{"data":{"id":18110,"title":"Star Citizen Monthly Report: April 2021","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/comm-link\/transmission\/18110-Star-Citizen-Monthly-Report-April-2021","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-links\/18110","api_public_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/comm-links\/18110","channel":"Undefined","category":"Undefined","series":"Monthly 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the release of Alpha 3.13 and the upcoming Invictus Launch Week, April\u2019s PU Monthly Report touches on both work players can experience now and in the next few weeks. As usual, there were plenty of longer-term tasks undertaken and completed throughout the month too, with interesting updates on Orison, upcoming ships, and server meshing in the following report. Enjoy!\n\nAI (Content)\nThroughout April, AI Content focused on completing the first pass of the security, tourist, and tour guide behaviors, polishing animations from recent mocap sessions and adjusting the related behaviors.\nThey also implemented the first version of the landing officer, one of the deck crew that will be used in hangars, landing zones, and capital ships. The landing officer gives players clear directions on how to position their ships in relation to the pad for perfect decents.\nWork also continued on the hygiene behavior, with the team completing setups for the toilet and shower cubicles and their relative blockout animations. For sleep behaviors, new animations for beds were set up to support physicalized sheets, and the process of standardizing the proper usage of bed shutters began.\nThey also progressed with the ongoing goal of propagating vendor behaviors to as many shops as possible. They\u2019re currently designing and blocking out the different elements that will make up the various locations (coffee shops, differing food stalls, etc.) and are enabling the available kiosks to use the hawker behavior too.\nAI (Features)\nApril saw AI Features improve the Subsumption tasks used to queue requests in the communication system to link directly to Dataforge entries. This allows the designers to select communication configurations and channel names from a dropdown instead of having to manually type the string names.\nPatrol path tech was further developed, while the usable system code was reworked to refresh the usable archetype and use channel archetype flags of an entity post-initialize. The movement blocks that install an NPC to a usable were refactored to rely on the usable component for their internal logic, as the usable component should abstract the AI knowledge of how to interact with the world and not delegate to all other possible components of the game.\nWork also progressed on combat behaviors for untrained characters, such as civilians. This involved making sure they react appropriately to combat scenarios and try to preserve their lives as best they can, which is affected by what weapons, if any, they have available to them. The team also improved the reaction distance definition that was causing NPCs to react incorrectly to the player\u2019s presence when fighting in some situations.\nSpaceship behaviors related to subcomponent targeting were worked on, with the ability to find the root targetable entities from any targetable object added. The data gathered can be used in flight tasks to perform specific maneuvers, such as allowing a ship to sphere-strafe to attack a subcomponent on a specific sector of a target ship. They also updated the \u2018AISeatWeaponControllerComponent\u2019 to handle missiles.\nSupport began for spawn closets, including implementing handling for the \u2018OnDespawnRequest\u2019 event and the initial pass of the despawn activity. Currently, the entity will look for a usable in the spawn closet action area and use it. If that fails, it will move to a random position in the area.\nAI (Tech)\nOne of the Tech Team\u2019s focuses throughout April was navigation links for the navigation mesh. Work involved restructuring the code to allow navigation link entities to specify extenders, which act as code bridges between game code functionality and the navigation link. This provides navigation-system-specific data in a format that can be correctly used during pathfinding. For example, they can now create an extender that uses an explicit offset to connect two navmesh locations or an animation. The animation can also motion-warp markers in a similar way to how mantle is currently used by players. It\u2019s currently being used in SQ42 to allow the Vanduul to jump on and off objects of varying heights, but it can scale to anything needed for environment traversal by any character type.\nFor EVA, they completed tasks to allow NPCs to systemically transition from zero-g into a usable (and vice versa). For example, AI characters can leave the cockpit of a ship smoothly and then process a 3D movement in zero gravity. They can filter the appropriate enter\/exit animation so that the 3D path correctly starts or ends at the appropriate location too.\nApril also saw the team convert the Subsumption component to use the ECUS \u2018InRangeChanged\u2019 event. This uses the more efficient Entity Component Update System API and improves the assignment handling to ensure that assignment requests are propagated correctly from the queue when changing the in-range state. They also fixed how the mastergraph event queues when propagated into the newly selected activity when handling assignments, which is used to select the appropriate subactivity when the transition is delayed.\nFinally for AI, the team continued to improve the flowgraph functionality for requesting a custom function assignment. This was achieved by adding support for dynamic input and output variables defined in the selected global function. Ultimately, this will ensure the team can correctly create feature test levels to validate and test behavior content and their related features in a scalable way.\nAnimation\nApril saw the team work on tourist and tour guide animations, blockouts for vendors, and the holo-greeter for an upcoming event. In parallel, the Facial Team worked on assets for the tourist, tour guide, holo-greeter, race announcer, and staggers.\nArt (Characters)\nApril saw the Character Art Team wrap up refinery deck assets, while the majority of outfits for Orison and the hospitals were modeled and skinned. A few outfits for Alpha 3.14 progressed well too.\nThe team continued modeling armor coming later in the year and supported an X-ray shader and skeleton model for medical gameplay UI. Finally, work progressed on backpacks and holographic projections for the physical inventory UI.\nArt (Environment)\nThroughout April, the Landing Zone Team further developed Orison, which moved into the final stages of production. Other disciplines are currently focusing on closing out the location, with all major platforms, shipyard structures, and rings now final-art-complete. The global composition of the landing zone was also locked down and transit routes have been finalized, though background platforms are still progressing through the final art phase. The team also bug-fixed and optimized the halls for Invictus Launch Week.\nFollowing the release of Alpha 3.13, the Modular Team switched focus back to colonial outposts. The majority of room architecture and props moved into the final-art phase, materials were finalized, and additional visual addons and units were created. A gameplay geometry pass was also done in greybox to better prepare the modules for combat, which involved exploring alternate routes and cover locations. A combat scenario was tested on a planet too, with the team continually making adjustments based on feedback from Design.\nMontreal\u2019s Modular Team finalized their work on the Orison and New Babbage hospital maps. The polish phase is nearing completion, with the team preparing to move onto the LOD pass and bug fixing.\n\n\nApril was an exciting month for Planet Content:\n\u201cCrusader is looking great and the positive reception from the community on the screenshots we shared boosted the team\u2019s motivation!\u201d -The Planet Content Team\nThe artists also explored new types of heightmaps for the Pyro system that can generate steep canyons. Work is still ongoing, with the team making additional polish passes over the next few months.\nThey also looked further ahead to Nyx. Though the system\u2019s planets are still in the early stages of development, new asset packs were blocked out based on the location\u2019s art direction. The next stage is to move the assets towards the final-art stage and begin creating planetary surfaces.\nArt (Ships)\nThe US-based Vehicle Content Team (and other supporting teams) worked hard to complete the release-prep phase for the Tumbril Nova and the last major review. Treads, movement, and gameplay feel were the focus.\n\u201cWe are now into a proper QA testing cycle and are working on making sure the polished vehicle and experience are going to make players happy. The Nova Tank has been a concerted effort by all and we are proud of everyone\u2019s contributions and are excited to see it go live.\u201d -The Vehicle Content Team\nProgress was also made on the RSI Constellation Taurus. Last month saw the ship move through the release-prep stage, with a focus on finishing the complicated LODS. Whitebox was also completed for a highly anticipated ship due for release later in the year. Support was also given to Alpha 3.13.\nAlongside other work, Tech Art addressed bugs for the recent patch release, including docking, SDF shields, elevators, ramps, and operator seats.\nArt (Weapons)\nThe Weapons Team continued to move the standalone Greycat tools through the pipeline, with the tractor beam going into final art and the salvage tool going through whitebox. They also iterated on medical tools alongside the UI Design teams, who progressed with wider feature work. Focus was also given to bug fixing for Alpha 3.13.\nFor ship weapons, a handful of bespoke weapons were developed for some ships featured in an upcoming event.\n\u201cWe can\u2019t say much more at this point, but a number of bespoke weapons have been given some love to make them sit better with the ship in question.\u201d -The Weapons Team\nAudio\nThe Audio Team onboarded two junior sound designers and one junior technical sound designer to meet the development requirements of Star Citizen and Squadron 42.\nFor Alpha 3.13, they completed an ambiance pass on the new cave interiors to embed them into their planetary locations and completed all unique audio for the Greycat ROC-DS\u2019 locomotion and moving parts. They also supported the new ship-to-ship docking feature, designing and shaping the audio experience for the gameplay loop, including the UI and docking\/undocking sequences.\nTasks were also completed for Invictus Launch Week, including an ambiance pass for the new expo halls with SFX, dialogue, and music.\nAudio tasks were completed for Alpha 3.14, with the team focusing on Orison.\n\u201cExpect new and interesting ambient sound design and brand-new music from Pedro Camacho for this location. With this landing zone being the first cloud-based city, there are certainly interesting challenges and opportunities to engage with!\u201d -The Audio Team\nCommunity\nThe Community Team started April announcing the Origin 404 that coincided with the UEE holiday Triggerfish.\n\nThe all-digital CitizenCon 2951 was announced, and a Q&A for the Greycat ROC-DS was published that answered community questions on Alpha 3.13\u2019s new twin-user mining vehicle.\nThe Stanton Seven racing league kicked into high gear this month, which saw the top 16 teams racing across Clio and Wala. The rules for each heat are available on the Stanton Seven website, as well as team leaderboards and a look at amazing rewards that wait for the fastest drivers in the \u2018verse.