperature if you're outside is hot enough? You're saying it can technically be done, or have has there actually been somebody through testing that has managed to just run through the whole thing by themselves? Did anyone? I don't think I did. Did you, John? It's difficult. The I mean, initially, I'd, you know, in the earlier sections, I think it's it's it's doable. It's if you got enough, it's manageable. But, we do scale up like the enemies uh the
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deeper you get, and the intention is that yeah, you might need to bring some help. cry Sometimes if the AI is broken, you can do it. Yeah, bot server, maybe? Yeah. bunch a combination of letters and numbers followed by Ages Inquisitor in the chat says, this cannot be live. It's way too professional. What happened show are you watching? I appreciate the compliment. That's Thank you. Yeah. Yeah, thank you. I feel like I'm a nervous mess right now, but okay. Obviously, we knew that message was going to be sent, and we responded cuz this is recorded. John John Is that John John, is that your mom? Ages Inquisitor, your mom? Uh will asteroid bases will asteroid bases appear as quantum markers always,
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or is exploration mission uh or is exploration stuff necessary to travel to them? No, it's uh they will be always there, always present for you. I said um you can can also go to them uh if there's no mission running, even the same the mission sandbox you want to encounter asteroid bases. You can travel there without requiring requiring a mission. There will be AI population regardless. It's the mission stuff we'll add on top of that, but all of them um you can see from the get-go. There might be plan plans for the future. That's what I wanted to get at. That's certain you're speaking about how it is in 4.0, in our initial release. Um anybody that can remember uh the initial release of the PU, the Stanton system back in late November, early December 2015, uh and you look at that version of the
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Stanton system versus the version of the Stanton system you have now, obviously these things change, these things grow over time. Pyro will be no different. Even as we continue Even as we continue to add star system after star system after star system after that, we're not Our intention is never to abandon the previous ones. There are new stuff coming to Stanton in 4.0. We haven't gotten to talking about that yet, but uh it'll be on ISC in a couple weeks. But, 4.0 isn't just all Pyro, and we forget Stanton. So, it's we're talking about Pyro as it is in 4.0, but the uh obviously, as we continue to introduce more exploration-based ships, everybody knows the Zeus is is on the public road map coming up here at a future release. Uh one of the one of the variants for that is an exploration-based stuff. People are People here are very keen to
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start developing exploration-based stuff, like, you know, discovering transient jump points, uh you know, finding an asteroid base, or or or maybe even a derelict space station that that that no that nobody's found before and stuff like this. It's Those stuff will have Those stuff will become more prevalent as the footprint gets larger of as the footprint of the game gets larger and larger. And we're we're all very excited to to do that. So, not in 4.0, but No, not yet, but we have lots of ideas internally, and we really would love to expand and uh iterate on it and and more things. All right. Another asteroid base question. So, we mentioned that some of the asteroid bases had Copians inside. Are these placeholders uh later to be replaced by more fitting creatures? Oh, this person's calling you out. Oh. Apparently, they don't agree Copians
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should be in asteroid bases. Thoughts? Um I I think they can make narrative sense in that right. You can have domestic domesticized Copians, right? They bring with them. Um as far as I know, right? Yeah, we have like variants of them. have a domesticated variant, yeah. Pets Copian, basically. They just look very rough right now, so that will be like more fitting looking. Um but, I don't think it's a far stretch that they can like narratively be around there. But, yeah, I mean, if we have like more fitting creatures as well in the future, um that's it. But, for now, it's like what we have what we what we are working with, right, is uh uh human human NPCs, and then uh the the Copians. So, we try to utilize what we have to create more variety and like more interesting combat with the ingredients that we have. Yeah. Manuel
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voiced interest to have a space cow in an asteroid base. Oh, yes. Yes. Um we don't we don't really talk about it for the rest of the season, but the domesticated Copians are one of the new aspects that are coming online with a 4.0. These are domesticated for NPCs and stuff. That this we're not stealthily adding pet gameplay to players just yet. Yeah, they're attack dogs essentially. We we have them in contested zones and the kind of the narrative idea is that they have been breeding them and training them and they will attack you. So, you know, as you engage a group of outlaws, there could be a couple of attack Copians that they have that are charging at you, which I think provides a really interesting kind of gameplay dynamic. You're not just dealing with humanoids now, you also have these
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fast-moving low creatures that are attacking your ankles and it it adds a whole new aspect to it. And the in the process of developing Copians that, you know, react to NPCs that there are entities that they don't attack that are friendly to them that can issue commands and stuff. This is all a step closer to what I can already see some of you already you're already thinking pet and player ownership of stuff. That's not to say that you'll be able to own a Copian specifically. It's not to say that you don't. So, say I don't know the answer. But I know I know that there isn't there hasn't been a week there has not been a week in the last 3 months where I haven't heard either CR or Rich mention something about we got to get pets in there and stuff. So, so this is this is the next step towards that.
