Star Citizen Live: Ship Showdown Q&A

Transcript — every row opens the video at that moment

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   [Music] Is there usually a sound effect there? I don't think so. Hi everybody. Uh welcome to Star Citizen Live uh emanating directly from uh our offices, the office part of the offices uh where we spend most of our actual uh day. Uh welcome. It's it's been a while. Uh, I'm your host, um, Jared. Uh, uh, on the show this week, >> nearly forgot it. >> On the show this week, uh, for our ship showdown Q&A, uh, uh, uh, our two, uh, big vehicle directors here in the UK office, uh, Mr. John uh, uh, I almost said John Curtis. Wow, I just caught myself saying John John. Mr. John Crew and Ben Curtis. John Ben, say hi.

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   >> Uh, hello. Hello. >> Sorry, we got to get used to the camera swapping. >> Zoom does the camera swapping. John, say something more. >> Oh, uh, hello. My name's John. >> That's John. >> John has also just moved offices. That's why his >> background is a little bit planer. >> Yeah, you're you just moved offices. Uh, I'm still in the office I've been in all year, but it's uh we're not used to it being in here. Um, so yeah. Hi everybody. Um, if you've never seen Star Citizen live before, it's where we take about an hour out of the end of an occasional week and answer questions from you, the Star Citizen community. Uh, at the end of last week, we put up a thread up on Spectrum and asked you to submit your vehicle related questions. Uh, we're doing this show because we're in the middle of Ship Showdown, which is our big annual uh, Knockham, Sockum, Drag them uh, event where the raft loses

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   in the first round. Too soon. Uh, I just need to talk to the people who made the bracket because that was so unfair. Um, and so we're just going to jump into it. We we we we we went to the thread. We grabbed a bunch of your questions. Uh, I do want to say a note. I want to say no before we jump in. Uh, pretty good questions this week. I've been doing this for, you know, on and off for 11 years. And a lot of the times we have to skip through a whole bunch of the questions because the questions aren't really on the topic or they're from for a completely different team than the team that we're we're doing because you know people don't always think about well there's that team and there's that team there's that team and they all kind of work together but we only got this team on or whatever. Questions were pretty good uh this week. So we were able to to basically take our 30. We usually do about 30 in the course

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   of an hour. We were able to take our 30 from the top 40. Uh so we didn't have to skip many at all. So we are just going to jump right into it. And uh the first question which is the most upvoted question if you account for how many times it was asked throughout the thread uh and then combine all those votes. Uh the first question is simply 600i rework when >> Oh it went to me. >> I say it went you can answer that. >> Um so so yeah we've done the the concept we've already shown um some of that I believe last year. Sorry, it it kind of blurs a little bit. Um, we it's no production work is is currently happening on it. Um, and we're we're it's not on our sort of like rolling 12

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   to 18 month schedule at the moment. Um, I think everything we showed in the concept still still valid. Um, I think exterior wise pretty happy with where the ship is. Um, it's mainly down to interior layout changes and making it um making a better use of the space that it's got. got quite a lot of space and it and it's got a fair amount of wasted space. Um, and then also the kind of like the changes we want to do to make sure it's uh works much better with the kind of the different modules and the different layouts that we need. >> Yeah. Uh, you covered most of it. Um, I think the only real things to add there is everything we showed with those concept images is pretty much accurate still. Uh, big highlights being the exploring. a medical bed and a cargo bay of it gets large enough to hold another

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   tank and and why it constantly or not constantly why it never seems to happen uh is that really 600i owners have a functional ship. So when it comes to prioritizing what do we want to work on next uh redoing the 600i takes the place of something else that doesn't exist yet. So, uh, still super excited to do it. I think it's going to be a big update when it happens. Uh, but it's just finding the right time to do it. >> Yeah. I think I think it will be nice to kind of, um, put a little bit polish on some of the Origin, you know, ships. >> We've not done an origin ship for a while as well. >> Yeah. Yeah. It would be nice to kind of, uh, you give it a little bit of love. >> Yeah. I know. Uh, we go into our I think it's our sixth or seventh uh, 2026

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   schedule meeting next week. and ne next week and I'm I'm hopeful we're gonna get an origin ship in there >> to the ninth ninth edition of the schedule. >> Yep. Um just in case people think it happens willy-nilly. Uh it goes through a lot of lot of iteration. Um and yeah, for the people in the chat, uh uh I can't call you out because there's so many goes. When did we start answering when questions? Um, we're going to have a couple of these. Uh, we're going to have a couple of these and the uh the one questions we're going to be able to talk about are the are the ones that are like it's not coming anytime in the next you know 6 to 12 months. It's it's I think it's a I think it's important uh it's not the information anybody wants to hear, but I think it's I think it's valuable to folks who want to man, you know, it's important for managing your expectations and stuff like this. It's

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   we don't want to string you along or whatnot. If if we know something's not going to come in the next 6 to 12 months and whatnot. Some of these questions we're just going to we're just going to tell you. It's to me it makes sense. It's it's it's the right thing to do. So that's why we answered that one. And there'll be a couple more of those as we go through. Um our next question, uh how many existing ships need upgrades/polish before engineering can be released? Now, this is a backdoor question trying to glean some insight into engineering, but I'll let John and Ben answer about the the ship part of that since engineering is not technically a ship feature, >> ship content feature. >> Yeah, obviously uh vehicle content has a big part to play in this. Uh so there's sort of two uh answers a two-part answer here is what's needed from the vehicle

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   side to release the feature and what's needed to have the feature fully functional bells and whistles and everything. So what's needed to release the feature from a vehicle content side is all the ships support it right now. Um, we have fallback uh methods for those ships that don't have physicalized components, say like all the single seaters. Uh, you'll be able to access the gameplay in a way through your existing MFDs to sort of repair and manage components that are damaged. Uh, so it's sort of not as unfair to those ships that don't have that level of physical components as those that do. uh and they that will come with some downsides. But again, it's not a vehicle contact feature, so I don't want to go all the way to specifics, but in terms of the full featured, running around

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    your ship, changing fuses, messing with relays, engineering screens, completely accessible components, uh we are pretty pretty well through the list. um had a big chart that I was looking at the other day of where we are with it and it's well over half the ships have that level of everything being physicalized and the majority of the ones that don't so far are those single-seater ships that that gameplay is of a lesser importance. So uh every patch people have noticed ships getting little updates here and there or have not noticed. Uh, so we're chipping away at that list whilst working on all the other things. >> Yeah, and I think that's that's it. It's it's fortunately the engineering gameplay makes the biggest difference to the bigger ships. Um, and it's the

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    smaller ships that kind of give us more of the headaches. Like not the single seaters, but like the ones with like the really small interiors. Um, they're the ones that kind of give us a few more headaches because you're you limited by the exterior of the ship and trying to cram in so much into the kind of interiors. Um, but yeah, luckily the the the mediums, the larges are are a little bit easier to kind of update and support for that. >> Yeah. And the the big headline here is that it's not a feature that's being held back by the work on the vehicle content team, whatot. It's it's the folks the folks who are developing uh the feature and the gameplay systems design team. They're still working on it. I saw uh Torston was over here uh he was visiting from the Frankfurt office earlier this week and he was in there with a big review with uh JJ and Rick and uh Rich on this earlier this week. So, it's still underway. It's still in development. No comments on when because

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    I mean we've done like between Digital Citizen Con, actual Citizen Con, a couple ISC's, we've done like five videos on engineering at this point. Uh, so it'll be it'll go into tech preview testing when it's ready. It's the answer we're going to give there as far as when. >> Um, next question from the thread. How do you choose the color scheme for the showdown paints each year? >> Um, this is probably also a back door question to this question. >> It's a big spinny wheel of random colors and we just go >> I just want to know if they're going to be giant and pink or purple again this year. Um well, we've got a meeting kind of next week to to to make some decisions on this. Yeah. Um it's it's not uh necessarily a me John decision. Um in more recent years, what we've been

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    trying to do is kind of wrap the whole event into its um sort of like quite a cohesive sort of um brand and and tying it all together. Um so you'll notice that the the colors that the halls were and all the branding in the halls was reflected by the ships. Um it it works great on some, it doesn't necessarily work as well on others. Um I think we're this year um I say we've got a meeting and discuss next week about what what we're going to choose. Um I think we will hopefully have learned a bit from some of the ones that maybe didn't work quite so well. Um and hopefully make something that that everyone uh well it's really subjective in it. Some people are going to love it, some people are going to hate it no matter what we do. So but hopefully it'll be more successful um as we move forward. Can Can it be more purple than it was last year, though? >> I'm trying I'm trying to last year was

