Star Citizen Alpha 3.4 Available!

Star Citizen Alpha 3.4 Available!

Alpha 3.4

Today, we open Alpha 3.4 to all backer!

Alpha 3.4 launches several massive technical upgrades to the game including:

  • The Lorville Central Business District, including the Hurston Dynamics Showroom and Transfers Commodity Exchange
  • Six new ships including the Freelancer variants and the Anvil Hawk
  • New armor, helmets, and a new personal weapon
  • Two ship weapons have been reworked and their offerings expanded
  • New visual updates to quantum markers and turrets
  • Expanded the mission system into Hurston and surrounding moons
  • And more!

And of course, you can read the comprehensive Alpha 3.4 Patch Notes here.

3.4 Flyable Ships

With this major milestone of Alpha 3.4, we’re introducing newly flyable ships, as well as updating some older favorites.

The list of new & updated ships includes:

  • Anvil Hawk
  • RSI Constellation Phoenix Emerald
  • MISC Freelancer Variants
  • Origin 600i Touring Module
  • MISC Reliant Kore Improvements

Please enjoy the trailers below and find even more information on our 3.4 Flyable Ships page here.

Bug Reporting

Remember, while there’s a lot to explore in Alpha 3.4, the game is still just a portion of the Star Citizen experience! You can help the team improve future releases by reporting bugs and other issues using the Star Citizen Issue Council. The amazing feedback from Star Citizen backers is what has allowed us to iterate on the PTU so quickly, and we’re eager for feedback about the Live release as well. You can access the Issue Council here.

Finally, we would be remiss if we did not thank our incredible community of PTU testers for helping make this patch the best it can be! Your dedication is exemplary of the UEE’s finest defenders!

Source: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/16915-Star-Citizen-Alpha-34-Available

Holiday Promotion 2018

Happy Holidays!

Wishing you the best!

Give the gift that keeps on giving – a Star Citizen starter package!
Plus, enter our two holiday contests for the opportunity to win festive prizes.

Check out all the details below.

HOLIDAY SCREENSHOT CONTEST

How are you celebrating the holidays in the ‘verse?

We want to see how you’re ringing in the holidays in Star Citizen, and what better way to show us than with a new screenshot contest?

To make things even merrier, a special holiday helmet and an extra-festive delivery mission are making their way to the ‘verse for a limited time.
Check your inventory and contract manager for access to these jolly treats and show us how you holiday.

Prizes:

  • 1st Place: MISC Freelancer MAX standalone ship – LTI
  • 2nd Place: Drake Cutlass Black standalone ship – LTI
  • 3rd Place: Aegis Avenger Titan standalone ship – LTI

Ready to get started? Find all the details about the rules and where to submit your entries on our announcement post on Spectrum here.

HOLIDAY GREETINGS CARD CONTEST

Hit us with your best shot

Keeping the festivities going, we want to see who can design the best Star Citizen-themed holiday greeting card. Fire up an image editing program or grab some paper and show us your old-timey art skills. Get creative! The important thing is that the card contains an element of the Star Citizen universe.

Prizes:

  • 1st Place: MISC Freelancer DUR game package – LTI
  • 2nd Place: Origin 315P game package – LTI
  • 3rd Place: Consolidated Outlands Mustang Beta game package – LTI

Ready to get started? Find all the details about the rules and where to submit your entries on our announcement post on Spectrum here.

TREAT YOURSELF

It’s that time of Year

Some say it’s better to give than to receive, but why not have it both ways?

We’re offering these game packages at a special seasonal rate. Grab one and blast into 2949 in style.

The Season for Giving

Gifts for your friends and family, all around the ‘verse.

Give your loved ones the gift of spaceflight with these ships, available to purchase and send as gifts to those special galactic explorers in your life.

You can even write a special message to accompany the gift.

Source: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/16904-Holiday-Promotion-2018

Phantom Bounty: Part Four

Writer’s Note: Phantom Bounty: Part Four was published originally in Jump Point 3.4. Read Part One here, Part Two here, and Part Three here.

Mila was a traitor. She’d risked her career as a bounty hunter . . . had betrayed her partner, Rhys, to free Casey. Was it all worth it? Had Casey been telling the truth about her father developing bioweapons?

Mila snuck a glance at Casey as she returned to the co-pilot’s seat. The dark-haired woman offered her a small smile, then harnessed herself into her seat. Mila’s childhood friend. A terrorist.

The emptiness of space loomed before them, nothing but darkness beyond Devana’s forward screen. Mila gripped the controls so tightly her hands ached.

“I’ve managed to mask our signal,” Casey said, “but it’s a temporary fix only. We have a half hour. No more.”

“How . . . ?”

Casey explained the method, and Mila shook her head, partially in awe of the hacking skills required, partially in dismay over the length of the resulting prison sentence if she were caught at it.

“Could have used that trick myself a time or two,” Mila muttered.

“Not if you want to stay on the right side of the law.” Casey cleared her throat. “After this is over. Of course. Just picked up the signal on the scanner. Gotta be my contact. The ship’s waiting a few clicks from the jump point.”

Mila’s hands grew tighter on the controls as she glanced at the scanner screen. Space normally held the dual promises of endless possibility and endless danger . . . but today it held only danger for her.

“Any sign of the Advocacy?” Mila asked tightly.

“Not yet. But . . . they’ll follow. They always do. Get me to my contact, and we’ll execute the plan.”

Mila tried to calm her breathing, but her heart was racing, and she couldn’t make it stop. It was supposed to be simple. Mila would pull up next to the contact ship; Casey would knock her out, then transfer to the other ship. When Rhys and the Advocacy found Mila, she’d tell them Casey took her ship and ran with it. Then everything could go back to normal. Or almost normal. Would Rhys believe the lie? Could she lie to him?

This was stupid. So stupid. She’d acted rashly. There was no way she could lie well enough to convince the Advocacy and Rhys that Casey had somehow escaped the containment pod, overpowered her, and then locked her inside. But Mila didn’t have another solution.

“Straight ahead.” Casey plotted new coordinates, and Mila followed the trajectory.

A long, sleek yacht came into view in front of them. A few thin lights gleamed along the length of the 890’s hull. The owner of this ship had plenty of money; Casey’s contact was the real deal.

“Freelancer,” came a voice over the comm. “State your business.”

Casey replied, “Tell S Whispering Wind approaches.”

“Around which sun does the finest planet orbit?”

“Ilios.”

Mila’s heart skipped a beat and she slammed a hand over the comm, silencing it. “Ilios,” she hissed. “Like the project?”

Casey’s brows rose for a split second, then her expression smoothed. “Exactly like that.”

“I thought you destroyed all that data.”

“S has cleared you for docking,” the comm interrupted, “but we’ll need to scan you at close range.”

Casey pushed Mila’s hand out of the way and hit the comms. “Roger that.”

“Tell me what’s going on,” Mila hissed. “What is this about Ilios?”

Casey sighed. “I can’t tell you about S. Or Ilios. If I did, I’d have to kill you.”

Mila tensed in her seat. There was no hint of humor in Casey’s voice. None. She was serious.

“I risked everything for you!”

“Look . . . all I can say is that People First has friends in high places. They support the cause. But not all friends are created equal. Many do things . . . for their own reasons. And can be persuaded to help if you offer the right terms.”

