JUMP P INT A Roberts Space Industries Publication Issue 01.01 IN THIS ISSUE 300i —Work in Progress . 3 by Kemp Remillard The 24-Hour Livestream Campaign . 13 by Ben Lesnick Hornet Blueprints . 16 by Forrest Stephan Whisperer in the Dark . 18 fiction by David Haddock 1 GREETINGS, CITIZENS! Welcome to the inaugural issue of JUMP POINT, And finally, let me take a minute to introduce myself. There are going to the official subscriber-only magazine of the Star Citizen development be lots of people working on JUMP POINT; it’s likely that everyone on the team. We’re excited to offer you this very first taste of the content team will contribute to one issue or another as we make our way to final you’ll be receiving as a subscriber and we’re eager to showcase the release. But as your editor, you’ll have me with you all along the way. latest and greatest from the world of Star Citizen. I’m David Ladyman, and I’ve worked on Chris’s projects since the early This month we’re offering you two very exciting sneak peaks: days of Wing Commander. Before Origin, I was system guru for the development sequence of the Origin 300i spacecraft Car Wars and GURPS at Steve Jackson Games. I became that many users pledged for and blueprints of the Origin System’s publications manager a few days famed Hornet space superiority fighter. Keep in after WC was released, and from that point my mind that this is very early; most sane devel- publications team put together every manual, opment teams wouldn’t release a design install guide, ref card and strategy guide for everything Chris and his team cre- at this stage, but (a) we make no claims ated at Origin (including the Privateer to sanity and (b) we feel that our citi- games in England), and then the Wing zen subscribers can appreciate that Commander Confederation Hand- there are still changes to be made. book for the movie. (In between We also have a behind-the-scenes Chris’s games, we found time for look at the now legendary 24- a few Ultima and Jane’s books, hour Livestream marathon and as well.) After Origin, our team an all-new tale from Spectrum (Incan Monkey God Studios) cre- Dispatch (and Star Citizen) writer ated game guides and manuals for Dave Haddock! EverQuest, EQ2, Asheron’s Call, Dark But before we go any farther, we’d Age of Camelot, Star Wars Galaxies, like to take a moment to thank you Rift and many others. for your support. The truth is, JUMP POINT When Chris invited me to help, I couldn’t exist without our subscribers. jumped at the chance, and 12 hours later, As you will see in the coming months, your I’m hard at work on this first issue. Which monthly fees allow us the extra time to create reminds me, Chris — at some point we’re go- updates like JUMP POINT, exclusive video content ing to have to talk about compensation … like Wingman’s Basement, and extended development Meanwhile, it’s gonna be a wild ride! features. You’re also helping add to the game itself: the sub- David scription fees mean we can create more content for everyone in the finished game! Next month, look for a sit down with Chris Taylor in Game Changers (and maybe a follow-up in-depth interview in JUMP POINT). We’ll also have an interview with Erin Roberts, plus more art-in-progress and a team profile! 2 300i This is what it is now. But how did it begin? See the following pages for the 300i development. 3 Kemp Remillard, Senior Concept Artist with Massive Black since 2005, has Done vehicle design work for Dust 514, G.I.Joe (toys and movies), Red Faction Guerrilla and Killzone 2. He works mostly in Photoshop over 3d meshes made in SketchUp. What follows is his commentary. This image was done by by another one of our Senior Concept Artists here at Massive Black, Sam Brown. As thumbnail sketches, these are intended to present Chris with a few options for direction, based on the 300i’s description as a stylish BMW- esque ship “that sends as much of a message with its silhouette as it does with its particle cannons.” A later note from Chris: sketches 1-3 will be used as an initial starting point for the other playable Origin Jumpworks ship, the M50, as I felt that they were cool but a little small for the 300i. 4 This was the first of my two initial options for Chris. I was thinking of this as a sort of space-yacht, with a tight but livable space for the pilot to live in over long journeys. I’ve been looking at UAV design a lot recently, and tried to work in some of the sleek lines found in these relatively new aircraft on places like the engine in-take and the wing configuration. For this stage I started with a few quick sketches in photoshop, then built out rough SketchUp block models, made a few renders, then finessed them with a Photoshop paint over. 5 This is my second initial option for the 300i. It was loosely based off of a Chinese UAV that uses a closed-loop wing configuration. This is a relatively new convention in aircraft design so I thought it’d be cool to suggest it as an alternative to the norm. Luckily, the choice worked out and Chris went with this option. 6 Chris liked the over-all design on option #5 but felt that the nose looked too much like an F-22. So the look was altered with a flatter nose and a tilt-down to give the pilot more visibility from his view-port and steer away from too much of a fighter-jet look. The class 2 weapon was mounted on the front under the nose, and a rough interior was sketched out to work out some of the interior spaces. 7 At this point Chris and I had a few conversations about the thruster lated on one axis. These two front mounted thrusters would control system in SC and how to optimally do that with this design. What we yaw (side movement) as well retro thrust for breaking/reverse. decided on was having 12 maneuvering thrusters all-together (what’s The interior cabin was redrawn to include a large cargo hold and a in the doc), with 2 of them being mounted on the front and articu- more compact living quarters for the single pilot. 8 Once the cargo bay was established, Chris wanted to see a mechanism for loading cargo into the bay. One idea was to use an elevator that dropped out from the bottom of the craft. When I was trying to work that out along with the landing gear, i realized that the hard-point load- outs were getting very cramped with the rest of the stuff under the fuselage. Also, I had been eyeing the wings with suspicion since the begin- ning of the process for the 300i. In SC, craft do enter and exit planets in a story context, but the need for wings and wing- tips is nonessential. I like to have all the ele- ments in a design serve some kind of fictional purpose, and I was trying to figure out how best to solve my problem with the hard-points, so I came up with the idea of eliminat- ing the outer-most wing- tips and mounting the weapons on the wings. All of the sudden this wing structure had a purpose! I ran it by Chris and he seemed to agree. 9 Throughout this process, Chris had been eyeing the nose configura- re-doing the wings), and the Class 1 guns to the outer side of the tion on the initial #3 sketch from the first round, so for this pass wing. I’d proposed moving the class 3 hard points (missiles) to the a modification was made to the nose to reflect that design. Also outer side of the wing to accommodate various sizes of weapons, Chris wanted to move the Class 2 weapon back to the under-nose but this switched back in the next pass (because it looks cooler un- mount (I had made 2 of them mounted on the wings by mistake when der ;). Pilot door opening options were also presented. 10 Chris and company were feeling good about the design at this point but wanted more rein- forcement on the wings. SC Production Designer Chris Olivia proposed adding addition- al vertical wings/supports on each wings and the fuselage. So this brings us to the current configuration for the 300i. Some placement of the class 3 mounts, and reinforcement of the engine additions and changes of note are cargo bay doors (this will likely be mount. At this stage I thought I’d get creative and try to work out one but possibly two), retractability for the class 2 gun mount, re- some of the fictional details of the interior layout, along with lock- moval of the frontal nose canards (don’t really need them in space), ing down the proportions of the spaces compared to people. 11 Some more glamour- render paint-overs of the current design. 12 The 24-Hour Livestream Campaign November 18-19 by Ben Lesnick In the coming months, we will use this space Wingman went right to work, calling in favors I was met at the airport by Michael, one of to tell stories from the development team, to locate a temporary office for the party our investors, an Austin local who had gener- about the work we do together and the fun with an internet connection that could sup- ously offered to help with the logistics for the we have doing it.