Hello Citizens!

Welcome to another episode of DevChat, this time covering August 26th to September 1st!

First, a brief explainer. DevChat combs through the RSI chat logs, and picks out any interesting comments made by Devs. It amalgamates them, and puts them here, with quotes. While I try to provide context to the comments made by Devs here, these comments sometimes have a very off-the-cuff nature, and everything here should be taken, maybe not with a grain of salt, but for what it is. Interesting, helpful, though not always 100% official, information.

That said, here comes DevChat!

** Note the first several days of DevChat seem light this week. I ignored lots of talk about Social Module’s PTU, as it’s no longer relevant.

August 26

Hot Tubs

The hot tub will in fact come stock with the Constellation Phoenix.

(5:34:39 PM) CIG Matt Sherman: Hot tub is going to be part of the stock internals on a pheonix.

August 27

Launcher

Launcher will be able to remember password in the future.

(7:33:41 PM) Keegan-CIG: Remember password should be out in a future version

August 28

Ships

The Vanduul Scythe should now, or soon, be able to extend its blade.

(2:04:42 AM) WLeverett.CIG: -Vanduul Scythe can now extend its blade (HUD interaction can be turned on by pressing the Home button and then clicking on the blade platform to extend the weapon)

Cutlass thrusters will be getting better health, and the Vanduul weapons will soon be doing more damage.

(4:41:31 PM) CIG Calix Reneau: on RTV I mentioned that the cutlass thrusters were getting better health, and the vanduul were getting better damage

In the grand scheme of things, Glaives should beat Super Hornets, which should beat Scythes, which should beat Hornets.

(4:46:48 PM) CIG Calix Reneau: oh. Hornet<Scythe<SH<Glaive (4:48:11 PM) CIG Calix Reneau: The super hornet was designed to kill the scythe – the civvie hornet thus loses to it (4:49:02 PM) CIG Calix Reneau: the glaive is the elite scythe, and slightly outpaces the super hornet

Ships will not come ‘tuned’ to their max potential. There will be plenty of room for tuning and improvements.

(6:06:17 PM) CIG Matt Sherman: Ships may be easier, but the best of the best components and parts to install on those ships, that’ll be the real long-term challenge. (6:06:54 PM) CIG Matt Sherman: Ships aren’t coming tuned to their absolute max potential out the box, there’s going to be plenty of room left for tuning/improvement/etc.

The Freelancer’s weapons will be getting retrofitted, but no idea on how or when.

(6:27:56 PM) CIG Matt Sherman: No solid info on the Freelancer’s weapons, no. I know it’s getting its retrofit spec’d out in the near future, but not certain when that’d be completed or ready to be updated.

The Tali is currently better off than people think. The shields are stronger than the specs-page currently list, and the turrets run S2 weapons, rather than S1.

(6:39:51 PM) CIG Matt Sherman: Retaliator is a bit better off currently than some people may think. (6:40:25 PM) CIG Matt Sherman: The shields are definitely not as weak as the specs-page, so it’ll definitely hold it’s own in combat. Turrets can all run S2’s instead of S1’s, so more combat-potency as well.

Patching

Right now, patching the game sucks, but in the future, it won’t suck nearly as much.

(2:07:03 AM) WLeverett.CIG: Currently, even the smallest change to one of the files means you have to get the entire file again. Many of those files are massive, about 2GB. A long term strategic goal is to break those files apart but that is a very, very long way away.

Social Module

Hit F2 to get augmented reality in Social Module. AR is not mobiGlas. That’s not in yet.

(2:19:18 AM) WLeverett.CIG: F2 is Augmented Reality (2:19:29 AM) WLeverett.CIG: Mobiglas not in yet :)

If you get ‘server full’ in the elevator, close your client, and your launcher, and restart.

(3:21:30 AM) WLeverett.CIG: One last thing before I head out… if you get a Server Full in the elevator, you will need to close your client and your Launcher and restart. This is a known GIM issue and we’ll be addressing it for an update.

