Cloud Imperium Games has announced that it will make the Star Citizen Alpha free to download and play for any player to celebrate the launch of Star Citizen’s first habitable planet, Hurston. Revealed at CitizenCon 2018, on October 10, Hurston is a massive planet encompassing thousands of kilometers of playable space, with more than five distinct biomes including cityscapes, savannahs, frigid tundra’s, mountains and coastal seascapes.
Lorville, the planet’s major city hub, will also be available to all players. In Lorville, players can expect to find a densely populated, living city, including the “New Deal” ship shop, the game’s in-game location for the buying of in-game ships with in-game currency.
To celebrate the launch of the game’s first planet, Cloud Imperium Games will launch a “Free Fly” event encompassing its stable of more than 80 flyable vehicles, from more than ten different manufacturers. This makes it free for anyone to create an account at www.RobertSpacesIndustries.com to download and play Star Citizen.
Within the game, each manufacturer will make its entire flyable inventory free for a 24 hour “Test Flight,” after which it will then be replaced by the inventory from another manufacturer. During the promotion, it will be free for anyone to join the Star Citizen Persistent Universe and play across not only Hurston and Lorville, but Star Citizen’s more than 30 varying mission types, 8 traversable moons, several “rest stops” and more. Players who accumulate in-game currency can use it to purchase additional ships, flyable until each server re-start.
Star Citizen Alpha 3.3.5 is currently available on PTU servers and our reader Sean has shared with us some screenshots that you can find below.
Star Citizen Alpha 3.3.5 includes numerous features launched in Alpha 3.3 including:
- Object Container Streaming, a processing tool that controls how much of the game’s massive universe must be loaded by player’s CPU. Object Container Streaming is an important behind-the-scenes technical milestone that enables the rapid creation of future content and locations, including the Planet Hurston and its main city, Lorville. Object Container Streaming has led to massive performance gains, which can be seen on the newly launched Star Citizen Telemetry page.
- ‘Face and Voice over IP’ allows players to connect their webcams and control their in-game character’s facial expressions with their own, creating a new level of immersion never before seen in video games.
- FPS AI Enemies and Missions to populate the universe with NPC enemies to hunt or be hunted by.
- ‘Scramble Race’ Missions for players to compete across Star Citizen’s massive planetary bodies.
Anyone who plays Star Citizen between November 23 and November 30 will enjoy access to the following Free Fly Schedule:
Nov 23 – Anvil Aerospace
- Arrow: Agile fighter that packs a huge punch. A speedy glass cannon.
- Gladiator: A ruggedly built two-person dive bomber.
- Hornet F7C: Tough and dependable, the F7C is a multipurpose medium fighter.
- Hornet F7C Wildfire: Special Edition of the F7C Hornet with custom livery and loadout geared for Arena Commander.
- Hornet F7C-R – Tracker: Sacrificing a turret for an advanced radar dome, the Hornet Tracker seeks what is hidden.
- Hornet F7C-S – Ghost: Stealthy, quiet, silent – the Ghost haunts an area by keeping a low profile.
- Hornet F7C-M – Super Hornet: A two-seater multi-purpose medium fighter with a heavier loadout.
- Hurricane: A heavy fighter with excessive loadout, including a turret that punches through shields and defenses.
- Terrapin: Heavily armored ship with a sophisticated scanner, ideal for recon and exploration.
- Valkyrie: A heavily armed multirole gunship and dropship.
Nov 24 – Roberts Space Industries
- Aurora ES: A descendent of the X-7, this is the perfect choice for new ship owners. Versatile and intuitive.
- Aurora LN: For the combat focused, the Aurora LN comes with bigger shields and larger weapons that pack a punch.
- Aurora LX: The Aurora Deluxe, adding luxury and comfort for long stretches in the deep black.
- Aurora MR: A balance of function and performance, the Aurora MR comes with cargo capacity and guns to ensure freight gets there safely.
- Constellation Andromeda: A multicrew freighter with modular design, the RSI Andromeda is one of the most iconic ships in the verse.
- Constellation Aquila: Exploring the stars and distant horizons, the redesigned cockpit offers max visibility with a rover and sensor suite to explore it all.
- Constellation Phoenix: A chariot of the Gods, this converted luxury, high performance Constellation freighter is ideal for VIP transport.
- Ursa Rover: Rugged, Durable and tough, this is the rover you need to explore a multitude of environments.
Nov 25 – Origin Jumpworks
- 300i: Travel in style with this high-performance sleek touring ship.
- 315p: Traverse the ‘verse with this high-performance exploration focused ship.
- 325a: Origin’s sleek signature fighter, the 325 makes a great companion for finding your mark in style and sophistication.
- 350r: Origin’s sleek signature racer, the 350 makes a great companion for leaving your peers in the dust.
- 600i Explorer: The luxury yacht of Star Citizen, designed to explore in comfort and style with a vehicle bay.
- 85X: A luxury and sporty short-range runabout for pilot and passenger.
- M50: Origin’s premier racer, small, fast and highly agile.
