We’re pleased to announce that the second issue of Jump Point is now available for all subscribers! This issue contains new fiction, an in-depth article about the creation of the Bengal carrier and a profile of the Kellog system! This issue is meaty, weighing in at over 40 pages!
Jump Point is only possible due to the contributions of our subscribers. And while a lot of art is generated during the design process it takes an entire team of people to publish each month in the magazine and on the website. So huge thanks to our subscribers for making it possible to share our behind the scenes process with everyone!
Over the course of each month we will release a good portion of the content in previous Jump Points to all of our backers. This is similar to the model used by other print magazines such as Edge. News and art may break in Jump Point, but everyone will get a chance to see all making of, universe fiction and any game mechanic reveals down the road. And subscribers, you get an early jump (and exclusive fiction) for helping fund the media team!
Check out the preview below!
Subscribers can read the rest in the subscriber area now! Not subscribed? Head over to www.robertsspaceindustries.com to get a subscription!
40 pages?! 40?! wasn’t the original estimate 4-6?
Uh, I mean – awesome! This is just awesome!
SHHHHhh toast!
hush boy!
))
look at the directory, dude: 4 topics…
but you cant fit the bengal in 1,2 or 3 pages
O_O
One reason why I subscribed was that the first jump point had 24 pages and not only 4 to 6. Now it just got more awesome. Thanks CIG Team.
Shhhh, maybe hey didn’t notice and will keep doing that!
Whoa…that’s huge!! Very very nice
I just read it
IT IS MINDBLOWING
The info on the carrier was awesome
The novella too, can’t wait for part 2!
awesome
thanks
Where do I go to read this?
I wouldn’t mind knowing that myself. I’ve been unable to find any subscriber area dispite having an account and several pledges.
Click Your Account at the top and then the big button for subscribers. At least that’s where it was when I still subscribed.
Errr… Sorry, but am I missing something? I can’t find that big button under my account you speak of. There’s only four large buttons on mine (i.e. “Your Pledges”, “Recruit Your Friends”, “Pledge Customization” and “Account Settings”). I’d certainly subscribe if I could. If someone can provide me with a direct link perhaps.
You need to be an actual subscriber, not just a pledger. A subscription is an extra $10 or $20 that you can either pay for monthly or annually, and can be added to your account from the same page as the other pledges (not the add ons).
If/when you are a subscriber, it’s the big “subscriber” button under your account.
40 Pages nice to see them subscribers getting some love. Good news indeed.
ok I cant seem to find this where is this at?
Mmmm meaty.
Just a reminder, this is for subscribers only – check your account page to see if you are a monthly subscriber, and if you are not one, and would like to be one, hit the link above to sign up.
As the update says, if you are not a subscriber, then don’t worry this stuff will trickle down to the community over time.
WM
Woah 40 pages. I am impressed with the love funding subs are getting. Man, the Jump Point Volume 1 Book is going to be epic!
There is going to be a jump point book? is this something that can be purchased separately from a subscription later? (cant justify subscribing after the amount I pledged…I’m a lump sum kind of person.)
Jump Point: Year One, a printed collection of Jump Point issues provided to anyone who subscribes for the entire first year of development.
From link below under the Imperator subscription details.
http://www.robertsspaceindustries.com/unlock-caterpillar-new-items-and-subscriptions/
Ah damn, I was hoping I would be able to buy a copy of it like an add-on to my pledge independent of the monthly subscriptions. Thank you for digging up the info.
Maybe that’s worth suggesting ? i can’t justify the cost of a $120 a year sub for 2 years before i even play the game, but i’d sure as hell spend $50 on a book crammed with all this development info….
For more on subscriptions:
http://www.robertsspaceindustries.com/unlock-caterpillar-new-items-and-subscriptions/
Funny. Page 2 says “This month’s 16 page installment runs over 40 pages”.
Outstanding job by the editing department. This is more like an art book than just a magazine. Keep up the great work!
