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🛰️ PU Monthly Report – March 2026

🛰️ PU Monthly Report – March 2026

Welcome to March’s Monthly Report. As usual, CIG’s global studios were operating at full speed — from the final touches on Alpha 4.7: Welcome to the Rock to exciting content coming soon and later this year. Read on for the full breakdown!

🤖 AI Content

Last month, the AI team fixed numerous issues while continuing to push development forward. With Alpha 4.7 releasing at the end of March, a range of bugs were resolved — including a tricky issue where station NPCs were not standing at their workbenches.

At the same time, the team supported upcoming mission content by:

  • adding placeholder script recordings
  • setting up comms conversations

This lets directors and designers better understand the intended player experience early, while writers can listen back and adjust the script when needed.

The AI team then continued developing behaviors for new initiatives they plan to announce soon.

🧠 AI (Features & Technology)

In Alpha 4.7, the AI team addressed problems caused by post-attack reinforcements and investigated multiple issues. Notably:

  • fixed civilians getting stuck in a crouched state
  • restored intended de-escalation when combat NPCs leave combat

Additional improvements:

  • multiple crash fixes
  • optimized navigation-link generation to snap closer to nav-mesh edges
  • updated NPC behavior when traversing manually controlled doors
  • improved the general functionality of NPC path requests to check whether a destination is actually walkable

🐾 Creature AI development

  • Continued work on the Apex Valakkar:
    • it now moves only within its arena
    • spawns after a set number of seconds
    • requests despawn if it doesn’t take enough damage within a defined time window
  • Kopion now uses “attack patterns,” expanded with pack-like growling and circling during attacks
    (juvenile Valakkar can also use this pattern)
  • Star Paws: improved usability for movement-behavior parameters
  • plus: numerous general PU crash fixes

🎭 Animation

In March, the Animation team worked on snake- and worm-like enemies, developing new behavior animations.

Facial Animation began processing the February performance-capture material, including:

  • content for a new Alpha 4.8 mission (players will meet two new characters)
  • a news broadcast for Levski

🧑‍🎨 Art (Characters)

Character Art worked in parallel on:

  • Alpha 4.8 projects
  • in-game assets
  • new gang outfits
  • support for Star Wear

The Concept Art team spent the month exploring new heavy combat armors.

🚀 Art (Ships)

UK: Railen, UTV, Hull B, Ironclad & more

  • Gatac Railen: continued development and prep for the greybox gate review at the end of March. Some areas were brought up to later pipeline standards, laying groundwork for larger Gatac-style areas.
  • Greycat UTV: testing phase completed and now awaiting release.

    “We hope players enjoy this little vehicle as much as we enjoyed developing it!” — Ship Team

  • MISC Hull B: combined LOD0 and final-gate review due to some teams reaching sections too late for the earlier gate to be technically passed; other teams were ready for the later stage.
  • Drake Ironclad / Ironclad Assault / Command Module: moved through LOD0, then began a full lighting and detail pass for a unified look. In parallel, the team returned to the Caterpillar to prepare it for the Command Module.

RSI Galaxy & unannounced vehicles

Some developers returned to the RSI Galaxy:

  • revised the original layout to improve flow and better leverage the growing asset library — while staying true to the ship’s role and purpose
  • adjusted the front half of the lower deck to feel less isolated and remove a dead end
  • updated other areas using suitable assets from other RSI ships

Five additional unannounced vehicles progressed in March:

  • Vehicle 1: passed whitebox and greybox; approaching LOD0 review
  • Vehicle 2: nearing LOD0; interior work continues while other teams (e.g., UI) begin required updates
  • Vehicle 3: passed greybox and is nearing LOD0 in early April; small cockpit tweaks improved visibility and analog-stick control
  • Vehicle 4: underwent an additional greybox review after feedback; slight delay, but expected to improve final quality
  • Vehicle 5: in whitebox; complex due to animations/states, but expected to pay off

North America: Drake Kraken & another vehicle

  • Drake Kraken: successfully passed whitebox — a major milestone for the largest player-flyable ship at release. Focus then shifted to core areas like Engineering, key traversal routes, and implementation of new bespoke manned turrets and weapons.
  • Alongside final support for the RSI Aurora Mk II release, an unannounced vehicle continued in greybox. Minor gameplay-flow tweaks improved traversal in the rear section and additional windows were added.

