{"data":{"id":17939,"title":"Roadmap Roundup - December 23rd, 2020","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/comm-link\/spectrum-dispatch\/17939-Roadmap-Roundup-December-23rd-2020","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-links\/17939","api_public_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/comm-links\/17939","channel":"Spectrum Dispatch","category":"Lore","series":"Roadmap Roundup","images":[{"id":22318,"name":"TRAVEL_WARNING.png","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/media\/xoh0h57yqhmror\/source\/TRAVEL_WARNING.png","alt":"","size":18693,"mime_type":"image\/png","last_modified":"2016-05-05T03:15:45+00:00","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/22318","similar_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/22318\/similar"},{"id":22598,"name":"Source-6.jpg","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/media\/xkgpg49opojvor\/source\/Source-6.jpg","alt":"","size":681890,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","last_modified":"2019-09-06T14:55:47+00:00","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/22598","similar_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/22598\/similar"},{"id":24592,"name":"StarCitizen.png","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/media\/albozos0cs1a1r\/source\/StarCitizen.png","alt":"","size":6655514,"mime_type":"image\/png","last_modified":"2020-08-17T05:53:00+00:00","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/24592","similar_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/24592\/similar"},{"id":26596,"name":"Tracker-Final.jpg","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/media\/uzcx4jzjjaj3zr\/source\/Tracker-Final.jpg","alt":"","size":183968,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","last_modified":"2020-12-23T20:53:00+00:00","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/26596","similar_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/26596\/similar"},{"id":26597,"name":"Release_view_1.jpg","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/media\/nf3mvfkclcplir\/source\/Release_view_1.jpg","alt":"","size":193033,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","last_modified":"2020-12-23T20:24:46+00:00","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/26597","similar_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/26597\/similar"}],"images_count":5,"translations":{"en_EN":"Hello everyone,\nToday marks the release of the all-new Roadmap, designed to give you more insight and visibility into the development of Star Citizen and Squadron 42 than ever before.\nTherefore, instead of discussing the latest changes, we want to use this Roadmap Roundup to explain how the new Roadmap works and what you can expect going forward.\nYou\u2019ll notice that the new Roadmap has two views: the\u202fProgress Tracker\u202fView\u202fand the\u202fRelease View.\u202fLet\u2019s break it down. Progress Tracker View\nThe cornerstone of this new Roadmap is our new Progress Tracker view. With the Progress Tracker, we set out to accomplish two goals: 1) pull back the curtains for all teams, and 2) show you what each team (including each Squadron 42 team) is working on for this quarter and what their priorities are after completing the immediate deliverable at hand. This view is solely meant to share what the teams are working on at any given time, and it should not be used to determine when a deliverable will hit the live servers.\nFor the Progress Tracker view, we\u2019ve committed upfront to giving you four quarters of visibility into each team\u2019s development. The further out you project, the more fluid (subject to change) the work is and the less hardened the schedules. That\u2019s why we don\u2019t think it is useful to go beyond that four quarters threshold. Even at three to four quarters out, you should know that deliverables will be subject to movement, sometimes moving out a quarter or more. That\u2019s because priorities can change, unknowns may surface that block development, or downstream dependencies may get delayed that force us to pause work or revisit our estimates. But it\u2019s important to note that the new Progress Tracker will show you our best estimates of our teams\u2019 deliverables and the duration of their sprints for four quarters out.