Star Citizen's alpha 4.10 build has deployed, and the content the patch takes its subtitle from is the return of the Siege of Orison.
Orison comes back in a different shape than players will remember it. It now runs as an on-demand, seamlessly instanced encounter for up to four players — a smaller, self-contained FPS fight rather than an open event — with new loot to recover and new rewards for completing the mission.
The build's other headline addition is the Kruger S-65 Stingray, a medium fighter that switches between two flight configurations: a more streamlined mode tuned for higher forward speed, and a combat mode with a smaller profile and more maneuverability. It carries four laser weapon mounts.
497 fixes, and a fuller account of them
The bulk of alpha 4.10 is repair work. The patch notes put the total at 497 bug fixes, with two categories broken out separately.
- 497 bug fixes in total across the build
- 47 crash fixes
- 17 exploit closures
Those fixes shipped alongside two pieces of supporting material: a considerably more detailed dev blog explaining how the work was done, and a behind-the-scenes video covering the effort to get the build out the door. MassivelyOP reads both as part of a more transparent communications posture. The video presents the release in a positive light, but does not completely paper over the problems that came up along the way, and the dev blog states outright that more fixing is still needed.
Reaction on the official forums and in the video's comments has been broadly appreciative of that more open look at development, MassivelyOP reports. A separate contingent of players continues to describe the game as unplayable.