Star Citizen Alpha 3.23 Is a MASSIVE Patch, What Are We Getting?
Star Citizen Alpha 3.23 is an absolute beast of a patch. It’s swollen with CIG putting in a ton of features. Today we are going to look at what that collections of features is for this Patch that is now planned to release in April 2024.
Disclaimer – Tho planned and expected in 3.23 there could be delays to these features.
More could turn up, there will certainly be a ton of minor changes, maybe tweaks to the law system, missions etc… And there are Evocati changes this time around as well… so CIG will be publicly releasing Evo Patch Notes henceforth and Evo members like myself can actively talk about those. You can expect some (E)PTU testing during March with the build slowly going out to more groups.
Personal and Instanced Hangars -This creates an instance of the player’s hangar to allow for uninterrupted management of cargo, inventory, and vehicles. Personal hangars are found at the player’s home location and allow for customization and organization of the hangar interior.
Freight Elevators – Implementation of systems and content for players to physically load and unload cargo to and from their ships by conveying cargo to and from hangars, landing pads, garages, and docking collars.
It is worth mentioning that the Vehicles in Freight Elevators got pushed to a later date, this would of allowed you to call up your Ursa or other vehicle from storage then put into your ship or vicea versa.
New Missions – Cargo Hauling – Making use of the Freight Elevators feature, this mission type will have players hauling large quantities of cargo to earn both aUEC and reputation.
Blockade Runner Dynamic Event – This involves a criminal faction (Nine Tails) locking down an LEO and L1/L2 rest stops. Players must run the blockade and purchase and sell a percentage of Quantanium before time runs out. They are an improved version of the nine tails lockdown.
Distribution Centers – new traversable areas offering gameplay opportunities in corporate industrial environments. This initial release includes the surface levels of the facilities, with underground areas coming in a later update.
Item Bank & Unique Item Recovery – Adding Item Bank kiosks to the persistent universe, allowing players to retrieve and store FPS items at multiple locations. This addition will also allow players to retrieve lost account-bound items, such as subscriber flair.
Replication Layer Update – The Replication Layer will be moved off of the game servers and set up as its own standalone service. In the short term, this allows for greater server recovery in the event of a crash. This is also a critical next step toward Server Meshing. In fact SM is effectively just connecting multiple servers to the Replication Layer and defining their area of influence.
Master Modes An Overhaul to Ship Flight & Combat fir vehicles to manage their speed, components, and role-specific functions. This release introduces the NAV and SCM modes, as well as a complete re-tuning of all ships into various archetypes.
Snub, LF, MF, HF, Gunboat, Corvette & Freight.
We don’t know the full extent of Master Modes Changes (They are ongoing)
And very hotly debated by backers.
mobiGlas Rework updating it to use Building Blocks, which will also allow for easier development of mobiGlas apps. This update includes reworked Home, Maps, Contract Manager, and Journal apps.
FPS Loot Screen – for looting critical items quickly, allowing for more reliable inventory management in tense situations.
FPS Map System – a minimap for the HUD as well as interior maps for FPS gameplay, helping players stay oriented in close-quarter encounters. Not all Ships and Locations may be included in this first release of the system.
Starmap Rework – new and improved Starmap with improved visuals and usability, including easier search and trip planning functionality.
Visor & Lens HUD Rework – Converting the Visor and Lens systems to Building Blocks for improved performance and flexibility.
Dynamic Crosshair – Combat helmets now support the dynamic crosshair which allows for quicker target acquisition in close-quarter situations.
Player Interaction Experience – a holistic array of complimentary features and systems, all related directly to the player. Player status, item status, environment status, as well as interactions with both the game world and the objects within it, are covered under these systems.
EVA T2 – Improved EVA controls and animations for smoother traversal in Zero-G. Introduces limited EVA fuel and encourages the use of zero-G push/pull and the Multi-Tool’s tractor beam.
Reputation – Hostility – players can affect their long-term reputation with in-game organizations via means outside of missions, such as reduction of reputation for killing a member of that faction. AI belonging to certain factions will react differently based on their reputation with you. Being an ally provides the player benefits, such as more generous friendly-fire thresholds and providing medical aid. Being an enemy will mean harsher friendly-fire thresholds and may result in an attack on sight. Lawful organizations will not attack on sight as long as they’re in a monitored zone, whereas unlawful factions will attack on sight no matter what. This is the foundation which allows players to become allies with in-world criminal factions and enables places like Grim Hex to enforce their own law.
New character creator – including a new user interface and additional customization options.
New Heads, Hair, dye, facial hair, makeup and a DNA Sculpting system to allow you to customise in new ways with updated UI.
Arena Commander Updates
New Flight Map – Miner’s Lament – previously exclusive to racing & part of the Master Modes tests, now opens its treacherous asteroid-laden expanse to all flight modes. Dogfight in the chaotic beauty of Yela’s ring for an intense, dangerous, close quarters showdown.
Grav Royale – Embark on high-speed mayhem in a thrilling new game mode: Grav Royale! Engage in intense vehicular combat across diverse maps, mastering your Gravlev vehicles to outmanoeuvre foes and seize victory in this gravity-defying battle arena.
Custom Lobbies – previously referred to as “Private Matches”, makes their return to Arena Commander. Utilising the new Frontend & Lobby Systems, Custom Lobbies allow players to set up and play matches for any game modes on any map at any time, with their own rules.
Engineering Experimental Mode – Three Limited Test Experimental Modes featuring the engineering gameplay (also referred to as “Resource Network”) showcased at CitizenCon 2953. Help shape the future of engineering gameplay in Star Citizen by testing and giving feedback to the features and balance showcased in this limited test before it hits the Persistent Universe.
What’s Not On The Roadmap?
New Ships / Vehicles – Be They straight to flyable or concepts made real. Expect some… we saw 10 ships that CIG were working on at CitizenCon that all seem possible. There is what looks like a hover bike which would make sense to release here with the grav-lev updates and the royale mode.
XenoThreat Updates – CIG looks to ramp up 3.23’s release by running Overdrive Initiative in 3.22.1. With that in mind as well…
Idris Updates – We saw in capture the Idris that the interior of the Idris M was in game and the Idris pretty flyable. Tho I don’t think we will get the player Idris in our hands, I do think we might see the updated ship used a lot more and for it to be part of XenoThreat. And part of salvage, boarding missions etc…
Economy Updates – They are changing the prices of a load of stuff, ships, weapons, FPS gear and potentially payouts for mission etc… giving the economy more bite… this is partly to do with the need to load and unload cargo but also to add more depth to pricing.
Pricing will be balanced around size, role, archetype manufacturer etc… They gave us an estimate of some new ship prices…
Medical Pisces around 500k aUEC
Arrow 2 million aUEC
Constellation 10 million aUEC
Hammerhead 45-50 million aUEC
The luxurious 890j might be around 70 million aUEC
This pricing is a work in progress and eventually this will all be dynamic.
LTP Database Updates – This should mean that ships and vehicles are more likely to be moved across to a new build without issue. I am expecting more tweaks and more things to persist from patch to patch but there will still sometimes be full wipes. 3.23 probably won’t see a full wipe tho.
Maybes?
Vulkan / Gas Cloud & Engine Updates
Cargo Barge Heist
More Salvage Updates?