{"data":{"id":19082,"title":"Star Citizen Monthly Report: November & December 2022","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/comm-link\/SCW\/19082-API","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-links\/19082","api_public_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/comm-links\/19082","channel":"Undefined","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":23,"translations":{"en_EN":"PU Monthly Report\nNovember\/December 2022\nWelcome to November and December\u2019s PU Monthly Report, which combines everything worked on during the last two months of 2022.\nRead on for everything done to round out last year, including new tech for Alpha 3.18, updates to narrative content, and the development of all-new vehicles.\n\n\nAI (Features)\nAI Features ended the year supporting, investigating, and fixing bugs for Alpha 3.18.\n\nAI (Tech)\nDuring the last months of 2022, the AI Tech team progressed with features required for both the Persistent Universe and Squadron 42.\n\nThe team continued to iterate on more complex navigation links to extend the capabilities of NPCs and where they\u2019re able to move to, including implementing adapters for airlocks and elevators. Now, NPCs will know that in order to traverse an airlock, they will need to interact with multiple consoles to adjust the pressure and open the door. For Elevators, navigation links were created to connect multiple floors. A navigation link was also created to request a reconnection with the navigation mesh triangles each time an elevator stops at a floor to allow NPCs to transition in and out. Based on navigation link connections, an NPC will now know how to request an elevator to go to a specific floor. New event notifications were also added, sent by the elevator when it arrives at a floor, so that the actor will know to get on or off.\n\nAt the end of the year, the base functionality for NPCs driving ground vehicles was completed. NPCs can now move to a vehicle and get into the driver\u2019s seat, find a path suitable for the size of the vehicle, and drive along it. This work involved the creation of a new Subsumption task, a new movement request type, and updating the movement planner to know how to process the request. The team also added new functionality to the navigation systems that marks entities to be ignored during navigation-mesh generation.\n\nNPC perception was another major topic worked on toward the end of the year. The team implemented a new adapter for action areas to specify lightness\/darkness, which will influence NPCs' visual perception.\n\nA new extender to propagate engine sounds as stimuli was also created, which will make NPCs aware of vehicles in their proximity. This was the first step toward behaviors that react to ground vehicles and spaceships.\n\nWhile working on perception improvements, the devs fixed AI visual perception through glass. Now, NPCs will be able to detect targets behind glass and also understand that, in order to shoot at them, they need to move to the other side.\n\nFor locomotion, improvements continued on the sharp-turn assets and how they\u2019re triggered for alien characters or at walking speeds. Related to this, work began on \u2018following\u2019 tech, which will be used in connection with the buddy AI behavior. For this, the team improved soft stops, collision avoidance with players, and speed handling based on the leader\u2019s change in speed.\n\nFor the Apollo Subsumption tool, new functionality was added to create and modify the Subsumption mastergraph. A lot of feedback from the designers was implemented, including the addition of an interface to create roles and sub-roles, find reference functionality, improved interaction with functions and the multigraph tab, and improvements to grid snapping.\n\nAnimation\nThe end of 2022 saw Facial Animation supporting various trailers and other needs. They also shot motion capture for some background character animations that will be used in the PU.\n\nArt (Characters)\nAt the end of 2022, Character Art finished tasks for the frontier workwear outfits and frontier undersuits. They also fixed various bugs related to clipping.\n\nCharacter Concept Art polished concept handoffs for the frontier outfits and continued with concept exploration on fauna and the Duster faction.\n\nArt (Ships)\nIn the US, the Ship team made the finishing touches to the Drake Corsair. Once complete, they moved onto the whitebox stages of two new vehicles. For one, they brainstormed several options for entering and exiting. Whitebox began on a new production vehicle too.\n\nThe UK team completed their pass on the salvage feature, ensuring all major visual and gameplay issues were resolved for ship exteriors.\n\nThey then began work on the Crusader Spirit, which is progressing through the whitebox phase.\n\n\u201cThe biggest challenge has been ensuring that the escape raft on the VIP variant is fully functional at this early stage so we can avoid extra work in the future.\u201d Ship Team\n\nThe bulk of whitebox work was also completed for an unannounced vehicle, and development began on an all-new small ship.\n\nCommunity\nThe Community team started November with a Cargo Refactor AMA, which included details of the new Soft Death mechanic.\n\nThey then supported the Intergalactic Aerospace Expo (IAE) 2952, including publishing the Best in Show Prizes, an in-depth IAE Traveler's Guide, the Free Fly Schedule, updates to the New Player Guide, and a dedicated IAE 2952 FAQ. They also launched a Drake-themed screenshot contest, where players faced a unique challenge each day of the expo.\n\nFollowing their reveals at IAE, the team curated and published Q&A posts for the Drake Cutter, the Anvil C8R Pisces, and the RSI Galaxy.\n\nIn the approach to the holidays, Community released the Luminalia Calendar and Luminalia 2952 referral bonus. They also supported the Luminalia Screenshot Contest, Luminalia Holiday Card Contest, and Holiday Mayhem at Jumptown.\n\nIn support of some of Alpha 3.18\u2019s lesser-publicized features, the Community published three Patch Watch posts, detailing Balancing Keys, Continued Lawlessness, and the latest iteration of Jumptown.\n\nThe team also spent time working on a few new web-based programs, and further improvements coming to the Guide System, Community Hub, and Spectrum.\n\nEngine\nNovember and December were busy months for the Physics team. Aside from plenty of bug fixing and supporting Alpha 3.18, they worked on various optimizations. For example, the cost of performing part OBB vs grid cell overlap checks was amortized by performing them in one call for a grid node instead of cell by cell. Also, sub stepping for attached and AI-controlled NPCs on the server was disabled to bring back actor entity step performance. Several internal data structures were compacted and reordered for a smaller memory footprint and better member alignment.\n\nOn the renderer, the team enabled the Gen12 pipeline and scene rendering by default (this will be featured in Alpha 3.18), which is a major milestone on the road toward completing the Gen12 transition and providing a Vulkan backend. Following October\u2019s work on particles, further substantial progress was made. Gen12 refraction and half-resolution rendering support for GPU particles was added, the particle stage and GPU handler refactored, and particle shader background compilation was enabled. Furthermore, particles split for each hierarchy level are now updated in a way that ensures UAV resources stay consistent across each pass and don't change. Moreover, debug visualization code for various systems was ported to Gen12, and PSO caching for projectiles and particles was improved.\n\nRegarding atmosphere and volumetric clouds, an initial draft of a new temporal render mode was submitted and will continue to be worked on in the coming months to provide better rendering performance of raymarched volumetric clouds and atmosphere. Furthermore, various options for refined cloud shaping were brainstormed with Tech Art and will hopefully find their way into a release soon.\n\nOn core engine, the team completed work on v2 of p4k data file support for the engine, game, and tool side. On that note, the system now also provides an efficient lock mechanism for legacy pak files as well as much faster access to files inside pak files (embedded in the main p4k data file), both of which significantly improve the loading of object containers. Additionally, the mapping of threads on Intel CPUs with P\/E cores was rewritten - critical threads such as main, render, and network threads are ensured to always run on performance cores to avoid the otherwise poor performance on affected CPUs. These changes are currently being verified on the PTU. Also, support for page sizes larger than 4kb (aka huge pages) was added to the engine (at the moment on Linux only). It's currently used for stack, text, and data segments, as well as physics allocations. Using huge pages reduces the pressure on the TLB cache, the part of the CPU translating virtual to physical addresses, which should help with performance. With Clang, just moving the text segment to huge pages gave a 7% speedup. Furthermore, the latest version of Bink2 was integrated and a few audio related bugs fixed in video playback (manifesting themselves as random clicks during playback).\n\nAnother area that progressed well was the remote shader compile server used to build shader caches, etc. Due to increased usage of the server by development teams and the build process, proper support for fallback agents as well as server throttling was implemented to deal with times of extreme load and to allow for more distributed compilation. At that point, it also made sense to rewrite various parts of the server code to allow for more robustness, better logging, and increased performance. Lastly, shape unification was completed and entity area support was added. A copy\/paste bug in the entity aggregate manager that caused a lot of unnecessary memory access was fixed, and vis area loading was refactored to support batch conversion from previous versions of serialized vis area data.\n\nThe remainder of the time was spent supporting Alpha 3.18.\n\nFeatures (Arena Commander)\nThe majority of the team\u2019s end-of-year focus was on making final improvements for Alpha 3.18.\n\nWork continued on the classic race refactor, including taking the Snake Pit, Euterpe Icebreaker, and Miner's Lament courses to play-testable states. This allowed Features to collect feedback from several other teams. A refactor of the race manager and checkpoint system then began, with the aim to create a more robust, future-proof system that can be used by the PU teams to create races around the \u2018verse. Design also began developing additional variants of holographic checkpoints and directional arrows for each track, which will vary in style to best suit the setting. Finally for racing, work was completed on the Old Vanderval, Rikkord Memorial Raceway, and Defford Link racetracks.\n\nImprovements were made to the new frontend, including a new window for game-mode selection, an updated style, and the restoration of singleplayer using a rewritten lobby system that also supports multiplayer. This allows other teams to use the new frontend Arena Commander feature stream for greater feedback.\n\nInvestigation then began into adding turrets to the Jericho Station and Dying Star maps to either assist or hinder the player in Vanduul and Pirate Swarm game modes. Work was also done to speed up and ease the process of taking locations from the Persistent Universe and have them featured as maps in Arena Commander, which is currently being used for several upcoming racetracks.