{"data":{"id":19109,"title":"Squadron 42 Monthly Report: January 2023","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/comm-link\/transmission\/19109-Squadron-42-Monthly-Report-January-2023","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-links\/19109","api_public_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/comm-links\/19109","channel":"Feedback","category":"Undefined","series":"None","images":[{"id":26651,"name":"STARCITIZEN_WHITE.png","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/media\/y1f0boj8fak5rr\/source\/STARCITIZEN_WHITE.png","alt":"","size":73278,"mime_type":"image\/png","last_modified":"2021-02-03T06:54:29+00:00","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/26651","similar_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/26651\/similar"}],"images_count":1,"translations":{"en_EN":"Squadron 42 Monthly Report\nJanuary 2023\nThis is a cross-post of the report that was recently sent out via the monthly Squadron 42 newsletter. We\u2019re publishing this a second time as a Comm-Link to make it easier for the community to reference back to.\n\nTO: SQUADRON 42 RECRUITS\n\nSUBJ: DEVELOPMENT UPDATE 02:01:2023\n\nREF: CIG UK, CIG DE, CIG LA, CIG TX\n\nFAO Squadron 42 Recruits.\n\nWelcome to January\u2019s Squadron 42 development report. Enclosed you will find details on the latest progress made across the campaign, including enemy perception, updates to the Starmap, and narrative developments.\n\nThank you for your continued support of Squadron 42.\n\nSincerely,\n\nCIG COMMUNICATIONS\n\nAI (Content)\nThe AI Content team began 2023 focusing on behaviors used in the Stanton location. This involved regular reviews and playthroughs to detect and fix issues and looking closely at the \u2018chowline\u2019 and the \u2018eat and drink\u2019 behaviors.\n\nThe team also created a solid foundation of Maya character rigs that correctly match their in-game counterparts, allowing them to properly investigate and fix numerous problems. Time was also spent reviewing areas with 100% correct prop interaction, which was \u201cvery satisfying to see.\u201d\n\nThe team also began enabling characters to sit in different styles of seats while drinking and polished animations for the medical cupboard and fuse crate interactions.\n\nLastly, they continued to refine and improve the \u2018hygiene\u2019 and \u2018medical\u2019 behaviors.\n\nAI (Features)\nThe AI Feature team started the year enabling AI characters to throw grenades. This involved work in multiple different areas, including new logic for when to throw grenades to ensure a challenge without overwhelming the player, parabola collision checking to ensure the grenade lands correctly, and animation so that the AI looks correct when throwing.\n\nJanuary also saw the implementation of \u2018attack\u2019 and \u2018defend\u2019 areas. These assignments can be given to the AI to direct and control fighting in specific ways. On the most basic level, the defend area is used for limiting where NPCs are positioned when fighting, whereas the attack area is used to limit where they target. When assigned either area, the AI will prepare to fight by equipping their weapons and taking a ready stance before moving to the area on high alert (so perception happens fast and perception reactions are skipped). When defending, the AI will then move to a cover point inside the area and defensively peek out. When attacking, they will use the existing investigate behavior to search for hostile forces.\n\n\u201cThe attack area is great for building pressure on the player, whereas the defend area is to provide the player with a tough challenge as AI are hunkered down and ready to fight. The implementation of this feature involved reusing existing systems in new ways - changing the tactical queries (positional and target selection) to take into consideration the attack or defend area that the AI may have.\u201d AI Team\n\nThe AI team continued to develop the AI for a non-humanoid character, including work on group behaviors and attack patterns. They also began developing characterful animations that evoke the real-world creature the creature is modeled after. For example, as the creature fights in packs using melee attacks, the team must consider behaviors that space out the character movements in a natural way; partly so that the player doesn\u2019t get overwhelmed but also so that the characters don\u2019t collide with one another when attacking.\n\nCertain sections of Squadron 42 include AI fighting alongside the player, known as \u201cBuddy AI.\u201d Last month, the team developed functionality to control how the buddy plays in these sections, including following behind the player, moving to interest points, and seeking cover. For choosing points to follow behind the player, the team creates a raycast along the navigation mesh to ensure the point is reachable from the leader and that they can move forward without obstruction.\n\nAI (Tech)\nLate last year, AI Tech completed the first iteration of NPCs driving ground vehicles. Last month, they fixed several related bugs as more designers began using the feature.\n\nThey also progressed with the feature that enables NPCs to use transit systems (like elevators) and move between platforms. This time, they focused on NPCs using trains to move between locations. This required exposing new functionality on the transit manager and more complex behaviors before and during transit. New functionality includes providing more information about the gateways at specific destinations and information about carriages, such as time spent at a destination and time until arrival.\n\nOn the locomotion side, the team added further support for \u2018soft stops\u2019 and separated them from \u2018harsh stops.\u2019 A soft stop means that an NPC will choose the best animation for stopping even if it will overshoot its destination, while a harsh stop will attempt to stop immediately. Locomotion support was also given for bug fixing and alien-creature movement.\n\nFor the Subsumption Apollo tool, the team progressed with implementing feedback and bug fixing. They also added new functionality to the Subsumption mastergraph, making it possible to have functions on top of transitions to determine whether a state transition can be done.\n\nThe Usable Coordinator was also completed, which allows the designers to specify a selection of usables for NPCs in specific areas and prioritize the order of selection.\n\nThe feature that allows NPCs to perceive threats through audio and visual stimuli and react to hostile vehicles was completed. In a related area, further updates were made to the behavior that enables NPCs reacting to stimuli to enter combat.\n\nAI Tech started work on two new features: One allows overrides for navigation mesh generation so that the team can create navigation meshes for specific agents in narrow areas. For example, this will enable NPCs to traverse areas where only a crouched state is possible, such as vents and underfloor areas.