Inside Star Citizen

Weekly show on game development hosted by Cloud Imperium

Inside Star Citizen is a weekly show hosted by Jared Huckaby which features previews of upcoming game features and mechanics, as well as in-depth interviews with developers. It is the replacement for the previous weekly show, Around the Verse. The show takes a 3-week "hiatus" at the beginning of each quarter and isn't released over christmas resulting in a yearly episode count of ~35. An episode is typically comprised of two main segments, which come in multiple categories and can vary by episode - sprint reports, feature deep dives, dev team introductions and ship showcases.

List of past shows

2019

Q4

Alpha 3.7 (released 2019-10-11)

Air Date Title Topics Featured Guests
2019-10-24 Achtung, Tasty
  • Space station interiors
  • Space station food courts
  • Ship annunciator panels (building blocks UI)
2019-10-31 The EZ-Hab of Horror
  • Melee combat and body dragging
  • The strangest in-game bugs
  • Player force reactions
2019-11-07 Mission Control
2019-11-14 On The Prowl
  • Esperia Prowler whitebox preview
  • Interview with dev tools programmers
2019-12-05 Jump On It
2019-12-12 Storm Warning
  • Weather effects
  • Particle effects
  • Crusader Ares preview
2019-12-19 School of Rock


2020

Q1

Alpha 3.8 (released 2019-12-21)

Air Date Title Topics Featured Guests
2020-01-23 Sound of Sirens
2020-01-30 Life Among the Clouds
2020-02-06 Friends in Low Places
  • New contacts service
  • Prisons preview
2020-02-13 The Vehicle Experience
  • Interview with the vehicle experience team
  • Camera look-ahead
  • Ship combat changes
  • Sprint report
    • Prison gameplay
    • Organics shader
    • Harvestables
    • Decorative holograms
    • Mining consumables
    • SDF reentry effects
    • Cutlass Blue
    • Final work on Anvil Carrack
    • Hercules whitebox preview
2020-02-20 Moons and Carrack Swoons
  • Preview of microTech's moons & planet tech version 4
  • Tour of the Anvil Carrack
2020-02-27 To Go or Not To Go
  • Actor status system
  • Interview with developers on the go/no-go decision-making process
2020-03-05 Idris Attack
2020-03-12 Dropship Delight
2020-03-19 Personal Systems
2020-03-26 Welcome to New Babbage

Q2

Alpha 3.9 (released 2020-04-29)

Air Date Title Topics Featured Guests
2020-04-23 Home Work
  • Cloud Imperium switches to work-from-home
  • Cargo deck shops
  • GrimHEX updates
  • Sprint report
2020-04-30 Council Calls
2020-05-07 Night and Day
  • Day and night lighting states
    • Runtime environment probes
    • Light groups
  • Sprint report
2020-05-14 Throwing Shade
  • New vehicle hard surface material shaders
  • Prisons: post-mortem & future plans
2020-05-21 Welcome to Invictus
2020-05-28 Danger! High Voltage!
2020-06-04 Stick the Landing
  • Changes to restricted areas: landing splines
  • Sprint report
    • Building blocks UI for inventory management
    • SDF reentry effects
    • Voxel-based fire system
    • The Factory Line work in progress images
    • Cargo deck whitebox/graybox work in progress
    • New ocean shader
2020-06-11 Creature Feature
  • Predator wildlife creature concepts
    • Pyro crab
    • Genetically modified, yeti-like creature for microTech
  • The Factory Line preview
  • Crashed derelicts preview
  • GrimHEX racing/betting area preview
2020-06-18 Enemy Mine
  • Reworking the Vanduul ships
  • Sprint report
    • Combat AI improvements: refill ammo
    • Origin 100 series graybox preview
    • Gladius updates
    • Refinery decks preview
    • Voxel-based fire system: fire propagation
    • Pyro II preview
2020-06-25 Alpha 3.10 Approaches
  • Interview with the vehicle experience team
    • Atmospheric flight improvements
    • Thruster efficiency curves
    • Weather impacts
    • Combat targeting, UI, and control changes
  • Preview of features coming in Alpha 3.10

Q3

Alpha 3.10 (released 2020-08-05)

