“Odd man out.” -Lord CorwinIED Division Report

Well, we have to wait. It’s been kicked around and I think it’s true that they’re going to push the release back until GamesCon: Tuesday, August 22, 2017. As much as I wanted it in my hands I understand why it’s better for the company to wait for the reveal until then so they can entice more interest in the game and show off the progress and help convince people that no, it’s not dead and yes, it is still alive and well. The progress we’ve seen from the original kickstarter until now has been impressive considering how much the game play mechanics and scope has changed over time.

The original kickstarter was offering just a fraction of what was offered in the stretch goals and once the planetary tech was developed, things changed again. Instead of just flying around and seeing planets like Elite Dangerous, you can now see footage of ships flying anywhere in the “universe”, from space to the planet with no loading screens.

Sadly it just takes time to do it well. In the mean time they are working on quite a few things in parallel so as one thing gets hung up with bugs, they flesh out some other aspect of the game.

One of the newest additions is the Tumbril Cyclone. I can imagine the types of game play that will emerge with this new addition will be interesting to see, especially if you can use them to protect whatever assets you have on the ground. Those ores aren’t going to mine themselves and not only can you have fighter escorts to intercept potential threats but now you can actively do recon with these new vehicles as well.

The Nox being the speeder bike of the verse with the dragonfly as it’s counterpart will allow for more of this style of play. You land your ship away from a potentially hostile derelict ship, get on your speeder or buggy and head on over to check out the beacon signal. Makes good sense to me and I imagine this style of play will be fairly common. I think it will make “spying aka info running” a more viable profession.

Moving on, the economy IS coming in Alpha 3.0! This is what IED has been waiting for. Player driven, price, location and abundance. Go get a resource from place A, take it furthest away from that location you can safety get, sell it for a nice profit. The place should eventually start determining what other resources they need to start producing items for players to purchase in the stores.

Alpha UEC is coming in as well, a temporary currency that will be used to test out the “banking” system. This will not be permanent and will get wiped while they test out different models and amounts to get the feel right. There are new stores that are coming online in the Olisar/Grimhex locations.

The kiosks are coming as well, allowing you to select ships and insurance policy/claims. Items will be bought and sold at these new kiosks. These are miniature market places that have their own unique prices and supplies that are loosely tied into the larger marketplace of the system. Now imagine forward a little where the ship building part of the economy is driven by players out in the verse gathering resources. Or medicine quests, or quests (the mission giver AI that’s driven by the communication between the economy server and the subsumption system) for materials to refine into fuel or any other resource that can be used to drive scenarios in game. This is a huge step forward towards the final release we’re all waiting to play.

Cargo is also confirmed. It will allow us all to get together and start running training missions for all these various tasks. Mock (or real) ambushes, escort missions where IED gathers some goods, Intel is scouting and SOD is running escort. Exciting times and I’m hoping that 3.1 is ready by CitizenCom in October. We’ll see and I’ll try to stay on top of interesting mechanics that are getting added and where those mechanics fit into the larger vision of what Star Citizen will be at release. Until then…

“Odd man out.” -Lord Corwin

*8-6-17 UPDATE*

So the schedule has changed, no surprises there. What has changed is what they’re sticking in the 3.0 patch, I think they’re making a hustle to add as much content as possible to allow for more “emergent” game play. I’ve heard of race tracks, the Nox of course, the Tumbril vehicle (and possibly a second one). Upping the player count. I’d have to go over about half a dozen video’s and take notes (will be actually doing this in the next newsletter). They could also be pushing for the patcher to come out when it’s released but I wouldn’t count on that just yet.

The holo-comms system looks amazing and will hopefully open up options for placing monitors around the cockpit to keep an eye on side/rear camera views. This is what it’s all about, when new tech comes in and things get recoded to work better, older systems have to be updated to allow for the current new features and future improvements in game to various aspects that the tech touches on. I think that this is the patch we’ve all been waiting for, except for me, I’m really about that cutlass blue hype. We’ll know more as August does what it does and we’ll be all over the gamescom situation. Again, until then..

“Odd man out.” -Lord Corwin