#and its based on my loadout Q-Q

[mechanichuntsman]

[hopoo]

DEADBOLT Q&A

I tried to answer every question as honestly as I could, so I hope this is a good read. If your question isn’t there, it’s either identical to another one asked or joined together with another question. Cheers!

Q: In total, how much time does the campaign of Deadbolt span? It’s hard to tell, what with it being infinite nighttime and all.

A: I would imagine a month-ish. It is implied that the Candles are doing some sort of investigative work between missions, which would surely take some time. Q: Did you have any major inspirations for the visual design of DEADBOLT? A: John Wick is obviously the biggest one! Q: What would hopoo do if someone made a game completely based and inspired from Deadbolt and its… Concept? (with permission and not) A: There’s no way DEADBOLT is that unique in settings or thematics – ultimately, you know what’s right and what’s wrong when you’re inspired by a work, and so will everyone else! If you feel obligated to ask for permission, maybe you’re not exploring enough original ideas? Q: When will we get modding? if so could we get a simplified modding kit? Any plans for updating dedbort, even just the map editor? Feature for adding custom sprites, rotation tool, copypasta tool, just to name a few… A: So the thing with that is that the map editor is only half the equation – while the map editor may be writing stuff to files, it also has to be interpreted on the end by the DEADBOLT game itself. Therefore, adding features that aren’t supported in engine simply won’t work – it won’t know what youre talking about. While rotation is supported in the engine, it doesn’t know how to read that from the files, etc. I also am trying to avoid any legacy issues where old maps are required for old versions of DEADBOLT, or vice versa. Q: When is deadbolt 2 coming with werewolves and mummies A: Werewolves aren’t undead you dingus. But mummies could be cool.

Q: Will the stuff that came with the release of Deadbolt on Play Station, will be added on PC? A: Nope, that was sorta our deal-sweetener for getting on the Sony consoles. Q: Will we ever see expansion levels for Deadbolt or would we get Deadbolt 2 instead? A: DEADBOLT 2 maybe sometime

Q: Does Ibzan is gay? A: I haven’t really thought of the sexual orientation of any of the characters, and I definitely don’t want to pull a JK Rowling and retroactively assign them. So in terms of canon, that just hasn’t been explored.

Q: Would you prefer deadbolt 2 to be in 3d and 2d? Would you do a sequel? A: DEADBOLT is probably the narrowest design space I’ve worked with – there’s no dodging, insta death, insta travel attacks. By the end I felt very stretched out in terms of enemy design, and for that alone I’d think 3D. But hey, I may also just hate 3D by the end of RoR2 so who knows :^). I’d love to do a sequel one day, most likely from the perspective of Ibzan. But who knows! Q: Did Ibzan want to kill the Fire, or just try to reconcile with it? A: He just wanted to talk – but who knows what would’ve happened after the Fireplace rejected him? Q: Would you be interested in going back to the world of deadbolt sometime in the future? I remember hearing somewhere a 3D concept would be interesting to work on. A: I wish I was talented or driven enough to write comics for it – I think DEADBOLT is more about the stories of individuals, compared to RoR who is a story of the universe. I wrote the Cassette Tapes to reflect that. Q: Looking back, is there anything you’d change about Deadbolt? A: Hmmm… I just wish I somehow could expand more on the lore and gangs, and what their goals were. Gameplay-wise, it was a tad too short. I liked doing a few standard stages, and then a mix-up stage (sniper, trap, boss, etc) – maybe we could’ve fit in a few more rotations. Q: What’s your favourite loadout? A: Death/Taxes and Flashbang, like a scrub. Q: Would you ever be interested in restarting the asset suggestion thread A: I consider DEADBOLT to be done – as a 2 (now 3!) man team, we financially can’t do the games-as-a-service thing like most big companies can for smaller games like DEADBOLT. I also intended DEADBOLT to be a one-and-done thing as a contrast for Risk of Rain, which we updated for years after release.

=CONTROVERSIAL OPINION ALERT= I personally also think that EVERY game getting a bunch of DLCS and updates and patches for a long time is, in a way, exhausting as a player. I think it makes it hard to feel satisfied when you finished a game and it’s over and you feel completed in the journey, knowing it’s not ~technically~ over until the devs stop patching. I think it’s great for some games (mostly multiplayer-based ones), but some games you just gotta let… finish, on a good note. Semi-open ended endings are always unsatisfying, in my opinion, and so recently it just feels like you don’t ever complete a game. …On the flip side, we are planning on doing lots of post-launch support for RoR2 because it’s actually inline with our design goals, so don’t fret! Q: Will bugs like Scythe not having a cover sprite or some enemies not having a falling sprite (which causes the game to crash) be fixed? A: Which enemies have been missing a falling sprite? They should be resorting to idle, not crashing. Bosses? Q: Just wanted to say, you guys are my favorite games studio, hands down. Now for the question: Now that the Reaper has completed his task and is allowed to rest, what’s next? Is the Fireplace going to keep him resting for a while? Does our MC have another task to accomplish? A: The Fireplace has never let a reaper “rest” before - the reason he is allowed to rest is because Ibzan never got to, and the Fireplace is trying something different with you. This is unexplored territory for the both of them – presumably he just pets his cat and gets bored before getting back to work. Q: What happens to everyone else in the afterlife? A: People who aren’t in the Place? Who knows, and who cares about boring happy afterlife 😊 Q: I had a question about the lore. There’s mentions of places outside the city, across the river Styx. What are they and what are they like? A: The Styx connects the other realms together, including (presumably) wherever the demons came from. This is explored lightly in one of the demon cassette tapes. Q: Will you ever expand more on the world of deadbolt or are you 100% done with it at this point? A: Nope definitely not done, really wanna explore more one day Q: What’s your office address? For post and stuff, maybe I want to send you a box full of A4 sheets of paper with a thousand hoopters on each. A: Maybe this is the paranoia in me but I’m not comfortable posting my address online – you can just tweet it at me a thousand times instead Q: Did Ibzan think the flames would give warmth to the Dredged or was he just lying to them and using them for his own gain? A: He was lying to himself, but he did truly believe that this was going to work, because this (at the time, anyways) seemed like the only way out. Metaphor woawoawo Q: Could you add some sorta DEADBOLT reference into RoR2?  Will the Reaper be playable in Risk of Rain 2 as a bonus? A: Definitely references happening in some form, but playable might be stretchin’ it a bit, especially since it’d be taking up the slot of some more in-universe secret character. Q: How excited are for RoR2? A: Honestly very nervous for the reception, with very big shoes to fill as a sequel for RoR. I just hope people like it, and that we don’t get burnt on 3D because there’s so many possibilities in the future for our games in 3D. Q: How are the Demons born? We know they’re made in birthing chambers, but then is it just like humans or is there anything specific needed for a demon to be born f.e. skeletons>suicide, zombies>overdose, etc. A: Demons aren’t undead and don’t naturally exist in the Place, which is why they have to be smuggled over – they exist in whatever version of hell is in the DEADBOLT universe, and are natural denizens of the underworld. Q: was izban hot before he died? A: The hottest Q: do all the nightclubs canonically have chris c. as the dj A: Yes Q: I love Deadbolt very dearly and i’ve listened to its soundtrack (particularly “Now I Am Become Death”) more times than i can remember. What’s your favourite tune from Deadbolt ? A: Defunktorum or The Proverbial Dust Biters Q: In the Hardmode Cassette Tape it talked about a Reaper that wasn`t the current Reaper that we play as in the Game. Was this Reaper Izban? Since in the tape, he talked about the fireplace as his friend and that could be why he wanted to go back to the fireplace through the portal at the end of the game, to revisit his friend. A: Yes yes and yes. This was most heavily implied in Ibzan’s “home”, which parallel yours. Q: Will RoR2 still have opportunities to create silly messy builds like covering the screen in missiles or releasing an endless stream of Thqwibs? If so, how are you working to mitigate the performance impact of those crazy builds? A: Yep! Currently we have a system that detects the average particle count in a scene and slowly adds a chance non-important effects (like hitsparks or impacts) don’t ever spawn. This will at some point also involve turning off expensive effects and reducing particle LODs. Q: I really love the attention to detail to the characters, environment, aesthetics and gameplay mechanics. Its themes on the criminal underworld and the supernatural give a unique identity in a high-octane/stealth pixel action game I have not seen before. Additionally what prompted or inspired you to make DEADBOLT in the first place? A: DEADBOLT in its entirety was supposed to be not-Risk of Rain. It’s a gorey, violent, moody singleplayer puzzle-stealth game. We were just burnt out from the Risk of Rain experience, and we also wanted to flex our design muscles a bit and show that hey, we’re not just a one-trick pony of gamedevelopment :^) Q: I just played through this game on PS4/Vita over the weekend. Huge fan of Risk of Rain. Even bought it through Limited Run Games. So I had to pick up Deadbolt (Didn’t previously know you had made it either.) and I love it. Its a super solid experience. I’m not sure I have any questions about it. I guess I was curious if co-op multiplayer was ever considered in development? Keep up the great work. Can’t wait to see what you guys make next. A: Nope, because of the reasons above – we wanted a single player game, since RoR was a multiplayer one. Q: First of all, congratulations!! I really loved the game since came out, I bought it for my birthday, since risk of rain made me fell in love with all the pixel art in it, deadbolt didn’t disappointed me!! Everything in it I love it! Thanks for the game!! Now the question You already answered about how the skeletons or vampires came to be in that Place, how the vampires are killed by their lovers, but, how a reaper, becomes to be a reaper? I mean a candle said “I’ve never been so close to one” A: Originally, the reapers were actually supposed to be from suicides – if I remember right, the reaper when going down the stairs to the docks still has the hole in the back of his head in his sprite. Currently, it’s not explored how a reaper is made – I think a bit of mystery is always needed in making a believable universe J Q: Lorewise how many reapers are there total? Why are they incredibly fragile compared to the undead? What makes the reapers not undead? A: IIRC there were 4 fireplaces in the final stage, which was supposed to represent the way the fireplace was communicating to all reapers in the field. Q: Do you like turtles? How about corgis? A: Yes, and yes (although there’s way too many in Seattle now). Q: Did you have any idea Chris would break out a whole band’s worth of musicians for the soundtrack? His work was superb and the OST remains my absolute favorite to this day. A: DEADBOLT OST was actually done with many people – it must be in the credits somewhere! If I remember right, there is at least a drummer and a musician.

Thanks for all the questions, and happy hunting :)

hopoo

[inexcon]

RSI Comm-Link: The Shipyard: Variants and Modules

Variants and Modules

A Guide to the New Ship Matrix

Greetings Citizens!

We’ve saved probably the hottest topic for the final post of this series of The Shipyard articles: Variants. Over the last 9 days we’ve covered a huge range of topics and designs all dealing with the New Ship Matrix to help inform everyone on how the internal designs are aligned with the new forward facing content and hope you all have found these useful and interesting. If it has not been done by the time this post goes live, the full update to the Ship Matrix should be available very soon for everyone to view and you’ll find that pretty much every single one of the ships listed previously has had some level of adjustment. A couple of the ships have had significant adjustments as what they were initially announced no longer fits in with other ships in that area or were equipped with items that no longer offer the best option for doing their intended role.

During the course of Star Citizens production we’ve made available a wide range of ships but not every single one is a completely unique ship, often they share hull or internal parts and have been termed variants or other monikers and over time the definition has gotten a little loose and now its time to tighten it up.

What Is a Variant?

“A Variant is a ship that has a modified hull from its parent ship, with either physical geometry differences and/or hardpoint changes.”

The key part of this is the hardpoint changes between variants, for example Origin the 300 series are variants as not only are there geometry changes but also hardpoint changes in terms of weapon amounts, sizes and thruster quantities. When talking about geometry changes simply changing the “skin” or paint does not constitute a physical change and this will be talked about further below.

What Is a Module and Is It a Variant?

“A module is an item attached to a ship, generally containing an entire room that can be swapped in and out. The modular item itself can contain additional or alternative hardpoints.”

A ship that contains a Module that can be swapped out does not by itself merit being called a Variant unless it also meets the criteria of the variant as defined above. Even if the Module contains hardpoints that changes between them it does not count towards the main ships variant criteria. A good example of this is the Aegis Retaliator which has two Modules and has been previously available as both a Bomber and Base options. The Base option simply has nothing equipped to those Module hardpoints and can be flown as is although naturally has no functionality beyond being flyable and having 5 turrets. The Bomber version comes pre-equipped with two Torpedo Bay Modules which give the ability to store and launch up to 6 Size 9 Torpedoes.

What About All the Other Things like Buk’s or Loadout Changes?

One of the more confusing and often queried systems was the Battlefield Upgrade Kit or “BUK” that was announced alongside the Vanguard and its variants. The BUK system was theoretically designed to make it easy to swap between the 3 versions but for a variety of reasons wasn’t clearly explained and understood and as such we’ve simplified it:

For each BUK owned this will be converted into a combo pack of the relevant Module (to fit the center room) and the relevant items (nose, turret etc) to go with that system.

No more BUK’s will be offered going forward, only these combo packs.

The Vanguard Sentinel and Harbinger are variants of the Vanguard warden as they contain exterior geometry differences, alongside different hardpoints.

The Vanguard Hoplite is a variant of the Vanguard Warden and does not have a Module hardpoint inside to take any of the other three items, it can still mount the nose and turret items from other vanguards however.

To give some examples of what is possible with these changes you can take your Vanguard Warden, remove the centre room module and provided you have the Sentinel and Harbinger combo packs, be able to attach the Harbingers centre room module and Sentinels nose and turret items. Externally this would still look like the Warden (as the geometry and skin remains the Warden) with the same Ordnance hardpoint sizes and quantities, but packing the Rocket Pod turrets of the Sentinel and internally would have the torpedo launcher of the Harbinger.

Another area of confusion was the Masters of Flight series we announced with the launch of 2.6, these were offered as variants but due to the above definition no longer fall into that case, with the exception of the F7C Wildfire which as it has hardpoint changes is a variant. Any package offered where it is purely item exchanges and skin or paint changes are now referred to as “Special Editions”

To summarize:

Physical geometry difference and/or hardpoint changes = Variant

Completely exchangeable section = Module

Visual difference/item alternatives = Special Edition

With this, we bring our 10-part Shipyard series on the New Ship Matrix to a close. We hope you’ve found this series of articles an informative update on the current state of Star Citizen’s overall ship design.

As with all other aspects of Star Citizen’s development, work will continue from this point onward. Existing systems will continue to iterate, new systems will come online, and future updates to the information shared here will be made through our variety of communications channels, be they segments on Around the Verse, posts on Spectrum, or possibly even additional Shipyard followups.

