In dieser neuen Folge von Subscribers Town Hall geht es um das Persistent Universe, kurz PU. Dieses bildet gewissermaßen das Rückgrat von Star Citizen. Zu Wort kommen Chris Roberts (Global Head of Production), Erin Roberts (Design Director), Todd Papy…
Quelle: http://www.pcgames.de/Star-Citizen-P…zum-PU-1218512/
Laut einem Interview mit Chris Roberts plant Star Citizen-Entwickler Cloud Imperium Games fest mit einem 2017-Release für den Einzelspielermodus Squadron 42. Zumindest der erste von mindestens drei Teilen soll dieses Jahr erscheinen.
Quelle: http://www.pcgames.de/Star-Citizen-P…erview-1218806/
Von Cloud Imperium Games gibts heute ein Entwickler-Update zu Star Citizen. In einer neuen Folge von Subscribers Town Hall geht es um das Persistent Universe, kurz PTU. Chris Roberts beantwortet gemeinsam mit einigen Angestellten von CIG von der…
Quelle: http://www.pcgames.de/Star-Citizen-P…-Video-1218516/
Greetings Citizens
Externer Inhalt robertsspaceindustries.comInhalte von externen Seiten werden ohne Ihre Zustimmung nicht automatisch geladen und angezeigt.2017 is certainly in full swing. In Los Angeles, we’ve been hosting a number of folks from studios around the world in our traditional “beginning-of-the-year” summits where we plot out many of the project milestones for the year. It’s always terrific to see the people you spend so much time with over Skype and email in person, and the value of these face-to-face meetings can’t be overstated. We’ve got some exciting plans for 2017 certainly, and you’ll learn more about them in upcoming episodes of Around the Verse.
For the Community Team, we’re making preparations now for attending PAX South. While there is no formal presentation this year, Community Managers Tyler Witkin and Jared Huckaby are attending as fans, as well as many members of the CIG Austin team that will be in attendance to meet up with members of the Star Citizen community and enjoy all that these tremendously fun events have to offer, including a local Bar Citizen. You can find more info about the related Bar Citizen here.
With that, let’s take a look at what this week has in store.
Each Tuesday, the Lore Team releases another installment in one of their many continuing series. These lore posts have been a tradition since Star Citizen was first announced, and if you haven’t checked out some of the older series, like the Tales of Kid Crimson, you can find all the previous entries here.
This Tuesday also brings with us a special treat: another Subscriber’s Town Hall, this time focused on the Persistent Universe with special guests Chris Roberts, Erin Roberts, Tony Zurovec and Todd Papy. Due to the scheduling of our 2017 summits, this edition will be pre-taped with questions collected from our Subscriber’s Den last week, so don’t miss your next chance to hear many of the latest updates on our Persistent Universe development.
On Wednesdays, we alternate between the death and destruction of bugs everywhere with episodes of our edutainment series, Bugsmashers! and The Loremaker’s Guide to the Galaxy, where members of the CIG Lore Team explore the design, story and science of one of Star Citizen’s planetary systems. For this week, it’s Senior Gameplay Engineer Mark Abent doing what he does best in Bugsmashers.
Around the Verse, our flagship weekly program comes to us every Thursday, and after last week’s Special Edition look at the Vanduul and Xi’an languages, we return to form with our first full episode of 2017. If you’re looking for all the latest development news on Star Citizen, you don’t want to miss out on Around the Verse, every week on our YouTube channel.
Last Friday, we kicked off the Star Citizen Happy Hour. We were excited to carve out a small stitch of time every week to play the game we work so hard on, and share that experience not only with you, but with our community streamers as well. If you tuned in, you saw that we certainly needed the practice, as Senior Producer Alex Marschal and Design Director Todd Papy stopped by not only to answer questions and give insight into Star Marine’s future, but ridicule Jared for his l33t skillz. While every week won’t have special guests that can swing by in this regard, it’s safe to say you never know who will stop by. Special thanks to Myre of TEST Squadron for taking the time to be there with us. Join us again this Friday as Community Managers Jared Huckaby and Tyler Witkin play Star Citizen with the fans LIVE on Twitch with a special guest streamer from the community, and get your chance to win a free Star Citizen game package and ship! But you have to be watching to claim your prize. Tune in at 12pm PST, 8pm UTC at http://twitch.tv/starcitizen and don’t miss out!
With that, we’ll see you in the ‘Verse!
Jared Huckaby
“Disco Lando”
Community ManagerThe Weekly Community Content Schedule
TUESDAY, JANUARY 17TH, 2017
Subscriber’s Town Hall: Persistent Universe (https://www.youtube.com/user/RobertsSpaceInd/)
Weekly Lore Post (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/spectrum-dispatch)WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 18TH, 2017
Bugsmashers! (https://www.youtube.com/user/RobertsSpaceInd/)THURSDAY, JANUARY 19TH, 2017
Around the Verse (https://www.youtube.com/user/RobertsSpaceInd/)FRIDAY, JANUARY 20TH, 2017
Star Citizen Happy Hour @ 12pm PST / 8pm UTC (http://twitch.tv/starcitizen)
RSI NewsletterCommunity Spotlight: January 16th, 2017 – Talk Citizen
Externer Inhalt robertsspaceindustries.comInhalte von externen Seiten werden ohne Ihre Zustimmung nicht automatisch geladen und angezeigt.This week’s theme is “Talk Citizen.” Whether viewed on Twitch, hosted on YouTube, streamed via Internet Radio, downloaded on iTunes, etc. there are many, many Star Citizen podcasts out there for you to enjoy. Below are just a few of the ones that permeate the Star Citizen community. Don’t forget to check the Community Hub for more and upvote your favorites. You just might see them here in the near future.
Visit the Community Hub Podcasts
Guard Frequency
Externer Inhalt robertsspaceindustries.comInhalte von externen Seiten werden ohne Ihre Zustimmung nicht automatisch geladen und angezeigt.Guard Frequency is one of the oldest Star Citizen podcasts around, recently hitting their own milestone 150th episode.
Known as, “a place where you can just tune in and know that you’re going to get help from the community,” the guys at Priority One Productions have been stalwart companions on our collective journey to Star Citizen.
You can check out their website here.
Addicts Anonymous
Externer Inhalt robertsspaceindustries.comInhalte von externen Seiten werden ohne Ihre Zustimmung nicht automatisch geladen und angezeigt.Hosted by Nikki “Batgirl” D’Angelo, Star Citizen Addicts Anonymous encompasses a series of podcasts, including “Bensday” where she chats with Director of Community Engagement Ben Lesnick, “Ask Sandi” with VP of Marketing Sandi Gardiner, Lightspeed Lunatics with other members of the community and more.
You can join in on the continuing adventures of Nikki at http://www.starcitizenaa.com/)
Versecast
Externer Inhalt robertsspaceindustries.comInhalte von externen Seiten werden ohne Ihre Zustimmung nicht automatisch geladen und angezeigt.Those Guys with Ships began in the summer of 2014 with three guys, some ships, and a whole lot of excitement for the best damn space sim ever!
With over 130 episodes, Gleep, Jimi, Ace and Mark bring a fun discussion of the project that is available on iTunes, Google Play Music, Stitcher Radio and more.
You can learn more about their show and organization here: http://versecast.org/podcast
Not So Sober Saturday
Externer Inhalt robertsspaceindustries.comInhalte von externen Seiten werden ohne Ihre Zustimmung nicht automatisch geladen und angezeigt.Lastly, Star Citizen GrayHeadedGamer hosts Not So Sober Saturdays on… Saturdays.
It’s a fun and laidback discussion that often highlights the contributions of other community members to the Star Citizen experience, with the best collection of Star Citizen beanies you’re likely to find anywhere.
You can watch the show Saturday nights at 9pm PST here: http://www.twitch.tv/grayheadedgamer
Quelle: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/citi…In-Star-Citizen
In dieser Spezialausgabe von Around the Verse geht es um die verschiedenen Alien-Sprachen in Star Citizen. Zu Wort kommt Der Sprachwissenschaftler und Xenolinguist Britton Watkins, der bei Cloud Imperium Games dafür sorgt, dass sich das Gebrabbel von…
Quelle: http://www.pcgames.de/Star-Citizen-P…rachen-1218159/
In der neuen Ausgabe von "Around the Verse" erfahren wir mehr über die Alien-Sprachen in Star Citizen und wie diese überhaupt ihren Weg ins Spiel finden. Federführend hierfür ist der Sprachwissenschaftler und Xenolinguist Britton Watkins verantwortlich,…
Quelle: http://www.pcgames.de/Star-Citizen-P…-Video-1218168/
Brought to you by Pips. Experience 'Life Untapped'
Externer Inhalt robertsspaceindustries.comInhalte von externen Seiten werden ohne Ihre Zustimmung nicht automatisch geladen und angezeigt.January 10, 2935 SET
Despite its discovery over five centuries ago, the Nexus System has maintained a reputation for being untamed territory, a distinction that has persisted to this day. The two most notable events to occur in the system this century not only have criminal connotations but are also connected.
