10 for the Chairman: Episode 49 (2014.12.22)

Transcript — every row opens the video at that moment

1. 00:00:00

   [Music] Hello everybody. Welcome to another episode of Temp for the Chairman. This is where I take 10 questions from uh the subscribers. Uh the subscribers, in case you uh don't know, are a subset of our community that contribute extra money every month to allow us to uh do enhanced community content. Uh so the show um around the verse um we do um jumpoint magazine which is uh 50 to 70 pages of sort of really sort of in-depth how things are built um sort of uh you know how we're designing some stuff and backgrounds on parts of the universe or manufacturers. Um also we do sort of inside CIG pieces so we you know go to a different one of our studio locations or

2. 00:00:49

   deep dive down onto different uh mechanics or features. Uh so all that is uh you know made possible by the subscribers contributing money for the benefit every everybody and then also um for a um a little reward. We do kind of fun things flare for the hangers and stuff for subscribers. But thank you to subscribers and obviously thank you obviously to backers because without all of you guys I wouldn't be sitting here doing this. Um so this is where I take 10 questions and I answer them to the best of my ability. Um so I will be doing that. Um, I hope you guys, by the way, had, uh, fun on the live stream, uh, that we had on Friday. Uh, I think it went pretty well. Um, so, um, you know, we're heading into Christmas now. So, uh, this is going to be my last, uh, 10 for the chairman, uh, before the new year. So, uh, hopefully I've got some good questions from, uh,

3. 00:01:38

   from Ben and James. So, here we go. First question comes from Roland. uh desk chain gun which I think I'm saying correctly hopefully uh who asked how would you compare your vision for sharing information across ships each year a hornet tracker sharing info to a CNC center on an allied cap ship to sharing information across crew stations will signal/ signature visibility transmit/receive equipment interception encryption etc be considerations so definitely signal and signature will be um you know how far you can sort of uh broadcast will uh be a factor like the power of your arrays and um you know the power you put to it. Uh also um you know your CPU power will sort of allow an encryption and uh the level of encryption that can happen. Um so you'll definitely have transmitting and

4. 00:02:25

   receiving equipment and we will definitely be having the ability to do sort of interception and encryption and it's uh that'll actually be one of the aspects of gameplay that you would get on the bigger ships. Um, so someone could sort of focus on that in terms of communication, disrupting the opponent's communication, maybe even cracking uh the coded channels to to hear what people are up to. Um, so it all should be uh pretty cool and again adding another level of sort of that um uh team uh and cooperative uh gameplay in a PVP setting, which I think would be pretty damn cool. Um, so we're planning uh definitely to have a a fair amount of that stuff uh in the long run. Okay, next question comes from Silent Ruin who asks, "I've heard a friend can log in to an NPC position, but it brings up the question, since I had an NPC for the

5. 00:03:12

   position, how does a player get paid for doing that job? Is the NPC paid in escrow? And then if a player subs in for X time, then they get X slice of the salary." It doesn't really work that way. So, what's what it does is you'll hire a crew and your crew will obviously need to get paid for doing the job. And so, you'll pay them whatever is agreed to pay them. Uh now you can uh while you're flying out in space uh invite some of your friends to sort of take over or control the crew. Um but that doesn't mean they're going to get paid what the crew is getting paid. They're just basically um becoming I don't know better AI would be maybe a way to think about it. Um it's sort of a it's sort of a kind of a cheat or you know we call it sort of maybe matrix moment where um you know your friend can dare and take over the NPC. um just so you know you can fly with your friends in co-op without

6. 00:04:00

   having to like go to a planet and everyone meet up and all get on a ship which you can also do but um this is really just sort of like I'm flying in space like hey guys I'm flying I'm doing this mission um are you guys not doing anything right now do you want to come in and uh you know control my various uh crew on my ship and they can say yes or no and that's the line but they aren't going to get paid uh for the job the NPCs themselves still have to get paid which is really just sort of a running cost right So, if you have NPC crew, you've got to be making enough money to pay for your crew, pay for your fuel, pay for your repairs, etc., which is kind of like real life. Um, okay. Next question comes from Siberian Tiger, who asks, "How will social status play into the game? Will there be a benefit to having earned citizenship? Will there be planets we can't visit without citizenship or limitations on what we

