{"data":{"id":15056,"title":"Design Notes: Sharpening the Cutlass","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/comm-link\/engineering\/15056-Design-Notes-Sharpening-The-Cutlass","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-links\/15056","api_public_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/comm-links\/15056","channel":"Engineering","category":"Development","series":"Design Post","images":[{"id":1257,"name":"Render11_copy.jpg","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/media\/pmonvlo6cxv5mr\/source\/Render11_copy.jpg","alt":"","size":225705,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","last_modified":"2013-09-12T21:21:54+00:00","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/1257","similar_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/1257\/similar"},{"id":4264,"name":"Drake_cutlass_flight_visual.jpg","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/media\/nrbiceu44bkoqr\/source\/Drake_cutlass_flight_visual.jpg","alt":"","size":288138,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","last_modified":"2014-08-04T13:12:46+00:00","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/4264","similar_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/4264\/similar"},{"id":4266,"name":"Render13_copy.jpg","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/media\/gs8hsixr4ytqor\/source\/Render13_copy.jpg","alt":"Original Concept Art: Drake 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Evolution\nby Jared Huckaby\n\u201cThe only constant in game development is change.\u201d\n\nWe all have ideas. Good ideas. Bad ideas. If you\u2019re lucky, possibly even great ideas, but the best ideas rarely come without a fair share of time and effort and perhaps most importantly: trial and error. Game development is that process of not only bringing those ideas to reality, but of testing and refining those concepts in the crucible formed from combining hundreds and thousands of disparate designs into one.\n\nIt\u2019s here in the game development phase when you discover the true virtue of those intentions, and discover what works and what does not, and what can be made to work and sometimes more importantly, what should not be made to work. It is the thing you do your best to anticipate, and the place where you either discover the elation of a theory fully realized, or the struggle to iterate that initial plan into something better than it was before.\n\nTHE SHIPYARD is a new series of articles we\u2019ll be publishing from time to time as things come together. Created with help from the developers in the trenches creating this game, we\u2019ll explore the history of these ships, the current realities they\u2019re faced with, and the prospects of their continuing evolution going forward. We\u2019ve decided to start with the Cutlass because it\u2019s had a storied development history, and it gave us a great chance to take a candid look at the trials and tribulations it\u2019s faced in the last three years. This isn\u2019t the answer to all Cutlass-related questions, but we feel it\u2019s a great effort at pulling the curtain back on game development, and documenting a little of how this process actually works.\n\nWe hope you enjoy it.\n\nLONG, LONG TIME AGO: The Prehistory of the Cutlass\nby Ben Lesnick\n\nThe Drake Interplanetary Cutlass was born on October 3, 2012 at 5:44 AM Eastern, part of a designer\u2019s guide to Star Citizen\u2019s ship manufacturers that continues to inform many aspects of the project today. The primordial Cutlass was cited as an example of names that Drake Interplanetary, our pirate-focused company, might use.\n\nDrake Interplanetary is ostensibly a legitimate company, but it\u2019s an open secret that they manufacture cheap, well armed craft favored by pirates, to the point that they\u2019re named in that vein: \u201cCutlass,\u201d \u201cBuccaneer,\u201d \u201cPrivateer,\u201d \u201cBandit,\u201d \u201cMarauder,\u201d etc. The intent here was to solve a very specific problem of immersion: while we knew that many players would want to engage in piracy, it was not believable that there would be a high-tech, public spacecraft manufacturnig company that simply produces hardware explicitly for criminals. Toyota, for instance, doesn\u2019t manufacture a specific model of pickup truck for paramilitary terrorists\u2026 their existing trucks simply fall into the hands of such groups, which adopt them for their nefarious purposes. So, the idea of Drake Interplanetary was born: a sketchier company, for sure, but one that builds ships for a specific, legal purpose (note also that we would later build the Cutlass variants around the reference to it\u2019s search and recsue role.)\n\nAt this point, however, the Cutlass was simply a distant concept. We opted not to include a Drake ship with the initial lineup, thinking that selling something as being (in-world) \u2018cheaper\u2019 than the others would be counter-intuitive as part of a campaign aimed at selling the thrill of owning your own spacecraft. Then\u2026 pirates happened! From day one, it became clear that a LOT of Star Citizen\u2019s backers wanted to someday engage in a life of crime. Backers formed their own syndicates and cartels and clans, buoyed by the promise that Drake Interplanetary would someday be supplying them ships. Within a day of our initial wave of ship specifications being published, the theorycrafting as to which the best option for starter pirates began.\n\nWith the campaign in full swing and with plans being made for the end of the Kickstarter, I made the following suggestion in an e-mail to Chris Roberts:\n\nPirate Pack \u2013 I\u2019ve had this in my mind a while; basically, just a copy of the game with a pirate fighter (Drake Industries Cutlass,) which will be appealing to a particular subset of our audience. Chris immediately replied that he loved the idea and that he wanted to see a pitch for the Cutlass\u2019 design and specifications that could be sent to concept artist Jim Martin in the hopes that we could show off a sketch during the last days of the Kickstarter.\n\n\nINSPIRATIONS: Two Parts Privateer\u2026\nSo: how did the Cutlass concept come about? As with many of our ships, we started by looking for two types of analogues: ships (and more importantly gameplay roles) from Chris Roberts\u2019 classic games and historical aircraft to lend verisimilitude to our growing universe.\n\nFor the first part, we naturally looked to 1993\u2019s Privateer where piracy was a semi-viable career option, although one that made life particularly difficult in most of inhabited space (other aspects of Star Citizen\u2019s design were planned alongside, intending to give pirates more to do overall!) For those unfamiliar, Privateer had four player ships: a starter, a gunship, a transport and an elite bounty hunter fighter. In a great example of emergent gameplay, pirates of yore tended to forgo the statistically superior Centurion fighter and instead purchase the cheaper Galaxy light transport. Why? Because the Galaxy had the largest cargo hold and a pair of turrets that meant you could attach tractor beams without using a precious forward-facing missile\/torpedo slot (turrets, which had no AI, were otherwise largely unnecessary in Privateer.) While a Centurion could best take out a lumbering transport, it\u2019s small cargo hold meant that the profit made from stolen loot was limited. For the Cutlass we decided: why not codify this mechanic and offer pirates a fighting ship that trades some dogfighting ability for the larger cargo hold they\u2019ll want in the \u2018verse?\n\nFor the historical reference, we fixated on the idea that Drake built \u2018cheaper\u2019 ships intended to be available in large numbers to a larger group of captains. While not wanting to sell the Cutlass as \u2018disposable,\u2019 we wanted to get across the idea that it was treated as something of a lower tier ship than the Freelancer, Hornet or Constellation. For that history, we looked to World War II and the Heinkel He 162 \u201cVolksj\u00e4ger.\u201d Developed by Germany in the last days of the war, this \u2018people\u2019s fighter\u2019 was a fascinating mix of then-high technology jet engines with cheap, wooden construction that could theoretically continue in small shops as Germany\u2019s major aircraft factories were targeted by the Allies\u2019 strategic bombing campaign. The Cutlass borrowed liberally from this idea, combining high tech role-specific gear (like the tractor beam and rotating engines) with a lower quality hull. To further reinforce this idea, marketing decided to price the Cutlass $15 below the Hornet or Freelancer. Later, I would get to integrate this backstory into the Drake Interplanetary profile in a Jump Point!\n\nThe result of this thinking was published in a Comm-Link update as the Cutlass and the \u2018Pirate Pack\u2019 went up for pledge. This is the same material provided to Chris and to Jim Martin upon which to base his concept artwork.\n\nDrake Interplanetary claims that the Cutlass is a low-cost, easy-to-maintain solution for local in-system militia units. The larger-than-average cargo hold, RIO seat and dedicated tractor mount are, the company literature insists, for facilitating search and rescue operations. While it\u2019s true that Cutlasses are used throughout known space for such missions, their prime task and immediate association is with high space piracy. Cutlasses, often operating in groups, menace distant transit lanes to prey on hapless merchants. A single Cutlass can ravage a mid-sized transport and a pack operating as a clan can easily take down larger prey. STOL adaptations allow these interceptors to operate off of modified transports or pocket destroyers; the most common warships that make up pirate caravans. Designer note: the idea is that Drake Interplanetary builds ships which are ostensibly for legal purposes (local militias, etc.) but are \u2018obviously\u2019 for pirates: so it has the appearance of a military fighter, but mated to an awkwardly larger hull for collecting loot; it should have visible forward-facing tractor beams and a seat for a second crewman even though there\u2019s no turret (as you\u2019ll need a second man to board an enemy ship.) It also has a cheaper build quality: if Anvil is building Jeeps and Origin is building BMWs, this is a Honda.\nTo further appreciate the intent behind the Cutlass, it might be valuable to look at the original specifications compared to the other ships in the same tier, the Freelancer and the Hornet. Note that these specifications are long out-of-date\u2026 but they speak well to the intended role of each ship.\n\nFreelancer Hornet Cutlass Crew (max) 2 1 2 Mass 55,000 22,000 35,000 Upgrade Capacity 10 6 5 Cargo Capacity 20 4 10 Engine Modifiers 3 2 2 Engine Class Anti-Matter Fusion Fusion Main Engine 2x TR5 1x TR4 1x TR4 Maneuvering Thrusters 8x TR2 8x TR2 16x TR2 Class 1 Weapons None 2 2 Class 2 Weapons 4 2 1 Class 3 Weapons 2 4 4 Class 4 Weapons 1 2 2 From these numbers, you can see the early attempt to balance the Cutlass as a sort of fighting transport midway between the Hornet and the Freelancer. Over twice the cargo of the former, half that of the latter\u2026 but with better weapon slots, more maneuvering thrusters and a lower mass to avoid being a lumbering transport. With regards to the oft-debated maneuverability, the biggest inspiration for this idea was the initial concept art that came back from Jim Martin, which reminded me of the Vampire from Wing Commander Prophecy. We discussed quite a bit the idea that the Cutlass might be especially maneuverable, but unreliably so: engines on an axis that would offer, for instance, exceedingly great yaw but limited pitch or roll. The sort of ship that might require an expert pilot to truly handle well.\n\nWith that, the Cutlass began the development process\u2026 with several stops along the way! As with any creative process, what is listed above was the starting point. Over the past two years, the team has experimented with everything from a maneuverable Cutlass that spins rapidly on the axis of the twin-boom engines to a Cutlass that\u2019s a pure transport. Knowing that there were a significant number of Cutlass pilots, we wanted to give players access to the ship as quickly as possible despite the fact that multi-crew ships and any piracy-related mechanics were much further off. In fact, both of our first two major module releases had \u2018partial Cutlasses\u2019 released for them: the large external concept model in the Hangar to tide captains over until their ships were modeled and then the \u2018dogfight oriented\u2019 single-pilot Cutlass added to Arena Commander 1.0. Neither version expressed the true purpose of the ship as originally announced, but both were intended to tide players over until they could begin raiding shipping lanes in the finished universe. For more details on this process, we will turn this article over to our RIO, designer John Crewe, to walk you through where the flyable Cutlass has been and to talk about where it went and where it\u2019s going!