What will the role of an Engineer look like in the 'verse? Join us on another Journey to 4.0 to get a first look inside this new upcoming gameplay system.
Externer Inhalt robertsspaceindustries.comInhalte von externen Seiten werden ohne Ihre Zustimmung nicht automatisch geladen und angezeigt.This is a cross-post of the report that was recently sent out via the monthly Squadron 42 newsletter. We’re publishing this a second time as a Comm-Link to make it easier for the community to reference back to.
TO: SQUADRON 42 RECRUITS
SUBJ: DEVELOPMENT UPDATE 03:01:2023
REF: CIG UK, CIG DE, CIG LA, CIG TX
FAO Squadron 42 Recruits.
Welcome to February’s Squadron 42 development report. Enclosed you will find details on the latest progress made across the campaign, including enemy creatures, saving and loading, and naval behaviors.
Thank you for your continued support of Squadron 42.
Sincerely,
CIG COMMUNICATIONS
AI (Content)
Following on from their recent work of enabling characters to drink in usables, the AI Content team began setting characters up to use the mobiGlas at a variety of seats and tables.
“This is actually simpler than drinking and allowed us to get some great results in a short space of time.” AI Content
They also completed a large amount of animation polish, including a medic inspecting a patient, exiting beds from different directions and heights, and sitting on the floor feeling sick.
On the Design side, the team enabled utility characters to load boxes onto a trolley, move the trolley, and then unload the boxes to add additional life to large areas. They also began populating chapter 15 with AI characters in a variety of locations. For this, they utilized new technology to simplify the process and give them more control, the first pass of which is looking promising.
Alongside this, the bridge crew behavior in Shubin Station was refined and a first-pass setup for an interactive weapon rack was completed.
AI (Features)
Last month, the AI Features team finished work on a non-Humanoid creature AI. This involved increasing the range of animations that the creature can use, including a slow walk that allows the creature to stalk its prey, and look-poses that allow the creature to turn its head to face the target.
Improvements were also made to the code that distributes the creatures around a target when they attack in groups. This uses the formation system currently used by spaceship AI; when moving towards the target, it checks for and creates a formation around the target, with offsets designed to space the attacks equally. This implementation is currently with the designers for feedback before final adjustments are made.
AI Features continued with the medic behaviors, which allows the enemy AI to revive friends. ‘Downed’ AI are those that have taken near-fatal damage and can only be revived using a med-pen. ‘Unconscious’ AI are those that have been knocked out (e.g. by stealth takedown) and can be revived by any friendly. Recent work saw the team tidying up the different interactions and, in particular, focusing on what the AI does when encountering a downed or unconscious AI during combat. For example, if the AI is a medic, they will respond and revive their friend, regardless of condition. However, if they’re not a medic, they will call for one and any nearby will come to their aid.
Development of the buddy AI mentioned last month continued too. This now includes matching the player’s stance (e.g. crouch) and moving between cover when enemies are near.
On the animation side, the team prepared for and shot additional performance capture to replace various blockout animations.
Finally for AI Features, the team spent time re-reviewing their existing features to check that everything worked as expected as a whole. This led to them testing and fixing issues that could only be seen when all the functionality was working together.
AI (Tech)
AI Tech began February by completing the NPC Transit feature, which manages elevators and trains. Now, NPCs will understand if a transit carriage is present at their location and whether they can move directly inside, if they need to wait, or if they should press a button to call it. They will also understand when they’ve arrived at their destination and will move outside. While in the carriage, NPCs will look for a usable and idle there until they reach their destination. Upon completion, the feature was passed to Design, following which AI Tech addressed feedback and fixed bugs.
The team then allocated time to improving NPC trolley usage, ensuring that NPCs can use elevators and move trolleys with them if the behavior requests it. To achieve this, they had to write new and update existing behaviors and fix bugs related to path-following while pushing a trolley.
The team also finished the base skeleton for ‘boids’ (bird-oid objects), which will enable groups of small creatures like birds, fish, and rats. This required them to implement new components, including a system that allows designers to write rules and constraints related to spawning and movement, which were exposed to DataForge for easy access.
On the navigation-system side, AI Teach continued to work on cost area shapes that will influence the topology of navigation mesh triangles. This will enable the pathfinder to avoid or prefer to use specific areas. As mentioned in last month’s report, this will initially be used to avoid fire hazards and define sidewalks for social AI actors.
The team also progressed with navigation agent-type override parameters, which are used when creating areas with specific navigation constraints. For example, they enable an NPC to transition from standing in a regular space to crouching in a vent.
AI Tech also exposed new parameters to specify entity properties during the navigation-generation phase. Now, the designers will be able to mark entities as:
- Included: The default value - the entity is processed during voxelization and the nav-mesh is generated using that object.
- Excluded: One entity will be ignored during generation - for the navigation system, it will be equivalent to not having found that object.
- Ignoring Walkability: The entity will cause the nav-mesh to consider it an obstacle - NPCs will not be able to walk on top of that object.
For AI tools, the team progressed their work on Apollo (the Subsumption tool) and added new functionality requested by the designers, including:
- Mastergraph editing to allow users to select the default state of each parent state.
- The ability to create new multigraph nodes by dragging functions from the outlier.
- Support for comments inside XMLs (this was an engine-wide improvement).
- Support to read object-container information related to platform creation directly from P4K files.
They also fixed several issues relating to the resizing of the node graph view.
Work continued on the usable coordinator tool, with the team adding support for multiple input types that can better specify when choosing the next usable or usable group. For example, specifying the number of usables required to determine that a group is ‘complete.’ They also fixed an issue preventing the usable group coordinator from working correctly with object containers and implemented the ability to add multiple instances of the same usable with different properties.AI (Vehicle Features)
Vehicle Feature’s embedded AI team continued working on the new AI combat behaviors.
“We’ve had a lot of back and forth with the Design teams and directors to nail down behavior tactics that we’re happy with, and we are now working to implement and test this new combat AI.” AI Vehicle Features
Additionally, the new control surface feature for the vehicle flight system is being integrated with AI. Adjustments are being made to the AI movement systems to enable them to fly correctly and reliably with control surfaces rather than thrusters.
Animation
Throughout February, the SQ42 Animation team worked on various features, including their first creature enemy, Vanduul searching actions and threatens, ammo looting, and AI healing. They also worked on pro-style takedowns based on the recent unskilled versions; some design changes were made and responses to failed attacks were blocked out.
Background AI was developed for sick characters, medical wards, and emergency exits from object use. The team also worked on the Kastak Arms sniper rifle and began reviewing the first pass of the Titan animation rig. Zero-g grenade use for the player was also developed alongside further zero-g traversal and movement.
Various mo-cap data was captured, including a crowd watching a fight, numerous walk styles, use of hygiene cubicles, movement and stacking boxes, security weapon racks, and improved threat reactions for civilians.
The Facial Animation team worked on lines for enemies in Aciedo and captured facial forms and locomotion performances for injured and sick characters.
Art (Characters)
February saw the Character Art team continue work on the Screaming Galsons faction, including a set of cybernetic arms that the team are excited to implement.
They’re currently progressing with the high-poly stages for the navy pilot flightsuit and other navy assets. Work began on the OMC faction and the model for the enemy creature mentioned above.
