{"data":{"id":18549,"title":"Alpha 3.16 Postmortem","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/comm-link\/SCW\/18549-API","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-links\/18549","api_public_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/comm-links\/18549","channel":"Undefined","category":"Undefined","series":"None","images":[],"images_count":4,"translations":{"en_EN":"Alpha 3.16 Postmortem\n02\/09\/2022 - 9:00 AM\n\nOn December 22, 2021, we launched Alpha 3.16: Return to Jumptown, which introduced a number of new features and changes, including the release of the Dynamic Event Jumptown 2.0, the grav-lev rework, and derelict ships with traps to avoid and valuables to secure.\nThis was a unique patch cycle. As we mentioned in a Roadmap Roundup back in December, Star Citizen Alpha 3.15 took longer to get out the door than we had initially planned, which limited the amount of time we had to stabilize the 3.16 code base. For this reason, we opted to branch from the 3.15 development stream to avoid risking overall stability (which has been the best we've had in years). Taking this approach meant we'd operate on the same code base that's currently on the live servers, while manually integrating 3.16 features (specifically those we deem low risk to integrate).\nThe following is a postmortem from the senior developers themselves, detailing what was delivered and their thoughts on how it went.\n\n\nVehicles\nJohn Crewe, Vehicle Director\n\nThe Vehicle Pillar had a relatively small delivery for Alpha 3.16, with the Vehicle Feature and Experience teams primarily focusing on delivering the grav-lev rework.\n\nWhat went well\nThe prior state of grav-lev left a lot to be desired, both from the internal side and the public-facing side, as it never quite behaved how we wanted. Numerous issues were present with it both technically and visually that the rework tackled and almost entirely fixed. The experience now is much more visceral, allowing players to select their height and make much more dramatic banked turns without the risk of rolling. Crash recovery and auto descending after dismount also fixed long-standing issues with the system where bikes would often be left unreachable or immobile.\n\nWhat didn\u2019t go so well\nOverall, the new system is significantly better but still has occasional issues detecting surroundings, typically when entering more confined vehicles. While many vehicles were never intended to have grav-lev bikes inside, we want to make the experience better for those who give it a try.\n\nWhat we\u2019ll do in the future\nOn the Vehicle Content side, we released the Drake Cutlass Steel. This debuted alongside additional work from the Actor Feature team who expanded upon their mounted-gun tech to allow it to support animated deployment states. The Steel provides an alternative dropship to the popular Anvil Valkyrie, rivaling it in guns and troop transport capacity with a smaller and more nimble chassis. In future patches, we\u2019ll look at its handling and armor values to help improve its survivability coming into dropzones, where it\u2019s currently not quite hitting the desired goals.\n\nAI\nFrancesco Roccucci, AI Director\n\nThe AI team didn\u2019t have any major deliveries for Alpha 3.16. Our main focus was on improvements to the Bartender experience.\n\nWhat went well\nIn general, the release branch has been very stable for us, allowing us to close down a lot of issues, submit a lot of improvements, and work well together towards a very specific goal.\n\nWhat didn\u2019t go so well\nWe had several cases of submissions stomping on other changes, especially on the Mannequin animation database (ADB) side. This caused previously fixed bugs to resurface, which led to some frustration.\n\nThe current structure we use is good in terms of keeping some branches more stable, but it can also require the team to dedicate more time when integrating fixed bugs in the feature streams.