\nThe updated Roadmap is much more sophisticated than the last, so let\u2019s break it down. What you\u2019ll find is that the Roadmap is now organized by teams in alphabetical order. When you click to expand a team, you\u2019ll find a list of their deliverables. Each deliverable will indicate both its name, games it applies to (Star Citizen or Squadron 42, or both), as well as the disciplines working on that deliverable (e.g. Design, Engineering, Art, Tech Content). You will also find a description that sheds some additional light on what each deliverable is about, alongside an estimated duration.\nOur First Update\nWith the introduction of the Progress Tracker, we will roll out the demonstrated teams in stages. As we\u2019ve mentioned before, we have over 50 development teams at Cloud Imperium, ranging in size from 4 to 20 team members. For this first launch of our new Roadmap, we are showing 20 teams. These are all core feature and content teams that are upstream in development, meaning they set the major tentpole development deliverables for the rest of Star Citizen and Squadron 42. These include the Actor Feature Team, Live Mission Content Team, Landing Zone Content Team, US Persistent Universe Feature Team, Planet Content Team, Vehicle Content Team, Vehicle Feature Team, Weapon Feature Team, and more, as well as several dedicated Squadron 42 teams like Squadron 42 Art, Squadron 42 FPS Design, Squadron 42 Flight Design, and Squadron 42 Social Design. And with four quarters of work, we are showing you over 200 deliverables from these 20 teams. To put that into perspective, in our 3.12 Release Card in our previous Roadmap, we showed 26 deliverables. So with just 40% of our teams, we are already showing you more than 8 times what we used to show in a single release card.\nWhat is still missing is our Core Tech Group, which is comprised of 9 teams working on iCache and Server Meshing, as well as AI, Network, Graphics, and Engine. We know many of you are eagerly awaiting the roadmap for these teams, and we plan to show those in January, when we will also update the Progress Tracker with more teams. As we mentioned in a previous update, our initial publish will exclude our downstream teams, such as VFX, Audio, UI, and others. These teams support the upstream teams, and therefore need to first see the schedules set by the core feature and content teams before they can determine their own work and priorities. Because of that, we opted to hold these teams back from the debut of our Progress Tracker, so they could continue work to solidify their schedules, with the intent of adding them to the Progress Tracker in Q1.\nUpdate Schedule and More Features\nWith our new Roadmap, we plan to continue to provide updates on a regular basis. The old Roadmap was updated every week, and while we will visit our new Roadmap weekly, we\u2019ll aim to update bi-weekly. However, that doesn\u2019t mean that we will have many updates to provide at such a frequent cadence.\nIn the short term, we plan to add our Core Tech Group to the Progress Tracker in January, and the downstream teams shortly after that. After that\u2019s done, we will continue to update the new Roadmap as work completes, new projects come online, and any changes occur to progress and priorities.\nYou\u2019ll note that the first delivery of the Progress Tracker is actually v0.5. We still have many features & improvements in store for the Progress Tracker before we would call it complete. For instance, we plan to add the ability to search and favorite teams and deliverables, as well as link deliverables in the Progress Tracker to their estimated delivery in the revamped Release View. Not only will we continue to add new features, but we\u2019ll also of course continue to optimize the user experience with improvements to the overall usability. Release View\nSimilar to the previous Roadmap, the\u202fRelease View is meant to give you an idea of when we expect to release those deliverables in the mid-term.