Star Citizen: Calling All Devs - Robbit Season

Transcript — every row opens the video at that moment

1. 00:00:11

   hey everybody welcome to another edition of calling all Deb's a weekly Q&A series where I take questions from you the Stars ISM backer impose them directly to our developers usually over Skype and sometimes having to do them back-to-back so I'm actually filming multiple episodes in the same day and I'm wearing the same clothes and I just wanted to bring you a change of shirt and I didn't because I'm a professional joining us on the show this week we've got Rob Johnson from foundry 42 Rob how you doing ma'am hi Jared how's it going good it's been a while since we've had you on yes feels that way looking forward to this one though I'm sure somebody's I'm sure somebody's tracking these things Rob what is your what is your title and what do you do for star citizen just for the folks who might not know you I'm late gameplay programmer work in CIT in rooms like

2. 00:01:02

   alright so League gameplay programmer we've got a question the question is worded a little interestingly but I think I know what they're getting at the question says with the introduction of the hurricane and better turret play when can we expect to see multi crew vanduul swarm and pirate storm I don't think I don't think that bolte crew needs is are related to the hurricane and the turret gameplay in any way folks have been wanting multi multiplayer multi crew in an inventive swarm almost since the beginning of probably since the day after it came out so that's an old standing that's a long sank question it's existed long before the the hurricane was added although the hurricane is pretty cool something wrong what can you tell us about this well I can remember right back to the original dog bite in module release because I was

3. 00:01:51

   working on it so we're yeah like you say this is something that's people being one into a while it's been on our radar for quite a while and various other releases with doing this sort of scene really commander and so for some relations get more attention than others and moving forward we're in the process of assembling a dedicated strike team to be looking at both the arena commander and the star Marine issues improvements freshening up the the game modes new maps that kind of thing and certainly whilst we've been planning out the work for that team multi crew arena commander has come up again and you can't feel hopefully a new releases time we should have team in

4. 00:02:41

   place better to better tackle that I've worked on quite a bit spawning code for the various game modes before now so I know for example we already have stuff in the game code that will way to spawn in various seats or beds within a ship so from that angle of you know a bunch of the code is pretty much there and what the kind of things we'd need to add are some extra functionality within the lobbies might make more sense to do that as a sort of wider path where we can look to freshen up the lobbies and in general for arena commander and star marine modes that to engage people further and they're certainly like in the lobbies you'll obviously need a way

5. 00:03:28

   to specify you know I want to I want to join this motley crew ship and sit in this seat take on this role for example so so work like that is is the more the sticking point than the actual game code right now it's really just the sticking point in terms of getting that tune assembled getting there getting people to actually have that as their focus and to look into those issues because they're not you know without that kind of wider feature work it's difficult just to just the right few lines of code and turn that feature on who's there and then there's obviously like other things we would look to do for example right sort of do some more detailed and

6. 00:04:15

   balanced passes you know make sure the torrid gameplay is probably polished off and then obviously look one look at all the male crew rolls and you know so sniffing you know possibly not just something there that we'd want to consider but pilots and Gunners for maybe one more by engineer growls you know partnerships going down yin and go fix there and then exactly done forbidden throw to is it you know for the initial and implementation at the feature you know we could we could you know focus on the story gameplay that would that would be a sensible thing to do and it's only cool to get it in bundles form and see the sort of the starting point because you know that's

7. 00:05:03

   probably easy to balance against the eyes are you working in the power mm-hmm environment anyway so yeah I mean I've looked look forward to playing that myself once you get it in and I say we'll be aiming to do that in the near future yeah I don't think there's any doubt in any ways mind that this is something that we've wanted for arena commander just as much as a players have wanted to it's as always it comes down to a matter of resources and priorities obviously arena commander and by extension star marine were meant to be test beds to get us to the persistent universe we got to the persistent universe much faster than we originally anticipated with the explosion of resources in foundry 42 UK and the addition of a frankfurt office so our attentions have been focused there in the precision universe but as

8. 00:05:52

   Erin Roberts stated at the beginning of this year on reverse the verse one of our one of our objectives that we want to achieve this year is to is to build up that striking that build up that dedicated team that can focus on star marine and a ring commander and give them the love that we know not only if you guys want to be focused on that but we want to give so so I know time tables yet nothing to share but of course the RSI a public road map would be your place and I know the road map patent has been updated in a little while after three - we've been doing a lot of reshuffling a lot of reexaminations as stuff as we prepare for three three by the time this airs though considering that I'm recording this on August 15th by the time that this pairs hopefully that roadmap will have your updates and that will of course be the place to

