I am Chris Roberts, creator of Wing Commander, Freelancer and the upcoming Star Citizen. AMA.

This is a question from AFKeefer who could not be at the AMA.

I (AFKeefer) am currently deployed to Afghanistan, and this AMA falls right in the middle of the night over here.

Mr. Roberts, a big thank you for bringing this game to us, even the prospect of what you're trying to do has restored my faith in PC gaming. I have a question about the flight mechanics:

1. How big of a role is inertia going to play in this game? I'm not talking about surface level stuff like "big ship moves slower," I'm talking about digging deep into the physics engine. For example: Are long, skinny ships going to able to barrel roll quickly, but flip end for end much slower?

2. Is a fully loaded cargo bay going to affect our ability to speed up and slow down vice our maneuvering capabilities when our ship is unloaded?

3. Is there going to be an inertial dampening system that we could purchase and/or upgrade to mitigate these effects?

4. Are ships like the fighter shown in many of the demos with that massive wing on the right side going to have flight characteristics commensurate with such a design, like an offset center of gravity?

1. Real inertia is used for all the calculations - the ship's computer is calculating the needed thrust based on the ship's current moment of inertia - which is re-calculated anytime the ship has a part added or taken away. So yes longer skinnier ships should roll quicker (assuming the same powered maneuvering thrusters)
2. Yes (see above)
3. I think its less about a dampening system and more about your engine / thruster ratings and modifications. There will probably be some kind of dampening system for G-Forces though (I know there isn't gravity in space - G-Force is just a good short hand way of referring to the forces exerted on the pilot by violent maneuvers)
4. Yes. The Vanduul fighter actually needed specific balancing and placement of the maneuvering jets as when we first brought her into the engine she was like a NASCAR - always pulling to one side :-)

Hi Chris Roberts, I have a several questions regarding a couple aspects of the game so I hope you can answer as many as you can or willing, I prepared these ahead of the AMA start.

Citizenship:

1. I take it there will be a full range of gear able to be purchased without the need of having citizenship, but will there be gear specifically for citizens? Quoted Answer: There will be some stuff that only citizens can buy. There is also likely to be some stuff that is only sold to people on the wrong side of the law too!

2. If there is citizen specific gear, will there be multiple tiers of citizenship (higher tiers for better gear)? Quoted Answer: Haven't considered this, but likely yes - think of it like a security clearance - the higher the clearance the more juicy stuff you are allowed to see

3. Again, if so, will there be a Black Market for pirates or people wanting to buy higher gear than they can buy legally? This could really help towards making altercations between citizens and outlaws more interesting. Quoted Answer: Yes - this is definitely part of the plan.

4. Again if above is true, if a citizen buys gear higher than his tier, how will secured citizen space react to this? IE, if scanned by patrol you are told you have gear equipped you are not authorized to have. If say, you have gear thats 1 tier above yours, will the patrol let you off with a warning? If 2 tiers higher, will you pay a fine? If 3 or more tiers, will you have it confiscated? If you don't have citizenship at all, might it be confiscated regardless (unless you fight and run away to freedom) Obviously if you're freespace (no security), your free to do as you wish. How might this mechanic work? Quoted Answer: I don't think their will be a penalty for this. It's just going to cost you more if you've bought it on the black market. There could be some repercussions for having a Citizen Friend of Foe transmitter when you're not a Citizen or Pirate however

5. Will there be citizen specific ships? (obviously pledge ships won't have citizen requirements) Quoted Answer: Not decided yet, but probably. There will also be Pirate specific ships.

6. Will there be more than one faction/Corporation/government to which you can earn citizenship to or will there only be the one faction? Quoted Answer: Citizenship is earned in the UEE - so its not tied to a faction or corp.

7. If there is more than one faction, can you earn and hold more than one citizenship at the same time? Or can you only choose one and have to stick with it? Unless there's a way to strip your citizenship; Is there? Quoted Answer: See above

8. If you don't have citizenship, will you have restrictions to what systems you are allowed to access? Quoted Answer: Citizenship wont restrict system access - it may affect the protection you will get and the missions you are offered - and perhaps a few location s you can or can not access on a planet.

9. Will there be a criminal record system that will affect how the universe and empire reacts to you? Quoted Answer: Most definitely

10. If so, if you made some mistakes through your career that resulted in you earning a bad record, will there be a way to clear your record? (ie. similar to the way freelancer did it) Quoted Answer: Yes, you can work to clean your record - there will be opportunity for bribes, "community" service and so on

These questions are of real interest to me as I've been wondering how you were going to incorporate the citizenship mechanic.

Exploration and Guilds/Squadrons:

Answered in other posts If the game is set up to use mostly autopilot, how will navigation work for exploring? A. Look at next 3 lines for answers.

Answered in other posts can we set up custom nav points on our nav computer? A. No

Answered in other posts Can we scan down systems to locate hidden points of interest? (ie jump points, derelict bases etc.) A. Yes

Answered in other posts Will travel be more like privateer (ie autopilot) or Freelancer (ie lanes) A. Privateer

1. How big could we expect a typical star system to be?

2. I understand you will have derelict bases for capture hidden around, but I was wondering if it would be possible to build your own starbases. IE I set a custom nav point in a system and fly to (somewhere off the beaten path) and I want to build a base of operations for my group/squadron.. Would this be possible or would I be confined to trying take over someone else's base or find an undiscovered one (if one even exists that hasn't already been found and inhabited)?

3. Will we be able to take control of and own our own star systems? (by strength of force obviously)

Thank you in advance for taking the time to read this and for answering as many as you are willing. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts to these question.

Citizenship 1. There will be some stuff that only citizens can buy. There is also likely to be some stuff that is only sold to people on the wrong side of the law too!

1. Haven't considered this, but likely yes - think of it like a security clearance - the higher the clearance the more juicy stuff you are allowed to see

3.Yes - this is definitely part of the plan.

4.I don't think their will be a penalty for this. It's just going to cost you more if you've bought it on the black market. There could be some repercussions for having a Citizen Friend of Foe transmitter when you're not a Citizen or Pirate however.

