In this 25th century children’s tale that inspired the names of Crusader’s moons, Cellin, Daymar, and Yela lose their gift en route to grandmother’s and go on an adventure to get her a new one.

Star Citizen Alpha 3.13.0m PTU.7281044 Patch Notes

Star Citizen Alpha 3.13.0l PTU.7274064 Patch Notes

Happy Monday everyone,

Last week introduced a variety of detailed updates. The Roadmap Roundup updated the Progress Tracker to v1.0, adding new functionality and improvements to the Roadmap itself; more than 100 new deliverables are waiting to be discovered thanks to downstream additions.

Our teams around the globe also shared what they were up to in March in the latest Star Citizen PU Monthly Report. From docking to Orison’s incoming cloud tech, there’s something for everyone!

Meanwhile, if you’re looking for the latest info on the upcoming Alpha 3.13 patch, you can catch the re-play of Star Citizen Live: All About Alpha 3.13.

Last, and most certainly not least, please join us in congratulating the winners of the Tempt Fate Video Contest and all the participants that challenged Fortune. These shorts are great and fun to watch!

Now, let’s see what’s going on this week:

On Tuesday, the Narrative Team will provide us a Human morality tale coined in the late 2300s. Read the Serialized Fiction: A Gift for Baba (Part 1) to learn about the namesakes of Crusader’s moons: Cellin, Daymar, and Yela.

On Wednesday, we cross-post the Squadron 42 report as a Comm-Link that was recently sent out via the monthly Squadron 42 newsletter.

On Friday, you’ll see an update to the Subscriber Vault and the RSI Newsletter will wait for you in your inbox. We’ll also welcome a new Star Citizen Live episode, which will broadcast on our Star Citizen Twitch channel. More details on the guest and times in the days to come.

The week so far might seem lighter than usual, but I can assure you that the whole team is working to open up Alpha 3.13 access to a wider audience.

Christian ‘Wayne-CIG’ Schmitt
Community Manager

Screenshot by Charlie_Igningnokt

The Weekly Community Content Schedule

MONDAY, APRIL 12, 2021
This Week in Star Citizen

TUESDAY, APRIL 13, 2021
Serialized Fiction: A Gift for Baba (Part 1)

WEDNESDAY, April 14, 2021
SQ42 Monthly Report Comm-Link

FRIDAY, APRIL 16, 2021
Star Citizen Live (twitch.tv/starcitizen)
Subscriber Vault Update
Weekly Newsletter

Community MVP: April 12, 2021

Star Citizen Alpha 3.13.0k PTU.7266741 Patch Notes

Star Citizen Live: All About Alpha 3.13 (4/9 @ 8am Pacific)

Star Citizen Alpha 3.13.0j PTU.7257687 Patch Notes

__

With Alpha 3.13 on the horizon, this month’s report naturally deals with the final steps and polishing tasks completed just before the patch releases. However, work continued in earnest on content coming next quarter and beyond, so read on to for all the details on everything done throughout March.

Star Citizen Monthly Report: March 2021

AI (Content)

AI (Features)

On the Subsumption-logic side, several new tasks were introduced, including:
HasAnyTagInTagSelection: Evaluates whether an object has tags under specific parent tags BroadcastInMyActionAreas: Propagates an event in the action areas the agent is contained MergeMannequinTags: Takes two Mannequin tags variables and merges them into one

AI (Tech)

Improvements were also made to the navigation links that describe the external linking of navigation mesh triangles (essentially, two disconnected triangles connect and become traversable using animation, explicit locomotion linkage, etc.). In doing so, the NavigationLink component was simplified to allow the explicit instantiation of extensions that can use different types of data to create external links. They currently have support for the following scenarios:

Conclusion

WE’LL SEE YOU NEXT MONTH…

Roadmap Roundup

Happy Wednesday, everyone!

Every two weeks, we accompany the Roadmap update with a brief explanatory note to give you insight into the decision-making that led to any changes. This is part of an effort to make our communications more transparent, more specific, and more insightful for all of you who help to make Star Citizen and Squadron 42 possible.

As we mentioned earlier this year, we’re now ready to add additional downstream teams to the Public Roadmap. More specifically, this means we’ve got a whole lot to share this week, but before we jump into that though, we wanted to take the opportunity to set proper expectations and remind folks what they can expect to see each Roadmap Roundup. While there’s been a few significant updates as we’ve looked to populate the Roadmap for the first time, you will find that this is not the norm. Now that we have the upstream and downstream teams populated, these Roadmap Roundups will likely be much shorter (akin to last week), as these are intended to call out significant changes to the schedule, such as a shift in priority, new or removed features, or anything else we think is a notable callout. That said, the Roadmap is a living document that grants you access into what our developers around the globe are working on, and the Roadmap itself will always be the best tool to follow along with progress.

We’re bringing the Progress Tracker to v1.0 with this update, and there’s a lot of notable updates this week! Along with new functionality and improvements to the roadmap itself, there are more than 100 new deliverables with this week’s update. Be sure to check out the full list of new teams below to help you explore which deliverables are new.

With that said, let’s go ahead and dive into this week’s Roadmap Roundup!

-CIG Community Team

Notable Changes for March 10th, 2021

Before jumping into the new game content, we’d like to call attention to a few new features to the functionality of the roadmap itself. These aim to make navigating the Roadmap an easier and more enjoyable experience.

The new Search function and Deliverables Tab

Deliverables View
You can now view the Progress Tracker sorted by Deliverable, rather than by Team. When viewing the Roadmap within this view, if you click on any specific deliverable, it will expand and show you all teams working on said particular deliverable. If you click on a team, it’ll take you to the respective team’s schedule on the Teams view. This is meant to give you multiple perspectives of the various work being worked on.

Search
Our new Search functionality allows the search of both deliverables and their descriptions, letting you easily find your favorite features even if you can’t remember exactly what it’s called.

An example of Release View/Progress Tracker Navigation

Sort/Filters
On the right-hand side of the Progress Tracker is a new expandable menu called Filters. Here you have the option to sort deliverables either alphabetically or when they’re due to begin work, filter deliverables by project, or filter them by disciplines assigned to them.

Release View/Progress Tracker Navigation
On some deliverables, you’ll see a new section next to their description. If a deliverable on Progress Tracker also appears on Release View, you’ll see this section appear, which includes the image and category from the respective card, its release window, and a link to take you to the card on Release View as well.

Now, onto the roadmap content updates:

Progress Tracker

Physics Team
We’re currently re-evaluating the Physics Team schedule, resulting in the following three deliverables temporarily coming off the Progress Tracker until this process is complete.
Physical QT Movement PhysArea Refactoring Water Physics – Large Object Buoyancy

Mission Feature Team
Additional resources were needed for higher priority features this team has scheduled, therefore these deliverables are being removed from the Progress Tracker temporarily.
Grim Hex Race Prisons V3 Dynamic Population Bounty Hunter V2

US PU Gameplay Feature Team
Additional resources were needed for higher priority features this team has scheduled, therefore these deliverables are being removed from the Progress Tracker temporarily.
Mission Manager App Grim Hex Race Org Perks & Benefits Notification System T0

Some of the new priorities for the US PU team are the following three deliverables, which have been newly added to the Progress Tracker.

Selling
This feature deals with the ability to sell items back to the shops. Players will have the ability to sell items from their local inventory to the shop using our Building Blocks Tech. This will also support a generalized loot system that will fill lockers and enemy’s backpacks with a random assortment of items that can be looted and then taken back to shops to sell for money.

Persistent Hangars
Work that grants players the ability to have their own Persistent Hangars. This will also bring changes to the Cargo gameplay loop by allowing players to pack their grids manually.

Persistent Habs
Work that grants players the ability to have their own Persistent Habs.

Dev Tools Team
This team has been removed, but fear not, the team hasn’t gone anywhere! Dev Tools has split into two new teams, the Tools Team and the Editor Team, which are now both present on the Progress Tracker.

In addition we’re adding 20 teams to the Public Roadmap today. Within those 20 teams is more than 100 new deliverables. You can use the list below of new teams to go and browse new deliverables. Happy hunting!

