Star Citizen Live Q&A: Vehicle Gameplay, Design and Balance

8 May 202601:16:492,218 linesWatch on YouTube ↗

Transcript — every row opens the video at that moment

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Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of Star Citizen Live. I'm your host Jared Huckaby and this week's show is a special pre-tape show for our friends in Xi'an, China. We as we do at this time of year, they have this big giant mega event with something like 2,000 uh people. I don't know. I've I've never been, never been invited. >> [laughter] >> But a big event uh they submit questions. We go through questions. We pick the ones that we can address on the show. This year we opened a thread up to on Spectrum to the rest of the community to integrate their questions in. So we get questions from all around the world. This is our typical Fleet Week show where we we take questions all about spaceships and spaceship gameplay and spaceship design and spaceship balancing and why haven't
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you made my spaceship the way that I want you to make my spaceship? Why? Why didn't you make my spaceship the way I wanted you to? >> Don't want to. >> Fair enough. Uh so we're going to we're going to dive into the questions right now. Uh these were called from both the list from our friends in in China and from Spectrum and right off the bat, oh we should introduce people. John, tell everybody who you are and what you do. >> Uh my name is John Crew. I'm the vehicle director here at CIG and I look after all the vehicle teams, primarily the content ones. >> Okay. Uh Torsten with a new title. Tell everybody who you are. >> Ni hao. I'm Torsten, assistant design director at this point and um yeah, I look after still the system design team, tech design team, AI design team. So a bit more responsibility at
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this point. >> And then it's the gameplay that that yeah that sits at the center of the game. >> Correct. Yes. >> Yeah. And Rich certainly. Welcome back. You know, we had some confusion about how you got here before the show time. >> So >> Uh tell everybody who you are and what you do. >> Um yeah. So I'm Richard. Um I'm the lead designer of the vehicle experience team. So we look after kind of the vehicles, vehicle balance, vehicle game play, and work very closely with Austin on just how the vehicles play in the game and and basically >> So you got the people who make the ships, the people who make the game, the people who help the ships interact with the game and somewhere in between all three usually we can find an answer to one of these questions. So right off the bat in no particular order, this is a show probably be a little bit longer than
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normal and certainly not better for being pre-taped. I think we've proven that already. Uh We want high difficulty PvE content where players can team up for extended sessions. How will this be expanded going forward? Well, this seems like a very timely question. Uh we've got the upcoming tactical strike groups. Talk to us about TSG. >> Well, TSG will be introducing the need for different ships and for multiple players playing together, working together and uh basically yeah, coordinating themselves and uh going in with like a big group to resolve the the the mission. I I I don't know how else to describe it. >> Yeah, it's we we have a lot of ships in the game and they all have very
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like different roles uh and TSG finally sort of brings together the requirements for person A in ship archetype one, person B in ship archetype two, and they can work together to complete the mission cuz TSG's not like do one thing mission done. It's it's a layered, staggered, sequential series of events that one ship is not you don't need one ship to do it. You need multiple types. So >> Thanks. >> Using different types of game play, different objectives. Uh you know, we we've had this we've had this concept the PO's been PO's been around since you know 2015 that we're building this spaceship MMO where you're going to where you need to bring together fighters and repair ships and capital ships and bombers and stuff like this and bring them together for a coordinated attack. Um we've had this
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promise for a while uh but a lot of our content uh and I don't think you know I'm telling anything anybody doesn't know. A lot of our content tends to be very FPS focused. For for you know for this reason or that as systems are being developed as you know you know flight flight models are being tuned and re-tuned and stuff like that. Now this is the first major step forward. We're not we're not we're not going to hit everything we want to do in this first thing. But TSG represents this first major step forward at these coordinated extended PvE spaceship experiences for the game and there's literally no content drop that I've been more excited about. Uh that's why which is why it was the centerpiece for uh CitizenCon Direct last year uh to see it finally arriving here at May and tied tied in with a big fighting spaceship promotion alongside.
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I wish we could take credit for it. That was entirely happenstance. Uh it's it's it's really nice. So I'm it's a really exciting time for Star Citizen and by the time this airs uh people will have been playing it in in in PTU and stuff and and and hope uh hope they're hope they're seeing the amazing work the team have been doing. Uh with that let's get to the majority of questions for a show like this which is why haven't you made my ship the way that you want me to make it? Comparing the RSI Perseus's in-game appearance against I really didn't time that. I I against its original concept art the original concept had a much cleaner look where while the flyable version features many irregular and unconventional design elements. How did the team envision this design evolution as you move towards production. >> Okay, so part of that is just how
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things work during development. Uh a lot of the older ships, so Polaris and Perseus, for example, the actual concepts of them are in 3D, but they're very like low detail 3D, and then they have all the details painted over it in 2D in Photoshop or whatever. So, when you actually come to put into production, you don't have any of that detail. Uh you put the corridor pieces in, and they are just flat sections, and as any artist will tell you, that's not good-looking. Uh so, you add these details, and the Perseus uh built on the lessons we learned from the Polaris, which we talked about many times before. Um we went with a sort of brutalist style approach to it, which we liked. Lots of people didn't like, so we wanted
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to sort of course correct a bit with the RSI style. So, the Perseus have a lot more detailed inner corridors, and you'll see more of that evolving in with the Galaxy, uh although toned down a little because it's not military, it's civilian, so things that were amped up have been toned back down again for the Galaxy, but it's all built from that same kit style. And you you sort of need that level of detail to make it look good. Uh you can't just have flat walls that are the RSI trapezoidal Mhm. shape. It just It doesn't work, so it's sort of a as you're in there, you need to build and add layers whilst being mindful that it's not here's this wall section that I've made as an artist, and I want it to be the best wall section I've ever made in my life, and it will going to look really great on my portfolio, and
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then it's repeated 30 times down the corridor. It just overloads everyone's brains and eyes, so it's sort of you have that, and then you break it up with lower detail bits just to give eye relief. >> Yeah. At scale, you need more regularity, otherwise the repetition becomes far more irregular. >> when you have some of those Cardos, it's less less so the Perseus, but still you have Cardo sections that are like five, six segments repeated. You need something irregular to break that up. Otherwise, it just looks copy paste, copy paste all the way down. >> There's also something to be said about new people who have joined the project since a ship was concept at concept. You know, people come to the project and they come with new talents, new skills, new experiences. Uh technology improves from the time when something was concepted. And the idea that you just come in and just have to control C,
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control V something that was designed years ago it is uninteresting to everybody. It it it's like we've all learned so much. We've all gained so much experience. Of course, we're going to apply that, you know, to these ships as we build them. And that means changes will occur. And I I think anybody, if I'm if I'm allowed to have an opinion, I have said this often, the ships today that are made today are better than the ships that were made last year, are better than the ships that were made the year before that. So, yes, they may change so much, but I I I almost universally for the better. It's one of the few things I'll say are you can kind of just draw a line across. The ships get better every year. So, that's a testament to Well, not you, John, but the people who are on your team. >> The people that do the work. light fighters, medium fighters, and
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heavy fighters currently feel like their roles overlap and their counter relationships are unclear. Will there be a rework to better differentiate them? >> Short answer to that is yes. But the long answer is is you know, they they have relatively close. See, you know, so I would like light fighters are actually pretty heavy and pretty big in of themselves. So, it's no surprise that that kind of range of ships it does blur the lines. But you know, we like we've been putting a lot of work Um you know, over the past four months on the new flight model. And we're really working on how we make these ships interact with each other in different ways. You know, so there's different advances and different weaknesses in each um you know, in each archetype. Also, been working with Austin on you know,
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the weapon balance and the armor changes and that's going to really well, that's already starting to have an impact on how these ships interact as well. >> Yeah, actually it's something that we discussed a lot uh lately in the vehicle leadership meeting that we all have um where we like yeah, so we need to treat fighters more as its own bucket. But in that bucket, we also need to treat the fighters differently so that there's a huge like a clear identity between the fighters. And this is something that we have been working out the new flight models that that Rich and his team is working on is also moving us into that direction that there's better distinction between the fighters. But something that also came out from the feedback that we received with all the armor rework that we have been doing as like cuz we have right now in the game in 4.7 in 4.8 hopefully not anymore.