A Female avatar will be available for when the ‘Shopping’ release of the social module drops.

(10:11:07 PM) TZurovec.CIG: Female avatar? We’ll definitely have that for the Shopping release since it focuses quite a bit upon character customization.

Vanguard

The Vanguard is sold as variants, not modules.

(12:47:07 PM) CIG Matt Sherman: Don’t think there’s any modules being sold today, just the more pre-packaged variants.

The S5 on the Vanguards is an S5 mount, which means a S5 fixed gun, an S4 gimbaled gun.

(4:26:50 PM) CIG Matt Sherman: The S5 on any of the Vanguards would be a S5 mount, so Fixed S5 max, gimbaled S4 if you want rotation.

Even ships as new as the Vanguard will have their loadouts adjusted.

(4:28:34 PM) CIG Matt Sherman: Their loadouts as listed on the individual ship pages are mostly accurate, granted some cleanup will happen when we get the new component and PBD systems out. (4:28:49 PM) CIG Matt Sherman: Don’t expect a new hardpoints that aren’t already listed in some capacity to be added.

The Vanguard is for combat, not looting.

(4:31:13 PM) CIG Matt Sherman: It’s very much a combat ship, not a looter.

Again, the nose mount is a S5, which means a gimbaled S4 gun.

(4:32:06 PM) CIG Matt Sherman: The Wardens nose should not be a gimbaled S5, the mount for the series should be a max S5 on the nose allowing a gimbaled S4 to be used, but things may change with balancing concerns as the updated damage system comes online.

Battle-Kits are part sets that should appear on your table for use.

(4:33:37 PM) CIG Matt Sherman: The Battle-kits are basically part sets that would appear on your table for use. Beyond that, I will NEVER have answers for how the upgrade system/CCU stuff works as that is very much outside of anything I do work-wise.

The Tali will have larger torpedoes than the Vanguard.

(6:42:54 PM) CIG Matt Sherman: Ya, the max-size Torps on a Retaliator are going to be bigger than anything a Vanguard could ever haul. (6:43:49 PM) CIG Matt Sherman: I’ll need to recheck, I wanna say the Retaliator has S5 Torps max, the Harbinger maxes out at S2 torps.

The Vanguard should count as a ‘mil-spec’ craft, similar to the Super Hornet.

(7:43:50 PM) CIG Matt Sherman: Overall, for how they’re setup and how they’re planned for tuning, the Vanguards would be ‘mil-spec’ craft, just under the notion of more limited availablity when we’ve gotten to the PU and people are obtaining them there.

Exact ammo-counts haven’t been locked in yet.

(6:08:38 PM) CIG Matt Sherman: Exact ammo-counts aren’t locked in yet, though the bigger question will probably be can you fire all of your ammo before your gun overheats and explodes underneath your pilot seat. (6:08:58 PM) CIG Matt Sherman: Because ya, over-heat damage isn’t really setup right atm, and that’ll really be impacting a lot of use-times on weapons.

Gameplay

‘Carrier-based’ gameplay is more about loading up on ammo instead of gas, because if you’re launching from a carrier, you have the carrier to return to to refuel.

(1:53:41 PM) CIG Matt Sherman: Right now, ‘Carrier based’ is going to be more an aspect of loadout-flexibility. (1:54:32 PM) CIG Matt Sherman: IE, instead of installing a tank of fuel, you just load up more ammo, so you wouldn’t have the gas to jump/quantum around a region, but if you’re launching from a carrier, you’d have a parent ship to return to and change loadout.

Towing other ships is theoretically possible, but tricky.

(1:58:37 PM) CIG Matt Sherman: @Toys: Towing is still tricky just for the physics at play in local systems. Not completely off the table, but not a sure thing either.

Miscellaneous

Backer titles are vanity. There’s no gameplay impact from them.

(3:43:53 PM) CIG Matt Sherman: Backer titles are just vanity, no gameplay impact from them.,

GameDev integration has started.

(10:15:43 PM) TZurovec.CIG: Yes, GameDev integration has already started.

