Next Year is a Real GAME CHANGER for STAR CITIZEN
CIG’s have given us a big ship and feature update for Star Citizen’s persistent universe. Not only do they show off the BMM, Drake Corsair and Argo SRV but also talk about one of the most important gameplay features that’s coming next year. Let’s jump right in!
The Banu Merchantman has been getting a surprising amount of development attention this year. It’s a giant trade and marketplace ship with shops on board BUT also a surprising amount of alien culture. Large Weapons, little hangar for ships, large open spaces, shrines, meeting rooms and a load of cargo space!
We saw the ships exterior in a much better FOV, that gives the ship a much better look. And less derpy. It looks like CI may be holding more back for CitizenCon / IAE later in the year.
The Argo SRV is the Tow Boat of the game… a powerful array of tractor beams will allow the ship to aid with mining and salvage, help bring a ship to dock or get them out of atmosphere when they are overladen or assist with moving large cargo containers.
The Argo has had a couple of artists working on it’s interior and exterior.
The ships cockpit has been expanded to allow for enter/exit animations from the pilot seat.
The internals are making good progress thru greybox using a lot of lessons learned from the RAFT.
We can see the work on some recent sprints coming together for the ship. They are working on materials & refining the ship currently.
The Drake Corsair is a multi-crew Exploration Vessel and Drake’s answer to a lower barrier to entry but still high tier expedition craft. It’s also hugely multirole and something a lot of players are very excited for.
is starting to get more detailed with it progressing well through the greybox phase.
A recent sprint focused on the nacelles and connecting areas of the starboard side of the ship. They are big chonky boys.
With the ship pipeline now, artists will build on the concept mesh of a ship and evlove it as necessary. This helps maintain it’s original look but also makes sure that it’s up to the most upto date pipeline standards.
The Ships remote turret has already gone into final art as it’s a self contained system that doesn’t need the same amount of iteration as a whole hull of a ship.
They are building out the landing gear again in greybox currently and they’ve built out some animations for it to.
The Crew Quarters is in a mix of greybox and final art phases. The refined drake ship pipeline has allowed them to build out a lot of it very quickly.
We saw the loading ramp which looks like it’s just come out of whitebox.
It will allow for an Ursa Rover or similar sized vehicles to board the ship.
The Cargo Hold itself is having material assignments worked out as well as building out some detail so that artists can work out and evolve some parts without going into final art.
They showed where the wings and nacelles will attach all together and the ship needs to have 2 separate transformation systems for these as its an asymmetric ship using little runners that open and close.
The flaps on the thrusters can expand when… thrusting…
They’ve been working on the sensor rods and aerials as well as wing mounted weapons.
They are keeping in mind that the ship is asymmetrical and an awkward shape for some hangars.
Vehicle Features
There is a massive update that CIG says is planned for next year that is a real game changer for Star Citizen and that’s power relays and the resource systems that are being worked on. The Hammerhead has been outfitted for this and is currently being tested internally.
This is all part of deeper engineering, damage control, life support, ship disabling, time to kill and true multicrew gameplay.
I am personally expecting that Physical Components will be also a focus next year too and these features all compliment each other.
We saw the Salvage UI parts with various icons.
The HuD will show the remaining hull available for stripping, how full your cargo is, the extraction rate and material.
Also the typo of Tools and attachments you are using (nozzle, cutter, tractor) and various salvage metrics including range.
WE got to see some early examples of salvage in game from the Vulture and Reclaimer.
They are still very much working on this and the full gameplay loop of the salvage feature.
They’ve been testing some new gimbal tech and plans with variable drag and speed based on size and weight. Smaller weapons would mean a faster gimbal… this could mean that this balances well with being able to remove some of the size restrictions on gimballed weapons.
They showed off the UI Card System which seems to be an evolution of building blocks. Enabling them to play UI type visuals in game quickly and easily but also in many more scenarios, this could replace the need for kiosks in some locations.This can be used to help give areas context, show hints / waypoints, warn you… you can imagine it being used for scanning and by bounty hunters tracking someone. I also expect this type of tech to be very useful for potential VR implementation in the future.
There is a load more CI have planned to show us for CitizenCon and the IAE later in the year.