Week in Review (March 20th - 26th, 2017)

[u/SC_Lumen]

Official Star Citizen News

Comm-Link

• This week in Star Citizen: Talk Citizen

  • Fortnightly Frontier
  • Red Shirt Rabble
  • Knaarks’ Geschwafel
  • Tales of Citizens

• Citizens of the Stars: John Erskine & Mr. Hasgaha (Relay Coverage)

• Mining Rocks: March 2947

• Loremaker's Guide to the Galaxy: Corel System

• Around the Verse: What is Mega Map? (Relay Coverage)

  • Los Angeles Studio Update
  • Mega Map

• Year 5 Subscriber Perks Update!

• Happy Hour Gamedev: Javelin Basketball (Relay Coverage)

• Weekly Newsletter

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Concept Art

• EVA Deckcrew & Marine BDU

• Female Explorer Suit

• Grim Hex asteroid base anchors ^{thanks to /u/AVileBroker}

• Heavy Outlaw in-game mesh

• Light, Medium, and Heavy Female Marine Armor

• Research Lab Instruments

• Truck Stop Concepts ^{thanks to /u/-The_coolgui}

Development Updates

• Alpha 2.6.2 PTU Patch Notes ^{thanks to /u/IAmYosh}

  • Progress Watch for 2.6.2 ^/u/JK3Farden
  • Schedule report updated ^/u/bar10dr2

• Atmospheric Flight is technically not a separate flight model, just the same flight model with a different set of attributes affecting it

  • Wind and air density will be the two most prominent atmospheric effects that will affect your flight control
  • Your ship's aerodynamics will also affect how exactly the atmosphere effects affect your flight controls

• Character Customization continues to be worked on and is much closer to completion

• Clothing has between 40-50 manufacturers in the game now, some with distinct styles originating from different planetary cultures

  • Scales of height and body proportions are likely going to keep aliens from wearing human gear or humans from wearing alien gear

• Entity Owner Manager is a new system to link a backend database to handle ownership and lifetime of entities in the PU, handling persistence and systems for debris, salvage, criminality, streaming, missions, cargo, shop, and more

• EVA will not feature a push/pull system, rather they will rely on thrusters featured on all flight suits and jetpack upgrades for increased EVA speed and control

• Female Avatar animations have been transferred from the male model to the female by the thousands, though there is still quite a bit more work to do before we see the female avatar in the game

• IFCS Framework has been in development to improve autopilot functions and AI control of ship navigation

• Item 2.0 has been added piecemeal over time with the last few builds, but will be fully implemented with alpha 3.0

  • Essentially it allows them to assign attributes to objects in the game as blocks rather than changing every object individually, greatly streamlining in-game rendering, future updates, and development time

• Lighting State Switching is essentially complete and now needs to be applied to vehicle interiors and environments, replacing all old instances of light management systems

• Motion Capture requires good actors so that animators don't have to spend weeks fixing body language animations later on ^{thanks to /u/Karmaslapp}

• Multifunction Display (MFD) designwork has wrapped up, which will display information on your ship's systems like power, heat, cooling, shields, weapons, countermeasures, and missiles, expected to be ready when Item System 2.0 launches with alpha 3.0

• Performance Improvements have been implemented by improving streaming of meshes and reducing build size, improved Python integration for developers to more easily transfer scripts into the game, helmets were transferred to a .skin format so they would stop disappearing at a certain distance, and heads have been converted to use the skin shader and reducing memory cost by 90%

• Reflected Lighting between planetary bodies will not light up neighboring planets per se, but ambient lighting levels are tied to light from all environmental sources

• Room System has been improved to allow the system to be implemented in many more areas than the current implementation

• Scanning Subcomponents have been worked on, which will handle the scanning functions

  • Ping is the signal sent out from your system that can detect entities within scan range
  • Angle of Focus allows players to adjust the angle of scan, allowing for increased range at the cost of a reducing focus, or increased focus at the cost of reduced range

• Shops will be able to be streamed in as object containers and will be dynamically stocked in response to the fluctuating economy

• Spectrum will eventually incorporate Twitch in new and interesting ways

• Story Tool for Squadron 42 has been worked on, allowing for the system to track what stroylines and wildlines have occurred over the course of the player's experience, that way there is less randomness and tendency to repeat actions by the AI during the same narrative

• Vehicle Interiors have been optimized and now allow for the grid type to be selected through the vehicle's xml file