NEW TEAMS:
AI Content Team AI Tech and Feature Team Audio Character Art and Tech Team Cinematics Team EU PU Gameplay Feature Team Facial Animation Team Firesprite Team Gameplay Story Lighting Team Location Concept Art Modular – MTL Motion Capture Team Narrative Props Team SQ42 Feature Team Tech Animation Team UI Feature Team UI Tech Team VFX Team

Greycat ROC-DS
Previously labelled as Unannounced, this deliverable has now been revealed on the Progress Tracker.

Persistent Streaming and Server Meshing
As this deliverable continues to make progress, we’re able to more accurately define tasks required in the short term that are needed for its completion. Therefore, new deliverables have been added to both the Network Team and the Persistent Tech Team to represent this.

Release View

As a reminder, each column on release view represents an entire quarter’s worth of releases, not just the initial release. For example, we previously mentioned that the Starlifters, along with the Tonk, will be in an incremental 3.13.x update rather than its initial launch. We’ve got a few more deliverables in the same boat that are scheduled to come in an incremental 3.13.x patch:
Missions – Spawn Closets Ship to Station Docking Tumbril Nova Tonk Crusader M2 Hercules Starlifter Crusader C2 Hercules Starlifter

——

The following deliverable has been added to the Release view:

Greycat ROC-DS
Building, implementing, and balancing the Greycat ROC-DS as a drivable vehicle.

As a final note, you’re probably wondering when we’ll be updating the roadmap to show additional quarters in the Release View. We’re going to be entering a regular cadence for these updates that coincides with the planning meetings that happen as a quarter comes to a close. These meetings wrap near the end of the month following the end of a quarter, so expect the horizon to push out after these are complete. For example, planning meetings for this quarter wrap near the end of April, so we’ll look to add the next column in a Roadmap update in May. And of course, the roadmap will continue its normal schedule of updates every two weeks, as well.

That’s all for this week! Join the discussion on Spectrum

The Narrative team answers your questions about alien currencies, the fate of Messer family descendants, the age of the Aegis Reclaimer, and more.

SUBSCRIBERS

IN-GAME REWARDS (FLAIR)

Please note: The Star Kitten Helmets and armor are included in the upcoming 3.13 patch and will be distributed to Subscribers once the patch is live. You can still purchase the sets now and they will be attributed to you shortly after the patch releases.

Star Kitten Helmet – The pink Star Kitten helmet is sure to be a collectible among fans of the show and unusual armor enthusiasts. The Star Kitten helmet comes with a matching medium armor set from Kastak Arms.

Current Centurion-level Subscribers get the Star Kitten Helmet and matching armor above as part of their subscription.

Star Kitten Sally Helmet – The Star Kitten Sally edition is white to look like the show’s good-natured main character. The Star Kitten Sally helmet comes with a matching medium armor set from Kastak Arms.

Current Imperator-level Subscribers get the Star Kitten Helmet and matching armor and the Star Kitten Sally Helmet and matching armor above as part of their subscription.

Star Kitten Damon Helmet – The Star Kitten Damon edition is primarily black to look like Sally’s close friend who constantly tempts her to join his mischievous adventures. The Star Kitten Damon helmet comes with a matching medium armor set from Kastak Arms.

SHIP OF THE MONTH

SUBSCRIBER-EXCLUSIVE PLEDGE PROMOTION

SUBSCRIBER MERCHANDISE DISCOUNT

SUBSCRIBER STORE

Q2 2021 Buy Back Token Now Available

Greetings, Exiles of the Testlive lands!

As we steadily advance towards the full launch of Isle of Siptah, we’re now ready to give you an early taste of our upcoming new content drop. Update 2.4 will expand the available land mass on Siptah to the South, with three new biomes full of new sights, adventures and dangers for experienced Siptah players and newcomers alike.



On the east side, the savannah, a massive open area hosting rich wildlife and the ruins of an old capital of the Grey Ones, with a secret lurking within its confines. On the west side, the ashlands, the soot-covered volcanic grounds once inhabited by the First Men and now only hosting the remnants of this once-proud civilization. And in the center, the floodlands, an in-between area with tall cliff formations and lush and overgrown plains that will be prime locations for builders and adventurers alike.
These new lands continue the work established in our previous update, adding to the Isle of Siptah 47 new NPC camps of varying sizes with repeatable activities, trainers and surprises.

To couple the release of these new biomes, we have also worked on a series of optimizations and improvements to the lighting and skyboxes of Siptah, to make these new landmasses shine like never before on Conan Exiles!



Another new addition coming with this update is a new religion! Zath the Spider-God joins the pool of available religions in Conan Exiles both on the Exiled Lands and the Isle of Siptah. Summon Zath and a swarm of its children to bring terror and destruction to your enemies! New NPCs, placeables and items have been added to the game for those who chose Zath as their deity.

New with this update is also our new Character Transfer feature! With these new options you can now transfer your character between Official servers, between unofficial servers, or from an Official server to an unofficial server keeping your name and appearance, level and all items in your backpack. Even between the Exiled Lands and Isle of Siptah! (Please note: This is currently a W.I.P. feature and it’s not fully implemented in this initial Testlive build - we are still testing the feature so please use at your own discretion. To transfer to or from the Isle of Siptah, ownership of the DLC Expansion pack is required)

Along with these new additions, we have also worked on a series of oft-requested improvements and rebalancing aimed at PVP combat as well as other systems. Tons of new performance optimizations, a myriad of animation improvements and many UI and quality of life additions, along with many other fixes, complete this package. Update 2.4 is one of the most ambition content updates we have released to date, and we can’t wait to let you try this early build. If you do, please share your feedback with us and report any issues you might have!

You can read the full patchnotes for Testlive in our forums[forums.funcom.com], where we also detail how to download and join this testing build.

Thank you for your ongoing support, and stay safe!




Three new biomes for the Isle of Siptah!



The savannah, the ashlands and the floodlands are now available in the Isle of Siptah! These three new biomes are populated by dozens of new NPC camps, two new factions (The Grey Ones and The First Men), new activities and new loot!

Improved lighting and skyboxes on the Isle of Siptah!



New lighting effects and improved colors, along with many optimizations, have been added to the Isle of Siptah skyboxes, to make your adventures through the new biomes truly memorable! The difference is… night and day!

New religion!

Here comes Zath, mighty Zath! Destroys whatever with an avatar wrath. Spins a web any size. Catches foes, in Conan Exiles. Look out! Here comes the Spider-god!
(Along with new item sets, placeables, NPCs and tons and tons of little critters).

Core system changes!



New revisions to combat systems with a reduction of mounted combat damage, dodge improvements and re-balancing of bows and arrows! Swimming does not drain stamina and you can engage in 1-handed combat on water! And the hunger and thirst systems have received a balance pass to make them less frustrating and improve the gameplay flow!

Server Character Transfer! (W.I.P.)



You can now transfer your character between Official servers, between unofficial servers, or from an Official server to an unofficial one (Note: Unofficial servers can opt in or out of this feature!). You’ll keep your name, appearance, level, feats and backpack inventory while leaving everything else behind. Even within Exiled Lands servers, or from/to Siptah!
(Please note: This is currently a W.I.P. feature and it’s not fully implemented in this initial Testlive build - we are still testing the feature so please use at your own discretion. To transfer to or from the Isle of Siptah, ownership of the DLC Expansion pack is required)


Three new biomes for the Isle of Siptah!
45+ new NPC camps for the Isle of Siptah, with new loot and NPCs!
Two new factions for Siptah: the First Men and the Grey Ones!
New religion for the Exiled Lands and Isle of Siptah!
Mounted combat and dodge changes!
Swimming combat!
Hunger and thirst improvements!
Improved lighting on the Isle of Siptah!
Tons of animation improvements!
Many quality of life fixes and additions, especially for controllers!
Character transfer!
Tons of fixes!
…and much more!
Full patchnotes[forums.funcom.com] (opens link to our forums).

Happy Monday!

In case you missed it, Alpha 3.13 is now available on the PTU to Wave 1 testers! If you’re not in Wave 1, fear not! We’ll be rolling out the patch to a wider testing group soon.

Last week on Calling All Devs, we took a deep dive into the progress of player-controlled refueling and repair systems with Assistant Design Director Dan Trufin and Lead FPS Systems Designer Jonny Jacevicius. Get insight into the design of these upcoming mechanics directly on our YouTube Channel.

