Five Question Friday or FQF was a series of weekly posts on the game forums by the developers where they answered questions asked by players from the various language forums. Each week, 5 questions would be selected and posted up with answers to give players an insight to the development direction of the game at the time.
Only a few months after development moved to Hamburg in 2013, the team decided to end FQF and replace it with Developer Blogs.
FQF 1 - 6th July 2012[]
Hey folks, we'll be posting five questions from the community every Friday to give a bit more players a better idea of what's going on and see what we're working on. So, here's the first round of questions taken from the Q&A session and from the forums.
Here we go:
- Huskery asks: BP_Lori what are the top 3 priorities that are currently in development for this game in terms of content/changes?
Answer: The three answers that came up (in no particular order) were: Make tactical space combat fun, give ships unique roles and abilities, and finally give players more things to do.
- Beeker asks: Is there any possibility of reducing the blind spots on the Jotunn and Vanir, or possibly adding top/bottom gun slots?
Answer: All blindspots for all ships are currently being re-evaluated and should see updates in the next few releases. We will be sure to let players know when they will be seeing blindspot adjustments when they are released.
- Humodest asks: BP Lori you acknowledged escorts are the best class. Why did you guys give them +accuracy rounds. It is okay for lines, but why escorts?
Answer: This was considered an error and it is something that will be corrected soon.
- NJ_Blitz asks: Any plans for another Faction Switch anytime soon?
Answer: We are looking into Faction Switches for particular servers. We will be also looking into other solutions as well that may be a combination of incentives and content. Regarding the population on some servers, we are looking into possibly consolidating them.
- Gresse333 asks: Can you make it so the people in squad don't fill up the entire screen, make is so we can hide it.
Answer: We do plan to eventually redo the squad UI, but it does have to wait in line behind a few other UI elements we are revamping. A lot of the UI elements are in a re-evaluation phase.
FQF 2 - 13th July 2012[]
We're back with another Five Question Friday! Keep in mind we're taking questions from all players in the game (meaning those from other language forums as well). Well then, lets get to it!
- Question: What are the next steps in the game? New ships or more and different version from the actual ships?
Answer: The team is working on providing more unique qualities to individual ships so that players have true choices of which to play. These different qualities will allow different types of play styles and roles within combat.
- Question: Will be there any changes to the content of Unidentified Objects, because now the content is not very attractive to the high-level players.
Answer: As new items are introduced to the game, we will add more content to the Unidentified Objects. Eventually, we will have truly rare and unique items found in them.
- Question: When will new ship skins be available?
Answer: Some new skins have been introduced with Jammer (June update). More will be coming.
- Question: When are the login problems from going to be resolved and when is Bigpoint going to solve the existing problem with the Unity?
Answer: We are actively investigating this issue. It is one of our top priorities. We are collecting Unity crash logs and dxdiags from players who are experiencing these issues. We are looking to see if there are any patterns that may be causing the issues to happen.
- Question: Will the existing errors have priority now before new updates?
Answer: Game stopping errors are our highest priority. New updates, however, will also be developed.
FQF 3 - 20th July 2012[]
Here we go with round three of Five Question Friday!
- Question: When can we expect new ships and or variants?
Answer: We are currently working on a couple of new ships and they are currently in the design phase. We can’t say yet when they will be released, but they are in the works.
- Question: Any chance of having someone spend a few minutes typing a newsletter up more often?
Answer: We realize that the newsletters haven’t come out with the sort of frequency that lets players know what exactly is going on. We’re working a more systematic schedule, may not be once a month, but definitely more often than it is now.
- Question: When will the economy be investigated and changed to better suit not only low level players but high levels too?
Answer: The development team right now is looking into the economy and reviewing it from a number of different standpoints. There are a lot of angles to consider, so it’s not something that can be figured out fairly easily in a short amount of time.
- Question: Will you be doing more sales on other ship classes?
Answer: We’ve done a number of sales on various ships and we will continue to do so every now and then.
- Question: When will chat be fixed?
Answer: We realize that chat is something that is need of improvement and it is something that we are consistently working on.
FQF 4 - 30th July 2012[]
Hey folks, a bit late on this one but here we are with another FQF.
- Question: Will you be able to control ships with a joystick?
Answer: Joystick compatibility is something we are working on. Since we are working on the new flight model, we are hoping that we can implement joystick functionality to complement the new flight system.
- Question: When will crafting be possible?
Answer: Crafting is something that we would like to implement in the game, but it is more of a long term goal.
- Question: When you will finally solve the Virgon problems?
Answer: This is a more complicated issue and it is something that we are currently working on at the moment. Due to the complexity of the issue, we cannot give out a hard dates as to went this will be fixed since we want to make sure that all edge cases are accounted for and that this issue does not arise again.
- Question: Will you add to the game some new equipment as weapons or engines, probably new materials?
Answer: We are looking into implemented more items systems into the game, but the team is making sure to do this very carefully. The issues that we run into are making sure that any new systems do not make one class overpower or another underpowered while making sure that the new systems would make sense for the game.
- Question: Have you thought of implementing a trade/auction functionality with Tylium
Answer: This is not something that we are considering at the moment.
FQF 5 - 3rd August 2012[]
Back for another FQF!
- Question: There have been reports where players have had their controls mess up during combat causing them to spin in circles. Is there a fix in the future?
Answer: Yes, this is currently being worked on. Given the recent events, stability is our current priority, but this is on our task list.
- Question: Will there be a way to turn off the dual/invite window?
Answer: We know this has been an issue and a feature that has been requested by a number of players, so we’ll make sure that it on task for an update in the future.
- Question: Why were new ammo types implemented into the game?
Answer: This was intended to give players more options and variety depending on the situation they find themselves in.
- Question: Are there new gameplay elements coming to the game soon?
Answer: The designers have designed an artifact system that combines elements of capture the flag with supply-line strategy. We also want to completely change how the galaxy is configured-fewer but larger region with less hard-zoning requirements (i.e. multiple solar systems within 1 sector). Unfortunately, much of the progress on this has come to a standstill because of the playability issues the team is working to resolve.
- Question: Why hasn’t anything new been implemented in the game like equipment or weapons?
Answer: This requires engineers. Much to the dismay of the designers, all of our engineers (except for two who are brand new) are working towards resolving the unity issues, crash issues, and exploits.
FQF 6 - 11th August 2012[]
- Question: Are you planning to introduce new maps and the ability to play on some planets?
Answer: Yes and no. We are working on some new maps, which we are hoping to showcase soon. Right now, there are no plans to take combat to the planet.
- Question: When will Cubits be back in Platform loot?
Answer: We’re looking at the loot tables currently and we believe we have a resolution in place. We hope to have the fix out in one of the next updates.
- Question: Can you create a Wing list that will show where your Wing Members are?
Answer: We are working on updates to the Wing UI and this will be done in phases. We would like to have this feature in place, but right now, it is primarily the foundation work to overhaul the Wing UI system.
- Question: Can you let us know why Virgon still has issues and what is being done?