Engine
In February, the Physics team made several improvements to box pruning. For example, changes were made to avoid bipartite box pruning inefficiencies, to decide when to run box pruning before obb pruning, and to significantly improve box pruning performance in general. Additional optimizations include using the spaceship's localspace obb for IFCS collision warning sweep checks to reduce the size of the checked volume. Furthermore, support for various unary and binary distance-field operations was added to the physics system as well as support for tapered capsules (aka bispheres) on articulated entities. Lastly, huge pages are now used for physical entity factories.
On the renderer, Gen12 received motion vector support for render-to-texture pipelines. Also, redundant copying of render target data for partial refractions was eliminated. Moreover, the team spent time improving ultra-wide-screen support. As one of the results, rendering of the in-game console was vastly improved, resulting in clearer text display. Improving the visor for ultra-wide screens is still being worked on. Lastly, the CPU side code for scatter queries was optimized.
For the core engine, further substantial improvements and performance optimizations were implemented for the remote shader compiler server. Work on streaming system improvements started, and the final touches on p4k v2 support for internal development tools are being wrapped up. The team also started looking into more advanced tool support for memory tracking of both the server and client.
Features (Gameplay)
Last month, Gameplay Features continued working on save and load, getting the Subsumption missions restoring correctly and back to their correct state. They set save points up in one of the missions and passed it to QA to see what wasn’t loading back in correctly so they could debug and fix it.
“We’re now getting the save time down and saving in the background so there isn’t a long stall each time.” Gameplay Features Team
They also implemented a tutorial feature for the designers. At opportune moments, they’ll be able to slow down and pause the game while bringing up instructions for a particular piece of gameplay functionality before continuing when the player achieves what’s required. They also set up consoles and datapads to run mobiGlas apps. This allows them to access the same functionality from different places or even create console-specific apps.
The new Starmap was enabled as the radar in the Gladius, which can transition between radar and full-screen modes and power on and off. The initial implementation of the new display markers was completed too.
Further polish was done on the seamless transition between the player camera and cinematic camera based on the Cinematics team’s feedback. For example, they improved the appearance when the player is moving over standing still.
Finally, the team further developed a feature that controls vehicles remotely. They can now constrain vehicles to a given area and ultimately lock them in a given place.
Features (Vehicles)
The Vehicle team spent part of the month enabling the newly redesigned quantum travel feature across various chapters in the campaign.
“It’s taken a lot of bug fixing, testing, and iteration to get to this stage, but so far it’s been going well and the new quantum travel is set to be enabled game-wide very shortly. As well as just bug fixing and testing, we’ve had lots of design feedback from the directors and we’ve been making iterations to the UI, controls, VFX, and general feel of the feature.” Vehicle Features Team
The other major area of focus was vehicle UI. The team recently received new features from UI Tech that enables them to render 3D UI on the player visor as an AR layer. This led to them building up reticles and aiming and targeting UI in this new tech as they work toward a vehicle heads-up display that integrates with the new multi-function display (MFD) system.
On a related topic, the underlying MFD tech is complete and the feature is almost usable in-game. The team now have the goal of enabling it game-wide for use in playtests by all devs in the company.
Ship radar received further work due to requests made by other teams to support their design work. Most of these came from the Level Design teams and involve mission logic manipulating the radar system to generate gameplay encounters.
Lastly, the ship-recall feature mentioned in last month’s report was fed back on, with Vehicle Features further iterating on it to improve and polish the gameplay. This involved collaboration with the AI, Flight Systems, and other Feature teams. When complete, the player will be able to use the SQ42 mobiGlas to call their ship and request it fly back to them.
Gameplay Story
Gameplay Story concentrated on mo-cap planning and polish passes last month to further improve their scenes. For example, they updated chapters 1 and 13 by completing thorough passes on the characters and reusing animations to make the scenes function correctly. They also created various new scenes by reusing old animations and using new mo-cap to add to others.
A significant scene in chapter 12 received a full pass, with a key character guiding and interacting with the player across a new environment.
The team also worked on a scene used if the player is injured and visits the medical bay to be healed. The scene was initially created using wildlines but didn't flow as well as hoped, so new animations were produced to make the character interact better with the player. Additional content was also added to allow the player to abandon and rejoin the scene.
Graphics & VFX Programming
Last month, the Graphics team continued to close out the final tasks for Gen12 before they transition to assisting in the completion of the Vulkan graphics API.
The damage-map system was converted to Gen12, and support for profile groups was added to achieve parity with profiling tools in the legacy renderer. Additionally, the render pipeline was made configurable to allow secondary viewports to balance the desired quality and cost. Finally, legacy lens flares were converted to Gen12 alongside initial support for HDR.
Support for TSAA is currently being added to secondary viewports, which will significantly improve visual quality, especially for hair. The team also submitted the first iteration of a new render-layer feature to allow easy customization of objects in the world for use with game features such as scanning and the mini-map.
For features, the Graphics team further developed several shaders, including converting LayerBlend v1 assets to the more recent v2 and adding usability improvements to the new shader. Various improvements were also made to the UI shaders, including stability fixes for anti-aliased borders, the option to render circles on each vertex, and lighting support to allow planets in the Starmap to appear both lit and holographic in a single pass.
For tools, texture processing was made significantly faster through parallelizing filtering and compression, which will be a significant improvement for the artists and build system. Work started on a new mesh format too, with the goal of vastly improving loading times and render performance.
The VFX Programming team's time was split between fire, quantum travel, and tool work. For fire, work began on decal shading to achieve glow, burn, and soot on objects within the scene. Quantum travel now has support for 'quantum casting' and ‘red shift’ along with various other code improvements. For tools, usability improvements continued and support was added for referencing particle effects from other particle effects.
The Planet Tech team worked on better shaping support for asteroid fields, improvements to the harvestable system, and adding support for instancing to terrain chunks.
Also, the Planet and Graphics teams worked together on a new water system. This is still at an early stage but aims to allow for GPU wave/ripple simulations at multiple scales as well as network-synced impacts for larger events (e.g. spaceships crashing). Shading improvements are also being made to achieve better reflections, refraction, and foam.
Level Design (Flight)
The Space/Dogfight team continued working to get all of the ship combat sections of the game flowing seamlessly into the social and FPS sections. They also continued working with the various Feature teams to get critical system updates integrated into the game flow. Last month, they further improved quantum travel and pinned targets. Save and load was also worked on alongside Gameplay Features.
Level Design (Social)
Last month, Level Design’s Social team made a concerted push on content across various chapters, including a major focus on background behaviors and schedules for the Idris. This content brings ‘interstitials’ (the connective tissue that bridges all scene content) to life. This was rolled out to one focus chapter to enable the team to see and evaluate in situ all of the Idris-specific behaviors, including the deck crew, bridge crew, utility, marines, engineers, gunners, medical, leisure, sleeping, sustenance, and hygiene. A large party scene aboard the ship progressed well too.
Narrative
A bulk of Narrative’s month was spent preparing for an upcoming mo-cap shoot. This included meeting with various stakeholders to review the content and ensure that the script reflects the latest changes, outline any potential lines they’d like to capture, and go through the casting process.
The team is also planning to use this shoot to start capturing scripts for some of the background characters (codenamed Redshirts) who will be used to populate larger spaces. These characters will utilize dynamic conversation tech along with an array of wildlines to act in a variety of careers. Narrative are aiming to capture a few of these line sets in every shoot to slowly build up numbers as opposed to scheduling them all into a single shoot. They’ll also capture additional combat sets for some of the campaign’s enemies.
Narrative continued meeting with the Design teams to walk through the latest level iterations. This is to assess if any additional content is required to support gameplay, provide guidance, or embellish the tone and flavor of the moment.
