{"data":{"id":18654,"title":"Star Citizen Monthly Report: April 2022","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/comm-link\/transmission\/18654-Star-Citizen-Monthly-Report-April-2022","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-links\/18654","api_public_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/comm-links\/18654","channel":"Feedback","category":"Undefined","series":"None","images":[{"id":26651,"name":"STARCITIZEN_WHITE.png","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/media\/y1f0boj8fak5rr\/source\/STARCITIZEN_WHITE.png","alt":"","size":73278,"mime_type":"image\/png","last_modified":"2021-02-03T06:54:29+00:00","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/26651","similar_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/26651\/similar"}],"images_count":9,"translations":{"en_EN":"PU Monthly Report\nApril 2022\nWith Alpha 317: Fueling Fortunes now live in the PU, this month\u2019s report features the last-minute fixes and tweaks typical of every patch release. However, it\u2019s also full of progress on upcoming features and the latest from Star Citizen\u2019s next system, Pyro. Read on for everything done throughout April.\n\nAI (Content)\nAI Content spent part of April working on the \u2018eat and drink\u2019 and \u2018leisure\u2019 AI activities. They now have a complete gameplay loop, where the AI will locate a sustenance dispenser (such as a vending machine, chow line, or shop), obtain food and drink, then find somewhere to consume it (like a seat, railing, or idle spot). Once finished, they\u2019ll dispose of the container in a recycling bin before using a leisure usable to pass the time, such as reading, writing, or watching content on their mobiGlas. The next step is to add the AI Tech team\u2019s new dynamic conversation tech so that characters can systemically converse with others while utilizing usables.\n\nThe team also began work on a new \u2018commuter\u2019 activity. This controls all aspects of a character\u2019s behavior when using public transport, including choosing a destination, waiting for transport to arrive, entering it, passing time while in transit, and exiting.\n\n\u201cWe had an animator and designer work together to create a narrated pre-visualization video explaining how they envisage it working. The next step is to itemize the tasks and begin prototyping. We hope this will add life-like transfer and traffic to our transport hubs.\u201d AI Content Team\n\nAI (Tech)\nThroughout April, AI Tech finalized their work on Alpha 3.17, which involved investigating and fixing several AI-related bugs and making various optimizations.\n\nThey also adjusted the AI behaviors and code to allow ships to correctly quantum travel out of planetary atmospheres. Previously, ships would think they were inside an obstacle and not correctly account for which direction would be best to radially leave the planet.\n\nFor the navigation system, the team added the ability to notify listeners when navigation meshes are spawned\/created within the environment. Due to a large number of entities, they\u2019re aiming to reduce the number of allocations for notification events and possibly introduce a better way to filter which entities events are relevant to.\n\nThey continued tasks that will allow NPCs to interact correctly with movable entities, like trolleys, which was mentioned in last month\u2019s report. The recent aim was to integrate the operator and the trolleys themselves into the collision avoidance system. This will allow NPCs to push trolleys, avoid other characters while pushing, and avoid trolleys left throughout a level.\n\nThey also made it easier to drag a link from one node to another, improved the automatic folder selection when creating new files, and modified quick insert to select a suggestion based on the string type if not specified.\n\nThe team then began work on a major improvement to the way the multi-graph view validates node connection. With the new feature, nodes belong to the graph they have been created in and linked to until a new connection is established. This allows the devs to maintain orphan nodes without losing data even in the new multi-graph mode.\n\nFinally for AI Tech, they completed the engineering phase for dynamic conversation functionality, adding ways to allow the designers to mark up which conversation topics are allowed in different locations. For example, in Lorville, NPCs can talk about working at the factory, which is only relevant to that city. The system also allows the designers to set up topics on a specific character and then automatically select a specific dynamic conversation skeleton, in turn randomizing topics related to that conversation flow.\n\nAI (Vehicle Features)\nLast month, AI Vehicle Features fixed bugs and provided release support for Alpha 3.17 and Invictus Launch Week. They also began work on the flight AI debug tool and its two test runner levels.\n\nThe \u2018v_spawnai\u2019 command was also updated to include options for overriding the crew manifest and skills set. The flow graph node for spawning vehicles was updated too. Lastly, they\u2019re currently allowing enabling tests to be managed via editor windows.\n\nAnimation\nAnimation released their vendor work to the PU and are currently creating documents to ensure they can extend it efficiently when needed. They also began filling out leisure areas with AI, including characters using arcade machines, additional idles, and actions at tables (such as using the mobiGlas). Facial animations were done for outlaws, vendors, bartenders, and a new mission-giver too.\n\nFor weapons and gadgets, blockout animations were created for handheld gadgets and explosives, and work began on a new SMG.\n\nPre-vis work was also done for how a \u2018weighed down\u2019 player should feel and patrons drinking at bars and tables.\n\nArt (Characters)\nCharacter Art continued to work on frontier clothing for Pyro. They also polished a large batch of armor and clothing material variants for the Nine Tails gang.\n\nA salvage-themed backpack is currently being worked on by Tech Art, while concept art is in progress for a collection of fashionable outfits for Stanton.\n\nArt (Ships)\nThe UK-based Ship team finalized paints for the RSI Scorpius, completing their work on the ship.\n\nThe Banu Merchantman\u2019s exterior progressed through greybox, with the team acting on what was learned during the R&D phase.\n\nFour unannounced vehicles were also further developed throughout the month: One is in the final-art phase, with work focusing on the complex, technical areas. Two are currently in the whitebox stage, while one was completed from an art perspective.\n\nIn the US, the team focused on the Drake Corsair, creating space in the fuselage for the docking ring, turrets, landing gear, and elevator. They then moved onto exterior detailing towards the tail. For the interior, they created the crew quarter set that will populate all four rooms. The foyer was finished, while the co-pilot\u2019s cockpit, engineering room, turret interior, and airlock are nearing completion.\n\nArt (Weapons)\nApril saw Weapons Art dedicate time to improving the stow\/stock helper setup, moving from a generic offset to a more handcrafted setup per weapon. This should result in weapons fitting more closely to the player's body and overall less clipping. A similar pass was started on scopes, which will give the Weapons Feature team greater control and the ability to tweak ADS positions.\n\nOn the art side, the team continued their work on Banu ship weapons, filling out the manufacturer with several new product lines.\n\nAnimation completed their first pass on many of the new FPS gadgets and iterated on the setup with the Art team. They also continued with the fire extinguisher mentioned in last month\u2019s report.\n\nCommunity\nThe team began the month announcing Mesher, a dating app for the mobiGlass that took romantic multiplayer gaming to the next level (for April 1 only). In the spirit of Triggerfish, the matching patch notes for the release of \u201cStar Citizen 3.16.2\u201d were published too.\n\nFollowing the reveal of the new refinery concept, the team published the MISC Expanse Q&A after taking the community's most upvoted questions. They also supported the Spring Merch Sale.\n\nThe Community team also supported the launch of Alpha 3.17, including sentiment tracking and reporting, relaying feedback to development, creation of new player resources such as the Alpha 3.17: Things to Do page, and kicking off a pair of contests, both for Spectrum as well as on social media.\n\nThe team has also kicked off the planning for a small summit in Austin in early May to start ironing out the details for events throughout the remainder of the year and 2023, including Bar Citizen events (more details soon). Additionally, the team organized internal Star Citizen play sessions to help new hires get their footing in the 'verse.