Squadron 42 Q&A [RTV]

MaxBacon · January 2018

This is an interesting Q&A with new info about SC's SP campaign.

Transcript

Q: What’s up with the F8 Lightning?

A: You don’t get the F8 Lightning until Squadron 42 is out. Basically the way it works, there are a few ships where, if you make it far enough in Squadron 42 that you can fly those ships, then you get a badge in the PU to be able to buy those ships in-game with UEC.

As a thank you to the backers who have supported at a very high level, they get the F8 Lightning outright once Squadron 42 is out. To be clear, this is the F8C that people can acquire. Not the F8A which is what you fly in Squadron. The F8C has civilian equipment while the F8A has military equipment.

Q: Will Squadron 42 let the player be a female character?

A: Absolutely. 100%. As they are still working on animations, they only wanted to use one skeleton/character (the male) so that they don’t need to fix the animations on both. Once the animations are finalized, they will create the full animation set for the Female. Characters are fully customizable and your character will carry across into the PU.

Q: What are the thoughts on the perks that can be transferred from Squadron 42 into the PU?

A: You will unlock badges in Squadron 42 which will allow you to get certain things in the PU. Through relationships in Squadron 42 you can unlock missions and content in the PU. There may also be a Veteran’s group in the PU which will give you missions if you completed Squadron 42.

There will also be specific areas for UEE service members. This will also carry over to other groups - there will be specific areas for the Merchant’s Guild for example. This will work similarly for Organizations.

Q: The recent monthly report saw a slight redesign of the Vanduul Blade which also carried through to some other Vanduul ships. Will this redesign affect the Vanduul Glaive or Scythe currently in the game?

A: Probably not very much. Bringing the style of the Vanduul ships closer to Glaive and Scythe. They needed to do some redesign on the Vanduul fleet for performance reasons, reducing the bony look of some of the ships.

Q: Will Squadron 42 have different endings? If so, will the different endings have an effect on your character in the PU?

A: It will affect your character in terms of what they’ve earned. The concept is that as you play Squadron 42, it fills out your journal. The things you do unlock things in the PU.

There is only one successful ending to Squadron, the others being dying or getting thrown in the brig.

You can play Star Citizen while playing Squadron 42. As you get to certain points in Squadron, you will unlock things in the PU.

There are some optional unlocks in Squadron 42, so whether they’re to you in the PU entirely depends on whether you unlocked them in Squadron.

Q: What are your plans for future chapters of Squadron 42 and their tie-in with the Persistent Universe?

A: Squadron 42 is a triology, a three-game arc, and the events of the entire trilogy will be set before the setting for the Persistent Universe. Episode 2 and 3 will add unlockable content to the PU similar to Episode 1.

Episode 2 and 3 are starting to be fleshed out. Performance capture for Episode 2 and 3 will likely be filmed back-to-back.

Episode 2 and 3 will happen a lot quicker than Episode 1 due to all of the foundational tech work needed for the first episode.

Q: Head tracking - TrackIR and Tobii and like that - will that be implemented for Squadron 42?

A: Pretty confident yes. There was a version of Tobii and head tracking already working but unsure if currently working.

Goal is to have head tracking working, as well as Faceware.

Star Citizen should be VR friendly as well, such as diegetic UI. The current holdback there is that there is still so much base level work going on on the engine - including the Vulkan/DX12 refactor. Lots of optimization.

Once the base level engine stuff is finished, VR support will be added.

Further on, look will be able to be disconnected from aiming.

Q: Will the Coil be in the PU?

A: Yes, the Coil will be in the PU. Odin will be in the PU.

Have to get the Jump Points in to the PU to allow you to get there.

You will be able to visit some of the locations from Squadron 42.

Q: Will Squadron 42 include a difficulty option?

A: Yes, definitely. It’s not going to be too easy though.

Q: Character customization in Squadron 42? Is it the same system in Squadron 42 as in the PU?

A: It will be the same system for Squadron 42 as the PU. The system for Star Citizen Alpha 3.1 will be pretty basic, switching between heads, hair, eye and skin colour.

The final system will have full options including facial morphing. This system will be in both Squadron 42 and Star Citizen.

It will be in-game. Part of your journey in Squadron 42 will include choosing what your face looks like and your gender.

Q: How will death affect the campaign?

A: If you die, you have to return to your last save point. Save points won’t be as frequent as Call of Duty, for example. There needs to be weight to success or failure.

MaxBacon · January 2018

Q: What part, of any, of Squadron 42 will be cooperative?

A: There will be no cooperative story campaign. As you progress through Squadron, some of the big battles will be able to be played separately from the campaign as cooperative battles.

