{"data":{"id":14803,"title":"Letter from the Chairman","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/comm-link\/transmission\/14803-Letter-From-The-Chairman","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-links\/14803","api_public_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/comm-links\/14803","channel":"Transmission","category":"General","series":"From the Chairman","images":[{"id":3675,"name":"09.jpg","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/media\/huqkv9z8ijzugr\/source\/09.jpg","alt":"","size":3275249,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","last_modified":"2015-06-26T19:45:04+00:00","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/3675","similar_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/3675\/similar"},{"id":3676,"name":"New_chairman_photo.png","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/media\/6v457k2ttzgwsr\/source\/New_chairman_photo.png","alt":"On the set of Squadron 42","size":15942487,"mime_type":"image\/png","last_modified":"2015-06-26T20:49:14+00:00","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/3676","similar_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/3676\/similar"},{"id":3677,"name":"Marine1.jpg","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/media\/t079jf02c85tsr\/source\/Marine1.jpg","alt":"Star Marine's Medium Marine character","size":3441202,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","last_modified":"2015-06-27T01:37:36+00:00","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/3677","similar_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/3677\/similar"},{"id":3678,"name":"Marine2.jpg","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/media\/1zrus4gbj49zer\/source\/Marine2.jpg","alt":"","size":3466343,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","last_modified":"2015-06-27T01:37:52+00:00","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/3678","similar_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/3678\/similar"},{"id":3679,"name":"Marine4.jpg","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/media\/4fa5wcxc9iqvjr\/source\/Marine4.jpg","alt":"","size":3458254,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","last_modified":"2015-06-27T01:37:53+00:00","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/3679","similar_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/3679\/similar"},{"id":3680,"name":"OutLaw.jpg","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/media\/oyysrfemu0w47r\/source\/OutLaw.jpg","alt":"The Light Outlaw","size":3632780,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","last_modified":"2015-06-27T01:37:51+00:00","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/3680","similar_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/3680\/similar"},{"id":3681,"name":"OutLaw2.jpg","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/media\/xjwdk4e55a2uir\/source\/OutLaw2.jpg","alt":"","size":3793380,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","last_modified":"2015-06-27T01:37:52+00:00","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/3681","similar_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/3681\/similar"},{"id":3683,"name":"OutLaw3.jpg","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/media\/ygathn28rvwohr\/source\/OutLaw3.jpg","alt":"","size":3569108,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","last_modified":"2015-06-27T01:37:52+00:00","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/3683","similar_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/3683\/similar"},{"id":3685,"name":"14.jpg","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/media\/qab08rhvbxfxnr\/source\/14.jpg","alt":"This set of images shows the recent lighting pass on the Gold Horizon map","size":2469941,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","last_modified":"2015-06-26T19:46:29+00:00","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/3685","similar_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/3685\/similar"},{"id":3687,"name":"13.jpg","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/media\/wemrh32t4e9vir\/source\/13.jpg","alt":"","size":2644949,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","last_modified":"2015-06-26T19:46:26+00:00","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/3687","similar_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/3687\/similar"},{"id":3689,"name":"12.jpg","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/media\/8fjh6srjzidc3r\/source\/12.jpg","alt":"","size":2537281,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","last_modified":"2015-06-26T19:46:27+00:00","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/3689","similar_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/3689\/similar"},{"id":3691,"name":"11.jpg","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/media\/8xyx6nykri4gur\/source\/11.jpg","alt":"","size":2712856,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","last_modified":"2015-06-26T19:46:26+00:00","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/3691","similar_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/3691\/similar"},{"id":3694,"name":"10.jpg","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/media\/he01moixir7k2r\/source\/10.jpg","alt":"","size":2809512,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","last_modified":"2015-06-26T19:46:25+00:00","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/3694","similar_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/3694\/similar"},{"id":3697,"name":"08.jpg","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/media\/9hz23s8schxx5r\/source\/08.jpg","alt":"","size":2540933,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","last_modified":"2015-06-26T19:45:01+00:00","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/3697","similar_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/3697\/similar"},{"id":3698,"name":"07.jpg","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/media\/q7plo3poalz1jr\/source\/07.jpg","alt":"","size":3098978,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","last_modified":"2015-06-26T19:44:59+00:00","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/3698","similar_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/3698\/similar"},{"id":3699,"name":"04.jpg","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/media\/1z6hjjor8umjxr\/source\/04.jpg","alt":"","size":2204208,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","last_modified":"2015-06-26T19:44:55+00:00","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/3699","similar_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/3699\/similar"},{"id":3700,"name":"03.jpg","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/media\/dj0un8eazjx15r\/source\/03.jpg","alt":"","size":2615076,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","last_modified":"2015-06-26T19:44:56+00:00","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/3700","similar_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/3700\/similar"},{"id":3701,"name":"02.jpg","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/media\/gfrye0a9gwrazr\/source\/02.jpg","alt":"","size":2846421,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","last_modified":"2015-06-26T19:44:54+00:00","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/3701","similar_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/3701\/similar"},{"id":3702,"name":"01.jpg","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/media\/h0h9yemmrde6vr\/source\/01.jpg","alt":"","size":2376141,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","last_modified":"2015-06-26T19:44:51+00:00","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/3702","similar_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/3702\/similar"},{"id":3703,"name":"05.jpg","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/media\/arv9uthb4lktcr\/source\/05.jpg","alt":"","size":2665763,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","last_modified":"2015-06-26T19:45:00+00:00","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/3703","similar_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/3703\/similar"},{"id":3704,"name":"Update.png","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/media\/we6l4fq5y8s2er\/source\/Update.png","alt":"Grenade