The Pillar Talk roundtable video from Star Citizen is all about plans. Plans for 3.9, plans for the new Pyro system, plans for the rest of the year. It’s a bit pie-in-the-sky, sure, but it also gives a nice rundown of the direction of development in the coming year.
The video first opens with discussions about persistence, including the ability for players to have more things stick around long-term, such as player-built outposts and the ability for resources like minerals to be finite. While the ability for players to create outposts wasn’t given any firm arrival window, players should expect finite resources in time for update 3.9, which is expected at some point at the end of March. Speaking of 3.9, the video also briefly touches on the first pass of the prison system that will be arriving in 3.9, providing another layer of consequence for those who just can’t play nice with others in Stanton.
The discussion then moves on to the Pyro system, which is being described as a lawless land with six or seven planets, around a dozen moons, and a couple of landing zones planned. Naturally being a dangerous place, it’ll be where valuable minerals will be that likely won’t be available anywhere else or in greater quantities. Salvage, which is the next occupation being worked on by the team, will also likely be a major feature in the Pyro system, as there’s likely going to be a great deal of derelict ships out there. Don’t hold your breath on Pyro’s arrival, however; there’s still no firm release date, simply that it will be “after 3.9.”
The video also touches on grouping and forming groups, which is a significant pain point in the game currently. The devs obviously recognize this and are “investing” in some UI tech that will make things easier. This blends into the Theaters of War game mode, which is also a topic of conversation for the Pillar Talk.
All of this takes time and money, of course, but money would certainly appear to be plentiful for Star Citizen, as CIG has reportedly had a record-breaking year of crowdfunding in 2019, raking in $47.7 million last year, an increase of over 26% since last year — a figure that has not been confirmed by the devs and does not factor in any amount given back in refunds, though considering the spikes in funding Star Citizen saw thanks to reveals like the Kraken and CitizenCon, this figure certainly doesn’t seem hard to believe. To put that into perspective, there were 380 successful video game Kickstarters in 2019 that raised $16.3 million.
As for what are players doing now? At least one of them is making some damn impressive screenshots of the current build’s spaceships. So that’s a thing. If you’d rather look at what’s next instead, we’ve got the Pillar Talk embedded below.
