Tearful farewell: Star Citizen’s space station, which started it all 8 years ago, flies out
With Port Olisar, the almost ten-year-old starting point disappears from Crusader’s orbit with the upcoming update Alpha 3.20. But there is a successor.
It was the ground in nothingness under the feet of thousands of newcomers to the Star Citizen cosmos: Port Olisar. Since it began offering players a reliable port of call in its first version just over eight years ago, it has undergone several revisions, but that is not enough.
With the Alpha 3.20 update announced for the near future, the station will disappear from the orbit of the gas giant Crusader. A successor called Seraphim Station is announced by Cloud Imperium Games with the following video:
Community adopts Port Olisar
But first of all: why does the station have to go at all? According to the developers, there are several reasons: First of all, the station simply no longer supports the gameplay systems coming into the game this year and beyond.
When Port Olisar was conceived, it was intended to be one thing first and foremost: a spawn point. Everything else was built around it, i.e. the quarters, the shops that were most likely to be needed and the hangars. In the end, it remained one thing above all: simple to navigate and a place to get into the game and out into space quickly.
Technically outdated: On top of that, a lot has happened to the technology over the years. Not necessarily in the Star Citizen universe, but in the background with servers, renderers, netcode, etc. The list is long and so full of reasons why the developers would like to exploit the new possibilities for this important hub. Port Olisar is simply no longer suitable for this because of the age of the basic design.
Much love for the old pile of metal: On Reddit, many are enjoying a farewell video with impressions from the outside and inside of Port Olisar. A note: Please don’t be surprised, the beginning of the video partly uses scenes from the Seraphim video by Cloud Imperium Games. After that, there is plenty of content on the soon-to-be-doomed homeland via Crusader.
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A myriad of memories: Underneath the fan video, posts proclaim the feelings of the playerbase. They appreciate Port Olisar not only for the view – which Seraphim will take over – but also for its simple structure and soundtrack.
I will definitely miss Port Olisar. It was the location of my first experience in Star Citizen in 2.6. Getting out on the pad, looking around and seeing Crusader in the background: incredible experience!
Is Port Olisar lost forever? No, it shall probably find its way back into the game by some means. But where, in what form, in what state or when, only Chris Roberts probably knows. But the team at Cloud Imperium Games knows, they assure us, what players associate with the place and want to do it justice – at some point.
In the above video from Cloud Imperium Games, a rather humorous version of Port Olisar burning up in the atmosphere of its home gas giant Crusader is shown towards the end.
Seraphim Station, the big sister of Olisar
What should Seraphim Station do better? Apart from the better technology described above, which players will probably be able to feel rather than see, we will only know once we can compare Port Olisar with its big sister and successor. Above all, however, the new one should offer significantly more room for all concerns, in order to support the new game mechanics such as the cargo gameplay by means of partly significantly larger ship classes than before, the bounty hunting and the medicine system.
The developers, meanwhile, emphasise that Seraphim should finally be one thing above all: A place designed in line with the vision for Star Citizen that can also rival other modern locations that have recently come into play.
What else is coming with Alpha 3.20?
The upcoming new alpha has a lot more to offer than just Seraphim, including:
- Improvements to the driving physics of wheeled vehicles.
- Miscellaneous enhancements to Arena Commander
- New missions
If you want to know even more, it’s best to take a look (here in this list for more details).
2023 is the time: There will be a real CitizenCon again after a break of a few years. The Fanfest is the pilgrimage meeting for all hardcore fans of the, for some, megalomaniac vision of Chris Roberts and his ever-growing team. The video above announces the gathering of hundreds of Star Citizen enthusiasts.
Perhaps you’d like to share your favourite Port Olisar memory with us? Or maybe how you once experienced the first steps of your Star Citizen life. What excited you most about this hub and are you looking forward to the new Seraphim space station? Do you like the design? Feel free to post your thoughts and best Olisar stories in the linked forum thread!
years it all began, fly out