Star Citizen will continue to develop, and as it has in the past, will do so with your feedback. In the Shipyard subforum section on Spectrum, you will find 10 different threads on each of the subjects from this series. We encourage you to post your questions, share your concerns, and explore the possibilities this new information, and these new game systems, bring to mind. We’ll do our best to follow up with answers there, and use the thoughts shared to inform our decisions going forward. We hope you’re as excited about this ‘Verse we’re building as we are.

We’ll see you in it.

Frequently Asked Questions

or: Questions We Figured You Might Have

Q: Are these changes final and will my ship always be a variant/special edition?

A: The majority of these changes to variants/special editions will not be going live with 3.0 as we are working out the finer details on them as ships such as the Mustang/300 are undergoing reworks and may change during their production.

Further Reading

Ship Mass

Careers and Roles

Thrusters

Ship Technical Information

Ordnance Hardpoints

Weapon Hardpoints

Other Hardpoints

Turrets

coming soon: Variants & Modules

scu and Cargo

   $(function() {      Page.init();  window.Page = new RSI.Game.About();      });     http://bit.ly/2zTvNtB

[starcitizenprivateer]

via RSI Comm-Link

Variants and Modules

A Guide to the New Ship Matrix

Greetings Citizens!

We’ve saved probably the hottest topic for the final post of this series of The Shipyard articles: Variants. Over the last 9 days we’ve covered a huge range of topics and designs all dealing with the New Ship Matrix to help inform everyone on how the internal designs are aligned with the new forward facing content and hope you all have found these useful and interesting. If it has not been done by the time this post goes live, the full update to the Ship Matrix should be available very soon for everyone to view and you’ll find that pretty much every single one of the ships listed previously has had some level of adjustment. A couple of the ships have had significant adjustments as what they were initially announced no longer fits in with other ships in that area or were equipped with items that no longer offer the best option for doing their intended role.

During the course of Star Citizens production we’ve made available a wide range of ships but not every single one is a completely unique ship, often they share hull or internal parts and have been termed variants or other monikers and over time the definition has gotten a little loose and now its time to tighten it up.

What Is a Variant?

“A Variant is a ship that has a modified hull from its parent ship, with either physical geometry differences and/or hardpoint changes.”

The key part of this is the hardpoint changes between variants, for example Origin the 300 series are variants as not only are there geometry changes but also hardpoint changes in terms of weapon amounts, sizes and thruster quantities. When talking about geometry changes simply changing the “skin” or paint does not constitute a physical change and this will be talked about further below.

What Is a Module and Is It a Variant?

“A module is an item attached to a ship, generally containing an entire room that can be swapped in and out. The modular item itself can contain additional or alternative hardpoints.”

A ship that contains a Module that can be swapped out does not by itself merit being called a Variant unless it also meets the criteria of the variant as defined above. Even if the Module contains hardpoints that changes between them it does not count towards the main ships variant criteria. A good example of this is the Aegis Retaliator which has two Modules and has been previously available as both a Bomber and Base options. The Base option simply has nothing equipped to those Module hardpoints and can be flown as is although naturally has no functionality beyond being flyable and having 5 turrets. The Bomber version comes pre-equipped with two Torpedo Bay Modules which give the ability to store and launch up to 6 Size 9 Torpedoes.

What About All the Other Things like Buk’s or Loadout Changes?

One of the more confusing and often queried systems was the Battlefield Upgrade Kit or “BUK” that was announced alongside the Vanguard and its variants. The BUK system was theoretically designed to make it easy to swap between the 3 versions but for a variety of reasons wasn’t clearly explained and understood and as such we’ve simplified it:

For each BUK owned this will be converted into a combo pack of the relevant Module (to fit the center room) and the relevant items (nose, turret etc) to go with that system.

No more BUK’s will be offered going forward, only these combo packs.

The Vanguard Sentinel and Harbinger are variants of the Vanguard warden as they contain exterior geometry differences, alongside different hardpoints.

The Vanguard Hoplite is a variant of the Vanguard Warden and does not have a Module hardpoint inside to take any of the other three items, it can still mount the nose and turret items from other vanguards however.

To give some examples of what is possible with these changes you can take your Vanguard Warden, remove the centre room module and provided you have the Sentinel and Harbinger combo packs, be able to attach the Harbingers centre room module and Sentinels nose and turret items. Externally this would still look like the Warden (as the geometry and skin remains the Warden) with the same Ordnance hardpoint sizes and quantities, but packing the Rocket Pod turrets of the Sentinel and internally would have the torpedo launcher of the Harbinger.

Another area of confusion was the Masters of Flight series we announced with the launch of 2.6, these were offered as variants but due to the above definition no longer fall into that case, with the exception of the F7C Wildfire which as it has hardpoint changes is a variant. Any package offered where it is purely item exchanges and skin or paint changes are now referred to as “Special Editions”

To summarize:

Physical geometry difference and/or hardpoint changes = Variant

Completely exchangeable section = Module

Visual difference/item alternatives = Special Edition

With this, we bring our 10-part Shipyard series on the New Ship Matrix to a close. We hope you’ve found this series of articles an informative update on the current state of Star Citizen’s overall ship design.

As with all other aspects of Star Citizen’s development, work will continue from this point onward. Existing systems will continue to iterate, new systems will come online, and future updates to the information shared here will be made through our variety of communications channels, be they segments on Around the Verse, posts on Spectrum, or possibly even additional Shipyard followups.

Star Citizen will continue to develop, and as it has in the past, will do so with your feedback. In the Shipyard subforum section on Spectrum, you will find 10 different threads on each of the subjects from this series. We encourage you to post your questions, share your concerns, and explore the possibilities this new information, and these new game systems, bring to mind. We’ll do our best to follow up with answers there, and use the thoughts shared to inform our decisions going forward. We hope you’re as excited about this ‘Verse we’re building as we are.

We’ll see you in it.

Frequently Asked Questions

or: Questions We Figured You Might Have

Q: Are these changes final and will my ship always be a variant/special edition?

A: The majority of these changes to variants/special editions will not be going live with 3.0 as we are working out the finer details on them as ships such as the Mustang/300 are undergoing reworks and may change during their production.

Further Reading

Ship Mass

Careers and Roles

Thrusters

Ship Technical Information

Ordnance Hardpoints

Weapon Hardpoints

Other Hardpoints

Turrets

coming soon: Variants & Modules

scu and Cargo

   $(function() {      Page.init();  window.Page = new RSI.Game.About();      });    

[sad-ch1ld]

via RSI Comm-Link

Variants and Modules

A Guide to the New Ship Matrix

Greetings Citizens!

We’ve saved probably the hottest topic for the final post of this series of The Shipyard articles: Variants. Over the last 9 days we’ve covered a huge range of topics and designs all dealing with the New Ship Matrix to help inform everyone on how the internal designs are aligned with the new forward facing content and hope you all have found these useful and interesting. If it has not been done by the time this post goes live, the full update to the Ship Matrix should be available very soon for everyone to view and you’ll find that pretty much every single one of the ships listed previously has had some level of adjustment. A couple of the ships have had significant adjustments as what they were initially announced no longer fits in with other ships in that area or were equipped with items that no longer offer the best option for doing their intended role.

During the course of Star Citizens production we’ve made available a wide range of ships but not every single one is a completely unique ship, often they share hull or internal parts and have been termed variants or other monikers and over time the definition has gotten a little loose and now its time to tighten it up.

What Is a Variant?

“A Variant is a ship that has a modified hull from its parent ship, with either physical geometry differences and/or hardpoint changes.”

The key part of this is the hardpoint changes between variants, for example Origin the 300 series are variants as not only are there geometry changes but also hardpoint changes in terms of weapon amounts, sizes and thruster quantities. When talking about geometry changes simply changing the “skin” or paint does not constitute a physical change and this will be talked about further below.

What Is a Module and Is It a Variant?

“A module is an item attached to a ship, generally containing an entire room that can be swapped in and out. The modular item itself can contain additional or alternative hardpoints.”

A ship that contains a Module that can be swapped out does not by itself merit being called a Variant unless it also meets the criteria of the variant as defined above. Even if the Module contains hardpoints that changes between them it does not count towards the main ships variant criteria. A good example of this is the Aegis Retaliator which has two Modules and has been previously available as both a Bomber and Base options. The Base option simply has nothing equipped to those Module hardpoints and can be flown as is although naturally has no functionality beyond being flyable and having 5 turrets. The Bomber version comes pre-equipped with two Torpedo Bay Modules which give the ability to store and launch up to 6 Size 9 Torpedoes.

What About All the Other Things like Buk’s or Loadout Changes?

One of the more confusing and often queried systems was the Battlefield Upgrade Kit or “BUK” that was announced alongside the Vanguard and its variants. The BUK system was theoretically designed to make it easy to swap between the 3 versions but for a variety of reasons wasn’t clearly explained and understood and as such we’ve simplified it:

For each BUK owned this will be converted into a combo pack of the relevant Module (to fit the center room) and the relevant items (nose, turret etc) to go with that system.

No more BUK’s will be offered going forward, only these combo packs.

The Vanguard Sentinel and Harbinger are variants of the Vanguard warden as they contain exterior geometry differences, alongside different hardpoints.

The Vanguard Hoplite is a variant of the Vanguard Warden and does not have a Module hardpoint inside to take any of the other three items, it can still mount the nose and turret items from other vanguards however.

To give some examples of what is possible with these changes you can take your Vanguard Warden, remove the centre room module and provided you have the Sentinel and Harbinger combo packs, be able to attach the Harbingers centre room module and Sentinels nose and turret items. Externally this would still look like the Warden (as the geometry and skin remains the Warden) with the same Ordnance hardpoint sizes and quantities, but packing the Rocket Pod turrets of the Sentinel and internally would have the torpedo launcher of the Harbinger.

Another area of confusion was the Masters of Flight series we announced with the launch of 2.6, these were offered as variants but due to the above definition no longer fall into that case, with the exception of the F7C Wildfire which as it has hardpoint changes is a variant. Any package offered where it is purely item exchanges and skin or paint changes are now referred to as “Special Editions”

To summarize:

Physical geometry difference and/or hardpoint changes = Variant

Completely exchangeable section = Module

Visual difference/item alternatives = Special Edition

With this, we bring our 10-part Shipyard series on the New Ship Matrix to a close. We hope you’ve found this series of articles an informative update on the current state of Star Citizen’s overall ship design.

As with all other aspects of Star Citizen’s development, work will continue from this point onward. Existing systems will continue to iterate, new systems will come online, and future updates to the information shared here will be made through our variety of communications channels, be they segments on Around the Verse, posts on Spectrum, or possibly even additional Shipyard followups.

Star Citizen will continue to develop, and as it has in the past, will do so with your feedback. In the Shipyard subforum section on Spectrum, you will find 10 different threads on each of the subjects from this series. We encourage you to post your questions, share your concerns, and explore the possibilities this new information, and these new game systems, bring to mind. We’ll do our best to follow up with answers there, and use the thoughts shared to inform our decisions going forward. We hope you’re as excited about this ‘Verse we’re building as we are.

We’ll see you in it.

Frequently Asked Questions

or: Questions We Figured You Might Have

Q: Are these changes final and will my ship always be a variant/special edition?

A: The majority of these changes to variants/special editions will not be going live with 3.0 as we are working out the finer details on them as ships such as the Mustang/300 are undergoing reworks and may change during their production.

Further Reading

Ship Mass

Careers and Roles

Thrusters

Ship Technical Information

Ordnance Hardpoints

Weapon Hardpoints

Other Hardpoints

Turrets

coming soon: Variants & Modules

scu and Cargo

   $(function() {      Page.init();  window.Page = new RSI.Game.About();      });    

[symbianosgames]

The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.

For the eighth consecutive year, the Level Design Workshop will be hosted by GDC on Tuesday, Feb 28.  Once again, we've assembled an exciting, diverse lineup of rockstar speakers from all walks of game development life.

  A smiling @pabosher looks on.  This photo is actually from the 2016 narrative summit, but I can personally assure you Philippe looks just as cheerful when attending the LD Workshops.

Whatever kind of games you make, level design is the lens through which players are most directly exposed to the underlying rhythms of your creation.  And as the medium of video games has become increasingly broad and diverse, the techniques and ideas that go into level design have also broadened.

With that in mind, let’s introduce the roster of speakers for the 2017 LD Workshop, after which they’ll bat around some questions submitted by the LD community via social media.

- Joel B

Matt Thorson

@MattThorson

Matt shares lessons and insights from his process in designing the 300+ interconnected levels for mountain-scaling platformer Celeste, his team's follow-up to TowerFall Ascension. It's a bit of a scattershot of topics, including inspirations from real-life rock climbing, designing for speedrunners, structuring rewards, and teaching players implicitly with level design.  Celeste is still in development and this talk goes behind the scenes on the processes and problems we've faced since setting out to create a modern, unique, and memorable 2D platformer.

Jolie Menzel

@joliemenzel

A Narrative Approach to Level Design details just that - approaching level design from the perspective of the story that the designer aims to tell with their level. This talk will give a glimpse into some of the design techniques that I've developed while designing on Telltale Games' narrative-focused adventure games, as well as on Ubisoft's upcoming RPG title South Park: The Fractured But Whole, presented in a way that can be applied to many different genres of games.

On South Park, all of our levels are derived from story scripts not unlike those used on the South Park show. It’s our designers' challenge to take these scripts and make them into enjoyable interactive experiences. I'll explain how we distill these scripts down to their core narrative elements, and use those elements as the backbone for our levels. We'll also apply this technique to an example script to drive home how to apply these techniques to any story.

Steve Lee

@essell2

Hi there - my talk, “An Approach to Holistic Level Design”, is about always thinking in terms of how gameplay, presentation and story is working together. It'll draw from my experience as an LD on games including 'Dishonored 2' and 'Bioshock Infinite', and the core design values of the genre known as immersive sims (as well as throwing a bit of Half Life 2 in there for good measure).

The topics I discuss emerge directly from the relationships between the output of different disciplines - namely "affordances", "intentionality", world building and my personal take on interactive storytelling, in the context of these kinds of games. My hope is that LDs of all types and experience levels can come away with clearer ideas about how to focus not just on gameplay, but the player experience as a whole - and how to make it richer and more engaging..

Lisa Brown  

@Wertle

Greetings! I am a designer of many years, both in AAA and indie. My talk will cover my transition from doing level design in large 3D action games (Resistance 3, Sunset Overdrive) to a 2D overhead game (Hyper Light Drifter). When I first started on the project I was nervous as to whether my level design skills would translate formats, so I will talk about my fears of what wouldn’t carry over, and then the many processes and principles that did carry over. My goal is to show that even specific and specialized design skills are still quite transferable.

