Hello there fellow Citizens! Check here for our coverage of the 52nd episode of Around the ‘Verse!

Around the ‘Verse

Sneak Peek

SATABall Helmet



More Images/GIFs

Transcript by Erris

Empire Report:

– Suj Kossi – Will the notorious outlaw cut a deal?

– Ship Scanning – Indispensable or Invasive?

– Argent Down! – If you have teenagers, you’ve been hearing the expression recently. But what does it mean?

1:00

Around the ‘Verse

– Episode 52.

– Monthly report went out last week. Tons of information in the monthly report, with probably more detail than any other studios around the world put out.

– Also doing weekly reports for the FPS module till it hits, tracking technical issues and blockers.

– Small Arena Commander patch on Tuesday for some Flair items. This was just the first patch. They’re working on bring a lot of the content they’ve been working on for the past 2 months into Arena Commander, next patch is 1.1.5, in development now. External testing very soon.

– P capture shoot has finished shooting. CR will be back in Santa Monica after a short trip to Foundry 42 and the Frankfurt office.

– Frankfurt have moved into new offices.

News from the Spectrum

3:25 – Santa Monica – Darian Vorlick and Eric Kieron Davis

– Last week they were working on getting feedback from the community. Now they’re polishing up that feedback, seeing what’s usable, and then pushing it out to the PTU environment. Should hopefully see an updated version with our feedback soon, and then they’ll get more feedback, and keep refining.

– Working on the Merlin and the Scythe.

– Final stages of art and implementation for both ships.

5:00 – Illfonic – David Langeliers

– Sniper rifle, the energy rifle, is getting a ‘charged shot’ added. If you’re scoped in, the longer you hold the fire button down, the more energy it will release. Risk – reward thing.

– Added a practice mode for FPS, similar to the free-fly mode for AC. You can jump in, no penalties or effect on the leaderboard, but you can jump in alone or with friends or in a matchmaking match, but no effect on leaderboards.

– Investigating different ways to communicate damage to players – which direction the damage is coming from. Traditionally in many FPS games, damage indicators will show up on the screen. In SC, you may not always be wearing a helmet, so that type of indicator doesn’t make much sense.

– Illfonic are working with Frankfurt on a new system to indicate when they’re taking, and dealing, damage.

– Thread on the forums concerned about David’s wellbeing, he’s fine, not burnt-out, just under the weather.

7:15 – Austin – Jake Ross

– Working on testing the Generic Instance Manager, or GIM.

– We’ll see the underlying structure of that in the next release.

– Asteroid field tool is under work. That and the mining gameplay will be used to create asteroid fields quickly and efficiently.

– Working on the layout document for the next landing zone in the Stanton system. Tossing ideas around about Hearston, Crusader, and Microtech. One’s a cloud city, one’s a refinery world with mines and such, and one’s a cold, snowy climate. All within the Stanton system.

8:50 – CIG UK – Ben Curtis and Sarah McCulloch

– Props.

– The environment team and the ship teams are making everything that gets flown in space, the props team does all the little objects that get put into the game that’ll help sell the story and make things feel more alive.

– Getting the quality of their work up to the quality of the other teams.

– Lots of work making sure that the props feel right in the world, making sure they meet up the quality of the things the environment team are doing.

– Been working on it for 6 weeks or so, new team that’s been put together, should have something to show soon.

11:13 – Racing with a Show-Off – Fan Vid

11:50

Ship Shape, with Lisa Ohanian

– Talking with Elwin Bachiller

– Talking about ship components.

– Components are the meat and potatoes of the game. Ships are exciting and look cool, but ultimately the game is about components, and the ship’s just what you put the components on.

– Components are things like power plants, shield generators, weapons, etc…

– Every component affects a ship in a different way.

– 9 different types of components right now, but that’s still in flux. Coolers, power plants, shield generators, ballasts, radars, ammo boxes, lots of things.

– Three concepts today.

– They’re trying to establish a base component type, so that when you look at a component, you can immediately identify what it is.

– Three being worked on right now are power plant, shield generator, and cooler.

– Excellent images of all three.

– Concepts shown today are the smallest sizes.

– Used to be 12 different sizes. 12 sizes x 9 types x however many manufacturers, there used to be a massive amount of components that had to be created.

– Decided a better option was to still create a huge number of components, but bring the categories down to 4, instead of 12. Four sizes.

– Small, Medium, Heavy, and Capital sizes.

– Examples of sizes:

– Hornet would have a Small size component.