Mila pulled the ship up beside the much longer 890. “This contact is connected with People First? And what were her terms for you, to get you out of here and betray PF?”

The 890 commed them before Casey could answer. “We detect two life signs in the Freelancer. S says you were supposed to come alone.”

“I needed help getting here,” Casey replied tersely.

“S says both of you must board. Or we leave.”

Casey glanced at Mila with a veiled expression, “I’m sorry to drag you into this. But we both have to go over there.”

“No.” Panic rushed through Mila, and she tightened her grip on the stick. “No way. That wasn’t the deal. You go over. I stay here. Or I’m leaving.”

“Evony.”

“Don’t call me that,” she said through gritted teeth. “My name is Mila now.”

“Mila,” Casey’s voice was low, soothing. “How do you think it’ll look if we fly away now? They’ll shoot us out of existence and jump without a glance back. You have to go over there. I’ll make sure S sends you back here.”

“How will you make sure?”

“I just will. Now suit up. We’re wasting too much time. S definitely won’t be happy if the Advocacy shows up at her door. But I’m pretty sure you understand that.” Casey left her seat and headed back to suit up herself.

Mila stared at the yacht, trying to decide if she could outmaneuver it and escape. But then what? She had to get rid of Casey, not keep her on board. She let out a frustrated sigh, unbuckled, and headed back to her gear. She ignored Casey, not meeting her gaze.

Her injured shoulder, shot by Casey, cried out in pain as she pulled her suit up. She slapped a new numbing patch on it and continued dressing. As she closed the suit up, her hand touched her necklace.

Mila’s heart twisted as she pulled the bronze token over her head. She stared down at it, at the infinity symbol, the special iridescent “good luck” stones dangling from it, and a new wave of regret washed over her.

Rhys had spent some of their last creds on this. To make her happy. Mila took the necklace and tucked it in the space between the bunk and the wall. She didn’t deserve it. And it hadn’t brought her good luck anyway, had it?

When Mila got back to the cargo hold, Casey was suited up, her helmet under one arm.

“Ready?”

“Yeah,” Mila mumbled.

They both latched their helmets on, then Mila depressurized the cargo hold and opened the back ramp. She and Casey pushed off the ramp and drifted toward the 890’s rear lift. When they were inside the empty space, the cage lifted under them, and artificial gravity gently resumed. A light turned green above them, and Casey took off her helmet. Mila did the same.

They stared at the double doors before them, waiting in tense silence.

The doors finally slid open, revealing a broad-shouldered man in a dark grey flight suit. “S will see you now.”

The man stepped into the lift, one hand gripping a pistol, and gestured for Mila and Casey to enter the ship.

Mila squared her shoulders and met the man’s hard glare with one of her own. She wouldn’t be afraid of these thugs. She’d faced off against dozens of wanted criminals and come out on top. She could do it again.

Another pair of guards met them in the next corridor where it widened. One of them patted Casey and Mila down and removed their mobiGlas as the other kept his gun trained on them. When they were satisfied, they led them down the corridor and into a well decorated lounge.

Mila’s eyes darted around. The lounge was on two decks, and more guards looked down at them from behind the rail of the upper deck. By the taste displayed here, Casey’s contact was old money. It could have been owned by Mila’s parents or any of their friends on Terra. Silk panels from Rihlah, famous Terran brocade applied to the benches, a delicate glass and metallic table at the center, and a very impractical glass chandelier hanging from the middle of the ceiling. Iridescent stones decorated the chandelier, and Mila’s hand almost went to the spot where her good luck necklace used to be. They looked just like the stones on it.

Two more guards entered, bringing the total to five on the main deck. Mila’s lips parted as a woman, apparently the mysterious ‘S,’ walked in behind them.

It was the woman from the market stall where Rhys had purchased her necklace.

Mila did a double take. No . . . there were differences. This S was petite, with space-black hair and light blue eyes, just like the woman at the stall. But the woman before her wore a well-tailored suit and robe, not loose skirts. And her hair wasn’t done up in braids, and she didn’t have a nose ring. She looked more . . . well-preserved — her skin smooth, a product of youth treatments. This was not the same woman . . . but Mila would be willing to bet they had some relation to each other.

The woman walked up to them with a smile, and exchanged kisses on the cheek with Casey.

“Brought a friend?” she asked, raising a brow at Mila.

“Like I said. I needed a ride.”

“And who is this?”

Mila didn’t answer, just tried to keep her expression blank. She couldn’t let this woman know she knew anything about her.

“She’s just an old friend of mine,” Casey said, her voice light.

The woman’s eyes darkened, her polite demeanor fading a fraction. She gestured to one of the guards.

“Come with me, Elaine. Let us talk over here.”

Casey followed her to an ottoman near the center of the room, while the guard grabbed Mila’s arm and pulled her to the edge of the space and out of earshot of Casey and S’s quiet conversation. Did S know who Casey was originally? She’d called her Elaine, the name she’d used on Tevistal.

The two of them engaged in an intense, quiet talk for a few minutes and then Casey lifted the sleeve of her suit and peeled off a piece of her skin. False skin. Mila went cold at the sight of it. Casey hadn’t mentioned any hidden data . . . or details on the price for her passage. Casey scraped a chip from the skin and passed it to S.

Casey was selling data, probably Phan Pharmaceutical data. Had she lied about everything? Was she just stealing data to sell to competitors? Anger started to bloom in Mila’s chest, and she fought to keep her mouth shut. All that mattered now was that Mila get out of this alive and unscathed.

Casey finished her transaction and returned to Mila.

“What was that?” Mila hissed.

Casey’s expression was tight. “She’ll let you go back to your ship just as soon as she checks my payment.”

A new guard ran through the door. “Madame. The Advocacy was spotted by our scout. We need to jump. Now.”

“Wait — no.” Mila looked toward the door they’d come in. “Send me back. Send me back now.”

S shot them a glare and gestured to the guard behind Mila. “Take them each to a room until after the jumps.”

Jumps. This was starting to get a lot more complicated.

“Let me go back to my ship!” Mila’s voice rose.

Casey dug her nails into Mila’s hand and leaned close, whispering. “They won’t let you now. Keep it together if you want to survive this.”

Mila lurched to the side, trying to make a desperate run back out to her ship.

The guards closed in on her, grabbed both her arms, and dragged her the other way. She went limp, no longer fighting it as the realization of what had happened sunk in.

They took her up a flight of stairs and opened the first door they came to, pushing her inside.

“Harness up. We’ll be jumping soon,” one of the guards said.

The door slid closed and she heard the lock engage. Mila took a panicked look around the small room, and then sank down in the jump seat. Tears brimmed in her eyes as she buckled in. She’d messed up.

She’d always been able to get out of scraps before. Always. But not this time. She just kept sinking deeper into a pit that appeared to have no bottom.

The ship hummed softly as it powered up, and in mere minutes she felt the woozy sensation of the first jump. Another soon followed, and Mila’s hope died as they travelled further and further away from her ship.

When the Advocacy found the empty Devana . . . they’d know. They’d know she’d helped Casey escape. They’d think she was working with her.

And it would be true.

