Star Citizen/CIG transcripts 09-03-2016

10 for the Chairman: Episode 78
Mar 7, 2016


Q: Are there any plans to streamline patch sizes?

A: So yes absolutely we have a plan in fact I sat down ah earlier this week which would be the previous week to you seeing this cos we're recording this on Friday and you um watch us on Monday, ehm but ehmmmm yeah I think we have a really aahhh cool plan that's very configured to ah our new development paradigm ah, you know, ah, not saying new for us but sort of the new paradigm of what WE'RE doing which is constantly ehm, you know, building, testing, DEPLOYING ah both internally and then externally to, ah, you know, you guys in the community ahm first level and so the um public test universe the PTU and then of course the
live and so, you know we need a solution that we can be... BUILDING rapidly and iterating rapidly and getting to as efficiently as possible and our current one is not the best, cos it has the sort of big monolithic pack files, each pack file... is... two gigs, and there's quite a few of 'em, and if one file changes in it you have to build the whole pack file and the way our... BUILD SYSTEM works and all the DATA is we have to rebuild all the DATA, ah, into the pack files right now, ah ...



Q: Aside from shopkeepers, quest-givers and other NPCs considered essential in other games, are NPCs in a given area going to be generated randomly based on the current environment and the parameters set in the area?

A: (looks worried) So what's gonna happen is... the... we have a universe simulation that runs on a separate server, and that's much more a sort of... BIG PICTURE simulation, think of it like, I dunno, a... a... CIVILIZATION game or something like that, sort of a slower turn based game and that actually is simulating the universe, what all the NPCs are doing sort of on a macro basis, who's trading with WHAT, what's producing WHAT, what goods are needed WHERE, where pirates are attacking and so the general outcomes of those results are all happening on the universe simulation in its own process... and then that's getting trickled down into the local game servers that are all the players, i.e. you guys are attaching to and
playing in, and... and... the... the... SNAPSHOT of what's happening on the universe server is then sort of carried across the game server so what would happen is for instance... ah you know, if you were down on ah ah a PLANET it would say "OK well you know ah, this planet is a MINING planet and ah, you know, so, I will generate, ah, you know, and the population is *this* size... ah... therefore ah you know we'll probably populate the landing area with X number of NPCs, OF the X number of NPCs... 60% of them will be MINERS, and we'll have, you know, LAW ENFORCEMENT and you know, and we'll have some service workers like in the bars and stuff like that, and it will all be sort of generated by, ah... the... DATA that... is pushed down or pulled down from the universe server and so ......


Q: Within the context of fantasy space flight ... Should there be an advantage to getting on your target's 'six' and staying there, or is that pretty much negated by 6DOF flight?

A: I will say that in all circumstances even with, you know, six degrees of freedom and the ability to, ah, you know, do lateral and horizontal and... ah... you know... vertical, sort of em, strafing, ah, as well as sort of, ah, you know, change your orientation and maybe not your velocity vector, ah, which is sort of the decoupled stuff, um, always getting on, ah, you know, getting BEHIND someone, or in their BLIND SIDE is a bit of an advantage, now the difference, in, ah, our system and flight model if you're a good pilot, is you'll be able to
get out of that situation, you'll have more OPTIONS than you do in regular atmospheric, ah, you know air combat manoeuvring, but, em, you know, obviously you wanna get BEHIND someone because, you know, ah they can't bring their gun... you know, most guns are forward facing also visibility's usually forward facing so you know OUTSIDE OF the bigger ships with turrets then you know, ah, getting behind, ah, people or someone in a dogfight is usually, ah, it will give you an edge and advantage even if they can recover from it... ah, quicker than they can in, ah, you know, traditional, you know, ah, CURRENT DAY, atmospheric, ah, air combat.


Q: We already have a flyable Constellation and a flyable P-52 Merlin. How far are we from a workable tech for docking and undocking? Is this something we can expect in the near future or is this a functionality planned further down the line?

A: Yeah ah you know I really wanna actually get the fifty... P52 and the Constellation, ah, to WORK together cos they're, they're MEANT to... to... work together, it is probably something we will ah, start to work on with ah, Craig after... Craig Gransell who's done the sort of landing system, he's still got some... landing system stuff that he's wrapping up for Squadron FORTY TWO and some... enhancements for Star Citizen and that, this will probably be the next... TASK to get this working it's not THAT difficult, I mean basically you just kinda
wanna get... it's just like the landing system really you get in a certain area and then you say Ok... DOCK and then we'll just sorta bring you in and CONNECT you and the Merlin will be attached to the Constellation and then, hopefully you can get out and you should just be able to enter into the... back of the Constellation so ah, I do wanna (incoherent mumble) cos it's ah, NOT... that difficult technically to get working it's really just people have had a whole bunch of other things they're working on first, ah for instance you know we... ah... you know... HAVEN'T SHOWN IT YET, but you know we have an IDRIS FLYING AROUND and you can land
inside it and take off inside it and, em, walk around it and it's pretty cool so um, ah, that was sort of the higher priority and we've still got some stuff to do on the bigger ships in terms of ah....