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Yeah, I mean to go back to what my Manuel said. I think as as he said I think we can narratively explain why there are Copians on the abandoned asteroid bases. Um I think it would be a shame to remove them just to lessen the encounter variety. Um and I definitely agree that it would be cool to get those creatures like the mimic face hugger chest we talked about. You know, these kind of alien creatures that you would expect to see on about asteroid bases in the future would be amazing. But for now I think they do offer something useful. Yeah, I I I said nothing about face hugger. That was all you. No, that's you. I I just wanted a little chest that killed people. I didn't say anything about It has to hug your face. That was that was you. That's what they do, right? The views and opinions of Joe do not
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represent those. All right, next question. Uh Will some contested zones vary in terms of difficulty and overall loot? For instance, one station having relatively fewer enemies and loot compared to another with an abundance of heavily armored enemies and very valuable loot. Yes, we are alternating some of this based on the contested zone you're in. Uh there's we also have a very specific one which we call the Ghost Arena, but don't really want to spoil that yet. But at the same time, so for us what is really important when it comes to the reward stuff is that things are actually substantial and unique. What we put in there is has to be has not be widely available, right? So,
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and that's that's the thing that we want really balance out with the rest of the universe to make it worthwhile and to make to balance it also out between the contested zones themselves. Yeah, one of the I think anybody's played Star Citizen for a while knows that one of the I'm just going to call it weird. It was one of the weird limitations of the mission system in the game itself was the inability to distribute rewards in-game rewards to players. It It's It's one of It's It's one of those things that somehow with the development of everything else and whatnot it was just it was just always a we'll get to it we'll get to it we'll get to it and we just never seem to get to it. In 4.0 and beyond that the a big chunk of the mission mission feature team
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stuff like this has now been going to developing to adding that functionality in there. So, that now you saw it with the Xenothreat with the Operation Overdrive and stuff and you know, there are things you can do in game and now get rewarded for an item in game. So, so that kind of technology expands and continues into asteroid bases into contested zones and into things like Ghost Arena that we're not we're not going to talk about. Stuff like that. So, you're going to see more and more unique things that are rewarded to you through playing the game as as development continues to 4.0 and beyond stuff like that and that's really exciting because I think if I can if I can speak you know I'm I'm speaking for the devs, but if I can speak for the for the fans for a while, I think the sense of progression, the sense of I'm doing things and I'm
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earning things that I that that I can't get anywhere else and stuff like this has been missing from the game for a little while. So, one of the more exciting aspects to me of 4.0 is these were this work that we're talking about today, the contested zones and the and the asteroid bases because to me this seems like the the birth of of the the very beginnings, the birth of actual player progression to to something greater and I'm really excited about that. So, I hope that's coming across in the ISC in this and if it's not, I'm sorry. I tried. Um next question. What What's the ghost thing? Stop being a weenie. Just tell us. The ghost thing? The ghost Uh it's a natural element. What's it called? Ghost Arena. Ghost Arena. Oh, that one. I guess
00:35:26
I wish I could describe it. Do you know Running Man? I guess you do, right? Okay, that's all that's all we'll say. That's enough. That's enough. Cool. I love Running Man. Uh do contested zones have one main objective or are there different areas with things to gain from each of them? Yes. So, this ties into what Carl was just saying um in terms of progression and rewards. On the kind of smaller scale of a singular contested zone, we do also have a bit of variety in in what you can do and and your goals. Um We kind of have broken it into three areas. So, you have like a short-term goal where you just want to go into a contested zone, you just want to get some loot, kill some enemies, and get out and that's kind of one
00:36:14
quick play style we're looking at. Um A second one is that maybe you want to complete the entire contested zone. So, get to the final reward room, complete the entire thing. Um And that's that takes a a little bit more effort and maybe coordination and maybe some help. For example, like we have these security doors that require keys, specific keys that you'll have to find from within the dungeon uh to be able to progress into the deeper parts. So, that's kind of a second play style that we're envisioning. And the third one is as Carl said, this overall progression where you now have to engage with multiple contested zones with asteroid bases and kind of go along this whole flow. Um and all the rewards are scaled to kind of those the effort involved in each of those.
