The Glade 4.0

So they broke 10 for the Chairman off from Wingman's Hangar and moved it to Mondays. That'll be nice, I guess. Spread the information out over the week a bit more. Also, just in case folks hadn't noticed, WMH is now on Wednesdays so The Next Great Starship can take the Friday slot.

Speaking of, the second episode of The Next Great Starship was pretty nice. I agreed with all their picks and liked a few of them a lot. No new contenders for me in the wildcard race, which means I don't have a heart-breaking decision there, yet. We'll see what the final set of qualifiers and that wildcard vote bring...

Back to Wingman's Hangar, though, they're going to run their Forum Feedback picks past Chris so they can answer fewer slow lobs. I'm looking forward to seeing how that works out.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

I haven't watched the starship thing. It doesn't interest me a whole lot. Maybe I'm too hopped up on wanting to fly ships to be interested in watching them built. However it is cool they are broadcasting 3 days a week. Hopefully they'll even have something to say soon.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

The Next Great Starship is kind of interesting for the perspective of the artists that you get. Chris Olivia, Mark Skelton, and Chris Smith are all both judges and lead artists on the team, so it's been particularly neat to see what they think makes for a good model that fits into the Star Citizen Universe.

The submissions range from kind of bad to really interesting to uninspired but incredibly well executed, and every point in between. There have been two or three guns that I really hope get used (or worked on slightly before inclusion) as-is already.

It's not a short, to-the-point format, though. They're basically 45 minutes long. The RSI page has a compilation of the qualifying teams' submissions to date, though, and while watching all of their video submissions is going to actually be LONGER than watching the two shows (they pare down a bunch of those submissions to cut out some of the fluff), you can use the thumbnails on that page to at least see still shots of what each has submitted, and then click through to the video if one catches your eye. So I'd encourage you to scan through that page, at least, to get a sense of the work of the folks who might end up designing that Mercenary Gunship we voted as the subject of the contest a few weeks back.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Really glad they broke out 10 questions, I always found it interesting but couldn't always find time to watch the entire wingman's hangar.

Really liking the new, improved, less redacted WMH Forum Feedback. They're tackling a lot more substantial questions in a lot more detail.

Other than the big announcement I put in the other thread, it looks like we'll get a minor Hangar patch this week, and then nothing for a while as they touch every asset they've already got to update it to PBR.

So it sounds like after this week, the next patch will be the big PBR patch.

I'm also really kind of enjoying meeting more of the artists. I love Forrest, and he clearly is really smart and knows his stuff, but he's not very comfortable on camera. Chris O, on the other hand, has a pretty decent camera presence. Rob Irving's still my favorite, though.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Ooh. Eric fielded one of my questions in the Hangover, confirming that they are looking to hire a dedicated economist, ala Riot and CCP.

Also from the Hangover, they got the actual PBR code for the CryEngine in from Crytek last week, and in the last couple days, Chris R. gave the go-ahead to make the switch immediately. So they're no longer doing any new work for the old renderer.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

So we'll be able to buy Pabst Blue Ribbon?

Bleh.

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Holy shitsnacks!

Again... I wasn't going to say anything...

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

So what's the deal with the game? I don't have time to go through a bunch of nonsense about stuff I don't care about from mouth breathing forum trolls (not y'all of course.) .

Bottom line: Do we have any idea when I'll be able to fly around in my Hornet?

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Holy shitsnacks!

Supposedly "Shortly After" PAX (Mid April). However I am not altogether certain what "Shortly After" means given the definition of "No Matter What"

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

They're targeting April. The way Eric phrased an answer on the Hangover, I'm confident in interpreting "shortly after" as "between the unveil and the end of the month" because he said we'd be playing in April. That's the plan, at least, and as anything, some huge unsquashable unforseen bug might cause that to be missed, but they've been converting the initial dfm art arrests to physics based rendering for a few months, now, so I think they've got a pretty good handle on how long that will take, and they just finished updating their milestones and project management roadmap at the summit they held last week. So that's probably a pretty informed estimation.

_________________
"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

_________________
"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

I think I'ma gonna go watch WH 57.

Wait so there is a subscription for a game thats not out yet?

