10 For the Chairman Episode 64

Transcript — every row opens the video at that moment

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   [Music] [Applause] Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of temp for the chairman. Uh so um this is my first temp for the chairman after release of the social module which uh we released on Friday. So um hopefully you guys are banging on it pretty hard. I'm I'm sure it's uh um going to um fall down a few times since we've tested in the PTU and there's been quite a few uh people help out there and it's been great but not had a fuller load. Um but anyway, it's a you know, it's kind of a cool milestone. Uh we got a bunch more stuff happening um this uh coming month and and next

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   month. So uh anyway, um hopefully you guys are enjoying it. It seemed like on the PTU people were having a good time. uh the guys in Austin did a really good job to push that out and the guys in behavior um you know who because the uh PTU release was mostly sort of Austin and Behavior with some support from here in LA and support in the UK. Um but anyway, so there you go. So hopefully you're having fun. Um but um let's get to the business at hand. This is where I answer 10 questions for subscribers. Subscribers are the subset of our community that contribute money every month. Um and their their sort of subscription helps fund uh various community content we do. So this show is one of them, but uh around the verse uh we do Jump Point, which is sort of a uh 50 to 70 page magazine, although I think

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   this past month's one was like 80 or 90 pages. Pretty crazy. Uh and uh you know so we do various shows, Bug Smashers, uh ship shape and uh all of that sort of enhanced community content is made possible by subscribers who by their generous contributions allow us to do um you know a lot more sort of community interaction and content uh which I think is great. So it's something that makes Star Citizen very special and so thank you all for um doing that and as part of a reward for that I get to answer 10 questions from you. I think the other thing that we uh launched by the way this uh this past uh Friday was uh the community hub. So hopefully that will be uh going strong and well uh for you guys and you also like that. So um we're we're we're pretty focused and working pretty hard to try and um give you uh uh

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   you know as much of the Star Citizen experience as we go as we possibly can. So uh there's definitely some very cool stuff ahead um for the rest of this year and um and um obviously next year. So, um, anyway, thank you guys for all your patience and support. All right, first question is from Rex Blackthornne, who asks, "What is the state of the MPC crew AI? Will we be able to throw a few MPC into our multi- crew ships when Arena Commander 2.0 goes live, or is that something that will come in the future?" So, that will definitely come in the future. Um, in Tony's um, uh, sort of outline of what we've been doing on the sort of persistent social/persistent universe, he outlines when we're going to bring AI in to sort of the kind of planet side environments

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   um, with sort of subsumption, which is this uh, sort of higher level AI system that we have that uh, sort of runs the daily lives of the AI and allows them sort of, you know, get up in the morning, go do their job, go get lunch somewhere, there and go back to the job then go home, go to sleep, etc. Um, and so some sumption um and a few other basic AI things uh need to be finished off um in so we can sort of have it run universally uh around the place so it can work inside zones inside of ships flying. Uh so that's not going to be for the very first release of multi crew. Uh but it will hopefully be um you know a few releases after that. So we'll definitely have AI uh going about their daily lives uh in the universe or in sort of the multi- crew sort of test

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   large world map um you know not too hopefully far after multi crew and we'll definitely have AI that you will encounter even with the the release of multi crew. So there will be PvE opportunities as well as sort of PvP opportunities in this sort of big sandbox map that we're going to give you guys. So, uh, there'll be a lot to do, but, um, you know, having actual specific crew that can work on your ship, uh, will not be part of that initial release. That'll be sort of a longer term thing. Um, so there you go. Next question, uh, comes from Lothar, who asks, "We know ships will show wear, tear, and damage. What about clothes? If we get shot or stabbed while doing shady business, will that damage show? Will the damage persist? Do I have to buy a new shirt because I really like that one?" Um, so we have a a a new um sort of character shader tech that we've been

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   working on. So Oka, who's you know sort of senior graphics engineer here in LA, is actually working on that and it's very cool and it um has a whole bunch of layering which includes the same sort of wear and tear systems that we have for the ships and the buildings. So we will definitely have wear and tear on um the clothes. Uh, so over time they'll sort of come a bit older and then you'll either you'll, you know, have to buy some new ones. Uh, I don't know if they'll be necessarily take them to a tailor and fix them up kind of thing that we're thinking about. You know, the ships would definitely have that, but not so sure about clothes. Uh, on the damage side of it, um, we haven't finalized kind of exactly how we're handling the external damage. Longterm, we want to have something that's not too dissimilar to what we're doing for ships. Uh, for character sort of damage, you know, where you get shot on your armor and stuff like that. Um, so, uh,