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Um this hard gap between uh heavy fighters and medium fighters and light fighters. So there's this like even a stop gap between medium fighters and heavy fighters. So we decided on that doesn't paint a picture of fighters because fighters have to fight each other rather than uh there's one sitting outside that is immune to light fighters. So uh like one consequence of us discussing in there was also bringing that closer together but still maintaining um perceived differences or perceived differences between these fighters. So there's still a meaningful choice that then also plays into like all the content that we are doing now for for spaceships where you better bring a heavy fighter but there are also opportunities for for the light fighter.
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>> Yeah, it's it's something we talked about before as well that I want to reiterate is that you don't do like 20 hours of light fighter. I've done light fighter now, so now I'm going to upgrade my role or career into medium fighters and then heavy fighters. They're they're tools for different jobs. They're not like linear power upgrades. You don't You can obviously upgrade, but it's a choice of how your gameplay is to go from light to medium. You could stay a light fighter for all your game time if you want and have a perfectly great time. You don't need to go up the chain if you don't want to. It just gives you different opportunities and different experiences. >> I think there was this big expectation when the F8C came out that it was just going to be the you know you know the I win button everything and it's not it's not intended to be. >> like it's something that we have been trying for for ages already that we want
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to have like each category has its own purpose. Sometimes we are doing a like we hit the We hit it and it's it's actually working out the way that we intended, but sometimes we have to do slight adjustments and we are right now in the adjustment phase especially for the fighter and they have a focus right now especially in the new flight model testing. We focus very hard on the fighter that they that they feel great, that they feel different. And uh no, I I'm I'm actually looking forward to the future for for fighters in our game cuz I think we are on a good way there. We just need more testing and uh like >> So, I have to ask this this This is my own follow-up here. Every time we bring up the new flight model
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I you know I I it's it's the the the the this this is starting to feel after you know many years now like you know you know like the Benny Hill song starts to play. You know when we talk about the the the this new flight model is always right around the corner. It's always well, we did that and then it got us part of it but then we learned more, you know, that's part of having a a testing environment in the middle of your development. We we don't have to do it all at one. We can put a part of it out, test it and go, "Okay, well, that's going to send us in a different direction." But constantly being sent in different directions, constantly having this conversation about this and then can start to sound like noise over [snorts] you know as as it covers years. I'm not going to ask when. We're not talking about when. We we know that most of this work is happening in Squadron and stuff like this.
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I'm going to ask you how you feel about the flight model right now. I like I like you're in there, you're playing it. There's a There's a question in here later about whether we know CIG staff play Star Citizen. You You guys are playing it. You guys are working with it. You got You have to in order to test it. It's in massive testing with with with with with Michael Smith's team and and and and and that's what it is. How is that going? How are you feeling about it? >> So, in the current game I think we've got a really good flight model, but [clears throat] it's lacking some of the levers that we want to pull to make the ships feel different. Um you know, to do the light fighter to heavy fighter, but also not just fighters. To make our large ships feel like massive ships that you really pulling through you know, to kind of turn and move the ships around. So, it you know, I do think our crew you know, our
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current flight model is really good and it's really good testament to the team, but we've learned so much since we've introduced it. But you know, I would see the new flight model as not just how the ships fly, but it's the overall flight experience that's going to kind of change drastically. So, you know, we aren't going to rush out there and just put out a piece of new flight model and not have the rest. So, you know, we're kind of looking at this as as soon as you take off in your ship, that is the flight model starting and then you go all you know, all like the the way to the full new you know, kind of quantum experience and that's going to be the new flight experience really. So, So, it's not just a flight model and how the ship flies going to change, it's the entire flight experience is going to come as like, you know, one, you know, kind of package. >> And even that is just an ingredient, right? Because it's also like the bullet speeds that will change or the the the weapon behavior. That's
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even described it more broadly is what adds a lot to the experience as well there. And um yeah, there there there were again a lot of discussions just last couple of weeks around um what we can do to actually improve the feel because there is CR wants this very cinematic combat that we are now getting closer and closer to. And that's the reason like I would even describe this as our red line in our like uh iteration over all the flight experiences, flight combat, and flight changes that we have been doing over the years. It's like we always try to aim what CR was envisioning and there were always like some information that we got additionally and then we could improve a bit more on what we actually wanted to achieve. And I think we are now getting close to
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like where where we would get the CR seal of approval here. Um and especially like we did some tests, was it last week with uh some some um like weapon changes that will not make it the way that we tested it in the game because we are not ready for that yet, but we will do a step in between for Um that is uh increasing the ranges for weapons and uh slowing down the bullet speed. It gives already a more cinematic approach to all the battle or all the the fights. And it helps also tremendously with um like uh having like even though with lower speeds, it might sound a bit contradicting, but actually with lower speeds we have a more agile combat um because we have to bring closer you closer together. You are able to dodge bullets more than you are uh
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previously. So, that there will be some or the goal for these changes is to have an agile combat in a closer range, which is exactly what CR wants for this game. And yeah, then with all the flight changes that we are working on, we are moving slower slowly into that direction. And the reason why we have to move slowly and it's not a negative thing is it's something that we learned last year when we did all the changes at once for engineering gameplay in a one PTU cycle and we learned uh no, that was a bit too much. So, what we are doing right now is we do these increments now to have like I think we talked about that in some of the other SCLs. We we have a very focused view on what we change and we can iterate and or we gather data
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untinted from all the rest that we did. So, we know exactly when we put something out, okay, all the feedback that we receive is around that topic. For the next patch, it will be So, we did some armor adjustment based on the feedback on the armor release in the last patch because we only did release the armor changes. In 4.8, we will do some bullet speed changes, bullet range changes. So, we will get feedback on that and then we can iterate over that and then the next patch there might be something new for for flight behavior, combat behavior. They're all I think what the is always around the corner problem is for Star Citizen, it's all interconnected like if you change flight speeds, you have to change projectile speeds uh lifetimes
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shields like it all and there's a lot of ships and there's a lot of content and you have the PVE side so you got to do all the AI side as well as coping with the player side which a lot of this work was done in Squadron a long time ago and compared to this is Star Citizen live not Squadron life. It's a very constrained scenario set. Like, we know exactly what the player's going to be doing or should be doing against who, in what formation, and you can quickly iterate there, but when it comes to bringing that over to Squadron, bring over to Star Citizen, you're 10, 50, 100 times in the amount of work there to to get that same experience at a larger scale. So, it's it plays really nicely. Everything gels