\n\nThe second feature enables the team to mark areas with increased navigation cost, which will influence the path chosen by NPCs. This will be used to create areas that NPCs should avoid, like areas with fire, or to encourage them to travel on specific areas, like a sidewalk.\n\nAI (Vehicle Features)\nThe Vehicle Feature team focused on space combat AI improvements in January. The intent is to have combat AI behave in a more dynamic way that encourages players to move and explore the ship mechanics. This involved breaking the AI into different well-defined trees, which will help players to identify what kind of enemies they\u2019re up against. These improvements also allow the easier integration of more maneuvers to further increase the skill level and interest of higher-level ships.\n\nSimilarly, AI Vehicle Features worked on a new behavior logic to deliver improved atmospheric flight combat. This is intended to work with the \u2018control surface\u2019 feature being developed by the Vehicle Feature team and will lead to AI ships tailing and chasing players to get behind them, flying more like a plane when appropriate in atmosphere.\n\nThey also supported the flight designers on several chapters, adding new smaller features to ease their work when creating mission flow. Several flow-block issues were fixed too.\n\nAnimation\nThe Animation team began 2023 by making sure their schedule for reaching \u2018content complete\u2019 was agreed upon, which meant aligning closely with up and downstream teams.\n\nDevelopment-wise, further progress was made on zero-g, with the devs using some of the lessons learned to help guide work on \u2018prone\u2019 gameplay. They also continued to create new weapons and gadgets, including a trip mine, and worked on restraining and un-restraining.\n\nAnimation\u2019s AI teams further developed the Vanduul execution and searching behaviors, along with the female spec-ops characters. They\u2019re currently working on AI background animations related to eating and drinking, sickness, hygiene, and cargo for social areas.\n\nOn the facial side, the Chakma character was worked on alongside lines for AI character combat. The Mo-Cap team worked with Gameplay Animation to schedule an upcoming shoot to keep the AI and Player teams supplied with assets.\n\nEngine\nIn January, the Physics team worked on triangle vertex and normal transforms for physics triangle meshes, which were rewritten to use SSE\/AVX, saving 30% of the cost. Furthermore, the physicalization method for ropes can now be chosen per rope entity.\n\nOn the renderer, various optimizations were implemented into Gen12. Among other things, this included performance improvements for transient lists recording draw requests, a special submission for scene rendering with reduced thread synchronization, and a reduction of calls into the OS for general multi-threading purposes. Additionally, renderer initialization was refactored to prepare for Vulkan. Last month's Gen12 support for particle refraction now also works as intended.\n\nOn the core engine, further improvements were made to the remote shader compiler. Last month's work on adding support for huge pages was rolled out internally. Huge pages are now also used within the low-level memory allocator (JeMalloc). To further reduce the executable size of the Linux DGS, the \u2018gold linker\u2019 is now utilized to fold identical functions and various compiler-generated data inside binaries. Page heap is now also supported for entities, which use a special allocator, to make debugging memory corruptions easier. Lastly, more work was done to support v2 of the pk4 files introduced at the end of last year in the internal development tools.\n\nFeatures (Gameplay)\nThe Gameplay Feature team worked on seamless transitions rather than camera cuts when moving between the player\u2019s view and cinematic sequences, both when piloting a ship or walking around.\n\nThe new \u2018field manual\u2019 mobiGlas app progressed, which collates the tutorials players experience during the game. Male and female voice selection was added to the Application Form, and progress on saving and loading was made. Now, the team can save the replication layer and restore it, getting back to fundamentally the same state it was left in, including the correct scripted mission modules. A lot of general edge cases were fixed too.\n\nNumerous Starmap improvements were made, including better transitions between the real and cosmetic scaling as it\u2019s zoomed in and out, correct grid movement when panning, improved culling when objects intersect, and correctly sized and aligned text labels.\n\nGeneral iteration following feedback was also made to the Application Form, character customizer, armorer interaction, armory terminal, and mission-manager app.\n\nFeatures (Vehicles)\nJanuary saw the Vehicle Feature team improving numerous aspects of vehicle combat, including ship and weapons balance. Tweaks were also made to the HUD and aiming and targeting to further improve the combat experience.\n\nVehicle Features also began working on radar, having taken it over from the Arena Commander Feature team to support the needs of SQ42. Recent work included adding various features in support of the new scanning UI and multi-function displays (MFDs).\n\nThe quantum-travel rework is nearing completion. Last month, the team completed quantum spawning, which allows them to spawn AI ships as though they have quantum traveled into an area. This is the last feature required to widely use quantum travel in various chapters.\n\nUI was also worked on throughout the month. The MFD rework progressed well, with the team working through numerous technical issues in the UI system. They also fleshed out the new MFD control system, which is designed to be used with keys or a gamepad rather than Interaction mode. The HUD is being reworked and integrated heavily with the new MFD system too.\n\nGameplay Story\nLast month, Gameplay Story used new mo-cap data across multiple chapters and scenes, including creating new animations for chapter 18 to allow the characters to end the scene in a more realistic way as well as giving them longer end-idles. The new mo-cap also helped a scene in chapter 14, where a character holds a datapad in the wrong hand. They now transition from walking with the datapad into the scene seamlessly. A scene was also fixed in chapter 8 to allow a character to holster their datapad correctly.\n\nChanges were made to chapter 14 following feedback about wanting a character to be able to react if the player followed them down a hallway. Not only can they now turn, deliver a line, and continue walking, they can trigger scenes that start up a conversation with the player. This was done by shooting new mo-cap to give the character more life and the ability to glance around and realize the player is there.\n\nPolish passes were made to various scenes to get them to a much higher standard. One in chapter 12 required using a previously made animation and altering it through a combination of hand keying and mo-cap to create a completely new piece where the character delivers their own lines to the player and encourages them to catch up.