Hello everyone!
Every two weeks, we accompany the Roadmap update with a brief explanatory note to give you insight into the decision-making that led to any changes. This is part of an effort to make our communications more transparent, more specific, and more insightful for all of you who help to make Star Citizen and Squadron 42 possible.
Just a reminder: The 1.0 column showcases features and content planned for inclusion in or before Star Citizen 1.0. This means you may not have to wait for the 1.0 release to experience them. As features/content in the 1.0 column become ready, they will migrate left into a point patch column for release.
Be sure to check back every two weeks for the latest updates.
With that, let’s dive into this week’s Roadmap Roundup!
-CIG Community Team
Release View
Alpha 4.7
MISC Hull B
Implementing MISC’s Hull B, built for serious haulers looking to take their business to the next level and beyond.
This card has been set to Released.
Greycat UTV
Implementing Greycat’s UTV, delivering dependable and durable ground transport when it matters most.
This card has been set to Released.
Alpha 4.8
Tactical Strike Groups
Implementing a new cooperative ship combat experience featuring a series of objectives and challenges designed for a multi-role fleet. Players are encouraged to bring a diverse lineup, equip the right loadouts, and be ready to refuel and resupply both ships and FPS players on site to succeed.
This card has been set to Tentative.
QV Extraction Stations
Located in the Nyx system, the QV Extraction Stations provide key infrastructure for the new Tactical Strike Groups content.
This card has been set to Tentative.
New Hairstyles (4.8.0)
Implementing seven new hairstyles and one new beard, along with updates to one hairstyle and one beard to bring them up to current quality standards.
This card has been set to Tentative.
Space Combat Mission - Defend Location
Adding missions where players are now defending a location’s fuel tanks from NPC Attackers. This includes a standalone mission and a compounding one where players will have multiple conflicting priorities to complete.
This card has been set to Tentative.
KSAR Plasma Grenade
Implementing Kastak Arms area-denial grenade. Prime and throw to lock down an area and prevent enemies from pushing through.
This card’s image has been updated.
btw - CIG is going in and appears to be retroactively removing access to Buyback for any game packages that also contain SQ42.
Old packages that were purchased and are applied to your account that have SQ42 access appear to be safe - for now. No announcement from CIG about this.
CIG has removed the very longstanding UEC chits from the store.
Whether these return at more modern sums or not at all is uncertain, UEC selling was intended to be a monetization avenue for the finished game when these were made. The timing is noteworthy to go along with the removal of legacy Sq42 packages from buybacks.
Stand strong against the worst of the ‘verse with this ‘HighSec’ armor, weapon, and ship paint bundle, featuring a sleek grey and carbon fiber colorway with red and white accents. Includes the Kilgore & Poole Monde heavy armor with backpack, Gemini A03 sniper rifle, and a paint for the Kruger Wolf series.
The Monde armor provides battle-ready protection with a next-class comfort system and specialized flex-point joints, while the Gemini A03 delivers an impressive rate of fire for a sniper rifle, sacrificing accuracy for urgency when successive shots are required.
This is extremely hot off the press and not clear as to what exactly is causing this (cash/credit/time limited etc.), but some pledges are now being marked on melt as not being available for buyback.
This could be connected to the shift around Sq42 packages (making it clearer that these will be permanently lost), or a wider change to buybacks CIG is rolling out.
Either which way, be careful until we have more clarity around what is causing this - do not rely on using buybacks as ‘storage’
Anvil Aerospace’s Portfolio has been updated with this line at the bottom, which would indicate the BattleCruiser to be constructed by Anvil Aerospace
New features:
What’s new in this release:
We’ve added a disk space check to the download flow. Before your download or update kicks off, the Launcher will now check how much space is needed and compare it against what’s available on your disk.
- If you’ve got enough space, everything proceeds as normal.
- If you don’t, you’ll get a prompt letting you know — with the option to free up space or switch to a different drive before continuing.
Known issues:
- Some users encounter a flickering Launcher background, which can be partially mitigated by turning off accessibility settings. Please look at this comment for a potential fix:
- The Launcher sometimes fails to create the StarCitizen/Live folders for some users, leading to Error 2000, Error 5008, or Error 5010. Try creating the folder manually and running the Launcher as an administrator.
- LCH-1030: Launcher suppresses Screen Saver
- LCH-1958: Never Ending Download loop. Please report the issue; we are encountering trouble investigating it.
- LCH-2229: We are investigating Network error 5008. Please report your issue there.
No new show next week, recording beginning for the big ship showcase through May
Ironclad in 4.8 confirmed
For more than a decade, Star Citizen has supported the flexibility to melt, buy back, and adjust pledges as the project evolved.
The Buy Back system was introduced as a support tool to help handle the number of tickets we used to receive asking to undo an unintended melt. Over time, it evolved into a service the community has also used to manage fleets.
We have always cautioned that once a ship is melted, it is not guaranteed that it can be bought back as circumstances change, for instance when something is permanently removed from the store or part of a promotional bundle. The buyback queue should not be used to park ships and bundles at their original prices for future use or for profit on the grey market years down the road.
Recently, we made a change to disable buybacks for Squadron 42. This was intentional and addresses something the system wasn’t intended to support. Squadron 42 was offered in a variety of ways in the early days, but it was always meant to stand on its own as an independent AAA experience. It was removed from the store several years ago, both as standalone and in packages, and buybacks were never intended to work around that.
We’ve also seen some confusion over the last few days from messaging that suggested broader buyback restrictions for Star Citizen. This was caused by a caching issue that displayed an incorrect error message for some. It did not actually restrict any buybacks, and a fix has already been deployed.
As preparations for Squadron 42’s release continue in the background, we’ll keep taking a closer look at systems like buybacks and share more as we have updates.
