Star Citizen Live: Q&A Inventory & Crafting

16 April 202601:04:091,913 linesWatch on YouTube ↗

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[snorts] >> Hi everybody. Welcome to another episode of Star Citizen Live. And if you have any questions said that up that part doesn't go on YouTube. Just just from here. Um I'm your host Jared. And if you've never seen Star Citizen Live before, it's where normally I know my own name. So >> [laughter] >> They told me before I had to move my heartburn medication. It's like don't tell people you have heartburn. Still there. It's about where it's about where to take it. Play the title sequence? >> Play the title sequence one more time? >> to do a roll Jared. >> Go on. of Star Citizen Live. I'm your host
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Jared Huckaby. If you've never seen Star Citizen Live before, it's where we take an hour out of our program. Nope. Look. We put up a thread. >> And we asked you for questions about inventory and crafting. And you guys came with questions about inventory crafting. And then these three guys, let's show them. They went through that thread and they picked they picked a 26 that they wanted to talk about today. They put them on a list. They made some notes. Some of us have the notes printed up so we make sure we don't forget stuff. And now we're here to talk to you and answer your questions. Joining us on the show this week Rick, tell everybody who you are and what you do. >> Hello, I'm Rick Porter. I'm the design director at CIG. I work both on Star Citizen and Squadron 42, but mostly lately I've been focusing on the design
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for Star Citizen and getting one release out after another in the last couple years. >> Yeah. 11 releases last year. Pretty proud of that, honestly. >> Uh only because only because you're next to him. I just I know no no no because you don't bring me baked goods. Declan, [laughter] tell everybody who you are and what you want to do. >> Yeah, my name's Declan or Deck. Um system designer, so it involves helping design systems and then maintain them once they're alive, such as crafting. Yeah. >> Which is one of the things we're talking about. >> Which is very convenient for this show. >> We didn't plan that at all. >> No. >> Thorsten, who are you and what do you do? >> I'm Thorsten. I'm his manager and he's my manager. >> Is it is it appropriate that you're sitting in between us? >> So so you see the
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the the the the the way the crap flows. >> Um so yeah, so the subject of today's show is crafting and inventory. Uh in our latest major release 4.7 4.7 nobody's nobody nodded. They were just completely oblivious. That's the >> previous one, yeah. >> Yeah, we introduced our first iteration of crafting to the to the persistent universe where we begin this long journey of putting greater agency and control of the player experience into the hands of those people who play the game or don't play the game. They just watch the shows and make unfortunate comments. Also, we updated crafting with a big interface update for crafting and whatnot. So like I said, let's get to the questions.
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Uh is there a Zera Tor says j a r e d? Yes, Zera Tor. You took up five lines in Twitch chat. I'll stop the whole show. What do you want? Yeah, it's going to be that kind of show. You didn't know this You didn't know this by this point? It's going to be that kind of show. Nothing. Zera Tor is suspiciously quiet now. All right. So let's jump into the questions we got. These are in no particular order. Right off the bat. Uh will we be able to increase quality of a material? That's a big thing because in 4.7, not just crafting come online, but a major change to all materials. Uh, where now it's not just hey, I'm grabbing iron and hey, I'm grabbing, you know, aluminum. Almost said aluminum cuz I've been here 4 years. Um, now there you have to search for, you know, varying
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qualities and get the best qualities and stuff. Will we be able to increase the quality of such material? >> Yeah, start with a hard question. Um, current plan is no. You won't be able to increase the quality of the material and there's a few aspects that go into that. Firstly, we would like rare materials and valuable materials to remain rare and valuable. Concern being that if I can take a large chunk of low quality condense into high quality, given enough time, players will have high quality everything. And that greatly devalues the future player trading opportunities where we really want to see the scenario of a player finds a super high rare, high value or deposit and perhaps on their player base they set up a shop and then you have people coming to your shop and like buying from you and you get to interact with them and so on. The second part is there's probably, not
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probably, there is a need for the lower and mid quality to have greater value. At the moment, because it's bigger number is better, everyone's searching for the higher quality. So, to resolve this, our plan is with the refining updates that you will have two ingredients for when you're refining. One of them will be a primary, two or more, could be two or more to be fair. Two or more could be secondary. And the quality of the secondary determines how much of it you need, whereas the primary is the quality of the primary is used for the refined material. So, if it's iron, we always go for the steel example. So, if you're making steel, primary is iron. 750 quality iron makes 150 steel. Carbon, the quality is not too important. So, you can get a massive amount of carbon, however much you need
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of terrible quality, shove it in and get your steel. >> So, there'll be So, the value in the lower quality stuff will be in using it to get a greater quantity. >> Not quantity. It's just for the secondary inputs, you need less of it if it's high quality, but you can still use any quality. So, you can farm up loads and just shove it in as secondary. >> So, there's there's a purpose for the lower quality. And it's to be very honest, uh it's something that we discuss a lot, actually discussed a lot, if we want to go down this road. And uh yeah, as Deck already described, one of the main reasons why we want to stick with this approach of you not being able to upgrade the materials is that we still want you to search for higher grades, that we don't want you to hoard lower grades because at some point you will be able to upgrade.
