{"data":{"id":20141,"title":"Star Citizen Monthly Report: August 2024","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/comm-link\/SCW\/20141-API","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-links\/20141","api_public_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/comm-links\/20141","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"},{"id":36545,"name":"ai-gidt.webp","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/i\/a5731f1bf670d302009f2f6ce1cbca2a2bef86d8\/ADdPNihJzmPbNuTnFsH1DqUeqBRpXdSXVVtgJTyDDgscGKrzJuoFjResiebT3GxxNeoycfj4nrn2oxTcNYV1ZcoXk\/ai-gidt.webp","alt":"g-illustration","size":125232,"mime_type":"image\/webp","last_modified":"2024-09-05T01:30:57+00:00","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/36545","similar_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/36545\/similar"},{"id":36546,"name":"lulzmanforevar.jpg","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/i\/baa43966b41b9f1f3b3a64affc46ae96ec88f3c2\/ADdPNihJzmPbNuTnFsH1DqUeqBRpXdSXVVtgJTyDDgscGKrzJuoFjReseNPkLMKmcotAbCfJqFdrFJBdzUXdmpQGn\/lulzmanforevar.jpg","alt":"g-illustration","size":2117096,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","last_modified":"2024-09-05T01:30:58+00:00","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/36546","similar_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/36546\/similar"},{"id":36548,"name":"gamescom.jpg","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/i\/9fa37dc73fbb15b0c43bb7c6df4cd3f226fefeab\/ADdPNihJzmPbNuTnFsH1DqUeqBRpXdSXVVtgJTyDDgscGKrzJuoFjResivk3fh7j6Y8brrzbH8vJNKu5yzDriuzW2\/gamescom.jpg","alt":"g-illustration","size":1564608,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","last_modified":"2024-09-05T01:30:59+00:00","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/36548","similar_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/36548\/similar"},{"id":36551,"name":"lighting2.webp","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/i\/d12c01c2f95e12e50a0ad574658b4f2c7099f430\/ADdPNihJzmPbNuTnFsH1DqUeqBRpXdSXVVtgJTyDDgscGKrzJuoFjReseNTLEAmmVxaofizfrzLe8mMbjqzJ6vi1k\/lighting2.webp","alt":"g-illustration","size":444014,"mime_type":"image\/webp","last_modified":"2024-09-05T01:31:00+00:00","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/36551","similar_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/36551\/similar"},{"id":36554,"name":"vfx.jpg","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/i\/475ba907e1afcff4233d9f2382c10f7bf46b423c\/ADdPNihJzmPbNuTnFsH1DqUeqBRpXdSXVVtgJTyDDgscGKrzJuoFjReskdvqXJ8XtidGDTb1r1waycwvrtUC9C5C2\/vfx.jpg","alt":"g-illustration","size":1107316,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","last_modified":"2024-09-05T01:31:04+00:00","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/36554","similar_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/36554\/similar"}],"images_count":16,"translations":{"en_EN":"PU Monthly Report\nAugust 2024\nWelcome to August\u2019s PU Monthly Report! With the recent release of Alpha 3.24: Cargo Empires, most development teams spent the month both finalizing patch tasks and progressing with exciting new features coming further down the road. Read on for all the details.\n\nAI (Features)\nLast month, AI Features polished various reactions, including the \u2018first reactions\u2019 when AIs respond to audio or visual events. While these behaviors had a solid base, various combat styles, weapons, and scenarios didn\u2019t play consistently, such as when escalating from a low reaction to a high reaction. To improve this, the team built a new AI test level called a \u2018test cell.\u2019 This is a Building Block setup with different character types, weapons, cover, usables, etc. that allows the team to pick and mix different setups to produce a consistent version of test scenarios. A particular combination can be exported as one \u2018cell\u2019 and imported into a single level where multiple test scenarios can be played simultaneously, allowing the team to quickly identify mistakes, fix them, and retest.\n\nThe test cell level is also being used for cover-hit reactions, which have different animation setups per cover type, combat style, and weapon type. Going forward, the test cell will be expanded to provide more consistency across a wide range of areas.\n\nAI (Tech)\nAI tech continued to improve how NPCs transition between servers, including serializing movement requests and navigation paths.\n\nThey also updated navigation generation elements, including one relating to computing navigation islands and one used when exporting processes into object containers. Progress was also made on converting the Apollo tool\u2019s UI style. A new feature continued development too, which the team will share more about in the future.\n\nAI (Content)\nIn August, the Social AI designers joined the Narrative team to form a larger group focused on improving the Star Citizen experience. As part of this, they began meeting with Design and the creative directors to walk through various locations, looking for opportunities to clean up existing behaviors or add new ones. While many of the behaviors will be based on work done for Squadron 42, the expansive nature of the PU will require bespoke additions.\n\nAI Content is also in the process of reviewing locations throughout Pyro, ensuring the environment and behavior setups work correctly together and instill a sense of the intended narrative. The team also met with the designers of an upcoming mission to provide support for some of the locations that will be visited by players, including applying believable behaviors to NPCs.\n\nAside from outlining behavior improvements and needs for Star Citizen 1.0, Narrative Design kicked off several initiatives to determine the required tech and use cases for future social spaces. This will ultimately lead to a vertical slice showing a gold-standard social space with the level of interaction the game will aim for.\n\nAI (Game Intelligence Development Team)\nIn August, the Game Intelligence Development team concentrated on delivering a clean and stable Apollo StarScript UX update. This involved adding support for higher icon resolutions so they stay sharp when zoomed in and straightening lines for a clearer read.\n\nDrag and drop was improved too. Now, when hovering, ports with a bigger selection range are highlighted. The devs corrected the color and size of imported notes, added arrowheads to links leading to closed groups, and enlarged the hovering area and highlights on links and ports. Drop points were also added to links to identify the desired select line.\n\nAnimation\nAugust saw the Facial Animation team developing content to flesh out more of the game world\u2019s characters.\n\nGameplay Animation continued to work on a selection of creatures previously seen in teaser videos alongside improving the creatures already in the PU. They also progressed with an unannounced addition that the team is \u201clooking forward to seeing in-game.\u201d\n\nArt (Characters)\nCharacter Art continued working on utility and specialist armors, while Character Concept Art supported IAE and progressed with their ongoing exploration of fauna.\n\nArt (Ships)\nLast month, Ship Art moved several unannounced vehicles toward their greybox reviews, while others approached their LOD-zero and final-content reviews.