\n\nSeveral scenes were also improved by changing how the character interacts with a console. This was made more believable following a pass on their hands and fingers so they appear to be pressing keys or typing.\n\nGameplay Story also experimented with the \u2018look at\u2019 feature for a scene in chapter 4, as testers had flagged that the characters didn't seem to be looking at the player.\n\n\u201cWe chose to do a full pass on both characters and managed to push the \u2018look at\u2019 to allow them to involve the player in the conversation and make them feel included. We have hit the start of the new year running and are delivering lots of high-quality work at a very good pace.\u201d Gameplay Story Team\n\nLevel Design\nLast month, the Space and Dogfight team continued to develop the gameplay experience, with the aim of having all dogfighting flow seamlessly from social and FPS sections.\n\nThey also integrated new features and AI improvements as they came online, and worked with the Vehicle Feature team on new flight mechanics, such as Quantum Boost and the atmospheric flight model.\n\nNarrative\nNarrative started the year with reviews alongside the Design team.\n\n\u201cWith placeholder dialogue being implemented in-game for the additional content generated last year, it\u2019s important to playtest and evaluate the adjusted experience before recording the final release-quality version with professional actors (no offense to the amazing performances from the team members who volunteered to record the placeholder content!)\u201d Narrative Team\n\nThe team is currently finalizing the mo-cap schedule with a breakdown of what\u2019s ready to be recorded and what still needs fine-tuning.\n\nAnother focus for January was the game\u2019s assorted collectible and discoverable narrative content, including messages that players will find if they explore areas and interact with datapads and terminals. Part of this process consists of chapter-by-chapter walkthroughs to ensure content is appropriately paced. Additionally, the team outlined new personal comms messages the player will receive throughout the campaign from various characters. While some messages in the main game flow had already been written, the team wanted to expand on them to provide even more narrative content that will tie into the player\u2019s actions and decisions.\n\nFinally, Narrative worked with the Core Gameplay Pillar Design team to create detailed reviews of the interactive terminals that players will use for things like puzzle solving and navigating. The Narrative team is helping to ensure that the language used on the displays is not only clear and concise but thematically appropriate for the universe.\n\nUI\nThe UI Tech team added new debugging tools to help them manage Building Blocks alongside a new array of widgets to speed up their workflow.\n\nThe Starmap progressed visually, with the team adding several elements to help with navigation and completing a polish pass.\n\nAlongside concepting visual improvements for various parts of the game, including radial menus, the UI Art and Design team shifted focus to work on functional UI. Several of the game teams began creating complex screens based on concepts, which were returned to the UI Tech team to ensure the interactions look and feel good.\n\nThey also tweaked some of the crosshairs to improve the combat experience and continued to develop the looks for two more manufacturer-specific vehicle UIs.\n\nVFX\nLast month, VFX continued their work on locations, collaborating closely with Art and Design.\n\nThe particle library overhaul mentioned in last month\u2019s report was completed, allowing the team to turn their efforts toward making sure all locations benefit from these improvements moving forwards.\n\nElsewhere, the team continued to tweak and refine the new quantum travel effects.\n\nWE'LL SEE YOU NEXT MONTH...\n\/\/ END TRANSMISSION","de_DE":"Geschwader 42 Monatsbericht\nJanuar 2023\nDies ist ein Querverweis auf den Bericht, der k\u00fcrzlich \u00fcber den monatlichen Squadron 42 Newsletter verschickt wurde. Wir ver\u00f6ffentlichen ihn ein zweites Mal als Comm-Link, damit die Community leichter darauf zur\u00fcckgreifen kann.\n\nTO: REKRUTEN DES GESCHWADERS 42\n\nSUBJ: ENTWICKLUNGSUPDATE 02:01:2023\n\nREF: CIG UK, CIG DE, CIG LA, CIG TX\n\nFAO-Geschwader 42 Rekruten.\n\nWillkommen zum Entwicklungsbericht f\u00fcr das Geschwader 42 im Januar. Anbei findest du Details zu den neuesten Fortschritten in der Kampagne, einschlie\u00dflich der Feindwahrnehmung, Aktualisierungen der Sternenkarte und erz\u00e4hlerischen Entwicklungen.\n\nVielen Dank f\u00fcr deine kontinuierliche Unterst\u00fctzung von Squadron 42.\n\nMit freundlichen Gr\u00fc\u00dfen,\n\nCIG COMMUNICATIONS\n\nAI (Inhalt)\nZu Beginn des Jahres 2023 konzentrierte sich das KI-Inhaltsteam auf die Verhaltensweisen am Standort Stanton. Dazu geh\u00f6rten regelm\u00e4\u00dfige \u00dcberpr\u00fcfungen und Playthroughs, um Probleme zu erkennen und zu beheben, sowie die Verhaltensweisen \"Chowline\" und \"Essen und Trinken\" unter die Lupe zu nehmen.\n\nDas Team schuf au\u00dferdem eine solide Grundlage von Maya-Charakter-Rigs, die mit ihren Gegenst\u00fccken im Spiel \u00fcbereinstimmen, so dass sie zahlreiche Probleme richtig untersuchen und beheben konnten. Es wurde auch Zeit darauf verwendet, Bereiche zu \u00fcberpr\u00fcfen, in denen die Interaktion mit den Requisiten zu 100 % korrekt war, was \"sehr befriedigend zu sehen\" war.\n\nDas Team begann auch damit, den Charakteren zu erm\u00f6glichen, beim Trinken auf verschiedenen Sitzen zu sitzen, und feilte an den Animationen f\u00fcr die Interaktionen mit dem Medizinschrank und der Sicherungskiste.\n\nSchlie\u00dflich wurden die Verhaltensweisen \"Hygiene\" und \"Medizin\" weiter verfeinert und verbessert.\n\nKI (Features)\nDas Team f\u00fcr KI-Features begann das Jahr damit, KI-Charakteren das Werfen von Granaten zu erm\u00f6glichen. Dazu geh\u00f6rte eine neue Logik, wann Granaten geworfen werden, um eine Herausforderung zu gew\u00e4hrleisten, ohne den Spieler zu \u00fcberfordern, eine Parabelkollisionspr\u00fcfung, um sicherzustellen, dass die Granate richtig landet, und eine Animation, damit die KI beim Werfen richtig aussieht.\n\nIm Januar wurden au\u00dferdem die Bereiche \"Angriff\" und \"Verteidigung\" eingef\u00fchrt. Diese Bereiche k\u00f6nnen der KI zugewiesen werden, um die K\u00e4mpfe auf bestimmte Weise zu steuern und zu kontrollieren. Der Bereich \"Verteidigung\" dient dazu, die Position der NSCs im Kampf zu begrenzen, w\u00e4hrend der Bereich \"Angriff\" dazu dient, das Ziel der NSCs zu begrenzen. Wenn die KI einem der beiden Bereiche zugewiesen wird, bereitet sie sich auf den Kampf vor, indem sie ihre Waffen ausr\u00fcstet und eine kampfbereite Haltung einnimmt, bevor sie sich in h\u00f6chster Alarmbereitschaft in den Bereich begibt (damit die Wahrnehmung schnell erfolgt und Wahrnehmungsreaktionen \u00fcbersprungen werden). Bei der Verteidigung bewegt sich die KI dann zu einem Deckungspunkt innerhalb des Gebiets und sp\u00e4ht defensiv aus. Wenn sie angreift, nutzt sie das vorhandene Erkundungsverhalten, um nach feindlichen Kr\u00e4ften zu suchen.