Why not the Merchantman? 

It all really did make sense in line with Banu lore and society. These weren't utilitarian vessels cranked out by Drake held together with bubble gum and space tape. These ships were generational ships that would span decades, even hundreds of years of use in a family of traders and nomads. The communal sleeping arrangements and turret temple were part of those sweeping spaces. And no, the Banu did not believe in privacy. A Spectrum user by the name "Tesseract" wrote a very interesting piece about the differences in communal affairs on a human ship (like a Carrack) and a Banu ship (like a Merchantman). To put it simply, on a human ship, if the Captain finds out that a gunner is being bullied by a janitor, the Captain would demand the janitor meet with him in his private Captain's quarters, and give him a "my way or the highway" speech. If the janitor didn't shape up, they'd get dumped at the next port and a new janitor would be taken on board as crew. But on a Banu ship, these crew mates are there together as a family, for years on end. You can't just dump the janitor at the next port. They're part of your family, so to speak. And the Essosouli (Banu leader) is not going to just bark orders at the janitor. They're going to bring them to the communal living space (those central seats in the sleeping chamber) and they will sit in a circle and try to figure out WHY the bullying is happening, and what is "off" about the social network on the ship, and fix it. There's no private Essosouli quarters (like on the Carrack) because that isn't how Banu ships are run. Those behind-closed-doors negotiations aren't hidden from the crew, those negotiations and dealings are held in the midst of the "ship family", so that all can participate, and all can know. Back to that point of there not being the same level of privacy on a human ship. Banu privacy really isn't that big of a thing. You can read more of Tesseract's write-up here: robertsspaceindustries.com/spectrum/community/SC/forum/3/thread/main-turret-space-utilization-on-banu-merchant/5176146 As to a room showing their wealth, I think the idea was more that the ship itself displayed their wealth. That wealth was displayed through that turret temple with all of that extra space that a human designer might say "Oh my gosh, it's all wasted space!" but the Banu don't care. They have space to spare. And the things they have that are trinkets and tchotchkes to show off, they'd be shown off in the bazaar or selling space, because they'd also be ready to trade those things for others if the opportunity arises. Great video though, look forward to more of your stuff! o7

GTA 6 before Merchantman...

What a really well thought out and fun video. Thanks!

So according to CIG they stopped development on the BMM because the 2 specific ship devs that were working on it left the company and not because they lost their lead concept artist, CIG lost at least 4 ship artist I know of to Star Atlas alone whether this is because of pay, burnout or personal reasons I don't know but JC has been very vocal that they need to rotate artists due to burnout because they will lose them otherwise. JC also stated that they need to bring devs up to speed before throwing them onto the BMM due to its complexity as it can't be kit bashed.

#whereismyBMM

BMM is amazing . That is a great idea to have permeant mods on BMM . I really hope CIG will embrace it .I'd like to have the option to turn the meditation area into an armory for my Banu Warbird model .

To your point, if the devs do indeed not only pause making but reconsider the design, I pray to CR they add more windows. The ship loses so much of its grandeurs for lack of panoramic references to the outside.

SC could really use player shops, period.

what an amazing video! please more like this!!

I'll be too old to play by the time this ship releases

Great video. I hadn't realized it's been (almost) two years since that ISC.

I like the idea. Just think modularity isn't what we're told it is. I believe it's actually just a different version of a ship that gets swapped. We won't actually see the modules being pulled and replaced. That'll be hidden behind a timer like when you use a refinery. All that's happening is your account is being given the ship with the config you want.

The personalized aspect you mentioned at the end is already in game in ships such as the Origin 315C. If you purchase that ship with real money, you have the option to choose a custom exterior paint, internal colors, custom sheets on the bed, trinkets on counters, etc. Once chosen and confirmed, the choices are locked in for good. They have already created the technology for this so perhaps they could use it in the BMM.

Very insightful. Well done marking issues and at least trying to offer solutions.

How will they do engineering gameplay, where are the modules located. I am afraid they will have to start over when they pick it up.

Great info and insight! Thank you, I keep wanting to melt mine but it's it was part of my 1st ccu game and it's only worth $245....I think I will just keep my C2, Banu Defender and Hull C and be happy.