\n\nWhat we\u2019ll do differently in the future\nWe are currently focusing on the creation of feature testmaps. These will be the gate when validating submissions as they will make sure that changes don\u2019t have side effects or contain wrong data.\n\nWe also want the team to sit down and define a checklist that needs to be followed before doing submits until we can get more automatic validation tools.\n\nLocations\nTodd Papy, Star Citizen Live Director\n\nDerelict Ships (MTL)\nWhat went well\nThe level designer owned all gameplay aspects of the location, including where it was located, the navigation gameplay, the distribution of gameplay ingredients and lootboxes, which mission was available, and the flow within each location.\n\nInternal playtests and data from the PTU provided a lot of meaningful feedback on navigation and readability. The team was extremely impressed with the level of feedback coming from the community, which will help as these types of locations are developed. All interaction by the community was really appreciated by the team.\n\nThe collaboration between the Design, Art, and Lighting teams was fun, efficient, and provided impressive results with minimal frustrations.\n\nWhat didn\u2019t go so well\nGetting traction on features supported by other teams was difficult at times (mines, loot, mission debug, scanning).\n\nWe didn\u2019t have enough QATR (Quality Assurance Test Request) testers. This resulted in the team having to find and write many of the bugs that affected these locations.\n\nWe had some setbacks surrounding the branching to release process (mentioned in the intro above) that ended up condensing the amount of time we had to release. This resulted in a last minute rollback, re-branching to an older version instead, which caused strain on the team, and has been discussed as something we would really like to avoid doing again.\n\nWhat we\u2019ll do differently in the future\nWe\u2019ll kick off with a better task breakdown and define the level structure and production workflow before we start building stuff.\n\nAn entity sanity pass will be done before use (the caterpillar assets had many issues) and allow more time for polish and iteration. We\u2019ll also aim to get the first playable version at the actual location earlier, and an audit of features and dependencies on other teams should happen earlier.\n\nFor testing, we\u2019ll provide QA with early, elaborate design documents to allow their test plans to be ready on time for QATR and be more effective at finding legit game-breaking issues. The testers should also have proper tools for testing missions and forcing missions in certain locations.\n\nJumptown 2.0\nWhat went well\nThe original\/initial drug lab outpost was quite bland and didn\u2019t provide any visual art for the player, opportunities to explore and loot, or provide any PvP\/cover to players. For Jumptown 2.0, we wanted to change things to deliver a better player experience.\n\nWe had a strong initial kick-off where we laid out the limitations of what we could do that was agreed on and stuck to. We then gave the outside of the drug labs a visual overhaul, adding options for both ground and roof cover. On the inside, we provided the players with physical cargo dispensers to haul cargo from and new and improved drug lab sections. It was really great to have the time to expand the outposts more than we'd anticipated and I think it's much better for it.\n\nWhat didn\u2019t go so well\nThe last-minute addition of the mounted turrets was a bit hairy; ideally this should have been built in from the start.\n\nWhile it\u2019s great to see these outposts updated for the Dynamic Event, they will ultimately be replaced when we create the v2 of high-tech outposts.\n\nWe faced some struggles related to having the team split between Austin and the UK. Moving forwards, we will look into having more thorough handovers and an additional stakeholder based in the EU timezone to improve collaboration.