In addition to rolling out a new Around The Verse episode, Roberts Space Industries and Cloud Imperium Games also announced that a Free Fly weekend is underway featuring a Drake Dragonfly, a Drake Cutlass Black, an Aegis Avenger Titan, and a MISC Prospector.

The Free Fly gets underway right now, and you can take advantage of playing through the alpha 3.2 release, which is currently available right now. For more information on how to sign-up and download the Star Citizen client, you can visit the Fly Now web page.

You can also learn more about the August Fly Now campaign by visiting the official promotional page over on the Roberts Space Industries website.

Now that that’s out of the way, it’s time to dive into this week’s Around The Verse video, which you can check out below.

The video starts with a quick community recap of a foot race on Daymar before moving over to improvements being made with DataForge 2.9 that allows for improved workflow management for designing UI modules being implemented into Star Citizen.

The workflow modules will make it easier for non-programmers to design user interfaces, graphics, and some interactive elements within Star Citizen.

The team has also been overhauling the mission giver to expand throughout the Staten solar system. As they add in new planets and locations, the team wants to make it viable so that the procedural mission generator will adapt and expand mission opportunities for each new location added to the game, and so that the mission scripting team doesn’t have to go back and manually update each and every mission to accommodate the new locations.

The team is also working on optimizing and culling audio and FOIP features both server-side and client-side. This means that players will be able to utilize an optimized version of the face over internet protocol thanks to the implemented Faceware API, where players can use their webcam to read their actual facial data in connection with the microphone so that the in-game gamers replicate the player’s actual facial and vocal miens in order to display it in-game both client-side and server-side.

The team is currently ironing out the level of detail for the FOIP features, both for the visual facial animation data and the audio voice data. Once the LOD features are properly optimized, the FOIP feature will be ready to roll out with an update.

Elevator transports are being implemented as well for additional transportation hubs, which will be a key feature for traveling through locations such as rest stops, city hubs, and outposts that have multiple levels.

Exterior rest stops are also being updated with modular exterior builds and advertisements so that they each have their own unique look and design.

As far as developments are concerned when it comes to ship developments, the Constellation Phoenix landing gear animation is being fixed, along with further refinement for the interiors.

There’s also a ton of new content on the horizon, especially what’s planned for alpha 3.3.0 with the object container streaming, which should help playability and frame-rate optimization for anyone who isn’t running a massive mega-rig, along with the first wave of ground-based combat AI. That should be really interesting to see in action.

Even further on the horizon are new planets, new ships, new volumetric gases, improved physics, and playable and createable female characters, all of which will make an appearance in 3.4, assuming everything goes as planned.

YouTuber Bored Gamer goes through a list of the roadmap features that are front-facing the public for the moment, which you can check out in the video below.

As mentioned, you can learn more about the Star Citizen developmental roadmap, or give some of the ships a free-fly during the special promotion by visiting the official website.