By the way there is a misspelling of lighting on page 23. On the page it is spelled as “lighthing.”
Is anyone elses Adobe Reader freezing up when trying to read Jump Point?
Usually hang with firefox and adobe reader plugin, usually I copy/paste the url paste to download manager. I’ve tested on IE no issue. You can use render IE browser on firefox, install IE Tab for Chrome/Firefox plugin – http://www.ietab.net
Some things are wrong, only 113,000 tons of one kilometer-long aircraft carrier?Should be 1.13 million tons, right?
Indeed.
The Nimitz-class carriers are around 104,000 tons while being “only” 330m long.
In space you don’t need a thick hull to displace water, just saying.
That still seems pretty low.
Here I made you an image comparison http://imgur.com/8rCVnMV
Top: Bengal Carrier, 1000m long, 113,000 tonnes
Botom: Nimitz-class Carrier (76), 333m long, 101,400 tonnes
I think it’s more than reasonable to assume whatever future alloy and/or polymer the Icarus armor plating is made of would be lighter than the relatively primitive steel of a Nimitz carrier.
Except if the hull is made from carbon nanotubes ( about 300+ the tensile strength of the high-carbon steel for the same volume ). This would greatly reduces the overall weight while retaining the structural integrity of the ship despite its length. Just saying :p
), if we still exist and didn’t kill ourselves before that.
As an example with a present day analogy, a stock door for a BMW E36 coupe weights around 45-48 lbs, while its carbon fiber counterpart weights about 10 lbs, that’s nearly 1/5 the weight. I’m pretty sure that in 900 years, materials and composites will be a lot more advanced than today ( duh
Carbon fiber is great for a race car, but the carrier is a military vessel and its material design has to account for things like being shot at, as well. Even with stronger, lighter materials, a ship like this is still going to pack on a lot of it for survive-ability, especially since life rafts don’t work as well in space as they do on the ocean.
The Constellation hull is made from carbon nanotubes. 51 meters for 75 tons.
On another note, in the last story by Dave Haddock ( The Lost Generation: issue #2 ), the lead protagonist, a woman, could flip a piece of the Artemis hull, which measured roughly 2 by 4 meters. I dare you to do the same with a current hull piece of the Space Shuttle
So basically, you’re telling someone building a science fiction game that it simply isn’t realistic because the materials and technologies don’t currently exist? Not to speak for someone else, but I believe Kelendir was simply using carbon nanotubes as a modern day example.
And why wouldn’t life rafts work well in space? Again, I think you’re getting bogged down by your perception of today’s limited technologies. On the other hand, many modern life rafts aren’t nearly as safe as you may believe. You’d be surprised how many people lost at sea have died after climbing into a life raft. Sure they’re better than nothing, but to paraphrase a popular meme, “safety [is] not guaranteed.”
we are almost 1000 year in the future,i hope technology helped us refine the way materials for ships are used..also,you can be amazed by discovering the power of pc gpu to that day,and how the console died a long ago…
It would be cool with an ingame museum, where the guide tells us about the old gaming consoles, and how they died out, lolz
I totally agree, the weight seems to low, although some of the remarks about future materials are also valid.
The problem with modern high strength materials is that high strenght usually comes along with sacrifices towards overall deformability. Why is that important? Well just think about the massive 36.4″ icarus armor plating of the bengal carrier.
The overall purpose of armor plating is protection via energy dispersion. Therefore modern (passive) armors use two compeding concepts. You can try to redirect most of the impact force of a projectile by using super hard plating installed at a low angle with respect to the path of the projectile. Thus making the projectile bounce off the armored target. Obviously, in space, where enemies can shoot at you from all sides, this concept makes no sense, as there is no optimal angle to deflect ballistic weapons.
