This post is a transcript of Reverse the ‘Verse: May 2016 Subscriber Edition, material that is the intellectual property of Cloud Imperium Games (CIG) and it’s subsidiaries. INN is a Star Citizen fansite and is not officially affiliated with CIG, but we reprint their materials with permission as a service to the community. INN edits our transcripts for the purpose of making the various show participants easier to understand in writing. Enjoy!



Reverse the ‘Verse: May 2016 Subscriber Edition – Partial Transcript

This edition of Reverse the ‘Verse is for subscribers that happens once a month where subscribers get to ask today’s guests questions from the RSI subscriber chat.

Matt Sherman is a Technical Designer, He works on ships for the most part. He’s currently designing the Reliant to become flyable and working on the Buccaneer which is going live on Friday.

Matt Interieri works on tools, optimizations and various behind the scenes for Star Citizen.

Calix Reneau works a lot on mechanics and design for ships. He’s currently been working a lot on the Caterpillar and helping it along towards the hangar stage eventually.

Now it’s question time from the subscriber chat on the RSI website.

[Hello Matt and Calix, after watching Ship Shape Caterpillar two, Ship Shape is looking great, I’m looking forward to noncombat ships. My question is what kind of gameplay will there be for multi crew ships like Caterpillar or Carrack?] Well there will be the basics of being able to control various aspects of the ship through terminals like shields, guns, engines. Also defending your ship from borders and opening airlocks to suck them out into space.

[How is the multisource shield rework coming along?] Matt S: Really well so far. We’ve had someone working on the backend stuff to get it to where it needs to be, but it’s looking really good to be able to have more flexibility when it comes to managing shield and understanding how much damage they can actually take and where to focus the power.

The shields are also changing from a bubble to more of a skin tight shield that coats the ship.

*[Will fire and other effects be added to damage states?] We’re currently designing out ways to add it in, but making it more than just an effect and how the fire would affect a module over a longer period of time for example.

[Are you guys involved in the localized physics grids?] Yup! we work to make sure that the grid is properly setup to be optimal

[How hard has it been with explosions and conveying their momentum in space?] We’ve had some problems with explosions and how they interact with space, but we’ve overcome some problems and had some temp code in, but we’re working on something that’ll make it viable in the long term.

Matt Sherman talks about how the PTU has been very useful for testing the physics grid on the larger ships like the Starfarer and how landing a ship like a Merlin inside and having it stay properly.

[More info on the Mako and how you plan to implement it’s broadcasting] They’re still figuring stuff out, when it was originally pitched, it was a bit lofty, but because of the community they’ve wanted to make sure they have that kind of gameplay. It will be a layered system and may not be what they expect right away, but in the very beginning if you’re a co-pilot on a Reliant you’ll be able to capture whatever you’re looking at and be able to do it from a safe place. Long term is laying on more things like info running and who was in what system and when, what things are happening to make that role more exciting. So, someone commits a crime and a reporter saw it, do you kill the evidence? Stuff like that is what they want to work towards in the future.

[Question regarding explosions: Ship explosions don’t inherit momentum, will chasing ships become less dangerous in the future after you kill your target and avoid the wreckage?] Yeah right now the debris doesn’t have active physics right now and we will be looking into turning it back on for that. We will have to attach the effects that come from the debris, but that’s something we can do without too much issue.

Components: They will have their own individual explosive effects. We want the modules to have their own effects and that the death of a ship isn’t just when the ship reaches zero health and explodes, but a combination of components going critical and setting off a chain reaction.

[Why can big ships be pushed around so easily by small ships?] The physics do need a little work. When things blow up it’s like paper mache. It will be something we’ll address, but we’re just in a transition period with tech and the physics is taking a bit of a backseat until we’ve gone through this stage. The process of refining that involves multiple layers of code geometry which Itemport 2.0 will allow us to give better performance and more control over physics.

[Million Mile High Club Port modification system?] Jared will find out Friday.

[What is going on with the Star G?] The Starfarer Gemini is still a Starfarer that was simply bought by Aegis and refitted with their components, not a redesign. It’s not going to be a big visual difference because there’s no point as it does what they need and refitting it for the military is all that’s needed.

[Plans for Optimisation?] They just finished a full pass on all shields with LOD meshes. Right now you may see them switch them a little too slow, but they’re hoping to have that in soon. They’re also working on combining meshes so that it transitions better and uses less resources.

One thing to keep in mind with optimization is while they’re making improvements, it’s not a one-shot solution to fix everything because the game is still being built and other things can affect performance that were unforeseen in current optimization. It’s something patch to patch, but it’s a little more than one and done.

[Org 2.0?] Ask about that on Friday.

[Is the plan for most or all large ships be made with flying FPS level in mind? Most of us want FPS, but with ship layout in mind] Where there can be FPS, they have to make sure that gameplay is viable. Some things in the real world don’t translate into fun gameplay for ingame. The “flying FPS level” is more of a tech statement rather than a literal statement. They want to make sure the ship layouts flow properly and give chances for attackers to properly take over the ship, but vice versa for defenders.