functionality update","size":1052712,"mime_type":"image\/png","last_modified":"2015-06-26T19:45:56+00:00","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/3704","similar_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/3704\/similar"}],"images_count":21,"translations":{"en_EN":"Greetings Citizens,\nFor the past ten weeks, I have been directing the performance capture shoot for Squadron 42 in London, next week will be the last week of the \u201cmain unit\u201d shoot. Directing the Squadron 42 shoot has been one of the most fun and creatively rewarding things I\u2019ve done. It\u2019s where the story and characters written by David Haddock and William Weisbaum come to life for the first time and I can feel just how special Squadron 42 will be. The cast we have put together for Squadron 42 would not be out of place in a major motion picture. We are using the next level in performance capture, which is both motion and facial capture, allowing us to capture even the subtlest looks or moments. Every scene we capture we have between 1 and 3 cameras on every actors face, plus 50 cameras capturing their moves. This technology, combined with next generation character and facial rigs driving full 3D scans of the actors in the world of Star Citizen \/ Squadron 42 allows us to have emotion, nuance and subtlety that I don\u2019t think has been seen in full player controlled gameplay before. I\u2019m hoping that capturing this level of fidelity will make the world and story more visceral than anything I\u2019ve done before, and will push interactive storytelling the same way Wing Commander did over its iterations. The story of Squadron 42 is going to be an experience that I think will be very special. Instead of watching a film play out in front of you it will feel like you are inside a living world, living a story that you only normally see on the big screen but it\u2019s YOUR story, not one of some protagonist you need to associate with! By the time the shoot is over, it will have been longer than Wing Commander 4 (42 days) or even the last feature film I produced, Outlander (51 days.). You need this kind of time to capture real performance. We\u2019re shooting something as nuanced and detailed as a film but in a way that it fuses with a fully breathable interactive world that you control the pace of. To me, this is one of the first, best results of Star Citizen\u2019s crowd funding: the ability for the development team to live our passion rather than to conform to a publisher\u2019s schedule or bullet points. So let me start by thanking every single backer for making this possible. You\u2019ve allowed me and the team to do some outstanding work. I am thrilled to be here.\n\nNow, though, I need to step away from the Squadron 42 shoot to address something that is on everyone\u2019s minds. We initially planned to release the FPS module, which we are calling Star Marine, shortly after PAX East in April. We demonstrated a build of the module at the backer event that ran fairly well. It lacked some polish (especially with animations) and still had several technical blockers that prevented a wide scale rollout\u2026but we felt confident enough in the work to say that it would be available for everyone soon. Unfortunately that didn\u2019t happen. Just over two months on, we are continuing to tackle technical and gameplay-related issues. I know that there are two questions above all others that you need answered, and I will now do my best to address them.\n\nWhat issues are the FPS team facing?\nThe tl;dr is that we feel the current build doesn\u2019t feel like it lives up to the standards we\u2019ve want to achieve with Star Citizen. There are several issues that will need additional time in order to deliver the first iteration of the gameplay we want you to experience. The challenges facing the FPS launch are a mix of technical blockers and gameplay issues. The most significant technical hurdle faced today is the networking backend. After attempting to work with the legacy code, we decided that we needed to drop some of the legacy technology. That meant developing what we\u2019re calling a Generic Instance Manager (GIM) and rewriting both the Matchmaker and (for the larger project) the game Launcher from scratch. Those efforts are all going well, but they\u2019ve all taken additional time for our engineers.\n\nGoing into further detail on the technical side of these systems, one of our big hurdles was, as noted, the creation of the GIM. This new system will be responsible for all the game servers that make up Star Citizen, and we\u2019ve built it to have far more direct control over the internal state and operation of each game server than was available before. The GIM not only manages Arena Commander and Star Marine instances, but also provides a solid framework for instanced multi-player Hangars as well as the instanced Universe game servers that will form the persistent universe. The GIM allocates and recycles game servers at a much faster rate and in a more reliable way than before, helping to get players into the action more quickly and keeping them in their games with less incident. The development of this system, which has been ongoing for some time, has been a group effort involving engineers from around the company. Once it\u2019s integrated, it will not only improve the Star Marine experience but also chart the \u2018behind the screens\u2019 course for Star Citizen\u2019s future. We\u2019re looking forward to testing it in action internally next week!\n\nThe new GIM isn\u2019t the only \u2018home grown\u2019 system we\u2019ve come to need for Star Marine. A second challenge has been the need to rewrite the game\u2019s Matchmaking system from scratch, taking an entirely different approach to the process that will eliminate long waits during the Match search process. Situations that use to result in \u201cMatch Not Found\u201d no longer exist and every player\/group is guaranteed a match in a match and in shorter time than they have seen before. The Matchmaker now keeps friends together such that players in a public group will always be matched to the same team as expected. I\u2019m happy to report that, as of this week, the new matchmaking software has been integrated and is undergoing testing.