\nOur desire is to show you four quarters of releases, but one critical takeaway is that only the immediate quarter in front of us has a chance to have a release view that will be hardened, as the deliverables that appear on the card for the quarter in front of us will have passed Go\/No Go gates or be close enough to completion that we can predict their delivery with a high degree of confidence. You could say at that point that we have a ~90% degree of confidence that this deliverable will make its indicated release quarter. Once you go past the quarter in front of us though, that predictability and confidence for delivery will begin to degrade.\nIn cases where we have yet to start on a project, it is especially difficult to predict delivery with a high degree of confidence, particularly for projects that have more unknowns. In those instances where we just don\u2019t know yet, we won\u2019t even place that deliverable onto a release card two to four quarters out, even though you will see it scheduled out in the Progress Tracker for work. But for some deliverables that we\u2019ve gotten into a rhythm delivering, such as vehicles and landing zones, we will be better equipped to estimate timelines. These could appear in a release card even a few quarters out. For any of these deliverables further down the line, even then we will only place them onto a release card if we have at least a good level of confidence \u2013 around a ~70% confidence level \u2013 that we could make that window. If we can\u2019t even clear this hurdle of confidence internally, then we won\u2019t put it on a release card.\nAs of this first publish, we are showing you a Release View with just one release column, which is Q1 2021, or Alpha 3.13. But when we return in January, we plan on adding Q2, Q3 and Q4, all alongside debuting a new roadmap feature to further share which deliverables we hope to release in the year to come. In order to capture the fluidity of deliverables that are further in the future, we will be adopting a color coding system that indicates that the further out we get from the first quarter, the fuzzier the release card and the more the deliverables in there are subject to change. The quarter in front of us may be a solid color (although in this case, 3.13 would be grey until we\u2019re closer to GO\/No-Go), denoting that we\u2019re in the midst of working on our deliverables and understand velocity enough to determine a very reliable delivery estimate. For the next 3 quarters after that, the release cards will be in light grey, to denote that these estimated delivery times are still fluid and could move around. At the highest level, you\u2019ll know that if you are viewing a release card that is grey, it will be fluid. That\u2019s because even if we have ~70% confidence it will make it, there\u2019s a good ~30% chance it could move. If the release card is solid colored, it will be hardened, with just a ~10% chance or less of moving. Put another way, if it\u2019s grey, don\u2019t be surprised if it moves\/changes. If it\u2019s solid, expect it to stay put (with very rare exception).\nWe know that the new Roadmap and Progress Tracker, as well as our desire for you to shift your mindset in how you view our progress, will take some getting used to. But we feel that this new view will finally give all of our community the most transparent peek inside our development they\u2019ve ever had, and we have plans to continue to build on this roadmap to make it more informative and instructive for all watchers.","de_DE":"Hallo zusammen,\nheute wird die brandneue Roadmap ver\u00f6ffentlicht, die Ihnen mehr Einblick und Transparenz in die Entwicklung von Star Citizen und Squadron 42 geben soll als je zuvor.\nAnstatt die letzten \u00c4nderungen zu besprechen, m\u00f6chten wir dieses Roadmap-Roundup nutzen, um zu erkl\u00e4ren, wie die neue Roadmap funktioniert und was Sie in Zukunft erwarten k\u00f6nnen.