10 for the Chairman: Episode 68

Transcript — every row opens the video at that moment

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   [Music] [Applause] hello everyone welcome to another episode for temp for the chairman uh for those of you who haven't watched this before this is where I take 10 questions from our subscribers and answer them to the best of my ability our subscribers are the subset of our community that contribute money every month to support our ongoing Community engagement uh uh and sort of community um relations that we do every day essentially and you know we I think it's one of the reasons why Star Citizen is so successful is because we really concentrate on trying to inform and share uh and communicate with everybody that is back the game and uh we we

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   really couldn't do it to the level we do it without the money the subscribers contribute because it sort of pays for uh you know the video team fair amount of our community team and also generation of uh sort of content for people to consume so jump Point magazine which we do every month is you know 50 to 70 80 pages each month and it has behind the scenes articles on how we make a certain ship or how he made a certain weapon or how we built a character or what a certain game design mechanic we were working on or what happened behind the scenes going to a show or also has sort of background information on parts of the Star Citizen universe and uh and fiction set in the Star Citizen universe and it's a really good read I would recommend checking it out if you get a chance and then on top of that we do quite a few sort of video shows obviously this is one of them around the verse is sort of the main stay which is sort of the basically the

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   news of what's happening in Star Citizen um and then we have additional shows like bug Smashers and ship shape and uh you know those kind of things that uh provide additional information so thank you subscribers for allowing us to um do a you know probably more sort of community facing information and content than I think I've seen any other game do and it's I think one of our largest uh it's one of the largest reasons why we we've been doing as well and you guys have been an incredible uh you know great loyal uh and uh you know supportive community so thank you subscribers um and you know speaking of a great Community uh we had a few backers coming by visit the office today so this came from down in Switzerland and uh he gave me of course a Swiss army knife uh great for me and it says pocket

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   plasma torch update soon he missing the TM on it but um it's very cool uh so it's pretty nice uh I'm actually flying to the UK tonight because I'm going to be there for the next uh we go look so KN we I won't be taking this with me on the flight by the way um but uh I'm flying to the UK uh tonight because I'm going to spend the next two weeks in the um Manchester office in the lead up to Citizen con which is going to be in Manchester and then uh uh right after I'll be locking down some of the the some of more of the scenes that we shot and performance capture for squadron 42 kind of finish the select to finish to sort of digitize motion capture uh you know uh process where we sort of Select these are the performances the parts of the scene we want and then they gets all the magic and it gets built into 3D and then we can animate it uh inside 3D

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   environment um so I'm doing that tonight and then the other gift I have here on the thing is this is from operation pitchf it's one of their challenge coins in there um and it says for the defense of life and Liberty we the free and independent Citizens of Humanity declare our intent to carry out operation Pitchfork a coordinated strike to end the unwarranted Vandal Slaughter of the colony of Armitage and every human s Anonymous 17 October 2943 so that's very cool we'll go in my little back uh area there with all the other really cool stuff uh which of I have a few from the operation Pitchfork folks and I think you guys will actually um be quite happy at citizen con because uh we we have uh something that kind of speaks to this and uh uh we be kind of a rallying cry for all you

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   guys um so there you go all right let's get to the questions first one comes from Dex who asks it's been a while since we've heard anything about ship armor can you tell us where it is in development and when we'll be able to see it implemented in the game well it's actually implemented in the game right now so it's been in um uh Arena Commander for quite a while um the the big issue is you really don't see it because um it's sort of an invisible item but it's an attached Von item import to the ship um ships like um the Hornets that have armor have the armor item attached to them and essentially the current implementation it's a modifier on Damages you take so it modifies the energy damage it modifies the ballistic damage in the same way that a shield a shield does except for armor uh you know is built to sort of

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   absorb ballistic damage but not be very good against absorbing energy damage and then a shield is the exact opposite case uh so we actually have armor Implement in the game you don't visually see it um we do have plans to uh add sort of the visual representation part of it would actually be quite easy because it's an item that gets attached so therefore um that will be just adding go in and the item system already supports that we just haven't built sort of you know like whatever you want to call it armor um you know reflective armor pieces that you would now see on your your ship and then the other thing that we've been talking out that hasn't been fully implemented is sort of a material swaer change so when you change the armor on your you can actually see a difference in the surface quality of the places that are armored um that's actually not that difficult to do but it's sort of going to be wrapped up into our

