The ongoing development of Star Citizen passed a milestone this week as players were able to jump between different star systems for the first time.
In a test server arranged to test the feature, players were able to use jump gates to move between the Stanton and Pyro systems.
Stanton is the system that players have been playing on for quite a while on the live servers, while Pyro is the second star system that will be added to the live build of the game at some point in the future with alpha 4.0.
While Pyro was tested on its own before, this is the first time in which players can fly their ships between two systems by flying into a gate.
The way travel between systems works in the Star Citizen universe is by flying into natural wormholes stabilized by Jump Gates. Technically, each system is handled by a different server, and now the handoff of players between servers has been tested and is functional.
This is rather important, as different systems have different characteristics that reflect on the gameplay experience. While Stanton is a relatively secure, corporate-dominate system, Pyro is entirely lawless, dominated by gangs, and with frequent solar flares to add to the challenge.
Interestingly, another test happening this weekend will increase the cap of players per server to 400 from the current 100.
On top of that, we also got a new video in which the developers illustrated some of the changes coming to FPS gameplay in the upcoming Alpha 3.23. These include an overhaul of recoil, new effects for scopes, reloading changes, and much more.
You can watch the video below. Alpha 3.23 is scheduled for April, albeit it's not set in stone.
A second video features a Q&A with the developers on Master Modes, a new flight feature that will prompt players to switch between a slower combat mode and a much faster navigation mode with the intent of having tighter, more cinematic dogfights at more manageable speeds.
Star Citizen is a crowdfunded game currently in ongoing development exclusively for PC. Its fans have pledged $668,602,747 in funding with 5,107,521 registered users. As usual, that number is not representative of paying customers, as many just try the game out during Free Fly Events.
Impressively, Star Citizen just had the biggest year ever in its crowdfunding history. Its fans have pledged over $117.5 million in pledges in 2023.
A single-player campaign titled Squadron 42 is also in development and we recently heard that it's now feature-complete. It doesn't yet have a release date, but many believe that it'll be announced at the next CitizenCon in October. Yet, that's just speculation, for now.
Full disclosure: the author of this post backed Star Citizen's crowdfunding campaign.
