Star Citizen News – Roadmap Delays & Ship Features Summary
Welcome to some more Star Citizen with a Roadmap Update and a Summary of some ship / vehicle feature information from Star Citizen Live.
The 3.8.1 is currently in Open PTU and available for people to test, Devs have been flying the Cutlass Red around the Verse and the latest PTU has the ability to set medical bay beds (currently only in the 890 Jump in the patch) to temporary spawn points.
I believe backers testing that also have access to all of the ships currently, so it’s worth checking out.
Planning meetings are ongoing so we only got a minor Roadmap Update this week. They are going to be updating the Roadmap with more info and with the patch goals for beyond 4.0 within the next few weeks.
Squadron 42 has some more features completed:
- FPS: Cover Usage v1
- Walk and Talk
- FPS Combat Weapon Types
- Vents/Hatches
- Conversation System Improvements
- Gas Cloud VFX Improvements
Flight Ace Pilot AI is not marked as completed though, the player status system has seen more tasks added, Player Interaction System Improvements remain incomplete BUT are making progress. They seem to be reworking the Power Systems Feature as well.
Bare in mind those features were planned to be completed Q4 2019.
They are however making great progress with features planned for Q1 2020 and some even with the Q2 features as well. The Feature Complete Beta is still showing for Q3 2020 HOWEVER I suspect we will find out a bit more soon.
For the Persistent Universe – Rest Stop Space Stations – Unoccupied / Automated have been pushed off the Roadmap as there is a shift in focus on ground locations currently. The feature will be placed back on the Roadmap in the future.
The Carrack has had some tasks added as well BUT the Prowler has made some progress. The Dates of Feb & March for their releases should still stand.
Progress is being made on features of 3.9 and 4.0 BUT until they have confirmed any plans we don’t know what features will be in either of those 2 patches yet. The Feature cut off for 3.9 is Mid February, that’s were they internally confirm which features have made it into the patch and which have to be pushed back.
Star Citizen LIVE Updates
SCLive gave us information on a variety of Ship / Vehicle Features.
They have a dedicated team for Ship / Vehicle Experience trying to improve various aspects of that:
The Physical Damage System for both Ship & FPS Armor is being worked on, even Chris Roberts is contributing to it. Different Materials will act differently and be effected by or mitigate different types of damage. Damage to a particular area will have that area actually looking like it’s been damaged and will appropriately break off.
The Power of thrusters will play a much great role in the future especially for Atmospheric flight, thrusters will be weaker effectively in atmosphere and this will change things, they hope this is a good solution between hover and flight assist mode.
Ships and SDFs are being used together to help map forces on ships in atmosphere.
The Flight Model is still being dialled in & also need balance for each ship.
Atmospheric Flight and the Flight Model require more of the core elements and other systems to come online before they are really in a “good” state.
They made add the ability to override systems like thrusters pushing them past safeties BUT having them take damage.
They should be adding more Ships to the Customizer in the future BUT it’s about as much work as building out a whole ship to just get one added.
Shields are getting a refactor that will solve the current issues and shield holes.
Hatches and doors will be able to be used for boarding and docking, they are made to specific metrics for these purposes.
We will be able to modify our ships looks and add decals in the future.
They are adding Gimbal Assist to Turrets.
Power Plants / Batteries on Ground Vehicles in the future will be important, you may need to charge your vehicle every so often. Some Vehicles will be able to BOOST.
The Cutlass Red MediBeds will be functional at launch.
They are going to be improving the Landing UI.
Balance will come in the future BUT they are working on major updates with Physical Components & the Physical Damage System and those will really help!
MFD rework planned, including making them more intuitive and usable for all types of controls.