If there are two things Star Citizen is great at doing, it’s refusing to ever fully release and crafting gorgeous worlds to explore. The game is doing both of these in the next update, titled Alpha 3.14, which has introduced a brand new planet to check out. Players can now immerse themselves on the Crusader gas giant, as well as in the amazing city of Orison! The population of Orison resides on massive floating docks hovering miles above the swirling surface surrounded by gorgeous pink clouds. Bridges connect these platforms together, taking advantage of the planet’s lower gravity to extend through the open sky supported by little more than pressurized air. Gamers in Star Citizen’s alpha are now able to explore the floating city to their heart’s content, enjoying art installations, improving their ships, and generally seeking out adventure.

Orison’s impressive visuals are made possible by “cloud tech,” as Cloud Imperium Games (developers of Star Citizen) explains in a recent blog post. The developers explained how the volumetric clouds that make up the Crusader gas giant are being developed and expanded upon to bring even more eye-popping visuals to the worlds of Star Citizen. 

Star Citizen Alpha 3.14 features the initial implementation of our proprietary Cloud Tech, which is used to create the colossal Crusader gas giant. This Cloud Tech will be expanded in the future to add further detail to existing planets in the Stanton system and beyond.

Along with these amazing graphical updates comes a slew of changes and bug fixes. Most notably, players can now allocate power in their ships to either shields, weapons or thrusters, which will add an entire new layer of depth to ship combat. Whether gamers put everything into weapons for a dominating victory or thrusters for a speedy escape, power allocation could easily become the difference between victory and defeat.

What’s more, the new Missile Operator Mode has made missile-based ships deadlier than ever. Players have been given increased control over their projectiles and these rockets are now physics objects in the game, meaning that the world will react far more realistically to them (most likely by exploding).

Somehow, this isn’t even close to all that’s been added in Alpha 3.14. A brand new ship has been added that players can encounter or fly for themselves. The game’s radar now includes two different signatures that can be picked up, which players can use to sneak past enemies. Dynamic events are back and will no longer automatically give players a criminal record if a couple shots accidentally hit friendly ships. A new mission has been added where players can either fight off or join a pirate clan that’s taken over a space station. Players can now surrender to the police and be brought to a prison facility to serve their time (or plan a risky escape)! Even the ship HUDs have been improved in a myriad of ways that I’m just not quite smart enough to fully grasp. But it all definitely looks amazing!

Star Citizen still doesn’t have an official release date, but all of these features are now live on the Alpha build, so get out there and have an adventure! You can watch the full Welcome to Orison trailer below.