Category: Progress Report

This score has been reduced from 4/5 to 2/5. The stability of the game has gone down and could get worse with server meshing and pyro and many of the core changes coming to things like cargo.

Alpha 3.24 and 4.0 are not expected to have improved stability.

The playability score is not expected to drop beyond the current score for the next report.

Bugs and Instability

Star Citizen Alpha 3.24 still has the Alpha label. As such instability is expected as the game is still some time away from feature complete.

This score was expected to drop from 4 to 3 but ended up dropping to 2. Exploding ships, invisible asteroids, non-functional weapons and a plethora of game-breaking bugs have decreased stability significantly this period.

2/5

This score remains unchanged. For this score to be a 3/5 player counts per shard will need to be over or near 1000. For a score of 4/5 over 10,000. A 5 out of 5 score represents the maximum universe size for seamless play (100,000s or millions).

Should the playable universe see 800+ player counts this score could be raised to 3 out of 5.

2/5

This reporting period saw some strange activities with the economy:

• Duping bug
• Partial Reset (Balance, reputation and rentals but not in-game purchased ships & vehicles)
• Commodity trading
• Salvage nerf
• Ship Price Increases
• Heavy FPS weapon price increases

The economy score is being lowered to a 2 this period due to the vast changes, disruption and feeling of lower reward.

2/5

Master Modes turned out to have mixed reviews but generally ship combat seems more cinematic. Grouping (having wingmen and fleets) is far more powerful than before. Master Modes needs work but has been more fun than expected. The score remains unchanged.

4/5

This rating remains unchanged even though Master Modes was released to the Persistent Universe. Dogfights have still been fun and engaging. Time to kill went down but so did the ability for small ships to stay on the battlefield indefinitely. Group play feels more satisfying.

4/5

Issues with weapons reloading, inventory changes and glitches and weapons not firing were among some of the bugs that have cause the score to drop to 3/5 from 4/5.

3/5

Alpha 3.22.1 is experiencing some stability issues (Overdrive Initiative and other issues).

Alpha 3.23 is expected to be even less stable with community and developer fears echoing the 3.18 patch.

The playability score might drop for the next report as feature creep has caught up and there is a backlog to sort out.

Bugs and Instability

Star Citizen Alpha 3.22.1 still has the Alpha label. As such instability is expected as the game is still some time away from feature complete. Alpha 3.22.1 is paving the path for the universe to grow beyond Stanton system.

This score remains unchanged but could drop back down to 3/5 if the game becomes less stable in the next report.

4/5

This score remains unchanged. For this score to be a 3/5 player counts per shard will need to be over or near 1000. For a score of 4/5 over 10,000. A 5 out of 5 score represents the maximum universe size for seamless play (100,000s or millions).

Some server meshing tests have seen test servers hit up to 800 concurrent players in Stanton and Pyro. Should universe shards see 800 player counts this score could be raised to 3 out of 5.

2/5

There was no wipe during this reporting period. Additionally, with Salvage and other large money-making options the economy at this time is aUEC rich. Many in the community expect a wipe with Alpha 3.23 but almost certainly by 4.0 there will be one. It is even more speculative what will be wiped (ships? money? Reputation?…).

The economy score is not changing in this reporting period.

3/5

Master Modes and the new flight model was released to Arena Commander. It is expected to make its debut in Alpha 3.23 for the PU. This score remains unchanged but is likely to change in the next report scheduled for July 2024.

4/5

This rating remains unchanged in this report as Master Modes was not released to the Persistent Universe. This score is expected to drop in the next report as Master Modes appears to need a bit more work still before it is in a good place.

4/5

This reporting period saw improvements in AI both on the ground and in the air. Network and server issues appear to be holding it back from greatness. This score remains unchanged.

4/5

With the addition of Fauna and improvements to the combat AI this score should move to 4 out of 5 if it was not for the network issues and the lack of npc crew.

3/5

Scripted missions continue to be a bane in Star Citizen’s existence. The Overdrive Initiative was a perfect example to highlight this issue one more time. The problem will be broken down again for new readers.

Scripted Missions have a description (script) that details what players need to do to complete the missions.

Unscripted Missions are activities players can carry out for an objective without a script, mission giver or mission contract. There is no script.

