Inside Star Citizen: Firebird Is The Word

Transcript — every row opens the video at that moment

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   [Music] it's that time each May where we celebrate the might and Majesty of the UE vehicle Fleet and this week we're exploring the gold standard work of one of the rarest vehicles in the game the debut of a new design sure has set the verse on fire and a long requested variant finally making its debut at this year's event it's Invictus launch week part one so let's stop yapping and get to showing I'll be here when you get back so the saber Raven was introduced at citizen con 2017 in Frankfurt it was an

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   exclusive deal with Intel it is a EMP interdictor fighter carries two EMP generators in its belly has an additional computer on board for helping do data running and is really just a cool looking chip you can see the resemblance to the saber but it is its own unique shape performance- wise over the years because of its exclusive nature it's sort of never really peaked in terms of popularity but the owners that have it love it and you always see them at ship meets in the game recently we completed gold standard on the Basse saber which highlighted some of the issues with the Raven itself it has sort of been left behind in terms of Art and gameplay upgrades over the years so we set about gold standing in the Raven and utilizing some of the work we did on the saber to help benefit the Raven so we've recently done a a pass on

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   the saber Raven it gets referenced a lot as gold standard what I think for me personally the way I look at it is kind of our current standard it's bringing a ship that we've done work on in the past and kind of ticking off all the current kind of features to make it compatible with everything we now do on our current release chips the main P that we needed to do on the The Raven was to add all of its functional component base so now rather than it just being a a shell and you can't really do with it each of the component Bays now have a animating opening door all of the components are accessible by the player and that really just gets the vehicle ready for the next stage in Star set and gameplay with the Resource Network work coming online and the ability to interact with the individual ship items that ship is now kind of ticked off ready good to go some of the other work that was needed as a kind of byproduct of bring it up to current day standards

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   is working on the dashboard and the interactions on there so now the buttons are all interactive and really it's just about giving some love to some of our older vehicles and bringing them up to kind of our current day standard so at this Invictus we're happy to announce that there is a new sibling to the Raven and is called the saber Firebird so the saber Firebird is a missile based fighter much like some of our other ships like the Talon it trades pure gun power for missile Firepower it is based on the Raven chassis but it has quite a few little visual tweaks that when you put them side by side you'll notice that it is a completely different art style and its main Firepower is from it belly mounted bespoke missile launcher which holds 12 size three

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   missiles so in the saber series we have the bass saber the saber Comet and the saber Raven and really we wanted to kind of build on the Ravens chassis it's a very unique design and we really felt like we could do more than what we've currently done with that vehicle chassis obviously we wanted to make sure that it feels different enough from the Basse Raven so we did quite a lot of work the actual full kind of top of the vehicle has pretty much been kind of remodeled the main spine of the vehicle has a bunch of changes on it when we looked at it and kind of decided what is really successful and what do we want to build on we really felt like the Raven is very very Sleek whereas the base saber had these really nice kind of like Tail Fins and and a nice kind of back end to it so really we kind of want to bring a bit of that inspiration back into the firebird so the main kind of visual change that you'll notice on the the

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   rear of the vehicle it's got a you know slight new Thruster and it's got this these nice sort of wings that complement the rear tail end a lot of kind of more subtle changes have been done on the vehicle as well when you kind of first look at them side by side we really wanted it to be recognizable that it it was built on the saber chassis so we've kept a lot of the key shapes but as you start to kind of like get into the details you'll notice the wing tips are different the kind of big cutouts have had some work done to them and we've decided to add some extra geometry there just to kind of of strengthen up the vehicle a bit as it is I think the base Raven being like an interdiction ship uh really was kind of focusing on agility and being enough to chase down targets whereas this being slightly more kind of combat orientated we really wanted a bit more strength in the vehicle as a whole as you kind of go to the underside

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   of the ship that's where the big functionality change comes so now in the the belly of the ship we've got a big missile rack so it all opens up and then we can launch the missiles out from underneath the fire B compared to a lot of our other ships that have missile racks just bolted under the wings or bespoke ones mounted into the hole that are sort of firing forwards this is caned at a downwards angle so you get a really nice visual when they fire down and curve up and also we've adjusted the missile controller on it so rather being restricted to a set amount it can fire up to a complete row at a time so you get to see a huge volley of row by row come out so we have a lot of fighters in the game but we don't have a lot that their main focus is missiles like I mentioned the the Talon strike is pretty much the main missile

