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Bored Gamer and this Video contains a good bit of good news from Ben Lesnick (CIG) - and both where taken from this Spectrum Post - see link and Video.... Saturday afternoon (EST) unplanned Spectrum Q&A with Ben Lesnick

Published on Apr 28, 2016 Thank you everyone for your continued support. I am still recovering as you can hear. I am so grateful to Sandi and Ben for helping me with the show. here are the questions for this week. Bacon Of War Why doesn't the Starfarer have a 1-2 bed medbay? Notable Joe Any chance of getting downloadable versions of the MISC Starfarer magazine and Big Benny's menu? Premium Shank 1) Are there any thoughts on mine laying ships from the CIG team? The Starfarer and now the Prospector both look as though they could have a variant to do mine laying, since they have external containers that could be detached in flight. The Starfarer's larger tanks could hold a cluster of mines. 2) Will there be any portable devices in the game like the shields we have seen demonstrated in the past, but to use to disguise someone as if they were another race, possibly with a translation program for those languages with know translations? Jordan Esbin I was wondering if you'll be able to put your organization logo on your ship Azreal15 We only ever hear about two branches of the UE military, the Navy & Marines. Will we ever hear about the UE Air Force? Does it exist? Most importantly, can our characters join the military in the PU, mainly can I have my character join the UE Air Force? Ken Sandlin The question I have is more in relation to the currency and earning money in game once we go live. I am a successful professional (in other words an old nerd with a little disposable income lol) and I generally am lucky to get an hour or two a few nights a week to play. I want to be able to earn money hauling cargo and mining (I didn't know I wanted to do that till I saw the Prospector I bought instantly!) but with limited time, I know I won't be able to earn as much as someone with less real world income and more in game time. What options will I have to buy things with real world money at that point? Aaron Nelson One question about the prospector nobody has answered. Either because it won't or its not known yet, but it gathers minerals. Are these minerals going to be needed to grow special plants on the endeavor? Is it just gathering for crafting parts or is it something that may help a farmer also, ( making mineral rich fertilizer of somekind). NightLord I currently have well over 1/2 a million REC banked and cannot seem to spend it as fast as I earn it. Are there any plans to change the subscription model when the PU launches to award something else (40k UEC monthly for instance ) or will it remain REC, which has become almost worthless? A system that would allow conversion from REC to UEC or even something more useful would be nice. Oneros “Voiddancer” Armakat We know that the beds in the starships are for the function of saving making them functional as well as adding to the credibility of a living universe. Of course there are other appliances like toilets, showers, food dispensers & waste disposal bins, my question is will other appliances in ships also have some game functionality ? or will they be purely aesthetic ?. Warlust I would like to know if there will be local audio or something similar, that will allow captains of larger ships to speak and give orders to the entire crew at once...think ship wide intercom.

Published on Apr 23, 2016 Here is Bensday episode 50. I had some technical issues. Thunderstorms in the area and a slower than normal internet had my call recorder switch to audio only by the end. Still, this is a great video. Enjoy. I will try to time code this by Sunday. Aaron Meisman Question: When the alpha UEC system is fully implemented, will we still be able to purchase ship upgrades, and UEC, that are permanent and migrate into the live game? Andrew Jennings Regarding ejection systems. In today's world when a pilot ejects, the ejection system may use an explosive type device to disable all equipment that's too valuable to allow to fall into enemy hands. Will SC fighters that are equipped with this style ejection system also have this to disable the ship? Will the person salvaging a ship have to replace/repair the equipment and seat before it's usable again? Second question. Can the self destruct system like what we have now be disabled by an enemy before someone can set it off? Either by EMP, by destroying the subsystem that manages it, or some other way? Marcus Perry Question for Ben: Some people seem to think that once we get Nyx, we get procedurally generated planets with it. I do not think that is true. I think Nyx is just another landing zone and its release has nothing to do with procedurally generated planets. The release of those is much further in the future. Is that correct ? Stewart Knight Question- Can we expect to see animations for when we use systems on our ship while at the cockpit? For example if we use our scanner/activate quantum/open cargo hatch can we expect to see our pilot reach forward and flip a switch or hit a button, similiar to how the Aurora start up is. Or is it going to