Around the Verse: Episode 40

[VoA]

[GeraldEvans]

Notes

On the Next Empire Report:

• Last month's slave ring bust has meant hundreds of former captives are returning home. Find why one woman may have to go to court to get her life back.
• Could an outer system be the next real estate must-have? Hear what has the rich and powerful pulling up stakes and staking claims.
• A Navy surplus may mean it's the perfect time to buy a new ship. We'll share how the UEE's loss could be your gain.
• All that and more at 2200 SET

 

Intro:

• Sandi and Ben welcome us to Episode 40.
• 79 million dollar mark hit.
• Star Citizen Alpha 1.1.1 is out
  • Multicrew working in free flight. Turrets and beds. Plus the hangar easter egg in Dying Star.
  • Has the REC and ship balance locked down? Nevar!!
• You can pick up a Super Hornet or Gladiator this weekend.
• Design post is up on FPS stances and breathing.

News From Around the Verse

 

CIG: Santa Monica  - Darian Vorlick and Lisa Ohanian

• Finishing concepting on the HULL series - The next concept coming your way.
• Finishing the character pipeline so the process is effecient and all the characters come out looking bad-ass.
• Fleshing out the different characters on Terra, upper class, middle, lower class, various sub-cultures.
• Before 1.2 (FPS) there is 1.1.2 which introduces the tutorial system for AC. We're working out the bugs and getting it ready for the full multi-crew system for the PU.
• She is no longer Darian...she's Ron Burgundy - stay classy SC fans!

Illfonic: Denver - David Langelier and Travis Day Chuck Brungardt.

• Travis is no longer out there. He helped a lot ...in drinking all their alcohol.
• They're working on the coding to get it all built up so they can start playing it in-house.
• Doing network profiling to eke out better performance and isolating problems areas.
• Should be rolling those out over the next two weeks.
• SATABall!
  • Zero-G sporting using grapples and a ball in the battle sphere.
  • Chris likes the pre-vis.
  • They're working on the crumple jump so that after reaching a surface you can spin in place and push off with your feet in the direction you want to go.

CIG: Austin - Jake Ross, Patrick Thomas, Mark Skelton, Cort Soest, Ian Leyland

• Environment summit in Austin!
• They want to make sure the road-map for the year are all following the same system.
• With the different studios they want to make sure everyone is on the same page.
• With S42 in the UK and PU in Austin it's good to see what everyone is working on.
• BHVR and Illfonic are coming to visit as well.

Foundry 42: UK - Michael Dalston (FNG with QA, very happy)

• Monitoring the RSI forums for feedback on the 1.1.1 patch.
• Steve Brennan watching the Twitch streams.
• The server was / is allowing more people into a game than the game should allow which was causing network issues.
• (It's working much better now.)
• The majority of testing was focused on the AC, but now it's switching to the tutorial.
• No release date for you!!
• The FPS module is getting a lot of testing in cross-studio matches so they can taze each other in the face.

Video Bumper of the hangar in Dying Star at 14:09

 

Darian interviews Lisa Ohanian New production coordinator.

 

How are you doing Lisa?

• I'm doing pretty good. How are you doing?

*Darian has no answer* #ILLASKTHEQUESTIONS

 

What do you do here?

• I'm the production coordinator. I'm the only producer on the art team which is scary but there's a new one coming. The majority of my day is with out art outsourcers and keeping track of approvals as they come in, and making sure everyone is happy with ships characters, etc and where we're going. I'm also working on the character pipeline and the ship pipeline for art.

 

You've also taken on the scheduling for the ships. How is that going to help us improve how we release our ships?

• It's going to help have it all in one place because we do have certain parts or certain ships we give to outsourcers. If people aren't on the same page with where thigs are coming from it's hard to know where to slot them into our schedule. Their contract might be ending so we can't give them more time, or they might need to be shifted to a different piece, so it's useful to know where everything is coming from when you're trying to figure out where to move them around.

Can you tell us about the ship schedule and how you use it to keep track of everything?

• There are a bunch of tabs and fancy stuff including the backlog and the schedule itself.  The backlog and that tells me all the phases a ship needs to go through from concept to flyable and an approximate time for each. Different ships may take longer or course. So when we need a new ship I take one from the backlog and move it into the schedule. The schedule is pretty simple once you know how to use it as it includes all the people we have on different art stages, and this lets me take the new pieces and give them to available people. So it sounds simple, but it's really powerful and essential. It helps me keep things on schedule and move thinngs based on people's strengths.

Not a lot of people know we outsource the design work on a lot of our assets but that requires us to keep track of who is working on things and who we need to pay. How do you take care of that?

• We outsource things somethines at very early stages. The tricky thing is we have a really high bar for quality and CR has a very specific vision. So you have to be careful when you outsource something because they have to understand how it fits in the world. Why are there so many guns? Can people walk around inside it? Is the scale correct.  There's a lot of coordination getting these pieces to the right people. There's a review system to evaluate the contractors, so they're encoureged to drop a copy of a file to us we'll give them feedback the next day to make sure they're on track.

Working with these people requires a huge amount of communication with the design team. How much of that are you a part of on a daily basis to ensure these assets come to fruition?

