Breaking Alpha 3.3 and OCS news, chatty Cathys, scanned and deliver, leg work, and back-end bolstering in today’s update.
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Welcome to September’s monthly report from Cloud Imperium Games. This month we’re adjusting our Monthly Reports to be focused on each specific project.
This project-based approach to our monthly reports stands to provide a more detailed look at the development of both games going forward.
So, pop open a Smoltz and settle in for all the details on Star Citizen from around the Cloud Imperium empire.
For all you fans of the 2nd Fleet, a dedicated Squadron 42 Monthly Report will be released separately in the very near future.Star Citizen Monthly Report: September 2018
Externer Inhalt robertsspaceindustries.comInhalte von externen Seiten werden ohne Ihre Zustimmung nicht automatisch geladen und angezeigt.AI
The majority of the AI Team’s focus this month has been on the Alpha 3.3 release. They’ve been working on multithreading the execution of the Tactical Point System, which allows a large number of environmental queries to be processed simultaneously. To achieve this, they focused on making several subsystems safe, such as the Usable Query System, Navigation, and Cover System. The result will give a big boost towards full multithreading of the Subsumption Component execution.
For human combat, they implemented several strategies used during combat activities and completed tasks to remove existing glitches and visual bugs.
They’re making progress on the Usable Builder tool, with the aim to give the designers proper visual feedback when creating objects so that they can immediately see issues or problems. Being able to preview a usable and adjust the position of its use slots, alignment slots, and all the elements associated with it will vastly speed up production.
In addition, they worked on caching entry/exit animations of the usables and the related animations to speed up runtime calls.
For the mission system, they introduced new functionalities, first of which is the ability to provide restrictions on the availability of a mission based on location. They also introduced UI binding variables that easily connect data provided by the mission logic to the user interface so that data can be easily displayed on screen.
They’re currently working on a first pass to simulate incoming and outgoing city traffic so that large cities feel more alive.Animation
The Animation Team has been working on refining the first-person experience, including tweaking weapon movement and recoil values. Work continues on ship sequencing, with the aim of increasing animation asset efficiency, while player actions were added to the bar stool to enable drinking from both standing and seating positions.
The Facial Team developed animations for the bartender and bar patrons off the back of a PCAP shoot. They also partnered with Tech Animation to test a new facial rig and ran the first set of reviews for the Facial Animation Quality benchmark. The goal here is to establish a gold-standard of facial performance on all characters throughout the Persistent Universe.
They also cleaned up the player locomotion sets and fixed bugs in preparation for the Alpha 3.3 release. The team is showing off motion capture at CitizenCon, so have been running tests to ensure everything runs smoothly.
Audio
Audio continued to support Alpha 3.3. They’ve also been prototyping new systems to allow the audio experience to scale as the project expands, with the intention to maintain the established quality bar and ensure a constantly immersive experience.
Backend Services
Backend Services has been looking into adding the S3 service, which is used to store and retrieve larger static datasets for various parts of the game.
They also finished up the NoSQL database API (which gives more fluid datasets) and finished the new Entitlement Processor to greatly optimise the processing of platform-purchased items.
As needed, they provided live support for Alpha 3.3 gameplay features to ensure everything is working as it should.
Build Engineering
A while ago, groups were formed to work on parallel branches for 3.3, with variable and control branches set up to investigate the benefits of streaming object container tech for Alpha 3.3 – this work was a success and is now complete.
Validation checks for the animation pipeline have been cemented to ensure assets intended for building and releasing align with internal file-content references. Logic is now in place to identify 3D vector field textures from regular compiled DDS textures. These 3D textures are now being welcomed into our existing asset pipeline. The releasing process received an upgrade, with additional checks put in place to help keep an overview of the final released files for Alpha 3.3.
Character Art
After completing the Odyssey Flightsuit, Virgil TruDef Pro Armor, and Hurston Collection, the team will move onto bug fixing and polishing. This content comes with material variants designed to give Hurston a varied and realistic setting.
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The Community Team has already hosted more contests this year than ever before, with September’s MISC Prospector commercial contest spawning some unbelievable videos.
Externer Inhalt robertsspaceindustries.comInhalte von externen Seiten werden ohne Ihre Zustimmung nicht automatisch geladen und angezeigt.Also this month, Bounty Hunters rallied across the ‘verse to take down criminal scum and shared their victories in a screenshot contest on Twitter. Within 24 hours, the team had received over 500 entries, showcasing that the hunt was most definitely on. More fun contests are just around the corner, so keep an eye on Spectrum for more chances to win.
A community-organized convention, Con42, took place in Germany this month, with a strong attendance from both backers and developers alike. The event included informative panels, a treasure hunt to keep people on their feet, and stories from across the ‘verse.
France’s own fan convention, Pari’Verse, is coming up on the 12th and 13th of October. So, if you’re in the area and looking to connect with other Citizens, make sure you check it out. You can find more info and get tickets on the official Pari’Verse website.“We can’t wait to celebrate CitizenCon 2948 with you on October 10th. It promises to be a full day of revelry, discourse, and fun. This event has always been about celebrating the current and future developments in Star Citizen, but at the same time also honouring the incredible community that continues to evolve around the game. We’ll see you in Austin!”
This year, Star Citizen orgs had the opportunity to apply for a booth at the event, where they can celebrate their own unique history and recruit the next generation of aces to join their ranks. Furthermore, CitizenCon ticketholders had the chance to create a unique in-game emote by recording themselves and submitting their best ideas. The four winners will direct a live motion capture shoot in front of an audience at the event.
The team also updated the CitizenCon website with the latest details, including a breakdown of what to expect throughout the day.
Design
Design added new behaviors to give NPCs and Mission Givers an extra layer of ability and are currently retroactively applying them to Miles Eckhart and Ruto. They have also been diligently working towards getting Recco Battaglia and Clovus Darneely fleshed out and fully-functional for the upcoming release.
Tuning for the Economy continues, with new minable resources and updated inventories at the new outpost and truck stop locations.
The home stretch is in sight for believable bartenders and patrons in the PU, with work being done to ensure they both offer an experience that you might have at your own local establishment. They’re currently polishing their everyday behaviors, including cleaning glasses, carrying drinks to tables, and telling the player they’re busy when in the middle of an action.
Finally, the team had a clean-up and bug-fixing push to ensure that, when the players get their hand on the next build, it’s as bug-free as it can be.
DevOps
This year, the team has been able to accomplish much more internally due to recent tool and process improvements. The build system has been running 24 hours a day, churning out more independent build branches than ever before. At the same time, they’re now able to publish and maintain several times more branch targets than before. They also added a few more engineers, which has paid dividends across the board.
“We’re super excited to see the results of all our efforts throughout summer pay off as we close in on the last steps for CitizenCon and the game publishing cycle.”
Engine
This month’s focus was on the upcoming Alpha 3.3 release along with the ubiquitous Object Container Streaming. Several improvements and bug fixes were made to water volumes so they can be used in ships and on planets as designed. They continued progress on improving planetary terrain soft shadows – a lot of optimizations and tweaks went in to get a natural look at a minimal runtime cost, though additional work is still needed on blending shadow cascades. They continued progress on the physics queue (to move physics from dedicated threads to a job model) and made progress on new soft-body simulation and cloth rendering, adding support for explosions and bullet impact. In addition, they worked on numerous bugs and optimizations tasks.
Engineering
The Gameplay Team has been working on Asteroid Mining along with implementing Render-to-Texture (RTT) support for in-game shop item previews. On the tech front, the team worked on the new Transit System, which provides easier setup for elevators and supports trains that travel to schedule around larger planetary locations.
Work also continued on ongoing dynamic elements, such as ropes and soft-body simulation. The Core Engine and Network Teams focused on Object Container Streaming.
They also improved the Group System to support multiple chat groups, a feature that paves the way for Spectrum integration along with VoIP and FoIP. They also continued their efforts on scanning/ping gameplay and added support for scan/ping detection of minable rocks inside asteroid fields and other detectable entities, such as derelict ships.
Quantum Travel was improved to include routing in the Star Map. This will allow players to simply select their final destination and have the QT route plotted for them. The vehicle specialists continued to improve turret gameplay as well as support the new ships releasing this quarter.
Engine Tools
The Engine Tools Team worked on general usability improvements and game editor stability with a strong focus on supporting the needs of Alpha 3.3. The team also grew by two Tool Programmers; they’ll focus on improved tool development for Subsumption and internal profiling to gather and analyse global telemetry data. This will make it easier to enhance the general workflows for improving the overall game performance.
Environment Art
The Environment Art Team has been finalizing all the new locations going into Alpha 3.3, including graphics, navigational signs, final prop placements, dressing, optimizations, and bug fixing.
The Organics Team made the final polish on the surface of Hurston and its biomes, which will be the first-time players are able to explore lush vegetation covered biomes. With work on the planet wrapped up, they’re now supporting the Locations Team on closing out Lorville and its surrounding areas. Other than polishing and tweaking the existing areas, work involved making final art for Hurston Central, finalizing artwork on the Transit System and transit routes through the city, as well as creating and embedding the outer city gates into the planet.
Next up is the closing down of any remaining art tasks, then focus can move on to stabilisation and performance optimisations.
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Gameplay Features coordinated with Backend Services to improve the Comms Chat App while in mobiGlas, and in the Visor when mobiGlas has been put away. This includes the ability to create multiple groups and invite players to join them.
“You will be able to chat with fellow players no matter how far away everyone is from each other.”
Voice Over IP is actively being developed to allow you to communicate with any group members using your own voice. Face Over IP is also in the works, allowing you to see the real-time expressions of those around you, adding nuance and emotion to your conversations.
Graphics
The Graphics Team has been working to make light and particles support multi-threading to enable them to load in the background for Object Container Streaming. It’s almost complete and will remove a stall that testers are currently seeing when they load a new location. When it’s live, players will enjoy seamlessly transition around the whole PU.
The glass shader has also been updated so that interior ship canopies no longer show distracting reflections from the exterior which, in reality, wouldn’t be visible due to the shadowing of the cockpit geometry. As usual before a major release, there have also been a number of visual issues in the new environments that have been investigated and fixed.
Issue Council
The ‘Issue Council v1.1.0’ was deployed to PTU at the start of the month before reaching Live a few weeks later. This version features a new profile section where users can see their own reports, contributions, specs, and bookmarks. Reports now feature Technical Repro and Workaround fields.
The new version received a positive response from backers.
Level Design
While expanding the Stanton system from one to two planets, the question of where to place rest stops to best support refueling came up. After some research, it was decided they would be placed at Lagrange points – naturally occurring pockets of space where two gravitational fields overlap and balance each other out. They’re the ideal place for rest stops, as they allow spacecraft to remain static without the need for additional force.
A couple of new missions have been created that take place in Security Post Kareah: Crusader Security wants the abandoned station cleared of outlaws, and occasionally criminals will want the leaders of competing factions assassinated. Kareah itself has had some big improvements to its layout, with the opening up of new routes and more cover to make firefights in the station more enjoyable.
As well as creating the Scramble Race logic, the team spent time improving the foundations of driving on planets, including headlight brightness, vehicle durability, handling, and obstacle collision. Several new asteroid clusters were added around Grim HEX in which the races and other missions can occur.A large portion of the month has been spent on Lorville and its surroundings. The team is currently adding trains and trams, setting up schedules, configuring hangars and garages, and adjusting level markups. They’re also working on the signage and general player-guiding throughout the playable areas of the city to make sure the various Points of Interest are easy to find and that visitors don’t get too lost. Progress on the Transit System is substantial and they have the first version of the system in place, allowing the team to efficiently set up elevators as well as adding in trains and trams that run to schedule.
“All of this will help bring the cities to life, even though you might have to run a bit to catch the train or accept waiting for the next one!”
They’ve started looking ahead to the upcoming areas of Stanton – ArcCorp, microTech, and Crusader. However, there’s a large amount of planning and prework that needs to be done before the teams can move onto them full time.
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The Lighting Team focused on finalizing content for the upcoming Alpha release. This involved lighting many of the locations in and around Lorville, such as the bar, admin office, and stores. In addition, they’ve also been starting optimization work across all Lorville locations to ensure better framerates while maintaining a high visual quality.
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“The Player Relations team is busy preparing for the epic CitizenCon week in Austin, Texas!
In addition to all of the planning and work that goes into running an event in your own city, we’ve been hustling away with the Evocati to test both the ‘No OCS’ and ‘OCS’ branches. Thank you Avocados!
We’d like to point all players to our growing Knowledge Base which now has over 100 articles and seen almost 150,000 visitors since its inception. We will continue to grow this by adding new ‘How To’ articles, patch notes, and live service notifications there as well as on Spectrum.”
Props
Work continued on the utilitarian props for the Lorville landing zone, including infrastructure, furniture used to dress the main routes through the city, and smaller-scale dressing items for shops and bars. A polish pass on some older dressing assets was completed, with visual modelling improvements made to the meshes. Older assets using outdated glass shaders were also converted over to the new version to improve both the performance and visual quality.
The team delivered a set of animated signage, cameras, and interactive dressing props to add life and movement to the city. Finally, the team began work on a new mission set prop that will be going live soon.
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The QA Team heavily focused on testing Alpha 3.3. The EU and ATX QA teams have been working closely to run various playthroughs and smoke-test builds for specific features. Alongside this, they worked on various QA Test Requests, one of which will bring significant changes to how the upcoming AI performs in-game. The AI change to Tactical Point System Query (TPSQuery) will allow for increased control over the number of queries that can be executed at the same time. This should reduce the amount of AI characters a player sees standing around doing nothing. They also made a test request for new physics changes that will reduce issues, such as physics collision detection buffers overflowing due to too many objects overlapping, objects getting pulled into random interior grids, objects missing, objects appearing with initial damage, etc. These changes also affect the new transit system.
Testers have been working with the Level Design and Gameplay teams to ensure that the new elevator system and metro rail are functioning properly, as well as setting up test levels to be used by Physics Engineering to investigate any new issues that may arise. They also increased support for the AI Actor Feature Team to now include testers across all studios as opposed to only having support from the UK.
Part of the team was busy testing upcoming features like Asteroid Mining and Rest Stops, new vehicles like the Mustang revamp and Cyclone variants, as well as preparing for CitizenCon.
On the Leadership side, it was business as usual as they coordinated testing priorities for all the new builds. They also continued updating the TestRail software as new features came online along with adding some new QA testers to the team.
Ships
The bulk of artwork done this month has been towards supporting Alpha 3.3. Outside of that, the team made strides with the glass shader, fixed bugs in preparation for Alpha 3.3, and finalised the Aegis Hammerhead.
On the design side, support was given in the global push towards Alpha 3.3 along with the groundwork for ships in Alpha 3.4 and beyond. They also spent a fair amount of time working on item balance and reacting to the internal and external feedback on the cannon changes that have just hit Evocati.
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The Ship Art Team had to pause for a couple weeks on the 300 series updates to take care of some pilot-fitting issues on a prominent Squadron 42 campaign ship. Now that it’s done, they’re back in full swing on the 300i grey-box.
They also recently completed the long-awaited Constellation Phoenix, finishing the last few LOD tasks, and polished the conference table and piano (not literally). Once the final Phoenix bugs are worked out, they’ll move onto the Banu Defender:
“We’re very excited about this and are already doing the preliminary work to ensure the visuals match everyone’s expectations.”
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The System Design Team was primarily occupied with tasks for the 3.3 release. They made progress on FPS combat AI, with improvements to perception and reaction to stimuli. Cover selection was modified to enable enemies and allies to more intelligently choose when and where to seek cover. They now also give increased vocal feedback, so players understand more clearly what they are thinking and what is happening during encounters. The next step will be to get the same functionality working in multiplayer.
The gameplay features for asteroid mining are complete, with the team now moving on to bug fixing, polishing, crunching numbers, testing, and generally making sure players will have an enjoyable experience.
“Expect new minable elements, more searching through the rubble for golden nuggets, and more time spent using your radar finding the right rocks.”
They also completed work for an upcoming release, with the focus on getting NPC ships to properly take-off, land, and quantum travel so that the universe can be populated with traveling NPCs.
Tech Animation
Tech Animation continued their work on the weapon batch exporter, which will enable the animators to iterate faster over their weapon animations. They also fixed various bugs in the animation tools set and added some new functionality with the goal of improving the way animators work.
Tech Art
The Tech Art Team continued work on the next-gen character cloth and softbody authoring pipeline and toolset. The data interchange format between Maya and the engine has been re-factored to enable various additional global and local ‘per-vertex’ dynamic attributes to be authored, transferred, and stored efficiently. These attributes enable complex dynamic effects such as friction, air lift, drag, and collision softness. They also allow fine-grained control over the various cloth-internal properties such as stretch, compression, and bend stiffness (and even volume preservation in the case of volumetric softbodies) on a per-asset basis as needed. They also added the ability to author so-called collision proxies together with the character animation rigs and meshes in Maya. Since full-on polygon mesh-based collision detection and resolution is still fairly costly to achieve in realtime, simple geometric primitives such as spheres, boxes, ellipsoids, or capsules are used to approximate the objects that cloth and other softbodies are supposed to collide with. For example, in order to let a skirt collide with the (approximated) legs of a character.
Turbulent
Turbulent has been hard at work this month providing support on all fronts in preparation for CitizenCon! Spectrum is now on release v.8.2 this month, with several bug fixes made, including the addition of emojis.
Quill, the new Spectrum editor, is in the QA stage of development. It’s set to replace the old editor and will resolve various bugs linked to Android. Due to the development work for Alpha 3.3, Spectrum progress will be picked up again the following month.
CitizenCon Merchandise is here! Ticket holders can purchase t-shirts and wireless chargers in advance to be picked up at the event. Backers who have purchased a Digital Goodie Pack can purchase t-shirts to be shipped to their address. Turbulent supported the release of the event merchandise on the platform side.Turbulent undertook the badge printing for CitizenCon, which will display a QR code unique to each ticket holder’s account as well as details such as their name, avatar, and main org. The QR code is linked to our ticket-scanning app made for the event.
After the CitizenCon microsite update last month, the team has been working on building out the Livestream pages. While watching the event, you’ll be able to chat live with other Citizens.Turbulent also helped with this month’s Pirate Promotion, which included sales of the Aegis Gladius, Aegis Sabre, Aegis Hammerhead, Anvil Super Hornet, and Freelancer MIS.
UI
This month, UI supported the Mission Team by creating a persistent objectives widget on the HUD and crafted the pickup and delivery interactive displays utilizing the new UI authoring tool (which is still in early development). They began building the branding, identity, and fictional advertisements for truck stops and landing locations in the PU.
Vehicle Features
The Vehicle Features Team improved the manned turret experience by:
- Adding an interface to turn gyro-stabilization on/off.
- Finalizing the 1:1 input-to-rotation techniques for mouse and joystick, including properly adjusted input options for both.
- Adding head look smoothing for a less jarring view from within turrets.
- Programming automated turrets to now use the criminality system to determine whether or not to fire upon you.
Scanning vehicles was also extended to include stats such as vehicle status, owner, pilot, and onboard cargo.
