The March Monthly Report came out yesterday, and if you don’t want to sift through it to find the important bits, here they are:

March Monthly Report Recap

 CIG Santa Monica

Engineering

• 1.1.0 released
• New landing mechanic implemented
• New ship damage system debuted on Gladius
• Moving toward physics based damage system   

Design

• REC, Retaliator, Gladius, Vanguard introduced   
• Working on rear seat functionality
• Pirate Swarm game mode in progress
• “Types of ships, AI skill, and number of ships scale dynamically based off the number of [human] players, their equipment, and their skill/success.”

Art

• 8 character models being reworked for FPS module
• Development of new ships, weapons continues
• Concepts for “larger” ships will be debuted Soon™    
• Herald, P-52 Merlin, and Xi’an Scout work is ongoing
• Constellation/Freelancer rewords will debut with multi-crew AC functionality   

CIG Austin

Persistent Universe Team:

Art

• “Hero” props in the works
• Things like “hulking radar dishes and solar panels for space stations, holo-object viewing kiosks for our shop locations, and the Medical Display Carousel prop which features prominently in the Medical Unit”
• Improving FPS props and characters for FPS module
• Working on different aesthetics for NPCs in different locations
• Terra = white collar, Frontier = counter culture, etc.
• Colonialist, Monumentalist, Hennowist, and Streamline  architectural styles are being worked on for various locales
• Gladiator animations, drunk animations, and “grabby hands” animations being worked on
• mobiGlas prop receiving some love

Design

• SXSW video was big focus this month
• Thruster calculator work for balancing ships is ongoing

Engineering

• Progress made on multiplayer hangars, player persistence, universe simulator, and more
• Network Summit in Austin was a global affair
• AI editors, asset tools being worked on by “unsung heroes” of Star Citizen
• Green beer was ingested

Live Operations:

QA

• Testing 1.1 and FPS
• “QA has implemented regular comprehensive performance testing to help developers investigate optimization improvements for the game.”

Game Support

• Game Support team created:
• Sounds like a team focused on quickly communicating with the community and making sure players are getting the best experience.   

IT/Operations

• Dozens of demo computers prepared for live events
• Successfully reduced the time it takes to move data from build system to all dev locations

Dev Ops

• Prototype launcher/patching system is getting attention
• Working on MP stability in 1.1
• Lots of developments to things like Build Server, crash handlers, etc.

Foundry 42

Engineering

• Multiplayer free flight mode introduced
• Tutorial system coming with AC release in April  F42 now helping with AI development

Design

• Prepping for April motion capture shoot
• Casting is completed with “some very exciting actors now becoming part of Star Citizen”
• Art Ship team is growing
• A couple annoying bugs are holding back the tutorial
• First pass at multi cree lobby design and scoring system

Audio

• WWISE integration reaching final stage
• This will allow “sonic events”
• Jump in audio quality should be appreciable
• Foley session coming up
• Looking for ideas for ‘Dev Diaries’ from CIG audio

Art

• Working on ARGO, gun attachments, Starfarer modules, Bengal interior, etc.
• Tackling “style inconsistencies” in Idris

Ship Team

• In the process of producing a couple of the biggest ships in the game
• Capships being built out modularly
• Currently setting up modular systems and blocking out interior for Starfarer   

FPS

• Weapon pipeline and schedule being completely revised for 2015
• Revisiting older weapons so they adhere to higher standard that has been set since

VFX Team

• Gladiator flight effects in-progress (thrusters, weapons, power plants, etc.)
• Style guides for human ship manufacturers are pretty much nailed down
• Vanduul style guide is next   
• R&D for complicated effects like large electrical storms

Characters

• Facial scanning rig in UK being prepped

BHVR 

Design

• More locations integrated in ArcCorp and Terra
• Augmented reality shopping is improving
• Holo-table revamp is ongoing
• Double monocles were proposed; friendships were ruined in the ensuing debate   
• More subscriber goodies planned for coming months
• Engineering
• Chat implementation is ongoing

Art

• Work on new section of Nyx has begun.
• April flair finished, next flair “is going to look really cool in your hangars!”   
• mobiGlas UI changes depending on the store you’re in
• Refining AC menu flow

Illfonic

Engineering

• Push/pull system work continues
• Implementation of partial ragdoll system that blends in and out of animations has begun
• SATA Ball game mode
• Two new weapons hooked up

Art

• One of the FPS levels is basically finished
• Other level is being reworked for more depth and readability

Design

• Prototyping SATA ball
• Play-testing weapon feel

VFX

• Standardizing effects across ships and FPS weapons
• Small laser weapons should be similar in effect to larger scale laser weapons

Turbulent 

Electronic Access and the REC System

• REC system allows testing of future persistent systems
• REC will be extended to cover FPS module

Home

• New homepage design is coming up, has entered QA phase

Starmap

• Design considerations for things like undiscovered areas

CCU’s! 

• Aware of convoluted nature of cross-chassis upgrades
• “Our current thinking is to allow you to upgrade by either starting with a ship you own or by choosing the ship you want to ugprade to. Both ways should be possible.”   

Moon Collider 

Design

• Design and implementation of “navigation objects” was a big focus
• Helps with AI pathfinding
• Very basic implementation is done
• Job system to maximize use of parallel processors

Engineering

• Local navigation grids getting work; these allow AI pathfinding in a barrel-rolling Connie, for example

Community

• Working on plans for Gamescom and Citizen Con
• 800,000 citizens!
• New RSI Instagram