1. Not decided yet, but probably. There will also be Pirate specific ships.

2. Citizenship is earned in the UEE - so its not tied to a faction or corp.

3. See above

4. Citizenship wont restrict system access - it may affect the protection you will get and the missions you are offered - and perhaps a few location s you can or can not access on a planet.

5. Most definitely

6. Yes, you can work to clean your record - there will be opportunity for bribes, "community" service and so on

Apologies if this falls too far outside of the line of questioning you're getting here...

What are your overall thoughts on the Wing Commander movie (the Freddie Prinz Jr. one)? Were you forced to compromise too many things to get it done?

I enjoyed the movie, but it didn't feel like a "true" Wing Commander movie to me. Thanks for your time.

The Wing Commander movie was not the movie I saw in my head when I developed it so it was disappointing as on my games I pretty much always manage to realize the picture in my head on the screen.

I think there was a combination factors that contributed to this 1) My inexperience as a film director. I had directed live action for WC3 and WC4 but a film is a whole other level of subtly and finesse.

2) I needed a producer that could do more than just do a good deal. I needed someone to help me on the set, to tell me hey Chris I know you want to do these 10 things but we only have money to do 5 things really well. So let's pick what they are and knock them out of the park and cut the others. This is what a strong creative producer does, and its what I've tried to do for other directors I've worked with over the last 10 years.

3) We had a ridiculously short pre-production timeline. The movie wasn't greenlit until December and we were in production towards the end of February - we basically had under 3 months of pre-production, which for a complicated sci-fi movie is way too short. Most films like this have 6 months, some much longer. Its why the Kilrathi and a lot of other stuff ended up being cut - we didn't get to test / work them out in pre-production, so we had to rely on what we got - and a lot of it just didn't work. Originally we had more time but when Fox signed the deal to distribute the next three Star Wars films from Lucas, they insisted that we deliver before SW Ep 1 so they could release before hand. So we were given a 1998 Dec delivery date. Given the time needed for the VFX we had to move up the shoot date.

4) I gave into some of the studio's casting choices. In the same situation I would not. They were very keen to bring in all the young horror fans that were seeing movies like Scream and I know what you did Last Summer - but that really wasn't the Wing Commander audience.

If I made the movie today it would be 10x better... I've learnt a lot over the last ten years and have matured as person / story teller. Having said that there are still some things in it that I'm quite proud of - there's some really great visual moments. But I would do a better job of the emotion and feeling if I was making it today.

Hi CR, I know you get this a lot but you're a darn PC hero :)

1. Can you list all the scenarios in which backers will receive the Electro Skin? Many people are confused as to whether they'll receive it automatically if they pledge on both the RSI site and Kickstarter, or whether such backers will still need to get the $5 digital add-on.

2. Will pledge ships and items be transferable in the game? Take for instance, a backer who chooses both a Mercenary tier on Kickstarter as well as on the RSI site. If they give the second copy of the game to someone, will they still be able to keep both Aurora ships and the combined 2000 credits for themselves on the one account?

3. Does getting the Citizen Card pledge rewards mean that when the game comes out, owners of such cards will be granted instant citizenship?

4. What factors affect maneuverability and speed? Regardless of other factors, does lower ship weight mean faster speeds and greater mobility? The Origin 300i has more thrusters than the Hornet but of a lower level; would it be correct to say then that the 300i would be more agile, but slower?

5. What can you tell us about the storyline/plot of the game, both before and after the $4 million stretch goal? This is what I'm looking forward to the most! :)

Thank you in advance! Myself and I'm sure the Star Citizen community as well are eager to see what you say- you and the team are a group of incredible minds.

1. You need to buy the skin either on KS or the RSI site to get it. Originally the skin was added so RSI backers could support the KS in a cheap way, but then all the KS folks (Or people that couldn't use KS) wanted to get the skin too, so we added it to the RSI site.
2. You will be able to transfer ships and money in game (for a small in game title fee) and we will enable you to "gift" a copy of the game (no title fee- that's for something you've flown). We're figuring out how best to do gifting right now as that's a big request.
3. You'll still have to earn the status in-game via Squadron 42 or SC gameplay. Think of the card like a physical preview of what you'll be earning in game. Plus we're going to use it for fun things like entrance to special fan events etc at places like Gamescon or PAX
4. That's not fully balanced yet, so its a little hard to say - I wouldn't say the 300i would be more maneuverable though - the Hornet is derived from a military dogfighter. The 300i, if light enough maybe able to outrun though.
5. Story for Squadron 42 or Star Citizen?

Hi Chris, so looking forward to SC. In your videos you use an Xbox Controller do you favour that over a Joystick?

Not necessarily. Its just much easier traveling with a gamepad!

You could use a joystick and mouse and / or keyboard for look...

Coolest will be something like the Rift + HOTAS + Leap

Please ensure you allow real-time (i.e., don't have to save setting, play, go back to tweak) and granular sensitivity and deadzone settings in-game. I dusted off my x52 earlier today, and the biggest issue i ran into was that the in-game settings were not sufficiently detailed, and i was forced to constantly alt tab out and modify settings in windows itself (which would then screw it up for input on other games.)

Can't stress enough how important it is to let windows settings handle the baseline stuff only, and handle all tweaking, at a detailed, granular level, on each individual game, for the simple fact that what works for one doesn't for another, because they all translate the raw inputs slightly differently.

You'll be able to tweak in game - CryEngine is set up for that. Relying on Windows would be a mistake :-)

Hi Chris, first let me preface what I'm about to ask by saying that you are far and away the most important game playing influence in my life, and I'm glad you're back.

I've also been voracious in seeking out information about Star Citizen and read (as well as asked) lots of questions and answers. To that end, a though recently occurred to me while reading a QA session from Kickstarter. You mention you want the game to be very very highly based on player skill rather than an in game skill set, and I agree with this approach to a significant degree.

However, and this is where my question comes in to play: There are aspects of the game that could (Depending on the direction you go) be needing some sort of in game skill modifier. For example, not just any joe-shmoe should be able to fix a highly complex anti-matter engine, but just about anyone could theoretically know how to weld hull plates into place over a breech...