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And for that reasons, we came up with some solutions of making the lower quality actually worthwhile to to holding onto them, especially then once we have the refining process. And >> Yeah. And we want, when you find those really high-level ones, we want that to be exciting. We want that to feel like a moment. And if you could just get higher easy, we would dilute that experience. >> Plus, it it it it it's good it it seems to me like like like you you're finding a nice compromise here then. We do you know, for the people who gather casually, there's a path, you know, there's a useful for the stuff for the lesser quality stuff they get. But for the people who dedicate themselves, like I am going to be a miner, that is my job. Because you're going to keep this higher resources more valuable, that effort is going to be more
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rewarding to those people cuz they're going to be able to sell that stuff to >> Exactly. That is the point because that with that we open up the opportunities for players to sell it, right? If every player is able to upgrade their materials, then like we we swamp the market with a high quality. >> Of course, that relies on player trading. And Yeah. We've got to get there at some point. There's a There's a question. We'll wait until we get to the question. I don't remember what number it was. Yeah. Um oh, it's number two. Player trading >> How convenient. I lied when I said there's no rhyme or reason to this. I just forgot. Uh player trading is a much-needed feature now that we have crafting. Any news on that? >> Yes and no. It's something that's really important to me in particular. Like I I got in on stage at CitizenCon a couple years ago and talked about how important I think the like the player-driven economy can
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be, especially now that we're finally getting crafting out. Like if you can't do player trading, it's not what I want it to be. So, going to get there as fast as we as as possible. Um we've got to balance it against some other things like social features and so forth. But, what we want to do is give players a space in the world taking advantage of the the the trade centers that we already have in locations where you can go there and you can take anything in your local inventory and put it on put it on the the local net and pick your price and sell it for what you want or, you know, what anybody else there that's done the same, you can buy buy their stuff and get what you need. So, we have those actual in-world commercial centers. Um and then eventually we'll have um player places, base building where you can do that locally and build your own town. So.
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>> I'm glad you mentioned social right there. That is the precursor to this. The work that uh Ben Wan and his team are doing on developing social tools, which I don't think anybody that's ever played Star Citizen for more than 5 minutes will argue is not incredibly important and incredibly needed. The work that they're doing on social lays the groundwork. It's a It's a necessary foundation for then building player trading on top of that. You have to be able to effectively communicate to people >> Yep. >> and and before you can start player trading. So, the social tools are are what they're focused on is is on right now. And >> Uh the new inventory has had a lot of the same problems that were seen with the old inventory, such as slow load times and poor quality images. Are there plans to resolve this? >> Yes. So >> All right, next question. >> Don't laugh.
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So, for the images, there's a handful of initiatives underway. There is it's there's no anti-aliasing on the images, so that's one of the things we're going to look into adding. There is improvements to the framing. You'll see some things that are zoomed out, zoomed in compared to the box. Um there is lighting and shadows. And then for the responsiveness and the snappiness, it's you know, it's a work in progress. It is our desire to have it instant. So. >> I saw something I'm in a number of chats where, you know, for visibility something and I saw there there was a big there was a big conversation they found a big cause, not the only cause, there's never only one source for something, but they made a a nice big leap in in some discovery earlier this week and I wish I could remember what the heck it was now before I opened my mouth. I had to just assume I would remember by the time I got to the point and I don't. Um but yeah, it's it's it they are currently making progress.
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>> Yeah, there's there's a lot of work into going to making the inventory the best we can. >> It's it's hard cuz it's like I I tried to think Peter saw me before I put my hand in my mouth. He's like, "I got it before you put your light on." It's hard. It it never never quite seem like it goes fast enough. Is [snorts] it that that thing ever goes as fast as we want it to? >> It >> But Mining is currently quite tedious due to only wanting to search for high quality materials. >> Are there plans this is we just we we we ended up going into this answer with the first answer. >> And the thing and the other I think the other part of the answer to that is like the question is like all them finding is boring stuff. Where do where do where's the excitement? It's like we will balance that over time. If if if we're not, you know, supplying enough for the players to like feel satisfaction in
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that process, if we're not supplying enough for the doing, you know, it to have a good crafting environment, we will adjust the balance of of of what we think, you know, gets to a good place for both the economy and to make sure that all the other game systems come together for, you know, a fun environment. >> That's good. >> that yeah, even like monitoring all the the rates that we see drop. So, we are adjusting. So, for every patch cycle, the numbers might change a bit so that we're getting to a range where the the the material that the players will find is actually like meaningful and has has some like a purpose for them. But uh yeah, I wouldn't call mining tedious. >> It depends. You know, not not every game loop is going to be for every person. And we don't we don't know the person who who said this. If for some people it will be tedious.
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>> It it >> But it should also be exciting for the people that enjoy it. >> No, if if you you don't you don't want to make something that that that if you make something that's for everybody, it's a little too broad. Those who broad is a little too uninteresting and whatnot. It's you you want to make something that's engaging and some people are going to take to it and some people are not. One of the things you said about the we were going to continue to balance is I think anybody that's followed the the the the project long enough uh can attest that we continuously evolve. We put a thing out and then we change it and then we change it and we get feedback and we change it again and we get feedback and change it. That's part of developing a game with an open environment like we do. Mining alone, since we're talking about mining, let's just use that, has evolved so much from that initial release. Uh so, crafting will do the same. Crafting will do the same and mining will continue to do the same. And so, like this I think this
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been born out over the years. So. is the purchase of materials of various qualities other than zero from in-game locations like mining outpost being considered? >> Yes. So, >> I did not sure I understood the question. >> So, at the moment when a shop sells a resource >> to awkwardly answer and just steal people's names on it. >> Oh. >> That's the secret. >> At the moment shops sell resources zero just cuz that's default. It's just a tech limitation. >> was never intended. It was Yeah, it's just where we landed for the release. >> It They'll end up selling materials of quality. They won't sell the super high quality stuff. And equally, if you sell good quality to a shop, it'll pay more, but
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the the best deal is probably going to be on the player trade market cuz that's where people have the most money. >> We'll have a market with multiple quality values. You'll be able to go there and pay more for higher quality and less for lower quality. And the same vice versa, if you want to sell your own stuff, you'll get more for higher quality and less for lower quality. >> That's that's absolutely the design and we'll we'll get there. We just couldn't get there last release. >> But what Dick said is that and I want to highlight that is that we really want to have player trading standing out in comparison to trading with with NPCs. So, we want to make sure that Sure, you will be finding like different qualities uh from NPC traders, but your source should be or we want to encourage you to actually trade with players. >> And eventually, it'll all be tied
