{"data":{"id":20537,"title":"Star Citizen Monthly Report: March 2025","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/comm-link\/SCW\/20537-API","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-links\/20537","api_public_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/comm-links\/20537","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":38985,"name":"monthly-report-march-2025-aigdt.jpg","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/i\/f238eb06d89b7c1f08ed2aaf3c503688f8cec362\/ADdPNihJzmPbNuTnFsH1DqUeqBRpXdSXVVtgJTyDDgscGKrzJuoFjReskkR1iCxufu7Evzv7TNqKhw7LhhSe2xitE\/monthly-report-march-2025-aigdt.jpg","alt":"g-illustration","size":473106,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","last_modified":"2025-04-01T17:48:25+00:00","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/38985","similar_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/38985\/similar"},{"id":38988,"name":"rickytiky5.webp","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/i\/b842d64794d10d68ac75269b11f872f3ae23629d\/ADdPNihJzmPbNuTnFsH1DqUeqBRpXdSXVVtgJTyDDgscGKrzJuoFjReseYg42qNcRA4bz7egzMr1fPLZnCwxUHHaW\/rickytiky5.webp","alt":"g-illustration","size":1665204,"mime_type":"image\/webp","last_modified":"2025-04-17T15:30:24+00:00","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/38988","similar_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/38988\/similar"},{"id":38990,"name":"andrewmi66.webp","rsi_url":"https:\/\/robertsspaceindustries.com\/i\/bb5daa6973799885d7c3dc18f0d2e786eae32489\/ADdPNihJzmPbNuTnFsH1DqUeqBRpXdSXVVtgJTyDDgscGKrzJuoFjResip7peT25hLUPaEwoidWCRnvovUz58U3Q2\/andrewmi66.webp","alt":"g-illustration","size":2468728,"mime_type":"image\/webp","last_modified":"2025-04-17T15:30:26+00:00","api_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/38990","similar_url":"https:\/\/api.star-citizen.wiki\/api\/comm-link-images\/38990\/similar"}],"images_count":10,"translations":{"en_EN":"PU Monthly Report\nMarch 2025\nThis month\u2019s PU Report features progress on a variety of ongoing development initiatives, including the recently released Alpha 4.1, upcoming vehicles, AI work, and mission content. Read on for the latest updates!\n\nAI (Content)\nFor the recent debut of Star Citizen\u2019s first alien NPC, Wikelo, AI Content worked alongside the Narrative Design, Design, Animation, Audio, and Character Art teams to prototype the character\u2019s general and air-traffic-control behaviors. The team also took a more active role in prepping incoming audio and animation files from recent capture sessions.\n\nDevelopment continued on new behaviors to support some of the story developments happening in the \u2018verse in the coming months. Finally for AI, they revisited issues in the population behaviors of existing landing zones.\n\nAI (Features)\nIn March, AI Feature\u2019s priority was the valakkar, specifically the juvenile variant. As part of the polishing phase, new functionality was added to support upcoming gameplay, including replacing ineffective melee attacks with a submerge-and-relocate behavior when the player gets close. New burrowing modes were also added that allow the creature to submerge on the spot rather than dive into a new position.\n\nNew firing modes were added to give better control over fire rate and damage per shot depending on whether the target is on the ground or the air. Bespoke firing-animation variants were also added when firing at more vertical angles.\n\nThe team also iterated on the kopion, integrating new chase technology for more effective attacks, including a leap.\n\nFor Human combat, iteration continued on the first-reaction flow escalation, specifically focusing on the animation setup for usables so that it works well if the AI is sitting in a chair, leaning on a railing, or crouching to inspect a maintenance panel.\n\nThe team also progressed with reaction animations for when the AI detects compromised cover. This allows NPCs to appear more responsive to the actions of the player and react appropriately to new threats.\n\nSimilarly, the team is refactoring the response to combat tactic events, such as needing to reload. This is now done within the tactic behavior itself rather than at a higher level, which allows more customization depending on the current situation, leading to better and more responsive behaviors.\n\nAI (Game Intelligence Development Team)\nIn March, Game Intelligence Development had two main focuses: the full implementation of Views and organization and analysis for Mission System 2.0.\n\nFor Views, feature-related tasks are now functional in StarScript, including representation in the script graph. The team also included the new input and output visuals, which makes them more distinctive, while information on the task number was added. An update was also made to the Mastergraph to integrate Views into the various functional connected states. This is still a work in progress, with internal testing beginning soon.\n\nFor the Mission System, the devs continued to explore ways to build a system that will be more efficient and simpler for the game designers to use.\n\nAI (Tech)\nLast month, AI Tech continued to work on features that will improve overall detail and quality, including finalizing work for the spatial priority solver and priority beacon system. They also integrated these features into the navigation, pathfinder, and tactical-point systems to help better prioritize and solve requests sent by NPCs close to players.\n\nRegarding tools, work was completed on StarScript Views to allow the designers to group behavior functions and callback logic. Following this, work began on visualization improvements for the Subsumption MasterGraph. Additional adjustments were made to AI ship logic to enable it to work correctly with the new flight modes.\n\nThe team is currently working on NPC cover generation, optimizing places where cover will be generated, allowing it to be marked with various flags for better context during combat scenarios.\n\nFor the navigation system, the devs fixed various bugs, including issues with tile triangularization generation cases and an object-container export case related to navigation data. They\u2019re currently progressing with improvements to 3D navigation for spaceships and NPCs in EVA.\n\nAnimation\nThe Animation team continued developing various sizes of valakkar alongside making updates to the kopion. They also updated AI background animations and added \u2018disabled\u2019 animations to the Argo ATLS. New AI facial animation content was completed too, including for the Banu mission-giver, Wikelo.\n\nArt (Characters)\nIn March, the Character Art team continued to work on a new creature for the PU alongside StarWear art debt. They also kicked off new heavy armor and continued creating various rewards.\n\nThe Concept Art team also explored ideas for new in-game rewards and armors.\n\nArt (Ships)\nIn March, the UK-based Vehicle Content team completed the Drake Golem mining ship and Argo ATLS GEO mining power suit. The MISC Starlancer TAC moved into the final development phase, while the Consolidated Outland Pioneer progressed through whitebox, benefiting from the additional concept work shown during a recent episode of Star Citizen Live.