Alejandro Quan-Madrid (Aquma)

@Aquma

What is a “video game mixtape” and how can I use this format to tell stories in new ways? I don’t know if these are the questions that keep you up at night, but they are for me. In my talk we’ll go over how to create a good flow by mixing and matching a variety of simple game experiences. When the player goes through them in a specific (or out of) order, their minds start to make up their own narrative. See how we play with those expectations with examples from my debut, autobiographical video game mixtape FRKN WKND and with a couple of other recent mixtape games I’ve made.

Clemence Maurer 

@Moutrave

My conference topic will focus on the design process we use to build an immersive and consistent exploration experience in the game's main City hub of Prague.

I'll describe how we started sketching our high levels needs and ideas regarding the general exploration navigation around the city, and how we could entice the player into constantly discovering new locations of interest, offering both interesting challenges and satisfying rewards.

I'll also describe our approach to creating compelling mini stories through analysing the greater Cyberpunk genre as well as our own particular conspiracy driven, deep and brutal main narrative, in order to breathe life into the "ordinary with a twist" citizens of Prague, who all contribute to making the game world consistent, meaningful and relatable.

Robin-Yann Storm  

@RYStorm

Last year I gave a talk at GDC about how to improve your tools & level editors.  It was well received, and many commented how they liked the solutions, but one question kept coming up: How do you make all these improvements without hiring 10 more tool programmers? And that is a fair question.

Over the last year since GDC 2016 I have gone around the game industry asking experienced developers from AAA companies around the world: What do you do to make sure the right features get worked on? How do you triage the hundreds if not thousands of requests into what you will and will not improve on in your tools & level editor?

In this talk I am going to go over the many production methods and approaches game developers around the world have used, and are using, to make sure time is correctly spent on improving tools & level editors, so you can see what methods have been tried, and what you could do for your studio to improve your tools through improved triage.

Elisabeth Beinke-Schwartz  

@ebeinke

What are the real differences when going about designing a singleplayer level vs a multiplayer level? How do you tackle layouts with different objectives, narratives, and combat needs that differ between SP and MP? There's a paradigm shift of thought that occurs when swapping between designing between SP and MP and I'll be drawing from my own experiences in designing narrative-driven SP levels along with my transition to designing MP levels. This talk will tackle the differences and similarities when swapping between designing for each, lessons learned about what you shouldn't waste as much time on, and how to go about planning playtests of SP vs MP levels.

What process do you have for designing gameplay through levels at a micro (level-by-level) vs. macro (over whole game) perspective? Ben Myres ‏@_benjamming

(Robin-Yann Storm) I personally love designing around a mechanic or setpiece. Introducing a mechanic, playing with it on a micro level, and then swinging it in and out on a macro level can work well. A good video on that subject is this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBmIkEvEBtA.

(Lisa Brown) Yeah, having some kind of centerpiece mechanic can help link spaces together in the player’s mind in a non-visual way. For example, having a series of rooms based on some kind of trap or hazard that ramp up over time. I think it’s important to have pacing in mind both within the level, but also how that fits in the overall pacing arc of the game. For example, if you playtest a level and it feels kind of slow, but it happens right after BIG ACTION EXPLOSIONS LEVEL, you have to keep in mind its context in the overall pacing when you make adjustments.

(Jolie Menzel) Since I’m often working from the narrative space, I’m often coming from a macro perspective and working inward. I start by analyzing what I need the level to do from a story perspective and a gameplay perspective, looking for any moments where a player need to learn how to do something. Those things form a skeleton of critical beats. From there, I add in supplemental beats that will augment those critical beats and help to nail the overall feeling that I need the level to capture.

(Clemence Maurer) In a game like Deus Ex, that needs to support many types of players and proposes quite a big array of tools, we usually start from a defined, high level story beat and start working on our layout immediately, thinking mostly about how we can make something that can support stealth (multi-path, occlusion, verticality, vantage points…) and combat (cover, escape, flanking, open vs tighter spaces…). Our level needs to support every pillar, including the narrative driven ones such as branching conversations with “persuade” gameplay opportunities, so we spend more time designing it directly in the engine instead of spending too much time on 2D drawing for example. That way we immediately get a sense of scale and gameplay potential, easier to iterate upon. When we’re happy with the base layout we work inwards, making the level architecturally “alright” with our artists and defining the micro gameplay :what augmentation(s) would be need to get through that area? How do we convey this need in the environment? How do we spread them out to support a maximum of players with a heterogenous loadout?

(Matt Thorson) For Celeste we’re making the game holistically, which is a fancy-sounding word for figuring it out as we go. We have a lot of story, but we’re developing it alongside the gameplay for each area and we change both to fit each other. So sometimes our conception of an area’s story arc and pacing will change based on some cool levels we make, or a great story moment idea. Sometimes we’ll realize that a great level moment just doesn’t fit in the context of the area. We’re always zooming in and out from level to area to full game perspectives to re-evaluate our work, and a lot gets cut or repurposed.

(Aquma) For video game mixtapes, the focus is on the micro. I just build simple gameplay experiences/levels that percolate in my head over a period of time. After I make enough of them, I start looking at how to piece them together in a way that conveys are general story and vibe. The macro. The process is very iterative and not like passive media where you plan it all out in advance.

What kind of process do you follow to ensure that the levels communicate gameplay goals & environmental narrative lucidly enough? Michel Sabbagh ‏@Watfen64

(RYS) You can use so many things: Lights, audio, geometry, etc, but playtesting is the biggest one for me. Build it, let players play it without telling them anything, and then see if they understood it clearly enough, by seeing them play and asking them.

(JM) Something I think is a really important to develop a sense for is allowing players some wiggle room in their interpretation of the narrative. It’s of course of utmost importance to make sure that the player is interpreting a narrative as you intend them to if that narrative is driving their goal. However, if they’re interpreting some world or character lore in their own way, as long as that doesn’t subvert the goals, it's a good thing. It prompts discussions among your players and will let them feel ownership of their personal interpretation. Inside is a recent example of a game that does this really well, where goals are clear but story is up for discussion. Braid is another that comes to mind.

(Steve) I second Robin on the crucial importance of playtesting as a fundamental part of your process - it’s really the only way you could know whether things are working as intended. Don’t be afraid to playtest early, and once you start, try to keep it regular, if you can. Try to do what you can to make the playtests representative of how players would actually play the game (e.g. don’t interfere unless it’s really necessary), and whether you’re in the room watching, watching remotely and / or recording them, ask them to vocalise their thoughts as they play.

Finally, when it comes to asking them questions, I find that one of the most useful things to ask about is what their intentions are at various parts of the playthrough. More than “was this fun or not”, a question like “what were you trying to do here, and why?” can reveal a lot about their intuitive understanding of gameplay goals and narrative engagement, in sometimes surprising ways.

(CM) Playtesting if great but it’s a double edge sword if designers are not confident in their own designs. What I mean by that is that it’s easy to “over-interpret” bad signals sent by some playtesters and take dramatic actions so that this one player who got stuck in a level, will never get stuck anywhere anymore. I’ve seen this type of reasoning a lot of times and although I think it was essentially caused by an inadequate playtest management, it was also due to a certain uncontrollable will to...control the experience.

This urge to control can be what you want depending on the type of game you play, but in other games where emphasis is put on exploration and / or multi-approaches layout, it’s really alright if people just don’t see everything and don’t experience the level like you would have liked them to. And instead of changing and cutting as soon as a playtester has a problem, you need to wonder if there really is an actual issue or if it’s just a part of your design that maybe some people with struggle with a little bit more that others. And that’s ok. In big companies it can get harder to keep trusting the design and succumb to panic, which can be dangerous because it risks compromising what makes your mechanics interesting and organics. It can also ruin the mood of a level because now suddenly we have lights and sparkling enticers everywhere we want you to see something ! I see that too much these days.

(Beth) The others already touched on much of it, especially in terms of *how* to verify objectives + narrative beats are being communicated well while you run playtests of your level. One thing I would note is that although you can try to subtly guide/manipulate players towards looking at their next objective, combat options, a narrative scene, etc, it is very difficult to guarantee anything. Thus, taking advantage of the few moments you know exactly where the player will be + what their camera view will be staring at is critical. Examples: when players go through a door frame, exit/enter a staircase or an elevator, exit a building, etc. Make sure you take advantage of those moments to make sure the environment frames critical gameplay or narrative elements.

In addition, sidekicks and secondary characters are a great active way to draw attention to critical elements. For example, on Bioshock: Infinite we scripted a lot of dynamic moments where Elizabeth would gaze, point, run over to, or stand by certain elements that we wanted to draw the player’s attention to. Psychologically, people are much more drawn to movement, especially when the movement is attached to a person. People will instinctively look at whatever another person is gazing or pointing at.

(Aquma) I believe the key is to ask, “what is my experience goal for the player?” From there, every question about theme, environmental story telling, even gameplay, is checked against this north star. If you follow it, play test, and iterate a lot you’ll get there.

For gameplay goals, I emphasize play and exploration and try to distill the gameplay down to those essential elements. I assume the player knows nothing and design around that. This way, even if they’re just poking around, the player can figure it out and enjoy the experience for what it is.

After creating a core puzzle mechanic, how do you go about choosing which "sub mechanics" to implement in order to expand it? Kingblade‏@roee_amar

(RYS) My personal preferred way is to not choose, and instead randomly combine them, play them, and find out what works. A shotgun approach, of sorts.

(JM) I use the “shotgun approach” Robin described as well while in a brainstorming mode. In addition, it’s important to consider if you’ve taught the player that they can combine certain mechanics. I’ve been in situations where there may be synergy between two mechanics, but didn’t have bandwidth in the game to teach the player how to utilize this synergy in a satisfactory manner. It may have felt like a clever combo of mechanics to me, but that’s no good if the player can’t figure out what to do and feel clever themselves!

When designing, where should the play "style" be in priority for a level? Do you adjust to "expected" play styles or not?Kyle Devlin‏@Big_K_Devlin

(RYS) I really dig it when players find their own style to play a level, so long as the chosen style for the level still fits and has an audience.

(LB) It sort of depends on the game, but I do like trying to provide many options to approach, say, a combat setup (especially if your game already gives players a number of tools, for example many weapons).

(JM) My precious level must be experienced exactly how I want it to be! No exceptions! Personal style be damned!

I’m not sure if that sarcasm came across in text, but, it's definitely a good idea to analyse different kinds of play styles. It's great to bring in folks with those styles to test as much as you can. A good way to analyze a level played in a specific style is to think, “in what ways am I telling this kind of player ‘No’?”. For instance, an open-world player is going to always be bumping into your invisible walls, i.e being told “No, you cannot run off into the forest”. Depending on your game, this may be an acceptable limitation (maybe the player going off track will distract from the story/goal), or it may be something you want to rectify (you want the player to feel lost and are ok with them coming back to their goal later).

(Steve) Regarding adjusting to “expected” playstyles, one question that might be worth asking is, why is this expected? Is it because of the genre the game seems to belong to, or because of specific expectations that this game or level has established on its own?

I’d say that supporting different playstyles is generally a good thing, so long as they are in-line with the tone and style of the game. If players feel inclined to play in a way that is out of tone with what you intend, then it might not be a matter of whether you support it or not, but more about what you can do to iterate on whatever aspects of the game / level might be giving the player those motivations and expectations.

(if you can support a range of playstyles, definitely do it. If at some point you are obliged to block a path or “force” the player to do something that might go against a certain playstyle, it needs to be as justified and coherent as possible, narratively as well as environmentally. You really want to avoid giving the illusion that people can play however they want, just to throw in some cutsene and forcing them to, for example, slaughter anyone in the room when you’ve always tried to avoid conflict before. Example : the last of us. It killed the experience for me.

(Beth) I agree with Steve, I would much rather design a space that supports multiple different play styles than limit players by forcing them into only playing a certain way. Although it is important to have a clear understanding of the most common play styles for the type of game you’re making, it is very limiting (and boring!) to only design a map for that one specific play style. This is especially relevant in multiplayer level design, where a level should support numerous different play styles and also serves as a way to define roles/split up teams throughout the map in multiplayer. Defining appealing areas for a specific play style can also be a tool, especially in MP, to draw players to a certain location or provide intentional combat choke points.

(Aquma) Hmm…that sounds like a lot of work! I like puzzles, but don’t want to get too wrapped up in making them. So for video game mixtapes, I try to make the core puzzle mechanic and core puzzle relatively simple. That way, when the player would normally expect a ramp-up in difficulty or complexity, we just end that part of the game and move on to something new. Maybe a vignette later in the mix will revisit that puzzle with a twist, but it’s still more of a throw back than a “sub mechanic.”

What are the best ways to build a portfolio? Is it to use editors like Source, or build your own games in engines? Also, what is the level of scripting/programming and 3d modelling skill needed to get a LD job? RIIF_LFC_GUY‏@RifatAzim

(RYS) I think it depends on where you want to work, and on what. Some companies want level designers to model, others just want them to whitebox, but scripting/programming is useful for anyone in the game industry.

And: Quality over quantity. Show the good stuff, get the interview, then talk about all the other minor skills you may have that can help.

(LB) Also if you have a specific type of game or studio that you’d like to ultimately work on, keep that in mind when you choose what to focus on in your portfolio. Remember that your portfolio is a tool that hiring devs can use to determine if your skillset is applicable to their needs.

(JM) Robin and Lisa’s points are all spot-on. Research the studio that you’re applying to: I don’t mean just browse their Wikipedia page, I mean look for who works there and find talks they’ve given or articles they’ve written about game development. Short of talking to someone who works at the company directly, this is your best window into a process that has been used at that studio that you should be ready to prove that you can be integrated into.

(Steve) Regarding the levels of scripting, programming and 3d modelling skills required to get LD jobs, it definitely does depend on what kind of team and project you’d be applying for. For example, I don’t really have any hard 3D modelling skills, and it has never been a part of my job as an LD, working mostly on first-person games in big teams, where I would collaborate with environment artists / architects. Programming has also never been a requirement of my job, due to the use of visual scripting systems like Kismet / Blueprint in the Unreal Engine - but this can vary.

For your portfolio I would always focus on LD specific work (i.e. not building entire games, etc), making levels for kinds of games you’d be interested in working on, and keeping the scope small enough that you finish things with time to iterate towards high quality.