\n\nThe Community team is also overseeing progress on the updated Community Hub, which should be in your hands soon.\n\nEngine\nIn April, the Physics team worked on splitting the batched grid cleanup into two parts (cleanup and defragmentation) to allow for finer control of time slicing. Furthermore, unnecessary computations were removed from the physical world time step, and the time stepping code of living entities was improved. Auto conversion of legacy constraints to constraint attachments was implemented too.\n\nThe Gen12 renderer transition continued, with planet terrain patch rendering being enabled. Render proxies received various improvements and shadow generation was enabled. Support for \u2018viewport scaling to render pass\u2019 was added, which is convenient for atlas and dynamic resolution rendering. Various debug UIs were implemented to assist development. For example, a UI to easily control\/trigger cube map generation in-game for testing purposes. Lastly for the renderer, material fallbacks for the \u2018depth pre-pass stage\u2019 were disabled.\n\nGen12 ports of the planet terrain height map and shadow rendering systems were finalized and merged upstream. One of the finishing touches was to rework cascade culling for planet terrain height map rendering so it can run during the submission of draw packets from batch workers (following the Gen12 design philosophy). Gen12 ports of the atmosphere and cloud rendering will commence shortly.\n\nOn the core engine, a potential deadlock in the exception handler was fixed. The clean-up of code using \u2018include-what-you-use\u2019 continued. Additionally, a new OS time interface was provided. GPU frame time is now included in analytic events to provide better data on how long actual frame times are on the GPU (ignoring VSync). Furthermore, to simplify deployment, Linux game server instances now also use separate user folders. Lastly, the majority of time was spent making last month\u2019s various optimizations in the core engine ready for release in Alpha 3.17.\n\nThe remainder of the time was spent supporting various teams and fixing bugs.\n\nFeatures (Characters & Weapons)\nThroughout April, the Features team progressed through inventory issues based on feedback from the Alpha 3.17 PTU phase. This involved adjusting the underlying inventory logic and flow to work with the new persistence tech, which was a significant undertaking involving close collaboration with the backend teams.\n\nOnce complete, they moved back onto the fire extinguisher:\n\n\u201cIt is an interesting challenge, as it has quite a different profile compared to other \u2018weaponry.\u2019 It has a bulky cylinder that holds the liquid or gas, which it can spray continuously. This gadget is going to be important in combating interior fires on spaceships to stop them draining the life-critical oxygen supply. We are working closely with the VFX team to connect the logic with the fire hazard system as well as bring the weapon to life visually.\u201d Features Team\n\nFeatures (Gameplay)\nThe PU team began the month supporting the release of refueling and mining gadgets, including a fix for in-atmosphere refueling. For the mining gadgets, they added a red light to clearly show if the gadget detaches.\n\nSignificant progress was then made on ship salvage, with an improved HUD being created for the Drake Vulture\u2019s salvage mode. They also added additional aiming functionality tailored to the unique setup of the ship\u2019s arms. The Reclaimer\u2019s salvage turrets were also properly setup and can now scrape hulls.\n\nWork on the UIs for life support and engineering gameplay progressed, while improvements were made to the tools used to set up the resource network, which will make working on it easier.\n\nFeatures (Vehicles)\nThe Vehicle Features team started the month technically setting up the Hull A, making sure its cargo feature works as designed. They then implemented the turret on the Scorpius.\n\nFollowing support for Alpha 3.17, the team returned to feature development, testing further gameplay updates to master modes and QT boost. They also planned balance support for the refueling feature beyond its initial release.\n\nTime was also spent investigating the AI desync issue. Although many improvements have been made, the depth of the issue across many areas of the game has made it difficult to narrow down the causes, with fixes exposing further problems.\n\nWork was also done on quality-of-life improvements and tuning across the game, including for racing ships in-atmosphere, loadout changes, and the health of industrial ships.\n\nGraphics & VFX Programming\nLast month, the Graphics team supported Alpha 3.17 with fixes for render-to-texture (RTT), missing shadows in caves, an issue with DisplayScreen transparency in RTTs, and various crash fixes including some relating to gas-cloud streaming.\n\nFor Gen12, the team focused on setting the proper viewport size to render passes in the G-buffer and depth pre-pass stages to support the RTT pipeline. Work also continued on the clean-up of resource arrays and analytic shadow scattering queries. VFX auto tests continued too, with the flowgraph nodes being updated for more consistent results.\n\nFor salvage, the team added UV2 density parameters to the mesh setup editor. This calculates the required resolution of PBM as well as debugging crashes in RC when generating a ship engine attachment CGA PBM.\n\nLighting\nIn April, the Lighting team continued to focus on Invictus Launch Week. A full lighting pass was completed on various locations and points-of-interest (POI), before the team moved on to polishing, optimizing, and bug fixing.\n\nThe team also worked on the new planetside Reclaimer derelict. This involved a lighting pass on the interior of the ship and blending the exterior into planetary surroundings.\n\nLocations (EU)\nThe main push for the Locations team last month was finalizing environments for Invictus Launch Week.\n\nElsewhere, work is almost complete on several small locations the Sandbox team is planning to release in an upcoming patch. The areas themselves are finished and are currently awaiting a distribution pass across Stanton.\n\nPre-production continues on new space-based POIs, with the team exploring one final theme before moving into the whitebox stage. New cave prototypes are progressing well, with improvements to materials and the general read across the board.\n\nElsewhere, the second round of content for the initial release of the new colonialism outposts is nearing final. The outposts will soon start to be distributed across the Pyro system in readiness for their debut.\n\nLocations (Montreal)\nThe Montreal Locations team are approaching the last development phases of both the Reclaimer derelict settlement and Reclaimer space-based POIs. For the derelict settlement, the Art team is currently polishing the carcass of the reclaimer and the habs, while the Design team is implementing the location\u2019s missions.\n\nThe space-based POIs progressed through the greybox phase. Last month\u2019s work included the design team implementing and tweaking missions. The Art team also began an art pass to narratively support the in-mission themes.\n\nFinally, further progress was made on the ongoing Lorville cityscape revamp, which involved defining recipes for buildings and blocking out the city.\n\n\u201cWork is progressing well and we\u2019re confident that the new scale of the city will support a lot of interesting future opportunities!\u201d Montreal Locations Team\n\nNarrative\nThe Narrative team focused on making sure everything was ready for the release of Alpha 3.17, fixing any issues that arose during playtesting and assisting design with the additional text strings needed to support the new features in the patch. Additionally, the team provided new text elements for Invictus Launch Week.\n\nNarrative continued support for ongoing work on future Dynamic Event missions and discussed how best to incorporate a new upcoming gameplay module into one particular mission\u2019s flow. They also met with the Montreal team to discuss the details of several new missions.\n\nPlanning began on an upcoming capture session to record content in support of new missions and to progress the ongoing NPC work with the AI team.\n\nOn the RSI website, new narrative content premiered, including an New United article exploring the role of political lobbyists in the Empire, an Untold Tales about the mysterious Prophet of Pyro, and new Galactapedia articles on the expansive Ellis system.\n\nQA\nLast month, QA focused on event testing, feature testing, integration checklists, and regular feature checklist testing.\n\nThe embedded AI team worked through fixes and feature updates dealing with the behavior of FPS AI towards players and other factions. They also continued sanity and smoke checks to ensure NPCs haven\u2019t degraded, and synced with the Mission team to broaden their testing.