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    like purple and blue and it had those really nice sort of like um like >> That was That was the year before. >> Oh, was it? Oh, god. Has it been two years already? >> Last last year was Milker. >> Oh, wait. What? No comment. >> Milker. Is that a UK? >> Milker. The uh European chocolate brand. >> Oh, what's what's the line? Other brands are available. Oh yeah, they're not the only brand available of the chocolate. >> Uh, and just in case any of the lawyers are watching, that was not a binding statement from Platinum Games. It's just colloquialism. Um, as of 2025, most starter ships are far from being gold pass. These ships are the ones which are used by new players to discover the game, and they are sometimes so outdated and featureless

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    that it feels wrong. Any plans to prioritize legacy starters to gold past them? >> I like a question with a with a strong POV. >> Yeah. Uh short answer, yes. Um in fact, this week we actually uh did the kickoff for uh gold standarding the Aurora series. Um so >> what do we mean by that? That means giving it all its physical components. um updating the dashboard to current MFD standards, fire extinguishers, uh weapons locker, uh just fixing all the stuff that's wrong with it that doesn't suit the game today versus when it was made. Um and it's going to be a I think quite a nice update for those owners of which there

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    are many millions. >> Yeah, I I I have a little bit of an issue with the term gold standard. Um because uh like gold standards like an ever an ever moving kind of line. Um so it's more about bringing the ships up to you know current what like say what yeah current standard or 1.0 standard or whatever however you want to kind of like stage it. It's um you know it's bringing the ships up to the standard where they support all the current kind of gameplay and features that we that we know about kind of now. You know who knows what's going to happen in in in the future and and where we'll take things. So um yeah, this is about kind of making them uh the best we can make them today effectively. Um yeah, and I think I think uh in terms of like starships, I don't think we can say that, you know, yeah, we're doing all

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    starships first and then we're doing this and then we're doing that. It's generally kind of prioritized by um ship popularity in in kind of some sense. Um, so you know, the more popular ships we obviously the most popular ships with the worst issues is the ones we want to try and fix up kind of sooner. Um, but then also kind of what makes sense from a a a gameplay and a a business sense. So if we've got um if we've got something, you know, a feature coming out that we know is going to use a certain class of ships and we've got some of those ships that uh are maybe lacking, then if we've got time in the schedule and everything aligns nicely, then then hopefully we can kind of try and bring those up to standard as well where we can. Um, but yeah, it's it's quite a lot of kind of juggling of of different things to kind of do the the picking of exactly which ships are are getting their pass when. >> Um, there was a question in the chat uh

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    from Jennen uh Tonic. Uh, I don't know if I'm saying that right, but this person's been included as a starter package. Uh, simply put, it's two-factor thing. We I can't remember when we did it. We did it a while back ago. one, I think the Aurora MR alone, there's like 490,000 of them across the counts in the PU. When you factor in all the Auroras, it's definitely our most populous ship. And it was still needing a gold standard pass. It need it needs all that work. The dashboard they mentioned, the the the damage mesh, the ground fuel ports, the radar, and and it needed work and everything. We felt that there were other starters that were a better uh start for people just like the question

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    originally said. So we removed it from the starter packages. You can still buy it. You still buy it individually if you want it, whatever, but we felt it was more customerf facing to push ships that were closer to the current standard as Ben said. Uh and when uh the Aurora is back and and up to the and up to the current standard or whatnot, um we'll look at bringing it back into a starter package. Um, what have we got next? Uh, what happened to the fourth Zeus variant? It was briefly shown during Citizen Con 2953 and it was apparently called the Zeus Mark 2 ST. I don't remember that, but I was really busy. So, just >> I do because uh a fun fun story here is uh I put the wrong image in the PowerPoint slide for the presentation.

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    Uh and I noticed that on stage when I turned around and looked at the screen and it had all four there. Uh so yes, there is a fourth uh variant called the ST. Uh and the reason it isn't really known about beyond there is it has a sort of game loop that isn't really fully fleshed out. Uh so we decided not to launch it with the other three. Uh and when that game loop is more fleshed out, we'll talk more about it. >> Yeah, it's one of those it's one of those things. We we try we don't always succeed. Let's just be real honest here. We don't always succeed, but we we try not to push ships that don't have the relevant requisite gameplay at the same time. Um and when people when people see a new ship that's added every month and they say, "Why are they doing another fighter? why are they doing that and

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    whatever. Uh there's a lot of factors that go into that. Um not the leech of which is that fighter sell. Let's just be real. Um but it's also it's most most of the times when people are like why aren't you doing this ship or why aren't you putting another ship with this? It's because we're waiting for the gameplay systems to mature or maybe before we put more ships out that uh out in that loop. Again, we don't all it doesn't always work out that way. Uh sometimes the schedule's a schedule's the schedule. Uh, but wherever we can, we we do try to not push ships that don't have the requisite gameplay or all the requisite gameplay and stuff. Again, there will always be exceptions. There will always be exceptions. Um, how is ship modularity coming along? Uh, I mean, it's out there now with the retaliator. Um it which is another one

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    of those things along with the whole sea that took a long time and we talked about it for a long time incl. Uh it's out there with a retaliator now. Uh so really the only thing that stops it spreading further onto other ships that we promised it with is just simply time and resources to go through those uh other ships and do it. the same reason we haven't uh done the last one or two modules for the Retaliator. Um in terms of feature wise, it's there. It's working as much as we need it to work for ships such as the Apollo uh which uh I'll say now is coming out next month with all of its modules. So all six modules. So it has the left and right tier one, two, three modules. So you can

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    mix and match between them all. Um, there might be some ships that I can't think of in the back of my mind that have a feature inside their modules that doesn't work yet. Um, but if that's the case, we're probably not working on those ships anyway. Um, but yeah, it's modularity is a feature works. Um, >> yeah. >> Yeah, >> it it it's technically six modules, but it's two. It's a left and right with a tier one bed, a left and right with the tier two with two tier two beds, and a left and right with three tier three beds. >> So, it is technically >> I still get confused by the the the the tiers. It's the wrong way around in my head. >> It it is. We do everything in Star Citizen is generally you you know tier one is your is your starting and then you go up and tier two is more than tier

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    one and tier three is more than tier with the Apollo because of whatever decision we made back in 2018 or what I I think it matches actual first responder injury step I I'm not sure I don't remember >> I guess that makes sense then it's it's inverse so the Apollo is the only one that's inverse where tier one med beds are the best of the med beds and then tier two were the medium and then tier three are the lesser ones and that that is confusing a lot of people we're for like like John said uh the September uh promotional ship flight ready ships are the Apollo triage and the medivback and our our brand folks are onboarding and having to learn about this and stuff like this and like and yes they keep it keeps getting it keeps being a continual point of confusion for everybody inside uh but you know we're paying for the sins of 2018 us

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    um I saw the command module recently being added to the public road map. Anything you can tell us? Why does it always come to me first? >> Because you're the last one that was talking. >> Oh, okay. John, do you want to talk first? >> Yeah. Uh, so command module on the road map. That's the technical features done by not the vehicle content team. Uh, to allow us to set up the command module, which you've seen on the side of the Caterpillar, and it's also on the ironclad. uh that allows it to be a fully independent ship that can dock, detach, dock. Uh and the complexity here that requires the feature uh development is it's not the same docking system as you see like star error refueling or Merlin and constellation series because

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    those are simply just two ships attaching to each other. The command module is that plus the transfer of control authority between one ship to the other. So you need uh when you're in the command module to have its own set of IFCS parameters and more, but we just talk IFCS. Uh so it can fly off and do it own thing. And then when it's attached to the base portion of the ship, it then needs to essentially absorb all the control links of all the items that are in that other section, take over control of them, take over flight of the whole thing. Uh so yeah we are getting that uh feature- wise in a position where we can update the content to support it. >> Sure. And I think like I said I said it was recently added to the uh uh to the public road map not in the release view

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    but in the the technical development uh view that is being developed by the uh technical feature team is doing it and then when they're done then it can be applied to ships like the Caterpillar and stuff. So I I think I want to I want to be real care clear when you see I think it was scheduled to like end in December. That's not when like the Caterpillar it's getting the Caterpillar is getting it in December. That's when the work internally is scheduled to be done and then the vehicle content team can grab that work and say you know thanks and then start applying it to >> Yeah. and and it's like, you know, it's not a hard requirement for some of our upcoming ships, but I think everyone will be pretty disappointed if if we're not able to um ship the you know, the the ironclad with with its module. Um and obviously like say it unlocks us to then be able to kind of work on the caterpillar and everything else. So um from from our side, we're not in control

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    of it, but we are pushing to to you know try and get much support as we can for Um, what brought on this recent design trend of emphasizing bespoke weaponry on your newest ships? I don't know if that trend is two in a row, but >> yeah, question. I >> It's uh I agree. It's it's an unfortunate trend based on just the last two ships. Um, it's not a sort of weird plan to just bespoke weapons going forward. I think if I think about everything that's coming for the rest of the year, the only other bespoke weapon uh that is on any ship for the rest of the year is the Perseus turret guns. Uh everything else uses generic ones. >> No, there's a bespoke weapon on one of the October things.

