Realistic Star Citizen Update – July 8th, 2018
Calling All Devs
-Despite previous answers about life support system being simple the answer for this week is that the mass of gasses in each room is tracked with gas producers, users, and a number of other factors.
-CIG will get around to allowing more keybinds and other commands to bypass the inner thoughts interaction system at some point, some are already in place. Go read through the menus to find them.
-At 8:35 some carebear asks a cringe level question about if their inability to competitively play a multiplayer game will impact them or if they can turn off PvP to avoid having to git gud. CIG answer boils down to “stay in safe space” and don’t try to get the harder content.
-There’s some talk about non-combat tools and the old Star Marine deployable gear but it’s all theoretical talk yet to be prototyped. Will be added to the roadmap when we can expect it and it’s not on the roadmap for the next year.
Around the Verse
-Show is now on a new five minutes or less format.
-Show proceeds to waste 30% of run showing wacky player hijinks with the new patch and beauty shots of the armor they’ve been showing off for the last few months.
-Shows concept.jpg of new armor (1:50), looks like they’re done ripping off Eve and have moved on to Destiny.
-Some vague talk about the amazing new mission system, no details though because running short on time due to earlier funny player vids/pics.
-Talk about FPS, bind culling, and other things. No details other than Chris is excited to see Bind Culling so far along, gee Chris I sure would hope it’s far along because originally it was supposed to release with 2.6 and every patch since.
-Last 15% of show is a request for more pretty screenshots for their show, Chris tanking everyone for giving them money to make high quality shows like this, and credits.
Reverse the Verse
-Talk about changing video formats, the shorter shows, how there will be specials at some point to get some of the older content back.
-Planets rotate but planetary orbits are a huge hassle in both gameplay and physics so it’s off in the future at some point.
-The earliest concept work on the 300 series ship rebuild has begun.
-Jumpoints will see work once the Stanton system is done and it’s time to work on other another star system.
-Docking fees will increase if an area is more popular, to try and control player population in the area.
-Not all careers will have a starter ship, science being one of them.
-Some rambling talk about exploration gameplay, doesn’t amount to anything so far as I can tell. Watch if you care.
-Jump points are not on the public schedule, they will be when they’re ready to be worked on, they’re not on the schedule for the next year so they will not be worked on and based on talk there may be other priorities.
-The Hull C freighter is on indeterminate hold due to technical issues, the cargo system needing work, and gameplay issues it brings up.
-New tools have been developed so thruster values for ships can be done more quickly.
-Cap for UEC credit purchases has been removed, daily limit only. So far as devs know or something?
-Voice over IP is packaged with Face over IP, character will lip synch to what you’re saying.
-Talk about having NPCs react to where you’re looking. Boobs.
-Eye tracking is having issues because players look at places the character wouldn’t so CIG is working on it.
-UI for renting ships (not buying) hasn’t been developed yet. No implication on significance of rent wording, just what was said about upcoming UI work needed.
-Allowing players to change UI colors is further off in the future due to issues it would introduce in testing.
-Head tracking will be enabled in future, too much latency to use right now.
-Ship delivery schedule changed due to staff availability factors and other issues.
-Turrets need more work apparently, didn’t make it for 3.2 release or something.
-Hangars will all be redone again as they’re now legacy assets and need overhaul again. Know thing but being stated clearly now.
-The bugsmashers show is now on hiatus. Workload reasons or something.
-CIG is working on a transit (train) system for getting around areas.
Production Update
Sorry, missed this when it came out on Friday and didn’t find it on Reddit quickly so just gonna assume not much is going on.
CIG may not be doing roadmap updates closely after patches or something?
Errata
One of CIG’s economy wonks talked about plans for the SC economy.
Summary of it is that equipment purchase prices are high because there’s currently no equipment decay, once ongoing equipment ownership costs are a thing that may change, CIG wants it to take about one to two hours of effort to earn the credits to upgrade a piece of equipment on a ship (gun, avionics, etc.).
TL;DR
-CIG is cutting back on some shows (some unchanged) to free developers to actually develop, shows now consist of 50% pretty pictures with some potentially useful information crammed in around said pictures and Chris/Sandi marvelling at how great the game is.
-Jump points and a second star system is currently at least a year away.
-FPS deployable gear and tools are at least a year away apparently.
-VOIP and Face over IP are tied together but sound fairly far along so should make scheduled release hopefully.
-The apparent ideal for SC is one to two hours of money making per ships module to be upgraded. Ex: An hours work to buy a new gun.
-Concept work on 300 series ship rebuild begun, if you own one of these ships you may actually be able to play after this is completed.
-You can all relax, despite previous talk about life support being easy CIG is now likely to uphold their tradition of making massively over complex gameplay that will require years of development and result in a system that randomly kills you.