Star Citizen Alpha 3.24 Released Adding First Persistent Housing, Cargo Features, and More

Today Cloud Imperium Games released the highly anticipated update Alpha 3.24 for its growing space simulator Star Citizen.

The new update adds the first persistent housing of the game in the form of a home hangar that players can customize at their leisure with furniture and more.

We also get a number of cargo and inventory-focused features, on top of the Aegis Sabre Peregrine racing ship.

Below you can read a list of main features coming with the update.

• Freight Elevators: Take full control of loading or arming your ship before taking off on your next great adventure. From missiles to freight, everything you need can be moved from storage by hand (or tractor beam) and loaded onto your ship exactly the way you like.
• Instanced Locations V1: Take all the time you need in your hangar – this first proper use of instancing technology gives every player their own hangar to spawn vehicles without the wait. There’s no time limit, so you can take as long as you need to load up and prepare for the dangers of the ‘verse.
• Persistent Personal Hangars: Make your hangar a home. Every player now has a persistent hangar at their primary residence that can be decorated with any owned decorations and flair. Your hangar is allocated by the largest vehicle you own, so it’ll always fit, even if you upgrade your ship.
• Ship Elevators: Along with making accessing your ships easier, it’s now easier to access ships and load ground vehicles before taking off. Alongside freight elevators, hangars now feature a ship terminal that can recall any of your ships and ground vehicles from storage.
• Cargo Management: Tradable commodities (such as beryl and gold) are now traded in boxes, with different locations offering varying sizes relating to their location or purpose. Larger boxes can only be loaded onto larger ships too, adding variety to trading routes and pickups.
• Automated Cargo Loading: If manually loading your ship via freight elevators doesn’t suit your playstyle, all hangars now support automated cargo loading. While your ship will be unavailable for a short while, it will return fully stocked, re-armed, and ready to take off. 
• Hauling Missions: Hauling contracts are now open to all enterprising pilots. Players will play a vital role in the logistics network that keeps the Empire running as they travel from bustling landing zones to expansive distribution centers via remote space stations and perilous outposts.
• Blockade Runner: Violent criminal gangs are disrupting Stanton in the latest all-action Global Event. Play your part in ending the blockade by taking out enemy ships, hauling vital supplies, or escorting cargo to where it’s needed the most. Your system needs you! Blockade Runner will be hitting the ‘verse in the near future, keep your eyes peeled for more details!
• Aegis Sabre Peregrine: The Sabre Peregrine forgoes all weaponry in its pursuit of ultimate speed. Faster and more agile than anything in its class thanks to significant weight saving and a unique thruster setup, the Peregrine is more than deserving of its name.

Below you can check out the rather wacky trailer of the update.

We also get a trailer focusing on the Aegis Sabre Peregrine. You can also find the full patch notes.

If you’re unfamiliar with Star Citizen, it’s a crowdfunded multiplayer open-universe sandbox space simulator that has been in development for several years. It’s directed by Chris Roberts, well known for having created the beloved Wing Commander series.

It has received over $718 million in crowdfunding ($718,022,823 at the moment of this writing) and counts 5,330,657 registered users, albeit many of them aren’t paying customers, as they register accounts to enjoy Free Fly Events.

The next major update numbered 4.0, is expected to be massive, including a brand-new star system named Pyro and much more. It’ll be released in Q4 this year.

A single-player campaign named Squadron 42 is also in development (and we learned last year that it was feature-complete) and it will star an exceptional cast including Mark Hamill, Henry Cavill, Gary Oldman, Liam Cunningham, Gillian Anderson, and several more well-known actors.

If you’re interested in Star Citizen, learning how to fly certainly won’t hurt. To that end, you can enjoy our helpful guide on how to get started with flight simulators.

Full disclosure: the author of this article has backed Star Citizen’s crowdfunding campaign.