Star Citizen Monthly Report: April 2019

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April saw Star Citizen teams from around the world finishing off their tasks for Alpha 3.5 and moving in earnest to the next patch coming in a few months' time. Several teams have even started looking further into the future, making progress on the locations, ships, and characters for Alpha 3.7 and beyond.

AI

The AI Team made significant optimizations in April, including:

  • Optimizing the AI EventDispatcher to register entities to specific events, reducing CPU usage from 12 milliseconds to 600 microseconds
  • Optimizing navigation mesh loading time during server initialization
  • Deferring behavior-specific queries to the zone system to take advantage of multi-threading
  • Beginning a project to optimize usables by caching animation and navigation data
  • Refactoring human combat AI for a more modular approach to tactics and behavior

They also worked on improving compilation times for subsumption task nodes and extending the Tactical Point System.

Animation

The Animation team focused on:

  • Creating animations for a new mission giver named Eddie Parr, a bartender
  • Refining NPC bar patron animations
  • Advancing their "recycled body animation tech" to expand the universe while keeping the animation footprint down

Art (Environment)

Environmental art progress included:

  • Early whitebox exploration of Crusader's landing zone, Orison
  • Finishing whiteboxing for new space station exterior assets
  • Working on "hi-tech" common elements for New Babbage
  • Continuing updates to existing planets, including investigating canyons

Art (Ships)

Ship art developments:

  • Chris Smith completed whitebox and began greybox on an unnamed new ship
  • Josh Coons refined textures and materials on the Banu Defender
  • The 300i rework and Reliant variants were released
  • Progress continued on other Origin ships and the Esperia Prowler

Audio

The Audio team:

  • Polished ambient sounds in various areas of Area18
  • Began work on audio for new Alpha 3.6 features and weapons
  • Looked into UI audio additions for new gameplay features

Backend Services

Backend work included:

  • Optimizations to the persistence backend pipeline
  • Bug fixes and adjustments to backend-supported gameplay features
  • Finishing up the new iCache system
  • Prototyping the new Star Service to allow more scalable backend gameplay systems

Characters

Character art updates:

  • Concepting new outfits and locations for microTech
  • Continuing high-poly work on new armor
  • Updating existing clothing for the female player model
  • Progressing the hair pipeline and tools

Community

Community highlights:

  • Ran an Easter Screenshot Contest
  • Launched a commercial contest for the Anvil Arrow
  • Debuted new show formats with Inside Star Citizen and Star Citizen Live
  • Attended BritizenCon fan convention in Manchester
  • Preparing for Gamescom 2949 events

Design

Design work included:

  • Refactoring item distribution and adding a "travel tax" system
  • Adding AI-generated "spoofed" missions through the Service Beacon feature
  • Progressing the bartender AI archetype
  • Creating new missions for Tecia "Twitch" Pacheco
  • Improving the Service Beacon creation pipeline

Engineering

Engineering efforts focused on:

  • Rendering improvements like enhancing temporal dither patterns
  • Collecting system-wide context switch information for performance analysis
  • Crash digest computation improvements
  • Beginning work on refining physics geometry instancing
  • Optimizing server-side object container streaming

Graphics

The Graphics team worked on:

  • Developing "procedural planet tech v4" with more physically-based texture placement
  • Creating Live Environment Probes for real-time lighting changes

Level Design

Level design progress:

  • Continued work on Area18 and planning future points of interest
  • Building up the procedural room library for rest stops
  • Beginning pre-production on New Babbage and Orison

Lighting

Lighting developments:

  • Polishing ArcCorp rooftop locations
  • Converting underground facilities to a more modular workflow
  • Supporting environment art with lighting for hi-tech common elements

Narrative

Narrative efforts included:

  • Creating branding for new rest stop tiers
  • Fleshing out New Babbage and Orison
  • Writing Alpha 3.5 tutorials
  • Polishing future mission givers

Props

The Props team:

  • Completed additional street dressing props for low-tech cities
  • Finished remaining utilitarian hangar props
  • Continued work on usables and ship interior items

QA

QA testing focused on:

  • Supporting critical Alpha 3.5 issues like AI ship movement
  • Testing combat and social AI, especially in Area18
  • Verifying fixes for rendering issues on various locations

System Design

System Design worked on:

  • Reworking AI first reactions to feel more natural
  • Developing formation tech for precise ship positioning
  • Progressing unified vendor AI behavior
  • Redoing mineable resource setup for upcoming harvestable tech

Tech Animation

Tech Animation efforts:

  • Restructured usables animations
  • Updated the female character binder file
  • Improved asset management processes

Tech Art

Tech Art focused on:

  • Enhancing the "look-at" system for redirecting motion capture animations
  • Implementing smooth remapping of facial rig inputs

Turbulent

Turbulent worked on:

  • Adapting infrastructure for a new services framework
  • Developing new match and squad creation services
  • Supporting the Alpha 3.5 release
  • Updating public telemetry features
  • Completing a major CMS backend migration

UI

UI developments:

  • Creating a new ship purchase kiosk for Area18
  • Adding functionality to UI creation tools
  • Optimizing the new UI tech

VFX

The VFX team:

  • Began work on "planet effects v4"
  • Converted planet and landing zone effects to new lighting setups
  • Improved projectile and tracer visual quality
  • Redesigned the planetary particle scattering system

The teams made significant progress across all areas of Star Citizen's development in April, laying the groundwork for upcoming releases while polishing and optimizing existing content. Work continues on expanding the game's locations, ships, gameplay systems and overall fidelity.

A 30K Adventure in the Verse

Captain Jenna sighed as she stared at the dreaded "30000 - Disconnection" error on her mobiGlas. Another server crash had unceremoniously booted her from the 'verse.

"Well, at least I hadn't loaded up my Caterpillar yet," she muttered.

As she waited to reconnect, Jenna browsed the Spectrum forums on her datapad. A thread about the 30K.fun Star Citizen Referral Code Club caught her eye.

"Huh, a whole org dedicated to having fun despite bugs? Interesting..."

Once back in-game, Jenna decided to check out ArcCorp. As she approached the neon-drenched cityscape, she spotted another ship nearby - a sleek 300i.

Her comms crackled to life. "Hey there! I'm Dave from the RSI Referral Code Club. Wanna team up and explore Area18?"

"Sure, why not?" Jenna replied. "I could use some company after that 30K."

They landed at Riker Memorial Spaceport and took the transit to the city center. Dave regaled Jenna with tales of the org's misadventures.

"So there we were, EVA'ing outside Levski when suddenly - 30K! We all reconnected floating in space near Delamar. Ended up having an impromptu race back to the station!"

Jenna chuckled. "Sounds like you guys know how to roll with the punches. What code should I use if I want to join?"

Before Dave could answer, both their mobis lit up with a mission alert. Looks like Twitch needed some cargo moved ASAP.

"Tell you what," Dave said with a grin. "Let's tackle this mission together. If we survive any bugs along the way, I'll fill you in on the Star Citizen Referral Code Club."

"You're on!" Jenna laughed as they raced back to the spaceport. This was shaping up to be quite an adventure, 30Ks and all.

Another Star Citizen Fan Fiction from 30KFUN Accessible Gaming Community!