Star Citizen Progress Report July 2023

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.