Star Citizen: Calling All Devs - Talking To The Computer

Transcript — every row opens the video at that moment

1. 00:00:11

   Hey everybody, welcome to another edition of Calling All Devs, our weekly Q&A series. We take questions from you, the Star Citizen backer, and pose them directly to our developers, usually over Microsoft Teams. We we upgraded. We upgraded in case things have sounded or looked differently. Probably not. All right, starting us off this week we are going to friend of the show, Mr. Dan Truffin out of our Frankfurt studio. Dan, how are you doing, man? Hey. Hey, Jared. All good. All good. You? Uh uh it's another day in paradise, man. I I have a stock answer. I'm not capable of actually discussing my real feelings about the day. I I just have a stock answer that's just So you never know. I'm a mystery. A mystery wrapped in an enigma, wrapped in a Oh, yeah. recently shaved, wearing still wearing makeup from yesterday's shoot. I think

2. 00:00:58

   so. Yeah. And it looks good. Looks good. Yeah. I had a Yeah, yesterday's shoot involved makeup. You'll see why in a week or two. All right, let's get to the questions, Dan. From the backers, voted on by the backers. This one has to do with removing pest pesky players from our ships. It says, "How do you envision removing players from our ships? Imagine that I have a Banu merchantman." Wouldn't that be nice? Imagine we have a Banu merchant. Imagine that you that I have a Banu merchantman. I have my shop open and I want to leave planet or go to the next place. How do I remove customers from my ships that maybe don't want to leave on their own? Do I have to use force? If I have to use force, will the criminality system react? What can you tell us? So, definitely we will don't want you to

3. 00:01:48

   use force as in pull out your gun and shoot them in the head. Uh that is not the way to go. So, especially since most of the time you don't really want to kill those people. You just they just happen to be on your ship and you just wanted to do something different. Yeah, exactly. You don't want to piss them off. So, uh there's again, you can use the criminality system not necessarily the criminality system, the law system and security on your side. More or less what happens on your ship, you are the the law on your ship. So, I am the what you can do you can do is basically uh set them to not have permission to be on your ship. Okay. case they will get a warning that they're they're in violation, they're in an area that they should not be and they get a timer to get out. The problem is that there the timer

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   might not be enough for them to especially with a bigger ship if they're at one end and the exit is the other end. And they don't know the interior of the merchantman as well. Yeah, or or they might be I don't know AFK cuz they went in to buy something or they're just there for what I look imagine this is a star line. Right. And they're they just were in transit. They're really AFK. They don't care about how they get there. They care that they get there and once they got there they're still in the kitchen making food. Or they're RPing like an old person. They're RPing an old person. Or that. Or that, yes. No, but in those cases you do not want to to kill them and in those cases I think we're going to have to look into some more civilized ways of getting people out. So, let's say your ship is docked at the station or in a hanger.

5. 00:03:25

   Mhm. We can have a way of basically forcing those people out through you give a something like an evacuation order. And if no one's if the people are not out let's say in 1 minute they get teleported out in into the hanger or into the station that you're connected to. So, that is one way of doing it. I got I have to I have to imagine you have to consider things like cuz you wouldn't want people to use this system to repel borders and and and stuff. Like like like Yes. So, yeah, one thing that can happen is that you get a pop-up on the screen that says the the captain of this vessel has uh asked that you you you remove yourself from the vessel. This will get automatically executed in 60 seconds.

6. 00:04:13

   But, you can cancel that. You can go like ignore. And if you click ignore, you stay on that vessel. But, as soon as after 60 seconds, if the guy turns the security on, you're on your own. You have to evade his whatever internal turrets. He has the right to shoot you at this point. You're in violation. You're You get flagged as a criminal because you will be in in a place you're not supposed to be. You're trespassing. You're in the place you're not to be supposed to be according to the local law on that ship. The guy can just pull out the gun, shoot you with no consequences. But, it's your choice. You chose to ignore that thing and not get teleported out. You You ever seen Beverly Hills Cop II? Remember I might have, but I don't I I I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm picturing I'm picturing people, you know, uh us using the the two minute two minutes. You know, they have a timer like we we

7. 00:04:59

   have we have to get whatever we're going to get done with before before the timer hits and the criminality turns into I I I envision that becoming a gameplay uh tactic now. we're also we also have to look on the other side where you don't want people to abuse the system. Let's say I have a starliner. I move 50 people across the universe. And in somewhere in the middle of the trip, I just go like, "Yeah, let's just turn security on and see what happens." So, that that will not be an option. So, you're will have will probably have to be docked somewhere and connected to a station when you do that process. And we do need to make sure people that just don't get teleported into space or something like this. Well, that's not good. Well, I I think it's probably safe to say that whenever the tier zero implementation of this system comes in.