\n\nThe third process currently in progress for improving Star Citizen\u2019s backend netcode is what we\u2019re calling the \u201cPhoenix\u201d dynamic environments system. Each time the team kick off a new build of Star Citizen all the data that the servers need is automatically copied out to hard disks in Google; this is a snapshot of our game data. These disks are broken into two to three conceptual parts: Base Image (the OS plus a few other things), Logs, and Server Data (Code and Assets). When we build an environment, we mount duplicates of these disks to each Virtual Machine (VM) that we bring up. Duplicates of the snapshot are created very rapidly, around 45 seconds for 200 gigs of data. We\u2019ve written some automation code to automatically run commands on the VM to configure it appropriately for what type of server it will become (Game, Matchmaking, Party, etc.) During this process, a new DNS entry is assigned to server based off the version of the data uploaded. When a new build is created, and we need to push it to an environment, we trigger a command that automatically shuts down all VM\u2019s, unmounts the duplicated disks of the Base Image and Server Data disk (Log disks are always kept for troubleshooting), and then restarts the server with the new duplicates based of the new snapshot and the environment is running and ready on the new version.\n\nThis entire process takes about 8 minutes. When we want to take a QA environment that is built this way, and extend it to become a PTU environment, we send a command to our Provisioning layer and it goes out to Google, requests more VMs, builds more disk duplicates, mounts those snapshots, runs Chef commands to configure it, adds their DNS entries, and connects them to the existing infrastructure to be used. At that point we have a PTU environment. We repeat this process to build Production. Each time we expand an environment it takes about 8 to 10 minutes depending on the type of environment and the configurations we need.\n\nThe benefit of this dynamic creation and the environment expansion is threefold. First, any changed configs, misplaced settings, or broken processes are completely removed when the VMs are rebuilt using the new disk duplicates. Any configuration changes that need to persist should be made at the Chef level. Second, we can make absolutely sure that PTU and Production is the exact same environment that QA tested on, so there will be no strange differences we failed to catch in QA when we go live. The third benefit is simply speed. It is much faster to dynamically recreate environments on the fly than to recopy data each time. Those last two points are a pretty big deal. If our experience has taught us one thing it is that having a consistent test environment that can be rolled out quickly, and this new system is pretty quick. It\u2019s a huge force multiplier for our ability to rapidly iterate our test versions, which means QA and ultimately our backers will be able to do more varied testing more quickly. The more accurate we can get versions to our QA and to our backers the better we can ultimately make the game.\n\nThese new systems and processes were initiated to replace very serious limitations in what had come before. We\u2019re taking additional time to develop them properly and will in order to get them right we will ultimately need more for proper integration (testing, bug triage and the like.) But we\u2019re already seeing a great improvement: the new system is far more reliable and handles more concurrent players due to improved networking protocol and a streamlined back-end service architecture. In short, doing it ourselves makes for a better game today and sets the stage for even bigger things to come!\n\nOn the gameplay side, we are dedicated to making sure the game represents what we want for first person action in the Star Citizen world. This is where things are a little less technical and more about the \u2018feel\u2019 of the experience. One of the biggest issues on this front is getting the visuals right. If you read our last design post on the FPS, you will remember that one of the ways we want this experience to stand apart is that we aren\u2019t \u2018faking\u2019 animations: anything your character does in the first person needs to look correct when viewed in the third person by another player without duplicate \u2018fake\u2019 animations that look different to each person. Making this look right is something that\u2019s taking more R&D time than we had anticipated. It\u2019s a challenge that we will meet\u2026but it\u2019s going to require careful work. We\u2019ve tapped the new Frankfurt studio, which is staffed by Crytek veterans who know every in and out of the engine and some key ex-Crytek leads from LA and Austin to help the team in Denver make this work.\n\nAs we continue to tackle these challenges, the FPS team is continuing to improve other areas beyond the initial spec. New characters and weapons and so on, already scheduled, are being developed while newly recorded mocap animations are going in on a regular basis\u2026and other resources are working on more subtle map changes. For instance, artists have been conducting additional lighting and detail passes on the Gold Horizon map with an eye towards quick silhouette reads and making it easier to understand where you are in the level at any time. These kinds of passes aren\u2019t as sexy as building a new spaceship or firing a new weapon\u2026but they\u2019re essential to providing the kind of detail and gameplay we want out of Star Marine.\n\nArena Commander, for instance, \u201cshipped\u201d with what we thought would be a very early version of the control system, and we\u2019ve certainly heard no end of the debate since! Like it or not, we know that with Star Marine we need to release a build that at the very least shows people where we want to go and not just what we were able to do before a clock ran out.\n\nWhat do the FPS issues mean for the status of the rest of the project?\nStar Citizen\u2019s development is distributed across several different modules or sub-projects, with development happening on all of them simultaneously. By the numbers, only 15% of the team has been working on Star Marine; it\u2019s just been the major focus because it was the next public release. This means that development of other areas, such as Squadron 42, multicrew and the persistent universe, have continued while issues with FPS have stalled development there (though even in that case, development continues in other areas: while network engineers battle back end code, weapons artists and level designers continue to work towards future FPS milestones).\n\nI don\u2019t want to say that there is no impact: integrating the FPS properly will help move every part of Star Citizen forward, as the tech will help form the blood and sinews of the whole game\u2026but I can\u2019t stress enough that two additional months spent on Star Marine are not the same thing as two months of a delay for Star Citizen. The persistent universe team in Austin is still building brilliant new worlds, the ship team in Santa Monica is coming up with great concepts and integrating existing ships in preparation for future Arena Commander updates\u2026and of course the Squadron 42 team in the UK is full speed ahead on the single player adventure. The biggest issue we have faced is that all the recent Arena Commander work, including new flyable ships has been done on the Star Marine branch of the game\u2019s build. We expected to have 1.2 launched and wanted to take advantage of the great new tech Star Marine\u2019s integration provides.\n\nWhat\u2019s next?