Star Citizen Alpha 3.17.0 PTU.8016740 Patch Notes

Alpha Patch 3.17.0 has been released to the PTU, and is now available to test! Patch should now show: VERSION 3.17.0-PTU.8016740.

It is strongly recommended that players delete their USER and Shader folders for the Public client after patching, particularly if you start encountering any odd character graphical issues or crash on loading. The USER folder can be found (in default installations) at C:\Program Files\Roberts Space Industries\StarCitizen\PTU. The Shader folders can be found here C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Star Citizen.

Audience: Wave 1
Database Reset: Yes
Long Term Persistence: Enabled
Pledge Copy: Enabled
Starting aUEC: 15,000,000

Please monitor sc-testing-chat in spectrum for updates and testing instructions.
USER.cfg settings: r_displaySessionInfo = 1

Testing Focus

Stability and backend testing
Ship Positional Desync

In 3.17.0 we have put in a networking update that should reduce ship to ship desync. We would like to know how well this update works and if there are any observable knock-ons. Relative to 3.16, you should feel as though the facing direction and position of other player ships are much more accurate and real time. We have created a feedback thread in spectrum so please let us know about any potential issues with this that could include ship jittering, rubberbanding, jittering, and other effects of that nature.

Known Issues

All doorways in Orison can kill players if repeatedly walked through
Equipment can disappear when trying to equip and is lost permanently
Custom mobiGlas Casings breaks the mobiGlas functionality
The Player is unable to Place the Mining Gadget on a minable rock
Large hangers are missing collisions
Starfarer Boom Arm not repairing if destroyed
When loading into the PU after customizing the character, the player may become stuck in a staging state
Character customization is saved inconsistently, sometimes falling back to a miscellaneous male head
Turret HUD – Aiming elements are lagging behind
Shubin Interstellar kiosk in New Babbage still using the old Shop UI
Players cannot buy components directly into ship storage (will be coming later in the PTU cycle)
The ‘Sell’ page at Live Fire Weapons will not update properly
ASOP Terminals can be accessed by other players while in-use by another player
ASOP terminal displays successful retrieval with designated hangar number; however, there is no ship marker and designated hangar is empty
Cave interiors on planets with breathable atmospheres do not have an atmosphere which will cause the player to die from suffocation
Underwater river fog effect is missing
AR Markers are present when opening the mobiGlas which can make it hard to read
Ships can explode after players exit them
The player is respawning with their loadout pre-death, and the medical gown equipped. The player also leaves no corpse present
The player sees an infinite black screen upon death

New Features

Locations

Lorville Maria Pure of Heart – Hospital Interior Location

Implementation of Maria Pure of Heart hospital in Lorville, where players can be healed and revived, as well as purchase medical supplies.

Space Station Clinics: Variations

Updated all current space station clinics with new additional modules and layouts to make each space station clinic unique.

River T0

Initial implementation of river tech to enhance the ecosystems of our planets. This first iteration will add a single river with harvestables nearby onto microTech as a showcase with the intention of expanding on this in future releases.

AI

Coffee Shop Vendor

The addition of a fully interactable coffee shop vendor in Area18. The AI will interact with three new usables – Hot drink dispenser, soft drink dispenser, and drinks fridge – to serve the player with a variety of new drinks.

Gameplay

Ship to Ship Refueling

Implementing the systems that will allow players flying specific ships to refuel other ships and get paid for it. The player can fill those specific ships’ fuel tanks from a station using the newly updated Rearm, Restock, and Refuel interface at Landing Zones and Space Stations. The Starfarer has 6 external fuel pods, and each individual pod can be filled with one fuel type of the player’s choosing (hydrogen or quantum). This allows players to carry varying amounts of fuel to cater to refueling needs.

Refueling consists of the Fuel Giver and the Fuel Receiver. To start the process, the Fuel Giver (Starfarer) must deploy the refueling arm using the refueling terminal on the bridge. This allows the Fuel Receiver (any ship) to request docking by targeting the Fuel Giver and pressing “N” (default keybind). This sends a docking request message to the refueling ship that they can accept or deny. Once accepted, docking can be done manually by following the on-screen UI or automatically by holding “N” (default keybind).