\n\nThe team supported the Soft Death feature. A refactor of the \u2018GameRulesRoundsModule\u2019 began, which allows Star Marine's Last Stand mode to have multiple rounds. This refactor enables it in all game modes should the Design team choose. Duel Mode will be the first to utilize this and will allow players to begin a new round with a restocked ship after each kill.\n\nWork was also completed on the reworked system used to ban or allow vehicles and weapons in each game mode. This system provides greater customization for the developers, such as setting up a new mode that only allows a certain vehicle. This is used in Alpha 3.18 during Filtered Duel Mode, Squadron Battle, and Battle Royale to only allow small and medium combat ships. The first pass on new death cameras, which point to the player that killed you while moving and zooming dynamically, was submitted and enabled for all game modes too.\n\nFinally, work was submitted for an unannounced update to a classic Arena Commander mode, which will be further detailed in the coming months.\n\nFeatures (Characters & Weapons)\nThroughout November, the team added support for tractor beams snapping boxes onto cargo grids. This included a holographic preview to assist with moving loot into a ship.\n\nThey also revisited the feature behind dragging an unconscious body into a medical bed. This is being made more generic so that bodies can be placed into other appropriately sized objects. As part of this, several improvements are being made to the flow itself to make it more robust and forgiving.\n\nThe team also supported the upcoming patch release with improvements to player respawn and the reconnection flow. Additional time was spent ensuring all new inventory UI features are working as expected too. The team then investigated issue logs for a bug that caused the inventory UI to load indefinitely, with multiple fixes being added to the build.\n\nOn the technical animation side, additional features were added to the inverse-kinematics (IK) system to allow for more of the mo-cap performance to come through. This will help when adjusting limbs via IK while doing actions such as pressing buttons or manipulating weapon attachments. These kinds of dynamic IK-driven adjustments are required to avoid enforcing very strict metrics to environments, weapons, and gadgets.\n\nFeatures (Gameplay)\nToward the end of the year, Gameplay Features worked on hull scraping for Alpha 3.18, including reacting to feedback threads on Spectrum and adjusting gameplay to match the goals for the first iteration of Salvage. Additionally, filler-station functionality was expanded to allow players to create several useful items for hull scraping.\n\nThe team also continued with Resource Management, including life support and artificial gravity. This included a redesign of the previous engineering UI (last seen at CitizenCon) to give a clearer, more modern design to support the vast amount of functionalities that will be expected.\n\nAdditionally, groundwork began for vehicle tractor beams. The next steps will be creating the tractor-beam UI and expanding the feature to support its proper functionalities.\n\nThe mining update continued, with changes made to the Argo MOLE and MISC Prospector to create bigger differences between the individual and multiplayer aspects. The first rebalancing pass was done for all mining heads, sub-items, and gadgets to support the updated approach to resource distribution. This involves new variances for minables to ensure they\u2019re distributed in a more controlled fashion throughout Stanton and support future crafting releases.\n\nFeatures (Mission)\nMission Features spent the end of the year enacting improvements and bug fixes to missions for Alpha 3.18, including issues seen on YouTube, Twitch, Reddit, and Spectrum alongside Issue Council reports.\n\nUsing feedback from Evocati and Wave 1 PTU, they also implemented analytics events into time-trial missions and began analyzing the results to balance the missions\u2019 target times. This data is also being used to determine the final unlock order for when mission progression is implemented. This analytics reviewing and balancing will continue until it\u2019s live.\n\nFor Security Post Kareah, the team addressed an issue with a secret item not working correctly. They also changed the way the datapad on the security chief spawned and adjusted the turrets as they were respawning too quickly. The trespass timer length was also increased. The team are currently looking into an issue with missions not generating for the Crusader Mercenary scope and are continuing to investigate other known issues that have been raised.\n\nFeatures (Vehicles)\nThe Vehicle Feature team worked towards porting the transit system to Alpha 3.18\u2019s new persistent tech system. Most of the core work was completed before the holidays, though some improvements continue to be implemented. Most recently, they allowed trains to slow down and wait for transit ahead of them on the track. This should fix issues with trains overlapping.\n\nThe team also implemented new set-up tools for vehicles, which allow the designers to see how the automated thruster algorithms use each thruster on a ship. This is used to see how certain thrusters are being used to move in specific directions and make necessary changes to get ships to fly how they want.\n\n\nGraphics & VFX Programming & Planet Tech\nThe VFX Programming team focused on finishing the damage map work for hull scraping. This mostly involved bug fixing and performance improvements alongside reworking the debug options for damage maps and documenting the various amendments made for the hull-scraping project. Improvements were also made to visuals, networking, serialization, and damage maps in various edge cases found during PTU testing.\n\nThe Planet Tech team focused on polishing river tech and improving resource streaming performance with a new and more aggressive threading model that guarantees a stall-free experience. Additionally, maintenance was done to stabilize the Rastar tool.\n\nMore recently, work began on the asteroid SDF to introduce support for new primitives. The team also progressed with hardware-assisted terrain instancing to improve the CPU submission time footprint.\n\nA new local space for terrain vertices representation was introduced, which will improve floating point precisions and accelerate other internal operations.\n\nFinally, the team began looking at offscreen techniques to achieve a localized water simulation model for water-object interactions.\n\nLighting\nThroughout November and December, the Lighting team completed day and night lighting passes for the time-trial racetracks. They also continued to improve all lighting aspects of the colonial outposts. This involves a lot of interior and exterior work to ensure that they fit the environment and create the intended cold or cozy feeling within the buildings.\n\nAfter small changes were made to the Jumptown Dynamic Event, a lighting pass was done on a few areas to bring them back up to the current standard and ensure that the new additions fit the existing theme.\n\nIn-Game Branding (Montreal)\nThe In-Game Branding team finished the year by completing several mandates. This included rebranding Security Post Kareah into a Crusader Security outpost and redesigning Area18\u2019s navigational signage in support of the new-player experience.\n\nAlongside the Environment, Narrative, and Marketing teams, In-Game Branding developed and implemented the visual identity for last year\u2019s Drake-themed IAE event.\n\nAs well as working directly on in-game locations and events, the team continued to develop a catalog with guidelines for each in-game brand. The goal of this upcoming internal tool is to make it easier for everyone, from production to marketing, to access information about Star Citizen\u2019s in-fiction companies and improve consistency across the project.\n\nThey ended the year working on the visual identity for this year's Invictus Launch Week, and continued the rework of Lorville.\n\nLocations (EU)\nThroughout November and December, EU Locations 1 continued working on the rundown Pyro space station. With more designers now on the team, they made great progress on the layout of each room and are currently exploring interesting gameplay options across the location.\n\nEU Locations 2 worked alongside the US-based PU team to add new cargo elevators into existing hangars, which will be used during the updated cargo gameplay.\n\nPre-production of the local law office location began, which will be essential for several upcoming gameplay loops. They also worked on IAE and the new-player experience, the latter of which involved improving existing landing zones for new visitors.\n\nEU Sandbox 2 wrapped up the year with further exploration and experimentation for the underground facilities. They also finished the sand caves' visual target, worked to set the benchmark for rock caves in the PU, and began looking into improving and adding to microTech\u2019s forest.\n\nNarrative\nToward the end of the year, the Narrative team assisted with the new Security Post Kareah and Klescher Rehabilitation mission content.\n\nThey then coordinated with Design on the new time-trial racing missions. Along with mission text, Narrative introduced Wildstar Racing into Star Citizen lore to create an organization responsible for arranging the races.\n\n\u201cTheir backstory is that they began as a group of racing enthusiasts who would share vids of themselves racing on their favorite local tracks. Since then, they have grown into a sanctioned racing organization specializing in rally tracks and are widely recognized as an affordable proving ground for amateur racers to work towards competing in higher-profile leagues.\u201d Narrative Team\n\nFor future patches, Narrative began planning new mining and salvage missions, which will help expand the career choices available through the Contract Manager. Work also continued on investigation missions, with several new mysteries for players to solve being developed. Additionally, the team discussed sandbox mission content, where players will encounter missions in the universe without accepting a specific contract beforehand.\n\nThe team also planned a reorganization of how in-game text is sorted. The internal tool developed to house all the game text strings is used by many different departments and it has become clear that a new folder structure would help clarify where certain strings should be placed. Now that planning is complete, the hope is to roll out the reorganization in the upcoming year. Time was also spent updating some of the detailed planetary conditions, such as temperature and atmospheric content, for upcoming star systems to more closely align with the intended gameplay and solar positioning.\n\nThe end of the year also brought a variety of lore, including a Portfolio about the History of the IAE, a new Clean Shot with predictions about the expo, a Loremakers: Community Questions, the Hazy Days short story, an A Word from Our Sponsors post featuring some Luminalia adverts, and a selection of Galactapedia posts for November and December.\n\nFinally, the Narrative team also announced that 2023 will bring changes to the website\u2019s lore release schedule.\n\nInteractables\nThe Interactables team continued their work on Pyro, creating more advanced and unique assets, including stalls that can be found in the rundown station.\n\nPrototyping continued on deployables.\n\n\u201cThese assets take a long time to figure out and overcome unforeseen challenges that are presented by other teams to ensure that they do not hinder gameplay.\u201d Interactables Team\n\nIn December, fixes were made for the current in-game coffee machines. Soon, players will be able to take select cups to these machines and have infinite cups of coffee.