(Citizen Star News) - by Gerald Evans - 2015-04-23

Updated w/ notes by Gerald Evans!

1:27 – News from around the Verse

10:28 – Shooting Cerephs by Reondryt Guruthos

10:51 – Subscribers Corner

18:37 – Game balance Discussion

22:32 – Bug Smashers

28:14 – Remote Self Destruct by Frog of Knowledge

28:45 – interview with Steve Bender

34:50 – HATS

35:24 – Hull Series Concept Sale Info

36:08 – Sneak Peek

Thanks redditor KallMor

Also revealed today - The long awaited Space Plant.

$49 Million Stretch Goal - Xi’An Space Plant – Similar to a bonsai tree, the Centennial Bloom is a very famous Xi’An plant indigenous to Eealus III that blossoms for one night every one hundred years. They sell the plants in sealed terrariums to traders. Ever since their introduction to the UEE, Humanity has been fascinated by these beautiful plants and the wait for them to bloom.

Sandi and Ben welcome us.

The racing ships are still free to fly until tomorrow. Let them know what you'd like to fly next.

The team is working on 1.1.2 which includes a tutorial mode and sets the stage for Star Marine.

A lot of backend work, thank you all for helping on the stress test.

Tutorial mode will teach new backers how to play.

Ben's birthday was a week ago Thursday.

News From Around the Verse

CIG: Santa Monica - Darian and Erik

Erik is the new sr producer starting today

Erik is working on the shotgun software: a resource management tool fr all the ship assets.

HULL series coming along.

Calix will be showcasing the cargo system

Illfonic - David and Chuck

SATABall is a proving ground for zero-g movement which is why we talk about it so much.

Working on weapon balancing and firing mechanics

Refactoring CryEngine hit system to make the recoil system more modern.

Switching audio systems from FMod to Wwise which will create a much better soundscape.

CIG: Austin - Jake Ross and Ryan Brewer (The PU guys)

Reworking the male skeleton to work better with motion capture.

Getting ready to release all 2500 animations.

Almost finished with GrabbyHands

Pick something up, put it on something and pick that thing up.

Pick something up, put it in a crate and pick up the crate.

Then put those things on your ship, where other people can grab it.

Allows you to decorate your hangar and specify locations.

Foundry 42: Lee and Not Lee

Working at Pinewood studios to produce foley work for the FPS and armor types.

Metal plated marine is made up of scaffolding and hockey armor sounds.

They're excited about the detail for different environments.

Capturing the sounds of guns in different environments and heard from different locations.

See you in Space Civilian!

Video Bumper: Guy surfing on an M50

Subscribers Corner: Flair Update with Alexis

Christine and Dave @ BHVR Answer questions.

Do you decide what gets created?

Some are done here, some are done with help from CIG or from the community

We have hangars too, so we're looking at what we'd like.

What methods do you use to create the flair?

Dev process: Design is sent to concept for sketching, then to art to make the models.

Ships are made by removing the interiors and cutting down the poly count.

Xi'an plant coming It's really cool.

What was your favorite?

The locker, people are still finding the easter eggs.

The models with the detail in the boxes.

The liquor cabinet, which you'll be able to find out more about through your MobiGlas: Lore, etc.

Liquor cabinet called for the mechanic of getting drunk.

The fishtank and the Thorshu crab.

What are the limits for the flair?

The more we add to the hangar the more the performance takes a hit.

The art team min-maxes the quality to create something enjoyable.

How will hundreds or thousands of flairs be dealt with? Can I choose how many are shown?

You'll be able to decide what goes in what room, but there's really no limit.

You'll be able to put them where you want, even into cargo.

What flair is coming next?

A new collection is coming: A piece of a planet that has been destroyed. Space Oddities from around the verse.

Ground control to Major Tom: Commence collection; Katamari on.

Spoiler

Sandi wants a lot of space plants!

Matt Sherman and Mark Abent talk Game Balance and the upcoming physics-based damage system.

One of the problems right now is that all the damage is based on hand-tuned values. We need to make sure it's as physics driven as the rest of the ships.

Before we just went with what felt right. Now it'll be a projectile's mass and it's velocity (K=1/2mv2) If you shoot a 9mm pistol round at a Hornet it doesn't amount to much, but if you fire a round the size of the Hornet at a Hornet, depending on the velocity it'll do some real damage or just bump into it. Energy weapons are being adjusted as well: It's not just velocity but also the energy density of the projectile. Kinetic will pass through shields and hit the armor, energy will degrade the shields. The biggest change was when Matt had to go through the spreadsheet and determine why each thing did what it did.

Rather than an abstract system it will be really clean and where everything plays together. So now ballistics will be based on the FPS and the mass, and energy weapons will look at the power and heat generated.

Ben: Working towards balance is one of the things we're always working on. Don't worry, we'll never stop looking at it.

Bug Smashers!

Hornet turret would be randomly rotated towards a certain spot on the map and wouldn't free, even after respawn.

Uninitialized variables are very, very bad!

Fixed! And mandatory code reviews should fix this in the future.

Video Bumper: Hijacked ship is remotely self destructed.

Interview: Lance Powell (art director) interviews Steve Bender (animation director)

What do you do?

Every day I wonder the same thing. I direct a whole bunch of stuff. I was just in England for three weeks and we shot the capture for the stocked rifle, the heavy armor character with the Firestorm weapon, the Vanduul, PU actions in Terra and the ArcCorp bar, the launchers on carriers, etc. I pick the selects and those go out to the mo-cap studio. When they come back I work with the team implementing the actions. For instance we're working on juking from side to side. We want things to have a real feel and a real weight shift rather than the instantaneous shifts common in today's FPSs.

What other things do you have coming down the pike?

We're working on Arena Commander ship entrances and exits. We built all of the ships in the game on set. There are three entrances: Normal: just your typical climbing in; Combat: Scrambling into the ship; Emergency: You're standing there and some Vanduul appear and start shooting at you. Also if you're in the ship and it's about to explode, an emergency exit animation.

Can you talk about things you've captured in the past and how it's different from what you're doing at CIG?

Things in the past have been primarily concerned with police and military actions and it's all human. At CIG we do have military, and we've hired some military individuals, but we're also doing aliens and there's a particular look that CR wants for them. Space ships are entirely new for me. I've done some controls, but the sheer size and complexity of activity in the ship is completely new to me. As far as the PU, it's not just AI, there are civilian and enemy characters with lives and names. Everyone you see had an actual history before you came into their lives.

Outro:

Gamescom tickets are available still.

CIG has HATS, both snap-back and velcro: available tomorrow in the pledge store.

The HULL series hits the store tomorrow will all five from starter A to supertanker E.

Forget everything you've heard about transports.

Cargo deep dive tomorrow

Sneak Peek is a silhouette of a HULL series...

Thanks for watching, and thanks to the subscribers for making this possible!

See Also

COMM-LINK

RSI Forums Feedback Thread

Reddit Discussion

StarCitizenBase Discussion