Otherwise, the team kicked off outlining the various collectibles that will be scattered throughout the game. Now that the types of collectibles have been decided, Narrative can start outlining each one so the Props team can start creating assets.
Tech Animation
Last month, the Tech Animation team were on set at Pinewood Studios in London, working alongside an outsource studio to finalize face scanning to populate the remainder of the gene pool for the head generation systems (DNA). This is relevant for both the PU and Squadron 42.
“We scanned a broad range of models, young and old, from all facets of Humanity available to us, which will go a long way to truly showing diversity in our game. The scanning went exceptionally well, our chosen outsource studio has a fantastic resource in their facial scanning rig, which delivered exceptional results. Coupled with lots of hard work and a good sense of humor, we made the most of our two weeks.” Tech Animation Team
UI
Last month, the UI Art and Design team worked on reusable signage created in Building Blocks to make things easier for the environment artists. This means they can select options from a menu and the sign is automatically generated rather than them having to create a unique texture each time.
They also continued concept work on two UI styles, ensuring they’re unique and the art direction is well received. They also produced concepts for additional MFD screen layouts and tweaked aiming and targeting alongside the Vehicle team.
UI continued to iterate on one of the in-world holographic UIs.
“As it’s the first of its kind in the game, after reviewing the prototype, we found lots of things to improve, so it had another concepting and in-game implementation pass to get it to the level we need.” UI Team
The team made an initial visual pass on the new hacking UI to make it feel more three-dimensional and holographic. UI also supported the SQ42 Feature team in setting up a universal 3D marker in the Starmap, and continued to create UI assets for the Cinematics team.
UI Tech created a color picker for use in the character customizer. They also continued to help polish the Starmap, adding space dust to make it easier to perceive movement, improving the controls, and creating cubic holo volumes. They added workflow fixes too, such as improved comments in Building Blocks, and making it easier to inspect drawn UIs.
VFX
Last month, VFX spent time cleaning up data asserts coming from various assets (including particle libraries). This was made easier by the VFX programmers who added more detailed information to the errors, including file paths for missing assets.
The team also completed their overhaul of the particle library structure, meaning older VFX can be swapped out for new and improved versions.
Finally, the team provided close support to Art, Design, and Cinematics on a variety of locations.
WE'LL SEE YOU NEXT MONTH...
// END TRANSMISSION
Happy Wednesday, everyone!
Every two weeks, we accompany the Roadmap update with a brief explanatory note to give you insight into the decision-making that led to any changes. This is part of an effort to make our communications more transparent, more specific, and more insightful for all of you who help to make Star Citizen and Squadron 42 possible.
With that said, let’s go ahead and dive into this week’s Roadmap Roundup!
-CIG Community Team
Notable Changes for March 8, 2023
Release View
The following card has been added to the Alpha 3.19 column on Release View:
RSI Lynx
Building, implementing, and balancing RSI's planetary rover, the Lynx, as a game-ready vehicle.
Progress Tracker
With this publish, we're adding additional Q1 2023 and Q3 2023 schedules for downstream and upstream teams, respectively.
The following deliverable has been added to the Progress Tracker:
Additional Derelict Settlements
Settlements with both gameplay and social elements, spread throughout the Stanton wilderness using the Rastar tool.
That's all for this week! Join the discussion on Spectrum, and check out the Roadmap Companion Guide for more information on the Star Citizen Public Roadmap.
Externer Inhalt robertsspaceindustries.comInhalte von externen Seiten werden ohne Ihre Zustimmung nicht automatisch geladen und angezeigt.Welcome to March, Subs. Alpha 3.18 is currently open for testing in the PTU, so if you want to experience and feedback on the upcoming patch before it hits the live servers, now’s the perfect time.
To help you get the most from your testing time, March’s Ship of the Month is the supremely versatile MISC Freelancer MAX. Outfitted with extra cargo capacity, it’s ideal for making a living shifting goods or vehicles across the ‘verse without sacrificing everyday usability.
And if you can’t bear to say goodbye at the end of the month, the Freelancer MAX is available until April 4 with enhanced insurance as part of our Subscriber Special Promotion.
If you prefer a more combative approach to life in the ‘verse, this month’s Flair is just the ticket. This exclusive collection of Klaus & Werner underbarrel lighting ensures you hit your mark in even the darkest corners of the ‘verse. (Flair will be available in the Alpha 3.18 Live patch.)
Tracer Laser Pointer (Orange)
This special edition generates an orange beam that's easy to see and identify.
Current Centurion-level Subscribers get the Tracer Laser Pointer (Orange) as part of their subscription.
Tracer Laser Pointer (Green)
This special edition generates a green beam that's easy to see and identify.
Current Imperator-level Subscribers get the Tracer Laser Pointer (Orange) and Tracer Laser Pointer (Green) as part of their subscription.
Brightspot Flashlight (Purple)
This special edition projects a purple circle that makes the beam less conspicuous from a distance.
The Brightspot Flashlight (Purple) is available to all Subscribers to pledge for from the Subscriber-Exclusive Store.
If you would like to receive this flair as part of a subscription, you can subscribe before March 11th, 2023 2000 UTC.
If you subscribe after March 11th, 2023, you can pick up these and previous months’ flair (going back to 2014) in the Subscriber-Exclusive Store. You can fill in any gaps in your collection and pick up extras to gift to non-Subscribers.
Lost Items
During play, you may find you lose your Subscriber and Pledge Store items upon death. To get them back, head to your Account Settings and initiate a character reset, which will restore any platform-attributed items you've lost in-game.
This is only a temporary solution to get your items back quickly. We're exploring various alternative recovery options that we plan to implement further down the line.Earnable In-Game
Our goal is to make most items earnable in-game. For this reason, many Subscriber Flair items have been added to the in-game loot table as rare drops from Alpha 3.17. Most pre-2023 items that can be carried by players are available now, with new and future flair being added after a three-month exclusivity window.
NOTE: Some exclusive digital event items, such as those from CitizenCon Goodies Packs, will not be discoverable via the in-game loot system.
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Visit robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link for details.
Happy Monday, everyone!
Happy Monday, everyone!
Firstly, we'd like to extend a massive thank you to everyone who participated in last weekend's Alpha 3.18 PTU playtests! Your participation was monumental in helping us shore up several known problem areas, including server stability and performance. This led to a few vital hotfixes being deployed and the team getting the jump on further fixes coming down the line.
Your engagement last weekend enabled us to start tightening up the nuts and bolts on this build. Because of our success over the weekend, we are aiming to go live with Alpha 3.18 this week. We do want to set expectations that there may be some outstanding issues that can cause a server to deteriorate over time. However, the team will continue to focus on these and get additional hotfixes released as soon as possible.
For those of you looking to hang out with other enthusiasts in the flesh, check out BarCitizen.sc for a list of upcoming events. Maybe you'll hit up the Bar Citizen in Raleigh, North Carolina, this Friday or join our friends down under in Sydney, Australia, on Saturday; either way, we hope you enjoy a cold one. And remember to tell us in advance so we have the chance to join you!
Now, let's see what's going on this week:
This Tuesday, we'll publish the Subscriber Monthly Newsletter and Subscriber Comm-Link.
Wednesday brings about the Roadmap Update and the complementary Roadmap Roundup. We'll also repost last week's Squadron 42 Monthly Report newsletter as a comm-link.
On Thursday, ISC skips a week for another Journey to 4.0 special. This time it's a Design Brief episode focusing on the earliest approved blueprint for a brand-new upcoming gameplay system. Last time we learned about Investigations. What will it be this week? You'll have to tune in to find out.