Could you see a situation where the repairing part of the game (As an example) does carry a skill tree? It is outside of the core mechanics, and it could definitely open up career options for PC's as ship mechanics on top of everything else that is out there. I would never want a skill tree to impact the flying, exploring or trading, but there are area's of the universe that could be brought to life using them as an 'auxiliary' piece in the puzzle.

This may come across as an unpopular opinion as well, and I certainly don't view it as a 'required' thing that should be in, but it might be an option worth looking at. Thoughts?

On the bigger ship's we'll let the players perform some repair actions on damaged parts (or they have a droid do it R2D2 style)

Dogflighting and customizing your ship definitely wont be skill tree based, but we may require you take some flying tests (basically training missions) to fly higher rated hulls / ships.

Not sure if you'll have to buy or learn something like a repair skill either. That's yet to be decided.

Will Star Citizen have Linux/Mac ports or just Windows only?

It depends on Crytek and having the engine support OpenGL as well as DirectX. There may be some good news int he near future as we've discussed it with Crytek and they themselves want to address this.

Are planets/moons gonna play any factor in the game? Do they work like stations? or are they just there for eyecandy?

Is seamlessly landing on planets a feature that might come along down the road? (I'm guessing no. But hey! The more immersion the better.)

You wont be able to seamlessly land on a planet from free flight (but we will have a nice in engine cinematic that feels fairly seamless).

Planets are really your "save" points and where you go to trade, upgrade your ship and get missions / hear gossip of profitable trade runs or pirating opportunities.

I was looking at the ship information and noticed that the Hornet says "Crew (max): 1" but has 2x Class 4 Hardpoints. Wouldn't that mean the max potential crew should be 3? (The Freelancer has a max of 2 crew due to it's 1 Class 4 hardpoint I thought)

Not all turrets can be manned by players. So in the case of the Hornet the two turrets are controlled by the pilot via his look, similar to how the Apache Attach Helicopter does it.

Hi, Chris. Thanks for making great games!

1. Which Wing Commander-universe game is your favorite? What do you think you did best in it to stand out compared to the other ones?

2. We hear you had a demo/meeting with the Oculus Rift team recently -- what did you think?

3. Is there any chance of seeing some preliminary information about how you want to implement jump point exploration/charting? There's speculation that you'll have to fly/maneuver through some kind of course, is that wholly or partially accurate?

4. There are lots of popular space settings out there -- what are your favorite aspects of some of them that you admire and want to draw inspiration from?

5. When you approach ship balancing, will the goal be to have, say, an eight-man ship balance against 8 single man fighters, assuming similar skill levels and all posts manned?

Thanks for your time, Chris -- I'm eagerly awaiting concept art for the pledge ships; Nothing sells the project to potential pledgers like pretty art to drool over!

1. Wing Commander 1 is my favorite as its the closet to perfection in any game I've made - what I saw in my head was the game that was made, and pretty much everything worked out (like the missions) with almost no tinkering balancing. 2.Oculus Rift is pretty awesome - the consumer model will be even better (as the prototype one is till a little too low res) . We're definitely supporting
2. Not right now, but it will be skill based and require piloting skill.
3. I assume you mean TV, movies and books? I'm obviously a big fan of Star Wars (ep IV - VI), Alien& Aliens On the TV front I liked Firefly & BSG (I even liked the original BSG!) bookwise on Sci-fi Asimov (Foundation), Larry Niven (Ringworld), Ursula K Le Guin (Left Hand of Darkness). The Forever War (Joe Haldeman) was a big inspiration for Wing Commander
   
4. Balance wont strictly be 8 map ship vs 8 fighters. In the real world the fighters would probably win that match. I think different size ships will have different pros and cons. Bigger ships will be more about carrying more cargo and having more options to upgrade , but 4 people manning a Constellation will probably lose against 4 Hornets.

Thanks, Chris! Funny, I've never heard of The Forever War. Off to buy a book!

If you're around for a quick clarification, will ship maneuverability factor into charting new jumps? That question mostly stemmed from people wondering what makes the Freelancer a better exploration vessel than the Constellation, since it seems the Constellation might be faster based on the listed specs.

Yes some ships will be better at charting a new jump than others. Won't necessarily be about speed though. More the ability to make quick micro flight path changes but you also need to have a strong enough hull to withstand the various forces that will be trying to tear it apart - especially as you move away from the optimal trajectory

While I see what you mean about four Hornets being able to defeat one fully manned Constellation, that seems like it would make it a kind of stupid decision for four people to decide to man one ship. I mean, in real life, there would be a gigantic monetary reason for something like that. (Assuming that the Constellation would cost significantly less than four smaller ships.) But in a game where basically everyone will own their own ship, it raises the question, "Why would four people ever fly together?"

I mean, it sounds fun as heck to do something like that. But if the mechanics punish doing so, it kinda hurts the idea.

But I guess it also doesn't make much sense for the Constellation to be able to easily take four Hornets or something. So I'm not sure where I'm really going with this. Apparently I'm just rambling without having any actual suggestions.

Flying with your friends is more about helping out someone in need, or in the case of something like the Constellation if you have 3 sets of player eyes and hands (short range fighter, turret with 360 degree field of fire) you will operate at peak efficiency. You can do well with one player - but if you want to beat say 3-4 enemy fighters , having real players vs AI will be a big leg up

Hey Chris, first of all... i want to say how very thankfull we all are to finally get a SpaceSim Game again ! Now to my Question: Do you plan on bringing back the Trade Gates from Freelancer ?? I loved them.. it was an easy way to navigate and also was good for Pirates to lurk on others.. of Course there should be an alternative for players wich is slower..:D

I'm not sure we'll bring the trade gates back but there will definitely be some well trodden trade routes, and maybe some other more dangerous ones that represent a short cut (say 3 jumps in stead of 5 or 6) that a braver merchant can take

First off, congratulations on the success of your campaign, I can't wait to try the game.

Question: We've all seen the amazing things Cryengine has allowed you to do graphically, but what engine related limitations have you run in to, and how have/will you mitigate these issues?

