{"data":{"id":19078,"title":"Letter From the Chairman","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/comm-link\/SCW\/19078-API","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-links\/19078","api_public_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/comm-links\/19078","channel":"Undefined","category":"Undefined","series":"None","images":[],"images_count":22,"translations":{"en_EN":"Letter From the Chairman\n12\/30\/2022 - 12:57 AM\n\nHello everyone,\nAs we close out 2022 and head into 2023, I wanted to take the time to thank everyone for being such an amazing, enthusiastic, and supportive community. The not-so-secret sauce of Cloud Imperium\u2019s ability to have the time and resources to build a universe of the detail, scale and scope of Star Citizen is the community\u2019s full-throated embrace of the ultimate goal of a fully connected and simulated science fiction universe that allows players to engage in first-person gameplay and adventures almost without boundaries. There is no other way Star Citizen could be built except for the community-driven funding model. The investment both in time and money is just too expensive for a normal game publisher, especially a public one beholden to quarterly earnings reports and shareholders.\nA great example of our ability to take the long-term view and invest in research and development that most projects don\u2019t have the time or ambition for is Persistent Entity Streaming (PES), which creates true lasting persistence for the Star Citizen universe; if you leave some equipment in a remote cave, shoot down a bounty over Daymar, manage to fend off some pirates around Yela \u2013 the results of your actions will persist \u2013 items, debris, ships, even dead bodies will all stay where they were left and still be there even if you log off and return a week later - assuming other players haven\u2019t taken or cleaned up the results of your adventures!\n\nTo do this for a universe as big and detailed as Star Citizen, to have this apply to everything, not just player-owned items, for a MMO with millions of players is a major technical accomplishment \u2013 I am not aware of any other large-scale MMO that has tried to deliver this level of persistence.\nPES is the headline feature of Star Citizen Alpha 3.18, and while we didn\u2019t manage to release to LIVE before the end of 2022, it is currently in wave 1 of PTU (Public Test Universe \u2013 the testbed wherein we harden patches with the community\u2019s help before we deem the patch stable enough for LIVE release) and there are already lots of community videos and posts about the emergent gameplay that is enabled by PES, especially when combined with some other 3.18 features such as Salvage and \u201csoft\u201d death (where the ship doesn\u2019t blow up into pieces, but instead becomes disabled, allowing players to survive a once-fatal event and attackers to board and potentially loot the disabled ship).\nPES is an example of how all your support has enabled Star Citizen to expand its boundaries and possibilities.\nBut the community\u2019s contribution goes much further than funding Star Citizen\u2019s development, as contributing ideas, giving feedback, and testing the various updates we release are all part of the symbiotic relationship between Cloud Imperium and the Star Citizen community. There are plenty of features and content that I, and the development team, dream up, but there are equally many things that come from you, the community. The development of Star Citizen is a fusion of the development team and the community playing it; ideas are passed back and forth, made better, released, tested, and iterated on. Some of the recent racetracks that debuted in 3.17.2 and now in 3.18 are the result of the community finding interesting areas to race around, which in turn inspired developers to flesh them out and start to add time trial functionality to the ship HUDs. This is just one example; there are too many others to list in detail as this same dynamic happens with everything in Star Citizen. Your actions in the \u2018verse inspire the Star Citizen team to improve and push the boundaries even further.\nAnd what is even more exciting is that this community grows larger every year. More and more people discover Star Citizen through their friends, online videos or people streaming their gameplay, are then intrigued and jump into the \u2018verse.\n\nIn my Letter from the Chairman in May of this year, I mentioned just how strongly we started 2022 in terms of new players joining the \u2018verse. This trend has continued through the rest of the year fueled by Invictus Launch Week and then continued with the release of Alpha 3.17.2, which really should have been numbered as a full patch due to the number of features, content and optimizations that we put in it, knowing that Alpha 3.18 was going to take extra time due to the complexity of PES. The biggest headline of 3.17.2 was the increase in server capacity from 50 players to over 100 players, which was enabled by the ongoing multi-threading and optimization work the engine and gameplay teams had been working on in the background. This enabled a more active and busier PU for players and allowed for some truly spectacular player-driven events like 100+ person fleet battles or ship meets.\nIn November we released Alpha 3.17.4 just in time for the 2952 edition of IAE, which debuted two new flyable ships in the Drake Cutter and Corsair, as well as the RSI Galaxy, a large modular multi-role ship that has been added to the ship production pipeline, and a playable nifty off-road vehicle, the Greycat Sports Terrain Vehicle (STV). We also added servers in Hong Kong for our exploding player base in Asia Pacific. All of this combined with the return of Jumptown and our other Dynamic Events like XenoThreat and Nine Tails Lockdown kept the \u2018verse more engaged and active than any year previously!\n\nAnother Record-Breaking Year of Growth\nWhile our most passionate players test 3.18 in PTU, and our developers take a well-deserved break, I wanted to share with you some truly momentous stats from this year that illustrate that Star Citizen had its best year yet and crossed some historic milestones that demonstrate this game we all love is finally breaking into the larger gaming consciousness with a success that is greater and faster than we anticipated.\nThis year, over 1 million unique players logged into Star Citizen and played our game. And they did so for more than 46 million hours.\nOur Daily Active Users (DAU) this year, i.e. unique players logging in each day, has grown 50% over last year, and is double what it was at the end of 2019. This year, we are also averaging over 240,000 Monthly Active Users, which is 33% higher than our average MAU from last year, with highs of over 400,000 during May with this year\u2019s Invictus Launch Week.\n\nThose of you who follow our Funding Tracker doubtless know that we had already eclipsed all last year\u2019s revenues by mid-November, and will have our first 0 million+ year ever (and by a fair margin). You can also read a more in-depth report of our 2021 financials here. But as great as 2021 was \u2013 which was remarkable for growing beyond the COVID-bolstered revenues of 2020 \u2013 we managed to grow 30% beyond 2021!\nWhere does all that revenue go? Right back into development, as we\u2019ve hired more than ever before and continued to build out our Squadron 42 and Persistent Universe teams. It\u2019s no secret that our two games and our technology are among the most complex and complicated endeavors in the gaming and even tech industry; we\u2019re doing things with our engine that are truly groundbreaking. And it takes talent and time to achieve the ambitious goals we\u2019ve set for ourselves. And so even as we grow, we invest all that growth back into our teams through hiring and retaining our critical talent.\nA huge portion of our growing revenue has come exclusively from New Players that only joined Star Citizen this year. In fact, this year, we witnessed truly explosive growth. Over 800,000 New Accounts were created this year to follow or play our project. Our New Players this year have almost doubled this year, compared to last year, with over half a million new players joining us during Free Flies, Dynamic Events, and throughout 2022. And of those new players this year, over 70% of them stayed around as paying players who purchased starter packs to get access to the Star Citizen Alpha to keep their adventures going in the \u2018verse.