This Friday, our good friend Benoit Beausejour, CTO and founder of our partners at Turbulent, is live in the studio to discuss the continuing growth of our game development studio in Montreal, which is currently responsible for many aspects of Alpha 3.18 and beyond. Join us for Star Citizen Live on Twitch at 16:00 UTC / 8 am Pacific for all the details! You'll also receive our weekly RSI Newsletter delivered to your inbox.
Have a fantastic week, and see you in the 'verse!Associate Community Manager
THE WEEKLY COMMUNITY CONTENT SCHEDULE
MONDAY, MARCH 6, 2023
- This Week in Star Citizen
TUESDAY, MARCH 7, 2023
- March Subscriber Newsletter
- March Subscriber Comm-Link
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 8, 2023
- Roadmap Update
- Roadmap Roundup
- February 2023 Squadron 42 Monthly Report Comm-Link
THURSDAY, MARCH 9, 2023
- Journey to 4.0 Special (@RobertsSpaceInd)
FRIDAY, MARCH 10, 2023
- Star Citizen Live - 16:00 UTC / 8:00 am Pacific (twitch.tv/starcitizen)
- Weekly Newsletter
COMMUNITY MVP: March 6, 2023
We're constantly amazed at the contributions made by the Star Citizen community. Whether it's fan art, a cinematic, 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 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 the chance to see it here!Safe Haven
In this atmospheric homage to the film-noir style, Detective Harvey Monroe of Stanton Security treads a bloody trail of deception and despair when a Huston executive is found dead alongside a mysterious stranger.
Watch the entire suspenseful video by Natronix on the Community Hub!
This week on Star Citizen Live, we'll look inside the daily life and responsibilities of the VFX team, followed by a discussion with Executive Producer John Schimmel as he shares his journey from the entertainment industry to CIG.
You've seen the concept art. You've seen the planning stages. Now it's time to go even deeper than before as we take you on a special whitebox tour showcasing the current development progress on new Underground Facilities.
Externer Inhalt robertsspaceindustries.comInhalte von externen Seiten werden ohne Ihre Zustimmung nicht automatisch geladen und angezeigt.February was a busy month for all CIG studios, with final bug fixing for the upcoming patch alongside extensive feature and tech work for releases later this year. Read on for everything completed and in progress, including the Lorville rework, a new water system, updates to Arena Commander, and more.
AI (Tech)
AI Tech began February by completing the NPC Transit feature, which manages elevators and trains. Now, NPCs will understand if a transit carriage is present at their location and whether they can move directly inside, if they need to wait, or if they should press a button to call it. They will also understand when they’ve arrived at their destination and will move outside. While in the carriage, NPCs will look for a usable and idle there until they reach their destination. Upon completion, the feature was passed to Design, following which AI Tech addressed feedback and fixed bugs.
The team then allocated time to improving NPC trolley usage, ensuring that NPCs can use elevators and move trolleys with them if the behavior requests it. To achieve this, they had to write new and update existing behaviors and fix bugs related to path-following while pushing a trolley.
The team also finished the base skeleton for ‘boids’ (bird-oid objects), which will enable groups of small creatures like birds, fish, and rats. This required them to implement new components, including a system that allows designers to write rules and constraints related to spawning and movement, which were exposed to DataForge for easy access.
On the navigation-system side, AI Teach continued to work on cost area shapes that will influence the topology of navigation mesh triangles. This will enable the pathfinder to avoid or prefer to use specific areas. As mentioned in last month’s report, this will initially be used to avoid fire hazards and define sidewalks for social AI actors.
The team also progressed with navigation agent-type override parameters, which are used when creating areas with specific navigation constraints. For example, they enable an NPC to transition from standing in a regular space to crouching in a vent.
AI Tech also exposed new parameters to specify entity properties during the navigation-generation phase. Now, the designers will be able to mark entities as:
- Included: The default value - the entity is processed during voxelization and the nav-mesh is generated using that object.
- Excluded: One entity will be ignored during generation - for the navigation system, it will be equivalent to not having found that object.
- Ignoring Walkability: The entity will cause the nav-mesh to consider it an obstacle - NPCs will not be able to walk on top of that object.
AI (Tools)
For AI tools, the team progressed their work on Apollo (the Subsumption tool) and added new functionality requested by the designers, including:
- Mastergraph editing to allow users to select the default state of each parent state.
- The ability to create new multigraph nodes by dragging functions from the outlier.
- Support for comments inside XMLs (this was an engine-wide improvement).
- Support to read object-container information related to platform creation directly from P4K files.
They also fixed several issues relating to the resizing of the node graph view.
Work continued on the usable coordinator tool, with the team adding support for multiple input types that can better specify when choosing the next usable or usable group. For example, specifying the number of usables required to determine that a group is ‘complete.’ They also fixed an issue preventing the usable group coordinator from working correctly with object containers and implemented the ability to add multiple instances of the same usable with different properties.
Finally for AI Tech, the team fixed and investigated issues with Alpha 3.18, including a problem with NPCs standing on chairs. This was caused by the incorrect animation setup of benches and chairs, likely due to a mannequin tag refactor that was not correctly propagated through the usable setup.
Art (Ships)
Last month, UK Vehicle Art approached the end of their work on the Argo SRV. The final art phase is in progress, including LOD and damage passes, and is expected to conclude with the final gate review and go/no-go in March.
Work also continued on an unannounced ship, which passed its LOD0 review gate and is well into the final-art phase.
A new variant moved into the LOD0 phase after passing its greybox review in January. Detailing work on the exterior and interior is ongoing.
The Crusader Spirit continued its greybox pass, with a review gate taking place at the end of the month.
“While there are still a few visual design tweaks to be made, the Spirit is looking in great shape for the review.” Vehicle Art Team
The team looked at the MISC Hull C to fix any visual issues that occurred during the ongoing technical setup, while the MISC Freelancer is undergoing some interior tweaks to accommodate physicalized components.
Greybox on an upcoming vehicle progressed. Testing was done simultaneously on the modeling process to see if the team can reduce the LOD impact on production once they arrive at the final-content phase.
The Aopoa San'tok.yāi is currently in the greybox stage and is undergoing significant testing to see how far the team can take secondary motion.
“The goal for us is to make the ship feel as though it is reacting heavily to its inertia. Doing this requires that we apply blendspace animations similar to what we do with characters.” Vehicle Art Team
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Throughout February, the Community team supported Coramor (Star Citizen’s take on Valentine’s Day) with a screenshot contest. In tandem, an update was released to the Community Hub that allows them to spotlight content created for specific events, take over the front page of the website, and collate community submissions for events into an archive.
“Last year’s Bar Citizen World Tour proved to be a huge success, with thousands of players meeting up in person for beverages, camaraderie, and giveaways. We have started planning many more events this year while also putting out the call for suggested locations on Spectrum.” Community Team
In support of the new Salvage mechanic, the team created a starter guide to coincide with Alpha 3.18 releasing to all waves on the PTU.
Alongside standard sentiment reporting and general communications and publishes, planning began for CitizenCon 2953 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
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In February, the Physics team made several improvements to box pruning. For example, changes were made to avoid bipartite box pruning inefficiencies, to decide when to run box pruning before obb pruning, and to significantly improve box pruning performance in general. Additional optimizations include using the spaceship's localspace obb for IFCS collision warning sweep checks to reduce the size of the checked volume. Furthermore, support for various unary and binary distance-field operations was added to the physics system as well as support for tapered capsules (aka bispheres) on articulated entities. Lastly, huge pages are now used for physical entity factories.