Biggest issue with CryEngine - and pretty much all available AAA engines - if the scale / size issue of space. Most engines are built for FPS action on maps that are just a few km in size. Star Citizen covers a much larger area, even in one battle instance. So we needed expand the coordinate system so floating point imprecision doesn't become a factor at bigger distances away from the origin.

Please make sure CryEngine is properly optimized for SLI and Crossfire, as well as Multi-Cores GPU and CPU

That's my major concern.

Don't worry it will be! Its a major focus for me (as I develop on a Intel 3960x hexacore OC with GTX680SLI)

If possible, could you also make sure that the game is at least somewhat scalable for lower end PCs? Not low end, but mid-range. I've got a first generation Core i7 with a single GTX 570, and it would be pretty frustrating if that wasn't enough to push the game on at least low settings or something. :p

It will - Advantage of a space game is that it scales down pretty easily- We already have multiple levels of LOD - so on lower spec machines you wont get the 7M poly carrier - but it will still look pretty damn good (as we will be able to have more polys than a normal AAA game as you don't need to have any polys for the environment as space is empty - which gives you a boost on what you can afford for ships and caharcters)

How is exploration going to be handled with the auto-pilot system? In order to set something as your destination, wouldn't you have to know that it was there?

Or are there probes that you can send out to locate unmapped stuff in a system?

The exploration part starts in known places / locations. As an example using something from the games lore, you would be able to navigate to the area of space called the Neso triangle. After some flying around / scanning you may find a gravitational anomaly. On further investigation you would realize its an uncharted jump point, which you could then try to navigate. If you do, then on your nav map that jump will now become a proper location...

Considering the unexpected (to me, at least) high percentage of players that are interested in exploration (28%), what changes are you making to your plans on ensuring that exploration is a rewarding and sustainable career in SC?

We probably should have let people chose multiple choices as that's what the game lets you do, as I suspect its not just about exploration.

But I think we'll do the obvious things like the discovery of jump points / systems, but also having hidden locations / items inside systems - maybe in an asteroid field, maybe cloaked in a nebula - that people can search for.

And if and when we add a new alien race beyond the already established ones, we could let first contact go to the person that first arrives in that system

Hi Chris, thanks for doing this again. My question may be a bit uncomfortable, but I hope you can answer it anyway.

This game, the way you and your team have described it so far is going to be an extremely ambitious project. So much so, that I cant help but draw comparisons to Peter Molyneux and his Fable (as well as many other VG projects) where a whole lot was promised but as game development began and certain realities kicked in, features were scaled back and/or disappeared altogether.

1) What steps are you taking to ensure that this doesn't happen with your game?

2) If push comes to shove and you have to cut some features, what would be the first on the chopping block?

The difference between this and Fable is that it is intended as an online continually updated and developed game, rather than a fixed amount of functionality and content that will go onto a disc. So all the features may not make it for day 1 but we will bringing on as much and as many as we can over the life of the universe.

There will be some features that will not make it as I'm sure some of my ideas wont work out once we start testing them with real users, and there will be some I haven't talked about will be in the game that everyone will wonder how we could have ever conceived not having.

Part of the reason of doing this with community involvement from the start is to make sure the people that will be affected by some early choices have a voice int he process. Perhaps its feature A or feature B at launch. Backers will get a say in which feature is more important to them. Its not a perfect process but I think it will be the bets one for the long run - and as a lot of people have noted just a sub set of some the proposed functionality will be pretty awesome and I'm not going to stop until we get it all (that makes sense from a fun / payable / balancing standpoint)

Hey chris, thanks for doing this again!

Could you explain in detail more about the "instance" concept and how it will perform?

I am a bit concerned about it affecting immersion, and having almost top-down-rpg style encounters (i.e. final fantasy etc) that are random if you are continually dropping out of warp the second someone gets near to you. I am torn between forced interaction with others (which is good in some ways) and a more realistic thing about them appearing on your sensors and both choose to interact, avoid, or fight.

Your thoughts would be really appreciated!

Thanks again and I can't wait for this game!

You don't continually drop out of warp just because there is another player or hostile NPC near you in the persistent universe. The persistent universe server match creates battle instances based on several criteria - besides the usual skill and ship criteria it also takes into account whether you've already had an encounter during your journey. In more dangerous places you can drop out to fight more often than you woudl in safer ones

Could you expand on the "skill" criteria? Generally "skill-based" match making is extremely easy to exploit and abuse, not to mention the incentive to do poorly or make yourself seem weak so as to only run into weak opposition, thus avoiding any real threat or danger.

Hi Spork! Its too early to be specific as its a general concept and of course there will be people that game any kind of system. Its one of the biggest things we intend to work out during the dogfighting multiplayer alpha - we'll have some ideas, but we're going to see how all of you in the community feel about it and how to make it better. I'm sure whatever system that we all come up with together will have some flaws but we'll try our best (with all your input) to make it about as fair as you can

Hi Chris!

What will the criteria be for these instances? How will the system know who I want to engage in a battle with? I am a bit concerned that the following scenario might occur:

Say I am a law-abiding citizen, but today I see the opportunity to raid several Empire ships and steal their prescious cargo - I know their coordinates and follow them, however as the system never "matches" me in a fight with them, I have no real chance of attacking....

Furthermore, will players not participating in a battle be able to see other battles? If there is a limit of 100 places what will prevent players who are hovering by from entering other battles?

Thanks and good luck with the game development!

Well if you tag the ships, the system will know you want a fight with them and will enable that.

But I should clear one thing up - there is not going to be one instance of a massive star system that all players exist in in real-time 3D. No one can do this - not even Eve, which has a lower fidelity of data needed for the ship positions / actions.

Players will also not have the ability to specify an exact random location in space. They can navigate to known locations, or tag a ship they want to track or ambush (say you're in orbit around a planet, or you spot the pilot down on the planet).