\n\nWork on the RSI Polaris also continued, with the ship\u2019s exterior approaching completion.\n\nCommunity\nIn support of Alpha 3.24, the Community team made improvements and updates to the New Player and Welcome Back Pilot guides. They also provided an update to the Cargo Guide alongside a Q&A for the recently released Aegis Sabre Peregrine. The team also focused heavily on compiling and sharing player feedback internally.\n\nThe team\u2019s standout event last month was Ship Showdown 2954, with players from across the community submitting creative entries to determine which ships made it to the top. Phase 1 saw citizens submitting original creations of their favorite vehicles to the Community Hub and social media before the Top 16 faced off in daily voting battles.\n\nAfter much voting, the Anvil F8C Lighting was crowned Ship Showdown Champion 2954.\n\nThe Community team also supported the release of a limited number of General Admission CitizenCon 2954 tickets before connecting with the community at Gamescom 2024 in Cologne.\n\n\u201cThis stop on the Bar Citizen Tour brought together players for an unforgettable experience, including a treasure hunt, prizes, and two Bar Citizens events! Later in August, the team met with more fans in Seattle at PAX West during another Bar Citizen event at Stoup Brewing. Looking ahead, we\u2019re excited to meet even more Star Citizen players in Marinha Grande, Portugal, and during TwitchCon US in California!\u201d Community Team\n\nThe Progress Tracker was also updated with the latest production schedule through 2024. It introduces a significant shift in how deliverables are tracked while maintaining transparency throughout the year. Further updates, including 2025, will follow soon.\n\nWith CitizenCon 2954 coming in October, the team spent much of August gearing up for the event, including setting up the venue layout, preparing community booths, and more.\n\nCore Gameplay\nThroughout August, the various Gameplay Feature teams continued to improve the hangar and cargo flows for Alpha 3.24 based on feedback from the PTU. Meanwhile, a lot of behind-the-scenes changes progressed that will improve how various gameplay systems handle environments that span multiple servers.\n\nProgress was made on the \u2018overheat\u2019 mechanic, with Core Gameplay adding support for different atmospheric temperatures. For example, weapons will overheat at different rates based on their environment.\n\n\u2018Charge and drain\u2019 progressed too and now features client-side prediction to give immediate feedback to players when they\u2019re charging or draining, even if there\u2019s latency between the client and server.\n\nThe team began adding logic to declutter the UI by grouping markers of the same type, while the implementation of weapon groups and group presets continued.\n\nAugust saw continued progress on jump points, which began with improved debugging tools to better visualize potential exit points for players. Turbulence was also implemented, which will affect the flight experience within the tunnel; the designers are currently tweaking the strength to get the desired impact. Visual effects were added too, including cockpit vibration based on where in the tunnel the player is located, and obstacles were placed that players will be required to navigate around. Further failure states for jump tunnels were determined before the feature was submitted to QA for testing.\n\nProgress was then made on the resource network, engineering gameplay, and life support.\n\nFor example, Core Gameplay implemented a new behavior for critical components, which will replace the existing soft death mechanic. When live, only certain items, like powerplants, will trigger an explosion or soft death when destroyed.\n\nThe engineering screen was polished, while a new room selection UI was added for life support. The team also gave Design the ability to control the total power output of multiple active powerplants. This way, more powerplants don\u2019t necessarily result in linearly increasing power production. Significant time was also dedicated to fixing stability issues and bugs following QA testing.\n\nJuly\u2019s work on \u2018radar and scanning\u2019 continued throughout August, with the team reviewing it in Arena Commander to assess the impact on the player experience and tune values to achieve the desired effect.\n\nThey also focused on closing out feature work for delta signatures, giving Design more control over how to react to changes. Tasks were completed for audio signatures too.\n\nCore Gameplay continued supporting transit in the run-up to the live release while adjusting how transit data is stored to lower the maintenance overhead on Level Design.\n\nElsewhere, the team reworked the \u2018shot\u2019 annunciator - it will turn red if someone targets the player and fires their weapon. Annunciators for weapons, power, thrusters, and shields were completed, while \u2018overheating\u2019 and \u2018off\u2019 states were implemented.\n\nThe ongoing mission-system refactor progressed, with the team fixing various issues causing existing behaviors to break or function incorrectly. The mission system can now run in minimal mode, allowing it to be included in the seeding service and upcoming \u2018MissionFactory\u2019 service, which generates contracts.\n\nClients can now query available missions, and the contract generator can apply legacy settings to work with the previous system too.\n\nImplementation of service beacons for the mission-system refactor began, while Core Gameplay supported Mission Design on remaining Blockade Runner and cargo-hauling issues.\n\nDevelopers working on cargo gameplay primarily focused on major remaining stability and gameplay issues. For example, they fixed several problems with hangar instance queues getting stuck and players being assigned the wrong hangar. Functionality was also added to the instanced interior manager to better support removing non-active hangar instances.\n\nSeveral hauling-mission bugs were solved relating to warehouse-manager and freight-elevator-kiosk interactions alongside issues with the kiosk transferring items on\/off the loading platform.\n\nBugs were also fixed relating to Hull C auto-loading, auto-loaded commodity transactions, and ship-loading platforms getting broken by obstructions, with the fixes set to be implemented in the near future.\n\nFinally for Core Gameplay, the devs spent considerable time reviewing internal and external feedback to plan further improvements to the features released in Alpha 3.24.\n\nEconomy\nThe Economy team spent the month getting closer to uniting all their work into a cohesive economy consisting of ships, items, missions, fuel, consumables, freelancing, careers, and more. Progress was also made on the economy setup for Pyro.\n\nGraphics, VFX Programming & Planet Tech\nAlongside the ongoing stability and performance improvements for Vulkan, the Graphics team improved debug tooling for the long-term health of the dev experience.\n\nFor global illumination, support was added for high-gloss specular reflections, which builds on the previous rough-specular work. The team also added live updates to GPU raytracing acceleration structures and began working on improvements to transparent objects.\n\nPerformance wise, the global illumination system now supports both temporal and spatial subsampling to accumulate the same visual result with fewer rays fired per frame.