Discovering entities on planets, asteroids, and deep space has been improved by allowing for much greater ping results, more informative blob aesthetics, and separate blob generation based on whether entities are on a planet’s surface or in deep space. Finally, the technique in which mineable rocks are spawned on asteroids and planetary bodies has been made more efficient.Vehicle Content
The Star Citizen Alpha 3.3 release was the primary focus for the Vehicle Content Team throughout September. Tech Art completed their release prep passes on all of the vehicles going out in the update: the Aegis Hammerhead, RSI Constellation Phoenix, Tumbril Cyclone variants, and the rework of the Consolidated Outland Mustang. Both the Art and System Design teams completed their release prep passes on the Mustangs and Cyclones, while Systems Design also completed their pass on the Phoenix. All teams have been working on polish tasks and bug fixing to get these vehicles into great shape for the backers.
Additionally, the teams were involved in an ongoing process of creating sequenced animations for vehicles, in particular the Cyclone TR and Mustang Beta.
The Art and Systems Design teams also continued to move forward on the Anvil Hawk, which is whitebox complete on the design-side and into the final art stage.Externer Inhalt robertsspaceindustries.comInhalte von externen Seiten werden ohne Ihre Zustimmung nicht automatisch geladen und angezeigt.Externer Inhalt robertsspaceindustries.comInhalte von externen Seiten werden ohne Ihre Zustimmung nicht automatisch geladen und angezeigt.VFX
VFX worked on several new biomes surrounding Lorville that are continually being iterated on, which will be included in an upcoming patch. They also continued to fine-tune the multitude of effects seen in and around Lorville, with a particular focus on optimisation. They also finalised VFX for several new vehicles, including the mighty Hammerhead’s interior and exterior damage, and exhaust misfires for the Tumbril Cyclone.
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The Weapon Art Team finished production on the new Hurston Dynamics ship weapons.
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This month, work focused on supporting the new features that gravitate around the Groups System. The new version is the primary component responsible for orchestrating chat lobbies and voice channels. A new group type made its entry in the system for supporting Instance and Server groups. The team also spent time fixing a few bugs related to the timing of incoming events and improving observability of the service by adding stats and reporters.
A new service called the Group Coordinator entered the network this month. This is in charge of tracking dedicated game servers entering/exiting the pool and creating the proper group resources needed to power a server-wide group, lobby, and voice channel. This service is isolated but uses the current network resources to achieve this automation while still notifying game clients about the changes, which then get replicated to the mobiGlas.
The lobby service work this month focused mainly on hardening and dealing with a few edge cases related to how events are processed. A few major bugs were fixed on how the player identifiers are carried across messages and observability improvements were made to Quality of Service.
Voice service work was completed this month allowing the sharing of voice channels across a fleet of voice servers as well as improving the scalability and reliability of how channels are created. Voice streams carried over the network are now properly attached to the player entities in the game space. Proper audio treatment gets added as players connect and disconnect from channels via the mobiGlas. Additional work was done to address issues identified in face-sync. Observability improvements were made for Quality of Service.
Major infrastructure work was advanced this month in how we store and process the Domain Events submitted to the Event Bus. A new set of clustered resources are now used and the orchestration of our game services containers got a big upgrade by moving to a Kubernetes based orchestrator. This gives Turbulent the ability to scale and easily orchestrate the game service resources. This is the first step in this new direction which we hope will allow for faster deployments and more reliable services all around.
Conclusion
WE’LL SEE YOU NEXT MONTH…
Quelle: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/tran…-September-2018
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ALAN: Welcome to Empire Report. I’m Alan Nuevo.
BECK: And I’m Beck Russum. Today’s trip across the Empire takes us to New Austin where Victoria Hutchins has the latest details on preparations for CitizenCon 2948.
ALAN: But first, an update to the ongoing controversy in Fora. Marcus Carino, the leader of a local militia group known as the Defenders of the Free, spoke publicly for the first time since being accused of running an unofficial Customs checkpoint that led to the near-fatal shooting of four civilians. We go now to a vid of his comments from earlier today in Shoel.
[ Marcus Carino stands amidst a scrum of reporters before his Drake Buccaneer outside the Shoel Advocacy office. ]
MARCUS CARINO: The Common Law Initiative enacted in 2526 guarantees ‘fundamental personal freedoms’, which includes the right to defend yourself. That’s all we’re doing here, because the government sure isn’t. Look at the system’s crime data. Look at the current threat level. Fora’s getting worse each and every year, and I’m not waiting any longer for the UEE to do something about it.
Far as I’m concerned, the government’s guilty of dereliction of duty for not defending the residents of this system. More contraband passes between the UEE and Banu Protectorate here than anywhere else in the Empire. Known criminals and smugglers openly break the law each and every day, and none of them face justice. All they get is a damn smile and a wave coming through Customs.
It’s clear that the current enforcement mechanism in this system is broken, and the Defenders aim to fix it. I stand by our right to operate these checkpoints to defend the interests of Fora’s residents.
[ Back to Alan and Beck. ]
BECK: The alleged incident occurred last Thursday around 16:30 SET. Carino and other members of the Defenders of the Free were patrolling the area around the jump point when Giorgio Hwang’s ship emerged from interspace. According to witnesses, Carino and other militia members opened fire on Hwang’s ship without provocation, leading to the death of two crew members and seriously injuring Hwang himself. When local law enforcement arrived to secure the scene, they discovered that Hwang’s vessel was carrying several crates of stolen military weaponry in smuggling holds.
ALAN: The aggressive actions taken by Carino and the Defenders of the Free have been widely criticized by some but defended by others. Both the Advocacy and Customs Bureau claim to be monitoring the situation and weighing their options as an investigation continues into the legality of the attack. Carino claims that they scanned Hwang’s ship and found signs of contraband which led to the attack, however they have been unwilling to produce proof. We will continue to update this story as it develops.
BECK: Sataball fans across the Empire were stunned today when an anonymous source leaked comms between Terra Gryphons’ superstar Benedetto Bodie and members of a New Babbage drug syndicate. The messages explicitly discussed both the purchase of illegal drugs and how to beat drug tests administered by sataball’s Banned Substance Task Force. Here to discuss the developing situation is Colt Legrande.
COLT: Sad day for sataball, Beck. Benedetto is a certified superstar in the sport. To hear this news came as quite the shock to a lot of people.
BECK: What has Bodie’s response been so far?
COLT: Bodie has released a statement vehemently denying the allegations and the authenticity of the comms. It seems, though, that the Gryphons are approaching this whole thing cautiously. Bodie was missing from practice today, and Gryphons’ manager Maiko Shapiro refused to comment on either Bodie’s status or his participation in Sunday’s big match.
BECK: How is the league handling the allegations against Bodie? Is there any indication that disciplinary action may be imminent?
COLT: I spoke with Eldon Agawa, head of the league’s Banned Substance Task Force, who said that they will be opening an investigation into the matter to verify the facts of the case and determine if any league rules have been violated. Not only that, but word is the Advocacy will also be investigating this is a criminal matter. You really hate to see this happen to a player in their prime.
BECK: Is there anything we do know for sure?
COLT: One fact that I can currently verify is that Bodie did spend time in New Babbage this off-season. On the books he was there discussing a potential sponsorship deal with microTech, but that leaves a whole lot of room for what he may have been doing off the books. In the wake of this story breaking, several vids have surfaced of Bodie reportedly dancing at an exclusive club rumored to be popular with a less than savory crowd.
BECK: This wouldn’t be the first time that a vacation in New Babbage became a problem for a sataball player. The Stanton Knights’ Myles Mason was suspended for part of the 2945 season after being found in a New Babbage hotel lobby riding out an intense maze trip.
COLT: That’s right. The city’s growing popularity as an up and coming tourist destination for the young and wealthy has definitely drawn its fair share of players looking to blow off some steam. Unfortunately, it seems a few too many are crossing a line and partying just too hard.
BECK: Back to Bodie, if the comms turn out to be authentic, what kind of punishment could he face?
COLT: As far as the league is concerned, if Agawa’s investigation determines that Bodie both used a banned substance and tried to hide it, then he could be looking at a full season suspension.
Of course, talking about something versus actually doing it is a very different thing. Even if these comms prove to be authentic, Bodie could argue that he never went through with it and force the league to prove that he did. If he chooses to take a combative stance with the league, who knows how long this could drag out. Really though, it may end up being his teammates and fans that are punished if he’s not able to play.
BECK: Thanks, Colt.
ALAN: We need to take a quick break. Don’t go anywhere, because when we return Victoria Hutchins will join us from New Austin with some exclusive details about next week’s CitizenCon 2948 celebration, including a sneak peek at two new exclusive Big Benny flavors that will only be available at the event.
BECK: That and more when Empire Report returns.
Quelle: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/spec…ataball-Scandal
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Alles anzeigenExterner Inhalt robertsspaceindustries.comInhalte von externen Seiten werden ohne Ihre Zustimmung nicht automatisch geladen und angezeigt.
Hello everyone,
We are only 9 days away from CitizenCon 2948! As we get closer to our largest event yet, the team is focused on final preparations. If you’re heading to CitizenCon, or watching at home, make sure to check out the official website here for all the event details. As a reminder, CitizenCon is 100% free for anyone to stream – Simply sign up for an RSI account, and keep an eye out for the official viewing page coming soon.
Last week, we also announced the winners of our CitizenCon Emote Contest. Curious which emote they’ll be directing live in front of an audience? You’ll find out next week.
And with that, let’s see what’s going on this week:
Every week on Calling All Devs, designers, engineers, and other developers from our five offices around the world answer backer questions submitted on Spectrum and voted for by YOU. This week we we talk about coordinate systems, fuel salvage, the Banu Merchantman, and more. Subscribe to our YouTube channel and turn on the notifications to be amongst the first to watch!
On Tuesday, the Lore Team will publish their weekly lore post, this time an Empire Report you won’t want to miss. You can also find all previously published lore posts here.
Thursday will welcome another episode of Around the Verse where we’ll take a look at the latest Star Citizen news with our weekly project update.
If Around the Verse wasn’t enough, fear not! Thursday will also welcome the Monthly Studio Report for the month of September
Finally, make sure to tune in on Friday at 12pm PDT/7pm UTC for another episode of Reverse the Verse, broadcast live on our Star Citizen Twitch channel. This week, we’ll be taking it easy with a more relaxed show than usual, as a majority of the team is busy and heavily focused on preparing for CitizenCon.
We’ll see you in the ‘Verse!
Tyler Witkin
Lead Community Manager
The Weekly Community Content ScheduleMONDAY, OCTOBER 1ST, 2018
Calling All Devs (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/spectrum-dispatch)TUESDAY, OCTOBER 2ND, 2018
Lore Post – Empire Report (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/spectrum-dispatch)WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 3RD, 2018
-THURSDAY, OCTOBER 4TH, 2018
Around the Verse (https://www.youtube.com/user/RobertsSpaceInd/)
Monthly Studio Report
Vault UpdateFRIDAY, OCTOBER 5TH, 2018
Reverse the Verse LIVE (https://www.twitch.tv/starcitizen)
Roadmap Update
RSI Newsletter
Community MVP: September 24th, 2018Externer Inhalt robertsspaceindustries.comInhalte von externen Seiten werden ohne Ihre Zustimmung nicht automatisch geladen und angezeigt.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! Every week, we select one piece of content submitted to the Community Hub and highlight it here. The highlighted content creator will be awarded with an MVP badge on Spectrum and be immortalized in our MVP section of the Hub.
Don’t forget to submit your content to our Community Hub for a chance at seeing it here!
50-Man Space Battle by SKAINET – Cinematic by TriEye
Externer Inhalt robertsspaceindustries.comInhalte von externen Seiten werden ohne Ihre Zustimmung nicht automatisch geladen und angezeigt.The Spanish Community has done it again with another epic event. Shoutout to TriEye for creating a stunning video that captures the event.
Check out the full video on the Community Hub.Quelle: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/citi…In-Star-Citizen
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Evocati invocation, scramblin’ in the dark, Lorville sanitation, and mo-cap madness in this week’s update.
Quelle: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/tran…round-The-Verse
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Writer’s Note: Phantom Bounty: Part One was published originally in Jump Point 3.1.
Two hundred and sixty-five days. That’s how long they’d been hunting the Phantom. It seemed like they’d entered a thousand of these tiny, dark, hole-in-the-wall taverns, seeking leads from shifty informants, always just too far behind. Mila leaned against the metal prefab wall and tried to breathe through her mouth, but the scent of stale alcohol and vomit flooded her nostrils anyway.
Rhys stood at the bar, towering above the other patrons, his broad back all she could see as he haggled with the owner for information, likely bribing away the last of their meager credits. Her stomach churned just watching him. They had to be close this time. Because if they didn’t land that massive bounty soon, they wouldn’t be able to afford so much as a mug of this dive’s swill.
Mila ran a hand through her straight brown hair, and a toothless patron leered at her from his stool at the bar. She crossed her arms and shot him a challenging glare, which unnerved him enough that he looked away and took another swig of his drink.
A younger man with a ripped synth liavold-skin jacket and questionable hygiene inched his way up to the bar and stood off to the side, pulling on the silver hoop in his ear. Typical.
There was usually at least one lowlife in a place like this — wearing synth-skin of nearly extinct creatures. They thought it made them look badass, like they didn’t fear the law, like they were above it. Mila’s nails bit into her palms, and she forced herself to unclench her fists. He probably didn’t even know it was a fake. Real liavold skin never came in that shade of grey.
The lowlife stepped closer to Rhys, clearly trying to eavesdrop, and Mila pushed away from the wall to go run him off. But Rhys finished haggling before she made it to the bar, and he gestured at her toward the exit. Relieved, she followed him outside.
The yellow-white sun had finished its descent while she and Rhys had been inside the tavern, and one by one the century-old light globes running the length of Tevistal’s streets flickered on. A loud murmur echoed down the alleyway, voices in the night, evidence of the crowd that had been gathering a few streets over in the square to celebrate the new year.
Damn Traveler’s Day. Sure, the huge crowd afforded her and Rhys an easy way to blend in, but that went both ways. If they could stay low profile, then the Phantom could do the same, slipping away like always.
Rhys grabbed Mila’s arm as the tavern doors swung closed behind them, and she gazed up at him: at the sharp angles of his face, his tousled brown hair, at the rough beard he’d allowed to grow in as they’d chased the Phantom from system to system, barely sleeping.
Rhys’s green eyes were bright, glinting in the light of the globes as he leaned down close. Mila warmed at the look in them. If she was being honest, their recent sleepless nights had less to do with the Phantom and more to do with . . . other things. They had been sharing a bunk for almost a month now.
“Good news,” Rhys said. “Maybe.” A familiar smirk appeared on his face.
She cleared her throat. “Oh yeah? What did he say?”
“That we might actually catch our Phantom this time.”
Mila’s pulse quickened, and her hand involuntarily dropped to the laser pistol holstered beneath her jacket. “She’s here? Still in Tevistal?”
Rhys’s smirk faded, and he took Mila by the arm and led her down the alleyway toward the main street. “I want to believe it,” he said, keeping his voice low. “I paid the fixer his fee and . . .”
“And what?”
“He gave me an address to a hostel. RoomTab’s still clicking. Said he saw the Phantom yesterday.”
Yesterday. “Why do I hear a ‘but’ coming?”
Rhys halted as they exited the alley. “But I’m not sure we can trust him. It was all . . . too easy.”
Pressure grew in Mila’s chest, and she blew out a breath, surveying the crowd at the end of the globe-lit street. Rhys had solid instincts — one of the many reasons Mila had charmed the successful bounty hunter into forming a partnership with her. With his hunches and her tech skills, they made a great team.
“Well, what do you want to do?” she asked, a note of the desperation she felt seeping into her tone. “I think we should check it out. We need this.”
“I know.”
She met his eyes. “We don’t have a choice.”
“There’s always a choice.”
“We’re too close. I say we check this out.”
Rhys worked his jaw and finally nodded. He pushed up the sleeve of his jacket, revealing the mobiGlas strapped to his forearm, and swiped his finger along the flexible clear screen to bring up a street map of Tevistal. After a moment, he concluded, “The address isn’t far from here. Travel advisory says it’s a high crime area.”
Mila snorted and swept her arm around. “And this isn’t?”
Fetid pools of water had gathered in potholes from the last rains, and the low prefab buildings here were dirty and dented, nothing like the tall, sparkling skyscrapers that had grown up further from the docks as the city matured. If Tevistal had an armpit, this was it.
Rhys laid a heavy hand on her shoulder. “Doesn’t matter. Because you’re heading back to the ship. I’ll scout this out to see if it’s legit.”
“Like hell I am. No way.” Mila flared her nostrils and shrugged off his hand. “It’s dangerous. You need back-up.”
The Phantom had single-handedly attacked seven Phan Pharmaceutical research facilities in the past year and had managed to evade every agent of the law since. The UEE wanted the saboteur — dead or alive — on charges of terrorism, murder and armed robbery. Dangerous was an understatement.
“Let me scout it out,” Rhys repeated, his voice rough.
“We go together,” Mila responded through gritted teeth.
Rhys let out a low growl, but when it was clear Mila wouldn’t back down, he shook his head and started walking.
Mila released a breath and caught up to him. Rhys never would have suggested going alone before. He’d grown more cautious, more protective since they’d taken things to the next level. Controlling, even. It needed to stop, but right now wasn’t the time to address it.
The mobi directed them away from the crowds and deeper into the dockside slums. One cramped alleyway led to another, and the scent of burning garbage wafted over them as they passed homeless transients tending fires in front of scrap-metal lean-tos.
Hovers flew overhead, their lights illuminating the dark night as they ferried those who could afford it between the docks and the gleaming towers in the more affluent sections of the city. The soothing hum of their engines reminded Mila of another life, where she’d have been the one headed for better lodgings. But that old existence on Terra was long gone. And this — the chase, the hunt, taking down criminals with Rhys by her side — this was her life now. No regrets.
When Rhys’s mobi beeped to tell them they’d reached their destination, he deactivated it and drew his Arclight. “Down that alley. Building Two. Apartment Nine.”
Mila readied her own pistol and followed him into the dark alley. The prefab self-service “hostels” that filled this area were owned by investors who probably never set foot here. If you wanted to do something shady, this was the place for it.
Adrenaline flooded Mila’s body, making her pulse thrum faster. A cracked globe flickered above the low buildings, barely illuminating the letters engraved in the walls. She activated her pistol’s nightlight, but it didn’t help much.
A slow drip echoed from somewhere, and the only other sound was the pad of their boots on the pavement. Mila pointed her light at the nearest building and found the number etched in the side.
“One,” she said quietly.
A low rustle emanated from where she’d cast her light, and she and Rhys tensed. Metal hit metal, and Mila swung her weapon toward it. A skap tore out of the darkness and skittered across their path. Another dark shape, a blur of claws and fur, raced after the rat-like creature. As the predator and prey disappeared into the gloom, the skap let out a brief, interrupted shriek.
Mila released her breath with a shaky laugh. Maybe it was an omen. Maybe this would be the night she and Rhys finally caught their prey.
“Building Two,” Rhys said, shining his light on the building where the animals had headed.
Mila barely breathed as Rhys pushed open the outer metal door. It swung in on rusty hinges, creaking in the silence.
Dim globes lit up the space automatically, revealing a narrow corridor that was strewn with litter and stank of piss.