8. 00:05:47

   It will be the tier zero implementation of this system and then we'll be watching. As always, we'll start with the simplest version, I think, which will be probably teleport with a timer. And then we'll see how that evolves and see how we how else we can build it in a nicer way. Obviously, teleport is not a nice thing cuz it breaks the immersion in the game. But for people who are AFK and they're not coming back in the next 2 minutes, there needs to be a way where the captain of that ship gets rid of them and they're also not getting killed in the process, ideally. If if possible. We'll we'll see we'll see which one is tier zero cuz maybe tier zero, especially now with smaller ships, was probably going to be where you can change the security settings. There're going to have to be a warning when you change security settings. But when you're talking about like a Star Liner or a Banu Merchantman, that's we're we're talking about

9. 00:06:35

   different capacity of ship and there might be multiple groups of people on board that are not necessarily part of your party. Right. So right now I think we'll solve the party problem first, what happens when someone in your party doesn't want to get off your ship and stuff like this and then we'll see about the the bigger picture where you're just transporting some people or some people just happen to be on your ship doing business. Iterative development. Exactly, as per usual. All right, Dan. You did it. I I You you you you you you happy with the answer? You comfortable? All right. I think it's good. I think it's good. All right. And and it's not the first time we've addressed this. It probably won't be the last time before this before whatever whenever the tier zero gets in. So So uh we'll check back in with you later, I imagine. I'm sure they'll only be addressed once it's in the game and working.

10. 00:07:22

    Oh yeah, no nobody ever asks anything before it's in the game. That never happens. All right, yeah, I'll let you go, man. Thank you so much. All right, take care. Bye-bye. Bye. All right, thank you so much, Dan. Always a pleasure. Now we are moving on to another Calling All Devs newbie, a first time on the show, Graham Philipson, our lead audio programmer out of our UK studio. Graham, how you doing, man? I'm good. How are you? I'm doing well. I I can't help but notice you're not in your office. No, no. I do I do work from home one day a week. I I called you at home. You did, yeah. I'm still working, so it's fine. You sure? Absolutely. All right. Well, okay. I'm going to take your word. I got I got I got some questions for you. Now, these questions for Calling All Devs are submitted by the backers, voted on by the backers.

11. 00:08:10

    This one that got voted up here is one that we've talked about before. We talked about it last year on an RTB with Lee Bainard, but I think folks are when folks ask questions, it's either because again, it's either because, you know, they weren't around then. We do get a lot of new backers each and every day. And also, sometimes I think they're just hoping for an update. If anything, they're like, "Oh, just ask again. We'll ask again 6 months later and see." So, we're going to we're going to see if there is an update. This says, "Have you considered going beyond normal in-game voice commands, like the ones that Voice Attack provides, to include game-level integration? And if so, what are you considering?" Well, I mean, the the first answer is yes. We we would absolutely love to do that. It's on the road map, so we do plan to have an internal voice command solution.

12. 00:09:00

    We plan to fully integrate it as we do with everything in Star Citizen, so it would be very much an embedded part of the game experience. One big thing with Voice Attack is that you have to bind everything that you do to a key action or a or a mouse action. We wouldn't need to do that because we'd be a system running completely within the game. So, yeah, we we definitely plan to do that. And um as with anything we develop, we would like to go beyond what's already available because, you know, if you're not improving things, then why are you doing it? I think I could be one of Star Citizen's many mottos right there. Now, you said it's on the road map. You mean your internal audio team road map, not on the public road map that our backers can see. absolutely right. That's That's a good clarification there, Jared. Yeah, so we internally in the audio code team, we have a huge backlog of stuff that we

