I'm really glad that the Known Universe map is winning the next stretch goal. Would love to see the Orrery view they can come up with. C:
Regarding some posts above about graphics, SC is indeed superior in that department. The game currently uses all CRYENGINE processing effects to 11, and the actual art assets are far more detailed and expensive in GPU cycles, polygon budgets etc etc.
This is a technical fact, and has nothing to do with whether the end result is pleasing, realistic, plausible or over the top
I mean...look at this thing..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lM0eRJGhMeE
.....
In other news,
. Here is a transcript from the video.
Socrates Asks: How important is it to you that this game set a visual standard for modern games? Will you try to make the graphics advanced enough to test enthusiast PCs in 2015?
Yes. I will. It's really important for me, if you know the games I do, ones I've done in the past they've usually set a new benchmark or at least pushed limits of PCs at the time. Some even beyond, like strike commander. On a 486 66mhz it was a pretty amazing experience, but if you didn't have something like that it wasn't a smooth experience. It was the first game to have realtime 3D etc (software rendering). One of the reasons I picked cryengine is it's very visually advanced, being the engine that last really pushed the PC platform. I'd really like star citizen to sort of continue doing that. Cryengine is a good base, but we have a fair amount of graphical engineers that enhance the platform, and we'll continue to try to push it. We'll always try and upgrade and push graphics. The hornet is a good example of the iterations of this, from the kickstarter version, to the hangar version, to the PBR'd dogfighting versions.
Premium Shank Asks: On Organizational "dues/taxes", will they be to where the player contributes manually or automatically?
I think the answer on that is it'll be based on how the org is set up. Some will have mandatory and others will have optional contributions. It's always your choice as to whether you're a member of the org or not.
HeadlessChook Asks: Are you able to give some more details on the ship skins available in the pledge store? Will the skins be able to be applied to all ship classes or just the "Original 5"? I have all of them as another way to support and would love to have some more details.
Ship skins is still up in the air longer term we have a process and have discussed some tech we'll use to paint and customise your ships, ultimately this is the same tech you'll use to apply ship skins. If the tech is more flexible and generic, the same skin might be applicable to different ships, but if it's more specific/we have to make a new skin for every ship they may only apply to the one ship like we said it would be. We're still doing R & D, the goal is to make it as flexible as possible anyway.
BlackDragon Asks: I've noticed a lot of the capital ships are mostly based around carrying and supporting fighters and other craft. Will, there be any capital ships that are more firepower based like what you'd expect out of a Battleship or Missile Cruiser? Still holding out for a space yamato!
Yes, I LOVED that series as a child :-D There will definitely be a focus on battle capable ships, I'd imagine that all ships of that size would be able to have some sort of a compliment of smaller fighters/craft. We definitely have a couple of ships on the drawing board, mainly for SQ42 that are just HUGE massive battleships, that even dwarf the bengal carrier, with some pretty heavy duty weaponry. So yes, there will be more ships that are firepower based like a missile cruiser and stuff like that.
KitBash Asks: How can we expect Spectrum matchmaking (public or private) to work with groups? Will lobbies or group invites be involved in some way? Will that process change with the addition of multi-crew ships?
Yes, yes, yes and yes. We're working/have a design for the lobby/matchmaking system which will involve groups and support organisations as or within these groups. Groups are sort of a temporary organisation of sorts that is created and destroyed on the fly. Our goal is to get that up and running hopefully by DFM/AC 1.0. 0.9 is what we're going to be releasing just after gamescon, internally called release 13. Hoping we'll have lobby and matchmaking features in the game by release 14 (v1.0) which will have more features and things included than what we'd originally promised, but that's just us. The process will change slightly for the inclusion of multi-crewed ships, but that will obviously not be included with v1.0 as we don't have multi-crewed ships in game until v2.0, but we're designing and building towards that.
Drum Asks: If a Vanduul neutral ship (Banu), or even a Scythe, was just gliding along and minding it's own business, is there a possibility that it would be ignored by the Vanduul?
Yeah... I mean I think so, it would depend. It'd depend on various reputation scores etc, the Vanduul don't always just attack EVERYONE, btu they're very likely to attack a human ship, or definitely they'd attack a human military ship. It'd depend heavily on reputation, how that ship/person has allegiances with particular clans, just like the Banu ship was or whatever. Still something that needs to be fleshed out, but I imagine that's how it'll work.