\n\nFor the Engine team, support continued with minimum-spec PC stress testing as well as PageHeap testing to catch memory leaks. The Tools team continued to receive support on Data Forge, StarWords, Excel Core, copy build, and the sandbox editor.\n\nTools (Montreal)\nThe Montreal Tools team began putting the final touches to Mighty Bridge v0.5, which will support the integration of Houdini into the editor. This will allow everyone on the team to use Houdini-powered tools directly in the editor.\n\nThe tech artists created tools to support the ongoing derelict work alongside continuing development of the procedural locations tool.\n\nTech Animation\nTech Animation continued creating new face rigs from their internally created scan data. They also invested substantial time into the tools chain and process to ensure upcoming heads are quicker and cleaner to produce.\n\nFurthermore, they supported the Feature and Animation teams by improving the animation systems to accommodate their increased requirements. For example, enabling the system to support up to 50 layers of authored and inverse kinematics animation on a single character.\n\nThey also supported the other development teams with new initiatives to solidify workflows to save both time and errors.\n\nTurbulent\nThroughout April, Turbulent\u2019s Online Services team worked on the new login flow refactor. With the majority of the working code complete, the team is now integration testing all respective services together, including rental, entitlement, and login. Significant progress was also made on the new Entity Graph service.\n\nThe Live Tools team released the latest version of Hex, featuring an all-new user interface. They\u2019re now focusing on developing and adding new features to improve the versatility of the Network Operation Center. With design at an advanced stage, they\u2019re working to implement new modules dedicated to monitoring and troubleshooting login issues.\n\nThe Web team spent the month getting ready for Invictus Launch Week. This involved refactoring the Alexandria tool with new skins, themes, and content.\n\nUI\nIn April, the UI team provided release support for Alpha 3.17 by fixing critical issues with the new ASOP terminals and selling UI alongside general bug and crash fixing. A major performance improvement was also completed, allowing thousands of items to be listed on screens, as in the selling UI.\n\nWork progressed on the new Starmap and radar UI. The devs implemented basic controls, enabling them to look around a solar system and view the planets, orbits, and vehicles within it. They also began adding an info panel that players can use to see details about selected objects.\n\n\u201cAlthough rough around the edges, the groundwork is there for us to add functionality and start improving the visuals.\u201d UI Team\n\nThe visor and lens conversion, which involves converting the existing player HUD elements to Building Blocks, is well underway. Many widgets, including weapon information and mission objectives, were ported to the new system. They also continued to update features in support of Persistent Streaming.\n\nThe UI Tech team continued developing additional Building Blocks features, one of which will replace the canvas slicing technology used to develop 3D UIs. The new \u2018cards' system received major usability and performance improvements and is currently being tested in the vehicle HUD for the hull-scraping feature.\n\nThe team also worked on a new AR marker system and improved various widgets to help the UI designers work more efficiently.\n\nVFX\nIn April, the VFX continued their work on the salvage effects, shifting focus to the vehicle hull-stripping variant.\n\n\u201cThis proved more challenging than the FPS variant, as depth perception is trickier to gauge from the ship cockpit and the player\u2019s position relative to the salvage nozzle. Because of this, we\u2019re currently experimenting with visual aids to give players a more user-friendly experience.\u201d VFX Team\n\nElsewhere, the team continued to work on various vehicles, including the RSI Scorpius, Drake Vulture, and one of the unannounced vehicles mentioned by the Ship team.\n\nClean-up was done in several particle libraries, which included converting some older libraries from CPU to GPU particles. Due to the large size of the particle database, this work is ongoing. Investigations began into VFX requirements for the various derelict locations being worked on in Montreal too.\n\nThe VFX Tech Art team completed the necessary Houdini update. This involved ensuring all existing tools worked correctly in Houdini 19. They also continued experimenting with better ways to fracture geometry to help create more realistic-looking damage.","de_DE":"PU-Monatsbericht\nM\u00e4rz 2022\nMit Alpha 317: Fueling Fortunes ist jetzt live in der PU und dieser Monatsbericht enth\u00e4lt die letzten Korrekturen und Optimierungen, die typisch f\u00fcr jede Patch-Ver\u00f6ffentlichung sind. Es gibt aber auch viele Fortschritte bei kommenden Features und das Neueste von Star Citizens n\u00e4chstem System, Pyro. Lies weiter, um zu erfahren, was im April passiert ist.\n\nKI (Inhalt)\nAI Content hat einen Teil des Aprils damit verbracht, an den KI-Aktivit\u00e4ten \"Essen und Trinken\" und \"Freizeit\" zu arbeiten. Jetzt gibt es eine komplette Spielschleife, in der die KI einen Nahrungsspender (z. B. einen Automaten, eine Essensschlange oder einen Laden) ausfindig macht, sich etwas zu essen und zu trinken holt und dann einen Ort findet, an dem sie es verzehren kann (z. B. einen Sitz, ein Gel\u00e4nder oder einen freien Platz). Wenn sie fertig sind, entsorgen sie den Beh\u00e4lter in einem M\u00fclleimer, bevor sie sich die Zeit mit Lesen, Schreiben oder dem Ansehen von Inhalten auf ihrem mobiGlas vertreiben. Der n\u00e4chste Schritt ist die neue dynamische Konversationstechnologie des KI-Techs, mit der sich die Charaktere systematisch mit anderen unterhalten k\u00f6nnen, w\u00e4hrend sie die Gebrauchsgegenst\u00e4nde nutzen.\n\nDas Team hat au\u00dferdem mit der Arbeit an einer neuen \"Pendler\"-Aktivit\u00e4t begonnen. Diese steuert alle Aspekte des Verhaltens eines Charakters bei der Benutzung \u00f6ffentlicher Verkehrsmittel, einschlie\u00dflich der Auswahl eines Ziels, des Wartens auf die Ankunft des Verkehrsmittels, des Einsteigens in das Verkehrsmittel, des Zeitvertreibs w\u00e4hrend der Fahrt und des Aussteigens.\n\n\"Wir lie\u00dfen einen Animator und einen Designer zusammenarbeiten, um ein kommentiertes Video zu erstellen, in dem sie erkl\u00e4ren, wie sie sich das Ganze vorstellen. Der n\u00e4chste Schritt ist, die Aufgaben aufzuschl\u00fcsseln und mit dem Prototyping zu beginnen. Wir hoffen, dass wir damit unsere Verkehrsknotenpunkte lebensechter gestalten k\u00f6nnen.\" AI Content Team\n\nAI (Tech)\nIm Laufe des Aprils hat das AI Tech-Team seine Arbeit an Alpha 3.17 abgeschlossen. Dabei wurden mehrere KI-bezogene Fehler untersucht und behoben sowie verschiedene Optimierungen vorgenommen.\n\nAu\u00dferdem wurden das KI-Verhalten und der Code angepasst, damit Schiffe korrekt aus der Planetenatmosph\u00e4re herausfahren k\u00f6nnen. Zuvor dachten die Schiffe, sie bef\u00e4nden sich innerhalb eines Hindernisses und ber\u00fccksichtigten nicht, in welche Richtung sie den Planeten am besten radial verlassen sollten.\n\nF\u00fcr das Navigationssystem f\u00fcgte das Team die F\u00e4higkeit hinzu, Zuh\u00f6rer zu benachrichtigen, wenn Navigationsnetze in der Umgebung gespawnt\/erzeugt werden. Aufgrund der gro\u00dfen Anzahl von Entit\u00e4ten wollen sie die Anzahl der Zuweisungen f\u00fcr Benachrichtigungsereignisse reduzieren und m\u00f6glicherweise eine bessere M\u00f6glichkeit einf\u00fchren, um zu filtern, f\u00fcr welche Entit\u00e4ten die Ereignisse relevant sind.\n\nDie Arbeiten an der korrekten Interaktion von NSCs mit beweglichen Objekten, wie z. B. Trolleys, wurden fortgesetzt, wie bereits im letzten Bericht erw\u00e4hnt. Das j\u00fcngste Ziel war es, den Betreiber und die Wagen selbst in das Kollisionsvermeidungssystem zu integrieren. Dadurch k\u00f6nnen NSCs Trolleys schieben, anderen Charakteren beim Schieben ausweichen und Trolleys ausweichen, die in einem Level zur\u00fcckgelassen werden.\n\nAu\u00dferdem wurde es einfacher, einen Link von einem Knotenpunkt zu einem anderen zu ziehen, die automatische Ordnerauswahl bei der Erstellung neuer Dateien wurde verbessert und das Schnelleinf\u00fcgen wurde so ge\u00e4ndert, dass es einen Vorschlag anhand des String-Typs ausw\u00e4hlt, wenn dieser nicht angegeben wurde.\n\nDann begann das Team mit der Arbeit an einer wichtigen Verbesserung der Art und Weise, wie die Multi-Grafik-Ansicht die Verbindung von Knoten \u00fcberpr\u00fcft. Mit der neuen Funktion geh\u00f6ren die Knoten zu dem Graphen, in dem sie erstellt und mit dem sie verkn\u00fcpft wurden, bis eine neue Verbindung hergestellt wird. So k\u00f6nnen die Entwickler auch im neuen Multi-Graphen-Modus verwaiste Knoten pflegen, ohne dass Daten verloren gehen.