TNGS Dogfight Special episode 1.2

Check in with the Star Citizen team as they work on getting ready for PAX East!

------------------------------------------

Roberts Space Industries is a spacecraft manufacturer within the persistent-world game "Star Citizen" and its companion single-player spaceflight sim, "Squadron 42." RSI is also your portal for information, updates, and purchases of your very own spacecraft with which to trade, plunder, and protect the citizens of Star Citizen.

Be sure to visit Roberts Space Industries here and on your favorite social platform:

RSI - http://RobertsSpaceIndustries.com
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/RobertsSpaceIndustries
Twitter - https://twitter.com/RobertsSpaceInd
Google+ - https://plus.google.com/115090625624883320504/posts

Sandi Gardiner: Hey everyone, welcome to episode 2 of the Dogfighting Special.

Ben Lesnick: I'm Community Manager for Star Citizen.

My job is to provide a conduit between the team that is hard at work on the Dogfighting Module right now,

and backers who have enabled us to make this game.

So keeping you guys informed, letting you know what the team's up to,

and letting the team know what your concerns are.

Sandi: I've organized the Boston Royale, which is the party, which about 1200 people are coming to,

I have organized the shared booth with Logitech.

Paul Reindell: I'm the Lead Programmer here in LA,

so I'm overseeing all the different programmers who are working on the different game systems,

and I'm also working on the game systems of course.

Mark Abent: I am doing all sorts of things for the Dogfighting Module ranging from weapons, to ship damage,

to simple script editing, to debugging why animations aren't working.

You name it, gameplay wise I'm there.

Chris Smith: Well I'm in charge of modeling and texturing some of the ships.

I'm also helping out with quality control, you know from our outsourcers and other modelers.

Sandi: I organized all the boy's flights and hotel accommodations, the door list, inviting hardware partners,

getting the ten towers so that you guys can have a little bit of a dogfight with

some of our devs or with some of the other players.

Which were thankfully donated by Alienware.

Just getting those towers right with enough memory power and graphics power was quite a challenge.

Travis Day: For the Dogfighting Module, primarily my responsibility is

making sure all of the tasks and the schedules are being hit,

outlining what we're set to accomplish in a given time period, making sure that everybody accomplishes that.

And since we are such a large organization with lots of different studios,

a large part of my time is actually occupied by making sure that I'm communicating with every individual team leader at

all the different groups to make sure everybody is marching towards the same goal and accomplishing their tasks.

Forrest Stephan: Currently I'm working with our VFX artist to get all the special effects into the game.

I'm making sure all the special effects are hooked up properly and

playing in the right places for all the damage states,

making sure all the maneuvering thrusters, the engine thrusters,

everything's looking right, everything's working right.

I'm working with environment artists to make sure that our first space scenes are looking top notch.

Then also working with all of the artists with PBR, making sure all our materials are set right,

and making sure all the lighting's working with the materials.

Chris Roberts: Sitting around drinking some coffee taking it easy.

No, lot's of things. So obviously reviewing all the work that everyone's doing on the project,

and we've actually got most of our studios helping out on the Dogfighting module.

The charge is being lead here in Los Angeles where we've actually brought a fair number of

people from the Austin office to help.

The Austin office is also working hard on Dogfighting.

Montreal, Behavior, is helping out on aspects of the dogfighting, so some of the UI and HUD stuff.

Our first person shooter partners are also helping out with some of the camera stuff for the dogfighting,

and the UK is working very hard on the dogfighting.

They're helping create the levels that we'll be able to dogfight in.

So it's pretty much a full pan-company effort, and obviously I'm overseeing most of that on

the high level creative and also in a lot of ways the day-to-day tasking.

Then on top of that, in the extra hours, not that have many in a day, I'm actually doing a decent amount of coding.

So I've been working on the destruction system.

I'm actually working on the serialization of the destruction across the network.

And I'll be working on lots of other cool things that hopefully you'll get to experience.

What is the biggest challenge for this launch?

Forrest: The biggest challenge is taking all this new tech that we have, the PBR.