\n\nOngoing tasks consist of async creation and additional types of destructible renderer objects (such as gas cloud chunks) to reduce frame time spikes on the CPU.\n\nFor Planet Tech v5, the team focused on enhancing terrain performance through a compute shader-driven pipeline that caches material attributes to reduce redundant computations.\n\nAlongside this, the revamped material scattering system now supports physically based distribution, allowing for denser biomes, such as jungles and forests, by eliminating distinctions between small and large mesh ground covers.\n\nA new per-object climate concept and new terrain attributes were introduced, including geology and soil maps.\n\nPlanet Tech also spent part of August supporting the Montreal Tools team on the location-scatter tool. For this, they provided a new terrain query API for large-scale queries and extended query capabilities, with future tasks aimed at supporting SDF-based terrain queries.\n\nSupport for the live release included fixes for the \u2018invisible asteroid\u2019 bug and other issues.\n\nFollowing on from last month\u2019s report, the VFX team focused on fire hazards. The feature work is now complete, with focus shifting to bug fixing and design balance.\n\nParticle effect connections for jump tunnels were implemented. The devs are now focusing on polishing the VFX and supporting graphics technology.\n\nThe team also progressed with a significant data conversion to add GUIDs, which will help the VFX artists manage particle effects more efficiently.\n\nElsewhere, performance improvements are underway, including using multiple threads for particle updates and adjusting VFX regression tests to detect issues earlier.\n\nInteractables\nThe Interactables team spent time in August on items for Pyro mission content.\n\nLighting\nThe Lighting team continued to support multiple areas of development, including Pyro\u2019s space stations, acidic caves, and closeout work for Alpha 3.24.\n\nLocations\nLast month, the Landing Zone team progressed with tasks for Alpha 4.0, including adding new areas and additional polish to Pyro\u2019s space stations.\n\nThe Locations team pressed forward with ground bases, moving the initial modules through greybox. Improvements were also made to several new location types coming with Pyro.\n\nMission Design\nMission Design spent time in August updating the Salvage Mission archetype, enabling it to spawn ground panels and provide FPS gameplay at scrapyards.\n\nThey also continued to work on the Repair Location missions recently shown on the \u2018Social Gameplay of Pyro\u2019 episode of Inside Star Citizen. The team is targeting three main gameplay elements for the initial release:\n\nCharge and drain: Charging devices that use batteries for operation\n\nReplace component: Replacing fuses in relays\n\nRepair pipe: Fixing damaged pipes using RMC\n\nThe team also continued to design resource gathering, including determining which commodities buyers in Stanton would want extracting from Pyro.\n\nThey\u2019re also expanding the mechanic to include FPS resource gathering, which will be the first step toward basic MMO-type fetch quests. Elsewhere, a new mission type progressed that the team will discuss in a future update.\n\nNarrative\nThe Narrative Team spent time last month working with Design and Branding to further develop the new Contested Zones and enhance the gameplay that players will experience there. The team also made improvements to the cargo-hauling missions and continued work on unannounced mission content that will be coming to Stanton and Pyro.\n\nThe Narrative Design team focused on improving AI behaviors at settlements to give a more natural feel to the NPCs that players will encounter there. They also fleshed out the new social AI testbed.\n\nNew lore was added to the website, with a Whitley\u2019s Guide to the Cutlass Red and additional Galactapedia Entries. Plus, there was a very special Star Citizen Live with the Narrative Team.\n\nOnline Technology\nIn August, the Online Services team progressed with features scheduled for Alpha 4.0. Significant progress was made on the updates for the Mission and Marker systems, and the team completed the new Player Trade service, which will allow players to trade game currencies in a server-meshed environment.\n\nTime was also spent testing and gathering metrics for a newly enabled EAC anti-cheat feature in Evocati and the PTU.\n\nAlongside helping to stabilize the Alpha 3.24 release, Online Services helped Player Relations unblock accounts with lingering login issues.\n\nRegarding Live Tools, the team met with Player Support and Player Experience during a visit to the Montreal studio.\n\n\u201cIt was a great opportunity for both teams to sit together and work on the future of the Network Operation Center and how it could improve the quality of life for the support teams with its current and upcoming features.\u201d Live Tools Team\n\nElsewhere, the architecture for the error-reporting tool progressed well.\n\nVFX\nThe VFX team continued their support for jump points and dynamic fire, both of which were shown in recent episodes of Inside Star Citizen.\n\nThey also completed their work on acidic caves, two vehicles, and an unnamed energy weapon that has functionality not seen before in the PU.","de_DE":"PU-Monatsbericht\nAugust 2024\nWillkommen zum PU-Monatsbericht f\u00fcr August! Mit der k\u00fcrzlichen Ver\u00f6ffentlichung von Alpha 3.24: Cargo Empires haben die meisten Entwicklerteams den Monat damit verbracht, Patches fertigzustellen und an aufregenden neuen Funktionen zu arbeiten, die in Zukunft kommen werden. Lies weiter, um alle Details zu erfahren.\n\nKI (Features)\nIm letzten Monat wurde an den KI-Features gefeilt, unter anderem an den \"ersten Reaktionen\", wenn die KI auf akustische oder visuelle Ereignisse reagiert. Diese Verhaltensweisen hatten zwar eine solide Basis, aber verschiedene Kampfstile, Waffen und Szenarien spielten sich nicht einheitlich, z. B. bei der Eskalation von einer niedrigen Reaktion zu einer hohen Reaktion. Um dies zu verbessern, baute das Team eine neue KI-Testebene, die \"Testzelle\". Dabei handelt es sich um ein Baustein-Setup mit verschiedenen Charaktertypen, Waffen, Deckungen, nutzbaren Gegenst\u00e4nden usw., das es dem Team erm\u00f6glicht, verschiedene Setups auszuw\u00e4hlen und zu mischen, um eine konsistente Version von Testszenarien zu erstellen. Eine bestimmte Kombination kann als eine \"Zelle\" exportiert und in eine einzelne Ebene importiert werden, in der mehrere Testszenarien gleichzeitig gespielt werden k\u00f6nnen, so dass das Team Fehler schnell erkennen, beheben und erneut testen kann.\n\nDie Testzellenebene wird auch f\u00fcr Deckungstreffer-Reaktionen verwendet, die je nach Deckungstyp, Kampfstil und Waffentyp unterschiedliche Animationen haben. In Zukunft wird die Testzelle erweitert, um mehr Konsistenz in einer Vielzahl von Bereichen zu gew\u00e4hrleisten.\n\nKI (Tech)\nDie KI-Technologie hat den \u00dcbergang von NSCs zwischen Servern weiter verbessert, einschlie\u00dflich der Serialisierung von Bewegungsanfragen und Navigationspfaden.