A family feud on the road to glory - nothing is sacred in the Showdown. These four-wheeled favourites have a lot in common, so what will be the deciding factor? Will it be the tough trekking UTV or the weaponized wagon MTC? Remember folks, oil is thicker than blood.
Vote Now: Ship Showdown 2956 | Star Citizen
Here are the Top 16 Ship Showdown 2956 finalists and their respective brackets for Round 1.
Each day's vote runs for 24 hours from 16:00 UTC. You must be signed in with a valid Star Citizen account, can only vote once per account per day, and can't change your vote once cast.
Round 1 has ships paired by general use or theme. Each Round 1 winner goes on to Round 2 where it will be pitted against the winning ship in the adjacent category. Freighter winner goes up against Road Warrior winner, Pathfinder winner goes up against Underdog, etc.
All Top 16 ships are available to pledge throughout the tournament, and the Elite 8 ships* that survive the first elimination will be available for a Free Fly from 26 August 26 to 2 September.
*Idris-P excluded from the Free Fly event. See forum for details.
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Freighter | Transport
Road Warrior | Ground Vehicles
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Pathfinder | Exploration
Underdog | The Little Ones
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Heavy Duty| Industrial
Run & Gun | Combat
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Eclectic Exotic | Alien
Big Hitters | Warships
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24 hours only to vote for your preferred ship in each bracket and see them through to the Elite 8.
Vote each day here: Ship Showdown 2956
As the comments suggested, it wasn't even close....
Ironclad Assault - 28 167 | 10 174 - Hermes
The Ironclad goes through to Round 2, the Elite Eight, and faces off against today's match up winner, the UTV or the MTC.
Are you on the edge of your jump seat? Because this is as unpredictable as it gets, folks. Two first-time Showdown entries and two solar opposites. It’s traditional versus those who laugh in the face of tradition. It’s RSI vs Drake. Can the Hermes’ maximized payload take on the Ironclad’s command module mayhem? Let’s see which hauling hopeful lives to make its final drop.
Vote Now: Ship Showdown 2956 | Star Citizen
Warbond | Limited Time | $30.00 USD
Forego subtlety and stealth, stroll headstrong into the fight and outgun your way to victory with the SteelTek bundle, featuring matching silver with Damascus-steel accents. Includes the CDS BUL-H4 super heavy armor, Apocalypse Arms Vendetta HMG, and SteelTek paint for the Anvil Asgard.
The CDS BUL-H4 armor utilizes advanced synthetic polymers to significantly mitigate impact, transforming the wearer into a bulwark of defense. The armor's power-assisted frame maintains mobility and allows its wearer to wield the Apocalypse Arms Vendetta heavy machine gun, which boasts a huge rate of fire for absolute target saturation.
The SteelTek Bundle will be delivered in Alpha 4.10.
Includes:
1 Paint
5 Gear Items
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Edit to add links (which I should have done originally, mb)
Happy Monday, everyone!
Last week, we published the PU Monthly Report, offering a behind-the-scenes look at development progress throughout July.
Foundation Festival 2956 wraps up on Wednesday, August 12. If you haven't grabbed your Twitch Drops or festival-themed rewards yet, this is the last call.
Meanwhile, Ship Showdown is fully underway. Rally behind your ride-or-die vehicle and help push them into the Sweet 16 before Phase 1 closes this Friday. You might just win a Kruger L-22 Alpha Wolf in the process.
On the Alpha 4.10 front, with all waves now open on the PTU, the team is heads down working on additional fixes and tightening up the patch ahead of its upcoming release to live servers. Thanks to everyone who's shared feedback so far. If you'd like to weigh in too, the dedicated feedback threads are still open.
Cologne, Germany, is also on the calendar again. Gamescom is just around the corner, and we've got a Bar Citizen lined up. Come join your fellow Citizens and the CIG team on Friday, August 28, from 6:00 PM at BON - Brauhaus ohne Namen. If you're interested in attending, check out the Gamescom Bar Citizen post for full details. Please note that seating is limited and admission will be on a first-come, first-served basis.
But before that, members of the team are headed to Denver, Colorado, USA this Saturday, August 15, for the next stop on the Bar Citizen World Tour, with loot in tow. Swing by Launch Pad Brewery from 3:00 PM MDT for plenty of ship talk and cold drinks with fellow Citizens. We hope to see you there!
Now, let's see what's going on this week:
The August Monthly Bundle struts in on Tuesday with steely style: armor, weapon, and ship paint for anyone who'd rather outgun than hide.