The Spring Merch Promotion is underway! For a limited time only, we’re giving you the opportunity to bag a wide variety of merch for up to 50% off! Be sure to check out the promotion before it ends on April 13!

Now, let’s see what’s going on this week:

The Narrative team has gathered some of the community’s burning questions from the Ask A Dev section on Spectrum and compiled the answers into an easy-to-read Comm-Link which we’ll publish on Tuesday. (FYI: You can expect more Q&As like this in the future as we look to revitalize the Ask A Dev section)

On Wednesday we have March’s Monthly reports for Star Citizen and Squadron 42 headed your way. Also, the Star Citizen Public Roadmap is getting a significant update, including the addition of 20+ new teams to the Progress Tracker and some highly requested new features to the roadmap itself. Keep an eye out for the upcoming Roadmap Round for the full list.

Thursday won’t see an episode of Inside Star Citizen as we brought the quarterly season to a close, but fear not, the show will resume in just a couple weeks!

On Friday, you’ll receive an update to the Subscriber Vault and the RSI Newsletter to your inbox. We also have another installment of Star Citizen Live on our Twitch channel. The topic and air time to come later this week.

Have a great week!

Jake Bradley
Associate Community Manager

P.S.: Hello there! I should probably introduce myself since I’m a new name on these posts! My name is Jake, and I’m the newest addition to the Community Team! I joined CIG back in November, and have been primarily focused on backend tasks and releasing/managing the new and improved Public Roadmap (check it out if you haven’t yet!). You’ve probably seen me bouncing around in various Discord/Twitch chats talking about it. I’m a long-time content creator and backer of Star Citizen, and working here has been an absolute privilege so far.

Some fun facts about me: My favorite ship has been the Prowler since it was nay but a paragraph, my favorite games of all time are The Last of Us Part II, Kingdom Hearts 2, and Mass Effect 2 (I like 2’s, what can I say?), and I’m on an eternal quest for the perfect spicy chicken sandwich.

Feel free to drop me a line on Spectrum @JakeAcappella-CIG or Twitter @jakeacappella, I’m excited to get to know y’all even better!

Screenshot by Pink

The Weekly Community Content Schedule

MONDAY, APRIL 05, 2021
This Week in Star Citizen

TUESDAY, APRIL 06, 2021
Lore Team: Community Questions

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 07, 2021
Roadmap Update
Roadmap Roundup
PU Monthly Report
Squadron 42 Monthly Report

FRIDAY, APRIL 09, 2021
Star Citizen Live (twitch.tv/starcitizen)
Subscriber Vault Update
Weekly Newsletter

Community MVP: April 5, 2021

Great Deals On Merchandise And More!

Big Discounts on Star Citizen Gear, Including New 2021 Items

Star Citizen Classic T-Shirt

If you’re looking for a great deal, now’s the perfect time to save! Our Spring Merchandise Sale kicks off with new official Star Citizen gear and major savings on existing goods. For a limited time only, we’re giving you the opportunity to bag a wide variety of merch for up to 50% off!

Sales kick off today April 2nd at 9am PDT (16:00 UTC) for everyone! Be aware that some items have limited stock, and these discounts will be hip-hopping away on April 13th at 5pm PDT (April 14th, 00:00 UTC).

Discover a wide variety of merchandise, including a durable Star Citizen Backpack, an elegant Star Citizen Classic T-Shirt, and more.


Subscribers receive an additional discount on merchandise, for incredible deals of up to 65% off with the spring discount.

Sound good? It gets better. Together with our friends at Tobii, we’re offering a 15% discount on the Eye Tracker 5 during the promotion!

Check Out The New Gear!

Extra Subscriber Discounts

Subscriber Perks – Early Access & Extra Discounts

Become a Subscriber and get exclusive rewards every month, including additional discounts on our merchandise!

Want extra offers like these in the future but aren’t currently a Subscriber? Join today and get exclusive rewards every month!


Become a Subscriber today!

Best Deals

Save up to 50% on select gear. Subscribers receive up to 65% off!

Limited Stock Available

Get It Now Before It’s Completely Gone – Quantities And Sizes Are Limited!

Tobii Eye Tracker 5 Flash Sale

Tobii Eye Tracker 5

Tobii Eye Tracker 15% Discount

Take flying and dogfighting in Star Citizen to the next level with the precision and speed of the Tobii eye-tracking hardware, and enjoy a more intuitive flight experience as you soar through space.

If you want to take advantage of head tracking in Star Citizen, order a Tobii Eye Tracker 5 with our limited-time discount now!

Get your Eye Tracker here!


Learn more about the Tobii Eye Tracker 5 implementation with Star Citizen here!

Star Citizen Alpha 3.13.0 PTU.7240320 Patch Notes

Gestures
You can now express yourself with a new selection of gestures, available to everyone in a simple popup menu during gameplay. Just press B (by default) to open the menu and look at your options. These new gestures have been built to be used in first person, so you get nicely animated hand movements instead of just seeing your shadow gesture. This new system for gestures is a bit more flexible than the old system, and it has already supports some future features like looping animations and third person gestures.




A core goal of this new gesture system was reducing as much risk as possible when using them during tense gameplay. Gestures will now no longer unequip your weapon and can be cancelled at any point, with a small (~0.2s) delay before your weapon is fireable again. Feel free to wave at your victims when roof camping!



Fun fact: these gestures are all left-handed because they were initially meant to be used while holding the weapon at the same time (which is generally in the right hand), however we felt it limited our future options for gestures - clapping with one hand is tricky.

As we felt that the quality of the legacy gestures weren't up to scratch compared to these new animations, we've made the decision to remove support for playing the old gestures. You can however still bind these new gestures using the same commands/keybinds if you don't want to use the gesture wheel.


Poker Tables


We've added Poker Tables to Bandit Town this month, completing our casino barge overhaul that we started last month. You'll find a variety of tables supporting anywhere from two to six players.



Deposit at least 100 scrap to the storage at your seat to get started. Once you're in a game, use the button prompts on the right of the screen to play. Standard Texas Hold 'Em rules apply. Be sure to take your winnings at the end of your session!



While in a poker game you'll have access to a poker chat window for you to chat with your fellow players, and you can also use your mic.




Server Optimizations
We've made a variety of optimisations on the server to improve performance when lots of players are online:

Floating junkpiles will no longer process buoyancy if no players are nearby
Better balanced server load when lots of turrets are scanning for targets
Upgraded SQLite and removed lots of GC allocations in the connector code
Update Facepunch.Steamworks with buffer pooling for swnet (Steam Networking only)
Rewrite NetWrite to have less CPU overhead
Add caching to TechTreeData since it could cause short CPU spikes on the server
Got rid of some small GC allocations that happened every frame
Slot Machines
The Slot Machines we added to Bandit Town proved popular last month, but I wanted to make some changes to make it a more interesting experience. I've rebalanced the payout scale to have fewer possible rewards, but the chance of getting a proper payout (three matching symbols) should be much higher than before. The majority of scrap payed out last month was via the wildcard symbols which felt a bit unexciting.



I've also added a multiplier option, so you can increase your bet and multiply your winnings accordingly. You can change the multiplier on a machine when depositing your scrap. Be sure to check the spin cost before spinning on a new machine!


Unity 2019.4.22
We've upgraded from Unity 2019.4.4 to Unity 2019.4.22 this week. This release contains mostly fixes, but we've been waiting for some of those fixes for a long time and they've finally been backported to our LTS version. If you notice any sort of compatibility issues you didn't have before, definitely let us know.


Mac Improvements
Over a year ago, we filed a bug report regarding Unity's graphics jobs feature causing a crash on macOS after a few minutes of gameplay. This has finally been fixed and backported, so we re-enabled graphics jobs on macOS. This should greatly improve performance.

We also re-enabled incremental GC on macOS, which should reduce stalls from the garbage collector. We've had issues with this feature causing huge stalls in the past, which is the opposite of what it's supposed to do, so definitely contact us if you're playing on macOS and you notice any second-long stalls you didn't have before.