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    >> Oh, yeah. Sorry. >> So, two two more for the rest of the year. Uh and they those ships also have generic weapons. Um, and it's a it's a two-part answer. One Ben could probably talk about from the visual side, but from the design side, it allows us to have uh essentially some level of control over the actual raw like damage output of a ship because as players know, everyone minmaxes, if you have generic swappable weapons, you have to account for a full size range. So, if we take the Meteor for example, and we let those be generic size fives, uh, I think that would be a well and truly overpowered ship, but because their bespoke ones allowed us to have size

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    five weapons that were very constrained and had sort of downsized to keep it in check. And the same with the wolf. Uh that generic size fours would have made it sort of just a talent but smaller. Uh >> yeah, I think I think you're right. It's it's a compromise. It's a compromise between um like design requirements and balancing and everything that also between the the you know the visuals that we're we're we're trying to achieve. I think trying to fit generic size fours on the wall would have um it would have limited what we could do with its with its visuals. And I know that's not important to to everyone, but it does make up like a large part of of what we try and do with the game. But like I say, it's it's it's a compromise. Um with with the Wolf, we just we we we were really keen to be able to kind of

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    um have those weapons fold away and kind of compress into the body and give those really clean lines. I think it was quite an important thing for Krueger. Um, and you know, with the the Meteor, we we kind of wanted to really tie those weapons into the the kind of the ship itself and kind of show that it's um like make it feel kind of really powerful and really unique. Um, so we can like you integrate them into much much like what we did with the kind of Aries ships. Um, and you know, just because they're not generic size four, size fives, or whatever that means, that that doesn't necessarily mean that, um, there's never going to be options for other weapons for those ships. It just means that they won't necessarily use all of the ships, uh, all of the kind of weapons that are generic in that size class, but it doesn't mean that you're you're only

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    going to ever have, um, one weapon for for a particular ship. Okay. Uh, I hear what you're saying. Let's see if anybody else picks up on it. Um, if only there was a giant, uh, ship convention. >> To wink at the end of that statement. >> Yeah. Um, the ships with multiple S2 shields seem to have some power issues compared with ships with a single larger shield as they consume much more power, but they perform much worse. In the past, you said that 6 S 6* S2 of the Redeemer should provide an advantage in regeneration compared to a single S3, but currently they're not working this way as the S2 shields have much worse shield regeneration.

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    John That is uh very true. Um so we are in this sort of in between stage of the current system and engineering and I talked with Torson yesterday to make sure I say the right thing here. So hopefully I don't misconstrue it. Um but with the engineering update there's going to be quite a large change in how shields and other components function. Uh, and essentially if you have a ship that has uh more than two shields, you will only ever have two available at a time active. Um, so that means that if one of them goes down, your third one will come online to like take its place. If that one goes down, the fourth one comes online, fifth, sixth, whatever. So in in terms of power consumption,

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    obviously that changes things drastically because you're only having to power two, but you have this sort of larger uh backup all of uh shield generators. Um so in terms of size two versus size three, all the sizes will have changes done that like every single item is rebalanced with engineering. Uh all the values you see now are not going to be the same as they are when engineering drops. Um, so you can't really accurately compare that six S2s now to say one size three come in the future. Um, but that that difference will be a lot less with engineering update. >> Just please please don't make me swap all of size two to size 3es. It will break me. >> Yeah. Yeah. The Whose idea was it to

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    make everything physicalized? >> It was a really good idea. Um, are there any plans for a medium to large class salvage ship? Uh, I love the way it always goes to Ben. He's >> last one talking. >> Uh, so we want there to be like a full range of ships um in a in a gameplay loop, like true dedicated starters, like professional starters, uh, then small, medium, large, capital, whatever. Uh, and we saw this earlier in the year with the introduction of the Gollum for the mining loop. So, you've got that teeny tiny uh proper starter ship. Uh, and for salvage, we want to have that as well as this medium large ship. And if you

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    choose to fill them out, fill the range up. Need an orange salvage ship. >> An orange one. >> Why an orange one? because I think uh salvage suits orange ships. All right. All right. I'm just going to ask this question, then I'm going to go get a go get a drink. Uh backlog ships plan. Yep. Uh obviously a very popular topic, rightly so. Um it's always like we've talked about this over the years lots. It's always a balancing act. Um at the end of the day, the company and the project is funded in a particular manner and traditionally

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    new ships sell well. Um but that doesn't mean we can't not do the old ones. We have to do that like but it's always a bouncing out between fresh new content uh updating the existing content so it suits the game as it is today. Like I said, we talked about with the Aurora, that isn't really suitable for the game today. So, we need to fix things like that. And then we also need to finish uh and deliver on the backlog ships. Um and that changes year to year, quarter to quarter that ratio. >> It's something, you know, we put a lot of kind of discussion into and and thought into as we're kind of like planning out the years and and what we're we're planning on doing. Um, and I think, you know, we we kind of generally um look at what we're working on in, you know, the 12, 18, 24 kind of kind of month.

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    >> Ben, Ben, and I'm sorry to interrupt. Can you move your mic closer to your mouth? We can't hear you. >> Oh, I'm very sorry. Y >> that better. >> Y >> um yeah, I was just kind of echoing what John said. We basically Yeah, we put a lot of thought into it. We're kind of generally planning like 12 18 months and and ahead. Um, and you know, having a bit of a look at like where the backlog is, which you like I say is something we do every time we're kind of talking about what ships next. Um, if if you take into account the sort of like the next kind of 18 months or so after that, we'll be left with maybe kind of like uh twoish a year that we that we haven't delivered. Maybe maybe some years three, maybe some years one. But I think I think we're you we're definitely trending on the right trend. um you know there's a few manufacturers that have got like one or two vehicles left and it'd be great to kind of get them kind of done off the backlog and then we can

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    really focus about kind of new and exciting stuff. Um but uh yeah I I feel like we've made a decent effort and and and we're kind of like we are getting towards the kind of like the end of the the list. >> Yeah. If you look at the existing backlog ships, and we said this before that we don't want to release ships without their gameplay, whether that's like feature- wise or game loop wise. If you remove all the ones that as of today, like if we could click our fingers and instantly magic ship into existence, uh if we remove all the ones that don't have features in the game today or fully functioning game loops, that backlog list is quite small. I think it's you've got the G12s, uh, which I know there's a question about

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    coming. Uh, the Liberator, the whole series, Odyssey, uh, and then the rest of them are ones that sort of really do need a game loop to to make their their use uh, be good in the game. >> Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned that because I was going to jump in there and stuff. It's it's often often what happens is is you have to we have to interpret what the request actually is. People want the ships. What they what they're really saying is they want the gameplay. They want the gameplay that is associated with that ship. And we the people in this call are not entirely in control of that destiny. Um, as everybody knows from our statement at the beginning of this year, uh, uh, much, uh, uh, certainly not all, it's been kind of exaggerated, but but a

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    bunch of our engineers and programmers and stuff are on are on Squadron closing that out. There are still many gameplay programmers, engineers on Star Citizen working on crafting and base building and engineering and the new inventory system we showed off on a while ago, stuff like this. So, but there's never enough people to work on everything all at one time. there just there just isn't. So, so you guys you guys can make those ships when the gameplay team create, you know, get gets around to making that gameplay and stuff like this. But when you take those ships out, uh, somebody in chat mentioned the Endeavor, uh, yeah, the Endeavor is going to, let's just be real, we're going to be waiting a while for the Endeavor. Um, when you take those gameplay ships out that don't have the gameplay, the backlog is actually pretty reasonable and stuff. Even the Benny Merchman requires NPCs and and being a you being able to set up your own shops

