Squadron 42 (S42) - 1.0

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Per the Monthly Report: September 2014 we will be getting images, videos, Dev posts, etc... about the WIP that CIG is now starting to reveal on Squadron 42 (but CIG is careful about leaks on S42 because they rightfully don't want to not spoil the story for players - so you may want to view this thread as a SPOILER thread). We can use this thread to collate all new WIP items about Squadron 42 like these sister threads:

 

CIG Did reveal some Squadron 42 items in Citizen Con 2014. Below is a short Vid on the Subin Mining Station that will be in Squadron 42 but you may want to watch the entire presentation (it has more S42 items). Some of these items may end up being posted on other threads but this thread is intended to be a long term research thread where items are collated in one location. We can post other CIG - S42 updates on this thread as we get them (over time) & I did update the sister threads (links above) with additional stuff from CitizenCon 2014

New update - Dev Post

 

VickersOfDibleyVickersOfDibley

Posted: 11:37AM
Edited: 11:45AMby VickersOfDibley

Hey again chaps,

 

  We're still in the early stages of deciding how much and what is to be carried across to PU so I can't really go into to much detail but we are extremely considerate of the fact that we don't want to negatively impact the player. We want choices to enrich the player's narrative not to punish them and we want these defining moments to be choices. Not a judgement on player ability. Hope this helps
 

New update - Dev Post

 

craiggcraigg




Hi @Buckshot,

I’ve been working on a landing system prototype, the first stage being for external landing areas (rather than any internal hangar docking, which I’ll hopefully be looking at shortly).

Our designers have crafted the mechanic for selecting a landing area eg. targeting one out of a number of landing sites on a larger ship, locking on to that selected area, and then swapping in new parts to the hud to give visual feedback cues on your ship alignment and indicators as to how close you are within the bounds of the landing region. I’ve been getting their ideas into game and iterating on the good stuff (there’s a lot of good stuff).

The AI support tasks have been mainly related to FPS combat encounters in Squadron 42, really just helping out our design team with any issues they encounter whilst putting together their missions (fortunately our invincible developer cheat mode helps me survive the AI long enough to help investigate the problems).

I’m also working on the Zero-G first person traversal system prototype…though I feel like I might have said too much already…

Craig

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Separate news article that deserves its own post (separate from OP) - See link below...

 

Interview With Star Citizen Studio Director Erin Roberts on Squadron 42 Single Player Campaign

 

+++

For squadron 42, we were told we won't get to fly off/on a Bengal until some time around Chapter 3 in the Campaign (Hence why the Idris is being fastracked). The Idris will be our primary ship until that time. Each chapter of the Sq42 campaign is being planned to be similar to the length of a normal AAA game (8-10hrs), and in total they are planning somewhere around 150 missions for the campaign as a whole. Sq42 will also feature FPS based missions on planetside environments and (possibly) within ships - I didn't hear well at that part as it was noisy.

^^^ From this awesome thread

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PAXAus 2014: Star Citizen – Developer Interview With Erin Roberts. http://gamecloud.net...th-erin-roberts          

 

Daniel: Excellent! There’s already been the announcement of the episode roadmap for Squadron 42, is there any chance of any additional episodes or new series being released afterward?

Erin: Yeah, we’re planning to finish Squadron 42 and then we’re going to another set of missions after that, which were promised in the stretch goals quite some time ago. Then, because Squadron 42 starts before the Persistent Universe starts in the timeline, once you’re in the universe there’ll be scenarios created. Like, a call to arms because there’s a fight with another race. Which, at that point you can re-enlist to go back into the fight. There also might be some black-ops type missions where you have to go behind enemy lines. We’ll also be creating some nice linear content for when we increase the amount of systems, you’ll get to go to new systems where you’ll find other things to do there.

 

Daniel: AWESOME! One of the things that I’m loving with Star Citizen is the level of customization, where we’re able to change every piece of our ships. Will Squadron 42 have that same level of customization or since you’re part of the military you’ll only get ‘that ship’ with ‘this load-out’?