\n\nAs mentioned above, having to switch content streams so late in the process resulted in additional strain on the team.\n\n\nWhat we\u2019ll do differently in the future\nOverall, the new and improved drug lab is significantly better but still has some issues and we believe that if there were more time and support from other teams, the overall experience of the event could have been much better.\n\nOne aspect that we would want to improve on is the size of the base and drug lab. However, this will require a more significant time investment. By making the inside bigger, we would have more options for cover and PvP gameplay. Another aspect we could improve on is how players enter the base. By adding extra entrance and exit points, we could avoid players being ambushed by others through the only door.\n\nFinally, it would be good to spread the cover further out from the lab to provide more cover from above from incoming ships and bombers, which would encourage more ground-based PVP action.","de_DE":"Alpha 3.16 Postmortem\n02\/09\/2022 - 9:00 UHR\n\nAm 22. Dezember 2021 haben wir Alpha 3.16: R\u00fcckkehr nach Jumptown ver\u00f6ffentlicht, die eine Reihe neuer Funktionen und \u00c4nderungen mit sich brachte, darunter das Dynamische Ereignis Jumptown 2.0, die \u00dcberarbeitung der Grav-Elev und verlassene Schiffe mit Fallen, die es zu vermeiden und Wertgegenst\u00e4nde zu sichern gilt.\nDies war ein einzigartiger Patch-Zyklus. Wie wir bereits im Dezember im Roadmap Roundup erw\u00e4hnt haben, dauerte es l\u00e4nger, bis Star Citizen Alpha 3.15 ver\u00f6ffentlicht wurde, als wir urspr\u00fcnglich geplant hatten. Aus diesem Grund haben wir uns entschieden, die Entwicklung von 3.15 zu verzweigen, um die Gesamtstabilit\u00e4t nicht zu gef\u00e4hrden (die so gut war wie seit Jahren nicht mehr). Dieser Ansatz bedeutete, dass wir mit der gleichen Codebasis arbeiten w\u00fcrden, die sich derzeit auf den Live-Servern befindet, w\u00e4hrend wir die 3.16-Funktionen (insbesondere diejenigen, deren Integration wir als risikoarm einstufen) manuell integrieren.\nNachfolgend findest du einen Bericht der leitenden Entwickler, in dem sie beschreiben, was geliefert wurde und was sie dar\u00fcber denken, wie es gelaufen ist.\n\n\nFahrzeuge\nJohn Crewe, Direktor f\u00fcr Fahrzeuge\n\nDie Fahrzeugs\u00e4ule hat f\u00fcr Alpha 3.16 relativ wenig geliefert. Die Teams f\u00fcr Fahrzeugfunktionen und -erfahrungen haben sich haupts\u00e4chlich auf die \u00dcberarbeitung der Grav-Levs konzentriert.\n\nWas gut lief\nDer vorherige Zustand von grav-lev lie\u00df viel zu w\u00fcnschen \u00fcbrig, sowohl intern als auch f\u00fcr die \u00d6ffentlichkeit, da es sich nie so verhielt, wie wir es wollten. Es gab zahlreiche technische und visuelle Probleme, die durch die \u00dcberarbeitung fast vollst\u00e4ndig behoben wurden. Das Erlebnis ist jetzt viel realistischer, da die Spieler\/innen ihre H\u00f6he selbst bestimmen und viel dramatischere Kurven fahren k\u00f6nnen, ohne Gefahr zu laufen, zu \u00fcberrollen. Die Wiederherstellung bei Abst\u00fcrzen und das automatische Absteigen nach dem Absteigen beheben auch langj\u00e4hrige Probleme mit dem System, bei denen die Fahrr\u00e4der oft unerreichbar oder unbeweglich blieben.\n\nWas nicht so gut gelaufen ist\nInsgesamt ist das neue System deutlich besser, hat aber immer noch gelegentlich Probleme, die Umgebung zu erkennen, vor allem beim Einsteigen in engere Fahrzeuge. Auch wenn viele Fahrzeuge nie daf\u00fcr gedacht waren, Grav-Lift-Bikes darin zu transportieren, wollen wir das Erlebnis f\u00fcr diejenigen, die es ausprobieren, verbessern.\n\nWas wir in Zukunft tun werden\nWas die Fahrzeuginhalte angeht, haben wir den Drake Cutlass Steel ver\u00f6ffentlicht. Dieser wurde zusammen mit zus\u00e4tzlicher Arbeit des Actor Feature-Teams vorgestellt, das die Technologie der montierten Kanone erweitert hat, um animierte Einsatzzust\u00e4nde zu erm\u00f6glichen. Die Steel ist ein alternatives Dropship zur beliebten Anvil Valkyrie, das mit einem kleineren und wendigeren Chassis in Sachen Bewaffnung und Truppentransportkapazit\u00e4t mit ihr konkurriert. In zuk\u00fcnftigen Patches werden wir uns sein Handling und seine Panzerungswerte ansehen, um seine \u00dcberlebensf\u00e4higkeit in Dropzones zu verbessern, wo er derzeit nicht ganz die gew\u00fcnschten Ziele erreicht.