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together really well, but we can't just like piecemeal parts out without some big drops like we did with engineering, where it it was too much, and then the feedback just goes everywhere, and it's disjointed, so it's it takes a while to roll that out. >> All right. So, on some Origin ships, we can see landing gear with with wheels? I was winning to my count disco there. Wow, wheels. Yeah, see landing gear with wheels. If the new flight model is implemented in the future, and atmospheric flight becomes a fully realized option, would there be any possibility of switching to wheeled landing gear, or even cooler, ground effect hover landing systems? >> Uh the wheel side is something we want to do. It's not connected to new flight model in any way. It'll be different
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programmers doing that. But yes, we have a lot of Origin ships. Uh I think most of them have uh wheels as well as some other manufacturers, and in fact, Chris was talking to me this about this very subject. Maybe he put this question in Uh about when when can we get proper steering wheels and landing wheels on the Origin ships. >> Uh will there be more alien ships with different roles? Currently, most alien ships are dedicated combat types. >> Uh yes, so this starts with the Railen uh alien week in June. >> June. >> Uh I think we will see a couple more this year that are alien ships and not combat. >> [snorts]
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>> Torpedoes and missiles, some just They just leave it there. Torpedoes and missiles. Go, guys. Torpedoes and missiles sometimes have difficulty hitting targets. Their purpose remains unclear. I think their purpose is is clear. I think whether they achieve it is unclear. And the reliability is very worrying. Will there be improvements? >> So, we have a big kind of missile rework. Um you know, plan at the moment where the core aspect of what's wrong with missiles right now is just it's really hard to predict where they're going to land because they're so quick. So, we've got problems with networking. Um you know, the missiles are very small and agile. They're way more agile than the ships. So, the inaccuracies you see sometimes are just it's just how they are predicted to hit at the moment. Um and you know, that
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prediction isn't hitting the mark all the time. But also, it's to But also, it's to do with countermeasures as well. So, we you know, we've like you know, I would say we've got a linear relationship right now which is you do a countermeasure and the missile misses, right? But that's not the intended really goal of how the missiles work. You know, we want more kind of clear kind of readability of where the missile's coming from. Now, cuz at the moment, if you've got a missile coming at you and you do a countermeasure and you get hit, it's bad. And you don't know where it's coming from. Um So, we want a much more kind of clear kind of readability of you know, where the missile's coming from. But it means we've got to change the flight of the you know, kind of missiles themselves because at the moment the missiles fly in a kind of fully decoupled way where they can change direction very, very
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quickly at the last minute as well. So, again, it's that kind of predictability at the end where they do go suddenly go donk like this to you. Um but we want that to be much more predictable. So, you know, we want to slow them down a little bit. So, you you know, you can actually evade them. Um but also that slowing down makes it easy to predict to where they're going to hit as well. And then we've got systems, you know, we like you know, we like we kind of want to do stealth gameplay. So, you know, you you can do things on your ship yourself to make you less susceptible to missiles, but we need all these systems to come together you know, as one big package of how kind of missiles work. Um but that's where kind of force and comes in as well. >> Yeah, actually we did some steps already to improve the missile gameplay. So, not on the missiles themselves, they are still like they are issues that are even quite high on our immediate fix list for
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that. Like uh we don't have a feedback right now, visual feedback for that the target lock is completely done. So, this definitely needs fixing. Um so, we already started working on the UI improvements. There are some like there are reasons why it's not in yet. Uh so, we are still actively working on that to getting all the changes across. But at least it will help for for for the initial missile gameplay that we currently have in the game. Like uh as Rich already said, the the speeds of them are now with the updated uh like bullet speeds for for the normal weapons, they also like unproportional again. So, that means that this is definitely something we need to tackle afterwards.
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Um and for for the stealth gameplay, actually we did some changes already around that. So, engineering gameplay in influences the EM signatures, IR signatures are also like driven by the uh cooler functionalities. So, we already have player decisions impact uh the signatures. Also with uh actually shout out to to Michael Smith there. It's basically his doing that we we have the cross section is only detectable now by active ping. So it's actually something that was brought up in our vehicle leadership meeting and we just acted on it because it works out quite well. Has the downside though that the count cross section missiles now need an active ping and there's also like some
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visual indicators missing. So we have a list of things we need to improve it even for the missile game play that we currently have in the game. But we also are very aware that the missile game play is the the game play that we can improve a bit more even after these quality of life changes because we have dedicated missile bolts, we have dedicated ships with a lot of missiles on them and we have to make it fun for for for missiles. It needs to be an exciting game play and right now it's more like and I'm very sorry to be that honest, but it's more like a side thing to do. The benefit those and I have to advertise it is a missiles ignore the armor checks because they do so much damage. So if you have a small ship and
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you want to crack the armor, use a missile. >> It seems It seems like one of the more difficult tasks because if you have a ship with missiles, you want them to be amazing. You want them to be effective. You want them to be devastating because they they cost they cost a lot to reload. CR is always on about you shouldn't be able to you know, replacing a missile or a giant S7 torpedo should cost you you know, a lot just like it does in the world. So if it cost you a lot, they have to be effective. But on the flip side, if you don't if you're on the other side of that missile or a torpedo, you need to have options to defend yourself, to survive and whatnot. And this it's no matter what you do, somebody is going to be like, "Yes,
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that's great." And somebody's going to be like, "That is the worst change ever." Be because it it there there's no Like it's very hard to find a middle ground there because if you get killed by a missile, missiles are terrible. I I should have had more things to do. There are a couple of questions in here we we've sort of hit all of them so I'm not going to answer them where, you know, there's no lead pips on, you know, shooting down torpedoes and stuff. You know, it's we wanted to make it easier to to shoot down the torpedoes, but if you do that, then torpedoes become less effective. So this constant give and take is just >> Yeah, but even with the torpedoes, it's like right now with the lead pips, it's basically impossible because they are traveling so fast. So we have to reduce the speed again so that they they feel also correct for a torpedo because a torpedo should not target a small fighter
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because they are meant to >> Everything's interconnected. >> Yes. If you mess with one thing >> There's got to always be this element of chance. Like that you you can't make it so that you can always shoot them down. Yeah. Because then they're ineffective. And you can't make it so that they always hit and destroy their target. Otherwise, so there's always got to be this gray area of chance and all that. >> Yeah, and it's a really fine balance because like it's got to make sense for both parties that that, you know, what happened happened. You know, if it hit or miss, it's got to make sense to both people that are on either side of it, which is a really difficult thing, you know. Uh because it's really hard thing to communicate, you know, cuz in real life if if you you know, if you know, if you've got a missile coming at you, you have one option, press the button and go, evade. But, you know, if you get hit by, you know, a missile in real life, you you know, that's it. You know, you're going to go down, right?
