{"data":{"id":13883,"title":"Arena Commander Weekly Report - May 12-16","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/comm-link\/transmission\/13883-Arena-Commander-Weekly-Report-May-12-16","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-links\/13883","api_public_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/comm-links\/13883","channel":"Undefined","category":"Undefined","series":"None","images":[{"id":1585,"name":"SCDFM_1.jpg","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/media\/bcpe477l1fxamr\/source\/SCDFM_1.jpg","alt":"","size":380336,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","last_modified":"2014-04-25T19:33:10+00:00","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/1585","similar_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/1585\/similar"},{"id":1586,"name":"SCDFM_3.jpg","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/media\/mjj5zqfuvel7kr\/source\/SCDFM_3.jpg","alt":"","size":319736,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","last_modified":"2014-04-25T19:33:16+00:00","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/1586","similar_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/1586\/similar"},{"id":1650,"name":"Helmetall.jpg","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/media\/o6gfihxth446vr\/source\/Helmetall.jpg","alt":"","size":219388,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","last_modified":"2014-05-17T02:27:42+00:00","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/1650","similar_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/1650\/similar"},{"id":1651,"name":"Helm_material_studies.jpg","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/media\/f6x023cfy7m91r\/source\/Helm_material_studies.jpg","alt":"","size":1297414,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","last_modified":"2014-05-17T02:49:38+00:00","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/1651","similar_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/1651\/similar"},{"id":1652,"name":"Pilot_Head.jpg","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/media\/uoujpjyh1xl6fr\/source\/Pilot_Head.jpg","alt":"","size":602428,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","last_modified":"2014-05-17T02:18:20+00:00","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/1652","similar_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/1652\/similar"}],"images_count":6,"translations":{"en_EN":"Greetings Citizens,\nLet me begin with the information you most want to hear: we intend to launch Arena Commander in two weeks, on May 29th.The goal is that every backer will have access to the single player \u201cFree Flight\u201d and \u201cVanduul Swarm\u201d games modes on this day, and the very first batch of multiplayer testers will get access to the game\u2019s multiplayer game modes. We will scale up the multiplayer as quickly as possible starting on that date, increasing the number of players as it is stable and stopping to fix bugs where needed.\nThis date is based on our best possible projections using the latest information put together by Star Citizen\u2019s production team as of this afternoon. This is a big part of what the often-unseen production side of game development does: schedule out every task they believe is required for a game to ship. Sometimes (in fact, more often than not) things go wrong and these forecasts change: bugs we don\u2019t foresee appear, features we didn\u2019t realize we needed become necessary and so on. This is why we haven\u2019t had a solid release date yet; it\u2019s not to better schedule marketing or because we want to keep you out of the cockpit\u2026 it\u2019s because game development is a complex beast, and there are few games more complex than Star Citizen! At this point, we\u2019re close enough that we feel fairly confident in this date\u2026 but the next two weeks will be a march!\n\nBefore I leave you to the individual studio weekly reports, I\u2019d like to walk you through exactly what the next two weeks\u2014if all goes well\u2014mean for Arena Commander\u2019s development:\n\nMay 17th: our IT groups will be updating our global internal server infrastructure. A lot of the internal tools we use for game development (checking in builds, storing assets, etc.) are in dire need of downtime and update; we\u2019ve been running them in the red zone so we can have 24 hour round-the-world development on Arena Commander. During this downtime we will also be switching over to a much more flexible and advanced architecture for our content management system Perforce. We will be upgrading to using Perforce Streams which will allow much quicker and more flexible movement between code branches for our development team. This prepares us for the added complexity of launching and supporting a live multiplayer service like Arena Commander. Saturday\u2019s update will allow us to push the final Arena Commander update out to the world with much more confidence (corrupted data from these servers was a major issue at the PAX East reveal!)\n\nMay 18th: with the new servers in place, we will split off the \u201cArena Commander Release\u201d branch of Star Citizen. This will separate the Arena Commander you play from the rest of the game that is being developed by other teams. So data checked in by teams around the world that doesn\u2019t have anything to do with dogfighting (such as FPS weapons, planetside maps or future ship assets) won\u2019t cause additional bugs for the team to worry about.\n\nMay 19th: The QA team will begin their final troubleshooting session with the new Arena Commander Release branch. They will go through the entire game and catalog all the current bugs they can find \u2013 ships not spawning in the correct place, physics not functioning correctly, disconnects during battle and so on. This will help to generate our final \u201cMust Fix\u201d list for release. It is important to remember though that our internal QA team cannot find everything and it is very likely that we will not fix everything prior to release. We are releasing playable code to the community much, much earlier than you normally would in AAA game development. Because of this it will not be as polished as a final game would be so we are going to need a lot of support from all of you to help us in bug finding and gameplay feedback!\n\nMay 23rd: The official cross-studio playtesting of the Arena Commander Release begins. This represents a \u201cpencils down\u201d phase where, unless you are working on an authorized must fix issue the team is expected to QA the game as much as possible. After this point, only a limited number of \u201cdesignated driver\u201d team leads will be able to check in any changes to the game itself.\n\nMay 27th: By this point, we hope to have the egregious, game breaking issues resolved but there will still be plenty of known and unknown issues. This is also our deadline for making sure the launcher is hardened for the deluge of users and the first set of necessary servers for the release have been spun up. After this point all check in privileges will be revoked and will only be returned on an as needed basis by senior Production staff and myself.\n\nMay 28th: The release candidate build of the game will be compiled. If all goes as planned, this is the version of Arena Commander you will be playing! The team at Turbulent will begin switching over the website to the version that will make Arena Commander available to backers. I will personally \u2018sign off\u2019 Arena Commander as ready for the community on the evening of the 28th. To be clear, we fully expect that there will be bugs remaining, potentially some bad ones. That said, our primary focus is getting a version out to the community to help us find all the issues and work together to improve Arena Commander.\n\nMay 29th: This morning, the web team will spin up additional authentication and web servers in the in anticipation of high traffic during the release. The engineering team will begin \u201cwarming\u201d caches on cloud servers around the world, making sure the release candidate game is ready and waiting for users. By the end of the day, we will update the website making the game available, and the first public release of Arena Commander (which we\u2019re calling v0.8) will be live to the world for testing!