\n\n\"Der Angriffsbereich eignet sich hervorragend, um Druck auf den Spieler aufzubauen, w\u00e4hrend der Verteidigungsbereich den Spieler vor eine schwierige Herausforderung stellt, da die KI in Deckung geht und kampfbereit ist. Bei der Umsetzung dieser Funktion wurden bestehende Systeme auf neue Art und Weise wiederverwendet, indem die taktischen Abfragen (Positions- und Zielauswahl) so ge\u00e4ndert wurden, dass sie den Angriffs- oder Verteidigungsbereich der KI ber\u00fccksichtigen.\" KI-Team\n\nDas KI-Team hat die Entwicklung der KI f\u00fcr einen nicht-humanoiden Charakter fortgesetzt, einschlie\u00dflich der Arbeit an Gruppenverhalten und Angriffsmustern. Sie begannen auch mit der Entwicklung von charaktervollen Animationen, die an die reale Kreatur erinnern, der die Kreatur nachempfunden ist. Da die Kreatur zum Beispiel in Rudeln mit Nahkampfangriffen k\u00e4mpft, muss das Team Verhaltensweisen entwickeln, die die Bewegungen der Charaktere auf nat\u00fcrliche Weise verteilen, damit der Spieler nicht \u00fcberfordert wird, aber auch damit die Charaktere beim Angriff nicht miteinander kollidieren.\n\nIn einigen Abschnitten von Squadron 42 k\u00e4mpft die KI an der Seite des Spielers, die so genannte \"Buddy-KI\". Letzten Monat hat das Team eine Funktion entwickelt, mit der man steuern kann, wie der Buddy in diesen Abschnitten spielt, z. B. dem Spieler folgen, sich zu interessanten Punkten bewegen und Deckung suchen. Bei der Auswahl von Punkten, denen der Spieler folgen soll, erstellt das Team einen Raycast entlang des Navigationsmeshs, um sicherzustellen, dass der Punkt vom Anf\u00fchrer erreichbar ist und er sich ungehindert vorw\u00e4rts bewegen kann.\n\nKI (Tech)\nEnde letzten Jahres hat die KI-Abteilung die erste Iteration der NPCs fertiggestellt, die Bodenfahrzeuge fahren. Letzten Monat wurden einige Fehler behoben, da immer mehr Designer\/innen die Funktion nutzen.\n\nAuch die Funktion, mit der NSCs Verkehrssysteme (wie Aufz\u00fcge) benutzen und sich zwischen Bahnsteigen bewegen k\u00f6nnen, wurde weiterentwickelt. Dieses Mal konzentrierten sie sich auf NSCs, die Z\u00fcge benutzen, um sich zwischen Orten zu bewegen. Dazu mussten neue Funktionen f\u00fcr den Transitmanager und komplexere Verhaltensweisen vor und w\u00e4hrend der Fahrt entwickelt werden. Zu den neuen Funktionen geh\u00f6rt die Bereitstellung von mehr Informationen \u00fcber die Gateways an bestimmten Zielorten und Informationen \u00fcber die Waggons, wie z. B. die Zeit, die an einem Zielort verbracht wird und die Zeit bis zur Ankunft.\n\nIm Bereich der Fortbewegung hat das Team die Unterst\u00fctzung f\u00fcr \"weiche Stopps\" erweitert und sie von \"harten Stopps\" getrennt. Ein weicher Halt bedeutet, dass ein NSC die beste Animation zum Anhalten w\u00e4hlt, auch wenn er sein Ziel \u00fcberf\u00e4hrt, w\u00e4hrend ein harter Halt versucht, sofort anzuhalten. Auch die Fortbewegung wurde unterst\u00fctzt, um Fehler zu beheben und die Bewegung von Alien-Kreaturen zu verbessern.\n\nF\u00fcr das Subsumption Apollo-Tool hat das Team die Umsetzung von Feedback und Fehlerbehebung vorangetrieben. Au\u00dferdem wurde der Subsumption-Mastergraph um eine neue Funktion erweitert, die es erm\u00f6glicht, Funktionen \u00fcber die \u00dcberg\u00e4nge zu legen, um festzustellen, ob ein Zustands\u00fcbergang durchgef\u00fchrt werden kann.\n\nAu\u00dferdem wurde der Usable Coordinator fertiggestellt, mit dem die Designer eine Auswahl an Usables f\u00fcr NSCs in bestimmten Bereichen festlegen und die Reihenfolge der Auswahl priorisieren k\u00f6nnen.\n\nDie Funktion, die es NSCs erm\u00f6glicht, Bedrohungen durch akustische und visuelle Reize wahrzunehmen und auf feindliche Fahrzeuge zu reagieren, wurde fertiggestellt. In einem verwandten Bereich wurden weitere Aktualisierungen an dem Verhalten vorgenommen, das es NSCs, die auf Reize reagieren, erm\u00f6glicht, in den Kampf zu ziehen.\n\nAI Tech hat mit der Arbeit an zwei neuen Funktionen begonnen: Die eine erm\u00f6glicht \u00dcberschreibungen f\u00fcr die Erstellung von Navigationsnetzen, so dass das Team Navigationsnetze f\u00fcr bestimmte Agenten in engen Bereichen erstellen kann. Dadurch k\u00f6nnen NSCs zum Beispiel Bereiche durchqueren, in denen nur ein geduckter Zustand m\u00f6glich ist, wie z. B. L\u00fcftungssch\u00e4chte und Unterflurbereiche.\n\nDie zweite Funktion erm\u00f6glicht es dem Team, Bereiche mit erh\u00f6hten Navigationskosten zu markieren, die den von den NSCs gew\u00e4hlten Weg beeinflussen. Auf diese Weise k\u00f6nnen Bereiche geschaffen werden, die NSCs meiden sollten, wie z. B. Bereiche mit Feuer, oder sie dazu ermutigen, sich auf bestimmten Fl\u00e4chen zu bewegen, wie z. B. einem B\u00fcrgersteig.\n\nKI (Fahrzeugfunktionen)\nDas Vehicle Feature Team hat sich im Januar auf die Verbesserung der KI im Raumkampf konzentriert. Die KI soll sich dynamischer verhalten und die Spieler\/innen dazu ermutigen, sich zu bewegen und die Schiffsmechanik zu erkunden. Dazu wurde die KI in verschiedene, klar definierte B\u00e4ume unterteilt, die den Spielern helfen, zu erkennen, mit welcher Art von Feinden sie es zu tun haben. Diese Verbesserungen erm\u00f6glichen auch die einfachere Integration von mehr Man\u00f6vern, um die F\u00e4higkeiten und das Interesse an h\u00f6herstufigen Schiffen weiter zu steigern.\n\nAuch bei den KI-Fahrzeugfunktionen wurde an einer neuen Verhaltenslogik gearbeitet, um den Flugkampf in der Atmosph\u00e4re zu verbessern. Diese soll mit dem \"Steuerfl\u00e4chen\"-Feature zusammenarbeiten, das vom Vehicle Feature Team entwickelt wird, und wird dazu f\u00fchren, dass die KI-Schiffe den Spielern hinterherfliegen und sie verfolgen, um hinter sie zu kommen, und in der Atmosph\u00e4re mehr wie ein Flugzeug fliegen, wenn es angebracht ist.\n\nAu\u00dferdem unterst\u00fctzten sie die Flugdesigner in mehreren Kapiteln und f\u00fcgten neue kleinere Features hinzu, die ihnen die Arbeit bei der Erstellung von Missionsabl\u00e4ufen erleichtern. Au\u00dferdem wurden mehrere Probleme mit Flow-Blocks behoben.\n\nAnimation\nZu Beginn des Jahres 2023 stellte das Animationsteam sicher, dass der Zeitplan f\u00fcr die Fertigstellung der Inhalte abgesprochen war, was eine enge Abstimmung mit den vor- und nachgelagerten Teams bedeutete.\n\nBei der Entwicklung wurden weitere Fortschritte bei der Schwerelosigkeit gemacht, und die Entwickler nutzten einige der gewonnenen Erkenntnisse, um die Arbeit am \"liegenden\" Gameplay zu unterst\u00fctzen. Au\u00dferdem wurden neue Waffen und Gadgets entwickelt, darunter eine Stolper-Mine, und es wurde an der Fesselung und Entfesselung gearbeitet.\n\nDie KI-Teams der Animation entwickelten die Vanduul-Exekution und das Suchverhalten sowie die weiblichen Spec-Ops-Charaktere weiter. Zurzeit arbeiten sie an KI-Hintergrundanimationen f\u00fcr Essen und Trinken, Krankheit, Hygiene und Fracht f\u00fcr soziale Bereiche.\n\nAuf der Gesichtsseite wurde der Chakma-Charakter zusammen mit Linien f\u00fcr den KI-Charakterkampf bearbeitet. Das Mo-Cap-Team hat gemeinsam mit Gameplay Animation einen Drehtermin vereinbart, um die KI- und Spielerteams mit Material zu versorgen.