10 for the Chairman Episode 17 . April 21st, 2014

Transcript — every row opens the video at that moment

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   [Music] Hello everyone. Uh welcome to another episode of 10 for the chairman. For those of you who haven't watched this before, this is where I take 10 questions uh from the subscribers uh that are part of our community and answer their questions. The subscribers uh for those that you don't know are the subset of our community that uh contribute money every month to help us do extra community content. Uh so 10 for the chairman uh Wingman's Hanger uh bunch of the other stuff that we do um the jump point magazine which is a very involved affair 50 70 pages every month and uh some more upcoming stuff that we're going to try and do. So, we want to really amp up everything for subscribers, but um we should say thank

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   you because they also enable us to do stuff for that community as a whole. Um so, I'm here. We're busy working on getting the dog fight ready to push out to all of you guys. And if you hear any noises in the background, that's because well, we're today right now is a test time. So, we play it and we make comments and that doesn't work and we need to fix that. Um so, if you hear noises, that's that. Um all right, so let's get to it. Uh although before I do, I want to say thank you very much. Uh although I don't know who to say thank you to because unfortunately uh when the front desk brought up uh these two wonderful presents. Um they took the envelope away and I think I threw it away because I couldn't find it. But these are two amazing books from the Smithsonian um National Air and Space Museum in the cockpit um with a forward by John Travolta no less. Uh but uh anyway so uh it's actually pretty

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   awesome because it's really great for our artists because like you know you can really see like look at all that detail. I mean, that's kind of the visceral sort of detail that we want to have in our cockpits. I mean, you see a little bit of it in what we do in the Hornet. Uh, but we're always trying to make it better. I mean, look, how awesome is that, right? That's brilliant. So, yeah. I mean, this is that's cuz that's what you want. You want to feel like you're in the cockpit. And I think actually there you can go on a website cuz I've done it where there's a sort of 360 degree of these cockpits, which is really cool. I mean, look at look at that there. It's brilliant. And then here's the second. There's a tour of books. Now in the cockpit too which I think is just uh more ships. Wow. That hell diver dive bomber. Look at that. Brilliant. Um anyway, so this is brilliant. This is definitely going in

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   the art pit. Uh great resource for um David Hobbins and the other concept guys as well as Chris Smith um leading the vehicles. So, um, thank you to whoever sent these and I apologize that, um, uh, your, um, gift note got thrown away by some strange reason, but, it's awesome and we're really thankful. Okay, so let's get to the 50, uh, not the 50 questions. Um, it just says inside 50 history. Uh, the 10 questions that we do in 10 for the chairman. Uh, okay. So the first one um comes from uh Arcanis who asks how will navigation or astrogation be handled in Star Citizen. Navigation in general uh is based you know you'll bring up your sort of nav. So every when you're in a system you'll have a sort of

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   a system view as a navigation and in your system view you'll sort of navigate to different points of interest. So in the old sort of wing commander privateeer model we would call them sort of nav points. Uh but you know a nav point could be a planet that you're going to orbit around to land or a nav point could be a jump point or a nav point could be an asteroid field that you're going to go and explore to see if you can mine. Uh and so what happens in general is that you have predefined nav points. Think of it like uh you know you get your sh get your car with a GPS and the GPS already has some of the roads and cities defined. uh and on in our in your sort of nav computer, you'll have predefined nav points for uh most of the sort of known systems that are well tro tread trod tread. Um and what will happen is you can select them and then

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   you can basically sort of uh kind of warp to that that that area which is sort of like a you know autopilot which was in wing commander wing commander games and in privateeer um and that's sort of the equivalent of going up to 02 of a speed of light. um uh that I've mentioned before which is sort of the you know you can never go faster than light inside a system. The only way you can go faster than light is basically going through a jump point which is really a fold in time and space. Uh but that's sort of the fast travel inside the system and then you get pulled out of uh warp space or you know point to speed of a light um as you get close to another body or another ship because at those kind of velocities there's no way they can that your ship's computer can make corrections quick enough to avoid a collision. So basically whenever you get clo as you start to get close to

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   something that there could be collision potential it pulls you out of uh that sort of warp uh speed. And so you essentially will um select these points to sort of jump to. Now of course you could just fly in that direction. And in some cases this is kind of where um astrogation or navigation comes into the fact or more exploring side but you basically can uh sort of map areas of a of a system. So there may be areas of a system that aren't mapped that maybe there's an asteroid field or something you know a derelic spaceship or something. And if as you fly around and you have a long-range scanner, you you maybe start to map things and as points of interest come in that you would map that would create a a new nav point on your nav computer and you could send that to your friends, your into your organization or potent potentially you could sell uh you know new uh you know some nav points that you've charted. So

