Star Citizen: Around the Verse - Trouble at Drake

Transcript — every row opens the video at that moment

1. 00:00:15

   Hello and welcome to Around the Verse, our weekly look at the development of Star Citizen. I'm Chris Roberts. And I'm Eric Kieron Davis. Chris, it's great to have you back on Around the Verse. How was your trip to the UK and Frankfurt offices? Uh very productive. Um as I mentioned in last week's News Letter, uh we held an overall project review in Frankfurt. I was joined there by CIG team members from across the globe, all from all our four studios actually. Uh we reviewed and planned sprints uh as well as work to improve the overall cockpit experience uh when you're flying around in Star Citizen. So you'll see that down the road, quite yet, but it'll be cool. That sounds great. And one of the best parts of Star Citizen is flying around the universe, which brings us to today's episode. We'll be sharing some of the technical considerations that have gone into the upcoming planetary outposts that will populate future PU environments.

2. 00:01:02

   Yes, but first, let's check in with the Austin and Turbulent studios for their updates. Hey guys, Jake Ross here, producer here in Austin. Wanted to take a quick second to thank Clifford, a Miku, Simperium, and Doc Tari for their generous and delicious gifts to the Austin studio. We always appreciate the show of love and support from our community, and these tasty treats help keep us fueled and encouraged. So thanks, guys. Now let's take a look at what our full-bellied team here in Austin has been up to this past month. This last month, the Austin design team has been focused on getting 2.6.2 out the door among other things. 2.6.2 work has consisted of mainly of adding new subscriber flare items and fixing some minor bugs as well. We're also updating additional shop-related elements as we continue to build upon the shopping system. While I can't go into major detail right now, I can say revisions of the Stanton system app are in progress.

3. 00:01:50

   Also, landing zone AI and usables are undergoing additional development. For this month, we have a peek at our latest subscriber flare and details on how we're expanding the shopping tech to utilize some new tools that relate to the item 2.0 system. First, let's take a look at the new subscriber flair that will be rolled out in the coming months. One of the new items is called the vivid display, which can display game locations holographically. Players can use the vivid display to find out more about locations, including their intended visuals. Other flair items include a series of ship schematics, which will showcase the level of the detail that goes into our ship design. These light board displays can be hung from any poster style port in your hangar. We hope you'll enjoy these upcoming additions to subscriber flair, and look forward to additional flair in the near coming months. Now, we'd like to share how we're revamping the shopping system for our next release. As the item 2.0 system advances, the

4. 00:02:37

   item port structure changes, so it can fall in line with our end goal. These fluctuations have forced us to readdress the setup for things like ship shop mannequins and item bundles. While the end result will be pretty obvious to the players, the differences for the designers will change drastically for the better. Our goal is to create a base mannequin object that the shopping system can apply loadouts to. The items on a given mannequin would be purchasable by themselves or as a bundle for a discounted price. In the past, every outfit was only purchasable purchasable as an entire set of items. On top of that, a bespoke mannequin setup had to be generated for each unique outfit display. Fortunately, our advancing tech will soon allow our loadout editor to quickly create various item combinations within a given shop. That loadout, comprised of items in the shop, will then be assigned to the

5. 00:03:24

   shop's inventory as a bundle. The shopping system will then spawn these bundles directly onto an empty shop mannequin with no additional effort by the designers. A process that took hours before will soon only take minutes, allowing us to quickly generate different item combinations that can be displayed on the mannequins. What seems like a minor change actually unlocks a multitude of options for the design team to create realistic shops. Hopefully, you'll be able to see the fruits of this labor really soon in our upcoming releases. The PU animation team just finished a small mocap shoot using our in-house OptiTrack system. This was a pickup shoot to help us fill in all the gaps from the performance capture shoots done previously at Imaginarium Studios. We captured transition animations for both male and female characters. Examples of a transition animation include some sitting down at tables with trays, going through a chow line to get

