f13.net forums - Jumpgate Evolution :: Spaceships Types Revealed! (Now with more screen shots)

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July 13, 2025, 06:26:52 AM

we're back, baby

Codemasters says the game will be out in June.

I can only imagine the beta will start soon then. It also turns out my beta prediction was actually the release.

Two page Interview on IGN with Hermann Peterscheck.

Some Excerpts:

Quote

IGN Vault: Usually people finish off with this one, but I'm sure you really want to let us know when Beta is going to start!

Hermann Peterscheck: We're in friends and family now, and that's the last stage before closed beta, so really it's any time now. Of course, for people waiting for the beta that seems no closer than it was a year ago. [laughs] But we are getting very close.

IGN Vault: How realistic will the flight model be compared to JGC?

Hermann Peterscheck: One of the first things we did when we started working on the game, was we tested out the game with just a random sampling of players, and we found for most people, that method of flight was very difficult to grab hold of. They were very frustrated and just kind of gave up. So we added damper, which was very controversial. We're pretty honest with our community about what we're doing, and we want to get their input early. Even without playing the game there was a lot of skepticism as to whether that was a good idea. But we've tested it internally a lot and we've now made the non-damper mode much closer to the original Jumpgate Classic flight model. What we discovered was, especially in our PvP tests, people want to have that sort of low friction space experience. So we're actually turning that down. If you're in damper mode you have a lot of control over the ship, and if you turn that off it's very sort of fluid and open. There's a much larger difference now than there was when we initially put it in. It's really cool, and if you turn if off you can feel the difference very quickly. So we're moving more in that direction.

IGN Vault: Are all items/ships going to be totally player made?

Hermann Peterscheck: Ships are not. We really want to make sure that people investing time through manufacturing and the economy side of the game can profit in a substantial way. The items that are created will be some of, if not the best in the game.

IGN Vault: Will it be possible to get player-made goods as loot drops?

Hermann Peterscheck: Not really. This is basically coming from, if I have an item in my cargo and you kill me, do you get my item? The answer to that right now is no. There have been a few things kicked around. One thing is if you take the item from the player who gets killed then they get frustrated to the point where they don't want to play anymore. But it's cool for the player who does the killing and gets the item.

What if you blow someone up, they randomly drop something from their cargo, but they also keep it? The problem with that solution is now me and my buddy have a rare item and continuously blow each other up hoping that we can duplicate it. I remember Ultima Online had a similar mechanic where if you killed someone you could take what was on their corpse. So what people ended up doing is they didn't carry around anything that had any value. They buried their rare items deep into nested bags so no one could steal their rare items.

Something we have discussed is a hardcore mode idea. It's basically a way of not putting PvP and PvE in separate servers. People can play in PvP mode side by side PvE players. In that scenario I can imagine you can essentially have it work where if someone dies in PvP there is a random chance that they will drop something. And that might be cool, but the only thing I worry about with people randomly dropping stuff is that it disproportionably punishes certain classes and players. If you're a cargo hauler you're going to pay the highest cost for that scenario. If you're a combat pilot you just don't ever have anything good on your ship. If we extend it to equipment that's also on your ship, if you drop that super cool gun that you spent weeks and weeks getting, and somebody else now has it, that might be a way to do it.

IGN Vault: Except for the person who has just lost their super cool gun. They're going to be really sour. [laughs]

Hermann Peterscheck: I think a lot of people like that style of playing. I think their position is that they're not unreasonable, they don't want to take stuff from other people and not have the risk them self. I think they want the risk for them self as well, because the risk is part of what makes it fun. If I know that I'm going to an area that's not safe, and there are serious consequences then it does give me much more of a white-knuckle feel.

IGN Vault: Will there be someone dedicated to make sure the economy stays balanced?

Hermann Peterscheck: Yes, several people. That is one of the hardest things, and we follow the struggles that other games have. Before you're live you can do whatever you want, but once you're live it's much harder if you create some sort of loophole in your economic system. It can really ruin it for a long period of time, and people can exploit things very, very quickly and cover their tracks through laundering. It's a very rapid succession so it becomes very hard for developers. I think that it's almost inevitable that if you run a game long enough there will be things like that that enter into the system. Every time we design something it's designed from the point of view of "can it be exploited?", because if it can it will be. We try to catch all the exploits we can, but of course that's a tough one.

IGN Vault: Are you ever compared to EVE Online?

Hermann Peterscheck: All the time.

IGN Vault: Does it bother you?

