Weekly Update #113

Hey everyone, it’s time for your weekly update. There’s less than 2 weeks to go until the Alpha! As you can imagine we’re busy trying to get as much done as we can before the big release. The primary focus is on the core game loop which consists of the resource system, spawning, base placement, and win/lose conditions. Another big new feature will be defensive turrets for bases, space stations, and factories. Navigation and warp will also include some improvements however there remains a significant amount of work to do on navigation and radar/sensors beyond the initial release of the Alpha.


A station with turrets highlighted in red

We’re hoping to release at least one intermediate patch prior to the release of the Alpha. This will be to get some initial feedback on the larger new systems while also ensuring we haven’t introduced any major bugs before the big release. On top of that we’ll be rolling out some improvements to our installer. It now takes much less time to download the game and there are some optimizations for installation time as well.


A closeup of a tower turret

That’s all for now. Once the Alpha has been released we’ll get back to discussing roadmaps and our feature list for the Beta!

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ED forums feedback.

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That station shot makes me think of the capital ship spawn points: I think they always spawn with the station in front, so the manoeuvre to unberth is more complicated than just going forward…

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If we could even take it one step further and prevent disease, we can take it enormously the other direction, and obviously, that’s where we need to go, going forward.

Can’t believe we’re about to be done with pre-alpha already? You guys have arguably made more headway in 1 year than Star Citizen has in 6 years.

I fired up the game for the first time in several months a few days ago, and it is way more polished/functional than the last time I played. Granted there wasn’t much of anything to do back in the early days besides the race track or do some simple planetary flyovers.

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Thanks for the words. That version is still pretty much a sandbox. After the alpha is out, we’ll focus on adding meat to the gameplay loops and objectives. It’ll feel much more like a real game then. Until then it’s going to stay for a while in a weird spot where it’s not totally a sandbox, but not a fully functionnal game yet. Just a bit more patience :wink:

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