Our lighting has changed with the PBR,

our damage states have evolved and become way better, but more complicated.

So it's going through every single aspect and bringing it together to

get everything to work together the way it should.

Ben: We have a huge community of people who are eager to do nothing but

start killing each other in the Dogfighting module,

and my job is to keep them happy and reasonable until they can start doing that.

Mark: The biggest challenge right now is making sure everything works in multiplayer.

Especially making sure things are synced across the clients.

We don't want things where one guy might see a ship blow up, and the other guy sees a perfectly healthy ship.

Paul: Our project grew so big, so we have tons of features we want to bring into the game,

and we're on a pretty tight schedule so the biggest challenge is

making sure that all those systems make it into the dogfight.

It's kind of crazy and also challenging, but it pushes us really to throw out something cool for you.

Of course you know there's tons of people who are totally into the game and

want to see something cool, so it's challenging but exciting.

Chris Smith: The biggest challenge would be the technical aspect that we're dealing with right now.

Our ships are very complex, there's a lot of things that move and the fidelity is really high.

So it just makes everything more complicated in that way.

But we're working through it, and it's fun, it's a fun process, it's good.

Chris Roberts: Getting the game to work over the internet via the cloud server.

So we're still working on that, and that's obviously gonna be the backbone of what the final game's gonna use.

It just has challenges in terms of debugging.

So normally when we debug locally, it's much easier, we have more information,

but once we start to put it up in the cloud and we start to use

what we call a "release" build verses what we call a "profile" or "debug" build,

there's a lot less information for our programmer to look at to see why something crashed.

So you sort of do "caveman" debugging in those cases, where you figure out what areas it

crashed in and then narrow it down rather than open up the debugger and take a look at it very easily.

That's probably one of the bigger challenges, and then just getting all the different people that are

working on this to work together in such a way that they're not just stepping on each other's toes.

And finally I think there's a lot of things to get done and polished for the dogfight,

so I don't think we're gonna have everything polished the way I want it for the PAX event,

but hopefully not too far after the PAX event, we'll get everything to the point where I feel comfortable.

Travis: I think one of our biggest challenges for the Dogfighting Module is making sure

we provide something that meets our own expectations internally.

A lot of us come from a background where this whole crowdfunding, open development is new for us,

so we have a desire to make the most polished, perfect release we can,

'cause we only get one opportunity for a first impression.

But we need to balance that realistic expectation against the fact that our community's behind us,

and they support us, and they want to see everything that

we're working on in progress, and help us with that process.

So that's a bit of a balancing act when we're determining what we want to release, and

how it's gonna be scoped and how much polish is too much polish,

and how much we should just let go out the door.

What is it like to develop a game and have 400,000 fans watching your every move?

Ben: It's an incredible responsibility, but it's the best way to develop games that I've seen so far.

Just being able to connect directly to all these 400,000 people and know what they want.

It's so much better than working in quiet behind the curtain of some publisher.

Travis: It is very stressful because we hold ourselves probably to the highest level of

accountability for making it fun, making it polished, making it an enjoyable experience.

That's what we're all here to do, to share Chris' vision,

and share our individual contributions with the community and

have it received as we would want it to be received as gamers ourselves.

Forrest: It's nervous... No it's awesome, I love it. It's absolutely fantastic.

It's exciting to know that when we do something, there will be that many people actually playing it.

Background: Hey mark.
Mark: Hey.

[Unintelligible]
Mark: Is it fish?

Background: Probably.
[Laughing]

Background: Knowing so, yeah, alright, thanks bro.

Mark: It's not so bad until you go on to Reddit and go uh-oh,

community's in an uproar over something, what can we do to resolve it?

But for the most part, what I'm doing won't be seen until PAX, so the pressure's on.

Chris Smith: Sometimes it can be nerve-wracking I guess, it's definitely different.

The previous game I worked at was very under wraps, and usually everything is very quite and hush-hush

until you get to a certain point in the game where you begin to show things to the audience.