Hermann Peterscheck: No, it doesn't bother me at all. I mean I think it's natural. I'm the same way. If I play a game that is of a certain style or genre and it resembles some other game, the first thing I try to do is figure out how it's the same and how it's different. In the case of EVE, where we get compared a lot is on the visual style which I consider an incredible compliment. Where we get contrasted is in game play. We don't want to make an EVE clone.

I like looking at what other people have done, and if it's done well then you sort of take it and try to make it fit into the game that you have. But you have to do so carefully because your own game has to have its own kind of flavor and feel. There have been people that have done things very, very well and it's kind of foolish as a developer to say "I know everything better than everyone else, so I'm going to do it my own way". There are things that are well established and people understand it and if they like it then you put it in your game. If it doesn't belong in your game then you don't put it in at all.

IGN Vault: What are some of your favorite games?

Hermann Peterscheck: As far as MMOs, I've played Ultima Online the most. Obviously I've played EverQuest, I played Dark Age of Camelot for quite a while, obviously tons and tons of WoW just like everybody else, played EVE quite a bit. Then of course there are all the free-to-play games. I play pretty much every MMO that I see come out.

Edit: Colours!!11!

new interview

http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/65766

Quote

Ten Ton Hammer: Can you give us a quick update on the status of JGE? What are you guys working on right now?

Hermann Peterscheck: There are a couple things that we've got going on. Obviously we've been making some strides in getting the Quantar race up and going. Since that's the area of the game that we've been working on most recently, that's also the coolest section of the game, in my opinion. But new stuff is always cooler than old stuff.

As we've grown, we've realized that what works well is when you put people into spaces that feel like interiors a bit more. That's one direction that we're going with some of the content in the game. Obviously we're always working on new ships and new enemies and moving capital ships.

Of course, when we create new situations or learn something new, we certainly go back and put that into the older content.

Ten Ton Hammer: Before you go on, how are you putting players into "interior" spaces in the middle of space? Are you just creating large opjects with holes and/or caves in the middle of them? Or something else?

Hermann: It's funny that you ask that question like that, because that's really the first thing we really thought about when we decided to put more of this type of content in the game. But what we realized is that in addition to caves and holes, you can create large land masses that take twenty to thirty seconds to fly over and you can put a bunch of those masses together and lay them out in such a way that you create the feeling of being "inside" something.

You're still in space and you can fly around in these masses, but there's still a sense of framing in your area. It's like your inside a compressed, small little cave or inside the husk of a planet, but you're actually surrounded by a bunch of very interesting looking objects that you're experiencing your gameplay around.

The interiors also give you a better sense of size, scale, speed and things like that. Just flying in open, empty space isn't all that interesting, so you need things around you to give you a sense of motion, depth, and interest.

So we're doing more, much more, of that now. It works out really, really well.

Hermann: It's nice to have all three nations in the game now. We're in the mode of filling out all the content now rather than dealing with weird bugs, database issues and that sort of thing.

It takes so long to get a game to a state where it's actually fun to play then working on completing it. At the beginning, you have all the nice ideas, and in the middle it's all the brutal grunt work. That's pretty much all we've been doing the last year, so it's nice to finally be coming out of the tunnel a little bit.

Ten Ton Hammer: How are things progressing in PvP?

Hermann: That's the other thing we've been working a lot on. We've got this battle scenario with flying capital ships and you have to destroy the capital ships. We've had internal battles, and they get pretty heated.

That's good, because people care. They're staged battles, so we're taking out random components to see how it affects the outcome of the matches. Now we're working on this torpedo scenario where players can shoot a giant missile that does huge amounts of damage to an opponent or opponents objectives.

We're tuning the gameplay around specific types of scenarios, so that one player is going to come in with a heavier fighter with one of these torpedoes attached and that player needs to launch the missile in order to take out the enemy capital ship. You can whittle it down with little lasers if you want to, but it would just take a long, long time.

It's fun to create these little strategic moments in the game. So the capital ship fight is really the first epic "battle space" area in the game, and we've been taking a lot of time doing little tests and more little tests and tuning things to see how they work. And we've been doing that for quite some time.

I'm really eager to see what the response is going to be when we actually start testing it with the public.

That said, we ARE doing friends and family testing now. So we have a limited insight into how players are going to perceive those things. Luckily with such a small test group, we can quickly adjust and retest things to make sure it's all working properly.

Ten Ton Hammer: Backtrack to the scenario you were talking about where the player has a big missile strapped to them. How does that work? Is it random chance on who gets the missile attached to them?

Hermann: Right now, you can pretty much just buy one of these big boys and equip it to your fighter. If you have a heavy fighter, you basically have a slot that's large enough to hold the weapon.