be telepathic/ all buttons on ships joystick Uroš Likar5 days ago Question: Where we will store cargo inside hangar? ... Around ‘platforms. I’ve seen a lot of room for it, but this mean that you can double your capacity if you move one ship to another platform ? Neal J1 week ago Q for Ben: As we know there are two "official" mining ships (Orion and Prospector) can something like the Caterpillar be setup to mine as well? Example: Cat side module door folds open, side mounted tractor beam pulls in asteroid/rock/ground material, then a "chop shop" or such module interacts with it. Any resources gained could then be moved to a storage module. Rufus Ultra 1. Chris mentioned in the last 10fC that we will be able to own multiple hangars and on other points it was stated that we can break game packages apart if we own more as one to create additonal starting hangars and npc. What I would like to know if there is a more flashed out idea how this will work or how Ben imagine how it will work? If one of those features comes online(Starting hangar or player owned npc) will there be an option to buy additional npc slots or starting location in the website shop? 2. With the new wave of upcoming concept ships will there be some for sale in a the lower price range for the people who don't have much money but would love to be part of a concept event? I personaly hope the prospector and dragonfly will be affordable

Published on Apr 13, 2016 Welome to Bensday with Batgirl and Ben with todays special quest Sandi Gardiner. Jeff Bangle1 week ago QUESTION: Will proximity to a sun or hot planetary body (such as a planet with a molten surface) affect a ship's ability to keeps its systems cool? If so, hiding in planet's shadows may be popular with pirates that have hot-running weapons… Bounty Inorbit1 week ago (edited) Question: Will the bigger ships be controlled by a small joystick or is it more like the Battlestar Galactica. The Orion and such. Its not a small agile fighter. For Immersion sake will the piloting be more complicated in the capitol ships so you don't end up seeing a capitol ship be controlled by a single joystick like a certain Starship Enterprise. Citizen Panda1 week ago Are there plans to allow people to move items in their cockpits? This would be useful to allow VR headset users to mirror their in-game setup to the real-life constrains without having to check to make sure that things are lined up by removing the headset Citizen Panda1 week ago Will there be item decay? Will modding an item risk the destruction of said item? How does decay and modding work with insurance? Ben Mowbray (Ultramyth)1 week ago Question: Ship components are starting to be implemented into the patches, which is cool. But I am wondering how compatible components will be between ships? We know power plants, engines, shield generators, thrusters, etc. are different sizes... and while shield generators can be fitted to different ship models, thrusters, engines, etc. cannot. What about cooling units, avionics, fuel tanks, radars or other ship components? Will we be able to take the cooler off one ship and install it in another like shields, or will they be restricted like thrusters and engines? Christopher Griffin1 week ago Question for Ben: I've noticed that the Aegis Retaliator is listed to have a crew of six but can actually be fully manned with a crew of seven (5 turrets, 1 bombardier/engineer, and the pilot/captain). With only six (6) escape pods does abandon ship mean last one in is a rotten egg or is the captain expected to "go down with the ship? Marcus Perry2 days ago Question for Ben: With the first steps of persistence being introduced soon, how will death in Crusader be handled ? Malcolm Reynolds1 week ago (edited) Hi Nikki, Omusul here, love the Bendays chat you do. Question for Ben.. is the Cutlass rework on hold until the Caterpillar is fleshed out being as it meant to the Drake design standard like the Freelancer was for MISC?

Published on Mar 24, 2016 This episode was wrought with technical difficulties. I had some issues with a USB hub with caused my video to fail and when setting up the call Ben and I were unable to get audio to work. In the end, I have Ben's video and Audio and my Audio. That is a win when you see what it took to get there Here are the questions. 00:32 Ben is working on weight 2:58 CitizenCon Ticket Sales 3:50 Blade Sales Success 4:09 How close to a glades will the Blade be? 4:42 Can you race a Blade? 5:01 Blade pricing 6:52 If I upgraded a previously owned ship will I get the poster and model in my hangar? 7:43 Starfarer Pricing 8:44 How do the ship prices change when purchasing in game is enabled in the near future? 10:56 Xi-An Scout design changes 13:17 Are the Xi=An our allies? 14:49 Will our hangars grow with our fleet? 15:26 Will the Polaris Corvette have heavy guns on it? 16:09 What is the corvette's main mission? 17:17 Can you give the Carrack to Foundry 42 so it can grow larger? 17:54 Does the Gemini have both the fuel scoop and weapons? 19:01 How the UEE gets Vandal ships 23:39 What is the estimated price of the Polaris? 24:01 Can you give the prices of concept ship sales one week before the sale like you did in the past? 24:31 What company makes the next concept ship?