\nEngine\nIn April, the Physics Team continued to improve vehicle support, including the steering limit of a neutrally turning tank and the gravity of a free-falling tank. The wheeled vehicle code was further cleaned up too.\nFor Alpha 3.13, a solution was found to enabling floating-point exceptions on Linux servers, which will help the team get to the root of issues quicker, meaning a faster turnaround on bugs. For numerical robustness, several improvements were made when converting double-precision floats to either single-precision floats or 32-bit integers.\nEngineering continued to work on the G12 renderer, enabling parts of the new Gen12 render path by default and starting the full transition to the new architecture. They also continued to port render passes alongside the Graphics Team. For example, the Scaleform (UI) render path received an initial commit to port it to Gen12. The shader parser received several new improvements and optimizations too.\nWork continued on the volumetric cloud system, with April seeing a pass on efficient empty space skipping in the raymarcher. The SDF generation was further optimized, and a required refinement pass was also implemented. Research continued into ways to generate and apply SDFs and, with the initial SDFs generated, work commenced on integrating them into the raymarch process. For cloud modeling, the artists can now specify a custom set of volume textures per planet to shape clouds, as not every planet has clouds resembling those on earth.\nOn the core engine side, the job manager received further improvements, with the team introducing an explicit per-thread and fiber info block to reduce contention in some of the threading backends. In the near future they\u2019ll improve out-lock implementations to make fewer unnecessary thread wakeups and fewer kernel calls when simultaneously waking up more than one thread. Additionally, they removed contention in one of the threading backends by switching the scheduling algorithm from a lock-protected priority queue to a lockless approach of fixed size producer\/consumer queues with aging. For post-mortem profiling, they saw the first results in visualizing collected data in a newly written tool that\u2019s more user-friendly and flexible.\nTime in April was also dedicated to server meshing. The existing StarHash logic, which is used for server object container streaming, was moved to the network module in preparation for a later move to a server meshing service. The assert pipeline was revamped and streamlined for more effective issue tracking too. This also involved introducing data assets (in case malign data causes code to run in unexpected conditions), allowing issues to be directly assigned to the relevant content team.\nLastly, code was implemented to mark unused texture slots in materials to guide automated asset dependency tracking, which will keep game data bloat in check.\nFeatures (Characters & Weapons)\nTo support the next iteration of the player inventory, the team spent part of April working on several UI features. Significant work went into the ability to drag and drop items between the player character and different inventories. Further information was added to tell the player what can go where along with feedback when specific interactions are blocked. One challenge is dealing with attachments. For example, moving a pistol between leg armor and an undersuit.\nThey also looked into the handling of an inventory stored inside another inventory, which led to them creating multiple windows for the player to move items between. Scenarios like the player dropping the backpack off their character while having the inventory open were also dealt with.\n\u201cOne small detail which is looking quite neat is the player character performing an unstow animation if the user places an item directly into their character\u2019s hands.\u201d -The Features Team\nAnother related area investigated last month is the player leaving a lootable body behind upon death. For now, this will be achieved by creating a body copy (or imposter) and transferring ownership of the player\u2019s items to the copy. This leaves the original player entity free to respawn and able to return to their corpse to retrieve their items. As well as transferring items, this required logic to copy the pose and physical state of one ragdoll to another. This still requires polish to make the transition seamless, but the feature will add a new dimension when implemented in the future.\nFeatures (Gameplay)\nThe Feature Team spent April looking into must-fix issues for Alpha 3.13 and continuing their work on Alpha 3.13.1 and Alpha 3.14 initiatives. Work also continued on the Player Asset Manager, with the engineers creating the initial Building Blocks system and the \u2018provider\u2019 that manages a majority of the application logic. The provider and Building Blocks will be connected via UI bindings, which will let the team pull in essential data they wish to show. Meanwhile, UI Design created concepts for the layout of the app, which will be reviewed and edited before a final design is chosen.\nPlanning continued for the upcoming cargo refactor mentioned last month, with Engineering writing up the TDD, which is now in the review process. From the TDD, the team will look to break down the work into tasks before starting to build the extensive new system.\nInternal testing of the next dynamic event is currently underway, with minor changes being made daily following feedback from QA.\nFeatures (Mission)\nLast month, Mission Features spent some time focusing on Invictus Launch Week. The team also further developed spawn closets, working on an underground facility as a proof of concept alongside what\u2019s being used on the Javelin.\nMission Features also began supporting hospitals with a refactor of spawning, which had become fragmented as prisons, criminal spawns, and medbeds were added.\nAn update to friendly-fire logic and splash damage was made. Now, as long as players do more damage to enemies than friendlies, they won\u2019t be punished for any accidental damage caused. However, they will still receive CrimeStats if more serious crimes are committed in the initial implementation. This will be most noticeable when using an EMP, so players should still be careful not to cause more friendly damage when firing.\nThey also added more civilian AI to caves and improved their behavior when not in combat. Minor improvements were made to the air-traffic control system and bugs were fixed following player feedback for Alpha 3.13.\nFeatures (Vehicles)\nFollowing the launch of Alpha 3.13 and the first iteration of ship-to-ship docking, ship-to-station docking progressed throughout April, with bugs fixed and release-prep work undertaken.\nThe new thruster wind VFX detailed in March\u2019s report was further developed with support from the VFX Team. This feature\u2019s goals include dust plumes created by individual thrusters as they animate and move on the ship, and effects that change depending on the direction of the thruster to the surface it\u2019s interacting with.\nThruster capacitors received development time in April, which will encourage meaningful decision-making during combat and close-quarter flying. When implemented, afterburners will be powered by capacitors that drain very quickly when used. The capacitors will then recharge using the ship\u2019s power much more slowly, requiring players to consider firing afterburners carefully.\nFinally for April, time was spent on improving heads-up-display visuals, which will be important for showing information on the various upcoming features, such as the above thruster capacitors and Missile Operator Mode.\nGraphics & VFX Programming\nAfter a period of bug fixing, the Graphics Team returned to focusing on the Gen12 renderer. Most post effects are now running the Gen12 version by default and, once the final few are enabled, they\u2019ll begin enabling geometry passes. This will start with shadows, followed by opaque geometry, and finally transparent geometry. The geometry passes are already partially complete, though there are still problems to solve before they see the expected performance gains.\nProgress was made on the Vulkan backend to achieve parity with DirectX 11, which requires a pass over all shaders to remove a handful of legacy DirectX 9 features that are no longer supported.\nThe VFX Programmers continued the Gen12 conversion of their code, which is almost complete. Great progress was made on the fire hazard too, while a major overhaul of particle lighting was completed. Finally, the particle lighting is now more physically based, energy-conserving (doesn\u2019t reflect more light than it receives), and gives higher quality results that are more consistent over different lighting scenarios.\nLighting\nLast month, the Lighting Team moved to predominately supporting Orison. With the line of sight being dozens of kilometers away to other platforms, lighting information needs to be visible at these distances while maintaining high-quality lighting on local platforms. This will likely involve a longer period of polish and optimization than on previous landing zones, with plenty of back and forth between lighting individual platforms and the landing zone as a whole.\n\n\nLive Content\nLive Content\u2019s April saw them revisit cave missions, improving the AI patrol paths, adding harvestables and mineables, and making a general bug sweep (with close attention paid to the AI).\nThey looked at some of the existing Caterpillar derelicts and added additional variations to give a more claustrophobic feel and to introduce the use of tractor beams and trolleys. The longer-distance quantum-sensitive delivery missions were revisited too, with balance tweaks made to the rewards.\nOnce complete, the team largely turned to paper design and prototyping for future releases, with a focus on the comm array missions to help improve and expand PvP gameplay. This involved working on the aforementioned spawn closets in the underground facilities as a proof of concept for the new tech coming online this quarter.\nNarrative\nFollowing the release of Alpha 3.13 last month, the Narrative Team turned their focus to the next patch and finalizing content for Invictus Launch Week, which included a voice-over session. Orison received new audio, set dressing documents, and navigational sign text, while set dressing documentation was completed for the new hospital locations.\nFollowing the release of the Delphi reputation app, the team had several meetings to discuss the expansion of the reputation system and how to make the player\u2019s experience of working with various organizations and contacts more robust and nuanced. They also coordinated with Design on scripts for an upcoming dynamic event and worked on the usual slate of new items requiring naming and descriptions.\nApril also saw a wide range of narrative content, including Jump Point magazine for subscribers, new Galactapedia entries, the latest Mining Rocks newsletter from Shubin, the first installment of A Gift for Baba (the story from which Crusader\u2019s moons got their names), and brand-new feature Loremakers: Community Questions, where the Narrative Team provide sought after answers to questions pulled from the Ask A Dev section of the forums.\nPlayer Relations\nPlayer Relations finalized their recruiting efforts to support the growing needs of the service and backer base, including a remote training program to better onboard new team members. They also announced the launch of the Issue Council 2.0, which improves the team\u2019s ability to track, triage, and fix bugs throughout the game.