The game will try its best to put friends and other ships of interest in the same dynamic instance - every space area - say orbiting a planet, an asteroid field, an ambush point etc. has only so many slots for live players - it is dynamically dropping people in and out of these instances based on their allegiances, specified interest / factions and skill level

You said: Players will also not have the ability to specify an exact random location in space

So you can't park yourself in space along the route from planet A to planet B to attempt to ambush anyone?

Rear Admiral Brian

You can go specified locations on your nav map - so an asteroid field to ambush someone is fine. You just cant tell your friends lets meet at space location X:292926,Y:1002822, Z:-238383

Does that make sense?

Damn. I was kinda hoping you could have your friends meet you in an empty part of space to hand off cargo that you are attempting to smuggle somewhere, for example.

Definitely not a deal-breaker though.

You should be able to this - your friends can join you in you instance by warping in (assuming there are enough slots left, but we always reserve some slots for friends)

I've some questions related to the ingame physics.

1. What parameter limits the top speed. Higher acceleration = higher top speed?

2. What parameter limits top angular velocity?

3. Is the center of mass constant for each hull or does it vary depending on what modules you've installed or in your cargo bay?

4. Can the bottom thrusters get damaged enough to not be able to hold the ship up at 1g downward pull? If yes, will that give the expected results when trying to land on a carrier deck?

5. How much does different modules impact the ship weight and how much of a weight difference is there between different modules. Ex: Fully equipped ship with the heaviest modules out there [module weight] = 1 * [Hull weight] and lightest modules possible [module weight] = 0,1 * [Hull weight].

Thanks for making such a cool looking game!

1. Its determined by the ship stats and the various engine / avionics system upgrades
2. A combination of the angular moment of inertia, the fly by wire system and the amount of Gs a human pilot can take
3. It varies
4. That is possible. And could cause some landing difficulties!
5. Not full determined as everything hasn't been designed and balanced - but the hull weight and module / cargo weight definitely play into the calculation s. I estimate it will be like an aircraft where half the weight can be air frame and half cargo.

Ideally I'd like to see a system similar to MechWarrior, where each component / modules carries a weight + slots space requirement within the hull of the ship

It does. Have you not checked out the early ship's design overview at http://www.robertsspaceindustries.com/ships-plan/?

1. How similar (or different) are the control for this going to be compared to something such as Freelancer?
   Barrel rolls would be the best example (say 'Q' is bound to roll counter-clockwise); if I let go of 'Q', is the ship going to automatically point and "thrust" the thrusters in a manner that will stop my ship from rolling as quickly as possible (based on ship mass, speed the thrusters can turn, and the force the thrusters can output), or am I going to have to use 'E' (say it is roll clockwise) to get myself out of the roll

2. Will be be able to "cut thrust" (like in Freelancer) and spin the ship so we're still projecting along the same path but can "fly backwards" and blast an enemy that's following us?

1. I think the Freelancer method will be in the direction of what will be in Star Citizen - there's a flight control system that tries to get you back to your default status (moving at a set speed in your orientation), but you can override this for special maneuvers if you want.
2. Yes (see above)

Could you tell us more about just how much there is in a single star system? Are there multiple distinct locations you can travel between (and how would you do that), or is it one very large area you can travel through freely with interesting features in different parts? If the system is very large, are there fast-travel mechanics besides jump points?

There will be multiple locations inside one star system - each planet will be a location, jump points will be locations, and various other space areas / landmarks like asteroid fields, nebulas, etc

We probably wont let you / be able to have this all in one continuous area as with the distances involved we will have some serious scale issues and floating point problems to overcome. Currently its set up that each one of these locations is its own space level / instance and they are linked by a higher level system map.

Plus it would be quiet boring to fly between them in real time.

I'm not ruling out a system that allows all this on the same map - but its not likely given the real world scales we are going for. We may do something that lets you fly in a direction and then after a while just streams in the new location though...

Hi Chris, again thanks for doing this game! What are you going to do to make sure that players like me, who don't want to be too much influenced my online play, be happy with the game?

There will areas that the persistent server stacks more to NPC encounters (PvE) than PvP. You'll gain greater reputation by negotiating the tougher areas though, which will be more towards PvP.

I'm also considering letting players set a rating on their willingness for PvP, if they want / like PvP and want to move up the leader boards the persistent universe server will match them against real people much more, but if you don't it will be more NPCs.

Will there be Mechanics to specially draw a specific Pilot in a Battle Instance we want to fight? Maybe a rich trader who just bought a lot of High Tech merchandise we wanted to buy and it was the only sell order and now we want to take it by force?

Yes - you should be able to tag persons of interest on a planet or in orbit and the game match makes you into an instance when you can ambush. Maybe you get sold a Merchant's trade route, allowing you to lie in wait and ambush him/her

Hi again Chris,

I've been thinking a little bit about squad play and how to make it as fun as possible. Say you have a squad of 8 people that are all on the same ship, it is quite possible then that the different people will have assigned roles; there will be a captain, someone who is in charge of sensors, figther pilots and so on. You have already talked about those roles and to some degree what their specific tasks would be on a multi-crew ship, but if we look at ships larger than the Constellation then it seems to me that there will be a need for more roles or some people will be left without any tasks to do. So if I'm part of this 8 squad ship and we play mainly as a explorers then a lot of our time will probably be spent just flying around looking for different things. If I happen to have the role of an engineer, a role that seems quite natural to a ship, will there be something for me to do?

I would love it if there was an engine room and that there was something in that room that I could interact with and where my interaction would have an effect on the ship. I understand that not all large ships will have large crews but it sounds fair to me to award those that do. I'm not personally a fan of mini-games but one idea is that there could be something that you could 'play' or just tinker with and if you do this correctly then the ship would have X% increase in power for Y minutes or something like that.

So to summarize I guess what I would like to see is a system that involves all crew members in the flying of the ship and where everyone can have a postive impact and not just the person who is piloting.

On bigger ships there will be things to do like make repairs in areas, or tweak the engines from the engine room, but the idea of having your friends with you is for the fun or it but its not an absolute requirement (other than say a big capital ship), so a lot of this could be handled by the ship's AI or from the pilot's / captain's chair if you don't have friends with you. But like anything complex, the more hands and eyes you have, especially in a combat situation the more effective you can be

@CR Can you expand some on the options for ship tender on the RSI Constellation? Are their any options / roles those options are built for, that have been proposed for different ships to use in the Constellation? Will there be any jump-capable ships that will fit?