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So, you know, it's just a question of balance and it is really fine-tuning because it's requires so many systems to come together. You know, it isn't just a flight, it's the, you know, emissions and everything else. So it's so so it's just you know, it's a really fine balance. Which we get right sometimes and we get wrong, you know, other times. >> But overall, I would really say that I it feels like I'm repeating myself with all the all with all the decision that we do smaller changes continuously though. >> We are now way better suited for for where we want to go uh in comparison to where we threw in a lot of changes all at once in comparison to like how we worked a couple of years ago. >> So, by the time this airs for our our our friends in China, we will have announced
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the Anvil Odin battle cruiser. our biggest ship that we've ever uh we've we've we've ever attempted to put in a player's hands. a massive undertaking. It's twice the size by volume of a Javelin. You know, it's just huge. I say this because this next question is right to the efficacy of a ship like Currently, it is difficult for pilots and gunners to coordinate effectively. Pilots have a hard time knowing what their gunners are targeting and what firing arcs are available. Gunners also struggle to relay continuous targeting for sustained attacks on a single vessel. Can this be made better? >> So, there are different endeavors we
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have around that. So, there's one big that is more like globally for the game itself, which is all the social work that is planned uh to be improved cuz uh I think we talked even about that. Was it last SCL? When it's like, yeah, for an MMO, our social aspects are can require some improvements. >> social teams that that that Ben Waze's team is working on will be essential to a huge part of this. >> So, that will also help a lot with communication on your same ship. So, um like uh the voice over IP is always a topic that like if it works really well, it can be really good, especially on communication in close proximity on the ship. So, so that should help. But, there are also like issues that we are aware of and they they sadly didn't get
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prioritized yet, but because of all the content that we now have targeted to multi-crew multi-crew purposes, multi-crew purposes. Like the sharing of markers and helping at least communicating where to aim at. These are definitely something that we have on the list. There's also like all the marker improvements that have been discussed at this point for 2 years. That we are still working on. Also, like as as with a lot of things, right? There's always a clash of priorities. There's always someone coming in to the room and say like, "No, this is the highest priority now." So, we have to shuffle things around a lot. But, it doesn't mean it is forgotten. It is at this point just not today. It's maybe tomorrow. And especially the marker work, I think,
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will help the most. It's like making it easier again to share markers, share targets. Having even a better visuals of this is the target that is supposed to be the target. >> And gives again someone a role on that ship to be the person. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Do this. >> Absolutely essential for these capital ships. The address the challenge of you always we've seen these images of the like the map table and stuff. You know, having there be a role that is all right, that's our new target. Being able to click it and for that to go to every turret. You you you you know, gunner be like, "This is your target. When this guy comes in front of you, that's who that's who you're doing." Um It's absolutely essential. It's it's there are for many people and I'm going to include myself. People always ask like, "What kind of Star Citizen are
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you? Like, for from the moment I learned about the project, I have always wanted to be the capital ship guy. I I I want to be the I want to be the guy I suck at flying and I suck at shooting and all that stuff. But, give me an overview of something and I can make good decisions that'll help like that's where my strong point is. So, that that role that we're we're talking about here of being there at the desk and going, "Okay, every you know, it's you know, gunners 1 through 1 through 6, your targets this. Gunners 7 through 12, your ship is this." And stuff like that is my dream, which is why something like the Odin battle cruiser is very exciting to me. I just have to live long enough to >> Yeah, especially for that we even have like very very clear long-term goals. >> I think we briefly mentioned it in our
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road to 1.0 discussion from from Rich Tyrer where >> It's in the road 1.0 stuff. >> Yeah, so where we have this fleet management as an opportunity for you to to do tactical decisions on your ship. >> Yeah, and and the social tools and stuff. It also just takes It takes forever trying to crew these things, you know. Right now, we've we've you know, we've got the Idris out there and but finding enough people and and and getting your positions and stuff >> But, even on that we we have like some like improvements already in the works that's >> Like what? >> the uh I don't know if we should talk about that though. >> This is the show to talk about it, my friend. >> So, we have
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uh right now, it's not signed off yet. So, they are like because we have to fit this work into the theme of Star Citizen and it's like if I phrase it now the way that I will phrase it, it's you understand what why it is really hard to put it into the framing of what we sell as Star Citizen. It's the teleporter party leader, where we want to allow players to in certain situations be able to quick travel to to your party group or your party hangar, and then be able to go on a mission. So, we want to reduce the time for you to gather dramatically with this feature. But, it's uh it's a bit challenging. >> Yeah, it it it's challenging at at first at first glance it seems against the ethos of Star Citizen.
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>> Correct. >> So, and that's why he's saying it's not a sign-off feature. It's it's a it's a You've heard me say it. We have the same conversations here that you guys have out there just 3 months earlier. And and probably just as contentious to be honest. But, it's it's we have to explore those things even if we never do it. Even if a teleport feature never comes into Star Citizen, and it may not. Guys, we still have to discuss it. We have to discuss it. We have to explore it. We have to We have to We have to build a prototype. We have to try it. We have to try anything that can make the process of getting into the game and playing the game more enjoyable, more effective has to be considered. That That has to be a has to be a major priority, especially as we go towards 1.0. As you go towards 1.0, that
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priority becomes more and more important. It You know, being making the game accessible, making the game making it possible for people to get in and do the things that they want to do. So, there may be some There may be some things here and there that are like, "Well, that makes it less like a space sim." Sure, but it makes it more like a fun game that more people can play. So, >> One of the Lots of people complain about lots of things, but one of the common ones is it just the time it takes for you and your friends to go do something in Star Citizen, and we share that pain as well. So, not everyone has two or three hours to play the game. Some people might only have an hour, and you don't want to spend half an hour, 45 minutes of that time getting everyone together. Some people will do. >> Not Not everyone does.