00:37:03
Uh Maps Beer in the chat says, I want to I want to know because I want to marry that sandworm. You know, Maps Beer, if you believe in yourself and you work hard, all things are possible. Except that. Will asteroid bases have any enclosed docks that would handle a capital class ship? For example, a capital class hanger with atmosphere, but with an enclosed zero gravity space. Well, this is a really specific question. Will you make this very specific thing for this very specific person? So, I probably have to disappoint you in this regard. So, the initial set of asteroid bases we are putting out, right? We don't do
00:37:52
social spaces. So, there is no official landing, so no hangers or or landing pad services whatsoever, right? So, that will come down later the line later down the line. Um and even then if we if we add the more smaller social spaces like gas stations and so on, it's probably more to small uh sort of smaller medium-size ships, probably not the big big uh capital size ships. Um We might have docking tubes at some of them later on. So, that could be your only access point if that's supported for your ship, but hopefully not. I mean, if you buy in the ship, right? Like then you have the certain stations available to you. That's that's the fantasy, right? So, Yeah, yeah. During the ISC uh
00:38:42
Oh, wait. Back let's back up. Over the course of the development of this game, we've seen a lot of procedural tools uh uh done. Um the the Rastar and stuff that they can generate certain layouts for for different space stations and everything. In the ISC, we specifically mentioned that the the asteroid bases were not procedural. Can you talk Can you talk to us about why that change was made? Why why are the asteroid bases created bespoke? You know, there's that word. There's actually an appropriate Yeah. reason to use that word there, people. So, you know, you can drink if you want to, but why why why did we do these by hand instead of using the procedural tools? I think there's always a balance to be had with how you how much you do stuff procedural versus how much you
00:39:32
want to control the general flow of things. So, we're talking like procedural like in our terms is used to be a lot like you stitch a room one by one together based on kind of some parameters and logic. But that kind of eliminates our our ability to handcraft an experience that flows throughout a multi-room setup, right? So what we're looking at right now instead is is hand stitching certain sections together that that can combine into kind of like a gameplay bubble. And then utilizing multiple game game play bubbles that we can then stitch together with this procedural tool, right? So we have a bit more control on the scale of things that is a bit larger than just a room,
00:40:22
accommodates for multiple rooms basically. And that that's in line with that's in line with the with things we've said before. I mean that there there are a game there are other games out there who very famously everything is procedural. And and some and some of the struggle of that is that nothing is really unique because of that. Um and no, I'm not talking about the one you're obviously thinking. I'm talking about another one. It's older back from like 2017 2018. Um we've always said that we use procedural generation as a tool not an ends. We we we use it to help us move forward. We use it to help us flesh out but is not that just the sole creation of a thing and because we have and I think if we've demonstrated anything uh in the 11 years that you know as you know ISC ATV and everything's been
00:41:11
around and stuff like this is that we have an incredible team of artists that not not not not just the 3D arts artists, the 2D artists, the the tech artists, the the animators, the there's all kinds of stuff that that gets us the look and feel that we have uh and we're never going to I can't see us ever just fully handing that over to procedural generation, generative AI, anything else. We might use these things as tools again to help flesh out the other areas once we've designed the critical path and the second critical path and the third critical path and just using it to flesh out some stuff as you said. But um that's been a hallmark that's been what we've been saying about procedural tools from the very beginning. So it's nice to see that it's or here anyway that it's still the case. will we be able to manipulate the
00:42:03
environment of contested zones like turn on and off gravity, life support, turrets, doors, stuff like that? Not right now from the get-go, right? Um it's something that can become more interesting once resource network hits. Um so yeah, not not not initially. Uh though that said, we have doors with key cards So there's Infuses. Infuses. Infuses. So there's some elements where you can already manipulate, but I guess what players might have more in mind with these systems that you can manipulate like power resources and all these things. We'd really love to implement them once we have the systems available to us. Now I I you say some you said something there and I want to make sure that that we get some clarity on that. Res at this moment, the moment that we're
00:42:50
recording, what what what day is this? Friday. Friday. What's the date? August 16th. Uh as of Friday, August 16th, you know, resource net resource network is scheduled for for release in 4.0. These things are scheduled for release in 4.0. Uh what when Manuel says when that stuff is in when that stuff is ready, he means when it's up and running and functional for him to utilize it in the design of this experience because these experiences are being developed concurrently. And so like this, it's we can't have them sitting around wait you can't have asteroid bases sitting around waiting for work on resource network to to come along. So the first version will use little pieces of it like you said, the key cards and the and the fuses and stuff like that. But as things progress,