Answer: Virgon's problem is because it is running out of CPU. The original architecture of the game had each individual shard/server running on just one machine. Our most senior engineer is working on breaking processes across multiple machines. I've been told that Erlang was not really meant to do that, so it's been a bit of a wrestling match. This is in progress.
- Question: Can you activate and deactivate the Chase Camera Mode?
Answer: There are a number of various camera types a player can choose from that are located at the top-right of the in-game HUD.
FQF 7 - 20th August 2012[]
- Question: Will it be benefiting the players that use a joystick or Xbox controller to play the game?
Answer: Initially, these will not be supported. We do have a next phase of this that provides game stick (joystick) support. We likely will not support an Xbox controller because you will still need a free hand available for some keyboard commands.
- Question: Will Hold space increase in the future?
Answer: We have this on our list, but currently we are working to resolve the current issues that are in the game now. Once this is done, maybe we can revisit the request then.
- Question: Are you going to put the game into a client?
Answer: Yes. This is being built. Last I heard, it was nearly done, but the more immediate issues with game performance put that on hold.
- Question: What are the plans to address the ship type imbalance?
Answer: We are aware that there is an imbalance to most ships vs the multi-roles, the latter of which, in my opinion, were not given thorough thought when originally designed. We are working towards making ships other than the multi-role more desirable. However, much of that development has temporarily been put on hold while the majority of the team focuses on addressing the game stability issues and other bugs
- Question: When will the Unity issues and crashes be resolved?
Answer: We had a lack of information that would allow us to pinpoint the issues. Even the logs we received did not give specific enough information, which resulted in us having to find the issues through trial-and-error (which has made it a longer-than-desired process). Some of the fixes we've made have helped some individuals, but not everyone. We are continuing to work on the problems.
FQF 8 - 31th August 2012[]
As promised, we're back with another Five Question Friday.
- Question: With Troy being the Public Test Server, what will happen to Kobol?
Answer: Troy is where players will be able to provide feedback on features and new content for BSGO early on in the process. We will still be using Kobol as a staging area to make sure that all the final pieces are ready for deployment to live servers.
- Question: What is the Battlespace and what are the restrictions?
Answer: The Battlespace is a low level PvP sector only available to players that are within Levels 1-9. As such, only Strikes are allowed within the Battlespace.
- Question: When will the next update appear on live servers?
Answer: The feedback that we received from the first run of Troy helped in identifying a number of issues. We don’t want to promise any dates, but the fact that issues were identified a bit quicker than they would be normally due to Troy. We are hoping we can push it out soon.
- Question: How will the new flight model work?
Answer: The new flight model will be available to all ships and will be a feature that players will be able to turn on or off. This way, players can still use the old flight system if they feel more comfortable with it.
- Question: How often will Troy be updated and how will features will tested/reviewed?
Answer: There’s no real definite schedule for Troy at the moment. Currently, features are moved to Troy when they are in a state that the team feels is functional and we can receive feedback on. If a specific feature requires a player to be a certain level or have a certain ship, in the future we will have it so when players login, they will have what they require in order to see the features that are currently available.
FQF 9 - 8th September 2012[]
- Question: When will the live servers be fixed and stop crashing?
Answer: Barring any unexpected issues, the current plan is to deploy Leoben to live servers next week. Once we deploy to live servers, we can see how big of an improvement the stability fixes are and re-evaluate then.
- Question: Will PvP loot increase?
Answer: We would prefer that the majority of player income be a result of PvP as opposed to mining and farming; we know this has been stated before. With much of the Battlespace sector details nearly done; we can take a closer look as PvP loot.
- Question: Can we expect more content after Leoben or will it be a lengthy wait before new content is released?
Answer: We are working on a few things and hopefully players will not have to wait too long in-between content releases. We’re still working on the Wings UI and we have some other stuff lined up that we hope to tease fairly soon.
- Question: What is going on with the economy?
Answer: Previously, we were waiting on data regarding the game’s economy. The team has received a good amount of data and we are hoping we can start looking at the data and making adjustments. There are still a few piece of data that we would like to collect and once we have all of that, we can make a proper assessment.
- Question: What are you going to do about the lag?
Answer: We are hoping that when Leoben is deployed to live servers, it will reduce the amount of lag players are experiencing. We’ve optimized a number of the art assets and they should render much faster now as well.
FQF 10 - 29th September 2012[]
- Question: What is the next feature that is coming out?
Answer: The Free For All tournament sector will be coming very soon. This is a tournament type that is strikes only and you battle for supremacy to be #1. The twist is that there are no faction restrictions, you can shoot everybody! Free For All might be on Troy by the time you read this.
- Question: Will the appearance of the flight GUI change?
Answer: There will be UI changes but they will be gradual. You can see some of the changes with the new Wings UI changes and the ammo UI changes. The Wings UI changes were previewed on Troy and will be going live soon.
- Question: What is being done about empty sectors?
Answer: This is a high priority bug and lots of work is going into fixing this. It is more complicated than other issues which is why it is taking longer to fix.
- Question: Will there be new PvP sectors for high level players?
Answer: Yes! The Battlespace sector was made for low level players but the new Free For All sector has no level restrictions. It is currently strikes only.
- Question: Are there any new plans related to mining?
Answer: No major changes to mining are planned for now. However, due to popular request we are planning on making the experimental mineral scanners available for a limited time soon!
FQF 11 - 19th October 2012[]
- Question: Are there plans to making it possible to rearrange the order of the ability slots (computers, hulls, engines)?
Answer: There is no way of doing this at present, but if there is enough demand, we could certainly make it a priority.
- Question: Will the game be moved to other platforms?
Answer: This was something we were investigating in the past but as our priorities shifted so too did the resources assigned to this task. Currently we’re not looking to further pursue this but who knows what the future brings.
- Question: Will Duties begin to give additional bonuses or rewards?
Answer: We definitely have plans for duties, but we are tackling bigger requests right now. Unfortunately we’re not able to provide additional information on this quite yet.
- Question: Is there a planned overhaul of daily assignments that will make them more exciting than they are at present?
Answer: We are currently working on a significantly improved quest creation system that will give us the ability to write much more exciting dailies. Our hope is that you’ll begin to see the first stages of this over the next couple of months.
- Question: When will smoother playability be restored?
Answer: Diagnosing lag is a tricky job; some have been reporting better performance while others say it is worse. We are continuously trying to track down its causes because we know it impacts gameplay. We’ve been trying to address other performance issues as we’re able to as well such as the Wing system being more responsive upon opening while a part of a larger Wing. Improvements in both departments are a constant objective.
FQF 12 - 25th January 2013[]
- Question: Will the colonies see new ship colors for the Halberd and Aesir anytime soon? (The Cylon ships already have new ones.)
Answer: It’s a top priority for us to give our players the chance to visually customize their ships as they like. As in so many cases, we – the new team in Hamburg – are currently trying to wade our way through the game to gain a technical understanding of the current version before we can make future decisions based on our findings. As soon as we know more about this subject, we’ll make sure to fill you in.