\n\nAn unannounced vehicle successfully passed greybox review and moved into the LOD0 phase, two other vehicles received a bug-fixing pass and final-content work ahead of their release, and another new ship is currently being prepared for its greybox gate review.\n\nThe NA-based team progressed with two upcoming RSI ships. The first, the Apollo, successfully passed its whitebox review gate and moved into greybox with support from the Concept team on the medical room design. Some aspects progressed significantly due to utilization of the extensive RSI kit created for the Zeus and Polaris. The second, the RSI Perseus, passed its whitebox review at the start of March. Like the Apollo, some areas progressed visually thanks to the RSI kit.\n\nWork continued on three unannounced vehicles too: a variant of a popular ship passed greybox review, another variant is approaching greybox review, while an all-new model entered production in preparation for its whitebox review in early April.\n\nCommunity\nThe Community team kicked off March with support for Stella Fortuna, launching the Bar Crawl screenshot contest and publishing a catch-all post highlighting the exciting activities available to players.\n\nFor Alpha 4.1, the team published a detailed catch-all post, Q&As for the Drake Golem and Argo ATLS GEO, and a Patch Watch highlighting upcoming features, improvements, and fixes not included in the Roadmap.\n\nThe team spent time with our developer in MTL to help detail out the upcoming Referral Revamp, which aims to include better rewards, more frequently. The team also continued mapping out event-related plans for the year, including supporting the Bar Citizen World Tour, and the upcoming International Bar Citizen Weekend.\n\nEvergreen tasks continued throughout the month, including regular publications like the weekly This Week in Star Citizen, bi-weekly Roadmap Updates and Roundups, and the monthly refresh of the Arena Commander Schedule. The team maintained their commitment to capturing player feedback, directly channeling community insights to development teams.\n\nAdditionally, the Community team supported and celebrated the 10th anniversary of the Crux Cup, organized by ANZIA Racing. They\u2019re currently preparing for the upcoming community meetups throughout the 2025 Bar Citizen World Tour.\n\nLastly, they launched the Squadron 42 Newsletter\u2019s Vanduul Interpreter contest, offering another opportunity for the community to dive deeper into Squadron 42, with participants competing for the chance to win a rare Vanduul Scythe.\n\nCore Gameplay\nFor the Argo ATLS GEO, the Core Gameplay team completed the suit\u2019s mining and thruster functionality, added a health bar and damage states, and supported additional improvements to the base ATLS.\n\nThey also implemented the first version of the weapon overheat mechanic to the Volt Parallax energy rifle, which enables the player to engage a secondary fire mode at the risk of overheating. More weapons will gain the overheat mechanic in the future.\n\nProgress was made on Engineering gameplay throughout March, with Core Gameplay supporting various teams with Resource Network issues and bugs. They also added auto-throttling, which reverts to a lower or powered-off state if an item doesn't have power during an update.\n\nChanges were made to vehicle coolant. Now, effectiveness is based on an item's physical properties, with a specific amount of coolant counteracting heating caused by an equal amount of power. Coolant consumption uses deltas with a dynamic override \u2013 the maximum coolant request is based on the maximum power consumption multiplied by a Resource Network global parameter.\n\nThe team also made progress toward implementing heat gameplay for ship thrusters. This involved adding filters to the engineering UI to allow players to only see items of a particular category. For example, all weapons or all items with malfunctions.\n\nSelection improvements were also added to the UI. Now, \u2018left click\u2019 will cycle through the two closest items (useful for doors covering components), and \u2018right click\u2019 will show all overlapping items and allow selection.\n\nWork was also completed toward Item Recovery T0, with various items being added to blacklists alongside fixes for related respawn flow issues.\n\nProgress was made on FPS radar and scanning. Now, item components can be detected within vehicles while a player is inside and excluded when outside. The feature\u2019s debug tools were improved too.\n\nThe ongoing transit system rework, known as the Transport System, progressed throughout March, with the team adding setup validation and debugging for non-physicalized carriages to better detect setup issues. The ability to connect carriage zones by a transport network (needed for mini-map routing) was added, as were destination categories and priorities along with the means to display destinations on carriage panels.\n\nA reward mechanic for collection missions was implemented, which is used for the Collector missions, while the ability to automatically retrieve items from freight or ship elevators via HUD notification was added.\n\nFor the mission system, the team fixed a bug preventing introductory contracts not counting toward difficulty progression.\n\n\u2018Sharing prerequisites\u2019 was also implemented. This allows players to invite others to accept contracts they would otherwise be ineligible for providing they meet a specific requirement, such as locality or reputation.\n\nTime was also spent fixing bugs and improving the robustness of the New Player Experience alongside solving issues causing various missions to be disabled.\n\nComms notifications progressed too, including one-way comm-calls from mission givers to the players and comms notifications being triggered by changing mission states, such as \u2018completed\u2019 or \u2018failed\u2019.\n\nThe mission designers can now trigger comms notifications from mission logic. They also began implementing 3D Building Blocks to display more interesting scenes as the previous method was no longer supported by Server Meshing.\n\nFinally for Core Gameplay, improvements were made to commodity kiosks to give a better flow to transactions, while fixes were made for bugs relating to hangars, freight elevators, and ship deliveries.\n\nEconomy\nThe Economy team provided balancing support for Supply or Die, with the devs deeming it over-tuned on release. Economy worked with Mission Design to address the issues as quickly as possible without imposing hard limits. Going forward, both teams will collaborate more closely to establish a stable and holistic approach to balancing open-ended missions with multiple viable solutions.\n\n\u201cOur aim is always to maximize player choices and enable emergent gameplay, but balance against exploitable patterns.\u201d Economy Team\n\nGraphics, VFX Programming & Planet Tech\nLast month, the Graphics team overhauled GPU memory management. This allowed them to add new options, a visualization of the GPU memory required for each, and auto-detection for suitable resolution, upscaling, and graphics.