Star Citizen developer Cloud Imperium Games released a new update for the growing space simulator, numbered Alpha 3.24.3.
The patch gets the live servers ready for the start of the Intergalactic Aerospace Expo 2954 which starts on November 22 alongside a new Free Fly event.
It also includes several new vehicles like the massive RSI Polaris, which will be the largest ship available to players for a while, alongside the MISC Starlancer MAX, and the Anvil Terrapin Medic variant (alongside a polish pass for the original Terrapin). The MISC Prospector is also getting a full dash rework.
A MIssion Objective Panel has been added to the Starmap, while Point Defense Cannons to shoot missiles, torpedoes and bombs down in flight have been implemented. Interestingly, they will also target hostile ships.
On top of that, the patch brings performance optimization, plenty of bug fixes, a balance pass, and more. You can find the full patch notes on Spectrum.
Yet, that’s not the only news we get today. Star Citizen is still in alpha, which means progression wipes are fairly common, but it has been some time since the latest full cleanup.
Today developer Cloud Imperium Games announced that the next full wipe will happen with alpha 4.0, which should come by the end of the year.
This means that players will find themselves with all of their accumulated reputation reset and their credits reverted to their initial amount.
All equipment and ships acquired in the game will also be gone. Of course, anything acquired via the pledge store or earned as account-bound rewards will remain.
Alpha 4.0 will introduce the new Pyro system, pretty much doubling the content available in the game, so the wipe is not so surprising given the massive influx of of new factions, items, missions, and so forth.
Lastly, we get a trailer for IAE.
If you’re unfamiliar with Star Citizen, it’s a crowdfunded project directed by Chris Roberts, whom you may know for the old and glorious Wing Commander series. It’s a multiplayer sandbox space simulator exclusive for PC.
The game has recently passed $739 million in crowdfunding ($739,293,265 at the moment of this writing) and counts 5,402,149 registered users, having just passed 5.4 million. Of course, many of them aren’t paying customers, as they register accounts to enjoy Free Fly Events like one that’s coming at IAE
A few weeks ago, we also got to see plenty of features and tech coming to the game, on top of the overall vision for version 1.0, which will be the full release of the game, albeit it doesn’t yet have a date.
The game will also have a single-player campaign titled Squadron 42, starring an exceptional cast of famous actors including Mark Hamill, Henry Cavill, Gary Oldman, Liam Cunningham, Gillian Anderson, and more. Recently we saw plenty of gameplay and learned that it’ll release in 2026.
Since the project has been in development for over a decade, you can also see how Squadron 42 evolved since its first reveals.
Full disclosure: the author of this article has backed Star Citizen’s crowdfunding campaign.
