Star Citizen Alpha 3.19.0 LIVE.8478820 Patch Notes

Star Citizen Patch 3.19.0

Alpha Patch 3.19.0-LIVE.8478820 has been released and is now available on the LIVE environment!

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 FilesRoberts Space IndustriesStarCitizenLIVE. The Shader folders can be found here %localappdata%Star Citizen.

Database Reset: Yes (Resetting Player Locations for New Player Experience)
Long Term Persistence: Enabled
Starting aUEC: 20,000

Important LTP issue
We found some unexpected behaviors with Long Term Persistence during the release to 3.19

Ships and FPS items are not going to be given back if they were never put out and back inside an inventory
Insurance claim will make you lose your ship unless you retrieve / store it back
However if the ships or items were in your home location inventory they are safe and will be recovered in the next patch

Known Issues

Unstowed Player ships must be claimed after a 30K (Error 30000)
FPS weapons are selling for much lower than intended
Ships can explode from collision with invisible asteroids
Player corpses will not despawn at Grimhex
Art assets will clip through the Train during the journey in Lorville
The entrance of the Lorville hospital has a large Visarea issue
Substenance items lack “Store” option when carrying the item in Inner Thoughts
Players cannot see partied player ships when Quantum Linking together
The Hornet and Glaive currently have bugged high forward thrust
Salvage / Scanning – Salvage scrap panels are not properly detected by ship scanners preventing players from locating them
Rest Stop (R&R) – ARC-L4 – Design / Transit / Locations – Players are unable to call elevators from rest stop refinery
Multilocation – Locations / Shopping / Interactions – Pharmacy kiosk terminals “Use” interface and Interactions are misaligned
Weapon Feature / Game Code – Tractor Beam – If you activate the tractor beam in hangar, you can bring the activated tractor beam back and use it in armistice zone
Aegis Reclaimer – Ships / Vehicles – Ship Features – Reclaimer has no rear Elevator interaction from ship exterior
ARGO MOLE – Vehicles / UI – The interaction prompts for ALL mining turrets are easy to miss/in unintuitive locations for players
CNOU HoverQuad – Vehicles / Locations – The vehicle spawns slightly stuck in the ground
Multivehicle – UI / Vehicles / Mining – Mining UI is appearing in Low Resolution
Racing – Locations – A specific rock formations on the Yadar Valley race track are visible to some player and not others
Crusader – Security Post Kareah – Core Tech – Physics – Actor / Player – Transitioning from EVA onto Kareah’s landing pads has a high chance of instantly killing the player
Transit – Area18 – Orison – Shuttles/Trains/Trams – Players are falling through sometimes disappearing trams and shuttles to their deaths
RSI Constellation Multivariant – Vehicles / Ships / Docking – The snub fighter lacks interaction prompts to enter it, making it unusable
Locations – ArcCorp / Crusader – Area18 / Orison – Core Tech / Transit Systems – The Trams are out of sync with the station timers, causing trams to overlap or not appear on time
Security Post Kareah – Mission Content / Art – VisArea – Contraband screens have a visarea issue

New Features

Gameplay

Mission – Salvage Contracts – T0

Addition of Salvage Contracts to the PU. This new contract called the Salvage Resource Rush is a mission where a faction or mission giver requests the scrapping of a derelict or husk in their possession, either on the ground at a junkyard or in space in a debris field. Players accepting the mission are tasked to scrap the derelict to the best of their ability and sell the RCM to a shop. Once the player is finished with the scrapping of the derelict, they can complete the mission in their MobiGlass. This mission will have three variations:

Lawful: a lawful mission giver or organization requests the scrapping of a derelict. The location is secured by the organization with orbital sentries or Centurions.
Lawless: a mission giver requests the scrapping of a derelict. The location is not secured in any way, risk of being raided by pirates is present.
Unlawful: an unlawful mission giver or organization asks for the salvage of a recent battle, which is not accessible to civilians/cordoned off. The location is secured by hostile orbital sentries or Centurions.

Ghost Hollow Reclaimer PVP Mission

Adding a new mission type to the Ghost Hollow crash site on MicroTech. Making use of the comm-array as well as AI nav-mesh, this mission type will create PVP encounters where players will need to fight for control over terminals for a chance at big credit payouts.

This is a mission with Outlaw aUEC terminals in the Reclaimer derelict. When active, they generate aUEC that anybody can withdraw, creating PVP encounters between players trying to control the terminals (which are also guarded by Outlaws AI). To start this event at the Ghost Hollow Crash Site, a player will need to disable the Stanton4 comm array above MicroTech which will enable the terminals and send out a Mobiglas communication to all nearby players. Once done, the terminals can be activated in the tower next to the derelict ship.