Mila darted a glance at Rhys. His eyes were narrowed, and that hint was enough for Mila to know he was worried.
“It’s too quiet,” Rhys murmured.
“Maybe it’s pickpocket-the-pilgrims night,” Mila responded, but her sarcasm didn’t ease the tension. Rhys was right. These prefab buildings had paper-thin walls, yet the place was dead silent. Not a good sign.
They walked a few more paces, and Rhys pointed his weapon at a door on the right. “Nine. Watch my back. I go in first.”
As he turned the knob, every muscle in Mila’s body went tight. The door swung open, unlocked, and the bright lights inside flooded the dimly lit hallway.
Rhys stepped through the door, and Mila’s jumpsuit suddenly felt too tight. Sweat dripped down her back as she scanned the other doors and kept an eye on the one they’d come in.
Rhys returned, finished with his sweep of the small space. His face was a blank mask. “Empty. RoomTab’s been hacked.”
Heat coursed through Mila. She let out a grunt and shoved past him and into the room. So close. Her throat thickened, and she fought the urge to punch a hole through one of the thin walls.
The room contained a low mattress and a metal folding table and chair. A partition separated the sink and toilet from the rest of the room, but other than that, the room had been stripped bare.
Mila whirled around to face the hacked payment scanner. Wires had been ripped out and reconnected in a knot, forcing the RoomTab system to keep the water running and the lights on without payment.
“Search the room,” Mila said, her voice hard. “You find so much as a hair, you save it.”
Rhys gave her a pained look. “You know we won’t.”
“I’ll check the scanner.” Mila clenched her jaw as she rolled up her sleeve to activate her mobiGlas and access the payment scanner.
She brought up the program she’d written to hack basic systems. Technically it was illegal to use a program like this, but she’d written it so she could bring criminals to justice, hadn’t she? She’d never use one of her programs to break the law.
“This was rigged less than twenty-four hours ago. We just missed her.” Mila disconnected her mobi and slammed a hand into the room’s thin metal wall. The whole thing shuddered in response. “We need to —”
“Mila.” Rhys’s sharp voice was a warning, and she turned to face him. The heat drained from her as she saw what he held in his hands. He’d turned the folding table over and part of it rested on his thighs. A small bundle was taped to the underside of it. It let out a low beep. Then another.
Explosives.
Mila’s pulse skyrocketed, roaring in her ears. She kept her eyes glued to Rhys, to the thinly masked fear on his face, and reluctantly backed out the door. It had happened too fast. They should have listened to Rhys’s gut on this.
She paused for a moment outside the unit’s door, indecisive, then turned and took off running down the corridor.
Reaching the outer door, she threw it open and glanced back to find Rhys hurtling toward her. They stumbled into the alleyway together as a deafening blast rocked the flimsy structure, and the shock wave knocked them both to their knees. Heat rushed over them and stole Mila’s breath away.
Mila stared down at the pavement, ears ringing as the shock faded.
Rhys recovered first, panting, and pulled a shaking Mila to her feet. He held her close and searched her face. “Are you all right?”
It took Mila a second to find her voice. “Yeah. You?”
“Fine.” Rhys glanced back toward the building. “Do you think anyone else was in there?”
“You know it was empty. We gotta get out of here. If we get stopped here, we’ll be wrapped up for a day or more in questioning.”
Rhys nodded, looking as dazed as she felt, and they jogged down the alleyway and back out to the street. The explosion had summoned a small group of the transients, and they openly gaped at Mila and Rhys as they ran by.
Red crowded the edges of Mila’s vision, and her anger mingled with an old, dark pain. They needed to bring the Phantom to justice. Had to. It was a need that overwhelmed logic, a need she couldn’t deny, and Mila probably would have chased the Phantom even if the bounty had been far lower.
It was all because of Casey, even if Mila tried to pretend it wasn’t. Casey Phan, kidnapped and murdered when they were sixteen. The inept police force had just let the killer get away. Watching that crime go unpunished was the reason Mila decided to work for justice. The reason she abandoned her family to become a bounty hunter.
Casey’s father owned Phan Pharmaceuticals, and seeing the Phantom blow up the facilities, kill Phan Pharm workers, steal research . . . it had rekindled all of Mila’s old memories. She’d take out the Phantom the way she’d never been able to take out the screwed up person who had stolen Casey away.
When Mila and Rhys were almost to the crowded square, she halted and wiped the sweat from her face, still breathing hard. She was dangerously close to losing it, and she wasn’t about to have a breakdown in front of all the revelers between them and their ship.
Rhys stopped when she did. “What is it?”
“That was a set-up,” Mila said, her voice breaking. “That fixer knew he was sending us to die. Everyone must have known it. Someone warned the rest of the tenants to get out.”
She swung her body around, seeking something, anything, to take her anger out on. She slammed the toe of her boot into a piece of scrap metal and sent it flying. A sharp pain coursed through her foot, but she gritted her teeth against it and tried to ignore the burning sensation in her eyes.
She let out a little guttural scream and turned back to Rhys, her hands clenched into tight fists. “We need to beat the kak out of that fixer until he gives us the truth.”
Rhys grabbed Mila by the shoulders and leaned down so his eyes were level with hers. “Calm. Down.”
“No!” Mila pushed him away with both hands, but he held her tight and didn’t let go. She blinked against the continued burning sensation in her eyes. “We need this bounty.”
Rhys shook his head. “If that fixer knowingly sent us to a trap, I’m not about to advertise we survived it. This is his turf. We’re at a disadvantage here. You should know that.”
“We were just so close,” Mila replied, her voice shaking.
Rhys loosened his tight hold on her. “I’m calling it, Mi. This isn’t worth getting blown up over. There are plenty of other bounties to go after.”
But none like this one. Hot anger lit a fire in Mila’s chest, and she shoved Rhys away. “Coward.”
Surprise flashed across his face, and he stiffened. “Don’t be an idiot. This isn’t about bravery, it’s about survival. You wanted to hunt this one, so I agreed. For you. It was always a long shot. We’ll survive off less until something else comes along. We’re done.”
“No,” Mila shoved Rhys again, and he stumbled back a step. “We’re finding the Phantom. And if you won’t help, I’ll keep searching by myself.”
“What is it about this case that you’re not telling me? You’ve never been this stubborn about any of the others. It’s like you’re not thinking clearly.”
Mila swallowed the lump in her throat and pushed past him so he couldn’t see the look on her face. She’d have to tell Rhys about her past someday . . . when she was ready. And today wasn’t that day.
“Mila.” Rhys was by her side again. “Tell me what’s going on.”
She took a deep breath as she turned toward him, struggling to get her roiling emotions under control. He really thought he was making the right choice. But he was wrong.
“The trail was cold before,” she said, trying to keep her voice even. “Whispers of the Phantom passing through, week-old transactions. Twenty-four hours, Rhys. Twenty-four! The Phantom was in that room a day ago. We can’t stop now. We need food. Devana needs maintenance and upgrades. And maybe . . . maybe after we finish this, we can take a break, right? Go to some pleasure planet, maybe Cassel . . . together.”
Her cheeks flushed at how her own words sounded, but Rhys’s eyes grew dark, and he cupped her chin in his callused hand and tilted her head up until their eyes met.
“One more time. We’ll try to find one more lead,” Rhys conceded, his voice rough. “But if we don’t . . . we can’t afford to keep ignoring other work for this bounty. So if the next lead doesn’t work out, promise me you’ll give it up.”
Mila pushed his hand away. “I’m sorry. But no. I can’t promise you that.”
The low hum of an approaching hover caught their attention, and they both looked up. Flashing lights. Local police.
“Let’s get lost in the crowd,” Rhys said. “But this conversation isn’t over.”
Mila pushed down her irritation and followed him. She’d convince him. Because they were not quitters.
They kept up a brisk pace until they were well into the main square, where the mass of people had gathered outside the Journeymen Hall. It was an interesting spectacle — a mix of normal-looking civilians and people dressed for the occasion. Some of these Travelers liked to mimic old Earth customs, more-so than those on Terra.
A cluster near Mila and Rhys wore silken cloaks and fantastic masks adorned with feathers. Another dozen had forgone the costumes, but their walking sticks were intricately carved and inlaid with gems and smooth stones. Another pair wore gold robes with masks carved to resemble predatory animals.
Rhys pushed through the crowd, carving a path to the far edge of the square where vendors had set up booths filled with all the goods and trinkets a crowd of pilgrims could want on Traveler’s Day.
The scent of roasting meat made her mouth water and her stomach growl, reminding her she hadn’t eaten since this morning’s breakfast on Devana. Rhys seemed to be of the same mind, because he led her to where the nearest food vendor had set up a grill.
“What kind of meat?” Rhys scoffed.
The middle-aged woman winked and waved the skewer at Rhys. “Special. Is a secret.”
“Ah, right. Might that be some special skap meat from dockside?”
The woman’s face soured. “Insults! I no sell skap.”
Mila wandered over to the next table, zoning out Rhys’s haggling. He was so tight-fisted with their creds. How could he not see how important catching the Phantom was to their bottom line?
The table Mila found herself at was strewn with trinkets. Incense burners, Christian crosses, Wiccan pentagrams, Buddhist statues, and a wide range of other eclectic-looking jewelry.
A bronze-toned pendant on a long chain caught Mila’s eye. She picked it up without thinking and turned it over in her palm. It resembled the shape of an infinity symbol, and small pearlescent stones in all different shapes and sizes dangled from the end of it.
“That piece is almost as beautiful as you.”
Mila started and felt her cheeks redden as she met the vendor’s gaze. The colorfully dressed woman looked to be in her early thirties and had pale skin and ice blue eyes like Mila’s, but that’s where their similarities ended. The woman’s space-black hair was styled in dozens of tiny braids, and she wore a nose ring that glinted beneath the sparkling lights hanging from the metal awning above.
“Um . . . thanks,” Mila said. “It is a nice piece.”
“Better than nice, girl. It’s the ideal gift to celebrate the new sun. That is, if you want to have good luck. That pendant’s been blessed by Cassa.”
Mila glanced back down at the pendant, at the way the twinkling lights overhead made the colors on each stone warp and change, like tiny rainbows. She wasn’t superstitious or religious, but the pendant reminded her of a ring she’d owned as a child. She wanted to try it on, hold the stones closer to the light and see them change, but she resisted.
“What kind of stones are these?” Mila asked.
“Those stones were collected from the null point between two binary stars. Only travelers with great luck and persistence can thread the needle to reach that point.”
A low laugh sounded from behind Mila, and she whirled to find Rhys standing there, two skewers of meat in hand. “Stones collected from between paired stars, eh?”
The woman’s serious expression didn’t change. “That’s exactly what they are.”
Rhys shook his head. “Maybe you should get off this rock some time. Because nothing hangs between binary stars; one or the other pulls everything in.”
The woman leaned across the table, and a slow smile spread on her blood-red lips. “The journey can teach us much, my friend. But build a life on false beliefs, and you’ll soon find your ship has drifted into a minefield.”
“You done here, Mi?” Rhys’s question came out like a command, and he looked like he was trying hard not to respond to the woman. He didn’t have a lot of patience for religious types, Journeywomen or otherwise.
The merchant ignored Rhys and looked at Mila expectantly. “The colors in that piece really do suit you.”
“It’s gorgeous. But maybe some other time.”
Mila sighed and reluctantly dropped the necklace into the woman’s waiting palm. Mila grabbed a meat skewer from Rhys without meeting his eyes and strode toward the center of the square. Why did he always have to be such a buzzkill?
She stopped at the edge of the crowd, watching an unfamiliar ritual unfold at the center of the square, and gnawed at the stringy meat. Skap meat or not, it was a thousand times better than the bland nutrition bars on their ship.
She finished it, tossed the stick, and started searching the crowd for Rhys. Time to convince him to continue their search for the Phantom.
She found him only a few yards away, watching her intently, and despite her earlier annoyance, a smile budded on her lips. He knew when to give her space, and he knew when she really needed him not to. His solid presence in her life had been the best part of these past months.
A flash of grey in her peripheral vision drew her gaze, and it landed on a man wearing a silver hoop earring and a fake liavold skin jacket. It was the lowlife from the tavern.
Mila’s pulse quickened, and she pushed past the people surrounding her to get closer. The lowlife was staring at Rhys, but when he noticed Mila heading for him, his eyes widened and he scrambled away, disappearing into the crowd.
Mila shouted and sprinted after him, shoving people out of her way, ignoring the obscenities they yelled in her wake. She was vaguely aware of Rhys falling into step behind her. That dock scum knew something, she was sure of it. He might even be a spy for the fixer. She couldn’t let him escape.
The cries of anger erupting in front of her let her know she was on the right path, and as she exited the main press of the crowd, she caught sight of a grey jacket disappearing around the corner.
She ran faster, a stitch growing in her side as she caught up. When the man faltered ahead of her, trying to decide which way to turn at the end of an alleyway, she launched herself forward, knocking him into the wall. They both hit hard and slid toward the grimy pavement.
Rhys was there an instant later, hauling Mila out of the way and pinning the man’s arms behind his back so he couldn’t pull a weapon. The man’s bloodshot eyes were wild, darting between Mila and the alley’s exit.
Rhys raised a brow. “Care to explain?”
Mila sniffed and wiped the dust off her pants. “What? Didn’t you notice him back at the tavern? This snake was eavesdropping on you. I bet he works with the fixer. And he was definitely watching you back there.”
“Is that so?” Rhys pulled his pistol and shoved the man against the building to frisk him. He pulled out a slide blade concealed at the man’s waist, then retrieved a small black case from his jacket. He tossed Mila the case, and she opened it, her heart still beating a staccato rhythm against her ribcage.
Inside lay a syringe and a vial filled with black, viscous liquid.
“Show us your arm,” Mila demanded.
The man was shaking as he pushed his sleeve up, revealing a web of veins stained black from his habit.
Rhys whistled. “Got ourselves a WiDoWer, eh?” He adjusted his Arclight so it lined up with the man’s face. “Now why were you following us?”
The man’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed, and he held his hands palm out as a drop of sweat slid down his forehead and into his eye. “I followed you ’cause I got info. I’ll trade for it.”
“What kind?” Rhys asked, his eyes hard. “The last info we got wasn’t worth much.”
“Harris — he set you up. But I know the truth.”
“No trades.” Mila closed on the addict, still holding his drugs in her grasp, and wrapped her other hand around his throat, squeezing. “If you knew about the trap, you should have told us before. We could have died.”
“Mila.” Rhys’s low warning did nothing to calm the rage buzzing in Mila’s head.
“No trades,” Mila repeated, squeezing tighter. The lowlife gasped for air.
“Mila.” This time Rhys’s voice broke through, and Mila dropped her hand from the man’s throat, then forced herself to step back.
Rhys narrowed his eyes at her, then turned back to the addict. “What do you want for the info?”
“Creds,” the man said, wheezing. “Ninety creds.”
“For drugs.” Mila opened the case and held the vial high so the addict could see it. “How ’bout this? You tell us everything you know, or I feed your precious sludge to the pavement.”
“No. No no no.” The man was sweating more freely now, and the desperation in his voice made Mila nauseous with sudden self-loathing. But she wouldn’t back down. She was done with haggling. With the trades. Done with all the lies and dead leads.
She placed the vial on the ground and positioned her boot over it. “You get one second to decide.”
“I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you! Don’t. It’s my last one. The Phantom was here. She was callin’ herself Elaine. Harris hooked her up with new tags. I got a shot of ’em on my mobi.”
“Show us,” Rhys demanded.
The man revealed the mobi beneath his sleeve and brought up the data. Mila swiped her arm across his screen and her mobi captured the tag numbers. Then she placed her boot back over the vial of WiDoW. The lowlife seemed to turn green in the dim light of the globes overhead.
“Where was Elaine headed next?” Rhys asked.
“Septa — she had a meeting on the platform. She’s got a way into Xi’an space. Someone powerful is helpin’ that girl. Musta paid off Harris big, ’cause I ain’t never seen him help set up a bounty hunter like he did to you two.”
Mila’s mind raced, considering the implications of what this snitch was saying. If the Phantom truly had a way into Xi’an space, they’d never find her again. She’d reach Rihlah, and the Xi’an wouldn’t do kak to help them catch a terrorist. They’d just pretend to, acting diplomatic while the Phantom got to live out her life, with the Advocacy and the rest of the UEE stuck waiting for her to voluntarily cross into Human-controlled space again.
“He could be lying,” Mila said. “Describe this Elaine.”
“Uh — red hair. I think it was a wig. I followed her back to that hostel and saw her leave with black hair. Dark skin. Late twenties. Kept her face all covered up. Never got a good vid.” The addict tapped his mobi again and brought up an image of a woman, covered up as he’d described.
All Mila and Rhys had ever seen were blurry images of this woman, no better than what this man was showing them. But what else did they have to go on?
She exchanged glances with Rhys, and Rhys gave her a slow nod.
Mila picked up the vial and shoved it back in the case. She wanted to destroy the drugs, force this scum into withdrawal, but the withdrawal could kill him. And Mila was no murderer and never would be.
She dropped the case back into the man’s hands and flicked his jacket with her finger. He flinched at the touch.
“If you need creds, you should start by demanding a refund from whoever sold you this knock-off.”
His brows went up in surprise, and he glanced down at his jacket, then back to Rhys, who still held his weapon. “Can I get my blade back?”
“Get out of here,” Rhys barked.
The man flinched again, then pocketed his drugs and took off running.
“What the hell was that?” Rhys’s face was red, his voice so low Mila knew he was pissed. “That’s not our agreement. I do the haggling. I handle the contacts. Not you. That’s our deal.”
Mila put her hands on her hips. “Well, it worked, didn’t it? We need to get back to our ship and get to Septa before our phantom disappears for good.” She turned heel and walked off without waiting for a reply.
Rhys didn’t speak a word as they made their way back to the docks, and his anger hung in the heavy silence between them, ruining what should have been a celebration and leaving her to her own thoughts. When they finally reached the well-lit entryway that led up to their Freelancer, Mila turned to Rhys.
His expression was blank again, showing nothing of what he might be feeling. Sometimes he was so damn hard to read. She pressed a hand to his chest, and his eyes softened slightly at her touch.
“I’m sorry. For how I acted back there. You’re right. I broke our agreement. I promise I’ll try to keep it together from now on —”
“Don’t. You got what we needed. But if this lead doesn’t pan out?”
“Fine. If it doesn’t pan . . . then we’re done searching.”
It didn’t matter. Because if the Phantom really was headed for Xi’an space, and they missed her one more time, it was as good as over anyway.
A look of relief passed over Rhys’s face. “Good. Then we agree. We’ll follow this lead, but if we lose her, we move onto something else.”
He hesitated, then reached into his pocket and drew out a small velvet bag. Mila’s lips parted as he pulled out a length of chain, the Cassa pendant hanging from it, its gorgeous pearlescent stones shimmering in the light of the dockside globes.
Rhys fastened the good luck pendant around Mila’s neck.
“But our credits . . .” Mila warmed at his light touch. “We didn’t have enough to waste on this.”
He shrugged. “Could be that Journeywoman was right about this thing after all. All we needed was a little luck. And it seems we got it.”
His voice came out husky, and Mila stood on tiptoes to kiss him. He responded with intensity, pulling her close, pressing her body to his. She wrapped her arms around his neck and lost herself in him.