\nProps\nLast month, the team continued with props for the colonialism outposts, which involved working closely with the Modular Locations Team to ensure they\u2019re cohesive and fit the homestead feel.\n\nProps polish for Orison was started, most notably on materials for the whale statue \u201chero-asset.\u201d\nConcept props were created for the hospitals alongside the Montreal-based Locations Team, including a wheelchair, walker, IV stand, and packaging assets for medical goods. They also progressed with the medical bed and gurney, which are nearing completion. The new hospital bed template was rolled out so that hospital beds in ships can use the new gameplay too. Finally, Props helped AI Content produce new usable templates for shops.\n\nQA\nOn the publishing side, QA supported the launch of Alpha 3.13 alongside an incremental patch to fix a few player-feedback issues. They then set up and prepared testing strategies for Alpha 3.13.1 and beyond.\nQA\u2019s primary development focus was on testing Invictus Launch Week along with another event coming later in the year. Preliminary testing began on Alpha 3.14 features and content along with performance captures.\nThe Texas-based QA Team was also restructured to enable them to focus on more specific aspects of the game, like ships, careers, locations, missions, events. This allows testers on each team to have more knowledge in a given area and better test specific features and content.\nSystemic Services & Tools\nApril saw the Systemic Services & Tools Team wrap up the latest version of the economy and AI simulation tools that control the wider game economy. Improvements were also added to make recording and presentation easier.\nFor services, work progressed on prepping the Super pCache for the next release. The prototyping of new services, including one for celestial body positioning and one for the accurate tracking of important NPCs, were also completed. They also completed service work to pass ship names between the DGS and platform, though they\u2019re still investigating edge cases as time permits.\nFinally for SST, work progressed on support for server meshing, with emphasis on object container hierarchy table seeding.\nTech Animation\nTech Animation began working on a new area of the facial pipeline that will convert photographs into full head geometry models. The process itself has been used for years, but this initiative sees the team automating as much as possible to enable the artists to focus on art rather than time-consuming technical processes. This involves utilizing several applications and streamlining all required data through them without user interaction.\nThe weapons authoring pipeline also received attention to assist its users and automate as much as possible. This will see Maya become more intelligent with how it handles engine files and enable a portion of the authoring and validation directly in its environment.\nTurbulent\nCollaborating with the Core Tech and Networking teams, Turbulent\u2019s Game Services delivered the first iteration of the entity graph service. Many teams depending on this are now able to move forward. An entity graph tool was also created for testing and creating test scenarios.\nNew teammates were onboarded, who will be focusing on moving Hex to the next level. They started their roles performing maintenance and clearing out high-priority bugs and tasks.\nBoth teams completed a few support tasks for Alpha 3.13 and its incremental patches, but mostly continued tasks for Alpha 3.14.\nThe Web Team supported the various promotions that launched in April, including Alpha 3.13 and the Greycat ROC-DS.\n\nUI\nThe UI Team worked on several elements throughout April that will help UI screens in future releases. They created a yellow, low-tech style to better match locations such as Lorville as well as a blue Crusader-style UI to use in its ships and on Orison itself. They also created small-yet-useful widgets such as foreground and background textures, manufacturer logos, and new buttons that will be used in an upcoming update to the door control UI. A tweak was also made to the transit screens so that they look and work in a similar way, though they will be able to have any UI style applied in the future.\nFinally for UI, the developers gained the ability to add tooltips to screens and made bug fixes and optimizations for Alpha 3.13.\nVehicle Tech\nLast month, the Vehicle Technical Team began tying down the radar and scanning system features and focused on testing functionality to ensure a clear and satisfying experience. In support of the Tumbril Nova, they worked to make it feel and look appropriately \u201ctanky\u201d by focusing on animation timing and wheel surface debris. A list of must-fix issues was addressed for Invictus Launch Week, with work continuing into May to ensure the event runs as smoothly as possible.\nVFX\nThe VFX Team spent part of April making thruster effects more readable at distance. This work followed a similar pattern to last year\u2019s weapon effects readability task, where they looked at the game holistically in team playtests to get a better understanding of what visual information players needs to improve their gameplay experience. In the case of thrusters, being able to see them from further distances is desirable, so various tweaks were made to the effects to make this possible, though the process is ongoing.\nSome new firework effects were created to give the Design Team a larger library to choose from for various gameplay events, while further progress was made on large-scale destruction events, specifically testing out the pipeline from conception to the end result in-game. The Nova\u2019s VFX were further polished too, including its cannon.\nOn the feature side, work continued on thruster wind volumes and the new effects for vehicle radar ping\/blobs made progress.\nWE\u2019LL SEE YOU NEXT MONTH\u2026","de_DE":"Nach der Ver\u00f6ffentlichung der Alpha 3.13 und der bevorstehenden Invictus-Startwoche befasst sich der PU-Monatsbericht f\u00fcr April mit der Arbeit, die Spieler jetzt und in den n\u00e4chsten Wochen erleben k\u00f6nnen. Wie immer gab es auch eine Menge l\u00e4ngerfristiger Aufgaben, die im Laufe des Monats in Angriff genommen und abgeschlossen wurden, mit interessanten Updates zu Orison, kommenden Schiffen und Server-Meshing im folgenden Bericht. Viel Spa\u00df!\n\nKI (Inhalt)\nIm April konzentrierte sich die KI-Abteilung auf die Fertigstellung des ersten Durchlaufs der Sicherheits-, Touristen- und Reiseleiter-Verhaltensweisen, das Polieren der Animationen aus den letzten Mocap-Sessions und die Anpassung der entsprechenden Verhaltensweisen.\nAu\u00dferdem wurde die erste Version des Landeoffiziers implementiert, einer der Deckscrews, die in Hangars, Landezonen und gro\u00dfen Schiffen zum Einsatz kommen werden. Der Landeoffizier gibt den Spielern klare Anweisungen, wie sie ihre Schiffe in Bezug auf die Landefl\u00e4che positionieren m\u00fcssen, um perfekt zu landen.\nDie Arbeit am Hygiene-Verhalten wurde ebenfalls fortgesetzt, wobei das Team die Setups f\u00fcr die Toiletten- und Duschkabinen und ihre relativen Blockout-Animationen fertiggestellt hat. F\u00fcr das Schlafverhalten wurden neue Animationen f\u00fcr die Betten erstellt, um physische Laken zu unterst\u00fctzen, und der Prozess der Standardisierung der korrekten Verwendung von Bettl\u00e4den begann.\nAu\u00dferdem wurde das Ziel verfolgt, das Verhalten von H\u00e4ndlern in so vielen L\u00e4den wie m\u00f6glich zu verbreiten. Sie sind gerade dabei, die verschiedenen Elemente zu entwerfen und auszublocken, die die verschiedenen Standorte ausmachen werden (Caf\u00e9s, verschiedene Essensst\u00e4nde, etc.) und erm\u00f6glichen den verf\u00fcgbaren Kiosken, ebenfalls das H\u00e4ndlerverhalten zu nutzen.\nKI (Features)\nIm April wurden durch AI Features die Subsumption Tasks verbessert, die verwendet werden, um Anfragen im Kommunikationssystem in eine Warteschlange zu stellen und direkt mit Dataforge Eintr\u00e4gen zu verkn\u00fcpfen. Dies erm\u00f6glicht es den Designern, Kommunikationskonfigurationen und Kanalnamen aus einem Dropdown auszuw\u00e4hlen, anstatt die Stringnamen manuell eingeben zu m\u00fcssen.\nDie Patrouillenpfad-Technologie wurde weiterentwickelt, w\u00e4hrend der Code des nutzbaren Systems \u00fcberarbeitet wurde, um den nutzbaren Archetyp zu aktualisieren und Kanal-Archetyp-Flags einer Entit\u00e4t nach der Initialisierung zu verwenden. Die Bewegungsbl\u00f6cke, die einen NSC in einem Usable installieren, wurden refaktorisiert, um sich f\u00fcr ihre interne Logik auf die Usable-Komponente zu verlassen, da die Usable-Komponente das KI-Wissen, wie man mit der Welt interagiert, abstrahieren und nicht an alle anderen m\u00f6glichen Komponenten des Spiels delegieren sollte.\nDie Arbeit am Kampfverhalten f\u00fcr untrainierte Charaktere, wie z.B. Zivilisten, ging ebenfalls voran. Dabei ging es darum, sicherzustellen, dass sie angemessen auf Kampfszenarien reagieren und versuchen, ihr Leben so gut wie m\u00f6glich zu erhalten, was davon beeinflusst wird, welche Waffen, wenn \u00fcberhaupt, ihnen zur Verf\u00fcgung stehen. Das Team verbesserte auch die Definition der Reaktionsdistanz, die dazu f\u00fchrte, dass NSCs in manchen Situationen falsch auf die Anwesenheit des Spielers im Kampf reagierten.\nDas Verhalten von Raumschiffen in Bezug auf das Anvisieren von Unterkomponenten wurde \u00fcberarbeitet, wobei die F\u00e4higkeit hinzugef\u00fcgt wurde, von jedem anvisierbaren Objekt aus die Wurzel der anvisierbaren Einheiten zu finden. Die gesammelten Daten k\u00f6nnen in Flugaufgaben verwendet werden, um bestimmte Man\u00f6ver durchzuf\u00fchren, wie z.B. einem Schiff zu erlauben, eine Sph\u00e4renstrafe auszuf\u00fchren, um eine Unterkomponente in einem bestimmten Sektor eines Zielschiffes anzugreifen. Au\u00dferdem wurde die 'AISeatWeaponControllerComponent' aktualisiert, um Raketen zu handhaben.\nEs wurde mit der Unterst\u00fctzung von Spawn-Closets begonnen, einschlie\u00dflich der Implementierung der Behandlung des 'OnDespawnRequest'-Ereignisses und des ersten Durchlaufs der Despawn-Aktivit\u00e4t. Momentan sucht die Entit\u00e4t nach einem brauchbaren im Spawn Closet Aktionsbereich und benutzt ihn. Wenn das fehlschl\u00e4gt, wird es sich an eine zuf\u00e4llige Position im Gebiet bewegen.\nKI (Tech)\nEiner der Schwerpunkte des Tech-Teams im April waren die Navigationslinks f\u00fcr das Navigationsnetz. Die Arbeit beinhaltete eine Umstrukturierung des Codes, um es den Navigationslink-Entit\u00e4ten zu erm\u00f6glichen, Extender zu spezifizieren, die als Code-Br\u00fccken zwischen der Spielcode-Funktionalit\u00e4t und dem Navigationslink fungieren. Dadurch werden navigationsystemspezifische Daten in einem Format bereitgestellt, das bei der Pfadfindung korrekt verwendet werden kann. Zum Beispiel k\u00f6nnen sie nun einen Extender erstellen, der einen expliziten Offset verwendet, um zwei Navmesh-Positionen oder eine Animation zu verbinden. Die Animation kann auch Motion-Warp-Marker in einer \u00e4hnlichen Art und Weise, wie Mantel derzeit von Spielern verwendet wird. Es wird derzeit in SQ42 verwendet, um den Vanduul zu erm\u00f6glichen, auf und von Objekten unterschiedlicher H\u00f6he zu springen, aber es kann auf alles skaliert werden, was f\u00fcr das Durchqueren der Umgebung durch jeden Charaktertyp ben\u00f6tigt wird.\nF\u00fcr EVA haben sie Aufgaben erledigt, die es NSCs erlauben, systematisch von der Schwerelosigkeit in eine nutzbare zu wechseln (und umgekehrt). Zum Beispiel k\u00f6nnen KI-Charaktere das Cockpit eines Schiffes reibungslos verlassen und dann eine 3D-Bewegung in der Schwerelosigkeit ausf\u00fchren. Sie k\u00f6nnen die entsprechende Enter\/Exit-Animation filtern, damit der 3D-Pfad auch an der entsprechenden Stelle korrekt beginnt oder endet.