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3.0.0 Overview

The following lists and charts show our progress towards releasing 3.0.0, with all remaining major tasks listed. 3.0.0 marks the next major step forward in realizing the vision of the Star Citizen Persistent Universe. As you’ll see from the sections below, there’s a lot of new content and underlying tech being worked on for this release which will enhance the experience of our players.

Tasks are either feature complete, or have an ETA for completion. It’s important to remember that some tasks may require further QA, bug-fixing and iteration. Tasks that delay beyond our target dates might cause the release of 3.0.0 to be delayed, or might be excluded from 3.0.0 if appropriate to maintain the release date target. 3.0.0 work is separated into Subsections: Persistent Universe Content, FPS / Space Gameplay, Engineering, UI, AI, Graphics, Backend, Network, and Ships & Weapons.

The 3.0.0 Procedural Planet update marks a major advance in the Star Citizen Persistent Universe. As you’ll see below, the new content and underlying tech in this release which will greatly enhance player experience.

You will notice that there have been some significant changes to the UI schedule, which have impacted feature work dates. The goal is to add additional features that will enhance the UI experience for new players with 3.0.0. We’ve adjusted the Live date projection to be a date range rather than a hard date and we will continue to revise as the development process continues. We know it’s never easy to see a schedule change, but we believe it’s important to be as open about the process as possible.

We have also divided up the list of currently completed features from the top of the page and moved them to their relevant subsections below.

Planetary Update

Yela

Yela is the most frigid of the Crusader moons. Those bold (or careless) enough to step outside without a spacesuit will be killed instantly by its freezing temperatures. If the cold doesn’t kill you, than any of the treacherous crevasses that crisscross the planet might. Cyrovolcanos have been known to erupt unexpectedly from such crevasses, so be wary when flying at low altitudes. Despite all its danger, there is much beauty to be found on Yela, like the underwater caves hidden beneath the moon’s crust.

Cellin

Burning with volcanic activity, Cellin is the counter to her icy sister. Although the volcanoes have been dormant for hundreds of years, the surface is dotted with thermal geysers that erupt without notice. The largest of such geysers can destroy heavy vehicles. Highly corrosive clouds of gas are regularly released from the moon’s surface, creating low visibility and damaging anything caught outside.

Daymar

Daymar’s surface is like a harmonic blend of Yela and Cellin. It’s mountainous surface is reminiscent of Cellin’s volcanoes, while its craters share a warm likeness to Yela’s frozen crevessases. Known for its dense atmosphere, thick fog and a loose dirt surface makes travel difficult. Lightning storms can help illuminate the fog, just don’t get struck by their flash.

Remaining Aims for 3.0.0 Release

Persistent Universe Content

Moons

We are adding 3 new moons to the Crusader system; Yela, Cellin, and Daymar

Feature Complete

Surface Outposts

The new moons will also have outposts on their surface for you to explore

ETA is 2nd June

Mission Givers

We’re introducing Miles Eckhart(first seen in the Gamescom video)and Ruto to provide missions to players

ETA is 12th May

Derelict Ships

Derelict ships will be added to the system for extra points of interest and exploration

ETA is 26th May

Debris Fields

To accompany the derelict ships, there will also be debris fields within the system

ETA is 26th May

Delamar / Levski (STRETCH GOAL)

We are adding the planet Delamar and the landing zone, Levski

ETA is 1st June

Already complete in the 3.0.0 branch:

Modular Room System for procedural generation of planetary outposts

Official Outpost Spawning System ready for mission designers

Integrated Outpost distribution to PlanetEd

Single outpost Object Preset

Cluster of Outposts

Crash site mission

Interface to hand place modules and save to Layer

Interface to teleport the camera to the closest outpost

Area boxes created by artists (all room sizes are now usable in the outpost procedural system)

Entrance Room system working (stairs and ramps are now available as initial rooms)

Rooftop Prop system working for Solar panel

Wall prop system working for additional prop variations

Material Wear/Dirt on props using Layer Blend done and actually working

Developed Outpost “feet” system

Set random rotation and offset caps on planet editor

Start documenting 3 possible map layouts looping system (using 2 or 4 meters metrics * system; using connection additional corridor pieces; using spline skinned corridors)

Support Aircon/solar panel system on outposts

Added color tinting to Outposts

Added color tinting interface to Planet Ed

Created material distinction for interior / exteriors

Group elements offset in Planet Object Preset to be able to offset landing pads

New Assets:

Heavy Marine Armor

Explorer Suit Armor

Cloth and Clothing simulation on various assets old and new

Updated helmet interiors and exterior for updated art, FOV tech and standardization

Armor converted to work within modular customization structure

Finalized delivery of ALL facial assets from 3lateral.

Ships:

New Skinning and Rigging tools for landing gear on ships.

Constellation Cargo Bay/Elevator extensions

Light Group entity optimization

Gameplay

Player Manned Turrets

ETA is 8th June

Pick Up & Carry

As we’re introducing cargo with 3.0.0, players will be able to manually interact with their cargo to load and unload it properly on their ships.

ETA is 25th May

Item 2.0 Ship Conversion – Part 1

We are beginning the process of converting our available ships over to the item 2.0 system. This will allow for greater player control of the ship and also allow for expanded gameplay.

ETA is 1st June

Item 2.0

Operator Seats.

ETA is 24th May

Radar System

ETA is 5th May

Feature Complete

Light Control System.

Feature Complete

Fuel / Refuel.

Feature Complete

Power Supply / Pipes.

Feature Complete

Quantum Drive.

Converting the quantum drive to Item 2.0 as part of the more general Item 2.0 process. This will also allow us to build more gameplay around quantum travel.

Pushed to accommodate changes with UI

Date has been moved to accommodate revisions and feedback following a design review.

ETA is 5th May (was 18th April)

ETA is 12th May (was 5th May)

Insurance

This will be an alpha version of the insurance system where if your current ship becomes damaged beyond repair, you will be able to request a replacement ship (with basic loadout) from the insurance provider.

The Persistence tasks that create the base for the insurance system are not at a place where work on this feature can be started just yet.

ETA is 12th May (was 5th May)

Stamina

We are introducing the concept of stamina in to 3.0.0, this will mean that actions will have consequences. For instance, continuing to sprint will drain the stamina of your character, causing loss of breath and difficulty in aiming a weapon.

ETA is 31st May

Doors & Airlocks

We are starting to update the doors and airlocks within the game to be more intelligent. In time, this would mean that the door would ‘know’ if a room beyond them is depressurised and would stay shut for safety

ETA is 31st May

Cargo

Commodities bought using the kiosk will be transportable in the cargo holds of vehicles, to be sold in another location.

ETA is 2nd June

Commodities

Implementing items to represent units of tradeable cargo.

ETA is 19th May

Kiosk Support

Support UI on kiosks for buying and selling of cargo.

ETA is 1st June

Atmospheric Entry Support

Adding VFX and Turbulence to atmospheric entry

Feature Complete

ETA is 5th May

Persistent Damage, Ammo and Missiles

Persistence ensures that your vehicle state is saved between sessions.

ETA is 26th May

Repair

Improvements to our repair system to support our persistence model.

ETA is 2nd June

Inventory System Support

The inventory will offer a way to manage the cargo and commodities that are being carried by the ships a player owns.

ETA is 1st June

Already complete in the 3.0.0 branch:

Crusader Converted to Object Container Setup

With the transition to Object Containers, the Crusader map was completely re-designed. Each Point of Interest is now an object container laid out via the Solar System Editor. This is in preparation for Object Container streaming and seamless transitions from different POI’s and between Star Systems. Mission Flowgraphs are converted over to use Subsumption and the new Mission System.

Mega Map for Persistent Universe

Mega Map tech (also used in Crusader for seamless loading between different gamemodes) is now possible in the new PU map, which is setup in the Solar System Editor. This allows the utilization of Mega Map technology.