After the Fuel Receiver is docked to the Fuel Giver, they must use the refueling terminal to define the fuel price. The docked ship can then use their mobiGlas to open the “Vehicle Maintenance Services” app to view the set price and request the amount of hydrogen or quantum fuel they desire. Once they accept the price, the Fuel Giver can open the “Pod Management” screen to adjust flow in or out of fuel pods that contain the desired fuel type. They can then start sending fuel by opening the nozzle and adjusting flow rate, while making sure not to extend past the nominal flow rate for too long. Players will receive a warning error when their flow rate is too high, which can escalate to a danger warning and eventually damage the refueling arm or both ships and result in loss of fuel. When the amount of requested fuel is filled, the player must close the nozzle on the refueling terminal to prevent overflow fuel spillage. Once refueling is complete, funds are transferred, and the two ships can undock from each other by either the refueling ship pressing the “Abort” button on the refueling terminal, or the docked ship holding “N” (default keybind).

Shopping and Selling T0

Giving players the ability to sell items from their local inventory to shops using a new interface powered by Building Blocks. This supports the recently added Loot Generation feature, allowing these items to be sold for money. This includes kiosk and service support for sale of non-commodities. The shops will now dictate which items they will buy based on the type of weapons or armor that they sell. Pricing algorithm takes into account state of item, price of closest retail equivalent, etc. This update also bring in wide sweeping changes to what each weapon and armor shop sells. Many higher end items have been removed from weapon and armor shops and can now be found exclusively out in the PU through looting corpses and exploring locations for loot crates.

Mining Gadgets

Mining Gadgets are tools to help modify the a rock’s properties and assist the player with mining a Deposit. There are many differing gadgets that include stats that will positively or negatively modify rock Resistance, Optimal Charge Rate, Overcharge Rate, Instability, Optimal Charge Window, Optimal Charge Rate, and Shatter Damage. The player can attach a device physically to a mineable deposit in FPS to modify its stats, making mining either easier and safer, or quicker and riskier. Players can currently buy these in New Babbage, Lorville, and Port Olisar and attach them to their backpacks as an equipped item that can be held in the hands by pressing 4 (default keybind) and re-stored by holding R. Once a player finds a minable rock/asteroid they want to mine, they can attach the gadget onto it by walking or EVAing up to it, holding it in their hands, and holding left mouse button to place it on the rock. This will allow players to then modify the signal waves to align them on the mining gadget screen and activate it. Once back in their mining ship, the player can scan the rock and will notice an improvement based on the gadget used. Gadgets are retrievable after successfully mining but will take damage and can be destroyed if going above safe mining levels or overcharging a rock.

Ship and Ship Components Inventory Updates

Major overhaul of the ship personal inventory storage to allow for ship components to be stored and transported inside ships. Increased the capacity of Landing zone storage from 100 SCU to 1000 SCU. Added inventory size values to all purchasable ship items along with volume and dimensions which will require certain size ships to transport larger size components that wouldn’t normally fit inside the smaller ships. Updated all ships to have more internal storage to accommodate this change. Added inventory filters for components.

Weapons and Items

Added Carryable Storage Container to shops in the PU

Feature Updates

Characters

DNA Head Textures Update

Art updates for DNA archetype heads that greatly improve the quality of all DNA heads, both for players and common NPCs. This update brings additional archetype heads, while also updating base textures, wrinkle maps, and irises for the original heads.

Locations

Separated Low Orbit Stations and Landing Zones to each have their own inventories
Greatly increased landing zone storage

Gameplay

Ground Vehicle Signature Emissions Changes

Adjusted ground vehicle signature emissions so that they are more difficult to detect at higher ranges.

Shield Face Balance Pass

Converted heavy fighter and larger ships with size 2 shields to have front-back shield faces instead of bubble shields.