I like this idea a lot. The permanent modularity

"has to choose throughout the rooms specialty through the modularity system then its baked in bespoke to that bmm" this sounds a LOT like the old 300i customization system that so few know about.

Great video 🎉

Bring back the pointed nose, the stupid looking update they came out with made me melt it.

Gg good info. And a strong video

Really interesting ideas and thoughts put into this. Nice work and a lot of fun to listen to. I like the idea of a unique module ship. Would feel like the player built it. Plus it would encourage players to buy/trade another in game because of the uniqueness.

The Merch is definitely going to benefit from the maturation of the dev teams and the strengthening of manufacture style guides. Also, I think you’re on the right track with starting on smaller ships to solidify styling and architecture.

i hope eventually the rooms get reworked well or at least when we get smaller crafting machines or vehicles so you can actually live on the bmm and travel where you need to for supplies kind of like the intention of the ship and the banu

I agree with what you say about the 600i. It has some individual rooms that are very successful, like the captain's quarters, but overall, it needs it's rework. The Banu Triptaker would be an awesome ship that already exists in lore!

The Merchantman is a ship to live in and spacious interiors aid in psychologically being able to comfortably live in space. I would imagine this is particularly important to a species that is physically large by comparison to humans and seems more prone to gathering in groups. It's also a ship designed to show wealth in a conspicuous fashion. If you can afford to have such large areas of space, you must be wealthy. The image of wealth entices customers. Witness real estate salespeople driving luxury cars. For both those reasons the "wasted" space makes sense to the Banu. And then there is the esthetic. The ship is supposed to be a work of art, owing a good deal to an organic feel. Is it grown as much as built?

It never was in my buy back. Never left my active roster. Got it for 250 +VAT. 👌

As one of the eternal members of the banu merchantman owner's club, I remember the excitement back on the forums... now it's just sad. Nothing they could do with the ship now will bring it back to that original concept.

IDK about you but personally the medical room and the bazaar are my favorite parts of the ship aside from the giant VIP room overlooks the cargo bay. I really like the alien goo rest stations and I hope they're here to stay.

I would like to know if you believe that the Defender needs to be redesigned because of how much larger the Merchantman feels in size? Everything about the Defender seems human-sized, from the beds and seats.

each Banu ship except the defender should have room for a defender to pop out from

On the wasted space thing: Actually, I think it's an interesting idea. As you said, space comes at a premium in ships and Banu are all about showing off wealth. What better way to show off wealth than have large, open and beautiful spaces? Sure, there could be more details, but overall, I do like the approach. It's the exact opposite to the crammed and overly functional spaces of, for example, a C2 or a Corsair.

Nice insightful video with some really positive suggestions. I agree that there really is no other path to developing the BMM without introducing a smaller ship or they will end up with another Starfarer. Unfortunately, as wonderful a suggestion for the various bespoke configurations, it won't happen because of the resources it would take to create all those options and the players will undoubtedly gravitate to only a handful of them.

Looking at the cargo room they are going to have to redesign it. Or back track on manual cargo loading for it because the cargo stacks are way to high.

re concept redesign after making a smaller ship. The banu defender is crab like, might make the mm manta ray like design with a pop out turret that has duel size 7. Plus some other smaller manned turrets and auto pds. The bazaar with a single deck connected to meeting room overlooking a big cargo/ hanger bay. The mouth of the manta ray design can be the cargo/hanger bay access. Always pictured the Banu being from ocean like worlds and living on islands with beautiful resort beaches and bustling trade centers, maybe have some backwoods swamp areas. I like the art style they chose but it just needs to be revised to make sense.

Been wondering what the deal was with the BMM they were pushing it for awhile then nothing.

I have this pledged. I would love to get it sooner than later. But, I am good waiting until they have the game loops complete...well, in our hands to test, before they put the BMM out to us. I hope they stick with the complete alien design. I want it to feel alien when I climb on board. I would like to see a lot more defense turrets. Since it doesn't have the luxury to store more than one large fighter, it really needs to be defendable by the crew. Even if that means 10+ crew to man guns. 4-6 Furys would be helpful in that bay, probably more than one Defender. Anyway. Great video!! Very much enjoyed. Thank you o7

BMM just isn't needed right now in the game. The game content just isn't there for it yet.