• Overdrive Initiative
• Any mobiGlas contract
• Siege of Orison
• Medical beacons
• NPC and player bounties

• Cargo running (Licit and illicit)
• Salvaging another player’s ship
• Clearing your crimestat at Security Post Kareah
• Rescuing your friend without a medical beacon
• Collecting Halloween helmets or Red Festival envelopes

Unscripted missions are dynamic and emergent gameplay. Scripted missions are on-rails gameplay. Some scripted missions are more loose than others.

The more tasks needed to complete sequentially in a mission, the higher the chance it has of not completing. This is also true for both scripted and unscripted missions. If you buy cargo with the intention to sell it, then any bug at the terminals or during your journey will see your cargo mostly forfeit. With scripted missions this is generally far worse, any event required in the mission chain breaking will forfeit the mission. The longer the mission chain the higher the chance of one bug breaking the entire mission.

Scripted missions are not as much fun as unscripted ones (opinion). Additionally, they are more expensive to program and have a higher chance of breaking. Long chain scripted missions such as Overdrive Initiative and others we have mentioned in the past, are great examples of long chain attempts.

The advice has been and continues to be that the focus of game development be on dynamic unscripted gameplay with scripted missions taking a backseat. Squadron 42 is a single player fully scripted game. Star Citizen, however, is not. Scripted missions should take a backseat and better solutions need to be found to avoid the broken chain script problem.

When a scripted mission breaks the bug fixes are specifically for that mission and seldom apply to the rest of the game. When dynamic, unscripted activities break, fixes apply to the entire game – even unplanned or unimagined gameplay benefits.

Scripted missions come with a lot of tech debt with little to no or even negative benefits. If you need to visualize this imagine organic Jumptown (before it was an event) compared to actual recent Jumptown which was a dead event.

In the dynamic formula, all CIG would have to do to incentivize Jumptown is to massively up the reward for being there and players would not need a mission at all to wage war over the area. Instead we have dispenser and box scripts which can and do break.

The servers continue to receive love and the recent IAE 2953 in game expo was not plagued with the same issues as last year and was mostly playable.

Bugs and Instability

Star Citizen Alpha 3.21.1 still has the Alpha label. As such instability is expected as the game is still some time away from feature complete. Alpha 3.21.1 is paving the path for the universe to grow beyond Stanton system.

This score was increased from 3/5 to 4/5 due to recent fixes and performance improvements.

4/5

This score remains unchanged. For this score to be a 3/5 player counts per shard will need to be over or near 1000. For a score of 4/5 over 10,000. A 5 out of 5 score represents the maximum universe size for seamless play (100,000s or millions).

2/5

The economy in Star Citizen is still barely functional and almost entirely game-controlled. However, players do trade items but the current server issues are causing Balance, Item, Ship and Reputation wipes. Read our article about Wipes and see Star Citizen wipe history and estimates.

3/5

Master Modes and the new flight model were not released this period. This score remains unchanged.

4/5

This rating remains unchanged in this report.

4/5

Score unchanged. Certainly playable.

4/5

Persistent Entity Streaming introduced massive amounts of stability issues for the game. The game even was completely unplayable for a while. Latest versions seem somewhat better as seen during the Star Citizen Alpha 3.19.1 Freefly July 2023. From what can be played at least, it seems to be somewhat playable again.

Bugs and Instability

Star Citizen Alpha 3.19.1 still has the Alpha label. As such instability is expected as the game is still some time away from feature complete. Alpha 3.19.1 has really improved playability and the amount of things to do in game has also grown as the few things in Stanton are more playable than ever before. Dogfighting remains ruined by invisible ships, invincible ships, and generally players exploiting things like combining thrust axes to exceed maximum velocities and many other issues. The flight model is expected to change significantly by the next report.

This score was lowered from 4/5 to 3/5 due to the vast amount of game experience-breaking bugs.

3/5

Star Citizen is moving from 100 player servers to 200 player servers. In this reporting period servers of between 120 and 160 have been noticed. This score remains unchanged. For this score to be a 3/5 player counts per shard will need to be over or near 1000. For a score of 4/5 over 10,000. A 5 out of 5 score represents the maximum universe size for seamless play (100,000s or millions).

