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Star Citizen Alpha 3.24 connected cargo hauling missions to a more physical way of managing ships, freight and equipment. Its headline additions included persistent personal hangars, freight elevators, item banks and three hauling-mission formats. These details describe the 3.24 release, not a guarantee that every mechanic remains unchanged in current live builds.
What changed in Alpha 3.24?
Cloud Imperium Games described Alpha 3.24 as a substantial change to how players organize belongings and handle cargo. The Alpha 3.24.0 release notes introduced personal and instanced hangars, freight elevators, item banks, hangar decoration and Cargo Hauling missions.
The development sequence began earlier: in its February 7, 2024 Roadmap Roundup, RSI listed these systems among features planned for an Alpha 3.23 patch cycle. Their appearance in the later 3.24 release notes documents the eventual release, not a current schedule.
How personal and instanced hangars worked
Players could select a home location with a personal hangar, customize its interior, and leave items, decorations and vehicles there for persistence. Hangars were instanced: multiple players could use the same physical location without interfering with one another. Hangar types included ASOP terminals, item banks, freight elevators and ship elevator platforms.
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Persistence had a notable exception: decorations placed in personal hangars persisted, while decorations in staging hangars were deleted. The notes also warned that objects left on the ship-loading elevator could be cleaned up.
How freight elevators connected cargo and ships
Freight elevators made location inventory and cargo physical. Players used an elevator and its kiosk to retrieve or store items and move cargo between a location and a ship. For hauling work, the elevator was the practical link between the contract, the boxes and the vessel: request mission cargo at pickup, load it aboard, then deliver it at the destination.
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The patch notes described two operating approaches: use a personal persistent hangar or cargo loading areas, which at that time were exclusive to Hull-C pilots. They also described buying commodity containers, paying an aUEC fee to have cargo automatically loaded onto a stored ship, and rental availability for additional cargo ships. Availability and balance may have changed since 3.24.
What Cargo Hauling missions involved
Contracts asked players to transport containers between locations in Stanton. The three formats differed by how many pickup and delivery locations were involved:
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| Mission format | Objective pattern |
|---|---|
| A to B | Move cargo from one pickup location to one destination. |
| Multi to Single | Collect cargo at multiple locations and deliver it to one destination. |
| Single to Multi | Collect cargo at one location and deliver it across multiple destinations. |
Each format had Small-Grade, Supply-Grade and Bulk-Grade quantities. Higher hauling tiers were reputation-gated. At a pickup, the contract holder requested the mission cargo through a freight-elevator kiosk; the contract was complete once all delivery objectives were finished.
Container grades and handling
| Grade | Container-size detail in the 3.24 notes |
|---|---|
| Small-Grade | Containers up to 4 SCU. |
| Supply-Grade | Containers capped at 8 or 16 SCU, depending on the mission. |
| Bulk-Grade | No container-size limit stated. |
Mission cargo size and tractor-beam handling depended on the contract grade. The release notes also listed known issues affecting hauling cargo and freight elevators, so the feature set was not presented as bug-free at launch.
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What item banks and hangar decoration added
Item banks replaced the old local-inventory interface at landing zones and stations for storing, retrieving and equipping FPS items. In personal hangars, players could buy decorations in-game and place them around the space; unlike personal-hangar decorations, those in staging hangars did not persist.
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