\n\nProgress was also made on a new template for an asset that will be integral to bounty hunting, which is running alongside Environment Art\u2019s bounty-hunting office.\n\nFinally, the team started pre-production on lootable content, including improving the current loot pool.\n\nTech Art\/Animation\nAt the end of 2022, Tech Art completed a dirt\/wear pass for all cockpit glass to ensure the pilot\u2019s vision isn\u2019t obscured. A similar pass for turret glass is planned for a future update.\n\nThe Graphics team delivered mesh-tagging tech that will be used in Alpha 3.18 and beyond to fix various lighting issues on ship turrets, ramps, and doors. This enables the devs to tag a mesh that moves between zones to receive interior, exterior, or automatic transition lighting. This will help with most related problems. They also worked alongside the ship artists and engineers to enable shader damage for hull scraping on all vehicles in the game.\n\nNew ramp physics collision types were added to the Drake Corsair. One allows the tip of the ramp to ignore terrain, while a hidden wheel-only collision helps small vehicles and wheeled trolleys traverse gaps.\n\nIn the ship pipeline, the team closed out the Drake Vulture, while the Corsair and Cutter received updated debris, SDF volumes, landing systems, vis area\/portal optimizations, new segmented turret vis-areas in turrets, and local grid and lift and ramp tech. The team also further developed the MISC Hull C\u2019s interior walkway animation, which syncs with the exterior hull transform animation. The final walkway will be a skinned asset with 10 sliding rings connected by stretchy tubing.\n\nTech Animation spent the year\u2019s latter months focusing on head-asset processing.\n\n\u201cWe\u2019ve been taking some long-overdue actors and starting the internal processing procedure to create their likenesses. This includes creating over 78 scans per head asset and processing them to the neutral head asset. Some of these actors were scanned over seven years ago on the main shoot for SQ42, so they look quite different these days!\u201d Tech Animation Team\n\nThe team take these complex scans and break them down into individual muscle movements and apply them to the facial rig asset, ultimately including them in the gene pool to give more variety to the heads and faces seen in-game.\n\nOnline Services (Montreal)\nThe Online Services team spent the majority of November and December on Alpha 3.18 stabilization, performance improvements, and bug fixing.\n\nTime was also spent time with the DevOps Publishing team, production-tuning the new services and new graph database used by Persistent Entity Streaming.\n\nSignificant effort was also spent tracking down edge cases in the new Character Repair that will replace the current Character Reset, with an emphasis of finding possible exploits and potential failure points in the process.\n\nLive Tools (Montreal)\nThe Live Tools team focused on developing features related to Persistent Entity Streaming, including the new log-in flow module implemented into the network operation center. Now, users can manage entitlements directly through Hex, which is a major step forward.\n\nAnother tool related to Persistent Entity Streaming is the Entity Graph tool, which was further developed and implemented. This module offers the ability to search and visualize the various entities attached to a player or an account and the associated details.\n\nThose new modules provide more versatility to Hex and contribute to making it a powerful tool for investigations and issues solving.\n\nTurbulent (Web Platform)\nThe end of 2022 saw Turbulent adding to the Alexandria tool library with a new module called Grid. The Grid tool gives content creators another way to present information and was first used in the Luminalia calendar. The team also progressed well with the SSV project, which provides the ability to adjust the color palette of any themes.\n\n\u201cThis tremendously complex project saw the dev and design teams come together in the most creative ways.\u201d Turbulent Web Platform Team\n\nThey also continued to add to the manufacturing library, this time adding Origin Jumpworks.\n\nTurbulent\u2019s Experience team focused on reworking the initial new-user flow, from selecting a starter package to downloading and entering the game. December saw them start development after many months of design iteration and technical decision making.\n\nThe Community team continued to polish the Community Hub, with a majority of the new feature set to be released in early 2023, including better connection to large events and player-generated content.\n\nFinally for Turbulent, the Architecture team put numerous hours into the PHP 8 upgrade. After six months in the making, it hit the production environment and was warmly welcomed by the wider development team.\n\nVFX\nThrough November and December, the VFX team worked through tasks for Alpha 3.18. This included putting the finishing touches to new vehicles and lots of task-pool and snag-list fixes and tweaks. They also continued to support salvage effects, making adjustments after seeing some inconsistencies in backer footage of PTU Wave 1.\n\nVFX also began to plan for the overwhelming-but-necessary restructuring of their generic effects libraries. These libraries contain the most commonly used effects, including smoke, steam, and sparks, and have become too bloated over the years. In the months ahead, the team will be reducing the number of individual effects living in the libraries while making visual improvements as they go along.","de_DE":"PU-Monatsbericht\nNovember\/Dezember 2022\nWillkommen zum PU-Monatsbericht f\u00fcr November und Dezember, der alles zusammenfasst, woran in den letzten beiden Monaten des Jahres 2022 gearbeitet wurde.\nLies weiter, um zu erfahren, was im letzten Jahr alles gemacht wurde, darunter neue Technologien f\u00fcr Alpha 3.18, Updates f\u00fcr erz\u00e4hlerische Inhalte und die Entwicklung neuer Fahrzeuge.\n\n\nKI (Features)\nDer Bereich KI-Features beendete das Jahr mit der Unterst\u00fctzung, Untersuchung und Behebung von Fehlern f\u00fcr Alpha 3.18.\n\nKI (Technik)\nIn den letzten Monaten des Jahres 2022 arbeitete das KI (Tech)-Team an neuen Funktionen f\u00fcr das Persische Universum und Squadron 42.\n\nDas Team arbeitete weiter an komplexeren Navigationsverbindungen, um die F\u00e4higkeiten der NSCs und ihre Bewegungsm\u00f6glichkeiten zu erweitern, einschlie\u00dflich der Implementierung von Adaptern f\u00fcr Luftschleusen und Aufz\u00fcge. Jetzt wissen NSCs, dass sie, um eine Luftschleuse zu durchqueren, mit mehreren Konsolen interagieren m\u00fcssen, um den Druck einzustellen und die T\u00fcr zu \u00f6ffnen. F\u00fcr Aufz\u00fcge wurden Navigationslinks erstellt, um mehrere Stockwerke miteinander zu verbinden. Au\u00dferdem wurde ein Navigationslink erstellt, der jedes Mal, wenn ein Aufzug in einem Stockwerk anh\u00e4lt, eine erneute Verbindung mit den Dreiecken des Navigationsnetzes anfordert, damit die NSCs ein- und aussteigen k\u00f6nnen. Anhand der Navigationsverbindungen wei\u00df ein NSC nun, wie er einen Aufzug zu einem bestimmten Stockwerk anfordern kann. Au\u00dferdem wurden neue Ereignisbenachrichtigungen hinzugef\u00fcgt, die der Aufzug sendet, wenn er in einem Stockwerk ankommt, damit der Akteur wei\u00df, dass er ein- oder aussteigen muss.\n\nEnde des Jahres wurde die Basisfunktionalit\u00e4t f\u00fcr NSCs, die Bodenfahrzeuge fahren, fertiggestellt. NSCs k\u00f6nnen sich jetzt zu einem Fahrzeug bewegen und sich auf den Fahrersitz setzen, einen f\u00fcr die Gr\u00f6\u00dfe des Fahrzeugs geeigneten Weg finden und diesen entlang fahren. Diese Arbeit umfasste die Erstellung einer neuen Subsumption-Aufgabe, einer neuen Art von Bewegungsanforderung und die Aktualisierung des Bewegungsplaners, damit dieser wei\u00df, wie die Anforderung zu bearbeiten ist. Das Team f\u00fcgte auch neue Funktionen zu den Navigationssystemen hinzu, die Objekte markieren, die bei der Erstellung des Navigationsnetzes ignoriert werden sollen.\n\nDie NPC-Wahrnehmung war ein weiteres wichtiges Thema, an dem gegen Ende des Jahres gearbeitet wurde. Das Team hat einen neuen Adapter f\u00fcr Aktionsbereiche implementiert, mit dem Helligkeit\/Dunkelheit festgelegt werden kann, was die visuelle Wahrnehmung der NSCs beeinflussen wird.\n\nAu\u00dferdem wurde ein neuer Extender entwickelt, der Motorenger\u00e4usche als Stimuli weitergibt und NSCs auf Fahrzeuge in ihrer N\u00e4he aufmerksam macht. Dies war der erste Schritt zu Verhaltensweisen, die auf Bodenfahrzeuge und Raumschiffe reagieren.\n\nW\u00e4hrend der Arbeit an den Wahrnehmungsverbesserungen haben die Entwickler auch die visuelle Wahrnehmung der KI durch Glas verbessert. Jetzt k\u00f6nnen NSCs Ziele hinter Glas erkennen und verstehen auch, dass sie auf die andere Seite gehen m\u00fcssen, um auf sie zu schie\u00dfen.\n\nBei der Fortbewegung wurden die Eigenschaften f\u00fcr scharfe Kurven und die Art und Weise, wie sie bei Alien-Charakteren oder bei Gehgeschwindigkeit ausgel\u00f6st werden, weiter verbessert. In diesem Zusammenhang wurde mit der Arbeit an der Verfolgungs-Technologie begonnen, die in Verbindung mit dem Verhalten der Kumpel-KI eingesetzt wird. Dazu verbesserte das Team das sanfte Anhalten, die Kollisionsvermeidung mit Spielern und die Handhabung der Geschwindigkeit, die auf der \u00c4nderung der Geschwindigkeit des Anf\u00fchrers basiert.\n\nF\u00fcr das Apollo Subsumption Tool wurden neue Funktionen hinzugef\u00fcgt, um den Subsumption Mastergraph zu erstellen und zu ver\u00e4ndern. Viele R\u00fcckmeldungen der Designer wurden umgesetzt, z. B. die Hinzuf\u00fcgung einer Schnittstelle zum Erstellen von Rollen und Unterrollen, die Funktion zum Auffinden von Referenzen, die verbesserte Interaktion mit Funktionen und der Registerkarte Multigraph sowie Verbesserungen beim Einrasten des Rasters.\n\nAnimation\nEnde 2022 unterst\u00fctzte Facial Animation verschiedene Trailer und andere Anforderungen. Au\u00dferdem wurden Motion Capture-Aufnahmen f\u00fcr einige Animationen von Hintergrundfiguren gemacht, die in der PU verwendet werden.\n\nKunst (Charaktere)\nEnde 2022 beendete Character Art die Arbeiten an den Arbeitsanz\u00fcgen und Unteranz\u00fcgen f\u00fcr die Grenzg\u00e4nger. Au\u00dferdem wurden verschiedene Bugs im Zusammenhang mit Clipping behoben.\n\nCharacter Concept Art polierte die Konzept\u00fcbergaben f\u00fcr die Grenzoutfits und setzte die Konzepterkundung f\u00fcr die Fauna und die Duster-Fraktion fort.\n\nKunst (Schiffe)\nIn den USA hat das Schiffsteam dem Drake Corsair den letzten Schliff gegeben. Danach ging es an die Entw\u00fcrfe f\u00fcr zwei neue Fahrzeuge. F\u00fcr das eine wurden verschiedene Optionen f\u00fcr den Ein- und Ausstieg entwickelt. Auch bei einem neuen Produktionsfahrzeug wurde mit der Whitebox begonnen.\n\nDas britische Team beendete seine Arbeit an der Bergungsfunktion und stellte sicher, dass alle wichtigen visuellen und spielerischen Probleme f\u00fcr die Schiffsau\u00dfenseiten gel\u00f6st wurden.\n\nDann begannen sie mit der Arbeit an der Crusader Spirit, die sich in der Whitebox-Phase befindet.\n\n\"Die gr\u00f6\u00dfte Herausforderung war es, sicherzustellen, dass das Rettungsflo\u00df der VIP-Variante in diesem fr\u00fchen Stadium voll funktionsf\u00e4hig ist, damit wir in Zukunft zus\u00e4tzliche Arbeit vermeiden k\u00f6nnen. Schiffsteam\n\nDer Gro\u00dfteil der Whitebox-Arbeiten wurde auch f\u00fcr ein noch nicht angek\u00fcndigtes Fahrzeug abgeschlossen, und die Entwicklung eines v\u00f6llig neuen kleinen Schiffes begann.\n\nCommunity\nDas Community-Team begann den November mit einem Cargo Refactor AMA, bei dem auch Details zur neuen Soft Death-Mechanik vorgestellt wurden.