New Version Details!
Welcome back space fans! Up this month, we have a boatload of news for you. But first, and perhaps most importantly, we have news from the front lines of the war (and yes, despite what the pacifists are saying, it IS a war) against the Vanduul. After their devastating attack in October 2945 against the Vega System, the United Empire of Earth has struck back against the Vanduul scourge! UEE intel showed a likely Vanduul incursion into the Oberon System and despite the fact that Oberon isn't a full UEE system, given that it is a human system, Admiral Bishop chose to draw the battle lines personally with a test run of the brand new flagship the UEES Retribution and repel the Vanduul clan. Rumour has it that the Retribution is the largest ship ever built for the UEE Navy but more than this we don't know (for now). For a more detailed report, please check out the latest Empire Report interview here.
Top News!
2.3 Went through many iterations on the PTU and has now been rolled out to the live servers for all backers. Further details in the New Versions section.
This update would normally go in the Rumours section of the article, however I feel that the information given in it is so important and substantial that it warrants inclusion in the Top News section of the article, however please keep in mind that this is taken from an episode of Reverse The 'Verse so is not confirmed information at this stage. Caveat out of the way, here goes.
2.4 (the next major functionality version to be launched and likely coming in April) is going to be a major update which will fundamentally change how we play Star Citizen. This is likely to include the following:
- The beginning of Persistence! Data which was predominantly stored client side up until now and was wiped with each game session will begin to be moved server side with 2.4. The specifics of which things will now be stored server side are yet to be determined in the initial persistence launch of 2.4 but candidates for persistence which will be launching over the next several (major i.e. 2.4, 2.5, 2.6 etc) versions include:
- Alpha money (allowing you to earn money for missions and spend it, this will be periodically wiped as exploits get discovered and they wish to rebalance).
- Shopping for items (clothes, weapons, ammunition, refuelling and even ships!)
- Reputation (been a bad guy? This will start to persist between game sessions!)
- Ship and character health.
- Additional FPS mechanics such as vaulting.
- Character appearance is also likely to appear with 8 male and 8 female characters.
March 2016 Updates!
Erin Roberts took the helm for an episode of 10 for the Chairman's Brother last month and in it he let us in on some of the next big milestones that are coming. Expected in coming major versions are (aside from the persistence stuff detailed above):
- Flyable Starfarer! (Fuel hauler/refueling ship).
- Procedural generation technology to be integrated!
CIG have started work on the RSI Polaris which will be the new corvette class ship since the original corvette (the Idris) got upgraded to a frigate.
Andy Serkis (of Gollum fame!) will play Thul'Oqquray, the main Vanduul antagonist in Squadron 42.
The Vanduul themselves will be slightly bioluminescent and a Vanduul Kingship (the largest Vanduul capital ship we know about) will have a "low G" environment which should make for some interesting FPS battles.
Squadron 42 (the single player campaign) will be a holistic game aiming for an immersive storyline gameplay. As such, there will be FPS activities occurring in the game, although it will be predominantly flight oriented. Don't worry if you're not some championship final level FPS player, everyone should be capable of playing it and getting through FPS missions.
CitizenCon tickets went on sale last month for the event which will return to LA this year. Tickets sold out in about half an hour!
New Versions!
2.3 is currently available on Live! Headline features include:
A new flyable ship (the Xi'An Scout), first Xi'An vertical oriented flyable ship!
A new hangar ready ship (the Starfarer). Check out the introductory video here.
Component system update: Power plants are now available which can be swapped out on some ships.
The Starfarer is the first really big ship CIG have gotten into a state where backers can explore it in hangar so they have made it available to all backers to walk around for a short time! To see it, change your hangar to the Revel & York (via the website) which has had a new larger room created to house the ship. It looks a beauty and is expected to be flyable soon!
2.2 added introductory reputation mechanics. Now, if you successfully kill a level 5 wanted criminal, you are rewarded with a Arrowhead sniper rifle (new FPS weapon).
Completing the Covalex PI mission will reward you with the Devastator-12 energy shotgun (new FPS weapon).
Numerous character animation improvements have been made for FPS mechanics.
Numerous bugs have been fixed in all game modes.
New Videos!
In addition to the normal weekly update shows CIG do such as Around the 'Verse, 10 for the Chairman, Reverse the 'Verse etc, we got a special glimpse into the making of Squadron 42 with Andy Serkis which can be found here.
In the video, we hear our first spoken example of the Vanduul language!
March 2016 Rumours!
Each week, CIG host a livestream on their Twitch channel where they take questions from the community. Questions are frequent and the chat goes nuts when this happens! Answers which are given on Reverse the ‘Verse are off the cuff and as such usually highly tentative but if you don’t want to take the stuff that gets said here as gospel, there are interesting tidbits that come out. Stuff that gets mentioned on other shows which seem tentative I’ll put into this section too. This month, the key things mentioned are:
The Bengal Carrier is currently being developed by Foundry 42.
Nyx (new planetside location) is nearing readiness and may make an appearance soon!
The Drake Dragonfly (space motorbike!) is being designed so looks like it is going ahead!
Anyone who has pledged for a 'big' ship will likely get a Starfarer as a loaner while they wait for the actual ship they pledged for once the Starfarer becomes flyable.
All that remains is for me to leave you with an image of a Vanduul drinking a cup of tea aboard a Kingship!
That's it for this month space fans, thanks for reading! See you in the 'verse!
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About the author: Run Product Management for Aquis stock exchange. Designed, built and managed several market making, algorithmic and aggregation trading systems for most exchange traded asset classes including Equities, FI, FX and Commods cash and derivatives markets as well as multi-venue FX spot. Massive PC gamer!
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