- Question: Will more missions be added for single players as well as for squadrons?
Answer: Our focus at the moment is to significantly improve the gaming experience in the open world. Both single-player and multiplayer missions take a lot of time and effort to develop, and often only offer players a low replay value and pull them away from the open world into isolated areas. For this reason, additional missions are currently not planned. But this doesn’t mean we have written off the idea entirely, as we will mostly like try to revisit it at a later point in time.
- Question: In the near future, can we expect to see "Squadron dailies" which must be completed with at least one squadron member during a party?
Answer: Dailies are currently not planned, but other features emphasizing greater group play are in the conception phase. We like the idea of dailies and will take a closer look at its feasibility when we tackle the daily missions.
- Question: Faction balancing
Answer: After the community partially reacted negatively to the last announcement of a faction change, we decided to take a closer look into the problem. Going into details about the results of our analysis would just be too much, but we still want to fill you in just a little bit. So here’s what we found!
First and foremost, it’s important for us to point out the different areas where both a balance and imbalance exist. These areas include:
- Server population
- Some servers are more crowded while others are empty.
- Faction distribution
- Some servers have more players from faction A as from faction B.
- Game mechanics
- Some game mechanics too strongly influence the strength of players.
- Course of war
- On some servers one faction always has the upper hand.
All these areas are more or less connected to each other, and there is no one universal solution. Instead, multiple steps are required to achieve an acceptable balance between the first three areas. In this case, acceptable means that as little as possible should be negatively influenced during fun play. Achieving a perfect balance in such a complex game however is just not possible due to human capabilities. So why just the first three areas? Once we’ve reached the desired balance in the game, players will be the ones most responsible for influencing the outcome of wars. Skill, coordination and team spirit will be what matter most here!
After we’ve looked into the problems, you can bet that we’ll program solutions to deal with them. At the moment, the solutions are being technically evaluated to find out what can be done in a certain amount of time. Some small interventions will be taken in the immediate future, others however will take longer. Each and every one will bring us a step closer to achieving a game which is fun to play, no matter the server, faction or ship.
- Question: Measurements against exploiting/pushing
Answer: Rest assured that we take this subject seriously. In the future, game mechanics will basically make it impossible for “exploiting”, “pushing” and “botting” to occur from the get-go. We’re also working on technical solutions to better track down players who use such dishonest methods. Unfortunately we are unable to give you detailed information about these solutions as we don’t want to let these players in on too much. At this point, we’d like to ask you to report any players who break the rules. The more information we have, the greater the chances are for us to not only catch one player but to also to catch multiple players who use the same methods. At best, do not tell the other player of your report – not only might this lead to a verbal confrontation, but it can also influence them to change their behavior immediately. In many cases, this stops us from being able to watch how they truly play, preventing us from being able to gather new insights on how we can effectively put an end to these violations.
FQF 13 - 1st February 2013[]
Introduction from the lead designer:
This is the lead designer, Javery_BP, and I wanted to introduce myself. I thought I’d let you get to know me at bit better. I moved to Hamburg from the San Francisco area back in September. I left behind the warmth of my native California for the chilly winter of Germany. So, I’ve thrown myself into the middle of a new culture, and I’m slowly learning German. It’s pretty exciting. As to the game industry, I’ve got a range of experience in the game industry. I’ve worked on a range of games from hard core games to casual games, including games like America’s Army 3, and Eve Online. I’ve even worked on traditional, pen and paper RPGs and tabletop miniatures games. I’m also a huge gamer. I play any sort of game ranging from strategy to FPS games, but my favorite games have always been space sim games. I spent far too much time in school playing X-Wing vs. Tie Fighter and similar classics. I’m actively playing Eve Online and X3. Pretty much, if it’s a space game, I’ll probably at least play it for a while. While I love video games, my roots are in pen and paper games, and I regularly run an RPG campaign. I’ve been getting to know BigPoint and BSGO over the past few months, and I’m excited to be working on BSGO. This team is exceptional and we’re going to bringing a lot of improvements to the game over the coming year. I want to make BSGO the best game possible. So, now to the questions. I can’t go into a ton of detail at this point. The design team and I have some really great ideas, but they are still in the works. We want to make sure we have them right before we start showing them off. All I have to ask is that you be patient. I think you’ll dig them.
- Question: Many players feel that Outposts are far too weak. They offer no real opposition to the enemy and no real aid to their respective friendly side. Are there any plans to significantly increase the power and effectiveness of Outposts?
Answer: Absolutely outposts are going to be improved. It’s all part of our sector control plans. The key is we’re going to let you decide how to improve them. The choices you make in our sector control plans will let you make decisions about what’s in a sector. When you take control of a sector, it will be yours and you’ll be able to determine key elements of the sector. Outposts will gain new functionality. They will become important tactical components to the game.
- Question: Do you plan to introduce new systems for high level players together with the third faction?
Answer: The systems we have in mind for high level players involves giving them things to do. The high level players are effectively the commanders of the faction. With the sector control design, there’s going to be a lot for you guys to do. There will be new systems for you to use and manipulate. Keep in mind that I’m not talking about solely new equipment, but various game systems that involve you in the game in a different way. The high level players are going to become an important factor in the game. As to a third faction, the design team is debating it. I see the design arguments for a third faction, but we’re trying to decide if it’s necessary. There are compelling arguments for it, but there are also compelling arguments against it. All, I can say about it is you probably won’t see it any time soon. Also, we think with more effective sector control mechanics and better role design; the third faction will become unnecessary. Needless to say, we’re trying to resolve the faction imbalance without the 3rd faction. The third faction is a possibility, but it isn’t a priority at this time. It’s a backup plan.
- Question: Any plans to develop the economy?
Answer: Yes. We are looking at the economy and how to make it more interesting. We also want to make it simpler and straight forward. I can’t go into a lot more detail than that right now.
- Question: Carriers: Are there any plans, changes or additions for the carrier in the near future?
Answer: Yes. I want carriers to be the core of a powerful fleet or wing. They will act as the command ship that directs players and helps organize a fleet into an effective fighting force. There are some great concepts in the carrier, but we want to make them more fully realized. With the changes we want to make to sector control, and carriers (and similar ships) will become an important part of pressing into uncontrolled territory.
- Question: Are there any plans to have more uses for merits other than buying nukes and advancing merit ships?
Answer: Yes. Merit improvements are part of that plan. We want merits to be an important reward, and one that players may value more than cubits in the end. They deserve more attention than nukes and merit ships. We’re looking at making merits be used for all the top items. Our goal is to eliminate the “pay to win” attitude of the game. As we expand the design of the game items, we want the best items to be something you have to earn with merits, while the items that give you an early advantage are the items purchased with cubits. As we examine the economy, we are looking to have three levels of items for all categories: Tylium based items, Cubit based items, and Merit based items. It’s still in the planning stages, but it’s a core concept we are focused on. We don’t believe the payment button should be an “instant win” button.
