Star Citizen’s Alpha 4.0 will no longer have several anticipated gameplay features, according to the latest Roadmap Update. The devs explain that due to the focus on Pyro and Server Meshing that will be available to all players, the Engineering, Life Support and Fire Hazard gameplay features have been pushed back to incremental 4.X patches.
“Upon review of the support required for Server Meshing, Pyro and general stability of 4.0, we made the choice to temporarily remove several deliverables from the 4.0 release to free up necessary Engineering bandwidth to prepare for launch,” the post explains. “This list includes Engineering Gameplay, Life Support, Fire Hazards & Fire Extinguishers, Charge and Drain and Transit Refactor. We're aware that many of you are looking forward to these features, especially Engineering Gameplay, but rest assured that we're committed to pulling these back in as soon as possible.’
“Therefore, the following cards have been removed from the Alpha 4.0 columns and will reappear in an incremental patch once we have more details on their timing.”
The full list of “cards” (features on the Roadmap page) is Engineering, Fire Hazards, Fire Extinguisher, Solar Burst, Charge/Drain and Transit System Refactor.
Many of these gameplay components were discussed in depth by the development team in the months leading up to CitizenCon, as well as at the event itself. The fire physics allowed ships to catch fire, requiring players to scramble into action to save their precious ships and cargo.
The Engineering gameplay update is extremely substantial for Star Citizen, creating a fuller system for ship-keeping and balancing out ship combat and gameplay mechanics by requiring that parts are individually maintained as part of holistic ship health. This would require multiplayer teamwork to ensure the ship keeps afloat, as well as enable salvaging and swapping out modular parts.
Meanwhile, Alpha 3.24 will see a few more minor new features, some of which were brought up from 4.0, including more ships (as always), new cave types to explore, and a few new character customization options. This is on top of other Alpha 3.24 features already shown on the Roadmap.
In the meantime, the team has also added a “Roadmap” for 1.0 with all of the features unveiled during CitizenCon’s 1.0 presentation. However, there’s no date for any of that, so it’s essentially just a recap of features floating in theoretical space (and maybe literal space, one day).