42. 00:33:14

    with NPCs and stuff and that's feature work and stuff. So, it's a it's always a balancing act. It's we we answer some version of this question twice a year every single year for at least the last half decade and whatever. The answer never really changes, but there's always new people. So, I want to make sure, you know, it's it's a thing we'll keep answering it because people want their ships and people deserve to have their ships in as timely a manner as possible. Uh, but we have to balance that between gameplay services being available and quite frankly the the needs to continue pushing the project into new directions at the same time. So, it's not easy. Uh, 12th question. I don't know why I said the number. Railin cargo pod system

43. 00:34:03

    valid or needs rethinking. >> Who's it going to go to? >> Okay. Okay. Um yeah, I think um it's can I say both? Um I think I think visually um it's it's valid. Like we really like where it is visually. Um, and you know, we we have been doing a little bit of investigation on this kind of fairly recently. Um, trying to work out, you know, what what we want to do with it. Um, I think what that has kind of led to is um the the cargo value is probably going to change a little bit. Um, and uh, I think we all need to do a little bit of concept work to get the the the kind of the visuals to a point where um, it still looks cool, but it it is kind of uh,

44. 00:34:53

    it's practical and and it and it makes the ship kind of good to use because the last thing I really want to do is um, you know, push us too far down uh, a particular route with the visuals that just mean that it's an absolute pain to to play with. Um, so I think yeah, we we need to find that that compromise like like we kind of keep mentioning. Um, but they are valid because I like what they look like, but they need a little bit of tweaking to make work. >> Yeah, they're they are going to use the existing SU cargo system that we have in the game. So they're not going to have some >> that was it I should have said >> Xian cargo shape cargo. It's going to use the same SU ones. It's going to take 32 SU containers. Uh but we have some ideas on how we're going to sort of wrap that that up in the uh Gatk style language. And then the cargo capacity is

45. 00:35:41

    going to go way up. Uh I'm not going to give a number here. Uh we'll give a number later on, but it's it's up. uh will next year have a manufacturer focus like the past year seems to have h seems to have been RSI and if so any hints to which one it will be. Uh we don't this this going to sound weird after what has clearly been a year of RSI heavy ships but we don't really pick like a manufacturer theme for the year. Uh we talked on stage two years ago and last year about RSI being the theme for like the capital ships and going through that lineup and a certain set of scenarios happened where we ended

46. 00:36:29

    up doing some additional RSI ships and that's been pretty useful uh in terms of building out kits and allowing them to sort of benefit from each other. >> But there isn't really like a next year is going to be X manufacturer and we're going to do 10 ships with that manufacturer plan. It's we try and do a spread. >> Uh from the chat, will we see more Krueger ships? >> Uh I hope so. I definitely want to see more Krueger ships. So um yeah, it it was um >> more fins. >> More may maybe more fins. Uh I think you know things like the the Krueger ships, uh the Suland, stuff like that. Stuff that is is a little bit more blank canvasy when you kind of get to start with it. It it is a very exciting challenge. I

47. 00:37:18

    think um you know if you take some of our existing manufacturers, you kind of know you know what you're getting. You know what you're getting with the Drake ship. Doesn't mean they're not fun because it's it's great to explore their processes further, their their manufacturing further. Um but uh I was I was kind of super happy with the the the Krueger and where we got to with it. And I will definitely uh be pushing to get more Krueger ships. Uh not that it's my decision, but uh yeah, I'll do what I can. Uh, another question from the chat. Uh, anything about the Carrick uh, cargo pods after we were talking about possible changes to the uh, what was it? The Rayland cargo pod system. Anything you can tell us about the Carrick cargo pods being detachable? >> Yes. Uh, so there's a lot of talk about the Carrick ones. They were never designed

48. 00:38:06

    to be fully openable whilst they're within the ship. If you look at the ship, like the belly of the ship comes down halfway down the pods. We did some work uh last year, early this year to improve the opening, but they're they're never supposed to fully open whilst in the ship. Uh you're supposed to drop the whole pods out and then they open. If you look at the very original concept art, you'll see them like dropped on the planet side. That's where that ship's modularity comes from. Uh and to do that requires quite an extensive rework of that belly area. So, um, we're going to save that for when we have time to spread or time to spend more on the Carrick because again, it's it can take cargo. I'm fully aware of how annoying it can be. Uh, it's not supposed to be like a your mainline cargo ship. It's a

49. 00:38:54

    explorer ship or expedition ship that can take cargo. Um, yeah, aware of the problem. The solution is slightly more work than I think people tend to think. Yeah, the folks in chat are talking about how loading that Carrick is loading cargo for the Carrick is so painful. Um, I just realized it's in the side of my my my screen here. You want to see what else is is is painful about the Carrick? >> Here's a here's a piece of merchandise that never made it off the uh drawing board. This was a Carrick plushy we explored like years ago. I just had it on my table. Yeah, it's a It's not good. >> It's co issues.

50. 00:39:42

    >> An attempt was made. An attempt was made. Uh that's what you get when you're here in my actual office and not my fake office we use for TV. Um uh there was another there there was there was another really good chat in question. I I lost it. Um, if you had a great chat in in question in chat, ask it again. Uh, >> was it the Citizen Con one? >> What was the Citizen Con one? >> The sneak peek one. How many How many are we expecting to deliver? >> Oh, no. That wasn't the question. >> Okay. >> Uh, will external doors be made stronger, so you can't just open them by punching the door. >> Yeah, one of those great gamedev quirks is that uh technically melee is uh doing physical damage. So over time it will do enough uh to open doors. Um

51. 00:40:32

    short midterm uh we're going to be bringing in hopefully alongside engineering like the the concept of armor having minimum thresholds uh damage like damage numbers. So punching would just never exceed that threshold uh to allow you to open doors. Longer term uh Maelstrom does this out the box. It's functional now in Squadron. like your your punch doesn't do enough kinetic energy for the system to even care about. So you'll never be able to break it like that. And as the interim until that comes into the PU, uh engineering will hopefully bring the sort of lightweight version of that that approximates the same outcome. >> I know. Uh I found the I found the question. Uh Sandman088 asked uh No, he didn't ask it. I lost it

52. 00:41:21

    again. A wise man 93 asked, "Will medical beacons return with the Apollo?" Boy, howdy. I sure hope so. Uh, I'm not going to sit here and say any it absolutely will because that's still roughly a month away. But, uh, we are making every every single attempt to get those things back online. They were causing some really weird, uh, issues. Well, most people, you don't need me to explain to you what the issues were. it it just it was it was just filling up the mission logs and making them unusable and stuff because of other changes that we made to to um Onyx facilities and stuff like that. So, uh it's they were pulled down uh this month so that they could make some fixes. Uh they the things that have tormented medical players won't

53. 00:42:08

    unfortunately won't be addressed uh uh in when they come back. This is just about res restoring their functionality that they had a month ago. Um, but we will have more information about medical gameplay and the future of medical gameplay and stuff to go along with the Apollo when that launches as John said uh next month. Uh, but second to that, every single opportunity is being made to get medical beacons back for next next month because I'm just going to say it. It's really silly not to have them on month you're trying to launch the Apollo and I'd really rather not have an unforced error like that. But we don't get to we don't always get to control our destiny that way. So people are trying. I'll say that much. Um considering how many ships have been

54. 00:42:56

    getting PDCs, including things like the 890 and the Reclaimer, will the Ironclad be getting some, too? Very specific question. >> Yeah. Uh sorry, Iron Shadow owners that you're not going to get them. Um they they're really designed for military capital ships. Um I'm aware the 890 and the Reclaimer has got them. Those do not fit that bill and the Constellation Phoenix. Uh but that is because they were originally promised with them as part of their original design brief. Uh so that's why they have them. Um but there's no plans to give them to the Ironclad. >> There there is a new vehicle with a new kind of PDC coming soon. >> There is where where there's a will, there's a way. Um, and also, uh, uh, I was just talking to the economy guys. We

55. 00:43:43

    are adding the existing PDCs, the the laser repeaters and the new missile ones we launched with the Idris Kit. Those are going to get added to the in-game shops probably sometime around uh, November uh, to make to make you people make those of you who have ships with PDCs have some more customization options. That stuff's coming. Um, so about getting in and out of ships and seats, which always locks the player in into an in my opinion way too lengthy animation that we can neither cancel nor skip. Are there any plans for a refactor of this like there are plans for ladders and vaultting climbing traverse traversal? >> Yeah, some of them are definitely too long. uh calling out the talon especially. Um