– Constellation would start using Medium.

– Starfarer might be Heavy.

– Idris would be Capital class.

– Ships now end up using more smaller-size components. Hornet would have multiple Small power plants, whereas before it would have had a single Size 3.

– Great for gameplay. Not only do they have a large list of components that players have more access to, but it also means the ships have more customization possibilities.

– You can have different powerplants on the same ship. More granular control over performance.

– All still WIP.

16:50

James Pugh with Adam Wieser

JP – Hey guys, I’m here with associate writer, Adam Wieser, hey Adam, thanks for coming on!

AW – Absolutely.

JP – So, what’re you working on recently?

AW – I work on, basically, anything lore related, whether it’s coming down to writing the updates for the news posts online, the Dispatches, I help with those. With SQ42 coming on there’s some side-work for NPC dialogue, different things like that that needs help with. When it comes to defining systems, ship manufacturers, weapons, all that stuff, I’m basically just there to help Dave and Will get stuff done that just keeps backing up, there’s so much to get done. When they need a hand, when they need a first pass at something, a lot of times I’ll be given that so I can go through and do a first pass and get the ball rolling on a lot of things.

JP – So what’s your favourite Spectrum Dispatch to write?

AW – Well, the booty call is always a little fun, cause that’s the actual pirate dispatch, that’s a fun little play with language and a different kind of spin on things. I also like the journals. We have a series called Dispatches and Journals, of different explorers, and the idea is there are these capsules that have the journals of different explorers and the adventures they go on, and it’s fun because you’re able to actually get inside of the head of the person who’s actually doing the exploration, and I really think that aspect of the game is a lot of fun to dig into, from a story perspective.

JP – How hard is it to get up to speed with all of this? I’m not sure how much you knew before, but once you got in you see how vast it is

AW – I mean, I had read all the dispatches before coming in, I tried to educate myself as much as possible, I read the entire writer’s guide a few times to immerse myself, and then when I came in, I still feel like there’s stuff to be learned every single day, there’s still stuff to dig in, and I feel like that’s a key element of my job is researching then writing. Researching what we have internally, the lore, the documentation, the understanding, then looking at what we’ve published to the public, so I know a perspective of what the audience is going to be bringing, what information they’re going to be bringing into it also. So it’s always a work in progress, but I think that’s what also makes this really intriguing, really exciting for a project, is the fact that the lore is so deep, it is so varied. Also, it gives us a lot of different opportunities to explore different stories or interesting characters.

JP – So have you touched SQ42 at all?

AW – Yeah, I helped, there was a lot of, especially in early stages, especially as they were getting ready to shoot, there was a lot of planning that needed to be helped and figuring out what we had on the page vs. we were going to figure out the time to shoot that, like I said there’s also a lot of random lines that you’ll get from certain characters on the ship that they needed done so I would go in and just do a few pages of ‘if you bump into someone, or you do this or that, how are they going to react to you.’

JP – That’s really cool, so it’s like situational dialogue?

AW – Exactly yeah, and each one needed to be modified through the lense of that character too, and each one had to be written through the eyes of that character too. So even through all of Squadron 42, that character’s had like 10 lines, but you still needed to, in those small situational moments, try to infuse life into what they were saying. It’s not just another ‘hey, watch out!’ or ‘what are you doing’? it’s really easy to get into that, not kind of the same thing. So yeah, there were definitely some moments in SQ42 where they just needed a little help like that, so I come in and do a first pass on stuff, and then pass it off to the guys and they go from there.

JP – So, have you learned any tricks about what kind of dialogue or writing Chris likes?

AW – I think I actually, I’ve learned a bit more about what Dave [Haddock] likes, and what Will [Weisbaum] likes too, who are the first people who read and respond to what I do. I do think it’s great, ‘cause Dave is very conscious about making sure that we can bring out as much character as possible, and that we’re not just rote ‘if it’s a marine, let’s go run’ trying to stay away from that too. He always holds Aliens 2 as being in high esteem, the quintessential genre movie, you have the marines that are saying their dialogue and getting across the point, but they all come from a certain perspective, they all have their own view on things, and striving to make sure that fits into the SC universe is important, and it’s something I’ve really tried to focus on after working with them.

JP – You become so ingratiated in the story. What’s one aspect you find intriguing in it on a sci-fi level? ‘Cause I imagine you’ve read a lot of sci-fi, we’ve all experienced that, but what is it about this in particular that makes it different?

