Star Citizen developers at Cloud Imperium Games revealed plenty of details about the Asteroid Bases and Contested Zones that will be implemented in the new Pyro Star System with Alpha 4.0.
During a livestream, we heard plenty of information about the gameplay that we can expect.
Asteroid bases fit more gameplay types compared to the existing bunkers. Encounter versions are dedicated to completing missions and fighting, while exploration versions will include puzzles.
There is a third version that ties into the overall progression of contested zones.
The concept is designed to be expandable, and while this is not planned for 4.0, there may be inhabited ones that aren’t derelict in the future, for instance, providing refueling and rearming services.
In 4.0, Asteroid Bases will also be available and you can visit them whether you have a mission leading there or not.
Contested zones will have multiple entry points both from the interior and the exterior of a station. There are also different exfiltration ways.
The developers are planning for about 5 contested zones. Some can only be accessed after finding the keys to them. We also hear the tease of some sort of “long-term objectives” that will require visiting multiple contest zones.
Short-term objectives involve getting into a contested zone, killing some enemies, getting some loot, and getting out. Medium-term objectives involve getting to the final room and earning the final reward of a contested zone.
This takes more effort and coordination some security doors to get deeper in the zone also require keys or repairing fuse boxes. Certain areas also have timed gates of some kind.
The deeper you go, the better rewards you find. If you’re deep into one, you may have to take some time to get back to where you died should you be killed.
Some ship components of certain types (military, stealth, or competition) may be available only in the reward rooms of contested zones. There will be freight elevators to extract them.
Traps in the Contested Zones will include trip wires, explosive canisters, fire, and radiation zones, but the developers would like to create more.
Players can tackle them solo, but it’s not recommended. Developers have been testing with groups of four or five players, but the zones can easily host over 40 players.
Besides human NPC enemies, you may encounter domesticated attack Kopions that will add more depth to PvE encounters.
While creating this kind of experience, the developers looked at dungeons in modern MMORPGs like Final Fantasy XIV or World of Warcraft, but since Star Citizen has a more open sandbox nature, they ended up being inspired more by older MMORPGs like Everquest, which had open-space dungeons where lots of players could coexist. They also looked for inspiration in the layout of dungeons in Guild Wars 2.
4.0 Won’t just include content for the Pyro system, but there will also be content for Stanton and it’ll be released soon.
It’s worth mentioning that the content discussed in the video isn’t included in the next update, which is Alpha 3.24 and is currently being tested ahead of implementation. The plan is to release alpha 4.0 at some point this year.
If you’re unfamiliar with Star Citizen, it’s a crowdfunded multiplayer open-universe sandbox space simulator that has been in development for over a decade. It’s directed by Chris Roberts, known for the beloved Wing Commander series.
It has received over $717 million in crowdfunding ($717,100,188 at the moment of this writing) and counts 5,321,458 registered users, albeit many of them aren’t paying customers, as they register accounts to participate in Free Fly events like the one going on right now.
A single-player campaign named Squadron 42 is also in development, and it will feature a star-studded 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.