Erin: No, you’ll be able to customize your ship for mission types. You’ll find out what the mission is, then you can choose how to deck it out. Depending on the mission, you’ll want to make some smart choices about what you put in there. You’ll want to try one load-out and try another. You might go in stealthy one time and the other time you might be trying to find something, so you’ll bring detection equipment or you might even go in heavily armed and weaponed up. But you’ll get a choice of how you load-out and also being careful with the missions may be an issue in the campaign – not trying to give too much away, but in the campaign you might be in times or places where you can’t resupply. You’ll need to be careful about what you use.

 

Joseph: So will there the FPS mechanics be used in Squadron 42 or will it purely be dogfighting?

Erin: Oh no, the way to look at Squadron 42 and Star Citizen on a whole, it is basically an FPS game where you’ll use vehicles. So you’ll be in first person all the time, but you can use third person. The whole idea is it’s not like Wing Commander where all you did was fly your ship, land and go to a little room go to or a cafe to talk to people. You’ll wander around in “first person” you could choose to get into a vehicle like a space ship, you could fly a multi-crew vehicle or larger ship, that’s the whole idea behind it. It won’t be split up and you won’t be loading between these areas. You’ll seamlessly start in a location and walk around, get in a vehicle and fly somewhere else, then come back. That’s how the whole system will work.

 
Joseph: Cool, the areas that we’ll see and play in Squadron 42, will they appear in the Persistent Universe? Will they tie together?

Erin: Oh yes! Because in Squadron 42 you are in locations in the Persistent Universe. So when you play Squadron 42 you can go back to those locations in the Persistent Universe and retrace your steps. Some of them might be in deep, behind enemy lines, so those might be hard to get to…unless “Operation Pitchfork” works out well. But you can go back to these areas; we built them in Squadron 42 for the Persistent Universe, so everything we build isn’t just for what we do at the time, but also to make sure it’ll work in Persistent Universe.

^^^ See more in link above

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Erin Roberts interview about Squadron 42 (self.starcitizen)

submitted

 

an hour ago by asirumRear Admiral

Hi. Erin Roberts gave an interview to a Norwegian gaming website about Squadron 42 during PAX. Figured I'd make a makeshift translation of it and publish it here. Here goes.

The ambitious space sim Star Citizen keeps growing, and players are continually diving deeper into the games rich universe. Two of many modules are already available, and soon the next part in development, the single player campaign Squadron 42, will be released.

“Squadron 42 is primarily a single player campaign, with the option for co-op, which focuses on telling a larger story. This will be the first part of the Star Citizen-universe that will be completely developed when we’re releasing in early next year” says Erin Roberts from Foundry 42.

Foundry 42 is the British studio responsible of developing the game, and Roberts was a natural choice as the leader for the project. He’s the brother of the brains behind Star Citizen, Chris Roberts, and the two have earlier worked together on among other things the Wing Commander-series: “Squadron 42 is a spiritual successor to the Wing Commander games, and if you played the classic games you will recognize many elements from it. The game is an introduction to Star Citizen, but playing Squadron 42 is by no means a requirement if you’re only interested in the persistent universe”. st

Main developer Cloud Imperium Games have chosen a modular release for Star Citizen, releasing it in chunks so players can test modules as they are ready, instead of waiting year for a final release. “This way we can continuously get feedback, something that makes it easier and quicker to make changes if necessarily. This means of course longer waiting time from the players first meeting with the game until they get the final product, but we feel this is a better for both us and the other players” says Roberts. Even though Squadron 42 is released as a final product, players will also here have to be patient: “The one player campaign in Squadron 42 is played out in five chapters, with around 15 hours of content in each chapter. Each chapter will be like a game in it self, and when all the chapters are released Squadron 42 will contain over 70 hours of content.”

The story of the single player Roberts doesn't say much about, but we know it is a military campaign where players enlist in the special unit Squadron 42. Together with this unit you travel from star system to star system, doing missions both in space and on the ground. “Squadron 42 isn't directly connected to Star Citizen in the sense that they happen at the same time, but what you do in the single player campaign will have an effect for your character in Star Citizen” he says.