\n\nGas clouds received a major visual upgrade thanks to the same density-shaping and shading technology used by planetary clouds. Global illumination was upgraded too, with improvements to the image stability and accuracy of both diffuse and specular reflections.\n\nPlanet Tech v5 continued to make good progress, with the team finalizing the distribution and shading of much denser rock formations with more physically plausible placement. The virtual terrain system is also closer to completion, with run-time compression being worked on next.\n\nThe VFX Programming team polished several features, such as fire, networking bandwidth for damage maps, and creatures.\n\nVulkan stability was also improved after discussions with Nvidia led to the diagnosis of two potential issues - one in the driver and one in the game. Workarounds to both were added to the latest PTU patch.\n\nMission Design\nMarch saw Mission Design continuing to fix up various older missions that were deprioritized in the refactor.\n\n\u201cAlpha 4.1 was unveiled to the community on the PTU, introducing a new sandbox activity that players can engage in for unique items. There is a big push for increased production value on missions with a lot of departments helping out to ensure the experience is the best we can get.\u201d Mission Design Team\n\nThe team also worked on Rayari and Wikelo, the two new mission givers who require items found during the new missions.\n\nNarrative\nAligning with the increased release schedule cadence, Alpha 4.1 was a major focus for the Narrative team in March. For the new Hathor orbital mining facilities, this included adding discoverable datapads around the site, polishing numerous missions that utilized the new locations, and working with Art to improve directional signage.\n\nThe patch release also brings the major milestone of Star Citizen\u2019s first alien NPC, the Banu trader Wikelo.\n\n\"We had a lot of fun creating the character and making the Emporium a place players would enjoy exploring.\u201d Narrative Team\n\nNarrative also ran a capture session that focused on adding dialogue to several upcoming missions as well as introducing two new faction representatives who players will work with during specific contracts.\n\nAdditionally, the team helped to refactor some older missions with updated contracts. There was also ongoing work with Design to refine some of the locations coming this year to ensure they will provide a rich narrative experience.\n\nOnline Technology\nIn March, the Live Tools team focused on improving the usability of their main support tool, Hex.\n\nThe Online Services team worked on the first pass of the services ecosystem to support upcoming development by the gameplay teams.\n\nVarious social improvements were made, including optimizations to kicking members from groups, the \u2018create group\u2019 flow, and the rollback strategy for the \u2018addMembers\u2019 flow. They also added metrics to identify the origins of ScyllaDB queries, request logging options, and configurations to specify the maximum number of concurrent requests.\n\nFor analytics, configurations were added for HTTP clients and to enable Kafka connections. For missions, entities were removed from the shard tag, while the mission system was updated too.\n\nR&D\nIn March, gas cloud detail rendering was improved using techniques used by planetary volumetric clouds. Now, the artists can refine the density provided by the original gas cloud volume database (VDB) via procedural noise using runtime shaping and erosion calculations. Moreover, edge albedo can be controlled to further emphasize the cloud\u2019s volumetric structure. Additionally, a configurable gradient was added to control the blend between the original and shaped density. This allows the team to keep the density of the original VDB data in thin areas of clouds while adding more detail to denser areas.\n\nFor dynamic weather, the rain volume calculation was improved to ease content authoring. The vertical distribution along the local height of lightning events was also refined. Furthermore, the volumetric rendering of lightning was enhanced by providing more flexibility in controlling the lightning gradient.\n\nTech Design\nTech Design spent March working on an upcoming in-game event, supporting Mission Design with gameplay entity and logic flow setup.\n\nVFX\nVFX progressed with their tasks for the valakkar. They also supported the Locations team with effects for Alpha 4.1\u2019s new mission locations, including the orbital laser platform, borehole, cave, and satellite dish.","de_DE":"PU-Monatsbericht\nM\u00e4rz 2025\nIm PU-Bericht dieses Monats geht es um die Fortschritte bei einer Reihe von laufenden Entwicklungsinitiativen, darunter die k\u00fcrzlich ver\u00f6ffentlichte Alpha 4.1, kommende Fahrzeuge, KI-Arbeiten und Missionsinhalte. Lies weiter f\u00fcr die neuesten Updates!\n\nKI (Inhalt)\nF\u00fcr das k\u00fcrzliche Deb\u00fct von Wikelo, dem ersten au\u00dferirdischen NSC in Star Citizen, arbeitete das KI-Content-Team mit den Teams f\u00fcr Narrative Design, Design, Animation, Audio und Character Art zusammen, um einen Prototyp f\u00fcr das allgemeine Verhalten des Charakters und das Verhalten bei der Flugkontrolle zu erstellen. Das Team \u00fcbernahm auch eine aktivere Rolle bei der Vorbereitung der eingehenden Audio- und Animationsdateien aus den letzten Aufnahmesitzungen.\n\nDie Entwicklung neuer Verhaltensweisen wurde fortgesetzt, um einige der Story-Entwicklungen zu unterst\u00fctzen, die in den kommenden Monaten im Verse stattfinden werden. Im Bereich der KI wurden Probleme mit dem Verhalten der Bev\u00f6lkerung in den bestehenden Landezonen \u00fcberarbeitet.\n\nKI (Features)\nIm M\u00e4rz lag die Priorit\u00e4t bei den KI-Features auf den Valakkar, insbesondere auf der jugendlichen Variante. Als Teil der Polishing-Phase wurden neue Funktionen hinzugef\u00fcgt, um das kommende Gameplay zu unterst\u00fctzen. Dazu geh\u00f6rt das Ersetzen unwirksamer Nahkampfangriffe durch ein Untertauchen-und-verlegen-Verhalten, wenn der Spieler nahe kommt. Au\u00dferdem wurden neue W\u00fchlmodi hinzugef\u00fcgt, die es der Kreatur erm\u00f6glichen, an Ort und Stelle unterzutauchen, anstatt eine neue Position einzunehmen.\n\nNeue Feuermodi wurden hinzugef\u00fcgt, um eine bessere Kontrolle \u00fcber die Feuerrate und den Schaden pro Schuss zu erm\u00f6glichen, je nachdem, ob sich das Ziel am Boden oder in der Luft befindet. Au\u00dferdem wurden ma\u00dfgeschneiderte Feuer-Animationsvarianten hinzugef\u00fcgt, wenn in einem gr\u00f6\u00dferen Winkel geschossen wird.\n\nDas Team hat auch den Kopion \u00fcberarbeitet und eine neue Verfolgungstechnologie f\u00fcr effektivere Angriffe integriert, darunter einen Sprung.\n\nBei den menschlichen K\u00e4mpfern wurde die Eskalation des Erstreaktionsflusses \u00fcberarbeitet, wobei das Hauptaugenmerk auf dem Animations-Setup f\u00fcr benutzbare Objekte lag, damit es auch dann funktioniert, wenn die KI auf einem Stuhl sitzt, sich an ein Gel\u00e4nder lehnt oder in die Hocke geht, um ein Wartungsfeld zu inspizieren.\n\nDas Team hat auch die Reaktionsanimationen weiterentwickelt, wenn die KI eine gef\u00e4hrdete Deckung entdeckt. So k\u00f6nnen die NSCs besser auf die Aktionen des Spielers reagieren und auf neue Bedrohungen angemessen reagieren.