The first incident was Kellar’s Run in 2931. Dean Kellar’s multi-system tussle with UEE law enforcement famously ended in the Nexus System. What had started as a simple dogfight had spiraled across multiple systems and involved dozens of ships of criminals, police and even civilians. The government’s inability to contain the incident brought into focus just how little control the Empire had over the Nexus System. Within months, the UEE Senate approved a measure to bring law and order back to the system.
One of the UEE’s first orders of business was reclaiming Nexus III. Across the naturally habitable planet, outlaw factions had moved into facilities abandoned by the Hathor Group. When the UEE assault began, feuding outlaw crews put their differences aside to defend their planet. The Horizon Crew became the de facto ringleaders and led this patchwork defense force in a spirited fight. Eventually, they were overmatched by the UEE military. Outlaws that didn’t flee were either captured or killed resisting.
The criminal diaspora spread to the dark corners of the Nexus System or slipped into one of the neighboring unclaimed systems. The Horizon Crew attempted to set up operations elsewhere but were rebuffed by larger syndicates controlling those sectors of space. That left them with only one acceptable option: fight to reclaim their turf in Nexus. Three years after Kellar’s run, on January 10, 2935, Nexus’s second notable event of the 30th century occurred: the Horizon Crew perpetrated the infamous Walzer Massacre.
Operation (OP) Station Demien was built in the 25th century to be an operations hub, transfer point and temporary housing location for government workers trying to terraform the smog planet of Nexus II. After the experimental terraforming techniques failed, the UEE eventually sold the entire system to the Hathor Group, which then used the station as a security outpost. Beginning in 2672, when the Hathor Group abandoned the system, various squatters and outlaw packs rotated through the station for the next few centuries. After the UEE pushed into the system, OP Station Demien became one of the first ‘secure’ stations in the extended police action. The station housed supplies and military families waiting for an official residence on Lago (Nexus IV). Yet, the station’s remote location and soft security made it an ideal target for the Horizon Crew’s ruthless plan.
January 10, 2935, started like any other day for those aboard OP Station Demien. Security personnel conducted their routine patrols around the station, but (based on security accounts), everything was quiet. Haulers offloaded supplies and stayed to enjoy a hot meal outside of their ship. Station staff restocked vending machines and reshuffled cargo containers for pick up. Little did they know, a stealth dropship silently drew nearer.
Meanwhile, in the temporary housing habs, the family of Advocacy Agent Emily Walzer received good news. A permanent residence on Lago had been secured for them, and a military transport on a supply run would bring them in the following day. Francis Walzer and his three children had been waiting at OP Station Demien for days. Though they knew the system was still dangerous, sweetheart land deals on Lago offered to government officials and their families were too good to pass up. Now that their lot had been secured, the family could all be together for the first time since Agent Emily Walzer transferred to Lago the previous year.
Following the call with his wife, Francis Walzer sent his son, Arjun, to grab a few bottles of Pips while he read to twins Joyce and Joanne. Arjun rushed out of the hab, as if going faster also accelerated time. Though only fourteen, Arjun wanted to join the Advocacy like his mother. Friends and family described him as observant and endless inquisitive, so the fact that he was the first civilian aboard the station to notice that things weren’t quite right seems fitting. At some point in his journey to the Pips machine, he became aware that the hallways were eerily quiet and that select security doors had been closed and elevators deactivated. Not long after, Arjun spotted the now-famous bloody handprint.
Ten minutes earlier, the station’s security officers had stepped away from their posts for a shift change. It was during that vulnerable window that a small squad of well-armed outlaws took the security team by surprise. Security footage showed that the speed and precision of the attack was such that none of the security officers even had a chance to raise their weapon.
With the station’s security apparatus under their control, additional Horizon Crew ships landed. Assault teams spread across the station, systematically moving from room to room and killing anyone they encountered. Many victims were found executed, a single shot in the back of the head, never knowing what hit them.
Supposedly, the Horizon Crew’s plan was to secretly take over OP Station Demien, fortify and secure it and then use it at a new center for their operations in the Nexus System. Essential to the plan’s success was ensuring that word of their assault didn’t leave the station. It would afford them the time to entrench and notify others that the station was now under their control. It almost happened too, if it hadn’t been for Arjun Walzer and that bloody handprint.
Over 20 different retellings of the Walzer massacre have appeared on the spectrum since this fateful day. Each one uses the iconic image of the bloody handprint that reportedly begins Arjun’s comm to his mother. Incredibly, Arjun stayed on the comm with his mother for nearly 50 minutes. With her guidance, he documented the horrors the Horizon Crew inflicted on the station and evaded the assailants. Arjun’s brave efforts continued until an outlaw noticed an unknown signal coming from the station and decided to hunt it down. Although the final moments of that fateful comm are known only by those who have seen it, there is one word consistently used to describe it: devastating.
Sadly, Arjun’s tragic demise was far from unique, as no one on OP Station Demien during the assault would survive it. Yet, thanks to Arjun’s bravery, local law enforcement officials received word of the assault and launched their counterattack before the Horizon Crew could fully enact their security plan for the entire station. A local militia was first on the scene but had little warning of what awaited them. Within moments of exiting their ships, most militia members found themselves caught in a kill zone. The outlaws’ strategically advantageous position proved to be too much for inexperienced local law enforcement to overcome, making it apparent that the UEE Marines were needed.
The Marine assault to retake OP Station Demien lasted six hours. The battle-hardened Horizon Crew fought for every last inch of space and surface. With nowhere else to go, the Crew knew their plan would either work or be their ultimate demise. Thanks to the Marines, it proved to be the latter. After three years of perceived progress against outlaw elements in the Nexus System, the Walzer Massacre, as it came to be called, was a stark reminder that there was much work still to be done.
Despite its impact on the UEE at the time, the Walzer Massacre is now only the second most famous thing associated with OP Station Demien. Today, it’s better known as a location in the popular video game Star Marine and the recent vid Star Marine 2: BloodLock. This distinction isn’t without controversy, as some believe InterDimension Software intentionally chose to base their game level on the station to stir controversy and receive free publicity for the title.
Regardless of its portrayal in popular culture, OP Station Demien still stands as a symbol of the battle to tame the Nexus System, and the events of January 10th, 2935, will remain an important chapter in the history of the system.
Quelle: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/spec…Walzer-Massacre
Cloud Imperium Games wird Cheater im Weltraum-MMO Star Citizen nicht tolerieren. Wer cheatet, der fliegt und zwar permanent. Es wird dann auch keine Rückerstattung des Geldes geben, welches der Betrüger schon in das Onlinespiel investiert hat. Doch…
Quelle: http://www.pcgames.de/Star-Citizen-P…attung-1217883/
Greetings Citizens
Externer Inhalt robertsspaceindustries.comInhalte von externen Seiten werden ohne Ihre Zustimmung nicht automatisch geladen und angezeigt.First off, HAPPY NEW YEAR!
We returned to offices last week to resume the process of bringing Star Citizen and Squadron 42 to life, with stories of holiday cheer and more than a few personal adventures. With every New Year comes the inevitable resolutions, and this year the Community Team aims to continue improving the content we release to you each and every week.
What this means right off the bat is an evolution of the “Community Manager’s Log and Schedule” that went up at the beginning of the week into a front-page post, “This Week in Star Citizen.” As always, it’ll be a chance to give you some of the highlights to look out for in the week ahead, but we’ll also use it to highlight specific content you may have missed out on in the past, as well as bring a much deserved spotlight to the work our Citizens do to enhance the overall Star Citizen experience.
In addition to the change in our Monday posts, we’ll be pushing the continuing evolution in our video content as we move through 2017, including popular hits like Around the Verse, Bugsmashers and Loremaker’s Guide to the Galaxy, as well as debuting some new additions to those stalwarts. We’ll discuss one of those additions farther down below, but be certain you come back here in the coming weeks to find out more.
Each Tuesday, the Lore Team releases another installment in one of their many continuing series. These lore posts have been a tradition since Star Citizen was first announced, and if you haven’t checked out some of the older series, like Cassandra’s Tears, you can find all the previous entries here.
On Wednesdays, we alternate between the death and destruction of bugs everywhere with episodes of our edutainment series, Bugsmashers! and The Loremaker’s Guide to the Galaxy, where members of the CIG Lore Team explore the design, story and science of one of Star Citizen’s planetary systems. For this week, it’s Associate Writer Adam Wieser with a story of exploration and expansion with the Ark Starmap as his guide.
If you haven’t seen the Ark Starmap in action, you can check it out for yourself here.
Around the Verse, our flagship weekly program comes to us every Thursday, and this week we return from hiatus with more behind-the-scenes goodness. If you’re looking for all the latest development news on Star Citizen, you don’t want to miss out on Around the Verse, every week on our YouTube channel.