Crimson Hawk Moth Asks: I would like to know, how does the entire "here, you fly my ship" work? Is there a contract signing of some sort? If the crash it, does the owner get it back with or without insurance? Is the person lending the ship to allow to fly back to the Coordinates of your hangar and land it in place? I would just like to know how all this is supposed to work.
Yes, good question! I'd like to know how it's meant to work too! In all seriousness, we do want the player to be able to lend out their ships etc, but we haven't fully fleshed out the details and particular cases, like, what happens when he doesn't want to give it back to you, what happens if he's flown your ship to the other side of the galaxy and you want it back, even if he's left the game, how do you get it back? Does he bring it back, does it automatically just come back to the hangar after a period of time? These are all important questions for the PU which we haven't fleshed out yet, but we will, we just have some more pressing things to get out of the way first, that some of this may depend on anyway. Basically, hold on for the answer on that one!
William George Asks: During ATV episode 8, we were showing several different potential color schemes for the exterior of the M50. How much control will we have over the look of our ships once the PU launches? Will it be a selection of colors like this or will we be able to more fully change the color of ships (like custom car painting)? What impact will the 'skins' available for pledging now have, and will they work on all ships equally?
This question sounds very much like the question from HeadlessChook! The M50 right now is just the one scheme, but like I said earlier, ultimately we'd like to have players be able to paint/customise their ships, like with ship names etc in the PU, but we're still in the tech/R & D stage phase. We'd like to make it flexible so you can customise this a lot, but at the very least you'll be able to change out sort of a primary/secondary colour, and when that happens online, we'll definitely allow the player to buy something like the M50 in a few different liveries. Essentially with the skins available now, the tech we implement will determine how these work, and how many ships these are available on. I doubt the paint job that goes on a small fighter will be applicable to say something like a Bengal carrier, but who knows.
SuojaKerroin Asks: Is it possible to get an underwater hangar since we now have plenty of water planets in the 'Verse? If that is not possible, how about bigger aquariums to cover entire walls, or any other cool hangar environments?
So I guess you're a water and fish fan! We haven't really talked about an underwater hangar, but I mean we'll always look for variations and new ideas in the long term. We've previewed the asteroid hangar which I think looks beautiful, and the full makeover of the original hangars will be shifted away from the names like "discount", "business" and "deluxe", we're moving towards more in-fiction with things like "Self-Land Hangar", "Aero-View Hangar" and "Revel in York Hangar" [Nick: Please correct me here, I can't quite hear what he's saying!]. They're all going to be quite beautiful in PBR! So that'll be coming out down the road along with the asteroid hangar, we do plan to have some other options/models eventually, so something underwater could be quite cool, but it definitely isn't something we're working on right now. We're going to have more areas to put flare/decoration/ornaments/props inside the hanar, like bigger fishtanks etc. The new hangars have places like lounges/bedrooms etc with the room system, the old ones by comparison feel very last-gen to me. So we're really going to push that. One of the other things we're going to do is have the hangars be related to the planets that they're located on. So if your hangar is on a small outer-rim colony planet you're not going to have a big, flashy hangar that would maybe be on Terra for example. I think you'll be excited by the hangars we've got in store when you see them soon.
Almighty Verb Asks: Just wondering about the possibility of finding yourself stuck planetside. If your character is already is severe debt (and can't get another loan as a result), this could lead to some unique and interesting interactions. If there were ways for a player to earn money on the surface, such as courier missions or even just mundane jubs, this could function as a catch-all to prevent bankruptcy and greatly increase immersion.
Yes, that's a great idea, Tony and I have been discussing how to make missions beyond the standard space delivery/escort/attack missions we can take advantage of one of the special things of star citizen, it's based on a first person engine. So we have the ability to have high fidelity environments on planetside as well as in space, and even first person stuff in space stations. For us it's fairly low hanging fruit to get these non-ship based missions/jobs. Potentially, that would be stuff you could try and do, and then obviously if you're in debt you could still take jobs, like as a pilot just like a trucker you could get a job to fly someone else's ship on the same trade-style missions for a cut of the profits or standard payment until you can get yourself in the air again. Those will all be available, along with planetside stuff, we've given thought to doing this stuff very well, but it's all going to flesh SC out in a way that people will be happy with! It's just not all happening tomorrow
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