56. 00:44:31

    that is too long. It it needs shortening, but we can't just make we could just make the animation shorter, but then all the audio and things are out of sync and we want to make it all feel nice. And like part of the the allure of Star Citizen is feeling like you're in that world. So when you start getting audio visual disconnects, it's it's not great. Um I saw this question. And it also sort of hinted like why don't we just use the ladder v2 tech for getting in and out of ships? That's never going to work. They're two very different systems. Um ladder v2 is for like static environment ladders. Um whereas this ship enter exits are very bespoke animations to the ship geometry themselves and also have a lot of events tied into like when I do

57. 00:45:21

    this when I start this animation I want to start opening the canopy deploying fins or panels or whatever they they need to be very controlled. Um but being able to break out of them is something I've wanted for quite a while. It's just a it's a priority thing and it's on a it's on a team that is not under my influence to bias sadly. >> And and I think you're right. You know, technically you could speed up the animations, but uh I think you know it's about kind of making sure that things still feel kind of tangible. They still feel realistic and relatable. Um and you know, we we did a a mocap shoot for not me personally, but there was a moap shoot done for the um the Wolf Hunter exit. and seeing the speed at which the mocap actor stunt man just absolutely

58. 00:46:10

    threw himself at the uh the the kind of the mockup that was built out for him to use. >> Pretty terrifying. >> Yeah, it it it's I' I'd say it was pretty quick for to be realistic. Uh yeah, him him kind of sprinting full speed at at a bunch of framework and throwing himself over it and into a seat was was uh yeah, it was it was impressive to watch even though I only got to stop the video. It was so it was so good. >> Some nice Dukes of Hazard action there. Um I was just John just reminded me I just opened up thesaurus.com. I was just looking for another word for bespoke. So we need like we collectively at Cig We have a problem. I'm guilty. I'm as guilty of it as anybody. Bespoke only has one synonym tailored. So we stick with bespoke. Yeah. Um,

59. 00:47:03

    BMM BMM. >> Now we're getting Now we're getting to the good questions. Uh, it's not in the 2026 schedule at the moment in terms of releasing. Uh, I do hope though, fingers crossed, everything goes to plan that we will start putting people back on it at the end of in the back half of 2026. Um, we got quite far into White Box. We showed the progress at Sizz Con. It's not moved an inch from where we last showed it. Um, >> yeah, that that was quite a tough thing to to show because we wanted to be honest about it and show where we're up to with it, but also appreciate, you know, if we're still on stage going, "Look at the BMM." Everyone's going to be like, "Yeah, it's coming." And it's like, I'm just trying to be honest. Um, so I think, yeah, as John says, we're

60. 00:47:51

    we're um, you know, we're hoping to get artists and designers and, you know, the content team kind of back on it um, next year, but but that it's it's not currently in the the schedule for next year's release. But as as we we keep mentioning a lot, things change, but that's that's a big one. >> It's it's going to take a lot to do. So, uh, the chances of it it moving forward is is pretty slim right now. Um, Can dedicated racks be placed in cargo ships for a for a max lift tractor tool? So, one is handy and in the cargo bay. >> Uh, I don't see why not. Uh, it's a pretty valid use case. Um, some of the ships we have later in the year do have weapon racks near their cargo bays. Uh,

61. 00:48:40

    I don't know off the top of my head whether the max lift shares. So the the way you decide what goes in each rack is a combination of size and tags. I don't know whether the max lift is classified as a weapon or a utility item. It might be that we need to just >> pretty sure it's utility item. Yeah. >> Yeah. We probably just need to retag the weapon racks to support both. Assuming that they share the same metrics, which Ben is weapon I >> director >> cannot remember without looking. So uh yeah, >> sorry. >> Um uh how I'm gonna lead the camera on you for this one, Ben. How hard is it to create paints for the currently available ships? >> Um, how long we got? Like, uh, if I start waffling too much, tell me to shut up. Um, it's it's really a mixed bag. Um, I

62. 00:49:28

    think, you know, if you if you got a black ship, you want to make it red, it's relatively straightforward. It's relatively straightforward for me. Uh, yeah, we have some material settings. We can change that. It's fine. Everything we do still needs to have, not getting too technical, new entities set up. It needs to be plugged into all the existing uh ship set up. Um it needs to be you know tested, needs to be named, needs to be go through market like there's a whole host of other other departments that aren't just like color swatch red done. Um but you know make making something kind of just change colors like fairly straightforward. Um the the the difficulty comes really when it comes down to um if you've got a ship with a particular kind of um paint breakup. So if you've got a ship that's you know by default it's it's silver and it's got a little bit blue or whatever and and it looks great that that's cool

63. 00:50:17

    and you can put a bunch of different combinations on it and it looks great. the the problem comes a lot of time we're trying to theme like packs around um particular kind of colors or ideas um and as soon as you start kind of trying to get tins to work across multiple ships that have been set up in different ways um it it it becomes quite um you can you can make some really ugly ships really really easily up and white um so uh it can take you know you've got to be a little bit more kind of careful with that sort of stuff Um, one of the things that kind of limits us a little bit is is our breakup is kind of baked into our ship models. Um, so we don't have the ability to kind of just go, okay, actually I want to make all of these panels one kind of this panel another kind of it's like it has to work with everything. Um, so that can kind of

64. 00:51:06

    add some some complications. Um, for unique paints, you know, they're they're a larger investment of time. all the graffiti stuff we did uh earlier last year, end of earlier this year or end of last year, I can't can't quite remember. Um that stuff is is a bigger investment of time. Um the the issue that comes with that is there's a lot of additional geometry that we need to add onto the ships to be able to support the the kind of designs. With that additional geometry, you then have to go back in and um reset up damage, reset up UVs, reset up vertx colors and wear, um pump it all through the lads. It gets quite complicated quite quickly. Um and on top of that, you then have to you then have to go through and re-update all the existing paints and tints that have already been done for

65. 00:51:53

    those ships and anything that shares any variants. So if you take a Cutless for example, um all of a sudden you're working across multiple different variants all with loads it just gets more and more kind of a rabbit hole you go down. Um so they do take a bit more investment of time. Um to try and not waffle for an hour on just this subject. U we we have recently been doing some R&D into like you know how we improve the system and and how we want to make it easier for us. Um there's lots of uh like really kind of clever ideas and and things that we talked to our kind of graphics team about um who luckily sit next door to me. So that's that's quite handy. Um and you know we we're kind of getting buy in from these other departments and they want to kind of see us push it as well. Um it now comes down to uh breaking down the work kind of getting that estimates

66. 00:52:40

    in getting into a schedule working out the priorities on it. Um so I do hope that that we can make better paints quicker in the future. Um, at the moment it it's uh I wish it was just the easiest like color swatch pick go. Um, but it's not. And and you know, I know there's a lot of games out there that do do that. There's a lot of racing games that do that. Um, and they allow you to do like full liveries across it. Um, but the scale of our game, um, the texture resolution that we work to, uh, you know, you try putting a a unique texture on a ship that's 250 m long, you very very quickly see the limitations of of unique unwraps and and unique texturing. um which is something that that just doesn't work for a game of our scale and it's not something not a compromise that anyone's really especially me willing to make when it comes to putting them out like uh I'm not having low res uh low quality artwork all over the side of our

67. 00:53:28

    ships. Sorry. >> No, good answer. Uh check your uh uh check teams for a question while I ask John a question here. Uh >> Uh uh John, can you give us any more info about other retaliator modules? Uh, obviously we need to do the ones that we sold back in the day that we not delivered, which I think is the living quarters and drop ship ones. Um, before we do any further ones. Um, there are no concrete plans for additional ones. Uh, but if I get my way, I would do a medical bed one. Um, just because I think that would be a pretty good utility to it. I know a lot of people have asked for uh a actual bomber module using bombs. Yes. Um >> I think I would personally that was you.

