One of the elements that make StarCitizen desirable to sci-fi fans is how spaceships and vehicles interact with each other. You’re able to have larger crafts carry smaller ones, and physically and seamlessly move between them, which creates the possibility of multiplayer aircraft carrier-like gameplay.
With the implementation of the Mirai Fury earlier this week, players got their first real taste of that promise. While real carriers are coming but aren’t implemented just yet, and players were already able to carry one or even a couple of smaller fighters in the bigger ships, the Mirai Firy is small enough that you can fit several within the largest crafts, and it’s well-armed enough to create a viable strike force.
This means that large transports like the Drake Caterpillar or refuelers with a massive hold like the MISC Starfarer can now act as pocket carriers. It’s actually rather realistic since the original aircraft carriers in the real world were actually mostly converted ships.
This is exactly what the video below by YouTube user Hybrid V Audio and the Forgotten Heralds organization (Star Citizen’s equivalent of a guild) showcases. Not only do they deploy (in a rather professional manner) their strike force from a Caterpillar and a Starfarer acting as a carrier, but they do so with a full crew, including pilots and even players acting as marshallers. It’s quite awesome and certainly shows the potential of this kind of gameplay.
Incidentally, the game is currently celebrating the Invictus Launch Week event, so you can try it out for a few days without needing to make a purchase.
In the meanwhile, StarCitizen‘s growing crowdfunding campaign continues to make progress and the overall tally is now approaching $576 million ($575,704,523 at the time of this writing) pledged from backers.
The number of registered users has also just passed 4.6 million and it’s now at 4,608,274, albeit not all of them are paying since many register accounts to access the free fly events like the one going on right now. According to the latest information that creative director Chris Roberts himself shared in October 2022, 1.7 million players are actually paying customers. Of course, that number is a few months old, so it’s probably higher now.
Full disclosure: the author of this post has backed Star Citizen all the way back when its crowdfunding was first launched in September 2012.
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