Revamp of Power Plants / Shield Generators / Coolers and the Heat & Power System for improved gameplay and conversion to Item 2.0

Core Tech

Planetary Tech

The Physics Grid for planets and the modular space stations.

ETA is 31st May

Solar System Tool

ETA is 31st May

Entity Update Component Scheduler

Will allow lower priority entities (i.e. those further away from players) to be updated less frequently, which should improve the overall framerate and allow us to add more content to the universe.

ETA is 31st May

Entity Owner Manager

The Entity Owner Manager will track entities that are moved around the universe, making sure we spawn and unspawn them at the correct time

ETA is 29th May

Already complete in the 3.0.0 branch:

New Radar Databank

Subsumption Base Functionality

This is the initial release of the foundation technology that drives all of the AI, mission, dynamic content, and conversation logic. The mission content previously created with FlowGraph has been replaced and the implementation time to achieve a desired effect has been cut dramatically.

Various Performance improvements

Planetary Physics Grid to support orbiting and rotating planets

Multi-Function Display implementation for Item 2.0 Components on ships

IFCS improvements to support AI & Takeoff System

Unified Visor for seamless Ship 2.0 / FPS transition

HUD/Visor integration for new Radar Databank

Object Distribution

Terrain / Object blending for soft natural transition of objects intersecting with the ground

Video codec updated to Bink2, providing higher fidelity at lower bitrate

Vehicles no longer use Lua

This is a huge step forward on the code side.

Skeleton Extension support for Item Port Offset overrides per item

Numerous types of physics simulation for all Item 2.0 attachments including hair, weapons, grenades and more.

Destructible component for items, props and environment assets

Nested Physics Grids support for vehicle transportation inside large ships, i.e. DragonFly & Rover

Physics simulation gravity vector now respects planetary gravity

Modular loadouts rule sets and support for up to five loadouts

Animation driven facial audio implemented

Updated Sandbox Editor Python integration.

Zone culling on all character assets and layers, system complete and mesh markup complete supplemented with tools to easily support new assets.

Solar System Editor

A tool that will layout entire solar system with their astral objects (sun, planets moons) as well as space stations, etc.

New Light Controller for runtime light switches

New network message queue (current in QATR) to reduce network bandwidth and network thread time.

Light Entity Render node merging.

Dynamic Physics Grid to support sparse space areas vs. dense areas like space stations.

Highly optimized vertex and position format for all geometry

Texture memory usage reduced across the project

Unified material libraries for use across all departments

Comparing and finding all duplicated normal maps and albedo maps in the LayerBlend texture library

Clean up LayerBlend Material Libraries, Resolution Adjustments, Renames to Lower Case

Follow-ups on list of unused textures and materials

Massively improved LOD computation and average face sizes for ships

Shared hair assets (instead of bespoke asset per head) for character creation

Automated facial asset LODs, skinning algorithm per LOD updated.

Reworked mesh setup of facial assets for optimal performance and reduced drawcalls.

Unified helmet and character mesh into singular render proxy for better performance and visuals.

Various portal and culling improvements.

Improved Animation Data Base collection and build process for optimized animation data streaming also added external tools to manage this.

Deprecated thousands of legacy and test assets including animations, geometry, libraries and more for reduced build size.

Automatic Asset Error collection and tracking.

Reworked itemport layout for characters and character items

Updated all assets using HumanSkin to highly optimized HumanSkinv2 shader. This saves upwards of a 100 megs of texture memory per face.

Vastly improved memory allocator which allowed massive reduction in runtime allocation count

Several significant optimizations to entity update code

As you will see, the UI schedule has undergone some significant changes to accommodate some new features designed to enhance the player experience. The following schedule and dates will be used as the new baseline for the UI schedule, the previous completion dates have been included to indicate the change.

Kiosk UI

Kiosk shopping will allow players to buy and sell various commodities with the gameworld to vendors throughout the universe

This date should now be a more accurate representation as further investigations revealed more tasks required for this.

ETA is 10th May (was 4th May)

Item 2.0 Multi Function Displays

MFDs are being converted to work in the new item 2.0 system to give pilots even more control of their ships.

ETA is 26th May

ETA is 5th June (was 26th May)

Field of View Slider

This will allow players to narrow or widen the field of view to their liking.

ETA is 5th May

ETA is 24th May (was 5th May)

Character Customization

*Players will now be able to customize their characters’ heads, hair, eye color, and skin color.

ETA is 31st May

ETA is 22nd June (was 31st May)

Personal Manager App

This App will allow players to review their inventory and customize various aspects of their suit and weapons.

ETA is 23rd May

ETA is 8th June (was 23rd May)

Mission Manager App

This is a redesign of the Mission App that is currently available within mobiGlas and is the next step in allowing players more control over their mission tracking.

This is a redesign of the Mission App that is currently available within mobiGlas and is the next step to allow players more control over their mission tracking.

Revised date based on updated completion date of the Kiosk UI. This work will be started after the Kiosk UI is complete.

ETA is 19th May (was 16th May)

ETA is 2nd June (was 19th May)

Cargo Manifest App

After buying items at a Kiosk, players will be able to head to their ship and check their cargo manifest.

After buying items at a Kiosk, players will be able to head to their ship and check their cargo manifest. This incorporates the work that was previously accounted for in the “Cargo UI” task.

ETA is 1st June

ETA is 6th June (was 1st June)

Vehicle Customizer App – NEW Feature

This app will allow players to customize their ship via the ship customization screen, so edits can be done without locating the exact port on the ship.

ETA is 28th June

Ship Selector App – NEW Feature

This app would replace the ship selection terminals within the Persistent Universe, allowing players more freedom in spawning ships at designated locations.

ETA is 12th June

Heavy Armor for Star Marine – NEW Feature

Heavy armor will be enabled for selection within the Star Marine loadout customization menu.

ETA is 9th June

Insurance – NEW Feature

With this first implementation of insurance, when a player’s ship is destroyed they will be able to request a replacement version from their insurance provider

ETA is 15th June

Inventory System

Very closely linked to the cargo manifest App. This will be the place to look for you personal inventory.

ETA is 2nd June

ETA is 6th June (was 2nd June)

Mission Board App

The mission board allows players to see the service beacons that have been set up around the universe by other players calling for assistance.

ETA is 1st June

StarMap App

The Starmap will be introduced to allow players to view the PU at large and select planets to QT to.

ETA is 12th May

ETA is 11th May (was 12th May)

UI Owner Component

This is an underlying framework that will be used for the player manager App, cargo, and the Kiosk.

This has been delayed slightly due to the engineer being pulled off to accommodate other requests.

ETA is 4th May (was 28th April)

ETA is 4th May

CARGO UI

mobiGlas Overhaul

UI interface for the cargo system

The UI team doing an overhaul of the mobiGlas system so that it better reads what the gamecode is doing. This change will make the mobiGlas system easier to maintain for the UI team and has become a necessity as 3.0.0 work has progressed further.

ETA is 1st June

ETA is 2nd June (was 6th June)

mobiGlas Overhaul (STRETCH GOAL)

The UI team are planning an overhaul of the mobiGlas system so that it better reads what the gamecode is doing. This change will make the mobiGlas system as a whole easier to maintain for the UI team

ETA is 6th June

Mission System

The overall system that will be used to create mission flows when we start building missions like Patrol, Assassination, Smuggling, etc.

ETA is 31st May

AI Turrets

We are adding the ability for AI to operate turrets in Crusader, so we are working to make sure that they track and fire upon the correct targets.

ETA is 8th May

Graphics

Render to Texture

This will have many uses going forwards, but our focus for now is to improve UI rendering and to introduce live rendering of video communications. We’re aiming to improve rendering performance by rendering as much of the UI ahead of a frame. For video communications, this will mean that we don’t have to pre-render the comms and store those files on the hard drive, as is the case with most games, allowing us to maintain fidelity and save hard drive space.

ETA is 24th May

Environment Probe

This allows for bounced lighting and reflections to be updated dynamically and will result in better lighting visuals.