\n\nAu\u00dferdem \u00fcberarbeitet das Team die Reaktion auf Kampftaktik-Ereignisse, z. B. wenn nachgeladen werden muss. Dies geschieht nun innerhalb des Taktikverhaltens selbst und nicht mehr auf einer h\u00f6heren Ebene, was eine bessere Anpassung an die aktuelle Situation erm\u00f6glicht und zu einem besseren und reaktionsf\u00e4higeren Verhalten f\u00fchrt.\n\nKI (Game Intelligence Development Team)\nIm M\u00e4rz hatte die Entwicklung der Spielintelligenz zwei Hauptschwerpunkte: die vollst\u00e4ndige Implementierung von Views und die Organisation und Analyse f\u00fcr das Missionssystem 2.0.\n\nF\u00fcr Views sind die funktionsbezogenen Aufgaben jetzt in StarScript m\u00f6glich, einschlie\u00dflich der Darstellung im Skriptgraphen. Das Team hat auch die neuen Eingabe- und Ausgabedarstellungen integriert, wodurch sie unverwechselbarer werden, w\u00e4hrend Informationen \u00fcber die Aufgabennummer hinzugef\u00fcgt wurden. Au\u00dferdem wurde der Mastergraph aktualisiert, um die Ansichten in die verschiedenen funktional verbundenen Zust\u00e4nde zu integrieren. Die Arbeit daran ist noch nicht abgeschlossen, aber die internen Tests beginnen bald.\n\nF\u00fcr das Missionssystem haben die Entwickler weiter nach M\u00f6glichkeiten gesucht, ein System zu entwickeln, das effizienter und f\u00fcr die Spieldesigner einfacher zu bedienen ist.\n\nKI (Tech)\nIm letzten Monat hat die KI-Abteilung weiter an Funktionen gearbeitet, die die Detailgenauigkeit und Qualit\u00e4t verbessern werden, einschlie\u00dflich der Fertigstellung des r\u00e4umlichen Priorit\u00e4tsl\u00f6sers und des Priorit\u00e4tsbakensystems. Au\u00dferdem wurden diese Funktionen in das Navigations-, Pfadfinder- und Taktikpunktesystem integriert, um Anfragen von NSCs, die sich in der N\u00e4he der Spieler\/innen befinden, besser zu priorisieren und zu l\u00f6sen.\n\nIm Bereich der Werkzeuge wurde die Arbeit an StarScript Views abgeschlossen, die es den Designern erm\u00f6glicht, Verhaltensfunktionen und R\u00fcckruflogik zu gruppieren. Danach wurde mit der Verbesserung der Visualisierung des Subsumption MasterGraphs begonnen. Weitere Anpassungen wurden an der Logik der KI-Schiffe vorgenommen, damit sie mit den neuen Flugmodi korrekt funktionieren.\n\nDas Team arbeitet derzeit an der Generierung von NSC-Deckung und optimiert die Stellen, an denen Deckung generiert wird, so dass sie mit verschiedenen Flaggen markiert werden kann, um den Kontext in Kampfszenarien zu verbessern.\n\nBeim Navigationssystem haben die Entwickler verschiedene Fehler behoben, darunter Probleme bei der Generierung von Kacheldreiecken und beim Export von Objekt-Containern im Zusammenhang mit Navigationsdaten. Derzeit arbeiten sie an Verbesserungen der 3D-Navigation f\u00fcr Raumschiffe und NSCs in EVA.\n\nAnimation\nDas Animationsteam hat die Entwicklung verschiedener Gr\u00f6\u00dfen von Valakkar fortgesetzt und das Kopion aktualisiert. Au\u00dferdem wurden die KI-Hintergrundanimationen aktualisiert und \"deaktivierte\" Animationen f\u00fcr die Argo ATLS hinzugef\u00fcgt. Au\u00dferdem wurden neue KI-Gesichtsanimationen fertiggestellt, unter anderem f\u00fcr den Banu-Missionsgeber Wikelo.\n\nKunst (Charaktere)\nIm M\u00e4rz arbeitete das Character Art Team weiter an einer neuen Kreatur f\u00fcr die PU und an der StarWear Art Debt. Au\u00dferdem wurde eine neue schwere R\u00fcstung entworfen und die Erstellung verschiedener Belohnungen fortgesetzt.\n\nDas Concept Art Team hat au\u00dferdem Ideen f\u00fcr neue Belohnungen und R\u00fcstungen im Spiel entwickelt.\n\nKunst (Schiffe)\nIm M\u00e4rz stellte das britische Team f\u00fcr Fahrzeuginhalte das Bergbauschiff Drake Golem und den Bergbau-Energieanzug Argo ATLS GEO fertig. Der MISC Starlancer TAC ging in die finale Entwicklungsphase \u00fcber, w\u00e4hrend der Consolidated Outland Pioneer die Whitebox durchlief und von der zus\u00e4tzlichen Konzeptarbeit profitierte, die in der letzten Folge von Star Citizen Live gezeigt wurde.\n\nEin unangek\u00fcndigtes Fahrzeug hat die Greybox-Pr\u00fcfung erfolgreich bestanden und ist in die LOD0-Phase \u00fcbergegangen. Zwei weitere Fahrzeuge wurden vor ihrer Ver\u00f6ffentlichung mit Fehlerkorrekturen und abschlie\u00dfenden Arbeiten am Inhalt versehen, und ein weiteres neues Schiff wird derzeit f\u00fcr die Greybox-Pr\u00fcfung vorbereitet.\n\nDas Team in der NA machte Fortschritte bei zwei kommenden RSI-Schiffen. Das erste, die Apollo, hat das Whitebox-Review-Gate erfolgreich bestanden und wurde mit Unterst\u00fctzung des Concept-Teams f\u00fcr das Design des medizinischen Raums in die Greybox gebracht. Einige Aspekte wurden durch die Nutzung des umfangreichen RSI-Kits, das f\u00fcr die Zeus und die Polaris entwickelt wurde, erheblich verbessert. Das zweite Projekt, der RSI Perseus, hat Anfang M\u00e4rz die Whitebox-Pr\u00fcfung bestanden. Wie beim Apollo wurden einige Bereiche dank des RSI-Kits visuell verbessert.\n\nAuch an drei unangek\u00fcndigten Fahrzeugen wurde weiter gearbeitet: Eine Variante eines beliebten Schiffes hat die Greybox-Pr\u00fcfung bestanden, eine weitere Variante steht kurz vor der Greybox-Pr\u00fcfung, w\u00e4hrend ein ganz neues Modell in Vorbereitung auf die Whitebox-Pr\u00fcfung Anfang April in Produktion ging.\n\nCommunity\nDas Community-Team begann den M\u00e4rz mit der Unterst\u00fctzung von Stella Fortuna, dem Start des Bar Crawl Screenshot-Wettbewerbs und der Ver\u00f6ffentlichung eines \u00dcberblicks \u00fcber die spannenden Aktivit\u00e4ten, die den Spielern zur Verf\u00fcgung stehen.\n\nF\u00fcr die Alpha 4.1 ver\u00f6ffentlichte das Team einen detaillierten Catch-All-Post, Q&As f\u00fcr den Drake Golem und Argo ATLS GEO sowie einen Patch Watch, der auf kommende Funktionen, Verbesserungen und Fehlerbehebungen hinweist, die nicht in der Roadmap enthalten sind.\n\nDas Team hat Zeit mit unserem Entwickler in MTL verbracht, um die bevorstehende \u00dcberarbeitung des Empfehlungssystems zu besprechen, die bessere und h\u00e4ufigere Belohnungen vorsieht. Das Team hat auch die Event-Pl\u00e4ne f\u00fcr das Jahr weiter ausgearbeitet, darunter die Unterst\u00fctzung der Bar Citizen World Tour und des kommenden International Bar Citizen Weekend.\n\nDazu geh\u00f6ren regelm\u00e4\u00dfige Ver\u00f6ffentlichungen wie die w\u00f6chentliche Ausgabe von This Week in Star Citizen, zweiw\u00f6chentliche Roadmap-Updates und Roundups sowie die monatliche Aktualisierung des Arena Commander Schedule. Das Team setzte sich weiterhin daf\u00fcr ein, das Feedback der Spieler zu erfassen und die Erkenntnisse der Community direkt an die Entwicklungsteams weiterzugeben.\n\nAu\u00dferdem hat das Community-Team das 10-j\u00e4hrige Jubil\u00e4um des von ANZIA Racing organisierten Crux Cups unterst\u00fctzt und gefeiert. Derzeit bereitet es sich auf die kommenden Community-Treffen w\u00e4hrend der Bar Citizen World Tour 2025 vor.\n\nZu guter Letzt wurde der Vanduul-Interpreter-Wettbewerb des Squadron 42 Newsletters gestartet, der der Community eine weitere M\u00f6glichkeit bietet, tiefer in Squadron 42 einzutauchen, und bei dem die Teilnehmer die Chance haben, eine seltene Vanduul-Sense zu gewinnen.