Star Citizen | What Star Systems Are Next – Why Aren’t The Vanduul In Game?

Welcome to some more Star Citizen today I wanted to talk about a couple of things.

The Vanduul and a Huge amount of developed ships for them do not appear in the PU currently, just in Arena Commander. So what can we expect from the Vanduul short to medium term and when will they be in the PU as well as my New Theory on What Star Systems are planned for next for the PU and kind of what order.

Obviously the Vanduul will be making an appearance in the Persistent Universe at some point and with a vengeance.

There were missions in the older 2.x branch, the tessa bannister arc, then ended with a load of Vanduul jumping in but since 3.0 we haven’t seen them in the PU.

However the Vanduul ships are largely fleshed out and there is a huge range of them

Blade – Now the Gold Standard (at least that we have seen for Vanduul Ships) it’s a Light Fighter and going to be extremely common to see from Vanduul forces, it’s also along with the Scythe & Glaive Medium Fighters flyable in game, though these are in Lore Esperia Reproductions / Human Friendly Refits of the ships.

Both the Scythe & Glaive as well look to me like they will get some modelling updates to bring them up to the standard of the Blade (potentially they already have the SQ42 branch of the game).

There are various Vanduul ships due for completion over the next 6 or so months.

Stinger – Heavy Fighter

Cleaver – Boarding Ship

Void – Torpedo Bomber

Hunter – Corvette

Driller – Escort Carrier

Kingship – Giant Capital Flagship

And not just ships, the FPS Vanduul themselves are going to be a force to be reckoned with, they have been getting them up to standard more recently, though I suspect they are a way off from completion, they will need a lot of polish too. The new Vanduul Models are looking awesome.

On a Side Note – There has been some Vanduul Vehicles talked about too.

The Vanduul Harvester which might stripe mine planets for various forms of matter.

These are carried by some form of Harvester Carrier which would have massive engines allowing it to enter and exit atmospheres. It was suggested to me this might now be a function of the Vanduul Driller BUT we will have to wait an see.

We have seen little teaser of Vanduul in the Persistent Universe before BUT why aren’t they in game now? This might be for a few reasons.

Vanduul AI is different to going to be different to Human Ship AI. They are going to have different tactics & ways to fly their ships. This is something that Star Citizen’s PU is working on as well, trying to get the basic human AI working and there is a way to go with that.

The Stanton System isn’t particularly close to any Vanduul Controlled systems, it’s a UEE / Privately controlled Human System and relatively safe from them. That doesn’t mean there are not potentials for Vanduul scouts and raids though.

When might we see Vanduul in the PU?

CIG have an erratic approach to certain aspects of the game, putting some in as placeholders, others balanced around the final plans for the game once everything is online and some just because they are cool at the time.

I’d expect to see ships and races based on their population and control of an area. However in the future this will dynamically change and the mission/event system & subsumption will work out what happens where and when. I would expect to see missions in Stanton eventually that are there has been some Vanduul activity on the edge of the system,

BUT when we have more Star Systems and move towards the Galactic West where there are a lot of Vanduul controlled systems then I would expect to see many more Vanduul and mission to deal with them.

That said CIG don’t need to build out the Star Systems in a proximate linear fashion, they could have Stanton Connecting to Orion or anywhere for the short term, that’s one of the joys of Alpha they can just do it for the short term and change it around later.

My new evolved personal theory of what systems CIG will build out next is that we will see the Pyro and maybe the Magnus System for the PU but then from Pyro they can do the Nyx System (where Delamar/Levski will eventually be placed), then the Odin System (which appears in Squadron 42 Episode 1) then we are damn close the Vanduul space anyway.

That would allow for the systems to be connected correctly for Lore purposes as well.

Pyro is proximate to Stanton it’s sun is suppose to fire out violent solar flares which can damage ships. It does have 6 planets, 6 moons, an asteroid field and a major station though. All the planets here seem pretty simple with cities or anything and may be as simple as making a single biome moon. Pyro 6 does have Ruin Station which is overrun by Outlaws & hotbed for pirates and various factions to fight it out, expect this to be a solid hero landing zone.

Nyx has Delamar (which lies in an asteroid field) and 3 planets these planets are as simple as moons though. One being mined out and the other being a smog planet (like Hurston’s Aberdeen moon).

Odin would require much less work to get it ready for the PU compared to other Systems as it will be at least partly fleshed out for SQ42. It has the Coil (previously Odin 1) which we have seen and Gainey it’s former moon.

There is Odin 2 which is pretty barren other than some testing facilities and it’s snowy moon Vili which has Raleigh Station a waypoint for supplies.

Odin 3 is much the same BUT has a teaser about maybe containing fossil records of Odin’s past inhabitants.

This also makes sense for a game cross-section point of view.

Stanton is a Privately owned secure human system with a huge range of biomes and architecture.

Pyro is a more dangerous with no security (beyond whatever is on Ruin station) area with environmental effects (space weather as it’s previously been termed) and caters more for outlaws and prospectors but because of that also bounty hunters and info gathers & surveyors as it’s unclaimed as well, it’s a perfect test bed for base building in the future without land claims.

Nyx is again unclaimed and will allow for more gameplay with the system being very suitable for potential mining and some more outlaw gameplay. It’s more that it’s simple to do more than anything and they have Delamar it’s hero zone already.

Then we have Odin which has a smashed planet, cool gas gameplay areas and pockets of interest BUT is UEE controlled and much more likely to see Vanduul.

It’s almost a shame with the Vanduul at the moment, I am aware Star Citizen is in Alpha and that Squadron 42 Episode 1 could come as early as the end of next year and that CIG may want to hold a lot of the Vanduul stuff for the PU until after that whether it’s ready or not.

When it comes to AI / NPC ships, they can be finished or at least implemented in some cases much more easily and earlier than ships that are for players.

The ships don’t have to have full interiors.

They don’t have to be flyable by players so a massive amount of the setup doesn’t need to be done.

But it is a huge amount of content and once it gets fed into their procedural systems for Mission Creation & events, then there is going to be a lot more to do, more enemies to fight, this will affect ship choices and loadouts.