\n\nKI\nFrancesco Roccucci, KI-Direktor\n\nDas KI-Team hatte f\u00fcr die Alpha 3.16 keine gr\u00f6\u00dferen Lieferungen. Unser Hauptaugenmerk lag auf der Verbesserung des Bartender-Erlebnisses.\n\nWas gut lief\nIm Allgemeinen war der Release-Zweig f\u00fcr uns sehr stabil und erm\u00f6glichte es uns, viele Probleme zu l\u00f6sen, viele Verbesserungen einzureichen und gut zusammenzuarbeiten, um ein ganz bestimmtes Ziel zu erreichen.\n\nWas nicht so gut gelaufen ist\nEs gab mehrere F\u00e4lle, in denen Einreichungen auf anderen \u00c4nderungen herumtrampelten, vor allem auf der Seite der Mannequin-Animationsdatenbank (ADB). Das f\u00fchrte dazu, dass bereits behobene Fehler wieder auftauchten, was zu einiger Frustration f\u00fchrte.\n\nDie derzeitige Struktur, die wir verwenden, ist gut, um einige Zweige stabiler zu halten, aber sie kann auch bedeuten, dass das Team mehr Zeit aufwenden muss, um behobene Fehler in die Feature Streams zu integrieren.\n\nWas wir in Zukunft anders machen werden\nWir konzentrieren uns derzeit auf die Erstellung von Feature-Testmaps. Diese werden bei der Validierung von Beitr\u00e4gen das Tor sein, da sie sicherstellen, dass \u00c4nderungen keine Nebeneffekte haben oder falsche Daten enthalten.\n\nAu\u00dferdem m\u00f6chten wir, dass sich das Team zusammensetzt und eine Checkliste festlegt, die vor der Einreichung von Beitr\u00e4gen befolgt werden muss, bis wir automatischere Validierungstools bekommen k\u00f6nnen.\n\nStandorte\nTodd Papy, Star Citizen Live Direktor\n\nVerlassene Schiffe (MTL)\nWas gut lief\nDer Leveldesigner hatte alle Gameplay-Aspekte des Ortes in der Hand. Dazu geh\u00f6rten der Standort, die Navigation, die Verteilung der Spielzutaten und Lootboxen, die verf\u00fcgbaren Missionen und der Ablauf innerhalb des Ortes.\n\nInterne Playtests und Daten aus dem PTU lieferten eine Menge aussagekr\u00e4ftiges Feedback zur Navigation und Lesbarkeit. Das Team war sehr beeindruckt von den R\u00fcckmeldungen aus der Community, die bei der Entwicklung dieser Art von Orten hilfreich sein werden. Das Team sch\u00e4tzte die Interaktion mit der Community sehr.\n\nDie Zusammenarbeit zwischen dem Design-, dem Kunst- und dem Beleuchtungsteam hat Spa\u00df gemacht, war effizient und lieferte beeindruckende Ergebnisse bei minimalen Frustrationen.\n\nWas nicht so gut gelaufen ist\nEs war manchmal schwierig, die von anderen Teams unterst\u00fctzten Funktionen durchzusetzen (Minen, Beute, Missionsdebugging, Scannen).\n\nWir hatten nicht gen\u00fcgend QATR-Tester (Quality Assurance Test Request). Das f\u00fchrte dazu, dass das Team viele der Fehler, die diese Orte betrafen, selbst finden und schreiben musste.\n\nWir hatten einige R\u00fcckschl\u00e4ge im Zusammenhang mit dem Branching-to-Release-Prozess (wie oben in der Einleitung erw\u00e4hnt), die die Zeit bis zur Ver\u00f6ffentlichung verk\u00fcrzten. Dies f\u00fchrte zu einem Rollback in letzter Minute, bei dem wir stattdessen auf eine \u00e4ltere Version zur\u00fcckgriffen, was das Team sehr belastete.\n\nWas wir in Zukunft anders machen werden\nWir fangen mit einer besseren Aufgabenverteilung an und legen die Ebenenstruktur und den Produktionsablauf fest, bevor wir mit dem Bau beginnen.\n\nWir werden vor der Verwendung einen \"Sanity Pass\" durchf\u00fchren (die Raupen-Assets hatten viele Probleme) und uns mehr Zeit f\u00fcr den Feinschliff und die Iteration nehmen. Wir werden auch versuchen, die erste spielbare Version fr\u00fcher zu erstellen, und eine Pr\u00fcfung der Funktionen und Abh\u00e4ngigkeiten von anderen Teams sollte fr\u00fcher stattfinden.