\n\nSchlie\u00dflich hat AI Tech die Entwicklungsphase f\u00fcr die dynamische Konversationsfunktionalit\u00e4t abgeschlossen und M\u00f6glichkeiten hinzugef\u00fcgt, die es den Designern erm\u00f6glichen, zu markieren, welche Konversationsthemen an verschiedenen Stellen erlaubt sind. In Lorville k\u00f6nnen NSCs zum Beispiel \u00fcber die Arbeit in der Fabrik sprechen, was nur f\u00fcr diese Stadt relevant ist. Das System erm\u00f6glicht es den Designern auch, Themen f\u00fcr einen bestimmten Charakter festzulegen und dann automatisch ein bestimmtes dynamisches Gespr\u00e4chsskelett auszuw\u00e4hlen, das wiederum zuf\u00e4llige Themen f\u00fcr diesen Gespr\u00e4chsfluss liefert.\n\nKI (Fahrzeugfunktionen)\nIm letzten Monat wurden bei den KI-Fahrzeugfunktionen Fehler behoben und Unterst\u00fctzung f\u00fcr die Ver\u00f6ffentlichung von Alpha 3.17 und der Invictus Launch Week bereitgestellt. Au\u00dferdem wurde mit der Arbeit am Debugging-Tool f\u00fcr die Flug-KI und den beiden Test-Runner-Levels begonnen.\n\nDer Befehl \"v_spawnai\" wurde au\u00dferdem aktualisiert und enth\u00e4lt nun Optionen zum \u00dcberschreiben des Crew-Manifests und des Skillsets. Der Flussdiagramm-Knoten f\u00fcr das Spawnen von Fahrzeugen wurde ebenfalls aktualisiert. Schlie\u00dflich k\u00f6nnen Tests jetzt auch \u00fcber Editorfenster verwaltet werden.\n\nAnimation\nDie Animationsabteilung hat ihre Arbeit an den Anbietern f\u00fcr die PU freigegeben und erstellt derzeit Dokumente, um sicherzustellen, dass sie bei Bedarf effizient erweitert werden kann. Au\u00dferdem haben sie damit begonnen, Freizeitbereiche mit KI auszustatten, z. B. Charaktere, die Arcade-Automaten benutzen, zus\u00e4tzliche Leerl\u00e4ufe und Aktionen an Tischen (z. B. die Benutzung des MobiGlas). Gesichtsanimationen wurden f\u00fcr Ge\u00e4chtete, Verk\u00e4ufer, Barkeeper und einen neuen Missionsgeber erstellt.\n\nF\u00fcr Waffen und Gadgets wurden Blockout-Animationen f\u00fcr Handger\u00e4te und Sprengstoffe erstellt und die Arbeit an einem neuen SMG begonnen.\n\nAu\u00dferdem wurde eine Vorschau darauf erstellt, wie sich ein \"beschwerter\" Spieler f\u00fchlen sollte und wie die G\u00e4ste an Bars und Tischen trinken.\n\nKunst (Charaktere)\nCharacter Art arbeitete weiter an der Grenzkleidung f\u00fcr Pyro. Au\u00dferdem wurde ein gro\u00dfer Stapel an R\u00fcstungs- und Kleidungsvarianten f\u00fcr die Nine Tails Gang poliert.\n\nTech Art arbeitet derzeit an einem Rucksack mit Bergungsmotiven, w\u00e4hrend Konzeptzeichnungen f\u00fcr eine Kollektion modischer Outfits f\u00fcr Stanton in Arbeit sind.\n\nKunst (Schiffe)\nDas Schiffsteam aus Gro\u00dfbritannien hat die Farben f\u00fcr die RSI Scorpius fertiggestellt und damit die Arbeit an dem Schiff abgeschlossen.\n\nDas \u00c4u\u00dfere des Banu Merchantman wurde in der Greybox fertiggestellt, wobei das Team die Erkenntnisse aus der F&E-Phase umsetzte.\n\nAuch vier unangek\u00fcndigte Fahrzeuge wurden im Laufe des Monats weiterentwickelt: Eines befindet sich in der Final-Art-Phase, wobei sich die Arbeit auf die komplexen, technischen Bereiche konzentriert. Zwei befinden sich derzeit in der Whitebox-Phase, w\u00e4hrend eines aus k\u00fcnstlerischer Sicht fertiggestellt wurde.\n\nIn den USA hat sich das Team auf die Drake Corsair konzentriert und im Rumpf Platz f\u00fcr den Andockring, die Gesch\u00fctzt\u00fcrme, das Fahrwerk und das H\u00f6henruder geschaffen. Dann ging es an die \u00e4u\u00dfere Gestaltung des Hecks. F\u00fcr den Innenraum wurde das Besatzungsquartier erstellt, das alle vier R\u00e4ume bev\u00f6lkern wird. Das Foyer wurde fertiggestellt, w\u00e4hrend das Cockpit des Co-Piloten, der Maschinenraum, das Innere des Turms und die Luftschleuse kurz vor der Fertigstellung stehen.\n\nKunst (Waffen)\nIm April widmete sich der Waffenk\u00fcnstler der Verbesserung des Stau- und Lagerhelfersystems, indem er von einem generischen Versatz zu einem handwerklicheren System pro Waffe wechselte. Das sollte dazu f\u00fchren, dass die Waffen besser an den K\u00f6rper des Spielers passen und insgesamt weniger beschnitten werden. Ein \u00e4hnlicher Durchgang wurde f\u00fcr die Zielfernrohre gestartet, wodurch das Waffenteam mehr Kontrolle und die M\u00f6glichkeit erh\u00e4lt, die ADS-Positionen zu optimieren.\n\nAuf der k\u00fcnstlerischen Seite setzte das Team seine Arbeit an den Waffen der Banu-Schiffe fort und erg\u00e4nzte den Hersteller mit mehreren neuen Produktlinien.\n\nDas Animationsteam schloss den ersten Durchgang f\u00fcr viele der neuen FPS-Gadgets ab und arbeitete gemeinsam mit dem Art-Team an den Einstellungen. Au\u00dferdem wurde die Arbeit an dem im letzten Bericht erw\u00e4hnten Feuerl\u00f6scher fortgesetzt.\n\nCommunity\nDas Team begann den Monat mit der Ank\u00fcndigung von Mesher, einer Dating-App f\u00fcr das mobiGlass, die romantisches Multiplayer-Gaming auf die n\u00e4chste Stufe hebt (nur f\u00fcr den 1. April). Ganz im Sinne von Triggerfish wurden auch die passenden Patch Notes f\u00fcr die Ver\u00f6ffentlichung von \"Star Citizen 3.16.2\" ver\u00f6ffentlicht.\n\nNach der Enth\u00fcllung des neuen Raffineriekonzepts ver\u00f6ffentlichte das Team die MISC Expanse Q&A, nachdem es die am meisten hochgevoteten Fragen der Community aufgenommen hatte. Au\u00dferdem unterst\u00fctzten sie den Spring Merch Sale.\n\nDas Community-Team unterst\u00fctzte auch den Start der Alpha 3.17, indem es die Stimmung verfolgte und berichtete, Feedback an die Entwickler weitergab, neue Spielerressourcen wie die Seite Alpha 3.17: Things to Do erstellte und zwei Wettbewerbe sowohl f\u00fcr Spectrum als auch in den sozialen Medien startete.\n\nDas Team hat au\u00dferdem mit der Planung eines kleinen Gipfeltreffens in Austin Anfang Mai begonnen, um die Details f\u00fcr Events im restlichen Jahr und 2023 festzulegen, darunter auch Bar Citizen Events (mehr dazu in K\u00fcrze). Au\u00dferdem hat das Team interne Star Citizen-Spielsitzungen organisiert, um neuen Mitarbeitern zu helfen, im Verse Fu\u00df zu fassen.\n\nDas Community-Team \u00fcberwacht auch die Fortschritte beim aktualisierten Community Hub, der bald in euren H\u00e4nden sein sollte.\n\nEngine\nIm April hat das Physikteam daran gearbeitet, die Bereinigung des Batch-Gitters in zwei Teile aufzuteilen (Bereinigung und Defragmentierung), um eine feinere Steuerung des Time-Slicing zu erm\u00f6glichen. Au\u00dferdem wurden unn\u00f6tige Berechnungen aus dem Zeitschritt der physischen Welt entfernt und der Zeitschrittcode der lebenden Entit\u00e4ten wurde verbessert. Au\u00dferdem wurde die automatische Konvertierung von Legacy-Constraints in Constraint-Attachments implementiert.\n\nDie Umstellung auf den Gen12-Renderer wurde fortgesetzt und das Rendering von Terrain-Patches f\u00fcr Planeten wurde aktiviert. Render-Proxys wurden verbessert und die Schattenerzeugung wurde aktiviert. Die Unterst\u00fctzung f\u00fcr die Skalierung des Ansichtsfensters auf den Renderpass wurde hinzugef\u00fcgt, was f\u00fcr das Rendering von Atlanten und dynamischen Aufl\u00f6sungen praktisch ist. Verschiedene Debug UIs wurden implementiert, um die Entwicklung zu unterst\u00fctzen. Zum Beispiel eine Benutzeroberfl\u00e4che, mit der die Erzeugung von W\u00fcrfelkarten im Spiel zu Testzwecken einfach gesteuert\/ausgel\u00f6st werden kann. Schlie\u00dflich wurden f\u00fcr den Renderer die Material-Fallbacks f\u00fcr die \"Tiefe-Pre-Pass-Stufe\" deaktiviert.\n\nDie Gen12-Portierungen der Planet Terrain Height Map und des Shadow Rendering Systems wurden fertiggestellt und in den Upstream integriert. Einer der letzten Schliffe war die \u00dcberarbeitung des Cascade Culling f\u00fcr das Rendering der Planet Terrain Height Map, damit es w\u00e4hrend der \u00dcbermittlung von Draw Packets von Batch Workern ausgef\u00fchrt werden kann (entsprechend der Gen12 Designphilosophie). Die Gen12-Portierung der Atmosph\u00e4re und des Wolkenrenderings wird in K\u00fcrze beginnen.\n\nIn der Core-Engine wurde ein m\u00f6glicher Deadlock im Exception-Handler behoben. Die Bereinigung des Codes mit \"include-what-you-use\" wurde fortgesetzt. Au\u00dferdem wurde eine neue Schnittstelle f\u00fcr die OS-Zeit bereitgestellt. Die GPU-Framezeit wird nun in die Analyseereignisse einbezogen, um bessere Daten dar\u00fcber zu erhalten, wie lang die tats\u00e4chlichen Framezeiten auf der GPU sind (ohne VSync). Um die Bereitstellung zu vereinfachen, verwenden Linux-Spieleserver-Instanzen jetzt auch separate Benutzerordner. Schlie\u00dflich wurde die meiste Zeit damit verbracht, die verschiedenen Optimierungen der Core-Engine vom letzten Monat f\u00fcr die Ver\u00f6ffentlichung in Alpha 3.17 vorzubereiten.\n\nDer Rest der Zeit wurde damit verbracht, verschiedene Teams zu unterst\u00fctzen und Fehler zu beheben.\n\nFeatures (Charaktere & Waffen)\nIm Laufe des Aprils arbeitete das Feature-Team auf der Grundlage des Feedbacks aus der Alpha 3.17 PTU-Phase an den Inventarproblemen. Dazu mussten die zugrunde liegende Inventarlogik und der Inventarfluss an die neue Persistenztechnologie angepasst werden, was ein gro\u00dfes Unterfangen war und eine enge Zusammenarbeit mit den Backend-Teams erforderte.