The freshly released Alpha patch 3.24 for Star Citizen brings various important new features that should have long been part of the SciFi MMO.
What are these features? With patch 3.24, the new cargo functions have finally landed in the Alpha of Star Citizen. They were originally supposed to arrive in April 2024 with update 3.23, but had to be postponed. The new features include:
- A personal, instanced hangar for players – with a ship elevator that can accommodate your largest spaceship
- Cargo elevators
- Item banks
- New cargo missions
- It should be possible for players with a certain criminal inclination to break into foreign hangar instances
- Global action event where you have to break the blockade from criminal gangs and escort cargo
Here is the trailer for Alpha patch 3.24 and the new cargo functions of Star Citizen:
Threat to Playability
Why had the features to be postponed? Before the release of patch 3.23, the cargo features could not pass the final tests. The developers were worried that the new feature could highly negatively impact the playability of the Alpha of Star Citizen.
The reason: The new cargo functions are closely linked to various other systems of Star Citizen. Connecting not yet fully stable functions with all these systems could have led to a strong impairment of the player experience for all Alpha testers, up to the point of unplayability. The developers want to prevent such a frustrating situation at all costs.
Additionally, more time was needed to incorporate testers’ feedback into areas like the kiosk interface, design of the cargo elevators, and the functionality of the cargo.
What comes next? Star Citizen is approaching the next milestone. The launch of Alpha 4.0 is planned for the third quarter of 2024, which will bring a new star system (with six planets and moons each) including Pyro.
In addition to the solar storms of Pyro, life support for spaceships as well as vehicles, and the expansion of engineering, another new feature is planned that nicely demonstrates why it takes so long to develop the SciFi MMO: If you land on a really hot planet in Star Citizen, your spaceship could catch fire when opening the hatch