6. 00:04:12

   food, eating, drinking, rummaging, or sitting in cockpits and turrets. The transition animations are shot in such a way that they can work with our metrics and are universal enough to be used all over the game with many different useables in our environments. If you're not familiar with the term usable, as a reminder, it's a a usable is an object that a player or NPC can interact with like a chair, wall, table, or other set piece. Useables also include props like cups and plates and bottles and anything else that can physically be picked up by a person. We are currently implementing these transition animations into our usable system. Obviously, animation can only get these game assets so far. Our biggest challenge right now is making all the useables function in game properly. It is up to code, tech, and designers to make them work together, which is why Austin animation is working closely with our Frankfurt and UK studios on this. Metrics are being created for door control panels, bathrooms, toilet

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   facilities, and chow lines in the Idris mess hall. We're putting tech in place that will allow an NPC to navigate a usable set piece and perform a variety of actions like grabbing a usable prop, setting other usable props onto it, and walking away with the prop, going to and interacting with another usable set piece. Um then getting up and navigating to a third usable set piece to dispose of the usable prop with all the usable props on it. Once we get this one test case fully functional, we'll be able to apply what we've developed throughout the game. The ship animation team has finished the major animation tasks for the Drake Cutlass Black. Characters can now enter and exit the pilot and co-pilot seats properly. For the co-pilot, we're utilizing a brand new cockpit template that we're calling the stick template. This template positions the player in a pose like that of a helicopter pilot. This was required to fit the new geometry of the the cockpit. We're also planning to support the

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   cockpit experience improvement pass, but we'll have more info on that next time. On the dev ops side, we added additional logging to better track issues that our wonderful community experiences from time to time. The logging we added allows to allows us to dump the status of the user's download session at the moment they experience the issue. We then work directly with the community relations team here in Austin to debug the issue or issues the user is experiencing. A great example of this is the latest version of the patcher, patcher 2.4.9. As some of the Windows 10 users may have already noticed, this version of the patcher brought back music that had previously been missing. The exact cause of the issue is that Windows 10 sound settings were set to 192 kilohertz. This was causing the patcher to crash if you had the music turned on. You can now enjoy all of Pedro Camacho's music once again. The QA department here in Austin has been heavily focused on 2.6.2 testing. With the addition of multiplayer mega

9. 00:06:35

   map and serialized variables, we were required to perform multiple cross studio play tests between Austin and UK. We did this to check for any new and unexpected behaviors due to the major system changes, such as increased decreases desynchronization, lag between clients, massive performance changes good or bad, and crashes, lots and lots of crashes. The new Drake Buccaneer came online sooner than expected, so the ship team performed frequent testing to ensure the ship was operating as expected when it makes its way into backers' hands. In our development stream testing, Squadron 42 testing continues, as well as a range of tests with the ground vehicles on planetary surfaces in a multiplayer environment. We've also been testing various developmental tools such as the previous procedural planet editor or planet, and the subsumption editor. Finally, we expanded the QA team in Austin by another four testers, bringing

10. 00:07:23

    the Austin QA team to a total of 24 members. We're excited about this expansion, excited to have new people on board. Thanks for watching guys and for all your support. We'll see you in the 'verse. Oh, hello. Fancy seeing you here. This has been Will from Turbulent, and this is our Turbulent update for this month. Last week we were hosted by our friend Jared Huckaby and the community team for a subscriber town hall. Now this was our first ever town hall. We were super excited to get it set up and a bit nervous to participate, but you guys sent us awesome questions and we're hoping that we're going to be able to do some more town hall questions so that we can address the questions and different things you want to know about Spectrum and the platform we're building. This month we launched Spectrum version 032, which includes major performance updates to how we render messages and threads in

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    the client. So hopefully this will allow you guys to switch faster between lobbies and channels and should take way less CPU and render time than it used to do in the 031 version. So I'm sure hoping that you guys can see the difference already. 032 also brings two new features. You can now reorder your communities at the top left of the sidebar. All you have to do is you grab your community and grab and drag it, drop it to the location you want to keep it and we'll persist that across all your browser tabs and sessions and so you can keep your favorite org at the top if that's what you want to do. Second feature is we worked on the channel thread list. Now when you see the subjects, we added thumbnail images to threads that contain media information and videos and so this way we it's way more entertaining to view

