Star Citizen Alpha 3.23 Roadmap Update – Cargo & Persistent Hangars Delayed
Welcome to a Star Citizen Alpha 3.23 Roadmap Update… some parts of the patch have been pushed to later in the 3.23 cycle now, others been added, we ar going to jump into the updates, give a bit more context to them and see where we are with Alpha 3.23 and what we are getting with the patch.
Alpha 3.23 When?
Alpha 3.23 is now in Wave 2 EPTU phase meaning more people have access than in Wave 1. Normally patches proceed pretty quickly from here to Open PTU and Live.
I think CIG can make it’s planned end of April Release Date still… especially now they have pushed those Hangar and Cargo Updates to 3.23.x. It does depend on how testing goes.
Anyway lets look at the Roadmap Update, CIG said:
As part of our final review process, we’ve concluded that the quality of the Cargo features that were targeting the launch of Alpha 3.23.0 are not yet at the stage where we need them to be for a release to the live servers. The Freight Elevators and Instanced Hangars in particular are technologically complex features that will require a bit more work before we feel comfortable fully integrating them into the game. This additional time allows the team to test for additional edge cases and include further refinements, which is especially important for features as impactful as these. However, we are not currently planning on shifting them back a full patch cycle. The following features are now targeting a 3.23.X release:
- Item Banks
- Personal and Instanced Hangars
- Freight Elevators
- Cargo Hauling Missions
- These Features join the Aegis Retaliator Gold Standard Update and Modularity for the ship allowing the Cargo and Torpedo Modules to be changed in and out. For those 3.23.x patches.
They have added a couple of features to the initial 3.23.0 launch.
Vulkan Graphics API Support
Converting the Star Citizen renderer from DirectX11 to the Vulkan Graphics API. This allows spreading GPU submission work over many CPU cores, and enables many new tech features that were previously unavailable, such as Ray Tracing. Vulkan is able to be opted into via the options menu with this release, but it will eventually fully replace DirectX11 in the future. THIS FEATURE is in EARLY TESTING what I mean by that is it’s in but buggy and unoptimized and for most players will be a worse choice that D3D11 until ironed out and iterated on.
Water Simulation & Rendering Improvements
The water in Star Citizen now support a multi-scale GPU wave simulation to support dynamic reaction to thrusters, aerodynamic wake, explosions and collisions. The rendering has also been overhauled, with improved waves, reflections, refraction, underwater fog, and helmet effects.
And pretty much the rest of the Expected 3.23 Features have now been confirmed for the initial release:
mobiGlas, Visor & Lens Rework
FPS Loot Screen
Map App Unified Starmap & Minimap
Player Interaction Experience
EVA T2
Master Modes (and a ton of other ship related updates)
Kopion (Dogs) and Marok (Birds)
Creature Hunting Missions
AC – Engineering Experimental Mode
AC – Grav Royale (with new arenas / tracks)
AC Custom Lobbies
AC – Miner’s Lament – Ship Level
New Character Customizer
Dynamic Crosshair
Reputation Hostility
Things Not Yet Confirmed:
Distribution Centres are technically not confirmed yet… tho are very much in the EPTU Patch for testing… They should make it in the patch.
Dynamic Event Blockade Runner which is the updated version of th eNine Tails Lockdown… I haven’t actually seen anything on this SO it might also get pushed to 3.23.x?
There are a few things that are in that aren’t mentioned on the Roadmap:
Economy Rework – Vehicle, Ship, FPS Gear and Rewards are all getting rebalanced.
New Hoverbikes – CIG have been teasing these since CitizenCon last year and again recently… with some handle bars. It’s rumoured that the Mirai Pulse series of bikes will be in 3.23’s initial release.
There could be more ships / vehicles too BUT it’s quite likely they will hold onto any more until Fleet Week in May.
XenoThreat Updates – Including New Cargo & Idris Boarding
Ship Combat & Flight Updates – Operator Modes, New Gunnery & targeting stuff, Sub System Targeting, Lots of QoL, Tunings, (almost) every weapon is gimballed
FPS Combat Refactor, QoL, streamlined, various SQ42 features
Ammo Repooling and Grabbing from Backpack.
Pirate Swarm Updates – With a Bengal Carrier (assisting you) in the Final Wave
Resolution Upscaling – TSR / DLSS
Replication Layer & Server Crash Recovery
There are lots of default keybinding changes
Lots of other little bits and features will turn up too / be relieved later.
Yeah that’s your Alpha 3.23 Patch… Massive… a bit of a shame with the Cargo / Hangar stuff moving to 3.23.x BUT it’s not going to be that far away!
In another little bit of news…
Premium CitizenCon Tickets have now sold out.
There are only a few hundred of the standard ones left.