Star Citizen Alpha 3.7.0 Wave 1 PTU

Star Citizen, Alpha 3.7.0 is now out to 1st wave PTU. Which means that the Evocati are join by Concierge and Subscribers. Let’s take a look at 3.7.0 PTU’s new features & updates.

Ship Rentals have been added Kiosks can be found at Teasa Spaceport in Lorville (Vantage Rentals) and Riker Memorial Spaceport in Area18 (Traveller Rentals). Players can specify the rental duration (1, 3, or 30 days) with longer time being a better overall value. Rented ships are treated as being owned by the player during that period too and as such can be reclaimed and customized. The time remaining on the rental is shown on the mobiGlas and the ASOP terminal.

FPS or on Foot Mining has been added – Players can now mine small rocks for valuable commodities with a multitool and ore mining attachment which you can get at Major Landing Zones like Conscientious Objects at Levski & on Tammy & Sons at Lorville Hurston & at Area 18 as well. Once equipped players (via the utiliy slot on the PMA) you’ll need to ADS when looking at a mineable node and you be shown a UI interface for mining laser strength and fracture window similar to the mining mechanic on the Prospector, you can use mouse wheel to adjust the power of the laser, keep it in the sweet zone for a period of time without going into the red zone for too long to successfully fracture the rock, valuable minerals will be broken off and can be hand collected and stowed in the players personal inventory.

Player personal Inventory can be accessed using interaction mode and selecting an activation dot in the player’s view or by using the “TAB” key. From there a radial menu will appear showing the overall storage available, the percentage fill, and what items are stored. The amount a player can carry is based on the type of armor they are wearing, with storage capacities shown on kiosks and shop displays. Players can also highlight and drop items as well as store all items in a carriable box, which itself can be stored in the cargo grid of a ship. Both the cargo grid stored box and the inventory itself can be sold at commodity kiosks. The commodity and trading kiosks now detects the player’s personal inventory.

Harvestable objects can now be found and collected at various planetary bodies.

They are valuable and can be stowed in the players inventory for later sale at commodity kiosks. Currently, harvestables can be found on the surface of Hurston, Ariel, Aberdeen and Daymar as well as within all caves.

Caves have been added to Daymar, Hurston, and Aberdeen. They can be part of missions (there are new mission person missions here) & are likely to contain harvestables and mineables. Caves can be pretty massive.

If you want to spelunk and harvest then there are a couple of things to help:

Flares can now be purchased at Conscientious Objects on Levski, Cubby Blast at Area18, Tammany & Son’s at Lorville, and Live Fire at Port Olisar. They are equipped in a utility slot & their light is very useful.

They is also a larger inventory capacity armor with Backpack attachment “Rucksack” available at Conscientious Objects on Levski, Cubby Blast at Area18, and Tammany & Son’s at Lorville.

Landing Zones will now restrict landing privileges based on crimestat.

Most major landing areas will now not grant landing privileges to anyone with a crimestat of two or more.. GrimHex will allow anyone to land, including those in stolen ships. Rest stops and Levski will allow anyone up to wanted level three to land but will not allow stolen ships.

Players can now share missions – Accepted missions now have the “share” option, which shares the mission with all members of the player’s current party. Upon mission completion, the total payout is divided up among the party members.

3 New Ships have been added Aegis Vanguard Variants Harbinger & the Sentinel

Also The Banu Defender which has a special shield that is best operated by two people via advanced hardening mechanics. This is best operated by a co-pilot adjusting the hardening on their MFD while the pilot focus on flying and engaging enemies.

As part of this they have removed size 1 and 3 Tachyon cannons and size 2 Tachyon cannons can now only be equipped to the Banu Defender.

Some small ships can now mount size 2 gimbals into size 1 hardpoints, to allow them to gimbal size 1 weapons (this doesn’t give them access to s2 weapons BUT does allow them to run s1 auto & gimballed weapons). Those ships include the Auroras, Mustangs, Merlin, Archimedes, 85x, Nox, Dragonfly, and Prospector. This shouldn’t be op imo, it’s intended to make starters and less combat ready ships a bit more competitive.