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together. Like the whenever a player's trading to another player, we'll be tracking tracking that and adding it to the overall you know, simulation. We've talked about having Star Sim, the simulation that knows everything that the players are doing, plus all the things that we're expecting the NPCs to doing so that when players buying stuff for one price, it's that is reflected in the NPC prices as well. >> So, I lost it. I lost it from the chat. There was there was a question from the chat from the chat. Uh We just we just put out crafting. We just put out the first version of crafting. How are you guys feeling about it right now? >> You got you got
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>> Dick did a really good job there. >> He he pulled all the things together and motivated the teams working on it. So, so definitely kudos to Deck. >> Yeah, we asked Deck Deck to do a lot at the last minute, >> but like the whole team came together. Like yeah, like it's the first step. Like there's a lot more that we want to do with crafting, but just getting that that that first tier of crafting out felt really good. it's it's you know, that that first step you know, that we needed to take to get it into players' hands to start iterating on it. And we've got got a long ways to go, but there's a lot of cool features coming and yeah. >> It was nice seeing like the avalanche of feedback. You saw some people they want XYZ to be improved. You saw people crafting guns that were 900 quality and
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then there was a helmet that was bugged that I had to fix, which I was a bit annoyed with that. >> I think that it was very nice to see go out. >> It even helped internally because the people working on it they're all motivated to get this feature in a really good quality because they themselves are either a fan of crafting or are really like fan of tying things together in our game. So, that definitely helped a lot. >> Now, of course there are people who are going to have dissenting opinions. They're they're they're they're they're they're they're not they're they're obviously always going to be someone who doesn't like how mining works or how crafting works or how whatever. What would you What would you say to What would you say to people who just wash their hands of the entire system right now? Just I don't like any of this. I I wish you'd made Star Wars Galaxies. Just make Star Wars Galaxies,
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please. >> I I I think it's >> Ahazi. Shout out to Ahazi. >> I I think it's pretty early to wipe your hands of it. Like we we've got a long ways to go both in crafting itself and the other features that are going to support crafting. yeah, it's it's it's too early to tell, I would say. This is absolutely just our first step out the door. And while it's really cool to see what players I can already do do with it, we're far from done. >> We we we did release a a crafting guide alongside and craft and the crafting guide had a wonderful section at the bottom, not just dedicated to everything that was in this one, but a look to a whole lot of things that are already in development for the future. I mean, it's it's and it's not even everything. There
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were a couple things There were a couple things Anything that was like, well, we might whatever, we we struck them out. We we stuck with a we we stuck with a pretty short list of of the things that we were pretty confident on and and that's a pretty it's an impressive list of stuff coming. If you haven't seen uh the crafting guide and checked out the section at the bottom of of where crafting is going, uh I would suggest you you you you check it out. There's some good stuff in there. >> Good job writing that doc. >> At the 11th hour, if I remember correctly. >> No, we worked >> reviewed. this crafting and then there's inventory. Now, one of the one of the obviously we put this new inventory front end on, but one of the big issues that the crafting update made was all the material updates
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made the and all the qualities of of all the materials of different quality have basically put a whole lot of stuff in players' inventories now. Um how are we addressing this? >> There's a couple things in the works for the quality itself, which will help with the bloats. And then, as you mentioned, the crafting guide, there's some inventory adjustments and management tools. The first one is kind of like a folder structure, so if you have 20 variants of copper, they'll be inside a folder. You'll click the folder and then you'll see your 20, so as you're scrolling through the freight elevator, your inventory, it'll look much cleaner until you want to dive in and see all the details. The second one is uh and splitting. So, merging, you know, people have like
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half-empty boxes they're holding all over the place. They would if they're low quality or you're not too bothered to keeping them separate, you could just stick them all together. The quality would average out based on the SU weights. And then splitting is kind of the obvious uh opposite where you take part of a box into into two boxes and that's that's crucial for player trading, right? You don't want to put all your high quality up for sale. You want to take half of it and put it up for sale or maybe you want to share it but sell it. >> So, this is more about like if you have a 60 SU crate, you convert it into two eight SU crates or like into several one SU crates. So, you basically split up the the volume into smaller chunks. That So, the the in comparison to the merging, this will leave the the quality
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unaffected, right? So, just create new containers holding the same material. >> Mhm. And I'm going to ask the question that chat is going to be asking right now and I don't have to look at it. Why wasn't something like that in the first release then? If you know you're going to flood the inventory system with all these new materials, with all these varying uh qualities, why wasn't merge and split and stuff like that in the first release? >> Well, we have to release at some point, no? Something. >> Yeah, yeah. How long do we want to relate on release for all the features that we have planned? If we waited on every little feature that we want to have be have out be part of the system, like it would take us so much longer to get anything out in the player's hands and it would just slow down the iteration overall.
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>> Yeah, people took six months waiting for the next patch. It's one of It's It's hard. It's hard because we waited for everything, we'd never release anything. That's That's just There's a reason why some games go, you know, six months between major releases or even longer and stuff. They go completely quiet. We are putting new stuff out almost every 2 weeks at this point. Now, and it's like this it's because we get feedback on the stuff we have. It's like we need that feedback on the stuff we have. We need that testing on the stuff that we have because we might learn something about the stuff we have that are directly affects the stuff that we're waiting for. And better to know that while we're still working on this than finish this and go, "Oh, I wish I'd known this earlier. If only I'd put what we had out earlier." That information could have informed this as well. A whole lot of There's a whole lot of reasons why we
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operate the why we operate a live environment in the middle of our game development. It's beneficial in a lot of ways and it's annoying. you look at me like, it is. It is annoying to have to put out a feature and you know it needs merging and splitting. It's just not ready. >> I'll never be happy with any feature we put out. It'll never be complete. It'll be as It'll be as good as I can get in the time and resources that I have. That's me being a perfectionist. That's nothing against the game. >> Well, now it's going to be a meme on Reddit. >> Yeah, well. >> Yeah, it'll be a nice square picture of Rich Rick Porter that says, "I'll never be happy with anything I release." >> That's Sure. I'm not It's truth. I'll >> That's me being a perfectionist. That's not an indictment of anything else.