FQF 14 - 8th February 2013[]
- Question: In Mid 2012 due to player demand the ship models were changed to equalize the ship models regards to firing arc’s and blind spots. While the gesture was appreciated the reality was that many ships lost any sense of individuality and others were rendered useless due to overly large blind spots in incomprehensible areas. The Nidhogg being a prime example, it has a 300 meter front blind spot that extends down both flanks. Are there any plans to look at the ships models for revisions or at least revert them back to their pre-2012 designs until a better solution can be found?
Answer: We’re looking at ship balance issues. It’s a big deal, and we want to shift the game away from the “bigger is always better” philosophy. We want players to choose a ship because of the tactical needs of the squadron. We really want to see a ship’s tactical role become the focus of a ship. We want each ship to have a unique character. But keep in mind, that character will also mean inherent design weaknesses a smart player can exploit. We see BSGO as a team-focused, multi-player game. To protect those against those weaknesses, you’ll need other people to watch your back. Sometimes literally. The core design philosophy is we want each ship to be unique. We want players to have to learn how their ship works best. We want players to coordinate and think about how they are working with their comrades in arms. We also want people to be able to make informed choices about how to attack an enemy.
- Question: Many players currently feel the avoidance system on ships is over powered, and in the case of Line ships is it whimsical at best. The concept that 2 battleships the size of small buildings not 50 meters apart could miss each other is too farfetched. While avoidance does have a place in this game, notwithstanding the vast amounts of cash players have spend on RCS Ducting, is there any plans to overhaul the avoidance system?
Answer: I agree with this assessment completely. I dislike seeing ships clumped together firing at one another. It sort of ruins my immersion in the setting. It also looks kind of silly. Finally, it doesn’t make any logical sense. We want what you see to make sense. Not only is it more fun, but it also makes it easier for you to make a tactical decision. The avoidance system is something we are looking to rework. Keep in mind this is no small task. It’s something we’re analyzing. A rework takes time, and it’s something we want to make feel right.
- Question: Will any more of the current ships get more equipment slots like the Rhino, Glaive and Aesir previously got? Will we see any further variants of ships (such as the FR raptor)?
Answer: Certainly. It’s part of our ship balance and role design plans. We don’t want to just toss some stuff onto the ship. We want those changes to make sense and be compelling choices. You can expect to see changes to all the ships as we do a rebalancing and implement ship roles. I can’t really say, “You are going to see a new weapon slot on the Raptor”. Some ships might not get new equipment slots, but they equipment slots they have will be more useful and more compelling. We also want to diversify the ships, and create more variants. I really don’t like the linear progression for ships. There’s no choice to make. I want to see more ship variants and choices for you to make. It’s in the plan, but like I’ve been saying, this is a rather long term plan.
- Question: When can I get the option for anything BUT heavy ammo for my daily log in bonus?
Answer: I can’t say when, but those are the things we’re looking at. Since I’m playing the game, and made the rule that I can’t buy cubits, the daily bonus is very important to me. I want the daily bonus to be something useful and practical. From a design perspective, the daily bonus should be something that makes you want to log in. If you aren’t logging in to get the bonus, then it isn’t a very good bonus. We’re looking at a lot of those neglected incentives. I want the daily bonus to be something you can use and want. It might not be something “epic”, but it should be something you can use and want. We’re also examining things like Analysis Kits and Triad/Prophecy.
- Question: Could you improve mail system so players can send in-game mail or post messages in wing to be read later? Maybe a message board in the game room of the Basestar/Battlestar.
Answer: Absolutely we can. In fact, it’s something we’re working on. We recognize the social systems (i.e. friends, mail, chat, etc.) in the game could use improvement. That’s one of our focuses actually. Improving our social systems, such as the mail system, is a high priority. The reason for that high priority is we recognize that easy socialization helps keep players around. MMOs are social games, and BSGO makes the social part rather difficult at times.
FQF 15 - 15th February 2013[]
- Question: Under the current game build the faction with the larger sector control get generous resource collection bonuses. This means where a server is heavily imbalanced the losing side cannot effectively fight, or gather the resources to be able to fight due to the imbalance. Is there any plans to redress the way ships are repaired or currency is earned other than mining?
Answer: Short answer: Yes.
Long answer: Over the past few months, the design team here has been looking at these sorts of problems. I’m actually, actively playing the game right now, and the frustrations you are feeling are the same frustrations I’m feeling. We have some plans in place to address these issues. I can’t get into specifics, but we want to turn sector control mechanics into something more exciting and participatory. Our goal for the sector control mechanics is to focus on the team multi-player aspect of the game, and push that gameplay a lot further. We want to see wings and squadrons making tactical decisions about where to go next. We also want to make the sector control mechanics more straight forward. As it stands, you don’t feel like you are really making an impact. You aren’t really sure how you contribute with your actions. That’s a problem for new players especially. We’re trying to design new mechanics which will allow weaker factions to raid and harass more effectively the enemy and still make progress. I wish I could say more at this point, but I can say I think it will be pretty cool. You’ll start seeing more details in upcoming developer blog posts. At this point, I’m willing to say resource gathering and how it effects sector control is going to change fundamentally for the better. We’re going to make it deeper, and give you more choices and strategies.
- Question: One of the largest bugbears of any MMO based games are spawn camps and unfortunately they are rife in BSGO. While the spawn countdown timer goes someway to countering these, a large fleet can destroy almost any ship of any class in a matter of seconds when spawn camping. Are there any plans to redress this?
Answer: Absolutely I want to fix this problem. I despise spawn camping. As a game designer, I think of it as a cheap way to get kills. I want to make sure that people aren’t experiencing that. It really does ruin the game for people. We’re still developing the plans for how to address. It’s a tricky thing to get right, and we’d rather do it once and get it right then constantly have to attack the problem. Part of the solution to the problem will be how we deal with sector control in the future. One of the ideas is to simply eliminate any rewards you would receive for kills. It literally wouldn’t apply if the person is still under the protection of the spawn timer. It literally eliminates any reward based incentive. The other option is to randomize the spawns a bit more so they are harder to figure out. The problem with the current situation is there isn’t a lot to do in the game, so invariably; the game degrades to spawn camping. The problem isn’t spawn camping when you get to the core of it. The problem is a failure to provide anything more meaningful for players to do than grief one another. In all honesty, there’s really no single solution to the problem. The solution will have to be a multi-faceted approach.
- Question: Will there be new things to do in game anytime soon such new story missions, new/more assignments etc? Any plans for any co-op or group missions?
Answer: Yes and no. We’re focusing on the core of BSGO, and that’s the multi-player gameplay. The narrative design team could write some pretty impressive stories for you guys, but once you’ve played it, the story is over. We want you to be able to find your own story, and we’re designing towards that. I think the best stories don’t come from a designer writing a complex series of events in a quest, but from the trials you face fighting for something you care about. Something you’ve invested in. We’re designing our new content to take place in the sectors themselves. Don’t expect to see a whole lot more instanced, single player missions. We’d rather have multiplayer missions in the sectors themselves. That’s not to say we won’t have new single-player content. I want to make more, but multi-player content our focus right now. Luckily, we have a very skilled narrative design team available to us, and I want to utilize their skills. You just have to keep in mind that building a mission isn’t just as simple as tossing some stuff in a sector and writing some dialogue. An average mission takes about a month and half to get polished. That’s a lot of designer time to dedicate to 15 minutes of gameplay. We’re looking to optimize that time investment, and give you more than 15 minutes of game play. With our multi-player content plan, you will get hours upon hours of dynamic missions.
