Pulse #4, Mar 2 2944 | Page 16

when they get home etc. They can’t exactly load up the game client and fire up the old Holotable. ShipSpecs provides a way for them to work on things without using the game client. There is a time and a place for both the holo-table and for ShipSpecs. PULSE: MechWarrior Online has a less diverse collection of ‘Mechs (vehicles) than Star Citizen’s ships. There’s not much variation between a light scout ‘Mech and a super-heavy assault ‘Mech when it comes to their load out. Considering the differences between an Aurora and an Idris or Bengal, were there any difficulties scaling ShipSpecs to handle such a range of ship designs? GRIMM: There are always difficulties with new and complex projects. MechWarrior Online has far fewer assets to work with (even two years after launch) than Star Citizen will have when they launch so yes, it has required a good deal of planning, especially on the Shiplab portion of things. Imagine having to plan for variants, of the same chassis, that may have hardpoints in completely different locations of the ship. Still, the challenge is something that Smurfy and I enjoy and for us part of the satisfaction comes from figuring it out and making it work. PULSE: How many people are working on ShipSpecs? Did you all have experience with this kind of development before working on MechSpecs and Smurfy’s Mechlab? GRIMM: There are currently three people attached to the ShipSpecs project; myself, Bolththrower and Smurfy. Bolt and I handle day to day admin, content, etc. and Smurfy and I are working on the Shiplab together. We may bring more people on in the future for content generation, especially video content. As for experience? Well Smurfy has the experience of building and running the Smurfy Mechlab and I have the experience of creating and running MechSpecs. We both have experience in growing our projects into standard community resources. Bolt hasn’t been involved with either previous project but brings a wealth of Star Citizen knowledge with him as well as a real passion for this game. Dude has himself an Idris, so yeah, he’s “all in”. PULSE: Any plans to integrate ShipSpecs with the Persistent Universe? Something along the lines of EVE’s BattleClinic or World of Warcraft’s WoW Heroes, for example? 14 GRIMM: This is something that I would love to do, and I am sure the other guys would too. It really depends on what tools C