13. 00:09:47

    want to get up to and it's it's getting closer. Yeah, it's not on the immediate sort of immediate plan, but it's it's there. Right. And when it does come time to begin work on that, you know, then you will people will see it added to the public road map and it'll get slotted in. Yeah, absolutely. towards the end. 3.5, 3.6, you know, whatever it's towards the end. And you'll be able to Yeah, once we actually plan it in and and attach it to a release, then yeah, that's when we'll start to see it on the public road map. Cool. Have you given any thought to how the voice attack works with VoIP? I mean, it's it's it seems to me like there there might be some challenges between Are you talking to me? Cuz we get that here. You know, I'm working in a I work area here where we've got multiple people and sometimes when I say something, you know, somebody behind me goes, "Are you talking to me?" And well,

14. 00:10:36

    I imagine that's got to be that's going to have to be a consideration when you when you combine something like voice like in-game voice commands with an in-game voice communication system. Yeah, absolutely. They two completely overlap and we'll have to collaborate with design to figure out the best solutions to that. I mean, just off the top of my head, we could have some sort of push to talk to your computer or, you know, we could have something like "Hey Siri" or whatever it is, you know, "Okay Google" equivalent. You know, we could have a sort of trigger word like that that sort of wakes up the the voice system. Uh-huh. Um But, you know, these are all just options. I mean, we could we could have both. We don't know, but we would sit down with design and figure out those those issues. And then, yeah, obviously the question also would be if you're speaking to your computer, then do we

15. 00:11:23

    cut that from the VoIP communication and cut, you know, cut the facial animation that goes with it. And again, we'll we'll figure that out with design. Or do you want to see a bunch of people bring up their MobiGlass and and talking to their, you know, MobiGlass in the game, stuff like that? Interesting considerations. it might be nice to see it and hear it, but maybe we can just kind of damp it down a little bit, push it into the background, because we know it's not directed at other people in the game, but it still needs to be there. It still needs to be an ambient thing. Ultimately, it's not a They're not questions that need answers right now, because it's not an active development right now. So, we got some time to bring them on it. Yeah, that's right. That's right. Uh what else you working on that like got you and bothered you at home? Yeah, well, I mean, the um there's a little overlap with what I'm still working on right now, which is uh polishing the VOIP system. So, um we we're almost out right now. I don't know

16. 00:12:12

    when this when this show goes out, but in 3.3, we have our first release of VOIP. Yeah, hopefully that will be out live on our public servers before this airs. We're we're We're hoping. Cool. In that case, I'll say VOIP is out there now. No, we don't We're not sure about that, but yeah, it did it very much should be out just been fixing a few issues with it today. obviously, that's this is step one towards a voice attack style solution, too, because the first thing you need to do is get the voice into the game, and we've we've done that for VOIP, so we've got one of the building blocks in there already. Um yeah, so a lot of work's been done on VOIP and VOIP 2 to ensure that that everyone can communicate properly, everyone's uh face is synced to their voice, and then there's a whole mass of infrastructure that honestly has never been done in a game before that is supporting the system, and um we're

17. 00:13:00

    learning a lot as we go. So, uh yeah, if you're if you're using VOIP and experiencing any issues, just a little patience, because nobody's done this thing before with the the facial data, as well. Yeah, no, that's definitely cuz it's not just it's not just opening up a a Discord channel and and and and and send and sending the conversation over. It's it's got to be synced with all this other face data. At the same even though, you know, even even though, you know, you're you're you're turned away, or maybe you're across far distances and whatever. It's It's the It d- It It's It's still has to process. It still has to do everything it normally does. It's It's not a I use this system in this situation. Use this other system in another situation. You got to build something that's dynamic enough to be used in all situations. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, Discord is kind of is limited to who joins the the chats in that. We're not limited to

18. 00:13:48

    that. We We're offering some in-world uh audibility of other people who aren't necessarily in a group with you. So, we're we're pushing the the data requirements in all different directions. You know, we've got additional requirements for the facial data. We've got We're We're probably um driving more uh communicators than than you would normally see in Discord, too. I I will tell you it was it was simple things that ma- uh that sometimes get overlooked. I I I know a lot of people in our community don't overlook this. They They I've seen the commentary about it. But, we were we were headed internal playtest a couple days ago and I was in a constellation we were playing. And you know, and and somebody was in the back like, "Hey, you know, what are you doing back there?" And I'm hearing them I'm hearing them "Shut up, you know." I'm looking at the the Merlin guy. You know, they're talking about whether they can launch the Merlin