Electronic Warfare

EWar won’t be like EVE.

(4:19:11 PM) CIG Matt Sherman: EWar won’t be like EVE, there’s going to be a lot more risk-reward involved in the gameplay.

August 31

Flight Model

A funny anecdote about the early days of the flight model.

(3:00:52 PM) CIG Calix Reneau: it’s worth noting that we spent a long time having trouble with our flight model (3:01:08 PM) CIG Calix Reneau: until it turned out that the reason was NOT bevause of some problem with John Pritchett’s math (3:01:22 PM) CIG Calix Reneau: but was in fact that our levels were all simulating water (3:01:46 PM) CIG Calix Reneau: yeah, cryengine was deciding that since there was no ground, we must be underwater (3:01:57 PM) CIG Calix Reneau: so welcome to space water, home of the spacewater (3:02:34 PM) CIG Calix Reneau: no, not recent (3:04:47 PM) CIG Calix Reneau: yes. This is a fix that happened many moons ago

September 1

E-War

EWAR. There’s…. yeah. Lots of info about EWAR plans. Just read through it.

(5:50:00 PM) CIG Matt Sherman: EWar will be fun to get setup for how it’s being planned right now, though it’s going to probably be a bit different from what some people expect. (5:50:50 PM) CIG Matt Sherman: In part how important the data-spikes are going to be. (5:51:36 PM) CIG Matt Sherman: Outside of more passive comms-intercept or comm/sensor jamming, you must spike a target if you want to have a chance to directly disable any aspect of their ship. (5:52:18 PM) CIG Matt Sherman: Ya, there’s a specific DataSpike missile planned out. (5:52:59 PM) CIG Matt Sherman: You spike a target, basically planting a usable antenna you can tap into, then you’d have access to start a full hack through their systems. (5:53:41 PM) CIG Matt Sherman: The Spikes would just be a different missile to choose from, so a lot of those counter-measures would still apply. (5:54:05 PM) CIG Matt Sherman: Beyond that, there’s definitely going to be enough meaningful defenses to try and counter the attacks. (5:54:41 PM) CIG Matt Sherman: And you’re not SOL if you get spiked, there’s still going to be defensive measures you can take to counter and stop a hack, especially since the antenna on the spike would have a limited lifespan. (5:57:46 PM) CIG Matt Sherman: Tracker and Ghost would both be tapping into the same systems of electronics though, just different applications. (5:58:37 PM) CIG Matt Sherman: Also, in most ships, even the Herald and Sentinel, you won’t be able to max-out all aspects that the electronics will be covering, so you’ll always be making choices/tradeoffs in how you setup your computers. (5:59:26 PM) CIG Matt Sherman: Hacking someone elses mobiglass, not sure, but using your mobiglass or on-foot hacking, that’s being sorted out with the rest of the system. (5:59:49 PM) CIG Matt Sherman: One of the more interesting things for on-foot attacks though is they’re being poised to be the most destructive. (6:00:28 PM) CIG Matt Sherman: Like ship-to-ship hacking with a dataspike, at best, you can shut down a target. But get someone on-board and doing a direct hack against the ship, then you could have a chance to overload a powerplant or trigger a self-destruct. (6:02:22 PM) CIG Matt Sherman: The full scope of EWar is definitely more a down-the-road implementaion since it needs a lot of other systems online firs.t (6:03:23 PM) CIG Matt Sherman: Ya, like the first steps are getting the entire distortion system fully working, and that’s really basic. Then it’s more layering in more gameplay as the supporting systems come online.

More about EWAR

(6:04:21 PM) CIG Matt Sherman: @Fyre: Part of the tradeoff. You want a chance to effectively one-hit-kill a target, you gotta put your ass on the line to do it. (6:05:00 PM) CIG Matt Sherman: The initial Distortion system is more the ship-side of things, so basically adding in the full planned gameplay for weapons like the Suckerpunches.

And more about EWar!

(6:05:42 PM) CIG Matt Sherman: @Fyre: Nope, any possible destruction to a target through EWar will require an on-site presence.

