Chris Roberts Back in your wallet - STAR CITIZEN

[Lucas]

Does anyone have a link to the unfinished Hornet video?

Here it is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uN5qK78xY9Y

[5150]

Does anyone have a link to the unfinished Hornet video?

Here it is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uN5qK78xY9Y

Thanks

I can see why people were unhappy - where was the dog fighting?!

Vid can be summed up as 'stupid Aurora pilot is stupid'

[Mrbloodworth]

Yeah, in terms of production and impact the 300i commercial is the best.

[Lucas]

I agree, although the latest Aurora LN commercial is very good too: yes, simpler, less atmospheric or luxurious, but very appropriate for a "basic ship", with a nice mix of sound effects, background music and narration.

Regarding the Hornet commercial, yes, the main gripe is how it shows the ship not giving a damn about the Aurora chasing it (umm, but maybe that's the point?), while you would expect some pew pew from what it's being sold as the mainstream fighter  of SC (on the other hand, the recently released "Avenger" will be the first ship we're going to use in the single-player campaign).

Unfortunately, I'm not really sure they're going to change the cinematic at this point: it might just be a matter of adding sound effects, some more lazerz, background music and a bit more narration. But hey, it would be great if they add a more chaotic scene.

[Mrbloodworth]

The direction they are going with shield Visuals is interesting.

[Pennilenko]

I am still not that concerned with the stretch goals and endless crowd funding drive. I feel that it is a pretty safe assumption that I will at least get my 40 bucks worth from what ever game ends up coming out.  I do feel bad for the people with hundreds or thousands invested. I am not sure if any game that ever existed or will ever exist is worth that type if investment with no financial return.

[Samprimary]

I think many of them have already rationalized it to themselves knowing that their funding is primarily based around a desire to fund the game well beyond the basic level, as opposed to considering it a worthwhile ingame investment. They'll probably just be generally happy with their LTI.

Of course, there will always be those people who sunk a thousand dollars into the funding for a collection of ships and will have their dissonance fold in on them like a warp in simultaneous four-day creation, causing them to bark at everyone on the forums about how you are educated stupid.

[Dark_MadMax]

I am still not that concerned with the stretch goals and endless crowd funding drive. I feel that it is a pretty safe assumption that I will at least get my 40 bucks worth from what ever game ends up coming out.  I do feel bad for the people with hundreds or thousands invested. I am not sure if any game that ever existed or will ever exist is worth that type if investment with no financial return.

And thats a very healthy approach. Its like a very very early pre-order :)

[Pennilenko]

And thats a very healthy approach. Its like a very very early pre-order :)

In the interest of being truthful, I only put in 40 bucks so I could play with the alphas of the single and multi-player. Something is broken in my head that causes me to like playing things that are under development.

[Lucas]

Tomorrow, if everything goes as planned, CIG (Cloud Imperium Games) will release the Hornet Brochure and commercial, so there will be another spike with the pledges and alpha slots will diminish drastically (currently, there are 8,408, no wait, 8,407...dang, wait, 8,406  slots left).

If you are interested in signing up for alpha before they run out of places and you still haven't found the courage to do so  , this would be the right time: it's unclear what is going to happen when the counter reaches zero: resets to 108?  , or perhaps they'll activate the "beta slots" one ? or they'll finally reveal what this experiment in mental control crowdfunding is really about :P . Anyway, They might also write up a post on this subject later today or tomorrow, I don't know.

- Like I wrote in a earlier post, Alpha also means access to the standalone "modules" (actually, they consider SC alpha and Squadron 42 alpha, the "proper" products, as modules too, I think) ; testing access is guaranteed, but honestly I don't know if it's guaranteed on first day (they might split the slots up in "waves" for certain, bigger  modules and tests, like the upcoming dogfighting one).

Register on the website here:
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/connect ("enlist now")

Then (Store ---> Pledge section):

- If you want to have alpha and standalone modules access (and of course beta and subsequent releases), you need to pledge for the "Digital Mercenary" pack ($40 - €32) :
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/store/69-digital-mercenary

- If you want access the standalone hangar module, but without being able to get access to any other module or alpha or beta test, you can pledge for the "Digital Scout" pack ( $30 - €24)
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/store/68-digital-scout

There is also a "Civilian" entry ($10 - €8), but I think you can only visualize it once you are logged in the website. Here's the description:

Not ready to enter the galaxy just yet, but still want to show your support? The Civilian package gives you access to limited forums and deeper areas of the RSI site. The credit can be upgraded towards a game package should you decide to join Star Citizen!

[Mrbloodworth]

And thats a very healthy approach. Its like a very very early pre-order :)

In the interest of being truthful, I only put in 40 bucks so I could play with the alphas of the single and multi-player. Something is broken in my head that causes me to like playing things that are under development.