\n\nWHERE WE WERE: The Cutlass Takes Flight!\nby John Crewe\n\nThe Cutlass Black became flight ready with the release of Arena Commander v1.0 back in December 2014, but the road to getting it flight ready was an admittedly rocky one. After the initial block out by the ship team in Austin at that time, the Cutlass was worked on by a variety of people, including internal staff and several different outsource companies. The ship pipeline at the time was both young and extremely complex, and in review the resulting work had not been completed in a way that made it easy to implement in game. The unfortunate truth was that the asset that you\u2019d had sitting in your hangars for some time had some serious design flaws in relation to its thruster placements; chief of which being the lack of any that could believably provide lateral thrust for strafing and yaw rotation. The only thrusters that could achieve this were the gimballed central ones, and because they were only centrally located, they unfortunately just couldn\u2019t provide sufficient rotation as needed.\n\nIn addition to this, the Cutlass also required some new thruster setups that had never been created for any of the Star Citizen ships before, and as such this new ground was being tread right up unto the release. We had for the first time in our development main thrusters that could rotate and act as the thrusters that provided retro thrust. We also had those central thrusters which could not only pitch\/yaw but also roll, and at certain angles would limit rotation in other axis! The final part of the thruster issues with the Cutlass is having child thrusters, which the main thrusters are supposed to have but have been absent since the flight ready release. Long story short: the original IFCS system was never written to account for thrusters with thrusters on them and the handling behavior would degrade completely, so we\u2019d removed them until we had a chance to look at that system; work which will be included in the forthcoming model update.\n\nJohn Pritchett and myself spent many evenings in the build up to release trying to solve these issues and whilst they solved a lot, a few persist to this day, which required some non-ideal solutions at that time, like the incredibly fast rotating thrusters and the fairly slippery handling that results from non-optimal thrusters.\n\nThe final bump in the road for the v1.0 release was the delivery for the damage states and LoD\u2019s was massively behind schedule and came in very late, barely days before the v1.0 release date leaving very little time for implementation, evaluation and optimization. This is always an unfortunate occurrence in game development, but because we knew this was the beginning of things and not the end, we implemented the best interim solutions we could at that time.\n\nPost Release Rework Begins\nIt is safe to say the Cutlass has suffered from a lot of issues, but we\u2019re intent on making amends (read on to find out how!) It became clear after its flight ready release that a lot of work had to be done to get it to the standard required and as such Foundry 42 was tasked with investigating a review and revamp of it.\n\nThe designers at Foundry 42 took a look at it and worked up a proposal to keep the unique exterior shape but allow as much interior modularization as possible. At that point the ship was split up into four sections. Here are some bullet point features we want to implement in each section:\n\nCockpit\/Storage\nContains the cockpit and a small utility area comprising personal storage and weapons locker.\n\nSeparated from the next section via a bulkhead door.\n\nThe second seat was moved to a single display screen allowing engineering\/remote control functionality to be given.\n\nReally bring in the cramped feeling but using up lots of the dead space above the passageways which are wasted currently.\n\nConsistent between all variants.\n\nCrew Living Quarters\nContains a pair of escape pod beds on one side and a utility area on the other side.\n\nSmall additional weapons locker, shower\/toilet and turret access.\n\nStorage built into space between current interior and exterior hull, especially for smuggling.\n\nTurret access is retained in this area although the entry hole will be made to the new standardized 2m, to match Docking Collars and as such if destroyed makes the perfect extra docking point for enemies.\n\nCentral Modular Room\nProvides the basis for all three existing variants whilst giving potential for more in future.\n\nDefault option for the Cutlass Black gains a cargo lift on which all cargo is stored.\n\nCutlass Blue comes equipped with a set of cells.\n\nRed variant has a pod recovery system which can tractor escape pods in from outside through an airlock in the floor.\n\nOther proposed variations included a drop ship version, similar to the Retaliator drop ship module.\n\nRear Ramp\nSimilar to the current rear of the Cutlass but have the docking collar move to the ceiling rather than being on the floor of the cargo bay.\n\nSealed from modular room to allow it to open during flight without depressurizing the entire cargo bay.\n\nThe docking collar is also moving to the new standardized size of 2m wide which will allow 1SCU crates plenty of space to be transferred through and the ramp is wide enough to support larger items as well as being directly loaded onto the cargo lift.\n\nIn addition to this, there was a small selection of exterior adjustments decided to aid the overall handling such as bringing the rear engines more in line with the front canard wings and adding better placed\/integrated thrusters to the front of the ship as well.\n\nOnce the initial design pass had been done it was passed over to the concept team who started doing paint overs using the existing white box designer geometry. Some of these concepts were released during the Cargo Design Doc and the rest are included throughout this post.\n\nShortly before work was due to commence on the \u201cCutlass rework\u201d the priorities on the ship schedule changed, and as such the Foundry 42 Ship Team (at the time, only a few people) were moved on to finishing other ships such as the Gladius, Gladiator, Retaliator and Idris, which you have all now seen at CitizenCon as well as a few others you are yet to see.\n\nBecause of this, the task of creating the revamped Cutlass was given to an outsource studio with guidance from the team. In an effort to avoid the same mistakes that were made with prior outsource partners, they were actually embedded within the F42 studio for a fortnight so we would have the proper oversight and be able to provide the most immediate feedback.\n\nUnfortunately, as happens in game development, the priorities changed again, as we realized that other needs at that time trumped the rework of an existing flyable ship, and as such around June the Cutlass Black rework was put on the back burner as other ships came through the pipeline. This is an unfortunate reality of development, as there are only a finite number of resources available, and getting more ships built allows other members of the team complete their work sooner, as opposed to slowing multiple departments as they wait on one team to rework the Cutlass.\n\nWHERE WE ARE: The Cutlass in Alpha 2.0\nFor Alpha 2.0 the Cutlass Black is receiving an interim update for a variety of reasons, primarily performance. It was by far the single most expensive ship in the game in terms of memory usage, as everyone will have experienced playing AC with the severe hangs whenever one spawns or dies. We managed to improve that somewhat over subsequent patches from the programming side by pre-caching it, but at the end of the day the raw assets just weren\u2019t optimized enough to be suitable going forward.\n\nWe decided a few months ago that rather than rushing to try and get the reworked Cutlass out for 2.0 we\u2019d spend the time \u201cupgrading\u201d the old version to improve the experience for everyone when one is involved in combat. Not only have we totally redone the damage setup using the new damage shader system but we\u2019ve also added in the basics of the new Multi Crew UI screens as seen in the Constellation and Retaliator. By doing this work the actual source .max file has shrunk from just under 2GB down to 550MB, the in game .cga assets have also been reduced from two assets totaling 405MB down to a single asset under 30MB. Not only is this better for the game but also massively better for us developers as it was taking nearly 40 minutes to commit the .max file to Perforce previously on our old office connection, now it\u2019s under a minute.\n\nThe result for players is that it allows the Cutlass to be managed just like those larger ships and gives us valuable feedback on the usability of those screens on a much smaller scale ship, both in terms of size and crew count. The Pilot has a revised cockpit display with new multi-function displays and the co-pilot seat has an all new single 16:9 display allowing oversight to many features whilst controlling specific engineering style tasks. In addition to the UI screens we\u2019ve also done a quick usability pass on the ship, tightening up the interaction prompts for all the buttons and adjusting the button locations to be not quite so jammed in and making the external buttons a bit more visible. There should be no more cases of trying to open the cockpit door, whilst accidentally lowering the turret or ending up in the jump seat!\n\nOn top of the multi-crew update the ship has also had a complete thruster balance pass to go with the new IFCS system which should help limit some of the more unexpected behavior you experience in AC today along with improved speeds and handling allow you to catch up with your prey easier.\n\nLastly and most importantly, we are bringing back the cockpit fans which have been missing in action since v1.0. We expect this was the only aspect of the rework anyone was interested in, so let\u2019s consider the Cutlass \u201cfinished.\u201d\n\nJust seeing if anyone is actually reading this. We\u2019re kidding, of course. But not about the fans. Those are really back. =)\n\nWHERE WE\u2019RE GOING: Plans for the Cutlass Going Forward\nWith the split of ship manufacturers between studios, the Cutlass (being a Drake ship) has moved over to LA for them to implement the above design rework alongside their work on the Herald and Caterpillar. The current ship schedule is very full, with all the ships required for S42 taking priority and most being done at Foundry 42, as such the interim update to the Cutlass for 2.0 fills the need we have for it in the short term.\n\nAs the concept and designs for the rework have been finished, this reduces the amount of time needed for the eventual Cutlass rework to be completed. It\u2019s just a case of finding time in the schedule to complete that work, especially when it has to compete against other ships which are not flight ready in any form, yet.\n\nIn addition to the rework the Cutlass will benefit from all the ongoing updates to ships such as the new component system rollout which will allow players to customize their ships much more than is currently possible, and we hope to have a more thorough design post on this exciting system soon. Other updates that will be coming online will be updated turrets and mounts to allow a variety of weapons, the first recently released was the S4 fixed mount allowing Cutlass users to wield the hefty Behring cannon. The plan has always been to allow players the choice of setting their ship up how they want, but in v1.0 the turret was slaved to the pilot simulating a remote control turret. For 2.0 it is now a dedicated manned turret which in future will allow it to be slaved to either seat, manned directly or controlled by AI.\n\nThe Cutlass is designed to be operated by two people (MAX Crew is NOT the same as REQUIRED or OPTIMAL Crew,) with a pilot and another who can choose between sitting in the RIO seat and managing ship systems or taking direct control of the turret to provide offensive capabilities. That doesn\u2019t mean you have to roll with just two people, you can always recruit a bunch of your buddies to ride in the back to take on any jobs you see fit although there are only two escape pods\u2026\n\nVARIANTS: Talking about the Red and Blue\nOne of the most popular questions\/complaints is about the variation in stats for the components in the Red and Blue versions and as always our answer is \u201cAll stats are subject to change\u201d and the Red & Blue are no exception.\n\nThe current stats for the variants will be reviewed when the Black revamp takes place as that will dictate the base level for the variants, expect the Blue to still have some edges as you\u2019d imagine from a Law Enforcement variant.\n\nThe Red version will still maintain its search and rescue capabilities with an integral escape pod recovery mechanism in the central modular room along with medical pods and hospital equipment. The turret will also be swapped for the scanner array and of course its exterior paint job.