Star Citizen is doing 'bedsheet deformation' physics now, because of course it is
Star Citizen has been in development for well over a decade now, during which time it has raised more than $450 million in crowdfunding, and if you're wondering why it's still in an alpha state after all that time and money, the latest update from developer Cloud Imperium Games might hold a clue.
It all comes down to something called «bedsheet deformation,» which is exactly what it sounds like: Ensuring that blankets on beds are mussed up accurately, just like they would be in real life. This is important because the «sleep and bed relaxation» element of Squadron 42, the singleplayer portion of Star Citizen, was recently updated so NPCs are now able to find and enter their beds, and then sleep until they're scheduled to get up.
«We knew early on that, to hit the fidelity we expect for Sq42, we would need to do some R&D on bedsheet deformation,» the AI Content team explained, apparently straight-faced. «This work is currently underway and, if successful, will allow the AI to deform their sheets when entering, exiting, or sleeping inside them. This is a challenging assignment and expands the complexity of the feature. For example, what happens to the sheets if the AI needs to exit the bed in an emergency?»
That's certainly a concern, I guess, although to be honest I suspect that in the midst of a crisis like an alien attack or a catastrophic blowout, I wouldn't be spending too much of my time looking to see how believable the NPC sleeping quarters are. Based on reactions to the update on Reddit, it seems that quite a few Star Citizen players feel the same way:
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