\n\nSobald dies abgeschlossen war, ging es weiter mit dem Feuerl\u00f6scher:\n\n\"Er ist eine interessante Herausforderung, denn er hat ein ganz anderes Profil als andere 'Waffen'. Er hat einen sperrigen Zylinder, der die Fl\u00fcssigkeit oder das Gas enth\u00e4lt, das er kontinuierlich verspr\u00fchen kann. Dieses Ger\u00e4t wird wichtig sein, um Br\u00e4nde im Inneren von Raumschiffen zu bek\u00e4mpfen und zu verhindern, dass sie den lebenswichtigen Sauerstoffvorrat aufbrauchen. Wir arbeiten eng mit dem VFX-Team zusammen, um die Logik mit dem Feuergef\u00e4hrdungssystem zu verbinden und die Waffe auch visuell zum Leben zu erwecken.\" Features Team\n\nFeatures (Gameplay)\nDas PU-Team begann den Monat mit der Ver\u00f6ffentlichung von Betankungs- und Bergbau-Gadgets, einschlie\u00dflich eines Fixes f\u00fcr die Betankung in der Atmosph\u00e4re. F\u00fcr die Mining Gadgets wurde ein rotes Licht hinzugef\u00fcgt, das deutlich anzeigt, wenn sich das Gadget l\u00f6st.\n\nAuch bei der Schiffsbergung wurden gro\u00dfe Fortschritte gemacht: F\u00fcr den Bergungsmodus der Drake Vulture wurde ein verbessertes HUD erstellt. Au\u00dferdem wurde eine zus\u00e4tzliche Zielfunktion hinzugef\u00fcgt, die auf die einzigartige Anordnung der Schiffsarme zugeschnitten ist. Die Bergungst\u00fcrme des Reclaimers wurden ebenfalls richtig eingestellt und k\u00f6nnen jetzt H\u00fcllen verschrotten.\n\nDie Arbeit an den Benutzeroberfl\u00e4chen f\u00fcr die Lebenserhaltung und die Technik wurde fortgesetzt, w\u00e4hrend die Werkzeuge f\u00fcr die Einrichtung des Ressourcennetzwerks verbessert wurden, was die Arbeit daran erleichtern wird.\n\nFeatures (Fahrzeuge)\nDas Team f\u00fcr Fahrzeugeigenschaften hat den Monat damit begonnen, die H\u00fclle A technisch einzurichten und sicherzustellen, dass die Frachtfunktion wie geplant funktioniert. Dann haben sie den Gesch\u00fctzturm des Scorpius implementiert.\n\nNach dem Support f\u00fcr Alpha 3.17 kehrte das Team zur Feature-Entwicklung zur\u00fcck und testete weitere Gameplay-Updates f\u00fcr die Master-Modi und den QT-Boost. Au\u00dferdem planten sie den Balance-Support f\u00fcr die Betankungsfunktion \u00fcber die erste Ver\u00f6ffentlichung hinaus.\n\nEs wurde auch Zeit darauf verwendet, das KI-Desynchronisationsproblem zu untersuchen. Obwohl viele Verbesserungen vorgenommen wurden, war es aufgrund des Ausma\u00dfes des Problems in vielen Bereichen des Spiels schwierig, die Ursachen einzugrenzen, da die Korrekturen weitere Probleme aufdeckten.\n\nAu\u00dferdem wurde an der Verbesserung der Lebensqualit\u00e4t und dem Tuning des gesamten Spiels gearbeitet, z. B. bei Rennschiffen in der Atmosph\u00e4re, \u00c4nderungen an der Auslastung und der Gesundheit von Industrieschiffen.\n\nGrafik & VFX-Programmierung\nIm letzten Monat unterst\u00fctzte das Grafikteam die Alpha 3.17 mit Korrekturen f\u00fcr Render-to-Texture (RTT), fehlende Schatten in H\u00f6hlen, ein Problem mit der DisplayScreen-Transparenz in RTTs und verschiedene Absturzkorrekturen, u. a. im Zusammenhang mit Gaswolken-Streaming.\n\nF\u00fcr Gen12 konzentrierte sich das Team auf die Einstellung der richtigen Ansichtsfenstergr\u00f6\u00dfe f\u00fcr Rendering-P\u00e4sse in den G-Buffer- und Tiefen-Pre-Pass-Stufen, um die RTT-Pipeline zu unterst\u00fctzen. Au\u00dferdem wurde weiter an der Bereinigung von Ressourcen-Arrays und analytischen Schattenstreuungsabfragen gearbeitet. Die VFX-Autotests wurden ebenfalls fortgesetzt, wobei die Flowgraph-Knoten aktualisiert wurden, um konsistentere Ergebnisse zu erzielen.\n\nF\u00fcr die Bergung f\u00fcgte das Team UV2-Dichteparameter zum Mesh-Setup-Editor hinzu. Damit wird die erforderliche Aufl\u00f6sung von PBM berechnet und Abst\u00fcrze in RC bei der Erstellung eines Schiffsmotorenanhangs CGA PBM behoben.\n\nBeleuchtung\nIm April konzentrierte sich das Beleuchtungsteam weiterhin auf die Invictus Launch Week. An verschiedenen Orten und Points-of-Interest (POI) wurde ein kompletter Beleuchtungsdurchlauf durchgef\u00fchrt, bevor das Team sich dem Feinschliff, der Optimierung und der Fehlerbehebung widmete.\n\nDas Team arbeitete auch an dem neuen, heruntergekommenen Reclaimer auf dem Planeten. Dazu geh\u00f6rte ein Beleuchtungsdurchgang f\u00fcr das Innere des Schiffes und die Anpassung des \u00c4u\u00dferen an die planetarische Umgebung.\n\nStandorte (EU)\nDie Hauptaufgabe des Locations-Teams im letzten Monat war die Fertigstellung der Umgebungen f\u00fcr die Invictus Launch Week.\n\nAu\u00dferdem ist die Arbeit an mehreren kleinen Orten, die das Sandbox-Team in einem kommenden Patch ver\u00f6ffentlichen will, fast abgeschlossen. Die Gebiete selbst sind fertig und warten darauf, in Stanton verteilt zu werden.\n\nDie Vorproduktion neuer weltraumbasierter POIs geht weiter, wobei das Team ein letztes Thema erforscht, bevor es in die Whitebox-Phase geht. Die neuen H\u00f6hlenprototypen kommen gut voran, mit Verbesserungen an den Materialien und der allgemeinen Lesbarkeit.\n\nAu\u00dferdem steht die zweite Runde der Inhalte f\u00fcr die Ver\u00f6ffentlichung der neuen Kolonialismus-Au\u00dfenposten kurz vor der Fertigstellung. Die Au\u00dfenposten werden bald im gesamten Pyro-System verteilt, um f\u00fcr ihr Deb\u00fct vorbereitet zu sein.\n\nStandorte (Montreal)\nDas Team der Locations in Montreal n\u00e4hert sich den letzten Entwicklungsphasen der verlassenen Reclaimer-Siedlung und der weltraumbasierten Reclaimer-POIs. F\u00fcr die verlassene Siedlung poliert das Art-Team derzeit den Rohbau des Reclaimers und die Habs, w\u00e4hrend das Design-Team die Missionen des Ortes umsetzt.\n\nDie weltraumbasierten POIs haben die Greybox-Phase durchlaufen. Im letzten Monat hat das Designteam die Missionen implementiert und optimiert. Das Kunstteam begann au\u00dferdem mit einem Kunstpass, um die Themen der Missionen erz\u00e4hlerisch zu unterst\u00fctzen.\n\nSchlie\u00dflich wurden weitere Fortschritte bei der \u00dcberarbeitung des Stadtbilds von Lorville gemacht, wozu die Definition von Rezepten f\u00fcr Geb\u00e4ude und das Blockieren der Stadt geh\u00f6rten.\n\n\"Die Arbeit geht gut voran und wir sind zuversichtlich, dass die neue Gr\u00f6\u00dfe der Stadt viele interessante M\u00f6glichkeiten f\u00fcr die Zukunft bieten wird!\" Montreal Locations Team\n\nNarrative\nDas Narrative-Team hat sich darauf konzentriert, alles f\u00fcr die Ver\u00f6ffentlichung der Alpha 3.17 vorzubereiten, Probleme zu beheben, die w\u00e4hrend des Playtests auftraten, und das Design mit den zus\u00e4tzlichen Textstrings zu unterst\u00fctzen, die f\u00fcr die neuen Funktionen des Patches ben\u00f6tigt werden. Au\u00dferdem lieferte das Team neue Textelemente f\u00fcr die Invictus Launch Week.\n\nNarrative unterst\u00fctzten die laufende Arbeit an zuk\u00fcnftigen Dynamic Event-Missionen und diskutierten, wie ein neues Gameplay-Modul am besten in den Ablauf einer bestimmten Mission integriert werden kann. Au\u00dferdem trafen sie sich mit dem Team in Montreal, um die Details mehrerer neuer Missionen zu besprechen.\n\nEs wurde mit der Planung einer kommenden Aufnahmesitzung begonnen, um Inhalte f\u00fcr neue Missionen aufzunehmen und die laufende Arbeit an den NSC mit dem KI-Team voranzutreiben.\n\nAuf der RSI-Website wurden neue erz\u00e4hlerische Inhalte ver\u00f6ffentlicht, darunter ein New United-Artikel, der die Rolle der politischen Lobbyisten im Imperium untersucht, eine Untold Tales \u00fcber den mysteri\u00f6sen Propheten von Pyro und neue Galactapedia-Artikel \u00fcber das ausgedehnte Ellis-System.\n\nQA\nIm letzten Monat konzentrierte sich die QA auf Event-Tests, Feature-Tests, Integrations-Checklisten und regelm\u00e4\u00dfige Feature-Checklisten-Tests.\n\nDas Team f\u00fcr eingebettete KI arbeitete an Korrekturen und Aktualisierungen, die das Verhalten der FPS-KI gegen\u00fcber Spielern und anderen Fraktionen betrafen. Au\u00dferdem wurden die Sanity- und Smoke-Tests fortgesetzt, um sicherzustellen, dass sich die NSCs nicht verschlechtert haben, und mit dem Missionsteam abgestimmt, um ihre Tests zu erweitern.\n\nDas Engine-Team unterst\u00fctzte weiterhin die PC-Stresstests und die PageHeap-Tests, um Speicherlecks zu finden. Das Tools-Team erhielt weiterhin Unterst\u00fctzung f\u00fcr Data Forge, StarWords, Excel Core, Copy Build und den Sandbox-Editor.\n\nTools (Montreal)\nDas Tools-Team in Montreal hat mit dem letzten Schliff an Mighty Bridge v0.5 begonnen, das die Integration von Houdini in den Editor unterst\u00fctzen wird. Damit kann jeder im Team Houdini-basierte Werkzeuge direkt im Editor verwenden.\n\nDie Techniker haben Werkzeuge entwickelt, um die laufende Arbeit an den verfallenen Geb\u00e4uden zu unterst\u00fctzen und gleichzeitig die Entwicklung des Werkzeugs f\u00fcr prozedurale Orte fortzusetzen.\n\nTechnische Animation\nTech Animation erstellte weiterhin neue Gesichts-Rigs aus ihren intern erstellten Scandaten. Sie investierten auch viel Zeit in die Werkzeugkette und den Prozess, um sicherzustellen, dass die kommenden K\u00f6pfe schneller und sauberer zu produzieren sind.