Nov 26 – Aegis Dynamics
- Avenger Stalker: A modified version of the Avenger, catering to bounty hunters with prison cells.
- Avenger Titan: A former police ship with a cargo hold for light freight and courier abilities.
- Avenger Titan Renegade: Special Edition of the Avenger Titan with custom livery and loadout geared for Arena Commander.
- Avenger Warlock: A variant of the Avenger, armed with EMP generator to disable enemies.
- Eclipse: A sleek stealth bomber, armed with heavy torpedoes.
- Gladius: An aged but agile light fighter with mid-range armament.
- Gladius Valiant: Special Edition of the Gladius with custom livery and loadout geared for Arena Commander.
- Hammerhead: A multi-crew corvette bristling with manned turrets designed to counter fighters.
- Reclaimer: A heavy deep space salvage vessel to reclaim wrecks and derelicts.
- Retaliator Bomber: A long-range anti capital ship bomber, covered in turrets and capable of launching size 9 torpedoes.
- Sabre: Favoring agility over durability, this ship is light, sleek and deadly.
- Sabre Comet: Special Edition of the Sabre with custom livery and loadout geared for Arena Commander.
- Vanguard Hoplite: Long-range Squad Dropship with a turret gunner.
- Vanguard Warden: Long-range Heavy Fighter with a turret gunner.
Nov 27 – Drake Interplanetary
- Buccaneer: A light fighter that sacrifices durability and an ejection seat for raw fire power.
- Caterpillar: A heavy multicrew commercial freighter. Lightly armed, with superior cargo capacity.
- Caterpillar Pirate: A heavy multicrew commercial freighter. Lightly armed, with superior cargo capacity and custom pirate livery.
- Cutlass Black: Black is Back. Drakes multicrew Cutlass is highly versatile, with combat and cargo prowess.
- Dragonfly Black: A two-seater grav-lev bike. Easily traverses rough terrain, or closes the distance in space.
- Dragonfly Yellowjacket: A two-seater grav-lev bike. Easily traverses rough terrain or closes the distance in space with custom yellow livery.
- Herald: No secret is safe, Drake’s Herald captures and stores information before leaving at blistering speed.
Nov 28 – Alien Manufacturers
- Khartu-al: Enigmatic, exotic and agile. The fragile Khartu-al excels at lateral thrust and maneuverability.
- Nox: Sleek and fast, this gravity bike slices across rough terrain. Perfect for scouting and racing.
- Nox Kue: Sleek and fast, this gravity bike slices across rough terrain. Perfect for scouting and racing with a bespoke Silver paintjob.
- Vanduul Glaive: This Alien medium fighter replica drives fear with it’s ramming blades.
- Vanduul Blade: Armed and Dangerous. This alien fighter slices through the air with it’s agility and shreds its foes.
Nov 29 – Musashi Industrial and Starflight Concern
- Freelancer: A multicrew cargo freighter, with turret and ordnance to deter those after it’s haul.
- Prospector: A miner’s best friend, with a powerful mining laser and saddle bags to turn mineral to profit.
- Razor: Cutting ahead of the competition, this sleek racer will give the others a run for pole position.
- Razor EX: Stealth special edition of the Razor outfitted with signature-reducing materials and stealth components.
- Razor LX: Special edition of the Razor features an overclocked engine, reduced maneuverability and armaments in exchange of straight-line speed.
- Reliant Kore: A fusion of Xi’an and Human technology, this light freighter allows you to haul cargo with a friend.
- Starfarer: Keep fleets on the move with this heavy refueler.
- Starfarer Gemini: Keep fleets on the move with this heavy refueler, the Gemini version sacrifices capacity for armor and a missile launcher.
Nov 30 – Kruger/Argo/Tumbril/Consolidated Outland
- Argo MPUV 1C: A small and unarmed utility runabout that transports cargo.
- Argo MPUV 1P: A small unarmed utility runabout tuned to transport personnel.
- Cyclone: Stir up a storm with this robust two-seater buggy that can carry a little something in the back.
- Cyclone AA: This two-seater buggy with EMP functionality is armed with an anti-air missile launcher to deter threats from above.
- Cyclone RN: Unveils the fog of war, the recon variant of the Cyclone is mounted with a powerful scanner array.
- Cyclone TR: Support ground infantry with this combat variant, equipped with a mounted turret to provide cover fire for ground operations.
- Mustang Alpha: Consolidated Outland’s premier ship for those wanting to push the limits a little more when starting out.
- Mustang Beta: Home is where the heart is, the Beta offers comfortable living quarters for beginners roaming the frontier.
- Mustang Delta: The Mustang Delta is armed with heavier weapons and rocket pods.
- Mustang Gamma: Racing the competition? The additional engine loaded into the back will provide competitive the edge you need.
- P-52 Merlin: Small, agile and comes with a sting. This snub fighter is fragile, but difficult to hit.
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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When will this game release? Been waiting a long time now
It’ll probably take another 4 years.
It’s a massive game with ludicrous attention to detail. And beacause it is entirely crowd funded, there is no pressure to meet deadlines and deliver a subpar game.