12. 00:08:59

    the channel list because you'll see the previews media previews there. So then you'll you'll have more incentive to click on those subjects and view the media content embedded in it. Otherwise, we've also worked on mobile optimization and keyboard fixes. Unfortunately, we're not quite done yet and we're not happy with the fixes so we had to roll them back from 032. We're hoping that it's going to be ready for 033. This should fix bugs on mobile Android that people have been encountering when basically typing into the chat of mobile Android. So we're hoping to fix that soon. The future holds good stuff for 033, which should come with a new feature again for forums called nested threads. And so nested threads will allow you to create a new thread and change the discussion type from a classic

13. 00:09:46

    chronological timeline thread into a nested discussion. Now this gives us two benefits. First, we can now sort by up votes the replies at the first level and get a nested reply tree behind it. But the second thing is that we give you guys more control into the type of discussion that you want to start. So the OP creator will have the option of choosing whether it's a nested thread or not. And so as we add all these features into the next releases of Spectrum, we're getting ready to be able to shut down and archive the old forums. One of the first we cannot do that until we've expanded our categories list to bring all those discussions from the old forums in. We're not talking about an import, but at this point we're talking about recreating the subcategories that you guys enjoyed on the old forum inside the the new system. So we're talking

14. 00:10:35

    about shipyards, ship owner threads, and stuff like this. So as soon as we're able to do that, we'll be able to announce a date at which the old forums will go into archive mode. But we'll give you guys plenty of notice before we do that. This month we also worked on the new Delta Patcher as you guys have called it. And so we are responsible for building the actual application that hosts the patching libraries. And so we've done a bunch of progress this month in getting this new application set up. It's using a whole new application stack you guys might be familiar with it's called Electron. Electron shell, we're also using React and Redux like we do for Spectrum within this new application. And so we've worked on our native bindings to get the patching libraries that the Frankfurt guys are working on. And so we're currently able to patch the game data with this new launcher. It's also used internally, so we're really excited

15. 00:11:23

    about this project. This is going to bring a lot more dynamism in how we release patches. And so we're really excited to get this moving and integrate it into this new app. And hopefully we'll be able to release that to you guys in the next coming months. Another major project we started this month is our redesign of some of the elements of the RSI site. We're trying to This is a massive overhaul of the website and how it caters to new users and older users. And so as we start this design process, we'll be starting to give you guys some updates on what we're doing on that front and how that shapes up. But we're only getting started right now. One important project that we're also working on that has done a lot of has been seen a lot of progress this month is the ship stats updates. And so we know that the ship stats don't currently reflect what's exactly in game. Now, I want to mention again

16. 00:12:11

    that the ship stats are supposed to reflect the intent design of a ship and not necessarily the exact stats that are currently in game. But at the same time, currently there are things that are missing and so we're working on to put that up-to-date. We got all the information to do so and so now we're working on changing how the back end manages this and redesigning some of the tech view and tech specifications view and hull of your changes to be able to display that. And so we're hoping that we'll be able to go through all of the current loadouts in the next coming weeks to be able to show you guys an update there. That's it for Turbulent. Thank you guys for watching. Thanks guys. The ship animation team did a fantastic job on the redesign Cutlass Black. And with the Buccaneer flight ready, we're proud to announce that the entire Drake lineup is all in engine, which is a pretty big achievement.