\n\nAfter this we will continue to work hard finishing off game modes, making balancing calls and hotfixes as we spin up more and more servers, allowing for more and more concurrent multiplayer games.\n\nv0.9 will be an intermediate step with additional features, polish, fixes and the Squadron Battle game mode.\n\nv1.0 will be when everyone can access the multiplayer and all game modes are in (Capture the Core comes in with v1.0).\n\nAs you can see, there\u2019s a lot to do over the next two weeks and as you have seen there can be many unforeseen issues. I believe this is the best development team in the industry and we are certainly backed by the most invested, supportive community in gaming. We will keep you updated as this process continues; if there are any unexpected changes, the community will know what they are AND how they impact the schedule as soon as I do.\n\nThis is what is unique about Star Citizen \u2013 you are getting a very close and personal look at what development is like from the inside. Enjoy the ride!\n\n\u2014 Chris Roberts\n\nTravis Day, Dogfight Producer\nGreetings Citizens!\n\nGlad to be back with you all to share our studios progress on creating the BDSSE! I want to start this week\u2019s update a little bit differently by giving a shout out and much deserved credit to \u2018our team\u2019 which is far larger than just the folks in the studio here in Santa Monica. While we here (in Santa Monica) have been leading the development of Arena Commander, we could not have accomplished what we have without the support of our team. Our team is currently comprised of individuals working at seven different studios both internal and external working together as a single team towards creating the BDSSE. Truly, we in the Santa Monica studio are lucky to have such an amazingly talented group supporting Arena Commander\u2019s development worldwide to make sure we deliver something that all our backers can be proud of. We in Santa Monica wanted to take the beginning of this post to acknowledge that fact and thank everyone globally for their amazing work for this amazing community!\n\nOk, enough globetrotting and introspection. Back to the details of what we\u2019ve been up to here in Santa Monica! We\u2019ve told you in the past about our amazing damage modeling on the ships so that you can blow them into literally hundreds of little pieces. Well, after you blow a ship (or two or three) into hundreds of pieces you are left with a lot of debris! I\u2019m happy to announce we\u2019ve finalized a system that we\u2019re calling the \u201cdebris manager\u201d which has been written by our Gameplay Programmer Mark Abent. While on the surface it doesn\u2019t sound like the most exciting it actually enables a lot of the most exciting gameplay moments!\n\nAs ships fly around all of their parts, pieces, and items are controlled by the vehicle itself. As soon as damage occurs and things start popping off those entities are passed from the vehicle in the debris manager which handles everything that has detached from any ship in the game. It manages their physics, particle effects, entity IDs, LODs, distance culling, etc. Still not sounding exciting? Okay, well let us state this differently: when you are chasing and shooting at the Vanduul ahead of you and blow off his thruster which, still flaming, flies backwards at your cockpit and glances off your shield which flares up on contact, you can thank the debris manager. Later in the persistent universe when you blow off an enemy\u2019s wing which has a powerful weapon attached to it, then fly alongside and tractor in that weapon to sell at the nearest planet, you can thank the debris manager.\n\nNext we have some exciting updates to the HUD. As we\u2019ve mentioned previously, the HUD is probably one of the most collaboratively worked-on pieces. It started with the initial pre-vis concept work from Johnny Likens to generate multiple look and movement ideas. Then moved to Zane Bien to concept out the actual HUD that you see in game. Once that concept was created by Zane he moved on to creating all the artwork for virtually every single piece of the HUD and cockpit displays. At the same time the Foundry 42 team worked on the programming behind the radar and targeting system. BHVR worked on the holorenderer framework which is the underlying system for hosting all the 3D holographic objects in the HUD and projected by ship displays. REDACTED even got in on the action helping with the attachment of the HUD to the glass visor of the helmet.\n\nThis week has seen us all finishing off the core features of the HUD and we\u2019ve started to go back through for a second pass polishing the different displays, adding information\/feedback while cleaning up some clutter, and optimizing the performance of the HUD and UI. It has been a long journey but as we\u2019re seeing it come into its final form the hard work is really paying off and seeing the in-game HUD get closer and closer to Zane\u2019s initial, beautiful, concept mockups.\n\nOn the Physics side, we\u2019ve closed out the work remaining to implement a redout effect that was created by our graphics programmer so watch those negative G\u2019s! On the visuals front we\u2019ve made large progress this week on adding all kinds of cool particle effects for the various damage states and impacts inside the cockpit so you feel the incoming hits appreciate the punishment that your ship is enduring. Visual effects is another good example of where our global team has been amazingly helpful and supportive as effects are being done by artists at all the different studios and it has been a great collaborative process which has continued to push the visuals to the high level that we expect from Star Citizen.\n\nThis week we added a new member to the development team, Alex Mayberry, who has taken on the role of being the Executive Producer for Star Citizen. He and his experience is already proving valuable to the global team and improving our processes so we\u2019re all excited to have him aboard!\n\nThank you as always for reading our Santa Monica Studio update as we\u2019re always excited to share our efforts with you. Please remember, if you have any questions please feel free to post in our \u2018Ask a Dev\u2019 threads. Until next time!\n\nCheers,\n\nCloud Imperium Games Santa Monica\n\nEric Peterson, Studio Director\nHello Citizens,\n\nIt has been a very busy week here in Austin on both the persistent universe side as well as working on Arena Commander. I\u2019d like to write that my hands are a little tired from trying to duck and dodge missiles in testing\u2026 but the fact is we\u2019ve been spending most of our time dealing with back-end bugs that are limiting the amount of cross studio testing. We have confidence in today\u2019s build, though, and are really looking forward to getting back out there.\n\nOur engineers have been working very hard on getting the bugs fixed in the multiplayer server code base, as well as finishing up the new build system hardware so we can deploy patches to all citizens in a much more efficient and timely manner. On Arena commander we feel like a big can of bug spray as we continue to hash through the code cleaning up bugs everywhere we find them, bugs on the multiplayer, client, vehicles, animations, sounds, and particles \u2013 yes sir, we have been very busy making Arena Commander a much more stable and fun place to be.\n\nOur Designers are mostly working on the persistent universe \u2013 but every time we get into a big dogfighting, you need to be aware that they are in there, Rob Irving and his missiles are a formidable foe.\n\nAudio has been supporting the completion of Arena Commander this week by plugging in the first versions of the final pieces of music from Pedro Camacho. We are also installing sound-effects for the many maneuvering thrusters across all ships, and sound-effects for the 300i and Aurora. We\u2019re also making tweaks to the sound mix, as now we are able to hear what it\u2019s like to have several other ships around you in a dogfight. Finally, we\u2019re hard at work finishing off the player\u2019s breathing sounds.