\n\nF\u00fcr das Testen werden wir der QA fr\u00fchzeitige, ausf\u00fchrliche Designdokumente zur Verf\u00fcgung stellen, damit ihre Testpl\u00e4ne rechtzeitig f\u00fcr den QATR fertig sind und sie effektivere Probleme finden k\u00f6nnen, die das Spiel zerst\u00f6ren. Die Tester\/innen sollten auch \u00fcber geeignete Werkzeuge verf\u00fcgen, um Missionen zu testen und Missionen an bestimmten Orten zu erzwingen.\n\nJumptown 2.0\nWas gut lief\nDer urspr\u00fcngliche Drogenlabor-Au\u00dfenposten war ziemlich fade und bot dem Spieler keine visuelle Kunst, keine M\u00f6glichkeiten zum Erkunden und Beutemachen und keine PvP-Deckung f\u00fcr die Spieler. F\u00fcr Jumptown 2.0 wollten wir die Dinge \u00e4ndern, um den Spielern ein besseres Erlebnis zu bieten.\n\nWir hatten einen starken Auftakt, bei dem wir die Grenzen dessen, was wir tun konnten, abgesteckt haben und uns daran gehalten haben. Dann haben wir das \u00c4u\u00dfere der Drogenlabore optisch \u00fcberarbeitet und Optionen f\u00fcr die Boden- und Dachabdeckung hinzugef\u00fcgt. Im Inneren haben wir den Spielerinnen und Spielern physische Ladungsspender zur Verf\u00fcgung gestellt, von denen aus sie Ladung transportieren k\u00f6nnen, sowie neue und verbesserte Abschnitte des Drogenlabors. Es war wirklich toll, dass wir die Zeit hatten, die Au\u00dfenposten weiter auszubauen, als wir erwartet hatten, und ich finde, dass sie dadurch viel besser geworden sind.\n\nWas nicht so gut gelaufen ist\nDie in letzter Minute hinzugef\u00fcgten Gesch\u00fctzt\u00fcrme waren etwas haarig; idealerweise h\u00e4tte man sie von Anfang an einbauen sollen.\n\nEs ist zwar toll, dass diese Au\u00dfenposten f\u00fcr das Dynamische Ereignis aktualisiert wurden, aber sie werden letztendlich ersetzt, wenn wir die 2.\n\nDie Aufteilung des Teams zwischen Austin und dem Vereinigten K\u00f6nigreich hat uns einige Probleme bereitet. In Zukunft werden wir uns um eine gr\u00fcndlichere \u00dcbergabe und einen zus\u00e4tzlichen Stakeholder in der EU-Zeitzone bem\u00fchen, um die Zusammenarbeit zu verbessern.\n\nWie bereits erw\u00e4hnt, f\u00fchrte der sp\u00e4te Wechsel der Inhaltsstr\u00f6me zu einer zus\u00e4tzlichen Belastung f\u00fcr das Team.\n\n\nWas wir in Zukunft anders machen werden\nInsgesamt ist das neue und verbesserte Drogenlabor deutlich besser, hat aber immer noch einige Probleme und wir glauben, dass das Gesamterlebnis der Veranstaltung viel besser h\u00e4tte sein k\u00f6nnen, wenn es mehr Zeit und Unterst\u00fctzung von anderen Teams gegeben h\u00e4tte.\n\nEin Aspekt, den wir gerne verbessern w\u00fcrden, ist die Gr\u00f6\u00dfe der Basis und des Drogenlabors. Dies erfordert jedoch eine gr\u00f6\u00dfere Zeitinvestition. Wenn wir das Innere gr\u00f6\u00dfer machen w\u00fcrden, h\u00e4tten wir mehr M\u00f6glichkeiten f\u00fcr Deckung und PvP-Gameplay. Ein weiterer Aspekt, den wir verbessern k\u00f6nnten, ist die Art und Weise, wie Spieler die Basis betreten. Wenn wir zus\u00e4tzliche Ein- und Ausg\u00e4nge einbauen, k\u00f6nnen wir verhindern, dass die Spieler\/innen durch die einzige T\u00fcr in einen Hinterhalt geraten.\n\nSchlie\u00dflich w\u00e4re es gut, die Deckung weiter vom Labor aus zu verteilen, um mehr Deckung von oben vor ankommenden Schiffen und Bombern zu bieten, was mehr bodengebundene PvP-Action f\u00f6rdern w\u00fcrde.","zh_CN":"Alpha 3.16 Postmortem\n02\/09\/2022 - 9:00 AM\n\nOn December 22, 2021, we launched Alpha 3.16: Return to Jumptown, which introduced a number of new features and changes, including the release of the Dynamic Event Jumptown 2.0, the grav-lev rework, and derelict ships with traps to avoid and valuables to secure.\nThis was a unique patch cycle. As we mentioned in a Roadmap Roundup back in December, Star Citizen Alpha 3.15 took longer to get out the door than we had initially planned, which limited the amount of time we had to stabilize the 3.16 code base. For this reason, we opted to branch from the 3.15 development stream to avoid risking overall stability (which has been the best we've had in years). Taking this approach meant we'd operate on the same code base that's currently on the live servers, while manually integrating 3.16 features (specifically those we deem low risk to integrate).