A new feature of Star Citizen impressively demonstrates once again why the development of the MMO takes an eternity. Your spaceships can realistically catch fire in flames with Alpha 4.0.
What is this new feature? In the third quarter of 2024, Alpha 4.0 is set to be the next major milestone of Star Citizen. One of the highlight features was extensively presented by the developers a few days ago via YouTube, emphasizing again why the development of the space MMO takes so long.
- With Alpha 4.0, the interiors of spaceships can catch fire.
- In the initial version, the developers do not want players to play the arsonist all over Star Citizen – this way, a fire could quickly get out of control.
- A fire can break out in a spaceship when parts of the ship no longer have health points and break down, or when someone sets flammable areas of a ship on fire with grenades and projectiles.
- Furthermore, accidents can occur with certain ship parts, causing a fire to break out. The same applies if the ambient temperature rises so significantly that flammable materials ignite.
- On planets where it is incredibly hot, it can happen, for example, that individual areas of the interior catch fire as soon as you open your exit hatch and the extremely hot air from the planet flows into your spaceship. According to the developers, however, there is not supposed to be such a planet yet.
- The behavior of fire is supposed to be realistically simulated by various factors, such as the amount of oxygen, the combustibility of the material, and the temperature of the ignition source. This is intended to cause each fire to behave differently and spread differently.
- Due to a fire on the ship, your stored cargo can also go up in flames and turn to ash.
- Player characters cannot catch fire (due to tech limitations), but they take damage from the flames. The same applies when there is hardly any oxygen left due to the fire, making it increasingly difficult for the alter ego to breathe. Equipment can provide protection. Tools like fire extinguishers can be used to combat the fires.
The team of Chris Roberts remains true to themselves and seems to implement even seemingly simple features with almost absurdly high ambitions in terms of detail and realism. This is impressive on one hand and fuels dreams for a very special gaming experience. On the other hand, it also explains the very long development time of over twelve years.
The new developer video shows how impressively realistic fire behaves in Star Citizen:
Alpha 4 is an important milestone
What else is included in the upcoming update? With Alpha 4.0, the new fire system is not the only thing coming to the servers. Here is a list of the most important additional features:
- Server meshing version 1 allows multiple servers per shard, enabling you to switch between star systems.
- With Pyro, a new star system comes that includes six planets and moons, as well as space stations. This also includes colonial outposts and initial jumping points for the persistent universe.
- In addition to the fire system, there will also be solar storms in Pyro, new engineering gameplay, and life support for spaceships and vehicles.
- The developers promise new character options, fresh features for the multi-tool, and a personalization option for the multifunction displays.
As of now, there is no concrete release date for Alpha 4.0. It is only clear that the update should be released by September at the latest. However, it will still take a while until the final launch of the space MMO: 12 years and 700 million dollars later, Star Citizen still has no release – players continue to hope