The stomach-lurching feeling of the third jump let Mila know her old life was over for good. Now she was a criminal . . . on the run. She could try to say Casey had kidnapped her, but why would she have? There was no good way out of this. And Rhys knew the truth; he’d known about their shared past. If the Advocacy pressed him . . .

Would Mila even get off this ship alive?

When the yacht powered down, Mila unharnessed herself and paced the small room.

Hours passed, and a guard brought Mila food and water. The reconstituted food tasted like death, like a last meal before the end, and a terrible one at that. She could barely wrap her mind around what she’d done — how much her life had changed in just a few hours. Then the locks disengaged on her door again, and she turned as it slid open.

Casey slipped through and quickly closed it. “The guards are busy . . . for the moment. This might be our only chance to talk.”

“You lied to me. You knew.”

“No. I didn’t. I’d hoped to get you back to the ship.”

“I can never go back now, Casey. Not ever.”

“Shh. I’m Elaine here.” Casey looked completely calm, unbothered by the fact that Mila’s entire life was hanging in the balance.

Mila rushed Casey and shoved her against the metal wall. “They’re not gonna let me walk out of here, are they? I’m an unknown entity. I was never supposed to be here.”

Casey winced with pain and her forehead creased with worry. “S — Sybil — will make sure she knows who you are before she lets you leave now. And when she finds out you’re a bounty hunter . . .”

“Well, I think I know something about her. There was this woman selling trinkets at the market—”

“A younger sister. You don’t say a word about knowing anything, understand? She’ll kill you if she thinks you know anything about her. She operates under the illusion that we don’t know anything.”

Mila backed away from Casey, feeling dizzy. “You lied to me. You’re selling data—”

“Not bioweapons! When we do jobs, we collect harmless, or even beneficial, research and sell it to fund our cause. But I’m funding my escape with it this time.”

“What is it? What did you just sell?” Mila’s voice rose as she spoke, and she tried to calm herself down, but her mind was racing.

“The formula for a medical treatment that hasn’t been patented yet.”

“How can I believe that?”

“Look, we don’t have time for this.” Casey placed her hands on Mila’s shoulders, forcing her to look her in the eyes. “You know about her family. She’s going to find out about you. There’s no way she’s letting you just go back to your regular life now. You have one choice.”

Mila shrugged off Casey’s hands. “What?”

“You come with me. I’m going to try to convince her to let us disappear together.”

“No!” Mila began to pace the room again. “I can’t just . . . leave the Empire.”

“If you stay — you just freed me and left your ship stranded next to a jump point. They’ll know you helped me. You have no other choice.”

“You think I don’t know what it looks like? You have to help me get off of here. Have them drop me off somewhere so I can . . . somehow make it right.”

“You know too much! About me — about PF — about Sybil.”

Red crowded around the edges of Mila’s vision, and it took everything she had not to wrap her hands around Casey’s neck and squeeze. “I helped you. You’d be dead if it wasn’t for me. You have to help me fix this. Help me get out of here.”

Casey folded her arms across her chest and glanced back toward the door. “I can’t.”

“You. Will.”

“They’ll catch you—”

“And it won’t matter to you either way. You’ll be long gone, hiding in Xi’an territory.”

Casey met Mila’s eyes and sighed. “Fine. Get yourself killed if that’s what you want.” She reached into her suit pocket and pulled out a translucent swipe card.

“Stole it off a guard.” Casey smiled ruefully. “This should get you into the corridor at the end of this one. They have a little 85X there. I know we’re stopping at a planet soon. Backwater, but plenty of places to hide. I’ll distract the guards for you. When I knock twice on your door, wait five minutes, then it’s time for you to go.”

Mila stared down at the card in her hand.

“Thank you again, for helping me. I owe you my life.” Casey wrapped her in a quick hug that Mila didn’t return. “I really am sorry. Try to be safe.” Casey gave her one last sad smile. “If you change your mind . . .”

“No,” Mila said, her voice breaking. “I’m going to fix this.”

The knocks came after Mila had given up on Casey ever following through.

Two knocks.

Mila grabbed her helmet off the floor and hugged it to her chest.

Heart pumping a chaotic rhythm in her chest, Mila waited through five tense minutes, then swiped the card Casey had given her. The door slid open to reveal an empty corridor beyond. She barely breathed as she gingerly stepped into the corridor and looked both ways. She turned right, as Casey had directed her to, and hurried toward the end. It curved right, taking her to a new door.

She said a quick prayer to the Banu god of luck that the room beyond would be empty, then scanned the card.

The door opened into a hangar bay. The 85X sat at the center of it.

An alarm sounded, and red lights began to flash in the bay.

Mila was sweating freely as she latched her helmet on.

“Hey!”

Someone tackled her from behind, shoving her down on the floor. She fought back, twisting in the man’s grasp until she saw him face to face. A guard, the one who had warned Sybil about the Advocacy’s arrival.

Mila slammed a gloved fist into his unprotected face, and he stumbled backward. She desperately climbed forward, trying to get into the 85X cockpit, but the guard followed her.

Depressurize Bay. The small words flashed in the corner of the cockpit’s interface. As the guard grabbed her leg, she hit the button on the screen. A whole new set of alarms joined the ongoing din. The man’s eyes widened, and he scrambled away from her, toward the hangar door. He scanned his key card, trying to make it open, but it was sealed shut. He would die if she didn’t do something.

Mila paused the depressurization and lurched out of the ship. She crashed into the man, seeking the pistol he held in his grip. She slammed an elbow into his gut again, and he released the gun. She picked it up and trained it on him.

“Last chance to get out!” she yelled. He stared at her wild eyed and scanned his card again.

This time the door opened. Several guards waited beyond, but he yelled something to them and they didn’t try to enter.

The door slid shut, and Mila climbed back into the ship, tossing the pistol into the seat beside her.

She brought up the Starmap, her hands shaking with adrenaline, praying that it would display more than a void. They were in orbit over a settled world! She chose a landing site to the west of the closest city. She could abandon the ship there, hide in the wooded hills, wait it out until she was sure Sybil and her guards had given up waiting for her to emerge. She chose her destination, and then completed the prep sequence.

The countdown began. She harnessed herself into the seat as the hangar bay opened, revealing black space behind.

She throttled up and took off, leaving the 890 behind.

Mila headed directly planetside, sparing little attention for the ship at her back. If they shot up the runabout, she would have no more worries herself. There was nothing she could do but speed to her landing site.

She pictured Rhys. His handsome face, his reassuring words, the way he’d held her. That smirk she’d probably never see again unless she got caught or found a way to fix this impossible situation.

As she entered the planet’s atmosphere, she spared the time for a few tears.

A few days ago she’d been hunting the Phantom.

Now she needed to become one.

Five Months Later

Mila wove her way through dark alleyways, keeping her head down, a hood concealing her face. A lock of her newly short-cropped blonde hair fell into her eyes, and she blinked as it irritated them. The green colored contacts she wore felt dry, scratchy. But at least from afar she wouldn’t be recognized.

She glanced back at a huddle of transients gathered round a rusty heater, and turned down the next alley. She’d reached the hostel sector.

It was dangerous being back in Tevistal so soon after the Incident, but she’d run out of options and time. A dozen small-time jobs had funded her existence along the way, but now there were even more bounties on her head.