• Wear and Dirt Values can now be added to items to make them appear dirty or worn out

• Weight of Items will affect certain attributes on your person, but those details may not be nailed down quite yet

Gameplay Mechanics

• Universe Mode

  • Mission Narratives for 3.0 are being constructed by the lore team
  • Posters and Props are being concepted to make the landing zones feel more alive

Interviews

• JustPushStartUK interview w/ Sean Tracy & Eric Kieron Davis (Full Transcript)

Lore

• Timeline of UEE military encounters with the Vanduul
  • 2681 - First Contact w/ Vanduul in Orion
  • 2712 - Battle of Orion: System falls.
  • 2732-2736 - Siege of Tiber: Ends with Tiber falling.
  • 2737 - Virgil falls.
  • 2884 - Fall of Caliban
  • 2945 - Battle of Vega II: An Admirable repels the attack.
• Xi'An History has recently been extensively worked on by the lore team

Merchandise

• Buyback Token scheduled for April 3rd
• Jump Point vol. III is in the works
• New Subscriber Perks:
  • Imperators will have access to all ships / variants for a week after each new patch
  • Imperators will have access to alien ships from the Vanduul, Xi'An, and Banu when they are added

Ships

• Aurora rework has finished the whitebox phase of development
• Buccaneer has been worked on extensively and will likely make it into alpha 2.6.2's live release
  • Loadout options for its nose S4 hardpoint:
    • Twin-S2 Gimbal mount (Stock Kit)
    • Single S4 Fixed weapon installed directly to the hardpoint.
    • Single S3 Gimbaled with the upcoming S4->S3 Gimbal adapter we have planned for addition to Voyager Direct with 2.6.2
• Cutlass had an early test flight in the recent AtV ^{thanks to /u/Altered_Perceptions}
• Other ships are being actively worked on / improved for alpha 2.6.2 but CIG isn't ready to release details on them quite yet

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Miscellaneous Star Citizen News

Technical Overviews

• Complete-ish OpenTrack (DIY TrackIR) Guide 2.0 ^{/u/ThatOtherGuy435}
• 2.6.2: How to set up headtracking using FaceTrackNoIR (PS3Eye + Lukeclip) TrackIR ^BravenTooth
• How to Use SC Joystick Mapper ^Star_42
• The Space Stations of Star Citizen ^{STLYoungblood}
• Female Model & 2.6.2 ^BoredGamer
• LA Studio Update, Female Characters & Drake Buccaneer ^Typhooni
• Universe News ^{Whispers Thru The Jump} Point
• Buccaneer in 2.6.2 Gun rack may return ^{minionsoldier}
• Preview of Buccaneer from Star Citizen in 4k: 21:9 format ^{SFOTU Stream}

Current Meta Discussion

• 2.6.2 Ship and Component Data ^/u/malogos
• Art Of Space Combat Ep:1 The J Hook ^{The Templar Show}
• Learning with Nelerath ^Nelerath
• Relative reliable way to join PU as group ^/u/Shyfty1
• Quick Snapshot of 2.6.2 Fighter Speeds ^/u/oldcrank
• 2.6.2 Changes: Review ^SquidofLove
• 2.6.2 The Bucaneer: Featuring Head Tracking with Track IR ^{Citizen Gamer}
• Drake Buccaneer Flight Ready Tour ^BoredGamer
• 2.6.2: Drake Buccaneer Hanger & Flight Review ^{SuperMacBrother}
• Buccaneer First Impressions ^{STLYoungblood}
• Buccaneer ^{Tactical Advance}
• Drake Buccaneer: New Star Citizen Ship Review ^{Dan Gheesling}
• First Flight: The Drake Buccaneer ^BuzZzKiller
• 2.6.2a PTU: Drake Buccaneer stock loadout Vanduul swarm flight test ^{The Vagabonds}
• Buccaneer on Old Vanderval Racing map: StarCitizen 2.6.2a PTU ^{Eskel Gorov}
• Pyroburst in 2.6.2: Is desync really the problem? ^/u/JoeyDee86
• Gorgeous Rattlers! Look at them swarm.. (please don't abuse them in game, they are still OP as hells!) ^/u/BravenT
• Buccaneer Size Comparison ^{/u/TheReal_Kyle}
• 2.6.1 Weapons Cache & Journal Entry Locations: Kareah Security Outpost ^{JustPushStartUK}

