The network engineer response in the first implementation of the server meshing:
"For the first-pass version we'll probably divide the Stanton system into sections and have one server manage each section. So we might have a Port Olisar server, another for Yela, and so on. Migration between servers would only happen as players QT from one location to another (although if you had the patience to do so you would also be able to fly between servers at sub-quantum speeds). We won't be connecting game servers across server regions (US, EU, etc) in this version. It also seems likely that each server region will still have multiple instances of the Stanton system.
Obviously this is a much simplified implementation compared to what we eventually want to achieve but it is still complex enough that we will need to deliver several key pieces of the technology. First among these is the ability to connect multiple game servers in the same simulation. Next, seamlessly transitioning entities and clients between servers. We'll also need changes to our backend services to keep track of which players are on which server and determine when they need to transition to another. The services may also have to handle spinning up and shutting down new game servers on demand, as we'd like to avoid running a server for a section (e.g. Daymar) unless some players are actually there. Finally, game code will most likely have to undergo some changes to ensure that things like missions and the economy continue to function correctly even though the entities involved may be spread among multiple servers.
Once the initial version has been put through its paces we will continue to improve and refine the technology with future pre-alpha releases, incrementally bringing us closer to the final goal of a single shard universe."
It summarizes as: Ships and players not persisting where they were when logging out is a bug and is meant to be fixed in 3.1
No plans for adding extra character slots from ship packages or being able to buy them during the releases for 2018.
Scanning will be locating something (pinging it) and then analysis of that thing (detailed analysis / scanning) and this goes for every type of scanning for tier 0. It will be just identifying different things for salvage vs mining.
No plans for the BMM for 2018, that ship alien design would look amazing when that colossus finally gets worked on.
I say this as a concierge backer with tons of ships potentially available to me and way too much invested in this game, all that needs to happen is for CIG to make a stock Aurora only Arena Commander and stock Aurora PU. All combat systems, all roles, all core game play loops, jobs, and so on should be solely focused on stock Auroras until such systems are actually working across the entire vertical slice and fun to use for Aurora owners. Basically, make the BDSSE work FIRST with the stock ship that every one of the nearly 2 million citizens can all collectively use. Make it fun to play. There is absolutely no point in taking any development time working on anything that doesn't make the core gameplay loops work, not at this point. While I'd love to see my Polaris, Hammerhead, etc be implemented, why add needless complexity when the core systems are still so obviously broken? The focus of this game is totally wrong, in that Star Citizen should be a fun game because it's a fun game, not because you have ship x. Ships should be irrelevant. Ships should add to the game, sure, not BE the game. The game needs to stand on it's own, first. Star Citizen needs to show it by starting with stock Auroras and making it all work.
When you have cake, it is not the cake that creates the most magnificent of experiences, but it is the emotions attached to it. The cake is a lie.
I say this as a concierge backer with tons of ships potentially available to me and way too much invested in this game, all that needs to happen is for CIG to make a stock Aurora only Arena Commander and stock Aurora PU. All combat systems, all roles, all core game play loops, jobs, and so on should be solely focused on stock Auroras until such systems are actually working across the entire vertical slice and fun to use for Aurora owners. Basically, make the BDSSE work FIRST with the stock ship that every one of the nearly 2 million citizens can all collectively use. Make it fun to play. There is absolutely no point in taking any development time working on anything that doesn't make the core gameplay loops work, not at this point. While I'd love to see my Polaris, Hammerhead, etc be implemented, why add needless complexity when the core systems are still so obviously broken? The focus of this game is totally wrong, in that Star Citizen should be a fun game because it's a fun game, not because you have ship x. Ships should be irrelevant. Ships should add to the game, sure, not BE the game. The game needs to stand on it's own, first. Star Citizen needs to show it by starting with stock Auroras and making it all work.
An obvious point but: a) if the money is there NOT having e.g. people churning out backgrounds for new planets, doing artwork for ships, weapons, costumes etc. won't speed up development. b) looking at the schedule for 2018 its clear that core work is being done for all ships - you have the same block of tasks with the same progress getting the exact same updates. So it looks like what the poster was suggesting is what's been done.
More complexity maybe a little harder but this extra stuff should provide regular, visible progress which should help with funding. Without which the team working on the core stuff might not be as big. I say visible progress because churning out new ships/weapons/planets should be getting to be as simple as shelling peas. Still needs doing - no question - but with dedicated teams to do the work it should be "production line" stuff.