\nIm April hat das Team auch die Subsumption Komponente konvertiert, um das ECUS 'InRangeChanged' Event zu nutzen. Dies nutzt die effizientere Entity Component Update System API und verbessert die Handhabung der Zuweisung, um sicherzustellen, dass Zuweisungsanfragen korrekt aus der Warteschlange propagiert werden, wenn der In-Range-Status ge\u00e4ndert wird. Sie haben auch behoben, wie die Ereigniswarteschlange des Mastergraphs bei der Propagierung in die neu ausgew\u00e4hlte Aktivit\u00e4t bei der Handhabung von Zuweisungen, die verwendet wird, um die passende Unteraktivit\u00e4t auszuw\u00e4hlen, wenn der \u00dcbergang verz\u00f6gert wird.\nSchlie\u00dflich hat das Team f\u00fcr AI die Flowgraph-Funktionalit\u00e4t f\u00fcr das Anfordern einer benutzerdefinierten Funktionszuweisung weiter verbessert. Dies wurde durch das Hinzuf\u00fcgen von Unterst\u00fctzung f\u00fcr dynamische Eingangs- und Ausgangsvariablen erreicht, die in der ausgew\u00e4hlten globalen Funktion definiert sind. Letztendlich stellt dies sicher, dass das Team korrekte Funktionstestebenen erstellen kann, um Verhaltensinhalte und die damit verbundenen Funktionen auf eine skalierbare Weise zu validieren und zu testen.\nAnimation\nIm April arbeitete das Team an Touristen- und Tourguide-Animationen, Blockouts f\u00fcr Verk\u00e4ufer und dem Holo-Greeter f\u00fcr ein kommendes Event. Parallel dazu arbeitete das Facial Team an Assets f\u00fcr den Touristen, den Tourguide, den Holo-Greeter, den Rennansager und die Staggers.\nKunst (Charaktere)\nIm April hat das Character Art Team das Raffinerie-Deck fertiggestellt, w\u00e4hrend die meisten Outfits f\u00fcr Orison und die Krankenh\u00e4user modelliert und geskinnt wurden. Ein paar Outfits f\u00fcr Alpha 3.14 machten ebenfalls Fortschritte.\nDas Team setzte die Modellierung von R\u00fcstungen fort, die sp\u00e4ter im Jahr kommen werden, und unterst\u00fctzte einen R\u00f6ntgen-Shader und ein Skelettmodell f\u00fcr das medizinische Gameplay-UI. Schlie\u00dflich wurde an Rucks\u00e4cken und holografischen Projektionen f\u00fcr das Inventar-UI gearbeitet.\nKunst (Umgebung)\nIm Laufe des Aprils entwickelte das Landing Zone Team Orison weiter, das sich in der Endphase der Produktion befindet. Andere Disziplinen konzentrieren sich derzeit auf die Fertigstellung des Ortes, wobei alle wichtigen Plattformen, Werftstrukturen und Ringe nun final-art-complete sind. Die globale Zusammensetzung der Landezone wurde ebenfalls abgeschlossen und die Transitrouten wurden fertiggestellt, obwohl die Hintergrundplattformen noch in der Final-Art-Phase sind. Das Team hat au\u00dferdem Fehler behoben und die Hallen f\u00fcr die Invictus Launch Week optimiert.\nNach der Ver\u00f6ffentlichung von Alpha 3.13 hat sich das Modular Team wieder auf die kolonialen Au\u00dfenposten konzentriert. Der Gro\u00dfteil der Raumarchitektur und der Requisiten ging in die Final-Art-Phase, Materialien wurden finalisiert und zus\u00e4tzliche visuelle Addons und Einheiten wurden erstellt. Ein Gameplay-Geometrie-Pass wurde ebenfalls in der Greybox durchgef\u00fchrt, um die Module besser auf den Kampf vorzubereiten, was das Erkunden alternativer Routen und Deckungsorte beinhaltete. Ein Kampfszenario wurde auch auf einem Planeten getestet, wobei das Team kontinuierlich Anpassungen basierend auf dem Feedback des Designs vornahm.\nMontreals Modular Team schloss seine Arbeit an den Karten Orison und New Babbage Hospital ab. Die Polishing-Phase n\u00e4hert sich dem Ende und das Team bereitet sich auf den LOD-Pass und die Fehlerbehebung vor.\n\n\nKunst (Schiffe)\nDas in den USA ans\u00e4ssige Vehicle Content Team (und andere unterst\u00fctzende Teams) haben hart gearbeitet, um die Release-Prep-Phase f\u00fcr die Tumbril Nova und die letzte gro\u00dfe \u00dcberarbeitung abzuschlie\u00dfen. Lauffl\u00e4chen, Bewegung und Gameplay-Gef\u00fchl standen dabei im Mittelpunkt.\n\"Wir befinden uns jetzt in einem ordentlichen QA-Testzyklus und arbeiten daran, dass das polierte Fahrzeug und die Erfahrung die Spieler gl\u00fccklich machen werden. Der Nova Tank war eine gemeinsame Anstrengung von allen und wir sind stolz auf die Beitr\u00e4ge von allen und freuen uns darauf, ihn live zu sehen.\" -The Vehicle Content Team\nAuch bei der RSI Constellation Taurus wurden Fortschritte gemacht. Im letzten Monat durchlief das Schiff die Release-Prep-Phase, wobei der Fokus auf der Fertigstellung der komplizierten LODS lag. Au\u00dferdem wurde die Whitebox f\u00fcr ein mit Spannung erwartetes Schiff fertiggestellt, das sp\u00e4ter im Jahr ver\u00f6ffentlicht werden soll. Auch die Alpha 3.13 wurde unterst\u00fctzt.\nNeben anderen Arbeiten hat Tech Art Bugs f\u00fcr den letzten Patch-Release adressiert, darunter Andocken, SDF-Schilde, Aufz\u00fcge, Rampen und Operator-Sitze.\nArt (Weapons)\nDas Weapons Team hat weiterhin die Standalone Greycat Tools durch die Pipeline bewegt, wobei der Traktorstrahl in die finale Art ging und das Bergungswerkzeug durch die Whitebox ging. Sie iterierten auch an den medizinischen Werkzeugen zusammen mit den UI Design Teams, die mit der Arbeit an weiteren Features vorankamen. Der Fokus lag auch auf der Fehlerbehebung f\u00fcr Alpha 3.13.\nBei den Schiffswaffen wurde eine Handvoll ma\u00dfgeschneiderter Waffen f\u00fcr einige Schiffe entwickelt, die in einem kommenden Event vorgestellt werden.\n\"Wir k\u00f6nnen zu diesem Zeitpunkt noch nicht viel mehr sagen, aber eine Reihe von ma\u00dfgeschneiderten Waffen haben etwas Liebe bekommen, damit sie besser zu dem jeweiligen Schiff passen.\" -Das Waffenteam\nAudio\nDas Audio Team hat zwei Junior Sound Designer und einen Junior Technical Sound Designer an Bord geholt, um die Entwicklungsanforderungen von Star Citizen und Squadron 42 zu erf\u00fcllen.\nF\u00fcr Alpha 3.13 vollendeten sie einen Ambiance Pass f\u00fcr die neuen H\u00f6hleninterieurs, um sie in die planetaren Orte einzubetten und vollendeten alle einzigartigen Audios f\u00fcr die Fortbewegung und die beweglichen Teile der Greycat ROC-DS. Au\u00dferdem unterst\u00fctzten sie das neue Schiff-zu-Schiff-Docking-Feature, indem sie das Audioerlebnis f\u00fcr den Gameplay-Loop entwarfen und gestalteten, einschlie\u00dflich der UI und der Andock-\/Abkoppelsequenzen.\nAuch f\u00fcr die Invictus Launch Week wurden Aufgaben erledigt, darunter ein Ambiance Pass f\u00fcr die neuen Expo-Hallen mit SFX, Dialogen und Musik.\nAudioaufgaben wurden f\u00fcr die Alpha 3.14 abgeschlossen, wobei sich das Team auf Orison konzentrierte.\n\"Erwarte neues und interessantes Ambient Sound Design und brandneue Musik von Pedro Camacho f\u00fcr diesen Ort. Da diese Landezone die erste Cloud-basierte Stadt ist, gibt es sicherlich interessante Herausforderungen und M\u00f6glichkeiten, mit denen man sich besch\u00e4ftigen kann!\" -The Audio Team\nCommunity\nDas Community Team begann den April mit der Ank\u00fcndigung der Origin 404, die mit dem UEE Feiertag Triggerfish zusammenfiel.\n\nDie volldigitale CitizenCon 2951 wurde angek\u00fcndigt und eine Q&A f\u00fcr die Greycat ROC-DS wurde ver\u00f6ffentlicht, die Fragen der Community zu dem neuen Minenfahrzeug mit zwei Nutzern in Alpha 3.13 beantwortete.\nDie Stanton Seven Rennliga ist diesen Monat in die G\u00e4nge gekommen, in der die besten 16 Teams \u00fcber Clio und Wala rasen. Die Regeln f\u00fcr jeden Lauf sind auf der Stanton Seven-Webseite verf\u00fcgbar, ebenso wie die Team-Ranglisten und ein Blick auf die erstaunlichen Belohnungen, die auf die schnellsten Fahrer im 'Verse' warten.\nMotor\nIm April hat das Physik-Team die Fahrzeugunterst\u00fctzung weiter verbessert, einschlie\u00dflich der Lenkgrenze eines neutral drehenden Panzers und der Schwerkraft eines frei fallenden Panzers. Auch der Code f\u00fcr Radfahrzeuge wurde weiter aufger\u00e4umt.\nF\u00fcr Alpha 3.13 wurde eine L\u00f6sung gefunden, um Flie\u00dfkomma-Ausnahmen auf Linux-Servern zu aktivieren, was dem Team helfen wird, Probleme schneller an der Wurzel zu packen, was eine schnellere Behebung von Bugs bedeutet. F\u00fcr die numerische Robustheit wurden mehrere Verbesserungen bei der Konvertierung von Double-Precision Floats in Single-Precision Floats oder 32-Bit Integer vorgenommen.\nDie Entwickler haben weiter am G12 Renderer gearbeitet, Teile des neuen Gen12 Renderpfades standardm\u00e4\u00dfig aktiviert und den vollst\u00e4ndigen \u00dcbergang zur neuen Architektur begonnen. Au\u00dferdem wurde die Portierung von Renderp\u00e4ssen zusammen mit dem Grafikteam fortgesetzt. Zum Beispiel erhielt der Scaleform (UI) Renderpfad einen ersten Commit, um ihn auf Gen12 zu portieren. Der Shader-Parser erhielt ebenfalls einige neue Verbesserungen und Optimierungen.\nDie Arbeit am volumetrischen Wolkensystem wurde fortgesetzt, wobei im April ein Pass f\u00fcr effizientes Leerspace-Skipping im Raymarcher erfolgte. Die SDF-Generierung wurde weiter optimiert und ein erforderlicher Verfeinerungspass wurde ebenfalls implementiert. Es wurde weiter an der Generierung und Anwendung von SDFs geforscht und mit den ersten generierten SDFs wurde begonnen, diese in den raymarcher Prozess zu integrieren. F\u00fcr die Wolkenmodellierung k\u00f6nnen die K\u00fcnstler nun ein benutzerdefiniertes Set von Volumentexturen pro Planet festlegen, um Wolken zu formen, da nicht jeder Planet Wolken hat, die denen auf der Erde \u00e4hneln.\nAuf der Seite der Core-Engine wurde der Job-Manager weiter verbessert, indem das Team einen expliziten Pro-Thread- und Faser-Infoblock eingef\u00fchrt hat, um Konflikte in einigen der Threading-Backends zu reduzieren. In naher Zukunft werden sie die Out-Lock-Implementierungen verbessern, um weniger unn\u00f6tige Thread-Wakeups und weniger Kernel-Aufrufe beim gleichzeitigen Aufwecken von mehr als einem Thread zu machen. Zus\u00e4tzlich haben sie in einem der Threading-Backends Contention beseitigt, indem sie den Scheduling-Algorithmus von einer Lock-gesch\u00fctzten Priorit\u00e4ts-Warteschlange auf einen Lockless-Ansatz mit Producer\/Consumer-Warteschlangen fester Gr\u00f6\u00dfe mit Aging umgestellt haben. F\u00fcr das Post-Mortem-Profiling sahen sie die ersten Ergebnisse bei der Visualisierung der gesammelten Daten in einem neu geschriebenen Tool, das benutzerfreundlicher und flexibler ist.\nDie Zeit im April wurde auch dem Server Meshing gewidmet. Die bestehende StarHash Logik, die f\u00fcr das Streaming von Server-Objekt-Containern verwendet wird, wurde in das Netzwerkmodul verschoben, um einen sp\u00e4teren Umzug zu einem Server-Meshing-Service vorzubereiten. Die Assert-Pipeline wurde ebenfalls \u00fcberarbeitet und f\u00fcr eine effektivere Fehlerverfolgung gestrafft. Dies beinhaltete auch die Einf\u00fchrung von Daten-Assets (f\u00fcr den Fall, dass b\u00f6sartige Daten dazu f\u00fchren, dass Code unter unerwarteten Bedingungen ausgef\u00fchrt wird), wodurch Issues direkt dem entsprechenden Content-Team zugewiesen werden k\u00f6nnen.\nZu guter Letzt wurde Code implementiert, um ungenutzte Textur-Slots in Materialien zu markieren, um die automatische Verfolgung von Asset-Abh\u00e4ngigkeiten zu steuern, was die Datenflut im Spiel in Schach halten wird.\nFeatures (Charaktere & Waffen)\nUm die n\u00e4chste Iteration des Spielerinventars zu unterst\u00fctzen, verbrachte das Team einen Teil des Aprils mit der Arbeit an verschiedenen UI-Features. Es wurde viel Arbeit in die M\u00f6glichkeit gesteckt, Gegenst\u00e4nde zwischen dem Spielercharakter und verschiedenen Inventaren zu ziehen und abzulegen. Weitere Informationen wurden hinzugef\u00fcgt, um dem Spieler mitzuteilen, was wo hinkommt, sowie Feedback, wenn bestimmte Interaktionen blockiert sind. Eine Herausforderung ist der Umgang mit Anh\u00e4ngseln. Zum Beispiel das Verschieben einer Pistole zwischen Beinpanzerung und Unteranzug.