\n\n\nBar Citizen World Tour & CitizenCon\nThroughout 2022, members of our team had the opportunity to attend various Bar Citizen events around the globe. We are grateful for the chance to connect with all of you at these events, especially those who are farther from our offices. The past few years during the pandemic have reminded us of the importance and significance of in-person events, and there is nothing quite like the energy and excitement of Bar Citizen. Seeing and experiencing your passion and support in-person energizes us for the work ahead. We have always been inspired by the creativity and camaraderie at these events, and we believe they will continue to be a highlight of our community for years to come.\nFor these reasons, and many more, I\u2019m happy to share that we plan to continue this initiative in 2023. Our Community Team is always interested in learning about upcoming events in your area, so be sure to share your events on Spectrum.\n\nAnd in case you missed it, Sandi Roberts also recently announced that in-person CitizenCon will be returning in 2023, in Los Angeles. We are looking forward to seeing you all there for a day of celebrating the Star Citizen Universe with fellow community members. We\u2019ll share more information as soon as we have it, so stay tuned for more details on the event.\n\nNew Places to Call Home\nIn my last letter, we shared some early imagery of our new Manchester and Frankfurt offices that were previously under construction. I am happy to report we have now moved into both offices, Frankfurt at the end of August and Manchester in mid-October. Having our staff together in the office makes a huge difference to our teamwork. We\u2019ve struggled at times to hit our goals for 2022, and while we will always achieve incredible things at Cloud Imperium Games, I have personally seen a significant change in pace towards the end of the year resulting from most of us being in the office, which we were finally able to achieve once our two new offices in Frankfurt and Manchester were ready to be occupied. The huge new offices in downtown Manchester were especially important as we had grown way beyond the capacity of the old Wilmslow office during the pandemic and so could not properly return to office until we had the extra space.\nNow that our teams have moved back in, we\u2019re especially eager to give you all a tour of our new facilities. We plan to do just that in the coming months as we wrap up final touches on the facilities. You can expect a video tour, alongside the return of periodic studio tours for those looking to visit us in-person (of course, with limited capacity when available).\nWe\u2019re also planning on opening our doors for a couple of fun in-house events for our Concierge and Subscribers \u2013 stay tuned for more information on that in the new year.\n\nStar Citizen Alpha 3.18\nLast week we opened the gates and welcomed Wave 1 testers to check out the latest content and technologies in Star Citizen Alpha 3.18. This upcoming patch release marks a giant technical leap forward on Star Citizen's journey to deliver the uncompromising and near-limitless universe that we\u2019ve all been dreaming of. Far from our typical quarterly patch, this release introduces fundamental changes to our entire backend, bringing an all-new set of backend services, granting universal persistence, and even the mass migration of the entire game-state into the cloud, which is a tremendous undertaking and accomplishment for our teams.\n\nSince hitting Wave 1, tens of thousands of you have dived in to experience the long-awaited salvage profession, an entirely new economic and non-combat career path for pilots in the \u2018verse. The ability to salvage will allow pilots to retrieve valuable materials from target ships and sell them for profit. The new salvage profession is supported through the addition of new technology and tools including a complete cargo refactor, giving cargo a physical representation in-game. Alpha 3.18 also includes the launch of the Drake Interplanetary Vulture, a new entry-level flyable salvage ship in the Drake lineup of vessels, perfect for pilots beginning their career in salvage, alongside updated functionality so Reclaimer pilots can finally utilize their behemoth of a ship.\nWhile salvage, new racetracks, new POIs, and some of the other visual stimulating mechanics will take the spotlight, the largest change to our universe comes from powerful work under the hood, with Persistent Entity Streaming (PES). With this new tech, all physical objects moved or placed by players will be dynamically tracked on the server they were moved on and remain in their new locations. PES represents the largest technical update in the game\u2019s history and is a critical addition in laying the foundation for future technology and full in-game persistence that will unlock a new level of immersion in the \u2018verse\n\nAs we move towards making 3.18 stable enough to release to the Live service I\u2019d like to give a special shoutout to everyone who has been testing 3.18 so far on the Public Test Servers \u2013 especially those from our dedicated Evocati group, who put many hard hours in when the patch was in its roughest and most frustrating state. Thanks to your efforts, we\u2019ve been able to iterate in real-time and implement improvements and fixes quicker than ever.\n\nLooking Forward \u2013 The Road to Alpha 4.0\nThis coming year is going to be a huge one for Star Citizen, possibly its biggest one to date!\nThe first order of business is to continue to stabilize Alpha 3.18 so we can release to the Live servers in January, once the team is back from their well-earned Holiday break.\nThen we will continue to \u201charden\u201d PES, improving aspects and adding some additional quality of life features including the ability to choose which PES Shard you would like to join. The current game server \/ PES shard matchmaking tries to match you to the last PES shard you were in when you log back in or recover from a crash, but if that shard is full, it places you in a different one. But in the short term, before Server Meshing makes this not so necessary, we also want to give players the choice to wait in a queue for their preferred shard if it is full.\nThe next step will be to separate the Replication Layer (RL), the in-memory cache that remembers all dynamic object's state, from the Game Server and have scalable RL workers that communicate the state changes between the various game clients, servers, and the RL.\nThis is very important for Server Meshing, as universe state needs to be fully decoupled from server state. It will also make Star Citizen much more crash resilient on the client side as a server crash will no longer take down the RL as well, meaning that clients can stay connected while a new server takes over where the last one left off. It will also have the added benefit of having the view every client has of the universe around it be a little more fluid with less lag as the client\u2019s update and refresh of object state will no longer be tied to the tick rate of the game server. This means players will see state changes from other remote clients and game servers as they happen at the rates the various clients and servers push them.\nOnce this happens, we\u2019ll be able to have multiple game servers communicate with the RL (much like multiple game clients communicate right now with the RL) allowing Star Citizen to have multiple servers simulating the universe\u2019s state, which we call Server Meshing (SM).\nWe will start with Static Server Meshing, where different servers are assigned to simulate different Entity Zones in a star system. Entity Zones, sometimes referred to as Local Grids, are separate simulation areas; the inside of a spaceship is a different Zone to the space around which the spaceship flies. A planet is a different Zone than the Star System Zone where all the planets and moons exist in, and a landing zone can also be a different Zone, nested inside the Planet Zone, nested in the Star System Zone.\nAt first, the servers will be bound to fixed Zones but we will quickly move to Dynamic Server Meshing V1, where we assign servers dynamically to Entity Zones, based on gameplay and simulation load. This will be a much more efficient use of the servers in the cloud, as you only need servers where the players are, whereas with Static SM you have servers assigned to Zones, even if there are no players there.\nDynamic Server Meshing V2 will take this dynamic assignment of servers one step further by subdividing Entity Zones into \u201csimulation islands\u201d (this is organizing the dynamic objects in one Zone \/ Local Grid into different groups, based on which objects can interact \/ collide with each other), allowing these islands to be distributed between servers to again help balance simulation load.\nAt this point we should be able to handle tens of thousands of players all playing in the same PES universe shard, bringing Star Citizen much closer to the ultimate goal of a huge living universe densely populated with players and AI.