- Question: Are there any plans to change the Level system so there is a difference between high level players? Will there be new skills or higher levels added to current skills for the use of unused experience points?
Answer: Absolutely. I want BSGO to be as much about skill as it is about level. The level issue is something that’s very important to me. First, it doesn’t really make any sense. Second, it’s not very fun to get wasted by someone who’s out leveled you, but is still flying the same ship. On some level, a viper is still a viper. Level shouldn’t matter that much. Knowing how to handle your ship should make the difference. That should determine victory. We’re also looking at expanding the skill system. There’s a lot of opportunity to make the skill system more interesting and deeper. We want to give you options to customize your character further, and let me make solid choices about how you want to play the game.
- Question: Will there be a fix to stop missiles flying through planetoids and asteroids?
Answer: All I can say is, hopefully. I know that’s not exactly the clearest answer, but there are some technical challenges for us with that. We’re looking at the collision in the game in general. I have never liked the fact that ships bounce off things. We also want terrain (i.e. asteroids, planetoids, etc.) to be something requires you to make a tactical choice. Do you dodge into the asteroid field? What are the risks? Also, it doesn’t make any sense.
FQF 16 - 22nd February 2013[]
First off, I’d like to thank you all for the questions. I like communicating with you guys, and keeping you up to date about what’s going on with BSGO. It’s something I look forward to every week.
- Question: I would like to ask if BP is not considering the publication of certain current internal statistics. For example: How many players currently playing on each server? How many rookies logs in individual months (compared with older data)? Which server plays the most Cylons and which colonists?
Answer: No I can’t. That’s internal information that we can’t share for competitive reasons. Sorry.
- Question: I’d like to know if DEVs are planning to introduce a Joystick/Joypad plug-in for BSGO?
Answer: We’re looking at improving the flight controls in general. The advanced flight controls are a significant improvement, but we think they could be better. We want each ship class to have a distinct feel when you pilot it. We want strikes to feel agile, and we want your maneuvers to matter. The first focus is developing solid mouse controls, and then joypad and joystick controls. Mouse controls are a priority, because everyone has a mouse. I always use a joystick when I play games like this, but I’m an anomaly. The fact is that joysticks just aren’t that common. Along with this, we want to do a HUD redesign to make it more effective and attractive. This requires a lot of backend work that simply takes time. It sounds easy to just toss together, but it’s tougher than you’d think.
- Question: Is there second advanced level for ships in the future?
Answer: I would like to have more advanced options for ships. I’d like to have for the same structure the Raptor has with Raptor Force Recon. The core thing is we want the ships to have more defined roles. So, while you may see a “second advanced” level for ships, they will be different from how they are handled now. Ship roles are going to become very important to the future of the game. When you pick a ship to pilot, it should be because it has a unique play style that you prefer and it provides assets your fleet desperately needs.
- Question: Are you going to fix ships entering inside each other?
Answer: Ship collision is something we are looking at. I don’t like the fact that ships are really close to one another. I’d like to get them spread out a lot further. This task is not a small one, and will require quite a bit of work. We’re partially focused improving our server performance, which will allow us to do much more with collision in general. It might even allow us to cause ships to take damage when they collide with one another. I also want to address the spawn issue and create a wider area where people can spawn, so that ships don’t spawn inside one another.
- Question: Will we see the Devs in ships on our servers, flying alongside and experiencing the game (and be nuked by players)?
Answer: Well, I can guarantee that some of you already have killed me. I play on Colonial on Libran and Cylon on Tauron. I make an effort to play the game as regularly as possible. If there’s some poor newbie you’re killing, then it was probably me. I’m personally of the opinion the best way to design a game is to actually play it.
FQF 17 - 1st March 2013[]
- Question: Will it be possible, that the Developer Team informs us, in priority order what are the 5 problems or suggestions they are working on it at the moment?
Answer: I can’t really go into detail on that at this time. One of our core philosophies in this team is to focus not just on fixing bugs, but making slight improvements to existing systems as we address them. These improvements are intended to just make the game more balanced and accessible. So, we’re focusing on some easy fixes that can make some improvements, while we set the foundation for more broad changes. Even though you might not believe it, we actually do know what issues concern the community. Our community manager and moderators work very hard to collect your concerns and keep us up to date. Overall, our concerns are pretty much the same as yours. I know that might sound like pandering. Honestly, when we look at what the community tells us, it just confirms our instincts about the game. You’re going to see a lot of general improvements to the game over the next few months, while get everything ready for the big changes we want to make. So, keep your eyes open. You’ll see those Top 5 things we’ve been working on soon.
- Question: When will the PVP loot be improved to receive more valuable items?
Answer: I can’t give a definite date. Loot is a rather large task. It might not seem like it a large task, but our loot system is rather large. First we want to revamp it a bit to make it more straight forward, but also we have to go through a lot of loot tables make them better.
- Question: Are you planning to improve the Arena mechanics in order to counter the imbalance of the different ship setups?
Answer: Sort of. First we want to address simple things like removing nukes from the arena. That will fix a little bit of the problem, but arena isn’t a high priority right now. I want arena to be a fun part of the game, but we’ve got more pressing issues that effect core gameplay. In general, the balance problem in the arena is related to how ship classes interact. We’re focused on fixing that, and I think that should fix the issues.
- Question: Other online games allow members of a team or group to exchange items. I’m sure my wing mates that own heavy weapons would enjoy what ammo won’t fit in my strike. Are you planning to allow exchange of items? What is your stance on a “wing locker”?
Answer: We’re talking about having a wing locker. I like the idea of wings being able to share resources, and I’m not against it. We just need to make sure it’s not abused. Most likely, you’re going to see ammo pulled out of the loot tables, and then we’ll just provide you with resources in place of the ammo. On the other hand, there may be instances where a player wants to help support his friends in the wing. In that instance, it’s good for the game and it’s good for your wing.
- Question: Are you aware of the current lag spikes that occur when Line Ships use “Flak”? What are you going to do to reduce it and overall lag problems during big battles?
Answer: Yes. In fact that’s a high priority for us right now. We’re talking about solutions. It’s a surprisingly tough problem to address. We are going to have the fix out as soon as we can.
FQF 18 - 8th March 2013[]
- Question: Will players get the opportunity to sell equipment for Cubits?
Answer: All I can say is maybe. That possibility is part of a large revamp we’re looking at. I wish I could go into more detail, but we haven’t finalized anything yet.
