CIG is very proud that it’s made holes in the ground. That’s the rather acerbic takeaway from this week’s video update from Star Citizen, which offered a look at six new cave entrances coming in alpha 3.13 that are specifically designed for spaceships and vehicles to traverse.
There’s a little more going on than just having holes in the ground, obviously, as the video goes into detail on how it uses new lighting tech and how these cave systems are designed for exploration while also having spaces for players to have shootouts with one another.
The second half of the video offers a look at a new layer being applied to the task of vehicle-based mining with the introduction of components. These accessories work similarly to mining consumables, applying permanent mining laser changes that are overall less powerful than mining consumables. Mining components and mining consumables can even be used together, letting Star Citizen rock nibblers tailor their mining efforts even further. In addition, the mining UI has also been updated to better provide information on what mining laser effects are active.
Once mining components go live the team plans to introduce mining gadgets, which are items that players can manually affix to a rock to lower its resistance for example. This does require players to EVA from their ship, leaving it vulnerable to attack.
What the video doesn’t provide is an ETA on when mining components will go live, but it is a potentially interesting new aspect to the job of harvesting rocks.
