Hello fellow Citizens! Welcome to INN’s notes for Reverse the ‘Verse – Episode 59!

Reverse the ‘Verse

Notes by Erris and Myself

Notes in bold are important. Notes in italics are our own thoughts.

– Soon-tm

– Image of the Vanguard Warden cockpit – as seen on AtV 57, is now up on the screen.

– I see Ben, James, Alexis, Disco, and Hennessy.

– Starting first with the ‘week in review’

– Ben’s week has been good. Vanguard stuff, ship reviews, got in some stuff for the Endeavour and the Crucible. They’ve got the shape for the Crucible, and are working on the pods for the Endeavour.

– Did some cool filming this week. There’ll be a follow-up to this week’s segment in AtV about helmets. Filming stuff with Gurmukh about the Vanguard, and getting ready for CitizenCon

– Will get to see inside and out of all the variants for the Vanguard.

– Chris Roberts is back this week in 10 for the Chairman

– Alexis has been doing a lot this week with Sandi. New merch, something coming for Concierge folks, more stuff for Subscribers, lots of ‘cool’ stuff coming.

– Disco spent the week testing the upcoming community hub, which should be coming soon.

– A Manchester poster is shaping up, and apparently Ben had a great idea for something for CitizenCon, but they can’t say what it is.

– CS are 1500 tickets behind after Gamescom, working hard to get through them, but if you have a ticket waiting, they’ll get to it, as quickly as they can.

– Alyssa is out sick today, here’s hoping she feels better soon.

– On Sunday, CIG threw Alexis a surprise birthday party. Lando and Ben took her to the toy store, while James and Alyssa and Jack Hennessey decorated the house with flashing lights and alcohol and things.

– Apparently there was a ‘traffic incident’ and Alyssa was waving her arms wildly. Lots of party story. Alyssa’s right downtown, she has no business being there, Disco and Ben are trying to come up with excuses about how it’s probably not Alyssa, so they can hide the surprise.

– CIG do this and talk about both Star Citizen and their personal lives cause it’s their chance to chat with us. They get to know us, we get to know them, it’s not all about Star Citizen, but about the Devs too.

– [Why isn’t RtV longer?] It feels pretty long already. As ridiculous as their lives seem on the show, they’ve got lots of work to do pretty much all the time.

– Meetings with Turb after this, monthly studio tour, Fridays aren’t casual days. They’re very busy for CIG. FPS post has to go up after, Social meeting, Jump Point comes out, lots to do.

– Social module – Guys in Austin are working on getting it to the PTU. It’s close, but no specific date to share yet.

– Downtime last night was migrating the back-end onto Google. Ben ‘every winter websites have to fly south where they roost and spawn new websites, and they’re now letting the RSI website do that’

– CIG gets no money from big tobacco. (sily question, don’t ask)

– CIG don’t need volunteers for CitizenCon probably. If you’re going to CitizenCon, just sit back and enjoy the ride, and the delightful British food.

– [Deep dive on Sensor and radar mechanics?] Eventually yes. possibly not next week, but soon. Also possibly next week. It’ll be in the near future.

– Social is the fist step into the PU. Allows to step around Arc Corp with players, see locations, shops, fidelity, etc… wont’ have anything to do with Orgs or ships in hangars. For the next 18 months after that, they’ve got a schedule to get it from Social to ‘the future’

– Social’s being launched very ‘young’, it’ll grow up a lot over time.

– Tony Zurovec’s writing a piece about the Social module that’ll come out with it.

– Ben contacted designers to get proper measurements about the Tali’s cargo, they’re re-measuring everything to get the right number, but it won’t come today.

– Vanguard will be variants, not modules. Mostly exterior changes. Modules don’t replace variants, there will always be both from now on.

– Upgrades during the Vanguard variants sale? If you have an existing one, you can upgrade it to either of the other two. If the Vanguard variants weren’t offered with LTI, then they’ll be LTI.

– Vanguard variants are: Standard – Warden. Vanguard Sentinel, Vanguard Harbinger.

– Saw the Sentinel on Sandi’s facebook last night, saw the Warden on AtV yesterday – Sneak Peek.

– [Status on orgs 2.0?] TBD. Hear more probably at CitizenCon.

– [Current thoughts on head/helmet bob?] It’s intentional in FPS stuff right now, not sure what the long-term plan is.