\n\nAu\u00dferdem wurden Elemente zur Navigationsgenerierung aktualisiert, darunter ein Element zur Berechnung von Navigationsinseln und eines, das beim Export von Prozessen in Objektcontainer verwendet wird. Au\u00dferdem wurden Fortschritte bei der Umwandlung des UI-Stils des Apollo-Tools erzielt. Eine neue Funktion wurde ebenfalls weiterentwickelt, \u00fcber die das Team in Zukunft mehr berichten wird.\n\nKI (Inhalt)\nIm August schlossen sich die Social AI Designer dem Narrative Team an, um eine gr\u00f6\u00dfere Gruppe zu bilden, die sich auf die Verbesserung der Star Citizen Erfahrung konzentriert. In diesem Zusammenhang trafen sie sich mit dem Designteam und den Kreativdirektoren, um verschiedene Orte zu besuchen und nach M\u00f6glichkeiten zu suchen, bestehende Verhaltensweisen zu verbessern oder neue hinzuzuf\u00fcgen. Viele der Verhaltensweisen werden auf der Arbeit f\u00fcr Squadron 42 basieren, aber die umfangreiche Natur des PU wird ma\u00dfgeschneiderte Erg\u00e4nzungen erfordern.\n\nDas Team von AI Content ist au\u00dferdem dabei, die Schaupl\u00e4tze in Pyro zu \u00fcberpr\u00fcfen, um sicherzustellen, dass die Umgebung und die Verhaltensweisen richtig zusammenpassen und ein Gef\u00fchl f\u00fcr die beabsichtigte Erz\u00e4hlung vermitteln. Das Team hat sich auch mit den Designern einer kommenden Mission getroffen, um Unterst\u00fctzung f\u00fcr einige der Orte zu leisten, die von den Spielern besucht werden, einschlie\u00dflich der Anwendung glaubw\u00fcrdiger Verhaltensweisen auf NSCs.\n\nNeben dem Entwurf von Verhaltensverbesserungen und Bed\u00fcrfnissen f\u00fcr Star Citizen 1.0 hat das Narrative Design mehrere Initiativen gestartet, um die erforderliche Technologie und die Anwendungsf\u00e4lle f\u00fcr zuk\u00fcnftige soziale R\u00e4ume zu bestimmen. Dies wird letztendlich zu einem vertikalen Schnitt f\u00fchren, der einen Goldstandard-Sozialraum mit dem Interaktionsniveau zeigt, das das Spiel anstreben wird.\n\nKI (Game Intelligence Development Team)\nIm August hat sich das Game Intelligence Development Team darauf konzentriert, ein sauberes und stabiles Apollo StarScript UX-Update zu liefern. Dazu geh\u00f6rte die Unterst\u00fctzung h\u00f6herer Icon-Aufl\u00f6sungen, damit sie auch beim Heranzoomen scharf bleiben, und die Begradigung von Linien, damit sie besser lesbar sind.\n\nAuch das Drag & Drop wurde verbessert. Jetzt werden Ports mit einem gr\u00f6\u00dferen Auswahlbereich hervorgehoben, wenn du den Mauszeiger dar\u00fcber bewegst. Die Entwickler haben die Farbe und Gr\u00f6\u00dfe von importierten Notizen korrigiert, Pfeilspitzen zu Links hinzugef\u00fcgt, die zu geschlossenen Gruppen f\u00fchren, und den Hovering-Bereich und die Hervorhebungen von Links und Ports vergr\u00f6\u00dfert. Au\u00dferdem wurden den Links Droppoints hinzugef\u00fcgt, um die gew\u00fcnschte Auswahllinie zu kennzeichnen.\n\nAnimation\nIm August hat das Team f\u00fcr Gesichtsanimation weitere Inhalte entwickelt, um die Charaktere der Spielwelt zu versch\u00f6nern.\n\nDie Gameplay-Animation arbeitete weiter an einer Auswahl von Kreaturen, die bereits in Teaser-Videos zu sehen waren, und verbesserte die Kreaturen, die bereits in der PU enthalten sind. Au\u00dferdem wurde an einer unangek\u00fcndigten Erweiterung gearbeitet, auf die sich das Team \"sehr freut\".\n\nKunst (Charaktere)\nCharacter Art arbeitete weiter an Gebrauchs- und Spezialr\u00fcstungen, w\u00e4hrend Character Concept Art die IAE unterst\u00fctzte und die Erforschung der Fauna vorantrieb.\n\nKunst (Schiffe)\nIm letzten Monat hat Ship Art mehrere unangek\u00fcndigte Fahrzeuge in Richtung ihrer Greybox-Reviews gebracht, w\u00e4hrend andere sich ihren LOD-Zero- und Final-Content-Reviews n\u00e4herten.\n\nAuch die Arbeiten an der RSI Polaris wurden fortgesetzt und das \u00c4u\u00dfere des Schiffes n\u00e4hert sich der Fertigstellung.\n\nCommunity\nZur Unterst\u00fctzung der Alpha 3.24 nahm das Community-Team Verbesserungen und Aktualisierungen an den Leitf\u00e4den f\u00fcr neue Spieler und f\u00fcr \"Welcome Back Pilot\" vor. Au\u00dferdem wurde der Cargo Guide aktualisiert und eine Frage und Antwort f\u00fcr die k\u00fcrzlich ver\u00f6ffentlichte Aegis Sabre Peregrine ver\u00f6ffentlicht. Das Team konzentrierte sich au\u00dferdem darauf, das Feedback der Spieler zu sammeln und intern zu teilen.\n\nDas herausragende Ereignis des Teams im letzten Monat war der Ship Showdown 2954, bei dem Spieler aus der ganzen Community kreative Beitr\u00e4ge einreichten, um zu bestimmen, welche Schiffe es an die Spitze schafften. In Phase 1 reichten die B\u00fcrger\/innen originelle Kreationen ihrer Lieblingsfahrzeuge im Community Hub und in den sozialen Medien ein, bevor die Top 16 in t\u00e4glichen Abstimmungsschlachten gegeneinander antraten.\n\nNach vielen Abstimmungen wurde der Anvil F8C Lighting zum Ship Showdown Champion 2954 gek\u00fcrt.\n\nDas Community-Team unterst\u00fctzte auch die Ver\u00f6ffentlichung einer begrenzten Anzahl von Eintrittskarten f\u00fcr die CitizenCon 2954, bevor es sich mit der Community auf der Gamescom 2024 in K\u00f6ln traf.\n\n\"Dieser Stopp auf der Bar Citizen Tour brachte Spieler f\u00fcr ein unvergessliches Erlebnis zusammen, einschlie\u00dflich einer Schatzsuche, Preisen und zwei Bar Citizens Events! Sp\u00e4ter im August traf sich das Team mit weiteren Fans in Seattle auf der PAX West w\u00e4hrend eines weiteren Bar Citizen-Events bei Stoup Brewing. Wir freuen uns darauf, noch mehr Star Citizen-Spieler in Marinha Grande, Portugal, und auf der TwitchCon US in Kalifornien zu treffen!\" Community Team\n\nDer Progress Tracker wurde au\u00dferdem mit dem neuesten Produktionsplan bis 2024 aktualisiert. Damit \u00e4ndert sich die Art und Weise, wie die Ergebnisse verfolgt werden, erheblich, w\u00e4hrend die Transparenz \u00fcber das ganze Jahr hinweg erhalten bleibt. Weitere Updates, auch f\u00fcr 2025, werden bald folgen.\n\nDa die CitizenCon 2954 im Oktober stattfinden wird, verbrachte das Team einen Gro\u00dfteil des Augusts damit, sich auf die Veranstaltung vorzubereiten, z. B. mit dem Aufbau des Veranstaltungsortes und der Vorbereitung der Gemeinschaftsst\u00e4nde.\n\nKern-Gameplay\nDen ganzen August \u00fcber arbeiteten die verschiedenen Gameplay-Teams an der Verbesserung der Hangar- und Frachtabl\u00e4ufe f\u00fcr Alpha 3.24, basierend auf dem Feedback der PTU. Gleichzeitig wurden viele \u00c4nderungen hinter den Kulissen vorgenommen, die den Umgang mit Umgebungen, die sich \u00fcber mehrere Server erstrecken, verbessern werden.\n\nEs wurden Fortschritte bei der \u00dcberhitzungsmechanik gemacht, indem das Kern-Gameplay die Unterst\u00fctzung f\u00fcr unterschiedliche atmosph\u00e4rische Temperaturen hinzugef\u00fcgt hat. Zum Beispiel \u00fcberhitzen Waffen je nach Umgebung unterschiedlich schnell.\n\nDie Funktion \"Aufladen und Entladen\" wurde ebenfalls weiterentwickelt und bietet jetzt eine clientseitige Vorhersage, die den Spieler\/innen sofortiges Feedback gibt, wenn sie aufgeladen oder entladen werden, selbst wenn es eine Latenz zwischen Client und Server gibt.\n\nDas Team hat damit begonnen, die Benutzeroberfl\u00e4che zu entr\u00fcmpeln, indem Markierungen desselben Typs gruppiert werden, w\u00e4hrend die Implementierung von Waffengruppen und Gruppenvoreinstellungen fortgesetzt wurde.