Therefore the armor plating needs to absorb the impact energy, dispersing it over a large area to minimize local damage. The best way to do that is via predefined elastic and plastic deformation of the plating itself because these processes consume a lot of energy. It’s the same concept like the crush zone of todays cars. As said above, most high strenght materials do not deform well. Just think about the carbon fiber exteriors of modern race cars. They are lightweight and provide excellent stiffness, but on impact tend to shatter like glass.
Taking this a step further, what about energy weapons? In that case your armor plating better provides good thermal and electrical conductivity to spread the heat or charge, thus protecting the impact site from reaching its limit. While some of these requirements are met by carbon nanotubes, I’d say that optimization for all possibilities calls for delicate composite materials, most likely still including some ammounts of metal and thus beeing heavy.
And following Krakens argument about the Nimitz-class Carrier, interestingly all modern incarnations of this ship-class weight roughly the same 100,000 tonnes at a length of 333m, despite nearly 40 years of materials research.
So given the lenght of the bengal carrier and comparing with the screens above, i conclude that the outer hull is at least 150m wide and has a height of 100-200m. Therefore, I’d say it should weight something between 300,000 and 600,000 tonnes which still leaves enough room for drastic weight improvements compared to todays most advanced construction materials.
Yup a loose estimate using the square cube law puts the Bengal at about 28 times the internal volume of a Nimitz class and couple this with the Bengal being a fully armored (36.4″ Icarus armor plating) direct conflict warship while a Nimitz a light armored standoff ship the mass of a Bengal seem very low.
Wow, just wow:)
Totally AWESOME! I’m loving it!
So if I only started to subscribe today for Imperator subscription, would I have missed the ability to subscribe for the full first year of development and hence would I have missed the chance at the Jump Point collection book?
Awesome!
But is Star citizen not a trademark of Cloud Imperium Games? (first page)
Roberts space industries are part of Cloud Imperium Games,so technically yes..
OOOOH! Shield generators on one of the most powerful ships of the line are named after me! And… did I see EMP and “Web” mines in there? I think someone’s been reading my ordinance ideas on the forum! Either that or great mines think alike. (pun intended)
Damn, look at dem stats on the Bengal, shiiiiiiit!!
40 x Dual heavy laser turrets..Hello beautiful.
Guys where is this subscriber area?? please someone answer me I cant find it.:(
Did you subscribed?check “your account” section (at the top-right of this page) and look at “your pledgers” button to be sure you have…if yes,there is a button in the “your account”page called “Subscribers”,you will find everything there.
Hope it helps let me know..
DK988 – Read this articles previous in this site
http://www.robertsspaceindustries.com/friday-update-gifting-and-jump-point
They do have subscription for monthly/annual payment.
Login and click “Your Account”
If you are already a subscriber, you can see the “Subscribers” box icon.
Regards..aidle
I would like to subscribe, can somebody help me on my way? It is not at “add-ons”.
Go to: http://www.robertsspaceindustries.com/star-citizen/
On the right there is a drop down next to “Ship Type”… the first four entries are for the subscriptions. Choose one. Choose the payment type and hit “Beam Me Up”.
Awesome Jump Point!
So who’s gonna make the first fan model?
Will there be realy 755 crewman? I cannot imagine.
@X-Ray
modern-day naval carriers can have in excess of 4000 crew, including first-class ice-cream vendors
We really are talking floating cities. 755 crew, pshaw, small-town! 
That is correct! Compares to 4000 were 755 people relativly little.
But can that carrier hold 755 crewman in the game?
yes, why not? you meant if the game can handle that amount of polygons? well with ambient occlusion, you may have thousands of cremembers inside the carrier… besides i think they only use the 100k polygon meshes only if you are NEAR them… even if you have the 750 players in the carrier’s flying deck doing stuff you won’t have more rendering problems than in a heavily populated scenario like a crysis forest or something… any actual computer can handle +10 million polygon count scenarios… i just hope they can do some intelligent LoD reduction option just in case you are in a messy situation
I want ice cream
witch deck is the vendor?? 