She’d been hunted for months, had been nearly caught, but so far she’d always gotten away. And this was the one place they’d probably never expect her to return.

Mila gritted her teeth and walked down the dark alley between two hostels. A cracked globe flickered, guiding her to a hostel entrance. She pushed open the door, and the scent of piss wafted over her. It barely registered. This place was only half as filthy as most of the places she’d slept the past few months.

Voices rang through the thin metal walls. Arguments. The sound of two people moaning and grunting. An old vid playing at full blast.

Mila found an unoccupied room and went inside. Dim sensor lights lit up the room. The place had a film of filth coating it, but it would do.

She shut the door behind her and activated the second-hand mobiGlas on her wrist. Her hacking program did a quick job of activating the RoomTab. The lights and power came on in response, and she pulled her mobi away. It would stay on until she ran her program again. No creds needed. Which was good, because she didn’t have many left.

A glance around the now well-lit room brought a flood of memories back. The pain came with it, weighing Mila down. She sank to the dirty mattress.

She and Rhys had tracked the Phantom to a room like this once.

Mila did something she hadn’t done for weeks. She brought up the news search she’d saved to her mobiGlas, to see if anything had changed since she’d last checked.

PHAN PHARMACEUTICAL CEO UNDER INVESTIGATION

She rewatched the vid of Casey’s father being arrested with the sound turned off. Owen Phan’s face was the same regal countenance she remembered from growing up. When Mila had first heard that the truth about the biological weapons had leaked, it had been a relief to learn that Casey had at least been telling the truth about that. And even more importantly, Mila’s mother had been kept completely clear of the breaking scandal. Knowing that Phan wouldn’t be making weapons anymore was the only glimmer of light in these recent dark days.

Almost without thinking, Mila accessed another archived news story.

An image of herself flashed in the air before her. Or at least what Mila used to look like. It was the photo the Advocacy had been using on her bounty.

EVONY SALINAS CHARGED WITH AIDING AND ABETTINGTHE PHANTOM

The article speculated on the nature of the terrorism, on the relationship between Mila’s parents and Phan Pharmaceuticals, and on Mila’s motives. Even with the revelation of the biological weapons it hadn’t changed the fact that the Phantom had wreaked havoc for months. Casey, and by association Mila, were still considered criminals.

The article had included a small photo of Rhys as well. He had been held for questioning, but with no proof of any wrongdoing on his part he had eventually been released.

Mila reread the final line.

Evony Mila Salinas is still at large, with several bounties on her head for crimes ranging from petty theft to terrorism.

She scanned back up to see Rhys’s face one more time, but it was like a knife through her heart. She turned off the mobi.

She needed to get to Xi’an territory fast, and she only knew of one woman who could get her there. Sybil.

But she’d been unable to dig up anything useful on the woman. All she knew was that she was related to that peddler who had sold trinkets in the Tevistal market square on Pilgrim’s Day. So that’s who Mila needed to find. Sybil might have her guards shoot Mila on sight after what she’d done . . . but Sybil had helped Casey — for a price.

And Mila was desperate enough to pay just about any price Sybil asked. She’d learned a few weeks ago that Rhys was hunting her down, trying to bring her in, that her time was running out.

Maybe . . . maybe if he did find her again in Xi’an territory, free of Advocacy influence, she could explain. She could hope for his forgiveness, if nothing more.

But until then, she’d be a Phantom. Doing what she needed to stay free.

THE END

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Source: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/serialized-fiction/16908-Phantom-Bounty-Part-Four

December 2948 Subscriber Flair

December 2948 Subscriber Flair

Subscribers

The final piece of your exclusive Venture Explorer Suit from RSI falls into place with this stylish and functional torso section. Now you can stay safely insulated from the ravages of space and complete this soon-to-be-legendary look.

Imperator Subscribers

Imperator-level subscribers can complete their limited purple suit with the matching torso piece as well, and finally gain access to establishments that deny service to the shirtless.

If you’re an active subscriber, these items will be added to your account on December 17th.

If you aren’t a subscriber yet but want to sport this Chest Plate, make sure you subscribe no later than December 16th.

More information about subscriptions can be found here

Source: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/16903-December-2948-Subscriber-Flair

Galactic Guide: Kiel System

This Galactic Guide originally appeared in Jump Point 4.11.

The Kiel system was a major hub of military activity during the cold war, but since relations with the Xi’an have improved, the system has worked hard to redefine itself. The Senate’s recent official recognition of the system’s third planet, Severus, is considered proof to many that some of that hard work has started to pay off.

The system was discovered by a Merchant Marine fuel collection vessel operating in the Hadrian system. The ship’s captain, Adhama Schnauss, made it a point to take a different route on each collection trip to keep the crew on their toes. One day in 2514, Schnauss noticed a strange anomaly on their scans and redirected their course to investigate it. What they found was a large jump point connected to a new system with a white, F-type main sequence star surrounded by six planets and an asteroid belt. Schnauss named the system Kiel after a longtime friend who adamantly refused to leave his home planet of Mars. Schnauss hoped the gesture would motivate his friend to finally venture into the stars to see the system that bore his name.

Military pathfinders scanned the system to discover that none of the planets were naturally habitable and only the third one, Severus, was deemed suitable for terraforming. As the terraforming process was underway, jumps to two new systems (Baker and Horus) were discovered, igniting massive public and private interest in the system. Even though it hadn’t been officially inhabited, it was already well connected to the expanding eastern-edge of the empire. It had a mineral-rich asteroid belt, gas giants to be used for refueling and soon, a terraformed world to serve as the system’s nerve center.

Yet, all that changed when in 2542 when Marie Sante discovered a jump into Xi’an space from the Horus system. Being connected to the Perry Line, Kiel was now only one system away from Xi’an territory, so the UPE quickly re-designated the system. Much to the dismay of the companies that had begun prospecting as the terraforming process was completed, rather than opening the system for economic development, the government drafted plans to make Severus a massive military hub, a decision that would define the system for centuries.

Military Machine


Once Severus was habitable, the military moved into the system en masse. Ivar Messer had recently risen to power partially by cultivating fears over the Xi’an, so pouring government funds into Kiel was considered an impressive show of force against the new alien enemies.

Over the decades, the military’s strong presence in Kiel also proved beneficial for domestic pacification purposes. Its proximity to Terra was a noted concern amongst the growing anti-Messer activists, who saw it as a potential staging point for invasion. There were even rumors that Terran Senator, Assan Kieren, who mysteriously disappeared in 2638 after drafting a bill that would grant Terra sovereignty apart from the UEE, had been abducted and taken to a military installation on Kiel II.

Kiel’s military footprint was greatly reduced in the early 29th century after tensions with the Xi’an de-escalated and the Perry Line was dismantled. However, as the military moved out, attracting private sector companies to replace them in the system proved difficult. With large swaths of resources removed by the military, an aging infrastructure in need of repair, and without a significant population, it just didn’t make economic sense for many businesses to expand into Kiel.

That started to change under the guidance of Joona Tzur, who was elected Severus’ Governor in 2903. Tzur was one of only a few hundred people whose Kiel roots extended further than two generations, beginning with his great-grandmother who chose to remain in the system upon retiring from the Army. He knew Severus’ strengths better than anyone else and specifically recruited industries to the planet that could capitalize on the military’s infrastructure and abandoned bases. The strategy worked and numerous giants of the space industry set up factories in the system. In addition, Tzur knew that he needed more than businesses to grow his homeworld, and so he invested heavily in public leisure and green spaces, claiming that a happy population is one that grows.

