April 2025 Star Citizen Progress & Playability Report
This is the 21st progress report about Star Citizen in the series.
Information for this report comes from the SC FOCUS features completion page that is available here: https://scfocus.org/star-citizen-s42-features-complete/
Changes to These Reports
Star Citizen is finally at a point where the core mechanics of the game can be considered in: traversing, first person and ship combat, inventory, healing, equipment, mining, racing and salvaging. The game's performance is also improving and efforts throughout 2025 will be aimed at making the game more stable. Some of the features we track that were originally from the Stretch Goals have been confirmed to be after Star Citizen 1.0 such as Fishing, NPC crew and even almost all Star Systems.
These reports will be changed from Feature focused to Feature and Gameplay focused as Star Citizen goes into the final development stretch before Alpha 1.0. This means that these reports will go into more detail about the gameplay elements such as travel, inventory, missions, as well as all the current professions. This report is the first Progress & Gameplay Report in the series but continues (adds to) the series of Feature Progress Reports.
Stretch Goal Completion Scoring
Completion for Star Citizen & Squardon 42 is scored based on a total of 104 features that were chosen to represent major gameplay milestones for both projects. The 104 features were selected from the official Stretch Goals.
Previous Star Citizen & S42 reports:
Progress in this reporting period
During this period since the previous report, Star Citizen has been nearly unplayable and has suffered from large periods where the game has been too unstable, buggy and with connection issues often preventing players from playing and testing the game. Progress of the features we track here has stagnated significantly as the developers focus on getting the current features playable. Player shard counts have practically doubled since the previous report to 600 per shard.
Star Citizen is 69% complete as of April 2025 (Alpha 4.1).
In these reports we have been mentioning that progress was expected to speed up on the features we track, however, the opposite has been revealed to be true: progress on these features is slowing down and in some cases has been pushed back until after Star Citizen 1.0. This means that completion rate of the features we track has plateaued and is not expected to speed up.
Features Updated This Period
In the last report we introduced partial scores as some features are significantly somewhat playable but not quite what could be considered yet fully playable. This reporting period saw three more features more from Not Implemented to Partial.
Signature Spoofing
Signature Spoofing should probably have been called Stealth in hindsight. There are some mechanics already in the game as of Alpha 4.1 such as bigger signatures hiding smaller ones and a variety of stealth components. With the announced additions of radar jammers plus what is already known to be planned, this feature has been upgraded to Partial.
Single Universe
Since the last report we finally got a second star system: Pyro. Around the same time player counts went from 100 in one system to 600 in two systems. This means that the game is starting to feel like a big universe. The score was changed from Not Playable to Partial.
AI Subsumption
As of Alpha 4.1 the AI NPC are doing more advanced activities such as looting corpses, reviving teammates, and even getting into players ships and taking over the ship. This feature is being changed from Not Implemented to Partial.
Star Citizen & Squadron 42 Report Summary
Star Citizen is roughly 69% complete as of April 2025 (Alpha 4.1 LIVE).
*Note that Squadron 42 is feature complete. These features represent Squadron 42 features that are shared with Star Citizen and that are either currently playable in Star Citizen or not.
Playability Score
Playability Score: 3/5 - Very buggy
- Playability (2/5)
- Player Count (2/5)
- The Economy (2/5)
- Flight Model (4/5)
- Dogfighting (4/5)
- FPS Combat (3/5)
- AI (3/5)
In this reporting period as of Alpha 4.1 (LIVE)
The Playability Score is staying at 2/5 due to bugs, radical changes, and instability. This score was going to be reduced to 1/5 for this reporting period because the game was unplayable for some periods during this cycle. However, improvements recently with 4.1 have improved this score back to the 2/5 it was. This game is still very much not a friendly new player experienced and still for dedicated testing fans only but it is getting better.
Playability - How Playable is Star Citizen Alpha 4.1?
In the last report we said stability would be very poor at the start of Alpha 4.0 and get better and this is exactly what happened.
As the end of Alpha nears and the Start of Alpha 1.0 gets closer the playability is expected to continue to improve, especially compared to where we have been last year.
The playability score is expected to improve for the next report.
Bugs and Instability
Star Citizen Alpha 4.1 still has the Alpha label. As such instability is expected as the game is still some time away from feature complete (Star Citizen 1.0).
This score was expected to remain at 2 out of 5 and did (barely). Many game breaking bugs and periods of instability mean that Star Citizen is currently for the most dedicated of testers.
2/5
Player Count
This score remains unchanged even though this period saw player counts go from 380 to 600 per shard. 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
The Economy
This reporting period and the last saw the economy in chaos. The prices went through massive inflation across the board. Currently the economy feels very disjointed and broken with some events fluctuating prices and supplies to unplayable levels. This rating is staying at 2/5.
