Progress Tracker finally got an update (only until the end of 2024) and there was a change in how things are tracked.

Release View:

• Moved target release date of patch 4.0 to Q4.
• Added "New Missions - Repair, Charge and Drain" to patch 4.0.

Hi everyone!

As part of our ongoing efforts to improve your experience, we’ll be retiring our Legacy Launcher on October 1st, 2024. It’s been an incredible journey with the Legacy Launcher, but now it’s time to bring everyone together on the new and improved RSI Launcher 2.0.

Many of you are already familiar with and actively using Launcher 2.0, which we debuted about five months ago. To ensure you’re benefiting from all the latest features and improvements, if you haven't yet, we encourage you to make the switch to RSI Launcher 2.0 before the Legacy Launcher is phased out.

[Follow the link below to learn more about RSI Launcher 2.0.] https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/19818-Introducing-The-RSI-Launcher-20

If you encounter any issues swapping over, don’t fret! Please take advantage of the Issue Council to submit a ticket, and make sure to include your logs (found under Application settings - “GET LOGS”). Our team is committed and ready to resolve any problems you might face. And over the next month, we’ll be closely monitoring your feedback to ensure the transition to the new Launcher goes as smoothly as possible.

As always, thank you for your continued support! We can’t wait for you to experience all the exciting new features coming with the RSI Launcher 2.0. Happy exploring, and we’ll see you in the 'verse!

Guests:

• Kaan, Lead Level Designer
• John, Level Designer II
• Manuel, Senior Level Designer

TL;DW:

• "Asteroid bases are like bunkers 2.0" - more content space, more sandbox type of missions, more gameplay types.
• Asteroid bases can also be worth visiting if you don't have a mission (there are puzzles and treasures).
• Contested zones will have multiple entries from both interior and exterior of a station to limit bottlenecks.
• At specific "depth" of a contested zone players can find exfiltration routes that will bring them back to a safe-zone. They are one way.
• Reminder that contested zones are intended as a PvP space.
• Jared: "Our job in those situations (griefing) is to find alternatives for the players who are suffering at the hands of PvP - provide ways they can counter it, provide alternatives that provide the same experience (...) When the player runs out of options and gets killed over and over again, that's when there's a problem."
• There are 5 contested zones in Pyro at the moment, more or less evenly spread.
• Some contested zones require specific items to access them.
• Contested zones have short, mid and long term "branches" - the last one might requires items to access as well. Some of those items have to be gained from other places. Longer branches = better rewards.
• Current plan for asteroid bases is to have both combat and "safer spaces" - not safe safe, as in PvP will be possible, but without enemy NPCs.
• There will be functioning asteroid bases in the future, not in 4.0.
• They'd like to implement less obvious traps in the future (like booby trapped chests etc), will have to be scanable or recognizable in some other way. (Jared wants a mimick)
• Contested zones are created with 4-5 person groups in mind, up to 40 people per "dungeon".
• Early sections of contested zones are soloable, deeper parts will require help.
• Asteroid bases are always visible on the map (no need to find them/pick a mission to travel there). This might change later down the line.
• "There's new stuff coming to Stanton in 4.0."
• Pet Kopion variant coming in 4.0 (NPC owned only for now).
• Contested zone difficulty will vary depending on depth and on which station you're in.
• SC didn't have the tech to distribute player rewards for doing in-game things until recently (Operation Overdrive).
• Ghost Arena was inspired by the "Running Man".
• Current (deserted) asteroid bases have no official landing places (pads, hangars) available. Future ones will act as gas stations with place for small-medium ships, might have docking tubes for bigger ones.
• Asteroid bases are done partially by hand instead of fully procedurally (they use hand made room sets instead of randomizing each room individually).
• No gravity or power manipulation for contested zones initially, there are key cards and fuses though.
• Contested zones will offer rewards unavailable in any other way. Provided example was ship components (military, stealth, competition ones, only certain variants not all).
• 4.0 will finally bring back ship components making a difference to ship performance.
• You'll have to use freight elevators to extract larger loot from contested zones.
• Asteroid bases aren't planned as a step towards player owned locations ones at the moment.
• Contested zones will be regularly updated as new items and systems come online.
• Some locations in contested zones will have time pressure elements (timed gates, respawning and patrolling AI etc).
• There are 3 variants of asteroid bases (combat, puzzle mixed) at the moment.