\nTo that end, we are going to investigate releasing a build with Star Marine disabled that would allow you to experience some of the changes and updates we\u2019ve made over the last few months to the core code base. There are some technical challenges in doing this, and it won\u2019t happen overnight\u2026but I feel that it\u2019s incredibly important to do because we need to test with the public, we need to collect your feedback and frankly we need to continue proving that we\u2019re working on what you care about.\n\nWhen will we see Star Marine? Tonight, I don\u2019t have an absolute answer for you. What I will tell you is that we know exactly what we have to do, and we\u2019re already well on our way to doing it. With allocation of additional resources and increased cross-studio focus on the FPS portion of the game we are on our way\u2026 we\u2019re just not there quite yet. I\u2019m confident that with the significant updates and changes to the backend architecture discussed above that we will have an experience worthy of the Star Citizen name; it\u2019s just going to take some additional integration and testing. On the public side, I know that it\u2019s time to open up our communications on the Star Marine rollout process: starting with this message and continuing each week, we will provide a high level update on the challenges just as we did for Arena Commander.\n\nWe ended the 2012 pledge campaign with \u2018The Pledge,\u2019 in which I outlined our new company\u2019s goals to be open about our process. Today, I want to rededicate ourselves to this: I can\u2019t promise you we\u2019ll meet every internal deadline or that every decision we make is something you\u2019ll agree with. There will be challenges that we struggle to overcome, and we will never be able to predict all of these with certainty\u2026but I can promise you we will keep you informed and that we will not stop working until the game is done right. After all, that\u2019s why we\u2019re here in the first place. Your support is letting us create the game we want to make before anything else. Because of you, we have the freedom to make sure things work the way we want, even if it takes more time and more effort. We won\u2019t let you down!\n\n- Chris Roberts","de_DE":"Gr\u00fc\u00dfe B\u00fcrger,\nIn den letzten zehn Wochen habe ich das Performance Capture Shooting f\u00fcr Squadron 42 in London geleitet, n\u00e4chste Woche wird die letzte Woche des \"Main Unit\" Shootings sein. Die Regie des Squadron 42 Shootings war eine der lustigsten und kreativsten Sachen, die ich je gemacht habe. Hier werden die Geschichte und die Charaktere von David Haddock und William Weisbaum zum ersten Mal zum Leben erweckt und ich kann sp\u00fcren, wie besonders die Staffel 42 sein wird. Die Besetzung, die wir f\u00fcr Staffel 42 zusammengestellt haben, w\u00e4re in einem gro\u00dfen Kinofilm nicht fehl am Platz. Wir nutzen die n\u00e4chste Stufe der Leistungserfassung, die sowohl Bewegungs- als auch Gesichtserfassung umfasst, so dass wir selbst feinste Blicke oder Momente erfassen k\u00f6nnen. Jede Szene, die wir aufnehmen, haben wir zwischen 1 und 3 Kameras auf jedem Gesicht der Schauspieler, plus 50 Kameras, die ihre Bewegungen aufnehmen. Diese Technologie, kombiniert mit Charakter- und Gesichtsrigs der n\u00e4chsten Generation, die vollst\u00e4ndige 3D-Scans der Akteure in der Welt von Star Citizen \/ Squadron 42 steuern, erm\u00f6glicht es uns, Emotionen, Nuancen und Subtilit\u00e4ten zu erzeugen, von denen ich glaube, dass sie noch nie zuvor in einem vollst\u00e4ndig spielergesteuerten Gameplay gesehen wurden. Ich hoffe, dass die Erfassung dieser Treue die Welt und die Geschichte eindringlicher machen wird als alles, was ich zuvor gemacht habe, und dass sie das interaktive Geschichtenerz\u00e4hlen genauso vorantreiben wird, wie es der Wing Commander bei seinen Wiederholungen getan hat. Die Geschichte von Staffel 42 wird eine Erfahrung sein, die meiner Meinung nach etwas ganz Besonderes sein wird. Anstatt ein Filmst\u00fcck vor dir zu sehen, wird es sich anf\u00fchlen, als w\u00e4rst du in einer lebendigen Welt, in der du eine Geschichte lebst, die du normalerweise nur auf der Gro\u00dfleinwand siehst, aber es ist deine Geschichte, nicht eine von irgendeinem Protagonisten, mit dem du dich verbinden musst! Wenn der Dreh zu Ende ist, wird es l\u00e4nger als Wing Commander 4 (42 Tage) oder sogar der letzte von mir produzierte Spielfilm, Outlander (51 Tage) sein. Sie ben\u00f6tigen diese Art von Zeit, um die tats\u00e4chliche Leistung zu erfassen. Wir drehen etwas so nuanciertes und detailliertes wie ein Film, aber in einer Weise, dass er mit einer vollst\u00e4ndig atmungsaktiven interaktiven Welt verschmilzt, in der Sie das Tempo bestimmen k\u00f6nnen. F\u00fcr mich ist dies eines der ersten, besten Ergebnisse der Finanzierung von Star Citizen: die F\u00e4higkeit des Entwicklungsteams, unsere Leidenschaft zu leben, anstatt sich an den Zeitplan oder die Eckpunkte eines Verlages zu halten. Lassen Sie mich also zun\u00e4chst jedem einzelnen Geldgeber daf\u00fcr danken, dass er dies erm\u00f6glicht hat. Du hast mir und dem Team erlaubt, hervorragende Arbeit zu leisten. Ich bin begeistert, hier zu sein.\n\nJetzt muss ich mich jedoch vom Schuss der Staffel 42 zur\u00fcckziehen, um etwas anzusprechen, das in aller Munde ist. Urspr\u00fcnglich hatten wir geplant, das FPS-Modul, das wir Star Marine nennen, kurz nach der PAX East im April zu ver\u00f6ffentlichen. Wir haben beim Backer-Event einen Aufbau des Moduls demonstriert, der recht gut lief. Es fehlte etwas Politur (vor allem bei Animationen) und es gab noch einige technische Blocker, die einen gro\u00df angelegten Rollout verhinderten.... aber wir f\u00fchlten uns zuversichtlich genug in der Arbeit, um zu sagen, dass es bald f\u00fcr alle verf\u00fcgbar sein w\u00fcrde. Leider ist das nicht passiert. Etwas mehr als zwei Monate sp\u00e4ter besch\u00e4ftigen wir uns weiterhin mit technischen und spieltechnischen Fragen. Ich wei\u00df, dass es vor allem zwei Fragen gibt, die Sie beantworten m\u00fcssen, und ich werde jetzt mein Bestes tun, um sie zu beantworten.\n\nMit welchen Problemen ist das FPS-Team konfrontiert?\nDas tl;dr ist, dass wir glauben, dass der aktuelle Build nicht das Gef\u00fchl hat, dass er den Standards entspricht, die wir mit Star Citizen erreichen wollen. Es gibt mehrere Probleme, die zus\u00e4tzliche Zeit ben\u00f6tigen, um die erste Wiederholung des Gameplays zu liefern, das wir Ihnen bieten m\u00f6chten. Die Herausforderungen bei der Einf\u00fchrung von FPS sind eine Mischung aus technischen Blockern und Gameplay-Problemen. Die bedeutendste technische H\u00fcrde ist heute das Networking-Backend. Nachdem wir versucht hatten, mit dem Legacy-Code zu arbeiten, beschlossen wir, dass wir einen Teil der Legacy-Technologie fallen lassen mussten. Das bedeutete, einen so genannten Generic Instance Manager (GIM) zu entwickeln und sowohl den Matchmaker als auch (f\u00fcr das gr\u00f6\u00dfere Projekt) den Game Launcher von Grund auf neu zu schreiben. Diese Bem\u00fchungen laufen alle gut, aber sie haben alle zus\u00e4tzliche Zeit f\u00fcr unsere Ingenieure in Anspruch genommen.