Air Date Title Topics Featured Guests
2020-07-23 Brand New Episode
2020-07-30 ROC and Roll
  • Greycat ROC introduction
  • Telling a story through an explosion
2020-08-06 PTU and Me
2020-08-13 Featherweight
  • Esperia Talon preview
  • Realtime motion capture for SQ42
2020-08-20 Summer Fling
  • Throwing mechanic updates
  • Sprint report
    • Area18 runtime probe updates
    • Space station EVA access hatches
    • Station defensive turrets
    • Homestead concept explorations
    • Large rock formations
2020-08-27 Cooking With Gas
  • Gas cloud tech & spacescaping
  • Force reactions
2020-09-03 Out to Launch
  • GP-33 MOD Grenade Launcher
  • Sprint report
    • Particle lighting updates
    • Lorville day/night lighting updates
    • Vehicle hard surface shader conversions & new paint schemes
    • Planet tech organics shader updates
    • Space station cargo deck exteriors
    • Ship to station docking arm concepts
2020-09-10 A Fresh Start
  • 100i preview
  • New main menu using building blocks
2020-09-17 Taking Inventory
  • Personal inventory system
  • Sprint report
    • Cargo decks and refinery decks
    • Planet tech updates
      • Geology library updates
      • Organics shader
      • Ground textures
      • Improved terrain tesselation
      • Object scattering
      • Terrain surfaces
    • A moon of Pyro V
    • Homestead 3D concepting
2020-09-24 Cargo Embargo No Largo
  • Cargo decks
  • Preview of features coming in Alpha 3.11

Q4

Alpha 3.11 (released 2020-10-08)

Air Date Title Topics Featured Guests
2020-10-22 Sweet Child of Mine
  • Mining UI changes
  • Sprint report
    • Cockpit lighting improvements for better performance
    • 600i lighting improvements
    • Preacher Taser Pistol
    • Curelife MedGun
    • Volatile cargo types
    • Updated chaff effects
    • Fire effects visual target test
    • Refinery decks
    • Derelict ship updates
    • Ship to station docking whiteboxing
2020-10-29 Interface Showcase
  • Count Disco trying to make real content
    • Count Disco taking care of the empty studio
    • Squadron 42 ending revealed
    • Growing potatoes at CIG
  • Manufacturer-specific ship user interfaces
  • Ship resource management: power relays
2020-11-05 Interaction in Action
  • Dev tools: interaction zoo
  • Sprint report
    • Esperia Talon iridescent paint
    • Radar and scanning system improvements
    • Refinery deck exteriors
    • Colonial style homestead evaluations
2020-11-12 Air of Refinement
  • Refining gameplay preview
  • Weapon zeroing
2020-11-19 New Conventions
2020-11-25 Project Mercury
  • Mercury Star Runner showcase
  • Sprint report
    • Gas cloud lighting
    • Refinery deck lighting
    • Ship to station docking observation decks
    • Fire tech: convection propagation
    • Hercules interior previews
    • Nova Tank whitebox
2020-12-03 Enter Perseus
2020-12-10 Flight of the Talon
2020-12-17 Year in Review
  • Refinery decks preview
  • 2020 development highlights

2021

Q1

Alpha 3.12 (released 2020-12-17)

Air Date Title Topics Featured Guests
2021-01-21 River's Edge
  • Developer tools: terrain modification system
  • Prototype: procedural river generation
  • Combat summit by developers
  • Bonus: prototype terrain deformation from grenades
2021-01-28 Logo To Go
2021-02-04 Let Them Fight
  • Capital ship combat testing & balancing
  • SDF shield tech testing on the Idris and Javelin
2021-02-11 Dock of the Bay
  • Ship-to-ship docking
  • Ship-to-station docking
  • Sprint report
2021-02-18 Sky High
  • Orison landing zone preview
  • Systemic vehicle degradation effects
2021-02-25 On the Gun, Off the Trolley
2021-03-04 Cave Dwellers
  • Large cave entrances
  • Cave runtime cubemaps
  • Mining laser subcomponents
  • Mining UI update
  • Mining gadgets concept introduction
2021-03-11 Driving Force
2021-03-18 Weapon of Choice
2021-03-25 Making Your Reputation
2020-04-01 A New Vision

Q2

Alpha 3.13 (released 2021-04-22)

