In the latest iteration of Roadmap Roundup for Star Citizen, Cloud Imperium Games revealed that Freight Elevators and Personal Hangars will no longer be available when Alpha 3.23 launches.
According to the developer, the quality of these two key features does not meet the internal expectations yet, which is mostly because of their complex nature. As a result, the team will not be able to deliver them with the live version of Alpha 3.23, pushing them back to an Alpha 3.23.X update for now.
In addition to Freight Elevators and Personal/Instanced Hangars, CIG also delays the release of Item Banks and the new mission type, Cargo Hauling, for the same period.
Star Citizen players are quite excited for the arrival of Personal Hangars which would allow them to have their very own hangars in space stations, serving as a home to players with the ability to be decorated and customized. On top of that, Freight Elevator is another step forward, allowing you to spawn ground vehicles inside the hangar, rather than picking them up from a planet.
Item Banks, on the other hand, is a widespread system over the entire Stanton that allows players to pick up their items from certain terminals, no matter where they have been originally stored.
Delaying all these important features does worry the community, as CIG already delayed the Replication Layer from Alpha 3.22, and it is still being worked on with a tentative release for Alpha 3.23, which has not been locked in yet.
While delaying the features above, multiple promised features have completed their final review, and are now committed to release with the live version of Alpha 3.23. These features include:
- MobiGlass Rework
- FPS Loot Screen
- FPS Map System
- Visor & Lens HUD Rework
- Player Interaction Experience
- EVA T2
- Starmap Rework
- Master Modes
- Creature Hunting Mission Type
- Kopion (Creature)
- Marok (Creature)
- Engineering Experimental Mode (Arena Commander)
- Grav Royale (Arena Commander)
- Custom Lobbies (Arena Commander)
- New “Miner’s Lament” Flight Map (Arena Commander)
Last but not least, Alpha 3.23 received two new cards with tentative release commitments: one for Vulkan API support and another for Water Simulation and Rendering Improvements.
The former can be enabled from the options menu once the next patch goes live, but it will gradually become a mandatory replacement for DirectX 11 to enable features such as Ray-Tracing. Getting feedback from the Vulkan API’s performance in Star Citizen is quite important for CIG as they will use the data to implement it on Squadron 42.
Star Citizen Alpha 3.23 is expected to be available later in April or earlier in May 2024.