\n\nAnschlie\u00dfend unterst\u00fctzten sie die Intergalactic Aerospace Expo (IAE) 2952, indem sie die Preise f\u00fcr die beste Ausstellung, einen ausf\u00fchrlichen IAE-Reisef\u00fchrer, den Zeitplan f\u00fcr Freifl\u00fcge, Aktualisierungen des Leitfadens f\u00fcr neue Spieler und eine spezielle FAQ zur IAE 2952 ver\u00f6ffentlichten. Au\u00dferdem wurde ein Screenshot-Wettbewerb zum Thema Drake gestartet, bei dem sich die Spieler\/innen an jedem Tag der Messe einer besonderen Herausforderung stellen mussten.\n\nNach den Enth\u00fcllungen auf der IAE hat das Team Q&A-Posts f\u00fcr den Drake Cutter, den Anvil C8R Pisces und den RSI Galaxy erstellt und ver\u00f6ffentlicht.\n\nKurz vor den Feiertagen ver\u00f6ffentlichte die Community den Luminalia Kalender und den Luminalia 2952 Empfehlungsbonus. Au\u00dferdem unterst\u00fctzten sie den Luminalia Screenshot Contest, den Luminalia Holiday Card Contest und das Holiday Mayhem bei Jumptown.\n\nZur Unterst\u00fctzung einiger weniger bekannter Funktionen der Alpha 3.18 ver\u00f6ffentlichte die Community drei Patch Watch-Posts, die sich mit den Balancing Keys, der fortgesetzten Gesetzlosigkeit und der neuesten Version von Jumptown befassten.\n\nDas Team arbeitete au\u00dferdem an einigen neuen webbasierten Programmen und an weiteren Verbesserungen des Guide-Systems, des Community-Hubs und des Spektrums.\n\nEngine\nNovember und Dezember waren arbeitsreiche Monate f\u00fcr das Physik-Team. Neben zahlreichen Fehlerbehebungen und der Unterst\u00fctzung der Alpha 3.18 wurde an verschiedenen Optimierungen gearbeitet. So wurden zum Beispiel die Kosten f\u00fcr die \u00dcberpr\u00fcfung der \u00dcberlappung von OBB-Teilen und Rasterzellen durch einen einzigen Aufruf f\u00fcr einen Gitterknoten amortisiert, anstatt sie Zelle f\u00fcr Zelle durchzuf\u00fchren. Au\u00dferdem wurde das Sub-Stepping f\u00fcr angeh\u00e4ngte und KI-gesteuerte NSCs auf dem Server deaktiviert, um die Leistung der Actor-Entity-Steps zu verbessern. Mehrere interne Datenstrukturen wurden komprimiert und neu geordnet, um den Speicherplatzbedarf zu verringern und die Ausrichtung der Mitglieder zu verbessern.\n\nBeim Renderer aktivierte das Team standardm\u00e4\u00dfig die Gen12-Pipeline und das Rendering von Szenen (dies wird in Alpha 3.18 eingef\u00fchrt), was ein wichtiger Meilenstein auf dem Weg zum Abschluss der Gen12-Umstellung und der Bereitstellung eines Vulkan-Backends ist. Nach der Arbeit an den Partikeln im Oktober wurden weitere wichtige Fortschritte erzielt. Die Gen12-Unterst\u00fctzung f\u00fcr Refraktion und Rendering mit halber Aufl\u00f6sung f\u00fcr GPU-Partikel wurde hinzugef\u00fcgt, die Partikelstufe und der GPU-Handler wurden \u00fcberarbeitet und die Hintergrundkompilierung der Partikel-Shader wurde aktiviert. Au\u00dferdem werden die f\u00fcr jede Hierarchiestufe aufgeteilten Partikel jetzt so aktualisiert, dass die UAV-Ressourcen bei jedem Durchlauf gleich bleiben und sich nicht ver\u00e4ndern. Au\u00dferdem wurde der Debug-Visualisierungscode f\u00fcr verschiedene Systeme auf Gen12 portiert und das PSO-Caching f\u00fcr Projektile und Partikel wurde verbessert.\n\nIm Bereich Atmosph\u00e4re und volumetrische Wolken wurde ein erster Entwurf f\u00fcr einen neuen temporalen Rendering-Modus eingereicht, an dem in den kommenden Monaten weiter gearbeitet wird, um eine bessere Rendering-Leistung von raymarkierten volumetrischen Wolken und der Atmosph\u00e4re zu erreichen. Au\u00dferdem wurden zusammen mit Tech Art verschiedene Optionen f\u00fcr eine verfeinerte Wolkengestaltung er\u00f6rtert, die hoffentlich bald ihren Weg in eine Ver\u00f6ffentlichung finden werden.\n\nBei der Core-Engine hat das Team die Arbeit an der zweiten Version der p4k-Datenunterst\u00fctzung f\u00fcr die Engine, das Spiel und die Tools abgeschlossen. In diesem Zusammenhang bietet das System jetzt auch einen effizienten Lock-Mechanismus f\u00fcr alte pak-Dateien und einen viel schnelleren Zugriff auf Dateien innerhalb von pak-Dateien (eingebettet in die p4k-Hauptdatei), was das Laden von Objektcontainern erheblich verbessert. Dar\u00fcber hinaus wurde die Zuordnung von Threads auf Intel-CPUs mit P\/E-Kernen neu geschrieben - kritische Threads wie Haupt-, Render- und Netzwerk-Threads werden immer auf Leistungskernen ausgef\u00fchrt, um die sonst schlechte Leistung auf betroffenen CPUs zu vermeiden. Diese \u00c4nderungen werden derzeit auf der PTU verifiziert. Au\u00dferdem wurde die Engine um die Unterst\u00fctzung von Seitengr\u00f6\u00dfen gr\u00f6\u00dfer als 4kb (auch bekannt als \"huge pages\") erweitert (derzeit nur unter Linux). Sie wird derzeit f\u00fcr Stack-, Text- und Datensegmente sowie f\u00fcr Physikzuweisungen verwendet. Die Verwendung gro\u00dfer Seiten verringert den Druck auf den TLB-Cache, den Teil der CPU, der virtuelle in physische Adressen umwandelt, was die Leistung verbessern sollte. Mit Clang f\u00fchrte allein das Verschieben des Textsegments auf riesige Seiten zu einem Geschwindigkeitszuwachs von 7 %. Au\u00dferdem wurde die neueste Version von Bink2 integriert und einige Fehler im Zusammenhang mit der Audiowiedergabe behoben (die sich als zuf\u00e4llige Klicks w\u00e4hrend der Wiedergabe \u00e4u\u00dfern).\n\nEin weiterer Bereich, in dem gute Fortschritte erzielt wurden, war der Remote-Shader-Compile-Server, der zum Erstellen von Shader-Caches usw. verwendet wird. Aufgrund der zunehmenden Nutzung des Servers durch die Entwicklungsteams und den Build-Prozess wurde eine angemessene Unterst\u00fctzung f\u00fcr Fallback-Agenten sowie eine Server-Drosselung implementiert, um mit Zeiten extremer Last umzugehen und eine verteiltere Kompilierung zu erm\u00f6glichen. Zu diesem Zeitpunkt war es auch sinnvoll, verschiedene Teile des Servercodes neu zu schreiben, um mehr Robustheit, bessere Protokollierung und h\u00f6here Leistung zu erreichen. Schlie\u00dflich wurde die Vereinheitlichung der Formen abgeschlossen und die Unterst\u00fctzung von Entity-Bereichen hinzugef\u00fcgt. Ein Copy\/Paste-Fehler im Entity-Aggregate-Manager, der viele unn\u00f6tige Speicherzugriffe verursachte, wurde behoben, und das Laden von Vis-Areas wurde \u00fcberarbeitet, um die Batch-Konvertierung von fr\u00fcheren Versionen serialisierter Vis-Areas-Daten zu unterst\u00fctzen.\n\nDer Rest der Zeit wurde f\u00fcr die Unterst\u00fctzung von Alpha 3.18 verwendet.\n\nFunktionen (Arena Commander)\nZum Jahresende konzentrierte sich das Team haupts\u00e4chlich auf die letzten Verbesserungen f\u00fcr Alpha 3.18.\n\nDie Arbeit an der \u00dcberarbeitung der klassischen Rennen wurde fortgesetzt, einschlie\u00dflich der \u00dcberf\u00fchrung der Strecken Snake Pit, Euterpe Icebreaker und Miner's Lament in einen spielbaren Zustand. Dies erm\u00f6glichte es Features, Feedback von mehreren anderen Teams zu sammeln. Dann wurde mit der \u00dcberarbeitung des Rennmanagers und des Kontrollpunktsystems begonnen, um ein robusteres, zukunftssicheres System zu schaffen, das von den PU-Teams genutzt werden kann, um Rennen im ganzen Verse zu erstellen. Au\u00dferdem wurde mit der Entwicklung zus\u00e4tzlicher Varianten von holografischen Kontrollpunkten und Richtungspfeilen f\u00fcr jede Strecke begonnen, die im Stil variieren werden, um am besten zur jeweiligen Umgebung zu passen. F\u00fcr die Rennen wurden die Arbeiten an den Rennstrecken Old Vanderval, Rikkord Memorial Raceway und Defford Link abgeschlossen.\n\nDas neue Frontend wurde verbessert, u. a. durch ein neues Fenster zur Auswahl des Spielmodus, einen aktualisierten Stil und die Wiederherstellung des Einzelspielermodus durch ein neu geschriebenes Lobbysystem, das auch den Mehrspielermodus unterst\u00fctzt. Dadurch k\u00f6nnen andere Teams den neuen Frontend-Arena-Commander-Feature-Stream f\u00fcr mehr Feedback nutzen.\n\nDann wurde damit begonnen, die Karten Jericho Station und Dying Star mit Gesch\u00fctzt\u00fcrmen auszustatten, die den Spielern in den Spielmodi Vanduul und Piratenschwarm entweder helfen oder sie behindern. Es wurde auch daran gearbeitet, den Prozess zu beschleunigen und zu vereinfachen, um Orte aus dem Persistent Universe als Karten in Arena Commander einzubinden, was derzeit f\u00fcr mehrere kommende Rennstrecken genutzt wird.\n\nDas Team unterst\u00fctzte das Soft Death Feature. Es wurde mit der \u00dcberarbeitung des \"GameRulesRoundsModule\" begonnen, das es erm\u00f6glicht, dass der Modus \"Last Stand\" von Star Marine mehrere Runden hat. Dieser Refactor erm\u00f6glicht dies in allen Spielmodi, wenn das Designteam sich daf\u00fcr entscheidet. Der Duell-Modus wird der erste sein, der diese Funktion nutzt und den Spielern erlaubt, nach jedem Sieg eine neue Runde mit einem neuen Schiff zu beginnen.\n\nAu\u00dferdem wurde die Arbeit an dem \u00fcberarbeiteten System abgeschlossen, mit dem Fahrzeuge und Waffen in jedem Spielmodus verboten oder zugelassen werden. Dieses System erm\u00f6glicht den Entwicklern eine gr\u00f6\u00dfere Anpassungsf\u00e4higkeit, z. B. wenn sie einen neuen Modus einrichten, der nur ein bestimmtes Fahrzeug zul\u00e4sst. Dies wird in der Alpha 3.18 im Filtered Duel Mode, im Squadron Battle und im Battle Royale verwendet, um nur kleine und mittlere Kampfschiffe zu erlauben. Der erste Durchlauf der neuen Todeskameras, die auf den Spieler zeigen, der dich get\u00f6tet hat, w\u00e4hrend sie sich bewegen und dynamisch zoomen, wurde ebenfalls eingereicht und f\u00fcr alle Spielmodi aktiviert.\n\nSchlie\u00dflich wurde ein noch unangek\u00fcndigtes Update f\u00fcr den klassischen Arena Commander-Modus eingereicht, das in den kommenden Monaten n\u00e4her erl\u00e4utert werden soll.\n\nFeatures (Charaktere & Waffen)\nIm Laufe des Novembers f\u00fcgte das Team Unterst\u00fctzung f\u00fcr Traktorstrahlen hinzu, die Kisten auf Frachtgittern einrasten lassen. Dazu geh\u00f6rt auch eine holografische Vorschau, die dabei hilft, Beute in ein Schiff zu bringen.\n\nAu\u00dferdem wurde die Funktion \u00fcberarbeitet, mit der ein bewusstloser K\u00f6rper in ein Krankenbett geschleppt werden kann. Diese Funktion wurde allgemeiner gestaltet, so dass Leichen in andere Objekte mit der entsprechenden Gr\u00f6\u00dfe gelegt werden k\u00f6nnen. Au\u00dferdem wurde der Spielablauf selbst verbessert, um ihn robuster und fehlerverzeihender zu machen.\n\nDas Team hat au\u00dferdem die bevorstehende Patch-Ver\u00f6ffentlichung mit Verbesserungen am Spieler-Respawn und dem Wiederverbindungsfluss unterst\u00fctzt. Au\u00dferdem wurde sichergestellt, dass alle neuen Inventar-UI-Funktionen wie erwartet funktionieren. Das Team untersuchte dann die Fehlerprotokolle auf einen Fehler, der dazu f\u00fchrte, dass die Inventaroberfl\u00e4che unendlich lange geladen wurde, und f\u00fcgte dem Build mehrere Korrekturen hinzu.\n\nAuf der technischen Animationsseite wurden zus\u00e4tzliche Funktionen zum inversen Kinematiksystem (IK) hinzugef\u00fcgt, damit mehr von der Mo-Cap-Leistung zum Tragen kommt. Das hilft bei der Anpassung der Gliedma\u00dfen per IK, w\u00e4hrend Aktionen wie das Dr\u00fccken von Kn\u00f6pfen oder das Manipulieren von Waffenaufs\u00e4tzen ausgef\u00fchrt werden. Diese Art von dynamischen IK-gesteuerten Anpassungen sind erforderlich, um zu vermeiden, dass Umgebungen, Waffen und Gadgets sehr strenge Metriken erzwingen.\n\nFeatures (Gameplay)\nGegen Ende des Jahres wurde an den Gameplay-Features f\u00fcr die Alpha 3.18 gearbeitet. Dazu geh\u00f6rten die Reaktion auf Feedback-Threads auf Spectrum und die Anpassung des Gameplays an die Ziele der ersten Iteration von Salvage. Au\u00dferdem wurde die Funktionalit\u00e4t der F\u00fcllstationen erweitert, damit die Spieler\/innen verschiedene n\u00fctzliche Gegenst\u00e4nde f\u00fcr das Verschrotten von Schiffsr\u00fcmpfen herstellen k\u00f6nnen.