2/5

The economy in Star Citizen is still barely functional and almost entirely game-controlled. However, players do trade items but the current server issues are causing Balance, Item, Ship and Reputation wipes. Read our article about Wipes and see Star Citizen wipe history and estimates.

3/5

The flight model is expected to change significantly for Alpha 3.20 and beyond. This stays at 4/5 but is a perfect score around the corner?

4/5

Dogfighting is going to change significantly with the new flight model in Alpha 3.20. This rating remains unchanged in this report.

With the introduction of soft death and more updates to weaponry and ship fighting features, dogfighting in Star Citizen is near complete.

4/5

Score unchanged. Certainly playable. Still needs some work to reach fully playable levels but this might be due to server / network issues.

4/5

Based on recent findings, this org believes that there is an issue with the community hiding exploits. On paper, stopping people from being able to bring attention to exploits does prevent people from acquiring things (or kills) they should not be able to. The idea is that if there is some exploit, you do not want everyone doing it or knowing about it.

While this sounds good on paper, the reality is far different. For a finished product, perhaps it makes sense. For a game in heavy development like Star Citizen, game breaking bugs and exploits should have attention brought to them by the community. This allows developers to fully understand the severity of the issue by the community testing it extensively. It also allows more of the community to be aware of the issue. In fact, the benefits of bringing attention to these issues are many. While the benefits of hiding these issues in practice are few, if any.

Another suggestion here is to have take the opposite approach of what is currently being done. Offer bug bounties to players who identify and help solve exploits. Perhaps even create a new section in the issue council for the most “dangerous” bugs such as item duping and player/ship invisibility.

Having content creators and players be afraid to highlight these issues in fear of being banned, at this early stage of development, is contrary to this game’s goals.

A new phenomenon is also occurring with Star Citizen that we have not noticed before. There are groups of players who are abusing the fact they know of certain bugs and exploits (which the general community might not be aware of). These players use these exploits in initial encounters with other foes. They then start recording footage when they are responded to with the same exploit. These players will then report the victims for exploiting and show clipped footage as evidence.

There is at least one dogfighting org that is starting these engagements and then start threatening their enemies with bans. These players are often highly skilled dogfighters who dedicate many hours and then use the exploits in secret only to then threaten bans to other players.

Why is this bad for the community?

If the reasons are not obvious, the main reason is that this overloads CIG moderators with ban requests. Additionally, players that might not be even aware they are being report-baited or even know they are bugged (such as the invisible bug). The community should be vigilant on groups that are consistently engaged with combat, followed by ban threats. Especially if these groups are doing the same exploits in private (or to cause an engagement) and then show clipped footage as “proof” of their opponents cheating.

There have been far too many incidents of this observed now (by the same group and others) in game for this to be ignored.

At first glance these scripted mission types might seem like a good idea. Sure, adding mining claims is required so if they make missions with mining claim mechanics this feature can be tested. Or perhaps the data mission sounds like it helps to bring in data running.

But the Author of this articles believes it would be easier, better and more fun, if the first thing added was the simple mechanics, instead of more scripted missions. Scripted missions create complexity that must be bug fixed later on. Consider the case for Mining Claims.

CIG’s approach according to the roadmap: Create a special cluster of asteroids with special rules surrounding it. Mining claims give controlled access for a period of time. Resources can deplete selectively at this location.

Consider a proposed organic approach: Define probability rules for a location having the required conditions. In this case heavy density of asteroid mineables. Have the game pick one of these locations and generate mining claims players can accept. Location and mission are dynamic. NPCs react accordingly. No special rules required, mining claim is random location so might naturally end up somewhere interesting. This approach allows for more player freedom, less code to maintain, and development of fixes that apply to all missions not just custom created ones.

The main point being, the Author’s advice is to move away from scripted missions and integrate the organic nature of play with the mechanics and NPC behaviors. Scripted missions are less fun, likely to break (think box delivery) and do not offer the potential for unimagined gameplay.

Even if scripted missions are a must for this game, the Author still thinks that adding the procedural version first would be better. The scripted missions can come later.

If this was the approach, we believe the economy, mining, and many other aspects of the game would have better / truer economy. Scripted missions seem to have taken over Star Citizen as can be seen in the mobiglas. The space freedom aspect to the game taking a backseat.

Going forward the Author advocates procedural first, scripted second. With this approach, who knows, perhaps quanta might even finish sooner as it wouldn’t conflict with the scripted aspects of the game.