Yes! You can keep that stolen ship, probably. - DiscoLando
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
Programming team has been looking at performance issues and ways to optimise the code for PU which also benefits S42
Developed a tool to highlight a number of issue with skeletons that were updating but not (or not needing to) animate
Feature team has been able to make items smarter about when/how they are updated
Working towards Object Container Streaming by ensuring Entity system code was thread safe so entities can spawn via background threads
Dialing in the look of the military version of the mobiGlas UI: referencing real world military and cinematic sci-fi
Continued working on animations for Duncan Chakma (Master of Arms) and polishing to release quality
Continued to develop the player's grab and inspect animations
Added several unique walk cycles for AI characters based on loops extracted from performance capture data
Focused on Subsumption stability updates for crew activities and setting up more scenes in other chapters
August Beck (Quartermaster) has her activities set up and is in-game, all AI usesables in the cargo bay are going in-game now
More ambient life moments are being implemented into other chapters and locations
The Living Idris
The goal of the Idris is to make it more than just a ship a player uses throughout Squadron 42, but for what’s inside of it to also tell a story.
The AI within Squadron 42 will react to players differently between each playthrough, based off a players actions during the campaign.
However it’s more than pick choice A or B. With tech called SPOIL, Systemic Points Of Interest Look tech, it makes it so that the AI behave more like a regular person on a ship, enabling them to have a personality that reflects how they talk, what they do, and how they interact with players during the campaign.
Every AI on the Idris has a routine, but within that routine they can deviate depending on a number of circumstances such as emergencies, conflict, basic necessities such as eating, sleeping, etc.
When a player leaves the ship for a mission, the ship doesn’t stop working, it continues to function as if the player never existed in the first place, it’s a living breathing world just inside the Idris itself.
With SPOIL the AI are aware of a players presence and depending on the circumstances, may react positive or negative towards a player. The AI will also interact with each other not by script, but by what their sub activities dictate.
A good example of SPOIL tech is an NPC following objects outside of the immediate area such as through an unobstructed window
The Idris crew has increased from 30 or 50 people to 81 including the player
Wild lines are where certain NPCs have certain things to say to the players and will break out of their behavior and activity to engage them on that matter when provided the opportunity adding a lot life
Player responses and decisions can actually result in multiple branches of conversation options
Wild lines can be “busies” - too busy to talk, “be's” - don't you have somewhere to be, or even comments on recent missions
Once a greeting logic is setup it can be applied to any AI who has a greeting line
Scenes will not be baked as player choice and AI action will impact the cinematic scenes on the fly allowing the designers to freely experiment with the gameplay and bring forth more content with stability and robustness
The big challenge of Star Citizen is expanding functionality with the composition of so many elements without breaking others
As Procedural tech continues to develop, the given sneak peak of Yela's on 3.1 is showing off its continuous improvement:
"DE Environment Art Team continued to update the look of procedural planets. With recent tech improvements in place, they updated some of the existing content to make the best use of the advancements, which includes more intelligent color and material breakup, overall improved terrain, and better orbit to ground transitioning. They applied a large amount of these changes to Yela, and will use what they learned in the process on other locations moving forward."
Interesting bit on new mission givers from the report:
Not sure if the description of the mission givers is defining of the type of missions they will give you, having it laid like that would sure be cool tho.
Comments
(Not a commentary on the game though. Not my genre of game so I dont follow it closely enough to make a true judgment.)
"For the first-pass version we'll probably divide the Stanton system into sections and have one server manage each section. So we might have a Port Olisar server, another for Yela, and so on. Migration between servers would only happen as players QT from one location to another (although if you had the patience to do so you would also be able to fly between servers at sub-quantum speeds). We won't be connecting game servers across server regions (US, EU, etc) in this version. It also seems likely that each server region will still have multiple instances of the Stanton system.
Obviously this is a much simplified implementation compared to what we eventually want to achieve but it is still complex enough that we will need to deliver several key pieces of the technology. First among these is the ability to connect multiple game servers in the same simulation. Next, seamlessly transitioning entities and clients between servers. We'll also need changes to our backend services to keep track of which players are on which server and determine when they need to transition to another. The services may also have to handle spinning up and shutting down new game servers on demand, as we'd like to avoid running a server for a section (e.g. Daymar) unless some players are actually there. Finally, game code will most likely have to undergo some changes to ensure that things like missions and the economy continue to function correctly even though the entities involved may be spread among multiple servers.
Once the initial version has been put through its paces we will continue to improve and refine the technology with future pre-alpha releases, incrementally bringing us closer to the final goal of a single shard universe."
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/spectrum/community/SC/forum/50259/thread/what-will-be-the-extent-of-the-first-pass-on-the-s/968182The first pass of it is pretty much the take we see in the Life is Feudal MMO with the server borders & transitions.
It summarizes as: Ships and players not persisting where they were when logging out is a bug and is meant to be fixed in 3.1
No plans for adding extra character slots from ship packages or being able to buy them during the releases for 2018.
Scanning will be locating something (pinging it) and then analysis of that thing (detailed analysis / scanning) and this goes for every type of scanning for tier 0. It will be just identifying different things for salvage vs mining.