Guests:

• George Rankin, Senior Level Designer
• James Kay, Lead Content Designer
• Loek Gijsbertse, Lead Environment Artist
• Eddie Hilditch, Assistant Environment Art Director

TL;DW:

• Settlements on each planet of the Pyro system will differ based on the amount of radiation and heat they have to deal with.
• Pyro landing zones are more spread out and less secure.
• Each settlement is aligned with specific faction which may affect where you'll be able to enter depending on your reputation.
• Farmsteads:
  • Small communities that suppose to "feel like home".
  • They're more spread out and have greenhouses and farms (with harvestables) as well as missions.
• Scrapyards
  • They are the rare alternative to space stations when it comes to servicing your ship.
  • They can be recognized by sunken "landing pits" for ships.
  • You can do the usual space station things (repair, refuel, rearm).
  • No ATC, it's all self-service.
• New mission types:
  • Repairing or jump starting machinery.
  • Gathering crops.
  • FPS salvaging.
• Trade posts:
  • Focused on trade, as the name suggest. Have everything from weapons, through ship components to food.
  • Products will differ based on location.
  • Offer primarily hauling focused missions.
• There's a showcase of various settlements with info on what and where they are as well as what to expect there.

In case you missed it there will be a Free Fly starting today, August 15th, until August 22nd. Here's the latest "This Week In Star Citizen" with the announcement.

Good luck to anyone trying to play the game during this time, I hope you'll have fun!

Guests:

• Rick Porter, Design Director
• Edward Fuller, Senior Principal Systems Designer

TL;DW:

• You won't be able to jump through the permanent jump point to-from Pyro with CS3+
• Pyro will have different crime stat jurisdictions (doing crime near the jump point will affect your UEE CS, doing it elsewhere won't).
• There will be different options to clear your CS in Pyro (one is going to jail, they aren't sure about others yet).
• Using permanent jump points will use quantum fuel.
• Trying to exit the jump point early (bashing against the walls) will damage your ship (distortion damage, wear and tear on components), don't use it as a shortcut.
• Jump tunnel difficulty will differ by jump point type (permanent will be easier), turbulence (more for smaller ships but also more space to maneuver).
• Jump tunnel showed during recent ISC didn't have the obstacles that will be present on live release.
• Reminder that what's shown during ISC and other showcases is tuned up for ease of presentation. (this if for people who started freaking out about how fast and easy the fire starting/spreading was in yesterday's ISC).
• Jump drives will affect ship handling when flying between jump points. All jump drives will have the same "disruption HP" on initial release, in the future they'd like to play with various stats (including handling during jumps).
• No combat in jump tunnels (need to switch out of nav mode and that fails the jump).
• No, they did not test dudes shooting personal weapons through the open door (theoretically everything that leaves your ship's "bubble" should be yoinked out of the tunnel).
• They decided to group everyone in one place instead of allowing to jump from any direction due to how the tunnels work (it has one entrance going in specific direction).
• You don't have to sit in front of the JP after getting into the jump queue, you can fly around far away from other people. Don't have to wait in nav mode either.
• There will also be turrets, AI and all that defensive stuff but they're willing to other systems if necessary.
• ATC is part of permanent jump point experience because UEE wants to control who's allowed to attune to the jump point.
• How permanent jump points work in non UEE systems is still to be decided.
• Turrets are totally deadly, just look for a good server.
• They have "some systems" they hope will come online for 4.0 that will hopefully combat griefieng.
• There are people in CIG that want total chaos and death (no shit) as well as "carebear advocates" (well, at least Jared is).
• "If you wanna be a griefer I want to give you this experience but people who don't want to be griefed need a safe space."
• "Shotgun approach" to exiting jump points means ships will end up a kilometer or so away from each other rather than thousands kms. It's mostly a way to avoid ships rear ending each other.
• There are multiple exit points from jump points in addition to the "shotgun approach".
• There are things in Stanton that aren't available in Pyro.
• People who died during a jump will respawn wherever they set their spawn point.
• Can't tow ships through jump points.
• No plans to reintroduce jump gate (big ring structures around jump points).
• "We deserved over the years some amount of criticism for prioritizing looks over functionality. This is the first time this is reversed." (in regards to the removal of jump point rings)
• There has been a change in SC development: more focus on gameplay, performance and systemic mechanics instead of eye-candy.
• No plans for different sized permanent jump points for now.
• Transient jump points can be found using their radar signatures.
• Transient jump points won't be in 4.0, only the permanent Pyro-Stanton one.
• Transient jump points will persist at least for hours.
• They have plans to use transient jump points for access to events.
• Yesterday's ISC didn't have smoke in most of the b-roll footage but smoke will be present on live.