In summary, less boxing-in of players, more dynamic and procedural events. Missions should be a sauce not a main ingredient. Perhaps Squadron 42 missions (single payer game) are what is causing the “Unlimited Universe” to be limited.

In any case, the Author expects scripted missions to become even more a thing going forward. Players looking for a universe of freelancers making their own fun will probably have to look elsewhere.

Persistent Entity Streaming introduced massive amounts of stability issues for the game. The game even was completely unplayable for a while. Latest versions seem somewhat better as seen during the Star Citizen Alpha 3.18.1 Freefly 2023. From what can be played at least, it seems to be somewhat playable again.

Bugs and Instability

Star Citizen Alpha 3.18.1 still has the Alpha label. As such instability is expected as the game is still some time away from feature complete. Alpha 3.18.1 only introduced fixes and no new major gamplay features from Alpha 3.18. This is normal for small patches. What was not normal was the large amount of time taken to fix most of the game breaking issues from the Live test build.

The score remains unchanged.

4/5

Player counts during the April Freefly were seen as high as 150 players per server again. This score remains unchanged. For this score to be a 3/5 player counts per shard will need to be over or near 1000. For a score of 4/5 over 10,000. A 5 out of 5 score represents the maximum universe size for seamless play (100,000s or millions).

2/5

The economy in Star Citizen is still barely functional and almost entirely game-controlled. However, players do trade items but the current server issues are causing Balance, Item, Ship and Reputation wipes. Read our article about Wipes and see Star Citizen wipe history and estimates.

3/5

Flight model score from last report is unchanged. Atmospheric control surfaces and a few other things are still missing. Some dogfighting tournaments have been spotted. Also racing continues to grow. Perfection is near?

4/5

Dogfighting has continued to be in a better state for regular play. More changes to dogfighting have been announced. This rating is unchanged at 4/5.

Fighting ships against ships (players or NPCs) is a playable experience though still unfinished.

4/5

Score unchanged. Certainly playable. Still needs some work to reach fully playable levels but this might be due to server / network issues.

4/5

The April roadmap roundup has missions being developed for Alpha 3.19 which include the following:

• Mining Resource Rush – “Various large clusters of asteroids around Stanton are being sold off by several organizations. For a fee, civilians are given access to these spatial mining claims and allowed to mine until the cluster is depleted, drawing many mining crews, and occasionally pirates, to these hotspots. This deliverable has been added to the Mission Feature Team’s schedule.”
• Package Extraction – “A new multiplayer mission where players will work together to recover stolen prototype ship components. Crusader Security tasks players with extracting these highly-classified components from the Nine Tails transport ships before they can escape off-world. This deliverable has been added to the Mission Feature and Narrative Teams’ schedules.”
• Data Heist – “Implementing missions that task players with infiltrating locations (often held by NPCs), reaching data stores, and setting data to upload to offsite handlers. This deliverable has been added to the Mission Feature, Narrative, and VFX Teams’ schedules.”

At first glance these scripted mission types might seem like a good idea. Sure, adding mining claims is required so if they make missions with mining claim mechanics this feature can be tested. Or perhaps the data mission sounds like it helps to bring in data running.

But the Author of this articles believes it would be easier, better and more fun, if the first thing added was the simple mechanics, instead of more scripted missions. Scripted missions create complexity that must be bug fixed later on. Consider the case for Mining Claims.

CIG’s approach according to the roadmap: Create a special cluster of asteroids with special rules surrounding it. Mining claims give controlled access for a period of time. Resources can deplete selectively at this location.

Consider a proposed organic approach: Define probability rules for a location having the required conditions. In this case heavy density of asteroid mineables. Have the game pick one of these locations and generate mining claims players can accept. Location and mission are dynamic. NPCs react accordingly. No special rules required, mining claim is random location so might naturally end up somewhere interesting. This approach allows for more player freedom, less code to maintain, and development of fixes that apply to all missions not just custom created ones.

The main point being, the Author’s advice is to move away from scripted missions and integrate the organic nature of play with the mechanics and NPC behaviors. Scripted missions are less fun, likely to break (think box delivery) and do not offer the potential for unimagined gameplay.

Even if scripted missions are a must for this game, the Author still thinks that adding the procedural version first would be better. The scripted missions can come later.

