Star Citizen 3.6 – Valkyrie Gets Cargo & New Space Stations

Welcome to some more Star Citizen, (Cloud Imperium Games) CIG have responded to the community &The Anvil Valkyrie will be getting the ability to more safely hold Cargo as potentially will some other ships which previously could not. We will also look at some big changes to Space Stations, NPC Behaviors & the Vanguard Warden.

CIG’s Zyloh posted a thread on Spectrum Anvil Valkyrie Cargo Update

“Hi everyone,

We’ve received a lot of feedback requesting clarification surrounding secured vs. unsecured cargo and desire for the Anvil Valkyrie to carry cargo. We spent some time thinking about how this could impact game balance and feel we have landed in a sweet spot that will excite many of you Valk pilots out there.

First, let’s start by talking about the differences between cargo stored via cargo grid vs. cargo that is manually placed on a ship. For all vehicles, there will be no physical limitation against carrying cargo other than the basic need for a space to place it. Cargo grids make carrying cargo much more convenient and practical, as they not only secure the cargo, but they also allow you to use kiosk terminals to load your ship. By comparison, cargo not secured to a cargo grid is at risk of causing damage, to the surroundings or the cargo itself, and must also be manually stowed and placed as it isn’t connected to the cargo grid-kiosk interfaces.

Finally, the moment many of you have been hoping for, in Star Citizen Alpha 3.6 we will be adding a cargo grid to the Anvil Valkyrie, occupying the same space as the vehicle storage. Since the Valkyrie’s design is not dedicated to hauling freight, its cargo grid technology will be relatively basic – it will not have the functionality to stack cargo layers high, but Valkyrie operators will now nevertheless have the option to choose to use the cargo grid to either secure cargo or embark a vehicle. We’re also planning to take a look at a variety of other ships to determine if there are more opportunities to make a similar change by adding similar cargo grids to spaces that make sense.”

This is pretty cool, the Valkyrie will have a cargo grid as potentially will some other ships that didn’t have them before. And is an example of CI shifting balance and responding appropriately I think anyway to community requests. I personally was not too bothered about the Valkyrie’s “Cargo” situation originally, I suspected they might do something like this to fix it as it didn’t really make sense to leave that space just for a vehicle. This makes the ship extremely versatile now for mission running and a whole heap of other uses and I suspect we will see them much more commonly around the game. RSI Subscribers can actually currently purchase a Valkyrie until the 17th of June, they should go back on sale a couple of times this year AND may even be available to buy and rent in game VERY soon as 3.6 adds rentable ships to the PU as well as mixing up what ships we can buy or at least adding to them.

Inside Star Citizen: Station to Station | 3.5 Ep. 8

Procedural Space Station Locations Evolved

Space Stations are getting more diverse and interesting.

They build these out in a modular way, with assets being added to a library that can the be used across many stations as part of their procedural generation, hand crafted additions or set dressing.

The interiors are also part of this system, making sure that the internal parts reflect the exterior but also provide the station’s needs while giving variance, they don’t want 10 Casaba Outlets on a Station for example.

This will be used for Rest Stops, Refineries, Cargo Outposts. There will be major Stations for LZs but also tons of minor ones that will also incorporate missions but are described as the “bread and butter” of the player experience.

The procedural nature of their generation should mean that they each look and feel different BUT all have the appropriate facilities and look like what you would expect a Station to look like.

3.6 will see larger exteriors and updates to Stations, 3.7 will see much more of an expansion with interiors being updated as well & then iterating on / marrying the two.

Bar Tender MoCap

They have been improving the Bar Tender Behaviors.

Currently they have simple set of tasks.

They are now working on having extended behaviors for modular bars & a huge range of animations and tasks that the bar tender NPCs can do.

They looked at counter tops, mixing drinks and cocktails, serving drinks, cleaning, putting items away, some variance of these. There is around 25 cocktails that they were looking at the bar tender being able to make with different animations, they might not use all of them, they will tailor it to a sensible amount.

How the bartender interacts with NPCs and the player.

The idea here is to make players immersed in a more realistic bar experience & breathing life into the social areas of the game is incredibly important for Star Citizen’s PU.

They did mention that they were looking at these bar tenders on bars on ships as well… If I can hire a barman for my 890 Jump… then win!

Vanguard Warden

Part of the Warden rework was to bring it back inline with it’s original concept and role.

They have readded glowing intakes for a more aggressive look for the ship.

It has should mounted missile bays, apparently these will be deployed when you have your landing gear out OR I assume when you fire them in a dogfight.

The ship has been made sleeker and updated with the Retaliators materials.

There are large support colums that help give the ship a sense of scale and toughness helping support the engine nacels.

The Landing gear has a mix of tyres and track treads

The central module has been widened for in the case of the Warden the living module, the rear ramp has also been widened, I believe this size and widening is the same across all of the Vanguards.

They now need to do the damage states and LODs to complete the ship.