\nThe following is a postmortem from the senior developers themselves, detailing what was delivered and their thoughts on how it went.\n\n\nVehicles\nJohn Crewe, Vehicle Director\n\nThe Vehicle Pillar had a relatively small delivery for Alpha 3.16, with the Vehicle Feature and Experience teams primarily focusing on delivering the grav-lev rework.\n\nWhat went well\nThe prior state of grav-lev left a lot to be desired, both from the internal side and the public-facing side, as it never quite behaved how we wanted. Numerous issues were present with it both technically and visually that the rework tackled and almost entirely fixed. The experience now is much more visceral, allowing players to select their height and make much more dramatic banked turns without the risk of rolling. Crash recovery and auto descending after dismount also fixed long-standing issues with the system where bikes would often be left unreachable or immobile.\n\nWhat didn\u2019t go so well\nOverall, the new system is significantly better but still has occasional issues detecting surroundings, typically when entering more confined vehicles. While many vehicles were never intended to have grav-lev bikes inside, we want to make the experience better for those who give it a try.\n\nWhat we\u2019ll do in the future\nOn the Vehicle Content side, we released the Drake Cutlass Steel. This debuted alongside additional work from the Actor Feature team who expanded upon their mounted-gun tech to allow it to support animated deployment states. The Steel provides an alternative dropship to the popular Anvil Valkyrie, rivaling it in guns and troop transport capacity with a smaller and more nimble chassis. In future patches, we\u2019ll look at its handling and armor values to help improve its survivability coming into dropzones, where it\u2019s currently not quite hitting the desired goals.\n\nAI\nFrancesco Roccucci, AI Director\n\nThe AI team didn\u2019t have any major deliveries for Alpha 3.16. Our main focus was on improvements to the Bartender experience.\n\nWhat went well\nIn general, the release branch has been very stable for us, allowing us to close down a lot of issues, submit a lot of improvements, and work well together towards a very specific goal.\n\nWhat didn\u2019t go so well\nWe had several cases of submissions stomping on other changes, especially on the Mannequin animation database (ADB) side. This caused previously fixed bugs to resurface, which led to some frustration.\n\nThe current structure we use is good in terms of keeping some branches more stable, but it can also require the team to dedicate more time when integrating fixed bugs in the feature streams.\n\nWhat we\u2019ll do differently in the future\nWe are currently focusing on the creation of feature testmaps. These will be the gate when validating submissions as they will make sure that changes don\u2019t have side effects or contain wrong data.\n\nWe also want the team to sit down and define a checklist that needs to be followed before doing submits until we can get more automatic validation tools.\n\nLocations\nTodd Papy, Star Citizen Live Director\n\nDerelict Ships (MTL)\nWhat went well\nThe level designer owned all gameplay aspects of the location, including where it was located, the navigation gameplay, the distribution of gameplay ingredients and lootboxes, which mission was available, and the flow within each location.\n\nInternal playtests and data from the PTU provided a lot of meaningful feedback on navigation and readability. The team was extremely impressed with the level of feedback coming from the community, which will help as these types of locations are developed. All interaction by the community was really appreciated by the team.\n\nThe collaboration between the Design, Art, and Lighting teams was fun, efficient, and provided impressive results with minimal frustrations.