When he pulled away, his eyes were dark. “Flight plan first. But while we’re waiting for clearance . . . ”
Mila gave him a small smile. “Meet me in the bunk?”
He smirked and pulled her close for another kiss. “And after that . . . we catch our phantom.”
TO BE CONTINUED…
Quelle: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/seri…Bounty-Part-One
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Hello everyone,
Last week on Around the Verse we announced that Object Container Streaming and 3.3 were split into multiple development branches, and that we’ll deliver Alpha 3.3 for all on October 10, with OCS coming with a later patch currently titled 3.3.5. The roadmap update made last Friday now also reflects those changes and displays a 3.3.5 column featuring OCS and its dependent cards.
Also last week, Bounty Hunters rallied across the ‘verse to take down criminal scum, highlighting their victories in a screenshot contest on Twitter. Within 24 hours we received over 500 entries, showcasing that the hunt was definitely on. A big thank you to everyone who participated, and congratulations to our winning entries.
Alongside the screenshot contest, we also brought back a handful of the verse’s most devastating brawlers, available for all your mercenary needs. As a reminder, this promotion ends tonight!
One of the heavy hitting ships we made available during this promotion is the Aegis Hammerhead, scheduled for release in Alpha 3.3. You can find everything you need to know about this turret enthusiast’s dream in our latest episode of Ship Shape, with a follow-up RTV featuring Designers Adam Parker, John Crewe, and ship artist Calvin Williams.
Lastly, big shout-out to everyone who attended Con42 this weekend. Team members fortunate enough to attend had loads of fun. Congratulations to the organizers who put on such a successful community event.
And with that, let’s see what’s going on this week:
Every week on Calling All Devs, designers, engineers, and other developers from our five offices around the world answer backer questions submitted on Spectrum and voted for by YOU. This week we we talk about mining on foot, stealing data, the RSI Lynx Rover and more. Subscribe to our YouTube channel and turn on the notifications to be amongst the first to watch!
On Tuesday, the Lore Team will publish their weekly lore post. This week, we’ll see part one of “Phantom Bounty”, a story previously released in Jump Point 3.1. You can also find all previously published lore posts here.
Thursday will welcome another episode of Around the Verse where we’ll take a look at the latest Star Citizen news with our weekly project update.
Finally, make sure to tune in on Friday at 12pm PST for another episode of Reverse the Verse, broadcast live on our Star Citizen Twitch channel. Stay tuned for further information about who our special guests will be and keep an eye on Spectrum for the Questions Thread!
We’ll see you in the ‘Verse!
Ulf Kuerschner
Senior Community Manager
The Weekly Community Content ScheduleMONDAY, SEPTEMBER 24TH, 2018
Calling All Devs (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/spectrum-dispatch)TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 25TH, 2018
Lore Post (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/spectrum-dispatch)WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 26TH, 2018
CitizenCon Emote Contest Winners AnnouncementTHURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 27TH, 2018
Around the Verse (https://www.youtube.com/user/RobertsSpaceInd/)
Vault UpdateFRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 28TH, 2018
Jump Point – September Issue
Reverse the Verse LIVE (https://www.twitch.tv/starcitizen)
Roadmap Update
RSI Newsletter
Community MVP: September 24th, 2018Externer Inhalt robertsspaceindustries.comInhalte von externen Seiten werden ohne Ihre Zustimmung nicht automatisch geladen und angezeigt.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! Every week, we select one piece of content submitted to the Community Hub and highlight it here. The highlighted content creator will be awarded with an MVP badge on Spectrum and be immortalized in our MVP section of the Hub.
Don’t forget to submit your content to our Community Hub for a chance at seeing it here!
Hammerhead 4K Wallpaper by STARMEDIC
Externer Inhalt robertsspaceindustries.comInhalte von externen Seiten werden ohne Ihre Zustimmung nicht automatisch geladen und angezeigt.Starmedic’s latest wallpaper features the Hammerhead, a ship equally suited to support larger capital ships or act as a flagship for fighter groups. Decorate your desktop while waiting for 3.3 and the ships’ introduction the ‘verse.
Check out the post on the Community Hub for even more wallpapers from Starmedic!Quelle: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/citi…In-Star-Citizen
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Maps to the stars, building out the Stanton system, a ship pipeline checkup, and news about Object Container Streaming and CitizenCon in this week’s update.
Quelle: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/tran…round-The-Verse
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Alles anzeigenExterner Inhalt robertsspaceindustries.comInhalte von externen Seiten werden ohne Ihre Zustimmung nicht automatisch geladen und angezeigt.
Part One of the story can be read here.
Alex leaned over the railing to look down at the sprawling plaza below. Streams of Banu flowed in and around the stalls and shops that crowded the marketplace. The near deafening noise was a constant presence. Sellers shouted proudly about their wares, shrewd traders loudly haggled over sips of sloma, while young runners darted about trying to lure potential customers back to their Souli’s Merchantman where the finest fuel cyclers or crog berries or whatever it was they happened to be selling was waiting for just the right buyer.
And even over all that noise Alex could still hear her stomach rumble.
It seemed the one thing that wasn’t for sale on the Bacchus flotilla was a decent breakfast. After a harrowing experience with a ‘Human Breakfast Special’ that had resulted in a shallow dish filled with sliced hot dogs and popcorn covered in what she could only describe as very thick orange juice, Alex had sworn off eating till she could get back to the few ready meals still safely tucked away inside the Belligerent Duck’s stores.
That would have to wait though. Pushing her hunger aside, Alex searched the crowds below for anything suspicious. Which, when you’re inside a Banu flotilla, is sort of like looking for uptight swegs when on Earth. More specifically, she was looking for any undercover Advocacy Agents or bounty hunters who had the gall to follow them into Banu territory.
Typically, the Advocacy would pursue a thief for a system, maybe two, before they called back their resources and left it to the Bounty Hunting Guild to chase the culprit down. It wasn’t that the Advocacy weren’t eager to see justice done, they just had more important things to spend their time and efforts on (like vicious outlaw gangs and crazed serial killers). It was why the Empire relied so heavily on the bounty system in the first place. Doubly so when the jurisdiction crossed into the Banu Protectorate. With a high enough price, you could have hundreds of bounty hunters searching for free and only have to pay the person who collected. It saved time and credits.
The Advocacy’s focus was on big fish, and Alex had worked hard at staying a medium fish at best.
Yet, her and Mas’ escape from Terra had proven to be anything but typical. Instead of having to deal with the normal gaggle of cocksure guilders fumbling all over themselves to get paid, the Advocacy had mobilized dozens of Agents across multiple systems in one of the biggest dragnets she had ever seen. Every jump point had been swarming. Plus, there had been the daily dispatches encouraging citizens to share information with the authorities. Why was it that law-abiding types were always so bored they couldn’t just mind their own damn business?
The Duck could barely stop to refuel without some good Samaritan recognizing them from the wanted posters plastered all over the spec. Mas had to work overtime blocking or delaying comms until they were away, and even then, they still had to fight their way free more times than was healthy. They had always pulled through, but only by the slimmest of margins. Their Mercury had the scars to prove it.
On top of that, Alex had been forced to call in just about every outstanding favor she had. In Pyro, a crew that owed them for a records wipe had agreed to tangle with the bounty hunters who had cornered them there. Though, to be honest, she suspected they would have done it for free with the amount of joy they seemed to take in the fight. In Tram, Alex not only had to wipe Old Mac’s debt clear to get him to help distract the Advos tailing them, but now they owed him a favor. And knowing the gummer, he was likely to milk it for all its worth. A problem for another day.
All in all, they had been pursued across seven systems and hadn’t been able to rest for a moment. Well, Mas barely slept on a good day so he seemed relatively unperturbed by the whole experience. In fact, having the chance to coordinate an intrusion on the Meridian Transit network in Garron had the hacker humming louder than she had ever heard him. And admittingly, Alex had laughed herself watching the hacked starliner routes stymy their pursuers. But that had been days ago. Now, here she was in Bacchus, tired, hungry, surrounded by a hive of Banu, and she could tell that her brain was far from firing with all thrusters.
Something about this job wasn’t adding up. Being paid to delete files at Behring instead of stealing them was strange enough, but now with the way the law had been after them? Even with a big player like Behring involved the response had been above and beyond. Alex felt like she was staring at a big red warning sign, but she was so exhausted she couldn’t read it.
What she really needed was about a month on Cassel with nothing to do but float, drink, flirt with Navy, and spend all her hard-earned credits.
Speaking of which, Alex brought up her mobi to check the time. Only a half hour until they met with Mr. Grouse and received the rest of their payment. Pushing herself up from the rail, she turned and headed towards the docking tube that connected Donosi Souli to the rest of the flotilla structure. Hopefully, Mas had been able to make progress on untangling the project data they had secretly downloaded from the lab.
A few steps behind, Mr. Grouse quietly followed.
To say that Donosi was Mas’ old Souli was a bit misleading, but it was easier for Alex to think of it that way. A programming guild, Donosi had been formed when the previous guild leader, Essosouli Olosso has died. Mas had used the turnover to buy his freedom, while most of the other guild members had joined Olosso’s heir Donosi when she established her ‘new’ Souli. So basically, all the same people working out of the same place, doing the same thing.
Fortunately, while Mas was no longer considered family, Essosouli Donosi was inclined to temporarily hire them both whenever they needed a place to lay low for a while. In exchange for Mas doing some work for them, he and Alex received the protection that being part of a powerful Souli brought, keeping would-be Bounty Hunters at bay thanks to the intricacies of Banu politics.
Alex arrived through the old airlock that marked where the Donosi’s ship connected to the flotilla. Not that it was much of a ship anymore. The thing hadn’t flown in decades and was so hemmed in on all side by other structures it was unclear if it could take off even if it had wanted to. Carefully stepping over thick cable bundles, she made her way inside. It was cluttered for sure, but compared to some of the other Souli she had visited, Donosi was neat and organized. Rather than the usual overflowing collection of odds and ends that most Banu seemed drawn to, the computer guild’s wealth was all in data. Racks and racks of drives of various makes and models lined the walls, some of them older than her. In the center of the room, several Banu half-reclined at terminals pouring over lines of code. Over the sound of typing, she could hear Mas happily humming to himself.
“Any luck, Mas?” asked Alex.
“Oh, yes. Much,” replied Mas with a wide smile. “We have confirmed that Project Stargazer is particularly worthless.”
Alex turned to see Essouli Donosi enter the room. You could always tell when Donosi was approaching because the dozens of mobiGlas that she wore clacked together as she walked. “Oh, yes,” said Donosi. “Complete garbage.”
That red warning sign in Alex’s head started flashing a little faster. “What do you mean? We got paid a fortune to wipe this stuff.”
Mas walked over to Alex with a datapad and gestured to the screen. “This is Project Stargazer.”
“Looks like a targeting reticule.”
“It is a targeting reticule. Part of a design that was supposed to help gunners recalibrate their weapons if the sighting was off during combat. The project was shelved last year when it was proven in tests to only be slightly more efficient than not using it.”
“The datapod you stored it on is worth more than this terrible information,” said Donosi. “Total refuse. Utter trash. No one would ever pay anything for such a thing as what you have brought.”
Alex’s stomach sank when she realized that Donosi was repeating herself. A sure sign that the Essosouli was negotiating. Part of the agreed upon price for the Souli’s protection had been the info they’d stolen and now it seemed that Donosi was no longer satisfied with that deal. This was not good news considering that both her and Mas were technically indentured to the guild currently.
“You can keep the datapod then,” replied Alex. “Let’s go, Mas.” She pulled on his arm, trying to get him to follow her.
“Mas, stay where you are,” said Donosi in a firm voice. “Your debt has not been cleared.”
Mas stopped and Alex found herself uselessly pulling on what might as well have been a brick wall.
“What are you doing? Let’s go.”
“I am sorry, Alex,” said Mas. “I cannot leave until Essosouli Donosi approves.”
“Are you serious?”
“I will not break a given bond. I am not like a Human.” With that, Mas winked at her.
Alex had been the one to teach Mas to wink and it had quickly proven to be a terrible idea. More than a few deals had gone south thanks to him winking when Alex was attempting to stretch the truth a bit. However, since none of the other Banu knew what winking meant, the skill might finally have payed off. Mas wanted her to find a way out of this.
“And what do you think our debt is?” asked Alex.
“A month of labor. Mas will gain access to some difficult locked drives we have acquired and you will clean.”
Even if they hadn’t needed to make their rendezvous, there was no universe that existed where Alex would have taken those terms. A headache began to grow behind her eyes. Like she didn’t have enough on her plate without becoming a Banu slave for a month. Actually, Alex thought, why am I having to deal with this?
“And I say there is no debt. You agreed to take the info on the datapod and that’s what you got. A deal’s a deal.”
“Information that is worthless.”
“Yeah, that sucks for you. Next time negotiate better.”
A smile broke across Donosi’s face. “Very well. You are free to go.”
“Oh,” Alex responded a bit taken aback by the sudden shift. Even though she lived with a Banu, she still could be surprised by how alien the aliens sometimes felt. “Thanks.”
“Come on, Alex,” said Mas, getting up from the terminal. “We don’t want to be late.”
Mas worked the star runner’s scanner as Alex guided the ship towards the rendezvous coordinates the courier had delivered to her a few days earlier.
The relative quiet of the Duck proved to be unnerving rather than the relief she had expected. And even though she should have been able to take a break from looking over her shoulder now that she was back aboard her own ship, Alex still felt on edge. Nothing about this job was sitting right. Why would Grouse want them to purge useless data? Why would the Advocacy be treating them like the Empire’s most wanted? Why did Grouse want to meet again rather than just sending the credits. Why couldn’t she figure out what the hell was going on?
“This is a trap, yes?” asked Mas, having similar thoughts.
“Yeah,” agreed Alex. “You want to forget the credits and bail?”
“It is a lot of credits.”
“It is so many credits.”
Mas thought for a beat. “We can always get more credits. I am a very good hacker and you are also good at things.”
“Yeah.” Though she was sad to be losing the money, a huge sense of relief came over her now that the decision had been made. “Where do you want to go? Spider? Maybe finally check out Kayfa?”
“Neither, I’m afraid,” said Mr. Grouse from behind them, the energy pistol in his hand trained at Mas’ head. “You will maintain your current course.”
Alex, cursing herself, swore that from now on she and Mas were going to search all the berths for stowaways before taking off.
“Let me guess, Advocacy are waiting for us at the rendezvous?” asked Alex.
“Correct, Ms. Dougan. You will be arrested, tried and convicted. Of course, there is a chance I will be forced to kill you both before then, but I would prefer not to.”
“You know we’ll tell them about you, right?”
“That has always been the plan. The only surprise was you managing to evade capture this long. I was certain they had you at the Davien jump point. It was most impressive when your Mercury gave them the slip once again.”
“Wait,” said Mas. “If you wanted the thieves arrested, then why did you hire us? Why not hire bad thieves?”
“The job needed to be successful. A lesser team would have been caught before deleting the project.”
“But the files were worthless!” protested Alex.
“Enough, Ms. Dougan. We should be arriving at the ambush any moment now.”
“What about Prairie Lightning Delta?
“What?”
A moment after she had uttered the phrase-key, the EMP rigged under the main console went off.
With a sickening lurch, the ship powered completely down.
Mr. Grouse, unprepared, tripped forward off balance. Mas, very prepared, slipped his knife from its sheath and slashed at their captor’s arm. The pistol dropped to the floor and Alex dove, recovering the weapon before Grouse could.
“An EMP. Clever,” said Grouse, breathing hard, the deep gouge on his arm dripping blood onto the floor.
“Mas’ gets full credit,” said Alex. “Now, if you don’t mind, why don’t you start explaining what in hell it is you’re up to.”
Before Grouse could respond, bright headlights suddenly shone into the cockpit. An Advocacy Vanguard flanked by two Banu Defenders was quickly approaching their ship. The Agents must have negotiated their way in with the Security Souli in this sector.
“I am afraid it’s too late,” said Grouse.
“Comm them and tell them we’ll kill you if you don’t stand down.”
“Why would they care about a corpse?” asked Grouse, reaching his fingers inside the wound on his arm.
“Mas! Stop him!” shouted Alex.
Mas reached out, but not fast enough.
“Your Empire thanks you for your service,” said Grouse as he used his fingers to sever his brachial artery. The trickle of blood turned into a gushing flood. Grouse collapsed to the floor unconscious.
Alex was certain that the memory of what Grouse had just done would hold the top spot for the most terrifying thing she’s ever seen for a long time to come. “Crap! Do you know first aid?”
“No.” said Mas, looking down at the body and its widening pool of blood. “Did we ever buy more medpens?”
“Crap. Crap. Crap. Help me get some pressure on him or something.”
It was then that the ship’s power kicked back on.
“—gent Duck. This is the UEE Advocacy. Prepare to be boarded.”
It seemed Alex and Mas had a choice. Either tend to Grouse before he died, or try to avoid capture. It was a very easy choice. “Mas, dump his body in the lock and strap in!”
Alex threw herself into the pilot seat and opened up the throttles to max. The Mercury burst to life and hurtled towards the Vanguard, rolling to bring their port side to the Advocacy’s ventral. The shields flared as the twin Sawbucks on the Vanguard’s turret scored a direct hit. They held for now, but a few more hits like that and the Duck would be done for.
A head to head fight wasn’t an option here. They were outclassed. Emergency escape maneuvers were the order of the day.
Gaining a bit of distance from the pursuers as they rushed to turn around and give chase, Alex quickly opened up the rear ramp and turned off the cargo grid.
“Mas, special delivery!”
Alex pulled hard on the controls and Mercury flew straight up, leaving the ten crates in their hold floating behind them. She grabbed the blackout helmet she kept nearby for just this moment and quickly slipped it on, giving all new meaning to the phrase ‘flying blind.’
Mas began counting down, “Three… two… one… “
Alex heart skipped a beat before she remembered that Banu counted down to zero.
“Zero!”
Behind them, a small new sun burst to life as the crates exploded. Or at least that’s what it looked like. Or would have looked like if Alex could see anything.
Each of the crates had contained the equivalent of a hundred flares. The ten crates combined was enough to overload any nearby sensors long enough for them to clear range. And forget trying to track them visually. Those poor pilots would be lucky if they got their vision back any time soon.
Alex pulled off the helmet and lined up a QT towards the Bacchus asteroid belt.
“If we are going to be on the run again,” said Mas. “I think I would like to go visit Leir.”
“Sure, Mas.” said Alex. “It’s your turn to pick anyway.”
Alex let out a deep sigh and for the moment tried to ignore the pool of blood at her feet by concentrating on flying.
No answers. No money. But for now at least, they had their freedom.
THE END.
Quelle: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/spec…On-The-Run-Pt-2
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Hi everyone,
Last week, after gathering questions about our latest concept ship on Spectrum, we released the Q&A for the Crusader Industries Mercury, the Star Runner chassis catering to governments and the private sector alike. Make sure to check out the Mercury before it’s gone, as it’s only available until September 18th!
Don’t have any plans for October 10th yet? Check out the CitizenCon 2948 website with details about the biggest Star Citizen event happening in Austin, Texas.