EDIT 2017.01.10 – This week’s ATV will be a “special edition” featurette.
We will return to your regularly scheduled Around the Verses next week.That brings us to Friday. The end of the traditional work week, and if you’re anything like me, you like to kick back and relax a bit playing some video games, and that’s just what we’re gonna do, only we’re gonna Star Citizen with YOU. Join Community Managers Jared Huckaby and Tyler Witkin on Happy Hour Friday as they play Star Citizen with the fans LIVE on Twitch with a special guest streamer from the community, and get your chance to win a free Star Citizen game package and ship! But you have to be watching to claim your prize. Tune in at 10am PST, 6pm UTC at http://twitch.tv/starcitizen and don’t miss out!
With that, I hope we’ll see you on Friday!
Jared Huckaby
“Disco Lando”
Community ManagerThe Weekly Community Content Schedule
TUESDAY, JANUARY 10TH, 2017
Weekly Lore Post (https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/spectrum-dispatch)WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 11TH, 2017
Loremaker’s Guide to the Galaxy (https://www.youtube.com/user/RobertsSpaceInd/)THURSDAY, JANUARY 12TH, 2017
Around the Verse: Special Edition Featurette (https://www.youtube.com/user/RobertsSpaceInd/)FRIDAY, JANUARY 13TH, 2017
Happy Hour Friday @ 10am PST / 6pm UTC (http://twitch.tv/starcitizen)
RSI NewsletterCommunity Spotlight: January 9th, 2017 – Storytellers
Externer Inhalt robertsspaceindustries.comInhalte von externen Seiten werden ohne Ihre Zustimmung nicht automatisch geladen und angezeigt.Those of you that have been following the project for awhile might remember the old Community Spotlight program, where we highlight several of our Community Content Creators who bring their own unique additions to the Star Citizen experience. We enjoyed this opportunity to share these with you each and every week, and so one of our New Year’s Resolutions is to bring this fine tradition back included with every This Week in Star Citizen post.
This week’s theme is “Storytellers,” those fan-fiction creations that see to further flesh out the potential Star Citizen universe. From prose to webcomics to video-series, storytelling is at the very heart of the Star Citizen experience, and what we have for you this week is just a small sampling of many of the tremendous creations throughout the years, from the very old, to one that just began yesterday!
So take a look, and don’t forget to check the Community Hub for all the latest contributions and upvote your favorites. You just might see them here in the near future.
Combined Arms
Externer Inhalt robertsspaceindustries.comInhalte von externen Seiten werden ohne Ihre Zustimmung nicht automatisch geladen und angezeigt.Under the leadership of Captain Kenny, an Outlaw Coalition seizes control of the planet ArcCorp. UEE Marine and Naval forces must unite in a desperate attempt to prevent innumerable casualties.
The Fleet Arrives is Part I of a three-part film series directed by Terallian, and backed by the immensely talented team, Little Armada.
You can check out his post on the Community Hub here, with additional links so you don’t miss out on future episodes.
The Citizens
Externer Inhalt robertsspaceindustries.comInhalte von externen Seiten werden ohne Ihre Zustimmung nicht automatisch geladen und angezeigt.“The Citizens” is a brand-new webcomic series dedicated to showing the humorous side of Star Citizen’s universe.
The Citizens is produced entirely by Star Citizen Rurquiza using screenshots captured with our new “Director Mode” recently added in Star Citizen Alpha 2.6, and we suspect, a decent amount of post-production after the fact.
You can follow the continuing adventures of “The Citizens” at http://www.thecitizenscomic.com/
Hunter
Externer Inhalt robertsspaceindustries.comInhalte von externen Seiten werden ohne Ihre Zustimmung nicht automatisch geladen und angezeigt.Of course, we can’t forget the Star Citizen webcomic classics, like Hunter, the fan-fiction adventures created by Star Citizen Adrian Nitisor.
Hunter has been in publication since April of 2015, and you can find all issues available for download at http://hunter.thecomic.ninja/
There is also a special video trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEaItVUHxbo
TOG in Space
Externer Inhalt robertsspaceindustries.comInhalte von externen Seiten werden ohne Ihre Zustimmung nicht automatisch geladen und angezeigt.Finally for this week, we go way, way back into the Storytellers archive for TOG in Space, a work of Star Citizen Fan Fiction that ran on our forums from June 2013 to January 2015.
Created by Star Citizen cmopatrick, the adventures that began on a shipping platform in the Baker System and expanded into a 400+ page PDF document before all was said and done!
You can check it out in the original forum post here.
If you’re a fan of fan fiction, I’d encourage you to check out one of the most dedicated legacy contributions from our community content creators since this project began.
Quelle: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/citi…In-Star-Citizen
Cloud Imperium Games zeigt ein aktualisiertes Vorstellungsvideo zu Star Citizen, in dem aktuelle Spielszenen gezeigt werden. Mastermind Chris Roberts stellt im Video die "epische First Person Experience" vor und betont die 1,6 Millionen Spieler starke…
Quelle: http://www.pcgames.de/Star-Citizen-P…ellung-1217263/
Letztes Jahr wurde mit Star Marine das neueste Modul für das kommende Weltraum-MMO Star Citizen veröffentlicht und ermöglicht schnelle Multiplayer-Gefechte. Wir haben uns Star Marine angesehen und uns in den Conquest-Modus gestürzt. Was dabei herauskam,…
Quelle: http://www.pcgames.de/Star-Citizen-P…player-1217555/
Nachdem es bereits Cheater in der Alpha-Version des kommenden Weltraum-MMOs Star Citizen gibt, hat die Community eine Umfrage gestartet und fragt die Fans, wie mit Cheatern umgegangen werden soll. Dabei ist die Frage, ob sofort gegen Cheater vorgegangen…
Quelle: http://www.pcgames.de/Star-Citizen-P…mfrage-1217277/
Star Marine, das FPS-Modul für Star Citizen, ist jetzt für alle Backer spielbar. Der knackig geschnittene Launch-Trailer gibt einen Ausblick auf die Shooter-Gefechte. Zum Einsatz kommt dabei übrigens bereits Amazons Lumberyard-Engine (basierend auf der…
Quelle: http://www.pcgames.de/Star-Citizen-P…railer-1216846/
Chris Roberts und sein Team von Cloud Imperium Games machen den Unterstützern von Star Citizen ein ganz besonderes Weihnachtsgeschenk: Etwas später als ursprünglich geplant, aber wie versprochen noch in diesem Jahr, geht Alpha 2.6 mit Star Marine an den…
Quelle: http://www.pcgames.de/Star-Citizen-P…echsel-1216848/
Greetings Citizens,
Externer Inhalt robertsspaceindustries.comInhalte von externen Seiten werden ohne Ihre Zustimmung nicht automatisch geladen und angezeigt.Star Citizen Alpha 2.6 is now available for all backers! Alpha 2.6 includes the first iteration of Star Marine, our dedicated FPS module, as well as significant updates to the rest of the Star Citizen experience. Star Marine offers two game modes that will give you a taste of first person combat in the ’verse while a new Pirate Swarm game mode has been added to Arena Commander and a grand total of eight new ships are available in the PU. The patch also includes a major spaceflight balance pass, a brand new menu system, as well as dozens of bug fixes, quality of life improvements and other changes. The Alpha 2.6 patch is now available for download via the Star Citizen launcher.
You can read the complete Patch Notes here.
Star Marine
Join the Fight…
Externer Inhalt robertsspaceindustries.comInhalte von externen Seiten werden ohne Ihre Zustimmung nicht automatisch geladen und angezeigt.Star Marine is here! Star Citizen’s first-person combat simulator lets backers engage in pitched FPS battles complete with multiple game modes, leaderboards and an all-new user interface. The initial launch of Star Marine includes two maps, OP Station Demien and Echo Eleven, as well as two game modes. Elimination is a free-for-all everyone-for-themselves fight where players duke it out for the highest kill score. Last Stand offers a chance for players to team up and battle for dominance over several Control Points in a fight where proper teamwork will determine victory.
Star Marine features numerous updates to Star Citizen’s FPS systems including grenades, vaulting, and combat emotes. The Player Health System has been updated so that you can now bleed out, when injured your health pool decreases over time until it reaches a fatal limit or the player heals. Competitive leaderboards have also been
included, as well as a major UI update to the lobby. Star Marine is
accessible to all backers with Star Citizen packages.New Features:
- Star Marine’s initial release features two maps: OP Station Demien and Echo Eleven.
- Star Marine has two available game modes for 2.6. Elimination, an every-man-for themselves mode where you duke it out for the highest kill-score. Last Stand, where Outlaws and Marines battle for control of four key computer access points to earn points.
- Grenades are also available in Star Marine from the ammo crates.