On the renderer, Gen12 received motion vector support for render-to-texture pipelines. Also, redundant copying of render target data for partial refractions was eliminated. Moreover, the team spent time improving ultra-wide-screen support. As one of the results, rendering of the in-game console was vastly improved, resulting in clearer text display. Improving the visor for ultra-wide screens is still being worked on. Lastly, the CPU side code for scatter queries was optimized.
For the core engine, further substantial improvements and performance optimizations were implemented for the remote shader compiler server. Work on streaming system improvements started, and the final touches on p4k v2 support for internal development tools are being wrapped up. The team also started looking into more advanced tool support for memory tracking of both the server and client.
The remainder of the time was spent supporting Alpha 3.18.
Features (Arena Commander)
February saw the Arena Commander team continuing to develop the Laying the Foundations deliverables for an upcoming patch. This included further work on the spawning and racing system refactors and the delivery of the refactored Rounds Module along with long-awaited bug fixes and quality-of-life changes.
The Design team focused on the conversion of a new Stanton location into Arena Commander, which will feature all standard game modes bar Classic Race.
“This location, which we'll talk about more as we get closer to release, has the team tackling some unique challenges with taking PU locations that'll help ease the process for future endeavors.” Features Team
The team also began work on an all-new atmospheric dogfighting arena, which will be the first fully atmospheric map in Arena Commander.
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In February, the Features team continued to support the upcoming patch release with critical bug fixes, mainly for crashes and player-position desyncs.
The team also began looking at lockers and how to best create outfits as a pre-defined collection of items that can be equipped or worn in a single action. They’re currently looking at a combination of the item port and inventory systems to store and display large to small items. For example, a coat may appear on a hanger just like in the shops, whereas a small accessory item or weapon attachment could go into an inventory drawer.
Another inventory aspect in progress is allowing players to perform a reload directly from a backpack or pocket. For example, if ammunition isn't directly available from their suit, players can perform a slower reload where it’s retrieved from their inventory. However, this only works if spare ammunition has been stored prior to engaging in combat.
Features (Gameplay)
The Gameplay Features team continued their work on the tractor beam, enabling ship owners to protect their ship items by locking them using ‘lock exterior’ functionality. They also added an interaction to the Greycat Multi-Tool that will detach unlocked items from ships to allow more control over item detaching.
The team then expanded on the holo outline that Weapons Features provided to get clear feedback on the attaching rules for ship items. The QATR process for this began alongside QATRs for the Mining update.
The team continued their work on the Resource Network, which is now known as Engineering gameplay. Gameplay Features will provide a more in-depth look into this feature in an upcoming episode of Inside Star Citizen.
In the US, the PU team worked on the physicalized cargo refactor. This significant conversion has several goals:
- Convert the existing cargo render proxy to actual physical entities for each cargo container. This enables them to be manually added and removed from the cargo grid using the tractor beam.
- Convert all commodities, minerals, and harvestables to a new resource type. This requires refactors of the mining and refinery systems to ensure they worked with the new resources.
- Recreate the Commodity Kiosk using Building Blocks to give greater flexibility with future changes.
- Ensure that all missions that use any form of cargo, usually in the form of carryable two-handed entities, still work with the new cargo resource system.
- Work with the Ships team to mark up all cargo grids to use the new system.
The PU team worked closely with EUPU Gameplay to ensure the conversion worked not only with the Mining and Refinery systems, but also to ensure that the new Salvage system worked with the new resource system as well.
“Once we had confirmed that cargo was properly working with the cargo grids, Chris Roberts pointed out the fact that, since ships were always destroyed upon death, the majority of cargo was destroyed, thus reducing the amount that players could interact with the new system. So, we worked with the Arena Commander Feature team to implement Soft Death on ships. This ensures that the majority of the time a ship is ‘destroyed,’ it enters a disabled state, which preserves all of the cargo within the ship so that it can be retrieved by interested parties.” USPU Team
Features (Mission)
February saw Mission Features make a few improvements to the Klescher Rehabilitation Facility, including changing the stashes to lootable containers (boxes for now). This allows them to put whatever items they want inside, such as rarer contraband alongside the typical sustenance and oxy-pens. A full stash should now contain an amount of contraband that can be returned, giving players another non-violent means to reduce their sentence. Players can now also steal minerals from other NPC inmates and, should they do it deep enough in the mines, get away without being caught.
Given these new options for generating merits, plus the new escape mission and Platinum Bay at the nearby outpost, the team decided to increase the cap on prison sentences to further punish those committing numerous felonies, though lighter sentences will remain the same.
“Mass murder now has serious consequences, leaving escape a much more tempting prospect.” Mission Feature Team
Several unannounced missions continued to be prototyped. One of which sees players escorting ships as they quantum travel and land at various locations, potentially allowing players aboard to carry out tasks.
Finally, after inheriting ownership of the Reputation System, the team began designing out the system as a whole alongside prioritizing which work comes first.
Features (Vehicles)
Last month, the Vehicle Feature team mostly focused on the transit system, which was heavily refactored for the release of Persistent Entity Streaming.
“As we’ve been pushing through the various PTU waves to release Alpha 3.18, more and more issues have arisen. Most transit bugs do not present locally on machines, so we’ve developed a system where we can remotely log the transit system and observe what happened after a bug occurs. This has been extremely helpful in finding various bugs in the PTU.” Vehicle Features
For releases further ahead, new features were added to the flight system and some older systems were refactored in support of one of the Ship team’s unannounced vehicles.
Finally, the MISC Hull C received a significant amount of low-level tech updates as the team worked through its issues.
Graphics, VFX Programming & Planet Tech
Last month, the Graphics team continued to close out the final tasks for Gen12 before they transition to assisting in the completion of the Vulkan graphics API.
The damage-map system was converted to Gen12, and support for profile groups was added to achieve parity with profiling tools in the legacy renderer. Additionally, the render pipeline was made configurable to allow secondary viewports to balance the desired quality and cost. Finally, legacy lens flares were converted to Gen12 alongside initial support for HDR.
Support for TSAA is currently being added to secondary viewports, which will significantly improve visual quality, especially for hair. The team also submitted the first iteration of a new render-layer feature to allow easy customization of objects in the world for use with game features such as scanning and the mini-map.
For features, the Graphics team further developed several shaders, including converting LayerBlend v1 assets to the more recent v2 and adding usability improvements to the new shader. Various improvements were also made to the UI shaders, including stability fixes for anti-aliased borders, the option to render circles on each vertex, and lighting support to allow planets in the Starmap to appear both lit and holographic in a single pass.
For tools, texture processing was made significantly faster through parallelizing filtering and compression, which will be a significant improvement for the artists and build system. Work started on a new mesh format too, with the goal of vastly improving loading times and render performance.
The VFX Programming team's time was split between fire, quantum travel, and tool work. For fire, work began on decal shading to achieve glow, burn, and soot on objects within the scene. Quantum travel now has support for 'quantum casting' and ‘red shift’ along with various other code improvements. For tools, usability improvements continued and support was added for referencing particle effects from other particle effects.
The Planet Tech team worked on better shaping support for asteroid fields, improvements to the harvestable system, and adding support for instancing to terrain chunks.
Also, the Planet and Graphics teams worked together on a new water system. This is still at an early stage but aims to allow for GPU wave/ripple simulations at multiple scales as well as network-synced impacts for larger events (e.g. spaceships crashing). Shading improvements are also being made to achieve better reflections, refraction, and foam.
