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On Wednesday, October 10th, we invite you to join us at the Long Center, in Austin, Texas, for a full day of presentations and interactions, exploring the current and future developments in Star Citizen and Squadron 42.
Building off your favorite elements from last year’s event, and taking advantage of everything the venue has to offer, we are excited to bring the event back to where CitizenCon began!
Event Details
CitizenCon 2948 will be held on Wednesday October 10th, 2018 at the Long Center in Austin:
701 W. Riverside Drive
Austin, TX 78704
See a live presentation from Chris Roberts, and meet the team behind the game. We’ll also have plenty of activities and demonstrations around the venue, throughout the day to keep you entertained.
- Frequently Asked Questions
What Should I Bring?
Please remember to bring your printed ticket or a digital copy stored on your phone, and your photo ID. If you have a Citizen Card or any Star Citizen and Squadron 42 clothing or accessories, we encourage you to wear them. Cosplay is appreciated; however, local laws and venue restrictions prohibit prop weapons (the Long Center is effectively an Armistice Zone) so please leave those at home.
Will There Be Food Available?
We will have a selection of food trucks on the terrace, along with bars throughout the venue for your convenience. There are also a range of dining options within walking distance. Outside food and beverages are not allowed inside the venue.
Yes. There is wheelchair access to nearly all of the venue, including restrooms. A selection of locations will be available for wheelchair users to enjoy the show.
Will there be seating available?
Yes. This is a seated event for everything happening in the main hall. Other locations for demos and activities may have seating as appropriate.
Is there an age restriction for the venue?
Yes, the event is 21+
Can people bring their own seating for the wait?
You may bring a small foldable seat to use while outside the venue; however, use of them inside the premises is prohibited, so you would need to use the coat check once inside. Please only bring what you’ll need with you to the event.
Can I Bring Gifts?
Although we truly appreciate the sentiment, many of us will be flying out the next day, and we are unable to accept gifts at the event.
Is there a Coat Check?
Yes and attendees will be encouraged to store their belongings in the visitor’s coat check.
Anything planned for Tuesday or Thursday?
If you’re planning to be in Austin the day before or after, or you’re already there, keep an eye out for updates on meetups as we get closer to the day. We do enjoy taking every opportunity to meet our fantastic community.
Can I buy a ticket for my friend?
No, as tickets are non-transferrable. Ticket purchases are also limited to one per person.
If there are unsold tickets from the first day of sales, will they be available to all backers when tickets are added on the second day?
Yes. Any unsold tickets from the first day will roll over to the second.
I can’t attend anymore, can I cancel and get a refund?
Tickets may be cancelled up until 30 days prior to the event and refunded for store credit. No refunds will be granted within 30 days of the event. Tickets are non-transferrable.
Stay In The Loop!
Look out for latest news, contests, and additional information about CitizenCon. Whether you’re with us in Austin, or back at home, keep up to date with all things Star Citizen by following our various channels on social media:
Inhalte von externen Seiten werden ohne Ihre Zustimmung nicht automatisch geladen und angezeigt.
On Wednesday, October 10th, we invite you to join us at the Long Center, in Austin, Texas, for a full day of presentations and interactions, exploring the current and future developments in Star Citizen and Squadron 42.
Building off your favorite elements from last year’s event, and taking advantage of everything the venue has to offer, we are excited to bring the event back to where CitizenCon began!
Ticket Details
CitizenCon 2948 will be held on Wednesday October 10th, 2018 at the Long Center in Austin:
701 W. Riverside Drive
Austin, TX 78704
See a live presentation from Chris Roberts, and meet the team behind the game. We’ll also have plenty of activities and demonstrations around the venue, throughout the day to keep you entertained.
This year we will be offering two ticket types: General Admission for $87 and Premium Access for $130 (prices include local sales tax). Premium ticket holders will gain access to the seating section closest to the stage, as well as a premium registration service. Store credit cannot be used to purchase tickets.
Inhalte von externen Seiten werden ohne Ihre Zustimmung nicht automatisch geladen und angezeigt.
Tickets will go on sale according to the following schedule:
Wednesday May 2nd, 12PM PDT: 450 Standard & 150 Premium tickets available to Concierge and Subscribers
Wednesday May 2nd, 6PM PDT: 450 Standard & 150 Premium tickets available to Concierge and Subscribers
Thursday May 3rd, 12PM PDT: 450 Standard & 150 Premium tickets available to all backers
Thursday May 3rd, 6PM PDT: Remaining 450 Standard & 150 Premium tickets available to all backers
Tickets will be available here
- Frequently Asked Questions
What Should I Bring?
Please remember to bring your printed ticket or a digital copy stored on your phone, and your photo ID. If you have a Citizen Card or any Star Citizen and Squadron 42 clothing or accessories, we encourage you to wear them. Cosplay is appreciated; however, local laws and venue restrictions prohibit prop weapons (the Long Center is effectively an Armistice Zone) so please leave those at home.
Will There Be Food Available?
We will have a selection of food trucks on the terrace, along with bars throughout the venue for your convenience. There are also a range of dining options within walking distance. Outside food and beverages are not allowed inside the venue.
Yes. There is wheelchair access to nearly all of the venue, including restrooms. A selection of locations will be available for wheelchair users to enjoy the show.
Will there be seating available?
Yes. This is a seated event for everything happening in the main hall. Other locations for demos and activities may have seating as appropriate.
Is there an age restriction for the venue?
Yes, the event is 21+
Can people bring their own seating for the wait?
You may bring a small foldable seat to use while outside the venue; however, use of them inside the premises is prohibited, so you would need to use the coat check once inside. Please only bring what you’ll need with you to the event.
Can I Bring Gifts?
Although we truly appreciate the sentiment, many of us will be flying out the next day, and we are unable to accept gifts at the event.
Is there a Coat Check?
Yes and attendees will be encouraged to store their belongings in the visitor’s coat check.
Anything planned for Tuesday or Thursday?
If you’re planning to be in Austin the day before or after, or you’re already there, keep an eye out for updates on meetups as we get closer to the day. We do enjoy taking every opportunity to meet our fantastic community.
Can I buy a ticket for my friend?
No, as tickets are non-transferrable. Ticket purchases are also limited to one per person.
If there are unsold tickets from the first day of sales, will they be available to all backers when tickets are added on the second day?
Yes. Any unsold tickets from the first day will roll over to the second.
I can’t attend anymore, can I cancel and get a refund?
Tickets may be cancelled up until 30 days prior to the event and refunded for store credit. No refunds will be granted within 30 days of the event. Tickets are non-transferrable.
Stay In The Loop!
Look out for latest news, contests, and additional information about CitizenCon. Whether you’re with us in Austin, or back at home, keep up to date with all things Star Citizen by following our various channels on social media:
Writer’s Note: Part three of The Cup was published originally in Jump Point 1.10. Before reading the final chapter, check out Part One and Part Two.
Recovering from her disappointing start in the Cup series, Darring has worked her way back to the front of the pack. She is on her way to victory in the Sorrow Sea — the Boneyard — when her ship explosively overheats . . .
Darring awoke in a quiet, sanitized room of white walls and beeping monitors. She lay in a medbay tub containing a pale, viscous gel. There were monitoring nodes on her neck and chest. She lifted her arm out of the fluid and tried sitting up. A strong hand kept her from doing so.
“Not yet,” the voice said. “Not until the doctor says it’s okay.”
She laid her head back against the tub wall and blinked repeatedly until the figure above her came into focus. “Zogat,” she said, her voice cracking, her throat dry and pasty. “Where — where —”
“Carrier infirmary,” he said, “in orbit above Ellis VIII.”
She tried sitting up again and felt a deep pain in her shoulder as she moved her arms. She reached across her chest and felt a layer of burnt skin, soft and supple due to the fluid, but still present. Terrifying memories flooded back. “My ship?”
Guul nodded. “Unsalvageable. It’s now a part of the Sorrow Sea.”
Darring massaged her sore shoulder. “What happened?”
“They do not know for certain. But your ship went through a rapid temperature increase that ignited the power plant. It’s a wonder it didn’t explode while you were still strapped in.”
“Do they know what caused it?”
“They couldn’t recover enough of the fuselage and its monitoring equipment to know the exact cause. But . . .” He paused, letting the word linger there in the space between them. “Remisk has confessed.”
“What?”
“He’s confessed to it. Went mad, in fact, attacked a reporter, nearly ripped off her face. He says he put some kind of capsule into your tank; or rather, hired someone on your crew to do it, which, by the way, has been scrubbed. He even confessed to sending those thugs against us.”
She nodded, feeling a moment of relief. “Then Mo‘tak is finished as well.”
Guul cast his eyes down. He shook his head. “No, Hypatia. Mo‘tak has confessed nothing, nor has Remisk implicated anyone else. He’s gone catatonic, can’t speak, can’t move. He’s on something, but it can’t be detected. They fear he’ll die before he’s interrogated. He’s out, but Mo‘tak is still in and has condemned Remisk publicly in the most powerful words. The race has been suspended for a few days so that all remaining crews can conduct a mandatory check of their ships. Then it will resume.” He shook his head. “There are three things certain in the galaxy, as you Humans might say: Death, taxes and the MCR. The race will go on.”
Darring closed her eyes and laid her head back once again. She fought tears. “Yes, but it’s over for me.”
A pause, then, “Not yet.”
She tried asking how, but on cue, the room door opened and in walked Mo‘tak, straight and proud, wearing a fresh jumpsuit of gold and purple. Three reporters followed in his wake, one with a camera. He pulled his mouth back and said in a sincere voice, “Ah, I am so glad to see you awake. You had us all worried.”
I bet. She wanted to say those very words, but the strong pressure that Guul placed on her arm with his hand recommended otherwise. She forced her anger down and tried to smile. “It seems as if the Fates are on my side.”
Mo‘tak nodded. “Indeed. And it would also seem that Lady Luck has granted you favor as well. With my gift, you can now return to the race.”
“Well, then let me say it proudly for all to hear.” Mo‘tak adjusted his position among the reporters, giving them time to ready.
The Xi’an cleared his throat. “I and the Xu.oa family corporation want to again strenuously condemn Ykonde Remisk’s actions. His cowardly assaults are inconsistent with what I and the MCR are all about. The integrity of the race must be maintained. Thus, as a gesture of good will and healthy competition, I have donated my personal M50 so that Hypatia Darring can return to the race.”
It took a moment for the announcement to register in her mind. To help drive the point home, a vid screen activated to reveal a clean, gold-and-purple trimmed M50. It was brilliant, beautiful. Darring loved it, but worried about Mo‘tak’s motivation.
“No way,” she barked, pulling herself up in the tub. “I’m not putting one toe into that —”
Guul applied pressure to her arm once again. “What Ms. Darring is saying is that she would be honored to accept your gift and looks forward to further competition in the days ahead.”
“Hey,” she said, pulling her arm away. “Don’t answer for me. I’m not a child, dammit!”
“Well, let’s leave Ms. Darring and Mr. Guul alone,” Mo‘tak said. “Clearly, they have much to discuss.” He leaned over Darring’s tub and stared into her eyes, his mouth inches from her face. “I’m so glad to see you well. Please do accept my offer. It would be a shame to lose one with so much talent.”
They scurried out, but left the image of the M50 on the vid screen. When the door closed, she rounded on Guul. “You don’t answer for me.”
Guul shook his head. “If you refuse this offer from Mo‘tak, he will have won thrice: by getting rid of Remisk, by getting rid of you, and by further damaging your reputation. Racing is as much about your public image as it is about skill. You already have a bad reputation. Don’t damage it further by being ungracious.”
“But it’s his ship!” she said, pointing to the vid screen. “He’s done something to it, I’m sure.”
Guul shook his head. “No, he’s not that stupid. There’s too much light on the competition now, too much that’s transpired. He can’t afford to offer this gift and then sabotage it. He’s done all he can do. It’s a matter of who’s the best now. There’s plenty of racing left, Hypatia. Go out there and prove to everyone, prove to Mo‘tak, that you will not be stopped, that you are the best.”
Despite the logic in his words, Darring wanted to refuse Mo‘tak’s gift. On the other hand, to beat Mo‘tak with his own ship would be so lovely. But it wasn’t just a matter of getting up and strapping into the cockpit. Every M50 had its own quirks, its own personality. There were always balancing issues, thrust issues, drift issues that needed to be identified and learned. The cockpit displays would need to be configured to her own preferences, which would take time to sort out. And it could take weeks for her to get comfortable on the stick and throttle. She had maybe 48 hours to make it all work. Her burns were healing in this goo around her, but her flesh was tight and still stung beneath her movements. Mo‘tak was setting her up to fail. He didn’t need to sabotage the ship, she realized. Her current condition was enough to slow her down.
And now Guul was taking advantage of their new friendship. He had no right to interrupt her and speak for her publicly. Guul may admire me, she thought as she pulled herself up and sat on the edge of the tub. Now, he needs to respect me.
“Okay, Zogat,” she said, looking around for a towel. “You win. I’ll accept his offer. I’ll show him I’m the best, but more importantly . . . I’ll show you.”
* * *
Hello again, and welcome to another GSN Spectrum broadcast of the Murray Cup Race. After the tragedy rising from the Sorrow Sea, Darring’s near death experience, and Remisk’s shocking confession, the competition has gotten back on track and has settled into a sweet groove. From the midway checkpoint and out all the way to Ellis XII, the top racers have pushed their craft to the limit. Hypatia Darring has come back with a vengeance, accepting Mo‘tak’s M50 and taking two of the last three stages through the asteroid belt and back to the final checkpoint at Ellis VIII. The competition around Ellis IX, in particular, proved raucous, as Darring slowed to allow Mo‘tak to gain the lead while dogging Guul’s Hornet, forcing him to flirt with the Eye’s crushing tidal forces. No love was lost between those two during the following press conference. But now the Tevarin veteran has surprised everyone once again by taking the final obstacle course in the outer asteroid belt, showing a refinement that proves he will go down in history as one of the finest pilots ever to race The Cup. Now, the competition enters its final leg with only 65 racers remaining, and the top three positions held by Mo‘tak, Darring and Guul. Can these three power-houses hold out, or will someone else fly past and beat them all?
The final leg awaits. Let’s kick it back to Mike Crenshaw who’s in the thick of it. What’s the mood on the carrier, Mike?
* * *
Raw.
That’s what Darring was. Just a raw nerve, always ready to spark if given a chance. Guul had hoped to share with her a little of his experience, teach her some wisdom, in a sport just as rough on the spirit as it was on the body and mind. And perhaps she had learned a little.
She was racing better, maneuvering better, taking to heart his philosophy . . . speed is life. But looking across the carrier bay floor at her as she ran a cloth across the belly of her borrowed M50, Zogat Guul could not tell if Darring’s improvement was motivated by skill or anger. Did it really matter? In the end, if she blew across the finish line in first place, it would all boil down to victory. And that was the ultimate goal of everyone in the race. Go home a winner . . . or just go home.
“Hypatia Darring has it out for you, doesn’t she?”
Crenshaw’s face was all perky as if he had just said something infinitely clever and devious.
Guul did not take the bait. “She is a tough competitor. Like a Tevarin, she shows her enemy no mercy.”
“But she held back around The Eye just to force you to lose. That’s the move of someone bearing a grudge. What did you do?”
What indeed. Perhaps he had come on too strong. Was it when he interrupted her and spoke for her publicly at the hospital? She would not say when he asked; instead, she would change the subject or walk away. But direct action, direct speech was his way. Surely she realized he was right. She had to compete. She had to accept Mo‘tak’s offer and finish the race. Not just for herself, but for the honor of her family. Surely she did not blame him for pointing that out.
“Scurry away, bug.”