\nOnce we achieve Static Server Meshing, we can open the universe of Star Citizen to other star systems, starting with Pyro. By having authority pass from one server to another, you\u2019ll be able to transition seamlessly (without the need to log out of game) between star systems.\n\nWe are aiming to put Static Server Meshing and Pyro into the hands of players in the fourth quarter of 2023. The large caveat with this goal is that complicated engineering work that involves a completely new paradigm, requires a host of new backend services, and technology is hard to estimate and schedule accurately as the issues and problems that can come up along the way are hard to foresee as no one has implemented this system before, and plans rarely survive contact with the users, especially at scale. This has been true for PES, as it is no secret that we were hoping to have Alpha 3.18 and PES release to Live by end of the year as opposed to just the PTU. Delays in finalizing 3.18 and PES impact the team\u2019s ability to start on the next stage, and we still have the unknowns of how PES performs after months of heavy load, and people seeing exactly how much space junk they can leave around!\nBeyond this, there are a host of other exciting features and content we have planned for 2023; Pyro with its assorted planets, moons, settlements, space stations and assorted factions and AI population being the headline, but we also will be rolling out the New Item Resource system in ships which replaces the old pipe system with a much more dynamic and scalable system to allow for truly emergent behavior (in fact elements of this new system can already be seen in 3.18 in the Salvage gameplay), Bounty Hunting with a full tracking system and the ability to actively restrain and transport both players and AI, Persistent Hangars with freight elevators allowing you to call up your stored inventory or place things into storage. Towards the end of the year, we should see some of the more Squadron 42 related work arrive in Star Citizen; more flexible player traversal, especially on ladders and ledges, a greatly improved interaction system, FPS scanning, the new Star Map, MFDs using the more performant and flexible building blocks UI system and much deeper combat AI. Now that the Gen 12 renderer is functioning in 3.18, the Graphics team will work on multi-threading improvements and optimizations for the renderer as well as hook up the Vulkan Graphics API to it, to unlock some of the performance gains that the Gen 12 renderer can provide.\nThere are numerous more things the Star Citizen team are working on for this coming year, but this letter is already long enough!\n\nFinal Thoughts\nLooking back on 2022, it has been gratifying to see Cloud Imperium and the Star Citizen community grow. We ended the year with 861 employees, and the Community grew to more than 4 million accounts and 1.8M \u201cbackers\u201d (accounts that have purchased Star Citizen).\nWe\u2019ve achieved a lot this year, including our moves into two wonderful new homes for most of our staff. We fell short on a few others, like having 3.18 and PES fully live before the end of the year, but this is the nature of game development that tries to boldly go where no game has gone before!\nWhat has especially been great is just how much more time people are spending playing Star Citizen this year. This had a lot to do with the increased player count and improved stability, but also Star Citizen, even in its Alpha state is already feature and content rich with a huge number of things to do, with your friends or solo, and this list grows larger with every patch.\n\nThe universe and how you interact with it is up to you; from exploring, to hauling, trading, mining, salvage, refueling, refining, bounty hunting, piracy, to being a hired gun to just sightseeing and being a social butterfly.\nAnd that is just what we have now \u2013 in the future you\u2019ll be able to farm or gather other resources, build, craft and sell. The universe of Star Citizen is a huge sandbox for everyone to play in and I couldn\u2019t be more excited by what the future holds.\nStar Citizen is more than just a game, it is an escape to another reality where anyone can pursue their imagination, not bound to a single playstyle or profession, where they can interact with other players that share in the same common dream.\nI feel incredibly lucky and privileged to have the opportunity to pursue this dream with the amazingly talented team at Cloud Imperium and the support and patience of the best community in gaming, the Star Citizen community!\nFrom all of us at Cloud Imperium, we wish you all a happy New Year and can\u2019t wait to continue the journey with you in 2023.","de_DE":"Brief des Vorsitzenden\n30.12.2022 - 12:57 UHR\n\nHallo zusammen,\nDa wir das Jahr 2022 abschlie\u00dfen und uns auf das Jahr 2023 zubewegen, m\u00f6chte ich mich bei euch allen f\u00fcr die gro\u00dfartige, enthusiastische und unterst\u00fctzende Gemeinschaft bedanken. Das Geheimnis, warum Cloud Imperium die Zeit und die Ressourcen hat, ein Universum mit den Details, der Gr\u00f6\u00dfe und dem Umfang von Star Citizen zu erschaffen, liegt darin, dass die Community das ultimative Ziel eines vollst\u00e4ndig vernetzten und simulierten Science-Fiction-Universums, das den Spielern fast grenzenlose Abenteuer in der ersten Person erm\u00f6glicht, aus voller Kehle unterst\u00fctzt. Es gibt keine andere M\u00f6glichkeit, Star Citizen aufzubauen, als das gemeinschaftsgetriebene Finanzierungsmodell. Die Investition in Zeit und Geld ist f\u00fcr einen normalen Spieleverlag einfach zu teuer, vor allem f\u00fcr einen \u00f6ffentlichen Verlag, der viertelj\u00e4hrlichen Gewinnberichten und Aktion\u00e4ren verpflichtet ist.\nEin gro\u00dfartiges Beispiel f\u00fcr unsere F\u00e4higkeit, langfristig zu denken und in Forschung und Entwicklung zu investieren, f\u00fcr die die meisten Projekte weder die Zeit noch den Ehrgeiz haben, ist das Persistent Entity Streaming (PES), das eine echte, dauerhafte Persistenz f\u00fcr das Star Citizen Universum schafft; Wenn du Ausr\u00fcstung in einer abgelegenen H\u00f6hle zur\u00fcckl\u00e4sst, ein Kopfgeld auf Daymar ausgesetzt hast oder Piraten in der N\u00e4he von Yela abgewehrt hast, bleiben die Ergebnisse deiner Aktionen bestehen - Gegenst\u00e4nde, Tr\u00fcmmer, Schiffe und sogar Leichen bleiben dort, wo du sie zur\u00fcckgelassen hast und sind auch dann noch da, wenn du dich ausloggst und eine Woche sp\u00e4ter zur\u00fcckkehrst - vorausgesetzt, andere Spieler haben die Ergebnisse deiner Abenteuer nicht mitgenommen oder aufger\u00e4umt!\n\nDies f\u00fcr ein so gro\u00dfes und detailliertes Universum wie Star Citizen zu tun, und dies f\u00fcr alles, nicht nur f\u00fcr spielereigene Gegenst\u00e4nde, f\u00fcr ein MMO mit Millionen von Spielern, ist eine gro\u00dfe technische Leistung - mir ist kein anderes gro\u00dfes MMO bekannt, das versucht hat, ein solches Ma\u00df an Persistenz zu bieten.\nPES ist das Hauptfeature der Star Citizen Alpha 3.18, und obwohl wir es nicht geschafft haben, es vor Ende 2022 auf LIVE zu ver\u00f6ffentlichen, befindet es sich derzeit in Welle 1 des PTU (Public Test Universe - das Testbed, in dem wir Patches mit Hilfe der Community h\u00e4rten, bevor wir den Patch als stabil genug f\u00fcr die LIVE-Ver\u00f6ffentlichung erachten), und es gibt bereits viele Community-Videos und Posts \u00fcber das emergente Gameplay, das durch PES erm\u00f6glicht wird, insbesondere in Kombination mit einigen anderen 3.18 Features wie Bergung und \"weicher\" Tod (bei dem das Schiff nicht in St\u00fccke explodiert, sondern au\u00dfer Gefecht gesetzt wird, so dass die Spieler\/innen ein einmaliges t\u00f6dliches Ereignis \u00fcberleben und Angreifer das au\u00dfer Gefecht gesetzte Schiff entern und m\u00f6glicherweise pl\u00fcndern k\u00f6nnen).\nPES ist ein Beispiel daf\u00fcr, wie eure Unterst\u00fctzung es Star Citizen erm\u00f6glicht hat, seine Grenzen und M\u00f6glichkeiten zu erweitern.\nAber der Beitrag der Community geht weit \u00fcber die Finanzierung der Entwicklung von Star Citizen hinaus. Das Einbringen von Ideen, das Geben von Feedback und das Testen der verschiedenen Updates, die wir ver\u00f6ffentlichen, sind Teil der symbiotischen Beziehung zwischen Cloud Imperium und der Star Citizen Community. Es gibt viele Funktionen und Inhalte, die ich und das Entwicklungsteam sich ausdenken, aber genauso viele Dinge kommen von euch, der Community. Die Entwicklung von Star Citizen ist eine Verschmelzung des Entwicklerteams und der Community, die es spielt; Ideen werden hin und her gereicht, verbessert, ver\u00f6ffentlicht, getestet und weiterentwickelt. Einige der neuen Rennstrecken, die in 3.17.2 und jetzt in 3.18 eingef\u00fchrt wurden, sind das Ergebnis davon, dass die Community interessante Gebiete f\u00fcr Rennen gefunden hat, die wiederum die Entwickler dazu inspiriert haben, sie auszubauen und den Schiffs-HUDs eine Zeitfahrfunktion hinzuzuf\u00fcgen. Dies ist nur ein Beispiel; es gibt zu viele andere, um sie im Detail aufzuz\u00e4hlen, da diese Dynamik bei allem in Star Citizen auftritt. Deine Handlungen im Verse inspirieren das Star Citizen Team, sich zu verbessern und die Grenzen noch weiter zu verschieben.