The MISC Commercial Contest ended last week, and you should check out all of the incredible entries to get a glimpse of what the life of a miner in the ‘verse feels like. We want to thank everyone who sent in a video and hope that you had as much fun creating the videos, as we had watching them!
Didn’t win anything this time around, matey? No worries, the next contest is rrright arrround the corrrner, arrr!
And with that, let’s see what else is going on this week:
Every week on Calling All Devs, designers, engineers, and other developers from our five offices around the world answer backer questions submitted on Spectrum and voted for by YOU. This week we we talk about joystick and gamepad support, ship locking mechanics, rest stops and more. Subscribe to our YouTube channel and turn on the notifications to be amongst the first to watch!
On Tuesday, our Lore Team will publish another in-fiction gem, continuing the “On the Run” story published back in August. If you have some catching up to do, you can find Part 1 here.
Thursday will welcome another episode of Around the Verse where we’ll take a look at the latest Star Citizen news with a project update.
Finally, make sure to tune in on Friday for another episode of Reverse the Verse, broadcast live on our Star Citizen Twitch channel. We’re looking forward to a Hammerhead double feature with a Ship Shape followed by a Q&A session at 9am Pacific! Keep an eye on Spectrum for the questions thread!
We’ll see you in the ‘Verse!
Ulf Kuerschner
Senior Community Manager
The Weekly Community Content ScheduleMONDAY, SEPTEMBER 17TH, 2018
Calling All Devs (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/spectrum-dispatch)TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18TH, 2018
Lore Post (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/spectrum-dispatch)WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 19TH, 2018
#TalkLikeAPirateDayTHURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 20TH, 2018
Around the Verse (https://www.youtube.com/user/RobertsSpaceInd/)
Vault UpdateFRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 21ST, 2018
Reverse the Verse LIVE (https://www.twitch.tv/starcitizen)
Roadmap Update
RSI Newsletter
Community MVP: September 17th, 2018Externer Inhalt robertsspaceindustries.comInhalte von externen Seiten werden ohne Ihre Zustimmung nicht automatisch geladen und angezeigt.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! Every week, we select one piece of content submitted to the Community Hub and highlight it in this section. The highlighted content creator will be awarded with an MVP badge on Spectrum and be immortalized in our MVP section of the Hub.
Don’t forget to submit your content to our Community Hub for a chance at seeing it here!
The Dream That is Star Citizen by WarBarbl
Externer Inhalt robertsspaceindustries.comInhalte von externen Seiten werden ohne Ihre Zustimmung nicht automatisch geladen und angezeigt.Featuring music by the wonderful Pedro Camacho, this video by WarBarbl captures unique and atmospheric shots in a stunning 4k fan trailer. Great job!
Full video on the Community Hub.Quelle: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/citi…In-Star-Citizen
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The return of asteroid mining, focused audio, and Lorville air traffic in this week’s update.
Quelle: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/tran…round-The-Verse
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Alles anzeigen
Writer’s Note: This portfolio was originally published in Jump Point 4.10.
With the launch of the UEE’s “Militia Mobilization Initiative,” the role that militias play in protecting the Empire has come front and center. The current directive aims to help arm civilian militias, so they can protect their homeworld and system against Vanduul incursions and outlaws. One system where militias have played a prominent role for centuries is Bremen — home to the famous Bremen Defense Force, which is the longest constantly active militia in the UEE.
Bremen was a relatively quiet and safe frontier system following its discovery in 2441. That all changed with the onset of the Second Tevarin War. The armadas of Corath’Thal utilized insurgency tactics to wage an unpredictable and shifting war against Humanity. With little idea as to where or when they might attack next, the UEE needed to raise a massive and expanding force in order to protect the populace, one that they struggled to properly feed. It was then that the fertile soil of Rytif (Bremen II) became the main producer of rations for UEE forces.
With this responsibility came both great wealth and an unexpected degree of danger. Bremen’s location meant the chance of a Tevarin attack was relatively low, but residents still noticed an uptick in Human threats. These outlaws were smart enough to avoid targeting military convoys, instead concentrating their attacks on civilians enriched by the system’s booming economy.
Philippe Lattimore almost lost his life in one such outlaw attack. The spry octogenarian was a veteran of the First Tevarin War who attempted to reenlist in the Navy when the second one began. After his application was politely denied, Lattimore took it upon himself to patrol the system. He spent his days responding to distress calls and meticulously documenting his experience. One day he answered a distress call only to be overwhelmed by outlaws still picking apart their latest catch. He barely survived the attack and although it was a close call, it didn’t deter him. In fact, it only made him more resolute to stop what was happening in Bremen, and he realized one thing: he wasn’t going to be able to do this alone.
In 2605, Lattimore met with Arcturus Koerner, Rytif’s largest landowner and de facto governor, to ask for funds to create the Bremen Defense Force (BDF). Legend has it that Lattimore spoke, uninterrupted, for over an hour about his recent experiences. He presented the detailed reports he had compiled while on patrol, highlighted the system’s current crime stats, and argued that it was vital for the people of Bremen to stand together to keep their system safe. Once done, Koerner only had one question, “How much do you need?”
Weeks later, the Bremen Defense Force was up and running. Under Lattimore’s leadership, the system’s crime rate was quickly cut in half and remained that way for years to come. Being a member of the Bremen Defense Force became a major point of pride for those ineligible or unable to fight for the UEE Navy during the war. A proud tradition that carries over to this day.
Peacetime Problems
Following the end of the Second Tevarin War, the UEE armed forces’ demand for foodstuffs from Rytif was greatly reduced, yet the landowner collective known as Bremen Mills didn’t slow production. They had become an economic powerhouse in the Empire’s grain market, and had quickly shifted their focus to supplying food for the public. Security for these food shipments were of the utmost importance, and Bremen Mills quickly realized that subsidizing the Bremen Defense Force was cheaper than hiring full time private security forces.
This arrangement worked relatively well until the grain market crashed in 2640. Bremen Mills suffered a severe financial hit and was forced to cut funds to the BDF. In addition, millions of jobs related to the grain market were lost, and Bremen saw its population dwindle. Suddenly, the BDF was on a precipice. Lacking funding and losing members, many thought it didn’t have a chance to survive.
Though he had stepped away from running the militia’s day-to-day operations due to failing health, Philippe Lattimore once again got heavily involved to save the BDF. He made appeals to private citizens to donate time or equipment and called upon local businesses to provide financial support. Now, more than ever, he argued, Bremen was in need of a strong militia to protect its people during the insecurity of these tough economic times.
Many resisted until in 2642 the Advocacy’s Travel Safety Advisory System (TSAS) upgraded the system’s threat level to “Medium,” its highest threat level to date. Worried that Bremen’s safe reputation was on the line, the public and private sector rededicated themselves to ensuring the system’s security. Since the Bremen Defense Force was already so deeply ingrained, the powers that be figured it would be quicker and cheaper to get it running at full capacity rather than expanding Rytif’s anemic police force.
Public and private funds once again were funneled to the BDF and a widespread ad campaign to recruit volunteers was kicked off.
Some balked at the system’s main defense force not being a wholly government-run operation, but it was impossible to argue with the results, as the system’s threat level soon dropped back to its previous level. This action also reinforced the tradition of Bremen relying on militias instead of normal police forces for their security. This was a unique practice when compared to other systems, and one that revolutionaries would eventually take advantage of to help bring down the Messer regime.
Revolutionary Road
Over the years, a number of other militias rose to prominence in Bremen, though none ever achieved the sophistication of the BDF. The system’s reputation for being relatively safe persisted and remained a point of pride. It was only because of this that the Messer regime didn’t insist that a more centralized, and controllable, security apparatus be installed. With the rising Vanduul threat on one front and the cold war with the Xi’an on another, the Messer regime didn’t see a reason to change a system that was working for them. Yet, it was the Bremen Defense Force’s decentralized nature that allowed anti-Messer activists to exploit it to their benefit.
According to reports released during the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the Messers ran several concurrent operations that implanted loyal agents into the militia to monitor its activity. The militia stayed non-committal to Messer regime policies and deflected pressure to take sides on anything not directly related to Bremen. They changed their motto to “Bremen Above All,” and instructed volunteers to not discuss Empire-wide politics while on duty. To avoid like-minded individuals consistently pairing up, patrol partners were randomly selected at roll call.
Actions like this helped the militia maintain their autonomy through the centuries of Messer rule. As the tide of public opinion turned against the despotic rulers, a brave faction within the BDF, unbeknownst to other volunteers, began to use the cover of the militia to smuggle anti-Messer activists through the system. This activity reached a fever pitch following the Massacre of Garron II in 2792.
The events of this time in the militia’s history were captured in The Bremen Beltway, a harrowing account of what it was like to work this part of “revolutionary road.” The book compiled interviews with former militia members and anti-Messer activists, journal excerpts, and declassified government documents to paint a picture of the extreme danger involved with smuggling revolutionaries through the system. Most of the activists were first smuggled from their system of origin into Xi’an territory and eventually into Nyx. That made Bremen the port of reentry into UEE, and a particularly perilous part of the journey. Without this secure gateway back into the Empire, many believe the overthrow of Imperator Linton Messer XI would not have happened nearly as quickly as it did. This only highlights the importance of high ranking BDF officials guaranteeing the revolutionaries safe passage through the system.
For nearly three and a half centuries, the Bremen Defense Force has been the standard that all other militias are held up to. Comprising a coalition of dedicated volunteers and funded by both public and private interests, the BDF has placed the security of their system above all else. When RSI looked to include militias in the design process of the Polaris, the BDF was their first call. Militia members consulted on the design and were among the first to purchase the new capital ship for their fleet. BDF officials can’t wait to put the Polaris to use, in the defense of the system they believe is their responsibility over anyone else to protect
Quelle: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/spec…n-Defense-Force
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Hello everyone,
We’re one week closer to CitizenCon 2948! As mentioned last week, we recently updated the CitizenCon website with loads of details about the event, including a breakdown of what to expect throughout the day. Find all the details here, and pick up tickets to attend in person here.
We also recently revealed Crusader Industries latest ship, the Mercury Star Runner, which is only available until next week. Catering to governments and the private sector alike, Crusader Industries’ star runner chassis raises the bar on speed and efficiency while remaining a stalwart of reliability. Find out more here.
On the community front, the MISC Prospector Commercial Contest has now ended. We’re currently in the process of reviewing submissions, and will announce the winners in the coming days. If you haven’t seen some of the incredible commercials submitted, check them out here.
Lastly, we’re still running one of our most exciting contests to date. Head over to Spectrum to find out how you can win the opportunity to direct a Motion Capture shoot LIVE at CitizenCon in our recently announced Emote Contest.
And with that, let’s see what else is going on this week:
Every week on Calling All Devs, designers, engineers, and other developers from our five offices around the world answer backer questions submitted on Spectrum and voted for by YOU. This week we we talk about non-lethal weapons, navigation coordinates, ship customization, and more. Watch the full episode here.
On Tuesday, our Lore Team will publish another in-fiction portfolio meant to breathe life into the ‘verse. If you’re the type of person who truly wants to know the universe you’re exploring, these are for you.
Fast forward to Wednesday for a landslide of information in our Mercury Star Runner Q&A, answering your top questions about Crusader’s new data runner
Thursday will welcome another episode of Around the Verse where we’ll take a look at the latest Star Citizen news.
Finally, make sure to tune in on Friday for another episode of Reverse the Verse, broadcast live on our Star Citizen Twitch channel. Stay tuned for further information about who our special guests will be and keep an eye on Spectrum for the Questions Thread!
We’ll see you in the ‘Verse!
Tyler Witkin
Lead Community Manager
The Weekly Community Content ScheduleMONDAY, SEPTEMBER 10TH, 2018
Calling All Devs (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/spectrum-dispatch)TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 11TH, 2018
Lore Post (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/spectrum-dispatch)WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 12TH, 2018
Mercury Star Runner Q&A
Subscriber’s NewsletterTHURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 13TH, 2018
Around the Verse (https://www.youtube.com/user/RobertsSpaceInd/)
Vault UpdateFRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 14TH, 2018
Reverse the Verse LIVE (https://www.youtube.com/user/RobertsSpaceInd/)
Roadmap Update
RSI Newsletter
Community MVP: September 10th, 2018Externer Inhalt robertsspaceindustries.comInhalte von externen Seiten werden ohne Ihre Zustimmung nicht automatisch geladen und angezeigt.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! Every week, we select one piece of content submitted to the Community Hub and highlight it in this section. The highlighted content creator will be awarded with an MVP badge on Spectrum and be immortalized in our MVP section of the Hub.
Don’t forget to submit your content to our Community Hub for a chance at seeing it here!
Daymar in 13 hours by Arty Cross
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Full video on the Community Hub.Quelle: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/citi…In-Star-Citizen
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Monthly Studio Report: August 2018
Welcome to August’s monthly report. It’s been an exciting few weeks throughout the CIG studios with Gamescom coming and going, CitizenCon 2948 planning in full swing, and Alpha 3.3 content is getting closer to completion.
Everyone’s been working hard to make our upcoming release the biggest and most exciting one yet. A big part of this is taming the beast that is Object Container Streaming. This is one of our biggest tech hurdles to date, and the team is heads down and focused on burning down remaining tasks and issues.Los Angeles
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CHARACTER ART
This month, the Character Art Team improved upon Hair and Head tech, which will increase the visual quality of the current characters while revising the core tools used in the character wearables tech setup. The team has started testing vertex cloth simulation to allow more realistic clothing movement on all characters. They also continued the reworks of the Odyssey Flightsuit, Virgil TruDef Pro Armor, and Hurston Collection. This content comes with material variants to give Hurston a lively and realistic setting. Additionally, the team carried on with S42 costumes.
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With several teams working together, the team made good progress on the VoiP/FoiP feature. Turbulent, Faceware, and Audio were able to transmit voice and face via WebRTC. In addition, voice can now be sent and received from any WebRTC enabled device, such as a PC web browser, phone, and tablet. A major risk in the project has been eliminated as getting audio and face synchronized was a major hurdle.
The team is now moving onto server work to add player entities to the entire framework so that they can know who is talking and map them to players in-game. With integration wrapping up, they are at the stage when the US-1 Gameplay Team can transition to front-end UI work.
NARRATIVE
August saw the Narrative Team deliver On The Run, a new short story that introduced criminal data runners Alex Dougan and Mas Houlan who could later be tracked fleeing across the Starmap as part of the Crusader Mercury reveal. They also published to all backers a Galactic Guide focused on the Gurzil system and the final chapter in the serialized story The Knowledge of Good and Evil. Loremakers paid a visit to the Banu system of Bacchus, while subscribers were treated to another issue of Jump Point and an exclusive portfolio that explored how Rest & Relax became the most popular rest stop in the UEE.
Behind the curtain, the team tackled a wide variety of tasks for 3.3 and beyond. They wrote mission text, dialogue for a wide variety of characters, named new weapons, and advised on signs to be found around Lorville. The team also participated in reviews for the PU and Squadron 42, and continued their work on the Galactapedia.
VEHICLE FEATURES
As it relates to their areas of code ownership, the Vehicle Features Team spent a lot of time on Object Container Streaming (OCS). When OCS is complete, it will allow ships and other items to stream out at greater distances, which provides improved performance and reduction in network bandwidth.
Additionally, significant progress was made on the ongoing turret improvements and Ping & Scanning for Alpha 3.3. For turrets, the team is close to completing work on gyro stabilization and improvements to mouse and joystick controls. For Ping and Scanning, they’ve moved the scanning infrastructure over to the server, have been working to extend its range, and have been expanding information received from scanning vehicles.
VEHICLE PIPELINE
A lot of progress has been made towards the completion of several vehicles going out in Alpha 3.3. The new Tumbril Cyclone variants and the Consolidated Outlands Mustang are art-complete and in their final phase with Systems Design. The team is also in the final phase with the RSI Constellation Phoenix. Tech Art is working on the damage pass for these vehicles too. Meanwhile, post Alpha 3.3 vehicles move forward in production – the Art Team is in the greybox phase for the Anvil Hawk, while System Design is currently wrapping up the whitebox phase.
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Like many other teams, OCS was the top priority for Gameplay Features. Also, of high importance was the second iteration of the Group System, which is due in Alpha 3.3. In particular, they’ve been implementing mobiGlas and Visor Chat System features and UI, along with replacing the legacy Group System and interface with new backend systems. Completing this iteration will enable the team to start the integration of VoIP and FoIP.
They’ve also been supporting the Gameplay Feature Team in Austin with their work on improvements for Quantum Travel, and the Gameplay Team in the EU to implement REC Rental in Arena Commander and Star Marine.
Austin
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SHIP ART
Ship Art got deeper into the greybox phase of the Origin 300 series refactor by detailing out the landing gear, headlights, and other features. They made another pass on the cockpit and pilot chair and are closer to getting that area to a satisfactory level. Next up is a test of the interior collision with a character in-game, as well as testing the enter/exit animations.
They’re also wrapping up some last modeling, lighting, and material tweaks on the interior of the Constellation Phoenix. When finished, they’ll move onto the LODs for the interior and exterior.
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Animation continued to push through a few more Mission Givers (like Darneely in the image below) and are almost finished with a further three. These characters will be found at places like GrimHEX, Levski, and Lorville, so look forward to traveling around to meet with them in the future.
The team is working closely with Design on the Bartender to help flesh out the flow – soon players will be able to walk up and order tasty drinks from a believable barkeep. Players will also see NPCs sitting at the bar or ordering drinks to help the environment feel full of life.
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This month was a busy one for ATX Design, with plenty of work done for various portions of Alpha 3.3. First up, they supported getting rentals working in Arena Commander and Star Marine to ensure players don’t need to go too far to rent a favorite gun for your ship or character.
They worked with the LA Engineering team to make great progress on implementing some new improvements to Quantum Travel. These include displaying the status of party members during QT (including when a player drops out) and laying the groundwork for Quantum Travel Route Planning.
Headway was made on the Economy features for this quarter, with efforts to allow the economic status of resources to affect pricing reaching a significant milestone. Recipes for all items were completed so that, as the price of resources or parts fluctuates, players will be able to see a noticeable difference in the pricing of items. However, the change won’t be instantaneous and will develop over time.They’ve also been working on creating new shops for Lorville and look forward to bringing players new items from the latest locations.
BACKEND SERVICES
Several Services have been written under the new architecture while support for the legacy architecture continues. This month focused on improvements to the Persistent Database, Badge Service, Leaderboards, Encryption, Security and more.
Services that have received some attention or are being entirely created from scratch to provide logical and efficient micro-services are:
*Badge Service: This is a simple caching service that pulls account badges from the web platform when a player logs in. The Diffusion Badge Service provides an API allowing other services, game server, and client to query individual or sets of badges.- Leaderboard Service: The Leaderboard Service caches player leaderboard stats.
- PDB/SQL API: The new SQL API Diffusion Service provides a very simple interface allowing for Services to add, set, remove, or update data sets. It is specifically designed for persisting Ooz data structures in an SQL Database. A No-SQL solution is in the works as well.
- Transaction Service: A general transaction Service is being created to manage rental and store purchases, as well as currency/service transactions for missions and service beacon contracts.
- Loadout Service: The Loadout Service is a cache which provides an API to other Services allowing them to create, modify, and request specific loadouts for players or ships.