\n\nDas Team arbeitete auch weiter an der Ressourcenverwaltung, einschlie\u00dflich Lebenserhaltung und k\u00fcnstlicher Schwerkraft. Dazu geh\u00f6rte auch die \u00dcberarbeitung der bisherigen Benutzeroberfl\u00e4che f\u00fcr die Ingenieure (die zuletzt auf der CitizenCon zu sehen war), um ein klareres, moderneres Design zu erhalten, das die gro\u00dfe Anzahl an Funktionen unterst\u00fctzt, die erwartet wird.\n\nAu\u00dferdem begannen die Vorarbeiten f\u00fcr die Traktorstrahlen der Fahrzeuge. Die n\u00e4chsten Schritte sind die Erstellung der Traktorstrahl-Benutzeroberfl\u00e4che und die Erweiterung des Features, um die entsprechenden Funktionen zu unterst\u00fctzen.\n\nDas Bergbau-Update wurde fortgesetzt, wobei \u00c4nderungen an der Argo MOLE und dem MISC Prospector vorgenommen wurden, um gr\u00f6\u00dfere Unterschiede zwischen dem Einzel- und dem Mehrspielermodus zu schaffen. Der erste Rebalancing-Durchgang wurde f\u00fcr alle Bergbauk\u00f6pfe, Unterpunkte und Gadgets durchgef\u00fchrt, um den aktualisierten Ansatz zur Ressourcenverteilung zu unterst\u00fctzen. Dazu geh\u00f6ren auch neue Varianten f\u00fcr Minables, um sicherzustellen, dass sie in Stanton kontrollierter verteilt werden und zuk\u00fcnftige Crafting-Releases unterst\u00fctzen.\n\nFeatures (Mission)\nDie Missionsfunktionen haben das Jahresende damit verbracht, Verbesserungen und Fehlerbehebungen an den Missionen f\u00fcr Alpha 3.18 vorzunehmen, einschlie\u00dflich der Probleme, die auf YouTube, Twitch, Reddit und Spectrum zusammen mit den Berichten des Issue Council gesehen wurden.\n\nMithilfe des Feedbacks von Evocati und Wave 1 PTU wurden au\u00dferdem Analyse-Events in die Zeitfahrmissionen integriert und die Ergebnisse analysiert, um die Zielzeiten der Missionen auszugleichen. Diese Daten werden auch verwendet, um die endg\u00fcltige Freischaltreihenfolge f\u00fcr den Missionsfortschritt zu bestimmen. Diese Analyse und das Balancing werden fortgesetzt, bis die Missionen live sind.\n\nF\u00fcr den Sicherheitsposten Kareah hat das Team ein Problem mit einem geheimen Gegenstand behoben, der nicht richtig funktionierte. Au\u00dferdem wurde die Art und Weise ge\u00e4ndert, wie das Datapad des Sicherheitschefs spawnt, und die Gesch\u00fctzt\u00fcrme wurden angepasst, da sie zu schnell respawnten. Der Timer f\u00fcr unbefugtes Betreten wurde ebenfalls verl\u00e4ngert. Das Team untersucht derzeit ein Problem, bei dem Missionen f\u00fcr den Kreuzfahrer-S\u00f6ldnerbereich nicht generiert wurden, und untersucht weiterhin andere bekannte Probleme, die aufgetreten sind.\n\nFeatures (Fahrzeuge)\nDas Fahrzeug-Feature-Team hat daran gearbeitet, das Transitsystem auf das neue persistente Tech-System der Alpha 3.18 zu portieren. Der gr\u00f6\u00dfte Teil der Arbeit wurde vor den Feiertagen abgeschlossen, aber einige Verbesserungen werden noch umgesetzt. Zuletzt konnten die Z\u00fcge abbremsen und auf die vor ihnen fahrenden Z\u00fcge auf der Strecke warten. Das sollte Probleme mit sich \u00fcberschneidenden Z\u00fcgen beheben.\n\nDas Team hat au\u00dferdem neue Einrichtungswerkzeuge f\u00fcr Fahrzeuge eingef\u00fchrt, mit denen die Designer\/innen sehen k\u00f6nnen, wie die automatischen Schubalgorithmen die einzelnen Schubd\u00fcsen eines Schiffs nutzen. So kann man sehen, wie bestimmte Triebwerke eingesetzt werden, um sich in bestimmte Richtungen zu bewegen, und die notwendigen \u00c4nderungen vornehmen, damit die Schiffe so fliegen, wie sie es wollen.\n\n\nGrafik & VFX-Programmierung & Planet Tech\nDas VFX-Programmierungsteam konzentrierte sich auf die Fertigstellung der Schadenskarte f\u00fcr das Rumpfkratzen. Dabei ging es haupts\u00e4chlich um die Behebung von Fehlern und Leistungsverbesserungen sowie um die \u00dcberarbeitung der Debug-Optionen f\u00fcr Schadenskarten und die Dokumentation der verschiedenen \u00c4nderungen, die f\u00fcr das Hull-Scraping-Projekt vorgenommen wurden. Au\u00dferdem wurden Verbesserungen an der Grafik, der Vernetzung, der Serialisierung und den Schadenskarten in verschiedenen Randf\u00e4llen vorgenommen, die w\u00e4hrend der PTU-Tests gefunden wurden.\n\nDas Planet Tech-Team konzentrierte sich auf die Optimierung der River Tech und die Verbesserung der Ressourcen-Streaming-Leistung mit einem neuen und aggressiveren Threading-Modell, das ein stallfreies Erlebnis garantiert. Au\u00dferdem wurden Wartungsarbeiten durchgef\u00fchrt, um das Rastar-Tool zu stabilisieren.\n\nVor kurzem wurde mit der Arbeit an der Asteroiden-SDF begonnen, um die Unterst\u00fctzung f\u00fcr neue Primitive einzuf\u00fchren. Das Team machte auch Fortschritte bei der hardwaregest\u00fctzten Instanzierung des Gel\u00e4ndes, um den Zeitbedarf f\u00fcr die CPU-\u00dcbermittlung zu verringern.\n\nEs wurde ein neuer lokaler Raum f\u00fcr die Darstellung von Gel\u00e4ndepunkten eingef\u00fchrt, der die Flie\u00dfkommagenauigkeit verbessert und andere interne Operationen beschleunigt.\n\nSchlie\u00dflich begann das Team mit der Untersuchung von Offscreen-Techniken, um ein lokalisiertes Wassersimulationsmodell f\u00fcr die Interaktion zwischen Wasser und Objekten zu entwickeln.\n\nBeleuchtung\nIm November und Dezember hat das Beleuchtungsteam die Tag- und Nachtbeleuchtungen f\u00fcr die Zeitfahrstrecken fertiggestellt. Au\u00dferdem wurden alle Beleuchtungsaspekte der kolonialen Au\u00dfenposten weiter verbessert. Dazu geh\u00f6rt eine Menge Arbeit im Innen- und Au\u00dfenbereich, um sicherzustellen, dass die Beleuchtung zur Umgebung passt und das gew\u00fcnschte kalte oder gem\u00fctliche Gef\u00fchl in den Geb\u00e4uden erzeugt.\n\nNachdem kleine \u00c4nderungen am Jumptown Dynamic Event vorgenommen worden waren, wurde ein Beleuchtungspass an einigen Stellen durchgef\u00fchrt, um sie wieder auf den aktuellen Stand zu bringen und sicherzustellen, dass die neuen Erg\u00e4nzungen zum bestehenden Thema passen.\n\nIn-Game Branding (Montreal)\nDas In-Game Branding Team beendete das Jahr mit mehreren Auftr\u00e4gen. Dazu geh\u00f6rte die Umbenennung des Sicherheitspostens Kareah in einen Au\u00dfenposten der Kreuzritter-Sicherheit und die Neugestaltung der Navigationsbeschilderung von Area18, um das Spielerlebnis f\u00fcr neue Spieler zu verbessern.\n\nZusammen mit den Teams f\u00fcr Umwelt, Narrative und Marketing entwickelte und implementierte In-Game Branding die visuelle Identit\u00e4t f\u00fcr das letztj\u00e4hrige IAE-Event zum Thema Drake.\n\nDas Team arbeitete nicht nur direkt an den Orten und Ereignissen im Spiel, sondern auch an der Entwicklung eines Katalogs mit Richtlinien f\u00fcr jede Marke im Spiel. Das Ziel dieses neuen internen Tools ist es, allen, von der Produktion bis zum Marketing, den Zugang zu Informationen \u00fcber die In-Game-Unternehmen von Star Citizen zu erleichtern und die Konsistenz im gesamten Projekt zu verbessern.\n\nAm Ende des Jahres arbeiteten sie an der visuellen Identit\u00e4t f\u00fcr die diesj\u00e4hrige Invictus Launch Week und setzten die \u00dcberarbeitung von Lorville fort.\n\nStandorte (EU)\nIm November und Dezember arbeitete EU Locations 1 weiter an der heruntergekommenen Raumstation Pyro. Mit mehr Designern im Team haben sie gro\u00dfe Fortschritte bei der Gestaltung der einzelnen R\u00e4ume gemacht und erforschen derzeit interessante Gameplay-Optionen f\u00fcr den gesamten Ort.\n\nEU Locations 2 arbeitete mit dem US-amerikanischen PU-Team zusammen, um neue Frachtaufz\u00fcge in die bestehenden Hangars einzubauen, die f\u00fcr das neue Cargo-Gameplay genutzt werden.\n\nEs wurde mit der Vorproduktion der \u00f6rtlichen Anwaltskanzlei begonnen, die f\u00fcr mehrere kommende Spielschleifen wichtig sein wird. Au\u00dferdem arbeiteten sie an der IAE und der Erfahrung f\u00fcr neue Spieler, wobei letzteres die Verbesserung bestehender Landezonen f\u00fcr neue Besucher beinhaltete.\n\nEU Sandbox 2 schloss das Jahr mit weiteren Erkundungen und Experimenten f\u00fcr die unterirdischen Anlagen ab. Au\u00dferdem wurde das visuelle Ziel f\u00fcr die Sandh\u00f6hlen fertiggestellt, der Ma\u00dfstab f\u00fcr die Felsh\u00f6hlen in der PU gesetzt und mit der Verbesserung und Erweiterung des MicroTech-Waldes begonnen.\n\nErz\u00e4hlung\nGegen Ende des Jahres hat das Narrative Team an den neuen Missionsinhalten f\u00fcr den Sicherheitsposten Kareah und die Klescher Rehabilitation mitgearbeitet.\n\nAnschlie\u00dfend stimmte es sich mit dem Designteam bei den neuen Zeitfahrmissionen ab. Zusammen mit dem Missionstext f\u00fchrte Narrative das Wildstar-Rennen in die Geschichte von Star Citizen ein, um eine Organisation zu schaffen, die f\u00fcr die Organisation der Rennen verantwortlich ist.\n\n\"Ihre Geschichte ist, dass sie als eine Gruppe von Rennbegeisterten begann, die Videos von sich selbst auf ihren lokalen Lieblingsstrecken teilten. Seitdem sind sie zu einer anerkannten Rennorganisation herangewachsen, die sich auf Rallye-Strecken spezialisiert hat und weithin als erschwingliche Teststrecke f\u00fcr Amateur-Rennfahrer anerkannt ist, die auf die Teilnahme an h\u00f6herklassigen Ligen hinarbeiten.\" Narrative Team\n\nF\u00fcr k\u00fcnftige Patches hat Narrative mit der Planung neuer Bergbau- und Bergungsmissionen begonnen, die dazu beitragen werden, die Karrierem\u00f6glichkeiten \u00fcber den Contract Manager zu erweitern. Auch die Arbeit an den Ermittlungsmissionen wurde fortgesetzt, und es wurden mehrere neue R\u00e4tsel entwickelt, die die Spieler\/innen l\u00f6sen m\u00fcssen. Au\u00dferdem diskutierte das Team \u00fcber Sandbox-Missionen, bei denen die Spieler\/innen auf Missionen im Universum treffen, ohne vorher einen bestimmten Auftrag anzunehmen.\n\nDas Team plante auch eine Umstrukturierung der Sortierung von Texten im Spiel. Das interne Tool, das entwickelt wurde, um alle Spieltexte zu speichern, wird von vielen verschiedenen Abteilungen genutzt, und es wurde klar, dass eine neue Ordnerstruktur helfen w\u00fcrde, zu kl\u00e4ren, wo bestimmte Texte platziert werden sollten. Jetzt, wo die Planung abgeschlossen ist, hoffen wir, die Umstrukturierung im kommenden Jahr einf\u00fchren zu k\u00f6nnen. Es wurde auch Zeit darauf verwendet, einige der detaillierten planetarischen Bedingungen, wie Temperatur und atmosph\u00e4rischer Gehalt, f\u00fcr die kommenden Sternensysteme zu aktualisieren, um sie besser an das beabsichtigte Gameplay und die Positionierung der Sonne anzupassen.\n\nDas Ende des Jahres brachte auch eine Vielzahl von Informationen, darunter ein Portfolio \u00fcber die Geschichte der IAE, einen neuen Clean Shot mit Vorhersagen \u00fcber die Expo, einen Loremakers: Community-Fragen, die Kurzgeschichte Hazy Days, einen A Word from Our Sponsors-Beitrag mit einigen Luminalia-Werbespots und eine Auswahl von Galactapedia-Beitr\u00e4gen f\u00fcr November und Dezember.\n\nAu\u00dferdem hat das Narrative Team angek\u00fcndigt, dass es im Jahr 2023 \u00c4nderungen im Ver\u00f6ffentlichungszeitplan der Website geben wird.\n\nInteractables\nDas Interactables-Team hat seine Arbeit an Pyro fortgesetzt und weitere fortschrittliche und einzigartige Objekte erstellt, darunter St\u00e4nde, die man im heruntergekommenen Bahnhof finden kann.\n\nDas Prototyping f\u00fcr die Deployables wurde fortgesetzt.\n\n\"Es braucht viel Zeit, um diese Gegenst\u00e4nde zu entwickeln und unvorhergesehene Herausforderungen zu meistern, die von anderen Teams gestellt werden, um sicherzustellen, dass sie das Gameplay nicht behindern. Interactables Team\n\nIm Dezember wurden Korrekturen an den aktuellen Kaffeemaschinen im Spiel vorgenommen. Bald werden die Spieler\/innen ausgew\u00e4hlte Tassen zu diesen Maschinen bringen k\u00f6nnen und unendlich viele Tassen Kaffee haben.\n\nAu\u00dferdem wurden Fortschritte bei einer neuen Vorlage f\u00fcr ein Asset gemacht, das ein wesentlicher Bestandteil der Kopfgeldjagd sein wird, die parallel zum Kopfgeldj\u00e4gerb\u00fcro von Environment Art l\u00e4uft.\n\nSchlie\u00dflich begann das Team mit der Vorproduktion von Beuteinhalten, einschlie\u00dflich der Verbesserung des aktuellen Beutepools.