Star Citizen has long been the most successful crowdfunded project of all time, officially winning the Guinness World Record for such back in 2014, and the game has come a looooong way since then. Case in point, as of today, the Star Citizen crowdfunding counter maintained by developer Cloud Imperium Games has ticked past the $500 million mark. Yes, Star Citizen has officially raised over a half-billion dollars.

　　Of course, there’s always the other side of the coin when it comes to Star Citizen. Despite it’s eye-bulging crowdfunding results, the game still remains in alpha with no indication when a beta or full release may be coming. Will that full release ever come? I mean, as long as that crowdfunding cash keeps flowing in, why mess with success? Maybe we’ll finally get it once Cloud Imperium raises an even billion dollars.

　　The last major update for Star Citizen, version 3.17, added new economy features back in May. It’s expected update 3.18 will arrive soon, possibly sometime in September, with the addition of salvaging being the main new feature. Here’s some of what’s expected from Star Citizen 3.18 and subsequent smaller patches…

　　Salvage Hull Stripping - The first implementation of Salvage into the persistent universe, which includes both hull stripping as well as repair. This will include both performing hull stripping and repairs by hand, as well as hull stripping using the systems aboard the Drake Vulture and Aegis Reclaimer.Drake Vulture - Building, balancing, and implementing Drake Interplanetary's light salvage ship, the Vulture, into the game.Pyro RYT Multi-Tool salvage attachment - Designing and creating the multi-tool salvage attachment. Includes asset creation, animation, and balancing.Cargo System Refactor - This refactor of the ship cargo system will allow both found and purchased cargo to be picked up, moved around, and placed into the cargo grid of a ship.Persistent Entity Streaming - Implementation of the Persistent Entity Streaming core technology into Star Citizen. Making use of services such as the Entity Graph and Replication Layer, this will allow every dynamic object in the game to fully persist across all servers, irrelevant of whether it is owned or held by a player.Daymar Crash Site - A derelict settlement on Daymar using parts of the StarRunner & 600i, as well as some habs adapted to the biome, to create a point of interest with some type of activity (puzzle, traversal, hostile AI, missions, etc.) as well as rewards for completion.New Rivers in Stanton - Setting up biome-specific object rulesets around bodies of water and distributing those by placing additional rivers and lakes on microTech and Hurston.Sand Cave Archetype - Establishing the visual language, creation pipeline and quality standard for a new sand cave archetype. With this release, cave networks using this archetype will be placed throughout the Stanton system.Arena Commander: Classic Race Mode Overhaul - A complete overhaul of all systems and maps in Arena Commander's Classic Race Mode. Improvements include a complete refactor of the Checkpoint entity & race manager system, improvements to scoring, a complete rework of all three New Horizon Speedway maps, as well as a new map, The Snake Pit.Sandbox Prison Activities - Expansion of prison gameplay with a new suite of missions and sandbox activities to give inmates more opportunities to earn merits or to aid in their escape from prison.Security Post Kareah Reactivation - Security Post Kareah will be taking a more central role in Stanton's security. Crusader Security have moved in a full-time staff and have begun storing confiscated contraband aboard. The station will be off limits to all civilians, unless given prior authorization.New Missions – Orison - Bounty, Assassinate, Clear All and other missions to take place on the platforms created for Siege of Orison which, in future, will be distributed across the planet of Crusader to create further content.New Interdiction Scenarios - Adding new variations and difficulty levels of interdiction scenarios that players will come across while quantum traveling.Environmental Space Missions - Implementation of new missions and scenarios that the player will encounter as they wander around an area of space. The missions that appear will be based on the Probability Volumes that the player is currently in.Star Citizen is available now on PC. As mentioned, the game is currently in alpha, with no firm date on when it will enter beta testing or get a full release.