\nSie untersuchten auch die Handhabung eines Inventars, das innerhalb eines anderen Inventars gelagert wird, was dazu f\u00fchrte, dass sie mehrere Fenster f\u00fcr den Spieler erstellten, zwischen denen er Gegenst\u00e4nde bewegen kann. Szenarien wie der Spieler, der den Rucksack von seinem Charakter abwirft, w\u00e4hrend das Inventar ge\u00f6ffnet ist, wurden ebenfalls behandelt.\n\"Ein kleines Detail, das ganz nett aussieht, ist, dass der Spielercharakter eine Entladeanimation ausf\u00fchrt, wenn der Benutzer einen Gegenstand direkt in die H\u00e4nde seines Charakters legt.\" -The Features Team\nEin weiterer Bereich, der im letzten Monat untersucht wurde, ist das Hinterlassen eines beutbaren K\u00f6rpers durch den Spieler beim Tod. Im Moment wird dies durch die Erstellung einer K\u00f6rperkopie (oder eines Imposters) erreicht und das Eigentum an den Gegenst\u00e4nden des Spielers auf die Kopie \u00fcbertragen. Dadurch kann der urspr\u00fcngliche Spieler wieder auftauchen und zu seiner Leiche zur\u00fcckkehren, um seine Gegenst\u00e4nde zu holen. Neben der \u00dcbertragung von Gegenst\u00e4nden war auch eine Logik erforderlich, um die Pose und den physischen Zustand einer Ragdoll auf eine andere zu \u00fcbertragen. Dies bedarf noch des Feinschliffs, um den \u00dcbergang nahtlos zu gestalten, aber das Feature wird eine neue Dimension hinzuf\u00fcgen, wenn es in Zukunft implementiert wird.\nFeatures (Gameplay)\nDas Feature Team hat den April damit verbracht, sich mit Must-Fix Problemen f\u00fcr Alpha 3.13 zu besch\u00e4ftigen und die Arbeit an Alpha 3.13.1 und Alpha 3.14 fortzusetzen. Die Arbeit am Player Asset Manager wurde ebenfalls fortgesetzt, wobei die Ingenieure das anf\u00e4ngliche Building Blocks System und den 'Provider', der einen Gro\u00dfteil der Anwendungslogik verwaltet, entwickelten. Der Provider und die Building Blocks werden \u00fcber UI Bindings verbunden sein, die es dem Team erm\u00f6glichen, wichtige Daten, die sie zeigen wollen, zu ziehen. In der Zwischenzeit hat das UI Design Konzepte f\u00fcr das Layout der App erstellt, die \u00fcberpr\u00fcft und \u00fcberarbeitet werden, bevor ein endg\u00fcltiges Design ausgew\u00e4hlt wird.\nDie Planung f\u00fcr den im letzten Monat erw\u00e4hnten Refactor von Cargo wurde fortgesetzt, wobei das Engineering den TDD erstellt hat, der sich nun im Review-Prozess befindet. Anhand der TDD wird das Team die Arbeit in Aufgaben aufteilen, bevor es mit dem Bau des umfangreichen neuen Systems beginnt.\nDas interne Testen des n\u00e4chsten dynamischen Events ist derzeit im Gange, wobei t\u00e4glich kleinere \u00c4nderungen nach dem Feedback der QA vorgenommen werden.\nFeatures (Mission)\nIm letzten Monat verbrachte Mission Features einige Zeit damit, sich auf die Invictus Launch Week zu konzentrieren. Das Team entwickelte au\u00dferdem die Spawn-Schr\u00e4nke weiter und arbeitete an einer unterirdischen Einrichtung als Proof of Concept neben dem, was auf der Javelin verwendet wird.\nDie Missionsfeatures begannen auch damit, Krankenh\u00e4user mit einem Refactor des Spawnings zu unterst\u00fctzen, das durch das Hinzuf\u00fcgen von Gef\u00e4ngnissen, Verbrecher-Spawns und Medbeds fragmentiert worden war.\nEin Update der Friendly-Fire-Logik und des Splash-Schadens wurde durchgef\u00fchrt. Solange Spieler mehr Schaden an Feinden als an Freunden verursachen, werden sie nun nicht mehr f\u00fcr versehentlich verursachten Schaden bestraft. Allerdings werden sie weiterhin CrimeStats erhalten, wenn sie in der ersten Implementierung schwerere Verbrechen begehen. Dies wird sich vor allem bei der Verwendung eines EMP bemerkbar machen, daher sollten Spieler immer noch darauf achten, nicht mehr Schaden bei Freunden zu verursachen, wenn sie feuern.\nEs wurden auch mehr zivile KI in H\u00f6hlen hinzugef\u00fcgt und ihr Verhalten verbessert, wenn sie nicht im Kampf sind. Kleinere Verbesserungen wurden am Luftverkehrskontrollsystem vorgenommen und Bugs wurden nach Spielerfeedback f\u00fcr Alpha 3.13 behoben.\nFeatures (Fahrzeuge)\nNach dem Start der Alpha 3.13 und der ersten Iteration des Schiff-zu-Schiff-Dockings, wurde das Schiff-zu-Station-Docking im Laufe des Aprils weiterentwickelt, wobei Bugs behoben und Release-Prep-Arbeiten durchgef\u00fchrt wurden.\nDie neue Thruster-Wind-VFX, die im M\u00e4rz-Bericht beschrieben wurde, wurde mit Unterst\u00fctzung des VFX-Teams weiter entwickelt. Zu den Zielen dieses Features geh\u00f6ren Staubfahnen, die von einzelnen Triebwerken erzeugt werden, w\u00e4hrend sie sich auf dem Schiff bewegen und animieren, sowie Effekte, die sich je nach Richtung des Triebwerks zur Oberfl\u00e4che, mit der es interagiert, \u00e4ndern.\nDie Triebwerkskondensatoren erhielten im April Entwicklungszeit, was sinnvolle Entscheidungen w\u00e4hrend des Kampfes und des Fliegens im Nahbereich f\u00f6rdern wird. Wenn sie implementiert sind, werden die Nachbrenner durch Kondensatoren betrieben, die sich sehr schnell entladen, wenn sie benutzt werden. Die Kondensatoren werden sich dann mit der Energie des Schiffes viel langsamer wieder aufladen, was die Spieler dazu zwingt, das Z\u00fcnden der Nachbrenner sorgf\u00e4ltig abzuw\u00e4gen.\nZu guter Letzt wurde im April Zeit auf die Verbesserung des Heads-up-Displays verwendet, das wichtig sein wird, um Informationen \u00fcber die verschiedenen kommenden Features anzuzeigen, wie z.B. die oben erw\u00e4hnten Thruster-Kondensatoren und den Missile Operator Mode.\nGrafik & VFX Programmierung\nNach einer Phase der Fehlerbehebung hat sich das Grafikteam wieder auf den Gen12 Renderer konzentriert. Die meisten Post-Effekte laufen nun standardm\u00e4\u00dfig mit der Gen12-Version und sobald die letzten aktiviert sind, werden sie beginnen, Geometrie-P\u00e4sse zu aktivieren. Dies wird mit Schatten beginnen, gefolgt von opaker Geometrie und schlie\u00dflich transparenter Geometrie. Die Geometrie-Passes sind bereits teilweise fertiggestellt, obwohl es noch Probleme zu l\u00f6sen gibt, bevor sie die erwarteten Leistungssteigerungen sehen.\nAm Vulkan-Backend wurden Fortschritte gemacht, um Parit\u00e4t mit DirectX 11 zu erreichen, was einen Durchgang \u00fcber alle Shader erfordert, um eine Handvoll veralteter DirectX 9 Features zu entfernen, die nicht mehr unterst\u00fctzt werden.\nDie VFX-Programmierer setzten die Gen12-Konvertierung ihres Codes fort, die fast abgeschlossen ist. Gro\u00dfe Fortschritte wurden auch bei der Feuergefahr gemacht, w\u00e4hrend eine gro\u00dfe \u00dcberholung der Partikelbeleuchtung abgeschlossen wurde. Letztendlich ist die Partikelbeleuchtung nun physikalisch basierter, energiesparender (reflektiert nicht mehr Licht als es empf\u00e4ngt) und liefert qualitativ hochwertigere Ergebnisse, die in verschiedenen Beleuchtungsszenarien konsistenter sind.\nBeleuchtung\nLetzten Monat ist das Lighting Team dazu \u00fcbergegangen, haupts\u00e4chlich Orison zu unterst\u00fctzen. Da die Sichtlinie zu anderen Plattformen Dutzende von Kilometern entfernt ist, m\u00fcssen die Beleuchtungsinformationen \u00fcber diese Entfernungen sichtbar sein, w\u00e4hrend die Qualit\u00e4t der Beleuchtung auf den lokalen Plattformen erhalten bleibt. Dies wird wahrscheinlich eine l\u00e4ngere Periode des Feinschliffs und der Optimierung mit sich bringen als bei fr\u00fcheren Landezonen, mit viel Hin und Her zwischen der Beleuchtung einzelner Plattformen und der Landezone als Ganzes.\n\n\nLive Content\nBei Live Content wurden im April die H\u00f6hlenmissionen \u00fcberarbeitet, die KI-Patrouillenpfade verbessert, Harvestables und Mineables hinzugef\u00fcgt und eine allgemeine Bug-Sweep durchgef\u00fchrt (mit besonderem Augenmerk auf die KI).\nSie sahen sich einige der bestehenden Caterpillar-Derelikte an und f\u00fcgten zus\u00e4tzliche Variationen hinzu, um ein klaustrophobischeres Gef\u00fchl zu vermitteln und die Verwendung von Traktorstrahlen und Trolleys einzuf\u00fchren. Die quantensensitiven Langstrecken-Liefermissionen wurden ebenfalls \u00fcberarbeitet und die Balance der Belohnungen optimiert.\nNach der Fertigstellung wandte sich das Team haupts\u00e4chlich dem Papierdesign und dem Prototyping f\u00fcr zuk\u00fcnftige Ver\u00f6ffentlichungen zu, wobei der Fokus auf den Comm Array Missionen lag, um das PvP Gameplay zu verbessern und zu erweitern. Dazu geh\u00f6rte auch die Arbeit an den bereits erw\u00e4hnten Spawn-Schr\u00e4nken in den unterirdischen Einrichtungen als Proof of Concept f\u00fcr die neue Technologie, die in diesem Quartal online geht.\nNarrative\nNach der Ver\u00f6ffentlichung der Alpha 3.13 im letzten Monat konzentrierte sich das Narrative Team auf den n\u00e4chsten Patch und die Fertigstellung der Inhalte f\u00fcr die Invictus Launch Week, zu denen auch eine Voice-Over-Session geh\u00f6rte. Orison erhielt neues Audio, Set-Dressing-Dokumente und Navigationszeichen-Text, w\u00e4hrend die Set-Dressing-Dokumentation f\u00fcr die neuen Krankenhausstandorte abgeschlossen wurde.\nNach der Ver\u00f6ffentlichung der Delphi-Reputations-App hatte das Team mehrere Meetings, um die Erweiterung des Reputationssystems zu besprechen und wie man die Erfahrung des Spielers, mit verschiedenen Organisationen und Kontakten zu arbeiten, robuster und nuancierter gestalten kann. Au\u00dferdem stimmten sie sich mit dem Design \u00fcber Skripte f\u00fcr ein bevorstehendes dynamisches Ereignis ab und arbeiteten an der \u00fcblichen Liste neuer Gegenst\u00e4nde, die benannt und beschrieben werden m\u00fcssen.\nIm April gab es au\u00dferdem eine gro\u00dfe Auswahl an narrativen Inhalten, darunter das Jump Point Magazin f\u00fcr Abonnenten, neue Galactapedia-Eintr\u00e4ge, der neueste Mining Rocks Newsletter von Shubin, die erste Folge von Ein Geschenk f\u00fcr Baba (die Geschichte, von der die Monde von Crusader ihren Namen haben) und das brandneue Feature Loremakers: Community Questions, in dem das Narrative Team Antworten auf Fragen aus dem Ask A Dev Bereich des Forums gibt.\nSpieler Beziehungen\nDie Abteilung Player Relations hat ihre Rekrutierungsbem\u00fchungen abgeschlossen, um die wachsenden Bed\u00fcrfnisse der Service- und Backer-Basis zu unterst\u00fctzen, einschlie\u00dflich eines Remote-Trainingsprogramms, um neue Teammitglieder besser einbinden zu k\u00f6nnen. Sie k\u00fcndigten au\u00dferdem die Einf\u00fchrung des Issue Council 2.0 an, das die F\u00e4higkeit des Teams verbessert, Bugs im Spiel zu verfolgen, zu bewerten und zu beheben.\nRequisiten\nIm letzten Monat hat das Team weiter an den Requisiten f\u00fcr die Kolonialismus-Au\u00dfenposten gearbeitet, was eine enge Zusammenarbeit mit dem Modular Locations Team erforderte, um sicherzustellen, dass sie zusammenh\u00e4ngend sind und zum Homestead-Gef\u00fchl passen.\n\nDer Feinschliff an den Requisiten f\u00fcr Orison wurde begonnen, vor allem an den Materialien f\u00fcr die Walstatue als \"Helden-Asset\".\nZusammen mit dem Locations Team aus Montreal wurden Konzeptrequisiten f\u00fcr die Krankenh\u00e4user erstellt, darunter ein Rollstuhl, eine Gehhilfe, ein Infusionsst\u00e4nder und Verpackungsmaterial f\u00fcr medizinische G\u00fcter. Sie machten auch Fortschritte mit dem medizinischen Bett und der Trage, die kurz vor der Fertigstellung stehen. Das neue Krankenhausbett-Template wurde ausgerollt, damit auch Krankenhausbetten in Schiffen das neue Gameplay nutzen k\u00f6nnen. Zu guter Letzt half Props AI Content dabei, neue brauchbare Templates f\u00fcr Shops zu produzieren.\n\nQA\nAuf der Ver\u00f6ffentlichungsseite unterst\u00fctzte QA den Start der Alpha 3.13 zusammen mit einem inkrementellen Patch, um ein paar Spieler-Feedback-Probleme zu beheben. Anschlie\u00dfend wurden Teststrategien f\u00fcr Alpha 3.13.1 und dar\u00fcber hinaus erstellt und vorbereitet.\nDer Hauptfokus der QA lag auf dem Testen der Invictus Launch Week und einem weiteren Event, das sp\u00e4ter im Jahr stattfinden wird. Vorl\u00e4ufige Tests begannen mit den Funktionen und Inhalten der Alpha 3.14 sowie mit der Erfassung der Leistung.