Backend Services have also been helping the Web Platform with their work on the Group Service and integration of Spectrum into the PU.
PLAYER RELATIONS
The Player Relations team helped wrap up Alpha 3.2.2, essentially completing the second quarterly release for 2018. They’ve now turned to 3.3 and CitizenCon preparation (and what always turns out to be a very busy last third of the year!).
They added a couple of new faces and will continue growing across the various studios. As the backer base and games grow, so do the needs of running the service.
The Evocati are also growing. Invites were sent out to some of our most diligent players and those most active on the Issue Council. This will help the team immensely with some large-scale testing in the coming months.
“We’d like to point all players to our growing Knowledge Base, which now has over 100 articles and has seen almost 120,000 visitors since its launch. We’ll continue to grow it by adding new ‘How-To’ articles, patch notes, and live service notifications. As always, we’d like to remind and encourage everyone to continue to use the Issue Council to help us triage and rate bugs and functionality. We use that data to prioritize for future updates, plus your IC participation will make you eligible for earlier PTU waves.”
QA
On the Publishing side of things, QA has been preparing for Alpha 3.3 by updating the current test plans and documentation.
Game side, work continues on the internal dev stream, where the testing focus has been on Object Container Streaming. Testing priorities were coordinated with counterparts in LA, UK, and DE, and the new TestRail software was updated to help make testing more efficient moving forward.
Wilmslow & Derby
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GRAPHICS
This month, the Graphics Team have been working on two main areas. The first is on improvements to the tech for space landscapes, which includes more realistic particle movement and lighting, GPU spline-based lightning effects, multi-threaded asteroid creation, and improvements to the volumetric gas cloud tech. Also, work was done on volumetric point light shadows for gas clouds, which are crucial to convincingly lighting our more complex space scenes. These shadows are computed in a single render pass and stored efficiently in 2D deep shadow maps, which can then be used to quickly evaluate the shadowing at any distance from the light. Keep an eye out, as many of these changes will be demonstrated soon.
The second major area of work this month was on shader improvements. The layer shader system can now support the cloth shading model and sub-surface-scattering. While these features were previously available using specialist and expensive shaders, the new changes can be used on a wide variety of assets with no noticeable performance penalty.
“We should start seeing wider use of cloth materials and materials that exhibit scattering such as plastics and ice.”
UI
The UI Team has been busy iterating on the RTT item preview system, which allows for a generalized method to display 3D items anywhere in the UI as part of a scrolling list component (such as kiosks, MobiGlas, MFDs, etc.). The team has also been busy conceiving the necessary changes to the flow and layout needed to support renting ships and items through the Electronic Access customization menus.
They have also been working on the UI design for the spectrum app functionality housed inside mobiGlas. They’ve also been working in conjunction with the design team to previsualize what approaching a restricted area in a city might look like to the player and continued supporting the environment team in crafting propaganda posters & signage for Lorville.
The team has also made additional headway on the core tech & tools, with a recent successful prototype of the bindings system on the mining HUD display to enable a much more streamlined interface for exposing game data to the UI frontend.
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Throughout August, Animation worked on improving player stances and locomotion assets and used motion captured data to replace placeholders in the AI combat set.
They also updated ship character animations to new sequenced animations for more flexibility when moving forward with new ship & cockpit designs.
Going forward, they’re looking to finalize assets for looting and pickup now that the technical details are mostly resolved.
GAMEPLAY STORY
The Gameplay Story Team continued implementing high-priority scenes for Q3. This involved editing all the separate animations in a scene so they can play together in the correct order without any pops. They had to set up idle animations every time the game waits for the player to make a choice.
Lastly, they need to ensure that the ‘look at’ is animated correctly so the character looks directly at the player at the right times.“It has been good to get stuck into detailed animation work and to cooperate closely with design on the setup and testing of these scenes.”
FACIAL ANIMATION
Throughout the past month, the Facial Animation Team has been hard at work developing the facial animations for Mission Givers, such as Darneely and NPCs like the race announcers, derelicts, shopkeepers, and admins.
Looking forward to next month, the team will continue to deliver facial animation results for the Mission Givers such as Pacheco and other NPCs, such as security, as well as more incoming NPCs for the new landing zones.
ENGINEERING/PROGRAMMING
The Network Team extended Bind Culling so that, instead of only culling out dynamically spawned entities such as ships and players, it can now also cull entire parts of the solar system. QA has been putting these changes through their paces and the programmers have been keeping on top of the bugs coming back. The Network Team has also worked on converting networked entity spawning from blocking synchronous spawns to asynchronous non-blocking ones. Combined with their Bind Culling work, these asynchronous spawns should allow Object Container Streaming to work smoothly in multiplayer.
PU-based feature teams worked on restricted areas, which will be used to stop players flying into planetside civilian locations. This is being complemented by an update to the landing UI. They also extended the mining feature to work with asteroids.
The Social AI Team have been working on the new usable tool in the editor, designed to make creating and debugging usables as intuitive as possible. They’re also creating functionality to mark up the paths used by the AI to allow subsumption events to be triggered. This is part of the work needed for our Walk and Talk feature.
Squadron 42 feature teams have been looking into triggering dynamic Track View cutscenes from conversations, including participant synchronization. This feeds well into the Walk and Talk feature work that the AI Actor Team is working through.
From their work on overclocking/overpowering, the Vehicle Feature Team has been improving vehicle power distribution and heat setup. Cooler overclocking now works and per-item power throttling is being developed.
Also, a big milestone was reached as the last of the old-style game objects were finally removed from the codebase. These have been replaced by component-based entities which are more efficient in terms of performance and sharing code. This also permitted the removal of a lot of now-redundant code from the codebase.
SHIPS
The Ship Art Team has been busy with final optimizations and polish on the Aegis Hammerhead to get it ready for its Alpha 3.3 release. The Banu Defender continues with the majority of its interior now at final grey box stage, while the Origin 890 Jump is starting to take shape in the lower decks with most of the ship receiving a grey box pass.
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The Audio Code team has been working hard to integrate the new backend for FoiP/VoiP data transmission and to optimize the data compression used by this feature. Trackview support has seen some improvements in the way audio is handled to offer more options for cinematic sound.
The dialog guys hunkered down to record new content for the Alpha 3.3 release and Lorville.
Progress is being made on new weapons sounds and, as always, the procession of new ships is being given plenty of audio love.
ENVIRONMENT ART
The team has now completed the art for a host of smaller locations for Lorville, including the new habitation modules, lobbies, and the interiors for Lorville’s bar, admin office, and shops. The first iteration of a security checkpoint and a transit platform (complete with train car) have also been finished. As well as this, they’re almost complete on the Teasa Spaceport interior with its new shop archetype, the Ship Rental store.
Work continues on the Underground Facility and Crashed Relay, with both moving into the final art stage.
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This month was very much a continuation of the team’s work from last month, including polishing the VFX for Hurston’s diverse range biomes, Lorville’s modular areas, and the new weapons and ships due to be seen in the 3.3 release.
As well as that, the team threw themselves firmly into Gas Clouds (not literally!), forming a mini ‘strike team’ with Art, Design, and others to really flesh out the requirements of this ambitious task. Working so closely with the other disciplines helped the team to maintain momentum, with several improvements coming to fruition as the month progressed.
They also began to clean up some of the older ballistic weapon effects, making use of new GPU particle improvements and adding more visual consistency on a per-manufacturer basis.
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LEVEL DESIGN
Work on Lorville continues with the team looking to modify the arrival area with a few additional shops and features to make it feel more like an active spaceport. The end goal is to have an area that quickly brings the player into the city, but also offers a few select amenities for those who need it.
There will also be a few minor changes to Levski to reflect the content added to Lorville. Although the rework is minor, it will add a few new things and bring Levski closer to its intended purpose and full potential.
Both the Transit System and procedural tech is progressing, and the team is close to adding a new and more stable version of elevators along with moving trains/trams. Level Design also gained a new team member this month, so time was spent onboarding and getting them acquainted with our tools and best practices.
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Frankfurt System Design focused mainly on AI improvements. They worked on populating Lorville with an assortment of civilians, engineers, guards, workers, etc. In general, they’ll exhibit similar behaviors as the NPCs that already exist in PU, but with more depth and flavor to help them better match the lore of the area. A lot of design work went into having the AI interact with one another and respond appropriately to events and stimuli generated by other NPCs or the player. For guard NPCs, they worked on designing a patrol system from the ground up. This should allow them to quickly map interest points and connect them with probability paths to define a patrol route that can change dynamically based on rules the designers control, or on game-driven events. At the same time, they are improving the existing simple patrol behaviors and prototyping more features in order to have an initial implementation for future releases before the actual system comes online.
FPS Combat AI had numerous improvements which will hopefully be in players hands in the near future.
For mining, they worked on getting some well-needed improvements to how the instability, resistance, and optimal window size are calculated. They decoupled the window size from instability, so now players can have unstable rocks with a large window and also stable rocks with a very tiny window. This allows the team to better control the difficulty of a rock without having to clamp its values artificially. Work was also completed on the asteroid side of mining and the team’s close to having things working as initially intended. A lot of work has gone into how rocks are spawned in space using the existing procedural asteroids.
ENGINE TOOLS
The Engine Tools Team worked on general usability improvements and game editor stability. The OCS and Prefab workflows received enhancements and fixes along with Trackview (the tool used by the Cinematics Team) getting general Data Core properties support. This was needed to get rid of a big chunk of the old Lua scripting dependencies used by game entities and to get one step closer to the implementation of OCS.
ENVIRONMENT ART
Polishing and bug fixing are still ongoing for Hurston and its four moons, and preproduction has started on the two moons orbiting Stanton 3 (ArcCorp). Beyond the roadmap, they’ve also started looking at Stanton 4 (MicroTech), which will be a significant challenge for the Art and Tech teams as they’ll be looking at frozen oceans, snowy mountains, frozen vegetation, and other elements that require technology and shaders to be modified and developed. The City or Lorville is entering its final stages as the team completes the outer boundaries of the city and the entry point from the planet’s surface.
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The Engine Team completed the first part of the physics command queue refactor. The goal is to allow the move of physics away from dedicated threads and towards our system-wide batch model so that it can scale and perform better with the number of available CPU cores.
They also continued progress on new solutions for cloth/soft body simulations, with several optimizations and improvements, and continued work on moving the skinning computation to GPU compute shaders.
They made load time improvements that addressed some inefficient code, which should reduce load times by up to 20 seconds (depending on PC specs). Lots of work was done on generating height map cascades of planet terrain which will be used for various effects in the future. In tandem, work started on large-scale planetary soft terrain shadows. These will replace the current implementation via traditional shadow maps, improve image quality, and the visibility range of terrain shadows.
TECH ART
The Tech Art Team worked on tools and the pipeline for authoring true next-gen cloth simulation setups for all dynamic attachments such as skirts, trench coats, jackets, and other loose-hanging clothing and equipment. The new softbody solver, which our Engineering department developed, is functioning as it should and will enable us to create all kinds of interesting secondary animation effects such as jiggling, sliding, and collisions. The authoring of such complex and advanced setups is just as important as the solver itself – it needs to be intuitive and provide maximum flexibility to the tech artists, hide the underlying complexity as much as possible, but allow access to it if needed.
While the authoring pipeline is based on Maya, changes to the setups are streamed live to the game engine through our LiveLink plugin and can therefore be previewed in WYSIWYG fashion, which is extremely important. The general workflow mimics the way Maya’s own cloth simulation setups (nCloth) are authored, thereby allowing Tech Artists and Character FX TDs familiar with the software to become productive and creative as efficiently as possible. The goal of these efforts is to make all the in-game clothing move naturally, look less rigid, and to enhance the PCAP primary character animation with a layer of physically-based secondary animation wherever possible.
For Tech Animation, they made further progress on the FPS weapons rework, including updating the rigs and bringing everything into a structure that’s easier to work with. They started working on a batch exporter for weapon animations that will make it much easier to iterate on existing weapons whenever a rig is updated, or new features are added to it. They also updated the AnimEvent lists for both the PU and S42 and removed a long list of old animations that were either no longer needed or moved to an updated location.
AI
A significative part of this month’s activity was spent working on a performance pass concerning two crucial components that heavily impact the behavior of our NPCs – Subsumption activity updates and NPC visual perception:
Subsumption: When hundreds of NPCs are active simultaneously, their activities need to update and respond to events or change in subactivity, depending on the internal or external state of the game. Updates of the Subsumption components are therefore always running each frame, thus creating a sensible performance issue as the number of active NPCs increases. Most of the time, the update is not truly needed as the NPC is just waiting for an event of some sort to determine the ‘next’ state of a behavior (e.g. walking on a path and waiting for a ‘destination reached’ event). We can therefore take advantage of that and suspend the updates whenever the running tasks allow it. Internal tests in a heavily crowded scenario confirm that when allowing suspension, the impact of the Subsumption updates is dramatically reduced.
Visual Perception: One of the most useful senses belonging to NPCs is their visual perception. Visibility checks are continuously performed by every NPC to assess the clearance of their line of sight between them and all other NPCs or players in their field of view. Visibility checks are raycasts ultimately performed by the physics system. Up to now, we relied on a legacy module of the AI system provided by the Lumberyard system, called VisionMap. In VisionMap, all checks were handled in a centralized place and updated each frame in the main thread (as a synchronous update). The new system handles the visibility checks directly in the individual NPC vision components and makes good use of the entity component update scheduler (ECUS) by using multi-threaded updates in a time-sliced fashion.
The team was also busy finishing work for OCS related to AI systems (Navigation & Cover). The navigation and cover data will not be part of a central manager anymore, instead there will be entity components (inside object containers) that will contain that data. This will help the OCS since the AI data is kept internally for each object container.
WEAPONS TEAM
The Weapons Art Team started production on a handful of new Hurston Dynamics ship weapons and a new knife designed for the ‘bad guys’ in-game.
Here’s an image of the ‘Sawtooth’, which is manufactured by Kastak Arms:
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This month, DevOps focused on tooling out a test area for the Audio Team’s build processes, so the Audio Team has more autonomy in augmenting and testing their own build tools. The Perforce submission pipeline has been refined to remove redundant MD5 hashing of verified content; previous verification checkpoints relied on a custom MD5 hashing implementation, and these nodes of verification have been updated to check with digests that have been cached by the Perforce server, cutting down submission times for heavy changelists from hours to seconds.
CINEMATICS
The Cinematic Team’s main priority has been to go through the kick-off and implementation pass phases of a large number of scenes across several S42 levels that are currently being worked on by the Level Design Team. The implementation pass is the first production pass on a scene where the animation is broken up into the different states that are needed for that particular scene to work.
The process goes from a pre-vis of the animation (pretty much the raw PCAP playing out) to a scene functioning as a conversation with starts, idles, pauses, branching options, and resolves. Iterations by the Level Design Team often change the layout of, for example, an asteroid base or other level environments, so the team needed to come up with an easy way to keep our scenes transportable.
They can now use each scene’s sequence object (the object the scene is defined in) as a root and when they move that sequence object around, the whole scene with its nodes animated within it moves with that root. This way, they can quickly accommodate a room being moved 50m down the corridor and can keep scenes up to date easily. It also helps level design to know they can adjust their level layout without having to request a big rework of a scene just to fit with a particular change.
Work was also completed on the tool side of things to keep the cinematic workflow compatible with the growing tech. An example of this would be the component-based entities that are replacing the old entities. A Tools Engineer wrote a new API so animators can still animate an entity’s properties via the cinematic timeline tool, Trackview. This is necessary if a cinematic designer wants to change a light’s properties, for example, or wants to dial down sun intensity for a specific shot.
QA
OCS related testing continued into August with changes to test from the AI team. More specifically, a Navigation System refactor to support it. The main change for this refactor is the way navigation mesh data is saved and exported. They focused on testing navigation mesh generation in the Editor, saving levels with Navigation Area objects, and exporting the Object Container levels with Navigation Area objects. They also needed to ensure that all levels that had existing Navigation Areas could still be re-exported and that the AI was still able to move around in the level and pass through doorways, etc. The cover system and usables were also monitored to ensure they were still functional with the newly exported areas.
The team worked together with ATX QA to test the new 1.003 version of the Subsumption Editor, which contained a lot of necessary fixes needed by the design team for better stabilization. Work continued with the Cinematics Team, with dedicated support for any Track View or Editor issues preventing the team from progressing on their sequences. In some cases, QA created simple test levels to better convey the issues they were encountering.
They also started the process for Automated Feature Tests for the current Feature Teams, with the first meeting to go over the specific setup and requirements at the end of the month with the Ship AI Feature Team. These tests will run for each build and will focus on testing systems that would be deemed risky and prevent usage of that particular build. The goal is to keep on top of features and ensure if they do break a build that the issue is brought to the relevant developer’s attention as quickly as possible. They also continued to provide support for any general Editor specific issues as well as the monthly (sometimes weekly) CIGPhysics smoke test, where new changes are checked in by the Physics team as part of the refactor of CIGPhysics.
VFX
The VFX Team continued to work on the environmental effects for the new moons as well as working on how the effects function with the new biomes being introduced.
They also continued working on destruction sequences for Squadron 42. This involves bringing the new workflows previously developed in the first quarter of the year into production shots.
LIGHTING
Progress is on track to finalize all the new Alpha 3.3 locations. The schedule is closely tied to when environments are finished by the art teams, so the focus this month has been on Lorville habitations, including prototyping a few lighting setups for each of the hab room layouts. They’ve also been finishing work on the security checkpoint common elements, tweaking the atmosphere and colorgrading for the Hurston moons. They also started work on an upcoming underground bunker location.
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The features of Spectrum 3.8.1-rel.8.1, including Friends and Notifications, received a positive reception from users. For this month, internal milestones were hit on the new Spectrum editor, ‘Quill’. This editor is currently undergoing testing to be released next month and will solve several bugs related to Android by replacing the old editor.
RSI PLATFORM
CitizenCon Microsite: The CitizenCon Microsite had an exciting update this month to include the presentation schedule. Other updates have been made as well, including the FAQ and ticket pages.
If you currently hold a standard or premium ticket, the option to purchase a Junior Co-pilot ticket is now available for all guests between the ages of 13-17 years. CitizenCon tickets contain a QR code that will be compatible with the ticket-scanning app at the event.If you’re interested in attending the event, you can still grab a ticket before they run out here.
Externer Inhalt robertsspaceindustries.comInhalte von externen Seiten werden ohne Ihre Zustimmung nicht automatisch geladen und angezeigt.Crusader Mercury Star Runner: Turbulent supported the release of the Crusader Mercury Star Runner. This release included an interactive mini-game chasing two wanted fugitives, Alexandria Dougan and Mas Houlan, across the ARK Starmap. During the game, that lasted several days, players followed clues posted by the UEE TipLine on Spectrum to locate the ever-changing coordinates of the rogue Star Runner. Players would then take note of these coordinates at certain times and enter them into the form on the site. If the coordinates entered were correct, the player could choose to alert either the UEE Advocacy or the fugitives. For playing the game, a mystery skin was added to the player’s hangar. Based on the collective choices made, more players chose the Advocacy, and so the skin awarded was of the UEE Advocacy.
