Star Citizen's latest patch — the one that will implement this impressive persistent damage system — is available and it is a whopper. It's such an overhaul, users have to reinstall the game entirely.
What's it deliver? Well, pilots can now try out landing their vessel within Arena Commander, the game's spaceflight module. Arena Commander also is accessible through "SimPod" located in the game's hangar, rather than through the vehicle itself.
There's also the REC system, which is "our first pass at rental credits aimed to allow payment-free progression in Arena Commander," Cloud Imperium Games says. Current backers of the game will get 5,000 in rental credit with the title update.
The entire patch notes may be read here.
Star Citizen is such a large game that Cloud Imperium rolling out modules to those who have bought in through its immense crowdfunding campaign. Arena Commander is the dogfighting portion; Star Marine appears to be its next module, which Cloud Imperium says will be coming "soon."
The full and completed game is expected to launch sometime in 2016 and be more than 100 GB in size. By then, Star Citizen's creators expect to have raked in more than $100 million in funding; it's already pulled in $76 million from multiple sources.
For more on Star Citizen, see our hands-on preview from February.