Ship Weapons Polish Pass

Increased stagger fire threshold to include all weapons up to 750 RPM to allow the option to be stagger fired.

Player Injury Polish Pass

We have overhauled the injury system to increase the likelihood of injuries occurring during repeated combat encounters and decrease the chance of instant death. There is now a scaling percent chance of triggering early injuries when taking damage to a body part. This is assessed each time the body part receives additional wear and has a short cooldown between triggers to prevent it from occurring too frequently.

FPS Weapon Refactor

Ongoing updates to make procedural animations more natural for holding FPS weapons. Adjusted weapon sway and recoil values across a wide range of rifles, SMGs, shotguns, and sniper rifles.

Hunger and Thirst Polish Pass

Increased the decay rate of hunger and thirst values.

Added keybind option to request ATC landing and takeoff (unbound by default)

Core Tech

GPU Particle Performance Pass

Converted Xi’an Scout and Aopoa Nox thruster particles to render through GPU instead of CPU

Bug Fixes

Fixed an issue causing the repair and restock functions to not work consistently
Fixed an issue where players were unable to claim insurance on vehicles
Fixed an issue where ships get could get stored in an unknown state at outposts
Fixed an issue causing the quantum drive to not engage consistently
Fixed an issue causing players to be unable to set routes or QT towards certain missions
Elevators in underground facilities and Grim Hex should no longer become duplicated
Repair services should now correctly repair destroyed engines
Grenades should now consistently explode when detonated
Emptying and reloading consecutive magazines should no longer break reloading
Items left on landing pads should now be cleaned up, so that they no longer block ships from spawning on the pads
Scanning minable rocks should no longer be unreliable and should no longer give a full red critical display
Fixed an issue causing the mission broker to stop updating and displaying new instances of reputation-gated missions
Wallace Klim should now correctly offer missions to players via the mobiGlas contract manager
Players should no longer experience severe delays when interacting with inventory after loading into locations that have a large amount of stored items
Shooting another player should no longer always result with instant death rather than placing player in an incapacitated state first
Placing a downed player on medical bed should now complete correctly
Hitting your own corpse with a ship should no longer give you a crime stat
Fixed several areas of ships where the shields did not fully extend coverage, allowing damage to pass through in the Avenger series, Arrow, Spartan, Hammerhead, Retaliator, Hercules Starlifter series, Buccaneer, 400i, 85X, Tumbril Cyclone
The landing gears of the Buccaneer, Phoenix, Aurora LX, and Xian Scout should no longer snap back after deploying
Cutlass Steel spotlight should no longer be offset / rotated to right
Loading into a Constellation into Arena Commander will no longer spawn the player into the docked Merlin
Third person camera should no longer get stuck after ship is impounded
The Valkyrie ramp will no longer clip through the floor when players open the ramp, which caused it to bounce throughout the hangar
Fixed an issue causing massive reverb muffled sound to get stuck after heavy g-forces
Players should no longer get stuck on “Awaiting Selection” and be unable to select ships for AC modes other than Free Flight
Accessing the mobiGlas while holding a loot crate will no longer attach the crate to the player, preventing the crate from being dropped except via weapon swap and causing a loss of Grab functionality
Hunger and Thirst values should now persist between client sessions
Players should no longer have a chance to be stuck in prone if falling down when entering a ship from EVA
The player should no longer be kicked out of the Persistent Universe while in a downed state waiting to be revived
Fixed an issue causing OxyPens to not replenish oxygen
Fixed an issue that was causing hostile actions against AI-piloted ships to not correctly match hostile actions against players
Fixed an issue causing the vial to not pop out of the medical when in reaching zero ammo in self-heal mode
Fixed an issue causing the medgun’s AR cards to display partially off-screen when the player has multiple injuries
Fixed an issue causing certain FPS weapons to be incorrectly dropped with Tier 1 arm injuries
Fixed an issue causing multiple rooms in the GrimHex hospital to be incorrectly pressurized and not have atmosphere
Fixed multiple locations where players can get stuck behind crates in derelicts