\nUnd was noch aufregender ist, ist, dass diese Community jedes Jahr gr\u00f6\u00dfer wird. Immer mehr Menschen entdecken Star Citizen durch ihre Freunde, Online-Videos oder Leute, die ihr Gameplay streamen, sind fasziniert und st\u00fcrzen sich in das Verse.\n\nIn meinem Brief des Vorsitzenden im Mai dieses Jahres habe ich bereits erw\u00e4hnt, wie stark wir 2022 mit neuen Spielern in das Versum eingestiegen sind. Dieser Trend hat sich im restlichen Jahr fortgesetzt, angeheizt durch die Invictus Launch Week und dann mit der Ver\u00f6ffentlichung der Alpha 3.17.2, die aufgrund der vielen Features, Inhalte und Optimierungen, die wir hineingepackt haben, eigentlich als kompletter Patch h\u00e4tte gelten m\u00fcssen, da wir wussten, dass die Alpha 3.18 aufgrund der Komplexit\u00e4t von PES mehr Zeit ben\u00f6tigen w\u00fcrde. Die gr\u00f6\u00dfte Schlagzeile von 3.17.2 war die Erh\u00f6hung der Serverkapazit\u00e4t von 50 Spielern auf \u00fcber 100 Spieler, die durch die laufenden Multithreading- und Optimierungsarbeiten, an denen die Engine- und Gameplay-Teams im Hintergrund gearbeitet hatten, erm\u00f6glicht wurde. Dies erm\u00f6glichte eine aktivere und gesch\u00e4ftigere PU f\u00fcr die Spieler und erm\u00f6glichte einige wirklich spektakul\u00e4re spielergesteuerte Events wie Flottenschlachten mit \u00fcber 100 Spielern oder Schiffstreffen.\nIm November ver\u00f6ffentlichten wir die Alpha 3.17.4 p\u00fcnktlich zur Ausgabe 2952 der IAE, die mit dem Drake Cutter und dem Corsair zwei neue flugf\u00e4hige Schiffe vorstellte, sowie die RSI Galaxy, ein gro\u00dfes modulares Mehrzweckschiff, das der Schiffsproduktionspipeline hinzugef\u00fcgt wurde, und ein spielbares, schickes Gel\u00e4ndefahrzeug, das Greycat Sports Terrain Vehicle (STV). Au\u00dferdem haben wir f\u00fcr unsere explodierende Spielerbasis im asiatisch-pazifischen Raum Server in Hongkong hinzugef\u00fcgt. All das, zusammen mit der R\u00fcckkehr von Jumptown und unseren anderen dynamischen Events wie XenoThreat und Nine Tails Lockdown, sorgte daf\u00fcr, dass das Verse aktiver und engagierter war als jedes Jahr zuvor!\n\nEin weiteres rekordverd\u00e4chtiges Jahr des Wachstums\nW\u00e4hrend unsere leidenschaftlichsten Spieler 3.18 im PTU testen und unsere Entwickler eine wohlverdiente Pause einlegen, m\u00f6chte ich mit euch einige wirklich bedeutsame Statistiken aus diesem Jahr teilen, die zeigen, dass Star Citizen sein bisher bestes Jahr hatte und einige historische Meilensteine \u00fcberschritten hat, die zeigen, dass dieses Spiel, das wir alle lieben, endlich in das Bewusstsein der breiten \u00d6ffentlichkeit dringt und das mit einem Erfolg, der gr\u00f6\u00dfer und schneller ist, als wir erwartet haben.\nDieses Jahr haben sich \u00fcber 1 Million Spieler in Star Citizen eingeloggt und unser Spiel gespielt. Und das f\u00fcr mehr als 46 Millionen Stunden.\nUnsere Daily Active Users (DAU), d.h. die Anzahl der Spieler, die sich t\u00e4glich einloggen, ist in diesem Jahr im Vergleich zum letzten Jahr um 50% gestiegen und hat sich gegen\u00fcber Ende 2019 verdoppelt. In diesem Jahr haben wir im Durchschnitt \u00fcber 240.000 monatlich aktive Nutzer\/innen, das sind 33 % mehr als im letzten Jahr, mit einem H\u00f6chststand von \u00fcber 400.000 im Mai w\u00e4hrend der diesj\u00e4hrigen Invictus Launch Week.\n\nDiejenigen unter euch, die unseren Funding Tracker verfolgen, wissen zweifellos, dass wir bereits Mitte November alle Einnahmen des letzten Jahres in den Schatten gestellt haben und unser erstes Jahr mit mehr als 100 Millionen Dollar erleben werden (und das mit deutlichem Abstand). Einen ausf\u00fchrlicheren Bericht \u00fcber unsere Finanzzahlen f\u00fcr 2021 kannst du hier lesen. Aber so gro\u00dfartig das Jahr 2021 auch war - es war bemerkenswert, dass wir \u00fcber die COVID-gest\u00fctzten Einnahmen von 2020 hinaus gewachsen sind - wir haben es geschafft, \u00fcber 2021 hinaus um 30% zu wachsen!\nWohin flie\u00dfen all diese Einnahmen? Direkt zur\u00fcck in die Entwicklung, denn wir haben mehr Mitarbeiter als je zuvor eingestellt und unsere Teams f\u00fcr Squadron 42 und Persistent Universe weiter ausgebaut. Es ist kein Geheimnis, dass unsere beiden Spiele und unsere Technologie zu den komplexesten und kompliziertesten Unternehmungen in der Spiele- und sogar in der Tech-Branche geh\u00f6ren; wir machen mit unserer Engine Dinge, die wirklich bahnbrechend sind. Und es braucht Talent und Zeit, um die ehrgeizigen Ziele, die wir uns gesetzt haben, zu erreichen. W\u00e4hrend wir wachsen, investieren wir all dieses Wachstum in unsere Teams, indem wir unsere wichtigsten Talente einstellen und halten.\nEin gro\u00dfer Teil unserer wachsenden Einnahmen stammt ausschlie\u00dflich von neuen Spielern, die erst in diesem Jahr zu Star Citizen gesto\u00dfen sind. Tats\u00e4chlich haben wir in diesem Jahr ein wirklich explosives Wachstum erlebt. \u00dcber 800.000 neue Accounts wurden in diesem Jahr erstellt, um unser Projekt zu verfolgen oder zu spielen. Unsere neuen Spieler haben sich dieses Jahr im Vergleich zum letzten Jahr fast verdoppelt, mit \u00fcber einer halben Million neuer Spieler, die uns w\u00e4hrend der Free Flies, Dynamic Events und im Jahr 2022 beigetreten sind. Und von den neuen Spielern in diesem Jahr sind \u00fcber 70 % als zahlende Spieler dabei geblieben, die Starterpakete gekauft haben, um Zugang zur Star Citizen Alpha zu erhalten und ihre Abenteuer im Verse fortzusetzen.\n\n\nBar Citizen World Tour & CitizenCon\nIm Laufe des Jahres 2022 hatten Mitglieder unseres Teams die Gelegenheit, an verschiedenen Bar Citizen-Veranstaltungen rund um den Globus teilzunehmen. Wir sind dankbar f\u00fcr die M\u00f6glichkeit, mit euch allen auf diesen Veranstaltungen in Kontakt zu treten, besonders mit denen, die weiter von unseren B\u00fcros entfernt sind. Die letzten Jahre w\u00e4hrend der Pandemie haben uns daran erinnert, wie wichtig und bedeutsam pers\u00f6nliche Veranstaltungen sind, und es geht nichts \u00fcber die Energie und Begeisterung von Bar Citizen. Eure Leidenschaft und Unterst\u00fctzung pers\u00f6nlich zu sehen und zu erleben, gibt uns Kraft f\u00fcr die bevorstehende Arbeit. Die Kreativit\u00e4t und die Kameradschaft bei diesen Veranstaltungen haben uns schon immer inspiriert und wir glauben, dass sie auch in den kommenden Jahren ein Highlight unserer Gemeinschaft sein werden.\nAus diesen und vielen anderen Gr\u00fcnden freue ich mich, dir mitteilen zu k\u00f6nnen, dass wir diese Initiative auch im Jahr 2023 fortsetzen wollen. Unser Community-Team ist immer daran interessiert, von bevorstehenden Veranstaltungen in eurer Gegend zu erfahren, also stellt sicher, dass ihr eure Veranstaltungen auf Spectrum teilt.\n\nUnd falls du es verpasst hast, hat Sandi Roberts k\u00fcrzlich bekannt gegeben, dass die CitizenCon 2023 wieder in Los Angeles stattfinden wird. Wir freuen uns darauf, euch alle dort zu sehen, um das Star Citizen Universum mit anderen Community-Mitgliedern zu feiern. Sobald wir mehr Informationen haben, werden wir euch auf dem Laufenden halten, damit ihr mehr \u00fcber die Veranstaltung erfahrt.\n\nNeue Orte, die wir unser Zuhause nennen\nIn meinem letzten Brief haben wir einige erste Bilder unserer neuen B\u00fcros in Manchester und Frankfurt gezeigt, die sich noch im Bau befanden. Ich freue mich, berichten zu k\u00f6nnen, dass wir nun in beide B\u00fcros eingezogen sind, in Frankfurt Ende August und in Manchester Mitte Oktober. Dass unsere Mitarbeiter\/innen gemeinsam im B\u00fcro sitzen, macht einen gro\u00dfen Unterschied f\u00fcr unsere Teamarbeit. Wir haben uns manchmal schwer getan, unsere Ziele f\u00fcr 2022 zu erreichen, und obwohl wir bei Cloud Imperium Games immer Unglaubliches erreichen werden, habe ich pers\u00f6nlich gegen Ende des Jahres eine deutliche Tempoversch\u00e4rfung festgestellt, die darauf zur\u00fcckzuf\u00fchren ist, dass die meisten von uns im B\u00fcro sind, was wir endlich erreichen konnten, als unsere beiden neuen B\u00fcros in Frankfurt und Manchester bezugsfertig waren. Die riesigen neuen B\u00fcros in der Innenstadt von Manchester waren besonders wichtig, da wir w\u00e4hrend der Pandemie weit \u00fcber die Kapazit\u00e4t des alten B\u00fcros in Wilmslow hinausgewachsen waren und daher erst wieder richtig ins B\u00fcro zur\u00fcckkehren konnten, als wir den zus\u00e4tzlichen Platz hatten.\nJetzt, wo unsere Teams wieder eingezogen sind, freuen wir uns besonders darauf, euch einen Rundgang durch unsere neuen R\u00e4umlichkeiten zu erm\u00f6glichen. Das werden wir in den kommenden Monaten tun, wenn wir die letzten Arbeiten an den R\u00e4umlichkeiten abschlie\u00dfen. Ihr k\u00f6nnt euch auf eine Videotour freuen, aber auch auf regelm\u00e4\u00dfige Studiotouren f\u00fcr diejenigen, die uns pers\u00f6nlich besuchen wollen (nat\u00fcrlich mit begrenzter Kapazit\u00e4t).