10 For the Chairman Episode 24. June 9th, 2014

Transcript — every row opens the video at that moment

1. 00:00:10

   Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of Ten for the Chairman. For those of you who don't know, this is where I take 10 questions from the subscribers and answer them to the best of my ability. The subscribers are the subset of the community that have most generously contribute money every month to allow us to do a higher degree of community feedback and content this show Wingman's Hangar and the new shows that we've got sort of keyed up in the in the pipeline as well as the Jump Point and some other kind of cool stuff that we get to do. So thank you very much to subscribers for for helping us be able to do this without taking away from from development dollars basically. And and you know, obviously thank you to everyone out there that's backed the game because we I wouldn't be sitting here at all without that.

2. 00:00:57

   So let me get to the questions right away. The first one comes from Forval who asks We have known for a while that whole breaches will be in the game. Will we be able to use large whole breaches as EVA entry points when boarding? If so, will multi-crew ships be limited to one or two predetermined whole breach areas or will be able to create entry points roughly where we fire our weapons? Generally the whole breach is going to be limited to areas so like an airlock or you know, a hangar door or something. We can't it's not practical for us to allow you to rip a hole anywhere in the side of a ship and then breach that mainly because then we would have to we already do an insane amount of work and detail on the ships already, but we don't you know, build the inside of every single wall and every single place and if we if

3. 00:01:47

   we allowed you to basically breach anywhere, you would have you would have to be able to do that. So for us we're kind of sort of having some predetermined ones that you can breach, and when you are trying to breach, uh you'll sort of they'll be highlighted on your hard uh or on the ship that you're trying to dock with and and go from there. Um I mean, it'd be cool to breach everywhere, but we're not quite there yet. Um and I think you can all appreciate the amount of effort and work and detail that goes into the ship, so uh making a doing that would be another um nth degree of difficulty. Um okay, next question comes from Atsu, who asks, "How will stars work? When flying around a solar system and you get close to star, do you need to increase power to the shields to mitigate the radiation and the heat? And will there be solar flares where suddenly the radiation level spike and you need to adjust shields accordingly? Or will they just

4. 00:02:34

   be sitting there without any special mechanics?" Uh well, I think in general that the stars inside of the various systems um will be really kind of in the center. You probably won't be able to uh get too close to them. We'll probably have some effect We'll probably have some deal when you get if you decide to like you won't be able to order pilot and then if you decide to start suddenly point your nose towards them and keep flying, at some point we'll just start to you know um you know, deliver heat and then damage to your ship and eventually you'll kind of fry up, which is what would kind of you would do if you were going into a star. Um but I don't think we'll be doing the the thing where you're out in the distance of the solar system and there's a flare and you have to put up shields or whatever. Um although it's a pretty cool idea. Uh so, I just think we'll just sort of make a star or a stars be sort of areas that

5. 00:03:22

   you don't really want to like get too close to. Um okay, next question comes from Silent Ruin, who asks, "What kind of tools will we have to reduce the purchase risk of various items? For instance, I want a tool that lets me enter in specs for suit ship engines position in a ship and have it spit out the percentage from all the person and that position is shot and the ship will black out. This will help me buy the suit ship engine that best suits my flying and purposes without having to randomly experiment by buying everything." Yeah, I'm not sure we're going to have sort of a tool uh that will will do that. I mean, I think you're going to know when you're purchasing some of this stuff. You know, it will be sort of set up like, you know, okay, well, this is a space suit for extreme maneuvering and it's got a higher G tolerance or you know, these are bigger thrusters. So, upside is you can turn faster,

6. 00:04:10

   downside is you can black out much quicker. And that would sort of all be contained in sort of the description and the fiction. But I don't think we're going to have anything that will specifically say, okay, well, at this percentage, you know, you can have your throttle at this percentage and you won't black out, at this percentage you will. I mean, I'm assuming that will probably what will happen is the the community itself will sort of break all that down cuz that's usually what happens. Um Uh so, it's not really a tool for you other than the community being your resource and and just the way we describe the item. So, there you go. Okay, next question comes from Girl and N who asks, I was wondering about the banking system in the persistent universe. You said before that people will be able to take out loans to buy their first ship. But

7. 00:04:57

   how will this be paid back? If you miss a payment, you get a bad credit score or bounty hunters sent after you? I think that what would probably happen is if you had a loan on the ship that you would have to pay some back and and maybe there would be some level of auto deducting. So, in the same way that if you have a debt to someone, it can be auto garnished from your wages. I think if you had a loan out to the ship, the deal would be, okay, you can have this ship for this amount of money on the loan and we're going to take you know, 50% of all your commissions on all your missions until we've got our money back plus some. We'll be kind of the way I would think it is. So, I'm not sure in that particular case if you miss a payment, it would really uh cause you to like have a bad credit score or bounty hunters. Um

