Star Citizen Alpha 3.9 Roadmap Update

Welcome to some more Star Citizen, Alpha 3.9 has seen a reasonable amount of changes with the new Staggered Development model, let’s take a look at what is currently planned for this Q1 2020 Patch.

There are updates to the New Babbage Landing Zone on Planet microTech, the initial version will have limited traversable districts and areas, but in 3.9 they are planning to expand out the city, shops and locations that you can visit.

They are adding more to gameplay area, mission locations and POI with Unoccupied Rest Stop Stations these are Typically found in less-traveled locations, these variants have basic fuel and repair functionality but minimal crew, security, and shopping opportunities but also Include derelict (but not necessarily empty) stations.

There are other environmental updates with CIG Reworking door technology to work in conjunction with Object Container Streaming and improving synchronization across clients.

Procedural Asteroid Updates  that help determine the shape, distribution, and appearance of asteroid fields including adding volumetric fog elements, mineable entities, and ring patterns.

There are Improvements to the shadow system to allow multiple large-scale shadow maps as opposed to the single large-scale map we currently use. This will support massive capital ship shadows too.

It’s also expected that if SSOCS and Planet microTech are not ready for 3.8 then here in 3.9 is where they would land. 

AI sees a lot of polish in this patch, with general updates to Civilian NPCs expanding out their behaviors, animations and interactions with Players and other NPCs.

We also see the polish coming in from SQ42 and additional work for the PU & balance getting Flight AI & FPS Combat AI into a state with the“Goal is to improve the look and feel of combat for the release”

We should see a more developed start to the Dynamic Mission System in 3.9 now as 2 of it’s major components now sit here and should have had a lot more work on them.

The Dynamic Mission System at this stage allows missions featuring specific locations, rewards, and other parameters to be dynamically dictated based upon guidance from the back-end simulation and player actions, which in turn enables a more systemic universe. It will also allow for the real-time customization of mission content based upon direction from the macro economy. This will include the ability to vary where missions are offered, in what quantity, and the payment. It will also allow mission templates to be injected with environmental information at run-time, enabling the creation of content that’s both more diverse and that more accurately represents the simulated universe at that moment in time.

There are further Economy Updates too with the automatic loading and unloading of cargo will require time to complete, with the duration dependent upon the location, the current level of demand for such services, whether an additional fee to expedite the process has been paid, and the quantity of material being transferred. Ships will be unavailable until such processes have completed.

There’s an Accounting App for the mobiGlas that will display a variety of information about a player’s active financial commitments, including recurring rentals, insurance, organization membership fees and the associated benefits, etc. It also allows for such commitments to be extended or cancelled.

Economy display terminals are billboards that allow for the real-time display of economic information including commodity prices, available missions and payments, retail sale events, area threat levels, etc.

The service kiosk will receive a more flexible interface for players looking to purchase services and maintenance, including the repair, refueling, and restocking of their ships.

There is a selection of FPS Weapons the Gemini C54 Ballistic SMG, Behring P6-LR Ballistic Sniper Rifle & Lightning Bolt Co. Yubarev Electron Pistol.

Ships wise the Drake Vulture light salvage ship is pegged for 3.9, it should have salvage functionality from the off.

The M50 is also getting some improvements to landing gear compression and updating the cockpit UI metrics to improve pilot experience as well as balancing it for it’s racer focus.

Bounty Hunting Gameplay is getting expanded out with additions allowing hunted NPCs to use quantum travel to evade players.

There are more in depth PvP Bounties too, the expectation here is the ability to be able to set bounties on a players head too.

They are expanding Multicrew Gameplay – Pilots will be able to receive instructions and view information in order to follow specific instructions. For example, moving to a designated area or Quantum Travelling to a specific point.

Turret Gunners will be able to receive specific target designations from other players and track them independently of their own targets.

They are starting to add what will effectively be Light Survival Mechanics with the player status system being expanded to include thirst, hunger and temperature in addition to stamina, oxygen & health. These values will have knock-on effects for player stamina and ability. AI behaviors will use this system to make intelligent decisions based on their own condition or the condition of others.

This also comes along with Expanding the healing gameplay to allow the player to use items with healing properties (like the MedPen) on other players and NPCs.

The Mission Givers for Crusader are listed here BUT as Crusader & Orison have been pushed to 4.0 I suspect that is a mistake.