We've recently released Alpha 3.24. How did that go?

Well, it's an interesting patch, let's just say that. So, 3.24 has a lot of new uses to some very large systems, right? And so, some foundational systems, yes, systems that have been in the game for a long long time.

Okay, getting their first update.

Yeah, exactly, and so it's been a bit of a rocky release, simply because there are some issues that happens when more players are present that affect core flow of the game, right? So anything that affects you retrieving a ship or, you know, leaving the hangar or things like that are, you know, instantly high priority. Some of them work well, you know, on internal builds, and then when we get real players on it, there's always something new. In this case, for 3.24, there's a lot of issues that happen related to cargo elevators, freight elevators, the new hangars, and net flow. And so we've been hot fixing quite a bit, figuring out what was going on, some missions that work for the same kind of reason, and so we've been kind of analyzing data and hot fixing.

You won't even say the name ATC.

Well, yeah, so let's just say that there, like I said, there are some systems in the game that are complicated, right? That date back to a very long time. And ATC is at the core of it, right? It's one of them.

Show me on the doll where ATC touched you.

Oh my god [laughter], all over. But the, and so, yeah, ATC, Transit, you know, are systems that, you know, there are any issues with these systems are debilitating instantly. And so, you know, it's not a case of if it works 60% of the time, it works every time. It's a case of if it doesn't work 1% of the time, then it's very high priority to find a fix. So we've fixed a lot of stuff in the last couple of days. There's more coming from the gameplay teams, obviously. Some changes to how we deal with obstructions in the hangars are coming as well, which has been one of the most problematic issues. Like the checks on that side were a lot too, I like to say, hardcore, which, you know, would cause a lot of side effects. It caused some hangars to break. So, you know, we're in the process now of changing all that stuff to release a little bit the hold that ATC has over cleanup and, you know, how it prevents some stowing. So there's already a bunch of odd fixes that went live for that. So hopefully that will alleviate a lot of the issues people have been running into with hangers specifically. But otherwise, like 3.24 is a super interesting patch for a lot of reasons. Also, because we've introduced new metrics to our Star Engine that have launched in 3.24. So we have now a lot more information about the state of the game servers and how they perform. So we've instrumented a lot of things in the engine. And to be clear, we've had metrics before. This is more about long term metrics that we track over a long period of time. So that allows us to really correlate important events, right? Like an area streaming in causing problems, certain game components costing us, you know, frame time in certain areas. And so I like to say that these new metrics are like if optimizing the game is like a large cornfield. The tools that we used to have to do this were very optimized, very great microscopes, right? But now with these new metrics, we have a radar that tells us exactly where to look for and drill down. And so I'm hopeful that with 24, we already got a couple of reveals just seeing, you know, the live release roll out with these metrics. So I'm hopeful that that's going to bring forward a lot more improvements. So that's why I'm excited about it.

JH:It's one of those things where it's hard to see it now, but there's so much of what we're building towards with the way that freight elevators play into Pyro and stuff that you're going to see at CitizenCon later this year, next month, six weeks, are all based on stuff that's in 3.24. I understand it's rough now and stuff, but it is a foundational patch that will be built upon and will bear fruit in future releases, all things.

BB:Yeah, one of the things that maybe I don't know if we've communicated this way. I mean, Chad probably did outline this in one of the insights of Citizen, but it's that the tech behind the way the hangars function is actually an instanced interior, right? This is the first use we have of the instanced interior system, but you can imagine what we'll be able to do with that technology moving forward. You know, I know that some of you guys have encountered ghost sounds when you go in your hangar, like you can hear other stuff from others. That's because in reality, the hangars are super posed on top of each other and instanced in place. And so when you go to your hangar, there's some, I'll just qualify it as black magic rendering calling that happens that you're basically in your hangar, that's what you see, right? Now there's a bug with audio, that's why you're either you've heard some audio from the other interiors, but the reality is all these hangars are actually on top of each other, which is when you start thinking about it, it's a bit weird. And then when you request your ATC gateway, that's when your actual instances is moved into place so you can exit and enter. And so that tech will be able to use that throughout the universe for a lot more things for instancing interiors, which is super key for a lot of the gameplay we're trying to do.