Cloud Imperium reveal their estimated Star Citizen development timeline

Cloud Imperium have thought long and hard about sharing an estimated feature timeline with their audience, and they’ve decided to go for it, despite concerns that some might take the dates as gospel. Games development is a malleable, shifting thing, as we should all be aware from the many high profile delays of late. Star Citizen is no different – it’s just much more public.

Keep an eye on our upcoming PC games list and you might see some shifting dates there too.

It’s clear that the goalposts are moving with Star Citizen especially. It was a game with a much smaller scope, but it’s bloated in tandem with its funding.

As Cloud Imperium put it: “Quality will always be our number one goal. We set out on this journey by looking at the gaming landscape and asking: can we do better? We continue to ask that question about everything we do.

“As a result, we will ALWAYS extend timelines or re-do features and content if we do not feel they are up to our standards. The freedom to fight for a new level of quality in game development is what crowd funding has allowed us, and we will continue to fight to make sure Star Citizen is the best possible game it can be.”

The goalposts can also move because of unforeseen issues. Videogames are complex, and changing one thing can cause shockwaves through the entire project. This could also lead to features missing their estimated delivery date.

So with those caveats in mind, let’s talk about that timeline and incoming features. Here’s a breakdown:

Star Marine changes

Code

Feature complete
Improvements have been made to network synchronization, cover, jumping, grenades, gamerules, vault/mantle, walking, running and weaponry
Leaderboards are complete code wise and can be tested as soon as release related game mode issues are resolved
Team is on blockers and critical bugs only

Animation

Feature complete
General improvements to weapon handling animations are done
Pick-up and health mechanic improvements are done
Jumping animation improvements is done
Reviewing all in game animations to identify improvements

Combat Signals

Feature complete

Ready for QA

Destructible Props

Engineering has a version working for glass
Props (Serialization issues require code investigation) ETA due shortly

Facial Idles

Firing, neutral and combat are implemented

Mapping out remaining work with Code for the other idles (beinghit, dying, hurtbad, hurtmild, sleeping, killsatisfy, dead)
Animation team are tweaking animations
ETA: 30th November

Character Art

Feature complete
Marine and Outlaw material updates are completed

Level Design

Level Design and art is final for Echo 11 for Last Stand & Elimination
Level Design is final for Demien for Last Stand & Elimination

Art ETA for Demien is 18th November

Arena Commander Balance / Improvements

Pirate Swarm

Feature complete

Further polish and tweaking is still needed

The gamerules will be set up with the new method as part of the mega map work.

This means that for the time being, QA will have to access this mode in profile by debug commands

An image for the mode is needed for the front end UI. ETA is 30th November

Pickups

Feature complete
VFX need to tweak the effect for the pickup
Audio complete

Audio code is providing some assistance in hooking the audio asset up. ETA is 18th November

Gameplay Engineering is fixing a bug where the pickup object disappears very quickly after spawning

New Missions

Feature complete
Design have provided information to QA that outlines two new missions, how to access them, and other pertinent information.

Scoring Rebalance

Feature complete
Battle Royale and Squadron Battle have now had their win scores reassessed, it should now be possible to reach the target score before the time runs out

IFCS Missile Guidance

Engineering are improving tools and features to help design balance and tune missiles. ETA is 18th November

Ship Balance

Rotational limitation ramp as ship approaches max (cruise) speed. ETA is 23rd November

Tech / Systems

Network

Bind Culling
Network Engineering is currently working on State object refactor. ETA is 23rd November

Message Ordering

Network Engineering is finishing off current work on message ordering before moving over to Serialized Variables. ETA is 18th November

Serialised Variable (stretch goal)

Network Engineering will begin work on 21st November. ETA is 8th December

Camera Improvements

Gameplay Engineering has fixed up some issues with cameras in Star Marine and is now looking into a Camera bug for S42 for the moment. ETA is 18th November

Music Logic System

Feature complete
New music is still being delivered by composer. ETA is 23rd November

Ship Computer 1.X

Ground work for allowing the player to select the verbosity of ship computer. ETA is 25th November

Content

Vanguard Hoplite

Feature complete
In testing with QA
Bug Fixing

Drake Herald

Feature complete
In testing with QA
Bug Fixing

Grim Hex Bar

Requires prop dressing. ETA 2nd December

UI and Front End Refactor

UI

Star Marine Environment Screens. ETA 30th November
Arena Commander Pickup Icons ETA 28th November
Electronic Access Widgets game widgets. ETA 18th November

Lobbies and Main Menu

Star Marine Loadout Customisation. ETA 25th November
Arena Commander Ship Customisation. ETA 5th December
Front End Flow. ETA 28th November

Leaderboard Service

Two blocking bugs that were preventing testing of the Leaderboard stats being sent to Platform have been resolved.
Turbulent work on updated Leaderboards starts 23rd November. ETA is 25th November
Following this Live Ops can complete Leaderboard Service. ETA is 30th November

Mega Map (stretch goal)

Gamerules

Gameplay Engineering have been continuing to look at refactoring and bug fixing based around the new Game Rules layout

They are also looking into a crash on Arena Commander that is blocking QA from testing
They are looking to complete their refactoring task. ETA 2nd December

GameMode (within game rules) works in SP.
GameMode (within game rules) for MP requires more testing and development. ETA is 2nd December

Entities

Work for this is now waiting on Gamerules being complete. Once that is done, the remaining work should take a few days. ETA is 6th December

Network

The progress overall is really good thus far, the Network now works for all scenarios, including: connecting to different map, or map with different object containers.

Server-side changes for disconnects, refactoring and bug fixing remaining

Network also need to take the entity updates and Gamerules changes so that they integrate.

We would expect that there will be some engine lobby changes that need simplified so that the mega map works with the backend servers

This is complex code and new territory. ETA 8th December

This is everything that’s planned for the immediate future, or by the end of 2016. Over on Roberts Space Industries, there are some suggestions as to what’s coming later too, albeit with no estimated delivery times just yet. That page will be getting update regularly, however, as the project evolves.