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Which upgraded feature are you most excited for? Join us this week on Star Citizen Live as we bring in guests from the EU PU team to discuss more about improvements you can expect from the mining, salvage, and tractor beam experiences coming to Alpha 3.19!
Roberts Space Industries is the official go-to website for all news about Star Citizen and Squadron 42. It also hosts the online store for game items and…
If you’re from around here, you’ve no doubt heard about Jumptown. Local legends tells of the infamous “hidden” drug lab on the icy moon of Yela, and the bloody conflicts that raged there as local factions vied to control its production or its fate. Now, years later, more drug labs have been uncovered in various locations around the Stanton system, and this time the firefights will be deadlier, the spoils richer, and the stakes higher than ever before.
In 2019, the Star Citizen community discovered a lucrative drug lab on the surface of Crusader’s moon Yela. What followed was completely unplanned, and surprised everyone - including our development team.
Tens of thousands of players flocked to the outpost, with split motives in mind – eager outlaws and less-than-scrupulous organizations rushed to acquire and sell this newfound illicit treasure trove at any cost, while more lawful groups chose to lock down the station in a bid to prevent further criminal activity.
This clash resulted in a perpetual tug-of-war between far-flung factions and home-grown heroes over control of the outpost. You never knew what you’d find when approaching Jumptown, which only the most dedicated could locate, since it wasn’t easily pin-pointed on standard-issue maps.
These events were so profound, they ended up becoming official canon in Star Citizen’s lore – a prime example of player actions shaping the future of the ‘verse forever.
Originally released in Star Citizen Alpha 3.16, this dynamic event inspired by the original Jumptown wars, is back with all-new improvements that will challenge you like never before.
Read on for more details about what to expect, and be sure to outfit your force for the impending mayhem.
Inside Scoop
These new labs have a totally redesigned interior, reimagined as a circular floorplan that conveniently comes with fewer doors, making for better sightlines and shooting lanes. A second dispenser can also be found for more expedient drug production.
On the Outside
The entire operation has doubled in size, with a second entrance and multiple windows and skylights to make ambushes hard to come by for those hunkered down inside as well as those attempting a breach from outside.
Multiple Points of Contention
The scofflaws and scalawags of Stanton are getting wiser, rotating the locations of their automated drug-production operations. Jumptown is but one of these facilities, so keep an eye on your mission manager for the up-to-date locations.
Get the Bag
SCU containers are bulky and conspicuous, word around the system is the local scum have started to transport their contraband in smaller, more discrete parcels. Be sure to bring a Multi-Tool with a tractor-beam attachment.
This Dynamic Event can be undertaken by either lawful or unlawful players. The mission itself plays out the same regardless of which path you take, with a few key differences.
To take the lawful path, be sure you have a CrimeStat of zero and then accept the mission from the local security office, marked in your contracts manager as a Priority mission. The drug boxes you collect at the mission site will need to be taken to the closest LEO port. For example, if the mission is taking place at Jumptown, you would take your haul to Port Olisar.
On the lawful path, if you successfully delivery at least one run of contraband back to the LEO port, you will receive an aUEC bonus on top of the price of the drugs you deliver.
To take the unlawful path, you must have a CrimeStat of any level and accept the mission from Ruto. To do this you will need to have a non-negative affinity with the mission giver. Ruto knows how valuable this intel is, so he also asks a buy-in for the mission.
On this path, all contraband must be taken to an unlawful trading post to be sold off, regardless of where the mission is taking place. The unlawful path will provide a bonus to the price of each successfully delivered drug box.
Accept the Mission
Open the Mission Manager in your mobiGlas and navigate to the Priority category, either under the General tab for the lawful path or Personal for unlawful. This will give you both the coordinates of the drug lab and where to sell the packages.
Fly to the Lab
The drug lab will be marked on your HUD and the Starmap. It may be in Crusader, microTech, or ArcCorp space. If you're on the lawful path, you'll be taking the drugs to the corresponding LEO stations (Port Olisar, Port Tressler, and Baijini Point, respectively), which will also be marked on your HUD. If on the unlawful path, you'll be traveling to Grim HEX for your payout.
Grab the Contraband
Once you arrive at the lab, your goal is to find the drug spawner inside (pictured here). This device will pump out one box of contraband every 30 seconds. This timer doesn't start until you grab the previous box, so you'll have to hold your position against anyone else looking for the same payday if you want to maximize your earnings.
Jumptown Schedule - 3.18.2
Each time listed represents a location change, and each location runs approximately 24 hours. The final location will run until May 9 at 1 PM Pacific / 8 PM UTC.
May 5, 2023 at 9 AM Pacific / 4 PM UTC
May 6, 2023 at 9 AM Pacific / 4 PM UTC
May 7, 2023 at 9 AM Pacific / 4 PM UTC
May 8, 2023 at 9 AM Pacific / 4 PM UTC
Jumptown Offers
Whether you need to get your troops in or get your drugs out, take control of the battlefield with these curated Assault Packs with ship paints, or browse a plethora of Jumptown heavy hitters below.
Roberts Space Industries is the official go-to website for all news about Star Citizen and Squadron 42. It also hosts the online store for game items and…
Join us at the starting line of the upcoming microTech PTV racetrack, now more treacherous than ever, while we drive between regularly scheduled tasks to explore what individual artists work on amidst larger features.
Roberts Space Industries is the official go-to website for all news about Star Citizen and Squadron 42. It also hosts the online store for game items and…
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 May 3, 2023
Progress Tracker
The following deliverables have been added to Progress Tracker:
Ship Trespass
The interior of players' ships are now considered trespass zones for those without permission to enter. Permission will granted via the party system until more complex systems for managing crew and passengers is created. Players trespassing aboard a ship can be attacked by the owner of the ship and any player in their party without fear of committing a crime. This deliverable has been added to the Mission Feature Team's schedule.
New Missions - Retrieve Consignment
A new mission type where players are tasked with locating critical items in consignment lists, then safely extract them. This deliverable has been added to the Mission Feature Team's schedule.
Release View
The following card has passed its final review for Alpha 3.19, therefore we are updating its card to Committed:
RSI Lynx
Building, implementing, and balancing RSI's planetary rover, the Lynx, as a game-ready vehicle.
The following cards have been added to the Alpha 3.20 column on Release View:
Ship Trespass
The interior of players' ships are now considered trespass zones for those without permission to enter. Permission will granted via the party system until more complex systems for managing crew and passengers is created. Players trespassing aboard a ship can be attacked by the owner of the ship and any player in their party without fear of committing a crime.
New Missions - Retrieve Consignment
A new mission type where players are tasked with locating critical items in consignment lists, then safely extract them.
MISC Hull C
Encompasses all tasks, including design, art, audio, and tech, required for the implementation of the MISC Hull-C heavy cargo hauler into the PU.
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.
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Welcome to April’s PU Monthly Report. Read on for the latest updates from Star Citizen’s global development teams, including Art, Engine, Vehicles, Locations, and more.
AI (Content)
In April, the AI Content team continued to refine behaviors, improve animations, and develop new features for the PU and Squadron 42. This involved further work on the sleep and bed-relaxation behaviors, which received improved animations. They also polished the various leisure animations that allow characters to watch TV and use the mobiGlas on bunk beds.
Various AI blockout animations for janitorial tasks were created, such as placing and using the bucket and mop. AI Content also made significant progress on the janitor's workflow, with Design and Animation working closely together.