(Beth) For a portfolio, I would use whatever tools you are familiar with + can easily create content with to make levels. It is also an added bonus to think about the companies you want to apply for and specifically create levels in software similar (or exactly) to what they use. Personally, I’m a proponent of Unreal.

In terms of the scripting/programming or 3D modeling skills, as others mentioned it is highly dependent on both the size of the team and what kind of project you’re working on. It also depends on whether you’ll be working on designing levels for a singleplayer game or multiplayer. When I’ve worked on multiplayer levels, I focus almost exclusively on layout and flow. However, when I’ve worked on singleplayer levels, I’ve also scripted combat + minor narrative scenes as well as incorporating more environmental art skillsets (not 3D modeling). I would suggest understanding basic programming/scripting logic (even if you can’t write it) as at the very least you’ll often need to slightly modify existing scripts. And any artistic background (especially architecture, cinematography, etc) will definitely help you stand out and make much more intentionally designed levels in your portfolio. For example: if you created a level for your portfolio that’s just box shapes, that’s okay. But it would stand out and communicate your vision much better if you’ve already thought about the definition of the boxes/cover shapes and what the level environment is, in addition to utilizing artistic aesthetic to guide and direct players intentionally.

At the end of the day, a level designer’s focus is on the player experience and making sure players are guided and relevant information is communicated to them. Level design is the glue that flows in between everything and holds it all together. So if you have other skills that slightly bleed into other disciplines, it is highly valuable as you can help get more stuff done!

(Aquma) Learn some basics with a game engine and make a ton of little complete experiences based on what you know how to do. Go for quantity first. But always challenge yourself to add something new to each game piece you make. If you’re intentional about completing them and improving, the quality will come and you won’t have anything to fear having just made a ton of shitty games/levels. Pick your best work and you’ve got a portfolio!

If you don’t have the patience for that, just find a tool (whether it’s an in-game level editor or something pre-made) that has the shortest learning curve and make a bunch of levels with that. Play test with your friends, and improve your designs based on how you see them play.  

Hey there, Joel again.  Thanks to all the speakers for sharing.  Hopefully you enjoyed this little teaser and mini-roundtable.

Next week, in addition to their full presentations, we’ll also be hosting a portfolio review during the lunch hour on Tuesday.  If you’d like to get direct feedback from our panel of devs, be sure to bring your work on a thumb drive, laptop, or tablet.  (Try not to rely on wifi - it can be pretty spotty!)

In San Francisco, but not able to join us at the Workshop itself?  Meet up with speakers and attendees for a happy hour right after the show (~6-7pm) at the Bin 55 lobby bar of the Courtyard Marriot, just around the corner.

That’s it for now.  We hope to see you on February 28th at GDC - come say hello!  Keep an eye out for the organizers, too - Claire Hosking, Nels Anderson, and myself!  If you can’t be there, you can follow along online with the #LDWorkshop hashtag on twitter.

[starcitizenprivateer]

via RSI Comm-Link

Other Ship Items

A Guide to the New Ship Matrix

Greetings Citizens!

In this article, we’ll be discussing our final stops on the list of dedicated ship items displayed in the New Ship Matrix: Utility and Systems items. While it might be easy to dismiss these as being less impressive than the more flashy weapons, turrets and missiles, they are no less important to the overall operation of your spacecraft, and found far more commonly across all ships and vehicles in-game. We’ve talked previously about the various sizes of ship items like Power Plants, Coolers and Shield Generators, and while much of that still holds true, there are some key updates we want everyone to be aware of beginning with this article.

We’ll begin with Utility Hardpoints. Like those previously mentioned hardpoints they have some common elements:

Utility hardpoints can only take utility items. No swapping them out for weapons or missiles.

Utility items have a numerical size system that allows them to be swapped and mixed between ships.

Like other hardpoints, some items usable here are bespoke to the ship and would therefore be non-swappable.

For some ships with utility hardpoints, you can swap out the utility items to change their functionality.

While you can swap utility items out it may not always be as effective as simply using a dedicated ship designed for that cause. You could swap the Terrapin’s Radar Dish out for a Mining Laser or Tractor beam to allow basic mining or salvage, but you have no discrete way of processing it. In a situation like this, you’d likely need a second ship nearby to process things effectively.

Allowing a certain level of interchangeability for groups of players to cobble together unique gameplay out of unexpected elements is something we look forward to, the idea that you’ll show us what’s truly possible in Star Citizen.

An interesting example here might be a small fleet of ships including an Orion, where the Orion is great for mining but is slow and ponderous to re-align, considering that it’s tractor beam turrets that help guide rocks into its mining mechanism can still only do so much. In this situation, players with smaller ships equipping tractor beams would be able to help ferry more material either directly into the Orion or within reach of the Orion’s beams to create a more efficient operation.

The remaining ship and vehicle items displayed on the ship matrix consist of the following items:

Power Plants Coolers Shield Generators Fuel Intakes Radars Quantum Drives Jump Drives Computers (Formerly Avionics Motherboards or Modules) Fuel Tanks

Aside from Fuel Tanks, all of these items are swappable and to ensure balance, fall under one of 5 size categories:

Vehicle Small Medium Large Capital

Each itemport is restricted to a single type and size, meaning you cannot put a Power Plant on a hardpoint that a Cooler occupies, nor can you swap two Small Shield Generators out for a Medium Shield Generator. The jump in output between each item type varies but it can roughly be considered to be a 3:1 ratio, as in 3 Small items give roughly the same output as one Medium.

Item Grades

Every swappable item in the game is assigned a grade for ease of comparison, this should be your first port of call when deciding what items to buy and swap out as it gives you a simple scale to compare against. Additional details about the individual nature of an item with be visible in the purchase screen of any vendor, but for a place to start, we provide a simple letter grade.

Different grades have different values to the items:

A = The best possible performance, usually has an additinal Sub Item slot.

B = A good upgrade to performance, may have an additional Sub item slot.

C = The standard item for most ships be default, average performance.

D = Lower grade, generally makes up the NPC/AI populace, good for emergency use to get through troubles.

Most ships come standard with default C grade components. SOme of the more exotic or specialized ships may come with Grade B equipment in default loadouts, which can often be seen reflected in their price. Of course, the reverse can also hold true where cheaper ships may come with D grade components by default. They’ll still work fine and get you where you wanna go, but you’ll want to consider upgrading them after a while.

Item Classifications

In a future 3.x patch we plan to assign every ship and every item a component class. This means players will only be able to put an item of that class into a ship that can utilize it.

Military – The best overall at that item’s functionality, at the expense of emissions and cost.

Civilian – The most common, wide range of behaviours to suit cost, options to approximate all other categories but not as specific.

Stealth – Vastly reduced signatures/consumption at the expense of functionality.

Industrial – Reliably high output and low wear, high emissions.

Competition – Higher performing than military but at the expense of durability and stealth, performance over everything.

At present, no ship is restricted to a single class of item, with each having at least two classes and virtually all of them featuring Civilian as an option. While this system is still in development, the idea at it’s core is to prevent players from making certain ships too powerful within respective areas. We still want there to be an enormous amount of customization available, but this system we’re still developing would do things like limit the chances of finding a Military Spec 85X or a Stealth Herald simply due to people buying the best items of that type.

Sub Items

Sub-Items live inside components and provide a boost to the base effectiveness in a variety of ways. Currently, they are consumable parts that will wear out much quicker than their host items themselves. Without sub-items the base item still functions as normal, but will find a small boost in performance when sub-items are installed. It’s recommended that players carry spares for longer trips as the need to swap these out over extended duration trips is likely. Not carrying spares (or not having the ability to carry spares) isn’t an impediment to base functionality, but should be seen as a continued maintenance loop necessary to provide an improved-upon and highly proficient system.

Each Sub Item fits in one of three categories, each boosting a different set of stats for that item:

Efficiency improves the overall effectiveness of the main item by reducing power or improving cooling performance.

Protection reduces the damage being dealt to the main item by absorbing different damage types or reducing wear rate and misfire chances.

Detection inhibits emissions in various spectrum from the main item or provides resistance to scanning.

Sub Items can fit in many different items and are not restricted to a specific type of item, such as a Power Plant Sub Item.

Frequently Asked Questions

or: Questions We Figured You Might Have

Q: Are Computer Blades Sub Items?

A: No, they are their own stand alone item that adds or expands functionality rather than improving a baseline stat. While currently they can only be added to Computer items that may not be the only place for them in the future.

Q: I’m worried about the restrictions of classes on ships and items, will it mean my ship gets nerfed?

A: We’re still in the design phase of this system and therefore still working on all the edge cases we have internally. For 3.0 the default loadouts for the ships actually are the correct grades/classes that they are planned to be so the performance of those ships should change and there will be many upgrade paths even with the class restriction. We’ll provide more information on the class restriction system when we have more concrete information to share.

Q: Are there other items that I can swap out on my ship?

A: Absolutely, the list here is just the items that are on the ship matrix and we have many more in planning or in-game such as Scanners, Batteries and Armor.

Further Reading

Ship Mass

Careers and Roles

Thrusters

Ship Technical Information

Ordnance Hardpoints

Weapon Hardpoints

Other Hardpoints

Turrets

coming soon: Variants & Modules

coming soon: scu and Cargo

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[inexcon]

RSI Comm-Link: The Shipyard: Other Ship Items

Other Ship Items

A Guide to the New Ship Matrix

Greetings Citizens!

In this article, we’ll be discussing our final stops on the list of dedicated ship items displayed in the New Ship Matrix: Utility and Systems items. While it might be easy to dismiss these as being less impressive than the more flashy weapons, turrets and missiles, they are no less important to the overall operation of your spacecraft, and found far more commonly across all ships and vehicles in-game. We’ve talked previously about the various sizes of ship items like Power Plants, Coolers and Shield Generators, and while much of that still holds true, there are some key updates we want everyone to be aware of beginning with this article.

We’ll begin with Utility Hardpoints. Like those previously mentioned hardpoints they have some common elements:

Utility hardpoints can only take utility items. No swapping them out for weapons or missiles.

Utility items have a numerical size system that allows them to be swapped and mixed between ships.

Like other hardpoints, some items usable here are bespoke to the ship and would therefore be non-swappable.

For some ships with utility hardpoints, you can swap out the utility items to change their functionality.

While you can swap utility items out it may not always be as effective as simply using a dedicated ship designed for that cause. You could swap the Terrapin’s Radar Dish out for a Mining Laser or Tractor beam to allow basic mining or salvage, but you have no discrete way of processing it. In a situation like this, you’d likely need a second ship nearby to process things effectively.

Allowing a certain level of interchangeability for groups of players to cobble together unique gameplay out of unexpected elements is something we look forward to, the idea that you’ll show us what’s truly possible in Star Citizen.

An interesting example here might be a small fleet of ships including an Orion, where the Orion is great for mining but is slow and ponderous to re-align, considering that it’s tractor beam turrets that help guide rocks into its mining mechanism can still only do so much. In this situation, players with smaller ships equipping tractor beams would be able to help ferry more material either directly into the Orion or within reach of the Orion’s beams to create a more efficient operation.

The remaining ship and vehicle items displayed on the ship matrix consist of the following items:

Power Plants Coolers Shield Generators Fuel Intakes Radars Quantum Drives Jump Drives Computers (Formerly Avionics Motherboards or Modules) Fuel Tanks

Aside from Fuel Tanks, all of these items are swappable and to ensure balance, fall under one of 5 size categories:

Vehicle Small Medium Large Capital

Each itemport is restricted to a single type and size, meaning you cannot put a Power Plant on a hardpoint that a Cooler occupies, nor can you swap two Small Shield Generators out for a Medium Shield Generator. The jump in output between each item type varies but it can roughly be considered to be a 3:1 ratio, as in 3 Small items give roughly the same output as one Medium.

Item Grades

Every swappable item in the game is assigned a grade for ease of comparison, this should be your first port of call when deciding what items to buy and swap out as it gives you a simple scale to compare against. Additional details about the individual nature of an item with be visible in the purchase screen of any vendor, but for a place to start, we provide a simple letter grade.

Different grades have different values to the items:

A = The best possible performance, usually has an additinal Sub Item slot.

B = A good upgrade to performance, may have an additional Sub item slot.

C = The standard item for most ships be default, average performance.

D = Lower grade, generally makes up the NPC/AI populace, good for emergency use to get through troubles.

Most ships come standard with default C grade components. SOme of the more exotic or specialized ships may come with Grade B equipment in default loadouts, which can often be seen reflected in their price. Of course, the reverse can also hold true where cheaper ships may come with D grade components by default. They’ll still work fine and get you where you wanna go, but you’ll want to consider upgrading them after a while.

Item Classifications

In a future 3.x patch we plan to assign every ship and every item a component class. This means players will only be able to put an item of that class into a ship that can utilize it.

Military – The best overall at that item’s functionality, at the expense of emissions and cost.

Civilian – The most common, wide range of behaviours to suit cost, options to approximate all other categories but not as specific.

Stealth – Vastly reduced signatures/consumption at the expense of functionality.

Industrial – Reliably high output and low wear, high emissions.

Competition – Higher performing than military but at the expense of durability and stealth, performance over everything.

At present, no ship is restricted to a single class of item, with each having at least two classes and virtually all of them featuring Civilian as an option. While this system is still in development, the idea at it’s core is to prevent players from making certain ships too powerful within respective areas. We still want there to be an enormous amount of customization available, but this system we’re still developing would do things like limit the chances of finding a Military Spec 85X or a Stealth Herald simply due to people buying the best items of that type.

Sub Items

Sub-Items live inside components and provide a boost to the base effectiveness in a variety of ways. Currently, they are consumable parts that will wear out much quicker than their host items themselves. Without sub-items the base item still functions as normal, but will find a small boost in performance when sub-items are installed. It’s recommended that players carry spares for longer trips as the need to swap these out over extended duration trips is likely. Not carrying spares (or not having the ability to carry spares) isn’t an impediment to base functionality, but should be seen as a continued maintenance loop necessary to provide an improved-upon and highly proficient system.

Each Sub Item fits in one of three categories, each boosting a different set of stats for that item:

Efficiency improves the overall effectiveness of the main item by reducing power or improving cooling performance.

Protection reduces the damage being dealt to the main item by absorbing different damage types or reducing wear rate and misfire chances.

Detection inhibits emissions in various spectrum from the main item or provides resistance to scanning.

Sub Items can fit in many different items and are not restricted to a specific type of item, such as a Power Plant Sub Item.

Frequently Asked Questions

or: Questions We Figured You Might Have

Q: Are Computer Blades Sub Items?