AW – Well, what I really like about this, and why I think the journals and dispatches are some of my favourites, is the exploration aspect of the game. It’s a big Universe, it’s populated by billions of people and aliens, and all those different things, but at the same time you can still be one player or one series of players going into the dark nether regions of the world trying to find and explore something new. So I think that’s what really makes it exciting is being able to write characters that have that ambition, or are willing to be the first explorers who put together a boat and were like, let’s cross the Pacific ‘cause why not. So, from a science perspective, a sci-fi perspective, the opportunities that arise when someone discovers something for the first time, whether it’s a planet or a different kind of space phenomenon, I think is pretty cool.

JP – Of the main races, which one are you most interested in writing about? Vanduul, Xi’An, Banu?

AW – I’ve been doing a lot of research into the Tevarin recently, which I think is interesting just based on their history.

JP – Yeah, that’s my favourite race too.

AW – So I think from a storytelling perspective, they have the greatest distance to travel. ‘Cause where they are at this point, they’re really starting to feel like they can be proud to be Tevarin again, and they can try to integrate themselves into the UEE more thoroughly, so I think that makes for a really good interesting story, and I think it’ll be fun to explore some of the characters and aspects that come from that, over the next little bit.

JP – Awesome man, one last question. Who are the Kr’Thak?

AW – I’m not sure how much I can say about that. From my research I know a fair amount about them, but… just wait.

JP – Alright, thanks again man!

AW – Alright, yeah, pleasure!

23:55

Subscriber’s Corner

– Chatting with Behaviour folks again, about Flair.

– Guillaume Bourque and Ryan McLean

– Questions from people on the forums:

Wreak: In May’s monthly report, you mentioned that you are working on personal lockers, where players will be able to store and display weapons, gear, and gadgets. You also mentioned that, eventually, personal lockers will allow us to configure and quickly equip weapon/gear loadouts. Can you provide some examples of the different aesthetics, designs, and configurations you are considering for the personal lockers?

– Still in the design phase for the lockers.

– As they move forward with the shopping experience, there’ll be an inventory and lots of weapons, and there needs to be a space to store them. That’s where the idea for the personal locker came from.

– Right now, still trying to figure out the matrix for the weapons, how big will the locker be, will it be in hangars and in ships, how many weapons and what types of weapons can be stored in them, what kind of functionality will they have (creating loadouts, saving loadouts, etc…)

– Also need to figure out an interface for the locker, and need to know if the interface will be the same for other things, like wardrobes.

– More will come once we start getting access to items in-game, and require an inventory.

Coppa: What are your favourite challenges when creating art for SC? What types of problems do you get to solve?

– Best challenge, especially with flairs, it involves much more than just art. It’s UI, 3D, programmers, designers, etc… Like a cooking show, everyone has to have pace and finish at the same time.

Alexis: How do you guys pronounce it, is it Puglisi?

– It’s ‘Pooleasy’

EragonBH: Will we ever have a chance to receive an artifact from a historically significant event in SC lore? It might be a broken laser pistol or a spaceman’s helmet that was used in a UEE war?

– All the Puglisi questions are artifacts, basically replicas of precious ‘one off’ objects’. Each one is unique and rare.

– As for what type of object, at some point they might introduce objects that has gameplay values. If it’s a weapon, it might be usable, if it’s a helmet, it might be wearable. Right now, they’re only for display, but there’s a possibility for other types of objects as well.

Nostromo1977: Speaking of the Puglisi collection, any chance we will see an alien creature fossil or an alien tablet with alien language inscriptions on it?

– Actually, there’s a very good chance of that. As a hint, there was an ancient race that lived on Terra, and there was a something of stone that was found, and that might show up in the Puglisi collection.

– They’ve enlisted a master sculptor and a chair of a linguistics institute to put that together.

– This month’s flair is Vanduul armour plating – it’s an abandoned carrier that was found and sold in pieces. It’s a piece of Vanduul Scythe armour plating.

30:59

Ben and Sandi

– July Flair (vanduul armor plating) has already been patched into AC and subscribers will see it tomorrow in their hangars.

– That’s it for Around the ‘Verse

– Star Citizen continues

– New Star Marine update tomorrow

– 300 Series up for free flight for the next week

– 300 Series will undergo significant revision/rebalance/update, need testing and feedback

– Want to ensure the 300 Series meets its original roles

32:00

Sneak Peek

– Red SATABall helmet!

32:23

Ben and Sandi

– RtV tomorrow at 11 AM PDT on Twitch