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>> So, what's the plan Oh, I skipped way ahead. So, what's the plan for crafting large items that obviously won't fit in the current fabricator? >> So, with the current fabricator, we had a specific format that we were going for. that's our first version. Where in the future we're going to have the ability to craft directly into local storage with that initial fabricator. So, that you'll you'll have options to craft larger items in the near future. And then longer term with base building, we'll have hanger crafting, and we'll have intermediate steps in ship crafting, as well as locations. So, there's there's lots planned to like expand your options of of size
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in crafting. >> Crafting into the local inventory is one of those things that we we're we're listed on that. >> Yeah, and and crafting the local inventory is more of a stopgap until we can we can bring those other features into the game. So, I don't think that'll be a permanent solution, but it'll be a way for us to start iterating on our larger crafting before we have those other features available. >> Um Hey, Torsten. Will mining modules and gadgets ever be craftable? >> Uh yes, like most of the or a lot of items that we will have or we already have in our game, all of them will be craftable at some point, and we will make sure that most of the items or actually every item that is craftable actually is affected by the quality of the materials that you use for it, so
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that there is a meaningful reason for you actually to craft those items. And for 4.8, we are already like expanding our catalog of craftable items, so we are expanding it to ship components, and uh those will also be affected by the stat improvements that you get from the quality, so you will be able to craft uh Correct me if I'm wrong, Derek, but power plants, >> coolers, >> life support generator, >> Not life support generator. >> We didn't Yeah, so what did we weapons? >> Weapons, yeah. >> Yeah, weapons we disagreed on. Shield generators. >> Shield generators are there. What am I missing? Am I missing something? >> There's tractor beam. >> Uh the the modules the the subcomponents for the salvage
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heads, mining heads, refueling. >> The The refueling one's an interesting one. We probably won't get stats for that, but we will have them because there were some refueling changes. There will be some craftable refueling elements. So, we are actively working on expanding our catalog. >> I'm going to roll you back about the statement all of the items will be craftable. I want to say most of the items >> of the Did I say all? >> You You You You You You You said all. You said all. But, I I know it's somewhere there's going to be some limited edition Vandal cutie doll or something that we give out as a alien week thing or whatever. And somebody's like, "No, that was the only time you get that." or whatever, you know. >> Yeah, no. So, this will be very very clear. So, it's most of the items, not
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all of the items. That was a >> Things that affect gameplay. I think we can I think we can we can we can probably commit to the things that affect gameplay. >> That's absolutely the intent. Like, any anything that affects gameplay that that you would want to progress through the game, um yeah, we want >> that to be craftable. >> If you let me convert a pico doll into a melee weapon I can bludgeon people with and now you got to make >> [snorts] >> I'm sure you could give it somebody. [laughter] >> Is there going to be a way to track what blueprints we have other than looking at the fabricator screen? >> Yes. Um we're going to be adding uh a mo- um an app to the mobiglass so that you'll be able to see and manage all of your um
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blueprints that you collected. Not only ones you've collected, but the ones that you could collect and the ones you could upgrade and like it'll be a full featured app that'll probably um come out after we get the the upgrading in in in place. Uh so, it's more of a future effort, but it's definitely something we have planned. >> Yeah, like a pokedex just for blueprints. >> Yeah, it's what it's again one of those things called out in the uh crafting guide that went live with a with a whole host of things that we're working towards. So, I I want to point that out because there there a number of the questions that we received in the thread were all questions The number of the questions that we had were questions that had answers already published on the day that the crafting went live. So, I want to encourage people to check out that crafting guide available on robertsspaceindustries.com. You You click a thing at the top and then you click another thing and then
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it's in there somewhere. So, we got crafting weapons. A lot of the stuff that we're crafting this first thing is FPS related. Uh will we be able to craft weapon attachments that have different stats from their lootable craft counterparts? >> Yes. So, exactly like the like picking up on the answer from the mining gadgets, it's like most of the items or a lot of the items that we have will be craftable. That includes also the attachments for weapons. So, that means though that the attachments that we find right now in the dungeons, they were already a good test bed for us because we used them back in the day to test Actually, that was the first predecessor of our crafting efforts there where we could
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try out, okay, what happens when we improve the stats on certain components and how does that affect the gameplay? And now that we have proven that we can actually dial back a bit there. So, it's still debatable of how much we want to dial back if we even want to dial back, but crafting will definitely then also be a meaningful way of having components for your weapons that then affect the the functionality of those. >> All of crafting starts with a blueprint. You know, these are the These are the things that determine what you can craft and what not. How many blueprints, not exact number, how many blueprints did would you say that we added in 4.7? >> There's probably websites that have data mined it, so I'm going to get this
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wrong, but I think there was >> Promise me at least 300, but I know you exceeded that by a lot. >> There was about 300 something in missions, and then there was a roughly about a thousand that didn't manage to make it into missions, which are like tint variants. >> And I know there are some still coming online next week. Uh next week we release 4.7.2 with a bunch of new missions for our NYX, and some of those missions reward new unique blueprints that aren't in the system right now. So so that you know so so some of some of the some of those blueprints that that are that are in the 4.7 branch don't even come online until next week when 4.7.2 comes online. That was >> We'll be adding blueprints pretty much constantly. >> It's it's it's it's a it's a neat reward cuz now you you you can you can conceivably add Let's talk about how
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people get blueprints. How do you get blueprints right now? >> At the moment it's just missions. The plan is reputation. So when you reach your reputation milestone, you can get a blueprint. Data pads is a big one, so it'll be a data pad that has a blueprint on it, and then you can download it, and that's a one-time download. Or you could >> Sell it if you've already got it. >> Gift it if you want to. >> So just to to add on that, it's a physical data pad that you can find. So it's it's something that we can place in inventories, that we can place in like in armor pieces from from NPCs. So something that you can physically pick up. >> Treasure hunters. A whole new treasure hunter >> profession of people who go out there and do contested zones and everything and collect blueprints to sell to other people. >> Yeah. But as Dick already stated, important note there is they are one-time use. So once they are consumed,
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the blueprint is then imprinted to whoever used the the the data pad. So it's Yeah. If you already found If you already got the blueprints on the data pad, make sure that you make some money out of it, I would say. >> There's also NPC shops, so more common stuff that we're not too bothered about there being a adventure to go and find like a decoration. You could buy that blueprint in a NPC shop. >> Would Would you ever Would there ever Would you ever consider a a a method of of learning how to reverse engineer a blueprint from dismantling? I mean, if you if you just if you dismantled 500 of the exact same gun, you probably figured out how to make it at this point. >> There's no plan for that, but part of the upgrading like learning the the next tier of a blueprint could include
