(Citizen Star News) -by Gerald Evans - 2015-04-20

Updated: With notes by StarCitizenBase's Gerald Evans:

1:05 - Retractable wings in space

2:35 - Radiating heat within your ship and masking for stealth

5:05 - Visual gesturing and communicating with others

6:59 - Facial capture and animating fans in-game

9:14 - FPS module release tease

12:35 - Backer-driven changes in-game

15:08 - Prioritizing bug fixes in development

19:35 - Balancing the damage system

22:00 - Upgrade variations between ships

24:15 - Top speed limitations and potential expansions

Notes by StarCitizenBase's Gerald Evans

I got a question in!

1: Will we be able to retract the wings of ships that have such while in space?

The Hornet, Vanguard, Retaliator have swing wings but there is no need to have them deployed in space.

There will be a toggle so you can see how much you want the wings to deploy on the Vanguard.

On the wing tips of the Vanguard there are thrusters: Wings back would let the thrusters help you go faster, while wings fully deployed would give you more torque to increase your roll rate.

There is a penalty to cross section with the wings out.

2: Will there be a sump for heat as part of the heat pipe system so you can store some to lower emissions and increase stealth? Also if it fills and you don't want to expel it, how will that affect the temperature in your ship, and the crew?

Whether dealing with fission or whatever that's a lot of heat. Not something you want to keep inside.

There will be a a way to temporarily shunt heat within the system for a small stealth bonus, but it will add to wear on the ship.

3: Have you thought about an in-game visual way to communicate ideas and information like ship mods or jump point locations? Perhaps gathering around and entering a map ot projector mode where you can control gestures to point at specific locations and the other players can save the data?

We've thorough about it mostly in the context of capital ships in terms of controlling armadas and gathering around the holosphere. A command and control mechanic.

As far as smaller ships, there should be a way to "John Madden" your maps on the Constellation or Carrack, etc.

Once we've put the mechanic in the system it should work anywhere.

4: As a way to recruit people have you thought about bringing a facial capture rig to events and letting people really be a part of the game? Would it be more of a headache than a benefit in variety and creativity?

I like the idea, it's not very viable in the immediate future.

It would take a massive amount of work to turn a thousand heads from E3, like all the way to the next E3.

We'd like to do it eventually though, but to keep the fidelity would take a long time to clean up the images.

TL;DR It's not as easy as taking a picture of your face.

5: When do you plan to have the FPS module released?

As soon as it meets with CR's expectations.

When they stop playing it and thinking, "this really needs a pinch of salt."

They want to avoid releasing a flat system that leads to player fatigue because it's missing so many mechanics.

They've moved to a new system for lighting, audio, etc that really makes it a high fidelity module. Travis' AEGIS itemport system (is it catching on?)

6: How often do the critiques of backers, who are actual experts in various fields, make it into the game?

Quite a bit, but not where it sacrifices fun.

There is a certain level of suspension of disbelief and after all it is a game.

The Retaliator's torpedoes look like MK48s which don't have thrusters for attitude adjustment.

Everyone on the internet is an expert. For instance Travis is a merc soldier of fortune and Darian knows about astrophysics (for reals)

7: How is CIG prioritizing bug fixes in terms of development?

We look at a given development cycle or release, and the known bugs.

We then decide how many of them we can fix without taking people off of future development requirements.

If it's something that would keep people from playing at all, that's a priority, but if it can be addressed in the next or a future iteration we'll push it down the road to where it may just get fixed in the nature of the development.

The GHOST system for instance has some bugs that block people from getting into the ship in free flight. That's a problem. The stuff that just looks weird will get fixed in time.

8: Is the new damage system a way to reduce the workload or to increase fidelity? How do you intend to balance things given that there are so many knobs that you could tweak are embedded in the physics simulation?

Both. The damage system takes less work and looks better, when we apply it to projectiles it also will also reduce the workload because we'll be able to tweak them based on maths. Also it adds fidelity because the barrels and projectiles need to match.

We do intend to balance things, but we have so many knobs we can tweak that will just have physics based realities behind their values instead of "what feels right."

A physics based system what comes out of it is behavior that feels right to the player. And it's easier.

9: How will the upgrade system going to work on ships? Does each system and subsystem have a level like it does on the powerplant or weapons? Will there be levels of targeting or coolers?

Yes, and you see this on the 325A vs 300i with a better targeting computer and the LN has a better cooling system.

We will absolutely have things like better CPUs, etc.

It may be that your avionics unit comes with size ports that allow a certain level of customization.

Chris really wants this. Darian really wants the marker to be in his ear.

10: Is ship top speed and relative top speeds restricted by CryEngine? Will this get rebalanced? Are you attempting to change this?

500m/s was a limitation but the 64bit system shouldn't have that limit.

The question is do we want anything to move faster when not in quantum travel?

We have discussed an idea and we'll see if it happens.

Every ship would be limited to 500m/s but every ship will have it's ideal performance envelope.

Going outside of your ideal range may see a drop off in your ability to maneuver or accelerate.

See Also

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