\n\nOn the art side, our partners at CGBot made some revisions to damage meshes on the 300i and Aurora; as we were testing the ships in-game we discovered that we had been overly enthusiastic about how many bits of debris we could have on a ship, and how small they should be. CGBot took the damage for those ships and consolidated a lot of the pieces, and removed a lot of the smaller bits that ended up looking like pixie dust in the game. Meanwhile our internal team has been busy working on the helmet which gets you into Arena Commander. We also have our team creating lots of ship components, as well as continuing to adjust the ships needed in the first drop of Arena Commander.\n\nIn our animation department we were thrilled as a new animator joined us this week. Also, we have facial animation now working in engine using a combination of joints and blend shapes. We have a new camera in head system that allows for better first person experience and we continue to implement ship animations and hook them up in game. We have new updated animations for getting into and out of the 300i, and have also started on animations for the cockpit that shows the character interacting with the controls and worked on Ejection animations.\n\nCIG Austin QA continues testing builds as they become available. We are working very closely with our new QA partners in Foundry 42. They have been a huge help with testing and providing feedback on how we can improve overall QA process. We are incredibly excited for this opportunity to extend our testing coverage farther across the globe in a nearly 24 hour cycle. Cross studio play tests continue. We are very impressed with the entire teams\u2019 willingness to participate with the preliminary testing effort. Receiving reports and feedback from each of the disciplines is useful beyond measure. Development is moving at lightning speed. The game is already really fun and we can\u2019t wait to share it with everyone!\n\nNon Dogfighting tasks this week include continuing to solve mocap data for the First Person Shooter. We have a new set of no weapon animations for running around the hanger ready to be hooked up by code. We are also working on animations for upcoming commercials of our ships.\n\nProduction has been busy tracking the bug fixing tasks, and making sure that Jira is up to the minute in accuracy for the upcoming launch of Arena Commander. Our production game performance team continues to track our improvements in Arena Commander every single day, and is also working on the global ship schedule which will allow Citizens to fly all types of ships in our universe.\n\nThat\u2019s it from Austin! We\u2019re looking forward to a playtest tonight; until then, I have a full schedule of meetings to discuss the upcoming rollout.\n\nSee you all in the verse.\n\nEric\n\nErin Roberts, Studio Director\nHello from Manchester!\n\nThis week, Star Citizen\u2019s UK contingent has been tasked with a number of polish-related tasks, to make sure the Arena Commander release you see in the near future really shines. As they say, you only have one chance to make a first impression\u2026 so we want to be sure that Arena Commander really gives players a glimpse of what\u2019s going to be possible in Star Citizen proper.\n\nIn terms of game modes, the single player Vanduul Swarm (which we hope to have everyone playing very soon) has really been coming along this week and I\u2019m happy to report we\u2019re all having fun! Most of the work has been focused on getting the AI to be fun to fight against so we\u2019ve been working on their behaviour to make their flight nice and smooth to give you that satisfying dogfighting feeling! Now that the AI are flying well we\u2019ve also been able to work on the structure of the mode. Questions like \u2018how many fighters in a wave?\u2019 \u2018how many waves?\u2019 and \u2018how tough do we make the fighters?\u2019 are getting answered and the mode is starting to take on some structure. We\u2019re also working on getting the unique HUD elements for the mode working as well as making the VFX as bold and satisfying as possible. We\u2019ll have all that locked down soon but for now it\u2019s just fun to slide in behind a Vanduul, open fire on their engines and watch the fuel tanks detonate with a satisfying boom.\n\nArt has been focusing on Capture the Core visual effects. We have been experimenting with the lightning entities; it\u2019s early in the process, but it shows signs of being a pretty cool visual effect that we can use in future AC drops! With the integration of CryEngine code 3.6, there has been some loss of quality on existing effects and we\u2019ve been working through them to bring it back to the expected quality. Work has also continued on creating Conquest game type assets ready for testing with in the DFM. The Animation department has been experimenting with in-game pilot reactions and getting the Vanduul pilot ready for his Scythe!\n\nOur programmers and designers have been helping with a million smaller tasks to help get V1 feature complete. These include polishing the HUD colour customization, updating the ITTS reticle, setting the rules for player ejection and respawn, editing the FoV and general bug fixing. We\u2019ve tackled missile reloading for the Vanduul swarm mode, hit feedback, controller integration and done work on SFX implementation.\n\nThat\u2019s all from Manchester; be sure to catch the monthly report in two weeks to find out about all the work we\u2019re doing on Squadron 42 and pledge ships like the Gladiator and Retaliator!","de_DE":"Gr\u00fc\u00dfe B\u00fcrger,\nLassen Sie mich mit den Informationen beginnen, die Sie am meisten h\u00f6ren wollen: Wir beabsichtigen, Arena Commander in zwei Wochen, am 29. Mai, zu starten, mit dem Ziel, dass jeder Geldgeber an diesem Tag Zugang zu den Einzelspieler-Spielmodi \"Free Flight\" und \"Vanduul Swarm\" hat und die allererste Gruppe von Multiplayer-Testern Zugang zu den Multiplayer-Spielmodi des Spiels erh\u00e4lt. Wir werden den Multiplayer so schnell wie m\u00f6glich ab diesem Datum vergr\u00f6\u00dfern, die Anzahl der Spieler erh\u00f6hen, da er stabil ist, und anhalten, um Fehler bei Bedarf zu beheben.\nDieser Termin basiert auf unseren bestm\u00f6glichen Prognosen unter Verwendung der neuesten Informationen, die das Produktionsteam von Star Citizen ab heute Nachmittag zusammengestellt hat. Dies ist ein gro\u00dfer Teil dessen, was die oft ungesehene Produktionsseite der Spieleentwicklung tut: Planen Sie jede Aufgabe, von der sie glauben, dass sie f\u00fcr den Versand eines Spiels erforderlich ist. Manchmal (in der Tat, meistens) gehen die Dinge schief und diese Prognosen \u00e4ndern sich: Fehler, die wir nicht voraussehen, erscheinen, Funktionen, von denen wir nicht wussten, dass wir sie brauchen, werden notwendig und so weiter. Deshalb hatten wir noch keinen festen Ver\u00f6ffentlichungstermin; es geht nicht darum, das Marketing besser zu planen oder Sie aus dem Cockpit herauszuhalten.... es liegt daran, dass die Spieleentwicklung ein komplexes Tier ist und es nur wenige Spiele gibt, die komplexer sind als Star Citizen! An dieser Stelle sind wir nah genug dran, dass wir uns in diesem Termin ziemlich zuversichtlich f\u00fchlen.... aber die n\u00e4chsten zwei Wochen werden ein Marsch sein!