In-Game Branding (Montreal)
The In-Game Branding team's work on Lorville’s skyline is coming to an end.
They also began their tasks for Pyro’s Ruin Station, with the first step being creating the visual identities of the gangs and their environments.
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The Interactables team continued work on Pyro, creating more assets for Ruin Station.
“There’s more work to be done on this mandate and we have some really interesting interactable props that we can’t wait to share!” Interactables Team
The team have also been working closely with Mission Features on new assets that players will be interacting with around the 'verse and progressed with Flair that will reach players at some point this year.
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Lighting finished their work on the Lorville skyline rework. They then moved fully onto colonial outposts.
“This is a significant undertaking with many pieces that we need to get right!” Lighting Team
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In February, the Live Tools team successfully implemented the first version of the Entity Graph Tool into the Network Operation Center, which is a major milestone in supporting Persistent Entity Streaming.
The developers are still working on improvements for other internal tools alongside priority bug fixing to support the release of Alpha 3.18.
Next, the team will start on the design and development of new Network Operation Center modules for Server Meshing.
Locations (EU)
In February, the Locations team completed the exteriors of Seraphim Station and the three Stanton jump points. Work is approaching ‘final art’ on the asteroid clusters for the Resource Rush mission, and the team is working on the last few modules to close out ‘Content Pack 3’, which will enable them to construct and distribute Pyro’s small-to-medium outposts.
Tasks progressed on Ruin Station and the underground facilities, the latter of which are currently in the whitebox stage. For organics, they prepared and hardened some of their cave initiatives and began looking into additional biome work.
The Design team worked on new missions for Pyro’s outposts. They also began investigation toward achieving gold-standard outposts, which produced several feature requests to facilitate new and interesting gameplay loops in Pyro relating to the resource network and Reputation System.
Externer Inhalt robertsspaceindustries.comInhalte von externen Seiten werden ohne Ihre Zustimmung nicht automatisch geladen und angezeigt.Narrative
February began with the Narrative team addressing a handful of issues discovered by the thorough PTU testing of the Alpha 3.18. With tasks for the upcoming release winding down, attention turned to the next patch and beyond. Several items, clothing pieces, and vehicles were branded and named. Work continued on the upcoming Salvage, Mining, and Investigation missions, while improvements were considered for Bounty Hunting v2 and the Contract Manager.
The team also continued to refine and hone their work toward the gameplay in the Pyro system.
“Seeing how the system’s lawless nature has the potential to enhance existing gameplay loops has been very exciting for us.” Narrative Team
They also coordinated with the Environment and Design teams on building interiors. Additionally, progress was made on ‘narrative lootables.’ These are things like journals, articles, and messages that players might one day be able to discover as they explore the universe. Finally, the team’s narrative designers continued to work on expanding and improving player interactions with certain NPCs.
February also saw the release of a Portfolio expanding the history of Clark Defense Systems and a host of new Galactapedia entries. The Narrative team also appeared on an episode of Star Citizen Live.
Online services (Montreal)
In February, Online Services completed the development of shard isolation and the shard broker, with PTU testing beginning for both. These new features are used for isolating push workers and shard health/lifecycle respectively, with the goal being to maintain shard integrity.
The team also added inventory query caching to the entity-graph service. This stores the results of inventory queries in a cache to take the load off the database for repeated lookups of the same query, allowing for faster response times and less load on the database. This increases the overall read and write performance of the entity-graph service.
The team performed a refactor for insurance, ASOP terminals, the VMA backend, and game code, with the goal of improving performance and fixing some long-standing bugs.
Time was also spent working to stabilize the Alpha 3.18 release with multiple bug fixes.
Tech Animation
Last month, the Tech Animation team was on set at Pinewood Studios in London, working alongside an outsource studio to finalize face scanning to populate the remainder of the gene pool for the head generation systems (DNA). This is relevant for both the PU and Squadron 42.
“We scanned a broad range of models, young and old, from all facets of Humanity available to us, which will go a long way to truly showing diversity in our game. The scanning went exceptionally well, our chosen outsource studio has a fantastic resource in their facial scanning rig, which delivered exceptional results. Coupled with lots of hard work and a good sense of humor, we made the most of our two weeks.” Tech Animation Team
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In February, UI Art and Design worked on several future features, including an interactive 3D UI prototype, a universal marker for the Starmap, and concept work for some of the updated vehicle UI styles.
The UI Tech team progressed in various areas, including creating a color picker UI for use in interactive screens. They continued to help polish the new Starmap, adding space dust to make it easier to perceive movement, improving the controls, and creating cubic holo volumes.
They also compelted some workflow fixes too, such as improving comments in Building Blocks files and making it easier to inspect drawn UI. They’ve also made some final fixes for Alpha 3.18.
VFX
Last month, the VFX team continued with their CPU-to-GPU particle library conversion. This has been good practice for some recent new starters in the team, helping them to get a better understanding of the many attributes accessible from the VFX editor.
They also continued to refine the new quantum-travel effects, and work began on several new vehicles, including one with unusual thrusters.
Finally, the team carried out improvements to Lorville’s skyline effects, adding more smoke and general ambiance to help sell the industrial theme.
Externer Inhalt robertsspaceindustries.comInhalte von externen Seiten werden ohne Ihre Zustimmung nicht automatisch geladen und angezeigt.Galactapedia Update October 2022
Externer Inhalt robertsspaceindustries.comInhalte von externen Seiten werden ohne Ihre Zustimmung nicht automatisch geladen und angezeigt.THE ARK, TAYAC SYSTEM
Welcome to this month’s Galactapedia update roundup. This month, we visit the Taranis system and the company that broke it, meet four exotic animals, learn about two popular Banu gods, and examine quantanium, among other subjects. Join the Spectrum thread for any discussion or feedback.
Full-Length Article:
- S-pop – Took the UEE by storm in 2932.
Short Articles:
- Taranis system – A less than friendly locale.
- Taranis I – Has a Human face, some claim.
- Taranis belt alpha – Dense and dangerous.
- Taranis belt beta – Denser and more dangerous.
- Taranis II – Ravaged by meteors.
- Taranis 2a – A broken moon.
- Taranis III – Often stormy, but still home to some.
- Taranis IV – Ringed by asteroids.
- Ophion Inc – A cautionary tale of cost-cutting.
- Casse Aerospace – Creators of the original Hurricane.
- Leonard Casse – A visionary gone too soon.
- Centurion – Short-range tank.
- NovaRiders – Long-range pirates.
- Giant Yar Moth – Main pollinator of the kavische.
- Phare’s Ape – Possibly sentient?
- Quantanium – Key ingredient in quantum fuel.
- Ma’tok.yāi – The beast that inspires fear.
- Ngii – The beast that makes Xi’an say “awwwwwww.”
- Cassa, the Patron of Luck – God of fortune.
- Taernin, the Great Traveler – God of navigation.
Kein Squadron 42, keine Alpha 4.0 und kein zweites Sonnensystem: 2023 klingt nach einem Sabbatjahr für Star Citizen. Doch es gibt wichtige Fortschritte.
Happy Monday, everyone!
In case you missed it, Alpha 3.18 is currently available to all backers on the PTU servers, so you can already experience Persistent Entity Streaming, Salvage, and much more. If you plan on visiting the PTU servers for the first time, you can find out more in our Knowledge Base.