Also on Tuesday, there will be a scheduled maintenance on the Issue Council. The downtime will begin at 13:00 UTC and is expected not to exceed 1 hour.
On Wednesday, the latest Roadmap Update and Roundup arrive, giving you a look at what's coming down the line as we build toward Alpha 4.11.
Friday will see the RSI Newsletter delivered straight into your inbox with the week's highlights from across the 'verse.
Saturday, the Bar Citizen World Tour lands in Denver, Colorado. Come raise a glass with us!
Can't make it out to Denver? Check out barcitizen.org; there might be a community-hosted meetup happening near you.
The haulers and traders among you have plans, too. The community-organized Industry & Trade Expo (ITE) returns on Saturday on Twitch at 13:00 UTC, showcasing industrial ships, guided tours, interactive games, and more.
Fly low, and fly fast!

Freyja Vanadis
Senior Community Manager
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The Weekly Community Content Schedule
MONDAY, AUGUST 10, 2026
This Week in Star Citizen
TUESDAY, AUGUST 11, 2026
August 2026 Monthly Bundle
Maintenance: Issue Council, starting at 13:00 UTC
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 12, 2026
Roadmap Update
Roadmap Roundup
FRIDAY, AUGUST 14, 2026
RSI Weekly Newsletter
SATURDAY, AUGUST 15, 2026
Bar Citizen World Tour 2026 - Denver, Colorado (USA)
Instancing Siege of Orison - Weekend Playtest
This weekend we will be running a focused test on our latest instancing improvements. These are a significant set of changes to how Siege of Orison instances are created, managed, and torn down. Your time in game helps us validate that everything is working as intended before we move forward.
What We're Testing
We've made substantial changes to how Siege of Orison instances are handled on the backend. The goal is for instances to be more stable and performant throughout the entire mission. Please let us know if you experience any of the following:
Party and Permission Fixes
Instances are currently capped at 4 players, so please test with groups of 2 to 4. If someone is kicked from your party mid-mission, let us know if they are correctly removed from the instance or if they remain inside. If you attempt to join with more than 4 players, let us know what happens.
Respawn Behavior
We've reworked how respawns work inside instances. Here's what should happen and what we'd like you to verify:
Mission Re-Accept
Once the mission is completed, players should no longer get the mission to auto-accept on their way back from the Admin Center to the shuttle station, or when re-entering the instace without having fully exited from it via the elevator. To get a new mission, the instance has to first be fully removed, which currently will take 30 minutes after the last player has left it, and then a new one requested by taking the elevator to it. This cooldown will be tweaked in future PTU builds.
Boss Fight
The final boss fight has received reliability fixes. Please let us know is the encounter with the the boss triggers correctly, whether Mendo Ren remains visible throughout the fight (was previously sometimes going invisible after teleporting), any moments where the boss fight appears to stall or behave unexpectedly.
Griefing and Exploit Mitigations
We've added some protections around the mission flow including areas outside the instance (this was partial in Thursday's build causing some inconsistencies in green zones).
If you encounter any of the following, please let us know:
Thank you all so much for testing instancing along with us!
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Just seven days left in Phase 1 to submit and/or vote for your favourite ships and sway the selection of this years' top 16 ships in the 8 match ups for the Phase 2 Ship Showdown 2956 Head-to-Head Battles.
Drop your favourites here and then head over to see the entries on the Community Hub and vote for your top picks there too.
Message of the day
☁️ (Frjádagr) We are currently working on further fixes an updates for 4.10 with the goal of having a potential new PTU update later today
Somehow I've manged to land up with two Aurora MK IIs in my hangar. I want to spend some time trying to improve my currently sub-par fighter piloting and dogfighting skills, and do some low level PVE and bounty type missions.
I need help deciding if I want to upgrade one of those Aurora's to a more focused light fighter. And if so, do I go up to an Arrow or to a Gladius? Or am I jumping to meta fighters too quickly? Is there something else I should rather consider? Are there newer ships worth considering? The L-21 Wolf or even the new Basher?
Which light fighter would be more forgiving of my minimal skills and poor reflexes?
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ETA: Thanks for all the thoughts, advice and recommendations everyone. You've all given me plenty to consider. I'm going to start off with the Avenger that I have in my hangar and work my way up to a level where I feel more comfortable with something more meta. I'll definitely spend a bunch of my RECs in Arena Commander trying out as many of the ships you've all mentioned and then renting the ones I prefer in game before I commit and cash to an upgrade. Appreciate you all.