\n\nBevor ich Sie zu den einzelnen Studio-Wochenberichten \u00fcbergebe, m\u00f6chte ich Ihnen genau erkl\u00e4ren, was die n\u00e4chsten zwei Wochen sind - wenn alles gut f\u00fcr die Entwicklung von Arena Commander ist:\n\n17. Mai: Unsere IT-Gruppen werden unsere globale interne Server-Infrastruktur aktualisieren. Viele der internen Tools, die wir f\u00fcr die Spieleentwicklung verwenden (Einchecken von Builds, Speichern von Assets usw.), sind dringend auf Ausfallzeiten und Updates angewiesen; wir haben sie in der roten Zone ausgef\u00fchrt, so dass wir eine 24-Stunden-Rund um die Welt Entwicklung auf Arena Commander durchf\u00fchren k\u00f6nnen. W\u00e4hrend dieser Ausfallzeit werden wir auch auf eine wesentlich flexiblere und fortschrittlichere Architektur f\u00fcr unser Content Management System Perforce umstellen. Wir werden auf die Verwendung von Perforce Streams umsteigen, die unserem Entwicklungsteam einen viel schnelleren und flexibleren Wechsel zwischen den Code-Abteilungen erm\u00f6glichen. Dies bereitet uns auf die zus\u00e4tzliche Komplexit\u00e4t der Einf\u00fchrung und Unterst\u00fctzung eines Live-Multiplayer-Dienstes wie Arena Commander vor. Das Update vom Samstag wird es uns erm\u00f6glichen, das letzte Arena Commander Update mit viel mehr Vertrauen in die Welt zu bringen (besch\u00e4digte Daten von diesen Servern waren ein gro\u00dfes Problem bei der PAX East Enth\u00fcllung!) 18. Mai: Mit den neuen Servern an Ort und Stelle werden wir die Niederlassung \"Arena Commander Release\" von Star Citizen aufl\u00f6sen. Dies trennt den Arena Commander, den du spielst, vom Rest des Spiels, das von anderen Teams entwickelt wird. So k\u00f6nnen Daten, die von Teams auf der ganzen Welt eingecheckt werden, die nichts mit Luftkampf zu tun haben (wie z.B. FPS-Waffen, Planetenkarten oder zuk\u00fcnftige Schiffsbest\u00e4nde), keine zus\u00e4tzlichen Fehler verursachen, um die sich das Team k\u00fcmmern m\u00fcsste. 19. Mai: Das QA-Team wird seine letzte Fehlerbehebungssitzung mit dem neuen Zweig Arena Commander Release beginnen. Sie durchlaufen das gesamte Spiel und katalogisieren alle aktuellen Bugs, die sie finden k\u00f6nnen - Schiffe, die nicht am richtigen Ort laichen, Physik, die nicht richtig funktioniert, Verbindungsabbr\u00fcche w\u00e4hrend des Kampfes und so weiter. Dies wird dazu beitragen, unsere endg\u00fcltige \"Must Fix\"-Liste zur Ver\u00f6ffentlichung zu erstellen. Es ist wichtig, sich daran zu erinnern, dass unser internes QA-Team nicht alles finden kann und es ist sehr wahrscheinlich, dass wir nicht alles vor der Ver\u00f6ffentlichung beheben werden. Wir ver\u00f6ffentlichen spielbaren Code f\u00fcr die Community viel fr\u00fcher, als Sie es normalerweise bei der Entwicklung von AAA-Spielen tun w\u00fcrden. Aus diesem Grund wird es nicht so ausgefeilt sein, wie ein endg\u00fcltiges Spiel es w\u00e4re, also werden wir viel Unterst\u00fctzung von euch allen brauchen, um uns bei der Fehlersuche und dem Gameplay-Feedback zu helfen! 23. Mai: Der offizielle Cross-Studio Playtest der Arena Commander Release beginnt. Dies stellt eine \"Bleistifte nach unten\"-Phase dar, in der, sofern Sie nicht an einem autorisierten Problem arbeiten, das Problem gel\u00f6st werden muss, erwartet wird, dass das Team das Spiel so weit wie m\u00f6glich verbessert. Nach diesem Zeitpunkt kann nur noch eine begrenzte Anzahl von \"designated driver\"-Teamleads \u00c4nderungen am Spiel selbst vornehmen. 27. Mai: Zu diesem Zeitpunkt hoffen wir, dass die ungeheuren, spielbrechenden Probleme gel\u00f6st sind, aber es wird immer noch viele bekannte und unbekannte Probleme geben. Dies ist auch unsere Frist, um sicherzustellen, dass der Launcher f\u00fcr die Flut von Benutzern geh\u00e4rtet ist und die ersten notwendigen Server f\u00fcr die Ver\u00f6ffentlichung gesponnen wurden. Nach diesem Zeitpunkt werden alle Check-in-Rechte entzogen und nur noch bei Bedarf von den F\u00fchrungskr\u00e4ften der Produktion und mir selbst zur\u00fcckgegeben. 28. Mai: Der Release Candidate Build des Spiels wird zusammengestellt. Wenn alles wie geplant l\u00e4uft, ist dies die Version von Arena Commander, die du spielen wirst! Das Team von Turbulent wird mit der Umstellung der Website auf die Version beginnen, die Arena Commander den Geldgebern zur Verf\u00fcgung stellt. Ich werde den Arena Commander am Abend des 28. August pers\u00f6nlich als bereit f\u00fcr die Community absegnen. Um das klarzustellen, wir gehen davon aus, dass es noch Fehler geben wird, m\u00f6glicherweise einige schlechte. Allerdings liegt unser Hauptaugenmerk darauf, eine Version an die Community herauszugeben, die uns hilft, alle Probleme zu finden und zusammenzuarbeiten, um den Arena Commander zu verbessern. 29. Mai: Heute Morgen wird das Web-Team zus\u00e4tzliche Authentifizierungs- und Webserver in Erwartung eines hohen Datenverkehrs w\u00e4hrend des Releases entwickeln. Das Entwicklungsteam wird mit dem \"Erw\u00e4rmen\" von Caches auf Cloud-Servern auf der ganzen Welt beginnen, um sicherzustellen, dass das Spiel des Release-Kandidaten bereit ist und auf die Benutzer wartet. Bis zum Ende des Tages werden wir die Website aktualisieren, um das Spiel verf\u00fcgbar zu machen, und die erste \u00f6ffentliche Version von Arena Commander (die wir v0.8 nennen) wird live in der Welt zum Testen sein! Danach werden wir weiter hart daran arbeiten, die Spielmodi abzuschlie\u00dfen, indem wir balancierende Anrufe und Hotfixes machen, w\u00e4hrend wir immer mehr Server auslagern und so immer mehr gleichzeitige Mehrspielerspiele erm\u00f6glichen.\n\nv0.9 wird ein Zwischenschritt mit zus\u00e4tzlichen Features, Polieren, Fixes und dem Squadron Battle Spielmodus sein. v1.0 wird sein, wenn jeder auf den Multiplayer zugreifen kann und alle Spielmodi in Betrieb sind (Capture the Core kommt mit v1.0). Wie Sie sehen k\u00f6nnen, gibt es in den n\u00e4chsten zwei Wochen viel zu tun und wie Sie gesehen haben, kann es viele unvorhergesehene Probleme geben. Ich glaube, dies ist das beste Entwicklungsteam der Branche und wir werden sicherlich von der am meisten investierten, unterst\u00fctzenden Community im Bereich Gaming unterst\u00fctzt. Wir werden dich auf dem Laufenden halten, wenn dieser Prozess weitergeht; wenn es unerwartete \u00c4nderungen gibt, wird die Community wissen, was sie sind UND wie sie sich auf den Zeitplan auswirken, sobald ich es tue.\n\nDas ist das Einzigartige an Star Citizen - man bekommt einen sehr genauen und pers\u00f6nlichen Blick darauf, wie die Entwicklung von innen aussieht. Genie\u00dfen Sie die Fahrt!\n\n- Chris Roberts\n\nTravis Day, Dogfight Producer, Dogfight Producer\nGr\u00fc\u00dfe B\u00fcrger!\n\nIch freue mich, wieder mit euch allen zusammen zu sein, um die Fortschritte unseres Studios bei der Entwicklung des BDSSE! zu teilen. Ich m\u00f6chte das Update dieser Woche etwas anders beginnen, indem ich unserem \"Team\", das weitaus gr\u00f6\u00dfer ist als die Leute im Studio hier in Santa Monica, einen Schrei und eine wohlverdiente Anerkennung gebe. W\u00e4hrend wir hier (in Santa Monica) die Entwicklung des Arena Commander geleitet haben, h\u00e4tten wir ohne die Unterst\u00fctzung unseres Teams nicht erreichen k\u00f6nnen, was wir haben. Unser Team besteht derzeit aus Einzelpersonen, die in sieben verschiedenen Studios arbeiten, sowohl intern als auch extern, und arbeitet als ein einziges Team an der Entwicklung des BDSSE. Wahrhaftig, wir im Santa Monica Studio haben Gl\u00fcck, dass eine so erstaunlich talentierte Gruppe die Entwicklung von Arena Commander weltweit unterst\u00fctzt, um sicherzustellen, dass wir etwas liefern, auf das alle unsere Geldgeber stolz sein k\u00f6nnen. Wir in Santa Monica wollten den Anfang dieses Beitrags nehmen, um diese Tatsache anzuerkennen und uns bei allen weltweit f\u00fcr ihre gro\u00dfartige Arbeit f\u00fcr diese erstaunliche Gemeinschaft zu bedanken!\n\nOk, genug Globetrotterei und Selbstbeobachtung. Zur\u00fcck zu den Details dessen, was wir hier in Santa Monica gemacht haben! Wir haben dir in der Vergangenheit von unserer erstaunlichen Schadensmodellierung der Schiffe erz\u00e4hlt, so dass du sie in buchst\u00e4blich Hunderte von kleinen St\u00fccken blasen kannst. Nun, nachdem du ein Schiff (oder zwei oder drei) in Hunderte von St\u00fccken gesprengt hast, bleibt dir eine Menge Schutt \u00fcbrig! Ich freue mich, Ihnen mitteilen zu k\u00f6nnen, dass wir ein System fertig gestellt haben, das wir den \"Debris Manager\" nennen, der von unserem Gameplay-Programmierer Mark Abent geschrieben wurde. W\u00e4hrend es auf der Oberfl\u00e4che nicht nach dem aufregendsten klingt, erm\u00f6glicht es tats\u00e4chlich viele der aufregendsten Gameplay-Momente!