19. 00:14:35

    and it's all It's It's filtered and whatnot. And then, you know, I'm in the pilot seat I'm playing. And then, they're like, "Now, what are you doing?" And suddenly clear as day, "I'm right here beside you." It's like It's like And it was. They were right there beside me and I instantly knew without having to look that they were there. I I knew where they were in the ship based on the the the the the the tenor and timbre of the of the of the voice I was hearing. And that's super cool. I love that that that that exformation. The the the additional knowledge that comes with with stuff that that maybe isn't uh obviously present right away. It's It's really cool. I think it'll be a great tool for for multi-crew and everything as that stuff develops. So, All right, man. I'm going to let you go. I I I I filled up the time. We had somebody cancel, so I I I was you I used

20. 00:15:23

    you to fill up some time, so I appreciate you. worries. If if nothing else, I've been filler, so No, you you're you're great. Thank you so much. I'll let you get back to work. Okay, thanks, man. Cool. Catch you later. All right, thank you so much, Graham Phillipson. Now, moving on to friend of the show, Luke Presley. We got a question about scramble races. Luke, how you doing, man? I'm not bad, Jared. How are you? Ah, another day in paradise. All right. Never mind. All right, so I really got to uh I So early, right right. How early is it, though? Uh it is it is uh 6:40 in the morning right now. This is my last call, though. I get to actually Go back to bed? No, I just start the actual business day. I've got RTV in a in a couple hours. We're doing it's called We're doing them back-to-back. Calling All Devs in the morning, and then I go in there and start setting up for RTV.

21. 00:16:12

    All right, got a question for you. Uh this one's I said it's about scramble races, but it's actually about scramble races and how they work with uh the death of a spaceman mechanic. Uh good good question. I liked it when it came through. It says, "How do you reconcile the introduction of scramble racing missions with death of a spaceman? It's a mechanic by its very nature, which leverages disposable characters and equipment." And I think we're going to need to fix that uh that that assumption right there. "Is it the Is it the Is it a goal that's in direct opposition of other goals that you've established in Star Citizen? Or are we actually in the process of killing off death of a spaceman?" Uh no, certainly not. Um we're on our way towards death of a spaceman, obviously. Like, you look at the game now, it doesn't reflect where we want to be.

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    Look at how many times, you know, uh you respawn. Uh if you play for an hour, you know. So, um this is a tier zero of a mission, but um we'll have a um non-lethal version, and you know, we'll be a kind of leisure activity, like, you know, paintballing or something like that, So, people can blow off some steam. Um it was only ever the the start of you know, this is the our kind of stake in the ground for racing. You know, we got out of it so much UI improvement and that. So, you'll see UI creeping into all the other missions as well. All based on you know, what we had to have for a race mission. Um we just couldn't do the the tracks right now. We can't sink that much time into tracks when the planets are changing as much as they are. Um and yeah, uh

23. 00:17:47

    for instance, we you're talking about obviously um it isn't a death race, right? It isn't a death race. It's a race where you can kill people. Like you can shoot people. Yeah, it seems like a death race right now because that's where the game is. Not scramblers are, it's where the game is. Every every silly little thing ends up killing you. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I mean, will the deaths that we currently have now being shot actually be a death in the final game? I'd imagine not. I'd imagine you go into an injured state injured state. So, um you know, medics have a chance to come and revive you kind of thing. Um and I see that the scramble race is a that that perfect ecosystem for many other, you know, uh kind of careers. The you know, um being a TV reporter

24. 00:18:36

    covering this thing, being a medic that's kind of hovering around, being a scavenger that's coming to pick up the you know, remains or you know, a repairman that comes in flies in like you know, a pit stop kind of thing. Um I see them as that kind of ecosystem. They are they're aimed towards the future. It's a tier zero, you know, um we don't we don't force you to play these. If if you want to, you can right now and it really doesn't cost you anything. In future, the reward will be much greater given the risk and you know, you'll have when we're able to do the you know the kind of EMP type firing weapons, you know, the weapons that actually you know, stuff that we can kind of do right now but not in the way we'd really like to. You

