The latest Around The Verse episode for Star Citizen has emerged. The newest episode is already talking about the roadmap for alpha 3.2.0 and features for 3.3.0, both of which will be released later this year following on the heels of the alpha 3.1 release.

The first part of the video drops in with the the U.K., team, who talked about the semi-procedurally generated rest stops that will be sprinkled throughout the persistent universe. The rest stops in the game are semi-procedurally generated utilizing some hand-crafted rooms while also mixing and matching different prefabricated interiors to generate large-scale interiors.

You can check out the interiors and some of the changes that you will be able to witness when you visit the rest stops throughout the persistent universe.

Environmental destruction is also being implemented, with players being given the ability to shoot out lights, shoot objects off shelves, blow up props, and interact with the environment and various entities with physics-based results, not unlike how the Dunia Engine handled physics in Far Cry 2.

This will go a long way in creating dynamic and intense shootouts both in space and planet-side.

The team is also working on implementing procedural race modes, which are centered around randomly generated checkpoints that players must get to in the fastest time possible. This could end up being pretty cool for planet-side interactivity and races through canyons and cities.

The U.K., team has also been working on optimizing characters using disparate mesh parts to load in and load out based on what players are wearing to avoid clipping and to conserve cycles and memory loading.

Improvements to the shaders have been made, along with improvements and additions to existing and new weapons. The Aegis Eclipse is also under full production, with a Stealth Bomber-style design.

3D surround gunfire is also being implemented, specifically for planet-side weapon fire. So this will help with determining distance-space gunfire for gamers who have a 3D surround setup.

A procedural vector space animation tool has been designed on the backend for the developers, which is necessary for the implementation for the female player-character animations when it comes time to interact with environmental objects and physics-based entities. The vector space tool automatically adjusts entities to the kinematic vector points of the character’s hands, arms, legs, and head.

The team also decided to get rid of the old accordion menu for the MobiGlas. They replaced the accordion setup with a full-screen static menu window, with a unified layout between the standard menus and the MobiGlas menus.

They’ve also removed all the collapsing menus, so that the menus are simpler and easier to navigate for better quality of life usability.

They’ve also scrapped the old Star Marine menus so that they will now use the unified code base across the persistent universe, Squadron 42 and the other game modes. This is something they hope will make it easier for all players to navigate menus and modify hard point loadouts and customization for both characters and vehicles.

They’re hoping that the text is clearer, that the menus are easier to navigate, and that the usability for MobiGlas is improved in ways that make it a lot more enjoyable to use.

All of these features are currently implemented into alpha 3.1, which has been designed to make it easier for all future UI updates.

To make some of the features standout a bit, they did modify the color schemes for the menus, but all of the interfaces are running from a unified code base, so it’s a much more streamlined process for the developers, and a streamlined process for player access.

For alpha 3.2, they plan on improving MobiGlas to improve the star map to make it easier to read and to make it more intuitive for players, along with improvements to the journal, journal information, and other secondary apps that can be used in MobiGlas, along with an item compendium for stat monkeys.

Many of the features are being implemented into the alpha 3.1 builds but some of the more complex features, such as the rest stops, will make their debut likely in 3.2 and 3.3. You can learn more about the developmental roadmap by visiting the official Star Citizen website.