\n\nUm auf die technische Seite dieser Systeme n\u00e4her einzugehen, war eine unserer gro\u00dfen H\u00fcrden, wie bereits erw\u00e4hnt, die Schaffung des GIM. Dieses neue System wird f\u00fcr alle Spielserver von Star Citizen verantwortlich sein, und wir haben es so konzipiert, dass es eine weitaus direktere Kontrolle \u00fcber den internen Zustand und Betrieb jedes Spielservers hat als bisher. Das GIM verwaltet nicht nur Arena Commander- und Star Marine Instanzen, sondern bietet auch einen soliden Rahmen f\u00fcr instanzierte Mehrspieler-Hangars sowie die instanzierten Universe-Spielserver, die das persistente Universum bilden werden. Das GIM verteilt und recycelt Spielserver viel schneller und zuverl\u00e4ssiger als bisher, hilft, die Spieler schneller in die Action zu bringen und sie mit weniger Vorf\u00e4llen in ihren Spielen zu halten. Die Entwicklung dieses seit einiger Zeit laufenden Systems erfolgte in Gruppenarbeit mit Ingenieuren aus dem gesamten Unternehmen. Sobald es integriert ist, wird es nicht nur das Star Marine Erlebnis verbessern, sondern auch den Kurs \"hinter den Bildschirmen\" f\u00fcr die Zukunft von Star Citizen aufzeichnen. Wir freuen uns darauf, es n\u00e4chste Woche intern in Aktion zu testen!\n\nDas neue GIM ist nicht das einzige \"hausgemachte\" System, das wir f\u00fcr Star Marine ben\u00f6tigen. Eine zweite Herausforderung war die Notwendigkeit, das Matchmaking-System des Spiels von Grund auf neu zu schreiben und dabei einen v\u00f6llig anderen Ansatz zu verfolgen, der lange Wartezeiten w\u00e4hrend der Matchsuche eliminiert. Situationen, die dazu f\u00fchren, dass \"Match Not Found\" nicht mehr existiert, und jedem Spieler\/Gruppe wird ein Spiel in einem Spiel und in k\u00fcrzerer Zeit als bisher garantiert. Der Matchmaker h\u00e4lt nun seine Freunde zusammen, so dass die Spieler einer \u00f6ffentlichen Gruppe immer dem gleichen Team angeh\u00f6ren, wie erwartet. Ich freue mich, Ihnen mitteilen zu k\u00f6nnen, dass seit dieser Woche die neue Matchmaking-Software integriert ist und sich im Test befindet.\n\nDer dritte Prozess, der derzeit zur Verbesserung des Backend-Netcodes von Star Citizen l\u00e4uft, ist das so genannte dynamische Umgebungssystem \"Phoenix\". Jedes Mal, wenn das Team einen neuen Build von Star Citizen startet, werden alle Daten, die die Server ben\u00f6tigen, automatisch auf Festplatten in Google kopiert; dies ist eine Momentaufnahme unserer Spieldaten. Diese Scheiben sind in zwei bis drei konzeptionelle Teile unterteilt: Basis-Image (das Betriebssystem und ein paar andere Dinge), Protokolle und Serverdaten (Code und Assets). Wenn wir eine Umgebung aufbauen, mounten wir Duplikate dieser Festplatten an jede Virtual Machine (VM), die wir aufspielen. Duplikate des Snapshots werden sehr schnell erstellt, etwa 45 Sekunden f\u00fcr 200 Gigabyte Daten. Wir haben einen Automatisierungscode geschrieben, um automatisch Befehle auf der VM auszuf\u00fchren, um sie entsprechend dem Servertyp zu konfigurieren (Spiel, Matchmaking, Party, etc.). Dabei wird dem Server ein neuer DNS-Eintrag zugewiesen, der auf der Grundlage der Version der hochgeladenen Daten erstellt wird. Wenn ein neuer Build erstellt wird und wir ihn in eine Umgebung verschieben m\u00fcssen, l\u00f6sen wir einen Befehl aus, der automatisch alle VMs herunterf\u00e4hrt, die Duplikate der Basis-Image- und Serverdatenplatte entfernt (Protokollplatten werden immer f\u00fcr die Fehlerbehebung aufbewahrt) und den Server mit den neuen Duplikaten neu startet, basierend auf dem neuen Snapshot und die Umgebung l\u00e4uft und ist bereit f\u00fcr die neue Version.\n\nDieser gesamte Prozess dauert ca. 8 Minuten. Wenn wir eine QA-Umgebung, die auf diese Weise aufgebaut ist, zu einer PTU-Umgebung ausbauen wollen, senden wir einen Befehl an unsere Provisionierungsschicht und sie geht an Google, fordert mehr VMs an, erstellt mehr Festplattenduplikate, mountet diese Snapshots, f\u00fchrt Chefbefehle aus, um sie zu konfigurieren, f\u00fcgt ihre DNS-Eintr\u00e4ge hinzu und verbindet sie mit der vorhandenen Infrastruktur, die verwendet werden soll. Zu diesem Zeitpunkt haben wir eine PTU-Umgebung. Wir wiederholen diesen Prozess, um die Produktion aufzubauen. Jedes Mal, wenn wir eine Umgebung erweitern, dauert es etwa 8 bis 10 Minuten, je nach Art der Umgebung und den von uns ben\u00f6tigten Konfigurationen.\n\nDer Nutzen dieser dynamischen Sch\u00f6pfung und der Umwelterweiterung ist dreifach. Zun\u00e4chst werden alle ge\u00e4nderten Konfigurationen, fehlgeleiteten Einstellungen oder fehlerhaften Prozesse vollst\u00e4ndig entfernt, wenn die VMs mit den neuen Festplattenduplikaten neu erstellt werden. Alle Konfigurations\u00e4nderungen, die fortbestehen m\u00fcssen, sollten auf der Chefebene vorgenommen werden. Zweitens k\u00f6nnen wir absolut sicherstellen, dass PTU und Produktion genau die gleiche Umgebung sind, auf der QA getestet wurde, so dass es keine seltsamen Unterschiede geben wird, die wir in QA nicht erkannt haben, wenn wir live gehen. Der dritte Vorteil ist einfach die Geschwindigkeit. Es ist viel schneller, Umgebungen w\u00e4hrend des Betriebs dynamisch zu erstellen, als jedes Mal Daten zu kopieren. Die letzten beiden Punkte sind eine ziemlich gro\u00dfe Sache. Wenn unsere Erfahrung uns eines gelehrt hat, dann ist es, dass eine konsistente Testumgebung, die schnell eingef\u00fchrt werden kann, und dieses neue System ist ziemlich schnell. Es ist ein enormer Kraftmultiplikator f\u00fcr unsere F\u00e4higkeit, unsere Testversionen schnell zu wiederholen, was bedeutet, dass QA und letztendlich unsere Geldgeber in der Lage sein werden, vielf\u00e4ltigere Tests schneller durchzuf\u00fchren. Je genauer wir Versionen zu unserer Qualit\u00e4tssicherung und zu unseren Geldgebern bekommen k\u00f6nnen, desto besser k\u00f6nnen wir das Spiel letztendlich gestalten.\n\nDiese neuen Systeme und Prozesse wurden initiiert, um sehr schwerwiegende Einschr\u00e4nkungen des bisher Erreichten zu ersetzen. Wir nehmen uns zus\u00e4tzliche Zeit, um sie richtig zu entwickeln und werden, um sie richtig zu machen, letztendlich mehr f\u00fcr eine korrekte Integration ben\u00f6tigen (Tests, Fehlersuche und dergleichen.) Aber wir sehen bereits eine gro\u00dfe Verbesserung: Das neue System ist viel zuverl\u00e4ssiger und verarbeitet mehr konkurrierende Spieler aufgrund eines verbesserten Netzwerkprotokolls und einer optimierten Backend-Service-Architektur. Kurz gesagt, es selbst zu tun, ist heute ein besseres Spiel und schafft die Voraussetzungen f\u00fcr noch gr\u00f6\u00dfere Dinge!\n\nAuf der Spieleseite setzen wir uns daf\u00fcr ein, dass das Spiel das darstellt, was wir f\u00fcr die First-Person-Action in der Star Citizen-Welt wollen. Hier sind die Dinge etwas weniger technisch und mehr \u00fcber das \"Gef\u00fchl\" der Erfahrung. Eines der gr\u00f6\u00dften Probleme an dieser Front ist die richtige Bildsprache. Wenn Sie unseren letzten Design-Post \u00fcber den FPS lesen, werden Sie sich daran erinnern, dass eine der M\u00f6glichkeiten, wie wir diese Erfahrung hervorheben wollen, darin besteht, dass wir keine \"gef\u00e4lschten\" Animationen vort\u00e4uschen: Alles, was Ihr Charakter in der ersten Person macht, muss korrekt aussehen, wenn er in der dritten Person von einem anderen Spieler ohne doppelte \"gef\u00e4lschte\" Animationen, die f\u00fcr jede Person anders aussehen, betrachtet wird. Diesen Look richtig zu machen, ist etwas, das mehr F&E-Zeit in Anspruch nimmt, als wir erwartet hatten. Es ist eine Herausforderung, der wir uns stellen werden.... aber es wird sorgf\u00e4ltige Arbeit erfordern. Wir haben das neue Frankfurter Studio angezapft, das von Crytek-Veteranen besetzt ist, die alles \u00fcber die Engine wissen, und einige wichtige Ex-Crytek-Leads aus LA und Austin, die dem Team in Denver helfen, dies zu erreichen.