Hello Citizens!

Welcome to another episode of DevChat, this time covering September 14th to 17th!

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.

Remember. Unless it comes in an official CIG Dev Post, or comes straight from Chris Roberts’ mouth, it’s not ‘official’.

That said, here comes DevChat!

DevChat

September 14th

Measurements

Star Citizen uses meters for measurement, because really, shouldn’t everything?

(2:46:15 PM) CIG Matt Sherman: Things are being measured in Meters, nothing to argue about for units of measurement. (2:48:34 PM) CIG Matt Sherman: Nope, it’s just being measured in meters. (2:49:09 PM) CIG Matt Sherman: They’ll be using meters if they want to do commerce with UEE. (2:50:12 PM) CIG Matt Sherman: We also need to use a real metric while we’re building out these ships. Making some arbitrary unit size would make building everything out take longer and be more arbitrary work for no meaningful payoff. (2:51:22 PM) CIG Matt Sherman: Yes, but it’s an arbitrary unit that is built standard into most modelling software and can be cleanly used for sizes and proportions.

Weapon and Component Sizes

The first batch of new component sizes will roll out to Power Plants, Coolers, and Shield Generators.

(2:54:44 PM) CIG Matt Sherman: @Ash: We’re working on getting the first rollout of the new sizes out, but can’t say for sure when they’ll be ready, but we’ll start getting better updates in with that. (2:56:10 PM) CIG Matt Sherman: @Ash: Not all in the first deployment, no. First batch is going to be Power Plants, Coolers and Shield Generators, then more gradually rolled out. (2:56:25 PM) CIG Matt Sherman: But those three parts are the most crucial inside a ship currently, so most important to get setup first.

Ship Speeds

Don’t get too excited, but maybe ships will increase in speed someday?

(3:15:26 PM) CIG Calix Reneau: I have already made a prototype for flight characteristics that extend our speed behaviors

Humour

(3:23:23 PM) CIG Calix Reneau: guns are just components, if you think about it (3:23:30 PM) CIG Calix Reneau: components are just guns, if you think about it (3:23:52 PM) CIG Calix Reneau: cargo is just a slow moving projectile, if you think about it

September 16th

Ship Stats

Again, the current spec-page is inaccurate for a lot of things, including the Retaliator’s shields.

(8:01:53 PM) CIG Matt Sherman: Retaliator shields are more powerful than what the current specs page lists. (8:02:16 PM) CIG Matt Sherman: A lot of that info is all wrong considering the pending updates for PBD.

Hacking

You will be able to blow up another players ship via hacking, trigger its self-destruct. But you’ll ‘have to risk your own ass to do so’. The game will give preference to the defence.

(8:26:03 PM) CIG Matt Sherman: You want to blow up another players ship by triggering Self-Destruct, you have to risk your own ass to do so. (8:26:09 PM) CIG Matt Sherman: Nothing complicated about it at all. (8:26:57 PM) CIG Matt Sherman: It’s intended to give preference to the defense. No crap at all, it’s counter-balance to the potency of the attack. (8:27:13 PM) CIG Matt Sherman: If you’ve driven someone off their ship, they’re not going to be in the best of ways to begin with anyways.

Only the owner of a ship could blow up their own ship at will, and they’d probably have to be on the ship to do so.

(8:27:34 PM) CIG Matt Sherman: And it’d only be the owner of the ship who’d ever have that privlidge. (8:27:44 PM) CIG Matt Sherman: So you wouldn’t loan out a ship and that guy nukes it. (8:28:08 PM) CIG Matt Sherman: Owners-discretion, and will most likely still have a max usable range so it’s not like something blows up a few systems away.

Tracking and hacking will not be the same system.

(8:29:24 PM) CIG Matt Sherman: Tracking other people is going to be a differet setup. (8:29:43 PM) CIG Matt Sherman: Hacking will be able to shut down a self-destruct also. (8:29:55 PM) CIG Matt Sherman: Tracking people or ships, it’d be the same system overall.

Just as there are defensive measures for missiles, there will be defensive measures for hacking.

(8:32:06 PM) CIG Matt Sherman: Oh ya, there’s going to be comparable defensive measures for electronics as there would be offensive. (8:32:42 PM) CIG Matt Sherman: And it’s being set so you can’t be a master-of-everything-at-once hacker, you’ll be making choices as to what you can really leverage and weaknesses in a target you can exploit.

September 16th

Balance

CIG know that balance is an issue, and they know that they can’t really put it off too long.

(2:17:13 PM) CIG Calix Reneau: Balance is a running issue. I do wish that it was something we could really put off, but the context balance brings for new features is pretty important

Vanguard

Vanguards are going to be much, much more robust than Hornets.

(9:09:56 PM) CIG Matt Sherman: Vanguards are also different role than a Hornet. Damage-output aside, don’t expect any Hornet to take as much punishment as a Vanguard would be able to withstand. (9:10:47 PM) CIG Matt Sherman: Like if you pop a power plant or a Hornet, you’ll be risking losing full power if it explodes, where a Vanguard could lose one of the side nacelles but still be able to keep flying since it has fully-redundant systems inside.

Physically Based Damage

Another reminder – everything will change once Physically Based Damage gets integrated into the game.

(9:11:26 PM) CIG Matt Sherman: @bdg: Don’t make any assumptions off the current data since plenty is going to change once Physically Based Damage goes in. Any assumptions made before that should be immediately considered wrong.

September 17th

Nothing of note.