\n\nIm August wurden weitere Fortschritte bei den Sprungpunkten gemacht, angefangen mit verbesserten Debugging-Tools, um potenzielle Ausstiegspunkte f\u00fcr die Spieler\/innen besser sichtbar zu machen. Au\u00dferdem wurden Turbulenzen implementiert, die sich auf das Flugerlebnis im Tunnel auswirken werden; die Designer sind gerade dabei, die St\u00e4rke zu optimieren, um die gew\u00fcnschte Wirkung zu erzielen. Au\u00dferdem wurden visuelle Effekte hinzugef\u00fcgt, wie z. B. Cockpitvibrationen, die davon abh\u00e4ngen, wo sich der Spieler im Tunnel befindet, und es wurden Hindernisse eingebaut, die die Spieler umgehen m\u00fcssen. Weitere Fehlerzust\u00e4nde f\u00fcr Sprungtunnel wurden festgelegt, bevor das Feature an die QA zum Testen weitergeleitet wurde.\n\nAnschlie\u00dfend wurden Fortschritte beim Ressourcennetzwerk, dem technischen Gameplay und der Lebenserhaltung gemacht.\n\nZum Beispiel wurde im Core Gameplay ein neues Verhalten f\u00fcr kritische Komponenten implementiert, das die bisherige Soft-Death-Mechanik ersetzen wird. Wenn sie in Betrieb sind, l\u00f6sen nur bestimmte Gegenst\u00e4nde, wie z. B. Triebwerke, eine Explosion oder einen sanften Tod aus, wenn sie zerst\u00f6rt werden.\n\nDer Ingenieursbildschirm wurde aufpoliert, w\u00e4hrend eine neue Raumauswahl-UI f\u00fcr die Lebenserhaltung hinzugef\u00fcgt wurde. Das Team gab dem Design au\u00dferdem die M\u00f6glichkeit, die Gesamtleistung mehrerer aktiver Triebwerke zu kontrollieren. Auf diese Weise f\u00fchren mehr Triebwerke nicht unbedingt zu einem linearen Anstieg der Energieproduktion. Au\u00dferdem wurde viel Zeit darauf verwendet, Stabilit\u00e4tsprobleme und Fehler nach den QA-Tests zu beheben.\n\nDie Arbeit an \"Radar und Scanning\" vom Juli wurde im August fortgesetzt. Das Team \u00fcberpr\u00fcfte sie im Arena Commander, um die Auswirkungen auf das Spielerlebnis zu bewerten und die Werte so zu optimieren, dass der gew\u00fcnschte Effekt erzielt wird.\n\nDas Team konzentrierte sich au\u00dferdem auf den Abschluss der Arbeiten an den Delta-Signaturen, um dem Design mehr Kontrolle dar\u00fcber zu geben, wie es auf \u00c4nderungen reagieren soll. Auch die Aufgaben f\u00fcr die Audiosignaturen wurden abgeschlossen.\n\nCore Gameplay unterst\u00fctzte den Transit im Vorfeld der Live-Ver\u00f6ffentlichung weiter und passte die Speicherung der Transitdaten an, um den Wartungsaufwand f\u00fcr das Level Design zu verringern.\n\nAu\u00dferdem hat das Team die Schussanzeige \u00fcberarbeitet - sie wird rot, wenn jemand den Spieler anvisiert und seine Waffe abfeuert. Die Anzeigen f\u00fcr Waffen, Energie, Schubd\u00fcsen und Schilde wurden vervollst\u00e4ndigt, w\u00e4hrend die Zust\u00e4nde \"\u00dcberhitzung\" und \"Aus\" implementiert wurden.\n\nDie \u00dcberarbeitung des Missionssystems wurde vorangetrieben und das Team hat verschiedene Probleme behoben, die dazu gef\u00fchrt haben, dass bestehende Verhaltensweisen nicht mehr funktionieren oder falsch funktionieren. Das Missionssystem kann jetzt im Minimalmodus laufen, so dass es in den Seeding Service und den kommenden \"MissionFactory\" Service, der Vertr\u00e4ge generiert, eingebunden werden kann.\n\nKunden k\u00f6nnen nun verf\u00fcgbare Missionen abfragen, und der Vertragsgenerator kann alte Einstellungen \u00fcbernehmen, um auch mit dem vorherigen System zu arbeiten.\n\nDie Implementierung von Service-Baken f\u00fcr die \u00dcberarbeitung des Missionssystems hat begonnen, w\u00e4hrend Core Gameplay das Missionsdesign bei verbleibenden Problemen mit Blockade-Runnern und Frachttransporten unterst\u00fctzt hat.\n\nDie Entwickler, die am Cargo Gameplay arbeiteten, konzentrierten sich vor allem auf die wichtigsten verbleibenden Stabilit\u00e4ts- und Gameplay-Probleme. So wurden z. B. mehrere Probleme behoben, bei denen die Warteschlangen von Hangar-Instanzen stecken blieben und Spieler\/innen den falschen Hangar zugewiesen bekamen. Au\u00dferdem wurde die Funktionalit\u00e4t des Innenraummanagers erweitert, um das Entfernen nicht aktiver Hangar-Instanzen besser zu unterst\u00fctzen.\n\nMehrere Fehler in der Transportmission wurden behoben, die mit der Interaktion zwischen dem Lagerhaus-Manager und dem Frachtaufzug-Kiosk zu tun hatten, sowie Probleme mit dem Kiosk, der Gegenst\u00e4nde auf die Ladeplattform transferierte.\n\nAu\u00dferdem wurden Fehler im Zusammenhang mit der automatischen Beladung von H\u00fclle C, automatischen Warentransaktionen und Schiffsladeplattformen, die durch Hindernisse besch\u00e4digt wurden, behoben, wobei die Korrekturen in naher Zukunft implementiert werden sollen.\n\nIm Bereich Core Gameplay haben die Entwickler\/innen viel Zeit damit verbracht, internes und externes Feedback zu pr\u00fcfen, um weitere Verbesserungen f\u00fcr die in Alpha 3.24 ver\u00f6ffentlichten Funktionen zu planen.\n\nWirtschaft\nDas Wirtschaftsteam verbrachte den Monat damit, die Arbeit an einer zusammenh\u00e4ngenden Wirtschaft mit Schiffen, Gegenst\u00e4nden, Missionen, Treibstoff, Verbrauchsg\u00fctern, Freelancing, Karrieren und mehr zu vereinen. Auch bei der Einrichtung der Wirtschaft f\u00fcr Pyro wurden Fortschritte gemacht.\n\nGrafik, VFX-Programmierung & Planet Tech\nNeben den laufenden Stabilit\u00e4ts- und Leistungsverbesserungen f\u00fcr Vulkan hat das Grafikteam auch die Debugging-Tools verbessert, um die Entwicklung langfristig zu sichern.\n\nF\u00fcr die globale Beleuchtung wurde die Unterst\u00fctzung f\u00fcr hochgl\u00e4nzende Spiegelungen hinzugef\u00fcgt, die auf der vorherigen Arbeit mit groben Spiegelungen aufbaut. Das Team f\u00fcgte au\u00dferdem Live-Updates der GPU-Raytracing-Beschleunigungsstrukturen hinzu und begann mit der Arbeit an Verbesserungen f\u00fcr transparente Objekte.\n\nIn Bezug auf die Leistung unterst\u00fctzt das globale Beleuchtungssystem jetzt sowohl zeitliches als auch r\u00e4umliches Subsampling, um das gleiche visuelle Ergebnis mit weniger abgefeuerten Strahlen pro Frame zu erzielen.\n\nZu den laufenden Aufgaben geh\u00f6ren die asynchrone Erstellung und zus\u00e4tzliche Arten von zerst\u00f6rbaren Renderer-Objekten (z. B. Gaswolken), um Framerate-Spitzen auf der CPU zu reduzieren.\n\nBei Planet Tech v5 konzentrierte sich das Team darauf, die Leistung des Gel\u00e4ndes durch eine Compute-Shader-gesteuerte Pipeline zu verbessern, die Materialattribute zwischenspeichert, um redundante Berechnungen zu reduzieren.\n\nAu\u00dferdem unterst\u00fctzt das \u00fcberarbeitete Materialstreuungssystem jetzt eine physikalisch basierte Verteilung, die dichtere Biome wie Dschungel und W\u00e4lder erm\u00f6glicht, indem es die Unterscheidung zwischen kleinen und gro\u00dfen Mesh-Bodenbedeckungen aufhebt.\n\nEin neues objektbezogenes Klimakonzept und neue Gel\u00e4ndeattribute wurden eingef\u00fchrt, darunter Geologie- und Bodenkarten.\n\nIm August unterst\u00fctzte Planet Tech das Montreal Tools Team bei der Entwicklung des Location Scatter Tools. Daf\u00fcr wurde eine neue API f\u00fcr gro\u00dffl\u00e4chige Abfragen und erweiterte Abfragem\u00f6glichkeiten bereitgestellt, wobei zuk\u00fcnftige Aufgaben auf die Unterst\u00fctzung von SDF-basierten Gel\u00e4ndeabfragen abzielen.\n\nDie Unterst\u00fctzung f\u00fcr das Live-Release umfasste die Behebung des Fehlers \"unsichtbarer Asteroid\" und anderer Probleme.\n\nIm Anschluss an den Bericht vom letzten Monat konzentrierte sich das VFX-Team auf Feuergefahren. Die Arbeit an den Funktionen ist nun abgeschlossen und der Schwerpunkt liegt nun auf der Fehlerbehebung und der Designbalance.\n\nPartikeleffektverbindungen f\u00fcr Sprungtunnel wurden implementiert. Die Entwickler konzentrieren sich jetzt auf den Feinschliff der VFX und der unterst\u00fctzenden Grafiktechnologie.