AI Content added variation to the trolley artwork, moving away from the whitebox version. Further expansion was planned too. They’re currently looking to prevent trolley ‘popping’ and improve box placement in the hangar for a more-realistic and less-robotic feel.
AI (Tech)
Last month, AI Tech progressed with navigation and movement system features.
They also completed tasks for the navigation-cost-area modifier, which will mark specific areas and increase or decrease the cost of paths that go through them; this will influence which paths NPCs or ground vehicles choose. Alongside polishing and providing feedback on the feature, a way for entity tags to influence cost area was implemented.
For example, a location with fire will have a high cost for normal NPCs to ensure they avoid it. However, the same area will have a lower cost for NPCs wearing fire protection.
Work also began on ground-vehicle collision avoidance, which involved updating the system to support both vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-NPC avoidance. This required unifying how agents are separated. Previously, they were separated by agent type (medium characters, large vehicles, etc.). Now, all agent types with different avoidance radiuses and rules are processed together providing they’re in the same navigation volume.
AI Tech updated behavior and tactical-point-system requests relating to transit. They also cleaned up and optimized transit in the movement system, which involved updating the pause-movement functionality logic used when running navigation-link logic. Now, it will only pause the movement request at that moment, and all follow requests will be processed.
On the AI Tools side, improvements and optimizations were made to the usable coordinator. The team also extended the debug AI tools, most notably adding a visualizer for testing tactical-point-system requests.
AI (Vehicle Features)
The Vehicle Feature team completed the new fighter-combat AI-flow design and can now play against NPCs with a reasonable variety of behaviors. They recently moved onto testing and tweaking, though they’ll continue to further modify behaviors based on various character traits. For example, making them more aggressive or cautious, which results in visible differences in NPC behavior. This will be the AI Vehicle Feature’s focus over the coming months.
Time was also spent improving ship-spline following. This involved implementing new algorithms for calculating a ship’s speed along a spline to prevent it from flying off. They also began experimenting with the procedurally generated splines feature, which enables ships to fly around reasonably detailed geometry without colliding with anything. This will be useful for various features, including the ship-recall feature mentioned in last month’s report.
Animation
Animation continued discussing creatures, creating a matrix showing the skeleton classes they think should exist and how the creatures could use them.
Art (Characters)
Last month, the Character Art team completed the frontier toxic and desert environmental wear outfits, the Duster faction’s common outfit, and the frontier light helmet.
Alongside this, Character Concept Art prepared handoff sheets for the Headhunters gang and Duster outfits, and began exploring an upcoming Subscriber item.
Art (Ships)
Last month, the EU Vehicle Content team completed the final art pass on an all-new vehicle, and the LOD0 art pass began on one of its variants.
Another new ship passed the whitebox stage; this is nearing completion and will move to the next production stage once an upcoming review is completed.
The team wrapped up on the RSI Lynx Rover, while another upcoming ground vehicle progressed through the greybox stage.
The LOD pass on the Argo SRV was completed. Relating to this, a support pass for tractor beams began, which includes retrofitting the new vehicle tractor beam onto existing supported ships. It also involves ensuring that all valid components can be removed using the FPS tractor beam.
“This has been achieved by adjusting the art and collision on some component bays as well as ensuring there’s a clear path to remove components from the vehicle.” UK Ships Team
A component-bay pass continued on the MISC Freelancer, which progressed to the LOD0 and final-art phase, and the Crusader A1 Spiritcontinued through the LOD0 phase, passing the greybox review gate. Additionally, the C1 Cargovariant entered the greybox stage.
In the US, Greybox on an upcoming vehicle was completed.
“We have redesigned the dashboard and cockpit to allow for better visibility while driving in first-person view. We also did a short pass on optimization, as we found that we may have gone a bit overboard on the detail and needed to pull back a bit, especially in areas rarely seen by the player.”
Greybox on the Aopoa San'tok.yāiprogressed, with several areas being redesigned and fleshed out, including the rail system within the glass canopy. The team also created several iterations of the seat and settled on a design that highlights Aopoa’s use of Xi’an anti-gravity technology. In addition, they progressed on the new dashboard to further push the use of alien tech.
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Community
The Community team supported the Alpha 3.18.1 and 3.18.2 release, as well as the recent Free Fly event. Preparations are in full swing for the upcoming Alien Week, and work continued on the New Player Hub. The team is also working on numerous improvements for the Community Hub - many of which have been highly requested, and more info will be shared soon.
April also saw the kick-off of this year's Bar Citizen World Tour. For the first time ever, members of the Community team visited Phoenix, Arizona in the USA, and followed this up with another visit to Paris, France. Further, as well as supporting a Bar Citizen event in Manchester, UK with over 100 players and 40 CIG staff, several members of the team attended the community-organized convention, Con42, near Frankfurt, Germany.
"The third iteration of this incredible event brought together nearly 600 community members, as well as many from the CIG staff team, who answered some burning community questions in two dev panels! It was a privilege to attend such a fantastic event and meet so many of you in person, and we loved supporting this super-engaging event." Community Team
Lastly, the team has been entrenched in CitizenCon 2953 planning, with announcements and activities to be revealed very soon. They are excited to share what's in store for the epic return of this in-person celebration of all things Star Citizen and, most importantly, the community, so keep your eyes peeled in the coming days for more details!
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Engine
Besides support for the ongoing patch release, the Core Engine team ironed out tech developed over the last few months, readying it to be integrated into the main development stream. This includes testing the new P4K format, which will speed up the game’s startup. When QA is finished, the Engine team will begin integrating it into the main development stream and enable it for all other departments.
The new internal code-build system, StarBuild, is in the final stages of having Linux compilation enabled. Afterward, the team will start to roll this out internally.
For memory management, the Engine team are continuing to develop an internal tool to better analyze memory usage (and later reduce the memory usage of the game).
For the Gen12 renderer, the team ported the last remaining legacy rendering passes to the new API. They also began deleting the no-longer-needed legacy code. Improvements to the streaming systems began too. First, the team simplified logic to update the per-instance streaming data, which will leave less code to maintain. Additionally, they began moving more streaming logic away from the main thread to background workers; this affects the frame time less and streams objects much faster.
Work was also done on the generic shape system, with the current focus on the editor to allow the designers to set up multiple sub-segments. To improve entity areas, significant code work was done to ensure consistent and non-duplicate enter/leave events are sent in all cases.
The entity lifetime system was also updated to allow the designers to specify areas with different rules. For example, adding aggressive cleanup to areas where gameplay is important, like hangers. Various bug fixes and optimizations were completed too.
The Physics team added winch support to the rope system, which allows them to switch between fixed and pulley attachments.
For the Alpha 3.18 release and beyond, work went into managing the memory of physics objects. This will allow them to collect every allocation call site as well as utilize customizable upper object limits, which will help to detect leaks.
Additionally, the old error-prone manual ref counting was replaced with a tagged weak pointer approach, which is safer and more friendly to multi-threading code.
Geometry parts are now assigned a unique ID to enable them to be queried by name. As a side effect, this puts more requirements on debug names, which will make them more expressive and globally unique. Additionally, the individual physical collision of geometry parts can now be disabled.
Improvements were also made to physically based wheeled vehicles on how they handle contact with hard surfaces. A new specialized AABB tree was introduced for use with signed distance fields, which favors a fast tree generating speed at the cost of slower culling code.
