Star Citizen MAJOR UPDATES – Drones, Modularity, Capital Ships & Where Is X Ship?
Star Citizen had a big Ship Development & Feature Update Q&A with Vehicle Director John Crewe. This video is a summary and highlight of all the juicy information there ranging from where Ships are in the pipeline to where modularity and internal customization are in development…
54:41 Hull C?
It’s pretty close to being complete. They took a lot of time taking it up to metric standards. There are a couple of artists finishing it off.
55:57 Ranger?
It’s blocked by them not having tech for wheeled bikes ready. They know the work needed to do it, but it’s not a priority.
56:39 600i rework?
The Concepts for both versions are done and look great. They may show some of this off at the IAE?
57:12 Polaris?
Needs multi-crew gameplay updates. It has received a full reconcept pass. Again we might see that in an upcoming event. It’s not gone beyond the reconcepting work yet.
57:50 Apollo?
The team assigned to it was supposed to have started work BUT they are finishing off the corsair currently then they may work on the Apollo OR another ship based on priorities at the time.
58:27 What about the Perseus or Nautilus?
No updates on them… still were we last saw them in concept.
58:40 Retaliator rework?
They’ve updated the interior and corridors and general metrics. The docking collar has been moved to the side. They have paused it’s development although its interior is 90% complete they need to do some exterior changes (tho it’s not bigger).
59:57 Corsair and BMM?
There will be updates coming later on the Corsair and BMM.
1:00:15 Other Stuff?
The Argo SRV is making good progress.
The Crucible will get a full concept rework tho will still look very very similar.
If they are working on a “known ship” it’s on the progress tracker, if it’s not then they aren’t working on it OR it’s an entirely new ship / vehicle that we have yet to see.
Star Citizen Live: All-Vehicles Q&A
06:59 Anything new about the Caterpillar cargo doors and lifts?
The cargo doors are supposed to operate as lifts BUT don’t currently.
Doors and lifts are surprisingly problematic for devs in video games and Star Citizen is no different.
Simpler 2 state doors (open/close) can’t be used for the caterpillar as it effectively has 3 states.
Closed – Open to horizontal – Then to the ground.
Elevators are used on a lot of ships for moving between floors OR to sometimes to enter / exit.
There are bugs and issues with elevators… them getting left behind in quantum… stopping working etc…
They are working on allowing lifts to both allow for travel into a ship and thru the different floors of a ship too as currently they can’t allow for entry into a ship and move between the levels with the same elevator.
For the caterpillar they need multi-state doors with complex linked animations.
They could make it so the doors open all the way to the ground OR be closed but no step in between, which they might try BUT they really want to have the ability to have multi-states.
There are issues with the doors opening to the ground and the flatness of the ground.
Doors & Elevators are more complex than people realise but they are working on it!
12:30 Will there be a landing assistance UI?
Yes, they want to have a way of being able to see the relative distances of the floor and obstacles near you from inside the ship on a UI to help you land.
17:56 Has there been any progress on drones for ships which use them?
There are various scenarios in Squadron that make use of them, they are scheduling some time in the near future to make a light weight ship IFCS that is remote controlled, this will be the foundation of drones in the PU.
19:59 What’s going on with Modularity?
The Vehicle Tech team was going to be working on it. They were rebranded and reformed as the Arena Commander Feature Team so it’s not in their wheelhouse anymore.
The Resource Network / Power Relays are being worked on currently and once that’s complete then allow them to start working on modularity. It’s still coming!
25:25 What is needed tech wise before we can have larger capital ships?
Optimization work is needed as the resource cost to them is high.
The Javelin and Idris and being adjusted for Squadron’s needs currently.
They are waiting on the Squadron teams to be done with them before putting them in the PU for players to use, as they don’t want there to be any major disparities between them. They also want the multi-crew aspects of the larger ships to be more developed.
The Resource Network, engineering, a separation of more operator modes, more advanced landing / docking (for fighters landing on them) are all needed really before this MASSIVE ships are added. Some large ships could come to the game as AI and NPC ships as that doesn’t require the same level of work or finish and is one of the reasons we have the Idris and Javelin to fight with / against in the PU now.
30:12 What is the plan to get the older ships out of the door as some are 7 plus years old?
It comes down to priorities and schedules. Ships Teams often work with 18-24 months roughly planned ahead and they now like to try and build ships from greybox to completion all in one go without long breaks and for the gameplay that ship might have to be completed at the same time as it’s ready… which is different from how they used to do it, over 3 years ago.
Things like the Endeavour need a load of gameplay and work and it’s likely it will be done in the far future. This is true of the Orion as well… it needs a whole new scale of mining to be developed.
33:53 Vehicles on the Atlas platform don’t share paints… Will they in the future?
They have to have them separated at the moment due to technical limits.
In the future they should be available if possible.
34:52 Will there be a second entry for the Mercury Starrunner?
They want to BUT they don’t know when.
35:25 What are the plans for vehicle flairs and internal furniture customizations?
They want a lot of customization in players hands. They can’t fully support it yet… they will try to do some more work on it for the end of the year if possible.
PES will allow you to technically bring anything aboard your ship and for it to stay there.
From bobbleheads to kitchen items to furniture to consumables.
The Resource Network will allow for a lot more interactivity for ships too.
There are a lot of things like the coffee maker and customization for the 300 series of ships that will be cannibalised in to the final version of customization too. The coffee maker for example will probably look the same but get more functionality.
39:40 What happened to custom ship names?
They rolled the feature out on limited ships and learned a lot… they want to solve some issues with contrast, size ect… with the text and naming. Ships with serial numbers all have the tech ready to go for naming BUT they are pausing the ship naming until they tweak it a bit.
41:59 Have you considered food trucks?
It’s on the list of internal ideas for potential ships… tho the list of ideas is pretty long.
43:32 Thoughts on Artillery Ground Vehicles?
It’s an idea that comes up a lot… they might look at something they have something like a forward observer / relaying gameplay in… they need laser designators! So maybe in the future.
44:39 Why are lights so different in power on different ships?
They are built with different tech and different teams. There was a bug in the past that made the super bright or dim… Now they have guidelines in place and will unify lighting power within that for all ships.
47:51 Will it be a lot of work to get older ship up to current standards with the newest tech?
Some ships are pretty easy to up to the newer tech and for physical components and resource networks OTHERs especially older ships require more work. Fortunately most ships have space taken into account for additions and future tech. They try to avoid bits that cause ships to expand out in size further where possible.
They work with teams when there are new features or components to help mitigate future issues.
53:12 Will ships with Docking collars on top be reworked or will there be a way to use them?
They want to have most ships have them on the side if possible. For ships where this is impossible. They may have the ability to turn off gravity in certain areas and rooms to allow for their use.
05:03 Will the landing gear be decoupled from wings?
Yes, there are tech limitations currently that prevent it but in the future they will be decoupled. They will also be improving the meshing and damage models too. There isn’t a hard date for this, they are doing work “around” it and if they have time they will also get decoupled gear working.
13:30 Will smaller ships be able to do things larger higher tiered ships of the same role can’t?
Some smaller ships are going to be stepping stones to larger ships in that career path.
Some smaller ships will just be more useful in certain environments or sitatuonations, like a Prospector in a dense asteroid field being able to get to the valuable ore more easily that a larger ship.
They want players to have a level of progression, there are certainly ships that are better for exploration going from a Connie Aquilia to a Carrack for example.
It’s different for different ships and roles, but some missions and gameplay will prefer smaller ships.
They want to softgate players into learning mechanics in smaller simpler ships where possible before jumping into using the Mighty Orion.