Around the ‘Verse 27 Notes:

Intro:

• 69 Million Dollars
• Stretch goals:
  • putting together longer design posts that will celebrate goals, but they will take some time.
  • There is a new page in the works that will update all the previous stretch goals, where the team is on all the previous ones.
• PAX south townhall
  • first townhall.  Want to get game ideas, share some of Austin’s incredible work, etc…
    • Not livestreamed, but will be available at a later date.
• BAFTA tickets are sold-out
  • Chris will be talking to an audience of movie / press people, and some fans.
• Ship Summit
  • guys from Austin and UK in Santa Monica putting together the ship schedule
• pushing to get Arena Commander 1.0.1 out
  • will adress balancing and other issues, and add weapons to Voyager Direct store.
• Livestream contest winners
  • Day of Champions (a Vanduul holiday)

News from Around the Verse:

Arena Commander

• AI Missile Evasion has received improvements
  • lots of ongoing issues with missile balancing, working on making them fun and fair.
• Missiles are being added to the RADAR HUD
• Flare and CM effeciency has been improved
  • Part of missile balancing again.  Being able to hit something with a missile is only half the system, also have to be able to counter them.

SQ 42

• Bengal Carrier Bridge interior is being whiteboxed
  • Bengal Carrier was in the initial pitch, they’ve gotten to the point where they’re putting it back in the game, and beefing it up to the game’s current standars.
    • ‘it will be a beast’
• Greyboxing begun on ‘Kingship’, ‘Driller’, and ‘Mauler’
  • all big Vanduul ships we will see in SQ 42.
• Skydock construction site has entered concept.

PU

• Revisions and models have continued for Arc Corp
  • working on populating it.  Coming together interestingly.  Creating emergent gameplay via NPC interactions planetside.
• Drone prop has received textures and materials
  • Drones are playing an important role (RSI and Orion both use them)
• Nurse NPC has continued work
  • More specific NPC

Ships

• Cutlass and Avenger are being balanced
  • both getting ‘internal remakes’, they’re the first testbeds for the new Modular ship system.
• Avenger damage states being continued
  • Avenger has some damage states, but they’re not up to snuff, so they’re being improved
• Retaliator is being worked on
  • self explanatory.  Hoping to get them in hangars soon, no date yet.

FPS Module

• Items can be specified if they should be held with 1 or 2 hands.
  • Important for the whole PU, not just the FPS.
    • figuring out how to work with a whole Universe full of interactive objects
    • ‘what do you use to pick up your Xi’An bonsai tree?’ ‘What do you use to pick up part of your robot?’
• Fixed networking issues with grapple beam
  • Grapple beam will be part of the 0g gameplay.
• Work has continued on Battle Arena
  • seen some screenshots of the Battle Arena
    • showpiece for 0g gameplay in the FPS module

Bugsmashers:

something about beats and really bad rhymes

If you attach weapons to your mustang on the sides, your lasers will no longer charge.  Empty item ports don’t connect to the pool system for power or heat.

Fix: stop launcher from skipping the ‘set up item ports to pools’ step.

MVP:

• Nebits?
  • Threads and videos about the modularity of Star Citizen.  Well worth watching

Customer Service

• 2500 tickets down, 2500 tickets to go.

Interview:

• Supervising art director, Lance Powell
  • Let me know if you want the interviews transcribed as well., and in what kind of detail.

Outro

• Ben and James will be in Austin next week.
• They’ll show off lots about the PU in the coming weeks.
• Hosting AtV with someone from the Austin team.
• Art Sneek Peak:
  • Video footage of a cityscape.  Gorgeous.

Erris

Founder

Erris is Canadian. He does some random things for Relay, no-one really knows what, but still they're stuck with him. He’s also written one Young Adult novel that he can’t stand, which can be found here.

You can find him on Twitter too, if you want.