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   you know, if, uh, we get that working, it would persist the same way that we would do for ships. But for right now, you definitely have wear and tear on, uh, clothes longer term, um, when that new shade is in, although it's not in the, um, social module yet, but, it probably will be in multi crew, uh, when we release it. Next question comes from Traz Ion of Ion Industries who asks with a social module pending not pending anymore. The question of the character creator is on many a mind can you speak to the intentions of how robust it will be in regards to players ethnicity, hairstyles, colors, and physique. Okay, so the character creator u is something that's fairly high priority for us, but it won't be around for a while because we have to uh resolve some issues with how we do the character heads. So, um, we have these very, very, very, um,

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   fancy, uh, heads. You can see a little bit of them in the game now, but, uh, we'll be showing some sort of next step up stuff for at Citizen Con. But the concept is that we're going to have we have we we've already sort of taken a bunch of um, scans of different uh, people uh, male and female uh, of different ethnicities. And the concept is that you'll be able to uh morph or blend between different face types um to create the sort of face that you want when we're ready to uh to do that. There's some behind the scenes technical stuff that we have to do. We have to move from sort of pre-baked uh like animation uh conversation stuff to sort of runtime interpretation uh interpolation stuff uh which we are working on. Um uh we have a you know

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    incredibly talented animation uh senior engineer um called Evo Herzug who uh is in our German office and he actually is the guy that wrote Cry Animation in the first place. Um and so that's actually um his next task right after he finishes uh the sort of ragd doll zerog stuff that uh we're working on right now. So um so once we get that running then we'll be able to blend between the heads. So, the initial stage for sort of customizing your character will probably let you just sort of pick uh one of uh I think we have right now sort of eight male, eight female heads. Uh so, eight male and then eight female. So, you'll be able to pick one of these head types and then um you know, we are working to putting a whole sort of process in place for clothes and stuff like that. So, you can sort of decide what clothes you're

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    going to wear. Right now, of course, all you can do in the social module is you can just be one of the uh you know, six characters that um will be with the FPS. So, you know, light, medium, and heavy marine or light, medium, and heavy outlaw. But, uh longer term, we want you to dress up in, you know, the clothes, the outfits you want to. So, we're just finishing off our sort of character pipeline in terms of some of the new tech we're getting in place, the shader tech I was talking about, the process, and uh then we're just going to try to ramp it up to generate a bunch of clothes. as we're sort of doing our last tweaks on our sort of base male and base female uh meshes and then hopefully we'll have a whole sort of pipeline for clothes and uh you know I don't uh you know that's not with this social and it'll probably be a few months out before you'll see that but when we get round to sort of activating the shops um you know certainly before the end of

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    this year there hopefully will be um sort of clothes and stuff you can customize your character and not too long after that we'll be able to sort of customize the the head. Uh we're not sure about body type uh because uh if we do too significant of a difference in body type uh we would need a different skeleton. So we have one standard player skeleton which is I think you've seen all our updates where we've changed every one of these skeletons you seven times now uh for lots of good reasons. Uh but um you know it's a massive retarget whenever you change them. So the concept is we're going to have one base male skeleton and one base female skeleton for players. we will have some specific skeletons for other characters, NPC characters. So like in squadron 42, uh certain characters will not be sort of the standard sizing. And then on top

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    of that, we can change some level of a sort of appearance. So you can have uh you know, someone that's say slightly fatter or someone that's slightly thinner um but not necessarily changing the general sort of body proportions or the bone proportions because that's the real issue with the skeleton. If you suddenly start changing the length of the legs or the length of the arms, then you have to retarget all the animations. And we have thousands and thousands and thousands animations because we don't just have running around FPS combat stuff. We have all these sort of um kind of, you know, living in the universe animations, you know, getting in and out of your ship, sitting down at the table, you know, taking a nap uh in in your bunk bed in your ship. Uh all these sort of things, dancing, which, you know, people are quite fond of doing right now in the social. Uh all those kind of things. So, um, so that's why we sort of have to, uh, we can't sort of, you know, we we can't have players decide, okay, I'm now going to have like a a small

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    character, a me, you know, a medium side, tall character, and a really tall character, um, for that skeleton reason. So, we'll do some height differentiation based on the head because that can give you a side. And we'll probably do some body size differentiation, uh, but not general sort of proportion uh, differentiation that will be sort of more reserved for NPCs. So, I hope that answered that question. I guess I didn't answer the bit about ethnicity. I did hairstyles, colors, and physique. So, you will be able to t pick different hairstyles. Uh, and you'll be able to pick different colors, skin colors, etc. And physique was sort of I was talking about the the body size. All right, there you go, Trazion of Iron Industries. Hope that helped answer you uh your question. So, next question comes from Delwin, who asks, "The new exterior damage system for ships is stunning, but what will happen with the