I Paid $125.00 (I did an upgrade from a lesser package), so I could start with a two man ship, and because I wanted to back the project. That's the extent of my pledges.

[Lucas]

23 Million reached. As Roberts previously wrote in a post, this is the rough amount he planned for SC in ordered to be considered "fully funded" by the community, including the KS/Credit Card/Paypal fees the company will have have to dish out:
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/13324-Letter-From-The-Chairman-23-Million

Our unlock for this level is the addition of a Xi’an scout plane. The goal here isn’t simply to add an extra ship to the game, but to add a new type of ship which can be expanded upon as we go. Once we’ve put the effort into building an alien experience for the Khartu, we can apply it to other Xi’an ships moving forward. Essentially, the extra funding lets us build an even more immersive universe.

Which, in the (very) distant post-launch future, may hint at the possibility of making the Xi'an (and the other alien species of SC) playable.

24 million is the PTS (Public Transportation System) mentioned in a earlier post; 25 Million:

Enhanced Alpha – We will use additional funding to build a wider alpha test than we had originally intended for the first phase of Star Citizen’s launch. The initial plan was to first launch servers in North America and then expand to areas such as Europe and Australia to decrease latency in these areas, perfecting the game as we improve the experience around the world. This funding will allow us to invest in a wider infrastructure for our early testing, spinning up remote servers earlier. Hitting this goal will also allow us to increase the number of remaining alpha slots. Extra alpha slots not only means more Star Citizens will travel the ‘verse at launch, but that we will receive more feedback and more stress testing. This in turn will allow us to better balance and enhance the Star Citizen experience!

I guess that answers my earlier doubts about the alpha slots counter 
------

Two more items:

-  On October 25th, they will start recording music for SC and S42 with a 75-piece orchestra located in the Czech Republic (it was the 6M stretch goal):
https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.com/discussion/65877/6-000-000-stretch-goal-orchestral-score-recording-scheduled

- Through the "Ask a Developer" forum section, one of their designer, Pete MacKay, shed some light on how the ship power system (and the related distribution among sub-systems) currently works (you have to be at least registered on the website in order to read that forum section):

https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.com/discussion/comment/1084743/#Comment_1084743

In our game power is a pull system, rather than a push system. Instead of telling the power plant to push more power to shields, you tell the shields to request more power from the power plant. So, power management is more about setting minimums for each device.

For example: Say you're running your shields at 80% to try and minimize your signature as you fly through known pirate space. Meanwhile your power plant is maxed out providing power to the rest of the ship. Suddenly you're attacked so you set your shields to 100%. The shield generator asks the power plant for the extra power, but the power plant cant give it without taking power from some other ship system. The last time you were in port you set a minimum on your thrusters that allow for maximum maneuvering, but your minimum on your weapons system is only half of what you need to operate them at max, so the power plant automatically redirects power from your weapons to your shields, leaving the power flowing to your thrusters untouched. If you still don't have enough power (and you're already at the minimums on all of your other systems, as can happen if you're running an under powered power plant) your shield generator will be starved and will be unable to meet your request. Sorry captain, its given you all shes got!

Hmm, isn't that how power management works in FTL?

Oh, and finally, you can now buy GOLIATH MOUSE PADS 
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/pledge/goliath-mousepads

Full-res of the art:
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/media/xc5zbyt2kpdhir/source/RSI_goliathmousepad1.jpg
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/media/ryphbgpvujg1hr/product_thumb_in_description/Anvil_goliathmousepad1.jpg
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/media/fygakrvjj6wtpr/product_thumb_in_description/Origin_goliathmousepad1.jpg

[ajax34i]

To me, the power thing sounds like everyone will try to have a big enough power plant to run everything at 100%, thereby bypassing the whole "request more power" and "pre-programmed minimums" gameplay.  I guess it also depends on whether running 80% shields (or anything) is really worth it, or pointless.  Do the pirates fail to detect you at 80% shields?

[Samprimary]

Powerplants are going to probably have huge displacement and mass issues, and probably also significantly impact your signature with the more powerful it is.

Individually I would make it so that there's more or less a general field of 'sweet spot' where increasing powerplant for your weight class beyond a certain point (towards a hypothetical "oh it powers literally everything 100% all of the time") is either too much of a sacrifice for maneuverability and/or signature, or possibly progressively more and more costly beyond the realm of sanity. Or some combination of both.

It would incentivize you to take a powerplant that forces you to juggle your subsystems if you want better performance overall, which is more rewarding in the sense that it's fun and sim-ey and you get to do more as a pilot — as well as that you get a better designed machine out of the deal.

And additionally it allows you to be a chowderhead if you don't wanna juggle power levels, just by buying stock ships for chowderheads that have a huge cheap powerplant in it to do all the basic stuff at once without making you worry your lil' head off about it.