One of Tzur’s most notable victories came when he convinced the Intergalactic Aerospace Expo to host the event on Severus. Tzur’s main selling point was the numerous decommissioned spacecraft hangars that could house the massive event. After a rapid series of upgrades were made to the facilities, the IAE was held on Severus for the first time in 2916 and has been one of the system’s main economic drivers ever since, creating additional hotels, restaurants, and attractions in its wake. Today, in addition to the Aerospace Expo, many other conferences use the facilities throughout the year, making tourism one of the largest growth sectors for the planet.

The economic turnaround and rebranding of Kiel has been considered a success by many, including the Senate who official recognized Severus in 2937. The system’s population has continued to swell ever since. With plenty of jobs and considerably less congestion than other systems (like Terra), Kiel was recently voted one of the “Top Ten Most Livable Systems” by the editors of New United.

Kiel I


This small mesoplanet is sun-scarred on one side thanks to it being tidally locked.

Kiel II


Kiel II is a rocky planet that features a thin atmosphere and a good deal of mystery. Scans of the planet reveal the presence of resources, yet the UEE has strictly prohibited any mining operations. This has led some to believe the planet may continue to house classified underground military installations.

Kiel III (Severus)


Severus is a rocky planet that was quickly terraformed after the system’s discovery. Named after a famous Navy admiral who distinguished himself during the Second Tevarin War, it served as a key military hub during the cold war with the Xi’an. Once relations thawed, the planet’s permanent residents worked hard to help it find a new identity.

Things started to turn around after RSI agreed to open a large factory to manufacture their improved line of thrusters. RSI brought a fresh flow of people and creds into the system, which encouraged other companies to follow suit. Soon word spread that the planet had plenty of work and an affordable cost of living. Blue collar workers arrived in droves, and the planet saw its populace consistently rise for decades. It wasn’t long before the Governors’ Council applied for and received representation status, with Tzur’s daughter Janna Thurville elected as Severus’ first senator.

The influx of people and business allowed the government to redesign parts of the planet for civic use. The planet’s capital, Eri City, received the most attention. A number of old, drab military structures were demolished and beautiful public parks built in their place. Though the planet still lacks a unique cultural identity, its fine dining scene is surprisingly strong. There have been great strides in making the planet’s soil arable again, and with housing expenses being relatively low, many people are more than willing to splurge on gourmet meals.

Kiel IV


A picturesque gas dwarf that’s a striking deep blue color. The planet’s rapid spin means it only takes 16 standard Earth hours to make one complete rotation.

Kiel V


This massive gas giant has a planetary radius of over 57,000 kilometers and an impressive set of planetary rings that extend well beyond that.

Kiel VI


It takes this protoplanet 44,512 standard Earth days (about 122 standard years) to make one trip around the system’s sun. A festival is currently being planned for the next time it reaches its perihelion.

TRAVEL WARNING

Miners have long coveted a chance to pull resources from Kiel II, and over the years, numerous unauthorized attempts have been made. Yet, even though the military no longer dominates the system, it still maintains a strong presence and is quick to go after those who disobey the mining prohibition on Kiel II.

HEARD IN THE WIND


“The true potential of the Kiel system is still untapped and unmolded. I don’t see its lack of an identity as a hindrance, but rather as the ultimate opportunity to create something new.”

– Governor Joona Tzur, inauguration ceremony, 2903

“The boring, nondescript building was originally constructed and used by the military when they controlled the planet. For centuries, it housed stodgy military bureaucrats, but now it’s home to Nocturne, one of the most exciting new restaurants in the UEE. Like much of the Kiel system, what looks dull and unimpressive at first blush becomes much more fascinating upon closer examination.”

– Gloria Budd, New United “Top Ten Most Livable Systems,” 2945

Source: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/spectrum-dispatch/16895-Galactic-Guide-Kiel-System

Star Citizen Monthly Report: November 2018

Welcome to November’s monthly Star Citizen report from Cloud Imperium Games. Last month saw the Intergalactic Aerospace Exposition land on Hurston just in time for our annual Anniversary Special. Devs had fun bringing the expo to life, while continuing to forge ahead, sights set on the upcoming release of Alpha 3.4. Read on for Persistent Universe development updates from all of our global studios.

Star Citizen Monthly Report: November 2018

AI


Ship AI’s major focus throughout November was optimizing the Tactical Point System. They now have multiple queries bundled together in a batch from different threads, which allow more control over the cost of the overall system. Several optimizations for the character movement system were submitted, which now update all the components in a multithreaded batch approach and utilize the maximum the CPU resources during the game update. A pass for thread safety of several subsystems was performed, including the attention target component and communication system. This is required to eventually move the Subsumption component update to the multithreaded batch update step.

In FPS Combat, the ‘Defend Area’ assignment was introduced; correctly achieving this behavior requires monitoring the mastergraph transitions to evaluate if the recipients of the Subsumption event can actually process it. In the Defend Area example, they might be executing any regular behavior when receiving the assignment. If the behavior can handle the request in a specific way, great. If not, then the mastergraph takes care of selecting one that can. Alongside this, they’re adding new behaviors to improve combat and patrol to respect this assignment.

Support for stealth gameplay was implemented, with new audio and visual stimuli being added to allow players to draw the attention of guards, prepare traps, and open up otherwise blocked paths.

Work also continued on the bartender for Lorville. To achieve several functionalities of his behavior they implemented the first pass of UseChannel routing and are continuing to expand the usable functionalities.

The Usable Builder Tool received a new feature too: it’s now able to correctly preview different characters using different usables so that designers, animators, and programmers can easily test and verify the content as it’s delivered.

Animation


November saw Animation supporting the Feature Team to bring vault, mantle, and jumping functionality in-line with the game’s quality and play expectations. They’re currently testing a process to allow the efficient integration of different weapon classes, such as pistols and shotguns. The team is also implementing carry options for Zero-G EVA and working towards finalizing player interaction (carriables in particular).

The US Animation Team cleaned and solved data from the amazing performance captures done at this year’s CitizenCon in Austin, Texas. Editing and final work will be completed soon. They continued work on the Ship Dealers that will populate the ‘verse and made sure the new mission givers are available as soon as their locations are ready, such as Wallace Klim in Levski, Tecia Pacheco in Area18, and Constantine Hurston in Lorville.

Exploring the issues that result from re-targeting the male animations to the female skeleton, the team determined that the first step is to achieve 1:1 parity between them. This will allow for the replacement of assets with female-specific versions without hindering female player development. Finishing touches are being added to carriable tech, too.

The Combat AI Team is exploring how to use the stocked weapon asset set as a basis to quickly create pistol versions to give the AI Designers more freedom in the type of weapon encounters they create.

The Ship Content Team is finishing off sequenced animation work. This will enable quicker and more efficient implementation of the design and animation sides of new ships. Weapons-wise, they’re working on the Ravager rifle and the Kahix.