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    interior?" Um, well, we're we're working on that. So, the interior uh will have some form of it will probably use uh part of that damage system and then we'll also uh potentially switch out sections, you know, like a blown up or destroyed uh monitor, a VDU will have damage effects like sparks and stuff like that. Uh so uh when you're inside a ship and it's taking damage um you should also feel a certain amount of inside with you know suddenly steam coming out of a vent and stuff like that or things breaking or sparking or shutting down. Um so hopefully that helps uh go with that and I think we would the the you know the multi- crew would be sort of the first place where you'd sort of feel more of that. So you'll sort of see some of that in the

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    Carney and the Retaliator. So, um, I will always be trying to improve it and, make it better. The next question comes from Citizen 2900, who asks, "Will we be able to roam one of the big floating structures in the Murray Cup map at some point for spectator purposes?" Uh, absolutely. So, uh, you know, that's a big goal of mine is to have all these different locations that you go and visit and there's as much sightseeing as anything else. Um, you know, that's one of the the exciting things about sort of the multi- crew module is we're just basically building a really large world map. Uh, sort of as a sandbox to sort of be our test kitchen basically for the PU. So, the large world map won't really be uh, you know, a real location in the persistent universe because we're sort of going to pack a lot of different things in this uh, one sort of system or area. Um but it will be great for us to sort of test everything out and then

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    once we got a lot of it going and in the background we'll be working on these other systems we'll just sort of switch over to the systems and you know the sort of b you know the you know the first stage of the PU will come online. I mean I kind of re refer to multi crew as sort of baby PU because we're sort of going to make sort of large world map be more of a sandbox. So it's not so much arena commander get in have points to win beat the other people. We'll still let you do Arena Commander for a competition thing, but that will be sort of in a limited arena area. The large world map for the multi crew will be sort of just spawning in uh kind of the same way that we're doing for the social where you can just go hang out, come in and out um and fly around and people can work together or go, you know, fight engage uh NPCs or AI in certain areas or, you know, you know, mess around with other people. So, um, uh, we will, uh,

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    see how that goes, but I think it's a really good sort of base for sort of all the PU kind of stuff that we need to work out and actually a good base for a lot of stuff we need for Squadron 42. Uh, and so long-winded answer, but yes, I'd like you to go and be on the floating structures, look down at Spectator, and see races. And ultimately in the final game, uh, we'll definitely have the Murray Cup go just like Formula 1 between different locations. And you know, one will be a race through asteroids, another will be racing through structures. Um, and we'll have these different locations and you can go and spectate and we'd have we'd have like qualifiers and then we'd actually have a competition that players could come and other players could come and watch and then we'll also sort of live stream it and uh that's all the sort of stuff we want to do to make this universe feel more real, more alive. Uh, you know, get lost in it. I think it'll be really cool. All right, next question comes from Moo Kidids, who asks, "How

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    will ship parking work in the PU? Will there be landing on instance pads? Will our ship be pulled into a parking hanger after we land in order to make more room for other players? So, yes, we will definitely be landing on instance pads in uh the PU. So, you'll get landing permission and then you'll fly down to the planet and there'll be a pad that will be assigned for you. You'll get out of um the pad and then you'll um walk into customs and be able to go in like so if you're in Art Corp now, you can sort of see the customs area. You can see through the window where there would be a landing pad where you would land in area 18. Uh and uh you know that we would instance uh a fair number of those. You could see uh perhaps some other players landing uh around. So you can sort of track people coming and going. But your one particular pad will be instance and then we're sort of uh

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    there is some debate of depending on whether we would sort of have that ship taken off to a hanger or it would stay out on the pad uh for you in your sort of universe. But maybe uh perhaps uh someone else would be different because we sort of gate going to the pad. So um like you and your friends could go to your pad, but someone that didn't know uh say you and your friends or didn't have permission couldn't go to your pad. And we're going to play with some of those ideas anyway. That's one of the nice things with the sort of multi- crew stuff. We got some ideas for spawning and stuff like that in that too. So um uh but we definitely uh you know will need to instance it. we're not going to necessarily have a massive uh landing pad where you know you could have 50 people all landed at once because um you know that's a huge spaceport. So you know potentially on terror there could be a spaceport that has quite a few