8. 00:05:47

   So, I don't know. It's uh I think the I think the mechanic will be you would have to sort of pay the loan back from the work that you're doing. Uh, and then at some point if uh you're not doing the work, uh then you kind of at that point, well, you just can't really fly your ship around because don't forget you're going to have to have uh you're going to have to earn money to be able to pay for landing fees and all that, you know, fuel, that kind of stuff. So, I think that system will work, but we haven't fully 100% figured that out. Um, I mean, there is something nice about the idea of a bunch of people coming after you and uh if you haven't paid your loan back, but uh that may be a bit tough and would defeat the purpose cuz you would be basically blowing up the ship that they loaned you money for. Um, anyway, so, uh that part of it will probably still have

9. 00:06:35

   to be decided. Okay, next question comes from BrutalNuke who asks, "Will our cyborg limbs be repairable? Will Would they be damaged during a fight or anything else? And if so, what will we have to do to fix them?" Yes, I think the limbs will be repairable um and they definitely can get damaged during like a fight, especially a first-person fight. and what we have to do to fix them is you would have to sort of take them to sort of a cybernetic repair facility. So, there'll be some of those that will be on planets. Uh, potentially there could be uh equipment for that in a bigger med bay on a bigger capital ship. Um, but it will be sort of like the mechanical version of what you have to do for your armor limb if uh it wasn't um mechanical and uh we have the same sort of mechanics like doctors you can go visit on planets or maybe there's a med bay on a on a big uh on a on a big ship.

10. 00:07:22

    Um, okay, number six comes from ZeusMachinaX who asks, "So, we know there'll be some kind of organic questing system for the UEE worlds and systems. My question is will there be something similar for pirates, smugglers, or anyone else living outside of UEE law and requesting and questing for other reasons than to balance the system's resources? Or will it end up being completely free from when we have to choose targets ourselves in less structured way. I think even in the pirate smuggler aspect, uh you know, we model in the economy and the universe not just the sort of legitimate UE stuff, but also the illegitimate what the pirates are doing, what the smugglers are doing. And so there will definitely be missions available generated by that system that players can take. Oh, I need you to smuggle narcotics from uh you know, this this planet over here into Terra or whatever. And so uh you'll be able to sort of you

11. 00:08:11

    know, if you want to think of it the same questing system or whatever will exist, but just for the flip side for pirates and smugglers and everything else. Um as well as players themselves doing their own sort of ad hoc stuff they think would would work. So I guess the question would be yes. Uh the answer would be yes. Uh okay, next question comes from Jack Sparrow Kerman who asks, "What non-Chris Roberts games have influenced Star Citizen's concept, ships, mechanics, and etc.?" I think I've talked a lot about um how I really like Demon's Souls. Uh I really, you know, I rarely play a game for that much time and and I like I sort of reminded me of like the value of um having something that you can lose, something that you can risk in a game play rather than the modern-day sort of typical first-person shooter or adventure game and basically you could just bully your way through. There's no

12. 00:09:00

    penalty if you die, you respawn a second before, and that wasn't the case with Demon's Souls. And and I sort of really that made it when I achieved something much more satisfactory. I mean it was kind of frustrating and it was difficult at times, definitely, but the the the sense of accomplishment I got with Demon's Souls that I, you know, haven't really felt with a modern game. Uh I think that may be one of the reasons why a lot of people have shifted to multiplayer versus single player cuz, you know, single player in Call of Duty or even Battlefield is not really Okay, it looks pretty, but um you know, do you really feel like you've accomplished something? Whereas in multiplayer, if you're fighting against someone, you take a bunch of people out, you do feel like you've accomplished something. So I think maybe the dumbing down of uh sort of games over the last 10 years have sort of has also led to the rise of why multiplayer has become more popular. But so I like games that are tough. So obviously Demon's Souls.

13. 00:09:48

    You know, I definitely like the I like like I'm a Battlefield person over a Call of Duty person mainly because I like to fight with a few of my friends and that sort of cooperative combat together against other players was something I really like for Battlefield. And obviously there is aspects of that that's going to be in Star Citizen. Used to Combined Arms and Battlefield which is cool but on a more limited basis compared to what we're doing. But again, it's cool. So I would say, you know, like of these kind of like non you know, sort of non-night past games or sort of general games out there. I would say like the three big ones that sort of I kind of liked more recent well, four let's say four. So you know, Demon's Souls, StarCraft II, you know, love the you know, the balancing obviously love the original StarCraft but the sort of rock, paper, scissors sort of move you know, dealing with your resources all the time and I want a