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missions where you needed to do something like that. We definitely have been talking about that kind of um process. It's It's one of the the two or three main ways of like learning how to upgrade your blueprints that we've talked about. >> And we called it research in in the Citizen Con presentation. And we also have like other steps that you need to take to be able to figure out how to reach the next tier of the item that you own. >> Let's talk about research a little bit cuz cuz that's the we we we we touched on it during the during the crafting guide I mentioned now more times than I intended. Uh >> but tell Give me a little primer. Give Give me Give me Give me Give me Give me a short the nickel version of what research is. >> So, items have different tiers. Default blueprint you get is tier one, and then you could research it to tier
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two. And tier two will will will require uh different materials. It'll have access to a different banding of stats, which are higher than tier one. And in order to get to that tier two, you have to complete the research task, which we kind of just alluded to would be do X Y Z. Initiate your research. Once it's done, you've got access to tier two. And then you can go to tier three for most items, and then ships go up to tier five. >> And the And the virtue of the different tiers is probably depending on the item. It I I'm trying to remember what the virtue We had a long conversation about the virtue of the tiers. Yeah. What What What's the virtue of a of of having a tier three version of of a rifle versus version of versus a tier one? >> Well, the main benefit >> There's another question on the list of
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that alludes to this, but let's do it now. >> Yeah. Well, well, one of the one of the things is that not only can you get more stats, but you can get more options. So, there'll there'll be a material that you can have either different types of or different qualities of that will provide a trade-off between a buff and a debuff. So, you can really lean into one stat that you really like if you want to. That's >> So, not only the stats will get generally better if you increase the tiers, but in the highest tier and in the highest tiers, you will even be able to affect or focus on a certain stat with the downside of affecting another stat in the negative way. >> Okay. >> More more more more like, you know, >> You've done your GED and now you're
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focusing on a specific area and you you you you you you you focus on your English degree and you forget how to do long form division, which is what happened to me. >> Well, I Chris is is really interested in in that kind of trade-off between a buff and a and and you know, plus and a minus when you're crafting, having that choice. So, even though we're planning to do that definitely for the higher tiers, since we want to start iterating on that earlier, we're going to try and come up with a some examples of that before we get to the actual upgrading. >> Nice. I'm volunteering you for work. >> I've I've already been told. >> Why are armor and weapon skins separate blueprints? Wouldn't it be better to have them work like ship paints? It
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would. >> Next question. >> No, so it's it's a tech limitation at the moment where if we want a red version of a blue helmet, we've got to make a new entity and it's the red is like bound to that entity and so in order to craft that red helmet, you need a blueprint for that red one specifically. That's not the long-term goal. The long-term goal is a paint-like system, but just to paint on physical. So it's like a in a very British way, it's a digital license to apply the paint. >> Nice way to work into that. They tax you if you want to watch TV here. >> They do. >> They have You don't just You don't just get to watch TV just buying a TV doesn't mean you get to watch TV here. You own a TV, but you don't get to watch it unless you pay the government a tax. And they send you nasty letters if you don't pay. >> Okay, but they don't even
00:35:12
They don't even know your name. Like resident, we will come for you. I'm like, you don't even know my name. >> I've got a stack of those letters. They're >> Uh but yeah, the the >> I don't even >> A proper A proper tint system for for characters and armors has been on the wish list for for so long. It's just It's one of those things where you can't work on everything all at once. It It's and every time you do the priority call, there's something that just affects a few more people or affects the an actual gameplay element getting better that's just a little more important every time, but hopefully it's time on the wheel will come someday cuz I'm a big fan of Barbie dress-up. There might be a more appropriate term for it, but I always call it like I spend so much time in every MMO I ever
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play just focused on far more than I do in real life. You know, making sure that my character looks exactly how I want them to look. It's like that. So that that that that has to extend from the armor to the to the weapons to the items cuz it drives me crazy when I got when I got a a cool black and red thing and I got a gun that's black and red. I got the helmet black and red and then I pull out a bright yellow tool and I'm like, "No!" "No!" Let me call my dad real quick. You tell me, chat. Am I in the minority? Or am I the only one? Drip or drown. There you go. >> Drip or drown. Are you planning to let players implement custom tags on cargo boxes for the inventory and tractor beam AR?
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Yes. You'll be able to rename uh boxes, inventory boxes. Cargo boxes. And so, when you zap them with your tractor beam, it'll say the name of the box. >> When's that coming tomorrow? >> I don't think it does, you know. No. I don't think tomorrow's the release date for that one. Hey, the crafting guide. This is a question. I didn't bring it up. The crafting guide has a short blurb on salvage updates for crafting. Can you give us more details? salvage consists of two different or like methods of how you get like or you convert the the ship debris that you found into material. So, one side is RMC. And right now, I don't think we
00:37:39
have any recipes making use of RMC, but >> We don't yet, no. >> in the in the future patches, we will have blueprints that actually will make use of RMC. So, RMC will be already used um as a craftable material there. Uh on the other side with the um disintegration of um all the construction material, um I forgot the name because me This name is killing me every time I am sitting >> They're your names, right? >> Huh? >> They're your names. >> Yeah, they are my names. >> Rubble. >> No, no, no, no. It's It's It's So, the construction materials that you get from the disintegration process, right now you get the construction material. That was never the intent. We always wanted to make um the the materials that you get from
00:38:26
disintegrating the ship being based off what the ship is actually made of. So, an example is if you find a Vanduul ship, you get a Vanduul material out of it. If you find the Gladius, you will get some GT Aluminide, which is like the Aegis material from it. So, you get like these processed materials in a certain quality which the ships were made of, and then you can process them and reutilize them for the crafting process. So, like everything that we dismantle, the goal is that this also applies in the larger scale, which is the disintegration of ships. So, that means that the material that you basically recycle from them have the quality that they were made with. You lose the amount or some amount of the material, but at least the materials that it was made of, you will
00:39:16
you can repurpose them with the quality that you found them in. >> Yeah. And just to note on those, the Vanduul materials, those will be exclusive to this collection method, so to speak. So, there'll be like a high value in the other way you would get them. I cannot cannot invade Vanduul space just out of them. Yeah. >> Well, not yet. >> Spoilers. nice Millyway shirt. Thank you. Old heads might recognize this design. This design might look real familiar if you were in the project for years and since 2014. And the very first work I did for the company. if you don't know what Millyways is, read a book.
