Star Citizen has been in development for more than 10 years now, and the team behind it continue to push out new updates featuring quality of life changes and amazing content for the community to experience.
With patch 3.18 players will experience Star Citizen in an entirely new way due to the addition of Persistent Entity Streaming and Server Meshing. On top of this, new features such as salvaging and race missions gives players entirely new gameplay loops to explore alone, or with friends.
PES and Server Meshing
Persistent Entity Streaming and Server Meshing is the key technology that will make Star Citizen stand out from other games in this genre. Its primary function is to store and recall all the items in game left by players.
With the large quantity of entities in the game, this has been a rather challenging feature to add. This is arguably the most exciting update for Star Citizen in the entirety of its development to date making it a great time for new players to jump in and experience everything this awesome sandbox has to offer.
With thousands of players in the verse at a time there are an almost uncountable number of items to keep a track of and update in real time. The current physics engine still makes some of these objects rather buggy, but this initial iteration of PES and Server Meshing is a massive step in the right direction. These features will be updated and tweaked as things move toward the release of 4.0, meaning it will only become more polished as players move towards an official release of the game.
Salvage
Salvage is arguably the biggest gameplay loop addition when considering all the new features in 3.18. This experience will allow players to find old ships (left by both NPCs and other players) and scrap them for materials. These materials can then be sold or used to repair their own ship.
There are currently two ships in 3.18 that are able to partake in the salvage gameplay loop, these being the Aegis Reclaimer and the Drake Vulture. Both give the player a very different experience when salvaging, as one is a multi-crew craft and has a large cargo hold to maximize profits whereas the other can be used by a single player to partake in salvaging alone.
The multi-tool will also gain a new attachment that can be used to salvage ships and redistribute the material to repair others.
Daymar Crash Site
The new Daymar crash site has been fully created and developed by the CIG Montreal team. This is a new section of the team that have proved to be incredibly efficient with the tasks delegated to them.
This is an amazing looking site that features a crashed Crusader MSR and a derelict Origin 600i. These locations really add to the immersion of the Star Citizen universe. This point of interest will feature several missions for players to complete that will dive deep into the wreckage. People who further explore this area will find other dead players here due to the PES features.
Unfortunately, this is the only location in the game of its kind (and to this detail), but this is a great start for the development team to take as a template and create further amazing and immersive locations.
Rivers and Canyons - microTech and Hurston
With this next update, there will be 40 locations on microTech and Hurston that have been fully developed as a river or lake. These are amazing visual spectacles for some great low flying opportunities.
Currently, there are no gameplay loops or features associated with these areas, but they're still awesome to discover when traversing the planets. Players can use the landscape to construct their own races within servers which is arguably part of the beauty of Star Citizen's sandbox and open world freedom.
Orison Changes
The changes made at Orison will make it a much more pleasant experience with both gameplay updates and quality of life changes. Players will only have to travel 10 km out of the atmosphere to reach a high enough level to quantum travel. This will eliminate the need to travel much further out of atmosphere making Crusader a much more viable option for a starting location.
This location also has a new Greycat PTV racetrack found at the convention center. This is a fun feature that doesn't necessarily add to any gameplay loops but can be a fun activity to break up the monotony of day to day contracts. This is amazing to see as the track was made purely with spare dev time meaning it hasn't taken away from the development of the rest of the game.
Some platforms in Orison have been repurposed as combat locations meaning players can partake in missions and make money without needing a ship.
Cargo Refactor Tier 1
The update to cargo features gives players a much more realistic experience due to the physicalized changes. The introduction of a cargo grid makes it far easier to move and store cargo within the ship itself. This physicalization also means pirates can steal cargo due to the persistence of these items. Players will need to ensure they place their ship in a safe place before logging off to ensure the safety of onboard cargo.
Players can also put ships in to a "soft death" state meaning the ship doesn't fully explode, but it is disabled meaning players can easily board your ship and steal the cargo.
Security Post Kareah
Currently, Star Citizen players can clear their crime stat at multiple locations around the system. In 3.18, Security Outpost Kareah will be the only place players can do this. Kareah has seen a massive overhaul in its layout and new difficult NPCs to make this process more challenging and may end up having players sent to prison more often.
Because of these changes Kareah will become a hotspot for bounty hunters, making this a far more interactive area compared to the current process of catching a criminal. It will be interesting to see how much this changes the crime and bounty hunting gameplay loops but overall this will be great for a more focussed experience in both aspects
Race Missions
Finally, Star Citizen will be dipping its toes into racing and time trials, an aspect of the game the community has wanted for a few years. With an initial 7 tracks available in 3.18 players can start testing their skills in time trials around the system.
Some of these tracks were originally curated by the XGR racing community but have been fully developed and implemented by the CIG Montreal team. These races also have a progression system through the Delphi app, similar to other gameplay loops in the game - this can be found in the Mobiglass. These additions really make this gameplay more than such a simple addition in 3.18.
Star Citizen is available on PC.