Arena Commander
Externer Inhalt robertsspaceindustries.comInhalte von externen Seiten werden ohne Ihre Zustimmung nicht automatisch geladen und angezeigt.Epic Space Battles…
Externer Inhalt robertsspaceindustries.comInhalte von externen Seiten werden ohne Ihre Zustimmung nicht automatisch geladen und angezeigt.Star Marine isn’t the only major update in Star Citizen Alpha 2.6. The Arena Commander ‘dogfighting module’ has been updated and expanded with a special focus on improvements to overall flight balance. Three multi-crew ships have also been added to Arena Commander’s private matches: the Retaliator, the Caterpillar and the Constellation Andromeda.Thanks to an incredible testing effort by our internal Quality Assurance teams and the Evocati backer group, we’ve come up with some flight balance changes that we think improve the overall experience. We’re eager to hear what you think, so please test out your favorite ship and then sound off on the forums.
A new game mode, Pirate Swarm, has also been added to Arena Commander, allowing players to fend off increasingly difficult waves of the notorious Nova Rider outlaw pack. To celebrate this new mode, we are offering two new ‘bounty missions’ with this patch: defeating the updated Vanduul Swarm and the new Pirate Swarm modes will earn you an account badge. Receiving the Vanduul Swarm badge will once again give players access to purchase a Glaive from a limited stock of 1,500 ships, while the Pirate Swarm badge will give access to
purchase a unique pirate-skinned Caterpillar that will be available in the
store for a two week limited-run.New Features
- Battle increasingly difficult waves of outlaws in the Pirate Swarm game mode for both Drone Sim and Spectrum matchups.
- Enemies in specific game modes (Vanduul Swarm, Pirate Swarm, Squadron Battle, Battle Royale) now drop pickup items including Afterburner fuel, missiles, ammo or repairs.
- We have also made the following ships available in Arena Commander, though they are restricted to Private Matches and Single Player games: Constellation Andromeda, Retaliator, and the Caterpillar.
New Ships, New Mechanics
Fantastic Ships and How to Fly Them
In 2.6, we’ve taken a long look at the internal QA testing as well as feedback from the community about their gameplay experience and taken a new approach to the flight model in general. This update will introduce this new approach along with a myriad of other updates and revisions to help balance the various ships and components.
New Features
- 8 new ships and variants are hangar and flight ready in 2.6.
- Massive overhaul of ship flight mechanics.
- Complete rebalance of SCM speeds and ship handling for all ships.
- Afterburner and Boost functionality has been completely revised. The goal is that Afterburner becomes the method to engage/disengage combat as well as gives the choice between outright speed or better handling.
- We’ve also reinvented our Fuel System. All ships have had a pass on their thruster fuel consumption values, intake regeneration rates and fuel tank capacities.
- Complete rebalance of all shields, all missiles and missile racks
and countermeasure ammo for all ships.Out of the Cocoon…
The Drake Caterpillar is flyable in Star Citizen Alpha 2.6 joining the MISC Starfarer and the Aegis Starfarer Gemini in Star Citizen’s fleet of large multi-crew ships. Intended to form the lead ship in raiding groups, the Caterpillar is a flagship any outlaw or ‘legitimate businessperson’ can be proud of. Future patches will add additional functionality, including the detachment feature for the Command Module and new upgrades for the Caterpillar’s segments and mounts.
You can learn more about the Drake Caterpillar here.
Externer Inhalt robertsspaceindustries.comInhalte von externen Seiten werden ohne Ihre Zustimmung nicht automatisch geladen und angezeigt.Hark, the Herald’s Engines Sing…
The Drake Herald is flight ready in Alpha 2.6. The Herald joins an elite group of fast ships which includes the M50, 350R and Mustang Gamma. QA reports that navigating the Murray Cup map in Arena Commander using the Herald is a true challenge … are you pilot enough? Additional functionality relating to the Herald, including systems related to data and hacking, will be introduced in future Persistent Universe patches.
You can learn more about the Herald here.
Externer Inhalt robertsspaceindustries.comInhalte von externen Seiten werden ohne Ihre Zustimmung nicht automatisch geladen und angezeigt.Sheer Luxury…
The Origin 85X is a snub and a half! This luxury touring spacecraft was originally created to launch from the Origin 890 JUMP and is now flight ready for all backers.
Externer Inhalt robertsspaceindustries.comInhalte von externen Seiten werden ohne Ihre Zustimmung nicht automatisch geladen und angezeigt.New Ship Variants Flight Ready
The Spice of Life…
In addition to the Caterpillar, Herald and 85X, Star Citizen Alpha 2.6 adds a total of five ship variants to the lineup! These include the Vanguard Hoplite landing craft and the four variants created for Star Citizen’s 4th anniversary: the Hornet Wildfire, Sabre Comet, Gladius Valiant and Avenger Titan Renegade.
New Weapons
Equipment that Won’t MISS…
The Items 2.0 rollout continues with Star Citizen 2.6, with a special focus this month on missiles! The patch adds ten missile types, fifteen new missile racks and three guns to finish out the Behring MXA series.
You can check out the variety of new missile racks here.
You can find many of the new missiles and guns below.
Pathfinder Proximity
Size 4 IR Missile
Pioneer Proximity
Size 1 EM Missile
Marksman Proximity
Size 1 FAF IR Missile
Thunderbolt Proximity
Size 3 EM Missile
Arrester Proximity
Size 3 CS Missile
Tempest Proximity
Size 2 TL CS Missile
Ignite Strike
Size 2 FAF IR Missile
Spark Proximity
Size 1 DF Missile
Viper Strike
Size 3 IR Missile
Rattler Cluster
Size 2 TL IR Missile
Reaper Strike
Size 5 EM Missile
Valkyrie Strike
Size 5 IR Missile
Raptor Strike
Size 4 EM Missile
Assailant Strike
Size 4 CS Missile
Dominator Strike
Size 2 TL EM Missile
Argos Strike
Size 9 CS Missile
Seeker Strike
Size 9 EM Missile
Typhoon Strike
Size 9 IR Missile
Stalker Strike
Size 5 CS Missile
Strikeforce Strike
Size 2 FAF CS Missile
Taskforce Strike
Size 1 TL EM MissileFurther Improvements
What Else is New?
There are plenty of other additions and new features that Alpha 2.6 brings along with it, from numerous under the hood adjustments to more noticeable quality of life improvements.
Persistent Universe
- Ol ‘38 Bar added to Grim HEX landing zone.
- Crusader has several new locations to visit and a new ICC Probe mission.
- The Yela Asteroid belt has received some updates, with a much denser field and more varied salvage locations.
Lobby Refactor
- Our new front end user interface is now implemented, with updated graphics and new features.
- All new loadout customization section for Arena Commander that allows players to edit their ship components for Arena Commander matches through the game interface without the use of Port Modification. This changes will also be retained between play sessions.
- Updated Leaderboards for Star Marine and Arena Commander on the website now rank players in each game utilizing actual UEE ranks.
Third-Person Camera System
- The third-person cameras for Vehicle and On-Foot have been much improved in 2.6. Players can now select lens size and offset the camera to create cinematic and dynamic framing.
Health System Updates
- Bleeding has been added to the game, in both the Persistent Universe and Star Marine. This debuff stacks (additively) with itself and will decrease your total health pool each second it ticks down until healed.
Externer Inhalt robertsspaceindustries.comInhalte von externen Seiten werden ohne Ihre Zustimmung nicht automatisch geladen und angezeigt.Thank You, Citizens!
Patches like Alpha 2.6 can only happen thanks to the thousands of Evocati and PTU testers who put early builds through their paces. And that says nothing of the countless other community members whose passion for Star Citizen inspires the team every day. This project would not be possible without the support of backers around the world. Thank you for everything.
Quelle: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/tran…arine-Available
MISC Razor Q&A
Externer Inhalt robertsspaceindustries.comInhalte von externen Seiten werden ohne Ihre Zustimmung nicht automatisch geladen und angezeigt.Greetings Citizens,
Externer Inhalt robertsspaceindustries.comInhalte von externen Seiten werden ohne Ihre Zustimmung nicht automatisch geladen und angezeigt.You’ve got questions, we’ve got answers. Let’s get right to it.
Previous Star Citizen racing ships have been designed with a dual role in mind or as adaptations of existing ships (the Mustang Gamma and 350R). The Razor was intended to be a racer from the skids up. Like the M50 interceptor, the Razor’s natural abilities will make it effective for speed-related missions off the racetrack … but unlike the M50, that was a completely secondary concern.
Special thanks to John Crewe and Jonathan Jacevicius for taking the time to answer these questions for us.
Questions & Answers
Ships inside of other ships. What ships do you think the Razor can be successfully launched and maintained from?
Questions like these are difficult to answer definitively until both the larger and the smaller ships are fully built and implemented, but it’d be safe to say any ship that can take an M50 will be able to take a Razor comfortably.
How do you envision the Razor being used outside of racing?
The Razor has a small set of offensive weaponry so whilst it can be used for combat at a push, it is not designed for it and in protracted engagements will fall prey to dedicated combat ships. Its speed and endurance (for a racer) would allow it to work in an interceptor role like the M50.
