WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 21, 2026
THURSDAY, JANUARY 22, 2026
https://www.youtube.com/@RobertsSpaceInd>))
FRIDAY, JANUARY 23, 2026
Last month, the Online Services team shared an internal tech demo, demonstrating what will be coming with Item Recovery T1. With this, they were able to properly establish the priority needs of downstream teams.
Work also continued on instancing, with the Instance Manager working as the cornerstone to validate the feature’s inner workings.
The Live Tools team successfully launched the new error-reporting pipeline. Development of the WebApp tool continued, with the team expanding its scope beyond the initial crash ownership rules functionality. The tool will now incorporate additional capabilities to automate ticket assignment workflows, replacing existing manual and difficult-to-maintain processes for routing tickets to users.
The audit-logs feature for Hex is now live in production too, providing enhanced tracking and monitoring capabilities for the team.
In November, the R&D team’s PU focus remained on optimization. Texture streaming support was added for volumetric cloud and ground fog, including support for streaming 3D volume textures.
Various optimizations were done to allow the inlining of C++ lambdas and to prevent allocations in situations where they must be captured as functions. This, among other things, improves the runtime of IFCS thruster updates, Subsumption mission updates, and item resource generation and consumption.
Read access to voxel trees can now be made concurrently, which helps with CPU gas cloud reads for radiation volumes, atmospheric flight data, door hazard state updates, and more. Also, lowercase CRC32 computations were optimized significantly. Threading-related OS call overheads were removed when updating vehicle parts and when checking for active impacts in damage maps.
Overheads in evaluating AI tactical queries were fixed, while the refactor of gas cloud light updates to remove the need for temporary memory allocations and significantly optimize CPU processing cost was brought to the PU.
In December, more code was optimized for both projects. Among other things, context capture for immediately executed lambdas in various systems was improved to avoid unnecessary allocations.
Priority and deferred action queues were cleaned up and optimized to allow directly emplacing passed lambdas and to avoid unnecessary temporary copies. Entity classes are now also stored more compactly in the registry and allow for more efficient lookups.
AI local variables no longer cause excessive allocations and locking cost. The time slicing of monitored zone updates (mission updates) is now handled more efficiently. Finding the closest shadow region node is now executed more efficiently, and work is also underway to speed up projected decal rendering, saving interpolators.
AI Content focused on preparing for the Alpha 4.5 release, including updates tied to the addition of Nyx. The team refined social behaviors in Levski to better leverage available interactions, introduced Nyx-specific voice packs to enhance ambient and location-based conversations, and began developing targeted dialogue sets to create more contextual narrative experiences. In parallel, they collaborated with the Missions team to support new mission reps and story-driven content planned for future releases.
During November and December, AI Tech & Features concentrated on improving the valakkar, enhancing its submerge behavior, terrain avoidance, and combat capabilities, including attacks on inanimate objects. The team also fixed legacy chase behavior, removed the movement hearing filter concept, and introduced new placeholder behaviors.
Within the Star Paws creature pipeline, progress included updates to AI Triggered Actor States, porting radial formations from SQ42, refactoring the AI Skill Extender into “AI Motive,” and adding a new boss condition based on health lost during a phase.
Additional work addressed anti-personnel turret accuracy issues, expanded missing hints in Subsumption activity tasks, and delivered broad bug fixes across navigation and traversal systems. Finally, improvements to AI planetary navigation now allow easier adjustment of physics terrain resolution; currently limited to the valakkar, this feature is planned for release with Alpha 4.6.
In November and December, the GID team focused primarily on advancing Mission System v2 toward its next milestone, validating prototypes ahead of MVP refinement, integrating UX scripting, and updating the mission system dashboard’s visuals. They also developed a reactive expression prototype, defining its design and icon-based interface as a foundation for future designer tools. Additional efforts included integrating Tiny Machine into the Starscript UX to unify visual language, alongside ongoing bug fixes and Starscript feature development driven by designer feedback.
