In the Gamescom livestream, we saw atmospheric flight that didn't look too different from zero-G flight. What are the long-term plans for the in-atmosphere planet/moon-side flight model?

Yeah, it's still in development. Whenever I fly with it in game right now, I can definitely tell that there's some turbulence that's being applied to it. It does feel different than in space flight. I don't work on IFCS directly, so I can't comment about the directions that we're planning on taking it, but it's definitely in development. Actually, John is in Germany right now talking with the physics guy, John Pritchett. I mean, one of the reasons why he's there is to work on AI, but another reason is to get the big physics guys together and figure out how to better integrate IFCS into the physics engine. And so a lot of that is turbulence and things like this. But right now it does do some turbulence simulation.

At Gamescom, when we did the Gamescom show floor livestreams, our three backer guests were three of the very first Star Citizens that got to play with the new 3.0 model. That's a lot of what they're referring to. And we had that whole day before we went live to practice. And they remarked considerably throughout the day: it looks similar because that's what IFCS is supposed to do. IFCS is supposed to compensate for things like the turbulence and everything. But it felt different. It's like, no, this is different. I'm having to use twitch maneuvers, twitch actions more often. So there was a distinct difference in the way that it handled. If it looked similar, that was by design at that time, because that's what IFCS is doing. Now, we talked earlier about something that might be interesting: to see what happens when IFCS is firing all the different thrusters. How different is that going to be when those thrusters start to be damaged and then the turbulence and the rain and the snow start affecting you?

Especially once you start trying to react and move. It's not going to move like it would if it was just in space. There's going to be some different reactions. So yes, it will be different.

Sure, and weather and wind. So they had asked a little bit about IFCS and wind and these kind of things, and you had mentioned it pretty well. So if you're sitting up in space, you can see the IFCS working. Basically, if you take a look at all the 30-some-odd thrusters that are sitting around the ship, they're all adjusting. They're making it so that you're always stable. When you get into atmosphere, all of a sudden, because gravity is pulling down on it, you'll see all the bottom thrusters are sitting there pounding out thrust so that you're not actually falling down in gravity. If you shut off IFCS, all of a sudden, you're going to hit the ground. So I think some of the things that we have to do is, one, I don't know if it's being affected by the unified wind that is on the planets now. The planetary guys had to work on a brand new wind simulation. We had to get rid of all the stuff that was in CryEngine before, because obviously it assumed a 2D plane, right? And the problem is we had to, Marco calls it, spherize the wind, or basically get it to convolve around a sphere so that it still has a direction, but it's not a direction in world space, it's a direction on the zone instead. So as soon as we have wind strong enough that it will overtake the strength of the IFCS, that's when you'll really see it. But I'm sure you can get that effect just like you said. If you hop out of your ship or somebody has damaged any of your thrusters or anything, you're going to get that feeling. And again, it's more of a feeling thing rather than an actual visual effect.

And of course, it's a good time to add the standard disclaimer there. 3.0 is the very first iteration of this. Like any other system in Star Citizen, it is very likely to continue to iterate, not just with your feedback, but with our own feedback and as additional features and systems come online.

It's what we want. I mean, that's the whole reason this thing's still in alpha. We need the feedback. We want to know what the players like, what they don't like, and what they think should change. And then, if Chris agrees, then they'll happen.