\nDas in Texas ans\u00e4ssige QA-Team wurde au\u00dferdem umstrukturiert, damit es sich auf spezifischere Aspekte des Spiels konzentrieren kann, wie z.B. Schiffe, Karrieren, Orte, Missionen und Events. Dies erm\u00f6glicht es den Testern in jedem Team, mehr Wissen in einem bestimmten Bereich zu haben und spezifische Features und Inhalte besser zu testen.\nSystemische Dienste & Tools\nIm April hat das Systemic Services & Tools Team die neueste Version der Wirtschafts- und KI-Simulationstools fertiggestellt, die die Wirtschaft des Spiels steuern. Au\u00dferdem wurden Verbesserungen hinzugef\u00fcgt, um die Aufzeichnung und Pr\u00e4sentation zu vereinfachen.\nBei den Diensten wurde die Arbeit an der Vorbereitung des Super pCache f\u00fcr die n\u00e4chste Version fortgesetzt. Das Prototyping von neuen Diensten, darunter einer f\u00fcr die Positionierung von Himmelsk\u00f6rpern und einer f\u00fcr die genaue Verfolgung wichtiger NSCs, wurde ebenfalls abgeschlossen. Die Arbeit an den Diensten zur \u00dcbermittlung von Schiffsnamen zwischen dem DGS und der Plattform wurde ebenfalls abgeschlossen, auch wenn sie immer noch Randf\u00e4lle untersuchen, sobald es die Zeit erlaubt.\nSchlie\u00dflich wurde f\u00fcr SST die Arbeit an der Unterst\u00fctzung f\u00fcr das Server-Meshing vorangetrieben, wobei der Schwerpunkt auf dem Seeding von Objekt-Container-Hierarchietabellen lag.\nTechnische Animation\nTech Animation begann mit der Arbeit an einem neuen Bereich der Gesichts-Pipeline, der Fotos in vollst\u00e4ndige Kopfgeometrie-Modelle umwandelt. Der Prozess selbst wird schon seit Jahren verwendet, aber diese Initiative sieht vor, dass das Team so viel wie m\u00f6glich automatisiert, damit sich die K\u00fcnstler auf die Kunst konzentrieren k\u00f6nnen, anstatt auf zeitraubende technische Prozesse. Dies beinhaltet die Nutzung mehrerer Anwendungen und das Streamlining aller ben\u00f6tigten Daten durch diese ohne Benutzerinteraktion.\nDie Waffen-Authoring-Pipeline erhielt ebenfalls Aufmerksamkeit, um die Benutzer zu unterst\u00fctzen und so viel wie m\u00f6glich zu automatisieren. Dadurch wird Maya intelligenter im Umgang mit Engine-Dateien und erm\u00f6glicht einen Teil des Authorings und der Validierung direkt in seiner Umgebung.\nTurbulent\nIn Zusammenarbeit mit den Core Tech- und Networking-Teams haben die Game Services von Turbulent die erste Iteration des Entity Graph Service geliefert. Viele Teams, die davon abh\u00e4ngig sind, k\u00f6nnen nun vorankommen. Es wurde auch ein Entity Graph Tool zum Testen und Erstellen von Testszenarien erstellt.\nNeue Teammitglieder wurden an Bord geholt, die sich darauf konzentrieren werden, Hex auf die n\u00e4chste Stufe zu bringen. Sie begannen ihre Aufgaben mit der Durchf\u00fchrung von Wartungsarbeiten und dem Ausr\u00e4umen von hochprioren Fehlern und Aufgaben.\nBeide Teams schlossen einige Supportaufgaben f\u00fcr Alpha 3.13 und ihre inkrementellen Patches ab, setzten aber haupts\u00e4chlich Aufgaben f\u00fcr Alpha 3.14 fort.\nDas Web Team unterst\u00fctzte die verschiedenen Promotionen, die im April gestartet wurden, darunter Alpha 3.13 und das Greycat ROC-DS.\n\nUI\nDas UI Team hat im April an verschiedenen Elementen gearbeitet, die den UI Screens in zuk\u00fcnftigen Releases helfen werden. Sie kreierten einen gelben, Low-Tech-Stil, um besser zu Orten wie Lorville zu passen, sowie eine blaue UI im Stil der Kreuzfahrer, die in ihren Schiffen und auf Orison selbst verwendet wird. Au\u00dferdem wurden kleine, aber n\u00fctzliche Widgets erstellt, wie Vorder- und Hintergrundtexturen, Herstellerlogos und neue Buttons, die in einem kommenden Update der T\u00fcrsteuerung verwendet werden. Auch die Durchgangsbildschirme wurden \u00fcberarbeitet, damit sie \u00e4hnlich aussehen und funktionieren, obwohl sie in Zukunft jeden UI-Stil haben k\u00f6nnen.\nZu guter Letzt haben die Entwickler die M\u00f6glichkeit geschaffen, Tooltips zu den Bildschirmen hinzuzuf\u00fcgen und Fehlerbehebungen und Optimierungen f\u00fcr Alpha 3.13 vorgenommen.\nFahrzeugtechnik\nIm letzten Monat hat das Vehicle Technical Team damit begonnen, die Features des Radar- und Scanningsystems festzulegen und sich auf das Testen der Funktionalit\u00e4t konzentriert, um ein klares und zufriedenstellendes Erlebnis zu gew\u00e4hrleisten. Zur Unterst\u00fctzung des Tumbril Nova wurde daran gearbeitet, dass er sich angemessen \"tanky\" anf\u00fchlt und auch so aussieht, indem man sich auf das Timing der Animationen und den Schmutz auf den R\u00e4dern konzentrierte. F\u00fcr die Invictus Launch Week wurde eine Liste von Must-Fix-Problemen angegangen, wobei die Arbeit bis in den Mai hinein fortgesetzt wird, um sicherzustellen, dass das Event so reibungslos wie m\u00f6glich verl\u00e4uft.\nVFX\nDas VFX Team hat einen Teil des Aprils damit verbracht, die Triebwerkseffekte aus der Entfernung besser sichtbar zu machen. Diese Arbeit folgte einem \u00e4hnlichen Muster wie die der Lesbarkeit von Waffeneffekten im letzten Jahr, wo sie das Spiel in Teamplaytests ganzheitlich betrachteten, um ein besseres Verst\u00e4ndnis daf\u00fcr zu bekommen, welche visuellen Informationen die Spieler brauchen, um ihr Spielerlebnis zu verbessern. Im Falle der Schubd\u00fcsen ist es w\u00fcnschenswert, sie aus gr\u00f6\u00dferer Entfernung sehen zu k\u00f6nnen, also wurden verschiedene Tweaks an den Effekten vorgenommen, um dies zu erm\u00f6glichen, wobei der Prozess noch andauert.\nEinige neue Feuerwerkseffekte wurden erstellt, um dem Designteam eine gr\u00f6\u00dfere Bibliothek zur Verf\u00fcgung zu stellen, aus der es f\u00fcr verschiedene Gameplay-Events w\u00e4hlen kann, w\u00e4hrend weitere Fortschritte bei gro\u00df angelegten Zerst\u00f6rungsevents gemacht wurden, insbesondere um die Pipeline von der Konzeption bis zum Endergebnis im Spiel zu testen. Die VFX der Nova wurden ebenfalls weiter poliert, einschlie\u00dflich der Kanone.\nAuf der Feature-Seite wurde die Arbeit an den Thruster-Wind-Volumen fortgesetzt und die neuen Effekte f\u00fcr die Fahrzeugradar-Pings\/Blobs machten Fortschritte.\nWIR SEHEN UNS N\u00c4CHSTEN MONAT...","zh_CN":"Following the release of Alpha 3.13 and the upcoming Invictus Launch Week, April\u2019s PU Monthly Report touches on both work players can experience now and in the next few weeks. As usual, there were plenty of longer-term tasks undertaken and completed throughout the month too, with interesting updates on Orison, upcoming ships, and server meshing in the following report. Enjoy!\n\nAI (Content)\nThroughout April, AI Content focused on completing the first pass of the security, tourist, and tour guide behaviors, polishing animations from recent mocap sessions and adjusting the related behaviors.\nThey also implemented the first version of the landing officer, one of the deck crew that will be used in hangars, landing zones, and capital ships. The landing officer gives players clear directions on how to position their ships in relation to the pad for perfect decents.\nWork also continued on the hygiene behavior, with the team completing setups for the toilet and shower cubicles and their relative blockout animations. For sleep behaviors, new animations for beds were set up to support physicalized sheets, and the process of standardizing the proper usage of bed shutters began.\nThey also progressed with the ongoing goal of propagating vendor behaviors to as many shops as possible. They\u2019re currently designing and blocking out the different elements that will make up the various locations (coffee shops, differing food stalls, etc.) and are enabling the available kiosks to use the hawker behavior too.\nAI (Features)\nApril saw AI Features improve the Subsumption tasks used to queue requests in the communication system to link directly to Dataforge entries. This allows the designers to select communication configurations and channel names from a dropdown instead of having to manually type the string names.\nPatrol path tech was further developed, while the usable system code was reworked to refresh the usable archetype and use channel archetype flags of an entity post-initialize. The movement blocks that install an NPC to a usable were refactored to rely on the usable component for their internal logic, as the usable component should abstract the AI knowledge of how to interact with the world and not delegate to all other possible components of the game.\nWork also progressed on combat behaviors for untrained characters, such as civilians. This involved making sure they react appropriately to combat scenarios and try to preserve their lives as best they can, which is affected by what weapons, if any, they have available to them. The team also improved the reaction distance definition that was causing NPCs to react incorrectly to the player\u2019s presence when fighting in some situations.\nSpaceship behaviors related to subcomponent targeting were worked on, with the ability to find the root targetable entities from any targetable object added. The data gathered can be used in flight tasks to perform specific maneuvers, such as allowing a ship to sphere-strafe to attack a subcomponent on a specific sector of a target ship. They also updated the \u2018AISeatWeaponControllerComponent\u2019 to handle missiles.\nSupport began for spawn closets, including implementing handling for the \u2018OnDespawnRequest\u2019 event and the initial pass of the despawn activity. Currently, the entity will look for a usable in the spawn closet action area and use it. If that fails, it will move to a random position in the area.\nAI (Tech)\nOne of the Tech Team\u2019s focuses throughout April was navigation links for the navigation mesh. Work involved restructuring the code to allow navigation link entities to specify extenders, which act as code bridges between game code functionality and the navigation link. This provides navigation-system-specific data in a format that can be correctly used during pathfinding. For example, they can now create an extender that uses an explicit offset to connect two navmesh locations or an animation. The animation can also motion-warp markers in a similar way to how mantle is currently used by players. It\u2019s currently being used in SQ42 to allow the Vanduul to jump on and off objects of varying heights, but it can scale to anything needed for environment traversal by any character type.\nFor EVA, they completed tasks to allow NPCs to systemically transition from zero-g into a usable (and vice versa). For example, AI characters can leave the cockpit of a ship smoothly and then process a 3D movement in zero gravity. They can filter the appropriate enter\/exit animation so that the 3D path correctly starts or ends at the appropriate location too.\nApril also saw the team convert the Subsumption component to use the ECUS \u2018InRangeChanged\u2019 event. This uses the more efficient Entity Component Update System API and improves the assignment handling to ensure that assignment requests are propagated correctly from the queue when changing the in-range state. They also fixed how the mastergraph event queues when propagated into the newly selected activity when handling assignments, which is used to select the appropriate subactivity when the transition is delayed.\nFinally for AI, the team continued to improve the flowgraph functionality for requesting a custom function assignment. This was achieved by adding support for dynamic input and output variables defined in the selected global function. Ultimately, this will ensure the team can correctly create feature test levels to validate and test behavior content and their related features in a scalable way.\nAnimation\nApril saw the team work on tourist and tour guide animations, blockouts for vendors, and the holo-greeter for an upcoming event. In parallel, the Facial Team worked on assets for the tourist, tour guide, holo-greeter, race announcer, and staggers.