Air Date Title Topics Featured Guests
2021-04-29 Armor Bearer
2021-05-13 Capacity For Battle
  • Introduction to ship capacitor gameplay
  • Ship operator modes
    • Missile operator
2021-05-20 Sting Operation
2021-05-27 Labors of Hercules
2021-06-03 Old Cat, New Tricks
  • Bringing the Bengal into the game for Invictus 2951
  • Sprint report
    • Porting transit signage to building blocks tech
    • Greycat mining armor
    • Hacking chips and UI
    • Aegis Redeemer interior graybox
    • Constellation interactive cockpit experience updates
    • Crusader Ares Starfighter whitebox
    • Crusader transit shuttle
    • Orison nighttime lighting work
2021-06-10 Plan of Gatac
2021-06-17 Dynamic Range
2021-06-24 Life Among the Clouds

Q3

Alpha 3.14 (released 2021-08-06)

Air Date Title Topics Featured Guests
2021-07-29 Loot En Route
  • Loot generation in the persistent universe
  • Sprint report focusing on visual effects
    • Directional thruster dust
    • Player-influenced ground particle reactions
    • New rotation effects for GPU screen space colliding particles
    • Ship weapon impact effect improvements
    • Theatres of War space station explosion sims
    • New lightning effects
    • Concept visualization of fire spreading in ship
2021-08-05 Production Induction
  • Origin Story: Steph Bedford, producer
  • Sprint report
2021-08-12 Player Slayer
2021-08-12 Physician Admission
  • Hospitals, clinics and healing gameplay preview
  • What does "gold standard" mean for ships?
2021-08-26 Editorial Territorial
  • Origin Story: Justin Chambers, Editor
  • Sprint report
    • Maria Pure of Heart interior whitebox
    • Hacking port concepts and iconography
    • Hacking chip concepts
    • Nyx system flora whitebox
      • Agave succulent
      • Aloe plants
    • Nyx I geology assets
    • Nyx I heightmap exploration designs
    • Drake Vulture whitebox
    • Drake HUD concepts
    • IAE 2951 logo concepts
    • First implementation of atmospheric pressure damage for players and ships
    • Stormwal gameplay micro-concepts
2021-09-02 Ship Trip
  • Ship Shape
  • Sprint report
    • VOLT weapon concepts
      • Electron SMG
      • Electron LMG
      • Laser sniper rifle
    • Laser trip mine gameplay preview
    • Cousin Crow's Custom Craft preview
    • Crusader showroom whitebox
    • Auxiliary habitation lighting states
    • Interior parallax shader for building windows
    • Injury treatment UI preview
    • Cybernetic limb replacement concepts
2021-09-09 Dealing With Healing
  • New injury, health, and healing mechanics
2021-09-16 Inventory Repertory
  • Physicalized inventory
    • Local inventory
    • Home residence selection
    • Ship inventory
    • External inventory
    • Personal inventory
    • NikNax app
2021-09-23 Report Purport
2021-09-30 Bombshell Clientele

Q4

Alpha 3.15 (released 2021-11-10)

Air Date Title Topics Featured Guests
2021-11-04 Sweet Gadget of Mine
  • Mining gadgets gameplay preview
  • Sprint report
    • Mercenary guild logo concepts
    • Drake Vulture graybox progress
    • Updated textures for character heads
    • Customizable eyebrows teaser
    • Quirinus Tech medium armor preview
    • Outlaw graffiti murals
    • Outlaw space station exterior thumbnail concepts
2021-11-11 Future of Space Combat
  • Upcoming changes to space combat ,presented by the vehicle team
2021-11-18 Spartan Warrior
2021-11-25 Freight Mate
2021-12-02 A Space Odyssey
  • MISC Odyssey introduction
  • Sprint report
    • MISC Hull A final art exterior and graybox interior
    • MISC Hull C final art interior and building blocks UI test
    • Greycat size 1, 2, and 3 tractor beam vehicle attachments
    • MISC Starfarer refinery additions
    • Drake Vulture final art interior
    • RSI Scorpius whitebox exterior
    • Banu Merchantman early whitebox exterior and interior, and animation tests
  • Raftron: defender of the Persistent Universe
2021-12-09 NYOOOOOOOOOOOMMM
  • Gravlev rework
  • Unnamed gravlev vehicle teaser
  • Jumptown 2.0
2021-12-16 Year In Review
  • Improvements and additions to Star Citizen during 2021
  • Look ahead at Alpha 3.16
  • Drake Cutlass Steel introduction