Guests:

• Leo Vansteenkiste, Principal VFX Programmer
• Edward Fuller, Senior Principal Systems Designer
• Guillaume Gardella, Senior VFX Artist I
• Francesco Litrico, VFX Programmer III

TL;DW:

• 4.0 will only have fire inside ships.
• Fires start based on:
  • Damage (when ship item HP reaches 0).
  • When items with high level of wear misfire (random chance).
  • Weapon impact.
  • Warming the ship room to high enough temperature by opening the door on a warm planet for example (technically possible, there's no planet hot enough for that to happen).
  • Bringing already burning items into a ship.
• Fire propagation is based on fuel (surface), oxygen and temperature.
• Every surface material has different properties that affect how quickly it burns.
• Other objects like cargo or ship components can also catch on fire. Player can't (but will take damage).
• Fire will burn the oxygen to a point of asphyxiation.
• Plenty of footage of using fire extinguisher.
• Fire can restart if you don't put it out properly.
• Fire extinguishers have limited amount of "ammo", you need to put them back to their storage stations to refill them. Recharge will not work if life support system is down.
• Fires can be put out by removing oxygen from a burning room (turning of life support, opening doors in space).
• Visual damage caused by fires has to be fixed at a proper repair location (station), manual repairs can only fix the functionality of destroyed items.

Message of the day

🕹️ (Tysdagr) We are currently putting together a new 3.24 build for a Wave 1 PTU release later today.
Current goal is to run Blockade Runner on PTU over the weekend.

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/spectrum/community/SC/lobby/38230

Guests:

• Kaan Cakir, Lead Level Designer
• Stephane Charre, Environment Artist II
• James Kay, Lead Content Designer
• Assistant Environment Art Director
• William Weissbaum, Assistant Narrative Director
• Antoine Fauville, Senior Level Designer
• John Lang, Level Designer II
• Kristofor McMahan, Associate Design Director

TL;DW:

• Pyro has 12 space stations in total.
• Pyro space stations are bigger than the ones in Stanton.
• Rough & Ready gang own majority of Rest & Refuel stations in Pyro.
• Ruined Station (one from Citizen Con) has been expanded.
• Hangars will have direct access to the Cargo Deck.
• Hangars in Pyro will have external freight elevators to allow for (un)loading of ships like Hull-C.
• "Win station will have something called Ghost Arena".
• Contested Zones are like MMO dungeons
  • Open space with loot.
  • Easily accessible directly from the "normal" part of the station.
  • Some routes are hidden behind puzzles, traps and key cards.
  • Various levels of difficulty, various rewards.
  • These are free-for-all zones.
  • NPCs there are not linked to missions and will respawn on a timer.
  • There will be Kopions running around, maybe more in the future.
  • Boss fights are also planned, not confirmed for 4.0.
• Social parts of space stations are still green zones, no combat allowed.
• They showed clips with light-enhancement scopes.
• Asteroid Clusters are very different to the ones in Stanton.
• Asteroid Bases can be abandoned, used for missions etc. They also have loot, obviously.

MotD

🕹️ (Thor's Day) We are currently building a new PTU candidate for a 3.24 Evocati release later today. This build is a Wave 1 candidate and we are looking to potentially open up to Wave 1 late tonight If it goes well for a couple hours with Evocati.

Some of my own thoughts:
Yesterday's test went a lot more smoothly compared to the previous builds. I still have some major concerns about 3.24, but hopefully the biggest things get addressed before it goes Live. (Let's just say it's way too easy to steal things from other players in armistace right now).

They fixed most of the ship spawning issues in the hangar, as well as some nasty teleporting bugs. They've focused on trying to make it so that, if the hangar doors are closed in the view of either the server or the client, at least one layer of the doors will appear closed to the player (hopefully no more destruction for flying into invisible hangar doors).

There are some amazing fixes for ultra-widescreen users (no more massively overscaled ui icons on your HUD, and inventory scales correctly now).

Source: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/AlOv5y

Message of the day

🕹️ (Tysdagr) We are currently working on a new 3.24 build for release to Evocati later today.
We also have a goal to run an RMQ Tech Preview later this week with an audience based on the current PTU wave.
🕹️ (Frjádagr) A new 3.24 PTU build is now open to Evocati Testers! VERSION 3.24.0-PTU.9261418

Added for 4.0:

• RSI Zeus MkII CL
• Acidic Caves
• Rock Caves
• Asteroid Bases
• Space Stations - Contested Zones

Hi there,

Jump Points is a big feature, there is a lot going on in the design, more than could be communicated in one ISC, so there is some bits of info that I realised afterwards that we managed to gloss over and some of these seemed to have caused a lot of speculation/controversies, so I'd like to attempt to rectify some of those and clarify some others.

Transient Jump Points do not have or use ATCs. Transient Jump Points are free for all experiences, you align, tune and the activate the Jump Point and then are pulled in.

As you can see from Transient Jump Points. The inclusion of ATC in the permenant Jump Points flow is not a techinal requirement needed for transitioning players between systems or anything like that. They are part of the flow solely for gameplay reasons. The ATC exists here for fairness to all jumpers, a fairness intentionally omitted in the Transient flow. The permenant Jump Points will likely be busy high volume routes. We dont want slower ships being trumped to jump by faster ships all the time, we also want to make sure we protect those ships who have waited and determine who is at fault for doing something obstructive, ATC will help us do this.