Published on Mar 16, 2016 Here is episode 46 of Bensday 00:38 I am a transgender woman. If you care to learn more here https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC52t... if not OK. But if all you have is hate to spew, GTFO! 2:00 Will the 890 Jump come up for sale soon? 2:55 Now that the pipeline is more efficient will we see concept ships built faster? 4:09 Is David Hobbins designing ships again? 5:47 Will we see early sketches of new ships before concept sales? 6:49 Will we see more designs from the Xi'An and Tevarin Races? 7:47 Will Squadron 42 be out before Christmas? 10:03 Will the Freelancer DUR be able to carry a rover? 10:59 Exploration Ships explained. 14:42 Will the Dragonfly be in the next round of ships? 15:11 Are the developments of Sq42 and the PU separate now? 18:27 Community Created Mods for Star Citizen? 20:18 Why is there a bay for missiles or torpedoes on the Retaliator and the Sabre and not the Vanguard. 24:00 Closing and top secret info!

Streamed live 5 hours ago Very special guest: Ben Lesnick joined us to discuss Wing Commander and Star Citizen! Ben Lesnick is the world’s biggest Wing Commander fan. He founded WCNews, which is the premiere Wing Commander news site. Currently he is Director of Community Engagement and Content Strategy at Cloud Imperium Games, whose current project is the much anticipated Star Citizen. WCNews: http://www.wcnews.com/ Star Citizen: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/ Video is mainly on Wing Commander but a little talk about Star Citizen at the end (no major news items)

Published on Aug 24, 2015 This week we delve into the Social Module, What's next and Ben, David and Davids trip to Atlanta for Dragon Con. Here is the question list. Premium Shank (CAKE IS PORTAL GAME REFERENCE) 1 - Is the cake a lie? 2 - Will we be able to link ships in a group to go through a Jump Point together, so they come out at the same point in space? Jump Debris Will we have an auto-pilot that we can set to follow another ship? What sort of commands do you envision? Baddonkey Something that wasn't really answered about the Tali modules. What kind of insurance does the Tali modules have - hull or equipment or is this a new kind of insurance? Eddard Hawk Can we set up our insurance to be automatically renewed (assuming enough credits are in our accounts) to prevent lapse of insurance so we won't accidentally lose our ships? Captain Glume Regarding the Retaliator JumpPod. Does the JumpPod seats lower to the ground/move down like the Conni's Cargo bay to allow easy exit of the passengers? Does the cargo bays also raise and lower to deal with cargo? Pappy Boyington (CLARIFICATION QUESTION) Is the VANGUARD able to land or take off from the Idriss. Yoko Rose Will we be able to be a female pilot in SQ42? The RedEye Channel Ben said that they won't put an artificial limit to how many ships can fit in the idris and if you can fit it, you can fit it. Does that mean that we can assign landing positions in order allow auto-landing spots, or will there be absolutely no auto-landing spots in the idris and other hangars? Tracy Player If an unscrupulous cargo hauler decides to take a job hauling...let's say a few crates of military supplies e.g. weapons, armor, what's to prevent said crates from turning up missing and distributed to friends of this unscrupulous individual. Are there going to be safe guards built in to protect players from these types of exploits and if so what are they? Marcus Perry In the Gamescom multicrew demo, was the part of entering through a hull breach and floating towards gravity control a scripted event like the Idris flyby?

^^^ Video should still work despite visual on page

Published on Jul 16, 2015 This is a longer than normal Bensday. Ben gives some insight to his taking over Ship Design which is not coding but instead coming out with design ideas for the ships in the SC universe. While this sounds new, this is exactly what he has always done. We also get into a disunion of how SC is developed. This is then followed by user questions. I pulled questions from this list. Brent Chessen Can you give us an update on the economy model? also what are some of the commodities I will be hauling in the PU? Brent Chessen I have a self land hangar, when the PU opens would I be able to put that hanger in any system? Wolf Gang is there a possibility in the future of making the amount of ships we can see in our hangars larger. .it was cool when you could jump in ya buggy and fly past 10 or more ships! The Hangar just keep on going it was awesome ! Eddard Hawk When the Merlin docks with its parent Connie, does it get refueled and rearmed upon docking? Same question for all the other large ships with a snub fighter. Moose Are they planning on giving the MIS freelancer a rear turret? The brochure and hangar ship have one, but the (I know I know) ship stat page does not. Thanks so much. Firelance "With the update pending to the 300 series, it seems apparent that Origin has a very limited line up of ships compared to other manufacturers such as RSI and Aegis, even though Origin is touted as one of the biggest ship manufacturers in the lore. Of its six existing ships, three are limited availability and four are derived from the same hull. Are their plans to expand Origin's lineup, such as a medium to large ship to compete in the Cutlass or Freelancer size range?" Envoy I purchased the “Hull-A-Palooza Pack” back in May. I noticed that unlike some of the other "big" combo packs ($1,000+ game packages) the “Hull-A-Palooza Pack” does not include a hangar, alpha access or starting money (it does include models & posters of each ship in the pack). Was not including the extra items (hangar, starting money, etc) just a simple oversight or was this by design? Should this pack include a hangar at least - like the other concept sales? Jump Debris Does James know that placing his hat on top of a lamp during an interview can cause a fire resulting in him receiving a whack from the Ban Hammer?