Why would we choose this ship over an M50 or 350R? Why would we choose those ships over the Razor?
Designed to be an endurance racer rather than a drag or F1 style racer the Razor will be able to last longer in races before the pilot has to start considering their fuel levels, whilst the pure performance isn’t as good as the M50/350R in a straightline or maneuverability it will still be able to keep up.
Can the razor be equipped with a Jump Drive?
It is currently planned to be capable of having a Jump Drive like other ships who have Quantum Drives.
How does the Razor’s fuel collection system compare to that of the Mustang Omega? How do you imagine this difference manifesting itself in the PU?
The fuel collection system is much more efficient than the Omega, resulting in the ability to regenerate more fuel per second than other racing ships. Unlike other ships the Razor essentially has its intakes spread across the surface of the ship so does not require the ship to be moving in the direction the intakes are facing to regenerate fuel effectively.
Are there any variants planned?
There are no variants planned at the moment although during concept we trialed a few alternative paint jobs that may be available in the future.
The Razor has a small powerpack compared to the M50 with the same size engines, will this mean the Razor will have more efficient engines compared to the M50? And will there be any other differences between the two in terms of thrust to weight ratio and acceleration?
The Xian influenced thrusters on the Razor provide a more efficient thrust output for the power plant size than the relatively “traditional” thrusters on the M50, combined with the lightweight hull this allows a similar level of performance.
How do you imagine the durability to be? It seems like after so much weight-shaving, it might be more easily damaged compared to other ships in it’s class.
The Razor is very much the structurally weakest of the dedicated racing ships, aside from perhaps the Archimedes and will be very susceptible to damage causing serious performance degradation, especially the fuel regeneration ability. This is an important trade-off for it’s other advantages.
Does the wind tunnel testing profile mean that airfoils will work and we can expect lift, weight, thrust and drag to be simulated in the flight characteristics of each ship when in atmospheric conditions? If so, will there be a new flight model or IFCS mode switch to handle the transition from Space to Atmosphere and different variations in gravity?
IFCS automatically adjusts the flight handling when transitioning between Space and Atmosphere, there is no need to manually transition between modes as it all done for you.
We currently simulate drag and gravity in atmosphere and this is calculated on a per ship basis, so ships like the Razor will handle better in atmosphere than others due to their shape but in the Razors case will potentially be more susceptible to wind/turbulence do to its low mass.
Concept sale
About the Sale
The Razor is being offered for the first time as a limited concept sale. This means that the ship design meets our specifications, but it is not yet ready to display in your Hangar, fight in Arena Commander or fly in the Alpha. The sale includes Lifetime Insurance on the ship hull and a pair of decorative items for your Hangar. A future patch will add a Razor poster and then once the in-game model is finished you will also be given an in-game Razor mini ship model! In the future, the ship price will increase and the offer will not include Life Time Insurance or these extras.
Disclaimer
Remember: we are offering this pledge ship to help fund Star Citizen’s development. The funding generated by sales such as this is what allows us to include deeper, non-combat oriented features in the Star Citizen world. Concept ships will be available for in-game credits in the final universe, and they are not required to start the game.
Additionally, please note that all decorative ‘flare’ items will also be available to acquire in the finished game world. Also, while the Razor will be entering the ship pipeline now, it will ultimately be released after other concept ships have been completed. The goal is to make additional ships available that give players a different experience rather than a particular advantage when the persistent universe launches.
Quelle: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/tran…-MISC-Razor-Q-A
Hat die Krise rund um das Entwicklerstudio Crytek Auswirkungen auf das Weltraum-MMO Star Citizen? Immerhin nutzt es auch die Cryengine. Doch laut Cloud Imperium Games sollen sich die Fans keine Sorgen machen. Das Studio arbeite unabhängig von Crytek.
Quelle: http://www.pcgames.de/Star-Citizen-P…perium-1216620/
Zum Jahresende zeigen die Entwickler von Star Citizen einen Einblick in die Alpha 2.6, die es bereits auf den öffentlichen Testservern gibt. Im kommentiertem Gameplay-Video gibt es Raumgefechte zu sehen. Zwei Teams starten und bekämpfen sich dann in…
Quelle: http://www.pcgames.de/Star-Citizen-P…lay-26-1216233/
Cloud Imperium Games hat die Star Citizen Alpha 2.6 im PTU (Public Test Universe) ausgerollt. Ein Gameplay-Trailer veranschaulicht neben dem aktuellen Entwicklungsstand auch die Neuerungen. Das Hauptaugenmerk liegt dabei auf dem lang erwarteten FPS…
Quelle: http://www.pcgames.de/Star-Citizen-P…-Modul-1216253/
Monthly Studio Report: January 2017
Greetings Citizens!
Welcome to 2017 (or should we say 2947?) Since our last report, we’ve published a major patch (Star Citizen Alpha 2.6 with Star Marine) and have continued to make great progress towards our next updates. The launch of Star Marine was a major milestone for Star Citizen, and thanks to our dedicated community we have plenty of feedback on the FPS updates to work from. Before we move on to 2.6.1 (which is now available for testing on the PTU!) and beyond, however, let’s take a look back at the month that was January 2017 in Star Citizen’s development.
CIG Los Angeles
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Engineering
A new year marked by new challenges, new ideas and a whole lot of progress. We have been hard at work on our modular character customization screen, a system built on the item framework which will let players equip their characters however they choose. In addition, the LA Engineering team spent January making real progress towards the core systems that will allow us to have solar system sized maps and all the complicated components that come with it. To enable this, we had to reimagine entities including fundamental components such as lights, continue work on an intelligent radar system, and revisit how we build level hierarchies. It’s still some ways off, but we can see the principles in practice. January also saw the first technical application of node-based controller managers – this system opens the door to improved networking of item components and is the first real step towards multi-crew ship gameplay. Not flashy enough? How about explosions! We added a new damage controller that will bring things like explosive props and destroyable objects to the Item System framework soon.
Tech Design
This month our Tech Designers have been hard at work on new ships, Item 2.0 support, and prototyping. As for ships, the Buccaneer and Cutlass Black have hit the greybox phase. The Aurora update is going smoothly and really looking good. Calix prototyped how players could interact with the world and items, while Kirk did some work with our studios across the pond on general ship balance, in-game pricing, and underlining systems.
Art
The LA Ship Art team of Elwin Bachiller, Daniel Kamentsky and Byungjin Hyun dove right into the Drake Buccaneer (which has wrapped up in Greybox Art and moved onto Final Art) as well as a big update to the RSI Aurora. On the Concept Art side, in addition to supporting the Drake Buccaneer, Justin Wentz has been very busy creating concept art for a new Anvil ship.
This month, the Character Art team created new armor for the Persistent Universe. Most notably, the Explorer Suit, which will be used for (you guessed it!) exploring our vast universe! Another new addition is the Heavy Marine armor, which will be available soon in Star Marine. We’ve also continued working on creating more clothes for our shops and building outfits for new NPCs that will soon be seen on our various planets.
Tech Content
The Technical Content Team consists of two teams: Technical Art and Technical Animation. Technical Content is a global team with staff in all studios performing various roles.
Sean Tracy has spent the last month roadmapping for the rest of the year, working with 3lateral and other outsourcers on some R+D projects that will be revealed soon, as well as training and supporting the Technical Art and Technical Animation teams.
On the Technical Art front, Atri Dave has been working with our FPS weapon team to optimize weapons, ensure grips are universal (to males and females) as well as doing some R+D with our animation programmers for a more advanced version of foot anchoring that adapts leg IK and ground alignment based on whether characters are on their heels or on the balls of their feet. Robert Dickerson has been building up a Substance Painter pipeline for the various content teams. Alex Remotti recently joined the team and within his first couple weeks has already made an enormous impact by taking ownership over the procedurally generated environments for planets, space stations and other objects in the universe. He’s already integrated the initial system into the planet editor which allows us to spawn outposts/buildings using the splatter maps from the ecosystems. Matthew Intrieri and Patrick Salerno have been making important updates to systems and art for the Super Hornet, Mustang and many other ships, as well as planning out the rest of the year in terms of “paying off” some tech debt that’s accrued on some of the older ships. Forrest Stephan has been working on S42 features as well as reviewing props and weapons for performance optimizations.
