(Citizen Star News) - by Citizen Ed - 2015-05-16

Updated - 2015-05-17 - With new discussion and see also links at bottom.

Citizen Star

This Week’s Citizen Star … Stars really: the members of the starcitizen subreddit and RSI-Forums that have stepped up with some really great ideas and mockups for an intro to Ship Shape with Lisa Ohanian.



http://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/363muj/another_ship_shape_logo_idea/

http://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/3648lx/ship_shape_logo_effort_by_the_h3ss_p/



http://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/361znp/logo_idea_for_ship_shape/

https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.com/discussion/comment/5021612/#Comment_5021612

https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.com/discussion/comment/5026784/#Comment_5026784

We’ve been enjoying the segment on Around the Verse, most particularly the sneak peaks at progress and updates on the ships. A running gag had been the lack of an intro graphic. This week’s episode featured an open call for someone to design and boy did the community step up!



There’s some great work here, and not only do I think some of this is definitely going to get used… I think it’s going to be a tough job picking. More popping up by the minute, keep an eye out!

GrayHeadedGamer

I’d like to make a shout out to a Citizen Star featured in the past, GrayHeadedGamer, who had a tense moment this week. The /r/starcitizen subreddit rallied behind him to save him from a shadowban for posting too much of his own work (as a percentage of his total posts), which is technically against reddit’s rules.





Good on the Reddit admins for recognizing that the content was desired by the community. It’s often hard to tell the difference between a content creator and contributor as opposed to crass self-promotion and spammer that these rules are meant to keep the platform from being overwhelmed by.

Subscriber Flair as Tribute to the Fallen

An interesting story that came to light this week - The new Puglisi collection of subscriber flair was so named after a fan and backer who passed recently. A touching tribute from a company that cares about its community.

Release

Star Citizen Alpha 1.1.3 was released, skipping test! Featuring Bugfixes and performance increases! Keep flying… and providing feedback!

Squadron 42

(Dropped from video and audio for tech reasons and production time)

Around the Verse this week gave us a glimpse behind the scenes on the Squadron 42 shoot in England, as well as did Sandi Gardiner’s Facebook postings. Looks like everyone is very happy with the progress and we very much look forward to seeing the results.









New Lead Moderator

We have a New Lead Moderator, Patrick Probst. Patrick has been serving as a CSR (Customer Service Rep) out of the UK for some time now and is stepping up for the challenging job of lead moderator of the RSI forums. Good luck Patrick!



Forums are somewhat embroiled at the moment. In addition to the usual exuberance, impatience over the wait for Star Marine and the Social Module, as well as some passionate revisiting of the old LTI question in light of the Gemini Concept sale, are making this quite the week to start that new job.

Jump Point

We have a New Jump point this week! Thank you for the hard work Mr. David Ladyman, and contributors!

A look at the design process of the hulls, with new hints at the other directions they could have taken and new art of the current designs.



This appears to have been an interesting process. For example the advertising billboards were a very late addition. And several of the cockpit designs seem reminiscent of the abandoned bubble cockpits of the early freelancer.

And there’s an extended feature on the work and lessons learned with the board game model developed as a prototype of the economy. No they aren’t releasing that too the public. At least not any time soon.

Galactic Guide entries on Covalex Shipping and the Oso system (a system with developing life forms covered under the UEE’s Fair Chance Act)

“An Osoian walks into a bar and orders a drink. The bartender says I’m sorry, but I’m not allowed to serve you because your culture hasn’t discovered alcohol yet. The Osoian thinks for a second and then says, if you leave a bottle on the counter, I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to discover it myself.”

Part 1 of Brothers in Arms fiction by Andy Rogers

Starfarer Questions

A new welcome addition to official communications has been the Q&A done around new concept ships. Since these ships aren’t as well fleshed out as the ones we’ve known for years now, it’s been very useful to have the ability to ask the designers what the had in mind.

Q -How viable is the Starfarer as a solo player ship? Max crew has grown quite a bit on it.

A - Perfectly viable! The Starfarer has had several seats added for its part in Squadron 42, but we don’t see the gameplay changing significantly. Remember that ‘max crew’ refers to the number of people who can have a role at any one time, not the number of people needed to fly the ship in the first place.



Q - The stats page and ship info list the Starfarer and Gemini as having the same weapons, engines, and mass. Is this an oversight? If they haven’t yet been determined, it’s ok to tell us, it would be a lot less confusing.

A - This is an oversight – the Gemini has one size larger turrets and engines. Because the models are very similar and components have not been finished, it’s not possible to measure a more accurate mass yet.



Q - Can we expect soon an indepth article about fuels, liquids in general and the whole economy in the verse

A - Yes! The fuel system and related balancing are still in development, but when we have a solid prototype in place we will present it to you. The economy will be fleshed out in many articles as we approach the launch of the persistent universe.



Q - How many stars could a Starfarer fare if a Starfarer could fare stars?

A - 42!

Coming Next Week from CIG

An alert on what’s coming next week - In the continuance of a MISC heavy May, we’ve been given notice that the MISC Reliant will be introduced next week as a concept sale. The reliant is notable as a two seat ”starter ship” with alien tech. Concept sale features Life Time Insurance and we are told that the pricing will be $50. A little higher than the standalone prices of the other “starter ships” but also notably the cheapest concept sale we’ve seen in quite a while.



And that’s all we have for now -- this has been Citizen Ed with Citizen Star News dot com… hope to see you next week … in Star Citizen!

See Also

COMM-LINK - Weekly Rundown - Wrap up of Official Communications of this week.

Reddit Discussion

StarCitizenBase Discussion