Roberts Space Industries and Cloud Imperium Games rolled out a new video for Around The Verse to briefly talk about the launch of alpha 3.2.0, as well as the future for alpha 3.3.0 due out at the end of September. But before we get there, the recap video gives us a brief update on what you can experience right now if you paid to be an alpha backer for Star Citizen.

Unlike other episodes of Around The Verse that are typically half an hour to an hour long, this episode is a real quickie, clocking in at just under five minutes. You can check it out below.

The video covers the new weapons, the new armor, the new mining features, and what’s set to arrive in alpha 3.3.0.

They acknowledge that combat AI for the first-person shooter segments of Star Citizen’s persistent universe has been pushed back from the intended alpha 3.2.0 release, to alpha 3.3.0. There will be interim updates throughout the 3.2.0 run to fix features such as the mining, the mining laser, and the optimizations across the persistent universe.

Now the reason for the delay in the combat FPS AI is that they felt they wanted to refine the AI’s behavior so that it performs a lot more fluidly and dynamically during missions spread across the available locations within the persistent universe.

Beyond that, there will also be brand new customization gear, including the Odyssey Flight Suit and the Hurston Security Armor, along with the Hurston custom clothing collection.

The Hurston and Odyssey gear will be designed to be modular, much like the other redesigned armor suits that have recently been added to alpha 3.2.0.

Customization won’t be the full focus of 3.3.0, though. Instead they will be working on the object container streaming module for the persistent universe. This will work to optimize LOD load-ins, entity prioritization, and object-oriented memory streaming so that there will be less server strain attempting to load and prioritize objects, and less taxation on the end-user’s machine. Essentially it will subsidize the RAM budget, and will, in turn, allow for better memory prioritization for immediate entities within the area, which in turn will reduce the overhead for CPU calls for objects not necessarily within the frustum.

Overall, the OCS module will help improve end-user performance and increase frame-rate gains when alpha 3.3.0 launches, especially as they begin adding in even more planets, and more vehicles, and more props to the persistent universe.

Alpha 3.3.0 will be one of those significant updates that will greatly affect long term support and content implementation. So I imagine many backers (especially those with PCs that aren’t quite up to snuff) will be duly looking forward to that update.

As pointed out by BoredGamer, while alpha 3.2.0 adds plenty of new content loops to the game, it’s still not quite enough to make it a “complete” experience.

The core alpha 3.2 experience does contain dogfights, planetary exploration, FPS combat functionality, and cargo hauling, along with the new mining feature, but mining isn’t quite as robust or as ship-neutral as it could be. Right now you either need to own a Prospector or send out a service beacon and request to borrow a Prospector in order to mine given that it’s the only ship with a mining tool available… for now.

I imagine gamers probably won’t feel there’s a “complete” experience until around alpha 3.4 or 3.5. For now, though, you can learn more about the developmental roadmap by visiting the Star Citizen website.