Lastly, various bug fixes and optimizations were done.
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Features (Arena Commander)
During April, the Arena Commander Feature team focused on Alpha 3.18.x release support, and finalized planning for the rest of the quarter.
The Engineering team supported the code rework for the VMA/loadout customization menus; this will enable it to work better alongside the new spawning technology introduced with Persistent Entity Streaming. Analytics work was also completed, including adding support for features coming later this year.
Finally for Engineering, several new game modes and filters for the new frontend were created to help players find the modes they want from the new game mode selection window.
Arena Commander’s Design team finished two versions of the reworked Defford Link track, which were successfully playtested.
“While only one of these maps can become Defford Link, after overwhelmingly positive feedback, we'll be releasing the other as a brand-new fourth addition to the New Horizon Speedway collection.” Arena Commander Design Team
Design also continued to polish the new Arena Commander frontend, adding filters, detail to the game mode tiles, and video backgrounds to the mode buttons. Finally, designs were completed for an unannounced feature.
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Features (Characters & Weapons)
In April, the Features team began adding EVA fuel to the actor loadout. When implemented, players will use fuel as they accelerate or decelerate while free roaming in zero gravity. If fuel runs out, they can use their oxygen supply as a low-grade emergency supplement to get them to safety. However, jumping from surface to surface using the new zero-g traversal system will not use fuel, making it a viable option for players traveling without thrusters or that are low on fuel. The Multi-Tool tractor beam can be used to navigate environments without gravity too.
The team also worked on flak ammunition. This generates a single projectile that, on explosion, breaks into additional projectiles that fire in random directions. Part of this included implementing the option to add a proximity trigger to any projectile.
Features (Gameplay)
Last month, the EU-based team progressed with the mining update and tractor beam detach/attach feature, which are targeted for release in Alpha 3.19.
For Salvage, development of the ‘munching’ feature began, with the first prototype finished for internal iteration.
For the refinery, the first blockout for the UI screen was created and the gameplay beats of the various refining methods were discussed. The team now have a clear understanding of what the different deliverables will look like and how the actual gameplay will play and feel.
In the US, the Design team implemented the halls for Invictus Launch Week. This was done using new functionality from the USPU team, which not only reduces the setup time but also eliminates the possibility of a significant number of bugs historically encountered during the event’s setup.
In April, the team refactored how in-game ship prices and insurance expedite fees and times are calculated. The process is now automated based on a ship's stats and characteristics, and will continue to evolve as the amount of data factored into the price calculations increases.
As a result of redistributing mineable resources, the team completed their initial pass on refineries. This will change how efficiently each location refines specific ores based on the abundance of mineable resources within that region. Along with this, they’re currently rebalancing the sell prices of refined resources at the Admin and Trade & Development Division offices to account for this new distribution.
“These changes are currently in the PTU, and we'll continue to iterate on the new prices as we review the data we receive from testing.”
Finally, the engineers focused on the new cargo deck and external cargo-loading game loop that will be used to support ships such as the MISC Hull C. This is the first step in a sequence of planned updates to make cargo gameplay more physical and tangible. Fundamental concepts, such as the cargo warehouse and asynchronous buy and sell orders, not only support the Hull C but will be important elements in manual cargo loading within hangars.
Features (Mission)
To add greater variety to in-mission ship combat, the Mission Features team began adding all ships into the enemy spawn pool.
“We used a tool to pit all ships against one another 1000 times to determine a difficulty progression.” Mission Features Team
Work also continued on Salvage missions, with attention given to missions where salvage is used to restore valuable ships for profit.
Development continued on the Package Extraction, Data Heist, and Consignment Retrieval missions. Various ship interiors were also marked up ready for combat.
On the code side, many much-needed fixes were added, while work on players defending their ships is almost complete and will soon begin testing.
Graphics, VFX Programming & Planet Tech
Last month, the Graphics team worked towards enhancing the game’s realism, functionality, and developer workflow with a range of long-awaited features and upgrades. For example, streaming locally compiled skinned meshes is now possible, allowing for much quicker loading and replication of the release build. The editor also has a new HUD feature that indicates when resources are being compiled.
Water volume finetuning began for use on planets, specifically with atmospheric and fog volumes. These integrations are part of the Q2 water deliverables, which also include water ripple simulations in all bodies of water (even down to puddles).
A series of performance and compatibility improvements were made to the core renderer. This included the removal of some legacy CPU-to-GPU buffer management synchronization, which could on occasion cause hangs in Nvidia drivers.
The team also began moving volumetric fog and gas clouds to Vulkan. They’re currently looking to enable the feature following essential compatibility, functionality, and visual quality control fixes.
The UI Tech and Graphics teams made considerable progress on the interior-map feature. Last month, the map’s core visual features were completed, with the current focus on performance improvements and polycount optimization. A temporal super-resolution prototype was integrated too, paving the way for improved resolution and clarity across the entire game.
For the ongoing development of fire tech, a new shared resource manager now efficiently manages 3D texture data across multiple fire emitters associated with a single voxel grid. As part of this, the voxel grid received several important bug fixes, including an out-of-bounds issue caused by discrepancies between the iteration code and preliminary code. This fix ensures accurate and consistent rendering of voxel-based elements within the game.
In-Game Branding (Montreal)
In April, the In-Game Branding team created the interior and exterior signage for Pyro’s Ruin Station and continued supporting the EU Location team.
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Live Tools
The Live Tools team progressed with the design of a new Network Operation Center feature. They’re currently involved in the continuous improvement of the tool, which aims to provide the best experience possible to its users.
The team also began rolling out a new version of the internal error-handling pipeline.
Narrative
The Narrative team spent the month closing out tasks and submitting numerous bug fixes to help get the next patch ready for release. They also continued to give items, clothing, and armor names and descriptions, and worked with Design to improve Salvage missions. They also supported initiatives to help newer players learn the game.
Additionally, they began working on upcoming content, including the new Package Extraction, Data Heist, and Consignment Retrieval missions. They also looked at expanding the air-traffic-control dialogue to support new gameplay, including the new cargo features.
Work continued on Pyro, with Narrative helping the Content team develop lore for the system’s initial contracts and how players can interact with the various outlaw groups. Additionally, they planned upcoming work to further develop the game’s xeno-languages.
April also brought with it a batch of new Galactapedia articles alongside a Portfolio exploring the illicit drug WiDoW.
Online services (Montreal)
In addition to bug fixes, performance improvements, and updates to the login-flow code, the Online Services team completed work on changes to long-term persistence (LTP).
“We rely on LTP for players to be able to transfer progression between releases. LTP had to be completely rewritten for Persistent Entity Streaming, as the old implementation had fundamental issues and would not fit with the concept of full persistence. The new system monitors the global player inventory and simply creates/destroys LTP records for aggregates stowed into or unstowed from inventories.” Online Services Team
Research & Development
In April, the R&D team continued to focus on improving the temporal render mode for atmospheric and volumetric clouds.
“The major obstacles to overcome are still occasional noise and temporal artifacts in the raymarched results for various view scenarios, as well as the upsampling of results under the presence of thin silhouettes within a given frame.” R&D Team
Additionally, improvements to cloud shaping were implemented and are currently in the prototyping stage with Tech Art. The goal is to improve the global vs local read of clouds as well as their volumetric look along the vertical profile, all while avoiding shaping artifacts.