Glaive Damage

The Glaive’s damage should hopefully be fixed for the next patch after 1.2.0

(7:33:55 PM) ReconDelta: Matt, when are the Glaives scheduled to be fixed with regards to low damage output? (7:35:58 PM) CIG Matt Sherman: Hopefully next patch, a few of the balance changes and the major bug causing the low damage didn’t get in for 1.2.0

Main-line Avenger / Gladius / Merlin weapons

The Avenger and Gladius’ guns should eventually be interchangeable, not the Merlin’s though.

(8:04:23 PM) CIG Matt Sherman: It’s planned for the nose guns on the Avenger and Gladius to become interchangable in the long-run, but not sure when that may be able to happen. (8:05:05 PM) CIG Matt Sherman: The Merlin’s centerline gun though is more a fixed-thing, but a large part of that is it’s Krueger’s first ship and is basically built around the centerline gun.

LTI

LTI is really not that important, and it only covers base-hulls anyway. If you lose your fully upgraded ship, and don’t have insurance on any of the weapons, you’re just getting the stock ship back. Eventually.

(8:15:11 PM) CIG Matt Sherman: LTI is just base-hulls anyways. In the long-run, stock-included parts on ships aren’t going to be as potent as some of the things people will be able to find and tune in the full game. (8:15:39 PM) CIG Matt Sherman: And those parts, even with insurance, will have the risk of running them to total destruction if you don’t repair and maintain them. (8:16:59 PM) CIG Matt Sherman: Some of the included parts on ships are going to be good quality, but no ship is being kitted out and sold anywhere close to a ‘maxed out’ state for its potential. (8:18:44 PM) CIG Matt Sherman: Basic ship insurance isn’t being designed to be an oppressive cost, but it’s very much intended to be something there to also help gut-check people a bit before they just throw-themselves head first into any encounter. (8:19:14 PM) CIG Matt Sherman: Also, the time between losing your ship and getting a replacement isn’t going to be instantaneous, regardless of normal insurance or LTI on a ships hull. (8:26:38 PM) CIG Matt Sherman: I’m honestly expecting the bigger long-term costs will be more repair/maintainence/rearming costs for ships more than insurance. (8:27:31 PM) CIG Matt Sherman: You could prob get insurance for a missile launcher, not a missile itself though.

If you strip the stock parts off a ship and replace them, you won’t get the stock parts back when your ship is replaced by insurance, because they weren’t destroyed with your ship.

(8:30:59 PM) CIG Matt Sherman: It would replace stock items on a ship ONLY if they were also destroyed at the same time with the ship. If you strip off all the stock parts and replace them, you won’t be getting free dupes back.

Tuning / Customization

To destroy your gear, you’d have to overclock it, and then run it on a ship, which would cause it to degrade faster. Also, you’ll be able to not only destroy your components, but overclock them, and watch them degade.

(8:28:37 PM) CIG Matt Sherman: So for tuning/customizing parts, it’s a few overall layers that will effect things. (8:29:35 PM) CIG Matt Sherman: Like from a workbench, you wouldn’t be able to completely fry your gear just seeing what setups work. That would be more having tuned your gear, installed it on a ship, but then running it in an overclocked state which would put more strain on the component, causing it to degrade faster.

They’re working to make sure component tuning is meaningful. It will be detailed, but not overly complicated.

(8:34:37 PM) CIG Matt Sherman: Ya, definitely working to make sure there’s enough meaningful tuning. Also part of why we’re moving to the upcoming component-setup that uses multiples of components inside a ship, since it gives more occurances of tuning vs single size-locked parts. (8:40:19 PM) CIG Matt Sherman: The customization as-planned will be detailed, just not wantonly complicated. Even in the long run, it should never turn into a ‘it’s not for you’ kind of gameplay system.

Vanguard

The Warden will be the most survivable of the Vanguards, due to its escape pod. The Harbinger is the most armoured of the three variants, but will lose speed and maneuverability because of that.