Star Citizen backers can watch a new episode of Around The Verse focused on weapon balance and critical features beyond alpha 3.0. From character customization to troubleshooting guns, here’s a recap of everything you may have missed.
PROJECT UPDATE
Included in the tweaked Around The Verse format is a monthly project update to recap what’s happening at Cloud Imperium Games’ various studios and departments. Under the leadership of folks like Live Game Director Todd Papy, it’s been a pretty busy month for the Persistent Universe team.
With alpha 3.0 and 3.0.1 now live, the goal is to continue CIG’s streamlined development process to ensure tasks aren’t “ping ponged” between studios. The new direction requires major tasks be handled from start to finish at the same location. Included in the feature pipeline are the beginnings of character customization and Item 2.0 refinement. Upon its first implementation, customization features will allow players to change a character’s basic head design, skin color, eye color, hairstyle and color. This is all being developed in tandem with the Vehicle Manager and Personal Manager Apps, which are slated to get a new frontend in the coming months.
On the smaller scale, the weapons team has been busy with the Gemini R97 shotgun. Because players can choose to fire normal or ballistic rounds over a tight or loose spread, it’s a good example of the work being done to implement various damage types. Code optimization remains constant across the company, and fixes will soon be in place to address chronic problems like the infamous golf ball issue.
WEAPON BALANCE & ARMOR
Weapon balance was the main feature of the episode, and demonstrated how incredibly difficult it is to ensure each attribute of its systems work harmoniously together. In a complex game like Star Citizen, weapon balance involves far more than pairing guns with specific numeric values. Secondary mechanics like shields, health and armor all have a huge impact on how those values are selected. Star Citizen, like all games with a competitive multiplayer component, strives to be an experience in which there is no dominant choice of ship, loadout or gun. Because changes to any one value ripple to the other mechanics, that’s not an easy promise to keep.
One such change that’s proven valuable to balancing is the new armor system. Instead of adding armor as a health buff, the new model features it as a separate multiplier that reduces the amount of damage a ship can take. In other words, it’s an independent rating of toughness that fluctuates based on the class of the ship. Sectioning off armor makes it easier to developers add new ships to the game because there’s less reliance on creating new models with different health values for each variant. Instead, only the toughness must be tweaked.
Armor can also be used to provide stealth attributes. Special ships, like the Hornet Ghost, essentially have stealth armor that can be quickly removed or added based on the need of the ship.
Figuring out how these systems work, then, is portrayed as a never-ending task. While certain issues may look like weapon balance problems, for example, they might actually relate to networking. Making that deduction is challenging, especially when a single value typo can have drastic in-game implications. Weapon balance will be a point of emphasis in alpha 3.1, and one or two new damage types are also in the works.
Star Citizen is available in alpha on PC. For a deeper dive into this week’s ATV, tune in to Reverse The Verse at 12 p.m. EST. Andy Nicholson and John Crewe of the game’s design team will be on hand to answer your questions live.
What do you think of Star Citizen’s latest developments? Are you happy with weapon balance in 3.0? Tell us in the comments section!