17. 00:12:58

    Yeah, and they're also all on sale. Now you can get the Buccaneer, Dragonfly, Herald, Caterpillar, and Cutlass until April 10th. Yeah, so the sale includes all three models of the Cutlass including the updated Cutlass Black. People often question the business ethics of Drake Interplanetary. So we decided to dig in a little deeper into what Drake's been up to. Take a look. 70 years ago, Drake Interplanetary built the Cutlass in a gamble to win a military bid. But the military didn't bite. Drake Interplanetary wasn't deterred, however. The company retrofitted the Cutlass for civilian use. When we first rolled out a flyable model of the Cutlass to the public, it kind of drifted from our own expectations and

18. 00:13:46

    from our own intent. Um it lost some of the aggressive characteristics that we had had sold it on when we first unveiled it. And that was one of the biggest things we wanted to recapture in the rework. We wanted to make it feel like look and feel like the the ship we had originally promised to people. Um but to really pull that off, we did have to make some changes and split off a few pieces of functionality. But then what that left us with was a lot more room to really build on the uh rating support potential of the Drake Cutlass. Where now this can be that backbone of a small militia unit, of a

19. 00:14:36

    small just defense group. The first iteration of the Cutlass uh wasn't very ergonomical for the pilot or the co-pilot. Um we had we had many complaints from uh the customers saying uh it's hard to get in and out and you know, people stepping on other people's toes. So uh we went with a with a better design on this one. Uh we have the pilot and co-pilot being able to enter and exit from either side of their seat stations with neither the pilot nor co-pilot getting in the way of each other on enter or exit uh for much uh faster mounting, dismounting. Uh the living quarters have also been uh

20. 00:15:26

    retrofitted to be uh a little bit more spacious. Uh the armaments uh have been upgraded. We have uh more space for uh uh armored equipment uh as well as bunk racks in the main living quarters as well as access to the uh the gun's main weapon system uh located living quarters instead of uh the rear. It's It's going to be a very potent threat to come across for you know, mid-size ships and up because it's going to carry a lot of missile firepower. Uh we've added more guns to the ship. Uh just its general armor and durability can now really sell through both in its appearance and its performance. We

21. 00:16:13

    didn't skimp out on what it can do. Uh we made sure you can You can haul your cargo, you can haul your friends. Uh you can blow up a ship if it's trying to take you down. Some people uh decide to use our ship to take other people down, I guess. The Travel Safety Advisory System estimates that 15,000 people die annually in outlaw raids, and the Cutlass Black accounts for 2/3 of all ships used by known piracy groups. People have often questioned Drake Interplanetary's role in these raids. Is the company intentionally marketing their inexpensive, but deadly Cutlass Black to criminals? We decided to find out. Posing as an applicant for their sales department, one of our reporters traveled to the Magnus system and sat down with Drake Interplanetary's

22. 00:17:00

    long-standing CEO, Jan Dredge. She didn't know she was being recorded. Your resume is quite impressive. As you probably assumed, this last interview is really more of a formality. Can I ask a question? Ask away. Unless they're salary related, that goes through HR. of course. I am curious about the Cutlass Black. Have you considered including mandatory background checks for buyers? You know, to avoid selling to criminals? Listen, what happens after a Cutlass leaves the showroom isn't my problem. When there's a murder, do you blame the killer or the person who manufactured the gun? After this audio was released, family members of piracy victims expressed their outrage by calling for a ban on the Drake Cutlass. Today, Drake Interplanetary responded with a press statement.

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    "We apologize for the comments made by Jan Dredge. After many years of devoted service, Ms. Dredge has decided to retire as CEO of Drake Interplanetary and spend more time with her family. While she will continue to remain on the board, Ms. Dredge will no longer be involved in daily business operations. Her son, John Dredge, will fulfill her duties as acting CEO until a replacement can be found. Drake Interplanetary is committed to the safety of all citizens and civilians. Our Cutlass Blue and Cutlass Red models are specifically designed for use by police and first responders. They continue to save countless lives across the universe." The Terra Gazette has confirmed that Jan Dredge's so-called retirement goes into