\n\nDas Team hat auch eine umfangreiche Datenkonvertierung vorgenommen, um GUIDs hinzuzuf\u00fcgen, die den VFX-K\u00fcnstlern helfen, Partikeleffekte effizienter zu verwalten.\n\nAu\u00dferdem werden Leistungsverbesserungen vorgenommen, z. B. die Verwendung mehrerer Threads f\u00fcr Partikel-Updates und die Anpassung der VFX-Regressionstests, um Probleme fr\u00fcher zu erkennen.\n\nInteractables\nDas Interactables-Team hat im August an den Inhalten der Pyro-Missionen gearbeitet.\n\nBeleuchtung\nDas Beleuchtungsteam unterst\u00fctzte mehrere Bereiche der Entwicklung, darunter die Raumstationen von Pyro, die S\u00e4ureh\u00f6hlen und die Abschlussarbeiten f\u00fcr Alpha 3.24.\n\nOrte\nIm letzten Monat hat das Landezonen-Team die Aufgaben f\u00fcr Alpha 4.0 vorangetrieben, darunter das Hinzuf\u00fcgen neuer Gebiete und die Aufpolierung von Pyros Raumstationen.\n\nDas Locations-Team machte Fortschritte bei den Bodenbasen und brachte die ersten Module durch die Greybox. Au\u00dferdem wurden Verbesserungen an mehreren neuen Ortstypen vorgenommen, die mit Pyro eingef\u00fchrt werden.\n\nMissionsdesign\nDas Missionsdesign verbrachte im August Zeit damit, den Archetyp der Bergungsmissionen zu aktualisieren, damit er Bodenplatten spawnen kann und FPS-Gameplay auf Schrottpl\u00e4tzen erm\u00f6glicht.\n\nAu\u00dferdem arbeiteten sie weiter an den Reparaturmissionen, die k\u00fcrzlich in der Episode \"Social Gameplay of Pyro\" von Inside Star Citizen gezeigt wurden. Das Team hat drei Hauptelemente f\u00fcr die erste Ver\u00f6ffentlichung im Visier:\n\nAufladen und Entladen: Aufladen von Ger\u00e4ten, die Batterien f\u00fcr den Betrieb ben\u00f6tigen\n\nErsetzen von Komponenten: Sicherungen in Relais auswechseln\n\nRohr reparieren: Besch\u00e4digte Rohre mit RMC reparieren\n\nDas Team arbeitete auch weiter an der Planung der Rohstoffbeschaffung und ermittelte unter anderem, welche Rohstoffe die K\u00e4ufer in Stanton von Pyro abbauen wollen.\n\nAu\u00dferdem wird die Mechanik auf das Sammeln von Rohstoffen in FPS erweitert, was der erste Schritt zu grundlegenden MMO-\u00e4hnlichen Fetch-Quests sein wird. Au\u00dferdem wurde ein neuer Missionstyp entwickelt, den das Team in einem zuk\u00fcnftigen Update vorstellen wird.\n\nNarrative\nDas Narrative Team hat im letzten Monat zusammen mit dem Design- und Branding-Team an der Weiterentwicklung der neuen Contested Zones gearbeitet und das Gameplay, das die Spieler\/innen dort erleben werden, verbessert. Au\u00dferdem hat das Team die Frachttransportmissionen verbessert und die Arbeit an unangek\u00fcndigten Missionsinhalten fortgesetzt, die in Stanton und Pyro erscheinen werden.\n\nDas Narrative Design Team konzentrierte sich auf die Verbesserung des KI-Verhaltens in den Siedlungen, um den NSCs, denen die Spieler\/innen dort begegnen werden, ein nat\u00fcrlicheres Gef\u00fchl zu geben. Au\u00dferdem haben sie das neue soziale KI-Testfeld ausgearbeitet.\n\nDie Website wurde mit einem Whitley's Guide to the Cutlass Red und zus\u00e4tzlichen Galactapedia-Eintr\u00e4gen um neue Informationen erweitert. Au\u00dferdem gab es ein ganz besonderes Star Citizen Live mit dem Narrative Team.\n\nOnline-Technologie\nIm August arbeitete das Team der Online-Dienste an den f\u00fcr die Alpha 4.0 geplanten Funktionen. Die Updates f\u00fcr das Missions- und das Markierungssystem wurden deutlich vorangetrieben und das Team stellte den neuen Player Trade Service fertig, der es den Spielern erm\u00f6glicht, Spielw\u00e4hrungen in einer serververmaschten Umgebung zu handeln.\n\nAu\u00dferdem wurde viel Zeit damit verbracht, die neu aktivierte EAC-Anti-Cheat-Funktion in Evocati und der PTU zu testen und Daten zu sammeln.\n\nNeben der Stabilisierung der Alpha 3.24 halfen die Online-Dienste Player Relations dabei, Accounts mit anhaltenden Login-Problemen zu entsperren.\n\nWas die Live-Tools angeht, so traf sich das Team mit dem Spieler-Support und der Spielerfahrung bei einem Besuch im Studio in Montreal.\n\n\"Es war eine gro\u00dfartige Gelegenheit f\u00fcr beide Teams, sich zusammenzusetzen und an der Zukunft des Network Operation Center zu arbeiten und zu \u00fcberlegen, wie es mit seinen aktuellen und zuk\u00fcnftigen Funktionen die Lebensqualit\u00e4t der Support-Teams verbessern kann.\" Live Tools Team\n\nAuch die Architektur f\u00fcr das Fehlermeldungs-Tool kam gut voran.\n\nVFX\nDas VFX-Team arbeitete weiter an der Unterst\u00fctzung von Sprungpunkten und dynamischem Feuer, die beide in den letzten Episoden von Inside Star Citizen gezeigt wurden.\n\nAu\u00dferdem haben sie ihre Arbeit an den S\u00e4ureh\u00f6hlen, zwei Fahrzeugen und einer unbenannten Energiewaffe abgeschlossen, die \u00fcber Funktionen verf\u00fcgt, die es in der PU noch nicht gab.","zh_CN":"PU Monthly Report\nAugust 2024\nWelcome to August\u2019s PU Monthly Report! With the recent release of Alpha 3.24: Cargo Empires, most development teams spent the month both finalizing patch tasks and progressing with exciting new features coming further down the road. Read on for all the details.\n\nAI (Features)\nLast month, AI Features polished various reactions, including the \u2018first reactions\u2019 when AIs respond to audio or visual events. While these behaviors had a solid base, various combat styles, weapons, and scenarios didn\u2019t play consistently, such as when escalating from a low reaction to a high reaction. To improve this, the team built a new AI test level called a \u2018test cell.\u2019 This is a Building Block setup with different character types, weapons, cover, usables, etc. that allows the team to pick and mix different setups to produce a consistent version of test scenarios. A particular combination can be exported as one \u2018cell\u2019 and imported into a single level where multiple test scenarios can be played simultaneously, allowing the team to quickly identify mistakes, fix them, and retest.\n\nThe test cell level is also being used for cover-hit reactions, which have different animation setups per cover type, combat style, and weapon type. Going forward, the test cell will be expanded to provide more consistency across a wide range of areas.\n\nAI (Tech)\nAI tech continued to improve how NPCs transition between servers, including serializing movement requests and navigation paths.\n\nThey also updated navigation generation elements, including one relating to computing navigation islands and one used when exporting processes into object containers. Progress was also made on converting the Apollo tool\u2019s UI style. A new feature continued development too, which the team will share more about in the future.\n\nAI (Content)\nIn August, the Social AI designers joined the Narrative team to form a larger group focused on improving the Star Citizen experience. As part of this, they began meeting with Design and the creative directors to walk through various locations, looking for opportunities to clean up existing behaviors or add new ones. While many of the behaviors will be based on work done for Squadron 42, the expansive nature of the PU will require bespoke additions.\n\nAI Content is also in the process of reviewing locations throughout Pyro, ensuring the environment and behavior setups work correctly together and instill a sense of the intended narrative. The team also met with the designers of an upcoming mission to provide support for some of the locations that will be visited by players, including applying believable behaviors to NPCs.