Star Citizen alpha 3.0 is nearly ready for its Evocati release, and the latest Around The Verse proves it. With just a few bugs left to squash, we also got a sneak peek at the game’s complex usables system.
First, let’s talk Evocati. After ending last week with around five must-fix issues, the number of critical bugs remains the same this week. Problems with doors not opening correctly, UI glitches, lighting issues and a weird bug that causes the player to be stuck in slow-mo have apparently stifled progress over the past few days. Beyond that, the team addressed the infamous Gamescom crash, alongside inaccurate hyperdrive jumps and server crashes tied to ship despawns.
While all of these blockers were eventually sorted, a last-minute issue popped up where the build system was not picking up any of these recent changes the team had just implemented. The team described it as a critical problem that would take some digging to get fixed. Here’s a quote from Cloud Imperium Games Director Chris Roberts during a pre-launch review:
“I don't want to go. I don't see there's any benefit in going. If you go, you've got five or six people and it crashes every five or 10 minutes. It'll be a frustrating experience. And you're going to get a whole bunch of people downloading it and then, if the frequency of crashes is relative or proportional to the amount of people playing, you'll be having crashes every minute or two.
“Because you're going to fill up these instances pretty quickly. I would guess every Evocati would be like this is the very first time they get to play 3.0 so they'll be excited, they'll download it and then they'll be getting kicked out to the desktop.”
As a result, those hoping to get their hands on 3.0 will have to wait a little while longer. Will the alpha actually make its projected September release window? We’ll have to wait and see!
Aside from 3.0, the main feature of this week’s ATV was an explanation of Star Citizen’s usables system. In short, it’s an intricate set of directions followed by players and AI when they interact with various objects such as tables, cups and laptops. In fact, the very first public example of a usable was the hacking laptop in Star Marine.
While human beings can intuit how objects can be used and picked up, all of that logic must be built for gameplay. To make that work, the CIG team has tied various actions, like picking up or destroying, to multiple points during animations. When a character hits a so-called usable juncture, the game will dynamically pick the best style of animation to suit the task. In other words, if you’re running to a bench and sit on it, the algorithm will adapt to provide a different sitting style than if you had walked to it.
One of the best examples of usables at work is the mess hall table, where eight characters can sit simultaneously and work through any number of animations at once. Beyond the table there are secondary usables like glasses, silverware and plates that all transition to a state of ownership once the player or AI pick them up.
In certain instances the game had to be designed to distinguish free limbs and available actions while holding usables. If a character is sitting at a bar and holding a glass, for example, they must also be able to wave with their other hand. There are finer animation details, like shifting weight when seated for a long time, that must be considered for the sake of realism.
Striking a good balance between animation and action has been a process of trial and error, according to Systems Designer Gregoire Andivero:
“One of the things that the usable has been through is this process of actually failing once, which I'm smiling about, was actually painful. But the good thing, though, is that it just highlights how iterative the process is, especially when we're trying to push the envelope to do something new and something fresh, something that has never been done before...
“What really has been good with the usable is that, following this first failure, we adopted a more fluid approach where we try something, we review it, we put it through its paces a little bit and if it doesn't work we change to something else and we just try to cover every problem that is thrown our way. Not one by one, but as one system trying to make it evolve to cover everything rather than try to extend it over and over until it crumbles.”
As with most Star Citizen systems, the one for usables is still very much a work in progress with tons of nuance. You may not notice it during intense gameplay sessions, but it’s essential for the 3.0 experience and beyond.
Star Citizen alphas are available now for project backers on PC.
What do you think about the latest 3.0 Evocati developments? How might Star Citizen take advantage of usables? Tell us in the comments section!