New Player Experience

An initiative for improving the initial (first 30 minutes) gameplay experience, which will help players understand the context of the world and introduce them to some of Star Citizen’s basic features. This update focuses on the experience in Area 18 and Baijini Point. As players enter the main menu to join the universe they will be prompted with the option to join as normal or accept the New Player Experience Mission chain which will set their spawn to Area18 and begining a walkthrough. Being the NPE we are going to leave the details off to give you all the experience of doing this as close to a new player as possible without information.
Ships and Vehicles

Feature Updates

Locations

Lorville Skyline 2.0

The major reworking the Lorville skyline to better fit the scale of the city and its distinctive buildings. The goal is to create the visual identity for the high-end, low-end, and generic branding of the city skyline and add navigational signage around the landing zone.

Added Updated Volumetric Atmosphere and Clouds to ArcCorp and Hurston
Performance Polish Pass for Atmospheres and Clouds
Moved Location of Area18 ASOP Terminals Closer to the Hangar Elevators
Updated Building Blocks Shop UI for Casaba and Dumpers Depot With Shop Specific Styles

AI

FPS AI Combat Balance

With 3.19 comes a quality of life overhaul of FPS AI accuracy and behavior. This is intended to make AI feel a bit more realistic, lifelike, and in some ways more forgiving without pinpoint, deadly accuracy at all times, which is something that has caused many of us much frustration while clearing out baddies from underground facilities.

NPCs should now have a better range of accuracy modifiers, which will ramp up accuracy based on many factors like seeing and losing sight of target, how long the enemy sees it’s target after regaining sigh on them, mercy times to assess how much of a threat the target it, and their loadouts. This also implements firing duration and cooldown for rapid fire and other checks with mercy timers that adjust accuracy when determining if a player is a threat or not.
Gameplay

Tractor Beam – T0.5 – Item Attaching and Detaching

Enabling hand held tractor beams to attach and detach items such as ship components and allowing players to sell those salvaged items for profit. This iteration of the tractor beam gameplay will add the functionality to the tractor beam attachment of the multitool to detach and attach items from ships itemPorts. This functionality can either be used for component exchange, replacement or restocking or to scavenge other ships to use or make a profit. Players can lock and unlock the ability to remove weapons and components from their ship with a new Port Unlock option in the Inner Thought where which in the cockpit or using the new Port Unlock keybind (Default (r-alt + K). While aiming at a component with a tractor beam to detatch it, hold “B” and it will highlight the object with a glow around its perimeter/shape. Left click and drag to pull the component lose from its socket/hardpoint. While attaching components, an AR marker will appear to give players guidance on the correct orientation to attach the component in correctly. If the holo outline is green simply let go of the item and it will attach. If the holo outline is yellow, rotate the item until the outline turns green. If the holo outline is red, the item does not fit the Item port requirements.

Mining Balancing v01

With 3.19 comes updates to both Ship and FPS mining with wide-sweeping balance changes to sell prices, refining effectiveness and costs, component stats, multi-crew mining efficiency, mineable difficulties and masses with larger asteroids, resource distribution, as well as the addition of new mineables. The goal in 3.19 is to make multi-crew mining more attractive and even out all materials to make them all more lucrative instead of a select few.

Ship mining
Resource Distribution has been updated to reflect a more distinct distribution of minerals throughout Stanton. Which means that several locations (per planet/moon) now hold exclusive resources rather, than full random resources. Additionally we defined so called “standard” resources that are a given in each minable you will encounter. The rest of the elements have chances to appear in those rocks. The updated resource distribution is also reflected in the trading availability and refining capabilities. Every mining gadget, head, and sub item has had a full balance pass for stats, cost, and efficiencies. Every item that is connected to mining gameplay loop was updated to target specific resources to be mined better or worse depending on the setup of your Mining Head. Multi-crew mining has also been balanced with the Mole getting a buff on instability if the same lasers fire on the same rock, while the Prospector will get a punishment for multiple prospectors firing at the same rock on instability.

FPS mining
A new minable is introduced that is only available in the new caves systems and has a high value to encourage players to go mining with their FPS tools outside of prison.

Changes in the Mining Update

Resource Update

Concept of minable rarities for resources:
Standard (base resource of a minable always part of any rock, like Iron
Common (chance to be part of the rock like beryl)
Uncommon (chance to be part of the rock like Gold)
Rare (chance to be part of the rock like Qunatainium)
Dedicated location for resources that have the standard rarity (like Arial having Iron and Quartz)
Updated properties for resources (each resource should affect the properties of the rock based on their amount)
Updated mass for minables (resource composition affects the mass of the rock
More variant rock sizes/masses
Small ones that do not need breaking to massive rocks that require multiple players)
Additional rock types with unique chances for resource compositions
removed Diamonds temporarily

FPS Mining Update

Added Janalite as FPS minable to caves (very rare but very valuable)
Allowed Mouse Wheel to control throttle – Alt + mouse wheel to control laser intensity.
Adjusted Difficulty of Hand Mining Various Nodes

Resource Refining and prices

Updated resource prices and demands at TDDs
The further away from the standard material the more profit
Updated refinery yield and time for certain material to encourage longer distances to travel for the best money/hour

