The final panel of CitizenCon 2024 was the lengthiest one on Day 2, explaining what fans should expect from Star Citizen once it is released as a full game, beyond the current public Alpha testing phase.
First and foremost, CIG made it clear that 1.0 means a full-game experience with no wipes or account resets coming afterward. With this release, the game will no longer receive basic, core updates like serve meshing or item persistence that we get in Alpha iterations.
However, Star Citizen 1.0 will still receive new content and active support from the developers. CIG plans to launch 1.0 with 5 star systems: Stanton, Pyro, Nyx, Castra, and Terra.
While back in 2012 it was promised that Star Citizen would launch with 100 star systems, CIG clarified that the scope and scale of the game have changed a lot since then, the five star systems at a launch will be dense enough to deliver more exploration opportunities than the originally planned 100 star systems, all of which used to have a very limited number of locations to explore.
Now, with the Star Citizen world expanding massively, an onboarding experience for every newcomer will be crucial, and that’s why the developers are planning to deliver a Story Mode to the PU. This is not supposed to rival Squadron 42. The story mode in Star Citizen will teach players how everything works in the universe, and it will deliver exclusive, valuable rewards for anyone who completes the story.
The story mode will not be linear like Squadron 42. Players can leave it when they want and then come back and pick up where they left off. The missions of the story, however, all will be PvE-oriented.
Those who finish the story mode will receive a variety of rewards, the most important of which is the Citizenship of Stanton. The story mode will take place in Stanton, and those who earn its Citizenship will get exclusive benefits, allowing them to claim lands anywhere on the system and build their bases.
Before becoming a Citizen, players will be Civilians in Stanton, which limits their options on where they can claim lands for base building.
Throughout the story mode, players will get familiar with Guilds. A Guild is a collective of multiple corporations or groups that work in a related field. For example, Hurston Security and Northrock will operate under a mercenary guild, while mining corporations will be in a mining guild.
Depending on the profession that the player chooses to specialize in, they work with one of the many Guilds available. Keep in mind that more Guilds will become available in 1.0 for the jobs that are not implemented yet, such as science and research.
After the story mode is finished, players will continue to work with guilds to get access to things they want. So, base building requires resources, which can be earned by mining. As a result, a player will either go for mining to earn the materials themselves or buy them from other players or available shops.
After explaining the gameplay loops, CIG started to deliver some more insight into Insurance, which was the vaguest part of the panel that generated more questions than answering them.
CIG will introduce a new service called Warranty next to Insurance when Star Citizen 1.0. Insurance will no longer give players a new ship. Instead, it will just pay out the credits for the lost ship based on its wear rate.
Claiming a new ship will now require a Warranty in addition to Insurance. According to CIG, all ships that have been purchased from the pledge store will have a permanent Warranty. Now, this creates a hot debate on what the difference would be between Life-Time Insurance (LTI) and 10-Year Insurance if they both receive a permanent Warranty.
CIG didn’t clarify this part, unfortunately, however, they also introduced Tiers for Warranty and Insurance. A Tier-1 Warranty or Insurance will only be applied to the base ship, while a Tier-2 version will also cover the customized loadout. Finally, there will be a Tier-3 variant that will cover the decorations of the ship as well.
After this vague Insurance presentation, CIG went on to explain some of the endgame content, which will include events delivered by CIG, Fleet Battles which is a much bigger variant of ship battles, similar to the opening scene that was showcased in Squadron 42 presentation, Base Raiding, and Station Warfare.
Station Warfare is a fight between the orgs to secure access to the resources and claim tokens that will activate temporary shields over player bases for a limited time. In a span of a week, orgs will race toward earning these tokens, and the best-performing ones will be rewarded with a weekly shield token over their bases at unlawful systems like Pyro.
Another big endgame content is the ability to build space stations orbiting around planets. This is, by far, the biggest and most complex thing that players can construct in Star Citizen 1.0, and it will require a massive amount of time and resources, which can only be delivered by big orgs with active players.
There is a lot to customize about player-created space stations, from modular wings to customizable interiors, and even VIP rooms. But all of this will require hard work to be achieved, as mentioned earlier, it is a far endgame content for the dedicated!
There is no targeted release window for Star Citizen 1.0 at the moment. Alpha 4.0 will deliver Pyro before the end of 2024, as Chris Roberts promised on the scene. The next two systems, Nyx and Castra, are fairly smaller than Stanton and Pyro, but there are no targeted release windows for them either.
One last thing that was promised for Star Citizen 1.0 is that it will support VR headsets. Roberts didn’t go into the specifics of this, but he mentioned that is being worked on by the team at CIG.
More details about all the things announced for Star Citizen will be shared via weekly Inside Star Citizen and Star Citizen Live videos going forward. So, make sure to follow Gamers Off-Limits as we will cover everything Star Citizen.
