Up until now, the universe of Star Citizen has been something of a lawless frontier, there's been little consequence to criminal activity, and in some ways, the game has suffered as a result, and in ways you may not immediately always suspect.

The new Alpha 3.6 update adds an interesting new law system to the game, which not only brings order to society as a whole, it actually opens up the possibility for more interesting avenues - for the first time, for example, there's the possibility of a black market.

Currently there are 19 laws that have been introduced in the update, and these cover both crimes in outer space as well as laws on planets. 

These laws will be policed, too. NPC security forces uphold the laws, and will fine, arrest or even kill players who decide to engage in the criminal element (and get caught) - leading to interesting chases and combat scenarios.

Here's the thing, though, as I alluded to earlier, the update isn't just about introducing "law and order" to the universe, in-fact, in many ways, it's the exact opposite. Where there's laws, there's crime, and there's even a whole new set of missions which sees players become involved in the criminal underworld while trying to avoid the eyes of the law.

Players can evade the cops by either running away, paying off their bounty, or using a hacking tool to wipe your criminal record out of police databases.

There's some other new updates too, though, including the ability to purchase more than 90 ships now, as well as tweaks and updates to these, new space stations, and a new VoIP system to talk to other ships.