9. 00:06:39

   check for when multi-crew arena commander and stuff get put on the development calendar so all right Rob I'm gonna let you get back to work thank you so much dude thanks Jared good Sofia take care now Oh going to Austin Texas and calling all dibs all star when when when other people are too busy when like no Jared I just can't do it this is my hallmark this is my rock different writer Rob Johnson now Rob Reiner ger how you doing man how you doing good welcome back to calling all dads it's only been like your 17th time I think I don't know happy to be here man I'm not counting I've got the reason I gave you such a wonderful entrance because I've got three questions for you three

10. 00:07:26

    creations for the world man they submit them they vote on them it just happens to be three questions that are all right there and you're in your ballpark there all right so let's just get to it here regarding Quantum Jumping actually you know what let's come back to that cuz two questions are about quantum let's start with this one they're right I should have planned this out ahead time regarding Quantum Jumping and the release of three point three will radar give us an intelligent travel distance feedback for example if we select the planet Hurston as our destination before leaving port olisar will our with our computer AI that the bitching Betty tell us that we don't have enough gas to get there and that you should you should not try to go straight there in a straight line will tell us that we need to detour to two truck stops rest stops

11. 00:08:16

    it's so the we are working on a feature right now we've got a formal design for it that's approved for route planning and what that is is something integrated into the star map that allows you to basically I'm in portal as our select Hurston it's going to create like Google Maps kind of a path to that location that you've selected and it will not only take into account like how far your quantum drive will allow you to go in a single jump it'll automatically pick the shortest path but it also tell you like how much quantum fuel is required for each step of the way so it's I'm not sure if it's gonna be this release or next it's it's definitely being worked on at the moment it's actually that the

12. 00:09:03

    next thing on our on our hit list but due to citizencon I'm not sure you know where that's going to fall but it's definitely in the plans and and eventually that'll evolve into you being able to like pull your PIN around like who I want to go around the side of the Moon instead of that side or you know so on and and we also want to do stuff like update the now markers to actually show like oh yeah there's there's fuel at this location or there's not or some of the other you know like essential information that the players are going to need to kind of navigate the map intelligently instead of just going oh I hope they got fuel there because I'm gonna run out right there you know so it's definitely in the plans and we want to make that much more user-friendly and and fun for the players to to figure out where to go and how to get there awesome

13. 00:09:52

    well at the same time I don't think we ever want to just give them all the answers at once and do the were shirt rotting that they're out entirely for them ya know and it's it's gotta be like so is my personal opinion and how this fully works out is a little bit to be decided but I expect they you know you will gather information as you go to these different places so you may not know there's fuel on you know outpost 57 but as you go there and learn more about it yeah oh it's kind of like a fog of war on the map right like you learned your computer now stores things about the places that you visit and so you will you will accrue information over time as you travel throughout the universe so we really want to try and

14. 00:10:40

    push that sense of exploration in the world and kind of learning about the environment instead of yeah like you said just feeding all the information all at once so I would expect something a little along those lines more in the future but that's that's even beyond you know the route planning stuff so I like that idea of of as as more star systems come online of people specializing in certain star systems like like I know the standard system like the back of my hand I know the pyro system it's like if you're if you're taking a trigger if you're taking a trip despite or you know you're gonna want to talk to you're gonna want to talk to Ken Shadow or somebody else you know they know Spyder like the back of they're gonna know which ones have fuel which ones don't wood you know it's stuff like that and it also plays into like the

15. 00:11:29

    this whole concept of information as a valuable commodity right so being able to sell your star map information to other players for you know whatever that fee is right like or selling it you know I explored the outer rim of whatever system that's never been explored before so I goes to the you know local astrological Society and sell them that information where other people can then go and you know purchase a map of of something that's been explored right like so all information in the world you know should have a value to it and and the more that it gets explored the more information the more recent the information is right like if somebody finds gold on a planet and that's a three month old report like is there still gold on that planet you know it's like you know that being able to

16. 00:12:17

    consistently update that information with with current information is also a valuable thing all right so it all kind of ties together at the end of the day but you know route planning is definitely on the near horizon very soon so just a recap because we went off on a couple tangents there and I'm not complaining it's it's for the first iteration we're talking about you know it's always tier zero it's gonna be limited and functionality it'll be which hopefully it'll be what you need to get where you're going then as as time goes on we'll continue to iterate but the information that you're bitching Betty gives you about you planning your routes will improve but but there will be an upper cap on it we don't want to just provide you every single answer