00:43:38
4. whatever 4. whatever whatever after that and so like this, then as the feature hardens and gets more developed and stuff, we'll be able to utilize more and more aspects of that. You've already seen if you watched ISC yesterday, some of the locations teams are already using aspects of the resource networking system for their charge and drain stuff and for and for and for the different homesteads and habitats and stuff like that. So it's just a question of do we want to wait or do we want to put out a first version that can do all of these other things and then add that later and that's what he's talking about here. It's exactly. I think it would be like we all think it would be a shame holding on with the asteroid bases and contested zones is already a playable content that works without the the resource
00:44:26
network already, right? So it's like why wait? Get it out in the hands of players. Have them have them play. Also getting feedback, right? And see like how players engage with the environment and how we can improve upon that. And then we already have also ideas like what we can implement or like add in the future once the once the systems are more refined. Eagle six I'm sorry, go ahead. I was just going to add a little bit as well. I think it's worth adding that we have definitely viewed the contested zone asteroid bases a little differently to past things we've put out. We want these locations to kind of stand alone like as themselves. Um you know, be a bit more sandboxy and have more interactable elements in them. And the resource network that will eventually come is a part of that. Um
00:45:13
but things like the key cards and the and the security doors and traps and thing we're trying to push more of that into the environment to make them kind be more stand alone and and exist as a space that you can interact with and have game play in. Um yeah. I was going to say Eagle six Airsoft says it's not ISC live without 20 disclaimers. Well, it's not ISC live at all. But uh yeah, no, there's lots of disclaimers because I've been doing this for for 10 years and there's nothing there honest to god the absolute worst thing in my entire life Yeah, I'm not it's not I'm not I'm not
00:46:00
I'm not going to qualify that. It is the worst thing in my life is watching somebody take something from one of my programs and misunderstand it. Not not maliciously. Not not not the not the people who twist things because they're looking for clicks or whatever. I'm not talking about those. I'm talking about the good the the the good people who simply heard it heard something and took it a certain way and it's not the way it's going to be. And then I watch that person gets it get excited. I watch that person get excited and I watch that person get hyped and I watch that person get so hopeful for a thing that's not actually going to happen the way that they think they we said it because we didn't take 10 15 20 seconds to clarify it to disclaimer it. So yeah, there are about
00:46:47
20 or so disclaimers and clarifications on SCL uh every week and that's part of my responsibility not just to you but to the developers to make sure that the things that they say are properly understood and in the proper context. And if I didn't, there'd probably be three more people in the chat jumping on me for not clarifying. So I'll I'll I'll I'll take the hit. I'll take the little hit for oh, there's too many disclaimers and whatnot because ultimately the alternative is far worse. We've been talk we've been sort of dancing around this and I don't know how much you're going to be able to get into it. But I'm going to go ahead and ask you. What kind of rewards are there from the contested zones? Is there a shared PVP mission item to recover or are there a
00:47:35
loot small enough to carry in a backpack example? Obviously we don't want to spoil everything. We we we want we still want some level of discovery, but as much as you can share, what what are what are people working towards in a contested zone? Um I guess I can give some examples. So for the first part what kind of rewards you're going to get is first our first step is to make things unavailable like widely unavailable. Something that you just can't not get from the shops in Stanton or in Pyro. It has to be something that is only be uh retrievable right here. And what we're looking at right now after talking with system design about it and and other people
00:48:21
is that ship components are one one of the big steps like that. Like military stealth class or even competition class ship components could will be made um uh exclusive in some capacity. Certain parts of it and only be widely available and certain variants exclusively available. Yeah. available in reward rooms or in in the in the final uh let's call it the grand prize. Yeah. I'm I'm I'm going to stop you there. That that that that's plenty. We don't we don't want to share everything. But yes, uh I'm I'm taking next week off and then I'm in Germany the following week to film with uh Thorsten in the in the gang there about resource networking resource networking. And one of the one of the neat little talk one of the neat talking points and I think we actually God, I
00:49:08