68. 00:54:18

    >> We called it the retaliator. >> In that case, no. >> Uh I would probably go the route of letting the existing torpedo racks be swapped to bomb racks as an option rather than a wholly new module. Um but we could go either way. Uh, it makes sense to do an actual dedicated bomb wand, but we've got two paths for it. >> Um, all right. So, that question I was trying to ask slightly. We're almost out of time. I was asking if we could get some extra time with our guys without putting them on the spot. Uh, they both graciously said yes. So, we're going to keep we're going to keep going because we have a we have some more questions that I'd really like us to get to. Um, now I lost it. any any progress on the PTV rework and its backlog of paints, including the best in show one uh that

69. 00:55:06

    was in initially shown at least two years ago. Uh this is another little great little bit of ship task that we keep putting in the schedule and then it gets removed because something runs along or something needs to come forward. Yes, still planned. I think we did show a concept of it. Um >> yeah, I know we did concepts for it. I don't know if we've shown it >> with the STV. Maybe >> we >> I don't know. Maybe. >> I'm sure. I'm sure we've shown it somewhere. >> We did the STV and we showed the other one that we never made the other >> the UTV. >> UTV. I think it was there. >> We did. We Yeah, we showed the whole family like so you could see the lines. Uh yeah, that is how it will end up. Um, so it's basically the current PTV brought up to modern grin standards,

70. 00:55:54

    space for components, and I think a pair of weapon racks on the back of it. Uh, so you could put your personal weapons on. And then, yeah, it will have backwards compatibility with all the paints and the best show one we promised. >> Yeah. And yeah, as we normally do with ships, I suppose there'll be new paints for it as well. >> Yeah. Uh, I'm not ignoring your drone questions. Uh there's a section at the drones just have nothing to do with the vehicle content team at all in any way, shape, or form. So we have a section at the end here where we're going to answer a couple questions that don't have anything to do with this team. And one of those is about drones. So it's what I was asking about time for. aren't we done with concept ships? Have we done a concept ship this year? >> We haven't. >> We've not done one this year. No, we're not we're not going to do one this year

71. 00:56:43

    unless something manic happens in the next few months. It's going to save we've only got four months. We can't can't whip up a new concept that fast. >> So, >> no, this 2025 >> 25 will end up being our first year without a single concept ship. >> Yeah. Um, yeah, it's it's something we've talked about, I think, loosely uh on various shows that we want to we ultimately want to move away from concepts ships entirely and just go straight to >> just >> here's the thing. >> Just to be clear, we'll still be concepting ships. We just won't be showing them externally. >> We won't be releasing them as concepts. We we we're trying really hard. We made a big >> Sorry to the concept artists watching this who are now on the floor. Yes, they're still an absolutely essential

72. 00:57:30

    part of the process. It's just that we we made this initiative last year to really >> try to >> make everything flight ready just just to move to flight ready. And we did last year I think we only had two concept promotions last year. I think uh it's taken so >> technically the Starlancer TAC variant was >> concept and like this but we tried we're trying really hard and this year we've succeeded. That said, as I'm thinking about it right now, if you go all the way back to our uh like original crowdfunding campaign, I'm talking about the original stretch goals, I think we're still on the hook for a battle cruiser at some point, which will undoubtedly be the biggest ship in the game. >> Uh are we are we still going to do that? >> Yeah, it's it's it's looking really

73. 00:58:19

    really cool with the progress we've made on it so far. So, I think the the battle cruiser um you know, on paper it's it's It's it's a big old ship. Um, and yeah, we we are I hope I'm allowed to say this. We're in very early stages of of kind of our our concept work on the battle cruiser at the moment. Um, too late, Jared. Sorry. Um, >> we're going for it now. >> We have to do it. It's I mean, that's fine. That's fine. It It's not coming this year. >> It's not coming anytime soon. Okay. So, just don't want to get anybody's hopes up or anything. >> It's one of, you know, it's it's a it's a big ship. it needs, you know, a bunch of concepts to get it right. Um, super happy with where it's going so far. Um, I think, you know, it it allows us to take a lot of the things that we've learned on on our existing kind of ships and our larger ships and kind of wrap

74. 00:59:07

    them into, you know, a big powerhouse and deliver, you know, something that we're kind of like, you know, we're super excited about. Um, not not just in terms of like firepower, but what we can deliver from a ship this size with everything that we know now. So, yeah. >> Yeah. It's It's unlike any of our existing capital ships. Uh I think it's going to be pretty pretty cool. >> Or it will be because you're still working on it. >> Yeah. Yeah. Just I back door into a into a subject here. Let's let's just be real clear. Trying really hard not to do concept ships anymore. 2025 looks like it's going to be again it would be impossible to launch a new concept at this point. So our first year without concept sales. Uh, we don't want to do any more concept promotions ever again. We might have to do our last

75. 00:59:56

    one for the battle cruiser whenever that comes and whatnot. But this this is an exciting kind of big shift in our in in our ships. Flight ready or bust. Get get the old ones that we need to deliver done, make new ones flight ready, and try to avoid concept promotions whenever possible. But realistically, if a battle cruiser is as big as you're going to say it is, we'll probably have to do that one as a concept at some point. But we'll let future us worry about that whenever that day comes down the line. Uh not anytime soon. Uh this is what you get Ben for for details about the battle cruiser. Are there any plans to add internal liveries to ships? You going to let us paint our insides? >> A bit scared. Um I' I'd love to. Um it's again it's one of those things that is

76. 01:00:46

    it's it requires teams outside of my control to be able to kind of deliver this and and they all have big priorities list that that they need to work through. Um we my expectation is uh it will come because on on a when we're actually kind of developing our ships, we are setting them up using the same tint system that we use on the exterior of our ships on the interior. It's just we have no way of making that kind of player facing or no way of of kind of being able to swap that with within the the client itself. As we make the work though, we we set them up in the same way where we have um you know, we effectively assign different um IDs to different areas of the ship and they uh will take on we we set those materials to take on a tint and then we tell it what that tint is. So it means that on like the back end

77. 01:01:33

    for the last uh I want to say like 18 months or so we've been we've been kind of um making our ships like that so that when that feature if that feature when that feature comes online um you know we we've kind of already we're already kind of trying to work a little bit smart and not not acrewing more kind of tech debt and more rework that we need to do on ships. So uh I am all for it. I I can't make it happen on my own. People in chat are asking you to show us your Pokeball collection. >> Oh, no, they're not Pokeball. Well, I'll show these, John. >> Sure. >> What you showing? >> Uh, they are like patches. >> They're they're they're an internal thing we do for um our team that that

78. 01:02:21

    ship ships. Um, anyone that works on on a patch on a ship gets their their patch. >> Yep. And that's what's on the on the window sill behind you. They're just lit up like for the from the little bit of sun we get in this country. >> Yep. So, that's pretty cool. Uh >> that's by the way, that's that's a I've got to thank John for doing that. He's the one that takes care of and organizes it all. So, um I get to show off John's good work. >> It reminds me I need to do last year's ones. >> because we're only up to 23. >> Uh what happened with the wolf not being gold standard? Is there a conspiracy? >> Yeah. I saw all the Reddit inspectction post about this. Like it's some secret CG conspiracy to stealth lower the standards of the vehicles. It's not. Um

79. 01:03:11

    ultimately we wanted to release the Wolf in August no matter what. And we just didn't have time to do everything we wanted to do for the Wolf to get it out the door in August. Um, I saw plenty of comments saying, "Oh, it only takes 30 minutes to go model these patches." >> If there's any artists out there that can model, animate, UV, uh, do all the technical setup, um, lards, >> get it engine ready in 30 minutes. Um, we have open hires. Please apply. >> Job postings at cloudgame.com/job. There's a lot of work beyond the actual physical modeling. Uh and some of it has to be done sequentially as well rather than work in parallel in that

80. 01:04:00

    if we're going to do the components, we can't do like the final damage mesh until it's all done. We can't do the final UVs. We can't do the final odds. So that time we spend doing those components just delays everything later and later. So whilst it may be this amount of the whole schedule to do it, it shifts the whole date backs, but they are in progress. I saw a video today uh of them all in engine looking pretty cool. Uh and they will be coming in a patch before the end of the year along with some other wolf related things >> that we possibly hinted at earlier in the show. Um I see the chat saying, "So you want to have one ship a month? Some months going to have two ships. Next month has the triage and the minivac months like May had four or five >> have a lot more a lot more than

81. 01:04:47

    >> Yeah. November has a lot. >> Yeah. It's it's it's not a it's not a prescriptive thing. If if the wolf wasn't ready, if the wolf wasn't flyable, if it wasn't an enjoyable experience, if it wasn't, you know, usable, people couldn't play the gameplay with it and stuff like this, then no, we would not have released it. We would have held it. But a couple component bays, knowing that we can get them in to a relatively uh recent subsequent release. That's not a thing to hold that's not a thing worth holding a release back. That's all that is. Uh but but yeah, I don't think it's any I don't think it's any mystery. We're we're we're shooting for a ship almost every month, if not every month. I mean, I think if you just look back at the this c this year and last year and the one before that, that becomes pretty self-evident. That's not any new information.