Hapis Update
We've tackled the Red Keycard shortage by making them available in all corners of the island again.
In addition, we've added a marketplace and gambling den to the Compound.

Viewmodel Jitter Fix
The view model jitter is finally fixed. It's an issue that's as old as Rust itself (and no it wasn't on purpose). The reason that this happens is because of floating point precision, the further away from 0 you get, the less precise things get.

Pretty much every game that has View Models, probably has some kind of hack to support them. In the past we didn't really think it was worth using hacks to fix it. HDRP was supposed to allow us to fix this kind of issue, but since we aren't going to be switching to HDRP I decided to see if I could fix it with some not so new Unity features that I'm pretty sure wasn't available when we started Rust.


Improvements & Fixes Highlights
Disable Blood Option - Blood can now be disabled through the options menu
Player Hitbox Bug - Fixed projectiles fired at players joints not impacting
News Menu Update - News section now displays the full content of the blogs
Hostile Timer Reduced - Safezone hostile timer reduced from 30 minutes to 5
Heavy Armour Riding - Players can no longer mount horses with heavy armour equiped
L96 Skinnable - L96 skins coming this month
Team Member Mounting - Team members can now mount vehicles after purchased
Vehicles Reposessed - Vehicles are now reposessed after 5 minutes instead of 2
Revolver & SAP Recoil - Tightened up recoil response on revolver/sap including animations

HDRP Backport Beta
In May 2019 the team set out on a mammoth task to explore and switch Rust over to Unity's HDRP pipeline. HDRP boasted many visual fidelity improvements and new tech, best of all it was said HDRP was more optimized resulting in better performance. Switching and updating all our assets over to HDRP was months of work but we figured it would be worth it in the end. Long story short after months of work, testing and profiling we never saw the performance gains we expected from HDRP, in fact, it was worse. Faced with this dilemma we took the difficult and long overdue decision to halt all progress on HDRP and begin to backport all the updated assets back to the current pipeline.



After many more months we're now at a stage we feel the backport is approaching the final stages and ready for public testing and feedback. Wednesday, April 7th we'll be opening HDRP backport publically which will be available to play from the "Rust - Staging" client via Steam by opting into the "Aux01" beta branch.

The backport has updated nearly all of the world objects, rocks, foliage, trees and even many monuments have received some love.

Due to the nature of continued changes on the backport wipes will be frequent, we do not recommend regular play, at least until later into the month.

Mapmakers be aware a number of assets have been removed/updated which may have an impact on your existing designs.

If testing and feedback prove positive we'll be aiming to release the backport on Thursday, May 6th. We don't expect performance to be better than release but we also don't expect it to be worse.


Easter Event


For the next week, every 24-38 hours in-game hours an easter egg hunt will begin. You'll have 3 minutes to collect as many eggs as you can. The top 3 players are given special eggs as a reward. These eggs can be cracked open for various types of loot ranging from scrap all the way up to an M249!

If you don't make the podium, that's okay. The painted eggs you collect can be upgraded to Bronze eggs once you collect 10. If you collect 10 bronze eggs then you can upgrade to a silver egg, eventually all the way to gold!

There are various items available to help you during your hunt. The Easter Basket will allow instant pickup of eggs and the Bunny Onesie and Ears will provide you an advantage via Egg Vision.

Have fun!

New Items
This year we've added a new workcart themed Rustigé Egg and a Bunny hat with wobbly ears and eyes.



In addition to this weeks skins, You can find these items available on the Item Store

The unexpected explosion of an advance scanner brought the UEE and Xi’an Empire to the brink of war. Forcing UEE Admiral Hireche to deploy another piece of secretive military tech to preserve the peace.

This portfolio originally appeared in Jump Point 8.11.

In the nascent days of the Human and Xi’an cold war, Imperator Ivar Messer poured billions into developing a new military long-range scanner codenamed the TKL-2900. He boasted that the technology could find and track targets at significantly greater distances than the current generation of Human scanners and that it would surpass those used by the Xi’an. Despite the time and expense of the project, the actual scanner fell short of Messer’s boastful claims when initially tested. Engineer Martha Agrawal, a notorious Messer supporter, was made the new lead in an effort to salvage the project. She quickly asserted that the issues could be remedied with a few modifications. Once the changes were complete, Imperator Messer received Agrawal’s guarantee that it would work before ordering the TKL-2900 to be deployed to Hadur. Other scientists and engineers on the project begged for more field testing before its deployment, but Agrawal dismissed their concerns and made it abundantly clear that anyone opposed to the decision would regret it both professionally and personally.

Imperator Messer pushed for the quick deployment of the TKL-2900 because he believed the scanner would provide the UEE a clear technological advantage in guarding the fledgling Empire against the burgeoning Xi’an threat. Intelligence reports from along the Perry Line, the buffer zone between Human and Xi’an controlled systems established in 2542 by the UPE Tribunal, were scarce at best and that lack of clarity into Xi’an military movements deeply worried Messer. Still fresh from the aftermath of the First Tevarin War, he believed that the Xi’an would not waste time in striking while Humanity was still recovering from one military conflict. Desperate to reestablish military dominance and with Agrawal’s guarantee of superior performance, the scanner was delivered to the Perry Line unproven and untested.

An Unexpected Explosion

On November 7, 2550, the Navy placed a TKL-2900 long-range scanner in Hadur near the jump to Baker. Upon activation, the experimental reactor powering the TKL-2900 suffered a sudden critical failure and triggered a massive explosion that lit up scanners across the system. The first Navy patrol on the scene found several Xi’an ships already scanning the debris. Their arrival drew no fire but also didn’t deter the Xi’an from their scans, as their ships remained singularly focused. When warning measures and bullying flybys yielded no reaction, Lieutenant Commander Polina Balmont fired warning shots to make their intentions abundantly clear. The Xi’an ships immediately disengaged. Balmont instructed her team to establish a perimeter and wait for the other Navy patrols to arrive. Then she made the jump to Baker to comm Admiral Hireche of the UEE Kennelly and leader of the battle group that the TKL-2900 had exploded and Xi’an ships were spotted at the scene.

Hireche relayed the message to Naval Command and then ordered UEE Kennelly to Hadur. Before making the jump, he instructed his entire fleet to converge on the Baker-Hadur jump point and await further instructions. UEE Kennelly arrived at the massive debris field in Hadur to find all the Navy patrols accounted for and policing the perimeter. He dispatched a ship to Baker to retrieve additional forces and lead engineer Martha Agrawal to help diagnose what caused the explosion. He also spoke with Lieutenant Commander Balmont and extracted a moment-by-moment account of her actions. While he deemed the firing of warning shots to be justified and expertly executed, he worried it would prompt a Xi’an response. And, not long after his arrival on scene, scout ships in Hadur began registering heavy activity in Xi’an sectors.

Admiral Hireche knew time was limited and feared any further engagements would only make matters worse. Despite Agrawal’s insistence that Xi’an forces were to blame for the TKL-2900’s failure, Admiral Hireche wanted irrefutable proof before making the claim to Naval Command. He ordered a grid search of the debris field to find any surviving data recorders. Then he requested that every ship in his fleet still stationed in Baker join the action in Hadur.

The order gave his crew pause as their fleet included a new Aegis Nautilus-class minelayer ship that had not yet been authorized for field operations in Perry Line systems. The ship had been assigned to Admiral Hireche’s fleet to be put through a series of simulations around a Xi’an incursion into Baker. Naval Command wanted to perfect its use protecting UEE systems before putting it into play on the Perry Line and announcing its arrival to the Xi’an. Seeing scans of a significant Xi’an force assembling across the system, Admiral Hireche knew his fleet would soon be outnumbered before reinforcements could ever arrive, so he disregarded the usage edict and confirmed his order to bring the Nautilus into Hadur. If he couldn’t have the numbers advantage, then he would take the tactical one.

Declassified Defender

With his entire fleet in Hadur, Admiral Hireche ordered the Nautilus to reinforce their perimeter by strategically laying mines to funnel Xi’an ships into a limited number of approach angles. Then he positioned his forces to defend these flight lanes. Admiral Hireche had hoped the Nautilus could lay the mines and return to Baker before the Xi’an arrived, but it was not to be. A massive Xi’an force appeared near the UEE perimeter as the Nautilus crew rushed to complete its objective. Yet, instead of engaging, the Xi’an force halted and held their position. A few of their ships that Admiral Hireche assumed contained their most advanced scanning tech followed from a safe distance, carefully observing the Nautilus. Once the mines were laid, Admiral Hireche ordered the Nautilus back to Baker to restock and potentially repeat the process on the other side of the jump.