Audio


The Audio department focused on the new flight model and the spaceship audio mix. They implemented tech to allow systemic mixing of NLPC ship bases on priority, size, and threat level, which gives a clearer and more focused mix. This, combined with the implementation of the new ship vibration component, has greatly improved the ship audio experience. During implementation, they made an optimization pass to ensure memory and voice limits remain healthy.

Improvements to the weapon experience continued with the consolidation of assets and the simplification of element implementation to ensure improved translation of audio assets from the digital audio workstation (DAW) into the game. There have also been changes to the Foley system to improve the audio feedback of the player’s traversal on different terrain and surface types.

On the music front, the team worked with the PU composer Pedro Camacho to develop and implement new musical cues to support the planet-side locations on Hurston, such as L19, and upcoming expansions.

With Object Container Streaming (OCS) coming online, the Audio Code Team optimized and polished FOIP to ensure reliability.

Backend Services


Backend Services worked to bring the 2948 Anniversary Event to players. The first order of business was creating the service needed to bring forward the correct overlapped object containers for the different days at the convention center. This ensured a seamless transition between manufacturer days and prevented the need to publish a new build per expo day.

Next, they worked to make sure the rental logic behind the expo correctly traded data between the server, client, and database to ensure players could enjoy the ships they rented.

Finally, a login queue was created to help organize and throttle the unprecedented number of players attempting to enter the ‘verse and check-out the expo.

Away from the Anniversary Event, work continued on the new architecture for the Persistence Cache to help increase the scalability of the backend as well as link important services to a new database architecture.

Character Art


Character Art’s focus throughout November was to make all armor and undersuits available for female avatars. They also worked on modeling two of our new mission givers to bring more life to the Persistent Universe.

Additionally, they’re creating a new set of outlaw armor (designation ‘Shipjacker’) that will include armor, an undersuit, and subscriber items.

Community


“The Community Team started the month in the Halloween spirit with two spooky contests in anticipation of the holiday. Players joined the festivities and showcased their talent in a pumpkin carving contest and a FOIP screenshot contest depicting the most terrifying and terrified expressions they had to offer. Spooktacular!

The Mustang Commercial Contest put the community’s filmmaking skills to the test. Our bold cinematographers embraced the maverick spirit of Consolidated Outland to create commercials that Silas Koerner himself would be proud of.

During Thanksgiving, Citizens shared what they were thankful for and participated in two holiday contests in honor of Turkey Day. With these two contests, we are now up to 25 total contests run in 2018, and the team still has more planned to go live before the end of the year.

As Alpha 3.3 made its way to the Persistent Universe, we welcomed the first fully-explorable planet and city with Hurston and Lorville respectively. While everyone was exploring the new environments, the bustling landing zone, and four new moons, the Star Citizen content creators outdid themselves, creating beautiful shots of sunsets on Hurston, days out on the beach next to Lorville, and joyrides to Aberdeen. We are proud and thankful for all the content the community shared on social media, Reddit, and the community hub, and are looking forward to seeing even more. Keep on sharing!

The 2948 Anniversary special kicked off our most epic Free-Fly event to date with all flyable ships and vehicles to try out at no extra cost. The Intergalactic Aerospace Expo came a long way and made its in-game debut with their Hurston-based satellite branch. Exclusive reveals at the expo included Anvil’s ‘light fighter of the future’, the Hawk, and the next evolution of Xi’an tech and design innovation with the Aopoa San’tok.yāi.

Lastly, we also reached a significant funding milestone and want to thank our amazing community who made this possible. The amount is the highest total for any project in the history of crowdfunding and is beyond anything we could have imagined. In a letter from the chairman, Chris Roberts shared his thoughts on the fantastic journey so far and the exciting future that lies ahead. Here’s to tomorrow!”

Design


Design got the Anniversary Event’s Convention Center up and running for all backers to enjoy.

To help encourage players to browse the inventories at New Deal and Teach’s Ship Shop, the team began implementing a new type of NPC: the Ship Dealer. The aim is to provide a realistic and interesting ship purchasing experience to further liven up the process of acquiring a dream ship.

“We sincerely hope you got a chance to try out and see the different ships at the Intergalactic Aerospace Expo on Hurston!”

Tuning for the Economy continues, with work going into adjusting prices for various services and goods across Stanton. Work has also started towards the design and implementation of a robust and important Economic Editing Tool to help better visualize and tweak the Economy than ever before.

They also tuned Arena Commander’s REC Reward.

DevOps


November is always one of the busiest months for DevOps due to the Anniversary Event, and this month was no exception, with the team scaling the servers to the highest capacity since the beginning of the project.

To ease the overall DevOps workload, the Publishing Team expanded their internal tools, which allowed most of the team to enjoy a well-deserved break for Thanksgiving (even if they did stay very close to their laptops).

Between PTU & Live, they successfully published 30 times throughout November, with some days seeing 3-4 builds.

Engineering


Engineering teams around the globe worked on OCS throughout November. The first iteration of client-side streaming was released in Alpha 3.3, with an ongoing focus on improving asynchronous entity loading and unloading.

The core OCS and network and backend teams had the Object Container Server Streaming summit this month to plan the next iteration of OCS, which will focus on server-side streaming and full persistent servers.

LA-based Engineering collaborated with the Austin Backend Team to build the tech required for in-game ship rentals. It was premiered during the anniversary promotion and forms the foundation for all in-game rentals.

Development on backend tech moved forward towards allowing persistent EZ Habs and enable players to customize and persist their start location. The Vehicle Team continued to work on Ping & Scanning gameplay, this month focusing on ship scanning. Work has also begun on the new DNA component to integrate the R&D technology into the character pipeline.

Turbulent worked closely with the LA Gamecode Team to further improve the group system, spectrum integration, and FOIP & VOIP.

Engine Tools


The Engine Team spent time supporting the Alpha 3.3 and 3.3.5 releases, bug fixing, profiling, and optimizing code (especially for Object Container Streaming). Work continued on GPU skinning, adding vertex velocity support (for motion blur, etc.), completed several optimizations to skip zero weights (which improved throughput), prepared background data, and made the first pass on memory layout and LOD support.

For physics optimizations, the execution of ray collision checks and the defragmentation of grids run were made to run concurrently. This achieved a 30-50% speedup for physics planet terrain computation, reduced the number of cell queries on planets, and improved proxy mesh generation of terrain ground volumes.

Terrain rendering improvements were made (glow forward pass) as well as fixes for water volume and ocean rendering. The existing hair shader was improved, and a new depth of field algorithm was created, improving quality, performance, and fixing halos around silhouettes.

They completed additional culling refinements in the zone system to submit fewer objects to the renderer, as well as various low-level optimizations to reduce the load on the render thread. Further enhancements were made to engine-side support for the public telemetry page to allow user-specific optimization hints to be displayed to improve the gameplay experience, and a new tool was developed to easily analyze core dumps of Linux dedicated game servers.

Environment Art


The UK team focused on bug fixing and optimization for the Alpha 3.3 release, mainly for Lorville and Hurston. A focused sprint was completed for the Anniversary Event convention halls, with the aim to provide a versatile and time-economic environment to show off the ships in their best light. Additional Underground Facility interior exteriors and a new Alpha 3.3 splash screen were also made and implemented.

