The hiatus for Star Citizen’s quarterly video series is over this week as the latest episode is live, and this time around the topic is primarily about offering updates for CitizenCon features – namely, the new underground locations and the Gen 12 renderer.
The first half of the video mostly notes how the new underground locations are moving into the planning and production stages, as CIG puts together rough in-game maps, plots out each “tier” of the feature’s release, and estimates how much time all of the work will take. The studio is putting a great deal of emphasis on how timelines are fluid – at one point creative content lead Jared Huckaby cheekily asks when the estimates can be ignored by the devs – but the plan overall is to make a total of 93 different rooms with 196 overlay variations.
The second half of the video provides an extremely technical look at progress for the Gen 12 renderer, showcasing how the new tech reduces the overall amount of rendering calls the CPU has to make. The renderer should make the game more performative provided players have the right hardware, and the vast majority of Gen 12’s work is done save for further optimizations and adjustments. This newer and bigger piece of the rendering puzzle is set to arrive in December’s alpha 3.18 patch.