\nSie werden feststellen, dass die neue Roadmap zwei Ansichten hat: die Progress Tracker-Ansicht und die Release-Ansicht.Lassen Sie uns diese aufschl\u00fcsseln. Progress Tracker-Ansicht\nDer Eckpfeiler dieser neuen Roadmap ist unsere neue Progress Tracker-Ansicht. Mit dem Progress Tracker haben wir uns vorgenommen, zwei Ziele zu erreichen: 1) die Vorh\u00e4nge f\u00fcr alle Teams zur\u00fcckziehen und 2) Ihnen zeigen, woran jedes Team (einschlie\u00dflich jedes Staffel-42-Teams) in diesem Quartal arbeitet und welche Priorit\u00e4ten sie nach der Fertigstellung der aktuellen Lieferung haben. Diese Ansicht ist nur dazu gedacht, Ihnen mitzuteilen, woran die Teams gerade arbeiten, und sie sollte nicht dazu verwendet werden, um zu bestimmen, wann eine Lieferung auf die Live-Server kommt.\nF\u00fcr die Progress Tracker-Ansicht haben wir uns im Voraus verpflichtet, Ihnen vier Quartale Einblick in die Entwicklung der einzelnen Teams zu geben. Je weiter Sie projizieren, desto flie\u00dfender (\u00e4nderungsanf\u00e4llig) ist die Arbeit und desto weniger gefestigt sind die Zeitpl\u00e4ne. Aus diesem Grund halten wir es nicht f\u00fcr sinnvoll, \u00fcber diese Vier-Quartals-Schwelle hinauszugehen. Selbst bei drei bis vier Quartalen sollten Sie wissen, dass sich die Ergebnisse noch verschieben k\u00f6nnen, manchmal um ein Quartal oder mehr. Das liegt daran, dass sich Priorit\u00e4ten \u00e4ndern k\u00f6nnen, Unbekannte auftauchen k\u00f6nnen, die die Entwicklung blockieren, oder nachgelagerte Abh\u00e4ngigkeiten sich verz\u00f6gern k\u00f6nnen, die uns zwingen, die Arbeit zu unterbrechen oder unsere Sch\u00e4tzungen zu \u00fcberdenken. Aber es ist wichtig zu wissen, dass der neue Progress Tracker Ihnen unsere besten Sch\u00e4tzungen f\u00fcr die Deliverables unserer Teams und die Dauer ihrer Sprints f\u00fcr vier Quartale im Voraus anzeigt.\nDie aktualisierte Roadmap ist viel ausgefeilter als die letzte, also lassen Sie uns diese aufschl\u00fcsseln. Sie werden feststellen, dass die Roadmap jetzt nach Teams in alphabetischer Reihenfolge geordnet ist. Wenn Sie auf ein Team klicken, um es zu erweitern, finden Sie eine Liste seiner Deliverables. Jedes Deliverable zeigt sowohl seinen Namen, die Spiele, f\u00fcr die es gilt (Star Citizen oder Squadron 42 oder beides), als auch die Disziplinen, die an diesem Deliverable arbeiten (z.B. Design, Engineering, Art, Tech Content). Sie werden auch eine Beschreibung finden, die etwas zus\u00e4tzliches Licht auf das Thema jedes Deliverables wirft, zusammen mit einer gesch\u00e4tzten Dauer.\nUnser erstes Update\nMit der Einf\u00fchrung des Progress Trackers werden wir die demonstrierten Teams schrittweise ausrollen. Wie wir bereits erw\u00e4hnt haben, haben wir \u00fcber 50 Entwicklungsteams bei Cloud Imperium, die zwischen 4 und 20 Teammitgliedern gro\u00df sind. F\u00fcr diesen ersten Start unserer neuen Roadmap zeigen wir 20 Teams. Dies sind alle Kern-Feature- und Content-Teams, die in der Entwicklung vorgelagert sind, was bedeutet, dass sie die wichtigsten Tentpole-Entwicklungsleistungen f\u00fcr den Rest von Star Citizen und Squadron 42 festlegen. Dazu geh\u00f6ren das Actor Feature Team, das Live Mission Content Team, das Landing Zone Content Team, das US Persistent Universe Feature Team, das Planet Content Team, das Vehicle Content Team, das Vehicle Feature Team, das Weapon Feature Team und weitere, sowie mehrere spezielle Squadron 42 Teams wie Squadron 42 Art, Squadron 42 FPS Design, Squadron 42 Flight Design und Squadron 42 Social Design. Und mit vier Quartalen Arbeit zeigen wir Ihnen \u00fcber 200 Ergebnisse dieser 20 Teams. Um das in die richtige Perspektive zu r\u00fccken, haben wir in unserer 3.12 Release Card in unserer vorherigen Roadmap 26 Deliverables gezeigt. Mit nur 40% unserer Teams zeigen wir Ihnen also bereits mehr als das 8-fache dessen, was wir fr\u00fcher in einer einzigen Release Card gezeigt haben.