Vending machines re-stocked twice-daily
Mmm,imma gonna hang there, my lancer is gonna rust though
I want icecream vending machine mines, every enemy will fall for that one, imma know i would
You should have added at least one ‘full fidelity’ render of the Bengal’s interior to the preview. That’s awesome stuff and the people need to see that. And I’m sure that most of my fellow subscribers agree that all backers should get to see one or two “Moaaaah! Is that real?”-pictures (and if it’s just to convince them to subscribe) while subscribers get to see eight and more pictures of that kind. Besides, I’d like to see the mentioned in engine-renders as full size screen-caps and not ‘just’ as a pictures in a magazine. It’s just too awesome to see that.
And I’m sure that most of my fellow subscribers agree that all backers should get to see one or two “Moaaaah! Is that real?”-pictures (and if it’s just to convince them to subscribe)
As a subscriber I’m happy for my fellow backers and others to see this content, eventually, even in the very near future.
But I’m also glad that my subscription gets me this advance notice right now. It’s not a nah-nah-na-nah thing, it’s a man-I’m-glad-I-subscribed-to-this thing
Ya pays for ya ticket and ya gets a ring-side-seat……no different to any other entertainment venue.
I’m really glad that my monthly $ contribution gets me a sneak-peek [and it's nothing more than that], but your assertion that ‘most fellow subscribers’….etc, is a bit presumptuous
I paid my subscription for a bit of an informational advantage, and that’s what I want and I’m getting
Oh, I also wanted to give CIG an ongoing funding line……insignificant as it is in the grand scheme of things.
In time though, I’m confident that everybody gets to see how much detail is being being put into the SC ship designs and gameplay development……this really is going to be a genre-changing game
Well, there are six or seven pretty nice ingame-renders. It won’t hurt us if backers would get one of these pictures, especially if it comes with the message, that subscribers get much more of that stuff.
However, as nice as these renders are, they lose a lot in the magazine. Maybe we get a Bengal-section in the Vault next week with full HD screen caps of that in engine-renders – and a small appetizer for the backers in the Comm Link-announcement.
Could you live with that?
Getting better every time!
I more and more dislike this. I can fully understand, that to make fully documented stuff and fiction, you need money. But not to release anything and make it subscriber exclusive is against the philosophy of the whole project.
Does it need money to release screens? In fact atm I am a part of 4 different crowd fundings (including SC) and this is the only one, where I have to pay to see screens and get some info about these screens.
Again, I can understand why making a high glossy magazine like Jump Point needs some money. But the problem is, that they can’t release screens, because otherwise there wouldn’t be any reason for a Jump Point magazine. For that I think the whole subscriber thing is rather contra productive as it is at the moment… sad.
Maybe I was a bit too excited in my previous comment. The deal was that all backers get to see new stuff. But there is nothing new in the Vault or in the current Jump Point, just a insight into the design process. That is nothing in the Vault or Jump Point to be well informed about the current state of things.
This stuff will reach the backers as well (and you will see that it is not worth the anger), and without the whole ‘subscriber thing’ that stuff would not exist and never reach anyone. So what is what you want? That everybody, including you(!), gets less to make sure, that everybody gets the same?
No, I’d like to be able to see the screenshots myself. Even if you say, there is nothing interesting, I’d rather get anything than nothing. Did you even read my post? I said, that I am in 4 different crowd fundings, and that this is the only, where only “subscribers get to see the latest news. This is not really fair. I paid 80 $ and get nothing… I only paid 30$ to Project Cars and get to see more screens than I have time for.
I DON’T MEAN HIGH GLOSSY STUFF. Just screens. Jump Point is cool for those who want it, but as you said yourself, if all (BACKERS) would get to se the same stuff, noone would pay. Ring a bell? o.O
looking good so far
I like it – some notes though.