\n\nTech Art\/Animation\nEnde 2023 schloss Tech Art einen Schmutz-\/Verschlei\u00dfpass f\u00fcr alle Cockpitscheiben ab, um sicherzustellen, dass die Sicht der Piloten nicht beeintr\u00e4chtigt wird. Ein \u00e4hnlicher Pass f\u00fcr das Glas der Gesch\u00fctzt\u00fcrme ist f\u00fcr ein zuk\u00fcnftiges Update geplant.\n\nDas Grafikteam hat eine Mesh-Tagging-Technologie entwickelt, die ab Alpha 3.18 eingesetzt wird, um verschiedene Beleuchtungsprobleme an Schiffst\u00fcrmen, Rampen und T\u00fcren zu beheben. Damit k\u00f6nnen die Entwickler ein Mesh markieren, das sich zwischen Zonen bewegt, um eine Innen-, Au\u00dfen- oder automatische \u00dcbergangsbeleuchtung zu erhalten. Das wird bei den meisten Problemen helfen. Au\u00dferdem haben sie mit den Schiffsgrafikern und Ingenieuren zusammengearbeitet, um Shader-Sch\u00e4den f\u00fcr das Schrammen des Schiffsrumpfes bei allen Fahrzeugen im Spiel zu erm\u00f6glichen.\n\nDem Drake Corsair wurden neue Rampenphysik-Kollisionstypen hinzugef\u00fcgt. Eine davon erlaubt es der Rampenspitze, das Gel\u00e4nde zu ignorieren, w\u00e4hrend eine versteckte Radkollision kleinen Fahrzeugen und Radkarren hilft, L\u00fccken zu \u00fcberwinden.\n\nIn der Schiffspipeline schloss das Team die Drake Vulture ab, w\u00e4hrend die Corsair und der Cutter aktualisierte Tr\u00fcmmer, SDF-Volumina, Landesysteme, Vis-Area\/Portal-Optimierungen, neue segmentierte Revolver-Vis-Areas in den Revolvern sowie lokale Gitter-, Lift- und Rampentechnologie erhielten. Das Team hat auch die Animation des inneren Laufstegs von MISC Hull C weiterentwickelt, die mit der Animation der \u00e4u\u00dferen H\u00fclle synchronisiert ist. Der endg\u00fcltige Laufsteg wird aus 10 Gleitringen bestehen, die durch dehnbare Schl\u00e4uche miteinander verbunden sind.\n\nIn den letzten Monaten des Jahres konzentrierte sich Tech Animation auf die Bearbeitung der Kopf-Assets.\n\n\"Wir haben uns einige l\u00e4ngst \u00fcberf\u00e4llige Schauspieler geschnappt und mit dem internen Bearbeitungsprozess begonnen, um ihre Konterfeis zu erstellen. Dazu geh\u00f6rt, dass wir \u00fcber 78 Scans pro Kopf-Asset erstellen und sie zu einem neutralen Kopf-Asset verarbeiten. Einige dieser Schauspieler wurden vor \u00fcber sieben Jahren bei den Hauptdreharbeiten f\u00fcr SQ42 gescannt, sie sehen also heute ganz anders aus!\" Tech Animation Team\n\nDas Team zerlegt diese komplexen Scans in einzelne Muskelbewegungen und wendet sie auf das Gesichts-Rig-Asset an, um sie schlie\u00dflich in den Gen-Pool einzubringen und den K\u00f6pfen und Gesichtern im Spiel mehr Vielfalt zu verleihen.\n\nOnline-Dienste (Montreal)\nDas Team der Online-Dienste hat den Gro\u00dfteil der Monate November und Dezember damit verbracht, die Alpha 3.18 zu stabilisieren, die Leistung zu verbessern und Fehler zu beheben.\n\nAu\u00dferdem wurde Zeit mit dem DevOps-Publishing-Team verbracht, um die neuen Dienste und die neue Graphdatenbank, die von Persistent Entity Streaming verwendet wird, produktiv zu machen.\n\nAu\u00dferdem wurden erhebliche Anstrengungen unternommen, um Fehler in der neuen Charakterreparatur zu finden, die die derzeitige Charakterr\u00fccksetzung ersetzen wird, wobei der Schwerpunkt auf dem Auffinden m\u00f6glicher Exploits und potenzieller Fehlerpunkte lag.\n\nLive Tools (Montreal)\nDas Live Tools-Team konzentrierte sich auf die Entwicklung von Funktionen im Zusammenhang mit Persistent Entity Streaming, einschlie\u00dflich des neuen Log-in Flow-Moduls, das in das Network Operation Center integriert wurde. Jetzt k\u00f6nnen die Nutzer\/innen ihre Berechtigungen direkt \u00fcber Hex verwalten, was ein gro\u00dfer Schritt nach vorne ist.\n\nEin weiteres Tool im Zusammenhang mit Persistent Entity Streaming ist das Entity Graph Tool, das weiterentwickelt und implementiert wurde. Dieses Modul bietet die M\u00f6glichkeit, die verschiedenen Entit\u00e4ten, die mit einem Spieler oder einem Konto verbunden sind, und die damit verbundenen Details zu suchen und zu visualisieren.\n\nDiese neuen Module machen Hex noch vielseitiger und tragen dazu bei, es zu einem leistungsstarken Werkzeug f\u00fcr Untersuchungen und Probleml\u00f6sungen zu machen.\n\nTurbulent (Web-Plattform)\nEnde 2022 hat Turbulent die Alexandria-Werkzeugbibliothek um ein neues Modul namens Grid erweitert. Das Grid-Tool gibt Inhaltserstellern eine weitere M\u00f6glichkeit, Informationen zu pr\u00e4sentieren und wurde erstmals im Luminalia-Kalender eingesetzt. Das Team kam auch mit dem SSV-Projekt gut voran, das es erm\u00f6glicht, die Farbpalette beliebiger Themen anzupassen.\n\n\"Bei diesem enorm komplexen Projekt haben die Entwickler- und Designteams auf h\u00f6chst kreative Weise zusammengearbeitet.\" Turbulent Web Platform Team\n\nAuch die Produktionsbibliothek wurde weiter ausgebaut, dieses Mal mit Origin Jumpworks.\n\nDas Experience-Team von Turbulent konzentrierte sich auf die \u00dcberarbeitung des anf\u00e4nglichen Benutzerflusses, von der Auswahl eines Starterpakets bis zum Herunterladen und Betreten des Spiels. Im Dezember begann die Entwicklung nach vielen Monaten der Design-Iteration und technischen Entscheidungsfindung.\n\nDas Community-Team feilte weiter am Community Hub. Ein Gro\u00dfteil der neuen Funktionen soll Anfang 2023 ver\u00f6ffentlicht werden, darunter eine bessere Anbindung an gro\u00dfe Events und spielergenerierte Inhalte.\n\nSchlie\u00dflich hat das Architekturteam von Turbulent zahlreiche Stunden in das PHP 8-Upgrade investiert. Nach sechsmonatiger Arbeit wurde es in der Produktionsumgebung eingef\u00fchrt und vom gesamten Entwicklungsteam begeistert aufgenommen.\n\nVFX\nIm November und Dezember arbeitete das VFX-Team an den Aufgaben f\u00fcr Alpha 3.18. Dazu geh\u00f6rten der letzte Schliff an den neuen Fahrzeugen sowie zahlreiche Korrekturen und Optimierungen des Aufgabenpools und der Fehlerliste. Au\u00dferdem haben sie die Bergungseffekte weiter unterst\u00fctzt und Anpassungen vorgenommen, nachdem sie einige Ungereimtheiten in den Backer-Aufnahmen von PTU Wave 1 entdeckt hatten.\n\nVFX begann auch mit der Planung der umfangreichen, aber notwendigen Umstrukturierung der allgemeinen Effektbibliotheken. Diese Bibliotheken enthalten die am h\u00e4ufigsten verwendeten Effekte, darunter Rauch, Dampf und Funken, und sind im Laufe der Jahre zu umfangreich geworden. In den kommenden Monaten wird das Team die Anzahl der einzelnen Effekte in den Bibliotheken reduzieren und gleichzeitig visuelle Verbesserungen vornehmen.","zh_CN":"PU Monthly Report\nNovember\/December 2022\nWelcome to November and December\u2019s PU Monthly Report, which combines everything worked on during the last two months of 2022.\nRead on for everything done to round out last year, including new tech for Alpha 3.18, updates to narrative content, and the development of all-new vehicles.\n\n\nAI (Features)\nAI Features ended the year supporting, investigating, and fixing bugs for Alpha 3.18.\n\nAI (Tech)\nDuring the last months of 2022, the AI Tech team progressed with features required for both the Persistent Universe and Squadron 42.\n\nThe team continued to iterate on more complex navigation links to extend the capabilities of NPCs and where they\u2019re able to move to, including implementing adapters for airlocks and elevators. Now, NPCs will know that in order to traverse an airlock, they will need to interact with multiple consoles to adjust the pressure and open the door. For Elevators, navigation links were created to connect multiple floors. A navigation link was also created to request a reconnection with the navigation mesh triangles each time an elevator stops at a floor to allow NPCs to transition in and out. Based on navigation link connections, an NPC will now know how to request an elevator to go to a specific floor. New event notifications were also added, sent by the elevator when it arrives at a floor, so that the actor will know to get on or off.\n\nAt the end of the year, the base functionality for NPCs driving ground vehicles was completed. NPCs can now move to a vehicle and get into the driver\u2019s seat, find a path suitable for the size of the vehicle, and drive along it. This work involved the creation of a new Subsumption task, a new movement request type, and updating the movement planner to know how to process the request. The team also added new functionality to the navigation systems that marks entities to be ignored during navigation-mesh generation.\n\nNPC perception was another major topic worked on toward the end of the year. The team implemented a new adapter for action areas to specify lightness\/darkness, which will influence NPCs' visual perception.\n\nA new extender to propagate engine sounds as stimuli was also created, which will make NPCs aware of vehicles in their proximity. This was the first step toward behaviors that react to ground vehicles and spaceships.\n\nWhile working on perception improvements, the devs fixed AI visual perception through glass. Now, NPCs will be able to detect targets behind glass and also understand that, in order to shoot at them, they need to move to the other side.\n\nFor locomotion, improvements continued on the sharp-turn assets and how they\u2019re triggered for alien characters or at walking speeds. Related to this, work began on \u2018following\u2019 tech, which will be used in connection with the buddy AI behavior. For this, the team improved soft stops, collision avoidance with players, and speed handling based on the leader\u2019s change in speed.\n\nFor the Apollo Subsumption tool, new functionality was added to create and modify the Subsumption mastergraph. A lot of feedback from the designers was implemented, including the addition of an interface to create roles and sub-roles, find reference functionality, improved interaction with functions and the multigraph tab, and improvements to grid snapping.\n\nAnimation\nThe end of 2022 saw Facial Animation supporting various trailers and other needs. They also shot motion capture for some background character animations that will be used in the PU.\n\nArt (Characters)\nAt the end of 2022, Character Art finished tasks for the frontier workwear outfits and frontier undersuits. They also fixed various bugs related to clipping.\n\nCharacter Concept Art polished concept handoffs for the frontier outfits and continued with concept exploration on fauna and the Duster faction.\n\nArt (Ships)\nIn the US, the Ship team made the finishing touches to the Drake Corsair. Once complete, they moved onto the whitebox stages of two new vehicles. For one, they brainstormed several options for entering and exiting. Whitebox began on a new production vehicle too.\n\nThe UK team completed their pass on the salvage feature, ensuring all major visual and gameplay issues were resolved for ship exteriors.\n\nThey then began work on the Crusader Spirit, which is progressing through the whitebox phase.\n\n\u201cThe biggest challenge has been ensuring that the escape raft on the VIP variant is fully functional at this early stage so we can avoid extra work in the future.\u201d Ship Team\n\nThe bulk of whitebox work was also completed for an unannounced vehicle, and development began on an all-new small ship.\n\nCommunity\nThe Community team started November with a Cargo Refactor AMA, which included details of the new Soft Death mechanic.\n\nThey then supported the Intergalactic Aerospace Expo (IAE) 2952, including publishing the Best in Show Prizes, an in-depth IAE Traveler's Guide, the Free Fly Schedule, updates to the New Player Guide, and a dedicated IAE 2952 FAQ. They also launched a Drake-themed screenshot contest, where players faced a unique challenge each day of the expo.\n\nFollowing their reveals at IAE, the team curated and published Q&A posts for the Drake Cutter, the Anvil C8R Pisces, and the RSI Galaxy.