Star Citizen Monthly Report: November & December 2025

As 2955 came to a close, development across the Persistent Universe pushed hard toward Alpha 4.5, 4.6, and the updates that will chart the early months of 2956. From Nyx’s debut to Engineering’s first live run, the final stretch of the year brought major systemic changes, new content, and significant progress across nearly every discipline.

Here’s your full tour of what the teams delivered in November and December.

AI Content

AI behavior work shifted to support the arrival of Nyx, with developers revisiting how NPCs in Levski use the available environment and social usables. New voice packs specific to the Nyx system introduce a more bespoke approach to ambient conversations, ensuring each location feels culturally distinct. The team also teamed up with Mission Design to prepare new reps and story-driven content for future patches.

AI: Tech & Features

Creature work continued with improvements to the valakkar, enhancing how it handles terrain, submerging behavior, and even its ability to attack inanimate targets. ChaseTarget logic was refreshed, the movement hearing filter was removed, and several placeholder behaviors received new development passes.

The Star Paws pipeline advanced with updates to AI Triggered Actor State, radial formation logic from SQ42, and a refactor of the Skill Extender into the new AI Motive system, which now includes a boss condition tracking “health lost this phase.”

Anti-personnel turrets had firing issues fixed, and missing Subsumption hints were added across a variety of tasks. Planetary navigation tech received refinements to better support terrain patch resolution—first for the valakkar, then to be expanded in Alpha 4.6.

AI: Game Intelligence Development

GID pushed Mission System v2 toward its next milestone, validating prototypes before shifting to MVP refinement. UX script integration began alongside infrastructure setup, and the mission dashboard prototype received visual updates.

The team also created a reactive expression prototype with category-specific icons, laying groundwork for broader designer-friendly tools. Integration of Tiny Machine into Starscript UX continued, supporting unified visual languages between tools. Routine bug fixing and feature updates rounded out the end of the year.

Animation

Facial Animation wrapped the year with a performance-capture shoot for two new Nyx-related characters and additional voice packs. Processing on captured material began in December, including a new named NPC set to appear soon.

Gameplay animation teams advanced work on spec-ops combat sets, several Human animation sets, melee and mechanized enemies, player swimming, traversal improvements, new weapons, and continued refinement of kopion creatures. Background NPC life also saw ongoing development.

Character Art

The team finalized event rewards and promotional items while pushing forward on new gang factions debuting in 2956. Concept artists explored new armor direction and completed hand-off sheets for Subscriber flair.

Ship Art

A huge close to the year saw completion of the Perseus, Clipper, Golem OX, Greycat MDC, Kruger L-22 Alpha Wolf, and RSI Salvation for IAE, while supporting Engineering’s first release. In the UK, Gatac Railen entered production, Hammerhead gold-standard work progressed, and MISC Hull B graduated to greybox.

Drake’s Ironclad lineup moved toward greybox reviews, with the Assault variant receiving extra focus. The Command Module hit its first playable review gate. The Greycat UTV continued to evolve with updated dashboard integration and new motion-captured animations.

RSI’s Galaxy entered pre-production, and four unannounced vehicles made significant progress, including one nearly release-ready and another with standout “hero” rooms. Work on the Drake Kraken advanced toward a February whitebox review, including navigation and cargo-improvement updates.

Two additional unannounced ships moved through review gates, including one targeting early 2956.

Community

Community efforts kicked off with support for Nyx’s release, including guides, Twitch Drops, and a custom CLX PC giveaway themed around Levski and the Vanduul. November also brought IAE 2955, with extensive announcements, schedules, contests, referral rewards, and Q&A posts for six newly revealed ships.

December’s spotlight shifted to Alpha 4.5: Dawn of Engineering through guides and patch support posts. As Luminalia arrived, the team rolled out the festival calendar, daily gifts, and the annual Greeting Card Contest.

The Bar Citizen World Tour capped off in Prague before planning began for next year’s locations. Evergreen work continued across TWISC, Roadmap Updates, Arena Commander schedules, and ongoing improvement of new-player resources.

Core Gameplay

Weapon-handling refinement continued with improvements to ADS control and design-facing weapon systems. The Boomtube rocket launcher shipped with Alpha 4.4. Engineering gameplay went through multiple tech previews before launching in Alpha 4.5, introducing emergency MFD states, new fuse behavior, optional automatic power pip reassignment, and updated light states.

Ship Armor and Life Support debuted, adding depth to multi-crew operations. Crafting moved into Evocati testing, featuring item creation loops, material-quality systems, selling partially full containers, and a growing suite of UI and queue features.

Flight Model work continued with updated Control Surface systems. The Caterpillar and Ironclad Command Modules reached first playable demonstrations with seamless control handovers. Significant fixes targeted transit and freight elevators.

Mission System updates now allow conditional completions, and locker-related issues affecting couriers were investigated. Inventory Rework efforts continued alongside foundational work for capital-ship refueling. Cockpit light amplification reached feature completion.

Economy

Wikelo rewards were rebalanced based on feedback, with reduced ingredient requirements and new additions like the Idris and the Wolf as holiday rewards. Commodity price boosts produced valuable data on undervalued trade goods, informing upcoming balance passes.

Contested zones received new vehicle drops, and work progressed on Nyx’s social station, establishing safe-trade zones and economic incentives. Vehicle ballistic weapons also began receiving proper caliber and operational-cost revisions.

Mission Design

The team restored derelict space station missions to Stanton, polished Alpha 4.5 quality-of-life aspects, and pushed forward on 2956 mission content.

Narrative

Narrative efforts surged with the launch of Nyx, including mission writing, the introduction of the Shattered Blade outlaw faction, and the return of notable Levski characters. Additional work supported IAE content, system-to-system hauling missions, and new PTU preparations for Alpha 4.6.

Several NPC scripts were completed to support future mechanics and mission implementations.

Online Technology

The team presented a tech demo highlighting upcoming Item Recovery Tier 1 and used it to prioritize downstream needs. Instancing work continued with the Instance Manager validating core functionality.

The Live Tools team launched a new error-reporting pipeline and expanded their WebApp system to automate ticket assignments. Audit logs for Hex also went live, enhancing internal visibility.

R&D

Optimization remained the focus, delivering texture streaming for volumetric clouds and fog, concurrent voxel-tree reads, improved CRC32 computations, reduced OS call overheads, and numerous improvements to tactical AI queries and gas cloud lighting.

In December, more systems saw reduced allocations, faster action queues, compact registry storage for entities, efficient monitored-zone updates, and gains in decal rendering performance.

Source: RSI LINK