Travis Day, Producer

Greetings Citizens,

August has been an exciting month for the development of Star Citizen and Squadron 42! We showed off what we’ve been working on for backers at our event in Cologne, Germany for Gamecom and for everyone around the world via a livestream. (Available below!) We showed off the new ships and gameplay modes being included in version 0.9 of Arena Commander, teased FPS which will be demoed at PAX Australia, and showed off some early work towards multicrew combat using a Constellation.

As always these kinds of live events are very exciting for the team both as an opportunity to showcase their work to the community and also as an opportunity for those in attendance to meet with our backers face to face. Being around so many people as excited about Star Citizen and Squadron 42 as we are, is truly invigorating. We are truly lucky to have such an engaged fan base participating in the development process helping us to make this game. So, thank you all for your support!

The multicrew combat demo was put together by the group here in Santa Monica with some support from the guys in Austin. It required a lot of hard work on various systems that lay the groundwork for bringing support of multicrew ships to Arena Commander, Squadron 42, and ultimately the Persistent Universe. To that end, we wanted to share with you some of the underlying technology that was in the demo that, perhaps, isn’t readily apparent when watching it.

Localized physics grids. Sounds exciting, right? Well, it is! Generally in 3D games with physics you have what can simplistically be thought of as a large cube that encompasses the whole map, a grid. Inside that cube physics are being simulated for every object and player that have physics set to active relative to their position within that grid. This is what handles collision with objects, projectile physics, etc.

Problems arise when you want to have players freely (not scripted and not on rails) moving inside a freely moving vehicle/object. This is because that single physics grid only has awareness of each entity in the level as an individual and doesn’t (by default) understand their relationships to one another. This manifests itself where, in a Constellation for example, the ship is flying forward while pitching and yawing. Unfortunately the global physics grid thinks of you and the ship as two separate objects with no relationship and so it pitches and yaws the ship while moving it forward and treats the player as though nothing has happened. As the player you will see the ship yaw around you, pitch around you, and ultimately the collisions with it will fling you around like a pinball.

Here is where the localized physics grid comes into play! It allows us to have multiple smaller physics grids within the larger global physics grid. The global grid will track each smaller grid as an individual and that smaller grid tracks all objects within it relative to whatever it is attached to. Where this gets cool is when you attach a localized grid to a ship like the Constellation. Now, when the Constellation pitches and yaws while flying your player position stays relative to the ship so you will also pitch, yaw, and move along with it in perfect unison. This allows for ships to have fully functioning interiors with characters running around while the ship itself is blasting through space and maneuvering seamlessly. Completing this work was a large accomplishment and also a very foundational piece for SQ42 and Star Citizen in the long run.

One of the other more “under the hood” things that went into the demo was on the HUD. One of the critically important pieces of functionality for the HUD in the long run is being able to separate and subdivide its component pieces so that they can be displayed on different screens, have their positioning and size customized per HUD per player, and be rendered directly to a texture for seamless display on fixed screens. All of these features have been added to the system so that moving forward we will be better able to support customizing the HUD both on the development side and for players to customize their own visor HUD. We’ve also added the first step in fully supporting passing HUD elements and control over them between the different seats in a multicrew seats. The HUD is something we pride ourselves on as it is the thing you will see most of the game in its current state. More work needs to be done (there always is) but the foundation is there and now we need to keep refining and tweaking so we can make it even more awesome.

Gamescom is behind us and we look forward to the next opportunity to share more of the ‘Verse with our fans. Citizen Con and PAX Australia are on the horizon and we look forward to the new challenges this complex but rewarding project brings. As we said at the beginning being around our backers is invigorating to our entire team, it makes the long nights and stressful times worth it. Star Citizen is a special game, the passion and dedication of our community isn’t just appreciated it is required to make this game a reality.