The missile itself is also different in that it's not a guided missile. Most of the other missiles in the game lock-on before you fire them. With this one, you line it up, shoot, and it just goes very slowly in a straight line. If it hits something, that object will be destroyed, pretty much.

What we realized, especially on the PvP side, is that if you want to have interesting PvP in space, you need to concentrate people around objectives. If you have two people flying in empty space, what they tend to do is fly around in circles shooting each other. Imagine a Quake match without walls. It's not very interesting.

Space doesn't have walls, and on top of that you have complete freedom of motion. You have to create things that are the center of attention, like a capital ship that you have to blow up. People will fight around the capital ship, and that capital ship also has AI and is defending itself and launching ships, so its a much more Star Wars type of experience. You have to avoid the capital ship while also avoiding its shots while also fighting the other player.

By throwing in some other crazy mechanics, like this giant bomb that I'm talking about, it creates this other objective that's going on. We've just learned from playing what works and what doesn't.

Ten Ton Hammer: What has been different about taking this kind of approach to developing your game?

Hermann: It's interesting, because this kind of approach doesn't lend itself to "grand reveals." A lot of game developers fall to the temptation of working on the next really cool unique feature that nobody else has. These tend to sound really, really good when you describe it, but when you play it's not that interesting.

MMOs tend to do it with combat systems. You hear the description and think it sounds really cool, but then you play the game and find out that you're just hitting 1-2-3-4. I'm convinced there's probably a unique, cool system in the wiring, and I don't think people are lying or exaggerating. I just think they're forgetting about the experience. If you make a cool combat system, and I don't see it, it doesn't matter.

Rather than trying to make these really cool, awesome, unique things that fill up bullet points on the back of a box or make for interesting press interviews, we resist the urge to put in new things and try to enrich and deepen the things we already have in the game. It's a very hard thing to do. As a developer, you always want to add, you don't want to refine. Refinement is less rewarding and less interesting.

Developers want to move on to something new. But my experience has been that when you refine, you always get WAY more out of it than when you add something new. It's been our approach from the start.

Ten Ton Hammer: It's like writing the next great American novel, right? I mean Stephen King will write 120,000 words and whittle that down to 90,000...

Hermann: I actually remember reading that; he writes 10 pages a night and cuts it down to one page.

A lot of studios that use that methodology have their own names for it. Blizzard calls it "concentrated coolness." Instead of making 15 character classes, make five. Take those fifteen and boil them down into the five core components and make those really strong.

It's not really an intuitive way to work, right? If you're in the development world, your develop. If you're in the writing world, you write. I mean, you can put all of these great ideas on paper, but maybe what's better is to have one idea and make it really, really, really good.

I'm hoping that that focus will pay off.

Ten Ton Hammer: What about your open PvP? You've talked a lot about scenarios and instanced spaces, what about the open PvP? Is it going to be cool and dynamic, or will people just fly in circles and shoot each other?

Hermann: It's a similar kind of approach to what we're taking to the instanced PvP. In the original game, you had beacons and you'd fly through a beacon with a control object and it would switch over to your nation and you'd get experience and money the longer you held it.

It's a similar kind of mechanic that we have in the new game. You still take over parts of space by implementing a special object that you use in particular areas. The thing that we've expanded on, and this is a great example of enriching the experience rather than expanding upon it, is a mechanic where instead of beacons we have these husks. You go to these husks and use what we call a "mod" and there are different kinds of "mods" you an use to convert these husks.

So when you convert a husk, it basically sets up this defensible area of space, and the husk becomes this big station with a bunch of turrets on it. It'll defend itself even if you're not there. If you want to take over a part of space that's already owned, you have to go take out that defense unit and use your object on the husk to make it yours.

Of course, if you get shot down while you're in the midst of trying to control the husk, it interrupts the process. What I imagine will happen is that there will be groups of players dedicated to taking over space.

If there's enough of those players on each side, it will turn into this constant struggle for balance that players are looking for. You want to turn the balance of power to your nation, especially if you get the glory for it. It takes time to build these installations and it takes time to blow them up again, so it gives people time to jump over and defend their stations. It creates focal points for that type of combat experience.

One of the unique aspects of Jumpgate is that you can have lots and lots of ships in the same area of space fighting against each other. You can have conflicts of up to a hundred ships fighting against each other. Of course, at some point that just becomes nonsensical, but we saw that that was cool and we want to endorse that.

