This small craft has no ability to navigate the warp gates that will separate the gigantic sections of Star Citizen's universe, but according to Roberts, "is important to counter act the Constellation’s lower maneuverability compared to a pure dogfighting player ship." The addition of a fighter and all the other considerable armaments of the Constellation doesn't mean it'll be everything, either. At every stage while building it and figuring out the functionality I'm thinking about the Constellation class ship as a potential user: what would I want to fly? What would I want to be seen in? These questions resulted in not only the look of the ship but the layout of the interior and a lot of the functionality like the way the weapons can retract and change the silhouette of the ship." Though the Constellation may be inspired by the likes of the Millenium Falcon, it has one advantage over such a craft: a deployable fighter. That's tough to do! But I think we've succeeded- it has a very aggressive shape in attack/landing mode and can configure itself to a more benign looking cruise mode. Church writes, "The design brief for the Constellation was that it has a crew of three, is heavily armed and has an 'iconic' shape. Once the shape and configuration are locked in I put on my engineer's hat and work backwards from the functional requirements to the form." This is exactly how the Constellation came to be. So I will start pretty rough and send a bunch of variations to Chris and he will weed them down and distill out what he wants. Both are high performance Italian sports cars but they have very different looks, different surface form languages. "It's much like designing a car or any other product," Church tells IGN, "there are the engineering requirements and then there's the feeling you want to convey - look at a Ferrari and a Lamborghini. “Church and Roberts thus work together from concept to finished product, with Church beginning with Roberts' description and then figuring out how to make it functional. So if you’re hauling it you should see it in your hold (if you can walk back into your hold), if you activate a system, you should see your pilot avatar lean over and switch it on, and so on." There’s a big focus on simulating and showing everything that you would imagine to be inside and functioning on a spaceship in Star Citizen. Roberts says "the goal is to be able to walk back into your cargo hold while flying and actually see the cargo you’re hauling. This is exemplified by the Constellation's cargo bay. But I think when docked / landed the sleeping quarters will be where you 'wake-up' when you load your game to start a new session." This is all part of Chris Roberts' greater vision for Star Citizen, that it earns the sim part of the space sim title. I would like the sleeping quarters play into the game the same way a bunk bed did in the original Wing Commander – which was as an in-fiction save point, but I’m not going to let you save anywhere in space. "You should be able to eat a meal or drink something in the kitchen! I don’t think we’ll go to the extreme of requiring you to do this to keep your energy up, but it is a nice texture moment. There are even places on the ship that Roberts and team have yet to decide the purpose. It features a gigantic, pod-like cockpit at the front, a pair of turrets on the top and bottom of the ship, and a general aesthetic that makes Constellation look like a combination of the Han Solo's famous ship and the titular Firefly-class ship from the now defunct TV series. I’m guessing that now people can see the attention to detail they may just want to upgrade." Click the picture above for a detail-laden brochure on the Constellation.Indeed, as a longtime fan of spaceships and science fiction universes like Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica and Star Trek, I'd say the ship looks impressive. "Who doesn’t want their own Millennium Falcon?," responds Roberts when I press him about why the Constellation has been a common pledge level despite its $250 price tag, "What’s been interesting is that people have been signing up for the Constellation just on the promise without knowing what it will look like.
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