Star Citizen Live: Industrial Gameplay — Blood, Steel, and Supply Lines
- Cirian
- 19 hours ago
- 3 min read
They gathered in Manchester to talk “industrial gameplay.”
We listened for what it really means.
Because when devs say “ecosystem,” what we hear is infrastructure — and infrastructure is how empires are built… or bled dry.
Here’s the outlaw take.
Industry Isn’t a Side Job. It’s Power.
Mining. Salvage. Hauling. Refining. Crafting. Eventually base building.
They don’t want these to be little disconnected chores.
They want a pipeline.
You rip ore out of rock. You refine it. You craft something better than what you could buy. You use that to dominate the next contract.
That’s the dream.
Industry isn’t meant to fund combat.
It’s meant to compete with it.
Alpha 4.6: Resource Contracts With Teeth
The new Industrial Missions are simple on paper:
A faction wants materials. You bring them.
But the interesting part?
They don’t care how you get it.
Mine it clean.Strip it off wrecks. Buy it from a trader. Lift it off someone else’s hold when they aren’t paying attention.
The mission doesn’t dictate morality. It dictates volume.
That’s closer to the kind of freedom the ‘verse needs.
FPS Salvage: Not Just Painting Wrecks
Salvage isn’t just beam-scraping hulls anymore.
Now you’re being asked to recover components — weapons, shields, hardware.
That means you’re not just erasing ships.
You’re dissecting them.
There’s a difference.
And it opens the door for salvage crews who prefer precision over polishing scrap metal.
Crafting Is the Anchor (Like It or Not)
Here’s the quiet truth buried in the stream:
Everything industrial is being built to orbit crafting.
Mining and salvage won’t just generate credits — they’ll generate materials with quality.
Quality changes everything.
Refining will have to evolve. Reputation will need to matter. Blueprints and unlocks will become the real currency.
If they get this right, industry becomes more than grind.
It becomes leverage.
Refining Won’t Stay the Same
With material quality entering the system, current refining is living on borrowed time.
Ship refining isn’t in the first crafting drop. Station refining will change. Base-building refining sits further out.
But the direction is clear:
The old “throw rock in machine, get fuel out” loop won’t survive the next phase intact.
Cargo Needs a Captain’s Eyes
They acknowledged something obvious:
If a third-party scan can tell you more about your ship than you can, something’s wrong.
A proper cargo manifest — an actual overview of what’s onboard and where — is on the table.
No promises. No dates.
But at least someone finally said it out loud.
Repacking Cargo: Finally Some Flexibility
This one matters.
They’ve designed (not shipped yet) a system that would let you:
Break large containers into smaller ones
Combine smaller crates into larger units
Meaning you won’t be forced into whatever arbitrary box size a mission decides.
Small ship? Small crates. Big freighter? Stack it heavy.
That’s the kind of systemic fix industry needs.
Salvage Claims From Real Wrecks
They want abandoned ships to spawn salvage contracts instead of quietly disappearing.
That means wrecks become opportunity.
And cleanup becomes paid labor.
It’s the kind of systemic loop that makes the universe feel alive instead of scripted.
If it lands.
Refueling Is Finally Getting Work
The Starfarer crowd can stop staring at empty comms panels.
They’re building refueling missions:
You refuel stranded AI ships.
AI can respond to your fuel beacons for a fee.
It’s not the grand renaissance yet.
But it’s the first real sign that refueling might become something more than waiting for someone to run dry.
The Combat Question (Let’s Be Honest)
No, industrial gameplay will not be a padded room.
Risk stays.
But the long-term goal is system-based security scaling:
Core systems → safer. Frontier systems → dangerous. Outer edges → pray.
Right now, law and security response aren’t where they need to be. That’s the friction people feel.
The promise isn’t “no danger.”
It’s “informed danger.”
The Caer Astra Verdict
Alpha 4.6 isn’t flashy.
It’s scaffolding.
It’s wiring the bones together so mining, salvage, hauling, refining, and crafting stop feeling like side quests and start feeling like a machine.
If they follow through?
Industry won’t just be background labor.
It’ll be the backbone of the ‘verse.
And the ones who control the backbone…
Control everything.
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