Mo‘tak appeared, alone this time, and flicked his fingers at Crenshaw as if he were swatting a fly. “The Tevarin warrior will not condescend to answer such a silly question. Shoo! Go bother someone else.”
Crenshaw pulled a rueful face but retreated nonetheless.
When he was gone, Mo‘tak closed on Guul and offered his hand. “Good luck,” he said.
“You want to break my hand like you tried to break Hypatia’s?”
“I wouldn’t dream of it, my friend. I merely want to wish you a safe final course. This is your last, isn’t it?”
Guul nodded. “Perhaps.”
“And you are braced to win it all and be remembered as the greatest racer in the history of the sport. For that, I wish you good luck.”
Guul took the handshake reluctantly. Mo‘tak’s fingers were firm but not vise-like. He moved until he was beside the Tevarin. Mo‘tak placed his free hand on Guul’s back.
“Look at it all one last time, Zogat. All of it. The bay, the racers, the media, the hustle and bustle of the crews. You will miss it. But I think you will miss that young lady right there most of all.”
Before Guul had a chance to speak, Mo‘tak pushed his hand hard against the Tevarin’s neck.
Guul felt a slight pinch and jerked away. A warm flush spread across his skin. “What did you do?”
Mo‘tak maintained his composure and kept looking forward as if they were having a pleasant conversation. “To win against racers as skilled as yourself and Darring will be quite the honor,” he said, as the media crowded around once more. “Good luck out there, old friend.”
Guul rubbed his neck. The Xi’an had done something to him, but Mo’tak had again done his scheming in such a way that left very little evidence. Perhaps if Guul called the MCR authorities over now, they could find something, but more likely his accusations would prove to be unfounded. He looked out at everyone suiting up, strapping in, readying for the final course. He could choose not to race. If Mo’tak had drugged him as he suspected, then it would be quite dangerous to climb into his cockpit. But he quickly shoved the thought aside. He couldn’t get out now, not when the end was so close. It wasn’t in him. He had to take his own advice. He had to finish the race.
He looked across the bay floor, toward Darring. She was putting on her helmet, getting ready to climb into her cockpit. He tried catching her attention with a wave. She did not see him, or she was ignoring him. Whatever the reason, he was grateful that he had had an opportunity in the twilight of his career to race against such a warrior, such a competitor as she.
Speed is life, he thought as he put on his helmet with shaking hands. But as always, speed also might mean death.
* * *
Guul was just ahead of her, Mo‘tak at her six. She was perfectly placed to take advantage of the Tevarin’s erratic behavior. He had been speeding up, slowing down, speeding up, as if unsure what to do. Or perhaps he was playing with her, working to sap her resolve, force her to slow down and deal with his uncharacteristic movements, thus giving the lead away to Mo‘tak. But that was silly. Guul did not want the ruthless Xi’an to win any more than she did. So, what was his game?
They raced in high orbit above Ellis VIII. The final stretch was a long, loping crazy-eight of rings that flashed brilliant reds and greens and whites, keeping a tempo with the natural flow of the racers as they shot past one another near the intersect. It was a dangerous place, for racers coming out of those rings could slam into one another and ricochet into space. Even if your ship survived, the time it would take to recover from such a collision would be race-ending.
Two orbital grandstands just outside the course held spectators and prominent dignitaries that had come out to see and share in the glory of the winner. The MCR allowed the energy and excitement of the crowds to be broadcast into the cockpits of each racer as GSN announcers gave the minute-by-minute account of the final laps. Some racers thrived on the energy of the crowds. Some reveled in the noise. Darring muted it all, preferring instead to concentrate on the racers around her.
She maneuvered her M50 to the right of Guul, taking advantage of the loop. He swung his Hornet out a touch too far, and she slipped right in beside him. His wing grazed the invisible walls of the ring course, letting the tip of it cut through the barrier like a shark’s fin cresting a wave. He’d lose time for that, but he didn’t seem to care, keeping his craft pressed against the loop to ride it all the way around. He’s getting old, she thought, letting a smile slip across her lips. Can’t handle the rigors of such a sharp turn anymore. Then she thought better of gloating. She wanted to beat him, to make him see her as a racer, an equal, not as a puppy dog to counsel. But she didn’t want him to leave the race. There was still plenty of track left, plenty of twists and turns, and Mo‘tak was right on them.
The Xi’an thrust his 350r down to run right below her belly, preventing an interloper behind him in a souped-up Avenger from making a move. Darring banked to the right and felt the tug of strong G’s despite being held tightly in the chair. Her skin had healed well and there was a little pain in her shoulders, but such a move reminded her of the frailty of flesh and her own mortality. Bank too strongly, and you could pass out.
“You’re not winning this one, Mo‘tak,” she said into her comm. Only her crew chief could hear it, but he shared her sentiment. He gave her directions which she accepted and moved her craft to the left as they cleared the loop and headed for the final intersect.
Guul came up to her side again, but he was still moving oddly, letting his wings wobble on the rebalance. She shook her head and focused on Mo‘tak, who had gunned his engine, showing significant burn out of his exhaust nozzles. He wouldn’t dare cross her cockpit now, not with the MCR looking on so intently. In fact, Mo‘tak had acted reasonably well since his vanity display at the hospital. He’d let his racing skills speak for themselves. So perhaps he wasn’t such a rotten son-of-a bitch after all. But she wouldn’t be keeping his gift after the race.
Red blips danced on her radar, showing hazards as she crossed the intersect.
She drifted up in the lane, taking the traditional approach for a right-side cross. Mo‘tak followed, but Guul struggled to drift up, taking too long, letting his craft fall behind once more. She fought the urge to link into his comm. Mo‘tak tried to force her down. She gripped her stick and moved with him, not letting him gain advantage. The blips on the screen grew brighter. She keyed her focus, thrust her M50 forward and sailed into the intersect.
Lagging ships flew past her at the right angle, trying desperately to keep up with the pack. One nearly clipped her wing. She banked left just in time. She tried finding Guul and Mo‘tak in the flurry of crimson blips on her screen. It was impossible. She banked left, right, left again, swirling through screaming racers.
Darring flew out of the intersect, righted her ship once more, and prepared for the final run. She checked her radar. The madness there settled to show those that had gotten through and were in pursuit. Damn! Mo‘tak settled again beside her, and Guul was not far behind, though struggling still. Why can’t I shake these bastards?
Finally, Guul made the move she was expecting. The Tevarin thrust his Hornet forward, clipping between her and Mo‘tak at such velocity that he was nothing but a blur. Her heart raced alongside him. She gunned her engine, falling just behind him, watching as the blips on her radar were replaced by the long green pulsing line of the final straightaway. She could hardly contain her excitement. She, Hypatia Darring, in second place on the final lap around Ellis VIII. The perfect position to make a final move and win it all. And there was Zogat Guul, the master, egging her on, forcing her to put away her silly feud and chase him, chase him for glory, for fame, for personal fulfillment. A laugh of pure joy escape her lips.
Speed is life.
They hit the final stretch together. One full lap around rocky Ellis VIII. Full bore speed. There was nothing like it in the galaxy. She could not contain her excitement. She screamed into her comm. Mo‘tak tried to muscle his way into her space. She refused him. He tried again. She pushed her M50 even faster, keeping pace with Guul, letting the green lights of the radar draw her forward.
Guul slowed, fell alongside her, slowed again, letting her take the lead. Bullshit, she thought, frustration growing as she punched a panel and said to him, “What the hell are you doing?”
She was greeted with coughing, spitting and moans. Something was terribly wrong. “I’m glad to speak to you once more, Hypatia.”
“Do you remember what you told me? What you made me promise? If I were in a position to win, I’d win. And now here you are, about to win, and you’re falling back. Explain.”
Guul coughed. It sounded thick, bloody. “It isn’t important that I win, Hypatia. I’ve won enough in my life. It’s time for others to shine. It’s time for you to shine. Now, go beat him. And remember what I told you.”
He cut their link. Darring shouted, but he was gone. Guul fell back, and back, until she could not see him anymore.
Mo‘tak pounced and took the lead. Shit! She gunned it, moved down in the lane, set her craft just below Mo‘tak’s. The sleek, long body of his 350r shadowing her smaller M50. There was no doubt his craft had the endurance; in a rough and tumble, he’d prevail. She had to get out from his shadow, his influence. The only way to do that . . .
She tried pushing her plant, thumbed the throttle hard, but it did not register. She tried again. Her dashboard controls blinked, once, twice, then resettled with different settings, measurements, displays. What the —
“How’s my ship?”
Darring’s heart sank. “Mo‘tak!”
“It is indeed,” he said, his voice fuzzy over the comm, “and now that I have your undivided attention, I will reclaim what is mine.”
Nothing she did registered. She tapped panels, flicked switches, tried raising an MCR official over the comm. Everything was null, but her ship responded quickly to Mo‘tak’s remote commands. He banked to the left; she did the same. He banked right, she followed. The Xi’an finally settled his 350r beside her, waved smugly at her through his cockpit window, commanded her ship to move slightly ahead, then said, “I’ll let you take the lead for a little while, my dear, then I’ll dramatically pull forward at the last minute, flying on to victory, while you spiral out of control, hitting the royal grandstand and killing dozens. You’ll be remembered as the Butcher of Ellis.”
She pushed and prodded at the stick, banged at the dashboard. She even struck the eject controls. Nothing. “I’ll kill you first, you sorry son of a bitch.”
“And how will you do that, my dear? You have no control over anything . . . and your Tevarin is gone.”
As if on cue, a bright streak soared past them both, a flush of red and gold nozzle fire. It was burning, its power plant pushed beyond integrity. Darring squinted to see who it was. She recognized the blue Tevarin lettering on the hull.
Guul.
His Hornet barreled ahead, all flame and fury. Darring could hear Mo‘tak curse beneath his breath. She tried again to take control of her stick. Nothing. She tried calling out to Guul, but all she could hear was Mo‘tak’s agitated mumblings as he commanded her ship to move up and ahead of him. Darring watched intently as Guul flipped his burning craft around, shifted it to align perfectly with her own, and headed straight for her.
Her comm crackled with another voice. “Move!” it said, ragged, faint. “Dive! Dive!”
“I can’t!” she screamed back, but there was no response. Only Mo‘tak’s maddening cackle could be heard. “Say to him whatever you wish. He cannot hear you.”
Guul banked left. Darring’s ship moved to shadow the Hornet. He banked right; she banked in kind. Guul’s weakening voice continued pleading for her to get out of the way. Tears streamed down her face; her voice broke from exertion. Mo‘tak laughed and laughed.
Her ship spun like a cork-screw on its long axis. She closed her eyes, waited for impact, whispering softly to Guul, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry . . .”
Then she remembered.
Beneath the dashboard of every M50 lay a panel, and inside it, a power cut-off valve independent of the main electrical and command systems. Could Mo‘tak have forgotten it? He might have, so foolishly overconfident in his scheming and backstabbing, and spending too much time in his 350r to remember all the systems of his secondary ship. But it might be: A mistake . . . finally.
Through the dizzying haze of her spinning, she reached beneath the dash, found the panel with shaking fingers, ripped it open, and pulled the valve.
“You lose, Mo‘tak!”
The power plant died, and with that sudden lack of propulsion her ship spun to port. Zogat Guul slipped right past her, hitting Mo‘tak’s ship square in the front, exploding on impact, and sending their shattered, burning hulls into the void.
The cockpit came alive, her stick again responsive. She pulled her ship out of spin, reignited the plant, and blew across the finish line ahead of all others.
Her pit crew went wild, matching her own screaming, but for different reasons. They were joyous, elated, happy that their racer — the youngest Human to ever win the MCR — had just done so, and in a blaze of glory. They were happy, and they deserved to be.
She was not. Oh, she was happy to have won, to have taken the Cup, to have proven to her father that her choice in career was not foolish. She laid her head back into her chair and cried. Cried joyous tears for Guul. She understood fully now his words, echoing loudly in her mind. Speed is life, and there was no life without speed. She understood that now.
The Cup was just one race in a thousand that lay ahead of her, and there would be no true happiness until she had raced them all and chased down that beast that lay in front of her, that lay in front of all racers. In his fiery death, Zogat Guul had finally caught the beast. Now, it was her turn to chase it, and she would do so for him, for Guul . . . forever.
Beyond the finish line, beyond the grandstands, beyond the accolades and cheering fans, Hypatia Darring gunned her power plant and kept racing.
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Hello Citizens,
I hope you all had a great weekend – I know those of you who attended BritizenCon sure did! Those from the team who were fortunate enough to attend have not stopped talking about how much fun they had, so congratulations to all the organizers who put on such a successful community organized event.
With that, let’s see what’s going on this week:
Are you looking to upgrade your battlestation? Over the next week, we want to see your screenshots highlighting epic space combat as you fight your way through the ‘Verse. Your battles, victories, explosions, funny moments, we want to see it all. The winning screenshot will recieve a new Intel® Optane™ SSD 900P, courtesy of Intel. Check out all the details here.
Today also sees a new episode of Calling All Devs, the show dedicated to answering the community’s most voted questions. This week, we address questions on racing in the PU and Arena Commander, NPCs flying on trade routes, the future of the RSI Roadmap, and more. You can watch the full episode here.
Every Tuesday, our Lore Team published something new to embolden the Star Citizen universe, and this week is no exception. If truly you can’t wait until tomorrow, you can check out previously published lore posts here.
Wednesday will introduce another episode of ‘Bugsmashers!’ where yet another pesky Star Citizen bug is SQUASHED.
What’s that I hear? A Squadron 42 themed episode of ATV? That’s right! Thursday will welcome an all-new episode of Around the Verse with the latest info from the Development teams around the globe. Don’t miss it!
Lastly, on Friday we’ll wrap up the week with the April Subscriber’s Town Hall. Topic and guests are still tentative, so keep a keen eye on Spectrum for an update soon.
That’s all for this week, citizens. We’ll see you in the ‘Verse!
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We are constantly amazed by the contributions made by the Star Citizen community. Whether it’s fan art, a cinematic, a YouTube guide, or even a 3D print of your favorite ship, we love it all! Don’t forget to submit your content to our Community Hub for a chance at seeing it here!
Spieledesigner Chris Roberts hat Grund zur Freude, denn sein kommendes Weltraum-MMORPG Star Citizen konnte jüngst die Schwelle der zwei Millionen Backer überschreiten. Die Entwickler bedanken sich bei den Unterstützern und sind froh, dass sie zeigen…
This week, we look forward to Alpha 3.2 with a PU project update looking at the current Roadmap, and explore a feature that recently debuted in 3.1, the Character Customizer. As mentioned in the episode, check out officially licensed Star Citizen merchandise at https://www.jrfabrication.co.uk/
Umar was quickly realizing just how difficult it was to focus on doing repairs when you have a gun aimed at your head. Of course, it should have been obvious from the start that being held hostage would be stressful, but it was one of those truths that doesn’t completely sink in until you experience it first hand. Sort of like how those ‘Slippery When Wet’ caution signs seemed redundant until you were skidding around in a rainstorm.
“Easy on the comms,” instructed Umar’s captor in a steady, even clip. “This is just a normal emergency repair, right?” The man might as well have been casually asking Umar to pass nuoc cham, for all the current situation seemed to be stressing him.
“Right.” Just your normal, everyday emergency repair where someone has hijacked your ship and is looming right behind your terminal in case they need to put a plasma bolt through your brain. Totally normal.
Umar took a deep breath and pushed all that aside. He needed to focus. His life wasn’t the only one hanging in the balance. With a practiced few presses on the console, Umar launched the repair drone Shake towards the source of the emergency beacon — a Terrapin, adrift and giving off a worryingly high IR signature.