TWITCH DROPS: FOUNDATION FESTIVAL 2026
Foundation Festival is here, and so are new Twitch Drops! From July 29 through August 12, watch any Drops enabled Star Citizen stream for a total of four hours to unlock the ATLS Foundation Fest Livery for free.
This year, we’re also trying something new to celebrate the creators who bring the Star Citizen community together. Subscribe to any participating streamer in the Star Citizen category during the campaign window, and you’ll receive the Banu Lockbox Replica - a rare decorative item that hasn’t been available since the 2022 Bar Citizen World Tour.
To start earning Twitch Drops, you’ll need to link your Twitch account to your existing RSI account. This only takes a few minutes and ensures your earned rewards are delivered directly to your Hangar.
Here’s how to link your accounts:
Once linked, you can now watch any Star Citizen stream with Drops enabled to start earning rewards.
For this campaign, there are two rewards available:
ATLS Foundation Fest Livery, earned by watching any Drops-enabled Star Citizen stream for a total of 4 hours.
Banu Lockbox Replica, earned by subscribing to any participating streamer in the Star Citizen category during the campaign window.
This Drops campaign runs from July 29 through August 12. Make sure to tune in to eligible streams or subscribe to a participating creator before the campaign ends.
>Greetings Citizens!
>This survey aims to help us better understand how you communicate, connect, and coordinate with others throughout the 'verse.
>We're interested in learning more about your habits, preferences, and expectations regarding social and communication experiences in Star Citizen, including topics such as chat, voice communication, friend networks, parties, and finding players to play with.
>There are no right or wrong answers, we're interested in your personal experience and perspective. The survey will remain open until August 31'st, and can be taken here:
Star Citizen Social Survey Form
>Thank you for taking the time to participate and help us better understand the needs of the Star Citizen community!
>Star Citizen is trying to expand into a fully playable game, and it's missing that balance. CIG's CTO is willing to lay out plainly just how big a problem this has been, and the plans to improve on it. But are they tackling Star Citizen's real problem?
I really enjoy Space Tomato's deep dives and insightful videos. Always fair and balanced, and always excellently sourced and researched. In this one he looks at the potential improvements to planets and locations.
Warbond | Limited Time
Look your best in black and gold filigree, whether mingling at a sophisticated cocktail party or fighting through the grimy halls of an abandoned space station. Includes the Bellator armored dress suit, Behring CQ7 rifle, and Goldsmith paint for the Mirai Fury series.
Blending cutting-edge technology with precise measurements, the Bellator armored dress suit provides light combat protection thanks to intricate graphene weaving, while the Behring CQ7 is a next-generation bullpup rifle built for close quarters engagements such as boarding actions.
The Goldsmith Bundle will be delivered in Alpha 4.9.
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Includes
1 Paint
5 Gear Items
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The "New United" news loading screen in the 4.9.0 release includes a report that "Drake Interplanetary [are] taking legal action against the company [Grey's Market] regarding the design of their latest ship, the "Basher."
The accompanying image shows a real kitbash of a ship, possibly an element CIG considered when deciding on the ship's name?
>2040 UTC - Thanks to the heroic efforts of the QA Team validating the freshly deployed environment, we have identified a new server crash. The Team is actively working to resolve this issue before allowing players back into the Live Environment.
>An ETA will be provided as soon as we have more information.
Squadron 42? I know... the hopium is strong in me.
ETA: Bah, humbug!
The scheduled maintenance window for the 4.8.1 update has begun. Servers are expected to be offline for 6 9 TBD hours.
Monitor the general RSI system status here: RSI Status Page
Monitor the current Live Service Maintenance status here: Live Service Maintenance
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>The Live Service will be in a maintenance window starting on 2026-06-05 at 1200 UTC to apply necessary infrastructure updates.
>This maintenance window is not expected to exceed 6 hours.
>New connections to the game will be disabled at 1200 UTC.
Servers will go offline at 1230 UTC.
>Players are strongly advised to safely stow their vehicles and equipment before logging off in advance of server shutdown.
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Current ETA: TBD
[2026-06-05 Updates]
1200 UTC - Initial Notice, Matchmaking disabled.
1745 UTC - Team has identified additional infrastructure updates to apply, extending maintenance by 3 hours.
2040 UTC - Thanks to the heroic efforts of the QA Team validating the freshly deployed environment, we have identified a new server crash. The Team is actively working to resolve this issue before allowing players back into the Live Environment.
An ETA will be provided as soon as we have more information.