These changes should also help break up tiling and overcome certain shaping issues due to limited degrees of freedom when building a 3D volume from noise, a set of 2D textures, and the parameterization used to access them.
Systemic Services & Tools
In April, the Systemic Services & Tools team progressed with the service-beacon refactor and completed several bug fixes for Alpha 3.18.2. They also completed various shop optimizations and began prototyping mission markers for bounty hunting. They're currently preparing to work on the virtual NPC service.
The team planned out the next set of milestones for the Quantum/Odin tool too.
Tech Art/Animation
In April, the Tech Animation team made significant progress on head-asset processing. This involved developing a semi-automated system that has not only reduced turnaround time but also improved asset quality.
The team also continued with DNA integrations, collaborating closely with other teams to integrate their data with the rest of the codebase. Support also continued for the various Feature teams.
UI
In April, the UI Art team improved several Squadron 42 features that may eventually make their way into the PU, including improved visuals for radial menus and various weapon screens.
The UI Tech team worked on several bug fixes and performance improvements and began work on the new interior map.
VFX
Last month, VFX provided support for several props and interactable items, including new types of volatile cargo.
They also progressed with tasks for several locations, such as Lorville and various rock caves. A clean-up pass was also done on some older locations, which involved tidying up the levels' layers and making sure placed particle effects were named correctly.
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Happy Tuesday, everyone!
In the world of 3.18.2, the team has been tirelessly gathering data and rapidly implementing hotfixes (often several times a day!) to tackle the interaction delay issue. We are pleased to report that we have identified the root cause and are already working on some fixes to improve the experience. Your efforts in playing and reporting have greatly accelerated our time-to-fix, and we are truly grateful for your recent activity. Though the journey has been bumpy, we have made significant progress. However, we recognize that there is still much work to be done, and we will remain vigilant in monitoring, adjusting, and implementing further fixes as needed. Thank you!
In case you missed it over the weekend, Alpha 3.19 is now available to the Wave 1 testing group on PTU! Salvage Contracts, new encounters at Ghost Hollow, and more are available to test as we lead up to Invictus Launch Week. For more information on PTU Testing and how to jump in, check out our PTU FAQ on the Knowledge Base.
Our next stops on the Bar Citizen World Tour are upon us! Join your fellow citizens for good beverages, good times, and good....goodies to be won! We'll be visiting Sacramento, California on May 14, as well as Belgium for the Be@Con event on May 20. For details on these as well as additional upcoming events, check out our 2023 Bar Citizen landing page.
Now, let's see what's going on this week:
This Tuesday, Subscribers will receive May's Subscriber Comm-Link and newsletter.
Wednesday, we've got the latest Roadmap update alongside its companion Roadmap Roundup. Plus, catch up on the latest development updates in April's Monthly Report, both for Star Citizen via Comm-Link and Squadron 42 via newsletter.
Thursday brings another episode of our weekly behind-the-scenes series Inside Star Citizen, where we explore more aspects of our continuing development than you can shake a stick at. (Warning: Don't shake a stick at Disco Lando, he frightens easily.)
On Friday, is another all-new, all-live episode of Star Citizen Live, which is LIVE at 8am Pacific / 3pm UTC. Did we mention it's LIVE? There's always someone in chat that asks. You'll also find our weekly RSI Newsletter directly delivered to your inbox.
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!
Greatest Delivery Mission Ever
Borozo put together a "side quest" of sorts at this year's Con42 event, with these incredible recreations of medical supply crates to boot!
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Welcome to an action-packed May! It’s nearly Invictus Launch Week, the annual military event that lets you try out some of the deadliest vehicles in the ‘verse. So, in keeping with the naval theme, this month’s Flair is a selection of Clark Defense Systems combat backpacks, each with a unique camo-inspired design.
If you’re looking for a break from all the naval action, May’s Ship of the Month has you covered. The Argo MOLE is a multi-crew miner that’s far more efficient than several ships working together, so gather a crew and make a fortune ripping rocks apart! As usual, the MOLE is available with enhanced insurance for all Subscribers until the end of the month.
(Flair will be available in the Alpha 3.19 Live patch.)
Clark Defense Systems Night Camo CSP-68L Backpack
The Night Camo edition features a special textured finish and mixes black camo and silver for a subtle-yet-striking look.
Current Centurion-level Subscribers get the Night Camo CSP-68L Backpack as part of their subscription. (Flair will be available in the Alpha 3.19 Live patch.)
Clark Defense Systems Cayman CSP-68L Backpack
The Cayman edition features a vibrant metallic green finish with geometric patterns for a color that changes slightly based on lighting conditions.
Current Imperator-level Subscribers get the Night Camo and Cayman as part of their subscription. (Flair will be available in the Alpha 3.19 Live patch.)
Clark Defense Systems Forest Camo CSP-68L Backpack
The Forest Camo edition features a special digital green camo pattern with silver highlights.
The Forest Camo is available to all Subscribers to pledge for from the Subscriber-Exclusive Store. (Flair will be available in the Alpha 3.19 Live patch.)
If you would like to receive this flair as part of a subscription, you can subscribe before May 9th, 2023, 20:00 UTC.
If you subscribe after May 9th, 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.
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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What is animation? What does it do for the player? How does the ability to toggle different views create challenges? This week on Star Citizen Live, Animation Director Steve Bender joins us to provide deeper insights into how it works.
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Attention, Subscribers: The April issue of Jump Point is now available! This time, we’re looking into Lorville’s upcoming rework, Anvil’s iconic military back catalog, the colossal RSI Bengal, and the origins of Pyrotechnic Amalgamated; the mining corp that discovered the now-outlaw-ridden Pyro system.
Interested in becoming a Subscriber? Learn more on the Pledge Store now.
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You've seen "Create A Better World" on billboards throughout Lorville, but what does that actually look like for Hurston's mega-industrial cityscape? Put your safety gear on, and tune in to find out!
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THE ARK, TAYAC SYSTEM
Welcome to this month’s Galactapedia update roundup. This month, we do a deep dive on the midas fish, visit the Kallis system, take a look at the Talon, Talon Shrike, Corsair, Valkyrie, and Lynx, visit the University of Rhetor, and meet Ellroy Cass. Join the Spectrum thread for any discussion or feedback.
Full-Length Article:
Midas fish – Elevate your fish tank with a hint of gold.
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Happy Monday, everyone!
Last week, Star Citizen Alpha 3.18.2 hit the Live servers, and brought with it a myriad of bug fixes and stability improvements. The XenoThreat have returned and are terrorizing Stanton, and we're seeing more of you than ever before joining forces with the Civilian Defense Force (CDF) to defend the system.
Despite anticipating some turbulence during its initial release, we've always recognized the importance of Persistent Entity Streaming (PES) as the most difficult and complex component of our efforts to enable Server Meshing. The engineering required for PES has been extensive, as it fundamentally alters how we record the state of the Universe and introduces an unprecedented level of persistence that is unmatched by other games.
We'd like to note that we're aware of the various issues that have popped up during XenoThreat, including the interaction delays, causing things like ASOP terminals, restocking, and general interactions not to work properly, as well as issues related to desync. The team is currently collating and analyzing the vast amount of data they have received, thanks to your participation and the tremendous amount of traffic only possible on the live servers. While these issues can be a hindrance in the short-term, they are a necessary and inevitable step in the ongoing process to develop and strengthen our backed for the big milestones ahead. Our team is committed to this, and is very optimistic about the road ahead.