Q: A majority of the website is new now. Are there plans to revamp the other sections of the site, like the store, throughout the year?

A: Yes, the release that just occurred was just phase 1 of the release.

The main idea behind the current release was to separate out the Introduction to Star Citizen and Squadron 42 sections from the RSI/development side.

Thought was to do a better job of introducing new people to the game. Community has been doing a great job of this, and now CIG is trying to improve as well.

Q: We just released a public roadmap for Star Ctiizen. Will there be a roadmap for Squadron 42 at some point in the future?

A: There will be at some point in the future.

Hull C is missing from Star Citizen roadmap because of a technical issue with the expanding/contracting of the ship and there is currently no resource attached to fix this, though it will definitely be fixed.

Development is much more date-based now, and they have changed teams to be more agile-based for feature development.

Public roadmap for PU is driven directly by the internal project management software, JIRA. Will be updated weekly.

More things will be added to the roadmap as they get more of JIRA prepared.

Back to Squadron 42, exactly the same process is being used. Yes, the roadmap will be made available for Squadron. If you look on the site there is a Star Citizen logo on the left side of the roadmap, and a Squadron 42 one will be added there.

Once the tasks and epochs for Squadron 42 are cleaned up, ready to go, and they’ve decided how to organize it, it will be published.

Q: Will we see any more big name actors in Squadron 42 that aren’t announced yet?

A: Yes.

Q: Is Squadron turning out how you expected it to back in 2012?

A: It’s so much bigger and cooler and better. It has a much greater ability to evoke emotional attachment than expected.

Initially it was expected that they would have to hide loading screens with cinematics and such. That has all gone away and everything is seamless.

Every character you see has a full story arc. Whether you want to explore them or not is up to you, but the option is there.

Hopefully we’ll be able to create an emotional impact that is either unique or very rare in the entirety of gaming.

Q: Can we expect first person combat throughout Squadron 42?

A: Yes, throughout. This has always been the dream and if I were to do another Wing Commander, it would be done this way as well.

There is plenty of ship combat and plenty of FPS, probably 50/50.

Q: Will Squadron 42 be available in other languages, besides English?

A: Yes. Captions and voice for some. Captions only for some. This will be done near the end. Will probably cover at least English, German, French, Italian, and Spanish.

Q: Can we see our characters speak in 3rd person or will we be restricted only to 1st person?

A: Hasn’t been decided yet. They have the ability to do either and fully captured the performance of the actor who played the player.

All cinematics are live so you can change your perspective. There will be a cinematic mode but you can also just cut back to your own view.

If you are disobedient (remember, you’re in the military), you can get thrown in the brig.

(transcript source)

sgel · January 2018

Q: Will we see any more big name actors in Squadron 42 that aren’t announced yet?

A: Yes.

fkn lol

Q: Is Squadron turning out how you expected it to back in 2012?

A: It’s so much bigger and cooler and better.

Make Star Citizen Great Again!

Q: We just released a public roadmap for Star Ctiizen. Will there be a roadmap for Squadron 42 at some point in the future?

A: There will be at some point in the future.

Oh god 2018 is out of the question as expected then. 2019 will be hard but they might make it. Probably 2020.

MaxBacon · January 2018

sgel said:

Q: Will we see any more big name actors in Squadron 42 that aren’t announced yet?
A: Yes.

fkn lol

There are few names that lie around they haven't announced yet. Imagine mixing a Patrick Stewart to the SQ42 cheesy military vibe, maybe that wouldn't work out hm

Moxom914 · January 2018

well everything he said must be true. he wouldnt lie

Turrican187 · January 2018

MaxBacon said:

[...]
Q: Will Squadron 42 let the player be a female character?
A: Absolutely. 100%. As they are still working on animations, they only wanted to use one skeleton/character (the male) so that they don’t need to fix the animations on both. Once the animations are finalized, they will create the full animation set for the Female. Characters are fully customizable and your character will carry across into the PU.
[...]

Due to different bone lengths this does not compute well. Furthermore male animations on female characters with this model quality tend to look dodgy.

MaxBacon · January 2018

Turrican187 said:

MaxBacon said:

[...]
Q: Will Squadron 42 let the player be a female character?
A: Absolutely. 100%. As they are still working on animations, they only wanted to use one skeleton/character (the male) so that they don’t need to fix the animations on both. Once the animations are finalized, they will create the full animation set for the Female. Characters are fully customizable and your character will carry across into the PU.
[...]

Due to different bone lengths this does not compute well. Furthermore male animations on female characters with this model quality tend to look dodgy.

Most games tend to retarget animation on the male for female.