\n\nAside from outlining behavior improvements and needs for Star Citizen 1.0, Narrative Design kicked off several initiatives to determine the required tech and use cases for future social spaces. This will ultimately lead to a vertical slice showing a gold-standard social space with the level of interaction the game will aim for.\n\nAI (Game Intelligence Development Team)\nIn August, the Game Intelligence Development team concentrated on delivering a clean and stable Apollo StarScript UX update. This involved adding support for higher icon resolutions so they stay sharp when zoomed in and straightening lines for a clearer read.\n\nDrag and drop was improved too. Now, when hovering, ports with a bigger selection range are highlighted. The devs corrected the color and size of imported notes, added arrowheads to links leading to closed groups, and enlarged the hovering area and highlights on links and ports. Drop points were also added to links to identify the desired select line.\n\nAnimation\nAugust saw the Facial Animation team developing content to flesh out more of the game world\u2019s characters.\n\nGameplay Animation continued to work on a selection of creatures previously seen in teaser videos alongside improving the creatures already in the PU. They also progressed with an unannounced addition that the team is \u201clooking forward to seeing in-game.\u201d\n\nArt (Characters)\nCharacter Art continued working on utility and specialist armors, while Character Concept Art supported IAE and progressed with their ongoing exploration of fauna.\n\nArt (Ships)\nLast month, Ship Art moved several unannounced vehicles toward their greybox reviews, while others approached their LOD-zero and final-content reviews.\n\nWork on the RSI Polaris also continued, with the ship\u2019s exterior approaching completion.\n\nCommunity\nIn support of Alpha 3.24, the Community team made improvements and updates to the New Player and Welcome Back Pilot guides. They also provided an update to the Cargo Guide alongside a Q&A for the recently released Aegis Sabre Peregrine. The team also focused heavily on compiling and sharing player feedback internally.\n\nThe team\u2019s standout event last month was Ship Showdown 2954, with players from across the community submitting creative entries to determine which ships made it to the top. Phase 1 saw citizens submitting original creations of their favorite vehicles to the Community Hub and social media before the Top 16 faced off in daily voting battles.\n\nAfter much voting, the Anvil F8C Lighting was crowned Ship Showdown Champion 2954.\n\nThe Community team also supported the release of a limited number of General Admission CitizenCon 2954 tickets before connecting with the community at Gamescom 2024 in Cologne.\n\n\u201cThis stop on the Bar Citizen Tour brought together players for an unforgettable experience, including a treasure hunt, prizes, and two Bar Citizens events! Later in August, the team met with more fans in Seattle at PAX West during another Bar Citizen event at Stoup Brewing. Looking ahead, we\u2019re excited to meet even more Star Citizen players in Marinha Grande, Portugal, and during TwitchCon US in California!\u201d Community Team\n\nThe Progress Tracker was also updated with the latest production schedule through 2024. It introduces a significant shift in how deliverables are tracked while maintaining transparency throughout the year. Further updates, including 2025, will follow soon.\n\nWith CitizenCon 2954 coming in October, the team spent much of August gearing up for the event, including setting up the venue layout, preparing community booths, and more.\n\nCore Gameplay\nThroughout August, the various Gameplay Feature teams continued to improve the hangar and cargo flows for Alpha 3.24 based on feedback from the PTU. Meanwhile, a lot of behind-the-scenes changes progressed that will improve how various gameplay systems handle environments that span multiple servers.\n\nProgress was made on the \u2018overheat\u2019 mechanic, with Core Gameplay adding support for different atmospheric temperatures. For example, weapons will overheat at different rates based on their environment.\n\n\u2018Charge and drain\u2019 progressed too and now features client-side prediction to give immediate feedback to players when they\u2019re charging or draining, even if there\u2019s latency between the client and server.\n\nThe team began adding logic to declutter the UI by grouping markers of the same type, while the implementation of weapon groups and group presets continued.\n\nAugust saw continued progress on jump points, which began with improved debugging tools to better visualize potential exit points for players. Turbulence was also implemented, which will affect the flight experience within the tunnel; the designers are currently tweaking the strength to get the desired impact. Visual effects were added too, including cockpit vibration based on where in the tunnel the player is located, and obstacles were placed that players will be required to navigate around. Further failure states for jump tunnels were determined before the feature was submitted to QA for testing.\n\nProgress was then made on the resource network, engineering gameplay, and life support.\n\nFor example, Core Gameplay implemented a new behavior for critical components, which will replace the existing soft death mechanic. When live, only certain items, like powerplants, will trigger an explosion or soft death when destroyed.\n\nThe engineering screen was polished, while a new room selection UI was added for life support. The team also gave Design the ability to control the total power output of multiple active powerplants. This way, more powerplants don\u2019t necessarily result in linearly increasing power production. Significant time was also dedicated to fixing stability issues and bugs following QA testing.\n\nJuly\u2019s work on \u2018radar and scanning\u2019 continued throughout August, with the team reviewing it in Arena Commander to assess the impact on the player experience and tune values to achieve the desired effect.\n\nThey also focused on closing out feature work for delta signatures, giving Design more control over how to react to changes. Tasks were completed for audio signatures too.\n\nCore Gameplay continued supporting transit in the run-up to the live release while adjusting how transit data is stored to lower the maintenance overhead on Level Design.\n\nElsewhere, the team reworked the \u2018shot\u2019 annunciator - it will turn red if someone targets the player and fires their weapon. Annunciators for weapons, power, thrusters, and shields were completed, while \u2018overheating\u2019 and \u2018off\u2019 states were implemented.\n\nThe ongoing mission-system refactor progressed, with the team fixing various issues causing existing behaviors to break or function incorrectly. The mission system can now run in minimal mode, allowing it to be included in the seeding service and upcoming \u2018MissionFactory\u2019 service, which generates contracts.\n\nClients can now query available missions, and the contract generator can apply legacy settings to work with the previous system too.\n\nImplementation of service beacons for the mission-system refactor began, while Core Gameplay supported Mission Design on remaining Blockade Runner and cargo-hauling issues.