\n\nW\u00e4hrend Schiffe um alle ihre Teile herumfliegen, werden Teile und Gegenst\u00e4nde vom Fahrzeug selbst gesteuert. Sobald ein Schaden eintritt und die Dinge anfangen, sich zu l\u00f6sen, werden diese Einheiten vom Fahrzeug im Tr\u00fcmmer-Manager weitergeleitet, der alles, was sich von einem Schiff im Spiel gel\u00f6st hat, verwaltet. Es verwaltet ihre Physik, Partikeleffekte, Entit\u00e4ts-IDs, LODs, Entfernungsauslesung, etc. Klingt das immer noch nicht aufregend? Okay, nun, lassen Sie uns das anders formulieren: Wenn Sie auf die Vanduul vor Ihnen jagen und schie\u00dfen und sein Triebwerk wegblasen, das noch flammend, r\u00fcckw\u00e4rts auf Ihr Cockpit fliegt und von Ihrem Schild, das bei Kontakt aufflammt, blickt, k\u00f6nnen Sie dem Tr\u00fcmmermanager danken. Sp\u00e4ter im hartn\u00e4ckigen Universum, wenn du den Fl\u00fcgel eines Feindes, an dem eine m\u00e4chtige Waffe befestigt ist, wegbl\u00e4st, dann entlangfliegst und mit dieser Waffe schleppst, um sie auf dem n\u00e4chsten Planeten zu verkaufen, kannst du dem Tr\u00fcmmermanager danken.\n\nAls n\u00e4chstes haben wir einige spannende Updates f\u00fcr das HUD. Wie wir bereits erw\u00e4hnt haben, ist das HUD wahrscheinlich eines der am h\u00e4ufigsten bearbeiteten St\u00fccke. Es begann mit der ersten Pre-Vis-Konzeptarbeit von Johnny Likens, um mehrere Look- und Bewegungsideen zu generieren. Dann ging es nach Zane Bien, um das eigentliche HUD zu konzipieren, das Sie im Spiel sehen. Sobald dieses Konzept von Zane erstellt wurde, begann er mit der Erstellung des gesamten Artworks f\u00fcr praktisch jedes einzelne St\u00fcck der HUD- und Cockpit-Displays. Gleichzeitig arbeitete das Foundry 42-Team an der Programmierung hinter dem Radar- und Zielsystem. BHVR arbeitete an dem Holorenderer-Framework, das das zugrundeliegende System f\u00fcr das Hosting aller 3D-holografischen Objekte im HUD ist und von Schiffsdisplays projiziert wird. REDACTED stieg sogar in die Aktion ein und half bei der Befestigung des HUD am Glasvisier des Helmes.\n\nDiese Woche haben wir alle die Kernfunktionen des HUD abgeschlossen und wir haben damit begonnen, die verschiedenen Displays in einem zweiten Durchgang zu polieren, Informationen\/Feedback hinzuzuf\u00fcgen, w\u00e4hrend wir einige Unordnung beseitigen und die Leistung des HUD und der Benutzeroberfl\u00e4che zu optimieren. Es war eine lange Reise, aber als wir sehen, wie es in seine endg\u00fcltige Form kommt, zahlt sich die harte Arbeit wirklich aus und sehen, wie das HUD im Spiel immer n\u00e4her an Zanes erste, sch\u00f6ne, konzeptionelle Mockups heranr\u00fcckt.\n\nAuf der Physik-Seite haben wir die Arbeit an der Implementierung eines Redout-Effekts, der von unserem Grafikprogrammierer erstellt wurde, abgeschlossen, also achten Sie auf die negativen G's! Auf der visuellen Seite haben wir diese Woche gro\u00dfe Fortschritte gemacht, um alle m\u00f6glichen coolen Partikeleffekte f\u00fcr die verschiedenen Schadenszust\u00e4nde und Aufpralle im Cockpit hinzuzuf\u00fcgen, so dass Sie das Gef\u00fchl haben, dass die eingehenden Treffer die Strafe zu sch\u00e4tzen wissen, dass Ihr Schiff dauerhaft ist. Visuelle Effekte sind ein weiteres gutes Beispiel daf\u00fcr, dass unser globales Team erstaunlich hilfreich und unterst\u00fctzend war, da die Effekte von K\u00fcnstlern in den verschiedenen Studios gemacht werden, und es war ein gro\u00dfartiger kollaborativer Prozess, der die Visuals weiterhin auf das hohe Niveau gebracht hat, das wir von Star Citizen erwarten.\n\nDiese Woche haben wir ein neues Mitglied in das Entwicklungsteam aufgenommen, Alex Mayberry, der die Rolle des Executive Producer f\u00fcr Star Citizen \u00fcbernommen hat. Er und seine Erfahrung erweisen sich bereits als wertvoll f\u00fcr das globale Team und die Verbesserung unserer Prozesse, so dass wir alle begeistert sind, ihn an Bord zu haben!\n\nVielen Dank wie immer f\u00fcr die Lekt\u00fcre unseres Santa Monica Studio Updates, da wir immer begeistert sind, unsere Bem\u00fchungen mit Ihnen zu teilen. Bitte denk daran, wenn du irgendwelche Fragen hast, kannst du gerne in unseren'Ask a Dev'-Threads posten. Bis zum n\u00e4chsten Mal!\n\nProst,\n\nCloud Imperium Spiele Santa Monica\n\nEric Peterson, Studio-Direktor\nHallo B\u00fcrger,\n\nEs war eine sehr arbeitsreiche Woche hier in Austin, sowohl auf der Seite des persistenten Universums als auch bei der Arbeit an Arena Commander. Ich m\u00f6chte schreiben, dass meine H\u00e4nde ein wenig m\u00fcde sind vom Versuch, sich beim Testen zu ducken und Raketen auszuweichen.... aber Tatsache ist, dass wir die meiste Zeit damit verbracht haben, uns mit Backend-Bugs zu besch\u00e4ftigen, die die Anzahl der Cross-Studio-Tests begrenzen. Wir haben jedoch Vertrauen in den heutigen Build und freuen uns sehr darauf, wieder nach drau\u00dfen zu kommen.\n\nUnsere Ingenieure haben sehr hart daran gearbeitet, die Fehler in der Multiplayer-Server-Codebasis zu beheben und die neu entwickelte Systemhardware fertigzustellen, damit wir Patches f\u00fcr alle B\u00fcrger viel effizienter und zeitnaher bereitstellen k\u00f6nnen. Auf Arena Commander f\u00fchlen wir uns wie eine gro\u00dfe Dose Insektenspray, w\u00e4hrend wir weiterhin den Code durchgehen, um Bugs zu beseitigen, wo immer wir sie finden, Bugs im Multiplayer, Client, Fahrzeuge, Animationen, Sounds und Partikel - ja, Sir, wir waren sehr damit besch\u00e4ftigt, Arena Commander zu einem viel stabileren und lustigeren Ort zu machen.\n\nUnsere Designer arbeiten haupts\u00e4chlich am hartn\u00e4ckigen Universum - aber jedes Mal, wenn wir in einen gro\u00dfen Luftkampf geraten, musst du dir bewusst sein, dass sie da drin sind, Rob Irving und seine Raketen sind ein gewaltiger Gegner.\n\nAudio hat die Fertigstellung des Arena Commander diese Woche unterst\u00fctzt, indem es die ersten Versionen der endg\u00fcltigen Musikst\u00fccke von Pedro Camacho eingesteckt hat. Wir installieren auch Soundeffekte f\u00fcr die vielen Man\u00f6vriertriebwerke auf allen Schiffen und Soundeffekte f\u00fcr die 300i und Aurora. Wir optimieren auch den Sound-Mix, denn jetzt k\u00f6nnen wir h\u00f6ren, wie es ist, mehrere andere Schiffe in einem Luftkampf um uns herum zu haben. Schlie\u00dflich sind wir hart dabei, die Atemger\u00e4usche des Spielers zu beenden.\n\nAuf der Kunstseite haben unsere Partner von CGBot einige Korrekturen an besch\u00e4digten Netzen auf dem 300i und Aurora vorgenommen; als wir die Schiffe im Spiel testeten, stellten wir fest, dass wir \u00fcberm\u00e4\u00dfig begeistert waren, wie viele Tr\u00fcmmer wir auf einem Schiff haben konnten und wie klein sie sein sollten. CGBot nahm den Schaden f\u00fcr diese Schiffe und konsolidierte viele der Teile und entfernte viele der kleineren Teile, die am Ende wie Feenstaub im Spiel aussahen. In der Zwischenzeit hat unser internes Team an dem Helm gearbeitet, der Sie in den Arena Commander bringt. Wir haben auch unser Team, das viele Schiffskomponenten entwickelt und die Schiffe, die im ersten Tropfen von Arena Commander ben\u00f6tigt werden, weiter angepasst.\n\nIn unserer Animationsabteilung waren wir begeistert, als diese Woche ein neuer Animateur zu uns kam. Au\u00dferdem haben wir Gesichtsanimationen, die jetzt im Motor arbeiten und eine Kombination aus Gelenken und Mischformen verwenden. Wir haben ein neues Kamerasystem im Kopf, das ein besseres First-Person-Erlebnis erm\u00f6glicht, und wir implementieren weiterhin Schiffsanimationen und schlie\u00dfen sie im Spiel an. Wir haben neue, aktualisierte Animationen f\u00fcr den Ein- und Ausstieg aus dem 300i und haben auch mit Animationen f\u00fcr das Cockpit begonnen, das die Figur zeigt, die mit den Bedienelementen interagiert und an Ejection-Animationen gearbeitet hat.\n\nCIG Austin QA testet weiterhin Builds, sobald sie verf\u00fcgbar sind. Wir arbeiten sehr eng mit unseren neuen QS-Partnern in der Gie\u00dferei 42 zusammen. Sie haben uns beim Testen und Feedback dar\u00fcber, wie wir den gesamten QS-Prozess verbessern k\u00f6nnen, sehr geholfen. Wir sind unglaublich begeistert von dieser Gelegenheit, unsere Testabdeckung in einem fast 24-st\u00fcndigen Zyklus weltweit zu erweitern. Cross-Studio-Spieltests werden fortgesetzt. Wir sind sehr beeindruckt von der Bereitschaft der gesamten Teams, an den Vorversuchen teilzunehmen. Der Erhalt von Berichten und Feedback aus jeder der Disziplinen ist \u00fcber das Ma\u00df hinaus n\u00fctzlich. Die Entwicklung schreitet blitzschnell voran. Das Spiel macht bereits richtig Spa\u00df und wir k\u00f6nnen es kaum erwarten, es mit allen zu teilen!