Happy Wednesday, everyone!
Every two weeks, we accompany the Roadmap update with a brief explanatory note to give you insight into the decision-making that led to any changes. This is part of an effort to make our communications more transparent, more specific, and more insightful for all of you who help to make Star Citizen and Squadron 42 possible.
With that said, let’s go ahead and dive into this week’s Roadmap Roundup!
-CIG Community Team
Notable Changes for May 25, 2022
As we explained in great detail in our latest Letter from the Chairman last week, we're going to update Release View this week to reflect the rollout of key technologies in 2022 as we continue on the road to Alpha 4.0.
First, you'll notice that the 3.18 column has been adjusted to now arrive in Q3 2022. We're aiming to include with the release of Alpha 3.18 the implementation of Persistent Entity Streaming (PES), a core technology that allows for all dynamic objects in Star Citizen to persist across servers and play sessions. A fundamental change to how state is recorded in the persistent universe is going to have a lot of edge cases and issues we have not come across yet or foreseen. Because of this, we are going to be approaching 3.18 differently than our previous releases, as we are anticipating that 3.18 will require a much longer time in the Evocati/PTU testing phase than our previous releases.
The goal will be to get 2-3 months of testing on Alpha 3.18 in PTU for an Alpha 3.18 release to LIVE in late Q3. However, there's still plenty of content on the way in the meantime! This will be released on the current Alpha 3.17 branch in a 3.17.2 update, which is targeting late June. These features will appear on Release View in the existing 3.17 column, currently marked as Tentative until their final reviews are complete. As a reminder, a column encapsulates any incremental patches within that same column. For example, the 3.17 column lists all content coming within that patch cycle, including 3.17.0, 3.17.1, 3.17.2, etc.
Once 3.17.2 is released, testing on 3.18 will commence shortly after. The 3.17 features listed below (save for the first one!) are all targeting this Q2 release.
Additionally, there will be an Alpha 3.19 update at the end of Q4, with a similar testing approach as 3.18 for the initial release of Server Meshing, the Pyro System, and more in Alpha 4.0. Therefore, you'll see the 3.19 column has been updated to release in Q4 2022.
Please let us know if you have any questions on the new release cadence, and be sure to check out the Letter from the Chairman for more details.
Release View
The following cards have been added to Release View:
Drake Mule
Building, implementing, and balancing Drake's cargo vehicle, the Mule, as a game-ready vehicle. This feature has been added to the Alpha 3.17 column.
Illegal Delivery Missions
Implementing illegal variants of delivery missions into the persistent universe, including reputation gains with criminal factions. This feature has been added to the Alpha 3.17 column and is targeting delivery in Q2 in 3.17.2.
AI - Planetary Navigation
This system allows NPCs to move on planetary surfaces using a dynamically generated navigation mesh. This will efficiently process planetary terrain and objects to prioritize the processing of the environment around the players into navmesh, allowing the use of all existing functionalities on planets. The first implementation of this feature will be the Reclaimer Derelict Points of Interest. This feature has been added to the Alpha 3.17 column and is targeting delivery in Q2 in 3.17.2.
Derelict Reclaimer - Points of Interest
Additional points of interest that will be scattered both on planets and in space. They will be derelict Aegis Reclaimers with some type of activity (puzzle, traversal, missions) along with rewards to loot. This feature has been added to the Alpha 3.17 column and is targeting delivery in Q2 in 3.17.2.
Additional Stanton Lagrange Points
Implementing additional reststop locations surrounding microTech and ArcCorp, including both the stations themselves and the gas clouds surrounding them. This feature has been added to the Alpha 3.17 column and is targeting delivery in Q2 in 3.17.2.
Siege of Orison
Implementation of Siege of Orison, a new dynamic event in the persistent universe. Featuring both FPS and flight combat, this new event puts you against Nine Tails to liberate the floating platforms of Orison. This feature has been added to the Alpha 3.17 column and is targeting delivery in Q2 in 3.17.2.
Persistent Entity Streaming
Implementation of the Persistent Entity Streaming core technology into Star Citizen. Making use of services such as the Entity Graph and Replication Layer, this will allow every dynamic object in the game to fully persist across all servers, irrelevant of whether it is owned or held by a player. This feature has been added to the Alpha 3.18 column.
Progress Tracker
The following deliverables, previously Unannounced, have now been revealed on the Progress Tracker:
Drake Mule
Building, implementing, and balancing Drake's cargo vehicle, the Mule, as a game-ready vehicle. This deliverable has been added to the Audio, Narrative, Vehicle Concept Art, Vehicle Content - EU, Vehicle Feature, and VFX teams' schedules.
Anvil Legionnaire
Building, implementing, and balancing Anvil Aerospace's dedicated boarding ship, the Legionnaire, as a game-ready vehicle. This deliverable has been added to the Narrative, Vehicle Concept Art, and Vehicle Content - EU teams' schedules.