17. 00:13:05

    automatically give you the shortest most efficient quickest safest route in the world we want we want players to discover those tendencies and and use their own experience don't form that hand to share with others as a valuable commodity yeah yeah it's it's definitely gonna be the shortest route to start and right now we don't have a lot of other places to travel but as that changes you know you're gonna have more options as to where to go and you know whether or not that's heavily infested by pirates like that may be a decision that you want to take into account so that we recognize that you're going to need to be able to kind of move those pins around but that that's not going to be to 0 for sure alright so from using quantum jump to go to where you know you want to go our next question the most voted up question for our August threat is the

18. 00:13:53

    exact opposite using quantum jump to go where you don't know where you want to go this question says will we be able to place a waypoint on the map even if there's nothing there and just quantum travel to that that's an explorer talking that context yes definitely we've definitely talked about that it's come up in multiple conversations just about quantum travel in general we talked about a few things because it implies that you can get to areas to drop that waypoint that are you know don't have a quantum travel point associated with it to get there in the first place right so it also means that you'd have to be able to point in a direction and just go somewhere - you know plot down your your waypoints so it does have some some other implications that we have to kind of work through it or just bring up the star map find a

19. 00:14:42

    space that's in the middle of nowhere and drop a marker on your star yeah or go yeah like I want to go there like it's we're just not sure what the best way to go about doing it is and and there's other considerations like we want to have trade lanes or we want to have patrol routes or between two points and so that also implies that people can circumvent you know these areas which isn't necessarily a bad thing it's just we got to think about what what other kind of systems do we need in place to you know make sure that it's a fun experience no matter where you go so so now ruling it out then not not right now definitely it's it's being talked about but we got a lot of stuff to figure out before we can come into that okay all

20. 00:15:31

    right and last question not about quantum travel congratulations yeah what are the plans if any for our personal hangars obviously hangars have been a part hangers has been a part of star citizen since the beginning the very first version of star citizen's game client was the hangar module the hangar modules have gone through a revision they were they were the original Delilah's in business and and and they went to to rebel and York and Aero view what's the future of our personal hangars of like I know coincidentally I was literally hired like right when those came out so I've kind of seen them all and basically right now we're working on what we're calling that the common elements for our first major city building set which is the larval or

21. 00:16:21

    Hurston landing zone and so we have the the hangars required for that landing zone are built with this mod new modular art set that we're working on and every every city will have its own you know modular set it may be based on a variant of an existing one or a completely new one right but the plan is to take the the hangers which are client-side only right now and integrate those into these major landing zones so if you had you know say a revelant York hangar well that might be in Microtech right because this is big fancy high-tech thing so the Revell New York hangars may be out there the you know our court may have you know the industrial hangars or

22. 00:17:10

    something right so but the the different hangers will be kind of stationed at the different landing zones and and your hangar ownership would basically transfer to the the location where that is is actually located so and then and then that would allow things like being able to invite your friends to your hangar and stuff like that so it's and you would you would the plan is to still be able to do all the you know flair or you know placement of your your stuff to personalize your hangar just as it was before so and I just before we see the it's only gonna be over here now don't quote me on where

23. 00:18:17

    they're gonna go this it's but that's the that's the general plan those as we build out more and more of our art sets we're gonna have more of these hangar common elements that's that we can just kind of snap together and then create you know the small medium large extra-large hangar and then you'll have you know several options of what you want to rent by you know at any given location and if you own one obviously you'll you would you would be grandfathered into the ownership of that hangar in whatever location they're there for so obviously that that's not a sit that the player hangar system when it sits as that comes online we'll have more information for you and what's up we're still exploring a lot of ideas I'm certain there will be no shortage of threads based on what you guys want us to do please start those struts as that

24. 00:19:07

    is this spectrum I took to us how you want to see that you know progress and yeah it's so we know how important player hangers are there it's it's the it was literally the first aspect of star citizen was ever put out it is our version of player housing at this point and what I so it'll be exciting time when the first version of the first ones of those come online on left on she's no I'm doing on her stand or on her cell or evil and you'll be able to decorate your hangar and actually that's where you'll be able to invite people to visit your hangar with all of your hangar flare and stuff like that because and coincidentally the player has also saved Rob Reiner wants information to be free and Jared says no you have to wait for it well that about does it for our show

25. 00:19:56

    of Rob's are robbing show I don't know what we're gonna call it yet Rob Johnson a Rob Reiner thank you so much for being here on calling all devs remember you can submit your questions for consideration each and every week up on the thread up on spectrum and don't forget to vote that's the two-pronged plan you got a submit your questions you got to vote your questions I almost did something bad with my fingers for calling all dead so I'm content manager for global video production Jared Huckaby we'll see you next week everybody you thanks for watching for the latest and greatest in star citizen the squadron 42 you can subscribe to our channel or you can check out some of the other shows and you can also head to our website at www.uvu.edu/library