\n\nDevelopers working on cargo gameplay primarily focused on major remaining stability and gameplay issues. For example, they fixed several problems with hangar instance queues getting stuck and players being assigned the wrong hangar. Functionality was also added to the instanced interior manager to better support removing non-active hangar instances.\n\nSeveral hauling-mission bugs were solved relating to warehouse-manager and freight-elevator-kiosk interactions alongside issues with the kiosk transferring items on\/off the loading platform.\n\nBugs were also fixed relating to Hull C auto-loading, auto-loaded commodity transactions, and ship-loading platforms getting broken by obstructions, with the fixes set to be implemented in the near future.\n\nFinally for Core Gameplay, the devs spent considerable time reviewing internal and external feedback to plan further improvements to the features released in Alpha 3.24.\n\nEconomy\nThe Economy team spent the month getting closer to uniting all their work into a cohesive economy consisting of ships, items, missions, fuel, consumables, freelancing, careers, and more. Progress was also made on the economy setup for Pyro.\n\nGraphics, VFX Programming & Planet Tech\nAlongside the ongoing stability and performance improvements for Vulkan, the Graphics team improved debug tooling for the long-term health of the dev experience.\n\nFor global illumination, support was added for high-gloss specular reflections, which builds on the previous rough-specular work. The team also added live updates to GPU raytracing acceleration structures and began working on improvements to transparent objects.\n\nPerformance wise, the global illumination system now supports both temporal and spatial subsampling to accumulate the same visual result with fewer rays fired per frame.\n\nOngoing tasks consist of async creation and additional types of destructible renderer objects (such as gas cloud chunks) to reduce frame time spikes on the CPU.\n\nFor Planet Tech v5, the team focused on enhancing terrain performance through a compute shader-driven pipeline that caches material attributes to reduce redundant computations.\n\nAlongside this, the revamped material scattering system now supports physically based distribution, allowing for denser biomes, such as jungles and forests, by eliminating distinctions between small and large mesh ground covers.\n\nA new per-object climate concept and new terrain attributes were introduced, including geology and soil maps.\n\nPlanet Tech also spent part of August supporting the Montreal Tools team on the location-scatter tool. For this, they provided a new terrain query API for large-scale queries and extended query capabilities, with future tasks aimed at supporting SDF-based terrain queries.\n\nSupport for the live release included fixes for the \u2018invisible asteroid\u2019 bug and other issues.\n\nFollowing on from last month\u2019s report, the VFX team focused on fire hazards. The feature work is now complete, with focus shifting to bug fixing and design balance.\n\nParticle effect connections for jump tunnels were implemented. The devs are now focusing on polishing the VFX and supporting graphics technology.\n\nThe team also progressed with a significant data conversion to add GUIDs, which will help the VFX artists manage particle effects more efficiently.\n\nElsewhere, performance improvements are underway, including using multiple threads for particle updates and adjusting VFX regression tests to detect issues earlier.\n\nInteractables\nThe Interactables team spent time in August on items for Pyro mission content.\n\nLighting\nThe Lighting team continued to support multiple areas of development, including Pyro\u2019s space stations, acidic caves, and closeout work for Alpha 3.24.\n\nLocations\nLast month, the Landing Zone team progressed with tasks for Alpha 4.0, including adding new areas and additional polish to Pyro\u2019s space stations.\n\nThe Locations team pressed forward with ground bases, moving the initial modules through greybox. Improvements were also made to several new location types coming with Pyro.\n\nMission Design\nMission Design spent time in August updating the Salvage Mission archetype, enabling it to spawn ground panels and provide FPS gameplay at scrapyards.\n\nThey also continued to work on the Repair Location missions recently shown on the \u2018Social Gameplay of Pyro\u2019 episode of Inside Star Citizen. The team is targeting three main gameplay elements for the initial release:\n\nCharge and drain: Charging devices that use batteries for operation\n\nReplace component: Replacing fuses in relays\n\nRepair pipe: Fixing damaged pipes using RMC\n\nThe team also continued to design resource gathering, including determining which commodities buyers in Stanton would want extracting from Pyro.\n\nThey\u2019re also expanding the mechanic to include FPS resource gathering, which will be the first step toward basic MMO-type fetch quests. Elsewhere, a new mission type progressed that the team will discuss in a future update.\n\nNarrative\nThe Narrative Team spent time last month working with Design and Branding to further develop the new Contested Zones and enhance the gameplay that players will experience there. The team also made improvements to the cargo-hauling missions and continued work on unannounced mission content that will be coming to Stanton and Pyro.\n\nThe Narrative Design team focused on improving AI behaviors at settlements to give a more natural feel to the NPCs that players will encounter there. They also fleshed out the new social AI testbed.\n\nNew lore was added to the website, with a Whitley\u2019s Guide to the Cutlass Red and additional Galactapedia Entries. Plus, there was a very special Star Citizen Live with the Narrative Team.\n\nOnline Technology\nIn August, the Online Services team progressed with features scheduled for Alpha 4.0. Significant progress was made on the updates for the Mission and Marker systems, and the team completed the new Player Trade service, which will allow players to trade game currencies in a server-meshed environment.\n\nTime was also spent testing and gathering metrics for a newly enabled EAC anti-cheat feature in Evocati and the PTU.\n\nAlongside helping to stabilize the Alpha 3.24 release, Online Services helped Player Relations unblock accounts with lingering login issues.\n\nRegarding Live Tools, the team met with Player Support and Player Experience during a visit to the Montreal studio.\n\n\u201cIt was a great opportunity for both teams to sit together and work on the future of the Network Operation Center and how it could improve the quality of life for the support teams with its current and upcoming features.\u201d Live Tools Team\n\nElsewhere, the architecture for the error-reporting tool progressed well.\n\nVFX\nThe VFX team continued their support for jump points and dynamic fire, both of which were shown in recent episodes of Inside Star Citizen.\n\nThey also completed their work on acidic caves, two vehicles, and an unnamed energy weapon that has functionality not seen before in the PU."},"links_count":0,"comment_count":0,"created_at":"2024-09-05T01:00:00+00:00","created_at_human":"1 year ago"},"meta":{"processed_at":"2026-05-07 23:08:01","valid_relations":["images","links"],"prev_id":20138,"next_id":20142}}