(Citizen Star News) - 2015-04-13

Formed by EVE mercenary veterans, Private CAP Security™ provides tailored ethical military services to commercial business partners, fugitive recovery agencies, and other enforcement and military actors.

Services include protection, consultancy, training, and comprehensive risk management solutions. Also they've recently been exploring escrow services.

Interview

Citizen Star News (CSN): What made you found PCS?

Rushyo: During the initial Kickstarter I managed to acquire an Idris-M Corvette. I was convinced SC was going to be a big hit as soon as I saw it (I sure as hell haven't dropped that kind of money on any other Kickstarter project), and I had lots of friends and colleagues who were in to gaming. I had extensive experience running a mercenary corporation in EVE Online, so the creation of a multi-purpose PMC was a very natural way to encourage everyone to get involved. 'PCS' is an initialism of one of the products of a company I used to be employed by; it's an in-joke.

CSN: What were your influences in building your organization?

Rushyo: It's all about letting the members experience the cool sci-fi/piloting moments that inspire when we think about when we think Star Citizen. Experiencing a Star Trek episode first-hand from the bridge of the Idris, dogfighting in the Danger Zone with your squadron to defend your carrier, getting up to mischief with a questionable contract in a Firefly Reclaimer, going full-on Space Marine against gooey carnivorous beasties on a drifting space hulk, or trying to survive in deep space against an overwhelming toaster alien threat.

In order to do those things you need folks to undertake them with. What's Star Trek with nameless officers? Top Gun without your wingman? Firefly without the misbehaving? Space Marine without your comrades shouting forth the Emperor's zeal? Galactica without the intrigue? Interesting shipmates (or at least, enthusiastic shipmates!) are vital to all of these experiences.

CSN: How do you plan to spend the time and build an organization as the game draws closer to launch?

Rushyo: Basically everyone in the group is a full-time employed adult, a lot of them are parents, and not everyone has a high-spec machine or a reliable internet connection for pulling down massive PTU patches every week. Unlike hardcore groups, we can't just say "everybody jump on TeamSpeak in 30 minutes and let's go!".

We occasionally jump in to AC, but more recently I've been looking at team-building exercises as a way to bring everyone in to the fold, even if they can't get the AC client working. I also try to collate the latest news for the group, so they don't feel obligation to stay up-to-date with the latest news to be active in the group.

We have such a mix of player styles, from RPers to dogfighters, that it seems easier to just do a little bit of everything than have any kind of fixed plan, whilst everyone upgrades their machines and the game matures.

When SQ42 starts to hit, then we'll also have a recruitment drive; but I'd like to have a friendly, teamwork-oriented culture already there for people to join, rather than trying to create one with a bunch of strangers.

CSN: What are your thoughts on how the organization is going to work?

Rushyo: I've been running legwork trying to set up contracts for the organisation, trying to establish partnerships and networking with potential clients for our services.

By setting up these contracts early, we should hopefully have plenty of options for things to do once the PU is available. I have intentionally made a point of acquiring multi-crew ships which allow us to have different gameplay experiences; depending on the number of online players, the in-game context, and what everybody wants to do, we can partake in different areas of gameplay. I don't think our members want to just run escorts, or just crew a capital ship, or just do boarding, so it's important we have options.

Having an LTI Idris-M is a serious boon in this regard because it gives us leverage. We have a capability not many others have, in spite of our limited number of players. It also lets us have a social aspect - the ship will be our virtual home. Even if people don't want to play, they can just hang out in a cool environment. Sometimes TeamSpeak just doesn't cut it for social interaction; none of us are really water-cooler smalltalk folks.

CSN: Would you describe your concept for in game presence, your personal character and the Org?

Rushyo: PCS's corporate image is built using modern Private Military/Security Companies (same thing) as inspiration. PMCs are extremely corporate, making most of their contracts through a mix of professional image, governance paperwork, and business networking. I've tried to align the outward image of the group with those corporations as much as possible. It's surprisingly easy to create a convincing front over what we want to do, since the public image of real PMCs is basically an acronym-laden façade anyway.

My own character reflects the duties I will be performing in the organisation anyway: a Managing Director and a ship's CO. In an RP context, he almost certainly has to be a former naval officer turned military business owner. He's probably ex-Special Forces and I expect the same will be true of many of the crew; many PMCs in reality are formed from an SF backbone. Having a bunch of ex-SF is a roleplaying clichè for sure, but it's simple serendipity that in this instance it's thematically appropriate.

CSN: What could CIG do for you to help you be successful? What do you need in the Star Citizen 'verse?

Rushyo: I think we will be fine if they just keep doing what they're doing.Ultimately my vision of the game is well aligned with CIG's, that's why I and the other members backed in the first place. I know they're focused on the new backer experience at the moment, which is one area that is really important for keeping a relatively casual group like this alive.

Star Citizen's First Person Universe is offering all these gameplay styles, but it needs to reach out and explain to potential players (people who might play doctors, salvagers, miners, radar operators, engineers, redshirts, comms officers, diplomats, etc) why this new-look Star Citizen is also going to appeal to *them*.

I've had difficulty explaining to people who aren't in to space sims why they would probably still enjoy playing with us. When they see the cost of entry and the pledge store they are instantly put off; it's crucial they are able to see that grinding credits for ships isn't the only way of playing, and that they're getting two/three games for the price. Horrendously slack non-journalism ('Scam Citizen') isn't helping with that image one bit.

I'm quite tempted to make a 'what can Star Citizen offer you?' web site, which has a prospective citizen answer a few questions and then explains what Star Citizen has to offer without having them trek through hundreds of pages/videos of lore, fan in-jokes, and dev Q&A. The fact is most of the information CIG is putting out there isn't aimed at 95% of the audience. Helping people to find the stuff that is targeted at them, whilst they're still open-minded about the concept, will help me (and others) introduce lots more people to the game and, by proxy, also to PCS.

I don't blame people who are still put off by SC. The community is huge with tons of sub-cliques, there's an obscene amount of information overload, there's lots of money exchanging hands, and typically geeky sci-fi gamer folks are geeking out about sci-fi gaming. Still, the sooner I can get convince these sorts of people to join PCS the more options are open to our group. We aren't hardcore elite dogfighting PvPers; we just want friendly people to experience many aspects of the BDSSE with. That means tapping in to Star Citizen's unique potential player-base as soon as possible.

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