Con42: Frankfurt, Germany
Last weekend, the community-organized convention Con42 took place in Frankfurt, Germany. This is the third iteration of this incredibly engaging event which brought together nearly 600 community-members, including many from the team! It was a privilege to attend and meet so many of you in person. We want to give a huge THANK YOU to the organizers who put in a massive amount of hard work to pull off an amazing event!
Now, let's see what's going on this week:
This Tuesday, the Narrative team is back with the monthly Galactapedia update, your vault of knowledge for everything Star Citizen.
Thursday sees the return of Inside Star Citizen, showcasing the latest Lorville magic coming out of our developers in Montreal.
On Friday, we welcome Star Citizen Live to our Twitch channel airing live at 15:00 UTC / 8 am Pacific. Info on guests coming soon!
Furthermore, you'll find our weekly RSI Newsletter directly delivered to your inbox, plus Subscribers can also look forward to Jump Point magazine's April issue.
One of the more exceptional aspects of the Star Citizen community is the limitless talent and creativity that emanate from its members, which often result in some pretty epic community-organized events. This Saturday, we've got not one, but TWO community racing events.
First up, the Crux Cup returns for its annual endurance race, which has been a staple for the community dating back to 2945! The race introduces a 94km track, titled Ahumahi Ring, in Orison, Crusader. The event welcomes any ship and skill level, with a variety of racing classes. Don't miss it!
Next, System 7, which is another spectacular organized by Atmo Esports, kicks off round three of its annual event. After the previous microTech Tundra Dash, the leaderboards have been close! Make sure to tune in to see who will take home the win at the Babbage Bash!
Both events take place this Saturday, so hop into your comfiest chair, crack one open, and get ready for race day!
Have a great week and we'll see you in the 'verse!
System 7 Racing League Race #3 Babbage Bash (System 7)
COMMUNITY MVP: April 24, 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!
Smart Phone Wallpapers
Can't get enough of Star Citizen and need to have it with you all the time? We feel you! iNEEDAPEA is at hand with over 35 images cropped to be mobile-phone-screen friendly.
Hop over to the Community Hub and find the perfect background for you.
Roberts Space Industries is the official go-to website for all news about Star Citizen and Squadron 42. It also hosts the online store for game items and…
Star Citizen Live returns! This week we're joined by the Mission Feature Team to answer your questions, followed by a tech discussion with Technical Director of UI Technology.
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A threat to the Stanton system has returned in Star Citizen Alpha 3.18. For those of you who have tangled with XenoThreat before, we commend you, but the battle is not over.
During this Dynamic Event, we need the help of all available local pilots, resupplying a UEE Navy flagship while defending against enemy attack.
This most recent iteration of the Assault on Stanton event offers an improved flow for veterans and newcomers alike, with increased server capacity and PES allowing for a truly scaled-up experience. Read on for the mission briefing, check back regularly for updates on the event's state, and be sure to gear up for battle.
NEW TO THE 'VERSE?
A HELPING HAND
New to Star Citizen? Don't worry, we've got you covered! Head over to the New Player Guide and get acquainted with the 'verse, learn how to become an ace pilot, and help defend the people of Stanton!
You can also explore our vast collection of FAQs, watch the best community-made tutorials, and even get in touch with a veteran player for one-on-one guidance. What are you waiting for? The 'verse awaits you!
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Rowena Dulli
Special Agent in Charge CDF Coordinator - Stanton System
Born and raised in Orison, Crusader, SAIC Rowena Dulli served with distinction in the UEE Navy as a logistics officer until she was recruited by the Marines, where she served another tour. Since joining the Advocacy, she has quickly risen through the ranks as a proven investigator and field agent.
She volunteered to take over as Advocacy attaché to the CDF in 2948 and believes that the CDF is a vital part of the Empire and is proud to assist in its efforts.
An outlaw group known as XenoThreat has launched a campaign of violence in the Stanton system and the Navy has requested civilian support to help combat the scourge. Preaching a viciously anti-UEE and xenophobic rhetoric, XenoThreat forces have been responsible for dozens of attacks against civilian and corporate structures.
Any and all volunteers who wish to combat this invasion should contact Rowena Dulli, Advocacy attaché to the CDF, through their Contract Manager in their mobiGlas for details.
Phase 1
Incoming Threat
Outlaw forces identified as XenoThreat recently attacked a corporate convoy headed for the Terra system. They destroyed all the cargo and publicly executed the crew as "collaborators of corporate greed."
The UEE Navy has dispatched an armed response to deal with this threat. Navy intelligence reports have also picked up additional XenoThreat hostiles on the periphery of the system, with an indeterminate force on an intercept course for Stanton.
The Civilian Defense Force (CDF) has been raised to provide support for Naval forces against this imminent threat. If you would like to volunteer, please monitor your mobiGlas Contract Manager for briefing when it becomes available.
Phase 2
TURN THE TIDE
The CDF requests all active members and prospective volunteers provide support in the ongoing operations against XenoThreat.
The Navy’s prime flagship, the Aegis Javelin destroyer UEES War Hammer, is being restocked at INS-Jericho. Unfortunately, XenoThreat has been intercepting and destroying supply convoys, so the Navy is requesting CDF assistance in retrieving the scattered cargo and delivering it to Jericho station. XenoThreat forces are still at large, so combat support is also needed.
The UEE Navy and local CDF are planning to engage XenoThreat forces as soon as the War Hammer is restocked and need any and all assistance to help quell this threat.
XenoThreat has deployed capital-class ships along with a complement of fighter escorts in an effort to destabilize the system. Anyone with a combat vessel and appropriate training is urged to take up the fight.
Consult the Contract Manager in your mobiGlas for details.
Mission Complete
THREAT AVERTED
Attention, the outlaw group known as XenoThreat has been successfully driven from Stanton. Their forces were seen retreating to the Pyro system after a decisive defeat at the hands of the UEEN and CDF.
We at the CDF would like to join the Navy in extending our heartfelt thanks for the enduring efforts of all our volunteers during this crisis.
Although residents are urged to exercise caution, the local governments of the Stanton system have eased some of the lockdown restrictions on travel.
Roberts Space Industries is the official go-to website for all news about Star Citizen and Squadron 42. It also hosts the online store for game items and…
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 April 19, 2023
Progress Tracker
With this update, we're adding the majority of the Q2 2023 schedule for downstream teams, with additional teams coming in a subsequent publish.
The following deliverables have been added to Progress Tracker:
Headhunters Faction Outfits
Developing multiple outfit variants for the Pyro gang, the Headhunters. This deliverable has been added to the SC Character Art Team's schedule.
Rough and Ready Faction Outfits
Developing multiple outfit variants for the Pyro gang, Rough and Ready. This deliverable has been added to the SC Character Art Team's schedule.
New Missions - Mining Resource Rush
Various large clusters of asteroids around Stanton are being sold off by several organizations. For a fee, civilians are given access to these spatial mining claims and allowed to mine until the cluster is depleted, drawing many mining crews, and occasionally pirates, to these hotspots. This deliverable has been added to the Mission Feature Team's schedule.
New Missions - Package Extraction
A new multiplayer mission where players will work together to recover stolen prototype ship components. Crusader Security tasks players with extracting these highly-classified components from the Nine Tails transport ships before they can escape off-world. This deliverable has been added to the Mission Feature and Narrative Teams' schedules.