82. 01:05:34

    >> And that's that's not new either. even no >> in prior years I can't remember a patch we did where there wasn't a vehicle released in it. >> Yeah, it's mostly just it you're right we changed to the monthly patches now and so that becomes like that but it's just we we've tried to have something included in every patch uh um for a while now. Um we just do more patches now. Where is the bloody G12? There's that question you you hinted at. >> Where is it? >> Where is it? This is This is another one of those vehicles that goes on the schedule. It's a nice little clean cut. Here's X weeks of time. Uh we got a strong concept for it and then something happens and it moves. Uh and it's really annoying because it would tick the box

83. 01:06:22

    of all the origin ships done. And I think that would be, I guess, with the exception of Krueger, uh, the first like properly complete manufacturer lineup. Um, where we've released them all. Um, yeah, I'm just looking looking at my wall trying to see like if you're right. But yeah, I think I say I'd love to get it ticked off. I'd love to get them done. Um, they're super cool. Uh, I like ground vehicles, but uh, yeah, it's not it's not on the the current schedule just now. >> Yeah. Sorry. It it it actually was on the twin tricks six schedule the first and the second the third review I think it got punted on the third review unfortunately uh just so f you know get a sense of how many times we review this how many times it's revisited and how many times it's uh refactored because of a whole bunch of factors. Um,

84. 01:07:15

    why do you bring more and more single seater ships with size four or even size five weapons? Don't you know that those are making not only makes not only makes it looking size three and smaller like toys for children? That's that's what that's what I would read it. Sorry. Uh, but these sizes are meant to be armor piercing. So for shooting down bigger multi- crew ships. This is totally contradictory for a multi crew experience. if the oneman army is able to kill the group ship all alone. >> I wasn't trying to be I was having trouble just reading it. >> Uh yes, those those bigger guns are designed to take on larger ships. Uh is putting them on smaller ships a problem? I don't think so. We have uh ships like the Aries that is a single person ship

85. 01:08:04

    with a very big gun designed to take on larger ships. We want there to be a wide range of gameplay styles, but what we don't want is like we always refer to it internally as like the Jesus ship where it's the best and every ship owner wants their ship to be their ship. They want it to be the best handling, the most damage output, the strongest health. >> Yeah. Uh, but whacking a pair of great big guns on a ship doesn't make it instantly better than another ship because we we balance it alongside not mentioning any ships in particular. Uh, we balance that alongside the handling and the uh armor brains failing. Uh, so yeah, the Meteor, uh, which I'm guessing is

86. 01:08:53

    probably the source of this question. >> I I remember I remember for like the week before it released, every everybody was on fire because it was supposed to be the most OP ship in the world and was going to destroy everything and then people got their hands on it and they're like, "Oh, I guess not." >> Yeah. Um, like I say, it's it's balanced around what it has. It has those big guns. They're tuned in a way that makes them not particularly effective against light fighters and small fast moving stuff, but better against larger ones. It doesn't have the shield and health uh to take hits. It's handling is great in a straight line, but not angular. And we have all these different options for if you want to play a certain way, there's a ship for that. But they're not there's not like A beats B, C beats A uh in every single

87. 01:09:45

    category. And and I think I think from from my side of things, I think, you know, hopefully we're building a universe that that has space for all all sorts of different ships and and be it, you know, uh little single single seats with big weapons or be it big haulers and cargo stuff with no weapons and and you know, I think I think there's there's we're building a a pretty pretty, you know, wide reaching game, or at least I hope I hope we are. And I think as long as it doesn't break kind of like player immersion, as long as it doesn't kind of um break the the enjoyment, um I think with there's a massive amount of space for a variety of ships. And you know, as long as they're all balanced, which as John says, there's loads of different levers and strings that that uh the clever people can kind of pull to make sure that that the ships kind of work with each other

88. 01:10:32

    and we're not making something that's really overpowered. Um but purely from a visual kind of side of things, I think as long as long as it's believable, I think there's room for for all sorts of fun stuff. At least I hope there is. I'm not sure how clo much closer you can move your your mic that you're getting quieter again. >> Oh, we're getting quiet again. Sorry. >> It's all right. He's alone in his office right now. He's just, you know, people think that we're like professional TV personalities or whatever. People forget that most people here are just normal people. Well, not John. John's not normal. >> And also, I've got like crowd of people working right out front of me. I get embarrassed shouting at the top of my voice. >> shout casting episode. >> You know, I did Yeah, I took my one I took my one swing at shout casting at the uh anniversary live stream that nobody talks about anymore.

89. 01:11:20

    Never again. Um, oh, that's the wrong camera. Uh, Gaming Llama, Gaming Llama Spay, Spaz Spay in the chat asks, "Will we see will we get more Star Kitten paints?" depends whose decision it is. Um what your answer was. >> So um I >> It's not as simple as you think people. It's not as simple as you think. >> We we will because they're very popular. Would I like to see another star kit in paint or would I like to see something that um is equally as fun um that is slightly different? I'd probably take something equally as fun that is slightly different. Um but I know there

90. 01:12:07

    is a lot of uh you know love for the Star Kitten. I think for me it's it's why like I don't I don't want to put out a new ship that's just got a star kit and paint for the sake of putting out star kit and paint. Now if we have something in game, we have an event in game or or an experience in game that that is themed around that then absolutely we do loads of ships around it. Or if if you know we've got some story arc or some mission where you know the person at the end of it is a massive star kit and collector and you get one as a reward. I I don't know. I'm winging it on the spot here. Um, yes. It's just I'm I'm not I'm not really willing to just kind of like make one for the sake of making one. Um, I'd rather it have an idea behind it and not just be like, "Oh, yeah, it's going to do well. We just make one." >> Phoenix in the chat says, "No one cares about paint questions." Uh, I hope you

91. 01:12:56

    see your the reaction in chat, Phoenix. And folks can show them >> if if we themed IE around Star in one year, you know. >> Don't. >> Okay. Sorry. No, it's it's it's this is one of those things I'm I'm going to go ahead and step on a landmine here uh for you here. Uh uh C is not a monolith. There are roughly 900 or so people here and there are a lot of opinions and some people love Star Kitten and some people some people who won't be named. They're not in this call but they don't like Star Kitten and it's it's it's we have to come to a consensus sometimes when we do when we do things like this and stuff like this. It's it's a forever fight. I've been trying to bring back Star Kid for a while. Ben has the most measured response to it. He goes, "It should be purposeful and it should be and it should and it should speak to the

92. 01:13:43

    product and stuff like this." And and that's why Ben is generally is in charge of this and I'm not. I would just be putting cute kawaii on all kinds of random stuff because I just think it's fun and that's why I don't get to make decisions. Uh but yeah, it's let us know. Go to Spectrum. Let us know how much you want Star Kitten. I don't care. I'm I'm I'm going to step on it. Show Show people who don't believe with your voice that that you want Star Kitten stuff or Kawaii stuff or whatever. Make it happen. I can see we're going into version 10 of the schedule where we'll be taking a ship off to make a Star Kitten paint for every ship. >> Yeah, every ship. >> Okay. So at this point at this point uh we are done with the strictly vehicle

93. 01:14:32

    content questions and we have a collection one two three four questions that were highly voted in the chat that actually had nothing to do with vehicle content. These were ship related gameplay feature questions where things where other teams uh work on things but uh I thought they were important enough that we talk about them and we address them. And so we researched some answers. We went to some folks uh and I'm going to ask them here um shipto- ship docking uh anything you can tell us uh still planned uh all the ships we build for it uh follow the metric we set out for it um yeah it's still planned round small round circular docking

94. 01:15:20

    colors uh will extend to the bounding box of each ship and then the two will join together so you can transfer. Um, nothing's changed there but it's it's not on one of my teams uh to deliver that so I can't talk more. >> Right. Uh uh something I hope you can say some more about any update about rearm repair and refuel from from the from a hanger inside a capital ship like the Polaris or Idrris. Uh so this is one I can talk a bit more about like this is on the feature team schedule uh to be delivered in the near future. Uh I'm not going to give a date. Uh and it's required as some part as part of some other planned content where we're going to allow uh ships to land inside, select other

95. 01:16:09

    ships, and then be able to refuel, rearm, repair uh on board those ships using the parent ships resources inside their cargo grids. So, if you've stocked up your ship with, you know, RMC and hydrogen fuel, uh the ship that's landed in will, at this moment in time, I may change when it releases, use the existing, uh mobile glass, uh repair um rearm screen and go, I want to repair rearm, and it will take it from the resources. >> And I think >> Go ahead. >> Oh, go ahead. I was going to say I think it's not technically like blocking us from releasing any ships apart from I think the Crucible. If if there's others, I can't remember them right right now. Um but I do think it it will