A: No, they are their own stand alone item that adds or expands functionality rather than improving a baseline stat. While currently they can only be added to Computer items that may not be the only place for them in the future.

Q: I’m worried about the restrictions of classes on ships and items, will it mean my ship gets nerfed?

A: We’re still in the design phase of this system and therefore still working on all the edge cases we have internally. For 3.0 the default loadouts for the ships actually are the correct grades/classes that they are planned to be so the performance of those ships should change and there will be many upgrade paths even with the class restriction. We’ll provide more information on the class restriction system when we have more concrete information to share.

Q: Are there other items that I can swap out on my ship?

A: Absolutely, the list here is just the items that are on the ship matrix and we have many more in planning or in-game such as Scanners, Batteries and Armor.

Further Reading

Ship Mass

Careers and Roles

Thrusters

Ship Technical Information

Ordnance Hardpoints

Weapon Hardpoints

Other Hardpoints

Turrets

coming soon: Variants & Modules

coming soon: scu and Cargo

   $(function() {      Page.init();  window.Page = new RSI.Game.About();      });     http://bit.ly/2yG74v9

[sad-ch1ld]

via RSI Comm-Link

Other Ship Items

A Guide to the New Ship Matrix

Greetings Citizens!

In this article, we’ll be discussing our final stops on the list of dedicated ship items displayed in the New Ship Matrix: Utility and Systems items. While it might be easy to dismiss these as being less impressive than the more flashy weapons, turrets and missiles, they are no less important to the overall operation of your spacecraft, and found far more commonly across all ships and vehicles in-game. We’ve talked previously about the various sizes of ship items like Power Plants, Coolers and Shield Generators, and while much of that still holds true, there are some key updates we want everyone to be aware of beginning with this article.

We’ll begin with Utility Hardpoints. Like those previously mentioned hardpoints they have some common elements:

Utility hardpoints can only take utility items. No swapping them out for weapons or missiles.

Utility items have a numerical size system that allows them to be swapped and mixed between ships.

Like other hardpoints, some items usable here are bespoke to the ship and would therefore be non-swappable.

For some ships with utility hardpoints, you can swap out the utility items to change their functionality.

While you can swap utility items out it may not always be as effective as simply using a dedicated ship designed for that cause. You could swap the Terrapin’s Radar Dish out for a Mining Laser or Tractor beam to allow basic mining or salvage, but you have no discrete way of processing it. In a situation like this, you’d likely need a second ship nearby to process things effectively.

Allowing a certain level of interchangeability for groups of players to cobble together unique gameplay out of unexpected elements is something we look forward to, the idea that you’ll show us what’s truly possible in Star Citizen.

An interesting example here might be a small fleet of ships including an Orion, where the Orion is great for mining but is slow and ponderous to re-align, considering that it’s tractor beam turrets that help guide rocks into its mining mechanism can still only do so much. In this situation, players with smaller ships equipping tractor beams would be able to help ferry more material either directly into the Orion or within reach of the Orion’s beams to create a more efficient operation.

The remaining ship and vehicle items displayed on the ship matrix consist of the following items:

Power Plants Coolers Shield Generators Fuel Intakes Radars Quantum Drives Jump Drives Computers (Formerly Avionics Motherboards or Modules) Fuel Tanks

Aside from Fuel Tanks, all of these items are swappable and to ensure balance, fall under one of 5 size categories:

Vehicle Small Medium Large Capital

Each itemport is restricted to a single type and size, meaning you cannot put a Power Plant on a hardpoint that a Cooler occupies, nor can you swap two Small Shield Generators out for a Medium Shield Generator. The jump in output between each item type varies but it can roughly be considered to be a 3:1 ratio, as in 3 Small items give roughly the same output as one Medium.

Item Grades

Every swappable item in the game is assigned a grade for ease of comparison, this should be your first port of call when deciding what items to buy and swap out as it gives you a simple scale to compare against. Additional details about the individual nature of an item with be visible in the purchase screen of any vendor, but for a place to start, we provide a simple letter grade.

Different grades have different values to the items:

A = The best possible performance, usually has an additinal Sub Item slot.

B = A good upgrade to performance, may have an additional Sub item slot.

C = The standard item for most ships be default, average performance.

D = Lower grade, generally makes up the NPC/AI populace, good for emergency use to get through troubles.

Most ships come standard with default C grade components. SOme of the more exotic or specialized ships may come with Grade B equipment in default loadouts, which can often be seen reflected in their price. Of course, the reverse can also hold true where cheaper ships may come with D grade components by default. They’ll still work fine and get you where you wanna go, but you’ll want to consider upgrading them after a while.

Item Classifications

In a future 3.x patch we plan to assign every ship and every item a component class. This means players will only be able to put an item of that class into a ship that can utilize it.

Military – The best overall at that item’s functionality, at the expense of emissions and cost.

Civilian – The most common, wide range of behaviours to suit cost, options to approximate all other categories but not as specific.

Stealth – Vastly reduced signatures/consumption at the expense of functionality.

Industrial – Reliably high output and low wear, high emissions.

Competition – Higher performing than military but at the expense of durability and stealth, performance over everything.

At present, no ship is restricted to a single class of item, with each having at least two classes and virtually all of them featuring Civilian as an option. While this system is still in development, the idea at it’s core is to prevent players from making certain ships too powerful within respective areas. We still want there to be an enormous amount of customization available, but this system we’re still developing would do things like limit the chances of finding a Military Spec 85X or a Stealth Herald simply due to people buying the best items of that type.

Sub Items

Sub-Items live inside components and provide a boost to the base effectiveness in a variety of ways. Currently, they are consumable parts that will wear out much quicker than their host items themselves. Without sub-items the base item still functions as normal, but will find a small boost in performance when sub-items are installed. It’s recommended that players carry spares for longer trips as the need to swap these out over extended duration trips is likely. Not carrying spares (or not having the ability to carry spares) isn’t an impediment to base functionality, but should be seen as a continued maintenance loop necessary to provide an improved-upon and highly proficient system.

Each Sub Item fits in one of three categories, each boosting a different set of stats for that item:

Efficiency improves the overall effectiveness of the main item by reducing power or improving cooling performance.

Protection reduces the damage being dealt to the main item by absorbing different damage types or reducing wear rate and misfire chances.

Detection inhibits emissions in various spectrum from the main item or provides resistance to scanning.

Sub Items can fit in many different items and are not restricted to a specific type of item, such as a Power Plant Sub Item.

Frequently Asked Questions

or: Questions We Figured You Might Have

Q: Are Computer Blades Sub Items?

A: No, they are their own stand alone item that adds or expands functionality rather than improving a baseline stat. While currently they can only be added to Computer items that may not be the only place for them in the future.

Q: I’m worried about the restrictions of classes on ships and items, will it mean my ship gets nerfed?

A: We’re still in the design phase of this system and therefore still working on all the edge cases we have internally. For 3.0 the default loadouts for the ships actually are the correct grades/classes that they are planned to be so the performance of those ships should change and there will be many upgrade paths even with the class restriction. We’ll provide more information on the class restriction system when we have more concrete information to share.

Q: Are there other items that I can swap out on my ship?

A: Absolutely, the list here is just the items that are on the ship matrix and we have many more in planning or in-game such as Scanners, Batteries and Armor.

Further Reading

Ship Mass

Careers and Roles

Thrusters

Ship Technical Information

Ordnance Hardpoints

Weapon Hardpoints

Other Hardpoints

Turrets

coming soon: Variants & Modules

coming soon: scu and Cargo

   $(function() {      Page.init();  window.Page = new RSI.Game.About();      });    

[inexcon]

RSI Comm-Link: The Shipyard: Ship Mass

Ship Mass:

I’m Not Heavy I’m Just Built That Way

A Guide to the New Ship Matrix

Greetings Citizens!

With the release of 3.0.0 we have completed a ground up pass on mass for all in-game items, from the smallest bit of personal armor up to the largest spaceship. We have always endeavored to use real world items to guide our mass in-game but over time this has slowly caused issues as everyone’s interpretation of how heavy something is has wildly varied, a phenomenon especially noticeable during concept announcements when ship masses are first pitched. One area we identified was the notion of our spaceships being similar in role to modern day aircraft, so we originally endeavored to keep their mass values similar as well. Of course, coming at this from new angles caused a number of serious issues. For instance, the Gladius is a Light Fighter and to many that is similar in role/size to a modern day fighter jet like an F/A-18 Hornet (no relation to the ANVL Hornet) but when we got farther into things, the reality was that the Gladius has around 5x the volume of an F-18. This was problematic given it was originally implemented in-game at around 140% the weight of one. As we looked deeper into more and more ships it became increasingly clear that our original mass values were very inconsistent and often misleading. Given these are the basis for many areas of simulation within the game we decided to completely rework this aspect.

Given the huge range of ships and items in-game as well as in-concept we needed to solidify a way of calculating the mass correctly for both our existing assets and ones yet to come. For this, we decided to harness our existing physics meshes and use them to calculate the volume of material in the ships. Generally these are pretty accurate but with the wide range of ship types there were naturally a few different steps involved in generating a correct volume per ship.

Grasping the Concept

At the concept stage, these ships are at their trickiest to calculate, as they are generally very high poly meshes without the benefits of physics sub-meshes. This requires a small amount of work to simplify and cap hole to allow us to accurately generate a volume for the ship.

Capping Holes is the process of fully enclosing our collision proxy meshes and open faces that can cause issues in the engine. In essence we make them “watertight” while marking up specific faces that will allow entities to move through them unimpeded. Whilst this is usually done in the production stage we had to move ahead with this at a simple level for many of our concept ships to achieve standardized mass calculations for all ships.

My Density Has Brought Me to You

Once we had the volume of the ship as if it was solid block of material, we then subtracted the volume blocked out by the design team for the interior play space, cockpit and internal local grid mesh. This new volume (solid minus interior) was assigned an appropriate density value with a few modifiers:

Construction Methodology

Origin ships use more advanced lightweight materials that retain strength rather than the traditional stalwarts like Aegis and Anvil with heavier metals. The materials in play are an essential component in accurately accessing the correct mass of a vehicle, ship, or space station.

Species Construction

Xi’an ships are renowned for their materials and are significantly lighter than human counterparts, with their collaboration with MISC allowing some crossover. Design will work with the Lore Team to determine not only the aesthetics in play for a specific species like Banu or Vanduul, but they types of resources at their disposal and technological advantage of their culture in determining the materials used in construction.

Design Role

Ships that are naturally heavily armored or require more rigid internal support generate a denser value. It is vitally important not only to consider the source and history inherent in each ship, but it’s intended purpose within both the lore of the Star Citizen universe, and the design of our game.

It’s What’s Inside That Counts

Once the mass for the external “chassis” of the ship was generated, we used the internal volume again to generate a weight for the interior. This simulated all the interior panelling, doors, wiring etc as the design blockout volumes and local grids are slightly larger than the interior playable space (as they encompass the walls/floor meshes) and we felt this was a better reflection on the overall mass.

Only What You Take with You

Finally, we looked at the ship’s proposed or current default loadout, and added the specifics for each of these components (which also got a rework pass) to the final mass generated from the above steps.

What does this mean? All of our ships and characters now behave much better as the values used throughout the game are much more in sync. One example we uncovered during this rework was that on a variety of ships the physics meshes were uncapped, which during detachment and having the mass assigned to them was causing the engine to incorrectly calculate the mass of the detached part and thus it would behave poorly. With all the parts now capped or in the process of being capped, ship destruction and part detachment is much more reliable and believable, with less instances of huge ship debris parts spinning off at excessive speed. In addition to better behavior it also meant a lot of systemic features can be better accounted for such as carried items and cargo. Previously, with ships being so wildly disparate in weight, the simple act of adding a heavier weapon could significantly alter one ship unintentionally.

Frequently Asked Questions

or: Questions We Figured You Might Have

Q: Will changing the item mass on my ship, intentionally or through damage, actually have an impact on its flight?

A: Yes it will, though not immediately in Alpha 3.0.

When we do the initial tuning value we base it around the default loadout and structure then give the ship “goal times” to achieve the desired results in zero g and atmospheric flights. Generally the ships are able to achieve these goals, as they are not absolute timings. Outside of any external factors, adding mass will change the flight characteristics and should you make the center of mass uneven may not do so for the better!

We anticipate this feature coming online in a future Alpha 3.x release.

Q: What other aspects of mass have changed outside of ships?

A: Every single piece of armor and every item you carry on your person has an applicable mass and these all directly tie into the Actor Status System. The heavier you are the more exertion there is to perform actions and these consume oxygen quicker or may even limit what actions you can do. This system also extends to items carried on ships. Carrying a small crate of heavy metal will slow you down more than carrying a helmet in your hands and these all get added on to the mass of your ship when inside of it.

Further Reading

Ship Mass

Careers and Roles

coming soon: Thrusters

coming soon: Ship Technical Information

coming soon: Ordnance Hardpoints

coming soon: Weapon Hardpoints

coming soon: Other Hardpoints

coming soon: Turrets

coming soon: Variants & Modules

coming soon: scu and Cargo

   $(function() {      Page.init();  window.Page = new RSI.Game.About();      });     http://bit.ly/2gPf7LP

[sad-ch1ld]

via RSI Comm-Link

Ship Mass:

I’m Not Heavy I’m Just Built That Way

A Guide to the New Ship Matrix

Greetings Citizens!

With the release of 3.0.0 we have completed a ground up pass on mass for all in-game items, from the smallest bit of personal armor up to the largest spaceship. We have always endeavored to use real world items to guide our mass in-game but over time this has slowly caused issues as everyone’s interpretation of how heavy something is has wildly varied, a phenomenon especially noticeable during concept announcements when ship masses are first pitched. One area we identified was the notion of our spaceships being similar in role to modern day aircraft, so we originally endeavored to keep their mass values similar as well. Of course, coming at this from new angles caused a number of serious issues. For instance, the Gladius is a Light Fighter and to many that is similar in role/size to a modern day fighter jet like an F/A-18 Hornet (no relation to the ANVL Hornet) but when we got farther into things, the reality was that the Gladius has around 5x the volume of an F-18. This was problematic given it was originally implemented in-game at around 140% the weight of one. As we looked deeper into more and more ships it became increasingly clear that our original mass values were very inconsistent and often misleading. Given these are the basis for many areas of simulation within the game we decided to completely rework this aspect.

Given the huge range of ships and items in-game as well as in-concept we needed to solidify a way of calculating the mass correctly for both our existing assets and ones yet to come. For this, we decided to harness our existing physics meshes and use them to calculate the volume of material in the ships. Generally these are pretty accurate but with the wide range of ship types there were naturally a few different steps involved in generating a correct volume per ship.