feel like I actually said this last week, but I'll say it this week, too. You might remember an old series of articles that John Crew and I wrote back when I was a community manager 2016 2017. I've been a community manager in five or six years. Um but back then we wrote a series of articles for uh the website called The Shipyard where we broke down basically the overall plan for how ships are supposed to work. And one of the things we talked about there was the classifications of materials not just in quality but in type. Military, competition, luxury, stuff like that. So, this along with resource network and I got I get I'm not going to go into it too much here because we've got the episode coming. Is the beginning of that realization of multiple ship components that are actually tuned to different abilities
00:49:57
tuned to different performance thresholds and stuff. So, after 4.0 is where the world of okay, my M50 behaves like this, but I'm going to rip this out and I'm going to rip this out and I'm going to go to a contested zone and I'm going to get this and I'm going to pop that and I'm going to go to an asteroid base and get this and I'm going to pop that in and now my M50 behaves differently than the stock thing that comes off the market. 4.0 is where the start of that begins to happen and I'm as like I said, as the co-author of the shipyard articles with John Cruise so many years ago, I it's one of those things that I've been waiting waiting waiting waiting waiting, which is why I'm You brought it up. So, I'm going to like excited about it. All right. I hope I didn't spoil too much. Nope, that was that that was that was just enough. That was just enough. You did you did good, Con.
00:50:47
Tell us everything else. I'm just No, but yeah, to the second part of the question about how we extracted um freight elevators. It's not just going to be backpacks or something that you can carry, right? There's going to be freight elevators inside this zone that are positioned in a in a way where you can extract certain things in a more efficient manner. Uh Corn 44 is TV says, "Say it again, I wasn't listening." Sorry? Nothing, I'm just Oh, okay. I appreciate I sometimes I appreciate a a solid low-level troll. Um Are asteroid bases as gameplay locations a precursor in test for player-owned asteroid bases or are there no connections to be drawn?
00:51:39
Not yet, at least. Manuel? No, um not yet, at least at the moment. So, they're currently designed as purely focused before gameplay and content first and foremost. Yes. That is all they're intended for at this time. Watch Citizen Con. Um That's actually not about asteroid bases, but I just meant I shouldn't have even tied those two together. That's not fair to tie those two together, but you should How do you envision contested zones evolving over time to prevent them from becoming static content? Well, yeah, yeah, totally. I mean, it's a live game, so we will continuously
00:52:28
update these places with anything any new items that might be popping up, any new systems. I mean, we have to maintain. We are constantly as level designers going back to old locations and giving them an upgrade when it when some some change to a system comes up, right? So, this this the same would apply here for the contested zones as well. Right. As something like pet companions does become available to players and stuff like that, you know, they'll have to revisit the balance of that as not that as the the light amplification scopes that are as scheduled to arrive in in 4.0 stuff. I'm sure that had to that had to change a couple of things with oh, we thought that was a dark corner. Not anymore. Uh stuff like that. So, yeah, so it's it's
00:53:14
you make a really great point, Con. I'm grateful that you brought it up. It's every time a new gameplay system comes online and stuff like that, there's always something that has to get revisited and has to be reiterated upon in order to incorporate that stuff and then these will be no different. Yep. Um Will contested zones have any time pressures that player must manage or can players just take their time? There's going to be time time pressures. Specific locations even have timed gates. So, during the during these timers we we attract players to be there. Other times certain things will be locked, so there's no point in going there. So, yeah, there's going to be time gates. The other added pressure is is just the population that that exists
00:54:02
there, right? Like you won't be able to fully eliminate the static AI population or the or the traps that that just exist in the space. So, there's a physical pressure and then there's also the other side with timed gates. Okay. Yeah, that kind of ties back to early discussions about PvP and and camping as well. But, the we want the PvE environment to be constantly pushing against the players as well. Um So, yes, you could find a loot box, loot it and then try and stay there to see if you can loot it again later, but we would then want the environment to be pushing back on you to the respawning enemies, patrolling enemies, um you know, to really not allow that. Um I'm looking at this. Yeah,
00:54:49
you said timed and I had I just had terrible flashbacks. I was at Blizzard when we did the Gates of Ahn'Qiraj and this this timed the first timed event and told everybody in the on it and in Azeroth to go to one place the exact same time and what that did to performance and stuff like this. It's it's this isn't going to be the same thing, right? A timed event and suddenly we're going to make everybody go to one of five places or It will be a bit more loose than that. Okay. Yeah. Okay. I still I yes, I still have trauma. It's 20 years ago. Oh my gosh, it's 20 years ago. Well, it's 19 since Ahn'Qiraj, but uh Tex Zulu says, "Jared's in a studio and the others are on webcams." I'm not in a studio. I'm in outer space.