ETA is 2nd June

Atmospheric Entry

With 3.0.0 players will have the chance to land on astral bodies, which, in some cases, will involve passing through the atmosphere. Our graphics team are working on the tech that will make this feel as satisfying as possible for the player piloting the ship.

Feature Complete

ETA is 5th May

Volumetric Fog

ETA is 9th May (was 14th April)

GPU Particles

Feature Complete

Engine Trails & Contrails

Build issues have stopped the VFX team from being able to work on the contrails, so they have moved to other tasks in the meantime

ETA is 26th May (was 28th April)

Already complete in the 3.0.0 branch:

RenderTarget refactor

This saves over 50% of the video memory previously used for dynamic textures.

Physically-based area lights

Shadow map caching system

This allows for many more shadow casting lights at once and avoids the need for baking shadows.

Revamped decal rendering system which renders fully deferred, instanced decals with aggressive overdraw optimizations

Backend

Diffusion Subset for 3.0.0

Diffusion is our second-generation cloud-oriented back-end service architecture. It dramatically simplifies the effort required to implement, maintain, and interact with services, while simultaneously providing major enhancements in the areas of scalability and redundancy.

ETA is 16th June

Solar System Shop Service

The Solar System Shop Service dictates what retail products, natural resources, and services shops are willing to buy and sell. It also decides their current level of inventory and prices, all of which may vary over time. It acts as an intermediary between the game and the back end simulation/rule set.

Required tasks are talking slightly longer to complete that anticipated

Additional recently discovered key elements need moving into Diffusion allowing the completion of this task.

ETA is 5th May (was 21st April)

ETA is 12th May (was 5th May)

Solar System Mission Service

The Solar System Mission Service dictates what missions are being offered at various locations and at what price. It is also responsible for specifying when and where dynamic content should be instantiated and how it should be customized. That way, the reality players see matches what it should in that area, based upon hints provided by the back end simulation/rule set. This service will split into two for 3.1, with the latter functionality becoming the responsibility of a dedicated Dynamic Content Service.

ETA is 12th May

Network

New Message Queue

Now that all our message are strictly ordered we’ve been able to really streamline the processing, allowing us to send and recieve messages with less overhead. The new message queue also has a few extra features to better handle packet loss and jitter, helping reduce average bandwidth and latency.

ETA is 22nd May

Physics Serialization

This will fix a few long standing threading issues between then network and physics code. Improves separation of physics and netcode for better maintainability.

ETA is 18th May (was 12th May)

Persistent Data Refactor

The expanding capabilities of persistent data to support gameplay features in 3.0.0 has required the Network team to work on this refactor

ETA is 19th June

Network Bind/Unbind (STRETCH GOAL)

Eliminate network updates for entities far away from clients. Should greatly reduce the amount of work the netcode has to do, helping improve server performance. A greater proportion of client bandwidth will be spent on entities close to the client.

This feature has been moved out of 3.0.0 in order to make way for the Persistent Data Refactor

ETA is 30th June (was 26th June)

Ships & Weapons

Drake Dragonfly

A short-range open canopy craft capable of space and ground flight.

ETA is 12th May

Drake Cutlass Black

Rework of the legacy ship

ETA is 26th May

RSI Constellation Aquilla

The newest available flight-ready variant of the Constellation series.

ETA is 12th May

RSI Ursa Rover

Ground exploration vehicle.

ETA is 26th May

MISC Prospector

Single-seater mining craft.

ETA is 5th May

The Tech Art team have encountered some bugs that are awaiting code support to address

ETA is 12th May (was 5th May)

Behring P8-SC

An SMG for mid-range fighting that provides a high rate of fire.

A few remaining bugs with this weapon have delayed final sign off

ETA is 4th May (was 27th April)

Apocalypse Arms Scourge Rail Gun

A shoulder mounted railgun capable of providing high levels of damage at a long range.

ETA is 14th June

Completion on UI tech has moved up the completion date for this weapon.

ETA is 8th June (was 14th June)

Klaus and Werner Gallant Rifle

Rework of the legacy weapon.

Review scheduling issues have delayed the completion date of this weapon

Feedback provided by Directors on the Devastator Shotgun highlighted issues that need to be reworked, which has pushed this date out due to shared resources

ETA is 18th May (was 4th May)

ETA is 24th May (was 18th May)

Arrowhead Sniper Rifle

Rework of the legacy weapon.

Reload changes on several weapons have required rigging and skinning updates which caused a bottleneck with Tech Art.

Feedback provided by Directors on the Devastator Shotgun highlighted issues that need to be reworked, which has pushed this date out due to shared resources

ETA is 1st June (was 18th May)

ETA is 8th June (was 1st June)

KSAR Devastator-12 Shotgun

Rework of the legacy weapon.

ETA is 25th May

Feedback provided by Directors highlighted issues that need to be reworked, which has pushed this date out and affected the Arrowhead, and Gallant.

ETA is 8th June (was 25th May)

Beyond 3.0.0 - Overview

3.1.0 Goals

PERSISTENT UNIVERSE CONTENT

New Additions:

Modular Space Station – Truckstop

Arc Corp / Area 18

FPS / SPACE GAMEPLAY

New Additions:

Female Player Locomotion

AI Locomotion

Shouldered Weapons

Throwable Weapons

Armed (FPS Weapon Equipped)

Fists

Knife

Take down (Front, Sides, Rear)

Knockdown and Knockbacks

CORE DEV TECH AND SYSTEMS

New Additions:

Fuel (Item 2.0)

Criminality System

Room System v2 (Physical Depressurization)

Item 2.0 Elevators v2

Item 2.0 Airlocks v2

Diffusion Refactor

Item Degradation/Failure/Luck

Service Beacon v1

Parties and Orgs(Group Entity Component)

Game persistence

Spectrum Integration in game

Repair and Restock System

Elevators v2

Bind / Unbinding

Object Container Streaming Core Engine Support

Ships:

MISC Razor

RSI Aurora (Update)

ANVIL Terrapin

MISC Hull C

DRAKE Cutlass Red

DRAKE Cutlass Blue

AEGIS Vanguard Harbinger (Variant)

3.2.0 Goals

PERSISTENT UNIVERSE CONTENT

New Additions:

Crusader

Hurston

MicroTech (Stretch Goal)

FPS / SPACE GAMEPLAY

New Additions:

New Ammo Types

Gadgets (drones / shields)

Bumps

Coperative Avoidance

Downed

Drowning

Item Inspection

Looting IK / Permissions

CORE DEV TECH AND SYSTEMS

New Additions:

NPC Generation (Archetype)

Interaction System – Useables

Radar System (Item 2.0)

Cargo v2

Service Beacon v2

StarMap v2

Gas Giant Tech

Ship to Ship Refuel System

Breaching

Security / Access Control

Object Container Streaming

Ships:

RSI Constellation Pheonix

RSI Constellation Taurus

MISC Freelancer MAX

AEGIS Vanguard Sentinel (Variant)

MISC Freelancer DUR

Saved diffs

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3.0.0 Overview

The following lists and charts show our progress towards releasing 3.0.0, with all remaining major tasks listed. 3.0.0 marks the next major step forward in realizing the vision of the Star Citizen Persistent Universe. As you’ll see from the sections below, there’s a lot of new content and underlying tech being worked on for this release which will enhance the experience of our players.

Tasks are either feature complete, or have an ETA for completion. It’s important to remember that some tasks may require further QA, bug-fixing and iteration. Tasks that delay beyond our target dates might cause the release of 3.0.0 to be delayed, or might be excluded from 3.0.0 if appropriate to maintain the release date target. 3.0.0 work is separated into Subsections: Persistent Universe Content, FPS / Space Gameplay, Engineering, UI, AI, Graphics, Backend, Network, and Ships & Weapons.

The 3.0.0 Procedural Planet update marks a major advance in the Star Citizen Persistent Universe. As you’ll see below, the new content and underlying tech in this release which will greatly enhance player experience.