Meanwhile, a tense standoff between UEE and Xi’an forces lasted until the grid search of the wreckage was complete and two data recorders were found intact. As Martha Agrawal began to analyze the data, Admiral Hireche organized a swift and safe withdrawal from the debris field and returned his fleet to Baker. No Xi’an ships stalked their retreat, but a subsequent investigation of scans from a nearby UEE station showed a small team of Xi’an ships inspecting the debris field before their forces vacated the area.

Back in Baker, Admiral Hireche commed Naval Command to disclose his use of the Nautilus as a deterrence. Admiral Hireche and engineer Martha Agrawal were ordered back to headquarters to provide a full account of the incident. Initially incensed over the use of the Nautilus, Imperator Messer would eventually praise Admiral Hireche’s swift and decisive actions once analysis of the data recorders revealed the explosion to be a critical system failure and not a secret Xi’an attack. While engineer Agrawal fell out of favor with Imperator Messer for her failure to deliver on her promises for the TKL-2900 and attempts to blame the Xi’an, Admiral Hireche became a trusted confidant, who would eventually be elevated to oversee all forces along the Perry Line. When asked about what he believed was the highlight to his Navy career, Admiral Hireche referenced the Hadur standoff, saying “one of the toughest decisions a commander can make is when to walk away from a fight.”

Greetings everyone,

We have a new update for Conan Exiles that addresses some of the issue reports we got from our player community after the 2.3.1 update.

As always, thank you for your feedback and continued support.





Fixed an issue where Thralls got stuck all over the map and did not teleport correctly.
Fixed an issue with boars and goats that gave the player’s character too much XP. The XP values have now been reduced.
Fixed an issue where Simplified, Traditional Chinese, Cyrillic and Korean characters did not work when used in the Search feature. (Issue might still happen for players using DaYi type keyboards. We're still working to fix this remaining issue).
Fixed an issue with the Vault Refresh System in Volary of the Harpy, Harbor of the Twice Drowned and Sanctuary of the Serpent that moved the player’s character out of the playable area.
---

CHANGELOG:


2021/03/30 14:30 CET

Added clarification to one of the fixes. Under UI fixes:
- Issue might still happen for players using DaYi type keyboards. We're still working to fix this remaining issue.

Happy Monday!

Our development team is currently squashing remaining bugs and putting the final touches on the upcoming patch before rolling out Star Citizen Alpha 3.13. The current build is with Evocati, and our plan is to roll out to PTU Wave 1 in the next week or so. We’re super eager to get this patch out the door and in your hands, and we’ll keep you updated as we go! To ease your wait a little in the meantime, we took the opportunity to highlight some additional content coming in 3.13 in our latest Patch Watch post.

Before the new patch arrives don’t miss your chance to cut a deal with Fortuna and win great prizes in our Tempt Fate Video Contest. But watch out, the submission deadline is next Sunday at 11:59pm pacific.

Now, let’s see what’s going on this week:

On Tuesday, the narrative team will release the lore post Standoff in Hadur, which will share how an experimental military long-range scanner almost led to war with the Xi’an empire.

Thursday won’t see an episode of Inside Star Citizen as we bring the quarterly season to a close, but fear not, the show we’ll resume in just a few weeks!

On Friday, you’ll receive an update to the Subscriber Vault and the RSI Newsletter to your inbox. We’ll also welcome a new episode of Calling All Devs, in which we’ll talk with Dan Truffin and Jonny Jacevicius about Refuel and Repair, as both mechanics have entered active development. The show will be uploaded to our YouTube Channel. And last but not least, you might want to schedule your spring cleaning to create free space in your closet as we’ll provide you with some solid discounts during our Merchandise Spring Promotion.

Have a great week!

Christian Schmitt
Associate Community Manager

Screenshot by TouristeGalactique

The Weekly Community Content Schedule

MONDAY, MARCH 29, 2021
This Week in Star Citizen

TUESDAY, MARCH 30, 2021
Lore Post: Standoff in Hadur

FRIDAY, APRIL 02, 2021
Merchandise Spring Promotion
Calling All Devs (youtube.com/user/RobertsSpaceInd)
Subscriber Vault Update
Weekly Newsletter

Community MVP: March 29, 2021

Cute mini-tweak patch =)

* Localization updates
* Added separate walk-sneak snow footstep sfx
* Music update ( fixed some sound glitches )
* Credits updated ( Changed the look of the credits screen & added missing names )
* Hammer,Hoe & Cultivator timing & input tweaks ( Slightly lower use delay & queued button presses for a smoother experience...just for you )

Attention development subscribers: the March 2021 issue of Jump Point is now available in your subscription area.

Jump Point Now Available!

Celebrating 100 issues of Jump Point! Attention development subscribers: the March issue of Jump Point is now available in your subscription area. This month features an in-depth look at the new mining upgrades and a review of the ongoing Stanton System polish. Plus a Galactapedia on Magda Hurston and an excerpt from a former Imperator’s autobiography.

Interested in becoming a development subscriber? You can learn more here.

SCL Gamedev: Lore Builder - Gangs of Pyro (3/26 @ 12pm Pacific)

Roadmap Roundup

Happy Wednesday, everyone!

Every two weeks, we accompany the Roadmap update with a brief explanatory note to give you insight into the decision-making that led to any changes. This is part of an effort to make our communications more transparent, more specific, and more insightful for all of you who help to make Star Citizen and Squadron 42 possible.

With that said, let’s go ahead and dive into this week’s Roadmap Roundup!

-CIG Community Team

Notable Changes for March 24th, 2021

Release View

The following deliverable has been added to the Release view:

Tumbril Cyclone MT
Building, implementing, and balancing the Tumbril’s new Cyclone-MT as a game-ready vehicle.

That’s all for this week! Join the discussion on Spectrum

Galactapedia Update March 2021

THE ARK, TAYAC SYSTEM

Welcome to this month’s Galactapedia update roundup. This month, we looked into the extinct predator kamposi magnus, made it through some tidbits about the Xi’an and the Vanduul, a profile on Warlord Corath’thal, defined some terms, and speculated on what happened in Hades, among other subjects. Join the Spectrum thread for any discussion or feedback.

Full-Length Article:

h2: Short Articles:

Rejoice! The Fast Elevators and Colored Candles can now be obtained from the Library of Esoteric Knowledge on the Exiled Lands.
Fixed an false positive spot within the anti-undermesh tool at Scuttler’s Shortcut.
Fixed an issue that would cause some new items to disappear from the Artisan bench after the player dies.
The Voidforge Battle Axe,Voidforge Sword and Voidforge Shield now dismantle into the correct materials.
Katana combos can now be done by alternating between light and heavy combos.
Fixed an issue that would cause the Iron Leg-Hold trap’s placement brush to cripple and hurt players.
Fixed an issue that would cause Wreckages to change their HP values after a server or session restart.
Eldarium chests should no longer change their HP values after a server or session restart.
Fixed other instances where placed buildings and placeables changed their names and/or values after a server or session restart
It should now be easier to interact with pedestals in the Voidforge.
Fixed a meteor landing placement at one of the new Siptah camps.
All placeables from “Nordheimer Shelvings” and “Nordheimer Walls” Feats should no longer have placeholder names after being placed on a Dedicated Server.
Harpy’s Daggers should now have their own inventory icon.

Waahaa! This was a long one. Sorry for the delay, but we were waiting for a specific patch to the steam socket API, and it just went live today! (the fix in question is not listed in the steam changelog). I recommend you to make sure steam has updated to the "Mar 22 2021" version (Steam->Menu->Help->About Steam). Steam will of course automatically update itself to this version. Lots of big and small changes in this patch, some gameplay tweaks and some bug fixes.

NOTE: Don't forget to update your server as well.

