Star Citizen Online - The search for more money

Skanda_sl said:

So is there anything more specific about what's in this new module than the few bullet points in that pic?

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Patch : 30 Gb.

Star Citizen Patch 1.2 ? PTU

The Social Module has been released to the PTU, and is now available for player testing. During this initial testing phase, PTU access will be restricted to a small group of players that we will expand on over time. This patch provides access to our first multiplayer planet side environment, ArcCorp?s Area18 landing zone, with all the scenic vistas our team has been hard at work on. This will also include our first iteration of our augmented reality system, emotes and chat system.

Additions:
Gameplay
?The main elevator is now active for all pilot hangars and will allow access to our multiplayer ArcCorp module.
?For Selfland, Revel & York, and Aeroview hangers, you can find the elevator through the double-doors directly behind your character when spawning into the central bay. Once inside, the elevator to ArcCorp is located on your right.
?For VFG Industrial Hanger, you can find the double-doors underneath the platform where your character spawns, across from any ship you currently have in the central bay. Once you?ve passed through the double doors, the elevator to ArcCorp is located on your right.
?During this testing phase of the social module and ArcCorp, characters will now appear in one of six random gear loadouts when they spawn into the Hangar. You can only swap between the six loadouts in the Hangar, via the ?F6? key.
?The available loadouts are Marine Light, Medium, Heavy and Outlaw Light, Medium, Heavy.
?Whatever loadout a character is wearing when they travel to ArcCorp will be retained for the rest of that play session.
User Interface
?The screenshot keybind has been moved to ?Print Screen?. ?F12? is now the toggle for the chat interface.
Gameplay
?Transition animations for moving between standing, crouch and idle have received some minor improvement for a smoother and more realistic experience.
?Jump animations have received some minor improvements for a smoother experience.

Fixes:
Ships ?Fixed a collision issue with the Origin M50 Interceptor that allowed players to see into the ship cockpit from the outside and potentially become stuck.
?Fixed an issue with the Vanduul Glaive, where the pilot hands would not always connect properly with the ship handles and interior components when entering or exiting the ship.
?Fixed an issue with the beds in the Cutlass Black, where your character would teleport outside of the ship when trying to lay down in the starboard bed.
Environment ?A number of collision issues that were allowing characters to clip out of the Revel & York hangar have been resolved.
?A number of collision issues that were allowing characters to clip out of the VFG Industrial Hangar have been resolved.

User Interface
Fixed an issue where graphics in the game options menu would occasionally overlap with each other.
Arena Commander Module:
Fixes:

Gameplay
?Fixed an issue in Arena Commander where hosts were not always being removed from the Lobby when they left the match.
?Fixed an issue in Arena Commander where the host of a game would sometimes not be able to cancel their search due to matchmaking crashing.
?Fixed an issue in Arena Commander where players could be put into a broken lobby if the matchmaking service crashed while they were in a game.
?The HUD colors on the Avenger, Gladiator, Hornet (all variants) and Cutlass (all variants) have been updated to be consistent.
?Fixed an issue where the countermeasure interface on the Mustang HUD (all variants) would overlap with other UI elements.
?Fixed an issue where the Vanduul Glaive designated ?Tank? at the end of Tutorial Chapter 6 would sometimes become immortal.
Social Module

Additions:
Gameplay
?Our first multiplayer planet side environment, the ArcCorp Area 18 Landing Zone, is now available for testing.
?During this testing phase where players will have a shared ?spawn? location, player collision is disabled on ArcCorp.
?The first areas available to explore in ArcCorp include: ?ArcCorp Customs area.
?Medical Bay.
?JobWell, sponsored by the Trade and Development Division of ArcCorp.
?G~Loc Bar.
?Astro-Armada.
?Dumper?s Depot.
?Cubby Blast.

?Some areas of ArcCorp are not available on the PTU during this initial launch. Some of those intentionally off-limits include: ?The Casaba Outlet.
?The Medical Bay Emergency Room.
?The ArcCorp landing pad.
?The elevator to the second floor of Astro-Armada.
?The firing range at Cubby Blast.