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   think of it very much like in the old days, you know, um when they were mapping like a coast or a continent and you know the the old explorers would go around and they would they would basically do cgraphy of to to map out the new world and stuff like that. So so we've built that in and that's kind of how the navigation arrogation would happen in terms of traveling from one side of the galaxy to the other side. You basically have to travel in system, go to a jump point, know that the jump point's going to go to this other system, and you basically make the hop and then in the next system, go fly to the next nav jump point you want to go and so on and so on. Um, all right. So, I hope that helps. Um, next question uh comes from Z who asks, "Will we be able to directly control the translative movements, elevation, strength, as well as pitch, roll, your acceleration, deceleration? Will we have six degrees of freedom independent of fly by wire

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   being active or not? Would a dual joystick setup be possible and configurable for this freedom of movement? Uh independent of fly by wire. So basically in all our spaceships you will always be under the control of um the intelligent flight control system which is basically our fly by wire. And I actually would um challenge anyone to be able to fly any of these ships without having some computer assistance because they've got multiple thrusters and there's a lot of like the simulation right now is is actually incredibly accurate and is very um uh dependent on like the center of mass and everything else. Uh and so there's a lot of thrusters firing. So like if you don't actually have an optimal center of mass, some thrusters will be firing to compensate some sense of imparted uh you know lateral or angular uh movement that you actually don't want to achieve the

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    the the movement you're going for. So what we have and we actually demoed it in the uh uh the PAX East event that um we just did and it is going to be part of the dog fighting model. So everyone will get to play it. Uh so the short answer to this question is actually yes all these things will be there although IFCS is what delivers it for you is that you will be able to um fly normally which is more sort of the wing commander style where essentially the computer tries to sort of align your velocity with wherever you're pointing your nose and it will do it it will do it as quickly as the thrusters will allow it to do within the limits of the amount of G's you can pull. But you can enter decoupled mode when you're flying around and in decoupled mode you have two sort of things you can do. one you can just change your orientation. So basically that means in decoupled mode whatever velocity vector you had when you entered it maintains you keep moving in that way and uh when you start to change your

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    pitch or roll um or your essentially it's just changing your orientation your ship it's not changing your linear velocity vector and then we have the strafe mode of decouple mode and that is allowing you to go left go right go up go down go forward go back uh and so we demo and actually there there's uh you know I think by the time you've seen this there will be in a demo that we would have shown already that uh shows um all those different aspects that we do a sort of bit more in-depth um demo of all the features that you'll get in dog fighting and some of the stuff we didn't get to show at the PAX East events because well um we had a few technical glitches mainly because we showing stuff way way early than we would normally do and so therefore you're a little at the mercy of the gremlins. Um, so there you go. But yes, six degrees of freedom and you can

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    change your orientation, you can strafe, all the rest of stuff. So I think it's gonna add a lot to the combat and I'm really kind of curious to see once we start doing it as people develop their flight styles, you know, what works, what doesn't work, what do people prefer. It'll be very cool. Okay, next question comes from Jeru, who asks, I was wondering if the Origin Jump Works 300i and other models have been tweaked to incorporate the community suggested changes. If so, what changes will you make and how far in the works is it? Big cheers to Chris Smith. Uh, well, we, you know, we we listen to all you guys. We read the forums. Um, and, you know, when things make sense to us, so we we're not, it's not really a democracy in terms of, oh, well, there's a bunch of people saying this, so we should do it. It's more that, hey, that, you know, someone's making a good point. All right, well, we'll listen to that. And that's kind of the value of the community and I think what's really

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    making sizes great. Um, then we enact it. So we're, you know, we're for instance making some changes to the constellation um for better um cargo access loading unloading and also using the Merlin fighter so they're not interfering with each other and not blocking each other. Uh also moving up uh living quarters closer to the cockpit. So those were all um things that were discussed by the community and we're like you know that makes a lot of sense and we can see those problems. 300i. Uh I'm not quite sure what people were suggest uh discussing on the community, but um you know, we're making some changes because it's getting another pass. You know, as you've seen, the Hornet has continually had improvements. The cockpit, you know, people used to complain that there wasn't enough visibility. Well, actually, the seats a little higher now. The struts are a lot thinner. There's a lot more detail in them, too. So, you really sort of feel the the sort of high