With this project, it's the exact opposite, where we're very up front and everything.

That part I do enjoy, I like showing the process and everything,

and I think the audience enjoys it too, so that's cool.

Chris Roberts: It is fun and challenging.

I mean it's nice to know there are that many people out there who are really excited by the game,

that invested in it this early in the process.

Normally you don't get that kind of support so early.

It's affirming that we're doing something that people like and really care about,

and so that's really great.

It's a little intimidating because you want to make sure you're gonna have something that

everyone's gonna like, and that's a lot of people to please.

But I much prefer doing it this way than the past development I've done.

Who is the best dogfighter in the office?

Chris Smith: Definitely not me.

Paul: I don't want to say it's me, but I'm pretty good, and Brandon is also pretty good.

Ben: Paul Reindell, no question.

Forrest: It's Paul Reindell.

Travis: I have definitely seen Paul Reindell dominate pretty well.

Mark: I swear it's Paul, but only because he's cheating.
[Laughs]

Forrest: Because he actually has access to doing all the hacks when he launches the server.

Mark: He gets the servers up, but he kills everyone. I'm pretty sure he's cheating.

Paul: That's because the other guys, they suck so they need some excuse, "Oh, he's cheating."

Travis: I would also say Chris can be quite deadly at times.

It depends on whether you catch him on a good day or not, but him and Paul are probably the two tops.

Chris Roberts: It's too early in our playtests, because we've got too many elements like

the missiles weren't working, now they're working, now they're overpowered.

We've got a new flight system that's actually I think once it's all in, everyone is gonna be really happy,

And it also has different modes that it can switch between, and some of that's still

getting fleshed out to work over the network properly so it's smooth and works great.

So we've never really had a dogfight that could say "this is how it's going to be,"

Paul Reindell probably gets more kills than the rest of the team here in LA,

that's mostly because he's the Lead Programmer.

He's running the server on his machine, so he has a little extra advantage.

Ask me that once we've got everything smoothly working together, and

the final flight model, and the different modes.

I'm hoping there will be people fighting with different styles and it will be pretty cool.

Are you going to participate in the Dogfight?

Sandi: Are people going to be able to dogfight me? I need to practice beforehand.

So I'm gonna have to try to get enough practice in before then. We'll see.

What are you most looking forward to in Boston?

Ben: It's just gonna be a great time, it'll be my first time back on the east coast in quite a while.

I was at Gamescom last year, that was an incredible experience.

I want to get that energy back, just sharing with the community what we've been working on,

getting it out there, letting them get their hands on it, and seeing how they react. I'm very excited.

Forrest: Finally getting to see fans play the game, that's what we're doing it for.

Mark: I'm looking forward to meeting all the fans and getting their input on the Dogfight Module.

Paul: Hopefully we will show a pretty cool Dogfight Module in Boston.

Sandi: In Boston I'm really excited to see the fans, the orgs.

I'm really excited to reveal what we've been working on really hard this whole time,

and I just, it's nice to be a part of it.

Chris Smith: Just showing off the game and showing it to people.

Showing them what we've accomplished so far.

Travis: Most importantly with any of our fan events, having gone to Gamescom and now

going to Boston, I'm really looking forward to interacting with the community.

There's no way to express how invigorating it is to go and meet with our fans to hear what

they're excited about, and I know that sounds like a PR line, but it really is true.

I mean a lot of times in game development, we don't get the opportunity to meet

our fans until after the game's released. So this is a really good way,

and it really helps to inspire the team when you get to see how many people are

really excited about it, and how many people are as fired up as we are.

It really helps to push ourselves to the highest possible quality goals.

Chris Roberts: What am I looking forward to in Boston?

Well they've got good seafood in Boston.

It will just be nice, it'll be nice to do the PAX event and meet a whole bunch of people who

have helped make this game a reality, and show them what we've been working on in the dogfight.

So the event is something that I'm looking forward to, and I hope its going to be a good one.