Q: So the Endeavour has bio domes. What will be the point of farming? And will there be bacon farming?

A: Well the point of farming will be... ah, you know, the BIO DOMES will allow you to grow, ah, agriculture, you know, crops, ah, and you'll be able to... SELL those, probably for a premium so the idea will be, the Bio Domes in the Endeavour are sort of growing things that you couldn't normally necessarily grow on a planet, and you can maybe sell for a premium, whatever it would be, ah, I'm sure lotsa people will go "SPACE WEED!" but um, you know there'll be plenty of other things too, ahaha, um, so... you know it's, it's ah, it's a sort of farming mechanic, so you'd have that in, ah, you know you'd have that in space, you'd maintain it like perhaps you know, you have to take the... your ship would have to be a certain distance from the local system STAR or, you know you'd have to tend, fend for it make sure it's... ah, you know GROWN in, you know, like, perhaps the lower gravity setup makes you able to grow a better strain of... whatever it will be, WHEAT etc ah, so there you go


Q: You've talked about consulting linguists for alien languages, are you talking to exobiologists, exoplanetologists and exo-climatologists for direction and help in designing the ecosystems and climates of alien planets?

A: That's a good question, ehhh... I... we do... we have done a certain amount of, ah, working with a local school, here, in LA actually, ah so at UCLA we've been dealing with some sort of astrophysicists and, and their ILK in ah terms of ah, laying out our star systems and what kind of planets will be what distance from the stars and... that sort of direc... you know, that sort of dictates um, the type of, ah, planet and you know to a certain extent what we do is we say "well we want this kind of planet", and then we talk to, um, you know the folks that really know and say "so what situation could we potentially get this planet in" and "WELL maybe it needs to be this distance, this many AU from the STAR and DA-DA-DA" and, and so that's sort of how we on a macro side been doing the star system map, and some of that will filter in to the PROCEDURAL TECH ah but it's still early days on um (looks at question) the... you know, kinda figuring out the ecosystem of the planets and the weather patterns and all the rest of the stuff, so I mean I would guess that we would tend to go a little bit more towards a DESIGNED approach where like, you know it's like, take a view, take a look at HOTH it's a, you know it's an ICE PLANET, and it's COOL, but it, you know, IS THE WHOLE PLANET
COVERED IN SNOW?

Or is it, you know, I mean it certainly looks like it when you watch the movie... ah... would that be realistic, would there ever be life on a planet like that? Maybe, maybe not I don't know but, you know, it's... you sort of very much define the planets like you know, you have, using my Star Wars reference here but you know, HOTH is the ICE PLANET and you know, TATTOONYEN... TATTOO... TATTOO-EE-IN is like the DESERT PLANET you know and so, and you got... ah you go to the eh DAH-GO-BAH system and that's all like this swampy jungle thing, and you know very much in Star Wars they sort of focus the planets to sort of feel like...

it's a TYPE it's a JUNGLE or it's a.... ICE PLANET or it's a DESERT PLANET um, so, eh we'll probably do a little bit of that.



So there you go that's the end of my uh ANSWERS, eh, for Ten For The Chairman thank you guys for listening, hopefully some of the answers were.... informative or useful for you guys so thank you to all the subscribers that enable us to put together content like this and all the other stuff that we do, ah, here at, ah, for Star Citizen at Roberts Space Industries, and um... thank you to all the backers cos without all you guys contributing and supporting the project, ah, we wouldn't be where we are now, it's.... PRETTY MONUMENTAL ah but it's enabling us to build something that I don't think anyone would have ever conceived you could build and certainly no publisher would have ever dreamed of doing, ah we aren't there yet! But we're getting there I think you can sort of see the progress, ah, you know there's more and more features and gameplay coming along the line on STAR CITIZEN ALPHA you know TWO POINT X LIVE as we go, and this year there'll be a lot of stuff that comes online that I think will really sort of add to the experience but even right now in sort of TWO POINT ONE... now... TWO POINT TWO there's just... there's a lot of COOL IMMERSION GAMEPLAY that's happening and there'll be more of that happening and uh... you know I think we're building something that long term's gonna be...well it's the game I wanna play and I think the game I hope a lot of you guys wanna play



From Bensday with Batgirl & Ben episode 45
Mar 9, 2016

Q: What's the difference between stealth and stealthy in the Star Citizen universe?

