Inside Star Citizen: On the Gun, Off the Trolley | Winter 2021

Transcript — every row opens the video at that moment

1. 00:00:04

   so i've been looking forward to announce this for quite some time now uh the feature team is breaking out into vehicles i'm aware that sounds a little odd give me a sec to explain so at the feature team traditionally has numerous ions in the fire some very large some small that said all of them add to the wider canvas having the pu is a live game gives us a unique opportunity for not just the development of an mmo pu is all games combined competitively the pu gives us something unique in that we can reach out and ask people to test our features getting that feedback early on allows us to iterate so it's it's great all round for all the games we're making so one of the features we're working on right now is mounted gun first glance the feature may seem

2. 00:00:51

   somewhat familiar in that we have a gatling gun on the side of the valkyrie already the issue with the current implementation of that is that it's leveraging the ship turret system this new feature changes that up we've implemented it in a way that's both sort of physically accurate but also gives a much better player experience in terms of the mounted gun so there are two modes with mounted gun there's uh what you'd consider the ready state where you're just holding the grip as if you had a weapon in a stopped mode we didn't want to give the impression or the feel of the gun being bolted to the front of the camera so there's a definite sense of weight and slight delay in the direction that your gun points to your character catching up in addition to that though we have abs mode which you'll be familiar with with just you know fps shooters in general and stars isn't with fps weapons

3. 00:01:39

   that gives more finer control and obviously you're zoomed in you're looking down the barrel of the weapon so the first iteration uh we're bringing you a gatling gun uh that's gonna be the only weapon available just gonna be into the ad hoc locations for you guys to give it a try and see if you think and give us feedback not just going to be gatling guns the intention is to provide a wide range of weapons so you're aware of how many weapons we have on our ships imagine that on a mounted gun but moving forward those are the registrations the feature we want to make possibility of the locations especially in squadron and in theaters of ward you're going to see them cropping up all over the place so the sky's the limit in terms of the feature i think another feature we're working on and in fact we work on this feature for a little while now is force reactions and in this generation we're introducing staggers stego really introduces just an extra layer

4. 00:02:26

   into the combat experience it's not something that's as disruptive as being knocked down but it is something noticeable and visceral when you're shot say from a 50 cal pistol or bearing shotgun you're going to notice it and feel it the intent has been to just flesh out the whole force reactions feature we've now got a complete range of severities from being hit from shotguns pistols sniper rifles etc on top of that ships make use of this so it's no longer a case of a slight flinch or a fall in your arse you can now stagger as a result of your buddy pilot running into the nearest station whilst taking off again as mentioned at the feature team is breaking out into vehicles and i can excitingly announce that our first vehicle

5. 00:03:13

   will be a cargo trolley started as many things um i didn't think we'd get to the point where it's jackass in space but now we have opportunities so the feature we're working on is trolley push pull believe me it does actually afford us quite a few things for the game for one uh it allows us to do cool things like power corpses onto trolleys and push them around who doesn't want to do that i know jared i'm sorry that there's not the ability to jump up on the back and ride it down a hill uh not in this version at least anyway there is over the potential for um races if you and a friend want to push your user around i can see a new bracket in

6. 00:04:01

   the the daymar rally as a feature it's been really interesting because we've taken the approach of making it physically accurate you have little coaster wheels that spin and rotate based on how you're pushing it if you've ever pushed the trolling car around the supermarket you'll know how that goes but it also expands our toolbar for level designers uh imagine any fps or third-person game without some sort of push block you can push around and climb on top of not for 313 but moving forward the intent is to make use of them in various delivery missions and whatnot and then beyond that we'll see npcs and players using them to sort of push cargo around at a later date that's going to be a key component in terms of your day-to-day life as a you know moving things around with your ship so that's three of the features that

7. 00:04:48

   feature team working on uh coming to you soon in 313. it's gratifying to know that you're working on features that are not just for one game but for also squadron 42 it is war and the pu and obviously once you guys have a chance to give feedback it does open up far more possibilities for people putting videos on reddit which is obviously one of the reasons i'm making this game the symbiotic nature of developing multiple games in simultaneous fashion means that testing for one is often testing for all and through these new additions to star citizen the same functionalities are also added to theaters of war and squadron 42 and if maybe shopping carts and mounting machine guns aren't your thing note ask chris about shopping carts on mounted machine guns we've got a sprint report for you full