\nAu\u00dferdem planen wir, unsere T\u00fcren f\u00fcr ein paar lustige interne Veranstaltungen f\u00fcr unsere Concierge und Abonnenten zu \u00f6ffnen - mehr dazu im neuen Jahr.\n\nStar Citizen Alpha 3.18\nLetzte Woche haben wir die Tore ge\u00f6ffnet und die Tester der Welle 1 willkommen gehei\u00dfen, um die neuesten Inhalte und Technologien in Star Citizen Alpha 3.18 auszuprobieren. Dieser Patch ist ein gro\u00dfer technischer Schritt auf dem Weg von Star Citizen zu dem kompromisslosen und nahezu grenzenlosen Universum, von dem wir alle getr\u00e4umt haben. Weit entfernt von unserem typischen viertelj\u00e4hrlichen Patch, f\u00fchrt dieses Release grundlegende \u00c4nderungen an unserem gesamten Backend ein. Es bringt eine v\u00f6llig neue Reihe von Backend-Diensten, gew\u00e4hrt universelle Persistenz und migriert sogar den gesamten Spielstatus in die Cloud, was eine enorme Aufgabe und Leistung f\u00fcr unsere Teams darstellt.\n\nSeit dem Start von Welle 1 haben Zehntausende von euch die lang erwartete Bergungsprofession ausprobiert, einen v\u00f6llig neuen wirtschaftlichen und kampffreien Karriereweg f\u00fcr Piloten im Verse. Die F\u00e4higkeit des Bergungsdienstes erm\u00f6glicht es Piloten, wertvolle Materialien aus Zielschiffen zu bergen und sie mit Gewinn zu verkaufen. Der neue Beruf des Bergers wird durch neue Technologien und Werkzeuge unterst\u00fctzt, darunter eine komplette \u00dcberarbeitung der Fracht, die der Fracht eine physische Darstellung im Spiel verleiht. Mit der Alpha 3.18 wird au\u00dferdem die Drake Interplanetary Vulture eingef\u00fchrt, ein neues fliegbares Bergungsschiff der Drake-Reihe, das sich perfekt f\u00fcr Piloten eignet, die ihre Karriere im Bergungsgesch\u00e4ft beginnen.\nW\u00e4hrend die Bergung, die neuen Rennstrecken, die neuen POIs und einige der anderen visuell anregenden Mechaniken im Mittelpunkt stehen, kommt die gr\u00f6\u00dfte Ver\u00e4nderung unseres Universums von der m\u00e4chtigen Arbeit unter der Haube, dem Persistent Entity Streaming (PES). Mit dieser neuen Technologie werden alle physischen Objekte, die von Spieler\/innen bewegt oder platziert werden, dynamisch auf dem Server verfolgt, auf dem sie bewegt wurden, und bleiben an ihrem neuen Standort. PES stellt das gr\u00f6\u00dfte technische Update in der Geschichte des Spiels dar und legt den Grundstein f\u00fcr zuk\u00fcnftige Technologien und eine vollst\u00e4ndige Persistenz im Spiel, die eine neue Ebene der Immersion im Spiel freisetzen wird.\n\nW\u00e4hrend wir uns darauf zubewegen, 3.18 so stabil zu machen, dass wir es f\u00fcr den Live-Service freigeben k\u00f6nnen, m\u00f6chte ich allen, die 3.18 bisher auf den \u00f6ffentlichen Testservern getestet haben, ein besonderes Lob aussprechen - vor allem denjenigen aus unserer engagierten Evocati-Gruppe, die viele harte Stunden investiert haben, als der Patch noch in seiner rauesten und frustrierendsten Phase war. Dank eurer Bem\u00fchungen konnten wir in Echtzeit iterieren und Verbesserungen und Fehlerbehebungen schneller als je zuvor implementieren.\n\nBlick nach vorn - Der Weg zur Alpha 4.0\nDas kommende Jahr wird ein gro\u00dfes Jahr f\u00fcr Star Citizen, vielleicht das bisher gr\u00f6\u00dfte!\nAls Erstes m\u00fcssen wir die Alpha 3.18 stabilisieren, damit wir sie im Januar auf die Live-Server aufspielen k\u00f6nnen, sobald das Team aus seiner wohlverdienten Urlaubspause zur\u00fcck ist.\nDann werden wir PES weiter \"abh\u00e4rten\", indem wir einige Aspekte verbessern und zus\u00e4tzliche Funktionen zur Verbesserung der Lebensqualit\u00e4t hinzuf\u00fcgen, z. B. die M\u00f6glichkeit, festzulegen, welchem PES Shard du beitreten m\u00f6chtest. Das aktuelle Matchmaking zwischen Spielserver und PES-Shard versucht, dich dem letzten PES-Shard zuzuordnen, auf dem du warst, wenn du dich wieder einloggst oder dich von einem Absturz erholst, aber wenn dieser Shard voll ist, wird dir ein anderer zugewiesen. Kurzfristig, bevor das Server Meshing dies \u00fcberfl\u00fcssig macht, wollen wir den Spielern auch die M\u00f6glichkeit geben, in einer Warteschlange auf ihren bevorzugten Shard zu warten, wenn dieser voll ist.\nDer n\u00e4chste Schritt wird sein, den Replikations-Layer (RL), den In-Memory-Cache, der den Zustand aller dynamischen Objekte speichert, vom Game Server zu trennen und skalierbare RL-Worker zu haben, die die Zustands\u00e4nderungen zwischen den verschiedenen Game Clients, Servern und dem RL kommunizieren.\nDies ist sehr wichtig f\u00fcr das Server Meshing, da der Zustand des Universums vollst\u00e4ndig vom Zustand des Servers entkoppelt werden muss. Au\u00dferdem wird Star Citizen dadurch auf der Client-Seite viel absturzsicherer, da ein Serverabsturz nicht mehr auch das RL zum Absturz bringt, sodass die Clients verbunden bleiben k\u00f6nnen, w\u00e4hrend ein neuer Server dort weitermacht, wo der letzte aufgeh\u00f6rt hat. Das hat auch den zus\u00e4tzlichen Vorteil, dass die Sicht, die jeder Client auf das Universum um ihn herum hat, etwas fl\u00fcssiger und mit weniger Verz\u00f6gerung ist, da die Aktualisierung und Auffrischung des Objektstatus durch den Client nicht mehr an die Tickrate des Spiel-Servers gebunden ist. Das bedeutet, dass die Spielerinnen und Spieler Zustands\u00e4nderungen von anderen entfernten Clients und Spielservern sehen werden, wenn sie mit der Geschwindigkeit passieren, mit der die verschiedenen Clients und Server sie \u00fcbertragen.\nSobald dies der Fall ist, werden wir in der Lage sein, mehrere Spieleserver mit dem RL kommunizieren zu lassen (so wie jetzt schon mehrere Spielclients mit dem RL kommunizieren), was es Star Citizen erm\u00f6glicht, mehrere Server zu haben, die den Zustand des Universums simulieren, was wir Server Meshing (SM) nennen.\nWir beginnen mit dem Static Server Meshing, bei dem verschiedene Server zugewiesen werden, um verschiedene Entity Zones in einem Sternensystem zu simulieren. Entity Zones, manchmal auch als Local Grids bezeichnet, sind separate Simulationsbereiche; das Innere eines Raumschiffs ist eine andere Zone als der Raum, um den das Raumschiff fliegt. Ein Planet ist eine andere Zone als die Zone des Sternensystems, in der alle Planeten und Monde existieren, und auch eine Landezone kann eine andere Zone sein, die sich innerhalb der Planetenzone befindet, die wiederum in die Zone des Sternensystems eingebettet ist.\nZun\u00e4chst werden die Server an feste Zonen gebunden sein, aber wir werden bald zum Dynamic Server Meshing V1 \u00fcbergehen, bei dem wir die Server dynamisch den Entity-Zonen zuweisen, je nach Spielverlauf und Simulationslast. Dadurch werden die Server in der Cloud viel effizienter genutzt, da nur dort Server ben\u00f6tigt werden, wo sich Spieler\/innen aufhalten, w\u00e4hrend bei Static SM die Server den Zonen zugewiesen werden, auch wenn sich dort keine Spieler\/innen aufhalten.\nDynamic Server Meshing V2 geht bei der dynamischen Zuweisung von Servern noch einen Schritt weiter, indem es die Entity-Zonen in \"Simulationsinseln\" unterteilt (d.h. die dynamischen Objekte in einer Zone\/einem lokalen Raster werden in verschiedene Gruppen eingeteilt, je nachdem, welche Objekte miteinander interagieren bzw. kollidieren k\u00f6nnen), so dass diese Inseln auf die Server verteilt werden k\u00f6nnen, um die Simulationslast zu verteilen.\nAn diesem Punkt sollten wir in der Lage sein, Zehntausende von Spielern zu bew\u00e4ltigen, die alle auf demselben PES-Universumssplitter spielen, was Star Citizen dem ultimativen Ziel eines riesigen lebenden Universums, das dicht mit Spielern und KI bev\u00f6lkert ist, sehr viel n\u00e4her bringt.\nSobald wir Static Server Meshing erreicht haben, k\u00f6nnen wir das Universum von Star Citizen f\u00fcr andere Sternensysteme \u00f6ffnen, angefangen mit Pyro. Indem die Autorit\u00e4t von einem Server zum anderen \u00fcbergeht, kannst du nahtlos (ohne dich aus dem Spiel ausloggen zu m\u00fcssen) zwischen den Sternensystemen wechseln.\n\nUnser Ziel ist es, das Static Server Meshing und Pyro im vierten Quartal 2023 in die H\u00e4nde der Spieler\/innen zu geben. Die gro\u00dfe Einschr\u00e4nkung bei diesem Ziel ist, dass komplizierte technische Arbeiten, die ein v\u00f6llig neues Paradigma beinhalten, eine Vielzahl neuer Backend-Dienste und Technologien erfordern, schwer abzusch\u00e4tzen und genau zu planen sind, da die Fragen und Probleme, die auf dem Weg dorthin auftreten k\u00f6nnen, schwer vorherzusehen sind, da niemand dieses System zuvor implementiert hat und die Pl\u00e4ne selten den Kontakt mit den Nutzern \u00fcberleben, vor allem im gro\u00dfen Ma\u00dfstab. Das gilt auch f\u00fcr PES, denn es ist kein Geheimnis, dass wir gehofft haben, die Alpha 3.18 und PES bis Ende des Jahres auf Live zu bringen, anstatt nur die PTU. Verz\u00f6gerungen bei der Fertigstellung von 3.18 und PES wirken sich auf die F\u00e4higkeit des Teams aus, mit der n\u00e4chsten Phase zu beginnen, und wir wissen immer noch nicht, wie sich PES nach monatelanger starker Belastung verh\u00e4lt und wie viel Platzm\u00fcll die Leute hinterlassen k\u00f6nnen!