🔊 Audio

The Audio team successfully delivered its work for Alpha 4.7, producing an immersive soundscape to support the visually striking new “dungeon” experience.

“We’re proud of our exciting sound design and more immersive ambient experiences… Our music design team continues to expand the universe with the wonderful sounds of our composer Pedro… We’re increasing the value of musical design and will integrate more composed music than in previous years.” — Audio Team

Other highlights:

  • Claw Salamander enemies were given their own language, making NPC conflicts feel more threatening and meaningful
  • development began on additional voice packs for future releases
  • members of the vehicle audio system team joined Jared on Star Citizen Live to discuss ongoing improvements to vehicle experiences

🌐 Community

Community started March by publishing the February PU Monthly Report and announcing winners for the Coramor Love Story and Red Festival Earned Fortune contests.

They then supported Stella Fortuna with:

  • a helpful catch-all thread
  • a video contest aimed at daring racers chasing fortune

For the release of Alpha 4.7: Welcome to the Rock, the team delivered:

  • a patch overview highlighting key changes
  • a thread detailing major features
  • an Operation Breaker Stations FAQ
  • a Crafting guide for the first implementation of the mechanic
  • an RSI Aurora Mk II FAQ
  • updates to the New Player Guide and Welcome Back, Pilot pages to keep new and returning players up to date

They also continued planning and attending Bar Citizen events worldwide (including a Community Link for LVL UP EXPO Las Vegas) and stayed closely connected to players during the busy release/event period, ensuring feedback reached the dev teams.

Evergreen tasks continued as always: This Week in Star Citizen, bi-weekly Roadmap updates and Roundups, monthly reports, and more.

🎮 Core Gameplay

Core Gameplay spent part of March advancing hacking:

  • refined items
  • improved the tutorial
  • ensured the UI correctly aligns to the player

Weapon-handling improvements included:

  • automatically returning to the previously equipped weapon after using a MedPen
  • when picking up a new knife, the character preserves the currently equipped weapon/item when possible

Crafting (debuted in 4.7) – major iteration

Key March additions:

  • minimum quality requirements for blueprints
  • ability to dismantle items that were not previously crafted
  • defining which blueprints players start with by default
  • HUD notification when earning a blueprint
  • material and quality info in the tractor-beam UI
  • stacking resource containers of the same quality
  • viewing both your own and other players’ blueprints in the crafting UI

Performance and UI improvements:

  • paging in the Fabricator UI instead of endless scrolling
  • new resource thumbnails for the Fabricator, freight elevator, and inventory
  • standardized resource/quality tracking for freight elevators and inventories

Engineering / Refueling / Command Module / Transport

Engineering UI improvements:

  • collapsible headers on the diagnostics MFD
  • specific warnings in the notification box
  • color regions for damaged components on the engineering screen

Refueling rework:

  • any ship can initiate docking (e.g., Starfarer can start docking and fly back to the target ship)
  • auto-docking triggers once ships are close enough
  • ships auto-undock after refueling completes for a smoother flow

Drake Command Module:

  • integrated the resource network into the handoff process so host and parasite ships share the same network
  • implemented correct shield-face updates when docking/undocking

Transport System:

  • largely complete; now iterating with design to improve workflows and robustness/scalability
  • debug tools improved for devs and QA
  • Area18 setup completed for early tech-preview testing (alongside other locations)
  • fixed serious issues where doors opened into empty space
  • laid groundwork for self-repair/reset (e.g., if train cars enter a broken state, the system can fully reset the network)

Mission system:

  • fixed issues causing rewards to be assigned incorrectly or event-tracker progress to be miscalculated
  • began implementing Mission System v2 functionality in Starchitect, including dynamically creating mission locations without designer intervention (significantly boosting development speed)

Inventory Rework:

  • continued finalizing remaining elements and fixing as many bugs as possible (internal + PTU feedback)

Ship Hangar Maintenance:

  • hit its first playable milestone and was well received; now being prepared for content teams

Finally, Core Gameplay is now preparing to begin development on social features.