They seem to have tried to go with different skeletons for male/female, then a game with thousands upon thousands of animations appears, yeah. Welcome to the age of gender-locked profession/races MMOs

Turrican187 · January 2018

MaxBacon said:

Turrican187 said:

MaxBacon said:

[...]
Q: Will Squadron 42 let the player be a female character?
A: Absolutely. 100%. As they are still working on animations, they only wanted to use one skeleton/character (the male) so that they don’t need to fix the animations on both. Once the animations are finalized, they will create the full animation set for the Female. Characters are fully customizable and your character will carry across into the PU.
[...]

Due to different bone lengths this does not compute well. Furthermore male animations on female characters with this model quality tend to look dodgy.

Most games tend to retarget animation on the male for female.

They seem to have tried to go with different skeletons for male/female, then a game with thousands upon thousands of animations appears, yeah. Welcome to the age of gender-locked profession/races MMOs

Now I understand ... there will be no females there will be just boobs and non boobs because when they change things like hips they have to retarget the animation for the weapons whose mount point is on the hips.
And how do they handle stuff like crossed arms without fixing they'll clip through boobs

MaxBacon · January 2018

Turrican187 said:
Now I understand ... there will be no females there will be just boobs and non boobs because when they change things like hips they have to retarget the animation for the weapons whose mount point is on the hips.
And how do they handle stuff like crossed arms without fixing they'll clip through boobs

You mean a boob slider? It's like a requirement for any MMO, SC will surely fail without one. :P

It's interesting to see how, they need that typical thing for clothing to prevent clipping with the body model that seems to be working decently already (also capes!) on a bajillion possible animations. We are seeing them creating male/female versions of every armor and clothing.

Then there's a ton of "attachment" points on the model for the things you carry, mitigating clipping will be quite the nightmare.

Now, I think that because of the high number of animation and the realistic nature of things were anything a bit off is noticeable, we will see things like character weight and height very limited, if even possible.

Octagon7711 · January 2018

Turrican187 said:

MaxBacon said:

[...]
Q: Will Squadron 42 let the player be a female character?
A: Absolutely. 100%. As they are still working on animations, they only wanted to use one skeleton/character (the male) so that they don’t need to fix the animations on both. Once the animations are finalized, they will create the full animation set for the Female. Characters are fully customizable and your character will carry across into the PU.
[...]

Due to different bone lengths this does not compute well. Furthermore male animations on female characters with this model quality tend to look dodgy.

Lots of reworks.

Octagon7711 · January 2018

Turrican187 said:

MaxBacon said:

Turrican187 said:

MaxBacon said:

[...]
Q: Will Squadron 42 let the player be a female character?
A: Absolutely. 100%. As they are still working on animations, they only wanted to use one skeleton/character (the male) so that they don’t need to fix the animations on both. Once the animations are finalized, they will create the full animation set for the Female. Characters are fully customizable and your character will carry across into the PU.
[...]

Due to different bone lengths this does not compute well. Furthermore male animations on female characters with this model quality tend to look dodgy.

Most games tend to retarget animation on the male for female.

They seem to have tried to go with different skeletons for male/female, then a game with thousands upon thousands of animations appears, yeah. Welcome to the age of gender-locked profession/races MMOs

Now I understand ... there will be no females there will be just boobs and non boobs because when they change things like hips they have to retarget the animation for the weapons whose mount point is on the hips.
And how do they handle stuff like crossed arms without fixing they'll clip through boobs

That's how ESO is, basically the same model with male and female characteristics added over, at least for the NPCs.

Kyleran · January 2018

All sounds pretty great, if only the interviewer had thought to ask, "and WHEN can we expect to play a finished game, or heck, a well developed beta?"

Octagon7711 · January 2018

Kyleran said:

All sounds pretty great, if only the interviewer had thought to ask, "and WHEN can we expect to play a finished game, or heck, a well developed beta?"

Or how much of SC will you be locked out of if you don't play SQ42 at all.

MaxBacon · January 2018

Octagon7711 said:
That's how ESO is, basically the same model with male and female characteristics added over, at least for the NPCs.

Image: https://i.ytimg.com/vi/V8vD5LaioWE/maxresdefault.jpg

Image: https://i.ytimg.com/vi/UcoFelBf9lk/maxresdefault.jpg

The skeleton is not the model, it drives the animation.

The models are physically different so need for other animation sets, existent ones get reused when possible adapted to the new model then new ones are created to make it the biggest difference from male-female (often seen in walking/idles, etc..).

Erillion · January 2018

Octagon7711 said:

Kyleran said:

All sounds pretty great, if only the interviewer had thought to ask, "and WHEN can we expect to play a finished game, or heck, a well developed beta?"

