Star Citizen ’s latest Calling All Devs was full of non-answers, but they’re important ones for the game’s passionate community. The 23-minute conversation with six different developers provided backers with updated development insight concerning the Redeemer, Tessa, ship customization and more.
Here’s a quick recap of this week’s major topics:
- Golf Ball Glitch [Lead Gameplay Designer Chad McKinney] : Players spawning as golf balls is an entertaining bug, and it’s not the first time it’s been seen. It’s triggered when users on heavily loaded servers make changes in the Personal Manager App and incomplete data gets dispatched to the persistent universe. A fix for the problem is still “up in the air.”
- Ship Interior Customization [Matt Sherman, Tech Designer] : There’s not much progress to report on that front. The team still wants to do it, but more urgent priorities must be finished first. Even getting a bobblehead to work correctly requires the proper physics, so features like that are in a “holding pattern.”
- API To Share MobiGlass Data [Director Of Engineering Paul Reindell] : An API will collect inventory data, ship data and data from within Spectrum. It is not directly tied to MobiGlass, though.
- Redeemer [Lead Technical Designer John Crewe] : It’s not a priority for Cloud Imperium Games in 2018. The team is still deciding if the Redeemer will be a Dropship or Gunship. Right now, they’re leaning toward a Gunship, but that’s going to require a hefty rework.
- Database Wipes [Devops Engineer Jeffrey Pease] : Developers never really wipe the Star Citizen database. They keep old versions and tell new builds which version to use.
- Tessa Bannister [Lead Designer Luke Pressley] : Tessa was one of the first mission givers, and CIG still has future plans for her in Star Citizen. Dialogue was recorded for the character in preparation for alpha 3.0, but it was not used due to development constraints. She will return alongside deeper missions that do her justice.
It’s certainly disappointing to hear that awesome ships like the Redeemer have no place in Star Citizen’s 2018 timeline, a reflection of the massive amount of work that still needs to be done to make backers’ space-sim fantasies come true. With stretch goals like ship interior customization still mostly untouched, it could be some time before the game’s critical features fully arrive. That being said, it’s encouraging to learn that the team continues to actively investigate more urgent needs, like 3.0 bug fixes. The Redeemer joins the Carrack on the list of highly anticipated ships that won’t be making their PU debuts over the next 10 months.
Star Citizen ’s 3.0.1 alpha is available now for all backers on PC.
Are you sad you won’t be flying the Redeemer this year? What ship customization features are you hoping for most? Tell us in the comments section!