7. 00:04:48

   can do without cit citizenship?" Well, social status will definitely be a part of the game. I mean, there's going to be, you know, there's a pretty um in-depth um uh you know, sort of uh you know, the way to think about it would be um a I don't know whether you want to call it a a status rating, but you certainly will have a uh you know, we'll we'll track uh your uh relationships with various groups uh and how they hold you in regard and and vice versa. And uh you know, citizenship is one of the aspects. So there will definitely be some stuff that having citizenship will potentially allow you access to that maybe you wouldn't have if you had citizenship. And again, there may be some areas where having citizenship is a liability and you know like in the outlaw worlds maybe

8. 00:05:36

   they you know don't want to really be dealing with a citizen of the UEE. Uh it all sort of depends. And so um but the idea is depending on sort of your various um kind of uh you know organizational relationships um some of which against you know the the the ones that are already part of our universe you know merchants guild or mercenaries guild or the UEE itself uh and some of them for the player created organizations will sort of depend on who who you interact with how they'll reply and how they'll deal with you and and whether they'll give you access. So, you know, if you're in good standing uh with a mercenaries guild, then perhaps they invite you into their guild house, but if you're not, they won't let you in. Um so, uh and that definitely applies to citizenship. So, you'll definitely get um you know, access to some stuff as a citizen that you wouldn't get without.

9. 00:06:23

   Uh maybe you can buy some stuff that you couldn't get if you were a citizen. And vice versa, like I said, on the flip side, there may be stuff that you can't get if you're a citizen that if you're not or on the on the sort of more gray side of um of of the law, then you would get access to. Um so hopefully that answers your question. Uh okay, next question comes from uh Julian uh Del Iki, who I think asked the question last week. Uh how will jumpoint discovery mechanic work? Is the jump point discovery expected to be real-time flight maneuvering or is it strictly based on sensors and electronics that can map the jump point? So, you need to be basically you would be needing scanning for the jump point. I think there's going to be some level of it's not just automatic. You'll have to sort of be checking frequencies and and uh

10. 00:07:12

    kind of honing in on stuff when you detect it. And uh then when you figure it out and triangleize like the I guess the the the point of entry so to speak, then you're going to have to fly the first time. If no one's flown it before, you don't have a record of it. You're going to have to fly it and that will be a whole sort of uh you know kind of skill-based um um flight mechanic. So, um, we still haven't, um, you know, really prototyped that out fully, but the concept of it is you're sort of going to be flying down through, you know, the equivalent of like a huge, uh, you know, breaking wave off the north shore of Hawaii or something where if you got to go down through the funnel and essentially surf it exactly correctly on the path, as long as you keep to the path, you get to the end of it and then you're out and and uh, you

11. 00:07:59

    know, depending on the size of it, the length of it will have turbulence and a whole bunch of other stuff. uh once you get to the end and you've tracked that and recorded that in your jump uh your navigation computer then you can automatically go back and and do it again. Um and you know some of those will be more difficult than others and also um you know the the navigation computer you have itself will you know some are better at recording jumps some aren't that you know don't have the capabilities of doing the more complicated ones. Uh, so that all the equipment you'd want to talk a kid out when you're um an explorer and trying to find jump points. Um, okay. Next question comes from Drum, who asked, "Can someone resample or redo a jump point sequence that will be faster or less of a thrill ride than the origin data created or once it is accomplished that uh that will be the only way to do it ever?" I don't know.

