New Space Stations & Patch Progress

Welcome to some more Star Citizen, we have some updates to Alpha 3.8 content looking at Space Stations, Food Courts & Annunciator Panel for Ships as well as a New 3.7.1e PTU Hotfix patch that I’d like to go through too.

In Inside Star Citizen: Achtung, Tasty they showed us further expansion and improvement to Space Station Assets and interiors that they’d been working on over the last few months with a plan to have much more variety for when we land at Space Stations in Alpha 3.8.

They build a lot of the modular pieces and assets out individually and are looking forward to bringing them all together in the verse.

There is a significant improvement when it comes to scale and variation with these new stations. They are over 4 times larger than current rest stop interiors.

Some stations will have food courts, different layouts, different shops and facilities, brands, adverts each station will have a different feel. That said they are all at this stage R&R RestStops and are for effectively gas stations and shops.

The assets and work towards the interior and exterior of these stations will also be used to create other POI and Stations as well though.

They showed a food court section that other station sections can attach to.

Once an entrance has been generated, the system then fills other areas with appropriate food stalls.

Props are added in by the procedural system as well to add even more variety.

Food shops look like you’d expect to see them in an airport.

Annunciator Panels are built using the new building blocks system that CIG are using.

It’s basically a diegetic panel in your ships cockpit that at a glance tells you critical information. It shous Heat, Power, Shield, Quantum, Proximity & Combat Warnings.

We will also see this feature in 3.8 on appropriate ships.

Star Citizen Alpha 3.7.1 is getting both an additional Hotfix Patch and a FreeFly Event soon.

The 3.7.1e HOTFIX is currently in OPEN PTU for anyone that wants to help test.

There is going to be a database wipe, let me read you CIGs Statement:

Once we go live, a database wipe is planned to accompany this hotfix patch to fix the myriad of account reset issues discovered in 3.7.1. We take the decision to perform a reset very seriously, and try to do them as infrequently as possible. We don’t perform unscheduled wipes unless we have exhausted all alternative options, and are sure it will make your experience significantly better, and this is one of those cases.

We were actually able to gather a lot of meaningful data on some of the various issues that would not have been possible if we had performed a wipe initially. This will help us better understand what is going wrong and implement long-term fixes. As a reminder, we are working on solutions that will reduce the frequency of these wipes, and eventually plan to phase them out altogether. In the meantime, we appreciate your patience.

This latest PTU fixes a few issues:

• The player lens should now respect aspect ratio.
• Personal inner-thought should now display correctly at wider aspect ratios.
• Player ships should no longer spawn without components.
• Ship reclaims should now work consistently.
• The Pirate Gladius should now be available.

• Fixed a server crash.
• Players will now see an error message if they are unable to connect to the game on initial load.

The main focus of this patch seems again to be to identify bugs and QoL issues and get them fixed, there is a big list of Known Issues that support that

• Quantum travel target selection does not always update when aligned.
• The quantum travel HUD will be lost of the player exits the seat during travel.
• CRU-L5 may be currently missing.
• Refueling may get stuck in a loop at full and prevent repair/rearm. W/A: Do each service one at a time with refuel last.
• The Defender’s Tachyon cannons are not landing hits correctly on moving targets.
• Players may crash when in a party doing a second quantum linked jump.
• The quantum travel HUD will vanish if the player exits the seat while in quantum travel.
• The Combine cannon does function correctly in multiplayer.
• Missile countermeasures are not working consistently.
• Distortion damage does not apply correctly.
• In Star Marine enemy indicators can sometimes be seen through walls.
• Players may experience a stall when loading and firing weapons in Star Marine.
• AI ships can get stuck and not continue on their route.
• NPC beacons will sometimes display an incorrect distance.
• 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.
• The 890 Jump currently has an incorrect cargo value.
• Planets/moons are invisible the first time a player opens the StarMap.
• Sometimes when quickly scrolling on the ASOP the last ship on the list will not appear.

The hope is that they can get through this list within the next few days while also identifying any other bugs that are fixable before getting this new 3.7.1/.2 build out.

I am looking forward to Star Citizen being as playable as possible, I have had some very good experiences in 3.7.1 BUT I know others are having persisting problems with various bugs. What are you experiences in 3.7.1 to date? Is a problem you are suffering from listed as fixed in 3.7.1e or as a known issues? OR is it something new xD Whatever your thoughts I’d love to hear from you in the comments below!