We have also divided up the list of currently completed features from the top of the page and moved them to their relevant subsections below.

Planetary Update
Yela

Yela is the most frigid of the Crusader moons. Those bold (or careless) enough to step outside without a spacesuit will be killed instantly by its freezing temperatures. If the cold doesn’t kill you, than any of the treacherous crevasses that crisscross the planet might. Cyrovolcanos have been known to erupt unexpectedly from such crevasses, so be wary when flying at low altitudes. Despite all its danger, there is much beauty to be found on Yela, like the underwater caves hidden beneath the moon’s crust.

Cellin

Burning with volcanic activity, Cellin is the counter to her icy sister. Although the volcanoes have been dormant for hundreds of years, the surface is dotted with thermal geysers that erupt without notice. The largest of such geysers can destroy heavy vehicles. Highly corrosive clouds of gas are regularly released from the moon’s surface, creating low visibility and damaging anything caught outside.

Daymar

Daymar’s surface is like a harmonic blend of Yela and Cellin. It’s mountainous surface is reminiscent of Cellin’s volcanoes, while its craters share a warm likeness to Yela’s frozen crevessases. Known for its dense atmosphere, thick fog and a loose dirt surface makes travel difficult. Lightning storms can help illuminate the fog, just don’t get struck by their flash.

Remaining Aims for 3.0.0 Release
 
Persistent Universe Content

Moons
We are adding 3 new moons to the Crusader system; Yela, Cellin, and Daymar
Feature Complete

Surface Outposts
The new moons will also have outposts on their surface for you to explore
ETA is 2nd June

Mission Givers
We’re introducing Miles Eckhart(first seen in the Gamescom video)and Ruto to provide missions to players
ETA is 12th May

Derelict Ships
Derelict ships will be added to the system for extra points of interest and exploration
ETA is 26th May

Debris Fields
To accompany the derelict ships, there will also be debris fields within the system
ETA is 26th May

Delamar / Levski (STRETCH GOAL)
We are adding the planet Delamar and the landing zone, Levski
ETA is 1st June

Already complete in the 3.0.0 branch:
Modular Room System for procedural generation of planetary outposts
Official Outpost Spawning System ready for mission designers
Integrated Outpost distribution to PlanetEd
Single outpost Object Preset
Cluster of Outposts
Crash site mission
Interface to hand place modules and save to Layer
Interface to teleport the camera to the closest outpost
Area boxes created by artists (all room sizes are now usable in the outpost procedural system)
Entrance Room system working (stairs and ramps are now available as initial rooms)
Rooftop Prop system working for Solar panel
Wall prop system working for additional prop variations
Material Wear/Dirt on props using Layer Blend done and actually working
Developed Outpost “feet” system
Set random rotation and offset caps on planet editor
Start documenting 3 possible map layouts looping system (using 2 or 4 meters metrics * system; using connection additional corridor pieces; using spline skinned corridors)
Support Aircon/solar panel system on outposts
Added color tinting to Outposts
Added color tinting interface to Planet Ed
Created material distinction for interior / exteriors
Group elements offset in Planet Object Preset to be able to offset landing pads
New Assets:
Heavy Marine Armor
Explorer Suit Armor
Cloth and Clothing simulation on various assets old and new
Updated helmet interiors and exterior for updated art, FOV tech and standardization
Armor converted to work within modular customization structure
Finalized delivery of ALL facial assets from 3lateral.
Ships:
New Skinning and Rigging tools for landing gear on ships.
Constellation Cargo Bay/Elevator extensions
Light Group entity optimization

Gameplay

Player Manned Turrets
ETA is 8th June

Pick Up & Carry
As we’re introducing cargo with 3.0.0, players will be able to manually interact with their cargo to load and unload it properly on their ships.
ETA is 25th May

Item 2.0 Ship Conversion – Part 1
We are beginning the process of converting our available ships over to the item 2.0 system. This will allow for greater player control of the ship and also allow for expanded gameplay.
ETA is 1st June

Item 2.0
Operator Seats.
ETA is 24th May

Radar System 
ETA is 5th May

Light Control System. 
Feature Complete

Fuel / Refuel. 
Feature Complete

Power Supply / Pipes. 
Feature Complete

Quantum Drive.
Converting the quantum drive to Item 2.0 as part of the more general Item 2.0 process. This will also allow us to build more gameplay around quantum travel.
Pushed to accommodate changes with UI
ETA is 5th May (was 18th April)

Insurance
This will be an alpha version of the insurance system where if your current ship becomes damaged beyond repair, you will be able to request a replacement ship (with basic loadout) from the insurance provider.
The Persistence tasks that create the base for the insurance system are not at a place where work on this feature can be started just yet.
ETA is 12th May (was 5th May)

Stamina
We are introducing the concept of stamina in to 3.0.0, this will mean that actions will have consequences. For instance, continuing to sprint will drain the stamina of your character, causing loss of breath and difficulty in aiming a weapon.
ETA is 31st May

Doors & Airlocks
We are starting to update the doors and airlocks within the game to be more intelligent. In time, this would mean that the door would ‘know’ if a room beyond them is depressurised and would stay shut for safety
ETA is 31st May

Cargo
Commodities bought using the kiosk will be transportable in the cargo holds of vehicles, to be sold in another location.
ETA is 2nd June

Commodities
Implementing items to represent units of tradeable cargo.
ETA is 19th May

Kiosk Support
Support UI on kiosks for buying and selling of cargo.
ETA is 1st June

Atmospheric Entry Support
Adding VFX and Turbulence to atmospheric entry
ETA is 5th May

Persistent Damage, Ammo and Missiles
Persistence ensures that your vehicle state is saved between sessions.
ETA is 26th May

Repair
Improvements to our repair system to support our persistence model.
ETA is 2nd June

Inventory System Support
The inventory will offer a way to manage the cargo and commodities that are being carried by the ships a player owns.
ETA is 1st June

Already complete in the 3.0.0 branch:
Crusader Converted to Object Container Setup
With the transition to Object Containers, the Crusader map was completely re-designed. Each Point of Interest is now an object container laid out via the Solar System Editor. This is in preparation for Object Container streaming and seamless transitions from different POI’s and between Star Systems. Mission Flowgraphs are converted over to use Subsumption and the new Mission System.

Mega Map for Persistent Universe
Mega Map tech (also used in Crusader for seamless loading between different gamemodes) is now possible in the new PU map, which is setup in the Solar System Editor. This allows the utilization of Mega Map technology.
Revamp of Power Plants / Shield Generators / Coolers and the Heat & Power System for improved gameplay and conversion to Item 2.0

Core Tech

Planetary Tech
The Physics Grid for planets and the modular space stations.
ETA is 31st May

Solar System Tool
ETA is 31st May

Entity Update Component Scheduler
Will allow lower priority entities (i.e. those further away from players) to be updated less frequently, which should improve the overall framerate and allow us to add more content to the universe.
ETA is 31st May

Entity Owner Manager
The Entity Owner Manager will track entities that are moved around the universe, making sure we spawn and unspawn them at the correct time
ETA is 29th May

Already complete in the 3.0.0 branch:
New Radar Databank
Subsumption Base Functionality
This is the initial release of the foundation technology that drives all of the AI, mission, dynamic content, and conversation logic. The mission content previously created with FlowGraph has been replaced and the implementation time to achieve a desired effect has been cut dramatically.

Various Performance improvements
Planetary Physics Grid to support orbiting and rotating planets
Multi-Function Display implementation for Item 2.0 Components on ships

IFCS improvements to support AI & Takeoff System
Unified Visor for seamless Ship 2.0 / FPS transition
HUD/Visor integration for new Radar Databank

Object Distribution
Terrain / Object blending for soft natural transition of objects intersecting with the ground
Video codec updated to Bink2, providing higher fidelity at lower bitrate
Vehicles no longer use Lua
This is a huge step forward on the code side.
Skeleton Extension support for Item Port Offset overrides per item
Numerous types of physics simulation for all Item 2.0 attachments including hair, weapons, grenades and more.
Destructible component for items, props and environment assets
Nested Physics Grids support for vehicle transportation inside large ships, i.e. DragonFly & Rover
Physics simulation gravity vector now respects planetary gravity
Modular loadouts rule sets and support for up to five loadouts
Animation driven facial audio implemented
Updated Sandbox Editor Python integration.
Zone culling on all character assets and layers, system complete and mesh markup complete supplemented with tools to easily support new assets.