113.000 tons is probably to light, especially since this is supposed to be a armored ship, 1 million tons seems more appropriate.(also weren’t there a sentence saying the Gemini was a million ton ship in Cassandra tears? – i might remember wrong through).
Also i like the note by Chris in one of the pictures saying that they should probably make those gray bubbles in the front of the engines into retro thrusters, i have long wondered how the Bengal does it’s breaking.
Same thought on the retro thrusters. I saw CR’s notes, but then later, the design is said to be finalised and then I don’t see the change. I was confused.
Perhaps those gray bubbles are some sort of initial compensator’s, sad really it seem to fly contrary to general design of ships in the game .. oh well.
We brake for nobody.
http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c387/staermose/Spaceball%20One/Spaceball-34.jpg
Is it just me the flight deck is not as good as the concept art? The concept art look a bit more spacious in the side area (the length seems compressed in the render), The great clean-looking spot lightning are missing in the rendering. It’s now more industrial, oversaturated and overbright (esp. the bloom effect) which is why I prefer the concept color and lighting.
Idk, I thought the same at first, then realised I had them backwards
. I think the rendering looks perfect, and really realistic. I know its a personal thing, but I prefer my warships industrial to ethereal!
Yeah sure, industrial is not necessarily bad.
But the oversaturation, arggg, it’s like Alice in the wonderland.
Industrial should be more toned down and greyish looking.
Yup, I didn’t like the oversaturated lighting as compared to the concept render either. Maybe it looks better in-game and the oversaturation is a product of the pdf. Dunno.
I thought the same thing ditto. I subscribed and looked through issue two checking out the Bengal class rendering pics side by side to the before and after and thought the before was clearer and less bloom as Rear Admiral Möbius stated. Hopefully the in game will look as sharp and clean and maybe in between not to dull grey but not to eye pop neon.
wow 40 pages that sir is just…wow if this game is as good as this site is getting I’m going to loose a lot of time of my day TT thank you lol
I wonder if the “FL02″ on the ship’s outside is a subtle nod to “Freelancer 2?”
Above and beyond as always guys! Thank you and keep it up
I really like the design, but I do have one thing I kinda wonder: there is no up or down in space, so wouldn’t it make sense to turn the underside into a flightdeck as well? And while we’re at it, even those slanted sides could be used to “park” and launch small spacecraft. They won’t fall off, since there’s no gravity.
If anything would ever be a handicap to humans in space, it would be the notion of “up” and “down”. People really think too two-dimensional.
True and even in Roberts space looking not to far in the future maybe 200 years, we will probably still have this directional awareness problem because of our brains not evolving beyond a comfortable means. We could simulate pilots into a 4x universe where we have no reference point to up or down, but I would assume this would take 1000 years before humans started to build everything into your example.
There is actually artificial gravity in the carrier. For reasons not explained.
This is evident in the footage trailers released so far
gravity inside the ship but not outside. so you could still park you ships there. they questions is why should you. the fighter we can see parked on top are not just parking they are rearming. and spreading the loaders all over the ship creates several problems because you don’t want to store ammunition all over your ship.
I recall the old battleship Yamato anime had 2 command decks precisely for the reason you mentioned. Also, a windowed deck at the bottom would be cool for visibility if the carrier were to make planetary landings.
I’m glad I subscribed as an imperator, the jump point issues are awesome and bring you into the world of Chris Roberts. The pages are detailed and the amount of work they are putting into this is immense. Chris Roberts vision is demanding an unprecedented game with so many mechanics it makes your head spin. The more people that focus upwards into space the more likely we are to venture to the stars. I can’t wait to pledge as a Rear Admiral and reserve my Constellation.
Until then my fellow Star Citizens.
Where do I find this Jump point? In the Comlink or what?
Man, the ship image by Ryan Church, on page 16 looks awesome!!!
Should make it into a wall paper.
I meant page 12
Is it me? Or does the 300i “finalized” design in #1 resemble an Excalibur from WCIV?