You won’t have to be connected to the Internet to play Squadron 42 and by having the story happen before the story of the Star Citizen they avoid that the players static universe will be in contrast to the persistent universe of Star Citizen. This recently became a problem fro Elite: Dangerous, which recently announced that they are removing their offline-mode.

“We have also included a multiplayer mode which gives the possibility for both coop and PvP. The multiplayer mode is about short, intense mission instead of telling a story. The Background for the choice is because different players make difference choices and focuses on different things. We didn't want the experience to be unbalanced because some only player through the story, and others only play the side missions” says Roberts. “As in the single player campaign,will the multiplayer mission play out both in space and on the ground. A variant we’re working on lets each team move on the outside of their ships, where they can try shooting each other.

First person shooting is also an key part of a different of Star Citizen upcoming modules, and during PAX Australia Cloud Imperium Games for the first time showed how the FPS will look. The ten minutes long demo shows that even the darkest corners of the Star Citizen universe are incredible beautiful and detailed.

During the presentation I was continuously made aware of elements of the game the creators were obviously proud of. For example the characters were built in a different way than in standard FPS games, and they aren't just floating armors and guns. The head can move independently from the arms, which means that players can look at one thing and shoot at something else. One of the most exciting things in the demo was the firefight between players in zero gravity. If they ship you are on is damaged or someone turns of the artificial gravity you, and everything that isn’t nailed down, will start floating. The developers promise a mechanism where you can use the environment to push and pull around the ships. Each time our attention is aimed at something new, even the fact that you can see DUGG from the characters breath on the inside of the helmet, the fans cheer in glee: “We want to return the faith people have put in us by making both Star Citizen and Squadron 42 into an experience as detailed and realistic as possible. Without the support from fans we would've never been able to realize this dream” says Roberts.

We can’t mention Star Citizen without mentioning the games crowd-funding campaign which a long time ago broke the world record as the most crowd-funded project ever. Two years after the campaign ended the founding are showing no signs at stopping, and as I’m writing this Star Citizen has raised almost 60 000 000 dollars, and the developers vision keeps growing larger. “I've worked with game development for almost 30 years and I can with certainty say that Kickstarter and other crowd-funding initiatives is the best thing that has happened to the gaming industry. Only a few years ago a game like Star Citizen wouldn't have stood a chance” says Roberts.

The last years we've seen a sort of space sim renaissance, with Star Citizen, Elite: Dangerous and No Man’s Sky leading the charge. For the Star Citizen-gang this is exclusively good news. “For us it’s not about competing with the other games. We love games set in space and we think it’s exciting to see other developers in the genre. When Chris started working with games it was to show that it was possible, and that it actually pays to take risks. The big developers have a recipe for which games that are going to succeed and are worth betting on, but the last years have showed that the recipe doesn’t necessarily reflect what the audience wants to play. It’s natural to ask how Star Citizen has managed to attract 650 000 paying fans at least a year before the game is released. “We have no PR-department and we rely on the jungle telegraph to reach potential players. We’re making videos and continuously release updates which explain what we’re working on, and what players can expect in the near future” says Roberts. “There are many who believe in Star Citizen, but without regular updates with the players we wouldn't see so much support. When you turn to crowd-funding communication is alpha and omega. They who invest into the project deserve to know what is going on, and they can then easier give feedback on what we do.

Roberts says it’s easy to just see the bottom line when working for a publisher, because you distance yourself from the consumers. Star Citizen isn't like that. “In a situation where we are in continuous dialogue with the consumers we can easily find out what we’re doing right and what we have to change. For us the most important thing is to deliver a good product because we see and hear from people who have taken a chance on us.

They are always wanting to know what the fans thinks about the different aspects of their game. “If there is something they aren't happy with we can talk to them to find a solution. Simultaneous we have larger room to delay the release of a module if there are things we aren't happy with. Star Citizen is their game, and we’re making what they want” says Roberts. Cloud Imperium has not yet announced a release date, and according to Roberts that is because the games is always growing and developing. “We have an internal ten year plan for Star Citizen and we’ll keep adding new and exciting content long after any official release.