Ben Lesnick will be live on crash academy twitch today. by BooksArgentus He will be our special guest on the twitch stream of crash_academy a german corporation. The interwiev will be held in english, so show up on http://www.twitch.tv/crash_academy and ask your questions if you want! We will be on at 20:15h (CET). BooksArgentus There will be a recording on twitch for a week, and it will also be postet on our youtube channelhttps://www.youtube.com/user/theCrashAcademy

Some thoughts on concerns! (Big post on forum from Ben) Developer CIG Ben Lesnickwcloaf Posted: 2:38PM Hey guys! I know you have quite a few concerns this week, and I'd like to take a little time to settle some issues as best I can, informally. This is all in the spirit of improving communication, and I'll do my best to keep on this thread to answer things. Let's try and keep the discussion polite... we have enough toxicity already for a group of people who all want the same thing. :) If there's anything I've missed in this long post, let me know and I'll say what I can. (I'd originally been going to reply to one of the big threads with this, but it got so long that I figured I would just put it out here for everyone to see.)‘Star Marine is delayed indefinitely.’ First of all: the phrase ‘delayed indefinitely’ being bandied around is incorrect. We do not have a release date to announce yet, which is not the same thing. I’m aware that there is an ongoing sub-debate in which one poster will insist it is delayed indefinitely accompanied by the dictionary definition of indefinitely, and then the counter argument is that the phrase has a different meaning beyond the individual words. This counter argument is correct. ‘Delayed indefinitely’ is a games industry PR term for ‘cancelled.’ Anyone (and apparently this is a great many people) reading clickbait headlines will believe we’ve cancelled Star Marine. This is not the case, to the point that it implies the absolute opposite of what’s actually happening.What is happening? The weekly updates from the team will give you a better idea, but the short story is that Star Marine was not ready for launch when we had hoped (and planned.) We spent several weeks expecting that resolving a then-current crop of blockers would allow a PTU publish. When this didn’t happen, we conducted a full review of the module lead by our top technical folks from around the company. What they determined was what you read in Chris’ letter two weeks ago: we need to rebuild several ‘boring’ backend pieces and we need to fix serious animation issues before there would be any benefit to a release. It would not be my place to give you a timetable, but with the number of people I’m seeing who genuinely believe that we somehow now aren’t doing the FPS module I will say that we are talking about a delay of weeks and not months/years/decades. Certainly, I hope not to be pushing folks for weekly updates very soon. :) (And to answer the inevitable question: why don’t we give an internal target date right now? Because the worry is that we might find ourselves in exactly the same position when the current set of issues are resolved. We’re at a point in the process where we believe we know exactly what to do. We’ve already let you know what that is, we’re going to continue sharing the progress… and when that work pays off (or if it doesn’t) you’ll hear about it.)‘Star Marine is Call of Duty in space!’ First of all, let me speak out against reducing any concept to such broad strokes. Yes, Call of Duty and Star Marine are both first person shooters. That is just about where the resemblance ends. (I guess that’s more of a pet peeve of mine, though. It’s something publishers require for internal pitches… you don’t come up with an original idea, you come up with an idea and explain to your boss how much like a popular game it is. To wit, I once gritted my teeth working with EA on a Privateer reboot that was to be pitched as ‘Battlefield meets Grand Theft Auto.’ Shudder.)But I digress! The important thing that I want to point out here is that Star Marine isn’t an aside in any way… it’s an essential part of Star Citizen, something the rest of the game must have. We aren’t making a giant first person shooter, but we’re making a game that needs that technology in order to work. Star Marine is the blood and sinew of the game, the connective tissue that plugs planetside into boarding into space combat and so on. One of the least sexy but most important aspects of game development is building the behind-the-screens modules that make up the finished form. For everything you see, there’s dozens of pieces working together: audio systems, streaming managers, graphics renderers, physics layers and so on. Star Marine is that on a macro level… it gets plugged into Star Citizen to build the whole we’ve dreamed of.(How long have we dreamed about this? Let me tell you: when I was eighteen years old I was lucky enough to visit Digital Anvil, Chris’ previous game studio. The Wingman himself gave me a tour of the office and demo’d the then-upcoming StarLancer in their little theater. StarLancer was great, he explained, but StarLancer 2 was going to be even better: they were already working on a design that would let you get out of your ship to fight boarding actions. I thought it was the coolest idea I’d ever heard. I’m thirty-four now, and I still think it’s up there. :) I will end this one noting that we HAVE built a little in-world fiction to make the module a game-within-a-game… but that’s purely gloss, something we can do without taking developer time in order to make the experience more immersive. It’s intended to show you our dedication to the world of Star Citizen, not our belief that Star Citizen needs to be a CoD-style