DUST 514 | Latest Trailer Analysis

[Ixion]

Dust514.org provided a pretty cool analysis of the latest 'Gathering Forces' trailer.

Here's the trailer, in case you haven't seen it:

Hey guys, it’s been a while. I hope you’re all enjoying the Open Beta for DUST 514 now that it’s finally out. However, alongside the Open Beta, we got a new trailer: Gathering Forces. This new trailer hints at some cool new stuff.

First off, we have the galaxy map. It’s pretty cool, but we more or less have that already (it’s just a little broken; don’t worry, CCP’s on it already). Then all of a sudden, we get this:



The character style should be instantly recognisable to any EVE players out there. For anyone else that didn’t catch on with the last sentence, that’s a character created with CCP’s nifty character creator in EVE Online. Now you’re thinking, “Why is this cool?” This (which comes in about 4 seconds later) is why:



That’s the fitting screen, with the very same face on it. What does this suggest to me? The EVE Online character creator (which if you haven’t seen the results of, you should go look) may very well be coming to DUST 514, allowing us to finally take off our helmets (while out of combat at least). While that’s nice, we’re not done yet. Skip to 0:34 and we see some old friends:



Yes, it’s the rogue drones, and they’re back! These guys were announced at Fanfest 2012, and were also shown briefly in the “Way of the Mercenary” trailer back in October last year (at 2:25 for the curious). I also touched on them in an article about PvE in DUST 514. However, this is the first time we get to see them in actual combat with players. Watching the trailer, it seems that the little guys get blown up easily by an assault rifle. I would guess that these guys are going to be infantry equivalents. You can see in the screenshot below from the video that one drone appears to be armed with a shotgun (note the plasma cycle on the side) and another appears to be armed with a mass driver (note the rotary chambers on its weapon). This suggests that drones will use the same set of weapons that players get (sniper drones anyone?)



The bigger guys appear to be armed with dual heavy machine guns (you can see the rotary barrels). However, they seem to take a lot more firepower than a heavy would before going down. You can also see one mercenary throwing an anti-vehicle grenade at them. This suggests to me that they will be treated as vehicle equivalents for the Rogue Drones. However, due to the fact that they’re equipped with infantry class weapons I think they’ll be closer to LAVs or Dropships, rather than tanks, in toughness. I for one still hope that CCP pulls an even bigger drone (maybe a “Hive Mother”) out to really challenge intrepid mercenaries.



One thing you will notice about the mercenaries fighting the drones is that one has a forge gun. However, you’ll also notice that they are not using a heavy suit. Whether this is CCP pulling some trailer magic, or hinting at some future modules allowing you to fit bigger weapons, I don’t know; I’m honestly leaning towards the later of the two. (I’ll also give props to the person that managed to sync the VO saying “You’ll forge alliances” just before the forge gun fires. Nice touch that.)

If you skip forward to 0:54, you’ll see some LAVs rolling past a tank, with one of them getting blown up in the process. Now the interesting thing here is that the tank blows it up in one shot, and then continues to fire at a slow pace. This is not even close to how the large blaster turrets that the tank is using work in the game at the moment (or even later in the trailer; you can see another at 1:29). Again, this might be trailer magic; it could be a new blaster variation. However, I think it’s a third option: the appearance of weapons on vehicles now matches the hull, not the weapon (as it does currently). This would make the weapon a railgun which has similar firing characteristics to what you see in the trailer. You can also see this occurring several other times: a dropship swoops in at 1:00 and fires what looks to be a blaster, but acts and sounds like a railgun; another dropship (this time Caldari) is shown with a railgun, but this instead it appears to fire and sound like a blaster (though at an admittedly slower rate). There are another few – see if you can spot them all.

Observant views will also notice that there is a dropship repairing a pair of vehicles at 1:19. At what may come at a surprise to many, this is not actually new functionality and has been around for a while. It is however, very impractical in combat due to the mechanical nature of maintaining a lock (or so I’m told – I haven’t had a chance to try it out myself yet) and as such, you don’t see it being used that much.

UPDATE: An eagle eyed reader from IRC (Ironwolf, also known as Nova Fox) has pointed out that the repair beams appear to be coming from the turrets. If this is the case, we could be finally getting a long requested change to vehicle logistics that could make their use feasible (moving the remote repairers to turret slots). Let's hope so.