Grasping the Concept

At the concept stage, these ships are at their trickiest to calculate, as they are generally very high poly meshes without the benefits of physics sub-meshes. This requires a small amount of work to simplify and cap hole to allow us to accurately generate a volume for the ship.

Capping Holes is the process of fully enclosing our collision proxy meshes and open faces that can cause issues in the engine. In essence we make them “watertight” while marking up specific faces that will allow entities to move through them unimpeded. Whilst this is usually done in the production stage we had to move ahead with this at a simple level for many of our concept ships to achieve standardized mass calculations for all ships.

My Density Has Brought Me to You

Once we had the volume of the ship as if it was solid block of material, we then subtracted the volume blocked out by the design team for the interior play space, cockpit and internal local grid mesh. This new volume (solid minus interior) was assigned an appropriate density value with a few modifiers:

Construction Methodology

Origin ships use more advanced lightweight materials that retain strength rather than the traditional stalwarts like Aegis and Anvil with heavier metals. The materials in play are an essential component in accurately accessing the correct mass of a vehicle, ship, or space station.

Species Construction

Xi’an ships are renowned for their materials and are significantly lighter than human counterparts, with their collaboration with MISC allowing some crossover. Design will work with the Lore Team to determine not only the aesthetics in play for a specific species like Banu or Vanduul, but they types of resources at their disposal and technological advantage of their culture in determining the materials used in construction.

Design Role

Ships that are naturally heavily armored or require more rigid internal support generate a denser value. It is vitally important not only to consider the source and history inherent in each ship, but it’s intended purpose within both the lore of the Star Citizen universe, and the design of our game.

It’s What’s Inside That Counts

Once the mass for the external “chassis” of the ship was generated, we used the internal volume again to generate a weight for the interior. This simulated all the interior panelling, doors, wiring etc as the design blockout volumes and local grids are slightly larger than the interior playable space (as they encompass the walls/floor meshes) and we felt this was a better reflection on the overall mass.

Only What You Take with You

Finally, we looked at the ship’s proposed or current default loadout, and added the specifics for each of these components (which also got a rework pass) to the final mass generated from the above steps.

What does this mean? All of our ships and characters now behave much better as the values used throughout the game are much more in sync. One example we uncovered during this rework was that on a variety of ships the physics meshes were uncapped, which during detachment and having the mass assigned to them was causing the engine to incorrectly calculate the mass of the detached part and thus it would behave poorly. With all the parts now capped or in the process of being capped, ship destruction and part detachment is much more reliable and believable, with less instances of huge ship debris parts spinning off at excessive speed. In addition to better behavior it also meant a lot of systemic features can be better accounted for such as carried items and cargo. Previously, with ships being so wildly disparate in weight, the simple act of adding a heavier weapon could significantly alter one ship unintentionally.

Frequently Asked Questions

or: Questions We Figured You Might Have

Q: Will changing the item mass on my ship, intentionally or through damage, actually have an impact on its flight?

A: Yes it will, though not immediately in Alpha 3.0.

When we do the initial tuning value we base it around the default loadout and structure then give the ship “goal times” to achieve the desired results in zero g and atmospheric flights. Generally the ships are able to achieve these goals, as they are not absolute timings. Outside of any external factors, adding mass will change the flight characteristics and should you make the center of mass uneven may not do so for the better!

We anticipate this feature coming online in a future Alpha 3.x release.

Q: What other aspects of mass have changed outside of ships?

A: Every single piece of armor and every item you carry on your person has an applicable mass and these all directly tie into the Actor Status System. The heavier you are the more exertion there is to perform actions and these consume oxygen quicker or may even limit what actions you can do. This system also extends to items carried on ships. Carrying a small crate of heavy metal will slow you down more than carrying a helmet in your hands and these all get added on to the mass of your ship when inside of it.

Further Reading

Ship Mass

Careers and Roles

coming soon: Thrusters

coming soon: Ship Technical Information

coming soon: Ordnance Hardpoints

coming soon: Weapon Hardpoints

coming soon: Other Hardpoints

coming soon: Turrets

coming soon: Variants & Modules

coming soon: scu and Cargo

   $(function() {      Page.init();  window.Page = new RSI.Game.About();      });    

[starcitizenprivateer]

via RSI Comm-Link

Ship Mass:

I’m Not Heavy I’m Just Built That Way

A Guide to the New Ship Matrix

Greetings Citizens!

With the release of 3.0.0 we have completed a ground up pass on mass for all in-game items, from the smallest bit of personal armor up to the largest spaceship. We have always endeavored to use real world items to guide our mass in-game but over time this has slowly caused issues as everyone’s interpretation of how heavy something is has wildly varied, a phenomenon especially noticeable during concept announcements when ship masses are first pitched. One area we identified was the notion of our spaceships being similar in role to modern day aircraft, so we originally endeavored to keep their mass values similar as well. Of course, coming at this from new angles caused a number of serious issues. For instance, the Gladius is a Light Fighter and to many that is similar in role/size to a modern day fighter jet like an F/A-18 Hornet (no relation to the ANVL Hornet) but when we got farther into things, the reality was that the Gladius has around 5x the volume of an F-18. This was problematic given it was originally implemented in-game at around 140% the weight of one. As we looked deeper into more and more ships it became increasingly clear that our original mass values were very inconsistent and often misleading. Given these are the basis for many areas of simulation within the game we decided to completely rework this aspect.

Given the huge range of ships and items in-game as well as in-concept we needed to solidify a way of calculating the mass correctly for both our existing assets and ones yet to come. For this, we decided to harness our existing physics meshes and use them to calculate the volume of material in the ships. Generally these are pretty accurate but with the wide range of ship types there were naturally a few different steps involved in generating a correct volume per ship.

Grasping the Concept

At the concept stage, these ships are at their trickiest to calculate, as they are generally very high poly meshes without the benefits of physics sub-meshes. This requires a small amount of work to simplify and cap hole to allow us to accurately generate a volume for the ship.

Capping Holes is the process of fully enclosing our collision proxy meshes and open faces that can cause issues in the engine. In essence we make them “watertight” while marking up specific faces that will allow entities to move through them unimpeded. Whilst this is usually done in the production stage we had to move ahead with this at a simple level for many of our concept ships to achieve standardized mass calculations for all ships.

My Density Has Brought Me to You

Once we had the volume of the ship as if it was solid block of material, we then subtracted the volume blocked out by the design team for the interior play space, cockpit and internal local grid mesh. This new volume (solid minus interior) was assigned an appropriate density value with a few modifiers:

Construction Methodology

Origin ships use more advanced lightweight materials that retain strength rather than the traditional stalwarts like Aegis and Anvil with heavier metals. The materials in play are an essential component in accurately accessing the correct mass of a vehicle, ship, or space station.

Species Construction

Xi’an ships are renowned for their materials and are significantly lighter than human counterparts, with their collaboration with MISC allowing some crossover. Design will work with the Lore Team to determine not only the aesthetics in play for a specific species like Banu or Vanduul, but they types of resources at their disposal and technological advantage of their culture in determining the materials used in construction.

Design Role

Ships that are naturally heavily armored or require more rigid internal support generate a denser value. It is vitally important not only to consider the source and history inherent in each ship, but it’s intended purpose within both the lore of the Star Citizen universe, and the design of our game.

It’s What’s Inside That Counts

Once the mass for the external “chassis” of the ship was generated, we used the internal volume again to generate a weight for the interior. This simulated all the interior panelling, doors, wiring etc as the design blockout volumes and local grids are slightly larger than the interior playable space (as they encompass the walls/floor meshes) and we felt this was a better reflection on the overall mass.

Only What You Take with You

Finally, we looked at the ship’s proposed or current default loadout, and added the specifics for each of these components (which also got a rework pass) to the final mass generated from the above steps.

What does this mean? All of our ships and characters now behave much better as the values used throughout the game are much more in sync. One example we uncovered during this rework was that on a variety of ships the physics meshes were uncapped, which during detachment and having the mass assigned to them was causing the engine to incorrectly calculate the mass of the detached part and thus it would behave poorly. With all the parts now capped or in the process of being capped, ship destruction and part detachment is much more reliable and believable, with less instances of huge ship debris parts spinning off at excessive speed. In addition to better behavior it also meant a lot of systemic features can be better accounted for such as carried items and cargo. Previously, with ships being so wildly disparate in weight, the simple act of adding a heavier weapon could significantly alter one ship unintentionally.

Frequently Asked Questions

or: Questions We Figured You Might Have

Q: Will changing the item mass on my ship, intentionally or through damage, actually have an impact on its flight?

A: Yes it will, though not immediately in Alpha 3.0.

When we do the initial tuning value we base it around the default loadout and structure then give the ship “goal times” to achieve the desired results in zero g and atmospheric flights. Generally the ships are able to achieve these goals, as they are not absolute timings. Outside of any external factors, adding mass will change the flight characteristics and should you make the center of mass uneven may not do so for the better!

We anticipate this feature coming online in a future Alpha 3.x release.

Q: What other aspects of mass have changed outside of ships?

A: Every single piece of armor and every item you carry on your person has an applicable mass and these all directly tie into the Actor Status System. The heavier you are the more exertion there is to perform actions and these consume oxygen quicker or may even limit what actions you can do. This system also extends to items carried on ships. Carrying a small crate of heavy metal will slow you down more than carrying a helmet in your hands and these all get added on to the mass of your ship when inside of it.

Further Reading

Ship Mass

Careers and Roles

coming soon: Thrusters

coming soon: Ship Technical Information

coming soon: Ordnance Hardpoints

coming soon: Weapon Hardpoints

coming soon: Other Hardpoints

coming soon: Turrets

coming soon: Variants & Modules

coming soon: scu and Cargo

   $(function() {      Page.init();  window.Page = new RSI.Game.About();      });    

[sad-ch1ld]

via RSI Comm-Link

Careers and Roles

A Guide to the New Ship Matrix

Greetings Citizens!

With the upcoming release of the New Ship Matrix, the updated database of stats for every Star Citizen vehicle and ship, and the continuing development of Star Citizen Alpha 3.0.0 we have consolidated and re-aligned every ship in the game to better serve the community in understanding which ships are right for them. Over the next couple weeks, you’ll see new posts detailing the intricacies of our new Ship Matrix, what some of these new stats mean, how we expect them to manifest in game, and our thought process behind some of the changes you’ll see when all is said and done.

Of course, even with the release of this New Ship Matrix, our work is not completed. As Star Citizen continues to develop, so to will the classifications and stats for our spacecraft and ground vehicles. With our new baseline established, going forward we intend to keep the matrix as up-to-date as possible with the latest information. It is our hope that the New Ship Matrix will be the starting point for your Star Citizen theorycrafting adventures, as we detail the stock loadouts each ship will begin with. Remember, in the finished game, you’ll be able to customize many aspects of your ship, taking your spacecraft beyond the original intentions of their designers. We eagerly look forward to the loadouts and customization you’ll one day apply to your ships, as you make each Hornet, each Constellation, or each Hull C your own. We hope you’re as excited by the possibilities as we are.

To begin this process of updating our New Ship Matrix, we started by sorting each ship into one of our new “Career” groups. These groups will allow us as developers and you as backers to broadly compare various ships with one another using common themes intended to help make the choice regarding what ship is right for you.

Currently there are six (6) defined career groups that all ships fit under:

Combat

Exactly as the name implies, all about shooting and offensive damage to other ships, vehicles, and people on both ends of the legal spectrum. Consisting of military surplus, militia converted, the rare current military stock and the more common un-gunned civilian ships there is something for everyone in this group.

Transport

Ships that transport anything as their primary income method, be that cargo, data, or passengers. From the smallest ship carrying a single crate to the massive Hull-E, these ships are the backbone of the economy; carrying goods in and between systems.

Exploration

For those ships that go on short (and long) journeys to distant locations, be it for solo, group, or commercial discovery there is a ship to suit all explorers tastes. Equipped for a variety of mission types and often with extra transport options included in the larger ships.

Industrial

If gathering items from the verse is your thing, then Industrial is the best group for you featuring Mining, Salvage, Science, and other similar ships. Anything that gathers a resource from the world is contained within this group, whether its physical matter such as Mining and Salvage or intercepting/generating data from the environment.

Support

Perfect for those who want to be involved in the action but without shooting everything in sight; Medical, Repair, and Refueling ships are all part of this group and provide a less combat orientated approach to group gameplay loops.

Competition

Almost entirely consisting of ships for Racing, the group for those who need to go fast with lightweight agile ships. Great for racing but lack the durability for much else.

In addition to the six above there are a few ships that we really couldn’t condense into one group or another so we have termed these “Multi-Role” ships as they have such a range of roles it wouldn’t be right to put them in one group or another. Once each ship had been given a Career we drilled down further and assigned it a role inside that group to further define what that ship excels at.

We have listed some of the Roles below:

Ship Career / Role Chart Which Spaceship Is the Right Spaceship for Me?

Career

Roles

Combat

Fighters

Interdiction

Drop Ship

Bomber

Transport

Freight

Passenger

Data

Exploration

Pathfinder

Expedition

Touring

Industrial

Mining

Salvage

Science

Agriculture

Support

Medical

Refueling

Repair

Reporting

Competition

Racing

* This is a partial listing of Ship Careers and Roles.

Many of the Roles can have prefixes such as Light/Medium/Heavy to better differentiate ships, such as the Prospector and Orion from each other as they are very different mining ships. Combat ships also benefit from this as the Gladius (Light Fighter) and Hornet F7C (Medium Fighter) would end up being considered as direct competitors otherwise.

All these new Careers/Roles are visible on the ASOP terminals in game to help better guide your choice of ship selection as well as on the website and in the future we’re aiming to have our own version of a “tech tree” where you can see natural upgrade routes between all the ships based on what you want to do with them.

Spaceship Role Call

or: Intended Purposes and How to Defy Them

Each ship has a Role assigned to it, in the case of “Multi-Role” groups these often have two to reflect their nature, this role is a further clarification of what each ship is designed to do out of the box. The Role gives an overview of what the expected minute to minute, hour to hour gameplay loop will be with this ship rather than the day to day loop the Career Group defines.

Through in-game customization these roles can get blurred together but generally you can never competitively, you can trick out a Gladius with heavier weapons to an extent, better armor and more durable components but its still a Light Fighter at its core rather than a Medium Fighter and whilst it would be competitive in the right hands against a stock Medium fighter, outside of that its best considering other options.

