Hi everyone, With the release of Alpha 4.8, we’re introducing several updates to vehicle insurance along with a new item bricking system. Read on for a full overview of what’s changing and what to expect. High-Level Overview The current claim system has served us well, but as the universe becomes more persistent (and eventually dynamic), we want vehicle loss and recovery to feel more meaningful. At the same time, you shouldn't feel like the game is working against you when you just want to get back out there. The updates coming in Alpha 4.8 are designed to strike that balance: adding more depth and consequence to insurance and item recovery, while supporting the long-term vision for Star Citizen’s living economy and persistent universe. Insured Loadouts Going forward, your ship will have two distinct loadouts. The manufacturer loadout is the default configuration of your ship. It cannot be edited and will always be there as your fallback. The insured loadout is yours. It's the custom configuration you built and want to protect. You can still edit through the Vehicle Loadout Manager in your mobiGlas, but to save your loadout, you’ll need to head to an ASOP terminal. When you save, you'll see a full list of every item being registered under that loadout before you confirm. In future updates, insured loadouts will also cover items in weapon racks, suit lockers and decorations. At the launch of Alpha 4.8, any items attached to your ship that you do not imprint will be lost and unrecoverable. Due to a feature limitation, this temporarily includes any vehicle-equipable items or paints acquired through the pledge store, or attributed via the RSI website. We intend to address this next week with a patch update enabling the ability to recover any lost pledge items for vehicles you may have forgotten to imprint, via the freight elevator. This will be followed with a more robust item kiosk offering in July’s 4.9. Claim Timers & Insurance Claims We’ve reworked the claim timer system to make recovering your ship feel more natural within a persistent universe, while also reducing downtime in many common situations. Instead of the timer only starting once you file a claim, it now begins running in the background as soon as your ship is delivered to your hangar. In practice, that means some or even all of the wait may already be completed by the time you actually need to make a claim. The system keeps progressing while you play. As part of this update, claim expedites have been removed. When filing a claim, you’ll now choose between two recovery options: Manufacturer Claim Longer wait time No UEC cost Returns the default manufacturer loadout Does not restock missiles or bombs Insured Claim Shorter wait time UEC cost based on your ship hull and insured components Returns your saved custom loadout Does not restock missiles or bombs To help support these changes, we’ve also increased payouts for select missions and reduced the cost of vehicle consumables. Item Bricking We’re introducing item bricking in Alpha 4.8 as part of our ongoing efforts to address item duplication. Any item registered as part of your manufacturer or insured loadout is tied to that vehicle. When you file a claim, any previous copies of that ship and its registered components will begin a bricking countdown. During that countdown, everything will continue functioning normally. Once the timer expires, those items become bricked and can no longer be used. For 4.8, bricked items and vehicles cannot be sold to shops or dismantled for parts. We’ll continue iterating on this system in future updates. One important note: 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. Vehicle Storage Adjustments Local hangars now have a storage limit. Once you hit the cap, you'll need to scrap ships to free up space. Any ship you own that gets scrapped can always be claimed back through your ship catalogue, so nothing is permanently lost. --- As always, we’ll be closely monitoring the backend data and keeping a close eye on your feedback. Have questions? Let us know below and we'll do our best to get answers from the team.