Cloud Imperium Games has released the newly playable Alpha 3.3 to the Persistent Test Universe (PTU). According to the press release, Alpha 3.3 marks the third of Cloud Imperium Games 2018 quarterly updates to the Star Citizen Alpha Persistent Universe.
Star Citizen is a massively multiplayer online experience that empowers players to build a life in the stars while engaging in first-person shooter and vehicle battles, exploring massive celestial bodies, and discovering adventure in an ever-expanding sandbox galaxy.
Alpha 3.3 launches several massive technical upgrades to the game 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. Both locations were revealed at CitizenCon and will launch to backers shortly via incremental patches. Object Container Streaming also powers huge performance gains, with testers seeing an average 100% gain in frames per second (ie. up to 60 FPS from 30, 120 from 60, etc.)
- Co-developed with Faceware Technologies, ‘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. Face and Voice over IP are available to all players in the Star Citizen Persistent Universe.
On the content side, players can look forward to tangling with new FPS AI enemies, who now populate the vast regions of the ever-expanding Stanton System (which currently clocks in over thousands of playable square kilometers). Players can traverse the ‘verse to seek out missions, fight AI-controlled enemies across new moons, visit all-new truck stops and space stations, and dogfight with new and improved AI controlled ships. Finally, the update also added new ‘Scramble Race’ missions that pit players against each other in high-octane races across Star Citizen’s massive moons.
Chris Roberts, CEO and Project Director, Cloud Imperium Games, said:
“I’m so proud of the work the team has done to deliver Object Container Streaming and Face over IP to all our backers. They are both massive technical milestones and major pieces of backbone tech for Star Citizen and Squadron 42 that we’ve been working on for well over a year. Object Container Streaming testing results have been great, and we’ve seen a marked increase in client average frame rates and memory use, with some players even seeing frame rates in the triple digits. In 3.3, Star Citizen players can fight against our all new enemy AI in both dogfighting and first person shooter battles, race each other across moons and planets and test out all our new ships. I also can’t wait to get our new planet, Hurston, and it’s major city, Lorville, out to everyone. That’s coming soon!”
Alpha 3.3 also adds 10 new and reworked vehicles, several weapons and armor sets, and more collectible and functional items expanding Star Citizen’s playable content more than 80 flyable ships and 300+ character items.
We’ll be sure to update this story with the full CitizenCon 2018 keynote as soon as it’s available on YouTube!
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And one day they may even add a game to it…. maybe….
SQ42 roadmap to be announced in December. Now for those looking to immediate gameplay… you can grab ED or NMS 🙂
I’m very much interested in Squadron 42 but will the roadmap being released in December mean anything at all? Is there a reason to believe that Roberts will stick to this roadmap?
Yes roadmap do mean something because CIG do have now all uptodate pipelines and team size to deliver.
It is not a surprise that they were able to deliver quarterly patch consistently and a year ahead of SC roadmap.
With OCS they do have all techs to push contents in SQ42. Remember that most team was working on SQ42 while others were working at delivering pipelines for both games. Citizencon did show a massive numbers of never seen assets. Those 6 eyars have not been wasted clearly.
Whatever the roadmap expect a quarter or two of delay as SQ42 must be as bug free as possible. After all this is the spear head of CIG last years
Watched the latest squadron 42 trailer. Looked fantastic.
Wow. These are some really nice numbers. Glad I don’t need a supercomputer to run the game smoothly anymore lol.
Just don’t forget that it’s a generic MMO filled with microtransactions*
*if even micro. Thousands of dollars to skip boring grind that is going to be this “game”
Two Triple-A for the price of one Triple-A:
Squadron 42 (solo) ala Wing Commanders and Star Citizen (MMO). We know nothing about micro-transactions but the available ones are around 5$ for cosmetics assets while the game cost less than 50$. No need to spend more as everything as available will be available in game with credits.
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Our beloved troll Tomas and his scam… worst scam ever 🙂
Star citizen fanboys logic
You like the game or you are a troll.
Cult trolling fanboy. You don’t understand basic finance or game development but shoot scam at every comment. Sad but we are used to have ours own low level commenters in every project.
You don’t understand basic finance or game development
Ok.
The game is in alpha 3.3 in 6 years .
So thats 33% game done in 6 years.
So we need to wait another 12 years for release.
Or not? Pls ….
Tell me then how it works.
Answer is no and you proved again you don’t understand. Beta is very probable by end of 2019 which make 80% done… Put aside your troll attitude for a second and you will see roadmap give most kickstarter features by end of 2019… your 2050, never or 12 extra years does depict you much than any scam prophecy 🙂
Is this thing not done yet?
Coming in 20xx . Until then buy more ships
As an original enthusiastic backer, I am not sure what to think of this game anymore. The marketing tactics have left a sour taste in my mouth and now I’m very skeptical. I know it’s not a scam in so much that playable elements and serious work has been completed, but it does feel like the management of the game is on the path to never being complete. This could be for a number of reasons. I’ve played every module since the first hangar module release. I know work is being done, but I question the marketing and focus. I certainly don’t want it to fail, but all my friends and I that backed this project are pretty burnt on it. Take that as you will; maybe the new enthusiasm of new backers is enough to keep a better fire lit.
I don’t think it’s a scam either but only because when the game does get finished it will generate hundreds of millions of dollars in additional sales. Too much money to ignore. The question, though, is when will it be finished?
Generally game development goes like this. Developer makes game and releases it. Goes back later and patches and polishes it. If a need for more content is seen then DLC is sold afterward.
What is happening with Star Citizen is different. Roberts wants to patch and polish the game, continue adding content to it (what would normally be DLC) and then release the game. There’s nothing wrong with that. Especially the patching and polishing before release.
The thing with this project is that money continues to pour into the project. The last 2 years around 35 million dollars each year. The normal sense of urgency to release the game and then get paid is missing. No creditors or Publishers pushing Roberts so here we are.