2022

Q1

Alpha 3.16 (released 2021-12-23)

Air Date Title Topics Featured Guests
2022-01-27 Duty of Dereliction
  • New crash sites designed by the Montreal studio
    • Laser trip mines
    • Long term vision for derelicts
      • Crashes in different biomes
      • Varying levels of decay
      • Storytelling through level design
  • Sprint report
2022-02-03 Fuel Injection
  • Refueling gameplay preview
  • Consolidated Outland HoverQuad showcase
2022-02-10 Sprint Stint
  • Oops, all sprint report
    • Reclaimer derelict ship props
    • Advanced traversal opportunities for outlaw space stations
    • Space station small and medium hangars
    • Exploring career level icons
    • RSI Mantis cockpit lighting pass
    • Orison executive offices
    • Vulture final art phase
    • MISC Hull-A final art pass
    • Banu Merchantman interior whitebox
    • Derelict colonial outpost concepts
2022-02-17 AI On the Move
  • Updated DNA head textures
    • Skin texture blending
    • New eye textures
    • Eyebrow and eyelash choices
    • Future plans
      • More hairstyles
      • Freckles, moles, scars
      • Makeup
  • Planetary nav meshes for NPC terrain traversal
2022-02-24 Off Camera
  • Origin Story: Will Price, Gameplay Capture Artist
  • All vehicle sprint report
2022-03-03 River Song
  • First in-game river
    • Biome object scattering
    • Player underwater submersion
    • Caustic effects
  • Reputation and hostility systems improvements
2022-03-10 Hull of a Show
  • MISC Hull A showcase
  • Sprint report
    • Hurston cloudscaping
    • Maria Pure of Heart interior preview
    • Pyro "spacebox" development
    • Pyro large scale space points of interest
    • Pyro yucca brevifolia preview
    • Unique props for Pyro space stations
    • Outlaw space station clinics
    • Colonialism outpost buildings and props
    • Derelict outposts whitebox explorations
2022-03-17 Favoring the Bold
  • Upcoming changes to the loot system
  • New shop kiosk interface
  • Selling items to shops
  • Upcoming changes to medical gameplay
2022-03-24 Player Experience
  • Origin Story: Player Experience Team
  • Sprint Report
    • High tech docking ports
    • Drake Corsair interior graybox
    • Drake Vulture prospective liveries
    • Graybox of inhabited Reclaimer wreck housing modules
    • Dynamic biome integration for wrecks
    • Expanded derelict shader variety
    • Handheld salvage beam VFX progress
2022-03-31 Expanse Glance

Q2

Alpha 3.17 (released 2022-04-29)

Air Date Title Topics Featured Guests
2022-04-28 Wear and Tear Affair
  • Summary of company internal Wear & Biome Accumulation presentation
  • Sprint Report
    • NPC pathfinding collision resolver
    • New AI flight path features
    • NPC downed state reactions
    • NPCs using vending machines
    • NPCs getting frustrated with malfunctioning vending machines
    • Derelict outpost whitebox traversal test
    • Early preproduction work on large-scale points of interest in space
2022-05-05 Tools Time
  • A look at dev tools used to make the game
    • Mighty Bridge: allowing any software to integrate with the game editor
    • Cloud Test Launcher: server stability and performance testing by simulating player connections and activities
2022-05-12 Oops, All Sprint Report III
  • Sprint report
    • Procedural landing splines for AI ship traffic - will be used to bring in NPC reinforcements to locations
    • Randomized NPC movement speeds
    • AI pathfinding avoids walking between conversational partners
    • AI interaction: eating Big Benny's noodles
    • Frontier clothing line concepts, including cold-weather options:
      • Overalls
      • Vests
      • Ponchos
    • Exploring new "sand cave" archetype
    • Start of new "underwater flora" library, such as river weeds
    • Drake Corsair interior shots
    • New physically-based ground vehicle handling
    • Preview of ship salvage beam operation
2022-05-19 Unto the Breach
2022-05-26 Pack Mule
  • Drake Mule reveal
  • RSI Scorpius showcase
  • 7th (EU) / 8th (US) floor of Manchester Goods Yard building, future home of the Manchester studio
2022-06-02 Illicit Delivery
  • New illegal delivery missions coming in Alpha 3.17.2
    • Missions become available after a certain build-up of trust doing legal deliveries for Red Wind Linehaul
    • New delivery items
  • Upgrades to combat assistance service beacons
  • More shots of the in-construction Manchester Goods Yard building, this time from the 8th (EU) / 9th (US) floor
2022-06-09 Nine Lives
2022-06-16 Inside the Merchantman
2022-06-23 Second Life
  • New derelict shipwrecks on planets
  • Planetary navmesh for AI
  • Introducing the Siege of Orison dynamic mission
2022-06-30 A Siege Upon Us
  • Alpha 3.17.2 feature preview
  • Siege of Orison: top seven pro-tips