Solar System Editor
A tool that will layout entire solar system with their astral objects (sun, planets moons) as well as space stations, etc.
New Light Controller for runtime light switches
New network message queue (current in QATR) to reduce network bandwidth and network thread time.
Light Entity Render node merging.
Dynamic Physics Grid to support sparse space areas vs. dense areas like space stations.
Highly optimized vertex and position format for all geometry
Texture memory usage reduced across the project
Unified material libraries for use across all departments
Comparing and finding all duplicated normal maps and albedo maps in the LayerBlend texture library
Clean up LayerBlend Material Libraries, Resolution Adjustments, Renames to Lower Case
Follow-ups on list of unused textures and materials
Massively improved LOD computation and average face sizes for ships
Shared hair assets (instead of bespoke asset per head) for character creation
Automated facial asset LODs, skinning algorithm per LOD updated.
Reworked mesh setup of facial assets for optimal performance and reduced drawcalls.
Unified helmet and character mesh into singular render proxy for better performance and visuals.
Various portal and culling improvements.
Improved Animation Data Base collection and build process for optimized animation data streaming also added external tools to manage this.
Deprecated thousands of legacy and test assets including animations, geometry, libraries and more for reduced build size.
Automatic Asset Error collection and tracking.
Reworked itemport layout for characters and character items
Updated all assets using HumanSkin to highly optimized HumanSkinv2 shader. This saves upwards of a 100 megs of texture memory per face.
Vastly improved memory allocator which allowed massive reduction in runtime allocation count
Several significant optimizations to entity update code

UI

Kiosk UI
Kiosk shopping will allow players to buy and sell various commodities with the gameworld to vendors throughout the universe
This date should now be a more accurate representation as further investigations revealed more tasks required for this.
ETA is 10th May (was 4th May)

Item 2.0 Multi Function Displays
MFDs are being converted to work in the new item 2.0 system to give pilots even more control of their ships.
ETA is 26th May

Field of View Slider
This will allow players to narrow or widen the field of view to their liking.
ETA is 5th May

Character Customization
*Players will now be able to customize their characters’ heads, hair, eye color, and skin color.
ETA is 31st May

Personal Manager App
This App will allow players to review their inventory and customize various aspects of their suit and weapons.
ETA is 23rd May

Mission Manager App
This is a redesign of the Mission App that is currently available within mobiGlas and is the next step in allowing players more control over their mission tracking.
Revised date based on updated completion date of the Kiosk UI. This work will be started after the Kiosk UI is complete.
ETA is 19th May (was 16th May)

Cargo Manifest App
After buying items at a Kiosk, players will be able to head to their ship and check their cargo manifest.
ETA is 1st June

Inventory System
Very closely linked to the cargo manifest App. This will be the place to look for you personal inventory.
ETA is 2nd June

Mission Board App
The mission board allows players to see the service beacons that have been set up around the universe by other players calling for assistance.
ETA is 1st June

StarMap App
The Starmap will be introduced to allow players to view the PU at large and select planets to QT to.
ETA is 12th May

UI Owner Component
This is an underlying framework that will be used for the player manager App, cargo, and the Kiosk.
This has been delayed slightly due to the engineer being pulled off to accommodate other requests.
ETA is 4th May (was 28th April)

CARGO UI
UI interface for the cargo system
ETA is 1st June

mobiGlas Overhaul (STRETCH GOAL)
The UI team are planning an overhaul of the mobiGlas system so that it better reads what the gamecode is doing. This change will make the mobiGlas system as a whole easier to maintain for the UI team
ETA is 6th June

AI

Mission System
The overall system that will be used to create mission flows when we start building missions like Patrol, Assassination, Smuggling, etc.
ETA is 31st May

AI Turrets
We are adding the ability for AI to operate turrets in Crusader, so we are working to make sure that they track and fire upon the correct targets.
ETA is 8th May

Graphics

Render to Texture
This will have many uses going forwards, but our focus for now is to improve UI rendering and to introduce live rendering of video communications. We’re aiming to improve rendering performance by rendering as much of the UI ahead of a frame. For video communications, this will mean that we don’t have to pre-render the comms and store those files on the hard drive, as is the case with most games, allowing us to maintain fidelity and save hard drive space.
ETA is 24th May

Environment Probe
This allows for bounced lighting and reflections to be updated dynamically and will result in better lighting visuals.
ETA is 2nd June

Atmospheric Entry
With 3.0.0 players will have the chance to land on astral bodies, which, in some cases, will involve passing through the atmosphere. Our graphics team are working on the tech that will make this feel as satisfying as possible for the player piloting the ship.
ETA is 5th May

Volumetric Fog
ETA is 9th May (was 14th April)

GPU Particles
Feature Complete

Engine Trails & Contrails
Build issues have stopped the VFX team from being able to work on the contrails, so they have moved to other tasks in the meantime
ETA is 26th May (was 28th April)

Already complete in the 3.0.0 branch:
RenderTarget refactor
This saves over 50% of the video memory previously used for dynamic textures.
Physically-based area lights
Shadow map caching system
This allows for many more shadow casting lights at once and avoids the need for baking shadows.
Revamped decal rendering system which renders fully deferred, instanced decals with aggressive overdraw optimizations

Backend

Diffusion Subset for 3.0.0
Diffusion is our second-generation cloud-oriented back-end service architecture. It dramatically simplifies the effort required to implement, maintain, and interact with services, while simultaneously providing major enhancements in the areas of scalability and redundancy.
ETA is 16th June

Solar System Shop Service
The Solar System Shop Service dictates what retail products, natural resources, and services shops are willing to buy and sell. It also decides their current level of inventory and prices, all of which may vary over time. It acts as an intermediary between the game and the back end simulation/rule set.
Required tasks are talking slightly longer to complete that anticipated
ETA is 5th May (was 21st April)

Solar System Mission Service
The Solar System Mission Service dictates what missions are being offered at various locations and at what price. It is also responsible for specifying when and where dynamic content should be instantiated and how it should be customized. That way, the reality players see matches what it should in that area, based upon hints provided by the back end simulation/rule set. This service will split into two for 3.1, with the latter functionality becoming the responsibility of a dedicated Dynamic Content Service.
ETA is 12th May

Network

New Message Queue
Now that all our message are strictly ordered we’ve been able to really streamline the processing, allowing us to send and recieve messages with less overhead. The new message queue also has a few extra features to better handle packet loss and jitter, helping reduce average bandwidth and latency.
ETA is 22nd May

Physics Serialization
This will fix a few long standing threading issues between then network and physics code. Improves separation of physics and netcode for better maintainability.
ETA is 18th May (was 12th May)

Network Bind/Unbind (STRETCH GOAL)
Eliminate network updates for entities far away from clients. Should greatly reduce the amount of work the netcode has to do, helping improve server performance. A greater proportion of client bandwidth will be spent on entities close to the client.
ETA is 30th June (was 26th June)

Ships & Weapons

Drake Dragonfly
A short-range open canopy craft capable of space and ground flight.
ETA is 12th May

Drake Cutlass Black
Rework of the legacy ship
ETA is 26th May

RSI Constellation Aquilla
The newest available flight-ready variant of the Constellation series.
ETA is 12th May

RSI Ursa Rover
Ground exploration vehicle.
ETA is 26th May

MISC Prospector
Single-seater mining craft.
ETA is 5th May

Behring P8-SC
An SMG for mid-range fighting that provides a high rate of fire.
A few remaining bugs with this weapon have delayed final sign off
ETA is 4th May (was 27th April)

