Star Citizen News – Upgrade Problems, Environment Improvements & Ranger Bike
Welcome to some more Star Citizen News, talking about Issues with the $0 CCUs some backers losing their upgrades, May’s Sub Flair, a New Organization Type, a Summary of Inside Star Citizen that looked at Environment, Lighting & Sound & we will talk a bit about the latest Concept Vehicle the Tumbril Ranger Bike and it’s 3 variants.
There were some problems of the removal of $0 CCUs that were scheduled for the start of May. $0 CCUs are Upgrades you could get for Ships that had the same value, so a Gladius could get a $0 for a Hull B as they are both $90. Some players hoarded massive amounts of these CCUs when concept or anniversary sales, this may for not being sure what ship they wanted, wanting to freely change between 2 ship OR even just giving them lots of future options HOWEVER the hoarding was so great with some players that 1000s of CCUs were on their accounts and this actually caused some account issues.
So CI made a decision to stop the ability to get $0 CCUs and to remove (any that had not been applied) at the Start of May… the problem being that the system removed some CCUs for backers that weren’t $0… some that had value… this was because ship prices had changed and some ships that people had paid $15 to get a CCU up to but hadn’t applied had that same CCU only worth $0 if you bought it now, so it thought it was a $0 CCU. Obviously this was unintended and CI made a statement:
“The team spent some time investigating this and did indeed discover an issue. Rest assured that they are working on getting a fix out asap. Thanks again for bringing this to our attention!”
Not sure whether they will return the CCUs of the affected backers OR automatically melt them to store credit BUT it should be resolved in due course.
More 3.5 Hotfixes – Service Beacons
There have been continued Hotfixes to Alpha 3.5 LIVE with the latest being a to do with Service Beacons which prevents beacons without player/location info from appearing.
May’s Subscriber Flair is for Torso Armor – the RSI Venture Rust Society for normal RSI Subs and Imperators also get the RSI MacFlex Rust Society version of the Armor too.
It was also said that the Skull Hologram helmet is some Flair coming later in 2019 and is going to be wearable!
Environments
They have been improving the lighting of the Underground Facilities.
Originally they only have 4 or so variants of the facilities and they lit it largerly by hand.
They are building locations modularly so they are working on pre-baking the lighting in those modules and having it blend between the modules.
They have been adding more variation to ArcCorps Cityscape.
More realistic placement of adverts and banners, deeper trenches better textures.
They have some better building placement so you’ll see more variation.
There are some entirely new buildings mixed with some of the less seen ones.
You’ll see some unique shapes, they are adding the donut, a circular mega structure.
They have tried to have it that adverts and brands don’t repeat from common views, so you don’t see a dozen adverts for Fizz EVERYWHERE you look.
The Sound of Space
The Changes between 3.4 and 3.5s audio in regard to ships was talked about.
They have made the audio much more layered and give players feedback from where sound of thrusters are actually coming from much more dynamically, where as 3.4 was more flat.
Atmospheric Entry was made much more frightening sounding in 3.5, you can hear the vibration, environmental feedback, wind on the ship whether your thrusters are firing or not.
The Audio guys reached out to fighter & airline pilots to help with development of their sounds.
Tumbril Ranger Concept
They did talk about the New Concept Vehicle – Tumbril Ranger in Inside Star Citizen as well:
The PreSale made over $300k in the few hours it’s been up already.
It looks like the Ranger Series of Bikes is quite popular.
I’ve got a full breakdown of the Pre-Sale of the Ranger already (which I’ll link below).
We will look at the vehicle more in the future BUT It is a single seater wheeled compact bike & available from $30 in 3 flavors:
CV – For Long Range Journeys and Carrying Cargo / Mission Items.
RC – For Racing – Better at Boosting / Acceleration
TR – 2 Forward Firing S1 Weapons
The appeal of the bike is that it’s the smallest that a vehicle could realistically be allowing it to be put in MANY ships.
Also the fact it’s a wheeled bike which will make biker gangs very happy I am sure.
It’s on Concept Sale from the 10th of May until the 10th of June.
There is a new Organization Type – Club – A group of individuals whose primary interests and activities revolve around a specific brand or make of vehicle.