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   based fighter that is a a light to medium category so this adds another option into the mix and it also builds in all the work we did for the saber Raven God standard to help get a brand new ship in terms of who is the firebird 4 just like anyone who enjoys combat this is a ship for you especially if you prefer to sort of not engage Direct in dog fights and sort of lurk on the periphery of combat and help chip away at the targets so that's the saber Firebird available at Invictus we're looking forward to see the reception of it and letting a a new generation of backers experience that classic silhouette with a revitalized uh in-game performance did you consider doing a Pontiac Trans Am fire paint for this when we came up with the name of the

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   firebird we did you know instantly think of some vehicle Inspirations should we call it um but no smoking in the Bandit no no smoking in the Bandit I hate you Mutual so in the top three questions that I get number one and two are when and where are the Banny mman and Endeavor the third one is where is my Ura medical version so we're finally proud to present the RSI Ura medac yeah cuz that's the one they really wanted you to focus on so where are we going to use the medac it is designed for use in a sort

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    of combined arms ground assault scenario when you kind of think about all the different gameplay Loops we have and all the different you know ways that our players like to explore the universe you we have a lot of airport you we have the the Pisces we have have you know Med bays in our big ships but we don't really have anything that's ground vehicle based that can kind of be that Response Unit to really kind of get people out of trouble to come in and heal our our players you have people on the ground in vehicles in gravl bikes on foot assaulting a location such as a distribution center ultimately people get injured and killed uh and they don't want to respawn back at their Habs or hospitals or even in sort of a parent Mothership a long way away you need something that can keep up with the assault and that's

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    where the medac sits it fills that Gap in our our lineup that allows the players to be able to go out explore our universe and have less concerns about some of the activities they're getting up to knowing that they've got a medical vehicle on call nearby that can kind of get them out of the bit of a sticky situation exterior wise uh the main kind of big difference is is going to be the the fre so the medivac will come with its own medical themed default paint as well as additional paints and these will be applicable to the base urer as well other than that the kind of main changes that we we've done is just really giving it a bit of a lift up to our current standards so we've got proper interaction panels now for the side entrance and the rear entrance and then

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    the biggest change really is on the rear of the vehicle the ramp or the the rear door previously split in the middle and opened up but that doesn't really make sense when you think of a medical vehicle you want to be able to ease the transition in as as as easy as possible so it's got a proper kind of rear ramp on it now the door folds down and just allows much easier access into the rear of the vehicle inside it it's all new it feels very clean and clinical our artist that that works on it hady he's done like a fantastic job of really bringing up the kind of the level of detail making it really feel like a purpose-built space on the left hand side you've got a weapons Locker that also has storage for your med guns and utility items we've then got a clean sink area it feels very clinical and clean and then as you move towards the front of the vehicle you've

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    got an extra seat looking at kind of current ambulances and medical Vehicles you generally have your patient and then somewhere for the person that is kind of doing that treatment to be we've got the medical terminal where it allows you to treat the player or the patient and then right at the front we've got all the component bays and everything else that's needed for making the vehicle work so the big feature of the RSI Ura medivac is of course the medbed in the back it is a tier three medbed and the way Med beds work in the game is changing tier three historically did not allow respawn on them we're changing that to allow respawn but at a much reduced distance from the vehicle so you really need to keep this vehicle up with the attack to get the maximum use out of it we took a lot of inspiration from

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    some of our other kind of Med Bays on our other vehicles and and generally you know we just try to think about if you're trying to treat someone that's been injured what do you need what what's what's available for you obviously we looked at ambulances and real life inspiration that change is not exclusive to the medivac that is an across theboard change so ships such as the CHR Pisces and cutless red will also benefit from that but of course those are much larger Targets in a combat scenario so you would want to keep them a little bit further away so that's the UR back it is a great support vehicle for ground vehicle players especially those who want to support other more hostile engagements and I didn't mean to imply that we pick this over doing the merch or the Endeavor but a lot of people ask me this every single event in Reddit Spectrum so

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    where's the metac so it's here now last sequence complete so what did we learn this week well we learned that the saber Raven finally gets a little of the love and attention it's needed for some time that the saber Firebird is here with a host of missile Laden destruction alongside with it and that the Ursa medivac is rolling up with a fantastic change to how Med beds work and new liveries for all urses to enjoy now don't forget to tune into this year's Invictus all vehicles Round Table tomorrow we'll have some of the folks that make ships possible on to discuss all aspects of vehicle life in the verse and then come on back next week for Invictus part two for even more new vehicle goodness for inside star citizen I'm Jared Huckaby thanks for letting us share the process

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    of game development with you and we'll see you all here next week