?You can return to your Hangar when you?re done exploring ArcCorp, via the transport elevator in ArcCorp customs that you originally arrived in. You can also leave via the ?Return to Hanger? button in the game menu.
?Our first set of fully animated emotes are now available for players to use in ArcCorp and the Hangar.
?The full list of available emotes and their variations can be viewed in the chat interface, via the ??? button.
?Augmented Reality is now available for players to test in ArcCorp. You can access this new functionality via the ?F2? key.
?Our chat interface has launched and is now available for players to use in both ArcCorp and the Hangar. You can bring up the chat interface via ?F12?.
?Players can now chat in our first channel (designated Local at the moment) which is shared between the multiplayer ArcCorp and single player Hangar.

Known Issues:
Gameplay
?Player collision will sometimes disable during game play within ArcCorp
?Players will sometimes appear to T-pose while running upstairs
?Player character animations will sometimes desync between clients
?User Interface
?The chat interface cannot be resized
?Many of the buttons in the chat interface are intentionally grayed out while their functionality is receiving additional polish
?Chat scroll will stop updating when chat is spammed excessively
?Social Module elevator UI will incorrectly display ?Connection Failed? instead of a ?Server Full? message
?Augmented Reality text will sometimes not display other players? names
?Client crash will occur when F12 is spammed excessively to open and close the chat window
?There is only one chat channel across all game modes and instances

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2:18 AM here.....

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Chat is currently totally global. Tomorrow's update will make it global per server instance. Chat channels will come in an update. They're already supported at the network service level, but the user interface doesn't yet expose them.

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I think you may as well allow it. It's a convenience, and if you don't, players will just use TeamSpeak or Skype or their cell phones to communicate in real-time anyways....

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Going into friends hangars will arrive with what I'd call Social Module 2.0. That's the next major milestone, but I'll likely aim to slot a half-point upgrade before that once we've back in the main development stream. Ironically, most of the code to share a friend's hangar is already done. It's just in a different development stream.

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The fun really starts after the Social milestones.... I'll talk about those with the release text for the public launch of the Social Module. The Social milestones are more about laying groundwork and testing base functionality - network functionality and performance, in particular. Two months ago we couldn't put a dozen players into ArcCorp without cratering the frame rate. Now at 25 the bandwidth is irrelevant...and it will be getting much better over the next couple of months. This particular PTU version? It'll be outdated by tomorrow night.

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The PU's efforts are currently focused on network optimizations for FPS players and characters. Ship optimizations will require a separate effort. It's likely we'll focus on that after getting the character stuff working really well.

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You'll likely see a grabby hands update with the AI Module, or possibly the earlier Character Customization Module where you'll be able to change your clothing.

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Clothing customization will come first. Facial and body customization will come a bit later. The exact elements haven't yet been decided, but the basic thinking is that you'll be able to select your sex, possibly some level of height/weight, hair, skin tone, facial texture, possibly eyes and nose, likely distinguishing marks (like scars), and other such things.

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Unknown at this point, honestly. My preference is to usually go with the base functionality first and then build upon it. So...I'd aim to get the basic facial customization stuff in as soon as possible and release it, and then just add the ability to customize additional stuff later....

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My favorite will be the AI Module.

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I'm predominantly focused on what we can realistically deliver over the next twelve months. It's a rolling window, so in six months I'll be worried about what we can deliver 18 months from now. PU Alpha is too vague. It means different things to different people. The schedule is broken down into PU milestones, each of which focuses on different parts of the basic foundation that's needed for the ultimate game. I'll touch on that a bit with the release text for the Social Module release to the general community. The problem with "PU Alpha" is...can you shop? How are the prices and availability determined? What will the TDD pay for your commodities? Can you mine? What other types of missions are available? Is there AI? To what level exactly - walking around shops? Available for hire? Piloting ships in capacities other than combat pilots? Etc. etc.. It's impossible to try and describe an alpha in a couple of sentences without everyone having a different idea of what's going to be delivered. I'm going to try and add some more specificity to the near-term goals with the text for the Social Module release to the general public.