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    fidelity of of of the environment that we're going for. Um and we're doing the same for the 300i. It needs it needs sort of a bit of love and an upres. So, we're definitely uping the cockpit and we've uprised the outside exterior. And, you know, the one last thing we really got to figure out is like cargo because, you know, the there's not a lot of space for cargo in that design even though it's meant to be able to pull some cargo. So, um we're in the process of that. I think we're we're leaning towards being able to have an attachable cargo module on the outside, but um that's still in the works. Okay. So, next question comes from uh Draxster, who asks, "How is work on the Origin M50 interceptor coming along?" Quite well. is the answer actually. So we're actually we're in the process modeling this in the engine right now. Uh so we're we're we're sort of doing some revisions to the initial concept because the concept was one of the more

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    simplistic or the you know not as well developed concepts as some of our other ones. Uh so I think you guys are going to like it. It's definitely going to have a sort of combination between a Formula 1 uh car and like a exotic uh like a Ferrari or something. So we're doing some really cool stuff. So it's definitely something you want to have in your hanger. Um, so, uh, and I'm looking forward to sharing some of that with the future and actually putting it in your guys' hanger. So, that's, uh, you know, the M50 Interceptor probably is not too far off in the future. That doesn't mean it's next week, though. So, I don't want to have threads on the forums going CI lie, M50 isn't this week, because it's, you know, takes a bit of time. Uh, but it's probably one of the next, uh, ships that we'll have up, which will be cool. Um, okay. So, next question comes from Slack. R or Flacker, you could say. Uh,

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    so it seems like Squadron 42 might throw you in somewhat at the deep end looking at the mining station footage, and it got me to thinking of how to become a better pilot. Most games have some kind of tutorial element either incorporated into the first few missions or as an out-of-ame option. What do you plan for Star Citizen this regard? Well, good question. Um, you're going to have it very soon. I mean, the dog fight module is essentially that. I mean, it's the first iteration of Arena Commander, which is sort of this the infiction game simulation software that all pilots can use to practice, to train themselves, to, you know, and you don't have to be fighting against other players. You can be fighting against AI, um, or just flying around to learn the learn the controls. Um, and, you know, ultimately you can do some esports with it, have competition. So, really, Arena Command is in there to do a lot of the practicing. Uh, but in Squadron 42,

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    we're also setting up in a way that there is we break you in on the ships, show you how to use them in the first few missions, basically under the fictional context. You've just, you know, you you you've mustered onto this ship. It's your first couple of missions out as a pilot on the front lines and you're flying a slightly different ship than you maybe have trained on. And so the your lead wingman, you know, your wing leader is basically saying, "Okay, well, this is what you do in the Hornet." Um, but uh we didn't really want to do really boring tutorial uh missions in Squadron 42 because it sort of always feels like busy work. So, we'd rather get you in there and actually get you in the action pretty quickly. Uh, which was very much what Wing Commander did. I think in the very first mission, Wing Commander, you fought some Karathi. Um, not very tough ones, but right on your first mission. Okay, so next uh question comes from Demuse, who asks,

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    "How will the economy in the Persistent Universe handle inflation? Players always want to feel like they're getting ahead for their time spent and never want to lose something they've earned. Money sinks like rent, repair costs, taxes, and mandatory consumables have been loudly denounced by players in other MMO games. But without counter measures, inflation is inevitable and eventually game destroying. How will Star Citizen get the players to swallow the bitter pill for better long-term health? We're setting up Star Citizen much like the real world. So, we actually do have um whether you want to call it money syncs, I call it running costs of things like repairing your ship, keeping up to date. Uh you know, we have taxes in the form of landing fees or um trade tariffs depending on where you are. So, essentially, if you're in a very safe regulated area, there's a lot of law enforcement. Um well, then, you know, yeah, it costs a

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    bit more to do business there because, you know, you're you're paying for the protection essentially. Um and uh you know there are there is an equivalent of consumables because we have fuel now. You can go and harvest your own fuel or you may not have time so you may just pay to refuel when you're down on uh a planet. Uh but it but in general we have a lot of things that will um take will cost you to operate as well as things you learn. So it just so I so our hope is that we're not going to have uh wild inflation because we have consumption as as as well as uh uh production. Um and whether that consumption and production are properly balanced. Well, that's part of the challenge of the economy uh system that we're building. Uh we're sort of building a sort of whole standalone simulator that would interface to our persistent universe server. And uh you know, we could have a sort of meta view of of the galaxy. And