- Question: Please tell more about the new Sector Control
Answer: I’m quite happy to talk about this. It’s a very long term plan, so don’t expect it to drop very quickly. Sector control is going to shift to a more straight forward concept. Sectors will be part of larger regions. Controlling a region gets a faction various global benefits. It will also allow you to upgrade the sector to get things like improve defenses, and make them harder to capture. Along with the control of sectors, there will be a larger resource control mechanic where a faction needs to gather resources to get additional benefits. So each resource will contribute to your faction’s abilities as well as contributing to your progression. The key is that sector control will move away from being about mining and killing NPCs to fighting over the sectors and taking control of specific locations. Finally, random events will spawn throughout sector space, and whether your faction completes the successfully can determine what happens to your overall control. The goal is to pull the game away from mining as the focus to PVP. We are calling the new system “Territory Control” and “Strategic Resource Control”.
- Question: Have you thought about a solution for the multi account problem in order to be able to avoid cheating?
Answer: Yes. That’s something we’re working on at the moment. It’s another top priority.
- Question: Previously you mentioned the wreckage will become valuable at some point. What are your plans for this?
Answer: We’re investigating a number of options. First we want to make the Unidentified Objects interesting. We are currently re-tooling the loot tables for that. Next, we’re looking at ways to use the wreckage for other things. We’ve discussed is using it for new missions. In the distant future, we might develop a crafting system, but don’t expect it any time soon if we do it.
- Question: Are you planning to make the existing and not very useful hull equipment (System Redundancy, Decoy and Mine Launcher) useful?
Answer: Yes. To give you an idea of what we are up to; first we are looking at issues with flak, point defense, and decoys. Next we’re going to hit nukes and mines. After that, we are going to look at ways to diversify ships which will require updates to weapons at the same time. Part of our plan is to actually introduce some new equipment that will change gameplay.
FQF 19 - 15th March 2013[]
- Question: Mister Javery_BP, you said that you are playing the game, and started like everyone else, without any benefit, literally from the beginning. So, I would like to know what are you thinking about the game, what difficulties you are finding, what bugs you already faced and if you are having trouble when a fighter alone destroy you very easily and quickly when you are using a line ship? From 0 to 10 what is the grade you give to the game as a player?
Answer: First off, you can just call me Javery. Mister Javery_BP is my father. ☺ I am not getting to play as often as I would like, but I play a couple of times per week for a few hours. I find the new player entry to be very daunting. I also find the game to have far too much grind. We really want to change that aspect of the game. We want to shift away from mining as the primary activity to PVP and territory control. I find myself running into the issue with not being able to compete effectively against veteran players. I find that very frustrating as a designer and a player. One of our goals is to flatten power curve issue. We want to move away from the structure of how ships engage one another, and move towards a structure where ship classes fight the same ship class. I haven’t gotten to pilot a line ship very often, but I have found that it’s kind of a mixed bag. Flying a strike feels very different from flying a line, but I think that’s a good thing. We want to differentiate them even further. At this point in time, I give BSGO about a 6. It’s above average for a free to play game, but it also needs some work.
- Question: Do you plan to balance the resource's distribution on in-balanced servers?
Answer: I’m not quite sure what you’re asking here. If you’re asking about the mining bonus issues, then I’m happy to say the fix for this issue is in the works. I’ve designed the fix. We’re going to fix the mining bonuses, because the dominate faction was getting an unusually large bonus. The design has reduced that bonus to something that dynamically adjusts based on how much of the galaxy a faction controls. Also, the losing faction will get a benefit to offset the mining bonus.
- Question: When can we see new tournaments? When will the new PvP sector be active?
Answer: You should see those both sometime in March if all goes well. The process of making this special tournament was a bit more involved than we previous though it would be. Also, the flu swept through our office like the black plague. We lost a few people for an extended period of time. At one point about half the team was out sick.
- Question: Will we see new droids / new platforms / NPCs in general in the future?
Answer: Yes you will, but I’m not ready to give a definite date. I want to have enemies have “personalities” based on where they operate. One set of enemies might use ECM, while another would favor decoys or mines. It’s all in the planning and theory stages at this point.
- Question: Would you give more priority to old bugs than new bugs?
Answer: Old bugs are our priority as a whole. Some take longer to deal with than others. It may seem like we’re focused on certain things, but what’s happening is the big bugs, take flak lag as an example, takes more time to fix, while fixing some other problems can get done very quickly. They key thing we need from the community is for you to let us know what’s a priority for you. I know the attitude of “the devs don’t care” is very common in a lot of communities. We care about the old bugs, but sometimes they take time to fix properly. We want to do it right the first time.
FQF 20 - 22nd March 2013[]
- Question: Will you introduce new weapons/electronics in the game?
Answer: We’re currently working on a role design for all of the ships. Basically, we’re going to create “classes” for the ships, which are the common jobs they should be doing. So one ship might be a bomber, another might be artillery. The plan is to make a whole variety of new weapons and skills to go along with the role redesign.
- Question: Will you modify the player’s UI to make it smaller in order to have a bigger visible area for the action?
Answer: We are currently working on a total UI revamp. It’s going to hit everything from the HUD to the options screen. Part of the goal is to make it just more useable and fluid. Scaling of the UI will be a very important factor.
- Question: Is there any stable version of Unity? It´s very annoying to change Unity after each hotfix. The game works fine for a while but after some update lags and unity crashes appears. I don´t understand this.
Answer: So I didn’t really have an answer for this, so I turned to our lead developers. Here’s what he had to say: “All public released versions of Unity are stable. I strongly suggest using the latest released version of Unity Web Player (the one which is installed and upgraded automatically). A manual downgrade is NOT advisable. While a new bug may temporarily be introduced when a new Unity version is released, chances are this bug will be fixed pretty fast. Whereas old Unity versions contain dozens of known and already fixed bugs and performance problems. We REQUIRE all users using the most recent Unity Version, especially once we’re done compiling the whole game to Unity 4. Users who manually downgrade their Unity version will receive (in the worst case cryptic) error by then. In 99% of all cases downgrading does not fix the underlying problem – in fact most crashes are random and infrequent. So even when not downgrading to an older version a user would be able to play for hours or days without a crash.”
- Question: The tuning kits for high level equipment trade in – is this feature still coming or did you shelve it when taking over from SF DEV team?
Answer: We’ve shelved that at this time. Sorry. Some version of the trade-in system may come in at a later date.
- Question: Are you planning to make an automatic sequence of jumps? Are you planning to make jumps sequences programmable?
Answer: Not specifically that, but we do plan on having a sort of “fast travel” system. It will allow players to quickly move to systems they control. It’s down the development line though, so don’t expect it any time soon.
FQF 21 - 5 April 2013[]
- Question: Is anything being done about the fact that certain ship roles within a class are outweighed by the overall survivability than the other roles in its class? Is anything been looked into about different classes of ships being able to outperform the class below it, for example how acceptable is it that an escort class ship can travel faster than the fastest strike class ship?
Answer: Actually, that’s the core of what the design team has been working on throughout the month of March and will continue to work on in the next weeks and months. One of our main focuses right now is ship balance and ship roles. We are fundamentally redesigning the systems. The behavior of ships and how they interact with one another is going to change drastically.