8. 00:05:36

   of environmental goodness let's take a look let's start things off by checking back in with the continuing development of ship to station docking which after passing its go no go last week has now moved into the final art phase where teams will begin working on things like the final levels of detail signage and overall polish in the month ahead now while this certainly looks great already it has been as is usual with any brand new workflow a bit of a setup challenge to get the animations working just the way we'd like but solid progress is being made and the team looks forward to finishing this out with proper lighting and the big bulkhead doors in the coming weeks the planet content team recently completed a sprint on a new type of harvestable being added

9. 00:06:24

   to surfaces in the upcoming alpha 313. the deadness root is a microalgae that was first discovered in the shallow coastlines of terra prime now although it is often used for cooking deadness can be most commonly found in medical products thanks to its unique blend of nutrients astute followers of the public roadmap may have noticed the continuing polish of planets and moons in the stanton system over the last several patches and work continues with this look at recent efforts on lyria where the team never quite felt it hit the internal benchmark they were looking but with updates to both the materials and asset packs is now closer than ever before they're also working on a return to the corals found around the oceans of hurston they use this new scan data and includes

10. 00:07:13

    fun additions like starfish which i'm told will be sci-fi up a bit before release space starfish coming at you it's also important to note that a placement pass is still pending so none of this should be quite as dense when you see it in alpha 313. fingers crossed looking a bit farther white boxing continues of several of the colonialism outpost buildings we've seen concepted over the last several months using the idea of a of a small home as their starting point you can see things like the stand-alone battery pack the rooftop solar panels and life support units they've also begun to box out the small garage unit that can comfortably fit an ursa rover as well as a ladder up to the roof because we're always thinking about

11. 00:08:01

    advanced traversal options as well as some tests using the recently revealed terrain modification tool to see how the overall buildings work with the smoothing volumes internally the team has also begun blocking out the social spaces the brush extensions that connect each individual module figuring out where they can hide the placement of this areas and runtime probes so that they don't create visible seams for players to see exploring the potential return of the conversation pit because everything old becomes new again have units for players to decorate and store items and this party in the bathroom there's a seashells joke here but i'm not gonna make it outside pre-production has begun on materials explorations and defining

12. 00:08:50

    exactly how these structures are constructed in the lore of our universe from the foundation stones at the bottom and up through the various paint layers to exploring new types of hard surfaces for the interior edgewear effects which are designed to to remove sharp corners from every surface it's a very different kind of building for star citizen so the team is having a lot of fun exploring a more organic looking structure all around teams have also begun the white box blockout for two new hospitals beginning their journeys into the persistent universe including this look at the new babbage hospital soon to be found beneath the aspire grand with new babs trademark skylight looking out to the skyline above it as well as a pharmacy where you can stack

13. 00:09:38

    up on med pens [Music] and eventually an ambulance drop off point which given the way i play i expect to use more often than not also on white box block out his origins hospital which won't be a part of its original release but is expected in a subsequent drop later this year finally a special treat from some of our team members in our new montreal studio a look at initial blockout progress for a new javelin derelict being used as an onboarding test bed for artists and designers alike now this was a fun warm-up task that allowed folks to learn the various ins and outs of our game engine our workflow and overall general process now this was a fun warm-up task that

14. 00:11:00

    allowed our new team members to learn the various ins and outs of our game engine our workflow and our overall development process and it's delightful to see one of star citizen's earliest planetside points of interest potentially evolve into so much more now while this was originally just a test it has inspired everyone that's seen it to explore this idea further later this year so what did we learn this week well we learned that with staggers and mounted weapons and push-pull trolleys oh my the actor feature team continues to delight each and every patch that there's always room for new harvestables the hospitals signal the next major step forward in the life and death struggles of star citizens in the persistent universe and that there's no reason a crash spaceship can't be just as awesome as a

15. 00:11:48

    fully intact one don't forget to check out the return of calling all debs tomorrow with richard tyra and more actor feature team goodness and for inside star citizen i'm jared huckaby we'll see you all next you