Initially, server-side object container streaming (SOCS) seemed to have a good impact on AI, but over time the AI has reverted to "mannequin mode". Is this a SOCS issue, or is it indicative of something else?

It's a server-side issue. So obviously, with SOCS being introduced, that was fundamental technology that touched everything. So every team had work to do for SOCS, and every team will have work to do for Server Meshing. And so right now with the release of SOCS, our server frame rate isn't at the level that we want it to be at. And when it does run at that level, then the AI works the way that you would see in kind of a normal single player game. However, when it's running at six frames a second or somewhere around there, then we start getting into some packet loss and other issues that make the AI look wonky. And since this was our first release and obviously kind of even in a more time-compressed release, meaning with the holidays and holiday break, I think that's basically introducing this technology and seeing that it hasn't completely fallen over and we broke the back on a lot of the issues. I think over the next releases you'll see the improvement that we're all hoping for and we're all looking for right now.

Yeah, it can't be understated. We've touched on this multiple times between Star Citizen Live, Inside Star Citizen, Pillar Talks, stuff like that, that server-side object container streaming required a refactor of every single asset in the game. Nothing carries over from 3.7 in exactly the same way.

Yeah, from a code standpoint. This tech initiative had been going on for quite a while. Now, obviously, once we get it live, we start seeing a lot of the issues that, frankly, we don't see internally because we can't hammer the server all the time with 50 QA people. And then even then, when the server stays up for, let's say, a long time, then we're starting to see either memory leaks or other issues that might be causing the server to slow down.

But that's one of the great things about having our live test environment, our alpha test environment, is that we can get the numbers with our backers that we can't get with our QA. Plus, we had a huge influx of new players in Q4. So those servers were hammered pretty good. The Issue Council is doing great. We're seeing tons of reports. People have been working on it, even before we left for holidays, and after holidays.

Yes, and we saw it and basically the AI guys are already talking about what they can do. So it is something that's being worked on, being looked at right now. Now, whether those changes come in 3.8.1 or down the line, obviously, if not 3.8.1, then it'll be 3.9.