Questions
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FuriousGeorge Asks: I'm curious as to what extent that Electronic Warfare will be in the game. Will I be able to use certain jamming techniques to make a radar guider missile blow up early, or perhaps put false targets on an enemy's HUD?
Yes we're definitely having Electronic warfare in the game, we have specific role/designs for it on bigger ships where there will be an electronic warfare officer. Then there will also be ships in the game which are focussed on that, we've got some up and coming variants that'll focus on that as well as some current ones. The hornet tracker for example will have the ability to do some of this, but the idea would be that you could jam radars, hide signatures, mess with other's computer systems etc. We think it'll add another level of fun to combat/the PU.
 
Kaochat Asks: Will ship be able to magnetize to another ship hull? Such as a M50 hiding on a Reclaimer's engine?
Yeah, I think we're talking about the classic Millenium Falcon moment in the Empire Strikes Back. I don't know if you could magnetize onto a bigger ship's hull, I imagine we'll have a mechanic where radars have a minimum distance, so if you're very close maybe you've gone off the radar, that could be interesting for gameplay. There isn't really code that does this, it wouldn't be that difficult to do, but I don't know if it's all that worthwhile. But yes, you could definitely get in really close to a ship and kind of hide in it's radar shadow, and EVA out and around it if you wanted to.
 
War Dog Asks: Given the ever increasing cargo holds of the newer ships, what do you see the role of the Freelancer being? For example, will be there be jump points that the smaller ship will be able to navigate that will block larger ships?
Yes, that's absolutely the case. We're talking about having different classifications of Jump Points, the rips (like in interstellar) will have different classes. I've always viewed these as having different sizes, so there will definitely be ones that only a smaller ship can navigate, and some that capital ships can navigate. Also these might not necessarily always connect to the same system, so there could quite easily be routes that are quicker from A-B that are only suitable for smaller ships. Think of it like a mountain pass, some only allow foot traffic, others might take a car etc etc. There will definitely be uses of this in gameplay, situations where there are advantages to having a smaller ship. Maybe there's someone with a big supertanker that needs to take a more round-about route, but your smaller ship can take the faster route, just like it happens in the real world. There will be ups and downs to various ships. I see threads about how people are worried orgs are going to dominate with something as big as the Javelin. While they're good for team play and definitely have their advantages, they might not be as useful for some other roles, and might be at a huge disadvantage. That's definitely a goal of star citizen as a whole, is to have "different horses for different courses", where each ship caters to different roles and all have their advantages over each other. Jump Points are just another example of how we'll ensure that.
 
SmartAce Asks: Will having a bounty on your head override the PVP slider bar? Some people may rack up a huge bounty and then hide by settings their PVP bar to a low number.
Absolutely. There is no way you're going to engage in attacking other players in PVP, rack up a bounty and get away with it. You've asked for it, other players will come after you! If you're getting a bounty because you're attacking NPC stuff, the slider will have an effect, but really once you have a bounty NPC police and mercenaries will also target you, not just players. That said, even with the bar set really low, if you've got a big enough bounty for NPCs, depending on where you are (you might not be in safe space) other players might be opened up to get you as well. It's sort of more to do with what YOU'RE doing. If you're engaging in acts that would put a bounty on your head in a PVP setting you're sort of "locking in" to a PVP response, you can't just hide by changing it later. If you're doing it to NPCs you can keep to more of an NPC response to it. We've got it worked out and it'll be balanced to avoid griefing, so yeah, you won't be able to do that.
 
Maxx Asks: In addition to going planetside, will we be able to visit moons as well?
The answer to that is yes   , as far as we're concerned a moon is just another landing location/planet, so there are cases where there will be a moon or even large asteroid you could land one. I think we already have in our setup a mining station on a moon you can go visit.
 
Nathanalphaman Asks: I was wondering, if I had a R&Y hangar on Terra, and I become a pirate in the 'verse. What happens when I get banned from Terra Airspace?
No-one can really BAN you from an airspace, but certainly if you're there you can get attacked, law enforcement agencies etc, you can be denied landing clearance to land on the planet etc. There will be ways to be wanted and be able to sneak back into areas, maybe keep your profile low and perhaps pay for a fake identity/ship identifier   . If you had that hangar on Terra you'd just probably set up your shop elsewhere. You could probably hire someone to fly your ships from that hangar to wherever you go next. I'd hope you'd be smart enough to move your assets around BEFORE you become greatly wanted in one place, because, you know, that'd be the same in real life right? But yes, you'd still have access to it, but to avoid sneaking around you'd do well to locate your pirate base elsewhere.
TBC in comment
 
MrFixIt Asks: What are the chances that there will be one of a kind, never before seen, ships, weapons, gear and etc out in the PU for explorers to find?
Yes there will definitely be a bunch of that stuff. So we are going to have ships, weapons and gear that we will not sell pre-release, so collectors of ships/items etc are safe and will still have lots to do in the PU. I view a lot of these items as rare/unique items like in a traditional fantasy MMO. I'm very keen on creating a need for players to explore, for instance you won't be able to get all the weapons in all the shops in all the locations, so there might be a gun shop on a planet that has a particular guy that can make ballistic weapons that are 20% better than the rest of them, say, so players will have to go here to get those weapons specifically etc. I want to encourage players to travel around to look and find things, like going onto a derelict wreck in an asteroid field, where there might be some alien tech, or some salvageable weapons, all that kind of stuff.
 
Icinix Asks: With the recent renege of offline capability of Elite Dangerous - is CIG still committed to providing offline Private Servers and Squadron 42 for backers?
Yes, as far as offline goes as long as you've downloaded the game through our downloader and thus have a legitimate copy you can play Squadron 42 and single player stuff without an internet connection, like on your laptop while travelling or something. Obviously you won't be able to do the co-op or multiplayer segments there, but we've said that. As far as hosting your own offline servers that's definitely still going to happen, just not to the same level of fidelity as our own servers, given that we have hundreds and hundreds or even thousands of servers spinning up dynamically to handle things like the economy simulation, different player instances, matchmaking stuff, PU databases etc etc as well. The offline or Private servers will be more like the freelancer servers are now, where you have a server that can handle a fixed number of players, and all you and your friends can run around together. No one will be able to run a moddable server with say a million players it's just impossible, you'd need a server base at the same scale as we'll have. But you'll certainly have these smaller servers available for you and your friends if you don't want to play in our PU. These smaller servers won't be updated as quickly as our PU, like we'll drop content and other game-master events in ours first as it's the priority and it would be an extra level of work bring it down to work on smaller level servers. So we're still going to deliver on all of our promises with that caveat which I've said from the beginning, the PU is just going to be able to support more players and be far more dynamic in a way that the moddable private servers won't be. I kind of understand why the Elite: Dangerous guys made that choice, because their game does revolve around some of that dynamic stuff that they provide, just like our PU will, but we're still allowing single player in the form of SQ42 and you'll still be able to run your own scaled down private servers.