Source: http://www.gamer.no/artikler/intervju-star-citizen-squadron-42/165510

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S42 Mission design relative to level of completion with SC assets:

 

JDadley.CIGJDadley_CIG

 

 

 

Posted:  7:00AM

 

 

 

172Floater

 |

 172Floater

 said:

[source]

Do game assets like capital ships, player ships, props etc need to be fully completed before starting to design a mission in single player? Or can you start designing them with only partially completed assets that are in early stages and if so, how early in the process can you start incorporating them into single player?

Typically, all assets go through an iterative design process starting with a process called 'white box' (sometimes known as grey box). The designer responsible will lay out the environment in a very rough collection of 'white boxes' instead of high quality art. They can then test the gameplay in this environment before an artist commits to spending time making the production quality art.

So for instance I designed the interior of the Javelin Destroyer capship. In the earliest stages, the entire layout of the ship existed as a series of primitive shapes (white boxes) that allowed us to test how the environment felt to traverse and move around before art spent time making it look pretty.

The same applies to single player mission levels. We make the entire missions environment and can see how the mission 'feels' to play. If something doesn't work, we can very quickly and cheaply change it at this stage without a big knock-on to the art department.

So to answer you question; no, game assets do not need to be fully completed before we start to design missions with them. All the art assets we use we incorporate from a very early stage when they are extremely primitively modeled.

Hoped that helps!

++++++++

GrimMike_CIG

 

 

 

Posted:  January 26
Edited:  January 26 by Mike_CIG

 

 

 

Cael Shaw | VD-7409-TER-12031165 said:

[source]

 

» show previous quotes

Thanks for answering my questions, but in regards to my second question, I was referring to single missions (or a single mission at a time), not complete playthroughs of the game (I understand that the first playthrough would be binding/defining for the PU).

But for example, if I'm in the middle of the mission to protect the ambassador of Rigel 7 in his shuttlecraft, and fail to do so, will I be able to open the game menu and reload/retry the mission? Or will the permanent record for that mission for me be that I failed to protect the ambassador?

Hi Cael Shaw!

This is actually something we keep coming back to and we feel that we have a couple of good solutions for. Ultimately, I think we'd like for players to be able to craft their ideal back-story (within the parameters of the campaign) and the ability to replay missions is likely a key part of that.

An example of something that we might consider: a play-through on easy, medium or hard might feature infinitely re-playable missions, but maybe we do a "hardcore" difficulty that has one life only or an "ironman" setting that can be applied at the start of a new campaign which restricts saving to certain locations (so you could have a medium-ironman play-through). Whether there's a reward or acknowledgment for hardcore/ironman players would also be a part of that discussion.

There are definite benefits to each; allowing players to write the story they want is important but it's also interesting to make mistakes during your campaign and have to deal with the consequences. We'll no doubt share more on this as we explore more ideas during development.

As for difficulty I am personally a huge advocate of player-directed difficulty scaling and we're looking for ways to apply this principle to S42 level design. What that means is that while it might be reasonably challenging to simply complete a mission, completing it with efficiency and impressing your superiors so much so that you are rewarded with a special medal is also a possibility for elite players who want to really test their mettle. This puts the difficulty of any mission directly in the players hands!

EDIT: Clarified game modes.

Cheers!

- Mike

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This is an excellent interview with Ben Lesnick where he goes over some "secret" ships that will be introduced to us in S42!

One new ship is another assault ship other than the Redeemer or Prowler. The other ship is a refueling/ re-supply of ammo ship smaller than the Starfarer

http://kongkast.libsyn.com/kong-kast-26-what-would-you-say-you-do-here

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Since mining (with the Orion Concept Sale) will be the topic of the day...... Blast from the Past: Mining Spiderbot

 

Shubin Interstellar Mining Spiderbot

By Nehkara · 10 hours ago · 13 images · 2,716 views · stats

 

 

http://i.imgur.com/8eztyJh.webm

[CODENAME: レイブン]

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Squadron 42 at the end of this year with 20 hours of Game-Play and 70 Missions (and will expand into 2016) at 22:35m into vid.

