Alpha 4.8
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Alpha 4.8: Vehicle Insurance and Item Bricking — What You Need to Know
Alpha 4.8 overhauls vehicle insurance with insured loadouts, reworked claim timers, and two distinct recovery options. Item bricking also arrives as a direct response to duplication exploits. Here is everything changing and what to do before you undock.
GAME SYSTEM UPDATE
ALPHA 4.8 — VEHICLE INSURANCE AND ITEM BRICKING EXPLAINED
Alpha 4.8 rebuilds how vehicle insurance and item recovery work in the Persistent Universe. The claim system has been redesigned around persistence, consequence, and long-term economy — meaning losing a ship or its components now carries more weight, but the path back is more predictable. Item bricking also arrives alongside these changes as a direct response to duplication exploits.
Here is a full breakdown of what changed, what to watch out for at launch, and what it means for how we play going forward.
INSURED LOADOUTS
Every ship now has two distinct loadout states. The manufacturer loadout is the default configuration the ship came with — it cannot be edited and is always available as a permanent fallback. The insured loadout is yours: the custom configuration you built and want to protect in the event of a loss.
To register an insured loadout, build or adjust it through the Vehicle Loadout Manager in your mobiGlas, then head to an ASOP terminal to save it. Before confirming, you will see a full list of every item being registered under that loadout. Nothing is saved silently — you know exactly what you are protecting before you commit.
Future updates will extend insured loadout coverage to items stored in weapon racks, suit lockers, and ship decorations. That coverage is not live in 4.8.
IMPORTANT — At the launch of Alpha 4.8, any items currently attached to your ship that you have not imprinted will be lost and unrecoverable. This temporarily includes vehicle-equipable items and paints acquired through the pledge store or attributed via the RSI website. CIG intends to address this in a patch the following week, enabling recovery of lost pledge items for vehicles that were not imprinted in time, via the freight elevator. A more robust item kiosk solution is planned for Alpha 4.9 in July. Before playing 4.8, visit an ASOP terminal and save your insured loadout for every ship you care about.
CLAIM TIMERS AND INSURANCE OPTIONS
The claim timer system has been fundamentally reworked. Previously, the timer only started once a claim was filed. Now it begins running in the background as soon as a ship is delivered to your hangar — meaning some or all of the wait may already be completed by the time you actually need to make a claim. The system progresses while you play, so active pilots will find recovery far less disruptive than before.
Claim expedites have been removed as part of this update.
When filing a claim, there are now two recovery paths. Choose based on what matters more at that moment — speed, cost, or getting your custom loadout back.
MANUFACTURER CLAIM
Wait time: Longer
UEC cost: None
Returns: Default manufacturer loadout
Missiles/bombs: Not restocked
INSURED CLAIM
Wait time: Shorter
UEC cost: Based on ship hull and insured components
Returns: Your saved custom loadout
Missiles/bombs: Not restocked
To support these changes, CIG has increased payouts on select missions and reduced the cost of vehicle consumables.
ITEM BRICKING
Item bricking arrives in Alpha 4.8 as CIG's direct response to ongoing item duplication. Any item registered as part of a manufacturer or insured loadout is now tied to that vehicle. When a claim is filed, any previous copies of that ship and its registered components begin a bricking countdown.
Everything continues functioning normally during the countdown. Once the timer expires, those items become bricked — they can no longer be used. In Alpha 4.8, bricked items and vehicles cannot be sold to shops or dismantled for parts. CIG will continue iterating on this system in future updates.
One important detail: bricked vehicles will remain stored in your hangar rather than being removed automatically. This gives you time to recover any cargo or personal items before the vehicle is permanently retired.
HOW IT WORKS IN PRACTICE — Filing a claim on your Hornet starts a bricking countdown on any duplicate copies of that ship and its registered components that exist elsewhere. Your newly claimed ship is the active, clean version. The duplicates are on a timer. Once bricked, they cannot be used, sold, or salvaged under the current 4.8 implementation.
VEHICLE STORAGE
Local hangars now have a storage limit. Once the cap is reached, ships must be scrapped to free up space. Scrapping a ship does not mean losing it permanently — anything scrapped can be re-claimed at any time through the ship catalogue. The limit applies to physical hangar storage only; your owned fleet remains intact.
NOTE — This information reflects CIG's published overview of Alpha 4.8 insurance changes. As with all alpha systems, mechanics and values are subject to change as development continues.