No plans for the BMM for 2018, that ship alien design would look amazing when that colossus finally gets worked on.
https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/7z8uxx/261_lasted_42_days_this_time_last_year_it_had/dumyi5b/
I say this as a concierge backer with tons of ships potentially available to me and way too much invested in this game, all that needs to happen is for CIG to make a stock Aurora only Arena Commander and stock Aurora PU. All combat systems, all roles, all core game play loops, jobs, and so on should be solely focused on stock Auroras until such systems are actually working across the entire vertical slice and fun to use for Aurora owners. Basically, make the BDSSE work FIRST with the stock ship that every one of the nearly 2 million citizens can all collectively use. Make it fun to play. There is absolutely no point in taking any development time working on anything that doesn't make the core gameplay loops work, not at this point. While I'd love to see my Polaris, Hammerhead, etc be implemented, why add needless complexity when the core systems are still so obviously broken? The focus of this game is totally wrong, in that Star Citizen should be a fun game because it's a fun game, not because you have ship x. Ships should be irrelevant. Ships should add to the game, sure, not BE the game. The game needs to stand on it's own, first. Star Citizen needs to show it by starting with stock Auroras and making it all work.
When you have cake, it is not the cake that creates the most magnificent of experiences, but it is the emotions attached to it.
The cake is a lie.
It seems that the Idris crew grew considerably:
Noice
When you have cake, it is not the cake that creates the most magnificent of experiences, but it is the emotions attached to it.
The cake is a lie.
Reverse the Verse LIVE - Refueling, Repairing & Rearming
a) if the money is there NOT having e.g. people churning out backgrounds for new planets, doing artwork for ships, weapons, costumes etc. won't speed up development.
b) looking at the schedule for 2018 its clear that core work is being done for all ships - you have the same block of tasks with the same progress getting the exact same updates.
So it looks like what the poster was suggesting is what's been done.
More complexity maybe a little harder but this extra stuff should provide regular, visible progress which should help with funding. Without which the team working on the core stuff might not be as big. I say visible progress because churning out new ships/weapons/planets should be getting to be as simple as shelling peas. Still needs doing - no question - but with dedicated teams to do the work it should be "production line" stuff.
Yes! You can keep that stolen ship, probably. - DiscoLando
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
Squadron 42 Project Update
Developed a tool to highlight a number of issue with skeletons that were updating but not (or not needing to) animate
Feature team has been able to make items smarter about when/how they are updated
Working towards Object Container Streaming by ensuring Entity system code was thread safe so entities can spawn via background threads
Dialing in the look of the military version of the mobiGlas UI: referencing real world military and cinematic sci-fi
Continued working on animations for Duncan Chakma (Master of Arms) and polishing to release quality
Continued to develop the player's grab and inspect animations
Added several unique walk cycles for AI characters based on loops extracted from performance capture data
Focused on Subsumption stability updates for crew activities and setting up more scenes in other chapters
August Beck (Quartermaster) has her activities set up and is in-game, all AI usesables in the cargo bay are going in-game now
More ambient life moments are being implemented into other chapters and locations
The Living Idris
The AI within Squadron 42 will react to players differently between each playthrough, based off a players actions during the campaign.
However it’s more than pick choice A or B. With tech called SPOIL, Systemic Points Of Interest Look tech, it makes it so that the AI behave more like a regular person on a ship, enabling them to have a personality that reflects how they talk, what they do, and how they interact with players during the campaign.
Every AI on the Idris has a routine, but within that routine they can deviate depending on a number of circumstances such as emergencies, conflict, basic necessities such as eating, sleeping, etc.
When a player leaves the ship for a mission, the ship doesn’t stop working, it continues to function as if the player never existed in the first place, it’s a living breathing world just inside the Idris itself.
With SPOIL the AI are aware of a players presence and depending on the circumstances, may react positive or negative towards a player. The AI will also interact with each other not by script, but by what their sub activities dictate.
A good example of SPOIL tech is an NPC following objects outside of the immediate area such as through an unobstructed window
Bugsmashers! - Fuel Pipe Dream
Star Citizen: Around the Verse - Los Angeles Studio Update
The community already produces awesome content with what's currently available so this will only push the notch even further!
Also needs I think they won't specifically implement Nvidia Ansel, but that approach would be good.
First footage of the emergency beacon contracts (player-created rescue missions):
Constellation Phoenix (the luxury variant) is looking shiny:
Ships have lost UI elements once everything was converted to Item 2.0, the new displays are coming:
The new space stations under works, boosted in scale by procedural interiors and so:
Lorville (I think):
More improvements on lightning:
It seems there will be trains in locations over just elevators, I think we've saw this type of vehicles in the Hurston Lorville demo last year.
In SQ42, the Shubin station also shows to have a monorail:
The continued armor sets being added to the game are quite cool, would have never expected capes but they added capes, customization shall be fun.
Reverse the Verse LIVE - Production and the RSI Roadmap
Not sure if the description of the mission givers is defining of the type of missions they will give you, having it laid like that would sure be cool tho.