Star Citizen alpha 3.0 has invaded Gamescom 2017, and a stream is currently underway to show off its awesome goodies. During an interview Wednesday morning, Foundry 42 Development Director Brian Chambers discussed the latest 3.0 progress and the creation of procedural cities.
Before getting to all that good stuff, however, we should first explain what the convention’s 3.0 demo offers. While the 3.0 alpha will offer plenty more moons, outposts and abilities to inspect, attendees in groups of 12 players are currently limited to a tour of the sandy moon of Daymar. Ships like the Nox, Cutlass, Aurora and Prospector, have been prespawned, and features like MobiGlass and quantum travel have been disabled. In that sense, it’s a quick snapshot of everything 3.0 contains, but it’s not the final picture.
Beyond making a vertical slice that’s reasonable for short play, these restrictions exist largely because there’s still so much work on 3.0 left to be done. In an interview, Chambers said “the bugs that are in here today are totally different from last Saturday,” so the team’s focus is primarily on making sure those QA-focused duties are completed in the best possible way. “We don’t want to send something out that’s going to frustrate players,” Chambers assured fans, so maximum care is being taken to prioritize stability above all else. One of the most troubling issues for his team right now are usables, which the director described as “horrible” in certain circumstances. However, he expressed hope that those kinks will be ironed out soon.
In an effort to keep expectations in check, we did learn a few aspects that alpha 3.0 won’t include. Elements like flora, fauna, orbits, rotation, aliens and destructible terrain aren’t a part of the final package that will eventually be sent out to players and backers. Those elements will likely have to be developed further and released at a later date.
Yet, because this is Star Citizen, Chambers couldn’t resist the urge to let his fans and viewers dream big about some of the game’s finer features beyond 3.0 as well. One specific area of focus was the concept of entire cities being designed by Cloud Imperium Games’ procedural technology. While he cautioned that the idea is “still in its early phases,” he gave some details on the design philosophy behind the decision:
“Everything’s modular for a reason. We had to create these things in a modular way so they can be as efficiently designed as possible,” he said “There are various systems in place to make [procedural cities] happen. We want to make things modular in an intelligent way.”
With that in mind, Chambers touched on the fact that 10 to 20 percent of Star Citizen’s content will be made by hand to ensure that it has an appropriate level of polish befitting of a triple-A game.
While procedural cities were essentially confirmed in their most basic sense, there were other aspects Chambers left vague. Even though the Star Citizen universe will indeed have bodies of water, it’s unclear how deep they’ll actually go. Objects like melee weapons are also being made, but they’ve yet to be implemented. As for PC mod support, that feature was merely described as “something still jotted down as a possibility” but not a guarantee.
A lot of these statements may be considered non-answers or teases of an uncertain future, but it’s worth noting that this short interview is just the tip of the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Star Citizen’s place at Gamescom. On Friday at 3 p.m. EDT, Cloud Imperium Games director Chris Roberts and others are scheduled to make major announcements fans won’t want to miss.
Star Citizen is available in alpha for Kickstarter backers on PC.
What do you think of the Star Citizen Gamescom stream so far? What do you hope to see on Friday? Tell us in the comments section!