[Lucas]

Hmm, I think I understood, like, 3% of your technical jargon, Samprimary, but it sounds cool 

[Stormwaltz]

Play more EVE? 

[Mrbloodworth]

A few things came out last Friday.

2944 Aurora brochure

Also, the "Lore Builder" program was started.

Hello and welcome to the first installment of LORE BUILDER, where we pick an unexplored aspect of the Star Citizen lore and develop it with the community’s help.

Not released on Friday, but a few days earlier was "Jump Point: Marine & Rifle WIP" Discusses some design and technical challenges for player models.

[5150]

Hanger module hacked https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QX48u3SmzCg

[Lucas]

Last friday's "Wingman's Hangar" was mainly focused on the single-player campaign, Squadron 42. The team recently organized a few internal focus meetings about it (plus, the newly announced "Foundry 42" team in Manchester will take the head role in producing it), so while a lot of things are still up in the air, more and more stuff is being finalized.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHD5f1p6EOM

The conversation about S42 runs from around the 6:55 mark (with a quick review of the Manchester studio announcement); the actual Q&A session starts at 9:48 and lasts 'til the 30:20 mark.

[Lucas]

Hornet commercial is now available (just watch it in 1080p) :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0gZES2pTWk

DAMN, NOW WE ARE TALKING  

And here's the pledge page with all the hornet variants:

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/pledge/hornet

The Specter  

Brochure:
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/media/e89t7l6bef97hr/source/Brochure-Hornet-V8.pdf

  (but no, won't buy any...Hey, why are you laughing?!   )

Greetings Citizens,

We are very excited to premiere the finished Anvil Aerospace Hornet commercial today, as well as the Hornet brochure. For those that caught a sneak peak of the Hornet commercial at the Citizencon event: you haven’t seen anything yet! The civilian version of the UEE’s venerable F7A Hornet, the F7C Hornet is a dedicated dogfighter capable of tangling with mercenaries, pirates, Vanduul and more.

We’re pushing the limits with Star Citizen, and this commercial is our best example yet. It’s rendered 100% in-engine in real time at 4k resolution. We scale everything for the super high resolutions that will be the basis of tomorrow’s gaming experience; our assets are designed with high polycounts instead of having details baked into their textures. That’s a big part of why NVIDIA and AMD have been demoing Star Citizen at 4k! The next generation of CPUs and GPUs will make this kind of experience possible in gameplay, and we are building Star Citizen to be ready. With the Hornet commercial, we wanted to give our backers an early look. If you have a 4k-compatible monitor, select “Original” from the video settings on YouTube (or download the 4k file directly here. ) If you don’t, 1080p is highly recommended.

[Mrbloodworth]

Sexey.

[Lucas]

Unsurprisingly, the Hornet sale has propelled the funding past $24M, so here's a new Letter from the Chairman:

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/13334-Letter-From-The-Chairman-24-Million

Greetings Citizens,

It looks like the Hornet commercial and brochure were a resounding success; the president of Anvil Aerospace should expect a bonus this quarter! In all seriousness, the community is continuing to set funding records and is allowing us to do more with Star Citizen. At $24 million, you’ve unlocked the following stretch goal:

Public Transportation System – Need to get from one place to another but don’t have a starship? We’re building a galactic transportation system. You can travel via transport from system to system in Star Citizen and even ship items (like a ship you need moved to another hangar.) With this stretch goal, we’ll expand this system: star liners, long range transports, charter ships and flyable shuttles!

Pictured here is a monorail car, which will be used by the player to travel from place to place on Terra! A public transportation system may not seem as sexy as a new bomber or a cruiser, but it speaks directly to the goal of making Star Citizen an immersive, world-building experience. Instead of having a simple ‘fast travel’ option like an MMORPG, Star Citizen will feature a living, breathing system to support that gameplay requirement… a system that will be impacted by the economy and player actions in all sorts of exciting ways!

We’re also revealing the $26 million goal, which I think will interest a lot of players. We have become increasingly fascinating with the possibilities for larger capital ships in Star Citizen and would like to dedicate some of the additional funding to expanding their functionality:

Enhanced Capital Ship Systems – In addition to the command and control systems we’ve already outlined, we’re going to expand capital ship functions! Lead a damage control team to fight fires and repair key systems during battle, control internal bulkheads to slow boarders and man a number of consoles, like navigation and engineering, that will make commanding a capital ship feel even more immersive.
Thank you for your continued support. I hope you take as much pride as I do in the fact that you aren’t only bringing back PC games and taking a shot across the bow at big publishers, you’re taking Star Citizen to new frontiers. The team at Cloud Imperium can’t wait to show you what’s next!