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Uh and then spend 15 minutes quantum traveling somewhere. >> What do you want to say to us? >> It's a bit more half an hour. [laughter] >> He's being He's being kind. >> We recognize some of the challenges and and and I think if anything can always be taken away from these shows, it's an acknowledgement that we recognize those challenges and that those conversations that happen out there are happening here and that they're and that the people here are doing their best to reduce that those things and make them better. I mean, I we were I was just in a I was just in a meeting gosh, you know, last week with with all with Ian and Aaron and Sandi talking about the tutorial and you know, what we can do to improve that because it's You never rest. You know, that Yes, we have to make new stuff. We have to make
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new stuff. New new things to do for absolutely. But we also can forget that this needs to be a playable and enjoyable experience through and through. And there are there are quality of life fixes. There are there are older systems that can be updated that need to be updated to help us. And then there are interesting ideas that at least have to be explored like the teleport to to to to to and party leader and stuff. >> And maybe it's positive me speaking now, but I think we have a good idea of how we can make it fit for for Star Citizen. I think you will still like the the way that has been discussed is you will have advantages are still if you do the travel by yourself, but we are very very aware that not everyone has 3 hours for a game play session. So we want to cater to those and
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yeah, happy to talk about it once we are signed signed off on that, but yeah. many key career scenarios Many key career scenarios still lack corresponding ship types. Oh, careers. All right. So, are there plans to fill these gaps? >> Yes. I mean, it's is a very short answer. We've talked before about we have a huge matrix of size, class, manufacturers, and we want there to be options in every one. We don't want there to be a singular like if you want to do Let me check size and roll, this is the only ship for that. We want there to be a pool of ships to pick from. So, even though we we have gaps in some areas that we will fill, even ones that
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are filled, we will still expand it. So, uh I don't know. Let's pick a heavy salvage. That's That's the Reclaimer at the moment. The Reclaimer is not going to be the only ship ever that fits that category. If you don't like Aegis, what are you going to do? Do you want something maybe uh RSI or Argo? They do the same job, but people are very attached to that manufacturer aesthetic and lore. >> You got to look cool. >> You got to look cool doing spaceship stuff. And >> good about your spaceship. >> Like the you have very polarizing uh fan bases for manufacturers like a Drake ship and an Origin ship that are doing the same role. Under the skin of it, they're probably
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doing that role identically, but how you visually perceive them is two very different experiences. >> Now, that's for That's for careers and and gameplay that exist, but I think the question was was was actually sidestepping to careers and gameplay that doesn't exist. There are ships out there, uh you know, waiting to be developed that don't have the corresponding uh gameplay features or something like like we'll just say the Banu Merchantman right now cuz there actually is not a Banu Merchantman question in this in this thing. Very surprising. >> picked the questions. I didn't pick the questions. But there isn't a ban new merchantman, but we know that you know, the merchantman needs things like the shop like like like player owned shops. Like MP You have to be able to set up your own shop and stuff. Otherwise, what's the point of having a giant merchant ship >> Yep.
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>> that you can't merch through. So, ships like that are are held up uh less by the tremendous art time, although it is a tremendous amount of art time and that is a hold up. Let's be real. But also by the game play requirements. I don't remember where I was going with this. It it's but it's it's just it's hard. I think the question was more asking what about these game play roles that still aren't developed yet? Is there anything you can any hope you can give us for for the future is is without giving dates stuff like it like is there an outstanding game play role that you would that has a hot has a higher priority than others that that might come sooner before others maybe? >> Actually there is, right? For for crafting, we have one one element that
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we have been talking about that it is the missing. I think even in the last episode we were talking about refineries. And that definitely is one that is very high on our list on also because we sold the expanse. And uh >> There are other ships that have refineries built in. >> Yeah, so there's the Starfarer that has refinery on it and it's like the the the benefit of us working on it is it opens up a lot of things, right? So, there's also like we talked about base building already. So, that not us working on refinery not only finishes or adds the an another very important element to crafting, it also opens up for ships to be developed with that and base building allowing us to have refineries at those and then the station refineries also get more depth. >> And it's it's it's sort of a lot of the
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sh- the ship game play loops that we don't have at the moment also tie into base building like >> We'll go back to the merchant example. Needs play base shops. You need that for base building as well. So you would you would have a a I guess a module. But I can't remember what the correct phrase for the individual like building archetypes is. There would be a player shop one and that will work the same way the shops would work in the ship. So you you do one, you get both and it's the same for a refinery. You have a refinery on your ship, you have a refinery module on your base. Ground extraction in a ship, ground extraction at your base. They sort of build from each other and adds like maybe I don't want a ship to do this. Maybe I just want to have a base set up to do all these things. You you're not forced one way or the other. You have multiple options. >> And especially with all these features,
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right? So refinery is definitely very high on top of our list of priorities that we work through like the shops is also like because we see the interest also with crafting that there's this high interest on allowing players to comfortably trade. >> The player trading is >> Yeah. The the the resources. So that is also like quite high on our priority list. I like the there are things that are now impacted by the the feature work that we have been doing and what we observe in the community where the urges are like higher or lower. And the benefit of us like being a bit agile in these situations, we can adjust some of our priorities. We still have like a the the plan for until 1.0 and what we have to reach, but within that plan we can shuffle things around a a bit at least
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and priorities one thing over the other. But also like um the repair game play uh now with with all the engineering game play work and so on and so forth. Right now it is very exclusive to the hand tool. Now with uh 4.8 we have the uh in hanger repair for the capital ships. So that's also like a small addition already. So we now have that for as a as a gameplay feature for for ships. But there's also the dedicated repair ships. I personally try to avoid as good as possible and John and Rich can confirm in the vehicle leadership meetings. I try to avoid that because um like we have some plans and we I really would like to invest some time into
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that. But right now it's like with all the like I really would like to finish the crafting stuff first before we we we take it into that. But that is me saying that. That doesn't mean that like at some point someone says no, we now need a repair ship and then I have to shuffle things around. >> Torsten always tries to avoid all the repair questions I give him, but if we talk science module for the Endeavor >> I I I still I still want to strike a deal with no one checks what I will do about that science module and I can go free. That that that is a deal that I still want to do. No, everyone disagrees. >> Everyone is afraid. >> That's the sound of a thousand people melting a thousand Endeavors right now. >> Like I I really want
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>> He He really does want to >> I do want it. Yes. >> the before we get off refining I I I So obviously you've got mining and you've got salvage and you've got crafting here. Is refining another thing at that level or is it like a sub level that just kind of goes across everything? >> So if you mean it if it is a full profession, we treat it we treat it as a full profession. So it is it has the depth as [snorts] crafting has. Yeah. >> Well, okay. So there So there will be people like I'm going to I'm going to spend today refining. You know, and and I'm going to go and there's there's going to be gameplay and other things you need to do. >> there should be a reason for you having a dedicated refining ship in comparison.