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   physicalized uh sort of um damage system work that we're we're planning to do so uh you know that's actually on Mark aent list of two dos um but we we've got some pretty deep um item system refactoring for the greater good of the game uh with him and Paul are doing right now but uh the armor armor is actually already in there and uh so really the key is to make it more visible and then I think it will also become uh more apparent and uh uh you know more have more Nuance when the the fully physicalized damage systems in all right next question comes from Doc tari who asks could you briefly go over how coordinate spaces work in the verse P system coordinates and Galaxy wide coordinates so in terms of how things work in the setup we have right now in the system uh we consider

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   sort of the center of the star system to be the origin 0000 in X Y and Z uh our unit space in uh the engine is set up on meters so one unit is one meter uh and um you know the center of the solar system would be where the the star that everything would orbit around or the multiple stars that people would would orbit around uh and so right now in terms of flying around that like locations uh we you know kind of have a debate about whether we give you P you know sort of set now points like okay here's uh arriving at this planet or here's arriving at this asteroid field um so there sort of navigation points that you can enter and then also whether you could just enter a random um sort of XYZ position to uh Quantum to or would we make you sort of fly to it Cruise

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    speed first uh basically enter that location into your nav computer and then you could broadcast it to your friends and it would be a entry which is kind of one of sort of the Explorer developer options so we're sort of playing around with that that concept but you you know we are going to allow you to sort of uh set or explore a Define off the beaten path uh places but you know have uh pre-done navigation points uh so you know it's almost like you would on a GPS I guess uh then on the Galaxy wide coordinates um you know we would basically specify what so system you're in so you're in Stanton system you're in Soul system you're in Terra system so then you know it would potentially would be uh you know uh you know Sol system uh Earth or you know Sol system at this XYZ location uh and that will potentially

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    you know we'll we'll we'll see how it works because we've also had some debates about actually having uh orbital um mechanics so obviously an XYZ position doesn't really work unless it's relative uh because you know if you want to go to Earth and it's you know at a different point in its orbit um it won't be there right so um so those are kind of the things we still uh need to uh you know flesh out um right now in the large world map and multi crew it's XYZ in meters uh and we give you predetermined nav points uh and you can sort of unlock more and more of them by exploring around and doing stuff like that uh okay next question comes from Monkey Time who asks it's been said that there will be levels of controlled and uncontrolled space and those wishing to avoid combat with other players should stick to the more controlled areas does this mean

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    that certain career paths exploration for example that necessitate travel into uncontrolled or Uncharted space will be impossible to pursue without possibility of PVP uh that's a good question um you know there is a certain amount if you're traveling into Uncharted space then there's probably not likely to be other players out there CU you know you're one of the first people out there so even if there was PVP out there you probably not likely to engage in it I mean one of the bigger points of exploration is that uh you know you're going to go to areas that people haven't gone before you'll sort of chart off the BM path as I was mentioning just before on sort of the coordinate space uh navigation points um so uh it's a pretty good question I would say that you know the PVP slider would also come into effect there where uh that would reduce the chance of you

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    having an enounter with someone that would be hostile uh but you know if it's totally uncontrolled and it's out there then there would be a you know a small remote possibility of uh PVP out there um sort of depending so we'll see how it goes I mean that's kind of part of getting all up and running and see how it works for for folks uh which is what I would recommend doing because I know lot of people are worried about oh there isn't going to be enough PVP or oh my God I'll be forced into PVP and I think we've got a pretty good answer in the way we set it up um that we'll have stuff that will uh be good for both uh both parties both groups um so uh let's wait till we get there and if it's not working perfectly we'll try our best to to balance and and and fix things okay next question comes from Dex again which I think Dex may have sneak two questions onto this list uh they were both heavily uploaded I think is why apparently they