A: Uhm well in this particular case its, (inaudible), in, (inaudible) (something) Star Citizen universe there's probably no practical difference, there (mumble) probably different levels of stealth and so on, uhm, in terms of SPACECRAFT DESIGN it's *INTENT*. Uhm... the SABRE is... it's a modern military dogfighter it's the HOT NEW, uh, NEW HOTNESS... SPACECRAFT and the idea there is... is... you know it's our equivalent of the F22 or the F35 it's... it's the NEW THING and it INCORPORATES you know... all the advances in STEALTH that have been made from the 1970s, 1980s, and uh, it does them, as part of being a FIGHTER so it is a FIGHTER that is STEALTH. Ah... hold on just a moment...



From Bensday with Batgirl & Ben episode 45
Mar 9, 2016 @ 19:06


Q: Do you have a TENTATIVE list of features and content that when it's in place you can say, this is the PTU?

A: Well we... so two things there, yes we do have the... VISION LIST... the... here are all the things that we need to have to make the game (air quotes) RELEASED, uhm, which is... I... probably not in a position to share that right now but it's... it's, you know you probably have to have all the careers, mining, exploration, uh, passenger travel and so on and so on, you have to have all the SHIPS, you have to have, uh, you know X Y Z, things we've PROMISED so... we... we... we keep very very close track of that in confluence, ah, you know, here's all the things we've TALKED ABOUT, here's where they are, uhm, and, you know, that... that's
just you know... you know, start at the very very early part of the project was coming up with that list and then building it out to developers as we go along. You (mumble) doing mining and then once that's done (mumble) and that's all part of the production process, uh, uhm... does that answer that question?



From Bensday with Batgirl & Ben episode 45
Mar 9, 2016 @ 21:25

Q: You explained this before, actually Chris did (Ben grimaces), I can understand how shield protection varies between energy and ballistic types, but how would a shield system determine whether a small piece of metal coming from it was exploding from a missile or a barrel of a gun?

A: Uhm ... what did... ya whoah did ehp did eh woh did... it's not... missile versus gun it's ballistic versus energy, so uh, you know a mass driver cannon shoots SLUGS... is... same thing as a missile in that sense, where a laser cannon is the other category it's just... the dividing line is different from where they're thinking.



From Bensday with Batgirl & Ben episode 45
Mar 9, 2016 @ 23:40

Q: Do you have more detailed information about events that we'll be having in Gamescom?

A: Not yet, uhm... it's... it's... I got a bunch of PMs from folks that (mumble) we're doing, we DON'T have the details yet, there will be fffffffour? I think? Backer, offsite backer events throughout the week... uhm... so... hopefully they catch everybody who might be coming to the show at anytime... uhm...

Q: And possibly something from Chris at some point, possibly not...?

A: Oh, see, (mumble mumble mumble) talked about this a little bit, uhm, 'cos people are saying "oh you guys are coming to Gamescom are you not doing the BIG PARTY?", we're not doing the BIG PARTY because... we don't want to you know, tilt the team in any way to doing a demo for that, the plan is instead to show off wherever we are... at that point... uhm, I am one hundred, one hundred ten whatever percent sure there's gonna be some... REALLY COOL STUFF, but ah, not... we're just gonna present a little bit differently so we didn't want to say... you know, when you've spent th.. eight... (mumble) THOUSAND DOLLARS to rent the venue and set up everything and s-stage and so on, you need to have something... DECIDEDLY ready you need people dedicated to building that, and we'd rather those people work on... Squadron 42, work on iterative Star Citizen patches but uhm, you know... we... we're already getting to the point where like the procedural guys are coming up with STUFF and... that's so much better than I thought let's show that at Gamescom, eh... expect plenty of news, just not the... not the KEYNOTE PRESENTATION, we... we'll still have the BACKER VESTS so you don't have to be... you don't have to sign up for the show or anything, we'll have offsite backer events, we'll do the BEER GARDEN, stuff like that, so, it... we'll all be there I'll be there ah, my whole team will be there (rubs nose)... um, and ... the... (mumble) social stuff and there'll be ANNOUNCMENTS and we'll be showing stuff off... and we have some other surprises in store for what we're doing on the show floor also.



From Bensday with Batgirl & Ben episode 45
Mar 9, 2016 @ 25:45

Q: BENGAL CARRIER. Are we gonna see any of the interior shots soon?

A: (long intake of breath)... Hmmmm... Guh, I... the...

Q: They've been working on it for quite some time and they did a whole rework of it, right?

A: Two answers to that question, one is... if... if you could... if... you know if I could invite you in to my (completely incoherent) you'd see BENGAL CARRIER... images every day, ah, problem is it's all SQUADRON STUFF and we're... still keeping that... under wraps, ah, but... so the answer's YES there's a lot of extra work, and, uh, wait... wait... just wait for Chris to uh, let us show it. Really.

Q: Next major release is 2.3, and that's probably a month away?

A: Hopefully? Yeah... fingers crossed, (crosses fingers), we, we want to do with this game, so we do a publish every month, sometimes we're gonna miss it, I mean probably more often than not we're gonna miss it, but, ah, it's... it's all in the service of making a better game, I'd rather be a (mumble) days late than publish...