With the drone en route, Umar hailed the Terrapin with his most professional, calming voice. “Dr. Hostan? This is Umar from In-A-Fix.”
The response came immediately. “Power plant’s experiencing a critical cascade and my coolers are about to give,” reported Dr. Hostan, breathing heavily. The temperature must have been unbearable inside the craft. Even wearing a protective suit and helmet, her hair was plastered with sweat to her head. “Geiger’s ticking fast and loud. I don’t think there’s much time.”
Umar appreciated the doc’s information efficiency. He didn’t blame people when they panicked in an emergency, but it sure did help when they kept their heads. It gave him an extra tool to work with rather than an extra problem to solve.
“Drone’s almost there. As soon as the full diagnostic scan is done, we’ll know what’s causing the cascade. In the meanwhile, I’m gonna have you do a full flush on your coolers. It won’t do much, but it’ll buy us some time.”
“Just tell me what to do.”
Umar began walking her through the process to circumvent the coolers’ safety protocols. The doc was an apt pupil and it wasn’t long before she had managed the tricky manual override. The maneuver was one that his boss, Jess, had taught him when he was first starting out. A fine example of the philosophy, “sometimes you got to break a ship even more if you want to fix it.” If they got the Terrapin up and running again, the coolers would have severely limited functionality compared to their normal operating parameters. But that was a problem for later. The first priority was not exploding.
“The temp’s dropping a bit,” said Dr. Hostan, clearly relieved. “You’re a miracle worker.”
“Naw, Doc. You did all the heavy lifting,” replied Umar. A pop-up on the terminal indicated a new data-packet had arrived. “Looks like the diag scan just came in, so I’m gonna have you drink a hydro-gel real quick while I go over the data. Don’t want you passing out on me.”
As Dr. Hostan turned to find a gel pack to feed into her suit, Umar silenced his audio and video while still listening in on the channel.
“That was a neat little trick,” said the shipjacker once the comm had been muted.
“Yeah,” said Umar, distracted as he pored over the report that Shake’s scanners had sent back.
“I mean you probably just saved her life and what? You’re getting your standard repair rate for this?”
“You mind not talking? I’m trying to figure out how —” Umar let the sentence hang there as he frantically cross-checked the numbers he had gotten from Shake.
“What is it?” Asked the shipjacker, leaning over the terminal to look.
“Grab that datapad,” said Umar, gesturing to where a clunky three-gen-old model was strapped to the wall. “Open up the DayBreak power plant manual. Should be right there in the folder.”
If Umar had been watching instead of directing Shake to do a deeper scan on the Terrapin’s axial power conduit, he would have seen the jacker hesitate. Using the datapad would mean having to holster his weapon. Keeping a wary eye on Umar to make sure this wasn’t a ploy, the man stowed his pistol and pulled the datapad free. After it booted, he found and opened the manual. “Okay, now what?”
“Here,” said Umar as he grabbed the pad. Scrolling, he found the section he was looking for and quickly read it. Then, cursing under his breath, he read it again.
“Enough,” said the jacker. “Tell me what’s going on.”
Umar tossed the datapad down onto the console. “You know anything about reactors?”
“Just enough not to touch one.”
“Then the short version is, thanks to the geniuses at Sakura Sun, the good doctor is pretty well and properly screwed. See …,” said Umar as he rotated the scans of the Terrapin displayed on the terminal. “The DayBreak was designed with these so-called performance improvements that will most likely make the power plant overload faster if I try to fix the problem. And not doing anything isn’t an option since the whole thing’s gonna blow in a few minutes anyway. So, yeah. Screwed.”
“Damn,” replied the jacker, leaning in to look closer. He pointed to the axial conduit. “And if you try to bypass it, these backups will just kick in.”
Umar raised an eyebrow, a bit surprised at his captor’s quick grasp of the issue. “Yeah, that’s right. Ninety-nine out of a hundred times the setup would be ideal, but damn if that one exception isn’t a doozy.”
The man straightened to his full height, resting a hand on his hip near the gun. “So, what are you going to do?”
“It’s what you’re gonna do,” said Umar, eyes flicking towards the jacker’s holster. “You’re the one threatening to shoot people.”
The response came with a heavy sigh, “You want to her to EVA over here before you start the repair.”
“It’s too dangerous to do it with her still on the ship, but with her onboard the Vulcan, we can pilot to the edge of the blast radius and still be able to control the drones. Maybe I can repair it in time. Maybe I won’t be fast enough and the thing will blow. But either way, the doc gets to live.”
“Fine. Do it.”
“You serious?” asked Umar, halfway through preparing the mental argument he thought he’d have to make.
“Yeah. Don’t know how much safer she’s going to be with me around, but it’s stupid to let her die now just ’cause I might get her killed later.” And leaving it at that, the jacker went to the pilot’s chair to bring the Vulcan’s hatch around so the doctor would have a straight-shot EVA.
Umar opened the comm. “Doc, you hear me?”
“Yes,” Dr. Hostan replied. “What did the scans say?”
“I’m gonna need you to EVA over to the Vulcan.”
“Am I losing the ship?”
“Can’t say for sure at this point, but I don’t want to take any chances.”
“Do I at least have enough time to pull my research drives?” asked the doctor. It was the most concerned Umar had seen her so far.
“Yeah, but fast, doc,” said Umar against his better judgement. “Take a minute to grab what you can, but you got to leave after that.”
Not even bothering to reply, the doctor rushed to grab the data she had gathered with the Terrapin’s sensors.
“Tell her to forget it,” said the jacker as he swung the Vulcan wildly away from the Terrapin.
Before Umar could ask what the hell was going on, the entire ship shook and the shields flared from a direct laser hit.
Umar frantically paged the doctor, “Plans changed, doc. Need you to stay put. We’ve got company.”
“How’d these bastards find me?” said the jacker as he evaded the next volley.
Umar checked the radar and saw there were two ships rapidly approaching their position. “Who are they?”
“A couple low-rent hitters.”
“And you thought you could lose them in my ship?”
“That was the plan.”
“Would have worked a lot better if you hadn’t left my drone behind.”
“You’re kidding me. The damn thing was tagged?”
“Six ways to Sunday … wait, where are you going?” demanded Umar when an out-of-range warning popped up for Shake.
“I’m getting us the hell out of here.” Another laser barrage just barely missed the prow of the Vulcan.
“No. We’re staying and fixing that ship.”
“I’m not dying for her.”
“Neither am I, so be sure to keep the ships off her and away from us.”
After a letting fly a string of curses, the jacker pulled the stick back and steered once again towards the Terrapin. “You’re damn lucky I’m a fantastic pilot.”
Umar keyed the comms. “Doc, since EVAing isn’t really an option any more, I’m starting the emergency repairs.”
The doctor took the news in stride. “Good luck.”
“Same to you, doc. If you got any messages to pass along, feel free to send them over.”
“I’ll do that. Thank you.” And with that, Dr. Hostan ended the comm.
Quickly, he opened the bay so that he could launch his last drone, Spear. It wasn’t really set up for this kind of delicate work, but Umar could use all the extra hands he could get. “Drone’s heading out. Can you give it cover?”
“On it,” replied the jacker, rolling the ship hard to one side. He positioned the Vulcan between the two attackers and the doctor. Switching his controls over, the jacker used the remote turrets to lay down a wide field of suppressive fire, forcing the ships to alter course. One of the would-be assassins saw this as an opportunity and attempted to sweep up on the underside, but the jacker was ready for them and let loose with the main guns, clipping the attacker’s port wing. The damage wasn’t enough to take them out of the fight, but it’d give the pilot something to think about.
Meanwhile, Umar had managed to cut open the access panel in the Terrapin’s thick armor and reach the inner workings. Controlling both drones in conjunction, he began the tricky process of halting the cascade and siphoning off the excess energy. Right on cue, the axial conduit kicked in, and as predicted, the power plant responded by increasing its load production. Now it was his turn to cuss up a storm.
Focusing his energy on the injured ship, the jacker switched to the offensive. This would have worked well if the two pilots had been a team, since harassing one would hopefully cause the other to react, but no such luck. The more distant attacker completely ignored the plight of the other and took advantage of the Vulcan’s push, scoring a direct hit. Smoke began to fill the ship’s main chamber. Fantastic pilot or not, the numbers were against them. “How’s it looking back there?”
“Almost done, one way or another.” Umar had about half as much time as he needed before the whole thing was going to blow, taking the Terrapin and the doc with it. What he needed was a way to quickly disrupt the power output all together, without triggering the explosion itself. He ran through the few options he had remaining, dismissing them as fast as he thought of them. Maybe if he had a full complement of drones he could have done something, but with Liam back with the jacker’s Reliant and his own stubbornness to blame for holding off on replacing Wil after the accident — his mind suddenly flashed on something. Wil.
A few years back, the drone had been lost along with a crew of four when what should have been a simple repair had gone catastrophically wrong. While patching the piping to one of the maneuvering thrusters, an unexpected static discharge had caused a feedback surge along the plasma conduits. In that case the surge had been deadly, but with the doc’s power plant already suffering a critical failure, there was a small chance that if he could trigger it and use one of his drones to act as an auxiliary breaker, he could interrupt the cascade before it went critical. Well, Spear, let’s see just how lucky you are.
The jacker had just launched the last of the Vulcan’s chaff, narrowly diverting a missile that detonated nearby. An inadvertent grin spread across his face. After the life he had led, it was a little hard to believe there was a good chance he was going to die doing something this stupidly heroic. Suddenly, there was a second explosion nearby. Something had blown on the hull of the Terrapin. He squinted his eyes in preparation for the blinding light that would follow the whole ship going boom, but nothing else happened.
“It worked! I can’t believe it worked!” Umar had lost his drone, but had saved the ship.
“Not to cut your celebration short, but I really could use a hand right about now.”
Umar’s attention was drawn back to the ongoing dogfight. When did the ship fill with so much smoke? “Pass the turrets to me.”
“You any good?” asked the jacker.
“Line me up a shot and find out.”
With a dedicated gun operator, the true combat capabilities of the Vulcan emerged. The jacker would chase a ship with the main guns getting them into position for Umar to let loose with cannons mounted on the remote turret. Working together, they manage to remove the wing on the ship that had been crippled earlier. Down a weapon, and barely able to maneuver, the ship fled. The remaining assassin, its advantage lost, made the sensible choice and followed.
Umar placed two cans of flavored sparkling water on the table. It had taken about an hour more of work before the doctor’s ship was ready to fly again and the effort had left him parched.
The jacker, sitting on the far side, cracked his open and drank deeply. When he finally came up for air, he smiled. “Guess I do like etrog flavor.”
“All right, spill it. Why do you got a price on your head?”
The smile left the jacker’s face. “Might be better if you don’t know.”
“Yeah, well, it seems a little late for that.”
The two sat in silence for a bit as Umar patiently drank his water.
Toying with the tab on the can, the jacker finally began, “I was working for the Dranton Family, smuggling off of Carteyna, when I got tagged by the Cano authorities. Wasn’t going to get out clean, so I dumped the cargo and ran. Turned out there was enough evidence in there to get most of the Drantons locked up for good. Guess that didn’t sit well because Luke Dranton put the hit out on me himself. Spent almost every last credit to his name making sure I get dead. That was about a month ago, been running ever since.”
“So, we should be expecting more company?”
“Greedy bastards will probably keep the news to themselves till they can come after us again, but yeah, they’ll be back.”
“Right.” Umar tilted back and finished the last of his drink. “We better get going then.”
“Thanks. If you drop me off at Pox, I can make my way from there.”
“I was actually thinking we could make a stop first. See, I came across a recent wreck a little bit before I grabbed you. Told Jess about it, but since In-A-Fix runs salvage there’s a good chance no one knows it’s there except me and her. We get there in time, should be able to make it so the registry shows you sadly passed away in a tragic accident.”
“Seriously? You’d do that for me?”
Umar shrugged, “What can I say, I like fixing stuff.”
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Hello Citizens,
What a fun and exciting weekend it has been! On Friday, we announced the Origin 100 Series of starter ships. The 100 series has been designed specifically for solo pilots looking to turn heads without sacrificing functionality or reliability.
Also, we kicked off the first Free Fly Weekend Event of 2018! We invited our friends, family, and guild-mates to join us in the PU to experience how much progress our team has been working on to deliver 3.1 to everyone. Not only that, but we extended the Free Fly until Apr. 18th due to the huge success and fun everyone was having, we weren’t ready to spoil it. You can read more about the Free Fly and even sign up and get 4 vehicles to pilot in the Persistence Universe here.
With that, let’s see what’s going on this week:
Today sees a new episode of Calling All Devs, the show dedicated to answering the community’s most voted questions. This week, we address questions on persistence, snub craft development, landing systems and more. You can watch the episode here.
Every third Tuesday, our Lore Team will post a News Update feature, providing new fictional insight on the Star Citizen universe. Check out previously published lore posts here.
‘Bugsmashers!’ will return next Wednesday on it’s regular bi-weekly schedule.
On Thursday, we’ll welcome an all-new episode of Around the Verse with the latest info from the Development team. This week, it’s a focus on the Persistent Universe and how the new Character Customizer came to life.
Lastly on Friday, we start off the weekend with a new episode of Reverse the Verse LIVE. Stay tuned for further information about who our special guests will be this week.
That’s all for this week, citizens. We’ll see you in the ‘Verse!
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We are constantly amazed by the contributions made by the Star Citizen community. Whether it’s fan art, a cinematic, a YouTube guide, or even a 3D print of your favorite ship, we love it all! Don’t forget to submit your content to our Community Hub for a chance at seeing it here!
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Mykal Erzan has created a really great montage of Star Citizen clips paired together with a cover of Pure Imagination made popular by the new movie Ready Player One.
How It Works Today and What’s in Store for the Future
With the introduction of the Origin 100 series and its unique AIR system, we wanted to spend a little time talking about the current and future role of fuel in Star Citizen. The career of Refueling, and by proxy the gameplay of fuel, is one of our many non-combat driven gameplay loops and key to creating a believable universe.
This piece is a primer to the Refueling design and career, which will be discussed more in the build up to its release.
Fuel Mechanics in Star Citizen Alpha 3.1
In Alpha 3.1, all of our ships have a Hydrogen Fuel Tank and most have a Quantum Fuel Tank, snubs being the common exception. The ship’s thrusters consume fuel stored in the Hydrogen Fuel Tank and convert it into thrust with a small draw from the Power Plant. When in Quantum Travel, thrusters use the fuel contained in the Quantum Fuel Tank.
A common misconception is that fuel is only used during Boost or Afterburner. Actually, fuel was intended to be consumed during any use of the thrusters. Most ships have a Fuel Intake, again snubs tend to be the exception, that regenerate fuel from the environment. Fuel should usually regenerate faster than what standard maneuvering burns while in space. Sustained maneuvers involving Boost or Afterburner, as well as use in atmosphere, will consume more fuel than can be regenerated. This will deplete the fuel bar located on the HUD. Stopping these maneuvers will typically refill the fuel bar, although most ships need to be moving for the regeneration to occur. Hence, if a ship is left running while landed, you may return to discover it has less fuel in it.
If you run out of either type of fuel, the only way to refuel your ship is by visiting a Cry-Astro station or filing an insurance claim at an ASOP terminal.
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The first step to moving your spaceship is to create thrust and fire it out of a thruster. The broad, in-game explanation behind creating that thrust is as follows:
1. Fuel Intakes scoop natural gases from the environment and funnel them into the ship.
a. To get the most amount of gas into your ship, seek out areas of concentrated gas.
b. Using your Fuel Intakes in regular space may scoop limited quantities of gas or none at all.