\n\nZu den Aufgaben, die diese Woche nicht im Dogfighting bestehen, geh\u00f6rt es, die Mocap-Daten f\u00fcr den First Person Shooter weiter zu l\u00f6sen. Wir haben einen neuen Satz ohne Waffenanimationen, um um den B\u00fcgel herumzulaufen, bereit, um per Code angeschlossen zu werden. Wir arbeiten auch an Animationen f\u00fcr kommende Werbespots unserer Schiffe.\n\nDie Produktion war damit besch\u00e4ftigt, die Fehlerbehebungsaufgaben zu verfolgen und sicherzustellen, dass Jira f\u00fcr den bevorstehenden Start von Arena Commander auf dem neuesten Stand ist. Unser Production Game Performance Team verfolgt weiterhin jeden Tag unsere Verbesserungen im Arena Commander und arbeitet auch an dem globalen Schiffsplan, der es den B\u00fcrgern erm\u00f6glichen wird, alle Arten von Schiffen in unserem Universum zu fliegen.\n\nDas ist es von Austin! Wir freuen uns auf einen Spieltest heute Abend; bis dahin habe ich einen vollen Terminplan f\u00fcr die Besprechung des bevorstehenden Rollouts.\n\nIch sehe euch alle in dem Vers.\n\nEric\n\nErin Roberts, Studioleiterin\nHallo aus Manchester!\n\nDiese Woche wurde das britische Star Citizen's Kontingent mit einer Reihe von polnischen Aufgaben betraut, um sicherzustellen, dass die Freigabe des Arena Commander, die Sie in naher Zukunft sehen, wirklich gl\u00e4nzt. Wie gesagt, man hat nur eine Chance, einen ersten Eindruck zu hinterlassen.... deshalb wollen wir sicher sein, dass Arena Commander den Spielern wirklich einen Einblick gibt, was in Star Citizen selbst m\u00f6glich sein wird.\n\nWas die Spielmodi betrifft, so kommt der Einzelspieler Vanduul Swarm (von dem wir hoffen, dass er bald alle spielen wird) diese Woche wirklich mit und ich freue mich, Ihnen mitteilen zu k\u00f6nnen, dass wir alle Spa\u00df haben! Der gr\u00f6\u00dfte Teil der Arbeit konzentrierte sich darauf, die KI dazu zu bringen, Spa\u00df am K\u00e4mpfen zu haben, also haben wir an ihrem Verhalten gearbeitet, um ihren Flug sch\u00f6n und reibungslos zu gestalten, um dir dieses befriedigende Gef\u00fchl des Luftkampfes zu geben! Nun, da die KI gut fliegt, konnten wir auch an der Struktur des Modus arbeiten. Fragen wie \"Wie viele K\u00e4mpfer in einer Welle?\" \"Wie viele Wellen?\" und \"Wie hart machen wir die K\u00e4mpfer?\" werden beantwortet und der Modus beginnt, eine gewisse Struktur anzunehmen. Wir arbeiten auch daran, die einzigartigen HUD-Elemente f\u00fcr den Modus zum Laufen zu bringen und den VFX so k\u00fchn und zufriedenstellend wie m\u00f6glich zu gestalten. Wir werden das alles bald abgeschlossen haben, aber jetzt macht es einfach Spa\u00df, hinter einen Vanduul zu schl\u00fcpfen, das Feuer auf ihre Triebwerke zu er\u00f6ffnen und die Treibstofftanks mit einem befriedigenden Boom detonieren zu sehen.\n\nArt hat sich auf die visuellen Effekte von Capture the Core konzentriert. Wir haben mit den Blitzelementen experimentiert; es ist noch in der Anfangsphase, aber es zeigt Anzeichen daf\u00fcr, dass es sich um einen ziemlich coolen visuellen Effekt handelt, den wir in zuk\u00fcnftigen AC-Drops verwenden k\u00f6nnen! Mit der Integration von CryEngine Code 3.6 gab es einige Qualit\u00e4tsverluste bei bestehenden Effekten, und wir haben sie durchgearbeitet, um sie wieder in die erwartete Qualit\u00e4t zu bringen. Die Arbeit an der Erstellung von Conquest Game Type Assets, die im DFM getestet werden k\u00f6nnen, wurde ebenfalls fortgesetzt. Die Animationsabteilung hat mit den Reaktionen der Piloten im Spiel experimentiert und den Vanduul-Piloten auf seine Scythe vorbereitet!\n\nUnsere Programmierer und Designer haben uns bei einer Million kleinerer Aufgaben geholfen, um die V1-Funktion zu vervollst\u00e4ndigen. Dazu geh\u00f6ren das Polieren der HUD-Farbanpassung, das Aktualisieren des ITTS-Absehzeichens, das Festlegen der Regeln f\u00fcr Spielerauswurf und Wiederbelegung, das Bearbeiten des FoV und die allgemeine Fehlerbehebung. Wir haben das Nachladen von Raketen f\u00fcr den Vanduul-Schwarmmodus in Angriff genommen, Trefferr\u00fcckmeldungen, Steuerungsintegration und die Arbeit an der SFX-Implementierung durchgef\u00fchrt.\n\nDas ist alles aus Manchester; schaut euch den Monatsbericht in zwei Wochen an, um mehr \u00fcber die Arbeit, die wir mit Staffel 42 machen, zu erfahren und Schiffe wie den Gladiator und den Retaliator zu verpflichten!","zh_CN":"Greetings Citizens,\nLet me begin with the information you most want to hear: we intend to launch Arena Commander in two weeks, on May 29th.The goal is that every backer will have access to the single player \u201cFree Flight\u201d and \u201cVanduul Swarm\u201d games modes on this day, and the very first batch of multiplayer testers will get access to the game\u2019s multiplayer game modes. We will scale up the multiplayer as quickly as possible starting on that date, increasing the number of players as it is stable and stopping to fix bugs where needed.\nThis date is based on our best possible projections using the latest information put together by Star Citizen\u2019s production team as of this afternoon. This is a big part of what the often-unseen production side of game development does: schedule out every task they believe is required for a game to ship. Sometimes (in fact, more often than not) things go wrong and these forecasts change: bugs we don\u2019t foresee appear, features we didn\u2019t realize we needed become necessary and so on. This is why we haven\u2019t had a solid release date yet; it\u2019s not to better schedule marketing or because we want to keep you out of the cockpit\u2026 it\u2019s because game development is a complex beast, and there are few games more complex than Star Citizen! At this point, we\u2019re close enough that we feel fairly confident in this date\u2026 but the next two weeks will be a march!\n\nBefore I leave you to the individual studio weekly reports, I\u2019d like to walk you through exactly what the next two weeks\u2014if all goes well\u2014mean for Arena Commander\u2019s development:\n\nMay 17th: our IT groups will be updating our global internal server infrastructure. A lot of the internal tools we use for game development (checking in builds, storing assets, etc.) are in dire need of downtime and update; we\u2019ve been running them in the red zone so we can have 24 hour round-the-world development on Arena Commander. During this downtime we will also be switching over to a much more flexible and advanced architecture for our content management system Perforce. We will be upgrading to using Perforce Streams which will allow much quicker and more flexible movement between code branches for our development team. This prepares us for the added complexity of launching and supporting a live multiplayer service like Arena Commander. Saturday\u2019s update will allow us to push the final Arena Commander update out to the world with much more confidence (corrupted data from these servers was a major issue at the PAX East reveal!)\n\nMay 18th: with the new servers in place, we will split off the \u201cArena Commander Release\u201d branch of Star Citizen. This will separate the Arena Commander you play from the rest of the game that is being developed by other teams. So data checked in by teams around the world that doesn\u2019t have anything to do with dogfighting (such as FPS weapons, planetside maps or future ship assets) won\u2019t cause additional bugs for the team to worry about.\n\nMay 19th: The QA team will begin their final troubleshooting session with the new Arena Commander Release branch. They will go through the entire game and catalog all the current bugs they can find \u2013 ships not spawning in the correct place, physics not functioning correctly, disconnects during battle and so on. This will help to generate our final \u201cMust Fix\u201d list for release. It is important to remember though that our internal QA team cannot find everything and it is very likely that we will not fix everything prior to release. We are releasing playable code to the community much, much earlier than you normally would in AAA game development. Because of this it will not be as polished as a final game would be so we are going to need a lot of support from all of you to help us in bug finding and gameplay feedback!