I love a lot of the points you made. I was at first in the group that was like well they made a lot of progress why didn't they finish. Now I have critically looked at their progress before work halted, a rework of the layout will be needed. For example that top gun. A large retractable cone to cover a turret? why not swap the turret for a small Defender bay that is specialized in housing a couple of them. Next rework the forward hanger and integrate it with the cargo bay & meeting room. Directly towards your lore suggestions I think Banu prizes their privacy. Otherwise there would not be a private negotiation room. Why would a race that shares public spaces so freely build in such a private room?

I like the two loaners I got for it, so I am fine with the delays.

the microphone is too loud to catch the way you inhale air. it's annoying. but the video is great

What we really need is a Banu Ironclad. A large ship (but not quite capital-ship sized) that CIG can use to develop a coherent style guide and asset library for Banu ships so that they can more easily tackle massive capital ships like the BMM. Just like how they are using the Ironclad to develop the Kraken.

I think those big size 8 guns are going to be a challenge for them to bring in and then balance. The other thing is the tech for having shops that you can add thing to, have other players buy, and even npc's you hire to work there and those that come in to buy is probably still on the drawing board. Who knows how much they have done of the Banu as far as style and culture and actual in game sizes. Humans are fully done so its easy to make ships that fit them. Banu ships offer an additional challenge of needing to be made to allow both Banu and Humans to use. The styling is odd for them in some places as well. The one ship we do have is the defender and one odd thing to me is why would these aliens make a ship that looks like a crab from earth? The gun turret on the Merchantman also looks a lot like a Banu defender. It just seems like they have a real handle on some ship manufactures but the other ones don't seem as nailed down. Banu, Origin, and to some extent crusader. Drake and RSI they have nailed down really well and Anvil and Aegis as well. I like the idea of modularity for these and I am also all for a mid sized Banu ship that would help them create more Banu assets and work on the styling which is only going to help with the big Merchantman. It will be interesting to see how it turns out. One of the main things I wanted to do in the game way back in the early years was go find and repair ships and ship parts and then sell them. Queue the Banu Merchantman the store to sell and the Crucible the ship to acquire goods for my shop. Who knew it would be over a decade of those things still being on the shelf.

I would 100% scrap the shops for more cargo.

Id say this. The BMM is an exceptionally difficult ship to maintain. They start beautiful but look like an Indian city after a few weeks and never get cleaned up. The maintenance would be exceptional because they utilize slaves and to equate that a normal human would be very very hard pressed to keep the ship flying withought a helluva lot of good business. Without systems, quantum economics, to explore the ship is worthless. It would be like flying a pyro station in no time. To caveat ive had this ship the moment i could get it.

Maybe it kills the server to load it

I wish they'd gone for grown or living ships for the Banu; either plant or animal.

I didn't realize Paul Jones had left! That guy was awesome!

there two size six in the nose of the banu. So 2 on each side a Total of 4

I like what they showed during the greybox tour, but they really need to rethink the turret tower temple idea. It makes very little sense from a lore standpoint. The Banu who adapt other species tech to have the best of the best on their ships as a show of wealth and power; also design a ship with a giant gapping hole at the top of their ship for people to just float in? Not a fan.

I hope BMM comes with the Perseus so I can farm all the traders

Mansesen...? I like it!

Still expect the BMM to take another 10 years.

hot take. the BMM is done but without crafting and player-to-player sales there's no point in it's existence in game

Probably they regret to sold that. Although the Banu are peacful towards humans, that's a huge alien ship in a game where Players cannot be aliens.

The way they designed this ship, the Banu are more like a hive species. But, in my opinion, they made huge rooms so that they wouldn't have to spend time designing smaller ships. Not hard to design 10000 cu. Ft. of air. LOL.

It’s very annoying they got a fair way through the BMM build and stopped due to the team leaving. In fact, they need to understand the importance of wow ships like the 890J and Carrack. They wow external gamers, and give people something to strive for to eventually buy in game as a dream ship. CIG need to focus on delivering the BMM, Odyssey and Liberator asap for that reason imo, and I say that not owning any of them but because stupid “variants” and even more concepts are not how they should be hitting revenue targets.

These ships take longer to make than some games!