\nArt (Characters)\nApril saw the Character Art Team wrap up refinery deck assets, while the majority of outfits for Orison and the hospitals were modeled and skinned. A few outfits for Alpha 3.14 progressed well too.\nThe team continued modeling armor coming later in the year and supported an X-ray shader and skeleton model for medical gameplay UI. Finally, work progressed on backpacks and holographic projections for the physical inventory UI.\nArt (Environment)\nThroughout April, the Landing Zone Team further developed Orison, which moved into the final stages of production. Other disciplines are currently focusing on closing out the location, with all major platforms, shipyard structures, and rings now final-art-complete. The global composition of the landing zone was also locked down and transit routes have been finalized, though background platforms are still progressing through the final art phase. The team also bug-fixed and optimized the halls for Invictus Launch Week.\nFollowing the release of Alpha 3.13, the Modular Team switched focus back to colonial outposts. The majority of room architecture and props moved into the final-art phase, materials were finalized, and additional visual addons and units were created. A gameplay geometry pass was also done in greybox to better prepare the modules for combat, which involved exploring alternate routes and cover locations. A combat scenario was tested on a planet too, with the team continually making adjustments based on feedback from Design.\nMontreal\u2019s Modular Team finalized their work on the Orison and New Babbage hospital maps. The polish phase is nearing completion, with the team preparing to move onto the LOD pass and bug fixing.\n\n\nApril was an exciting month for Planet Content:\n\u201cCrusader is looking great and the positive reception from the community on the screenshots we shared boosted the team\u2019s motivation!\u201d -The Planet Content Team\nThe artists also explored new types of heightmaps for the Pyro system that can generate steep canyons. Work is still ongoing, with the team making additional polish passes over the next few months.\nThey also looked further ahead to Nyx. Though the system\u2019s planets are still in the early stages of development, new asset packs were blocked out based on the location\u2019s art direction. The next stage is to move the assets towards the final-art stage and begin creating planetary surfaces.\nArt (Ships)\nThe US-based Vehicle Content Team (and other supporting teams) worked hard to complete the release-prep phase for the Tumbril Nova and the last major review. Treads, movement, and gameplay feel were the focus.\n\u201cWe are now into a proper QA testing cycle and are working on making sure the polished vehicle and experience are going to make players happy. The Nova Tank has been a concerted effort by all and we are proud of everyone\u2019s contributions and are excited to see it go live.\u201d -The Vehicle Content Team\nProgress was also made on the RSI Constellation Taurus. Last month saw the ship move through the release-prep stage, with a focus on finishing the complicated LODS. Whitebox was also completed for a highly anticipated ship due for release later in the year. Support was also given to Alpha 3.13.\nAlongside other work, Tech Art addressed bugs for the recent patch release, including docking, SDF shields, elevators, ramps, and operator seats.\nArt (Weapons)\nThe Weapons Team continued to move the standalone Greycat tools through the pipeline, with the tractor beam going into final art and the salvage tool going through whitebox. They also iterated on medical tools alongside the UI Design teams, who progressed with wider feature work. Focus was also given to bug fixing for Alpha 3.13.\nFor ship weapons, a handful of bespoke weapons were developed for some ships featured in an upcoming event.\n\u201cWe can\u2019t say much more at this point, but a number of bespoke weapons have been given some love to make them sit better with the ship in question.\u201d -The Weapons Team\nAudio\nThe Audio Team onboarded two junior sound designers and one junior technical sound designer to meet the development requirements of Star Citizen and Squadron 42.\nFor Alpha 3.13, they completed an ambiance pass on the new cave interiors to embed them into their planetary locations and completed all unique audio for the Greycat ROC-DS\u2019 locomotion and moving parts. They also supported the new ship-to-ship docking feature, designing and shaping the audio experience for the gameplay loop, including the UI and docking\/undocking sequences.\nTasks were also completed for Invictus Launch Week, including an ambiance pass for the new expo halls with SFX, dialogue, and music.\nAudio tasks were completed for Alpha 3.14, with the team focusing on Orison.\n\u201cExpect new and interesting ambient sound design and brand-new music from Pedro Camacho for this location. With this landing zone being the first cloud-based city, there are certainly interesting challenges and opportunities to engage with!\u201d -The Audio Team\nCommunity\nThe Community Team started April announcing the Origin 404 that coincided with the UEE holiday Triggerfish.\n\nThe all-digital CitizenCon 2951 was announced, and a Q&A for the Greycat ROC-DS was published that answered community questions on Alpha 3.13\u2019s new twin-user mining vehicle.\nThe Stanton Seven racing league kicked into high gear this month, which saw the top 16 teams racing across Clio and Wala. The rules for each heat are available on the Stanton Seven website, as well as team leaderboards and a look at amazing rewards that wait for the fastest drivers in the \u2018verse.\nEngine\nIn April, the Physics Team continued to improve vehicle support, including the steering limit of a neutrally turning tank and the gravity of a free-falling tank. The wheeled vehicle code was further cleaned up too.\nFor Alpha 3.13, a solution was found to enabling floating-point exceptions on Linux servers, which will help the team get to the root of issues quicker, meaning a faster turnaround on bugs. For numerical robustness, several improvements were made when converting double-precision floats to either single-precision floats or 32-bit integers.\nEngineering continued to work on the G12 renderer, enabling parts of the new Gen12 render path by default and starting the full transition to the new architecture. They also continued to port render passes alongside the Graphics Team. For example, the Scaleform (UI) render path received an initial commit to port it to Gen12. The shader parser received several new improvements and optimizations too.\nWork continued on the volumetric cloud system, with April seeing a pass on efficient empty space skipping in the raymarcher. The SDF generation was further optimized, and a required refinement pass was also implemented. Research continued into ways to generate and apply SDFs and, with the initial SDFs generated, work commenced on integrating them into the raymarch process. For cloud modeling, the artists can now specify a custom set of volume textures per planet to shape clouds, as not every planet has clouds resembling those on earth.\nOn the core engine side, the job manager received further improvements, with the team introducing an explicit per-thread and fiber info block to reduce contention in some of the threading backends. In the near future they\u2019ll improve out-lock implementations to make fewer unnecessary thread wakeups and fewer kernel calls when simultaneously waking up more than one thread. Additionally, they removed contention in one of the threading backends by switching the scheduling algorithm from a lock-protected priority queue to a lockless approach of fixed size producer\/consumer queues with aging. For post-mortem profiling, they saw the first results in visualizing collected data in a newly written tool that\u2019s more user-friendly and flexible.\nTime in April was also dedicated to server meshing. The existing StarHash logic, which is used for server object container streaming, was moved to the network module in preparation for a later move to a server meshing service. The assert pipeline was revamped and streamlined for more effective issue tracking too. This also involved introducing data assets (in case malign data causes code to run in unexpected conditions), allowing issues to be directly assigned to the relevant content team.\nLastly, code was implemented to mark unused texture slots in materials to guide automated asset dependency tracking, which will keep game data bloat in check.\nFeatures (Characters & Weapons)\nTo support the next iteration of the player inventory, the team spent part of April working on several UI features. Significant work went into the ability to drag and drop items between the player character and different inventories. Further information was added to tell the player what can go where along with feedback when specific interactions are blocked. One challenge is dealing with attachments. For example, moving a pistol between leg armor and an undersuit.\nThey also looked into the handling of an inventory stored inside another inventory, which led to them creating multiple windows for the player to move items between. Scenarios like the player dropping the backpack off their character while having the inventory open were also dealt with.\n\u201cOne small detail which is looking quite neat is the player character performing an unstow animation if the user places an item directly into their character\u2019s hands.\u201d -The Features Team\nAnother related area investigated last month is the player leaving a lootable body behind upon death. For now, this will be achieved by creating a body copy (or imposter) and transferring ownership of the player\u2019s items to the copy. This leaves the original player entity free to respawn and able to return to their corpse to retrieve their items. As well as transferring items, this required logic to copy the pose and physical state of one ragdoll to another. This still requires polish to make the transition seamless, but the feature will add a new dimension when implemented in the future.\nFeatures (Gameplay)\nThe Feature Team spent April looking into must-fix issues for Alpha 3.13 and continuing their work on Alpha 3.13.1 and Alpha 3.14 initiatives. Work also continued on the Player Asset Manager, with the engineers creating the initial Building Blocks system and the \u2018provider\u2019 that manages a majority of the application logic. The provider and Building Blocks will be connected via UI bindings, which will let the team pull in essential data they wish to show. Meanwhile, UI Design created concepts for the layout of the app, which will be reviewed and edited before a final design is chosen.\nPlanning continued for the upcoming cargo refactor mentioned last month, with Engineering writing up the TDD, which is now in the review process. From the TDD, the team will look to break down the work into tasks before starting to build the extensive new system.\nInternal testing of the next dynamic event is currently underway, with minor changes being made daily following feedback from QA.\nFeatures (Mission)\nLast month, Mission Features spent some time focusing on Invictus Launch Week. The team also further developed spawn closets, working on an underground facility as a proof of concept alongside what\u2019s being used on the Javelin.\nMission Features also began supporting hospitals with a refactor of spawning, which had become fragmented as prisons, criminal spawns, and medbeds were added.