96. 01:16:58

    add a lot to Oh, thank you. the um like the the kind of the multic experience that isn't just focused around I guess it is still sort of related to combat anyway, but but I think it will you know it will still add a lot of kind of gameplay to some of our larger kind of multi crew ships. >> Now I do want to clear up some stuff folks for uh Cammy. Hey Kemmy, been a while. Uh, and and folks who are saying ironclad and crucible and stuff, no, this is what what John said, and I want to reiterate this here. Uh, select hangers of existing ships. This isn't something for new ships, although it is something that will apply and make things like the crucible and the Vulcan uh, possible down the line. This is making it so, let's just take a ship with a big hanger as an example, like an Idris. If you have extra munitions, you have extra fuel, you have you you have

97. 01:17:47

    extra repair group or whatever sitting on your cargo grid and somebody lands a ship on the same cargo grid, you can reload, rearm, refuel, and everything from that stock. It's not going to be every ship. It's not going to be every hanger, but there will be, like I said, there it's on the feature schedule right now, and it's necessary for some of the interesting content that we have scheduled for the next year. So, know when, but it it it's it's it's on the schedule and being actively working on, and it's needed for some of for some of the goals that the gameplay teams have. So, uh it'll be a really cool thing for ships when it comes. Did I get that right, John? >> Yes. >> Okay. Um, since we since we have revealed that the

98. 01:18:37

    Apollo is coming uh next month, how are drones such as repair and medical coming along? >> Cool. It's the drones question. >> It's the drones question. >> Uh, so drones are being developed as part of base building. Um, obviously the Apollo's coming next month. Uh that means >> the base building is coming next month. >> You know that's not what it means or someone in chat says that uh drones will not be releasing as part of the Apollo launch. We'll rip that band-aid off now. Um when we were developing the ship uh obviously the Apollo I want to say it was 2017 originally concepted >> 17 or 18 remember 17 or 18. >> The idea of medical gameplay then is very different to the idea of medical

99. 01:19:24

    gameplay now. Uh, and we have people working on updates to the medical gameplay system right now. Um, beyond what we talked about, the medical beacon. And when we were looking at the ship, the drones was this sort of gray area. They they said they would do one thing in the concept that that sort of doesn't really apply in the game loop we have now for medical. uh they predated tractor beams and just the whole respawn mechanics we have now. So we have left space for the drone bay in the ship. We've not got rid of it. The space is there if we find a valid use case for them to exist when drones as a feature exist. But the Apollo will launch uh next month without drone gameplay.

100. 01:20:12

     Now I do want to add that because the Apollo is launching next month without the without the drone gameplay. Um we are going to do something else. Um we mentioned those uh uh um modular bays uh that the Apollo has. Uh the left and right tier one bed, the left and right double tier two beds, the left and right three tier three beds. Um, in the past when we've added module modules to ships like the Retaliator and whatnot, we have sold those modules individually. Uh, we are not going to do that with the Apollo. So, I'm here to tell you now, we are going to include all six modules for free on every Apollo skew. So, if you already own the Apollo, you've got it

101. 01:20:59

     already in your account, we are going to retroactively inject those into all of your existing uh uh items on the My Hanger app on your website. So, if you have the Apollo now, you're going to get all six. Uh if you buy if you if you purchase the Apollo when it comes out in September or at any point from now on, it's not like a limited time thing. If you purchase the Apollo from any point from now on, it will come with all six uh bays. So, that's just one of those things. We were just looking at it and it's like it's like for all the reasons John said, uh, absolutely completely valid about not including the drones at this time, we still felt there was something more we could do to to kind of ease that switch over. So, this is what we're going to do. So, uh, I didn't forget anything. Did I asking

102. 01:21:47

     you, John? Did I forget anything? >> Uh, no. I don't think so. Uh like I said, there's we're aware that there are some issues with medical gameplay at the moment and uh beyond just the beacons being not there and we're we're wanting to try and fix some of those things and improve the whole like not just fix things, add gameplay to the medical stuff, but hopefully we'll get that for September, if not soon after. >> And there will be some more changes to med beds and how they work. they're getting some additional functionality and stuff, but you'll learn more about that when that promotion stuff goes, you know, closer to the event. Um, last question. Uh, any update about being able to relog and or log in on our friends ships and beds for the crew? >> Uh, I believe there are some bugs with

103. 01:22:38

     the current system. That is probably the the root of this question, but I'm not the team that is responsible for fixing them. So, I don't have the answers to when for those, but I do want to talk about how we want to deal with logging in and out going forward in the future. Uh, we want, and I think Rich has talked about this before, we don't want to exclusively gate logging in and out of the game purely to ship beds. Uh, we want to allow you to do it anywhere, but there's consequences to that. It's just that beds will have bonuses. Like if you log out of your ship bed, it's better than just logging out on the floor somewhere. Um, and that means you will start seeing some ships where you go, hm, that ship would have

104. 01:23:27

     been really cool, but why does it not have a bed utility uh where we're sort of taking that design mindset going forwards? Um, so yeah, expect to see some of these changes going forward in in newer ships like obviously exploration ships where you're supposed to be out long duration will have beds and everything, but those sort of smaller short-term ships may not have them anymore. >> Gotcha. So, just want to reiterate here because again, this is this is this is an early design change. is too early to go into a whole lot of the details and stuff, but the idea here is is to eventually move to a to a system where you can log in and out on your ship, whether you have a bed or not, and then explore what advantages we can add to those ships that do have beds on top of

105. 01:24:18

     that. >> Which we can't talk about now because we're still exploring what those might be. All right, cool. But for the for people like, "Oh, my ship doesn't have a bed. can't log out. Well, that's that's we're working towards minimizing the impact. John Ben, I'm sorry we went an extra 25 minutes. I I I think I asked you for 10. I went 25. >> No problem from my side. >> I'm a piece of crap. >> We can carry on talking about tints. >> Yeah. Do you want to go just full deep dive on it? Do some examples live? >> Uh, no. That that that's that's probably all right. Um guys, thank you so much uh uh for taking your time uh to to be here. Um obviously we you know we don't do as many shows as as as we used to. Part of

106. 01:25:06

     that is the big change to to uh monthly content. Part of that is the big change to you know we haven't released a whole lot of new features which was mostly what ISC tended to talk about. Part of that was as you saw in um ISC last week we don't want to spoil the content anymore. We're at the point we're make we're making we're making some of the most exciting content we've ever produced for Star Ciz and we'd really like you to get in game and and experience that stuff without having every single thing spoiled for you on ISC. So, we knew all that going into into January. So, the video content has changed uh a bit. But, uh when we do get to have these times to sit here, I really appreciate you coming on the show and then taking the extra time uh to answer as many questions as possible. And again, a shout out uh to the community on this one. And I I think I did at the beginning that the questions

107. 01:25:52

     this week were were were excellent in general. There were a lot of things that that we wanted to talk about. So, uh thank you so much for doing your part. Uh that said, there will be no show next week uh or the week after. Uh we are in we are in heavy swing for Citizen Con Direct uh production. So, it's why we're here in my office on Zoom right now. Uh we're filming uh all the stories and and stuff that you'll see on October 10th. Remember that is a that is a smaller approximately twohour show that's so it's going to be way more focused and and direct for lack of a better word I almost use the words bespoke uh than traditional citizen cons uh so it'll be a different experience but remember there are also watch parties uh there there's a bunch all over the world including nine that we're

108. 01:26:40

     specifically sending CI staff uh in development to I I believe John and Ben are both going to one but we won't say which one right now >> um most importantly. But uh but yeah, so you can check out that stuff out on the website if you want to attend those. But again, if you if you can find a local one even even though we're not attending, uh it will be a really cool experience and it at two hours it won't hurt your butt on a bar stool. Um John, Ben, thank you so much. Uh I think we we got a lot of good information this week. Uh and yeah, thank you guys for watching and uh see you next week. Or not next week. I just said I won't see you next week. Let's look at the re Let's look at the unfortunate Carrick again. How inappropriate. This is just I didn't I I I didn't mean to show the tip. I was

109. 01:27:31

     trying to avoid that because I didn't want to get that to get screenshotted. >> Too late. >> Once it's on the internet, Jared is always on the internet. Just just just remember. >> Bye everybody. Good thing we're taking two weeks off. Yes.