gunfight. Permalink FlagQuote Developer CIG Ben Lesnickwcloaf Posted: 2:38PM ‘You are spending too much time polishing the game.’This is absolutely inaccurate. We are grappling with blockers, not a polish (for those unfamiliar, polish is typically what a game does at the very end of the development process… you make the art nice, the particle effects fancy, make sure there are no ‘replace mes,’ etc.) I do not know how folks are remembering Arena Commander as some sort of polished experience. When we shipped it, it had a single ship, physics that didn’t work and multiplayer that didn’t multiplay. The community helped us make all of these things better, and there’s still massive amounts of work being done (and to be done.) No one on the team believes that Arena Commander represents the finished form of Star Citizen, and if anyone outside tells you this is the case then they are just wrong. (Now: Arena Commander looks great because we have amazing artists, but even then none of it was polished. Every single piece of art you saw last year has been revamped since then, every single ship has either been reworked or is scheduled to be. You’re seeing very impressive work, which is what Chris gets out of the team… but you aren’t seeing a polished game.) (And I am aware that the common reply to this is: but Chris used the /word/ polish in his letter! That is not the same thing as doing a polish pass, and I’m hard pressed to believe that that’s genuinely confusing folks.)‘Feature creep!’I don’t have much to say to this, beyond that it’s not accurate. At this point, we are not adding additional features to the plan, we’re building out the ones we’ve already scheduled. I’ve seen some recent posts about how Chris’ “first person universe” is at odds with the original Kickstarter-era plan… and that’s again not the case. It’s a more recent way of describing what he wants to accomplish, but everything we’re working on is still what was pitched back then: Privateer-style persistent universe, Squadron 42 single player game, first person boarding and so on. (A desire to avoid feature creep is exactly why we stopped doing stretch goals, despite being aware that they drive revenue.)‘You’re spending all your time on concept sales!’We aren’t! Concept sales are something of a slow burn that uses mostly outsource talent who would not otherwise be working on the game. Early in the process, they require a fair amount of design work. Luckily, that’s work we need for the broader game: how will bounty hunters work, how passengers will work, how will repair work and so on. Once that’s done, they’re given to a concept artist (almost always an outside contractor) who works with high level folks on the form and function. When the ship’s design is finished, it gets assigned to a technical designer who figures out how the specific ship will integrate into the game (How big is it, how do the internals lay out, etc.) The fact that we can have regular concept sales is because we have the pipeline working properly – it should be a good sign for outsiders reviewing our production process, not a bad one! (Although the reason it work so smoothly is that it’s infinitely easier to predict a timeline than when you’re taking into account creating new technology and solving game issues. When a producer is trying to do that, he has to base the timeline on something much more vague… whereas you can pretty much know exactly how many hours it’ll take Ryan Church to make a spaceship!)‘My ship isn’t flyable yet!’Despite rumors (and jokes, I promise!) to the contrary, we have not forgotten about the Caterpillar, Banu Merchantman, Xi’An Scout, Constellation, Retaliator, Orion, Herald, Vanguard or any of the others. :) Every ship we’ve sold (and quite a few we haven’t) are on the block schedule and every dog will get his day. Why are some ships prioritized before others? There’s a couple reasons for that. The thing to remember is that we work with limited development resources. That’s not to say we don’t have enough people or we need more money or we need to do so-and-so. I know that everyone imagines Star Citizen as kind of a straight line: you’ll do this ship then this feature and then this ship. But try imagining it like a producer does, as a giant puzzle they need to solve, a huge schedule grid and a list of personnel they can assign. So while it’s tempting to say: let’s get the Vanguard out today and sell it! the actual way it’s done is: let’s make sure the Vanguard is ready by the time we plan to finish the game. Imagine (and these numbers are made up) you have twenty ships and five artists. Even if you kick off five ships at once (Instead of one, or equivalent parts of ten of them which often makes more sense) there’s still going to naturally have to be a priority system to get to the final goal rather than an immediate benchmark. And with that, I can share a little bit of the logic behind the process, how we assign out our resources to make the ships we’ve promised on the schedule:* Ships that will be used in Squadron 42 are a priority. (I know this is taken many different ways, and I even have a point to address for it below… but for me, it shows our dedication to the game above increasing revenue. The artists who are building UEE battleships and Vanduul dreadnaughts could instead churn out ships and variants that we could sell… and we don’t do that.)* Ships for Arena Commander 1.0 are the second priority. These are the single seat ships that make sense to include in the current dogfighting alpha. We are very, very close to the end for these, with the Merlin and the Herald actively being worked on now. There are a few more that were added to the schedule later that we’ll see down the line, such as the Archimedes… but they’re coming!