2. These gases are converted into plasma.
a. Fuel Intakes will do a basic conversion on a limited range of gas types.
b. Refineries will provide more conversion options.
3. Converted plasma is stored in the Fuel Tank, previously called the Hydrogen Fuel Tank.
a. These tanks can only store one type of plasma at a time.
4. When thrust is needed, plasma pumps through the Power Plant and is converted/agitated into energized plasma.
5. The energized plasma is funneled into thrusters.
6. Thrust is produced and the ship moves appropriately.
Hydrogen is the most common element in space. All ships can use hydrogen to power their thrusters, but it is not the only type of gas that can be converted. Some ships can harvest and convert varying types of gas that when refined provide additional benefits, such as increased efficiency or reduced emissions. You can only store one type of plasma in each fuel tank so pick wisely. If you wish to change types, you must purge that tank before refilling, which is not recommended in deep space.
Refineries are the key to converting other gases into usable fuel. While Fuel Intakes do a passable conversion job, Refineries take it to the next level. They can be found on a wide range of ships like the 100 series, Freelancer DUR, and on the high end, the Starfarer.
As part of the refining gameplay, you can select what type of fuel to scoop and where it will end up, provided you have a ship with multiple fuel tanks such as the Starfarer. You will need to monitor the situation as gas concentrations will vary by location and even within the same location.
Let’s say a gas cloud in space is a mixture of ammonia, hydrogen, and nitrogen. Ammonia would be the most efficient/dense fuel so you may be tempted to scoop it. But it’s only 9% of the gas composition, whereas nitrogen is 40%. That means it will take you just over 4x as long to get the same amount of ammonia plasma as nitrogen plasma. On the other hand, ammonia plasma is a higher grade and sells for more.
Finally, Quantum Fuel will remain as is. It will only be consumed during Quantum Travel and refilled at designated stations like Cry-Astro.
How Fuel Will Be Changing in Future Patches
The major change players will notice is that some ships no longer have the ability to regenerate or scoop fuel by default. This part of the fuel design was delayed until we could implement support features that ensure a positive player experience. These prerequisite features are:
1. A way to call for help.
2. A way to get fuel at any location.
The first issue was solved with the introduction of Service Beacons in 3.1, and the latter will be solved when the Starfarer gains refueling functionality in a future patch. Other ships capable of refueling, such as the Aegis Vulcan, will also provide refueling functionality when they are released.
Ships either have a Fuel Intake, do not have one, or have the option to equip one. To determine which ships fell into which category, we looked at their intended careers and roles, as detailed in the Shipyard series.
Combat (Short Range) – The in-game equivalent of a carrier based ship, such as the Gladius and Hornet. These ships will not come with nor have the ability to equip Fuel Intakes.
Combat (Long Range) – These ships, like the Vanguard and Retaliator, will have Intakes as their role requires them to traverse long distances.
Exploration – These ships will have Fuel Intakes by default. Their very nature dictates that they can travel long distances, well away from the nearest refueling location.
Industrial & Transport – Typically, these ships will have Fuel Intakes by default, as again they are required to travel long distances.
Support – Naturally, the Starfarer and most other ships in this career will retain them as they’ll often be expected to execute long distance and extended duration missions.
Competition – These ships will vary depending on their type. Some ships, like the Razor, feature technology that allows them to refuel, whereas others, like the M50, deal with the issue differently by having larger fuel tanks.
Some ship families, such as the Aurora and 300 series, have variants that come with a Fuel Intake by default, while the rest of the series can equip one if you procure it separately or transfer it from another ship. Furthermore, just because a ship may not have a Fuel Intake does not mean it cannot operate in deep space. There are no hard restrictions in place to prevent it. You will just need to consider your actions more carefully. You could leave enough fuel to return, call for a refuel, or make your journey a one way trip.
How Does the Origin 100 Series Air System Benefit from This?
The 100 series benefits from having an Fuel Intake and Refinery, allowing them to process more types of gas than other ships in their class. In addition, the default equipped Fuel Intake is of a higher grade (B vs C) than is standard. The 100 series also has a bespoke Refinery that can harvest a wider variety of gases than comparable systems at that price point
Out of all the starter ships, the 100 series is intended to be the most fuel efficient. Thanks to the AIR system it achieves this goal through a combination of its naturally efficient thrusters, a higher quality Fuel Intake, and the wider range of gases it can refill from via its Refinery.
Following the launch of the Origin 100 series, below are some questions and answers to provide more information on this brand-new starter ship from Origin Jumpworks.
Still have a question that you didn’t see answered below? You can still post questions on Spectrum, to be answered in Part 2 of our Q&A, here.
Special thanks to John Crewe, Corentin Billemont, and Todd Papy for their help preparing this Q&A.
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How can a fighter be effective with two size 1 guns?
Compared to other fighters at the same class it benefits from the addition of missiles and improved maneuverability.
We’re also aware of the current weakness and lack of incentive to use S1 weapons and are looking into updates to make them a more competitive choice without resorting to DPS creep.
What advantages and disadvantages does this ship have versus the three other starters?
The fuel system gives it an enhanced range. It’s less maneuverable than the Mustang. It is more maneuverable than the Aurora, but lacks it’s strength and durability.
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How does the 100i fit into the lineup of Origin? Is there a functional cohesion such as with Drake?
The 100i is the entry point into the Origin line of spaceships, the X1 sits beneath it but as a bike it is essentially in a different tree. There is no current equivalent in the Drake line up.
Its closest “equivalent” in the Origin lineup is the 85X but the two have different uses. The 85X does not have any living accommodation so cannot be used for extended durations, versus the 100 series which do and can. In addition, the 100 series can hold cargo and can be entered holding items which the 85X cannot, but the 85X does have space for a second player to sit alongside. The 100 series is great for the solo player wishing to do multiple things, while the 85X is a great ship for taking a friend sightseeing around the ‘verse .
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What ships will the Origin 100 series fit inside of?
The 100 series has not been specifically designed to fit in any specific ships.
The 135 has three times the cargo of the 100. Is that due to a different hull?
The 135c has a specific cargo module integrated in the underside rear of the ship to accommodate the additional capacity.
If there are three different hulls, why is the holoviewer model the same for all three?
Typically during concept creation we only focus on the base model and create a 3D model for that with the other variants being paint overs or simple 3D additions rather than full creations. When these variants are built out they will be updated on the holoviewer.
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Do other ships have the new AIR Fuel system, or is the Origin 100 the first?
No other ships feature the AIR Fuel system, it is Origin’s bespoke version of the tech, and specific to the 100 series. But we are planning on integrating similar systems into other ships eventually.
Will other ships be made with this system in the future?
See above.
What advantages do the AIR Fuel System give the Origin 100 over other ships?
You can read all about the AIR Fuel System, as well as the present and future state of in-game fueling mechanics in general, in our latest Fueling Design Post here.
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What ship would you compare the speed/maneuverability to?
As mentioned, imagine a half way point, maneuverability wise, between the Aurora and Mustang for the base 100i, the 125a is closer to the Mustang and the 135c when loaded will be closer to the Aurora.
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Hello,
I’d like to start this week’s blog post by thanking everyone, who shared their feedback in regards to our Alpha 3.1 release. With your help, we released a new client patch by the end of last week, implementing sought-after changes to insurance timers and the expedite fees. More info and the complete patch notes can be found here. Keep sharing your experience from the ‘Verse and let us know what you think in our feedback forum on Spectrum!
In the wake of last month’s backer survey, we also reworked our Roadmap. We condensed all mining-related tasks for 3.2 into one card, moved Salvaging, Refuel & Repair to 3.3, and added the top survey results for the upcoming release. While focusing on quality of life improvements and performance, we will continue to rework our roadmap as a living and breathing representation of the development process. So expect to see even more changes in the coming weeks. And if you haven’t yet, make sure to check out our Monthly Studio Report to see what our studios across the globe have been working on!
With that, let’s see what’s going on this week:
We’re kicking off the week with another episode of Calling All Devs today. This time, we discuss explosive decompression, count engines on the Freelancer MAX and talk about having your own apartment in ArcCorp. You can watch the episode here.
On Tuesday, the Lore Team will publish their weekly lore post. Are you looking for full immersion in our universe? Check out previously published lore posts here.
Wednesday: BUGSMASHERS! Mark Abent returns, hammer in hand, ready to smash. Catch the latest episode when it airs on our YouTube channel.
On Thursday, we’ll welcome an all-new episode of Around the Verse with the latest info from the Development team. This original episode is shaping up to be a sophisticated one!
The week will be wrapped up on Friday, with Content Manager Jared Huckaby hosting another episode of Reverse the Verse LIVE. Keep an eye out in the General section of Spectrum for the question gathering post early this week and then tune in on Twitch.tv/StarCitizen at 9am PDT / 4pm UTC for a special RTV with members of the ship team.
That’s all for this week, citizens. We’ll see you in the ‘Verse!
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We are constantly amazed by the contributions made by the Star Citizen community. Whether it’s fan art, a cinematic, a YouTube guide, or even a 3D print of your favorite ship, we love it all! Don’t forget to submit your content to our Community Hub for a chance at seeing it here!
Welcome to March’s Monthly Studio Report with updates from all our studios to provide insight into what they’ve been working on. This month, the team delivered Alpha 3.1, the first quarterly release of 2018, continued development of Squadron 42, and much more. With that said, let’s get to it.
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CLOUD IMPERIUM: LOS ANGELES
VEHICLE FEATURES
The US Vehicle Feature Team, which includes team members from Tech Design, Engineering and QA, accomplished a lot this past month. They made some vehicle-related performance improvements, such as with the Vehicle Item Thruster and Landing/Spawning Components. From there, they looked into the previous progress made on the Scanning feature. This included some further investigations, planning, and initial tasks to get this large feature moving towards delivery, and the team is eager to press forward on the feature. Finally, a large percentage of the team’s time was spent fixing over 50 bugs, including several game crash issues, in our SC Alpha 3.1 branch.
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VEHICLE PIPELINE
The Los Angeles portion of the US Vehicle Pipeline, which includes team members from Art, Tech Design and Tech Art, had a busy March. Working together with other teams outside of LA, such as Animation, VFX, SFX and UI, they launched two new vehicles: the Anvil Terrapin and the Tumbril Cyclone. The Art Team completed their pass prior to March, but continued to provide needed adjustments as other teams wrapped up these two vehicles for the SC Alpha 3.1 release, with all teams working through bugs right up to the release.
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Tech Art, being a shared resource, worked on some additional vehicles for the 3.1 release: the MISC Razor and the Aegis Reclaimer. Tech Art not only handled the ship damage, but also the rigging, animation and hook-up for landing gear compression. They can’t wait for players to experience landing the Reclaimer in the ’verse.
Meanwhile, Art and Tech Design moved forward on vehicles that will be released after 3.1. Art made advances on both the Anvil Hurricane and the updated Consolidated Outland Mustang. Tech Design worked on design briefs for some vehicles that will be slated for future release.
GAMEPLAY FEATURES
The Gameplay Feature Team continued to polish the Character Customizer, with the ordering of options, minor UI tweaks, the introduction of idle animations to give characters a more lifelike representation, and the implementation of preview sprites for customization options available in the initial roll out. This should allow players some personal expression so they don’t look too similar to others, while more advanced tech is being developed to realize the rich vision CIG has for this feature.
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After polishing the Character Customizer, the team shifted their focus to cleaning up bugs around core experiences initially released for SC Alpha 3.0., beginning with UI and reliability bugs in the insurance claim flow for vehicles. There was general ship improvement in missiles and countermeasures, including 3D radar UI for missiles and proper locking functionality when switching between targets. Issues with ship repair at Cry-Astro were also addressed. The team ensured weapons and attachments were being fully restored to repaired vehicles and that the proper aUEC was withdrawn. Finally, some light and cargo-related issues recently introduced were addressed to restore previous functionality.
NARRATIVE
The Narrative Team handled a wide variety of tasks. They delivered lore content to the site every Tuesday, including part one of the new serialized short story One Good Deed about a Vulcan pilot that runs into trouble during a refueling operation. Subscribers got access to a new portfolio focused on the history of Dumper’s Depot. Time was also spent on this month’s issue of Jump Point, delivering content for marketing materials, and filming a new batch of Loremaker’s episodes.
Besides the usual workload, the team turned their attention to building out the narrative surrounding Hurston and the Lorville landing zone. They used the location to set up highly detailed templates that track specifics of a landing zone and its surrounding biomes. As part of this, a Plant and Flora page was designed to catalogue all the different space plant varieties, their placement in-game, and more. One of those plants, the Emperor’s Bloom, even received a brief Galactapedia write-up in March’s Jump Point.
Narrative also began revamping the system for generic NPCs to help breath more life into a location. They also focused on the Xi’an by creating a document that outlines their habitation spaces. Finally, they wrote numerous descriptions for various weapons and special weapons skins.
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The Character Team worked on a multitude of assets across both Star Citizen and Squadron 42. The Legacy armor variants for Outlaws and Marines are close to being finalized, while the Hurston and Olisar Clothing Collections continue to be developed and should get into the ’verse soon.
A lot of work went into the principle characters, outfits, and weapons that will appear in Squadron 42, including the fleshing out of various alien species. In addition to all these assets, the team fixed several bugs across different character related features.
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The team wrapped up the last Service Beacon features for the 3.1 release. The final touches included the ability for players to see the required reputation for each Beacon, and their own reputation values, so they can better understand the specifics. Everyone is extremely excited to see how fans receive this, since a lot of games don’t allow for player-created content.
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The shopping service was unified under one umbrella, instead of tracking each server’s economic status. Now, all game servers will pull the pricing information from a single source. This was always the original intention, and it fixes a few commodity trading exploits. With this unification, the team also restructured commodities to better represent the flow of goods. Outposts are now the main “producers” of goods, and stations are now the major “consumers” of goods. This presents a complication though, instead of balancing the game for a single server of 50 people, the team must now balance it for the concurrent player base. This will require a few iterations, since designers need to see the amount of goods being traded by a larger segment of the population. The team is looking forward to the first batch of analytics so they can hone this system for you.
On the character front, the Hawkers are back up and running. While there wasn’t the bandwidth to clean up additional animations, designers did hook up the original animations from the demo where they were originally shown off.
They also converted a lot of basic flair items to the Item 2.0 system. Previously, they were using a lot of prefab spawning, but that system has been deprecated for the new object container system. There are known issues with some of the more complex objects, such as the liquor cabinet and the Jukebox, but there should be a vast improvement in the number of flair items working in the hangars.
Finally, the team fixed quite a few trivial issues, and overall, are happy with the Alpha 3.1 build. They hope you’re happy with the progress and look forward to giving you more in 3.2.
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The Constellation Phoenix continues through the high poly modeling phase. The current focus is on the Aquarium (interior set pieces) and other corners of the interior, which are being brought up to almost final detail stage. This work includes POMs (parallax occlusion maps) and decals. There has also been work done on ‘fancy’ custom textures to give the interior a luxurious feel.
The F8 Lightning is currently in the final, high poly (detail) phase that applies the POMs, decals, and final geo tweaks. There was also another pass on the ship lighting (exterior and interior) and materials. Finally, the team addressed ship related bugs for the release of 3.1.0.
BACKEND SERVICES
This month, the Server Engineering Team supported 3.1, assisting in work required for the Service Beacon. They also made an extension to Diffusion, which makes some communications between services during startup more reliable.
The team discovered performance issues in the one of the back-end caches responsible for holding player inventory (ships, personal items, etc.). They applied optimizations that will greatly increase the responsiveness of those services, and have also been working with the Platform Team to complete the API between Diffusion and Platform services, allowing for easy and seamless communication.