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So. >> Cool. >> All right. are suit lockers and just leave it there. Suit lockers. Are suit lockers and ships getting any closer to becoming a thing, especially with the upcoming feature flight suits being necessary to be able to handle more G-forces? >> Uh yes. So, from a vehicle content side, we have started the work to make sure they are all up to spec in our ships. Uh so, we have uh the prototype for what will hopefully be the initial rollout of functional suit lockers. Obviously, we have suit lockers in all of our ships, but they're just I think most people use them as uh temporary jail cells for people at the moment. but again, I I don't want to speak on behalf of the the feature team doing the work, but we have got our our templates
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And we're going through all the ships uh and checking that the volumes are correct and you can interact with them in a quick and clean manners cuz we don't want it to be go to your suit locker, press button on the door, world's slowest animation of a door opening, >> you interact, swap your equipment, and it goes back up again. So, it's there's there's a few ships where the doors need changing or just removing. and hopefully in the initial release of that, which I'm not going to give a date for, uh there'll be a pretty comprehensive selection of ships supported. Not every ship has suit lockers. Not every ship is going to get suit lockers. So, it's sort of a If your ship has suit lockers now, it's going to support it, hopefully. If you are in a ship that doesn't have any anywhere, there was probably a reason it didn't
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have that and we don't particularly want that level of gameplay there with that >> It's it's the whole not every ship is supposed to do everything. It's there they're supposed to be choices. There's supposed to be sometimes some hard choices. That's intentional. >> Game design. Uh Speaking of hard choices. Uh will the Caterpillar ever be given the ability to have detachable modules and ability to be outfitted for different scenarios like it advertises on the website or will we be looking at a Mark II version in the future? >> Uh again, speaking from my point of view, uh I don't want a Mark II the Caterpillar. I want to do the I want to pretty much fully redo it it to its current uh state not as a Mark II and give it the modularity. Um so we've recently been
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working on the Caterpillar in a very limited scope to support the command module feature and that sort of highlighted just how old that asset is. Uh again, like you said, every ship we do, we learn from. So going back to something that this point is probably about 10 years old was quite an experience for some of the artists who who worked on it. and yes, we still want to do modules. The Caterpillar as you know it and love it will look broadly the same when we do Um but expect it to be brought up internally to the the current standard of that you see in the Ironclad. >> You want to talk about any of the modules you're considering? >> We never officially uh disclosed any, I believe, but broad
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broad broadside >> But >> broadside >> There will obviously be a cargo one. >> What? I don't I don't give a crap about car a broadside module. >> I'm sure there will be a combat one. >> Broadside. I want cannons. The doors open. Cannons on each side. >> out. >> What? I want bri- Or if it's got to be on one side and then you we got to turn around like an old sailing ship like you know, to do the other side. Can't broadside cannons. >> I'd love to do broadside cannons. They >> have to scientific module. >> You heard it here. John Crew commits to doing broadside module for for caterpillar. He committed to it. >> Him wanting to do it is the same as money in the bank. >> Um the other modules will be available. >> Seems a good follow-up question. What
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criteria does a ship need to meet before being selected for a rework or a mark two? >> Uh okay. Multiple layers to that. Uh so obviously it needs to sort of have reached a point where it just isn't fulfilling its role in the game. And we'll use the Aurora Mark I as the example here uh because that had both a gold standard and a Mark II. Uh so the Aurora first one of the first five ships in the game uh it had changes quite a long time ago, but Star Citizen now as a game compared to where it was say five years ago is very different. The missions are different. The gameplay is different. um what we wanted to do with that ship just couldn't be done with what the Mark
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I was without fundamentally changing it. So at that point we decided let's upgrade the Mark I one to current methodologies of how we build ships, make it look really good, give it as much as we physically can in the space we have available. That's gold standard. You can play the game with it now. You can competently do things. You can't do everything. Um and again, it's a starter ship. You don't want it. Not all ships should be able to do everything. It gives you uh a great taste of the game. Mark II two same ethos current styling visuals. So Mark II are for where the Mark I one is fine, but we want to radically change the visuals primarily of the ship. Mark 1 Hornet to Mark 2 Hornet, both medium fighters, both have pretty terrifying
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gun load outs, visually very different. Aurora's the same, very visually different. Um as to how and when, primarily that's a a resources point of view. there's only so many people that work on ships. They can't do everything all at the same time. We have to pick and choose. Um we're doing the Kraken at the moment. That's a big investment of time of people. Um if we weren't doing that, we could do a lot more smaller things. Uh so again, at the director and executive level, we're deciding almost like a year in advance where we spend our our tokens to to develop things. So we have to hit that criteria of there's a valid need for it. do we have the staff available to do it? And also, is it sort of something that
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the community wants? not to dismiss some ships over other ones, but there's more value to things like the Aurora and the Hornet that have been here a long time getting a gold standard and a Mark 2 than a more modern >> Yeah, it's it's you say most of the 2027 ship schedules already set. So that's that's how that's how far ahead of time many of these decisions are made. Sometimes we can we we we we we we we can fudge a little bit >> Yeah, we we try very hard like when we start a ship, we don't stop it because it's it's it's we try. There occasions. >> We try. Uh but it it can be very disruptive internally for like stopping
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and like are we are we releasing this or are we not releasing this or are we stopping or we starting? So we once we start something, we try and see it through all the way to the end. And some of these ships can be 6, 12, 18 months for development. So, I could say here today we're going to we're going to do X ship. You might not hear about that for another year or so. Please improve gamepad support for Star Citizen. The current PS PlayStation controller key bindings are completely non-functional and Xbox controller key bindings and curve settings also have significant problems. The controller configuration is an overall gamepad complexity compatibility needs to be completely reworked. Now, this is one of those things I I remember
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we did the holiday live stream. Not that one. A different one. >> We talked about the holiday >> what not where Chris played the game live and he played on it on a gamepad. You know, you played Star Citizen, you know, on a gamepad. It's a I played Baldur's Gate 3 what not. I play it on PC. I still prefer to play it on a gamepad even when I'm playing on a PC. It's you know, for some people it is just the preferred control scheme. Uh What if anything are we doing to support gamepad? >> Um so, that again, for Squadron because like you say, tons of people play PC games with controllers and I I do it myself personally is that I connect my DualShock controllers up to my PC so I can play it and then when