First, we are dumping the idea of strikes fighting lines and escorts killing strikes. Each class will mainly fight its own class while still having ships that can break from that pattern. Strikes for example will fight other strikes, but ships like the Rhino can specialize in attacking escorts or line ships (while giving up its viability in other areas). This will still not mean that a Rhino can kill bigger ship classes as fast as they would kill each other, and it also doesn’t mean that a line ship has no means of defense against strikes.
Second, we want to make sure that each ship has at least one viable, interesting and fun to play role compared to using them as means of progression, where one ship is the obvious better choice than the others. Think of roles like you would of class specializations in your typical fantasy MMO. A mage can be played as an offensive damage dealer or as a supporter that helps his allies. There will be still “jack of all trades”, but the plan is to provide at least one ship per class for each important role in the game.
These were just two of the design goals we have in terms of ship balancing and ship roles. As already said, this is a fundamental redesign of the current systems, which means we also have to rewrite big parts of our server. Therefore I apologize for not being able to give you an estimated time of arrival and asking you to be patient. I know you heard this several times before, but we want to take our time to do things right the first time.
- Question: Is there any chance of BSGO competing with other MMO games in terms of 'content' and 'things to do'? We all know it does not mean new tournaments. Do the developers truly (this is important, we don't want non-answers and certainly not lies) believe that the game will develop, or has the talent simply run out? At what point are we going to see a shift in patch focus, away from bugs and more towards content and game structure?
Answer: I wouldn’t lie to you. You’re going to get content.
Right now we are working with the Narrative Design department to produce 6 new missions per faction, which have an interesting and unique story. You should see them come out over the next few months.
However, I don’t think single player content is the way for this game to go. What we want to do is create content which can be played over and over again, together with and against other players. This will come in several different forms, but I want to give you a short glimpse on one of our bigger features that we have on our roadmap: dynamic events.
Now what’s a dynamic event? Imagine jumping into a sector and suddenly getting a radio message from your HQ. There is a freighter of your faction that is being attacked by enemies. You get a direction where to go and the order to protect the freighter by killing the attackers until it manages to jump out of the system. When you arrive at the event area, all you have to do is to follow the orders you got. No need to accept the mission, just play and cooperate with your faction members to accomplish the goals. At the end of the event, everybody who did take part in it will be rewarded by his personal performance as well as getting bonuses depending on the outcome of the event – in this case if the freighter was destroyed or was able to jump out of the system before.
This is only one example of a dynamic event, and while we will start out with only a few different events, we can and will expand the feature to add more variety to the game.
So how is that working towards open world PvP? While your faction has gotten the order to defend that freighter, the other faction was given the exact opposite task. And if you are wondering how this will work out with the current faction imbalance – we have thought about that as well. This feature is quite complex, and I’m sorry to say that it will take a while until you will see it in the game. But I can tell you, that it is totally worth waiting for. Stay tuned for more information on it in the next weeks and months.
- Question: Is there any chance that flak will become less effective versus lines (or stay the same) and more effective versus strikes? Or perhaps keep flak the same but come up with a more effective Point defense system?
Answer: As part of our ship role redesign work, flak and point defense are items we are working on. Basically, most of the systems in the game will be changed to reinforce the roles we are creating. The design team wants flak to be a tactical choice. We also want to eliminate the urge to load up a ship with all flak guns and point defense guns. The goal is to create ships which have a “defensive weapon”, because they are part of a role. Flak and point defense will become an anti-strike weapon, and an area denial weapon.
- Question: Is there anything in the works to include some of the ships we saw in blood and chrome like the destroyers? I know we have the Viper Mk III now but it would be cool to have some of the other larger ships from the first Cylon war put in the game considering the base that was found is supposed to be a relic from the first war and that the larger ships found there would more closely resemble ships from blood and chrome.
There’s nothing in the works, but it’s not outside the realm of possibility. We work in cooperation with SyFy, and they asked us to put the two new Blood and Chrome ships in, and we were more than happy to add these amazing new models. As we are redesigning the current ships and the underlying systems, we need to take care of them first before adding new ones. However, be assured that after this redesign takes effect, many of the current ships will feel like new ships, as they will finally have a distinct purpose and meaningful strengths and weaknesses.
- Question: Last year the old DEV team held a live Q&A on the servers where the players asked questions and the DEV's would answer them and get some feedback. Are there any plans on doing that again?
Answer: If that’s something you’d like, then I’m more than happy to do it. I’ll talk to our Community Manager about doing that.
FQF 22 - 12 April 2013[]
- Question: What are your plans to sort out the chaos in the shop? Are there any plans to create filters or a function to sort the items? It would be nice if the shop only shows items useful for the ship I’m currently flying.
Answer: Let’s be honest, our shop is a bit of a mess. There are a lot of items and it’s hard to sort through them. Our UI redesign includes a new shop which will have filters, favorites, and similar functions to make moving through the shop more pleasant experience. Also, we’re simply going to eliminate items that players don’t use. I’d rather have a consistent set of items you want to use, rather than clutter the interface with items that aren’t useful.
- Question: Could you elaborate a bit more on what you’re doing regarding the “lag issues” and the problems that occur with drops of the frame rate, please?
Answer: I know the big lag issue was related to the use of flak, but I know there are others. In regards to the flak issue, we’ve tracked down the problem, but it required a major rework of how weapons work under the hood. It won’t change how weapons work for you, but it changes how the system understands the weapons. This fix we’ve determined for that specific problem needs to be thoroughly tested, but we’re confident it will function properly. Very confident. We just want to make sure we work out any possible kinks before we put it live. It’s better to do it right the first time, then to put out something broken, and then have to go into panic mode to fix it.
- Question: Are you planning to ‘fix’ the “Dock-Button”, because now it’s transparent and when clicking on it you often select something that’s ‘behind’ this button.
Answer: The “click-through” issue is common throughout a lot of our UI. I’ve been frustrated by it a number of times myself. With our UI redesign, you’ll see a lot of those problems resolve, but addressing minor issues like that is something that is fairly easy to fix. We’re changing the how the dock icon works, and we can tackle that at the same time I expect.
- Question: Are there plans to offer a downloadable client version?
Answer: Not at this time, but it isn’t outside the realm of possibility. It’s just not something we have the resources to maintain or put together at this point. It’s not that we wouldn’t want to, but we simply can’t right now.
- Question: What are your plans to improve the wing functions to improve the value of being in a wing?
Answer: There are number of plans to improve the wing functionality, but they are still in the planning stages. We are revamping the UI, and other aspects of the game and the wings are a core function of that. We want to integrate the wings more fully into the game. In the future, as part of a wing, you’ll receive access to specific advantages and your wing can collectively contribute to the capability of that wing through upgrades.
- Question: What happens to my gear if you change the ship roles, are my items and the cubits spent becoming worthless?