\n\nEngine\nIm Januar arbeitete das Physik-Team an den Vertex- und Normalentransformationen f\u00fcr die Physik-Dreiecksnetze, die auf SSE\/AVX umgeschrieben wurden, was 30 % der Kosten sparte. Au\u00dferdem kann die Physikalisierungsmethode f\u00fcr Seile jetzt pro Seil-Entit\u00e4t ausgew\u00e4hlt werden.\n\nBeim Renderer wurden verschiedene Optimierungen in Gen12 implementiert. Dazu geh\u00f6rten unter anderem Leistungsverbesserungen f\u00fcr transiente Listen, die Zeichnungsanfragen aufzeichnen, eine spezielle Vorlage f\u00fcr das Rendering von Szenen mit reduzierter Thread-Synchronisierung und eine Reduzierung der Aufrufe ins Betriebssystem f\u00fcr allgemeine Multi-Threading-Zwecke. Au\u00dferdem wurde die Renderer-Initialisierung \u00fcberarbeitet, um sie auf Vulkan vorzubereiten. Die im letzten Monat eingef\u00fchrte Gen12-Unterst\u00fctzung f\u00fcr Partikelbrechung funktioniert jetzt auch wie vorgesehen.\n\nAn der Core-Engine wurden weitere Verbesserungen am Remote-Shader-Compiler vorgenommen. Die Arbeit des letzten Monats an der Unterst\u00fctzung f\u00fcr riesige Seiten wurde intern umgesetzt. Riesige Seiten werden jetzt auch in der Low-Level-Speicherzuweisung (JeMalloc) verwendet. Um die Gr\u00f6\u00dfe der ausf\u00fchrbaren Dateien des Linux DGS weiter zu reduzieren, wird jetzt der \"Gold Linker\" verwendet, um identische Funktionen und verschiedene vom Compiler erzeugte Daten in Bin\u00e4rdateien zu falten. Page Heap wird jetzt auch f\u00fcr Entit\u00e4ten unterst\u00fctzt, die einen speziellen Allocator verwenden, um die Fehlersuche bei Speicherfehlern zu erleichtern. Schlie\u00dflich wurde die Unterst\u00fctzung f\u00fcr die Version 2 der pk4-Dateien verbessert, die Ende letzten Jahres in den internen Entwicklungstools eingef\u00fchrt wurde.\n\nFeatures (Gameplay)\nDas Team f\u00fcr Gameplay-Features arbeitete an nahtlosen \u00dcberg\u00e4ngen statt an Kameraschnitten beim Wechsel zwischen der Sicht des Spielers und filmischen Sequenzen, sowohl beim Steuern eines Schiffes als auch beim Herumlaufen.\n\nDie neue mobiGlas-App \"Feldhandbuch\" wurde weiterentwickelt, in der die Tutorials, die die Spieler w\u00e4hrend des Spiels erleben, zusammengefasst sind. Das Bewerbungsformular wurde um die Auswahl von m\u00e4nnlichen und weiblichen Stimmen erweitert, und es wurden Fortschritte beim Speichern und Laden gemacht. Jetzt kann das Team die Replikationsebene speichern und wiederherstellen, so dass im Grunde derselbe Zustand wiederhergestellt wird, in dem sie verlassen wurde, einschlie\u00dflich der korrekten geskripteten Missionsmodule. Au\u00dferdem wurden eine Menge allgemeiner Probleme behoben.\n\nEs wurden zahlreiche Verbesserungen an der Starmap vorgenommen, z. B. bessere \u00dcberg\u00e4nge zwischen der realen und der kosmetischen Skalierung beim Vergr\u00f6\u00dfern und Verkleinern, die korrekte Verschiebung des Gitters beim Schwenken, verbessertes Culling bei sich \u00fcberschneidenden Objekten und korrekt dimensionierte und ausgerichtete Textbeschriftungen.\n\nAuch das Bewerbungsformular, die Charakteranpassung, die Interaktion mit dem Waffenschmied, das Waffenterminal und die Missionsmanager-App wurden nach Feedback \u00fcberarbeitet.\n\nFeatures (Fahrzeuge)\nIm Januar hat das Team f\u00fcr Fahrzeug-Features zahlreiche Aspekte des Fahrzeugkampfes verbessert, darunter die Balance von Schiffen und Waffen. Auch das HUD und das Zielen wurden \u00fcberarbeitet, um das Kampferlebnis weiter zu verbessern.\n\nDas Team f\u00fcr Fahrzeug-Features hat auch mit der Arbeit am Radar begonnen, nachdem es diese Aufgabe vom Team f\u00fcr Arena Commander-Features \u00fcbernommen hat, um die Bed\u00fcrfnisse von SQ42 zu unterst\u00fctzen. Zu den j\u00fcngsten Arbeiten geh\u00f6rte das Hinzuf\u00fcgen verschiedener Funktionen zur Unterst\u00fctzung der neuen Scan-UI und der Multifunktionsdisplays (MFDs).\n\nDie \u00dcberarbeitung der Quantenreise steht kurz vor dem Abschluss. Letzten Monat hat das Team das Quantenspawning fertiggestellt, das es erm\u00f6glicht, KI-Schiffe so zu spawnen, als ob sie mit Quanten in ein Gebiet gereist w\u00e4ren. Dies ist die letzte Funktion, die ben\u00f6tigt wird, um Quantenreisen in verschiedenen Kapiteln zu nutzen.\n\nAuch an der Benutzeroberfl\u00e4che wurde im Laufe des Monats gearbeitet. Die \u00dcberarbeitung des MFD kam gut voran, wobei das Team zahlreiche technische Probleme im UI-System behoben hat. Au\u00dferdem wurde das neue MFD-Steuerungssystem ausgearbeitet, das nicht mehr im Interaktionsmodus, sondern mit Tasten oder einem Gamepad bedient werden soll. Auch das HUD wird \u00fcberarbeitet und stark mit dem neuen MFD-System integriert.\n\nGameplay Story\nIm letzten Monat wurden bei Gameplay Story neue Mo-Cap-Daten in mehreren Kapiteln und Szenen verwendet. So wurden z. B. neue Animationen f\u00fcr Kapitel 18 erstellt, die es den Charakteren erm\u00f6glichen, die Szene auf realistischere Weise zu beenden und ihnen l\u00e4ngere End-Idles zu geben. Das neue Mo-Cap half auch bei einer Szene in Kapitel 14, in der eine Figur ein Datenpad in der falschen Hand h\u00e4lt. Sie geht jetzt nahtlos vom Gehen mit dem Datapad in die Szene \u00fcber. Auch in Kapitel 8 wurde eine Szene korrigiert, in der ein Charakter sein Datapad richtig einstecken kann.\n\nIn Kapitel 14 wurden \u00c4nderungen vorgenommen, nachdem R\u00fcckmeldungen eingegangen waren, dass eine Spielfigur in der Lage sein sollte, zu reagieren, wenn der Spieler ihr durch einen Gang folgt. Sie k\u00f6nnen sich jetzt nicht nur umdrehen, einen Satz sagen und weitergehen, sondern auch Szenen ausl\u00f6sen, die ein Gespr\u00e4ch mit dem Spieler beginnen. Dazu wurden neue Mo-Cap-Aufnahmen gemacht, um der Figur mehr Leben einzuhauchen und ihr die M\u00f6glichkeit zu geben, sich umzuschauen und zu merken, dass der Spieler da ist.\n\nVerschiedene Szenen wurden \u00fcberarbeitet, um sie auf einen h\u00f6heren Standard zu bringen. Bei einer Szene in Kapitel 12 wurde eine zuvor erstellte Animation verwendet und durch eine Kombination aus Hand-Keying und Mo-Cap so ver\u00e4ndert, dass eine v\u00f6llig neue Szene entstand, in der die Figur dem Spieler ihre eigenen Zeilen vortr\u00e4gt und ihn auffordert, aufzuholen.\n\nMehrere Szenen wurden auch verbessert, indem die Interaktion der Figur mit einer Konsole ver\u00e4ndert wurde. Dies wurde glaubw\u00fcrdiger, indem die H\u00e4nde und Finger der Figur so bearbeitet wurden, dass es aussieht, als w\u00fcrden sie Tasten dr\u00fccken oder tippen.\n\nGameplay Story hat auch mit der Funktion \"Anschauen\" f\u00fcr eine Szene in Kapitel 4 experimentiert, da die Tester bem\u00e4ngelt hatten, dass die Figuren den Spieler nicht anzuschauen schienen.\n\n\"Wir haben uns entschieden, beide Charaktere komplett durchzugehen und haben es geschafft, den 'Blick' so zu verschieben, dass sie den Spieler in das Gespr\u00e4ch einbeziehen und er sich einbezogen f\u00fchlt. Wir sind gut in das neue Jahr gestartet und liefern eine Menge qualitativ hochwertiger Arbeit in einem sehr guten Tempo ab.