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Yes, but its not a required subscription, nor is it all that game changing. It just gives you a magazine (about stuff you can't play yet) and some decorative perks, that may or may not appear in your hangar yet.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

Yeah I'm gonna decline that.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

I've enjoyed the Jump Point magazine, but it's not something everybody needs by any means. It's actually started to be a mixed blessing, as a lot of the standard CommLink updates the last two months or so have been them finally taking some of the Jump Point stuff and putting it into mainstream circulation bit by bit, so it's not new to me...

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

New patch is causing lighting issues for many of us Radeon users. But on the bright side, I can mount my Super Hornet turret on the gunnery range. Just can't see much of what I'm shooting at.

Is there going to be an official void rangers policy on huggiebuzzums?

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Mutually consensual huggiebuzzums are permitted.

The Next Great Starship continues to be more or less entertaining. I'll admit, I'm glad Cryo made the cut; I'd like to see where that goes with some direction. On the other hand, I was not a fan of 1-Bit Amoeba's entry. The silhouette was just much too similar to the Gladiator, for me; having a second flat, somewhat disc-shaped military craft didn't really appeal to me and doesn't make sense as a gunship in my mind, either. I'd rather have seen the first team shown continue. With two wild cards voted back in out of 6 judge eliminations, though, I think there's room for that. And I think it's more likely to get fan support than Cryo's, which was more polarizing due to poor composition of the submission.

Somebody needs to tell the Skyguard guy to ditch the engine intakes right behind the doors that open for the squad to rappel out, though. That's a terrible design decision from a safety perspective. I also think the wings would work better if they were stubbier and wider to get the surface area.

Oh yeah, and the Jump Point this month was HUGE because the WIP on the original Idris concept was like 60 pages long. And there's going to be 2 more issues upcoming (not immediately) devoted to the Idris WIP! This issue covered Ryan Church's design work, ending in the set of paint-over shots that we've all seen eight months ago. The introduction hinted that Foundry 42's done a lot of modifications, tweaks, and changes, though, so much so that they're getting their own WIP article on it to cover the changes they've been making to fit the Squadron 42 campaign. Then CGBot's work to get it to an in-game asset (which isn't done yet) will be the third Idris WIP JP article.

_________________
"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

I haven't watched 4 or 5 yet - hopefully tonight.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Am I the only one who hear's Mike Rowe (or someone similar) voicing the Golem-tek commercial.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

Catching up on my wingman's hangar.... there' something magical about watching hornets explode.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

Today's WMH is fantastic. They do like a 10-minute clip talking with the AI team, complete with video examples. It's really damn cool.

_________________
"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

43 Million. Surprised this freight train hasn't slowed down. We all get some armor!

Omni Role Combat Armor (ORC) mk9 Manufacturer: CDS (Clark Defense Systems) The ‘standard’ Marine armor for almost twenty years, ORC armor is prohibitively more expensive than standard-issue infantry body armor used by Army Ground Forces, but the Marines boast far fewer numbers and tend to make compelling arguments to get what they ask for. Clark Defense Systems’ ORC armor is created of composite mesh of fibers reinforced with ablative plates, offering a modest protection against both energy and kinetic weapons. While it doesn’t offer the same protection of the Marines’ proprietary Nail-armor or their SpecOps variants, ORCmk9 armor is a baseline solution for any number of situations the average Marine will encounter on any given day. Besides, in the words of Lt. Col Armin Trask, “you wanna know the best armor? Not getting shot.”

At 45 mil, we'll get the mystery artifact:

Hadesian Artifact – The mystery of what happened in Hades has been one of the great archeological puzzles ever since the system was discovered in the early 26th Century. The evidence suggests that the Hadesians nearly erased their entire civilization in devastating civil war that left a planet cracked in half, but so many questions remained. Who were these Hadesians? How did the war get started? Over the centuries, even the public became enamored by the mystery of this system. This curiosity was inflamed when scientists recently discovered a lone Hadesian artifact on the black market of all places. Trinket manufacturers quickly tried to capitalize on the resurgence of interest by building exact copies of the artifact for sale to the public, even replicating the unidentified symbols along the base…

Here's the WIP Gladius for Squadron 42 we unlocked at 42 million.