Added new IFCS system: Proximity Assist, which will now replace hover mode for near surface control, dampens ship acceleration when near surfaces to give the pilot better fine control and is enabled by default. Proximity assist can be disabled in the options menu.

Added a keybind “J” to manually toggle compatible ships into VTOL mode, shifting the ships thrust orientation when desired.

There is some other new weapons and equipment too:

The Kroneg FL-33 Laser Cannon – A high damage, long range energy cannon designed for versatile usage at medium to long range. Various sizes can be found at Dumper’s Depot on both Port Olisar and Area18 as well as Centermass.

The Salvo Frag Pistol which has high damage and accuracy but can also be fired as a minishotgun. lt can be purchased at Livefire at Port Olisar, HUR-L2, CRU-L1, Skutters, and Tammany and Sons.

Added additional weapon sight attachments and updated some of the current ones.

1x Holo, 2x Hol &. Reworked 3x Holo, 4x Telescopic and the Red Dot.

Added new barrel and under-barrel weapon attachments – including a flashlight, laser sight, suppressor, flash hider (hides muzzle flash), compensator (recoil reduction), and energy stabilizer (recoil reduction). Like other attachments, these can be found at shops that sell compatible firearms. Activate attachments with the “U” key. Note: Weapon descriptions give the compatible sizes for all available attachment slots.

There are some additional changes to missions & gameplay

All mission rewards have been updated.

They have Improved AI combat ship behavior for more dynamic target selection and engagement based on relevant threats.

Updated AI service beacons with new sequenced waves of enemies, more challenging opponents, and kill rewards.

Reworked and reintroduced the level 5 wanted distraction mission.

FPS combat ai will now prioritize targets based on distance, visibility, and incoming damage and should engage the player more effectively.

Temporarily disabled escort style missions.

Adjusted misdemeanor fine values including a significant reduction in illegal parking fee.

Made crime stat restrictions more lenient for mission offerings.

Temporarily removed several city locations from the delivery system.

Electronic Access Updates

They have Updated Pirate Swarm to have 10 waves and a new suite of opponent ships. The final wave also features an extra challenge with a Hammerhead as a boss. Though some Merlin Wingmen will come aid you after some time.

Arena Commander and the Persistent Universe now maintain separate ship and item databases. The Status & loadout of your ships in the PU have no standing on the ship in AC.

Loadout customization is also specific to each game mode and is no longer transferable. Rented items and ships done in the Arena Commander customization menu will only be available in that mode and vice versa for purchased or rented items and ships in the persistent universe.

There are also updates to Star Marine with a new Elimination Map: The Good Doctor

The map is set in a research station that surveys rock formations, natural gases, flora, and fauna. It’s supposed to be 100 years pre-PU time and on Leir II in lore.

The Character Customizer has been updated to v2 & been streamlined to create better flow. Players now start by selecting a gender and a base head. Other heads can then be blended with the base as a whole or as isolated features by selecting on either the left column or on the region the player wishes to customize on the head itself. Players can also randomize any selection (dice on bottom center of screen).

Other Updates & Bug Fixes

Added a voice activation option for VOIP transmission available on the options menu.
Improved the chat interface and multiple channel support for VOIP/FOIP.
Adjusted the position of some of the no-fly zones around horizontal hangars at Area18.
Updated tablet grip template so players can turn items like computer blades in their hand.
Updated flashlight projection.
Updated stamina usage to increase sprint time and regeneration rates.

Updated Arial’s heightmap distribution.
Temporarily removed rest stop HUR L2.
Removed the Argo from Area18’s spaceport.
Increased CryAstro refueling rates for larger ships.
Reworked audio for EMP.
Fixed automated gimbals so it only requires the firing solution to be in the cone as originally intended.
Updated the nose array on the Hoplite to BRVS Ballistic Repeaters (Sawbuck variant).
Changed the exterior paint on the Hoplite.
Slightly increased engine trails to increase motion readability.
Rebalanced recoil for the KSAR Karna.
Added a visor message that should notify the player if they are intentionally not respawned in a ship bed they had previously logged out of to help track down issues with bed logout.