\n\nThe Blue version still retains its additional missiles and prisoner cells although their arrangement is still to be decided. They currently sit around the edge of the hull but may move onto the central cargo lift to allow all of them to be lowered out of the ship together for easier prisoner loading\/unloading.\n\nIn regards to the exterior styling there will be a push towards unification of the base meshes between all three versions so that one exterior can be used across them all with only small \u201cbolt on\u201d pieces like you find in the Vanguard series to differentiate them, along with their recognizable paint jobs of course. This means the cockpit geometry will most likely be different than to what is currently there whilst we find the best compromise between them all, but rest assured: no more bars through the viewline!\n\nAs demonstrated with CR comments in the WIP and the ship commercial it was lead to believe the Cutlass would be a nimble ship. However the current iterations have made the ship otherwise. Has CIG taken a new direction for this ship?\nAs we\u2019ve covered in the post above the Cutlass has suffered at the hands of numerous setup and design issues which we\u2019re dealing with. The direction is still the same, it is supposed to be nimble for its size and type especially considering the other roles it can do and with the IFCS changes coming with 2.0 it certainly performs significantly better than in 1.3.\n\n\n\n\nWhy would a Police, Bounty hunter, CSAR, and Pirate use the slowest fighter in the game? Shouldn\u2019t speed and combat capabilities be more important than raw cargo capacity for those roles?\nSee above, it no longer handles like a slippery superfreighter with the IFCS changes in 2.0 and will get better when the reworked Cutlass is released. The Cutlass can easily catch up with other ships and mix it up with them.\n\n\nCurrently the loading bay & Docking collar are too small for SCU to pass through it, is this intentional or will it be fixed? Will the cutlass receive a way to load cargo pods and other bulky items?\nThe current docking collar on the Cutlass is 1.3.\/2.0 is 2.2m wide, larger than a regular 1SCU crate which is 1.25m * 1.25m * 1.25m. The rear ramp is also 1.8m wide and 2.8m tall, again more than enough to receive cargo in multiple sizes. The cargo lift for the rework of the Cutlass can accommodate larger items as well, but if you\u2019re wanting to transport large\/bulky amounts of cargo then the Cutlass is not the ship for this.\n\n\nIs the Cutlass still intended to be a 3 to 4 crew ship instead of the 1.5 crew ship she has been initially sold as? What sized crew is the Cutlass rework designed around?\nThe Cutlass in 2.0 and the reworked version, is designed around supporting two crew. One pilot and one for either providing additional multicrew support via the second seat or providing offensive power via the turret. Down the line you\u2019ll be able to slave the turret to one of those seats or add an AI module to allow it to be independent of the seats just like any other turret in the game would be capable of. Just because we say two crew does not mean that is the absolutely minimum or maximum, one person is able to fly and fight with it at a basic level. Adding that AI module I just mentioned would allow it to be on a par weapon wise with what is currently in 1.3. You could also man all three seats or have a couple of guys on the jump seats in the rear to provide extra support during landing\/boarding \u201coperations\u201d.\n\n\nThe Cutlass seems to be in the awkward position of having the speed and handling of a multi-crew ship, while retaining the armament and defenses of smaller fighters. What benefits does the Cutlass have over a smaller\/faster single person ship, or a bigger\/more armed and armored multi-crew ship?\nAs discussed the speed and maneuverability have been increased significantly in 2.0 which will not only help with offensive options but also for defensive needs and evasion of missiles. All the ships are due for updates in the future regarding their health as the new component system comes online along with piercability of the hull which will change how ships behave when being damaged. The Cutlass benefits from having a second player being able to dedicate themselves to managing the ships systems (shield\/power management for example) or turret versus a lone player having to manage it all.\n\nIt is not designed to go toe to toe with the regular multicrew ships like the Connie, Tali or Freelancer who dwarf the Cutlass not only in size but also weaponry and crew size. The Cutlass sits in a role that can bridge the single seater and low end multicrew ship roles and function in either camp or somewhere in the middle. For more information about the Drake Cutlass, consult the books in your local library\u2026 or check out some of these previous posts concerning our plans and objectives for the little pirate ship that could.\n\nOriginal Announcement\n\nJump Point Porfolio: Drake Interplanetary\n\nJump Point WIP: The Cutlass\n\nJump Point WIP: Cutlass Variants\n\nCutlass Commercial & Variants\n\nCutlass Brochure\n\nCutlass Black Store Listing\n\nCutlass Red Store Listing\n\nCutlass Blue Store Listing\n\nPackages & Add-On Ships\nLooking Ahead\nby Ben Lesnick and Jared Huckaby\n\ntl;dr \u2013 the Cutlass has had a complex development history, with multiple voices wanting different end goals. The Cutlass will become more maneuverable with Star Citizen Alpha 2.0, but it will not drop the focus on being a fighter WITH a cargo hold intended for piracy (or search and rescue, as a Drake salesman would say!)\n\nWe hope that everyone has found at least some of the answers they are looking for. On a personal note, a huge thank you to Lead Technical Designer John Crewe in the UK for taking the time to indulge us in this crazy endeavor. We will consider a supplemental edition of The Shipyard in the future to clean up any issues that arise from this and the launch of Star Citizen Alpha 2.0.\n\nNo one ship can be all things to all people, and it shouldn\u2019t be even if it could. As with all these ships, the Cutlass may not be what everyone wants it to be and as such there may be other ships that are much more suited to your playstyle. One such option is a potential ship we\u2019re calling the Drake Buccaneer, which would be a \u2018pirate interceptor\u2019 intended more for tricky maneuvering than cargo capacity. It would likely feature light armor, a shorter range \u2018sucker punch\u2019 style weapons loadout and a significantly more limited cargo bay. Buccaneers would need to operate alongside of Cutlasses or even as parasite fighters attached to a Caterpillar for more serious raiding missions. If we go ahead with the concept, it would be intended to fit the same price range as the Cutlass, allowing owners who prefer sheer maneuverability to switch designs with impunity.\n\nWe\u2019d like to know what you think, both about the Buccaneer and this style of post. Two polls are embedded below to help us decide what to do next! Cast your vote to let the Star Citizen team know what you\u2019re thinking, and be sure to post your comments below.\n\nRemember there is no such thing as a perfect ship, just the perfect ship for you.","de_DE":"d Rettung, wie ein Drake-Verk\u00e4ufer sagen w\u00fcrde!)\n\nWir hoffen, dass jeder zumindest einige der gesuchten Antworten gefunden hat. Pers\u00f6nlich ein gro\u00dfes Dankesch\u00f6n an den leitenden technischen Designer John Crewe in Gro\u00dfbritannien, dass er sich die Zeit genommen hat, uns bei diesem verr\u00fcckten Unterfangen zu unterst\u00fctzen. Wir werden in Zukunft eine erg\u00e4nzende Ausgabe von The Shipyard in Betracht ziehen, um alle daraus resultierenden Probleme und die Einf\u00fchrung von Star Citizen Alpha 2.0 zu beseitigen.\n\nKein Schiff kann f\u00fcr alle Menschen alles sein, und es sollte nicht einmal sein, wenn es das k\u00f6nnte. Wie bei all diesen Schiffen ist das Entermesser vielleicht nicht das, was jeder will, und als solches kann es andere Schiffe geben, die viel besser zu deinem Spielstil passen. Eine solche Option ist ein m\u00f6gliches Schiff, das wir die Drake Buccaneer nennen, das ein \"Piratenabscheider\" w\u00e4re, der eher f\u00fcr knifflige Man\u00f6ver als f\u00fcr Ladekapazit\u00e4ten gedacht ist. Es w\u00fcrde wahrscheinlich mit einer leichten R\u00fcstung, einer Waffenverladung im Stil eines Saugnapfes mit geringerer Reichweite und einem deutlich begrenzteren Laderaum ausgestattet sein. Piraten m\u00fcssen neben Entermessern oder sogar als Parasitenj\u00e4ger operieren, die an einer Raupe f\u00fcr ernsthaftere Raubz\u00fcge befestigt sind. Wenn wir mit dem Konzept fortfahren, w\u00e4re es beabsichtigt, in die gleiche Preisklasse wie das Entermesser zu passen, so dass Besitzer, die eine reine Man\u00f6vrierf\u00e4higkeit bevorzugen, ungest\u00f6rt das Design wechseln k\u00f6nnen.\n\nWir w\u00fcrden gerne wissen, was du denkst, sowohl \u00fcber den Seer\u00e4uber als auch \u00fcber diesen Poststil. Nachfolgend sind zwei Umfragen eingebettet, die uns helfen sollen, zu entscheiden, was wir als n\u00e4chstes tun sollen! Geben Sie Ihre Stimme ab, um das Star Citizen-Team wissen zu lassen, was Sie denken, und stellen Sie sicher, dass Sie Ihre Kommentare unten ver\u00f6ffentlichen.\n\nDenke daran, dass es so etwas wie ein perfektes Schiff nicht gibt, nur das perfekte Schiff f\u00fcr dich. Kontinuierliche Entwicklung\n\nvon Jared Huckaby\n\"Die einzige Konstante in der Spieleentwicklung ist der Wandel.\"\n\nWir alle haben Ideen. Gute Ideen. Schlechte Ideen. Wenn Sie Gl\u00fcck haben, vielleicht sogar gro\u00dfartige Ideen, aber die besten Ideen kommen selten ohne einen angemessenen Anteil an Zeit und M\u00fche und vielleicht am wichtigsten: Versuch und Irrtum. Bei der Spieleentwicklung geht es nicht nur darum, diese Ideen in die Realit\u00e4t umzusetzen, sondern auch darum, diese Konzepte im Tiegel zu testen und zu verfeinern, der aus der Kombination von Hunderttausenden von unterschiedlichen Designs in einem entsteht.\n\nEs ist hier in der Spieleentwicklungsphase, wenn man die wahre Tugend dieser Absichten entdeckt und entdeckt, was funktioniert und was nicht, und was zum Funktionieren gebracht werden kann und was manchmal noch wichtiger ist, was nicht zum Funktionieren gebracht werden sollte. Es ist die Sache, die du dein Bestes gibst, um sie zu antizipieren, und der Ort, an dem du entweder die Freude an einer vollst\u00e4ndig realisierten Theorie entdeckst oder den Kampf, diesen urspr\u00fcnglichen Plan in etwas Besseres umzuwandeln, als er es vorher war.\n\nTHE SHIPYARD ist eine neue Serie von Artikeln, die wir von Zeit zu Zeit ver\u00f6ffentlichen werden, wenn die Dinge zusammenkommen. Erstellt mit Hilfe der Entwickler in den Sch\u00fctzengr\u00e4ben, die dieses Spiel erschaffen haben, werden wir die Geschichte dieser Schiffe, die aktuellen Realit\u00e4ten, mit denen sie konfrontiert sind, und die Aussichten auf ihre weitere Entwicklung erkunden. Wir haben uns entschieden, mit dem Entermesser zu beginnen, weil er eine lange Entwicklungsgeschichte hat, und er gab uns die gro\u00dfe Chance, einen ehrlichen Blick auf die Pr\u00fcfungen und Schwierigkeiten zu werfen, mit denen er in den letzten drei Jahren konfrontiert war. Dies ist nicht die Antwort auf alle Cutlass-bezogenen Fragen, aber wir sind der Meinung, dass es eine gro\u00dfe Anstrengung ist, den Vorhang f\u00fcr die Spieleentwicklung zur\u00fcckzuziehen und ein wenig zu dokumentieren, wie dieser Prozess tats\u00e4chlich funktioniert.\n\nWir hoffen, es gef\u00e4llt dir.\n\nLONG, LONG TIME AGO: Die Vorgeschichte des Entermessers\nvon Ben Lesnick\n\nDas Drake Interplanetarische Entermesser wurde am 3. Oktober 2012 um 5:44 Uhr Ostern geboren, Teil eines Designerhandbuchs f\u00fcr die Schiffshersteller von Star Citizen, das auch heute noch viele Aspekte des Projekts ber\u00fccksichtigt. Das urspr\u00fcngliche Entermesser wurde als Beispiel f\u00fcr Namen genannt, die Drake Interplanetary, unsere piratenorientierte Firma, verwenden k\u00f6nnte.\n\nDrake Interplanetary ist angeblich ein legitimes Unternehmen, aber es ist ein offenes Geheimnis, dass sie billige, gut bewaffnete Boote herstellen, die von Piraten bevorzugt werden, bis zu dem Punkt, dass sie in dieser Hinsicht benannt sind: \"Entermesser\", \"Seer\u00e4uber\", \"Freibeuter\", \"Bandit\", \"Marodeur\", etc. Hier galt es, ein ganz konkretes Problem des Eintauchens zu l\u00f6sen: W\u00e4hrend wir wussten, dass viele Spieler an Piraterie teilnehmen w\u00fcrden, war es nicht glaubw\u00fcrdig, dass es eine hochtechnologische, \u00f6ffentliche Raumfahrzeugfabrik geben w\u00fcrde, die einfach nur Hardware explizit f\u00fcr Kriminelle produziert. Toyota zum Beispiel stellt kein spezifisches Modell von Pickup-LKWs f\u00fcr paramilit\u00e4rische Terroristen her.... ihre bestehenden LKWs fallen einfach in die H\u00e4nde solcher Gruppen, die sie f\u00fcr ihre sch\u00e4ndlichen Zwecke einsetzen. So war die Idee von Drake Interplanetary geboren: eine skizzenhaftere Firma, sicher, aber eine, die Schiffe f\u00fcr einen bestimmten, legalen Zweck baut (beachten Sie auch, dass wir sp\u00e4ter die Entermesser-Varianten um den Verweis auf ihre Such- und Nachschubrolle herum bauen w\u00fcrden).