Q3

Alpha 3.17.2 (released 2022-07-28)

Air Date Title Topics Featured Guests
2022-07-28 A Centurion Among Us
  • Automatic river placement on planets
  • Anvil Centurion showcase
2022-08-04 Star Kart Racing
2022-08-11 Sprint Showdown
  • Vehicle sprint report
    • Drake Corsair graybox
    • Argo SRV graybox
    • Banu Merchantman graybox
    • First look at vehicle salvage HUD
    • Salvage beam in operation
    • Hammerhead internal power relay retrofits
  • In-engine tests of the UI card system
2022-08-18 Doing Time
  • Preview of the Security Post Kareah makeover
  • New player-triggered mission to defend Kareah
  • New prison activities
2022-08-25 New Wave Caves
  • Preview of the sand cave archetype
  • "New" new player experience
2022-09-01 Persistence Existence
2022-09-08 Derelicts of Daymar
  • Previews of new 600i and Mercury Star Runner crash sites on Daymar
  • Progress on features previewed a year ago
    • Colonialism outposts
    • Outlaw overlays for colonialism outposts
    • Sneak peek of new service and repair station
    • Refinery buildings for the upcoming resource management system
  • Outlaw space station teaser
2022-09-15 Vulture Venture
  • Intro to hull scraping gameplay loop as part of the salvage career
    • Ship-operated salvaging lasers
      • Operation of scraping lasers to remove ship surface hull material
      • Converting hull material into Recycled Material Composite (RMC)
      • RMC is transferred into cargo boxes, which can then be stored in the salvage ship's cargo hold
      • Travel to a trade post to sell the commodity
    • FPS-operated salvaging lasers
      • A new attachment for the Pyro RYT Multi-Tool
      • Salvaged material can immediately be used to repair another ship
      • Repairing with salvaged material is not 100% perfect and will leave behind "battle scars"
  • Closer look at the near release-ready Drake Vulture
2022-09-22 Occupation Localization
2022-09-29 Q3 Follow Up Alpha 3.18 feature preview

Q4

Debut of the The Only Constant set.

Air Date Title Topics Featured Guests
2022-10-27 Further Underground
  • New underground bunker designs, and the planning process involved in creating new PU locations
  • Progress update on the Gen 12 renderer
2022-11-03 The Cargo Show
  • New cargo refactor
  • RaStar showcase: tool for developers to quickly create planetary outposts
2022-11-10 Race Chase
  • Embedded testing: inside look at a QA team's tasks
  • Previews of upcoming game features
    • IAE 2952
    • New outposts
    • Pyro space stations
  • New racetracks
2022-11-17 A Cut Above
2022-11-24 Galaxy Class
2022-12-01 Finding the North Star
  • Inside look at how the Tools Team validates in-game assets, and the new tool they've made for this task
  • Polaris concept model internal layout rework
2022-12-08 Reverberations & Applications
  • Journey to 4.0 - Audio concepts for the Pyro system: utilizing reverb to shape the soundscape
2022-12-15 Year in Review: 2022

2023

Q1

Air Date Title Topics Featured Guests
2023-01-26 Lorville Revisited
2023-02-02 In The Arena
2023-02-09 Interior Design
  • Concept previews of city building interiors
2023-02-16 TBA