Additionally the ATC exists to imply and actually impose some level of decision making on those who choose to skirt the law or play outright criminally. Those player may instead choose or have to seek out Transient Jump Points to make their journeys in order to avoid this extra scrutiny.

I also want to clarify how ATC also makes sense as part of a bigger picture. Think of Permenant Jump Points as known controlled border checkpoints between systems. If you were the UEE authority in charge of protecting a system like Stanton from lawless systems that you know you border with, like Pyro, would you operate an open borders with them? I dont think you would, you'd find a way to control it.

In this sense ATC is being used as the gate keeper. How does it do that I see you all asking. If ATC hasnt granted you permission to jump yet then by default they actively jam jump drives from tuning. Once you have permission to jump they selectively choose to stop jamming your jump drive, whch then lets you tune and jump, simple.

Finally, I wanted to clarify an error in one clip of footage. You don't shoot the jump point with a gun to activate it, but you do initiate the opening with an activation step. The footage showed this as a physical shot from a gun but it was wrong to be depicted like that, I'm sorry I didnt spot it in the edit before the video was released, as if I had done so I would have sought its removal. So, please dont worry we didnt add combat to opening a Jump Point.

Thanks for reading,

Edward Fuller, Senior Principal System Designer

Guests:

• Edward Fuller, Senior Principal Systems Designer
• Rick Porter, Design Director
• David Haddock, Narrative Director
• Ali Ahmadi, Senior VFX Artist I
• Jake Dunlop, Senior Environment Artist I
• Dan Meadowcroft, Senior Sound Designer I
• Guillaume-Roch Pinard, UI UX Designer Senior I
• Alistair Brown, Senior Director of Graphics and Procedural Tech

TL;DW:

• sound and visuals are obviously work in progress, there are some visual target images shown during the video
• there are two different jump point types:
  • permanent
    • always available
    • on well traveled routes
    • surrounded by infrastructure
    • no more circular gates (present in old concept art) around jump points
    • usable by all ships
  • transient
    • need to be found
    • unknown destination
    • various sizes (small, medium, large)
    • unknown presence (might last a long time or a single jump)
• patch 4.0 will only contain the Stanton - Pyro connection
• security and turrets near permanent jump gates
• you need to call ATC before jumping through permanent jump gates
• jumps are grouped so if you want to jump with a party you need to make sure you're grouped together (queuing as a party planned in the future)
• jumping requires you to align with the jump direction, failing to do so will lead to jump cancellation and losing your place in a queue
• alignment is followed by a attunement process
• entering/exiting a jump gate is completely automatic, you're committed at this point
• any obstructions between you and the jump gate during attunement process will pause it
• trying to get close to the jump gate without attuning will push you away to prevent deliberate obstructions
• can't control your speed during the jump but you will have to navigate
• you'll see ships traveling in the same directions but not those going the other way
• bumping into the tunnel walls/obstructions will fill a "distortion bar" of your quantum drive, when it's full you'll be dropped out of the jump (destination depends on how long you spent in the tunnel but it'll be on the edge of one of the systems you were jumping between)
• current planned jump duration is 3 minutes, might change depending on various factors
• exit point of a system is not the same as the jump gate entry between systems
• exit on the Pyro side has a "normal and safe" R&R station, like the ones in Stanton
• transient jump gates will have more difficult routes
• there will be more testing in a preview channel before 4.0
• 4.0 is scheduled to release "in a few months", not "before end of the year" as they're still targeting a date earlier than that
• credits with all the people who took part in previous episodes of all the shows, from Wingman's Hangar to Inside Star Citizen

Star Citizen is allowing anyone who wants to try out the game to play for free for this week.

There are a few of these free flights throughout the year.

If you're new, definitely use the "Guide System" to request help from other players. They can help you to avoid the current bugs and should know workarounds to be able to help you get some actual gameplay in quickly without having to waste too much time trying to figure out everything on your own.

During this particular event you will get permanent rewards for every 30 minute guide session.

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/spectrum/guide

TL;DW:

• breakdown of Blockade Runner event
• reiteration of details on new cargo hauling missions
• new balancing alghoritm will be used to determine the mission rewards

Found while browsing through the community hub: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/community-hub/post/star-citizen-arc-corp-cinematic-Y2hSKtKl73p5i

Message of the day:

🕹️(Mánadagr) We are currently putting together a new 3.24 build for release to Evocati later today

  We are going to be putting out a build onto the HOTFIX channel in about 10 minutes to test a client hotfix overnight with some logging updates that may help slightly improve client performance as well as fix multiple client and server crashes

- Wakapedia-CIG https://robertsspaceindustries.com/spectrum/community/SC/lobby/38230/message/53971967

  An updated version of 3.23.1-live.9204897 is now available for download on the RSI Launcher in the HOTFIX channel!

- Spectral-CIG