Star Citizen 3.8.1c PTU – Ship Rental Changes

Welcome to some more Star Citizen Alpha 3.8.1c is on the PTU.

It’s Wave 1 at the moment so just evocati, subscribers and concierge. Let’s take a look at it’s patch notes and a State of the PTU.

CIG have said there is going to be a Persistence Wipe when 3.8.1 goes LIVE.

The Cutlass Red is in the patch BUT it appears its only available to evocati to spawn currently. I’ve done a quick tour of the ship which I’ll link below.

It has 2 functional MediBeds that allow you to set your respawn point there or heal your wounds.

Medbeds now have a maximum respawn range of 4 million km NOW and if you are out of that range when you die you will go to a Major Landing Zone.

I forgot to say in my last video that you can Rotate Engines of the Cutlass by pressing [J] and you can turn on the ambulance emergency lights with [T]

Also there is a toilet in the front section of the Cutlass Red that I said was for the top scanning turret… I was trying to make a joke BUT in the edit it is literally out of context, apologies for any confusion… It’s currently a toilet with minimal privacy… you’d have to really strain to get any ship functionality from there. I do really like the idea of loads of people trying to control the ship from there tho xD

Rented ships in the persistent universe can no longer be modified.

I was in 2 minds about not being able to customize rented ships:

One of the reasons they have done this is to try and close some exploits and because they want to start Platform Persistence without additional reasons to reset the databases.

It does massively restrict what you can do with them, I think it would be fine IF you could customize at time of rental once BUT the restriction of having the Prospector just with it’s standard mining head OR a combat fighter with it’s default weapons does kind of break the spirit of rentals. Cargo and Multi-Role Ships are a bit less affected BUT even not being able to change the Quantum Drive is a little annoying.

I understand that you don’t want players to be able to “skip” tiers of progression and grind BUT leveraging a cargo bay in a rented ship is still going to happen.

You maybe don’t want to allow players to use the rented items and gear on ships on other ships that you own as you could use this to get items really cheap!

You also do want rented ships to feel different from an owned ship otherwise why own a ship ever?

I think we need a system for rented components or customization of these ships separately BUT until then PLZ CIG allow us to customize rentals.

Balance to the Economy and Rental system are also needed BUT maybe a little later once we have more of an economy and value to currency.

Bug Fixes

Fixed mobiGlas closing immediately after opening.
Party markers should no longer vanish if the player dies far from their respawn point.
The game wallet should no longer occasionally freeze and fail to update for an extended period of time, allowing players to set very large UEC service beacons.
Markers for mineables should no longer fly away as the player moves.
Fixed magazine replacement not working once equipped spares are spent for the Animus.
Fix for a bug where other player’s footstep sounds would never be triggered if the other player was not in your field of view.
Fixed constant fire audio SFX in the left cockpit of the BANU Defender & missing audio for it’s internal doors and entry ramp.
incorrect/missing audio for Aegis Vanguard rear ramp.
Fixed a bug where the Gladius’ startup and shutdown audio was very delayed & the sound would play for the wrong audio.
Star Marine music will no longer completely cut out when the menu is brought up mid-game.
Fixed missing self destruct sound, missing locker open and close sound on URSA Rover.
As Well as missing vibration sounds for collisions and landings on the Tumbril Cyclone and the GRIN PTV.
Fixed an issue where the Origin 890 Jump ambient audio did not receive ship parameters so was always muffled regardless of the ship’s activity level.
Players that die at the same time and have the same medbed selected should no longer become trapped.
Repair services should now properly complete after refueling.
The Caterpillar should no longer occasionally roll over when landing on planetary surfaces.
Modified shield proxies on Hornet F7C to fix shield holes.
Fixed 4 client crashes & 5 server crashes.

I appreciate the fixes to shield holes and getting ships at least functional for their focus. CIG did recently say that the new SDF shield tech they will be implementing should solve future shield hole problems as well.

There is some instability with this patch with Client Crashes at least for me, though I have been able to recover from them and haven’t had a Server Crash yet.

There is certainly a good few bugs that need to be powered through before a LIVE build.

With the current Known Issues List being:

The 890 beds can’t be used for logout.
Sometimes repair services are unavailable when they should be present.
After a ship is repaired, detachable components will remain attached to the ship when destroyed and a duplicate component will fall off.
Repair fails if you select repair and refuel simultaneously.
Players can die in Area18 when exiting EzHab or the transit system.
Ships can be displayed as “unknown” after destruction.
Entering or exiting via EVA can sometimes cause the player to turn/spin suddenly and harm themselves.
Objects can fall through the floor when dropped.
An extra static train can appear at Lorville and prevent the use of trains.
The visuals of the ships on the rental screen may have missing areas or disappear completely.
The Caterpillar will occasionally rock or tip over on itself after landing on a planetary body.
CryAstro services may not work at various stations and major ports & you have to hover just above them to use services.

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.
NPCs may sometimes be doing usable animations in places that they shouldn’t.
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 its possible to QT through the moon and explode..
Purchased commodities can sometimes not appear in the ship’s hold.
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.

It looks to me like that CIG are pushing for 3.8.1 LIVE for the end of January, hopefully they will be able to get the most annoying bugs fixed by that time from those known issues.

Anything that prevents ship rentals, mission completion and accessibility, traversal and ship repair, rearm, refuel and spawning of the ship, desync issues are all pretty annoying. Getting exploits removed as well is super important for persistence.