2/5
Flight Model
The score remains unchanged. Flying around is generally an interesting and fun experience.
4/5
Dogfighting
This rating remains unchanged. Dogfights have still been fun and engaging. Multicrew combat is also improving as turrets and large ships are better again.
4/5
FPS Combat
This reporting period saw combat in strange places including invulnerability and invisibility. Complaints continue about jank combat. This score remains unchanged this reporting period.
3/5
AI
Fauna has improved again somewhat but NPC crew is still nowhere to be seen. This score remains unchanged.
3/5
New Gameplay Report
The following profession playability does not figure in the overall playability score above. These are listed for profession progress reporting.
Travel
While not a profession, being able to traverse the verse is important to all gameplay professions. This reporting period there have been huge issues with elevators, ground vehicles, quantum travel problems and more.
It can take excessively long to get somewhere only to have to start over again due to bugs. The newly introduced Jump Points have been working ok but often the player returns to the same system and has to keep trying to jump from one system to the other.
This reporting period the score is low but is expected to improve for the next reporting period.
2/5
Salvage
Salvage continues to be very playable and is one of the few professions that has worked consistently well during this reporting period. This industry is still missing some features for a full 5/5 score.
4/5
Mining
Mining has not fared nearly as well as salvage this period. Rocks unable to be scanned, issues with refinery terminals and more left this profession in bad state.
2/5
Trading
With the economy going through crazy changes trading felt out of place this period. The addition of high paying cargo hauling contracts with "contracted" cargo cheapened the experience. Lots of issues are holding the cargo professions behind still. Simply buying, shipping and selling goods had too many links in the chain not working this period.
2/5
Racing
Racing as a profession in game is not in a very playable state and feels neglected.
1/5
Bounty Hunting
PVP bounty hunting has not worked this reporting period. NPC bounty hunting was quite profitable as a whole but generally a repetitive experience.
2/5
Medical
Medical in this reporting period continued to evolve with small additions. Still not a fully fledge money earner but an essential part of the game.
3/5
Hunting
Hunting has continued to improve with the additions of more meaning and better and more fauna. This rating could soon increase.
3/5
Piracy
Since the introduction of Pyro system, piracy has been in a strange place. Stealing "contracted" good seems like a very unnecessary and cumbersome addition. At the same time, during some events piracy worked very well at times and was a lot of fun as well as integrated to the missions. The recent changes to the looting system have lowered this score from a 4/5 to a 3/5 as it is, at the time of writing, impossible to loot equipped gear from another player. This seems like a step in the wrong direction.
3/5
April 2025 Report Conclusion
Since the last report Alpha 4.0 introduced Pyro System as well as a lot of new locations and missions. The game has grown significantly since the last report even though the overall progress on tracked main features only increased by 1%.
The game continues to be in a state of heavy development throughout 2025 and beyond. Expect lots of changes, bigger ships and more content by the end of the year.
Suggestions to CIG
Looting
Recent changes to player looting seem like a confusing step back. If the purpose of this was to allow purchased gear to not need claiming, then this has failed. Other bugs such as dying in prison, mean that the customer service requests continue at the expense of gameplay for all players. Not only was the problem in this case not fixed, as gear can and will continue to be lost for various reasons, but also this band-aid solution is excessively cumbersome and cheapens the game.
The suggestion is to revert the inventory looting to the full loot version and add reclaim mechanics in game. Duping is a problem but not as bad as crippling the gameplay. Currently if a geared player dies to a player with little gear, this player is at a disadvantage as he cannot loot equipped items and armor. A better solution is to allow ingame reclaim of the item via any variety of kiosks already available and work from there.
Freight Elevators & Cargo
The freight elevator system needs a lot of work even if it worked free of bugs. Load times and purchase amounts seem to be poorly integrated with actual gameplay. An elevator can bring a ship down but not cargo? A Polaris can carry a 32 SCU box but not a cargo facility of significant size?
Caveats
The list of 104 features used to track "progress" in this report are listed at the Star Citizen Completion Features Percentage Page. This is a highly simplified list of features out of thousands of technical, art and gameplay features that the game(s) will end up having. 104 features were chosen as a simplified average set of gameplay features that the author guesses are plausibly required in the final games to be considered "complete".
The data is gathered as objectively as possible and is non-promotional in nature. This information is purely speculative based on personal criteria. Opinion can and should vary. It is provided for free and actually costs time and money to maintain.
Disclaimer
As always, this article does not represent the official views of Star Citizen. It is provided as speculation to help SC FOCUS org plan the strategy going forward. This information is provided to readers openly and freely and each reader is free to form their own opinion.