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    were both heavily upvoted well done Dex I thought there was favoritism happening here over the past few years a lot of us have accumulated a number of large multi crew ships can you give us an update on your vision for NPC Crews and what limitations if any we are likely to see uh well you're definitely going to uh you know need to have MPCs uh for some of the larger ships because they're big and uh it probably will not be a case you'll be able to get enough of your friends to to manage a ship with you I mean obviously not in a constellation but when we start to get up to an Idris you probably would want to have uh some NPC crew members um they will be running just like AI the same way we would run AI in Squadron 42 or run AI running a big sort of MPC or AI ship um and uh you know they they won't be obviously as uh I you know self-aware

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    as as a real player would be uh and you know you would have to be more specific in tasking them okay you're now the Gunner you need to go this so they won't be sort of thinking ahead the same way that a real person would uh but you know they'll be they'll fill uh the various roles um you know effectively uh depending on kind of their rating so if you have an experienced crew member then they'll be able to you know be much better at doing some of the jobs than a rookie Junior one but of course the more experienced folks will cost you some more money to pay because you know none of these NPCs are going to be working for free so you have to you know pay uh you know your crew and make sure they're taken care of um and so you know they'll be just sort of like ing folks to to you know help whether it's run the ship you're flying or fly escort with you um that's actually going to be a large part

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    of the game I mean I've think I've mentioned before that we have um you know sort of a kind of goal of a 9010 ratio between Ai and uh real live players in the in the world that will scale that way um so you know just in general nine out of 10 people that you will meet will probably be in Ai and the other one person will be a real person um so therefore we have to make them believe and go about their daily activities and perform their jobs pretty well which is sort of one of the big focuses Tony's making with uh his subsumption system uh for the Phan Universe all right next question comes from wlb who says or doesn't say ask will orgs be able to engage in Guild Wars against other ORS enter alliances that give us some kind of bonus or benefits and could an entire or become blacklisted by law enforcement groups

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    like The uee advocacy similar to how in real life a person can be arrested for being involved with known criminal organization like a gang Syndicate or violent extremist group so yes definitely you'll be able to avoid engage in Guild Wars in fact I'm pretty confident that there will be some Guild Wars considering uh the amount of different organizations that I've seen that we have and the fact that quite a few of them are diametrically opposed to each other um so uh definitely and we are building uh you know we sort of have uh kind of three levels of uh gameplay that we're focusing on one is the sort of solo gameplay which is more akin to the private of the freelancer gameplay where you go and do your own stuff uh you could potentially do work for bigger organizations or other other people then we've got the sort of uh group of friends uh set up so think of that like

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    a I don't know a rating party or something in World of Warcraft and uh you know you and uh three or four of your friends are flying a constellation and you're going off on missions and then we have sort of the big level organization stuff where you know we're deliberately going to have some areas that the organizations would want to fight over or control our own uh and uh that would involve you know lots of people not just three four people and you know hundreds of people maybe not all hundreds of people in exactly the same instance at the same time but um you know a bigger scale conflict where you know people are U you know bringing you know bigger ships uh to the fight uh and you know working with cross per you know sort of um various you know like Fighters and mediumsized ships and big cap ships and combined arms and all that kind of stuff so we're definitely trying

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    to create that um level of gameplay uh and I think it would be cool um I also think that if an organization sort of persists in uh attacking you know sort of the institutions whether it's the uee or whatever then yes at that point that organization itself will become um you know sort of the Enemy of the State and will'll have ai you know say advocacy agencies go after members of that organization if they know or can detect their members of that organization um so we haven't finalized sort of the reputation system that would go with that and how that sort of gets transmitted a broadcast and how you could spoof it or hide it from people but that would all be sort of plugged into that and I think it should make it a pretty interesting game dyamic and we'll see what happens I know we've got plenty of pirate Orcs for instance so they'll probably be on the other side of the law um so there you go all right

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    hope that answers the question all right next question comes from weborg 1978 who says how will trading in SC work will there be some kind of auction house like in MMOs will it be possible not only to sell Goods EG data for rare oil fields uh or can I make something like a profit sharing for the or but I think what's asking here is um can you know can I sell no can I not only sell something for money uh but could I perhaps say hey here is information on an or field uh but instead of you know giving me ueec I want to take 30% of whatever money you make from my it um so that's a good question we're definitely going to have the ability to do some trading uh there will be you know kind