* The bigger ships aren’t going to be flyable until Arena Commander 2.0. If you recall the Arena Commander 1.0 launch way back when, we ended up publishing with just the Hornet and then we methodically finished and introduced all of the other ships. We will do the same thing for the multicrew release: perfect one or two example ships and then use the processes we’ve created to make the others flyable.* Some ships just wouldn’t make sense to focus on yet. We have a dogfighting arena right now, for building out that very important part of the game… but quite a few ships AREN’T oriented for fighting whatsoever. Things like cargo ships, tugs, science ships, mining ships and the like will be prioritized in line to go with the tech required to make them interesting for you. So the Orion can come when we debut mining, the Hull when we start the cargolympics and so on. Permalink FlagQuote Developer CIG Ben Lesnickwcloaf Posted: 2:39PM ‘They’re only making assets for Squadron 42!’This is also not the case. Many of our artists are working on Squadron 42 and many are not. Here in Santa Monica, the only artist we have on a Squadron asset is the one assigned to the Herald, which is a ship that will appear in Arena Commander 1.0 well before it’s needed for SQ42. The good news is that as Squadron 42 ships are finished, we free up extremely talented artists who can then focus on the ships in the queue. ‘Sales are down, we’re doomed!’We are not concerned, and you shouldn’t be either. We saw the same trend last year, and are keenly aware that interest in Star Citizen is based on our ability to deliver fresh content. Star Marine has delayed that, and the influx of new players suffers as a result. But every single person on the team is confident in what we’re doing and that we’re going to deliver things that deserve real attention.(I know how frustrating it is when we say that something looks cool but we can’t share it, so please forgive me this one. I shared it with the mod team, and they encouraged me to tell you all. About two weeks back, when Erin was in town, he called everyone together to show some of the first selects from the Squadron 42 motion capture shoot. It was incredibly early temp footage… lips sometimes didn’t move, objects were missing texture, crowd scenes were empty… but I teared up like a baby seeing it. It was the reminder we all needed that incredible things are coming, and it was a personal assurance to me that the project I’d given so much to was going to be a reality… that I’d helped bring back the spirit of Wing Commander. It was a big emotional moment for me.)‘Where are the previous web features you’ve talked about?’This is a good question, and reviewing our past six months of communication I believe it’s probably the most serious concern here. The short answer is, of course, that they’re still coming. Organizations 2.0 and the star map are still in progress, although like every other aspect of the game there are blockers and there are resource allocation requirements. As with Star Marine, it’s the decidedly unsexy back-end stuff that takes the most time. Turbulent has had a lot added to their plate that they didn’t originally intend to handle, from actually working on Arena Commander (leaderboards, matchmaking, etc.) to the massive tax changes earlier this year mandated by the EU. In the case of the star map, it’s coming along very well. The most significant blocker is getting the data right at this point, which means locking down areas of the PU that we were (until recently) free to change and move around at will. Organizations 2.0 is taking longer, although they’re looking now at how to bring some of the features out earlier. The biggest blocker there is that we’d rather have it tie into the persistent universe than be a sort of fake web-only experience. Expect to hear more about it later this year (that’s all I could get out of ‘em! :)).‘Chris Roberts is wasting his time directing the performance capture shoot.’Positively untrue. I am not sure where the belief that Chris fell into a black hole came from (save simply the fact that he can’t do 10ftC while on set) but it is not true. Our production process already works with teams around the world and we’ve done the same here – Chris is still intimately involved with everything from the intricacies of ship design to what kind of boots particular characters will wear. And frankly, he’s the best man for the job. Chris is an accomplished interactive director, arguably the world’s finest for this genre given his experience with Wing Commander III and IV (two projects he both ran and directed.) The plan was to have him direct the shoot from day one, and that wasn’t ever going to change. We made sure our company structure and our internal communications would support it well in advance, and… well, they did.‘X employee is leaving, we’re doomed!’As I said in a recent post, turnover sucks… but it’s a constant in this or pretty much any other industry. The sky is not falling. From the inside, it’s always interesting to see how the world reacts. Because it comes off as so specific – the guys who decide to let you know they’re leaving like Travis or Eric are the heart and the soul of the game… because you know them above anything else. In the past two years, we’ve had some amazing talent that has moved on for plenty of reasons (other opportunities, personal issues, etc.) and it’s always sort of a shame to see they’re never appreciated. I’ll also say that the averages work out pretty well: we are hiring extremely talented people many times faster than we lose them.I also believe there’s some confusion as to just what a producer does. It’s nowhere near as glamorous as it sounds: they aren’t designing the game or telling anyone how it’s