00:55:39
See? No, the other guys are in Germany. And it's not very cost-effective to fly three people over here just to do an hour-long show. We we do try not to spend money where we don't have to. I'm about to. Why why don't we have cool props? I could tell you, but the answer would not make you happy. True, true. Actually, you were in Manchester recently, Manuel. You should have, you know, grabbed a couple, right? I mean, I'm not sure if Jared counted all his time as well. For both asteroid bases and contested zones, uh one more at a time. How varied will they be from base to
00:56:27
base? Six. Sorry? I said for asteroid bases and contested zones, how varied are they? We know there's about five of this and whatever this. Are they substantially different? Are they variations on a theme? What are we talking about as far as variation? For asteroid bases, we're talking right now we're working on three variants. So, like Manuel mentioned earlier, we got the encounter variant, we got a more explo- explorative variant, which has a lot more like of an abandoned theme to it. Um and then we got kind of the contested zone. Not It's not specifically contested zone, but it is a location that ties to the overall progression that we are planning for. Um and last question.
00:57:18
We we we we we mentioned this is Yeah, lots of MMOs going back to the end of the the beginning of time here. Uh and make no mistake, Star Citizen is a is an MMO. You know, our single-player experience is Squadron 42 or the the you know, the the persistent universe is our multiplayer experience. Um that's not to say that there isn't a way to make your living as a solo player, but I mean, the overwhelming majority of the game is designed for a multiplayer experience. That's why we have a single-player and a multiplayer. Where was I going with this? Oh, for a lot of MMOs, dungeons are are are are normal occurrence. Every every everything has some area that counts as their dungeon. Some some some they go in here, there's
00:58:06
an entrance, there's there's a there's a progression through, there's there's mobs to fight, there's an occasional boss. We talked a little bit about your desire for boss fights, uh John, when we filmed ISC. This last question says, "What lessons, if any, from other games have informed your approach to creating what is our first version of that kind of experience with asteroid bases and contested zones?" What have you learned from other games? So, when we first started looking into this and we were in kind of pre-production, um we obviously looked at all current MMO you know, dungeons. We you know, we I think between the level designers, we've kind of played a lot of them. So, you know, Wild Final Fantasy 14, you know, all the obvious ones. Um and we
00:58:54
obviously looked into the dungeons and and how we could apply what they have to what we tried and we did originally kind of internally call them open dungeons. Um And the idea was to have a kind of traditional experience of, you know, there's a start and an end. Uh it gets harder the deeper you get. There are packs of enemies. Um But, because we are Star Citizen and we are a unique MMO in that, you know, these are open. Um we kind of looked more to the old school MMOs for a bit more of where to pull from. You know, like EverQuest and which had those open space dungeons where lots of players could go in. So, we kind of pulled on that thread a little bit and then we also looked uh in terms of like map layout designs. Um we were pulling from like Guild Wars 2
00:59:42
and things where we looked at how they laid out their dungeons. Um you know, the branches and the the the way to move players around the space. Um so, we did pull from you know, existing and old MMOs. Less. But, at the same time You're not talking about floor plans. You're talking lessons. No, sorry. Yeah, I should clarify lessons. Yes. Okay. You're going to have a lawyer busting through my door here in 5 minutes. No, no. We certainly have our unique layouts. Um yes, the lessons we pulled from these and our experiences playing them uh as to what we could apply to what we were doing. Uh Yeah. I mean, that said, if you want to build Karazhan in Star Citizen, I'm all for it. I'll I'll That's fine. Let's go right ahead. Let's do it. I mean, we already have ghosts. So, yeah, why not have Karazhan as well? All
01:00:32
anybody else got want to add to that? Khan, Manuel? I mean, pretty much what the what John said, right? It's like um we need to um we are building something that we think is fun um in in the first iteration uh and like also like as we are like being vivid um MMO players as well. And we built something that think fits the fits the game a lot, but obviously, um we need to find out like you know, the the we want to know about the player experience and see their reactions and what they like and what they don't like about it so we can refine uh the the existing ones and we can make the the make new ones you're working on like even better and so on. So, like I think with all the great games right, it's like they're building something and then see how what the players like in particular