I say try it out right now and see how you like it. If you don’t like it, give it another shot after it’s single player release or don’t. I think it’ll be a lot of fun for you.
It’ll probably take another 14 years
…for you to stop shitposting on dsog
you both are miserable pirates.
So shitposting EA and ubipoop is ok but scamcitizen is where we draw theline ?
how log it took them to get ver 3.3
Non of your shitposting is okay lmao. That’s why it’s called shitposting.
Well if you buy enough 1000$ space ships that are only on paper maybe in 7-10 years
If you want to buy you are welcomed. Optional though, I paid 35 dollars couple of years ago. Now it’s 45 I think.
Depends on what you mean by release.
Not long till there’s a proper game experience, with all this amazing stuff you already see.
100 star systems and all the promised features ? Probably another 10 years lol. At the current scope and quality, no way they can do all that in the next few years.
It won’t matter though, because even 1 solar system built out to the current level of detail will have more than a lot of games, and will certainly be more impressive than the vast majority of games out there.
Anyone who isn’t a backer should definitely try this out.
This is one of the major releases that takes the game so much closer to it’s vision. The massive oerforperfo boost in this version is also really good.
I was typing on mobile. Gboard has serious issues with autocomplete on disqus.
I find it so strange seeing comments of people recommending this game to others. Like whats the selling point here? The empty hallways? The empty promises? Or is it the trailers?
Or it could be the galactic exploration, the fps combat, the social interaction, the flying, the dogfighting, etc.
Now idk when you last saw SC gameplay but it has come a long way.
Only somebody who never plays games would count the mere act of walking around a virtual environment is a killer feature in 2018. Dont even get me started on “fps combat”…
No one said that was a “killer feature” you made that up. The killer feature in SC could be the fact that it’s a living, breathing universe and you can do the things you expect in that universe. That moon you see in the sky, you can go there, land their, mine there, make money there, explore there, get missions there, meet people there.
Well, for one start, Lorville is probably as big as most actual games, then you have the planet which it’s on called Hurston which has different biomes, then you have it’s moons, then you have the star system itself with other moons, landing areas, space stations, areas of interest. bases in asteroid fields. As for combat, multicrew ships, control their systems while in combat, EVA, buggies, hover bikes
How about you read the article and find out.
If you’ve got the time, maybe you should make an account (STAR-TT6N-HNJ9 – use the code for 5,000 in-game currency.)
It’s easy to trash on something when you’ve never tried it before. If you have tried it, maybe come back again. The whole reason for the free fly events is to show the casual or disillusioned fan how the game is improving. If it’s not your cup of tea, then it isn’t. But atleast try it, especially if you’re interested enough to comment and it’s a free event.
What empty promises are you talking about? Also there are NPCs everywhere. Speaking of empty promises, virtually no NPCs and recycled old engine, unfinished released buggy, look no further than Fallout 76.
Star Citizen is the definition of fullfiled promises.
Youre too funny – full release in 2014 is first broken promise – then the SEVERAL postpones since, on top of that – squadron 42 should have been released 4-5 times allready. But theyre so busy making or remaking ships to sell to suckers, that they really dont mind letting everyone wait 10-12 years to complete a game… In that time all their stuff can be done better in a newer engine with better features – so they will probably do it all over again, to make it the best it can be… but never finished and really playable.
You can spend dozens of hours alone just in the Arena Commander skirmish or team battle simulator. It puts you into an asteroid field above a planet with up to 11 other people and you get to battle ship to ship, with default loadouts or modified weaponry you can customize using in-game currency (that you get by playing in Arena Commander). Skip the persistent universe entirely for now if that is what you want. The game already has a fully functioning dogfight simulator.
“The massive performance boost in this version is also really good.”
I hope it’s finally the case in this version. It was frustrating to download the game 10 times and be greeted with 15 FPS and 30 minute loading each time.
Easily getting 60fps+ now on my GTX 1070, loading times are 21 seconds into the universe on an SSD.
Massive graphics downgrade you mean.
No. The graphics are exactly the same if not better (newer shaders for terrain object blending).
The increase in performance comes from Object Container Streaming which does not affect visuals at all.
Nope. It will always be a scam like all GaaS scams. ALL gaas are scams – always.
Obviously you guys are interested in SC otherwise you wouldn’t be commeting. Do it now, prices are bound to ride after the first stargate starts functioning.
If you use my referral code STAR-TT6N-HNJ9 when you sign up as a new account you get 5,000 free in game currency. That’s enough for new armor and a weapon! The money stacks with your starting 2,000 UEC, doesn’t reset, and is tied to your account.
Feel free to look me up in the ‘verse. (Jozai_Spaldur) Let me know if you wanna try out a ship or wanna help run some missions. Hope to see you guys there.
So cool! They’ve really shifted in 5th gear with the development. Can’t wait to try out.
I have only 8 GB RAM and this game can’t run because of that.
forever alpha and keep buying those ships suckers……..lmao.
Still no Vulkan version, eh?
Not high priority while in Alpha.
The game runs phenomenal now, Now Im getting 80fps in crowed space stations and over 100fps down on planetside.