It was only a month ago that Cloud Imperium Games delivered the 4.4 Alpha update to its sci-fi RPG sandbox, Star Citizen. Somehow sticking to its 2025 target, the studio has now released the Alpha 4.5 to all backers of the crowd-funded project. The update"s name, Dawn of Engineering, describes its contents quite effectively, with it letting players oversee and manage their ships in much more intricate detail than before.
Starships in the game now feature components that maintain various systems, ranging from flight power to quantum drives and weapons. To easily keep track of what is functioning optimally, an engineering terminal can be used to get an overview of everything. It features an interactive 3D schematic of the ship that shows health indicators, atmospheric conditions, door states, hull integrity at each location, and more details.
Once a problem is identified, players can track down blown fuses for replacement, repair or replace damaged components of the ship, fight raging fires before they spread to more rooms using extinguishers and room venting, and even stop power plants from self-destructing from taking too much damage.
Speaking of power plants, ships now have a finite power supply budget for all their systems, and players have to decide what needs more juice at what moment. This can include things like powering up shield capacitors to regenerate them faster or boosting the weapon capacitor to increase their fire rate. Even a preset system is present for players to share their power configurations.
"The Engineering Gameplay package represents a fundamental evolution in how players interact with their ships," explains Cloud Imperium Games. "Many ships now feature a living, interconnected system of components that can be monitored, managed, repaired, and replaced during flight. This change includes wide sweeping changes to ship hull and shield health and performance."
Considering the breadth of the additions, the studio has published an in-depth guide about engineering gameplay over here.
The massive update has also brought in virtual reality support as an experimental feature with dedicated graphics settings for the demanding play style. The studio warns that VR-specific performance issues and bugs may be found when playing in this mode and that not all VR headsets are supported right now.
The Star Citizen Alpha 4.5: Dawn of Engineering update is now available for all backers in the Live channel. Find the complete changelog here. The crowdfunded title recently breezed past the $900 million raised milestone and now has one billion in its sights.