\" Gameplay Story Team\n\nLevel Design\nIm letzten Monat hat das Weltraum- und Dogfight-Team das Gameplay-Erlebnis weiterentwickelt, mit dem Ziel, dass alle Dogfights nahtlos in die sozialen und FPS-Abschnitte \u00fcbergehen.\n\nAu\u00dferdem wurden neue Funktionen und KI-Verbesserungen integriert, sobald sie online gingen, und das Team f\u00fcr Fahrzeugfunktionen arbeitete an neuen Flugmechaniken wie dem Quanten-Boost und dem atmosph\u00e4rischen Flugmodell.\n\nNarrative\nNarrative begann das Jahr mit \u00dcberpr\u00fcfungen an der Seite des Design-Teams.\n\n\"Da die Platzhalterdialoge f\u00fcr die zus\u00e4tzlichen Inhalte, die im letzten Jahr erstellt wurden, im Spiel implementiert wurden, ist es wichtig, die angepasste Erfahrung zu testen und zu bewerten, bevor die endg\u00fcltige Version in Release-Qualit\u00e4t mit professionellen Schauspielern aufgenommen wird (nichts gegen die gro\u00dfartigen Leistungen der Teammitglieder, die sich freiwillig gemeldet haben, um die Platzhalterinhalte aufzunehmen). Narrative Team\n\nDas Team stellt derzeit den Zeitplan f\u00fcr die Aufnahmen fertig und legt fest, was bereits aufgenommen werden kann und woran noch gefeilt werden muss.\n\nEin weiterer Schwerpunkt im Januar waren die sammelbaren und auffindbaren narrativen Inhalte des Spiels, einschlie\u00dflich der Botschaften, die die Spieler\/innen finden, wenn sie Gebiete erkunden und mit Datapads und Terminals interagieren. Ein Teil dieses Prozesses besteht aus kapitelweisen Walkthroughs, um sicherzustellen, dass die Inhalte in einem angemessenen Tempo vermittelt werden. Au\u00dferdem hat das Team neue pers\u00f6nliche Nachrichten vorgestellt, die die Spieler\/innen im Laufe der Kampagne von verschiedenen Charakteren erhalten werden. Einige Nachrichten waren zwar bereits im Spielverlauf enthalten, aber das Team wollte sie erweitern, um noch mehr erz\u00e4hlerische Inhalte zu liefern, die mit den Handlungen und Entscheidungen des Spielers verkn\u00fcpft sind.\n\nSchlie\u00dflich arbeitete das Narrative Team mit dem Core Gameplay Pillar Design Team zusammen, um detaillierte \u00dcbersichten \u00fcber die interaktiven Terminals zu erstellen, die die Spieler\/innen zum L\u00f6sen von R\u00e4tseln und zum Navigieren benutzen werden. Das Narrative Team hilft dabei, sicherzustellen, dass die Sprache auf den Displays nicht nur klar und pr\u00e4gnant ist, sondern auch thematisch zum Universum passt.\n\nUI\nDas UI-Tech-Team hat neue Debugging-Tools f\u00fcr die Verwaltung der Bausteine und eine Reihe neuer Widgets eingef\u00fchrt, um den Arbeitsablauf zu beschleunigen.\n\nDie Starmap wurde visuell weiterentwickelt: Das Team f\u00fcgte verschiedene Elemente hinzu, die die Navigation erleichtern, und verpasste ihr einen letzten Schliff.\n\nNeben der Konzeption von visuellen Verbesserungen f\u00fcr verschiedene Teile des Spiels, wie z. B. Radialmen\u00fcs, konzentrierte sich das UI Art and Design Team auf die Arbeit an der funktionalen Benutzeroberfl\u00e4che. Mehrere Spielteams begannen mit der Erstellung komplexer Bildschirme auf der Grundlage von Konzepten, die an das UI Tech Team zur\u00fcckgegeben wurden, um sicherzustellen, dass die Interaktionen gut aussehen und sich gut anf\u00fchlen.\n\nAu\u00dferdem wurden einige Fadenkreuze \u00fcberarbeitet, um das Kampferlebnis zu verbessern, und das Aussehen von zwei weiteren herstellerspezifischen Fahrzeug-UIs weiterentwickelt.\n\nVFX\nIm letzten Monat setzte das VFX-Team seine Arbeit an den Schaupl\u00e4tzen fort und arbeitete dabei eng mit Art und Design zusammen.\n\nDie im letzten Bericht erw\u00e4hnte \u00dcberarbeitung der Partikelbibliothek wurde abgeschlossen, sodass sich das Team nun darauf konzentrieren kann, dass alle Orte von diesen Verbesserungen profitieren.\n\nAu\u00dferdem hat das Team weiter an den neuen Quantenreiseeffekten gefeilt und sie verfeinert.\n\nWIR SEHEN UNS N\u00c4CHSTEN MONAT WIEDER...\n\/\/ ENDE DER \u00dcBERTRAGUNG","zh_CN":"Squadron 42 Monthly Report\nJanuary 2023\nThis is a cross-post of the report that was recently sent out via the monthly Squadron 42 newsletter. We\u2019re publishing this a second time as a Comm-Link to make it easier for the community to reference back to.\n\nTO: SQUADRON 42 RECRUITS\n\nSUBJ: DEVELOPMENT UPDATE 02:01:2023\n\nREF: CIG UK, CIG DE, CIG LA, CIG TX\n\nFAO Squadron 42 Recruits.\n\nWelcome to January\u2019s Squadron 42 development report. Enclosed you will find details on the latest progress made across the campaign, including enemy perception, updates to the Starmap, and narrative developments.\n\nThank you for your continued support of Squadron 42.\n\nSincerely,\n\nCIG COMMUNICATIONS\n\nAI (Content)\nThe AI Content team began 2023 focusing on behaviors used in the Stanton location. This involved regular reviews and playthroughs to detect and fix issues and looking closely at the \u2018chowline\u2019 and the \u2018eat and drink\u2019 behaviors.\n\nThe team also created a solid foundation of Maya character rigs that correctly match their in-game counterparts, allowing them to properly investigate and fix numerous problems. Time was also spent reviewing areas with 100% correct prop interaction, which was \u201cvery satisfying to see.\u201d\n\nThe team also began enabling characters to sit in different styles of seats while drinking and polished animations for the medical cupboard and fuse crate interactions.\n\nLastly, they continued to refine and improve the \u2018hygiene\u2019 and \u2018medical\u2019 behaviors.\n\nAI (Features)\nThe AI Feature team started the year enabling AI characters to throw grenades. This involved work in multiple different areas, including new logic for when to throw grenades to ensure a challenge without overwhelming the player, parabola collision checking to ensure the grenade lands correctly, and animation so that the AI looks correct when throwing.\n\nJanuary also saw the implementation of \u2018attack\u2019 and \u2018defend\u2019 areas. These assignments can be given to the AI to direct and control fighting in specific ways. On the most basic level, the defend area is used for limiting where NPCs are positioned when fighting, whereas the attack area is used to limit where they target. When assigned either area, the AI will prepare to fight by equipping their weapons and taking a ready stance before moving to the area on high alert (so perception happens fast and perception reactions are skipped). When defending, the AI will then move to a cover point inside the area and defensively peek out. When attacking, they will use the existing investigate behavior to search for hostile forces.\n\n\u201cThe attack area is great for building pressure on the player, whereas the defend area is to provide the player with a tough challenge as AI are hunkered down and ready to fight. The implementation of this feature involved reusing existing systems in new ways - changing the tactical queries (positional and target selection) to take into consideration the attack or defend area that the AI may have.