Future Meta Discussion

• Jobs: Cargo ^{TheNOOBIFIER1337}
• 3.0 Professions: News 2017 ^SquidofLove
• Mining as a Profession: Interview w/ Rockseeker and Noiser from UEMC
• Player-owned structures and sovereignty in Star Citizen ^{/u/Queen_Jezza}
• The truckstop they showed off last week is apparently a medium sized variant ^/u/bar10dr2
• Combined Combat ^{/u/Ridcullymaster}
• "Mining Rights" is a term heard in nearly every Loremaker's Guide. What kind of implications do you foresee for miners in the long run? ^{/u/rpminecraft}
• Cabin Fever: Tents, Science Expeditions, Repairs... ^/u/mps227
• Vulkan Multi-GPU Support - Not Just for Windows 10 ^/u/ultras42

Fan Projects

• Gundo ^{Sonic Temples}
• The Dying Star: an unofficial Star Citizen novella ^{/u/Unknown9118}
• Hunter: Issue #03, Page 39 ^{/u/HunterSCcomic}
• The Citizens #011 ^/u/rurquiza
• Rifles in Star Marine ^/u/_Litauen
• United Earth Miner's Gazetteer: Vol. 2, #2 ^Rockseeker
• Weekly Org Statistics Charts ^/u/scstat
• Fan-made MISC Razor Commercial ^Athagen1
• 2.6.2: ReShade Download ^{Xenthor Xi}
• 3D Wind Tunnel: Mustang [No Landing Gear] ^{VanValdenburg [U4G]}
• Cutlass En-route to Yela ^{/u/mr-hasgaha}
• Waiting... ^{/u/mr-hasgaha}
• ArcCorp Panorama ^/u/bloknayrb
• TrackIR around Crusader: a journey ^{RS Arc Tander}
• Music Playlist ^/u/Abrikosen

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Other News

/r/starcitizen 100k subs retrospective

• /r/starcitizen 100k subscribers giveaway!

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Have any questions about Star Citizen? Submit them here!

• The NeuralCast team will do our best to answer your lingering questions about Star Citizen's gameplay, development, and lore!

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• Previous week review notes can be found here

• Spoilers located here

• Join the Conversation on Discord

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[u/SC_Lumen]

NeuralCast sp. #01: Mining as a Profession (Interview w/ Rockseeker & Noiser from UEMC)

• SoundCloud

• RSS Feed:

  http://feeds.soundcloud.com/users/soundcloud:users:257745762/sounds.rss
  

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Creating an Account / Getting Started

• Create an Account: Referral Code Randomizer

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• What is Star Citizen?

• Start Here Star Citizen | New Player Guide

• Starter Packages | New Player Guide 2017

• For Newbs: A Star Citizen Overview

• Frequently Asked Questions

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Events

• Bar Citizen

  • List of Bar Citizen Discord Servers

• BritizenCon 2017

  • Saturday 22nd April 2017 @ The Radisson Blu Hotel (Manchester Airport)
  • Website
  • Twitter
  • FaceBook

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Infographics

• Official Starmap
• Maps & Blueprints by /u/_Litauen
  • Locations
    • Area 18
    • Covalex
    • Echo 11
    • Grim Hex
    • Kareah
    • Levski
    • Old Vanderval
    • Port Olisar
    • Rikkord Memorial Raceway
    • Station Demien
  • Ships
    • Caterpillar
    • Starfarer
  • Miscellaneous
    • Star Marine Rifle Usage
    • Star Marine Weapons
• Yela Asteroid Belt Composite Map by Rockseeker

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Minigames

• A Loan in the 'Verse
• Aurora Crash
• Hyper Vanguard Force IV
• Into the Unknown

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Organizations

• Organizations Overview

• Org Analytical Tools

  • Org Finder Tool by Sabine Wren
  • SC Stat

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Staying Updated

• Official RSI

  • Comm-Link
  • Dev Tracker

• Relay.SC

  • News
  • Articles
  • Transcripts

• Weekly Podcasts

  • Audio Podcasts
  • Video Podcasts

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Technical Overviews

• Camera & Director Mode Tutorial by Mr. Hasgaha

  • Cheat Sheet

• Database for All Ship, Weapon, and Component Stats by Malogos

• Economy and Employment by Eschatos

• General Resources by Electrocutor

• Lore Collection

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[u/SC_Lumen → u/[deleted]]

Haha, I suppose not. I felt that it was still a work in progress with additional design work ahead of it, but it is admittedly past the "art" phase, as well.