\n\nIn the approach to the holidays, Community released the Luminalia Calendar and Luminalia 2952 referral bonus. They also supported the Luminalia Screenshot Contest, Luminalia Holiday Card Contest, and Holiday Mayhem at Jumptown.\n\nIn support of some of Alpha 3.18\u2019s lesser-publicized features, the Community published three Patch Watch posts, detailing Balancing Keys, Continued Lawlessness, and the latest iteration of Jumptown.\n\nThe team also spent time working on a few new web-based programs, and further improvements coming to the Guide System, Community Hub, and Spectrum.\n\nEngine\nNovember and December were busy months for the Physics team. Aside from plenty of bug fixing and supporting Alpha 3.18, they worked on various optimizations. For example, the cost of performing part OBB vs grid cell overlap checks was amortized by performing them in one call for a grid node instead of cell by cell. Also, sub stepping for attached and AI-controlled NPCs on the server was disabled to bring back actor entity step performance. Several internal data structures were compacted and reordered for a smaller memory footprint and better member alignment.\n\nOn the renderer, the team enabled the Gen12 pipeline and scene rendering by default (this will be featured in Alpha 3.18), which is a major milestone on the road toward completing the Gen12 transition and providing a Vulkan backend. Following October\u2019s work on particles, further substantial progress was made. Gen12 refraction and half-resolution rendering support for GPU particles was added, the particle stage and GPU handler refactored, and particle shader background compilation was enabled. Furthermore, particles split for each hierarchy level are now updated in a way that ensures UAV resources stay consistent across each pass and don't change. Moreover, debug visualization code for various systems was ported to Gen12, and PSO caching for projectiles and particles was improved.\n\nRegarding atmosphere and volumetric clouds, an initial draft of a new temporal render mode was submitted and will continue to be worked on in the coming months to provide better rendering performance of raymarched volumetric clouds and atmosphere. Furthermore, various options for refined cloud shaping were brainstormed with Tech Art and will hopefully find their way into a release soon.\n\nOn core engine, the team completed work on v2 of p4k data file support for the engine, game, and tool side. On that note, the system now also provides an efficient lock mechanism for legacy pak files as well as much faster access to files inside pak files (embedded in the main p4k data file), both of which significantly improve the loading of object containers. Additionally, the mapping of threads on Intel CPUs with P\/E cores was rewritten - critical threads such as main, render, and network threads are ensured to always run on performance cores to avoid the otherwise poor performance on affected CPUs. These changes are currently being verified on the PTU. Also, support for page sizes larger than 4kb (aka huge pages) was added to the engine (at the moment on Linux only). It's currently used for stack, text, and data segments, as well as physics allocations. Using huge pages reduces the pressure on the TLB cache, the part of the CPU translating virtual to physical addresses, which should help with performance. With Clang, just moving the text segment to huge pages gave a 7% speedup. Furthermore, the latest version of Bink2 was integrated and a few audio related bugs fixed in video playback (manifesting themselves as random clicks during playback).\n\nAnother area that progressed well was the remote shader compile server used to build shader caches, etc. Due to increased usage of the server by development teams and the build process, proper support for fallback agents as well as server throttling was implemented to deal with times of extreme load and to allow for more distributed compilation. At that point, it also made sense to rewrite various parts of the server code to allow for more robustness, better logging, and increased performance. Lastly, shape unification was completed and entity area support was added. A copy\/paste bug in the entity aggregate manager that caused a lot of unnecessary memory access was fixed, and vis area loading was refactored to support batch conversion from previous versions of serialized vis area data.\n\nThe remainder of the time was spent supporting Alpha 3.18.\n\nFeatures (Arena Commander)\nThe majority of the team\u2019s end-of-year focus was on making final improvements for Alpha 3.18.\n\nWork continued on the classic race refactor, including taking the Snake Pit, Euterpe Icebreaker, and Miner's Lament courses to play-testable states. This allowed Features to collect feedback from several other teams. A refactor of the race manager and checkpoint system then began, with the aim to create a more robust, future-proof system that can be used by the PU teams to create races around the \u2018verse. Design also began developing additional variants of holographic checkpoints and directional arrows for each track, which will vary in style to best suit the setting. Finally for racing, work was completed on the Old Vanderval, Rikkord Memorial Raceway, and Defford Link racetracks.\n\nImprovements were made to the new frontend, including a new window for game-mode selection, an updated style, and the restoration of singleplayer using a rewritten lobby system that also supports multiplayer. This allows other teams to use the new frontend Arena Commander feature stream for greater feedback.\n\nInvestigation then began into adding turrets to the Jericho Station and Dying Star maps to either assist or hinder the player in Vanduul and Pirate Swarm game modes. Work was also done to speed up and ease the process of taking locations from the Persistent Universe and have them featured as maps in Arena Commander, which is currently being used for several upcoming racetracks.\n\nThe team supported the Soft Death feature. A refactor of the \u2018GameRulesRoundsModule\u2019 began, which allows Star Marine's Last Stand mode to have multiple rounds. This refactor enables it in all game modes should the Design team choose. Duel Mode will be the first to utilize this and will allow players to begin a new round with a restocked ship after each kill.\n\nWork was also completed on the reworked system used to ban or allow vehicles and weapons in each game mode. This system provides greater customization for the developers, such as setting up a new mode that only allows a certain vehicle. This is used in Alpha 3.18 during Filtered Duel Mode, Squadron Battle, and Battle Royale to only allow small and medium combat ships. The first pass on new death cameras, which point to the player that killed you while moving and zooming dynamically, was submitted and enabled for all game modes too.\n\nFinally, work was submitted for an unannounced update to a classic Arena Commander mode, which will be further detailed in the coming months.\n\nFeatures (Characters & Weapons)\nThroughout November, the team added support for tractor beams snapping boxes onto cargo grids. This included a holographic preview to assist with moving loot into a ship.\n\nThey also revisited the feature behind dragging an unconscious body into a medical bed. This is being made more generic so that bodies can be placed into other appropriately sized objects. As part of this, several improvements are being made to the flow itself to make it more robust and forgiving.\n\nThe team also supported the upcoming patch release with improvements to player respawn and the reconnection flow. Additional time was spent ensuring all new inventory UI features are working as expected too. The team then investigated issue logs for a bug that caused the inventory UI to load indefinitely, with multiple fixes being added to the build.\n\nOn the technical animation side, additional features were added to the inverse-kinematics (IK) system to allow for more of the mo-cap performance to come through. This will help when adjusting limbs via IK while doing actions such as pressing buttons or manipulating weapon attachments. These kinds of dynamic IK-driven adjustments are required to avoid enforcing very strict metrics to environments, weapons, and gadgets.\n\nFeatures (Gameplay)\nToward the end of the year, Gameplay Features worked on hull scraping for Alpha 3.18, including reacting to feedback threads on Spectrum and adjusting gameplay to match the goals for the first iteration of Salvage. Additionally, filler-station functionality was expanded to allow players to create several useful items for hull scraping.\n\nThe team also continued with Resource Management, including life support and artificial gravity. This included a redesign of the previous engineering UI (last seen at CitizenCon) to give a clearer, more modern design to support the vast amount of functionalities that will be expected.\n\nAdditionally, groundwork began for vehicle tractor beams. The next steps will be creating the tractor-beam UI and expanding the feature to support its proper functionalities.\n\nThe mining update continued, with changes made to the Argo MOLE and MISC Prospector to create bigger differences between the individual and multiplayer aspects. The first rebalancing pass was done for all mining heads, sub-items, and gadgets to support the updated approach to resource distribution. This involves new variances for minables to ensure they\u2019re distributed in a more controlled fashion throughout Stanton and support future crafting releases.\n\nFeatures (Mission)\nMission Features spent the end of the year enacting improvements and bug fixes to missions for Alpha 3.18, including issues seen on YouTube, Twitch, Reddit, and Spectrum alongside Issue Council reports.\n\nUsing feedback from Evocati and Wave 1 PTU, they also implemented analytics events into time-trial missions and began analyzing the results to balance the missions\u2019 target times. This data is also being used to determine the final unlock order for when mission progression is implemented. This analytics reviewing and balancing will continue until it\u2019s live.\n\nFor Security Post Kareah, the team addressed an issue with a secret item not working correctly. They also changed the way the datapad on the security chief spawned and adjusted the turrets as they were respawning too quickly. The trespass timer length was also increased. The team are currently looking into an issue with missions not generating for the Crusader Mercenary scope and are continuing to investigate other known issues that have been raised.\n\nFeatures (Vehicles)\nThe Vehicle Feature team worked towards porting the transit system to Alpha 3.18\u2019s new persistent tech system. Most of the core work was completed before the holidays, though some improvements continue to be implemented. Most recently, they allowed trains to slow down and wait for transit ahead of them on the track. This should fix issues with trains overlapping.\n\nThe team also implemented new set-up tools for vehicles, which allow the designers to see how the automated thruster algorithms use each thruster on a ship. This is used to see how certain thrusters are being used to move in specific directions and make necessary changes to get ships to fly how they want.\n\n\nGraphics & VFX Programming & Planet Tech\nThe VFX Programming team focused on finishing the damage map work for hull scraping. This mostly involved bug fixing and performance improvements alongside reworking the debug options for damage maps and documenting the various amendments made for the hull-scraping project. Improvements were also made to visuals, networking, serialization, and damage maps in various edge cases found during PTU testing.