\n\nAn dieser Stelle war das Entermesser jedoch nur ein entferntes Konzept. Wir haben uns entschieden, kein Drake-Schiff in die erste Aufstellung aufzunehmen, da wir der Meinung waren, dass der Verkauf von etwas, das (in der Welt) \"billiger\" ist als die anderen, kontraintuitiv w\u00e4re, als Teil einer Kampagne, die darauf abzielt, den Nervenkitzel des Besitzens eines eigenen Raumschiffs zu verkaufen. Dann.... passierten Piraten! Vom ersten Tag an wurde klar, dass viele Unterst\u00fctzer von Star Citizen eines Tages ein Leben voller Verbrechen f\u00fchren wollten. Die Unterst\u00fctzer gr\u00fcndeten ihre eigenen Syndikate und Kartelle und Clans, getragen von dem Versprechen, dass Drake Interplanetary ihnen eines Tages Schiffe liefern w\u00fcrde. Innerhalb eines Tages, nachdem unsere erste Welle von Schiffsspezifikationen ver\u00f6ffentlicht wurde, begann das Theoretisieren, welche die beste Option f\u00fcr Starterpiraten war.\n\nDa die Kampagne in vollem Gange ist und Pl\u00e4ne f\u00fcr das Ende des Kickstarters gemacht werden, habe ich den folgenden Vorschlag in einer E-Mail an Chris Roberts gemacht:\n\nPiratenpack - Ich hatte das schon eine Weile im Kopf; im Grunde genommen nur eine Kopie des Spiels mit einem Piratenk\u00e4mpfer (Drake Industries Cutlass,), der eine bestimmte Teilmenge unseres Publikums ansprechen wird. Chris antwortete sofort, dass er die Idee liebte und dass er einen Pitch f\u00fcr das Design und die Spezifikationen des Entermessers sehen wollte, der an den Konzeptk\u00fcnstler Jim Martin geschickt werden k\u00f6nnte, in der Hoffnung, dass wir in den letzten Tagen des Kickstarters eine Skizze zeigen k\u00f6nnten.\n\n\nINSPIRATIONEN: Zweiteilige Freibeuter.....\nAlso: Wie ist das Entermesser-Konzept entstanden? Wie bei vielen unserer Schiffe haben wir zun\u00e4chst nach zwei Arten von Analoga gesucht: Schiffe (und vor allem Gameplay-Rollen) aus Chris Roberts' klassischen Spielen und historischen Flugzeugen, um unserem wachsenden Universum Verisimilitude zu verleihen.\n\nIm ersten Teil haben wir uns nat\u00fcrlich den Privateer von 1993 angesehen, wo die Piraterie eine halbwegs tragf\u00e4hige Karriereoption war, obwohl sie das Leben in den meisten bewohnten Gebieten besonders schwierig machte (nebenbei wurden weitere Aspekte des Designs von Star Citizen geplant, um Piraten mehr M\u00f6glichkeiten zu geben! F\u00fcr die Unbekannten hatte Privateer vier Spielerschiffe: einen Anlasser, ein Kampfschiff, einen Transporter und einen Elitekampfj\u00e4ger. In einem gro\u00dfartigen Beispiel f\u00fcr aufkommendes Gameplay verzichteten Piraten von fr\u00fcher eher auf den statistisch \u00fcberlegenen Centurion-K\u00e4mpfer und kauften stattdessen den billigeren Galaxy-Leichtransport. Warum? Da die Galaxie den gr\u00f6\u00dften Laderaum und ein Paar T\u00fcrme hatte, so dass man Traktorstrahlen ohne einen kostbaren nach vorne gerichteten Raketen-\/Torpedoschlitz anbringen konnte (T\u00fcrme, die keine KI hatten, waren sonst im Freibeuter weitgehend unn\u00f6tig.) W\u00e4hrend ein Zenturio am besten einen Holztransport ausf\u00fchren konnte, bedeutete der kleine Frachtraum, dass der Gewinn aus gestohlener Beute begrenzt war. F\u00fcr den Entermesser haben wir uns entschieden: Warum nicht diesen Mechanismus kodifizieren und Piraten ein Kampfschiff anbieten, das eine gewisse F\u00e4higkeit zum Luftkampf gegen den gr\u00f6\u00dferen Laderaum eintauscht, den sie im Vers wollen?\n\nF\u00fcr die historische Referenz haben wir uns auf die Idee festgelegt, dass Drake \"billigere\" Schiffe baute, die in gro\u00dfer Zahl f\u00fcr eine gr\u00f6\u00dfere Gruppe von Kapit\u00e4nen verf\u00fcgbar sein sollten. Obwohl wir den Entermesser nicht als \"Einwegartikel\" verkaufen wollten, wollten wir die Idee vermitteln, dass er als eine Art niedrigeres Schiff behandelt wird als der Freelancer, Hornet oder Constellation. F\u00fcr diese Geschichte haben wir uns den Zweiten Weltkrieg und die Heinkel He 162 \"Volksj\u00e4ger\" angesehen. Dieser in den letzten Kriegstagen von Deutschland entwickelte Volksj\u00e4ger\" war eine faszinierende Mischung aus damals hochtechnologischen Triebwerken mit billiger Holzkonstruktion, die theoretisch in kleinen L\u00e4den fortgesetzt werden konnte, da die gro\u00dfen deutschen Flugzeugwerke von der strategischen Bombenkampagne der Alliierten ins Visier genommen wurden. Das Entermesser entlehnte gro\u00dfz\u00fcgig von dieser Idee und kombinierte Hightech-Rollen-spezifische Ausr\u00fcstung (wie den Traktorstrahl und rotierende Motoren) mit einem qualitativ weniger hochwertigen Rumpf. Um diese Idee weiter zu verst\u00e4rken, entschied sich das Marketing, den Entermesser $15 unter der Hornisse oder dem Freelancer zu verkaufen. Sp\u00e4ter w\u00fcrde ich diese Hintergrundgeschichte in das interplanetare Drake-Profil in einem Jump Point integrieren k\u00f6nnen!\n\nDas Ergebnis dieser \u00dcberlegungen wurde in einem Comm-Link-Update ver\u00f6ffentlicht, als der Entermesser und das'Piraten-Paket' zur Verpf\u00e4ndung gingen. Dies ist das gleiche Material, das Chris und Jim Martin zur Verf\u00fcgung gestellt wird, auf dem er sein Konzept-Artwork aufbauen kann.\n\n\nDrake Interplanetary behauptet, dass das Entermesser eine kosteng\u00fcnstige, wartungsfreundliche L\u00f6sung f\u00fcr lokale systeminterne Milizen ist. Der \u00fcberdurchschnittlich gro\u00dfe Laderaum, der RIO-Sitz und die spezielle Traktorhalterung sind, wie die Firmenliteratur betont, zur Erleichterung von Such- und Rettungsaktionen. Es ist zwar wahr, dass Entermesser im gesamten bekannten Weltraum f\u00fcr solche Missionen verwendet werden, aber ihre Hauptaufgabe und unmittelbare Verbindung ist die Piraterie im Hochraum. Entermesser, die oft in Gruppen operieren, bedrohen weit entfernte Transitwege, um ungl\u00fcckliche Kaufleute auszunehmen. Ein einzelnes Entermesser kann einen mittelgro\u00dfen Transport verw\u00fcsteten und eine Packung, die als Clan operiert, kann leicht gr\u00f6\u00dfere Beute vernichten. STOL-Adaptionen erm\u00f6glichen es diesen Abfangj\u00e4gern, von modifizierten Transporten oder Taschenzerst\u00f6rern aus zu operieren, den gebr\u00e4uchlichsten Kriegsschiffen, die Piratenkarawanen bilden. Designerhinweis: Die Idee ist, dass Drake Interplanetary Schiffe baut, die angeblich f\u00fcr legale Zwecke (lokale Milizen, etc.) bestimmt sind.), aber f\u00fcr Piraten'offensichtlich': so hat es das Aussehen eines milit\u00e4rischen K\u00e4mpfers, aber verbunden mit einer ungeschickt gr\u00f6\u00dferen Wanne zum Sammeln von Beute; es sollte sichtbare nach vorne gerichtete Traktorbalken und einen Sitz f\u00fcr einen zweiten Besatzungsmitglied haben, obwohl es keinen Turm gibt (da man einen zweiten Mann braucht, um an Bord eines feindlichen Schiffes zu kommen.) Es hat auch eine billigere Bauqualit\u00e4t: Wenn Anvil Jeeps baut und Origin BMWs baut, ist dies ein Honda.\n\n\n\nUm die Absicht der Entermesser weiter zu sch\u00e4tzen, k\u00f6nnte es wertvoll sein, sich die urspr\u00fcnglichen Spezifikationen im Vergleich zu den anderen Schiffen der gleichen Kategorie, der Freelancer und der Hornet, anzusehen. Beachten Sie, dass diese Spezifikationen l\u00e4ngst veraltet sind.... aber sie sprechen gut f\u00fcr die beabsichtigte Rolle jedes Schiffes.\n\nFreiberufler Hornet Cutlass Crew (max.) 2 1 2 Masse 55.000 22.000 35.000 35.000 Upgrade Kapazit\u00e4t 10 6 5 Laderaum 20 4 10 Motor Modifikatoren 3 2 2 Motorklasse Anti-Materie Fusion Fusion Hauptmotor 2x TR5 1x TR4 1x TR4 1x TR4 Man\u00f6vriertriebwerke 8x TR2 8x TR2 8x TR2 16x TR2 Klasse 1 Waffen Keine 2 2 Klasse 2 Waffen 4 4 4 Klasse 4 Waffen 1 2 2 aus diesen Zahlen, Sie k\u00f6nnen den fr\u00fchen Versuch sehen, das Entermesser als eine Art Kampftransport auf halbem Weg zwischen der Hornisse und dem Freelancer auszubalancieren. Mehr als das Doppelte der Ladung des ersteren, die H\u00e4lfte der Ladung des letzteren.... aber mit besseren Waffenschlitzen, mehr Man\u00f6vriertriebwerken und einer geringeren Masse, um nicht zu einem schwerf\u00e4lligen Transport zu werden. Was die oft diskutierte Man\u00f6vrierf\u00e4higkeit betrifft, so war die gr\u00f6\u00dfte Inspiration f\u00fcr diese Idee die erste Konzeptkunst, die von Jim Martin zur\u00fcckkam und mich an den Vampir von Wing Commander Prophecy erinnerte. Wir diskutierten einiges \u00fcber die Idee, dass das Entermesser besonders wendig, aber unzuverl\u00e4ssig sein k\u00f6nnte: Motoren auf einer Achse, die zum Beispiel ein \u00fcberaus gro\u00dfes Gieren, aber eine begrenzte Neigung oder Drehung bieten w\u00fcrde. Die Art von Schiff, die einen erfahrenen Lotsen erfordern k\u00f6nnte, um wirklich gut zu fahren.\n\nDamit begann der Entermesser den Entwicklungsprozess.... mit mehreren Stopps auf dem Weg! Wie bei jedem kreativen Prozess war das, was oben aufgef\u00fchrt ist, der Ausgangspunkt. In den letzten zwei Jahren hat das Team mit allem experimentiert, von einem wendigen Entermesser, der sich schnell auf der Achse der zweiarmigen Motoren dreht, bis hin zu einem Entermesser, der ein reiner Transport ist. Da wir wussten, dass es eine gro\u00dfe Anzahl von Entermesser-Piloten gab, wollten wir den Spielern so schnell wie m\u00f6glich Zugang zum Schiff geben, obwohl die Schiffe mit mehreren Besatzungen und alle pirateriebezogenen Mechaniken viel weiter entfernt waren. Tats\u00e4chlich hatten unsere beiden ersten beiden gro\u00dfen Modulversionen \"partielle Entermesser\" f\u00fcr sie freigegeben: das gro\u00dfe externe Konzeptmodell im Hangar, mit dem Kapit\u00e4ne bis zur Modellierung ihrer Schiffe \u00fcberflutet werden k\u00f6nnen, und dann das \"dogfightorientierte\" Ein-Pilot-Entermesser, das Arena Commander 1.0 hinzugef\u00fcgt wurde. Keine der beiden Versionen dr\u00fcckte den wahren Zweck des Schiffes aus, wie urspr\u00fcnglich angek\u00fcndigt, aber beide sollten die Spieler \u00fcber Wasser halten, bis sie im fertigen Universum mit dem \u00dcberfallen von Schifffahrtswegen beginnen konnten. F\u00fcr weitere Details zu diesem Prozess werden wir diesen Artikel an unseren RIO, den Designer John Crewe, \u00fcbergeben, um Sie durch die Geschichte des fliegenden Entermessers zu f\u00fchren und dar\u00fcber zu sprechen, wohin es gegangen ist und wohin es f\u00fchrt!\n\nWO WIR WAREN: Das Entermesser erobert die Flucht!\nvon John Crewe\n\nDer Cutlass Black wurde mit der Ver\u00f6ffentlichung von Arena Commander v1.0 im Dezember 2014 flugbereit, aber der Weg, ihn flugbereit zu machen, war ein zugegebenerma\u00dfen steiniger. Nach dem anf\u00e4nglichen Ausblenden durch das damalige Schiffsteam in Austin wurde das Entermesser von einer Vielzahl von Personen bearbeitet, darunter interne Mitarbeiter und mehrere verschiedene Outsource-Unternehmen. Die Schiffspipeline war damals noch jung und \u00e4u\u00dferst komplex, und die daraus resultierenden Arbeiten waren im R\u00fcckblick nicht so weit abgeschlossen, dass sie im Spiel leicht umzusetzen waren. Die ungl\u00fcckliche Wahrheit war, dass der Aktivposten, den Sie einige Zeit in Ihren Hangars gesessen hatten, einige ernsthafte Konstruktionsfehler in Bezug auf die Platzierung der Triebwerke hatte; der Hauptgrund daf\u00fcr war das Fehlen von solchen, die glaubhaft einen seitlichen Schub f\u00fcr Strohhalme und Gierdrehungen liefern konnten. Die einzigen Triebwerke, die dies erreichen konnten, waren die kardanisch aufgeh\u00e4ngten zentralen, und da sie nur zentral gelegen waren, konnten sie bei Bedarf leider einfach nicht gen\u00fcgend Rotation bieten.\n\nDar\u00fcber hinaus erforderte das Entermesser auch einige neue Triebwerkseinrichtungen, die noch nie zuvor f\u00fcr eines der Star Citizen-Schiffe entwickelt worden waren, und so wurde dieser neue Boden bis zum Release betreten. Wir hatten zum ersten Mal in unserer Entwicklung Haupttriebwerke, die sich drehen und als die Triebwerke fungieren konnten, die den R\u00fcckschub lieferten. Wir hatten auch jene zentralen Triebwerke, die nicht nur Neigung\/Gieren, sondern auch Rollen konnten und unter bestimmten Winkeln die Drehung in anderen Achsen einschr\u00e4nkten! Der letzte Teil des Triebwerksproblems mit dem Entermesser besteht darin, Kindertriebwerke zu haben, von denen angenommen wird, dass sie die Haupttriebwerke haben, aber seit der Freigabe der Flugbereitschaft fehlen. Lange Rede kurzer Sinn: Das urspr\u00fcngliche IFCS-System wurde nie geschrieben, um f\u00fcr Triebwerke mit Triebwerken an ihnen zu erkl\u00e4ren, und das Handhabungsverhalten w\u00fcrde sich vollst\u00e4ndig verschlechtern, also hatten wir sie entfernt, bis wir die M\u00f6glichkeit hatten, uns dieses System anzusehen; Arbeiten, die in das bevorstehende Modell-Update aufgenommen werden.