On the Technical Animation side, it’s been no less busy! Matthias Jaeger has been working on improving and implementing tools improvements for animators. These include space switching (IK/FK switching tools), prop rigging, health tests, bone influence reduction tools, and more. Rob Howes, the lead technical animator in the department, has been busy supporting cinematics and animation whilst leading the technical animation team. He’s prepared a roadmap for the rest of the year as well as doing R+D on distributed batching solutions for animation builds. Further he’s continued to iterate with animation on some issues surrounding using a separate female skeleton. Vineet Chander has done massive batches of updates to our facial and head assets, of which there are over 120! Sometimes relatively minor issues are discovered, for example the eyelids for most faces were a bit “sleepy” looking and he’s made changes so that this is longer the case. Adam Sirrelle has developed some important tools including automated LOD creation of the facial assets. Additionally, Adam has created an extra tool for the developers that allow them to much more easily manage the creation of DBA’s (Database of Animations) which are massively optimized containers for animation data. John Riggs is working on updates to the female rig, updates to the hands for better gripping of weapons, and rolling out some skinning tools for the rest of the team. Gaige Hallman has done the lion’s share of work when it comes to zoning and ensuring the modularity of the characters and the skinning that goes with that, while also working on zone culling and difficult aspect of modularity that occur around the neck and head of characters. Mark McCall is Tech Content’s resident bugsmashing ninja. While sometimes spending weeks fixing bug after bug, Mark still manages to enact major changes, such as unifying the data structure for eyes and teeth on characters as well as creating tools surrounding hair/scalp rigging. Last but not least, Erik Link has implemented facial idles on the pilots for 2.6.1 and chases up animators and content creators when there is asset build errors. He’s been instrumental in getting our asset build errors down to 0 for 2.6.0
Narrative
The Narrative team has been continuing to meet with designers at the various studios to chip away at narrative needs for 3.0, like fleshing out the mission stories we’ll be able to generate for players and looking at the various storytelling possibilities for the various environments. We’ve also embarked on a significant task of starting to build a database of text needs for Squadron 42 which will outline any terminals, Galactapedia entries, etc. that need to be in-game. There have been a handful of documents written up for additional set dressing for the levels of Star Marine; fun little ways to make Echo 11 more period-accurate or OP Station Demien reflective of the massacre that the level is attempting to recreate. Those conversations with art and design have led to the creation of a multi-page document on Snacks!
We’ve also been having weekly discussions with Britton, our esteemed xenolinguist, who’s continuing to build out the Xi’an language. These conversations have led to some deeper dives into the Xi’an society, so hopefully we’ll be able to reveal some of that to you soon.
Quality Assurance
LA QA spent most of the month aiding the LA Engineering and Tech Content teams conducting sweeps on the new frontend, ship self-destruction, damage states, missile functionality and recent changes to the character loadouts, as well as early iterations of Item 2.0. In addition, the team aided the Community team in capturing in-game footage for a number of segments, and also set up a Let’s Talk About thread to gather feedback on the Mustang series of ships.
CIG Austin
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Design
Externer Inhalt robertsspaceindustries.comInhalte von externen Seiten werden ohne Ihre Zustimmung nicht automatisch geladen und angezeigt.The majority of the ATX Design Team’s time the past couple months has been spent defining details for PU “Shop Archetypes” (some examples include Clothing Shop, Bar, Security Kiosk, Hospital, etc.) and creating design documents outlining details that are specific to each archetype. Each type of shop will have universal requirements that will apply across every shop of a specific type and this will help us save time in the long run when we then drill down into specific shop locations for upcoming landing zones and space stations. For example, every clothing shop is going to have clothing racks, mannequins, and stands to showcase the shop inventory and each display needs to follow a specific metric.
We’ve also been busy building the pillars of what will become our first iteration of the PU Economy by establishing various details concerning in-game commodity types, trade routes within the Stanton System, and white/black markets.
Lastly, we got final approval on the GDD for the “Shopping Kiosk” feature and have broken down high level design requirements for UI Team and Game Code Team. This has been a long-gestating feature so we’re happy to take it into the next stage of development.
Art
Lighting Artist Emre Switzer wrapped up his work on lighting the Star Marine maps for 2.6.0 release and has now turned his attention to supporting Squadron 42 in lighting some of their environments.
Chris Smith and Josh Coons continue to make progress on their respective ships. Josh is in full swing on the Greybox Phase for the new Cutlass Black. Chris finished up his updates on the Super Hornet and has now turned his attention to a fantastic new vehicle that we’re super excited to be working on.
Animation
Bryan Brewer and the PU Animation Team continue to make progress on Usable Interaction Animations to support Squadron 42. Most recently we’ve gotten Pushups, Stretches, Leaning on a Table (various angles), and female versions of all the work zone animations complete. We’ve also done a polish pass over some of the Usables to make them acceptable for use by the player in first-person.
Jay Brushwood and the Ship Animation Team have completed their work on the ship enter/exit combat speed animations. They are currently in review with Animation Director Steve Bender and we’re awaiting final sign off. While we wait, we have turned our attention to implementing animations on upcoming ships such as the Prospector and the Buccaneer.
Backend Services
The Backend Team has been hard at work on a massive project to refactor our entire backend infrastructure to a new architecture we’re calling Diffusion. Diffusion will be a truly cloud-oriented service architecture that will help improve high scalability and availability for our services. It will be powered by a top level “coordination” layer written in a proprietary language developed by our Lead Server Engineer, Jason Ely.
In addition to developing Diffusion, the Backend Team has been supporting UI Team in implementing the new in-game Leaderboards.
Quality Assurance
In January, QA began immediately fielding test requests from development which included network message queue, serialized variables, particle preloading, megamap testing and AI balance tests. QA also very much focused on reporting issues with the Game-Dev stream to ensure it is stable so that Squadron 42 and 3.0 development may continue unabated. Some other things on QA’s plate for January were training new specialists, updating internal documentation, QA tools development and new hire interviews.
Player Relations
January wrapped up a very busy period for the Player Relations team. We worked over the holiday period to make sure that we kept up with our backers’ support urgent requests, and used much of the month to catch up on the rest. To put in perspective, we were not caught up until April of last year from the busy holiday period… this year we’ve accomplished that in January!
Part of this is due to bridging our US and UK teams together, which will ultimately result in faster response times and more visibility to players. A big part of this involves Spectrum, which we will be excited to roll out to you on the main site soon. We really think you will love the entire rework of our forums and chat systems, and we think you will really appreciate our plans for building a better presence with you in chat and on the forums.
IT/Operations
It’s the beginning of the year so IT gets busy with a great deal of internal housekeeping chores like inventories, license renewals, and general cleanup and organizational tasks. One of our larger projects has been focused on expanding the bandwidth between offices to keep up with our increasing daily file transfer and build replication load. We’re also working closely with the DevOps team to supply hardware and infrastructure to support the growth of the build system as well as the continued work on the patch reduction project.
LiveOps/DevOps
The team has been working hard on multi-region support, the bulk of our efforts going toward the network and server side of our services. We are very happy to report that this work will pay dividends very soon in game and there will be more detailed information on this soon as well. We’ve also been working on our internal tools including the build system, all of which share the same goals of performance and stability improvements while keeping costs down.
Foundry 42 UK
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Graphics
The Graphics Team has been predominantly focusing on various lighting improvements such as shadow quality and performance within interiors. The GPU cube-map capturing is almost complete and we’re starting to write systems that maximize this tech so we can achieve truly dynamic lighting on planets and space stations. Considering how so much of our concept art makes heavy use of rectangular lights, we’ve started work on area lights. While this may sound simple, area lights are actually an active area of research for many game studios and are incredibly difficult to get right (both in terms of looks and performance). Lastly, we’re in the early stages of planning for a new and vastly more efficient particle system that eventually will replace the current one.
Programming
In the ongoing release work, we’ve been getting the leaderboards in and the new “Mega Map” implemented. Under the hood on the network side will be the proper networked serialised variables and the message queue rewrite. Other general work includes the FPS actor code refactor to make it more reliable and robust, the mission system, item pickup and put down improvements, and 3D minimap, amongst other things.
VFX
Over this past month, we’ve been doing some internal data clean-up using the Asset Manager, which culls and consolidates particle/material texture libraries, working on improving particle streaming to allow for better dynamic loading (basically freeing up memory resources) and pipeline documentation updates. There have also been high level key feature planning breakdowns of key features like Atmospheric Flight Model Effects (AFFX) such as engine trails, contrails, entry/exit and Screen-Based Area-of-Interest which will trigger screen-based effects based on camera speed and/or proximity to a specified area. Plus, we’ve been experimenting with new assets to blow stuff up.
Quality Assurance
The QA team has hardly let up this New Year. We’ve been continuing on Squadron 42 testing, extensively testing weapon balance changes and Star Marine bug fixes. We launched an investigation into the prevalent lag issue during Last Stand battles on Echo 11 and held a feedback session about gamepad controls. Most exciting though has been the first steps into the new “Mega Map.”
As always big thanks to all the backers, especially the Evocati and those who frequent the PTU. Your help is always invaluable and very much appreciated!
Art
We kicked off the new year by putting some new to be announced ships into concept and we are about to wrap up on a new Anvil design.
In other ship news, the Reclaimer is already deep into production with dedicated teams focusing on the exterior and interior. On the outside, the exterior mesh has gone through a cleanup pass and work has started on shaders. External parts such as thrusters are also close to complete. On the interior, a modular kit has been assembled for the habitation areas and the first room is nearing completion.