\n\nW\u00e4hrend wir diese Herausforderungen weiterhin angehen, arbeitet das FPS-Team daran, andere Bereiche \u00fcber die urspr\u00fcngliche Spezifikation hinaus zu verbessern. Neue Charaktere und Waffen usw., die bereits geplant sind, werden entwickelt, w\u00e4hrend neu aufgenommene Mocap-Animationen regelm\u00e4\u00dfig eingesetzt werden....und andere Ressourcen arbeiten an subtileren Karten\u00e4nderungen. Zum Beispiel haben K\u00fcnstler zus\u00e4tzliche Beleuchtungs- und Detailpassagen auf der Gold Horizont-Karte durchgef\u00fchrt, um schnelle Silhouettenlesungen zu erm\u00f6glichen und es einfacher zu machen, jederzeit zu verstehen, wo man sich im Level befindet. Diese Art von P\u00e4ssen sind nicht so sexy wie der Bau eines neuen Raumschiffs oder das Abfeuern einer neuen Waffe... aber sie sind unerl\u00e4sslich, um die Art von Detail und Gameplay zu bieten, die wir von Star Marine erwarten.\n\nArena Commander zum Beispiel \"ausgeliefert\" mit einer unserer Meinung nach sehr fr\u00fchen Version des Kontrollsystems, und wir haben seitdem sicherlich kein Ende der Debatte geh\u00f6rt! Ob es uns gef\u00e4llt oder nicht, wir wissen, dass wir mit Star Marine einen Build ver\u00f6ffentlichen m\u00fcssen, der den Leuten zumindest zeigt, wohin wir gehen wollen und nicht nur, was wir tun konnten, bevor eine Uhr abgelaufen ist.\n\nWas bedeuten die F\u00d6D-Fragen f\u00fcr den Status des restlichen Projekts?\nDie Entwicklung von Star Citizen ist auf mehrere verschiedene Module oder Teilprojekte verteilt, wobei die Entwicklung auf alle gleichzeitig erfolgt. Nach den Zahlen haben nur 15% des Teams an Star Marine gearbeitet; es war nur der Hauptfokus, weil es die n\u00e4chste \u00f6ffentliche Version war. Das bedeutet, dass die Entwicklung anderer Bereiche, wie Staffel 42, Multicrew und das persistente Universum, fortgesetzt wurde, w\u00e4hrend Probleme mit FPS die Entwicklung dort gestoppt haben (obwohl selbst in diesem Fall die Entwicklung in anderen Bereichen fortgesetzt wird: W\u00e4hrend Netzwerkingenieure gegen Backend-Code k\u00e4mpfen, arbeiten Waffenk\u00fcnstler und Leveldesigner weiterhin an zuk\u00fcnftigen FPS-Meilensteinen).\n\nIch m\u00f6chte nicht sagen, dass es keine Auswirkungen hat: Die richtige Integration des FPS wird dazu beitragen, jeden Teil von Star Citizen voranzubringen, da die Technologie dazu beitragen wird, das Blut und die Sehnen des gesamten Spiels zu bilden.... aber ich kann nicht genug betonen, dass zwei zus\u00e4tzliche Monate, die f\u00fcr Star Marine ausgegeben werden, nicht dasselbe sind wie zwei Monate Verz\u00f6gerung f\u00fcr Star Citizen. Das hartn\u00e4ckige Universumsteam in Austin baut immer noch brillante neue Welten, das Schiffsteam in Santa Monica entwickelt gro\u00dfartige Konzepte und integriert bestehende Schiffe, um sich auf zuk\u00fcnftige Arena Commander-Updates vorzubereiten.... und nat\u00fcrlich ist das Squadron 42-Team in Gro\u00dfbritannien mit voller Kraft am Einzelspieler-Abenteuer beteiligt. Das gr\u00f6\u00dfte Problem, mit dem wir konfrontiert waren, ist, dass die gesamte j\u00fcngste Arbeit des Arena Commander, einschlie\u00dflich neuer flugf\u00e4higer Schiffe, auf dem Star Marine Zweig des Spiels durchgef\u00fchrt wurde. Wir erwarteten, dass 1.2 eingef\u00fchrt wird und wollten die Vorteile der gro\u00dfartigen neuen Technologie nutzen, die Star Marine durch die Integration bietet.\n\nWas kommt als n\u00e4chstes?\nZu diesem Zweck werden wir die Ver\u00f6ffentlichung eines Builds mit deaktiviertem Star Marine untersuchen, der es Ihnen erm\u00f6glicht, einige der \u00c4nderungen und Updates zu erfahren, die wir in den letzten Monaten an der Basis des Kerncodes vorgenommen haben. Es gibt einige technische Herausforderungen dabei, und es wird nicht \u00fcber Nacht passieren.... aber ich denke, dass es unglaublich wichtig ist, weil wir mit der \u00d6ffentlichkeit testen m\u00fcssen, wir m\u00fcssen Ihr Feedback sammeln und offen gesagt m\u00fcssen wir weiterhin beweisen, dass wir an dem arbeiten, was Ihnen wichtig ist.\n\nWann werden wir Star Marine sehen? Heute Abend habe ich keine absolute Antwort f\u00fcr dich. Was ich Ihnen sagen werde, ist, dass wir genau wissen, was wir tun m\u00fcssen, und wir sind bereits auf dem besten Weg, es zu tun. Mit der Bereitstellung zus\u00e4tzlicher Ressourcen und einem verst\u00e4rkten Cross-Studio-Fokus auf den FPS-Teil des Spiels sind wir auf dem Weg.... wir sind einfach noch nicht ganz da. Ich bin zuversichtlich, dass wir mit den bedeutenden Updates und \u00c4nderungen an der oben diskutierten Backend-Architektur eine Erfahrung haben werden, die dem Namen Star Citizen w\u00fcrdig ist; es wird nur einige zus\u00e4tzliche Integration und Tests erfordern. Auf der \u00f6ffentlichen Seite wei\u00df ich, dass es an der Zeit ist, unsere Kommunikation \u00fcber den Rollout-Prozess von Star Marine zu \u00f6ffnen: Beginnend mit dieser Nachricht und jede Woche werden wir ein hochrangiges Update \u00fcber die Herausforderungen geben, genau wie wir es f\u00fcr Arena Commander getan haben.\n\nWir haben die Versprechenskampagne 2012 mit \"The Pledge\" abgeschlossen, in der ich die Ziele unseres neuen Unternehmens skizziert habe, offen \u00fcber unseren Prozess zu sein. Heute m\u00f6chte ich mich diesem Thema erneut widmen: Ich kann Ihnen nicht versprechen, dass wir jeden internen Termin einhalten werden oder dass jede Entscheidung, die wir treffen, etwas ist, dem Sie zustimmen werden. Es wird Herausforderungen geben, die wir zu meistern haben, und wir werden nie in der Lage sein, alle diese mit Sicherheit vorherzusagen.... aber ich kann Ihnen versprechen, dass wir Sie auf dem Laufenden halten werden und dass wir nicht aufh\u00f6ren werden zu arbeiten, bis das Spiel richtig gemacht ist. Schlie\u00dflich sind wir deshalb \u00fcberhaupt erst hier. Deine Unterst\u00fctzung besteht darin, dass wir das Spiel, das wir machen wollen, vor allem anderen erschaffen d\u00fcrfen. Durch Sie haben wir die Freiheit, daf\u00fcr zu sorgen, dass die Dinge so funktionieren, wie wir es wollen, auch wenn es mehr Zeit und M\u00fche erfordert. Wir werden dich nicht im Stich lassen!\n\n- Chris Roberts","zh_CN":"Greetings Citizens,\nFor the past ten weeks, I have been directing the performance capture shoot for Squadron 42 in London, next week will be the last week of the \u201cmain unit\u201d shoot. Directing the Squadron 42 shoot has been one of the most fun and creatively rewarding things I\u2019ve done. It\u2019s where the story and characters written by David Haddock and William Weisbaum come to life for the first time and I can feel just how special Squadron 42 will be. The cast we have put together for Squadron 42 would not be out of place in a major motion picture. We are using the next level in performance capture, which is both motion and facial capture, allowing us to capture even the subtlest looks or moments. Every scene we capture we have between 1 and 3 cameras on every actors face, plus 50 cameras capturing their moves. This technology, combined with next generation character and facial rigs driving full 3D scans of the actors in the world of Star Citizen \/ Squadron 42 allows us to have emotion, nuance and subtlety that I don\u2019t think has been seen in full player controlled gameplay before. I\u2019m hoping that capturing this level of fidelity will make the world and story more visceral than anything I\u2019ve done