going to work… they’re responsible for very methodical processes. A producer is essentially a scheduler, someone who works with giant spreadsheets and charts to make sure the components needed to realize Chris’ vision can happen and that personnel are tasked with individual processes. And then they’re responsible for holding the whip: you said the Freelancer rework would take seven days and you’re on day eight, what’s going on and how do we fix it? and so on. To speak personally: I’m very sorry to see Travis go, he was a friend and I will miss his company (we actually first met when we were teenagers, when his dad was a producer for Chris!) I didn’t know Alex very well, but I certainly have a high degree of respect for him. And for my honest money, the biggest loss was Chelsea. She really helped set the kind and dedicated tone for the CS department early on, and we’re going to be extra careful to make sure the care she put into helping backers carries over as we get bigger. And let me end this one by adding: if there’s anything that genuinely makes me unhappy, it’s the speculation about actual people and their lives. It’s almost always bizarrely wrong and it’s just so stupid. Did anyone see the Reddit thread about how Chelsea’s ‘body language’ during her goodbye on RtV proved there was something sinister going on? I mean… seriously? The drama folks are imagining doesn’t exist. Like most people, we’re more like a family than a TV soap opera; there’s certainly tense moments on occasion while we’re arguing about big things (I will confess being ready to murder Travis once or twice… twice), but at the end of the day we truly all get along. The reaction on RtV was real because we’re all genuinely sorry to lose the friends we’d see every day, nothing more. Permalink FlagQuote Developer CIG Ben Lesnickwcloaf Posted: 2:39PM ‘It’s not open development!’I think this is an easy one to attack because it’s a vague concept; there’s no dictionary definition for ‘open development’ and if there were we’d still argue about it. We see open development as sharing our progress with you every step of the way, and I believe we do a fairly good job of that. We’ll continue to get better, we’ll continue to work from feedback… but we make the entire team available to interact with you, we tell you what we’re doing on a weekly and monthly basis… we think it’s pretty open.But make no mistake: open development does not mean you get every single build, or that you get to play with everything we do the moment we start on it. Backers help test the game when it makes sense for them to do so – when we’re at a point where the feedback is valuable instead of obvious. Working it any other way would be a very expensive mess (pushing a patch costs money; patching three times a day for the sake of showing you we’re not lying when we say the game doesn’t work yet would use up that $80 million pretty darn quick!)(A concern I’ve seen relating to this: there’s so much stuff in the leak that we haven’t released yet. That’s absolutely true, but it is NOT a case of holding material for some fancy reveal. Much of it is Squadron 42 content, a fair amount is part of the upcoming social module… but none of it is Arena Commander content that should have gone out for review yet. I think the telling thing that speaks to our development, though, is that pretty much anything folks have dug out is something you already knew exists and not some crazy surprise. We don’t share everything right away because it’s counter-productive to the development process; we’re proud of how cool Star Citizen looks… but we also know that our job is to make Star Citizen work, not make sure every alpha build is polished and finished at any given moment. That means coming up with a balance that preserves some sense of discovery for things like Squadron 42. It’s not a perfect science, but it’s something we put a lot of thought into.)‘CIG is not communicating with us!’I firmly believe that this is absolutely incorrect, but I also believe that it’s a criticism that will never, ever go away. I will continue to push my folks to their limits to communicate with you and we will always try to improve… but if you’re someone who honestly believes development is behind an impassable wall, you’re incorrect. Between AtV, RtV, the monthly report, weekly Star Marine reports, Jump Point articles, Meet the Devs, Bug Smashers, 10 for… we’re putting an insane amount of content out there. And we’ll keep doing more, to the best of our abilities!The ensuing argument for this one is of course that we’re telling but not showing. To that, I have to say… that’s correct. In so much as we’re anything, we are reporters and not coders, designers or marketeers (probably not a word.) The bottom line is that it’s hard enough to take ten minutes from leads to do the weekly Spectrum Dispatch videos where they tell you what they’re doing… but the shortest marketing video to go with such a video is at least four hours taken away from an artist or a technical designer… and often quite a bit more time. Showing today is a battle between taking time away from gamedev to reassure folks that the game exists, and that’s a losing proposition. We’re working to hire an internal marketing artist to do some of this, but it’s never going to be the way you’re likely imagining. Showing you the game is a lot more complicated than running StarCitizen.exe and capturing some footage for ourselves. We’re here to tell you what’s happening, and show you when it doesn’t interrupt development (like with the recent video of Randy working on the Starliner; we want to do a lot more of that! But it’s a matter of being in the right place when the work is happening, which can be hard to do with studios around the world.

