Inside Star Citizen: Sweet Gadget of Mine | Fall 2021

Transcript — every row opens the video at that moment

1. 00:00:05

   while other games offer resource collection in various forms like mining for example it is not necessarily a fun job to do in a game this is where always with mining we've had this approach of like no no this needs to be fun like every part of it there needs to be fun there needs to be a challenge you need to have a risk involved there needs to be something that doesn't quite end up as you planned in the beginning [Music] when i was with a friend and we hit the iron belt to to look for some quantanium we stumbled over the problem that with a proper setup of the prospector it was not even possible to crack like the biggest stones in the previous updates we kept adding more and more tools for the for the players to mine and we also ramped up

2. 00:00:53

   the of the difficulty of the mineable rocks this presented us with a bit of a problem where since we went more and more towards the multiplayer mall experience two three prospectors working together the problem became that single players kind of were unable to reach that content not being able to mine very hard drugs so we figured out that there is a niche that we need to start catering towards so whatever we did for single player needed to be harder and have harder heavier risks involved so this is where we came up with the idea of the mining gadget the mining gadget allows the player to access those super difficult drugs but it comes with an

3. 00:01:41

   entry level cost it comes with an inherit risk which is anyone can just come in and shoot you they can come in and steal your ship there's so many things that can happen in total we have right now six devices so we have one uh like the bormix uh that is uh for for resistance reduction we have the zabia which is for instability wave shift it's a mix of resistance reduction and increasing the optimal charge window we have the okunis one which is also for instability reduction and having the optimal charge increase then the style ward its increased charge rate and also some moderate resistance reduction

4. 00:02:30

   and optimus for the optimal window increase and optimal charge rate so part of the idea behind this was that you know there's a conscious decision that you think okay this mining deposit has a lot of stuff i want it's quite difficult to mine i'm going to take a little bit of more time go outside and place this gadget once you place it then you have to find the resonance of the stone that you just attached the device to it's our mini game but it's a meaningful minigame it's kind of a small puzzle aligning some slider bars with a wave that is that if you get over a certain percentage you can activate it and there's a confirmation so it starts blinking that means that it's now functional

5. 00:03:17

   you get back to your prospector and you do your mining process it's gonna put this effect on the rock until you destroy the gadget you deactivate it or the rock breaks apart right now we're really working on the animations and the part for it it's going to be a lot of work in progress as to where we want to take the the minor player experience in the future we are looking right now at uh ship refining and getting the starfarer to be able to refine whatever the prospector and mall are are harvesting right there on the spot together with their their mining bodies and that's what we think will close that lovely gameplay loop of resource acquisition from mining mining gadgets are the latest in a a

6. 00:04:04

   long line of expansions and improvements to the overall mining gameplay as the team continues bringing it up to what we'd consider a gold standard for other professions to follow and you can look forward to working with them when they arrive in the upcoming alpha 316 but up next it's sprint report time so let's get to it let's start things off this week with the world of in-game brand logos where a final pass was recently completed for the mercenary guild now when hired guns were sought to provide services that had normally been regulated by more official channels after humanity's first contact with the xi'an and the subsequent war with the tavarin some of the largest mercenary firms banded together to form the mercenary guild now since then they've helped protect their members

7. 00:04:52

   from fraudulent companies and protected their rights to operate within uee space now among these options it was the first one that was selected to enter the persistent universe work also continues on the drake vulture the entry-level salvage ship scheduled to come online sometime next year now currently in gray box phase this is where the team looks to add as many signature drake elements as they can steering into the heavier more brutalist aspects found in other drake spacecraft you can bet we're going to follow along with its progress as it continues over the next coming months moving on over to the character team

8. 00:05:57

   members have taken a sprint to update some of the texture sets for the various inhabitants of the persistent universe both npc and player control the like the work is subtle but by including a number of irregularities and imperfections throughout it helps us achieve a greater sense of realism and expectation when engaging the characters you meet throughout your journeys and the best part about all these is that the improvements aren't just for the npcs you'll encounter they'll also be used in the character creator once they're deemed ready and if you're wondering what happened to the eyebrows me too turns out the team is looking to add customizable eyebrows to the character creator as well so they'll no longer be baked into the face textures that you see here

9. 00:06:45

   now as with all things you see on inside star citizen all of these are still a work in progress but it's been a while since these faces got some love and it's exciting to see their time on the development wheel come around again you can also see here how they can come together with facial hair and scalp to form the best version of old eckhart yet just look at mama miller's mighty man looking good phil speaking of the character team i'm gonna sit quiet for a little bit and let you all take a look at the newest armor set coming to the persistent universe the queerness tech medium armor look

10. 00:08:40

    as for where you'll find it try hearst and security and before you ask yes they'll be lootable let's all rage against the machine everyone those of you who watched the pyro presentation at citizencon or josh's in-depth tour of the pre-production process for outlaw space stations on last week's star citizen live may have noticed that graffiti plays a noticeable part in how the various outlaw gangs scattered throughout the system identify and claim their territories and what you're seeing here is a first pass initial exploration of murals to be found throughout those stations these are the earliest of explorations helping us see what works and often equally as important what doesn't work

11. 00:09:30

    what doesn't read to the player and what simply is or isn't the right ethos for each gang as the narrative team had designed them now from here explorations will continue and if you haven't seen the full length pre-production explorations of these upcoming outlaw space stations you can check out the scl replay with josh vanzulin up now on youtube just don't let the italian spiderman ruin it for you it was a good demo josh did really good you can see it after that part and continuing with the outlaw space station explorations the team began a pass on some new exterior thumbnails looking for ways to differentiate the structures found throughout pyro from the ones you're familiar with in stanton

12. 00:10:19

    now we've said it before but it always bears repeating concept stage is the testing ground for new ideas and most of the early concepts you see for any character feature or location may never be taken to completion or implementation and in some cases like good old number one here they may actually be held for potential use in a different star system other than the one it was originally intended for but that's how the process works as for which one or ones will move forward into the pyro system it's still too early to say but we'll be following along with every aspect of the new star system from now into the day it arrives in the persistent universe so what did we learn this week well we learned that the impressive faces in the persistent universe are

13. 00:11:07

    well on their way to being even more so that there's going to be some mayhem on the outskirts of hurston is people try to obtain the latest fashion that just because you're an outlaw doesn't mean you can't express yourself artistically and that pyro aims to be the anti-stanton in every way can be including its space stations now alpha 315 is currently available to all players on the ptu and it should be going live it's so close you could it could shoot you full of rocks event and you wouldn't know it until it's too late keep an eye out on the website to find out when and don't forget to check out the new 400i from origin and the you drop the bum on me baby hercules a2 from crusader industries and

14. 00:11:55

    we're just two shorts weeks away from alpha 315.1 and the intergalactic aerospace expo so to kick things off next week's show is dedicated entirely to the vehicle experience team and their work on 315 316 and beyond so come on back and check that out we're inside star citizen i'm jared huckaby with a haircut we'll see you all next week you