12. 00:08:48

    You know what? That's actually a really uh interesting idea or thought. uh you know our current plan is basically you do it there's one path to do it and that's it. Uh but it would actually be kind of interesting that uh there is maybe more than one way to do it. Uh and maybe one way or another way cuts your jump time down. Um so that would be something I think we would probably play with when we're um you know prototyping all the jump stuff which is sort of an up andcoming task that we have for the persistent universe. um uh early uh next year in terms of sort of the exact play mechanics of it. Um okay, next question comes from Vic who asks, "How will the players be able to establish relationships with NPCs? Will NPCs ever initiate an interaction with the player

13. 00:09:35

    perhaps coming to them with a job as suggested by the Miss Freelancer commercial?" Yes. Uh I think I've actually answered this last week, so um uh not exactly this question, but essentially the same question. Uh but uh yes uh NPCs will initiate interaction in some cases with the player and they will come to them with jobs um not necessarily as suggested by the miss freelance commercial but um you know jobs are put out there on sort of our big sort of kind of jobs board uh by um the economy system which is essentially the AI other players can also do it players can pick up the jobs other NPCs can pick up the jobs and our goal in the game is to have our NPCs and AI be active so they're not just reactive in terms of you go to, you know, some guy that's the the guy that gives missions in a bar and you have to walk up to him

14. 00:10:23

    and talk to him. He says, "Oh, I've got a mission for you." Well, there'll be some cases where people or an AI could potentially seek you out and say, "Hey, I've got a job for you. Do you want to take it?" Versus um it be reactive. And and that's actually kind of a strong underlying goal of what we want to do with the NPCs to make them sort of feel a bit more real and living. They have their own goals and agendas on a more global basis where they're not just focused on the, you know, what they're doing right now. You know, that which is what I call sort of tactical AI where, you know, they're great at combat. They can hide behind cover. They can try and flank you, but anything beyond that instance of combat, they've got no sense of what, you know, what's their goal today? What's their goal this year? You know, what do they want to do? They want to be the best pirate or the best trader. So, we're working to have what we call meta AI that sort of does more of that kind of stuff. Um, all right. Next question comes from Irk who asks, "Will we see longer range

15. 00:11:14

    smart weapons both for attacking ships and smaller targets that are comparable with present- day weapons i.e. Harpoon, Tomahawk, uh, Tasm Phoenix, etc. I think uh, we are probably going to have longer range stuff uh, once we have the large world stuff in which is the 64-bit precision uh, for space. You know, right now we're pretty limited because, you know, getting more than about 8 to 10ks away from uh the origin starts to give floating point errors in and the uh in our sort of world and rendering uh which isn't great. Uh but yeah, the idea is, you know, once the the large world um is in, which is 64-bit stuff, you know, some of the bigger ships, multi- cruise ships, that's kind of one of the things we're waiting to get the multi cruise ship going. there's a whole, you know, range of long range scanners and, uh, you know, um, all that kind of stuff

16. 00:12:04

    that comes into play. Uh, and so there probably will be some longer range, um, smart weapons. Not sure there'll be, you know, vast amounts of that because it's not that much fun to have all combat beyond visual range. Uh, but there definitely will be some cases of, uh, some stuff that will allow you at least to to engage at longer range than say maybe you do right now in Arena Commander. Uh, okay. Next question comes from Jack Knife, who asks, "With the recently announced modular approach to ships, are you and the team considering a simple plug-and-play approach like the current method of configuring small ships in Arena Commander, or would swap swapping out internal modules be a larger intertring a machine shop and several in-game days of downtime for the ship being reconfigured?" Well, that's a good question. I'm not sure that we've um really decided on sort of how quickly or how long it takes you to switch out the

17. 00:12:51

    modules. I mean, as you said, in Arena Commander right now, you can switch out your weapons or missiles or other items fairly quickly on a ship. Um, so on a bigger ship, you know, I don't know whether we're going to keep it at that level of speed or perhaps you say, "Oh, I want to reconfigure my uh retaliator into this setup." And they say, "Okay, that's fine." And that will take a day, sir, and come back. So, we haven't made a decision on that. uh you know the default would be probably the plug and play the plug-andplay approach. Um but uh you know that's sort of a game mechanic and a gameplay decision that um we're sort of putting off till we get it working and sort of what feels right cuz there sort of pros and cons. I mean you kind of want the game to be fun. You don't want to sit you know to be 100% realistic where you always have to watch you know like the loading time for cargo