24. 00:18:36

    effect today. However, Drake Interplanetary refuses to comment on whether they will continue to sell the Cutlass Black to known piracy groups. It's really great when ships can be as varied as our characters. Yeah, absolutely. And people maybe know the Cutlass as an outlaw ship, but uh that's just one way it can be used. Yeah, totally. Absolutely. Just one way. I mean, you know, the Cutlass can do many other things from search and rescue to militia, cargo transport. It's really up to how the owner chooses to fly it. Yeah. Nothing wrong with that. No, not at all. Of course, the only thing better than a great ship is really having great places to fly it to. Yeah, that's right. And as stars and grows in the procedural planets to continue to develop, we've started looking at ways to populate the amazing vistas with various points of interest

25. 00:19:24

    you can travel to. Uh so, one of the cases is um the planetary outpost that we've been giving you some sneak peeks at, and we're going to dive a little deeper into that now, so take a look. Hello, my name's Ena Leilands. I'm the environment art director at Foundry 42. Uh today, it'd be really interesting to talk a little bit about surface outposts. So, I think people have seen a few of these before. We've shown some little videos here and there, and uh when the communities come around the studio, they've had a little sneak peek. But, this is the first real opportunity to really show what it's about, and more importantly, the team involved in making name's Eddie Hilditch. I am the senior environment art lead. My name is uh Alex Remotti, and I'm a senior technical artist working on the uh procedural aspect of

26. 00:20:13

    our system. Hi, my name's Nick Etheridge, and I'm a lead artist on um for the PU team for So, the initial idea came from design. Design needed a place to bring the player to, the smallest possible location. So, we have cities, space stations, but one thing we never really had is these smallest locations. So, that was the initial idea from design of what a surface outpost would be. So, we went away, and we started looking at concepts for what they might look like in our universe. So, we knew we wanted to integrate them quite well with the environment. So, we wanted a design that felt durable, robust, and felt like it could survive a few harsh winters. So, from there, we started some mood shots just to see and explore what might work, right? And then once we had some nice ideas, we got it validated, made

27. 00:21:03

    sure that worked for Chris and the design director, and then we started taking it into production. So, from there, you know, one of the things we knew we wanted to do, like these were going to be modular. We didn't want just one hero location, so the visual style and elements needed to support a modular format. So, during the iteration process and concepting, we needed to make sure we had elements that we could, you know, break up the visual language, break up that fatigue, and enable design to create some interesting layouts which still felt quite interesting to look at. So, we build all our environments modularly. Um we have to build them in that way to incorporate the sort of vast number of environments we need across our

28. 00:21:50

    universe. Um so, once the concept has been signed off from me and we will start breaking that concept down into its constituent parts. in order to figure out how many pieces we need to begin the process of making the brand new building set, which is going to be a high-tech surface outpost. We took the concept and we we made the outpost concept using the template set, which is a a set we use to white box all of our our levels cuz it's a basic set, it's symmetrical, it's got a simple material on it, and it's good for artists and designers and engineers just to block out areas and and test with. So, we took that, we modified it slightly, and started creating the outpost layout that we had from concept.

29. 00:22:40

    Uh then we added the we white boxed add-on pieces like the roof pieces, antennas, pipes to get that extra silhouette read from a distance, mid and far distances. The biggest challenge is probably making sure that it's all modular and fits together cuz the whole point of it being modular is it gives the artist the flexibility of of of many different layouts, of of of swapping pieces round and adding a bit of variation and detail. So, from its foundation, it had to be uh very modular. Uh work together, to metrics, uh have have and have approval from design, too. So, the key things at the uh gray box stage are making sure that the assets are in line with the art style, that the material breakup's correct, the forms are correct, and it's still modular from from what we were

30. 00:23:29

    doing with white box, that design of play tested it and it works for their gameplay requirements, and that any major performance issues are looked at, as well. Often, the gray box is modeled to a high level of detail than the final the actual final asset. And this is because the all the ideas and forms and details get shaped out of this phase. And these will sometimes get baked later on down to a texture. So, often, the gray box is actually a lot more expensive than the final form. So, when the assets go into final production, they're at this point will will flesh out the material library. So, the material library will consist of simple, tileable uh materials uh with wear and dirt, such as simple metals,