The Prospector team has been polishing the main LOD geometry for both the interior and exterior while cleaning up various sections to pass along to the other teams, so they can begin making it flight ready.
Externer Inhalt robertsspaceindustries.comInhalte von externen Seiten werden ohne Ihre Zustimmung nicht automatisch geladen und angezeigt.Work’s also moving forward on the MISC Razor. The artists have been adapting the concept mesh to work within the constraints set by animation which has resulted in a much sleeker more technical design whilst trying to maintain the key design elements of the original concept- the aggressive ‘Formula 1’ feel.
Onto some big news, the team’s been doing a technical and sanity pass over the S42 interior sections. Tackling collision and LODs have been the primary focus to make sure it’s in a workable state for the designers. During this review, we’re going over various elements: cleaning up and polishing pieces, refining and adding further details that we felt was lacking, and making changes to meshes that needed it. We also spent some time going over the materials, making adjustments and improvements where possible and adding blends to the primary materials of the ship.
Our props team continued working on the medium ship components and dressing sets such as tools, medical props and some assets needed for the ship interiors for S42.
Destructible props were introduced in 2.6.0 which meant we needed to create destroyed versions of a chunk of assets. This was the first iteration so was kept to the more obvious assets. Moving forward, destruction will be seen on a much larger scale and include a wider variety of prop types.
For our environments, we left some of the team polishing the 2.6.0 levels in preparation for the 2.6.1 release. This included adding more narrative assets that add a bit more history and character to the levels.
On the SQ42 front, the Shubin base is having a major push visually at the moment, since it’s a massive part of the story, we’re making sure it’s the hero it deserves to be.
We are also allocating more resource to work on the growing universe. Soon we’ll have four concept artists working out moons, nebulas and space stations, no small task! Work has begun on the first three surface outposts. These modular asset sets can be configured in multiple ways to give variation to the smaller settlements that will be scattered across the planet surfaces.
We’re looking at improving our planet’s material systems to give a better overall read all the way from space down to a meter-scale surface area. We’re doing a lot of R&D into how we dynamically and realistically scatter assets (rocks, vegetation etc.) onto the surface of a planet in a way that retains our visual fidelity and realism goals.
Conversely, we are spending some R&D time into what we want to achieve visually from space! Despite being composed of nothing, it’s very surprising how much there is to test and discuss with how we want the void between stars to feel and change as the player makes his way around a system.
Audio
Like many of the departments, the Audio used the New Year as an opportunity to go back and do some housecleaning. We reviewed all the ships to make sure that the audio for the older ships are up to the standard of the newer ships, cleaned up some bug fixes/polish for the upcoming 2.6.1 release and continued to support the community team and work on promotional materials.
On a technical front, we’ve also continued to revise and improve our dialogue pipeline and audio propagation system. A first pass at a Mix System was completed and we’re thrilled to announce that S42 will have a full music logic set in place and we’ve continued working on building ambience for some of the locations for the single player. There have been multiple improvements implemented in Star Marine from weapon sounds to dialogue which you will be able to hear soon.
UI
This month, the UI team has been primarily focused on improving and expanding the new front-end that was released in 2.6 with in-game leaderboards and a new pause menu, as well as performing various bug fixes.
We have also begun planning and scheduling for large scale UI features that we’d like to include in upcoming releases. For instance, we have been working closely with design in order to define the user-experience for purchasing & selling through the kiosk interfaces.
Animation
Externer Inhalt robertsspaceindustries.comInhalte von externen Seiten werden ohne Ihre Zustimmung nicht automatisch geladen und angezeigt.The animation team has expanded this month. We’re very excited to welcome two new additions to the team and are ready to drop them in the deep end. We’ve gotten some fantastic feedback on 2.6 and have set to bug fixing and improving animations for the next patch. We’ve been improving fps assets across the board and making grenade throws more responsive.
In other ongoing tasks, we’ve made improvements on weapon animations, specifically reload animations and have begun to previz and iterate on feedback for new weapons coming down the pipeline. We’ve also been making progress on improving prone locomotion assets and providing assistance to the ATX PU team to get female mocap data implemented to the usable animations for Subsumption.
Design
The S42 Design team have been preparing for the incoming new Mission System that will replace large elements of the levels that had previously been implemented with Flowgraph. It will be a far more robust system for us that will limit any possible inconsistencies with designer setup. Also, as the Object Container Streaming System progresses, we are making sure that we maximise performance by splitting up the other chapters in the game into logical object containers.
The Live team have been very busy with bug fixes and implementing a scoring rebalance for Arena Commander and Star Marine. There have also been some AI improvements for Space Flight that have been implemented and continued work on detailing the Stanton map.
The Tech team are still very busy moving ships functionality into the new Item 2.0 system in preparation for a whole host of new gameplay opportunities.
The Systems Designers have been working on adding a lot more detail to the framework of the multi-crew Seat Actions in preparation for meeting with Chris in early Feb.
Foundry 42 DE
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AI
For AI, 2017 started with a one-week summit in the Los Angeles studio: we went through several topics that will be important for the improvements we want to do during the new year.
In the past few weeks, we’ve been getting the core functionalities of Subsumption into the Subsumption Mission System. The goal is to give designers the tools to create a larger variety of missions as quickly as possible. To achieve that, we have been implementing a way to reuse a piece of logic through the creation of “functions.” Functions can either have a “global” or “local” (to one activity or one mission) scope and they dynamically generate a task that can be used as a regular Subsumption task.
Going through the Crusader missions and rebuilding them in this new tool allowed us to identify and reorganize the functionalities that are currently required by designers to create their own logic. Just to give you some idea of the work done, here’s a description of some of the functionalities we recently worked on:
- Added a task to enable/disable markers in the environment for the mission owner
- Ability to spawn dynamic Action Areas in the environment and react to the events they generate
- Support for the InteractiveObjects to correctly handle the callbacks sent to the mission system
- Added support for tracking dynamic spawning of the entity and the ownership of the requests. This will allow us to allow entities to despawn only other entities they owned. Also it makes much easier for a mission to clean up the resources created.
- We improved the debug draw functionalities of Subsumption and the mission system and also added network support for the mission log (This is a sort of personal storage for the logs of each mission)
- We created a SimpleAudioComponent that allows the mission system to communicate directly with the mission owner’s client
- We added a functionality to allow the spawning system to filter and limit the spawning of entities to specified Action Areas
- We added the basic support to spawn Subsumption Platform/Layers (We will give you more details about this in the upcoming weeks)
For the character AI, we have continued the work for finalizing the changes in the Cover System and the Posture Manager to allow those systems data to be correctly exported inside Object Containers and used at runtime in non z-up environment. We’ve also been prototyping AI Characters reacting to players bumping into them by making sure that the movement code understands when progress over the movement cannot be achieved due to the player interrupting the character movement. We also continued our refactoring of the spaceships flight control, we are moving towards removing some layers of complexity and make more direct use of the IFCS from the AI perspective. This will allow us to benefit from any improvements made for the player in a much more straightforward way.
Quality Assurance
Externer Inhalt robertsspaceindustries.comInhalte von externen Seiten werden ohne Ihre Zustimmung nicht automatisch geladen und angezeigt.DE QA like to refer to the month of January as the “catch-up” month and used this time to tackle various test requests that required additional information as well as clearing out any Editor regression from Game-Dev that at the time was of a lower priority than regression in 2.6. We also spent a majority of January revamping our existing Editor checklists and documentation, as well as providing additional Editor training for testers in our UK office.
Additionally, we reviewed Star Marine feedback from our community and acted upon this feedback with test cases to provide additional information for our design team. The QA team also decided to review our existing sanity checks with Production and decide which were still useful to the team and which checks could be removed completely. We also used this opportunity to go over new bug tracking procedures with Production, so that we were all on the same page regarding labels that are used in our daily QA filters. Ivo Herzeg also kept us busy with changes made to the 1st person camera system, in which we were required to test all game modes. DE QA closed out the month with testing for Chris Bolte in order to track down a ZoneSystem crash that was plaguing our community in the latest 2.6 live release. We managed to finally reproduce this issue with 9 testers total (2 from DE and 7 from UK), which allowed Chris to narrow it down to being a logic error. Additional debugging was added to our Game-Dev branch and we will be attempting another playtest to reproduce this issue on Game-Dev, so that it can be finally fixed once and for all.
Cinematics
Externer Inhalt robertsspaceindustries.comInhalte von externen Seiten werden ohne Ihre Zustimmung nicht automatisch geladen und angezeigt.Part of the Cinematics team is currently in a sprint to push towards a “final” look and feel for the conversation system that is used for talks between the player and NPCs (which the S42 campaign features a lot of).
This includes topics like:
- UI text placement and animation for dialogue choices
- Solving issues of: If, how and when to slow a player down running towards an NPC.
- How to make “gentle” collisions between physics capsules when the player violates personal space by getting too close.
- How to adjust recorded performances and manipulate the actor’s Look or even Body pose to match for a changing player position. (we call that performance transformation)
- Dynamic camera effects that kick in when the conversation is initialized both in a change of FOV and Depth of Field blur increasing.