• I do have a lot of check-ins with them but I try to keep that to a functional minimum. I do work with Rob and Lance a lot to ensure that they know what the goals are. A contractor sends us something, and we evaluate things with an eye to toward the initial design brief and we may involve Chris, and then we'll give them feedback: Could you lookt at maybe adjusting this, etc.

What's the hottest thing you're working on right now?

• The Character pipeline. We're just starting to get a lot of concept art, bigger characters, Vanduul characters, and as we refine that I get a greater sense of the world.

That's 900 years of history that we're telling through these characters. Each planet has it's own culture, fashion, etc.

• We don't just have one style for each planet. We have counter-culture, frontier types, upper class, and that's what brings these places to life.

Fantastic interview!

 

The Sketch!!

Scene: Any typical setting in space. Stars twinkling. A Constelllation Andromeda, turrets deployed and cargo bay lowered enters from the right.

 

Captain Lesnick: narrates, "Captain's log. Star date 2654.42" The USS Commuterprise is returning home after a six-month nebula survey mission. My crew has performed extroadinarily well and I am...proud of what they have accomplished here."

 

Scene: Constellation interior - bridge - Captain Lesnick sits in the center facing forward. Scan officer Alexis sits to his left at her side-facing terminal. Lando, behind her, faces aft sitting at a station with Jenny (playing Galaga), while James stands at ease behind and to the left of the captain's chair.

 

Alexis, turning: Captain, sensors are picking up an incoming ship.

Lesnick: On screen Mister Lando.

 

(The screen shows a Drake Caterpillar)

 

Alexis: They're unresponsive to our calls.

Lando: Captain, our shields are down!

Lesnick: Hold tight mister Lando.

Jenny: Captain, Starfleet regulations state that the shields be must be raised when encountering a interce..

James: Lieutenant! The captain is very aware of regulations.

 

(On screen, the Caterpillar turns to face the Commuterprise and a torpedo fires)

 

James: Incoming torpedo!

 

(A second torpedo fires. An impact is heard and on the bridge havok ensues as the ship is rocked to port. All crew cry in alarm.The lights fail.)

 

Lesnick: Auxiliary power.

Alexis: Captain, incoming transmission.

Lesnick: On screen.

 

(The captain, appears shaken, and stares bewildered at what he is seeing. He rises unsteadily, still shaken from the hit. On the screen the bridge of the Caterpillar is seen, it's captain stands triumphant while the weapons officer sits at the ready.)

 

Pirate Captain Gardiner: Ben T. Lesnick. We meet again. I wanted you to see who it was who finally defeated you. You thought you were so good, mocking my dogfighting skills. But now it is I who will have the last, final laugh. Say goodbye, Ben.

 

(Sandi turns to weapons officer Bien)

 

Gardiner: Fire!!

 

(The Commuterprise is struck again. The lights dim as the crew is tossed about. Ben, shocked and desperate raises his hand, defiant yet.)

 

Lesnick: Sandi... Spare my crew. It's me you want. I'll beam over...and we'll have...one..last dogfight. 

 

Gardiner: Very well, Ben! Prepare to meet your end!! Ahha.

 

(Montage plays of Sandi's flight school moments. You gotta have a montage!)

 

Scene: Captains Lesnick and Gardiner sit facing away from each other. Much closer than the twenty paces required of honorable dogfighting duels. Yes, even those where the weapons are Origin M50s.)

 

Gardiner: C'mon Ben. Not so good. Yes!

Lesnick: Damn. I keep missing.

Gardiner: Here you go...yes! You're going to die!

 

(Bens M50 explodes)

 

Gardiner: Yes!

 

Lesnick: You got me.

Gardiner: I did it. I'm so proud of myself. I beat Ben.

Lesnick: Alright. You got me. But I will have my revenge in Space Marine!

Gardiner: You will not. I'm very good at first person shooters.

 

 

 

Outro:

• Gamescon tickets are still avaialable.
• Ben, Sandi, James, Jared, Tom, Chelexis, Aaron, and Chris will be there.
• Citizencon details will be available next month.
• We shot a series of new Empire Reports and we're going to give our backers a chance to submit a backdrop for it.
• We're unlocking racing ships this weekend so pick up a M50, 350R, Mustang Gamma or unlock them with REC.
• Let us know what you'd like us to unlock nect time around.
• Keep submitting your Arena Commander footage.

 

33:35 – Sneak Peek

 

Thanks everybody for making this possible!

 

(Credits roll. Sandi is seen triumphant as Starfleet looks on helplessly.)

 

Feedback Thread

[Marsten]

Just Click It Already!!

 

I was not disappointed

[Spac3Monkey]

Gonna watch it shortly... currently watching: http://www.twitch.tv/cigcommunity

[GeraldEvans]

Notes are done. I like that CIG dared me to transcribe the sketch.

 

It’s here. Around the Verse #40. We’ve got an interview with Production Coordinator Lisa Ohanian and the best worst skit we’ve ever done. No transcript can do this justice.

[Siberz4]

Thanks for the vid & transcript.

[Hal Steiner]

Thanks for the invaluable notes, saves me a lot of time when I've got none to watch the vid