* Campfire,Bonfire & hearth take damage when dealing damage
* Reinforced chest inventory space increased to 6x4
* All boss drops can now float on water
* Sunken crypt entrance tweaked (to stop tombstones from getting stuck)
* Fixed rotation of Wood tower shield on item stands
* Deathsquito & Drake trophy drop rate increased
* 1 & 2 Star creature HP fix
* Night-spawning wolves should be easier to tame now (should stop trying to run away & despawn after starting to tame)
* Harpoon does not work on bosses anymore
* Ingame console disabled by default (add launch argument "-console" to enable)
* The console command for enabling developer/debug commands has been changed to “devcommands” from “imacheater” and a warning message has been added.
* Improved enemy projectile reaction system
* Battle axe tweaks (hits multiple enemies easier)
* Player knockback force is affected by equipment speed modifiers (IE heavy gear will reduce the knockback from enemies)
* Blackforest stone tower tweaks
* Ward system fixes (You can no longer place a new ward where an enemy ward overlaps)
* Comfort calculation fixed
* "Failed to connect" error message fixed
* Serpent trophy stack fix
* Missing Moder spawn location in some worlds fixed (NOTE: For existing worlds "genloc" command needs to be run manually in a local game with dev commands enabled to generate new locations, this is only needed if your specific world has this issue, this is not very common)
* Megingjord item-collider fix
* Added a slight use-delay on Hammer, Hoe & Cultivator
* Hammer remove auto-repeat added
* Better network bandwidth handling (should work better on low bandwidth connections & also use higher data rate if possible)
* Dolmen location fixes (Stop top stone from falling for no reason)
* Fixed removing item from item-stand not always syncing item stats
* Server list refresh button can be pressed before the entire list has been downloaded
* Better bad connection detection
* Fixed issue causing server to send more data the longer a client was connected
* Localization updates

Tumbril Cyclone MT - Warbond- Standalone Ship / Prix : 93.6$ TTC

Happy Monday!

St. Patrick’s Day has come and gone, but the Stella Fortuna festivities in the ‘verse continue! Don’t forget to push your luck in our Tempt Fate video contest on Spectrum for the chance to win one of our fine rewards. But keep in mind that this is not a challenge for the faint of heart, as we’re asking you to create a video showing how Fortuna smiles on you in a supposedly hopeless battle against a powerful opponent.

Each month, we host an open-submission live Q&A with our developers on Spectrum, and this time we welcomed four guests from the Character Tech Team, which is the link between purely code-focused programming and creative art. In case you missed it, we’ve compiled an AMA recap for you.

In other news, the upcoming Alpha 3.13 patch went into testing with the Evocati last week. They’re currently hammering away at early versions of the build and reporting bugs and feedback so that we can open up access to more and more players soon.

Now, let’s see what’s going on this week:

On Tuesday, the Narrative Team will release a new entry in the ever-growing Galactapedia.

Then, on Wednesday, you can look forward to an update to the Roadmap alongside a Roadmap Roundup! As we don’t want to miss the opportunity to highlight some of the features, improvements, and additions the teams are working on that don’t appear on the Roadmap, we’ll also publish another Patch Watch post on Spectrum. Catch the one from last week with two additions that will help your friends survive the threats of Stanton and make you look at them with new eyes.

Then on Thursday, Inside Star Citizen will focus on the Reputation System, followed by a Patch Report!

On Friday, you’ll see an update to the Subscriber Vault and the RSI Newsletter. We’ll also welcome a new Star Citizen Live episode on our Twitch channel. And last but not least, Subscribers can look forward to an update to the Subscriber Vault and the March issue of Jump Point.

Have a great week!

Ulf Kuerschner
Lead Community Manager

Screenshot by 501st-Demonica

The Weekly Community Content Schedule

MONDAY, March 22, 2021
This Week in Star Citizen

TUESDAY, March 23, 2021
Galactapedia Update

WEDNESDAY, March 24, 2021
Roadmap Update
Roadmap Roundup
Patch Watch

THURSDAY, March 25, 2021
Inside Star Citizen (youtube.com/user/RobertsSpaceInd)

FRIDAY, March 26, 2021
Star Citizen Live (twitch.tv/StarCitizen)
Jump Point March Issue
Subscriber Vault Update
Weekly Newsletter

Community MVP: March 22, 2021

Star Citizen LIVE Gamedev: Sense of Sight (3/19 @ 9am Pacific)

Vikings! A little over six weeks has passed since the release of Valheim, and a lot has happened since. We have sold 6 million units and our community is steadily growing bigger and stronger, which is absolutely fantastic!

A lot of things are happening within Iron Gate too. We are still working from home, and although we miss our time together at the office, we’re not letting that slow us down! We are very honored to have gotten the opportunity to take part in several interviews, from podcasts and gaming newslets to Swedish television! It has been a hectic time, but worry not! We are of course still working on the game.

Our programmer has since launch worked hard (and still is) on high priority bugs and issues that have been reported by you players, for example networking issues and balance tweaks to our most evil bug, the Deathsquito! If you have any bugs to report, please do so here: {LINK REMOVED}https://valheimbugs.featureupvote.com/. There you can see what bugs we have fixed, and are working on!
(We are currently waiting for a Steam update from Valve before we push our next patch, thank you so much for your patience!)

A lot of you have reached out and asked about the road map. How’s “Hearth and Home” coming along? Much of our focus has been on play testing and bug fixing, but as things are calming down since launch, we can spend more time working on our first big update! Our lead artist even graciously provided a sneak peek:

What do you think this could be?
We have a lot of exciting things planned for this update, and we have of course listened to your feedback and suggestions, and can barely wait until we can show you more.

Here is a picture of the team from our last Hearth and Home-meeting, going strong from our home offices. Have a fantastic weekend, and happy Ostara!

--
Make sure to follow us on social media to not miss any important news!

Discord: {LINK REMOVED}https://discord.com/invite/valheim
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Valheimgame
Facebook: {LINK REMOVED}https://www.facebook.com/valheimgame
Instagram: {LINK REMOVED}https://www.instagram.com/valheim_official/
Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/valheim/

Character Tech Team AMA Recap

Each month we host an open submission live Q&A on Spectrum joined by developers from various specialties across CIG. These questions and answers were collected from the Spectrum AMA on March 16, 2021.

This time, we welcomed four guests from the Character Tech Team, which is the link between purely code-focused programming and creative art. They’re currently working on the character tech pipeline, providing the artists with the tools they need to achieve their visual goals.

This AMA is complete but keep an eye out for upcoming ones for your chance to ask us anything!

Will backpacks also have exterior slots, with visible content (just like the armour)?

Chris Van Compernolle:

Yes, we are planning on having physical components on backpacks, just like we do with armors. The backpack itself is actually getting treated as attachable to an armor.

Beards?

Chris Van Compernolle:

We do plan on including beards and other facial hair in the PU at some point down the line. However, they have many other things in front of it.

Any new about the cloth tech animation we saw in a CitizenCon for characters?

Andreas Rohr:

Many thanks for this great question and for remembering our little presentation back in 2018 – always happy to see people care about our characters, their animation and deformation quality – and cloth simulation in particular.

The vcloth (vertex cloth) simulation tech is a great example of priorities shifting over the course of production – which is perfectly normal in game development. In the case of vcloth, the successful roll-out of the feature depends on three main pillars:

1) The basic cloth solver needs to be implemented by our physics team, needs to have all the core features like tweakable dynamics parameters, collision, self-collision etc. and needs to run fast enough so it can be applied to a reasonable number of characters simultaneously. Apart from that it also needs to be robust and ‘stable’ in the sense of not ‘exploding’ due to the extreme accelerations that can often occur from one frame to the next in the context of games. Lastly, it needs to support the needs of the (tech) art and content centric teams and give them full control over how the cloth behaves and its look and feel, under all the drastically different conditions you’ll end up seeing it in, from fps fights to slow-paced hero cinematic close-ups.

2) An efficient pipeline between DCC (digital content creation) applications such as Maya and our engine needs to be established, as well as tools on the DCC side that allow efficient setup and markup of the simulation assets. The sheer number of assets in our game requires these solutions to be scalable since once the tech comes online, most existing assets (that are deemed worth it) will need to be moved over, i.e. all current assets that use the old ‘pendulum sim’ system, and then some. Good tools and pipelines glue everything together, it’s where our productivity lies.