25. 00:19:23

    know, you I fire a gun at someone and it stops his engine for maybe 10 seconds. Kind of that that feel of a race. Um you can you can see how that non-lethal version will be a lot more entertaining, a lot more people will join in on. Yeah. I think I think you touch on a struggle with almost every aspect of Star Citizen and that's to there's looking how at how any game system functions in the game as it is today. Uh but there's also extrapolating forward how how that's how that's intended to interact with other game systems in the future. I think that's that's a tough thing not only for anybody playing the game to do because it's not something we're generally used to doing. You know, we we we used to just playing completely you know, fully

26. 00:20:10

    developed games or what not. Exactly. And and obviously we're used to designing for that as well. You know, um so we plan well off into the future where this is going to be and then we go, "Okay, what can we do right now? What what's entertaining right now?" And as long as people kind of buy into the fact that you know, you're going to die quite a lot in the current game. You know, and it doesn't matter. We don't we don't um you know, definitely state spaceman really punishes you for that but we don't right now. Well, we punish people with uh insurance costs. Oh. And when it comes to that, like you you know, we'll be able to rent specific vehicles out for much like you know, specific to this race at the location in future. So, you'll have be able to rent a cheap vehicle and then you don't have to worry

27. 00:20:58

    about losing your own. You can take your own and have a much better vehicle at but you risk losing it as well. And so scramble races went in with 3.3. My understanding is that people people find I see a lot of people asking on watching Twitch streams or whatever how they even discover Scramble Races. Like how do they how do they find them? Yeah. Well, I mean, sadly last week they vanished and we had to fix that. Obviously, it's PTU so, you know, bugs happen. But just keep your eye on the general tab of the mission the contract manager. what you'll see is if there's nothing there, it means one's inactive. Um and then when one appears, you accept it. Um but they'll be scrolled between three different types. There's a space

28. 00:21:47

    one for two different ground ones for Gravel and the wheeled version. The the ones on planets, there are six different locations, two on each moon for those. Um Yeah, just just yeah, sadly you have to keep your eye on that tab tab. I do have a task in for in future being able to allow players to um kind of flag the various tabs in the mission manager so that they get an update whenever something becomes available. So, if you are interested in you know, delivery missions, races, whatever, you know, you can flag those and then you'll see a little pop-up when something appears. Um so, you'll get there quicker. So, right now, yeah, it's a little bit like you've got to keep checking the the contract manager, but you know, it's where we are. 2.0, man.

29. 00:22:34

    All right, dude. Thanks, man. I I I think I think that was that was great. That's everything I needed. Death of a Spaceman, still the intention of the game. Scramble Races not intended to be full-on death races, just maybe dismemberment races. Scramble Races because Scramble and and and designed for the future and disabling and I'm really excited about the ecosystem of other professions and and occupations that that that that it can feed into in that regard. So, that's good to know. And then of course, how players can find the risk armor races. If all things go according to plan, 3.3 will be on the live environment available for everybody when this airs. So, so you'll be able to check that check that out by the time this airs.

30. 00:23:22

    Thank you, Luke. I'll let you get back to work, man. See you, man. Bye. Well, that about does it for this week's show. Special thanks to Graham Phillipson and Luke Presley and Dan Truffin for taking the time to be here on the show with us this week. Remember, you can submit your questions for consideration each and every week up in the thread up on Spectrum, and don't forget to vote. That's the two-pronged plan. I say it every single week, but it's just that important. I can't do this show without your involvement. So, please get in there and vote up the questions you want to see answered most, and I'll do my best to track down developers each and every week that can answer your questions. So, for Calling All Devs, I'm content manager for global video production, Jared Huckaby. We'll see you next week, everybody. Thanks for watching. For the latest and

31. 00:24:14

    greatest in Star Citizen and Squadron 42, you can subscribe to our channel, or you can check out some of the other shows, and you can also head to our website at www.robertsspaceindustries.com. Thank you very much for watching.