Full item rework

Mining heads now have a min/max laser power
Mining heads have different laser power per size
Mining heads have different extraction speeds where there is also a difference between S1 and S2
Mining heads have different ideal distances
Updated resistance values for all mining items
Updated instability mitigating values for all mining items
Unified properties for all Mining modules and Mining Gadgets
Buffed Active modules drastically
Added new property exclusive to mining gadgets: Called Cluster modifier that clusters element together à if you split a rock it increases the chance that the elements are together in one of the broken pieces)
Filtering on some items that remove the inert from the rocks you are collecting
Re-Added Arbor S1 & S2 Mining Head Variants to Shopping Locations
Sub item slots on Mining Heads are different between S1 and S2
Resistance reduction now is multiplicative
Made Instability updates

UI Update

Difficulty forecast that tells you how easy it is to break the rock you are facing
Reordered some elements of the UI
Details of the mining items you have currently equipped
Details on your current cargo
Clearer scanning display and clearer explanation what is happening during scanning

Synergy Tractor Beam

Allow to detach attach Mining modules/ Heads/ sacks and Place in Ship Inventory

Density Manager Mission Updates

Updated the density manager system so that mission entities and things dropped by missions such as corpses, guns, and debris will be cleaned up when the area is streamed out. As we reuse mission locations such as UGFs, the location will then be cleaned up of all mission items when the area is streamed out while player dropped things remain as usual.

Made Insurance Claim Time and Price Increases to all Ships
Reduced the Inventory Stock of Ship Weapons, Missiles, and Ship Components Sold in Reststops and LEOs
Temporarily Removed Orison Platform FPS Missions for 3.19
Temporarily Removed Claim Jumpers Missions for 3.19

Ships and Vehicles

Added Corsair, Cutter, and C8R Pisces to In-game Shops

Core Tech

Optimized Radar Performance While Scanning Large Amounts of Cargo Boxes
ASOP UI Performance Optimizations
NPC Performance Optimizations

Bug Fixes

Players should now get a crash handler prompt if the client crashes
Fixed an issue causing players in a given instance to experience a response latency of up to dozens of seconds for interactions
Buying Pharmacy Items at Empire Health should no longer result in “Invalid Location” errors
Player purchased vehicle components should no longer be overwritten by stock components when claiming destroyed ship
Fixed an issue causing ships to hit what seems like an invisible box that kicks it in random directions when flying near another ship
Entry / Dismount point of the ladders should no longer clip the player through the ship’s geometry (Temporarily Disables Ladder Slide)
There should no longer be frequent pockets of extremely low client FPS performance in LZs and ships
Redeemer should no longer be missing collision on its floor
Reclaimer rear hatch can now be opened correctly from outside/inside
Players should no longer asphyxiate if not wearing a helmet in Hangar 13
EVA changes should no longer cause distortion and artifacts in the UI
Large amounts of cargo sold at once should no longer cause the transaction to fail the cargo will be taken and no money will be granted
aUEC balances should now synchronize to players after making transactions in-game
Some sections of the Crusader C2 Hercules hull should no longer be exceedingly difficult/impossible to salvage
The bottom turret glass on the Carrack should no longer be difficult to see out of
Fixed the Merlin being unable to undock from Constellation
Fixed missing Delivery Missions being unavailable to players
Elevators should no longer stop bullets from doing damage when passing through the open door
Fixed an issue causing players to be unable to Equip/Unequip a helmet
Fixed an issue causing players to be unable to drop a dead body while dragging it
Fixed an issue where Players exiting the Pilot Seat or toggling Salvage Mode while in Gimbal Mode would cause gimbal mode to fail when they Re-Enter the Pilot
Fixed an issue causing ship parts to “Duplicate” when repairing a ship with no parts
Player-purchased vehicle components overwritten in claimed vehicle loadout can now be sold or equipped
Medical Bay Bed and Screens should no longer obstruct hangars
BEHR P6-LR Sniper Rifle and GMNI A03 should no longer be missing from Star Marine Loadout Customizer
Fixed reversed text in the Pisces cockpit overhead light
Fixed the Optimax mining gadget not modifying resistance
Greycat STV speedometer should no longer be off-center within its window
Delivery missions should no longer spawn in more boxes than are need to be delivered
Players should no longer be able to craft a free multitool from the Filler Station in their salvage ships without using RMC
The Disable Gravity Prompt during the Failed Negotiations mission should no longer be unresponsive
Players should no longer suffocate when exiting the Cutter ship bed after using “lie down”
Fixed an issue causing some AI to walk in place
Players should now be able to vault / climb / mantle into the side entrances of the Valkyrie
Ground clutter rocks should no longer float above the ground everywhere on Wala/Magda/Ariel/Aberdeen/lyria
Fixed an issue causing mineable resources or harvestables to not be present in any of the Sand Caves
The “Frustrated with Covalex” Delivery Mission should no longer be missing half of its description in the Contract Manager
Arena Commander “Find Match” button should no longer be greyed out until player switches game modes