We wanted to thank all of you PTU testers out there for helping us kick the tires and bang the pipes, especially over the last weekend; your participation and engagement have proved invaluable in helping us identify critical issues, such as the memory leak that was causing some pesky crashes. The vast amount of data you generated throughout this PTU cycle has enabled the team to identify and implement much-needed fixes. We want to ensure we catch any stability-related bugs before switching to the Live environment, and we're very close. Your help is super appreciated and plays a vital role in us getting Alpha 3.18 to the live servers, especially this week as we navigate the home stretch. The more traffic we can get on the PTU this week, the better odds we have of getting this one out the door, so we hope to see you in the 'verse alongside us!
For those interested in what's coming beyond Alpha 3.18, you can get a sneak peek by checking out last week's ISC that showcases the upcoming improvements and additions to mining coming in Alpha 3.19.
We also want to remind you that many Bar Citizen events are occurring every week, such as the one in Angers, France, this Saturday. On BarCitizen.sc, you can find real-life events in your area and register your own events for others to discover and attend. Remember to let us know about your meetups on Spectrum; we just might make a pitstop and crash the party!
Now, let's see what's going on this week:
This Tuesday, the Narrative team brings us their monthly Galactapedia update.
Wednesday sees the release of February's Monthly Reports, with the PU's coming as a comm-link and Squadron 42's via newsletter.
Thursday's episode of Inside Star Citizen features an interior whitebox tour of the new Underground Facilities first showcased at CitizenCon 2952.
This Friday, Star Citizen Live features Mike Snowdon and members of the VFX team discussing their work. Don't miss it at 16:00 UTC / 8:00 am Pacific. You'll also receive our weekly RSI Newsletter in your inbox.
Have a stellar week both in and out of the 'verse!
Christian Schmitt aka Wayne-CIG
Community Manager
THE WEEKLY COMMUNITY CONTENT SCHEDULE
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 2023
- This Week in Star Citizen
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2023
- Galactapedia Update
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 1, 2023
- February 2023 PU Monthly Report
- February 2023 Squadron 42 Monthly Report (via email)
THURSDAY, MARCH 2, 2023
- Inside Star Citizen
FRIDAY, MARCH 3, 2023
- Star Citizen Live - 16:00 UTC / 8:00 am Pacific (twitch.tv/starcitizen)
- Weekly Newsletter
COMMUNITY MVP: February 27, 2023
We're constantly amazed at the contributions made by the Star Citizen community. Whether it's fan art, a cinematic, 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 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 the chance to see it here!Homecoming
NarayanN7 is back and has been playing and filming for two weeks, and this video came out of it. Looks like an exciting time!
Check out the full video on the Community Hub, and welcome back, pilot!
Externer Inhalt robertsspaceindustries.comInhalte von externen Seiten werden ohne Ihre Zustimmung nicht automatisch geladen und angezeigt.Jump Point Now Available!
Externer Inhalt robertsspaceindustries.comInhalte von externen Seiten werden ohne Ihre Zustimmung nicht automatisch geladen und angezeigt.Attention, Subscribers: the February issue of Jump Point is now available to download or read in the ‘Subscribers’ area of your RSI account!
This month, we interview Chief Technology Officer Benoit Beausejour to get an in-depth explanation and overview on Persistent Entity Streaming coming online in Alpha 3.18.
We also speak with Senior Vehicle Systems Designer Geoffrey Coffin about the Salvage mechanic and gameplay loop also coming online in 3.18, as well as create trading cards for several Star Citizen racers and a portfolio piece on Virgil LTD.
Interested in becoming a subscriber? You can learn more here.
This week, Will Hain, aka "River Guy," shares his expertise on engine programming and terrain modification, followed by valuable insights into the world of QA management.
RSI Store promotion. Visit robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link for details.
First-Responder C8R PISCES
by Anvil Aerospace
SUPPORT / MEDICAL
Short-Range Surface-to-Air Dominance CENTURION
by Anvil Aerospace
COMBAT / COMBAT
Versatile Ruffian CUTTER
by Drake Interplanetary
TRANSPORT / STARTER / LIGHT FREIGHT
All-Out Adventure HoverQuad
by Consolidated Outland
GROUND / RACING
Uncompromising Beast of Burden MULE
by Drake Interplanetary
GROUND / TRANSPORT
Disable and Subdue with Ease SCORPIUS ANTARES
by Robert Space Industries
COMBAT / HEAVY FIGHTER
All-Terrain Sport STV
by Greycat Industrial
GROUND / TRANSPORT
Community Hub
The first place of contact, with a range of community-created content!
Spectrum
Our integrated community and player interaction service, including chat, forums, game integration, and Player Organization facilities.
Guide System
Find a fellow player in the Community to help you through your first steps in the ‘Verse.
Organizations
Gathering players around their shared interest and vision for the game
What updates can you expect from mining gameplay in Alpha 3.19? Grab your hard hat, because in this episode of Inside Star Citizen we'll be drilling into new improvements, resources and challenges that will enhance the mining experience.
Happy Wednesday, everyone!
Every two weeks, we accompany the Roadmap update with a brief explanatory note to give you insight into the decision-making that led to any changes. This is part of an effort to make our communications more transparent, more specific, and more insightful for all of you who help to make Star Citizen and Squadron 42 possible.
With that said, let’s go ahead and dive into this week’s Roadmap Roundup!
-CIG Community Team
Notable Changes for February 22, 2023
Release View
The following card has been added to the Alpha 3.18 column on Release View:
RSI Scorpius Antares
Building, implementing, and balancing RSI's EMP and quantum jammer-equipped fighter, the Scorpius Antares, as a game-ready vehicle.
Progress Tracker
With this publish, we're adding the Q1 2023 and Q3 2023 schedules for downstream and upstream teams, respectively, with more teams to be added in a subsequent publish.
The following deliverables have been added to the Progress Tracker:
New Missions - Salvage Contracts
With more civilian access to salvage ships, contract brokers are offering salvage jobs for derelicts around Lagrange Points around Stanton. These brokers charge a fee for their services so this will require some buy-in, but the contractors are free to keep any salvaged material for resale.
Duster Faction Outfits
Developing multiple outfit variants for the Stanton gang, the Dusters.
Master Modes
Implementing new modes to vehicles to manage a their speed, components, and role-specific functions.
Persistent Habs
Previously removed from USPU's schedule, this deliverable returns to Progress Tracker with this publish.
That's all for this week! Join the discussion on Spectrum, and check out the Roadmap Companion Guide for more information on the Star Citizen Public Roadmap.
Happy Monday, everyone!
Last week we put out the call for the Bar Citizen World Tour 2023! Last year's tour was incredibly successful, as we were able to see thousands of you in person for food, drinks, fun, and prizes. We're looking for new places to visit this year, so if you're putting an event together, let us know as soon as you can. We're gathering suggestions on the announcement thread, so if you have one, drop us a comment!
Thanks once again to everyone who has been hammering away on the PTU. The data we have collected from the increased traffic after opening it to all waves has proven to be extremely valuable. Although we're making good progress, there are still a few blockers preventing us from deploying to the Live servers, including transit and AI issues, as well as some server crashes. We're in the home stretch, and the team is really excited to get this one out the door and on to the live servers.
We're also considering holding a couple of stress tests in the lead-up to the big launch, so be sure to stay tuned to Spectrum. Your support and participation is super appreciated!
Now, let's see what's going on this week:
Wednesday has the latest Roadmap Update complete with a Roadmap Roundup with all the details.