New Missions - Data Download
These missions task players with infiltrating ships defended by hostile NPCs to hack terminals, with both lawful and unlawful mission types. This deliverable has been added to the Mission Feature, Narrative, and VFX Teams' schedules.
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.
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Happy Monday, everyone!
Thanks to everyone who jumped into the PTU over the weekend to give 3.18.2 a whirl; we look forward to rolling this out to the Live PU very soon.
For those of you who might have missed it, the Free Fly is in full swing through April 20. Star Citizen is completely free to download and play, so invite a friend to join your adventures in the 'verse – but don’t forget about the referral bonus. Recruiting a friend will grant you both a Kruger P-52 Merlin for free! Check out the Free Fly Referral Bonus comm-link for details.
Lastly, 'tis the season for Bar Citizens, as we see events popping up all around the world. If you're looking to hang out with other Star Citizen enthusiasts in the flesh, you can check out Barcitizen.sc for a shindig near you. Also, if you're hosting an event, don't forget to let us know, and maybe your event will make it as a stop on our Bar Citizen World Tour 2023 (like Sacramento, California, which we just added)!
Lastly, rumor has it that the return of XenoThreat is imminent... be on high alert. o7
Now, let's see what's going on this week:
Wednesday brings about the Roadmap Update and the complementary Roadmap Roundup.
There will be no Inside Star Citizen this Thursday, but we'll return with the behind-the-scenes deep dives you love next week!
On Friday,Elliot Maltby and the Mission Feature team will be back on Star Citizen Live to answer questions from the community. Catch the Q&A live on Twitch at 15:00 UTC / 8 am Pacific. You'll also see our weekly newsletter delivered to your inbox.
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!
Star Citizen Tips - How To Create Video Part.1
Whether you're new to creating videos or are just looking for new insights to up your content creation game, NotGemini has a couple of handy tips and tricks to help you on your way. If you've always been interested in creating in-game trailers, machinimas or just impactful screenshots, this is definitely for you!
Pull up a chair and watch the full video on the Community Hub.
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To celebrate the release of Star Citizen Alpha 3.18.1, we are offering discounted Starter Packs now through May 2 (20:00 UTC). Choose from three select ships perfectly suited to start your adventure.
Now through April 20, download and play Star Citizen for FREE with five iconic vehicles. Learn more here.
All referrals by May 2 (20:00 UTC) will receive a P-52 Merlin for free along with the usual referral rewards. For more information check out the 3.18 Referral Bonus page.
Welcome Hub
Head over to our Welcome Hub for everything you need to know about life in the ‘verse, including a tutorial video on how to best start your journey with your new starter ship.
New Player Guide
New to Star Citizen? Don't worry, we've got you covered! Head over to our New Player Guide and get acquainted with the 'verse, learn how to become an ace pilot, and help defend the people of Stanton!
Are you looking for personal guidance from an experienced Star Citizen player to help you master the basics or sharpen your skills? Head over to Spectrum and meet our fantastic Guides and explore the stars together.
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Greet 3.18.1 in style with our latest referral bonus.
Everyone that brings a new pilot into the ‘verse by May 2 at 20:00 UTC will get a P-52 Merlin for free along with the usual referral rewards. Just make sure your friend uses your referral code when they create their account.
Referral Bonus FAQ
Find everything you need to know about the 3.18 Free Fly referral bonus.
What is the referral bonus?
The referral bonus gives you free gear, items, or ships for introducing new players to Star Citizen. This time, you and the players you refer get a Kruger P-52 Merlin. The bonus is granted when a new player uses your referral code and pledges for a starter pack or ship (minimum $40) on the Pledge Store.
The usual referral bonuses apply too, including 5000 aUEC and a point in the regular Referral Program.
This bonus promotion runs until May 2, 2023, 20:00 UTC, so don’t miss out!
How do I refer a friend?
Your friends must add your personal referral code when creating their accounts. This is crucial, as the code CANNOT be added after the account is created.
Where do I find my personal referral code?
You can find it on the Referral Program Page. Your Referral Code is unique and can be shared anywhere you like, including on social media, via email, or on your website.
What’s in it for me?
Recruiting one friend during the promotion gets you the sleek and agile P-52 Merlin, a perfect runabout for cruising your favorite locale or making an entrance at that latest Stanton hotspot.
Can I earn more than one P-52 Merlin during this promotion?
No. Only one P-52 Merlin can be earned per player.
What is the regular Referral Program?
The regular Referral Program empowers you to become a driving force behind the growth of the Star Citizen community. Plus, you’ll unlock cool in-game rewards, from exclusive hangar items to ships. The Referral Program Page details everything currently available.
When do I receive my referral reward?
The existing player will receive their reward immediately once the new player they are referring pledges for a starter pack or ship (minimum $40) on the Pledge Store. The new player's reward will be granted after the promotion endson May 2, 2023. Rewards may be distributed in waves, so if you don't see it show up right away, it should populate soon.
Are there any limitations to the referral reward?
The P-52 Merlin given out as a referral reward includes LTI and is non-meltable and non-giftable.
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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 04:05:2023
REF: CIG UK, CIG DE, CIG LA, CIG TX,
FAO Squadron 42 Recruits.
Welcome to March’s Squadron 42 development report. Enclosed you will find details on the latest progress made across the campaign, including buddy AI, space mines, and augmented reality tech.
Thank you for your continued support of Squadron 42.
Sincerely,
CIG COMMUNICATIONS
AI (Content)
AI Content worked throughout March to refine AI behaviors and implement new features.
For the engineer, they enhanced various interactions and routines, which involved improving interactive entity positioning in the Idris Stanton and setting up a personal inventory for the ship’s engineer. The frequency and duration of the engineer's visits to key usables, like wall panels and work zones, were increased to create a more engaging experience.
Advancements were made on the utility behavior, including enabling AI to use trolleys in the Idris’ elevator. A locker entity was added too, where NPCs can change their outfits. AI now also use a datapad at the start of their shifts to enhance the realism of their routines.
AI Content implemented various leisure behaviors into the campaign’s capital ships and supported an initiative to change console UI screens based on AI animation. The team are currently working on clustering NPCs together for a more natural look at tables and seating areas. Security was also added to various game locations to add further depth.
Improved usables and interactions were added to the hygiene and medical behaviors. For example, the ‘sink’ usable now includes idle and usable actions for different use cases, whether a mirror is present or not. Additionally, AI can now enter and exit the sink usable and seated, angled console with or without a datapad, making medical interactions more realistic.
Finally, the janitor behavior, which was parked in 2021, was brought back.
AI (Features)
AI Features continued work on the buddy AI mentioned in previous reports. Last month’s tasks included supporting the buddy leading the player along a path and stopping and waiting for the player to catch up if they get too far ahead. They also improved the ‘following’ behavior to allow the designers to introduce specific points of interest for the buddy to move toward. This will be used in cramped situations, such as lifts and narrow corridors. It also helps to direct the behavior when the buddy needs to highlight certain views or points of interest.
AI Features also worked on two aspects of grenade use, the first of which is getting the AI to throw them. Now, AI in combat will perform a series of checks to determine if they should throw a grenade based upon the idea of flushing the target out from cover. The grenade path is determined and checked for collisions and the correct animations are played to ‘cook’ and then throw the grenade toward the target. Further work was also done to ensure this is something the AI can do by stepping out from high cover or standing up from low cover.
