Star Citizen Progress Report November 2024

Citizencon 2954 announced details about Star Citizen 1.0 - the point at which the game can be considered to be complete enough for commercial launch (basically no more resets and a good player experience). As such there are features tracked on this article that are planned for after Star Citizen 1.0. To reflect this change in direction we are adding partial scores worth (0.5 points) towards feature completion. This is because some features are developed and playable but not to what we consider a complete point. Features, scores and explanations are listed below.

Jump Points are usable in Alpha 4.0 and have been tested in EPTU. This feature is working and being marked as playable.

The ability to control remotely cameras for turrets and tractor beams and more has been expanded upon enough where they are now playable. For example, the Polaris brig has a security seat with functional cameras. This feature is being marked as playable.

The Polaris introduction showed just how many smaller ships can fit inside a capital or sub-capital class ship. While the role of the Polaris itself is not strictly a carrier it certainly can be operated as one. This feature is being marked as partial but could have easily been given a full score. Escort carriers are close and this feature will be marked as complete as soon as one appears which could be imminent.

Star Citizen has had a basic form of hacking for quite some time. Hacking terminals has been in the game but has not really advanced much. This feature is being given a partial score since terminal hacking is a thing but the profession still lacks development for a full score.

Alpha 3.24.3 saw the introduction of point defense cannons for the Polaris, 890 Jump, Idris and Constellation Phoenix. While not exactly AI Blades, this technology essentially serves a close enough function to mark this feature as partial.

Fuel gameplay has been in the game for some time in a basic form. The Starfarer has been able to purchase fuel and refuel ships for a while in game. This feature is being marked as partial. For a full score players must be also able to mine and refine fuel.

Fauna has been slowly added and there is enough hunting features and fauna that the implementation for this gameplay can be considered partial.

While still missing much of the exploration features and objectives, Alpha 4.0 brings in Pyro which makes exploration far more useful. There is enough exploration between Stanton and Pyro that this feature can be considered partial. Long range scanning and more reasons to explore will give this a full score soon.

The stability of the game is expected to be very low during the start of the Alpha 4.0 series of patches. Luckily, it should improve from this point forward.

Alpha 4.0 is expected to be a low point in stability but should improve as the game moves from Alpha 4.0 to Star Citizen 1.0.

The playability score is expected to improve for the next report.

Bugs and Instability

Star Citizen Alpha 4.0 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 remain at 2 out of 5 and did. Many game breaking bugs mean that Star Citizen is currently for the most hardcore of testers.

2/5

This score remains unchanged even though Server Meshing and EPTU Wave 1 Stanton - Pyro shard had 380 players. 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

Alpha 4.0 brings a new economy and for now in EPTU Wave 1 the economy cannot be fully tested. This score is staying the same for this reporting period.

2/5

The score remains unchanged. Flying around is generally an interesting and fun experience.

4/5

This rating remains unchanged. Dogfights have still been fun and engaging. Multicrew combat is also improving as turrets and large ships are better.

4/5

FPS still has a lot of bugs making it clunky and often gunfights will get a player killed due to bugs. This score remains unchanged this reporting period.

3/5

Cargo Running was butchered during the Cargo Empires Patch (Alpha 3.24). Video game trucking - buying goods at Location A and selling them at Location B - was killed off. Cargo Running was already greatly destroyed before Alpha 3.24 with the majority of players of this type of gameplay stopping playing Star Citizen entirely. Alpha 3.24 (Unfortunately and ironically named Cargo Empires) introduced forced micro management of cargo boxes using nerfed tractor beams. With the combination of broken cargo freight elevators (also new) and a plethora of technical issues and limitations Cargo Running (Trucking) was completely killed off. Piracy died with it as there were no more haulers worth pirating.

At this time Star Citizen does not cater to truckers who want to move goods around and make a profit. This has been replaced with scripted hauling contracts with goods that are not worth pirating. A deathblow was dealt to cargo and piracy also died along with it. It will remain to be seen if Space Trucking returns to Star Citizen. Given the emphasis on heavy scripting and sequential actions it is unlikely that Cargo Running will return to its former glory, profitability or fun. Stay tuned in future reports as we continue to investigate the state of this currently dead profession that was one of the biggest and best the game offered.

It has been about a year since cargo running (not to be confused with cargo hauling) started to get nerfed. Space Truckers do not want to move boxes by tractor beam, they want to easily load and unload and focus instead on the fun part of trucking.

What Could Have Been Done Better?

Freight and Ship Elevators were introduced in a disjointed fashion. Instead of simply having a ship go down the elevator and come back loaded / unloaded, the cargo must be loaded manually after retrieving it from a Freight Elevator. A much better solution that would work with Truckers would be to have the entire ship go down the elevator and and come back up loaded. This would 1) fit in with the magic elevator theme and 2) would make it easy enough for Truckers to play the game instead of alienating an entire genre of gamers.

How does this look like in game?

• Player lands on outpost pad that is an elevator
• Player gets out of ship
• Player sends ship elevator down
• Player buys goods from terminal
• Player sends ship up (loaded)

This would utilize existing ship elevator technology and auto/load unload. Manual moving of boxes could be limited to specialized situations (piracy) and types of cargo. Why alienate space truckers entirely? This seems like a critical mistake and a very large missed market opportunity.

Proposed Solution

Provide space truckers the option to send the ship down a freight elevator for full loading / unloading instead of forcing players to use two elevators (Freight and Ship) to achieve the same task.

Another Issue

Instanced hangars mean the player is isolated from the game world. Forcing players to move cargo boxes inside instanced hangars is not rewarding or exciting or dangerous. It is unnecessary and clunky. Make use of the ship elevator to handle cargo loading unloading in instanced spaces instead.