Summary:

• CURRENT BUILD: 06-03-2014 – Build 95
• PREVIOUS BUILD: 06-05-2014 – Build 75

(As per \CitizenClient\Client_Release.id)

Here’s the second part of our Under The Bonnet back-to-back special! Part one can be found here in case you haven’t seen it yet (and you’ll probably want to, as that article reflects the first released step in Star Citizen’s transition from just a basic hangar simulator into an actual space combat game – the changes are immense). For part two, we cover patch 12.1 which CIG snuck out while I was still going over the previous changes.

We do have a lot of interesting developments this time around – CIG has put a lot more work into the Freelancer, and we’ve now seen the official release of the it’s variants! Yes, the same ones which “accidentally” slipped into the game files several builds ago and were just as quietly removed once discovered.. they’re now in full production with working animations, interactivity, and shininess. To this end they’re also available for purchase for those who’s wallets sprang out of their pockets after seeing the awesome new Freelancer commercial; I know mine almost did.

As is always the case with smaller-scale updates, there are fewer things to go over so I’ll probably be going into more detail about normally-frivolous things this time around. Enjoy.

Patch Breakdown

ANIMATIONS / CHARACTER MODELS

• The animevents list for the base Human Male character in Animations.pak\Animations\Characters\Human\Male\events.animevents has had a few new Freelancer-specific entries added – i.e. “freelancer_cockpit_copilot_dismount.caf” , “freelancer_table_dismount_left_rightside.caf”, “freelancer_cargo_seat02_mount.caf”, etc. This matches the Freelancer-specific additions that round out this patch.

• If you’re hoping to see some buried animations for the TNGS ships temporarily added to the hangar in this build, I’m afraid you’ll be disappointed; they’re just static objects for now.

SCRIPTS / GAME DATA

• Here’s an interesting change: ObjectsSpaceShips.pak is now gone. The contents (ship equipment objects like ammo, guns, power planets, etc, as well as a number of general ship object – including of course the TNGS finalists) have now been moved to ObjectSpaceships-part0.pak and ObjectSpaceships-part1.pak. Maybe a quirk with CIG’s asset-packaging process for this build?

SHIP / WEAPON / OTHER OBJECTS

•  We can see evidence of CIG’s fine-tuning of the equipment specs under Scripts.pak\Scripts\Entities\Items\XML\Spaceships\.  Under Ammo\Laser_Bolts\KLWE_LR_S1_Q2_BOLT.xml, the “speed” param was changed from 250 to 1, and “accel” was changed from 1100 to 2600. In Shields\GODI\GODIS2_F2_Q2.xml, the “pool capacity” inside of the “heat” pipe section was changed from 5.5 to 15.5. There are a few other adjustments of various minor-sounding things, but there’s already definite evidence of a bit of balance fine-tuning going on which we can expect to see much more of as the game develops.

• In Scripts.pak\Scripts\Entities\Vehicles\Implementations\Xml\MISC_Freelancer.xml, there are a bunch of new commented-out blobs marked “COMMENTING OUT FOR NOW… UNTIL THIS GETS REWORKED” for sections referring to”Kitchen Screens”, “Cargo Seat Switch”, “Front Seat Right”, and so on. I think these are some of the helper items for interacting with these objects which seem to have been disabled pending some adjustments – we’ll likely see more on this soon.

• There are a couple of new models in Objects.pak\Objects\UI\Power_Plants\GNP – GNP_Etoile_00_ui.cgf and GNP_SuperEtoile_00_ui.cgf , along with some matching textures buried all the way over in ObjectsSpaceships-part0.pak\Objects\Spaceships\Power_Plants\GNP (in hindsight, both files actually contained the same CGFs, but only the latter had textures / materials for them). I pulled the “Etoile_oo_ui” model together for a quick look in Cryengine (the “Super” Variant doesn’t look much different yet) and here’s what I got: http://i.imgur.com/Q9YftWQ.png

Freelancers are supposed to come with GNP power plants (at least according to current data), so this looks like another step towards getting all of the ship’s equipment fully modeled integrated into the game so it can be used in upcoming Arena Commander builds.

TL;DR / MEDIA COMPILATION SECTION

• GNP “Etoile_00” Model (possible Freelancer default power plant?)

With each new build of the hangar module, Parias likes to run diffs against the varying versions, and make notes just out of nerdy curiosity for what’s actually being changed under the hood —  in particular things which might not have been directly mentioned in the patch notes.

99% of this document will be personal conjecture – Parias may (and likely will) be wrong on the interpretation of a lot of things.