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Yes, tons of work done on NPC blending and interpolation with the new network optimizations to achieve that.

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The networking could easily handle 50 players at the moment. It's the graphics performance that's the limiting factor. That graphics performance will take a substantial leap forward as soon as we're back in the "GameDev" stream. It's a long story, but basically Star Citizen split the code base into streams for Star Marine, and we had to do the Social Module in 1.2.0 - which doesn't have access to the latest graphics stuff - because that's where GIM was, and we had to do GIM in 1.2.0 with Star Marine because it needed a more robust matchmaker. That said...obviously we've got loads of low-res LODs to help cope, and the zone system will cull characters very efficiently.

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Merging 1.2.0 and GameDev is a huge priority. It's a long story, but basically the code base split when Star Marine was supposed to launch, and most of the main (not FPS specific) development occurs in the GameDev stream. We had to launch the Social Module from 1.2.0 - without the benefit of a lot of cool stuff in GameDev - because we needed GIM and the other updated networking tech, and that had specifically been done in 1.2.0 for the benefit of Star Marine. So...long story short...we'll take a quantum leap once we're back in GameDev.

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Casaba is still being modified, so we just closed it off rather than show something that wasn't quite ready. ArcCorp is actually getting a facelift as well. The store facades will look much better in the near future...the main building below Astro Armada will get a big bump in its visuals...and we'll go to lower-poly but parallax occlusion mapped objects to get better performance while maintaining high visual fidelity.

The area just past Dumper's Depot ends at a fence. You'll be able to go past that eventually. The area to the left of Casaba and heading away from the Skywalk ends at a fence. You'll be able to go past that as well.

Report all issues you find in the PTU. We'll fix as many as possible this week.

Terra Prime's main "city" takes place on external levels of a huge (probably 0.75 mile or so) skyscraper. Terra Prime is so large that we're focusing on some smaller cities first - the so-called First Five.

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?They are planning a rollout of a lot of features soon, with daily PTU updates, and at least two LARGE updates of the Social Module this year, with many more smaller ones in between.
?The Current Arccorp space in the PTU is about a third of the final size of Arccorp. There are two fenced off areas that nobody can access yet (although by the time I post this I'm guessing someone will have figured out how to clip through).
?The Size of Terra Prime will be THREE times the size of any other planetary landing zone. Initially 3 maps stitched together, eventually seamless without any loading.
?Nyx should be in by October or so (No promises), and temporarily your elevator will have magic planet-hopping powers. Tardis!
?Current plan is to roll out PTU invites for Social Module over this week, hopefully getting everybody in by Friday, but no promises.
?First Five systems confirmed. PU Alpha mentioned by Tony Z, but he also noted that the definition of "PU Alpha" varies by individual. Stand by for clarification.
?Expect a big Commlink post from Tony Z sometime soon going into expectations for the Social Module.
?Bounty Hunting and Piracy commlink articles from Tony Z sometime in the future.
?CIG requests that we do NOT share media/pictures/videos/streams of the PTU just yet.
?Tony Z asks that we submit bug reports as much as possible. Current bugs found include a falling through the map bug near the M50 and clipping through some objects, as well as gamepads being able to go prone (it's supposed to be disabled).
?Josh (Of commlink "Sweet!" fame) was the first Citizen on Arccorp, and possibly the first to submit a bug report (the M50 clipping bug). Congrats.
?Tony Z mentions that they are definitely pushing for "more than 50" people in an instance. This was in reference to the Social Module. Not sure if applies to space instances.
?Tony Z is expected to drop in chatroll throughout this week. Drop by and have good questions ready!

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Itzena_sl said:

BTW if anyone here still has skin in this particular game: Sell.Now.

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Quaid_sl said:

Star Citizen Controversy Reaches a Boiling Point | Featured Articles | The Escapist

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Zyke_sl said:

Are people in here suggesting Derek Smart should be taken seriously in any way? Lol. Even forgetting star citizen the guy is a complete failure of a human being.

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