\n\nJohn Pritchett und ich verbrachten viele Abende im Aufbau, um diese Probleme zu l\u00f6sen, und obwohl sie viel gel\u00f6st haben, bestehen einige bis heute, was damals einige nicht-ideale L\u00f6sungen erforderte, wie die unglaublich schnell rotierenden Triebwerke und das ziemlich rutschige Handling, das sich aus nicht-optimalen Triebwerken ergibt.\n\nDer letzte Sto\u00df in der Stra\u00dfe f\u00fcr das v1.0-Release war die Lieferung der Schadenszust\u00e4nde und LoDs war massiv versp\u00e4tet und kam sehr sp\u00e4t, knapp Tage vor dem v1.0-Releasedatum, so dass sehr wenig Zeit f\u00fcr die Implementierung, Bewertung und Optimierung blieb. Dies ist immer ein ungl\u00fcckliches Ereignis in der Spieleentwicklung, aber weil wir wussten, dass dies der Anfang und nicht das Ende der Dinge war, haben wir die besten Zwischenl\u00f6sungen implementiert, die wir damals hatten.\n\nNach der Freigabe beginnt die Nacharbeit\nEs ist sicher zu sagen, dass das Entermesser unter vielen Problemen gelitten hat, aber wir sind entschlossen, Wiedergutmachung zu leisten (lesen Sie weiter, um herauszufinden, wie!) Es wurde nach seiner flugfertigen Freigabe klar, dass viel Arbeit getan werden musste, um es auf den erforderlichen Standard zu bringen, und als solches wurde die Gie\u00dferei 42 mit der Untersuchung einer \u00dcberpr\u00fcfung und \u00dcberarbeitung beauftragt.\n\nDie Designer der Gie\u00dferei 42 haben sich das angesehen und einen Vorschlag ausgearbeitet, um die einzigartige Au\u00dfenform zu erhalten und gleichzeitig eine m\u00f6glichst gro\u00dfe Modularisierung des Innenraums zu erm\u00f6glichen. Zu diesem Zeitpunkt war das Schiff in vier Abschnitte unterteilt. Hier sind einige Funktionen, die wir in jedem Abschnitt implementieren m\u00f6chten:\n\nCockpit\/Speicherung\nEnth\u00e4lt das Cockpit und einen kleinen Versorgungsbereich mit pers\u00f6nlichem Stauraum und Waffenschrank. Durch eine Schottt\u00fcr vom n\u00e4chsten Abschnitt getrennt. Der zweite Sitz wurde auf einen einzigen Bildschirm verschoben, so dass die Funktionalit\u00e4t der Technik\/Fernbedienung gegeben ist. Bringen Sie wirklich das verkrampfte Gef\u00fchl ein, aber verbrauchen Sie viel Totraum \u00fcber den G\u00e4ngen, die derzeit verschwendet werden. Konsistent zwischen allen Varianten. Wohnbereich der Besatzung\nEnth\u00e4lt ein Paar Fluchtkapselbetten auf der einen Seite und einen Versorgungsbereich auf der anderen Seite. Kleiner zus\u00e4tzlicher Waffenschrank, Dusche\/WC und Turmzugang. Stauraum, der in den Raum zwischen dem aktuellen Innen- und Au\u00dfenrumpf eingebaut ist, insbesondere f\u00fcr Schmuggel. Der Zugang zum Turm bleibt in diesem Bereich erhalten, obwohl das Einstiegsloch auf die neuen standardisierten 2 m angelegt wird, um den Andockhalsb\u00e4ndern zu entsprechen und somit im Falle einer Zerst\u00f6rung den perfekten zus\u00e4tzlichen Andockpunkt f\u00fcr Feinde zu bieten. Zentraler Modulraum\nBietet die Grundlage f\u00fcr alle drei bestehenden Varianten und bietet gleichzeitig Potenzial f\u00fcr mehr in der Zukunft. Die Standardoption f\u00fcr den Cutlass Black erh\u00e4lt einen Lastenaufzug, auf dem die gesamte Ladung gelagert wird. Cutlass Blue ist mit einem Satz von Zellen ausgestattet. Die rote Variante verf\u00fcgt \u00fcber ein Pod-Recovery-System, mit dem Traktor-Fluchtkapseln von au\u00dfen durch eine Schleuse im Boden einfahren k\u00f6nnen. Weitere vorgeschlagene Varianten waren eine Drop-Ship-Version, \u00e4hnlich dem Drop-Ship-Modul des Retaliators. Hintere Rampe\n\u00c4hnlich wie das aktuelle Heck des Entermessers, aber mit dem Andockring an die Decke gehen, anstatt sich auf dem Boden des Laderaums zu befinden. Abgedichtet gegen\u00fcber dem Modulraum, so dass er sich w\u00e4hrend des Fluges \u00f6ffnen l\u00e4sst, ohne den gesamten Frachtraum drucklos zu machen. Die Andockmanschette bewegt sich ebenfalls auf die neue standardisierte Gr\u00f6\u00dfe von 2 m Breite, die es 1SCU-Kisten erm\u00f6glicht, viel Platz durch sie zu transportieren, und die Rampe ist breit genug, um gr\u00f6\u00dfere Gegenst\u00e4nde aufzunehmen und direkt auf den Lastenaufzug zu laden. Dar\u00fcber hinaus gab es eine kleine Auswahl an \u00e4u\u00dferen Anpassungen, die beschlossen wurden, um das gesamte Handling zu unterst\u00fctzen, wie z.B. die hinteren Motoren st\u00e4rker auf die vorderen Canard-Fl\u00fcgel auszurichten und auch die vorderen Teile des Schiffes mit besser platzierten\/integrierten Triebwerken zu versehen.\n\nNachdem der erste Designpass fertig war, wurde er an das Konzeptteam \u00fcbergeben, das mit der Lackierung unter Verwendung der vorhandenen White Box Designer-Geometrie begann. Einige dieser Konzepte wurden w\u00e4hrend des Cargo Design Doc ver\u00f6ffentlicht und der Rest ist in diesem Beitrag enthalten.\n\nKurz vor Beginn der Arbeiten an der \"Entermesser-Nacharbeit\" \u00e4nderten sich die Priorit\u00e4ten im Schiffsplan, und so wurde das Foundry 42 Ship Team (damals nur wenige Personen) auf die Fertigstellung anderer Schiffe wie Gladius, Gladiator, Retaliator und Idris verlagert, die Sie alle jetzt auf der CitizenCon gesehen haben und einige andere, die Sie noch nicht gesehen haben.\n\nAus diesem Grund wurde die Aufgabe der Erstellung des \u00fcberarbeiteten Entermessers an ein externes Studio unter Anleitung des Teams \u00fcbertragen. Um die gleichen Fehler zu vermeiden, die bei fr\u00fcheren Outsourcing-Partnern gemacht wurden, wurden sie tats\u00e4chlich zwei Wochen lang in das F42-Studio eingebettet, so dass wir die richtige Aufsicht haben und in der Lage sind, das unmittelbarste Feedback zu geben.\n\nLeider \u00e4nderten sich die Priorit\u00e4ten wieder, da wir erkannten, dass andere Bed\u00fcrfnisse damals die \u00dcberarbeitung eines bestehenden fliegenden Schiffes \u00fcbertrumpften, und so wurde um Juni herum das Cutlass Black \u00dcberarbeitung auf Eis gelegt, als andere Schiffe durch die Pipeline kamen. Dies ist eine ungl\u00fcckliche Realit\u00e4t der Entwicklung, da es nur eine begrenzte Anzahl von Ressourcen gibt und der Bau weiterer Schiffe es anderen Mitgliedern des Teams erm\u00f6glicht, ihre Arbeit fr\u00fcher abzuschlie\u00dfen, anstatt mehrere Abteilungen zu verlangsamen, w\u00e4hrend sie auf ein Team warten, um das Entermesser zu \u00fcberarbeiten.\n\nWO WIR SIND: Das Entermesser in Alpha 2.0\nF\u00fcr Alpha 2.0 erh\u00e4lt der Entermesser Schwarz ein Zwischen-Update aus einer Vielzahl von Gr\u00fcnden, vor allem aus Performancegr\u00fcnden. Es war bei weitem das teuerste Schiff im Spiel in Bezug auf die Speichernutzung, da jeder erlebt haben wird, wie man mit den schweren H\u00e4ngen AC spielt, wenn man spawnt oder stirbt. Wir haben es geschafft, das etwas \u00fcber nachfolgende Patches von der Programmierseite zu verbessern, indem wir es gecached haben, aber am Ende des Tages waren die Rohdaten einfach nicht optimiert genug, um f\u00fcr die Zukunft geeignet zu sein.\n\nWir haben vor ein paar Monaten beschlossen, dass wir, anstatt uns zu beeilen, den \u00fcberarbeiteten Cutlass f\u00fcr 2.0 herauszubringen, die Zeit damit verbringen w\u00fcrden, die alte Version zu \"upgraden\", um das Erlebnis f\u00fcr alle zu verbessern, wenn man im Kampf involviert ist. Wir haben nicht nur das Schaden-Setup mit dem neuen Schaden-Shader-System komplett \u00fcberarbeitet, sondern auch die Grundlagen der neuen Multi Crew UI-Screens, wie sie im Constellation und Retaliator zu sehen sind, hinzugef\u00fcgt. Durch diese Arbeit ist die eigentliche source.max-Datei von knapp 2GB auf 550MB geschrumpft, die in game.cga-Assets wurden ebenfalls von zwei Assets mit insgesamt 405MB auf einen einzelnen Asset mit 30MB reduziert. Das ist nicht nur besser f\u00fcr das Spiel, sondern auch massiv besser f\u00fcr uns Entwickler, da es fast 40 Minuten dauerte, bis die.max-Datei auf unserer alten B\u00fcroverbindung nach Perforce \u00fcbertragen wurde, jetzt ist es weniger als eine Minute.\n\nDas Ergebnis f\u00fcr die Spieler ist, dass es erm\u00f6glicht, das Entermesser genau wie diese gr\u00f6\u00dferen Schiffe zu verwalten und uns wertvolle R\u00fcckmeldungen \u00fcber die Benutzerfreundlichkeit dieser Bildschirme auf einem viel kleineren Schiff gibt, sowohl in Bezug auf die Gr\u00f6\u00dfe als auch auf die Anzahl der Besatzungen. Der Pilot verf\u00fcgt \u00fcber ein \u00fcberarbeitetes Cockpit-Display mit neuen Multifunktionsanzeigen und der Beifahrersitz \u00fcber ein v\u00f6llig neues 16:9-Display, das die Kontrolle \u00fcber viele Funktionen erm\u00f6glicht und gleichzeitig spezifische Aufgaben im technischen Stil steuert. Zus\u00e4tzlich zu den Benutzeroberfl\u00e4chen haben wir auch einen schnellen Usability-Pass auf dem Schiff durchgef\u00fchrt, indem wir die Interaktionsaufforderungen f\u00fcr alle Buttons versch\u00e4rft und die Button-Positionen so eingestellt haben, dass sie nicht ganz so eingeklemmt sind und die externen Buttons etwas besser sichtbar sind. Es sollte keine Versuche mehr geben, die Cockpitt\u00fcr zu \u00f6ffnen, w\u00e4hrend der Turm versehentlich abgesenkt oder auf dem Klappsitz landet!\n\nZus\u00e4tzlich zum Multi-Crew-Update hatte das Schiff auch einen kompletten Thruster-Balance-Pass f\u00fcr das neue IFCS-System, das helfen sollte, einige der unerwarteteren Verhaltensweisen, die Sie heute bei AC erleben, zu begrenzen, zusammen mit verbesserten Geschwindigkeiten und Handling, die es Ihnen erm\u00f6glichen, Ihre Beute leichter einzuholen.\n\nSchlie\u00dflich und vor allem bringen wir die Cockpit-Fans zur\u00fcck, die seit v1.0 in Aktion fehlen. Wir gehen davon aus, dass dies der einzige Aspekt der Nachbearbeitung war, an dem sich jeder interessierte, also betrachten wir das Entermesser als \"fertig\".\n\nIch schaue nur, ob jemand das hier wirklich liest. Wir machen nur Spa\u00df, nat\u00fcrlich. Aber nicht \u00fcber die Fans. Die sind wirklich wieder da. =)\n\nWo gehen wir hin: Pl\u00e4ne f\u00fcr das Entermesser, das vorw\u00e4rts geht?\nMit der Aufteilung der Schiffshersteller zwischen den Studios ist die Entermesser (ein Drake-Schiff) nach LA umgezogen, damit sie neben ihren Arbeiten an Herald und Caterpillar auch die oben genannten Design\u00fcberarbeitungen durchf\u00fchren k\u00f6nnen. Der aktuelle Schiffsplan ist sehr voll, wobei alle f\u00fcr S42 ben\u00f6tigten Schiffe Vorrang haben und die meisten in der Gie\u00dferei 42 durchgef\u00fchrt werden, da das Zwischenupdate des Cutlass f\u00fcr 2.0 den Bedarf kurzfristig deckt.\n\nDa das Konzept und die Entw\u00fcrfe f\u00fcr die Nacharbeit fertiggestellt sind, reduziert sich der Zeitaufwand f\u00fcr die sp\u00e4tere Nacharbeit des Entermessers. Es geht nur darum, Zeit im Zeitplan zu finden, um diese Arbeit zu erledigen, vor allem, wenn sie mit anderen Schiffen konkurrieren muss, die noch nicht in irgendeiner Form flugbereit sind.\n\nZus\u00e4tzlich zur \u00dcberarbeitung wird das Entermesser von allen laufenden Aktualisierungen der Schiffe profitieren, wie z.B. dem Rollout des neuen Komponentensystems, das es den Spielern erm\u00f6glichen wird, ihre Schiffe viel besser als bisher anzupassen, und wir hoffen, bald einen gr\u00fcndlicheren Design-Post zu diesem aufregenden System zu haben. Weitere Updates, die online kommen werden, sind aktualisierte Gesch\u00fctzt\u00fcrme und Halterungen, um eine Vielzahl von Waffen zu erm\u00f6glichen, das erste, was k\u00fcrzlich ver\u00f6ffentlicht wurde, war die feste S4-Halterung, die es Entermesser-Benutzern erm\u00f6glicht, die kr\u00e4ftige Behring-Kanone zu benutzen. Der Plan war schon immer, den Spielern die Wahl zu lassen, ihr Schiff so aufzustellen, wie sie es wollen, aber in v1.0 wurde der Turm an den Piloten gekoppelt, der einen ferngesteuerten Turm simuliert. F\u00fcr 2.0 ist es nun ein eigener bemannter Turm, der es in Zukunft erm\u00f6glichen wird, ihn entweder an einen Sitz zu sklaven, direkt zu bemannen oder durch die KI zu steuern.\n\nDas Entermesser wurde entwickelt, um von zwei Personen bedient zu werden (die MAX-Crew ist NICHT die gleiche wie die erforderliche oder OPTIMALE Crew), mit einem Piloten und einem anderen, der w\u00e4hlen kann, ob er auf dem RIO-Sitz sitzt und Schiffssysteme verwaltet oder die direkte Kontrolle \u00fcber den Turm \u00fcbernimmt, um offensive F\u00e4higkeiten zu bieten. Das bedeutet nicht, dass du mit nur zwei Leuten w\u00fcrfeln musst, du kannst immer einen Haufen deiner Kumpels rekrutieren, um in den R\u00fccken zu fahren, um alle Jobs anzunehmen, die du f\u00fcr richtig h\u00e4ltst, obwohl es nur zwei Fluchtkapseln gibt....\n\nVARIANTEN: Apropos Rot und Blau\nEine der beliebtesten Fragen\/Beschwerden betrifft die Variation der Statistiken f\u00fcr die Komponenten in der roten und blauen Version und wie immer lautet unsere Antwort \"Alle Statistiken unterliegen \u00c4nderungen\" und die roten und blauen sind keine Ausnahme.\n\nDie aktuellen Statistiken f\u00fcr die Varianten werden \u00fcberpr\u00fcft, wenn der Black-Revamp stattfindet, da dies das Basisniveau f\u00fcr die Varianten bestimmt, erwarten Sie, dass der Blue noch einige Kanten hat, wie Sie es sich von einer Law Enforcement Variante vorstellen w\u00fcrden.\n\nDie rote Version wird weiterhin ihre Such- und Rettungsf\u00e4higkeiten mit einem integrierten Rettungskapsel-Rettungsmechanismus im zentralen Modulraum sowie medizinische Kapseln und Krankenhausger\u00e4te beibehalten. Der Turm wird auch gegen die Scanneranordnung und nat\u00fcrlich gegen die Au\u00dfenlackierung ausgetauscht.