\n\nDar\u00fcber hinaus unterst\u00fctzten sie die Teams f\u00fcr Feature und Animation, indem sie die Animationssysteme verbesserten, um den gestiegenen Anforderungen gerecht zu werden. So wurde das System beispielsweise in die Lage versetzt, bis zu 50 Ebenen von Authored- und Inverse Kinematics-Animationen f\u00fcr eine einzige Figur zu unterst\u00fctzen.\n\nSie unterst\u00fctzten auch die anderen Entwicklungsteams mit neuen Initiativen zur Festigung der Arbeitsabl\u00e4ufe, um sowohl Zeit als auch Fehler zu sparen.\n\nTurbulent\nDen ganzen April \u00fcber arbeitete das Team von Turbulent Online Services an der \u00dcberarbeitung des neuen Login-Flows. Nachdem der Gro\u00dfteil des Arbeitscodes fertiggestellt wurde, testet das Team nun die Integration aller entsprechenden Dienste, einschlie\u00dflich Vermietung, Berechtigung und Anmeldung. Auch beim neuen Dienst Entity Graph wurden erhebliche Fortschritte erzielt.\n\nDas Live Tools-Team hat die neueste Version von Hex mit einer v\u00f6llig neuen Benutzeroberfl\u00e4che ver\u00f6ffentlicht. Sie konzentrieren sich jetzt auf die Entwicklung und das Hinzuf\u00fcgen neuer Funktionen, um die Vielseitigkeit des Network Operation Center zu verbessern. Die Entwicklung ist bereits weit fortgeschritten und das Team arbeitet an der Implementierung neuer Module zur \u00dcberwachung und Fehlerbehebung bei Anmeldeproblemen.\n\nDas Webteam hat den Monat damit verbracht, sich auf die Invictus Launch Week vorzubereiten. Dazu geh\u00f6rte die \u00dcberarbeitung des Alexandria-Tools mit neuen Skins, Themen und Inhalten.\n\nUI\nIm April leistete das UI-Team Unterst\u00fctzung bei der Ver\u00f6ffentlichung von Alpha 3.17, indem es kritische Probleme mit den neuen ASOP-Terminals und der Verkaufs-UI sowie allgemeine Fehler- und Absturzbehebungen beseitigte. Au\u00dferdem wurde eine wichtige Leistungsverbesserung vorgenommen, die es erm\u00f6glicht, Tausende von Gegenst\u00e4nden auf den Bildschirmen aufzulisten, wie zum Beispiel in der Verkaufsoberfl\u00e4che.\n\nDie Arbeit an der neuen Starmap- und Radar-UI wurde fortgesetzt. Die Entwickler\/innen implementierten grundlegende Steuerelemente, mit denen sie sich in einem Sonnensystem umsehen und die Planeten, Umlaufbahnen und Fahrzeuge darin anzeigen lassen k\u00f6nnen. Au\u00dferdem f\u00fcgten sie eine Infotafel hinzu, mit der die Spieler\/innen Details zu ausgew\u00e4hlten Objekten sehen k\u00f6nnen.\n\n\"Auch wenn es noch nicht ganz ausgereift ist, haben wir die Grundlage geschaffen, um weitere Funktionen hinzuzuf\u00fcgen und die Grafik zu verbessern. UI-Team\n\nDie Konvertierung von Visier und Linse, bei der die bestehenden Spieler-HUD-Elemente in Building Blocks umgewandelt werden, ist bereits in vollem Gange. Viele Widgets, darunter Waffeninformationen und Missionsziele, wurden auf das neue System portiert. Au\u00dferdem wurden die Funktionen zur Unterst\u00fctzung von Persistent Streaming weiter aktualisiert.\n\nDas UI-Tech-Team entwickelte weitere Building Blocks-Funktionen, von denen eine die Canvas-Slicing-Technologie ersetzen wird, die zur Entwicklung von 3D-UIs verwendet wird. Das neue Kartensystem wurde in puncto Benutzerfreundlichkeit und Leistung stark verbessert und wird derzeit im Fahrzeug-HUD f\u00fcr die Funktion \"Rumpfschaben\" getestet.\n\nDas Team hat au\u00dferdem an einem neuen AR-Marker-System gearbeitet und verschiedene Widgets verbessert, um den UI-Designern die Arbeit zu erleichtern.\n\nVFX\nIm April setzten die VFX ihre Arbeit an den Bergungseffekten fort und konzentrierten sich dabei auf die Variante des Abwrackens von Fahrzeugen.\n\n\"Diese Variante erwies sich als schwieriger als die FPS-Variante, da die Tiefenwahrnehmung aus dem Schiffscockpit und die Position des Spielers im Verh\u00e4ltnis zur Bergungsd\u00fcse schwieriger einzusch\u00e4tzen ist. Deshalb experimentieren wir derzeit mit visuellen Hilfsmitteln, um den Spielern ein benutzerfreundlicheres Erlebnis zu bieten.\" VFX-Team\n\nAn anderer Stelle arbeitete das Team weiter an verschiedenen Fahrzeugen, darunter der RSI Scorpius, der Drake Vulture und eines der vom Schiffsteam erw\u00e4hnten unangek\u00fcndigten Fahrzeuge.\n\nMehrere Partikelbibliotheken wurden aufger\u00e4umt. Dazu geh\u00f6rte auch die Konvertierung einiger \u00e4lterer Bibliotheken von CPU- zu GPU-Partikeln. Aufgrund des gro\u00dfen Umfangs der Partikeldatenbank ist diese Arbeit noch nicht abgeschlossen. Au\u00dferdem wurde damit begonnen, die VFX-Anforderungen f\u00fcr die verschiedenen verlassenen Orte in Montreal zu untersuchen.\n\nDas VFX Tech Art Team schloss das notwendige Houdini-Update ab. Dabei wurde sichergestellt, dass alle vorhandenen Werkzeuge in Houdini 19 korrekt funktionieren. Au\u00dferdem experimentierten sie weiter mit besseren M\u00f6glichkeiten zur Frakturierung von Geometrien, um realistischer aussehende Sch\u00e4den zu erzeugen.","zh_CN":"PU Monthly Report\nApril 2022\nWith Alpha 317: Fueling Fortunes now live in the PU, this month\u2019s report features the last-minute fixes and tweaks typical of every patch release. However, it\u2019s also full of progress on upcoming features and the latest from Star Citizen\u2019s next system, Pyro. Read on for everything done throughout April.\n\nAI (Content)\nAI Content spent part of April working on the \u2018eat and drink\u2019 and \u2018leisure\u2019 AI activities. They now have a complete gameplay loop, where the AI will locate a sustenance dispenser (such as a vending machine, chow line, or shop), obtain food and drink, then find somewhere to consume it (like a seat, railing, or idle spot). Once finished, they\u2019ll dispose of the container in a recycling bin before using a leisure usable to pass the time, such as reading, writing, or watching content on their mobiGlas. The next step is to add the AI Tech team\u2019s new dynamic conversation tech so that characters can systemically converse with others while utilizing usables.\n\nThe team also began work on a new \u2018commuter\u2019 activity. This controls all aspects of a character\u2019s behavior when using public transport, including choosing a destination, waiting for transport to arrive, entering it, passing time while in transit, and exiting.\n\n\u201cWe had an animator and designer work together to create a narrated pre-visualization video explaining how they envisage it working. The next step is to itemize the tasks and begin prototyping. We hope this will add life-like transfer and traffic to our transport hubs.\u201d AI Content Team\n\nAI (Tech)\nThroughout April, AI Tech finalized their work on Alpha 3.17, which involved investigating and fixing several AI-related bugs and making various optimizations.\n\nThey also adjusted the AI behaviors and code to allow ships to correctly quantum travel out of planetary atmospheres. Previously, ships would think they were inside an obstacle and not correctly account for which direction would be best to radially leave the planet.\n\nFor the navigation system, the team added the ability to notify listeners when navigation meshes are spawned\/created within the environment. Due to a large number of entities, they\u2019re aiming to reduce the number of allocations for notification events and possibly introduce a better way to filter which entities events are relevant to.\n\nThey continued tasks that will allow NPCs to interact correctly with movable entities, like trolleys, which was mentioned in last month\u2019s report. The recent aim was to integrate the operator and the trolleys themselves into the collision avoidance system. This will allow NPCs to push trolleys, avoid other characters while pushing, and avoid trolleys left throughout a level.\n\nThey also made it easier to drag a link from one node to another, improved the automatic folder selection when creating new files, and modified quick insert to select a suggestion based on the string type if not specified.\n\nThe team then began work on a major improvement to the way the multi-graph view validates node connection. With the new feature, nodes belong to the graph they have been created in and linked to until a new connection is established. This allows the devs to maintain orphan nodes without losing data even in the new multi-graph mode.\n\nFinally for AI Tech, they completed the engineering phase for dynamic conversation functionality, adding ways to allow the designers to mark up which conversation topics are allowed in different locations. For example, in Lorville, NPCs can talk about working at the factory, which is only relevant to that city. The system also allows the designers to set up topics on a specific character and then automatically select a specific dynamic conversation skeleton, in turn randomizing topics related to that conversation flow.\n\nAI (Vehicle Features)\nLast month, AI Vehicle Features fixed bugs and provided release support for Alpha 3.17 and Invictus Launch Week. They also began work on the flight AI debug tool and its two test runner levels.