\n\nKern-Gameplay\nF\u00fcr die Argo ATLS GEO vervollst\u00e4ndigte das Core Gameplay-Team die Minen- und Thruster-Funktionalit\u00e4t des Anzugs, f\u00fcgte eine Gesundheitsleiste und Schadenszust\u00e4nde hinzu und unterst\u00fctzte zus\u00e4tzliche Verbesserungen an der Basis-ATLS.\n\nAu\u00dferdem wurde die erste Version der Waffen\u00fcberhitzungsmechanik f\u00fcr das Volt Parallax Energiegewehr implementiert, die es dem Spieler erm\u00f6glicht, einen sekund\u00e4ren Feuermodus zu aktivieren, auch wenn das Risiko einer \u00dcberhitzung besteht. In Zukunft werden weitere Waffen mit der \u00dcberhitzungsmechanik ausgestattet.\n\nIm M\u00e4rz wurden Fortschritte beim Engineering Gameplay gemacht. Das Core Gameplay unterst\u00fctzte verschiedene Teams bei Problemen mit dem Ressourcennetzwerk und Bugs. Au\u00dferdem wurde die automatische Drosselung eingef\u00fchrt, die einen Gegenstand in einen niedrigeren oder ausgeschalteten Zustand zur\u00fcckversetzt, wenn er w\u00e4hrend eines Updates keinen Strom mehr hat.\n\nEs wurden \u00c4nderungen am K\u00fchlmittel f\u00fcr Fahrzeuge vorgenommen. Die Wirksamkeit richtet sich jetzt nach den physikalischen Eigenschaften eines Gegenstands, wobei eine bestimmte Menge K\u00fchlmittel der Erw\u00e4rmung durch die gleiche Menge an Energie entgegenwirkt. Der K\u00fchlmittelverbrauch verwendet Deltas mit einem dynamischen Override - die maximale K\u00fchlmittelanforderung basiert auf dem maximalen Stromverbrauch multipliziert mit einem globalen Parameter des Ressourcennetzwerks.\n\nDas Team hat auch Fortschritte bei der Implementierung des W\u00e4rmespiels f\u00fcr Schiffstriebwerke gemacht. Dazu wurde die Benutzeroberfl\u00e4che der Technik mit Filtern versehen, damit die Spieler\/innen nur Gegenst\u00e4nde einer bestimmten Kategorie sehen k\u00f6nnen. Zum Beispiel alle Waffen oder alle Gegenst\u00e4nde mit Fehlfunktionen.\n\nDie Benutzeroberfl\u00e4che wurde auch in der Auswahl verbessert. Mit der linken Maustaste kannst du jetzt die beiden n\u00e4chstgelegenen Gegenst\u00e4nde ausw\u00e4hlen (n\u00fctzlich f\u00fcr T\u00fcren, die Komponenten verdecken), und mit der rechten Maustaste kannst du alle sich \u00fcberschneidenden Gegenst\u00e4nde anzeigen und ausw\u00e4hlen.\n\nAu\u00dferdem wurde an der Wiederherstellung von Gegenst\u00e4nden T0 gearbeitet. Verschiedene Gegenst\u00e4nde wurden zu den schwarzen Listen hinzugef\u00fcgt und Probleme mit dem Respawn-Flow behoben.\n\nBeim FPS-Radar und beim Scannen wurden Fortschritte gemacht. Jetzt k\u00f6nnen Gegenstandskomponenten in Fahrzeugen erkannt werden, wenn sich ein Spieler darin befindet, und ausgeschlossen werden, wenn er sich au\u00dferhalb befindet. Auch die Debug-Tools des Features wurden verbessert.\n\nDie \u00dcberarbeitung des Transitsystems, auch bekannt als Transportsystem, wurde im M\u00e4rz weiter vorangetrieben. Das Team f\u00fcgte eine Setup-Validierung und Debugging f\u00fcr nicht-physikalisierte Kutschen hinzu, um Setup-Probleme besser zu erkennen. Au\u00dferdem wurde die M\u00f6glichkeit hinzugef\u00fcgt, Bef\u00f6rderungszonen durch ein Transportnetz zu verbinden (was f\u00fcr das Routing auf der Minikarte erforderlich ist), sowie Zielkategorien und -priorit\u00e4ten und die M\u00f6glichkeit, Ziele auf den Wagentafeln anzuzeigen.\n\nEs wurde eine Belohnungsmechanik f\u00fcr Sammelmissionen implementiert, die f\u00fcr die Sammlermissionen verwendet wird, w\u00e4hrend die M\u00f6glichkeit hinzugef\u00fcgt wurde, Gegenst\u00e4nde automatisch per HUD-Benachrichtigung aus Fracht- oder Schiffsaufz\u00fcgen zu holen.\n\nIm Missionssystem hat das Team einen Fehler behoben, der verhinderte, dass Einf\u00fchrungsauftr\u00e4ge nicht auf den Schwierigkeitsgrad angerechnet wurden.\n\nAu\u00dferdem wurde das \"Teilen von Voraussetzungen\" eingef\u00fchrt. Damit k\u00f6nnen Spieler\/innen andere dazu einladen, Auftr\u00e4ge anzunehmen, f\u00fcr die sie sonst nicht in Frage k\u00e4men, wenn sie eine bestimmte Voraussetzung erf\u00fcllen, z. B. den Ort oder das Ansehen.\n\nAu\u00dferdem wurden Fehler behoben und die Robustheit der neuen Spielerfahrung verbessert sowie Probleme behoben, die dazu f\u00fchrten, dass verschiedene Missionen deaktiviert wurden.\n\nAuch bei den Comms-Benachrichtigungen wurden Fortschritte gemacht, z. B. durch One-Way-Comm-Calls von den Missionsgebern zu den Spielern und Comms-Benachrichtigungen, die durch ver\u00e4nderte Missionszust\u00e4nde ausgel\u00f6st werden, z. B. \"abgeschlossen\" oder \"gescheitert\".\n\nDie Missionsdesigner\/innen k\u00f6nnen jetzt Kommunikationsbenachrichtigungen \u00fcber die Missionslogik ausl\u00f6sen. Au\u00dferdem haben sie begonnen, 3D-Bausteine zu implementieren, um interessantere Szenen darzustellen, da die bisherige Methode vom Server Meshing nicht mehr unterst\u00fctzt wurde.\n\nIm Bereich Core Gameplay wurden Verbesserungen an den Warenkiosken vorgenommen, um den Transaktionsfluss zu verbessern, und es wurden Fehler bei Hangars, Lastenaufz\u00fcgen und Schiffslieferungen behoben.\n\nWirtschaft\nDas Wirtschaftsteam unterst\u00fctzte das Balancing von Supply or Die, das die Entwickler bei der Ver\u00f6ffentlichung f\u00fcr zu gut abgestimmt hielten. Das Wirtschaftsteam hat mit dem Missionsdesign zusammengearbeitet, um die Probleme so schnell wie m\u00f6glich zu beheben, ohne harte Grenzen zu setzen. In Zukunft werden beide Teams enger zusammenarbeiten, um einen stabilen und ganzheitlichen Ansatz f\u00fcr das Balancing von Missionen mit offenem Ende und mehreren machbaren L\u00f6sungen zu entwickeln.\n\n\"Unser Ziel ist es immer, die Wahlm\u00f6glichkeiten der Spieler zu maximieren und ein aufregendes Gameplay zu erm\u00f6glichen, aber gleichzeitig ausnutzbare Muster zu vermeiden.\" Wirtschaftsteam\n\nGrafik, VFX-Programmierung & Planet Tech\nLetzten Monat hat das Grafikteam die GPU-Speicherverwaltung \u00fcberarbeitet. Dabei wurden neue Optionen, eine Visualisierung des jeweils ben\u00f6tigten GPU-Speichers und eine automatische Erkennung f\u00fcr die passende Aufl\u00f6sung, Hochskalierung und Grafik hinzugef\u00fcgt.\n\nDie Gaswolken erhielten dank der gleichen Technologie f\u00fcr Dichte und Schattierung, die auch bei den Planetenwolken zum Einsatz kommt, eine deutliche optische Aufwertung. Auch die globale Beleuchtung wurde mit Verbesserungen der Bildstabilit\u00e4t und der Genauigkeit von diffusen und spiegelnden Reflexionen aufgewertet.\n\nPlanet Tech v5 macht weiterhin gute Fortschritte: Das Team hat die Verteilung und Schattierung von viel dichteren Felsformationen mit physikalisch plausiblerer Platzierung abgeschlossen. Auch das virtuelle Gel\u00e4ndesystem ist kurz vor der Fertigstellung, und als N\u00e4chstes wird an der Laufzeitkomprimierung gearbeitet.\n\nDas VFX-Programmierteam feilte an verschiedenen Funktionen, wie Feuer, Netzwerkbandbreite f\u00fcr Schadenskarten und Kreaturen.\n\nDie Stabilit\u00e4t von Vulkan wurde ebenfalls verbessert, nachdem Gespr\u00e4che mit Nvidia zur Diagnose von zwei potenziellen Problemen gef\u00fchrt hatten - eines im Treiber und eines im Spiel. Beide Probleme wurden mit dem neuesten PTU-Patch behoben.\n\nMission Design\nIm M\u00e4rz wurden im Missionsdesign verschiedene \u00e4ltere Missionen \u00fcberarbeitet, die bei der \u00dcberarbeitung zur\u00fcckgestellt worden waren.