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    people landed on it but um you know we will definitely also have cases where there'll be sort of landing pads um that are for one ship or maybe two ships that are sort of instanced or not. So uh but that's all sort of stuff to play around with. Again, this is one of the really good things with multi crew and this is the sort of conversation that I have with Tony to try and solve the the best ways um to deal with it. I mean, it's the same thing as say going into the social module, taking the h taking the elevator from your hanger. So, at what point do we uh put you out in the in sort of art court with the other players? Do we do it inside the elevator? Do we do it when you step outside the elevator? What happens if someone's trying to sort of block you getting in and out of an elevator? So, there's a lot of edge cases we got to work on. Next question comes from X Toddman X asks with the release of the social module comma FPS and finally

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    Arena Commander 2.0 which is multi crew. I was wondering what currency we will be using when PU beta is up and running. Will we use UEC or Wreck and will it be deleted when the PU goes live? Well, as soon as we get the PU up running up and running properly, it will definitely be UEC. And we may actually experiment with using uh UEC in sort of the large world multicrew map when we um turn on like shops and the ability to buy items. Uh so, and then uh you know, whether or not it will get deleted when the PE goes live, I'm not sure. We we have to sort of consider uh what's happening. We may very well um have uh a situation where you know what you do or what you earn in sort of the multi crew area the large world map um will sort of I don't know

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    call it um beta or test UEC uh or it may be the real stuff. I don't know. I mean it's just it's to be honest with you we we haven't had a chance to sort of think about that. But you would definitely be using UEC not wreck. Wreck is what you have for Arena Commander which is sort of the gamy credits whereas UEC is the actual in universe credits. And so you know I'm looking at sort of multi crew as being the baby PU. So uh that's uh can we do it? And then the question would just be whether whether it would be uh you can use the UEC that you have and you could earn some more UEC but the UEC you actually earn in uh the multi crew um would potentially go away once the game goes live. Of course, the UEC that you had purchased um would not that would carry over to the proper one because obviously that's the UC that you've purchased or the UEC that came

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    with your pledge. Next question comes from Josh who asks, "When you were looking to hire programmers on your team, what kind of processes did you go through and what kind of qualification qualifications do you look for?" So, uh well, you know, I mean, people send in their resumes. I think we sort of specify on the job description kind of what we're looking at. you know how many years of experience or you know if that is even relevant. And we also for engineers we have some basic sort of technical tests that we we send out and have the applicants test just to make sure that um you know we feel they're at a sort of base standard of uh sort of technical competency. But you know really for me like you know obviously if someone's worked on uh some you know interesting or complicated games in the past that obviously is a plus but um you know we're much more interested in um

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    sort of end results uh than sort of any degree. So like if someone's you know made their own game uh you know in Unity or Unreal or Cry Engine or something uh you know if they built their own little prototype um they worked on a modding team they worked on you know other teams in the industry all those things matter much more to us than actual you know whether you've got a degree in computer science or not because um you know in well basically making computer games I think there's a lot you know it's it's it's uh you've got to have a passion you got to have a love for it um and when people put together their own sort of demos and um you know you know examples of kind of systems they've written it sort of shows how they think how they put it how they how they sort of apply

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    their engineering knowledge to achieve an objective so that's all much more interesting so you know like we have Mark aent here in the LA office you know who we hired you relatively as a relatively junior programmer but you know he was he's been working uh you know on you know mods for quite a long time and you know he's fantastic is one of our best guys and it's because he you know is willing to roll up his sleeves and look into the code and figure out what's happening uh and uh you know he he he's sort of self-starting so all those things are are super important um so I would say you know if you are looking um you know obviously having experience in the industry helps but if you don't have experience in the industry then I would say you know doing a demo uh you know if you worked on your own game all those kind of things are actually very um they're very they they work they work well for us. That's that

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    impresses us. So, um there you go. I don't know if that answered the question, but that's kind of what we go through when we're looking uh for programmers and generally also anyone else. I mean, if an artist comes to us and they built a really great spaceship or a great character, that says a lot more than um anything else. And next question, I would guess Spectre NYC, but uh the E on the Spectre is actually a three backwards. So sp3 cctyc um who asks will players automatically orient when traversing a ship in zero g? Do characters automatically orient to a y-axis in the ship zone regardless of gravity effects? Uh so I'm guessing that um you are uh working in a uh you know 3D um engine or um modeling package that

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    has y up. So in Cry Engine and also in 3ds Max Z is actually up. So Z is up for us. Y is going forward. Uh X is um this way. Um but uh we're not going to have the players automatically orient uh to sort of up uh if it's in zero G. Uh you know that's the whole thing in ZG. There is no specific up. So what would happen if gravity does come on? Obviously they will orient to wherever the gravity pulls them down. But once there's no gravity, they can turn around, roll, move around, and there is no up. Um, so you can be interacting, moving around, fighting someone and you can all have your own particular frame of references which will be based around you. All right, last question comes from Lord Razer X who asks uh, for the science

