Stone-D

Out of all the thank-you gifts that passengers bring on board for the flight crew, which ones do you guys appreciate the most?

I just searched my archive for 'YIFY'... 1465/2105 are tagged as yours. Thanks for your work, dude.

I have two questions:

1. Did you at some point begin to accept third party encodes for release under your 'brand'?
   
2. What encoder tool did you use: StaxRip, Handbrake, or something else?
   

Also, I agree: Chronicles of Riddick FTW!

Hi, thank you for doing this AMA. I think will be appreciated by your long time fans, myself included - I am a decades-long fan of both you and the Elite series, and have pledged £300 to the project.

Although my first experience was with the original Elite, it is Frontier and First Encounters that fill my memories. Combined, I played those two for nearly a year and a half... pretty much daily. I still have my original Frontier box, together with a save game (now inaccessible due to being on an Amiga floppy) where I had parked my Imperial Courier somewhere near the galactic core, almost out of fuel. I think.

1. One of the greatest joys in Frontier was the physics. Slingshotting, manual landing, manual docking... this was the core experience for me. Will these continue to be part of the game mechanic? For those that you plan to release later, such as planetary landings, might they be some of the expansions (DLC) mentioned on the Kickstarter page?
2. After numerous mishaps and false starts, I have grown extremely averse to multiplayer as a whole, outside of a private LAN. In my current situation, such LAN parties are out of the question, unless it's Starcraft... which I detest. I realize that Multiplayer is a big financial incentive, but do you intend to apply the same amount of effort and energy into the Singleplayer experience?
3. After my Amiga days, I became loyal to the Microsoft camp starting with Windows 95. Now, however, I am on the verge of jumping ship to Apple. Many games are released on OSX via a Wine wrapper - it works, but not an ideal solution - rather than as native apps. What are your plans for OSX?
4. I love modding games, despite rarely releasing anything. I particularly enjoy tweaking game mechanics, and writing custom scripts which I did for Civ4 and Egosoft's X-Tension game. What modding support do you plan on providing? If you are, will they be cosmetic (textures, models, et al) or more in-depth with scripting and parameter modifications? If you are NOT, would you at least provide easy access to the game's data files?
5. In most open world games I like to occasionally sit back and go wild, by antagonizing the police just to see how long I would last. Games like GTA will magically teleport fresh troops and send them in with no sense of self preservation. How realistic will the police presence be? Will they be finite, and can a system run out of military might?
6. Crime rarely pays in games because the moment you do something wrong, everyone knows about it. How will notoriety and crime be handled? Will each system have their own records? Will there be a galactic record, which might take time to access after you enter a system?

I think 6 is already over the limit. Again, thank you very much for doing this. I wish you much, much success!

EDIT
Tweaked last sentence, expanded Q1 to cover DLC, expanded Q4 to the cover accessiblity of data files.

The controls will go via a fly by woe approach

So I take it slavery will in the game, with the tears of the chained peasants in the cargo hold allowing for greater control over spacecraft? Slaves as fuel; I like it!

</sarcasm>

It has already been stated that planetary landings will probably not be in the initial release, but skimming the cloud surface will (for refueling, I presume). The reason is that the ground must look and behave right... just 'so-so' wouldn't be good enough, and I agree. First impressions last and can have a dramatic effect on a product's future, regardless of improvements made further down the line.