We want our conversations to feel “filmic” while still allowing the player freedom. Invoking a “cinematic” feel first and foremost means changing the lens to values that are more akin to how a film camera would depict a character. The engines FOV traditionally is calculated with a vertical FOV value. The current in-game on-foot FOV is at 55 which is equivalent to an extreme wide angle lens of approximately ~13mm (using 35mm film equivalent ARRI master prime lenses as a comparison). That kind of lens is bordering on fisheye lens territory. If the player gets close to a character using this kind of FOV it distorts faces, so what we are doing is gradually changing the FOV over a certain time down to 30 which is equivalent to a ~25mm wide angle portrait lens. We are finding this is a nice compromise of the faces revealing all of the awesome scanned detail by appearing big on screen while still allowing for a sense of orientation in regards to the background (if player decides to move during a conversation).
Engine
Externer Inhalt robertsspaceindustries.comInhalte von externen Seiten werden ohne Ihre Zustimmung nicht automatisch geladen und angezeigt.Work has started on our internal Solar system editor (SolEd), with a “top/down” universe view. We found that a custom editor extension became necessary due the massive scale of our solar system. It’s now possible to drag and drop Object Containers containing planets, space station etc., and see in real-time planets and objects moving while zooming all the way from a galaxy view down to grains of dirt on a planet. Ongoing work continues on procedural objects distribution on planets, scattering of large rocks on moon’s surfaces, initial passes of objects and vegetation blending with the planet terrain surface, improvements on particles distribution and vegetation / wind on a planetary scale. Initial passes on spawning Object Containers like small outposts on the planet surface, and initial work on adapting them to the environment with adjusting their parts to the terrain and blending the colors to make them more visually integrated like they were actually placed by Humans in the environment wrapped this month. And additional improvements have been added for large scale planet rendering like glossy surfaces and more artists controlled parameters.
There also has been effort towards reintroducing static code analysis as a mandatory part of the TryBuild system, Zone system fixes / optimizations, ongoing work on the new pak system for the patcher updates, and fixes and support for 2.6.1.
Tech Art
The Technical artists in Frankfurt have been busy supporting FPS features and weapons for 2.6. They improved the weapon IK grip setup, now almost all weapons are using the runtime IK grip which helps us to change left hand poses per weapon while keeping base animation the same. They also created new cVars for previsualizing and testing new weapons in the engine with all their functionality. On the Engine side, we are participating in R&D efforts to improve foot planting in game and we’ve already started seeing good results.
Design
The Level Design team in Frankfurt is prototyping the modularity systems for Satellites, Surface Outposts and Space Station Interiors which is almost complete. Currently, the Environment Art team is providing us with greybox versions of the components that we will use to assemble the modular locations.
With our locations, the main goal is always to use them to complement upcoming systems, provide a base for future game play, as well as add to the feeling of a living, functional and realistic universe. This doesn’t always mean that the gameplay related to a location will be available when we release the station template, rather we try to ensure that once said system/gameplay becomes available we already have the location required. For this reason (and as seen on previous ATVs) we are continuing our work on the Truck Stop, Refinery and Cargo Station, the first design phase of these is complete and they have now been handed over to the Environment Art team.
The System Design guys have been refactoring our usable system to allow both AI and players to make use of the same objects at the same time (such as AI and player sitting at the same table, interacting with each other). We’re also adding support for multiple actions to be performed while inside a usable and smoothly transitioning between these actions (character sitting at a table can be eating, talking, scratching his nose, sleeping with his head on the table etc.)
Externer Inhalt robertsspaceindustries.comInhalte von externen Seiten werden ohne Ihre Zustimmung nicht automatisch geladen und angezeigt.The Oxygen, Breathing & Stamina systems have started being implemented and soon we will have players begin to carry their own oxygen supplies or risk turning blue in the face. The system should handle everything from how the oxygen tank delivers breathable air to the helmet, to how the player breathes said air and how his body converts that into actual usable stamina. At the same time, all actions are being converted to consume this stamina, so you will want to keep your character supplied with oxygen if you want them to be capable of performing various actions.
Landing and Take-off systems are also going into implementation mode as we are unifying Squadron 42 and PU mechanics. The system should easily handle everything from the more basic taking off in the PU to the fully cinematic experiences needed in S42. Basically we’re implementing an air traffic control system that allows players to queue for landing permissions and makes sure that people don’t block landing sites for everyone else.
Small additions were also made to the Mercenary and Bounty Hunter career designs and the systems needed for these. Customs are also receiving some design love as we are start to gate what the player can bring in legally and how smuggling things in high security areas works.
VFX
The Frankfurt VFX team has been continuing to work with the programming team on the tools required to spawn various particles across the planets. One of the more recent additions has been the implementation of planetary wind. Due to the spherical nature of the planets, the wind had to be completely rewritten to work correctly across the surface of a planet. This will help to make the environments feel more alive, from blowing around smoke and dust to rustling the leaves on the vegetation.
Environmental Art
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.The environment team here in Frankfurt has grown again with two new people joining the team this month. With the increased amount of environment artists, we’re able to put even more effort into our procedural planet tech. We’ve been recently building great looking assets for individual moons, as well as refining our procedural tech and tools for moons, full planets, and full systems. One key element of the planetary tech that we’ve been focusing on is the procedural scattering system, which will allow us to procedurally scatter rocks, plants, trees and other elements across planets based on artist defined rules. While the tech is still in development, the first automated results are already promising and are improving every day.
Turbulent
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Spectrum Alpha
Externer Inhalt robertsspaceindustries.comInhalte von externen Seiten werden ohne Ihre Zustimmung nicht automatisch geladen und angezeigt.We are working hard towards Spectrum’s initial public alpha release alongside SC 2.6.1. We can’t wait for you guys to get your hands on it with your Orgs. In its first incarnation, expect the web version of public and private chat, forums, search functionality as well as member presence and a decent mobile experience.
The Evocati and volunteer testers have been invaluable in providing initial feedback and bug reports (yeah, yeah we have those too!) on the PTU since December. Our weekly build process and direct contact with users have really helped us focus on the features and bug fixes that matter the most to those who use the tools. Once it is released to live, we will be continuously working to build out and improve Spectrum with your feedback.
After the live release and stabilization phase, we plan on adding more community customization features and create dedicated mobile applications so Spectrum can follow you everywhere you go.
We will share more details about our roadmap once we get this first major release out of the way!
Sales
Coming off the holiday break, two promo competitions were introduced, a revamped Vanduul Swarm and the all new Pirate Swarm. These modes tested players’ skills to the limit and if they were able to complete all waves of the challenge, they were awarded an aggressor badge to display their accomplishment. For a limited time, these successful pilots were also given the ability to purchase the Vanduul Glaive upon completing Vanduul Swarm and the new Pirate Caterpillar upon completing the Pirate Swarm.
To close out the month, the sleek Dragonfly Posters and the comfortable Squadron 42 Hoodies were put back on the merchandise store, but get them soon before they are gone!
Community
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Broadcasts
January saw a number of changes to our community content. Around the Verse continues to be refined as we explore new ways to showcase progress without monopolizing too much of our developer’s time. Our January Subscriber’s Town Hall featured Chris Roberts, Erin Roberts, Tony Zurovec and Todd Papy. It was a rare opportunity to have all these important leads sitting and chatting in the same place. We also launched two new shows. Star Citizen Happy Hour is a way to involve fan broadcasters and CIG developers in a gameplay session and casual hangout with the community. Then there’s our other new show focused on YOU. Citizens of the Stars highlights the amazing contributions you make to the Star Citizen experience. It also features ‘Quantum Questions,’ in which CIG developers answer your questions… as many as they can in two minutes! If there’s one constant in our broadcast output, it’s change. We’ll continue to iterate throughout the rest of 2017 and beyond in an effort to bring you the best and most relevant content possible.
Events
Community Managers Jared Huckaby and Tyler Witkin went to PAX South and attended the local Bar Citizen event in San Antonio. Opportunities to hang out and meet the backers are one of the best parts of our job, and the folks who turned out for this event were a stellar group, as usual. Remember that Bar Citizen events are 100% fan organized. You can see if there’s one in your area and maybe even find help planning one at the fan website barcitizen.sc.
This Week in Star Citizen
The old Community Manager’s Log and Schedule has evolved into a new, weekly front page post called This Week in Star Citizen. The post highlights what’s happening each week, and provides a look at some of the content you may have missed from the Star Citizen community.
Finally, testing continues on Spectrum, the upcoming replacement to our current forum and chat systems. You can join the testing now at http://ptu.cloudimperiumgames.com/spectrum with new builds going out each week. We’re excited to roll out the first official iteration of Spectrum in the near future. We’ll continue to add intended features and iterate on it based on your feedback throughout the remainder of the year.
Quelle: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/tran…y-Studio-Report