\n\nWhat didn\u2019t go so well\nGetting traction on features supported by other teams was difficult at times (mines, loot, mission debug, scanning).\n\nWe didn\u2019t have enough QATR (Quality Assurance Test Request) testers. This resulted in the team having to find and write many of the bugs that affected these locations.\n\nWe had some setbacks surrounding the branching to release process (mentioned in the intro above) that ended up condensing the amount of time we had to release. This resulted in a last minute rollback, re-branching to an older version instead, which caused strain on the team, and has been discussed as something we would really like to avoid doing again.\n\nWhat we\u2019ll do differently in the future\nWe\u2019ll kick off with a better task breakdown and define the level structure and production workflow before we start building stuff.\n\nAn entity sanity pass will be done before use (the caterpillar assets had many issues) and allow more time for polish and iteration. We\u2019ll also aim to get the first playable version at the actual location earlier, and an audit of features and dependencies on other teams should happen earlier.\n\nFor testing, we\u2019ll provide QA with early, elaborate design documents to allow their test plans to be ready on time for QATR and be more effective at finding legit game-breaking issues. The testers should also have proper tools for testing missions and forcing missions in certain locations.\n\nJumptown 2.0\nWhat went well\nThe original\/initial drug lab outpost was quite bland and didn\u2019t provide any visual art for the player, opportunities to explore and loot, or provide any PvP\/cover to players. For Jumptown 2.0, we wanted to change things to deliver a better player experience.\n\nWe had a strong initial kick-off where we laid out the limitations of what we could do that was agreed on and stuck to. We then gave the outside of the drug labs a visual overhaul, adding options for both ground and roof cover. On the inside, we provided the players with physical cargo dispensers to haul cargo from and new and improved drug lab sections. It was really great to have the time to expand the outposts more than we'd anticipated and I think it's much better for it.\n\nWhat didn\u2019t go so well\nThe last-minute addition of the mounted turrets was a bit hairy; ideally this should have been built in from the start.\n\nWhile it\u2019s great to see these outposts updated for the Dynamic Event, they will ultimately be replaced when we create the v2 of high-tech outposts.\n\nWe faced some struggles related to having the team split between Austin and the UK. Moving forwards, we will look into having more thorough handovers and an additional stakeholder based in the EU timezone to improve collaboration.\n\nAs mentioned above, having to switch content streams so late in the process resulted in additional strain on the team.\n\n\nWhat we\u2019ll do differently in the future\nOverall, the new and improved drug lab is significantly better but still has some issues and we believe that if there were more time and support from other teams, the overall experience of the event could have been much better.\n\nOne aspect that we would want to improve on is the size of the base and drug lab. However, this will require a more significant time investment. By making the inside bigger, we would have more options for cover and PvP gameplay. Another aspect we could improve on is how players enter the base. By adding extra entrance and exit points, we could avoid players being ambushed by others through the only door.\n\nFinally, it would be good to spread the cover further out from the lab to provide more cover from above from incoming ships and bombers, which would encourage more ground-based PVP action."},"links_count":0,"comment_count":0,"created_at":"2022-02-09T23:00:00+00:00","created_at_human":"4 years ago"},"meta":{"processed_at":"2026-04-25 18:51:08","valid_relations":["images","links","translations"],"prev_id":18548,"next_id":18552}}