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    uh that's actually not that far off from us playing with internally. Um so at that point I I could tell you but but essentially you know we are trying to in a rough way simulate um what happens in the real world. So, you know, the more unregulated areas, well, there isn't so many dues or taxes or duties, and so you can uh, you know, not you can, you know, have a better margin when you're selling. The risk is that you may get attacked. You won't get the same level of protection that you would get in the inner systems. Um, okay. Next question comes from WJO, who asks, "Will the weapons produced for the next great Starship be available for purchase? If so, when can we expect to see them available?" Uh, it's a good question on that. I don't know about the weapons. We're definitely planning on the winner of the next great starship ship to be in the game. And uh to be honest with you,

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    some of the ships are so amazing that, you know, we may get to the point of having the community vote and, you know, maybe have more than one of them. I don't know. I mean, American Idol, the you know, usually the top two, three people all have record deals. Uh but the the so the will definitely be not I'm not so sure about um the weapon. So maybe take that under consideration. Uh maybe the winning team goes back and upreses it, you know, finishes out its weapon with our notes and and we go from there. But um there isn't a plan for that right now, but it's not a bad suggestion. Okay, next question comes from CADO premium CAD. I guess that's a pretty um interesting handle. Can we mount class 4 turrets on class 5 hard points if we're willing to sacrifice some firepower for remote turret control? Related to that, can we slave class 4 turrets to particular gunnery

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    stations? You definitely can slave class 4 turrets to different gunnery stations. Um, and whether you come out a class 4 turret on a class 5 hardpoint is completely sort of data driven. So, it depends on the ship. So, you could very you you absolutely could have a ship that could say, "Okay, in this hardpoint, it can accept either a class 4 or a class 5 turret of size two or size three or whatever." And so, that's sort of a that's a data driven issue. So, it's more about the actual ship and what the designers think is is applicable. So it wouldn't be a general rule. So some ships when it has a class 5 turret can only take class 5 turret and some ships may be interchangeable between class 5 and class 4. Um but generally you can slave pretty much all class 4 turrets and uh potentially uh there could be an opportunity to slave a class 5 turret too. Um all right, next

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    question comes from Rast RD who asks with the up and cominging damage stats on the Hornet which are pretty neat. I was wondering about the larger ships capital ships. It sounds like a ton of work to do that detail of destruction for a little fighter, but can we expect a similar simulation on the Idris or Bengal carrier? Yes, you can expect the similar level of like bits breaking off and damage happening. We are concerned that um doing it to the same level of fidelity that we have on something like the Hornet is obviously a lot of work on a ship that's a kilometer in size. And so we actually have some R&D uh tasks there that we're going to do a combination of procedural. So like basically as you hit paneling it gets deformed and then breaking off um chunks. Uh and I think it's going to be pretty spectacular. Okay. So last question comes from LG in brackets

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    AGT_Zig_ZAG. We know organizations will be able to tax its members but where will that income come from? Will that stem from the missions within the verse or will the org tool cater to setting up salaries, additional contracts and bonus and lumpsum payouts in line with their own predefined structures? Well, I mean, you know, the the when you tax the members, I mean, the income comes from the people that you're taxing. So, however they make that money, whether they're earning it um by trading or earning it by uh you know, being paid for missions or bounties, um the money would the money that would come to an organization would come from its members. Um, and I think that we would definitely set up uh the ability for an organization not only to take um income in tithe, dues, taxes, however you want to do it, but also to be able to sort of

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    pay out um to its individuals. So, you know, you definitely could have an organization where everyone works together and then, you know, the profits of the organization get paid out in a dividend every year or whatever like that. So it's it's sort of we'll put the tools there to allow people to sort of do their money management as a group um uh in that manner. Okay. So there we go. That's um another 10 uh for the chairman. Uh, I'd like to thank uh subscribers for helping this um, you know, basically enabling this to happen and everyone that's backed the game for um, backing uh, us to make Star Citizen uh, to the level and ambition that we're doing it now, which is um, I think unprecedented in the industry. Uh, and we're having a lot of fun doing it. Uh hoping you guys are having a lot of fun watching us do it and uh I'm going to

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    have a lot of fun uh playing the various parts of it as it comes together like the dog fighting module will be coming out in the not too distant future. So um thank you all and talk to you next week. Bye. [Applause]