The second aspect enables the AI to behave appropriately when a grenade is thrown at them. This involves detecting when a grenade has landed, reacting to it (e.g. turning to face it and notifying other nearby AI), and then responding to it by moving to a safe position outside of the explosion radius.
Using the basis of the melee attack setup implemented for non-humanoid creatures, the behavior for humanoid melee combat was rapidly prototyped using the same structure. The benefit here is that any improvements will also improve the non-humanoid character combat. This includes identifying and fixing issues with motion warping, which is used to get the AI to lock on to the player while attacking so that it has the possibility of connecting.
Related to this, they worked on a specialized melee combat behavior for a specific encounter. This is more of a challenge and required bespoke animations specific to the situation. For example, player attacks will only be successful following an unsuccessful attack from the enemy.
AI Features also revisited a scenario featuring the Vanduul to integrate new tech to better play bespoke animations. Finally, the team completed the functionality groundwork for a key vehicle.
AI (Tech)
Throughout March, AI Tech made significant improvements to various navigation systems and AI tool features. This included implementing support for overriding agent-type properties for navigation mesh generation, which enables the designers to generate meshes inside narrow areas and create more complex levels. For example, NPCs will be able to follow or search for players inside vents.
Another related feature is navigation volume cost areas (NVCA), which will impact navigation-mesh generation and the dynamic path computed during movement requests. There are both static and dynamic NVCA types:
Static NVCAs are shapes/volumes preplaced by the level designers when they want certain areas to be preferred or avoided during pathfinding.
Dynamic NVCAs are shapes created at runtime based on player or NPC actions. For example, fire areas that can expand or shrink, or areas featuring obstacles placed by players.
AI Tech also continued to iterate and polish some otherwise completed features, including NPCs pushing trolleys and NPCs using transit systems and elevators (with or without trolleys). Support was also added for hover trolleys.
On the AI Tools side, the team iterated and added new functionality to the Apollo Subsumption tool. Some of the new functionality includes being able to reference engine component tags as part of the TagSelector variable. They also moved the graph map to its own tab, added icons to the outline tab for easier viewing, and added a prompt for unsaved changes.
For the Usable Coordinator, the team continued with quality-of-life improvements and updated UI functionality.
AI Tech also completed a pass on the recent idle-system improvements. Now, they can correctly mark up specific moments in idle animations where it’s safe to leave. This allows them to maintain the visual quality the animators expect without needing to wait for the idle animation to fully transition into the exit animation.
AI (Vehicle Features)
The Vehicle Feature team progressed with the combat AI rework. In previous months, they established a strong design for combat AI with new behavior trees for different types of combat. These were implemented in March.
“This is a very iterative process that involves a lot of playtesting. We’ve already done playtests of the most critical behaviors and, so far, it’s looking way better than before. Combat is closer, more engaging, and there is much more movement. We’ll be continuing this in the next month.” AI Vehicle Features Team
The team also supported gas clouds. AI ships are now able to detect that they’ve entered a gas cloud accidentally and prioritize getting out. However, certain alien ships have the ability to freely enter gas clouds, which will be built into their behaviors.
Animation
In March, Animation worked on AI grenade throwing, healing between AI characters, and the Titan mechanized platform. They also progressed with various background character life animations and activities, including NPCs moving crates and boxes and entering swivel chairs. Work was also done on NPCs attacking the player with knives and melee attacks and takedowns. The medical behavior and player’s prone movement were further developed too.
The ongoing fauna work continued; Animation delivered blockouts for an alien creature and will shortly move on to tasks for a dog. Mo-cap was also shot for various narrative scenes and gameplay elements.
On the facial side, the team continued to work through a large amount of new content added to the game by Narrative, with a focus on bringing more life to the game.
Engine
In March, the Physics team worked on the consistent handling of wheeled vehicles between different gravity fields. Additionally, further improvements were made to OBB box pruning, while lock stealing in the geometry intersection code was reworked. Data integrity regarding the mass assigned to physical geometry was tightened, and a method was implemented to find the parts of an entity that a rope is attached to between sessions. An optional update of grid space part bounds during reposition was added. This should save significant time during collision detection if thousands of crates attempt to collide with a ship consisting of several thousand parts.
On the renderer, more code was refactored for Gen12. Transient constant buffers are now used in more code. For example, in SSDO and motion blur. The processing of tessellated objects was improved so it will no longer execute unnecessarily. A lot of legacy render code was removed (deferred shading, shadow rendering, etc), and support for debug viz of antialiasing and shadow mask rendering was added.
Improvements to the temporal render mode for atmospheric and volumetric clouds continued. This included improvements to stabilize color neighborhoods for reprojection and transmittance profiles.
On the core engine, the remote shader compiler server received a final round of substantial performance improvements. The exception handler was extended to better deal with recently occurring silent crashes. Based on the memory tracking information made available by Alpha 3.18 PTU, a new custom system allocator (to replace jemalloc) was implemented, which significantly reduces observed overallocation and fragmentation. This is currently in test. Further improvements were made to huge pages support. Work on streaming system improvements and the new memory-tracking tool continued too.
The remainder of the time was spent supporting Alpha 3.18.In March, the Physics team worked on the consistent handling of wheeled vehicles between different gravity fields. Additionally, further improvements were made to OBB box pruning, while lock stealing in the geometry intersection code was reworked. Data integrity regarding the mass assigned to physical geometry was tightened, and a method was implemented to find the parts of an entity that a rope is attached to between sessions. An optional update of grid space part bounds during reposition was added. This should save significant time during collision detection if thousands of crates attempt to collide with a ship consisting of several thousand parts.
On the renderer, more code was refactored for Gen12. Transient constant buffers are now used in more code. For example, in SSDO and motion blur. The processing of tessellated objects was improved so it will no longer execute unnecessarily. A lot of legacy render code was removed (deferred shading, shadow rendering, etc), and support for debug viz of antialiasing and shadow mask rendering was added.
Improvements to the temporal render mode for atmospheric and volumetric clouds continued. This included improvements to stabilize color neighborhoods for reprojection and transmittance profiles.
On the core engine, the remote shader compiler server received a final round of substantial performance improvements. The exception handler was extended to better deal with recently occurring silent crashes. Based on the memory tracking information made available by Alpha 3.18 PTU, a new custom system allocator (to replace jemalloc) was implemented, which significantly reduces observed overallocation and fragmentation. This is currently in test. Further improvements were made to huge pages support. Work on streaming system improvements and the new memory-tracking tool continued too.
Features (Gameplay)
In March, Gameplay Features implemented multiple user profiles, separated out metadata and global progress (such as achievements), and added the in-game option to reload from the last checkpoint.
As part of the ongoing cargo crane work, they began implementing a system to remotely control a vehicle without having to sit in its seat and directly pilot it.
They also swapped out the old vehicle radar and replaced it with the new Starmap, which allows players to zoom and interact the same way as viewing it on the mobiGlas. Also for the mobiGlas, personal status, achievements, and homepage apps were implemented alongside some of the homepage widgets, including mission objectives and personal status. An ‘app link’ hyperlink was also created to give quick access to in-app elements without having to manually navigate to them.
Features (Vehicles)
Last month the Vehicle Features team completed space mines, which appear in several areas throughout the campaign.
“This is deeply integrated with bombs and the Missile Operator Mode in ships, so the feature has not been very complex to complete. We will be working with the level designers to integrate it with various scenarios in the game soon.” Vehicle Features Team
The new quantum travel feature, which was enabled game-wide in SQ42 last month, received feedback from the directors and testers. This was addressed alongside bug fixing to create the overall desired experience. Vehicle Features also worked closely with VFX to integrate new visual effects for quantum.
