Hello Citizens! We have Around the ‘Verse – Episode 30 for you, including notes by Erris and a gif of the art sneak peek!

Art Sneak Peek:

This is an initial pre-visualization of a ship going into quantum travel. It was done by Chris Olivia who also did the pre-visualization for the jump point navigation (which you can see HERE and HERE).

Notes:

Intro:

72 Million incredible. Ben always gives a speech about how awesome it is, he’s skipping it this time, but he’s still very excited.

New international store Local currencies all throughout Europe now Check out the interview from last week for why this is good news

Pax East and SXSW tickets are on sale SXSW tickets are actually free Join them Sunday, there’s an awards demonstration on the Saturday, and Friday they have a gaming geek panel Also they’ll have a booth. Stop by the booth for a little coupon, for possibly a free-fly weekend, maybe some in-game flair, something cool.

PAX East Ben hopes to go, if schedule allows Booth this year they’re sharing with Logitech, party on the Saturday with a presentation, and some prize giveaways.

PAX South Townhall videos are now available. Watch through all the videos (or read the transcripts)

Kotaku featured a video of an Aurora pilot flying with a HOTAS setup and kicking ass, which the dev team is really happy about. Goes to show that you don’t need to buy the most expensive ship, or use a mouse, to win.

News from Around the Verse:

Arena Commander:

New ship skins are almost completed How almost? So almost that we’ll see them tomorrow (Friday) Two kickstarter skins (Pirate and UEE) and a third in honour of Project Pitchfork They’ll all be available on the pledge store. At this point, the skins are only for Auroras, but if you have an existing one, it’ll be on your account, and they’ll be expanding to other ship typesas they go forward

Tutorial map is being prototyped Big priority for future editions of AC may be in 1.1 or it may slip a little, bu thtey want to bring new players in and teach them to play.

Power throttle in the Aurora HUD has been implemented continuing to expand various ship subsystems. Slowly bringing in systems like shields, armour, scanners, etc…



SQ 42 News:

Skydock going through its second iteration of the concept phase big set piece for the first chapter

Ship stretching warp-in effect has begun visual effects. Saw at the Town Hall the pre-vis for the jump effect by Chris Olivia he’s also working on the quantum travel effect, needed for both SQ42 and the PU



PU News:

Foot and Headwear options are being explored whole pages of boots and pants and hats being designed no cargo pants though : )

Repair drone models have been completed used for many ships that do repairs during flight will use these so will ships that survey mine fields and such also ties into research system that’s being developped

Marine model has received concept and revisions first place we’ll see him is in the FPS module, due later this year.



Ships

Avenger thruster malfunction is being adressed they keep breaking AC, but they’ll keep fixing it, till it’s perfect

350r indestructible issue is being invvestigated

Constellation Turret, Neck, and Cargo areas are receiving additional work kicking off a big revision of the Constellation. Preparing it for 2.0, where it’ll be flight ready. Have to lock down how to walk around in flight and such.



FPS

Animations added for 0g crumpling 0g will be awesome, it’ll be the big selling point of the FPS module

tracers and impacts for combustion pistol have been cleaned up interesting to note that just like the ship weapons, there’ll be different types of ammunition. lasers, combustion weapons, ballistic Sky’s the limit for coming up with new weapons.



Tour of the Austin Office:

Mark Skelton and Jenny? They’re standing in a prop from the WingCommander 4 set

artwork on the walls concept art on the walls

They have a cool kitchen Old Timers Guild gave them a popcorn machine

Boardroom (coasters made by me are visible (barely) on the table)

more people, more places, stuff like that. Showing where everyone dwells in their caves. showing concept art for boots, shoes, and lots of PU stuff. views of arc corp and such

More artists, tech artists and the like some…water animations>? someone working on stuff from the medbay

Animation place

some ship guys…

QA corner they get to play the game all day they’re fixing bugs and testing missiles and such.

And that’s it.

James Pugh talking with Richard Garriott and Paul Nerath? and…Star Long?

talking about new Underworld kickstarter project

They wanted to do a new Underworld, continue the franchise, so that’s going to be on Kickstarter.

Under development for 4 months, they launched their kickstarter yesterday.

They want to keep community working and talking like CIG does. full version of James’ interview will be on CIG’s youtube.



MVP

Anti-Squeaker in fiction post about Drake Interplanetary suing Original Systems.



Sandi goes to Flight School

Video – shows Sandi losing to Ben in an AC match Sandi asks to be taught how to fly ‘a man who can catch a dart with chopsticks can accomplish anything.’

Lesson 1: Basic Flight Controls default layout for logitech joystick

Video shows…how to fly, basically. shows some pretty shots of the Hornet flying, thrusters moving and such.

This would be a good video for new pilots to watch, to see how to fly.

Bugsmashers

Loos like no bugsmashers this week

Customer Service

Looks like no customer service this week either

Interview with Rob Irving



James likes the Austin studio ‘What have you been up to?’ working since the focus of the studio shifted to the PU specifically, Rob has started watching all the parts of what all the different studios are doing, making sure they all fit in what’s going to be going into the PU. making sure all the parts of the game will fit together for the PU How many emails do you have? lots Since the focus of the studio in Austin has changed, how has that affected your job? it’s changed a little, less involved with local design team, now more globally focused on design. He has to know what everyone’s up to, in LA and Illfonic and the UK guys etc… different teams take different features, based on what they need done, and they just keep track of what’s being done by all the studios to make sure it’s all fitting together. most complex dev process he’s ever been involved in How has the feel of the office changed? settled down a little bit. Year 1 was crazy garage band, now it’s more ‘part of the whole’. Rob and Tony feed off each other. Tony’s very good at tunnel focus, taking one thing and running with it, where Rob keeps track of everything else. Knowing who exactly is working on what, right now. How has the community changed around you? doesn’t get to spend as much time with the community fiction-wise, all the lore comes across his desk. Makes sure the writers don’t say anything too extreme. Writers want to make the story stand out, they’ll come up with something dramatic that doesn’t fit in-universe. ‘little robots that take over people and make them into aliens’ Sounds awesome, but not for CIG. what’s something in MMO’s that you don’t like, that you don’t want in SC biggest pet peeve is the whole ‘I want to offline earn money’ thing. makes it more difficult for CIG to keep the economy stable. Crafting’s the other one. So far departed from other MMO’s, so, can’t think of SC as an MMO like others. Very far from EVE and such. You can always be more skilled than the next guy, but it’s skill, not something else Star Map. Can you give me something about it? perfect example of how the game’s evolved and changed Different sized jump-points weren’t planned when they first built the star map. Given the needs for the PU, they ‘shook up’ the star map. Got new organic gameplay out of it Will unveil at some point, but it feels a lot better.



Outro