In the latest Around The Verse episode, Cloud Imperium Games and Roberts Space Industries tackled some of the latest updates for Star Citizen, as well as the all new flight model that will be implemented into the game, and the emote system based on the American Sign Language.

The new flight model isn’t just about player control for the ships, it’s also about how the AI flies the ships as well. So in order to accommodate the new flight model, Cloud Imperium Games had to overhaul the AI flight model to match the all new flight model update.

They also changed the way certain ships behave during dogfighting. For instance, gunships will now have completely altered AI behaviors where they will rely more on flanking and circling their targets while utilizing the turrets instead of simply trying to shoot from the front. You can see how some of the behaviors are being altered in the Around The Verse video below.

It’s not just the AI behavior that are changing – players will also have to adjust their own play-style, where fighters will be more agile while gunships will be heavier and more damage-oriented no matter what position you’re in.

The sound design team has also been updating the audio of the ships to match the new advanced flight system, with better directional audio effects being utilized to give the game a more realistic soundscape, especially for gamers playing with headsets or speaker setups that have surround sound capabilities.

And on the topic of sound… Cloud Imperium Games have also implemented some sign language emotes into Star Citizen, which will allow players to communicate through sign-language if they’re unable to communicate through voice chat due to being deaf. This feature is still in the early development phase but the final implementation will also coincide with the FOIP feature that allows players to utilize their web-camera for motion-based facial capture.

Now for those of you who don’t know, all games in development after January 1st, 2019 have to be in compliance with the CVAA legislation, which means that advanced communication systems need to accommodate the hearing and visually impaired. This means that voice chat systems need speech-to-text, text communication systems need text-to-speech, and navigation needs to be accommodating for those who either can’t see or have motor-skill disabilities that may prevent them from being able to conveniently access advanced communication systems within the multiplayer modes.

In this particular case, Star Citizen still isn’t entirely in compliance according to the CVAA standards. But the American Sign Language implementation means that they’re one step closer thanks to making it so that those who are hearing impaired will be able to communicate with other players through sign language. This would mean that it at least complies with addressing the hearing impaired aspect of the communication requirements from the CVAA.

They would still need a text-to-speech module to complete the requirements, but they’re already halfway there, assuming the FCC considers ASL an accommodating feature for addressing hearing impairment.

Anyway, gamers are still on the look out alpha version 3.5 for Star Citizen, so that’s something to look forward to in the coming weeks. You can keep track of the development on the game by visiting the developmental roadmap page to see how much has been completed and how far they still have to go to add in certain other highly anticipated features.