There have been various shield fixes to issues that ships were having with holes and losing shields.

Huds Disappearing, blur and some other issues with Quantum Travel have been fixed.

Gravity & Collosions in some locations have been fixed.

Delivery missions should now complete more consistently.
Fixed scope magnification values on existing sight attachments.
The 890 Jump should consume less fuel, have countermeasures & have it’s shields working properly. As well as having it’s usables & a larger health pool
Bed logging should now work consistently
Service Beacons should no longer spam players.

The patch does not contain all the features that 3.7 LIVE is planned to have, some are only partly implemented and there are likely going to be bugs in the PTU that will not represent the LIVE State of the Game & There are a load of Known Issues that they are currently working through BUT you should also be aware of when playing in the current PTU:

Currently there’s collision that’s preventing entry into the Defender, but it is flyable in Arena Commander for those who own it.
Players with a level 1 crime stat cannot request hangars doors to be open when leaving Area18 or Lorville.
Changes made on the character customizer do not appear in the PU.
Equipping any of the new Kroneg weapons onto a ship will negatively affect the ship’s pitch and roll speed.
Snoopy cap appears in hair style options on the character customizer.
P-72’s ship description contains placeholder text.

In Star Marine’s Demien Comms enemy indicators can sometimes be seen through walls.

There’s a chance a vehicle will become unresponsive after quantum travel.
CRU-L5 is obstructed from most directions.
The Freelancer DUR does not spawn in correctly and is usually unreachable.
The Freelancer MIS bounces on the pad when spawned.
Darneely uses the wrong audio dialogue when offering a mission.
NPC beacons will sometimes display an incorrect distance.
Players can not complete the Clovus downed satellite countermeasure after killing the opposing player when they are in possession of the computer blade.
“Maintenance” mission objective boxes vanish when they are picked up and dropped.
The video feed for ATC is currently blank.
AI ships traveling along a route will often get stuck.
Attempting to quantum travel to destinations from orbit of ArcCorp or its moons may result in the player colliding with the surface.
Ships can spin excessively out of control when their wing is clipped.
Landing illegally and having your ship despawn while a mission box is inside will break mission progress.
AI security ships are not correctly dampening player quantum travel.
Players in the same ship may see the ship in different locations.
The textures on the Reclaimer’s main turret are incorrect.

There’s a large rectangular area missing from the surface of Daymar around one of the caves.

Multiple scope crosshairs are off center when viewed in ADS.
Corpses at derelicts are hidden under objects or hull.
Players may crash when loading into the industrial hangar.

Players may crash when changing hair back to original when using the character customizer.

Ships may display as rented if the player exits to title while a claim is in progress.
The reformation distortion scattergun currently has a blue light texture issue.
The default hair may be present under other hairstyles.
If you leave and reenter the commodity kiosk the “sell” tab icons will remain even though you are on the “buy” tab.

And that’s it for the initial 1st wave PTU release of 3.7.0.

I am awaiting the RSI Mantis and Quantum Enforcement with baited breath along with CIG fixing a load of those known issues as well as getting the 3.7 features fully working hopefully all for a live build on the 10th of October.

But what do you think? Are you in the 1st wave of PTU access? Are you pleased to see Ship Rentals, Caves, Harvestables and a load of new content or Are you waiting for the LIVE build before playing? Whatever your thoughts I’d love to hear from you in the comments below.

The Testing Focus currently for the patch is:

Banu Defender, The Vanguard Harbinger & Sentinel – The Ship rental system
Caves & associated missions, FPS mining, harvesting, and personal inventory, Landing Zone crimestat restrictions
Proximity Assist and Manual VTOL
New FPS weapon attachments
Character Customizer v2
Mission sharing, mission rewards, and AI service beacons
The Good Doctor Star Marine map & Pirate Swarm Updates