Star Citizen Big News Dump
Star Citizen News today talking about Squadron 42 Progress, the SC Lawsuit, CitizenCon 2020, Alpha 3.8.2, Long Term Persistence, the Carrack, Alpha 4.1 Roadmap Updates, NEW CIG Content, Prisons 3.9 and More… this is a BIG NEWS DUMP!
CitizenCon 2020 – CIG have said “Last week, we revealed that the biggest CitizenCon to date is coming to Los Angeles, California, on October 10th, 2020…”
CIG are very much pushing the hype for the event already BUT that leads to expectations being that it will have the best presentation, releases and announcements to date as well.
This also means that the IAE will be separate again this year towards the end of November.
I am expecting Squadron 42 to have a heavy presence at CitizenCon this year LA seems like the perfect stage for this BUT we could also see Server Meshing Early tests and much more in depth missions.
Squadron 42 Progress & Lawsuit – I saw some posts on Reddit talking about Squadron 42 and the Roadmap not being updated enough & that they are vastly behind on various stages of their chapters completion.
I can give you my hot take, Squadron 42’s chapters require certain features to be completed before they can be marked as complete or move onto the next stage of production.
For a lot of them I suspect this is things like NPC interrupts so when characters move by NPCs that are having a conversation OR away from them OR they get disturbed from their current action BUT also Things like The Physical Damage System & SDF Shield tech… some of these were delayed or rescheduled features BUT that doesn’t mean that SQ42 devs are sitting idol, they can work on an array of other tasks EVEN tasks that are further on in these chapters and scenes… a lot of what they are waiting on to mark something as complete isn’t necessarily something that is blocking further work on that section… it just can’t be completed until later.
Another theory is that CIG were stalling SQ42’s Release until after the Crytek Lawsuit… I think that unlikely as SQ42 isn’t complete yet… there is a load to do still it’s not like they are done and saying they are polishing it.
In Regards to that Crytek Lawsuit against CIG we should see some form of resolution by the 21st of Feb, the parties had apparently made progress on a settlement so we have 3 likely outcomes by the 21st atm:
A Settlement BUT exactly what that will be or if it will be sealed is another matter, it could be CIG paying a small sum to Crytek OR Crytek paying CIGs legal fees OR a clean break.
Other outcome is that the Case is Dismissed, this could be with or without prejudice and some conditions, based on what the court thinks this could allow Crytek to bring the case back later OR have to pay all of CIGs legal fees OR a bit of a mix.
The last outcome is that the case continues though that is VERY unlikely as Crytek have requested the MtD.
The 3.8.2 patch has made Progress and is being tested on the PTU with LTP being it’s focus currently – The Carrack is expected (by me at least) to be in some people’s hands at this weekend though we could be waiting until the end of Feb if CIG are being mean OR if they haven’t finished yet, that said I would expect the final tweaks to the Carrack need testing in the PTU.
What I am interested to know tho… is will LTP allow us to carry over progress from 3.8.2 to 3.9 to 4.0… if it does then I AM GOING TO BE PLAYING STAR CITIZEN A LOT ON MY CHANNEL AND STREAM!
The Roadmap this week should actually be updated to Alpha 4.1 we know the Mercury Star Runner is planned for here, I am hoping this is an indication that maybe Data Running is here… too… give me Gameplay Loops please CIG…
We are still waiting to see where Salvage, the Dynamic Mission System, Deeper Economy Features…..
Also Core Features like Physicalized Components, Physical Damage and Physicalized Inventory are all waiting to get their premiere on the PU Roadmap.
Some new community engagement content is here this week with a Spectrum AMA LIVE on Friday at 7pm UTC – Ever-eager to uncover even more on Star Citizen’s development, the Community Team is taking the opportunity to provide more insight into upcoming features with an inaugural Spectrum AMA (Ask Me Anything). The team bringing you Prisons will be on hand to answer your questions about the upcoming system debuting in Alpha 3.9! Be there, it’ll be a slammer. I am very much looking forward to that… though I will be up in Manchester this weekend… so I’ll have to cover it later! Make sure you ask some good questions!
Prisons What We Know… At the moment we know that
If you die or surrender to security forces or in certain areas with an appropriate criminal rating you will spawn in Klesher Automated Prison on Aberdeen.
You will have your inventory taken away.
You’ll have to pay off a debt of merits based on your crimes OR escape.
Merits are given while logged on in prison over time you can also work in the mines under the prison to earn more merits based on what you extract.
You can also use merits to get equipment from vending machines to help with the mining process but also things like food, drink, medi and oxypens.
There are automated anti-personnel turrets to dissuade further crimes.
There are stashes hidden around that may have items and things like shanks and shivs.
There is a boxing ring for melee fights, there may be ways of earning merits from this in the future too.
There are escape routes in the mines BUT they will sap your oxygen and you’ll have to be prepared.
Dying in Prison has you respawn in prison and escaping should have more people coming after you as a potential fugitive mission & there will be missions associated with Prisons too.
I am hoping we get a bit more info from the AMA.
On Thursday for Inside Star Citizen – They will be taking a closer look at the interior of the most GIB’d ship in the ‘verse (The Anvil Carrack), and the Planet Content Team will provide a behind-the-scenes look into the creation of new moons with Planet Tech V4.
This should show us some of the new biomes techniques, shaders and oceans both liquid and frozen that are coming in 3.9.
The exciting thing for 3.9 for me is that most of the major zones for Stanton will be complete… we still need Orison, Crusader and then the Aaron Halo… and then it’s just Jump Points and General POI like Space Stations and the like to continue to update and add.
The Stanton System has take a long time BUT is representative of one of the most diverse and complex Systems that CIG could’ve chosen and will allow for the rapid building out of other Systems once it’s complete & Server Meshing has come online.
There have been some articles about Star Citizen Funding which is getting a lot more year on year, as the game makes progress and gets more exposure it seems to be bringing in a lot more gamers. 2019 was a record breaking year from them with funding and I suspect 2020 to break that by some margin. We only have figures for the previous best year 2018 with almost $49 million raised in that year.