Hey Citizens!  This is the transcript for Around the ‘Verse – Episode 4.  Thanks to /u/Shadow703793 for giving us access to his collection of transcripts.

Weekly Review

• Monthly Newsletter was released
• Gamescom tickets up for sale, almost sold out
• Looking to shoot Around the Verse around Cologne area around Gamescom time
• Trying to get a booth at Gamescom

News from Around the Verse

Arena Commander

• Rolling out more MP slots
• UK Team developing new game mode called New Horizons
• Balancing and fixing bugs on Capture the Core
• Reducing friendly fire hits from the allies
• Audio improvements
• Ship component system being expanded
• Lots of server side fixes

Squadron 42

• Focusing on Mission 4
• Localization improvements
• Multicrew ship Seat Action

Behavior Interactive

• Working on Avatar system
• Working and improving internal development tools
• Heavy UI work on Firing range and MobiGlas
• Asteroid hangar is so close to being done
• Improvements to existing hangars and conversion to the room system
• Next hangar flair item being worked on

Ship Pipeline

• Concept work on 890 Jump was completed
• Updated Avenger with remodel and retexturing, should be in the Hangar soon.
• Cutlass variants already in progress
• Internals on the Idris is getting worked on with main focus on rooms that’ll be used in SQ42
• Constellation variants are ongoing work in progress with focus on damage states and integration of multi-player rooms such as the generator room, cargo space, and more
• Vanduul Bomber concept is completed and moving to production
• Concepts phase for other ships including some unreleased ships players don’t know about
• Expect to see some concepts for the Orion and Carrack sometime in the future

Persistent Universe

• The PU team has been focusing on tools and design for the PU
• First 5 systems are in the work
• Work in progress for the 64 bit CryEngine conversion

Character Creation

• Character customization pipeline is kicking off
• Avatar design and customization ability in progress
• Possible integration of tech from Warhorse

MVP: https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.com/discussion/154478/tribute-music-to-sc#latest

Mark Abent Interview

What has been the most frustrating or most memorable bug you’ve come across so far as a programmer?

There’s a current bug in Multiplayer where the character gets stuck in a funny pose when the player spawns in. This bug seems to happen only at spawn and if the player is lagging. Currently Mark and the other programmers haven’t been able to replicate the bug but QA is able to replicate it.

How many years have you been programming, what languages have you used and what type of programs have you worked on prior to Star Citizen?

Started programming in 1998 by modding Half Life. Mark has worked on Black Mesa Source, then moved on to Insurgency and after that got in to CIG. Marks mainly works with C++ but has worked with Python and Perl.

As a gameplay programmer, my understanding is that your focus is more on the game’s strategy and how to implement the mechanics to create the feel of the game. Chris Roberts has been clear on his vision for SC, to date which part of the vision has been the hardest to get the feel right for the game?

The hardest part is getting the ships to work in multiplayer. Chris’s vision wants very complex interaction with ships which is easy to do in single player, but quite complex in multi-player because you have to take in to account the synching and other backend network stuff.

DFM/AC has been running pretty well and it lead me to wonder how many process threads are used to calculate and simulate the physics related articles in DFM/AC? Ie. Each thruster in use, delta of the player and NPCs, counter inertia from rapid firing of weapons, crashing, etc. Are each of these separated on their own process? Are they grouped?

There are two threads for physics. Any time there’s any physics interaction the game would use one of these threads to execute the job. There’s a main game thread which handles all the game logic for weapons and ships. The thrusters have to be on both the physics and main thread which does cause issues. The main thread handles things like how the thrusters are attached, overheating, weapons detaching, etc. Mark works closely with John Pritchett to sort out the physics and main game thread issues.

10 for the Chairman Logo Contest: https://forums.robertsspaceindustries.com/discussion/156118/10-for-the-chairman-logo-contest

Winner will get a Origin 350R.

Friday Inside CIG: A look inside the Asteroid Hangar with Behavior Interactive.

Nehkara

Founder

Writer and inhabitant of the Star Citizen subreddit.