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    of the you know whatever the to do the trade there'll be some kind of cost to do the trade um and you know depending on where it is or depending on like how safe it is then the that cost would be a larger amount than if it was sort of a kind of no hold SP you know dodgy pirate deal um I don't know about the profit sharing uh giving someone saying and give me 20 or 30% I think definitely in the first stage of the implementation of the game that would be a deal that you would have to do personally and the other player would have to sort of honor the contract he had with you uh versus it' be automatic in the system longer term you never know but um you know certainly not in the short term because there's quite a few other things to to get done first um so anyway there you go I hope that helps next question comes from Capstone who asks from a design

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    perspective do you see inflation or deflation as the biggest threat to in an MMO's economy and is one of the many aims of this policy of setting a real world price in U to combat gold farmer induced inflation two real question so you know obviously inflation and deflation is uh kind of a threat to most economies um you know we on our side because you know I've mentioned the sort of 9010 ratio of players to AI uh so 90% of the Universe um is AI that obviously us as the sort of game Masters um have have an influence over um you know they trade they go about their daily lives they earn money um do all these things uh so so it's actually a pretty good tool to make sure that if a player finds

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    an exploit or does all this other stuff um it won't totally creater the economy because 90% of the Commerce is happening inside the AI world and and we sort of have control over that so you know if we see something spinning out of control on the player side we could potentially counter it um on the AI side uh so that's kind of one of the ideas to try to sort of you know not be too beholden to um you know say price fixing or any kind of you know machinations that sort of players could get together and do they'll have the ability to affect some form of the economy uh in a more localized fashion but because there'll only be 10% of players in the overall Universe they won't have the ability to affect um you know the com the economy on sort of a more sort of um overbearing or you know Global basis you know as far as a real world price on U I mean you know that's kind of our you know we're

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    not doing a subscription fee uh so kind of uh you know where we think we'll be earning money longterm to pay for the servers and adding new content and carrying to go and besides you know new people joining and buying their game package is uh you know for the people that like love the game and but they just don't have 30 hours a week to be flying around doing stuff but they really want to you know get that cool ship or that cool weapon so they you know they'll be able to buy some ueec and that will sort of get them there uh CU you know that sort of Falls to the whole sort of Time Versus money argument um so it's not so much to um combat gold Farmers it's more just um to be one of the ways it will financially support the game going forward once it's live um we will definitely put some things in there to make it difficult for say a bunch of gold Farmers to go and um you know sell

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    people ueec I mean there's it's almost impossible to fully stop stuff because people can like build up an account and then just transfer the account and sell it uh but we'll you know have a fair number of uh you know you won't just be able to wire people money um you know with no uh at no cost and no checks and stuff like that so so we'll see how it goes I mean it's still early days um and I'm sure we'll uh you know there'll be plenty of things that we haven't realized that we'll have to adjust um but that's part of the point of you know getting you guys in early next question comes from Alan Parsons will NPCs work for a player even when the player will go offline or can I hire NPCs to do missions mining hauling and myself uh is sitting in the hanger or bar and waiting for the NPC to finish the mission by themselves so I definitely don't think you're going to have NPCs doing stuff for you when you're offline

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    um you you probably would be able to hire some NPCs to go and do a mission while you're down on Planet Side say sitting in a bar and say here I'll pay you this to deliver this um cargo to this planet or this other U player and that definitely will happen you s of game time will tick by while you're on your planet uh waiting for them to finish that mission and when they do it happen so uh so I guess you could run sort of NPCs um just from a static location if that was uh if that was what you wanted to do that's kind of how um the Design's uh set up okay next question comes from blood prooof who asks will there be trade Lanes similar to the game freelancer or will Star Citizen have open space travel only so we're not going to have trade Lanes in terms of any sort of mechanical trade Lane there will be by default areas that are sort of the trade paths because