🐾 Creature Content

A new Creature Content team was formed, focusing on advancing Star Paws functionality. Alongside pipeline improvements, the team worked on a range of new creatures.

With Alpha 4.7, first results from pipeline upgrades were showcased, including Valakkar variants adapted to icy environments.

March also included additional design work for upcoming creatures and planned improvements to existing ones, including mesh and behavior updates and additional variants.

💰 Economy

In March, the Economy team began building features for Alpha 4.8, introducing new systems for crafting items, commodity trading, and item recovery.

“It’s important to note that the current crafting implementation in Alpha 4.7 is a transitional solution. For example, we’re generously distributing high-quality Savrilium ore to encourage players to mine and craft items. Our goal is to move away from purely credits-based progression and introduce alternative progression systems like crafting, reputation, and more.” — Economy Team

Operation Breaker Stations are a prime example of this shift:

  • currently high UEC profit margins encourage players to use new crafting materials
  • the real purpose is as a resource hub: pay an entry fee in exchange for the convenience of guaranteed access to high-quality materials
  • enabling quick acquisition of materials needed for high-quality armor and FPS weapons

Long term:

  • shop prices for crafted goods will reflect material quality
  • mission entry fees and resource yields will be monitored to transition from a profitable NPC-selling loop to a gear- and player-focused economy
  • Breaker Stations are intended to become go-to locations for experienced crafters to convert credits into the materials they need, prioritizing quality and acquisition over raw UEC profit

🧠 Game Intelligence Development

In March 2026, the team mainly focused on design and planning work for Mission System v2:

  • close collaboration with mission designers to optimize the practical functioning of the new system
  • making scripting tools as accessible as possible
  • refreshed a mission-UI prototype and implemented various improvements

They also began work on a new tool to help develop the mission system, deepening investigation and design and refining architecture based on stakeholder feedback to serve as a foundation for future work.

🏗️ Level Design (UK & DE)

While progress was made across multiple locations, the primary focus in March was on:

  • Nyx social stations
  • QV Breaker Station locations that went live in Alpha 4.7

Elsewhere, teams worked on future projects such as Tactical Strike Group and the Siege of Orison rework, and began preparations for a new major location.

They also fixed older issues in Stanton and Pyro and supported new technical initiatives, including defining level requirements for the transport refactor and working on future Starchitect content.

🧾 Mission Design

  • completed Nyx Missions Pack 2, expanding player content and including the use of reputation systems for some factions
  • reintroduced the courier system from Stanton and Pyro and added delivery contracts to bridge the gap between hauling and courier missions
  • adjusted rooftop deliveries in New Babbage and ArcCorp so players can deliver 1 SCU boxes there
  • expanded mission support for the new QV Breaker Stations
  • continued tuning Tactical Strike Groups alongside refueling and defend missions

With recent vehicle armor changes:

  • initiated a broad rebalancing of ship-based mission combat
  • developed a design concept to inform players ahead of time what ships they might face, helping them choose appropriate loadouts

Finally, the team is nearing the first playable state for new Battaglia missions, which include modular mission parts that can also be reused as standalone missions for other factions.

✍️ Narrative

In March, Narrative continued work on a variety of upcoming gameplay operations and missions. Alongside revising Tactical Strike Group story, they created storylines for several new missions coming in future patches — including one where an old enemy returns.

The team prepared for the next capture session in April to record the story-mission script mentioned last month. Placeholder testing helped revise and refine the script to catch issues before the final session.