For me the only interesting thing is, that it is a specific trade ship. But I have to take into calculation, that I do not see anything that does make sense from a trading perspective. A trading ship needs protection, maybe more than any other non military ship, because it would have not only goods, but maybe also a good amount of money as well. But a trading ship wouldn't waste any space for military sections if there is no need for and on top it wouldn't be just designed for the traders species, but to make feel any kind of customers comfortably and to make its interieur so absolutely incompatible to other species, doesn't make much sense. We would expect at least adaptable interior. But to mention one more point to the military part: A merchant ship like this wouldn't waste space for impressive military sections as mentioned, because security systems would be more hidden than visible and such a giant weapons room would make it look more of a spy ship than merchant ship. But what we would expect is, impressive weapon systems, that are well implemented without much need of interior space. If I would think of a communal species, I wouldn't really think of useless common sleeping quarter, but more of special sections, where people with specific tasks live and work together, like the gunners would have a special gunner section where there would be a common living quarter, where there would be weapon stations implemented, so that the guys there would socialice while there is no work, but if needed, they would be at work within seconds and without the need to break into solitary to man the guns far away.

All this just to say they already got their money and couldn't be bothered.

I'm not on the "We should class action sue CIG" bandwagon but the whole "selling a promise and then not delivering on it in a person's lifetime" practice with CIG is nearing criminal. Either scrap it, make it happen or refund the backers that pledged for that ship.

Why the merchantman?

Damn you sound like Timothy Olyphant

Good idea, but you would be massively increasing the workload of artists. As you say, no chance

what about the orion, it was the cover of the game until 2021 and no one cares about.

The breathing is too much for me

If I may... Your ideas have merit, but there may be a simpler way than making the Merchantman modular. Supposedly the Banu Merchantman ships are ancient. Handed down from one generation to the next, and treasured beyond what humans would consider a ship or vessel. They are the Banu version of home. Each one unique, rare, and the result of many years of collecting objects. So... Why not go back to the original artwork, where the ships fit that description? And leave 6-8 rooms, each different in size, shape, and feel; but empty. Then each owner can outfit these rooms as they wish. CIG need only provide these empty rooms, access to the furniture and interior decor catalogs, so we may decorate these rooms to taste. Face it, the "new" BMM looks like a Pelican's head, more than an alien ship. Gone is the look of an ancient vessel, the "feel" of home, the impressive status symbol, of the original concept; even the majestic up-turned wing-tips. Instead it was given the FAT look of the re-imagined Carrack, and the wide open luxury, and wasted space of the 600i. I'd start over. You are correct. In a ship, space is always at a premium. Open spaces scream "wasted opportunity" not luxury. The BMM currently looks like a different artist designed each part of the ship. It's a mess. Ex: Who would EVER put a huge support beam directly over the main, central seat, on the bridge? looks un-planned. CIG have shown us that they can do MUCH better.

The model did look horrible 😂 the concept looked amazing

No ship in star citizen should be art and lore first. It needs to make sense to have and use long term or no one will keep it/buy it. If 90% of the space is wasted on open areas, I'm definitely going to be ccuing it. Most people will, and we will barely ever see it after the release patch. Maybe that's what they intend. Make it so useless that its rarely seen in the verse.

The breathing got too much for me, but great vid otherwise :)

another jpeg i paid for smh im dam near done with this game

This ship will be great for hard core role players... and that's about it. This was my first big ship purchase way back in the day, and I mourn its loss to the great feature creep

Why not the merchantman? Because the primary function of the ship doesn't really exist in game yet. That ship needs a functional economy and a decent set of crafting systems in place otherwise its just larger carrack.

Gugh

Please stop with your "modularity".. It's a Teletubbies Band-Aid for not completing and assuming the role of each of the ships... your word Unique.. means nothing here if you allow Modulation all the ships... It's simply a blatant lack of desire for Artistic Creativity!

great video. But a lot of this is a simple lesson that needs to be stated: If you pay CIG for a "concept ship", you're probably a complete fool, unless your only motivation is funding the project.. But 99.9% are buying a concept because they think they'll get a cool ship.

Shelve it until the game goes live. I have one, and I'd be happy about that.

the fact cig cant cope with 2 people leaving shows just how fucking mismanaged this project is. id lose my job if my entire team fell apart due to losing TWO people.

Cope