\n\n\"Alpha 4.1\" wurde der Community auf der PTU vorgestellt und f\u00fchrte eine neue Sandbox-Aktivit\u00e4t ein, in der die Spieler\/innen einzigartige Gegenst\u00e4nde finden k\u00f6nnen. Viele Abteilungen arbeiten daran, den Produktionswert der Missionen zu erh\u00f6hen, um das bestm\u00f6gliche Erlebnis zu gew\u00e4hrleisten.\" Missionsdesign-Team\n\nDas Team hat auch an Rayari und Wikelo gearbeitet, den beiden neuen Missionsgebern, die Gegenst\u00e4nde ben\u00f6tigen, die in den neuen Missionen gefunden werden.\n\nErz\u00e4hlung\nIm Einklang mit dem erh\u00f6hten Ver\u00f6ffentlichungsrhythmus war Alpha 4.1 im M\u00e4rz ein wichtiger Schwerpunkt f\u00fcr das Narrative Team. F\u00fcr die neuen orbitalen Bergbauanlagen von Hathor wurden unter anderem auffindbare Datapads hinzugef\u00fcgt, zahlreiche Missionen, die die neuen Standorte nutzen, \u00fcberarbeitet und gemeinsam mit Art an der Verbesserung der Beschilderung gearbeitet.\n\nDer Patch bringt auch den ersten au\u00dferirdischen NSC in Star Citizen hervor, den Banu-H\u00e4ndler Wikelo.\n\n\"Es hat uns viel Spa\u00df gemacht, den Charakter zu erschaffen und das Emporium zu einem Ort zu machen, den die Spieler gerne erkunden. Narrative Team\n\nNarrative f\u00fchrte auch eine Capture-Session durch, bei der es darum ging, Dialoge zu verschiedenen kommenden Missionen hinzuzuf\u00fcgen und zwei neue Fraktionsvertreter vorzustellen, mit denen die Spieler bei bestimmten Auftr\u00e4gen zusammenarbeiten werden.\n\nAu\u00dferdem half das Team bei der \u00dcberarbeitung einiger \u00e4lterer Missionen mit aktualisierten Vertr\u00e4gen. Au\u00dferdem arbeiteten wir gemeinsam mit dem Designteam an der Verfeinerung einiger Schaupl\u00e4tze, die in diesem Jahr eingef\u00fchrt werden, um sicherzustellen, dass sie ein reichhaltiges erz\u00e4hlerisches Erlebnis bieten.\n\nOnline-Technologie\nIm M\u00e4rz konzentrierte sich das Live-Tools-Team auf die Verbesserung der Benutzerfreundlichkeit des wichtigsten Support-Tools, Hex.\n\nDas Team der Online-Dienste arbeitete am ersten Durchgang des Dienste-\u00d6kosystems, um die kommenden Entwicklungen der Spielteams zu unterst\u00fctzen.\n\nEs wurden verschiedene soziale Verbesserungen vorgenommen, z. B. Optimierungen beim Kicken von Mitgliedern aus Gruppen, beim Fluss \"Gruppe erstellen\" und bei der Rollback-Strategie f\u00fcr den Fluss \"addMembers\". Au\u00dferdem wurden Metriken hinzugef\u00fcgt, um den Ursprung von ScyllaDB-Abfragen zu ermitteln, sowie Optionen f\u00fcr die Protokollierung von Anfragen und Konfigurationen zur Festlegung der maximalen Anzahl gleichzeitiger Anfragen.\n\nF\u00fcr die Analytik wurden Konfigurationen f\u00fcr HTTP-Clients und f\u00fcr die Aktivierung von Kafka-Verbindungen hinzugef\u00fcgt. Bei den Missionen wurden Entit\u00e4ten aus dem Shard-Tag entfernt und das Missionssystem wurde aktualisiert.\n\nF&E\nIm M\u00e4rz wurde die Detaildarstellung der Gaswolken mit Hilfe von Techniken verbessert, die bei den volumetrischen Wolken der Planeten zum Einsatz kommen. Jetzt k\u00f6nnen die K\u00fcnstler\/innen die Dichte, die von der urspr\u00fcnglichen Gaswolken-Volumendatenbank (VDB) bereitgestellt wird, durch prozedurales Rauschen mit Hilfe von Laufzeitformungs- und Erosionsberechnungen verfeinern. Au\u00dferdem kann die Kantenalbedo gesteuert werden, um die volumetrische Struktur der Wolke weiter zu betonen. Au\u00dferdem wurde ein konfigurierbarer Gradient hinzugef\u00fcgt, um die Mischung zwischen der urspr\u00fcnglichen und der geformten Dichte zu steuern. So kann das Team die Dichte der urspr\u00fcnglichen VDB-Daten in d\u00fcnnen Bereichen der Wolken beibehalten und gleichzeitig mehr Details in dichteren Bereichen hinzuf\u00fcgen.\n\nF\u00fcr das dynamische Wetter wurde die Berechnung des Regenvolumens verbessert, um die Inhaltserstellung zu erleichtern. Auch die vertikale Verteilung entlang der lokalen H\u00f6he von Blitzereignissen wurde verfeinert. Au\u00dferdem wurde das volumetrische Rendering von Blitzen verbessert, indem der Blitzverlauf flexibler gesteuert werden kann.\n\nTechnisches Design\nIm M\u00e4rz arbeitete das Tech Design an einem bevorstehenden Event im Spiel und unterst\u00fctzte das Missionsdesign bei der Erstellung von Spielfiguren und Logikfl\u00fcssen.\n\nVFX\nVFX machte Fortschritte bei den Aufgaben f\u00fcr die Valakkar. Au\u00dferdem unterst\u00fctzten sie das Locations-Team mit Effekten f\u00fcr die neuen Missionsschaupl\u00e4tze der Alpha 4.1, darunter die orbitale Laserplattform, das Bohrloch, die H\u00f6hle und die Satellitensch\u00fcssel.","zh_CN":"PU Monthly Report\nMarch 2025\nThis month\u2019s PU Report features progress on a variety of ongoing development initiatives, including the recently released Alpha 4.1, upcoming vehicles, AI work, and mission content. Read on for the latest updates!\n\nAI (Content)\nFor the recent debut of Star Citizen\u2019s first alien NPC, Wikelo, AI Content worked alongside the Narrative Design, Design, Animation, Audio, and Character Art teams to prototype the character\u2019s general and air-traffic-control behaviors. The team also took a more active role in prepping incoming audio and animation files from recent capture sessions.\n\nDevelopment continued on new behaviors to support some of the story developments happening in the \u2018verse in the coming months. Finally for AI, they revisited issues in the population behaviors of existing landing zones.\n\nAI (Features)\nIn March, AI Feature\u2019s priority was the valakkar, specifically the juvenile variant. As part of the polishing phase, new functionality was added to support upcoming gameplay, including replacing ineffective melee attacks with a submerge-and-relocate behavior when the player gets close. New burrowing modes were also added that allow the creature to submerge on the spot rather than dive into a new position.\n\nNew firing modes were added to give better control over fire rate and damage per shot depending on whether the target is on the ground or the air. Bespoke firing-animation variants were also added when firing at more vertical angles.\n\nThe team also iterated on the kopion, integrating new chase technology for more effective attacks, including a leap.\n\nFor Human combat, iteration continued on the first-reaction flow escalation, specifically focusing on the animation setup for usables so that it works well if the AI is sitting in a chair, leaning on a railing, or crouching to inspect a maintenance panel.\n\nThe team also progressed with reaction animations for when the AI detects compromised cover. This allows NPCs to appear more responsive to the actions of the player and react appropriately to new threats.\n\nSimilarly, the team is refactoring the response to combat tactic events, such as needing to reload. This is now done within the tactic behavior itself rather than at a higher level, which allows more customization depending on the current situation, leading to better and more responsive behaviors.\n\nAI (Game Intelligence Development Team)\nIn March, Game Intelligence Development had two main focuses: the full implementation of Views and organization and analysis for Mission System 2.0.