Finally, one small change to the Hornet rollout. We’ve had a number of requests from backers eager to purchase the limited edition Super Hornet who will not be able to do so until the end of the month. Federal employees in the United States who are just getting back to work after the recent government shutdown are especially affected. We are grateful for your passion and would like to help however possible. With this in mind, we are going to keep the Super Hornet available an extra week through Monday, November 4th. We hope that helps give all of our existing backers an opportunity to upgrade to the F7C-M!

— Chris Roberts

The $26M stretch goal sounds like FTL: Star Citizen edition  

The current funding goal ($25M) is the Enhanced Alpha:

Enhanced Alpha – We will use additional funding to build a wider alpha test than we had originally intended for the first phase of Star Citizen’s launch. The initial plan was to first launch servers in North America and then expand to areas such as Europe and Australia to decrease latency in these areas, perfecting the game as we improve the experience around the world. This funding will allow us to invest in a wider infrastructure for our early testing, spinning up remote servers earlier. Hitting this goal will also allow us to increase the number of remaining alpha slots. Extra alpha slots not only means more Star Citizens will travel the ‘verse at launch, but that we will receive more feedback and more stress testing. This in turn will allow us to better balance and enhance the Star Citizen experience!

[5150]

I was planning to get a Hornet before the November deadline, now I fear I will end up with 2 (partly because theres no indication the stealth armour can be put on the Super Hornet)

My complaint about this that the new Hornet packages have a different content to the existing Hornet package (Colonel) so you actually need to buy Colonel and then upgrade the ship to get that content (which means you can't get the unique content that comes with the Weekend Warrior package

[Stormwaltz]

Lead a damage control team to fight fires and repair key systems during battle, control internal bulkheads to slow boarders and man a number of consoles, like navigation and engineering, that will make commanding a capital ship feel even more immersive.

*Checks off another feature in my fantasy MMG design doc that SC is actually attempting.*

[Miasma]

I was planning to get a Hornet before the November deadline, now I fear I will end up with 2 (partly because theres no indication the stealth armour can be put on the Super Hornet)

My complaint about this that the new Hornet packages have a different content to the existing Hornet package (Colonel) so you actually need to buy Colonel and then upgrade the ship to get that content (which means you can't get the unique content that comes with the Weekend Warrior package

What is this about?  I just assumed I was good because I bought a Hornet months ago.

[lamaros]

Lead a damage control team to fight fires and repair key systems during battle, control internal bulkheads to slow boarders and man a number of consoles, like navigation and engineering, that will make commanding a capital ship feel even more immersive.

*Checks off another feature in my fantasy MMG design doc that SC is actually attempting.*

You didn't play FTL?

[Stormwaltz]

You didn't play FTL?

I did. If I understand your implication, the difference is that SC is multiplayer, and has 3D ship interiors. So theoretically, you could be dispatching NPC bots to bring inoperative systems back online, while enemy players shoot up the interiors of your ship.

[lamaros]

Theoretically this will be the greatest game of all time.

But I'll stick with FTL for now.

[Hoax]

Theoretically this might become a game at some point.

Fixed.

[lamaros]

If it's green it's green, no need for a second coat.

[rk47]

Theoretically this will be the greatest game of all time.

But I'll stick with FTL for now.

I can't wait for player housing and furniture crafting + imports.
Silver cutleries for my table too.

[Stormwaltz]

Silver cutleries for my table too.

And double-quilted paper for my toilet.

[rk47]

Ikea, in space. Player owned shopping malls take ur family out for shopping today at the milky way!

[5150]

I was planning to get a Hornet before the November deadline, now I fear I will end up with 2 (partly because theres no indication the stealth armour can be put on the Super Hornet)

My complaint about this that the new Hornet packages have a different content to the existing Hornet package (Colonel) so you actually need to buy Colonel and then upgrade the ship to get that content (which means you can't get the unique content that comes with the Weekend Warrior package

What is this about?  I just assumed I was good because I bought a Hornet months ago.

The Hornet you have is the stock F7C they introduced 3 variants. Unfortunately the Hornet specs shows for the last year on the ship spec page (which they always said were subject to change) appear to have been for the military F7A version.

Tracker: The AWACS of Star Citizen
Ghost: The Stealth fighter of Star Citizen
Super Hornet: The closest to military spec you can legally buy (has a second seat and comes with the top turret)

You really need to check out the new Hornet PDF for all the details and differences https://robertsspaceindustries.com/media/e89t7l6bef97hr/source/Brochure-Hornet-V8.pdf

I had it confirmed yesterday that the new Hornet variant packages do not contain the physical items the existing Hornet package (Colonel) does and only the time-limited Weekend warrior package contains the side arm (if you care about such things) but you can upgrade your existing Hornet relatively cheaply (something like $15 if you want the stealth version).

[Mrbloodworth]

I think you are talking about the original backer packages VS. the new ones.