before, and will push interactive storytelling the same way Wing Commander did over its iterations. The story of Squadron 42 is going to be an experience that I think will be very special. Instead of watching a film play out in front of you it will feel like you are inside a living world, living a story that you only normally see on the big screen but it\u2019s YOUR story, not one of some protagonist you need to associate with! By the time the shoot is over, it will have been longer than Wing Commander 4 (42 days) or even the last feature film I produced, Outlander (51 days.). You need this kind of time to capture real performance. We\u2019re shooting something as nuanced and detailed as a film but in a way that it fuses with a fully breathable interactive world that you control the pace of. To me, this is one of the first, best results of Star Citizen\u2019s crowd funding: the ability for the development team to live our passion rather than to conform to a publisher\u2019s schedule or bullet points. So let me start by thanking every single backer for making this possible. You\u2019ve allowed me and the team to do some outstanding work. I am thrilled to be here.\n\nNow, though, I need to step away from the Squadron 42 shoot to address something that is on everyone\u2019s minds. We initially planned to release the FPS module, which we are calling Star Marine, shortly after PAX East in April. We demonstrated a build of the module at the backer event that ran fairly well. It lacked some polish (especially with animations) and still had several technical blockers that prevented a wide scale rollout\u2026but we felt confident enough in the work to say that it would be available for everyone soon. Unfortunately that didn\u2019t happen. Just over two months on, we are continuing to tackle technical and gameplay-related issues. I know that there are two questions above all others that you need answered, and I will now do my best to address them.\n\nWhat issues are the FPS team facing?\nThe tl;dr is that we feel the current build doesn\u2019t feel like it lives up to the standards we\u2019ve want to achieve with Star Citizen. There are several issues that will need additional time in order to deliver the first iteration of the gameplay we want you to experience. The challenges facing the FPS launch are a mix of technical blockers and gameplay issues. The most significant technical hurdle faced today is the networking backend. After attempting to work with the legacy code, we decided that we needed to drop some of the legacy technology. That meant developing what we\u2019re calling a Generic Instance Manager (GIM) and rewriting both the Matchmaker and (for the larger project) the game Launcher from scratch. Those efforts are all going well, but they\u2019ve all taken additional time for our engineers.\n\nGoing into further detail on the technical side of these systems, one of our big hurdles was, as noted, the creation of the GIM. This new system will be responsible for all the game servers that make up Star Citizen, and we\u2019ve built it to have far more direct control over the internal state and operation of each game server than was available before. The GIM not only manages Arena Commander and Star Marine instances, but also provides a solid framework for instanced multi-player Hangars as well as the instanced Universe game servers that will form the persistent universe. The GIM allocates and recycles game servers at a much faster rate and in a more reliable way than before, helping to get players into the action more quickly and keeping them in their games with less incident. The development of this system, which has been ongoing for some time, has been a group effort involving engineers from around the company. Once it\u2019s integrated, it will not only improve the Star Marine experience but also chart the \u2018behind the screens\u2019 course for Star Citizen\u2019s future. We\u2019re looking forward to testing it in action internally next week!\n\nThe new GIM isn\u2019t the only \u2018home grown\u2019 system we\u2019ve come to need for Star Marine. A second challenge has been the need to rewrite the game\u2019s Matchmaking system from scratch, taking an entirely different approach to the process that will eliminate long waits during the Match search process. Situations that use to result in \u201cMatch Not Found\u201d no longer exist and every player\/group is guaranteed a match in a match and in shorter time than they have seen before. The Matchmaker now keeps friends together such that players in a public group will always be matched to the same team as expected. I\u2019m happy to report that, as of this week, the new matchmaking software has been integrated and is undergoing testing.\n\nThe third process currently in progress for improving Star Citizen\u2019s backend netcode is what we\u2019re calling the \u201cPhoenix\u201d dynamic environments system. Each time the team kick off a new build of Star Citizen all the data that the servers need is automatically copied out to hard disks in Google; this is a snapshot of our game data. These disks are broken into two to three conceptual parts: Base Image (the OS plus a few other things), Logs, and Server Data (Code and Assets). When we build an environment, we mount duplicates of these disks to each Virtual Machine (VM) that we bring up. Duplicates of the snapshot are created very rapidly, around 45 seconds for 200 gigs of data. We\u2019ve written some automation code to automatically run commands on the VM to configure it appropriately for what type of server it will become (Game, Matchmaking, Party, etc.) During this process, a new DNS entry is assigned to server based off the version of the data uploaded. When a new build is created, and we need to push it to an environment, we trigger a command that automatically shuts down all VM\u2019s, unmounts the duplicated disks of the Base Image and Server Data disk (Log disks are always kept for troubleshooting), and then restarts the server with the new duplicates based of the new snapshot and the environment is running and ready on the new version.\n\nThis entire process takes about 8 minutes. When we want to take a QA environment that is built this way, and extend it to become a PTU environment, we send a command to our Provisioning layer and it goes out to Google, requests more VMs, builds more disk duplicates, mounts those snapshots, runs Chef commands to configure it, adds their DNS entries, and connects them to the existing infrastructure to be used. At that point we have a PTU environment. We repeat this process to build Production. Each time we expand an environment it takes about 8 to 10 minutes depending on the type of environment and the configurations we need.\n\nThe benefit of this dynamic creation and the environment expansion is threefold. First, any changed configs, misplaced settings, or broken processes are completely removed when the VMs are rebuilt using the new disk duplicates. Any configuration changes that need to persist should be made at the Chef level. Second, we can make absolutely sure that PTU and Production is the exact same environment that QA tested on, so there will be no strange differences we failed to catch in QA when we go live. The third benefit is simply speed. It is much faster to dynamically recreate environments on the fly than to recopy data each time. Those last two points are a pretty big deal. If our experience has taught us one thing it is that having a consistent test environment that can be rolled out quickly, and this new system is pretty quick. It\u2019s a huge force multiplier for our ability to rapidly iterate our test versions, which means QA and ultimately our backers will be able to do more varied testing more quickly. The more accurate we can get versions to our QA and to our backers the better we can ultimately make the game.