\n\nFor Views, feature-related tasks are now functional in StarScript, including representation in the script graph. The team also included the new input and output visuals, which makes them more distinctive, while information on the task number was added. An update was also made to the Mastergraph to integrate Views into the various functional connected states. This is still a work in progress, with internal testing beginning soon.\n\nFor the Mission System, the devs continued to explore ways to build a system that will be more efficient and simpler for the game designers to use.\n\nAI (Tech)\nLast month, AI Tech continued to work on features that will improve overall detail and quality, including finalizing work for the spatial priority solver and priority beacon system. They also integrated these features into the navigation, pathfinder, and tactical-point systems to help better prioritize and solve requests sent by NPCs close to players.\n\nRegarding tools, work was completed on StarScript Views to allow the designers to group behavior functions and callback logic. Following this, work began on visualization improvements for the Subsumption MasterGraph. Additional adjustments were made to AI ship logic to enable it to work correctly with the new flight modes.\n\nThe team is currently working on NPC cover generation, optimizing places where cover will be generated, allowing it to be marked with various flags for better context during combat scenarios.\n\nFor the navigation system, the devs fixed various bugs, including issues with tile triangularization generation cases and an object-container export case related to navigation data. They\u2019re currently progressing with improvements to 3D navigation for spaceships and NPCs in EVA.\n\nAnimation\nThe Animation team continued developing various sizes of valakkar alongside making updates to the kopion. They also updated AI background animations and added \u2018disabled\u2019 animations to the Argo ATLS. New AI facial animation content was completed too, including for the Banu mission-giver, Wikelo.\n\nArt (Characters)\nIn March, the Character Art team continued to work on a new creature for the PU alongside StarWear art debt. They also kicked off new heavy armor and continued creating various rewards.\n\nThe Concept Art team also explored ideas for new in-game rewards and armors.\n\nArt (Ships)\nIn March, the UK-based Vehicle Content team completed the Drake Golem mining ship and Argo ATLS GEO mining power suit. The MISC Starlancer TAC moved into the final development phase, while the Consolidated Outland Pioneer progressed through whitebox, benefiting from the additional concept work shown during a recent episode of Star Citizen Live.\n\nAn unannounced vehicle successfully passed greybox review and moved into the LOD0 phase, two other vehicles received a bug-fixing pass and final-content work ahead of their release, and another new ship is currently being prepared for its greybox gate review.\n\nThe NA-based team progressed with two upcoming RSI ships. The first, the Apollo, successfully passed its whitebox review gate and moved into greybox with support from the Concept team on the medical room design. Some aspects progressed significantly due to utilization of the extensive RSI kit created for the Zeus and Polaris. The second, the RSI Perseus, passed its whitebox review at the start of March. Like the Apollo, some areas progressed visually thanks to the RSI kit.\n\nWork continued on three unannounced vehicles too: a variant of a popular ship passed greybox review, another variant is approaching greybox review, while an all-new model entered production in preparation for its whitebox review in early April.\n\nCommunity\nThe Community team kicked off March with support for Stella Fortuna, launching the Bar Crawl screenshot contest and publishing a catch-all post highlighting the exciting activities available to players.\n\nFor Alpha 4.1, the team published a detailed catch-all post, Q&As for the Drake Golem and Argo ATLS GEO, and a Patch Watch highlighting upcoming features, improvements, and fixes not included in the Roadmap.\n\nThe team spent time with our developer in MTL to help detail out the upcoming Referral Revamp, which aims to include better rewards, more frequently. The team also continued mapping out event-related plans for the year, including supporting the Bar Citizen World Tour, and the upcoming International Bar Citizen Weekend.\n\nEvergreen tasks continued throughout the month, including regular publications like the weekly This Week in Star Citizen, bi-weekly Roadmap Updates and Roundups, and the monthly refresh of the Arena Commander Schedule. The team maintained their commitment to capturing player feedback, directly channeling community insights to development teams.\n\nAdditionally, the Community team supported and celebrated the 10th anniversary of the Crux Cup, organized by ANZIA Racing. They\u2019re currently preparing for the upcoming community meetups throughout the 2025 Bar Citizen World Tour.\n\nLastly, they launched the Squadron 42 Newsletter\u2019s Vanduul Interpreter contest, offering another opportunity for the community to dive deeper into Squadron 42, with participants competing for the chance to win a rare Vanduul Scythe.\n\nCore Gameplay\nFor the Argo ATLS GEO, the Core Gameplay team completed the suit\u2019s mining and thruster functionality, added a health bar and damage states, and supported additional improvements to the base ATLS.\n\nThey also implemented the first version of the weapon overheat mechanic to the Volt Parallax energy rifle, which enables the player to engage a secondary fire mode at the risk of overheating. More weapons will gain the overheat mechanic in the future.\n\nProgress was made on Engineering gameplay throughout March, with Core Gameplay supporting various teams with Resource Network issues and bugs. They also added auto-throttling, which reverts to a lower or powered-off state if an item doesn't have power during an update.\n\nChanges were made to vehicle coolant. Now, effectiveness is based on an item's physical properties, with a specific amount of coolant counteracting heating caused by an equal amount of power. Coolant consumption uses deltas with a dynamic override \u2013 the maximum coolant request is based on the maximum power consumption multiplied by a Resource Network global parameter.\n\nThe team also made progress toward implementing heat gameplay for ship thrusters. This involved adding filters to the engineering UI to allow players to only see items of a particular category. For example, all weapons or all items with malfunctions.\n\nSelection improvements were also added to the UI. Now, \u2018left click\u2019 will cycle through the two closest items (useful for doors covering components), and \u2018right click\u2019 will show all overlapping items and allow selection.\n\nWork was also completed toward Item Recovery T0, with various items being added to blacklists alongside fixes for related respawn flow issues.\n\nProgress was made on FPS radar and scanning. Now, item components can be detected within vehicles while a player is inside and excluded when outside. The feature\u2019s debug tools were improved too.