Ship Roles: A Visual Guide

Ship Role: Pathfinder

Ship Role: Pathfinder

Ship Role: Racing

Ship Role: Racing

Ship Role: Passenger

Ship Role: Passenger

Ship Role: Touring

Ship Role: Touring

Ship Role: Interdiction

Ship Role: Interdiction

$(document).ready(function() { $("#slideshow").data("carousel", new RSI.FullCarousel({ holder: $("#slideshow .mask .carousel"), pagerContainer: $("#slideshow .pager"), prevButton: $("#slideshow .js-prev"), nextButton: $("#slideshow .js-next"), clickToFullScreen: true, circular: true, useKeys: true, container: $("#slideshow"), needToLoadImg: true })); $(window).bind("resize", function() { if ($(window).width() < 1200) { $("#slideshow").data("carousel").setToFitScreen(); } else { $("#slideshow").data("carousel").unsetToFitScreen(); } }); if ($(window).width() < 1200) { $("#slideshow").data("carousel").setToFitScreen(); $("#slideshow").data("carousel").onWindowResize(); } else { $("#slideshow").data("carousel").unsetToFitScreen(); } $("#slideshow .download").bind("click", function(e) { e.stopPropagation(); return true; }); });

These are but a small sample of the roles currently available among the variety of Star Citizen ships and vehicles, and by no means a comprehensive list of all there is, or all there will be. Over time, additional roles will be introduced and existing roles will be expanded upon and detailed further. For the purposes of this post, we wanted to provide you with a brief introduction to some of the gameplay we want Star Citizen ships and vehicles to offer.

Additionally, these roles are starting points for each ship based on the intended design and default loadout. Through Star Citizen’s item upgrading and customization systems, we hope to provide a wide range of options to the player in tailoring the performance and capabilities of each ship, to both improve upon the functionality of it’s intended role, and in some cases, perform adequately outside the boundaries of any original conceptions designers may have had for a ship. Want a tricked out racing Hornet? How about a stealthy Buccaneer? While not every ship is as versatile as others, we’re excited to one day present you the tools that will allow you to make each ship your own.

Frequently Asked Questions

or: Questions We Figured You Might Have

Q: What do the other Roles in Exploration mean?

A: Expedition ships are for the multi-crew ships in the Exploration category that are able to support extended explorations with much larger supplies and often vehicles. Luxury exploration ships cover both of the aforementioned roles, but naturally do them in a much more luxurious manner. On paper without visuals if you compared a 300i and Aurora LX they’d stack up fairly similar (one seat, one bed, similar item counts) but in reality the 300i is a much more luxurious ship.

Q: Why has my ship changed Role from what it was sold as?

A: We have tried to ensure that all ships remain as close to their originally pledged roles, however a few may seem to have changed but this is more to do with a vague or nebulous original description. As development has progressed a lot of the older ships had very unique roles which do not fit nicely in with the current game design and need to be subtly pushed in various directions to better fit their intended role.

Q: Does my Career group restrict what missions I can do?

A: Absolutely not, We do not restrict missions available to the player at all currently and have no immediate plans to, its up to you to decide the best ship for the mission based on the information provided. You would still be able to take an “Escort” mission in a 890 Jump if you so desire, but the difficulty in achieving the same income for that would be much higher than if you took that person in a ship that was a dedicated long range Combat ship like the Vanguard or Banu Defender.

Further Reading

coming soon: Ship Mass

Careers and Roles

coming soon: Thrusters

coming soon: Ship Technical Information

coming soon: Ordinance Hardpoints

coming soon: Weapon Hardpoints

coming soon: Other Hardpoints

coming soon: Turrets

coming soon: Variants & Modules

coming soon: scu and Cargo

   $(function() {      Page.init();  window.Page = new RSI.Game.About();      });    

[starcitizenprivateer]

via RSI Comm-Link

Careers and Roles

A Guide to the New Ship Matrix

Greetings Citizens!

With the upcoming release of the New Ship Matrix, the updated database of stats for every Star Citizen vehicle and ship, and the continuing development of Star Citizen Alpha 3.0.0 we have consolidated and re-aligned every ship in the game to better serve the community in understanding which ships are right for them. Over the next couple weeks, you’ll see new posts detailing the intricacies of our new Ship Matrix, what some of these new stats mean, how we expect them to manifest in game, and our thought process behind some of the changes you’ll see when all is said and done.

Of course, even with the release of this New Ship Matrix, our work is not completed. As Star Citizen continues to develop, so to will the classifications and stats for our spacecraft and ground vehicles. With our new baseline established, going forward we intend to keep the matrix as up-to-date as possible with the latest information. It is our hope that the New Ship Matrix will be the starting point for your Star Citizen theorycrafting adventures, as we detail the stock loadouts each ship will begin with. Remember, in the finished game, you’ll be able to customize many aspects of your ship, taking your spacecraft beyond the original intentions of their designers. We eagerly look forward to the loadouts and customization you’ll one day apply to your ships, as you make each Hornet, each Constellation, or each Hull C your own. We hope you’re as excited by the possibilities as we are.

To begin this process of updating our New Ship Matrix, we started by sorting each ship into one of our new “Career” groups. These groups will allow us as developers and you as backers to broadly compare various ships with one another using common themes intended to help make the choice regarding what ship is right for you.

Currently there are six (6) defined career groups that all ships fit under:

Combat

Exactly as the name implies, all about shooting and offensive damage to other ships, vehicles, and people on both ends of the legal spectrum. Consisting of military surplus, militia converted, the rare current military stock and the more common un-gunned civilian ships there is something for everyone in this group.

Transport

Ships that transport anything as their primary income method, be that cargo, data, or passengers. From the smallest ship carrying a single crate to the massive Hull-E, these ships are the backbone of the economy; carrying goods in and between systems.

Exploration

For those ships that go on short (and long) journeys to distant locations, be it for solo, group, or commercial discovery there is a ship to suit all explorers tastes. Equipped for a variety of mission types and often with extra transport options included in the larger ships.

Industrial

If gathering items from the verse is your thing, then Industrial is the best group for you featuring Mining, Salvage, Science, and other similar ships. Anything that gathers a resource from the world is contained within this group, whether its physical matter such as Mining and Salvage or intercepting/generating data from the environment.

Support

Perfect for those who want to be involved in the action but without shooting everything in sight; Medical, Repair, and Refueling ships are all part of this group and provide a less combat orientated approach to group gameplay loops.

Competition

Almost entirely consisting of ships for Racing, the group for those who need to go fast with lightweight agile ships. Great for racing but lack the durability for much else.

In addition to the six above there are a few ships that we really couldn’t condense into one group or another so we have termed these “Multi-Role” ships as they have such a range of roles it wouldn’t be right to put them in one group or another. Once each ship had been given a Career we drilled down further and assigned it a role inside that group to further define what that ship excels at.

We have listed some of the Roles below:

Ship Career / Role Chart Which Spaceship Is the Right Spaceship for Me?

Career

Roles

Combat

Fighters

Interdiction

Drop Ship

Bomber

Transport

Freight

Passenger

Data

Exploration

Pathfinder

Expedition

Touring

Industrial

Mining

Salvage

Science

Agriculture

Support

Medical

Refueling

Repair

Reporting

Competition

Racing

* This is a partial listing of Ship Careers and Roles.

Many of the Roles can have prefixes such as Light/Medium/Heavy to better differentiate ships, such as the Prospector and Orion from each other as they are very different mining ships. Combat ships also benefit from this as the Gladius (Light Fighter) and Hornet F7C (Medium Fighter) would end up being considered as direct competitors otherwise.

All these new Careers/Roles are visible on the ASOP terminals in game to help better guide your choice of ship selection as well as on the website and in the future we’re aiming to have our own version of a “tech tree” where you can see natural upgrade routes between all the ships based on what you want to do with them.

Spaceship Role Call

or: Intended Purposes and How to Defy Them

Each ship has a Role assigned to it, in the case of “Multi-Role” groups these often have two to reflect their nature, this role is a further clarification of what each ship is designed to do out of the box. The Role gives an overview of what the expected minute to minute, hour to hour gameplay loop will be with this ship rather than the day to day loop the Career Group defines.

Through in-game customization these roles can get blurred together but generally you can never competitively, you can trick out a Gladius with heavier weapons to an extent, better armor and more durable components but its still a Light Fighter at its core rather than a Medium Fighter and whilst it would be competitive in the right hands against a stock Medium fighter, outside of that its best considering other options.

Ship Roles: A Visual Guide

Ship Role: Pathfinder

Ship Role: Pathfinder

Ship Role: Racing

Ship Role: Racing

Ship Role: Passenger

Ship Role: Passenger

Ship Role: Touring

Ship Role: Touring

Ship Role: Interdiction

Ship Role: Interdiction

$(document).ready(function() { $("#slideshow").data("carousel", new RSI.FullCarousel({ holder: $("#slideshow .mask .carousel"), pagerContainer: $("#slideshow .pager"), prevButton: $("#slideshow .js-prev"), nextButton: $("#slideshow .js-next"), clickToFullScreen: true, circular: true, useKeys: true, container: $("#slideshow"), needToLoadImg: true })); $(window).bind("resize", function() { if ($(window).width() < 1200) { $("#slideshow").data("carousel").setToFitScreen(); } else { $("#slideshow").data("carousel").unsetToFitScreen(); } }); if ($(window).width() < 1200) { $("#slideshow").data("carousel").setToFitScreen(); $("#slideshow").data("carousel").onWindowResize(); } else { $("#slideshow").data("carousel").unsetToFitScreen(); } $("#slideshow .download").bind("click", function(e) { e.stopPropagation(); return true; }); });

These are but a small sample of the roles currently available among the variety of Star Citizen ships and vehicles, and by no means a comprehensive list of all there is, or all there will be. Over time, additional roles will be introduced and existing roles will be expanded upon and detailed further. For the purposes of this post, we wanted to provide you with a brief introduction to some of the gameplay we want Star Citizen ships and vehicles to offer.

Additionally, these roles are starting points for each ship based on the intended design and default loadout. Through Star Citizen’s item upgrading and customization systems, we hope to provide a wide range of options to the player in tailoring the performance and capabilities of each ship, to both improve upon the functionality of it’s intended role, and in some cases, perform adequately outside the boundaries of any original conceptions designers may have had for a ship. Want a tricked out racing Hornet? How about a stealthy Buccaneer? While not every ship is as versatile as others, we’re excited to one day present you the tools that will allow you to make each ship your own.

Frequently Asked Questions

or: Questions We Figured You Might Have

Q: What do the other Roles in Exploration mean?

A: Expedition ships are for the multi-crew ships in the Exploration category that are able to support extended explorations with much larger supplies and often vehicles. Luxury exploration ships cover both of the aforementioned roles, but naturally do them in a much more luxurious manner. On paper without visuals if you compared a 300i and Aurora LX they’d stack up fairly similar (one seat, one bed, similar item counts) but in reality the 300i is a much more luxurious ship.

Q: Why has my ship changed Role from what it was sold as?

A: We have tried to ensure that all ships remain as close to their originally pledged roles, however a few may seem to have changed but this is more to do with a vague or nebulous original description. As development has progressed a lot of the older ships had very unique roles which do not fit nicely in with the current game design and need to be subtly pushed in various directions to better fit their intended role.

Q: Does my Career group restrict what missions I can do?

A: Absolutely not, We do not restrict missions available to the player at all currently and have no immediate plans to, its up to you to decide the best ship for the mission based on the information provided. You would still be able to take an “Escort” mission in a 890 Jump if you so desire, but the difficulty in achieving the same income for that would be much higher than if you took that person in a ship that was a dedicated long range Combat ship like the Vanguard or Banu Defender.

Further Reading

coming soon: Ship Mass

Careers and Roles

coming soon: Thrusters

coming soon: Ship Technical Information

coming soon: Ordinance Hardpoints

coming soon: Weapon Hardpoints

coming soon: Other Hardpoints

coming soon: Turrets

coming soon: Variants & Modules

coming soon: scu and Cargo

   $(function() {      Page.init();  window.Page = new RSI.Game.About();      });    

[inexcon]

RSI Comm-Link: The Shipyard: Careers and Roles

Careers and Roles

A Guide to the New Ship Matrix

Greetings Citizens!

With the upcoming release of the New Ship Matrix, the updated database of stats for every Star Citizen vehicle and ship, and the continuing development of Star Citizen Alpha 3.0.0 we have consolidated and re-aligned every ship in the game to better serve the community in understanding which ships are right for them. Over the next couple weeks, you’ll see new posts detailing the intricacies of our new Ship Matrix, what some of these new stats mean, how we expect them to manifest in game, and our thought process behind some of the changes you’ll see when all is said and done.

Of course, even with the release of this New Ship Matrix, our work is not completed. As Star Citizen continues to develop, so to will the classifications and stats for our spacecraft and ground vehicles. With our new baseline established, going forward we intend to keep the matrix as up-to-date as possible with the latest information. It is our hope that the New Ship Matrix will be the starting point for your Star Citizen theorycrafting adventures, as we detail the stock loadouts each ship will begin with. Remember, in the finished game, you’ll be able to customize many aspects of your ship, taking your spacecraft beyond the original intentions of their designers. We eagerly look forward to the loadouts and customization you’ll one day apply to your ships, as you make each Hornet, each Constellation, or each Hull C your own. We hope you’re as excited by the possibilities as we are.

To begin this process of updating our New Ship Matrix, we started by sorting each ship into one of our new “Career” groups. These groups will allow us as developers and you as backers to broadly compare various ships with one another using common themes intended to help make the choice regarding what ship is right for you.

Currently there are six (6) defined career groups that all ships fit under:

Combat

Exactly as the name implies, all about shooting and offensive damage to other ships, vehicles, and people on both ends of the legal spectrum. Consisting of military surplus, militia converted, the rare current military stock and the more common un-gunned civilian ships there is something for everyone in this group.

Transport

Ships that transport anything as their primary income method, be that cargo, data, or passengers. From the smallest ship carrying a single crate to the massive Hull-E, these ships are the backbone of the economy; carrying goods in and between systems.

Exploration

For those ships that go on short (and long) journeys to distant locations, be it for solo, group, or commercial discovery there is a ship to suit all explorers tastes. Equipped for a variety of mission types and often with extra transport options included in the larger ships.

Industrial

If gathering items from the verse is your thing, then Industrial is the best group for you featuring Mining, Salvage, Science, and other similar ships. Anything that gathers a resource from the world is contained within this group, whether its physical matter such as Mining and Salvage or intercepting/generating data from the environment.

Support

Perfect for those who want to be involved in the action but without shooting everything in sight; Medical, Repair, and Refueling ships are all part of this group and provide a less combat orientated approach to group gameplay loops.