3) Lastly, the assets themselves need to be there and need to be suitable for simulation in terms of how they were built and their structure. If you model, say some trousers that are rather baggy you’ll find that they end up looking pretty bad and unnaturally stiff/rigid in the game if they ‘don’t have sim’ because the solver and pipeline aren’t ready yet. But if you need the outfit for an upcoming release you’ll likely concept and model them with a tighter fit so the deformation/movement will match the expected behavior in motion. However, once the vcloth tech does come online you’ll obviously want assets that allow it to shine and look super cool. You’ll want cloaks and trenchcoats and cool leather jackets and all kinds of dynamic attachments – you’ll want players to want to take off their armor in the landing zones cause it looks 10x cooler and more individualistic. But it’s a all dependency on the solver and pipeline being fully ready.

At CitCon 2018 we were at a point where they were only about halfway there but initial results already looked so excitingly cool and promising that we wanted to share them with you. What happened then is simply game development.

The same physics wizards that can give us fancy cloth solvers for cool looking assets are also the folks that implement some core features of our engine which are the foundations for actual gameplay. They work i.e. on physics grids and spatial query acceleration structures which keep track of where objects are in space and whether they collide, are hit by projectiles etc. They are a core component of all AI path-finding logic without which all AI, both NPC ships and agents, would not have any awareness of their environment whatsoever – nothing that could even trigger a behavior/action in the first place. They would just ‘T-pose’, even outside of server perf being an issue, and I guess nobody wants this. So in this case progress on some of the most fundamental systems our games are built upon, was prioritized over the cool shiny stuff, for more than two years.

As much as the visual tech nerd in me that hand-optimized the config.sys and autoexec.bat files on his DOS-PC in the 90s in order to see the fancy additional effects this enabled in the early Wing Commander games – as much as this part of me would have loved to bring you vcloth on characters by now – the other part of me that wants to see our game come together and Chris’ vision realized, is fully convinced that this was exactly the right thing to do. And to be clear – we’ve obviously already tried to clone our physics peeps in order to speed up the process, but it didn’t quite work out, sadly.

That being said, work on ‘vcloth’ has been picked up again and will continue, gameplay-related physics-duties permitting. It’s a highly complex technical challenge and we look forward to sharing more visual/tangible progress with you at some point. Bear in mind that not all the teams that take part in this initiative are currently represented on the public roadmap yet, which is due to change though.

Are ya’ll committed to making GOOD Black (4C) hairstyles available, besides just afros and braids, such as high-top fades, curly tops, and waves? Tired of my character lookin’ like he permed his hair straight like it’s the 50s.

Chris Van Compernolle:

While we havn’t had the opportunity to implement any of these hairstyles just yet, this is definitely something we want to do and is very important to us. We want to make sure we achieve a good representation of these types of hairs styles.

Layered armor anytime soon? I would love to use my helmet with my regular clothing or my jacket with my flight suit.

Chris Van Compernolle:

Currently there are no plans to do anything like this. Our armors and clothing adhere to a strict set of rules defining how they interact with one another. To allow for the layering of these two systems will require a major refactor of those rules.

Hi James Ku, you mentioned R&D’ing new tech. Is there any tech in particular we do not yet know about you could tease us a little on?

James Ku:

Sorry I cant post any spoilers, but an example of the r&d that was done in the last two years is the new hair that you’ve seen in SQ42. That involved creating an in house custom art tool to create the hair and new shader tech in the game engine.

Good morning Character Tech team! What is the current status of being able to remove/put on our helmets in-game?

Chris Van Compernolle::

We are currently in the process of researching how best to handle helmets. There are a lot of dependencies from the artwork, to animation, to UI. Once we have all of dependencies defines, we will begin refactoring all of previous assets to utilize the new tech.

Is the new hair tech coming to the PU ?

Forrest Stephan:

Hair tech is built to support both SQ42 and PU.

Are there plans for deeper customisation options like sliders for each facial feature?
DNA blending system is great, but sometimes you just want to fine tune a specific feature.

Andreas Rohr:

As a general answer to this and other PU character customizer related questions:

We acknowledge the fact that the current PU customizer is limited in terms of usability and choice, i.e. face options, hair options, beard options and other things.

It can be considered a v1 of the system – and wherever there’s a v1, there’s likely gonna be a v2 if and when it can be put on the schedule.

The current PU customizer uses a very old system for drawing and interacting with the UI elements since the new building blocks system wasn’t ready by the time the v1 customizer was implemented.

As a result we didn’t get the interaction model to be as easy and intuitive as we had wanted.

The quality of assets in there is not up to the same standards we can achieve internally by now.

Can you tell us anything about the progress on alien characters?

James Ku:

Once again sorry I dont wanna post spoilers, but as you’ve seen we have worked on the Vanduul. I can say our character artists are always excited to work on creatures and aliens.

I believe it’s been said there are problems with creating tattoos. Do you have ideas on how to overcome those problems?
Do you face the same difficulties with badges for clothes and decals for armor / gear / vehicles or would those offer different problems?

Forrest Stephan:

There are two types of decals our character’s shader supports. Stencil decals and diffuse decals. Stencil decals work similar to real-life stencils, think screen-printing or stickers. Stencils do minimal color with a mask to determine where the color is visibly projected. For more detailed art, such as tattoos, diffuse details are required which provide a fuller color and detailed spectrum. The challenge with this is they are projected through UV’s onto the skin diffuse texture. This diffuse decal system requires material variants to support the extra texture slot. This can exponentially increase material counts. How to minimize physical material variants is a challenge we are continually trying to solve.

Any update on the holo-skull helmet blockers?

Forrest Stephan:

The initial blocker with the hologram helmets was related to the shader’s original design which was built for static objects or RTT projections. We tried it on the skin files and it was unable to animate with the character’s skeleton/rig. We decided to take the shader back to the drawing board and ensure it supports the needs specific to the characters.

Hello the team,
First of all, thank you for taking the time to answer our questions.
Simple one, what is your top priority at the moment concerning character art ? Do you plan to add more diversity into the character creation tab ? If so, what can we expect in the coming year ?
Regards

James Ku:

Hi, thanks for taking the time to ask us questions in the AMA. I can tell you that my top priority in regards to character art is quality. When I build a character I’m always trying to push myself in terms of quality and set a good example for the team.

What lessons have you learned from players using the current character creator? How did they compare to your original assumptions and how will they change what you do going forward?

Forrest Stephan:

We learned how important the heads are that make up the pool. The initial selection of heads where arbitrary without taking the customizer into account. Once the customizer was fully functional, we quickly learned the importance of having a variety of shapes since the customer allows interpolation between DNA head shapes, “ex: ears, eyes, nose, etc.”. Having a bigger DNA pool has necessary benefits; The more heads, the larger the variety options between the heads.

Will we be able to equip armour for our left and right arms separately?

Forrest Stephan:

The armor is broken up in 5 items: core, arms, legs, hands and helmets. There is no armor a-symmetry due to increasing customization further can cause both texture memory and draw call implications which we decided to avoid for performance reasons.

What major tech or pipeline improvements are you most excited for to improve your work?

James Ku:

Personally, I’ve been recently trying improve my skill with using this art software called Marvelous Designer. We use it a lot to make clothing for our characters.

Forrest Stephan:

The authoring of character assets uses a combination of traditional sculpt and baking for normal maps with a shared PBR material library to define the surface of the character using blend masking texture techniques. The authoring of the blend maps required a more intuitive visual workflow than the current Photoshop to engine pipeline. In order to solve this we are implementing a Substance Painter and Substance Designer pipeline for surfacing to allow for 3d painting while being able to visualize the final look of the character simultaneously. This is an exciting pipeline improvement for the artists to allow a nex-gen texturing system to now match a nex-gen authoring workflow.

Can we have navy / UEE uniforms please? and berets?

James Ku:

Unfortunately I don’t decide what uniforms the players get in the PU. I can say that I worked on a few uee uniforms and I liked working on them a lot.

Procedurally generated clothing/armor?

Forrest Stephan:

A procedural approach to spawning NPCs built on loadout modularity using a system called “spawn closets” is in the works. In addition, we are expanding the ship tinting system onto the characters to allow for color palette customization.