\n\nDie blaue Version beh\u00e4lt noch ihre zus\u00e4tzlichen Raketen und Gefangenenzellen, obwohl ihre Anordnung noch nicht entschieden ist. Sie sitzen derzeit um den Rand des Rumpfes herum, k\u00f6nnen sich aber auf den zentralen Lastenaufzug bewegen, damit sie alle gemeinsam aus dem Schiff gesenkt werden k\u00f6nnen, um das Be- und Entladen von Gefangenen zu erleichtern.\n\nWas das Au\u00dfendesign betrifft, so wird die Vereinheitlichung der Grundmaschen zwischen allen drei Versionen vorangetrieben, so dass ein Exterieur mit nur kleinen \"verschraubten\" Teilen, wie Sie sie in der Vanguard-Serie finden, \u00fcber alle verwendet werden kann, um sie zu unterscheiden, nat\u00fcrlich zusammen mit ihren erkennbaren Lackierungen. Das bedeutet, dass die Cockpitgeometrie h\u00f6chstwahrscheinlich anders sein wird als die, die derzeit vorhanden ist, w\u00e4hrend wir den besten Kompromiss zwischen ihnen allen finden, aber seien Sie versichert: keine Balken mehr durch die Sichtlinie!\n\nWie die CR-Kommentare im WIP und im Schiffswerbung zeigen, wurde der Eindruck erweckt, dass das Entermesser ein flinkes Schiff sein w\u00fcrde. Die aktuellen Iterationen haben das Schiff jedoch anders gemacht. Hat die CIG eine neue Richtung f\u00fcr dieses Schiff eingeschlagen?\nWie wir im Beitrag oben beschrieben haben, hat das Entermesser durch zahlreiche Setup- und Designprobleme gelitten, mit denen wir es zu tun haben. Die Richtung ist immer noch die gleiche, es soll f\u00fcr seine Gr\u00f6\u00dfe und Art wendig sein, besonders wenn man bedenkt, welche anderen Rollen es \u00fcbernehmen kann, und mit den IFCS-\u00c4nderungen, die mit 2.0 kommen, leistet es sicherlich deutlich mehr als in 1.3.\n\n\nWarum sollten Polizei, Kopfgeldj\u00e4ger, CSAR und Piraten den langsamsten K\u00e4mpfer im Spiel einsetzen? Sollten Geschwindigkeits- und Kampff\u00e4higkeiten nicht wichtiger sein als die Rohladekapazit\u00e4t f\u00fcr diese Rollen?\nSiehe oben, es funktioniert nicht mehr wie ein rutschiger Superfrachter mit den IFCS-\u00c4nderungen in 2.0 und wird besser, wenn das \u00fcberarbeitete Entermesser freigegeben wird. Der Entermesser kann leicht andere Schiffe einholen und mit ihnen verwechseln.\n\n\nDerzeit sind die Laderampe & der Andockring zu klein f\u00fcr die SCU, um sie zu passieren, ist das beabsichtigt oder wird sie fixiert? Wird das Entermesser eine M\u00f6glichkeit erhalten, Ladegeschosse und andere sperrige Gegenst\u00e4nde zu verladen?\nDer aktuelle Andockring am Entermesser ist 1.3.\/2.0 ist 2.2m breit und gr\u00f6\u00dfer als eine normale 1SCU-Kiste, die 1.25m * 1.25m * 1.25m * 1.25m ist. Die Heckrampe ist ebenfalls 1,8 m breit und 2,8 m hoch, wiederum mehr als genug, um Fracht in verschiedenen Gr\u00f6\u00dfen aufzunehmen. Der Lastenaufzug f\u00fcr die Nacharbeit des Entermessers kann auch gr\u00f6\u00dfere Gegenst\u00e4nde aufnehmen, aber wenn Sie gro\u00dfe\/volumin\u00f6se Mengen an Ladung transportieren wollen, dann ist das Entermesser nicht das Schiff daf\u00fcr.\n\n\nSoll das Entermesser immer noch ein 3 bis 4 Mann Besatzungsschiff sein und nicht das 1,5 Mann Besatzungsschiff, als das sie urspr\u00fcnglich verkauft wurde? F\u00fcr welche Crew ist das Entermesser-Rework konzipiert?\nDas Entermesser in 2.0 und die \u00fcberarbeitete Version sind so konzipiert, dass sie zwei Personen unterst\u00fctzen. Ein Pilot und einer davon, um entweder eine zus\u00e4tzliche Multicrew-Unterst\u00fctzung \u00fcber den zweiten Sitz oder eine Angriffskraft \u00fcber den Turm bereitzustellen. Sie k\u00f6nnen den Turm an einen dieser Sitze anschlie\u00dfen oder ein KI-Modul hinzuf\u00fcgen, damit er unabh\u00e4ngig von den Sitzen ist, wie jeder andere Turm im Spiel. Nur weil wir sagen, dass zwei Besatzungen nicht bedeuten, dass das das absolute Minimum oder Maximum ist, ist eine Person in der Lage, mit ihr auf einer grundlegenden Ebene zu fliegen und zu k\u00e4mpfen. Das Hinzuf\u00fcgen dieses KI-Moduls, das ich gerade erw\u00e4hnt habe, w\u00fcrde es erm\u00f6glichen, mit dem, was derzeit in 1.3 steht, auf Augenh\u00f6he zu sein. Sie k\u00f6nnen auch alle drei Sitze bemannen oder ein paar Jungs auf den Klappsitzen im Fond haben, um zus\u00e4tzliche Unterst\u00fctzung bei der Landung \/ dem Boarding \"Operationen\" zu bieten.\n\n\nDie Entermesser scheinen in der ung\u00fcnstigen Position zu sein, die Geschwindigkeit und Handhabung eines Mehrbesatzungsschiffes zu haben, w\u00e4hrend sie die Bewaffnung und Verteidigung kleinerer K\u00e4mpfer beibehalten. Welche Vorteile hat das Entermesser gegen\u00fcber einem kleineren\/schnellen Einpersonenschiff oder einem gr\u00f6\u00dferen\/bewaffneten und gepanzerten Mehrmannschiff?\nWie besprochen, wurden die Geschwindigkeit und Man\u00f6vrierf\u00e4higkeit in 2.0 deutlich erh\u00f6ht, was nicht nur bei offensiven Optionen, sondern auch bei defensiven Bed\u00fcrfnissen und der Umgehung von Raketen helfen wird. Alle Schiffe sollen in Zukunft \u00fcber ihren Gesundheitszustand auf dem Laufenden gehalten werden, da das neue Komponentensystem zusammen mit der Durchbohrbarkeit des Rumpfes online geht, was das Verhalten der Schiffe bei Besch\u00e4digungen ver\u00e4ndern wird. Der Entermesser profitiert davon, dass ein zweiter Spieler sich der Verwaltung der Schiffssysteme (z.B. Schild-\/Power-Management) oder des Turms widmen kann, w\u00e4hrend ein einzelner Spieler alles selbst verwalten muss.\n\nEs ist nicht darauf ausgelegt, mit den regul\u00e4ren Mehrbesatzungsschiffen wie der Connie, Tali oder Freelancer, die das Entermesser nicht nur in der Gr\u00f6\u00dfe, sondern auch in der Waffen- und Besatzungsgr\u00f6\u00dfe in den Schatten stellen, Hand in Hand zu gehen. Der Entermesser sitzt in einer Rolle, die die Rollen des Einsitzers und des Low-End-Mehrbesatzers \u00fcberbr\u00fccken kann und entweder im Lager oder irgendwo in der Mitte funktioniert.\n\n\nF\u00fcr weitere Informationen \u00fcber den Drake Cutlass konsultieren Sie die B\u00fccher in Ihrer \u00f6rtlichen Bibliothek.... oder schauen Sie sich einige dieser fr\u00fcheren Beitr\u00e4ge \u00fcber unsere Pl\u00e4ne und Ziele f\u00fcr das kleine Piratenschiff an, das das k\u00f6nnte.\n\nOriginal Ank\u00fcndigung Sprungpunkt Porfolio: Drake Interplanetarer Sprungpunkt WIP: Der Entermesser Sprungpunkt WIP: Entermesser-Varianten Entermesser kommerziell & Varianten Entermesser Brosch\u00fcre Entermesser Schwarz Shop Listing Entermesser Rot Shop Listing Entermesser Blau Shop Listing Pakete & Add-On Ships\nVorausschauend\nvon Ben Lesnick und Jared Huckaby.\n\ntl;dr - das Entermesser hat eine komplexe Entwicklungsgeschichte, mit mehreren Stimmen, die unterschiedliche Endziele verfolgen. Das Entermesser wird mit Star Citizen Alpha 2.0 wendiger, aber es wird den Fokus nicht auf den Kampf mit einem Laderaum f\u00fcr Piraterie (oder die Suche nach einem","zh_CN":"Continuing Evolution\nby Jared Huckaby\n\u201cThe only constant in game development is change.\u201d\n\nWe all have ideas. Good ideas. Bad ideas. If you\u2019re lucky, possibly even great ideas, but the best ideas rarely come without a fair share of time and effort and perhaps most importantly: trial and error. Game development is that process of not only bringing those ideas to reality, but of testing and refining those concepts in the crucible formed from combining hundreds and thousands of disparate designs into one.\n\nIt\u2019s here in the game development phase when you discover the true virtue of those intentions, and discover what works and what does not, and what can be made to work and sometimes more importantly, what should not be made to work. It is the thing you do your best to anticipate, and the place where you either discover the elation of a theory fully realized, or the struggle to iterate that initial plan into something better than it was before.\n\nTHE SHIPYARD is a new series of articles we\u2019ll be publishing from time to time as things come together. Created with help from the developers in the trenches creating this game, we\u2019ll explore the history of these ships, the current realities they\u2019re faced with, and the prospects of their continuing evolution going forward. We\u2019ve decided to start with the Cutlass because it\u2019s had a storied development history, and it gave us a great chance to take a candid look at the trials and tribulations it\u2019s faced in the last three years. This isn\u2019t the answer to all Cutlass-related questions, but we feel it\u2019s a great effort at pulling the curtain back on game development, and documenting a little of how this process actually works.\n\nWe hope you enjoy it.\n\nLONG, LONG TIME AGO: The Prehistory of the Cutlass\nby Ben Lesnick\n\nThe Drake Interplanetary Cutlass was born on October 3, 2012 at 5:44 AM Eastern, part of a designer\u2019s guide to Star Citizen\u2019s ship manufacturers that continues to inform many aspects of the project today. The primordial Cutlass was cited as an example of names that Drake Interplanetary, our pirate-focused company, might use.\n\nDrake Interplanetary is ostensibly a legitimate company, but it\u2019s an open secret that they manufacture cheap, well armed craft favored by pirates, to the point that they\u2019re named in that vein: \u201cCutlass,\u201d \u201cBuccaneer,\u201d \u201cPrivateer,\u201d \u201cBandit,\u201d \u201cMarauder,\u201d etc. The intent here was to solve a very specific problem of immersion: while we knew that many players would want to engage in piracy, it was not believable that there would be a high-tech, public spacecraft manufacturnig company that simply produces hardware explicitly for criminals. Toyota, for instance, doesn\u2019t manufacture a specific model of pickup truck for paramilitary terrorists\u2026 their existing trucks simply fall into the hands of such groups, which adopt them for their nefarious purposes. So, the idea of Drake Interplanetary was born: a sketchier company, for sure, but one that builds ships for a specific, legal purpose (note also that we would later build the Cutlass variants around the reference to it\u2019s search and recsue role.)\n\nAt this point, however, the Cutlass was simply a distant concept. We opted not to include a Drake ship with the initial lineup, thinking that selling something as being (in-world) \u2018cheaper\u2019 than the others would be counter-intuitive as part of a campaign aimed at selling the thrill of owning your own spacecraft. Then\u2026 pirates happened! From day one, it became clear that a LOT of Star Citizen\u2019s backers wanted to someday engage in a life of crime. Backers formed their own syndicates and cartels and clans, buoyed by the promise that Drake Interplanetary would someday be supplying them ships. Within a day of our initial wave of ship specifications being published, the theorycrafting as to which the best option for starter pirates began.\n\nWith the campaign in full swing and with plans being made for the end of the Kickstarter, I made the following suggestion in an e-mail to Chris Roberts:\n\nPirate Pack \u2013 I\u2019ve had this in my mind a while; basically, just a copy of the game with a pirate fighter (Drake Industries Cutlass,) which will be appealing to a particular subset of our audience. Chris immediately replied that he loved the idea and that he wanted to see a pitch for the Cutlass\u2019 design and specifications that could be sent to concept artist Jim Martin in the hopes that we could show off a sketch during the last days of the Kickstarter.\n\n\nINSPIRATIONS: Two Parts Privateer\u2026\nSo: how did the Cutlass concept come about? As with many of our ships, we started by looking for two types of analogues: ships (and more importantly gameplay roles) from Chris Roberts\u2019 classic games and historical aircraft to lend verisimilitude to our growing universe.\n\nFor the first part, we naturally looked to 1993\u2019s Privateer where piracy was a semi-viable career option, although one that made life particularly difficult in most of inhabited space (other aspects of Star Citizen\u2019s design were planned alongside, intending to give pirates more to do overall!) For those unfamiliar, Privateer had four player ships: a starter, a gunship, a transport and an elite bounty hunter fighter. In a great example of emergent gameplay, pirates of yore tended to forgo the statistically superior Centurion fighter and instead purchase the cheaper Galaxy light transport. Why? Because the Galaxy had the largest cargo hold and a pair of turrets that meant you could attach tractor beams without using a precious forward-facing missile\/torpedo slot (turrets, which had no AI, were otherwise largely unnecessary in Privateer.) While a Centurion could best take out a lumbering transport, it\u2019s small cargo hold meant that the profit made from stolen loot was limited. For the Cutlass we decided: why not codify this mechanic and offer pirates a fighting ship that trades some dogfighting ability for the larger cargo hold they\u2019ll want in the \u2018verse?