 

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Shubin Mining Station Images GDC 2015

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Creator Chris Roberts talks Star Citizen, the ambitious space sim on steroids

 

What is Squadron 42? How does it connect to Star Citizen?

Star Citizen has two parts, a single-person campaign, called Squadron 42, and that's 100% the spiritual success of Wing Commander but done with today's technology. If I was doing a AAA Wing Commander for EA, Squadron 42 is going to be that and then some.

On top of that, when you're wandering around outside of a single-player campaign, you have your own character and you'll be interacting with other characters all around the universe… who will be both NPCs and also other players. So it should feel like a huge living world.

What can you tell us about the plot? (Warning: Spoilers)

Bishop, a very well known and liked admiral of the UEE—think of him like Maximus from Gladiator—won a battle [with the enemy Vanduul] at great, personal loss; his daughter commanded one of the other ships in the fleet, and she sacrifices herself to save Bishop's ship. That's one of the reasons why Bishop is haunted.

You start out in the military earning citizenship, and you get your wish to become a fighter pilot. While you're training, Admiral Bishop and the [uEE] task force go off into Vanduul space and take the fight to them. As you come out to deploy, the news comes through that they've lost contact with the task force. Bishop goes missing, and the rest of the game is you trying to find him.

You go behind enemy lines, trying to find out where Bishop is, and you see things that have happened along the way that gives you [a reaction] like, Has he lost his mind? What's happening? It's sort of the Ninth Legion mixed with The Heart of Darkness.

So you get behind enemy lines, and you find out there's a Vanduul plan to shortcut past the Earth's defenses, and you have to stop it. 

At the end of it there's this big last stand, and you get back to human space. But Bishop is still left, behind the Vanduul side, kind of like Commander Cain on the Pegasus in [classic] Battlestar Galactica. You come back a bit of a war hero, and you muster out, and potentially Bishop's still out there fighting the battle behind enemy lines.

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So guys I just read this on reddit

http://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/31pk2q/for_those_confused_about_squadron_42_and_what/

TL;DR Basically if you are not a veteran or original backer you will only get the 1st Episode of SQ42 (total 3 Ep). If you are a veteran or original backer then you get the 2nd as well.

The post seems to be very reliable. Guess this means we will have to spend another (likely) 15$-30$ for any additional Episode. Damn CIG!

Yes this is a change for CIG (but not really)...... and really for the better.  CR revealed this for the first time in 10FTC yesterday.  Originally CIG had planned only around 50 missions in S42 (and this would be free).  I appears now that S42 will have around 70 missions in Episode 1 (and this is still part of the packages).  Episode 2 & 3 are not included and will need to be purchased separately - see 10FTC Vid below (and copying this into our S42 Archive thread)

 

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Standard procedure for game developers these days. Especially MMO's. Release large expansions throughout the games life and charge each time for it. 

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+++ See this Vid at 7:30m where Ben clarifies it...

 

 

Further clarification from Ben Lesnick on Squadron 42

 

CIG Ben Lesnickwcloaf

 

 

 

Posted:  4:05PM

 

 

 

The hope from the start has been that Squadron 42 would kick off a whole series of games, much like the 'main series' Wing Commanders back in the day... while the Star Citizen persistent universe would kick off at an unspecified point in the future and continue to evolve in its own way. Once we've built the technology and evolved the world and balanced everything, there's unlimited stories to tell. I know we talked about additional Squadron 42s early on, because we joked about calling them Squadron 43 and Squadron 44 back in the early days  

All you're seeing now is that we're trying to figure out the best way to express that. Squadron 43 and Squadron 44 are good joke names, but they don't really make sense... it's more reasonable to brand 'Squadron 42' as a series rather than something like 'Squadron 42 2.' The only real 'change' here is that Behind Enemy Lines isn't a Secret Missions-style mission disk anymore... it's going to be the next part in the saga. And at least some of our backers get a great bonus, an additional AAA single player game because they backed early.