Disclaimer

The answers accurately reflect development’s intentions at the time of writing, but the company and development team reserve the right to adapt, improve, or change feature and ship designs in response to feedback, playtesting, design revisions, or other considerations to improve balance or the quality of the game overall.

SAIC Rowena Dulli stops by OP.NET to discuss the recent XenoThreat incursion into Stanton.

Independent Mercenary News

Welcome of OP.NET, the show for the independently minded security professional. As always, I just want to say that this show is not affiliated with the official Bounty Hunters Guild in any way. We’re here to help those blazing their own course through the ‘verse. I’m Conva Maynard and guess who’s back with me today? That’s right, my trusted partner, Skiv.

Good to have you back, big guy. Skiv just returned from Yulin and has plenty of thoughts about must-stop spots. Best of all, he spent some time with the Ndafwa Security Souli, so whether you’re looking to work in Banu space, or just visit, you won’t want to miss his insights.

But first, let’s visit Stanton, where a recent violent incursion by an outlaw pack calling themselves XenoThreat forced the government to mobilize the Civilian Defense Force. The people of Stanton responded and helped send the would-be invaders back to Pyro. Joining us to discuss the successful operation is the Advocacy’s Special-Agent-in-Charge Rowena Dulli, who coordinated the CDF response.

SAIC ROWENA DULLI: Thanks.

Know we disagreed a bit during your last appearance over certain CDF policies.

SAIC ROWENA DULLI: All good. Wasn’t the first time I’ve been in a fight.

That was quite the situation you faced in Stanton. You mind breaking down what happened? Figured our audience would appreciate the firsthand account.

SAIC ROWENA DULLI: Outlaw forces who self-identified as ‘XenoThreat’ illegally accessed public displays to broadcast a threat against the UEE and the system. Shortly thereafter, a Stanton convoy was ambushed while en route to Terra. XenoThreat perpetrators destroyed all the cargo and publicly executed the crew as “collaborators of corporate greed.” In response, the Navy dispatched the UEES War Hammer to work with local law enforcement and deal with the threat. Unfortunately, it seems XenoThreat had been planning on this and had additional forces on standby in Pyro. When the naval flagship went to restock at a local station, a significant portion of the resupply vessels were intercepted and destroyed. With no other available units in the sector, the Navy requested CDF assistance in retrieving the scattered cargo and delivering it to Jericho station.

This supply delay allowed XenoThreat the time they needed to deploy several capital-class warships into the system. Since the CDF was already active, it was agreed to use the volunteers as naval reinforcements in combat operations to engage and repel the hostiles.

It’s crazy how bold these criminals are getting. Got to say, I had my doubts about the CDF, but it was pretty impressive how you managed to send those outlaws packing.

SAIC ROWENA DULLI: Honestly, I couldn’t be prouder of how the CDF responded. Thanks to each and every one of you who answered the call. Whether you battled the Idris or helped collect and ferry supplies to the Javelin, your effort was greatly appreciated. Stanton is safe now because of you.

You’re from Stanton, right?

SAIC ROWENA DULLI: Born and raised in Orison.

So this victory must’ve meant a lot.

SAIC ROWENA DULLI: They all do, but this one particularly so because I requested this assignment to the CDF. I told my superior flat out that I was the best person for this job and she believed me. To no one’s surprise, coordinating with local forces gets a lot easier when you’ve personally known a lot of them for years.

Would imagine so. Now, after we booked you on the show, I put out a call to anyone who participated in the CDF action in Stanton to send me their experiences and any questions they may have. You mind if we go through a few of these?

SAIC ROWENA DULLI: Not at all.

Great. Well, first of all, there was a lot of hate for XenoThreat and everything they stand for. Most folks were happy that they got asked to help kick those bastards outta the system.

SAIC ROWENA DULLI: I’ve found that civic pride is a huge motivator for CDF participants. It gives people a way to stand up for what they believe is right and help protect their home.

Folks also loved the hefty payouts for helping. Lots of positive comments about that too.

SAIC ROWENA DULLI: It’s only fair. People need to be compensated for their time, use of personal resources, and taking on such risk.

Not everyone had a good experience though. One responder claimed an inadvertent friendly fire incident resulted in them receiving a CrimeStat that landed them in a rehabilitation facility.

SAIC ROWENA DULLI: That’s truly unfortunate and something we plan to rectify in the future. If you feel comfortable sharing that individual’s information, I’d like to personally reach out and apologize for the misunderstanding.

I’ll see what they say and let you know.

SAIC ROWENA DULLI: It wasn’t prevalent, but it’s still an issue that needs to be addressed. What I want to make abundantly clear is that things will improve going forward. I’ve already submitted a thorough after-action report that laid out several steps to address certain issues. The operation wasn’t perfect, but at the end of the day, CDF volunteers went toe-to-toe with a highly organized invasion force and never flinched. Like I said, I couldn’t be prouder of their effort.

From these comms, it sure sounded like a hell of a dangerous situation in a lot of ways.

SAIC ROWENA DULLI: Absolutely. This was a direct assault on the sovereignty and safety of the empire.

How familiar was the Advocacy with XenoThreat prior to their assault on Stanton?

SAIC ROWENA DULLI: We had scattered intel about the group. Even though they primarily operate in Pyro, both the Advocacy and the Navy had picked up chatter that they were mobilizing for something.

But not enough to keep them out of Stanton?

SAIC ROWENA DULLI: Pyro isn’t a UEE system, so there’s only so much we can do. Plus, a direct attack was a dramatic escalation of their operations.

Let me throw you another question from someone who was there, do you believe the CDF is sustainable?

[ beat ]

SAIC ROWENA DULLI: Not sure I understand the question.

This person wrote a few very dense paragraphs about their thoughts and experiences, so let me just summarize. Sure, it worked this time, but what happens if the next operation doesn’t go as well and leads to massive casualties among CDF members?

You said it yourself, this was a highly organized, military-style operation meant to terrorize the people of Stanton and disrupt the system’s flow of trade. There’s no doubt XenoThreat and other outlaw groups took note of the CDF’s tactics and will be adjusting accordingly. Since the CDF is only a loose coalition of “willing” participants, what happens if that “willingness” evaporates. Who’s left to come to a system’s defense then?

SAIC ROWENA DULLI: The Advocacy, UEE armed forces, and local law enforcement agencies will always remain a system’s first line of defense.

But none of those forces were around to stop what happened in Stanton? Isn’t that why the CDF was deployed?

SAIC ROWENA DULLI: That’s an oversimplification. Advocacy and Navy assets were present, but needed further support. The CDF proved to be the best option because they could be deployed the fastest.

And if, say, no one showed up from the CDF, how long before additional Advocacy or Navy forces could have helped?

SAIC ROWENA DULLI: It depends on several factors that I can’t comment on, but it’s no secret that UEE forces are stretched thin at the moment. The CDF was created partly because of this and partly because residents wanted to play a greater role in keeping their system safe. That’s why there has been a dramatic increase in homegrown militias protecting their own system. And, honestly, I don’t believe the CDF will ever lack for volunteers. The desire to protect your home and make it safe for you and your loved ones is as old as Humanity. So I’m confident that there will still be people willing to step up the next time the need arises.

Next time?

SAIC ROWENA DULLI: All I’m saying is that XenoThreat is still out there, and from what my sources are saying, they may still have additional resources available to them. They’ve also proven that they are fervent believers in a cause, so I think it would be foolish to think that one loss will be enough of a deterrent to a group like this.

Anything else you’d like to share?

SAIC ROWENA DULLI: Just that I’m working hard to address the issues we’ve discussed so future CDF operations will run even more smoothly.

Better to be prepared than be sorry.

SAIC ROWENA DULLI: Couldn’t agree more.

We need to take a quick break. We’ll be back with more questions for SAIC Rowena Dulli in just a moment, and later on in the show, Skiv will fill us in on his adventure into the Banu Protectorate. Don’t go anywhere, there’s more OP.NET coming your way.

IMPORTANT NOTE REGARDING MODSPlease remember that updates can mess with your installed mods. We suggest taking a backup of your current database before updating to any new patch if you have mods installed.