\n\nThese new systems and processes were initiated to replace very serious limitations in what had come before. We\u2019re taking additional time to develop them properly and will in order to get them right we will ultimately need more for proper integration (testing, bug triage and the like.) But we\u2019re already seeing a great improvement: the new system is far more reliable and handles more concurrent players due to improved networking protocol and a streamlined back-end service architecture. In short, doing it ourselves makes for a better game today and sets the stage for even bigger things to come!\n\nOn the gameplay side, we are dedicated to making sure the game represents what we want for first person action in the Star Citizen world. This is where things are a little less technical and more about the \u2018feel\u2019 of the experience. One of the biggest issues on this front is getting the visuals right. If you read our last design post on the FPS, you will remember that one of the ways we want this experience to stand apart is that we aren\u2019t \u2018faking\u2019 animations: anything your character does in the first person needs to look correct when viewed in the third person by another player without duplicate \u2018fake\u2019 animations that look different to each person. Making this look right is something that\u2019s taking more R&D time than we had anticipated. It\u2019s a challenge that we will meet\u2026but it\u2019s going to require careful work. We\u2019ve tapped the new Frankfurt studio, which is staffed by Crytek veterans who know every in and out of the engine and some key ex-Crytek leads from LA and Austin to help the team in Denver make this work.\n\nAs we continue to tackle these challenges, the FPS team is continuing to improve other areas beyond the initial spec. New characters and weapons and so on, already scheduled, are being developed while newly recorded mocap animations are going in on a regular basis\u2026and other resources are working on more subtle map changes. For instance, artists have been conducting additional lighting and detail passes on the Gold Horizon map with an eye towards quick silhouette reads and making it easier to understand where you are in the level at any time. These kinds of passes aren\u2019t as sexy as building a new spaceship or firing a new weapon\u2026but they\u2019re essential to providing the kind of detail and gameplay we want out of Star Marine.\n\nArena Commander, for instance, \u201cshipped\u201d with what we thought would be a very early version of the control system, and we\u2019ve certainly heard no end of the debate since! Like it or not, we know that with Star Marine we need to release a build that at the very least shows people where we want to go and not just what we were able to do before a clock ran out.\n\nWhat do the FPS issues mean for the status of the rest of the project?\nStar Citizen\u2019s development is distributed across several different modules or sub-projects, with development happening on all of them simultaneously. By the numbers, only 15% of the team has been working on Star Marine; it\u2019s just been the major focus because it was the next public release. This means that development of other areas, such as Squadron 42, multicrew and the persistent universe, have continued while issues with FPS have stalled development there (though even in that case, development continues in other areas: while network engineers battle back end code, weapons artists and level designers continue to work towards future FPS milestones).\n\nI don\u2019t want to say that there is no impact: integrating the FPS properly will help move every part of Star Citizen forward, as the tech will help form the blood and sinews of the whole game\u2026but I can\u2019t stress enough that two additional months spent on Star Marine are not the same thing as two months of a delay for Star Citizen. The persistent universe team in Austin is still building brilliant new worlds, the ship team in Santa Monica is coming up with great concepts and integrating existing ships in preparation for future Arena Commander updates\u2026and of course the Squadron 42 team in the UK is full speed ahead on the single player adventure. The biggest issue we have faced is that all the recent Arena Commander work, including new flyable ships has been done on the Star Marine branch of the game\u2019s build. We expected to have 1.2 launched and wanted to take advantage of the great new tech Star Marine\u2019s integration provides.\n\nWhat\u2019s next?\nTo that end, we are going to investigate releasing a build with Star Marine disabled that would allow you to experience some of the changes and updates we\u2019ve made over the last few months to the core code base. There are some technical challenges in doing this, and it won\u2019t happen overnight\u2026but I feel that it\u2019s incredibly important to do because we need to test with the public, we need to collect your feedback and frankly we need to continue proving that we\u2019re working on what you care about.\n\nWhen will we see Star Marine? Tonight, I don\u2019t have an absolute answer for you. What I will tell you is that we know exactly what we have to do, and we\u2019re already well on our way to doing it. With allocation of additional resources and increased cross-studio focus on the FPS portion of the game we are on our way\u2026 we\u2019re just not there quite yet. I\u2019m confident that with the significant updates and changes to the backend architecture discussed above that we will have an experience worthy of the Star Citizen name; it\u2019s just going to take some additional integration and testing. On the public side, I know that it\u2019s time to open up our communications on the Star Marine rollout process: starting with this message and continuing each week, we will provide a high level update on the challenges just as we did for Arena Commander.\n\nWe ended the 2012 pledge campaign with \u2018The Pledge,\u2019 in which I outlined our new company\u2019s goals to be open about our process. Today, I want to rededicate ourselves to this: I can\u2019t promise you we\u2019ll meet every internal deadline or that every decision we make is something you\u2019ll agree with. There will be challenges that we struggle to overcome, and we will never be able to predict all of these with certainty\u2026but I can promise you we will keep you informed and that we will not stop working until the game is done right. After all, that\u2019s why we\u2019re here in the first place. Your support is letting us create the game we want to make before anything else. Because of you, we have the freedom to make sure things work the way we want, even if it takes more time and more effort. We won\u2019t let you down!\n\n- Chris Roberts"},"links_count":0,"comment_count":473,"created_at":"2015-06-27T00:00:00+00:00","created_at_human":"10 years ago"},"meta":{"processed_at":"2026-05-13 11:56:35","valid_relations":["images","links"],"prev_id":14802,"next_id":14804}}