Free-Fly: We released the Alpha 3.2 Free-Fly which gave everyone a chance to jump in and explore the Star Citizen universe. This Free-Fly granted access to the Prospector, Cutlass Black, Avenger Titan, and Dragonfly Black.
Issue Council: The Issue Council is our public bug reporting system used by the community to report issues. The upcoming version, Issue Council version 1.1.0, is scheduled to be deployed to the PTU during the first week of September. To meet this goal, the past month has been full of updates such as improved profile, more details in report creation, and newly mobile-friendly features. Plus, all known issues were fixed.
SERVICES
Group: On the Group System side, work this month focused on the development and integration of a major piece of the game backend: The Event Bus. Through this Bus, multiple services can communicate through domain events and affect their own relevant domains (like groups, chat or voice). With this new piece in place, we were able to integrate a fresh new lobby/chat API to replace the current in-game chat services (which were limited per instance). This will allow groups and parties to have chat lobbies that span the universe.
VOIP/FOIP: One the VOIP/FOIP side, the team completed the integration of the Voice Client libraries based on our initial transport prototype within the game engine, allowing testers to have a multi-way conversation from the game client. This initial set of tests from within the game context were very helpful in confirming the approach since the technology involved with the VOIP transport layer automatically gave support for echo cancellation, bandwidth throttling, QoS, and support for transporting the encoded facial data.
Work is now focused entirely on expanding the scalability of this infrastructure and adding capabilities to the game backend to create audio channels for groups, attach the sound elements to the proper in-game entities based on who is generating the data stream, as well as ensuring the voice infrastructure properly shards the audio channels across a fleet of voice servers.
Community
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CitizenCon 2948 is right around the corner! It was only last week the latest wave of tickets hit our store, so make sure you secure yours to celebrate Star Citizen live in Austin, Texas on the 10th of October. Find out more on our CitizenCon website and, while you’re there, check out the event schedule and enjoy the retrospective video with memories from past events.
Externer Inhalt robertsspaceindustries.comInhalte von externen Seiten werden ohne Ihre Zustimmung nicht automatisch geladen und angezeigt.The month of August was also full of remarkable events, with Gamescom in Cologne, Germany being the highlight. There wasn’t a Star Citizen booth on the show floor this time around, but the team traversed the halls representing the game and chatting with the community. Some very special pins were distributed amongst the crowd and every evening saw a Bar Citizen. An exclusive Town Hall Q&A was recorded in front of a live audience, giving attendees the opportunity to ask questions about the newly revealed Crusader Industries Mercury Star Runner. You can catch up on YouTube if you didn’t attend the Town Hall, or find yourself in the video if you did. Do you have more questions about the latest data runner from Crusader Industries? Keep an eye out on the Comm-Links, as the answers to the Spectrum Q&A will be posted very soon!
Speaking of events, the team held an RSI Apollo contest, asking for quotes that players think might be heard on board an RSI Apollo. It was tough to pick a winner, as we received so many excellent entries, but eventually, this won the competition:
♬ The hip bone’s connected to the, thigh bone, the thigh bone’s connected to the, knee bone, the knee bone’s fused to this medium ablative/ballistic armor plate, please, pass the bone saw. ♬
As said before, the Community Team has been planning a wide variety of activities for this year, so there’ll be more exciting opportunities to leave your mark in the Star Citizen universe. In fact, another already started alongside the 3.2 Free-Fly event – the commercial contest is giving all producers, editors, and camera operators the chance to create a commercial video for the MISC Prospector and rewards the top three entries with sweet prizes. You have until 11:59 PM PDT on September 9th, 2018, so read up on the contest rules and start creating now!
Conclusion
WE’LL SEE YOU NEXT MONTH…
Quelle: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/tran…ort-August-2018
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Lighting habs, a first look at ArcCorp’s moons, lockers, ships, and Con42 in this week’s update.
Quelle: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/tran…round-The-Verse
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Das Entwicklerstudio Cloud Imperium Games erklärt etwas genauer, wie das persistente Universum von Star Citizen entsteht. Zu diesem Zweck steht ab sofort eine neue Episode der Video-Serie "Reverse the Verse" für euch bereit, in der einige der…
Quelle: http://www.pcgames.de/Star-Citizen-S…versum-1264438/
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Hello everyone,
CitizenCon 2948 is right around the corner! Only last week, the 3rd Wave of tickets hit our store, so make sure to secure yours to celebrate Star Citizen live, in Austin, Texas on October 10th. Find out more on our CitizenCon website, and while you’re there, enjoy the event schedule and retrospective video with memories from past events.
We also recently revealed Crusader Industries latest ship, the Mercury Star Runner. Built with the same engineering and design principals that have made Crusader the go-to manufacturer for galactic transport on any scale, the star runner chassis sets new standards for data and cargo conveyance. Find out more here.
The MISC Prospector Commercial Contest is still ongoing! We’ve seen a number of incredible entries come through so far, and eagerly await more. Find out all of the details here.
Lastly, we’re currently running one of our most exciting contests to date. Head over to Spectrum to find out how you can win the opportunity to direct a Motion Capture shoot LIVE at CitizenCon in our recently announced Emote Contest.
And with that, let’s see what else is going on this week:
Every week on Calling All Devs, designers, engineers, and other developers from our five offices around the world answer backer questions submitted on Spectrum and voted for by YOU. This week we talk about Tessa Banister, ship alarms, and more. Watch the full episode here.
Then on Wednesday, join Lead Writer Will Weissbaum as he explores the Taranis system in an all new episode of Loremaker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
Thursday will welcome another episode of Around the Verse where we’ll take a look at the latest Star Citizen news with a project update.
Also on Thursday, grab a cup of tea, cozy up, and get ready for the Monthly Studio Report where we’ll take a detailed look at what the teams around the globe have been up to in the month of August.
Finally, make sure to tune in on Friday for another episode of Reverse the Verse, broadcast live on our Star Citizen Twitch channel. Stay tuned for further information about who our special guests will be and keep an eye on Spectrum for the Questions Thread!
We’ll see you in the ‘Verse!
Tyler Witkin
Lead Community Manager
The Weekly Community Content ScheduleMONDAY, SEPTEMBER 3RD, 2018
-TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 4TH, 2018
Calling All Devs (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/spectrum-dispatch)WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 5TH, 2018
Loremaker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Taranis System (https://www.youtube.com/user/RobertsSpaceInd/)THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 6TH, 2018
Around the Verse (https://www.youtube.com/user/RobertsSpaceInd/)
Monthly Studio Report – August
Vault UpdateFRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 7TH, 2018
Reverse the Verse LIVE (https://www.youtube.com/user/RobertsSpaceInd/)
Roadmap Update
RSI Newsletter
Community MVP: September 4th, 2018Externer Inhalt robertsspaceindustries.comInhalte von externen Seiten werden ohne Ihre Zustimmung nicht automatisch geladen und angezeigt.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! Every week, we select one piece of content submitted to the Community Hub and highlight it in this section. The highlighted content creator will be awarded with an MVP badge on Spectrum and be immortalized in our MVP section of the Hub.
Don’t forget to submit your content to our Community Hub for a chance at seeing it here!
Humble by TriEye
Externer Inhalt robertsspaceindustries.comInhalte von externen Seiten werden ohne Ihre Zustimmung nicht automatisch geladen und angezeigt.TriEye is back with another incredible video, this time releasing a Star Citizen Alpha 3.2 trailer titled “Humble”.
More info on the Community Hub.Quelle: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/citi…In-Star-Citizen
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Salty Starfarers, CIG goes to Gamescom, off to the Scramble Races, and color one’s wheels in this week’s update.
Quelle: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/tran…round-The-Verse
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Writer’s Note: The Knowledge of Good and Evil: Part Four was published originally in Jump Point 2.12. Catch up on the story by reading Part One, Part Two, Part Three.
“Forgive me.” I feel cold though I know it’s not the library’s air. My finger just about to press the button on Dirk’s small, black, featureless cube. My muttered prayer ringing in my own ears. Someone else responds as I feel a hand close around my wrist.
“Forgive you for what?”
I wheel around and come to face the speaker as I pull hard to wrench my wrist free, falling to the ground. Mom Super is standing over me like a dark tower.
“For what are you asking forgiveness, young one? What is that device?” Her words are soft but with an edge of steel.
No. Anyone but her. Let me be delayed or shamed or caught, but not by her. Not Mom Super. I can’t . . .
I break down at the realization that I will either have to lie to Mom Super just so I can betray her more, or admit I’ve already lied and am about to try and destroy the Holy Vault for Dirk.
“Young one, what’s wrong?” Mom Super starts to come to my aid.
“No!” I shout. I can barely speak through my sobs. “No, don’t help me. You can’t. Because of what Dirk . . .”
“Dirk? The man you used to work for in the Bazaar? Is that who’s been attacking you? What did he do?”
I don’t know what else to do. “He didn’t . . . he hasn’t yet. But . . . if I don’t wipe out the Vault he’s going to kill the children.” I’m panting for breath.
I point at the dormant cube. “If I don’t use that thing to fry the Vault, Dirk’s going to kill them all.”
She looks at me with a rage I’ve never seen, but eventually breaks the stare that has me paralyzed. She steps to the desk and picks up the cube and studies it. I’ve never felt this dirty or guilty in my life. The nights I slept in trash were cleaner than this.
“You will explain this, young one. Now.”
“I . . . I.” Gulping down a breath, I closed my eyes and clenched my fist. I already lied to her. I can’t do it again.
“I had an old debt to Dirk. He found me. Said I was finally going to pay him back. Knew I was with the Sisters. Threatened to hurt the school children if I didn’t do what he said. I brought it,” I point to the cube, “back with me.”
I look for some sign of sympathy but I don’t see any. Shoulder to me, she is only looking at the thing in her hands.
“I didn’t do it! I studied it, the cube, and I found out what it did. I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t let it attack the Vault. So I took it back and told him I wouldn’t do it. And then he stunned me and the others, and now he’s kidnapped the children, and now if I don’t do it he’s going to kill them!”
I haven’t felt like it, but by the end I am almost yelling, my helplessness finally coming out as tired anger.
The silence is hot and heavy. My ears thunder with each heartbeat.
“You lied to us about what was happening to you and it has put the children we befriended in mortal danger. If you had told us earlier we could have had the authorities looking into the matter all the sooner. Now, their efforts may already be too late. And this?” She thrust the cube towards me, “Did you know what this would do then, if you turned it on? Did you lie to me about what you knew?”
“Yes.”
“Then you have attacked us all. There is nothing I can do for you.” Mom Super pulls out her mobiGlas and enters some commands.
I stay where I fell, unable to motivate myself to move. Soon four Sisters arrive and pick me up. Mom Super turns her back without another look at me. The Sisters escort me out of the library, but I notice they are not leading me back to the rooms.
We get to the door that leads out into the world and another Sister, the Returned, meets us with a large bag. Her hood is up on her habit. I suddenly realize all of them have their hoods up. The way the Sister do around outsiders.
“Oh god, no!” I say it out loud when I only mean to think it.
She thrusts the bag into my arms.
I don’t have the energy for more tears.
“You must go, now.”
The massive door opens to the first hints of light across the sky. The other Sisters back away from me. I turn to go, not wanting to. Each step feeling like a new punishment.
As I step across the doorway, a sudden memory flashes across my mind of the abused and beaten child being held by Dirk. Then my mind conjures worse of what might happen to them now. Does Mom Super think that the Blues care about a bunch of street rats going missing? They’ll call every shelter in the city but they won’t step one foot onto the dirty streets of Bazaar to actually find them.
My back stiffens and I turn around to say something.
The Sisters have left and only the closing door remains where my former life among them had been.
No good watching a door close when I have to find the kids. I don’t even know how long I have. Dirk might not be patient enough to wait a week to do something to them. If he hasn’t already, just to make his life easier. I pull my mobiGlas from my bag and ignore the pang of guilt remembering where it came from and why. I’m no good to the kids if I’m not strong enough to take care of myself.
Just standing there, the weight from the bag is starting to drag on me and I remember I haven’t slept in . . . I don’t know how long.
But it’s time to hunt Dirk and get my kids back.
I have to get back on the street. I’ve been using a lot of old information, and what I know about Dirk doesn’t match what’s been happening. Attacking the Sisters makes no sense for a Bazaar Boss. And since when does a Boss kidnap kids and make death threats?
His old shop is a noodle stand now. I’d checked into that when I’d first started teaching school with the Sisters. Barely anyone remembered that it had been a tech shop at all.
I feel two steps behind. I’ve been playing this to Dirk’s tune the whole way and it’s only gotten me into worse trouble. I was and still am a street rat and I can use that. The streets are hard and you don’t get ahead without making some enemies. If I can nose out Dirk’s reputation, I might get a better idea where he’s operating from. That’s my top priority. Find the kids.
A plan starts coming together in my head. Dirk is like me. He came from the street. No matter how far he’s gone up in the world, he probably has loose ends around Bazaar, and if I can find them they might just lead me to where he’s holding the kids.
“I’m coming. Hold on.”
I’m on the rail at first light, headed towards Bazaar Street. I get off two stops early and as I walk I see some street children, but most bolt when they notice me looking at them. They seem used to being chased off, since they are close to places the Blues and shop owners actually care about. I spend a few hours avoiding main drags and looking down alleys for the right kid to approach.
I finally pick out an older kid, maybe thirteen or so, loitering at the entrance of an alley like she has a purpose to be there. She has a tool pouch too, bingo. I walk up to her. I’m far enough away from Bazaar still that I hope she won’t recognize me if she ever came to school. Street kids all try to look the same and they tend to do a good enough job. The kid sees me coming and sets her feet, ready to talk or run.
“Eh rat. Need lock some info. Got a name, need a place.”
“Ha. Creds talk Lady. Null comm free. Creds up front.”
The kid points to the ledge on the wall next to her. Her slang is different than I’m used to, almost Bazaar, but I catch the meaning well enough. I’ve got to pay her up front and place it out in the clear for others to see if I want information. Making sure I’m not a Blue and making me a target if I flash too much money. Smart move. I don’t have much money, just one ten credit. I take it out and put it on the ledge. The kid eyes me and then snatches the chit.
“Wha’ handle got tha’ need indexed, Up?”
“Boss Dirk.” The kid does a good song and dance. Even stroking her chin as she ‘thinks.’
“Yeah . . . Oldie name tha’. Wrong eve’. Dirk ain’ null Boss. Dirk’s a Big. Been ’round long time. Tech stuff most . . .”
Dirk as a Big Boss? That means lots of credits and a crew of people working for him. There were only two Bigs in all of Bazaar when I was a rat. Did Dirk off one and take his place, or stake his own territory? Too complicated, I just need the basics right now.
“I need a place, got business with him. Hard kind.”
“Res’ ’s fuzz, Up. Hard ta scanner.”
The kid points to the ledge again. I already overpaid and she knows it.
“Listen, you give me where and you’ll get fifty more cred when I’m done with Dirk. Deal?”
This time she actually does think about it for awhile. Even if she has a boss that takes a cut, this would make her week. Maybe her month.
“Yeah . . . Some got say he got place at tha towers. Some got say a place down in Black Street. Lock is tha’ him got both. Tower stuff is legit front for wha’ he got at Black. Chop an’ Break shop makin’ parts out a black salvage. Gang stuff maybe.”
I know the place by name and the fear that was put in me as a street rat. No one goes to Black Street. I pull up the map on my mobiGlass. “Where in Black Street?”
“Dun know Lady, got some fuzz ’bout . . .”
Dodging again to try and get more cred. I’ve already promised what I don’t have. I can’t shake this with another empty bribe. I need to offer her something else. Her tool belt is welder style, but without a torch in the holster. She has some tech tools, but most are heavier, like for vehicle or ship work. She’s old enough she might be able to get work at the welding depot at the commercial spaceport. Working there gets you certifications. Certs means fees and a steady job. They take walk-ins and train them up, but don’t advertise it. That had been my backup plan for a few years now. Maybe it’ll be enough.
“Lock tha’ you got ship tools. Wha’ some rat doin’ with them? Got think tha’ ships is can get you out from here? How you going to get work on ships? I know some welders that work ships. Got ta be good at welding. You torch some?”
The sudden shift in conversation puts the kid on her heels. She looks away, trying to come up with one answer to all of my question.
“I torch some! Had ta trade ta meds when ’m got sick las’ freez.” The anger in her voice is a thin disguise for pain. Having to trade a prize possession for medicine. That depression didn’t kill her afterwards says a lot.
“Trade you straight info for info. Spaceport always needs welders. They’ll train you and get you basic certs. You use their gear and get paid daily. No lie. I plan on doing it but got business with Dirk first. You got your info now. So, you for info for me or not?”
That’s my last chip in a game I’m losing. I probably won’t get a second shot with someone else without more credits to start things off. The kid looks at me hard for awhile. Trying to weigh the worth of what I told her, whether it’s a lie.
“Rats an’ works know ’bout Big Dirk. Put out ’cast ta whole local ta work for him. Dirk double scans ’em for Gov or Blues an’ take ’em ta eight hundred wes’ sixteen thousand south.”
She taps my map to set the point.
“Got info out a rat tha’ run. Place got hangars ’round an’ one tower some. Only place like i’ ’round. Lot some folk head tha’ way. Null come back. Some ships come an’ get chopped. Some come an’ go. Rat tha’ ran say ’em work dead hard an’ then got sold ta slavers.”
The information almost sounds first hand. Maybe this kid could help me.
“You the rat that got out? Might need a guide around the place.”
No answer for that and the kid looks like she wants to bolt now.
“’m null go there. Craz that. Go at i’ from tha wes’ an you’ll get pas’ tha cams easy. Tha’s all ’m got tell. Ain’ eve’ glint zap on ya. You craz Up goin’ there. Ain’ none Up got business there.”
The kid give me one last look and walks away down the alley to places I shouldn’t follow. It’s a bad idea to push someone that just did you a favor on the street. My old street habits are starting to come back more as I check my surroundings and catch at least one person’s eyes lingering on me longer than they should have. I take in the rest of the passing crowd and don’t see anything that looks like a setup. I’m feeling paranoid. If Dirk really is a Big he could have people anywhere.
I get chills thinking that, and the kid’s comment about not having a weapon repeats in my head. I put up my hood and check that the map saved the location of Dirk’s chop shop. I make sure to avoid the area near the lingering eyes as I leave and don’t look back. I’ve got a lead, even if it’s a trap. I’m still the only hope my kids have.
I only hope I’m not too late.
The place I’m watching has to be Dirk’s. It fits the description and it’s in the most dangerous area of Bazaar, where even rats never go. Blues don’t come here, not like they care about Bazaar or rats. I saw three bodies on the ground on the way here. No way to check if they’re alive or dead without the chance of getting stabbed for interrupting someone’s high. My perch in the abandoned organics storehouse across from the compound is cold and the smell makes the sandwich I stole taste terrible. I only manage to force down a few bites, and my stomach is rebelling against even those.
From here I’ve been able to pick up some transmissions from the four-story office tower and the hangar’s fire suppression and alarm systems. My directional antenna found a dead spot in the office building, though. Second floor, northwest corner. Everywhere else has at least some sort of signal coming out. I even got the model number and command access of the robot vacuum next to it, but that area is dead. Like someone’s trying to hide something there. It’s my best shot.
