After spending some time in the Public Test Universe, Star Citizen"s first major Alpha update of 2021 is now available to all backers via the Live track. Keeping to its quarterly schedule, Cloud Imperium Games has brought in a number of new features such as ship-to-ship docking, ship-accessible caves, new ground vehicles, visual hull degradation, and more with this release.
Dubbed the Underground Infamy update, as a first, it enables players on the Merlin snub fighter to launch off the RSI Constellation freighter and dock back into its port seamlessly. The studio says this is only the first iteration, with the capability arriving for more ships - eventually introducing ship-to-station docking - in upcoming updates.
Keeping to the new machines, mining players now have another ground vehicle capable of it, with the Greycat ROC-DS arriving as a two-seater variant of the original Greycat. Meanwhile, the Tumbril MT is a new Cyclone variant that boasts surface-to-air missiles and a ballistic cannon for protection from any annoying air assaults.
Planetary caves have also been updated with four more entrances, and unlike previous ones that required on-foot traversal, these support ship entry. The "sinkhole" entrances can only be accessed by a ship, while others allow ground vehicle access as well.
Other improvements and changes in the update include visual hull degradation of player ships, overhauled ship shield visuals, a reputation manager on the mobiGlas, more varied cave missions, further planetary visual improvements, mining sub-components for boosting specific stats, and more. The full patch notes for Alpha 3.13.0: Underground Infamy update can be found here.
Star Citizen went past the impressive $350 million in crowd-funding milestone recently, its fan base once again showing no signs of slowing down their support for the space game. Those looking to try out the title without putting down $45 for a starter package shouldn"t have to wait long, as major updates like these are usually followed by a Free Fly event soon after.