Star Citizen | Alpha 3.17.2 Update

Hi everyone,

We know that many of you eagerly await the launch of Alpha 3.17.2, and we’re happy to share that we’re currently on track for a live release tomorrow.

Dynamic Events

With the release of Alpha 3.17.2, you can expect both the Siege of Orison (NEW) and Jumptown events to be active on a rotating schedule for the two weeks following patch release. Rather than specific times, the events will run the entirety of the day they are scheduled, to accommodate all time zones. The full schedule will be available alongside the patch release.

New Player Cap

With the release of Alpha 3.17.2, we plan to double the capacity of servers to 100 players per server, allowing more pilots to participate in large-scale dynamic events, community events, PvP encounters, and more. We know this change will come as a welcome surprise to many, and we’d be remiss if we didn’t call out the incredible efforts happening behind the scenes to make this possible by our engineering and publishing teams. This change is a meaningful and crucial step towards the full experience of our shared massive universe, and we’re happy to report that the team is making excellent progress.

It is important to remember that an increase in players does introduce more potential for stability/performance issues, but rest assured that we’ll be we’ll be monitoring closely, making tweaks and injecting fixes on the backend based on our observations. This is made possible by our infrastructure now allowing us to deploy server side fixes, without the need for a patch release.

Separately, we’ll also utilize dynamically fluctuating server caps that will prioritize performance/stability. This means that some servers will have a cap less than 100, while others will have more. We plan to continue this initiative moving forward, with the goal of increasing the player cap per server as much as we can, while being mindful of the play experience.

It is likely that we will run with a lower player cap (<100) during the Siege of Orison dynamic event, simply to account for initial gameplay balance/rewards being designed initially for a lower cap. However, Jumptown will likely have a 100 player cap per server enabled (so, get ready for mayhem).

As always, we want to hear from you! Make sure to head over to our dedicated testing feedback threads and let us know about your experience.

Patch Wipe

We announced a wipe for the live release of Alpha 3.17.2 back in June, and want to remind folks as such. While we anticipate wipes to be irregular (our last ones being way back in Alpha 3.8.2 and Alpha 3.15 ), as many of you already expect, we’ll likely wipe again alongside the release of Alpha 3.18. This is simply due to the fact that the backend will have a major rework as long-awaited systems such as Persistence come online.

Database Wipe Stipend

While we don’t like having to initiate a database wipe, especially when it means elements of your hard work are reset, it is a necessary step needed from time to time while we’re in Alpha.

The good news is, alongside the release of Alpha 3.17.2, we have worked with the design team to distribute a generous quantity of aUEC based on the number of hours you played during Alpha 3.17.1. Once the patch goes live, you’ll find these credits have already been delivered straight to your mobiGlas wallet.

We’ll see you in the ‘verse!