In November and December, the Facial Animation team completed their final performance-capture session of the year with the Narrative team, recording content for two new characters and new voice packs for NPCs in the Nyx system. They also finalized animation work for ArcCorp’s Ella Tieno and began processing captured footage, starting with a named character slated for an upcoming release.
On the gameplay side, animators advanced the spec-ops AI combat set and additional human animation sets, while also making progress on melee and mechanized enemies, player swimming and navigation, new weapon animations, kopion like creature improvements, and ongoing background-life AI development.
The Character Art team closed out the year by finalizing event rewards and promotion items while progressing with new gangs for 2026.
The Concept Art team began exploring ideas for new armors and finalized hand-off sheets for Subscriber flair items.
Mission Design ended the year focusing on quality-of-life fixes for Alpha 4.5, alongside bringing the derelict space station missions back to Stanton. Work then continued on content planned for 2026.
During November and December, the Ships teams handled an exceptionally heavy workload, delivering multiple vehicles for IAE while simultaneously supporting the first release of Engineering.
In parallel, UK teams advanced several upcoming ships. The Gatac Railen entered production mid november, gold-standard refinement continued on the Aegis Hammerhead, as well as breaking out various parts into an Aegis kit.
The MISC Hull B passed its whitebox review and moved into greybox, while the Drake Ironclad variants and Command Module progressed progressed toward their greybox reviews. In December, the Ironclad Assault received particular focus after the base ship resolved a lot of the required core setup. The first playable review gate of the Command Module’s functionality was completed in mid-December.
Work also continued on the Greycat UTV, including UI integration updates and new motion-captured animations.
Pre-production began on the RSI Galaxy as stated by John Crew.
Four unannounced vehicles advanced through the pipeline. The first passed both its whitebox and greybox reviews, with only a few minor technical details needing further iteration. Second is progressing quickly thanks to its existing kit. The third passed whitebox following a hugely successful concept stage. The forth (from a manufacturer that hasn’t been worked on for a while) entered production after the initial concept phases resolved issues with its interior components.
North American teams continued developing the Drake Kraken continuing through whitebox with the goal now set for its whitebox review in February. Changes were made on interrior for navigation to help moving vehicles and cargo. No impact on the Privateer version.
Two unannounced vehicles were also worked on. The first ended 2025 with a review gate in preparation for its early-2026 release, while the second moved through whitebox, with the team focusing on its unique ‘hero’ rooms.
In November, the Community team prepared players for the Nyx system with a Traveler’s Guide to the Galaxy, followed by a comprehensive support post after release. To mark Nyx’s arrival, they launched Star Citizen’s first Twitch Drops campaign and partnered with CLX Gaming on a custom PC giveaway, featuring a live-built dual-PC panoramic design inspired by Levski and the Vanduul.
In November, the Community team supported the IAE 2955 with extensive communications, including key announcements, schedules, FAQs, contests, referral bonuses, and Q&A posts for six newly revealed ships. They also updated the Salvage & Repair Guide and announced the BIS rewards.
In December, the team supported the release of Alpha 4.5: Dawn of Engineering with comprehensive guidance on the new engineering gameplay and a patch support post. They also delivered Luminalia 2955 activities, including daily gifts, event communications, and the return of the Luminalia Greeting Card Contest.
In November, the Bar Citizen World Tour 2025 concluded with its final stop in Prague, where the team connected with community members in person. Looking ahead, they invited players to propose cities and regions for the 2026 tour to continue the the tradition of bringing citizens together continues worldwide.
Across November and December, the Community team maintained ongoing communications and support, including weekly and bi-weekly updates, monthly reports, Arena Commander scheduling, and continuous updates to new and returning player guides.
Toward the end of the year, the Narrative team focused on delivering content for the release of Nyx, Star Citizen’s third star system. Their work included writing dozens of new missions, developing the Shattered Blade outlaw faction, and reintroducing familiar characters in Levski.