\n\nFor the historical reference, we fixated on the idea that Drake built \u2018cheaper\u2019 ships intended to be available in large numbers to a larger group of captains. While not wanting to sell the Cutlass as \u2018disposable,\u2019 we wanted to get across the idea that it was treated as something of a lower tier ship than the Freelancer, Hornet or Constellation. For that history, we looked to World War II and the Heinkel He 162 \u201cVolksj\u00e4ger.\u201d Developed by Germany in the last days of the war, this \u2018people\u2019s fighter\u2019 was a fascinating mix of then-high technology jet engines with cheap, wooden construction that could theoretically continue in small shops as Germany\u2019s major aircraft factories were targeted by the Allies\u2019 strategic bombing campaign. The Cutlass borrowed liberally from this idea, combining high tech role-specific gear (like the tractor beam and rotating engines) with a lower quality hull. To further reinforce this idea, marketing decided to price the Cutlass $15 below the Hornet or Freelancer. Later, I would get to integrate this backstory into the Drake Interplanetary profile in a Jump Point!\n\nThe result of this thinking was published in a Comm-Link update as the Cutlass and the \u2018Pirate Pack\u2019 went up for pledge. This is the same material provided to Chris and to Jim Martin upon which to base his concept artwork.\n\nDrake Interplanetary claims that the Cutlass is a low-cost, easy-to-maintain solution for local in-system militia units. The larger-than-average cargo hold, RIO seat and dedicated tractor mount are, the company literature insists, for facilitating search and rescue operations. While it\u2019s true that Cutlasses are used throughout known space for such missions, their prime task and immediate association is with high space piracy. Cutlasses, often operating in groups, menace distant transit lanes to prey on hapless merchants. A single Cutlass can ravage a mid-sized transport and a pack operating as a clan can easily take down larger prey. STOL adaptations allow these interceptors to operate off of modified transports or pocket destroyers; the most common warships that make up pirate caravans. Designer note: the idea is that Drake Interplanetary builds ships which are ostensibly for legal purposes (local militias, etc.) but are \u2018obviously\u2019 for pirates: so it has the appearance of a military fighter, but mated to an awkwardly larger hull for collecting loot; it should have visible forward-facing tractor beams and a seat for a second crewman even though there\u2019s no turret (as you\u2019ll need a second man to board an enemy ship.) It also has a cheaper build quality: if Anvil is building Jeeps and Origin is building BMWs, this is a Honda.\nTo further appreciate the intent behind the Cutlass, it might be valuable to look at the original specifications compared to the other ships in the same tier, the Freelancer and the Hornet. Note that these specifications are long out-of-date\u2026 but they speak well to the intended role of each ship.\n\nFreelancer Hornet Cutlass Crew (max) 2 1 2 Mass 55,000 22,000 35,000 Upgrade Capacity 10 6 5 Cargo Capacity 20 4 10 Engine Modifiers 3 2 2 Engine Class Anti-Matter Fusion Fusion Main Engine 2x TR5 1x TR4 1x TR4 Maneuvering Thrusters 8x TR2 8x TR2 16x TR2 Class 1 Weapons None 2 2 Class 2 Weapons 4 2 1 Class 3 Weapons 2 4 4 Class 4 Weapons 1 2 2 From these numbers, you can see the early attempt to balance the Cutlass as a sort of fighting transport midway between the Hornet and the Freelancer. Over twice the cargo of the former, half that of the latter\u2026 but with better weapon slots, more maneuvering thrusters and a lower mass to avoid being a lumbering transport. With regards to the oft-debated maneuverability, the biggest inspiration for this idea was the initial concept art that came back from Jim Martin, which reminded me of the Vampire from Wing Commander Prophecy. We discussed quite a bit the idea that the Cutlass might be especially maneuverable, but unreliably so: engines on an axis that would offer, for instance, exceedingly great yaw but limited pitch or roll. The sort of ship that might require an expert pilot to truly handle well.\n\nWith that, the Cutlass began the development process\u2026 with several stops along the way! As with any creative process, what is listed above was the starting point. Over the past two years, the team has experimented with everything from a maneuverable Cutlass that spins rapidly on the axis of the twin-boom engines to a Cutlass that\u2019s a pure transport. Knowing that there were a significant number of Cutlass pilots, we wanted to give players access to the ship as quickly as possible despite the fact that multi-crew ships and any piracy-related mechanics were much further off. In fact, both of our first two major module releases had \u2018partial Cutlasses\u2019 released for them: the large external concept model in the Hangar to tide captains over until their ships were modeled and then the \u2018dogfight oriented\u2019 single-pilot Cutlass added to Arena Commander 1.0. Neither version expressed the true purpose of the ship as originally announced, but both were intended to tide players over until they could begin raiding shipping lanes in the finished universe. For more details on this process, we will turn this article over to our RIO, designer John Crewe, to walk you through where the flyable Cutlass has been and to talk about where it went and where it\u2019s going!\n\nWHERE WE WERE: The Cutlass Takes Flight!\nby John Crewe\n\nThe Cutlass Black became flight ready with the release of Arena Commander v1.0 back in December 2014, but the road to getting it flight ready was an admittedly rocky one. After the initial block out by the ship team in Austin at that time, the Cutlass was worked on by a variety of people, including internal staff and several different outsource companies. The ship pipeline at the time was both young and extremely complex, and in review the resulting work had not been completed in a way that made it easy to implement in game. The unfortunate truth was that the asset that you\u2019d had sitting in your hangars for some time had some serious design flaws in relation to its thruster placements; chief of which being the lack of any that could believably provide lateral thrust for strafing and yaw rotation. The only thrusters that could achieve this were the gimballed central ones, and because they were only centrally located, they unfortunately just couldn\u2019t provide sufficient rotation as needed.\n\nIn addition to this, the Cutlass also required some new thruster setups that had never been created for any of the Star Citizen ships before, and as such this new ground was being tread right up unto the release. We had for the first time in our development main thrusters that could rotate and act as the thrusters that provided retro thrust. We also had those central thrusters which could not only pitch\/yaw but also roll, and at certain angles would limit rotation in other axis! The final part of the thruster issues with the Cutlass is having child thrusters, which the main thrusters are supposed to have but have been absent since the flight ready release. Long story short: the original IFCS system was never written to account for thrusters with thrusters on them and the handling behavior would degrade completely, so we\u2019d removed them until we had a chance to look at that system; work which will be included in the forthcoming model update.\n\nJohn Pritchett and myself spent many evenings in the build up to release trying to solve these issues and whilst they solved a lot, a few persist to this day, which required some non-ideal solutions at that time, like the incredibly fast rotating thrusters and the fairly slippery handling that results from non-optimal thrusters.\n\nThe final bump in the road for the v1.0 release was the delivery for the damage states and LoD\u2019s was massively behind schedule and came in very late, barely days before the v1.0 release date leaving very little time for implementation, evaluation and optimization. This is always an unfortunate occurrence in game development, but because we knew this was the beginning of things and not the end, we implemented the best interim solutions we could at that time.\n\nPost Release Rework Begins\nIt is safe to say the Cutlass has suffered from a lot of issues, but we\u2019re intent on making amends (read on to find out how!) It became clear after its flight ready release that a lot of work had to be done to get it to the standard required and as such Foundry 42 was tasked with investigating a review and revamp of it.\n\nThe designers at Foundry 42 took a look at it and worked up a proposal to keep the unique exterior shape but allow as much interior modularization as possible. At that point the ship was split up into four sections. Here are some bullet point features we want to implement in each section:\n\nCockpit\/Storage\nContains the cockpit and a small utility area comprising personal storage and weapons locker.\n\nSeparated from the next section via a bulkhead door.\n\nThe second seat was moved to a single display screen allowing engineering\/remote control functionality to be given.\n\nReally bring in the cramped feeling but using up lots of the dead space above the passageways which are wasted currently.\n\nConsistent between all variants.\n\nCrew Living Quarters\nContains a pair of escape pod beds on one side and a utility area on the other side.\n\nSmall additional weapons locker, shower\/toilet and turret access.\n\nStorage built into space between current interior and exterior hull, especially for smuggling.\n\nTurret access is retained in this area although the entry hole will be made to the new standardized 2m, to match Docking Collars and as such if destroyed makes the perfect extra docking point for enemies.\n\nCentral Modular Room\nProvides the basis for all three existing variants whilst giving potential for more in future.\n\nDefault option for the Cutlass Black gains a cargo lift on which all cargo is stored.\n\nCutlass Blue comes equipped with a set of cells.\n\nRed variant has a pod recovery system which can tractor escape pods in from outside through an airlock in the floor.\n\nOther proposed variations included a drop ship version, similar to the Retaliator drop ship module.\n\nRear Ramp\nSimilar to the current rear of the Cutlass but have the docking collar move to the ceiling rather than being on the floor of the cargo bay.\n\nSealed from modular room to allow it to open during flight without depressurizing the entire cargo bay.\n\nThe docking collar is also moving to the new standardized size of 2m wide which will allow 1SCU crates plenty of space to be transferred through and the ramp is wide enough to support larger items as well as being directly loaded onto the cargo lift.\n\nIn addition to this, there was a small selection of exterior adjustments decided to aid the overall handling such as bringing the rear engines more in line with the front canard wings and adding better placed\/integrated thrusters to the front of the ship as well.\n\nOnce the initial design pass had been done it was passed over to the concept team who started doing paint overs using the existing white box designer geometry. Some of these concepts were released during the Cargo Design Doc and the rest are included throughout this post.\n\nShortly before work was due to commence on the \u201cCutlass rework\u201d the priorities on the ship schedule changed, and as such the Foundry 42 Ship Team (at the time, only a few people) were moved on to finishing other ships such as the Gladius, Gladiator, Retaliator and Idris, which you have all now seen at CitizenCon as well as a few others you are yet to see.\n\nBecause of this, the task of creating the revamped Cutlass was given to an outsource studio with guidance from the team. In an effort to avoid the same mistakes that were made with prior outsource partners, they were actually embedded within the F42 studio for a fortnight so we would have the proper oversight and be able to provide the most immediate feedback.\n\nUnfortunately, as happens in game development, the priorities changed again, as we realized that other needs at that time trumped the rework of an existing flyable ship, and as such around June the Cutlass Black rework was put on the back burner as other ships came through the pipeline. This is an unfortunate reality of development, as there are only a finite number of resources available, and getting more ships built allows other members of the team complete their work sooner, as opposed to slowing multiple departments as they wait on one team to rework the Cutlass.\n\nWHERE WE ARE: The Cutlass in Alpha 2.0\nFor Alpha 2.0 the Cutlass Black is receiving an interim update for a variety of reasons, primarily performance. It was by far the single most expensive ship in the game in terms of memory usage, as everyone will have experienced playing AC with the severe hangs whenever one spawns or dies. We managed to improve that somewhat over subsequent patches from the programming side by pre-caching it, but at the end of the day the raw assets just weren\u2019t optimized enough to be suitable going forward.