Narrative also began planning a phased refresh of item descriptions to account for upcoming inventory and manufacturing/crafting revisions.

Finally, Narrative continued working with the Starchitect team to shape how the mission system will evolve once the tool is live, enabling additional planet-surface locations.

🖧 Online Technology

In March 2026, the Network team pushed hard on foundational work for Server Meshing, with a core focus on Quasi-Dynamic Server Meshing (QDSM):

  • completed a second test round for V1
  • fixed an issue where multiple zones were incorrectly assigned to the same server
  • improved efficiency by removing a global performance bottleneck that caused thread contention

Stability work included:

  • fixing multiple crashes and thread-safety issues in server management (including a crash when a game server disconnected at the wrong time)
  • strong progress on the next-generation area/region manager that partitions the universe into regions managed by separate servers
  • continued bug fixing, maintenance, and a technical design for a new versioning/patch system that will shape how future updates are delivered

Live Tools:

  • Bootstrap user surveys nearing completion; improvements underway for reliability/usability, plus infrastructure cleanup and configuration optimization
  • Panic Switch received bug fixes and improved documentation; crash-handling robustness continues to improve with higher tolerance and smarter handling of recurring crash patterns
  • Hex dashboard modernization (v4.0) continued; Blueprint Viewer released; account detail page and tool integrations progressing well

Online Services:

  • supported and improved the mission system powering hauling/industrial missions and instanced content; fixed a major issue where objectives were met but missions didn’t always complete
  • made significant progress on a long-term solution by moving mission-completion logic into backend services (more reliable and future-proof)
  • added support for entity-driven missions, allowing non-player objects to act as mission owners, enabling new kinds of instanced content
  • continued development on item imprint (true ownership of items on ships/characters) and made ownership queries more robust/efficient
  • worked on optimized inventory creation (smarter timing/creation of inventory entries)
  • completed technical design for regional chat

🧪 Research & Development (R&D)

Ongoing work continued:

  • delivered a test build to Tech Art for prototyping and feedback
  • improved tools: dump-log tool now captures thread names to extract call stacks from PU-reported crashes
  • major rewrite of the shader compiler server: proper thread-pool implementation and significantly improved load balancing when using remote compile slaves
  • compiler output (DXC/Clang) is now parsed correctly to generate error reports
  • added an LRU scheme to automatically remove old shaders from memory and disk
  • added processing limits to terminate compiles exceeding runtime/memory thresholds
    All of this improves long-running server stability and reduces resource usage.

🧰 Tech Art / Technical Animation

Technical Animation progressed on characters, creatures, interactables, cloth simulation, and the pipeline tools that support them.

Characters:

  • advanced head exports for two new named PU characters through the DNA/RigLogic pipeline
  • ran five polish passes (Gate Five) for two additional faces nearing final quality
  • reduced RigLogic memory footprint per character, improving NPC density and performance in populated locations
  • fixed a critical DNA compilation blocker that would have stalled head-related work in the Star Citizen patch branch

Armor & weapons:

  • porting the SQ42 Super Heavy Combat Armor animation set to the PU player character
  • finalized transitions between binocular aiming and zoom

Interactables:

  • implemented burning torch animation
  • reduced player interaction volumes so usable objects feel precise and properly aligned
  • finalizing animation tech for Nyx food props

StarCloth:

  • major improvements: driver-mesh validation, engine API alignment, new bind-offset parameter, and simulation cleanup optimizations
    Result: more performant and physically believable clothing for PU characters.

Pipeline work:

  • fixed a male-to-female conversion bug
  • fixed a character tool issue
  • added Maya 2026 plugin support
  • developing a tool to clean up dialogue events for NPC ambient conversation data

✨ VFX

VFX1: Focused on finishing Nyx QV Breaker Station set pieces (e.g., the laser room and space vista) and hero moments (the laser and the asteroid interior).
VFX2: Greycat UTV and MISC Hull B received VFX reworks and bug fixes.

Author: Fhexy
Published 11:54 02.04.2026