\n\nMay 23rd: The official cross-studio playtesting of the Arena Commander Release begins. This represents a \u201cpencils down\u201d phase where, unless you are working on an authorized must fix issue the team is expected to QA the game as much as possible. After this point, only a limited number of \u201cdesignated driver\u201d team leads will be able to check in any changes to the game itself.\n\nMay 27th: By this point, we hope to have the egregious, game breaking issues resolved but there will still be plenty of known and unknown issues. This is also our deadline for making sure the launcher is hardened for the deluge of users and the first set of necessary servers for the release have been spun up. After this point all check in privileges will be revoked and will only be returned on an as needed basis by senior Production staff and myself.\n\nMay 28th: The release candidate build of the game will be compiled. If all goes as planned, this is the version of Arena Commander you will be playing! The team at Turbulent will begin switching over the website to the version that will make Arena Commander available to backers. I will personally \u2018sign off\u2019 Arena Commander as ready for the community on the evening of the 28th. To be clear, we fully expect that there will be bugs remaining, potentially some bad ones. That said, our primary focus is getting a version out to the community to help us find all the issues and work together to improve Arena Commander.\n\nMay 29th: This morning, the web team will spin up additional authentication and web servers in the in anticipation of high traffic during the release. The engineering team will begin \u201cwarming\u201d caches on cloud servers around the world, making sure the release candidate game is ready and waiting for users. By the end of the day, we will update the website making the game available, and the first public release of Arena Commander (which we\u2019re calling v0.8) will be live to the world for testing!\n\nAfter this we will continue to work hard finishing off game modes, making balancing calls and hotfixes as we spin up more and more servers, allowing for more and more concurrent multiplayer games.\n\nv0.9 will be an intermediate step with additional features, polish, fixes and the Squadron Battle game mode.\n\nv1.0 will be when everyone can access the multiplayer and all game modes are in (Capture the Core comes in with v1.0).\n\nAs you can see, there\u2019s a lot to do over the next two weeks and as you have seen there can be many unforeseen issues. I believe this is the best development team in the industry and we are certainly backed by the most invested, supportive community in gaming. We will keep you updated as this process continues; if there are any unexpected changes, the community will know what they are AND how they impact the schedule as soon as I do.\n\nThis is what is unique about Star Citizen \u2013 you are getting a very close and personal look at what development is like from the inside. Enjoy the ride!\n\n\u2014 Chris Roberts\n\nTravis Day, Dogfight Producer\nGreetings Citizens!\n\nGlad to be back with you all to share our studios progress on creating the BDSSE! I want to start this week\u2019s update a little bit differently by giving a shout out and much deserved credit to \u2018our team\u2019 which is far larger than just the folks in the studio here in Santa Monica. While we here (in Santa Monica) have been leading the development of Arena Commander, we could not have accomplished what we have without the support of our team. Our team is currently comprised of individuals working at seven different studios both internal and external working together as a single team towards creating the BDSSE. Truly, we in the Santa Monica studio are lucky to have such an amazingly talented group supporting Arena Commander\u2019s development worldwide to make sure we deliver something that all our backers can be proud of. We in Santa Monica wanted to take the beginning of this post to acknowledge that fact and thank everyone globally for their amazing work for this amazing community!\n\nOk, enough globetrotting and introspection. Back to the details of what we\u2019ve been up to here in Santa Monica! We\u2019ve told you in the past about our amazing damage modeling on the ships so that you can blow them into literally hundreds of little pieces. Well, after you blow a ship (or two or three) into hundreds of pieces you are left with a lot of debris! I\u2019m happy to announce we\u2019ve finalized a system that we\u2019re calling the \u201cdebris manager\u201d which has been written by our Gameplay Programmer Mark Abent. While on the surface it doesn\u2019t sound like the most exciting it actually enables a lot of the most exciting gameplay moments!\n\nAs ships fly around all of their parts, pieces, and items are controlled by the vehicle itself. As soon as damage occurs and things start popping off those entities are passed from the vehicle in the debris manager which handles everything that has detached from any ship in the game. It manages their physics, particle effects, entity IDs, LODs, distance culling, etc. Still not sounding exciting? Okay, well let us state this differently: when you are chasing and shooting at the Vanduul ahead of you and blow off his thruster which, still flaming, flies backwards at your cockpit and glances off your shield which flares up on contact, you can thank the debris manager. Later in the persistent universe when you blow off an enemy\u2019s wing which has a powerful weapon attached to it, then fly alongside and tractor in that weapon to sell at the nearest planet, you can thank the debris manager.\n\nNext we have some exciting updates to the HUD. As we\u2019ve mentioned previously, the HUD is probably one of the most collaboratively worked-on pieces. It started with the initial pre-vis concept work from Johnny Likens to generate multiple look and movement ideas. Then moved to Zane Bien to concept out the actual HUD that you see in game. Once that concept was created by Zane he moved on to creating all the artwork for virtually every single piece of the HUD and cockpit displays. At the same time the Foundry 42 team worked on the programming behind the radar and targeting system. BHVR worked on the holorenderer framework which is the underlying system for hosting all the 3D holographic objects in the HUD and projected by ship displays. REDACTED even got in on the action helping with the attachment of the HUD to the glass visor of the helmet.\n\nThis week has seen us all finishing off the core features of the HUD and we\u2019ve started to go back through for a second pass polishing the different displays, adding information\/feedback while cleaning up some clutter, and optimizing the performance of the HUD and UI. It has been a long journey but as we\u2019re seeing it come into its final form the hard work is really paying off and seeing the in-game HUD get closer and closer to Zane\u2019s initial, beautiful, concept mockups.\n\nOn the Physics side, we\u2019ve closed out the work remaining to implement a redout effect that was created by our graphics programmer so watch those negative G\u2019s! On the visuals front we\u2019ve made large progress this week on adding all kinds of cool particle effects for the various damage states and impacts inside the cockpit so you feel the incoming hits appreciate the punishment that your ship is enduring. Visual effects is another good example of where our global team has been amazingly helpful and supportive as effects are being done by artists at all the different studios and it has been a great collaborative process which has continued to push the visuals to the high level that we expect from Star Citizen.