\nWas noch fehlt, ist unsere Core Tech Group, die aus 9 Teams besteht, die an iCache und Server Meshing, sowie AI, Network, Graphics und Engine arbeiten. Wir wissen, dass viele von Ihnen sehns\u00fcchtig auf die Roadmap f\u00fcr diese Teams warten, und wir planen, diese im Januar zu zeigen, wenn wir auch den Progress Tracker mit weiteren Teams aktualisieren werden. Wie wir bereits in einem fr\u00fcheren Update erw\u00e4hnt haben, werden wir bei der ersten Ver\u00f6ffentlichung unsere nachgelagerten Teams, wie VFX, Audio, UI und andere, nicht ber\u00fccksichtigen. Diese Teams unterst\u00fctzen die vorgelagerten Teams und m\u00fcssen daher zuerst die Zeitpl\u00e4ne sehen, die von den Core Feature- und Content-Teams festgelegt wurden, bevor sie ihre eigene Arbeit und ihre Priorit\u00e4ten festlegen k\u00f6nnen. Aus diesem Grund haben wir uns entschieden, diese Teams vom Deb\u00fct unseres Progress Trackers zur\u00fcckzuhalten, damit sie weiter daran arbeiten k\u00f6nnen, ihre Zeitpl\u00e4ne zu festigen, mit der Absicht, sie im ersten Quartal in den Progress Tracker aufzunehmen.\nUpdate-Zeitplan und mehr Funktionen\nMit unserer neuen Roadmap planen wir, weiterhin regelm\u00e4\u00dfig Updates bereitzustellen. Die alte Roadmap wurde jede Woche aktualisiert, und w\u00e4hrend wir unsere neue Roadmap w\u00f6chentlich besuchen werden, streben wir ein zweiw\u00f6chentliches Update an. Das bedeutet jedoch nicht, dass wir viele Updates in einer so h\u00e4ufigen Kadenz bereitstellen werden.\nKurzfristig planen wir, unsere Core Tech Group im Januar in den Progress Tracker aufzunehmen, und die nachgelagerten Teams kurz danach. Danach werden wir die neue Roadmap weiter aktualisieren, sobald die Arbeiten abgeschlossen sind, neue Projekte online gehen und sich \u00c4nderungen in Bezug auf den Fortschritt und die Priorit\u00e4ten ergeben.\nSie werden feststellen, dass die erste Auslieferung des Progress Trackers eigentlich v0.5 ist. Wir haben noch viele Funktionen und Verbesserungen f\u00fcr den Progress Tracker auf Lager, bevor wir ihn als vollst\u00e4ndig bezeichnen w\u00fcrden. Zum Beispiel planen wir, die M\u00f6glichkeit hinzuzuf\u00fcgen, Teams und Deliverables zu suchen und zu favorisieren, sowie Deliverables im Progress Tracker mit ihrer gesch\u00e4tzten Lieferung in der \u00fcberarbeiteten Release View zu verkn\u00fcpfen. Wir werden nicht nur weiterhin neue Funktionen hinzuf\u00fcgen, sondern nat\u00fcrlich auch weiterhin die Benutzerfreundlichkeit durch Verbesserungen der Gesamtbenutzerfreundlichkeit optimieren. Release-Ansicht\n\u00c4hnlich wie die bisherige Roadmap soll Ihnen die Release-Ansicht eine Vorstellung davon geben, wann wir diese Leistungen mittelfristig ver\u00f6ffentlichen werden.\nUnser Wunsch ist es, Ihnen vier Quartale von Releases zu zeigen, aber eine wichtige Erkenntnis ist, dass nur das unmittelbar vor uns liegende Quartal eine Chance hat, eine geh\u00e4rtete Release-Ansicht zu haben, da die Deliverables, die auf der Karte f\u00fcr das vor uns liegende Quartal erscheinen, Go\/No Go-Gates passiert haben oder nahe genug an der Fertigstellung sind, dass wir ihre Lieferung mit einem hohen Ma\u00df an Vertrauen vorhersagen k\u00f6nnen. Man k\u00f6nnte sagen, dass wir zu diesem Zeitpunkt einen Vertrauensgrad von ~90% haben, dass dieses Deliverable sein angegebenes Release-Quartal erreichen wird. Sobald Sie jedoch \u00fcber das vor uns liegende Quartal hinausgehen, beginnen diese Vorhersagbarkeit und das Vertrauen in die Lieferung zu sinken.\nIn F\u00e4llen, in denen wir mit einem Projekt noch nicht begonnen haben, ist es besonders schwierig, die Lieferung mit einem hohen Grad an Vertrauen vorherzusagen, insbesondere bei Projekten mit mehr Unbekannten. In den F\u00e4llen, in denen wir es einfach noch nicht wissen, werden wir dieses Deliverable nicht einmal auf eine Release Card f\u00fcr zwei bis vier Quartale setzen, obwohl Sie es im Progress Tracker f\u00fcr die Arbeit eingeplant sehen werden. Aber f\u00fcr einige Deliverables, die wir in einen Lieferrhythmus bekommen haben, wie Fahrzeuge und Landezonen, werden wir besser in der Lage sein, Zeitr\u00e4ume abzusch\u00e4tzen. Diese k\u00f6nnten in einer Versionskarte erscheinen, sogar ein paar Quartale in der Zukunft. F\u00fcr alle diese Deliverables, die weiter in der Zukunft liegen, werden wir sie nur dann in eine Release Card aufnehmen, wenn wir zumindest ein gutes Ma\u00df an Vertrauen haben - etwa ein ~70%iges Vertrauensniveau - dass wir dieses Zeitfenster schaffen k\u00f6nnen. Wenn wir diese H\u00fcrde des Vertrauens nicht einmal intern \u00fcberwinden k\u00f6nnen, dann werden wir es nicht auf eine Freigabekarte setzen.