Or how much of SC will you be locked out of if you don't play SQ42 at all.

The part that requires military clearance and/or UEE citizenship.

Have fun

Erillion · January 2018

Kyleran said:

All sounds pretty great, if only the interviewer had thought to ask, "and WHEN can we expect to play a finished game, or heck, a well developed beta?"

Because the interviewer knew that the answer would be : "When its done."

Have fun

Turrican187 · January 2018

Erillion said:

Octagon7711 said:

Kyleran said:

All sounds pretty great, if only the interviewer had thought to ask, "and WHEN can we expect to play a finished game, or heck, a well developed beta?"

Or how much of SC will you be locked out of if you don't play SQ42 at all.

The part that requires military clearance and/or UEE citizenship.

Have fun

Thats why I doubt that the F8 won't be sellable to other players > no military clearance and/or UEE citizenship.

Erillion · January 2018

Turrican187 said:

Thats why I doubt that the F8 won't be sellable to other players > no military clearance and/or UEE citizenship.

Then go somewhere to buy where there is ***cough ** less paperwork. Fora maybe ?

"Fora is, for lack of a better description, a known pirate system in UEE space – the only of its kind. Home to Hyperion, a dusty outpost planet, Fora has evolved into a safe zone in an area of space littered with Outsiders and Banu. Pirates, smugglers and worse frequently call the place their home and are largely ignored by the local police garrison. "

Have fun

Turrican187 · January 2018

Erillion said:

Turrican187 said:

Thats why I doubt that the F8 won't be sellable to other players > no military clearance and/or UEE citizenship.

Then go somewhere to buy where there is ***cough ** less paperwork. Fora maybe ?

"Fora is, for lack of a better description, a known pirate system in UEE space – the only of its kind. Home to Hyperion, a dusty outpost planet, Fora has evolved into a safe zone in an area of space littered with Outsiders and Banu. Pirates, smugglers and worse frequently call the place their home and are largely ignored by the local police garrison. "

Have fun

Pirated ships unfortunately disappear when logging out.

Stolen ships, no matter how well the theft, will not be a long-term thing. You get to enjoy them for the session, but those ships will not be returning when you log back in. Stealing ships should be a short-term goal. Joyriding, piracy or selling them for scrap, not for growing your own fleet.

Source: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/spectrum/community/SC/forum/50259/thread/insurance-and-cheating-the-system/916092

Pirating ships is not a thing in SC anymore ... bad bunny!

Kyleran · January 2018

Erillion said:

Kyleran said:

All sounds pretty great, if only the interviewer had thought to ask, "and WHEN can we expect to play a finished game, or heck, a well developed beta?"

Because the interviewer knew that the answer would be : "When its done."

Have fun

Which translates to, "we have no clue."

Erillion · January 2018

Turrican187 ... bad bunny!

I never said anything about "pirated " ships ;-) Such systems will be the place to go for all kinds of hard-to-find stuff (legal or illegal). Anything - for a price.

Have fun

MaxBacon · January 2018

It makes sense stolen ships are not permanent, always wondering how could they be insured, the insurance won't from sudden change names if you steal a ship.

It's just like stealing a car.

But I do hope once they get to work on that they do actually make something like once that stolen ship is destroyed for whatever reason, it's gone for good, not just a session thing.

If it's a balance matter then they could push limitations on it, such as flying that ship into safe areas will get AI to know it's stolen and react to you, stuff as that.

Slapshot1188 · January 2018

I always get confused by this. As an original KS backer do I get all 3 episodes of SQ42?

MaxBacon · January 2018

Slapshot1188 said:

I always get confused by this. As an original KS backer do I get all 3 episodes of SQ42?

No, the current SQ42 is the KS game, the sequels aren't part of it. Though you do get EP 2 as part of the stretch goals.

Slapshot1188 · January 2018

MaxBacon said:

Slapshot1188 said:

I always get confused by this. As an original KS backer do I get all 3 episodes of SQ42?

No, the current SQ42 is the KS game, the sequels aren't part of it. Though you do get EP 2 as part of the stretch goals.

OK so I get Episode 1 and Episode 2. Not Episode 3.

Arillix · January 2018

@Slapdhot1188,

Yes sir, you have full access to Star Citizen and Squadron 42 part 1 and 2, will have to buy part 3.
By default, access to Arena Commander and Star Marine.
hope this helps.

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Squadron 42 Q&A [RTV]

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"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey

"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey

Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV

"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey

Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV

Howdy, Stranger!

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Squadron 42 Q&A [RTV]

Transcript

Comments

"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey

"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey

Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV

"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey

Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV