Erin Roberts, Studio Director

Hi again, really busy month down at the farm. So much has been achieved throughout this month at Foundry 42, from helping get 12.5 out, to some great work by the team on our next big feature release (13) and Gamescom. Not forgetting S42 which we have made really great progress on.

Loads of focus has been on GamesCom and getting as much polish into our main branch as possible to show the game at its best. (We have been running two sets of the code for the past 6-8 weeks, Release 12 branch which is what we released 12.5 from on Wednesday night, which is predominantly about getting dog fighting stable and balanced, and main where the new features are being implemented which we make new branches from when we get near to release.) This allows us to get on with new feature implementation for the game, while not destabilizing our release builds with new code and data. So basically what you have seen in 12.5 is only the work that has happened in that branch, there is much, much more that has been going on all this time that you will see soon when we hit Gamescom and release version 13.

I look forward to meeting a bunch of you while in Germany in a few weeks and showing some really cool stuff at Gamescom so I can really thank you all for your support and patience, while we endeavour to make this incredible Universe together.

Design

Blimey! Has it been a month already.

Leader Boards, Lobby systems, Key Bindings have all had design focus and are being worked on for release in 13 or soon after. Also we’ve got two new awesome game modes for DFM which we plan on showing at Gamescom and releasing with 13.

S42 has made a bunch of progress this month. We have broken down the campaign further with the writers and the tasks are all out there for the “Vertical Slice”. We have prototypes for landing and take-off being worked on right now. Also, lots of work is going into the FPS side of the game, with AI behaviour, combat, stealth, perception, pick-ups, objective systems, checkpoints and the conversations system, all being designed and implemented for the game. We have a number of missions early white boxed so we can play through from start to end to make sure the pacing is right.

The ship white-boxing on the Panther Class Escort carrier is continuing really well, and the Idris is getting closer to “Hangar” release. (caveat: it won’t fit in the hangar so there will be another cool way to get into it from the hangar).

Again, thanks for the fantastic support. It is a pleasure to be working on such an awesome project with you all.

Programming

This month we’ve been splitting our engineering time up into three parallel teams to make sure we deliver everything we want to show you guys in 12.5, Gamescom and give you all the best experience going forwards with S42.

We’ve been helping out on the 12.5 build. Apart from the rubber banding we’ve been trying to track down and fix a really nasty low repro bug which would cause the player’s head to shake constantly when they respawn after dying. Every time we thought we had a fix the player would start standing up in the cockpit instead. Every time we thought we’d fixed the standing up bug with head shake would return. And so on. We think we’ve now got a good handle and fix on both issues now for the latest patch.

We’re really excited by what we are going to show you at GamesCom. There’s been a lot of work on polishing up the HUD to make it more friendly, the radar to make it less cluttered, cameras, lots of audio improvements, new game modes and loads more.

And finally we’re supporting our designers here getting the Squadron 42 vertical slice up and running, including prototyping a new landing mechanic, and long term goals like creating a tool to make setting up the vehicles easier and less error prone, (which will allow us to get ships and vehicles into DFM much faster) a new vehicle state system, AI and, as always, lots of bug fixing!

Environment Art

The environment team has been hard at work this month on creating something special, we are producing a new location like nothing you’ve seen before in Star Citizen. We have taken the architecture, lighting and colour palette in a different direction, this will complement the existing environments – so we will have Dying Star (Red), Broken Moon (Blue), and the new map (Green). All these elements will also find their way into the PU, so it helps flesh out the Universe you will all be living in when the PU comes online.

We are really excited for you guys to see it, all will be revealed at GamesCon and Release 13.

Vehicle Art

The Ship and Vehicle Team here at Foundry 42 , has been hard at work this month continuing work on the Gladius, the Gladiator and the Retaliator, as well as our current cap ship productions like the Javelin and the Panther.

The Gladius is currently been setup for its shading, audio and animations, before it goes into the technical setup stage, where it can be made ready for the Hangar. We’re really close on this one.

The Gladiator is currently in its grey box stage, and the Retaliator is getting closer and closer to its final grey box stage.

The ongoing design work on the Javelin is working nicely alongside the art production for this ship, currently we are working on the Bridge and the Crew mess for this ship, so we can tie these rooms into the storyline for SQ42.

The massive Panther is coming along nicely as well, all the hallways are nearing completion, and we are currently focussing on the Crew Barracks and escape pods to be grey boxed.

Lots of work has also been going on with animation, where new pilot animations for the ship cockpits are going into our main branch for Gamescom, and a bunch of testing on Vanduul movement and also our character and facial systems.

Audio

This month has been all about getting the audio to follow clearer goals and design direction. We’ve further revised a selection of weapon sounds as a test bed for a new approach to weapon sounds. The weapons that we’ve done so far now include percussive/explosive elements and mechanical layers. The new approach to these sounds gives a more believable and satisfying result. We’re also excited to introduce the new ship fly-by sounds as of release 13. If a Vanduul ship tears past you, this moment will now have an exciting and carefully designed fly by sound. Plenty of other improvements have been happening across the board for the sound of Star Citizen so look forward to those over the coming months.

As well as the various improvements we’ve been making, team audio has been hard at work on gamescom related tasks which we are incredibly excited to show everyone!!