Star Citizen 3.8.0 LIVE

Star Citizen Alpha 3.8.0 is now LIVE so let’s take a quick look at the highlight of the patch notes & the new features. The stability of 3.8 is suspected to be lower due to the implementation of SOCS, they plan to improve and iterate in 3.8.x patches. There has been a Persistence Wipe with this patch as well.

Implemented server side object container streaming (SOCS)

MicroTech Planet including the exterior of New Babbage Landing Zone (The Traversable interior is coming in 3.9.)
Updated all planets and moons to Planetary Tech v4, this sees much higher detail on planets and their LODs including updated biome distribution and even updates to existing biomes, looks sounds and effects.
There are weather dust/sand storm effects to appropriate planetary bodies, moisture effects to ships and visors & Wind will now effect the flight model while ships are in flight.
New Space Stations & Interior Updates have been added. There are entirely new stations above major planetary landing zones | Port Tressler at microTech, Everus Harbor at Hurston & Baijini Point at ArcCorp.
Players now have the ability to select their initial spawn location when it is their first time logging into the game.
There are new brands and there has been a shopping and economy rebalance.
Ship components have been updated for this too (shields, powerplants, coolers, quantum drives) They are focused around manufacturer characteristics so that each item is now unique with unique strengths and weaknesses related to their intended use.
The Animus FPS Missile Launcher has been added as has the Behring P6-LR ballistic sniper rifle.

They added the Argo Mole (Multi-Operator Laser Extractor) is a medium sized, multi-crew focused mining ship. Along with the pilot, the Mole has the capacity to hold three miners in individual turrets allowing them to team up to mine rocks that were previously unmineable. The Argo is available to buy from $275
We have a few additions to Mining as well, they have Rebalanced mineable rocks to expand difficulty for the addition of the Mining Laser Head new items:
Laser heads are the mining component that is responsible for fracturing and extraction. These components can now be swapped and purchased, with different components offering different advantages and disadvantages when in use. Laser heads currently can have different instability dampening, resistance modifiers, extraction rates, power transfer rate, optimal charge rate, range, power consumption, heat generation, signature size, and wear characteristics. The Prospector uses S1 heads, the Mole S2 which are more powerful and longer range than their S1 counterparts. You’ll see mineables that require a particular head OR multiple people working them at once. And there are more mineables around the Verse.

Melee combat both fist and knife fighting along with lethal and non-lethal takedowns
Equip your fists with 0 (Zero) and then left and right mouse button attack with your appropriate hands, hold to deal heavy attacks, hold both buttons to block, double tap ASD to dodge in that direction. You can equip a knife by pressing 5 (you’ll need to buy one in a weapon shop and put it in a utility slot).

Get behind an unaware target and hold middle mouse will do a takedown.

With fists you do stun damage and non lethal takedowns, with a knife, not so much.

Battery is a crime BUT GrimHEX armistice allows non-lethal melee combat within it’s borders freely.

They have Added “Ship impounding” – Players who incur landing infractions that cause their ship to be forcibly despawned will now see it as “impounded” rather than “stored” when they return to the ASOP terminal. Players can then see their infraction and either pay to have their vehicle removed from the impound or wait until the vehicle is released. Different jurisdictions have different fine amounts and impound times.
Personal Fines are no longer automatically deducted at time of infraction, but instead accumulate on the player until they manually pay them off. Fines can be payed off at new fine paying consoles, located at all major landing zones. At the consoles, players can choose which fines to pay (ordered by importance) or simply “pay all” to clear all fines. Fine amounts increase over time to reward quick/early payment. If a fine elapses (goes unpaid after a period of time), the player will incur a felony.
Minor criminal infractions (battery, vehicle collision, and vehicle destruction) will now not be triggered when against fellow party members.

There are various New Missions: Rescue hijacked 890 Jump which has you clearing out pirate ships, then clearing FPS hostiles and rescuing crew on a 890 while trying to also prevent a hack, it has multiple side missions, typically I get this around microTech if I have no criminal rating.

There is A Call To Arms Mission it allows players to gain UEC for killing any criminals they encounter and can be accepted to gain bonuses for each criminal eliminated that are not part of regular missions. These include any random criminals spawned as part of environmental scenarios as well as interdictions. So you might as well accept it for free aUEC.
Hunt Down the Arlington Gang a 6 part bounty mission that may one day lead to a fight with an Idris… or so it is rumored (the Idris part is certainly not implemented yet tho)
There are Claim Jump Missions which are intended to be done as a group or in a larger ship, it has powerful turrets and lots of angry mining ships that need to be cleared out.
Various missions have seen improvements, updated mission icons, difficulty changes, AI ship and sentry balances as well as Improved AI ship collision avoidance.
The Mission Givers Wallace Klim has moved to GrimHex. Miles Eckhart has moved to Lorville at MacIntyre & Victor’s Bar.

Other Important Things

There are blinking lights (blinking) for cargo that is ejected from a destroyed ship.
Adjusted spawn rates for valuable mining materials & given mining a balance pass.
There have been various camera & look ahead improvements and options added to the menu, they increase stability and feel a lot more natural.
Increased the speed of most first person animations, that helps the flow of the game.

Ship weapon convergence point when no target is active can now be manually set in options.
They Added annunciator panels to some ships, which gives you critical info at a glance.

You can now deselect a target by pressing 0 ZERO.
g-force induced head movement, the strength of which can be customized in the menu.
Added a drop shadow to all ship HUDs which allows you to see soooo much more of the HUD more easily!
The Reliant’s can press J to toggle it’s engine rotation.

There has been a huge amount of bug fixes and QoL improvements, there are still Known Issues with the patch that they want to fix ASAP:

CryAstro services may not work at various stations and major ports.
Work-around: Hover before landing and request services just above the pad.
Rentals and/or rental timers may not work when renting a second ship.
If a player’s ship is destroyed after bed logout they will return to the server at origin.
Weapons may occasionally not fire when used.
Work-around: Keep a secondary weapon handy and swap between them
While mining with the Prospector or the Mole the cargo hold will periodically fill or empty.
Ships and characters on kiosks and the PMA/VMA will occasionally be missing assets or have assets over-sized.
NPCs may sometimes be doing usable animations in places that they shouldn’t.
Purchasing at shops may occasionally fail.
Claimjumper missions may occasionally lack markers or spawn NPCs.
Countermeasures are not working as intended to deter missiles.
The 890 Jump does not have the correct cargo capacity.
The Combine Cannon and distortion weapons are not working as intended.
Elevators at Port Tressler and Everus Harbor may not show up when called.
If the quantum travel marker is at the edge of a moon or planet they can QT through the moon and explode..
Purchased commodities will often visually not appear in the ship’s hold.
Carriable boxes may fall through the flooring.
There are some performance issues with Star Marine.
NPC beacon notifications will sometimes display an incorrect distance.
AI ships can often get stuck in the middle of their motion and not advance further.
There were missing ships for certain players from ASOP terminals that were being investigated as a priority too.

DELETE YOUR USER FOLDER or at least the Shader Folder in your USER folder to avoid a load of issues! (\Roberts Space Industries\StarCitizen\LIVE)

Platform Persistence is coming in this patch Cycle BUT not with the initial release of 3.8, so there are still going to be common progress resets until they implement this.

There were some delays to the ships in 3.8, they are still going to be flyable before 3.9 the Cutlass Red in Jan 2020, the Carrack in Feb and Prowler in March.