Finally, they finished “Diffusionizing” the game client. Previously, the game client could only communicate with the services via a legacy communication system, which was very rigid and not so easy to extend. Now that it is using Diffusion APIs, the game client will not only be able to more easily communicate with the back end, but all services can communicate with any game client in ways they were never able to before.
ANIMATION
ATX PU Animation focused on finishing two mission givers, Luca Brunt and Wallace Klim, and started on a third mission giver, Recco Battaglia. They are working closely with the Facial Animation Team and providing weekly progress updates to ensure the quality is up to snuff. These animations will next go to Design where they will be hooked into the AI system so players can interact with these characters for new mission content. They are also processing data for mission givers and cinematics, and are working to make sure that the quality control of the data is as close to 1-to-1 as possible. The team is having a blast playing with data from actors Mark Hamill and Gillian Anderson.
The ATX Ship Animation Team created new enter/exit animations for the Aegis Reclaimer. There was a strong push to complete the ships featured in the Alpha 3.1 release, as well as various bug fixes for the game. In addition, they made a new Dual Throttle Cockpit Type that will be showcased in an upcoming release.
OPERATIONS
March was an exciting month for the DevOps Teams. BuildOps made dramatic advances in the stability and performance of the build system with times being again cut in half in certain areas of the build pipeline. Internal build quantity and delivery numbers doubled during the month in support of the 3.1 quarterly release. Publishing Ops worked around the clock most days to identify and deliver the painstakingly detailed performance analytics needed by the dev teams, along with multiple daily internal and external publishes, including Evocati and PTU. It has been highly rewarding to see the dramatic impact of performance work by the dev teams.
March was all about 3.1. At the time of writing, the team has tested over 30 builds as an Evocati or PTU candidate. Each build requires checking of core functionality, the environment, and the launcher to make sure everything is ready to go before backers get access. Each build signed-off for PTU requires additional support after it goes to the environment. They monitor stability, provide reports of new crashes, capture performance data, and hand off everything to the Engineers and Producers to examine the next morning. The day after a publish, UK and ATX QA go over the top bug reports coming from players (via Game Support and Issue Council). They track new issues players are seeing, what is already ticketed, and what new bugs need to be investigated. As you can imagine, it’s a tremendous amount of work for each publish and the team pulled long hours to support the schedule.
Between publishes, there’s also been extensive test passes on actor synchronization, network message conversion, Ship AI, Shopkeeper animations, loadout improvements for Star Marine, outpost updates for the moons, service beacons, and new weapon skins. Ship testers were kept extremely busy as the Reclaimer, Cyclone, Terrapin, Razor variants, and the Nox Kue all come online to test. With the developer sprint teams going full-tilt, testing also started on potential 3.2 content, like the lean system and FPS Combat AI.
The Player Relations Team was all hands-on deck, coordinating with several other teams to get 3.1 through PTU to Live! The 3.1 testing cycle was the first in the new quarterly release schedule, and the team could not have done it without the heroic efforts of the Evocati and PTU testers. While work on features continued, Player Relations primarily focused on troubleshooting particularly nasty server and client crashes and working with DevOps and QA each night to sort them out.
With 3.1 now Live, the team would like to remind and encourage everyone to use the Issue Council to help triage and rate bugs and functionality. They will use that data to prioritize future updates. Plus, Issue Council participation makes players eligible to get into earlier PTU waves.
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The Ship Art Team continued their work on the game’s ever-expanding fleet. The interior of the Aegis Hammerhead is mostly set out except for the crew dorm and kitchen. Currently, the cargo bay and bridge are receiving a detail pass.
The Eclipse, another Aegis ship, is in full production with the current focus being the exterior. The team is reinforcing its stealthy appearance by tightening the pom (panel-line details), enhancing the materials, and making sure all the moving parts are operational.
AUDIO
The weapon audio system underwent a substantial refactor. Work began on designing full NLPC weapon perspective sets, along with specific sounds for various distances. An environmental weapon report, or tail layer, was added for all weapons on planetside locations to better reflect the environmental response of weapon fire.
Recently, the Audio Team took part in a sound effects recording session at Oscillate Studios, focusing on vibrating various metallic objects using transducers that respond to low frequency sounds. The metals were stimulated via synthesized tones from a MIDI keyboard that played with the pitch to impart different resonances and sympathetic rattles to a diverse range of scrap metal objects. The session’s primary focus was to create source material for ships. This was partly inspired by the sound production on the film ‘Interstellar,’ which used large scale subwoofers to resonate aircraft fuselages, modeling the behavior of spaceships under duress, simulating atmospheric entry and strong gravitational fields, and so on.
GRAPHICS
The Graphics Team implemented some major performance savings when rendering characters. All characters are split up into many different meshes, not only for swapping out clothing and armor, but also to hide individual portions of an object to avoid interpenetrating geometry. Shaders, textures, and geometry have been organized to render multiple adjacent meshes in one go, which vastly reduces the CPU cost of submitting the work to the GPU and maintains flexibility.
The team improved the quality and legibility of various UI screens with two new shader effects for the render-to-texture system. The first is an edge-highlighting effect for ship targeting displays, and the second is a drop shadow effect to help text and icons stand out against bright backgrounds.
UI
The UI Team researched ways to improve performance by analyzing where the CPU spends its time. Optimizations made to the code of the ECG graph on the visor significantly reduced the CPU cost without effecting visual quality. The ECG graph has a buffer for the heartbeat values. With every update, the game added a new value onto the front of the buffer and removed the oldest from the back, which caused an expensive memory shifting. To prevent this, the team now uses a circular buffer that stores an index to the oldest location in the buffer. When the index reaches the end of the buffer it loops back to the start in cyclical fashion. This is more efficient because memory is only written to rather than being moved around.
Alongside the UI Visual Team, the EU-1 Gameplay Team has had UI involvement with the team focusing on polishing up the VMA and PMA mobiGlas apps. For these two apps, a strong focus has been put on improving the overall user-experience by fixing bugs present in the current iteration, as well as overhauling the mobiGlas layout in general to make more use of screen real estate and breaking the menu layout into a more intuitive structure. On the engineering side, the Star Marine Loadout Customization screen in the Front End has been converted to use the PMA code. This will make fixing issues on this screen much easier, as the PMA replaces the custom code that was previously released.
The second optimization applied to the ECG was to stop redrawing the whole graph each frame. Instead, it now adds the new value to the right-hand side and moves the whole graph along to the left. It uses a clip-window to ensure only the essential parts are drawn, and the graphic data is recycled in a similar fashion to the circular buffer.
GAMEPLAY STORY
AThe Gameplay Story Team organized all the required scenes in Shotgun. Currently, they are working with Design to get the first few scenes implemented in-game and up to standard.
ENVIRONMENT
Work is underway on the next generation of space stations. This begins with Rest Stops that are created semi-procedurally, allowing the team to easily populate the PU with many variations. To accomplish this feat, they have focused on developing the tools and workflow needed to achieve it.
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The first iteration of the Rest Stop will feature three main location components. The first being an exterior that presents a unique silhouette to maximize readability from a distance. The team also can vary layout and architecture to allow for individual personality and variety between stations. Diverse building materials, color schemes, and ad placement mean that a great number of visual possibilities are achievable through the modular construction of these stations. That means the team can automate layout generation while maintaining artistic control.
Hangars are the second component. Rest Stops will be the first station type to fully utilize the ‘Common Element’ type of hangar, which can be used in every utilitarian hangar in the game. Even though the ‘Common Element’ hangar will share the same core design functionality, they are built to allow for the mixing and matching of walls, entrances, exits and service modules to achieve varied looks across locations.
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The third location component is the interior. The development of a procedural layout tool to generate these Rest Stops has been a big, and admittedly challenging, project. Work has advanced to where many layouts can automatically be generated using the tool and a set library of room and connector prefabs. Maintaining visual consistency and coherence, while still making each location appear different, remains an artistic challenge for the tool and team. Like the exterior, the trick is to randomize many of the smaller choices, like prop placement and lighting, rather than alter the larger room forms. This method allows the team to maintain artistic control over the main spaces flow and form.
PROPS
The Prop Team made improvements to the entity system within data forge. The change allows for one entity to contain both gameplay features and visual keys, while being set-up and controlled using one system. This means a set-up entity dropped it into any level will retain all working functionality. This makes syncing easier between animation and material effects, such as glows or UI elements. This has significantly reduced the number of lights needed to fake glowing materials or flashing lights during different stages of animation.
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Another task had the team revising metrics and template assets for usables and interactive props. This makes them easier to understand and allows for improved scalability and functionality support. Building on these tech improvements, they can now create destructible props that mesh swap and update environmental effects, such as lights, VFX, and audio accordingly. These tech developments are still in the early stages, and laying the foundation for future releases.
A new set of “low-tech” medical props are being built out, alongside new medical dressings. Both are planned for use throughout the PU as common medical elements. Finally, the team worked on the sub-items that will be used to customize the performance of ship components. They are also making sure that there is a wide variety of visuals to support the gameplay when the feature comes online.
DESIGN
The Missions Team is in the early stages of replacing the existing AI with an upgraded version. They have been focused on balancing and implementing wildlines for the AI controlled characters. Wildlines are pieces of dialogue that play systemically when the AI receives a trigger, such as damage. The lines personalize each player’s experience, as the AI will communicate with players differently depending on their relationship and history.
As the AI continues to develop, the team also took the opportunity to reassess Arena Commander’s Vanduul and Pirate Swarm game modes. They rebalanced both with the focus on delivering a satisfying experience, rather than an extremely difficulty one. Another exciting creation is a prototype scramble race event, which can occur in space or planetside. These death races have opponents battling to collect randomly generated checkpoints and, more importantly, to stay alive. The races rely heavily on dialogue, so there’s a recording session planned to capture the necessary clips. Finally, the team has been rebalancing the reputation progression system. This was done because it became apparent that accruing a negative reputation was too easy and attaining a positive one too challenging.
VFX
The VFX department collaborated with Graphics to improve the GPU particle system. VFX Artists are implementing lean production techniques to prioritize features that will provide maximum impact. Examples would be improved Spawn Inheritance and Curl Noise. Both features create better, cheaper electrical and plasma effects for things like the Coil interior and EMP weapons.
They also worked through a large “snag list” for the Alpha 3.1 release. Tasks tackled included toning down the dust mote opacity in certain environments that underwent lighting updates, and re-adding planet/moon effects to work with the planetary tech improvements.
TECH DESIGN
Tech Design finalized Alpha 3.1 work by implementing and tuning new weapons like the Gallenson Tactical Systems ballistic gatling, Preacher Armament distortion scattergun, and Amon & Reese Co. laser cannon. They also supported the conversion of existing gear to Weapon 2.0.
The team also focused on rebalancing. A lot was covered, including distortion weapons, after fixes allowed them to affect items instead of just shields. Countermeasures were made more effective post Item 2.0 implementation. Iterations of flight balance continued with a focus on atmospheric landing turbulence. Shield setback and regeneration rates were also rebalanced.
At the other end of the pipeline, they worked with Art on exciting new ship concepts. These designs will be revealed throughout the year during Ship Shape segments in Around the Verse.
DERBY ANIMATION
The Derby office continued to expand its operations and prepare for motion capture shoots to further refine the player and AI movement sets. It was a pleasure to welcome several valued backers during the recent Imperator Subscribers event, where developers demonstrated core elements of their workflow, including facial animation, motion capture, and technical animation. The tour also offered the opportunity to scan three more faces that you can look forward to seeing in the ’verse.
Progress was made on R&D for the Vanduul face rig and internal facial rig technologies, along with iterations to female rigs in Maya. The new 1:1 conversion updates to the rig will break a lot of animations that use props so the team has been developing an automated solution to fix the animation files without an Animator having to manually go through and re-work everything.
Finally, the Facial Animation Team was busy finalizing animations on various PU shopkeepers, bartenders, and mission givers. This includes blending all the animations from the same facial poses, so they all play seamlessly from one to another.
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FOUNDRY 42: DE
ENVIRONMENT ART
The Environment Art Team recently wrapped up polishing the existing moons in the persistent universe. Cellin, Yela, Daymar and Delamar all received a visual update that will further enrich the experience at each location for the 3.1 release. With the update of the existing locations completed, the team is shifting focus to Hurston. Hurston will benefit massively from new planet tech updates, and further additions to the planet tech are on the roadmap for the coming weeks. The numerous updates will help make Hurston a unique experience, pushing biomes further than what players have seen so far on the existing moons. The team is also close to wrapping up the whitebox stage of the Lorville landing zone. Layout and locations have been approved by all departments involved, and the team is preparing to start full production to bring the city to its next stage.
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ENGINE
The Engine Team regularly works on both long-term items as well as low level bugs and performance, and this month was no exception. They refined the auto performance capture code and tools used to track heavy stalls on both client and server. The tools automatically take performance captures if the frame rate falls below a given threshold for a specified amount of time. They then analyze the captures and optimize code, content, and level set up if necessary.
They made further progress on the performance telemetry system that will submit data so the team can analyze what typically happens on servers and clients, what actions cause performance slowdowns, etc. The data should allow them to tweak the game and improve the overall player experience. They also continued to work on reducing the initial startup time of the game. They found a lot of inefficient data parsing meant that the game would launch slowly, especially during the first startup on HDDs after the computer had been booted up.
The Engine Team worked on optimizations of the physics terrain mesh generation, and optimized data layout and SSE instructions to improve computation speed. They reworked API for component updates to provide more flexibility and opportunity for further code optimizations, batching of updates, etc. The team handled rendering improvements for the vegetation shader. Good progress was made on skin rendering improvements, which included work on rendering eyes, teeth and tongues. An investigation into pushing the quality and fidelity of facial animations was kicked off. Plus, they continued code size and build time investigations. It’s an ongoing effort to uncover the reasons for increased code size and compile times to see what can be reduced. This is an ongoing task and the findings will be applied globally.
TECH ART
The Tech Art Team built a new tool called cigXfer. It helps artists transfer skin data on various meshes, as well as on LOD meshes, without any assistance from a tech artist. This significantly speeds up the art update process, enabling artists to be more self-sufficient. They also implemented a large amount of animations that will be used for Squadron 42 cinematics.
They collaborated with the Weapons Team to complete the previsualization rig and game entity for the Kastak Arms Scalpel sniper rifle. Work was done on a run time physic simulation for a portion of the handle of the combat knife. Research and development was done to refine the alignment of the camera with the sight of a weapon while leaning. They developed content with an additional bone titled “ADS_align” to help achieve the desired results. They are currently testing the new approach on the Klaus & Werner Gallant rifle, and once verified it will be replicated to additional weapons.
The team worked with Art and Tech Design to produce Centurion and Imperator weapon skins for the Gemini LH86 pistol, Kastak Arms Devastator shotgun, and Klaus & Werner Arrowhead sniper rifle. They also continued R&D and implementation of the tools required for the next iteration of the Character Customizer. They primarily focused on consolidating how hundreds of head and head attachment assets (i.e. hair, beards or helmets) are being authored in Maya and then exported into the engine. Since every attachment is supposed to work with every possible head shape, even procedurally generated ones, they had to ensure the head topology remained 100% consistent during export.