– [Plans for a tow-truck ship?] The Crucible is the tow-truck ship. We’ll be seeing that at some point.

– [Can we see another career deep dive?] Yes. probably repair or science, associated with the ships when they’re done.

– Social module PTU will be available to ~2000 people at first, then expanded from there. There won’t be a required ‘pass’ for this. This is the first iteration of the Star Citizen Universe. Everyone should get it just by backing.

– ‘It’s like your hangar got big.’ No shared hangars at first, but that will change in the future.

– There are some emotes in Social, not sure if /Dance is one of them yet.

– [Khartu Scout?] It’s alive. It’s on the schedule. If you haven’t seen the schedule, there’s now a ship status page in the official announcements page on the forums.

– Pipeline is being re-jiggered. Getting more resources off SQ42 to deliver some pledge ships sooner. Ships status questions won’t be answered till the pipeline is updated.

– The stress test for Social will be very specific, not chosen by Citizen number. Chosen by geographic location and distance from servers.

– Probably won’t see AntiAliasing done anytime soon. That’s optimization, usually happens towards the end of development.

– Polish right now is pointless until the game is feature-complete.

– [Endeavor concept sold before Cit Con?] Answer is, any concept will be sold once it goes through the design process. Not based on a particular event or anything. When they do one for an event, they do one that requires no additional design. There will be a ship revealed at Cit Con, but it won’t be the Endeavor.

– No revisions to the 300 series yet, but they’re on the table.

– [NPC pop in the social module?] Very small population at this point. More on that later. Right now, more important to get people in than NPC’s.

– Lisa’s actually pretty neutral to the nickname ‘ship shape’.

– [Able to use NPC’s in AC 2.0 as gunners?] Probably not first release, but down the line yes.

– Real technical challenge is getting as many players in at one time, that’s what lots of the initial tests on things will be.

– Can’t say much about the Vanguards, but Gurmukh is working on images that’ll be shared when everything’s revealed, we’ll find out more soon.

– James is the only real drinker among the Community team.

– [Ability to add friends to lobbies, uninvite, reinvite, etc…] Nothing right now. They’ll try to get an answer for us though.

– Working on a ship schedule. Nothing signed off on yet, but they’re hoping to start before the end of the year, the Xi’An scout, Reliant, some others. Could all change, but they’re hoping. Vanguard will not be hangar ready next week.

– Someone’s working on shield bug fixes.

– In general, avoid asking ‘schedule’ related questions on the show.

– Dan Kamentsky just walked in.

– I think I also heard Matt Sherman.

– [Will the Connie get modules?] Possibly? Don’t want to pre-confirm anything. They had a good idea on the Tali modules, nothing else specific for the Connie until they have specifics.

– [News on the Blitz racing mode?] No news.

– [FPS before or after AC 2.0?] That’s a schedule question. No answer. FPS was slated to be out months ago! So yes, that’s still the hope too, it’s a matter of redoing animations right now. Waiting for a report from Jason Hutchins to find out how that’s going. 2.0 has the tech it needs from FPS.

– CIG do know that the Glaive’s left missile only fires backwards.

– Can’t answer many Social module questions, partially cause we’ll see it very soon, largely cause it’s the guys in Austin working on it.

– Ben enjoyed the Wing Commander simulcast on INN

– There are some artists working on the Herald right now, design review this afternoon for that. Actively making progress on it.

– Questions about the Frankfurt studio, they don’t compel anyone to be on the shows, they just invite people. Frankfurt woould rather work than be on camera right now.

– Mostly people in UK at CitizenCon, Lisa’s trying to go. Sandi and Chris will be there for sure.

– ‘Passive auto-aim on gimbals?’ Probably no. Won’t be an embedded function. Looking into the ability for an additional targetting computer, but it’s all still subject to tuning and implementation.

– Ben worked on a terrible XBlive arcade Wing Commander game. They had Mark Hamill set up to do a commercial for the game, but he didn’t want to play a video game on camera, killed the ad.

– Darian is not being sent to Australia. Everything would fall apart if he went down there.

– Ben did all the lore and the manual for Wing Commander Arena.

– They’re talking about Conan Obrien doing ‘clueless gamer’.

– CIG don’t hang out with Mark Hamill, unfortunately.