\nAb dieser ersten Ver\u00f6ffentlichung zeigen wir Ihnen eine Release-Ansicht mit nur einer Release-Spalte, n\u00e4mlich Q1 2021, oder Alpha 3.13. Aber wenn wir im Januar zur\u00fcckkehren, planen wir, Q2, Q3 und Q4 hinzuzuf\u00fcgen, und gleichzeitig eine neue Roadmap-Funktion einzuf\u00fchren, die Ihnen zeigt, welche Produkte wir im kommenden Jahr zu ver\u00f6ffentlichen hoffen. Um die Unbest\u00e4ndigkeit von Produkten, die weiter in der Zukunft liegen, zu erfassen, werden wir ein Farbcodierungssystem einf\u00fchren, das anzeigt, dass die Versionskarte umso unsch\u00e4rfer wird, je weiter wir uns vom ersten Quartal entfernen und je mehr sich die darin enthaltenen Produkte noch \u00e4ndern k\u00f6nnen. Das Quartal, das vor uns liegt, kann eine einfarbige Farbe sein (obwohl in diesem Fall 3.13 grau w\u00e4re, bis wir n\u00e4her an GO\/No-Go sind), was bedeutet, dass wir mitten in der Arbeit an unseren Deliverables sind und die Geschwindigkeit genug verstehen, um eine sehr verl\u00e4ssliche Liefersch\u00e4tzung zu bestimmen. F\u00fcr die n\u00e4chsten 3 Quartale danach sind die Release-Karten hellgrau, um anzuzeigen, dass diese gesch\u00e4tzten Lieferzeiten noch im Fluss sind und sich verschieben k\u00f6nnen. Wenn Sie eine graue Freigabekarte sehen, wissen Sie, dass sie noch im Fluss ist. Das liegt daran, dass, auch wenn wir eine ~70%ige Zuversicht haben, dass es klappt, eine gute ~30%ige Chance besteht, dass es sich verschieben k\u00f6nnte. Wenn die Freigabekarte einfarbig ist, wird sie geh\u00e4rtet sein, mit nur einer ~10%igen Chance oder weniger, dass sie sich bewegt. Mit anderen Worten: Wenn sie grau ist, seien Sie nicht \u00fcberrascht, wenn sie sich bewegt\/ver\u00e4ndert. Wenn es einfarbig ist, erwarten Sie, dass es an Ort und Stelle bleibt (mit sehr seltenen Ausnahmen).\nWir wissen, dass die neue Roadmap und der Progress Tracker sowie unser Wunsch, dass Sie Ihre Denkweise in Bezug auf unseren Fortschritt \u00e4ndern, etwas gew\u00f6hnungsbed\u00fcrftig sein werden. Aber wir sind der Meinung, dass diese neue Ansicht unserer Community endlich den transparentesten Einblick in unsere Entwicklung geben wird, den sie je hatte, und wir haben Pl\u00e4ne, diese Roadmap weiter auszubauen, um sie f\u00fcr alle Beobachter noch informativer und aufschlussreicher zu machen.","zh_CN":"Hello everyone,\nToday marks the release of the all-new Roadmap, designed to give you more insight and visibility into the development of Star Citizen and Squadron 42 than ever before.\nTherefore, instead of discussing the latest changes, we want to use this Roadmap Roundup to explain how the new Roadmap works and what you can expect going forward.\nYou\u2019ll notice that the new Roadmap has two views: the\u202fProgress Tracker\u202fView\u202fand the\u202fRelease View.\u202fLet\u2019s break it down. Progress Tracker View\nThe cornerstone of this new Roadmap is our new Progress Tracker view. With the Progress Tracker, we set out to accomplish two goals: 1) pull back the curtains for all teams, and 2) show you what each team (including each Squadron 42 team) is working on for this quarter and what their priorities are after completing the immediate deliverable at hand. This view is solely meant to share what the teams are working on at any given time, and it should not be used to determine when a deliverable will hit the live servers.