Happy Wednesday, everyone! As mentioned previously, we’re now transitioning to a bi-weekly (once every two weeks) publish on Wednesdays, rather than the Friday publishing schedule we followed previously. Our mission is to continue accompanying each Roadmap update with a brief explanatory note to give you insight into the decision-making that led to any changes. This is part of an effort to make our communications more transparent, more specific, and more insightful for all of you who help to make Star Citizen and Squadron 42 possible. With our new Roadmap changes, there is also a lot to introduce for the first time. This week, as we unveil our anticipated Core Tech Group in our Progress Tracker and debut our all-new Release View, there is a lot to caveat and explain. Especially with how we are now conveying our expected or tentative quarterly releases, it’s important to pay attention to what we now define as a potential release and how we are presenting that visually. With that said, let’s go ahead and dive into this week’s Roadmap Roundup! Release Tracker Improvements In today’s Roadmap publish, we’ve updated our traditional Release View to introduce new labels (Released, Committed, Tentative) and a color-coding system to help identify the release reliability of each deliverable. Let’s start with the new labels underneath each patch number per release card. Tentative: This deliverable is tentatively scheduled for this quarter, but hasn’t gone through the review process and may shift around on the Roadmap
Committed: This deliverable is scheduled for this quarter and has passed the final review process. There is a very low chance of this deliverable moving.
Released: This deliverable has been released.
Next, let’s cover the color-coding improvements. Deliverables and columns will now show up colorless and transparent to denote that the estimated delivery times are *Tentative* and could move around on the schedule. That’s because even if we have ~70% confidence a deliverable will hit its intended target, it has not yet had a final review, or in some cases, development on that deliverable hasn’t started yet (this is especially true for deliverables farther out on the schedule).
Put simply, if it’s colorless and labeled as Tentative, don’t be surprised if it moves/changes. If it’s solid & blue and labeled as Committed, expect it to stay put (with very rare exception).
Progress Tracker Improvements
In addition to the changes to the Release View, we’ve also introduced some additional functionality to the Progress Tracker.
Expand/Collapse All
Functionality in the top left corner of the Progress Tracker has been added to easily expand and collapse all content.
Year View
In the initial release, you were restricted to only viewing one or two quarters at a time. For this update, we have added functionality in the top right corner to expand duration to view a full year.
Partial Time
Some tasks will now appear striped to denote that they are a part-time resource, splitting their time between this task and one or more other deliverables.
Notable Changes for January 27th, 2021
Hacking – Tech
While work on this feature will be complete in time, the mission team won’t have enough time to implement it properly into the game, resulting in this deliverable moving from the 3.13 column to the 3.14 column.
Object Push & Pull
After evaluating the work for Object Push & Pull, we have found it feasible to target a release this quarter, therefore we have added this feature to the 3.13 column.
Mounted Guns
We have moved the Mounted Guns deliverable from the Weapons category to the Gameplay category, as this is a feature the Actor Feature Team is working on.
Tumbril Nova Tonk
The Nova Tonk has moved up in the schedule and is now slated to release earlier than initially planned. For this reason, you will now find this deliverable in the 3.13 column.
Persistent Streaming & Server Meshing
Server Meshing is an on-going initiative that includes a variety of features and technology that help unlock the ability to expand the content and player counts in the Star Citizen Universe. Tasks associated with this deliverable span across multiple teams and disciplines, and you’ll find work being done on all four quarters currently visible on the Roadmap. While you may not see Server Meshing or Pyro in the release view at the moment, this doesn’t necessarily rule anything out. This merely means we’re still working out a timeline and have not currently met that threshold (~70% confidence) to target a specific quarter yet.
iCache
Some of you may have noticed that iCache is not present as a standalone deliverable on the Roadmap. It’s still there, but it’s gotten a name change. This is because iCache and other similar technologies are now wrapped up within the Persistent Streaming & Server Meshing deliverable mentioned above. In addition, we have removed the Convert Legacy Data Management to iCache from the Release View as there are pending dependencies involved in the work for this. This means the fruits of these efforts won’t be seen until later on in the year.
Weapon Content Team
The Weapon Content Team has wrapped their planning just barely outside of the window to add their deliverables to the release view for today’s publish. You can expect this team’s deliverables for the year to be added to the Release View in the next publish.
Core Tech Group – Downstream Content
As we mentioned when we released the new Roadmap in December, once we start adding downstream teams, there content will only go out two quarters. This is because content beyond that is too unreliable and dependent on upstream team’s schedules. This is an important reminder because now that we’re adding the Core Tech Group teams listed below, some of them are downstream teams, meaning you will only see two quarters of scheduled content.
New teams added to the Progress Tracker
Planet Tech Team
Network Team
Persistent Tech Team
Graphics Team
Physics Team
Dev Tools Team
Engine Team
Game Services
Live Tools
New Deliverables added to the Release View
3.13
Object Push & Pull
Tumbril Nova
3.14
Crusader
Orison Landing Zone
Hacking – Tech
NPC Healing
Radar & Scanning
Missions – Spawn Closets
Actor Feature – Physical Inventory
Tech – Healing T0
Weapon Charge/Drain T0 – Tech
RSI Constellation Taurus
Shield Systems Tech Replacement
Migrating Legacy Vehicle XMLs to Datacore
Vehicle Module Swapping
3.15
Small Home – Outpost – Colonialism
Salvage T0 – Tech
Player Interaction Experience
Actor Feature – EVA T2
Zero-G Push & Pull
Weapons – Magazine Stripping / Refilling
Cutting T0
Bombs and Space Mines
Crusader Ares Starfighter Inferno
Crusader Ares Starfighter Ion
Crusader A2 Hercules Starlifter
Aegis Redeemer
Ship Interior/Exterior Culling
3.16
Orison v2
Fire Extinguisher – Tech
Actor Feature – Lockers & Inventory
Actor Tech – Physicalized Weapon Handling
Actor Feature – Ladders T1
Prone
Player Slide
Weapon Misfire & Wear
Ship Shield-Emitters
Origin M50 Engine Swapping
Dynamic Door Alignment – Vehicles