Apocalypse Arms Scourge Rail Gun
A shoulder mounted railgun capable of providing high levels of damage at a long range.
ETA is 14th June

Klaus and Werner Gallant Rifle
Rework of the legacy weapon.
Review scheduling issues have delayed the completion date of this weapon
ETA is 18th May (was 4th May)

Arrowhead Sniper Rifle
Rework of the legacy weapon.
Reload changes on several weapons have required rigging and skinning updates which caused a bottleneck with Tech Art.
ETA is 1st June (was 18th May)

KSAR Devastator-12 Shotgun
Rework of the legacy weapon.
ETA is 25th May

Beyond 3.0.0 - Overview

3.1.0 Goals


PERSISTENT UNIVERSE CONTENT
New Additions:

Modular Space Station – Truckstop
Arc Corp / Area 18
FPS / SPACE GAMEPLAY
New Additions:

Female Player Locomotion
AI Locomotion
Shouldered Weapons
Throwable Weapons
Armed (FPS Weapon Equipped)
Fists
Knife
Take down (Front, Sides, Rear)
Knockdown and Knockbacks

CORE DEV TECH AND SYSTEMS
New Additions:

Fuel (Item 2.0)
Criminality System
Room System v2 (Physical Depressurization)
Item 2.0 Elevators v2
Item 2.0 Airlocks v2
Diffusion Refactor
Item Degradation/Failure/Luck
Service Beacon v1
Parties and Orgs(Group Entity Component)
Game persistence
Spectrum Integration in game
Repair and Restock System
Elevators v2
Bind / Unbinding
Object Container Streaming Core Engine Support

Ships:
MISC Razor
RSI Aurora (Update)
ANVIL Terrapin
MISC Hull C
DRAKE Cutlass Red
DRAKE Cutlass Blue
AEGIS Vanguard Harbinger (Variant)

3.2.0 Goals

PERSISTENT UNIVERSE CONTENT
New Additions:

Crusader
Hurston
MicroTech (Stretch Goal)

FPS / SPACE GAMEPLAY
New Additions:
New Ammo Types
Gadgets (drones / shields)
Bumps
Coperative Avoidance
Downed
Drowning
Item Inspection
Looting IK / Permissions

CORE DEV TECH AND SYSTEMS
New Additions:
NPC Generation (Archetype)
Interaction System – Useables
Radar System (Item 2.0)
Cargo v2
Service Beacon v2
StarMap v2
Gas Giant Tech
Ship to Ship Refuel System
Breaching
Security / Access Control
Object Container Streaming

Ships:
RSI Constellation Pheonix
RSI Constellation Taurus
MISC Freelancer MAX
AEGIS Vanguard Sentinel (Variant)
MISC Freelancer DUR

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3.0.0 Overview

The following lists and charts show our progress towards releasing 3.0.0, with all remaining major tasks listed. 3.0.0 marks the next major step forward in realizing the vision of the Star Citizen Persistent Universe. As you’ll see from the sections below, there’s a lot of new content and underlying tech being worked on for this release which will enhance the experience of our players.

Tasks are either feature complete, or have an ETA for completion. It’s important to remember that some tasks may require further QA, bug-fixing and iteration. Tasks that delay beyond our target dates might cause the release of 3.0.0 to be delayed, or might be excluded from 3.0.0 if appropriate to maintain the release date target. 3.0.0 work is separated into Subsections: Persistent Universe Content, FPS / Space Gameplay, Engineering, UI, AI, Graphics, Backend, Network, and Ships & Weapons.

The 3.0.0 Procedural Planet update marks a major advance in the Star Citizen Persistent Universe. As you’ll see below, the new content and underlying tech in this release which will greatly enhance player experience.

You will notice that there have been some significant changes to the UI schedule, which have impacted feature work dates. The goal is to add additional features that will enhance the UI experience for new players with 3.0.0. We’ve adjusted the Live date projection to be a date range rather than a hard date and we will continue to revise as the development process continues. We know it’s never easy to see a schedule change, but we believe it’s important to be as open about the process as possible.

We have also divided up the list of currently completed features from the top of the page and moved them to their relevant subsections below.

Planetary Update
Yela

Yela is the most frigid of the Crusader moons. Those bold (or careless) enough to step outside without a spacesuit will be killed instantly by its freezing temperatures. If the cold doesn’t kill you, than any of the treacherous crevasses that crisscross the planet might. Cyrovolcanos have been known to erupt unexpectedly from such crevasses, so be wary when flying at low altitudes. Despite all its danger, there is much beauty to be found on Yela, like the underwater caves hidden beneath the moon’s crust.

Cellin

Burning with volcanic activity, Cellin is the counter to her icy sister. Although the volcanoes have been dormant for hundreds of years, the surface is dotted with thermal geysers that erupt without notice. The largest of such geysers can destroy heavy vehicles. Highly corrosive clouds of gas are regularly released from the moon’s surface, creating low visibility and damaging anything caught outside.

Daymar

Daymar’s surface is like a harmonic blend of Yela and Cellin. It’s mountainous surface is reminiscent of Cellin’s volcanoes, while its craters share a warm likeness to Yela’s frozen crevessases. Known for its dense atmosphere, thick fog and a loose dirt surface makes travel difficult. Lightning storms can help illuminate the fog, just don’t get struck by their flash.

Remaining Aims for 3.0.0 Release
 
Persistent Universe Content

Moons
We are adding 3 new moons to the Crusader system; Yela, Cellin, and Daymar
Feature Complete

Surface Outposts
The new moons will also have outposts on their surface for you to explore
ETA is 2nd June

Mission Givers
We’re introducing Miles Eckhart(first seen in the Gamescom video)and Ruto to provide missions to players
ETA is 12th May

Derelict Ships
Derelict ships will be added to the system for extra points of interest and exploration
ETA is 26th May

Debris Fields
To accompany the derelict ships, there will also be debris fields within the system
ETA is 26th May

Delamar / Levski (STRETCH GOAL)
We are adding the planet Delamar and the landing zone, Levski
ETA is 1st June

Already complete in the 3.0.0 branch:
Modular Room System for procedural generation of planetary outposts
Official Outpost Spawning System ready for mission designers
Integrated Outpost distribution to PlanetEd
Single outpost Object Preset
Cluster of Outposts
Crash site mission
Interface to hand place modules and save to Layer
Interface to teleport the camera to the closest outpost
Area boxes created by artists (all room sizes are now usable in the outpost procedural system)
Entrance Room system working (stairs and ramps are now available as initial rooms)
Rooftop Prop system working for Solar panel
Wall prop system working for additional prop variations
Material Wear/Dirt on props using Layer Blend done and actually working
Developed Outpost “feet” system
Set random rotation and offset caps on planet editor
Start documenting 3 possible map layouts looping system (using 2 or 4 meters metrics * system; using connection additional corridor pieces; using spline skinned corridors)
Support Aircon/solar panel system on outposts
Added color tinting to Outposts
Added color tinting interface to Planet Ed
Created material distinction for interior / exteriors
Group elements offset in Planet Object Preset to be able to offset landing pads
New Assets:
Heavy Marine Armor
Explorer Suit Armor
Cloth and Clothing simulation on various assets old and new
Updated helmet interiors and exterior for updated art, FOV tech and standardization
Armor converted to work within modular customization structure
Finalized delivery of ALL facial assets from 3lateral.
Ships:
New Skinning and Rigging tools for landing gear on ships.
Constellation Cargo Bay/Elevator extensions
Light Group entity optimization

Gameplay

Player Manned Turrets
ETA is 8th June

Pick Up & Carry
As we’re introducing cargo with 3.0.0, players will be able to manually interact with their cargo to load and unload it properly on their ships.
ETA is 25th May

Item 2.0 Ship Conversion – Part 1
We are beginning the process of converting our available ships over to the item 2.0 system. This will allow for greater player control of the ship and also allow for expanded gameplay.
ETA is 1st June