\u201d AI Team\n\nThe AI team continued to develop the AI for a non-humanoid character, including work on group behaviors and attack patterns. They also began developing characterful animations that evoke the real-world creature the creature is modeled after. For example, as the creature fights in packs using melee attacks, the team must consider behaviors that space out the character movements in a natural way; partly so that the player doesn\u2019t get overwhelmed but also so that the characters don\u2019t collide with one another when attacking.\n\nCertain sections of Squadron 42 include AI fighting alongside the player, known as \u201cBuddy AI.\u201d Last month, the team developed functionality to control how the buddy plays in these sections, including following behind the player, moving to interest points, and seeking cover. For choosing points to follow behind the player, the team creates a raycast along the navigation mesh to ensure the point is reachable from the leader and that they can move forward without obstruction.\n\nAI (Tech)\nLate last year, AI Tech completed the first iteration of NPCs driving ground vehicles. Last month, they fixed several related bugs as more designers began using the feature.\n\nThey also progressed with the feature that enables NPCs to use transit systems (like elevators) and move between platforms. This time, they focused on NPCs using trains to move between locations. This required exposing new functionality on the transit manager and more complex behaviors before and during transit. New functionality includes providing more information about the gateways at specific destinations and information about carriages, such as time spent at a destination and time until arrival.\n\nOn the locomotion side, the team added further support for \u2018soft stops\u2019 and separated them from \u2018harsh stops.\u2019 A soft stop means that an NPC will choose the best animation for stopping even if it will overshoot its destination, while a harsh stop will attempt to stop immediately. Locomotion support was also given for bug fixing and alien-creature movement.\n\nFor the Subsumption Apollo tool, the team progressed with implementing feedback and bug fixing. They also added new functionality to the Subsumption mastergraph, making it possible to have functions on top of transitions to determine whether a state transition can be done.\n\nThe Usable Coordinator was also completed, which allows the designers to specify a selection of usables for NPCs in specific areas and prioritize the order of selection.\n\nThe feature that allows NPCs to perceive threats through audio and visual stimuli and react to hostile vehicles was completed. In a related area, further updates were made to the behavior that enables NPCs reacting to stimuli to enter combat.\n\nAI Tech started work on two new features: One allows overrides for navigation mesh generation so that the team can create navigation meshes for specific agents in narrow areas. For example, this will enable NPCs to traverse areas where only a crouched state is possible, such as vents and underfloor areas.\n\nThe second feature enables the team to mark areas with increased navigation cost, which will influence the path chosen by NPCs. This will be used to create areas that NPCs should avoid, like areas with fire, or to encourage them to travel on specific areas, like a sidewalk.\n\nAI (Vehicle Features)\nThe Vehicle Feature team focused on space combat AI improvements in January. The intent is to have combat AI behave in a more dynamic way that encourages players to move and explore the ship mechanics. This involved breaking the AI into different well-defined trees, which will help players to identify what kind of enemies they\u2019re up against. These improvements also allow the easier integration of more maneuvers to further increase the skill level and interest of higher-level ships.\n\nSimilarly, AI Vehicle Features worked on a new behavior logic to deliver improved atmospheric flight combat. This is intended to work with the \u2018control surface\u2019 feature being developed by the Vehicle Feature team and will lead to AI ships tailing and chasing players to get behind them, flying more like a plane when appropriate in atmosphere.\n\nThey also supported the flight designers on several chapters, adding new smaller features to ease their work when creating mission flow. Several flow-block issues were fixed too.\n\nAnimation\nThe Animation team began 2023 by making sure their schedule for reaching \u2018content complete\u2019 was agreed upon, which meant aligning closely with up and downstream teams.\n\nDevelopment-wise, further progress was made on zero-g, with the devs using some of the lessons learned to help guide work on \u2018prone\u2019 gameplay. They also continued to create new weapons and gadgets, including a trip mine, and worked on restraining and un-restraining.\n\nAnimation\u2019s AI teams further developed the Vanduul execution and searching behaviors, along with the female spec-ops characters. They\u2019re currently working on AI background animations related to eating and drinking, sickness, hygiene, and cargo for social areas.\n\nOn the facial side, the Chakma character was worked on alongside lines for AI character combat. The Mo-Cap team worked with Gameplay Animation to schedule an upcoming shoot to keep the AI and Player teams supplied with assets.\n\nEngine\nIn January, the Physics team worked on triangle vertex and normal transforms for physics triangle meshes, which were rewritten to use SSE\/AVX, saving 30% of the cost. Furthermore, the physicalization method for ropes can now be chosen per rope entity.\n\nOn the renderer, various optimizations were implemented into Gen12. Among other things, this included performance improvements for transient lists recording draw requests, a special submission for scene rendering with reduced thread synchronization, and a reduction of calls into the OS for general multi-threading purposes. Additionally, renderer initialization was refactored to prepare for Vulkan. Last month's Gen12 support for particle refraction now also works as intended.\n\nOn the core engine, further improvements were made to the remote shader compiler. Last month's work on adding support for huge pages was rolled out internally. Huge pages are now also used within the low-level memory allocator (JeMalloc). To further reduce the executable size of the Linux DGS, the \u2018gold linker\u2019 is now utilized to fold identical functions and various compiler-generated data inside binaries. Page heap is now also supported for entities, which use a special allocator, to make debugging memory corruptions easier. Lastly, more work was done to support v2 of the pk4 files introduced at the end of last year in the internal development tools.\n\nFeatures (Gameplay)\nThe Gameplay Feature team worked on seamless transitions rather than camera cuts when moving between the player\u2019s view and cinematic sequences, both when piloting a ship or walking around.\n\nThe new \u2018field manual\u2019 mobiGlas app progressed, which collates the tutorials players experience during the game. Male and female voice selection was added to the Application Form, and progress on saving and loading was made. Now, the team can save the replication layer and restore it, getting back to fundamentally the same state it was left in, including the correct scripted mission modules. A lot of general edge cases were fixed too.