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    research curious of us, how much realism can we expect? What resources are you using to bring interesting content to the PU? Are you consulting with real scientists and physicists? we'll be able to solve the mystery of dark matter in the Star Citizen universe. So, uh, you know, Dave and Will, who are sort of our our stalwart writing team um have, uh, been actually having some conversations with, uh, proper real scientists because we're sort of finishing up the, uh, the star map, which is another thing that we will be sharing with you guys at Citizen Con and I think you guys will really like it. It's pretty damn impressive. Uh so um we are um you know consulting with real astrophysicists to try and uh you know flesh out the rest of like some of the science and the physics of um the fiction, the universe and the planets. So we're definitely doing that. Um

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    Tony's very keen on having us uh quite a bit of sort of scientific research and realism. So we actually have some dedicated ships. We have the Endeavor that's coming up which will be a science platform. Um we have a variant of the Reliant that will be sort of a more science researchbased vessel. Uh and we have a few other things where like there will be non combat based gameplay. So uh you know one obviously is exploring and charting areas. Uh but another one will be sort of you know actually analyzing. So you know basically say like getting on the tail of a comet and figuring out what the composition of the comet is when you're following behind it and then later on you can maybe uh you know based on that you would take that data back to the sort of UEE um and sort of uh sell that for for for money. So we're so we're going to have various parts of

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    gameplay that involve science and research. um you know whether it's researching stuff down on planets or in asteroid fields or you know things like comets as I mentioned um and uh so we're you know and you know obviously we sort of have a science fiction universe you know so so there's a certain amount of like um you know fantasy elements to the science fiction because obviously uh real uh if it was hardcore science probably in 2900 it wouldn't look exactly the way it does in Star Citizen and Star Citizen's sort of more a you know kind of our, you know, childhood imagined cool sci-fi universe. Uh, but we do try to infuse in various, uh, principles from science and various physical stuff to make it sort of feel more tactile and more real. Um, don't know if we'll be able to solve the

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    mystery of dark matter in the Star Citizen universe. Uh, but you never know. Um, but we are actually, um, you know, like I said, working and, uh, you know, talking to people that know what they're talking about as far as all this to to make everything feel, uh, more real, um, than normal. Okay, there you go. I hope that answered the question. Um, all right. So, uh, thank you. That's the end of, uh, this episode of Time for the Chairman. Hopefully, you guys are sort of enjoying, uh, the social aspects of, uh, you know, our most recent release. uh we'll be sort of um you know on a fairly sort of um regular release schedule now and trying to get you guys more content as it all sort of pulls together. So you know we'll have the social and the FPS and the multi crew are all going to pull together and you

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    know you'll you know the multi crew is basically going to be like a little baby PU. You'll wander around these different areas. is you'll be able to socially interact and if you find a weapon uh out in space or get a weapon from someone then you'll be able to take that and you know use that uh you know in first person against AI or other players and stuff. So it'll be sort of the first place where you'll see things coming together and then we'll be feathering in u you know all the aspects that um you know say Tony was talking about in his sort of persistent universe social outfit and other gameplay features that we need for Squadron 42. And so it's going to be fun. It's going to be I think exciting. I'm kind of looking forward to seeing people uh longer term use all these things together because I think the combination of uh the sort of multi- crew ships and the sort of scale and scope and the ability to do stuff in person, you know, whether it's EVAing

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    around, walking around in person or flying your ships is just sort of gives a a scope and a scale to sort of a gameplay experience that uh you haven't seen before in a space game. And then we'll just carry on adding functionality and stuff. So, I think it's it's really, you know, I think this is why people were excited when we showed what we showed at Games Con and when people get their hands on it, I'm really excited to sort of see what people get up to because you'll be able to do all these things with your friends and it's uh, you know, I think there'll be a whole bunch of stuff I never imagined and we're constantly going to add fun things to it and um, so it's going to be cool and uh, I think uh, it'll be a great ride. So, thank you guys for um, supporting and uh, enabling uh, myself and the rest of the team to build a game we've always wanted to build. I suspect it's also the game you guys want to play and you know we all want to play in it

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    with you. So, thank you very much to all the backers out there. Again, thank you to the subscribers um for um allowing us to sort of do this extra uh enhanced community content and um I guess I will see you next week. Bye. Hey guys, thanks for watching um Temp for the Chairman. Uh if you guys would like to uh see more episodes, go here. If you guys would like to subscribe to our YouTube channel and always keep up to date with all our video content, go here. And uh if you guys would like to watch episodes of Round the Verse, go here, please. And I will see you in the verse.