Item 2.0
Operator Seats.
ETA is 24th May

Radar System 
Feature Complete

Light Control System. 
Feature Complete

Fuel / Refuel. 
Feature Complete

Power Supply / Pipes. 
Feature Complete

Quantum Drive.
Converting the quantum drive to Item 2.0 as part of the more general Item 2.0 process. This will also allow us to build more gameplay around quantum travel.
Date has been moved to accommodate revisions and feedback following a design review.
ETA is 12th May (was 5th May)

Insurance
This will be an alpha version of the insurance system where if your current ship becomes damaged beyond repair, you will be able to request a replacement ship (with basic loadout) from the insurance provider.
The Persistence tasks that create the base for the insurance system are not at a place where work on this feature can be started just yet.
ETA is 12th May (was 5th May)

Stamina
We are introducing the concept of stamina in to 3.0.0, this will mean that actions will have consequences. For instance, continuing to sprint will drain the stamina of your character, causing loss of breath and difficulty in aiming a weapon.
ETA is 31st May

Doors & Airlocks
We are starting to update the doors and airlocks within the game to be more intelligent. In time, this would mean that the door would ‘know’ if a room beyond them is depressurised and would stay shut for safety
ETA is 31st May

Cargo
Commodities bought using the kiosk will be transportable in the cargo holds of vehicles, to be sold in another location.
ETA is 2nd June

Commodities
Implementing items to represent units of tradeable cargo.
ETA is 19th May

Kiosk Support
Support UI on kiosks for buying and selling of cargo.
ETA is 1st June

Atmospheric Entry Support
Feature Complete

Persistent Damage, Ammo and Missiles
Persistence ensures that your vehicle state is saved between sessions.
ETA is 26th May

Repair
Improvements to our repair system to support our persistence model.
ETA is 2nd June

Inventory System Support
The inventory will offer a way to manage the cargo and commodities that are being carried by the ships a player owns.
ETA is 1st June

Already complete in the 3.0.0 branch:
Crusader Converted to Object Container Setup
With the transition to Object Containers, the Crusader map was completely re-designed. Each Point of Interest is now an object container laid out via the Solar System Editor. This is in preparation for Object Container streaming and seamless transitions from different POI’s and between Star Systems. Mission Flowgraphs are converted over to use Subsumption and the new Mission System.

Mega Map for Persistent Universe
Mega Map tech (also used in Crusader for seamless loading between different gamemodes) is now possible in the new PU map, which is setup in the Solar System Editor. This allows the utilization of Mega Map technology.
Revamp of Power Plants / Shield Generators / Coolers and the Heat & Power System for improved gameplay and conversion to Item 2.0

Core Tech

Planetary Tech
The Physics Grid for planets and the modular space stations.
ETA is 31st May

Solar System Tool
ETA is 31st May

Entity Update Component Scheduler
Will allow lower priority entities (i.e. those further away from players) to be updated less frequently, which should improve the overall framerate and allow us to add more content to the universe.
ETA is 31st May

Entity Owner Manager
The Entity Owner Manager will track entities that are moved around the universe, making sure we spawn and unspawn them at the correct time
ETA is 29th May

Already complete in the 3.0.0 branch:
New Radar Databank
Subsumption Base Functionality
This is the initial release of the foundation technology that drives all of the AI, mission, dynamic content, and conversation logic. The mission content previously created with FlowGraph has been replaced and the implementation time to achieve a desired effect has been cut dramatically.

Various Performance improvements
Planetary Physics Grid to support orbiting and rotating planets
Multi-Function Display implementation for Item 2.0 Components on ships

IFCS improvements to support AI & Takeoff System
Unified Visor for seamless Ship 2.0 / FPS transition
HUD/Visor integration for new Radar Databank

Object Distribution
Terrain / Object blending for soft natural transition of objects intersecting with the ground
Video codec updated to Bink2, providing higher fidelity at lower bitrate
Vehicles no longer use Lua
This is a huge step forward on the code side.
Skeleton Extension support for Item Port Offset overrides per item
Numerous types of physics simulation for all Item 2.0 attachments including hair, weapons, grenades and more.
Destructible component for items, props and environment assets
Nested Physics Grids support for vehicle transportation inside large ships, i.e. DragonFly & Rover
Physics simulation gravity vector now respects planetary gravity
Modular loadouts rule sets and support for up to five loadouts
Animation driven facial audio implemented
Updated Sandbox Editor Python integration.
Zone culling on all character assets and layers, system complete and mesh markup complete supplemented with tools to easily support new assets.

Solar System Editor
A tool that will layout entire solar system with their astral objects (sun, planets moons) as well as space stations, etc.
New Light Controller for runtime light switches
New network message queue (current in QATR) to reduce network bandwidth and network thread time.
Light Entity Render node merging.
Dynamic Physics Grid to support sparse space areas vs. dense areas like space stations.
Highly optimized vertex and position format for all geometry
Texture memory usage reduced across the project
Unified material libraries for use across all departments
Comparing and finding all duplicated normal maps and albedo maps in the LayerBlend texture library
Clean up LayerBlend Material Libraries, Resolution Adjustments, Renames to Lower Case
Follow-ups on list of unused textures and materials
Massively improved LOD computation and average face sizes for ships
Shared hair assets (instead of bespoke asset per head) for character creation
Automated facial asset LODs, skinning algorithm per LOD updated.
Reworked mesh setup of facial assets for optimal performance and reduced drawcalls.
Unified helmet and character mesh into singular render proxy for better performance and visuals.
Various portal and culling improvements.
Improved Animation Data Base collection and build process for optimized animation data streaming also added external tools to manage this.
Deprecated thousands of legacy and test assets including animations, geometry, libraries and more for reduced build size.
Automatic Asset Error collection and tracking.
Reworked itemport layout for characters and character items
Updated all assets using HumanSkin to highly optimized HumanSkinv2 shader. This saves upwards of a 100 megs of texture memory per face.
Vastly improved memory allocator which allowed massive reduction in runtime allocation count
Several significant optimizations to entity update code

UI
As you will see, the UI schedule has undergone some significant changes to accommodate some new features designed to enhance the player experience. The following schedule and dates will be used as the new baseline for the UI schedule, the previous completion dates have been included to indicate the change.

Kiosk UI
Kiosk shopping will allow players to buy and sell various commodities with the gameworld to vendors throughout the universe
This date should now be a more accurate representation as further investigations revealed more tasks required for this.
ETA is 10th May (was 4th May)

Item 2.0 Multi Function Displays
MFDs are being converted to work in the new item 2.0 system to give pilots even more control of their ships.
ETA is 5th June (was 26th May)

Field of View Slider
This will allow players to narrow or widen the field of view to their liking.
ETA is 24th May (was 5th May)

Character Customization
*Players will now be able to customize their characters’ heads, hair, eye color, and skin color.
ETA is 22nd June (was 31st May)

Personal Manager App
This App will allow players to review their inventory and customize various aspects of their suit and weapons.
ETA is 8th June (was 23rd May)

Mission Manager App
This is a redesign of the Mission App that is currently available within mobiGlas and is the next step to allow players more control over their mission tracking.
Revised date based on updated completion date of the Kiosk UI. This work will be started after the Kiosk UI is complete.
ETA is 2nd June (was 19th May)

Cargo Manifest App
After buying items at a Kiosk, players will be able to head to their ship and check their cargo manifest. This incorporates the work that was previously accounted for in the “Cargo UI” task.
ETA is 6th June (was 1st June)

Vehicle Customizer App – NEW Feature
This app will allow players to customize their ship via the ship customization screen, so edits can be done without locating the exact port on the ship.
ETA is 28th June

Ship Selector App – NEW Feature
This app would replace the ship selection terminals within the Persistent Universe, allowing players more freedom in spawning ships at designated locations.
ETA is 12th June

Heavy Armor for Star Marine – NEW Feature
Heavy armor will be enabled for selection within the Star Marine loadout customization menu.
ETA is 9th June

