Squadron 42 Briefing Room Update
There was a lot of footage shown off in the Squadron 42 Update with the new quarterly show The Briefing Room. The video was over an hour in fact there were 2 videos totally over and hour and a half.
The SQ42 Update & The Briefing Room Introduction Video was more of just a primer:
A mixture of clips of missions, distress signals, spooky intense bits, deserted or damaged ships.
Chris said the reason we were waiting for this update for so long was because he wanted to do something bigger for an update.
It was originally going to be something pretty casual BUT evolved into a much more indepth look and talk, showing off the progress a bit more. They currently have around 58 sprint teams which will work on development tasks in 2 week “sprints” at a time. Each team can be from 4 – 20 people.
Squadron 42 Episode 1 WILL NOT BE BETA by the end of the year.
Squadron does not have a release date yet BUT they will share more as soon as they have some firm timelines. They are very much working to it’s done when it’s done and not compromising quality for ANYTHING.
The New Roadmaps are not done yet, they are actively working on it currently and should be in our hands by the end of the year. It sounds like it’s going to be a realtime update. We should literally be able to see progress each day potentially. And see much more of what is being worked on not just what is in proximate patches. You’ll see the teams that are working on a given features and a deeper breakdown of the task.
The Squadron 42: The Briefing Room – Episode 1 Proper looked at 2 major things the Acidedio Comm Array and NPC Interrupt Scenes.
Brian Chambers – VP of Development
Nick Elms – Creative Director
Ross Wilding – Lead Level Designer
Talked about progress on the Acidedio Comm Array, how they built FPS levels and how players could approach them.
The SQ42 Design Teams are broken down into 3 groups.
FPS Team – On the ground and gravity areas
Flight Team – Space, Exploration Combat, AI Features
Social Team – Glue For Narrative and Interactive AI Experience
The Aciedio Comm Array [LOTS MORE FOOTAGE OF THIS AT THE END OF THE VIDEO]
Is a Decommissioned Comm Station in the Odin System (90% of the Game will take place in the Odin System) The Acideo Station is an early location you’ll visit in Squadron 42 so not much of a spoiler. It will be one of the first times your player has more freedom to move around and investigate. It’s a relatively small location.
It’s a big satellite dish with an interior. Functionality and believability is important when building structures… how would it be used if it wasn’t decommissioned.
The central Mission control was the major focus but the station has habs or at least small pods for living.
They also want these areas to be as interactive as possible, being able to turn on lights, pick up objects, logs, computers and journal entries, complete puzzles / missions in different ways, stealth will be an option in some scenarios…
You can crawl through the vents and there might be many routes through an area.
You can download map schematics data from various sources OR go without.
They want to have the player invested in moving around and exploring rather than rushing to complete objectives as quickly as possible.
But you could find a console that gives you access to lock doors or turn off the gravity or power in an area for example.
They showed the Array folded up contrasted against the Coil in the background.
You’ll be able to do some recon externally of the station and look at where the enemies are patrolling. There is a main hangar as an entrance BUT it might not be the best way in if you want to be stealthy. The Station is being used by the “enemy” actively and they may have ships flying in an out.
There was a server room that you could or the AI could change to have the servers up and exposed… making the whole room into a large amount of cover OR have them retract into the floor… then becoming a large rooms void of cover OR maybe just a specific bank of servers being retracted giving you less cover.
They want the AI to be living and working in some of these areas, maintaining equipment ect.. AND react appropriate to an odd/unexpected sound or operation.
But players could approach all of this guns blazing if they wanted! And AI wont all charge at you… they will try and ambush you, take defensible positions.
They showed the Gravity Generator and Engineering Room.
Some of the station is very much unused and dirty, other parts still vibrantly active.
They are looking at having enemies be able to call for backup and support, sometimes this could be drop ships coming in.
[45:00] Phil Meller Lead Designer on Squadron 42
talked about the friendly NPCs, Interrupt Tech and the Military Idris (The Stanton not to be confused with the Star System that it is named after) that the players will be stationed on for a Good Chunk of the game.
Including the player there are 80 crew onboard each with their own personality.
The ship has a complement of 2 Gladius Fighters.
Players will be able to interrupt, breakaway from OR otherwise disturb NPCs.
If you move away from a conversation you are having before it’s naturally concluded the NPC will react with a wildline, get in between 2 NPCs that are working or talking in a corridor then they will stop and may pick up the conversation again later BUT they will acknowledge you and you can be an ass, lurk or be rude. You will feel like part of the crew.
There are a lot of hours of motion capture for lots of different variants.
You’ll be able to approach a scene from most angles, even major scenes don’t lock you in.
There is some form of reputation system and character will remember how you have acted and behaved.
They showed a scene with Morrow who is the ships gossip and engineer AND there are 5 breakpoints – pause, resume, abandon points and proximity triggers. The idea of this is it should be as seamless as possible… they are still polishing and tweaking… they are not complete.