We had a great time in Gamescom in Cologne last year for the hangar,

so I'm hoping to be able to have the same fun and feeling and meet everyone and

have a good time like we did back then in Boston. So I guess I'm looking forward to the event.

The Next Great Starship.

Dan Gheesling: Hey guys, it's Dan, I've been checking with the teams and

they've been making a ton of progress. Let's find out how far they've come.

Tri-Tri: Hi Sandi, How you guys doing out there Star Citizen fans?

This is EPhalanx with Tri-Tri, we want to give you a quick update and also say thank you to

everybody who's been helping us out with all the great support and

feedback that we've seen on the forums.

We're kind of in the grey box phase, and if you know what that is, that's basically where

everything is untextured, there's no color or anything, but we're working out the animations,

we're working out how all the mechanics fit together. So that's where we're at right now.

We're kind of just taking some of the feedback that we're getting from everybody,

coalescing it all, putting it together, trying to get one consistent look for you guys,

at least so we know where we're all headed.

Thanks guys again, and we're gonna see you in the verse, peace.

Troyka: Hello citizens! This is Alexander of team Troyka.

I would've liked to start this video cheerfully, but I know it's not easy.

There is a lot of bad blood surrounding my team.

I'm not proud of it. We are not proud of it, but it does not change what we intend to do.

We are going to work, we will do our best to deliver the best starship we can.

The work proceeds slowly. It's not perfect. We are not perfect,

but we are hardbent on we intend to do.

It was pointed out our process isn't quite clear. I would like to explain it out for a bit.

Normally, models are produced like this.

It's simple, straightforward, and effective.

Since the concept is the first thing ready, it's easy to tweak it before moving on to implementation.

Our process is a bit different. Not "better" different mind you,

but "we'll only fit into the time limit this way" different.

Essentially we make two 3D models, once concept, one ready for integration.

While it allows us to work a bit more efficiently, given the fact that our concept is made in 3D,

it takes a lot more time than most concepts do. It makes our work a bit hard to present beforehand.

However, here are a few shots of what we are doing right now.

Currently the tail section of the ship is completed, ready for integration and texturing,

as well as the troop compartment.

Our concept artist is working on the cockpit, from there he'll move on to the hull, and finally to the turrets.

Tallon: Hello Star Citizens, Tallon corporation here.

Thanks again for voting me in off the save, that was awesome.

So far, since then, I've set up a forum, and obviously there's been a lot of feedback on that from the community.

The next couple slides that you're about to see will be in line with some of

the changes that people have highlighted in that stage.

So obviously the ship now is much more in line with the original specs,

and there's a lot more functionality, and depth, and detail, and stuff that I've modeled into it.

So this can only be a briefing, but thanks again, and hopefully you enjoy the designs, and

the iterations to come, and the changes that I've made so far.

So yeah, Tallon corporation signing off, see you in the 'verse.

SkyGuard: Greetings fellow citizens, this is Elwin from SkyGuard Fabrication.

I'm currently hard at work putting together the Gardian AX-2.

I want to extend a huge thank you to everyone out there in the community who've

been putting out so much support for me in this competition, I really appreciate it.

It's a lot of work, but knowing that people are enjoying the work that

I'm putting out really makes it all worth it.

Part of the challenge was not just to design the mercenary gunship,

but to design the ship from the perspective of one of the manufacturers.

So you'll notice that the AX-2 really is a response to that design, and the spirit, for me anyway,

in this competition is to make a ship that looks great,

but that also really is part of the universe, from the ground up.

It was important to me to make a lot of these big, sweeping changes to the original design,

to make sure that the ship that I put together really did feel like it was part of the universe.

So again, thank you for all the feedback, please keep it coming.

It's a huge help just to know that people are looking at the work and have opinions about the work,

and sometimes it helps me see things that I didn't see myself.

So I really appreciate it. It's a great help and it's a huge motivator to know that everyone's

really excited about it and we're all going through this competition together in a sense.

Sandi: Hey everyone, don't forget, The Next Great Starship is back on Friday April 18th.

With only 12 teams remaining, the competition is really heating up.

See you soon.