You can open up your map and see what areas are controlled by the various factions, so that'll give you an incentive to go over to that area and beat that guy back. There are, of course, long term gains attached to that. Medals and items and new ships and things like that.

The core mechanic is always the key, and I think that's where the game's going to be strong.

Ten Ton Hammer: Do you think you're going to have players that just PvP or just PvE? Does there have to be at some point?

Hermann: I think there will be a blend, but there doesn't have to be.

People typically want something when they go into a game. They might decide that they want to just PvE at the start of the game, because they don't want to deal with fighting other players. However, when they get into the game they will be hearing about these PvP things that are going on in the game and seeing the map with the contention areas.

I'll be damned if there's a player out there who is active for a long period of time in Jumpgate and doesn't even try those PvP battles when it's so easy and rewarding to do so. I think people have a conception of PvP as this really hard elitist behavior, and they don't want to fail. They don't want to be embarrassed.

When we introduce it in a much more fun and easy to do way, at least at the beginning, I think we'll run into some people that are much more willing to try that aspect of our game. By natural affinity, some people are going to find that they really love that part of the game.

So what I envision happening is that the game is going to start out polarized, and then it's going to become much more meshed. That's my speculation.

Ten Ton Hammer: In a lot of skill-based or item-based PvP games, there seems to always be a focus on the "meta-builds" or the min/max build that excels at PvP. Do you think that's going to be the case in Jumpgate?

Hermann: If we do it right, there won't be. But my guess is that there will be a few ships that show up, especially in player combination groups, that really excel. It's easy to singularly prevent this sort of activity, but it's harder when people start grouping up with others.

That's VERY hard to test, because there's almost an infinite number of combinations players can create. You just have to be vigilant.

I mean, all MMOs have this problem to a degree. There is always that one build that seems to be dominant for a time, and then the developers have to be a combination of reactionary and patient.

If you're too reactionary, someone may come up with a combination that seems unbeatable but other players haven't discovered the counter to it yet. Once that counter becomes well known, that strategy then no longer works.

If you wait too long, you have created a super weapon, and if you don't address that super weapon, people stop playing. You just have to be clever and know when to do which.

Ten Ton Hammer: Thanks so much for your time, Hermann. Best of luck with the future of Jumpgate!

Quote

As we've grown, we've realized that what works well is when you put people into spaces that feel like interiors a bit more. That's one direction that we're going with some of the content in the game.

Quote from: Malakili on March 25, 2009, 02:08:22 PM

Quote

As we've grown, we've realized that what works well is when you put people into spaces that feel like interiors a bit more. That's one direction that we're going with some of the content in the game.

I read that as: Space Dungeons.

Hoping it's more like an asteroid belt, can this game friggen come out already.

so it's Eve with twitch? anyone summarize?

Quote from: Malakili on March 25, 2009, 02:08:22 PM

Quote

As we've grown, we've realized that what works well is when you put people into spaces that feel like interiors a bit more. That's one direction that we're going with some of the content in the game.

Hes talking about the space dungeons, in this case huge asteroids and hollow planets..

Quote from: Mrbloodworth on March 25, 2009, 06:51:31 PM

Hes talking about the space dungeons, in this case huge asteroids and hollow planets..

Hunh. It worked for Starfox 64... Still. Space dungeons. swamp poop

What's wrong with space dungeons? Having 'terrain' isn't a bad thing. Breaks up the turn, turn, turn, turn monotony of space fighting.

Quote from: Fordel on March 26, 2009, 04:51:38 AM

What's wrong with space dungeons? Having 'terrain' isn't a bad thing. Breaks up the turn, turn, turn, turn monotony of space fighting.

Nothing, depending on how they implement it. Flying through an asteroid cave or a huge space station would be kinda cool. Turning a flight sim into a DIKU dungeon- not so much.

Quote from: Lantyssa on February 14, 2009, 12:12:27 PM

Fly in Assisted.
Switch to Newtonian to do a 180 flip.
Switch to Assisted.

Everyone has access to both. Learning how to fly both, learning when to use one or the other, and learning to take advantage of their strong points will make the best pilot.

If everyone uses EZ-Mode, then it won't matter if a few people choose to use the non-easy mode or both. They'll be a tiny minority. If lots of people use it, then it's getting use and people are happy. There is no losing situation here. Why would they remove it?

Late to the thread here, but this is the exact thoughts I had coming into this discussion fresh. It seems the dampeners are just for docking and fundamental movement from point A to point B. If you get into situations that require a lot of quick mobility (example: PvP) you'd be an idiot to keep them on. At least I'd hope they design it that way. There does need to be some kind of advantage to toggling the dampeners off or else nobody will shut them down.