31. 00:24:16

    plastics, to more complex panels, to uh very detailed greeble sheets, trim sheets, and graphical decals, uh and illumination sheets for lighting. We need to make make sure the materials work together, that they're all conforming to the correct PBR workflow, and at that point, then we go into the final production and apply those materials and flesh out the final assets. Once we started to test our outposts on the actual surfaces of the planet, we soon realized that a perfectly flat base was just not going to work. It was going to limit where we were able to place them. Planets don't tend to be perfectly even, you know. Um everywhere we place them, we'd end up with a corner clipping through the ground or a corner floating above the ground. So, we had to go back to the

32. 00:25:04

    drawing board and kind of incorporate a system of legs and feet, um which ultimately allowed us to place them in much more varied places on the surface of a planet. Um then we obviously had to get the player from the surface of the planet up to the door of the outpost. Um we thought a ramp would kind of look really cool um visually. So, we started implementing those, but after talking with design, we realized our ramp metrics from them was 15°, which is actually very shallow for a ramp, and we ended up with um outpost that kind of looked like a Miami beach house or something because even if the outpost was only 3 m off the ground, we had to have an 11-m long ramp to sort of cope with it. Um and they kind of looked ridiculous. So, we went back to the drawing board. We

33. 00:25:52

    thought, uh switchback ramps maybe or some kind of complicated elevator system with ladders, but ultimately, simplest um solutions are often the best. Um and we ended up with stairs. Very high-tech, but stairs actually turned out to just serve the purpose that we needed them to. Once all the final assets were made, uh we basically group them together into prefabs, which are like smart groups, and um put them into there's walls, there's rooms, there's doorways, airlocks, and and uh the stair piece. So, uh it's very easy now to make uh a whole different layouts of the outpost instead of having to bring each individual asset and know each light and each vis area. They're all prefabbed up,

34. 00:26:40

    so you drop a room in, then you drop some walls in, and it's it's done. Uh and it and it allows for more um more time working on the actual assets than than wall building. Um we have the ability to recreate the concept pretty much one-to-one, which is great. But what we also have on top of that thanks to the modularity of it is the ability to create a vast number of variety of layouts. And we can basically make as many kinds of layouts within the same sort of theme and style as we want. And as we develop the building set more and it matures and we add extra pieces, that variety and the number of potential layouts we can create basically exponentially increases. What comes down the line later is how to

35. 00:27:28

    add more variety. Like we can't have just white outposts every time you see an outpost, it's not going to be the same outpost. It's going to change layouts. It's going to change uh materials. It's going to change what add-ons get added to it. That all comes later. What we have here is a proof of concept and a final asset in its simplest form, but with the ability to expand massively on it as we sort of move along with its development, yeah. So after the environment team has been in production for a certain period of time, that's when I'll start looking back into it with it again. We can visually see how the ideas progress and we're getting some good ideas, but this is where I start introducing visual targets for the guys to work to. And from the process of going from the

36. 00:28:16

    initial idea to it going through into production, you know, obviously the team has made additional design choices and visual choices to improve the design. But then this is a good time to just take another look at it and seeing how it's working. So initially when I was looking at it this time, I saw the real importance of how we're going to integrate these things. So it's not only good to have beautiful architecture, you need that believability of understanding actually this thing has been here for many years and how does that feel? So what I did and did some visual targets for the team looking at things like materials, lighting, particles just to kind of describe that M frame. So working with what they'd already produced and the visual targets, that

37. 00:29:03

    was perfect for the team to kind of take it on to the final art stage of production. When when I received these visual target, the first thing I try to understand is how those elements have been built, how are the modules been divided and then try to build a less granular version of of those model pieces. For example, a room or a wall to cap a side of a room is a what we call prefabs. So they are kind of Lego pieces. When when we have defined these kind of rules within our small R&D team,

38. 00:29:53

    we start building connection points and tag points to help us stitch together those pieces. We define design rules and layout parts to make sure that the generation of these layout is controlled, is based on a clear aspect, visual aspect and on a clear design, on a clear cap of size and When when we have all these rules, we start trying out and iterate on the process of giving a feedback to artists for having a different variations or having a new rule set to to stitch the things together in a different way.