LEVEL DESIGN
The PU Level Design Team had several locations to design, and tech needed for future content building to work on. Lorville, a flagship landing zones, received quite a bit of attention, and is being used as a test bed for numerous systems and Common Elements. These systems include Security, Smuggling, Transit, Air Traffic Control, Hangars, etc. The Common Elements work in tandem with these systems and serve as their representation in the game world: for example, a Security Office and guards for Security, Customs for Smuggling, Train Stations for Transit, and a Spaceport for the Air Traffic Controller and Hangars. To connect everything there needs to be transitional spaces, arrival areas, and terminals to make it feel believable, while being diligent about not inflating the playable space too much. Here are some examples of these transitional spaces:
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They also continued work on the Procedural Tool for generating interior spaces. This tool is essential for Level Design to efficiently deliver the amount of content needed for generic locations like Rest Stops, Refineries, Cargo Depots etc. The tool is still in progress and will require more iterations and additions before it’s ready, which is a natural part of the R&D process. Here are examples of two generated layouts seen top down as a comparison:
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CINEMATICS
The Cinematics Team supported Squadron 42 level design efforts that previously had a lower priority. For these chapters, they blocked out and completed quick previs animation exports where level sections are still in the whitebox phase. For locations that are further along, like the Idris (Stanton) and the Bengal carrier, they did performance capture animation exports aligned to geometry and a defined scene root for all actors in the scene. This is an ongoing effort, as each chapter has a huge number of narrative scenes ranging from comms calls, conversations, walk & talk greetings, NPC chatter, and more complex scenes with multiple key characters in full-on filmic cinematics. In addition to the previs exports, they also focused on a handful of scenes featuring Gillian Anderson as Captain Rachel Maclaren. With the Vanduul Kingship bridge almost finished, they did a first camera pass on the cinematic Vanduul character sequences required for the story. This work coincides with a concentrated push for the Vanduul across different departments. Currently, Tech Animation is working on the Vanduul face rig, Character Art and Animation tackling costumes, key poses & silhouettes, and the Weapons Team focusing on Vanduul weaponry.
An important part of cinematics work is to regularly sync with ship and environment artists. The teams discuss issues with the default metrics dictated for mechanisms like doors, displays, chairs and the existing geometry, or address problems that arise when performance capture deviates slightly from metrics or meshes. Most of these metrics were in place for the main shoot, but occasional tweaks or updates must be made to either meshes or the animation. It always requires the teams to carefully weigh what requires the least amount of rework and impact. Cinematics also supported Graphics Engineering to upgrade the human skin shading. They built a test lighting setup that mimicked reference photographs and replicated a PCAP head-camera setup in the engine. Results of this R&D and shading work will be seen in the coming months.
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The DE Lighting Team supported the 3.1 patch. Their recent focus was finalizing a new lighting pass on the Echo 11, as changes to the lighting tools and technology have left the Star Marine maps visually out of sync. They’ve also helped the planet team with minor tweaks and polish to the atmospheres and color grading for Crusader’s three moons and Delamar. In addition, they assisted with several 3.1 goals, such as the new mobiGlas PMA/VMA character and item rendering, the Character Customizer, and general optimizations.
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The DE VFX Team worked with UK programmers to further improve various tools, such as curl noise. This is a 3D noise field that perturbs the particles as they travel through the field, which creates some very unique and volumetric looking effects. They’ve also been fleshing out the Vanduul tech style, experimenting with the curl noise in combination with vector fields to create a visual style that sets the Vanduul apart.
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The DE Weapons Team finished the first art pass for the Kastak Arms Scalpel sniper rifle, and completed the Centurion and Imperator subscriber flair skins for a few weapons.
SYSTEM DESIGN
The DE System Design Team moved forward with the mining system. Their first goal is to get mining functional for planet/moon surfaces, so the Prospector will be fully operational. They will move on to additional mining types once that is completed. Mining is still being prototyped but the current results are promising from a gameplay and visual perspective. They are currently able to shatter mineable rocks, and are working on the harvesting functionality that will transfer resources from those smaller pieces into the Prospector’s mining containers. Once completed, they will integrate mining with other systems like radar and scanning, which will be used to find mineable deposits and analyze their contents.
Progress was made on FPS Combat AI. After solving low cover, they implemented high cover for Human AI, and focused on making the timings and transitions as snappy as possible. Now, they are slowly moving into more complex behaviors like flanking, which allows the AI to work better as a team and force the player to think tactically and constantly adapt to what the AI is doing. They also considered what elements from human combat could be used by alien races, and experimented with ways to make them feel unique, so players must deal with aliens differently than their human counterparts.
The first batch of the reworked ship AI is now in 3.1, though some additional functionality is still outstanding. The system is being built so players can choose how to train and specialize their hired NPCs. FPS AI will use the same system in the future to achieve similar goals. On the non-combatant side of AI, they experimented with creating small story vignettes for locations, focusing on Lorville. This should infuse the location with more life and grant the AI more storytelling ability than walking around and sitting on benches. The hope is for players to experience what the lives of the population in a location are like, sympathize with them, and potentially choose sides. To achieve that, the non-combatants need to become more lively and complex.
Towards the end of the month, the team worked closely with Level Designers and Artists on the procedural location tool. They focused on the functionality needed for the tool to create nice environments and connect gameplay systems, like rooms, oxygen, gravity, security and generated AI populations. The tool must do it in a way that once the location is generated, there will be only minor adjustments before it can be released. The goal with this system is to ensure the team can output quality content at lightning speeds with a minimal amount of menial work. That way the team can quickly fill an entire universe, while keeping it feeling specific, depending on the location.
BUILD ENGINEERING
The DE Build Engineers added a sanity check for the RC to TryBuilder. While engineers work, they may change the Resource Compiler (RC), which can sometimes lead to failed builds. With so many unique asset types, it becomes difficult for an engineer to ensure that nothing is going to break. Additionally, engineers may touch a cpp file without even being aware that it may affect the RC. To alleviate this, they isolated a minimal subset of assets and now have them compiled whenever any code in the main branch changes. Each code change that goes into p4 is checked and the whole process is quick, essentially compiling one sample of every type of assets in the Engine. Now, before starting the process of creating a new a build, the team can check the state of RC. If it’s red (as in, the process described above is failing) they know there’s an issue to address. They also added some powerful dedicated hardware to the TryBuild cluster for profiling speed improvements in compilation. This has brought compilation times down significantly, which shifted focus back to optimizing other steps whose build-times now contribute a proportionally significant amount towards the entire build time.
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The above illustrates a Perforce-state caching mechanism and smart querying method for comparing local workspace to the relevant global branch the code is being built on. This simplified state-caching mechanism is used to determine if any further version-control communication is necessary. Initial optimizations removed 30 seconds from any build regardless of the machine’s state. In further precise situations, where the slave is confirmed up-to-date, it skips syncing entirely. That saves an additional 30 seconds minimum, yielding build results that can potentially be as low as 15 seconds total. In addition to adding dedicated hardware and eliminating time-costing checks from bootstrap steps for code validation, the team is now looking at binary caching mechanisms so the code-building machines can simply retrieve the compilation results that have already been processed.
QA
For the DE QA team, most of March centered around Subsumption testing with a new version available to test each week. As new features are implemented into the Subsumption Tool, the team maintains and revamps the existing documentation and checklists to ensure QA covers all necessary test cases for Subsumption testing. DE QA also supported the in-house development team with various requests from simple tests to verify if issues devs have encountered are due to their local files or an actual issue within the current build, to the more complex tests that require custom binaries and comparing differences between builds. One recent request involved testing changes that could potentially affect prefabs within the Engine. Extensive prefab testing was performed using custom binaries and test cases to intentionally attempt to break the prefab system. When an issue was discovered, this was brought to the Engine Team’s attention, and they proceeded to fix the issue and return new binaries to continue the testing. Similarly, the team focused on numerous physics test requests for changes that could potentially break other functionality within the client. These changes contained stability improvements to address various physics crashes that were plaguing Evocati in the PTU. While they normally work in the Game-Dev stream, most of the testing was focused on 3.1 as the live release date closed in.
AI
Focus was primarily devoted to stabilizing the dogfight behavior. Flight AI is a young system, and the team is working on the skill characterization of the pilot’s abilities to balance the overall combat experience. A pass was made on the target chase velocities and attack ranges, two important factors to render the combat dynamics less prone to collide with obstacles or escape the assigned boundaries. The AI team also worked on improving player interaction with combat AI. This comes in the form of new behaviors, internally tweakable parameters (like accuracy and missile usage) for designers, and adding wildlines for PU pilots. For AI FPS Combat, they are currently implementing flanking behavior. Further work was done to update the logic for bullet rain, and improve flinch reactions when an AI’s cover gets compromised and they need to leave quickly or target and shoot. In addition, the team addressed bugs and optimized the code for the 3.1 release.
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TURBULENT
March saw major developments in Spectrum with a new release to PTU and Public, a new connectivity API between the platform and the game services, and cosmetic upgrades to promotion pages.
SPECTRUM
Spectrum version 3.7.4 was released to PTU. This version included custom roles, custom emojis and a user block list. The release to PTU gave the team much needed insight, and as a result they created a list of improvements around these features to be included in the live release.
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The team had help from the Evocati, who have been instrumental in hunting down bugs and providing direct feedback, in preparation for the live release of 3.7.4. The UX and Design Team has been building interactions for organizations in Spectrum, which includes direct interaction and survey support with Evocati to ensure that the teams are building with community needs at the forefront.
Over the next month, Turbulent’s Spectrum development team will refocus their efforts on the game overlay, work towards 3.2 deliveries, and make process changes to align their efforts with CIG’s internal pipeline.
LAUNCHER
Some minor changes were made to the Launcher, with the latest version, 1.0.1-alpha, including consistency check and bug fixes that affect the analytics reporting.
RSI PLATFORM
The team continues to make minor adjustments to the site’s new elements. You may notice some changes to readability as well as the resolution of some bugs on IE11.
The biggest platform changes are not visible to the user. The team rebuilt the Backend API to prepare for new services with Diffusion. Although the work is not complete, the team took on this three-week crunch project to build the base required to move forward. The rework will open the door for new features, most notably Spectrum chat.
A new weekly newsletter was launched, with a cleaner sleeker design, includes optimizations for those reading on mobile phones.
KNOWLEDGE BASE
The knowledge base designs have been approved and are in development. This project is needed resource for backers and the Player Relations Team. Here’s a sneak peek at the final designs.
The site’s contact form and mobile design are being polished to provide the best possible user experience. The objective is to help citizens find the information they need, and reduce queue times when they need help from Player Relations.
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ST. PATRICK’S DAY & 3.1 FLYABLE PROMOTION
The team supported the setup and design for the St Patrick’s and 3.1 Flyable promotion. It was exciting to see all the in-game shots coming from the new 3.1 flyable ships, and integrate them into the design of the sales page.
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Community
And this is how quickly a quarter of a year can pass. After announcing the switch to a quarterly release cycle at last year’s CitizenCon, everyone at Cloud Imperium Games was eager to hit this self-imposed deadline and provide players with a content update. The team even provided the community with a public roadmap updated directly from internal project management tools. The weeks leading up to the Alpha 3.1 release have been hectic, but the team made the deadline and released the first update of 2018!
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Thanks to all the dedicated testers who helped make the release of Alpha 3.1 possible. The entire CIG team sincerely appreciates your efforts during the Evocati and PTU phases, and hopes you have a blast playing the latest version on the live servers!
Even with Alpha 3.1 in the hands of all backers, the team isn’t going to rest. The Alpha 3.2 Feature Survey took the opportunity to reassess development priorities with feedback from the community. It let you vote on what features you were most excited to see implemented or improved, ensuring a fun and lasting gaming experience. Voting is closed, but you can check the results on this page.
As always, the team produced content across various social media channels. If you haven’t already, check out the new crowd favorite Calling All Devs, where Jared Huckaby calls developers from his desk to ask questions voted on by the Star Citizen community. Episodes of Around the Verse focused on performance and optimization, the AI on the living Idris, the sounds of science, and a magnificent Ship Shape featuring the impressive Aegis Reclaimer and the nimble Tumbril Cyclone.
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Speaking of ships, the Aegis Vulcan was the first concept ship in 2018 and a gateway to a versatile support career in Star Citizen. The team celebrated St. Patrick’s Day with special offers and the Constellation Phoenix Emerald – an appropriate variation to celebrate the spirit of the Irish holiday. Alongside the promotion ran a St. Patrick’s Day Screenshot contest where you had the opportunity to win game packages, including the aforementioned Phoenix. Check out the event thread to see all the entries. Well done everyone and congratulations to the winners!
Also, the team celebrated a marvelous milestone when the number of citizens hit the 2,000,000 mark! Thank you for joining us on this journey. You inspire us every day through your creations, and we’re happy to be part of such an active and creative community.
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Hi everyone,
First and foremost, Star Citizen Alpha 3.1 is now live and available to play for all backers. Thank you to everyone who helped test on the PTU in the lead-up to release; we could not have done it without you!
This update marks the first of four quarterly patches planned to be released this year, and the inaugural success of the new delivery schedule. We can’t wait to explore the ‘Verse with you throughout 2018 as we continue to develop the Star Citizen universe with you.
Sunday brought a slew of festivities including a Star Citizen Scavenger Hunt and the first episode episode of From Digital to Delicious: Procedural Cuisine – a brief introduction of our upcoming procedurally generated food system… in 10 hours.
Were you entranced by the endless possibilities of 3D rendering an egg? Us too! (#AprilFools)
With that, let’s see what’s going on this week:
On Monday, in an all new episode of Calling All Devs, we answer your questions on docking, scanning, blind quantum travel, and more. Watch the latest episode here.
This Tuesday we’ll embark on a journey alongside our lore team to explore the Nul system. Enjoy this series? Check out previously released episodes here.
Thursday will bring us an all new episode of Around the Verse where we’ll check in with the UK Office, and take a deeper look at the Personal Manager Application in your mobiGlas. No summoning threads required! (I shouldn’t have said that)
Lastly, make sure to tune in on Friday for another episode of Reverse the Verse, which we’ll broadcast live on our official Twitch channel.. Details TBD, so check back in the coming days for more info.
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We are constantly amazed by the contributions made by the Star Citizen community. Whether it’s fan art, a cinematic, a YouTube guide, or even a 3D print of your favorite ship, we love it all! Don’t forget to submit your content to our Community Hub for a chance at seeing it here!
We are excited to announce the release of Alpha Patch 3.1.0 to all Star Citizen backers. This update marks the first of four quarterly patches planned to be released this year, and the inaugural success of the new delivery schedule. At the start of the year, our internal teams underwent a restructuring to allow for easier coordination and focus on a particular aspect or feature. Thanks to this new approach, the development team was able to more efficiently tackle the goals outlined for 3.1 on our Production Roadmap and introduce several new gameplay features and optimizations to Star Citizen.
Starting with Alpha 3.1, players will find new ways to interact with each other. The Character Customizer is now accessible from the main menu and allows players to distinguish their avatars with various combinations of hair style, skin tone, and more. This is just our first iteration of the system and we have a lot more planned for future releases, but even at this early stage it is exciting to see all the new and varied faces exploring the halls of Port Olisar and Grim HEX. Starting with this patch, players will also be able create Service Beacons from the Contract Manager in their mobiGlas and hire other players to provide Combat Assistance or Personal Transport. This new system will be a huge boon to players who may need a ride back to a station from the wilds of Crusader’s three explorable moons, and represents a whole new revenue stream for players willing to lend their combat skills to aid others. This feature is also an initial iteration that will be improved and expanded in future releases, but it’s an important step in further developing the kind of emergent gameplay that is intended for the Persistent Universe.
Not only that, the bevy of new flyable ships and open-canopy vehicles introduced in this patch will provide players exciting options for crewing up and exploring the Stanton system together. Measuring over 150 meters, the Reclaimer is the largest ship currently in-game. This heavy industrial salvage ship from Aegis Dynamics is so massive that the environment art team has expanded Port Olisar’s landing pads to accommodate it. Explorers will want to get behind the sticks of the Anvil Terrapin. The ship’s robust shield system and distinct layered armor make it ideal for exploring untamed space. Racers looking to experience breakneck speed can climb into the MISC Razor. The ship will be a perennial Murray Cup contender thanks to advanced Xi’an thruster technology and a streamlined design.
