Star Citizen Alpha 3.4 Roadmap & What We Know

Welcome to some more Star Citizen with a look at what is planned to be in Alpha 3.4, what we know about it and when it might be coming out?

3.4 Roadmap
They are adding the Mission Giver Wallace Klim to Levski

And adding ShipJacker Armors and Clothing these are anarchic, wilder sets than what we have previously had.

Lorville’s Business District is opening up, you’ll use the Tram/Train System from L19 to travel there. The area is planned to have new shops, NPCs, missions & I believe gardens. We are not sure to what extent we will have access to the HD Giant HQ building.

General improvements to Smooth Locomotion for FPS Combat AI and the AI network synchronization related to that. This includes a more robust character avoidance and an updated strafing animation set for combat AI.

There are a variety of new Ships
The Anvil Hawk Bounty Hunting Ship, this is a light fighter that goes for speed over agility to run down targets. It boasts an EMP & a single compartment for a bounty.

The Freelancer Variants are also here, the MAX the hauling variant, the DUR the exploring variant & the MIS Missile Boat Variant.

The Reliant Kore is getting some revisions ahead of it’s variants release in 3.5, they are updating the base model, reworking the cargo area, updating the landing gear, and making adjustments to the ramp.

We also have the 600i Touring/Luxury Module being added to the game, this looks to ve a variant to the 600i Exploring at this stage, rather than a module you can change out on the VMA on the mobiGlas.

There are some new weapon updates
They are revising the Joker Suckerpunch Distortion Cannons S1-3 as well as the Behring Sawbuck Ballistic Repeaters S1-3.

There is a new FPS weapon the Kastak Arms Ravager-212 dual barrel shotgun.

Core Tech wise
They are finishing off Object Container Streaming Tasks from 3.3s branch.

This is Code Conversion Improvements – continuing to convert all legacy Lua code to C++ for improved performance and greater flexibility for multi-threading.

And Background Spawning Improvements – allowing entities to spawn from background threads more efficiently to minimize stalling.

There is going to be various QoL improvements and fixes to VOIP/FOIP and Improvements to Video Comm System. They are Adding support for a simultaneous, proximity-based server-wide VoIP channel along with the dedicated channel, including, the ability to mute individual contacts, integration with OCS, and FoIP calibration and other performance improvements.

In addition to ongoing performance improvements they are also putting a lot of time into Procedural City Rendering Performance – Development of technology that allows large procedural cities to render more efficiently in engine regardless of distance from the camera.

Gameplay wise
They are Adding the functionality that allows players to rent ship items with REC for use in Arena Commander via the Main Menu rental shop.

General improvements to mining for both planetary bodies and asteroids.

Improvements to the variety of Patrol Missions currently available, as well as implementation of Patrol Missions near Hurston.

Improvements and streamlining of the interaction system for players interacting with objects in the world. This is the picking up and manipulation of objects, inspecting them and placing them.

They are hooking up various missions and events to Hurston & it’s Moons

Scramble Races are getting added to Hurston and it’s Moons

They are Extending Delivery Missions to use this area and adding further Rest Stops.

Further Improvements to the Quantum Travel System with upgrades to UI, interaction, and spline jumps.

With all of these they are also making some additional improvements and fixes to them.

Things We Might Get
Part of the are in L19 the workers district is the Hospital, potentially this could open up at least partially in 3.4 allowing players to spawn there when they die.

There is a huge amount of QoL and fixes that Missions require at the moment, that go beyond hookin them all up to Hurston’s Gameplay area, getting the new down satellite, search for object and underground facilities parts of missions as well as the FPS AI that go along with them is expected for 3.4 BUT more than that they are working on getting all of the current missions, NPCs and Mission Givers working in game without them going unresponsive or waypoints not working.

We have ship purchasing in game now with aUEC at New Deal and Teachs, they have talked about the pricing scheme being intended to be what they envision prices to be when the game first goes to full persistence and they are balancing for that. In the shorter term this might mean some more ways to earn aUEC or somehow getting it at an accelerated rate, potentially some more risky missions with higher rewards. Obviously at the moment aUEC is reset at least with every major Patch.

One of the ways that we are expecting that could very likely make 3.4 is PU ship Rentals from Vantage Rentals at Lorville’s Teasa Starport. The Kiosk is already there, we know that rentals work from the Anniversary Expo, that allowed players to add ships to their accounts for a set amount of hours. This accessibility to ships at reduced aUEC prices for a limited period of time would be a huge step towards giving players a much better gameplay experience and being able to test ships.

Release Date wise
The Evocati phase is SOON – Possibly by the end of the week (7th Dec)

And a Potential LIVE Build or EVERY PERSON PTU is being pushed for December 20th/21st if at all possible.

For me I want a much QoL as possible, Lorville and Levski’s performance problems to be in a good place & most importantly missions, mission hooked up over the Hurston area and all the mission we have in game to work, with bugging out and becoming uncompletable. The amount of long term backers that have been unable to complete a single Miles Eckhart or Ruto Mission or even a Delivery mission is worrying.

We are going to have to wait for 3.5 (and March 2019) for a lot of the meat I wanted in 2018, that brings the new Flight Model, Character Customization, Female Characters, ArcCorp and a lot more in terms of Gameplay Mechanics.