Inside Star Citizen: Alpha 4.0 - What We Do In Space

Transcript — every row opens the video at that moment

1. 00:00:00

   by this point it's pretty safe to say that all of you watching now know that pyro is the next star system upcoming to the Star Citizen persistent Universe in the upcoming Alpha 4.0 and two weeks ago we started isc's Journey Through the jump point to get there and it's a good one you should check it out if you haven't already but what is there actually to do in the Pyro system once we get there it's not all just pandemonium and chaos to start nearly every Mission type and every gameplay system we've developed for Stanton works there as well that means a life of cargo Salvage mining bounty hunting missions and more are already ready to go due to their systemic development but that's just the Head Start there are also a number of new Mission types gameplay systems and wholly unique experiences that arrive with pyro and Alpha 4.0 and we'll be spending the next several weeks

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   discussing them starting this week with what we do in space where we're talking about a new kind of Space Station built with the more efficient level design lessons learned in Stanton a brand new ongoing never stopping never quitting contested zone system that'll reward you more and more the longer you can hold it and a sneak peek at asteroid bases that'll require both ship and FPS combat combined to overcome and explore for its rewards let's find out more [Music] so let's start with space

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   stations so in powerway we have 12 space stations one of them is the jumpo station that you arrive at coming from Stanton when you arrive in the gas cloud you can't see every part of the station it's impossible in your cockpit you're just going to see like a bit of it and then when you get closer you're going to see like oh yeah that's huge they are quite a bit bigger and more involved than you would find in Stanton the exteriors are are very aggressive looking they're very spiky there's there's an almost fractal nature to it the space stations like are owned to like different like factions so you can see like the factions branding on top of some of the stations and then you can see like oh if like Rough and Ready you're going to have problems the Rough and Ready gang is one of our main operators in the Pyro system almost every single rest stop refueling

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   station is going to be run by Rough and Ready he started off back in 2939 when this enforcer named Rook had had enough he had this great plan about how they could take over the fuel operations in the system and the ruling Council of the head hunters deemed that it was too risky but a lot of other people had gotten wind of rook's plans and so he ended up splintering off and kind of forming his own gang Rook decided to take on this symbology of rest and relax which is a known refueling station kind of do their own spin on it and they took the r and they became Rough and Ready while they're totally down to defend their territory and they're not going to take any BS from anyone who's opening fire or hurting their business they also don't get dragged unnecessarily into

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   conflict each of the 12 stations will have a unique exterior and some of the ones will be Starlight service station obituary a very happy name gas but maybe that's not what it's really called and mumi refueling which is not as easy as it sounds to say and of course there's Checkmate station which is a little bit different to how you may have seen it in pyro playground and citizen con and there's also ruin station what sets ruin apart it's the big Leo it was originally Checkmate that you would have seen in pyro but it's been greatly expanded it has uh significantly revised and enlarged interior with much more gameplay

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   opportunity when you arrive in a p space station you will recognize some of the activities that you already do in Stanton to be done there as well they have the same facilities things like weapon shops food courts hangers you have direct access from your hanger to the cargo deck and that's where you can buy your Commodities or sell them and then you can return right away into your instance hanger and then go off of your trip from there you can also access the external freay elevators to easily load your whole seas and so we've made this game play looks much less tiring in pyro and in ruin station we'll have something called the ghost Arena which will let you discover for yourselves so our contested Zone

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   design-wise we are liking them to kind of a classic MMO Lon instead of the primary way of accessing this content being behind missions we are taking more of an open approach it is an open space for players to go in and farm get loots some special rewards and explore the station even more so what I really like about the contested zones is the fact that they are right there next to the social space it's really quick access which is I think is something that makes pyro unique you can be in the social space you have your shops you have the hab you have the clinic but the contested zone is right there often through just a door and airlock this will be very visually distinctive it'll be very cold there'll be ice along the walls some of these don't have the life support systems the

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   the power will be generally out we have booby traps and mines you'll hear the odd rustling inside the vents with some potential surprises in it at some point you'll be facing multiple doors and every door is giving you different things to fight different rewards and so you have to choose where to go and some of them will be blocked through some puzzle elements like key cards to allow you to open the door and access the wing some areas are more secure than others with better rewards other areas are highly contested and there's more players coming into that space and more like an arena we really want to take advantage of that the vibe for pyro of PVP of lawlessness of being out you know

