Star Citizen's Latest Patch Watch Shares More Details About Alpha 4.1's Full Release

It seems the full release of Star Citizen’s Alpha 4.1 is on the horizon, and as playtesting is ongoing, the team is preparing with more details about it through the latest “Patch Watch.” The article outlines changes not listed in the Public Roadmap, and this time, we see updates for mining gameplay, quality of life, and more. 

There’ll be some significant mining changes aimed at changing up the gameplay experience between on-foot/first-person mining instances and vehicle instances. Mainly, they’ll be separating different minerals between these mining methods and giving players with mining vehicles a “clearer progression path from beginner to expert-tier resources.” These changes also come with some balance fixes to compensate. 

A massive quality of life change is coming for the in-ship cockpit radar, which will improve its visuals. The background is darkened, and any contact made is enlarged, letting players figure out what sorts of allies or enemies are around them (though some point out it looks similar to another popular space sim’s interpretation, but hey, why reinvent the wheel-ing radar). 

For those who like the Arena Commander sim, there’ll be two new maps joining in 4.1. Crossroads of Crime will be the largest Arena Commander map to date, and will be available in a slew of game modes, including some of the team matches and Free Fly. Astor’s Clearing from the main Persistent Universe client also will be put into Free Fly with the patch. 

The full post on Spectrum also explains some general balance and physics changes all around, including how pilot versus gunner turrets work and how airships crash into each other for more realistic collisions.