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I go to a PS5 I'm not having to muscle memory relearn everything. Uh so, there's been a lot of work on the Squadron side to improve that that will come back to Star Citizen. Again, it's not just a uh why doesn't someone just copy the file from here to here make it work. The the flight systems are different. The hints are different. It's a very different tailored experience. It won't just like work out the box. So, it does need some fine-tuning again. The flight model is different in Squadron to where it is right now in Star Citizen. The quantum experience is different from where it is right now in Star Citizen. So, you can't just copy it over, but a lot of work has been done to make that experience be better and for a whole range of other peripherals. Um it's not just the big ones. It's just
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>> I don't know if you can would say one thing as like Star Citizen is very supportive on all the different peripherals that exist. >> I think it's >> long I mean Chris is a champion, of course, but I I really it's it's been long as long as Ben Waas here. This this man I've never met anybody that's more engaged by peripherals and any kind of any piece of interactive tech, whether it's whether it's Tobii or whether it's VR or or whatever. It's D-Box. >> D-Box. >> And whatnot. It's it's it's whatever we can do to allow people to play this game the way that they want to play is going to be a priority from our from our technical teams. And stuff like that. So, and that includes that includes game pads, but not at the exclusion of full sim rigs and stuff. It's We want to maybe we're maybe we're silly, but we
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want to do it all and we believe we can. All right, Torsten. >> What? >> Now, I I I want I want to be clear that I'm just reading the question here. This isn't >> The existing armor mechanics are fundamentally ill-suited for future gameplay. But no matter how the numbers are tuned, armor will never behave realistically in actual combat. It amounts to nothing more than a single hit point bar. Armor should be diversified. For example, providing immunity against ballistic weapons size four and below, while energy weapons size two and above could deal heavy damage to armor. Thank you for listening to my ideas. Now, I he He he didn't say that. That
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[laughter] I added that. What are your plans? So, some of the the stated ideas in that statement um should already be true. So, energy weapons are more efficient against armors in comparison to um ballistic weapons. Um maybe the difference is not that distinctive. So, that's something that we have been working on for the uh 4.8 release. Um there are some changes coming in for the 4.8 release as I think we already stated at the beginning of this show um that hopefully fixes some of the major concerns. For example, a very prominent one that just popped into my head is a Scorpius cannot damage a Scorpius. Um so, Scorpius fighting Scorpius is an infinite fight
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except using missiles. >> But, um uh so, the armor system that we put in is as much effort as we put into it and make it right. It is just as and just as even the wrong word. It's a stopgap filler for Maelstrom. Um Maelstrom is the system we always wanted to achieve. We have been advertising Maelstrom for ages at this point as the real physicalized materials that impact uh or like we go for full physical uh damage model rather than a health bar model. So, everyone that dislikes health bars are yeah, not a thing anymore with Maelstrom. But, um
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as long as we are not at that point yet, um we at least want to see how the game feels once we get like the full experience of Maelstrom. And one of that feel is the armor. The armor right now is a very binary system. I do agree. it is by intent though, because we wanted to have this clear distinction between certain projectiles will just ricochet off off your armor. And um Sure, there are things that we have been even discussing in our like I've been mentioning it a lot, but this is the the topic we are talking about in our vehicle leadership group. Um And um
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as with all the other things we are we don't want to overdo with changes, right? So, for 4.8 we want to iterate over what we got. And uh the iteration is basically fixing all the issues there with uh the inconsistency between certain fighters not damaging each other, certain weapons not being clear enough as an advantage over the others. But uh overall, I think at least what this uh statement said is like I feel comfortable in saying um at least the majority of that statement we will have in a better state in 4.8. Um they are just things that we cannot do with the armor system that we have right now. Um like I've seen like people reached out to me with a lot of suggestions. They are good suggestions. I I
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don't disagree, but uh that means we need to invest more time into that. We need to delay some other feature work that we are doing. So, there's there's a lot of considerations, and I think what we have right now is something we can build on, we can improve. >> It is too much wasted work while you're waiting for Maelstrom. >> Correct. Yeah, that's that's that's the big topic. >> Every you know, every every minute you put into this is work that has to be replaced when Maelstrom comes in. So, not every minute, but but it's it's going to be some calculus here. >> At at least we try to be smart about some decisions that we have >> so we don't have do it. >> So, it's it's it's always the problem. I mean, John, you and I have done enough of these shows where it's like we would love to do that, but we know we have
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we'd have to replace that afterwards. So, rather than do work that you know you have to throw out, let's work on things that we know actually have a chance at staying and continuing. And that's I was surprised when I saw the armor stuff go in because I knew, well, I thought we were doing Maelstrom and stuff. But, again, it's like there were there there were there are experiences that can be tested. Now, there's data that can be gathered now by doing this work with armor today. While you're waiting for Maelstrom, like I said, you wanted to test out how this this feels and that feels. You can get that feedback now without having to wait for Maelstrom. Then, maybe it would affect certain things with the >> Yeah, I can already say that some of the the observations and some of the feedback that we got definitely ended up on our notes list for Maelstrom once it comes to the PU. So, some things that we
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see that uh where the armor system is already a direct copy of how Maelstrom works. But, then we notice, okay, we have to adjust those. So, we already have notes for Maelstrom to be adjusted exactly the way that we are adjusting the armor system. So, it helps us in the long run. So, we have to spend less time in iterating over the Maelstrom system because we are already doing that in a different system, but it's the same. >> And for those who might take this like, well, if it that's how it was, then this must not mean very good for for squadron. Again, single-player curated experience massively multiplayer online you you you you know you know space game. Uh the distinctions are are night and day. It it it can work wonderfully for the
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curated experience that we're building there and just not here, which is where all the additional work comes from. now that PDCs, point defense cannons, or point defense turrets, and we tried to call them PDT's, but it's hard to rebrand something. Now that PDT's with automated combat functionality have been implemented, will the auto turret drone drones, auto turret drones deployed by something like the Aegis Nautilus, work in similar fashion? >> So drones are a big topic for us. And that is base building. So uh I think we talked about that in CitizenCon, where did we show? >> A little bit. So no, drones are a key or an essential
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part for for base building. And the moment that we have that tech, that opens up all the opportunities for >> So many ships. So many ships. >> Yeah, so many ships. So it's basically again like from crafting, base building into drones, into opening up for all the features that we have ships with. >> Yeah. And and for that very specific Nautilus turret mine example, yes, you would have the drone side of it, but also the turret on it would function how PDT's work. But there's also things we want to do to PDT's between now and then to make them better. At the moment, they're very binary, like they're powered, they do whatever they want. We want to give you the control of like, maybe don't auto engage immediately. Maybe wait for me to have confirmation. Only target select things. Ignore this, like don't target fighters.