Competition

Almost entirely consisting of ships for Racing, the group for those who need to go fast with lightweight agile ships. Great for racing but lack the durability for much else.

In addition to the six above there are a few ships that we really couldn’t condense into one group or another so we have termed these “Multi-Role” ships as they have such a range of roles it wouldn’t be right to put them in one group or another. Once each ship had been given a Career we drilled down further and assigned it a role inside that group to further define what that ship excels at.

We have listed some of the Roles below:

Ship Career / Role Chart Which Spaceship Is the Right Spaceship for Me?

Career

Roles

Combat

Fighters

Interdiction

Drop Ship

Bomber

Transport

Freight

Passenger

Data

Exploration

Pathfinder

Expedition

Touring

Industrial

Mining

Salvage

Science

Agriculture

Support

Medical

Refueling

Repair

Reporting

Competition

Racing

* This is a partial listing of Ship Careers and Roles.

Many of the Roles can have prefixes such as Light/Medium/Heavy to better differentiate ships, such as the Prospector and Orion from each other as they are very different mining ships. Combat ships also benefit from this as the Gladius (Light Fighter) and Hornet F7C (Medium Fighter) would end up being considered as direct competitors otherwise.

All these new Careers/Roles are visible on the ASOP terminals in game to help better guide your choice of ship selection as well as on the website and in the future we’re aiming to have our own version of a “tech tree” where you can see natural upgrade routes between all the ships based on what you want to do with them.

Spaceship Role Call

or: Intended Purposes and How to Defy Them

Each ship has a Role assigned to it, in the case of “Multi-Role” groups these often have two to reflect their nature, this role is a further clarification of what each ship is designed to do out of the box. The Role gives an overview of what the expected minute to minute, hour to hour gameplay loop will be with this ship rather than the day to day loop the Career Group defines.

Through in-game customization these roles can get blurred together but generally you can never competitively, you can trick out a Gladius with heavier weapons to an extent, better armor and more durable components but its still a Light Fighter at its core rather than a Medium Fighter and whilst it would be competitive in the right hands against a stock Medium fighter, outside of that its best considering other options.

Ship Roles: A Visual Guide

Ship Role: Pathfinder

Ship Role: Pathfinder

Ship Role: Racing

Ship Role: Racing

Ship Role: Passenger

Ship Role: Passenger

Ship Role: Touring

Ship Role: Touring

Ship Role: Interdiction

Ship Role: Interdiction

$(document).ready(function() { $("#slideshow").data("carousel", new RSI.FullCarousel({ holder: $("#slideshow .mask .carousel"), pagerContainer: $("#slideshow .pager"), prevButton: $("#slideshow .js-prev"), nextButton: $("#slideshow .js-next"), clickToFullScreen: true, circular: true, useKeys: true, container: $("#slideshow"), needToLoadImg: true })); $(window).bind("resize", function() { if ($(window).width() < 1200) { $("#slideshow").data("carousel").setToFitScreen(); } else { $("#slideshow").data("carousel").unsetToFitScreen(); } }); if ($(window).width() < 1200) { $("#slideshow").data("carousel").setToFitScreen(); $("#slideshow").data("carousel").onWindowResize(); } else { $("#slideshow").data("carousel").unsetToFitScreen(); } $("#slideshow .download").bind("click", function(e) { e.stopPropagation(); return true; }); });

These are but a small sample of the roles currently available among the variety of Star Citizen ships and vehicles, and by no means a comprehensive list of all there is, or all there will be. Over time, additional roles will be introduced and existing roles will be expanded upon and detailed further. For the purposes of this post, we wanted to provide you with a brief introduction to some of the gameplay we want Star Citizen ships and vehicles to offer.

Additionally, these roles are starting points for each ship based on the intended design and default loadout. Through Star Citizen’s item upgrading and customization systems, we hope to provide a wide range of options to the player in tailoring the performance and capabilities of each ship, to both improve upon the functionality of it’s intended role, and in some cases, perform adequately outside the boundaries of any original conceptions designers may have had for a ship. Want a tricked out racing Hornet? How about a stealthy Buccaneer? While not every ship is as versatile as others, we’re excited to one day present you the tools that will allow you to make each ship your own.

Frequently Asked Questions

or: Questions We Figured You Might Have

Q: What do the other Roles in Exploration mean?

A: Expedition ships are for the multi-crew ships in the Exploration category that are able to support extended explorations with much larger supplies and often vehicles. Luxury exploration ships cover both of the aforementioned roles, but naturally do them in a much more luxurious manner. On paper without visuals if you compared a 300i and Aurora LX they’d stack up fairly similar (one seat, one bed, similar item counts) but in reality the 300i is a much more luxurious ship.

Q: Why has my ship changed Role from what it was sold as?

A: We have tried to ensure that all ships remain as close to their originally pledged roles, however a few may seem to have changed but this is more to do with a vague or nebulous original description. As development has progressed a lot of the older ships had very unique roles which do not fit nicely in with the current game design and need to be subtly pushed in various directions to better fit their intended role.

Q: Does my Career group restrict what missions I can do?

A: Absolutely not, We do not restrict missions available to the player at all currently and have no immediate plans to, its up to you to decide the best ship for the mission based on the information provided. You would still be able to take an “Escort” mission in a 890 Jump if you so desire, but the difficulty in achieving the same income for that would be much higher than if you took that person in a ship that was a dedicated long range Combat ship like the Vanguard or Banu Defender.

Further Reading

coming soon: Ship Mass

Careers and Roles

coming soon: Thrusters

coming soon: Ship Technical Information

coming soon: Ordinance Hardpoints

coming soon: Weapon Hardpoints

coming soon: Other Hardpoints

coming soon: Turrets

coming soon: Variants & Modules

coming soon: scu and Cargo

   $(function() {      Page.init();  window.Page = new RSI.Game.About();      });     http://bit.ly/2xLDobB

[inexcon]

RSI Comm-Link: Q&A: Origin X1

Q&A: Origin X1

Greetings Citizens!

Since the introduction of the Hull Series back in April 2015, every new concept ship reveal has had an accompanying Q&A post, where we spend a couple days collecting questions from you, pass those on to the relevant ship designer, and provide you the best answers we have available at that time.

With the recent addition of Spectrum, we can now allow you to add your vote to the questions you most want to see answered. The questions included below are a combination of those that received the most votes, similar questions that were merged into a single instance, and those we felt we could comfortably answer at this stage in the Origin X1’s development.

Now that the ship is concept complete, it will enter our development pipeline where many of the answers you see below will be fleshed out, and those missing will be determined and implemented. While it will still be some time before we see the Origin X1 in game, we hope you’re as excited as we are as the game expands with the further development of Origin ships in the Star Citizen universe.

As always, a special thanks to John Crewe, Todd Papy, Ben Lesnick and Steven Kam for their help in answering your questions.

Let’s get to it. -DL

How does X1 Base/Force/Velocity compare against the Nox and Dragonfly in speed, durability, and overall performance?

The X1 Baseline is the all-rounder of the three. Compared to the Dragonfly, the X1 will provide more speed/agility without the rugged terrain handling and additional passenger seat that serves as 1SCU of cargo holding in the Drake offering. Versus the Nox, it may not be as fast or as well armed (one gun vs two) but is more durable (hull and pilot-wise) while providing better visibility for the occupant.

The X1 Velocity is more agile than the X1 Baseline due to reduced weight (hull and equipment loadout choice) and can reach higher top speeds than the stock X1. With the X1 Force variant, Infinity Customs has extended the hull section between the tail fins which houses an additional shield generator slot providing more resistance against incoming weapon fire than any other bike currently on the market, including the Dragonfly and Nox. This allows you to shrug off those extra hits in combat should you be discovered during reconnaissance. A scout’s usefulness in recon often depends greatly on being able to bring that information home.

Will the X1 Force have special features such as increased scanning or stealth capability? If so, what kind?

The X1 Force differs from the rest of the X1 lineup and the other snubs by having a second shield generator providing increased defensive capability. With Industrial C-Grade components installed standard, items such as the radar and scanner are of a higher grade than the other X1’s but do not offer any new abilities, simply providing better baseline performance for the same tasks. Under the “exploration” category think of it more as an advanced scout, able to sneak close to enemy forces and observe them and should they be discovered, make successful escape more likely due to an additional shield generator. With only the single S1 gun it may not have the offensive capabilities of the Dragonfly or Nox, but the second shield should offset any advantage Origin’s competitors may possess.

How does a person get into and out of the X1?

The side of the X1 opens up allowing the user to enter/exit and interact with the internal components for repair. Here’s an animation from the early blockout exploring how it works.

How do the three X1 differ? Are they physical hull variants, the same hull but with different loadouts, or just skin swaps?

The three X1’s are designer-customized variants with different physical hulls, courtesy of Alberto Vara. The Velocity contains a Competition C-Grade loadout and lightweight hull optimized for performance, removing unnecessary drag like the weapon hardpoint while the Force has its slightly wider hull designed to house the extra shield generator hardpoint. Due to these special modifications unique to each X1 variant, they cannot be recreated completely by swapping components on the X1 Baseline.

Additionally, we’re looking to address the visibility/readability of what ships are hull variants, paint & loadout swaps, or utilize the module system in the upcoming rework of the ship stats matrix, but it’s worth considering that a space bike, being a very small and tightly constructed vehicle, is a little more limited than larger vehicles in general when it comes to supporting pervasive modularity.

Is there an advantage to having the Origin X1 Baseline over a Velocity or Force? Why would anyone want to use the base model?

It very much depends on what you want to use your X1 for. For the most part, we expect the Velocity to be preferred largely by specialist or dedicated racers, as the lack of weapon hardpoints limit its options for day to day use compared to its variants. With the X1 Force, you can get extra defensive shielding and improved scanning but at the cost of weight and an increase in price; just as the Velocity sheds mass to become a better racer, the Force trades a bit in that department for taking on extra gear. The X1 Baseline may be the most well-rounded of the three at a more comfortable price.

The X1 Force has a S1 Laser Repeater while the Baseline has an S1 Laser Cannon. What’s the difference, and why is one more suitable to fulfill the Force’s role?

Laser repeaters put a more continuous stream of fire down and are better suited for target saturation, while cannons (Ballistic and Laser) require a more precise sense of marksmanship due to their lower rate of fire. Your mileage may vary, but many people generally find repeaters easier to get used to. Also worth noting: default loadouts are exactly that. You may swap out for any S1 weapon that suits your personal preferences.

What advantage does the second shield generator of the FORCE provide? Will it provide life support (atmospheric shielding keeping oxygen in/non-breathable atmosphere out) to the pilot?

The shield generators on the X1 Force are defensive in nature and aren’t a Tevarin-style “air shield” you might find on larger spacecraft. All of the X1 Variants and current spacebikes from Drake and Aopoa are “open-canopy” craft and therefore lack integrated life support. You’re going to want to wear an appropriate suit for the environment you expect to be riding through.

How long until we can expect to see the X1 in game?

The X1 is not scheduled for Alpha 3.0 and is intended for a future 3.x patch; we hope to have a better idea the cadence for additional ships coming online once work on 3.0 is finished.

What are the differences between the variants? Right now all the stats say TBD.

Aside from the aforementioned hardpoint changes there will be differences between the default equipped items such as coolers, power plants, shield generators, radars, etc. If you drill down to the default equipment options that are currently visible, you will see the Baseline has Civilian C components, while the Velocity has Competition C and the Force comes standard with Industrial C-Grade fittings. At present, these individual items are currently awaiting names from the Lore Team so are displayed as TBD.

Will there be no-fly-zones in space where small vehicles like spacebikes will be necessary? (ex: minefields, dense asteroid and debris fields, derelict space stations)

Absolutely, spacebikes like the X1 are perfect for short distance exploration in space from parent ships like the examples listed. Asteroids and Debris Fields limit larger ships entry and the distance of the fields make personal EVA quite lengthy so the bikes fill the gap in space. Many of you have already experienced in Arena Commander how different (and perilous!) it can be to navigate larger ships through asteroid clutter.

How does the X1 Velocity compare to the NOX Kue or Dragonfly for racing purposes?

It depends on where you decide to race. Out of the three listed the Dragonfly can find itself at significant disadvantage in clear terrain and would rely on the other two to make a error to be competitive against them. In more rugged terrain the Dragonfly can find itself taking “short cuts” over geography that would hamper the performance of its competitors. A contest between the Nox Kue and X1 Velocity could be closer, with the Nox having a possible advantage with its fixed thrusters and the ability to start turning more quickly.

If the X1 Force is an exploration variant – will it be able to drop Nav Beacons like the Cyclone Recon?

This is not currently planned as there is nowhere to store the Nav Beacons on the X1.

Is uh… this apartment in the background going to be for sale sometime, too? Because that is a REALLY nice place. Love that ultra-minimalist furniture scheme.

No announcement on this just yet! We’re pleased you like it, though!

How well will the X1 fare in Pizza Delivery?

Ah Citizen, my old friend. Do you know the Vanduul proverb that tells us pizza is a dish that is best served cold? It is very cold in space.

Can it hold any cargo?

There is no space for any cargo to be carried on any X1 variant and no plans at present to do an X1 cargo variant. We figured someone would ask, but all vehicles engage in a little give-and-take in design order to do the things that they do. The X1 is a sleek little speedster designed with pilot preservation in mind, while the Dragonfly with its limited 1SCU cargo ability has a more utility focus.

Why is the X1 twice as heavy, as the other similarly sized bikes (1000 vs 2000 kg). Does it have larger components, like a bigger powerplant or bigger main thruster?

With the updated ship stats matrix coming soon all ships will be getting revised mass values and it looks like these values started to sneak out a little early! The website was incorrect to list all three variants with the same weight; they do all weigh different amounts. The Velocity is much closer to the Nox’s weight, the base slightly more and then the Force at the upper end of the scale near to the Dragonfly.

Can the base X1 be upgraded through components to any of the other two superior models?

As mentioned above: not completely due to them being actual variants with fundamental structural differences. You could remove the weapon and swap the internal components out to configure a base X1 similarly to a Velocity but it won’t be as light or nimble as the dedicated variant. Additionally, you could swap the Laser Cannon for the Laser Repeater (or other weapon of choice) and upgrade the internal components to Industrial components like the Force variant, but there still wouldn’t be a structural hardpoint for the second shield generator, so you’d end up with a heavier X1 Baseline. Often, variants represent a design tradeoff where we push a given design to perform even better at certain edges of the envelope, and that makes them special – but we expect overall customization to be part of the fun also, and look forward to the type of X1 you can make for yourself.

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