Plus, exploring Crusader’s moons just got more exciting with the addition of the Aopoa Nox Kue and Tumbril Cyclone. The Nox Kue is a special variant of the renowned Xi’an open-canopy racer that Aopoa redesigned specifically for Humans. The Tumbril Cyclone is a rugged off-road ground vehicle ready to tackle any terrain. Both vehicles are perfect for traversing Cellin, Daymar, and Yela, which also received upgrades in Alpha 3.1, thanks to planetary technology improvements that updated surface textures and topography for more visually dynamic and detailed landscapes.
Additionally, the development team polished many of the exciting features that launched with the 3.0 patch in December. Updates to the IFCS (flight control), AI, the Personal Manager tool on each player’s mobiGlas, ship weapons, ship damage physics and overall performance optimization, all are working in concert to improve the overall Star Citizen gameplay experience.
NEW FEATURES
Character Customizer
With this feature, players can adjust aspects of their character’s physical appearance, such as face shape, eye color, hair style, and skin tone.
Logout Improvements
Players can now safely logout from major stations like Levski, Grim HEX, and Port Olisar. This will persist between sessions for when players log back into the game.
Pirate Hunter
Player will now earn virtue reputation for killing NPC pirates.
Interdiction and Quantum Jamming
AI pilots can now carry Quantum Jammers aboard their ships. These devices produce a field which stop Quantum Drives from being able to function. Players who are interdicted will now first have to destroy ships carrying Jammers before they can Quantum Travel away to safety.
Service Beacons
Service Beacons have been introduced to the PU economy. Using the mobiGlas, players can create and customize “Personal Transport” or “Combat Assistance” contracts that will be made available to other players to complete for the agreed upon payment. After the contract ends, players will be able to review each others performance with a positive or negative rating.
Combat Markers
The old Combat Markers were replaced with new 3D versions that include target brackets, hit indication, and missile locks.
Visor Screen
The visor screen has had additional hit effects for shields and hull areas added to the displays for your ship and targeted ships.
A new MFD screen has been added allowing players to customize the view angles of the target/self visor screens.
New Ships and Vehicles
Tumbril Cyclone
Aegis Reclaimer
Anvil Terrapin
MISC Razor
Nox Kue
New Ship Weapons
PRAR Distortion Scatterguns
Salvation (size 4)
Absolution (size 5)
Condemnation (size 6)
APAR Ballistic Scattergun
Havoc (size 1)
Hellion (size 2)
Predator (size 3)
KBAR 10-Series Greatsword Ballistic Cannon (size 2)
AMRS Omnisky IX Laser Cannon
GATS Yellowjacket Ballistic Gatling (size 1)
CF-557 Galdereen Repeater (size 5)
Star Marine
KSAR Custodian Energy SMG
GMNI R97 Ballistic Shotgun
You can find the full patch notes for Alpha 3.1.0 here.
Ein neues Update zu Star Citizens Singleplayer-Kampagne Squadron 42 zeigt in einem Video Schiffe und eine verbesserte AI in Kampfsituationen. Das Bengal-Trägerschiff ist ebenso Thema wie die Schnellreisefunktion innerhalb des selbigen, welche während…
This week, Sean Tracy and Eric Kieron Davis host our latest Squadron 42 special, where we get a detailed project update and a look into the intricacies of Ship AI.
Writer’s Note: Part two of The Cup was published originally in Jump Point 1.9. You can read Part one here.
At the end of the first stage in the Murray Cup race through the Ellis system, Ykonde Remisk edged out Hypatia Darring with a boost flare that, while technically legal, was definitely dangerous. Both of these two Human racers finished ahead of their main competition, the veteran Tevarin Zogat Guul and the wily Xi’an Nyanāl Mo‘tak Xu.oa. Darring reacts to Remisk’s maneuver …
Darring jumped out of her racer, sped across the carrier bay floor, found Remisk in the middle of a media gang, and drove her fist toward his cheery face.
He ducked just in time.
One of Remisk’s crew grabbed Darring and held her back as she hurled accusations. “You son of a bitch! You could have killed me!”
Remisk recovered from the attempted assault and played it cool in front of the crowd, adjusting his collar and giving a weak smile. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Darring. I ran a clean race.”
“You tried to burn me alive!”
Shock and dismay spread among the faces of those gathered.
Out of the corner of her eye, Darring could see an MCR official coming their way with a concerned look on his face, but she didn’t care. She fought her way out of the crewman’s grasp and took another swing. Remisk caught her arm and held it tightly.
“Back off, Darring,” he said, “or I’ll file a complaint.”
“I’ll file one requesting your dismissal, you cheap —”
“Humans, come now, let’s remain civil.”
Mo‘tak pushed his way through the crowd and stood beside Remisk. He waited until the MCR rules official arrived, then continued. “Attend these words — I can assure you that from my perspective, Mr. Remisk violated no MCR rules. In fact, not only was his move brilliant in its simplicity, but it showed a deep dedication to the integrity of the sport. Remisk never once touched his ship to Ms. Darring’s. He showed incredible care in the maneuver. I can attest to that.”
“You can attest to kissing my —”
Guul stepped in and peeled Remisk’s fingers from Darring’s arm. He whispered into her ear. “Come on, let’s go. Not here, not this way.”
Mo‘tak chuckled. “You should listen to him, young one. Guul is a wise soul.”
Guul ignored Mo‘tak and pulled Darring through the crowd. “I said, let’s go.”
She relented, and they made their way out of the carrier bay and into a long narrow corridor that led to a small atrium with chairs and tables that looked out over Ellis III. The planet’s orbit was alive with the race as it continued with the remaining racer groups down list. It was a beautiful display, the rings of the course pulsing their light, and the blur of racecraft rushing through them at marvelous speeds.
Darring looked out at it, and her anger began to subside.
“Take a seat, Hypatia,” Guul said as he pulled one chair away from a table. Darring sat, crossed her arms, and kept looking out at the race.
Guul sat down across from her, taking care as he bent into the Human-style chair. “Now tell me … what was that all about?”
Darring did not respond at first, but she met Guul’s stern gaze with her own. Then she blinked, sighed, and said, “He cheated. He cut me off and blew fire into my face.”
“It is not a violation of the rules, and you know it.”
“Well, it should be.”
“You know,” Guul said, shaking his head and leaning back, “I would not expect a loose cannon like yourself to be such a slave to the rules.”
Darring finally smiled. “A residual from my father’s parenting. ‘Play by the rules, Hypatia’,” she said, imitating a deep manly voice, “ ‘win by the rules, and they can never have cause to take your victories away’.”
“It is a noble statement,” Guul said, “but, in racing, a touch naive. There are rules, and then there are rules. But you pull something like that again, especially with witnesses, and you’re the one that will be expelled, not Remisk.”
Darring sloughed off his warning. “He’s a jackass, and so is Mo‘tak.”
“That is true, but there’s nothing you can do about it right now. They will do what they have to do to win, and you must keep your cool. Besides,” Guul said, his gaze growing more serious, his face cast down toward the racers rushing past, “I want my last race to be against the best. And if you are expelled, then it will be against wanna-bes and has-beens.”
Darring wrinkled her brow with concern. “Why is this your last? You have many years ahead.”
Guul nodded. “Many years perhaps, but not as a racer. Every joint aches, every bone brittle, and my eyes are failing. It is time.”
Darring sat in quiet, not wanting to speak, not wanting to accept that her hero was near the end. And she had just met him. How could he be leaving now, when she had so much to speak to him about, so much to learn? Afterwards, he would likely return home (wherever that may be), and she’d never see him again. Time would be so precious during the race. When would she have another opportunity to talk to him, to learn from him? If this is his last Cup, she thought, then perhaps I should back off a bit, let him have a course or two, let him take the lead when —
“What is that look?”
She turned to him, shrugged innocently. “What look?”
Guul leaned forward. “You’re thinking about throwing the race for me, aren’t you? You’re thinking, ‘Give the old Tevarin one more victory.’ Well, forget such nonsense. My people are warriors, Hypatia, and we have a saying: ‘Honor your enemy, praise him if you must, but never lose a chance to kill him.’ Here, you and I are friends. Out there,” he said, pointing to the race, “we are foe. Promise me, that if we find ourselves neck and neck on the final lap, and you have an opportunity to win, that you will. That you will show me no mercy, no quarter, and then at least I will know that if I lose, I have lost against the best. Promise me.”
His face was so serious, Darring knew that he would not let her leave the room until she promised and did so sincerely.
She nodded. “I promise.”
Guul stood. “Excellent. Now, I owe you a dinner. Hungry?”
“Famished!”
They walked together through the corridor, took a turn toward the carrier’s mess. It was a good idea to get a full meal before heading to Ellis IV, and some rack time as well. The next several legs of the race would be tough, and Darring would have to face her crew chief soon and figure out if any serious damage had been done to her engine. It was not a conversation she was looking forward to.
“Have your crew chief speak to mine,” Guul said. “He’s an old M50 pilot and has been around as long as I —”
Guul did not finish his words. They had turned a corner and there stood three Humans wrapped in dark clothing to match the faint light of the corridor. The three did not hesitate.
One pulled a knife and slashed towards Darring’s throat. She leaned back instinctively and felt the wind of the brutal attack across her chin. The blade did not find flesh, however, and she tumbled back against the wall.
The other two were on Guul immediately, but despite the Tevarin’s confession of joint pain, he moved quickly, subduing one in a headlock and guarding off the fists of the other. Darring tried to get to him, but her assailant was not finished. He slashed again with his blade, this time toward her stomach. She knocked his arm back with a move she had learned in Basic, then drove her fist into his kidney.
As the man lurched back, recovering from the blow, Darring recognized his face. He was from Mo‘tak’s entourage, the one who had shielded his boss and nodded to her as the Xi’an had walked away. She gnashed her teeth, scowled, and drove her boot into his crotch, knocking him to his knees. She continued her assault against his face, striking him twice before he managed to turn, kick out his leg, and swipe her feet from beneath her. Darring fell hard, her hip reeling from its concussion against the corridor floor.
He was on her again, but she was ready. She timed her move, brought her knees up quickly and flung him up the corridor. She tried rising to pursue, but the body of another assailant flew over her and hit the wall. She looked toward Guul and found him making mincemeat of the third man’s face. His companions, bloody, beaten and clearly not wishing further punishment, collected themselves quickly and dashed away.
Guul released the third man, pushed him back against the wall. Darring tried moving against him, but despite his mangled face, he got away from her grasp, grabbed his blade and shot away down the corridor in the opposite direction of his accomplices.
Darring went to Guul’s side. He had slipped down the wall and was holding a bloody gash across his stomach. Darring moved his hand away to look at it. “Bastards,” she said, helping him to his feet. “Bloody bastards. Come on, let’s get you to the hospital.”
Guul shook his head and pushed her away. “No. Just get me to my crew. It’s not that bad. I’ve had worse.”
“But we have to tell someone about this. Tell them it’s Remisk and Mo‘tak.”
“How do you know that?”
“One of the men . . . I saw him in Mo‘tak’s gang the other day.”
He nodded. “But you can’t prove it.”
“Come on, Guul,” she said, letting her anger rise again. “Don’t play stupid. You know who ordered this.”
“You may be right, but they are far too smart to leave evidence lying around. And if you’re wrong, then it will reflect badly on you, especially after your unprovoked assault against Remisk. Mo‘tak has too many friends among MCR officials. This will go away as quickly as it was attempted.” He pointed down the corridor, toward the atrium and out to space. “We’ll beat them out there.”
Reluctantly, Darring nodded. She did not like the plan, but let it rest. The most important thing now was to get him to someone, anyone, who could help.
Putting an arm around his waist, she helped him back to his crew.
* * *
“You’re late,” Mo‘tak said, sitting quietly in the dark of the room. Remisk took no time to express his agitation.
“It’s got to stop, Mo‘tak. It’s gone too far.”
“How so?”
“They could have been killed. Both of them. That’s not what I signed up for.”
“What did you sign up for?”
“Sabotage is fine. Damaging an engine, clogging a fuel line, denting a wing, forcing a racer back with an illegal move. These are all fine. Win or lose, succeed or fail, it’s all part of the unspoken game. But trying to kill people is another matter entirely.”
Mo‘tak chuckled. “What would you rather do? Race the final course with only me to contend with, or with Guul and Darring as well? The Tevarin is a beast, and that welp is far better than anyone gives her credit for. If they remain in the race, you’ll go down in history as the man who had a chance, but failed to win the Triple Crown.”
You will fail regardless, Mo‘tak said to himself. Once I’ve dealt with Guul and Darring.
“It’s over, Mo‘tak,” Remisk said, emphasizing his point with a swipe of his arm. “I’m not doing your dirty work anymore.”
Mo‘tak turned on an overhead lamp resting on a table at his side. Beneath the cast light lay a small, gold-colored box, which he carefully opened. A small syringe lay in its center. He picked up the syringe and held it as if he were going to give someone a shot. “Oh, I think you will. You still have things to do for me. And if you don’t, I will share with the MCR rules committee what is contained in this needle.”
“What is it?”
Mo‘tak shrugged. “The very thing that has given you an almost inhuman focus, an ability to anticipate moves three, four turns ahead.”
“That’s a lie! I’ve never taken drugs in my life.”
“I’ve been planning this for a long, long time, Remisk. So let me lay it out for you. A young, successful pilot wants to make a name for himself. He wins the Goss Invitational by a nose and begins to think he really has a shot at winning the Triple Crown. He goes to a small-time dealer and asks, “What can you give me that can’t be detected by scanners?’ The dealer gives him this, which I gave the dealer — a Xi’an concoction called e’tâm. For us it produces a mild meditative state, but when introduced to Human brain chemistry, it creates a state of hyper awareness, an almost extrasensory perception. MCR scanners at their current settings cannot detect it. And you have been taking microdoses for months.”
“You’re a liar!”
Mo‘tak ignored the accusation. “And here’s the catch. There’s enough in here to keep you vital to the end of the race. Take it, and you’ll be fine. If not, somewhere around Ellis IX, as your ship is being pulled by the gravitational forces of that giant gas ball, you will go into withdrawal, fall into a deep sleep and be crushed by the tidal forces of its wild weather.” Mo‘tak held up the syringe for Remisk to see, letting a few drops squirt from the needle tip. “What will it be, my friend? Life or death?”
Remisk stood in the darkness for a long time. Then finally, he rolled up his sleeve, and offered his forearm. “You’re a bastard.”
Mo‘tak punched the needle into a vein. “No, Remisk. I’m not. I’m just a businessman, protecting his investment.”
He pushed the entire dose into Remisk’s arm, then laid the empty syringe in the golden box. Remisk got up and rolled down his sleeve. He turned to leave, but Mo‘tak stopped him.
“Oh,” he said, reaching into a pocket and producing a silver capsule. He pitched it to Remisk. “Get this to our man on Darring’s crew and see he puts it where we have discussed. We want to make sure that upstart has a pleasant ride through the Boneyard.”
Remisk left. Mo‘tak lingered in the dark, chewing the inside of his left cheek, considering the future. He sighed. He should never have relied on Remisk, on a Human, to do the work. They could never be trusted. He’d never had one pleasant experience with them in all his life. Not as a racer, not during his years of mandatory military service, not as a young adult, and certainly not as a child, when Human pirates had scattered his family and killed his mother. There wasn’t one in the bunch worth a damn.
But Remisk . . . could he be trusted to finish the job against Darring? Mo‘tak shrugged. It hardly mattered anyway. Whether he did or did not, Remisk’s time in the race was coming to a close. With the dose I gave him, Mo‘tak thought, getting up and leaving the room, he won’t survive the Boneyard either.
