The Inside Star Citizen broadcast allows players to preview parts of the content coming in the coming weeks or months, as well as to learn about the work of certain CIG teams. This week, the QA team is put in the spotlight, and emphasis is placed on the importance of their work. Then members of the EU Sandbox 1 team presents us with 3 ship racing tracks coming in 3.18.
QA: quality assurance
The episode begins with a “behind the scenes” shot obviously taking place before the start of the interview. Jared makes sure with his collaborators that the members are comfortable, including with the sometimes very harsh feedback from the community on this particular team. The employees seem confident in their work and that of the studio in general, and continue to ensure that the highest quality builds possible are sent to the Live servers.
The QA team works in the Manchester studios, close to the teams whose work they review. This allows an accelerated method, in which the “bug report” phase can be reduced to the simplest: a member of the team can go directly to the developer concerned in case of doubt or problem.
3.17.4
The team mainly ensured that the environment around the IAE achieves the set goals. They checked the collisions, and the work mainly focused on the atmosphere. They checked that the ships are correctly illuminated, that the various fogs have the desired behavior, and finally that the whole scene is coherent.
3.18
The team has done a lot of work on the 35 new points of interest that are coming in 3.18. This work of such magnitude could be carried out thanks to the delay for the release of the patch, and the teams are relieved to have been able to benefit from this reprieve to work with more certainty. Today there are still a few issues with the AI on these outposts and the team is actively working on fixing them. Generally, 3.18 puts a heavy workload on the QA team with its extensive contentbut the developers manage to follow thanks to the time that has been granted to them.
4.0
Work on 4.0 focuses on Pyro’s space stations, which present radical differences with those of Stanton. The absence of armistice zones requires making an effort on the environment to ensure that there are interesting combat opportunities, as well as escape or hiding opportunities. One of the ongoing issues currently concerns desyncs when interacting with the environment (e.g. electronic traps) and the team is working on identifying and fixing them.
Nyoom!
For the first time since the advent of PU, there will be large-scale ship racing missions in 3.18. No less than six circuits will be implemented, and with them time trial missions allowing progression, performance-based compensation and unlocking new tracks like a reputation system. These circuits are formalized for the first time by checkpoints.
Most of these routes are circuits created by the community, which are “officialized” by CIG. This allows many advantages:
- Highlight and support community work.
- Propose more points of interest in space.
- Work on unique and memorable visual environments.
The goal being, for the players, to have things to tell!
GrimHex – Grim prospects
The community circuit of GrimHex has been moved a stone’s throw from the station. The developers took advantage of the asteroid field, and placed some remnants of space structures to create an out-of-atmosphere layoutbut with just as much visual interest.
Euterpe – IceBreaker
The circuit has been kept as close as possible to the one created by the community at this location. The developers have placed a factory there with the 3D models of buildings present on Microtech. The goal here was to make the place alive beyond the race. Players will be able to come and land on the buildings to encourage their peers. The developers are confident that this outpost will become the busiest place in Euterpe.
ArcCorp – Area18
The circuit is presented to us only in visuals. The developers used the various holograms of buildings across the city to create a recognizable layout. The effect is gripping and WipeOut players should feel at home on this layout.