Also, and somewhat related, will it be possible to exit our cockpits in space and use, say, a magnetic tether or thrust pack so as to be able to enter another ship (in particular, something like the Constellation with only a small bay?)

This also opens the door for troop carriers for boarding parties, and possibly even Babylon 5 style breaching pods (the way you're building all the ships would indicate to me that cutting an arbitrary hole in the hull for boarding purposes would be very much possible in this game.)

-- High Admiral Robert "Spork Witch" Klebes

No tender ships (In the Constellation) will be jump capable. Its strictly for short range space defense, or with a different ship maybe mining or something similar.

The engine actually allows this to happen - so it will be a matter of how to make it fun and playable - but I want to able to let you "space walk"

There will definitely be boarding parties - Not sure on an arbitrary breach point as while the ships are built with a huge amount of detail we don't model everything, so we'll probably have to limit your entrance points

Hey Chris,

I have a very important question about international(people outside of the US) pledgers.

I have pledged €100($125) and expecting word about the citizen cards soon!

What price will be listed on the package(or however it is being transported) for the physical goodies? This is important for taxes that I will have to pay for 'importing' a product from overseas.

You shouldn't have to pay taxes on the citizens card if you're in Europe as the value is well less than the minimum for customs tax. You'll need to spay shipping though.

We need to finish the campaign and then everyone can submit their info & picture for the Citizen's card and we'll try our best to get them out as soon as possible afterwards (there is a production delay and shipping time of course)

Where are you?

Please tell me about a game you truly hate and why.

Farmvillie - In fact all crappy social games that have no gameplay other than to make you mindlessly click to get low grade visual rewards and then delay you a while unless you want to feed them money.

Even the "core" Facebook games suck - Kixeeye I'm looking at you. If you're game isn't as fluid or fun as a PC RTS game made in the 90s like C&C you cant go around boasting about how your saving the world and making games for core gamers.

I gotta ask. This undertaking seems overwhelming for a game team lately. Do you plan to achieve all these goals on day one? Or are some of them going to get phased in? If so, which ones?

Thanks again, very looking forward to this.

It is a lot to do, but the advantage of being online and digital is that you don't need everything done on day 1 - its why we have staged things like a pure dogfighting MP alpha in 12 months, a Sq 42 SP play through Beta in 18-20 months and the Beta of the persistent universe in 20-24 months. My goal is to get things up and running and be constantly adding and improving while listening closely to the community.

What is your favorite thing right now about the Star Citizen project? And I mean anything - a favorite staff member, ship, thruster, desk, anything?

The interaction with the community - its pretty invigorating and is a greater focuser for the design issues!

Hey Chris, modeler here. Can you provide some input about the cryengine 3 license you're using? Since the free SDK isn't as open as it seems, I'll like know how did you manage to get such level of modifications on the engine.

Also: Are you using full DirectX 11 capabilities?

Its a full source code license and we're modified a lot of code that you don't have access to on the Free SDK - including some low level rendering engine stuff (a lot of this is needed for the scale of vehicles / objects and differences needed in the physics for such big distances / scales)

Yes, we're using full DirectX11 capabilities and will be working with nVidia and AMD to push the GPUs as much as possible.

Can you expand on the cockpit decorations at the $3.5m stretch goal? Bobbleheads and dinosaurs don't really interest me that much, but I'd like to be able to tuck a picture of the family into one of the instruments or something. Also, does this include things like nose art?

Its for in game flare - and it will include nose art and the like.

I know a lot of people don't think this is a "big" stretch goal, but there's a lot of systems work that goes into supporting player items / flare - especially in handling it for all the potential millions of players...

Will we be able to play in the sandbox world offline, or will we only be able to do the squadron 42 campaign.

On your own server you could have a limited version of it (like Freelancer)

But to play in the persistent SC universe you need to be online

Any word on Mac & Linux versions?

I've noticed that many successful kickstarters have been adding support and is a growing market.

I also read somewhere that Cryengine 3 has an internal build working for Linux which, if true, would make the porting process much easier.

Any comments about this would be very appreciated.

The server side of CryEngine can run on Linux. Unfortunately the client side currently does not and is tied to DirectX.

We've been discussing OpenGL with them for Linux and Mac reasons and they have some other licenses that also want to do it, so it may happen in the near future.

I am planning on building a simpit for use with Star Citizen. Are there any plans of providing a robust API that will allow us to create our own external interfaces? If all of the relevant data can be streamed out (and cockpit interface inputs accepted), I can guarantee you'll see player created applications ranging from iPad nav interfaces to full blown Hornet cockpit replicas. If immersion is truly a goal of this game, a solid documented API would be as big a step as Oculus Rift support.

I've just asked Ben, he told me to ask Chris. If you do plan an API, will it be a script based, C++ or Socket based API?

We would like to support this for modding anyway. Not sure whether it will be script, C++ or socket - its too early to say...

Congrats and best wishes so far in your campaign. The next few years is going to be exciting for PC gaming. Now a couple of questions.

1. There has been information regarding about following the physics and flight dynamics. One thing I haven’t seen, maybe I missed it, is talk of acceleration G-forces. While at a high speed in space you would feel nothing, but while accelerating to that high speed pilots would experience wild g-forces. Are things like blackouts or narrowing of vision during high G maneuvers something that you are looking at? Or is there some piece of technology in the ‘Universe’ which negates that effect? If Yes on the technology aspect, could that be something damageable and therefore disabling during dogfights?

2. In science fiction there are some obvious areas where inspiration comes from, I believe you have mentioned that you were hooked after seeing Star Wars. Are there any more places that you have taken inspiration from recently?, Books, Movies, Anything else? I just finished reading Leviathan Wakes by James SA Corey, it was great and made me want your game even more. I figure these might be good outlets while we wait for SC/Sq42.