\n\nWe decided a few months ago that rather than rushing to try and get the reworked Cutlass out for 2.0 we\u2019d spend the time \u201cupgrading\u201d the old version to improve the experience for everyone when one is involved in combat. Not only have we totally redone the damage setup using the new damage shader system but we\u2019ve also added in the basics of the new Multi Crew UI screens as seen in the Constellation and Retaliator. By doing this work the actual source .max file has shrunk from just under 2GB down to 550MB, the in game .cga assets have also been reduced from two assets totaling 405MB down to a single asset under 30MB. Not only is this better for the game but also massively better for us developers as it was taking nearly 40 minutes to commit the .max file to Perforce previously on our old office connection, now it\u2019s under a minute.\n\nThe result for players is that it allows the Cutlass to be managed just like those larger ships and gives us valuable feedback on the usability of those screens on a much smaller scale ship, both in terms of size and crew count. The Pilot has a revised cockpit display with new multi-function displays and the co-pilot seat has an all new single 16:9 display allowing oversight to many features whilst controlling specific engineering style tasks. In addition to the UI screens we\u2019ve also done a quick usability pass on the ship, tightening up the interaction prompts for all the buttons and adjusting the button locations to be not quite so jammed in and making the external buttons a bit more visible. There should be no more cases of trying to open the cockpit door, whilst accidentally lowering the turret or ending up in the jump seat!\n\nOn top of the multi-crew update the ship has also had a complete thruster balance pass to go with the new IFCS system which should help limit some of the more unexpected behavior you experience in AC today along with improved speeds and handling allow you to catch up with your prey easier.\n\nLastly and most importantly, we are bringing back the cockpit fans which have been missing in action since v1.0. We expect this was the only aspect of the rework anyone was interested in, so let\u2019s consider the Cutlass \u201cfinished.\u201d\n\nJust seeing if anyone is actually reading this. We\u2019re kidding, of course. But not about the fans. Those are really back. =)\n\nWHERE WE\u2019RE GOING: Plans for the Cutlass Going Forward\nWith the split of ship manufacturers between studios, the Cutlass (being a Drake ship) has moved over to LA for them to implement the above design rework alongside their work on the Herald and Caterpillar. The current ship schedule is very full, with all the ships required for S42 taking priority and most being done at Foundry 42, as such the interim update to the Cutlass for 2.0 fills the need we have for it in the short term.\n\nAs the concept and designs for the rework have been finished, this reduces the amount of time needed for the eventual Cutlass rework to be completed. It\u2019s just a case of finding time in the schedule to complete that work, especially when it has to compete against other ships which are not flight ready in any form, yet.\n\nIn addition to the rework the Cutlass will benefit from all the ongoing updates to ships such as the new component system rollout which will allow players to customize their ships much more than is currently possible, and we hope to have a more thorough design post on this exciting system soon. Other updates that will be coming online will be updated turrets and mounts to allow a variety of weapons, the first recently released was the S4 fixed mount allowing Cutlass users to wield the hefty Behring cannon. The plan has always been to allow players the choice of setting their ship up how they want, but in v1.0 the turret was slaved to the pilot simulating a remote control turret. For 2.0 it is now a dedicated manned turret which in future will allow it to be slaved to either seat, manned directly or controlled by AI.\n\nThe Cutlass is designed to be operated by two people (MAX Crew is NOT the same as REQUIRED or OPTIMAL Crew,) with a pilot and another who can choose between sitting in the RIO seat and managing ship systems or taking direct control of the turret to provide offensive capabilities. That doesn\u2019t mean you have to roll with just two people, you can always recruit a bunch of your buddies to ride in the back to take on any jobs you see fit although there are only two escape pods\u2026\n\nVARIANTS: Talking about the Red and Blue\nOne of the most popular questions\/complaints is about the variation in stats for the components in the Red and Blue versions and as always our answer is \u201cAll stats are subject to change\u201d and the Red & Blue are no exception.\n\nThe current stats for the variants will be reviewed when the Black revamp takes place as that will dictate the base level for the variants, expect the Blue to still have some edges as you\u2019d imagine from a Law Enforcement variant.\n\nThe Red version will still maintain its search and rescue capabilities with an integral escape pod recovery mechanism in the central modular room along with medical pods and hospital equipment. The turret will also be swapped for the scanner array and of course its exterior paint job.\n\nThe Blue version still retains its additional missiles and prisoner cells although their arrangement is still to be decided. They currently sit around the edge of the hull but may move onto the central cargo lift to allow all of them to be lowered out of the ship together for easier prisoner loading\/unloading.\n\nIn regards to the exterior styling there will be a push towards unification of the base meshes between all three versions so that one exterior can be used across them all with only small \u201cbolt on\u201d pieces like you find in the Vanguard series to differentiate them, along with their recognizable paint jobs of course. This means the cockpit geometry will most likely be different than to what is currently there whilst we find the best compromise between them all, but rest assured: no more bars through the viewline!\n\nAs demonstrated with CR comments in the WIP and the ship commercial it was lead to believe the Cutlass would be a nimble ship. However the current iterations have made the ship otherwise. Has CIG taken a new direction for this ship?\nAs we\u2019ve covered in the post above the Cutlass has suffered at the hands of numerous setup and design issues which we\u2019re dealing with. The direction is still the same, it is supposed to be nimble for its size and type especially considering the other roles it can do and with the IFCS changes coming with 2.0 it certainly performs significantly better than in 1.3.\n\n\n\n\nWhy would a Police, Bounty hunter, CSAR, and Pirate use the slowest fighter in the game? Shouldn\u2019t speed and combat capabilities be more important than raw cargo capacity for those roles?\nSee above, it no longer handles like a slippery superfreighter with the IFCS changes in 2.0 and will get better when the reworked Cutlass is released. The Cutlass can easily catch up with other ships and mix it up with them.\n\n\nCurrently the loading bay & Docking collar are too small for SCU to pass through it, is this intentional or will it be fixed? Will the cutlass receive a way to load cargo pods and other bulky items?\nThe current docking collar on the Cutlass is 1.3.\/2.0 is 2.2m wide, larger than a regular 1SCU crate which is 1.25m * 1.25m * 1.25m. The rear ramp is also 1.8m wide and 2.8m tall, again more than enough to receive cargo in multiple sizes. The cargo lift for the rework of the Cutlass can accommodate larger items as well, but if you\u2019re wanting to transport large\/bulky amounts of cargo then the Cutlass is not the ship for this.\n\n\nIs the Cutlass still intended to be a 3 to 4 crew ship instead of the 1.5 crew ship she has been initially sold as? What sized crew is the Cutlass rework designed around?\nThe Cutlass in 2.0 and the reworked version, is designed around supporting two crew. One pilot and one for either providing additional multicrew support via the second seat or providing offensive power via the turret. Down the line you\u2019ll be able to slave the turret to one of those seats or add an AI module to allow it to be independent of the seats just like any other turret in the game would be capable of. Just because we say two crew does not mean that is the absolutely minimum or maximum, one person is able to fly and fight with it at a basic level. Adding that AI module I just mentioned would allow it to be on a par weapon wise with what is currently in 1.3. You could also man all three seats or have a couple of guys on the jump seats in the rear to provide extra support during landing\/boarding \u201coperations\u201d.\n\n\nThe Cutlass seems to be in the awkward position of having the speed and handling of a multi-crew ship, while retaining the armament and defenses of smaller fighters. What benefits does the Cutlass have over a smaller\/faster single person ship, or a bigger\/more armed and armored multi-crew ship?\nAs discussed the speed and maneuverability have been increased significantly in 2.0 which will not only help with offensive options but also for defensive needs and evasion of missiles. All the ships are due for updates in the future regarding their health as the new component system comes online along with piercability of the hull which will change how ships behave when being damaged. The Cutlass benefits from having a second player being able to dedicate themselves to managing the ships systems (shield\/power management for example) or turret versus a lone player having to manage it all.\n\nIt is not designed to go toe to toe with the regular multicrew ships like the Connie, Tali or Freelancer who dwarf the Cutlass not only in size but also weaponry and crew size. The Cutlass sits in a role that can bridge the single seater and low end multicrew ship roles and function in either camp or somewhere in the middle. For more information about the Drake Cutlass, consult the books in your local library\u2026 or check out some of these previous posts concerning our plans and objectives for the little pirate ship that could.\n\nOriginal Announcement\n\nJump Point Porfolio: Drake Interplanetary\n\nJump Point WIP: The Cutlass\n\nJump Point WIP: Cutlass Variants\n\nCutlass Commercial & Variants\n\nCutlass Brochure\n\nCutlass Black Store Listing\n\nCutlass Red Store Listing\n\nCutlass Blue Store Listing\n\nPackages & Add-On Ships\nLooking Ahead\nby Ben Lesnick and Jared Huckaby\n\ntl;dr \u2013 the Cutlass has had a complex development history, with multiple voices wanting different end goals. The Cutlass will become more maneuverable with Star Citizen Alpha 2.0, but it will not drop the focus on being a fighter WITH a cargo hold intended for piracy (or search and rescue, as a Drake salesman would say!)\n\nWe hope that everyone has found at least some of the answers they are looking for. On a personal note, a huge thank you to Lead Technical Designer John Crewe in the UK for taking the time to indulge us in this crazy endeavor. We will consider a supplemental edition of The Shipyard in the future to clean up any issues that arise from this and the launch of Star Citizen Alpha 2.0.\n\nNo one ship can be all things to all people, and it shouldn\u2019t be even if it could. As with all these ships, the Cutlass may not be what everyone wants it to be and as such there may be other ships that are much more suited to your playstyle. One such option is a potential ship we\u2019re calling the Drake Buccaneer, which would be a \u2018pirate interceptor\u2019 intended more for tricky maneuvering than cargo capacity. It would likely feature light armor, a shorter range \u2018sucker punch\u2019 style weapons loadout and a significantly more limited cargo bay. Buccaneers would need to operate alongside of Cutlasses or even as parasite fighters attached to a Caterpillar for more serious raiding missions. If we go ahead with the concept, it would be intended to fit the same price range as the Cutlass, allowing owners who prefer sheer maneuverability to switch designs with impunity.\n\nWe\u2019d like to know what you think, both about the Buccaneer and this style of post. Two polls are embedded below to help us decide what to do next! Cast your vote to let the Star Citizen team know what you\u2019re thinking, and be sure to post your comments below.\n\nRemember there is no such thing as a perfect ship, just the perfect ship for you."},"links_count":11,"comment_count":363,"created_at":"2015-11-13T00:00:00+00:00","created_at_human":"10 years ago"},"meta":{"processed_at":"2026-05-12 07:44:06","valid_relations":["images","links"],"prev_id":15054,"next_id":15057}}