\n\nThe \u2018v_spawnai\u2019 command was also updated to include options for overriding the crew manifest and skills set. The flow graph node for spawning vehicles was updated too. Lastly, they\u2019re currently allowing enabling tests to be managed via editor windows.\n\nAnimation\nAnimation released their vendor work to the PU and are currently creating documents to ensure they can extend it efficiently when needed. They also began filling out leisure areas with AI, including characters using arcade machines, additional idles, and actions at tables (such as using the mobiGlas). Facial animations were done for outlaws, vendors, bartenders, and a new mission-giver too.\n\nFor weapons and gadgets, blockout animations were created for handheld gadgets and explosives, and work began on a new SMG.\n\nPre-vis work was also done for how a \u2018weighed down\u2019 player should feel and patrons drinking at bars and tables.\n\nArt (Characters)\nCharacter Art continued to work on frontier clothing for Pyro. They also polished a large batch of armor and clothing material variants for the Nine Tails gang.\n\nA salvage-themed backpack is currently being worked on by Tech Art, while concept art is in progress for a collection of fashionable outfits for Stanton.\n\nArt (Ships)\nThe UK-based Ship team finalized paints for the RSI Scorpius, completing their work on the ship.\n\nThe Banu Merchantman\u2019s exterior progressed through greybox, with the team acting on what was learned during the R&D phase.\n\nFour unannounced vehicles were also further developed throughout the month: One is in the final-art phase, with work focusing on the complex, technical areas. Two are currently in the whitebox stage, while one was completed from an art perspective.\n\nIn the US, the team focused on the Drake Corsair, creating space in the fuselage for the docking ring, turrets, landing gear, and elevator. They then moved onto exterior detailing towards the tail. For the interior, they created the crew quarter set that will populate all four rooms. The foyer was finished, while the co-pilot\u2019s cockpit, engineering room, turret interior, and airlock are nearing completion.\n\nArt (Weapons)\nApril saw Weapons Art dedicate time to improving the stow\/stock helper setup, moving from a generic offset to a more handcrafted setup per weapon. This should result in weapons fitting more closely to the player's body and overall less clipping. A similar pass was started on scopes, which will give the Weapons Feature team greater control and the ability to tweak ADS positions.\n\nOn the art side, the team continued their work on Banu ship weapons, filling out the manufacturer with several new product lines.\n\nAnimation completed their first pass on many of the new FPS gadgets and iterated on the setup with the Art team. They also continued with the fire extinguisher mentioned in last month\u2019s report.\n\nCommunity\nThe team began the month announcing Mesher, a dating app for the mobiGlass that took romantic multiplayer gaming to the next level (for April 1 only). In the spirit of Triggerfish, the matching patch notes for the release of \u201cStar Citizen 3.16.2\u201d were published too.\n\nFollowing the reveal of the new refinery concept, the team published the MISC Expanse Q&A after taking the community's most upvoted questions. They also supported the Spring Merch Sale.\n\nThe Community team also supported the launch of Alpha 3.17, including sentiment tracking and reporting, relaying feedback to development, creation of new player resources such as the Alpha 3.17: Things to Do page, and kicking off a pair of contests, both for Spectrum as well as on social media.\n\nThe team has also kicked off the planning for a small summit in Austin in early May to start ironing out the details for events throughout the remainder of the year and 2023, including Bar Citizen events (more details soon). Additionally, the team organized internal Star Citizen play sessions to help new hires get their footing in the 'verse.\n\nThe Community team is also overseeing progress on the updated Community Hub, which should be in your hands soon.\n\nEngine\nIn April, the Physics team worked on splitting the batched grid cleanup into two parts (cleanup and defragmentation) to allow for finer control of time slicing. Furthermore, unnecessary computations were removed from the physical world time step, and the time stepping code of living entities was improved. Auto conversion of legacy constraints to constraint attachments was implemented too.\n\nThe Gen12 renderer transition continued, with planet terrain patch rendering being enabled. Render proxies received various improvements and shadow generation was enabled. Support for \u2018viewport scaling to render pass\u2019 was added, which is convenient for atlas and dynamic resolution rendering. Various debug UIs were implemented to assist development. For example, a UI to easily control\/trigger cube map generation in-game for testing purposes. Lastly for the renderer, material fallbacks for the \u2018depth pre-pass stage\u2019 were disabled.\n\nGen12 ports of the planet terrain height map and shadow rendering systems were finalized and merged upstream. One of the finishing touches was to rework cascade culling for planet terrain height map rendering so it can run during the submission of draw packets from batch workers (following the Gen12 design philosophy). Gen12 ports of the atmosphere and cloud rendering will commence shortly.\n\nOn the core engine, a potential deadlock in the exception handler was fixed. The clean-up of code using \u2018include-what-you-use\u2019 continued. Additionally, a new OS time interface was provided. GPU frame time is now included in analytic events to provide better data on how long actual frame times are on the GPU (ignoring VSync). Furthermore, to simplify deployment, Linux game server instances now also use separate user folders. Lastly, the majority of time was spent making last month\u2019s various optimizations in the core engine ready for release in Alpha 3.17.\n\nThe remainder of the time was spent supporting various teams and fixing bugs.\n\nFeatures (Characters & Weapons)\nThroughout April, the Features team progressed through inventory issues based on feedback from the Alpha 3.17 PTU phase. This involved adjusting the underlying inventory logic and flow to work with the new persistence tech, which was a significant undertaking involving close collaboration with the backend teams.\n\nOnce complete, they moved back onto the fire extinguisher:\n\n\u201cIt is an interesting challenge, as it has quite a different profile compared to other \u2018weaponry.\u2019 It has a bulky cylinder that holds the liquid or gas, which it can spray continuously. This gadget is going to be important in combating interior fires on spaceships to stop them draining the life-critical oxygen supply. We are working closely with the VFX team to connect the logic with the fire hazard system as well as bring the weapon to life visually.\u201d Features Team\n\nFeatures (Gameplay)\nThe PU team began the month supporting the release of refueling and mining gadgets, including a fix for in-atmosphere refueling. For the mining gadgets, they added a red light to clearly show if the gadget detaches.\n\nSignificant progress was then made on ship salvage, with an improved HUD being created for the Drake Vulture\u2019s salvage mode. They also added additional aiming functionality tailored to the unique setup of the ship\u2019s arms. The Reclaimer\u2019s salvage turrets were also properly setup and can now scrape hulls.\n\nWork on the UIs for life support and engineering gameplay progressed, while improvements were made to the tools used to set up the resource network, which will make working on it easier.\n\nFeatures (Vehicles)\nThe Vehicle Features team started the month technically setting up the Hull A, making sure its cargo feature works as designed. They then implemented the turret on the Scorpius.\n\nFollowing support for Alpha 3.17, the team returned to feature development, testing further gameplay updates to master modes and QT boost. They also planned balance support for the refueling feature beyond its initial release.\n\nTime was also spent investigating the AI desync issue. Although many improvements have been made, the depth of the issue across many areas of the game has made it difficult to narrow down the causes, with fixes exposing further problems.\n\nWork was also done on quality-of-life improvements and tuning across the game, including for racing ships in-atmosphere, loadout changes, and the health of industrial ships.\n\nGraphics & VFX Programming\nLast month, the Graphics team supported Alpha 3.17 with fixes for render-to-texture (RTT), missing shadows in caves, an issue with DisplayScreen transparency in RTTs, and various crash fixes including some relating to gas-cloud streaming.