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    they'll be nav boyed out and it'll be sort of the main trade kind of routes that various size ships will take um but you'll also have open space travel so you'll be able to fly anywhere in any direction we're actually adding uh you know additional flight modes which I've talked about before but uh in The multic Crew release there's going to be Precision which is sort of the low speed uh flying for like Landing taking off maneuvering close to other ships or uh structures then there's SCM space combat maneuvering which is basically what everyone knows from um Arena command which is sort of the low sort of speed um kind of space combat um uh kind of velocity range and that's that so you can do you know pretty drastic Maneuvers and not uh be pulling too many G's and

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    then we have Cruise which is between semm and Quantum and Cru is going a lot faster but then you can't really turn very fast uh and if you did you would be sliding quite a bit uh but that's really for sort of getting to places quickly when you don't want to jump drive or maybe you don't have a nav point for them um and then beyond that would be Quantum Drive um okay so there you go hopefully that answer the question okay next question comes from eshat who asks will players traveling in fleets be able to send out ships to scout the route ahead how do you envision this working with instances and the matchmaking system yeah if you're traveling in a fleet and you uh you know send a friend of yours out on a ship ahead uh they can go to uh you know another area and you know the way the system is going to work is that we only spin you will only hand you off to another server um if there's

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    too many people um in this area space in your server so like you know at the very beginning if there's only two people in the star system um you know and say you can have 50 people in maximum in any one server right these I'm just giving example of numbers that's not necessarily the what the final numbers will be um those two people will be on the same server and that will that will continue uh if there was 10 there would still be those 10 people be on the same server server now once we get over the server maximum say 50 and we move to 60 at that point we can't fit 60 people in a in one server so we would basically say okay let's look at the locations and say okay well you know here's an area that's fairly dense say it's a planet say it's Earth so uh in Earth that will be its own sort of separate server Zone uh and then

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    people near around Earth will be talking to the server that's controlling that and then people on the other side of the solar system say around Pluto or flying around out in space would be talking to another server and so you sort of you sort of split out players to additional servers as more people come into the solar system uh and then when we have quite a few servers running that's when you sort of have to deal with the instancing of like okay well we want to keep people together if they're part of the same sort of organization or party or they're friendly or they've you know noted each other as a person of interest um so in most cases unless there's you know you're getting into like huge battles and loads amounts of people you could send someone ahead to say Scout an asteroid field and you come back and say yeah it's fine or oh you know what there's a couple of pirates out here and the rest of your Fleet would come to

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    where you were you'd still all be in the same server and um you know you would have an encounter and then even if there was you on separate servers because there were too many people in the solar system and the asteroid field was handled by a different server than say where the rest of the fleet is um we always try to keep slots open on servers for sort of friends to join basically and so you know the message would go out from your scout saying hey join me and there'll be a certain number of slots available for the fleet and the ones that would be available would be filled and if um there was too many people then we would just have to make a decision of do we keep the fleet together put in another instance or do we split it up um and we haven't really decided how that would work yet um on that it's you know you can have an argument for both ways so we may make it use definable or we

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    may try it one way and see how it plays um so there you go that's it that is the 10 questions and 10 for the chairman um this is uh I think I mentioned uh my uh well actually I time you see this I will actually be in England um but um I will be over in England for about the next four weeks um spending time in Manchester working with a team there especially leading up to Citizen con uh so uh next week uh you won't have my face nice face you may we may film one uh because Tom and the team are coming over for citizen con so we may film out at 10 for the chair while I'm there you'll definitely be seeing me on citizen Con on the live stream and I'm really really really excited to show you a bunch of stuff we're going to show you I think uh you guys hopefully will

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    be very excited um you know it's it's uh some cool stuff um I mean obviously we still got loads of stuff to be doing on all levels but um it's going to be an awesome ride and uh anyway there you go all right uh talk to you I'll see you in the verse in the next few weeks bye hey guys thanks for watching um temp for the chairman uh if you guys would like to uh see more episodes go here if you guys would like to subscribe to our YouTube channel and always keep up to date with all our video content go here and uh if you guys would like to watch episodes around the verse go here please and I will see you in the verse this video made possible by the ICC

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    Stellar surveyors and subscribers like you