14. 00:10:37

    little bit of that in in um in Star Citizen. Battlefield really you know, fidelity's fantastic. The fact that you're you know, you fight with your you know, buddies do sort of cooperatively against other people. It's great. Combined Arms is great from there. And then probably you know, taking a look at sort of the Naughty Dog stuff. The you know, the Uncharted stuff and most recently The Last of Us is just in terms of like fidelity and attention to detail in terms of the characters and the world they're creating. It was really great. So those would all be games that I would say would be things that I was impressed by enjoyed playing you know, fairly fairly influenced in the sort of nearby past. So hopefully that answers that question for you. Um Savan asks, can a player organization be

15. 00:11:25

    classed as a terrorist organization by UEE? So its members are attacked on site in UEE space? Yeah, it was definitely possible to have an organization if they have an organization starts to engage in overall negative uh or sort of antisocial or anti-UEE behavior, at some point it will start to become uh a sort of terrorist organization and uh therefore UEE uh you know, ships, naval advocacy, whatever would attack him and there'd probably be a bounty in UEE space at so you'll just have to be careful about how you run your your organization. Um Hallet asks, "Could you maybe shed some light on what you have planned for our solar system in Persistent Universe? How many planets, dwarf planets, moons, asteroid belts can we expect to see ballpark?" Now, I wonder if this

16. 00:12:12

    question means our solar system as in the solar system we're in right now as with Earth and the Sun. Um but in the case of of our solar system, we're going to pretty much model it the way it is so with all the planets. I guess there's some debate over whether Pluto is really a planet or not, but um we'll model it as it is maybe not to exact scale, but to a pretty large scale that would kind of feel like something that feels big for planets and all the rest of the stuff. Um and then it's kind of hard to say on the other you know, we have all sorts of systems systems with you know, multiple stars, loads of planets, loads of asteroids, but generally we we we'd try to make the the systems pretty rough you know, pretty interesting with a lot

17. 00:12:59

    of variety. Uh so I can't really give you a a number, but it'll be a lot. Uh all right, last question comes from Thomas Cromwell who asks, "I would like to know how you plan to implement NPC communication such as a system in Mass Effect or Dragon Age or will you try to implement a system like SOCOM or EndWar where the menu system is voice controlled?" So in space, it will mostly be sort of like a Wing Commander, Star Citizen uh not not Wing Wing Commander, Privateer, Freelancer style, which, you know, you sort of have options when you when you hail a ship, you'll be able to say, "Okay, well, you know, attack my target or stay on my wing." and that kind of stuff. And then on the planet side stuff, we're going to be using we have a conversation system that involves how you like engage and interact with people, whether you look at them in the

18. 00:13:46

    eyes and it sort of generally handles your kind of attitude around them and then the game sort of takes its cues from there. So, it won't be something like you saw in Mass Effect where you had a Dragon Age where you had a big wheel of different things you could ask them. It's more about how you sort of manage uh things and you sort of have choices where you can direct it, you know, like, "Hmm, you know, I wonder if I should ask him if he's going to work for me." or "Ah, let's just chit-chat with him." Those would be two sort of like inner thoughts your character would have and you would pick between them and that would determine the direction you would take it. So, you know, I guess that's a little in the line of uh of um what we did in the Wing Commander stuff with the, you know, obviously especially with uh Wing Commander 3 and 4, but the big thing is that we're doing a lot more about the action and the body language. Like, so, where where you're looking, what you're doing, what your actions are are also being taken into account in terms of how you're communicating with the NPCs when

19. 00:14:33

    you're planet side um for a more realistic um or hopefully a more realistic feeling. I mean, you know, generally when you engage people, you'll look them in the eye and if you sort of look away from them and stop paying attention while they're talking to you, they'll get offended and so we're sort of trying to build a model all that stuff in our conversation system. I think it's going to be pretty cool. Um so, I would say that's kind of what we're doing. I mean, I don't know you know, this question could potentially be saying, "Well, do you want to have voice recognition or not voice or just menus?" So, I would say, you know, our kind of input mechanism is going to be sort of like either combination menus or actions that you do. So, like if I go up and I look at someone in the eyes, that means I want to talk to you. Or if someone's looking me in the eyes and I ignore them and carry on walking on, that means I'm not going to pay attention to you. Uh so, we're sort of going to drive a lot of the uh NPC interaction via your actual actions, which uh I think it's

20. 00:15:21

    pretty good. I mean, that's a the kind of you you notice in real life that's kind of what happens and you know, action is always speaks louder than a bunch of bunch of words. Okay, so that's the the end of this episode of 10 for the chairman. Thank you all for listening. Thank you to all the subscribers for helping fund us doing this and all the other great community content we do and thank you very much to the backers out there who have generously allowed us to be making this uh you know, game that we're having the time of our lives on building it a level that we never dreamed possible this early on. So, thank you. We're going to build a great game. Hopefully, you're having a lot of fun with the dog fight module arena commander and seeing the progress that is happening and obviously that's going to be ongoing.

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    But, anyway, I'm looking for this rides so far been amazing and it's going to get even better. So, I'll talk to you next week. Bye.