Hi everyone, Star Citizen Alpha 3.21 has just been released to the PTU. The primary reason for the nomenclature change from 3.20.1 to 3.21 is to signify Star Citizen approaching the next major milestone in its online/networking technology. During the 3.21 patch cycle, we will introduce a new testing channel aimed at graduating new underlying technology. This new channel allows the dev teams to get players on a version of the game that matches the current live release in both content and features but that introduces large tech changes that must be validated, graduated, and ultimately mission-proven before making their way to a Live release. The first project to enter this new technology-preview channel is the Replication Layer, which is a core networking part of the Server Meshing infrastructure. In this update, the game's networking replication and state are separated from the game server into its own service. Game clients are connected to this new service and the game server itself becomes a client with authority on the Replication Layer. With the replication moving off the game servers, the team is hoping to begin testing server recovery without disconnecting game clients from the universe state on a given game shard. In short, this is the next step towards testing components of Server Meshing after deploying Persistent Entity Streaming earlier this year. For the time being, the game server will only be managing the Stanton System, so you won’t notice much of a change in your experience, however, this is a critically important step as we progress towards Alpha 4.0 and beyond. We’ll share more information about Alpha 3.21 in our upcoming Roadmap Update next week, and you can look ahead to CitizenCon for more information about the preview channel and how it will play a vital role in further bringing our shared universe to life.