Quote from: Ratman_tf on March 26, 2009, 05:45:30 AM

Quote from: Fordel on March 26, 2009, 04:51:38 AM

What's wrong with space dungeons? Having 'terrain' isn't a bad thing. Breaks up the turn, turn, turn, turn monotony of space fighting.

Nothing, depending on how they implement it. Flying through an asteroid cave or a huge space station would be kinda cool. Turning a flight sim into a DIKU dungeon- not so much.

As much "Descent" that they can inject into this game the better. Why one would complain about this is beyond me. Are you crazy? Have you guys played "Descent?"
I'll be honest, Descent as an MMO makes me drool... Descent multiplayer alone is fun.

So basically, the dev is telling us he's ripping off Descent (which is a good thing) and putting it in his game.

If they can get the ship controls similar, it'll be a win. But I still care-bear sense mediocrity with this title.

I got the sense that these "dungeons" will be astroids like people said and large ships, space stations, whatever that you fly through and over like the deathstar or something.

Saw EXP over killed enemy crafts...There will be levels I guess?

Quote from: rk47 on March 26, 2009, 08:05:51 AM

Saw EXP over killed enemy crafts...There will be levels I guess?

Nope.

You sure? I could of sworn there was ranks that you can get.

Quote from: Draegan on March 26, 2009, 08:42:20 AM

You sure? I could of sworn there was ranks that you can get.

No levels, what there is is licenses for equipment use, and factions (as in higher faction opens up new ranks (missions) and faction equipment). I guess you could say they are levels...but they are not really. My understanding is they are attempting a Planetside like thing (somewhat) where you are a viable combatant from log in one, even VS. someone who has been playing for a months.

I know there are licenses for classes of ships,..i don't know about equipment yet..if licenses give you the ability to use different items that have different utility (Beam V.S. Ammo)...or if its some sort of stat progression in things like guns and damage.

I knew that. But I could of sworn I saw levels/ranks when I got to play a few months ago.

Quote from: Draegan on March 26, 2009, 10:06:05 AM

I knew that. But I could of sworn I saw levels/ranks when I got to play a few months ago.

Yep, i failed you guys.... Seems they are two different things Licenses and ranks...but they are somewhat dependent on one another.

I got confused. There are no classes though Oh ho ho ho. Reallllly?

Quote from: Mrbloodworth on March 26, 2009, 10:12:01 AM

I got confused. There are no classes though Oh ho ho ho. Reallllly?

What! Only 1 ship type? To me that constitutes a class.

Quote from: Salamok on March 26, 2009, 11:09:29 AM

Quote from: Mrbloodworth on March 26, 2009, 10:12:01 AM

I got confused. There are no classes though Oh ho ho ho. Reallllly?

What! Only 1 ship type? To me that constitutes a class.

Your confusing me even more. swamp poop

Where did you get that?

sorry it was a green sort of thing, obviously there is more than 1 ship type so this game will provide play as if there were classes.

Quote from: Salamok on March 26, 2009, 11:49:13 AM

sorry it was a green sort of thing, obviously there is more than 1 ship type so this game will provide play as if there were classes.

And it will have levels and exp as well, even if they're not called that.

Quote from: Ghambit on March 26, 2009, 07:55:56 AM

Quote from: Ratman_tf on March 26, 2009, 05:45:30 AM

Quote from: Fordel on March 26, 2009, 04:51:38 AM

What's wrong with space dungeons? Having 'terrain' isn't a bad thing. Breaks up the turn, turn, turn, turn monotony of space fighting.

Nothing, depending on how they implement it. Flying through an asteroid cave or a huge space station would be kinda cool. Turning a flight sim into a DIKU dungeon- not so much.

As much "Descent" that they can inject into this game the better. Why one would complain about this is beyond me. Are you crazy? Have you guys played "Descent?"

Yeah. It was fun, but so was a lot of other games. Descent was more 3-D Doom than flight sim.

I think they'd be better off looking towards the best aspects of Starfox than Descent, myself.

Freespace 2.

Because it's March.

Quote from: Darniaq on March 26, 2009, 04:27:18 PM

Freespace 2.

Because it's March.

I knew someone would bring up Freespace.

Quote from: Soln on March 25, 2009, 02:45:24 PM

so it's Eve with twitch? anyone summarize?

It sounds like it is going to be less open, less dynamic and less complicated than EVE. However, it also looks like it gets actual fun combat.

When I got to play it was definitely fun. Toss this on my 40" TV and I'll be good to go.