\n\nThe ongoing transit system rework, known as the Transport System, progressed throughout March, with the team adding setup validation and debugging for non-physicalized carriages to better detect setup issues. The ability to connect carriage zones by a transport network (needed for mini-map routing) was added, as were destination categories and priorities along with the means to display destinations on carriage panels.\n\nA reward mechanic for collection missions was implemented, which is used for the Collector missions, while the ability to automatically retrieve items from freight or ship elevators via HUD notification was added.\n\nFor the mission system, the team fixed a bug preventing introductory contracts not counting toward difficulty progression.\n\n\u2018Sharing prerequisites\u2019 was also implemented. This allows players to invite others to accept contracts they would otherwise be ineligible for providing they meet a specific requirement, such as locality or reputation.\n\nTime was also spent fixing bugs and improving the robustness of the New Player Experience alongside solving issues causing various missions to be disabled.\n\nComms notifications progressed too, including one-way comm-calls from mission givers to the players and comms notifications being triggered by changing mission states, such as \u2018completed\u2019 or \u2018failed\u2019.\n\nThe mission designers can now trigger comms notifications from mission logic. They also began implementing 3D Building Blocks to display more interesting scenes as the previous method was no longer supported by Server Meshing.\n\nFinally for Core Gameplay, improvements were made to commodity kiosks to give a better flow to transactions, while fixes were made for bugs relating to hangars, freight elevators, and ship deliveries.\n\nEconomy\nThe Economy team provided balancing support for Supply or Die, with the devs deeming it over-tuned on release. Economy worked with Mission Design to address the issues as quickly as possible without imposing hard limits. Going forward, both teams will collaborate more closely to establish a stable and holistic approach to balancing open-ended missions with multiple viable solutions.\n\n\u201cOur aim is always to maximize player choices and enable emergent gameplay, but balance against exploitable patterns.\u201d Economy Team\n\nGraphics, VFX Programming & Planet Tech\nLast month, the Graphics team overhauled GPU memory management. This allowed them to add new options, a visualization of the GPU memory required for each, and auto-detection for suitable resolution, upscaling, and graphics.\n\nGas clouds received a major visual upgrade thanks to the same density-shaping and shading technology used by planetary clouds. Global illumination was upgraded too, with improvements to the image stability and accuracy of both diffuse and specular reflections.\n\nPlanet Tech v5 continued to make good progress, with the team finalizing the distribution and shading of much denser rock formations with more physically plausible placement. The virtual terrain system is also closer to completion, with run-time compression being worked on next.\n\nThe VFX Programming team polished several features, such as fire, networking bandwidth for damage maps, and creatures.\n\nVulkan stability was also improved after discussions with Nvidia led to the diagnosis of two potential issues - one in the driver and one in the game. Workarounds to both were added to the latest PTU patch.\n\nMission Design\nMarch saw Mission Design continuing to fix up various older missions that were deprioritized in the refactor.\n\n\u201cAlpha 4.1 was unveiled to the community on the PTU, introducing a new sandbox activity that players can engage in for unique items. There is a big push for increased production value on missions with a lot of departments helping out to ensure the experience is the best we can get.\u201d Mission Design Team\n\nThe team also worked on Rayari and Wikelo, the two new mission givers who require items found during the new missions.\n\nNarrative\nAligning with the increased release schedule cadence, Alpha 4.1 was a major focus for the Narrative team in March. For the new Hathor orbital mining facilities, this included adding discoverable datapads around the site, polishing numerous missions that utilized the new locations, and working with Art to improve directional signage.\n\nThe patch release also brings the major milestone of Star Citizen\u2019s first alien NPC, the Banu trader Wikelo.\n\n\"We had a lot of fun creating the character and making the Emporium a place players would enjoy exploring.\u201d Narrative Team\n\nNarrative also ran a capture session that focused on adding dialogue to several upcoming missions as well as introducing two new faction representatives who players will work with during specific contracts.\n\nAdditionally, the team helped to refactor some older missions with updated contracts. There was also ongoing work with Design to refine some of the locations coming this year to ensure they will provide a rich narrative experience.\n\nOnline Technology\nIn March, the Live Tools team focused on improving the usability of their main support tool, Hex.\n\nThe Online Services team worked on the first pass of the services ecosystem to support upcoming development by the gameplay teams.\n\nVarious social improvements were made, including optimizations to kicking members from groups, the \u2018create group\u2019 flow, and the rollback strategy for the \u2018addMembers\u2019 flow. They also added metrics to identify the origins of ScyllaDB queries, request logging options, and configurations to specify the maximum number of concurrent requests.\n\nFor analytics, configurations were added for HTTP clients and to enable Kafka connections. For missions, entities were removed from the shard tag, while the mission system was updated too.\n\nR&D\nIn March, gas cloud detail rendering was improved using techniques used by planetary volumetric clouds. Now, the artists can refine the density provided by the original gas cloud volume database (VDB) via procedural noise using runtime shaping and erosion calculations. Moreover, edge albedo can be controlled to further emphasize the cloud\u2019s volumetric structure. Additionally, a configurable gradient was added to control the blend between the original and shaped density. This allows the team to keep the density of the original VDB data in thin areas of clouds while adding more detail to denser areas.\n\nFor dynamic weather, the rain volume calculation was improved to ease content authoring. The vertical distribution along the local height of lightning events was also refined. Furthermore, the volumetric rendering of lightning was enhanced by providing more flexibility in controlling the lightning gradient.\n\nTech Design\nTech Design spent March working on an upcoming in-game event, supporting Mission Design with gameplay entity and logic flow setup.\n\nVFX\nVFX progressed with their tasks for the valakkar. They also supported the Locations team with effects for Alpha 4.1\u2019s new mission locations, including the orbital laser platform, borehole, cave, and satellite dish."},"links_count":0,"comment_count":0,"created_at":"2025-04-02T22:00:00+00:00","created_at_human":"1 year ago"},"meta":{"processed_at":"2026-04-25 20:54:13","valid_relations":["images","links","translations"],"prev_id":20526,"next_id":20538}}