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   sometimes alone but hopefully you're there with your buddies to help help back you up the Zone inhabits various types of Outlaws these inhabitants are a constant population within the space uh so they're not spawned VI missions they just exist there and they will respawn over time so this is a constantly in inited space with a constant flow of challenges it also inhabits creatures whilst we currently only have copion we're also thinking about expanding that potentially in the future the ends could you know you could be fighting bosses a boss fight yes we would definitely want bosses they could be guarding the best loot um they could be Mission based bosses that spawn as well so whether

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    these boss fights uh come to the contestant zones or not um in 4.0 or Beyond is still up for development but uh I would personally would really like to see that kind of uh thing added to contested zones to make them feel special so we're adding contested zones for 4.0 really to to capitalize on the the atmosphere the lawlessness having players compete with one another where there's there's really that tension of getting that loot out of there but having to fight your way to do it fight your way in and fight your way out this is all PVP so you got to be careful and always be watching out for other players sounds like a meat grinder uh it could be a meat grinder um especially being in pyro um with the PVP aspect

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    that's something that we are designing towards players may choose to go in to hunt other players which I think adds a really interesting element to because not only are you wary of the traps the puzzles but you have to kind of be wary watch your back um ambushes from players that kind of stuff for the social cor we've left the green zones so that people can still have an enjoyable social experience so you don't have to worry about getting ganked every 2 minutes by other players at least for the social space unlike the global events that you know such as Siege of orison or overdrive these are spaces that always exist and that you can always go into loot that you've already got gun is going to come back the time door that we

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    have is timed based off of the world so you have a really huge incentive to stay there to keep holding your ground to really make this your space as long as you can before other people take it from you and I think that that's one of the things that's really exciting to me about bringing this to pyu pyro has a number of asteroid clusters they are the newer larger asteroid clusters so they should look and feel very different to the ones in Stanton asteroid bases for us uh are really trying to take advantage of our universe better in terms of the locations that we

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    have space is Big Space is massive but for our game often we don't take as much uh usage of it as we should we're taking procedural asteroids and we're carving these locations into it and we're really providing a lot of variety in the game play in a form factor space essentially we're utilizing the station interior set that we have created and we wrapping them around an asteroid a big asteroid that allows us to be a lot more versatile with the kit that we have and create some interesting layouts for you as Bas gives us the opportunity to create missions where you can be in space then you have to go on the interior to continue the mission we made a little twist of the bunker uh you know

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    little space where we can have some missions uh but in space sometimes we could start with ship combat you could have heavily defended areas on the outside you could be engaging enemies outside on the landing pad some of them even have copion infestations that should be fun that should be fun asteroid bases are not just for combat because they're procedural asteroids one of the things that's really cool about them is we can have multiple routes into these locations so players can Eva and enter through a Vint hatch you could find your way in through a hanger you could go straight through

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    the the front door but there's a lot of room for exploration finding loot that's been hidden there with loot crates and find certain items that are important for you that you want to use uh to progress through pyro things that you haven't seen before in Stanton you tell us what that is no I don't I don't want to spoil it as a baseline we wanted to bring pyro up to par with all the content that we already have in Stanton but also make it unique we believe that with the addition of contested zones and asteroid stations and all the other little pieces will give us unique aspects that really make it feel different from St we're really looking forward to you finally getting

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    your hands on the full experience of the stations there's been a lot of effort put into them there's a lot more diversity now inside and outside of the stations both in terms of visuals and Design asteroid bases and contested zones for us are are two really exciting new location types that we're bringing to the fans for pyu it's not a global event so it's it's longterm it's always going to be there you can come back get new cool stuff Advance your progression and have fun with your friends and your party your Orcs And you know have a great time in Pyro what else do we learn this week well we learned that Rough and Ready have cornered the market on space stations in

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    the Pyro system and that green zones are in place to make the experience in station social areas a bit more manageable for players that that does not extend to the new contested zones where chaos and Carnage will reign supreme and those who can temper it solve their puzzles collect their treasures and Escape will be rewarded for their efforts and that asteroid basis should allow for a combined mind arms assault to explore what's contained within and and Christopher doesn't want me to say just yet we want to make sure it'll work the way we want it to for inside Star Citizen I'm Jared Huckaby don't forget to vote in the ship Showdown when that happens don't forget to keep testing 324 and 4.0 on PTU when that happens thanks for letting us share the people in process of game development when that happens and we'll

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    see you all here next week for fire n