Insurance – NEW Feature
With this first implementation of insurance, when a player’s ship is destroyed they will be able to request a replacement version from their insurance provider
ETA is 15th June

Inventory System
Very closely linked to the cargo manifest App. This will be the place to look for you personal inventory.
ETA is 6th June (was 2nd June)

Mission Board App
The mission board allows players to see the service beacons that have been set up around the universe by other players calling for assistance.
ETA is 1st June

StarMap App
The Starmap will be introduced to allow players to view the PU at large and select planets to QT to.
ETA is 11th May (was 12th May)

UI Owner Component
This is an underlying framework that will be used for the player manager App, cargo, and the Kiosk.
This has been delayed slightly due to the engineer being pulled off to accommodate other requests.
ETA is 4th May

mobiGlas Overhaul
The UI team doing an overhaul of the mobiGlas system so that it better reads what the gamecode is doing. This change will make the mobiGlas system easier to maintain for the UI team and has become a necessity as 3.0.0 work has progressed further.
ETA is 2nd June (was 6th June)

AI

Mission System
The overall system that will be used to create mission flows when we start building missions like Patrol, Assassination, Smuggling, etc.
ETA is 31st May

AI Turrets
We are adding the ability for AI to operate turrets in Crusader, so we are working to make sure that they track and fire upon the correct targets.
ETA is 8th May

Graphics

Render to Texture
This will have many uses going forwards, but our focus for now is to improve UI rendering and to introduce live rendering of video communications. We’re aiming to improve rendering performance by rendering as much of the UI ahead of a frame. For video communications, this will mean that we don’t have to pre-render the comms and store those files on the hard drive, as is the case with most games, allowing us to maintain fidelity and save hard drive space.
ETA is 24th May

Environment Probe
This allows for bounced lighting and reflections to be updated dynamically and will result in better lighting visuals.
ETA is 2nd June

Atmospheric Entry
Feature Complete

Volumetric Fog
ETA is 9th May (was 14th April)

GPU Particles
Feature Complete

Engine Trails & Contrails
Build issues have stopped the VFX team from being able to work on the contrails, so they have moved to other tasks in the meantime
ETA is 26th May (was 28th April)

Already complete in the 3.0.0 branch:
RenderTarget refactor
This saves over 50% of the video memory previously used for dynamic textures.
Physically-based area lights
Shadow map caching system
This allows for many more shadow casting lights at once and avoids the need for baking shadows.
Revamped decal rendering system which renders fully deferred, instanced decals with aggressive overdraw optimizations

Backend

Diffusion Subset for 3.0.0
Diffusion is our second-generation cloud-oriented back-end service architecture. It dramatically simplifies the effort required to implement, maintain, and interact with services, while simultaneously providing major enhancements in the areas of scalability and redundancy.
ETA is 16th June

Solar System Shop Service
The Solar System Shop Service dictates what retail products, natural resources, and services shops are willing to buy and sell. It also decides their current level of inventory and prices, all of which may vary over time. It acts as an intermediary between the game and the back end simulation/rule set.
Additional recently discovered key elements need moving into Diffusion allowing the completion of this task.
ETA is 12th May (was 5th May)

Solar System Mission Service
The Solar System Mission Service dictates what missions are being offered at various locations and at what price. It is also responsible for specifying when and where dynamic content should be instantiated and how it should be customized. That way, the reality players see matches what it should in that area, based upon hints provided by the back end simulation/rule set. This service will split into two for 3.1, with the latter functionality becoming the responsibility of a dedicated Dynamic Content Service.
ETA is 12th May

Network

New Message Queue
Now that all our message are strictly ordered we’ve been able to really streamline the processing, allowing us to send and recieve messages with less overhead. The new message queue also has a few extra features to better handle packet loss and jitter, helping reduce average bandwidth and latency.
ETA is 22nd May

Physics Serialization
This will fix a few long standing threading issues between then network and physics code. Improves separation of physics and netcode for better maintainability.
ETA is 18th May (was 12th May)

Persistent Data Refactor
The expanding capabilities of persistent data to support gameplay features in 3.0.0 has required the Network team to work on this refactor
ETA is 19th June

Network Bind/Unbind (STRETCH GOAL)
This feature has been moved out of 3.0.0 in order to make way for the Persistent Data Refactor

Ships & Weapons

Drake Dragonfly
A short-range open canopy craft capable of space and ground flight.
ETA is 12th May

Drake Cutlass Black
Rework of the legacy ship
ETA is 26th May

RSI Constellation Aquilla
The newest available flight-ready variant of the Constellation series.
ETA is 12th May

RSI Ursa Rover
Ground exploration vehicle.
ETA is 26th May

MISC Prospector
Single-seater mining craft.
The Tech Art team have encountered some bugs that are awaiting code support to address
ETA is 12th May (was 5th May)

Behring P8-SC
An SMG for mid-range fighting that provides a high rate of fire.
A few remaining bugs with this weapon have delayed final sign off
ETA is 4th May (was 27th April)

Apocalypse Arms Scourge Rail Gun
A shoulder mounted railgun capable of providing high levels of damage at a long range.
Completion on UI tech has moved up the completion date for this weapon.
ETA is 8th June (was 14th June)

Klaus and Werner Gallant Rifle
Rework of the legacy weapon.
Feedback provided by Directors on the Devastator Shotgun highlighted issues that need to be reworked, which has pushed this date out due to shared resources
ETA is 24th May (was 18th May)

Arrowhead Sniper Rifle
Rework of the legacy weapon.
Feedback provided by Directors on the Devastator Shotgun highlighted issues that need to be reworked, which has pushed this date out due to shared resources
ETA is 8th June (was 1st June)

KSAR Devastator-12 Shotgun
Rework of the legacy weapon.
Feedback provided by Directors highlighted issues that need to be reworked, which has pushed this date out and affected the Arrowhead, and Gallant.
ETA is 8th June (was 25th May)

Beyond 3.0.0 - Overview

3.1.0 Goals


PERSISTENT UNIVERSE CONTENT
New Additions:

Modular Space Station – Truckstop
Arc Corp / Area 18
FPS / SPACE GAMEPLAY
New Additions:

Female Player Locomotion
AI Locomotion
Shouldered Weapons
Throwable Weapons
Armed (FPS Weapon Equipped)
Fists
Knife
Take down (Front, Sides, Rear)
Knockdown and Knockbacks

CORE DEV TECH AND SYSTEMS
New Additions:

Fuel (Item 2.0)
Criminality System
Room System v2 (Physical Depressurization)
Item 2.0 Elevators v2
Item 2.0 Airlocks v2
Diffusion Refactor
Item Degradation/Failure/Luck
Service Beacon v1
Parties and Orgs(Group Entity Component)
Game persistence
Spectrum Integration in game
Repair and Restock System
Elevators v2
Bind / Unbinding
Object Container Streaming Core Engine Support

Ships:
MISC Razor
RSI Aurora (Update)
ANVIL Terrapin
MISC Hull C
DRAKE Cutlass Red
DRAKE Cutlass Blue
AEGIS Vanguard Harbinger (Variant)

3.2.0 Goals

PERSISTENT UNIVERSE CONTENT
New Additions:

Crusader
Hurston
MicroTech (Stretch Goal)

FPS / SPACE GAMEPLAY
New Additions:
New Ammo Types
Gadgets (drones / shields)
Bumps
Coperative Avoidance
Downed
Drowning
Item Inspection
Looting IK / Permissions

CORE DEV TECH AND SYSTEMS
New Additions:
NPC Generation (Archetype)
Interaction System – Useables
Radar System (Item 2.0)
Cargo v2
Service Beacon v2
StarMap v2
Gas Giant Tech
Ship to Ship Refuel System
Breaching
Security / Access Control
Object Container Streaming

Ships:
RSI Constellation Pheonix
RSI Constellation Taurus
MISC Freelancer MAX
AEGIS Vanguard Sentinel (Variant)
MISC Freelancer DUR