\nDar\u00fcber hinaus haben wir f\u00fcr 2023 noch eine ganze Reihe anderer spannender Features und Inhalte geplant. Pyro mit seinen verschiedenen Planeten, Monden, Siedlungen, Raumstationen und verschiedenen Fraktionen und KI-Populationen ist die Hauptattraktion, aber wir werden auch das neue Ressourcensystem f\u00fcr Gegenst\u00e4nde in Schiffen einf\u00fchren, das das alte R\u00f6hrensystem durch ein viel dynamischeres und skalierbares System ersetzt, das ein wirklich emergentes Verhalten erm\u00f6glicht (tats\u00e4chlich sind Elemente dieses neuen Systems bereits in 3.18 im Bergungs-Gameplay zu sehen), Kopfgeldjagd mit einem vollst\u00e4ndigen Verfolgungssystem und der M\u00f6glichkeit, Spieler und KI aktiv zur\u00fcckzuhalten und zu transportieren, persistente Hangars mit Lastenaufz\u00fcgen, die es dir erm\u00f6glichen, dein gelagertes Inventar abzurufen oder Dinge einzulagern. Gegen Ende des Jahres werden wir sehen, dass einige der mit Squadron 42 zusammenh\u00e4ngenden Arbeiten in Star Citizen ankommen: flexiblere Spieler-Traversierung, vor allem auf Leitern und Vorspr\u00fcngen, ein stark verbessertes Interaktionssystem, FPS-Scanning, die neue Sternenkarte, MFDs mit dem leistungsf\u00e4higeren und flexibleren UI-System der Bausteine und eine viel tiefere Kampf-KI. Jetzt, wo der Gen 12 Renderer in 3.18 funktioniert, wird das Grafikteam an Multithreading-Verbesserungen und Optimierungen f\u00fcr den Renderer arbeiten und die Vulkan-Grafik-API mit ihm verbinden, um einige der Leistungssteigerungen, die der Gen 12 Renderer bieten kann, freizusetzen.\nEs gibt noch viele weitere Dinge, an denen das Star Citizen Team im kommenden Jahr arbeiten wird, aber dieser Brief ist schon lang genug!\n\nSchlussgedanken\nWenn wir auf das Jahr 2022 zur\u00fcckblicken, war es sehr erfreulich zu sehen, wie Cloud Imperium und die Star Citizen Community gewachsen sind. Wir beendeten das Jahr mit 861 Mitarbeitern und die Community wuchs auf mehr als 4 Millionen Accounts und 1,8 Millionen \"Backer\" (Accounts, die Star Citizen gekauft haben).\nWir haben in diesem Jahr viel erreicht, unter anderem den Umzug in zwei wunderbare neue H\u00e4user f\u00fcr die meisten unserer Mitarbeiter. Ein paar andere Ziele haben wir nicht erreicht, wie z.B. 3.18 und PES noch vor Ende des Jahres fertigzustellen, aber das liegt in der Natur der Spieleentwicklung, die versucht, k\u00fchn dorthin zu gehen, wo noch kein Spiel zuvor war!\nBesonders toll ist, wie viel mehr Zeit die Leute in diesem Jahr mit Star Citizen verbringen. Das hat nicht nur mit der gestiegenen Spielerzahl und der verbesserten Stabilit\u00e4t zu tun, sondern auch damit, dass Star Citizen bereits in der Alpha-Phase eine Vielzahl von Funktionen und Inhalten bietet, die du mit deinen Freunden oder alleine erledigen kannst, und diese Liste wird mit jedem Patch l\u00e4nger.\n\nDie Liste wird mit jedem Patch l\u00e4nger. Das Universum und die Art und Weise, wie du mit ihm interagierst, liegt ganz bei dir: von der Erkundung, \u00fcber den Transport, den Handel, den Bergbau, die Bergung, das Tanken, das Raffinieren, die Kopfgeldjagd, die Piraterie bis hin zum Sightseeing und dem Leben als sozialer Schmetterling.\nUnd das ist nur das, was wir jetzt haben - in Zukunft wirst du auch andere Ressourcen farmen oder sammeln, bauen, herstellen und verkaufen k\u00f6nnen. Das Universum von Star Citizen ist ein riesiger Sandkasten, in dem jeder spielen kann, und ich k\u00f6nnte nicht aufgeregter sein, was die Zukunft bringt.\nStar Citizen ist mehr als nur ein Spiel, es ist eine Flucht in eine andere Realit\u00e4t, in der jeder seiner Fantasie nachgehen kann, ohne an einen bestimmten Spielstil oder Beruf gebunden zu sein, und in der er mit anderen Spielern interagieren kann, die denselben Traum haben.\nIch f\u00fchle mich unglaublich gl\u00fccklich und privilegiert, dass ich die M\u00f6glichkeit habe, diesen Traum mit dem unglaublich talentierten Team von Cloud Imperium und der Unterst\u00fctzung und Geduld der besten Community im Gaming, der Star Citizen Community, zu verfolgen!\nWir von Cloud Imperium w\u00fcnschen euch allen ein frohes neues Jahr und k\u00f6nnen es kaum erwarten, die Reise mit euch im Jahr 2023 fortzusetzen.","zh_CN":"Letter From the Chairman\n12\/30\/2022 - 12:57 AM\n\nHello everyone,\nAs we close out 2022 and head into 2023, I wanted to take the time to thank everyone for being such an amazing, enthusiastic, and supportive community. The not-so-secret sauce of Cloud Imperium\u2019s ability to have the time and resources to build a universe of the detail, scale and scope of Star Citizen is the community\u2019s full-throated embrace of the ultimate goal of a fully connected and simulated science fiction universe that allows players to engage in first-person gameplay and adventures almost without boundaries. There is no other way Star Citizen could be built except for the community-driven funding model. The investment both in time and money is just too expensive for a normal game publisher, especially a public one beholden to quarterly earnings reports and shareholders.\nA great example of our ability to take the long-term view and invest in research and development that most projects don\u2019t have the time or ambition for is Persistent Entity Streaming (PES), which creates true lasting persistence for the Star Citizen universe; if you leave some equipment in a remote cave, shoot down a bounty over Daymar, manage to fend off some pirates around Yela \u2013 the results of your actions will persist \u2013 items, debris, ships, even dead bodies will all stay where they were left and still be there even if you log off and return a week later - assuming other players haven\u2019t taken or cleaned up the results of your adventures!\n\nTo do this for a universe as big and detailed as Star Citizen, to have this apply to everything, not just player-owned items, for a MMO with millions of players is a major technical accomplishment \u2013 I am not aware of any other large-scale MMO that has tried to deliver this level of persistence.\nPES is the headline feature of Star Citizen Alpha 3.18, and while we didn\u2019t manage to release to LIVE before the end of 2022, it is currently in wave 1 of PTU (Public Test Universe \u2013 the testbed wherein we harden patches with the community\u2019s help before we deem the patch stable enough for LIVE release) and there are already lots of community videos and posts about the emergent gameplay that is enabled by PES, especially when combined with some other 3.18 features such as Salvage and \u201csoft\u201d death (where the ship doesn\u2019t blow up into pieces, but instead becomes disabled, allowing players to survive a once-fatal event and attackers to board and potentially loot the disabled ship).\nPES is an example of how all your support has enabled Star Citizen to expand its boundaries and possibilities.\nBut the community\u2019s contribution goes much further than funding Star Citizen\u2019s development, as contributing ideas, giving feedback, and testing the various updates we release are all part of the symbiotic relationship between Cloud Imperium and the Star Citizen community. There are plenty of features and content that I, and the development team, dream up, but there are equally many things that come from you, the community. The development of Star Citizen is a fusion of the development team and the community playing it; ideas are passed back and forth, made better, released, tested, and iterated on. Some of the recent racetracks that debuted in 3.17.2 and now in 3.18 are the result of the community finding interesting areas to race around, which in turn inspired developers to flesh them out and start to add time trial functionality to the ship HUDs. This is just one example; there are too many others to list in detail as this same dynamic happens with everything in Star Citizen. Your actions in the \u2018verse inspire the Star Citizen team to improve and push the boundaries even further.\nAnd what is even more exciting is that this community grows larger every year. More and more people discover Star Citizen through their friends, online videos or people streaming their gameplay, are then intrigued and jump into the \u2018verse.