– Controls are ongoing. They want anyone to be able to find the right tuning and setup for their personal taste, without there being any defacto ‘i win’ standard.

– Disco did read INN’s ‘Saitek’ article. He says it’s good.

– To extend the things on the Glaive, should switch to weapon group three, treat them like a missile.

– There are people penciled in to start on the Reliant before the end of the year, should get made relatively soon.

– No progress on the Drake Dragonfly yet.

– The Dragonfly is on the short-list, but it needs more design work on it first, to make sure it works functionally with everything else first.

– The Crucible, Endeavor, and the Prowler are the last ships in this wave to be done. The Prowler and more we haven’t heard of will be kicked off after Crucible and Endeavor.

– CIG are working on having specific studios focus on specific ship manufacturers.

– [Freelancer?] Handed off to the UK. Was handed off not too long ago, but LIsa’s not sure if they’re working on it right now or not. It’s definitely one of the next ships to be worked on though.

– The Glaive S5 weapons damage per shot is some of the highest in the game, but the RoF and the lifespan made them hard to use. damage per shot, not Damage per second.

– [Constellation?] The Connie was in the demo, it’s still being worked on. Has not stopped being worked on since Gamescom.

– There is no chance of CIG underwear.

– Matt has flown the Scythe and Glaive. Not as much as other ships, but he has flown them.

– [Caterpillar?] According to the schedule, which hasn’t been signed off on, supposed to have some LA people work on that after New Year.

– No updates on the Carrack

– They’re talking about the Star Trek interactive board game now, apparently.

– No plans to include bugs on the ship status page. That’d be too much work. It’s just for the status on their development.

– The Scythe and Glaive should have really crazy handling but they only have fixed weapons. That’s why their handling is sharper.

– Talking about Shakespeare.

– You will see more natural environments as development progresses.

– [Alien races status?] Making good progress. There’s been a concept artist working on fleshing out the Vanduul and making variants of them.

– Some updated Vanduul art showed up in the ComicCon presentation by Chris.

– Lisa will look into doing the Cutlass for Ship Shape.

– Writers encourage different pronunciastions of Xi’An

– There will be nightclubs for sure. There are legal questions bout how you do gambling in games. It adds gameplay, but also adds complications. At least one nightclub has already been built.

– Austin are making the ‘million mile high’ club for ‘an upcoming event’

– Ben gets his own office in the new building.

– CIG don’t hate the Avenger. Ben didn’t like Avengers 2 much. *badum-tiss*

– Avenger is a great example of prioritizing design instead of money. No variants till the people making them are happy with them. The Avenger is one of the most popular ships. Disco just did a recent audit of how many of each ship are out there, Avenger is in the top 10.

– Sandi’s here now.

– Still no info on modding tools. Still too far away.

– No idea what artist will do the Banu MM, still too far away.

– Sandi’s SC tattoo is not real.

– Dragon Con – Ben will be there Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Big SC QA on Saturday.

– Sunday Ben’s on a couple of general gaming panels. the two Dave’s are doing some writing panels.

– Probably get together with StarCitizenAA guys on Saturday night to hang out.

– Ben has been to the US airforce museum. Ben’s life goal is to visit every US spacecraft.

– Somone asked ‘what’s it like working with Sandi?’. Ben could not ask for a cooler person to work with.

– [Plans for 2016 events?] TBD. Lots of livestreams planned.

– For module questions, especially for ships that aren’t flight ready. Can’t aswer those questions till the base ship is flight ready. Then they can see what kind of modules and extra gameplay they want to put in.

– Every piece of art for the Merchantman has been shared.

– Vanguard variants are Warden, Sentinel, and Harbinger.

– Vanguard Sentinel is the EWAR variant.

– The Sentinel is ‘very cool’ apparently.

– They’re talking about the SR-71 now.

– The Connie needs to be flight ready, and the snub dock has to be working, before they can look into things you can replace the snub dock with – like a 3rd turret.

– [HUD redone for all ships to be inside the ship, not floating?] Depend on the manufacturer. Some will have hologrpahics, some won’t. Per-manufacturer.

– Hangar holotable revamp is being worked on. It’s not immediate, but it’s in the plans. They know it has issues.

– New CCU system is still coming, it’s being tested, but it’s not coming till it’s ready.

– Sunday is Disco Lando’s birthday. Happy Birthday Disco!