39. 00:30:43

    Once the goal is reached, what we want to do with these uh elements, with these outposts, is to uh uh create as more variations as we can, and then create a lot of uh perceived variation for the players. So, that when we scatter them on on a planet, the player can play and can uh see a lot of a lot of different location, a lot of different sizes, a lot of different uh uh vistas. That moment comes a second uh aspect of the procedural uh variation, which is placing them on a planet. Also in this case, what we have is uh our principal artist

40. 00:31:33

    and our art direction working on uh giving a visual target of how they want the uh outposts to look when they are placed on planetary surfaces. So, we have a lot of things like lightning, the planetary materials, uh the weather system, uh uh the aging of the outposts coming in as variables to set some defaults on the outpost. We have the surface itself that could be very even or uneven, and we need to make sure that the outpost is uh correctly placed. Uh This has been one of the biggest challenge we're still tackling, she's how we can find a correct place uh on the planetary surface to guest our outposts. So, sometimes we have a fit

41. 00:32:22

    system adapting, she's one of the first solution, but we also have uh better shading system to integrate the fit on a door. We have uh terrain system trying to adapt and trying to give more a more clear and more even place for the player also to be able to enter into the outpost. We we face problems with with the the access to the these outposts. And we have tried to find a visual and technical solutions for these. The the planet editor is one of the tools we're using for placing them. Is trying to find correct average distance of this kind of outpost

42. 00:33:12

    finding correct spot on the planet. And then giving to the designers a way to modify these settlements because together with the outposts we will get some visual add-ons. Which are just very nice elements that will give variation to these groups with to these outposts and also some design elements. For example, a loot crate could be a design element. That needs to go together with the outposts to give the gameplay. These elements get also varied by the planet editor by accessing some uh defaults or some design changes through time and through missions, which is what

43. 00:34:00

    we were mentioning before like changing in run time the values of the wear and dirt system that could give uh if the planet is sandy, could give varying amount of sand on the surface of of the outposts. We're looking into more aspects for interior and exteriors to be different. So, the interior could have rust and dust and the exteriors could have the planet affecting it with mud or or or sand as we said. Uh we're looking into other variations as well, interior dressing with props. There will be probably a sneak peek on It's actually all the things you see from my side that are still in R&D. They're clearly in a

44. 00:34:48

    white box phase because the visual target we're trying to reach is very very high. I'm confident that what we have reached is very good, but it's actually considered gray box on this title, which is incredible. So, hopefully you guys enjoyed the piece. It gives you a good idea of what we're up to right now with these surface outposts and given a little introduction to some of the team members that's going into making them. You know, sometimes the simplest solution is the best solution, like the stairs in the outpost. Yeah, but like we saw, it takes a little trial and error to find the the easy solution. Although A little. A little trial and error. A little trial and error. Yeah, yeah. Well, that's it for this week's ATV, but before we go, I want to thank all of our backers. You are the reason Star Citizen's development is possible. Yes, and a big thank you to all our

45. 00:35:35

    subscribers. Your contributions help us produce all this great content. And to show our gratitude, we're giving a Big Bennys vending machine to all active subscribers. If you've been wanting to join our subscriber program, sign up before April 17th to get this great piece of flair. There's a link in the description with more info. And in addition to the Big Bennys vending machine, subscribers will also receive another piece of flair next week as part of their rewards. Also, next week we'll be announcing our revamp the revamp to our referral program. Yeah, all right. Lots of stuff going on. And tomorrow, check out Star Citizen's Happy Hour at noon Pacific. Community manager Jared Huckaby will be interviewing members of the LA ship tech team on everything that goes into making spaceships for the BDSS E. And I think that's about it. So, thank you so much for watching, and we'll see

46. 00:36:23

    you around the verse. Thank you for watching. So, if you want to keep up with the latest and greatest in Star Citizen and Squadron 42's development, please follow us on our social media channels. See you soon.