\n\nFor Gen12, the team focused on setting the proper viewport size to render passes in the G-buffer and depth pre-pass stages to support the RTT pipeline. Work also continued on the clean-up of resource arrays and analytic shadow scattering queries. VFX auto tests continued too, with the flowgraph nodes being updated for more consistent results.\n\nFor salvage, the team added UV2 density parameters to the mesh setup editor. This calculates the required resolution of PBM as well as debugging crashes in RC when generating a ship engine attachment CGA PBM.\n\nLighting\nIn April, the Lighting team continued to focus on Invictus Launch Week. A full lighting pass was completed on various locations and points-of-interest (POI), before the team moved on to polishing, optimizing, and bug fixing.\n\nThe team also worked on the new planetside Reclaimer derelict. This involved a lighting pass on the interior of the ship and blending the exterior into planetary surroundings.\n\nLocations (EU)\nThe main push for the Locations team last month was finalizing environments for Invictus Launch Week.\n\nElsewhere, work is almost complete on several small locations the Sandbox team is planning to release in an upcoming patch. The areas themselves are finished and are currently awaiting a distribution pass across Stanton.\n\nPre-production continues on new space-based POIs, with the team exploring one final theme before moving into the whitebox stage. New cave prototypes are progressing well, with improvements to materials and the general read across the board.\n\nElsewhere, the second round of content for the initial release of the new colonialism outposts is nearing final. The outposts will soon start to be distributed across the Pyro system in readiness for their debut.\n\nLocations (Montreal)\nThe Montreal Locations team are approaching the last development phases of both the Reclaimer derelict settlement and Reclaimer space-based POIs. For the derelict settlement, the Art team is currently polishing the carcass of the reclaimer and the habs, while the Design team is implementing the location\u2019s missions.\n\nThe space-based POIs progressed through the greybox phase. Last month\u2019s work included the design team implementing and tweaking missions. The Art team also began an art pass to narratively support the in-mission themes.\n\nFinally, further progress was made on the ongoing Lorville cityscape revamp, which involved defining recipes for buildings and blocking out the city.\n\n\u201cWork is progressing well and we\u2019re confident that the new scale of the city will support a lot of interesting future opportunities!\u201d Montreal Locations Team\n\nNarrative\nThe Narrative team focused on making sure everything was ready for the release of Alpha 3.17, fixing any issues that arose during playtesting and assisting design with the additional text strings needed to support the new features in the patch. Additionally, the team provided new text elements for Invictus Launch Week.\n\nNarrative continued support for ongoing work on future Dynamic Event missions and discussed how best to incorporate a new upcoming gameplay module into one particular mission\u2019s flow. They also met with the Montreal team to discuss the details of several new missions.\n\nPlanning began on an upcoming capture session to record content in support of new missions and to progress the ongoing NPC work with the AI team.\n\nOn the RSI website, new narrative content premiered, including an New United article exploring the role of political lobbyists in the Empire, an Untold Tales about the mysterious Prophet of Pyro, and new Galactapedia articles on the expansive Ellis system.\n\nQA\nLast month, QA focused on event testing, feature testing, integration checklists, and regular feature checklist testing.\n\nThe embedded AI team worked through fixes and feature updates dealing with the behavior of FPS AI towards players and other factions. They also continued sanity and smoke checks to ensure NPCs haven\u2019t degraded, and synced with the Mission team to broaden their testing.\n\nFor the Engine team, support continued with minimum-spec PC stress testing as well as PageHeap testing to catch memory leaks. The Tools team continued to receive support on Data Forge, StarWords, Excel Core, copy build, and the sandbox editor.\n\nTools (Montreal)\nThe Montreal Tools team began putting the final touches to Mighty Bridge v0.5, which will support the integration of Houdini into the editor. This will allow everyone on the team to use Houdini-powered tools directly in the editor.\n\nThe tech artists created tools to support the ongoing derelict work alongside continuing development of the procedural locations tool.\n\nTech Animation\nTech Animation continued creating new face rigs from their internally created scan data. They also invested substantial time into the tools chain and process to ensure upcoming heads are quicker and cleaner to produce.\n\nFurthermore, they supported the Feature and Animation teams by improving the animation systems to accommodate their increased requirements. For example, enabling the system to support up to 50 layers of authored and inverse kinematics animation on a single character.\n\nThey also supported the other development teams with new initiatives to solidify workflows to save both time and errors.\n\nTurbulent\nThroughout April, Turbulent\u2019s Online Services team worked on the new login flow refactor. With the majority of the working code complete, the team is now integration testing all respective services together, including rental, entitlement, and login. Significant progress was also made on the new Entity Graph service.\n\nThe Live Tools team released the latest version of Hex, featuring an all-new user interface. They\u2019re now focusing on developing and adding new features to improve the versatility of the Network Operation Center. With design at an advanced stage, they\u2019re working to implement new modules dedicated to monitoring and troubleshooting login issues.\n\nThe Web team spent the month getting ready for Invictus Launch Week. This involved refactoring the Alexandria tool with new skins, themes, and content.\n\nUI\nIn April, the UI team provided release support for Alpha 3.17 by fixing critical issues with the new ASOP terminals and selling UI alongside general bug and crash fixing. A major performance improvement was also completed, allowing thousands of items to be listed on screens, as in the selling UI.\n\nWork progressed on the new Starmap and radar UI. The devs implemented basic controls, enabling them to look around a solar system and view the planets, orbits, and vehicles within it. They also began adding an info panel that players can use to see details about selected objects.\n\n\u201cAlthough rough around the edges, the groundwork is there for us to add functionality and start improving the visuals.\u201d UI Team\n\nThe visor and lens conversion, which involves converting the existing player HUD elements to Building Blocks, is well underway. Many widgets, including weapon information and mission objectives, were ported to the new system. They also continued to update features in support of Persistent Streaming.\n\nThe UI Tech team continued developing additional Building Blocks features, one of which will replace the canvas slicing technology used to develop 3D UIs. The new \u2018cards' system received major usability and performance improvements and is currently being tested in the vehicle HUD for the hull-scraping feature.\n\nThe team also worked on a new AR marker system and improved various widgets to help the UI designers work more efficiently.\n\nVFX\nIn April, the VFX continued their work on the salvage effects, shifting focus to the vehicle hull-stripping variant.\n\n\u201cThis proved more challenging than the FPS variant, as depth perception is trickier to gauge from the ship cockpit and the player\u2019s position relative to the salvage nozzle. Because of this, we\u2019re currently experimenting with visual aids to give players a more user-friendly experience.\u201d VFX Team\n\nElsewhere, the team continued to work on various vehicles, including the RSI Scorpius, Drake Vulture, and one of the unannounced vehicles mentioned by the Ship team.\n\nClean-up was done in several particle libraries, which included converting some older libraries from CPU to GPU particles. Due to the large size of the particle database, this work is ongoing. Investigations began into VFX requirements for the various derelict locations being worked on in Montreal too.\n\nThe VFX Tech Art team completed the necessary Houdini update. This involved ensuring all existing tools worked correctly in Houdini 19. They also continued experimenting with better ways to fracture geometry to help create more realistic-looking damage."},"links_count":0,"comment_count":0,"created_at":"2022-05-04T23:00:00+00:00","created_at_human":"3 years ago"},"meta":{"processed_at":"2026-04-27 06:04:41","valid_relations":["images","links","translations"],"prev_id":18652,"next_id":18655}}