\nFor the Progress Tracker view, we\u2019ve committed upfront to giving you four quarters of visibility into each team\u2019s development. The further out you project, the more fluid (subject to change) the work is and the less hardened the schedules. That\u2019s why we don\u2019t think it is useful to go beyond that four quarters threshold. Even at three to four quarters out, you should know that deliverables will be subject to movement, sometimes moving out a quarter or more. That\u2019s because priorities can change, unknowns may surface that block development, or downstream dependencies may get delayed that force us to pause work or revisit our estimates. But it\u2019s important to note that the new Progress Tracker will show you our best estimates of our teams\u2019 deliverables and the duration of their sprints for four quarters out.\nThe updated Roadmap is much more sophisticated than the last, so let\u2019s break it down. What you\u2019ll find is that the Roadmap is now organized by teams in alphabetical order. When you click to expand a team, you\u2019ll find a list of their deliverables. Each deliverable will indicate both its name, games it applies to (Star Citizen or Squadron 42, or both), as well as the disciplines working on that deliverable (e.g. Design, Engineering, Art, Tech Content). You will also find a description that sheds some additional light on what each deliverable is about, alongside an estimated duration.\nOur First Update\nWith the introduction of the Progress Tracker, we will roll out the demonstrated teams in stages. As we\u2019ve mentioned before, we have over 50 development teams at Cloud Imperium, ranging in size from 4 to 20 team members. For this first launch of our new Roadmap, we are showing 20 teams. These are all core feature and content teams that are upstream in development, meaning they set the major tentpole development deliverables for the rest of Star Citizen and Squadron 42. These include the Actor Feature Team, Live Mission Content Team, Landing Zone Content Team, US Persistent Universe Feature Team, Planet Content Team, Vehicle Content Team, Vehicle Feature Team, Weapon Feature Team, and more, as well as several dedicated Squadron 42 teams like Squadron 42 Art, Squadron 42 FPS Design, Squadron 42 Flight Design, and Squadron 42 Social Design. And with four quarters of work, we are showing you over 200 deliverables from these 20 teams. To put that into perspective, in our 3.12 Release Card in our previous Roadmap, we showed 26 deliverables. So with just 40% of our teams, we are already showing you more than 8 times what we used to show in a single release card.\nWhat is still missing is our Core Tech Group, which is comprised of 9 teams working on iCache and Server Meshing, as well as AI, Network, Graphics, and Engine. We know many of you are eagerly awaiting the roadmap for these teams, and we plan to show those in January, when we will also update the Progress Tracker with more teams. As we mentioned in a previous update, our initial publish will exclude our downstream teams, such as VFX, Audio, UI, and others. These teams support the upstream teams, and therefore need to first see the schedules set by the core feature and content teams before they can determine their own work and priorities. Because of that, we opted to hold these teams back from the debut of our Progress Tracker, so they could continue work to solidify their schedules, with the intent of adding them to the Progress Tracker in Q1.\nUpdate Schedule and More Features\nWith our new Roadmap, we plan to continue to provide updates on a regular basis. The old Roadmap was updated every week, and while we will visit our new Roadmap weekly, we\u2019ll aim to update bi-weekly. However, that doesn\u2019t mean that we will have many updates to provide at such a frequent cadence.\nIn the short term, we plan to add our Core Tech Group to the Progress Tracker in January, and the downstream teams shortly after that. After that\u2019s done, we will continue to update the new Roadmap as work completes, new projects come online, and any changes occur to progress and priorities.\nYou\u2019ll note that the first delivery of the Progress Tracker is actually v0.5. We still have many features & improvements in store for the Progress Tracker before we would call it complete. For instance, we plan to add the ability to search and favorite teams and deliverables, as well as link deliverables in the Progress Tracker to their estimated delivery in the revamped Release View. Not only will we continue to add new features, but we\u2019ll also of course continue to optimize the user experience with improvements to the overall usability. Release View\nSimilar to the previous Roadmap, the\u202fRelease View is meant to give you an idea of when we expect to release those deliverables in the mid-term.