01:01:19
for like their game bubble and then trying to make it that better. That that That's a great point. We're in a position that other games don't yet. Uh we can we don't have to And this this This this this is this will upset certain people and and and a certain selection selection of people and that's okay. It's It's the truth and if it upsets, it upsets. We don't have to figure every single thing out ahead of time. Because we run a live environment in the middle of our development, we can afford to test. We can afford to put a thing out there and try it and instead of assuming that people will react this and assuming people will react like that and assuming people will like this and
01:02:06
assuming people will hate that. Instead of assuming, we can actually put these things out there and test them and get actual feedback and go, "Okay. Okay. So, that what that wasn't as bad as we thought it was. So, there's there's something there. This didn't work the way that we thought it was. So, we can move away from that." And that's been a hallmark of Star Citizen's development since the PU, you know, began in 2015. It's So, we have this this double-edged sword that that definitely cuts both ways where we can use the virtue of our live environment in the middle of our development to test certain things that other games might not even ever attempt. But, at the same time, it means that there are a lot of a lot of decisions that sometimes come out and and there are plenty of players
01:02:53
who are scratching their heads and they're like, "That was never going to work." And whatnot. It's like and that's that's certainly an opinion and it might even have been, you know, the right one or whatever. But, we don't have to guess. We can afford to test and try out and that's that's a that's a benefit ultimately a benefit to our project. And I I really like that I really liked your answer there, Manuel. that was just me saying I really liked your answer. Folks, that's it. Uh thanks for watching another episode of Star Citizen Live. What's it called? Contested Zones and Asteroid Bases. I remembered it. Um if you haven't already, check out yesterday's uh Inside Star Citizen about uh the Pyro system and uh non-combat shooty uh game play stuff. You know, everybody everybody's got this idea that Pyro is just carnage and chaos. But, it's not just
01:03:41
there's more stuff, too. So, check out ISC uh from yesterday. Uh next week, uh SCL will be off. I'm gone for the entire week cuz it's my birthday. I'm old. Um uh uh ISC is uh we're going to be airing we're going to be airing I'll just be honest with you. We're going to be airing a segment that we shot more than a year and a half ago. Uh we shot it for a for a for a for a for a last ship showdown and didn't use it. So, we're using it this week while I'm gone. It's It's a It's a It's a respect It's a retrospective uh look back at the amazing contributions of superstar concept artist Gavin Rothery. Uh if you've never seen him or heard of him or whatever, I think you're going to love him. Uh he's one of my dear favorite people that work on the project, responsible for more spacecraft and vehicles than any single human being in Star Citizen. So, he's got quite a legacy there. Uh so, you check that out
01:04:30
if you want. And then we're back in 2 weeks uh ISC. We're going back to Pyro. We're going back to all the combat combat and carnage and chaos uh with a few new elements that you may not be suspecting. So, check that out. Uh we're going to check out XenoThreat's home turf. Uh and that's pretty cool. Uh let's just say they do not clean up after themselves. Which will be a surprise to no one. So, for Star Citizen Citizen Live, I'm Jared. Uh that was Khan. That was Manuel. That was John. Uh that's Dave and Pete on the on the on the buttons over there. Uh thanks for watching. Uh take care. Uh keep an eye out on PTU for updates on uh 3.24. Uh voting for ship showdown should be underway. Be sure you have a vote on which ship gets whatever the the prizes and stuff are this year. I don't
01:05:18
I should have looked it up before the show. Remember that guy earlier in the show that said this is this can't be live. It was too professional. Wow. Not my show. Uh thanks for watching everybody. Uh take care. Uh try not to burn everything down while I'm while I'm gone for a week. Bye.

Transcript from YouTube’s automatic captions — punctuation and Star Citizen jargon are approximate. The video itself is hosted by CIG on the official channel.