3. The Oculus Rift being supported by your game is a huge plus for me. I see it as taking PC gaming to a next level. How do you see new technology like the Rift or the Razer Hydra influencing the coming renaissance of PC Gaming. Are there any other types of tech advancements in player control or immersion that you thing would benefit Star Citizen and other future games, what is your “grail peripheral”?

1. G-Forces are definitely part of the plan (I mentioned this in an earlier answer), so you'll have to maneuver within these human limits. There will be upgrades you can buy that can dampen these effects to allow you to pull more Gs
2. I answer this in an earlier answer! But check out the Forever War by Joe Haldeman - it was one of the inspirations for Wing Commander
3. I'm completely into immersion, so the idea of playing this game while wearing a Rift, using a high end HOTAS set up and a Leap to track your finger movements for your pilots actions in the rest of the cockpit, and HUD interactions.

Is there any chance of us seeing a HUD demonstration video before the crowdfunding ends? I've been reading Josh Strike's posts and the HUD stuff sounds incredible.

I would like to, but to be honest its been hard to find time to finish up the integration with all the other crowd funding work (and this was something I was personally coding)

But its something I'm keen on and will b doing as soon as possible (including the first person cockpit view that dynamically scopes)

I also plan on playing with the thruster visuals (and share the results) to maybe appease some of the more physics realism sticklers out there!

Commander Roberts,

1. Will there be certain procedures involved in piloting the space craft? An example: Turn on fuel master switch, flux capacitor, press engine ignition button (in the 3d cockpit of course) and the computer starts the space crafts main engine. Example 2: Arm the weapons systems, and targeting computer via switches or MFD

2. I saw the pop out displays in the demo, Will these be multi function displays, with sub menus and such?

3. This question follows through with the other 2; How deep of a speculative simulation are you aiming for?

A. Arcade (no button flipping, no procedures, press shoot, you shoot)

B. Sim-lite (Minimal procedures to get systems up and running, you have to lower the landing skids your self, arming of weapons, ect.)

C. Full Sim (You will need a checklist)

and last but not least, How do you feel about squadrons controlling PVP through war / alliance declarations?

Thanks, Looking forward to this game!!!

1. Yes, but pretty simple ones - its not going to go full hard core flight sim.
2. Yes they are and they have sub menus and such
3. My goal is to have the top level pretty easy and fun to get into but if you want to get your hands dirty and really dig in you can - so kind of B with the option of moving some stuff to C but you wont need to to have fun or do well in the game

Will different ships have different cockpits?

Absolutely

[deleted]

The tech will definitely come into play - there will be specific Xi'an and Banu upgrades you can purchase if you make it to their trading posts

Hi Chris, couldn't people potentially use the pledge ships as renewable source of ships to crash into other ships (kamikaze)? Would there be something that protects ships against collisions?

Also on the bigger ships, if you focus damage on the bridge couldn't you effectively kill the essential crew quickly?

I think that would be a waste of a pledgers time - you're not going to respawn right where you had your ship destroyed. You're going to end up on the nearest safe base / planet after being picked up. You'll have lost your cargo and upgrades. It will be like a car accident - you may have insurance but its always a pain even if the accident wasn't your fault.

On the bigger ships this could be a tactic to take them out / disable them.

I came across your kickstarter project by chance and I love the concept and donated almost immediately. I just wanted to ask if some of the larger ships will have sub roles such as engineers that will need to maintain sub systems? or individual gunners manning posts, etc? Basically will the larger ships need a big crew to maintain them?

The bigger ships (like a capital ship) will need a crew - this can be NPCs or players.

You had this model of an E100 tank behind you in this video. Are you by any chance a player of World of Tanks? And if yes, what's your efficiency rating, and how much money did you already put into it? ;P

I probably would be if I hadn't been working on SC for teh past year - I'm a big WW2 and military history fan. I've installed WoT but never had the chance to start playing it properly.

Will there be ship communications? VIA VOIP, or some how a big broadcast radius to let others know if you are in the area so people can be warned, or just for a friendly welcome?

There will be ship to ship communications. I would like VOIP but don't want to promise anything until we can work on that part - you'll certainly be able to chat and send canned messages but it would be nice to broadcast VOIP In a short range (but there are moderator issues etc that need to be worked out)

Hi Chris, thanks for doing the AMA again. I'm really excited to see this masterpiece you're working on.

You mentioned before that there will be boarding parties and an FPS component to the game, does this mean that all stations and appropriately sized ships will have floor plans, and will there be neutral areas where players can interact with each other like a "space tavern"?

Secondly, in a multiplayer setting there is always a push for individuality and forming an identity for oneself. Will there be customization options for our personal ships ie: painting, decals, etc, or at least some way to distinguish factions and groups from each other without a little "red" or "green" player tag floating above ships?

Lastly, can you flat out crash land onto the carrier deck without blowing up?

Thanks again and good luck with the development!

Yes all appropriately sized ships / space objects will have interiors. There will be space taverns!

You will be able to customize your ship with decals, nose art and even changing the color of certain parts

You can definitely crash land on a carrier deck without blowing up. I've done it a few times!

Hi Chris! Just wanted to say thank you for giving me years and years of great entertainment. Wing Commander is one of my all-time favorite series. I can’t count the number of times I’ve played through each one.

Couple of questions:

Can you share any stories from the set of Wing Commander 3 and 4? The cast was full of awesome actors and I’m sure you have some great stories about them.

In reference to Star Citizen, what will the single player story line entail? Will it be closer to Freelancer (i.e single character exploring the galaxy) or closer to Wing Commander (ensemble cast of interesting characters)?

We had a lot of fun filming the FMV scenes for WC3 , WC4 - all the actors were really great people - and people like Malcolm McDowell, John Rhys Davies, Tom Wilson and Mark Hamill had awesome tales from some making some of the biggest movies ever. A lot of it isn't really for public consumption - especially Malcolm's Caligula or Clockwork Orange stories! Malcolm did like to "punk" Mark by trying to get him to laugh when he was feeding him lines from off camera. And Tom Wilson is one seriously funny (and nice) guy!

