Star Citizen 3.8 & 3.9 Roadmap Changes
Welcome to some More Star Citizen with a huge Roadmap Update that really affects a lot of Alpha 3.8 and 3.9.
There has been a lot of change & reprioritization with the Roadmap this week and some features being expanded out.
CIG are focusing on making Alpha 3.8 as playable as possible as part of their staggered development process, squashing some long standing bugs and clean up the gameplay experience.
They are planning to release Alpha 3.8 earlier in December so that they can fix any issues, bugs and performance problems more appropriately.
Rescue Hijacked 890 Jump
3.8 sees a new mission that takes place on an 890 Jump that has been hijacked by ship-jackers intent on hacking into the ship’s computer. Intended for up to four players, players will secure the airspace around a hijacked 890 Jump, before they EVA through the open hangar. Players must battle their way through the luxury ship to locate and disable two hacking tools, all whilst clearing the ship of its hijackers to complete the mission.
Law System v2 – Fines
3.8 also will introduce the ability for you to be able to pay off your fines at a terminal in your own time from around the Verse, rather than automatic fines. Fines can also be removed via hacking the criminal database terminal, which has also been updated to allow player to remove individual infractions rather than entirely removing your whole record.
Vehicle Look Ahead Camera
They are now Updating and adjusting the look ahead camera for 3.8 so that it can look towards the direction you are moving for both space and ground vehicles. In addition the mode can also look towards selected targets to keep them in view and provide some horizon levelling when in atmosphere.
Vehicle Third Person Camera
There are further Improvements to the third-person camera system for vehicles in 3.8 to provide a more immersive experience. Ensuring the camera can orbit cleanly around vehicles, snap towards your movement direction and react to collisions better.
Mining Heads
3.8 also introduces 5 new mining lasers to the game, all with different stats ±. Some will transfer power faster but induce a lot more instability into the rock, while others will make mining more stable but slow down transfer. Some mining lasers will reduce the resistance levels of the rocks, making them ideal for cooperative gameplay, or will be incredibly powerful but more expensive. Work on these new components is nearing completion.
Planet Tech v4
Adds New planetary improvements for 3.8, improved tools, workflows, planet surface blending, objects scattering and transitions, generation driven by climate data & various New planetary effects included at microTech.
microTech Moons: Clio, Euterpe, Calliope
The additional time polishing the v4 Planet Tech, will result in Clio, Euterpe, and Calliope moving on the Roadmap to Alpha 3.9. Planet microTech & New Babbage’s Exterior remains in 3.8 though.
Death Animation Improvements has seen great progress and it’s still on track to be completed by the end of Q4, it will just miss the cut-off date for go/no-go reviews, resulting in this the feature moving to Alpha 3.9.
The developers focused on FPS Combat: Weapon Types were pulled to assist with AI Perception for Squadron 42. Additionally, the development work for this feature involved more feedback and adjustments than originally anticipated. This has seen it pushed back to 3.9 as well.
Prison Gameplay
In 3.9 introduces various missions set within in-game prisons around the universe. This should include punishment for certain crimes by having players wake up in prison.
The Klescher Automated Prison is the first prison we will have here, which is owned and operated by Klescher Rehabilitation Facilities, a private corrections provider. This fully automated corrections site includes housing, security, and work release opportunities to allow prisoners to be productive while paying their debt to society.
We will also see a wearable Prison Uniform for players to wear while incarcerated.
With NPC Healing they want focus on improving the Personal Inner Thought and Personal Interaction System before moving on to improving medpens, grenades, and throwing t1 functionality. This shift in focus will result in this feature moving back one quarter to Q2, 2020.
The Cockpit Experience, NPC Improvements: Shopkeeper & Bartender, Procedural Asteroids, Planetary Ground Fog Tech and Improved Terrain Shadows have all been pulled off the Roadmap and they are revising and reprioritized exactly where they would like them to land, so expect to see some of them again in the very near future, this is mostly due to them focusing on some changing priorities and although dissapointing in some case is part of the course for CIG and Star Citizen Development and is understandable for the listed features.
Player Status System v2 has also been moved off the roadmap in the same fashion BUT v1 of the system is still coming with Alpha 3.9 and that will bring hunger, thirst, temperature and potentially hygiene as important factors to the game.
More on the Squadron 42 Focus
Body Dragging has been re-added to the Roadmap for Q1, 2020.
FPS: Realistic Firing v2 has moved up for Q1 2020 completion
Cockpit Interaction has been moved back to Q2 2020
Locomotion v2 has seen a focus on core locomotion functionality take precedence and the feature is moving back to Q2 2020.
These features will also be absorbed into Star Citizen’s PU at some point after completion too.
We did also have a sneak peek of a new UI for Elevators in the Verse this week, I am very much looking forward to the UI, HuD and Cockpit Improvements coming!
