Welcome to the latest edition of “State of the Empire”, the weekly recap of everything going on with Star Citizen!
Pretty steady flow of information this week from CIG, though there were no funding goals broken (Though, we’re close!).
The week started off with Erin Roberts announcing the winners of the Foundry 42 contest:
We got a quick look at the freshly expanded Foundry 42 team, and then the winners of the contest were announced (12,000 correct entries):
- 5th place (Star Wars models): Silvaste
- 4th place (Hornet/Scythe bundle): Â Whooya2ya
- 3rd place (the OMG Huge model from Wing Commander): Â Vexian
- 2nd place (Idris-M): Â Maccisco
- 1st place (Chris’ Wing Commander Leather Jacket): Â Morgageddon
So, Congratulations to all the winners! Â If you don’t want your prizes, I’ll be happy to take them! Â :P
Sandi gave us a quick interview with UI Designer Brandon Evans, who’s previous job was with a think tank working on a UI for a military product..so, that’ll help with the realism of the Star Citizen UI.
As always, the big news came on Friday, with Wingman’s Hangar, and 10 for the Chairman.
Episode 53 of Wingman’s Hangar, wasn’t streamed (still having Internet issues at the new office apparently), but, that didn’t stop it from giving us some good answers in the Forum Feedback segment.
Q: Why no ship development thread in the new Ask a Dev section?
A: Ask the Artists, or Designers depending on what the question is.Q: Be able to explore on the planets itself? Perhaps with vehicles?
A: Not at first, looking for it down the road.Q: Historic ship names in UEE Navy? Ticonderoga, Saratoga, etc.. etc.?
A: Yep. Plus things that have happened between now, and when the game takes place.Q: Stop adding stretch goals, and just use extra funds to hire staff?
A: Using funds to hire staff with every stretch goal. Backers asked to keep stretch goalsQ: How will S&R work in game?
A: Any ship, just build it out for S&R.Q: When alpha slots are gone, can pledges be changed without losing slot?
A: Yup. Once the slot is on your account, it’s there for good.Q: One-off weapons, shields, etc.. that need to be found, can’t be purchased?
A: Yes(Teases about salvage ship being worked on)
Q: Transforming spacecraft? (X-wing deploying S-Foils to attack, etc..)
A: YesQ: With larger ships, can you sit back and watch the action? or will you need to be involved?
A: You’ll have to be involved, even if you’re the captain.Q: Will initial version of DFM be single player?
A: DFM will probably get multiplayer first, then get rolled out to hangar/planetside module.
Chris Roberts also had his now weekly “10 for the Chairman” segment, where he answered questions from Subscribers:
Q: If first character plays through SQ42, and dies. Does heir have citizenship automatically, or would there be an option for that character to enlist (and replay SQ42)?
A: Not sure yet. If citizenship doesn’t automatically transfer, there would be ways to regain citizenship.Q: Once you fly a ship in DFM (that you own), are you no longer able to melt it down?
A: No decision yet, definitely once the PU is live, and the game is live.. won’t be able to.Q: How will contracts work between organizations and individuals?
A: Will be a system to handle them. Possibly put payment in escrow, there will be a rating system (for both contractor, and contractee).Q: Hail NPC ships to threaten them to drop cargo, and save their ship? Will the NPCs have a personality? (some fight, some flee, some drop the cargo)
A: Yes, NPCs should feel/appear like real people (CR’s goal).. doesn’t want them to know they’re NPCs until players get up close.Q: Artificial gravity on all ships? How does that impact the g-force system?
A: Not all will, bigger ships will for sure. Minimal impact to g-force system.Q: Will we be able to play as the alien races? Will it be a SQ42 expac?
A: At some point, yes, you’ll be able to play alien races. Would probably have a single player experience for that race.Q: Will Winning ship from TNGSS be a pledge ship?
A: YupQ: Disable weapon systems to meet energy requirements of shield, and vice versa?
A: Yes, lots of energy management will be possible (weapons, shield, engines).Q: Will we be able to buy ship parts, and then build our own ship?
A: For sure not at the beginning, not sure if you’ll ever be able to build from scrap, vs customizing existing hull.Q: What kind of interactions with non-hostile NPCs? (Trade, refuel, etc).
A: All things we want to do, ties back into the earlier NPC behavior answer.
Lot of good questions in the segment this week, I like the insight we got into how Chris wants NPCs to function, and it will be interesting to see how blurry that line between NPC/PC ends up being in the final game.
Biggest news out of this week’s Wingman’s Hangar, was regarding the upcoming Organizations feature addition to the RSI site.
- Search will have multiple selectable criteria (casual, RP, recruiting, etc..)
- Archetypes will be used to define ‘default’ Organization roles/titles/and appearance.
- More features planned for down the line (private forums, voting, etc..)
Been testing since before the holidays, starting Friday they began inviting some subscribers in to help ‘stress test’ the current functionality.. if everything goes well, we’ll get the new Organization features on the site next week! Â Which means no more 500 person limit for chat roll (because, chat roll will go away to be replaced by the XMPP chat solution).
We also got a short video covering Chris’ trip to Manchester to meet the new Foundry 42 members, as well as work with them on the first 10 missions for Squadron 42.
Looking forward to the Organization drop next week! Â Till then.. watch your six, and I’ll see you in the Verse! (And, don’t forget to catch Sunny’s Diner for your Star Citizen Podcast needs!)