In February, the team began working with a new visor UI rendering method. Last month, they began implementing it, complete with augmented reality (AR) elements, such as gun reticles, and HUD elements, like the velocity tape. This new UI is contextual, simplified, and integrates with the new multi-function display (MFD) system. This is almost ready to be enabled in-game, which will lead to more feedback and testing from other devs.
MFDs also progressed well. Now that the underlying tech is complete, the team began connecting various game systems, including the Radar and Scanning feature.
“Radar and Scanning is a big one and we’re making some changes to how that system interacts with UI to get it all shown in the MFDs. Our goal similarly is to get the new MFD system enabled game-wide for testing sooner rather than later.”
The Wingman Commands feature progressed, which allows players to give orders to supporting pilots, such as ‘attack this target’, ‘form up’, or ‘defend this target’. This feature combines elements of AI, UI, and dialogue and is nearing completion.
The ongoing radar and scanning tasks progressed too. Last month, Vehicle Features worked with Level Design to determine what they need from radar and scanning to make the levels work.
Gameplay Story
Gameplay Story’s focus in March was using new mo-cap to build a complete maintenance loop for the deck crew. This enables the AI to push a mobile ladder into position, use it to climb on top of a Gladius, then come down and return the ladder.
“This was quite complicated and took a lot of time to get right, but the end result is looking very good in-game.” Gameplay Story
Alongside this, they made a number of smaller updates to idles and pose matching across several chapters.
Following the resolution of blockers, they finalized a selection of scenes in the med-bay. This means that characters can now rotate in their chairs and open medical cupboards to interact with the props inside.
The team also finalized scenes with a character seamlessly climbing into an Argo ship, grabbing the controls, and flying away.
Graphics & VFX Programming
In March, the Graphics team completed a version of mesh generation from spline inputs, which will be used for jump point tunnels.
Various shader improvements were made, including recoloring skin using physically based melanin controls and adding the initial support for customizable makeup and tattoos. Improvements were also made to water reflection, refraction, and fogging.
Work began to unify the static and skinned mesh formats, which should lead to large draw call reductions on complex meshes. They also started to integrate new logic into each individual streaming system for testing. In addition, the Graphics team made various changes to the render-to-texture system, including new culling options that will be required for the interior-map feature.
For Vulkan, updates were made to the backend to help visual parity with DX11. Various debug modes were also added to Gen12 to surpass the functionality of the legacy renderer.
Meanwhile, the VFX Programming team continued their work on quantum travel and fire. Quantum travel effects now rotate correctly based on movement direction, and various visual improvements were made based on feedback. For the fire system, the framework for GPU fire particle spawning was added to allow for much greater particle counts. Entities can now exchange heat with the room they reside within too.
In addition, the VFX team continued improving their editor, adding the ability to reference effects from each other. They also made improvements to lightning effects in gas clouds.
The Planet Tech team progressed with water, iterating on the simulation quality and building a system to manage and combine simulations for water surfaces. Work on the asteroid system continued too, with the aim of achieving a much more flexible setup for shaping and distribution.
Narrative
The Narrative team spent time in March on an in-depth level review of one of the bigger sections of the game. Along with a focus on revising the script as needed, they looked at the moment-to-moment flow, ensuring the player knows what they’re supposed to do and where they’re headed next.
“While much of this information could be communicated through onscreen prompts and objective markers, if it doesn’t align with what the character is experiencing, there could be narrative dissonance. So, our goal is to ensure that information is presented as dietetically as possible so that the player and character’s motivation align, allowing them to feel fully immersed.” Narrative Team
As mentioned in last month’s report, the Narrative team was in the UK to oversee a mo-cap shoot to capture a wide variety of materials, including dynamic conversations. While there, they also held high-level discussions on the current state of the game’s script and finalized plans for polishing the last few remaining sections in coordination with the Design team’s level-flow adjustments. This helped the team to begin to accurately schedule the year’s upcoming mo-cap shoots, ensuring they have the needed scripts ready in advance.
UI
In March, the UI Art team created concepts for a new vehicle UI style and puzzle screens found across various levels. They’re currently prototyping a new ‘modular fluff screen’ system, which will allow them to create environmental screens that AI characters can interact with. They also began work on the new visor and lens visuals and added visual polish to several screens following a Feature team pass.
UI Tech completed work on the underlying systems for AR markers. The new visor and lens are also ready to hand over to the Feature teams and artists. Finally, they made incremental improvements to several areas, including text edit boxes, scrollbars, holo-volume interactions, and hyperlinks.
VFX
Last month, the VFX team paid particular attention to large-scale space locations, working closely with the Art team to provide several effects, including dangerous-looking lightning and debris from asteroid fields.
They also continued to clean up placeholder effects across several locations, swapping them out for bespoke versions that better match the environment.
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Happy Tuesday, everyone!
First things first, we wanted to give you an in-depth update on the continuing work on Alpha 3.18 and its upcoming patches. Last week, the teams focused on load testing and validating the game changes that went into 3.18.1, primarily focused on the ASOP delivery feature, which reduces the size of player's default inventories and thus the size of the global databases substantially. This is aiming to alleviate some of the entitlement issues you all have been experiencing.
In addition, on the infrastructure side, an updated set of tools tailored for 3.18 load testing as virtual service clients were augmented and deployed to improve the resilience of the system overall. This is a huge step for service testing as it allows the publishing teams to perform large-scale traffic tests automatically by having those virtual clients perform the full login flow, go through entitlement processing, request ship deliveries, etc.
With these updated automation tools, publishing teams are now able to validate whether the system functions (or not) as it should under different conditions without needing QA groups or PTU deployments. This also opens the door for chaos/destructive testing (which some of you may have noticed over the weekend), where random services are killed or restarted while the workloads are running. This enables us to ensure alerting and recovery functions as it should. It also facilitates discovery, regression, and validation of issues that happen only under higher concurrency and that are typically very hard for us to reproduce, even on PTU.
Armed with the data of the last few weeks, the team has also spent considerable amount of time analyzing and optimizing the cloud footprint of the game to resize and adjust the layout of the clusters and regions where the game hosts services. This is all due to the needs of Alpha 3.18's infrastructure being a lot higher than previous game versions.
The long and short of it is, the team has made significant progress toward the launch of 3.18.1, and we hope to have this in your hands very shortly. We once again thank you all for your continued patience, support, and understanding as our teams continue their efforts.
Now, let's see what's going on this week:
This Tuesday, the Lore Team will make the Portfolio on WiDoW available, first appearing in an issue of Jump Point. Highly addictive to users and highly profitable to distributors, WiDoW went from an ultra-exclusive opioid to what the UEE has called “one of most significant public health issues of the 30th century.
On Wednesday, we'll repost last week's Squadron 42 Monthly Report as a Comm-Link.
Friday won't have a new episode of Star Citizen Live, but we'll be back soon! You'll also see our weekly newsletter in your inbox.
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!
50 Tips & Tricks for Star Citizen
LoudGuns has put together an extensive list of tips, tricks, hotkeys, and more, perfect for the new player getting out into the 'verse, and great for those looking for a refresher too.
Roberts Space Industries is the official go-to website for all news about Star Citizen and Squadron 42. It also hosts the online store for game items and…