\n\nThe Planet Tech team focused on polishing river tech and improving resource streaming performance with a new and more aggressive threading model that guarantees a stall-free experience. Additionally, maintenance was done to stabilize the Rastar tool.\n\nMore recently, work began on the asteroid SDF to introduce support for new primitives. The team also progressed with hardware-assisted terrain instancing to improve the CPU submission time footprint.\n\nA new local space for terrain vertices representation was introduced, which will improve floating point precisions and accelerate other internal operations.\n\nFinally, the team began looking at offscreen techniques to achieve a localized water simulation model for water-object interactions.\n\nLighting\nThroughout November and December, the Lighting team completed day and night lighting passes for the time-trial racetracks. They also continued to improve all lighting aspects of the colonial outposts. This involves a lot of interior and exterior work to ensure that they fit the environment and create the intended cold or cozy feeling within the buildings.\n\nAfter small changes were made to the Jumptown Dynamic Event, a lighting pass was done on a few areas to bring them back up to the current standard and ensure that the new additions fit the existing theme.\n\nIn-Game Branding (Montreal)\nThe In-Game Branding team finished the year by completing several mandates. This included rebranding Security Post Kareah into a Crusader Security outpost and redesigning Area18\u2019s navigational signage in support of the new-player experience.\n\nAlongside the Environment, Narrative, and Marketing teams, In-Game Branding developed and implemented the visual identity for last year\u2019s Drake-themed IAE event.\n\nAs well as working directly on in-game locations and events, the team continued to develop a catalog with guidelines for each in-game brand. The goal of this upcoming internal tool is to make it easier for everyone, from production to marketing, to access information about Star Citizen\u2019s in-fiction companies and improve consistency across the project.\n\nThey ended the year working on the visual identity for this year's Invictus Launch Week, and continued the rework of Lorville.\n\nLocations (EU)\nThroughout November and December, EU Locations 1 continued working on the rundown Pyro space station. With more designers now on the team, they made great progress on the layout of each room and are currently exploring interesting gameplay options across the location.\n\nEU Locations 2 worked alongside the US-based PU team to add new cargo elevators into existing hangars, which will be used during the updated cargo gameplay.\n\nPre-production of the local law office location began, which will be essential for several upcoming gameplay loops. They also worked on IAE and the new-player experience, the latter of which involved improving existing landing zones for new visitors.\n\nEU Sandbox 2 wrapped up the year with further exploration and experimentation for the underground facilities. They also finished the sand caves' visual target, worked to set the benchmark for rock caves in the PU, and began looking into improving and adding to microTech\u2019s forest.\n\nNarrative\nToward the end of the year, the Narrative team assisted with the new Security Post Kareah and Klescher Rehabilitation mission content.\n\nThey then coordinated with Design on the new time-trial racing missions. Along with mission text, Narrative introduced Wildstar Racing into Star Citizen lore to create an organization responsible for arranging the races.\n\n\u201cTheir backstory is that they began as a group of racing enthusiasts who would share vids of themselves racing on their favorite local tracks. Since then, they have grown into a sanctioned racing organization specializing in rally tracks and are widely recognized as an affordable proving ground for amateur racers to work towards competing in higher-profile leagues.\u201d Narrative Team\n\nFor future patches, Narrative began planning new mining and salvage missions, which will help expand the career choices available through the Contract Manager. Work also continued on investigation missions, with several new mysteries for players to solve being developed. Additionally, the team discussed sandbox mission content, where players will encounter missions in the universe without accepting a specific contract beforehand.\n\nThe team also planned a reorganization of how in-game text is sorted. The internal tool developed to house all the game text strings is used by many different departments and it has become clear that a new folder structure would help clarify where certain strings should be placed. Now that planning is complete, the hope is to roll out the reorganization in the upcoming year. Time was also spent updating some of the detailed planetary conditions, such as temperature and atmospheric content, for upcoming star systems to more closely align with the intended gameplay and solar positioning.\n\nThe end of the year also brought a variety of lore, including a Portfolio about the History of the IAE, a new Clean Shot with predictions about the expo, a Loremakers: Community Questions, the Hazy Days short story, an A Word from Our Sponsors post featuring some Luminalia adverts, and a selection of Galactapedia posts for November and December.\n\nFinally, the Narrative team also announced that 2023 will bring changes to the website\u2019s lore release schedule.\n\nInteractables\nThe Interactables team continued their work on Pyro, creating more advanced and unique assets, including stalls that can be found in the rundown station.\n\nPrototyping continued on deployables.\n\n\u201cThese assets take a long time to figure out and overcome unforeseen challenges that are presented by other teams to ensure that they do not hinder gameplay.\u201d Interactables Team\n\nIn December, fixes were made for the current in-game coffee machines. Soon, players will be able to take select cups to these machines and have infinite cups of coffee.\n\nProgress was also made on a new template for an asset that will be integral to bounty hunting, which is running alongside Environment Art\u2019s bounty-hunting office.\n\nFinally, the team started pre-production on lootable content, including improving the current loot pool.\n\nTech Art\/Animation\nAt the end of 2022, Tech Art completed a dirt\/wear pass for all cockpit glass to ensure the pilot\u2019s vision isn\u2019t obscured. A similar pass for turret glass is planned for a future update.\n\nThe Graphics team delivered mesh-tagging tech that will be used in Alpha 3.18 and beyond to fix various lighting issues on ship turrets, ramps, and doors. This enables the devs to tag a mesh that moves between zones to receive interior, exterior, or automatic transition lighting. This will help with most related problems. They also worked alongside the ship artists and engineers to enable shader damage for hull scraping on all vehicles in the game.\n\nNew ramp physics collision types were added to the Drake Corsair. One allows the tip of the ramp to ignore terrain, while a hidden wheel-only collision helps small vehicles and wheeled trolleys traverse gaps.\n\nIn the ship pipeline, the team closed out the Drake Vulture, while the Corsair and Cutter received updated debris, SDF volumes, landing systems, vis area\/portal optimizations, new segmented turret vis-areas in turrets, and local grid and lift and ramp tech. The team also further developed the MISC Hull C\u2019s interior walkway animation, which syncs with the exterior hull transform animation. The final walkway will be a skinned asset with 10 sliding rings connected by stretchy tubing.\n\nTech Animation spent the year\u2019s latter months focusing on head-asset processing.\n\n\u201cWe\u2019ve been taking some long-overdue actors and starting the internal processing procedure to create their likenesses. This includes creating over 78 scans per head asset and processing them to the neutral head asset. Some of these actors were scanned over seven years ago on the main shoot for SQ42, so they look quite different these days!\u201d Tech Animation Team\n\nThe team take these complex scans and break them down into individual muscle movements and apply them to the facial rig asset, ultimately including them in the gene pool to give more variety to the heads and faces seen in-game.\n\nOnline Services (Montreal)\nThe Online Services team spent the majority of November and December on Alpha 3.18 stabilization, performance improvements, and bug fixing.\n\nTime was also spent time with the DevOps Publishing team, production-tuning the new services and new graph database used by Persistent Entity Streaming.\n\nSignificant effort was also spent tracking down edge cases in the new Character Repair that will replace the current Character Reset, with an emphasis of finding possible exploits and potential failure points in the process.\n\nLive Tools (Montreal)\nThe Live Tools team focused on developing features related to Persistent Entity Streaming, including the new log-in flow module implemented into the network operation center. Now, users can manage entitlements directly through Hex, which is a major step forward.\n\nAnother tool related to Persistent Entity Streaming is the Entity Graph tool, which was further developed and implemented. This module offers the ability to search and visualize the various entities attached to a player or an account and the associated details.\n\nThose new modules provide more versatility to Hex and contribute to making it a powerful tool for investigations and issues solving.\n\nTurbulent (Web Platform)\nThe end of 2022 saw Turbulent adding to the Alexandria tool library with a new module called Grid. The Grid tool gives content creators another way to present information and was first used in the Luminalia calendar. The team also progressed well with the SSV project, which provides the ability to adjust the color palette of any themes.\n\n\u201cThis tremendously complex project saw the dev and design teams come together in the most creative ways.\u201d Turbulent Web Platform Team\n\nThey also continued to add to the manufacturing library, this time adding Origin Jumpworks.\n\nTurbulent\u2019s Experience team focused on reworking the initial new-user flow, from selecting a starter package to downloading and entering the game. December saw them start development after many months of design iteration and technical decision making.\n\nThe Community team continued to polish the Community Hub, with a majority of the new feature set to be released in early 2023, including better connection to large events and player-generated content.\n\nFinally for Turbulent, the Architecture team put numerous hours into the PHP 8 upgrade. After six months in the making, it hit the production environment and was warmly welcomed by the wider development team.\n\nVFX\nThrough November and December, the VFX team worked through tasks for Alpha 3.18. This included putting the finishing touches to new vehicles and lots of task-pool and snag-list fixes and tweaks. They also continued to support salvage effects, making adjustments after seeing some inconsistencies in backer footage of PTU Wave 1.\n\nVFX also began to plan for the overwhelming-but-necessary restructuring of their generic effects libraries. These libraries contain the most commonly used effects, including smoke, steam, and sparks, and have become too bloated over the years. In the months ahead, the team will be reducing the number of individual effects living in the libraries while making visual improvements as they go along."},"links_count":0,"comment_count":0,"created_at":"2023-01-19T03:00:00+00:00","created_at_human":"3 years ago"},"meta":{"processed_at":"2026-05-07 19:14:20","valid_relations":["images","links"],"prev_id":19081,"next_id":19083}}