Posting this if you want to get in your questions (post them on the Reddit Link)- when it gets recorded (posted as a Video) - I'll update the OP with that video. Ben Lesnick on INNverse the 'Verse on Tuesday, June 9th by Nehkara Hello my friends! On Tuesday June 9th, Ben Lesnick will be joining the INN crew for an hour on INNverse the 'Verse from 9 PM to 10 PM Eastern time (6 PM to 7 PM Pacific). INNverse the 'Verse is a live weekly INN show on Twitch, answering questions and hanging out with the community. You can find us here: http://www.twitch.tv/INNlive So, please tune in! What we need from you guys are questions! Twitch chat will likely be insane so we'd like to have some go-to questions to use during the show. So, do you have any questions for Ben Lesnick? P.S. Not that this is a surprise in the slightest but he cannot discuss the leak. Also, feel free to follow us on Twitter. We will have reminders on there leading up to the show. ------------ Summary Notes below..... · Hangars will expand beyond the current 5 slots · Ben can’t mention anything about the Espera Prowler – it is the only ship of Wave 4 Concept ships that hasn’t been assigned a concept artist · Ben confirms it will be a Hope Class and distinct from Endeavor Class– but similar size and same manufacturer. Endeavor Class will come out first before Hope Class. · FPS delay won’t block other modules including S42 but it does affect the PU (but it is not a blocker for now) · Once Endeavor hits then we will see more of Tony Z. work on the Science profession · The Reliant News variant came about as a reaction to the community (wanting to bring streaming into the game) · Info will be a big deal in SC and the Reliant (and Herald) will increase the speed of the information moving (since info has to be manually brought through jump points) · Ship speeds are being looked at again – Ben is not sure if it is the acceleration curve (as the maps get bigger) · We can expect to see more fashion art for the characters – but most artwork is now being generated for S42 (thus they won’t reveal a lot yet) = CR always has comments on character fashion (like his Cargo Pants comments – lol) · Caterpillar – Ben formally requested an update from the ship team on the Caterpillar · Xi’An ships are typically vertically oriented (some of the larger ships it may not be as apparent) · Color Blind Support will happen but they can’t say when · Archiving (Sherry) is working on the Galactepdia and also cleaning up the Internal Wiki · Ben has seen Complete missions, Cinematics, but can’t talk about the confirmed realease date or cast, etc… - he doesn’t want to know himself (so he is not “in-the-know” on S42 by his choice) · Dragonfly – Ben confirms it will happen but doesn’t have a Concept Artist · New Corvette – Will also happen but no concept artist yet · Endeavor – has created other planned support ships for the Science mechanic · CIG will do a formal Wave 5 Concept Ship with Community Voting again !!! · There will be smaller salvage ships available · We will see more lore but David Haddock has been busy with S42 (when he comes back) – Lore Builder will also return · F42 in Germany is 20-25 people but is expanding – not as big as S42 in UK around 120 people · Next ship commercial is the Retaliator – it has a script but waiting for more Devs to work on it · Avenger script is “great” as well and is waiting more devs that are busy on S42 · Ben doesn’t think there will be a ramp up in marketing – they prefer to do it through the community · Players will be able to create their own billboard screens for the Hull Ships – and players can charge other players and other NPC orgs for advertising · The CIG event in Montreal will be on hold for a bit and it will center around the Star Map release · Maybe in three weeks we will see more Design Posts before the Pioneer Design post that will come with the Endeavor. Vanduul Fleet and Alien Language will be Design Posts. · Ben has seen work on Procedural Generation for the PU – for planet terrains, etc.. · Idris and Freelancer have been increasing in size means the weapons and shields will also get bigger (Ben points out that the Rail Gun got bigger on the Idris) · Ben confirms there will be more stretch goals but CR will only do one when something new is need (when they make sense). Rewards will happen along the way. · There has been talk about robbing / looting NPC. Tony has added a lot more granularity planet side. Tony is creating a lot of non-spaceship quests planet side · MobiGlas is coming along very well – some newer UI’s than what was in the recent Leak · Are we going to be able to customize the interior of ships? – Yes – Ben points out that is what the Aurora LN was originally designed for- a fancy interior

Good episode that @GeraldEvans will probably have summary notes for...... But some big highlights....... Idris-P to Idris-M conversion option in PU....... MISC Endeavor will only be a Science Ship now.... and they are creating a completely new Hospital ship +++ Ben talks about the Leak (found image below ) and how it actually help CIG market the game (as I pointed out from the day of the leak)...