As for estimated hours to complete the game, I can only say... I really hate trying to quantify those kinds of estimates. It's a game with no one way to play it that we haven't finished yet. Is that 20 hours to play straight through? 50 hours to play every branching mission? To bring it back to Wing Commander: knowing the game today, I can finish the Vega campaign in about two hours. But in 1990, when Wing Commander was new, that took me at least a month of hard-fought battles. So if somebody asks me how long it takes to play Wing Commander, what do I say? There's a reason they don't put those kinds of estimates on box copy.  

I will say - Squadron 42 is not any smaller than it was the day we set out to make it. Content isn't being cut or subdivided or parceled out for extra revenue or anything like that. If we mentioned 20 hours in one interview and 50 in another it's because someone was having two different thoughts about the same amount of content... it's in no way indicating that we've removed anything from the initial pitch, because we absolutely haven't. 

 

 

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The $72 million Indie – The Story Of Star Citizen

And Squadron 42 isn’t far away either. While it sounds as if final release plans are still being discussed, we could be venturing into the military role-playing experience before the end of 2015 and it will be a finished product. “When that comes out it will be heavily tested and it will go out as a finished project whereas typically with the other stuff we want to put it out there, get community feedback, and because Squadron 42 is using a lot of the ground-based stuff and space stuff and so on, all those elements should be really good, so all we’re putting out that’s new is the story and certain elements of content, which people have seen and should hopefully work pretty well,” Erin adds.

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Published on Apr 24, 2015

TGN Partner CaptainShack, our resident space sim expert, goes in detail about Squadron 42, the single player story driven campaign set in the up coming Space Sim for the PC, Star Citizen. Now categorized as a "first-person universe," Star Citizen is a complete space trading, combat simulation, FPS game.

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Introducing "Atomhawk Design" - the UK based concept art company CIG seems to be working with.
 

 

 

blablablablabla78
You can see them mentioned in the Shubin concept artwork over here in the lower right bottom section:https://i.imgur.com/tB2xtEF.jpg

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Spoiler - 

Star Citizen Squadron 42 Asset Leak May 2015

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 SPOILER  [Leak] M3-A Multi-function Space Drone + Mining / Maintenance Drone + Shubin Interstellar Mining Bot Models - Use Matcap Rendering Option for better Viewing

https://sketchfab.com/starcitizenart/folders/f31d240aeb6d4183aa0377e454471fdf

[Wyvyrias]

 SPOILER 

 [Leak] M3-A Multi-function Space Drone + Mining / Maintenance Drone + Shubin Interstellar Mining Bot Models - Use Matcap Rendering Option for better Viewing

https://sketchfab.com/starcitizenart/folders/f31d240aeb6d4183aa0377e454471fdf

Someone tell me it's just me that just 2 all of those links are working.

Though I tried different browsers and so.

I wanna see the models.

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 [Leak] M3-A Multi-function Space Drone + Mining / Maintenance Drone + Shubin Interstellar Mining Bot Models - Use Matcap Rendering Option for better Viewing

https://sketchfab.com/starcitizenart/folders/f31d240aeb6d4183aa0377e454471fdf

Someone tell me it's just me that just 2 all of those links are working.

Though I tried different browsers and so.

I wanna see the models.

They were visible earlier today but were taken down....

 

But here is another even bigger S42 Spoiler 

 

 SPOILER  [Leak] 

[MAJOR SPOILER] 2x Cast For S42

by Farcitizen

Mark Hamill & Mark Strong

Mark Hamill says the line "What's your name kid?".

Presumably before the player enters their name in an early part of S42.

Don't know either actors role or character name.

Source: Recent S42 MoCap Shoot.

[Wyvyrias]

Noooo those monsters deleted them!? Damnit!

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 SPOILER  [Leak] S42 Images 

 

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 SPOILER  [Leak] S42 Image