The main narrative story will be the Squadron 32 one, so it will be more in the lines of Wing Commander. Once you've finished this and are out int he Star Citizen universe the story approach is a little different. There isn't going to be one over arching story - just a lot of micro stories / mission threads spread around the galaxy that you can engage in if you like. We'll be managing the bigger universe events as the galactic puppet masters.

In the future however there may be a non military style SP / MP co-op campaign...

Can you tell me a bit more about other things you can do then the dog-fighting/combat aspect? I'm interesting in space mining and trading and stuff. Will I be able to take friends with me to protect/mine with me?

I haven't seen to much on this aspect

You absolutely will able to have friends protect or even mine with you. There will be a crafting (manufacturing) and mining options available as well as the traditional dog fighting and such.

On the Combat Ships will there be a set convergence for the fixed weapons or will they auto adjust depending on the range of the target?

If the convergence is fixed will we be able to adjust it?

The articulated guns auto converge on your target. Fixed guys will have a pre-determined convergence you can't adjust.

Hey Chris, do you have any plans for a 'grande finale' for the last few days/ hours of the crowdfunding phase. I think there are some opportunities there.

Thanks for starting this awesome project.

Yes - we're working on a few things. Biggest thing is to get the # of backers up. Our per backer $ average is the highest of any crowd funded game to date but we're just less than the final Project Eternity backer count. I know there's more space sim fans out there - my old games used to sell millions, so there's something holding some people back, or maybe we're not doing a good enough job on the grass roots level in getting the word out.

Hello Mr Roberts, how will players that cannot or don't want to spend hours a week grinding and upgrading their ships and characters be able to participate in the thrill and wonder of exploring the game?

Will they risk losing their meager assets (and fun) to power hungry and evil players?

Thanks and the best

You can use $ to buy in game credits (we'll cap this on a monthly basis to limit someone from unbalancing by blasting too much $)

But you should be able to have fun exploring and doing some trading & combat without either running lost of missions to earn in game credits or spending real $ for in game credits.

But if you want to upgrade to that fancy ship you're either going to have to put some time in flying missions and earning money (which should be fun not grinding) or buy some credits.

Becoming a citizen grants you a status, will there be some form of social racism for those who are not part of the empire? Doing bad things like shooting down other people does impact your status of citizen? How someone could loose his citizenship morein general?

I think we will play with these concept. Part of the reason to create Citizenship was to create player factions/ divisions. And yes doing bad things in the eyes of the Empire could mean your citizenship is revoked.

Will the disparity in the justice system be as pronounced as in Rome? If I'm a citizen, would attacking another citizen be a serious crime, whereas killing a non-citizen might just be a fine?

That is part of the idea - the Roman system was the inspiration. Not sure you'll be allowed to outright attack people in well policed areas even if they are not a citizen, but you definitely get more imperial protection if you are a citizen.

Welcome Chris!

Best game in my life is the WCIV, even compared to the series of Mass Effect or Dragon Age.

Question:

-Is the team thinking about joining AMD’s Gaming Evolved program; using the powerful GCN architecture? It is a beast at heavy compute shader load, and was designed for gaming not for the HPC segment, like Nvidia's Fermi/Kepler.

-The compute shader magic started with BF3 (Frostbite 2 is OK, but BF3 was downgraded due to Nvidia’s low performance in that area; DiRT: Showdown, Sniper Elite V2), and with the upcoming titles (Medal of Honor Warfighter, Far Cry 3) more and more nasty effects are getting rewritten in this form. Like light propagation volumes in CryEngine 3 by Nixxes for Hitman Absolution, who made the Deus Ex:HR port.

-What’s the opinion about using AMD’s APUs - especially the upcoming ones with fully shared memory with the CPU, like the Kaveri - for general purpose computing in SC, at least for physics (HAVOC) or other CPU or network related workload, to handle instances etc.

-In short , i know, that we and Chris wants the best and fastest effects, and the Gaming Evolved program could be the solution, and maybe the Kaveri APU to give the missing plus (no PCI-E latency, no memcopy).

Thanks, good luck and have fun!

We're definitely going to be focusing on this kind of stuff - its a high priority for me to have a couple of high end graphics programmers that their only task is how to make things cooler / better and push the visuals. Can't promise anything specific in regards to AMD or NVidia other than I'm talking to both and will work hard to utilize as many cool features as possible.

Can we see some more concept art please and especially the new ship, the Anvil Gladiator CHeers:)

More concept art is on the way - Anvil Gladiator is a ways off. RSI Constellation will be the first ship we will share, then the Lancer, then the Civilian version of the Hornet (You already have a good idea of it from the military version)

Don't forget we have two years of development to share with you! This all doesn't happen at the start, especially when the assets are as detailed and complicated as these ones. When you see the Constellation work you will understand!

Chris,

How easy will it be to make a living as a trader or cargo hauler in this game? How do you make it fun to be both a trader and a pirate - ie, not tip the scales too far to either side?

Being a trader / hauler should be a major profession. I think more people will do this than be a pirate - it may sound fun and glamorous being a pirate but there's also a lot more risk!

The survey on the site indicates a fairly strong player preference for exploratory gameplay. Will you be taking this feedback into account and dedicating more resources to the exploration aspects of the game?

Yes - that's one of the reasons why we've been running polls - its very helpful for setting priorities when working on something that has so many aspects. :-)

Hi Chris!

Star Citizen is looking absolutely awesome. A friend of mine and I have been working on a space shooter with both PvP and PvE elements for a long time now; do you also think that there's been growing interest for space sims lately?

Bonus questions: What gameplay elements do you wish more space sims (or even games in general) would have? And what gameplay elements are you most looking forward to in Star Citizen?

That's great to hear!

I definitely think people are willing to play space sims - its been a while and you can do some pretty neat stuff with today's tech that can make even the old basic gameplay feel fresh.

Well for me the more in cockpit immersion the better - views of your ship are great for showing it off / admiring it, but I want to feel like I'm the pilot!

On the SC front, its the level of ship tweaking / customization and how that will affect combat & handling that I'm the most psyched by at the moment.