Weekly News – Star Citizen 3.2 LIVE Release Imminent

Welcome to the Star Citizen News, looking at the latest info on Development this weekending the 1st of July 2018. Going over a recap of all the official CIG shows, the latest roadmap info, sneak peeks, John Pritchetts departure & More

Roadmap 3.2
The 3.2 LIVE Release Imminent – We are currently on a PTU patch 3.2.0-o the PTU being the test universe used to help hammer out more pressing bugs before a LIVE build.
This latest PTU o patch added Overclocking into the mix in a very simple way, you can overclock an item from a MFD (multi-function-display) just by clicking the button it takes a large amount of power but improves performance, for laser weapons it makes them fire faster, which is awesome.
There was also a big rebalance for the economy too, which was sorely needed.
Every feature listed on the Roadmap is marked as complete, tho they are polishing & bug fixing with the PTU still.
We are very likely to see the 3.2 LIVE build within the next few hours as well, unless any major blockers appear.

Newsletters & Sneak Peeks
Newsletter – Alpha 3.2 Flight Prep
Sneak Peek – Hurston Dynamics Dominance Series
SQ42 Newsletter – Squadron 42 Update
Sneak Peek – F8 Lightning

Calling All Devs – Piracy vs. Griefing
Piracy and Griefing is very different, you will be able to report Griefing which is seen as literally someone preventing you from playing the game. Not repeatedly killing you at an asteroid field BUT preventing you from taking off by constantly ramming you OR something. There will be laws governing each system and station in the game that may differ and a lot of the PvP aspects of the game will differ between areas.
Sub Components are currently on the backlog to be completed as are FPS Weapon Attachments.
Ship Weapons may have longer ranges in the future, this will be useful for anti-fighter turrets on larger ships. Weapon System 2.0 is coming with 3.2 and all weapons have had they data updated.

Around The Verse – AtV Strengthening the Core Tech
Animations for movement and interaction have been moved to entity driven systems, making them more responsive.
NPCs have idle states when they have no specific instructions, they will do things in the area they are in.
There Procedural IK Tech allows you to pick up and iteract with a huge range of objects while looking like you are realistically holding them.
The Xi’An Rocket Launcher looks cool
They are using Procedural Soft Body Deformation to make cool rips and tears in ships in real time at a low resource cost.
The Vanduul Spear, knife and armor was all shown off too.

Reverse The Verse – Chris Roberts on Development
Mining is in it’s Tier Zero implementation & a lot more is coming to the mechanic, you’ll be able to mine asteroid fields & everything will improve and be iterated on AND there is going to be other ways to mine not just with the Prospector. Expect all the games professions to have quite a lot of depth.
3.3 is planned to have Refineries as is Voice Chat & Object Container Streaming, the main focus of 3.3 is that ObCS.
Again with The Group System they are going to be bringing a lot more to the functions that it has.
They are moving towards better UIs.
The Idris isn’t ready for the PU yet & they won’t be putting it in 3.3, they are working on various bits to get capital ships into the game
FPS AI is critical for SQ42 & they have a dedicated strike team getting it ready for 3.3.
We may see NPCs for hire or as crewman as early as next year.
They will be sharing the SQ42 Episode 1 Roadmap at some point BUT they are not comfortable sharing it at the moment, they want it spoiler free & need to work out how they want it displayed. SQ42 is not coming this year
They are streamlining AtV, the last episode was 11 mins long AND THAT WAS GLORIOUS.
They are going to break bits off of it most likely so you’d have ship shape and lore makers guide and featurettes all as separate videos, AtV would be Studio/PU/SQ42 updates and News.

John Pritchett Departs
John Pritchett wrote a 21 page article on his IFCS system for Star Citizen & has been hosting a Q&A on spectrum over the last few days. John announced his departure from the SC project today:

“This is as good a place to announce this as any I guess. I was still answering Q&A posts, but I’m out of time. Today is my last day at CIG!
I’ve known for awhile this time was coming, and this doc was presented as a detailed description of the culmination of my work on your game.
I hope parts of it will continue on and the new devs will build on it and improve it. But my part in this amazing game comes to an end today.
This community has been amazing! I regret that I was not able to spend more time interacting with you. So many really knowledgeable gamers and especially space combat pilots. Your feedback was always helpful.
I may show up on Reddit from time to time. I chat with a lot of you on Discord, and I will continue to do so.
Ok, that’s it. JP signing off! o7 Star Citizens!”

He did further clarify on FaceBook

“Bottom line is, CIG needed to bring IFCS in house, and I wasn’t able to relocate to either LA or UK to continue to manage that system. I’ve handed it over to David Colson in the UK who will now carry on with this work.”

Although it’s clearly a shame that John has left as his IFCS/Flight Model is pretty awesome (tho sometimes poorly implemented or buggy) he was working remotely for the project and CIG look like they have internalized IFCS/Flight Model with a dedicated team now. I have been assured that it is in good hands as it is important they get every aspect of IFCS and the Flight Model near perfect, it’s a space ship game after all.

3.2 Flyable Sale
All the 3.2 new ships are currently available on the store
The Hurricane 2-man Turret Centric Heavy Fighter, The Eclipse Stealth Bomber, The Luxurying 600i Explorer & The Blade Vanduul Light Fighter as well as the updated Avenger Series.
ALSO The Prospector has been Permanently Added to the Store @ $155.
There are some new large combined ship packages too
ENTREPRENEUR PACK
COMPANY PACK
TYCOON PACK
Ranging from $600 – $2500 each pack contains a selection of industry and economy ships.
Please remember that everything will be obtainable in game & ships should be purchasable with in game monies aUEC in 3.3 coming Sept.

Erin Roberts also appeared in a VentureBeat Interview