\n\nThis week we added a new member to the development team, Alex Mayberry, who has taken on the role of being the Executive Producer for Star Citizen. He and his experience is already proving valuable to the global team and improving our processes so we\u2019re all excited to have him aboard!\n\nThank you as always for reading our Santa Monica Studio update as we\u2019re always excited to share our efforts with you. Please remember, if you have any questions please feel free to post in our \u2018Ask a Dev\u2019 threads. Until next time!\n\nCheers,\n\nCloud Imperium Games Santa Monica\n\nEric Peterson, Studio Director\nHello Citizens,\n\nIt has been a very busy week here in Austin on both the persistent universe side as well as working on Arena Commander. I\u2019d like to write that my hands are a little tired from trying to duck and dodge missiles in testing\u2026 but the fact is we\u2019ve been spending most of our time dealing with back-end bugs that are limiting the amount of cross studio testing. We have confidence in today\u2019s build, though, and are really looking forward to getting back out there.\n\nOur engineers have been working very hard on getting the bugs fixed in the multiplayer server code base, as well as finishing up the new build system hardware so we can deploy patches to all citizens in a much more efficient and timely manner. On Arena commander we feel like a big can of bug spray as we continue to hash through the code cleaning up bugs everywhere we find them, bugs on the multiplayer, client, vehicles, animations, sounds, and particles \u2013 yes sir, we have been very busy making Arena Commander a much more stable and fun place to be.\n\nOur Designers are mostly working on the persistent universe \u2013 but every time we get into a big dogfighting, you need to be aware that they are in there, Rob Irving and his missiles are a formidable foe.\n\nAudio has been supporting the completion of Arena Commander this week by plugging in the first versions of the final pieces of music from Pedro Camacho. We are also installing sound-effects for the many maneuvering thrusters across all ships, and sound-effects for the 300i and Aurora. We\u2019re also making tweaks to the sound mix, as now we are able to hear what it\u2019s like to have several other ships around you in a dogfight. Finally, we\u2019re hard at work finishing off the player\u2019s breathing sounds.\n\nOn the art side, our partners at CGBot made some revisions to damage meshes on the 300i and Aurora; as we were testing the ships in-game we discovered that we had been overly enthusiastic about how many bits of debris we could have on a ship, and how small they should be. CGBot took the damage for those ships and consolidated a lot of the pieces, and removed a lot of the smaller bits that ended up looking like pixie dust in the game. Meanwhile our internal team has been busy working on the helmet which gets you into Arena Commander. We also have our team creating lots of ship components, as well as continuing to adjust the ships needed in the first drop of Arena Commander.\n\nIn our animation department we were thrilled as a new animator joined us this week. Also, we have facial animation now working in engine using a combination of joints and blend shapes. We have a new camera in head system that allows for better first person experience and we continue to implement ship animations and hook them up in game. We have new updated animations for getting into and out of the 300i, and have also started on animations for the cockpit that shows the character interacting with the controls and worked on Ejection animations.\n\nCIG Austin QA continues testing builds as they become available. We are working very closely with our new QA partners in Foundry 42. They have been a huge help with testing and providing feedback on how we can improve overall QA process. We are incredibly excited for this opportunity to extend our testing coverage farther across the globe in a nearly 24 hour cycle. Cross studio play tests continue. We are very impressed with the entire teams\u2019 willingness to participate with the preliminary testing effort. Receiving reports and feedback from each of the disciplines is useful beyond measure. Development is moving at lightning speed. The game is already really fun and we can\u2019t wait to share it with everyone!\n\nNon Dogfighting tasks this week include continuing to solve mocap data for the First Person Shooter. We have a new set of no weapon animations for running around the hanger ready to be hooked up by code. We are also working on animations for upcoming commercials of our ships.\n\nProduction has been busy tracking the bug fixing tasks, and making sure that Jira is up to the minute in accuracy for the upcoming launch of Arena Commander. Our production game performance team continues to track our improvements in Arena Commander every single day, and is also working on the global ship schedule which will allow Citizens to fly all types of ships in our universe.\n\nThat\u2019s it from Austin! We\u2019re looking forward to a playtest tonight; until then, I have a full schedule of meetings to discuss the upcoming rollout.\n\nSee you all in the verse.\n\nEric\n\nErin Roberts, Studio Director\nHello from Manchester!\n\nThis week, Star Citizen\u2019s UK contingent has been tasked with a number of polish-related tasks, to make sure the Arena Commander release you see in the near future really shines. As they say, you only have one chance to make a first impression\u2026 so we want to be sure that Arena Commander really gives players a glimpse of what\u2019s going to be possible in Star Citizen proper.\n\nIn terms of game modes, the single player Vanduul Swarm (which we hope to have everyone playing very soon) has really been coming along this week and I\u2019m happy to report we\u2019re all having fun! Most of the work has been focused on getting the AI to be fun to fight against so we\u2019ve been working on their behaviour to make their flight nice and smooth to give you that satisfying dogfighting feeling! Now that the AI are flying well we\u2019ve also been able to work on the structure of the mode. Questions like \u2018how many fighters in a wave?\u2019 \u2018how many waves?\u2019 and \u2018how tough do we make the fighters?\u2019 are getting answered and the mode is starting to take on some structure. We\u2019re also working on getting the unique HUD elements for the mode working as well as making the VFX as bold and satisfying as possible. We\u2019ll have all that locked down soon but for now it\u2019s just fun to slide in behind a Vanduul, open fire on their engines and watch the fuel tanks detonate with a satisfying boom.\n\nArt has been focusing on Capture the Core visual effects. We have been experimenting with the lightning entities; it\u2019s early in the process, but it shows signs of being a pretty cool visual effect that we can use in future AC drops! With the integration of CryEngine code 3.6, there has been some loss of quality on existing effects and we\u2019ve been working through them to bring it back to the expected quality. Work has also continued on creating Conquest game type assets ready for testing with in the DFM. The Animation department has been experimenting with in-game pilot reactions and getting the Vanduul pilot ready for his Scythe!\n\nOur programmers and designers have been helping with a million smaller tasks to help get V1 feature complete. These include polishing the HUD colour customization, updating the ITTS reticle, setting the rules for player ejection and respawn, editing the FoV and general bug fixing. We\u2019ve tackled missile reloading for the Vanduul swarm mode, hit feedback, controller integration and done work on SFX implementation.\n\nThat\u2019s all from Manchester; be sure to catch the monthly report in two weeks to find out about all the work we\u2019re doing on Squadron 42 and pledge ships like the Gladiator and Retaliator!"},"links_count":0,"comment_count":479,"created_at":"2014-05-16T00:00:00+00:00","created_at_human":"11 years ago"},"meta":{"processed_at":"2026-05-13 18:55:39","valid_relations":["images","links"],"prev_id":13882,"next_id":13884}}