Star Citizen ’s latest Around The Verse will be good news to those anticipating the alpha 3.0 Evocati release, as the number of must-fix bugs dips into single digits. The episode also delved into the game’s planned air traffic control features that are far deeper in the development pipeline.
Our first area of focus, is alpha 3.0. Down from last week’s list of 26 must-fix issues, the current count has decreased to just five critical bugs. The video and graph below mention seven problems, but this new stat comes directly from Foundry 42 Development Director Brian Chambers on Twitter Friday morning.
While that number sounds promising for those looking to get their hands on something soon, the sharp decline in blockers isn’t purely due to successful fixes. As discussed last week, Cloud Imperium Games has severely reduced its polish threshold to emphasize one area of the game at a time. As it stands now this first Evocati release seems to focus on getting in your ship and driving around; basically, the first hour of the full 3.0 experience. Everything beyond that will be available in the Evocati build, but it may not be in a very playable state.
As far as specific issues are concerned, the Cloud Imperium team mentions spawn pods not opening, crashes on boot, landing pads failing to respond and network disconnects. The team identified the reasons for these problems during filming, but it’s not yet known if they’re fully patched out. We expect the Evocati to arrive in the next few days, but, given the obvious push to release, users should expect plenty of crashes and glitches.
Aside from 3.0, this week’s ATV also touched on the philosophy behind air traffic control as it exists in Star Citizen’s persistent universe. While the feature may seem small compared to other parts of the game, its designers see ATC as the primary introduction to key areas of the map.
To make sure the team got everything right, they studied real-world air traffic control systems, as well as those found in gaming and professional flight simulators. As a result they were able to craft a full air traffic module that actors can use during capture to ensure each animation is exactly as it should be. The hand signals that prompt various actions from the pilot will mirror the ones used in the real world. Once any AI sits in its chair, called the Air Traffic Control Entity, they know all incoming and outgoing flight information. Just like the rest of Star Citizen, the main goal here is to make sure ATC is as immersive as possible.
In order to further that mission, a few key contingencies needed to be considered. For one, because air traffic is often controlled by an actual NPC, systems needed to be designed in case that character is attacked by other players or is otherwise unable to perform its duties. In those cases, an automated system will fill in for the missing person, which should signal to players that something strange is afoot. Without getting too specific, the Cloud Imperium team stressed measures will be taken to punish griefers who frequently try to disrupt the landings of others.
Should all of these systems work seamlessly together, one central purpose of an ATC character is to provide a personality-based welcome banner to important locales. While not every ATC will have unique dialogue, ones found at major stops like Levski will. Here’s what Dialogue Supervisor Bob Rissolo had to say about this responsibility:
"Think about it like a big piece of cake. The sponge is the big part of what we do, but cake needs some icing, it needs some flavor. We like to have a general voice set that is used across the galaxy, and we also like to have some nice specific characters that are placed in locations and give a good flavor to certain things."
In Levski, for example, the current ATC character has a surfer-dude dialogue delivery befitting of the location. You can check him out in the picture above.
Star Citizen is in alpha for backers on PC.
What do you expect from the 3.0 Evocati release? Will air traffic control help bring Star Citizen to life? Tell us in the comments section!
