Star Citizen News – Banu Merchantman Pauses Production
Welcome to some more Star Citizen News… Today I wanted to talk about the beloved Banu Merchantman pausing it’s production but also a bit of a highlight of what’s been going on throughout the week in Star Citizen’s News… with some players being confused about where the drake expo was, claim timers, 3.19.1, ships in development.
From The Latest SC Newsletter Free Fly at Invictus Launch Week
Invictus Launch Week continues until May 30! Head to Area18, ArcCorp, to experience the latest and greatest military-inspired vehicles, including the newly announced Tumbril Storm and RSI Lynx. And don’t miss out on the Grand Finale on May 29, when every flyable ship and drivable ground vehicle featured during the event will be available to test for free.
Plus, Drake Interplanetary’s own ship show, DefenseCon, disrupts the scene this weekend, taking over Area18’s Riker Memorial Spaceport.
People were Confused About DefenseCon Location…
I saw a lot of people saying the elevators were working for the Expo centre when Drake DefenseCon started. I think it’s because they hadn’t realiszed it was at a different location. It’s at the Spaceport rather than the convention centre.
It’s not really signposted for until you get to just near it… where as the IFW expo signs are still up and pointing people to the “wrong” area.
Fleet Week is coming to an end on Tuesday 30th. You will be able to rent all previous Fleet Week ships from the Kiosks where Drake Defense Con was I believe.
It looks like CI have made around $15m so far in May… and might make as much as $17m by my estimates for the month BUT this is $4m lower than the previous year. This is due to a load of factors including imo a terrible 3.18 patch cycle in terms of playability / stability.
I do think that 3.19 cycle could be pretty awesome tho.
3.19.1 Addresses Timers – There was some moderately good news. Star citizen has a 3.19.1 patch which looks like it will get deployed once Fleet Week is over and it goes some way in reducing ship claim timers again. It’s lowered them a little, quite a bit for the larger ships as the increases for 3.19 were a bit steep and unwelcome to many. No one likes having to wait and that is incredibly frustrating when it’s artificial waiting introduced into an alpha game where a bug could cause you to lose a ship unfairly AND even if not unfairly… I want to spend my time playing the game. CI did say they were monitoring the situation and may make more changes in the short term.
We recently covered ships that were in active development BUT I want to go into to a bit more detail about a few things including the Banu MM which has had it’s production paused.
CIG are expanding their vehicle teams (recently with the Montreal Vehicle Team)
They are going to be making an additional 2nd & 3rd team in the UK. Capital ships take a long time and they also prepare the pipeline for future capital ships from the same manufacturer.
They are Building Towards being able to produce at least the same amount of ships as currently made each year PLUS 1 – 2 Capitals.
The Backlog of capital ships is going to start with RSI they will be doing the Polaris, which then helps them with the Perseus and Galaxy. Those 3 are likely going to be chained as they share assets and dependencies.
The Banu MM is problematic in regards to efficiency and where it fits in to a schedule.
It’s pretty much unique, a bespoke ship that doesn’t follow any other art guidelines or have a developed pipeline, it’s assets will not be used elsewhere (potentially as part of Banu Architecture). It doesn’t use modular pieces. It’s a massive project.
They did have a team working on it a little while. Unfortunately some of the team had left.
They will be doing it at some point BUT want to get other capital ships out that help with getting even more out first. It will potentially be the hardest most complex ship they do.
Over the Next Year Various Backlog ships should start production Polaris, Apollo, Railen, G12 & X1.
Some Other Highlights
Retaliator Gold Standard will work it’s way into the PU once they have got it nailed down for it’s SQ42 implementation.
SRV has just finished art and design.
SanTokYai is showing an update for Alien Week.
There are a couple of Redacted Ships in Production as is the
Hull-C just finishing up
Spirit
Storm
And some ship variants too.
Something else we saw thru the week was the
RSI Lynx Luxury Rover was added to the game, players that have Phoenix’s will be getting one of these for free.
We also had the concept of the Storm Single Operator Light Tank… that’s actually gone thru greybox already. They are both on sale on the RSI website currently.
BOOM!