Answer: We have seen some concerns on the forums about your formerly upgraded ships and modules becoming useless when the ship role redesign is finally implemented. While I cannot give an exact way of how we are going to deal with the transition (which will depend not only on what changes we are going to make but also on some technical questions), let me tell you that we do not intend to create more powerful items. Instead we want to make all the current items viable first, so what you are going to see is either an increase of power and/or a change in how things work. If the latter is the case or we have to remove certain things from the game, we will find a way to compensate you for that. You are our more than loyal customers, and this is how we want to treat you in the future.
FQF 23 - 19 April 2013[]
- Question: What is the third faction development status?
Answer: The third faction idea is not being developed further, as we want to focus on other areas of the game. While it probably would have had an impact on the balance of the game, it would also mean that we had to focus on this feature for many months – creating new ship models, adjusting our server to being able to handle three factions etc., leaving no resources for in our opinion more important features like the dynamic events or ship role redesign. As already told before, we have other plans that will deal with the faction balance, which are easier to develop and will hopefully have the same, if not a stronger impact on that problem.
- Question: Will there be a new Escort ship? Will be added a new escort or line ship soon?
Answer: As we want to improve the currently available ships in terms of fun and viability in open world combat, we have no plans to add new ships before this has been done. However, some of the ships will feel completely new after the redesign .
- Question: Is it contemplated the possibility to include the collisions as damage?
Answer: That is something we would like to do in the future. However, in order to do this we need to make the collision boxes for the ships and the environment more accurate. Right now those collision boxes are quite simple, meaning you sometimes can fly through things where you normally shouldn’t be able to fly through. When we implement consequences for bumping into something, we have to make sure that collisions are predictable. As collisions are quite expensive in terms of calculations on the servers, we unfortunately have to wait until our developers finished the revamp of our server software. This is something they are currently working on and will allow us to do many more things than just more elaborate collisions, but it will also take a while, so do not expect that feature to hit within the next 4-6 months.
- Question: Will there be more water-systems as Tannhauser?
Answer: I’ve never liked the idea that there is a “water” system. Instead, we’d rather have the planetoids be less predictable. The goal is to also design the dynamic event systems so you aren’t after a “water” system, and instead seeking planetoids around the galaxy for dynamic event objectives. The structure of the galaxy is going to be different in the future.
- Question: It would be cool to have an inter-server event, like a giant tournament between servers; are you planning for the near future to increase the communication and, therefore, interaction between servers?
Answer: That would be cool, but unfortunately the structure of our servers doesn’t really allow that. We’re not ruling out the idea, but it’s not in the works at this time. Sorry.
FQF 24 - 26th April 2013[]
- Question: When will you fix the collision detection and hit boxes?
Answer: Collision detection is really quite tricky with how our system is set up. We’re restructuring how our system works to make more accurate collision detection. It’s a surprisingly large task and going to take a while to do properly.
- Question: Will it be possible in the future to freely configure the HUD?
Answer: We are redesigning our HUD and customization is part of the goal.
- Question: There were initially 3 variants intended for each class: is it yet the case?
Answer: With our ship role redesign, we’d like to have three variants for each class, but we might not have unique models for each ship. We want parity with the Raptor, but that might not be possible with our resources. I’d rather make sure there are solid roles for two variants, than add a third variant just for parity.
- Question: The Tobias_BP interview was some good news. When will we have a schedule of the major changes in the game? Will we continue to receive updated information from the Dev´s works and what their primary goals are?
Answer: While we would like to provide you with dates about the release dates of bigger features within the next 6 months, this isn’t possible at the moment. As you might have noticed we are currently working on and have planned quite some big redesigns of current features as well as adding completely new ones. As those features are linked with many of those that are already in the game (in terms of both gamedesign as well as backend and frontend code), giving out dates would be an educated guess at best. What we can and will do however is to keep you up to date about features that will hit within a closer time frame (about a month) as well as giving you information on what we are focusing on right now.
So what are we working on right now then? The current focus of our gamedesign team is the ship role redesign. With ship role redesign we do not mean simply changing some numbers, but instead we are analyzing each of the games systems that are combat related and already in place. Do they work as it is intended? If not, can we tweak them so they are working towards where we want to go with the game? What additional systems do we need to achieve the goals of the ship role redesign? This is a very time consuming task, especially if we want to do it right. Our goals are not less than making every ship fun to fly and play with, giving it a distinct role within open world battles as well as making our systems more easy to understand (while keeping complexity where it provides meaningful gameplay and decisions).
Only looking at the ships themselves is not sufficient for this undertaking, instead we need to have a look into systems like the flight model, electronic warfare, missiles and so on. While I’m writing this I’m actually inclined to rename this big task into something like BSGO – Space Combat Evolved, because as you see it touches much more areas than just the ship roles.
This is necessary because we cannot redesign our ships based on systems that obviously are not working. Let’s take the Rhino for instance – we would like to see this ship being able to act as a fast missile platform. But missiles in their current state do not work as they are intended. Instead of making a meaningful choice when to fire a missile, you just turn your launchers on and keep spamming missiles. This is not really that much fun to begin with, but then missiles are not a real threat unless you are not moving and have many of them homing in. Redesigning the role and the strengths of a ship based on that is doomed to fail, as we also need to revamp the missile system sooner or later, making all the former changes to the Rhino suddenly not work anymore. And then we haven’t really started to talk about countermeasures… I hope this little excuse in our daily work gives you an idea why certain things are not designed within a couple of days or weeks.
- Question: When is the faction switch coming?
Answer: The waiting has ended! Next week we’re going to start the faction switch application process, where you will be able to say “Yes, I apply to change faction!”. Means, you should prepare and consider, if changing sides could be an option for you and your friends. And “Yes!”, you will be able to apply for a faction switch together with your friends and wing mates! And we’re trying our very best to have you all switching based on an “all or no one” idea.
But well, I won’t get into more detail about this, just giving you a heads up. We prepared more details going to be presented next week and all of your questions will be answered – so stay tuned and we thank you for a little more of your patience. The faction switch is close!
Future communications[]
This is going to be the last FQF for the time being. Instead we will be introducing something called the "Dev Blog". I can't say any more right now but it will be announced soon with some further details, this is just to let you know that communications are not being stopped with the community.
Game Content |
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Q&A's and Dev Blogs | ||
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Q&A's | Five Question Friday | |
Development Blogs | Dev Blog 1 - Dev Blog 2 - Dev Blog 3 - Dev Blog 4 - Dev Blog 5 - Dev Blog 6 - Dev Blog 7 - Dev Blog 8 - Dev Blog 9 - Dev Blog 10 - Dev Blog 11 - Dev Blog 12 - Dev Blog 13 - Dev Blog 14 - Dev Blog 15 - Dev Blog 16 - Dev Blog 17 - Dev Blog 18 - Dev Blog 19 - Dev Blog 20 - Dev Blog 21 - Dev Blog 22 - Dev Blog 23 - Dev Blog 24 - Dev Blog 25 - Dev Blog 26 - Dev Blog 27 - Dev Blog 28 - Dev Blog 29 - Dev Blog 30 - Dev Blog 31 - Dev Blog 32 - Dev Blog 33-Dev Blog 34 |