CIG have been really busy with the recent release of Alpha 3.0 for public testing. But their work on bug fixing and addressing other feedback hasn’t slowed down other plans. As the batch of news released this weekend shows, CIG is full steam ahead on a variety of projects.
First and foremost is progress for Cloud Imperium Games’ CitizenCon fan convention this year. CIG will be heading over to Germany on 27 October for the Star Citizen CitizenCon event.
Assuming you can’t pop over to Germany for this event, CitizenCon 2947 will be live streamed starting at 14:30 Frankfurt time on 27 October. The event will begin its broadcast at 14:30 local time and at 15:00 the CitizenCon opening address will take place. This will include words from “noted luminaries on what it means to be a citizen in today’s Empire”. Between 15:30 local time and 20:30 there will be five presentations described as follows:
Featuring many of the greatest minds from across the UEE, experience panels on the most recent ground-breaking research and technological trends in the fields of kinesiology, xeno-linguistics, privatized colonization and more with a special address by Innovator of the Year Silas Koerner and an inspiring look at the spacecraft being hailed as a “game changer.
At 21:00 local time the CitizenCon keynote address will take place and this will “strive to get at the heart of why exploring our universe is so important, and how each of us can be a part of it”. Whatever that means.
For local time zones, this is how it looks and it’s going to be a very early start for US viewers and a late start for the Aussies.
Doors Open 2:00PM Frankfurt / 5AM PT / 7AM CT / 8AM ET / 1PM GMT / 11PM AET
Steam Start 2:30PM Frankfurt / 5:30AM PT / 7:30AM CT / 8:30AM ET / 1:30PM GMT / 11:30PM AET
Opening Addresss 3:00PM Fankfurt / 6:00AM PT / 8:00AM CT / 9:00AM ET / 2:00PM BST / 12:00AM AET (Saturday)
Five Presentations 3:30PM Fankfurt / 6:30AM PT / 8:30AM CT / 9:30AM ET / 2:30PM BST / 12:30AM AET (Saturday)
Opening Addresss 9:00PM Fankfurt / 12:PM PT / 2:00PM CT / 3:00PM ET / 8:00:PM BST / 6:00AM AET (Saturday)
Sadly, it isn’t all good news for Star Citizen fans when it comes to CitizenCon, with Star Citizen CitizenCon kicking off on 27 October, it looks like there will be no footage of the single-player campaign Squadron 42 at the event again this year. CIG is still battling the bugs of 3.0 with the Evocati testing group, and with 3.0 still not having a final release date, it’s not a huge surprise they are not ready to show any Squadron 42. CitizenCon will focus on 3.0 and beyond.
Chris Roberts had the following to say about delays for Squadron 42:
“Squadron 42 will be the focus of our Holiday Livestream in December, where we will preview some gameplay and share our roadmap for its completion.
We have a large team working on Squadron 42 and we’ve been making good progress towards achieving my goal to take the Wing Commander style narrative experience to the next level with first-person gameplay that moves between foot, vehicles and incredible locations all rendered with a fluidity and quality that you normally only see in pre-rendered cinematic scenes. I am confident it is going to be worth the wait; a game that can hold its own with any other AAA story game.
I am excited to show you some of this in December.”
Let’s just hope fans can keep their anticipation below a fever pitch and prevent a riot over these delays.
And last but not least, we have the newest Around the Verse video released by CIG. This newest release focuses on optimizations of the damage modeling and combat engine for Star Citizen. The team is also working on overall improvements to animation to make the game more immersive. Check it out:
What this means is that EVERY action you take in the game would be reflected by a corresponding animation in-game. At least that’s the plan.
To improve the animations across the entire game will require a huge amount of work as each animation will have to be tuned with the g-force simulation and modeling engine that governs the entire experience. If everything works out, players will see their characters reacting in real-time to the forces being applied to them. So every bullet impact or turn of your ship will be felt by the player. Needless to say, it’s quite ambitious and will take a long time to implement these and other changes across all the ships and systems already in the game, and that’s to say nothing of new features and ships that will inevitably be added.
The team will also introduce directional damage to cockpits, so if the right flank of your ship is damaged then you’ll see smoke, sparks and air escaping from that side. And while the current damage indicators are simply on/off (i.e. smoke or no smoke), the developers are working on effects that change based on the damage you take. If your ship’s about to blow up, your vision might be completely obscured.
Players can also expect the feedback in-game within the cockpit to be very much improved. Flashing lights and klaxons will go off when you take severe damage, for example.
I’m sincerely hoping that CIG can pull this level of detail off with some degree of success, because Star Citizen will be all the more amazing for it.