They also supported new IAE content and the rollout of system-to-system hauling missions. In December, efforts shifted toward preparing for Alpha 4.6’s PTU launch, alongside continued work on NPC scripts supporting upcoming gameplay features and missions.
For Alpha 4.4, the team supported the release of the Boomtube rocket launcher, resolved multiple weapon-related issues, and continued broader efforts to improve weapon handling. This included refinements to weapon feel, such as improved ADS control, and expanding the set of adjustable parameters available to designers.
Engineering gameplay progressed through multiple Tech Preview releases before debuting in its first full iteration with Alpha 4.5, incorporating a wide range of changes driven by internal and community feedback. Updates included improved power-loss behavior, refined resource network logic, optional automatic Power Pip reassignment, and enhanced audio-visual feedback for ship emergencies.
Alpha 4.5 also introduced the initial implementation of Ship Armor and Life Support, adding greater depth and dynamism to multi-crew gameplay. In parallel, Core Gameplay and Player Experience teams reviewed critical feedback, resolving key issues for the release while scheduling others for future Engineering iterations.
During November and December, the team advanced the Crafting feature to Tech Preview readiness, enabling a limited round of Evocati testing. The initial preview focused on the core crafting loop, allowing item creation with stat variation based on material quality, alongside added support for material quality in shops and the ability to sell partially filled or mixed containers.
Further progress was made on the main Crafting UI, covering the production queue, delivery destination selection, material refunds, and the ability to dismantle crafted items. With the core functionality now in place, the team is preparing to review player feedback before refining and polishing the system ahead of its eventual release.
For flight gameplay, the team continued work on the improved Flight Model, refining control surfaces and exposing additional parameters to Design to better tune atmospheric flight behavior.
In parallel, development progressed on the Command Module used by the Drake Caterpillar and Ironclad. A first playable version was presented, demonstrating seamless control handover between the host ship and the Command Module, while also resolving several docking-related issues and improving debugging tools.
Toward the end of the year, the team focused on stabilizing the transit and freight elevator systems, prioritizing high-impact and persistent issues identified through player reports, QA, and Player Experience feedback, while acknowledging that further fixes are still ongoing.
Mission System updates introduced conditional mission completion, enabling alternative objectives in missions planned for Alpha 4.6, alongside fixes for courier drop-off lockers and support for new mission content and event tracking. Progress also continued on the Inventory Rework through internal testing, early groundwork was laid for capital-ship refueling, and Core Gameplay delivered a feature-complete cockpit light amplification (LAMP) system to improve visibility in low-light environments.
Based on community feedback, the Economy team rebalanced Wikelo’s rewards by reducing recipe requirements, redistributing certain items into the loot pool, and adding the Idris and Wolf.
The commodity price boost generated significant feedback, particularly around the improved profitability of previously undervalued free-trade resources, and these insights are already informing future balance changes. Contested zones also gained additional vehicle drops, while December efforts focused on developing the Nyx social station to support safe trading zones and economic incentives.
The devs are also looking into vehicle ballistic weapons to give them the proper caliber designations and operational costs associated with their size and type.
-# Just when you thought it was a quiet month, I had to make the chart bigger again!
-# This chart provides a visual representation of ships and vehicles mentioned in monthly reports, Inside Star Citizen episodes, and official CIG communications. It is updated as needed to reflect new information and serves as a rough guide to each ship’s progress through the development pipeline. While some ships may be missing or shift positions over time, we strive to keep the chart as accurate as possible based on the official information available.
“full unveil and video about the Hermes next week” ~Jared
On Wednesday, Alpha 4.6: Lifeline for Levski will make its grand entrance on the LIVE servers! Get ready for new adventures and features with the Clearing the Air event, a wide range of improvements across ships, weapons, and professions, the Light Amplification System, VR updates, ground vehicle missile balance changes, plenty of bug fixes, and more… plus a brand-new Behind the Ships episode! Another Greek god?
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 28, 2026
FRIDAY, JANUARY 30, 2026