00:40:06
It's It's rude. But read a book. It's a really good book. Um will Will blueprints drop at boss vices at Will blueprints drop from boss fights at some point. >> We touched on that briefly. >> The pads with day three huts, yeah. >> I think the 4.7 we did introduce I might be throwing Elliot under the bus here. I think we introduced a couple missions for the O'Mande and the uh Apex uh Valcor, so there's boss fights ish associated blueprints at the moment. But yeah, the blueprints will be there. The day blueprints will be there. >> Good use case there. >> Associated with the the missions that you can complete for boss fights as well as the loot that you can collect around the boss fight. Yeah, we definitely plan
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on that. >> The Apex Valcor is not in the game yet. >> What's it What's it called then? The The storm worm. I forget it's like official lore name. >> Uh that [snorts] that that's the What is the What is the name of the uh >> The radiated Valcor, yeah. The The Apex radiated is the name. The The Apex sand Valcor. >> Still waiting. >> It's not a very good thing. >> I was just I was just talking I was just talking to Brian Canaries about it yesterday though. He's He's still so excited about it. It's coming along. >> It is really cool. I like it. We've changed up the the fight a little bit. >> I know we did this whole citizen gun thing about it and it's evolved so much since then. It's like uh >> Well, we we we we got something together that was playable. We tested it and it wasn't good enough. So, we made some changes. So, that's how you make a better game.
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>> Heaven forbid. >> You try. >> Will we be able to dismantle high quality NPC gear for the high quality materials? >> I briefly touched on this with the dismantling of ships. It also applies to uh armor pieces that you find on NPCs. So, the goal is that if you find like the the average NPC will just run around with standard gear, right? But you will find like uh our so-called boss enemies or elites or however you want to call them and they might be carrying like better armor or better weapons. And if you then change ownership of them towards you and you decide to dismantle them, the be have them crafted in the background. So, what you get from dismantling them is
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actually the higher quality material that they were supposed to be crafted with. >> Uh yes, of course the radio show is better than the book. >> I mean, obviously. Uh except the book does get to fix a lot of things that were kind of problematic about the radio show. Like like Trillian disappears for the entire second fit of the uh the radio show. Like this. But um I've actually been So, apropos of nothing, I've been secretly recording my own version of the radio show for like the last 3 months where I play all the characters for my daughter. >> Hitchhiker's? >> Yeah yeah I have yeah. So, so base so base so basically when you when it comes time to introduce your Hitchhiker's, it's actually me doing every voice. >> I assume why not. >> So, she doesn't watch the show show, so nobody tell her.
00:43:18
are blueprints for non-combat stuff planned? >> We've got the ship components. >> are you going to be done, Deck? >> To be fair, >> most of them are done. >> We've got Every every time we speak to Deck, it is like, "Yeah, most of them are done." >> Hey, most of them are done and then we go into review and then >> And then they're not done anymore. >> But there's To be To be fair to you, there's also there there's also quite a few non-combat ones that we don't have planned yet because like it's a different process. Especially when like when it comes to food and drink. >> Correct. Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah. There's there's there's some non-combat stuff coming in like the quantum drives. Um but like Rick says, there's a bunch more that we'll still add in. >> I've been doing this show for better
00:44:08
part of a decade, a little more than a decade. And there has never been a piece of truth uttered more succinctly than Well, everything all of it's done and then it goes to review and then it's not done. >> Like that's game development. That's game development. I thought [snorts] it was done. Well, nobody else in that room did or those two people didn't and you have to you know you have to you synthesize the opinions and you go back and you try it it's just this constant constant iteration. Before you release and after you release. You keep going with a live service game but it's just Lots of things are done. Until they get to review. >> You you do see the progress as you develop it. It's definitely worth it, >> [sighs] >> With the plan of gear degrading over time and only having a limited amount of repairs until it is no longer usable,
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how would you ensure this game does not become a maintenance simulator? And I'm going to go get a >> drink. >> Take your time. >> So, it's something that I think we brought up in different conversations several times at this point. So, we talked about that when we talked about engineering. I think we talked about that even last time when I think Elliot and I were sitting here. degradation is or every system that we do is never meant to like annoy people. We want players to enjoy playing our game and that also means that we have to be very like conscious about some decisions that we take. Degradation is one of those decisions where we are very conscious
00:45:45
about that if we do it wrong, we can be very impactful in your everyday gaming life. Um so, what what we do here is that um we still want degradation to play a big part in our game because it's a way of us um having you exchange components, taking care of components, taking care of your equipment so that they degrade slower and the functionality is reduced in a slower rate than normally they would be. Um but we also want to make sure that there is a floating economy and like in real life at some point the laptop that you own will not be as performant anymore as it is right now. So >> Too late. >> It's uh it's thanks to capitalism you want to buy a new one because you you
00:46:33
you you need a faster PC. And we need a similar system in our game because we need a thriving economy and a thriving economy you get by people buying things. And in our case one of the levers that we have there is actually the degradation because it is like the degradation impacts the functionality so the older your item gets the the less functionality it will have. We will give you opportunity to as they like if you treat it well, the functionality ratio will or the the degradation process is slower so the functionality will remain longer. We will also give you ways to sometimes rare in rare occasions be able to restore some of the the functionality of the item. We will make use for example of the
00:47:21
crafters that you have where you basically can repair that which might be more sustainable for the component than putting your multi-tool onto it and re- pairing it. So it might be a good choice to use the crafting repair functionality over the hand tool repair functionality. overall at some point everything has to go. >> And you have to replace. So because that that then introduces you crafting new components, maybe even better components. So there there is like there is some some interesting mechanics behind that. But but there's also like the things we are very very aware that sometimes you have this one item that you don't want to lose. So, we also want to make sure that we tailor towards those things that
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you you will not lose it. >> Right. Yeah, you you do all that work to to to earn Ashbringer. Yeah, you don't want it to you don't want it to break and >> And just to give an an very very concrete example because we have been working on that actually for quite some time >> Ashbringer? >> Finally. Uh no, it's uh the the degradation cycle because we have been like very vague with all the numbers, but it's it's more like we are talking about game sessions uh concrete example, it's not signed off. It's just me giving you a sneak peek of what we have been discussing is So, we are talking for power plant about a week maybe 1 week and a half of usage, full usage. That means you have the time using it until it is reaches zero