Unfortunately, that’s about all the video has to offer. I will however point out that for some reason CCP has decided to exclusively use Caldari Assault suits. In addition, they seem to be primarily using Caldari vehicles (with the occasional Gallente vehicle thrown in, usually as the bad guy). And in the end scene, they’ve also opted for only Caldari ships being visible. While Caldari only fleets have been common in the trailers as of late, the move to Caldari only suits is a little surprising. I don’t think there’s anything sinister about it, but who knows? All I know is that CCP Jian (the Executive Producer for DUST 514) is probably sitting in his chair, stroking his white fluffy cat while laughing menacingly while I (and possibly you, dear reader) ponder the meaning of this.

Source

[Ghost-Rhayne]

Nice find! Yeah there is an update coming out around the end of April that will probably have all this stuff in it. I dare say that the April build might be a "launch build". We already know there will be big graphical improvements, new weapons added, increased shared market operations and planetary conquest in the works.

[Ixion]

Nice find! Yeah there is an update coming out around the end of April that will probably have all this stuff in it. I dare say that the April build might be a "launch build". We already know there will be big graphical improvements, new weapons added, increased shared market operations and planetary conquest in the works.

Is the next update going to be in April? Or that the second update from now?

[Ghost-Rhayne]

The guys I spoke to in Reykjavik said there wouldn't be another update till April. It is set to coincide with the 10 year birthday/EVE FANFEST event happening in Iceland.

[Ixion]

And you think that will be the launch build? Or will there be one more update after that?

[Felix336]

The guys I spoke to in Reykjavik said there wouldn't be another update till April. It is set to coincide with the 10 year birthday/EVE FANFEST event happening in Iceland.

That's a little disappointing, only because there was some talk on the Dust forums that there was going to be a new build in February. It was only a rumor (i think) but the gathering forces trailer (which appears to be using a new build) seemed to give that some validity.

[Ghost-Rhayne]

And you think that will be the launch build? Or will there be one more update after that?

That's a little disappointing, only because there was some talk on the Dust forums that there was going to be a new build in February. It was only a rumor (i think) but the gathering forces trailer (which appears to be using a new build) seemed to give that some validity.

Well traditionally we have had about 4-6 weeks between builds IIRC...so it's not out of the question that my info is wrong. An April build would make that a big ass gap between the content update in December and a new build. I know that there is DEFINITELY a big build coming at around EVE FANFEST time. Maybe we will get something in February..

Whether its the launch build we seen in April remains to be seen!It would be a nice event to launch it from though.

[RedOrb_Collector]

I phucking love this game.

[Ghost-Rhayne]

Y u no sign up to corp!?

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[Fijiandoce]

Yes, it’s the rogue drones, and they’re back! These guys were announced at Fanfest 2012, and were also shown briefly in the “Way of the Mercenary” trailer back in October last year (at 2:25 for the curious). I also touched on them in an article about PvE in DUST 514. However, this is the first time we get to see them in actual combat with players. Watching the trailer, it seems that the little guys get blown up easily by an assault rifle. I would guess that these guys are going to be infantry equivalents. You can see in the screenshot below from the video that one drone appears to be armed with a shotgun (note the plasma cycle on the side) and another appears to be armed with a mass driver (note the rotary chambers on its weapon). This suggests that drones will use the same set of weapons that players get (sniper drones anyone?)

^This is quite intriguing.

so presumably, we could set the cops up against AI....it would be quite a nice change from slogging it out with people all the time. as sort of corporation day out

nice find Ixion!

[itachi73378]

the graphical fidelity in the trailer is so much better than the game as it stands now. I hope that was real time footage on ps3 (not the cg parts near the end)

[Fijiandoce]

the graphical fidelity in the trailer is so much better than the game as it stands now. I hope that was real time footage on ps3 (not the cg parts near the end)

its certainly conceivable, the UE3 is capable of that level of quality

my only concern is how it performs, the engine does not like the PS3

[RedOrb_Collector]

Y u no sign up to corp!?

Attachment 4159

How do I go about doing so?

[itachi73378]

How do I go about doing so?

Neocom --> My Corporation--> Search
Enter corporation name "P S U"