Upcoming Update 3.9 seeks to improve the multiplayer space game

“Star Citizen” is an ever-improving multiplayer space game that is being worked on by Chris Roberts and his Cloud Imperium Games. The game is planned to hit update 3.9 by the end of March or early April.

With the inevitable update on the horizon, a summarized version of what will be in store feels necessary. It’s going to be an exciting one.

New space apparel

With the increased focus on bounty hunting, warrants and prisoner elements to the gameplay, things like clothing are being looked at. By the time 3.9 comes out, players will have a new spacesuit that bounty hunters and security forces can put players in.

The suit is an orange-black mixture that easily identifies someone as a criminal or a detained player.

Another batch of clothing being added is clothing commonly worn by the population of Microtech. This type of clothing tends to be flashy and easily identifiable as someone who shopped or lives at Microtech.

New locations

At this current time, there are five new locations planned for “Star Citizen” update 3.9. However, all of them are still in the development stage and all but two are close to finishing before the update drops.

An automated prison facility, the New Babbage Landing Zone for Microtech and three new moons are all scheduled for new places players can explore in 3.9.

Artificial intelligence upgrades

More improvements on the current AI in-game are always welcome. One of these improvements will be an increased ability for the AI ships to not run into obstacles. Namely, space stations, asteroids or each other.

This goes hand in hand with pathfinding when it comes to planetary bodies. Cloud Imperium Games is working to get the AI ships to function in the atmosphere.

Unlike in space, where almost every direction is fair game, the surface of a planet has a distinct gravitational pull that will take a malfunctioning ship or inept pilot out of commission.

Gameplay improvements

There will be more opportunities for players to interact with the game, and successfully at that. This includes opening mobi-glass (the in-game player inventory and menu), using panels and ship controls as well as other systems that are currently in place.

An ability for criminals in ships to surrender will hopefully be added in this next update. This will allow criminals to be captured and turned into prisoners, rather than being outright shot and killed.

There are also new prison missions which may incorporate the aforementioned automated prison facility into each mission’s design. These new missions also fit in with the ability for players to track other players for bounty missions.

Lastly will be an increase in the player status system. This system tracks important things like health, crime rating, groups, missions activated and even the composition of the air on planets or space stations.

Potential new ship

There are a lot of ships that make up the “Star Citizen” universe. What is one more to add to the fray?

The new ship in question is the Esperia Prowler. This ship is a military transport for infantry and looks like some sort of predacious animal.

Unfortunately, it is currently sitting at 12/54 tasks completed on the Star Citizen Roadmap. If update 3.9 is to happen in March, this ship may not make the cut and will have to wait until quarter two sometime in June.

Dynamic systems and further optimization

The atmosphere, and feel, of “Star Citizen” is what makes it the unique game that it is. One of the new plans for 3.9 is improvements to character locomotion in extreme weather.

Extreme weather, at this current time, includes sandstorms and snowstorms on the planets that could form them. The update will make characters act more realistically when traveling through the raw elements.

More optimization means more players can enjoy “Star Citizen” with less frame rate drop. Optimization is when game developers work to get their game to work its best while using as little hardware on a computer as possible.

This can be done by adjusting the coding that a game is running on. For example, the last update for “Star Citizen” (3.8), increased the frames for some players by up to twenty, and that is quite a bit. Especially when the previous frame rate for a player was only ten or so.

Wrap-up

With every update, “Star Citizen” gets a better outlook on life and gets closer to release.

While the full game is still a ways off from being released, the current alpha, future updates and all of the development videos that CIG and Chris Roberts release promise a bright future for potentially the best massively multiplayer role-playing game ever created.

For more information on the development of “Star Citizen” and what progress it has made, make sure to visit the Star Citizen Roadmap.