\nAn update to friendly-fire logic and splash damage was made. Now, as long as players do more damage to enemies than friendlies, they won\u2019t be punished for any accidental damage caused. However, they will still receive CrimeStats if more serious crimes are committed in the initial implementation. This will be most noticeable when using an EMP, so players should still be careful not to cause more friendly damage when firing.\nThey also added more civilian AI to caves and improved their behavior when not in combat. Minor improvements were made to the air-traffic control system and bugs were fixed following player feedback for Alpha 3.13.\nFeatures (Vehicles)\nFollowing the launch of Alpha 3.13 and the first iteration of ship-to-ship docking, ship-to-station docking progressed throughout April, with bugs fixed and release-prep work undertaken.\nThe new thruster wind VFX detailed in March\u2019s report was further developed with support from the VFX Team. This feature\u2019s goals include dust plumes created by individual thrusters as they animate and move on the ship, and effects that change depending on the direction of the thruster to the surface it\u2019s interacting with.\nThruster capacitors received development time in April, which will encourage meaningful decision-making during combat and close-quarter flying. When implemented, afterburners will be powered by capacitors that drain very quickly when used. The capacitors will then recharge using the ship\u2019s power much more slowly, requiring players to consider firing afterburners carefully.\nFinally for April, time was spent on improving heads-up-display visuals, which will be important for showing information on the various upcoming features, such as the above thruster capacitors and Missile Operator Mode.\nGraphics & VFX Programming\nAfter a period of bug fixing, the Graphics Team returned to focusing on the Gen12 renderer. Most post effects are now running the Gen12 version by default and, once the final few are enabled, they\u2019ll begin enabling geometry passes. This will start with shadows, followed by opaque geometry, and finally transparent geometry. The geometry passes are already partially complete, though there are still problems to solve before they see the expected performance gains.\nProgress was made on the Vulkan backend to achieve parity with DirectX 11, which requires a pass over all shaders to remove a handful of legacy DirectX 9 features that are no longer supported.\nThe VFX Programmers continued the Gen12 conversion of their code, which is almost complete. Great progress was made on the fire hazard too, while a major overhaul of particle lighting was completed. Finally, the particle lighting is now more physically based, energy-conserving (doesn\u2019t reflect more light than it receives), and gives higher quality results that are more consistent over different lighting scenarios.\nLighting\nLast month, the Lighting Team moved to predominately supporting Orison. With the line of sight being dozens of kilometers away to other platforms, lighting information needs to be visible at these distances while maintaining high-quality lighting on local platforms. This will likely involve a longer period of polish and optimization than on previous landing zones, with plenty of back and forth between lighting individual platforms and the landing zone as a whole.\n\n\nLive Content\nLive Content\u2019s April saw them revisit cave missions, improving the AI patrol paths, adding harvestables and mineables, and making a general bug sweep (with close attention paid to the AI).\nThey looked at some of the existing Caterpillar derelicts and added additional variations to give a more claustrophobic feel and to introduce the use of tractor beams and trolleys. The longer-distance quantum-sensitive delivery missions were revisited too, with balance tweaks made to the rewards.\nOnce complete, the team largely turned to paper design and prototyping for future releases, with a focus on the comm array missions to help improve and expand PvP gameplay. This involved working on the aforementioned spawn closets in the underground facilities as a proof of concept for the new tech coming online this quarter.\nNarrative\nFollowing the release of Alpha 3.13 last month, the Narrative Team turned their focus to the next patch and finalizing content for Invictus Launch Week, which included a voice-over session. Orison received new audio, set dressing documents, and navigational sign text, while set dressing documentation was completed for the new hospital locations.\nFollowing the release of the Delphi reputation app, the team had several meetings to discuss the expansion of the reputation system and how to make the player\u2019s experience of working with various organizations and contacts more robust and nuanced. They also coordinated with Design on scripts for an upcoming dynamic event and worked on the usual slate of new items requiring naming and descriptions.\nApril also saw a wide range of narrative content, including Jump Point magazine for subscribers, new Galactapedia entries, the latest Mining Rocks newsletter from Shubin, the first installment of A Gift for Baba (the story from which Crusader\u2019s moons got their names), and brand-new feature Loremakers: Community Questions, where the Narrative Team provide sought after answers to questions pulled from the Ask A Dev section of the forums.\nPlayer Relations\nPlayer Relations finalized their recruiting efforts to support the growing needs of the service and backer base, including a remote training program to better onboard new team members. They also announced the launch of the Issue Council 2.0, which improves the team\u2019s ability to track, triage, and fix bugs throughout the game.\nProps\nLast month, the team continued with props for the colonialism outposts, which involved working closely with the Modular Locations Team to ensure they\u2019re cohesive and fit the homestead feel.\n\nProps polish for Orison was started, most notably on materials for the whale statue \u201chero-asset.\u201d\nConcept props were created for the hospitals alongside the Montreal-based Locations Team, including a wheelchair, walker, IV stand, and packaging assets for medical goods. They also progressed with the medical bed and gurney, which are nearing completion. The new hospital bed template was rolled out so that hospital beds in ships can use the new gameplay too. Finally, Props helped AI Content produce new usable templates for shops.\n\nQA\nOn the publishing side, QA supported the launch of Alpha 3.13 alongside an incremental patch to fix a few player-feedback issues. They then set up and prepared testing strategies for Alpha 3.13.1 and beyond.\nQA\u2019s primary development focus was on testing Invictus Launch Week along with another event coming later in the year. Preliminary testing began on Alpha 3.14 features and content along with performance captures.\nThe Texas-based QA Team was also restructured to enable them to focus on more specific aspects of the game, like ships, careers, locations, missions, events. This allows testers on each team to have more knowledge in a given area and better test specific features and content.\nSystemic Services & Tools\nApril saw the Systemic Services & Tools Team wrap up the latest version of the economy and AI simulation tools that control the wider game economy. Improvements were also added to make recording and presentation easier.\nFor services, work progressed on prepping the Super pCache for the next release. The prototyping of new services, including one for celestial body positioning and one for the accurate tracking of important NPCs, were also completed. They also completed service work to pass ship names between the DGS and platform, though they\u2019re still investigating edge cases as time permits.\nFinally for SST, work progressed on support for server meshing, with emphasis on object container hierarchy table seeding.\nTech Animation\nTech Animation began working on a new area of the facial pipeline that will convert photographs into full head geometry models. The process itself has been used for years, but this initiative sees the team automating as much as possible to enable the artists to focus on art rather than time-consuming technical processes. This involves utilizing several applications and streamlining all required data through them without user interaction.\nThe weapons authoring pipeline also received attention to assist its users and automate as much as possible. This will see Maya become more intelligent with how it handles engine files and enable a portion of the authoring and validation directly in its environment.\nTurbulent\nCollaborating with the Core Tech and Networking teams, Turbulent\u2019s Game Services delivered the first iteration of the entity graph service. Many teams depending on this are now able to move forward. An entity graph tool was also created for testing and creating test scenarios.\nNew teammates were onboarded, who will be focusing on moving Hex to the next level. They started their roles performing maintenance and clearing out high-priority bugs and tasks.\nBoth teams completed a few support tasks for Alpha 3.13 and its incremental patches, but mostly continued tasks for Alpha 3.14.\nThe Web Team supported the various promotions that launched in April, including Alpha 3.13 and the Greycat ROC-DS.\n\nUI\nThe UI Team worked on several elements throughout April that will help UI screens in future releases. They created a yellow, low-tech style to better match locations such as Lorville as well as a blue Crusader-style UI to use in its ships and on Orison itself. They also created small-yet-useful widgets such as foreground and background textures, manufacturer logos, and new buttons that will be used in an upcoming update to the door control UI. A tweak was also made to the transit screens so that they look and work in a similar way, though they will be able to have any UI style applied in the future.\nFinally for UI, the developers gained the ability to add tooltips to screens and made bug fixes and optimizations for Alpha 3.13.\nVehicle Tech\nLast month, the Vehicle Technical Team began tying down the radar and scanning system features and focused on testing functionality to ensure a clear and satisfying experience. In support of the Tumbril Nova, they worked to make it feel and look appropriately \u201ctanky\u201d by focusing on animation timing and wheel surface debris. A list of must-fix issues was addressed for Invictus Launch Week, with work continuing into May to ensure the event runs as smoothly as possible.\nVFX\nThe VFX Team spent part of April making thruster effects more readable at distance. This work followed a similar pattern to last year\u2019s weapon effects readability task, where they looked at the game holistically in team playtests to get a better understanding of what visual information players needs to improve their gameplay experience. In the case of thrusters, being able to see them from further distances is desirable, so various tweaks were made to the effects to make this possible, though the process is ongoing.\nSome new firework effects were created to give the Design Team a larger library to choose from for various gameplay events, while further progress was made on large-scale destruction events, specifically testing out the pipeline from conception to the end result in-game. The Nova\u2019s VFX were further polished too, including its cannon.\nOn the feature side, work continued on thruster wind volumes and the new effects for vehicle radar ping\/blobs made progress.\nWE\u2019LL SEE YOU NEXT MONTH\u2026"},"links_count":14,"comment_count":29,"created_at":"2021-05-05T00:00:00+00:00","created_at_human":"5 years ago"},"meta":{"processed_at":"2026-05-07 20:10:50","valid_relations":["images","links"],"prev_id":18109,"next_id":18111}}