Teerin's Transparency (Tuesday?) Thread

[Teerin]

Whoops, forgot to post here yesterday. Let's pretend it's Tuesday again ...

The system modifications are in their final stages. What's left is to merge the changes, insert the updated infocards, and tweak the economy to fit the moved bases. Maybe the PvP and Effects folks will have something new cooked up by the release date as well.

As for the update itself, while our highest priority has been Kusari, due to the business and departure of various system modders, only part of the planned Kusari changes will be in this update. We've also been working on Rheinland and the "Nomicrons." With luck all goes well, and all three of those will be included in this incoming update.

"Why has this all been taking so long since the Gallia Update?"

Well, with the departure of the former leadership of the team as well as the forum downtime, there has been a lot to reorganize. Fortunately, we've found a few new system modders who seem very competent. As many of you may recall, there was also a "Great Guard System Cull" planned several months ago. These updates contain the results of all that planning, so a lot of the work has been a result of removing or de-guarding those systems, in addition to the storyline progression. We've been lucky to find so many ways to reuse those old bases.

Future updates, after 4.88 Final is done, will be much quicker as a result, since the guard systems will already be taken care of.

[Wixelt]

How many systems can we expect to be removed in this update?

[Teerin]

Most of the Rheinland guard systems, but not all. The remaining ones will be "deguarded," meaning their layouts revised, additional bases for different factions added, and extraneous bases removed.

Also, due to timing constraints (the latter half of December is full of people going on vacation) and me not wanting to overwork the developers ('tis the season not to slave drive), the Nomicrons have a 50% chance of being pushed off until January. My goal for that month is to finally get that update out of the way, as well as the second half of the Kusari package. After these regions, our aim is set on Hispania and the Omegas, which, if we're lucky, can be out by late January or February.

[Connor]

Does this mean that there's a possibility that we could be able to use all the new Nomad ships and look at all the new nomad npcs then?

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[Haste]

That's the plan, yes. Although that's mostly the models & balance teams' responsibility. Plus frankly I'd like to sort the Predator out first, no matter how pretty those trails are they're extremely irritating to look at from another player's perspective the way they currently work.

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[TheShooter36]

How its irritating to look Haste? those trails are so sweet!

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[Haste]

Have you seen a Predator in combat strafe around and move 'erratically' while flown by another player? It causes a gigantic mess of weird, twitchy blue crap that looks nothing like the trails look on the piloting player's end. It also just straight up interferes with aiming and I'm not a big fan of that.

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[nOmnomnOm]

Could we expect that map that was posted a few months ago of how Sirius will be re-organized or is there a rework of that coming up?

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[Wixelt]

Have you seen a Predator in combat strafe around and move 'erratically' while flown by another player? It causes a gigantic mess of weird, twitchy blue crap that looks nothing like the trails look on the piloting player's end. It also just straight up interferes with aiming and I'm not a big fan of that.

There was a map posted? Do you have a link to it?

EDIT: Also, you mentioned Nomicrons. Is that the numbered Omicron systems or Omicrons that are going to be removed/need serious work on them?

[Teerin]

You win some, you lose some ...

The update went well, allowing an awesome event to occur and moving along story elements which had been stagnate. More is to come. There are few bugs, especially compared to other updates in the past, and we're working to fix what's been reported. I'd like to extend thanks once again to those who have reported bugs, as we really appreciate the help. Also, lately I've been finding and tackling a lot of outdated name infocards, so you all should soon see those fixed.

Sadly, I was not able to participate in the event because I forgot to make a KNF or IKN character beforehand . Unbeknownst to many, the Dev Team initially planned to deploy the release on the 31st, but we had to iron out several serious issues first, which delayed us a while. The current KPT situation is unfortunate since the players are torn on the development, but I'm in contact with a lot of avid Kusari players and a solution is being devised. @Ramke, feel free to contact me on Skype.

Apparently there's also a rumor that I let the Dev Team run amok. Actually, I have to keep myself from micromanaging people, especially the infocard guys, although I do generally let the balance team do what they agree on (which isn't much, but that's good because it proves they're not like-minded VHF aces like people think) because I'm mainly only good in bombers and am somewhat decent in fighters ... furthermore my capship experience is admittedly quite poor. Basically, I can't offer them much worthwhile advice. Anyway, @LordVipex did indeed consult me about the mining update, and we continue to discuss it even still. I understand well that it's not currently optimal, but it has a good approach, and we're ironing out the faults. @Xoria and @Haste aren't inactive as commonly believed to be either, and I actually talk to nearly every developer (which is growing to be quite a number) almost every day.

Speaking of which, welcome @jammi and @Char Aznable to the Development Team! They have finished their "trainee" recruitment phase and are now cursed with the gold username. Jammi runs the infocard writers along with @LunaticOnTheGrass, and both are subsequently assistant storyline developers. They provide insight into what I plan, and ensure that I don't screw up too badly. Meanwhile, Char is a system modifications guy, who did the bulk of the Rheinland work for 4.88.4 and will be lending a hand with the updates to come as well.

4.88.5 should consist of finally the rest of Kusari and finally the Nomicrons. We recently recovered a bunch of old work that @Treewyrm had done for the latter, so piecing that together will be fun. If things go super well (hah!) we may also have the Hispania+Omegas package ready by then, too.

Well, with luck this has been an insightful post, and will make up for me not posting here last week. Feel free to leave some feedback here and ask questions, but I respectfully ask that it be productive, constructive, polite, etc. etc.


EDIT: Oh, we've reviewed the Development Team applications and will begin interviews shortly. With luck we'll have that sorted out before the weekend. Kudos to all who applied, even if you won't make it in. We really appreciate all of the support and enthusiasm.


To answer a question left here earlier;

Also, you mentioned Nomicrons. Is that the numbered Omicron systems or Omicrons that are going to be removed/need serious work on them?

Nomicrons is a portmanteau word, being a combination of Nomad Omicrons. It deals primarily with Nomad, Core, and Order space. Other Omicrons such as Hispania systems, Kappa, and Theta, will be dealt with and updated separately.