\nOur desire is to show you four quarters of releases, but one critical takeaway is that only the immediate quarter in front of us has a chance to have a release view that will be hardened, as the deliverables that appear on the card for the quarter in front of us will have passed Go\/No Go gates or be close enough to completion that we can predict their delivery with a high degree of confidence. You could say at that point that we have a ~90% degree of confidence that this deliverable will make its indicated release quarter. Once you go past the quarter in front of us though, that predictability and confidence for delivery will begin to degrade.\nIn cases where we have yet to start on a project, it is especially difficult to predict delivery with a high degree of confidence, particularly for projects that have more unknowns. In those instances where we just don\u2019t know yet, we won\u2019t even place that deliverable onto a release card two to four quarters out, even though you will see it scheduled out in the Progress Tracker for work. But for some deliverables that we\u2019ve gotten into a rhythm delivering, such as vehicles and landing zones, we will be better equipped to estimate timelines. These could appear in a release card even a few quarters out. For any of these deliverables further down the line, even then we will only place them onto a release card if we have at least a good level of confidence \u2013 around a ~70% confidence level \u2013 that we could make that window. If we can\u2019t even clear this hurdle of confidence internally, then we won\u2019t put it on a release card.\nAs of this first publish, we are showing you a Release View with just one release column, which is Q1 2021, or Alpha 3.13. But when we return in January, we plan on adding Q2, Q3 and Q4, all alongside debuting a new roadmap feature to further share which deliverables we hope to release in the year to come. In order to capture the fluidity of deliverables that are further in the future, we will be adopting a color coding system that indicates that the further out we get from the first quarter, the fuzzier the release card and the more the deliverables in there are subject to change. The quarter in front of us may be a solid color (although in this case, 3.13 would be grey until we\u2019re closer to GO\/No-Go), denoting that we\u2019re in the midst of working on our deliverables and understand velocity enough to determine a very reliable delivery estimate. For the next 3 quarters after that, the release cards will be in light grey, to denote that these estimated delivery times are still fluid and could move around. At the highest level, you\u2019ll know that if you are viewing a release card that is grey, it will be fluid. That\u2019s because even if we have ~70% confidence it will make it, there\u2019s a good ~30% chance it could move. If the release card is solid colored, it will be hardened, with just a ~10% chance or less of moving. Put another way, if it\u2019s grey, don\u2019t be surprised if it moves\/changes. If it\u2019s solid, expect it to stay put (with very rare exception).\nWe know that the new Roadmap and Progress Tracker, as well as our desire for you to shift your mindset in how you view our progress, will take some getting used to. But we feel that this new view will finally give all of our community the most transparent peek inside our development they\u2019ve ever had, and we have plans to continue to build on this roadmap to make it more informative and instructive for all watchers."},"links_count":2,"comment_count":0,"created_at":"2020-12-23T23:00:00+00:00","created_at_human":"5 years ago"},"meta":{"processed_at":"2026-05-07 20:29:26","valid_relations":["images","links"],"prev_id":17938,"next_id":17940}}