Thursday, on this week's episode of Inside Star Citizen, we mine for materials on the multitude of new mining improvements coming with Alpha 3.19 later this year.
On Friday, our weekly chance to meet the people behind the making of Star Citizen continues at 8am Pacific / 4pm UTC. Guests to be announced later this week. Plus, stay up-to-date with our weekly RSI Newsletter, delivered straight to your inbox.
Have a fantastic week, everyone!
Jake Bradley
Community ManagerTHE WEEKLY COMMUNITY CONTENT SCHEDULE
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 2023
- This Week in Star Citizen
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2023
- Roadmap Update
- Roadmap Roundup
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2023
- Inside Star Citizen
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2023
- Star Citizen Live - 16:00 UTC / 8:00 am Pacific (twitch.tv/starcitizen)
- February Jump Point
- Weekly Newsletter
COMMUNITY MVP: February 20, 2023
We're constantly amazed at the contributions made by the Star Citizen community. Whether it's fan art, a cinematic, 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 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 the chance to see it here!The Racer
ADM Dreamreaver wrote, recorded, and produced an awesome feel-good track perfect for whipping around the turns of Snake Pit.
Check out the full video on the Community Hub.
Does lore get implemented before things are built into the 'verse? Today we're joined by multiple members of the Narrative Team who will give us insights on how they give deeper meanings to all the things.
While Persistent Entity Streaming has opened the door for the rest of the Server Meshing development, let's go behind the scenes of our Meshing Summit to meet the team working on this core technology as we explore what's next in this multi-part series.
Externer Inhalt robertsspaceindustries.comInhalte von externen Seiten werden ohne Ihre Zustimmung nicht automatisch geladen und angezeigt.This portfolio originally appeared in Jump Point 10.3.
Despite an illustrious career, Gratia Katsaros never forgot her first infield assignment. A recent Rhetor University business school graduate, Katsaros rejected job offers from prominent investment banks to join a crew of “turf-techs,” 24th-century slang for workers hired by terraforming companies to visit planets being actively terraformed. A mixture of scientist and repair technician, some turf-techs took important readings to track the process while others fixed essential ground-based equipment. The work wavered between exhilarating and extremely dangerous, which Katsaros, as an amateur climatologist and thrillseeker, admitted attracted her to the gig. While suiting up for her first mission, Team Leader Clark Rissolo handed her some extra homemade protective gear and explained that the company didn’t require that she wear it, but he did. Clark was a lifelong turf-tech who knew how quickly conditions could change and how ineffectual the standard environmental suit could be against unexpected elements like egg-sized hail suddenly falling from the sky.
In her memoir, Protection for the People, Katsaros revisits this first gig on Terra IV and some of the dangers her team faced.
“There was a sudden drop in air pressure followed by a cold, stiff breeze. It didn’t seem that strange to me, but Clark immediately called for an emergency evacuation. I took a moment to tighten another bolt when, suddenly, I was knocked down by a rock whipped up by the wind. Thankfully, Clark pulled me up and guided me into the ship. Once safe, I looked down and saw a rock embedded into Clark’s extra layer of armor. For that, I owe him not only my life but my eternal gratitude for setting us on a new path.”
Katsaros jokingly called these extra protective layers “Clark’s defense system,” and her experiences on the job pushed her to advocate for increased safety standards for turf-techs. In 2539, she convinced Clark and a few others to start a company manufacturing specialized environmental armor. The team established their operation in Najita on Keene, Killian system, and picked the name Clark Defense Systems (CDS) in honor of their inspiration. Yet this slight name change wouldn’t be the only early adjustment the company made. Shortly after launching their inaugural line, the First Tevarin War erupted and the UPE desperately needed combat armor. Sluggish sales of their environmental suits drove CDS to apply for and land a military contract. “We jumped at the chance to expand our product line thanks to some government funding,” Katsoros wrote, “but believed we’d be back to environmental suits the moment the war was over. We couldn’t have been more wrong.”
GOOD ENOUGH FOR GOVERNMENT WORK
Clark Defense Systems refined their environmental suits to comply with military standards and quickly converted their production line to create a variety of field armor and combat undersuits. With the UPE on the verge of winning the First Tevarin War, a cadre of government officials visited CDS headquarters for the first time in 2546 and disclosed that their armor was the most well-regarded equipment among combat forces as well as pilots. They were so effective and well-liked that much of it was reserved for special forces or soldiers in the most dangerous areas of operation. The visit ended with UPE officials offering CDS a massive new government contract to expand upon their output to the military. Though the offer would keep them from being able to return to the environment suit market, it was too good to refuse.
CDS dedicated all the company’s resources to manufacturing combat armor and consulted extensively with veterans of the Tevarin War on what features they responded to best in the field as well as what they would need and want for future models. This led to the development of some of their most famous lines of armor, including the Omni-Role Combat (ORC) and Advanced Defensive Protection (ADP) series. The outbreak of the Second Tevarin War in 2603 brought about another substantial increase to CDS’ government contracts and further real-world testing. The company’s willingness to adapt and improve their armor kept it as a favorite of soldiers who, when the war finally ended in 2610, would return home raving about a brand unavailable on the civilian market. This word of mouth created a bustling secondhand market for CDS armor, with entire companies being created to procure and refurbish the prized pieces.
With demand so high, CDS considered pivoting to the private sector. The company’s long-term commitment to making armor exclusively for the UPE/UEE military was a boon, but company executives understood the dangers of being associated with the increasingly authoritarian Messer regime. CDS lawyers looked into ways to get out of the exclusivity clause in their government contract, but the Messer regime got wind of their plan and informed the company that their armor was of “strategic importance to the Empire.” The UEE argued in documents released centuries later under the Historical Truth Act that none of the armor developed for the military, or even modified versions of it, could ever be publicly released and that any attempt to backout of their manufacturing commitment would lead to the UEE taking full control of the company, its facilities, assets, and patents. Sufficiently scared, CDS officials dropped their plans and sat back, waiting and hoping that the company could outlast the regime.
PROTECTION FOR THE PEOPLE
By the late 28th century, Messer regime power was weak enough for CDS to resurrect their plans to expand into the public sector. Their first move came in 2789 and coincided with the former military system of Castra being opened to the public. The company bought office and manufacturing space on Cascom (Castra II) with the hopes of creating a separate company focused on developing armor for the public. CDS hoped that siloing this entity, its product, and development cycles from anything previously done for the military would shield them from government interference or retaliation. But these plans quickly became moot when, in 2792, the Messers finally fell.
Free from the iron-grip of the former regime, CDS held lengthy discussions with senators and members of Imperator Erin Toi’s administration. The new government wanted to cut ties to companies associated with the Messers, a fate most famously dealt to Aegis, but the evidence of CDS’s attempt to sever their contracts and the regime’s subsequent takeover threats saved them from losing everything. Instead, the two sides agreed to dramatically reduce the size of CDS’ contracts but allowed them to enter the civilian market to sell legacy versions of their combat armor.
Before entering the civilian market, CDS enacted a master plan to set up the brand for future success. In 2802, the company officially moved their headquarters to Cascom, Castra system, and significantly increased their manufacturing capacity there. Today, most of their civilian operations are based out of Cascom while their facilities on Keene focus on supplying and developing the next lines of groundbreaking armor for the UEE military; an area where CDS continues to excel as evidenced by them being awarded a government contract in 2945 to research and develop next-generation light armor. Today, Clark Defense Systems maintains a significant foothold in both the civilian and government sectors and is considered by many to be a cornerstone company of the empire.