\n\nNumerous Starmap improvements were made, including better transitions between the real and cosmetic scaling as it\u2019s zoomed in and out, correct grid movement when panning, improved culling when objects intersect, and correctly sized and aligned text labels.\n\nGeneral iteration following feedback was also made to the Application Form, character customizer, armorer interaction, armory terminal, and mission-manager app.\n\nFeatures (Vehicles)\nJanuary saw the Vehicle Feature team improving numerous aspects of vehicle combat, including ship and weapons balance. Tweaks were also made to the HUD and aiming and targeting to further improve the combat experience.\n\nVehicle Features also began working on radar, having taken it over from the Arena Commander Feature team to support the needs of SQ42. Recent work included adding various features in support of the new scanning UI and multi-function displays (MFDs).\n\nThe quantum-travel rework is nearing completion. Last month, the team completed quantum spawning, which allows them to spawn AI ships as though they have quantum traveled into an area. This is the last feature required to widely use quantum travel in various chapters.\n\nUI was also worked on throughout the month. The MFD rework progressed well, with the team working through numerous technical issues in the UI system. They also fleshed out the new MFD control system, which is designed to be used with keys or a gamepad rather than Interaction mode. The HUD is being reworked and integrated heavily with the new MFD system too.\n\nGameplay Story\nLast month, Gameplay Story used new mo-cap data across multiple chapters and scenes, including creating new animations for chapter 18 to allow the characters to end the scene in a more realistic way as well as giving them longer end-idles. The new mo-cap also helped a scene in chapter 14, where a character holds a datapad in the wrong hand. They now transition from walking with the datapad into the scene seamlessly. A scene was also fixed in chapter 8 to allow a character to holster their datapad correctly.\n\nChanges were made to chapter 14 following feedback about wanting a character to be able to react if the player followed them down a hallway. Not only can they now turn, deliver a line, and continue walking, they can trigger scenes that start up a conversation with the player. This was done by shooting new mo-cap to give the character more life and the ability to glance around and realize the player is there.\n\nPolish passes were made to various scenes to get them to a much higher standard. One in chapter 12 required using a previously made animation and altering it through a combination of hand keying and mo-cap to create a completely new piece where the character delivers their own lines to the player and encourages them to catch up.\n\nSeveral scenes were also improved by changing how the character interacts with a console. This was made more believable following a pass on their hands and fingers so they appear to be pressing keys or typing.\n\nGameplay Story also experimented with the \u2018look at\u2019 feature for a scene in chapter 4, as testers had flagged that the characters didn't seem to be looking at the player.\n\n\u201cWe chose to do a full pass on both characters and managed to push the \u2018look at\u2019 to allow them to involve the player in the conversation and make them feel included. We have hit the start of the new year running and are delivering lots of high-quality work at a very good pace.\u201d Gameplay Story Team\n\nLevel Design\nLast month, the Space and Dogfight team continued to develop the gameplay experience, with the aim of having all dogfighting flow seamlessly from social and FPS sections.\n\nThey also integrated new features and AI improvements as they came online, and worked with the Vehicle Feature team on new flight mechanics, such as Quantum Boost and the atmospheric flight model.\n\nNarrative\nNarrative started the year with reviews alongside the Design team.\n\n\u201cWith placeholder dialogue being implemented in-game for the additional content generated last year, it\u2019s important to playtest and evaluate the adjusted experience before recording the final release-quality version with professional actors (no offense to the amazing performances from the team members who volunteered to record the placeholder content!)\u201d Narrative Team\n\nThe team is currently finalizing the mo-cap schedule with a breakdown of what\u2019s ready to be recorded and what still needs fine-tuning.\n\nAnother focus for January was the game\u2019s assorted collectible and discoverable narrative content, including messages that players will find if they explore areas and interact with datapads and terminals. Part of this process consists of chapter-by-chapter walkthroughs to ensure content is appropriately paced. Additionally, the team outlined new personal comms messages the player will receive throughout the campaign from various characters. While some messages in the main game flow had already been written, the team wanted to expand on them to provide even more narrative content that will tie into the player\u2019s actions and decisions.\n\nFinally, Narrative worked with the Core Gameplay Pillar Design team to create detailed reviews of the interactive terminals that players will use for things like puzzle solving and navigating. The Narrative team is helping to ensure that the language used on the displays is not only clear and concise but thematically appropriate for the universe.\n\nUI\nThe UI Tech team added new debugging tools to help them manage Building Blocks alongside a new array of widgets to speed up their workflow.\n\nThe Starmap progressed visually, with the team adding several elements to help with navigation and completing a polish pass.\n\nAlongside concepting visual improvements for various parts of the game, including radial menus, the UI Art and Design team shifted focus to work on functional UI. Several of the game teams began creating complex screens based on concepts, which were returned to the UI Tech team to ensure the interactions look and feel good.\n\nThey also tweaked some of the crosshairs to improve the combat experience and continued to develop the looks for two more manufacturer-specific vehicle UIs.\n\nVFX\nLast month, VFX continued their work on locations, collaborating closely with Art and Design.\n\nThe particle library overhaul mentioned in last month\u2019s report was completed, allowing the team to turn their efforts toward making sure all locations benefit from these improvements moving forwards.\n\nElsewhere, the team continued to tweak and refine the new quantum travel effects.\n\nWE'LL SEE YOU NEXT MONTH...\n\/\/ END TRANSMISSION"},"links_count":0,"comment_count":0,"created_at":"2023-02-08T19:00:00+00:00","created_at_human":"3 years ago"},"meta":{"processed_at":"2026-04-28 05:59:28","valid_relations":["images","links","translations"],"prev_id":19105,"next_id":19111}}