If this was the approach, we believe the economy, mining, and many other aspects of the game would have better / truer economy. Scripted missions seem to have taken over Star Citizen as can be seen in the mobiglas. The space freedom aspect to the game taking a backseat.

Going forward the Author advocates procedural first, scripted second. With this approach, who knows, perhaps quanta might even finish sooner as it wouldn’t conflict with the scripted aspects of the game.

In summary, less boxing-in of players, more dynamic and procedural events. Missions should be a sauce not a main ingredient. Perhaps Squadron 42 missions (single payer game) are what is causing the “Unlimited Universe” to be limited.

In any case, the Author expects scripted missions to become even more a thing going forward. Players looking for a universe of freelancers making their own fun will probably have to look elsewhere.

This is the 14th progress report about Star Citizen & Squadron 42 in the series.

Information for this report comes from the SC FOCUS features completion page which has been updated again here: https://scfocus.org/star-citizen-s42-features-complete/

Salvage

Alpha 3.18 introduces the Vulture and Reclaimer as well as a hand salvage attachment for the multi tool. This means that players can now salvage wrecks (or soon to be wrecks with their shields down).

Flotilla Trade

Players have been able to use crates with items to sell to other players from their ships. Technically flotilla trade is working.

Ship Stealing

With PES it is now possible to steal a player’s ship, hide it and use it or salvage it later.

Ship Boarding

Ship soft death makes it possible to board unwilling ships.

Factories

Ships like the Reclaimer and Vulture are Star Citizen’s first version of crafting. Players can salvage material and choose to craft items (such as the multi-tool) that can be used, traded or sold. This functionality can easily be built into outposts or stations so this feature is marked as technically complete / in game.

Previous reports predicted and noted improvements in gameplay and stability and this trend continues. Even though the experience is starting to feel more like a game the bugs still remind us that we are in Alpha development cycle.

Bugs and Instability

Star Citizen Alpha 3.18 still has the Alpha label. As such instability is expected as the game is still some time away from feature complete. Alpha 3.18 brings technology that allows entities to persist between gameplay sessions. This is expected to cause instability during the transition but will be optimized and fixed during the Alpha 3.18.x patch cycle and beyond.

Overall playability score for Star Citizen stays in this report at 4/5. With Alpha 3.18 bringing many new major and smaller features there is a lot to do in game (when it is working).

2022 was another record year in funding for Star Citizen and the trend is expected to continue as more gameplay features come online.

The game continues to be for testers due to bugs and fast development cycle (including resets) but the proportion of non-testers looking just to play the game as it is continues to grow.

Alpha 3.18 brings the foundations for things like Server Meshing that will allow for Pyro and other star systems to be added. Additionally, it brings foundational tech that allows for wrecks to persist and in the future for features like escape pods. While the game is still very unstable, gameplay and features are given a score of 4/5. For a 5/5 score the game will have to become stable for long play sessions and with enough features for the base game to be there. This update shows that it is getting close to feature complete. Feature complete means the start of Beta (after 4.0). Star Citizen is currently mid-alpha on the way to late-alpha development.

4/5

Player counts were increased during this reporting period from 50 to between 75 and 160 but usually 100. This is still far from being an MMORPG but progress seems to have resumed on the network side of things.

This is no longer the area of this report with least progress. This score was increased from 1/5 to 2/5.

2/5

The economy in Star Citizen is still a mess. Alpha 3.18 brings salvage and new cargo refactor but mission pricing models seem largely unchanged. Fake supply and demand in the Persistent Universe was making trading commodities very unprofitable and too unrewarding. Hopefully this changes with the Alpha 3.18 series of patches. Purchase limits, bugs and piracy might completely kill off trading in Star Citizen.

The score from the last report was not increased as the changes have not been enough to warrant it but this might change (up or down) in the next report.

3/5

Flight model score from last report unchanged. Atmospheric control surfaces and a few other things are still missing.

4/5

Dogfighting has continued to be in a better state for regular play. More changes to dogfighting have been announced. This rating is unchanged at 4/5.

Fighting ships against ships (players or NPCs) is a playable experience though still unfinished.

4/5

Certainly playable. Still needs some work to reach fully playable levels but this might be due to server / network issues.

4/5