The DE Location Team made great progress on Lorville’s Central Business District (CBD). Here, players can access the Hurston Dynamics Showcase, the flagship store for all weaponry produced by the brand, as well as the Transfers store where players can engage in various trading activities. The CBD has a very different feel to the rest of Lorville and clearly services a different type of clientele. Luxurious materials and modern design set the ambiance for this experience.

The Organics and Planet Team are making great progress on upcoming locations and are currently working on ArcCorp and exploring microTech. Both locations need additional features to be added to the planet tech to make them truly unique, so while it’s still early days, things are steadily moving on.

Facial Animation


The team is actively working on upcoming mission-givers, including Klim, along with ship dealers, bar patrons, and bartenders. They’re also testing the results of the player’s facial animation recordings on the default loadout.

Graphics


This month, the Graphics Team firmly focussed on the release of Alpha 3.3.5 and improving both stability and performance. The PTU was plagued by some quite frequent GPU crashes, but Evocati testing helped them track down the cause and remedy it.

With the release of Lorville, QA saw high video memory usage due to the scale of the environment and number of ships and characters. Due to some bugs, this resulted in serious performance issues as the video driver began to page memory, resulting in noticeable stutters. Fixes were made to the worst offending video memory bugs in Alpha 3.3.5. Looking forward, the team continues to reduce memory usage and optimize the game for the next release.

Issue Council


The Issue Council deployed version 1.1.5 in October. Several issues were fixed including editable fields of the different forms not displaying correctly, versions not ordered from the latest to the oldest, and display names with special characters not showing properly.

Level Design


The Live Team placed and marked-up locations on and around Hurston for mission use. Big improvements to the delivery missions were made – players can now take contracts from companies who operate specific routes and require the player to have a certain level of reputation. The Downed Relay mission (as seen in CitizenCon) now has multiple outcomes, including having other players tasked with destroying the stolen blade before its data is uploaded.

Finally, most of the combat missions found at Crusader are now available at Hurston. Work has begun to define the contractors and progression for them, too.

Lighting


This month, the Lighting Team worked on improving the headlights across almost all ships available in the PU. Due to plenty of issues regarding visibility while flying ships in dark environments, the headlights were improved to provide more visible light from greater distances. There’s still room for improvement, but in the meantime, it’s a positive change that makes the planetary flying experience more enjoyable.

Additionally, the team focused on bug fixing and optimizing the lighting in Lorville to maintain a high degree of quality while improving framerates and lowering drawcall costs.

They also worked on the lighting for the Intergalactic Aerospace Expo to help show off all the amazing ships being featured in the various halls.

Narrative


The Narrative Team pushed heavily on Alpha 3.3 and 3.3.5 tasks to knock out remaining mission text and standardize in-game descriptions for ship components on the terminals. They also continued working on editorial selects for the lower priority lines for NPCs that were captured back in September.

To cover the new convention center and other contexts, they ran a pickup recording session to add additional Lorville announcement lines.

The team also worked closely with Marketing to support the recent IAE expansion event in Lorville. Not only providing written copy but joining some of the roundtable discussions to provide fictional backstory for the various manufacturers.

Lastly, they worked to schedule tasks for the PU and undertook overall team planning for the upcoming year.

Player Relations


Player Relations busily plugged away at the Alpha 3.3 and the Anniversary Event, working alongside the Evocati on several builds to make sure key components were properly tested.

“As always, we’d like to point all players to our growing Knowledge Base, which now has over 100 articles and saw almost 450,000 visitors this month! We will continue to grow this by adding new ‘How To’ articles, patch notes, and live service notifications.”

Props


The Props Team focused on the stands, booths, and branding for the Intergalactic Aerospace Expo and the Anniversary Event. They recently shifted onto closing out the CBD props in Lorville and are currently creating bespoke furniture to help sell the wealth and decadence of the Hurston Central building.

QA


On the publishing side, QA busily tested the Alpha 3.3.0 and 3.3.5 builds for publishing to Evocati and Live. On the game side, the focus was on testing Hurston, its four moons, and city Lorville. They also completed a number of QATRs relating to FOIP & VOIP, ship purchasing in the PU, ship rental in Arena Commander, and improvements to Object Container Streaming.

It was business as usual on the leadership side, with coordinated testing priorities between the UK, LA, and DE.

Two new recruits were welcomed to QA; a dedicated tester in Frankfurt to support the AI Team and an additional tester in the UK. They will be primarily focused on providing day-to-day updates on the state of AI and will report all issues directly to the team to be investigated.

QA also made the decision to do away with the general design tests and instead focus on specific sanity/smoke tests for AI and another test suite specifically for the Transit System and locations. The previous design tests were too broad and covered areas that were not always prevalent to the in-house design teams. Refocusing towards specific in-house feature teams has proven that the testing and information provided is much more valuable.

A fair amount of time was spent on major QA test requests for new animation update optimizations, physics terrain patch optimization changes, and general optimization that will further improve performance in the PU.

Frankfurt’s QA branch supported the Planetary Tech Team in investigating an issue on one of Hurston’s moons. Something in its setup was causing the normals on the moon surface to be very intense. This was tracked down to a lighting issue and further steps were taken (with the assistance of the Graphics Team) to enable the surface to get back to, well, normal.

Services


At CitizenCon, the team was present on the show floor to prepare local environments to run the game backend for both the FOIP LAN demonstration area and the main stage demonstration. This local setup included the entire game backend allowing for the demonstration to represent exactly what is being played in the PTU and the Live environment, including the network of social services that power groups, chat, and FOIP.

With the release of Alpha 3.3 and 3.3.5, the team mostly focused on observing and scaling the voice and face transmission solution to the increase of backers in the game. DevOp teams mainly worked to ensure that voice channels created by players during one-to-one calls, group channels, and global server channels were properly sharded to new voice servers, as the number of connected players increased.

With the addition of global chat auto-connect in Alpha 3.3.5, the team also added new systems to monitor and move voice channels between servers when the supported load on a given voice server instance is too high.

“The team has been ecstatic about the use of the technology by players and we hope to keep growing its use with gameplay connected features.”

In order to help with the above tasks, the social game services were moved to a Kubernetes-based orchestration solution that allows easier management of voice and service containers. This new backplane supports continuous integration of service changes and will greatly improve the team velocity when deploying updates and builds.

Working in conjunction with the universe team, Game Services began the development of a web-based administration tool to help manage the runtime state of the game world from a macro level. This is still in the very early stages of development but, using this tool, the designers will ultimately have the ability to inspect social objects like groups and their life cycles, ban, chase, and player controls. Integrating the WebGL Starmap engine will also allow the viewing of commodities, player locations, gameplay analytics, and much more.

Ships


This month, the UK Vehicle Team returned to the Origin 890 Jump after wrapping up the Valkyrie.

What will undoubtedly be well-received news amongst the community is that, after long hiatus, work continues on the greatly-anticipated Anvil Carrack. Since the ship was last worked on around 18 months ago, there have been significant improvements to the ship pipeline and workflow. So, when re-reviewing the previous state, the team decided to undertake a second whitebox pass of the interior to bring it closer to its original concept.

In addition to next year’s larger vehicles, progress was made to the Alpha 3.4 ships, including the Origin 600i Touring. The Freelancer DUR, MAX, and MIS are all receiving the final touches by art.