\n\nIn my Letter from the Chairman in May of this year, I mentioned just how strongly we started 2022 in terms of new players joining the \u2018verse. This trend has continued through the rest of the year fueled by Invictus Launch Week and then continued with the release of Alpha 3.17.2, which really should have been numbered as a full patch due to the number of features, content and optimizations that we put in it, knowing that Alpha 3.18 was going to take extra time due to the complexity of PES. The biggest headline of 3.17.2 was the increase in server capacity from 50 players to over 100 players, which was enabled by the ongoing multi-threading and optimization work the engine and gameplay teams had been working on in the background. This enabled a more active and busier PU for players and allowed for some truly spectacular player-driven events like 100+ person fleet battles or ship meets.\nIn November we released Alpha 3.17.4 just in time for the 2952 edition of IAE, which debuted two new flyable ships in the Drake Cutter and Corsair, as well as the RSI Galaxy, a large modular multi-role ship that has been added to the ship production pipeline, and a playable nifty off-road vehicle, the Greycat Sports Terrain Vehicle (STV). We also added servers in Hong Kong for our exploding player base in Asia Pacific. All of this combined with the return of Jumptown and our other Dynamic Events like XenoThreat and Nine Tails Lockdown kept the \u2018verse more engaged and active than any year previously!\n\nAnother Record-Breaking Year of Growth\nWhile our most passionate players test 3.18 in PTU, and our developers take a well-deserved break, I wanted to share with you some truly momentous stats from this year that illustrate that Star Citizen had its best year yet and crossed some historic milestones that demonstrate this game we all love is finally breaking into the larger gaming consciousness with a success that is greater and faster than we anticipated.\nThis year, over 1 million unique players logged into Star Citizen and played our game. And they did so for more than 46 million hours.\nOur Daily Active Users (DAU) this year, i.e. unique players logging in each day, has grown 50% over last year, and is double what it was at the end of 2019. This year, we are also averaging over 240,000 Monthly Active Users, which is 33% higher than our average MAU from last year, with highs of over 400,000 during May with this year\u2019s Invictus Launch Week.\n\nThose of you who follow our Funding Tracker doubtless know that we had already eclipsed all last year\u2019s revenues by mid-November, and will have our first 0 million+ year ever (and by a fair margin). You can also read a more in-depth report of our 2021 financials here. But as great as 2021 was \u2013 which was remarkable for growing beyond the COVID-bolstered revenues of 2020 \u2013 we managed to grow 30% beyond 2021!\nWhere does all that revenue go? Right back into development, as we\u2019ve hired more than ever before and continued to build out our Squadron 42 and Persistent Universe teams. It\u2019s no secret that our two games and our technology are among the most complex and complicated endeavors in the gaming and even tech industry; we\u2019re doing things with our engine that are truly groundbreaking. And it takes talent and time to achieve the ambitious goals we\u2019ve set for ourselves. And so even as we grow, we invest all that growth back into our teams through hiring and retaining our critical talent.\nA huge portion of our growing revenue has come exclusively from New Players that only joined Star Citizen this year. In fact, this year, we witnessed truly explosive growth. Over 800,000 New Accounts were created this year to follow or play our project. Our New Players this year have almost doubled this year, compared to last year, with over half a million new players joining us during Free Flies, Dynamic Events, and throughout 2022. And of those new players this year, over 70% of them stayed around as paying players who purchased starter packs to get access to the Star Citizen Alpha to keep their adventures going in the \u2018verse.\n\n\nBar Citizen World Tour & CitizenCon\nThroughout 2022, members of our team had the opportunity to attend various Bar Citizen events around the globe. We are grateful for the chance to connect with all of you at these events, especially those who are farther from our offices. The past few years during the pandemic have reminded us of the importance and significance of in-person events, and there is nothing quite like the energy and excitement of Bar Citizen. Seeing and experiencing your passion and support in-person energizes us for the work ahead. We have always been inspired by the creativity and camaraderie at these events, and we believe they will continue to be a highlight of our community for years to come.\nFor these reasons, and many more, I\u2019m happy to share that we plan to continue this initiative in 2023. Our Community Team is always interested in learning about upcoming events in your area, so be sure to share your events on Spectrum.\n\nAnd in case you missed it, Sandi Roberts also recently announced that in-person CitizenCon will be returning in 2023, in Los Angeles. We are looking forward to seeing you all there for a day of celebrating the Star Citizen Universe with fellow community members. We\u2019ll share more information as soon as we have it, so stay tuned for more details on the event.\n\nNew Places to Call Home\nIn my last letter, we shared some early imagery of our new Manchester and Frankfurt offices that were previously under construction. I am happy to report we have now moved into both offices, Frankfurt at the end of August and Manchester in mid-October. Having our staff together in the office makes a huge difference to our teamwork. We\u2019ve struggled at times to hit our goals for 2022, and while we will always achieve incredible things at Cloud Imperium Games, I have personally seen a significant change in pace towards the end of the year resulting from most of us being in the office, which we were finally able to achieve once our two new offices in Frankfurt and Manchester were ready to be occupied. The huge new offices in downtown Manchester were especially important as we had grown way beyond the capacity of the old Wilmslow office during the pandemic and so could not properly return to office until we had the extra space.\nNow that our teams have moved back in, we\u2019re especially eager to give you all a tour of our new facilities. We plan to do just that in the coming months as we wrap up final touches on the facilities. You can expect a video tour, alongside the return of periodic studio tours for those looking to visit us in-person (of course, with limited capacity when available).\nWe\u2019re also planning on opening our doors for a couple of fun in-house events for our Concierge and Subscribers \u2013 stay tuned for more information on that in the new year.\n\nStar Citizen Alpha 3.18\nLast week we opened the gates and welcomed Wave 1 testers to check out the latest content and technologies in Star Citizen Alpha 3.18. This upcoming patch release marks a giant technical leap forward on Star Citizen's journey to deliver the uncompromising and near-limitless universe that we\u2019ve all been dreaming of. Far from our typical quarterly patch, this release introduces fundamental changes to our entire backend, bringing an all-new set of backend services, granting universal persistence, and even the mass migration of the entire game-state into the cloud, which is a tremendous undertaking and accomplishment for our teams.\n\nSince hitting Wave 1, tens of thousands of you have dived in to experience the long-awaited salvage profession, an entirely new economic and non-combat career path for pilots in the \u2018verse. The ability to salvage will allow pilots to retrieve valuable materials from target ships and sell them for profit. The new salvage profession is supported through the addition of new technology and tools including a complete cargo refactor, giving cargo a physical representation in-game. Alpha 3.18 also includes the launch of the Drake Interplanetary Vulture, a new entry-level flyable salvage ship in the Drake lineup of vessels, perfect for pilots beginning their career in salvage, alongside updated functionality so Reclaimer pilots can finally utilize their behemoth of a ship.\nWhile salvage, new racetracks, new POIs, and some of the other visual stimulating mechanics will take the spotlight, the largest change to our universe comes from powerful work under the hood, with Persistent Entity Streaming (PES). With this new tech, all physical objects moved or placed by players will be dynamically tracked on the server they were moved on and remain in their new locations. PES represents the largest technical update in the game\u2019s history and is a critical addition in laying the foundation for future technology and full in-game persistence that will unlock a new level of immersion in the \u2018verse\n\nAs we move towards making 3.18 stable enough to release to the Live service I\u2019d like to give a special shoutout to everyone who has been testing 3.18 so far on the Public Test Servers \u2013 especially those from our dedicated Evocati group, who put many hard hours in when the patch was in its roughest and most frustrating state. Thanks to your efforts, we\u2019ve been able to iterate in real-time and implement improvements and fixes quicker than ever.