00:48:57
functionality. So, you basically have to replace it. >> You say things that I have to interject. Are you saying a week of game time or a week of real life time with you not logged in? >> No, no, it's play time. So, you playing actively using the component gradually, so it is not even So, the component is not resting, the component is not turned off, the component is on the average use case throughout a week and a half. >> So, 100 more than 150 hours before you have to >> So, let's not give exact numbers. >> But like the the high-level intent is that it's it's not something that you're going to have to deal with every play session. It's a long-term mechanic. >> Yeah, even Scrux, first time chatter, hey, welcome to the chat, said, "Just don't do it like this other game that I'm not going to slag off. I I I don't I
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can't do more than 2 hours of gaming without repairing all my gear 20 times." I don't know if he how prone to hyperbole they are, but that that that's what you're talking about. >> Exactly. Like I said, the number that I gave is just a very very rough number. It didn't go through any iterations yet. But also like this is like the extreme, right? We are talking about 100% functionality versus 0% functionality. There are degradation bits in between that we hope actually increase like interesting game >> Remember he said this design isn't signed off, it's just what he's currently working on. And again, >> it goes done and then it goes to review. And then a bunch of people have voices and you make changes, then it goes to PTU. Then a bunch of people, you know, give feedback and then it changes and then it goes to live. And then even more
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people get give feedback and then you know, it's it's a process. It can it continues to go, but I think we're keenly aware of it. I remember when we were back to introduce um thirst and hunger and and and and player I can't think of the word right now, but everything player injuries and stuff. Everyone was like, "Oh my god, I'm going to spend all my time drinking uh drinking pips and and dealing with hydration and stuff like that. And and even if it is a bit overwhelming when it goes out, whatever that is, that's what continual balance is for. That's what this process of running an open a live environment in the middle of our development is for so that we can get this data in real time. We have our ideas, then we can test them and then we can have better ideas and change stuff. And that's you know, it's it's been proven out in the process. So I it's I I
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I understand the the the knee-jerk reaction to degradation being this terrible terrible thing, but I've known I've known the people here for a long time now. I know what your intents are. I know what your your what drives you guys. I'm not worried. Even even if it's too even if it's as too severe like that damn boom tube thing. >> That boom tube is ridiculous, Zach. He will be watching. You need to You need to tune that thing. You know, bring it down. >> I had a chat with him. >> It It's a little There he is. There he is. He's in chat. >> That boom tune is But that's the process. You know, YOU GOT TO SEE. You got to see, is this overpower? I don't know. Well, let's put
00:52:08
it in. Let's see. Oh. >> You've been throwing Chris under the bus. I like it. >> So it's like So we we we can we continue to we continue to tweak and and twerk. And why don't twerk? Does torsion twerk, though? >> I don't know. >> What? Uh we got We got time for a couple more. Is there a plan to provide high-level design briefs for major feature releases to help bridge the gap between initial limitation As as mentioned several times in the show, we did. Uh now not as detailed as we used to. That this this person might be referring to the Yale days where where where we would write up this entire thing about
00:52:55
what We did a We did a design brief on MixMaster. We did a design brief on an entire game loop about how to make drinks for NPC passengers and keep them happy whatever. And the reality of development is that so many things have changed since then. Systems have changed. People have changed. We've all grown and uh it's It's just the likelihood that that document is anything remotely accurate is you don't need me to make a comment on it. You should be able to tell. So we we we moved away from full-on design briefs like that because all too often all too often it just led to disappointment. Because again, we we we we we we ended up changing it because we had to because of some technical limitation or changing it because somebody new joined the team and came up with a better idea. It's like, well
00:53:43
No, we're not going to stick with the old idea if it's not as good. We want to do the new idea. But now we've changed. You didn't do what you said you were going to do and stuff even though it's something we believe is better. So we we did move away from those old super detailed design briefs of of of or of of your and that maybe that's what they're referring to. But we have made a we have made an effort for this last year to to update things like the mining guide and the salvage guide and the crafting guide and the medical guide and and and and the cargo guide and stuff like this and and and make a lot of our intentions known, make a lot of our philosophies known and give a glimpse at the future of where this where this feature is going as like we did with medical and like we did with with crafting like so. >> Engineering. >> Engineering, thank you. >> So so yeah, so there is that effort. There is that effort. It won't be as detailed as it was back in old days.
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>> big new features that that we want to explain to people as best we can um especially since we we're going to be iterating on them and we don't want to do in-game versions of those tutorials yet. We we want to have the those available for people. >> And then of course we do shows like this where we talk to the designers and and we we explore their intentions and and and what their struggles are and stuff like that. I asked if you were I asked you how you were feeling about crafting. How you feeling about inventory? Right now. >> It's >> Be be be be real. It's all right, you can be real. >> Yeah. Um it has improved features. So proximity loot is very nice. You can take the one SCU store all with you and you can just hoover up the loot as you The
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Sorry. It needs to be snappy though. It needs to interact like quickly. It needs to be instant. So we're aware of that and you know we we are proud of the features that it's gone out with and we are continuing to work on the interactivity and the responsiveness. >> Yeah, it it's nice to see an improvement to the inventory system. It's frustrating to see some of the things that we wanted to get fixed that didn't make it into the build. it's frustrating to see some of the performance limitations that we haven't been able to solve yet, but we're actively working on it and it'll continue to get better. >> Any anything in 4.8 you can point to? May help? >> That's that's a one question. >> 4.8? >> No, no, no, no, I know, dude. >> Yeah, it's 4.8. Um the There is 4.8
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comes out it comes out it sounded like a Will this feature be Is there something Is there work in 4.8? There is. So, there is it's can be quite hard to see the icons. So, we are going from five across the top on a row to four across the top on a row. >> So, did you make the icons bigger or >> Yes, just the the whole thing scaled up as far as the the inventory icon. And then not in 4.8, but related to that is we will have the support for wide screen for dynamically sizing the the inventory panels and you'll have the option to scale up and down the icons yourself. >> scale them all the way down, they just turn into a text list instead of a series of icons. It's just a text list. >> Is the scaling in 4.8?
