Earlier today, Cloud Imperium Games held their annual Holiday Livestream for Star Citizen via Twitch. Coming in at more than three hours in length, there were many things previewed and announced during the event. Some of the things focused on were the statuses of several MISC ships (Starfarer, Freelancer and Reliant), plans for upcoming sales, their ambitions for Alpha 2.1, responses to some questions from fans regarding Squadron 42 and much more.
Perhaps the most impressive thing announced during this livestream however was that work seems to be going very smoothly in their efforts to provide a system which procedurally generates the surface of planets. Previously players in the Alpha tests have been limited to space stations, the ArcCorp Hub (Social Module) and the expanse of space they can fly their ships within. As one would expect from any procedurally generated system, this will grant players to fly down to the surface of a planet and take advantage of a huge, expansive environments which manual designing might not permit.
Above is the trailer “From Pupil to Planet”, which seeks to provide “a brief introduction” to their upcoming system. Below you can find footage from the actual livestream. While it begins with the same video as above, it also provides a sneak peek at a demo, where a character goes from a space station and lands on a planet.
There is currently no word on when procedurally generated planets will be included in Star Citizen. While I don’t see it being too far off, considering players have only recently gotten to the point where they can actually fly around in space outside of the Arena Commander mode, I wouldn’t be expecting it in the next update or two.
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