Ship Art


Lead Vehicle Artist Chris Smith made great progress on the greybox model, interior, and exterior of the 300i rework and began implementing different paint jobs and modeled the modified components for the other three variants. Next, he will move onto an alternative interior to be used in one of them.

3D Modeler Josh Coons recently completed the whitebox model for the Banu Defender and has now moved onto testing some of the modified workflow using Zbrush models, which will be baked down to create the type of detail we are looking for in this ship. He is continually creating new textures and also starting to build up the greybox model with the alternative workflow.

System Design


The System Design Team worked on integrating updated flight mechanics into enemy ship AI, ensuring that with all the changes, they are still engaging to fight against and don’t become unbalanced. They noticed that the updated flight model currently causes too much unwanted ‘jousting behavior’, so are currently looking into ways to modify it.

Work was done on restructuring dialogue wildlines for the ship/FPS/social AI to unify them within the same overall structure. A large amount of work has been done with the audio & writing teams to ensure the system works properly for all systemic dialogue in the game. They are also working to develop tools to automate the setup of dialogue lines.

More work was completed on designing stealth gameplay elements, which in turn requires the AI perception to be upgraded to cater for peripheral vision, as well as various audio events and stimuli from environmental sources, such as throwing a pebble to distract enemies.

Telemetry


Shortly after CitizenCon, the Public Telemetry page was launched. The data presented here reflects the data CIG receives from clients while playing the game. This data is used to assess and improve performance across a variety of hardware. If logged in while on the telemetry page, players will see their stats, including their computer’s GPU and CPU score and average FPS. The heatmap displays other user’s average FPS and the most popular hardware for each GPU and CPU score. On launch, the telemetry page showed a massive improvement between Alpha 3.2 and 3.3 thanks to OCS.

Turbulent


Throughout November, Turbulent supported CitizenCon, the Alpha 3.3. Flyable Ships, the new Anvil Valkyrie, the release of the Drake Kraken, and preparations for the Anniversary Event.

  • CitizenCon: CitizenCon 2948 was an amazing event, with Turbulent supporting many components such as the livestream, merchandise, badges, microsite, and the release of new ships from Drake and Anvil!
  • The Drake Kraken: In October, Turbulent supported the unveiling of Drake’s first capital ship, the Kraken. The Kraken has two multi-purpose hangars, five manned turrets, four remote turrets, a massive cargo capacity, comfortable habs for a full crew, a Dragonfly Bay, and six landing pads. The website showed multiple features such as an interactive cross-section of the ship and a registry for those interested in obtaining one.
  • The Anvil Valkyrie: Turbulent supported the release of the Valkyrie, the new flyable drop ship from Anvil. The Valkyrie contains multiple side guns and turrets and can deploy up to twenty troops as well as a vehicle into combat. The website displayed features such as in-game footage of the Valkyrie and a CitizenCon-exclusive edition called the Valkyrie Liberator. This was also released on October 10th.
  • The 3.3 Flyable: With the release of Alpha 3.3, Turbulent supported the availability of the flyable ships on the website. The ships include the Aegis Hammerhead, Tumbril Cyclone, RSI Constellation Phoenix, and the CO Mustang. An exclusive CitizenCon Mustang was also available, called the Mustang Alpha Vindicator.
  • The 2948 Anniversary Special: The Anniversary Special was launched on Friday, November 23rd. Over the course of the week, a different manufacturer was released each day. On the first day, the Arrow was released, along with the rest of the Anvil ships. RSI day was on the 24th, Origin Jumpworks the 25th, Aegis Dynamics the 26th, Drake Interplanetary the 27th, and the alien ships on the 28th. The new San’tok’yai ship was unveiled by Aopoa too. MISC had its featured day on the 29th, and the new manufacturers on the 30th, including Tumbril, Crusader, CO, Argo, and Kruger. The last days of the Anniversary Special featured discount starter packs.
  • The Anniversary Quiz: With the help of Player Relations, Turbulent executed a quiz featuring three questions for each manufacturer. A passing score awarded a ‘Ship Master’ Spectrum badge and certificate. By passing the quiz, players were entered into a draw to win an Anvil Arrow.
  • The IAE Free-Fly Promotion: For the week of November 23rd until December 1st, five different flyable ships were featured each day of the week according to the featured manufacturer. The page contained information about the Desmond Memorial Convention Center in Lorville and linked to the Knowledge Base, which provided detailed instructions on how to get started. The IAE Free-Fly page also instructed new players on how to make an account and get into the ‘verse.
  • The Aopoa Santok’yāi: Turbulent supported the release of the Santok’yāi, a new Xi’an ship from Aopoa. The Santok’yāi features Yeng’tu Laser Repeaters and the latest Xi’an technology in a light-to-medium fighter chassis.

UI


The UI Team worked on adding the ability to rent items in Arena Commander, as well as supporting the needs of the Environment Team working on Lorville’s CBD.

Vehicle Features


Based on recent feedback from both internal and external sources, turret improvements have continued throughout November. In addition to bug fixes, there were multiple improvements to turrets including making multi-axis turrets controllable at min/max pitch, fixing the gyro pip offset, and improved aiming methods from a variety of input devices. The foundational mechanics to allow ships to aim at the engines on target ships has also been completed, and the feature itself is nearly ready to be rolled out to the PU, as is scanning nav points for destination info. The rest of the month was rounded out with a clean-up of debris network flow and a variety of vehicle-related crash bugs.

Vehicle Content


Art, Systems Design, and Tech Art worked together to release the Anvil Arrow as part of the November Anniversary Event as well as continuing to work on ships for upcoming releases: The Anvil Hawk is in the release-prep stage with both the Art and System Design Teams, the 300 Series is in greybox with Systems Design, and the Freelancers had entered release-prep with Tech Art.

Additionally, Systems Design and Tech Art worked with the animators on character animation sequencing for vehicles, and Tech Art worked on a thruster pass for the new flight model.

VFX


The VFX Team continued to polish and optimize the many environmental effects of Hurston and implemented general improvements to the various moons throughout the ‘verse. They also finalized VFX for the Anvil Arrow and Anvil Hawk. The VFX Team spent time optimizing existing assets to help with the overall performance of Alpha 3.3.5.

They also cleaned out all unused VFX texture assets in hopes of reducing the amount of memory required to load all the particle textures.

Now that the base work for Lorville is finished, the Level Design Team are focusing on the CBD. The whitebox is already done, with most of the remaining work involving connecting the trains and ensuring all the logistics work.

New Underground Facilities components were added to the procedural tech. These are built with modularity in mind and can be generated in the same way as Rest Stops. Once the modular library has enough content (rooms, connectors, POIs), it will become much easier to provide more variety.

They also continued working on the procedural tech to make sure that it provides everything needed from a design perspective. This can be difficult at times, as compromises are required; what is the most fun to play is not necessarily what looks the best.

Weapons


The Weapon Art Team worked on the Multi-Tool rework, Kastak Arms Ravager-212, and the level two and three upgrades for the Hurston Dynamics Laser Repeaters. They also made minor adjustments to the iron sights on a handful of weapons to improve the sight picture and to make them more user-friendly when no optics are attached.

Conclusion

WE’LL SEE YOU NEXT MONTH

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   Source: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/16893-Star-Citizen-Monthly-Report-November-2018