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Don't waste your ammo on fighters. Only go for torpedoes. Or change internally, they have a like a a fixed threat order of like do torpedoes first, then do missiles, then do ships, then do other things. And maybe you don't want that order. Maybe you want to have ships first, and you don't want to have them like we want to give players that control. And when you have that on your PDT's, and then on a drone, and then in the Nautilus, then it's a much more compelling experience. >> The minute you give me the ability to set my target priorities for my PDTs, I'm I'm I'm just taking something with like like 15 semi PDTs like theaters or whatever, and I'm setting it only for people, and I'm flying over Jump Town, and just being like, "Bye!" I'm just going to fly upside down right over Jump Town. Just be like, Of course, I'm not taking my interest
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upside down, but you get that you get the idea. Uh 890 jump has a lot of PDTs on it, isn't it? >> A Kraken full full of MDTs. >> Oh, yeah. Kraken with the MDTs with MDC's on top or yeah. Rich, >> anybody ground vehicles. >> Like honestly, I can't answer this question. Just just ground vehicles. We we we we we talked about ground vehicles almost as long as we've talked about the the the you know the the next version of the flight model. >> Like >> So, the two things are connected. So, we wanted to complete what we think is the new flight experience first before we moved our resources onto the ground vehicles. well, it was like 3 years ago now. We did do a update in a very limited slot
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of time we had to in you know, to introduce a new time model also new suspension physics and just generally how they behave. Now, by going this route of how the flight model behaves in terms of going for realism, but you know, accessibility and just the thing feeling good in the game. it made the ground vehicles better, but also introduced some of the problems with the ground vehicles because we were free with the physics to react more kind of realistically, which inherently makes them look unrealistic sometimes because we're hitting solid objects with the bottom of the vehicle or with the suspension kind of funny, and the vehicles would do strange things. And that's just down to the fact that we've got work to do. So, we've got a framework of the ground vehicles, and interesting enough, we've got a meeting very very soon to discuss the kind of ground vehicle 1.0 plan of what we want to achieve with the ground vehicles. Um
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you know, cuz as we do base building, you know, we do combined arms, the ground vehicles are uh you know, are going to become even more important for the universe, you know. So, we've got a plan to improve the tire model, the suspension, but just the general way that the vehicles interact with our world. Um you know, it's when you hit rocks and stuff, the vehicles don't flip over and crash all the time and feel very strange and feel like they don't have mass, because the vehicles do have mass, but the force that is generated is a very hard force. It's a very kind of simple calculation of just you hit object, force generated, force is applied to the ground vehicle. But, we're going to start controlling that, so it feels much more natural. Um and also, you know, we're looking at converting the you know, the ground vehicles to the exact same systems that the spaceships work on, as well. You know, so they'll have an engine and how
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power and and everything will work as a normal status of the vehicle does, as Um and this overall would will have a much more kind of natural feeling ground vehicle um in the end, you know, once we get some time to work on the physics of you know, just how it interacts with the world and >> um I'm kind of excited about that, which will hopefully allow us to do more kind of more interesting gameplay and for the vehicles to kind of >> Actually, I have a >> to do more Yeah, just be able to do more in the game and have that purpose where, you know, it you know, so so you can go up take your ballista, park it somewhere and have it in the right spot that you want it, so you can use it for that purpose. >> I see where we had like the there was this uh I forgot the name, like the big facilities we have on the ground. >> Distribution centers? >> This Thank you. Distribution centers. Those were like the our first intent of
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making ground vehicles more viable, because we like equipped those distribution centers with very effective turrets, so that you should land further out. yeah, our planet environments weren't built for that. So, we had to have bumpy roads, right? >> one of the biggest problems the ground vehicles have uh the very beautiful looking planets. Yes. We don't have nice roads on because part of it is they're not habitable or like I can't think of the word. Uh civilized civilized with infrastructure. So, there isn't roads there. And a lot of people underestimate the scale of Star Citizen. And they're bombing along in their Cyclone which they don't realize makes like a Humvee look small. And they hit what they think is a small rock. But if
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you stood next to it in real life, it's 2 m tall. So, uh a vehicle traveling at 40 m a second hitting something that essentially has infinite mass in how it is in the world in the real world, you'll just go pancake into it. But our vehicles have mass. That thing doesn't have mass. Like Rich talked about, it was changed to a more realistic model and then we had to rapidly change it because the the physical forces that were being imparted on the vehicles was just insane. So, that there's lots of things we've had to do to turn it down. >> Yeah, it's it's it's one of those things like Star Citizen is you know is it a spaceship game? Is it an FPS game? It's an you know Rich uh uh uh uh uh uh Cheryl tell you it's an everything game, you know, and and and that's what we're attempting to do.
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That has to include ground vehicles. I I think I think you know ground vehicles have been sort of in this this this this unfortunate kind of uh uh side shunt over over here. They've never really found their purpose in in in in the verse. And it's like when I when I saw something like uh uh uh Stormbreaker for the first time. Like I like I was excited now that you know that a big area that doesn't allow you to fly ships in and stuff like this. I'm like great. Do something like that where you can do vehicles and you you know like imagine the entire patch content was ground vehicle related. You had to do the entire patch content in ground vehicles and stuff like this. And the answer I got back from, you know, creative director Ian Leyland was, "We'd love to, but playing in ground vehicles
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right now isn't that great. So, if you if you do a if you do an entire patch content that's requires everybody to roll around in ground vehicles, you better make sure the ground vehicles are fun and actually work the way. So, it's It's just that that's another smaller dream. First dream is the big giant, you you know, Valkyries are kind of thing, commanding the field. The second thing is I would love I just just love an entire content drop that is ground vehicle related. >> I want to bring ships. Want them to be just as good as the ships. And then maybe to the point where you never even want a ship. You're just content with your base built location, ground vehicles tooling around, doing all the game loops with ground vehicles. >> Adding Adding to that even it's like So, right now it's
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like also not the most like convenient thing to call your ground vehicles. So, that is something that we have on our list also for ages at this point, which is ground vehicles through freight elevator or nested spawning of ships with ground vehicles. So, good news is we have been working on that, but um like Yeah, I was about to say yeah, we proved it with the Atlas, but the Atlas is not >> And not technically a vehicle. >> It's technically not a vehicle. Um but uh no, it it has been on our list for for for quite some time. Cuz the moment that we allow ground vehicles to be more comfortably stored or pulled up and then being stored in your ship, um yeah, I think they also will be used naturally more than what they are right now. Cuz right now it's uh
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pardon my French, it's a bit of a pain. >> The Atlas is not technically a vehicle. It's a very large person you crawl into. Yeah, I said those words. Um I think we got time for for for for for a couple more here. Refueling, passenger transport, retail, and escort gameplay all have functionality but lack player motivation. Uh how will you make players genuinely want to engage with these? >> Good news. Refueling. >> At least for one of those. >> At least for one of those. Um Now, we are aware that that sometimes you need uh extrinsic motivation to try out gameplay loops in our game. And uh refueling is one of the
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few ones that we like when we released it for the first time, there were a lot of uh because it's a new gameplay, people were coming up with their own goals. They organized themselves. We even had a brief moment where the fuel rats came into our game and were distributing fuel. >> They left again, but I think I at least I stopped uh noticing them there, but anyway, derailing. So, it worked for a short time. Um like with all intrinsic urges you have, it's like it's a it's a smaller time frame rather than you get external reward. And uh yeah, for for the next patch, there is uh finally some external rewards for that because we will introduce uh refueling missions. So, that will be uh all the owners of
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Starfarers and uh other refueling ships um will be allowed to um refuel and stranded NPCs. So, if uh an NPC ran out of fuel, they will pop up a mission and you in your Starfarer or refuel-giving ship will be able to head over there and refuel them. So, there is suddenly a purpose on on >> You and your Starfarer or fuel-giving ship or other other ships >> other fuel-giving ship >> that you that might have seen a sneak peek of in the weekly newsletter last week or the week after. Well, it depends on when you're watching this. I think this episode doesn't air for the for the full community until the 14th or something. >> Well, we have to stop our Gemini. I just don't want to say the Gemini. >> The only time we've ever had a variant
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produced by different manufacturer. >> True. >> Although, I just saw on the website it's still listed under misc. It's not listed under Aegis. You going to fix that? Uh like he's in charge of the website. He's not in charge of the website. He's not in charge of the website at all. Um all right, folks. That's it for the show. Thank you for watching. Thank you tuning in. If you're If you're the fine folks watching in Xi'an, China, thank you for taking the time to take this and localize it with subtitles for the viewers. Um we we always like doing this show for you guys out there. And then if you're watching at home or in your car or wherever later, we hope you have found the information helpful and useful and worthwhile.
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For the show, I'm Jared. That was John. That's Torsten. That's Rich. Thanks for Thanks for watching and we'll be back with another show soon. I think technically my next should be tomorrow by the time this actually airs. Calendars. Thanks for watching, guys. Bye. >> Mhm.

Transcript from YouTube’s automatic captions — punctuation and Star Citizen jargon are approximate. The video itself is hosted by CIG on the official channel.