Right now players are locked inside of the single system of Stanton in Star Citizen, but when alpha 4.0 goes online, they will then be able to move to the new system of Pyro. And doing that will require moving through jump points, which are the focus of this week’s video digest from the spaceship sandbox.
Jump points have seen a few design and gameplay iterations since they were first shown off at CitizenCon 2019: For one, there’s no ring around the jump point since these are naturally occurring space tunnels, but there is still some infrastructure guarding the points at Stanton and Pyro that let players land to get supplies. There’s also some ATC steps pilots need to take as well as an attunement process that’s required before even being able to be drawn into the jump point, all of which is designed to make sure small groups of ships funnel through and players who try to interrupt others are pushed away.
While most of the focus is on the “permanent” jump point that provides a safer and more guarded experience for players moving between Stanton and Pyro, there will also be “transient” jump points that can pop up randomly around the game world, which will allow players to basically enter either star system without being scrutinized, though navigating the tunnels of these points will apparently be more challenging than taking the permanent jump and players will end up at completely unknown areas of either system once they make it through.
As mentioned before, this system is set to arrive in alpha 4.0, which is promised for some time “in the coming months.” For those ready to take the spaceship version of the Holland Tunnel, there’s a video outlining it all waiting below.