* * *
Hello again, and welcome to another broadcast of GSN’s continuing coverage of the Murray Cup Race. After a rough start that saw Hypatia Darring warned and reprimanded for her unsportsmanlike conduct, things have calmed down. Ms. Darring has kept her cool and has fought her way back to contention with a stunning head-to-head struggle around Ellis V against veteran Zogat Guul. Though these two are reported to be close friends, no love is lost between them as they make their way through these dangerous courses. But now the most contentious portion of the race is upon us. The Sorrow Sea, or as most of the racers call it, the Boneyard, looms large in the cockpit window. Can anyone brave the shattered hulls and sharp asteroids that hazard this course? Let’s find out . . .
Mo‘tak was on her left, Guul on her right, and somewhere behind her, Remisk waited to pounce. It had been like this for a long time, shifting back and forth through broken hulls of previous racers and multi-ton asteroids, some so large that their gravity tugged on her hull as she passed. Her radar displayed the Boneyard in all its glory, and there were many paths to take through the obstacles; some shorter, some longer. This was a timed course, but the lanes sometimes narrowed to force racers to poke and prod one another, thus making it one of the deadliest in the race. The broken hulls of the hollow racecraft around her confirmed its danger.
She shifted left and took one of the shorter paths. Doing so would put her closer to the finish line, but the obstacles here were ridiculous in their distribution. She turned left, barreled tightly through a wide hole of an ancient hull. The racer right behind her broke formation and flew down another path. At her speed, Darring could not tell if it had been Remisk or not, but one less bee in her bonnet was okay by her.
Mo‘tak was still on her left, however. Guul had broken formation as well and had chosen a longer path, but one less constricted with debris. She could see his little red blip on her radar, and several others training in on him from all angles. He was in deep shit, she knew, if any of those other racers worked in silent unison to push him off course. His modified Hornet would have trouble with excessive obstacles, but then that’s why he took the longer route. He was no idiot.
Mo‘tak turned his 350r sharply and shot above her. Images of Remisk’s scorching exhaust flooded her mind, but this time, she ignored her impulse and kept course.
Speed is life.
A Banu racer in their heavily upgraded Avenger slipped in alongside her. There were a few Banu in the race, and Darring could not remember the name of this one, but she remembered the distinct green-and-black striped hull. They tried forcing her into the craterous side of the asteroid ahead of them. Darring took her thumb off the thrust, acting as if she were going to slow and allow the Banu to take position, but at the last moment, she gunned her thrusters, shifted sharply up so that the belly of her M50 skimmed mere inches from the crater floor, kicking up dust from its ejecta blanket, and blowing it back into the cockpit of the Avenger on her tail. The Banu had to turn sharply to the left, giving advantage once again to Darring.
I can play dirty too!
Darring laughed into the ear of her crew chief who was warning her to take it slow and not risk getting her hydrogen scoops clogged. He was worried about her engine, which had been refitted after its overexertion around Green. There was still so much race left, and he was especially concerned with Ellis IX, the gas giant that would place serious pressure on her hull. He didn’t want her engine to go down a second time as well. But she was enjoying herself. She was enjoying the Sorrow Sea, the Boneyard, in all its wondrous danger.
Only Mo‘tak annoyed her now. The rest of her competition had fallen behind or had taken different routes. The route ahead of her was still tricky, but it was hers. She commanded it now, and she leaned back in her restraints and let her engine run.
And now Mo‘tak fell back, and his blip on her radar stopped flashing red in danger. She was free, and the finish line was close.
A warning light suddenly flashed on her cooling monitors. She looked down and saw that her engine’s heat dissipation had fallen sharply. She pressed controls, tapped panels, and now other warning lights were flashing.
Something was wrong with her fuel. It was rising in temperature, too fast, too hot, and the cooling system could not dissipate the excess heat fast enough. It was burning her engine, and her hull shifted and sputtered, pressing her forward against her restraints.
She tapped her comm link. “Something’s wrong here! Engine reaching critical heat.”
“Check your heat release override valve on the —”
She tried doing as her crew chief advised, but before she could move her arm, fire exploded into her cockpit, engulfing her torso and helmet. She panicked, trying to pat the fire out with her gloves, but that did nothing. The flames grew larger and larger, working their way under her jumpsuit, piercing the protective lining at her neck, and burning her face and shoulders.
“Power plant breach imminent!” screamed the safety system in her ear. “Power plant breach imminent!”
Through searing pain, Hypatia Darring reached beneath her cockpit seat, tapped the eject pad, and blew her cockpit enclosure into space. Thrusters beneath her seat erupted, and she tumbled after the cockpit, still strapped into her chair, gasping for air.
Five seconds later, before she lost consciousness, Darring watched her M50 explode into a thousand pieces.
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Hello Citizens!
Last week, a few members of the Star Citizen team were in San Franciscio for GDC 2018 showing off the latest Alpha 3.1 build, and with it, the newly flyable Aegis Reclaimer, Anvil Terrapin, MISC Razor, and Tumbril Cyclone. It was rewarding to meet both new and long-standing community members alike, so thank you to those who had a chance to stop by and meet the team. Also, a big thanks to our volunteers from the Community who worked side-by-side with us all week, we could not have done it without you o7.
Also, as we shuffle features and mechanics looking toward Alpha 3.2, we wanted to know which features you are most excited about seeing implemented, improved and refined. We have created a Alpha 3.2 Survey to help us prioritize over the next quarter. Be sure to check it out and vote if you haven’t already!
Lastly, with Alpha 3.1 on the horizon, and the Persistent Universe continuing to develop, we’re introducing newly flyable ships to the PU, as well as bringing back some older favorites. We are offering a War Bond option to give you all one final chance to pledge for this selection of flyable ships at their original concept prices here.
Let’s see what’s going on this week:
On Monday, in an all new episode of Calling All Devs, we answer your questions on tractor beams, ship modules, space stations, and more. Watch the latest episode here
Tuesday is Lore Day with another release of seralized fiction from the Star Citizen universe. This week we are releasing an article that was previously published with Jump Point and now being made available to everyone! Catch up on the latest lore posts here.
This Wednesday also sees a new episode of Bugsmashers! with Mark Abent! Don’t miss out on another bug getting squashed in Star Citizen Alpha.
Thursday will bring us an episode of Around the Verse focusing on Squadron 42 and Flight AI. Once a month we update the Community with a AtV dedicated to Squadron 42 and an inside look at its development.
Last but not least, on Friday is March Subscriber’s Town Hall – Bringing Characters to Life. Join Josh Herman, Jeremiah Lee and other members of their team for a discussion about their work bringing the characters of Star Citizen to life, including clothing, armor, and recent and future customization options in the Star Citizen persistent universe. We’ll go live at 12pm PDT on our official Twitch channel.
See you in the ‘verse,
Tyler Nolin Community ManagerThe Weekly Community Content Schedule
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We are constantly amazed by the contributions made by the Star Citizen community. Whether it’s fan art, a cinematic, a YouTube guide, or even a 3D print of your favorite ship, we love it all! Don’t forget to submit your content to our Community Hub for a chance at seeing it here!
This week on Around the Verse, we check in with LA Studio Director Eric Kieron Davis for a Star Citizen project update, and get a detailed look at how sound factors into the immersion and storytelling of the Persistent Universe.
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“All right, Jess. I’m heading there now.” With a flick, Umar closed the comm channel. Break time over. Swinging his feet out of the bunk, a swarm of sandwich crumbs cascaded off his chest and onto the bed. He really should start eating at the table again. At least his bad habit of wearing his boots to bed made sense. After working for In-A-Fix Assistance for the past six years he had learned that comms for help always happen about five minutes into a nap.
Leaving the crew quarters, Umar performed a quick a visual inspection on the three BARD drones nestled into the mid-ship docking ports. Charged and not leaking? Check and check. Skipping over the empty fourth port, he gave his favorite drone, Spear, a traditional pat for luck before heading up to the bridge.
Umar adjusted his settings as he sat down in the pilot seat, transitioning the power he had routed to the shields for nap-time back to the engines. With a growl, the thrusters came back online. He keyed the coordinates Jess had sent over into his navigation, swung the Vulcan’s nose around and initiated quantum to the nearside of Cano’s asteroid belt.
Under two minutes, Umar noted as the light smears from the quantum field streaked past. Not too shabby of a response time. While you could always count on life’s ill fortune sending clients your way, providing good service was how you could convert a random refuel run into a potential repeat customer. Especially out in Cano where traffic was a bit sparse.
The ship slowed out of QT and Umar adjusted his flight path towards the beacon’s origin on the rim of the belt. After a few moments of navigating through the field, he spotted the client’s Reliant clinging near the underside of one of the asteroids. He might have missed it completely if he hadn’t had the beacon frequency. Its signature was low enough that the small craft almost blended seamlessly into the surrounding radiation. Pilot must have shut down everything to conserve energy once they ran out of fuel.
Before opening comms, he followed protocol and did a full scan of the area. No point in flying to the rescue if you fly straight into a threat and wind up needing rescuing too. With his MFD giving the all clear, he hailed the client. “Hi, there. I’m Umar Deluca from In-A-Fix. You requested a refueling?”
“That’s me. Thanks for coming out,” responded the pilot, with a kind, weathered smile.
“Of course, that’s what we’re here for. Let me get into position, and then we can have you back flying in no time.”
As Umar rolled his ship above and behind the vessel, he could clearly see that the Reliant’s hull had been badly damaged. There were scorch marks all along the rear fuselage and multiple ballistic holes perforated the wing. Umar had a pretty good guess what caused the pilot to run out of fuel.
“Not sure if you know this but your port dorsal side is pretty banged up. If you want, I could patch you up while I’m out here. Wouldn’t take long and it’d be heck of a lot safer to fly.”
“Appreciate the offer, but creds are tight. Just the fuel for now.”
“Sure. No problem. Stand by and I’ll have the drone right over.”
Umar got out of the pilot seat and went to the control station at the rear of the bridge. He scrolled through his options — Spear for rearming, Shake for repairs, and Liam for refueling. Selecting Liam, he did one last check, and seeing all green, launched the fuel-laden drone. With practiced ease, he maneuvered Liam towards the other vessel’s fuel port.
“Transfer in progress,” Umar informed the pilot.
“Listen, I hate to ask this, but there is actually one more thing you could do for me,” said the pilot, looking bashful as he nervously rubbed the back of his head. “Any chance you have a drink or some water you could spare? Fuel wasn’t the only thing I forgot to stock up on and I’m starting to feel pretty dehydrated.”
Umar hesitated in answering. It wasn’t the sharing that was the issue, but the time. He had hoped to be able to pick up at least two more jobs today and he knew from experience how hard it could sometimes be getting a guest to leave your ship.
“Listen, if it’s a problem, I can just wait till I can fly myself to a station or something.”
Umar felt a twinge of guilt. What was he doing out here if he wasn’t going to help people? “It’s no problem,” Umar said with as much hospitality as he could muster. “If I’m filling up your ship, might as well top you off too. Swing on over and I’ll fix you up.”
Leaving Liam to do its thing, Umar remotely opened the Vulcan’s rear hatch and went to wait by the liftlock in the crew quarters. It wasn’t too long before he heard the pressure begin to cycle. He cracked the fridge, removed two fizzy water cans, and turned just as the atmosphere in the lift equalized.
Umar was a bit taken aback when the pilot bent slightly to avoid hitting his head as he stepped out. The man was very tall, and having a helmet on only made him more imposing. Suddenly, the crew quarters felt a lot more cramped.
“Hope you like etrog flavor,” said Umar, offering the can. “Otherwise I’m afraid you’ll have to make do with tap.”
The pilot didn’t take the drink. Didn’t even take off his helmet. “The rest of your crew still up in the cockpit?”
“No, it’s just me.” Umar regretted the words as soon as they were out of his mouth.
With a smooth motion, the pilot pulled out the pistol he had hidden in his EVA pack. “Sorry about this, but I need your ship.”
Umar’s wrists were aching from struggling against the tape that bound him to the control terminal chair. It was rated for sealing hulls so it wasn’t a huge surprise that he hadn’t been able to loosen it, but he had to try.
At the front of the bridge, the pilot was navigating the Vulcan out of the asteroid field. The control terminal flashed a warning that Liam was moving out of range.
“Come on,” implored Umar. “You could have at least let me get my drone.”
“Look, I’d prefer not to have to gag you,” said the pilot. “I know how uncomfortable it can be.”
“Screw you. Don’t pretend like you’re some decent guy just because you have manners. Not only did you steal my ship, but you pretended to be in trouble to do it. I tried to help you and this is how you thank me?”
The pilot didn’t say anything, just kept his attention on the nav map.
“You know, every time an asshole like you pulls a stunt like this it just makes it that much harder for real folks in trouble to get the help they need. Who’s gonna stop and lend a hand if there’s a more than decent chance they’re gonna get a bullet for their troubles? So yeah, double screw you.” Just like his struggles against the tape, Umar didn’t really expect his rant to help the situation, but it definitely made him feel better.
Surprisingly though, the pilot responded. “I’m not stealing your ship. As soon as I get where I’m going, you can have it back.”
“Oh, in that case, let’s crank some tunes and enjoy the ride,” said Umar with a sneer when a sudden thought occurred to him. “Wait. What the hell was wrong with your ship?”
“They knew my regtag.”
“Who’s they?”
No response. Instead, the pilot finished plotting a course on the nav, and spooled the quantum drive. Colorful lights streaked past as the Vulcan surged forward. In the distance, Umar could see Pox, the last planet in the system, steadily growing larger. Umar had been hoping that they would head towards Carteyna where there would have been more of a chance of running into some authorities, but out here in the far reaches the chances of running into another ship were far slimmer.
“You know you could have just asked for a ride,” said Umar, breaking the temporary silence. “But that’s the problem with people like you, isn’t it? Just take what you want rather than earn it. You wanna know why I fly this rig? It’s so I can undo a little bit of the damage that people like you create. The universe is dark enough without us having to hurt each other.”
The quantum lights faded and the pilot pushed back his chair and stood. Walking past his captive, he headed down into the rear of the ship.
“Where you going?” asked Umar.
“To get the gag.”
Before Umar could respond, a shrill alarm sounded.
“What the hell is that?” the pilot demanded, leaping back up the stairs.
“ECN alert.” Umar looked down at the pop-up notification on his terminal. “Nearby ship sprung a core leak in their power plant. They’re not gonna have long.”
The pilot tapped the controls, silencing the notification. “Poor bastards. That’s a tough way to go.”
“We have to go help them.”
“I’m really starting to think you don’t understand this whole kidnapped thing.”
“If we don’t help them now, they’re going to die.”
“And that’s terrible, but it’s not my problem.”
“Of course it’s your damn problem. You heard the alert. Their power plant is overloading and if the radiation doesn’t fry them, the explosion will. You ignore it, you’re killing them. That simple.”
“And if there’s any security in the area and they show up to help, then I’m as good as dead too.”
“Do you know where we are? It’s a miracle we even heard the alert. We are it. We are their only hope in this universe. Don’t you get that?” Unbidden, tears welled up in Umar’s eyes. “Please.”
The pilot stared at his captive for a long moment.
“If you say one word about me, or try to signal them in any way, you’re going out the airlock. No second chances. Understood?”
Not daring to say anything and risk the pilot changing his mind, Umar quickly and emphatically nodded his agreement.
“Can’t believe I’m doing this.”
The pilot sat back down and adjusted the Vulcan’s course towards the beacon’s signal. As he spun the quantum drive back up, he shook his head in disbelief, “I mean, look how well stopping to help someone worked out for you.”
