Star Citizen Currently In Development November 2020

Welcome to some more Star Citizen looking at a flurry of Development Updates for Star Citizen, Capital Ships, AI, New Locations, Ship Progress AND Work on the latest Gameplay Features. This is a summary of the Persistent Universe Monthly Report and represents what CI are currently working on thru November and have just completed for the game.

Firstly Cloud Imperium are working on an Alpha 3.11.1 update currently for the IAE, Mercury Star Runner and More, we should see that go to 1st Wave PTU soon and then LIVE by the 20th of November (as that’s when the IAE starts).

Ships

Cloud Imperium are hard at work on Alpha 3.12 the Q4 2020 patch, recently adding the AI Idris as a ship that will now come to defend Space Stations and hunt down Criminals, which is quite exciting with ships in mind we also saw

The Crusader Hercules saw work starting to move into the final art phases for the engineering section and bridge as well as the exterior sections & landing gear getting a polish. No confirmation if this is coming Q4 this year or Q1 next yet tho.

The iridescent shader created for the Esperia Talon is ready for implementation, as is Shrike’s internal missile system. The landing gear and damage setup were also finalized.

The Mercury Star Runner, had it’s LODs, UI panels, the cargo area, and cockpit all finished. It’s ready for it’s 3.11.1 release!

Work was also done on the Origin 100 Series’ landing gear and small updates were made to the Cutlass models.

They have been working on displaying ship names and serial numbers on the sides of ships. Wit the Vehicle Features Team saying:

“Most of the underlying tech has been completed; we’re now connecting things up and making the whole thing work. We also found a way to assign serial numbers to ships that weren’t given them at purchase.”

Merlin/Constellation work is almost finished, the UI to aid docking was completed, the ships can spawn as a functional pair. They are now working through the more minor tasks to call the feature “finished.”

They also continued with SDF shield impact effects for the new shields coming in the future.

And have been further developing IFCS (Intelligent Flight Control System) code further to unify parts of ship, EVA and missiles with a generally better movement in space.

Environment

Refinery Decks finished their final art phase and are now in the hands of Audio, Lighting and VFX Teams.

Gas Clouds are being added to POI and Lagrange Points where asteroid clusters and rest stops lay. They are making sure they look amazing while not overly impacting user performance.

They have moved onto final art for the ship-to-station docking with their nearby lobby and exterior areas.

Ground Bases and Homesteads have started pre-production work with the Archetypes being called “Colonial” Type.

Orison is making great progress. The Industrial and Commercial Platforms there have made great work with their greybox phases with some areas being brought up to the final art stage to act as a benchmark for the rest of the location.

The transit method around Orison is being referred to as a barge (it’s nearly art complete too), it will move between several of the platforms.

The Spaceport there is in it’s final art phase too.

As for that LZs home Crusader they have been making some tech improvements to the GGT (Gas Giant Tech) and general visuals that will benefit other planets too.

Time was also spent prototyping touch bending for foliage and object buoyancy for floating assets on planetary water bodies.

Work on the convention space for this year’s IAE was also completed. New more dynamic informational screens were placed in landing zones to tie into upcoming events.

The Lighting Team Said “A set of completely redesigned halls in the existing Hi-Tech art style means a whole new way of lighting the annual expo. We’re very excited for the community to explore and experience the IAE this year!” 

Gameplay & Character

The art prototype for the hacking feature had its first pass and is awaiting implementation and iteration.

The New Reputation system is receiving continuous polish as it gets closer to release; this way it can be rolled out in a limited capacity as current gameplay is converted to take advantage of the new functionality.

2 New Core mobiGlas Apps are being worked on the Asset Manager which carries on from the trading app and will be critical to the localized physical inventory planned for 2021. Also there is the Mission Manager which will tie into the new dynamic mission system currently being worked on.

They are also changing the way players resupply at stations. All missiles & Counter Measures will be replaced with a proper shopping flow, and a separate pricing for each item. This will result in higher prices for restocking, though insurance prices and timers will be adjusted accordingly.

Several scripts for new mission content were written and iterated on with Design.

They continued to work on the trolley push/pull feature for moving larger objects.

They completed the first pass on the medical gun, ‘LOD 0’ art for an upcoming Behring LMG, and a new Gemini sniper rifle. The latest Behring S10 turret was finalized too. The team are nearing the end of their pass on weapon reticles, which will add zeroing and rangefinding along with various art tweaks. Art for the Multi-Tool’s tractor beam attachment was completed, as was a new set of new holographic sights. 

The Character and AI Teams are working together on Creatures. This involved creating quick blockouts to check scale, assess model issues, test rigs, and iterate on ideas.

They have worked on two new armor sets targeted for 2021 and Subscriber Flair items planned for release in Alpha 3.11.1 and 3.12. They also addressed issues with the recently released vintage navy uniforms – these fixes will be live in the upcoming Alpha 3.11.1 patch.

Concepts for three full sets of armor were further developed that will support mining and bounty hunting gameplay. They’re currently concepting paired backpacks for these sets in support of the external inventory.

Mission Givers, Bounty Hunters & Outlaws have all seen animation work, while clearing out a backlog of animation tasks. Character head assets are being upgraded.

AI

For AI Combat they’ve completed the firstpass for surrender behaviors also NPCs will search for ammo reloads if low, they’ll try to avoid dangerous areas and they will try to survive.

NPC Character traits are being worked on, specific characters may have behaviors and quirks a coward NPC won’t put pressure on players… poorly trained NPCs might be uncoordinated. 

AI useables are more refined. They are able to pick items up, search for them, use them, sit down and eat food or do an array of functions like preparing, taking, placing and more.

Arcade Machines use and dancing is also being worked on… We might see functional arcades and discotheques.

Ship AI will be able to use QT while continuing their normal duties on a multi-crew ship.

Missiles and torpedo targeting continues to receive updates, turrets will respond to defend from incoming ordnance AND capital ships have better targeting priorities and weapon handling now as well as this massive ships being more ready for longer range combat.

More generally they’ve improved npcs reacting to weapons charging and aiming reactions.

Engine

Some low-level backend networking code was also cleaned up, which improved stability and will contribute to having more concurrent players online. 

The Gen12 renderer and Vulkan integration continues. There were lots of optimization and physics improvements made to the engine.