18. 00:13:39

    or changing out equipment or repairing a ship are realistic because you know you want to get back out in space and do all this stuff. So, you know, you like could have a ship that's completely um you know, beaten up pretty badly and you know, in real life maybe that would take uh you know, months to fix. Well, obviously you don't want to be not playing the game for months. Uh you probably want to have some amount of time for it to get fixed, but maybe it would be months. And so that's kind of the approach we would probably take with the modular approach to ship. So, you know, maybe it would take a bit more time to ship out the modular uh switch out modular stuff, but it wouldn't be, you know, equivalent to what it would really be in real life. Um, it would be probably enough time to allow you to go around and get a drink in the bar and have a few things that you can get done before taking off again uh to head out to space. Um, okay. Next question comes from Eno who says or asks, "How will

19. 00:14:29

    transportation of ships be handled? For instance, uh, if I am a trader and I want to bring a few hornets to sell in a war zone, will they be transported in parts allowing them to fit in my cargo or they have to be transported fully assembled?" Well, I think right now they're going to have to be transported fully assembled. We're not really considering breaking down ships the component parts and shipping them, which is I guess kind of the way it happens in the real world, but for us, I think it's you would have to uh say if you want to bring some hornets to sell, then you would have to have a ship that you could load them up into to uh take them along with you, or you would have to hire some NPCs to sort of fly the ships for you to the location you want to take them with, which is another way, by the way, say Fathercraft or other stuff actually gets delivered to people. And then you would just have to ship the NPC pilots or the other player pilots back to where they, you know, picked up the job from. Um, so

20. 00:15:18

    that's how we would be transporting uh ships in the the current world. So you can hire NPCs or get other players to fly them for you or you can load them onto a much bigger ship and and take them whole. All right, last question comes from Rodent Rascal, who asks, "Will a merchant player be able to bribe the character slot NPC crew of their competitor to mutiny against their boss? Um, that's a really great suggestion. Uh, we're not planning to do that at the moment. Um, so, uh, it's cool. Uh, probably take it under advisement when, uh, we got all the other million things we got to get done for, uh, the persistent universe, uh, that we may potentially down the road have fun with morale and mutiny and and some other aspects for the NPC crew. I mean, we are definitely planning that the NPC crew themselves will have um, you know,

21. 00:16:06

    hidden stats. I mean, not necessarily exposed for players, but there'll definitely be stats behind the scene that rate like how good of a shot they are or what the morale is or, you know, what their competency is, and that would affect um the sort of AI ratties. That's how we do enemy aces and stuff like that. So, um you obviously better uh NPCs probably cost more money, and then if you're fighting with an NPC and you win more battles, then the NPC themselves will be sort of getting better and leveling up. Um so, we have that kind of tracking stuff in there. Um, and longer term we can probably have fun things with the morale uh and having a mutiny and all the rest stuff, but that's not um a 1.0 um um uh uh function or requirement or deliverable, so to speak. Uh okay, there you go. That's the 10 questions uh for

22. 00:16:54

    this week. Um it's a short week for us. Um you know, we're off uh uh on the 24th and uh we won't be coming back uh until uh after New Year's uh day. So, uh, you know, for all of those out there that celebrate, um, the holidays, uh, you know, Christmas, New Year's, and all the rest of the holidays out there, um, then I wish you happy holidays. Um, it's been an amazing year this year. Thank you so much for your support. Uh, I'm, you know, really proud of all the stuff the teams have done all around the world working on the game and I'm really proud of, uh, the community out there that has supported us to, you know, increasing the great heights. Uh we really appreciate your support and enthusiasm and uh we are going to deliver you something pretty amazing. Uh we

23. 00:17:42

    appreciate your patience cuz we do realize that all this is taking longer than everyone would like it to take. Um but that is sort of the case when you are really trying to do something great and do it the best you possibly can. So I'd like to say thank you. Happy holidays to everybody and I will see you in the new year. 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.