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>> Okay, that's why [laughter] I had to ask. >> Well, yeah, I said not for 4.8. >> Okay, I I missed that part. I I heard being being able to scale your icons >> Most of them probably heard that as well. >> In development. >> Yeah. For 4.8 we went with the with the the larger um icons. Yeah, just to make it more visible and then the the scaling is coming and also like the improvements to like the actual rendering of those icons. >> All right, you mentioned improving the lighting and stuff like that. What about the rotation? So, some of them I feel goes go a little too fast to tell what they are. >> Too fast? I don't know. I I >> So, we have the rotation of the icon within the inventory box. And if they're broken, that's my fault cuz I set those >> So.
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>> Maybe I'm just Maybe there will be fixed. >> Send Declan an email at >> Maybe I'm Maybe I'm just wrong. >> I did Don't tell Ian this, but I I put the undersuits [laughter] I put the undersuits the wrong way around, so they're facing ass front. >> Uh two two more questions and we're done. Why aren't there any backpack blueprints? >> Just didn't have time in 4.7. They'll be there in 4.8. >> Oh, so those will be in 4.8? >> So some more non-combat >> Yeah, that's true. >> Backpack doesn't shoot. And and and so so what what What are the stats of backpacks that >> Well, no, to be fair, they won't have stats. >> Eventually they would. Stuff like weight. But uh yeah, it's just nice to craft your own backpack, so we're adding that blueprint in.
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And last question cuz I don't know the next time we're going to get to talk about this topic. Uh what do you want to say to people? What what you know, it's it's now been out there for for a couple weeks now, about a month. I'm not I'm not Nobody's ever looked at Jared and said he knows what day it is. Um what do you want to say to people about crafting and inventory today? >> I I think we're you know, we're we're very proud of it and we we love the feedback we receive. You know, it's it's great seeing like people interact with it and we'll we'll continue to iterate, continue to build upon it. It's It's nice to see. It's It's a big feature. It's going to be a long-running feature. So, we're excited to have it out. >> Get out there and try it if you haven't. Start playing with it. Give it your feedback cuz we're going to be, you know, working on it actively for for
00:59:21
quite a while and there's a lot more features to come and a lot more iteration to come and I'm really excited about where it's going. >> It made friends of mine play mining even though they don't like mining. >> So, so it definitely had some attractiveness to people. >> And see, you touched on something, but it brought people who weren't going to try one game loop to try a game like and there's some and that is how you make a successful MMO, personally. You know, not just that alone, of course, but making inviting people and making it encouraging to them to to step outside their comfort zones and explore the diff- all the different aspects of a game or how games thrive and and live. Like the the ability I was I was thinking about this earlier like like
01:00:11
all the way all the ways blueprints. There are peo- there are going to be people who just chase blueprints. The Pokémon players who are just like, "Oh, no, you showed me a list of 350 things. I have to collect all 350 and whatever." And you can set these blueprints across missions for all manner of gameplay. And and and you know, and and and people can try medical for the first time if they've never done that. People can try salvage for the first time if they've never done that. I mean, it's systems like this are ones that truly touch every [clears throat] single aspect of the game. And if we do it right and we make it fun and it works, >> then it it I mean, it always has to work. There the opportunity the the opportunity there to to bring players to
01:01:00
more aspects of the game are are just fantastic. Uh blueprints and crafting have been the most exciting feature aspect for me in a long time. Like this is a big year for me. The biggest feature for me is crafting and the biggest content for me is tactical strike groups. >> Waiting for this thing. So, so, so the fact that we've started this journey with crafting now the fact that and the fact that I I I I sit I sit on the I sit on the play-throughs. I sit on the play-throughs. I am I to say that I am a bad pilot is an understatement. I have I have peripheral neuropathy and I you know it it it twitches every once in a while and stuff like that. You know how people like blame their controllers? No, I I blame my own hands and whatever. So, I'm I'm not I'm not good with anything that requires a lot of fine control, unfortunately. And flying through the trench run and right
01:01:47
and right and racing the distortion and whatnot is but I'm like No, no, no, I'm happy with just watching. I'm happy with just watching and and relishing in the enjoyment of other people. So, so having that crafting journey start uh you know, in 4.7, having tactical strike groups start in 4.8. Um it's it's just it's it's an a really exciting time for the project. Have we gone live to PTU yet or have you forgotten? >> Friday. >> Have we told them the tactical strike groups is in 4.8? >> Oh, tactical strike groups is in 4.8. It's super cool. Get in the PTU when that goes live. >> It's been cool seeing people become
01:02:34
better pilots just doing the some of those runs. >> [gasps] >> Jared, why did you stop? You wanted to say a third thing about the battle cruiser? Did I want to say something about the battle cruiser? What more would I say that a portfolio update and a galactapedia update haven't already done? All right. So, that's it for Star Citizen Live. Torsten's looking at me, he has no idea. It's like >> Uh that's it for for Star Citizen Live. Uh thanks for watching. Uh there will be no show next week. No show next week? >> Uh no. >> Yeah, no sh- no show next week. Uh we're actually doing a a pre-tape uh for some some other stuff that we got to do, but we'll be back the week after that as we head into the most exciting time of the year, May, and our our our our our big ship showcase and and >> Big big big ship showcase.
01:03:23
>> Big ship showcase. And that's our ironclad guarantee. All right. >> Take it easy, everybody. I'm Jared. That >> Rick Deckard, Torsten. Uh see you later, everybody. Take care. Bye.

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