\n\nLooking Forward \u2013 The Road to Alpha 4.0\nThis coming year is going to be a huge one for Star Citizen, possibly its biggest one to date!\nThe first order of business is to continue to stabilize Alpha 3.18 so we can release to the Live servers in January, once the team is back from their well-earned Holiday break.\nThen we will continue to \u201charden\u201d PES, improving aspects and adding some additional quality of life features including the ability to choose which PES Shard you would like to join. The current game server \/ PES shard matchmaking tries to match you to the last PES shard you were in when you log back in or recover from a crash, but if that shard is full, it places you in a different one. But in the short term, before Server Meshing makes this not so necessary, we also want to give players the choice to wait in a queue for their preferred shard if it is full.\nThe next step will be to separate the Replication Layer (RL), the in-memory cache that remembers all dynamic object's state, from the Game Server and have scalable RL workers that communicate the state changes between the various game clients, servers, and the RL.\nThis is very important for Server Meshing, as universe state needs to be fully decoupled from server state. It will also make Star Citizen much more crash resilient on the client side as a server crash will no longer take down the RL as well, meaning that clients can stay connected while a new server takes over where the last one left off. It will also have the added benefit of having the view every client has of the universe around it be a little more fluid with less lag as the client\u2019s update and refresh of object state will no longer be tied to the tick rate of the game server. This means players will see state changes from other remote clients and game servers as they happen at the rates the various clients and servers push them.\nOnce this happens, we\u2019ll be able to have multiple game servers communicate with the RL (much like multiple game clients communicate right now with the RL) allowing Star Citizen to have multiple servers simulating the universe\u2019s state, which we call Server Meshing (SM).\nWe will start with Static Server Meshing, where different servers are assigned to simulate different Entity Zones in a star system. Entity Zones, sometimes referred to as Local Grids, are separate simulation areas; the inside of a spaceship is a different Zone to the space around which the spaceship flies. A planet is a different Zone than the Star System Zone where all the planets and moons exist in, and a landing zone can also be a different Zone, nested inside the Planet Zone, nested in the Star System Zone.\nAt first, the servers will be bound to fixed Zones but we will quickly move to Dynamic Server Meshing V1, where we assign servers dynamically to Entity Zones, based on gameplay and simulation load. This will be a much more efficient use of the servers in the cloud, as you only need servers where the players are, whereas with Static SM you have servers assigned to Zones, even if there are no players there.\nDynamic Server Meshing V2 will take this dynamic assignment of servers one step further by subdividing Entity Zones into \u201csimulation islands\u201d (this is organizing the dynamic objects in one Zone \/ Local Grid into different groups, based on which objects can interact \/ collide with each other), allowing these islands to be distributed between servers to again help balance simulation load.\nAt this point we should be able to handle tens of thousands of players all playing in the same PES universe shard, bringing Star Citizen much closer to the ultimate goal of a huge living universe densely populated with players and AI.\nOnce we achieve Static Server Meshing, we can open the universe of Star Citizen to other star systems, starting with Pyro. By having authority pass from one server to another, you\u2019ll be able to transition seamlessly (without the need to log out of game) between star systems.\n\nWe are aiming to put Static Server Meshing and Pyro into the hands of players in the fourth quarter of 2023. The large caveat with this goal is that complicated engineering work that involves a completely new paradigm, requires a host of new backend services, and technology is hard to estimate and schedule accurately as the issues and problems that can come up along the way are hard to foresee as no one has implemented this system before, and plans rarely survive contact with the users, especially at scale. This has been true for PES, as it is no secret that we were hoping to have Alpha 3.18 and PES release to Live by end of the year as opposed to just the PTU. Delays in finalizing 3.18 and PES impact the team\u2019s ability to start on the next stage, and we still have the unknowns of how PES performs after months of heavy load, and people seeing exactly how much space junk they can leave around!\nBeyond this, there are a host of other exciting features and content we have planned for 2023; Pyro with its assorted planets, moons, settlements, space stations and assorted factions and AI population being the headline, but we also will be rolling out the New Item Resource system in ships which replaces the old pipe system with a much more dynamic and scalable system to allow for truly emergent behavior (in fact elements of this new system can already be seen in 3.18 in the Salvage gameplay), Bounty Hunting with a full tracking system and the ability to actively restrain and transport both players and AI, Persistent Hangars with freight elevators allowing you to call up your stored inventory or place things into storage. Towards the end of the year, we should see some of the more Squadron 42 related work arrive in Star Citizen; more flexible player traversal, especially on ladders and ledges, a greatly improved interaction system, FPS scanning, the new Star Map, MFDs using the more performant and flexible building blocks UI system and much deeper combat AI. Now that the Gen 12 renderer is functioning in 3.18, the Graphics team will work on multi-threading improvements and optimizations for the renderer as well as hook up the Vulkan Graphics API to it, to unlock some of the performance gains that the Gen 12 renderer can provide.\nThere are numerous more things the Star Citizen team are working on for this coming year, but this letter is already long enough!\n\nFinal Thoughts\nLooking back on 2022, it has been gratifying to see Cloud Imperium and the Star Citizen community grow. We ended the year with 861 employees, and the Community grew to more than 4 million accounts and 1.8M \u201cbackers\u201d (accounts that have purchased Star Citizen).\nWe\u2019ve achieved a lot this year, including our moves into two wonderful new homes for most of our staff. We fell short on a few others, like having 3.18 and PES fully live before the end of the year, but this is the nature of game development that tries to boldly go where no game has gone before!\nWhat has especially been great is just how much more time people are spending playing Star Citizen this year. This had a lot to do with the increased player count and improved stability, but also Star Citizen, even in its Alpha state is already feature and content rich with a huge number of things to do, with your friends or solo, and this list grows larger with every patch.\n\nThe universe and how you interact with it is up to you; from exploring, to hauling, trading, mining, salvage, refueling, refining, bounty hunting, piracy, to being a hired gun to just sightseeing and being a social butterfly.\nAnd that is just what we have now \u2013 in the future you\u2019ll be able to farm or gather other resources, build, craft and sell. The universe of Star Citizen is a huge sandbox for everyone to play in and I couldn\u2019t be more excited by what the future holds.\nStar Citizen is more than just a game, it is an escape to another reality where anyone can pursue their imagination, not bound to a single playstyle or profession, where they can interact with other players that share in the same common dream.\nI feel incredibly lucky and privileged to have the opportunity to pursue this dream with the amazingly talented team at Cloud Imperium and the support and patience of the best community in gaming, the Star Citizen community!\nFrom all of us at Cloud Imperium, we wish you all a happy New Year and can\u2019t wait to continue the journey with you in 2023."},"links_count":0,"comment_count":0,"created_at":"2022-12-30T23:00:00+00:00","created_at_human":"3 years ago"},"meta":{"processed_at":"2026-05-08 10:47:49","valid_relations":["images","links"],"prev_id":19076,"next_id":19079}}