While I’m planning out my approach I see armed people going between the hangars and the office. They’ve got about twice as many much-worse-off-looking adults surrounded. I see one of the group being herded turn and make a run for the fence. He doesn’t make it ten steps before a shot catches him in the back.
He falls to the ground, spun by the force of the shot hitting him. I’m thankful I can’t hear the sounds he makes thrashing on the ground. At least he’s still alive, I think blackly. The guards pick the runner up by the arms and drag him back to the hangar. It doesn’t look like they’re taking him to a medic. Dirk’s thugs mean business.
After watching all that I decide to make some modifications to my recently acquired stunner to give it more kick. I had lifted the cheap stun pistol from a rich Up kid I saw taking vid of Bazaar folks like it’s some sort of zoo. It might fry the first time I use it, but I’ll have to take that risk.
It’s only taken me a few hours to get here, set up, and find all this out. I put in a call to Mom Super but she didn’t answer. I don’t blame her. The Sisters have locked me out of the systems at the convent, but I had a direct tunnel to my education program that I never turned off. Like a private connection. It only lets me get to that room’s equipment, but it’s a way for me to get a message into the convent where someone might see it.
I’ve turned up the volume on the speakers and recorded a message. That message includes the video of what I saw earlier and explains what I’m doing so that someone will know even if I don’t get out. Now I’m just waiting here in this stink, second-guessing myself.
The sun has started to go down finally and my nerves are buzzing again. I’ve got thirty minutes before the next guard patrol will check this side of the grounds. If the kid I got this information from decided to sell me out, I’ll know soon enough. I double check my connection to my jury-rigged life-line and start towards the fence. At the fence I check it for a charge or alarms and don’t find any. My snips make quick work of the wire and I slip through.
A quick optic and radio scan shows cameras in the area, but none I can’t dodge. Thank god for small miracles. There’s still about fifteen meters of open pavement between the hangar I’m using for cover and the door to the service stairwell I picked out. I peek around the corner of the hanger and see that the main door is closed. I take a deep breath and start towards the office building.
About halfway there I hear the sound of ship engines and look up. Landing lights trace the ground a little ways away. I dash to the door and watch the ships appear and then travel out of sight from where I am. The hangar I had come from opens and a truck full of armed people drives out and off in the same direction. My heart is pounding and I know I didn’t run hard. I’ve got to pull it together. I turn my attention to the door.
A standard lock that’s not networked. No risk of external hack like that. Too bad for them, I’m right here. I pop the front panel off and start working. I almost have the bypass ready when I notice the inconspicuous block with two wires in it. Explosives.
I break out into a sweat as I realize how close I am to setting it off with what I’m about to do. How could I have been so stupid? This is craz. A bomb in a door? I was about to actually blow this and the kids would still be in danger. How can I do this if I can’t even get through the first door?
My hands are frozen as I look at what’s in front of me. It takes everything I have not to turn and run. My mind starts to latch on to things about the door to replace my runaway emotions. This is a prefab, like the ones on rail cars. Doors like this are cheap but not cheaply made. They cut corners on features, not substance. Like only having one power source.
That’s it. If I can cut the power to the lock, it will come free just like on a rail car. Hopefully no power will also mean no boom. It takes me just a second to find the thick connector that is the power plug and grab a hold. I take a deep breath and hold it, then I pull hard. I hear a hollow pop and the status lights inside the door panel all fade out. No boom and I’m still here. I let out the breath I’m holding long and slow. I have to keep moving.
After a few more seconds of frantic work in the dark I’ve got it rigged to stay open for when I come back. I hear the sounds of the truck coming just before I slip into the dim stairwell. About half the lights are missing and the unpainted walls show water spots and neglect. Not a camera in sight.
The second floor door is high tech but still not networked. The indicator shows locked. The access panel is on the other side. I rack my brain for something to get past it. After a few painful minutes of nothing I lean against it in despair. It moves. The latch must not have been caught.
I can’t believe it. I open it just enough to roll a camera sphere out as I pull up the feed on my mobiGlas.
The picture shows a bright white hallway with an elevator at one end and only a few other doors. I see one camera but it is pointed at the elevator. Two big men with pistols on their hips come out from the farthest room and get in the elevator. I freeze even though they can’t see me. The indicator shows it going down. I say a silent prayer hoping they are going out to meet the new arrivals. I find the door that looks like it should lead to where I’m going. I wait a few seconds more, and then walk into the hall and head for my target.
It has an old manual handle and is unlocked. My heart skips a beat at the thought of a trap. I take the stun pistol from its holster and open the door.
I look around but find myself alone in a big room. I close the door quickly and quietly, finding myself surrounded by computer panels and monitor lights. My mobiGlas beeps. I’ve lost connection to the outside. My eyes take a moment to adjust to dim lighting once more, as I put the stunner away.
I head to the station that looks most important. It’s a system monitoring terminal that has stats on dozens of sub-systems, all of them seemingly run from this room. I sit down and dig in. The setup is incredible. Star charts, financial information, shipping schedules, even payroll information for dozens of companies. All of them must be fake and controlled from here. This is how Dirk is laundering his salvage. The kid had said one side of Dirk’s operation is legit. Not for long. There is another set of information here that’s being kept separate. Ship manifests with destinations in Banu space. Pictures of people chained together and prices per shipment labeled only as ‘cargo.’ I skim through them quickly but I don’t see any of my children in the pictures. I copy as much as I can to my mobiGlas’s storage. This is all good, but it’s not why I’m here.
After some digging I find access to the cameras and pull up all the local feeds.
I get one of each floor’s elevator door, the main entrance, the front gate, a small room with a single chair in the middle, and a few showing parts of the fence. The last feed I check is an entirely black picture. It seems out of place in such a spartan set of things to record. I check it again. It’s a live feed. Then I see something. Black moving in the black. Something small. Someone.
My heart jumps. That has to be them. The label on the feed is Hangar 4 Storage. I’d seen that each hangar has a number painted on the side and know that 4 is on the north side of the building. It’s away from all the action outside right now, but the only way in from the outside is a huge cargo door. I pull up the controls for the door and try to open the cargo door remotely. As I do, I see a red warning flag pop up and the system locks. I must have triggered something!
I need to get out of this room.
They may already know I’m here, and if they don’t they will soon. I jog out the door and make a mental note as my mobiGlas beeps its reconnection to the network.
I head around the side of the building to the north and get within sight of the number 4 hangar. Lights are flashing on each of the buildings and a siren goes off. I hear shouts behind me and the sound of ship engines revving to launch prep. I head straight to the hangar door’s access panel. This one is standard, like the one to the stairwell, but this time no explosives. I get it to open after just a few tries and I scramble underneath and into the safety lighting.
A door just inside has ‘Storage’ on it stenciled in white. I run to it. It’s another manual door but it’s been chained shut.
My wire cutters can’t get through something this thick. I didn’t bring a torch. A chain? That’s stopping me? I got past explosives and around guards and into computers and now I can’t get past a chain? I kick the lock in frustration.
Flakes of rust float from the chain to the floor.
The rundown hangar has rusting bits and pieces all around. On the ground I see a pipe about two meters long. Jackpot!
I grab the pipe and examine the chain. It’s got some links that have been repaired before. I remember the materials book I studied. The chain is more likely to break than the pipe because of the welded links. I struggle a bit to wedge it between the door and chain. Once it’s securely set, I put my whole weight into pulling. The pole starts to bend but I keep the pressure on.
I hear a pop. Then a clang and the pipe goes slack, almost tumbling me to the floor. At the same time the chain and lock fall to the floor loudly. I recover, grabbing the door handle and pulling.
Light from the hangar lights flows into the small room as seven sets of eyes all stare back at me. The smell of human waste hits me like a wall. One child is lying on the floor. All the others are standing, backs against the wall. I can see the bruises. The ripped clothes. The gauntness. The fear. But they are still alive. Thank god, they are still alive.
One speaks in a whisper, “Sister?”
I almost say yes, but Mom Super’s betrayed face flashes in my mind.
“I’m here to get you out.” I hold out my hand to encourage them. “We have to go before the guards come.”
That seems to get through to them. One, then two more start to come out of the filthy prison they’d been kept in.
Another one is standing at the back of the room next to the child who hasn’t moved from the floor.
“’em can’ null walk none.” The standing one says, looking at his companion on the floor. I rush in and scoop up the child in one hand, trying not to gag on the smell.
“Out, everyone, and then through the door, then left keep going till the fence.”
Seeing me take their weakest as a burden sets the rest of them in motion, but as I come out of the filthy closet I see a pair of trucks loaded with vicious looking people heading straight for us.
All the children have stopped with me just inside the door. They’re looking at me. I can feel the one I’m holding barely breathing.
I will not let them take you.
I slam my fist into the door release and the door comes rattling down.
I pull the stunner from its holster, aim at the door’s control panel and pull the trigger. Nothing. I pull it again. Nothing.
“Got a hold tha trig down ta shot.” One of the children said it so softly I almost didn’t hear it. It was the one in my arm.
I do as she tells me and hold down the trigger. Seconds tick by and I hear the trucks stopping. The door is starting to move again. Suddenly my stunner fires and fries the controls. Someone on the other side doesn’t like that and points a weapon through the three centimeter opening and starts to fire.
The children duck behind what larger scrap pieces are around. Someone shouts and the shooting stops. The alarm sirens are still wailing but I can hear more commotion on the other side of the door.
“Rat! ’m know you there!” It’s Dirk. “Give up, rat! You null comin’ out a there ’less ’m let you out!”
The children start moving to better cover. If there is one thing a street kid knows, it’s how to find a place to hide. I look down at the one in my arms, passed out and filthy. Helpless.
“I’m not going to let them take you.” I say softly. Then I turn my face to the door and let out all the rage and anger I can call on. “You’re not my boss anymore, Dirk. You’re nothing to me now. You’re bigger than us, and you’ve got guns, so you think you can do whatever you want. And maybe you can, but I’m not gonna make it easy. I’m gonna fight for these kids. I’m stronger and smarter than you think, Dirk. All us rats are.”
A shot rings out and I duck back behind the beam I’ve crouched next to. The bullet punched a hole in the door. Someone sticks a hook through the hole and I hear an engine rev outside. The whole door starts to creak and strain.
Another shot, hole and hook. A second truck revs up and I see the panels of the door flexing under the pull. I have to find a way out of here. I remember specs of old hangars sometimes having ventilation at the ceiling. My eyes shoot up, looking for some sign of that and I find it almost immediately.
“You all have to climb. Get into the vents. It’s a way out. Come on.”
These children have been through hell and still they amaze me as they start to climb, helping each other. I nearly cry as they break every rule of the street by doing that. The first of them gets to the opening. One after the other they disappear into the closest thing to safety I can get them to. It’s little comfort but a better chance than they had locked up.
The last one through turns around to me, “Get heading, Sister. Got get out.”
I’m still holding the child in my arms and I realize I can’t climb and take her with me.
“Go, I can’t make it, I’m too big. I have to stay and take care of them.”
I get an intense look from more than one set of eyes.
“Go!”
The walls start to shake, the eyes disappear from the vent and dust falls from every angle as one side of the massive front door comes crashing down. It’s still obstructing the way but once the other side pulls free . . .
I move as far back among the scrap metal and tools as possible. I can barely see through the dust. There is yelling and flashlights shining into the newly opened gap. The trucks rev their engines again and then suddenly — they stop.
Gun and laser fire pop off and I can hear a new siren. No, sirens. They’re growing louder and closer. The trucks rev up again but this time I can hear them heading away.
The new sirens get louder still and then I see flashing blue lights streak past. Then again. And again. The Blues? How?
As the dust clears some vehicles pull to a stop outside the wrecked hangar door and several large men in plain clothes get out, guns drawn.
I shrink down, still keeping an eye on them, hoping they’ll leave if they don’t find anything.
Another vehicle stops and, like a ghost in a dream, I see Mom Super get out with a uniformed Blue next to her.
My lungs burn as I take in a dust-filled breath trying to shout to her, but I only cough. I get up and all eyes move to me and the child I’m carrying. I stumble out from behind my hiding place. I have to get to Mom Super.
That thought drives me forward. I stumble and fall. One of the Blues catches me, taking the child gently from my hands and laying me down against a wall.
“Are you hurt?” the Blue asks, “are there others?”
“The vents,” I cough, “in the vents.”
The Blue shines a light to the vent opening where six children are looking back at her. I motion them down with my arm and after a long pause they start to climb out. More Blues are coming in and helping the children. Blues helping street rats. This time the tears do come.
Mom Super is here now, next to me.
“Are you all right? Are you injured?”
The concern in her eyes and voice shame me. I don’t deserve her caring about me.
I take off my mobiGlas and hold it out to her. I clear my throat with a cough.
“I got as much information about Dirk’s operation as I could. Financials, dummy corps, contacts. It’s more than enough to shut him down if you give it to the Blues. This can keep the rest of the children safe.” I’m so exhausted my arm shakes with the effort of holding up the weight of the mobiGlas.
Mom Super takes it and moves past my hand towards me. Her arms surround me in an embrace. I don’t even know what to do. I let my hands fall to my side, feeling unworthy to hold the only Mother I’ve known.
“Well done, young one.”
A week later, the Blues have all the information I collected and I have my mobiGlas back. The children have been put in protective custody. Dirk’s operations have been shut down, though he is nowhere to be found. The news is talking about fixing poverty in the city. Street School has started again, with kids coming from all over. This week over a hundred come. They call us the Big Sisters now, like the Sisters took Dirk’s title. All of this and I’m getting ready to leave.
Mom Super has said that I can stay at the convent but I know I can’t. I put the children we were trying to help in danger and I almost attacked the core of the Sisters’ religion. I’m going to go to space and see all the things I’ve read about. I’ve always been just a guest here. I’ve never been one of them. I’m packing the last of my things when she comes to see me.
“Hello, young one,” she says. My back’s to the door.
“I’m not so young anymore,” I answer. “I’ve grown a bit since you gave me that name.”
Mom Super has a grin in her voice. “Gave you a name, did I? You refused to tell me what to call you. So I choose a description by which to call you. Hardly a name I think.”
There’s an unspoken ending to that sentence. I can feel it.
I turn around to see Mom Super standing in the doorway wearing her best habit. I guess it makes sense she would wear it on the day that I leave.
“We have something for you.”
“We?” I ask.
“Come, young one. It is time I do what you claim I have done already.”
There’s no way to refuse Mom Super when she has a plan.
She motions with her hand and I follow her out of the living area, past the meal hall and into the library.
Where rows of Sisters stand waiting in front of the book cases.
Three stories full. Rows about twenty feet long of sisters in their ceremonial best. One sister stands in the middle of the assembly on the main floor with a camera. Mom Super walks to stand next to her. I’m frozen just inside the door trying not to panic.
Turning in place Mom Super looks at me and then up to the gathered Sisters. She speaks loudly, “One has come among us whom we now know. One has been our guest who has had no name. One among us is leaving, following the call of her heart. These are all the same person. She had meant to do us harm but only in the cause of saving others, which she then did of her own accord. It would be right to record her name and good deeds in the histories of our Hall, but it would not be right to do so without using her name. What say you?”
A figure from the left of me steps forward, “We propose that she be given a name.”
Another figure steps forward, this time from my right. “We have come to consensus in this.”
“Step forward,” Mom Super says as she motions me toward her. I walk in a daze and stop when she signals.
Mom Super lays a hand on my shoulder. Her gaze drills into my eyes as she speaks. “This one has been found worthy and good among us. An inspiration to the study of knowledge and an example of courage. A changed person, remade by the force of her own will. What will you name her?”
A chorus replies as one.
“Luther, the reformer.”
The End
Quelle: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/seri…-Evil-Part-Four
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Alles anzeigenExterner Inhalt robertsspaceindustries.comInhalte von externen Seiten werden ohne Ihre Zustimmung nicht automatisch geladen und angezeigt.
Hello everyone,
First off, thanks to everyone who joined us in Cologne, Germany during Gamescom week. The team had a great time getting to meet many of you in person, and participate in our first ever Gamescom Town Hall Q&A, which is available to watch on YouTube here.
Alongside Gamescom festivities, we also revealed Crusader Industries latest ship, the Mercury Star Runner. Built with the same engineering and design principals that have made Crusader the go-to manufacturer for galactic transport on any scale, the star runner chassis sets new standards for data and cargo conveyance. Join the Manhunt with an interactive mini-game in the ARK Starmap, and find out more about this ship here.
In addition, you can now get into the ‘Verse for free for a limited time, and explore in several ships and vehicles: dogfight in the Avenger, bust rocks with the MISC Prospector, haul freight (or steal it) with the Cutlass Black, and live dangerously in the Dragonfly. If you have any questions on where to get started, we’ve also made an FAQ to make it easy.
Lastly, what better way to compliment the Gamescom Free-Fly than with a Commercial Contest, this time for the MISC Prospector! Find out all of the details here.
And with that, let’s see what else is going on this week:
Every week on Calling All Devs, designers, engineers, and other developers from our five offices around the world answer backer questions submitted on Spectrum and voted for by YOU. This week we talk about multi-crew Arena Commander, waypoints, personal hangars, and more. Watch the full episode when it releases here.
Numerous serialized fiction stories have appeared in Jump Point but have never been made available to all backers. As laid out in our Lore Release Schedule, the fourth Tuesday of each month will be dedicated to bringing you these stories one exciting chapter at a time.
Thursday will welcome another episode of Around the Verse where we’ll take a look at the latest Star Citizen news with a project update.
Finally, make sure to tune in on Friday for another episode of Reverse the Verse, broadcast live on our Star Citizen Twitch channel. Stay tuned for further information about who our special guests will be and keep an eye on Spectrum for the Questions Thread!
We’ll see you in the ‘Verse!
Tyler Witkin
Lead Community Manager
The Weekly Community Content ScheduleMONDAY, AUGUST 27TH, 2018
Calling All Devs (https://www.youtube.com/user/RobertsSpaceInd/)TUESDAY, AUGUST 28TH, 2018
Weekly Lore Post (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/spectrum-dispatch)WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 29TH, 2018
–THURSDAY, AUGUST 30TH, 2018
Around the Verse (https://www.youtube.com/user/RobertsSpaceInd/)
Vault UpdateFRIDAY, AUGUST 31ST, 2018
Reverse the Verse LIVE (https://www.youtube.com/user/RobertsSpaceInd/)
Roadmap Update
RSI Newsletter
Community MVP: August 27th, 2018Externer Inhalt robertsspaceindustries.comInhalte von externen Seiten werden ohne Ihre Zustimmung nicht automatisch geladen und angezeigt.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! Every week, we select one piece of content submitted to the Community Hub and highlight it in this section. The highlighted content creator will be awarded with an MVP badge on Spectrum and be immortalized in our MVP section of the Hub.
Don’t forget to submit your content to our Community Hub for a chance at seeing it here!
Building Star Citizen: Carrack Interior Walkthrough by West_Sage
Externer Inhalt robertsspaceindustries.comInhalte von externen Seiten werden ohne Ihre Zustimmung nicht automatisch geladen und angezeigt.West_Sage has designed this model based on the Star Citizen Carrack concept art shown on the ATV anniversary episode.
More info on the Community Hub.Quelle: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/citi…In-Star-Citizen