Star Citizen Public Universe 2

During Star Citizen's high-profile fundraising and development, fans of the sci-fi flight-sim have learned that the team at Roberts Space Industries and Cloud Imperium like to do things big. Whether it's destroying crowd-funding records or destroying beautiful spaceships, Star Citizen always finds a way to reach the next level. Taking a look at the enormous patch notes for update 1.1, it's pretty clear that the trend is true of updates, as well.

The first major patch for Star Citizen is so robust that it actually requires users reinstall the entire game client. Clearly, the update for the PC game from Wing Commander creator Chris Roberts brings a lot to the table.

Many fans will be most excited by the arrival of two new spacecrafts. The Aegis Dynamics Retaliator arrives in the Hangar with the patch and the Gladius light fighter is added to the list of ships eligible for combat in the Arena Commander mode.

The patch also rolls out the revised dynamic damage system that we took a look at a few weeks ago. The patch notes go on to include a laundry list of fixes for known issues and recently discovered bugs, but there are a few other new features to keep an eye out for, including the dual mode Landing System feature that allows pilots to switch back and forth between manual and automatic landing.

"Practiced pilots may find they are able to achieve a quicker touchdown in Manual mode than would be possible in the more safety-conscious Automated mode, but they will have to do so without any autopilot assists. Pilots can switch between these modes at any point during the landing process in case they become overwhelmed by the demands of Manual mode or frustrated by Automated mode’s hand-holding."

The patch makes the REC system live, which is the game's first attempt at rental credits. The rental credits are aiming to allow payment-free progression in Arena Commander, according to the patch notes. Gamers who have already backed Star Citizen will receive 5,000 credits after downloading the update as one of the many backer rewards.

Die-hard behind-the-scenes fans will want to visit the official Star Citizen site to see the (incredibly-lengthly) full patch notes, but here are the highlights...

Gameplay

Added Free Flight Multiplayer

Added backend functionality for IFCS to turn off when a ship lands

Added Landing/Docking mode to Free Flight (engaged using N)

Added ability for ships to request landing permission in Free Flight (engaged using middle mouse button while Landing/Docking is active)

Added Automatic Approach landing mode to Free Flight (engaged using M when in range of a landing zone after having been given permission to land)

Added groundwork tech for new ship damage state system

Added the Rental Equipment Credits system. Our community team have a walkthrough here

Added a system for ships to generate turbulence when using their thrusters to hover over something

Ships

Gladius is now combat ready

Added new ship damage state system to the Gladius

Retaliator is now hangar ready

User Interface

Added a visual overheat warning to the HUD to accompany the auditory warning

Added identifier numbers to the end of non-unique Vanduul in Vanduul swarm

Added HUD element to display status of ESP toggle (no keybinding option yet but it can be turned on and off in the Main Menu)

Added HUD element to display when landing gear is deploying and deployed

Added an altimeter for Landing/Docking mode to show ships how far away from the platform the ship is

Added Rental Equipment Credits to scoreboard (the total value of credits earned is not calculated until the match is over)

Added ping value to scoreboard (currently doesn’t work)

Added custom sensitivity curves to control options

Added backend support to allow the creation of subgroups within subgroups in control optionsThe next module that the developers are hoping to implement is the Star Marine content. The game is currently available via Early Access, but the complete product isn't due to launch until sometime in 2016. By then, the game's client should require about 100 GB of storage to get started.

Star Citizen continues to raise record-breaking amounts of money as it approaches its 2016 release window and the team continues to make plans to deliver insane stretch rewards. Currently, the game has raised nearly $76 million and the developers hope to see the funding reach the $100 million milestone before launch.

Did you download Star Citizen through Early Access or are you waiting until the game's proper launch in 2016? Let us know in the comments.

Star Citizen is available now on Early Access for PC and Linux. The full game is set to release in 2016.

Source: Cloud Imperium